Month: February 2021

Saweetie is a rising rapper with her hands in a little bit of everything and recently, she branched out into the world of gaming along with Snoop Dogg for the inaugural Saweetie Bowl tournament ahead of Super Bowl LV. Held on January 29 at Snoop’s compound in LA, the star-studded competition featured a showdown between the Doggfather and New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman playing EA’s Madden NFL 21 on Xbox.

In a press release, Saweetie explained why she hosted the digital football tournament. “Football is big in my family and this year’s festivities bring all of us together in support of a good cause.” She isn’t kidding; Saweetie’s dad Johnny Harper played for San Jose State University in the ’90s, while her grandfather played for the San Franciso 49ers before that. Saweetie also loves to talk about playing quarterback in a powderpuff league as a child, prompting her to boast that she may be more athletic than her boyfriend Quavo.

She wasn’t exaggerating about supporting a good cause, either. The event raised $10,000 in donations to the Snoop Youth Football League, while Edelman took home the championship prize: a custom, diamond-encrusted Saweetie Bowl chain (that sound you hear is 1,000s of gamers brushing off their controllers in the hopes of participating in future tournaments). Xbox released the video of the event today, which you can check out above.

Mass Effect as a franchise should arguably be even bigger than it is. The original trilogy concluded in March of 2012 and, despite a controversial ending, fans were ecstatic to see where the franchise was heading next — it felt like EA and Bioware had created something infinitely replicable. The Mass Effect universe was cool and had endless potential for spin-offs.

Only one Mass Effect game, however, came out during the previous console generation. It did not help that Mass Effect: Andromeda was more than just a flop. Many fans felt it was a franchise killer thanks to its bugs, dull story, and choice to move towards an open world. Bioware even reportedly put the franchise on hiatus due to the poor reception of the game.

This is why Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is so exciting. It’s a potential return to form for the franchise and a chance to fix old mistakes. If this game performs well, then it is easy for Bioware to go back to making Mass Effect games in a universe that many have been wanting to back to ever since they watched the final credits roll in 2012. We’ll finally be getting our chance in May of 2021, but so far, we haven’t seen much more than demo footage of the game. It’s exciting, but not enough to quell any concerns that some may have for the franchise.

There’s obviously a possibility this game flops. It’s an older franchise that hasn’t been touched since 2012 and Bioware has been struggling as a developer for quite some time now. It’s also a remake and, while that may sound like an easy slam dunk, many games in the past have shown us that remakes can easily be done wrong. There will also be an expectation of improvement to justify why this game needs to exist. To make sure that goes smoothly, this is what we want to see from Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

Don’t Ship Broken

This really shouldn’t be a want, but rather an expectation, and yet in the year 2021, it is becoming increasingly clear that games do not ship complete. The trend of games being unfinished and buggy on release day is a bad one and it has plagued the industry as a whole, with Cyberpunk 2077 being the latest example of this.

This would be especially lethal for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition because of Andromeda. It was such a broken, buggy mess that it led to many fans feeling like the series was dead for good. If the new game launches and is unplayable because of bugs, that may be good enough to turn many fans off the series permanently, especially when you consider they’re keeping this on the original Unreal 3 engine it was built on. Fans will not want to discover new bugs in a franchise they got right 10 years ago. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition needs to release as close to perfect as possible.

Help the original Mass Effect fulfill its potential

Of the three games, the original Mass Effect has the most potential to improve from a remastering. It’s the oldest game, so it had the most boring worlds, muddiest graphics, and the controls were finicky at best. Remember the Mako? Nobody liked the Mako. This is a chance to fix all of this and turn it into arguably the best game in the franchise.

Mass Effect is the game that plays the most like an RPG and has a relatively self-contained story. While 2 and 3 expand on the lore of the universe and turned the franchise into a sci-fi epic, the first game was just getting its feet wet and trying to figure out what it wanted to be. As a result, it has the worst control by far, but the remaster should fix all of that. Mass Effect could be the best game in the entire franchise and the remaster may fulfill that possibility.

Just leave Mass Effect 3‘s ending alone

We get it, most people didn’t like the ending of the original trilogy and this is the perfect opportunity to fix that and make it right. You even have a teaser out there for the next game that you can lead into!

