Month: November 2022

Neil Gaiman is currently riding high regarding news about The Sandman‘s renewal on Netflix. He’s previously shown that he quite enjoys dealing with trolls with one practical strategy: “Keep them talking until sunrise.” God only knows that Neil has gotten enough practice lately, since he already had to tell anti-wokers that he didn’t write Amazon’s Lord of the Rings.

In addition, Gaiman began the Netflix The Sandman saga by saying that he gave no f*cks about the minuscule backlash over diverse casting on the show. And whaddya know, the series is a momentous success, particularly (and I am partial here) when it comes to the Death character (portrayed by Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who so warmly bounces off Tom Sturridge’s Dream. Did we mention that the show sat atop the global streaming charts for several weeks? It did, but Neil needed to deal with another troll, who is apparently so happy at the prospect of this show going down the tubes.

The person did not enjoy the battle between Lucifer and Morpheus and all the so-called “agenda” stuff. From there, they unoriginally declared, “[S]o that’s why it will get cancelled! Go Woke Go Broke! AMEN!”

To which Neil tweeted, “I’m sorry. I drifted off. Did Sandman get cancelled, then?”

Gotta love it. Also, there’s this: The Sandman has been renewed for Season 2.

Last week, Cabo was cracking for Halloween Weekend. To celebrate its 10-Year Anniversary, the Uproxx Fall Travel Hot List featured Hotel El Ganzo’s entire property was taken over by a tsunami of music, beach parties, wellness activities, art installations, and tons of great food. As an eco-focused, B Corp Certified patron of local art, it’s no wonder the community turned up for this unique Día De Los Muertos meets Halloween meets Burning Man 2.0 extravaganza.

Overlooking the Marina of San José Del Cabo, Hotel El Gonzo is based on a foundation of art and culture. There’s a full gallery and literally an in-house recording studio below the lobby. And this celebration, Ganzo X, hoisted this artistic fervor up on full display. Headlining the main music event were Texas musical trio Khruangbin, Quantic (AKA Will Holland), Carribean-inspired Pachyman, the Kinshasa-bred stars and ambassadors of Congolese music Jupiter & Okwess.

A great diversity of music, dance, costumes, meditation, artwork, markets, after-parties, and relaxation made this celebration truly something special. Get a sense for the weekend (and perhaps be filled with FOMO) down below!

I’m not going to say pop star Harry Styles is a terrible actor; he’s not. Mostly he’s perfectly adequate at saying the lines in the script convincingly enough that it doesn’t take you out of the story or make you think “jeez, this guy sucks.” Mostly you think, “Eh, he’s fine.”

However, My Policeman, Styles’ latest film in which he plays a gay policeman in 1950s Britain, is the kind of movie that normally stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, young up-and-comers at the top of their game. Aside from the fact that this maudlin weepy about tragic gays is at least 15 years past its sell-by date, it needs an actor who can do more than just adequately deliver the lines on the page. Considering it’s largely a story of repressed people yearning, pining, lusting, regretting… etc — I would argue that most of its appeal rests on that which isn’t on the page. If I squint to imagine the movie My Policeman could be and not the movie that it is, it’s an actor’s showcase. And Harry Styles isn’t an actor, at least not yet.

The opening frame is set in early nineties-ish Sussex, where silver foxes Marion and Tom (Gina McKee and Linus Roache) are arguing about Marion’s decision to become caretaker for stroke victim Patrick, played Rupert Everett in full lookin’-old-for-the-accolades mode. Tom is upset about Patrick being in the house and says Marion doesn’t owe him anything. Raising the obvious question, what’s the deal with their whole relationship?

Luckily there’s a flashback for that, starring Harry Styles as Young Tom, David Dawson as Young Patrick, and Emma Corrin as Young Marion. Young Tom, a cub policeman, proposes to Young Marion, even though he’s also in a sort of ambiguous relationship with Young Patrick, a slightly less young museum curator. Is Tom and Marion’s marriage a closeted man’s marriage of convenience, and who does it end up hurting?

The irony is that My Policeman itself is something of a marriage of convenience. I doubt the filmmakers (director Michael Grandage and writer Ron Nyswaner, adapting from the 2012 novel by Bethan Roberts) wanted Harry Styles because they thought he was a brilliant actor who’d be the best choice for the role. Probably it was more that he was an international pop star with a level of fame that made getting the movie financed feasible. For Styles, who has been known to be photographed wearing women’s clothes and has been accused of exploiting “queer” aesthetics, he gets to further his sort of pansexual, love-is-love public persona by playing a gay man. Which is to say: these were all economic decisions. They were career decisions. It doesn’t strike you that either party undertook this relationship because they thought it would make for a better movie. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t.

