Month: March 2021

Much of the excitement for HBO Max’s Justice League Snyder Cut had to do with the world being thrilled for new blockbuster-type content (see Leslie Jones excitedly tweeting, “WARRIORS!!!”) However, there’s no getting around the fact that the project came to the small screen after a persistent fan campaign. This led to a four-hour extravaganza with crowd-pleasing character development swirling around magic boxes, although the film now has a heart, and the general sense is that fans are very pleased to see Snyder’s original vision live, even if Joss Whedon’s inferior theatrical version will remain canon. And one wonders if seeing Snyder’s vision realized will lead to more alternate “cuts” being greenlit, which also presents a slippery slope when it comes to aggressive fandom and hashtags that simply won’t die in pursuit of other director’s cuts. WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff addressed the subject (and much more) while speaking to Variety: “We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut.”

That sure seems like a done non-deal there. And that’s a completely fair answer, too, given that Ayer’s movie is currently being rebooted as The Suicide Squad by James Gunn, and there’s no need to undermine that current WarnerMedia investment with an alternate version. Also, it’s difficult to guess how Ayer’s 2016 flick could be improved too much. Blob villains in slow motion wouldn’t exactly cut it, and god only knows if Leto Joker #2 would pop in for Leto Joker #1. It all seems like a messy prospect, and Sarnoff adds that she’s also not here for any “toxic” fandom-based threats that popped up surrounding the Snyder Cut and perceptions that not all executives were game:

“We’re not tolerating any of that. That behavior is reprehensible no matter what franchise you’re talking about or what business you’re talking about. It’s completely unacceptable. I’m very disappointed in the fans that have chosen to go to that negative place with regard to DC, with regard to some of our executives. It’s just disappointing because we want this to be a safe place to be. We want DC to be a fandom that feels safe and inclusive. We want people to be able to speak up for the things they love, but we don’t want it to be a culture of cancelling things that any small faction isn’t happy with. We are not about that. We are about positivity and celebration.”

Sarnoff does address the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse campaign, too, while saying that WarnerMedia is happy about the Snyder cut and stopping short of mentioning any further contributions by Zack. Instead, Sarnoff says, “We’re very excited about the plans we have for all the multi-dimensional DC characters that are being developed” in current time. Again, a very fair declaration.

(Via Variety)

Monday night saw the completion of the second round of the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, as the Pac-12 saw four teams punch their tickets to the second weekend, capped off by USC crushing Kansas in the nightcap.

It was a weekend filled with upsets, as 11 teams seeded five spots or more below their opponents picked up wins in the first two rounds, leaving brackets in shambles and creating a very interesting second weekend with some teams few anticipated seeing. Just three 1-seeds and two 2-seeds remain as we head into the second weekend, and as games came to a close on Monday night, the NCAA, CBS, and Turner announced the full TV schedule for next Saturday and Sunday’s Sweet 16 action.

Saturday’s action will start with a battle of Cinderella’s, as Oregon State and Loyola Chicago face off for a spot in the Elite Eight, while Sunday will tip off with the favorite for the tournament, Gonzaga, facing Creighton.

Saturday, March 26

2:40 p.m. (CBS): 12. Oregon St vs. 8. Loyola Chicago (Kevin Harlan/Dan Bonner/Dana Jacobson)
5:15 p.m. (CBS): 5. Villanova vs. 1. Baylor (Brian Anderson/Jim Jackson/Allie LaForce)
7:25 p.m. (TBS): 15. Oral Roberts vs. 3. Arkansas (Harlan/Bonner/Jacobson)
9:55 p.m. (TBS): 11. Syracuse vs. 2. Houston (Anderson/Jackson/LaForce)

Sunday, March 27

2:10 p.m. (CBS): 5. Creighton vs. 1. Gonzaga (Ian Eagle/Jim Spanarkel/Jamie Erdahl)
5:00 p.m. (CBS): 4. Florida St vs. 1. Michigan (Jim Nantz/Bill Raftery/Grant Hill/Tracy Wolfson)
7:15 p.m. (TBS): 11. UCLA vs. 2. Alabama (Eagle/Spanarkel/Erdahl)
9:45 p.m. (TBS): 7. Oregon vs. 6. USC (Nantz/Raftery/Hill/Wolfson)
(All times Eastern)

Back in February, it was reported that NBA Youngboy was under federal investigation. The rapper had been arrested in Baton Rouge back in September at a video shoot alongside 16 others for guns and weapons charges, and the FBI was looking into his involvement. Apparently, NBA Youngboy was issued a warrant but had never appeared in court. However, all that changed Monday when police were finally able to catch up with him.

