Month: September 2021

Every month, Uproxx cultural critic Steven Hyden makes an unranked list of his favorite music-related items — songs, albums, books, films, you name it — of the month.

1. Low, “All Night”

Likely my favorite song of the year, and it comes from likely my favorite album of the year. Low has been a well-respected indie institution shepherded by the husband-and-wife team of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker for nearly three decades, but they are now making the greatest music of their lives. I can’t think of another legacy act who has pulled off a transformation so incredible at this point in their career. As producer B.J. Burton put it to me in an interview published this week, “Alan and Mim have this vibe that they write these songs from heaven.” And then they tasked Burton to take them into hell. If this isn’t in the trailer for the next Safdie Brothers movie, somebody messed up.

2. David Bowie’s “Life On Mars?” in the Licorice Pizza trailer

Speaking of trailers, there was some grumbling online about using this Hunky Dory classic in the thoroughly charming teaser for the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. “Too obvious!” the social media critics railed. I am a firm believer that we are all entitled to our own opinions. However, in the case of the Licorice Pizza trailer, I’ll just say this: If you watched that knowing PTA’s history of never being obvious or predictable in his actual films — advertisements are a different story, of course — and you still decided to do the knee-jerk killjoy act, I’m sorry, but your opinion-having privileges have been temporarily suspended.

3. Aeon Station, “Queens”

Back in January, I interviewed Charles Bissell of legendary New Jersey indie band the Wrens. At the time, it appeared that their long, loooooong awaited follow-up to the 2003 masterpiece The Meadowlands might finally see release this year. Flash forward nine months and — surprise, surprise! — there’s no new Wrens album. But there will be a new record from the other main songwriter in the Wrens, Kevin Whelan, in the form of splinter act, Aeon Station, which will release Observatory in December. But what about Bissell? In our interview, he was optimistic about putting out the music … eventually? “I think this record will come out and I’m proud of it, I think,” he said. “It’s pretty good, I think.” Fingers crossed!

4. Tonstartssbandht, “What Has Happened”

This Florida-based duo — it’s pronounced “Tone-starts-band-hut,” by the way — has been highly prolific since forming in 2008, putting out a whopping 17 records. But the forthcoming Petunia is their first since 2017, and it feels like a potential breakthrough, with the excellent new single “What Has Happened” sounding like a jammier Radiohead during their Hail To The Thief era.

5. Andy Shauf, Wilds

When I spoke with this understated, story-oriented singer-songwriter in 2020, he revealed that he wrote 50 songs for The Neon Skyline, his concept album about a neighborhood bar and the patrons who drink there. He said it was part of a process in which he slowly pieced together an over-arching story. “I would write a batch where one main point has to happen, and then write four songs in that direction, and then be like, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’” he said. “Then those songs are scrapped and I have to write four more.” Nine of those leftover songs ended up on Wilds, a surprise companion LP that works surprisingly well outside of The Neon Skyline despite revisiting the same characters. It helps that Schauf is as skilled at producing gloriously retro instrumental tones as he is at spinning evocative narratives.

6. The War On Drugs, “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”

One of my favorite songs on the forthcoming War On Drugs album, which is also titled I Don’t Live Here Anymore. If I were a nitpicker, I would point out that it’s really hard to dance to “Desolation Row.” But I am not a nitpicker when it comes to this song, probably because the “Shelter From The Storm” subtweet at the start totally disarms me.

7. Karen Dalton: In My Own Time

A strikingly beautiful folk singer with an unusual, otherworldly blues voice that’s been likened to Billie Holiday, Karen Dalton is precisely the sort of hard-luck musician who seemed predestined for cult obscurity. A contemporary of Bob Dylan in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s, Dalton released just two studio albums, 1969’s It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best and 1971’s In My Own Time, before substance abuse problems torpedoed her career. In 1993, she died from an AIDS-related illness. She was only 55. Since then, her music has become a touchstone for younger generations of indie-folk artists like Joanna Newsom and Devandra Banhart. But she remains largely unknown, without the mainstream exposure that made Nick Drake a posthumous star. Hopefully, this documentary (which premieres Friday) will help to rectify that. Part of the mystery of Dalton is that there’s so little video footage of her, but In My Own Time crucially helps to fill in some of those gaps. Even if you already know and love Dalton’s music, the film will feel like a fresh introduction.