There’s a pivotal scene in My Policeman when Tom, who spends the movie mostly lying and dissembling to everyone, especially himself, finally comes clean to his wife about his gay relationship. It’s the kind of scene that, in the context of this (honestly kinda dull) movie, should land like a cymbal crash. It’s clearly intended to be a kind of crescendo, and while Styles doesn’t drastically underact it, and could never be accused of overacting it, as it mostly lands with all the gravity of a scone on tea plate. It’s just sort of there. It’s not a disaster, it’s just kind of banal and not noteworthy.

All that said, that My Policeman doesn’t work because of Styles is not entirely true. It’s locked into a depiction of being tragically gay in a time that wouldn’t allow it, with all the tears, bigotry, brutality, and repressed feelings that entails, which feels very of a time. My Policeman does precious little exploring of the joyful side of this unconventional three-way relationship and lots of wallowing in the sadness of it all. And if I’m going to wallow, I’d at least like to have it feel like a fresh wallow. I never like to repeat a wallow. And My Policeman feels decidedly like an echo of wallows past.

‘My Policeman’ is available in theaters now and globally on Amazon Prime November 4th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.

Sometimes it seems like there are too many IPAs on the market. This is especially true if you’re one of those drinkers who doesn’t fully embrace the resinous, dank, piney, and sometimes aggressively bitter nature of this iconic beer style (and all of its various offshoots). But the glut of IPA choices at breweries from Tacoma to Tampa means that no matter where you go, there’s always an IPA to be found. Many are regional IPAs only found near their home bases throughout the country but there are also widely available, flavorful IPAs that can be purchased just about anywhere.

Today, we’re talking about “grocery store” IPAs. These are the IPAs from bigger names that you (likely) can find at any grocery store, beer store, or anywhere that sells beer wherever you live. But I didn’t just make a list ranking my favorites. I selected eight well-known, easy-to-find IPAs and blindly nose, tasted, and ranked them.

Keep scrolling to see how everything turned out.

Here’s the list:

• Cigar City Jai Alai
• Bell’s Two-Hearted
• Lagunitas IPA
• Firestone Walker Union Jack
• Bear Republic Racer 5
• Stone IPA
• Goose Island IPA
• Ballast Point Sculpin

Part 1: The Taste

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

Citrus peels, lemon zest, caramel, biscuit-like malts, and dank, resinous pine are highlighted on this beer’s nose. The palate continues this trend with cereal grains, caramel, dried fruits, lemon peels, tangerine, grapefruit, and dank, herbal, slightly bitter pine. Overall, this is a very well-balanced IPA.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

The nose is over-the-top citrus peels and floral, piney hops, and really nothing else. I really tried, but that’s all I could focus on. The palate has some grapefruit, pineapple, and other tropical fruit flavors, but it’s really overpowered by aggressively bitter, piney hops.

I enjoy hops, but this was just too much.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

This beer starts off with a nose loaded with complex aromas of lemongrass, orange peels, bread-like malts, caramel, tropical fruits, and bright pine needles. The palate is filled with flavors like caramelized pineapple, tangerine, grapefruit, caramel malts, and bitter, piney, resinous hops.

The finish is slightly sweet with a lingering, piney bitterness.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

The nose is filled with aromas of fresh-cut grass, tropical fruits, citrus peels, biscuit-like malts, caramel, and earthy, piney hops. The palate is a mix of caramel, biscuit malts, tart grapefruit, mango, tangerine, wet grass, and slightly bitter, and dank pine needles. The finish is a great mix of malt sweetness and hop bitterness.

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

A nose of wet grass, citrus peels, light caramel malts, and herbal, piney hops greets you prior to your first sip. Drinking it reveals some bread-like malts, light caramel, citrus, fresh-cut grass, and a ton of dank pine. The finish is dry and overly bitter. It kind of cancels out the other flavors.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

The nose is fairly intense even though I could only find ripe grapefruit, sweet malts, lemon zest, and dank pine. The palate is tropical fruits, citrus peels, cereal grains, and bright, bitter, piney, herbal hops at the finish. While the hops are fairly aggressive, the other flavors still shine through.

Although… everything here has a bit of a synthetic flavor.

