Year: 2022

On Tuesday, a newspaper in Texas, the Austin American-Statesman, made a controversial decision: They leaked footage from inside the Robb Elementary hallways during the mass shooting in Uvalde last month. The paper’s Ethics & Standards editor defended the decision, arguing it was in the public’s interest (while noting they removed the audio), in part because not enough has been done to investigate it. Parents of the victims, however, weren’t buying it.

Neither was Whoopi Goldberg. As per Entertainment Weekly, the co-host of The View spent part of Tuesday’s show railing against the paper’s decision, and she got so mad she literally spit.

“I find it indefensible,” she said. “I’m sorry, you forgot that, attached to all those sounds are people’s children, and you didn’t have to do this. They were going to see this video on Sunday, you did not have to release this and leak it. I think it’s appalling and you should be ashamed of yourselves for doing that, for being thoughtless about the parents who have to relive this every day because it’s on television every time you turn around.”

It was at this point that she turned and spat on the stage, then continued. “I don’t know if you guys over at that newspaper have kids, but, shame on you. I know it doesn’t mean anything coming from me, but shame on you,” she said.

Co-host Sunny Hostin was a bit more diplomatic, arguing that the leak was part of a “difficult balancing act.” She added, “It’s so important that we be able to, as the public… videos, in my view, lead to just results, increased training, awareness, it can really change the public narrative.”

But Goldberg wasn’t budging, pointing out that the paper didn’t inform the parents of their decision, or give them “the opportunity to re-steel themselves.”

Goldberg has often used her pulpit to address hot button issues. After the Supreme Court went on a tear of radical rulings, she warned Clarence Thomas that those in his party may one day come for his interracial marriage as well. She’s also railed against Fox News host Laura Ingraham for absurdly blaming mass shootings on weed.

(Via EW)

I started traveling solo in New Mexico nearly a decade ago. And to be honest, at that time, I really didn’t know what to expect. The only thought I really had about it was, “So, it’s just, like… a desert?” Then I visited on a whim as a stopover between my home in Colorado and a destination further West, in Arizona. Reader, I fell in love.

These days, I always say, “there’s something special about the Land of Enchantment.” And the ABQ is no exception.

While I consider myself to be nearing an expert-level solo traveler status in the dreamy locales of Taos and Santa Fe in Northern New Mexico, Albuquerque is a whole different new beast. As a creature of habit, I didn’t want my love affair with the state to somehow be spoiled by visiting a larger city – Albuquerque is home to over 40% of the state’s residents after all. But just like my first visit to New Mexico all those years ago, a recent trip to ABQ delighted me.

Georgia O’Keeffe, a famous – if not the most famous – New Mexico resident, once said, “If you ever go to New Mexico, it will itch you for the rest of your life.” She couldn’t have been more right. Here’s my guide for a weekend spent in Albequerque.

PART I — Eat

The goal of spending a long weekend in Albuquerque was to explore the town, but I mostly ended up spending my time eating. Each meal somehow seemed to outdo the last, with unexpected pairings of flavors and fresh ingredients – nothing like the Southwestern food I imagined.

My favorite meal – maybe ever, if I’m being honest – was at Mas Tapas Y Vino. Located in the historic downtown Hotel Andaluz, Mas Tapas Y Vino reimagines traditional Spanish cuisine using fresh and locally sourced ingredients. I tried several small plates and each was better than the last. The blue corn sourdough with Moroccan whipped butter was simple, but something I am still dreaming about weeks later.

Some other standouts were the crispy Brussels sprouts, honey bacon wrapped dates, Berkshire pork belly, and the lobster tail pasta.

For a more traditional dining experience, I headed to El Pinto – a restaurant and salsa company that brings all the New Mexican vibes. A family business and destination dining since 1964, El Pinto has five patios on twelve acres – and even a waterfall – to enjoy your margarita and taco plate.

