Month: October 2022

The Saints and Vikings met in one of this year’s NFL London games on Sunday morning, kicking off at 9:30 a.m. on the East Coast stateside from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

It was a slow start, with Minnesota taking a 13-7 lead into halftime, but the two teams picked up the pace in the second half and the fans in England were treated to a furious finish. The Vikings and Saints traded late leads, with Minnesota going up late in the fourth quarter on a Justin Jefferson reverse for a touchdown, but they only led by three after Greg Joseph pushed the extra point wide right. The Saints took advantage of that break by moving it across midfield and having Wil Lutz bang home a 60-yard game tying field goal with 1:51 to play.

Minnesota quickly moved into field goal territory themselves with a big play to Jefferson again, setting up Joseph for some redemption on his fifth field goal attempt of the day, knocking through a 47-yarder with 24 seconds to play.

That, seemingly, was going to be enough, but Andy Dalton found Chris Olave for a big gain across midfield with 12 seconds left, and Minnesota had to call timeout due to an injury allowing the Saints to avoid a hurry-up situation for a spike.

After missing a pair of throws to the sideline to pick up a few more yards, they trotted Lutz out for a 61-yarder to force overtime, who had enough leg but clipped the left upright, then bounced off the crossbar and just landed on the wrong side to give Minnesota the win.

The reverse angle shows how close the field goal was to going through on both bounces, as it barely clipped the upright and then landed almost flat on the middle of the crossbar, but just had enough to bounce towards the end zone instead of through.

It’s the latest example of Double Doink misery, as Bears fans are all too familiar with, and while a Week 4 loss in London isn’t as painful as a playoff loss on such a play, it’s a tough way to drop a game.

Last week, a strange story was reported: Bruce Willis had allegedly sold his likeness to Deepcake, a company that creates those meddlesome things called deepfakes. As such, it was reported, the beloved actor — or a “digital twin” of him, at least — could live on in perpetuity, used for movies and TV shows and commercials and whatnot into the deepest future. If that sounded disturbing to you, then here’s some good news: It’s not true.

As per BBC, both Willis and Deepcake have both denied that this ever happened. A spokesperson for Willis said there was “no partnership or agreement” to sell his likeness to a company to create fake videos of him. Deepcake, meanwhile, said only Willis has the right to his face.

Over the summer, it was revealed that Willis had been diagnosed with aphasia, a rare disorder that affects speech and comprehension. He announced his retirement after decades of acting, prompting an avalanche of tributes to a long and storied career.

If a deepfake version of Willis had gone through, it wouldn’t have been the first time technology recreated an actor’s likeness. A version of the late Peter Cushing, who passed in 1994, appeared in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which also featured a young incarnation of Carrie Fisher. Recently, AI technology allowed the makers of Top Gun: Maverick to recreate the voice of Val Kilmer, who lost his to throat cancer. Incidentally, soundalikes and deepfakes are very dangerous, as this Radiolab episode lays out, and should be brought to an end before they’re exploited by dangerous people, such as authoritarian world leaders.

(Via BBC)

JJ Watt’s commitment to the game of football has never been in question, as the former Texans and now Cardinals star defensive lineman has battled through a number of injuries in his career to get back onto the field. Watt has dealt with a dislocated elbow, herniated disc, abdominal tear, broken leg, torn pec, torn labrum, torn bicep, and various strains throughout his career.

However, this week Watt will be playing after something a bit scarier than a muscle or ligament injury, as he explained in a very matter of fact tweet on Sunday. According to Watt, he went into atrial fibrillation on Thursday and had to get his heart shocked back into rhythm after dealing with an irregular heartbeat, but the star still intends to play on Sunday afternoon in Carolina as the Cardinals take on the Panthers.

Issues with the heart are not something to be trifled with, but Watt has apparently been cleared by the team doctors and his own after this week’s scare, but one would think he’ll be monitored closely on Sunday and in the coming weeks. He seems adamant about his ability to play and wanted to get out in front of the situation before it got reported, but there’s still plenty of concern from fans about his health status entering Sunday and beyond.

This past weekend, Solange debuted her original score for the New York City Ballet. She composed the score for a performance called Play Time, which was choreographed by Gianna Reisen.

