Month: July 2021

Attention all spice harvesters: the new trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is here.

There’s Zendaya, sand, Timothée Chalamet getting emasculated by Jason Momoa, more sand, stunning visual effects, and did I mention the sand?

Also here: the first round of Dune reactions. “I know it was only the opening 10mins, a STUNNING spice mining sequence, and the new trailer from #DuneMovie but the potential for this to be one of those cinematic landmark movies appears to be limitless,” read one review of last night’s special preview, while Dune News tweeted, “What I just saw was something momentous. I’ve been covering this movie before production even started, and what Denis Villeneuve did with this film is unexplainable. This is a masterpiece waiting to be released.” You should, of course, take everything a fan account says with a biased grain of salt (or sand). Then again: did you see that trailer? I believe the hype.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence — a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential — only those who conquer their fear will survive.

Dune opens on October 22.

In the world of Kanye West, things tend to go from 0 to 100 quickly. Last weekend, with no warning, there was a listening event for Donda, and now the album is set to come out tomorrow. Now, there are two major live events on the horizon: West is hosting a listening event at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium tonight, and it looks like he’ll be performing at Rolling Loud Miami this weekend.

Rumors of this performance have been circulating for a few days. On July 20, West’s longtime collaborator Consequence shared notepad drawings of a pyramid, seemingly in reference to West’s stage design, and noted that West will be performing at the festival on Sunday. Now, we have something closer to official confirmation of West’s appearance, as Billboard reports (citing “a source close to the situation”) that it’s happening.

Meanwhile, West shared what appears to be the tracklist for the album via an Instagram post last night, which shows song titles written on a whiteboard. As NME notes, there are some differences between this tracklist and the one West shared a year ago. While there are a number of songs that have stuck around, tracks like “Pure Souls” and “We Made It” are new to the album.

Is there anything Emilia Clarke can’t do? On Wednesday night, the former Game of Thrones star—First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons, and Character With Too Many Titles—showed off her flair for accents and a possible affinity for Crocodile Dundee. While appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the host challenged Clarke to recite Olivia Rodrigo’s song of the summer “Good 4 U” in more than a half-dozen different accents, and the actor was happy to comply.

Clarke kicked things off with her best impression of a New Yorker, which was dripping in sarcasm: “Well, good for you, you frickin’ moron. I guess you moved on real easily. Go Mets!” It was a lesson in elocution, as Clarke went on to offer interpretations of the song as an old-school California Valley Girl (“But, like, remember when you said that you, like, wanted to give me the world? Like, oh my god. As if!”), a German Fräulein, a self-composed Frenchwoman, a pissed-off Russian, and a wronged Aussie who isn’t afraid to drop a Crocodile Dundee line into the conversation (“You call that a knife?”).

Clarke finished the bit up with a spot-on Southern accent and an Irish brogue, and cracking open a can of Guinness. And you thought playing in fire and riding a dragon was impressive.

You can watch The Tonight Show clip above.

Onyeka Okongwu had an uneven rookie season that was marred by injury early on as he dealt with a foot injury suffered in the pre-draft process, but he closed the season strong and played meaningful playoff minutes for the Hawks in their surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals.

That effort certainly seemed to set the young big man up for an impactful sophomore campaign as the clear backup center to Clint Capela in Atlanta, but on Wednesday, word broke from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that Okongwu would miss significant time after surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder — an injury he was battling since May, per Woj.

The Hawks confirmed the news shortly after.

A six-month absence would mean a January return, as he would miss the first three months of the season as the NBA returns to a its normal mid-October start. That’s a significant absence, and the injury being to his shooting shoulder will require plenty of rehab just to get back to shooting the basketball again. For Okongwu, it will surely be a frustrating setback and another injury process to go through at a young age when he should be building on such a promising finish to his season.

For the Hawks, it’s a big blow to their frontcourt depth and Travis Schlenk and company will have to determine how to proceed this offseason, as it seems what was a strength for the team with their center rotation now will likely require a bit more attention in free agency.

While Diddy has kept much of his focus on the business and entrepreneurial side of things for the past half-decade or so, he’s also made infrequent appearances on a wide array of songs. He served as an executive director for Burna Boy’s Twice As Tall, and he appeared on a number of skits throughout the album. He also appeared on Big Sean’s “Full Circle” from Detroit 2 and DJ Khaled’s “Full Circle” from Khaled Khaled. Now it’s time for him to share a project of his own.