Don’t take the temptation. Just let the ending exist as it is and do your best to fix it in the potential sequel. The only thing touching on it now would do is re-open the wound and potentially make it worse. Mass Effect 3 is still a phenomenal game with many incredible series highlights. Fix the edges, don’t mess with the core. That said…

More romance options

One of the great crimes of the series was that you were not able to have non-straight male relationships until Mass Effect 3. You can have a relationship in the first game with a female alien in Mass Effect as the female character, but that was the only non-straight relationship in the entire franchise until the third title. It received heavy backlash at the time and in Mass Effect 2 there were no non-straight relationship scenes at all, an extreme disappointment.

The relationship system seems primed for an overhaul in the remaster. There was never a good reason to not allow this before Mass Effect 3 and if they’re able to bring back in some of the voice actors to reprise their roles it would be great to see them fix this mistake in the legendary edition.

Haute Dog: Season 1C (HBO Max series) — Admit it, you want to watch dogs being styled by competitive groomers and then watch those dogs strut their stuff, right? In this series, those groomers go head-to-tail for “Best in Show” and $10,000 prize, all while transforming K-9s into K-10s. With this batch of episodes, we’ll see a disco dog and a fairy-tale theme, and of course, we could use some safari and superhero dogs. This show is sure to take your mind off everything stressful because no one can hate on dazzling “trans-fur-mations,” right? Woof.

Here are the rest of tonight’s programming highlights:

The Unicorn (CBS, 9:30pm EST) — Wade attempts to teach Grace to drive, and that will naturally bring some stress. Meanwhile, Delia and Forrest pick up tennis and get far too competitive.

Star Trek: Discovery (CBS, 10:00pm EST) — The U.S.S. Discovery crew is struggling to cope with Georgiou’s hostile tactics while she aims to put an end to the Klingon war.

The Hustler (ABC, 10:00pm EST) — Host Craig Ferguson stands by while contestants compete for money, and “The Hustler” among them keeps doing his or her secretive and enigmatic thing.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Tiffany Haddish, H.E.R.

Jimmy Kimmel LIve — Jamie Dornan, Robin Roberts, Musical Guest Pentatonix

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon — Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Camila Mendes, Olivia Rodrigo

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Michael Kiwanuka

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Michelle Pfeiffer, Joe Gatto, James Murray, Sal Vulcano, Brian Quinn, Matt Cameron

In case you missed this recent awesomeness:

So Much Stand-Up Comedy (Peacock) — NBCU’s streaming service is coming in hot with bold moves in their library (The Office, Modern Family) and becoming the exclusive streaming home of WWE, but they’re also claiming territory in the comedy arena while keeping The Amber Ruffin Show going strong in the late-night circuit. Here’s a list of all the classic and newer stand-up specials that Peacock is streaming as of today.

Bob Saget: Zero to Sixty (2017)
Brody Stevens: Live From the Main Room (2018)
Brother Sam: A Tribute to Sam Kinison (2005)
Cameron Esposito: Marriage Material (2016)
Colin Quinn: Unconstitutional (2015)
D.L. Hughley: Clear (2014)
D.L. Hughley: Reset (2012)
Darrell Hammond: Mayhem Explained (2018)
David Cross: Oh, Come On (2019)
Eddie Griffin: You Can Tell ‘Em I Said It (2011)
Finesse Mitchell: The Spirit Told Me to Tell You (2018)
Harland Williams: A Force of Nature (2011)
Henry Rollins: Keep Talking, Pal (2018)
Iliza Shlesinger: Over & Over (2019)
Iliza Shlesinger: War Paint (2013)
Janeane Garofalo: If I May (2016)
Jasper Redd: Jazz Talk (2014)
Jay Pharoah: Can I Be Me? (2015)
Jermaine Fowler: Give ‘Em Hell, Kid (2015)
Jimmie JJ Walker & Mike Winslow: We are Still Here (2018)
Joel McHale: Live From Pyongyang (2019)
Joe Coco Diaz: Sociably Unacceptable (2016)
Kathleen Madigan: Madigan Again (2015)
Kevin Hart Presents – Keith Robinson: Back of the Bus Funny (2014)
Kevin Hart Presents – Lil Rel Howery: Relevant (2015)
Kevin Hart Presents – Plastic Cup Boyz (2014)
Kevin Nealon: Whelmed…But Not Overly (2012)
Kevin Smith: Silent, But Deadly (Extended Edition) (2018)
Larry the Cable Guy: Remain Seated (2020)
Lavell Crawford: Home for the Holidays (2017)
Louie Anderson: Big Baby Boomer (2012)
Marc Maron: Thinky Pain (2013)
Margaret Cho: Psycho (2015)
Maria Bamford: Weakness Is the Brand (2020)
Michael Ian Black: Very Famous (2011)
Mike Birbiglia: My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (2013)
Sam Kinison: Family Entertainment Hour (1991)
Sasheer Zamata: Pizza Mind (2017)
Sinbad: Make Me Wanna Holla (2014)
Sinbad: Where U Been? (2010)
Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs (1990)
Tom Arnold: Past & Present Imperfectly (2018)
Tom Segura: Completely Normal (2014)
Whitney Cummings: Money Shot (2010)
It’s Showtime at the Apollo