According to a report from CBS Los Angeles, Youngboy was driving in the Tarzana neighborhood of LA when police noticed he had an outstanding warrant. They attempted to pull him over, but he refused and prompted a short pursuit. Once the car was finally stopped, police say he fled the scene on foot. Officers set up a perimeter and brought in a K-9 to help track him down. TMZ claims that the K-9 did not bite the rapper, just sniffed him out.

It’s unclear why police had initially issued a warrant against NBA Youngboy. After he was arrested in September on firearm charges, he was released the next day on bail and his representative proclaimed he was “innocent of the crimes he was arrested for.”

Youngboy Never Broke Again is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Republicans love citing the Founding Fathers. Specifically they love to publicly presume what they would be for and against were they around today (presuming they could make heads or tails of, among other things, our magical-seeming technology). Along similar lines, non-Republicans love dragging Republicans when they make wild assumptions about the men who founded America. Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, one of the most dunkable people on Twitter, caught heat last last year when he claimed they would be against life-saving pandemic safety restrictions.

Now a far more obscure GOP lawmaker is getting mocked for much the same thing. Mike Rounds, former governor of South Dakota and now one of its senators, was not pleased that the House spent part of Monday debating whether to grant statehood to Washington D.C., which has long had zero representation in Congress, despite having a larger population that some entire states. Republicans have long opposed such an idea, while Democrats put it on their to-do list after taking control of all three bodies of government.

Rounds was against the idea, too, and he took to Twitter to make his argument. “The Founding Fathers never intended for Washington D.C. to be a state,” Rounds declared. He then said the quiet part loud, pointing out that D.C. is largely comprised of Democratic voters.

But most naysayers dwelled on the first part — the one where Rounds simply cited his idea of what George Washington and company would think in 2021. Some pointed out that they would be shocked to find the state in which he made his political career even existed.

Others pointed out they would be against free black people, too.

Ditto other groups.

There were lots of things the Founding Fathers would be appalled at now.

Although they would also definitely be against the failed MAGA coup of January 6.

Oh and by the way, Rounds was also technically wrong.

When Sturgill Simpson released his LP Sound & Fury in 2019, he wasn’t just working on music. He was also developing an accompanying anime show on Netflix, which reportedly cost his label $1.2 million. Following the show’s popularity, Simpson is now expanding on his Sound & Fury world with an accompanying graphic novel.

Simpson’s Sound & Fury will be a prequel to the story laid out in his Netflix series. It’s being written by bestselling comic book writers Jason Aaron and Ryan Cady with art by Takashi Okazaki, Vasilis Lolos, Rosi Kampe, Rufus Dayglo and Deathburger. Available through Z2 Comics, Sound & Fury will, according to its description, detail the “world before the corporate apocalypse brought on by Slick and Slim and the 1,000 Likes Corporation and the period after.”

This is not the first time Z2 Comics has teamed up with a musician for a project. Mitski collaborated with the comic book company to write a score to accompany the graphic novel This Is Where We Fall, which is slated for a release in May. About the project, she said it was able to push her creativity into new territory. “It was exciting to make a soundtrack for a comic book,” she said. “It allowed me to work outside of my usual songwriting form and try to approach it like a score, but without any of the cues that come with working alongside a moving image, which ended up being both freeing and challenging.”

Pre-order Sound & Fury through Z2 Comics here.

Sturgill Simpson is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

We’ve become used, from four wild years of Trump, to headlines that seem to be have been composed via a game of Mad Libs. But sometimes the random-sounding news is more lighthearted, even harmless. An example: Elizabeth Banks directing a movie called Cocaine Bear. So here’s another: As per Deadline, Seth Rogen is going to play Steven Spielberg’s uncle. Why not! Sounds like a completely out-of-nowhere piece of news that will probably be pretty delightful!

The legendary director — which is to say Spielberg, not Rogen, who’s a pretty good filmmaker, too, for the record — is setting up his next movie, and it’s going to be more personal than ever. It will be a loose chronicle of his childhood in Arizona, which will find him getting a screenplay credit for the first time A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. (He’ll share writing duties with his longtime collaborator, Tony-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who’s written Munich, Lincoln, and his forthcoming take on West Side Story.)

Spielberg already cast Michelle Williams as a character who’s not quite his real-life mom. Rogen, meanwhile, will play the director’s favorite uncle. It technically won’t be the first time the two have worked together: Spielberg had a voice cameo in the 2011 alien comedy Paul, featuring Rogen as the titular E.T. But considering how good Rogen is when he goes serious (Steve Jobs, Take This Waltz, which also starred Williams), this should be a welcome. Unless he wants him to bring his aw-shucks, giggly Rogen-ness to bear, which would be cool, too.

(Via Deadline)

Emerald Fennell just made history. Last week, the filmmaker — who made of one of last year’s most acclaimed (and hotly debated) movies, Promising Young Woman, starring Carey Mulligan — became only the sixth woman ever be nominated for a Best Director Oscar. And that’s not all: As per Variety, her next order of business will be helming a DC movie, one that will see a certain character hitting the big screen for the first time.

