Month: July 2021

A little over two years ago, the Phoenix Suns, months removed from a 19-63 season, selected Cameron Johnson 11th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft, a decision that was met with waves of criticism. The naysayers (myself included, whoops!) said Johnson was likely to top out as a serviceable role player and high-level off-ball shooter. But the common refrain was the Suns needed more as they aimed to snap their lengthy playoff drought and advance their rebuild.

Many clamored for Gonzaga’s Brandon Clarke. Others suggested Kentucky’s PJ Washington or Tyler Herro. You’d be hard-pressed to find too many people advocating for the 23-year-old who had a potentially troubling history of injuries and, while an excellent collegiate player, wasn’t deemed the injection of youthful talent the team needed because of a supposedly limited skill-set.

Two seasons later, Johnson, despite a down 2020-21 campaign from deep (34.9 percent), certainly looks worthy of his Draft range and has provided value in an assortment of ways beyond outside shooting. Last year, he solidified himself as a rotational wing on a playoff contender. This year, even with the upgrades Phoenix ushered in to transform itself from a playoff hopeful to Western Conference champion, he remained a crucial part of the rotation.

Although he missed Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals due to a non-COVID illness, he was essential to the Suns during the initial five games, averaging 10.8 points, four rebounds, and 1.2 steals on a scorching 86.2 percent true shooting (.700/.529/1.000 split) in 23.8 minutes per night.

Throughout the series, he served as one of Phoenix’s best players, offering vital two-way impact and embodying the duties of a complementary player. Offensively, he connected on nine of 17 triples and 12 of 13 two-pointers, dicing up the Los Angeles Clippers with versatile off-ball movement. He scored off of screens, cuts and offensive rebounds, notching timely baskets for a sputtering offense (before its Game 6 explosion, at least).

Phoenix’s offense is predicated on screening, movement, and passing. Johnson’s off-ball savvy slots perfectly in that ethos. Chris Paul and Devin Booker are the foundation of success, but guys like Johnson, Mikal Bridges, Deandre Ayton, and Jae Crowder help amplify said success. It’s a testament to both the individual skills of each player, but also general manager James Jones, whose roster construction has aligned with his conception of the team, and head coach Monty Williams’ offensive scheme catering to the strengths of the personnel at his disposal. Johnson is an example of harmonic decision-making.

The offensive rebounding-into-a-score sequences are only a fraction of how Johnson stamped his signature on the series in outlets other than flashy scoring or playmaking. His off-ball feel pervaded through various facets, whether it be taking the optimal path to snag boards, darting in for an unscripted cut and screen, or snappily executing a heady pass amid a scramble situation.

The “little things” cliche for role players can be exhausting and a cover-up for specific skills, yet Johnson’s fingerprints were all over his five games against the Clippers. Even if he performed at his season-long shooting slash line (.420/.349/.847, 56.3 percent true shooting), it would’ve been a tremendous run for him. He crafted significant value unrelated to scoring production and efficiency.

Whereas shrewd off-ball movement and premier three-point shooting are entirely within his wheelhouse, Johnson excelled as a defender, too. He’s displayed serviceable defense, particularly off the ball, throughout his career, but really shined against a number of on-ball matchups in Phoenix’s switch-heavy scheme this past round.

The Clippers’ glut of shot creators/scorers, largely wing-sized, encountered trouble when trying to attack him. He displayed exquisite mobility and change of direction at 6’8, handled his business navigating ball-screens, and refused to concede the ounces of space his assignments sought to seamlessly elevate for comfortable looks, making him one of the Suns’ best on-ball defenders in the series. Plus, there were a couple of the “little plays” — a hallmark of his five-game showing — that resulted in steals. His positional versatility was front and center at various points.

When the final buzzer of Game 6 blared, marking the Suns’ first NBA Finals appearance since 1992-93, storylines justifiably gravitated toward four people: Paul, Booker, Ayton, and Williams. Paul, for a breakthrough 16 years in the making; Booker, for the fortitude of enduring years of dreadful losing to provide the bedrock of the franchise’s turnaround; Ayton, for his rapid maturation and effervescent personality; Williams, for his pivotal role in establishing a winning culture in an organization mired by dysfunctional losing for nearly a decade.

Yet analyzing these playoffs on a round-by-round basis allows one to hone in on smaller samples and intricacies. Every time Johnson took the floor against the Clippers, it felt as though his presence positively cast a wide net, only to be overshadowed by the Booker-Patrick Beverley duel, Paul’s reintegration following his absence due to asymptomatic COVID, and Ayton vs. the Clippers’ small-ball brigade and Ivica Zubac.

