Dr. Oz continues to lose ground in the PA senate race against Lt. Governor John Fetterman. Oz narrowly won the Republican primary to became the party nominee, and that low-level of enthusiasm has not improved as Fetterman continues to relentlessly hammer the TV doctor for being a New Jersey resident. According to the latest polls, Fetterman now has an 11-point lead on Oz, who is failing to get Republican voters in the state to warm up to his campaign. Via Fox News:
A big problem for Oz is consolidating GOP support. By a 16-point margin, fewer Republicans stay loyal to him (73%) than Democrats to Fetterman (89%). Same story on favorable ratings, as many more Democrats view Fetterman positively (88%) than Republicans view Oz (67%).
Just 35% of those backing Oz say they support him enthusiastically, while 45% have reservations. For Fetterman, 68% back him enthusiastically and only 18% hesitate.
As Fox News notes, Oz is failing to overcome concerns that he’s a “carpetbagger from New Jersey,” which has been a focal point of Fetterman’s campaign messaging. While voters are also concerned about Fetterman after he had a recent stroke during the primary, “twice as many are concerned Oz isn’t familiar enough with the state to be an effective senator.” In short, the trolling appears to be working.
Along with attempting to get Oz inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, Fetterman has enlisted the help of celebrities from the garden state to troll the TV physician. Snooki from Jersey Shore got in the action, and more recently, The Sopranos star Steven Van Zandt made a video telling Oz to “fuhgeddaboudit” and “come on back to Jersey where you belong.”
First things first, we might as well squeeze as much SEO value out of this interview as we can. BJ Novak has seen himself become the subject of a quote-tweeting frenzy this past week, under the general headline “BJ Novak says being a Harvard graduate is ‘the worst thing to have’ on a comedy resume.”
He put his face in his hands when I asked him about it and says the pulled quote is basically the opposite of what he was trying to say.
“Of course, [a Harvard pedigree] is the luckiest damn thing you can have to get a job in a writer’s room,” The Office alum told me over a Zoom call this week. “What I meant was that people don’t see you as being on the side of comedy. Harvard guys are the bad guys in the movies. I get it.”
Novak is the perfect kind of celebrity for this kind of quote to go viral, the kind of guy that you sort of know but don’t really. Maybe he’s just some annoying Harvard prick? He certainly looks the part. In fact, the main thing that kept me from assuming that BJ Novak is a smarmy douche in real life is that he’s so good at playing one in fiction. Surely that reflects a level of self-awareness fundamentally incompatible with smarmy douchedom.
Still, Novak was juuust obscure enough that I didn’t really know, which I imagine contributed to his quote being shared with no presumption of nuance in the first place. In fact, when I heard that he’d written, directed, and starred in a movie opening this week — Vengeance, from horror super producer Jason Blum (Get Out, The Invisible Man) — I had no idea what to expect. Something inspired? A middling indie banking on Office name recognition?
Vengeance turned out to be both the kind of movie that kept me guessing and eerily up my alley. Novak plays Ben Manalowtiz, a New York podcaster whose one-time hook-up turns up dead. He travels to her hometown in West Texas thinking he might’ve found the kind of true crime tale to reinvigorate his career.
As you might expect, Novak’s character is kind of a smarmy douche, and Vengeance is a comedy, at least at first. Think Doc Hollywood, if the Michael J. Fox character had been a New York podcaster. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with podcasts and public radio — I’ve been listening to NPR for as long as I can remember and have been compelled to dunk on it ruthlessly for almost as long — and Novak mines plenty of humor from poking fun at the wannabe Ira Glass archetype. Which, much as with Ryan from The Office, BJ Novak sort of is himself, which only makes the jokes hit harder (it’s much more fun to ridicule what you know).
But Vengeance is more than just a fish-out-of-water satire. Eventually, it reveals not just jokes about true crime pods and the hot take economy in general, but earnest critique — some of it from the mouths of co-stars Ashton Kutcher and Narcos‘ Boyd Holbrook, both playing against type to surprising success. As the movie goes on, it evolves into something approaching a thriller, and, if anything, only gets more entertaining.
