Month: February 2021

NBA Top Shot has become a big topic of conversation on Basketball Twitter over the last few months, and you can learn more about it here if you are wondering just what the hell this thing is that has people paying six figures or more for NBA highlights. The basic gist is, Top Shots are licensed, digital trading cards with packs made available to buy sometimes and a secondary marketplace that has seen a rather ridiculous surge of late.

It has become so popular that a number of NBA players have gotten in on the Top Shot craze and more are looking into it, as the tech savvy younger generation of NBA players can’t help but be intrigued by the kind of money they’re seeing fly around on the marketplace. I think my favorite instance of a player getting in on Top Shot is Josh Hart, who got someone to gift him one of his moments and then turned around and sold it.

Others have simply been curious as to how everything works and how they can even get packs, which are sold out for now and every release has seen rather crazy waitlists, but almost everyone who’s gotten on board has gotten hooked.

Terry Rozier went on the Top Shot journey on Monday and quickly became hooked, too, scooping up some of his moments and those of his Hornets teammates.

There are plenty of others that are in on the Top Shot movement and it’s interesting to see how players are embracing the burgeoning community.

As they do, others are being intrigued and jumping in on it as well.

It’s no secret that Taylor Swift is a prolific musician. On top of releasing two surprise albums in 2020, the singer began re-recording her entire discography. Because she continues to turn out hits, Swift has broken a handful of charting records. Some of her historic feats are less positive, however, like when her song “Willow” broke Tekashi 69’s record for the biggest fall from No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. But now, it looks as though the singer is competing with Lil Wayne to secure yet another chart record.

Swift released her newly-recorded version of her 2009 track “Love Story” last week, which debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song marked her 51st song to land a spot in the top 20, which officially ties with Lil Wayne for the second-most top 20 songs in the chart’s history.

Though the two may be competing for the second-most top 20 entries, Taylor Swift still leads the pack when it comes to Hot 100 chart entries among female artists. She continues to hold the most Hot 100 songs compared to any other female musician in history.

Lil Wayne and Swift’s competing record isn’t the only exciting news from this week’s Billboard charts; Olivia Rodrigo also made an impressive impact with her hit debut single “Drivers License.” The song was once again at No. 1 this week, making it the first time a debut single has ever spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart.

Movie theaters in New York City and Los Angeles have been closed since last March due to the pandemic, which partially explains why Dolittle, a notorious box office bomb, was the fourth highest-grossing movie of 2020. L.A. theaters will remain off limits to theatergoers, but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that New Yorkers will be able to drink overpriced sodas in a dark room with strangers real soon.

New York City movie theaters will reopen on March 5 with firm restrictions in place: 25 percent capacity, no more than 50 people per screen, and “masks, assigned seating, and advanced air filtration will be required,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “Many theaters open elsewhere in the U.S. have the same rules, although capacity is 50 percent in some areas. Presently, roughly 38 percent of the theaters in North America are in operation presently. With New York coming online, studios will certainly be more inclined to begin to release their backlog of titles.” Over eight million people live in New York City — Disney isn’t going to release Black Widow if that many people can’t see it, let alone another four million in Los Angeles. This is — maybe, possibly, hopefully — a step towards Things Getting Back to Normal (if mask rules are enforced and followed, which is a big “if”).

It’s not clear when Los Angeles — where cases are higher — will allow cinemas to turn the lights on, but New York’s reopening is a milestone event. The larger Los Angeles market provided nearly 9 percent of all box office revenue in 2019, while the New York designated market area turned in 7.4 percent.

The first major movies to open post-March 5 are Raya and the Last Dragon (March 5; also available on Disney+) and Godzilla vs. Kong (March 31). New Yorkers can’t wait to talk over that rollercoaster popcorn again.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

“You always know you’re going somewhere cool when the pavement ends.”

Those words come from Tom Green — comedian, movie star, TV host, podcaster, and recent #vanlifer — and were spoken while wandering the Chaco Canyon ruins. They get right to the heart of why travel feels eternally significant and why we love to talk about it. Even when many of us are still mostly homebound.

