Month: September 2022

The Woman King is proving to be one of the buzziest films of the year, as well as one of the most critically acclaimed. One of the film’s biggest supporters is SZA, who took to Twitter today to share that she rented out a theater in New Jersey.

“PLEASE GO SEEE ITTTT !,” she said in a tweet.

SZA herself won’t be at the theater, as she is performing at the Global Citizen Festival in Ghana. But no matter where she is, she is always looking to give back to New Jersey. Last year, she partnered with TAZO and American Forests to plant trees in neighborhoods affected by environmental racism.

“My grandma lives in Newark, N.J., and there are no trees anywhere,” SZA said in an interview with Elle last year. “Growing up around that area was definitely a downer.”

Viola Davis first discussed The Woman King earlier this year, during an interview with Oprah, which premiered on Netflix this April/

“Looking at all these young women who are a part of this story, I’m telling you, I see the future in a lot of these young girls,” she said. “The confidence they have, the work ethic they have, it made me feel so proud just looking at how they showed up every day for work, how they understood the assignment.”

It’s unclear exactly when those of us who didn’t attend the Toronto International Film Festival will be able to see get our eyes on Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. It’s due on Netflix, who forked over a fortune for it and its follow-up, right before Christmas, but the streamer is considering dropping it in theaters first, the month before. For now, here’s a (spoiler-free) clip that introduces you to the cast of maybe-murderers.

The clip, which is introduced by writer-director Rian Johnson, takes place pretty early on, with our gallery of potential rogues demonstrating their braininess by cracking a fancy puzzle box. (Not everyone is accounted for: Janelle Monáe’s Cassandra, the ex-business partner of Edward Norton’s Elon Musk-y tech billionaire, is AWOL from the clip.) They solve it together, over a group call, at which point they receive the following message:

“My dear friends, my beautiful disruptors, my closest inner circle: We could all use a moment of normalcy, and so you are cordially invited for a long weekend on my private island where we will celebrate the bonds that connect us, and I hope you puzzle solving skills are whetted.

“Because you’ll also be competing to solve the mystery of my murder,”

Included in the clip are Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn (alongside her on-screen husband Dallas Roberts), Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick, and Madelyn Cline. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc pops up at the end, purring, in his Foghorn Leghorn accent, “Ladies and gentlemen, this invitation is not to be trifled with.”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — which may be getting even better reviews than the very acclaimed Knives Out — drops on Netflix on Dec. 22 and will (hopefully) hit movie theaters in November.

(Via Deadline)

Netflix has invested heavily in sports documentaries recently, with looks at the Manti Te’o scandal and the AND-1 Mixtape Tour, but their next documentary figures to be the one that will draw the most attention, as the 2008 Redeem Team is getting documentary treatment with the majority of the major players involved in interviews.

On Saturday, a trailer for the documentary offered an example of the types of stories they’ll be telling, with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, and Pau Gasol all discussing how Kobe Bryant decided to set the tone for the U.S.’s showdown with Spain by running straight through the chest of his Lakers teammate on the first play of the game — something he told his Team USA teammates he was going to do in the huddle before tipoff.

It’s a sensational story, with LeBron noting that none of them believed Kobe would do that and how that immediately set the tone — with Melo saying it’s exactly what they needed to show what competitive level they had to be at. On Pau’s side, he said he let himself get lulled into a false sense of security by Kobe coming over to hang out with the Spanish players prior to the game, doing all that brother talk before literally running through him to start the game.

Missouri and Auburn met on Saturday in a matchup of SEC programs both headed in the wrong direction, and the result was a fittingly ugly football game that featured special teams miscues, horrific offensive performances, and arguably the dumbest ending to a game since the FSU-LSU game in Week 1.

We’ll pick things up in the fourth quarter, when Auburn got stuffed on third and short and then fourth and short in Mizzou territory with two minutes to play, giving the ball back to the other Tigers in a 14-14 game. From there, Mizzou hit an extremely rare big play with a pass over the top of the Auburn defense to the three, setting themselves up for what seemed like an assured win. However, as anyone who watches college football knows, a field goal is never guaranteed, so when they decided to play for the field goal by moving backwards instead of just trying to score a touchdown, it wasn’t hard to see what was coming.

