Month: September 2022

Hugh Jackman became a megastar thanks to Logan, aka Wolverine, the character he first played in the year 2000’s X-Men. But all good things must come to an end. And so they did with 2017’s Logan, the gritty, very R-rated renegade comic book movie, which [spoiler, sort of] ended with the hard-drinking mutant eating it. But sometimes, especially now, endings are sometimes undone later, which is a long way of saying that apparently Jackman is resurrecting Wolverine for the third Deadpool.

On Tuesday, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds dropped a jokey video about his troubles coming up with a good debut for his character’s entrée into the MCU, now that Twentieth Century Fox has been absorbed by Marvel’s owners, Disney.

“I’ve had to really search my soul on this one,” he says over faux-earnest shots of him walking through the woods, typing away on a typewriter while clad in a faded Deadpool costume, and methodically pouring gin into a coffee mug. “[Deadpool’s] first appearance in the MCU obviously needs to feel special. We need to stay true to the character, find new depth, motivation, meaning. Every Deadpool needs to stand out and stand apart. It’s been an incredible challenge that has forced me to reach down deep inside.”

He then came to a profound realization: “And I…I have nothing. Yeah, just completely empty up here. And terrifying.”

Reynolds then admits “we did have one idea.” At this point Hugh Jackman can be seen idly walking behind him, heading for the stairs. “Hey, Hugh,” he calls out, “you want to play Wolverine one more time?”

“Yeah, sure, Ryan,” Jackman casually replies. It then cuts to the Deadpool logo being slashed with Wolverine’s blades.

For now, that’s all the information we have to go off of. Will they be teaming up? Fighting each other? How will Wolverine — who, like Deadpool, was a character previously owned by the Fox wing of Marvel — be integrated with the Avengers and gang? Who knows! All we do know is Deadpool 3, as it’s currently called, is due on September 6, 2024. It also means the faux-feud between the two actors is going next-level.

(Via Variety)

The above features a far-right quartet, including Rep. Louis Gohmert, speaking out against the alleged mistreatment suffered by January 6 rioters. He, along with Rep. Paul Gosar, are accompanied by MAGA cheerleaders Marjorie Taylor Greene (who has been very vocal on the issue) and Matt Gaetz, so even if you’re not familiar with the two less-familiar names, you realize what aura took over the press conference. As well, a former GOP congressman isn’t having it and is now speaking out about his ex-colleagues.

Let’s just say that Dennis Riggleman didn’t hold back while telling everyone what he really thought of Gohmert and Gosar. Riggleman did so (via The Guardian) in a book, Breach, in which he came down on the pair, who “seemed to be joined at the brain stem when it came to their eagerness to believe wild, dramatic fantasies about Democrats, the media and big tech.” He blasted their love of “unhinged conspiracy theories,” and here’s even more:

[During] meetings, Riggleman “would come to see that Gohmert was one of a few colleagues who had gone deep down the rabbit hole… I came to believe Gosar and Gohmert may have had serious cognitive issues.”

Riggleman also calls Gosar “a blatant white supremacist,” describing him and the Iowa Republican Steve King “making a case for white supremacy over pulled pork and ribs.”

The former lawmaker from Virginia has certainly tangled with MAGA fanaticism both at work and at home. Riggleman also recently detailed how his own mother grew to be a MAGA enthusiast and practically disowned him after he refused go to the same far-right extremes and, horror upon horrors, received praise from Democratic colleagues. As for Gohmert, there’s no telling how he’s still hanging onto his teeth after apparently losing one during a 2020 press conference.

(Via The Guardian)

Training camps opened around the NBA this week and for most teams, this is the time to get on the same page with any new plays or looks and start nailing down rotations.