I also love visiting The Grove Cafe for brunch – where my basic avocado toast order was anything but, and Sawmill Market, a warehouse food hall downtown with 20+ eateries and bars to keep anyone satisfied.

PART II — Drink

Emily Hart

When I was waiting in the Denver airport for my early flight to Albuquerque I saw a couple of very stylish women waiting nearby. They both had shirts emblazoned with the Bow and Arrow Brewing logo, and as someone who is admittedly heavily influenced by stylish people – I knew I had to add it to my itinerary.

I’m so glad I did. Bow and Arrow Brewing – besides having a great atmosphere and even better beer – is the country’s first Native American Woman-Owned brewery. Founded by Shyla Sheppard, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation) and Dr. Missy Begay, who was raised in the Navajo (Diné) Nation – Bow and Arrow uses traditional local and indigenous ingredients in their beers – from blue corn to prickly pear and juniper.

I enjoyed a glass of Hazy Rodeo IPA with my book at the taproom, reminding myself to always leave room for detours.

Whenever I am in New Mexico I try to visit a new winery (or two or three). Home to over 40 wineries, the state has quite a burgeoning scene. On this trip, I visited three wineries – and even visited one twice. Noisy Water Winery and Sheehan Winery Old Town Tasting Room are both located within yards of each other in Old Town Albuquerque. I loved the interesting blends at Noisy Water, especially the Wild White – a wine infused with Lavender Sage Lemonade tea. Sheehan Winery Wines have a more classic feel, and I loved the reds on my wine flight.

If you want to get out of town, Casa Rondeña Winery offers a great excuse. A family-owned and operated winery since 1995, Casa Rondeña makes, bottles, and ages all the wine on their expansive property that feels worlds away from the city.

PART III — Sleep

Historic Route 66 runs directly through Albuquerque, and in the age of Instagram, the historic roadside motels are experiencing a renaissance. I stayed at the restored El Vado Motel, a motel/taproom/food hall with live music and an outdoor pool. My suite was classic New Mexican and the exterior was clean and stylish.

On my next trip, I’d love to stay at another historic property – Los Poblanos. The Inn and organic farm is famous for its lavender crop and house-made products that you can find all over the world. I visited twice during my long weekend – once to visit the farm store and a drink at Campo, and another on a tour during an e-bike tour. The grounds are spectacular and stylish, with peacocks roaming and the scent of lavender filling the air.

Other options more centrally located are Hotel Andaluz – which is on the National Register of Historic Places – and the luxurious Hotel Chaco.

PART IV — Explore

Emily Hart

Albuquerque is probably best known, to many people, for… Breaking Bad. Well, Breaking Bad and hot air balloons. And for good reason, too — as the setting of the infamous television show, there are ample opportunities for fans to get their fix. Meanwhile, at the International Balloon Fiesta – the largest hot air balloon festival in the world – over 500 balloons can be seen in the air for 9 days in October.

But you don’t have to wait until fall for a ride. The wind patterns in Albuquerque – known as the “Albuquerque Box” — make it an ideal ballooning destination. In fact, it’s the hot-air ballooning capital of the world. I spent my first morning in town in the air with Rainbow Ryders on a sunrise ride over the cottonwood forest known as “The Bosque.” It was incredible to see the city and mountains from in the air – truly a bucket list experience.

If you’re looking to get in some hiking, head to Petroglyph National Monument, an area protecting one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America. There are no trails at the visitor center, but head just a short way to Boca Negra, Rinconada, Piedras Marcadas Canyons to see petroglyphs and get on the trail.

Another stop you won’t want to miss is the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Owned and operated by the 19 different pueblos of New Mexico, the center works to preserve, protect and educate on Pueblo Indian culture, music, and art. I had brunch at their on-site restaurant and roamed around the galleries and museum spaces – learning so much history that has often been, despicably, left out of American mainstream cirriculum.

