Month: November 2020

This has been a weird year for a number of reasons that we really do not need to get into again. You know them all. And it’s not even the point right now. The point is that, yes, even in 2020, even amidst all the chaos, there were things to be thankful for, and Thanksgiving is the time to do that. This list is going to run through some of those things from the world of television and movies. The key phrase in that last sentence is “some of,” as this is my list and contains a collection of things I appreciated this year. It doesn’t even contain all of them. I’m sure I missed something, in part because there’s always too much to include in one write-up and in part because my concept of time because irreparably warped this year. My colleague Josh Kurp informed me that the final season of BoJack Horseman aired in 2020 and I shouted “WHAT?!” as though he had just told me the moon vanished from the cosmos overnight. It’s fine. We’re all doing great.

As always, a disclaimer: Your list might look different than mine. I hope it does. That’s what makes this whole thing fun. This exercise is not about creating a definitive and comprehensive collection. It’s about starting the conversation and hopefully getting you to reflect back on the good parts of life, too. And it’s also a little about posting GIFs of Holey Moley again. Lord knows we needed all of those we could get.

Let’s go.

Ted Lasso

I can be honest about this here: I did not expect Ted Lasso to be good. It started in such a hole, fundamentally. It was a television show based on a thinly drawn character — American football coach moves to England to coach soccer, a sport he knows nothing about — from a series of commercials. This looked like a total Cavemen situation, on paper. But television shows aren’t made on paper. I mean, they are, I guess, if you count the scripts. Which are pretty important. Hmm. Disregard this last part and meet me in the next paragraph.

Make no mistake: Ted Lasso was good. It was so good. It was lovely, even. The timing helped, with the entire country stressed out and more than happy to sit back and watch a mustachioed sweetheart win over an entire nation with only biscuits and good vibes, but still. What a perfect little show. Everyone needed a periodic excuse to just feel good for a while and, for 30 minutes or so each Friday, Ted Lasso provided that. You could do a lot worse in a television show.

Kim Wexler from Better Call Saul

Am I still mad that Rhea Seehorn didn’t even get nominated for an Emmy for her work as the most fascinated character on one of television’s best shows? Maybe. (YES.) But this is not the place for anger. This is about being thankful. And I am very thankful I’ve been on this ride with her and the show, another series that started in a fundamental hole — spin-off of one of the best dramas ever, based on the character who was largely there for comic relief — and promptly leapt right out of it. The lesson here is that I am bad at judging shows before they air. And that Rhea Seehorn’s performance as Kim Wexler is terrific and we should all talk about it a lot.

So two points, really.

Money Plane

I still can’t believe Money Plane was a real movie. What a gift. What a treasure. A VOD movie about a lawless airborne casino literally called “the Money Plane,” starring Kelsey Grammer as a villain named “The Rumble” who hires a character played by former WWE superstar Edge to rob the aforementioned sky casino mid-air, written and directed by one of the Lawrence brothers. It was exactly the movie it set out to be — silly, fun, littered with plot holes that you did not need to think about much becau-… aaaaand one of the other Lawrence brothers just blew his head and cowboy hat off in a game of Russian roulette. Just a blast in every way. I hope they make a new one every summer with a different former sitcom star as the villain. I can’t wait for the one with Jackée.

Catherine O’Hara

Schitt’s Creek went from a little show a few friends told you about to a Netflix-boosted Emmy-collecting monster over the last 12-18 months, with good reason. The show was wonderful. You can be forgiven if you took certain aspects of it for granted as it moved from cult favorite to global phenomenon, but please do stop at some point over the holidays and think — really think — about what a powerhouse of a performance Catherine O’Hara turned in as Moira Rose. The whole character, from the mannerisms to the wardrobe to the endless list of ridiculous pronunciations. Catherine O’Hara has been doing this for decades, going back even before she shouted “KEVIN” in multiple Home Alone movies. Please do not forget that.

”Take it sleazy”

The Good Place ended this year. I know that because I looked it up and stared at my computer screen for like 90 seconds trying to comprehend the information in front of me. It feels like The Good Place ended at least 18 months ago. Please go back and read the intro paragraph you probably skipped to get to the bolded sections with the good stuff. The part about this being a weird year.

