Month: June 2021

The Portland Trail Blazers are expected to formally announce the hire of Chauncey Billups as the team’s next head coach this coming week after it was reported the two sides were finalizing a deal this weekend, but suddenly the Blazers have much bigger issues facing them.

Damian Lillard is reportedly considering pushing his way out of Portland over increasing frustrations with the team’s construction and whether they can be a title contender and, maybe most notably, the backlash to the Billups hire that he has faced on social media, per Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.

The enormous backlash from the Portland Trail Blazers’ process to hire a new coach and his concerns on whether a championship contender can be built have become factors that may push the franchise player — Damian Lillard — out the door, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.

In the early stages of the Blazers coaching search, Lillard made it known that his preference was Jason Kidd, who quickly bowed out of consideration and has since taken the Dallas job, and also noted that he liked Chauncey — which seems to contradict Haynes’ note that none of the coaches interviewed were suggested by Lillard. Still, the Blazers silence to this point on the hire in the midst of ample backlash in Portland as the allegations have resurfaced and become known to many for the first time left Lillard answering questions about it on Twitter, which showed him growing increasingly frustrated with the perception the Billups hire was happening because of him.

Billups has long been considered a future head coach, but recently many in the basketball world were made aware of rape allegations against Billups from 1997 when he was in Boston. Billups has denied the allegations and settled a civil lawsuit at the time, never facing criminal charges, but the details of the allegations from the lawsuit are horrific and, understandably, have led many to have concerns about the possible hire.

It feels like Lillard has been contemplating whether he should just go ahead and push to get out of Portland and this hiring cycle has left him feeling hung out to dry by the organization and the fan base — who, it should be noted, have a right to voice their issues with a hire, and it just happens to be that Lillard is willing to engage with that on Twitter while Neil Olshey and the Blazers brass have refused to speak on it as of yet. This certainly seems like one final warning from Lillard that if something doesn’t change regarding how the Blazers are being run right now — read: Olshey — he very well could reach a breaking point and ask out. How the Blazers respond is going to be fascinating, with plenty of pressure to change course on the coaching hire from their fans and now Lillard making it known that he is extremely unhappy with how everything has played out so far this offseason.

Christopher Meloni knows he’s gone viral on many occasions, and apparently his family has learned to embrace it. For example, the Law and Order has shown himself to be a good sport even when large portions of social media appear to be thirsting after his, uh, cake. So perhaps it’s no surprise that good nature extends to his daughter, who roasted him with a Father’s Day gift to remember, which Meloni subsequently shared on Instagram.

“Belated Fathers Day gift,” Meloni wrote, tagging his daughter, Sophia and adding #Bestgiftever. The gift? A framed printout of a tweet from New York Magazine TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz. Seitz responding to a prompt on Twitter about your best celebrity encounters in the real world. His story involved Meloni, who apparently had a tough brunch with his kids when they were younger.

Seitz’s tweet didn’t exactly go viral, but apparently it did get the attention of the Meloni family. And Seitz retweeted a screenshot of Meloni’s Instagram post on Sunday, so he’s definitely aware that he’s now a part of his family’s traditions. In conclusion, this has been another charming Christopher Meloni interaction with the internet. Add it to an already-impressive and towering pile.

Justin Bieber is by far one of the most famous names in today’s pop culture world. He has the second-most followers on Twitter and the tenth-most on Instagram, so one could assume that the effects of fame for the singer may be a bit more severe and unique compared to other acts. An example of this came when he arrived at his New York City apartment all to be greeted by fans who waited outside in hopes of seeing him. In a TikTok video that captured the interaction that followed, Bieber had to politely ask the group to leave the area.

“I hear you, I hear you. But this is my home. You know what I mean? This is where I live,” he said after one of the fans asked for a hug. “And I don’t appreciate you guys being here. You know when you come home at the end of the night, and you want to relax? This is my space to do that. So I would appreciate it if you guys could leave.”

This isn’t the first time that Bieber had to ask supporters to not wait outside his apartment. Back in October, he called out “disrespectful” fans for loitering around his NYC home.

“How do you convince yourself it’s not completely inappropriate and disrespectful to wait outside my home to gawk, stare and take pictures as I walk into my apartment,” he wrote on his Instagram Story. “This is not a hotel. It’s my home.”

You can watch the video of Bieber talking to supporters outside his apartment above.

