Month: April 2021

In 1979, a sketchy Canadian pimp named Paul Snider pitched an LA gas station attendant turned nightclub owner named Steve Banerjee on his big idea: a sort of go-go club where men stripped for women. Banerjee gave Snider one night a week at his club, and the concept, which went onto become the Chippendales, took off. Banerjee cut Snider out of it, and Snider went on to kill himself and his ex-wife, Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, the following year.

Incredibly, that’s just the prologue for the larger story of the Chippendales phenomenon, and not even close to the end of the mayhem, murder, and power struggles. It’s all detailed in Welcome To Your Fantasy, a new podcast whose final episode was just recently released.

Welcome To Your Fantasy is a history of the Chippendales, and through that, a portrait of America during the Chippendales’ heyday. It began as a cheap idea to make money, but quickly declared itself part of “the cause,” an important front in the war for women’s liberation. Of course, for Banerjee, an immigrant from India, it was also the source of his wealth and the root of his growing paranoia, which would come to a head later. It’s the conman’s curse, to live in constant fear of one day being treated the way they treat others. The Chippendales itself would carry on without Banerjee, and like many American phenomena, would start off lurid and scruffy before becoming Disneyfied and homogenized.

It was also the perfect story to tell for Natalia Petrzela, a historian of the late 20th century, Associate Professor of History at The New School, and author of FIT NATION: How America Embraced Exercise As The Government Abandoned It. She’s been hosting another weekly history podcast, Past Present, for the past few years, but takes her first stab at multi-episode narrative in Welcome To Your Fantasy. I spoke to her via Zoom this week.

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So Paul Snider, the guy who supposedly actually came up with the idea for Chippendales, is just sort of a footnote here. At what point did you realize that this was such a crazy story that you didn’t even really need to cover Paul that much?

So we never set into it to write the Dorothy Stratten story because that story’s been told before. Let me put it this way: when we realized there was this crazy murder-suicide Playmate story, we’re like, oh, this has to go in there. But then actually, as we started writing out the story of Chippendales, and of the drama between Nick De Noia and Steve Banerjee, and especially doing all this original reporting that came through, looking at all the racial discrimination stuff and talking to so many different people, we were like, okay, this is a really important story, but for the story that we’re telling, the Paul Snider-Dorothy Stratten thing, it’s almost just foreshadowin. Since we didn’t learn that much new stuff about Paul and Dorothy, I think we give our listeners a taste of how it relates to Chippendales and then they can go on and immerse themselves in Star 80, or some of the other work that’s been done on that.

I mean, you could make the case that Steve Banerjee had an effect on that story as well, right?

Yeah. I mean, look, the story of Paul Snider is a guy who, as I understand it, constantly felt like he was getting a bad deal and constantly felt like other people were pulling one over on him. And he had this proximity to fame and celebrity that he could never quite break into, even as he understood himself as responsible for it. And so you see that with his rising resentment towards Dorothy, but I think, yeah, towards Steve Banerjee too. I mean, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be Paul Snider, and I am not sympathetic to him, but you get this idea, hey, you should have guys take your clothes off. You’re the first emcee. And then basically you leave, get no credit for it, and it blows up huge. I think that that must’ve contributed to the level of his resentment.

I mean, it was like the one thing he was right about in his whole life–

Well look, this is not the Paul Snider rehabilitation tour, the guy’s awful. But he spotted star quality in Dorothy, right? He’s the one that told her to become a Playmate and photographed her in dubious circumstances. But he did have a certain talent. I just think execution was not his strong point, and he seemed like such a noxious figure that even if he had good ideas no one wanted him around.

The Chippendales story feels like a compelling story at any time, really, but was there any particular reason that you wanted to tell the story now?

I got attracted to this story in part because as a woman growing up in the 21st century, I’m constantly being marketed empowerment in what I think are really laughable, almost insulting, ways. Like, buy this bodywash, you’ll be empowered, buy this underwear, buy these Spanx. And so this idea of marketing empowerment in cynical ways to women is interesting to me. So when I first started looking at the early advertising of Chippendales, and it was like, ladies of the 80s, come and stuff dollar bills in these men’s g-strings, and finally get yours, that to me was a really interesting and I think kind of foundational example of the way that women are cynically sold their own empowerment.

In movies you see that, where the idea is that “we need more female stories.” And so they’re like, well, what if a superhero was a girl? This kind of seems like that as applied to a stage show.