Anyway, the ending of The Good Place was awesome. The show that appeared to be about the biggest things you can imagine — the afterlife, the meaning of life on Earth, what it means to be a good person — was actually about things that are much smaller but just as important. Friendships, personal connections, touching someone’s life in a small but permanent way. It was kind of beautiful, and it was summed up beautifully by Michael, a literal demon made flesh, getting to fulfill his millennia-long dream of telling another person to “take it sleazy.”

It was a lot to wrap your head around. Almost as much as this happening in 2020.

Anya Taylor-Joy staring lasers through chess dopes

The Queen’s Gambit is a show about chess players in the 1950s and it was somehow still riveting, even if you, like me, are a big dumb chess idiot. A lot of the credit for this goes to Anya Taylor-Joy, who played the lead and carried the action well and also stared straight through so many self-assured chess dopes as she cooked them like the turkey you’re preparing to eat.

I loved watching it happen. You could see it coming. The camera would pull in tight on her face and her eyelids would lift up slowly like garage doors and then BLAMMO the poor sucker’s entire soul would drain out of his body. I hope no one ever stares at me like that. It helps that I do not play chess, I think. I hope.

J.K. Simmons calling Andy Samberg “shit bird”

If you liked Groundhog Day and Wedding Crashers and Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, and who doesn’t, then you probably checked out or should have checked out Palm Springs, the movie that had all those things. It also had J.K. Simmons as a maniac who showed up every now and then and called Samberg’s character a shit bird. Like, that exact term. “Shit bird.” It was the best. J.K. Simmons rules and has always ruled and has the perfect authoritative voice to deliver that insult to a doofy slacker. I want him to call me one at some point, which would be accurate and fair, but I really want him to reprise his role as J. Jonah Jameson in the next Spider-verse movie to call a whole slew of interdimensional Spider-men shit birds.

It’s a reasonable ask.

Robert Pattinson blowing up his microwave

A few things you need to know before I get to the blockquote:

• Robert Pattinson agreed to a big fancy GQ profile to promote Tenet this summer
• As part of the profile, he was trying to explain how he learned to make pasta in the microwave during quarantine
• Where we pick up the story, he is on his second attempt at making the pasta and has put a hunk of foil-wrapped food into what he thinks is a traditional oven but the writer correctly identified as a large microwave

Which brings up to:

Proudly he is walking back toward the counter that his phone is on when, behind him, a lightning bolt erupts from the oven/microwave, and Pattinson ducks like someone outside has opened fire. He’s giggling and crouching as the oven throws off stray flickers of light and sound.

“The fucking electricity…oh, my God,” he says, still on the floor. And then, with a loud, final bang, the oven/microwave goes dark.

In the silence, Pattinson and I both stare at the mysterious piece of machinery built into the wall behind him.

“Yeah, I think I have to leave that alone,” he says, sighing again, picking himself off the floor. “But that is a Piccolini Cuscino.”

I have never felt more personally connected to a movie star. I’m so proud of him.

This guy

Yes, fine, sure, the Eurovision movie was fun, as any movie that has both Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams in it should be. There were lots of nutso performances and catchy songs and all of that is very nice, but I, like this sweet tortured Icelandic man, just wanted to hear “Ja Ja Ding Dong.”

There’s a metaphor here if you want to look for it hard enough, about finding something that works and makes you happy and not giving it up in a fit of aimless ambition loosely targeted at something bigger and/or better. But let’s not do that. Let’s just give the people what they want. Let’s just play “Ja Ja Ding Dong” and move right along.

The Harley Quinn / Poison Ivy / Kite Man love triangle

The Harley Quinn cartoon is almost unreasonably good. Go watch it. It’s on HBO Max. It’s got jokes and cussing and a kind of inept goofus Bane who makes me laugh constantly. It’s also got a shocking about of heart, mostly displayed through the friendship-turned-romance of two of its main characters, which infringed upon the romance one of them is involved in with another, and somehow resolved itself in a way that left everyone whole. Or at least whole-ish. I worry about Kite Man. He’s a simple man, yes, and he has a dumb superpower, to whatever degree “having a kite and flying it real good” counts as a superpower, but he means so well.

