The first reviews are in for Space Jam: A New Legacy, the sequel to the 1996 classic that originally paired Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes for a campy basketball adventure. This time around, LeBron James is the NBA star teaming up with Bugs and the gang, and well, it’s not exactly being welcomed as warmly as its predecessor. In fact, most of the reviews are in the vein of a tweet by IndieWire‘s Kate Erbland who bluntly stated “Space Jam 2 hurt me.”
Outside of a review by Variety writer Amy Nicholson, who generously argued that Space Jam: A New Legacy jam-packing its runtime with way too much Warner Bros. IP could “seed curiosity about cinema history in kiddie audiences,” the overwhelming consensus is that the sequel is a soulless exercise in corporate synergy that fails the Looney Tunes name. And that’s putting it nicely, which a lot of these reviews did not. Some of our favorite selections so far…
In the grand scheme of things, the new Space Jam isn’t hateful or inept. It fills a two-hour hole in the schedule, which will keep parents happy, and it brandishes the brand, which will keep shareholders happy. Whether it could have also been a good movie might not have crossed anyone’s mind.
As the spin-off of a successful advertising campaign, Space Jam represented the apotheosis of crass commercialism in 1996. So it makes sense that its sequel attempts to do the same, essentially functioning as a glitzy advertisement for the studio that created it. The cast has been updated—our hero is now LeBron James, Jordan’s successor as the reigning king of basketball—and so has the shamelessness, as James and Bugs Bunny zoom through scenes from past WB movies and marvel at how one company could have such a grand history.
To whom this is meant to appeal is anyone’s guess, except presumably the studio’s marketing department. Children are unlikely to recognize many of the fleeting cameo appearances and cinematic references, while adults will be bored silly by the frenetic pacing that makes you feel as if you’re watching somebody else play a video game. It all feels like Warner Brothers ingested an emetic and vomited up all their intellectual property.
“Space Jam: A New Legacy” attempts to land on a feel-good message. All this cheap, cloying material? It’s really about bringing together a family and encouraging our best and brightest young minds to follow their dreams. It’s a sentiment that should be immune to cynicism, but somehow “Space Jam: A New Legacy” finds the space for it. Truly, it has everything, except an actual heart.
Space Jam: A New Legacy — which premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on July 16 — is so overwhelmingly suffused with corporate propaganda that it seems like the filmmakers are seeking exactly that sort of praise: not satisfying cinema, not a worthwhile story, not a fun time at the movies, but “a great product.”
Space Jam: A New Legacy takes almost nothing but wrong turns, all leading to a glittering CGI trash heap of cameos, pat life lessons, and stale internet catchphrases.
As commercial propaganda, this isn’t even convincing, portraying the studio it set out to glorify as a fading institution entering its decadent last-days-of-Rome phase. In this display of expensive corporate onanism, we arrive at a creative dead end for a studio reliant on classics that they’ve stopped minting. Gee, ain’t it a stinker?
And on and on and on. Please go through and click all of those links if you want a full picture. It’s kind of remarkable. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this sort of brutal consensus beatdown. It’s hard to look away from it. Like staring into the sun, it can’t be good for you, but it’s fascinating to behold.
Space Jam: A New Legacy dribbles into theaters and HBO Max on July 16, 2021.
In the weeks since Britney Spears gave a damning 23-minute testimony around the alleged abuses she’s faced in her long-running conservatorship, the singer’s team has collapsed in on itself. Britney’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, has stepped aside; the bank overseeing her finances has pulled out; Britney’s father and conservatorship manager Jamie Spears fired shots at Britney’s personal conservator, Jodi Montgomery (and vice versa), and Britney’s sister, Jamie Lynn, has essentially become a Homer Simpson-backs-into-the-bush gif, claiming that she doesn’t care what Britney does. As for Britney herself? Well, if the news is to be believed, she’s taking much-deserved vacations in Maui and reportedly in discussions with high-profile Hollywood lawyers to represent her as more court dates, deciding the conservatorship’s next steps, loom.