Yeah. Look, I think we have come a long way, and we probably even had come a long way in 1979 when Chippendales launched, in thinking that the idea of empowered, sexually liberated women is a good thing, and a cultural force worth amplifying. I’d rather have been alive in 1979 and been marketed Chippendales than in 1850, let’s put it that way. However, I think that there are always going to be a lot of people out there who have a pretty shallow commitment to these causes and see these moments more as things to profit from that as genuine moments for solidarity or any of these kinds of grander causes.

And I think you totally saw that in Chippendales. They were ready to say, “Yeah, we believe in sexual liberation.” They didn’t use the word feminism but, “We believe in the cause.” But basically they believed in women’s liberation because, one, it made them rich, and two, more “sexually liberated” women were more sexually available to the men who would show up at the clubs. So I don’t really think it was such a radical proposition, even as it was a really new idea for a show. And I don’t want to diminish that.

So tell me about Steve Banerjee, who’s sort of the key figure in all this. What was he like? Who was he? What was his deal?

So Steve Banerjee was an Indian immigrant, came to the US via Canada. Really, in some ways, followed a kind of typical immigrant story of that moment. There was this big piece of legislation in 1965 in the US that opened up America to Latin Americans and South Asians, and many came, and many who were more educated, like him, to get their foot in the door, became franchise business owners. So he had a couple of gas stations, which totally fits with this Indian immigrant narrative. And then he was super ambitious. He had these American business icons as his idols, Hugh Hefner and Walt Disney. Keep in mind, the America in which he made his fortune was Reagan’s America, where you have all of this celebration of capitalism and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. What is different about him, and makes him a kind of dubious character is, one, that he made his career in this kind of sex work-adjacent business of men taking off their clothes for women, which made a lot of people in the Indian community, but also in the culture writ large, raise their eyebrows at him. But also he had totally dubious criminal ways of becoming so successful. Welcome to Your Fantasy is really oriented around a murder that happens, but he didn’t start with murder. Steve Banerjee from the beginning is making false calls to the police, to the fire department, to the press, trying to set up arsons, putting out hits on other people — I mean, this is a guy who sees criminality as a legitimate way to make his American dream come true. And I think, honestly, that doesn’t separate him that much from some other business leaders.

What was the cultural climate of the 80s that made this idea work so well?

I think by the 80s, you already have a kind of mainstreaming of women’s liberation in a way that’s not radical. By then you can talk about women’s empowerment, and it doesn’t mean a man-hater who doesn’t shave her armpits. It could be a woman secretary working 9:00 to 5:00 who likes to go out for drinks and party after work. So I think that’s really important. Because this idea would not have worked in, say, 1969 the way it did 10, 15 years later. I also think that the kind of flashiness of the post-disco nightclub scene was a part of the appeal.

I also think the media culture of the moment. These guys began as a nightclub act in LA, then they opened this big New York club. There was a traveling show. But the thing that made them such a big deal really was daytime TV. They were on Sally Jesse Raphael, Donahue, all of these talk shows. And they took this somewhat sleazy act of men taking off their clothes for women, did it at 9:30 in the morning on network television, and also talked about it like it was this thing that was at the cross-section of all these cultural and political things that were happening. So it both mainstreamed it and made it more of a big deal. It’s not some nightclub act. This is about morality and this is about women’s empowerment and all of that. And so I think that media culture was really super important.

Do we have anything that has that kind of media power now, that daytime television had? Why do you think those went away and has anything replaced it?

We don’t have that kind of coherent media culture that we did then. Not everybody watches daytime TV in that way. And that was happening just as cable TV was starting to make its way into American households. So you still had people who were mostly beholden to whatever was what was on the networks. So do we have something like that today that’s as unifying. I mean? If you’re very much online, like I think you and I are, you want to say the Twitter memes are. But no. That’s a snapshot, or a tiny slice of America. So I think we have a much more fragmented media culture. And I don’t think there’s something that rises to that sort of unifying level, the way that we did back then.

This is maybe not the best example, but let me try it out here: The Dirty John podcast, which was prestige media. It was LA Times journalism. Then it was a podcast. Then I think there was a Bravo knockoff, then there was some network thing. So it hit a whole variety of places in a way that I don’t think one thing in any single place still has that kind of unifying power.

You talked about the Chippendales arc. It kind of conquered the world, and then sort of became tame in the process. Is that just the natural order of capitalism?

I think for something to become mainstream, sure, in some ways it needs to keep shocking and being interesting, but it’s also got to reign in a lot of the things that will make it objectionable to most people. And you absolutely see that with Chippendales. I mean, there was certainly a lot of drugs and sex and bad behavior always going on behind the scenes, but one of the remarkable things that happens is you see an evolution, a very deliberate one from all of that kind of debauchery being totally out in the open, because it’s just like a strip show in this West LA club, to when they are in calendars, going on talk shows. Nick De Noia, who’s really managing them, is like, “You do not talk about sex at the club, drugs of the club, violence at the club,” anything like that because there’s this sanitization that has to go on to make it mainstream.

