Month: January 2023

Concertgoers have been going through a lot lately — from getting scammed trying to see Bad Bunny to being unable to snag Taylor Swift tickets because Ticketmaster was unprepared. Somehow it keeps getting worse.

In Auckland, New Zealand on Friday night (January 27), fans were ready to see Elton John on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour when the show was canceled just a few minutes before it was supposed to start because of intense floods. The city received an entire summer’s worth of rain in one day, causing many to lose power, the airport to close, the city’s mayor to declare a state of emergency, and 40,000 fans at Mt Smart Stadium to be left disappointed by the unfortunate timing. They were informed of the cancelation at 7:15 p.m. local time, while John was set to take the stage at 7:30.

An attendee told Sky News: “I’m furious. It was raining heavily on the way to the stadium and I kept checking for announcements but nothing came, despite puddles being up to my ankles.” They added, “After the gig was called off, hundreds of people queued in the downpours for the shuttle buses and I saw some people chant for Elton in the hope he’d come on — but it was like a literal river there.”

Unfortunately, there has been no news yet of a rescheduled show, but hopefully the fans will finally get to see him in the future.

This article originally appeared on 01.27.20

From 1940 to 1945, an estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz, the largest complex of Nazi concentration camps. More than four out of five of those people—at least 1.1 million people—were murdered there.

On January 27, 1945, Soviet forces liberated the final prisoners from these camps—7,000 people, most of whom were sick or dying. Those of us with a decent public education are familiar with at least a few names of Nazi extermination facilities—Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen—but these are merely a few of the thousands (yes, thousands) of concentration camps, sub camps, and ghettos spread across Europe where Jews and other targets of Hitler’s regime were persecuted, tortured, and killed by the millions.

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The scale of the atrocity is unfathomable. Like slavery, the Holocaust is a piece of history where the more you learn the more horrifying it becomes. The inhumane depravity of the perpetrators and the gut-wrenching suffering of the victims defies description. It almost becomes too much for the mind and heart to take in, but it’s vital that we push through that resistance.

The liberation of the Nazi camps marked the end of Hitler’s attempt at ethnic cleansing, and the beginning of humanity’s awareness about how such a heinous chapter in human history took place. The farther we get from that chapter, the more important it is to focus on the lessons it taught us, lest we ignore the signs of history repeating itself.

Lesson 1: Unspeakable evil can be institutionalized on a massive scale

Perhaps the most jarring thing about the Holocaust is how systematized it was. We’re not talking about humans slaying other humans in a fit of rage or a small number of twisted individuals torturing people in a basement someplace—this was a structured, calculated, disciplined, and meticulously planned and carried out effort to exterminate masses of people. The Nazi regime built a well-oiled killing machine the size of half a continent, and it worked exactly as intended. We often cite the number of people killed, but the number of people who partook in the systematic torture and destruction of millions of people is just as harrowing.

It has now come out that Allied forces knew about the mass killing of Jews as early as 1942—three years before the end of the war. And obviously, there were reports from individuals of what was happening from the very beginning. People often ask why more wasn’t done earlier on if people knew, and there are undoubtedly political reasons for that. But we also have the benefit of hindsight in asking that question. I can imagine most people simply disbelieving what was actually taking place because it sounds so utterly unbelievable.

The lesson here is that we have to question our tendency to disbelieve things that sound too horrible to be true. We have evidence that the worst things imaginable on a scale that seems unfathomable are totally plausible.

Lesson 2: Atrocity can happen right under our noses as we go about our daily lives

One thing that struck me as I was reading about the liberation of Auschwitz is that it was a mere 37 miles from Krakow, one of the largest cities in Poland. This camp where an average of 500 people a day were killed, where bodies were piled up like corded wood, where men, women, and children were herded into gas chambers—and it was not that far from a major population center.

And that was just one set of camps. We now know that there were thousands of locations where the Nazis carried out their “final solution,” and it’s not like they always did it way out in the middle of nowhere. A New York Times report on how many more camps there were than scholars originally thought describes what was happening to Jews and marginalized people as the average person went about their daily lives:

“The documented camps include not only ‘killing centers’ but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named ‘care’ centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.”

Whether or not the average person knew the full extent of what was happening is unclear. But surely there were reports. And we know how the average person responds to reports, even today in our own country.

How many news stories have we seen of abuses and inhumane conditions inside U.S. immigrant detention camps? What is our reaction when the United Nations human rights chief visits our detention facilities and comes away “appalled”? It’s a natural tendency to assume things simply can’t be that bad—that’s undoubtedly what millions of Germans thought as well when stories leaked through the propaganda.

Lesson 3: Propaganda works incredibly well

Propaganda has always been a part of governance, as leaders try to sway the general populace to support whatever they are doing. But the Nazis perfected the art and science of propaganda, shamelessly playing on people’s prejudices and fears and flooding the public with mountains of it.