This considerable fallout was to be expected, given the no-holds-barred magnitude of what Britney had to say on June 23, where she described herself as “traumatized,” and her conservatorship, in place since 2008, as “abusive.” For the first time in more than a decade, advocates for her freedom, aka the #FreeBritney movement, can see a tangible path opening up for the singer to regain control of her life and finances. This is all tremendous, undeniably so. The think pieces — about the Y2K-era music industry, gender, the systemic abuse of the mentally ill and disabled — write themselves. All of these discussions are equally important and necessary. But there’s another piece of the puzzle I have not seen addressed to quite the same extent: women’s emotional labor. Specifically, emotional labor and the amount that we regularly ask female musicians to shoulder for the sake of their careers.
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Emotional labor is one of those things that, once you know what it means, you start to see it everywhere. Today, the term tends to be thrown around when describing the unpaid “second shift” many women undergo to keep the house clean and the kids fed, on top of full-time or hourly day jobs. Other times, people like to use “emotional labor” to describe needy friendships and familial relationships. But when it was first coined in the early 1980s by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, “emotional labor” was primarily a work-related term, describing the way we — again, mostly women — feel forced to regulate our emotions to meet certain job requirements. A contemporary example could be when a flight attendant must smile through their teeth when an unruly passenger refuses to wear a mask, or when women feel compelled to pepper in extra exclamation points to emails. In Britney Spears’ case, the term feels applicable to her entire life, pre-conservatorship and beyond.
You see it as early as Britney’s 1992 turn on Star Search. At just 10 years old, after wowing audiences by singing The Judds’ “Love Can Build a Bridge,” she noticeably squirms as host Ed McMahon asks if she has a boyfriend. “They’re mean,” says Britney, about boys her age. “I’m not mean, how about me?” McMahon suggests. “Well,” Britney says, eyes shifting around, “That depends.” 30 years later, this scene invites an obvious full-body-cringe. But the moment also marks the start of something else: the first step in an infinite ladder of Britney regulating her feelings for others’ comfort, especiallythose who will ultimately decide her career success.
As Britney evolves, from the early mall tours to the TRL-topping singles to the many (many) uncomfortable press interviews to her eventual dealings with paparazzi to the conservatorship itself, she becomes the living embodiment of emotional labor. You can see it happening as Britney is questioned about her virginity status, her breasts, what she “did” to cause her breakup with Justin Timberlake. In every interview, across a spectrum of horrifying questions, she tries to maintain a game face. Be a nice girl. Don’t show your embarrassment. Say the right thing. Everyone’s watching. On top of her demanding job, to produce hit records and sold-out tour dates, this is Britney’s second shift.
Naturally, because she is human, Britney had her limits. “That’s when she just really started becoming more free and less concerned with pleasing everybody, which is also just a whole other metaphor for what women do. At some point in our lives, we stop trying to please everybody,” Britney’s former stylist Hayley Hill says in The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears. Over the next five to seven years, Britney’s “very carefully managed image,” as New York Timesculture reporter Joe Coscarelli added, appears to unravel as Britney marries and divorces Kevin Federline, has two children, and is hounded by the paparazzi, who know that candid, unflattering pictures will earn them heaps of money.
All pop stars — men included — have that “managed image,” as Coscarelli put it. Last year, Taylor Swift opened up to Variety about how her “managed image” could not, under any circumstances, include any political messaging, describing how her label managers held The Chicks over her head as a cautionary tale of a booming career gone bust. “I saw how one comment ended such a powerful reign, and it terrified me,” Swift said. “These days, with social media, people can be so mad about something one day and then forget what they were mad about a couple weeks later. That’s fake outrage. But what happened to the Dixie Chicks was real outrage. I registered it — that you’re always one comment away from being done being able to make music.” In many ways, nearly every famous person, women especially, and women of color to an even greater degree, have to walk some version of this tightrope Swift describes. If they are perceived as falling, there is only the concrete of public opinion to catch them.
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Under her conservatorship, Britney has spent the last 13 years of her life catering to every single person in her life except for herself. On paper, it might look as though every last one of her decisions — down to the color of her kitchen cabinets — is made for her. Where’s the labor in that, some (Jamie and his lawyers in particular) might ask? But if we look back at emotional labor at its core, the process of managing your feelings and emotions for the sake of your employer, it’s easy to see how Britney would “cry every day,” as she said in her testimony. As Britney herself noted, if she refused a dance move, or expressed displeasure with any aspect of her life, the walls start closing in. Her managers threaten her with less time with her kids, or less time off. They (allegedly) conspire to make it look like she isn’t taking her medication and send her, against her will, to a mental health facility. They force her to take lithium. They prevent her from making personal reproductive choices. This is the cost of Britney pushing back against the emotional labor that has plagued her not just for 13 years, but for nearly her entire life. This is an extreme, microcosmic example of what women risk when they say no. We owe it to Britney — and every woman, for that matter — to learn from and erase the burden.