Taste 7

Tasting Notes:

This beer starts with fairly generic IPA aromas of caramel malts, citrus zest, and pine needles. Really, that’s it. The palate is bready, caramel malts up front with tangerine and grapefruit making an appearance. The finish is a mix of malts and bitter, piney, dank hops. It’s a decent IPA, but the bitter hops are slightly out of balance.

Taste 8

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, I found tangerine, grapefruit, caramelized pineapple, sweet malts, and pine needles. This trend continued on the palate with more grapefruit, tart orange, cereal grains, caramel malts, and bold, bitter, slightly floral hops. It’s bitter, and citrus-laden, but tempered well with sweet malts.

Part 2: The Ranking

8) Ballast Point Sculpin (Taste 2)

ABV: 7%

Average Price: $14.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Named for a spiny fish, this popular IPA from San Diego’s Ballast Point is known for its mix of tropical fruit flavors, bright citrus, and a floral, piney, bitter sting of hops at the finish. It gets its unique flavor profile from being hopped at five different times during the brewing process.

Bottom Line:

Ballast Point Sculpin is one of the highest-rated IPAs on the market and, to me, it’s just too abrasively bitter. It overpowers everything else in my opinion.

7) Goose Island IPA (Taste 5)

ABV: 5.9%

Average Price: $10.50 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Nowadays, many drinkers mostly know Goose Island because of its highly coveted Bourbon County Stout. But the Chicago-based brewery also makes myriad other beers including a popular IPA. This award-winning, 5.9% ABV IPA is Goose Island’s twist on the classic English-style IPA.

Bottom Line:

Goose Island’s IPA suffers the same problem as many well-known IPAs. The finish is so dry, piney, and bitter that it mutes all of the other flavors.

6) Lagunitas IPA (Taste 7)

ABV: 6.2%

Average Price: $11.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

One of the most well-known IPAs in America, Lagunitas IPA is brewed with Caramel malts as well as Centennial, Chinook, Cascade, and Simcoe hops. It’s known for its mix of sweet malts and piney, floral hops.

Bottom Line:

Lagunitas IPA is a popular beer for a reason. In a world of overly bitter, aggressive IPAs, it’s… borderline balanced. It still leans a little too heavily into the bitter-hop domain for me, though.

5) Stone IPA (Taste 6)

ABV: 6.9%

Average Price: $11.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

There are very few IPAs more popular than Stone IPA. First brewed in 1997, it’s known for its malt backbone and mix of citrus, tropical fruits, and pine. The hops included are Centennial, Magnum, Chinook, Azacca, Ella, Vic Secret, and Calypso hops.

Bottom Line:

It’s no surprise that Stone IPA is a popular beer. It has everything IPA fans could want. The only downfall is that it all tastes rather generic.

4) Bell’s Two Hearted (Taste 1)

ABV: 7%

Average Price: $12 for a six-pack

The Beer:

If you polled brewers and bartenders on their favorite easy-to-find IPA, you’d get a lot of people saying Bell’s Two Hearted. This popular, widely available IPA is brewed and dry-hopped with Centennial hops. This 7% ABV year-round beer is known for its mix of pine, citrus, and malts.

Bottom Line:

While many popular IPAs (especially West Coast IPAs) lean almost aggressively bitter, Bell’s Two Hearted has the bitterness IPA fans enjoy, but it’s tempered well with malts.

3) Firestone Walker Union Jack (Taste 8)

ABV: 7%

Average Price: $10.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

This popular West Coast IPA from the folks at California’s Firestone Walker is kettle brewed with CTZ, Cascade, and Centennial hops before being dry-hopped with Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo, Chinook. That’s a lot of hops.

Bottom Line:

This is a beer for hop fans. It’s loaded with hop aroma and bright, floral, dank, pine flavor. It’s not one-sided though. A very well-balanced beer.

2) Cigar City Jai Alai (Taste 4)

ABV: 7.5%

Average Price: $12.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

If you think football is violent, you should check out Jai Alai. This rowdy sport is one of the most violent in the world. It also happens to be popular in Tampa, Florida where Cigar City is brewed. That’s why this popular brewery named its now iconic, well-balanced, citrus-filled IPA for the sport.

Bottom Line:

There are few easy-to-find IPAs more balanced than Cigar City Jai Alai. Sure, it’s a pine and citrus bomb with a good deal of bitterness, but it also has a ton of sweet malt flavor.

