Month: July 2021

Black Widow will finally hit theaters later this week, but don’t expect actor Stephen Dorff to be in line for a ticket anytime soon. The True Detective actor blasted Marvel films and called out Scarlett Johnasson out of the blue during an interview to promote his own work, calling the MCU film “a bad video game.”

In an interview with The Independent to promote his new film, Embattled, Dorff claimed to be “embarrassed” for Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson and other actors who choose to star in the coming book blockbusters. In the piece Dorff, who once played the antagonist in Blade, said he’s too busy to star in Marvel films because he’s on the hunt for a project with the next great Hollywood legend instead.

“I still hunt out the good s**t because I don’t want to be in Black Widow,” he says. “It looks like garbage to me. It looks like a bad video game. I’m embarrassed for those people. I’m embarrassed for Scarlett! I’m sure she got paid five, seven million bucks, but I’m embarrassed for her. I don’t want to be in those movies. I really don’t. I’ll find that kid director that’s gonna be the next Kubrick and I’ll act for him instead.”

It’s unlikely Johansson cares much about this kind of criticism, the aforementioned millions of dollars and appreciation from millions of fans probably softens the blow significantly. But we do wish Dorff luck in finding the next Stanley Kubrick.

[via The Independent]

Ever since video games were first created there has always been a type of game that most people dread: edutainment games. Designed for learning instead of accomplishing traditional video game tasks like slaying monsters or saving princesses have generally been a tough sell for players who just want to, you know, do the fun stuff. But video games really can be a great learning tool, and now we have one designed to teach you a new language while you slay enemies.

Enter Lingo Legend. An indie game that wants to teach the player how to learn a new language and actually seems to understand what it is that makes a video game fun. The trailer for the game showcases a playstyle where players do damage by correctly translating sentences into other languages. Players can also craft weapons and build a deck to flesh out their own unique attack methods. More importantly, the entire game is supposed to help someone learn a new language. Think Duolingo, but more gaming focused.

This is a concept that is really cool and if it works may help inspire more fleshed out and interesting educational style games. And for anyone that thinks a video game can’t be anything more than a video game, they should look at Ring Fit Adventure. That’s a game that is not only a good for exercising, but is a fun video game on top of that. Lingo Legend isn’t a 1-for-1 copy of it by any means, with the deck builder aspect being the biggest difference, but the idea of an RPG that can make a mundane task interesting is a good one.

Anyone interested in giving Lingo Legend a try can sign up to play the Beta on their website. It will be released to iOS and Android.

Grimes is a bit over a year removed from her most recent album, 2020’s Miss Anthropocene. She’s already working on its follow-up, though, and she offered specific details about the album’s concept.

Over the weekend, Grimes took to Instagram to share a photo of herself sporting pink hair, pointed ears, and fanged teeth. In the comments, a fan asked, “C, what are the VIBEZ on this album?” Grimes responded with surprising depth, describing a “space opera” about two A.I. beings that get involved in a “lesbian romance”:

“It’s a space opera about CLAIRE DE LUNE — an artificial courtesan who was implanted in a simulation that is a memory of the A.I. creation story on Earth from the brain of the engineer who invented A.I. because he wants to relive his life but see if his perfect dream girl could team him to love thereby he would preserve humanity this time rather than let them fade into obscurity–overcome by the machines. As she slowly realizes she is essentially a dancing puppet for the male gaze tho, their relationship grows complex. Simultaneously — ‘NO ONE’ (the most powerful super intelligence in the future where the simulation is being rendered from) realizes there’s a massive hyper-realistic sim running and sends in her troll A.I. puppets to wreak havoc. DARK MATTER — her lead A.I. demon–enters basically as the ‘black swan’ to Claire De Lune–but in the end they fall into a lesbian romance due to the fact that they are the only two fully A.I. beings in this universe. It goes on but that’s where the first part of the story stops.”

Also of note is the fact that Grimes’ Instagram profile links to clairedelune.io, a website that features a sign-up for a wait list that asks, “Are you a player of games?” The page is titled “COMING 4200AD,” so fans may have to wait a couple thousand years for the album to be released.

Find Grimes’ post below.

Chloe Bailey’s solo profile has gone up ever since she and her sister temporarily split last year with the start of production on Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. With Halle in Europe filming her starring role as the titular mermaid, Chloe has been building a buzz of her own with scintillating covers of songs like Silk Sonic’s “Leave The Door Open,” Cardi B’s “Be Careful,” Rihanna’s “Love On The Brain,” and Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” Her latest cover/remake is Drake’s emotional Take Care favorite “Marvin’s Room,” revamped with vulnerable new lyrics showing off Chloe’s own impressive pen.

As it turns out, the covers haven’t just been for the fun of it — although they have been pretty fun — as it appears Chloe has been ramping up to release her own solo music in the near future. The timing couldn’t be better; with Halle recording her own takes on the beloved soundtrack faves from The Little Mermaid to accompany the film’s release, they’ll likely both have plenty of “solo” material out in lieu of a follow-up to their most recent album as Chloe X Halle, Ungodly Hour. The release will also give the elder sister the chance to stretch her creative muscles and enjoy the more grown-up image she’s been cultivating with her solo material.