Giannis Antetokounmpo has become one of the NBA’s biggest stars over the past three seasons, but with the territory of winning back-to-back MVPs (and a DPOY as well) comes plenty of scrutiny. For all of the things Giannis does incredibly well, his struggles shooting the ball both from the perimeter and the free throw line have often come into focus at this time of year, particularly when looking at the reasons why the Bucks have fallen short of the NBA Finals in each of the last two years.

This year, the Bucks are tied 1-1 with the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference Finals after dropping Game 1 and blowing out Atlanta in Game 2, with Giannis being undoubtedly the best player for Milwaukee through the first two games. It’s a matchup that suits Giannis, but he’s also shown his growth as a player this playoffs, shrugging off last year’s playoff demons in the first round in sweeping Miami and then making some needed adjustments in his approach against Brooklyn to lead the Bucks from an 0-2 deficit to a seven-game win.

Through all of the criticism of his lack of offensive versatility in terms of where he can consistently score from, Giannis has managed to maintain the same positive attitude that he has always shown throughout his career. On Sunday morning, a video went viral of Giannis at Bucks practice, happily going over all his lowest moments with PJ Tucker, saying he’s “seen it all,” been at the bottom, and can only go up from there.

It is a lovely window into what makes Giannis great. He is an impossibly positive person who is capable of letting his lowest moments on the court become not just something to learn from but something he’ll make jokes about. He shrugs off ugly misses to continue attacking and continue trying to get back to the rim, even amid his free throw line struggles, with the stubborn belief he’ll make both next time if he gets sent there. It is the exact thing that Scottie Pippen pointed to as the biggest difference between Giannis and Ben Simmons, who similarly struggles at the free throw line (although, shooting them at an even worse rate this postseason).

Giannis will get right back up and charge down the lane again, while Simmons hasn’t found this mentality yet to shrug off the misses and keep attacking. It takes a ridiculous amount of mental fortitude and a positivity that is really hard to manufacture artificially. Giannis just has that and it’s why, despite his flaws, he remains a dominant force who never shies away from the moment, even if sometimes he fails.

Donald Trump held a rally in Ohio on Saturday night, with thousands of supporters eager to hear him spout more misinformation about his loss in the 2020 presidential election. But the news around all that misinformation continues to contradict the Big Lie that he continues to spread instead of coping with the fact that he’s no longer president. That includes among one of the biggest names in his own administration.

In a piece in The Atlantic, writer Jonathan D. Karl interviewed former Trump attorney general William Barr, who detailed what happened when Trump learned he publicly said there had been no evidence of widespread election fraud to steal the election from Trump. There are some wild excerpts, and the piece details the fallout from a December 1 instance where Barr said on the record that no fraud had been detected that would have changed the result of the election.

“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr told me. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullsh*t.”

Trump, of course, was furious with Barr for publicly contradicting the wild conspiracies he was spouting while still in office. And when they met in person after the Associated Press story was published, well, things got weird in a hurry. The Atlantic story said Trump “went off” on Barr, making a Dr. Strangelove comparison and also noting that Trump referred to himself in the third person.

Trump brought up Barr’s AP interview.

“Did you say that?”

“Yes,” Barr responded.

“How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?”

“Because it’s true.”

The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”

Months later, after an insurrection attempt and a number of lies disproven again and again, Trump is still defiant about the election. His rally on Saturday was a reinforcement of just how committed he is to saying he won despite all evidence. According to the New York Times, “scores” of people left early during a rambling 90-minute speech that covered a bunch of his favorite topics.

Mr. Trump’s speech — low-key, digressive and nearly 90 minutes long — fell flat at times with an otherwise adoring audience. Scores of people left early as he bounced from topic to topic — immigration, Israel, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s protective mask.

“Do you miss me?” Mr. Trump asked in one of his biggest applause lines. “They miss me,” he declared.

And while many in the crowd parroted Trump’s election lies, outside of Trump World his campaign to somehow undo an already-certified election six months into Joe Biden’s presidency looks to be running out of steam. As CNN reported, his surrogates were dealt another string of losses in courtrooms across the country as Trump sycophants desperately grasp for any kind of fraud.

“Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan,” the committee, chaired by Republican state Sen. Ed McBroom, said in its report. “The Committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.”

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“Last year, I told President Trump and others who push the Big Lie to ‘put up or shut up.’ It’s been six months and no proof of wrongdoing has been produced. Enough is enough — this whole circus must end,” Robb Pitts, the chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said in a statement.

In other news, Mitt Romney described Trump’s still-ongoing desperation to overturn his election loss “like WWF” and “not real.”

“Did he hear it from the intelligence community? No,” Romney said. “So where did he hear it from? The MyPillow guy? Rudy Giuliani?”