On Wednesday, the hip-hop mogul announced his return with a brand new project titled Off The Grid, Vol. 1. He revealed the album would arrive on September 24 and that it would launch the “Love Era.” Back in May, Diddy announced that he legally changed his name to Sean Love Combs and even showed off his new driver’s license to prove it. The new names joins the many monikers, including Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, and Sean “Diddy” Combs.

When the new project comes it will be Diddy’s first full-length effort since 2015’s MMM (Money Making Mitch). That project was only listed as a mixtape, so to find Diddy’s last album, you’ll have to go back to 2006’s Press Play.

Candace Owens has only been a conservative firebrand for about four years; before that she used to make internet jokes about Donald Trump’s Malcolm Gladwell. So you could forgive her for occasionally, and almost certainly by accident, making some points that just about anyone would agree were progressive. That’s what happened on Monday, when the Daily Wire employee — perhaps best known for her repeated and much-mocked apoplectic fits over “WAP” — tried to dunk on vaccines or something and only succeeded in sounding like a pinko lefty who wants the government to help people.

“The Covid vaccine saves lives, which is why the government is making it free!” she wrote in mock scare quotes. “K. So explain to me why insulin and asthma inhalers cost so much money. If the vaccines are really about the government trying to save your life— why do life-saving medicines cost so much?”

Take that…uh, people against life-saving treatment that shouldn’t bankrupt people? It’s not clear who the target audience was. Perhaps she meant it for people who used to read her in 2015, when she was against conservatives. Probably not, but her attempt to shame the government for making treatment for a highly contagious disease that came awfully close to destroying humanity — and still could, incidentally — blew up in her face.

Soon Owens was encouraging a lot of people to encourage her to go one step forward and embrace her inner Bernie Sanders.

Some welcomed her to the resistance.

Others went even further, photoshopping a Che beret onto her head.

Or embedding a hammer and sickle underneath her tweets.

Soon the term “Comrade Candace” was born.

Which she probably didn’t like.

So the next time Candace Owens is trending because of some awful opinion she’s not embarrassed to put in the public sphere, remember she’s probably two tweets away from accidentally agreeing with you about late capitalism or student debt.

Young Nudy jumpstarted his rap career back in 2016 with the release of Slimeball and quickly found success by frequently dropping work. The next year he garnered more attention with Slimeball 2 and Nudy Land, and he soon found himself one of hip-hop’s hottest acts. He’s maintained his level of consistency, dropping a total of five projects since 2018, his latest being May’s Dr. Ev4l. And he’s already dropping another one.

The rapper took to his social media pages to reveal that his upcoming full-length effort, Rich Shooter, is locked in for an August 4 release date. It marks the third time in Nudy’s career that he’s dropped multiple projects in a year. Potential features for the project have yet to be revealed, but he’s already announced his Dr. Ev4l Vs. Rich Shooter Tour, during which he’ll visit ten cities, beginning with Houston, Texas on August 6 and ending with Boston, Massachusetts on August 21.

All of this comes after an impressive 2020, which boasted singles like “All White,” “Never,” and “Vice City,” all which helped bring the rapper more attention. On a more recent note, Nudy has shared videos for tracks off Dr. Ev4l that include“2Face” with G Herbo and its title track.

You can view Nudy’s tweet announcing Rich Shooter above.

Liz Cheney was few progressives’ idea of a savior this time last year, but a lot has changed. The Wyoming representative — and, till May, one of the most powerful Republicans in the House — has been one of an elite few in her party who has stood up to former president Trump, who still rules over the party, despite being a disgraced weirdo who now lives in resorts with strangers. Even after her colleagues stripped her of some power, she’s stood her ground, and that means not holding back when trashing Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy over his repeated attempts to destroy investigations into Jan. 6.

The day after McCarthy brazenly named some highly questionable people to the Democrat-led committee — chief among them Jim Jordan, who’s been accused of helping foment the failed insurrection — Cheney tore him limb from limb.

“The rhetoric we have heard from the minority leader is disingenuous,” Cheney told reporters. “At every opportunity, the minority leader has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened.”

She also agreed with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was right to reject Jordan as well as Jim Banks, who also voted against certifying the election for now-president Joe Biden. She mentioned that Jordan may wind up a “material witness” in their investigation. As for Banks, she said he “disqualified himself by his comments, in particular, over the last 24 hours demonstrating that he is not taking this seriously.”