1) Bear Republic Racer 5 (Taste 3)

ABV: 7.5%

Average Price: $11.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

This award-winning West Coast IPA is brewed with house ale yeast, pale barley malt, white wheat malt, and crystal malt. It gets its bright, vibrant hop profile from the addition of Columbus, Chinook, Cascade, and Centennial hops.

Bottom Line:

This IPA deserves all of the awards it receives. It starts off with a ton of malt flavor, but it has the characteristics of a classic West Coast IPA. It’s filled with citrus, tropical fruit, and bitter pine flavors.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

While I won’t fault you very enjoying your lip-puckering, overly bitter IPAs without much else, those aren’t for me. Clearly, I prefer a well-balanced IPA with citrus, tropical fruits, dank pine, nice bitterness, but also a good malty backbone. Semi-sweet is where it’s at.

A nice balance between caramel sweetness and resinous pine bitterness — and if you vibe with that, the top three are certainly going to be for you!

When Tenci‘s Jess Shoman describes the band’s music as “unconventional,” she’s not wrong. Since releasing their 2020 debut album My Heart Is An Open Field, Tenci have been releasing some of the most unique and endearing music in indie rock. The band first captured hearts with Shoman’s distinct vocals; her husky lilt adds dimension to the band’s light and flowing instrumentals. But now as Tenci prepares their sophomore LP A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing, the band — composed of Shoman on vocals, Curtis Oren on saxophone and guitar, Izzy Reidy on bass, and Joseph Farago on drums — are ready to bring their refined songwriting to the masses.

Tenci are more than just a “hot cute fun band from Chicago” as described in their Instagram bio. The four-piece have revamped heartland Americana for a new generation. The upcoming A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing — out Friday on Keeled Scales — weaves Shoman’s poetic observations on nature, rebirth, and memory into 12 heart-tugging tracks.

Ahead of their sophomore album’s release, Tenci sat down with Uproxx to talk jumpsuits, John Prine, and stick and poke tattoos in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Shoman: Emotional, vibrant, spacious, unconventional.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
Shoman: A beautiful, winding, vivid story. An honest archive of memories and life.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
Shoman: Chicago! There’s no place like home.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
Shoman: Mother nature.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
Oren: My friend’s living room.

What album do you know every word to?
Oren: What It Takes To Be A Man by Nora Petran.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
Shoman: Aldous Harding at The Empty Bottle in 2017. I had to step outside because I was so overwhelmed with emotion.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?
Reidy: Best outfit for performing is a jumpsuit because it’s a whole outfit in one piece of clothing no need for multiple sartorial decisions.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
Farago: For the longest time I didn’t have a Twitter account, but I would Google search Patti Harrison’s Twitter and read it from top to bottom like a novel. She’s got plenty of antics besides her iconic impersonation of Sia on the Nilla Wafers account that got her banned from the platform.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?
Shoman: I think every tour so far I’ve listened to Aqua’s Aquarium.

What’s the last thing you Googled?
Reidy: Last thing I Googled was “Lund surk bandcamp” which is the name of someone I met at a show the other night — it’s cool check it out.

What album makes for the perfect gift?
Shoman: My friend Mia recently gifted me Prime Prine: The Best of John Prine and that is perfect to me.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
Oren: I slept in my car at a state park in northwest Pennsylvania and got woken up in the middle of the night by a dozen men in camo with flashlights frantically running around looking for something.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
Reidy: A lot of my favorite tattoos are from when I first moved back to Chicago a few years ago. I was getting into doing stick and pokes and was hanging out with this group of artists all the time at my friend’s apartment/tattoo shop. It was such a nice experience — hanging out and drawing all night, getting tattoos more or less at random. I look at them and remember that time fondly even though I don’t see those people very often lately.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?
Farago: Roddy Ricch has some of my favorite hooks in pop music right now, so whenever he comes up I refuse to switch the station.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?
Shoman: Anytime my friends bring me a treat or check in on me when I’m feeling down I feel so loved and cared for. Well before me and my partner started dating he spontaneously brought me flowers to cheer me up and I cried. I still think about that often and remember feeling like it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done even though it was a simple and kind gesture.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Reidy: For some reason the idea of trying to council myself out of my mistakes is terrifying to me despite this being completely hypothetical. I experienced a great deal of pain at that age, but I’m pretty attached to the stuff I learned. The things I would say to an 18 year old generally would be: Be nice to yourself, get into therapy, and don’t go to college right out of high school.