Yesterday (October 1), Solange’s sister, Beyoncé, took to Instagram to congratulate her on her remarkable feat.

“My beloved sister, there are no words to express the pride and admiration I have for you,” said Beyoncé in the post’s caption. “You are a visionary and one of one. Congratulations on being the first African American woman to compose for the New York City Ballet. The piece you composed is phenomenal. I love you deep.”

She continued in the post, saying, “Might I suggest you don’t f*** with my sis,” referring to her Renaissance cut, “Cozy.”

Solange has since responded to Bey’s post, saying “I love you sooo muchhhh! you inspire me sooo much! so grateful to have a sister like youuu.”

On the night of the score’s debut, Bey was present to watch her sister celebrate her huge milestone, along with their mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson. The score was performed by the City Baller Orchestra featuring a soloist from Solange’s ensemble.

Play Time will continue to run on October 8, 11, and 16, and May 2, 11, 13, 17, and 18 at Lincoln Center.

SNL returned for its 48th season last night, and with it came its first Weekend Update since May. A lot has happened since then. A lot has happened this week alone. Hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che slipped back into the swing of things, taking on such hot button issues as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hurricane Ian, and one of the more bizarre GOP candidates in ages.

First things first: Jost roasted Vladimir Putin, who delivered a bonkers speech in which he decried the U.S. for alleged “Satanism” and its embrace of what he called “many genders.” Said Jost, “It was a hateful, unhinged speech which has many Americans calling him ‘electable.’”

Hurrican Ian, meanwhile, laid waste to parts of Florida. The state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, took a break from tricking refugees into going to Martha’s Vineyard to do work with the president he regularly derides, calling the storm a “500-year flooding event.” Cracked Che, “it’s such a historic tragedy that DeSantis won’t let them teach about it in Florida schools.”

Eventually the segment got to Herchel Walker, the footballer-turned-improbably Senate candidate, whose campaign has been marred by bizarre revelations and creative gaffes. Kenan Thompson played him, alongside James Austin Johnson’s Mitch McConnell, who pretended to be okay with a candidate he has previously brushed off as, well, terrible. At one point Che brought up one of his more out-there claims: “Our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, the bad air got to move.”

“I’ll slow down so you can understand,” Thompson’s Walker explained. “We all know air, right? Air Bud, Air Jordan… Erin Brokevich. Science don’t understand. Everybody talking about climate, but what we really should be focusing on is putting Hawaii closer…. bring that climate over here.”

You can watch Thompson tackle Walker in the video above and watch other portions of Weekend Update below.

Last night (October 1) The Killers performed their second of two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. The concert followed the release of the band’s two 2021 albums, Imploding The Mirage and Pressure Machine. During the encore portion of the show, The Killers brought out a special surprise guest — Bruce Springsteen.

The band and Springsteen performed two of Springsteen’s hits, “Badlands” and “Born To Run.”

Springsteen also joined them in a performance of his Killers collaboration, “Dustland.”

Before Springsteen arrived onstage, The Killers’ lead vocalist Brandon Flowers admitted he was feeling some jitters.

“Everybody gets a little nervous when their boss shows up for work, right?,” Flowers said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but me and my friends have been sweating bullets up here all night, because The Boss is here. Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen.”

The Killers and Springsteen have long been admirers of each other’s work. In 2021, upon the release of “Dustland,” Flowers credited Springsteen in an interview with Rolling Stone for helping him grow into the songwriter he is today.

“I attribute my discovery and absorption of his music with helping me become a more authentic writer,” he said. “He helped me to see the extraordinary in everyday people and their lives. And in this case, it was my parents who were under the microscope. Their faith and doubts, their search for salvation in the desert. It sounds Biblical. It also sounds Springsteenian.”

Check out the performances above.

Last month, Nicole Kidman’s AMC Theatres’ ad turned one year old. As the pandemic cooled, the movie theater chain paid a fortune for the Oscar-winning actress to woo audiences back to multiplexes. It’s proven so popular that they’re even doing a sequel. And when SNL returned for its 48th season, you better believe they sent it up.

Chloe Fineman does her best Australian accent as Kidman, mostly sticking to the script. One difference? Unlike in the ad, she’s not alone. First, Kenan Thompson joins her, sitting a few seats away until he’s creeped out by her loud monologuing. Soon others — including new cast members Molly Kearney and Michael Longfellow — join her.