Novak may be part of the same smarmy milieu that makes NPR so ripe for ridicule — with an author for a father and a resume that includes the Harvard Lampoon — but the fact that he actually has insight about it goes a long way towards redeeming him in my eyes.
—
So I really enjoyed the movie.
Oh, great. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. I know Uproxx well.
So I have sort of a love-hate relationship with podcasts and public radio. And I feel like a lot of the comedy in this maybe grew out of that kind of the same relationship.
Absolutely, the love-hate. I tried to put as many details in there as I can. Like Ben’s hookup in the first scene is wearing a Pod Save America shirt, that I was sure she must have dug out of a drawer there. I got Terry Gross to play the head honcho of the whole podcast network. So I definitely know that world and love that world, but I also know it’s kind of eye roll to be into that stuff, and I wanted to enjoy the comedy of taking someone who’s very much from the NPR world and put him into something way bigger than he can handle. Then of course he thinks he can handle it because there is sort of a slight judgmental, smarter-than-thou attitude toward that world. So, yeah, I really enjoyed both showing what I like about that world and what makes me think it deserves to have some fun poked at it.
I think for anybody who listens to a certain amount of public radio, you’re like, “oh, that’s Terry Gross” right away. Do you have like a Mount Rushmore of favorite podcasters? Or as Marc Maron might ask it, “who are your guys?”
I don’t listen to that many, actually, I do like some of the interview ones. I subscribe to Marc Maron and Dax Shepherd. To me, podcasts are a way to just have voices in your head that you’d like to spend time with. I don’t listen to stories as much, personally. I did like Serial. I did like S-Town, but mostly I listen to those interviews and try to kind of learn or connect.
But it is an optical illusion, or an… audio-cal illusion — I don’t know how you say that — in that, on the one level, it’s so intimate, you’re so close to that other person’s voice. But on another, you just chose them from a menu. You don’t know them at all and even worse, you’re not listening on their schedule. I thought that that was an interesting theme of the movie too, that we all enjoy people on our own schedule. We text someone when we feel lonely. We hook up when we want to have sex, and if someone else texts us, we maybe text back later. And this guy, his biggest flaw is he goes to this town to see these people as characters in a podcast. Which is really I think the danger of listening to these true crime podcasts, reducing everyone in our lives to characters. People can just become characters to us when we’re disconnected from life in real-time.
That also seems like something that maybe you’ve been able to do with yourself in your career in some ways, to sort of turn yourself into a certain kind of character. Like it feels like you’re not afraid to write yourself as obnoxious or pedantic or whatever.
Yeah. I mean I know my flaws and I don’t like them any more than anyone else does. And that is a better place to start in comedy than to look at my heroic inner nature or whatever. And it also gives you somewhere to go. In a movie, I couldn’t just make jokes about what I don’t like about myself. I had to see, all right, well, if this were a character, not me, what’s an interesting character? So then that was a different challenge, to really humbly think, “Well, what might someone else see in me that I could live up to?”
Do you think that that has gotten harder in comedy, to sort of write yourself into roles where you’re not the hero or you’re not righteous in a way? Do you think people confuse the characters that you create for yourself with your actual personality?
I mean, yes and no. On the one hand, it can be frustrating, to be so associated with Ryan on The Office, who was such an obnoxious guy. On the other hand, there were a lot of my own worst traits in Ryan, and that’s why I was able to play him. But I do think that look, ideally, I’d be the best person in the world and play the best person in the world, but I think no one is really like that. Not even The Rock or whoever. So, in comedy you need to be brave enough, especially if you’re writing it yourself, to really try to mine the worst of you as well as the best.
Speaking of that, I thought this was an interesting role for Ashton Kutcher or maybe just an interesting role in general. What did you see in him that made you think that he was right for this character? I don’t know how you describe this character, sort of like a hillbilly Svengali or something.