There are also roster decisions to be made as teams pare down their roster to 15 (plus two two-way players), but for the most part there won’t be a lot of late additions at this point. That’s why it came as a bit of a surprise when news broke of a trade on Tuesday night, as the Thunder and Hawks agreed to a swap that will send Vit Krejci to Atlanta for Moe Harkless and a second round pick, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

It’s the second time Harkless has been dealt this offseason, as he was traded to Atlanta as part of the Kevin Huerter deal in July, and now heads to Oklahoma City for his seventh NBA team (eighth if you include the Hawks tenure where he never saw the floor) after averaging 4.6 points per game in Sacramento a season ago. Krejci comes to Atlanta to provide some size in the backcourt as the 6’8 guard averaged 6.2 points per game in 30 appearances for the Thunder last year. The Hawks still have 13 players under contract with a number of camp guys vying for spots, but Krejci’s addition means one more backcourt spot is filled in Atlanta, while the Thunder continue to acquire ever draft pick humanly possible.

For weeks, Don’t Worry Darling improbably held the trophy for most controversial movie of early awards season. But now that it’s out, it’s Blonde’s turn to shine. Ana de Armas is getting rave reviews for playing the lead in a heavily fictionalized take on screen icon Marilyn Monroe. (It’s based on a novel, by Joyce Carol Oates, not a biography.) The film itself, though, has proven extremely divisive, and not just because of its NC-17-rated button-pushing. And now its director has poured a tub of gasoline on what was a relatively tiny fire.

Film critic Christina Newland, who admitted she “detested” the film, did an interview for BFI with filmmaker Andrew Dominik, of the acclaimed The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, as well as the very good Chopper (which introduced America to Eric Bana) and the very tough neo-noir Killing Them Softly. Throughout their chat, Newland is diplomatic but at times forceful, even occasionally handing Dominik rope with which to hang himself — which he repeatedly does.

On one hand, Dominik explains that he saw the novel — if not Monroe’s actual life — as being “about how childhood drama shapes an adult’s perception of the world.” He also says he did an “enormous amount of research” on her, and that he “read everything there is to read about Marilyn Monroe.”

At the same time, people felt Dominik seemed weirdly uninterested in Monroe, as either an actress or a person, beyond someone who could have been “saved” from her demons and from the abuse she’s shown facing. Many felt that ultimately resulted in a lack of empathy on his part.

At one point, Newland brings up how the movie ignores many of her accomplishments: starting her own production company, challenging HUAC, fighting for civil rights. But Dominik brushes that off, saying that’s “not really what the film is about” and that making a film about a powerful woman was “not so interesting to me.”

Some bristled at the idea that the film, taking from Oates’ novel, just makes some stuff up that some viewers not so familiar with Monroe’s life might take as real.

Others thought Dominik was only interested in her as someone who took her own life.

Newland also published an outtake, which was arguably the worst part. In it, he wonders if anyone still watches Monroe’s movie, and seems dismissive of one of her best films, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

To which some people said, yes, people still watch Marilyn Monroe movies — one reason the film got greenlit.

The exchange strongly signaled to some that Dominik does not like or even respect Monroe.

To some, it was reminiscent of when Aaron Sorkin, writer-director of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz biopic Being the Ricardos, was dismissive of the pioneering sitcom I Love Lucy.

And then there’s the “well-dressed whores” line.

Others couldn’t believe anyone would diss Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a very fine movie you can rent on places like Vudu and Amazon. (The image at the top, incidentally, is a recreation of the 1953 Technicolor noir Niagara, which currently streams on the Criterion Channel.)

To some, Dominik only succeeded in dissuading people from watching his movie, even for free with a Netflix subscription.

And others thought Blonde was giving Don’t Worry Darling a run for its scandal money.

Blonde hits Netflix on Wednesday, September 28. You can read the full interview with Dominik at BFI.

Imagine Spain without the potato. Imagine India without the chili pepper. Imagine Italy without the tomato. Imagine Hawai’i without the pineapple. Imagine Switzerland without the cacao bean. Imagine Nigeria without the cassava. Imagine a world without corn! Movie theaters would smell so different. The impact of North and South American Indigenous foodstuffs on the entire world’s cuisine is so profoundly deep that it’s history-altering.

The “Columbian Exchange” saw Portuguese, Dutch, British, French, and most notably Spanish colonizers spread the wealth and abundance of North and South American foods to the world between 1500 and the present day to the point that everywhere food from the Americas landed, it changed the way local people ate forever. That collision of colonization and Indigenous foodways is still present in our everyday lives to this day, especially in products and dishes from what are now often called “Hispanic” cultures from both North and South American countries.