Green, of course, is best known as a cult comedy legend. The power of The Tom Green Show and Freddy Got Fingered in the mid-1990s and early aughts was so seismic that you either became a ride-or-die fan or you turned away. But Green was always more than a shock comedian. He dropped his first rap album back in ’92, spent the early 2000s popping up in blockbusters (like playing The Chad in Charley’s Angels), and has been interviewing people/doing comedy on the internet since long before anyone knew what a podcast was.

By the time the 2010s rolled around, Green had become a comedic institution — underscored (for me, at least) when he popped up playing himself on the Canadian cult masterpiece Trailer Park Boys. Add in decades of stand-up touring, filmmaking, podcasting, and traveling the world and it’s clear that the man has had one hell of a career. Better yet, one hell of a life.

Over the past year, Green has been finding a way to bring all his loves together in one place while on the road. After the pandemic hit, the Canadian-turned-Californian found himself going stir crazy at home. To break the tension of life in lockdown, he set out into the wilderness to follow his twin passions for travel and photography. Green fitted out a van for podcasting, loaded up a few cameras, got himself a dog, and set his sights on the American Southwest.

On his trip, the multi-hyphenate documented his #vanlife adventures on his Instagram feed, Twitter, and adapted his YouTube channel to specifically highlight his travel videography while shining a spotlight on some of America’s wild spaces. He also scored tons of material for a podcast on Audio Up, aptly titled Tom Green Van Life.

Last week, with Green back in his L.A. home for a short spell, we got a chance to talk with him about his adventures. The conversation dove deep into the practicalities of life on the road, taking photos, and what it’s like out there during a pandemic.

What was the thing you were least expecting when you first started? Something you maybe had to overcome living on the road?

Well, I can tell you the thing that I was least expecting, but it’s not something I’ve necessarily had to overcome. It’s been a positive thing that I was least expecting. I would say that any of the things that I’ve had to overcome, I’ll be honest with you, I anticipated those things before I left because I’m a pretty meticulous planner when it comes to stuff like this. I’ve spent enough time out in nature over the years that I pretty much knew what the pitfalls and problems would be: Whether it was getting stuck in the mud or not having cell service or getting lost or running out of food or whatever. So I had all those contingencies planned for.

What I really was not expecting was the sheer amount of mysterious and amazing places in the American Southwest that I had no idea existed and did not know were there and had never heard of.

As soon as I started really traveling over the last six months, out into the desert, and really zooming in on the Google maps and looking at different wilderness areas or national forests and national parks, I started realizing, “wow, there’s just so much country. There are so many back areas of this country, in the world for that matter, and they’re just not heard of.” And I thought I heard of everything, but then you really look between all the places that you’ve heard of, and there are other places between those places that are incredibly huge forests, incredibly huge deserts, unbelievably mysterious and unexpected archeological sites, Native American ruins, ghost towns, all sorts of incredible pieces of history that are out there in the middle of nowhere, just waiting to be explored and photographed.

And for me, being somebody that loves photography, it’s been a real eye-opener. I thought I knew a lot of this stuff to begin with and I’m finding myself surprised every day. “Whoa, what’s this? I’ve never heard of that!”

Right. Can you give us an example?

So a good example would be Chaco Canyon. I don’t know if you’ve seen that video on my YouTube channel, but I went to this called “Lost Ancient City” and it’s an American Pueblo ruin from the Pueblo people. It was built in the year 750 and was inhabited until the year 12- or 1300 or so. It’s a pre-Colombian stone city in the middle of the most beautiful canyon you’ve ever seen.

And you sit there and you look around and you say yourself, “How the hell did I not know this was here?” This is insane that I did not know about this. That I’ve not heard about this. That it’s not talked about as much if not more than Machu Picchu or the Mayan pyramids we hear about that all the time — why are we not hearing about this all the time?

