Month: July 2021

Despite being the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States, fewer than half of Hispanic people living in the country own a home, and the median weekly income of Hispanic workers is well below the national average. Additionally, Hispanics have disproportionately faced economic and health-related hardships from the COVID-19 pandemic, putting even more financial stress on an already historically disadvantaged community.

Yet, our country’s Hispanic community remains resilient and perseverant. In support of those who never quit, Modelo, through its Modelo Fighting Chance Project, is partnering with UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, to further strengthen Hispanic families’ financial security by expanding UnidosUS’ financial empowerment and homeownership programs.

“Discriminatory policies from well before the pandemic have placed Latinos at a huge financial disadvantage compared to other groups,” says Lautaro Diaz, UnidosUS Vice President of Housing and Community Development. “That’s why increased support for important initiatives like housing counseling can get families the help they need to pull themselves up and get through these difficult times.”

Modelo’s $250,000 contribution will directly support vital financial literacy programs through the UnidosUS National Homeownership Network, which enables families to build wealth and increase their financial mobility. Since its inception in 1997, UnidosUS’ National Homeownership Network has provided more than 590,000 families with housing counseling, helped more than 30,000 people to buy homes and prevented some 90,000 families from facing home foreclosures.

“Modelo has a tradition of honoring those who embody the fighting spirit and show grit, perseverance, and determination in the face of adversity,” says Greg Gallagher, Vice President of Modelo Brand Marketing. “We are proud to work with UnidosUS and to help support their mission to provide our core Hispanic audience with the necessary resources to build unified, prosperous, and resilient communities.”

To learn more about UnidosUS and Modelo’s partnership, as well as to learn more about the Modelo Fighting Chance Project, click here.

Iggy Azalea is gearing up for her third album, End Of An Era. She previously shared the Tyga-featuring single “Sip It,” and now she’s back with another preview, the fun and bouncy single “I Am The Strip Club.” She also shared a video for the track, which features the rapper dancing and having fun on the road, in the back of an 18-wheeler and an ATV.

She says on the hook, “Don’t need dark rooms / I am the strip club / Don’t need red lights / I am the strip club / I do the lap dance / I ride the pole up / I am the, the strip club.” That lines up with how Azalea explained the song back in April, writing on Twitter, “The concept of the song ‘iam the strip club’ is basically about the fact that YOU ARE the good time. You don’t need to be in a club to be that lit.”

More recently, she wrote of the track on Instagram, “This song is really special to me – Seriously! […] This is my art, it makes me happy creating it and gives me purpose – So I hope someone is out this weekend dancing to this song! Your support matters to me so much I hope I can make everyone proud!”

For part of the video, Azalea is seen sporting black hair and skin that some people on Twitter think was intentionally made to look darker than her natural skin tone. After the video was released, in response to a compliment about her hair, Azalea noted that she’s retiring the black wig.

Azalea also thanked the people involved in making the video, saying, “I wanted to give a big Thankyou to @yeah_thas_me for bringing my music to life with his choreography as well as to all the dancers in this video… You guys made the video next level! I also want to give a giant Thankyou to @smashstunts for bringing together a group of amazing female riders for this video! Watching you guys handle those bikes with Eaze on those dark winding roads really blew my mind. You girls are amazing!”

Watch the “I Am The Strip Club’ video above.

Chris McKay was coming off directing the hugely successful The Lego Batman Movie when he was tapped to stay in the Batman universe and direct the live-action Nightwing film. (Nightwing is the alter ego of Dick Grayson, who was the first Robin.) Things seemed to be moving along, to the point McKay was tweeting about how the movie would be cast and openly talking about how special the story is that he has in mind. And then a few things changed. There was the whole saga with the Zack Snyder movies, and Warner Bros. kind of moving away from them, but not in all cases. And then the pandemic seems to have reset a lot. I asked McKay about Nightwing and, as you read below, it does seem to sound like it’s not completely dead, but fan enthusiasm would sure go a long way.