Old Town Albuquerque is a great place to meander for an afternoon, or – even better – to take an eBike Tour. I took a tour with Heritage Inspirationsthat took us from downtown to a bike-in coffee shop, a lavender farm, a nature preserve, and down into Old Town. It’s a great way to see this beautiful and unique city.

Not only is DOOM one of the most influential video games ever made, but it’s also quickly become one of the most consistently memed games out there. DOOM is a very old game that at the time was the work of pushing computers to their absolute limits. These days though, it’s about the size of a modern day webpage. As a result hackers have made it a challenge to see what weird things they can put the game on such as a lamp from IKEA.

So what have the hackers done this time? Taken this meme to what really feels like its logical conclusion. Now, in the DOS version of DOOM 2 a hacker has figured out a way to make it so you can play the first DOOM inside of the game. They also make some quality of life choices to the game like adding fog and making the textures look better, but the meme of making DOOM playable in yet another place lives on. It’s basically that old “Yo dawg” meme but, with DOOM instead.

It’s very hard to see where the meme can even go from here. How are the hackers going to top putting DOOM inside of its own game? Maybe someone gets permission and puts it on one of the giant screens on Times Square, or play DOOM inside of DOOM inside of DOOM 2.

Adam Sandler has played a wedding singer at a bar mitzvah and sang about a bar mitzvah boy. For his next piece of mitzvah-themed piece of entertainment, he, and his family, are turning into You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah into a Netflix movie.

Variety reports that Sandler, Sandler’s wife Jackie, and their teenage daughters, Sunny and Sadie, will star in the Netflix film, along with Uncut Gems wickedly talented co-star Idina Menzel. (I will be verklempt if she doesn’t wear the same dress.) For those who haven’t read Fiona Rosenbloom’s coming-of-age novel, it’s set in the early 2000s and “follows Stacey Friedman, who is preparing for one of the most important events in her young life, her bat mitzvah. But in the lead up to the big day, she’s thrown for a loop after catching her bestie Lydia Katz locking lips with her crush Andy Goldfarb.”

Stacey is right to so not invite Lydia and Andy to her bat mitzvah.

Netflix’s official logline sums up the plot: “A girl’s bat mitzvah plans comedically unravel and threaten to ruin one of the most important events of her young life.” Sammi Cohen, best known for the teen movie Crush starring Rowan Blanchard, is directing You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah from a script by Alison Peck (Work It).

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah is Adam Sandler’s latest movie for Netflix, including recent highlights The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Hubie Halloween, and Hustle. Could there be a Hubie Bar Mitzvah in the future? Let’s hope!

(Via Variety)

Last week, the already strange and disturbing story of Armie Hammer took another creatively unpredictable turn. Someone posted a strange flyer from a hotel in the Cayman Islands that seemed to show that the disgraced actor was working there as a concierge. That, sources said, was just a joke. Then a few days later, images circulated of what looked like him selling timeshares at the same joint. Now a source tells Variety that, no, that one’s actually legit.

The source, who asked to remain anonymous, told the publication that Hammer is “working at the resort and selling timeshares. He is working at a cubicle.” They add, “The reality is he’s totally broke, and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family.” There’s more, via Variety:

This individual, who asked to remain anonymous, says that prior to working as a timeshare salesman, Hammer was managing an apartment complex in the Cayman Islands. He is living there so he can be near his two young children who have been residing in the Caymans with his ex-wife, TV host and entrepreneur Elizabeth Chambers. A source previously told Variety that Hammer had also spent time in recovery at a treatment facility after his career downfall.

In early 2021, multiple women who had been with Hammer accused him of sexual misconduct, some of which involved talk of cannibalism. His career quickly took a nosedive, with him losing one role after another, and his part in Death on the Nile was minimized in the ad campaign.

