Month: April 2021

The buzz about a Space Jam sequel hit fever pitch on Saturday, as the first trailer for the Warner Bros. sequel to the 1996 classic looks to feature a LOT of other characters from its back catalog. And, you know, LeBron James and some Looney Toons and whatnot.

But after the breakdown of who might be in the film, and some jokes about some Warners properties that would be very funny to include, there was a mild panic from some people on social media. Namely, if the new website for Space Jam: A New Legacy, meant the end of one of the most iconic websites in Internet history. Some folks who went to visit SpaceJam.com were shocked when a website that featured the first trailer for the film was in the place where the extremely throwback site for the original Space Jam once was.

The history of the website is a significant part of internet lore. There have been oral histories of the site over the years, and it’s a quirky relic of how movie advertising online started with something very simple before it became, well, the main way movies attract attention these days.

But despite the initial panic, the good news is the iconic website isn’t dead: it was just moved to a 1996-labeled URL that may keep its legacy intact for the foreseeable future. Some digging was done in the new website’s code to confirm that, yes, Warners did take care to move it to the /1996 URL.

Even the links on the landing page still work, though they don’t exactly have a lot to thrill you with. But it’s great that they seem to understand how charming this site is, which tends to go viral every few years when people realize the site is still active.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan managed to bravely endure an episode of Hot Ones with host Sean Evans this week, and although he couldn’t feel his face at times, and at one point flipped off his own son because he was in so much pain, The Walking Dead actor still managed to provide an entertaining and insightful interview. Morgan talked about his role on The Walking Dead, his longtime friendship with Norman Reedus, his love of Harley Davidsons, and he even managed to mention the movie he stars in that opened in theaters this weekend, The Unholy.

He also talked about the tattoo he got at his wedding along with his Supernatural co-stars Jared Padalecki and Jenson Ackles, the latter of whom introduced him to his wife, Hilarie Burton, who co-stars with Morgan in tonight’s season finale of The Walking Dead. He also credits his role as Denny on Grey’s Anatomy as the part that launched his career, because it led to him landing his role of The Comedian in The Watchmen. He also admits that, though he knew going in that he’d be killed off, he begged Shonda Rhimes to let him stay on the series.

However, the most interesting revelation was when he admitted that his role in Star Trek: Enterprise nearly led to him quitting acting altogether

“It turns out I’m claustrophobic,” Morgan told host Sean Evans. “I had a really hard time doing the makeup process, and I had straws in my nose. I’ve never been on a set where I went home at night and just thought, ‘What am I doing? I’ve made the worst f*cking decision of my life. I don’t ever want to be an actor again.’ Like, I was sure that this was just wrong, and it almost made me quit. It was horrible.”.

Morgan played a Xindi-Reptilian in one episode of the series in 2003, and it wasn’t the first time that Morgan complained about the role. He has mentioned in the past that he went “home in tears” after the process required for the prosthetic fitting on the episode. It was clearly a role Morgan took to “pay the bills” because he was unrecognizable in the part

The role was also the opposite of the one he had in Grey’s, where he “knew how f*cking lucky I was to be there.” He spent most of his Grey’s Anatomy arc relaxed comfortably in a hospital bed, which was quite a change from spending hours in the make-up chair breathing through straws in his nose.

Morgan has the featured role in tonight’s The Walking Dead, which tells the origins story for his character, Negan. It airs on AMC, and Morgan will return in that series in Season 11, which launches its 24 episodes beginning this summer.

Source: First We Feast

By now, people know what to expect when they watch Season 46 of Saturday Night Live. People really want to see what political insight the show’s cold open will have. If they’re interested in the person hosting, the opening monologue will be of interest as well. And Weekend Update is always a chance to find a good joke or two about the week that was. But more than anything, people seem to want to see Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant play very silly characters and try to make each other laugh.

The latest instance of this came on Weekend Update on Saturday, when McKinnon and Bryant got to giggle over an extremely weird sketch about Easter dinner options. The concept of the sketch is simple: Vaneta Starkie (McKinnon) and Wylene Starkie (Bryant) own Smokery Farms, a company that wants to make vegetarians and vegans feel better about potentially eating meat on Easter because all of the animals they kill apparently have been real jerks.

“This spiral ham comes from a little creep who bites fingers and shoves kids real hard and far,” Bryant said. “So feel no guilt when you slice his ass and feed him to your grandma.”

The rest of the meat is treated as such (“This lamb went to a plantation wedding a week ago”) and there’s even some blood from an animal, for some reason. The whole point of the sketch is to make other people in the cast laugh, and that was certainly a success. Both Bryant and McKinnon had the giggles, and the end of the sketch involved making Colin Jost touch the raw ham for himself.

It may not convince anyone who doesn’t usually eat meat to make an exception on this or any holiday, but the cast certainly seemed to enjoy putting on a show here.

DMX reportedly suffered a drug overdose on Friday night and was rushed to the hospital where he remains in “grave condition” at a White Plains, New York hospital’s critical care unit. The news of his hospitalization broke on Saturday and for a few hours, updates about his condition were nonexistent. This changed when his lawyer spoke to New York’s Pix11 News and revealed the rapper was removed from life-support and “breathing on his own.”

