Month: March 2021

Keith Olbermann has a recurring segment on his YouTube channel — a holdover from his old MSNBC show — called “The Worst Person In The World.” The former-MSNBC commenter lived up to that billing on Monday, sharing the title with Greg Abbott. The Texas governor has declared that now is the “time to open Texas 100 percent,” despite the second most populated state in the United States recording 6,000 new cases of the coronavirus yesterday, along with 271 deaths. “With the medical advancements of vaccines and antibody therapeutic drugs, Texas now has the tools to protect Texans from the virus,” Abbott said. “We must now do more to restore livelihoods and normalcy for Texans by opening Texas 100 percent.”

In response to the governor’s executive order, Olbermann fired off an all-time bad take:

“Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus?” he wrote. For one thing, not every Texas resident (5.2 million of whom did not vote for Trump in the 2020 election) agrees with Abbott — a recent study found that “88 percent of Texas voters said they’re wearing masks when in close contact with people outside of their households. That group includes 98 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans.” So even with the governor ending the mask mandate, many Texans (myself included) will continue to wear a mask in public. Also, by tweeting that the government is “wasting vaccinations on Texas,” Olbermann is basically calling for people to needlessly die. Even if it’s a joke, it sucks. Or as one reply put it, “I am once again asking you all to stop wishing death on an entire state due to the way it votes.” I’ll say this much about Olbermann, though: he found a way to unite Democrats and Republicans. Both sides took turns ripping his tweet to shreds.

And the most damning tweet of all:

By now, you’ve probably seen those uncanny Tom Cruise deep fake videos that are awash on TikTok. In the vids, Not-Cruise affable things like playing golf, doing magical stuff, and tripping, which is how you know it’s not really Tom Cruise. No harm is done in those videos other than to show everyone how nefarious deep fake videos can be, and how they can ultimately be used to erode public trust, spread propaganda, and all sorts of other terrible things. GOP Senator Marco Rubio wants everyone to know that he told us so, and we should have listened to him three years ago when he warned that deep fakes can harm U.S. national security.

Of course, Rubio (who is very anti-China) blamed China for wielding TikTok as a “spy platform,” even if he did have a point about the harmful potential of deep fakes: “Incredibly realistic fake #TomCruise videos on China’s spy platform #TikTok a reminder that soon #deepfakes will be weaponized to destabilize countries by spreading disinformation, impacting elections & inspiring violence.”

It’s worth noting that Rubio had a very busy day. After warning us about the spread of disinformation, he visited with Sean Hannity to help spread disinformation (via a conspiracy theory) about Joe Biden’s health.

“He looks weak, frail, and obviously he’s struggling cognitively,” declared Hannity. “Senator, if you disagree, tell me I’m wrong.”

Rubio did not tell Hannity that he was wrong. “Well, I’ll tell you what else it reveals, it reveals the hypocrisy,” replied the senator from Florida. “I remember Rick Perry was torn apart and mocked by the press because he couldn’t remember something in a debate. I myself was torn apart in a debate because I repeated the same thing three times. It’s just a complete double standard.”

Rubio’s day was complete with him complaining about Dr. Seuss books being “cancelled.” He must be exhausted.

A few months ago, Ben Gibbard, Jenny Lewis, and Jimmy Tamborello got fans excited as they teased what was looking like a return for The Postal Service. It turned out the trio just reunited to make a video to help encourage voting and no new music was on the way. In fact, the way the Death Cab For Cutie leader sees it, it’s more likely that there won’t ever be more new material from The Postal Service.

Gibbard spoke about the band’s future with NME, saying that the circumstances were perfect for the band’s one album, Give Up, to come together, and that he just doesn’t think a second album is going to happen:

“I love Jimmy and Jenny so much, but the dream or idea of doing more music kind of died when we attempted to make the second record in 2004 and 2005. I was writing for [Postal Service’s] Give Up and [Death Cab For Cutie’s] Transatlanticism at the same time in 2001 and 2002. The Postal Service obviously didn’t exist at that point, but Death Cab wasn’t touring a lot — we were still very self-contained as just four of us in a van with a merch person. The workload and expectations weren’t anything like what they became later so I had so much free time to have these things going at the same time.

Being 26 and cocky enough to think, ‘Oh, this is fine — I’ll just do five records at the same time,’ means you have a lot more runway in front of you creatively. Give Up was put together so relatively effortlessly that there weren’t a lot of second thoughts and it flowed so naturally. When we started working on a second record, it became very obvious that this was going to be very difficult to find the time to follow up a record that had had such an unexpected moment. Plus, Death Cab was touring for nine or ten months of the year, so there was just no way to give the time to both.

You want to never say never, but no one should be holding their breath waiting for Postal Service music coming any time soon. We haven’t worked on anything. We stay in touch as friends, but that’s kind of the extent of it.”

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

Tuesday night’s late game on TNT was supposed to be a battle between two of the best teams in the Western Conference, as the ascendent Phoenix Suns traveled to Los Angeles to take on the defending champion Lakers. But fortunately for all zero people who tune into basketball games to watch the referees, Devin Booker got ejected in the third quarter of a tight contest for no particular reason.