Of course, that ultimately makes it kind of less interesting, I think. Today Chippendales is still around. I don’t have the numbers of how well they’re doing, but they’re out there. But they are not positioning themselves as something edgy at all. I don’t think that they could anymore, in part because they were so successful at it, right? They’re, I don’t want to say a victim of their own success, but that lack of edginess is a result of their own success.

In terms of the central feud, the Nick De Noia-Steve Banerjee feud, what was their main disagreement?

I think that Steve Banerjee and Nick De Noia needed each other for their success, but they also were totally opposed in their sensibilities, and both power-hungry and kind of egocentric in their own ways. The actual thing that brought them to their fatal conflict was that they had signed this napkin deal, which was supposed to resolve their growing enmity. You had Steve in LA, and Nick was in New York, and then Nick and Steve signed on a napkin this deal that said that Nick would get the profits from the touring show in perpetuity. So Nick could take Chippendales dancers out on the road. He would make all the money from that.

Steve thought that that was fine because there was essentially no touring show at the time. Well, Nick took that as a kind of inspiration or a motivation to establish a very robust touring show. And he kind of would taunt Steve a little. He had to go 100 miles away, so he’d go like 101 miles away to set up the show, to not compete with the other clubs. So as Steve saw Nick making a lot of money from that, his rancor only grew. And then also Nick was a very public, flashy, charismatic guy in a way that Steve wasn’t. And so Nick would go on all the talk shows and be referred to as like, here’s Mr. Chippendale. And he would say, “We’ve created this thing for women.” And so my feeling is that Steve Banerjee’s resentment also grew that he was sort of out of the limelight in that way.

When they were doing the photo shoot on the beach and someone started shooting at them, did we ever find out who was actually shooting?

Look, there’s one guy, I think, who would come to firearms when it comes to male model calendars, and that I think is Steve Banerjee. So it was never confirmed, but we know from the timeline that this was the era in which Steve was getting more and more anxious about competition, and competition from within the ranks. Remember, that guy Dan Peterson, he had been picked out of a lineup outside of Chippendales and been like, “Come work for me.” And now he’s out making his own calendar. So we don’t know that it was Steve Banerjee, but I would say much evidence points to that fact.

Steve Banerjee, he wouldn’t be the guy pulling the trigger, right? He was hiring people to do that.

He was hiring people. And Ray Colon is a pretty significant character in the podcast. Ray Colon was hired by Steve Banerjee to do odd jobs. Which were everything from fix the sound system at the club to go do this arson, to go make sure Nick De Noia dies. So we don’t know who pulled the trigger at that Skin Deep shoot that Dan Peterson was at, but I would highly doubt that it was Steve Banerjee himself, but someone he probably put up to it.

I get when rich guys are like, “Ooh, I need to hire someone to take someone out.” A lot of rich people do that. But very few of them actually find people that will actually do it, and not just double-cross them and take the money.

Well, I think that kind of speaks to the fact that Banerjee, he was respectable and had money and all this, but he was at the fringes. It wasn’t like this guy was this investment banker who goes to this buttoned-up office every day, and has no contact with sort of the seedy side of society. He’s running a strip club basically. And so he did have contact with… I mean, Ray Colon was a pretty shady character. So he has connections, I think, to people who might be more willing to do that kind of work.

‘Welcome To Your Fantasy,’ is available now, exclusively on Spotify. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Certain members of Congress keep making headlines for their anti-vaccination stances, but there are plenty of good eggs in the bunch. That would include Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA), who decided to throw down a rendition of Matt Monro’s “Born Free” in order to motivate people towards the needle.

It’s an alright show from a guy who knows he can’t sing (and freely admits as much), but he’s doing it anyway to bring attention to the cause:

Born free
As free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Hey, he’s doing better than I would have done, and he didn’t pull out the Kid Rock song that’s also entitled, “Born Free,” so he’s scoring major points with this daring venture. And he’s got a good sense of humor about it all: “I’m Senator Kennedy. I can’t sing very well but I’m free. Be free. Be cool. Get the vaccine. I did. It works.” Well, Kennedy gets it. There’s been plenty said about freedom and lockdowns, but the sooner we can get back to normal-ish life, the better. And herd immunity through vaccination is the fastest way to get there without more loss of life, which (logically speaking) can only help Americans get back to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

For the past few days, there have been reports about the status of DMX’s health, and none of them were promising. Now, sadly, the tragic day that fans were hoping to avoid has arrived: It was announced today that the legendary rapper has died at 50 years old. The news was confirmed in a statement from DMX’s family, which noted that he died while surrounded by loved ones in the hospital.