In the meantime, we’ve got The Tomorrow War, which is a saga of its own. It was supposed to be released in theaters in 2020 by Paramount, but of course that didn’t happen and Paramount eventually sold the film to Amazon and the movie hits Amazon Prime this weekend. McKay makes no bones about it, it’s been a stressful experience. Or, at the very least, he’s “sighed a lot” over the last few months.

The Tomorrow War is about evil aliens attacking Earth. But the twist is they attack in the future. And Earth does such a bad job of fighting them that they have to time travel back to the present in order to draft new people to fight. Dan Forester, who already served in the military, is drafted to go to the future and fight.

Ahead, McKay takes us through his last year a bit – and no laments that if these aliens we are hearing about in the news get themselves a Prime account, he’s now given them the blueprint to beating us. And, yes, talks about the prospects of his Nightwing movie and how letters to Warner Bros. sure would help.

With the world situation and then the movie changing studios, I guess my question is how many times over the last year-and-a-half have you sighed?

[Laughs] Yeah, a lot. A lot. Definitely have had a few ups and downs with the movie. But, again, every challenge has been an opportunity. The fact that there’s something about what’s happening in the world that tangentially relates to themes in the movie and that kind of thing? There’s a reason why things happen why they do, I guess,

When you say the way this movie relates to the real world, are you referring to the pandemic? Or are you referring to the aliens we keep hearing about that you think might eat us?

Yeah, I think a lot of it evolves. Just the idea that we’re all in something together. How do you leave the world a better place than you found it? That kind of thing.

Are you a pessimistic alien person, or are you an optimistic alien person?

Wow. That’s a really good question.

Is it going to be like the Vulcans in First Contact, or is it this movie?

I mean, Vulcans in First Contact, that’s good!

E.T., Close Encounters, they all seem to be nice creatures.

Yeah. I want that. Or I want a universe that has some kindness and benevolence and positivity to it, but I also like the long game of Star Trek, where the Klingons are bad guys in the original series. But then they become part of the Federation in Next Generation and that kind of thing. I always liked that.

I liked that, too.

I remember watching Next Generation as a kid. I’d seen the original series in reruns. And it shows what you can do – as somebody who at that time was definitely feeling he wanted to be a filmmaker – seeing what they did with Next Generation made me go, yeah, you can change stuff radically, and it’s actually more meaningful because of it.

At this point, it just feels like if aliens showed up tomorrow, it would be like, “Oh, God, now we’ve got to deal with this? How long is this going to last? How long are we going to stay inside to avoid these creatures now?” That’s what it feels like.

Yeah. The aliens are a pain in the ass. There’s no joy or wonder.

Right. I don’t want them showing up any time soon. Can we just have a couple of normal years before that happens?” But they’re going to come right now.

Yeah. It is weird that we are living through a time where we don’t know what the next four months are going to hold for us. I don’t think there’s ever been a time, at least in my lifetime: You had a certain amount of confidence in how your next four months would lay out. I don’t think that we have that anymore. So when aliens in the news pops up, yeah, of course, aliens, right. That absolutely makes sense, with the way the world is working right now.

I guess you’ve thought about it more too, because the aliens in this movie seem pretty mean.

Yeah, these aliens are terra-formers. They’re meant to wipe out something, a populous. So yeah. I wanted them to feel like they were ancient. I wanted them to feel like they were hungry, that they had a feral intelligence, that there was a kind of like wolves or coyotes.

What happens if these aliens we keep hearing about on the news get an Amazon account and watch this? And then you’ve given the blueprint how to take us down?

So I’m the architect?

You’re the architect.

So we should film this. This is the origin. This is the prequel, us having this conversation and how we make the movie.

This is what plays before the credits. And we’re laughing, having a nice time, joking around.

Having a good time.

And then here they come.

I love the idea, “Let’s see what’s on Amazon today. Oh, watch this. Aha!”

They first watched Palm Springs, which wasn’t much help. And then this was recommended next.

“J.K. Simmons’s in that. We like him, so let’s watch him in this.”

