Month: February 2021

Music fans can’t wait for the pandemic to quiet down enough for concerts to come back, but in some cases, that has already happened. Things are looking pretty normal in New Zealand, where Earthgang performed earlier this year. Flaming Lips also put on some “Space Bubble Concerts” where both the band and audience were encased in their own giant plastic bubbles, like the ones Wayne Coyne has used on stage for years. Those were apparently a success, as the band has announced that more bubble shows are on the way, on March 12 and 13 in Oklahoma City.

In a December interview, Coyne spoke about the then-upcoming shows with Consequence Of Sound, saying that he believes the bubble concerts are safer than some everyday activities: “I would say that they’re safer than going to the grocery store. We have people that will make you put on your mask and make you leave if you don’t comply. That doesn’t happen at the grocery store. A guy could be standing next to you and not think the coronavirus is real. I don’t want to get in a fight at the grocery store. So that part of it, I believe that we’re in control, and we would be the ones who say you have to put on a mask. It wouldn’t be up to another concertgoer. It would be up to the ones running the show. I wish more places were like that. I wish more places took control.”

However, not all medical professionals are convinced that this type of concert is safe, or that it isn’t. Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School Of Public Health, recently told The New York Times, “There is no evidence about the efficacy — or lack thereof — of these bubbles from an infectious disease transmission point of view. So, in theory, if air filtration is good, protective barriers can helpfully augment and reduce risk of transmission, but I would be hesitant to attend a concert in a bubble at the moment unless this has been assessed further.”

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

The Trump era has led to the rise of a particularly gag-worthy slogan in centrist-lib circles: “BELIEVE IN SCIENCE.”

It’s clearly well-intended, a way to draw a line between the sharer on one side and the misinformation and magical thinking of the Trumpists on the other. Yet it does so by ironically co-opting the language of religion, and it’s based on a fundamentally naive assumption that science is or has ever been fully extricable from politics.

In The Same Breath, a documentary from Chinese-born, U.S.-resident Nanfu Wang (One Child Nation), Wang examines the way the politics of COVID have coerced the science of it, and all the ways both the Chinese and American governments have sacrificed their citizens for the sake of political expedience. For as much as both countries like to contrast themselves with the other to prove their superiority, they turn out to have a lot of similarities. She spares neither in her assessments and rather than compare and contrast which system works better, she aims to force both to admit what went wrong so that we can evolve rather than simply entrench.

During the government’s botched response to COVID-19, Anthony Fauci, immunologist and director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been hailed as essentially the avatar of “believe in science,” the opposite of Donald Trump and the latest in a line of similarly-received would-be #resistance saviors that include James Comey and Robert Mueller. That’s why it’s so jarring to see Wang repeatedly show footage of Fauci telling 60 Minutes back in March, “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

Wang is perhaps the ideal teller for this story, a director who knows firsthand how China handled the virus early on and who refuses to whitewash their attempts to cover it up. Yet for Wang the US version felt like deja vu. She examines the clear parallels between the way China downplayed early warnings about the virus until it was politically convenient, with the way US officials, like Surgeon General Jerome Adams, exhorted the public to “STOP BUYING MASKS” in the early days of the virus, only to have to reverse themselves just weeks later, contributing to general confusion in the process.

Even after seeing what she had in China, Wang admits to buying into what officials were saying, downplaying the virus in the US. It was just easier to believe that it wasn’t that big a deal. This all gives Wang a great deal of credibility as a storyteller. Sundance is often a place for selling easy truths to center-left liberals, like that “science is real!” and all those anti-mask protestors are just ca-raaazy looney tunes weirdos. Yet Wang boldly refuses to let Fauci off the hook. Even now, Fauci says he doesn’t regret initially telling Americans not to wear masks, whitewashing it as merely a necessary measure to keep people from hoarding masks. Even if that was the goal and he achieved it in that narrow context, he clearly lost some credibility in the process and added credence to a harmful narrative. Pained as she is to film the anti-mask protesters spreading false information, Wang doesn’t simply demonize them. She tries to get at the roots of this irrational response.

In China, the government used the virus as a parable to illustrate Chinese resilience and the superiority of their one-party system, all the while drastically downplaying the actual number of deaths, which In The Same Breath suggests are at least 10 times the official numbers. In America, Trump is gone, and Fauci has been named Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. But the virus is still here. And Wang wonders aloud, if we don’t acknowledge the mistakes that led us here, how could we ever hope to do better the next time something like this happens?