I just want him to be happy. And I want you to watch this show.

Colin Robinson summoning his Nana from beyond the grave to get her with an Updog joke

When future generations think about the second season of What We Do in the Shadows, and they will, they will remember the Jackie Daytona episode. This is as it should be, because that episode had everything: Mark Hamill, volleyball, the fake name “Jackie Daytona,” etc. Just flawless.

But let’s also hope these future generations remember the time Colin Robinson summoned his beloved Nana from beyond the grave just to wallop the poor old bird with an Updog joke. That was a nice piece of business, too.

The zipline on Holey Moley

Holey Moley was exactly the stupid fun the world needed this year. It’s a mini-golf show, sort of, but it’s mostly an excuse to watch perfectly nice people get clobbered by windmills and jets of water and doors of portable toilets that are flung open by people in monster costumes for some unknowable but perfect reason. The best hole on the course — in the world, really — was Polcano. It started with people putting up a huge hill and then watching their ball filter down through a Plinko-like arrangement of rocks, which is fun enough. But then they all had to grab a zipline and try to hold on to a giant pole in the middle of a pool that their terrified bodies were flying toward at a startling rate of speed. I think I saw maybe three people complete it successfully in the entire season. Everyone else went flying through the air upside down and backward as they splashed helplessly into the water. I could watch a full hour of it every week.

Truly America’s finest television program.

Betty, generally

I enjoyed Betty, HBO’s half-hour show about a diverse collection of teen female skateboarders, for two reasons. The first was because it was well-made and extremely cool and there should be more shows like that. The second was because it reminded me — a straight white dude in his 30s who never really skateboarded or lived in New York City — that you can find great shows outside your wheelhouse all the time. It’s good to remember that. Watch some stuff about people whose lives you don’t fully understand. Expand your world. Betty is a good place to start if you’re like me, but there are options galore. Bust loose from your algorithm and find them.

The Han mystery

I spent most of this year whining that the trailer for the next Fast & Furious movie, F9, revealed that Han is alive and then the movie ended up getting postponed indefinitely, meaning that we’re now going on almost a full year of not knowing how or why he survived the apparent death that the franchise has depicted in a full 25 percent of its eight films. It’s maddening. I must know how he is alive. It’s not fair. Just tell me.

But also, like… if I’m being really, fully honest about it… I’ve almost… enjoyed it? I don’t know. I’m still sorting through it all. It has provided me with something to speculate about endlessly throughout the year, and the buildup almost makes it more fascinating. I’m going to weird places with it now. Part of me thinks this is actually a full-on android that Ludacris built in a lab. That’s the thing: we can’t rule anything out. Not yet. I still want to know. I need to know. But there’s been something fun about, to quote a very good television show, letting the mystery be.

Enthusiastic goofballs in documentary-style programs

I do not know exactly how it happened but two of my favorite characters on television this year were real people. No, I am not referring to anyone from Tiger King. I’m talking about Zac Efron and my beloved Agent Doug.

Efron starred in a Netflix travel series and I cannot possibly explain in strong enough terms how much I enjoyed it. He was just so happy — so unbelievably stoked — to be out there learning cool stuff about the world. He called everything “sick” and “awesome” and almost lost his entire mind looking at some dope turbines in Iceland. In one episode, he traveled to a small town where an abnormal number of people live to be 100. You must see 100-year-old ladies interact with Zac Efron. It is nothing short of a delight. I swear I’m not being sarcastic here. He’s so earnest and excited about finding sweet science stuff and sharing it with people and the whole thing is infectious to a degree I did not expect. Put your cynicism in the closet and watch it. It’s refreshing like a tall glass of lemonade on a hot day.

Similarly, but different, we had Agent Doug on McMillion$, HBO’s docuseries about the McDonalds Monopoly scandal. Agent Doug was the best, a fully-caffeinated loon who seemed to get most of his idea of what an FBI agent is and does from watching a bunch of 1980s cop shows. He’s like if Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine were a real person. He once showed up to a meeting in a gold suit. He once tackled a guy on the beach for trying to steal the worthless huge fake check they were handing out as part of a sting. He demanded to be taken off the boring health care fraud cases he was on to investigate fun Monopoly scheme. He was so excited, all the time, to be telling the world about all of it. And now I want an Agent Doug television show starring Zac Efron as Agent Doug. That’s the biggest takeaway here.

