Month: March 2021

Recent trends in the craft brewing world seem to signal two paths, each leading in completely different directions. The first path began with the West Coast IPA and has slowly wound its way into the world of New England-style IPAs, milkshake IPAs, and fruit-filled, tangy sour beers. These over-the-top, ingredients-packed brews appeal to one segment of the beer-drinking population. The other path — which originated with classic, European-style lagers and pilsners — has led to a resurgence of crisp, bright, easy-drinking, minimal ingredient craft brews.

There’s a place for both types of beer, as you can quickly tell when visiting any craft brewery or perusing the aisles of your local beer store. But while we enjoy a hazy, juicy IPA most any time of year and we’re definitely champions of the tart, tangy fruit-forward goses, today we want to celebrate the perfection that is the crisp, light, thirst-quenching, easy to drink pilsner.

Below, you’ll find ten of our favorite pilsners to capture the feel of spring. Of course, there’s never a wrong time to enjoy a classic, subtle, full-bodied pilsner, either. So feel free to carry these picks on to Summer, too.

Victory Prima Pils

ABV: 5.3%

Average Price: $8.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

If you didn’t know it, “prima!” is a German exclamation. This beer is so named because taking a sip of this German-style pilsner — with its German malts and European hops — will make you very happy. It’s light, sweet, and very refreshing.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll find aromas of fresh grass, sweet malts, and slight caramel. The palate is filled with sweet corn, cereal, and subtly floral notes. The finish is subtly herbal, bright, and incredibly crisp.

Bottom Line:

While you can’t go wrong with any of the beers on this list, Victory’s flagship beer is the perfect starting point — light but filled with refreshing flavor.

Live Oak Pilz

ABV: 4.7%

Average Price: $8 for a six-pack

The Beer:

This sessionable Bohemian-style pilsner is brewed with Moravian malts and Saaz hops. The result is a complex, thirst-quenching ale highlighting a nice combination of sweet malts and subtly bitter, spicy hops.

Tasting Notes:

Take a moment to breathe in the aromas of noble hops, juicy pear, and citrus peels. With one sip you’ll be transported to a world of light grass, sweet corn, and rich grains. It all ends with a nice, subtle, spicy hop backbone that ties the brew together.

Bottom Line:

Austin is a beer-lovers dream come true and Live Oak’s Pilz is one of the best, freshest-tasting beers in the city.

Jack’s Abby Post Shift

ABV: 4.7%

Average Price: $12 for a six-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

If you’re a fan of lagers and pilsner, you’re probably already a fan of Jack’s Abby. If somehow you haven’t tried it yet, Jack’s Abby Post Shift Pilsner is brewed using only Bavarian-grown hops and malts. The result is a vibrant, easy-to-drink beer well-suited for equally crisp spring nights.

Tasting Notes:

Give this beer a good nosing and you’ll find scents of citrus zest, aromatic noble hops, and just a hint of bready malt sweetness. On the palate, you’ll find flavors of biscuit cookies, sweet malts, and corn. The final flourish is subtly bitter, with a pleasant floral hops presence.

Bottom Line:

We can’t think of a more aptly-named beer. If you’re looking for a low-ABV, post-shift brew, you can’t do any better than this offering from Jack’s Abby.

Creature Comforts Bibo

ABV: 4.9%

Average Price: $9 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Named after Albert Einstein’s parrot, this year-round offering from Athens, Georgia’s Creature Comforts is a Noble hop-based pilsner well-known for its clean, dry profile. Made in the German-style, it’s complex, classic, and full-flavored.

Tasting Notes:

This beer’s aroma is a symphony of sweet grains, toasted caramel, and floral hops. Every sip is bursting with rich malts, corn sweetness, and warm bready notes. The last gulp is gentle, subtly bitter, and filled with spicy hops.

Bottom Line:

Bibo is the kind of beer we like to drink after an afternoon in the sun, mowing the lawn, or simply sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of our yards.