People in the music world had been sharing some tributes to DMX recently as news about his health was revealed, and now that his death is official, more tributes to the rapper are pouring in.

Biz Markie wrote, “RIP DMX. No one radiated more agony, pain, and atomic energy. The Cerberus from Yonkers, who suffered for all of our sins and his own. Maybe the rawest rapper of all-time, no pretense or frills, just pure adrenaline, lawless genius, and reckless abandon. The struggle incarnate.”

Missy Elliott also wrote, “Even though you had battles you TOUCHED so many through your MUSIC and when you would PRAY so many people FELT THAT! This is heavy for the HipHop family but your LEGACY LIVES ON & your SPIRIT. Continued Prayers for X family & friends for STRENGTH/HEALING.”

Check out some more reactions below.

Despite hailing from Liverpool in the United Kingdom, an ocean away from the birthplace of rock and roll, The Beatles’ importance in the influence of American popular music can not be understated. But why do they keep getting compared to American rap groups from Atlanta, namely Migos and Outkast? In a recurring social media gag, every so often some prominent figure on Twitter declares a modern rap group “bigger” or “better” than The Beatles, setting off another round of vigorous and — it must be stated — mostly irreverent, tongue-in-cheek debate.

On one side are The Beatles’ defenders — those who believe that even feigning to compare them to newer acts, across genres, generations, and geography, amounts to nothing less than musical sacrilege. On the other, a mass of folks who seem delighted to do nothing more than joyfully impugn the legacy of the most successful rock band of all time by arguing for one group whose biggest breakout involved the repetitious invoking of a luxury design house and another whose most mainstream hit was accompanied by a video that parodied the height of Beatlemania.

Caught in between them are bewildered music fans who can’t help but wonder how the artists being compared even relate to each other and why either side seems so intent on making such a fuss over the others’ opinions. Some may wonder how Migos, barely a decade into their career, or Outkast, more than a decade past their golden years as a respected rap duo, even merit discussion alongside the act that held more Billboard records than any other until very recently. However, the answer is not so simple as comparing plaques, and the motivations of both sides are more complex than they appear.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone takes these declarations all that seriously — and if they do, that’s their prerogative. Art is subjective; one person’s most successful rock band of all time is Quincy Jones’ pick for “worst musicians in the world.” For someone whose tastes run more toward blasting bass-heavy, 808-ridden triplet raps through the streets of downtown Atlanta than dropping the needle on the psychedelic meditations of a groovy quartet of shaggy-haired British misfits, making the claims that “Stir Fry” is greater than “Penny Lane” might seem pretty reasonable.

But for an elder generation who grew up with The Beatles, it’s a slap in the face — which is part of the fun for their disruptive detractors. For many of hip-hop’s formative years, rock-chauvinist music critics and fans denied the nascent movement’s musicality, value, and validity as an art form. Fans of rap endured sneering comments that dubbed rap “crap” (haha, so clever) and demeaned the poetry in its often blunt, plainspoken lyrics. Used to lofty, esoteric references to walruses and thinly veiled references to the wonders of LSD — you know damn well that’s what that song is about — rap’s tendency to drive home its points with the force of a nail gun rubbed them the wrong way.

By the same token, their criticisms got under rap fans’ skin, but all rap fans could do was rankle privately and defend the value of the form publicly, through multiple waves of indecency witchhunts led by the likes of Barbara Bush all the way up to Bill O’Reilly. Even today, Cardi B has to defend herself from the Tucker Carlsons of the world almost weekly. But now that rappers like Cardi and Migos are the best-selling acts in the country (an easily quantified claim to make thanks to the advent of streaming), their legitimacy is already assured and all that’s left is to return four decades’ worth of grief one trollish tweet at a time.

Furthermore, The Beatles are no longer a group that defines youth culture. Where once they shocked the world, sent teen girls into hysterical paroxysms, and made concerned mothers clutch their pearls even as they tapped their feet, they’re beyond tame by today’s standards — they’re lame. Furthermore, The Beatles’ prime was a long time ago. We’re in an era where most news items, hit singles, and viral discoveries have a shelf life of about 18 months. For younger millennials and Generation Z, a group that had their own “mania” 50 years ago and no new hits in the last 30 would barely register against the non-stop deluge of new content we’re asked to consume just to keep up these days.