Are you still doing Nightwing? Is that happening? Or is that lost in the ether now?

I don’t know. I hope so.

I feel like everything has changed. The last year has reset a lot of stuff, didn’t it?

A million things have changed in the industry. A million things have changed when you now narrow it down to like specifically Warner Bros., DC, et cetera. But I still want to make a movie. That’s still something that’s really important to me: the character of Nightwing, the story that we were working on. All of that stuff is really important to me. Warner Bros. and DC have been through a thing and I think that they’ve had some really great successes recently. I hope that we’re next in line. I hope that they watch The Tomorrow War and get excited about the idea of me making a Nightwing movie.

So I’m on the outside looking in, but would you say it’s not dead? From your perspective, is it just “wait and see”?

I think if all the people reading this article sent letters to Warner Bros., saying that they wanted a Nightwing movie, I think that Warner Bros. would probably respond positively.

‘The Tomorrow War’ is now streaming via Amazon Prime. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

After an explosive diarrhea outbreak forced NBC to shut down production on Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide, it’s upcoming game show based on the popular backyard water slide, the network is reportedly struggling with how to air the show. According to reports, the show only had five days of filming left, but those five days were pretty important because it involved shooting the final event. In other words, it’s a game show that doesn’t have a champion, and it’s threatening the release of the $18 million project hosted by comedians Bobby Moynihan and Ron Funches.

Via Yahoo!:

And the pressure is on, because it’s scheduled to premiere in a prime spot, on Aug. 8, immediately after the closing ceremony of the Olympics. Not only that, but most of the $18 million show had already been filmed — seven weeks, leaving just five days of filming ahead — when up to 40 crew members fell violently ill.

As previously reported, Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide was forced into shutdown two weeks ago after a crew member tested positive for giardia, a microscopic parasite that can cause explosive diarrhea. The situation quickly worsened as it became a full-on outbreak that resulted in members of the crew collapsing or being “forced to run into port-o-potties.” An all-around crappy situation, if you will.

(Via Yahoo!)

In a pre-recorded collaborative concert with Grey Goose titled In Bloom, SZA unveiled part of a brand-new song, “Shirt,” live. Fans and social media users might already be familiar with the silky track, as it made the rounds on TikTok earlier this year when the R&B sensation shared a snippet of “Shirt” to her Instagram story. Likewise, SZA’s “Good Days” video included a tease of the new track near the clip’s end.

In a statement prior to the event, SZA said:

“I feel like In Bloom really captures where I’m at right now, especially after a year and a half of lockdown, which is also why it feels like the best place to debut some of my new material. I’m so excited for my fans to see this performance.”

At the event, which took place in Los Angeles, SZA also provided an update regarding the long-anticipated follow-up to 2017’s critically adored Ctrl. “I’m actually probably about to scrap all of it and start from scratch,” she told WWD about the new record. “I think [fans will] be surprised to know that it’s not what they thought, and it’s not coming when they thought,” she said. “I hope that they’ll be pleasantly surprised.” Then she added, “I’m literally not talking about my album anymore until it’s out in the world. At this point, I’m gonna start jinxing it, and I don’t want to jinx anything.”

To hear SZA perform a bit of “Shirt,” head to the 49:05 mark in the video above.

The Alien franchise, but particularly the first two films, Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens, are about a lot of things: sex; gender; the danger of bringing a cat to space. But to Noah Hawley, it’s largely about capitalism.

The Fargo creator is working on an Alien show for FX that won’t feature Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, but will tell “a story about inequality,” as he explained to Vanity Fair. “You know, one of the things that I love about the first movie is how ’70s a movie it is, and how it’s really this blue collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically Waiting for Godot. They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation. The second movie is such an ’80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work.” Hawley continued:

In mine, you’re also going to see the people who are sending them. So you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved. If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us? There’s that great Sigourney Weaver line to Paul Reiser where she says, “I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t fuck each other over for a percentage.”