And there’s a lot of other stuff like that out there in the American Southwest, certainly. It’s just so incredibly interesting and beautiful. That’s what surprised me the most: The number of places that I just had not heard of. And every time I find a new place, then three more things get alerted to me. It’s interesting when you’re posting this stuff online as I travel around, you’ll have people regionally say, “Well, have you been here? Have you been here?” And then it’s like, “Oh geez, I didn’t even know about that.” So the audience online is really helping point out some really unique and interesting places for me that I haven’t been to yet, that I now have on my list to go next.

You’re about to go out the road again. When you are getting ready to go, what are the sort of things you’re looking at? Are you planning an end destination and an end time for your trip? Are you just letting it be and going with the flow?

Well, so right now my home is in Los Angeles. I’ve lived here for 20 years. I’ve been in this house for 18 years. I’ve done Webovision here. This is my home base and I got this van last year because I wanted to go do some photography of the wilderness and find a way to occupy myself during this pandemic and do something and get out of the house, basically, as I live alone. I’m single. I don’t have kids. I was getting a little bit, as it is for everybody, it was getting really weird for me. I needed to do something to occupy my mind in a way so I wouldn’t basically go crazy.

Not sure if that’s worked, but time will tell whether I’ve gone crazy. But the point is, it’s been an amazing experience and I’m loving it.

Let’s talk a little bit about your photography because it’s really engaging and, as you said, you’re going places that a lot of people haven’t heard of. Has photography been a passion for you for a long time, or was this something new? And what are you using out there?

It’s been something that I’ve loved since college, actually. When I was in college, I studied television broadcasting in Ottawa, Canada, and there was a photography course. Part of what was helpful in learning about video was learning about the basics of photography. And we did a basic photography course, and I excelled in that course. My photography teacher really encouraged me because they realized I had a real eye for photography and I was pretty excited about that, because I found I really enjoyed it. But then also I found that I was okay at doing it.

I’ve always had a love of film as well. So I’m shooting film photography as well. I’m shooting on a Leica M6 and I shoot on Kodak and Ilford film out in the desert and black and white film. And that’s been cool. And with the drone, I’m shooting video, but it’s very cinematic like I’m composing jots of landscapes and unique places and wilderness areas and mountains, deserts. So for me, I’ve been thrilled to be able to go find these photographs.

As I’m driving around or traveling around or hiking around, my eye is always looking around for interesting shots and I get a lot of pleasure out of that. I’ve always liked documenting my travels with a still camera. I have done it for a long time. At my house in Los Angeles, I’ve got certain rooms where I display a lot of my photography that I’ve done over the years that I’ve shot in Africa or Canada or the Middle East.

And now, these newer mirrorless cameras that are really beautiful and have interchangeable lenses, they’ve been around for a while. But in the last year or so, they’ve come out with cameras that are really a game-changer for somebody like myself who wants to film themselves because of certain autofocus features and functions. It makes it much easier for me to be able to turn the camera around on myself or put it on a tripod and stand in front of it because it’ll focus on my eyes and things like that stuff.

This is the first time really in my career as a video/TV comedian that I’ve been able to really truly combine my love of photography and my love of storytelling and my love of traveling and all of these things, because I can actually film myself with a lot fewer complications than if I didn’t have some of these new functions that are on these cameras that are really, really pretty amazing. So it’s been a lot of fun learning about it all.

Can you talk about the companionship of having somebody with you out there on the road, in your case Charley the dog?

I absolutely would not be able to do this if I didn’t have Charley with me. It would be impossible. It would just be too lonely. And it’s amazing how the companionship of a dog actually really does make a big difference.

I got Charley about four months ago, I suppose, maybe five. I didn’t have Charley for the first half of this pandemic. I had two Huskies for years, but they passed away four years ago. I’ve been petless, dogless for the last four years. And I was very isolated and it was not, I think, very healthy to be completely alone. So I rescued Charley. She’s a rescue dog who’s from The Bahamas.