Let’s dig in and see how and why Indigenous food collided with Spanish colonialism to help create so many Hispanic foods we love today.

Part I — A Little Background

Before we get into the ways Indigenous food is still alive via modern Hispanic culture in the U.S., let’s try and get a handle on the word “Hispanic” for this article, National Hispanic Heritage Month, and our own modern understanding. Initially, “Hispanic” referred to anyone descended from a Spanish-speaking culture no matter where they were in the world (the Caribbean, North, South, and Central America, Philippines, West Sahara, Iberian Peninsula, etc.). As nations broke away from the Spanish Empire, “Hispanic” still referred to white European Spanish colonists and their descendants in the Americas, Asia, and Africa and their adherence to Spanish cultural ways. This is still the prominent definition in places like Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, and so on which had/have majority white populations alongside minority contingents of Mestizo (mixed European, Arab, and Indigenous folks), Asian, Black, and Indigenous populations who were/are not part of the “Hispanic” scene per se but still engage with Spanish culture as the dominant culture around them.

If you asked a Quechua cook in Lima if they’re “Hispanic,” they’d say no. But if you asked an American food writer about the Quechua cook, they might get it wrong.

In the United States, the federal government has slowly changed the definition of “Hispanic” to mean any person of any race from a Spanish-speaking culture in the Americas, which is a form of bureaucratic erasure. In the eyes of the U.S. federal government, any person from Spanish-speaking countries or a Spanish-speaking diaspora in the Americas is “Hispanic” regardless of whether they’re actually Spanish/descended from Spanish colonizers or Black or Indigenous or Mestizo, and so on. Which muddles what we’re talking about from the jump as the average person living in the U.S. without a background in any of this probably uses the same blanket definition for Hispanic folks regardless of the actual cultural background of the person they’re referring to.

So, for our purposes, we’re looking at pan-Hispanic cultures and their foods because the impact of Indigenous foodways from the Three Sisters agriculture of the North American nations to the cultivation of the avocado in central Mexico to potatoes in the Andes is all important and spans far beyond the descendants of just Spanish colonizers.

Part II — Digging In

When looking at food in the Americas via a Hispanic lens, it’s important to remember that Spanish and Indigenous peoples were cooking together long before the United States existed and even before Africans were sent to these shores as slaves (by a whole century). We’re talking about foodways that collided in the 1490s and over the course of the last 500+ years have become so intertwined that most Hispanic foods that we eat today are a complete mix of both European and Indigenous ingredients and foodways.

Consider the taco. Indigenous people across what is now Mexico, the United States, and deep into Central America have been eating a version of the taco for millennia. Indigenous versions of tacos were tlaxcalli made of corn “tortillas” (“tortilla” is a Spanish word) often served with fish, venison, turkey, avocado, cactus, or just beans (amongst other things). After the Spanish showed up, tacos started getting filled with beef or pork cooked using Indigenous spices and methods. For instance, “barbecue” comes from the Spanish “barbacoa” which comes from the Arawak “barabicu,” which was a common Indigenous cooking method everywhere throughout both North and South America as well as the Caribbean.

Sticking with pan-Mexican Indigenous foodstuffs, those peoples are also responsible for giving the world corn, beans, squash, amaranth, avocados, tomatoes, cacao, vanilla, turkey, spirulina, cactus, and chili peppers. Take one moment and consider a world without any one of those ingredients, much less all of them. And that’s just Indigenous pan-Mexican agriculture. Head to Andean cultures and you get the cassava, sweet potato, all potatoes, peanuts, pineapple, plus more versions of corn, tomatoes, chilies, and squash/cucumbers. This takes us back to the opening sentences of this article — just try to imagine your favorite global cuisines without those foods.

Still, our modern idea of Hispanic foods goes beyond those base Indigenous ingredients. The Spanish (and French, Portuguese, Germans, British, and Dutch) also brought food to the table. White rice, wheat, dairy, beef, pork, chicken, and citrus from all over the world changed the way people ate the Indigenous foods of the Americas forever. Guacamole was a spiced avocado mash before colonization. These days, it’s hard to get without lime and cilantro (both ingredients brought to the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese).