The Alien films, like 95 percent of science fiction, is heavily political, but this is apparently news to Dave Rubin. After Hawley’s interview was published, the host of The Rubin Report, “the largest talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube,” tweeted, “I’ve been saying for years that Wokeism is a parasite that fully infects the host and then eventually bursts forth like in the movie Alien. The circle is now complete…”

In space, no one can hear you scream. But on Twitter, everyone can make fun of your bad take.

At least RoboCop is about a cop who is also a robot, and NOTHING MORE.

The Lynchburg Lemonade is inextricably tied to Jack Daniel’s. It’s their official cocktail, even though it was invented in Florida by a bartender who was looking for something new and refreshing to serve his clientele back in 1980. History aside, this drink is made for hot and humid days that only an ice-cold boozy lemonade can cure.

We’re adhering to the official Jack Daniel’s recipe for this one. The gist of this cocktail is in the highball arena — it hems very close to drinks like a Tom Collins. The base is a mix of Jack Daniel’s, triple sec, and sour mix. That’s topped up with a lemon-lime soda (Sprite or 7-Up) and… that’s about it. It’s very easy to make over and over again, or in batches for a 4th of July bruhaha.

Since this is a build-in-the-glass mixer, we don’t really need any more preamble. Let’s get mixing!

Lynchburg Lemonade

Ingredients:

• 1-oz. Gentleman Jack
• 1-oz. triple sec
• 1-oz. sour mix*
• 4-oz. Sprite or 7-Up
• Ice
• Lemon wedge

For this recipe, I’m using Gentleman Jack. That’s mostly because I have that open at the moment. It’s also a perfectly fine version of the Tennessee whiskey with a creamy texture that sort of converts the lemon into a lemon cream pie in the finished drink.

The rest is pretty straightforward. I’m using Sprite, again, simply because that’s what I have around.

Lastly, if you want to make this in batches, the recipe is 1:1:1 mix. Add one cup of the Jack, triple sec, and sour mix to a pitcher over ice and top with Sprite or 7-Up. Chop up some lemon wedges and drop them in. Give it a good stir. Done.

*SOUR MIX: Add 1/2 cup simple syrup, 1/2 cup fresh and strained lemon juice (three to four lemons), and 1/4 cup fresh and strained lime juice (two to three limes) to a jar or bottle with a lid. Affix the lid and shake vigorously until fully emulsified (no more than ten seconds). It’s ready!

What You’ll Need:

• Highball glass or jar mug
• Jigger
• Paring knife
• Cutting board
• Straw

Method:

• Prechill your glass overnight.
• Fill the glass with ice.
• Add the whiskey, triple sec, and sour mix to the glass. Stir with the straw.
• Top up with the 7-Up or Sprite and stir again.
• Cut a lemon wedge and garnish the glass.
• Serve.

Bottom Line:

Thinks takes me right back to Tennessee in the summer. It’s basically creamy lemon candy with a very slight echo of woody and vanilla-forward whiskey lurking in the background.

On a hot day, this is so crushable. It’s hard not to just down the first and make a secon within five minutes. It sounds like it’s thin or light but there is heft to drink. That creamy lemon pie, almost lemon meringue, comes through and helps this feel like more than a simple whiskey and soda.

That being said, these are on the sweeter side of the highball spectrum. Luckily, there’s enough orange, lemon, and lime citrus there to balance all that sweetness out.

While discussing the “very sad goss” that Meghan McCain is leaving The View at the end of July, the eponymous hosts of Desus & Mero offered up some suggestions for McCain’s next career move, and they’re definitely playing with fire one of them. As the two warmed up, Desus floated the idea that McCain “should get a cop show” or stick to her talk show roots with “a court show in the middle of the day, that could work.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a segment on McCain if the hosts didn’t mention her wild hairstyles that have been a staple on The View ever since she returned from maternity leave, and that’s when Desus trotted out his admittedly “controversial” idea for McCain’s next project. “She should host a show where she judges Black hairstyles,” Desus joked. “BET, I know you’re thinking about it!”