She was brought into San Diego by a rescue there, and I was lucky enough to get her and she’s been the best dog, and she’s really a great travel companion. She loves it out in nature. She loves going on our walks. She loves sitting up in her booster seat in front of the van and looking out the window and it’s just been great.

And also, she’s a funny dog. She’s a great character. People love Charley. So she’s also somebody for me to document myself, another character in our little journey. And my whole journey is themed in some ways after John Steinbeck’s novel, Travels with Charley in Search of America. I named Charley after the dog in that book — in which John Steinbeck went and traveled around in the sixties in a camper van before people were doing that. And he and his dog went off on the road and went on a series of adventures and discovered America and explored America. So that’s what we’re doing now.

I really dig that. So let’s talk a little bit about the podcast. You were way, way, way ahead of this game obviously. You’re doing it from your van, right? You have a studio built into the back?

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been building the foundation of everything technically. So starting next week, you’re going to start to see more of the visual side of the podcast too. Obviously, when you watch a lot of podcasts, you just watch people on video doing their podcast. So I wanted to do mine from the van so that I could make that more of a visually unique experience, as opposed to me just sitting in front of a wall or whatever.

I’m heading back out into the desert tomorrow and I’ll be gone for another month or so. I’m going to begin filming myself doing the podcast, which up till now, I’ve just been doing the audio side of it. But you’re going to be able to start watching some of that clips on the YouTube channel. And then you can go to Van Life with Tom Green and listen to the entire interview on Audio Up and on all the other podcast platforms.

Right on. There’s always been a fairly big community of people traveling around in the way that you do. With the pandemic being what it is, have you been able to dip into any of these communities of van lifers or RVers or just nomads out in the Southwest? Or has it been more standoffish and separated given the current situation?

Yeah. I definitely had some great conversations with people out there, just when you’re in a unique isolated place and you see another van similar to yours or an RV, and they’re camping out in the area. I’ve had moments where I’ve had lots of nice talks and interactions with people.

I haven’t really been filming it so much yet. I’ve been more focusing on just the audio side of the podcast where I’ve been basically talking to people that have been calling me and talking to me on the phone while I’m in the van. But as things start to improve, then the intention, for sure, is to start talking to more people that I encounter along the way and making that part of the journey as well.

There are so many cliches around travel. I am a travel writer. I’ve been traveling for most of my life and blah, blah, blah. In that world, you hear a lot about “people finding themselves on the road” or “searching for some truth or something or other.” But cliches are cliches for a reason. You do find truths on the road and you do learn about yourself out there. My question is not so much what have you learned but more about what do you think you are going to be able to impart thanks to these travels?

Well, I think that even though I’ve traveled the world and been very fortunate to have seen so many amazing places in my career as a stand-up comedian and doing television and films over the years. I’ve been to… I forget. I’ve lost track of how many countries I’ve been to.

That’s a good number. “I lost track.”

Yeah. I think it’s something like 60 or something like that. I forget. I could count, but I always forget how many it is.

It’s all good.

But it’s enough. And I love seeing new places. To me, it’s a big part of the enjoyment of my life, just to see new places and discover new things and travel is such a great way of doing that. So finding myself on this van trip in our own backyard here in America, being able to get in a van and drive four, five, six, seven, ten, 12 hours out into the middle of the country, I am finding myself consistently surprised every day by all of these amazing things that I’m finding. And if I’m surprised, then I think that the audience is going to be surprised too.

I really have a strong attachment with the people that come along for the ride with me: My viewers, social media followers, friends and fans, and all the people who are following along with what I’ve done for almost 30 years now. And I really want to show people some cool shit. I want to go explore and discover some amazing and magical things myself and then I want to share that with the audience.

That’s what really makes it worth doing because I’m not out there all alone. I’m bringing people along to these really cool places.

Beartown (HBO, 9:00pm) — This Swedish crime drama based upon Fredrik Backman’s bestselling novel, and it follows the domination of a junior ice-hockey team upon a small community after a retired pro hockey player, Peter, relocates to Beartown for a fresh start. Given the show’s color palette on display in the trailer, I’m sure having a difficult time resisting Twilight jokes, but this looks more substantially chilling. The show promises to explore hope and secrets and courage to go against the grain.