She added, “The idea that anybody would be playing politics with an attack on the United States Capitol is despicable and is disgraceful. I’m absolutely dedicated and committed to making sure this investigation holds those accountable who did this and ensures that it never happens again.”

McCarthy has been accused of trying to discredit the investigation, which may wind up implicating a number of Republicans, including Jordan, as well as Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, perhaps even McCarthy himself. Republicans like McCarthy and Jordan have been accusing the committee of playing politics, so it may be a classic case of projection — one of the modern conservative’s favorite cheap tricks.

(Via Raw Story)

Last summer, Conway The Machine dropped his official debut album From King To A God — one of many efforts from he and fellow Griselda members dropped in 2020, including Benny The Butcher’s Burden Of Proof and Westside Gunn’s Who Made The Sunshine. Conway already has one 2021 project under his belt with La Maquina, but the Buffalo rapper is far from done. His sophomore album and official Shady Records debut, God Don’t Make Mistakes, is set to arrive in the near future.

Ahead of its arrival, Conway shared a tentative tracklist in a post to Instagram, featuring the songs, guest features, and producers scribbled onto a notepad. Across the 12 songs, listeners will (for now) hear Conway rap beside Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, T.I., Jill Scott, Benny The Butcher, Westside Gunn, Jae Skeese, 7xve, Novel, Keisha Plum, and Annette Price. Production for the album will be handled by The Alchemist, Daringer, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Hit-Boy, Bink! and Cosmo.

Prior to revealing the tracklist for God Don’t Make Mistakes, Conway teamed up with JID and Ludacris in a video for their collaboration “Scatter Brain,” which arrived before he joined Method Man and others for a gritty DMX tribute at the 2021 BET Awards.

You can check out the tracklist for God Don’t Make Mistakes below.

1. “Lock Load”
2. “Tear Gas” Feat. Lil Wayne & Rick Ross
3. “Piano Love”
4. “Drumwork” Feat. Jae Skeese & 7xve
5. “Wild Chapters” Feat. T.I. & Novel
6. “Guilty”
7. “John Woo Flickv Feat. Benny the Butcher & Westside Gunn
8. “Stress ft. Wallo”
9. “So Much More”
10. “Chanel Pearls” Feat. Jill Scott
11. “Babas” Feat. Keisha Plum
12. “GDMM Feat. Annette Price

Back in the mid-2000s, there was no video game as big as World of Warcraft. Blizzard’s famous MMO became infamous for its incredibly addicting gameplay and endless content. There was always something to do in World of Warcraft and this resulted in some people putting an unhealthy amount of hours into the game. This level of addiction became a regular pop culture reference, especially as stories started to come out about college students dropping out, or people spending thousands of dollars, just because they played so much WoW.

When something in pop culture reaches the status of WoW then everyone knows there is going to be a South Park episode about it. The satirical and foul-mouthed cartoon is no stranger to poking fun at real-life celebrities, brands, and in this case a video game. They did an entire episode about how the four kids of South Park played nothing but WoW for months on end so they could save the game from someone that had played so much of it he could break the rules of the game. However, to become so powerful they had to train in secret by grinding against low-level boars. However, this wasn’t enough to defeat the threat and it wasn’t until they acquired the “Sword of a Thousand Truths” that they were able to defeat the threat and save World of Warcraft.

Well everything has come full circle because now those boars and that sword are being referenced in a Blizzard property. It was revealed that Hearthstone, a card game based on the lore of the Warcraft franchise is going to include the “Elwynn Boar” from the South Park episode. If enough of those boars are eliminated from play then the player will gain access to the Sword of a Thousand Truths card. A perfect reference to the episode.

Referencing a TV show in a game can be difficult sometimes, because if it’s not done properly then it could lead to fan backlash, or be seen as a weird attempt to connect with the youths. However, this is really well done and it helps that “Make Love, Not Warcraft” is one of South Park‘s most popular episodes. Although, including a reference to your own game feels like a level of meta-commentary that will make your head hurt if you think about it too much.

The real fun will now begin with how the cards are played. Games like Hearthstone are all about putting together a deck that will reach the player’s win condition the fastest. The strategy here definitely seems to be getting those boars eliminated as fast as possible so the player can summon their sword, but that’s if it gets popular play. Sometimes cards like this are more so about getting one as a trophy than actually using it in play, but it will be the Hearthstone community that decides what the ultimate fate of these cards are.