Hermann Goering, one of Hitler’s top political and military figures, explained in an interview late in his life that such manipulation of the masses isn’t even that hard.

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders,” he said. “That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Terrifyingly true, isn’t it? This is why we have to stay vigilant in the face of fear-mongering rhetoric coming from our leaders. When an entire religion or nationality or ethnic group is painted as “dangerous” or “criminal” or “terrorists,” we have to recognize that we are being exposed to the same propaganda used to convince Germans that the Nazis were just trying to protect them. Safety and security are powerful human desires that make it easy to justify horrible acts.

Hitler was also great at playing the victim. While marching through Europe, conquering countries and rounding up millions of innocent people to exterminate, he claimed that Germany was the one under attack. Blatant anti-Semitic rhetoric surely fired up Hitler’s core supporters, but the message to the average German was that this was all being done in the name of protecting the homeland, rather than a quest for a world-dominating master race.

Lesson 4: Most of us are in greater danger of committing a holocaust than being a victim of one

I had to pause when this realization hit me one day. As fairly average white American, I am in the majority in my country. And as strange as it is to say, that means I have more in common with the Germans who either committed heinous acts or capitulated to the Nazis than I do with the Jews and other targets of the Nazi party. That isn’t to say that I would easily go along with mass genocide, but who’s to say that I could fully resist the combination of systematic dehumanization, propaganda, and terrorism that led to the Holocaust? We all like to think we’d be the brave heroes hiding the Anne Franks of the world in our secret cupboards, but the truth is we don’t really know what we would have done.

Check out what this Army Captain who helped liberate a Nazi camp said about his bafflement at what the Germans, “a cultured people” allowed to happen:

“I had studied German literature while an undergraduate at Harvard College. I knew about the culture of the German people and I could not, could not really believe that this was happening in this day and age; that in the twentieth century a cultured people like the Germans would undertake something like this. It was just beyond our imagination… – Captain (Dr.) Philip Leif – 3rd Auxiliary Surgical Group, First Army

Some say that we can gauge what we would have done by examining what we’re doing right now, and perhaps they are right. Are we speaking out against our government’s cruel family separations that traumatize innocent children? Do we justify travel bans from entire countries because we trust that it’s simply our leadership trying to keep us safe? Do we buy into the “Muslims are terrorists” and “undocumented immigrants are criminals” rhetoric?

While it’s wise to be wary of comparing current events to the Holocaust, it’s also wise to recognize that the Holocaust didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with “othering,” scapegoating, and fear-mongering. We have to be watchful not only for signs of atrocity, but for the signs leading up to it.

Lesson 5: Teaching full and accurate history matters

There are people who deny that the Holocaust even happened, which is mind-boggling. But there are far more people who are ignorant to the true horrors of it. Reading first-hand accounts of both the people who survived the camps and those who liberated them is perhaps the best way to begin to grasp the scope of what happened.

One small example is Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower’s attempt to describe what he saw when he visited Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald:

“The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.'”

And of course, the most important narratives to read and try to digest are the accounts of those who survived the camps. Today, 200 survivors of Auschwitz gathered to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation. They warned about the rise in anti-Semitism in the world and how we must not let prejudice and hatred fester. Imagine having to make such a warning seven decades after watching family and friends being slaughtered in front of you.

Let’s use this anniversary as an opportunity to dive deeper into what circumstances and environment enabled millions of people to be killed by one country’s leadership. Let’s learn the lessons the Holocaust has to teach us about human nature and our place in the creation of history. And let’s make darn sure we do everything in our power to fend off the forces that threaten to lead us down a similarly perilous path.

With Kevin McCarthy finally being elected as Speaker of the House following four days and 15 rounds of voting at the beginning of the month, it would seem that the issue is in the rearview for Republicans. Geraldo Rivera, on the other hand, still has questions. During Thursday night’s episode Hannity, Rivera tore into Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for being the ringleader of the Republican holdouts who prevented McCarthy from securing the vote until well into the night of Friday, January 6. (What is it with the GOP and that date?)

At one point during the House vote, a fistfight almost broke out after Gaetz tanked the 14th round of voting, and Rivera wants to know what the heck was the point of it all?

“What in the world were you and your 19 colleagues doing torturing the speaker, your speaker, your speaker-designate Kevin McCarthy? What was that for? What did you hope to attain in that?” Rivera asked Gaetz who took umbrage with the phrasing of the question.

“So, first of all, I’ve got some constituents in the military that could talk to you about real torture,” Gaetz responded. “I don’t think sitting through 15 votes quite qualifies.”

From there, Gaetz went into a diatribe about omnibus spending legislation and having individual votes on appropriation bills, which surprisingly won over Rivera — until he used the world flamboyant. Via Mediaite:

“Congressman, with your filibuster right now, you are portraying yourself to the American people as a thoughtful legislator,” Rivera interrupted.