Hammer comes from wealth; his great-grandfather was oil tycoon Armand Hammer (which is also Armie’s name by birth). However, he is not only the family payroll, and since he’s no longer making big time Hollywood motion pictures, he has to make a living somehow. Anyway, this may wind up as the coda to that Discovery+ true crime show about him that’s in the works, from which he presumably does not receive royalties.

(Via Variety)

When the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon premieres late next month, it has two big hurdles to overcome. One, it has to carry on a very popular brand, with a whole new cast and different showrunners. Two, a lot of people did not like the way Game of Thrones ended. Are those involved in House of the Dragon aware of these two issues? You betcha.

In a splashy new look at the show by Entertainment Weekly, showrunners and actors alike are very open about the pressure they’re under to deliver something as rich and rewarding as the show that started it all.

“We have to come out of the box with a greater resource pool than David and [D.B.] did when they were starting Game of Thrones,” says co-showrunner Ryan Condal. “They had to build an audience and earn it. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants”

“My tactic is called, ‘Don’t think about it,’” says Emma D’Arcy, who plays Princess Rhaenyra Targarys, an ancestor of Daenerys and fam and heir to the Iron Throne. “At the moment, we’re in quite a special place. None of it is in the ether yet, and no one knows who I am.”

Olivia Cooke, who plays Rhaenyra’s best friend Alicent Hightower, actually jokes (or not) that she hopes House won’t be as big as its predecessor. “I love my life, and I love the anonymity that I’ve managed to hold onto, even after having a decade’s worth of credits,” she says. “But I am excited for people to see all the hard work that everyone’s done because, God, people slogged for a year, and it is f*cking great.”

How is Team House of the Dragon hoping to win hearts and minds? Partly by listening to fan feedback and correcting what they didn’t like. For instance, Game of Thrones was regularly criticized for how it treated its female characters. That inspired the show’s writers to put women front and center, having it revolve around Rhaenyra and Alicent as Westeros is torn apart. “Their relationship is at the center of a chasm that threatens to tear Westeros apart,” writes EW, “for reasons that are already clear to book readers.”

There’s also more of another aspect that was thin on the ground the first time around: dragons. As per EW:

Just about every Targaryen has their own to mount, a stark contrast to Thrones, which saw Daenerys as one of the last remaining Targaryens and dragons virtually extinct. “I wanted to tell a story about the height of Rome before the fall and see the Targaryen dynasty at its very apex so that we can understand the thing that was lost when it all fell apart,” Condal explains.

Anyway, even if you feel House of the Dragon falls short of its mothership show, at least there be dragons. The show premieres on HBO on August 21.

(Via EW)

It’s a good week to be an Animal Collective fan. Not only did the band drop their first ever NPR Tiny Desk Concert yesterday, but today, Panda Bear has just announced a collaborative album with Sonic Boom called Reset. Panda Bear’s Noah Lennox and Sonic Boom’s Peter Kember (of 80s British space rock band Spacemen 3) have been longtime collaborators, with Kember co-producing both Panda Bear’s Tomboy in 2011 and Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper in 2015. Now both musicians live in Portugal and the album of their dreams is due out on August 12th.

While it’s Lennox’s moniker that carries the weight here, Kember is no slouch. Along with his work on Panda Bear’s albums, he also co-produced Beach House’s 7 and MGMT’s Congratulations. His library of mid-20th century doo-wop and soul merges with Panda Bear’s unique electronic wavelengths on the album and we get a taste of what they’re creating on the fantastic single “Go On.”

The track has the familiar didgeridoo effect that’s been a staple in both Panda Bear and Animal Collective’s music, but with a swath of that retro rock vibe. “Go On” in fact opens with a sample from 60’s garage rockers The Troggs’ “Give It To Me.” The video is a kaleidoscopic journey inside of a digital world that meets at the intersection of a Rube Goldberg and an elaborate pinball machine.