Well, exactly. And I knew I needed someone who my character meets and thinks, “oh, this will be kind of an easy character to make fun of” and he leaves thinking “this guy is smarter than I am. He’s everything I wish I were.” And so, I knew I needed someone who could surprise people. I met Ashton a little bit years ago and I worked on Punk’d, but I had picked up over the years that he has this huge tech investment company, and whenever I’ve seen him in an interview, he’s so intelligent and charismatic and really gives these long explanations and theories. And I thought, I bet he could not only pull that off, but he’d be a shock. You never expect him to be that, which is what I needed for the character. Someone suggested him and I thought, “Well, that’s pretty brilliant.” And I met him at his office and I pointed to the whiteboard and I said, “Oh, tell me about this company.” And he did, at great length. I would’ve invested all my money in that company. And I said, “That’s the character. What you did just now, that’s who this guy is.”
Speaking of some of the other people in the movie, I was really sort of surprised and impressed at how well Boyd Holbrook took to comedy. I think I actually like him better as a comedic actor now. Again, what did you see in him?
The most important thing was not to make jokes out of the Texans. They’re funny, and the contrast between them and my characters is especially funny, but I couldn’t live with myself if I made them one-dimensional. And Boyd Holbrook has this amazing dramatic career. But by the way, he also looks the part. I knew that me in a truck with him is a funny image — this tall, handsome blonde guy, clearly, he grew up in Kentucky and always seems to have a smile on his face, but his dramatic career was what sold me. And he has a little spark of mischief and comedy in, for example, Logan.
I saw that in him, but he was terrified. He came the first day with his script just covered with notes, ideas and thoughts. And I said, “You don’t need any of that. I promise you. Play it like a drama. Just invest in this and it will come out funny.”
It’s funny because he does have that authentically rural aspect to him like you say, but then he’s also cartoon character handsome, like he almost couldn’t exist in real life.
Yeah, exactly. And that’s hard to find with American actors now, especially. I feel like maybe people like that aren’t encouraged to pursue acting, it’s not like a macho or cool enough profession, so you have to go to Australia or England to find the macho American red state type. And I did not want to do that. I wanted Americans to play the Americans. I wanted people from red states to represent that. I liked that Ashton was from Iowa for example, so yeah.
You mentioned Punk’d. I actually didn’t know that you worked on that show. What was that like? What was going on in your life at that time?
Oh man, it was and maybe still is my favorite job I ever had. I was Hillary Duff’s driving instructor. I was a clothing store person who busted Usher’s little brother for shoplifting and demanded that he film a rap commercial for me in order to let the kid go. These really outrageous situations and these were the first celebrities I’d ever met, and I was playing the worst day of their lives out for them. It was so surreal to suddenly be doing that and on MTV. Which at the time, Ash and I were just telling someone yesterday, people don’t understand how big MTV was back then. There was no TikTok. There was no Instagram. There was no YouTube. All of youth culture was centered around MTV, so it felt like it was really his stage and I just walked onto the coolest stage in the world.
And that was before The Office?
Yeah, that was before The Office.
Do you think that that sort of Borat slash whatever type comedy, where you’re using real people, do you think that that helps in scripted comedy? Are those skills complementary?
Very much. I think that, well, at least in the comedy that I’ve done, which is not very mannered comedy, it is sort of the current style of comedy. People ask all the time, how much was The Office improvised? The answer is not as much as you’d think, but the fact that it could be improvised at any moment made the actors really alive in every moment on screen and made the writers write very realistically. I do think that sort of improv blurred line has been an incredibly good influence on comedy.
Okay, I’ve been seeing a quote of yours going around, talking about going to Harvard [BJ sighs and covers his face with his hands] making it more difficult to have a career in comedy. I was wondering if you wanted to clarify or elaborate or be annoyed with that.
It’s so 100% the opposite of what I was trying to say. And I’m so sorry to anyone that thought that. I didn’t mean that. Of course, it’s the luckiest damn thing you can have to get a job in a writer’s room. What I meant was people don’t see you as being on the side of comedy. Those are the bad guys in the movies. I get it. So, I truly meant the opposite and I’m sorry it was misinterpreted.
I mean, you’re taking that on yourself, but do you feel like the internet is like a context and nuance-removing machine?