It’s clear at this point that those who want to stay in Trump’s orbit have committed to his election lies and exposing fraud that isn’t there, if only to keep the former president’s favor. But it certainly is interesting to see some of his biggest supporters finally say that enough is enough.

The Phoenix Suns are one game away from the NBA Finals, thanks in large part to the play of their third-year center, Deandre Ayton. Ayton has been nothing short of dominant in the Western Conference Finals, with his latest performance a 19-point, 22-rebound, 4-block effort in Game 4 in L.A. on a night the Suns desperately needed that kind of effort with their dreadful perimeter shooting. The big man gave them a lift while Chris Paul and Devin Booker continued their Game 3 shooting struggles, going 14-of-44 from the field combined on the night, and was the biggest reason they were able to gut out a win.

Ayton has provided the Suns with everything they could ask for on both ends, dominating on the glass, feasting in pick-and-roll (particularly early in the game), and providing a massive deterrent for the Clippers daring to enter the paint. It’s quite the leap for a player who entered the NBA with real questions about his defensive feel for the game, as his stiffness on that end was in jarring contrast to the fluidity he showed offensively. Three years later, his comfort level as a defender is night and day from his rookie season and it allows his physical tools to shine.

For Ayton, this regular season didn’t show a noticeable leap in productivity on offense, as he found himself in the third option position alongside Chris Paul and Devin Booker, but in the playoffs he’s shown how he can dominate from that spot. Ayton deserves a ton of credit for taking on that role and embracing how, even while a bit limiting, it allows him to do the things he does best. Most notably that is crushing on the glass and rolling hard to the rim, where he’s become one of the NBA’s best roll men alongside one of the league’s all-time great pick-and-roll ball handlers in Paul.

On Saturday night, Ayton was asked about what it’s been like playing with Paul and what that’s done for his game and he had plenty to say. He called Paul “the best thing to ever happen” to him, noting he’s like a big bro and pushes him the way no one ever has before.

It is clear that this isn’t just talk from Ayton, who has embraced the tough love aspect of being coached by Monty Williams and playing alongside Chris Paul, the latter of whom can be notoriously hard on young bigs with his expectations of them and it can be hard to deal with — just ask Blake Griffin. Ayton’s play on the court is evidence of that as is how he’s asserted himself on the court, looking to dominate on both ends and being more vocal about it this season, showing that competitive fire that wasn’t always apparent. That has been awoken in him, a combination of his environment and also just his own personal growth.

The admiration goes both ways, as Chris Paul spoke after the game about how he “genuinely loves” Deandre and that despite some heated conversations early, he’s so proud of what Ayton has become.

It’s cool to see that partnership work in the way that everyone in Phoenix hoped it could. The fit was clear with their abilities as pick-and-roll players, and you can see how Ayton has learned from the tempo and patience of Paul, who likewise seems a bit rejuvenated playing alongside a springy, energetic big man again. The Suns are enjoying the fruits of their labor, and now are on the doorstep of a Finals appearance.

Fallout 4 has a special place in the hearts of the fans of the series for any number of reasons, but your character’s animal companion is likely at the top of that list for most. Which is why news that the real-life inspiration for Dogmeat dying drew considerable mourning in the real world from Bethesda RPG fans over the weekend.

The animal companion appears in the 2015 followup to the much-loved Fallout 3. Set in Boston, Fallout 4 has your Sole Survivor exploring the Commonwealth and stumbling into a very cheerful German Shepherd who happens to be great at tracking. If you so choose, Dogmeat can be a companion the rest of the game, helping attack raiders and solve mysteries and unravel the rest of the game’s plot.

But that dog was far more than just a very useful NPC. It was actually modeled on a real-life dog named River, who belonged to the family of Joel Burgess, then-senior designer at Bethesda. Burgess, who worked on several Fallout games and is now the Capy Games studio director, shared on Twitter early Sunday that River, the dog who inspired Dogmeat in Fallout 4, had died.

Burgess shared a long thread that not only explained Dogmeat’s origins in the game, but River’s impact on the team as the project went from ambitious sequel to reality.

The name “Dogmeat” trended on Twitter by Sunday afternoon, likely confusing people not familiar with the post-apocalyptic series and its canine companion. But the tributes from fans and studio employees alike were filled with sentiment and love.