Those were understandably the domineering subplots. Johnson’s contributions, though, both in this series and during his two-year NBA tenure, seem like a theme of Phoenix’s rise: a smart, talented player whose optimal fit demanded patience and a bird’s eye view.

Johnson has been a good player since October 2019, but he’s never been worth more to the Suns than he was in the Western Conference Finals. All of the skills that define him as much more than a shooting specialist coalesced to help propel this team to the precipice of its first NBA championship in franchise history. It’s merely another reason all that draft day ridicule was both misguided and hasty. Jones had a vision when he assumed GM duties 27 months ago and the acquisition of few players, if any, reflect that vision better than Johnson.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Independence Day, the filmmakers and cast revisited the making of one of the most defining films of the 1990s in an oral history of the film for The Hollywood Reporter. Written by Dean Devlin and directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day was the team’s follow-up to Stargate, and the two had kicked off a bidding war after knocking out the script in just under a month. The film eventually landed at 20th Century Fox, but while the studio was in love with the script, things got touch-and-go when it came to casting.

According to Devlin, at one point, Kevin Spacey was eyed as the top contender for the role of President Thomas Whitmore, which ultimately went to Bill Pullman. Via THR:

DEVLIN I knew Kevin [Spacey] since high school. We had just seen The Usual Suspects, an early cut. The original idea was to portray the president as a villain, and it was going to be a twist that he’s heroic when he gets in the plane [at the end of the movie]. That’s why we were pushing for Kevin Spacey. At one point we said, “We can get Kevin for $200K right now. In a year from now he’s going to win an Oscar and he’s going to [cost] $2 million.” The studio executive said, “Kevin Spacey will never win an Oscar in my lifetime.”

Fortunately, for everyone involved and fans of the film, Spacey did not get the part, and Pullman ended up delivering the iconic “Today, we celebrate our Independence Day” speech. Although, that pivotal scene almost went down in flames when it came time to shoot it. According to Devlin, he had just fired off a quick draft of the speech when he initially wrote the script and never went back to rewrite it. As he raced to the set to rework the rousing rallying cry just as it was about to be filmed, he found Pullman already prepared and given it the flourishes we now recognize thanks to hours of devouring historical speeches in his trailer.

“I remember how good it felt to have a certain fatigue in it,” Pullman recalled. “The extras were tired. The ADs are tired. That fatigue can spread. And then I just thought, ‘This is good. It really feels like we need to get everybody roused up a little bit, and get ready for the fight.’”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Well, we know The Weeknd is about to enter a new era artistically, but maybe that declaration extends to his personal life, too. After tabloid The Sun reported that Abel Tesfaye and Angelina Jolie went to dinner together at Giorgio Baldi in Los Angeles, fans are wondering what the two celebrities might have in common. Was it a date?

Jolie is still locked in a custody battle with her former husband, Brad Pitt. The pair filed for divorce back in 2016, but are still trying to sort out the legal situation concerning their six children together. For his part, The Weeknd has been romantically linked with Selena Gomez and Bella Hadid in the past. The Weeknd has referenced Jolie’s ex before, in one of his most ubiquitous hits “Starboy,” the lyrics go ” “Let a n—- Brad Pitt, legend of the fall took the year like a bandit,” but Angelina doesn’t seem to mind…. since he also referenced her in “Party Monster” with the line “Angelina, lips like Angelina.”

If these two are about to be an item, Twitter, as usual, has thoughts. They also have jokes about whether or not Angelina is look for another partner… or another child. Check out a selection of some of the best reactions and to their meet-up below. As usual, the internet remains undefeated. But, if we’re about to get an Angelina Jolie-inspired album from Mr. Tesfaye, then this new era is going to be a doozy for sure.

While Marvel is great at leaving us with lots of questions, “will they or won’t they” isn’t generally among them. However, after this past episode of Loki, it’s something so many of us can’t stop thinking about. I mean, what did that look mean? Was he going to kiss her? Is he in love with her? And perhaps most importantly, uh, how exactly does falling in love with an alternate version of yourself work because that seems like quite the can of worms?

While they didn’t confirm whether or not Sylki (don’t know how I feel about that ship name, I’ll be honest) was going to officially “happen,” head writer Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron took to Marvel’s blog to clear a few things up on why they went this direction with them.