That character is Zatanna, and her day job is a stage magician while her night job is an actual magician, who uses her powers to fight for good. She debuted in 1964, and she’s been a part of the Justice League — and perhaps she will do so on the big screen, should the DCEU find a way to bring that portion of the comics back now that everyone’s fawned over the “Snyder Cut.”

Though Zatanna has long been a regular of the animated portions of the DC-verse and she played a key role on the ‘90s live-action show Smallville, she’s never made it to the movies. She was rumored to be a part of David Ayers’ Suicide Squad, but that was not to be. She didn’t even make the cut of James Gunn’s expanded The Suicide Squad. But that just means she has more room to strut solo, playing another of Fennell’s fascinating anti-heroes.

(Via Variety)

Cardi B’s showstopping performance at the Grammy Awards last week launched her song “Up” to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It officially becomes her fifth No. 1 single, which extends her record for the most chart-topping songs by a female rapper. Even with her accomplishments, Cardi still has her success questioned by everyone from talk show hosts to other rappers. So to silence her haters, Cardi made her achievements loud and clear.

Speaking directly to fans in a video posted to social media, Cardi detailed how critics only give her motivation to keep up the hard work:

“Y’all be claiming that, yeah, you want females to strive and all that, but that’s a lie — y’all be hating. Y’all keep asking how I do this, how I do that, blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you something because y’all like to bring all these excuses for my success. […] A b*tch is winning, get over with it. The more hate y’all think, the more harder I get, the more sh*t I have to talk about for my album. Stop hating. When I win, it doesn’t take away from other women’s success, neither. When another female wins, it doesn’t take away from nobody’s success so stop crying.”

Cardi then proceeded to read off the accolades that her single earned this week. Along with extending her record for the most No. 1 singles by a female rapper, “Up” earned 26.5 million streams last week alone. That makes it the most-streamed song of the week, and it also reportedly raked in $18,300 in sales.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The 2020 presidential election has been over for months now, but the legal fallout from Donald Trump’s loss looks like it will continue for years to come. Republican lawmakers are pushing strict new voting laws to limit voting access in an attempt to combat largely overblown cries of voter fraud, while some are at odds with voting system companies who have responded to wild claims about that voter fraud with defamation lawsuits.

One of those suits is against former Donald Trump lawyer and coup enthusiast Sidney Powell, who is facing a $1.3 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems after repeated, baseless claims of voter fraud somehow executed by the company that makes voting machines.

As Axios detailed, Powell’s defense is essentially that no one should take her words and thoughts seriously, even though she’s a lawyer who directly fueled Donald Trump’s very visible (and baseless) claims of voter fraud to the point where he still feels he had the election stolen from him.

What she’s saying: Powell argues in her motion that “no reasonable person” would conclude that her accusations of Dominion’s election-rigging scheme “were truly statements of fact.”

She claims that Dominion conducted a “well-orchestrated public relations campaign to save their business” and that allegations against her are “sparse.”

Axios has the full dismissal attempt, but the highlights are clear: Powell’s best defense is that no one should believe anything she says.

“The Tucker Carlson” defense was trending as of Monday evening, as many pointed out that the Fox News host had the same argument when he faced similar legal trouble. But while it may hold up in court, it’s a pretty bizarre claim to try making with a straight face after months of endless media coverage that has influenced millions of Trump supporters and other Republicans and eroded their faith in the democratic system.

And it had a direct impact on the lives of plenty of people, leading to a MAGA coup attempt on January 6 as Trump supporters tried to prevent congress from certifying the results of the Electoral College.

It’s a matter of time whether Powell’s dismissal will work, and it will likely change anyone’s opinion of Powell but it’s a good reminder of whether you should believe anything she has to say about pretty much anything moving forward. If her best defense of her actions and beliefs is that she’s a fool who cannot be trusted, well, what more is there to say?

Sneaker brands, pull up a chair. We need to discuss something that’s been needling at us. It’s high time for you to drop all of your big releases in full-size runs. In fact, it’s past time.

Look we get it, it’s probably not sustainable to drop every single sneaker release in every single size. But the big releases? Your Virgil Abloh Off-White collaborations, the Supreme team-ups, the latest Yeezys, the dopest Air Max and SB Dunk colorways, and the next Cactus Jack launch? Everyone across the gender spectrum wants these.

Hopefully, this doesn’t feel like a radical take. Clearly it’s being discussed at the big brands and some lines are beginning to toy with the idea. So just take the leap already — commit to more inclusive sizing and celebrate the universality of sneaker culture.