I never knew much about Bill Paxton, other than he was an absolute gem as the bullying older brother, Chet, in Weird Science and obviously near-perfect in the should-be-iconic blockbuster, Twister. Rob Lowe, however, was very dear friends with Paxton, and so he is frequently mentioned in Rob Lowe’s podcast, Literally. Given the way that Lowe frequently talks about Paxton, who died of a stroke at the too-early age of 61 in 2017, I think he could best be described as a “colorful character.” I would also say, in the way that Lowe affectionately caricatures him, that Paxton was very Texan.

In this week’s episode of Literally with Rob Lowe, Lowe spoke to Jimmy Kimmel, but in the course of his conversation, Lowe got off on a tangent while speaking about how “quotable” his friend Bill Paxton was. To wit, Paxton’s last major role was Det. Frank Rourke — the Denzel Washington role — in the CBS television adaptation of Training Day. “Bill had never done a network TV show,” Lowe said,” and when Lowe asked him how it was going, Paxton gave Lowe one of his memorable quotes. “Well, yeah, Rob, we’re making widgets on this one. I wish the scripts were better.”

Lowe also spoke of a talk show appearance that Paxton once made on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show around the time that Apollo 13 was released. “He was clearly playing to the Academy voters,” Lowe said. “He couldn’t give a crap about getting the audience to come to the movie. It was purely, he wanted those votes for that movie. He was like, “God, it’s Apollo 13. The technology that went into putting that rocket into space. I mean, COME ON. It’s the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” he said, emphasizing “science” under the belief that it would get him more Oscar votes for a movie about space. “He thought that was the way in. There was science in the movie.”

Lowe also spoke about the 2010 Golden Globes and his “obsession” with the “box moments,” when the nominees are all pictured in a box on a telecast as the reader is being read. “My two favorite ‘box moments,’” Lowe said, “were Burt [Reynolds] losing for Boogie Nights where everybody thought he was going to win, he thought he was going to win, and his face! If he had an actual thought balloon, it could not have been more clear,” and his face would have said, “‘I knew these guys would f**k me.” That is his exact face, although he lost to a very worthy nominee, Robin Williams for his role in Good Will Hunting.

The other one, however was “my dear departed friend, Bill Paxton. When he was nominated for Big Love. Big Love was out, and he was opposite a lot of great people, including Dexter, the serial killer show on Showtime, and Michael C. Hall, who is great. And Michael C. Hall had bravely battled and won a lymphoma battle. Remember that?”

“So the show is off the year, come back, and he’s sitting [in the audience] and they got the box on him, and they go, ‘And the winner is … Michael C. Hall.’ Bill turns to his wife, and I can remember it because I’m a lip reader. Clear as day, he goes, ‘Aww. the cancer card.”

Lowe is not wrong. If you rewatch it, it’s fairly obvious that is what Paxton is saying at the 48-second mark.

“It was right before social media is what it is today,” Lowe said, “Because today, for sure [he’d have been called out] because you don’t get away with anything.”

For the record, Michael C. Hall very much deserved that award, having been nominated for an Emmy six times, including five times for his role as Dexter. He was also nominated five times for a Golden Globe in that role, although his only win was in 2010. This particular nomination and win came after the series fourth season, which was one of the best if not the best season of Dexter. Moreover, the voters wouldn’t have even known because Hall didn’t go public with his cancer diagnosis until that very Golden Globes ceremony in which he won, arriving with his wife at the time (co-star Jennifer Morgan) while wearing a knit cap to cover his head, after having lost his hair due to chemotherapy treatment.

Source: Literally with Rob Lowe

It feels like every few weeks, the pandemic box office faces another big test. Godzilla vs. Kong proved that HBO Max’s strategy of releasing movies at home and in theaters at the same time could work. Demon Slayer showed that the box office could still produce a sleeper hit. Over Memorial Day, A Quiet Place Part II illustrated that moviegoers were still anxious to return to theaters.

This weekend, however, F9, the latest installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, was meant to show us what the ceiling for the post-pandemic box office might be. The much-anticipated, long-delayed F9 would show us how much might was left in the box office, and provide us with. a status update on the health of the moviegoing audiences.

The good news is: F9 easily broke the pandemic box-office record, racking up $70 million over the three-day weekend. Many are saying this is great news, and proof that the box office is returning to health. F9 did, after all, fare better than Hobbs and Shaw, the Fast and Furious spin-off, which recorded a $60 million opening weekend before the pandemic. That’s true, but it’s also $28 million less than the opening of The Fate of the Furious, the last F&F movie, which arrived in 2017.

