Month: December 2021

The Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas-starring erotic thriller Deep Water was tragically pulled from the theatrical release calendar last week, but don’t give up hope for the horniest Disney movie since George of the Jungle.

Deadline reports that the film is going to streaming with Hulu getting “domestic play,” while Amazon Prime Video will have the rights overseas. The decision was made because adult dramas are not doing great at the box office, including Steven Spielberg’s critically-adored West Side Story, which opened to only $10.5 million this weekend. House of Gucci is one of the few non-comic book movies to break through with $41 million domestic after three weeks; meanwhile, another Disney title, Spider-Man: No Way Home, is expected to have a $135-$155 million opening weekend.

As far as what Deep Water is about:

Affleck and de Armas star as Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a married couple whose mind games with each other take a twisted turn when people around them start turning up dead. The couple staves off divorce in a loveless marriage by allowing each to take lovers, but it becomes messy as Highsmith exposed the surface façade of American suburban life.

If Disney told everyone Ben Affleck was secretly playing Superman in Deep Water, it could crack $100 million. It’s a good move for everyone.

No release date has been announced.

(Via Deadline)

Despite Jerami Grant being slated to miss extended time with torn ligaments in his right thumb, there is a robust trade market for the Detroit Pistons wing, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

Charania reported that the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers are “among the teams pursuing the Pistons’ versatile forward” and Detroit “is open to a possible deal.”

Riding out the second of a three-year, $60 million deal, Grant is eligible for a four-year extension “worth up to $112 million” this offseason. Last year, Grant averaged a career-high 22.3 points and has followed that up with 20.1 points per game through 24 games in 2021-22. He’s developed himself into a talented isolation scorer who can also spot up from deep (37 percent since 2018-19).

However, Grant is likely not a good enough playmaker or individual scorer to occupy the prominent creator role on a new team that he’s often tasked with in Detroit. Any club who trades for him would benefit from deploying him as a floor-spacer who provides help-side rim protection, the jobs he excelled at during his final season with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Whether he can regain his defensive form of yesteryear and adapt to an off-ball scoring gig again is unknown. But that’s his path to high-level contributions on a playoff contender, which is a vastly different role than the one he embodies for the Pistons and sought out when he chose Detroit over Denver in free agency two years ago.

This article originally appeared on 07.18.19

When Lily Evans set out to walk her dog, she had no idea the story of that walk would later go viral on the internet.

When she took to Twitter to recount her experience, she opened with a simple question, one that many men have probably wondered for a long time — though women already know the answer.

(Before you click through to the thread itself, note that Lily’s Twitter account is expressly for adults and may be NSFW.)

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The walk started off normal enough. Until she ran into a seemingly friendly stranger.

A man eating on a nearby bench offered her dog, Echo, a treat.

He eventually asked her if she lived in the area — which could be considered slightly intrusive — but all in all, it was just small talk.

But then she ran into him again shortly after.

Evans says his friendly banter — maybe innocent, but more likely not — was making her incredibly uncomfortable.

And yet he continued to linger.

Then he invaded her physical space with an out-of-nowhere hug.

“I was terrified,” she wrote.

Evans hurried home, petrified the man would follow her.

He didn’t. But the experience left her shaken and upset. Worst of all, she says, she has been through this many, many times before.

Her story went viral in a hurry, with over 44,000 retweets, 68,000 likes, and thousands of comments.

“The response from other women has been pretty heartbreaking,” Evans writes in a Twitter exchange with Upworthy. “Many, many women have used this as an opportunity to share their stories of harassment, assault, or even just being very frightened.”

The replies to Evans’ tweet thread is littered with similar stories — seemingly “nice” guys on the street or public transportation who push small talk far past its acceptable boundaries.

Though she’s glad her story made other women feel more comfortable coming forward with their own experiences, Evans hopes it also leaves an impression on men who read it.

“I had several guys ask me how they can be more non-threatening, and that’s exactly what I was aiming for.”

“I got a lot of replies from men saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry that happened, but we aren’t all like that! Some of us are nice guys,'” she says. “And while that’s true, my point was that strangers cannot know what your intentions are until it’s too late.

She hits on an important point: It’s not inherently wrong or creepy to strike up a conversation with a stranger, but women truly never know when a simple “hi” is going to turn into them being followed and harassed.