Brooklyn native Fivio Foreign nearly saw his upward career track derailed this spring when he was arrested for carrying an unregistered firearm after fleeing police officers in New Jersey. Fivio was taken into custody and booked at the Bergen County Jail for weapons possession, having a defaced firearm, and resisting arrest. He apparently wasn’t able to secure bond until very recently; yesterday, he tweeted simply: “Free,” with an unlocked padlock emoji.
In addition to celebrating his release, Fivio hinted at his plans for the summer now that he’s free. “Summer Jam?” he wrote, adding a pair of curious eyes and a flame emoji. If he does join the lineup of the annual New York festival in August, he’ll be joining a stacked roster that includes the also recently released Bobby Shmurda and Rowdy Rebel, Saweetie, Moneybagg Yo, Migos, Meek Mill, and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. Also, many other drill-related artists will be appearing, including Dusty Locane, Sheff G, and Sleepy Hallow.
Fivio may have to work a bit to regain his momentum this year but he’s certainly laid a solid enough foundation, with both solo tracks like “Self Made” and his guest appearance on Lil Tjay’s “Headshot” video alongside Polo G.
Much ado has been made about the “Herogasm” episode in the upcoming season of Amazon’s The Boys. It’s like the Westworld orgy but with horny superheroes and way, way, way more graphic. I don’t know how showrunner Eric Kripke, producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and the cast, including Antony Starr (Homelander) and newcomer Jensen Ackles (Soldier Boy), are going to pull it off, but I can’t wait to find out.
“Herogasm” won’t be the craziest moment of the season, however.
“Beyond even ‘Herogasm,’ I still think the craziest thing we’ve ever done is in episode one,” Kripke told Entertainment Weekly about season three. That being said, viewers should still look forward to Herogasm. “I’ve been around the block a few times. I’m a seasoned producer. Every single day on those dailies, my jaw was on the floor,” he said.
Kripke continued:
“I just could not believe how insane those dailies were. It’s just crazy. I can tell you that for anybody who is a fan of the comic and is expecting to see Herogasm, we are delivering it. That is happening.”
After securing a No. 1 album for his 2019 effort Kirk, DaBaby’s career has taken off. The rapper has gone on to earn multi-Platinum certifications and perform at awards shows like the 2021 BET Awards. But his fast track to fame has apparently left him seeking some advice. To get his questions answered, DaBaby sought wisdom from someone who he has looked up to his entire career: 50 Cent.
DaBaby recently got together with 50 to pick his brain about making a lasting impact in the music industry. 50 obliged, agreeing to take on DaBaby as a mentee and teach him a few tricks of the trade.
“Somebody I been studying for a MINUTE lent me a few hours of his time today,” DaBaby wrote in an Instagram post. “N****s so scared to let me in the room they f*cked around & let me end up in the room w/ @50cent BIG MISTAKE! Beyond grateful for the game. Couldn’t have come from a better source. Now watch me put this shit to use #BackToWork”
The post was noticed by 50, who said he hopes to mentor DaBaby to “be better” than him. “I lost Pop [Smoke] before he could get it, This one already got it and he listen,” he wrote. “I’m a teach him all the mistakes i made, so he can be better than me. THIS IS HIP HOP!”
Right now the dominating force in the fast food universe is the breakfast menu. It’s like the Death Star or [insert your favorite nerdy MacGuffin here] of the fast food conversation! If you don’t pay as exhaustingly close attention to the scene as we do, you might not realize that just a decade ago few drive-thru restaurants had a breakfast menu that even came close to the size of McDonald’s, if they had one at all. But in 2021, we can’t even say for certain if McDonald’s still has the best breakfast menu in the game.
The competition is just too fierce. With even some mid-level fast food chains bringing the heat.
Just take a look at our old breakfast sandwich ranking published five years ago — it only has six entries! That’s not a fast food universe, it’s Pluto! Since then, breakfast menus at almost every fast food restaurant have ballooned in size. So, in an effort to map the dense breakfast galaxy, we grabbed sandwiches from as many fast food restaurants as we could in a search for the very best (we only included one from each).
