Month: February 2022

Rudy Giuliani has seen better days. He’s gone from America’s mayor to a magnet for inventive public embarrassment, having burned his reputation for a former president who won’t even bail him out of the many financial and legal woes that he acquired for him. Meanwhile, another former Trump lawyer is doing just fine. That person is Michael Cohen, who rehabilitated himself by serving time and repeatedly ratting out his old client.

Wouldn’t it be awkward if the two wound up in the same swanky New York City restaurant? Well, that’s what happened.

As per Page Six, Giuliani and Cohen both wound up at the buzzy midtown Tuscan joint Fresco by Scotto on Thursday night at the same time. A source claim the restaurant managers attempted to seat them on separate sides of the joint. Unfortunately VIPs nabbed those tables, forcing the two ex-Trump consiglieres to sit at neighboring tables.

There was reportedly “zero interaction between them.” Even when Cohen started moving around the room, shaking hands, they never acknowledged one another. “It was so icy between the pair,” a second source claimed, “it seemed like hell had finally frozen over.”

One patron could be heard saying, “I feel like I’m in the middle of a boxing ring, before the match is about to start. You can feel the tension in the air.” Another onlooked said that “Giuliani sat there stone-faced, at a table with friends, with what was left of his hair dye trickling down his brow.”

Cohen is known for dubbing Giuliani “Dopey Rudy.” He recently called him an “idiot” who “drinks too much.” Giuliani, meanwhile, has called Cohen “pathetic” and a “serial liar.”

Giuliani is reportedly in talks to blab to the House Select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. He also recently made a surprise appearance on The Masked Singer, to the horror of many.

(Via Page Six)

Awards races drive much of the conversation each year in the NBA, and the 2021-22 campaign is no different. The competition is heating up for Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and even the All-NBA teams, but the Most Valuable Player pursuit is always in the center of the frame. A few candidates have separated themselves to this point in the calendar, but there is still time for shuffling and, more so than any other award, team successes and struggles can also swing the pendulum.

In this space, we’ll take a glance at the candidates as the race stands, with the leaders coming in alphabetical order.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Doesn’t it feel like Antetokounmpo is being overlooked? He has won the MVP award twice, but after a title run and a Finals MVP honor, it could be argued that Giannis is playing the best basketball of his career. He is Milwaukee’s best defender, even on a team with Jrue Holiday, and Antetokounmpo cannot be denied by virtually any opponent on offense. He is averaging more than 29 points and 11 rebounds per game with strong efficiency and catch-all metrics that are clearly uber-elite. Antetokounmpo may suffer from voter fatigue, but he’s a clear MVP candidate.

Stephen Curry

Curry was the consensus leader early in the process, which was certainly helped by a red-hot start from Golden State in the standings. Bizarrely, the two-time MVP and three-time NBA champion then endured a brutal shooting slump, at least by his standards, in January, and Curry’s numbers aren’t quite what they were in November and December. Still, he is the best shooter on the planet, and opposing defenses must tailor their approach to Curry more so than any other player in the league. Curry is also capable of an explosion that could carry him to the top of the heap but, at the very least, he remains a contender and the top guard in the race.

Joel Embiid

We’ll get to the other half of the co-favorite duel in a moment, but Embiid was the recent leader in an intriguing straw poll conducted by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. That poll is usually a good indication of voter sentiment and, as usual, Embiid is the sun, moon, and stars for Philadelphia. With more than 29 points per game, Embiid has the highest scoring average of his career, and he is posting easily the best assist numbers since he arrived in Philadelphia. Embiid is also a top-shelf defender and, even with the Ben Simmons saga dragging on for more than half of the season, the Sixers are a top-five seed in the East at the break.