Russian River STS

ABV: 5.35%

Average Price: $5.99 for a 16-ounce can

The Beer:

Russian River is one of the most well-known breweries in the craft beer world, famous for such iconic brews as Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig. But the brewery’s STS Pils (named after the 3-letter code for the Sonoma County Airport) is a favorite of ours — presenting a nice mix of classic and contemporary styles.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll find notes of sweet yeast, zesty hops, and floral aromas. The sip presents flavors of subtle piney hops, sweet cereal notes, bready malts, and caramel. The finish is pleasingly bitter and dry.

Bottom Line:

If you’ve already tried the other Russian River offerings, grab a bottle of STS. You definitely won’t regret your decision.

Drake’s Flyway Pils

ABV: 4.5%

Average Price: $10 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Drake’s Flyaway Pils is different from some of the other pilsners on the market. It’s brewed in the style popular in Northern Germany and has higher hop flavors and a very dry finish. While brewed with German pilsner malt, this beer gets extra flavor for the use of flaked maize.

Tasting Notes:

Take a moment to breathe in the aromas of floral, Noble hops, caramel corn, and subtle spice. On the palate, you’ll find hints of sweet corn, tropical fruits, and toffee. It all ends with a simple, clean, bright, and pleasantly dry finish.

Bottom Line:

If you’re looking for a different take on the classic pilsner style, make sure you find a spot in your fridge for a sixer of Drake’s Flyway Pils.

Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pils

ABV: 4.7%

Average Price: $9.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Oskar Blues set out to make a beer that was refreshing, sweet, and easy to drink without needing to use corn or rice. Instead, this Bavarian-style pilsner is brewed with pilsner and honey malt as well as Saaz and Aramis hops.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll be greeted with aromas of floral hops, sweet, bready malts, and subtle, herbal fragrances. Notes of roasted malts, fresh bread, sticky toffee, and caramel corn dominate on the palate. A nice mix of sweetness and subtle citrus hops finishes it all off with a flourish.

Bottom Line:

This is one of the most crushable, full-flavored pilsners on the market. Bonus points because you can buy it pretty much everywhere.

pFriem Pilsner

ABV: 4.9%

Average Price: $5.99 for a 500ml bottle

The Beer:

While based on the classic, Bohemian-style pilsner, this beer is full-on West Coast in flavor and appearance. Made with Gambrinus & Weyermann German Pilsner, Cara Foam, and Acidulated malts, as well as Perle, Saphir, Tettnang, and Spalt Select, this is a hoppy, fresh, vibrant pilsner that plays by its own rules.

Tasting Notes:

Spend a few moments giving this beer a good nosing and you’ll find aromas of orange peels, fresh-cut grass, and a nice, sweet, floral background. Take a few gulps and you’ll find sweet honey, rich caramel, and bready malts. The finish is crisp, refreshing, with just a hint of spice.

Bottom Line:

If you’re a fan of hoppy, floral pilsners, this is the perfect choice for you. It’s loaded with fresh, aromatic hops.

Threes Vliet

ABV: 5.2%

Average Price: $14 for a 4-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

Threes is one of the most popular, highly-rated New York City breweries. Its pilsner (Vliet) is brewed to taste like classic, German-style pilsners with its use of German Pilsner malt as well as Spalter and Saaz hops.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll be treated to scents of fresh hay, floral hops, and sweet, sugary biscuits. The taste is sweet, biscuity, and full of caramel sweetness. The finish is slight, piney, and pleasantly floral.

Bottom Line:

When it comes to authenticity, Threes has it down to a science. This might be brewed in Brooklyn, but if close your eyes and take a sip, you’ll be transported to the German countryside on a warm evening.

Firestone Walker Pivo

ABV: 5.3%

Average Price: $8.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

California’s Firestone Walker is known for its industry-changing beers. Its pilsner is no different. It gets its flavor from a cacophony of hops including Spalter Select, Tradition, Saphir, and features dry-hopping with more Saphir hops as well as Pilsner and Carafoam malts.

Tasting Notes:

Before you sip, take a moment to breathe in the aromas of floral hops, roasted malts, and spruce tips. Take a sip and you’ll find fresh cut grass, noble hops, resinous pine, and sweet cereal grains. The finish is mellow, crisp, and subtly dry.