The New Pope opening an episode with a long sequence that featured Jude Law walking in from the ocean, lighting up a cigarette, and strolling down the beach in a Speedo while dozens of women in bikinis do calisthenics and play volleyball and the Virgin Mary faints from the sheer unfiltered sexuality of it all

The best part about this is that i legitimately could not tell if it was real or a dream sequence as I was watching it in the moment, because The New Pope is just as bonkers as it is profound in parts, which is to say it is tons of both. Please do watch this entire clip all the way through twice, once to take it all in and once to imagine some guy named like Carl or Larry watching them film it all while eating a popsicle on the boardwalk.

So yes, there was at least a little to be thankful for this year. You just had to look for it.

Now that Bogdan Bogdanovic is a member of the Atlanta Hawks and the Milwaukee Bucks turned a different direction to fill out their bench, a partnership between Bogdanovic and Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee seems almost like a distant memory. But several hiccups happened between the agreement Milwaukee came to with Sacramento on a sign-and-trade for Bogdanovic and the deal falling apart, all of which are now reportedly giving executives in Milwaukee pause over the back-to-back MVP’s future.

All of it is detailed in a new story from Jake Fischer at Bleacher Report, which takes us inside the negotiations and fallout of the Milwaukee-Sacramento deal that would have sent Bogdanovic to the Bucks in exchange for Donte DiVincenzo and some other goodies. All along, Fischer reports, Bogdanovic was the most prized target — even more than Jrue Holiday — for Antetokounmpo, as he and his brother Thanasis had tried to recruit Bogdanovic during the offseason.

From Fischer:

Aside from the obvious spacing Bogdanovic’s shooting would provide Milwaukee’s offense, Giannis admired his fellow European’s toughness and swagger, sources said. He viewed Bogdanovic as someone you could go to war with in the postseason.

Antetokounmpo grew increasingly focused on teaming with Bogdanovic. The Sacramento guard quickly presented Milwaukee’s greatest option as the Bucks dealt with a hamstrung cap sheet and limited trade assets.

Once the Bucks came to an agreement with the Kings late last Monday night, Antetokounmpo was reportedly thrilled. After all, the main reason for anything Milwaukee has done the past several years is to increase the likelihood that Antetokounmpo signs a designated veteran extension, or “supermax,” and stays in the midwest. Nabbing Antetokounmpo’s chosen target would obviously go a long way toward keeping him happy. When the deal fell apart, the Bucks recoiled.

More from Fischer:

When word arrived last week of the Bucks’ Monday night coup—agreeing in principle to acquire both Jrue Holiday and Bogdanovic in the waning hours of the league’s renewed transaction window—there was an overwhelming sense around the organization, and people with knowledge of Antetokounmpo’s thinking, that he would accept the Bucks’ supermax extension offer—the ultimate objective of the franchise’s 2020 offseason.

There has since been a categorical step back in that confidence, even if Antetokounmpo does ultimately accept the franchise’s offer of a five-year, $228 million supermax extension.

There’s more to the story, including how some team governors who believed the Bucks’ Marc Lasry to be bragging during a Board of Governors meeting last week, as well as details on why Bogdanovic believed he could not move forward with the Bucks out of fear the league would prevent the deal from going through after the first version fell apart.

Depending on how Milwaukee performs in 2021, this could all be a peculiar stepping stone or a definitive flashpoint between Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.

Towards the beginning of Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana documentary, the cameras capture her reaction on Grammy nomination day back in 2018. For the first time since Speak Now (2010), she hadn’t received a nomination in any of the big three categories, Album, Song or Record Of The Year. “This is fine,” Taylor said, while clearly shattered. “I just need to make a better record.” Though it was actually a small blip in the tenure of her success, the snub made one thing clear — Grammy nominations are never something to be taken for granted. At the 2020 awards, the title track off Swift’s album Lover was up for Song Of The Year, and with the 2021 nominations coming through yesterday, Folklore has restored her to an accustomed perch — this year’s release is up for Album Of The Year, and its lead single, “Cardigan,” for Song. I’m a Taylor fan through and through, so no one will mistake this for shade: I would take every single song off Reputation over “Cardigan.”

