Month: March 2021

(Spoilers for Amazon Prime and Robert Kirkman’s Invincible will be found below.)

Amazon Prime’s Invincible debuted its first three episodes over the weekend. They were a huge hit with viewers and critics alike, as the series currently stands at 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (and 99 percent from audiences). The series hits that sweet spot between The Boys and Peter Parker, only the series also has the ability to surprise with intensely bloody sequences that manage to be gruesomely shocking even in animated form.

One such sequence comes at the end of the premiere episode of Invincible. In the episode, teenage Mark Grayson comes into the superpowers he inherited from his father, Omni-Man, an alien born on the planet Viltrum. Omni-Man himself is a beloved superhero and works with the Guardians of the Globe, an Avengers-like team of superheroes. Omni-Man seems like an honorable superhero and a good father to Mark, at least until the blood-soaked twist in the end in which Omni-Man brutally, violently murders the members of the Guardians of the Globe.

Why? That remains unclear, and for those who don’t know Robert Kirkman’s source material, it’s not even clear if Omni-Man knows himself. “Yeah, that’s by design,” Robert Kirkman told The Wrap. “There should be a little bit of mystery to that. Why did he do it? Was he being controlled? Is this something that he was aware that he was doing at the time? What purpose could killing these heroes actually serve? These are all questions that you should be asking yourself.”

Interestingly, however, that big twist comes later in the comics run, but Kirkman decided to move it up into the premiere episode for the animated series. It ends up being a huge stunner not just for casual viewers, but even among those who know the source material. Kirkman told The Wrap that he moved the twist up to create some early tension in the series.

“By moving that event up– in the comic book series, it happens much later and there isn’t this sense of, ‘Oh my gosh, when are people going to find out? And what are they going to do when they find out?’ Because everything just kind of rolls from there,” Kirkman told TheWrap. “By having it move up, we do get an extra sense of like, ‘Oh my gosh, Debbie [Omni-Man’s wife, voiced by Sandra Oh] has no clue what’s going on with her husband. And how is she going to find out, if she finds out or when she finds out?’”

The big twist also got viewers invested in the series very early on, and if Kirkman’s intent was to shock viewers and leave them talking, It was definitely a case of job well done!

So far, none of the other characters on the series are aware that Omni-Man is behind the massacre of the Guardians of the Globe. Who finds out and when is just another of the early ongoing mysteries. “I think that’s kind of the ticking clock of the series is, who is going to find out and when and what they are going to do with that information?” Kirkman told The Wrap.

When that ticking clock explodes, Invincible may just have another twist on its hands.

I don’t think that anyone is under any illusions about what the six Season 10 The Walking Dead episodes represent. They provide a chance to develop some characters and fill in some gaps in our knowledge, but they mostly exist as a bridge to Season 11. They are designed to give us something between where the original Season 10 should have ended back in April of 2020 and the Season 11 premiere, scheduled for this summer.

The first five of the bonus eps mostly been strong character-driven stories (although I did not love the Princess episode, “Splinter.”). Aside from reintroducing Maggie to the series (and establishing the continuing tension between Negan and Maggie), the series hasn’t pushed the story that far forward, except in one very important way.

What we saw in the first bonus episode — aside from the introduction of The Reapers — was an earnest attempt by the community to rebuild Alexandria after the events of the Whisperer War. In Episode 3, before their encounter with the twin brothers played by Robert Patrick, Aaron and Gabriel spent the entire episode searching for food and supplies. That, too, was the intended goal of Carol and Daryl in the second episode back and this week’s fifth episode, in which Carol and Daryl separated as they continued to search for supplies, only to come up largely empty.

Carol, meanwhile, returned to Alexandria only to learn that, in addition to the community’s rat problem, there is little to no food. Carol and Daryl have apparently also killed all the available wild animals in the area, and the crops aren’t exactly producing, either. Add to that the fact that the solar panels aren’t even working anymore, so they’re little to no power in Alexandria.

The Kingdom has fallen. The Hilltop has been destroyed, and now, Alexandria is clearly on its last legs. Carol at this point is trying to make stone soup with what looks like weeds she found outside the gates. It’s clear that Alexandria is dying, which is a big deal! The community was introduced way back in the fifth season, and it existed off-camera much farther back than that. It’s been home base for The Walking Dead for half the series now.