Bottom Line:

Dry-hopping makes this one of the most floral, piney, hop-fueled pilsners on the market. It offers a great bridge for fans of IPAS.

Donald Trump is happy Twitter canceled him. No, really guys. He is. The former president called into the Newsmax, the conservative network giving him plenty of air-time lately, to let his fans know just how happy he is to no longer have access to any form of social media. A prolific tweet-er, Trump mostly focused on the deactivation of his Twitter account, a channel he used to push baseless voter fraud claims during the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s Twitter feed was also the source for some cringe-worthy retweets — like the time he shared a Mussolini quote and the countless times he retweeted things posted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

So really, we’re all better off without it but the polarizing reality TV star wants the public to know he’s especially grateful to be operating offline. Why? Because if Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey hadn’t given him the boot he would’ve never discovered the lost art of the press release. That’s right. According to Trump, he prefers sending out hard copies of his ongoing business and political ventures because — and we’re quoting him here — they’re more “elegant.”

“Frankly they’re more elegant than tweeting, as the expression goes,” Trump told Newsmax. “They’re really much more elegant. And the word is getting out.”

Yes, slapping a bare-bones letterhead on a plea for relevancy that claims you’re actually responsible for the millions of people being vaccinated under your successor’s watch is really much better than a 280 character spelling and grammar-challenged social media post. It’s true. Trump also claimed that his new routine of announcing his day-to-day happenings via press releases saved him from the “trouble” that Twitter often got him into.

“You’re retweeting people, and you find out that the retweets were not so good, because the person — if you didn’t do research — that you’re retweeting is not the best,” he said. “I like this better than Twitter, actually they did us a favor.”

Well, he’s not wrong there.

Over the past few months, Morgan Wallen has been written off by a lot of people after he was filmed using a racial slur. That includes his record label — which suspended his contract — and his peers in country music. A group of people that does not seem to include, however, are his fans. He probably lost some, but not enough to have a major commercial impact: His album, Dangerous: The Double Album, has thrived on the Billboard 200 chart, and on the latest one, it is at No. 1 for the tenth straight week and is only the third album to ever spend its first ten weeks on top.

Some other folks who seem to have Morgan’s back are the organizers of Kicker Country Stampede, a country music festival that will host its 25th-anniversary edition this year from June 24 to 26 Heartland Motorsports Park in Topeka, Kansas: They have announced that Wallen will be headlining this year’s event, which is sponsored by Bud Light. As Consequence Of Sound notes, the fest (which has a yearly average attendance of about 160,000 people) is Wallen’s first confirmed live performance since the controversial video surfaced.

Last month, a Tennessee radio station reintroduced Wallen’s music to their on-air programming after a survey of their listeners found that an overwhelming majority of them wanted the station to play Wallen.

This Saturday marks exactly one year since Dua Lipa released her shimmering, ’80s-inspired album Future Nostalgia. The singer was obviously not anticipating a global pandemic when she was readying the release of her sophomore album, but she’s made the most of this last year. Despite the unprecedented time, she has managed to stay contentiously engaged with fans by releasing a remix album and debuting the new single “We’re Good.”

Lipa recently sat down for an interview with YouTube to chat about her music. Explaining the meaning behind her “We’re Good” single, Lipa said she was inspired by the elusive idea of an amicable breakup:

“The whole story behind the song is an amicable breakup. I think a lot of people wish and hope for those, especially because they can be such a difficult process to go through that at some point, you just hope that it’s a very easy break and you can both just move on with your life.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the singer discussed how Future Nostalgia will forever remind her of the pandemic. “Having it out during the pandemic, it almost feels like, immediately when we’re out of it, the record will becoming nostalgic of this time period,” she said. “I feel like, even for me, it will always be something that will remind me of this time and it will be a very unforgettable and pivotal moment in my career as well.”

Watch Lipa talk about the inspiration behind “We’re Good” above.

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

The NBA was quiet for many weeks following the James Harden trade, but with the rumor mill heating up this week, it looks increasingly like Kyle Lowry could be had. And as Brian Windhorst reported on The Hoop Collective podcast, the sweepstakes for Lowry are seen by NBA executives as a long-term endeavor, despite his expiring contract.

