Month: April 2022

The Memphis Grizzlies will get a pretty gigantic boost during their penultimate game of the season. Memphis will play host to the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night, and after previously listing All-Star guard Ja Morant as questionable to take the floor for the first time in nine games, the team announced that Morant will be able to play and start.

Morant has not taken the floor for Memphis since March 18, when he had 29 points in a loss to the Atlanta Hawks. Since then, the reigning Rookie of the Year and presumed soon-to-be All-NBA selection has watched as his team has won seven of its last nine games to cement itself as the 2-seed in the Western Conference — it is worth mentioning that the Grizzlies have lost their last two games.

While the team has been quite good without Morant this season, his return will provide some extra reinforcements prior to the first round of the playoffs. As the 2-seed, Memphis will play the team that wins the 7/8 matchup in the play-in tournament, which will be either the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Los Angeles Clippers.

On the season, Morant has averaged a career-high 27.6 points, 6.7 assists, 5.7 rebounds, and 1.2 steals in 33.3 minutes per game. The Grizzlies enter Saturday night’s game with a 55-25 record.

Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard begins on Monday, and it will even be televised. It’s already been a raucous affair, coming after Depp’s previous libel suit against The Sun, which didn’t go well for the now-struggling actor. But before it begins, Heard is clearing the air, defending her name, and even saying she feels “love” for Depp, despite all that’s transpired.

“Johnny is suing me for an op-ed I wrote in the Washington Post, in which I recounted my experience of violence and domestic abuse,” Heard wrote in an Instagram post. “I never named him, rather I wrote about the price women pay for speaking against men in power. I continue to pay that price, but hopefully when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny.”

She went on, writing, “I have always maintained a love for Johnny and it brings me great pain to have to live out the details of our past life together in front of the world. At this time, I recognize the ongoing support I’ve been fortunate to receive throughout these years, and in these coming weeks I will be leaning on it more than ever.”

Even before the trial begins, Depp appears to be in hot water. As per Deadline:

In a short hearing, Virginia Judge Penney Azcarate ruled against Depp’s summary judgment motion and said Heard can, in fact, utilize the state’s anti-SLAPP statute.

SLAPP is an acronym for a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A SLAPP suit is a civil complaint or counterclaim filed against people or organizations who speak out on issues of public interest or concern.

That means that her attorneys can argue Heard is deserving of immunity in front of the jury — and that undercuts a large swath of Depp’s legal strategy.

Depp’s previous libel suit was against The Sun, who called him a “wife beater,” which the court ruled was “substantially true.” Still, he forged ahead with another similar lawsuit anyway.

(Via Deadline)

The Jurassic World wing of the Jurassic franchise has been adding bigger, faker dinosaurs for ever since the first one dropped in 2015. First came the genetic hybrid Indominus Rex. Then, in 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, came the Indoraptor. The third one moves away from hybrids, digging up another, actual dinosaur, albeit one with a name that sounds like it was invented by Hollywood screenwriters: the Giganotosaurus, or “Giga” for short. And even though it’s a creature without the capability of complex thought, the film’s director is comparing it to one of the most iconic comic book baddies.

In a new interview with Empire, Colin Trevorrow talks about why he chose the Gigantosaurus. “I wanted something that felt like the Joker,” he said. “It just wants to watch the world burn.”

Again, dinosaurs didn’t have the capacity for complex, human-like thought, and besides, wouldn’t “just wants to watch the world burn” describe a number of aggressive dinosaur species? To say nothing of this: Isn’t the Joker a bit played out at this point? Still, Trevorrow promises an “entirely new kind of movie,” taking advantage of a whole slew of freed dinos freely stomping about the Earth. “It’s the thing I’ve been waiting to do this whole time.”

Jurassic World Dominion will be released on June 10.

(Via Empire)

Manchester United’s recent poor run of form continued on Saturday, as the team traveled to Goodison Park to take on Everton and lost, 1-0. It was a huge win for the Toffees, which desperately needed a win in the midst of their battle to avoid relegation, but in the aftermath, a moment of frustration has gotten United’s biggest star in some hot water.

In a video captured by a fan after the game, Cristiano Ronaldo appeared to smack a phone out of someone’s hand while he was on his way to the dressing room. While it is unclear if anything was said to Ronaldo, who played all 90 minutes but did not score a goal, he smashed the phone and continued to walk into the back.