Yeah. Again, I’m not playing victim about it because I’ve been on all sides of it too, I’m sure. But yes. And I think that when you’re online, attention can be confused with connection. And the way to get attention is by having a take. I mean, it’s really one of the themes in the film and it’s even expressed outright by one character, that yeah, we’ll all be on all sides of it. But I also think that if you’re in the public eye, you can get made fun of and beaten up, you are a character out there. And I’ve been guilty of it too, so I get it. Sometimes you need people to represent things that you have an opinion about, but as someone said about reviews, it always says more about the reviewer than about what they’re reviewing. And if that’s a way for people to express how they feel, that’s okay. Because often, their points of view are good.
So this movie, it started out like it was kind of like Doc Hollywood, only with a podcaster at first. And then, it sort of evolves into almost like a thriller. Was the tone something that was always intentional or did it sort of evolve as you were writing it?
The tone was always there. The tone is really why I wanted to make it. And then I wanted to direct the movie because I thought I had to protect that tone. And I had to play the role because I had to protect that tone.
Having Jason Blum as a producer, is there a pressure to make it more like what he’s known for, like a thriller or whatever?
I completely wanted that pressure and sought it out. I didn’t want to make a sort of small acclaimed indie that no one actually laughs at or is invested in, I wanted to make something that people actually enjoyed and I knew that I would really need some help getting that made. Because those aren’t my instincts and I am more like the NPR listener that I play in the movie. So, I thought, okay, well, Jason Blum, he’s done it with Get Out. He knows how to take a brilliant idea and produce a movie that hits us in our primal storytelling bones. I said, “Help me make this more of a movie and less of an essay.”
What did that help look like?
Well, it’s really his executive, Cooper Samuelson, who was really an incredible help sort of speaking on behalf of Blumhouse, but he suggested taking out the comedy in some places, adding longer moments of actual emotion and danger that I would’ve been too shy to do.
Well, my time is about up. Anything you’d like to add before we jump off?
No, thanks. I mean, whatever this is will just be the pull quote. So, we’ll see how the world takes whatever they take out of it. But I will say I have enjoyed the full conversation with you a lot.
‘Vengeance,’ from Focus Features, opens only in theaters July 29th. Vince Mancini is onTwitter. You can access his archive of reviewshere.
Kurt Angle’s ability to persevere takes center stage when he reflects on his life story. The latest subject of A&E Network’s “Biography: WWE Legends” series, which debuts on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, follows Angle’s journey from western Pennsylvania to the bright lights of the Olympics, and through pain, devastating loss, and addiction as he navigated life as a sports entertainer.
“My documentary is about overcoming, whether it be anything that you’re going through, any heartache, any difficult situations,” Angle tells Uproxx Sports. “For me, it was addiction. It was injuries on my body, it was deaths of close family members. And it really spiraled out of control. And this documentary is about redemption, and showing that anybody can come out of the gutter if they want to and they really believe.”
Leaving everything on the mat isn’t just a phrase tossed around by wrestlers, it was a way of life for Angle. He won a gold medal — as you might have heard once or twice — with a broken freakin’ neck. While he required pain-reducing shots to get him through the grueling 1996 Summer Olympics, that didn’t stop him from considering a run with the UFC.
If not for a relatively flimsy $15,000 per fight offer from the promotion, his career may have taken a drastically different turn.
“If the money was better when I came out of the Olympics, I definitely I would have went the UFC route,” Angle says. “I believe that. I don’t know if that would have been the best route for me because I had so much success in professional wrestling. I don’t know if I would have been as good of a UFC fighter as I was WWE superstar. So, I think I picked the right trade.
“I’m not upset about it, I don’t have any regrets,” he continues. “But I do wonder every once in a while how I would have done. Sure, I saw Brock (Lesnar)’s success there. And I wouldn’t even have been a heavyweight, I would have been a light heavyweight. So, I think I would have done pretty well.”
The move to professional wrestling two years after his Olympic stardom saw his WWE offer drop from a lucrative 10-year contract in 1996 to having to try out for his spot in 1998. Angle would train with Dory Funk Jr. before getting six months of experience in a Memphis territory promotion and eventually making his main roster debut.