With 7:10 left in the third, Deandre Ayton was called for a foul against LeBron James. It didn’t look to be a particularly great call, but we’ve certainly seen more egregious ones in the history of basketball. Still, Booker opted to stand up for his teammate, and apparently, he said something that one official did not like, which led to a technical foul.

After Booker got frustrated because of [see end of last sentence], he threw a bounce pass with slightly more power behind it than usual to a second referee. Then, a third referee stepped in, called another tech, and sent the All-Star to the locker room early.

This isn’t even a “Booker crossed the line and got booted” sort of thing, it legitimately comes off like the referees were unhappy he didn’t totally respect their authority and he got tossed as a result. At the time of his ejection, Booker had 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting with six assists, three rebounds, and three steals. But unfortunately, he, like the rest of us, will watch the remainder of the game, with the very obvious difference between Devin Booker and folks like us being that he should be playing in it.

Conservative media has spent much of the last week either letting Donald Trump go back to spreading dangerous lies about voter fraud or getting angry over Muppets. And Mr. Potato Head. And now Dr. Seuss. Don Jr. has already had his share of apoplectic fits about most of these matters, and on Tuesday it was Tomi Lahren’s turn. The Fox News host had a bone to pick with what the right has deemed “cancel culture,” and she had an idea on how to fight it: more canceling.

Fox News devoted much of Tuesday to spittle over Dr. Seuss Enterprising personally yanking six of their books from publication due to racist imagery. It wasn’t the result of some targeting progressive campaign; the organization decided to remove them from the marketplace themselves. Mr. Theodor Geisel wrote over 60 books, and it’s unlikely even die hard Seussfiles will miss such deep cut titles as McElligott’s Pool, If I Ran the Zoo, and On Beyond Zebra!, all of which will still exist in some form.

But none of that stopped Fox News personalities from going full culture war. Lahren appeared on one amped-up panel, warning that the left is “going to cancel everyone.” But she had a solution: do the very thing they’re accusing the left of doing, which they might not be doing in the first place.

“It’s time we start fighting back,” Lahren fumed. “It’s time we start canceling the companies that cancel other people, that cancel other ideas and say, ‘Hey listen, we don’t like how radical you’re being with your cancel culture so we’re not going to shop there.’”

She then added, “It’s time that we join together in numbers like the way the cancel culture mob has done so and fight back!”

It’s an interesting ploy, this idea of doing the thing you allegedly abhor. Alas, it’s already something the right has been doing, and for decades. Parker Molloy, of Media Matters for America, was quick to point out the long list of organizations the right has already tried to boycott, or “cancel,” in the past and/or the present.

In other words, Lahren’s cunning plan is already in full swing, and has been for some time. That was easy.

In the meantime, contrary to what Fox News says, you can head to Disney+ and watch the vast majority of The Muppet Show, a handful of whose episodes come with warnings about objectionable content the streamer decided it was best not to censor. While the GOP is busy ranting and raving, you can spend your time falling back in love with Rowlf.

(Via The Daily Beast)

JJ Watt’s free agency was a hot topic in NFL circles after word broke that he was parting ways with the Houston Texans. After all, Watt is a five-time All-Pro and three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and that type of player isn’t available very often. From there, Watt clearly weighed his options before eventually settling on the Arizona Cardinals, joining an interesting team headlined by a former No. 1 overall pick at quarterback in Kyler Murray.

As you may expect, Murray welcomed Watt to town with a Twitter post, hearkening back to six years ago with a photo from when Murray was still in high school.

Also in the photo was Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns, who was a No. 1 overall pick in his own right. While Towns is currently under contract as the centerpiece of the Minnesota Timberwolves, that didn’t stop Watt from replying and, well, tampering to try to get Towns to Phoenix.

Obviously, it’s not really tampering since Watt isn’t involved in the NBA, but that isn’t quite as fun. The Suns are locked and loaded right now with a top-four mark in the Western Conference and, by proxy, it’s not as if they need Towns desperately. At the same time, it would be fun to watch Towns re-join his college teammate in Devin Booker and perhaps JJ Watt can make this happen through back channels.

Though it was directed and written by white people, Coming to America is one of the most thoroughly black Hollywood blockbusters of the late ‘80s. Star Eddie Murphy (who’s also credited with the story) wasn’t paired with a Nick Nolte or Dan Aykroyd; he wasn’t followed around by Judge Reinhold and John Ashton. Instead just about every major and minor character is black. One notable exception is Louie Anderson — but, as Murphy and costar Arsenio Hall recently revealed while promoting its belated sequel, he was only in it because the studio thought it didn’t have enough white people.

Mind you, Murphy and Hall weren’t complaining that they had to work with Louie Anderson, who played the small but very funny role as Maurice, a coworker at the McDonald’s competitor McDowell’s. Quite the contrary. “I love Louie, but I think we were forced to put Louie in it,” Hall revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “We were forced to put a white person.”