The kicker pushed it wide right from 25 yards and the game went to overtime. In overtime, Auburn threw a near interception on third down that just bounced off the ground, and then a shanked field goal was given second life because Mizzou jumped offsides before the kick. Auburn would hit the kick on the second attempt, taking a 17-14 lead.

That meant a Mizzou touchdown would win the game, and they started to get things moving on the ground immediately. On 2nd and 5, Nathaniel Peat broke through the defense and down the sideline, seemingly for the winning score, but as he stretched the ball out to reach the goal line, he dropped it before getting there, with Auburn recovering in the end zone for the game-ending touchback instead.

It’s hard to express how dumb this game was and how absurd it is that Auburn won, but despite Bryan Harsin being on the hot seat and staring down being fired for a loss in this spot, Auburn Jesus still resides at Jordan-Hare Stadium and picked quite the time to reappear.

Donald Trump ain’t doing so hot these days. Sure, he’s out there doing rallies, teasing that third presidential campaign he may or may not be doing. But he may only be eyeing the White House to avoid all the legal and political peril he’s in. Perhaps he doesn’t even have time to notice that his rinky dink Twitter clone, which is already millions in debt, has been hit with still more bad news.

As per Reuters, some investors have pulled out of the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that would have chained Digital World Acquisition Corp’s plan to Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which owns the former president’s social media service Truth Social. It’s not been made public which investors have jumped ship, but their would-be contributions totaled $139 million out of the $1 billion that had been planned.

Investors had been allowed to remove their money from the deal after September 20 if the deal between Digital World and Truth Social had not been finalized. It hasn’t, and thus investors can do what they like. More may follow in the next few weeks.

The deal between SPAC and TMTG had been rocky, thanks in part to civil and criminal probes into the deal, to say nothing of Trump’s own legal and economic woes. Speaking of which, Trump recently claimed that not only was he able to declassify any government documented he wanted without going through a process (he can’t), but he could even do so with his mind (ditto).

(Via Reuters)

Aaron Judge has 60 home runs this season, needing one more to tie Roger Maris for the American League home run record. It’s a big deal and the most exciting thing Major League Baseball has had in terms of a record chase in years.

However, if there is a group of fans that will not care all that much about a member of the New York Yankees trying to tie an American League record (and reach a tie for 7th on the all-time list), it’s college football fans in the South. So, as Auburn and Missouri played a tight (and ugly) game, and Clemson and Wake Forest played a tight (and much more entertaining) game on Saturday afternoon, those fans were not exactly clamoring for Judge updates as the Yankees played a matinee game against the Red Sox.

ESPN thought differently, and cut in to Judge at-bats, putting up a split screen during its ABC and ESPN games and shifting sound to YES Network every time Judge stepped to the plate.

Unsurprisingly, neither at-bat yielded a Judge home run, which only further infuriated fans (and college football media), who made their displeasure known to ESPN — particularly those watching Wake-Clemson where both cutaways happened in the middle of big plays.

Those who are mad about this are, of course, going to be more vocal about it, but it does feel like a bit of a misjudgment (no pun intended) from ESPN in assuming there’s a great deal of crossover from college football fans wanting to see this live. Some pointed out that they did this during McGwire and Sosa’s record chases, but that was also a very different time where you didn’t have MLB.TV and various streaming services that allowed you to watch games from out of market if you wanted. The split screen probably would’ve gotten some folks upset, but the real mistake was switching to sound for the entire at-bat rather than the football game people were trying to watch.

John Cena has more this fair share of championship belts. Now he has another title to add to his collection. As per The Hollywood Reporter, the wrestler, actor, and pretty good dancer has broken the Guinness World record for something very specific (and very, very kind): He’s now granted the most wishes for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, wish seeks to help children with critical illnesses.

Cena has a long history of granting Make-a-Wish wishes. He started in 2002, shortly after he began his professional wrestling career. Over time, more children requested his presence, and he’s been more than happy to oblige. Indeed, over those 20 years, he has amassed a whopping 650 wishes granted, which is now the record.

At the time he’d crossed the 500 wishes line, Cena reflected on why he does what he does. “I just drop everything,” he said. “If I can offer a fantastic experience, I’ll be first in line to do my part.” He’s also said, “I want them to have an experience that will stay with them to forever. I don’t ever want the children or their families to be treated in a way where they feel as if they’re up against anything at all.”