Nikola Jokic

If the Nuggets were in the top two in the West, Jokic would probably the be the consensus leader right now. That says more about how the voting usually works than Jokic’s performance, though, as the Nuggets have been fantastic when he plays and brutal when he sits on the bench. Denver has a +10.1 net rating with Jokic on the floor and that number dips to a hideous -10.6 when he’s off the court, illustrating his value in plain terms. In addition, Jokic has the best statistical profile of any player, leading the league in almost every catch-all metric with top-10 marks in scoring, rebounding and assists. He may not repeat after winning the 2020-21 award, but Jokic has arguably been better this season than he was a year ago, which is remarkable.

Honorable Mentions

DeMar DeRozan – DeRozan leads the NBA in total points at the All-Star break, which is a pretty good place to start. At age 32, he is turning in the best season of his career, and while he isn’t alone in Chicago, DeRozan deserves a ton of credit for the Bulls’ incredibly strong position. He isn’t likely to win the award without an incredible team finish, but DeRozan should be on plenty of ballots.

Luka Doncic – Doncic had an uneven start by his standards, and Dallas was in the wilderness. The Mavericks are back in the top six in the West, though, and Doncic is on quite a run recently. He would need real heroics, along with team success, to compete at the top of the ballot, but we could look back on this season as MVP quality. His latest salvo included 49 points, 15 rebounds, and eight assists in the final game before the break.

LeBron James – Would he be on this list if he wasn’t LeBron James? Probably not. Has LeBron James been incredible this season? Yes. He’s averaging 29-8-7 and posting the best true shooting percentage since he joined the Lakers. He’s on the list.

Ja Morant – It’s been a phenomenal season for Memphis at 41-19. That record is impressive under any circumstances, and Morant makes the machine go at the point of attack. He is averaging nearly 27 points and seven assists per game, entertaining crowds each night, and Morant’s superstar status is no longer in question. He could be knocked by Memphis posting a 12-2 record without him, but Morant is the real deal.

Chris Paul or Devin Booker – There is an ongoing debate about who the MVP candidate should be for the Suns, which probably means they don’t have one that can seriously compete. With that said, Phoenix’s backcourt has been unbelievably good, and the Suns have a multi-game lead on the entire NBA field.

On a new episode of the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, Pusha T revealed that Jay-Z will be on his next album. After talking about his history with the iconic rapper, he mentioned having three songs with him, including the time they worked together on Kanye West’s “So Appalled,” their 2016 collaboration “Drug Dealers Anonymous,” and then said the other is “something from my new album.”

Almost a year ago, he revealed that the album was nearly complete. “I’m working on the album right now,” he said. “I haven’t titled it. Probably 12 [songs]. I usually don’t do a lot of extras. I feel like I have some extras right now but I’m gonna keep 12… I gotta go sit in with ‘Ye for a little bit but other than that it’s just these 12.” He also promised it would be the “the best album that drops in 2021,” and said that he was just waiting to finish the collaboration with Kanye West, which ended up being the first single, “Diet Coke,” that came out just last month. Before releasing it, he teased it with a cryptic (and funny) Instagram post that featured a snippet of the track, which sent the internet into a frenzy of speculation.

Watch the full interview above.

Robert Downey Jr. has been done with Tony Stark for a few years now, but he has yet to find his next franchise. (Sorry, Dolittle.) Or maybe he finally has: According to The Wrap, the legendary actor is reuniting with one of his greatest collaborators to bring back to the screen one of crime fiction’s toughest, meanest antiheroes.

That collaborator is Shane Black, the screenwriter of Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and the director and co-writer of the Downey starrers Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man Three (as well as possibly his greatest triumph, The Nice Guys). The character is Parker, the notorious career criminal and star of 24 diamond cut pulp novels by Donald E. Westlake, who published them under the pseudonym Richard Stark, only because he was so prolific that he didn’t want the public to get sick of his seeing his name.

Black’s films are known for their sharp, witty banter and insults as well as inventive plotting, and Downey is rarely more alert than when he’s rattling off his one-liners. Parker, though, is a man of as few words as possible — a loner who does whatever he needs to survive as lucratively as possible. He was introduced in 1962’s The Hunter, which was turned into the 1967 psychedelic neo-noir Point Blank, with Lee Marvin as its taciturn, fearsome lead (renamed Walker).