“[T]he whole cast is Black — and this was back in the ‘80s — so [Paramount] was like, ‘We have to have a white person! There has to be a white person in the movie,’” Murphy added. “So it was, ‘Who’s the funniest white guy around?’ And Louie, we knew him. We was cool with him. So that’s how Louie got in the movie.”

Anderson was one of three white options Paramount gave them, who Hall said asked them, “Who would you rather work with?” When Kimmel asked him if he could remember the other two, Hall replied, “Oh, yeah. But I can’t say.”

Murphy actually told the story during an earlier press appearance, which prompted Anderson — who reprises his role in 2 — to reply with what seemed like mock surprise.

For the record, Anderson isn’t the only white person with a key role in the original Coming to America. Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy reprised their roles as scheming wealth monsters Mortimer and Randolph Duke from one of Murphy’s first hits, Trading Places.

You can watch the full Kimmel-Murphy-Hall interview in the video above. Coming 2 America hits Amazon Prime on March 5.

(Via The Los Angeles Times)

The 2021 NBA All-Star Saturday night festivities won’t happen on Saturday night at all. Unlike previous years, in which the All-Star Game had Sunday evening all to itself, the inherent nature of trying to put on a gigantic event during a global pandemic means the league is condensing everything into one evening of events.

As a result, the Skills Challenge and Three-Point Contest will take place before things tip off in Atlanta on March 7, while the Dunk Contest will serve as halftime entertainment. While some of the names of the participants have already leaked, here are all of the players who will make up the three events this year:

Skills Challenge

Robert Covington, Portland Trail Blazers
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
Chris Paul, Phoenix Suns
Julius Randle, New York Knicks
Domantas Sabonis, Indiana Pacers
Nikola Vucevic, Orlando Magic

Three-Point Contest

Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors
Zach LaVine, Chicago Bulls
Donovan Mitchell, Utah Jazz
Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

Dunk Contest

Anfernee Simons, Portland Trail Blazers
Cassius Stanley, Indiana Pacers
Obi Toppin, New York Knicks

The Dunk Contest lacks the big names of years past — although all three dudes are high flyers who can put on a show — while the Three-Point and Skills Challenge participants are some of the biggest names in the league. The pregame festivities are slated to begin at 6:30 p.m. EST, while the All-Star Game is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. EST on TNT.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, the NBA All-Star Game is still a go for this coming weekend, and scores of players, coaches, and team personnel will head to Atlanta to participate in an abbreviated version of the annual festivities that will attempt to fit several events into a single night.

As part of the scaled-down schedule, the events that are usually part of the All-Star Saturday night extravaganza will take place during halftime of the game itself, with the three-point contest and slam dunk competition now filling out their respective fields of contestants.

We got a bit more clarity on the dunk contest participants on Tuesday, starting with the rather disappointing news that Zion Williamson won’t be competing in the showcase that is set to feature Cassius Stanley, Anfernee Simons, and Obi Toppin. And it appears Zion wasn’t the only one who declined his invite. Lakers fan favorite Alex Caruso also reportedly opted against joining the field in Atlanta.

Lakers guard Alex Caruso was among the players who declined a spot in the slam dunk contest, sources tell @TheAthletic. https://t.co/i4Quq5lg56

— Bill Oram (@billoram) March 2, 2021

Caruso has put his explosive athleticism on display at various point over the past couple of seasons in L.A., endearing himself to fans around the league. But according to the report, Caruso indicated that the shortened offseason may have played a factor in him deciding to take the opportunity to rest.

Time was New York City got every movie first. If you paid the astronomical rents in America’s largest city, one of many trade-offs was you got to see not only independent/art-house titles before everyone else, but occasionally even big blockbusters as well. That all changed about a year ago. There’s been a sometimes out-of-control pandemic since last March — which is still not over, mind you — and movie theaters have been shuttered across town ever since. Most (but not all) of them are re-opening this Friday, and that means New Yorkers are getting Tenet after just about everyone else.

When the latest headscratcher from Christopher Nolan opened in late August, it was supposed to be blockbuster multiplex movies’ big comeback. It wasn’t. The theaters that were open across the nation were operating at limited capacity. Even then they had trouble attracting moviegoers, who were afraid to contracting a highly contagious disease, and the movie — which, in another timeline, could have been another freak Nolan money-gobbler — limped to a mere $57.9 million. (It “only” managed $363.1 million globally, too, which isn’t great considering its pricetag is allegedly somewhere around $200 mil.)

Will Tenet’s belated New York City release save it? Who knows? Theaters in NYC are only operating at 25% capacity, and a good chunk of the town’s denizens are surely still wary of going into indoor public spaces, especially considering the poor roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine. They could also be worried about infecting not only other patrons but also theater employees, who were called back into work with under two weeks’ notice. But perhaps if Tenet is kept in theaters for months, if not a year or two, then maybe it’ll turn the kind of profit to which Christopher Nolan has grown accustomed.

(Via Deadline)