“The expectation is that Kyle Lowry will have a new contract by the end of this week,” Windhorst said, reiterating what he said a GM told him recently.

That will be either an agreement to stay in Toronto, or a deal with either the Sixers or the Heat after being traded. Windhorst later offered that the new contract would not necessarily be signed right away, but it would be part of the understanding around a potential deadline deal.

Windhorst went on to posit that with the expiring contracts of Kelly Olynyk and Andre Iguodala, this could be an opportunity for the Heat to cash in on their 2021 cap space now by trading for Lowry rather than pursuing him as an unrestricted free agent. But of course that means giving up at least one young player like Kendrick Nunn, Tyler Herro or Duncan Robinson.

As Miami-based Five Reasons Sports reported, teams looking to trade for Lowry are expecting they will have to give him at least a two-year, $50 million extension after the deal, and that the Heat are willing to do so.

From the Sixers’ perspective, some of the trade details would be the same. They could trade Danny Green and Mike Scott, both on expiring contracts, as well as young assets like Matisse Thybulle and Tyrese Maxey. That’s the type of move that could put Philly over the top in the NBA title chase.

As with the Andre Iguodala deal in 2020, the chase for Lowry is increasingly shaping up to be a multiple-year discussion rather than a rest-of-season swing for the fences.

Mike Birbiglia is one of our favorite comedic storytellers — examing the goings-on in his life in a manner that balances the mundane and the existential. As we mentioned when we spoke with him at the turn of the year, Birbiglia has continued to practice his craft at a time when that isn’t so easy. Specifically, he’s been keeping busy by broadcasting stand-up shows through Nowhere Comedy Club, where he works out new material by bouncing jokes off his virtual audience.

In Birbiglia’s next batch of shows (which kick off on 3/24, with Pete Holmes as a special guest), he’ll be talking exclusively about pizza, which, to listen to him tell it, is a more natural fit than you might imagine. For one, he has a clear and deep love for the subject matter. Also, he believes that pizza unites us. After all, who doesn’t have a positive experience with or deep affection for pizza?

With Mike Birbiglia’s Worldwide Comedy Pizza Party shows starting tomorrow, we reached out to the comedian to talk, in great detail, about pizza and only pizza.

***

I did some research on this. I’m more prepared for this than I’ve been for anything in a long time.

That’s very funny.

We’re going to really get serious on the pizza questions. But I guess the first one is what prompts you to do a pizza-centric show?

Well, I’ve written about pizza in both of my movies and all of my specials. There’s at least a reference or a joke, if not multiple, to the extent where in Sleepwalk With Me, we created an actual pizza pillow that was made of pizza. And Jessi Klein, in character, wraps it around my neck, and then I eat it, and then she sprays tomato sauce on me. It’s on the brain, let’s just say.

It’s just something that I’ve written about since the dawn of being interested in comedy. So in the pandemic, I’ve been writing a comedy special about pizza. I had this idea of doing a comedy special where every joke is about pizza. And ultimately the whole thing would be an ad for local pizza. Because my joke about… you see a lot of TV commercials for pizza, but there are no ads for good pizza, there are only ads for “pizza.” Good pizza’s confident in their work, they’re like, “People will find us.” And bad pizza is like, “We’ll do anything. We’ll hire a mascot. We’ll stay open till 3:00 AM. You can stuff pizza inside our pizza.” I say, “There are no ads for Paris, but there are ads for New Hampshire.” When I think about the pizza special, and then the pizza virtual, which is sort of me testing out material for what will become the special, I think of the whole thing as an ad for local pizza.

Obviously, you’re a man of the world. Is there a specific kind of pizza that you prefer? Do you have opinions on deep dish, New York versus… What’s the preference?

I’m pretty open. For example, some people are real New York purists, and then they’ll diss Chicago pizza. I don’t like some Chicago pizza, but, for example, I love Lou Malnati’s in Chicago. And so I don’t know, I’m not willing to write off the genre. And then New Haven has this pizza row of famous pizzerias. I’ve been to four of them, and they’re great. I feel like the only region that has to put a little bit more hustle in their game on the pizza front is California — because all they’ve given us really is California Pizza Kitchen, which is not something to be proud of. But they do have some contenders.