But the hair jokes didn’t stop there. The two hosts then dared McCain to show up during her final episode wearing Bantu knots:

DESUS: Has she come out with Bantu knots yet? For her last episode she has to. She’s really gonna rock the boat and be like, “And what?”

MERO: Whoopi’s going to be like, “girl.” And [Meghan’s] like, “You can’t cancel me. You know why you can’t cancel me? ‘Cause my father was John McCain!”

Despite vowing back in January that she’s “not going anywhere,” McCain announced that she’s leaving The View on Thursday morning after tabloid reports leaked that she was going to resign. According to McCain, the pandemic had shifted her priorities and made her want to change the way she’s living her life. She revealed that she’ll be staying on The View until the current season ends in late July, and joked with her co-hosts that “if you guys want to fight a little bit more, we have four more weeks.”

(Via Desus & Mero on Showtime)

Cardi B has a distinct look: When you see her, there’s no mistaking that it’s Cardi. If she had made one different decision as a teenager, though, her appearance would be even more idiosyncratic today. On Twitter last night, she revealed that when she was younger, she wanted a face tattoo.

Cardi tweeted, “Everyday I’m thankful at the fact that ain’t get this face tatt I wanted when I was 16.” She then followed up by describing her previous ink plans, sharing a GIF of Mel B facepalming on America’s Got Talent and writing, “Little stars from the top of my eyebrow swirling down to my jaw.”

Cardi actually has a tattoo that’s somewhat similar to that proposed one, though, as behind her right ear, she has a tattoo of a star next to the American Sign Language symbol for “I love you.”

Meanwhile, Cardi has been busy lately. She stole the show at the 2021 BET Awards by revealing that she is pregnant. She also has a role in the new movie Fast & Furious 9 and she loves her character, saying in a behind-the-scenes clip, “I like the fact that I’m representing such a powerful, strong woman. She’s just that bitch [laughs]. […] I remember when I saw Ludacris in Fast & The Furious, […] then to see Don Omar, it makes the hood have hope. Being around Vin [Diesel], he’s just so nice, so dope. He makes you feel so comfortable. I’m just so excited.”

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

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Seriously, please check it again

I know we are all busy. It’s the middle of summer, and we’re coming out of a hellish year of quarantine and isolation, and we’re all understandably itching a bit to get outside and away from the various screens we’ve been parked in front of the whole time. You can certainly be forgiven if you let a few things slide as you make up for lost time. Maybe the laundry is piling up, or the cupboards are going a little bare as you put off chores in favor of soaking up some sun and dining al fresco with friends. I get that. But please, at some point this weekend, remember to check your email to see if you have been cast in Knives Out 2.

I know, I know. I hear you. “But Brian, I didn’t even audition for a role in Knives Out 2. And I’m not an actor. This feels like a long shot.” Sure. Of course. But how will you know until you check? Look how big the cast is already? We’ve got Daniel Craig reprising his role from the first one, and it builds out from there: Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom, Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, and more. It seems like new names are getting added every day. Who knows, maybe the next one could be you?

Ah, but I hear you, again. “I mean, yeah, fine, maybe. But didn’t they already start filming? Don’t you think I would know by now if I’ve been cast in Knives Out 2?” This is fair. I get your point. Director Rian Johnson did just post this tweet earlier in the week.

But consider this: A few days later, after filming had started, European paparazzi types snapped pictures that seem to imply Ethan Hawke and Jada Pinkett Smith are in this movie, too, despite the fact that their casting had not been announced previously. I see two possibilities that could explain this:

• The roles were intended to be a surprise but the paparazzi spoiled it by poking around with their big zoom lenses
• Ethan Hawke and Jada Pinkett Smith were cast weeks ago but just saw the emails and had to book last-minute flights to Greece to get to the set in time

Both equally likely. And a good reason why you should check your email right away. There’s still time. You can probably get a flight this weekend. It’ll be expensive and you might have to add a few connecting flights to make it work, but that’s better than the embarrassment of blowing your big break because you forgot to check your email, you know?