‘In The Same Breath’ premiered at Sundance this week and will hit HBO later this year. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

One of the best running jokes of Cobra Kai (including within its infuriatingly good third season) is how bad Johnny Lawrence is at the Internet. To his credit, he finally learned how to log in (and even send a message on “The Facebook”), which led him to a very special reunion. Still, one really can’t expect him to be able to navigate the streaming wars, but if anyone really wants to know what William Zabka’s character is doing to ride out this pandemic winter, the Cobra Kai writers have got you covered.

“Send it to the internet!” would be the shout heard inside the dojo, but as one might expect, things aren’t too sophisticated for Johnny at home. Via Entertainment Weekly, here are some tips that the Cobra Kai creative team crafted. The first one here isn’t the worst idea, but things get messier from there:

– “Fire up that VCR and let Sly take you away. If you start watching Rocky III, Demolition Man, Rambo II, Cliffhanger, Rocky IV, Tango & Cash, and Over the Top at midnight on Valentine’s Day, Stallone wins a semi rig just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.”

– Stop ordering food from some guy’s car on your smartphone app. Bologna is nature’s way of thanking us — and it’s good with pretty much everything. I fry mine in butter. But you can eat it cold with pickles. If you have people over, melt some Velveeta on top and make it fancy. You’re welcome.”

Velveeta sure makes everything fancy. The tips only spiral further, including Johnny’s recommendations for reading material (with lots of “babes”), mixology, and fitness when the power goes out. Viewers might also remember that Johnny and warm beer are quite the Easter egg, but hey, we need input like this to stare down the time we’ll have to wait for Season 4 to materialize. In the meantime, the More Than Miyagi documentary on Pat Morita will arrive via iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and Google Play, on February 5

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Our quest to find the best bourbon whiskey at every price point marches on!

And guess what? The $40-$50 range just might be the sweet spot for bourbon. This is where you’re going to get real-deal single barrel expressions that can stand up to bottles twice the price, where the craft industry really starts to shine with unique bottles and grain-glass-gems, and where you find 10-year-old bourbons that outkick their coverage by a big margin. Plus $40-$50 feels relatively affordable for most drinkers.

The bottles of bourbon featured below are our favorites at their price point — taste being the only factor. However, limiting our list to just 10 bottles was pretty tough, so we’re sorry if we missed your favorite dram. Obviously, these prices will vary from state to state and from store to store. Some of you might get lucky and snag certain expressions for less than what we listed; others may have to pay a little more.

Let’s get into it!

Jim Beam Single Barrel

ABV: 54%

Average Price: $41

The Whiskey:

Jim Beam’s Single Barrel is the height of the brand’s prowess in making accessible whiskey. The juice is pulled from less than one percent of the barrels warehoused by Beam, ensuring that the juice is the best of the best. Those barrels are hand-selected by Beam’s masters to hit just the right bourbon notes while still tasting like a classic Jim Beam expression.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a real classic notion of bourbon on the nose with plenty of caramel popcorn, vanilla pods, and an almost toasted oakiness. The palate delivers on those notes while adding a spicy/cherry tobacco with a hint of honey, cut with orange oils. The finish bolsters the spiciness to Christmas spice levels while allowing the cherry and oak to shine on the slow end.

Bottom Line:

At this price, you really can’t beat this as a single barrel sipper, especially with some ice. We’d argue this makes for a great cocktail base too, if that feels do-able for you.

Russell’s Reserve 10-Year-Old

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $42

The Whiskey:

This is a true highwater mark for Wild Turkey. Father and son team Jimmy and Eddie Russell walk the musty rows of their warehouse to find the absolute best ten-year-old barrels to create this fine expression. The hand-picked barrels are married and then cut with soft Kentucky limestone water to bring the whiskey down to a very enjoyable 90 proof.

Tasting Notes:

This is quintessential bourbon.

There’s a nose that touches on rich caramel apples, vanilla pods, Christmas spices, and charred oak. The oak kicks up a notch as notes of orange oils dance with dark chocolate (especially when water is added) while those spices and apples mingle with an almost tobacco chewiness. The oak then mellows towards a soft cedar flavor, with hints of worn leather as the fruit, spice, and vanilla all fade out very slowly.

Bottom Line:

This really is a fine sipper. Though, you need to take your time. Add a little water or an ice cube. Swirl. Nose. Taste. Repeat.

Let the expression bloom and filter through your senses.