8. Pastor T.L. Barrett And The Youth For Christ Choir, I Shall Wear A Crown

Listening to Karen Dalton inevitably sends the mind and spirit down some dark corridors. So, I recommend playing this wondrous five-LP box set as a chaser. Barrett and choir — made up entirely of teenagers — originally released the rousing Like A Ship … in 1971, though it wasn’t widely heard until the essential reissue label Light In The Attic put it out in 2010. It achieved a measure of notoriety when Kanye West sampled a song on The Life Of Pablo, but much of the pop gospel gems on I Shall Wear A Crown remain ripe for discovery. Employing bright, jazzy piano chords, splashy horns, and funky guitar against a chorus of life-affirming voices, this is simply some of the sunniest and uplifting music you will wear this year. Guaranteed to put any and all listeners in a good mood.

9. Silverbacks, “Wear My Medals”

There’s been no shortage of talky post-punk bands to emerge from Europe in recent years. But Ireland’s own Silverbacks leaven the usual formula — spiky guitars, dead-eyed vocals, chaotic rhythms — with bursts of sunny, ’60s-style guitar pop melody. You can hear this on the winning new single “Wear My Medals.”

10. Donald Fagen, The Nightfly: Live

There are two Steely Dan-related live albums that dropped this month — the greatest hits-oriented Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live! and this revisiting of Fagen’s 1982 debut. In truth, they’re both Fagen solo records, in which the 73-year-old is backed by disgustingly skilled players. It’s just that Northeast Corridor sticks with the brand. Not that I’m complaining — I am of course an unrepentant Dan-head so I dig both albums. Though it’s still a little weird to me to hear a Steely Dan record without the other half of Steely Dan, Walter Becker, who passed away in 2017. Apparently it’s weird for Fagen, too, according to this excellent interview published this month: “I was used to trying to keep things afloat. Though the fact that he simply isn’t there is kind of frightening. But in a way he’s always there. He’s in my body, we’ve been together for so long, he’s like my brother, you know.” Gulp.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When we wrote about the best items in video games there were some glaring, but intentional, omissions. For example, we didn’t include a single “item” from the Mario series. That’s because all those items that Mario uses are actually power-ups, and before we could ever do a best power-ups list, we had to first address the elephant in the room. Mario has the best power-ups in video games, all of them fun, creative, and designed with the levels in mind.

To avoid a best power-ups list being dominated by Mario, we decided to give him his own list first. So with that in mind, here are the best power-ups our favorite Italian plumber has used in his long and storied video game career.

Power Star, Super Mario Bros.

Honestly, there is no comparison. The best power-up Mario ever got was the power star from the original Super Mario Bros. The concept of it is simple: Mario becomes invincible once he collects the star and every enemy he touches is immediately defeated. The player will know their star power has run out when the invincibility music ends and the glow surrounding Mario goes away. However, lots of games have done invincibility before, so what is it that makes the Power Star so special? It really has to do with what the star became in later games.

While the star began as nothing more than a power-up for Mario, it eventually became one of the most important items in the Mario universe. In Super Mario 64, Mario has to collect them to complete levels and defeat Bowser. Every level in Super Mario Galaxy ends with him getting a star. In Mario Party, the player who wins is the one with the most stars. No power-up in the Mario universe has become as important as the power star. Add in how practical it’s been in every game and it’s clearly the best Mario power-up.

Fire Flower, Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. really brought out all the hits, didn’t it? Another series staple, the Fire Flower became a favorite for anyone that played a Mario game because of how powerful it was. While the mushroom gave Mario an extra hit, the fire flower gave him powerful projectiles capable of destroying most enemies in one hit. It was even capable of destroying Bowser if you hit him enough times with fireballs.

The Fire Flower was so perfect the first go-around that it rarely changed anytime it made later appearances. It’s largely seen as Mario’s most iconic power-up. It’s his special item in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, he fires a super fireball in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and it’s one of his specialty moves in the Mario & Luigi RPG series. Mario and fireballs are a perfect match.

Tanooki Suit, Super Mario Bros. 3

When Super Mario Bros. came out alongside the original NES, it was this incredibly innovative game that spawned dozens of games trying to emulate the formula. Even now, the original game’s formula can still be seen in parts of every side-scrolling platform, but only one game managed to perfect it. That would be Super Mario Bros 3., Mario’s third and final adventure on the NES which saw the developers let their creativity run wild with a map, slightly branching pathways, and easily Mario’s biggest adventure yet. It also spawned many great power-ups.

The one that stood above the rest though was the Tanooki Suit. While many American players didn’t know what a Tanooki was, they all immediately saw the power of the suit. It featured the ability to float and fly just like the Super Leaf power-up, but it also allowed players to turn themselves into an invincible statue. This allowed Mario to avoid almost all hazards by either flying, turning into stone, or destroying whatever was in his path. This power-up was so powerful that it, unfortunately, didn’t make another appearance until Super Mario 3D Land beyond a few references in some spin-off games.

