Month: January 2022

Only a few short months ago, Bob Saget paid beautiful tribute to his friend, Norm MacDonald. He also recently reacted to Betty White’s death with reflections about the afterlife (“I don’t know what happens when we die”), and sadly, the world learned on Sunday that Saget passed away at the age of 65. His cause of death is not yet known, and although the coming days and weeks will see many tributes to his life and legacy, there’s a particularly poignant remembrance at the forefront.

Pete Davidson (he no longer does social media on his own) recruited the Instagram-posting ways of SNL writer Dave Sirus. He posted a tribute from Pete about Bob, who Pete “just wanted you guys to know” was truly “one of the nicest men on the planet.” Davidson, who previously spoken openly about his struggles with borderline personality disorder, revealed how instrumental Bob was to his recovery.

“When I was younger and several times throughout our friendship he helped me get through some rough mental health stuff,” The King Of Staten Island actor revealed about a previously unknown outreach from the Full House star and comedian. “He stayed on the phone with my mom for hours trying to help in anyway he can – connecting us with doctors and new things we can try. He would check in on me and make sure I was okay.”

Pete then declared, “I love you Bob it was an honor to know you. Thank you for your kindness and friendship.” He added, “My condolences to the family.” You can read Pete’s full tribute to Saget below:

It’s been 12 years since the last jackass movie, but the delay between when jackass forever was supposed to come out (March 5, 2021) and when it’s actually coming out (February 4, 2022) seems much longer. The wait is almost over, though.

Paramount has released the final trailer for the fourth jackass movie starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Dave England, Wee Man, Danger Ehren, and Preston Lacy, as well as newcomers Sean “Poopies” McInerney, Zach Holmes, Eric Manaka, Jasper, and Rachel Wolfson (Eric Andre and Machine Gun Kelly are in there, too). It features many of the stunts seen in the first trailer (you don’t want every nut shot spoiled), but there’s new footage, too, including Ehran facing off against MMA fighter Francis Ngannou and an exploding portable toilet. “If they trust us to go to the bathroom, they’re less intelligent than I thought.” I may never use the bathroom without fear again.

You can watch the trailer above. Here’s more:

Celebrating the joy of being back together with your best friends and a perfectly executed shot to the dingdong, the original jackass crew return for another round of hilarious, wildly absurd, and often dangerous displays of comedy with a little help from some exciting new cast. Johnny and the team push the envelope even further on February 4 in jackass forever.

Remember: the jackass movies are cinema.

Did you know the Golden Globes were on Sunday? It’s true.

You’re forgiven for not realizing this considering the wealth of other, better things to watch last night, including the return of The Righteous Gemstones, Yellowjackets, and a very exciting football game. It’s not like you could have watched the Globes, anyway: there wasn’t a televised ceremony due to the pandemic, or even a live-stream with famous people on Zoom. The winners were announced on Twitter, which surely even the controversy-riddled Hollywood Foreign Press Association couldn’t screw up.

They screwed it up.

Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story won Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Here’s how the Globes made the announcement: “If laughter is the best medicine, [West Side Story] is the cure for what ails you.” That tweet has major “tell me you haven’t seen West Side Story without telling you haven’t seen West Side Story” energy. The Globes later deleted and updated the tweet (“laughter” was replaced with “music”) and mocked themselves for the [Succession voice] bad tweet using a GIF of Hugh Laurie saying, “Thank you, this is obviously a terrible mix-up,” but there was more chaos elsewhere.

Other winners include The Power of the Dog for Best Motion Picture — Drama, Succession for Best Drama Series, Hacks for Best Musical or Comedy Series, and Drive My Car for Best Motion Picture — Non-English Language.

Grimes is still working out the details for her upcoming album Book 1, but she’s also making some tentative plans for the project she might release after that. Alongside a selfie Grimes shared over the weekend, she wrote, “After my albums out I have like a 35 track nightcore album I’ve been making since 2015 that I think rly needs to come out i don’t think it makes a ton of sense but it’s getting so absurdly long lol.”

Fans who want to hear nightcore Grimes actually already have, as she dropped a nightcore remix of her own “We Appreciate Power” in 2019. A full-blown nightcore album has actually been on Grimes’ mind for a while now, as she said in 2020, “I keep being like, ‘Would it be a huge problem if I released a nightcore album?’”

As for what nightcore even in, Urban Dictionary notes, “Nightcore is characterized by a sped-up melody (sometimes), fast rhythmic beat (usually), and ALWAYS higher than normal pitch. Almost all nightcore music are original songs nightcored (remixed into nightcore) by nightcore fans.”