Angel’s Envy Bourbon

ABV: 43.3%

Average Price: $43

The Whiskey:

Angle’s Envy garnered fame for sourcing barrels of whiskey and giving them unique cask finishes. Their signature expression is their small-batched bourbon finished in port casks. They take eight to 12 barrels and marry them before transferring the juice to port casks for an additional three to six months of resting.

Tasting Notes:

Bourbon-y notes of vanilla and caramel mingle with port-y notes of dried fruits and fatty nuts with a hint of maple syrup. That maple syrup creates the foundation where bright red berries pop next to hints of toast dripping with Nutella, more vanilla, and a touch of sweet oak. The fade is fairly slow with the nutty chocolate, fruit, and vanilla lasting the longest.

Bottom Line:

While this is positioned as a sipper, it makes one hell of a cocktail. Try it in your next Manhattan or old fashioned.

Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon

ABV: 44%

Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

This small-town craft distillery is making some of the finest grain-to-glass whiskey on the market. Their signature bourbon is a wheated bourbon that utilizes grains grown within 100 miles of the Wyoming distillery. The juice is aged for at least four years before it’s small-batched, proofed with local water, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

The vanilla and caramel on the nose are creamy to the point of feeling like a stiff pudding with a hint of wildflowers. The palate holds onto those flowers and pudding while adding cinnamon sticks warming in browned butter with a note of cedar. That spice broadens out to a Christmas spice vibe as a buttery toffee sweetness and mouthfeel lead you toward a finish that’s just the right length.

Bottom Line:

This really is a stellar sip of whiskey. Make sure to add a little water to really let those flavors shine. Once you’ve become familiar with the sip, start experimenting with your favorite cocktails.

Old Forester Statesman

ABV: 47.5%

Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

Yes, this is technically a gimmick whiskey. The expression was released as a tie-in to Kingsman: The Golden Circle. But, that doesn’t really matter with this exceptional bottle of whiskey. The barrels are all hand-selected from the hottest corners of the warehouse and small-batched to create a deep character and bold presence.

Tasting Notes:

Moist, dark chocolate cake with cloves and oak mix with a flourish of vanilla on the nose. The taste holds onto the spice and amps it into Christmas spice territory with a focus on woody cinnamon next to worn leather and buttery toffee. A dry floral note arrives late with a burst of orange that leans creamy (almost like a sherbert) comingling with all that vanilla and toffee.

Bottom Line:

This really is meant to be sipped slowly with a little water or ice. It takes a while for some of those deeper floral and creamy notes to arrive, so don’t rush. When they do pop, this whiskey becomes very hard to put down.

Heaven’s Door Tennessee Bourbon

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $46

The Whiskey:

Bob Dylan’s Tennessee Bourbon is a very enjoyable and a (surprisingly) un-gimmicky treat. The juice is a high-rye bourbon that’s aged for up to eight years before Heaven’s Door’s blender gets his hands on the barrels. Then the whiskeys are blended to highlight classic bourbon notes.

Tasting Notes:

Notes of vanilla sit next to a slight oakiness with an almost rye bread crust sourness and bitterness. The sip leans into the vanilla, creating a creamy texture as wisps of apricot and cherry mingle with mild brown spices. The finish is long and hits on that vanilla cream, all the fruit, and mild spice while leaving you with a final nod to the charred oak at the end.

Bottom Line:

While this is fine as a sipper (a little water will reveal some powdery dark chocolate), it really shines best as a cocktail base.

Legent

ABV: 47%

Average Price: $47

The Whiskey:

This bottle from Beam Suntory marries Kentucky Bourbon, California wine, and Japanese whisky blending in one bottle. Legent is classic Kentucky bourbon made by bourbon legend Fred Noe at Beam that’s finished in both French oak that held red wine and Spanish sherry casks. The juice is then blended by whisky blending legend Shinji Fukuyo.

Tasting Notes:

Plummy puddings with hints of nuts mingle with vinous berries, oaky spice, and a good dose of vanilla and toffee on the nose. The palate expands on the spice with more barky cinnamon and dusting of nutmeg while the oak becomes sweeter and the fruit becomes dried and sweet. The finish is jammy-yet-light with plenty of fruit, spice, and oak lingering on the senses.

Bottom Line:

This is built as a workhorse whiskey. Sip it, mix with it, enjoy it. [When we lead whiskey tastings, this is the one we serve first to offer a “baseline” of standard, enjoyable, sippable bourbon.]

