Month: September 2021

Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish movies available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

10. (tie) Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal, and Greed (Netflix)

Bob Ross is beloved worldwide for his landscapes and peaceful vibes, but this new Netflix documentary reveals that things weren’t all sunsets and smiles when it came to his fortune and estate. Money will do that, even when the money comes from someone as sweet as Bob Freakin’ Ross, apparently. Watch it on Netflix.

10. (tie) Jungle Cruise (Disney+)

Though the plot gets a bit convoluted in the second half of the movie, the dazzling, movie star-esque performances here by The Rock, Emily Blunt, and Jesse Plemons make this an entertaining movie well worth watching. Set in 1916, this movie about a race to be the first to get to a tree with magical healing powers has a distinct Indiana Jones/Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe to it. In fact, a couple of the scenes play like homages to those earlier films. And Jesse Plemons appears to be having the time of his life portraying the villain in this film, and who on God’s green Earth doesn’t love Jesse Plemons?! Watch it on Disney+.

9. Annette (Amazon)

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A stand-up comedian (Adam Driver) and a world-famous opera singer (Marion Cotillard) have a child that turns out to be a wooden marionette doll, and the doll begins taunting them with its own singing voice after their marital problems lead to chaos. It sounds… weird. It sounds weird. There’s no way around that. But it does have an interesting cast and is getting solid reviews so maybe give it a run if you’re in the mood to have your mind bent a little. Watch it on Amazon.

8. The Green Knight (VOD)

Some of us have been waiting an entire year to see a glowed-up Dev Patel play a troubled, handsomely rugged knight in this trippy take on an Arthurian legend, but now that The Green Knight is finally streaming everywhere … well, we all win. Patel plays Gawain, the film’s should-be hero who must fulfill an oath and face off against a myth-like creature who demands his head. Talking foxes, blood magic, and literal giants all pop up, inhabiting a mystical, terrifying, otherworldly landscape from the twisted, creative genius of director David Lowery. Find it on your VOD outlet of choice.

7. Vacation Friends (Hulu)

Well look at that, it’s a vacation romp featuring mismatched couples, one a party animal pair played by John Cena and Meredith Hagner, the other a more straightlaced duo played by Lil Rel Howery and Yvonne Orji. They’re all in Mexico. One assumes hijinks will ensue. Watch it on Hulu.

6. Worth (Netflix)

It’s a hell of trick, the way Michael Keaton went from being just a little more alive and electric than everyone else on the screen to how he now fades into roles where he’s at the center of slow-burn David and Goliath stories that mythologize the dogged pursuit of justice. It’s like he pointed his jets inward to melt away any sense of movie star sparkle to become the son of Pittsburgh everyman that he was born to be. One expects we’ll see that in the upcoming Dopesick, we certainly saw it in Spotlight, and from the producers of that film comes this story about the effort to compensate the families of 9/11 victims and the fight to not have that effort lose the thread of empathy and respect when confronted by such titanic loss. Watch it on Netflix.

5. Cinderella (Amazon Prime)

It is time, apparently, once again, time for a new take on Cinderella, the classic story of a girl and her evil family and how magic and some rodents make her a star. This time around, we have Camilia Cabello in the lead role and Billy Porter as her fairy godparent and Idina Menzel as the evil stepmother and, look at that, Pierce Brosnan as the king. The whole thing basically puts a series of small twists on a story you’ve seen a few dozen times, but sometimes that’s okay. The cast is strong enough to make it all worth a shot. Watch it on Amazon.

4. The Voyeurs (Amazon Prime)

What we have here is an old-school erotic thriller — think Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction — with White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney as one half of a curious couple who spends a not-insignificant amount of time spying on their exhibitionist-type neighbors. Things get weird and twisted and steamy, as they do in these kinds of movies, which were super popular in the 1980s and 1990s and have since just about disappeared. Might be worth it to give it a try, but think about closing your own blinds first. Watch it on Amazon Prime.

3. Cry Macho (HBO Max)

Clint Eastwood is back as an actor and director in Cry Macho. A movie with a razor-thin plot, where nothing much at all happens, but is still strangely enjoyable. There’s something irresistibly pleasant about the whole thing – which is just an excuse for Clint to star in a movie that could loosely be described as an “action” role. (Though, Clint does make sure he gets to throw a punch. With the assistance of a rooster named Macho.) Watch it on HBO Max.