9-1-1 (FOX, 8:00pm) — A fabled firehouse superstition comes to life for the 118 when they experience the most bizarre, never-ending stream of emergency calls to date.

9-1-1: Lone Star (FOX, 9:00pm) — Next up on the Rob Lowe-starring spinoff, Grace helps a conjoined twin whose brother is about to pass away while Owen and T.K. must save brothers from a minefield.

Snowpiercer (TNT, 9:00pm) — This week, Layton and Miss Audrey both go to town on Big Alice but Sean Bean’s Mr. Wilford has different ideas. This season’s introduction of Bean caused the series to gain momentum, so the time is still right to catch this ride.

The Investigation (HBO, 10:00pm) — This Scandinavian limited drama series follows the real-life investigation into the 2017 murder of a Swedish journalist (Kim Wall) in what became one of Danish history’s most notorious criminal cases (aptly dubbed the “Submarine Case”). This is a homemade submarine (?), apparently, and the series hails from Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Tobias Lindholm (A War, Mindhunter). This week, Swedish cadaver dogs are on the case, and they can locate bodies well below sea level.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! — Hugh Grant, Teyonah Parris, Passenger

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Bill Gates, Tune-Yards

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Shailene Woodley, Henry Louis Jr, Kenice Mobley

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo, Masego Feat. Don Toliver

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Sec. Pete Buttigieg, The Hold Steady, Raghav Mehrotra

With Bobby Shmurda’s five-year prison sentence finally coming to an end this month, the 26-year-old Brooklyn native has become the focal point of all the buzz in hip-hop this week. While fans speculate about his post-prison activities and his longtime friend and partner-in-rhyme Rowdy Rebel promising the two will touch the stage again soon, another figure in rap found a way to become part of the moment, according to Billboard.

In a yet-to-be-published interview coming soon as part of a Bleacher Report event, Migos member Quavo told Billboard, “I’m going to get my guy. I’m personally gonna go pick up Bobby Shmurda. I’m bout to go get him. I’m gonna let him show you how I’m gonna pick him up. It’s gonna be big.” According to the report, Bobby and Migos were working on a joint mixtape to be titled Migos Shmigo Gang. Naturally, the collaboration was derailed by Bobby’s arrest in December 2014 and eventual guilty plea on 4th-degree conspiracy and 2nd-degree criminal weapons possession charges.

Rowdy, who was arrested alongside Bobby and released earlier after Bobby was denied parole for behavioral problems inside, told Hot 97 that the two planned to attend — and possibly perform at — New York’s Summer Jam this year. Bobby’s whose last major hit was “Hot N****” back in 2014 will have to imitate his labelmate and hit the ground running like “Jesse Owens” to make up for the lost time. With Quavo at the wheel, he’ll be getting back to the studio that much quicker.

In a wild sign of the times, TikTok users have been posting videos that claim the recent snow storm isn’t actually snow, but some sort of mysterious substance sprayed by the Biden Administration and/or Bill Gates to “protect the wealthy elites,” or something. The crazed videos include TikTok users attempting to melt snowballs with a lighter or a hair dryer with little success, which is actually a normal chemical reaction called “sublimation” where the solid snow turns into a gas instead of a liquid. But, clearly, these junior conspiracy theorists aren’t interested in science as much as trying to prove that sinister forces are tricking them for… reasons.

Via Insider:

One video went viral on Twitter but has since been removed from TikTok. In the video, a woman burns a snowball with a lighter. “Thank you Bill Gates for trying to f—ing trick us that this is real snow. You’ll see it’s not melting, and it’s going to burn,” she says. The person who posted the TikTok to Twitter said in a subsequent tweet that they did not believe in the video’s claims.