Michter’s Small Batch Bourbon

ABV: 45.7%

Average Price: $48

The Whiskey:

Michter’s really means the phrase “small batch” here. The tank they use to marry their hand-selected eight-year-old bourbons can only hold 20 barrels, so that’s how many go into each small-batch bottling. The blended juice is then proofed with Kentucky’s famously soft limestone water and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

Buttery caramel and peaches mix with creamy vanilla and oak on the nose. The vanilla really shines as the peach almost takes on a grilled edge as it gets sweeter and adds a whisper of smoke next to peppery spice. The spice kicks up and warms the senses as the slow fade embraces stone fruit, toffee, and more vanilla with a final kick of charred oak.

Bottom Line:

This is another whiskey that’s built as a workhorse bourbon. And while we dig it as a sipper on the rocks, it’s truly a killer cocktail base for any whiskey cocktail.

Bulleit Bourbon 10

ABV: 45.6%

Average Price: $48

The Whiskey:

This is classic Bulleit Bourbon that’s aged up to ten years before it’s blended and bottled. These barrels are hand-selected to really amplify and highlight the classic flavors that make Bulleit so damn accessible in the first place.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a lot going on with butter and spicy stewed apples, maple syrup, Christmas cakes full of nuts and dried fruit, and a hint of savory herbs all pinging through your olfactory. The palate brings about smooth and creamy vanilla with plenty of butter toffee, sourdough crust, more X-mas spice, cedar bark, and a hint of dried roses. The finish is long, warming, and really embraces the toffee and spice.

Bottom Line:

Make sure to add in a rock or some water to really let this one bloom in the glass. Then take your time enjoying this monster sip.

Four Roses Single Barrel

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $49

The Whiskey:

Four Roses’ most recent single barrel is from only one of their ten recipes/bourbons. In this case, that means the juice is a high-rye (35 percent) bourbon that’s fermented with yeasts that highlight “delicate fruit” in the body of the whiskey. The bourbon is then barely touched with water to bring it down to a very drinkable 100 proof.

Tasting Notes:

Pears roasted in maple syrup and cinnamon sticks counter a very creamy vanilla base on the nose. The taste holds onto that roasted pear feel while adding a spicy tobacco buzz alongside dates, plums, and walnuts. The sip is pure velvet as the fade slows way down while hitting the nuttiness, plumminess, stewed and spicy fruitiness, and creaminess along the way.

Bottom Line:

This is a killer single barrel expression that could cost twice as much. It’s also inexpensive enough that you don’t have to fret over using this quality sipper as a solid cocktail base.

In the latest installment of “Millennials Kill Everything: Stonks Edition,” the GameStop stocks drama is now causing Boomers to lose their minds and throw tantrums on national television.

Case in point: This bizarre take from Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business. Galloway gave an interview on MSNBC, which felt more like a one-minute rant against those damn Reddit “youths” who are influencing the stock market by beating some hedge-fund managers at their own game (embedded ab0ve — Galloway’s rant starts around the 6:40 mark). If you’ve been keeping up with this delightful tale of stock market sabotage, you’ll know a bunch of Redditors banded together to drive up the price of GameStop’s stocks when a hedge fund essentially made stock bets against the company (“shorting” the stock), intending to make a huge profit on the company’s failing business. It’s a fairly normal practice in the marketplace, so the stock bros didn’t expect a group of retail investors to disrupt the status quo which led to bankruptcy filings and blatant market manipulation and a pretty fiery exchange between Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ted Cruz (we’ll let you guess who came out on top).

Now that the old system of doing things when it comes to buying and selling on the stock market is being threatened, a handful of old-timers like Galloway are effectively losing their sh*t, predicting how terrible this will be for the market, for hedge funds, etc. But while we’re all incredibly sad to see rich white men lose their boats, Galloway’s take on the stonk drama feels, well, dramatic — even for a dude that simps for big government in his Twitter bio.

“Maybe it’s fun, fine,” Galloway told MSNBC. “But the biggest loss of capital will be the human capital of young men who are sitting and staring at their phone, watching the price of Bitcoin or the price of AMC. Ask yourself, ‘Would you be better off taking that one, two, or three hours a day and working out, trying to form relationships, romantic relations, getting great at something so you can be the person on the other side of the trade?’ Similar to how there’s a ton of young women out there who became very depressed by looking at Instagram, self-cutting, and self-harm skyrocketed … I think you are going to see an explosion in young male depression.”