“I had several guys ask me how they can be more non-threatening, and that’s exactly what I was aiming for,” she says. “I just want men to be more self-aware and understand that when a woman they don’t know is skittish, it’s nothing personal. We’re just trying to be safe.”

On December 10, it was revealed that Michael Nesmith of The Monkees died at 78 years old, with his family saying in a statement that he “passed away this morning in his home, surrounded by family, peacefully and of natural causes.” He was influential for his work with The Monkees and beyond, and Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard was impacted enough by his passing to perform some Nesmith covers on Instagram.

In a 21-minute video shared on the day of Nesmith’s passing, Gibbard covered a handful of songs, most of which were written by Nesmith: “Different Drum” (most popularly recorded by The Stone Poneys featuring Linda Ronstadt), “The Crippled Lion” (by Michael Nesmith & The First National Band) “Joanne” (a Nesmith solo track), “Me & Magdalena” (which Gibbard wrote for The Monkees’ 2016 album Good Times!), and “You Just May Be The One” (by The Monkees).

Gibbard wrote alongside the video, “Mike Nesmith passed today and I feel completely gutted. I also feel so fortunate to have called him a friend. I believe the best way to mourn the loss of a musician is to play their music. When we do so we keep the beauty of their spirit alive in our hearts. With that said, please enjoy this selection of some of my favorite Nez songs. Rest In Peace, Papa Nez. I am so grateful to have known you.”

Between songs, Gibbard spoke about the last time he saw Nesmith, saying (as Indie88 notes), “He was not in good health these last couple of years. The last time I saw him was in June. His spirit was there, he was still very funny and very personable as always, but he didn’t seem like he was doing too great physically. So the news today is sad but not entirely surprising. I just felt instead of posting with crying emojis or heartbreak emojis, I’d just play a couple of his tunes for you guys. It’s just the right way to do it, I think.”

Watch Gibbard’s covers above.

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Game Pass has been well established for a few years now, but an argument can be made that its strongest year yet was 2021. For a long time, the best part of Game Pass has been the ability to play new games at launch on day one. This has given a lot of us the chance to try new games we never had before, but until now there hasn’t been much from Microsoft itself to really sell us on that idea. That was until 2021 when multiple Microsoft owned studios released gems that turned Game Pass into something Xbox owners should get to a service that anyone interested in video games needs. With Game Pass solidifying itself throughout 2021 and expanding its services deeper onto the PC, it’s become an important part of how we look at video games. When a game releases the first question many people have will be “Is that on Game Pass?” That alone signifies how important the service is to video games as a whole now.

All of that made us ask the question, what makes a game a “Game Pass” game? We didn’t want to just pick the five best Xbox exclusives, because that’s boring, but instead chose five games that we felt defined the service in its own unique way, and why it’s better than ever. These are our 2021 Game Pass games of the year.

Psychonauts 2

We adored Psychonauts 2. Its creative level design, fantastic writing, and theming made for a game that is going to deservedly be on many lists for Game of The Year. It also was one of those first major Microsoft-owned studio games to release directly to Game Pass. Its success since then is proof of the formula working. The game was a huge success and we’re willing to bet nowhere near as many people would have played it with a $60 price tag, and that would have been a shame. The original Psychonauts, while a cult classic, flew under the radar. Thanks to Game Pass, there was no chance of Psychonauts 2 ever doing that.

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite was supposed to be a launch title for the Xbox Series X/S. Obviously, that didn’t happen. While the delay worked out to the game’s benefit, there are very obvious signs in the campaign and multiplayer that it had to be patched up before it could release. The weird part is, for the most part, nobody really cares. The multiplayer is free-to-play, the campaign’s $60 price tag is completely waved off through Game Pass, and everyone is having a really fun time playing it. This is the perfect example of how Game Pass can change how someone may feel about a game. The campaign not being completely ready at launch would have been frustrating for $60, but on Game Pass it’s just another of the many games receiving frequent updates.

Sea of Thieves

This is kind of cheating, because Sea of Thieves was released all the way back in 2018, but to have a list of Game Pass games that represented 2021 and not include Sea of Thieves would be ignoring how important that game is to the service. Sea of Thieves is an example of a game that has seen success directly because of Game Pass. When it first launched it was considered a disappointment because the content in the game, while fun, was shallow. Now, in 2021, it’s full of content, and more people are playing it than ever. This is the game that, before this year, was the reason many people got Game Pass and it’s part of why many people will continue to get it.