Check out Chloe’s “Mavin’s Room” cover above.

The Atlanta Hawks became one of the best stories of the season in the second half after they began to get healthy and started to hit their stride under interim head coach Nate McMillan. The former Blazers and Pacers coach had been the lead assistant on Lloyd Pierce’s staff, but when Pierce was let go as the team was underachieving and star Trae Young was growing disgruntled, McMillan took over.

This coincided with some key pieces, namely Bogdan Bogdanovic, getting back on the floor, and with a new voice and more of the full roster available the Hawks flourished, going 37-19 to close the season under McMillan’s guidance. They continued their magical run all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, before they were ultimately bounced in six games by the Milwaukee Bucks. It was expected by the end of the regular season that, barring something unforeseen, McMillan would be retained long-term and have the interim tag removed. By the time the Hawks found themselves in the conference finals, that became a mere formality.

On Monday, Hawks president Travis Schlenk officially announced on his exit interview media call that McMillan would be staying around with an agreement having been finalized earlier in the morning. Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, it’s a four-year deal for McMillan, which puts him in Atlanta for most of Trae Young’s next contract.

That connection with Young is the most important part of all of this. Young had a rocky relationship with Pierce, and has spoken in nothing but glowing terms about McMillan to this point. On a team where Young is the star, that matters as much if not more than rotations and X’s and O’s, and will be where McMillan must continue to excel and find ways to unlock more from Young who had a star-making first playoff run.

Pokemon GO took the gaming world by storm in 2016, turning the real world into a virtual haven for pocket monsters and sending people into graveyards, parks and other landmarks to catch and battle. Five years later, the mobile game is still wildly popular, but as the world it’s based on changes some fascinating things have happened in its virtual landscape.

One of the more striking examples of this is apparently happening in Afghanistan, where US troops are leaving the country military bases there after two decades of occupation. And while there are far more significant ramifications of that occupation and departure, one odd side effect is many of the base’s Pokemon GO players have essentially abandoned Pokemon at gyms that became a big part of the gaming life there.

Stars and Stripes reported about the circumstances, which are fascinating in a number of ways. At bases like Bagram and at New Kabul Compound, many US soldiers passed the time by battling it out for control of gyms and finding Pokemon they couldn’t catch back on American soil.

Bagram once had a thriving Pokemon Go community of troops, contractors and civilians who played the game while exercising and after work.

“We weren’t expecting Pokemon Go to be thriving in Bagram, and yet it was,” recalled U.S. Army Spc. Corey Olsen, an electrical technician for attack helicopters who played the game with others from his shop in 2019.

The game uses GPS to see where players log in and populate those locations with new creatures to spawn, and once you get to a certain level in the game you can suggest new landmarks for Pokestops and gyms. But now, those gyms are essentially being abandoned, leaving behind some Pokemon with them.

Screenshots of Bagram after the troops left show low-level Pokemon, normally easily defeated, stuck guarding locations, perhaps indefinitely. A tiny Lotad has defended the former Warrior Chapel at Bagram for 10 days, while a lowly Aron has defended a memorial to a fallen servicemember for about two weeks.

Still, Sutter said he assumes someone from Afghanistan will take over his gym, someday, if they haven’t already.

“I’m sure somewhere in Afghanistan, some kid is bragging about how he took control of an American Pokemon gym,” he said.

It’s a very strange reminder of what’s left behind by occupying forces, and the many ways the real world is impacted by our digital lives. Hopefully someone new can take control of those gyms and release those Lotads and Arons back to their owners in due time.

[via Kotaku]

This weekend, the final four spots for the men’s basketball tournament at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (in 2021) were filled at the final qualifying tournaments. Serbia, Germany, Czech Republic, and Italy all secured spots in the 12-team field for group play, where each team is guaranteed three preliminary round games. The top two teams in each group, plus the two best third place finishers, will advance to the quarterfinals round of the tournament, where it becomes a single-elimination format.

The full groups can be found below, with Team USA headlining Group A.

Group A
USA
Czech Republic
France
Iran

Group B
Australia
Germany
Italy
Nigeria

Group C
Argentina
Japan
Slovenia
Spain

Games will begin on July 24 with Iran-Czech Republic as the lone game of the day, with USA Basketball beginning its play on July 25 against France. The USA will then play on July 28 (Iran) and July 31 (Czech Republic) to round out their group stage play. The complete schedule of games can be found below.