Have you attempted to make your own pizza?

Yeah. Not with that much success. I think any pizza is good pizza to some degree because the fundamental ingredients are bread and tomato sauce and cheese, and so it’s a winning team just based on the lineup. And so even if you fail at it, it’s not really failing, it’s still a pretty good meal.

Do pizza bagels and pizza rolls live in the pizza family, or are they a complete bastardization of the concept?

It’s very controversial. Pizza rolls, I don’t even know really what that is exactly.

It’s basically like an egg roll, but it’s pizza instead.

Oh gosh, I don’t count that. I don’t even know why I don’t count that, but I don’t count it. But pizza bagels are so much a part of my childhood, so I don’t think I can let that go.

Have you ever used the term ‘za?

[Laughs] No, I don’t like the term ‘za. I’m very against the abbreviation ‘za. I just think pizza is a great short word on its own, pizza, pizza, pizza. It’s just got a punch to it, like pizza, pizza, pizza. So, if you go za, it’s almost like the breath that you took to lead into the ‘za took as much energy as it would have to taken to just say pi. It just feels like you’re trying too hard if you’re calling something ‘za.

Do you prefer pizza in a parlor or at home?

Oh, that’s a phenomenal question. It depends on the parlor, because you look at somewhere like Arturo’s in New York, or John’s Pizza in New York… The parlor is part of the experience. You’re surrounded by the ghosts of pizza in the parlor, the ghosts of positive experiences, and the smells and tastes are infused in the walls, and you’re surrounded by people who are enjoying the pizza at the same time. So it’s almost like watching a movie in a theater.

So, in that sense, yes. But I do think there are instances where the parlor itself is just not clean enough and enjoyable enough to sit in for it to augment the experience.

That’s all very true, and I absolutely respect that answer. However, my issue with that is when I order pizza in a parlor, I lack the discipline to let it sit. So, I always wind up burning my mouth. Also, to me, the window between when you place an order and they deliver it or when you pick something up and bring it home… the cheese has a chance to harden.

You’re 100% correct.

So, the taste to me is always better at home. But yes, the experience, you’re absolutely right. But I think it’s more of a lack of discipline on my part to not let it sit for 10 minutes.

Right. But pizza at home, you run the risk of if you hit traffic or this or that, you’re potentially looking at a really lukewarm pizza by the time it hits your mouth.

This is very true. But again, it’s the discipline, I think, that is the key to the perfect pizza experience, I guess. How much pizza can you eat? What’s your ceiling?

[Laughs] It’s funny because I have a chapter in my book, The New One, which is called A Slice of Life. It’s all about how I used to look at a pizza and only be able to view it as a single serving, which it isn’t. And I would eat a whole large pizza with some regularity, once a week, once every few weeks. And I had some bad medical exams where I realized that pizza, for me, if I was going to continue eating it, it was going to have to be something that I eat one slice or two slices, or at most three slices. And so, that’s where I’m at these days.

You know it’s not good when you’re proud of yourself for things you shouldn’t be proud of, that people would just do normally. But I’m very proud of myself for being down to three slices now that I’m in my 30s.

It’s significant.

It seems like the answer is obvious, but do you eat crust first or end first?

As a matter of fact, my brother, Joe, who writes a lot with me and produces the virtual shows, he and I had a long discussion the other day which we might crack into in the show about crust and how there are certain genres of pizza that really botch crust. Arguably, some Greek pizza is making the crust so big that it just becomes… It’s refuse, it’s extra. You don’t even eat it. You feed it to your dog under the table, because it’s just not worth having that much bread without sauce and cheese.

Sicilian is another example of that. I like Sicilian. The edge pieces are great. But once you get into those middle ones, they lack… There’s no handle.

Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, a corner Sicilian slice is gold. You know who has a great one? In Brooklyn, the Sicilian slice at F&F pizzeria which is affiliated with Frankies 457. They have a Sicilian slice that is so good that… Then they also have just focaccia. But their Sicilian slice is so good, I would say it’s as a good as any Sicilian slice I’ve ever had. And what’s funny about it is it’s so in demand that they only make a certain amount, and then when it’s done, it’s done. That’s it. I didn’t even realize this.