For an artist like Swift, who is one of the biggest musicians in the world, Grammy nominations are an expected part of the process. For plenty of other women, though, the struggle to be recognized, even in smaller, genre-specific categories, has been much more in-depth than a single off-year. In the rock categories, for instance, women have been shut out many times, and as the genre has fallen out of popularity in favor of hip-hop, it’s hard not to pin some of that on the Academy routinely choosing to spotlight bland, commercial-centric male acts. This year, they did an about-face, nominating only women for the Rock Performance category, leading to big looks for critic’s darlings like Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, and Big Thief. Bridgers got another huge look in the Best New Artist category and in Best Alternative Album for her sophomore release, Punisher.

But that Fiona album, which caused more commotion this year than most other records put together, was notably absent from the Big Four. And even when Beyonce picked up nine nominations, not an unusual number for an artist of her caliber, it’s hard to take the gesture seriously. We’ve been down this road before, Bey is frequently nominated but rarely awarded actual wins, despite her monumental impact on the music industry at large, and pop culture on a scale that’s basically unparallelled. If you were only using Grammy wins as a metric, Bey’s actual influence would never come across.

Still, to see that many women nominated in the Alternative and Rock categories was unusual enough that it caused a mini-celebration on Twitter among fans, who have long been noting that female musicians are making some of the most interesting, groundbreaking music in those areas. And anytime an award show’s selections line up with critically-acclaimed artists who are at the beginning of their careers, or seen as underdogs because they’re on independent labels, the reaction is warm and welcoming. So the nominations laid upon Chloe x Halle, young proteges of Beyonce herself, for Best R&B Song (“Do It”) and Best Progressive R&B Album were also met with enthusiasm. But within the positive reactions to this year’s shifts, I kept thinking back to Taylor’s words in Miss Americana, and her internalized reaction that the problem was within her, not the system. Is Folklore really that much better of an album than Reputation? Or does it, instead, represent the more familiar elements of folk-rock that the Grammys always prefer to honor over harsher, more inventive pop and hip-hop sounds?

My point is much larger than Swift, but she’s the perfect example of how the Grammys can function as a vise on what kind of music gets made, and who gets rewarded for making it. All of the women who were nominated for rock music this year are excellent at what they do. But are they so markedly better than the women who released albums last year, or the year before, and went completely snubbed, that it logically makes sense they’re nominated? No, of course not. Yet, the glow of a Grammy nom has the power to potentially change a musician’s careers forever, particularly if they’re a smaller artist, and definitely if they’re a young woman. So even if the Grammys are finally beginning to listen to the overwhelming pushback from fans, critics and music lovers, who are hammering them on very predictably only rewarding white guys playing guitar, the small over corrections still aren’t enough to acknowledge how the award show continues to function.

It also continues to overlook the contributions of zeitgeist artists who happen to be Black and make hip-hop, even if the award’s Big Four categories this year include tossed off inclusions of the most commercially visible rap songs of the year. Nominating relatively random artists like Black Pumas and Jacob Collier to the Album Of The Year category while denying spots to slain stars like Pop Smoke, breakout stars like Lil Baby and Lil Uzi Vert, and returning icons like Fiona Apple reiterates the disconnect between the most important events in the music world and what the Grammys deigns to pay attention to. While Justin Bieber complains that his tepid new album Changes and the abysmal lead single “Yummy” should’ve been nominated in R&B categories instead of the Pop arena where they scored selections, actual pop stars like The Weeknd and Harry Styles, who had a far bigger impact on pop culture this year than Bieber, are conspicuously missing from certain categories (or, in the case of Abel, all categories). Both After Hours and Fine Line strayed far afield of pop expectations, which is why listeners far preferred them over Bieber’s predictable mashups — the Grammys, on the other hand, reward the expected.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the rap and hip-hop community have to sit by and see only the biggest names like Travis Scott, Roddy Ricch, Drake and DaBaby earn mentions, no looks for the likes of Mulatto or Princess Nokia, Run The Jewels or Lil Uzi Vert, all of whom had huge years. Yes, D Smoke, Chika, and even Freddie Gibbs got looks, but again, the likelihood of them winning remains incredibly slim based on the past. Is it fair for the top ten percent of rappers to be the only ones who ever get a look from the most important critical governing body in music? If so, where do cult favorite groups like Run The Jewels fit into this ecosystem? Looking at these selections, it seems like a spot on the Billboard chart is the primary measure of what hip-hop should be recognized; but deep listeners of the genre know better. The best hip-hop of our lives is being made every single day in 2020, even if a lot of it doesn’t get a lucky TikTok sync.