Cape Feather, Super Mario World

What if you took the power-ups of the Super Leaf from Super Mario Bros 3., added the ability to fly continuously, and gave Mario a cape like some kind of superhero? Well, you would get the Cape Feather from Super Mario World. This power-up does lose points because it’s so similar to the power-up from the third game, but this has two distinct advantages. One is that a cape looks cooler than a raccoon suit, but the actual reason is that the cape gives particularly skilled players the ability to fly almost forever.

A skilled Mario World player can fly practically across entire levels using only the cape. Only players that have mastered the mechanics can unlock every single secret. This skill gap represents one of the best parts of all the Mario games. They’re all extremely accessible to anyone that wants to play the game for fun, but the best players that want to complete it 100 percent will need to master everything. That’s something we still see in Mario games today.

Cat Suit, Super Mario 3D World

When Mario made his jump to the world of 3D, his reliance on power-ups decreased drastically. Sure, we saw some cool ones like the Wing Cap and the Ice Flower, but none of them had quite the same feeling that those original NES and SNES games created. That changed with the Cat Suit in Super Mario 3D World. This suit allows Mario to, as the name suggests, turn into a cat and gain cat-like powers. He can climb, claw at enemies, and can run around on all fours. It sounds silly, but it’s an incredibly satisfying power-up to use and lets the developers get really creative in their level design.

The Cat Suit was such a fun and silly idea that it was easy to gravitate to. Its power-up even became a part of 100 percenting the game — anyone who wants to complete the game has to land on the top of every single flagpole on every level. Doing so will unlock a new world and bragging rights, but with the Cat Suit, the player can easily scamper up the flagpole to finish levels. This goes back to the earlier mentioned fun of Mario games. They’re accessible and fun to play, but only those who are willing to put in the sometimes ridiculous amount of work get to unlock the secrets. The Cat Suit, and Mario 3D World, is another great example of that.

While donning a catty gossip persona on Wednesday night’s episode of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah roasted Mitch McConnell for his frustrating, yet wildly predictable refusal to help the Democrats raise the debt ceiling and keep the government funded. Despite the fact that the Democrats worked with McConnell when they were the minority party, the congressional turtle has always been about obstructing the opposition party at every possible turn. It’s the kind of hot gossip you’d love to dish if millions of American weren’t depending on the government staying open especially during a pandemic.

Here’s Noah dragging McConnell on being his usual “catty” self:

“Mitch McConnell, you are one catty b*tch — and I love it. Mitch is bringing the best kind of dramas to this fight — the pointless kind. I mean, does he have any reason to block this bill? No. Is he doing it anyway? Oh, hell yeah. He’s sending back his steak at a restaurant even though it’s cooked perfectly because Mitch knows that sometimes eating out isn’t about the meal. It’s about fighting with that sexy chef.”

While that was a light roasting, Noah twisted the knife in the back end of his segment where he called out McConnell for basically not giving a crap what happens if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.

“And let me tell you, Mitch does not care that the Democrats helped him raise the ceiling when he was the HBIC,” Noah quipped while still in character. “You think he’s losing sleep over this? No, no. My man is sleeping good using a pile of his own face skin as a pillow. Trust me.”

The Sacramento Kings have the NBA’s longest playoff drought, missing the postseason every year since 2006. Over that 15-year period, the Kings have endured some dark days, but Sacramento does have reasons to be excited before the 2021-22 campaign. De’Aaron Fox returns as the team’s centerpiece at point guard, with 2021 lottery pick Tyrese Haliburton flashing all kinds of signs in his rookie season. After a relatively quiet offseason, the Kings will lean on internal development in this year’s playoff push, and they will attempt to build from a 31-41 campaign.

Roster:

Marvin Bagley
Harrison Barnes
Terence Davis
De’Aaron Fox
Tyrese Haliburton
Moe Harkless
Buddy Hield
Richaun Holmes
Damian Jones
Louis King
Alex Len
Chimezie Metu
Davion Mitchell
Neemias Queta
Jahmi’us Ramsey
Emanuel Terry
Tristan Thompson
Robert Woodard

Projected Vegas Win Total: 36.5 wins

Biggest Addition: Davion Mitchell

The Kings didn’t do much on the veteran market, at least outside of strengthening their backup center spot with Tristan Thompson and Alex Len. Sacramento did use a lottery pick on Mitchell, though, and he profiles as a rookie that is better suited to helping a team immediately than most of his counterparts. Mitchell may not have incredibly high upside, but he is a high-energy guard who can really defend, and he is famously competitive after leading Baylor to a national title. His development will be interesting to monitor.