Back 4 Blood

Do you ever scroll through Netflix, or Hulu, or any of those services and you’re not feeling anything, but you feel like watching a movie so you just settle on an above-average action flick? That experience is why Back 4 Blood is perfect for Game Pass. By itself, Back 4 Blood is a perfectly okay game that doesn’t blow you away. It set out to be an unofficial Left 4 Dead sequel and it achieved that goal, but it’s not a game that would be worth a full price tag to many people. Now, a game to be played for a weekend or two with friends on Game Pass? That is where Back 4 Blood shines. It is a perfect game for when nobody can decide what they want to play, so they jump on for a round of shooting zombies together. It’s an above-average action flick and you’re never unhappy you decided to start playing.

Hades

For a lot of people, Hades was their Game of The Year in 2020. The rogue-like that everyone couldn’t help but fall in love with, but unfortunately when it came out it was only available on PC and Switch. That meant a whole lot of people didn’t get to experience one of the best games of 2020. This year, it came out on Game Pass, and a whole lot of new people got to experience what a delight Hades is for the first time. This is one of the best features of Game Pass. Getting to experience, and sometimes re-experience, older games that could have been missed the first time. Everyone needs the opportunity to play Hades and Game Pass helped make sure everyone did.

WARNING: Spoilers for the series premiere of And Just Like That… below. Although, half of the world pretty much knows about this one by now.

After masterfully recovering from last week’s And Just Like That… fiasco thanks to a smooth assist from Ryan Reynolds, the Peloton social media account is starting to flex on people and possibly getting a little too sassy in the process. Granted, the exercise company pulled off a marketing coup by getting Chris Noth to show up in a new ad that it threw together in just two days, but did its Twitter account really need to start calling people out like this? I mean, sure, they theoretically brought Mr. Big back from the dead, but easy now.

“If we can put that spot together in 48 hours, you can do your workout today,” Peloton fired into a tranquil Monday afternoon without warning.

With less than two weeks to go until the holidays, and it only being the start of the work week, people were not exactly thrilled about the saucy tweet. In fact, some went so far to say that Peloton just took all of the goodwill it earned and threw it in the garbage.

However, there were people who were actually loving the energy that Peloton and its marketing team were throwing down. These people are obviously unholy exercise beasts who have never experienced the joy of doing nothing, sweet blissful nothing, but good for them for “crushing it” or whatever people who workout say. It’s a mystery.

(Via Peloton on Twitter)

On Sunday night, the Timberwolves and Blazers met in a battle of Northwest Division squads trying desperately to right the ship, as both came into the game at 11-15, with both teams struggling to find much in the way of consistency so far this season.

The battle within the battle was the matchup of Ants, with Anthony Edwards of the Wolves and Anfernee Simons of the Blazers creating some confusion given their shared nickname, as the Blazers PA refers to Simons as “Ant” after every made basket.

After the Wolves escaped with a 116-111 win, Edwards, who has quickly become the NBA’s best postgame interview, was asked about the other Ant and whether he’s alright sharing a nickname, and last year’s No. 1 overall pick was confused as to why Anfernee went by Ant, when the first three letters of his name are ANF rather than ANT like him.

It’s a valid question, and Edwards makes clear that his confusion at sharing a nickname has nothing to do with Simons’ game, offering some strong compliments to Simons’ shot-making ability and defensive effort. It’s simply a matter of why he would go by Ant when that is nowhere in his name. Ultimately, Edwards concedes that he can be “Ant No. 2” if he wants, saying he plays well enough to earn that.

Guillermo del Toro swears his Nightmare Alley is not a remake of the 1947 film of the same name. Yes, he is a fan of the original film, which stars Tyrone Power as boisterous con artist Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper’s version of this character is played a little more, let’s say, fraught), but del Toro isn’t out to remake a film, but, instead, to give a more accurate adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel. Though, it’s interesting that del Toro, just coming off a Best Picture Oscar win for The Shape of Water, thought the chances of getting this movie made were very low.

In Nightmare Alley, Bradley Cooper plays Stanton Carlisle, best described as “a man with a past.” With few prospects, Stanton finds himself working at a local carnival where he meets Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) and the two start a clever act involving word manipulation and secret codes which creates the illusion of mind reading and magic. The act becomes such a hit that the two leave the carnival and travel ballrooms, entertaining high society folk. But, for Stanton, the line starts to blur when he meets Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and the act takes a darker turn toward true deception and preying upon heartbreak and faith.