In a year where the noise and commotion of social life and public events were largely removed, and it seems like more incredible music than ever was released, there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing the places where Grammy voters seemed to really connect with the rest of the listening public. Maren Morris and Ingrid Andress were honored in country music, Lil Baby’s vulnerable reflection on police violence and his experience of being a Black man in America was recognized in two nominations for “The Bigger Picture,” and even Megan Thee Stallion, facing the double standard of being a woman in rap, was awarded three shots at a Grammy victory. But how will those who didn’t get the recognition go home and change, tweak, or alter the kind of art they make in response to their snubs? Will they internalize the rejection? What do we lose every time the Grammys get it wrong? And how much longer do we have to keep losing it?

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Barack Obama sat down for a lengthy interview with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night, and the former president clearly had some things to say about the state of America after four years of Donald Trump. While Colbert wanted to steer clear of the current occupant of the White House, stating that he was tired of talking about him after so long, Obama often brought up Trump to hold him to the fire for his failed pandemic response, which he says isn’t “rocket science.” All Trump had to do is listen to the experts and he could’ve weathered the storm that most likely ended his presidency, but Obama notes that there’s now a conspiratorial strain through the Republican Party that has him deeply concerned for America.

Via The Daily Beast:

Asked by the host if he was surprised that Republicans didn’t see the “political advantage” of acting like they “cared,” Obama said, “I think that that is a measure of how detached from reality and how embedded ideological and conspiratorial thinking has become, where you’re doing it even when it’s to your disadvantage.”

Demonstrating a surprising historical knowledge of Colbert’s career, he added, “In your original show, right, you’re satirizing a certain attitude, but you never thought that folks would actually start believing it.”

Obama also revealed that he had deep concerns when he first met Trump in the White House after he surprisingly won the 2016 election, and the damage that Trump caused “exceeded” anything Obama could’ve imagined.

You can watch the full interview below:

(Via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert)

Of the 25 actors that have been nominated for an Oscar for playing an LGBTQ character, a grand total of zero of them have been openly queer. The debate on whether or not only gay actors can play gay roles has many sides and nuances. After Darren Criss, who is straight, won an Emmy for playing Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Criss vowed he would never play another gay man because he didn’t want to be “another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.” Actor Ben Whishaw, who is gay, feels otherwise. “I really believe that actors can embody and portray anything, and we shouldn’t be defined only by what we are,” Whishaw said. Recently, Kristen Stewart also weighed in on some of the complexities around the issue.

Variety recently asked Stewart about the importance of gay actors playing gay characters. Stewart acknowledged the complexity of the issue. “I would never want to tell a story that really should be told by somebody who’s lived that experience. Having said that, it’s a slippery slope conversation because that means I could never play another straight character if I’m going to hold everyone to the letter of this particular law. I think it’s such a gray area,” Stewart told Variety.

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Authenticity in storytelling is important, and there’s normally a feeling of artificiality when someone tries to tell the story of a group in which they don’t belong. However, it’s not always the case. “There are ways for men to tell women’s stories, or ways for women to tell men’s stories. But we need to have our finger on the pulse and actually have to care,” Stewart told Variety.