Since I’m in California, you’ll notice the absence of some regional favorites — namely White Castle, which I’ve heard has a very beloved breakfast menu. We’re working on it (I see you, Culvers — I’m coming!). Still, we think you’ll find that we made a serious effort to be comprehensive. Let’s jump in!
11. Starbucks — Bacon, Gouda & Egg Sandwich
Starbucks
Calories: 360 Protein: 19g
The Sandwich
Starbucks has easily the worst breakfast menu in all of fast food. Dry muffins, bland scones, and those sandwiches…
You can go through your whole life never eating a Starbucks breakfast sandwich and you WILL have a better life. I’ve unfortunately tried too many Starbucks breakfast sandwiches, and I chose to include the Bacon, Gouda & Egg Sandwich in this ranking. Not because it’s the best, even. Just because it has gouda, which makes it different than most fast food breakfast sandwiches.
A slice of gouda (which, I question, it doesn’t taste like gouda to me) sits atop some fluffy egg and a few bizarrely thin strips of bacon on an “artisan” roll. Artisan coming from the old English phrase to apparently mean “this bread is bland.” The egg… look I’m not even positive this is just egg — it tastes strangely milky. This sandwich doesn’t have a single good element about it, yet Starbucks felt confident in putting it all together and selling it to you.
I was shocked to find out that Subway has breakfast sandwiches, and even more shocked when I saw the weird folded flatbread this thing is served on. So I tried it, to appease you, the fans. Was it good? No, it was not.
Everything about this sandwich is bad. There is a laughably small amount of bacon on top of a bland fried egg with a slice of Subway’s weird plastic cheese. In a blind taste test, those three elements would be virtually indistinguishable.
Granted, you can add any veggies and sauce to this sandwich, which is a good thing. I’d suggest spinach, and bell peppers to make this more like an omelet sandwich, but at that point, you might as well just order a regular Subway sandwich. Ordering this for the egg and bacon just isn’t worth it.
The Bottom Line
The things that make this a breakfast item — bacon and egg — are two of Subway’s worst ingredients.
Sonic only has two breakfast sandwiches on the menu, the Bacon Sausage Toaster and the Sausage Breakfast Toaster. For this ranking, we’re going with the latter because folded eggs, cheese, and sausage between two thick slices of Texas toast sounds like more fun to me than an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich. Plus you can — and should — add bacon to your Sausage Breakfast Toaster to make it a more delicious meal.
This sandwich doesn’t taste horrible, but the form factor seems misguided. It’s just too thick and bready to be particularly enjoyable. The bread dominates all the flavor here and the sausage is way too thin (which is why you need to add the bacon).
The Bottom Line
Don’t order a breakfast sandwich from Sonic, the chain has plenty of delicious and imaginative breakfast burritos that are actually worth your time and money.
8. Burger King — Fully Loaded Croissan’Wich Bacon, Ham, Sausage
Burger King
Calories: 572 Protein: 27g
The Sandwich
The Burger King Fully Loaded Croissan’Wich Bacon, Ham, and Sausage sounds like it should be a winner. You’ve got a flakey buttered croissant bun, followed by layers of bacon, Black Forest ham, cheese, a thick distinctively peppery sausage patty, and egg. Visually, in its marketing material, it looks amazing.
But this sandwich fails to deliver on flavor. The meat is chewy and rubbery, and the flavors never gel together, but the most offensive part is the egg. It’s dry, with a porous texture that will actually ruin your meal if you ponder it too much.
The Bottom Line
A mouthful of salty, weird textures. Skip this one.
If you need a place you can drive-thru in the morning that has coffee and good food, Dunkin’ is your spot. The entire menu has seriously improved at America’s favorite donut shop over the last few years, but the sandwiches definitely surprised me. The best in my opinion is the Sourdough Breakfast Sandwich, which features two eggs that, get this, actually taste like eggs (you wouldn’t think this would be so hard) and sports five crispy pieces of crunchy bacon topped with melted white cheddar on a nicely toasted crispy sourdough bun.
The eggs have a nice crispy edge to them like they’ve been fried with butter, the generous portion of bacon is appreciated, and hey, who doesn’t love white cheddar? Visually it makes for a more appetizing sandwich than radioactive orange cheddar.