What’s the last show you went to?
Farago: Moontype, Joshua Virtue, and NNAMDÏ for NNAMDÏ’s latest LP release. Three incredible Chicago musicians, great energy, amazing stage presence, the Midwest is a dream!

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?
Farago: Probably Pokémon 2000.

What’s one of your hidden talents?
Oren: Finding photographic evidence of a memory.

A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing is out 11/4 via Keeled Scales. Pre-order it here.

Look at God! In what feels like divine intervention, rapper GloRilla‘s major-label debut is slated to be released on November 11. If the numbers align for CMG’s First Lady, the Memphis native will torpedo into superstardom.

The 9-track EP, Anyways, Life’s Great… will feature hit song “Tomorrow 2” with Cardi B and “Blessed” alongside seven unnamed tracks. The cryptic tracklist uploaded to Apple Music has forced the GloRidaz to perform detective work in her comment section. Leading fans to speculate whether or not rappers G Herbo, Monaleo, and Sally Sossa will be making an appearance as they were some of the first to engage with the post.

The EP’s cover art shared to Instagram features a young GloRilla before the fame — following in the trend of countless critically acclaimed rap albums. So far, the rapper has kept it tight-lipped about the project, only sharing on Twitter, “y’all It’s this one song on da EP that I know y’all gone throw so much ass to.”

After taking home the Breakthrough Artist Of The Year award this year’s BET ceremony, the bar has been set for GloRilla. She undoubtedly has a few hits to her name including “FNF (Let’s Go)” and “Tomorrow 2,” but can she deliver a strong full project?

Anyways, Life’s Great… is out 11/11 via CMG/Interscope Records. Pre-save it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The midterm elections are less than 100 hours away, and one of the most closely watched races is the fight for Arizona’s gubernatorial seat, which has basically come down to Democrat Katie Hobbs versus super ultra-MAGA election denier Republican Kari Lake. At the moment, FiveThirtyEight shows that Lake is leading her opponent by 2.5 points, which has many people, including Seth Meyers, a little nervous.

“Historically, midterms just tend to go very badly for the party in power, and the polls currently suggest that may yet again be the case this year,” Meyers said on Thursday night, before noting that “the main thing holding Republicans back it seems is that they’ve nominated some spectacularly sh*tty candidates.” The Late Night host pointed specifically to Herschel Walker, who has basically been a lesson in everything NOT to do when running for office, and New Jersey resident Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is somehow running for office in Pennsylvania, even though it doesn’t seem as if he could point to the state on a map.

But it’s candidates like Lake who Meyers finds particularly worrisome. And terrifying! Describing Lake as “creepier than one of those Boston Dynamics robots” and having the “vibe of a realtor who insists on putting her face on all of her ‘for sale’ signs,” Meyers also can’t deny that Lake “is much slicker than most of the other weirdos the Republicans have nominated this year. Even if her beliefs are just as looney, she’s a longtime local television personality in the Phoenix area, so a lot of people know her. She even knows how to light herself when she does interviews for her home.”

But, to Meyers, there’s something off about just how perfectly comported Lake is during every appearance and interview — so much so that he wonders if she’s not just a more annoying Jar Jar Binks:

Lake looks so polished, she might be CGI. If she weren’t running for governor in Arizona, I’d think she was a character from one of those ‘90s video games who gives you your mission… That’s how you know someone’s a little too slick. I’ve been on TV for 20 years, and when I started doing at-home shows for the first time, I was so pale I looked like Jared Kushner’s ghost.

Meyers isn’t the only person who is worried that Arizona governors might be swayed by Lake’s natural on-air presence. As the host explained, Barack Obama traveled to Arizona earlier this week and made a point to remind people that just because you know a person from TV doesn’t mean they would make a great politician — or that they have your best interest in mind.

Obama conceded that Lake “is good in front of the camera because she’s been doing it a long time.” But also reminded the audience that “If we hadn’t just elected someone whose main qualification was being on TV, you could see maybe giving it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen? Well now we know!”

You can watch the full segment above.

As Warner Bros. Discovery continues to restructure its content rollout for the foreseeable future, the execs are looking to find the next big thing that everyone will want to shell out their money on. But for WB, that means going back to the content that made them an industry titan in the first place: big, over-the-top franchises!

Now that Disney has Marvel (and Star Wars, and parts of Fox and Hulu…the list goes on and will likely be going on forever) WB Discovery is turning its focus to what really matters: movie universes that are constantly expanding.