Over the decades there have been many big screen takes on the character (who, as in Point Blank, is often renamed). He’s been played by actors including Jim Brown (1969’s The Split, based on The Seventh), Robert Duvall (1973’s The Outfit), Mel Gibson (1999’s Payback, also based on The Hunter), and Jason Statham (2013’s Parker, based on Flashfire). August company indeed for Downey.

It’s not clear which novel Downey and Black are tackling, but they have a lot of options. In the meantime, the Parker novels average about 200 pages with prose as lean and merciless as their antihero. You might even be able to plow through them all by the time the latest film is ready to watch.

(Via The Wrap)

Britney Spears has been through a lot over the years, and as is the case with any complicated situation, there are likely elements of which the public is not aware. Now, it appears Spears is ready to pull back that curtain: Page Six reports Spears signed a massive book deal with Simon & Schuster to write a memoir.

The deal reportedly came after a bidding war between multiple publishers and has a reported value of $15 million. A source claims “the deal is one of the biggest of all time, behind the Obamas.” Barack and Michelle Obama’s 2017 deal with Penguin Random House was worth a reported $60 million.

Spears has definitely mentioned writing a book in recent months: In October, she detailed her idea for a novel about murder, a concept that fans speculated was actually based on Spears’ life and family issues. She also threw shade at her sister Jamie Lynn’s book shortly after, coming up with some cheeky alternate titles for it under the guise of writing her own book. A book could be the best venue for Spears to share her story, as she said last month she’s “scared” of doing interviews. The book could be one of the “so many exciting projects ahead” Spears recently mentioned.

The idea of writing a book has had at least some real estate in Spears’ head for years now: In the 2008 documentary Britney: For The Record, Spears said, “I’ll have a good book one day. A good, mysterious book.”

The Brooklyn Nets have been busy in recent weeks with one eye on a playoff push, pulling off a trade that landed them Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, and Andre Drummond in exchange for James Harden and Paul Millsap. Now, while the rest of the league is in the midst of the All-Star break, Brooklyn has landed one of the top names on the league’s buyout market in an attempt to get some added backcourt punch.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Nets came to terms on a deal with free agent guard Goran Dragic. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports that Brooklyn will waive reserve guard Jevon Carter to free up a roster spot.

The news of Brooklyn’s interest in Dragic had been out there for some time, as they were on the list of teams that wanted to bring the veteran guard on board after he was traded from Toronto to San Antonio and subsequently bought out. Marc Stein reported for several days that the Nets used head coach Steve Nash as their lead recruiter in the race for Dragic — the pair were teammates with the Phoenix Suns from 2008-11.

Dragic has appeared in five games this season after joining the Raptors in the sign-and-trade that sent Kyle Lowry to Miami, and was bought out by San Antonio before he was able to take the floor for them.

The Righteous Gemstones Halo Report is a weekly recap feature that assigns between zero and five halos to people, things, events, and general topics from each episode. There is very little to this beyond an excuse to highlight cool stuff from a good show and make jokes. And do crappy drawings of halos in MS Paint. We’re having fun.

ZERO HALOS

Getting robbed at gunpoint by your wrestling promoter father

The theme of this week’s episode — and the entire season, really — was set right up front with another flashback, this time to Memphis in 1993, where a young Junior is itching to take over the family business from his father, only to be double-crossed and robbed at gunpoint by the devious old wrestling promoter. There are parallels here, all over the place: Jesse’s relationship with Eli, Baby Billy’s relationship with his unborn and grown children, both of whom were abandoned and the latter of whom we will extremely get back to shortly.

Please do not overlook the layers at play here. There are real things developing, real stories about sons and formidable fathers and the issues that can create for both. There is also, sometimes, a very silly fart joke. We’ll come back to that, too. It’s a wonderful television program. We are all quite blessed.