Unfortunately, what these bonus episodes are clearly telling us is that it’s time to leave Alexandria and find another community. That other community, The Commonwealth, is led by the people who took Princess hostage in last week’s episode. They may not seem like ideal allies for the Alexandrians, but as we are increasingly seeing in these bonus episodes, Carol, Daryl, Negan, and Maggie may not have much choice except to relocate to The Commonwealth because –despite Jerry’s obvious gardening skills — there’s not much left in Alexandria for these characters anymore. Alexandria has been around longer than most of these characters at this point, but it’s clear it will meet the same fate as so many characters and communities before it.

AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ airs on Sunday nights.

No. 2 Alabama entered Sunday as a healthy favorite against No. 11 UCLA in the Sweet 16, as the Tide had been on fire through two rounds of the tournament, lighting up opponents from three-point range.

However, it was UCLA that caught fire early, taking a 40-29 lead into halftime, but the Tide steadily climbed back into the game behind some sensational defense and timely bucket getting. Still, down the stretch they couldn’t take control in large part due to dismal shooting from both the three-point line and the free throw line. The Tide were 6-of-22 from three-point land and an almost impossibly bad 11-of-23 from the charity stripe in regulation, with 75 percent free throw shooter Herb Jones going 2-of-7 from the stripe, including a 1-of-4 spell in the final minute of the game.

As such, UCLA was able to take a 65-62 lead with just under five seconds to play. Then, March happened.

For some reason, despite being sub-50 percent from the line on the game, UCLA chose not to foul up three and allowed the Tide to get the ball in cleanly to Jahvon Quinerly, who found Alex Reese open 30 feet from the basket. Naturally, even on an awful shooting night for Alabama, Reese found nothing but net.

That shot sent Hinkle Fieldhouse into a frenzy, but in overtime, the Bruins took control early thanks to some clutch buckets from Jaime Jaquez and the continued cold shooting from Alabama.

Nate Oats had Alabama foul all the way to the bitter end, allowing UCLA to run it up to an 88-78 win, sending the Tide out and advancing to the Elite 8 where they will face No. 1 Michigan, as they look to continue their stunning run through the tournament.

On Friday, a strange thing happened on social media: Amazon started a Twitter war with Elizabeth Warren. The Amazon News account went from delivering, well, the news to getting snarky with the Massachusetts senator (and Ballers superfan), who’s long been a fierce critic of corporations who avoid paying their full taxes and treat their employees poorly. It was very surreal, and the reason it happened is because Jeff Bezos, the unimaginably wealthy owner of the ever-swelling commerce giant, was mad.

As per Vox’s Recode, Bezos had recently expressed dissatisfaction that company officials weren’t pushing back against company criticisms. The message he gave them was to start fighting back. And so, as the weekend loomed, bystanders watched as one of the world’s biggest companies got snippy with a lawmaker.

Some found it surreal that one of Amazon’s social media accounts was taking some argumentative tips from GOP leaders.

And, according to Recode, it came from the top — not from Bezos personally but on his general authority. The snippy back-and-forths, which spread over several tweets, come as the company is awaiting the results of the largest union election in history, at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. Should they vote to unionize, it could start off a chain of events that could spread to such warehouses nationwide. And Amazon execs do not like when their employees even attempt to unionize, such as a case in 2014 in which a vote in a Delaware warehouse ended without a vote to unionize.

The Amazon News account wasn’t the only bit of tetchy Twitter business out of Amazon. Exec Dave Clark went after Bernie Sanders, another Amazon critic. “I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers,” Clark wrote, “but that’s not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace.”

When Wisconsin Representative Mark Pocan went after Clark, calling them out for union-busting and over workers who’ve who’s claimed some have to pee in water bottles during demanding shifts, he awakened the Amazon News kraken.

“You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you?” the Amazon News account retorted. “If that were true, nobody would work for us.” They soon went after Warren, too,

Though the pugilistic tone may have originated at the top, it’s not clear who, exactly, was writing the Amazon News tweets. Some rank-and-file employees expressed dismay at the tweets, even putting in an internal ticket to check on possible suspicious activity, saying that the punchy tweets “do not match the usual content posted by this account.” It was also discovered that said tweets were made over a web app rather than Sprinklr, the social media software that usually generates content. Alas, the ticket was mysteriously closed without resolution.

(Via Recode)

Lil Nas X has had a big weekend. First he dropped his new single, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” alongside a barn-burning video, which climaxes with him seducing Satan before snapping his neck and taking his horns. But there was more: He was teaming with the viral company MSCHF to create a line of Nike Air Max 97s that have been dubbed “Satan Shoes” — not only due to their crimson design but because, well, they also contain a drop of blood in them. The shoes have drawn a mixed response. One of the naysayers? Nike itself.