All of this was a bit of a culture shock for Angle, who did not spend his childhood taking in the generations of wrestling stars who came before him.
“It was a big disadvantage that I didn’t grow up watching it,” he says. “I wasn’t a fan of the WWE. I wasn’t a fan of pro wrestling. I was always told by my peers in amateur wrestling, ‘That’s crap, we’re the real deal, they’re fake. Don’t watch it. Don’t listen to them. Just ignore it.’ And I think that amateur wrestling, they gave WWE a bad rap because people thought that professional wrestling was a step above amateur wrestling. It’s just a completely different career change.
“When I came into the WWE, it opened up a whole new world of wrestlers coming in after me because I was such a popular name in amateur wrestling and crossing over,” Angle continues. “Doing what I did, a lot of other wrestlers were like, ‘You know what, I’m gonna follow Kurt Angle, I’m gonna do what he did.’ It opened up new possibilities for careers for amateur wrestlers other than coaching or teaching.”
Angle’s mentality to leave it all on the mat continued throughout his wrestling tenure. He suffered four broken necks from 2003-06. Wary of keeping his spot on the roster, Angle opted against taking a year off to fix the first broken neck he suffered in WWE in early 2003.
Instead, he underwent a minimally invasive surgery that he was told would only keep him out of action for six weeks. Angle proceeded to break his neck twice more in the span of just one year, which led to a reliance on painkillers.
“When I broke my neck, the first time in WWE, that was when I was introduced to painkillers by a doctor,” Angle says. “When I took them, the first one I took, wow, it lit me up. I was like, ‘This is crazy how good I feel.’ I didn’t feel any pain in my neck. I had a surge of adrenaline. And it made me feel euphoric. And that made me feel like I wanted to kick some ass.
“That feeling continued because I continued with the painkillers,” he continues. “And when one didn’t work anymore, because your body builds a tolerance to it, one turned into two, two went to four, four went to eight, eight went to 16. Before I knew it, within eight months, I was taking 65 extra strength Vicodin a day. I was in deep trouble. I mean, I was taking enough to kill a horse, possibly. And I couldn’t get out of it. I couldn’t get myself out of it. I didn’t know what to do. I was in a bind.”
Angle was met with an ultimatum to go to rehab or be released from WWE — he left the promotion and immediately called TNA.
“Part of me does,” Angle responds when asked if he regrets going to TNA. “I mean, when you see the celebrations, 20 years of John Cena, 20 years of Rey Mysterio, could you imagine 20 years I would have had in WWE, it would have been impeccable. I honestly believe nobody would have matched my career if I went 20 years in WWE. But I spent 11 years in TNA and I had a much better career in TNA than I did WWE because I was getting more experience, I was growing. When I left, I just started getting into my prime. So, I was having better matches, which is hard to believe, because I had some great matches in WWE. But I can’t imagine the career I would have had had I spent 20 years in WWE.”
Angle’s addiction peaked with multiple arrests during his time in TNA. But with the support of his wife, Angle got clean and made one final WWE run.
At 53 years old, Angle has still been met with opportunities to wrestle. Earlier this year, he revealed AEW’s Tony Khan offered him a 10-match deal with the promotion that he ultimately turned down.
“Of course I want to wrestle, I want to continue to wrestle, and that would be the greatest thing in the world for me,” Angle said. “But you know, my body at this point in time and 53 years of age, knee replacements, I have a really bad neck, my back’s starting to go. It’s really difficult. If anything, it’s kind of a hinderance. It’s disturbing to get an offer from these guys, when you know you can’t do it. Tony Khan was really cool with me, he gave me two different offers two different times. He wanted me to wrestle, and I just couldn’t do it. I wish I could, but I just couldn’t do it.
“And I also didn’t want to turn my back on WWE,” he continues. “I did it in 2006. I didn’t want to do it again, because those guys were pretty loyal to me. So, I do little things here and there for WWE right now where I make a couple of cameos on TV, do some interviews for them. I stay pretty active with that company. And I want to keep it that way for now. I like that because it gives me freedom. I have my podcasts, I do I have my supplement company that I run. And it gives me the freedom to do other stuff.”