As Insider notes, #governmentsnow and search results for “fake snow” have skyrocketed since the freak winter storm in Texas, which was a very real storm with very real snow by the way. But while these latest batch of conspiracy theories are similar in theme to recent QAnon videos accusing Biden and Gates of nefarious deeds, the fake snow theory actually dates back to 2014 when a rare blizzard swept through the South. Despite attempts to explain the science behind the weather event, online commenters remained convinced that the 2014 storm was a government plot, and that mindset has unfortunately come roaring back.

(Via Insider)

Elijah McClain was a kind, unique, and gentle soul, according to those who knew him. He was a vegetarian and a pacifist who worked as a massage therapist. He played his violin for shelter kittens during his lunch break because he thought the animals were lonely.

One evening two summers ago, McClain was walking home from a convenience store, waving his arms to music he was listening to on his headphones, when Aurora police approached him after getting a call about a “suspicious” man in the area. McClain was wearing a ski/runner’s mask, which his sister said he often did because he tended to get cold easily. Police tackled him to the ground and held him in a carotid hold—a restraint technique banned in some cities for its potential danger. He was given a shot of ketamine by paramedics. He had a heart attack on the way to the hospital and died there three days later.

He was a 23-year-old Black man. He was unarmed. He wasn’t a suspect in any crime. And his last words to the police were absolutely devastating.

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The Aurora Police Department’s own investigation into the incident found no wrongdoing on the part of the officers involved—a determination that caused an outcry for justice in light of the body camera evidence. Millions of people signed a Change.org petition demanding a more in-depth investigation.

The city did launch an independent investigation last July, and the results have been released. You can read the full report here, but the gist of the findings is that the police had no legal basis to stop, frisk, or place McClain in a chokehold to begin with. The ketamine dose administered by paramedics was also based on a gross overestimate of McClain’s size. (He was given a dose for a 190-pound person, when he actually weighed around 140.)

Investigators also found that the investigation done by the police department’s Major Crimes Unit was deeply flawed, failing to ask even basic investigative questions of the officers involved.

“It is hard to imagine any other persons involved in a fatal incident being interviewed as these officers were,” investigators wrote.

“The body worn camera audio, limited video, and Major Crime’s interviews with the officers tell two contrasting stories,” the report states. “The officers’ statements on the scene and in subsequent recorded interviews suggest a violent and relentless struggle. The limited video, and the audio from the body worn cameras, reveal Mr. McClain surrounded by officers, all larger than he, crying out in pain, apologizing, explaining himself, and pleading with the officers.”

One of the officers involved in McClain’s, Jason Rosenblatt, was fired in July for replying “haha” to a text containing photos three other officers took, mockingly reanacting the chokehold at the site of McClain’s memorial. Interim police chief Vanessa Williams called the text exchange “a crime against humanity and decency.”

McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, released a statement through her attorney in light of the investigation’s findings, noting that Elijah would be turning 25 in three says and saying she is “relieved that the truth surrounding the death of her son is finally coming to light.”

“The independent investigation that was commissioned and paid for by Aurora makes clear what was already known,” the statement reads. “Elijah should never have been stopped by the police, never have been arrested, never have been subjected to extreme force by the police and should never have been forcibly injected with ketamine by Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics. Aurora is responsible for Elijah’s tragic death by virtue of its employees’ unlawful and unconscionable actions.”

“We applaud the independent review panel’s objective, studious, and comprehensive investigation into the events of August 24, 2019. At every step of the way — from their initial stop of Elijah through the involuntary injection of an extremely dangerous drug for no medical reason — Aurora officials indisputably violated Mr. McClain’s constitutional rights.”

After detailing some of the reports specific findings, the statement makes the point that investigators came to their conclusions using the information and evidence the department always had.

“Notably, this Report – with its stark and unequivocal indictment of Aurora officials’ conduct – is not based on new, revelatory evidence,” it reads. “It is based on evidence that Aurora has had in its possession all along. Yet, at every stage, Aurora has defended its officials for their blatantly unlawful actions and refused to discipline anyone involved in Elijah’s death.”

The statement also describes the “sham investigation” the police conducted “in order to exonerate its employees and hide their wrongdoing.”