2. Kate (Netflix)

Granted, this movie sounds a whole lot like Crank (those infamous Jason Statham flicks), but it’s got Mary Elizabeth Winstead kicking enormous ass, so are we really complaining about derivative stories here? Nope. Here, Winstead stars as the title character, who’s taking revenge upon a criminal organization after being poisoned and only having 24 hours to live. Woody Harrelson’s also on board here (he makes everything better), and let’s hope that Kate gains some vengeance before the clock expires. Watch it on Netflix.

1. Malignant (HBO Max)

James Wan, he of the Saw and Insidious and Conjuring movies, is back with a new horror film. This one focuses on a woman who has terrifying visions of brutal murders, which are ruining her life a little (as terrifying visions of brutal murders will do) and are also –surprise — actually happening in the real world (which is bad). None of it sounds like a good time for her. For you, though? Maybe. Watch it on Netflix.

There’s maybe no position in the NFL that is deeper than the wide receiver position and, as such, it’s easy to find talent all over rosters across the league. However, it also means making decisions on who to start and who to bench in fantasy can be very difficult.

There’s nothing worse than the frustration of leaving the wrong player on the bench, which is why you pore over projections and opponent ratings and target counts each week. We’ll be compiling a consensus projection ranking of the top 40 receivers based on the average of ESPN, CBS, NFL, FantasyPros, and FFToday‘s projections each week in an effort to help. Here are the rankings for Week 2:

CONSENSUS WEEK 2 WIDE RECEIVER PROJECTION RANKINGS

1. Davante Adams (GB)
2. Tyreek Hill (KC)
3. Stefon Diggs (MIN)
4. Calvin Ridley (ATL)
5. DeAndre Hopkins (ARI)
6. DK Metcalf (SEA)
7. AJ Brown (TEN)
8. Justin Jefferson (MIN)
9. Amari Cooper (DAL)
10. Keenan Allen (LAC)
11. Tyler Lockett (SEA)
12. Cooper Kupp (LAR)
13. Allen Robinson (CHI)
14. Diontae Johnson (PIT)
15. Deebo Samuel (SF)
16. Chris Godwin (TB)
17. Adam Thielen (MIN)
18. Mike Evans (TB)
19. Terry McLaurin (WAS)
20. Jarvis Landry (CLE)
21. Tee Higgins (CIN)
22. Julio Jones (TEN)
23. Brandin Cooks (HOU)
24. DJ Moore (CAR)
25. Chase Claypool (PIT)
26. Marvin Jones Jr (JAX)
27. Ja’Marr Chase (CIN)
28. Sterling Shepard (NYG)
29. Jakobi Meyers (NE)
30. Robert Woods (LAR)
31. Marquise Brown (BAL)
32. Antonio Brown (TB)
33. DeVonta Smith (PHI)
34. Corey Davis (NYJ)
35. Robby Anderson (CAR)
36. Laviska Shenault Jr (JAX)
37. JuJu Smith Schuster (PIT)
38. Courtland Sutton (DEN)
39. Cole Beasley (BUF)
40. Kenny Golladay (NYG)

Tucker Carlson isn’t the only right-winger who can’t stop talking about Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls. During a press conference on Wednesday, Dr. Terrence Deyalsingh, the health minister of Trinidad and Tobago, shot down claims that the rapper’s acquaintance developed “swollen” testicles after receiving a coronavirus vaccine. “It is, as far as we know, at this point in time — there has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event. And what was sad about this is that it wasted our time yesterday, trying to track down, because we take all these claims seriously, whether it’s on social media or mainstream media,” he said. “As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported such side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad or, I dare say, Dr. Hinds, anywhere else. None that we know of anywhere else in the world.”

Dinesh D’Souza — who is not a doctor — isn’t so sure.

“How would the health minister know this? Did he measure the guy’s testicles? There is no indication in this article of what type of fact checking was involved here,” tweeted the testicle-knower/director of such fine films as Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party, AOC Is Not A-OK: The Socialist Nightmare, Death of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time? (one of those titles is fake — can you guess which?).

Everyone’s an expert on swollen balls these days. (This story keeps getting weirder.)

The NFL season is underway and as Week 2 approaches, there are plenty of questions still being asked. For fantasy football players, those questions revolve mostly around touches and opportunity when it comes to the running back position, as Week 1 offered a glimpse at the potential workload each back might have this season.

The expected workhorses are out there for the brunt of the snaps, but there are plenty of others who how they split time (and how they’re used in the passing game) means the most to their efficacy as a fantasy player. Beyond that, injuries are always looming and finding out who steps up in place of an injured starter is always on the mind for those in the fantasy space.

Each fantasy site has its projections each week taking those factors, opponent ratings, and more, and we are going to round up rankings averaging five sites (ESPN, NFL, CBS, FantasyPros, and FFToday) weekly projections.