In the Warner Bros. Discovery Q3 earnings call on Thursday, the newly appointed CEO David Zaslav confirmed that the company is going to try to relive that early 2000s golden era when Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter dominated the screens. “We’re going to have a real focus on franchises,” Zaslav explained. “We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years. We haven’t done a Harry Potter movie in 15 years. The DC movies and the Harry Potter movies provided a lot of the profits of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures over the last 25 years,” he continues, seemingly forgetting that a new Harry Potter movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore arrived in theaters a little over six months ago. But hey, it’s been a crazy year! He might have forgotten about that movie, or maybe he just wants to forget about it, considering all of the various problems and controversies surrounding that franchise. Anyway!

The CEO continued, “So a focus on the franchise — one of the big advantages that we have, House of the Dragon is an example of that, Game of Thrones, taking advantage of Sex and the City, Lord of the Rings — we still have the right to do Lord of the Rings movies. What are the movies that have brands that are understood and loved everywhere in the world?” Technically those rights belong to a separate company, though Warner Bros has a deal with them for any future films (sorry to Amazon).

Zaslav continued that he would like to encourage families to leave their dinner table and instead sit in a dark room in silence while watching these big-budget movies together for the low low price of whatever movie theaters are costing these days. “A focus on the big movies that are loved, that are tentpoled, that people are going to leave early from dinner to go to see — and we have a lot of them. Batman, Superman, Aquaman.”

Then, Zaslav brought up the J.K. Rowling of it all. Throughout her controversial takes, WB has stood by her, probably so that they could be free to make more HP movies when the time comes. It seems like the time has come. According to Zaslav, “If we can do something with J.K. [Rowling] on Harry Potter going forward, Lord of the Rings, what are we doing with Game of Thrones? What are we doing with a lot of the big franchises that we have? We’re focused on franchises.”

The focus on franchises makes sense, but in order to do that, they would need to make up a lot of their lost revenue from this year, and it might be tricky. Hey, there is always time for another Scooby Doo live-action movie. James Gunn must have another idea rattling around his brain somewhere!

(Via EW)

It’s hard to imagine what constitutes a “wild” time at a golf club that has been raided by dozens of federal agents in the early hours of the morning, but that’s exactly the adjective people are using to describe Donald Trump’s Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. Maybe it means there were two kinds of Jello salad?

While the details of the menu were not discussed, sources told Page Six that a good time was had by all the evening of October 31, when the disgraced former president hosted a costume party in which he dressed as a disgraced former president who is currently at the center of several criminal investigations that could see him trading in his signature navy suit for an orange one of the jump variety. But he’s a free man now, and damn did he celebrate.

A source told Page Six that Broadway show tune-loving Trump “played DJ from his dinner table with his iPad,” where the sweet mix of jams included lots of ‘80s tunes to get the old farts’ hearts pumping plus… songs from The Phantom of the Opera — and very loudly. So loudly, in fact, that Page Six reported “some elderly guests [were] privately grousing.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Halloween party without at least one slutty nurse in attendance, nor would it be a Donald J. Trump event if the former POTUS didn’t break out his awkward fist pump “dance” to the Village People’s “YMCA.” Fortunately, we non-guests got a glimpse at both.

(Via Page Six)

As Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appear to be heading for a showdown in the GOP primary, the two have been reportedly engaged in a “quiet war” that could get real ugly real quick. In a new report covering the behind-the-scenes battles fought by the two camps, including wooing a former DeSantis aide over to Team Trump, an anonymous Trump advisor claims the former president is going to play a predictable card: Attacking Casey DeSantis just like he did to Ted Cruz’s wife.

Obviously, this would be a low blow by itself, but Casey is also recovering from a bout with the cancer. She does, however, play a prominent role in her husband’s campaign and basically acts like the “campaign manager, the political director, and the chief of staff.” That reportedly leaves her wide open in Trump’s book. Via The Daily Beast:

“Trump’s going to end up doing to DeSantis and his wife what he did to Cruz and his wife,” the Trump adviser said, referring to how Trump attacked Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) wife during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.

Responding to these claims, Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington said theories that Trump would attack DeSantis’ wife were “total bullshit.”

While it seems unlikely that DeSantis would allow attacks against his wife to go unanswered, the Florida governor has already showed signs that he may already be cowering to Trump. Republican insiders recently revealed to Vanity Fair that DeSantis may not run against Trump. Instead, DeSantis will reportedly wait until the 2028 election where he can “walk into the presidency” but “without pissing off Trump or Florida.”

(Via The Daily Beast)