Saturday, July 24
Iran-Czech Republic (9:00 p.m. ET)

Sunday, July 25
Germany-Italy (12:40 a.m. ET)
Australia-Nigeria (4:20 a.m. ET)
USA-France (8:00 a.m. ET)

Monday, July 26
Argentina-Slovenia (12:40 a.m. ET)
Japan-Spain (8:00 a.m. ET)

Tuesday, July 27
Nigeria-Germany (9:00 p.m. ET)

Wednesday, July 28
USA-Iran (12:40 a.m. ET)
Italy-Australia (4:20 a.m. ET)
Czech Republic-France (8:00 a.m. ET)

Thursday, July 29
Slovenia-Japan (12:40 a.m. ET)
Spain-Argentina (8:00 a.m. ET)

Friday, July 30
Iran-France (9:00 p.m. ET)

Saturday, July 31
Italy-Nigeria (12:40 a.m. ET)
Australia-Germany (4:20 a.m. ET)
USA-Czech Republic (8:00 a.m. ET)

Sunday, August 1
Argentina-Japan (12:40 a.m. ET)
Spain-Slovenia (4:20 a.m. ET)

Monday, August 2
Quarterfinals (9:00 p.m. ET)

Tuesday, August 3
Quarterfinals (12:40 a.m. ET)
Quarterfinals (4:20 a.m. ET)
Quarterfinals (8:00 a.m. ET)

Thursday, August 5
Semifinals (12:15 a.m. ET)
Semifinals (7:00 a.m. ET)

Friday, August 6
Gold Medal Game (10:30 p.m. ET)

Saturday, August 7
Bronze Medal Game (7:00 a.m. ET)

R&B singer HER has been experiencing a huge breakout over the past year after a slow-burning rise that included the EPs HER and I Used To Know HER and a burgeoning collection of awards that has her well on the way to an EGOT. Now, not only is her debut album out now and racking up critical praise, but she can also now count among her collaborators such names as Barack and Michelle Obama thanks to her work with them on the Netflix animated series We The People.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, she called the experience “life-changing,” saying she’d do “anything for the Obamas.” “It was more exciting more than anything,” she gushed. “it made me really want to kill it just because of them being attached and them being a part of it. It’s like, wow, I am a part of something that the Obamas [did]. It’s kind of life-changing.” She also spoke on the series’ theme of the importance of youth civic involvement.

“Sometimes you think, ‘I’m just a kid,’ or, ‘That’s a job for the adults,’ but the youth is really the beginning of the rest of our lives,” she noted. “I would like to believe my generation and younger, we’re going to set the tone for the future and it’s up to us to be informed. I always say you can’t understand today without understanding yesterday, and so I think kids are going to start being more proactive and not reactive and really take control of our future. And we’ll learn from those things that we learned in the past, and make a difference and make a change when they know that they can — that they have the power to. This project is going to empower people. I mean, it empowered me.”

You can check out We The People now on Netflix.

Tyler The Creator has shown that he can hold a grudge — albeit, a lighthearted, mostly harmless one — for a really long time. In the past, he’s trolled both random commenters on Twitter and the political Heads of State that have crossed him long after the initial slights, and upon learning that he’s currently got the No. 1 album in the country, he once again proved that he’s got a long memory and a love for having the last laugh.

This time around, he targeted a musical peer, DJ Khaled, referencing the Snapchat rant that fans attributed to Khaled’s bitterness over losing out on the No. 1 spot to Tyler’s Igor in 2019. While the impassioned speech in actuality never referred to Igor or Tyler and was in fact posted days before the Billboard results were posted, once fans resurfaced them in light of the Billboard chart placements, Khaled’s fate was sealed. It looked like he was tasting sour grapes and throwing shade at Tyler The Creator’s more experimental album, calling it “mysterious sh*t.”

Tyler laughed it off at the time, but continued to reference the moment at each new watermark Igor reached, tweeting “MYSTERIOUS MUSIC” when the album won Best Rap Album at the 2020 Grammy Awards. It seems he’s decided to make it something of a tradition now, tweeting the same yesterday as this week’s Billboard chart leaders were announced, with his new album Call Me If You Get Lost earning the No. 1 position.

Meanwhile, although fans are definitely trolling DJ Khaled right along with Tyler, the Miami producer has been celebrating his own string of successes, including having a limited-edition Funko Pop! modeled on him, and the chart success of his Lil Baby and Lil Durk-featuring Khaled Khaled single, “Every Chance I Get.”

1988 was the year the longstanding relationship between John Stamos and The Beach Boys began. That year, Stamos appeared in the group’s video for “Kokomo” and the band guest-starred on an episode of Full House. Since then, Stamos and the band have reunited on a somewhat regular basis over the years, and they did so again this holiday weekend, to perform “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” on CNN’s Fourth In America Special.

Meanwhile, The Beach Boys have been busy lately. In January, they announced that they’re considering a 60th anniversary tour, with Al Jardine saying of the idea, “I do believe we will. Well, not a tour. We’ll hit some very important […] 10 or 20 areas of the world. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and have a renaissance, and present some of this great material again. It’s difficult to say, but it makes sense. I know there’s something in the works. I just can’t tell you when or where.”

Later this month, they’re also releasing a new box set, Feel Flows, that looks back on the group in the late ’60s and early ’70s. As for Stamos, he currently stars in Big Shot, a Disney+ series in which he plays a basketball coach at a girls private high school.

Watch the full performance here.