While this was certainly relieving news, he returned hours later to say the information that was given to him was wrong and that DMX remained on life-support as of Saturday night. As a result of the misleading information regarding DMX’s current condition, the rapper’s family delivered statements to TMZ and VladTV in order to set the record straight.

“We are issuing this statement to combat all the false and misleading reports that are circulating on social media,” they said. “Last night Earl ‘DMX’ Simmons was rushed to the hospital after collapsing at home. At this time he remains in ICU in critical condition. Earl has been a warrior his entire life. This situation represents yet another road he must cross.”

They continued, “The Simmons Family appreciates the overwhelming outpouring of heartfelt love, encouragement, support and prayers for Earl. Earl is someone whose life and music has been a source of inspiration and strength to so many people around the world. It is reassuring to see his fans return that same passion and energy to him during his time of need.”

Prior to the statement, TMZ also reported that paramedics spent 30 minutes trying to resuscitate him, during which he was deprived of oxygen. A family source told TMZ on Saturday “it’s not looking good” in regards to his condition and that his children are flying in to see him.

Saturday night produced one of the all-time great college basketball games, as Gonzaga and UCLA needed every second of 45 minutes to determine who would advance to the national title game on Monday. In the end, it was Jalen Suggs and the Bulldogs who came out on top, as he banked one in from just inside midcourt as the buzzer sounded to end overtime to give Gonzaga a 93-90 win.

That shot will go down in March Madness lore, right alongside Kris Jenkins’ national title winner for Villanova and Christian Laettner’s iconic Final Four winner against Kentucky, playing in every highlight package from now until the end of time. It wasn’t just the shot that was legendary from Suggs, either, as he knew it felt good off the release and sprinted over to the media table on the sideline and jumped up to celebrate in front of the sparse crowd in Lucas Oil Stadium.

After the game, Suggs said he’s always wanted to celebrate a game-winner like Kobe or D-Wade, who each have iconic celebrations on the scorer’s table. Wade, like so many other NBA stars of past and present, was in awe of Suggs’ heroics on Saturday night and joked that he jumped on his kitchen table after Suggs hit that shot — and offered some praise of the Gonzaga star.

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Suggs and the Zags have one more game to make NCAA history and become the first team in more than four decades to pull off an undefeated, national championship winning season. Still, no matter what happens against Baylor on Monday, that Final Four moment will live on forever and is something no one involved or watching will soon forget.

While the calendar has flipped to April, March Madness is in full effect this month as Saturday night’s Gonzaga vs. UCLA game was full proof of that. However, before any suspenseful basketball moments arrived, college basketball fans were treated to a performance from Miley Cyrus. The singer was the musical guest for the NCAA’s Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis, taking the stage after a lackluster matchup between Baylor Bears and Houston Cougars.

Cyrus shared rocking covers of classic songs from Queen (“We Will Rock You” and “Don’t Stop Me Now) and Blondie (“Heart Of Glass“). She also covered Stevie Nicks’ “Edge Of Seventeen,” but delivered it in the form of “Edge Of Midnight” — her mash-up of Nick’s classic and her own song, “Midnight Sky.” The set wasn’t restricted to covers, however, as she dove into her personal catalog to perform highlights like her 2013 hit, “Wrecking Ball.”

Miley’s performance comes after she celebrated the 15th anniversary of Hannah Montana. She celebrated the moment by sending flowers to Migos for their 2013 track of the same title and by sharing a letter with fans that reflected on the highs and lows of her time on the TV series. Prior to that she released a video for “Angels Like You” off her 2020 album, Plastic Hearts.

You can check out some of her Final Four performances above and more below.

The Milwaukee Bucks got off to a bit of a slow start to the 2020-21 campaign, at least relative to their past few seasons in which they’ve run away to the best record in the East, but in recent months they’ve started to look like a dominant force once again. A big reason for that is the health of their three stars, as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Jrue Holiday have all been able to be on the floor together and gaining the reps needed in their first season together to get comfortable with how to operate, particularly in late game situations.

Holiday, in particular, has been terrific of late. On the season he’s averaging 17 points, 5.4 assists, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game on strong efficiency (50.9/39.0/81.6 shooting splits), but over the last month he’s bumped those splits up to 53.3/43.8/90.3 and is averaging just over 20 points per game. That productivity has made the Bucks far more dynamic in crunch time situations, as they now have another player who can be relied on to make and create a bucket, something they’ve desperately needed. On top of that, he’s playing the elite level of defense he’s come to be known for over his career.

As such, the Bucks aren’t wasting any time making sure he’s locked into their future plans, as Holiday and Milwaukee have agreed to a max extension that will pay him $40 million per year for the next four years, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

It’s little surprise that the Bucks would want to lock him down for the future, given the assets they gave up to trade for him this offseason, and as Holiday has had most of a season to spend with the organization and his two new co-stars, he’s clearly reached the decision that this is a place he wants to be long-term. With Giannis and Middleton both on max deals as well, the Bucks are positioned to be contenders for years to come, the question will be whether they have the firepower to take down the equally stacked Brooklyn Nets (and Philadelphia 76ers) to finally come out of the East.