The club spoke to ESPN and said that they “are investigating the incident but stressed that it is not clear what happened or that it was intentional.”

Ronaldo returned to United, where he played from 2003-09, this past summer from Juventus after rumors indicated Manchester City were interested in bringing the Portuguese ace back to England. While the 37-year-old has scored 18 goals in 32 games across all competitions this season, it has been a season of tumult for United, which are currently on the outside looking in of the six spots the league gets allocated for European competitions.

Not a whole lot has gone right for the Indiana Pacers this season, as the team sits 25-55 and are in 13th place in the Eastern Conference. Despite this, there are some reasons for optimism going forward, like the play of the team’s prized trade deadline acquisition, Tyrese Haliburton. Since joining the team from the Sacramento Kings, Haliburton has averaged 17.4 points, 9.6 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.9 steals in 35.9 minutes per game while connecting on 42 percent of his attempts from three.

One potential domino that could fall as a result of his strong play is a trade for veteran guard Malcolm Brogdon, who has only played in 36 games this season. Brogdon signed a 2-year, $45 million extension in October that made him ineligible to be traded this season, and according to Marc Stein, the team has “left numerous rival teams with the impression that they will be trying to move” him once he’s eligible.

As for where Brogdon — who averaged 19.1 points and 5.9 assists in 33.5 minutes a night this year — could end up, Stein reported that there’s a certain team in Los Angeles that would love to bring him on board.

Another option that could (stress: could) present itself provided the Pacers like the idea: The Lakers have a well-documented interest in Buddy Hield, who came to Indiana along with Haliburton in the Sabonis trade, and might well offer Russell Westbrook and his $47.1 million expiring contract for Hield and Brogdon. With the Pacers presumed to have no interest in Westbrook beyond his expiring salary, such a swap figures to hinge on what sort of draft compensation the Lakers would be willing to furnish to sweeten the deal for the Pacers to participate and then (we can only imagine) part ways with Westbrook.

It’s hard to imagine that the Lakers would be able to pull this sort of deal off unless they add some of the young talent on their roster and both of their first-round draft picks in 2027 and 2029, and even then, it’d take the Pacers determining that’s better than anything else they could get back for Brogdon.

Will Smith’s film career really took off thanks to Michael Bay. The director’s debut feature was Bad Boys, which was only Smith’s fourth movie, and the first in which he was one of the leads. The two reunited almost a decade later for Bad Boys II. Though Bay didn’t helm the series’ threequel, it’s not like the two wouldn’t work together again — not even after Smith’s infamous, career-rattling Oscars slap.

Bay has a new movie in theaters, the bonkers thriller Ambulance, and he was inevitably asked, during a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, about the fiasco that took the Academy Awards in a shocking direction.

“At first, immediately I’m like, Did this just happen?” Bay told EW. “Then I saw the yell from Will. That’s a real Will yell. Will is an amazing fighter. He’s studied boxing.”

Bay said what Smith did was “wrong to do, no matter what.” But he doesn’t believe those who think Smith could have killed Chris Rock, whose joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, led to Smith’s slap. “No, a slap is different. A punch? Yeah, you can kill someone. Will gave him a slap,” he said. He also wondered why the slap has started to earn more press than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “There are babies getting blown up by the hundreds right now and people are so concerned about this. I don’t know. To me, it’s just like, enough of it. All right, so a dramatic thing happened, but I just think we’ve got to get our priorities straight.

About whether Bay would work with Smith again? “Absolutely, 100 percent,” replied. “He’s a very even-keeled guy. Very even-keeled.”

So perhaps if Bad Boys IV ever happens, which it now might not, Bay could always return to the franchsie.

(Via EW)

The Chicago Bulls did not have a particularly great Friday night. The team trailed by 28 points at halftime against the Charlotte Hornets, and while that margin wasn’t quite as bad when the clock hit zero, they still lost convincingly, 133-117. It marked the fourth game in a row and the seventh in 10 games where Chicago lost, and since the All-Star break, the team has a paltry 7-15 record.

For a team that looked like a threat to make some noise in the Eastern Conference this postseason, the Bulls suddenly seem like a team that would be lucky to get out of the first round. Their fans expressed frustration with this at halftime against the Hornets, showering the team with boos, and during his postgame media availability, Zach LaVine made clear that he thinks the fans should absolutely make their voices heard.