And while The Beatles ruled radio in their day, the average 13-year-old today has probably never even willingly turned one on for their own benefit — if they even know what radios are (again, thanks to the advent of streaming). Many can likely only name a handful of songs — songs that, to them, probably sound how the tunes Captain America was listening to sound to elder millennials and Generation X. It’s their grandparents’ music, and while grandparents can be cool, their taste usually isn’t. So while older hip-hop heads — and it’s usually members of the aforementioned “X-ennial” generation who actually post the tweets in the first place (see: Ron Funches and Donald Glover) — plot to torment their own elders as a means of resistance and revenge for all the pestering of their formative years, for the zoomers, it’s a way to assert their own tastes and identities, as well as indulging in their generations’ unique taste for digital chaos (see: Lil Nas X).

However, that alliance is mostly one of convenience and circumstance and there are already signs of it fracturing. Consider this: Outkast’s last major hit came out almost 20 years ago. That’s just long enough to be retro — which is only a few more years away from being terminally uncool. Time marches on, and Father Time remains undefeated. So while Migos and Outkast may be better than The Beatles today, tomorrow, they might just be inferior to the Polo Gs and Lil Nas Xs of the world. And The Beatles? Well, you know what they say: Everything old is new again. Maybe in another 10 years, they’ll be back in fashion after some 17-year-old samples “Hey Jude.”

Indiana Jones 5 is still happening, despite Harrison Ford being 80 years old by the time the film comes out in 2022. The plot is still being kept under wraps for the follow-up to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but we do know that it won’t involve aliens (probably) or Mutt Williams (definitely) and Logan‘s James Mangold will direct. Also, as Lucasfilm announced on Friday, Phoebe Waller-Bridge will star alongside Ford in a mysterious role. The campaign to let Fleabag play a villain begins now.

“I’m thrilled to be starting a new adventure, collaborating with a dream team of all-time great filmmakers,” Mangold said in a statement. “Steven [Spielberg], Harrison, Kathy [Kennedy], Frank [Marshall], and John [Williams] are all artistic heroes of mine. When you add Phoebe, a dazzling actor, brilliant creative voice and the chemistry she will undoubtedly bring to our set, I can’t help but feel as lucky as Indiana Jones himself.”

Waller-Bridge is now two-for-two in iconic Harrison Ford franchises: she voiced activist droid L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story, which includes an Indiana Jones easter egg. Plus, if you’ll recall (I don’t blame you for not remembering every detail of Solo), L3-37 is essentially “uploaded” to the Falcon, meaning she’s been with Ford this entire time.

Aw. What are porgs if not space guinea pigs? Maybe keep the snakes away, though.

(Via Lucasfilm)

In news that the music world hoped would not arrive, it’s been reported that DMX has tragically passed away at the age of 50. The news arrives less than a week after he suffered a reported drug overdose at his home. According to TMZ, the incident occurred at 11 p.m. last Friday and resulted in him being rushed to a White Plains, New York hospital.

Upon his arrival, the rapper was reported in “grave condition” and placed in the facility’s critical care unit. TMZ also reported that the overdose triggered a heart attack. After some conflicting reports about his status, it was clarified that he remained on life support with little brain activity. The rapper then spent days in the hospital with family, friends, and supporters hoping he would pull through. But on Thursday night, word of his passing was reported by his family in an official statement.

DMX’s passing is a sad ending to his long-documented battle with drug addiction. It’s one that began when the rapper was tricked into smoking crack by his rap mentor at just the age of 14. In recent years, his battle landed in the eyes of the public through multiple trips to rehab — one in 2017 and another in 2019. In both situations, he was forced to cancel concerts in order to get a grasp on his addiction.

In 2019, his rehab announcement was made through an Instagram post. “In his ongoing commitment to putting family and sobriety first, DMX has checked himself into a rehab facility,” the caption read. “He apologizes for his canceled shows and thanks his fans for their continued support.”

Despite these past bumps, DMX seemed to be heading toward a better path and was preparing to release his upcoming album, one he said would arrive with features from Griselda Records, Pop Smoke, and U2’s Bono.

This, ahead, is my impassioned plea for you to watch a 1972 movie starring Robert Redford and George Segal called The Hot Rock. (It’s currently streaming via Hulu.) It probably won’t teach you any life lessons (unless you want to rob a museum, I guess, and even then the advice here is pretty sketchy) but I do truly think you’ll enjoy it. You deserve a treat. The Hot Rock is a treat. And it’s kind of remarkable people don’t even know this movie exists. Imagine someone saying this to you: “Hey, would you be interested in seeing a heist movie starring Robert Redford? And George Segal plays his sort of dimwitted buddy? And it’s directed by Peter Yates, who brought you Bullet? And it’s written by William Goldman, you know, Butch Cassidy and All the President’s Men? And the score was composed by Quincy Jones?” Anyway, yes, this movie exists and it’s called The Hot Rock and I really think you should watch it. (Which, sadly, isn’t altogether that easy, I’ll get to that.)