Ahead, del Toro tells us why, being in the post-Oscar position to make almost anything he wanted to, why Nightmare Alley was what he went to bat for. And explains his new partnership with Netflix and expands on why his long-gestating At the Mountains of Madness may become a reality.

I watched the original right before I saw yours. I kept thinking, oh I see why he wanted to make this movie. Does that make sense?

It does to a point, I read the novel first.

Oh, I see…

And then saw the movie. I don’t think either movie can encompass the novel, but the novel certainly presented aspects of psychosexual, mystery, magic, weirdness that were really interesting that were not tackled in the first version for many reasons. Including the fact that there was censorship. It was done during the code. So they really circumvented a lot of stuff that was pretty brutal in a good way.

Well, something they do in the original that I found really interesting, It’s rare for a movie from that era where it’s so clear two characters just had sex. Because they go into a truck together and Stanton comes out whistling.

Yeah. That’s it. No, [co-writer] Kim Morgan and I said, look, if we try to occupy that space, then it’s a remake. If we don’t, then it’s another patient of the novel. And we certainly made the deal to not go back and revisit the 1947 movie. Let’s use the novel and very, very pointedly, which is really interesting, let’s use William Lindsay Gresham’s biography and what he was seeking also, as a human being, as the basis for what we’re doing. Because Gresham, when he was well, he left a little scribbled note that says, “I am Stan.”

And really, if you look at Gresham, you find out that he was a seeker, like The Fool, the Tarot card. And he was looking for truth in Catholicism, and psychoanalysis, in the Tarot. He was a folk singer. He was in the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. He became a communist. He was a guy that was looking for a system to which he could belong, which is basically also what Stan is secretly looking for. But he’s also looking for the truth about himself, which is what Gresham was looking for. The movie is, by the rights, from him. He gets a lot of money and his life unravels rather fast.

He died in the same room he wrote the book. Do I have that right?

He goes back to the hotel in New York and commits suicide because he had throat cancer, yes, but also because he basically had lost so much in life at that point. His kids and his ex-wife were living now with CS Lewis. And he found, probably an answer, or a version of the truth, that led to that. And I thought it was very interesting to articulate Stanton through the search for himself. When Lilith says, “What do they want?” The marks. And Stan says, “To be found out like everybody else.” And that’s what he wants. And he’s found out in the last two minutes of the movie. After lying to everyone, he finally gets the truth.

You mention how, obviously, you just don’t want to remake the movie from ’47 and base it more on the book. Was there ever a thought of setting it in contemporary times?

No, I refused.

Oh, so someone brought that up to you and you said absolutely not?

No, no, no. I would refuse. I didn’t because no one suggested it, but I’ve had it in the past in other things, and I made it very clear in the proposal we’re setting it in the moment where the world is also going mad. The beginning of World War II and so forth. And look, the other thing that is interesting in this is we wrote it thinking it’s going to be very hard for this movie to happen. We’re going to just write the ideal screenplay that we want.

When was this? Because it feels like after The Shape of Water you could do anything you want?

No. The reality is that, look, there are two things that are very important in this movie: The ending, which, basically, the whole movie is a prologue to that ending. And the other one is the scope, which means it has to be a reasonably big movie, because we really wanted to have a telescopic, incredibly detailed reality. And in the way we photographed it, dressed the characters, decorated the sets, designed the sets, mounted the camera and all that. So we went at it and, surprise, everybody seemed to come on board to the project.

Right, but, I mean, you just won an Oscar. People seem to love these kinds of movies. I’m wondering why, in your mind, it was going to be so hard to get made? Like, “Here’s what studios might not like.”

Well, remember one thing. You’ve seen the movie.

True.

Which, I had the benefit of, in ways, because I’m the director. I see the movie.

You have it in your head.

I see the movie. But the studios don’t see the movie. Once you see them you go, “Oh, it’s this.” I remember clearly with The Shape of Water, it could only be made for $19.5 million. If we went any bigger than that, it made no sense in such a, seemingly on paper, bizarre story. And then when you see it and you feel the energy, of course it makes sense that it exists. And the same was true with Nightmare Alley. It’s a very adult, no pyrotechnics, no big action. It’s a very intimate, almost like a character portrait.