F&F, the pizza was developed in collaboration with Chris Bianco. I looked up F&F. I had no idea that they developed that pizza with Chris Bianco, who was a guest on my Sunday show with Jimm Kimmel to benefit Texas food banks. Chris has, if not one, more than one pizzeria in Los Angeles that are great [his Phoenix pizzeria won him “Best Chef Southwest” from the Beard Foundation].

Pineapple on pizza. What’s the stance there?

I’m against it, but I also respect people’s preferences.

People who eat pizza with a fork, what are they? You’ve got to have a judgment on that.

People who eat with a fork, I’m not judgemental of them. I just think that they’re missing out on one of the joys of pizza, which is that it’s a utensil-less food item.

So, you’re forgiving of pineapple, but not into it. Are there any toppings that you just are not feeling at all, any toppings that you prefer?

I have a story that I’m telling in the virtual about how I really don’t like olives on pizza. I have basically a story about how one time someone was staying at our apartment, and really wanted to make a nice gesture, and knew I loved pizza, and made me an olive pizza. I had to pretend I liked it. I’m out on peppers too. I’m out on olives, I’m out on peppers. There are certain things that overpower the pizza.

One of the main things is when I go to a pizzeria for the first time, the first thing I do is have a cheese slice with no toppings, just to you understand the baseline of what we’re working with.

The last question is the stupidest question. Would the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles be as cool if not for their love of pizza?

I have to say I grew up on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The drawings of the pizza in it never seemed alluring to me.

That’s fair because it’s all just this white blob with a couple of little bits that you think are pepperoni, and the cheese is just falling right… There’s just cheese everywhere. It’s chaos there. It’s too much cheese.

I don’t know who drew the turtles, but I don’t feel like the person who drew the pizza loves pizza.

Tickets are still available for Mike Birbiglia’s Worldwide Comedy Pizza Party, with shows running from March 24 to the 28th. Go here for more info.

The 2020-21 season has been an exceptionally frustrating one for the Toronto Raptors, as they play the season out in Tampa due to travel restrictions in Canada. The Raptors got off to a dreadful start before rebounding to claw back into the middle of the pack in the East playoff race, but have recently fallen apart once again with a nine-game losing streak that has dropped them to 11th in the East, 2.5 games out of the play-in.

For whatever reason, the ever-consistent Raptors have not been able to find the baseline that has been present within the organization in recent years. They’ve had COVID-19 related absences and injuries, which contributed to the start of this losing streak, but they’ve had a mostly complete roster in the past few games and still can’t get right. The frustrations with the losing streak have apparently boiled over at times. Nick Nurse was fined $50,000 for a tirade directed at the officials after a loss to Utah, in which he threw his mask into the stands.

On Sunday, in a 116-105 loss to the Cavaliers, Pascal Siakam was benched for the entire fourth quarter as Nurse rode with a different lineup (that won the quarter 30-25, but wasn’t able to reel Cleveland in). After the game, Siakam apparently directed some “choice words” at Nurse going to the locker room and was slapped with his own $50,000 fine from the team for it, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

The Raptors pushed back on there having been a fine issued already, noting the situation is under discussion and nothing has been decided.

Should he be fined, it would not be the first discipline handed out to Siakam for his behavior after a game, as he was benched against the Knicks earlier in the season for leaving the court early in a loss to the Sixers. There are a number of factors for why this season is difficult for the Raptors, chief among them playing in a different city without the comforts of home, but for a franchise that hasn’t experienced losing in recent years, players like Siakam who have grown in a winning environment are dealing with the frustrations of consistent losing for the first time in their careers. This week’s trade deadline may very well bring some roster shakeups, but they have things to fix internally as well if they’re to turn this season back around.

21 Savage has joined a growing list of rappers who have decided to part ways with his permanent grills. The rapper opted to replace his signature gold smile with a new set of white teeth, and people had a lot to say about it. But rather than let the trolls knock his confidence, the rapper had the best response to quiet haters.