According to Waldron:

“We went back and forth for a little bit about, like do we really want to have this guy fall in love with another version of himself. But in a series that, to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki’s first real love story … The look that they share, that moment, [it started as] a blossoming friendship. Then for the first time, they both feel that twinge of, ‘Oh, could this be something more? What is this I’m feeling?’”

As we all know, behind Loki’s cool and cocky exterior lies one mushy-hearted and insecure Asgardian, so finding a bit of self-love ought to do him a lot of good and makes sense for his character development. However, if Sylvie turns out to be Enchantress, there’s a possibility Loki could feel betrayed, and the slightly narcissistic god’s warm feelings could grow a bit cold. Already Herron has pointed out that while they might be the same person literally, they are drastically different in major ways. According to Herron:

“[Loki] sees things in Sylvie that he is like, ‘Oh, I’ve been there. I know what you feel.’ But she’s like, ‘Well, I don’t feel that way.’ And I think that was the kind of fun thing about it. She is him, but she’s not him. They’ve had such different life experiences. So just from an identity perspective, it was interesting to dig into that.”

Despite how things play out, there’s no denying that right now these feelings are fueling the show and might provide Loki with the passion he needs to get out of his current — and dire — situation. Later in the interview, Waldron stated “these are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another. That’s a straight-up and down branch, and exactly the sort of thing that would terrify the TVA [Time Variance Authority].” And right now, they’re looking like enemy number one.

With only two episodes left, we can’t wait to see how Loki wraps up.

A few days ago, it was announced that Taylor Swift will be appearing on a new album from Big Red Machine, a group led by two of her Folklore/Evermore collaborators, Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon. Before the news was made official, though, Swift fans picked up on an Easter egg in a teaser video, that Easter egg being Swift’s handwriting. Swift’s buried treasures for fans to find have become the stuff of legend, so naturally, Dessner was happy to be involved in that side of Swift’s career.

Speaking with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Dessner said:

“It’s funny because I feel like I’m also searching for the Easter eggs when she drops them because there’s so many. I’m such a fan of what she does, but I think she has a sort of mystical, mythical elements in her songwriting just kind of are there as a constellation in her mind. She sees things, patterns, that she then drops in different ways. And so sometimes I know, and sometimes I don’t know, but it’s fun. And I think her fans are just incredible, the details that they’re interested in. I love it, it’s super fun. I feel like I got invited into the best club or something.”

He also spoke about the strong collaborative chemistry he and Swift share, saying:

“Whatever wildfire happened last year creatively for Taylor and I… we didn’t want to stop writing songs together, and still don’t, really. It’s kind of like somehow I ended up on the team with the best player, so you just want to keep passing the ball to her. Big Red Machine was a great opportunity because she really fell in love with a lot of the music that Justin and I were working on because I would share it with her. A lot of this music, right before Taylor approached me last year, Justin and I had been in Texas to work on these songs. And so they were pretty far along, and I shared a bunch of them with Taylor and she really was inspired by them, and she knew the first record, so it just kind of was in the air when we were working on Folklore and Evermore.

Some of the songs, some of the instrumental ideas, there were some where she felt like, ‘Well, this might be Big Red Machine.’ And so it just kind of happened naturally after we finished Evermore, she wrote ‘Renegade’ and it was just like, again, getting hit by a bolt of lightning or something. When you get the chance to work with someone like her, she’s just… she’s a savant and just this incredibly hardworking and wonderful person, so it was just special.”

Watch the full interview below.

How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? is out 8/27 via Jagjaguwar/37d03d. Pre-order it here.

The less-fun part of being a drinks writer is following sales, tariffs, mergers, and the overall business of the whole industry. It’s not always flashy and rarely interesting to the passive beer drinker or whiskey sipper. Still, following the business side of the drinks world does offer insight into what people actually spend their money on. In today’s case, that means which beers people around the world actually like to drink (based on how big those brands are).

The numbers we’re using today come from Brand Finance’s Alcoholic Drinks 2021 report. Please don’t fall asleep. We know that title is like a shot of hot milk at two-in-the-morning. It gets interesting, we swear.

Pretty much every major beer or spirits brand lost massive amounts of cash in 2020. Corona, as a brand, lost 27% of its value last year. That’s catastrophic from one point of view. From another point of view, Corona was able to remain the world’s most valuable beer brand in 2021, despite that downturn. In fact, Grupo Modelo (which produces Corona) has three of the world’s biggest beer brands in the top ten. Viva Mexico!