CONSENSUS WEEK 2 RUNNING BACK PROJECTION RANKINGS

1. Alvin Kamara (NO)
2. Christian McCaffrey (CAR)
3. Dalvin Cook (MIN)
4. Nick Chubb (CLE)
5. Aaron Jones (GB)
6. Derrick Henry (TEN)
7. Austin Ekeler (LAC)
8. Chris Carson (SEA)
9. Joe Mixon (CIN)
10. Najee Harris (PIT)
11. Antonio Gibson (WAS)
12. David Montgomery (CHI)
13. D’Andre Swift (DET)
14. Jonathan Taylor (IND)
15. Saquon Barkley (NYG)
16. Miles Sanders (PHI)
17. Melvin Gordon II (DEN)
18. Darrell Henderson Jr (LAR)
19. Damien Harris (NE)
20. Elijah Mitchell (SF)
21. Ty’Son Williams (BAL)
22. Clyde Edwards-Helaire (KC)
23. Kareem Hunt (CLE)
24. Myles Gaskin (MIA)
25. Chase Edmonds (ARI)
26. James Robinson (JAX)
27. Mike Davis (ATL)
28. Josh Jacobs (LV)
29. Javonte Williams (DEN)
30. Leonard Fournette (TB)
31. Devin Singletary (BUF)
32. James Conner (ARI)
33. Jamaal Williams (DET)
34. Ronald Jones (TB)
35. Kenyan Drake (LV)
36. Nyheim Hines (IND)
37. James White (NE)
38. Mark Ingram (HOU)
39. Latavius Murray (BAL)
40. AJ Dillon (GB)

On Monday evening, while the world’s biggest stars uncomfortably shuffled their way into the Met Gala in outfits that could not have been comfortable or allowed for sitting, all eyes were on Nicki Minaj. Or at least her Twitter account, where she was posting about not being at the Met Gala… and dropping a drive-by mention of her cousin’s friend’s swollen testicles.

While we certainly feel bad for any guy whose gnads have gone all gnarly, Trinidad & Tobago’s minister of health says they have no record of such an incident and cast doubt on the tweet’s accuracy (while trying to keep a straight face behind a face mask). Whether it’s true or not doesn’t seem to matter to Tucker Carlson, who is seemingly obsessed with Nicki’s cousin’s friend’s engorged nutsack. And just like us, Stephen Colbert is loving every minute of Carlson’s coverage of Gonadgate.

“Tucker was one of the first to jump on the story on Monday night,” Colbert said, “but he had gotten a crucial detail wrong.” On Tuesday, Carlson apologized for his misunderstanding of the original tweet, and corrected his original reporting by explaining that: “Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s testicles are not swollen. As far as we know, he’s fine. It’s Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles who are swollen.” Colbert, for one, appreciated the correction:

“I’m glad to see Fox News is finally coming to terms with some of its dangerous misstatements. And this time… it’s not trivial stuff like, ‘Was the election stolen?’ or ‘Should I huff horse medicine?’ No, Fox viewers; you’ve got to squirt that straight up your butt.”

According to Colbert, “Carlson has been reporting on Minaj’s tweet because he’s desperate for any proof that the vaccine is not safe.” He even went so far as to invite Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend—or Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s swollen-ball-hating ex-fiancée—to come on his show to tell their story. And promised that he would come to them. Colbert was suitably impressed by Carlson’s dogged dedication to the truth.

“That’s right, Tucker’s willing to go anywhere to get the important stories,” Colbert said. “It reminds me of when Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam to interview Jimi Hendrix’s cousin’s friend, who claimed the polio vaccine gave him a micro-taint.”

You can watch the clip above, beginning around the 6:20 mark. Here’s hoping that this won’t be the last we hear from Carlson on the topic.

Norm Macdonald was a cherished comedian and entertainer. Following his death on Tuesday at the age of 61 after a near-decade-long battle with cancer, friends and fans have been sharing stories about the former SNL star and the impact both he and his comedy had on their lives. Among the most enlightening of those tales have been the ones to come from fellow comedians and colleagues like Seth Meyers and Andy Richter. On Wednesday, Macdonald’s former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz was a guest on The Rich Eisen Show, where he told a story about the time Macdonald got banned from a casino for telling dirty jokes.