Kidman’s AMC ad has been known to inspire Rocky Horror-style participation; sometimes audience members even recite the lines. SNL’s sketch runs with this idea. When Kidman gets to perhaps the most famous line — “Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this” — people start standing up and saluting the screen. Once people start chanting it over and over, Kidman gains supernatural powers, levitating above the seats as lightning shoots from her eyes.

As it happens, SNL’s first host of the season was in the biggest blockbuster of the summer: Top Gun: Maverick’s Miles Teller. He kicked off the show by doing a scarily spot-on impersonation of Peyton Manning.

You can watch the sketch in the video above.

In his second performance of the night, Kendrick Lamar performed “Father Time” on the Saturday Night Live stage.

During the performance, Lamar raps in a bedroom set-up, complete with a bed, a nightstand, and a chair. A man is seen in the chair with his back turned. The man is later revealed to be Sampha, who joins in and sings the song’s chorus.

“Father Time” is one of the more confessional songs on Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. In an interview with GQ, producer Sounwave said working with Lamar on this album was therapeutic, especially after feeling isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m a perfectionist,” Sounwave said. “So that whole 2020 of me locked in, making music with just me and my thoughts, I hated everything. ‘This is terrible. Nobody will ever like this. Who would ever sing on a song like this?’ I didn’t have that one person to be like, ‘No, this is good!’ I missed that. I didn’t realize that. And Kendrick is king of that. Even if it’s something terrible, he can hear something small in there and flip that to where it actually makes sense. A lot of our songs in the past came from that. When you take that element out, you get lost in your head where you kind of go mad.”

Check out a clip of the performance above.

Kendrick Lamar opened the 48th season of Saturday Night Live as its first musical guest. During the episode, Lamar performed “Rich Spirit” and “N95” from his fourth major-label album, Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers.

During the performance, Lamar opened by rapping “Rich Spirit” in an empty blue room. As he progresses into his song, Lamar’s shadow on the wall begins moving in a different direction than him. The song then transitions into “N95.” The lights then blink on and off, as various shadows, tableaus, and patterns project onto the wall.

This year has been a big one for Lamar — from performing at the Super Bowl. to releasing one of the year’s buzziest albums, to completing his deal with Top Dawg Entertainment, and now, opening the lastest season of SNL. Still, he chooses to avoid the limelight as he wishes to use the time he has to invest in himself. He opened up about his choices to stay out of the spotlight in a recent interview with Citizen.

“I’m so invested in who I am outside of being famous, sometimes that’s all I know,” he said. “I’ve always been a person that really didn’t dive too headfirst into wanting and needing attention. I mean, we all love attention, but for me, I don’t necessarily adore it. I use it when I want to communicate something. The person that people see now is the person that I’ve always been. For me, the privacy thing has never been an issue that I had to carry out with full intention. It’s just who I am. If I feel I have to remove myself, I just remove myself.”

Check out a clip of the performance above.

Saturday Night Live returned for the start of Season 48, where there is an awful lot of cast turnover and fresh faces making their debuts. To play into that, the premiere featured a rare cold open appearance from this week’s host, as Miles Teller delivered an unbelievably spot-on Peyton Manning impression for a “Manningcast” skit in which Peyton and Eli break down a rather disastrous Trump sketch from the cast.

It’s a great concept for the cold open, as it steers into the skid of introducing a bunch of new cast members by having Peyton and Eli poke fun at how bad they’re doing in a purposefully awful sketch. They weren’t done there, though, as they kept it going by bringing Jon Hamm in as the Manningcast’s guest, where he prodded at Teller with a joke about a random Shaun White appearance as desperation on an episode where the host doesn’t have much juice.

Teller’s impression of Peyton is truly sensational stuff, as he nails his mannerisms and cadence, while the skit pokes fun at efforts to be overly trendy, with cast members doing the Griddy for no reason and a Corn Kid impression weeks late for that to be relevant or funny. We’ll see how the rest of the season holds up, but for anyone wondering how they’d handle a lot of turnover, the cold open for the season premiere was one of the best in recent memory and provides some optimism for what some fresh faces will bring to the cast and writer’s room.