Month: June 2021

The Bucks and Nets found themselves in a rock fight on Thursday, with Milwaukee taking an early 30-9 lead before letting Brooklyn cut the deficit to just 45-42 at the half.

Neither offense could hit shots with any consistency as the two defenses were each doing a good job forcing contested looks and playing physically. That naturally created some frustrations on both sides, and as the game wore on things got a bit chippy. That peaked in the third quarter when a pair of former Texas Longhorns got tangled, as Kevin Durant and PJ Tucker came face to face to have words from a very close proximity after Tucker got called with a reach-in that was pretty obvious but he took issue with.

That Tucker and Durant got into it, earning a offsetting technicals, wasn’t much of a thing until the team security personnel arrived and managed to escalate the situation rather than diffuse it, with the Nets security guard barreling into Tucker and pushing him for no real reason.

That happened as everything was dying down and set Tucker off further, as his teammates had to calm him down and get him away from the situation. It was not a situation that needed a whole lot of breaking up beyond what the refs had already done and it’s not great that security made the situation worse by literally running through one of the players in question. The two sides moved on quickly and there were no other shenanigans in the quarter, but it might be time for a bit more deescalation training for the security guys because “running through one of the players” isn’t the best practice.

HBO Max isn’t known for its reality shows as much as its HBO content and Warner movie releases, but if Nikki Glaser gets her way that’s about to change in a hurry. Thursday brought official word for another reality show for the Warners streaming service, one that gets right to the point about its premise with the title: FBoy Island.

Billed as a strange mix of The Bachelor and Love Is Blind, the reality show about “f*ckboys” and “nice guys” will feature comedian Nikki Glaser as host. Glaser posted about the show on Twitter on Thursday and promised it is “everything” you expect a reality show about f*ckboys to be.

Complete with a tropical poster and shirtless dudes, it’s certainly a departure from some early reality offerings on HBO Max such as The Bridge, where extremely British people worked together to make a bridge across a lake using rudimentary tools and engineering knowledge. This one, in other words, sounds much more like American reality TV.

Here’s the official logline from HBO:

Three women move to a tropical island where they’re joined by 24 men – 12 self-proclaimed “Nice Guys” looking for love, and 12 self-proclaimed “FBoys,” there to compete for cold, hard cash. The women will navigate the dating pool together with the hope of finding a lasting love connection. By the finale, all will be revealed – who is a Nice Guy, who is an FBoy, and who do the women ultimately choose. FBOY ISLAND is a social experiment that asks the age-old question: Can FBoys truly reform or do Nice Guys always finish last?

It sounds weird enough to work. Or, at the very least, be extremely watchable in a weekend or so. Which is all we’re really looking for from reality TV on a streaming platform, right? Glaser certainly seems excited about the project.

“When I first got the call to be a part of a reality dating show called FBOY ISLAND, I said yes immediately. Then I realized they weren’t asking me to be one of the girls looking for love. That is not a joke; it was embarrassing,” she said according to a release. “But as a massive fan of this genre, hosting this show was a true dream. I look forward to hosting for the next 43 seasons.”

FBoy Island premieres on HBO Max later this summer.

Saweetie is stepping up to lend a helping hand to her Asian American community. The rapper, who is of Filipino descent, announced that she is teaming up with Gen. G, the leading esports company that connects the United States to Asia, for a string of workshops. The Icy Baby Workshops begin next week and see the rapper learning skills and covering topics that include gaming, cooking, music, lifestyle, and fashion, and beauty.

According to Revolt, Saweetie’s overall goal is to bring awareness to both AAPI entrepreneurs and her Icy Baby Foundation, her non-profit that aims to inspire “Black, brown and other underserved youth through financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and technology training.” Saweetie also spoke about the workshops in a press release.

“Now is the time to come together and support each other as we fight to end Asian Hate,” she said. “I am excited to partner with Gen. G to connect with our fans in new and inventive ways to have real conversations about making positive changes in our community.”

Gina Chung Lee, VP of Brand for Gen. G, also spoke about the new endeavor as well.

“So many Asian Americans are in the forefront of gaming, music and fashion but rarely get the spotlight that they deserve. It’s great to partner with an advocate and entrepreneur like Saweetie,” she said in the press release. “As an AAPI woman growing up, there wasn’t always mainstream representation and celebration. It’s very meaningful to be able to shape and empower the next generation of leaders across all digital platforms and create cool content while doing so.”