Various muscle men

I do not know what Torsten and the freshly evicted muscle men will do now that Kelvin and Keef have taken back the house, but I would not be opposed to a spinoff limited series about their adventures going forward. I choose to believe they will either join the circus or loop in with Junior’s wrestling circuit. Possibly both. Any excuse to, to quote Eli here, rip some phone books in half.

ONE HALO

Junior

Two things worth noting when it comes to Junior this week:

• It has been my position for a few weeks now that the motorcycle men were sent by the Lissons, not Junior, and it feels pretty good to have that theory seemingly validated, or at least zeroed in on with Junior denying it
• I really want him to get his hands on that money his dad fled with, mostly because I want to see what he does with it

I love him very much.

Getting bossed around by the ghost of your sister

Baby Billy is a deadbeat and a kind of literal snake oil salesman now (legit laugh out loud from me when he said “No more Covid” straight into the camera while pushing his elixir), and he knows all that, but it can’t be fun to just be seeing visions of your saintly older sister pop up and tell you to stop being such a loser.

That said, it is not lost on me that what we had here was a kind of short-form version of A Christmas Carol where Baby Billy was visited by a spirit and decided to change his ways. Kind of. He’s kind of changing his ways. Maybe. None of this works out perfectly. If I’m being honest, I just wanted to put “A Christmas Carol starring Walton Goggins as Scrooge” into the universe. I feel okay about it.

TWO HALOS

Baby Billy

Good news and bad news here for Baby Billy. The good news is that he appears to be on the road to redemption, at least with Tiffany and the newest child, maybe. Probably. And that he attempted to make amends with the first child he abandoned. That’s good. Sort of.

The bad news is that he had to get punched in the face with a closed fist to do it. And that his trailer is held together with duct tape and bungee cords. It could be better. But there’s progres here. Again, probably. Maybe. It’s complicated.

Motorcycle ninjas

I like that they were broken out of jail by a second group of presumably more capable motorcycle ninjas. I want to know everything about them. And I suspect I will find out more at some point. But I cannot in good faith slot them any higher on this list because it was very rude to fart at Martin. He’s a good man. You should not fart at him.

Eli

In no particular order:

• Recovering from an assassination attempt
• Told his family and Junior that he once disposed of the body of a crooked wrestling magnate by burying it under a rollercoaster
• Is now kind of out there solving his own attempted murder

This is honestly too much to handle at once. Let the man take a nap.

THREE HALOS

Jesse

Eli agreed to give him the money for his big adventure land with the Lissons, which is what Jesse wanted. And, after a little tension at home about it all, Eli also agreed to let him take a more active role in the leadership going forward. Jesse is feeling pretty good right now, about that, at least.

The tricky part comes next, though. If I’m right and the Lissons are behind the various assassination attempts, then Jesse can really only go one of two ways: Betray his family for the promise of riches or seek revenge via blood and/or flesh. I hope it’s the second one for a lot of reasons but mostly because we’ve seen what happens when he tries to handle a gun.

Amber

Amber is a schemer and a survivor and she did not come this far to be pushed aside. I am honestly a little terrified of her. She could end up in charge of the whole operation one day. Do not cross Amber Gemstone.

Gideon

I like that he was kind of strutting around this week after almost single-handedly taking down the motorcycle ninjas. Good for him. He’s earned this one. I hope he hears about their escape and hops on his dirtbike again and says “Daddy’s gotta go to work” like The Rock in Fate of the Furious and then straps on his helmet and tears off. Just make the rest of the season a full-on action movie. For me. Please.

FOUR HALOS

Judy

Watching Judy’s heart grow until it damn near burst out of her chest on that bus like The Grinch… that was a special moment. Edi Patterson is doing such incredible work this season. I know I say that every week but it needs to be said and I will not stop. Probably my favorite character and performance on the show, which is a real accomplishment when you consider things like who her character is married to and Walton Goggins just doing everything every week, up to and including meowing to drive home a point.

Give her an Emmy. And a million bucks. And a seafood dinner if she wants. She’s earned it all.