Its only weak point is the bread. Dunkin’ says it’s sourdough, but there is something incredibly bland about it. It’s the only thing holding this sandwich back from being ranked higher.
The Bottom Line
If you haven’t tried breakfast at Dunkin’ because you’re still treating it like a donut shop, you need to take a trip to try this thing. It won’t be your favorite but you’ll damn sure never eat at Starbucks again.
If you’re going to get a sourdough sandwich from any fast food joint, make it Jack in the Box. For whatever reason, JiB is the only place that can do sourdough. The bread strikes a nice balance between soft and dense, with that familiar subtle sourness that makes sourdough so addictive and is strangely missing from Dunkin’s sandwich.
The sandwich is built with smokey bacon, a thin slice of ham, a freshly cracked and fried egg (yes, you can taste the difference — no weird milky flavor here), two slices of American cheese, and a sausage patty.
Unlike the Burger King sandwich, the meat truly differentiates itself here. You get a smokey flavor from the bacon with a nice hammy hearty chew courtesy of the sliced ham, and a savory sausage finish. It’s a journey of flavors without a single weak link.
The Bottom Line
If you want a sandwich full of meats, Jack in the Box’s Loaded Breakfast Sandwich is the only one able to deliver. Also, a must if you’re a sourdough fan, as JiB has the best in the fast food universe.
5. Farmer Boys — 2-Egg Breakfast Sandwich with Sausage
Farmer Boys
Calories: 674 Protein: 30g
The Sandwich
Farmer Boys 2-Egg Breakfast Sandwich with Sausage has to be the most boring breakfast sandwich out there. Featuring just two folded eggs with melted American cheese and a sausage patty on a potato bun brushed with whipped spread, I wanted to rank this lower because of how unimaginative it is. But it’s just so damn good.
The spread keeps things from getting too dry, the eggs are probably fast food’s best, they’re buttery and not overcooked with a great non-distracting mouth texture, the potato bun adds some sweetness to the whole thing, and Farmer Boy’s sausage patty is delicious with a savory pepper-forward flavor.
It just works on every level, I’d expect to find this sort of quality in a restaurant but not in a place with a drive-thru. The only sad part is that Farmer Boys also has breakfast burritos, and they’re all better, so there isn’t a reason to order this unless you love breakfast sandwiches.
The Bottom Line
It’s not the most exciting breakfast sandwich out there, but everything about the 2-Egg Breakfast sandwich with Sausage is good, and that can’t be said for a lot of fast food breakfast sandwiches.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this sandwich, in fact, calling it a “sandwich” feels a little ridiculous. All it is is a smaller cut of Chick-fil-A’s usually breast meat patty between a flakey buttery biscuit. That’s it! It’s so basic that based on build alone it should be ranked much lower. And yet… the flavor is so damn good I’ve actually gone back and forth on whether I should bump it up a couple of slots.
This just tastes great. It’s small and a little unfulfilling, you’re definitely going to want to order fries or tater tots on the side to make it more of a meal, but the chicken is just too good to deny. Chick-fil-A’s chicken breast is cooked in 100% refined peanut oil and marinaded in pickle juice, which gives it a nice juicy and tender bite and a salty addicting flavor, but the real star of the show here is the biscuit.
Chick-fil-A’s biscuits are handmade in the restaurant every morning, and they’re f*cking delicious. They’re flakey and buttery, with a gummy mouthfeel that takes a while to chew — which would be a bad thing if they didn’t nail the taste. But they definitely did.
While I generally think Chick-fil-A’s light batter is a weak point in its sandwich, the lack of a bready batter works in the sandwich’s favor.
The Bottom Line
Way too good for what it is. It’s simple, and a little boring in build, but dammit if it doesn’t taste like the best biscuit sandwich in all of fast food. Order it with some sides to make it a more substantial meal.
Who says you can’t have a burger for breakfast? Carl’s Jr’s Breakfast Burger is amazing. This is essentially a bacon cheeseburger with a folded egg thrown in the mix, which I have to admit doesn’t do a whole lot to add to the flavor. I don’t usually opt for simple ketchup on my burger, but the ketchup and egg combination is a classic, so it makes sense here.