Check it again. Check the spam folder, too, just to be safe. Maybe the casting agency has some weird email address your inbox didn’t recognize. Check your old college email address, too. Maybe they have that one from all those credit cards you signed up for. Maybe turn on all your alerts. It could end up being nothing, and maybe all the dinging will drive you a little crazy for a while, but it’ll be worth it if you stumble across an email from a few weeks ago about you getting cast in Knives Out 2.

Maybe you’ll get to play the murderer! Check your email!

ITEM NUMBER TWO — It is time, once again, to talk about the darts scene

Lots of Ted Lasso chatter out there this week. That’s fine, always, because there’s never really a bad time for Ted Lasso chatter. But it was still a little weird, this time, because the Ted Lasso chatter kind of came out of nowhere. It wasn’t tied to another new trailer, or the fact that the show drops its second season in about three weeks, or any Apple-generated publicity push. It all started because some random lady watched it and tweeted about it and her thread of tweets went crazy-viral out of nowhere. The internet is relentlessly strange. I guess that’s the takeaway here. And that Ted Lasso is a good show. So, two takeaways, really. You can follow her journey through the show by clicking here and scrolling a lot. It’s a fun little ride.

More importantly, for our purposes at least, it gives me a semi-legitimate excuse to discuss the darts scene again. This is terrific news, in part because the darts scene is awesome and in part because — unrelated to this thread, and predating it by about a week — I started watching the darts scene a lot. Like, multiple times. Almost every day. I’m not sure how it started or why but here we are. I feel okay about it.

Watch it again yourself. Right now. Click the link up there. It works in context — Ted is helping Rebecca by getting her dipshit billionaire ex to buzz off with his tail between his legs — and it works without context, too, mostly because any scene that includes a line like “I forgot I’m left-handed” will probably work. I love a good hustling scene. “Geoffrey, break out Lucille,” and so on and so forth.

But the reason I’ve been rewatching it so much lately is the speech. The one Ted gives as he’s tossing laser-guided bullets. This one.

You know, Rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day, I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman, and it was painted on the wall there. It said, “Be curious, not judgmental.” I like that.

So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work, and all of a sudden it hits me. All them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them were curious. You know, they thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything, and they judged everyone. And I realized that their underestimating me… who I was had nothing to do with it. ‘Cause if they were curious, they would’ve asked questions. You know? Like, “Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?”

To which I would’ve answered, “Yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father, from age 10 until I was 16 when he passed away.”

God, that’s good. From the setup at the beginning to the killer “Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?” payoff to the sneaky devastating end. It’s basically the entire essence of the show wrapped up in a tight little ball, the sweet and touching and funny and all of it. I’ve watched it twice since I started writing this section. I’m about to go back in for number three. I feel great about that, too. Barbecue sauce.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Terrific news about Europe’s finest television program

As far as ideas for television shows go, you could do a lot worse than “take charming British actors and have them travel to the most beautiful places in Europe to drink and learn about wine,” which is probably why The Wine Show works as well as it does. It’s a blast, just a kicked-open fire hydrant of good vibes. I wrote about the first season — featuring Matthews Goode and Rhys, the latter of whom revealed himself to be a huge silly goofball in contrast to his perpetually frowny character on The Americans — a few years ago, and I stand by every word of it today.

The show aired a second season that mostly replaced Rhys with James Purefoy, which was fine if not ideal, and now it is back for a third season on the Sundance Now streaming network. And it looks magnificent. I’m just going to go ahead and blockquote the entire damn press release.

Matthew Goode, Matthew Rhys and James Purefoy are joined this lively season by a new member of the team – Dominic West (The Hour, The Wire), who presides with James at the season’s headquarters: the Quinta do Noval in the stunning Douro Valley in Portugal. Goode and Purefoy trek across Portugal to discover the country’s best wines, while star sommelier Charlotte Wilde travels to The Azores and answers the question: who really invented sparkling wine, including champagne? Resident wine experts hit the road as Amelia Singer heads across the US (including a look at how urban winemaking and hip hop have found a voice in wine in California and New York) and Fattorini visits Thailand and Germany. In one segment, Fattorini stops in Hungary, a country rich with stories about the health-giving properties of its wines, covering everything from beauty cream to body building. Finally, Rhys and Fattorini lunch at restaurants throughout NYC, to pair wine with varied international cuisines which together represent the city’s ethnic diversity.