Is the $70 million opening a reflection of Fast and Furious fatigue, or is this as much as we can expect a blockbuster to earn during opening weekend right now? After a year and a half without movies, have moviegoers readjusted to a new reality where they expect to be able to watch movies at home? Right now, it’s hard to imagine any other release this summer besting F9. Disney has two blockbusters coming in July — Black Widow and Jungle Cruise — but both will also be available for home viewers on Disney+. How much will that cannibalize their box office prospects? It’s certainly cut into the theatrical profits for Cruella and Raya and the Last Dragon, both of which are considered successes despite earning less than $75 million because of those premium access grosses. Some of the other big titles (Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad) will be available for free at home on HBO Max. The two biggest titles remaining this summer that won’t be accessible to home viewers on the day of their release are Snake Eyes, the G.I. Joe movie, and Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy, but I don’t anticipate that either will beat the $70 million opening of F9.

In fact, we may need to wait until September before the next major test for the box office, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, although even that film is an unproven MCU title and it’s still unclear whether it will also release simultaneously on Disney+. In other words, the next complete test on the health of the box office may not come until the October release of the next Bond film, No Time to Die.

On the other hand, maybe the $70 million opening isn’t because of the pandemic but a function of F9 itself? After all, critics weren’t as enamored with this one (60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), and the B+ Cinemascore is down from the A for The Fate and the Furiuous and the A- for Hobbs and Shaw. After nine films (and one spin-off movie), maybe moviegoers are simply getting tired of the franchise, or at least are more willing to wait to watch it at home. Ultimately, however, $70 million is hugely impressive for an eighth sequel.

The overall box office, meanwhile, also hit another pandemic record, earning $97+ million for the weekend, led by F9. A Quiet Place Part II continues to perform well, earning another $6.2 million in its fifth week. That number should continue to trickle downwards, however, with its release on Paramount+ arriving on July 12th thanks to the new shortened 45-day theatrical window. It’s earned $136 million, so far.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard had a fall in its second weekend, falling to number three at the box office. It earned $4.875 million to bring its total to $25.87 million. Peter Rabbit 2 is hanging in there at number four, earning $4.8.5 million to bring its total to $28.5 million after three weeks, which is around what the first one earned in its opening weekend alone. Disney’s Cruella, meanwhile, remains fairly consistent, earning another $3.7 million to bring its total to $71 million.

The upside for F9, however, is that it should have at least one more weekend at the top of the box office. There are three new wide openers over the 4th of July weekend, although I doubt any of the three — Lola, The Forever Purge and The Boss Baby: Family Business — will be a significant threat to the second-weekend totals for F9. Black Widow‘s release on July 8th, however, should knock F9 of its perch.

Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo

(WARNING: Massive spoilers for Loki will be found below, so get the heck outta here if you still haven’t caught up on Episode 3.)

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Through three episodes of Loki, we’ve learned a lot of things about time travel and the show’s titular antihero. We’re also starting to see that some of those things may not actually be what they initially seemed. But one thing that seems certain to stick is the reveal that Loki is bisexual.

In a scene where Loki and the recently-revealed Loki variant Sylvie chat while on a train, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki admits he’s encountered “a bit of both” when it comes to potential princes or princesses courting him over the years. It’s a confirmation of something fans have long suspected about the trickster god, and it caused considerable celebration last week after the episode aired.

And as one of the stars of the show detailed, the moment was certainly notable among those making the show as well. Though they tried not to “overthink” things when it came to actually getting the scene in the can. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actress Sophia Di Martino, who plays Sylvie, said everyone understood the significance of the moment, starting with director Kate Herron.

“We knew it was an important scene and that representation was super important,” Di Martino shares. “And Kate was really hot on getting it into the show because people have been waiting such a long time for that. So we knew it was important, but we didn’t really overthink it. We sort of just approached it like we would any other scene and just enjoyed the chat. But I don’t think I realized how much engagement that scene would have and how excited and pleased people would be with it. It’s just wonderful to see how happy people are after watching that.”

That train scene turns out to be one that she read for ahead of snagging the role, which had its own complications because, at the time, Hiddleston was on stage in New York and Di Martino was pregnant in London. In the interview, she said a lot of secrecy was involved: she read the lines on camera and sent the recording to those casting the show, with the names Sylvie and Loki changed to “Bob” and “Sarah.”

The piece touches on a number of other things we’ve seen in the show’s first three episodes, including some other important reveals about the nature of the TVA and why Sylvie didn’t go back to get her crown (“she’s got more important things to do”). But it’s nice to know a moment that’s meant so much to some Marvel fans was given the weight it deserves, even if it’s ultimately just two Variants chatting on a train.

[via THR]