This love letter to The Hot Rock exists because of the passing of George Segal. The day he died there was an outpouring of love on social media though, I noticed, The Hot Rock went unmentioned and I just think he’s terrific in this movie. Based on Donald E. Westlake’s book series about a thief named John Dortmunder (I was surprised to see just how many times these books have been adapted into films, but only The Hot Rock keeps the character’s name as John Dortmunder), I was pretty shocked at how many people hadn’t even heard of this movie when I tweeted about it. I was also pretty shocked at the number of people who said they’d check this movie out, then actually did. (That rarely happens.) To the point that it showed up on my Letterboxd account under “popular with your friends” tab. So, I figured, if I had at least some success getting people to watch this movie with a tweet, maybe a whole piece could get even more?

Honestly, I guess I shouldn’t talk. It was only a few years ago when I discovered this movie existed. In the “before times” there was a bar in my New York City neighborhood that played pre-1985 movies on its television screens, with subtitles instead of sound. One day, while having a pint (my god I miss draft beer), I glanced up and saw this absolutely gorgeous shot of a helicopter, with Robert Redford inside of it, flying low over New York City. At one point the helicopter passes a still under construction World Trade Center and the shot is filmed through the construction beams. (I’m hesitant to link to the YouTube video of this because it’s such low quality, but here it is anyway.)

I immediately asked what this movie was. “It’s The Hot Rock!” I had honestly never heard of it. When I got home I looked for it on streaming … nope. Well, alright, I will buy the Blu-ray. Well, the good news is there is a Blu-ray and it’s a terrific transfer. The bad news is it’s a limited edition by Twilight Time Movies, which was a great company and got a lot of titles like this onto Blu-ray, but recently went out of business. So, I bought the DVD, which is very reasonably priced. (After watching the movie with sound I realized I loved it and then sprung for the pricy Blu-ray. And then I bought the movie poster, which now hangs in our living room.)

For me, it’s the perfect heist movie. It’s got that cool “Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11” vibe to it that, like Oceans, also manages to be funny. (I just now looked this up, after I wrote that last sentence and I discovered Soderbergh is a noted fan of this movie; hold that thought.) Redford is maybe at the height of his handsome powers here and it’s kind of crazy there aren’t five of these movies with him starring as Dortmunder. George Segal plays Kelp, Dortmunder’s kind of a dunce brother-in-law who really wants to pull off a heist. The two recruit a driver, Murch (Ron Leibman), and a bomb expert, Greenberg (Paul Sand), and the plan is to steal a diamond from a museum and then turn around and sell it to a United Nations representative who wants it back for his home country.

Okay, sounds fun enough, right? Well, the best part of all of this is the crew assembled aren’t all particularly good at their jobs. To the point they keep screwing up and the movie takes us on three more adventures to steal this same diamond because the crew keeps losing it.

I mentioned Soderbergh earlier. I had no idea if he’d ever mentioned The Hot Rock before, but I had a feeling he probably had. His Oceans movies tread too close to the tone of The Hot Rock without it being at least some sort of influence. In a 2017 interview with Daily Blender, he said, “There’s no rational reason why, as a kid, what I would call caper movies would have such an appeal to me. But they always did. There’s a great film called The Hot Rock. It’s really good. Robert Redford, 1972. It’s hilarious. You’ll see how much of an influence it was on the Ocean’s films. That sense of humor. I just like them. That kind of humor and a sort of puzzle. It’s something that movies are good for.”

For the life of me I don’t understand why this movie isn’t more popular. It was even a box office disappointment at the time. The thing is, this movie has a pace more like a modern movie than a movie from 1972. But it hasn’t had a real reassessment from current audiences because it’s not the easiest movie to find. (Other than the Blu-ray, it has played on FX Movie Channel in recent weeks and some people have reported that it’s on their cable package’s “on-demand” service, of all things.) Oh, I almost forgot: do you like New York City movies? That show off almost every corner of the city in glorious fashion? Well, this has that, too. (There’s a scene set at Carl Schurz Park that I just love, which is probably most famous for being the park where Edward Norton gets beat up at the end of 25th Hour. Oh, also, that’s where the mayor’s house is located.)