Biggest Loss: Delon Wright

Just as the Kings weren’t terribly active in adding players, they didn’t lose much, either. Wright is the highest profile player that goes out the door, but he played fewer than 700 minutes for the Kings last season. Wright is a very competent rotation guard, but they have plenty in the backcourt with Fox, Haliburton, and Mitchell.

Biggest Question: How does the backcourt rotation shake out?

Sacramento’s best player is a point guard in De’Aaron Fox. Sacramento’s best returning youngster is a combo guard in Tyrese Haliburton. Sacramento’s lottery pick is a point guard in Davion Mitchell. Sacramento’s best shooter is a one-position player (at the shooting guard spot) in Buddy Hield. It isn’t necessarily a problem to have quality guard options, but Luke Walton will have his hands full juggling lineups. That is particularly true on the defensive end, where the Kings were horrid for much of last season.

What Makes This Season A Success

A trip to the play-in. Sacramento probably can’t aim for a top-six spot with any realistic tenor, but the Kings’ over/under should put them in the play-in range. The Kings won’t be picked by many to reach the top ten in the loaded Western Conference, but development from Fox and Haliburton, coupled with Hield, Harrison Barnes, and Richaun Holmes, should get them to respectability.

What Makes This Season A Failure

It isn’t this simple, but if the Kings repeat a 31-win season, or something worse, it will feel brutal. Walton isn’t the most highly regarded tactician, and the Kings aren’t overflowing with depth. Things could spiral if they get an injury or two to the top guys and, as noted above, Sacramento was brutal defensively a year ago. It is difficult to win as much as you lose if you have the league’s worst defense, so improvement will be needed on that end.

Shakira was recently on a nature walk with her eight-year-old son in a Barcelona park when the unthinkable happened: She was attacked by a couple of wild boars. Thankfully, the singer and her son left the incident unharmed, but the animals did manage to steal some of the singer’s personal items.

Shakira detailed the bizarre series of events on her Instagram Stories. According to NME, the animals took off into the woods with her bag, which had her phone in it, and “destroyed everything.” She was eventually able to recover the purse, which was left completely torn, but told her followers she “stood up” to the animals during the attack.

Though the situation could be written off as a freak accident, wild boars are actually a huge problem in certain parts of the world. They are listed as an invasive species and are estimated to have populations of over 10 million in Europe alone. Barcelona itself has been dealing with the animal for years and Shakira’s incident was just the latest in a string of attacks in the city. Per a report from BBC, Barcelona’s police department has received about 1,187 phone calls about wild boar attacks since 2016. Previous calls to police have reported that the animals have attacked dogs, destroyed cat-feeders, and held up traffic by running into the city streets. Back in 2013, an officer even tried to take matters into their own hands by firing a gun at a boar, but ending up accidentally shooting their partner instead.

One of Quentin Tarantino’s trademarks as a director, outside of trunk POV shots and great soundtracks, is feet. There is so much foot stuff in his movies. It’s there in Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown, and both Kill Bill volumes, and Death Proof, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when Sharon Tate, played by Margot Robbie, watches her own movie in a theater. QT has heard your fetish jokes, and he’s (mostly) fine with them.

“I don’t take it seriously. There’s a lot of feet in a lot of good directors’ movies. That’s just good direction,” Tarantino told GQ. “Like, before me, the person foot fetishism was defined by was Luis Buñuel, another film director. And Hitchcock was accused of it and Sofia Coppola has been accused of it.” I didn’t realize that about the director of The Virgin Suicides, so I did a Google search for “Sofia Coppola feet” and (not to kink shame or anything but!) now I’ve seen some Twitter accounts that I wish I could un-see.

After winning Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture at the 2020 SAG Awards, Brad Pitt made light of Tarantino’s obsession. “I want to thank my co-stars: Leo, Margot Robbie, Margot Robbie’s feet, Margaret Qualley’s feet, Dakota Fanning’s feet. Seriously, Quentin has separated more women from their shoes than the TSA,” he joked. Robbie was amused by his speech, but was Tarantino? I guess we’ll find out when Pitt either is or isn’t cast in the director’s rumored final movie.

(Via GQ)

Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows 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.

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10. (tie) Sex Education (Netflix)

This Gillian Anderson-starring series returns, so that the X-Files and The Crown actress can continue embarrassing the heck out of her TV son, Otis (Asa Butterfield), who is apparently now having casual sex. Jemima Kirke is officially on board, too, as a headteacher named Hope, who desperately wants to restore Moordale Secondary School to its former sterling reputation. Uh, good luck with that? Also, Anderson’s character is pregnant. Oh, Mom. Watch it on Netflix.