The workshops will begin on June 14 with the launch of her new Twitch channel. The first lesson will see her beside Twitch chef Triciaisabirdy and DJ Bella Fiasco as they dive into a discussion about food. On June 16, she will discuss fashion and beauty and the next day her conversation will be focused on gaming.

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

The “Big 5” is an old term from the colonial era, denoting the five wild animals in Africa that were the most sought-after kills for trophy hunters. Killing those five—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo—meant ultimate success in the big-game hunting world.

Now there’s a “New Big 5,” but instead of a barbaric goal for trophy hunters, it’s a beautiful goal for wildlife photographers.

The initiative was created by British wildlife photographer Graeme Green with the goal of raising awareness about threats to the world’s animals including habitat loss, poaching, illegal animal trade, and climate change. In a global call for votes, 50,000 wildlife lovers shared which animals they most wanted to photograph or see in photos. And the winners are:

Elephant. Polar bear. Lion. Gorilla. Tiger.

These five animals will serve as global ambassadors for all the world’s wildlife, including the one million species currently threatened with extinction.

The New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography – The Results

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New Big 5 project founder Graeme Green said in a statement, “The 5 animals that wildlife lovers around the world have voted to include in the New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography — elephants, gorillas, tigers, lions, and polar bears — are not just some of the most beautiful, incredible animals on the planet. All 5 also face serious threats to their existence. The New Big 5 are the tip of the iceberg. They stand for all the creatures on the planet, so many of which are in danger. From bees to blue whales, all wildlife is essential to the balance of nature, to healthy ecosystems and to the future of our planet.”

Jane Goodall has also praised the initiative, saying, “We now have the results of the New Big 5 project. These 5 animals — elephants, polar bears, gorillas, tigers, and lions — are such beautiful and remarkable species, and are wonderful ambassadors for the world’s wildlife, from iconic species to little-known frogs, lizards, fish and birds. So many face threats to their survival from issues such as poaching, habitat loss and climate change. A million species are at risk of extinction. If we work together, we can stop this from happening. There is always hope. Change is possible if we each play our part.”

The New Big 5 project encourages travelers to visit the places where these animals are found and support conservation efforts in those areas. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of wildlife and nature photography and a call to action to save species under threat.

Humanity has learned a lot since the original Big 5 days, but trophy hunting still exists and there’s much to be done to protect the world’s wildlife. Hopefully the New Big 5 will inspire more people to work on conserving the environment and protect ecosystems so that animal life large and small can flourish.

I’m sorry to do this to anyone who remembers its release, but Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is going to be 24 years old this upcoming August. Yet, despite the game’s age, it is still beloved to this day. That’s because Goldeneye is one of those legendary games that was at the perfect moment in the perfect time. It was the first major console first-person shooter to take off. Its multiplayer was the stuff of legends and dominated college dorm rooms well beyond the N64’s lifespan.

People love Goldeneye, even in this current generation of lifelike video games and massively upgraded mechanics. And the latest example of that adoration for the series can be found in Far Cry 5 and its arcade mode. Fans recently discovered that when you enter that mode and search for “GE64” you will find a map that is an incredible homage to Goldeneye.

This just goes to show how much people still love Goldeneye. Nostalgia is a powerful tool and that someone was willing to recreate it in an entirely different game just shows the level to which people adore this game. What’s also impressive is how good it looks. A lot of people will remake their favorite levels of games in creation games such as Mario Maker or Dreams, but there’s usually a pretty obvious fake skin on top of it. This looks pretty close to what a modern-day version of ‘Goldeneye 007’ would look like, making it that much better.

Middle Earth keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the latest project in the Lord of the Rings universe is apparently a feature-length anime. An animated Lord of the Rings film is reportedly coming from New Line Cinema and Warner Animation, who have roughly $5.8 billion reasons to keep expanding the blockbuster film series with new stories from the J.R.R. Tolkien universe.

According to Variety, The War of the Rohirrim anime has some serious backing lined up and will feature a story Rings fans are eager to see play out on the silver screen. According to the report, voice casting is already underway and we already know the feature will tackle some important lore.

The stand-alone feature will depict the bloody saga behind Helm’s Deep, the fortress depicted in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” and the man in whose honor it’s named: Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan who spent much of his reign locked in a prolonged and costly war.

Veteran anime filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama, who helmed Netflix’s “Ultraman” anime series, will direct the film from a screenplay by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (“The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”). Joseph Chou (the “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” TV series) is producing.