So, I implore you to seek it out. It’s been a long year, give yourself the treat of The Hot Rock. The best I can do is I promise it will put you in a good mood.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

In an impressive booking coup, Hunter Biden stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday night to promote his new memoir, Beautiful Things, which candidly reveals his well-documented struggles with drug addiction in an effort to “humanize” others who find themselves trapped in a cycle of substance abuse. Naturally, those issues turned political as Hunter’s sordid past was used repeatedly as a cudgel by Donald Trump and the Republican Party during the 2020 presidential election. And it’s still going on today.

On the same night as Hunter’s interview with Kimmel, Tucker Carlson made “Squirtle” trend after airing footage of the embattled Biden son having a threesome with prostitutes in the same room as a plushie of the Pokemon character. Of course, one of Hunter’s biggest critics is Donald Trump Jr., who has made it a habit of attacking Hunter for coasting off his family name. That experience has been very surreal for Hunter who, like most people, is well aware of who Don Jr.’s father is. Via The Daily Beast:

Later, Kimmel asked Biden if it makes him “crazy” when he hears someone like Donald Trump, Jr. saying that the only reason he’s had any success is because he’s “a Biden” and “because of his last name.”

“It is wildly comical,” Biden agreed. “That is putting it lightly.”

But when he tried to brush it off by saying he tries not to “spend too much time thinking about it,” Kimmel egged him on, saying, “I do, I think about it all the time.”

Don Jr.’s strange attacks on Hunter prompted The Daily Show to air a segment back in March questioning whether he knows who his daddy is. “This is like the Kool-Aid Man complaining about other people crashing through walls and leaving Kool-Aid Man-sized holes,” Roy Wood Jr. asked during his investigation. “Does Donald Trump, Jr. not know what the word ‘Junior’ means?”

(Via Jimmy Kimmel Live)

Despite being in the WWE for a decade and a half, there are still instances when Mike “The Miz” Mizanin has to take a step back and pinch himself. The reality TV star, movie star, and the only two-time Grand Slam Champion in the organization’s history encountered one of those moments in the buildup to WrestleMania with his inclusion in a recent SNICKERS commercial.

“If you’d have told 10-year-old me that a SNICKERS bar was going to be dedicated to me — like my catchphrase is, ‘I’m the Miz and I’m awesome,’ and you can go to Dollar General right now and buy a SNICKERS bar that says ‘AWESOME’ on it because of me — that’s insane,” Miz told Uproxx Sports. “I get to play a VR video game and be clumsy and be that guy that people laugh at and say ‘what a great commercial.’ That’s incredible to me. And not only that, but I get to perform at WrestleMania. This is like every childhood dream you could possibly want wrapped into one big present for me.”

Miz’s childhood dream of wrestling in front of millions across the world is something he’s done countless times. But a year into a global pandemic, the former champion says he can’t wait for the return of a live audience at this year’s show, which kicks off two nights of WrestleMania on Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET, live on Peacock.

“I’m in peak performance for WrestleMania, for that live audience,” Miz said. “We didn’t know that it was going to be a live audience back in January, but when I heard it was, I upped my game because I miss our live audience. As much as WWE has done a tremendous job with the Thunder Dome and the virtual audience and making it feel like a live crowd, there’s nothing quite like having the electricity and the energy of a live audience. And I can’t wait to perform for them.”

The topic of performing in front of live audiences was highlighted this week in an interview with Ryan Satin from Fox Sports, where Seth Rollins discussed how performing without live crowds allowed WWE to tell “cleaner” stories. For Miz, it has been a “different” experience for sure.

“I enjoy things that are different in WWE. And honestly, this was very different. Having no audience challenged me as a WWE Superstar, as a talent, as an entertainer, as an actor, as a storyteller, it challenged every piece of me,” Miz said. “Are we able to tell a story differently with no audience? Absolutely. But with an audience, does that help it? Yes, of course. So it’s different. One is not better than the other. It’s just different. And it’s our jobs as WWE superstars to make sure that we are able to tell these stories and be good enough — with or without an audience — to make sure that it creates captivating, entertaining television for everyone to watch.”

The last year saw Miz reach extraordinary heights in the WWE, joining long-time tag team partner John Morrison to capture the Smackdown Tag Team titles and, most recently, cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase to claim his second WWE title.

“It was amazing,” Miz said of his WWE title run. “And you know, a lot of people were like, ‘oh, you only held it for eight days.’ Whether you hold it for eight days, one day, one hour, one minute, one second, you held the most prestigious title in all of WWE. You are the guy for that amount of time, and it’s your job to do whatever it takes to make sure that everyone that has held that prestigious title before you, that you hold it with respect and dignity and prestige and you propel whoever is going to have that title after you to a whole new level. And if you look right now, has Bobby Lashley ever been better than he is right now? He is a monster and he is on fire and he is ready for WrestleMania. He’s ready to main event WrestleMania as WWE champion.