Stewart also pointed out that telling the story of a group you’re not part of has to be done with love. “You kind of know where you’re allowed. I mean, if you’re telling a story about a community and they’re not welcoming to you, then fuck off. But if they are, and you’re becoming an ally and a part of it and there’s something that drove you there in the first place that makes you uniquely endowed with a perspective that might be worthwhile, there’s nothing wrong with learning about each other. And therefore helping each other tell stories,” Stewart pointed out.

Stewart is currently starring in Happiest Season, an LGBTQ Christmas film directed by Clea DuVall. “Happiest Season” tells the story of Abby and Harper, a lesbian couple who spends the holidays at Harper’s parents’ house, despite Harper’s family not knowing she’s a lesbian. Mackenzie Davis, the actress who plays Harper, is straight, and Stewart doesn’t see a problem with Davis taking the role. “She was the only person in my mind that could have played this with me. Sometimes, artfully speaking, you’re just drawn to a certain group of people,” Stewart explained to Variety.

But for all of the complexities around the issue, Stewart boiled it down to one simple, common sense solution. “So my answer is fucking think about what you’re doing! And don’t be an asshole,” Stewart said.

She’s got a point. Sometimes all it takes to figure out if you’re “doing it right” or not is asking yourself if you’re being an asshole.

Chris Evans is no stranger to setting the internet’s loins on fire, but this time, he did it without even taking off his shirt (or all of his clothes). In fact, the Captain America actor’s chunky sweater plays an integral part in his latest viral moment that’s leaving folks with all kinds of feelings. It all started with Evans dropping a video of his piano skills in his Instagram Stories, and it didn’t take long before social media was fanning itself as the musical clip quickly bounced around Twitter. Maybe it’s the pandemic conditions, the contentious presidential election that doesn’t seem to want to end, or the simple matter of Evans being a downright snack, but people are here for him tickling the ivory and they aren’t shy about it.

Here are just some of the reactions, which fair warning, only get hornier as they go on:

But people weren’t just thirsting for Captain America getting classical in a comfy sweater. They were getting downright emotional at the pure beauty of it all. No man should be this delightful!

That said, it also didn’t take long for everyone to remember that time Evans did a shirtless backflip, and we’re back in Horny Town.

Evans has yet to react to the thirst parade being launched in his honor, but the Marvel star is an expert at flipping social media attention into a good cause. After he accidentally posted a nude photo to Instagram back in September, and nearly broke the internet in the process, Evans used the viral moment to encourage people to vote. Two months later, America saw its highest turnout ever for a presidential election. Are the two related? Who’s to say?

(Via Chris Evans on Instagram)

The greatest footballer to ever live has passed away. According to multiple reports out of South America, the 5’5 colossus who served as one of the most magnetic athletes of all-time due to his brilliance on the pitch and his penchant for being in the public eye off of it, died on Wednesday morning. He was 60 years old.

The report was confirmed by ESPN, while The Daily Mail reports the cause of death was a cardiac arrest. Argentina’s national soccer team, along with S.S.C. Napoli, paid homage to Maradona with a tweet.

Maradona’s career as a footballer — which spanned from 1976 to 1997 and included pit stops in Argentina, Spain, and Italy — is nigh unparalleled. As an attacking midfielder, Maradona was revered for his ability to produce moments of magic with the ball at his feet, often possessing a gravity no one else could even begin to replicate despite oftentimes being the smallest man on the field. As a club player, he was most well-known for his time with Italian side Napoli, where El Pibe de Oro (The Golden Boy) helped the side Serie A for the only two times in its history.

With his national team, Maradona was instrumental in Argentina winning the 1986 World Cup, a tournament in which he won the Golden Ball for being the best players. His name still strikes fear in the hearts of English supporters who watched him almost single-handedly topple the Three Lions in the quarterfinals with perhaps the two most famous goals in World Cup history — the controversial “Hand of God,” in which Maradona used his right hand to punch the ball past the keeper, and the moment known as the Goal of the Century, a slaloming run through midfield in which Maradona’s greatness was put on full display.