Then, there are heavy grey areas in what might actually qualify as “Hispanic” or stemming from Spanish culture. Germans brought Vienna Lager to the Americas, does that mean Modelo is not a “Hispanic product” but German-Mexican? What about most of the baked goods throughout Mexico and Central America? Churros are Spanish but pan dulce is very French (i.e. not Spanish).

Looking beyond all of that, you also have the “Hispanic” foods made in the U.S. (remember Spanish and Indigenous people were living in places like Texas, Florida, and California for a longer stretch of time than the United States has existed as a nation). Modern versions of the burrito rely on wheat tortillas and white rice and are very much Californian and deeply Hispanic in origin.

Hell, the quesadilla is now mostly made with a wheat tortilla with cheese, both of which are 100 percent Hispanic/European ingredients. Nachos are about as Texas-Mexican as you can get. Tex-Mex is very traditional in a modern sense and the perfect example of a mish-mash of European and Indigenous ingredients through a 19th and 20th-century lens.

What can we make of all this? Well, perhaps nothing more than — food globally is a tapestry, are you sure you want to try to unfurl it all just to be able to say which pieces belong to which cultures? Doesn’t seem like a wise use of time.

Part 3 — The Rub (And Not A Spicy One)

It’d be nice to say that all of these Hispanic/Indigenous traditions formed organically through a shared space and heritage over the last 500 years. But that’s just not the case when it comes to Spanish colonization (or American, French, British, Portuguese, or Dutch, colonization of the Americas for that matter).

Spanish colonizers brutalized Indigenous populations across the Caribbean, North, South, and Central America to the point of full-on genocide, and part of that was making their food illegal. Amaranth consumption was banned in what’s now Mexico. Land was seized so Indigenous populations could no longer grow their own corn, avocadoes, tomatoes, cacao, or potatoes (depending on where they were) — instead, they were forced to grow white rice, wheat, and sugar cane for export. Hunting and fishing rights were rescinded, forcing European cattle/dairy on local populations.

So while it’d be nice to look back on the collision of Spanish/European/Hispanic foodways with Indigenous foodways as a Norman Rockwell version of Thanksgiving with Indigenous and European folks gathered around a table and sharing their customs and foods, it was far more about extracting (stealing) wealth through local resources, Indigenous slavery (who do you think were cooking in the kitchens of those colonizers, mining all that gold, and sowing those fields back in the 1500s?), and straight up genocide from day one back in 1492. And just to be clear, this is ongoing. Indigenous land activists are still being murdered from Mexico to Chile to the Caribbean to all over the Hispanic-American world really.

Do you need to think about all of that the next time you’re eating an al pastor taco (pork from Spain) or chicken quesadilla (wheat, chicken, and cheese from Spain) or drinking some horchata (also from Spain)? No, not necessarily. Though… maybe the world would be a tiny bit better place for Indigenous folks if you did.

The point is, we live in a world where Indigenous and Hispanic food have been forever tied together. No one is telling you not to eat a torta sandwich with fried pork on it and all the mayonnaise because Spanish colonization was a nightmare. That ship has sailed. Enjoy it for what it is. All we’re saying is know that many of the Hispanic foods you love were born out of centuries of turmoil, colonization, and cross-cultural mixing (often forced at the end of a sword or gun). And that long and dark history gives us foods today that we truly adore from the taco trucks in every major city from Barcelona to Oaxaca to yerba mate tea at Starbucks to that burrito bowl you order at Chipotle to the cheese-filled arepas at your favorite corner pop up.

Yes, even the orange queso all over a plate of nachos at your favorite Tex-Mex place has a history and influences and fits into broader foodways (cheese from Europe, chilis from the Americas, etc.). That’s the way it is and while being cognizant of where your food comes from is worthwhile, it shouldn’t stop you from enjoying dishes for what they are — as traditional and authentic as anything else in our crazy old world.

Netflix has created some scary villains over the years, but nobody is quite as heinous as real-life murderer/cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer murdered seventeen men and children in the 80s and 90s, and was eventually convicted and sent to prison, where he died after being beaten to death by an inmate.