The rapper showed off his new smile in a series of beaming photos he posted to social media. Many were happy to see the rapper looking confident with his grin, but there were also a fair number of trolls in the comment section. “Very rare sell this as an NFT,” his frequent collaborator Metro Boomin wrote.

21 Savage wasn’t fazed by those who pointed out that he had some oral work done. Instead, he revealed just how much it cost to remove his gold grills and replace them with a pearly white smile. “I paid 75k I’ll be dammed if I let y’all say these teeth ain’t mine,” he wrote in response.

The rapper may have paid an eye-catching amount of money for his new teeth, but seeing as he accepts no less than six figures for a feature, he can clearly afford it. Along with spending money on his smile, 21 Savage has also been putting some of his cash into a charitable cause. Back in October, the rapper announced that he was committing $100,000 in scholarships to teach high school students about the importance of financial literacy.

Check out 21 Savage’s new smile above.

Netflix releasing every episode of House of Cards season one all at once was a revolutionary idea in 2013. “Our goal is to shut down a portion of America for a whole day,” showrunner Beau Willimon jokingly told the New York Times, which noted that in “some corners of Hollywood,” there was a “deep skepticism” about Netflix’s all-at-once model. Now, it’s de rigueur for many streaming services. But as Disney+ has found success with weekly episodes of The Mandalorian, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, both in terms of ratings and headline-dominating conversation, Netflix is “experimenting” with traditional release schedules for two hit series.

The streaming service announced on Tuesday that the new seasons of The Circle and Too Hot to Handle will premiere this spring. “When these shows debuted last year, their unique premises turned heads,” Brandon Riegg, Netflix’s VP of unscripted and documentary series, said in a statement. “In January, The Circle challenged players to quarantine in their individual apartments and only communicate with each other via social media. By the time April arrived and we released Too Hot to Handle, a dating competition where the prize money hinged on players keeping their hands off each other, the seemingly outrageous setup suddenly felt much more relatable.” He added:

We’re also experimenting with the release format so you have time to dissect and dish on every step of the competition as it unfolds. We’ll debut several new episodes at a time on Wednesdays beginning with the first four episodes of The Circle on April 14. Once The Circle wraps in May, Too Hot to Handle takes over in June.

Netflix — which rarely deviates from its binge-friendly formula, with a few expectations — is mimicking what HBO Max did with The Flight Attendant and Search Party by releasing a cluster of episodes at a time, instead of the Disney+ model. It worked for the Kaley Cuoco-starring surprise hit (and more people should be watching Search Party), but the real question is when (if?) Netflix will do weekly episodes for a scripted series.

(Via Netflix and the Hollywood Reporter)

With The Flash solo movie reportedly in pre-production, reports swirled that Michael Keaton’s possible return as Batman was going to happen. Sure, the actor has been playing coy about reprising his iconic role from the Tim Burton films, but that’s usually part and parcel with comic book movies these days. However, according to a new interview, Keaton hasn’t been being vague for the sake of secrecy. His involvement with the film really is a fluid situation, and he’s starting to get noticeably less shy about why he could end up taking a pass on The Flash.

While talking to Deadline, Keaton revealed that he hasn’t even looked at the latest draft for The Flash yet, and he’s been very honest with the filmmakers that he might not have time for the film due to prior commitments:

“I called them and said, I have to be honest with you. I can’t look at anything right now. I’m so deep into this thing I’m doing. Also, I’m prepping a thing I’m producing and getting ready to do down the road in the fall that I’ll be in, and I feel responsible to that. So, yeah, there is that. I’m not being cute or coy. If I talked about it, I’ll be just bullsh*tting you. I don’t really know.”

There’s also another major concern that has Keaton contemplating passing on the Batman role: COVID. At 69-years-old, the actor takes the threat of the coronavirus seriously, and it’s also coming down to how much of a risk he’s willing to take. “I keep my eye more on the Covid situation in the UK than anything,” Keaton said. “That will determine everything, and so that’s why I’m living outside the city here on 17 acres, staying away from everybody, because the Covid thing has got me really concerned. So, that’s my first thing about all projects. I look at it and go, is this thing going to kill me, literally? And you know, if it doesn’t, then we talk.”

(Via Deadline)