Sheneen McClain wants Aurora to hold its employees accountable. “The Aurora officials who contributed to Elijah’s death must be immediately terminated,” the statement reads. “Ms. McClain continues to call for the criminal prosecution of those responsible for Elijah’s death. Elijah committed no crime on the day of his death, but those who are responsible for Elijah’s death certainly did.”

Ms. McClain’s statement also acknowledges that Elijah’s wrongful death at the hands of police is part of a larger story.

“Elijah’s family recognizes that Elijah is but one person on an ever-growing list of unarmed victims of police-related killings,” it states. “The problem of police abuse continues to plague minority communities throughout the country. This case is a textbook example of law enforcement’s disparate and racist treatment of Black men. Aurora’s continued failure to acknowledge the wrongdoing of its employees only exacerbates the problem.”

Finally, a quote from Sheneen McClain sums it all up.

“Elijah believed in humanity and that humanity mattered,” she said. “Inhumane humans are a problem and we must stop unjust laws.”

Let’s hope this independent investigation leads to justice and real change.

Earlier this year, EA Sports announced it was bringing back its college football video game franchise, with a few key changes. The first was it would be titled EA Sports College Football, not NCAA Football as it previously had been, because licensing for the game would be through CLC rather than the NCAA. The reason for that was they, at least until national name, image, and likeness rules are figured out, would be making the game with just the schools and random rosters that didn’t share any actual resemblance to players on teams currently.

It’s a workaround that honestly has been available from the beginning, but with NIL legislation out there and a movement towards making it possible for players to make money off of their NIL rights, they could begin making the game now and swiftly be in position to put players in the game and work out what compensation would be required for that once figured out. The initial announcement said 100-plus colleges would be involved in the game through the CLC licensing, but there is one big one that will not be part of it until they can get their players paid.

Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick released a statement on Monday saying that Notre Dame was excited about the prospects of being in a college football video game again but will not participate until NIL rights are worked out for players to benefit off of the game.

It is what everyone is hoping will happen, which is to see a game produced where players, like those in professional sports, get a cut from rights deals. It’s also good on Notre Dame to apply this kind of pressure to making that happen as they are one of the biggest brands in all of college football, and making it clear they won’t participate until players can get paid is big.

Now, we can simply hope all of this gets squared away in the near future and everything can come together for a new game to be created that benefits the players and brings college football back to game systems.

Ethan Hawke upset the Iron Man Funko pop owners when he shared his thoughts on superhero movies dominating Hollywood. “Now we have the problem that they tell us Logan is a great movie,” Hawke explained. “Well, it’s a great superhero movie. It still involves people in tights with metal coming out of their hands. It’s not Bresson. It’s not Bergman. But they talk about it like it is.” He later clarified his remarks, saying that he was “talking about a much more nuanced point about money in America and what our obsession with the accumulation of wealth is.” Hawke wants Hollywood to make all kinds of movies, not just IP-based franchises, and he believes his comments became A Thing because “I think it pisses people off because they don’t want to go back to the ghetto where comic books weren’t taken seriously as art, and I agree with that.”

Hawke agrees with it so much that he joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the Disney+ series Moon Knight, where he’ll play the lead villain against Oscar Isaac’s protagonist. The Inside Llewyn Davis star, who effectively balances starring in mega-blockbusters and critically-acclaimed indies, is actually the reason he joined the MCU, as Hawke explained to The Ringer‘s The Watch podcast.

“A lot of it is Oscar, to me, to be honest with you. I find him to be a very exciting player in my field. I like what he’s doing with his life. He reminds me of the actors, when I first arrived at New York, that I looked up to. Oscar’s younger than me, and I like the way he carries himself, and I like the way he thinks. And in general, good things happen when you’re in the room with people that you like the way they think, right?”

I get it. Speaking as someone who saw X-Men: Apocalypse more than once, I’d do anything for Oscar Isaac, too. Moon Knight is expected to premiere in 2022.

(Via The Ringer and Slashfilm)