The leap from playing with stocks on investment apps to women cutting themselves is certainly something, but Galloway seems pretty worried about the state of masculinity in today’s younger generations and what educating ourselves on stock market practices designed to keep the rich rich and make the poor poorer will do to it.

Of course, his distaste for all this stonk revolution nonsense hasn’t stopped him from finding a way to cash in on our renewed interest in upending the imbalance in America’s oldest financial institution. After all, that’s capitalism baby!

But watching Galloway whine about hedge funds dying surprisingly isn’t as funny as watching Twitter drag him for his own hypocrisy.

Look Boomers, if you didn’t want us to band together to throw the free market into chaos, you should’ve let us spend our money on avocados and kept your mouths shut.

Amazon is certainly no stranger to impressive ensemble casts in its scripted shows, and Solos appears to be no different. The anthology series from Hunters creator David Weil has a number of impressive names attached the to project, enough to fill a Brady Bunch-style lineup that was teased with the series announcement on Monday.

Three Oscar winners are involved in the show, as Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, and Helen Mirren signed on to play Stewart, Leah, and Peg, respectively. Uzo Aduba, who won an Emmy on Orange Is The New Black, is also in the cast, as is Nicole Beharie, noted Avenger Anthony Mackie, Dan Stevens, and Constance Wu.

“I am beyond thrilled to be bringing Solos to life alongside this group of artists who I so deeply admire. I created this piece with a desire to capture stories about connection, hope, and the search for that common hum of humanity that binds us all. I’m immensely grateful to Jennifer Salke and my incredible partners at Amazon for their unwavering support and collaboration on this special project,” Weil said in a statement.

Solos is just the latest anthology project on Amazon, as Modern Love is the most notable the streaming service has released recently. Hathaway also starred in an episode of that one too, mind you, though details on just what Solos will be remain scarce right now.

Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” went rapidly from surprise hit to a genuinely dominating force on the charts. Last week, the single spent its second week in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and this week brings more of the same: On the chart dated February 6, “Drivers License” is once again No. 1 for the third time.

For the third consecutive week, the single is both the top-selling and most-streamed song. On top of that, the track is making a bit of history: Of the 48 songs that have ever debuted on top of the Hot 100, “Drivers License” is now just the 14th of those to stay at No. 1 for at least three weeks. The last time this happened was when Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” spent its first five weeks on top.

https://twitter.com/billboardcharts/status/1356306109460602882

Rodrigo recently reacted to the song’s surprise popularity, saying, “All the recognition the song has got is beyond my wildest dreams. Taylor Swift — [who] is my songwriting idol and I wouldn’t be half of the woman and a songwriter I am today without her — reached out and was so supportive of the song. I just found out the other day that Lorde likes it, Halsey likes it, all of these people that I have grown up listening to are saying they’re liking the song.”

Meanwhile, The Weeknd continues an impressive chart run with “Blinding Lights,” which is No. 3 this week. It extends its record for the most weeks ever spent in the top 5 of the Hot 100 (38 weeks) and in the top 10 (47 weeks). Its 53 weeks in the top 10 is also second-most all-time, while its 56 weeks in the top 40 is seventh.

Ever since NWA exploded in the late eighties, putting Compton on the pop culture map, the city has become a hotbed for rap talent, churning out dozens of hit-making rappers in the decades since. However, with one of those rappers recently laying claim to being the absolute best one, fans are naturally locked in an intense debate about whether he — or another challenger entirely — deserves it.

During a recent chat on Clubhouse with fellow Los Angeles County rappers Glasses Malone and Kxng Crooked, The Game made a bold assertion that has plenty of folks questioning whether he might be right. “Can’t nobody in Compton out rap Game,” he boasted. “Can’t nobody in Compton out rap me.” Naturally, Kendrick Lamar was proposed as a potential challenger, prompting Game to acknowledge the younger rapper. However, he refused to backpedal, taking credit for K. Dot’s development in the bars department.

“Kendrick my n****,” he admitted. “Kendrick doing his sh*t. I love that n**** to death. I flew past Kendrick when that n**** was on foot, in a Range Rover, and showed him how to do this sh*t. Don’t play. Don’t play with Game name. Hardest n**** in Compton, rapping, lyricist, me. Any n**** that say any different, I’ll body him and any n**** he f*ck with.”