His exploits off the field, where he was known for a cocaine addiction and a reputation for being a party animal who occasionally indulged in a lavish lifestyle, was as much a part of his legacy as what he did as a player. Despite this, he was known for being a man of the people, both as a player and as an advocate for the poor — he once famously criticized the Pope after visiting the Vatican, saying “I argued with him because I’ve been to the Vatican and seen the gold ceilings. And then I hear the Pope saying that the Church was concerned about poor kids. So? Sell the ceilings, mate! Do something!”

Following the end of his playing career, Maradona, transitioned into managing, which included a stint as the manager of Argentina’s national team. Most recently, he served as the manager of Argentine club Gimnasia.

The backlash to the 2021 list of Grammy nominees has been swift and severe. Some of the major criticisms about the list were related to the hip-hop categories, like how very few women are present in them. 50 Cent has similar issues, as he is not a fan of the nominees for Best Rap Album.

As HipHopDX points out, 50 Cent shared and later deleted the list of nominees in that category on Instagram, which consists of Black Habits by D Smoke, Alfredo by Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist, A Written Testimony by Jay Electronica, King’s Disease by Nas, and The Allegory by Royce Da 5’9″. 50 expressed his discontent with that selection, writing, “Best Rap Album [smiling emojis] They out of touch this sh*t ain’t it, get the f*ck outta here.”

Although he didn’t say it, it’s possible 50’s displeasure with the category has to do with his involvement in the posthumous Pop Smoke album Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon. The album and its songs didn’t earn any nominations, which he predicted earlier this month would happen when he said, “If it’s recognized, it will because he’s gone. The content is similar to what I would do. They didn’t recognize mine. They gave me Grammys when I was with Em, when I’m on records with Eminem. Other than that, they’re afraid to give him Grammys because they think it’s teaching the audience to want to be like Pop, and to be like him is to be part of gang culture. Who you see get Grammys that is making drill music? You mean to tell me ain’t none of those songs worthy of it?”

Find the full list of 2021 Grammy nominees here.

Donald Trump and his team of sub-Lionel Hutz lawyers were expected to travel to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Friday to continue his futile attempt at overturning the fair and legal election that he lost to Joe Biden. But the trip was called off after Rudy Giuliani “was exposed to a 2nd person in the last week who tested positive for coronavirus,” according to CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond. That means there won’t be a repeat of the Four Seasons incident or the black goo leaking from Rudy’s scalp, but at least it gives Jenna Ellis more time to look up fake Teddy Roosevelt quotes.

Trump’s legal advisor, who recently claimed that he won the election by a “landslide,” tweeted a quality photo of America’s 26th president with the quote, “To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.” That doesn’t sound like something Theodore Roosevelt would say, because he didn’t: literally the first Google result for the quote is a Reuters article that states, “Posts circulated on social media attribute a quote on liberals and conservatives to the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The quote, however, is falsely attributed to him… Reuters found no mention of this quote among those compiled by the Theodore Roosevelt Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to perpetuating his memory and ideals.”

After being ridiculed for sharing a fake quote, Ellis tweeted, “For people asking, this quotation has been attributed to Roosevelt, but there isn’t a specific record of him saying this in a speech. I posted it because the idea itself is true, whether or not he said it!” Trump’s lawyer, the same who once called the president “an idiot,” siding with “sounds true” over “is true” is just too perfect, as many on Twitter pointed out.

“To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth” — Michael Scott.

University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban has tested positive for coronavirus, and has mild symptoms of COVID-19, the university announced on Wednesday morning. As a result, the coach will miss this weekend’s Iron Bowl game between Alabama and Auburn.

Saban will isolate at home according to NCAA protocols, while presumably his close contacts will be tracked down and asked to do the same.

Previously, Saban had turned up a positive test, but did not miss any games after he did not suffer symptoms and tested negative multiple times shortly thereafter. The positive test was determined to be a false positive at that time, and Saban never missed a beat.

Because he now is experiencing symptoms (mild so far, thankfully), Saban must now follow NCAA protocols until the disease has run its course and he can get back to coaching.

College football is headed toward another weekend dominated by the virus after breaking its own record every week of November for canceled games. At the same time, positive tests for college basketball coaches like Baylor’s Scott Drew are forcing their programs into COVID protocols as well. The disease continues to prove it will not make any exceptions for sports, no matter how aggressively leagues press on.