This is great. Just keep adding a new charming actor from the United Kingdom every season. Do Hugh Grant next. And Helen Mirren. And Phoebe Waller-Bridge. And Jason Statham. And maybe Liam Gallagher. But not Noel Gallagher. We can get a committee together and figure it out.

But none of that is the point here. The point here is LOOK AT THIS SCREENCAP OF DOMINIC WEST IN THE TRAILER.

My new goal in life, replacing “do not throw up again, ever,” is to achieve at least 60 percent of the vibes pictured here, just once, just for a second. I won’t get there. None of us will. Unless we’re Dominic West in sunglasses on a boat that is cruising around beautiful waterfront towns in search of wine. Which most of us aren’t. But you know, shoot for the moon, land among the stars, etc. etc. etc.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Well, here’s some perfect casting

An uncomfortable truth I’ve been coming to terms with lately is that I’m a huge pathetic sucker. I talk a big game but then I roll over and show the world my soft underbelly in the hopes of some soothing tummy scratches. It happened again this week. I had been holding strong against the idea of the A League of Their Own television show, even after I knew it was being created by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobsen. “This is a crass attempt at exploiting memorable intellectual property,” I mumbled to myself like a real crank.

And then the show went ahead and cast Nick Offerman as the coach, in a kind of Tom Hanks adjacent role that sounds awesome, starting with name — Casey “Dove” Porter — and moving to, well, this.

Dove is described as a former Cubs pitcher who is brought in to coach the Rockford Peaches. The character is most famous because his forkball killed a dove in mid-air in the middle of a game. Inspiring and charismatic, Dove was thought to be the next big Major League Baseball star, but blew his arm out after three years. Now he’s looking to make his comeback by making the Peaches into champions.

Yup, it turns out “Nick Offerman as a version of Tom Hanks crossed with Randy Johnson” is all it takes to make me roll right over. I’m in now. I don’t know. If they cast, like, Anna Kendrick as a foul-mouthed second baseman next I might just declare it my favorite show before it even airs. I have a feeling all over this surprises me more than any of you.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — What an incredible week for Ray Liotta

The trailer for the Sopranos prequel movie, The Many Saints of Newark, dropped this week. It’s a big deal for a bunch of reasons — James Gandolfini’s son playing young Tony, the music at the end, other Sopranos-y things — that you are welcome to talk about at your leisure, because we are, instead, going to talk about Ray Liotta. Look at Ray Liotta in this sucker.

The biggest surprise here is that Ray Liotta was not already in The Sopranos. How did that not happen? It seems like it could have happened even by accident, like if he showed up on set one day under the assumption he had been cast and everyone just rolled with it because, like, he’s Ray Liotta. Why wouldn’t he be in The Sopranos? This is all, in a way, a historical wrong being righted.

And it’s not the only big Ray Liotta news this week. He’s also in No Sudden Move, the new Soderbergh heist movie that drops on HBO Max this weekend. And, in the biggest news of all, to me, which is what’s important here, he’s also been cast in Cocaine Bear. We have talked about Cocaine Bear before. We will assuredly talk about it again later. But we are definitely going to talk about it now. Or at least blockquote it. Like this.

Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson and Jesse Tyler Ferguson are set to star in the Universal project, which is inspired by events that took place in Kentucky during 1985.

The true story, as reported in 1985 by The New York Times, was that a 175-pound black bear consumed the contents of a duffle bag filled with more than 70 pounds of cocaine that was dropped from an airplane by a local drug smuggler, Andrew Thornton. The bear was later found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

Every time anyone posts a summary of this movie, it says the bear died of an “apparent” overdose, and every time it cracks me up. What was your first clue, doc? The bear consuming 40 percent of its body weight in cocaine? Excellent work. Let’s all go out for quesadillas.