While the Fox News host contends that “monkeypox is about the coolest name ever for a disease,” many people have expressed concern over the inaccuracy of the name and the stigmas it may create, particularly in communities of color, and have petitioned WHO to change the name “because of racism or something,” Carlson flippantly explained on Thursday night, according to Mediaite. He then declared that “we’re not going to allow it.”
If the name is going to be changed, Tucker insists that he and his viewers are going to be the ones to come up with the new moniker, and he ran a Twitter poll to do just that. The choices? Hunter Hives, Midterm Variant, Adam Schiffilis, or… Schlong COVID.
Unsurprisingly, Schlong COVID was declared the winner with nearly 40 percent of the vote (and more than 26,000 people actually did vote). Sure, it’s a play on “long COVID,” but it’s hard to imagine it’s not something more than that. Especially coming from a guy who was once a member of The Dan White Society (as in: the man who assassinated Harvey Milk).
Carlson then encouraged his viewers to call Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, and let her know about their chosen new name for the disease. He even provided her phone number, so it’s great to know that the organization tasked with keeping our country safe will instead be inundated with prank phone calls from people who believe the “News” in Fox News is real.
Nav returns with the first single from his upcoming album Demons Protected by Angels, tapping collaborators Lil Baby, Mike Dean, Tay Keith, and Travis Scott for “Never Sleep.” Tay Keith provides the beat, with additional production by Grayson and Mike Dean, and the three rappers let loose, calculating their income and detailing their spending through colorful metaphors hailing their wealth. The collaboration marks Nav’s second with Lil Baby after “Don’t Need Friends” from Emergency Tsunami and his fifth with Travis Scott.
Demons Protected by Angels will be the Canadian artist’s fourth studio album, following 2020’s Good Intentions. Since then, however, Nav did release Emergency Tsunami, a joint mixtape produced entirely by Atlanta producer Wheezy featuring appearances from Gunna, Lil Baby, the late Lil Keed, SahBabii, and Young Thug. The working chemistry between Nav and Wheezy started when they worked on a few tracks from Good Intentions together (three songs were placed on the final album).
In addition to featuring many of his frequent collaborators like Gunna, Future, and Travis Scott, Good Intentions also featured appearances from Don Toliver, Lil Uzi Vert, and the late Pop Smoke. It was followed by a deluxe reissue titled Brown Boy 2, adding Lil Duke and Quavo to its list of features.
Listen to Nav’s “Never Sleep” featuring Lil Baby and Travis Scott above.
Much of the buzz (fairly or not) going into Amazon Prime’s release of Paper Girls would tell you that the show’s a lot like Stranger Things. And granted, I get this. The show’s first trailer went there, and why wouldn’t the marketing team want to project that vibe, right after the Netflix juggernaut unfurled the squelch-filled Season 4? We’ve got kids riding bikes like Cadillacs in a fictional town and 1980s music and a very mysterious something going on, dark forces and whatnot. On paper, Paper Girls sounds like an amped-up version because there’s some immediate time travel as a bonus. And there’s Jason Mantzoukas as some kind of cosmic, vaguely-wizard-esque time dude, and you can see where things are going here, other than the Wizard of Oz similarities. This is akin to Stranger Things, but right off the bat, it sounds even stranger.
Here’s the thing, though. This show is actually not very nostalgic, aside from the soundtrack, and it doesn’t look back fondly upon the 1980s. Ronald Reagan references (and eerie cameos) abound, not in a good way, and when our protagonists get swept up in a war between travelers and find themselves far from home, the unappealing side of the 1980s spirit (which is at times bleak) comes with them. And the future is no less welcoming, but these literal paper-delivery girls are not alone. They have each other, and they’ve also got their future selves. It’s a trip, man, and I’m about to make a comparison that some people will actually laugh at when they see this show.