Watch the video for “Go On” above and check out the Reset album artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Gettin’ to the Point”
2. “Go On”
3. “Everyday”
4. “Edge of the Edge”
5. “In My Body”
6. “Whirlpool”
7. “Danger”
8. “Livin’ in the After”
9. “Everything’s Been Leading to This”Reset is out on 08/12 via Domino Recordings. Pre-order it here.

Fans of FX’s What We Do In the Shadows (which, if you’re not watching it, you should be) might know Matt Berry better as Laszlo Cravensworth, the perpetually horned up vampire trying to make a go at life as an immortal creature of the night in Staten Island. Other viewers, however, might recognize the actor’s distinctive voice from The Book of Boba Fett, the Disney+ series in which Berry played a smooth-voiced, torture-loving droid known as UK2-B.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Berry explained how he had wanted to include a loving nod to his time spent in the world of Star Wars with a simple Easter egg: His idea was to pass a toy version of his character from the show to Baby Colin Robinson in an episode of the fourth season, which kicked off this week. Unfortunately, Berry wasn’t quite used to the Secrecy of Star Wars machinery and was not allowed to use a recreation of the character — as his role in the sci-fi series had yet to be announced yet.

“I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody,” Berry told Newsweek.

While Berry says that season 5 may offer some crossover potential “if there’s any kids toys lying around, but I don’t think there’ll be any place for it.”

For now, Berry is content that he was able to sneak the theme song to his hilariously absurd comedy Toast of London (which is currently a bit difficult to find after a new season emerged) into a 2021 episode of Shadows.

(Via Newsweek)

Rowdy Rebel’s story is low-key pretty fascinating. The Brooklyn rapper went from the height of popularity to serving a six-year prison sentence and this Friday, July 15, he finally releases his debut album. It’s called Rowdy Vs. Rebel, a title that addresses Rowdy’s duality and his struggle between doing the right thing and doing the things that first landed him in hot water, to begin with. Rowdy has released a hype trailer depicting his dramatic rise, fall, and return, as well as detailing the album’s features and previewing some of its drill-oriented songs.

In addition to Rowdy’s apparent multiple personalities, the album is also set to feature A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, with whom Rowdy collaborated on “9 Bridge,” Dreezy, Drizzy Juliano, Kamikaze Kai, Fivio Foreign (can we give these drill guys some props for their alliterative nicknames?), French Montana, and Jadakiss. The trailer features clips of some of Rowdy’s in-studio link-ups with French Montana and Fivio, as well as snippets of videos in which he’s appeared, including CJ’s “Whoopty” remix and “Woo Nina.” The final clip finds Rowdy reiterating the album’s theme and wondering “Who gone win?” It looks like we’ll find out.

Watch Rowdy Rebel’s Rowdy Vs. Rebel album trailer above.

Rowdy Vs. Rebel is out on 7/15 via Epic Records. You can pre-save it here.

It seems like Netflix has been teasing ad-supported tiers for a minute, though that has yet to actually make the move in the US. Instead, they have been threatening to crack down on password-sharing and determining to pull back on long movies. Now, Netflix is actually making moves when it comes to introducing commercials and advertisements into their streaming service.

According to Wall Street Journal, the streamer has been in talks with various companies, including Warner Bros., Universal and Sony Pictures Television, in order to make a deal regarding ads for certain content. While the ads aren’t coming yet, they will likely roll out by the end of the year.

Netflix also confirmed a deal with Microsoft today, announcing the move on its website. “Today we are pleased to announce that we have selected Microsoft as our global advertising technology and sales partner,” the press release stated, adding that Microsoft is working with the streamer to create better advertising. “Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering. More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members. ”

Though the thought of ads interpreting your re-watch of Stranger Things seems more daunting then Vecna himself, Netflix says nothing will really change.CEO Ted Sarandos told Reuters last month: “We’re not adding ads to Netflix as you know it today. We’re adding an ad tier for folks who say ‘hey, I want a lower price and I’ll watch ads.’” Sometimes, ads are good!

(Via WSJ)