This all comes after Grimes teased a career pivot, as she tweeted towards the end of 2021, “Celebrity culture is suffocating a f. I’m not quitting music, but def changing my main day job after BOOK 1. Music industry feels old and tired, reliant on archaic systems.”

The previous teaser for Bel-Air, the Will Smith-produced Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot, already previewed a different tone than the comedic original. In this full-on trailer, though, things truly get gritty (because no one can resist that these days) and legitimately dark with the following tagline: “You know the Banks family, but not like this.”

From there, we see much of what happened on those Philly streets. Roughed-up squabbles and gunfire and police and a jail-cell death threat. In short, Will truly was going nowhere fast, so that led Uncle Phil to bring his nephew to California “for a better education” and (probably) some fresher threads. That’s the official story, and that appears to be where the darkness begins to ebb, and oh boy, there’s another new Aunt Viv. From the the official synopsis:

Set in modern-day America, Bel-Air is a serialized one-hour dramatic analogue of the 90’s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” that leans into the original premise: Will’s complicated journey from the streets of West Philadelphia to the gated mansions of Bel-Air. With a reimagined vision, Bel-Air will dive deeper into the inherent conflicts, emotions and biases that were impossible to fully explore in a 30-minute sitcom format, while still delivering swagger and nods to the original show.

Smith executive produces here, and Bel-Air snagged a prime premiere spot: Super Bowl Sunday. Peacock will premiere three episodes on launch day, and the rest of the show will roll out on a weekly basis.

The Chargers and Raiders played the final game of the NFL regular season and produced arguably the best game of the season, with Las Vegas winning a thriller, 35-32.

The Raiders led by 15 with five minutes to go in the game, but from there the Chargers would go on a 15-0 run that was aided by five fourth down conversions, all of over six yards, on their next two drives, including a touchdown on 4th and 21 and a touchdown with no time left on the clock in regulation — both ridiculous throws by Justin Herbert.

It was one of the greatest fourth quarters of the season, aided by the added intrigue that both teams would advance to the playoffs with a tie after the Colts lost to the Jaguars in a stunning result earlier in the day. With Pittsburgh beating Baltimore, all they needed was someone to win to make the playoffs, but a tie would’ve put both L.A. and Vegas ahead of them for the final two wild card spots. There was some hope on corners of the internet for a Kneel-Off for the Playoffs, but what manifested in Las Vegas was significantly better than that.

In the overtime period, both teams kicked field goals on their opening possessions, with more fourth down magic from L.A. to set theirs up, and as the clock wound down, the Raiders moved the ball to midfield. Once there, they seemed content to run out the clock until Chargers coach Brandon Staley seemed to panic over the thought Vegas may not just let it roll to zeroes and called a timeout with 38 seconds left. From there, the Raiders ran it again, but this time Josh Jacobs bolted well into field goal range and, rather than letting the clock run out, Vegas called a timeout with two seconds left to trot the automatic Daniel Carlson out for the game-winner.

In his walk-off interview, Derek Carr said the Chargers timeout led to a change in plans for the Raiders, who still may have played for the win but certainly were jolted into pursuing the first down a bit more aggressively as there was no longer a guarantee L.A. would’ve let the clock roll if they got stopped short.

Raiders players even seemed to tell Chargers players the plan changed after the timeout, and the handshake at midfield between Rich Bisaccia and Staley was a bit icy after Staley seemed to balk.

As for the two coaches, Bisaccia seemed to indicate the Raiders were trying to set up a field goal while also content to let things run out should they not get into a comfortable range, while Staley said they weren’t comfortable with their personnel and wanted to get a better run look on the field (which obviously didn’t work out.)

While the timeout is bad optics, the real issue for L.A. was their inability to get Jacobs on the ground short of the sticks. It’s hard to imagine Vegas wanting to run the risk of a 55-plus yard going wrong, but once they were well within Carlson’s range at 47 yards, it was an easy choice.

We’ll obviously never know for certain what the plan was from Las Vegas, but the optics for the Chargers aren’t great considering how things panned out after the timeout. Now, the Raiders will head to the playoffs and the Chargers will watch from L.A., thinking about what could’ve been.

Lately, it’s been all the rage for pop stars to launch beauty brands. Following the massive success of Robyn Fenty’s own Fenty Beauty, celebrities like Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez and even Ariana Grande have all stepped into the space in a major way. And though all of these pop stars might be working with great business teams to get the job done, none have been so effusive as Gomez, who recently took out a full page in the New York Times to let her team know that she appreciates them greatly.