Aunt Tiffany

What I like about this show is that they’ll make a slew of jokes about Tiffany being a hill person and stuff but then they’ll pay it all off by having her leap from a tree with the grace of a gymnast despite being about 14 months pregnant.

Look at her go.

BJ

The trick to fully enjoying BJ as a character is watching him do stuff in the background while other people are talking. There was the milk-swirling a few episodes ago and then a little veggies and hummus this week. He’s a sweet man. I still want him and Keef to open a detective agency.

FIVE HALOS

Keef

Keef gets more done in mere seconds of screentime than most characters get done in entire seasons of television. Look at the GIF up in the muscle men blurb. I somehow missed it the first time through. Look at that sad little pathetic slap, like a cat batting at a ball of yarn. Between this and the thing where Eli called him “Queef”… yeah, five halos. He fascinates me. I want to see him preach at a full service someday. Imagine his face.

Kelvin

Gonna be tough to top “smashing your casts on a massive cross and then carrying it across a gauntlet in a show of strength and force to establish dominance and quash the rebellion of muscle men you were once the leader of” on the list of best character developments of 2022. I’m honestly happy for him, even if I did laugh a little when Torsten correctly pointed out that it was his house all along and he could have just, like, told them to leave. But good for him.

Just getting freaking Macaulay Culkin to pop up out of nowhere, holy crap

A few notes here:

• My biggest hope regarding Harmon going into this week was that he either led the motorcycle ninjas or became some sort of like leather jacket badass who ate apples using knives and stole money out of Salvation Army buckets, all of which proved to be a failure of imagination on my paint
• I did not in one million years imagine I would ever get to see Macaulay Culkin closed-fist punch Walton Goggins in the mouth on any television show ever, let alone one of my favorites
• I have been laughing about all of this pretty much non-stop since I first saw it and I do not expect to stop any time soon

It took all I had not to spoil this after I watched the screener and it will take even more joy to just like go shout about it in the middle of the mall this afternoon. I might get tossed in jail for disturbing the peace. If I do, please hop on a neon motorcycle and bust me out.

It’s not unreasonable.

Over the weekend, Florence And The Machine fans received something exciting in their mailbox. Enclosed in a pink envelope with the words “Chapter 1” on the return flap was a playing card with Florence Welch on it with the word “KING” at the bottom, as seen in this tweet from a Florence And The Machine fan club account. Many fans are interpreting this as the beginning of a new era, and therefore are expecting and hoping for a new album.

The band’s last album was 2018’s High As Hope, and fans are eager for the follow-up. They’ve been keeping busy, though; last year, they released “Call Me Cruella,” a ’70s-inspired song for the Disney movie Cruella. Around that time, it was also revealed that Welch was helping with the writing for the Broadway adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which she said “contains some of my favourite lines in literature.” Florence And The Machine were also recently added to Spain’s Mad Cool Festival, alongside Haim and Queens of the Stone Age, which is taking place this coming July over the span of five days in Madrid.

Revisit our look at 2011 albums that changed the course of pop music here, which may or may not include a certain Florence And The Machine classic.

Offense gets the attention in the NBA and, in the modern era, it could be argued that offense is more important than ever. Defense still separates contenders from pretenders, though, and the best defenders in the world leave their mark on the floor each night. To reward the top tier, the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award is in play again in 2021-22 without a clear and dominant frontrunner. While injury-related absences are, unfortunately, part of the reason for the jumbled group, that doesn’t take away from the elite performance on display from the top candidates.

Today, we will take a look at which players are the current leaders in the race with a sprinkling of honorable mentions, all of whom will arrive in alphabetical order.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Antetokounmpo is a clear MVP candidate, and he has won that award twice. He is also a former Defensive Player of the Year. Why, then, is he not always mentioned in this particular race? Well, unless it is voter fatigue, the reasoning is unclear. Antetokounmpo is tremendous at the rim, versatile enough to guard in space, a fantastic weakside rim protector, a high-end rebounder, and basically the total package. He gets an extra bump for carrying Milwaukee’s backline defense without Brook Lopez, and he is certainly on the short list for the top spot.