The gruesome story is the backdrop to Ryan Murphy’s series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story which premiered on Netflix last week. A whopping 196.2 million people tuned into the series, which consists of 10 episodes chronicling his murder spree told from his victim’s point of view. Evan Peters stars as the titular killer alongside Richard Jenkins, Molly Ringwald, Michael Learned, and Niecy Nash.

This puts Monster on the list of most-watched debuts on Netflix, sitting right behind season two of Bridgerton, season four of Stranger Things, the popular Korean drama All Of Us Are Dead and, of course, Netflix’s new favorite child, Squid Game. Monster narrowly beat out this year’s Inventing Anna, which scored 195.97 viewers in the first few days (it should be noted that Netflix restructured its rating report last year, so anything before then is hard to track down).

The series was initially supposed to highlight the systematic failures that enabled Dahmer to keep killing for over a decade. Though critics have praised the acting, the series has attracted a fair share of criticism for its portrayal of the victims and their families, who were allegedly not informed about the show before it aired. That combined with viral TikToks painting Dahmer as a “victim“…it’s a scary time to be on the internet. Maybe everyone should take a little time outside today.

On the bright side: Joe Pera has never murdered anybody.

(Via Deadline)

The Phoenix Suns’ shocking Game 7 defeat against the Dallas Mavericks continues to ripple through the organization. In that game, Deandre Ayton played just 17 minutes and got into a verbal altercation with head coach Monty Williams. Ayton entered the offseason as a restricted free-agent expecting a max offer, but to receive that offer, he had to wait several days for the Pacers to come knocking on his door. Phoenix, surprisingly, matched that offer right away after declining to offer Ayton a max extension before the season.

At media day, Ayton appeared quite listless while fielding question, which doesn’t track with his usual jovial demeanor. He was asked about his reaction to Phoenix matching his offer sheet and responded with, “I am happy. It’s all done with, I guess.” It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of his current relationship with the organization. In fairness, everyone in the Suns organization is still processing the fallout of the Robert Sarver report and that could have contributed to the somber vibe of their media day.

However, after their first practice, Ayton was asked how he and Monty were able to move past their dispute in Game 7 and it did not go well.

Deandre Ayton, former No. 1 overall pick who made integral contributions to the Suns’ finals run and is currently on a max contract, has not spoken to his coach in over four months. It’s pretty difficult to go through an entire NBA practice without speaking to your head coach. Even more concerning was Ayton’s demeanor while answering questions about his relationship with Monty. The dynamic between Ayton and Williams has the potential to derail the Suns season, and at the very least it will be the defining storyline of the Suns preseason.

In Hulu’s meta-comedy Reboot, Bree Marie Jensen, a former sitcom star played by Judy Greer, is hiding something. After Step Right Up, the show within the show that’s being rebooted, ended in the early 2000s, Bree retired from acting and married a duke of a small European country, making her a duchess. At first, Bree pretends she’s okay to her co-stars, hiding her pain, but at the end of the pilot she reveals that she went through a divorce and got nothing from it. A flashback shows a royal Bree, dressed in a crisp white pantsuit with a fur shawl, confronting her husband about fitting in with the country’s people (she was just called a clown whore). During the confrontation, Bree discovers that another woman is under her husband’s desk. “I never liked you,” Bree shouts at Ingrid, the mistress, as she storms out of the room, but then she turns around and says, “Well, I did, but I don’t anymore.” The scene requires a sort of sweet, generous anger and meticulous timing that few people besides Greer can pull off.

Bree is trying to figure out who she is after her marriage ends while in the midst of returning to the entertainment industry. Now that she’s back to acting, she’s learning what it’s like to be an actress over 40 (she receives Spanx from the costume department). And she’s on set with another ex, her co-star. Only a few episodes in, the role has given Greer more to do than she has in years, perhaps ever.

Greer has been a consistent presence in films and television shows alike for over two decades. In the early 2000s, fresh off the success of the 1999 cult comedy Jawbreaker, Greer was the go-to best friend of very famous romantic leads in romantic comedies. In 2001’s The Wedding Planner, Greer played Penny, the frantic best friend and co-worker of Jennifer Lopez’s Mary. In 2003’s 13 Going on 30, Greer played a similar character opposite another Jennifer (this time Garner), but the film gave Greer more meat by giving her a villainous role. Greer also appeared on FOX’s Arrested Development as Kitty, the unpredictable secretary who predictably took her top off every time she was on screen. More recently, she was fantastic as overzealous prosecutor Leah Askey in NBC’s The Thing About Pam.