10. (tie) Muhammad Ali (PBS)

You’re probably thinking, “Do I really need to watch a four-part PBS docuseries on Muhammad Ali? I already know so much about him — is there really any more to learn?” Yes, yes there is. More specifically, there’s so much never before seen footage of young Ali in this that Ken Burns and his team dig up by apparently spending months digging through the archives at local news stations in Louisville, Kentucky, where Ali grew up. It’s a riveting portrait of one of the most extraordinary humans to ever walk the Earth, and it’s well worth your time. Watch it on PBS.

10. (tie) The Great British Baking Show (Netflix)

The Great British Bakeoff is back to prove that kindness is good, gluten is better, and the mythical Paull Hollywood handshake is … eh, overrated. We’ve waited a year for this comfort watch, suffering through the Jake Gyllenhaal sparked Sourdough Bread Challenge of 2020 and spending quarantine lockdowns crafting 5-ingredient recipes for every cookie imaginable. Now, we get to what real bakers – or, at least, amateurs with experience – can do. This season is more diverse than ever – from German IT guys to Italian engineers and a horse-riding teenage vegan – but the good vibes are still there. At least, until bread week drops. Watch it on Netflix.

9. The Haunted Museum (Discovery+)

Eli Roth has so much going on over at Discovery+ this month (following his recent real-life horror/Shark-Week film on the streamer) that one has to wonder… is he running the joint? It’s a valid question, but more to the point, he’s teaming up with Ghost Adventures host Zak Bagans for this scripted anthology series, in which they illuminate nine of the world’s most cursed artifacts. These relics are actually in display in Bagans’ Vegas museum, but here, you’ll get the historic commentary in addition to having the pants scared off of you.

8. Only Murders In The Building (Hulu)

Selena Gomez stars alongside the legendary Steve Martin and Martin Short, and the three portray NYC neighbors who aim to unravel an apparent murder inside their apartment building. Yes, they’re all podcasting because everyone does it (duh), and before long, the killer might be after them, too. Martin hasn’t written a feature film since the Pink Panther movies and Shopgirl, and we don’t wanna come out and call this trio a “much cooler Three Amigos” update, but Martin wrote that, too, so why not? Watch it on Hulu

7. Foundation (Apple TV+)

Sorry to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos but Apple TV+ is actually winning the space race right now. They’ve already delivered the terrific For All Mankind and now they’re taking us further, to the very borders of the galaxy for this sci-fi adaptation. The story follows a mathematician who develops a formula for predicting the end of a future Galactic Empire before devising a way to save it via a rebellion (of sorts). Yes, there’s a lot going on here, but prestige TV king Jared Harris is a pro at making us care about really complicated science – see Chernobyl – and the casting department has another ace up its sleeve in case you’re on the binge-watching fence. Four words: Lee. Pace. In. Space. Watch it on Apple TV+.

6. The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

Critics of season one of The Morning Show won’t have an easy time credibly claiming a lack of action or interest in a second season that picks up the thread from the last while also servicing even more characters and the lingering threat of COVID. This is a heavyweight fight all over again with Aniston and Witherspoon leading the way, but look for more of Billy Crudup lounging in the chaos to spark the show once more. Watch it on Apple TV+.

5. Maid (Netflix)

Margaret Qualley (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) stars in this heartbreaking adaptation of Stephanie Land’s New York Times best-selling memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. This will, clearly, be a difficult watch, but Qualley’s raw portrayal (of a woman who flees an abusive relationship to go through exceedingly difficult times to break the cycle for her daughter) yields a burgeoning star. Watch it on Netflix. Watch it on Netflix.

4. Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

There are moments in the early stages of season two that feel like they’re doubling down on the show’s signature positivity and niceness, but there’s no such thing as sweetness overload here as the show grows our affection for characters that are clearly taking a step forward in their arcs. Especially Ted, even though it seems like there may be some challenges ahead. Watch it on Apple TV+.

3. The Problem With Jon Stewart (Apple TV+)

Jon Stewart is back with an issue-oriented comedy/news hybrid that builds on a lot of the advances in form carved out by his former Daily Show colleagues. Can it work? To be sure, the brainpower and intensity make it feel like old times, but it’s the human connection — to the causes and in-studio guests — that might make it stand out as a powerful and necessary second act for Stewart as he brings substance and nuance to a strange world that both needs and seems to run away from those things. Watch it on Apple TV+.