Yes, Stranger Things fans will probably like this show. Fans of Netflix’s Dark will like it even more. Fans of the celebrated Paper Girls comic (by Brian K. Vaughn) will delight in seeing the pages come to life. But what I’m also feeling — not in terms of plot but in spirit — is some Yellowjackets flavor. Granted, it’s a very, very tame aspect of the Showtime series’ that’s dancing in the corner, and Paper Girls is much different in plot than Yellowjackets. There’s no plane crash and no abundance of gross-out cult sh*t, but the four protagonists’ drive to survive in extraordinary circumstances, together and separately and both in the past and in the future, makes these two projects at least second cousins. Also, both shows tangle with a coming-of-age theme but kick through that well-treaded, makeshift wall to become greater than the sum of their parts.
However, this show takes a much more sentimental and less cynical view on female friendship than most of Yellowjackets did, but enough wiggle room exists to appreciate how, really, the conflict in this show can be witnessed in these girls’ inward and outward fights with themselves at other points in the timeline.
Image Comics
I couldn’t resist tossing a comic book image into this review because this is one project where familiarity with the subject matter will help, but it’s not necessary, to help with the shock value of certain visual spectacles as the girls fight to save the future. There are plenty of “is this really happening?” moments, like when there’s a massive f*cking robot in view. Some of those effects are wonky, as are CGI effects of gross bugs and so on. All of that is sheer spectacle, but it doesn’t distract from what’s really going on, which is the vivid rendering of each girl’s inner life. We really get to see inside of their souls and how they experience the future while reckoning with the past. And yes, the four protagonists are tweens, but that’s incidental, and this is no mere coming-of-age tale.
There are a lot of moving parts here that I would do a disservice to try and describe. Again, the paper girls (portrayed by Fina Strazza, Riley Lai Nelet, Camryn Jones, and Sofia Rosinsky) get volleyed from 1988 (within the spooky after-moments of Halloween, while they’re only trying to do their jobs) into 2019. One of the girls’ future selves is portrayed by Ali Wong, and let’s just say that this character’s future is not bright. She’s doing better than at least one of the other future versions, but oddly enough, the younger version of the character has a much better grasp on how to tackle life. And Sofia Rosinsky’s Mac (the first paper girl in town) isn’t as abrasive as expected, although there’s time for that later. I’ll just say that Mac is more likable than not, and at least she gets something out of the future (rocking out to a key Danzig tune).
In confronting the future, these girls transform into formidable women, fast. They’re well-drawn characters, and not mere archetypes, who command attention for their multi-dimensional rendering. What they experience in the future, both while attempting to save the world amid warring factions, turns deeply personal, and it is at times heartbreaking. Imagine trying to navigate adolescence while also dealing with the harsh realities of adulthood. It’s enough to make anyone collapse into a ball. You and I would likely be overcome by the stress of it all. These young ladies don’t have that luxury, and not only are they dealing with intergenerational stress within themselves, they’re breaking down the boxes that society would like to place them. And they’re wrestling with how to fix the future while jousting with what could happen if they tweak the past.
More than any of the spectacle or sci-fi themes — which do not always flow smoothly or conceivably or in a visually cohesive way in this show — the real attractions of Paper Girls are the paper girls themselves. There’s the new girl, the gamer, the somewhat misunderstood tough cookie, and so on. They arrive from vastly different cultures and backgrounds and come together with some resistance and difficulty, and a few of them are very tough nuts to crack, but they’re strong enough as entities to make the show worth enduring its weaker points — like the secondary characters who come and go and don’t always make sense, and the fact that this show’s emotionally harrowing at times. Yet I’m going to part with this: the Stranger Things comparison isn’t entirely fair, but the show will hit with a similar audience, maybe not with the same volume of viewers but with ones who are equally enthused. Time travel’s sorely overdone on TV lately, and so are kids on bikes, but this show does both equally well. You’ll probably dig it.
Amazon Prime’s ‘Paper Girls’ is currently streaming.
Shakira is in a bit of legal hot water at the moment: Prosecutors in Spain are calling for the singer to spend eight years (and two months) in prison, and pay a fine of 24 million euros (about $24.4 million), if she gets convicted for alleged tax fraud, the Associated Press reports.