As per The New York Times, the shoe giant put out a statement distancing themselves from the shoe and from the young rapper himself. “We do not have a relationship with Little Nas X or MSCHF,” the statement read. “Nike did not design or release these shoes, and we do not endorse them.”

Though the Consumer Product Safety Commission has yet to weigh in on the line’s legal issues, MSCHF appears to be rolling full steam ahead anyway, with a limited number of the redesigned shoe — 666, of course — being sold for the high, high cost of $1,018.

As for the blood, it’s just a drop, mixed in with the ink that comprises the shoe’s air bubble. And where did it come from? From the MSCHF’s small staff, who each contributed enough to fill the large-ish order. (When asked who procured the blood, one of MSCHF’s founders, Daniel Greenberg told the Times, “Uhhhhhh yeah hahah not medical professionals we did it ourselves lol.”)

As for Lil Nas X, he responded to the controversy with a sarcastic video, in which he begins to apologize for helping create “Satan Shoes,” only for it to abruptly segue into the climax of his new video, right when he’s begun to gyrate in the Devil’s lap.

(Via The New York Times)

Eric Trump doesn’t get the attention Don Jr. and Ivanka attract on the regular, though not for lack of trying. He doesn’t have the, uh, magnetism of his older brother, nor does he try to pretend he’s a normal person, like his oldest sister. Eric is just…there. So when he makes the occasional Fox News appearance, as he did on Sunday — the same weekend his father was making a fool of himself by ranting at a Mar-a-Lago wedding — it tends to be a combination of ridiculous and underwhelming.

Eric spent his Sunday yapping on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with host Maria Bartiromo, one of the network’s most fervidly pro-Trump hosts. He wasn’t there to talk about himself. He was there to talk about his father. And he spun a tale so tall that it’s even ludicrous by the standards of Trump nonsense: That his famously distracted dad, who liked to post for unconvincing photo opps of him signing papers and whatnot, was some kind of hard worker.

“I don’t even know where to begin. It’s heartbreaking to us,” Eric told Bartiromo. “I saw how much time and effort my father put into the job.” Sure, his dad was pretty much always “on the clock.” But he was usually rage-tweeting or holding bizarre pressers aside helicopters. The actual gruntwork seemed to be few and far between.

Eric also said “my father” a lot.

Others pointed out that Eric Trump is not exactly a great get, even for Maria Bartiromo.

Others did think Eric loomed large over his more popular siblings: He’s done some truly bad stuff.

Eric also made a couple whoppers. One of them was that his father had “fixed” the problem of immigration, which has seen a surge since the inauguration of Joe Biden. “They’ll leave a 30-yard gap where people are pouring in. I mean, I just don’t understand it. My father had fixed this problem,” Eric said. “Illegal immigration was not a problem anymore. That’s the most humane form of immigration where you don’t have people making this dangerous trek, and literally it shows you what bad policy can do to a country.”

Eric, of course, didn’t mention some of the, let’s say, not exactly perfect issues that cropped up around this issue when his father was in power.

You probably know this by now, but there’s a really big boat stuck in the Suez Canal in Egypt. It’s a really important waterway, and on Tuesday a boat called Ever Given got its 220,000-ton self wedged into the side of the canal, effectively blocking anything from getting past it. The plight of the big boat has made for a lot of memes, and video games have been no exception to that trend. Like this SimCity reference, which is outstanding.

And while it’s a serious issue that will cause real harm in the world, perhaps the reason so many have gravitated toward making memes out of this moment because it’s an international crisis that’s understandable to basically anyone who sees a picture of the boat. Unlike an invisible pandemic killing 500,000 Americans or a financial crisis started by complex credit swaps, a big boat blocking the path of other boats is pretty easy to grasp by comparison. There’s some comfort in that, even if it is a worrying situation likely to cause chaos for weeks on end.

But while others try to solve that, someone put the boat stuck in the canal in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Matt Velloso spotted on TikTok a Microsoft Flight Simulator mod that put the Ever Given into the very realistic-looking Flight Simulator, which apparently uses Microsofts Bing mapping tools to create very lifelike locales.

The visual is just from a user mod, so it’s not really clogging up virtual shipping channels in the rest of the game’s larger universe. But it’s an impressive feat that looks basically like all the other images we’ve seen of the stuck boat in real life. Hopefully the memes will subside and this vessel will become unstuck and everyone can go on with their lives very soon. Until then, expect to see a lot more about this boat as they try to get it out of the way using every possible method they can muster.

[via The Verge]

We’re coming in on three months since Donald J. Trump was booted from much of social media, including a lifetime ban from his favorite spot, Twitter. We still hear from him time and again. He’ll call into Fox News. He’ll send out “press releases” that are essentially a tweet or two. And now it looks like he’s fallen so far from grace that he’ll rant incoherently during wedding toasts.