It’s all part of the ever-expanding Rings universe, which is starting to include projects on a variety of networks and extending beyond movies. As Variety’s reporting indicates, the anime film will directly tie into the more traditional Lord of the Rings movies from Peter Jackson, which includes the original trilogy and the number of Hobbit-related projects. That includes Philippa Boyens, who penned the Oscar-winning Return of the King screenplay, consulting on the anime project. The Amazon LOTR series, however, will apparently not be directly tied to this project.

That’s probably because, well, the series is set many, many years before the original trilogy’s events in Middle Earth. Still with us? Well, it’ll all make a bit more sense when the series and this film are actually released. But there’s certainly a lot to look forward to here.

[via Variety]

After a strange upload and takedown of her first new single, “Solar Power,” Lorde is now back in business. Sharing the title track and first video for her third album cycle, the New Zealand singer-songwriter also shared a lengthy newsletter with more detail for fans shortly after the video officially dropped today. She let subscribers know that today is, fittingly, the only solar eclipse of the year, and confirmed that her third album will be a summer one. Solar Power is, according to its maker, “sexy, playful, feral, and free,” and a ” celebration of the natural world.”

Check out her full letter about the album below, and if you haven’t heard the first single yet, watch the “Solar Power” video above.

“You ready?
There’s someone I want you to meet.
Her feet are bare at all times. She’s sexy, playful, feral, and free. She’s a modern girl in a deadstock bikini, in touch with her past and her future, vibrating at the highest level when summer comes around. Her skin is glowing, her lovers are many. I’m completely obsessed with her, and soon you will be too.

It’s my divine pleasure to be introducing you, at long last, to my third studio album, SOLAR POWER.

The album is a celebration of the natural world, an attempt at immortalising the deep, transcendent feelings I have when I’m outdoors. In times of heartache, grief, deep love, or confusion, I look to the natural world for answers. I’ve learnt to breathe out, and tune in. This is what came through.

The first song, also called SOLAR POWER and written and produced by myself and Jack, is the first of the rays. It’s about that infectious, flirtatious summer energy that takes hold of us all, come June (or December, if you’re a Southern Hemisphere baby like me but I know that’s literally IMPOSSIBLE for you all to wrap your little heads around so don’t worry about it!!).

I made everything with friends here in New Zealand. My best mate Ophelia took the cover photo, lying on the sand as I leapt over her, both of us laughing. The director who made my first ever music video, Joel, helped me create the videos, building an entire cinematic universe that I can’t wait for you to see. I made something that encapsulates where I’m from — my family, my girlfriends, my outdoors, my constant ruminations, and my unending search for the divine.

There’s SO much more detail to come — a truly comical amount of detail, honestly. You can look to the natural calendar for clues. I’m trying to listen to what’s out there more, and the vibe I got was that you’re ready for this, that you need it. I want this album to be your summer companion, the one you pump on the drive to the beach. The one that lingers on your skin like a tan as the months get cooler again.

Today’s the only solar eclipse of the year, did you know that? Feels right.

LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LET’S GO

SOLAR POWER TODAY — TOMORROW — FOREVER

ELLA XX.”

A magical thing about the internet is that it is very easy to find archived articles from the past to find quotes, and that is something Charles Barkley should’ve maybe looked into before going on his latest rant about the current state of the NBA.

Barkley was asked about the Brooklyn Nets and their prospects of winning it all on a conference call for the American Century Championship golf tournament and said he’s rooting against the Nets this postseason before launching into a rant against guys teaming up to go win championships, via Sports Illustrated.

“KD is a great player, and I think he’s a great kid,” Barkley said on a conference call for this weekend’s American Century Championship golf tournament. “I don’t know him that well, but I’m not a fan of superteams. So listen, if they win it, they win it, but to be perfectly clear, I’m rooting against those guys. I root against all superteams.

“If I’d known you guys were going to make fun of me for not winning a championship, I would have joined a superteam back in my day—me and Patrick [Ewing] and Karl Malone and John Stockton. But I feel good about my legacy. I’m pretty sure Patrick and John and Karl do, too. LeBron [James] started this superteam thing [in Miami], and hey, it’s the way the game is played now.”

…

“To go back to my day, even though we didn’t win the championship, the Sixers were worth watching. The Knicks were worth watching. The Pacers were worth watching when Reggie was there, same thing with Atlanta and Dominique. I just don’t think it’s good for business, but these young kids, they all fold to peer pressure and feel like they’ve got to win a championship or their life sucks. I don’t believe that. Listen, there’s not many people I’d trade my life with.”