Shakira is charged with failing to pay 14.5 million euros (about $14.7 million) in taxes to the Spanish government between 2012 and 2014, since she allegedly spent more than half of 2012, 2013, and 2014 in the country and therefore should have paid taxes there. Shakira recently ended an 11-year relationship with soccer player Gerard Piqué, with whom she has two children and used to live in Barcelona.
The indictment includes six charges against Shakira. Earlier this week, Shakira rejected a settlement deal offered by prosecutors, apparently finding going to trial the more appealing option. A trial date has not yet been set.
Shakira was named in last year’s Pandora Papers leak, but was not accused of wrongdoing. A representative offered a statement to Rolling Stone at the time, saying, “At the time, [Shakira’s companies addressed in the Pandora Papers] were set up for a specific operational purpose. Today they have no income or activity whatsoever and, in fact, they are in the process of being liquidated.” They also noted these companies were properly declared to Spanish tax authorities.
Smith uploaded a video to his YouTube channel titled “It’s been a minute” where he directly addresses The Slap. “I was fogged out by that point,” he said when asked why he didn’t apologize to Rock in his acceptance speech. “It’s all fuzzy. I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk and when he is, he will reach out. So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Smith said that there’s “no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment. There’s no part of me that thinks that’s the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or insults.” He also denied that Jada Pinkett Smith told him to “do something” following Rock’s G.I. Jane joke. “No,” Smith said. “I made a choice on my own from my own experiences, from my history with Chris. Jada had nothing to do with it.”
A good way to show an artist you love them is to not pose major safety hazards at their shows. Unfortunately, an attendee at Dua Lipa‘s show at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on her Future Nostalgia Tour the other night did not get this memo and set off fireworks in the crowd.
The “Levitating” singer has since acknowledged this on her Instagram story, saying that “my team and I are just as shocked and confused by the events as you all are.” Read her full statement below, which appeared on her Instagram story last night.
“Last night, unauthorized fireworks went off in the crowd during my set in Toronto. Creating a safe and inclusive space at my shows is always my first priority, and my team and I are just as shocked and confused by the events as you all are.
There is an ongoing investigation into the events being conducted, and everyone involved is working hard to find out how this incident occurred. Bringing this show to life for my fans has been such an amazing experience, and I’m so deeply sorry for anyone who was scared, felt unsafe or whose enjoyment of the show was affected in any way.”
The Inside the NBA crew will keep its most prominent member. According to an interview he gave to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Charles Barkley will remain with the show where he’s been a stalwart for decades after conversations came to an end about a role with LIV Golf, the new professional golf league financed by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.
“I want to thank Greg Norman and LIV for their interest in me,” Barkley told Marchand. “I wish those guys great success and nothing but the best. But, in my best interest, and being fair to Turner — because Turner and basketball have given me every single thing in my life — it is best for me to move on and I’m staying with Turner for the rest of my TV career.”
Marchand reported that negotiations had not gotten to a point where LIV Golf offered Barkley a contract.
The news of Barkley’s decision comes on the heels of a report from Dan Patrick, who indicated that Barkley would meet with LIV Golf decision-makers last week about joining in some capacity. Patrick further noted that Barkley, should he accept a role with the upstart golf league led by Norman, would have to leave Inside, where he has provided analysis about basketball and scores of other things since 2000.
Earlier this month, Barkley indicated he had some level of interest in joining LIV Golf in a cameo on The Next Round.
“I’m gonna meet with LIV,” Barkley said. “To be always transparent and honest, they called me and asked me if I’d meet with them. I said yes. Nothing’s imminent. I actually don’t know everything they want from me or what they technically want me to do. But you have to always look at every opportunity that’s available. So, to answer your question, yes, I’m gonna 100 percent meet with LIV.”
Barkley’s love of golf is nothing new — the NBA Hall of Fame inductee has long played the game, both for fun and in semi-competitive tournaments, while much has been made of the way his swing has been overhauled over the course of his life. There is no word on whether the door is open for something between the two sides down the line, but Barkley has said he would probably leave broadcasting when his current contract with Turner is up in two years because “I don’t want to die on TV.”
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