For what it’s worth, there’s some pretty stiff competition, even leaving Kendrick out of the equation. Besides the foundational members of NWA (we’re talking mainly Ren here because Ice Cube is from South Central and all of Dre’s verses are written for him), the Hub City has produced some of LA’s finest, including AD, DJ Quik, MC Eiht, Problem, Westside Boogie, and YG. However, very few can claim to have as extensive a discography as The Game, and gossip column antics aside, Game’s pen skills remain as sharp as ever as recently as 2019’s Born To Rap.

As a local, my money is forever going to be on King Tee, without whom the rap game would never have even gotten as far as it has. If Biggie didn’t have King Tee to bite his whole flow from, who’s to say whether he’d have been the star he was? In any case, The Game’s comments have certainly ruffled quite a few feathers. Check out Twitter’s best responses below.

Imagine a thinking man’s Sleepy Hollow with mucus-y gore effects, or a feature-length X-Files episode produced for HBO and you might have something close to Eight For Silver, writer-director Sean Ellis’s riff on Victorian werewolves premiering at Sundance this week. Like Game Of Thrones or The Witch before it, Eight For Silver is so beguiling as a straight period piece that the elements of the fantastic just feel like icing. Ellis combines Robert Eggers’ historical meticulousness with Ari Aster from Midsommar‘s flair for exuberant gore in a movie that’s arguably a little more “pop” than either.

One of the quirks of a virtual Sundance is that you can just switch to a different movie if one isn’t working for you without gathering your things in the dark and trudging through the snow to another theater. Without naming any names here, in a year of drab streamers, Eight For Silver‘s vivid yet icy compositions immediately stood out. It opens in the WWI trenches, on the front lines of the Somme where French soldiers are masking up for a charge as mustard gas explodes overhead. We cut to a surgeon removing bullets from a dying soldier. The surgeon pulls one bullet, two, and then a shiny third that doesn’t look at all like the others. “This isn’t a German bullet,” notes the surgeon. “Eight for silver,” croaks the dying man in his last breath.

From there we flash back to the 1800s, where a dour landlord — Seamus Laurent, played by Alistair Petrie — and his fellow landowners are having some trouble with a band of gypsies squatting on their land. They probably should’ve just asked the gypsies nicely to move along, or figured out a way to coexist peacefully, but this being Victorian England they definitely don’t do that. Thus, the die is cast.

With the townspeople having some… er… trouble, a handsome stranger arrives, Ichabod Crane-like, to investigate. Boyd Holbrook, the thinking man’s Garrett Hedlund, plays John McBride, an out-of-town pathologist. “Men keep speaking even after they’re dead. I listen,” he explains.

McBride shacks up with Seamus and his wife and daughter (Kelly Reilly from Flight and Amelia Crouch) at their manor house while he tries to figure out what’s going on, and even though he’s playing things pretty close to the vest, it’s obvious that he believes the trouble is something supernatural. Gypsy curses, hot people, and werewolves, oh my!

The beauty of Eight For Silver is that it’s hard to decide whether Sean Ellis is better at shooting restrained Victorian stoicism or balls-out gore; whether the next scene will bring arthouse restraint or multiplex schlock. Like Sleepy Hollow before it (though without Burtonian preciousness), Eight For Silver is a little bit of both. It works wonderfully together. It’s a movie that offers thrills, chills, and just the right amount of thinking.

‘Eight For Silver’ is playing at Sundance this week with no release date set as of this writing.

Werner Herzog is a legendary filmmaker and actor who is known for taking risks and making art that is specifically interesting to himself, but the German director is not exactly known for his ties to the extreme sports world. And yet, last week, he joined skateboarding magazine Jenkem Magazine for a video call in which they discussed skateboarding for a conversation that was pretty fantastic.

Herzog waxes poetic on the beauty of skateboarding, which to him is the constant failure, over and over and over again, in the pursuit of that one successful run or landed trick. He marvels at watching a skateboarder try over and over — “so many failures, that’s astonishing, yes” — before finally getting it right for a “clean run,” which when said in Herzog’s German accent is tremendous. The best part is how he explains why he enjoys skateboarding compared something like David Blaine’s stunts, which he doesn’t like, because the latter is for personal fame and glory while the former is a pursuit for one’s self and inner gratification, not to garner attention.

At the end he explains how he’d score a skateboarding video with a “Russian orthodox church choir” in order to create a “strange feeling of space” and make it feel almost sacred. The interview delighted skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, who was thrilled to see it and the introspection into the human condition and spirit is delightful to watch.