Do it both because it’s the right thing to do and because there’s plenty of demand to support the move. Do it because streetwear — the clothing style that sneakers generally pair best with — is moving rapidly away from any sort of gender-exclusive aesthetic. And while a certain type of exclusivity certainly drives hype in the shoe world, gender exclusivity isn’t what sneakerheads want.

We break down the case for inclusive sizing below:

Women are driving the sneaker industry growth

Women aren’t only buying sneakers, they’re driving the growth of the market. According to data collected by ForwardPMX in 2019, women’s sneaker sales growth greatly outpaced men’s in recent years, spiking as much as five times faster between 2016 and 2017 alone. The study also found that female sneaker buyers tended to be more discerning about sneakers, and, on average, have stronger opinions regarding different styles when compared to their same-aged male counterparts.

An uptick in female consumers led to Jordan Brand hitting its first billion-dollar quarter in December of 2020, according to Input Magazine. This boom was driven by hyped-up designs by creators like Aleali May, Yoon Ahn, Melody Ehsani, and Jazerai Allen-Lord, to name a few. Meanwhile, Who What Wear reports that aftermarket sites like GOAT have seen their female user bases grow twice as fast as their male user bases.

While a new spate of sneaker lines created by female celebrities like Rihanna, Solange, Venus Williams, and Beyonce has certainly been part of this boom, the numbers show that much of this new user base at the aftermarket sites are buying sneakers made exclusively in men’s sizes more often than designs exclusive to women. In short, people who wear women’s sizes are shopping for Yeezys, Air Maxes of all numbers, Jordans, Off-White collaborations, etc. — all the same attention-grabbing drops that people who wear men’s sizes shop for.

Aftermarket site GOAT recently launched a feature that allows you to shop according to your personal shoe size in men’s and women’s styles. Shoe brands can take it a step further by universalizing their sizes altogether.

“Aren’t women’s and men’s shoes are made differently?”

Women’s shoes differ from men’s in two major ways. Firstly, the shape — women’s shoes are typically wider in the forefoot and narrower at the heel, and often have different midsole materials or heel support differences, which can affect the fit and weight of the sneaker. Many brands also take into account what is known as the Q-Angle, which is the angle of the quad muscle relative to the kneecap.

But as we all know, no sizing is ever “fits all.” Every major sneaker website has a review section in which customers advise people to size up or down and to consider how narrow or wide a particular sneaker silhouette is. Many have a chart that looks something like what Adidas has on their website,

Clearly, the big shoe brands are aware that not every sneaker fits the same, it’s why the best way to buy a pair of shoes will always be to try them on to see how they fit. The solution here is to make the shoes in multiple profiles — especially in the thick part of the sizing bell curve, where men’s and women’s sizes are most likely to overlap.

The argument to make more sizes seems to make good financial sense. Prior to the pandemic, Nike revenue was up 11 percent in the first half of fiscal 2020. That same year, the brand produced the Grateful Dead Dunks, the Off-White Jordan Vs, Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack SB Dunk Lows, the Dior Air Jordan 1s, and the aforementioned Off-White Jordan IV Sails only in men’s sizes. All of those shoes now sell for above $1000 on aftermarket sites like GOAT and StockX. You know, the sites with a rapidly growing female user bases.

Things are changing for the better, slowly but surely

Thankfully we aren’t the only people saying this. We’re simply adding our voice to the chorus. Shouts to Tora Northman writing for Hypebae, or Bianca Valle writing for Elite Daily, or Anna Bediones writing for Complex, or Noah Thomas writing for Highsnobiety — the latter of whom wrote a style hack for how men with small feet can open up a whole world of sneaker variety by copping women’s sneakers. Clearly, the media is in support of a more egalitarian sneaker world.

Brands for the most part are responding to this criticism, increasing their focus on women’s shoes, but they’d be wise to listen to what people are actually saying. Northman writes, “we don’t need more shoes that are pink, glittery, and labeled as “women’s exclusive” – we really just want what the dudes are getting.” Bediones writes “Why should women’s color ranges be limited to pinks, purples, and pastels? Female sneakerheads want the same colorways and makeups that every sneakerhead wants,” and Valle adds, “In today’s fashion sneaker culture, there is no guarantee you’re going to find your size. In other words, sneaker culture is not going out of its way to include us. We have to make it make room,”

Creatives concur with this assesment. Titi Finlay, artist, social media manager at Los Angeles sportswear retailer LACED and an Air Max 90 designer wrote to her 10k followers on her Instagram, “We don’t need women’s exclusives. We need inclusive sizing… I still don’t understand why sneaker brands bother with women’s exclusives that are sub-par versions of their male counterparts. Just give us inclusive sizing on all regular sneakers jeez.”

Amen. Anything less is unacceptable. With more inclusive sizes, we all win, and sneaker culture will feel truly unified.