So I heard what you said on Eric Vespe and Scott Wampler’s Kingcast podcast about At the Mountains of Madness may be getting made at Netflix.

Yes.

I knew you had that deal for the anthology series, Cabinet of Curiosities, at Netflix. And then you mentioned your pitching At the Mountains of Madness. Do you have a deal to make movies there, too? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m doing Pinocchio right now with them.

I mean, is it kind of the Fincher deal where it’s going to be making a bunch of different things?

One would hope so, yes. I’m pitching my next project there, for sure. And I think my experience with them for the last, almost, a decade with Troll Hunters, the Troll Hunters series and the universe we created was splendid, creatively and in every sense, we felt free and supported. So yeah.

I know there was that time period where it seemed like everything you wanted to do didn’t work out. And now I feel like the stuff you’ve been talking about forever might finally going to happen.

Well, I tell you. Nothing is that easy. I know once you make them and they make sense. Mountains of Madness, which makes perfect sense to me, it’s very hard for it to make sense to other people. Because even in the smaller form it’s still a pretty big horror movie. And big horror movies, tent-pole horror, if you would, is something that rarely occurs. It happens in The Exorcist, it happened in The Shining, but it also happens in The Thing. And now and then you get it, but it’s a rarity.

Well, I’m glad you got to make this movie. I think people will appreciate it.

I thank you for that. And that has been my hope. And I believe that there is a beautiful place for a new resurgence of noir, because it is the most cinematic, lush, glorious genre. And other than horror, it has been my love all my life, both in the novels and in the filming genre. I love them equally.

‘Nightmare Alley’ opens in theaters this week. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

We’re firmly in the midst of the holiday season, but this year, December is doubling as Adele season. It was revealed yesterday that 30 is on top of the Billboard 200 chart for the third straight week, and now the album’s hit single “Easy On Me” remains on top, too, as it’s No. 1 on the new Hot 100 chart dated December 18 for a seventh week.

It’s possible the song won’t stay on top for much longer, though. Over the past few weeks, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is Now” has been making its now-annual climb back up the Hot 100. It was No. 3 on last week’s chart, and now it’s up to No. 2. If the song does make it to No. 1 on the chart dated December 25 (the final Hot 100 of 2021), it would have topped the chart in three consecutive years and become the only song to ever go No. 1 in four separate years.

As far as Christmas music, Carey’s hit isn’t alone in the top 10. Returning to the space from last week are Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” at No. 3, Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” at No. 5, and Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” at No. 6. Andy Williams’ “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” is new to the top 10 this week at No. 10, rounding out the five holiday songs in the region this week.

Historical precedent says it wouldn’t be surprising to see next week’s Hot 100 flooded with Christmas music: On the chart dated December 26, 2020, six of the top 10 songs were holiday tunes. The next week, that number jumped up to nine.

[WARNING: spoilers for Sunday’s Succession]

The season three finale of Succession, “All the Bells Say,” is a member of the 9.9 club on IMDb, an honor reserved for only the best episodes of television (as voted by randos on the internet). A major reason why it’s being hailed as an instant classic is due to the impossibly tense final 20 minutes, beginning with Kendall crumbling to the ground at his mom’s wedding and ending with — in a shocking moment — Tom’s betrayal.

Matthew Macfadyen, who plays the tomlette to Greg’s greggs, was asked by GQ when he was first made aware of the twist. “Quite early on,” he said, adding, “I had a rough idea of how it might end up but I was fully prepared for it to change.” Macfadyen also explained when he thinks Tom made the decision to stick a, well, shiv in his wife’s back.

There’s a scene [in the previous episode] with Shiv in their quarters when they’re playing a sexy game and she implies that she doesn’t love him. Something is very off there. Then the following day she talks about freezing their babies. But then maybe it’s a subconscious decision. We all have that thing ticking away in our brains and you make a decision but the decision might have been made months before, and you just don’t know it yet.

Tom probably wasn’t feeling too great when Shiv didn’t seem relieved that he wasn’t going to prison, either. “There’s a collection of incremental things that he’s noticed with Shiv that’s made him think, ‘I have to look after myself. I can’t rely on anybody. My wife doesn’t trust and believe in me,’” Macfadyen said. At least he still has Greg.

(Via GQ)