2. What We Do In The Shadows (FX/Hulu)

Well, well, well. Guillermo turned out to be a vampire killer, which sure as heck came as a surprise to Nandor, Nadja, and Laszlo, and Colin. The four Staten Island roommates must figure out how to handle this conundrum, along with tackling the other challenges of this season. Those include dealing with wellness cults and gym culture, along with gargoyles, werewolves who play kickball, casinos, and more. In other words, this is still one of the funniest shows on TV. Watch it on FX and Hulu.

1. Midnight Mass (Netflix)

Get ready, The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor addicts, because creator Mike Flanagan’s back to cause us more horror fits. This happens to be his favorite project so far and revolves around an isolated community that lives on spooky Crockett Island, which gets even spookier due to a charismatic priest’s arrival. Naturally, a whole lot of supernatural shenanigans are afoot, but human nature can often be scarier than the ghosts that people can dream up. It’s dark, real dark. Watch it on Netflix.

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) 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.

9. 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.

8. 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.

7. The Starling (Netflix)

What we have here is, on paper, a pretty decent movie. We’ve got Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd and Timothy Olyphant and a story about a grieving woman who learns to live and laugh and love again through an extended turf war with a combative bird that takes up residence on her property. No complaints so far. The tricky part is in the execution and, given some of the reviews, this all leans toward melodrama until it topples over. But it’s hard to argue with that cast, and you probably have Netflix anyway, so maybe give it a crack for yourself. Watch it on Netflix.

6. Diana: The Musical (Netflix)

Here’s your reminder that yes, a musical based on Princess Diana’s life does, in fact, exist. And yes, there’s a song in it titled “Here Comes James Hewitt.” Filmed in an empty theater with the original Broadway cast before its official run kicks off, this show has it all: mechanical bulls, Spanish-language ballads, that fantasy trope where Diana crowd surfs during a cellist concert. The story’s not revelatory, and we can’t say it’s the best Diana re-telling we’ve ever seen, but it is the most … musical. Watch it on Netflix.

5. 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.

4. 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.

3. The Guilty (Netflix)

Based on the Oscar-nominated short film of the same name, The Guilty is a single-location thriller shot during the pandemic that stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a disgraced cop who’s been demoted from patrolling the streets to answering 911 calls. Riley Keough, Paul Dano, Bill Burr, and Ethan Hawke lend their voices, but this is Gyllenhaal’s film; he fills nearly every frame of the 90-minute runtime. It’s his best showcase as an actor since Nightcrawler. Watch it on Netflix.

2. 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.

1. The Many Saints of Newark (HBO Max)

The Sopranos are back. Kind of. The Sopranos are kind of back. Series creator David Chase’s long-rumored, long-awaited prequel movie about New Jersey’s most famous fictional crime family is finally here. What do we got? Well, for one, we’ve got Michael Gandolfini filling the role of a Tony Soprano and playing a younger version of the character his father made famous. We’ve also got a bunch more Moltisantis and 1960-70s fashion all against the backdrop of the 1967 riots in Newark. There’s a lot going here. You’ll probably want to check it out, if only to bask in a little nostalgia for a while. Watch it on HBO Max.

I’ll Take Your Questions Now, the new book from Stephanie Grisham, former White House press secretary and chief of staff for Melania Trump, keeps on yielding the goods. For our current discussion purposes, there’s plenty of dish about Stormy Daniels and Melania Trump, separately and apart. For one thing, Graham wrote that she was forced to hear Trump whine about Stormy’s claim that his penis looked like a “toadstool,” along with details of Melania caring so little about the 2020 presidential election that she slept through results night. And we’d already seen that curious moment ^^^ when Melania exited Air Force One for the last time, showing that she has no f*cks left to give by changing into an objectively horrid dress and refusing to pose for photos.

So, what gives when the Stormy and Melania parts of Graham’s book intersect? Oh boy. Graham, who worked closely with Melania, revealed that the former First Lady was much more ticked off about the alleged affair than she let on. In fact, she apparently took joy in attempting to humiliate him (that Air Force One moment is a big one in retrospect), in revenge for her humiliation. Via Washington Post:

The airing of Trump’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels is what “unleashed” Melania Trump to start publicly contradicting or ignoring her husband — trying to embarrass him as he had embarrassed her. She walked into his first State of the Union address arm-in-arm with a handsome military aide Grisham had hand-selected because, Melania said, the floors of the Capitol were too slippery.

“I laughed to myself because I’d seen the woman navigate dirt roads in her heels,” Grisham writes.

And when Grisham drafted a tweet for Melania requesting privacy, saying she was concentrating on being a mother, wife and first lady, she had Grisham remove the word “wife.”