Instead of looking at the sales or P&L statements of each of the top ten brands (we have to care about the business side but that doesn’t mean you do!), we’re going to look at their taste. We knew all these brews, of course, but re-tasted them to be sure. That said, they’re ordered based on size, not our preference (as you’ll see, we liked very few of them).

If you haven’t already tried any of these tasty and popular beers, click on the prices to give them a shot yourself!

10. Asahi

ABV: 5.2%

Average Price: $28 (12-pack)

The Beer:

This Japanese rice lager is all about being a “dry” sip of beer. The brew starts out with high-starch barley mixed with rice that’s thrown in the tank with Asahi’s own dry yeast strain. The brew is then hopped with an array of noble hops.

Tasting Notes:

This has a grassy and yeasty nature on the nose that drives into the palate. There’s a thin layer of barley cake maltiness next to the effervescent fizz of the beer. The hops are barely present and lean slightly towards floral and grassy.

Bottom LIne:

This is a pretty thin lager. It’s great when it’s super cold and you’re diving into a massive sushi menu or watching something on the grill under the hot summer sun.

9. Miller Lite

ABV: 4.2%

Average Price: $13 (12-pack)

The Beer:

Miller Lite is the O.G. lite beer that was developed by a biochemist back in the 1960s as a “diet beer.” The light lager is based on Miller’s pilsner roots but, if we’re being honest, it strays pretty far from those roots. At the end of the day, this would be called a “low-cal” beer today.

Tasting Notes:

This is notably thinner than Miller High Life. The maltiness is almost gone with the main thrust of this beer being a hint of hop “aroma” next to a dry fizz and… not much else. There’s a tinniness to the whole sip that’s accentuated by a faux-sweet undertone.

Bottom LIne:

With so many craft “low-cal” beers on the market today, why even bother with this? That being said, this is a very easy beer to crush when it’s freezer cold.

8. Kirin

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $17 (12-pack)

The Beer:

This Japanese import is actually an American lager when it comes to the style of beer it is. That means the hops are very drawn back with more emphasis on bready malts and fizz.

Tasting Notes:

This is a little maltier than the other beers on this list but more in a Saltine cracker way. The beer carries that cheap metallic note next to a hint of hop aroma, but only if you’re stretching to find it. The essence of this brew is its light body and dry, fizzy end.

Bottom LIne:

Who hasn’t crushed a sixer of these while eating sushi? There’s something about that very mild touch of salt that goes a long way to make this a pretty good pairing lager to have on hand.

7. Modelo Especial

ABV: 4.4%

Average Price: $18 (12-pack)

The Beer:

This adjunct lager from Mexico leans into the corn over the barley in its base. The yeast, water, and hops are more of a supporting cast for that corn at the end of the day.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a bit more going on in this beer’s taste than just corn-fueled sweetness. The sip has a crusty white bread maltiness with an almost orange flower hop twinge. The sweetness of the corn manifests more like watered-down floral honey with a hint of hop dank lurking far in the background.

Bottom LIne:

This might only be the seventh most valuable beer brand in the world but it’s close to number one in our hearts. This is just a really drinkable adjunct lager that’s easy to access and goes down almost too easily.

6. Snow Beer

ABV: 4%

Average Price: $3 (one can)

The Beer:

This is one of the most imbibed beers on the planet, which may shock you. Technically a European pale lager, this beer is a very commodity-driven beer of the people. The brew is a mix of rice and barley in the base with hop aroma, yeast, and water making up the rest of the recipe.

Tasting Notes:

This is thin. This leans so watery that it’s almost like you’re drinking a plain hard seltzer that was poured into a glass that once held a regular lager. There are memories of malts somewhere lurking under the fizzy mineral water. As for the hops, the character is more like some said the word near the brewing tank, as opposed to actually putting them in the beer.

Bottom LIne:

I grabbed a sixer of these for my motel room the last time I was in China. I drank two and left the rest.

5. Bud Light

ABV: 4.2%

Average Price: $9 (six-pack)

The Beer:

This light lager came around about a decade after Miller’s entry into the “lite” beer pantheon. This light lager also utilizes rice in its base with a little barley. Hop aromas are added to give that “beer” sense.

Tasting Notes:

Again, this is more like plain hard seltzer that was poured into a used beer glass. That’s really all there is.

Bottom LIne:

It’s almost offensive how watery this beer is. It doesn’t even reach the mild maltiness of a Miller Lite, which really isn’t saying all that much.