Leaving the sandwich at that would’ve resulted in a delicious breakfast option, but Carl’s Jr. went the extra mile and added some round mini hash browns to the mix which add a more pronounced textural element than the bacon does. It’s a f*cking mouthful, with a great audible crunch that’ll have you chewing for a long time as you make your way through the meat and eggs.
The charbroiled quality of the hamburger meat adds an interesting flavor that isn’t typical of your usual breakfast and makes the sausage patty used in other breakfast sandwiches seem like an absolute joke by comparison (though a beef and sausage mix would be fire.
The Bottom Line
Charred with notes of smokiness and an appetizing crunch, this sandwich makes the case for hamburger meat as a breakfast staple and is proof that putting your hash browns in your sandwich is the best breakfast hack around.
2. McDonald’s — Sausage McMuffin with Egg & Cheese
McDonald
Calories: 480 Protein: 20g
The Sandwich
I’m not 100% sure I’ve made the right decision by putting this at number two, but we’re going for it. The Sausage McMuffin with Egg & Cheese is McDonald’s best breakfast sandwich, hands down. If you’re one of those McGriddle fans, step off — your tastebuds might be broken.
This breakfast sandwich has the best form factor in all of fast food. It’s small enough to eat with one hand, and it’s not too hearty and won’t make you feel like you’re ready for a nap after you just had six to eight hours of sleep like our number one pick will. The muffin bun is dense and toasty, with that distinct craggy surface that traps the salted butter perfectly. It doesn’t need a sauce, which can’t be said for most breakfast sandwiches.
The sausage patty is savory with a slight spice to it but is nothing mind-blowing, the egg is… unique, and cheese is forgettable. But something about all the flavors coming together just works, it’s like eating full breakfast in a single bite.
If you’re looking for a more substantial breakfast meal, the smartest thing to do is order a hash brown and stick that in the sandwich. Once crispy fried potato is in the mix, it makes this sandwich even more amazing. If it came that way, it’d get the number one spot but until that day comes, it’s at #2.
When I said McDonald’s McMuffin had the best form factor for a fast food breakfast sandwich, the Breakfast Baconator probably has the worst. This thing is huge, impossible to eat without the help of both hands, and it’ll easily take you longer to eat this sandwich than it does to eat most entire meals.
But everything else about it is amazing. The sandwich features a delicious thick grilled sausage patty that has a smoked flavor with a subtle hint of sweetness and a slice of salty American cheese on top of it. Then we’ve got our first layer of bacon. Wendy’s bacon is unparalleled in the fast food space — it’s crunchy and smokier than the competition and is considerably thicker than most. It’s not thicker than restaurant bacon or a strip from a thick-cut market brand, but it has a lot of chew to it, which I appreciate. Then we have a decent fried egg, it’s a little dry but not distractingly so, another slice of American cheese, and another layer of bacon that is smothered in salty and decadent Swiss cheese sauce.
Taken all together, it’s juicy, crunchy, greasy, and explodes with flavor with every bite.
Is it way too heavy for breakfast? Absolutely. But this isn’t a ranking of the most sensible breakfast sandwich, it’s a ranking of the best tasting, and Wendy’s Breakfast Baconator delivers on flavor, even if eating one feels semi-suicidal.
The Bottom Line
Will your stomach hurt after eating it? Yes. But it’s worth it because this is, hands down, the best breakfast sandwich in the fast food universe.
If WandaVisions‘ whopping 23 Emmy nominations weren’t enough cause for the Marvel series director Matt Shakman to celebrate, taking the helm of one of the most beloved and iconic science fiction series around absolutely is. According to a Deadline report, Shakman has made a deal to direct the next Star Trek film for Paramount Studios and J.J. Abrams Bad Robot Productions. With Shakman now on board the Starship Enterprise, it’s reported the project is now being placed on the fast track and should enter production next spring.
In addition to Shakman, writers Lindsey Beer (Sierra Burgess Is a Loser) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider, Captain Marvel) are attached to the project, making it the first Star Trek film to be written by a team of women. However, as of right now it’s still unknown whether or not the cast and crew from the 2009 Star Trek reboot — the likes of which include actors Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana — will be returning to the film, especially considering how much the studio has been struggling with the film. Since Star Trek: Beyond‘s release in 2016, both Quentin Tarantino and Fargo creator Noah Hawley have proposed directions for the series that were soon scrapped. Assuming all goes well this time, we’ll hopefully see the fourth film in the franchise hit theaters sometime in 2023.