Barkley is far from the first former player to complain about super teams, but he also seems to be conveniently forgetting the time he forced his way onto a contender by threatening to retire if the Suns didn’t trade him to the Rockets in 1996 so he could play with two-time champs Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler in order to finally win a championship. You can read all about it still, right here, including quotes like this:

Barkley said he was pleased with the way the deal had worked out.

“I’m excited because . . . I called the shots,” he said of the trade. “When push comes to shove, I think you have to stand up to the system.”

Those Rockets just weren’t able to ever fulfill on the promise of having that trio, despite a tremendous 96-97 season, and win a championship in their later years. This isn’t to say Barkley was wrong to have wanted to get to a contender in 1996, but to point out the selective memory he and others seem to have when it comes to taking issue with things current players do that they likewise did.

To act as though he wasn’t incredibly aware of how important winning a title was to his legacy when he was playing is ridiculous, as is the idea that players just now started wielding their power to get where they wanted to go. Players certainly have different avenues they can go to make that happen and more make such pushes sooner rather than later in their careers, but for Barkley to act as though trying to team up with other stars is something completely foreign to his generation of players is, to say the least, laughable.

Mexico is getting in on the whisky craze. This makes a lot of sense, given that corn (bourbon whiskey’s main ingredient) is originally from Mexico. In fact, for anyone who understands that lineage, it’s downright exciting. So when I heard there was a corn whisky being fermented, distilled, and aged in Mexico, I knew I had to try it.

I’ve been seeking out 100 percent corn whiskies and bourbons for a while now, especially red and blue corn varietals. That led me to long-term friendships with folks like Jared Himstedt over at Waco’s now-renowned Balcones — which makes some of the best blue corn whiskies on the market, using home-grown Indigenous blue corn.

In theory, this whisky feels very adjacent to what Himstedt is doing — reaching into Mexico’s ancestral past to distill whisky using Cacahuazintle corn. That’s the white corn that’s been used for masa, tamales, tortillas, and general corn-based foods for thousands and thousands of years in Mexico. It’s vital to the culinary conversation and now, perhaps, it could be vital to the spirits conversation, too?

Let’s see what’s in the bottle!

Abasolo El Whisky de Mexico

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $40

The Whisky:

This is billed as the first 100 percent corn whisky from Mexico. The spirit is made from Cacahuazintle corn that’s prepared via nixtamalization (traditionally: soaked in limewater) to enrich the corn’s bioavailability. The corn is then hulled and ground and mashed with local yeast and spring water. The spirit is twice distilled and then aged for two years in a combination of used bourbon barrels and new American oak. Finally, the juice is married, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

The nose reminds me of a paper bag that held yellow masa with a touch of day-old popcorn and knock-off Werther’s Original candies. There’s a continuation of that paper masa bag that leads towards a softer cornbread vibe, next to a shallow yet slightly sweet corn note mid-palate and a final bow of vegetal spice with maybe some dry straw and alcohol warmth.

The Bottle:

The bottle feels like a throwback to the bottles you’d see in old Tex-Mex joints in the 1980s. It’s heavy, dark brown, and ridged for easy pouring. The big white label gives you all the information you need without feeling overstuffed. Overall, this is a cool centerpiece bottle.

The Bottom Line:

This was interesting. I’m a big corn whisky fan and seek it out. I think this expression and brand are on their way to being something bigger and bolder. But… it’s a little thin right now. I’m more inclined to use this in a cocktail to see what can be mined from the flavor profile in that context.

Rating:

80/100 — it’s fine. No rough edges. But it’s very one note of “old and dry corn” without any real “whisky” depth.

As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.

Well, it’s been quite an exciting week for Lorde fans! After the superfans made her trend simply because they miss her last week, she seemed to take notice, and shared an update for fans on her website. The album cover (single artwork?) and title, “Solar Power,” were clue enough that at least a new song was on the way, and her note hammered the message home: “Arriving in 2021… Patience is a virtue.” After endless memes of the revealing image on the album cover circulated the internet earlier this week, today the new single temporarily hit streaming services, causing further uproar.

The new single, titled “Solar Power” as the teaser suggested, featured both Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo, and seemed to come as unexpectedly as the update did. Except, then the song was pulled down, suggesting perhaps it was an unexpected development for the Lorde camp, too. Regardless of the earlier snafu, all appears to be right with the world now as the track is officially back up on streaming services and available for your listening pleasure, along with a brand new video. This is clearly the beginning of a whole new era for everyone’s favorite New Zealand star, and Jack Antonoff is back onboard for production, so buckle up for a whole new project from Lorde apparently coming soon.