Graham does note, however, that this was more of a matter of pride for Melania, who didn’t seem to be emotionally affected about the Stormy affair. Mind you, Melania apparently didn’t buy Donald’s denials but didn’t care, either, while declaring, “This is Donald’s problem. He got himself into this mess. He can fix it by himself.” Yup.

There’s more Melania dish where that came from. Graham’s book did yield word that Jared Kushner was nicknamed “the Slim Reaper” because he tended to f*ck things up and expected people to fix them for him, and Melania’s reported nickname was pretty telling, too. The Secret Service enjoyed calling her “Rapunzel,” a label that stuck “because she rarely left her tower, a.k.a the White House residence.” She was apparently the easiest Trump to monitor, too, because this freed up agents to “spend more time with their families.” This, of course, brings to mind that report that Don Jr. got cucked when a Secret Service agent had a fling with Vanessa Trump. Yeah, this family is a real party, but it sounds like (other than the money stuff) Melania has checked out.

(Via Washington Post)

The irony of Sopranos creator David Chase is that for all he seems to mythologize movies, long considering television the “inferior medium” (to the point that he originally envisioned The Sopranos as a film), even when he gets the chance to write a film, he can’t help but write a TV show. It was true in Not Fade Away, his 2013 directorial debut starring James Gandolfini, and it’s true in The Many Saints Of Newark, co-written by Chase and Lawrence Conner, directed by Alan Taylor and starring James Gandolfini’s son, Michael.

How successful it is depends somewhat on the context in which you evaluate it. It offers compelling scenes and leaves us wanting more, but it doesn’t answer many questions. Which raises the question of what it’s meant to be: a final chapter, or the first chapter of something new?

The posters for Many Saints scream “WHO MADE TONY SOPRANO,” a question Many Saints not only doesn’t answer but doesn’t even seem all that interested in answering. But I’m not here to review the marketing, in some ways the best thing a movie ad can do is get you into a theater under false pretenses (see: The Green Knight, one of my favorite films this year). Instead, Many Saints offers a story about Dickie Moltisanti, father of Christopher, ersatz uncle of Tony, and whose surname translates to the “many saints” of the title. Ayy, I got molti santi over here! Madonn’.

Dickie (played by Alessandro Nivola) is a Tony Soprano-like figure in his own right. He’s struggling to succeed in a brutal criminal milieu while maintaining a family, trying to balance interpersonal tenderness and professional ruthlessness. Yet wouldn’t you know it, the two seem to have a way of intermingling.

We first meet Dickie when he goes to greet his father, Aldo “Hollywood Dick” Moltisanti, played by Ray Liotta, as he disembarks from the boat back from Italy. Aldo appears hale but wizened, with a brand new wife in tow: Guiseppina, played by Michela De Rossi, the provolone queen of Napoli. She’s Dickie’s new stepmother, but younger than him, amplifying the Freudian implications. These initial scenes are all narrated, incidentally, by Dickie’s future son, Christopher (Michael Imperioli) from beyond the grave. Chase has said in interviews that he included Chrissy’s narration as a way to help the audience get situated in the story, and it does feel tacked on in that way, though good just to hear Michael Imperioli’s voice.

There are bigger storytelling challenges than trying to remember who in Many Saints is kin to who in The Sopranos. One of the unspoken tenets of The Sopranos was to never make the mafia look too cool. As Orson Welles once said of The Godfather, “Meyer Lansky was a boring man. Hyman Roth is who he should have been! They all should have been like that, and none of them were. The Godfather was the glorification of a bunch of bums who never existed.”

Welles’ Anglo snobbery aside, there is something about the process of turning people into cinema that tends to make them seem cooler and more larger than life than they actually were, even when the creator doesn’t intend it. Chase always took great pains to counter this, to make sure we never forgot that his subjects were not the heroes of the story; that regardless of how funny or occasional insightful they might be, they were still a bunch of petty, venal, selfish, murderous bums. Chase would often make it so unflattering, to the point that his own actors, naturally attached to the characters they’d been playing for the better part of a decade, would push back.

Steven Van Zandt (E-Street band member and famous menage a trois enjoyer), to cite just one example, had to be coaxed and cajoled into shooting the scene in season five in which his character Silvio Dante executes a crawling Adriana La Cerva shortly after calling her a cunt. Yet Chase was right that it was important: Silvio is at his heart the kind of guy who could cold-bloodedly murder a loved one the minute she threatened his status, no matter how reasonable his advice could sometimes seem. To make him less complicated would’ve made him less interesting.