In the midst of the film’s brief hiatus, the Star Trek universe has been kept alive through various CBS All Access shows such as Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Lower Decks, all of which have future seasons coming. In addition, Star Trek: Strange New World and an animated children’s series headed to Nickelodeon, Star Trek: Prodigy, are headed to Paramount+ in the near future.
Justin Chon is a moviemaker with a message. Though he’s been acting steadily for more than 15 years, it has been since making the leap to writer-director that Chon has made his biggest impact. The trailer for his newest film, Blue Bayou, dropped on YouTube on Tuesday—the same day it made its premiere at Cannes. And it couldn’t be any more timely.
The film stars Chon as Antonio LeBlanc, a Korea-born, Louisiana-raised adoptee who has lived in America for more than 30 years. Though he ran into some troubles with the law in the past, all of that is now behind Antonio, who has opted for a quiet life of welcome domesticity with his beloved wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander), who is pregnant with their first child, and his step-daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), whom he adores. But Antonio’s past misdeeds come back to haunt him in the most painful way possible when what could have been an avoidable scuffle sees Antonio facing deportation from the country he has always called home.
Given the recent conversations around U.S. immigration policies and citizenship questions surrounding Dreamers, Chon’s film couldn’t have come at a better time. In his review of Blue Bayou for The Wrap, critic Steve Pond wrote that “there’s an admirable urgency with which [the film] tackles significant issues in U.S. immigration policy” and describes it as something “like a cousin to Moonlight in the way it explores Southern identity among those who are often dispossessed.”
Like his earlier films Ms. Purple (2019) and Gook (2017), Chon explores the themes of immigration, integration, family, the American Dream, politics, and the true ties that bind in deeply affecting ways. You can watch the full trailer above.
Blue Bayou will be released by Focus Features on September 17, 2021.
You might recognize multi-instrumentalist Nick Levine from their time on the guitar and pedal steel in Pinegrove. Now, Levine is setting out on their own for a solo project under the name Jodi. Blue Heron is Levine’s first full-length release under the moniker, an altogether gorgeous and introspective record that employs the refined twang from their former project, but also heads in a completely new and exciting direction.
To celebrate the release of Blue Heron, Levine sat down to talk Titanic, sleeping on a shelf one time, and Stevie Wonder in the latest Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Greetings, thank you, sounds good, take care.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
I would like for it to be remembered as “thoughtful.”
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
Chicago, IL baby best city.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
All my humble freak genius friends rewire my brain constantly. More recently, Pema Chödron and Anne Boyer (potential future friends).
Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
I think often about the black daal at Dishoom in London.
What album do you know every word to?
Cake — Prolonging The Magic
What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
Stevie Wonder getting honored at the Apollo in 2011.
What is the best outfit for performing and why?
Something loose and breezy. Go play good now.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
After making it to the NBA Finals for eight consecutive seasons, LeBron James has missed out on two of the last three. Of course, he managed to lift the Larry O’Brien trophy last year as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, but this season, James was sent home in the first round of the NBA playoffs after losing to the Phoenix Suns.
If there is any sort of silver lining for James, it’s that he was sent home by a team led by his close friend, Chris Paul. And during an appearance on the Arsenio Hall-hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday night, James made clear he’s rooting for Paul to finally become an NBA champion.
“I am, I am,” James said when Hall asked him if he’s tuning into the Finals. “I have a horse in the race and he goes by the name of Chris Paul. So I’ve been watching, that is my brother and we’ve known each other since my junior year of high school, his sophomore year.”
James went on to say that he’s known Paul since they were in eighth grade, then told the story of how Paul was in the hospital alongside James when the Lakers’ star’s son, Bryce Maximus, was born.
“It happened to be during the NBA Finals then,” James said. “So he’s the godfather of Bryce, and Bryce came out the night before, and then I proceeded to get my ass kicked by the Spurs the next day.”
Hall then tried to get James in some trouble with the Tampering Police by bringing up the infamous voided trade that would have gotten Paul sent to the Lakers and asking James if they’d like to play together, although James said that he’d “of course” like to suit up alongside his friend some day. But for now, James has his eyes on Space Jam: A New Legacy, while Paul and the Suns will look to take care of business in Game 4 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night.
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