“They should,” LaVine said of the boos. “It’s embarrassing. We’re a really good basketball team, and we’re not playing like it. They know that. We know that. It’s understandable. We understand that they have our back, but we got to play better.”

LaVine went on to say the team is “upset” and characterized the team’s recent run of form as “we’re getting our ass kicked” before venting about how things are going.

“They just jumped on us,” LaVine said, per Jamal Collier of ESPN. “We singing the same story, and I always try to be very uplifting and try to see the bright side, but I’m tired of talking. We say a lot of words and we say the right thing, but we got to figure it out. We’re not doing that, plain and simple.”

The Bulls are locked into the 6-seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, and will get whichever of the Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, or Philadelphia 76ers finish the regular season in third.

Jack White is having himself quite the weekend so far. He released his fourth album Fear Of The Dawn on Friday, and it makes for his first full-length solo effort since 2018’s Boarding House Reach. Despite the wait, Fear Of The Dawn is the first of two albums that White will release in 2022 as Entering Heaven Alive will arrive at some point later this year. In addition to releasing Fear Of The Dawn, White also performed the national anthem on Opening Night for the Detroit Tigers on Friday. As if that wasn’t enough, White would go on to get engaged and married later that day.

The opening night of White’s The Supply Chain Issues Tour took place at Detroit’s Masonic Temple Theatre. According to Detroit Free Press, nearly an hour and a half into the night, White invited his girlfriend and Black Belles singer Olivia Jean on stage where they performed the White Stripes’ “Hotel Yorba.” At the song’s “let’s get married” lyric, White paused and looked at Jean, pulled out a ring, and said, “I’ve got a question for you. Will you marry me?” Jean answered with a resounding “yes!” and the two got married during the show’s encore.

Detroit Free Press says White and Jean’s respective bass players were best man and maid of honor. White’s longtime friend Ben Swank officiated the wedding and White’s mother and Jean’s father were also in attendance. White’s marriage to Jean is his third one after he previously tied the knot with Meg White in 1996 and Karen Elson in 2005.

You can check out White and Jean’s special moment in the video above.

Fear Of The Dawn is out now via Third Man Records. You can stream it here.

On Friday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally made a decision about what to do with Will Smith after his Oscars slap: The actor has been banned from attending the ceremony for 10 years. Since the incident, a noted awards show host, Ricky Gervais, has inevitably weighed in, making jokes about what jokes he would have said had he been in Chris Rock’s shoes. And he had one for the Academy’s big decision.

“Hopefully, he’ll only do 6 years with good behaviour,” Gervais joked on Twitter.

While Smith will not be allowed to attend the show until 2032, not even virtually, at which point he’ll be in his 60s, that doesn’t mean he can’t be nominated, let alone win awards. Nor will the trophy he won for the biopic King Richard, which he accepted shortly after he struck Rock over a joke he made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, be rescinded.

Gervais never hosted the Oscars, but he gained notoriety, even infamy, for hosting the Golden Globes, which he did five times, starting in 2009. His jokes threw few punches, often eliciting gasps at his barbed insults of the rich and famous. His last Globes stint, in 2020, was not that well-received.

For many, the news of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins‘ passing after being struck by a car came by way of Adam Schefter of ESPN. Schefter relayed the news from Haskins’ agent, but after much outrage, he decided to delete his original tweet — specifically, people were not happy that Schefter said that Haskins was “a standout at Ohio State before struggling to catch on with Washington and Pittsburgh in the NFL.”

After deleting, Schefter changed the wording in the tweet to make it the following:

Still, much was made of his original characterization of Haskins’ NFL career, which, in addition to being an unnecessary inclusion into the tweet, was not accurate: While he was cut by Washington before the conclusion of his second season, Haskins was signed by Pittsburgh less than a month later, where he spent last season and was part of the quarterback room heading into 2022.

But no matter what, Schefter’s decision to include that in his original tweet drew the ire of a number of NFL players, including Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who expressed an apparent long-standing gripe he has with Schefter.

A number of Haskins’ teammates with the Steelers joined the chorus of voices that were not happy with this characterization of him.

And from a reporter’s perspective, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports to say that “the players we cover are human beings.”