“I want to thank you for all your hard work in making the brand such a beloved part of our community,” Gomez wrote. “None of it would have been possible without you. My goal with Rare Beauty was to launch a brand that helped shape the dialogue around the beauty of self-acceptance and embracing your uniqueness — something that has been desperately needed in the beauty space. The heart of this brand is in recognizing that we’re not meant to look a certain way, and that we’re all unique and different and that’s something that should be celebrated. I knew when I founded the brand that we would need to win over skeptics who doubted our commitment to deliver great products with an authentic mission. But with all your hard work and dedication, I believe we have proven that we are building a brand that will deliver on our promise.”

She also noted that the brand has raised quite a bit of money for mental health resources via their Rare Impact Fund. “We donated $1.2M to 8 grantees. We also launched #MentalHealth101, a campaign to rally the philanthropic community around mental health in schools, raising 68,000 signatures and $400,000 in support. If you’re wondering why you’re seeing this letter in the New York Times, it’s because I wanted to give your accomplishments the platform they deserve.”

Read the letter in full below.

Though she’s only two albums in, Billie Eilish has already had a stellar career as a pop icon. Following up the success of her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, the young singer/songwriter was tapped to contribute an original song to the latest James Bond movie of the same name. Her offering, “No Time To Die,” was actually a precursor to the moodier, jazzy sound she’d adopt on her second album, Happier Than Ever, though of course fans didn’t realize that when it dropped back in 2020.

Now, the Golden Globes have recognized the song with one of the highest honors they can bestow, Best Original Song, Motion Picture, so Billie can add that trophy to her already crammed shelf — she previously broke Grammy records with all the awards she won for her debut album release. “No Time To Die” won out in a packed field, as it was facing off against Beyoncé’s “Be Alive” in the film King Richard, “Dos Orugitas” by Lin-Manuel Miranda in Encanto, “Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” from the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, and Van Morrison’s “Down To Joy” from Belfast. Rumor has it, Billie and Finneas are already back in the studio working on new music… so there’s likely even more trophies in Billie’s future.

All Ja Morant seemingly does it make highlights.

Sunday, with the Grizzlies playing the Lakers in Los Angeles, was no different. In the first quarter, after a lazy pass was picked off by Avery Bradley, Morant chased Bradley down and timed it so perfectly that he not only blocked the shot without fouling, but kept the ball inbounds by catching it at the top of the square, as one does.

Just look at the replay again and watch how Morant tracks Bradley. When he loses the ball, he jogs back towards the middle of the floor, knowing that Desmond Bane is there to cut of Bradley from the rim. And once he sees Bradley make his move, he goes too, turning on the jets and leaping right as Bradley tries to up through Bane. Morant timed all of this perfectly and on the fly right after he committed a turnover.

With a closer look, it even looks like Morant is able to block the shot, grab the ball mid-air and throw it off of the backboard so Memphis keeps the ball. Just a simple, run-of-the-mill play.

There’s really no one like Morant in the NBA right now. Whenever he plays, he’s making things happen that few other players can do, much less a 6’3 point guard. His athleticism and timing make him be able to pull off plays that he just shouldn’t be able to do. And it seems like Morant does this every time on he’s on the court. The plays he makes with regularity just don’t make sense.

Klay Thompson made his return to the court for the first time in 934 days on Sunday night and after an emotional introduction, the Warriors star knocked down his first shot of the game on a runner in the lane.

From there, Thompson wasn’t able to find his shooting stroke from deep, as he seemed to be pressing just a touch to knock down that first three and was subbed out after just over four minutes of action. When he came back for his second stint in the second quarter, he settled in a bit more, knocking down his first three in over two years, but it was another drive from Klay that sent the Chase Center into an absolute frenzy.

Thompson drew Jarrett Allen out beyond the three-point line on a switch, and the big man pressed up to prevent a three, giving Thompson an opening to do a quick crossover and get by him. From there, he had space to attack, but didn’t settle for a runner like his first bucket, instead choosing violence as he rose up and threw down a monster jam over a pair of Cavs.

The reverse angle shows just how nasty this dunk was from Klay, who has always had some surprising spring in his legs, but I’m not sure anyone was prepared for him to do this in his first game back, as even his teammates seemed a bit stunned by the ferocity of that dunk.

It was quite the moment in Thompson’s return, and while he’s still finding his rhythm in an actual NBA game — going 3-for-9 in the first half for seven points — its clear that he meant what he said earlier this season when he insisted he was not worried about getting hurt again, as his aggression has been there from the jump.