Donald Trump’s legal team and Fox News are now the target of a second multi-billion dollar lawsuit by another voting company that was accused of conspiring against the former president in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Smartmatic has filed a $2.75 billion defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, Mario Bartiromo, and the entire Fox News network for “inventing a story” that Trump lost due to voter fraud committed by the software company. Via CNBC:

The suit accuses all of the defendants of falsely saying or implying that Smartmatic’s election technology and software were compromised or hacked during the 2020 election, among other false claims.

And it says that the “defendants knew the story could not change the outcome of the election” but “It could, and did, make them money.”

The suit is similar to recent legal moves by Dominion Voting Systems, which also sued Powell and Giuliani for over a billion apiece and has Newsmax so petrified of being targeted in a suit that one of an anchor ran off the air when the MyPillow Guy attempted to repeat election conspiracy theories during an interview. Much like the Dominion lawsuits, Smartmatic is very confident in its chances of winning due to the “straightforward” nature of the case. Namely that Smartmatic was only used in Los Angeles and therefore couldn’t be involved in a nationwide controversy.

“By being able to say Smartmatic was in Los Angeles County and nowhere else, I’ve been able to prove a lie of everything they essentially said with one salient fact,” Attorney J. Erik Connolly told CNN. “I’ve been doing this for a long time and that might be one of the easiest ways to demonstrate falsity that I’ve ever had.”

(Via CNBC, CNN)

Jerry Jeudy is among the latest in a long line of elite wide receivers to come out of Alabama, as he and teammate Henry Ruggs III were each drafted in the first round a year ago. This year, Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle figure to join them in the NFL, as the Tide have become a pipeline for top receivers coming into the NFL.

Jeudy had a solid if unspectacular first season in the NFL, catching 56 passes for 856 yards and three touchdowns, partially due to a lack of a full season of health from Drew Lock, as four players started at quarterback for the Broncos this season. Still, Jeudy looks inward when asked about his rookie season, pointing out his own mistakes that kept him from having the breakout year he hoped to in his first year in the NFL.

We got a chance to talk with Jeudy over Zoom on behalf of Old Spice on Thursday to get his thoughts on his rookie year, that incredible Alabama receiver room, his one bit of advice for Mike Evans against the Chiefs secondary, and a pressing question he has for Ruggs.

To start, I just want to get your thoughts on your rookie season, how you thought it went and the experience of your first year in the NFL?

I feel like I had an average season, but I feel like I could’ve had a better season if I hadn’t had all them drops. Basically, I’m feeling like without the drops I had a pretty decent season. So, yeah.

I was going to ask what the area you were looking to improve on the most this offseason. Is that it just making sure you’re bringing everything in.

Oh yeah. Yeah, just making sure I catch everything. Make sure I catch contested ones, the easy ones. All of ’em.

You played with Henry Ruggs and DeVonta Smith at Alabama. What was the competition level like in that Alabama wide receiver room internally and how did you guys push each other?