The two comedians often toured together over the years, and at one point they ended up doing a show at a casino in Biloxi, Mississippi for a crowd of comped customers. Lovitz said that while he and Macdonald weren’t alike in many ways, neither one of them liked being told what to do. “If you say to me, ‘You can’t say that or talk about a certain thing,’ I’m like: Well now I have to. It’s just sort of your instinct as a comic—to bug people.” Which is how this particular show, which Lovitz opened and Macdonald headlined, ended up going sideways.

“So he’s doing the show—and he’s very funny, but he’s dirty. So someone yells out, ‘We don’t like that kind of talk.’ So there’s about 400 people there and he goes, ‘Well how many of you don’t like that kind of talk?’ and it was practically the whole room. Then he goes, ‘Well how many of you don’t mind?’ And it was like 10 people. So he goes, ‘Well, I’d hate to disappoint those 10 people because the rest of you don’t like it.’ And then he just got dirtier. And I was just crying laughing. The audience wasn’t even laughing, but that was typical him.”

While the casino itself wasn’t named, suffice it to say they weren’t clamoring to book Macdonald for a second show.

You can listen to the full clip below (including Lovitz talking why Macdonald decided to bomb at Bob Saget’s Comedy Central Roast).

If the goal of Texas’ new abortion ban was to enrage enough people to actually increase support for abortion in America, then congratulations, Texas—you’ve done it! In what was undoubtedly an unintended consequence of Lone Star State lawmakers deciding they had the power to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, and a woman’s federal right to health care—which, yes, includes abortion—Forbes is reporting that support for abortion being legal across America might actually be on the rise.

According to the numbers in a new Quinnipiac poll, which was conducted between September 10 and September 13 with 1,210 U.S. adults responding, a record-high 31 percent of respondents said that abortion should be legal in all cases while another 31 percent support abortion in most cases. According to Forbes, “Quinnipiac notes that’s ‘one of the highest levels of support’ for abortion since the pollster began asking the question in 2004, and marks the first time more than 30 percent [of respondents] have said it should be legal in all cases.”

While 51 percent of the people polled were ok with abortion procedures happening after a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, which is right around six weeks and part of how Texas came up with the terms of its new abortion ban (despite the fact that many women wouldn’t even realize they were pregnant at this point), a whopping 83 percent of respondents were in favor of abortion in the event that a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, which is not something Texas’ new law cares to consider.

Perhaps even more surprising is the impact Texas’ ban, which flies in the face of federal law, has had on support for the Supreme Court. “Only 37 percent of respondents approve of the Supreme Court while 49 percent disapprove,” Forbes writes, “which Quinnipiac notes is the lowest approval rating since it started polling in 2004 and is down from a 52 percent approval rating in July 2020.”

On Tuesday evening, the Department of Justice filed an emergency motion to block Texas’ abortion ban, which makes the medical procedure illegal—no matter the circumstances—after six weeks. In their filing, according to Axios, the DOJ cites: “This relief is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States in ensuring that its States respect the terms of the national compact. It is also necessary to protect federal agencies, employees, and contractors whose lawful actions S.B. 8 purports to prohibit.”

Even more troubling, according to the filing (which you can read in full here) is that Texas’ ban goes completely against the 14th Amendment, which reads: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Attorney general Merrick Garland also cited the 14th Amendment in his argument against the ban, claiming that the ban is “invalid under the Supremacy Clause and the 14th Amendment, is preempted by federal law, and violates the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity.”

(Via Forbes)

Pascal Siakam has gone on a pretty incredible journey over the last decade, going from a relative unknown in Cameroon to an NBA champion, All-Star, and max player for the Toronto Raptors. However, with that rapid rise to stardom comes a shift in expectations, and when Siakam and the Raptors stumbled a year ago while playing a season in Tampa due to the pandemic, the discussion about Siakam changed considerably.

Rather than being about his considerable growth from when he entered the league to becoming an All-Star and one of the Raptors three best players on a title team, it became questions and doubt about whether he was capable of being “the guy” in Toronto as they clearly began looking towards the future. With Kyle Lowry gone, Siakam and Fred VanVleet are now the faces of the Raptors, and with that comes a different level of scrutiny, something Siakam admitted was difficult for him to deal with initially.

Trade rumors began picking up about Siakam last year and, while they’ve quieted recently, he admitted in an interview with Sopan Deb of the New York Times that it was a struggle, if for nothing else than it was one of the first times he’s really had to deal with negativity around him in the NBA.

Yeah. I think it is. Definitely. And I think it’s something that I’ll probably definitely struggle with. You know? And I think even just like the negativity about my name. For me, it was weird. Because I’m like, “Damn.” I’m such a positive person, the people that know me. People see my story, understand where I come from and all the things that I’ve been able to achieve so far in my career. It has always been about positivity, right? It’s always like good things. “How can you hate this person”-type of thing.