This presents an even bigger problem in The Many Saints of Newark, which takes place not during the mafia-after-the-fall period of the dawn of the 21st century, but during an otherwise halcyon era when the mafia wasn’t far removed from its heyday. It’s much harder to not to make these characters look cool when they’re wearing Mad Men suits and driving big long cars with fins on the tails. Chase and Taylor seem to know this, and Many Saints attempts to square the circle by having the characters act even more violently, more racistly, more misogynistically than their Sopranos descendants. Sometimes it works, sometimes it feels… almost a little defensive.

Johnny Boy Soprano, for instance, played by Jon Bernthal (a character I would’ve liked to see a bit more from, though that’s true of most Jon Bernthal characters) nearly ruins his welcome home party because he’s so angry that a black family has moved to their block while he was away. These broader explorations in Many Saints — this is where the racism came from! — feel a little forced compared to the more compelling specifics of Johnny Boy’s strange relationship with Livia (Vera Farmiga), or Junior’s place in the family (as a sort of disregarded intellectual), and the main story about Dickie Moltisanti.

Most of that main Dickie story involves his convoluted relationship with his father’s new Italian bride as she struggles to make it in America. But there’s also his black friend from childhood, Harold McBrayer (played by Leslie Odom Jr.) who used to run the mafia’s numbers racket in the black neighborhoods, but has become inspired by the civil rights movement to maybe set out on his own. There’s even a brief appearance by an actor playing Frank Lucas, the Harlem heroin king played by Denzel Washington in American Gangster. This is all reasonably entertaining to watch, but you might rightly wonder what it all adds up to. Being able to just float down a plot tributary for a while and see where it goes is something TV shows can do much better than movies.

Basically the entire conceit of the Sopranos episode from whence Many Saints springs is that even in the midst of the Newark Race Riots, Tony’s main memory of the day was not getting to go to the amusement park with his father. That’s actually a more salient comment on race, and on Tony’s particular psychology, than Chase retelling the origin story of the Harlem heroin trade in The Many Saints of Newark.

And oh yeah, what of Tony in all of this? Michael Gandolfini, playing the teenage version of his father, eventually does get some screen time, and it’s exciting when he does. Not necessarily because Tony’s is the most interesting storyline in Many Saints (it isn’t) but because Gandolfini might be its most exciting actor. Genetics have freed him from the burden of having to do an impression of the last actor who played his character. Meanwhile the other actors playing known quantities exist on a sort of continuum, of interesting inspiration to reductive impression, from Billy Magnussen’s enjoyably subtle Paulie Walnuts to Corey Stoll’s solid but occasionally on-the-nose Junior to John Magaro’s thoroughly obnoxious Silvio, more a collection of tics than a human being. Remember how he cocks his head when he talks and shrugs a lot? Remember?? Ay! Oh! Not for nuttin’, T, but…

Gandolfini, who was also brilliant playing Chris Bauer’s weird pervert son on David Simon’s criminally underrated The Deuce, plays young Tony as a sort of more innocent, muscle-cars-and-hard-rock twist on Robert Iler’s AJ: perhaps a little too soft for the world he’s been born into, torn between the ease and brutality of life as a criminal vs. the patience and diligence it would require to go straight. Young Tony isn’t exactly what you’d expect, but it fits.

The Sopranos has always been, in its own way, about the weight of generations. Dicky Moltisanti’s generation squirmed under the expectations of the old country “Mustache Petes” who raised them, with their clannishness, blood feuds, and superstitions. That mode of living was no longer really applicable to guys like Dicky’s environments, yet having experienced that, they nonetheless attempted to instill their own set of corporatized crime values in their own counterculture sons, who were in turn growing up in a world just as different as their fathers’ worlds were from their grandfathers’. It wouldn’t be entirely incorrect to argue that this type of generational conflict is and has always been David Chase’s “one weird trick.” Though in some ways it’s the only story there is. In Many Saints, Chase proves he can shift it from time period to time period without it losing much relevance.

Yet Chase seems to struggle with expectations in his own right. Many Saints is much more intriguing if you imagine it as an audition for something more. As a definitive, stand-alone product, it’s a little scattered and doesn’t breathe like the Sopranos does. Though, you imagine, as a TV show, maybe it could. Chase seems to rebel against expectations that Many Saints be “a Sopranos movie” only to end it with a prequel cliché so lame and corny that everyone I’ve described it to immediately laughed and rolled their eyes.

Still, David Chase has a way of being interesting because of his flaws rather than in spite of them. Like his most famous creation, Tony Soprano, he can’t help but to reflexively rebel against the set of values he’s been handed, even when it doesn’t always serve him.

‘The Many Saints Of Newark’ hits theaters and HBO Max October 1st. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.