“He’s going up against a former WWE champion in Drew McIntyre who, without having an audience, was able to keep the audience engaged, entertain them and give them matches that are still talked about to this day. So that match between Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley is going to be absolutely incredible at WrestleMania.”

While Miz won’t head into ‘Mania in a title match, his bout might yet again be the headline stealer, as he partners with Morrison to face off against rapper, singer and songwriter Bad Bunny alongside Damian Priest.

“You never know when a celebrity is going to overstay their welcome. Obviously (Bad Bunny) came to do a performance (at the Royal Rumble). He loves WWE. He’s a huge, huge fan and he wanted to train. So I guess he’s been training the past couple of months and from what I’ve heard in the locker room, I don’t think any other celebrity has done the work he is doing. He literally came to a WWE ring and trained after winning a Grammy. He went to the Grammy’s, did a performance and then came to WWE ring the next day to train. This guy is dedicated and he’s hardworking, but he’s barking up the wrong tree,” Miz said.

“I thought I sent a message to him when I hit him with a guitar and then I thought I sent him another message by painting all over his $3.6 million Bugatti and ruining that car. But this is the greatest spectacle in all of entertainment. He’s standing across from the only two-time Grand Slam champion in the history of WWE. So if he thinks this is going to be fun, his fans are going to be really upset with me afterwards because he probably won’t be able to perform for a very long time after this match.”

There was a brief moment in the build to WrestleMania that we could have been set up for a champion vs. champion showdown, with Miz holding the WWE title and Bad Bunny carrying the 24/7 belt.

“Things always change at the drop of a hat,” Miz said when asked if there was ever a possibility he would face off against Bad Bunny with the WWE belt on his shoulder. “I had no idea I was going to cash in and win the WWE championship that night. I didn’t know until the opportunity presented itself. And I was like, this is really happening. This is it, I’m going to be WWE champion again. I still have chills and it almost brings tears to my eyes because that’s how much it means to me. You don’t know what’s going to happen on a week-to-week basis to be honest.”

Instead, Miz is looking forward to his showdown with Bad Bunny and continuing the trend that began at WrestleMania 1 with welcoming celebrities from all forms of entertainment into the squared circle.

“I always look at when a celebrity comes into WWE, they bring a whole different audience and whether you know Bad Bunny or not, you can’t deny how big of a fan base he has. Go to YouTube, look at his music videos. They have over a billion views,” Miz said. “So for people to say, ‘oh, he shouldn’t have that spot.’ Look, he’s bringing an entirely different audience. And by the way, we’ve been doing this since WrestleMania 1 and it will keep happening. And it’s our job as WWE superstars to tell compelling stories and to make sure when Bad Bunny gets into that ring, that he knows he’s taking a spot of a WWE star who has shed blood, sweat and tears to hopefully have a spot, so he needs to earn that spot. And I’m going to make him earn that spot on Saturday.”

WrestleMania will stream live on Peacock on Saturday, April 10 and Sunday, April 11 at 8 p.m. ET.

Ladies (and gentlemen), Stephen Soderbergh’s greatest masterpiece (work with me here) will soon find new life as the inspiration for an upcoming HBO Max reality series. The Real Magic Mike is happening, so get ready for Genuwine’s “Pony” to be stuck in your head forever (again), although it’s really up to you whether you prefer the Channing Tatum or Jenna Dewan version more. Let’s get serious, though, with details about how HBO Max is making dreams happen with an unscripted competition series that will not be guest-hosted by Matthew McConaughey, although I can not-so-secretly hope for this to happen. We need some lawbreakers up in this house.

From an HBO Max press release, The Real Magic Mike will arrive sometime in 2021. Executive producers include both Tatum and Soderbergh, and the show aims to showcase undiscovered talent in an “exhilarating and sexy series” to transform a group of men into superstars. Here’s more:

From the producers behind the Magic Mike franchise and live shows comes an exhilarating and sexy series that will transform a group of men into real-life Magic Mikes. 10 men who have ‘lost their magic’ will come together in a competition series like no other. They will bare their souls and more as they evolve their bodies, learn to perform spectacular routines, and develop a new level of self-confidence. As they strip off their clothes, they will rid themselves of emotional baggage and regain their mojo but only one will be the Real Magic Mike.

There shall be a cash prize involved, but more than that, there’s a Las Vegas gig for the hard-working winner, and “a nationwide casting search is currently underway,” so get at it, people. I will note that McConaughey’s name appears nowhere in the press release, but at least his spirit (as Dallas) should haunt the joint.