4. Victoria

ABV: 4.4%

Average Price: $18 (12-pack)

The Beer:

This Vienna lager from Mexico is a pretty solid hot-weather go-to. The beer is brewed with non-malted cereals, malted barley, and corn. A touch of hops is added to the mix and that’s about it.

Tasting Notes:

This is light but not listless. There’s a real malty character with a touch of floral, almost bitter, hops. The sip, overall, is very dry and effervescent with a mild touch of dry yeastiness and a distant orange oil brightness.

Bottom LIne:

This manages to be low-ABV without sacrificing character or flavor. Yes, it’s a thin lager but at least there’s something there. Plus, this is a fantastic beach beer or food-pairing beer for spicy, bitter, or cheesy foods.

3. Budweiser (USA)

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $9 (six-pack)

The Beer:

Classic Budweiser is made with a recipe of malted barley, rice, yeast, and water with a touch of hop aromas. The beer is still carbonated naturally and rested in beechwood casks while it’s lagering.

Tasting Notes:

This isn’t hard seltzer but it’s close. You do get a sense of wet grains with a note of floral hops buried in the body of the beer… somewhere. There’s a tininess at play with a hint of an empty rice bag.

Bottom LIne:

You’re not a beer snob if you find this hard to go back to after getting into the run-of-the-mill German beers it was based on. It’s just so thin and lifeless while not really offering anything that makes it taste as a classic lager should.

2. Heineken

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $18 (12-pack)

The Beer:

Heineken keeps things simple. It’s made with malted barley, yeast, hops, and water. That’s it. Heineken’s A-Yeast strain is what gives the brew its signature fruity body and dryness.

Tasting Notes:

This is relatively sweet in the sense that apples are sweet sometimes. The taste does lean into the fruitier aspect of the maltiness while the hops are more floral and kind of bitter. This leads towards a light, bright, and thin end with a crisp apple edge and salted crackers.

Bottom LIne:

This tends to be a cheap go-to when you want a dive bar or grocery store beer with a little something to it. It’s still pretty thin, but at least there are flavor notes to pick up.

1. Corona Extra

ABV: 4.6%

Average Price: $18 (12-pack)

The Beer:

This is the ultimate vacation or beach beer. It’s also pretty ubiquitous in bars around the world. The brew is a mix of corn, malted barley, hop aroma, yeast, water, and vitamin C, or ascorbic acid. Propylene glycol alginate is also added as a stabilizer.

Tasting Notes:

The corn really shines on this beer. It’s sweet, grainy, and a little bit dry. The floral hops are barely present on this light sip. For an adjunct lager, there is a bit more depth than the average American one. The real draw is the soft end to this beer with a mild salinity, especially when a lime wedge is added.

Bottom LIne:

I’ve been drinking a lot of these over the last year. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or what, but they still hit the spot. There’s a certain tang to this beer that hits just right on a hot day.

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

It’s a big day to be Blood Orange: an unreleased song of Devonté Hynes’ soundtracks the just-released trailer for Netflix’s new John David Washington vehicle, Beckett. Titled “Born To Be,” the ominous, atmospheric track plays over a chilling first look in which the film’s main character (Washington) gets sucked into a political conspiracy while traveling abroad.

In other Blood Orange news, Hynes has directed a new video for his collaboration with Mykki Blanco, “It’s Not My Choice.” In a statement, Blanco said of working with Hynes, “Creating with Dev Hynes as director of this video was as effortless as creating the song together. I have long admired that Dev has never compromised along his musical trajectory, offering us songs that play between disciplines and genres at the wave of a hand. This video was carefree and captured what I feel to be some quintessential summer moments — being with friends, being in nature, and having a sense of poise no matter your own personal thunderstorm.”

In recent weeks, Hynes also popped up at a special re-opening concert at New York City’s Irving Plaza featuring The Strokes, John Mulaney, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While there, Hynes helped The Strokes out with a collaborative performance of “One Way Trigger,” from the rock staples’ 2013 album, Comedown Machine.

Have a listen to “Born To Be” via the Beckett trailer above, and check out Dev and Blanco’s video for “It’s Not My Choice” while you’re at it. And finally, Beckett arrives on Netflix on August 13.

Mobile gamers, assemble! The popular mobile game Marvel Future Fight is getting a big update based on the hit Disney+ show The Falcon and The Winter Solider and it’s bringing a whole lot of upgrades, uniforms, rewards, and fan favorite superheroes into the fray. Included in the update are Sam Wilson’s Captain America, and the television series style versions of both Winter Solider and Baron Zeemo.