Over the years, (please note that when I first wrote this I intuitively typed “over the Greers”) Greer has appeared in smaller roles in films of a wide variety including The Descendants, Jurassic World, Ant-Man, and Halloween, to name a few. While Greer’s all-consuming warmth and vitality give even the dullest dinosaur movie a lifeline, Greer is consistently underused, with roles that barely scratch the surface of what she’s capable of or roles that almost do but not quite. This is not Greer’s fault, mind you — it’s on the entertainment industry as a whole for underestimating her and always giving her smaller roles than she deserves.

Hulu’s Reboot, however, recognizes Greer’s star power by casting her as the former star of a beloved, but kind of dumb 2000s sitcom that’s getting a reboot (obligatory hey, the name of the show!) on Hulu. As Bree Marie Jensen, Greer is doing what she does best: being both confident and anxious, fast-talking in her signature high, comforting voice, and bouncing off her co-stars (and in doing so, making them look as good as possible). The character feels written specifically for Greer’s idiosyncratic gift for capturing bottled-up paranoia and excitement — she’s the anchor of Reboot’s sprawling ensemble cast. Her romantic and comedic chemistry with co-stars Keegan Michael Key and Alyah Chanelle Scott pops off the screen, and her mannerisms are in perfect, stark contrast to Johnny Knoxville’s raunchy stand-up comedian character.

After decades of being the chronic co-star, Reboot finally gives Judy Greer a more-than-deserving star moment.

‘Reboot’ is currently streaming on Hulu.

After waiting for over four years for ASAP Rocky’s new album, the Harlem rapper’s fans may soon be satisfied. Over the weekend, Rocky pledged that his Rolling Loud headlining set on Saturday would be his last live performance until the album was released, suggesting that it might be sooner rather than later (after all, artists can only go so long without performing and touring). Rocky also recently shared a new single with Playboi Carti on Instagram, lending some heft to speculation that the album will be arriving soon.

However, it might do so under a different title than previously expected. In a May interview with Dazed digital magazine, Rocky told Suzy Exposito that the album would not be called All Smiles as had been previously rumored. “You know, I never publicly said that my album was called All Smiles!” he said. “That one is more of a concept project, it’s music and more. I’m wrapping up the new album now.”

From Rocky’s comments, it sounds like there are actually two projects on the way: “All Smiles,” whatever that will be, and a proper album. Of course, with Rocky being so cagey with details about the album, fans are naturally going to speculate; now, they seem to have decided that the album will be called Grim, sharing memes and tweets with that album, seemingly based on a custom belt buckle he had made with the ominous-sounding word studded in diamonds.

Whatever the album will be called, Rocky’s most hardcore fans will almost certainly continue to agitate for it as Rocky himself adjusts to being a dad and prepares for an assault case in the alleged shooting of ASAP Relli.

While Jadakiss has long been considered one of hip-hop’s most underrated figures, he’s also got one of the genre’s most recognizable voices. His gravely tone has graced some of rap’s most beloved hits for nearly three decades, as demonstrated by his standout performance in The Lox’s Verzuz battle with The Diplomats, and he’s still a favorite go-to for a feature verse for contemporary artists who need his signature sound to bring some New York grit to their own work.

In the upcoming debut episode of Uproxx’s newest show, Fresh Pair, Jadakiss breaks down his own top five voices in hip-hop with hosts Just Blaze and Katty Customs. It’s a fascinating look into one of the most underrated facets of rap success from one of the most successful but underrated artists in the business.

“Nobody never asked me who I think got the top five or top three or any kind of voices,” he exclaims before settling into deep thought. “It took me a while… [to learn] how somebody’s voice can add on to what they bring to the table.”

He cites a few classic MCs as influences to his own unmistakable tone, but we won’t spoil it here. You can check out his answers in the video above and catch the full episode of Fresh Pair on Wednesday 9/28 at 3 pm ET / 12 pm PT.