Rudy Gobert

Gobert is a three-winner of this award, and he is the best regular season defender in the league over a half-decade or so. He is also near the top this year, even while missing 14 of 58 games, and Gobert has the obvious counting stats in averaging 14.8 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots per game to lead the NBA in both categories. Simply put, Utah’s craters anytime Gobert leaves the floor, either for injury or rest. The Jazz have built the entire ship around his defense, for better or worse, and Gobert is the best rim protector in the league. For good measure, he leads the NBA in defensive RAPTOR (by FiveThirtyEight) and Gobert’s defensive metrics are always pristine.

Draymond Green

When Green last played on Jan. 5, he was the clear leader in the Defensive Player of the Year race. The Warriors were lapping the field from a team perspective, and Green was the undeniable centerpiece of that success. Since he has not played in more than a month, Green’s candidacy is not in the same position, just due to the numbers game. Fortunately, Gobert also missed considerable time, and Golden State’s team results, coupled with Green’s reputation, can buoy his candidacy in the coming days. He will need to return pretty quickly after the All-Star break, though, or it is going to be an uphill battle from a cumulative perspective.

Honorable Mentions

Mikal Bridges – The Suns are in the top three on defense with an ensemble cast. Bridges is the team’s best defender pretty easily, and he does show up in the top ten in the betting market for the award. It is tough to see him winning it unless Phoenix gets even better in the next two months, but he is a fast-rising impact player on the wing, and Bridges can simply take away an opposing option each night.

Joel Embiid – Embiid has three All-Defense teams on his profile and might make another one. He is also a legitimate MVP candidate, but the Sixers’ overall defense might keep him away from the top three (or even the top five) here. There is no shame in simply being awesome, but Embiid does not profile quite as well as Gobert for the award and there are candidates with better seasons going on defense.

Jaren Jackson Jr. – Memphis, like Phoenix, is enjoying a heck of a season without a single dominant defender. Jackson Jr. is on the radar in the betting market, however, and would likely be the guy if the Grizzlies got more attention. He has made “the leap” on defense this season, returning some of the pre-draft hype about what he could be on that end of the floor.

Evan Mobley – If we are being honest, this is probably a year or two early for the rookie big man. However, Mobley is in the top ten in the betting market and he is been the best defender on a top-five defense in the NBA. The future is unbelievably bright, and he is already quite good.

NBA All-Star Weekend is about the finest talent professional basketball has to offer, but some of the biggest names in music popped up during the festivities, too. DJ Khaled, Lil Wayne, Lil Baby, Gunna, Ludacris, Migos, and Mary J. Blige performed on Saturday, and yesterday’s actual All-Star Game featured more recognizable music figures taking the stage.

Machine Gun Kelly (who was born in Houston but spent some of his formative years in Cleveland, this year’s All-Star host city) helped introduce the game’s starting lineups by getting the crowd excited, thanking “all the hard workers of this town,” cracking a couple of jokes, and handing things over to DJ D-Nice before the team lineups were properly introduced. Kelly had his fingerprints all over the weekend, as he also played during the celebrity game.

Prior to tip-off, Juno Award nominee Ryland James sang the Canadian national anthem before Ohio native Macy Gray delivered a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Some people online noticed LeBron James seemed amused by Gray’s performance, as he was seen seemingly trying to suppress a smile as she sang.

As for halftime, the mid-game break was mostly focused on a celebration of the 75th anniversary team, although it did feature Earth, Wind & Fire performing their thematically appropriate hit “Shining Star.”

Meanwhile, Adele was spotted courtside (which makes sense given her relationship with sports agent Rich Paul) and caught the attention of the TNT broadcast crew, which prompted Charles Barkley to reckon he and Adele ought to duet. Barkley’s co-hosts quickly and definitively shot that idea down.

Check out the musical highlights from the All-Star Game above.