If you’ve watched Saturday Night Live for any stretch recently, you could have guessed that Weekend Update would make a joke about Matt Gaetz after the week he had. You could have also guessed they would joke about how he sort of looks like Colin Jost. And you would have been right: not only did they make that joke right away, they spent much of the program on Saturday roasting Gaetz for his explosive underage sex scandal.

Jost kept coming back to Gaetz a number of times during Weekend Update, making that a joke in and of itself as the comedian targeted the Florida congressman for his alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl

“Representative Matt Gaetz, who looks like a caricature artist drawing of me, is reportedly under investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with an underage girl,” Jost said. “Because Gaetz believes that only voters should need to show ID.”

Jost seemed to really enjoy roasting Gaetz here, making a point to personally rebut the bizarre denial statement the Florida representative issued late Thursday night.

There are some jokes about Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, but then Jost goes back to Gaetz, to also make fun of QAnon. He made a really good point about unhinged QAnon believers who have apparently had little interest in a genuine underage sex scandal just because it has come from a Republican in Congress and not, say, Hillary Clinton.

“Here’s the craziest part of this story to me: a sitting US congressman is being accused of child trafficking and the QAnon people are suddenly like ‘Eh, I need more evidence,’” Jost said. “That was your whole thing! Come on, think about it: Matt Gaetz’s girlfriend, she was allegedly 17. The 17th letter is Q. It all adds up!

“What are you waiting for?” Jost asked. “The storm is finally here, and QAnon is like ‘You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

There were even more Gaetz jokes later in the segment, after a few guests showed up to giggle over some raw holiday meat.

And while Trump was only mentioned in passing, it seems as though Weekend Update has found its new muse in Florida.

“Here’s Negan,” the tenth season finale of The Walking Dead, airs tonight on AMC. I won’t spoil it, except to say this: It’s a fantastic origin story for Negan, and while it is familiar to readers of Robert Kirkman’s source material, there are a few interesting wrinkles, too. I don’t know if it fully completes Negan’s redemption arc, but it does at least satisfactorily explain what led him to become the kind of brutal, dictatorial leader who lorded over The Saviors and brutally tortured and murdered his enemies. Grief and shame can have a powerful effect on a person.

What’s remarkable about the fact that “Here’s Negan” is one of the best episodes in 10 seasons of The Walking Dead is that it also happens to follow the worst-rated episode ever. Literally. Last week’s episode, “Diverged,” which saw Daryl and Carol go on separate adventures, felt like the very epitome of a filler episode. Very little happened, the plot was barely advanced, the character development felt redundant, and even the stabs at humor fell flat.

As a result, IMDB users ended up giving the episode its worst rating ever for The Walking Dead, and to be honest, it wasn’t close. “Diverged” fetched a miserable 4.1 out of 10. That score was significantly worst than the second-worst The Walking Dead episode ever, which aired the week before, “Splinter,” but even the Princess-centered episode at least scored a 5.0. Before the last two episodes, however, the worst episode ever was the lousy season seven episode, “Swear,” which is still the last time we saw Heath. Where is Heath? Even that episode, however, scored a 5.8.

Ultimately, I don’t disagree with the IMDB users ratings for the last couple of episodes (although, I actually liked “Diverged” slightly better than “Splinter,”) but I am very willing to cut the series some slack. The show had aired only one episode in the last year (and even that episode was delayed for months), AMC was desperate to provide some content before season 11 came along this summer, and the show had to contend with COVID protocols before a lot of other shows had restarted production. They made the best of a bad situation, and while two of the six episodes weren’t great, the other four were. Meanwhile, “Here’s Negan” — the new tenth season finale — will probably be remembered as one of the show’s best ever.

In just a little over a month, St. Vincent will release her seventh album, Daddy’s Home, her first full-length project in almost four years. At the moment, the singer, born Annie Clark, is in the midst of a promotional run for the project, which has featured surprise wall posters, a set of singles, and a visual for the one of the songs as well.

St. Vincent continued that run Saturday with a recent appearance on Saturday Night Live where she performed the two singles from Daddy’s Home live for the first time. The night began with a rendition of “Pay Your Way In Pain,” the lead single from the upcoming project, and concluded her SNL night with “The Melting Of The Sun,” a track she released on Thursday.

After started teasing Daddy’s Home at the end of February, St. Vincent spoke about the upcoming album with The New Cue, the new newsletter from former Q Magazine editors Ted Kessler, Chris Catchpole, and Niall Doherty. “I would say it’s the sound of being down and out downtown in New York, 1973,” she said. “Glamour that hasn’t slept for three days. […] I went back to these records that I probably listened to more in my life than at any other time. Music made in New York from 1971 to ’76, typically post-flower child, kick the hippie idealism out of it, America’s in a recession but pre-disco, the sort of gritty, raw, wiggly nihilistic part of that.”

You can watch both performances in the videos above.

Daddy’s Home is out 5/14 via Loma Vista. Pre-order it here.