TMZ procured a video of the 45th U.S. president getting on a mic to wish the best to a pair of newlyweds who decided to hold their big day at Mar-a-Lago, his resort home and what was considered until earlier this year the “Southern White House.” Except he didn’t have a lot to say about the happy couple. He just used it as a chance to ramble and moan about his successor, current president Joe Biden, and to re-air some more election 2020 nonsense.

Trump treated a room of revelers — in a place that had a COVID-19 outbreak just last weekend — like they were rally attendees, there to listen to whatever was on his mind. So what was on his mind? China, of course. He talked about Iran sanctions. And the border. “The border’s not good, the border’s the worst anyone has ever seen it,” he told people present to celebrate a marriage. “Look, it’s a disaster. It’s a humanitarian disaster from their standpoint, and it’s going to destroy the country.”

After bringing the party way down with gloomy predictions, Trump then asked the crowd, “Do you miss me yet?” Then he talked about getting 75 millions votes, which is still a smaller number than 81 million acquired by his rival, and the “strange thing” of absentee ballots, most of them for Biden, finally being counted at night.

A part of Trump’s brain belatedly remembered that he was speaking at a wedding, and he took a sharp pivot to briefly wish the newlyweds the best. Who knows what the two thought about a failed incumbent prattling on for two minutes about how their future is doomed, but lucky for us, one guest had the foresight to record the whole thing, so we can all see how the big guy is doing in retirement.

You can watch the full video above.

(Via TMZ)

For much of 2020, the album charts have been ruled by Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album. After its release in January, the album spent its first ten weeks at No. 1, a feat that no other album accomplished in music history. Unfortunately, all streaks come to an end and Wallen’s album was knocked out of the top position by Justin Bieber’s Justice.

Bieber’s return to No. 1 on the album charts is backed by 154,000 units sold, comprised of 119,000 streaming equivalent album units and 30,000 pure album sales. The singer is now the youngest solo act with eight No. 1 albums, at the age of just 27 years and one month. Elvis Presley previously held this record after his album Roustabout topped the charts when he was just 29 years and 11 months old. The youngest act overall with eight chart-topping albums is still The Beatles, whose 1965 album, Yesterday And Today, went No. 1 when all four members of the band were less than 26 years old.

Elsewhere, Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over The Country Club arrived at No. 2 on the chart. This is the first time in nearly three months that the top two albums on the Billboard 200 are both debuts.

Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe) is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

The last week and a half has seen yet another brutal round of mass shootings, from the killings at three spas in the Atlanta area to the massacre at a gas station in Boulder, Colorado. There have been dozens of such shootings in the last five years alone, and each time they occur, there’s renewed talk about passing gun control legislation…which invariably gets severe pushback from conservative circles, whose argument is to once again do nothing.

One of those out to take down gun control legislation is Lindsey Graham, long one of the GOP’s brightest lights, and now one of disgraced former president Donald Trump’s still-ardent supporters. The senator from South Carolina went on Fox News, where Chris Wallace grilled him on a number of issues, including to get assault weapons out of the hands of citizens who use them to commit mass murder. Graham wasn’t having that, and he painted a grim portrait of what would happen if Senate Democrats attempted to change gun laws.

“I would challenge Senator Schumer to bring the assault weapons ban to the floor of the United States Senate. It won’t get 50 votes, much less 60,” Graham told Wallace. He then launched into a volent fantasy. “I own an AR-15. If there’s a natural disaster in South Carolina where the cops can’t protect my neighborhood, my house will be the last one that the gang will come to, because I can defend myself.”

Graham then fell back on another common GOP line: that it’s not about wide access to assault weapons that is causing more mass shootings than in any other developed nation, but that it was really about “mental health.”

It wasn’t long before a lot of people on social media were dragging Graham for retreating into violent fantasy rather than trying to make reality more safe.

Others pointed out that his idea, of shooting roving gangs with an AR-15, is kind of selfish.

In fact, maybe there’s already a natural disaster plaguing South Carolina.

Graham did clear one perilously low bar, though: He agreed that the sweeping bill passed by Republican in Georgia last week — the one that seeks to make voting more difficult — had one detail that in particularly seemed needlessly cruel. That would be making it illegal to give food and water to people standing in long lines while voting, which would be even longer in part because of this new bill. “Well, all I can say is that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me,” Graham told Wallace.

Speaking of Georgia, though, Graham has yet to be punished for illegally attempting to get rid of some Biden votes in the state.