On top of these additions, Falcon can now be upgraded to Tier-3 and will get new Ultimate Skills and the ‘Realize Potential’ function has been added to Sister Grimm, Ironheart, Kid Kaiju, Kate Bishop’s Hawkeye, and Nadia van Dyne’s Wasp.

Lastly, in preparation of the upcoming Marvel film Black Widow, Black Widow is also receiving gameplay updates and a movie-inspired bonus mission. Also getting the Black Widow treatment are Task Master, who now available for Tier-3 upgrade, and Yelena Belova, who has been updated with ‘Awaken Potential’ skills.

For those who have yet to jump into Netmarble’s Marvel Future Fight, the dungeon crawler-esque game is actually a pretty big deal. Despite being released on iOS and Android back in 2015, the game has a very active player base of 120 million players across the world. Since it’s start, it has amassed more than 200 playable characters, the whole time working with Marvel to ensure the character they introduce are accurate to the established backgrounds, appearances, and traits of universe’s various heroes and villains.

Typically when we write about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, it has to do with one of the poor decisions he has made. Like calling for flags in the Sunshine State to be lowered following the death of bloviating monster Rush Limbaugh, declaring the WWE an “essential” business, or requiring cruise ships to allow unvaccinated passengers aboard. On Thursday, however, he did something wholly unexpected by praising President Joe Biden.

Biden spent the bulk of the day in Surfside, just above Miami Beach, where he met with first responders and families of the residents and victims of last week’s deadly condominium collapse. During a briefing later in the day, DeSantis publicly thanked the president for the support he has given the governor and Miami-Dade County in their search and rescue efforts and noted how Biden had “recognized the severity of this tragedy from day one.” He added that:

“This is the first response in Florida’s history outside of a hurricane where all of our urban search-and-rescue teams were mobilized. So, they’ve been going in and out of the rubble, searching, trying to find people, trying to rescue people, at a minimum trying to identify anyone who may be deceased to bring closure to the families, which is very important, but they’re tired. … This is grueling.”

While it seemed like a genuine show of appreciation—and very well could be—some people noted that DeSantis, who isn’t known for his frequent bouts of heaping praise on people, is also in the midst of a tiff with Donald Trump, of whom he’s been a vocal supporter. And one can’t help but wonder if his commendations of the Biden administration weren’t partly meant for Trump to hear. The issue at hand is the former president’s decision to go forward with a rally he has scheduled for this weekend in Sarasota, Florida. The Washington Examiner reports that DeSantis made “a direct plea” to Trump’s camp to reschedule their event, as the state mourns the tragedy.

An unnamed Florida Republican said that “the governor is getting tested here as to how far he’s going to be pushed before he breaks ranks with President Trump. And he has to be very careful because this is Trump country. The base loves the president. But they equally love Ron. It’s a showdown going on right now.”

As for where the anonymous source stood on the matter of Trump going ahead with his event as planned? They said he needs to “read the room.”

(Via Washington Examiner)

[This post contains spoilers for The Last of Us]

The first (non-pilot) scene filmed for Game of Thrones was a conversation between Ned Stark and Cersei Lannister. It’s an innocuous beginning for what would become one of the biggest shows of all-time. But HBO’s latest big-ticket adaptation kicked off production with a more essential moment than Cersei talking sh*t about her husband.

The Last of Us star Gabriel Luna has shared a behind-the-scenes image from the first day of filming in Calgary, Canada for the video game-turned-television show. “Already love these folks. #MillerTime #thelastofus,” the actor, who plays Tommy, wrote, referring to his on-screen family, Joel (played by Pedro Pascal) and Sarah (Nico Parker).

They’re smiling in the photo, but the scene they’re shooting is not a happy one. The Last of Us largely takes place 20 years after a fungus has turned the world into a post-apocalyptic nightmare full of clickers, cannibals, and rat kings. But the first game (a sequel was released in 2020) begins with a scene from the before times, where Joel is living in domestic bliss with his daughter, Sarah. One night, Sarah wakes up to a panicked phone call from her Uncle Tommy: the world has gone to hell. Before long, Joel, Tommy, and Sarah are in a car to flee whatever is happening. The escape attempt is interrupted after they get sideswiped, and while on foot, Joel and Sarah run into a solider who’s tasked with killing the infected. They’re fine, but the soldier still shoots Sarah, killing her and setting up Joel’s emotional arc in the game. And soon, show.

What a fun way to start a new job!

The Last of Us does not currently have a premiere date.