Oh yeah we most definitely competed, but I think that’s what made us so tight, made us such a great receiving corps just by the way we compete, the way we went out there in practice each and every day. Just that standard we had for ourselves and I felt that was what made us so dynamic.

What is some advice you’d give DeVonta about being a professional as he gets ready to come into the NFL himself and make that step to the next level?

The biggest thing I’d tell him is, really just knowing how to manage your time. Coming into the NFL, you got a lot of free time on your hands and it could be a lot of distractions. So you just want to know what your main priorities and just knowing how to set a schedule and everything else you got. At the end of the day, football is football. You’ve been playin this your whole life, just keep doin what you’re doin.

I talked with Quinnen Williams earlier this year about the Alabama football fraternity, what does that give you as a player having guys you can call and resources whenever you might have a question?

It’s always great to have resources. It’s great to have people to call on to give you information about this or that. So just having all them and all the resources is great.

You played the Chiefs twice this year and know what their defense likes to do. Let’s say Mike Evans called you up to get some thoughts on their secondary, what’s the scouting report you’d give him?

I’d talk to Mike Evans like [puts hand up to his ear like a phone], ‘Aye, Mike, go deep first play. Run a go route.’ That’s it.

That’s it.

That’s it. Go ball. Go deep.

What is your pick for the Super Bowl?

I got the Chiefs. I got the Chiefs winning.

What do have going on with Old Spice this week on TikTok and how can fans get involved with that?

Yeah just check out my TikTok, JerryJeudy, I got Old Spice #ThisorThatSBLV Challenge and you’ll see it.

I’m talking with Henry Ruggs later, what should I ask him?

You should ask him how do you let Jerry Jeudy beat you by five yards in the 100 when you run a 4.24.

[laughs] I will be sure to ask him that, Jerry.

[laughs] Bet.

Donald Trump has resigned from the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) after the union threatened to expel the former-president for his role in inciting the attack on the Capitol building on January 6.

“I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership,” Trump wrote in an extremely salty letter, adding, “Who cares!” He misses tweeting so much (it’s not the same coming from others). Sad!

Trump boasted of his work in “movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live, and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, The Apprentice.” (No love for The Little Rascals?) He also took credit for creating “thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC and Fake News CNN,” which “brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union… Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me – besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas – as evident by your massive unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors.”

Trump ended his letter with a real “you can’t fire me, I quit” move: “I no longer wish to be associated with your union… You have done nothing for me.”

Responding to Mr. Trump’s resignation, SAG-AFTRA offered a simple two-word statement jointly attributed to Ms. Carteris and David White, the union’s national executive director on Thursday afternoon: “Thank you.”

SAG-AFTRA is made up over 160,000 performers and journalists “across 25 locals in the United States who work in film and digital motion pictures, television programs, commercials, video games, corporate/educational and non-broadcast productions, new media, television and radio news outlets, as well as major label recording artists,” according to the union. If you were hoping for a new Apprentice video game, sorry!

(Via the NY Times)

Pandemics are temporary; Wu-Tang is forever. Unfortunately, while that motto is becoming more and more well known here in the US, it’s a different story abroad, where apparel saluting the crew caused a minor political incident in China — the nation that influenced much of the Clan’s aesthetic and sound. Chinese officials took issue with a T-shirt bearing a “bat symbol” that any fan could tell is Wu-Tang Clan’s “W” logo, according to the Associated Press.

The group’s logo, which normally features the name superimposed through the stylized “W” shape, was altered on the T-shirts to read “Wuhan” instead. According to the report, the shirts were made in China but ordered last summer by someone at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Locals interpreted the “W” as a racist dig against the city where the first outbreak of COVID-19 was reported, believing that the shape behind the city’s name was a bat — referring, of course, to the misconception that the novel version of the coronavirus mutated after a person cooked and ate an infected bat.

According to AP, Chinese officials weren’t convinced that the shirt wasn’t intended as a slight. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “The wrongdoing of the Canadian staff concerned has already caused an egregious impact and triggered strong resentment and discontent among the ordinary Chinese people. The Canadian side should take the matter seriously and give a clear explanation to the Chinese side as soon as possible.” Apparently, Mr. Wang has never heard of a pun.