Back in June, Cena earned a lot of love for flew from London to the Netherlands to meet a 19-year-old boy with Down Syndrome who had fled Ukraine amidst the Russian invasion. Anyway, good guy, that John Cena!

(Via THR)

The New Orleans Pelicans made one of the biggest trades of last season when they went out and got CJ McCollum from Portland during the Blazers fire sale, a move that helped propel New Orleans into the play-in and, eventually, to the 8-seed where they went to six games with the Suns before being eliminated from the first round.

McCollum’s presence provided the Pelicans with another high-level scorer and creator, something they were lacking with Zion Williamson out and Brandon Ingram being asked to carry a considerable load. Now, coming into the 2022-23 season, there’s optimism abound for what this offense can look like with all three of those players on the court, as well as intrigue as to how they’ll structure the offense to take advantage of their varied skillsets.

The Pelicans will not be looking at this season as a testing ground for their new star trio, though, as they are confident this is the core they want to build around. After inking Williamson to a max extension when the league year opened, David Griffin and the Pelicans brass have been working on locking McCollum in for the long-term as well, getting a deal done on Saturday that will pay him $64 million over two new years tacked onto his contract, keeping him in New Orleans for four more seasons total.

It’s a big contract for McCollum, who ensures he gets paid handsomely into his mid-30s (he’ll be 35 when this contract ends), while the Pelicans now ensure they have McCollum, Ingram, and Williamson under contract for the next three years together, giving them a clear window to try and compete and grow with this core group.

It’s been 11 long years since the last Final Destination film, which is way too long for one of the most creative and bloodiest series out there. But like many dormant franchises, it’s coming back. New Line has even found their directors, and to show that they’re the right people for the job, their pitch ended with them faking a decapitation.

Those directors are Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, who directed the 2019 sci-fi film Freaks. (Solo, Lipovsky handled the 2014 film Leprechaun: Origins.) In a new piece about how they landed the gig directing a movie centered around Rube Goldbergian deaths, The Hollywood Reporter reports (in a bit teased out by The AV Club) that the two got creative:

The duo made their pitch to New Line execs and producers together, with a burning fireplace behind them. As they wrapped up the meeting, the fire came alive and the mantel began burning. The filmmakers stopped and, after a tense moment, quickly extinguished the flames. As they sat down, everyone relieved the accident had passed, a wrenching creak was heard and suddenly, the whizzing ceiling fan broke off and flew down, decapitating one of the filmmakers.

As one might imagine, the execs were at first worried then delighted when they realized their Final Destination 6 helmsmen had pulled off a neat trompe l’oeil using a “combination of prerecorded footage and visual effects.” It was, as THR put it, the “cherry on top.”

So next time you’re up for a job, make sure you stand out from the pack by pretending that you’ve had your head sliced off by an out-of-control fan, much like SNL’s instant classic Dead Poets Society parody.

(Via THR and The AV Club)

Rudy Giuliani could have had a cushy retirement. Instead he teamed up with Donald Trump. The one-time “America’s Mayor” has been through a lot in the last two years, from creative public embarrassments to jaw-droppingly large lawsuits. On top of everything else, he’s apparently fallen behind on payments to his most recent ex-wife, and that may land him in the slammer.

As per The New York Post, a Manhattan judge on Friday gave Giuliani an ultimatum: Pay his former wife Judith Giuliani, whom he divorced in 2019, $225,000 plus lawyers’ fees by the end of next month. If he doesn’t, Justice Michael Katz said, he will be “forced to remand the defendant into custody.”

Mind you, that’s not even the full amount he allegedly owes. In her lawsuit against him, Judith claimed her ex-husband owed her payments totaling $262,000. At a previous hearing last month, though, Giuliani claimed that the amount he owed her is a “gross exaggeration.” He claimed he would provide proof of his claim. He never did.

On top of everything else, Giuliani didn’t even show up to the hearing on Friday. “For him to snub his nose at the court and not bother showing up and appearing in court — God forbid somebody would do that to him when he was US attorney,” said Dror Bikel, Judith’s lawyer. Then again, given that his law license has been suspended in New York and Washington D.C., perhaps he forgot what it’s like to deal with the courts.

(Via The New York Post)