Anyway, the only movies I am officially excited about now are as follows: Knives Out 2 (check your email again), Fast 10, John Wick 4, and Cocaine Bear. I hope it’s a huge hit and gets as many sequels as the others. I will absolutely see Cocaine Bear 6: Tootin’ In The Woods in stunning IMAX on opening weekend. I hope they cast Judith Light next, if only so I have many more excuses to post my favorite GIF ever.

Good for Ray Liotta. Good for the Cocaine Bear. But most importantly, good for Brian.

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From Derek:

I do not know how I’m supposed to get anything done this week after reading that quote about James Cameron writing T2 while high on ecstasy and listening to Sting. Because now I’m thinking about what drugs he was on and what music he was listening to when he came up with Avatar. Peyote and Enya?

This is a wonderful email but it will require some context. Earlier this week, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of T2, the great Alan Siegel at The Ringer put together an oral history of the film. It’s all quite good and worth a read over the weekend, but you’ll need to prepare yourself, because at one point James Cameron says, well, this.

Cameron: I remember sitting there once, high on E, writing notes for Terminator, and I was struck by Sting’s song, that “I hope the Russians love their children too.” And I thought, “You know what? The idea of a nuclear war is just so antithetical to life itself.” That’s where the kid came from.

I’m with you, Derek. I can’t get over it either. I have this image in my head of James Cameron sweating profusely and grinding his teeth into dust and bursting out of his office to shout like, “HELEN, WRITE THIS DOWN: WAR IS BAD,” and this poor sweet secretary being like, “Yes, of course, sir,” while handing him a sleeve of freeze pops without looking up from her typing.

We have fun. Not as much as James Cameron, apparently, but still.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Greece!

A painting by Pablo Picasso that was stolen nine years ago during a heist at a Greek gallery has been recovered.

GREEK PICASSO HEIST.

We can skate over some of the details here. A 49-year-old builder was arrested for stealing a painting called Head of a Woman and another painting by a Dutch artist. The heist took place about a decade ago and was highly organized, taking about seven minutes to complete. It’s all very Thomas Crown Affair.

Until, of course, we get to the toilet part.

A third work in pen and ink by Italian artist Guglielmo Caccia, from the 16th Century, was also seized but police said the suspect told them it had been damaged and he had flushed it down the toilet.

I love that this guy thought of everything and planned it out to the second and then one thing went sideways and he was like “FLUSH IT DOWN THE TOILET.” A nice little touch on this one. Almost like he did it specifically for me.

And he did really plan it out meticulously. Look at the work this dude put into it all

During the Tuesday press conference, police alleged that the 49-year-old suspect had confessed to the theft and explained how he planned the raid for six months in advance.

Almost every day he would monitor the movements of security guards and other staff, they said, noting the times the guards took cigarette breaks. On 9 January 2012, the suspect set off a false alarm in another part of the building and broke into the ground floor of the museum, police explained.

Which makes this next part so confusing.

Police said the builder, described as a decorator, had hidden the paintings at his home for years and had no intention of selling them. Recently, however, he had moved them, wrapped in plastic sheets, to a dried up riverbed in Keratea, outside Athens, where they were eventually found in good condition.

Imagine you’re out fishing and you’re walking back after an unsuccessful run of it and you trip and fall and whooooops there’s a priceless stolen Picasso buried in the mud. That’s a story you can dine out on for years. And it’s a real good hammer to drop if one of your dumb friends starts bragging about a huge fish he caught.

YOUR STUPID FRIEND LARRY: … and I swear to God, this thing was as big as your leg. Swear to God.

YOU: Oh, wow. How much was it worth?

YOUR STUPID FRIEND LARRY: Ah, come on. No one wants to hear the Picasso story aga-

YOU: BECAUSE ONE TIME I CAUGHT A PRICELESS PICASSO PAINTING.

Insufferable. Everyone will hate you so much. But it’ll be worth it.