Meanwhile, the Canadian embassy said that the employee who ordered the shirt did so on their own initiative for members of a team “working on repatriation of Canadians from Wuhan in early 2020.” By the way, just in case there’s any doubt about whether or not the symbol in question was meant to represent a bat or a W, here it is below, courtesy of New York Times Hong Kong reporter Austin Ramzy.

As usual, that other old aphorism holds true: “Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to f*ck with.”

HER is just days away from taking the stage to perform a rendition of “America The Beautiful” at the Super Bowl LV. But before she helps kick off the big game, the singer has offered fans the groovy track “Fight For You.”

The single was penned for the upcoming film Judas And The Black Messiah, which stars LaKeith Stanfield as an FBI informant infiltrating the Black Panther Party. HER’s song reflects some themes from the film as she sings of the importance of obtaining freedom for her people over a shuffling beat.

Speaking about the song in an interview with ABC News 7, HER said:

“The song was so fun to make, especially making something from that time the late ’60s, early ’70s is one of my favorite eras of music. You know the connection to what was happening then, what’s happening now, and what’s still happening unfortunately…and being from the Bay Area, I think these are all such cool things that show me I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. The fact that I’m now nominated for a Golden Globe, it’s incredible you know. I never would have imagined making something like this. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

Listen to HER’s “Fight For You” above.

Judas And The Black Messiah is streaming on HBO Max starting 2/12.

Lil Yachty is spinning a lot of plates lately, seemingly dead-set on making the music-to-movies transition accomplished by so many of his contemporaries. He’s already developing a television show partly based on his life for HBO Max, and now he’s also reportedly working on a movie with toy company Mattel based on its popular — and vicious — party card game Uno, according to Variety. Yachty is a noted nostalgia aficionado, so as strange as the concept may seem, it sort of makes sense for the Atlanta native.

The film, which is billed as an “action heist comedy” doesn’t have a cast as yet, but Variety notes Yachty is short-listed for a leading role. He made his lead actor debut in 2019 in the MTV sequel to How High, and since then, his acting chops are sure to have grown. Quality Control Music heads Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas are also listed as producers alongside Yachty, who expressed his anticipation for the film in a statement.

“I’m so excited to be part of this film with Mattel,” he said. “I played Uno as a kid and still do today, so to spin that into a movie based on the Atlanta hip-hop scene I came out of is really special. It hits close to home for me.”

Marina made a vibrant return to music in 2020 with the compelling track “Man’s World,” pointing to a new era of music from the beloved pop singer. While Marina has yet to release the single’s follow-up, she has instead shared a few alternate renditions of the track. She previously debuted a stripped-down version of “Man’s World,” as well as a remix of the song by Muna. Now, Mariana is serving up another “Man’s World” remix, this time by Empress Of and Pabllo Vittar.

Marina tapped songwriter/producer Empress Of to rework her single’s instrumentals. The remix turns the track’s energy up a few notches by throwing in a thumping beat. Empress Of also called upon award-winning Brazilian drag queen Pabllo Vittar for the vocals, mixing their voice with layers of lush synths.

At the time of its release, Marina explained her inspiration behind the single:

“I wrote it last summer in August. I’d already decided I was gonna write this new record alone, and the process felt like a reaction to what I had previously released, which is often the case. Each record I do is sort of like the opposite of the previous one. At the time I was mostly inspired by the shifts that are happening for people who are discriminated against. The original idea for the song was to write a snapshot of how women and LGBTQ+ individuals have been subjugated and discriminated against throughout history going back to the Salem witch trials, where any person who was deemed abnormal or slightly alternative was singled out. Those kinds of patterns are still present in society. That’s something inspiring to me and worth writing about.”

Shortly after the single’s original release, Marina revealed in a Bose Studio Visit that her next album is nearly complete. “It’s a very slow process for me,” she explained. “The last record, it was more about finding solace in nature, and this record almost more is like a backdrop to what’s going on. We are in the time where there’s so much anxiety about how the planet is suffering. So, it doesn’t feature in a kind of rosy way as it has done in previous records.”

Listen to “Man’s World (Remix) featuring Empress Of and Pabblo Vittar above.

Marina is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.