…

I think for me, just seeing the negativity and all the slanders about me, it just made me feel some type of way, obviously, to be honest. It was just kind of disappointing and just kind of like, “Man.” I really did feel like just me going through tough times, it’s not going to change everything, right? I felt like we were connected. And obviously I understand like, man, this is a sport, right? You get paid the big bucks. You get paid to perform. I get that and I understand it.

Siakam would go on to say he feels his relationship with the Raptors is getting back where it was previously and that he sees himself in Toronto long-term (and that he never felt it was a situation where Toronto wanted to get rid of him), but that some of the things said by fans really hurt, particularly comments that referenced his late father. It is an unfortunate byproduct of becoming a star in the NBA that the target on your back grows larger and a small, but vocal group of fans will cross the line with comments and attacks.

Hopefully Siakam is able to bounce back after offseason shoulder surgery in 2021-22 to prove those doubts about his abilities to be a No. 1 wrong. Doing that will require him to be able to find that same positive energy that fueled his rise, which means blocking out some of the noise around him and for fans to understand where the line is between criticism of play and personal attacks.

Week 1 of the NFL season brought plenty of surprises and the second week will give us an awful lot more information about whether those opening performances were indicative of what teams and players will look like all season, or if they were simply an early season mirage.

For fantasy players, the opening weeks can be difficult to navigate through as you try to determine what performances are for real, who will bounce back to be better, and who will fall off to be worse long term. Most of the prominent fantasy sites have weekly projections based on past performance, opponent ratings, and more, but the formulas for coming up with those ratings can vary pretty wildly, as evidenced by some very different weekly projections and ratings depending on who you look at.

Here, we’re going to combine five of those into one consensus ranking each week in an effort to blend as much information as possible into one source. We will be pulling from ESPN, NFL, CBS, FantasyPros, and FFToday weekly fantasy points projections for a standard league and averaging out the projections for our rankings.

CONSENSUS QB WEEK 2 PROJECTION RANKINGS

1. Josh Allen (BUF)
2. Kyler Murray (ARI)
3. Patrick Mahomes (KC)
4. Tom Brady (TB)
5. Russell Wilson (SEA)
6. Lamar Jackson (BAL)
7. Aaron Rodgers (GB)
8. Dak Prescott (DAL)
9. Justin Herbert (LAC)
10. Jalen Hurts (PHI)
11. Baker Mayfield (CLE)
12. Ben Roethlisberger (PIT)
13. Ryan Tannehill (TEN)
14. Matthew Stafford (LAR)
15. Teddy Bridgewater (DEN)
16. Joe Burrow (CIN)
17. Kirk Cousins (MIN)
18. Jameis Winston (NO)
19. Matt Ryan (ATL)
20. Mac Jones (NE)
21. Taylor Heinicke (WAS)
22. Derek Carr (LV)
23. Trevor Lawrence (JAX)
24. Tua Tagovailoa (MIA)
25. Jared Goff (DET)
26. Jimmy Garoppolo (SF)
27. Tyrod Taylor (HOU)
28. Andy Dalton (CHI)
29. Carson Wentz (IND)
30. Sam Darnold (CAR)
31. Daniel Jones (NYG)
32. Zach Wilson (NYJ)

This past summer, a number of women stepped forward to accuse Marilyn Manson of sexual assault, and while a majority of those cases are still pending, a judge delivered a ruling for one of them on Wednesday. According to Rolling Stone, Judge Gregory Keosian dismissed a lawsuit against the singer for sexual assault from a woman who was anonymously identified as Jane Doe. She claimed Manson raped her back in 2011 but Judge Keosian dismissed her case due to the statute of limitations. The ruling explained that the victim’s alleged claims of having repressed memories — known as “delayed discovery” — from the assault would not be enough to overcome the statute of limitations in court.

Despite the rule, Judge Keosian granted Jane Doe 20 days to file a new complaint with more details in order to be considered for a future case. According to Rolling Stone, this is just one of four lawsuits Manson is facing for sexual assault. In June, he was accused by model Ashley Morgan Smithline of sexual assault, sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, human trafficking, unlawful imprisonment, and more. The month before that, his former assistant Ashley Walters sued him for crimes that included sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Prior to that, Games Of Thrones actress Esmé Blanco filed a lawsuit and claimed Manson raped and sexually battered her.

Furthermore, more than a dozen women have alleged sexual crimes against Manson including his ex-wife Evan Rachel Wood, who accused him of “horrifically” abusing and grooming her.