“Thank you,” Gaetz replied.

“And yet, the publicity that you get – characteristically – almost inevitably is flamboyant, it’s confrontational–”

After some crosstalk between the two and host Sean Hannity, Gaetz took issue with Rivera’s remark.

“I make a substantive argument about changes to the process and you call me flamboyant and confrontational?” he asked.

At that point, Hannity jumped in and stopped another squabble from breaking out by noting the House Speaker issue is settled and, “Now everybody’s on the same page.”

(Via Mediaite)

Ask Run-DMC: the musical dance between rap and rock music is nothing new. Despite publicly sharing that his next project would, in fact, be a departure from his signature rap sound, Lil Yachty fans are surprised by his new album, Let’s Start Here.

The 14-track album, rooted in the sounds of psychedelic rock, marks the rapper’s first full-length release in nearly three years. Let’s Start Here features guest production by Justin Raisen, Sad Pony, Patrick Wimberly, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jacob Portrait, Nick Hakim, Magdalena Bay, and Jam City, as well as a musical appearance by MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser on the keyboards. While most artists are fearful of stepping out of the sounds fans have grown to expect from them, Lil Yachty, on the other hand, embraced the challenge. The creative deviation, according to Twitter users, has ultimately paid off.

During a private listening party for the album, Lil Yachty shared his true motivations for stepping outside of rap music on this project. He told the packed room, “This album is so special and dear to me. I think I created it because I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist. You know? Not just some SoundCloud rapper. Not some mumble rapper. Not some guy that just made one hit. I wanted to be taken seriously because music is everything to me, and I respect all walks of music. Not just rap and hip-hop but everything. I wanted to make something that showed the world that shows it, just how great music is to me.”

The phrase “SoundCloud rapper” is often used to demise a rapper’s musicality. During the height of the streamer, aspiring musicians could upload raw cuts of their DIY songs using it as a way to gauge the quality, measuring it against how popular it became. Often time, these musicians didn’t have a formal background or training in songwriting or production. SoundCloud removed the barriers of entry for a lot of today’s biggest names in rap, including Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, and Chance The Rapper, to name a few.

Yachty then added that because the trendiness of the sound often found on the music streamer (pioneered by Lil Uzi Vert and himself) was being so over-saturated, he felt like it was time to reinvent himself. Yachty told the crowd, “If we’re just going, to be honest. A lot of n****s are copying the swag, and I just felt like if everyone can do this, that’s fine. But I’m going to show y’all what y’all can’t do.”

To be fair, Lil Yachty isn’t the only artist earning praise for their exploration into rock music, SZA also was applauded for her rock track, “Ghost In The Machine,” featuring Phoebe Bridgers, off her new album SOS. Kid Cudi has also released a fully rock-centered album.

Let’s Start Here is out now via Quality Control. Get it here.

It’s too easy to spend an entire evening scrolling through streaming services like Prime Video picking a movie to watch. By the time you pick a movie, you could have watched one. Or two. Maybe even three. We’re here to solve that problem with the 25 best Amazon Prime movies that are available right now. From recent critical darlings like La La Land and Licorice Pizza to modern classics like Fight Club and Minority Report, here is your guide to the best movies on Amazon Prime, so you can spend your next movie night actually watching a movie:

Last updated on January 27, 2023.

1. La La Land

Year: 2016
Cast: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend
Genre: Drama, Musical
Rating: R
Runtime: 128 minutes
Director: Damien Chazelle
Trailer: Watch here

While its legacy might be it was a fake Oscar winner, Damien Chazelle’s romantic but painful musical La La Land shows how ambition and success can unite people, and also how it can divide and change them in an idyllic, colorful version of Los Angeles (the titular La La Land, of course). Although the year’s best picture Oscar actually went to Moonlight, Emma Stone won the Oscar for best actress for her charming performance as aspiring actress Mia.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

2. The Wolf of Wall Street

Year: 2013
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 180 minutes
Director: Martin Scorsese
Trailer: Watch here

The best thing about The Wolf of Wall Street? It doesn’t give a sh*t. Martin Scorsese’s hilarious adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s life and career as a wealthy stock-market manipulator brought out another side of his directing style and another unexpected side of Leonardo DiCaprio. With the help of effortlessly funny co-stars Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie, DiCaprio finally lets loose and allows himself to be funny. Fortunately, he is just as good at it as he is at drama, if not better.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Year: 2001
Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Cat Blanchett
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 178 minutes
Director: Peter Jackson
Trailer: Watch here

The introductory film in Peter Jackson’s award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy is a classic with ground-breaking special effects, affecting performances, and unbelievable set pieces, costumes, and unfathomable scale. The cast and their sparkling chemistry turns the otherwise quite dark hunt for The One Ring into comfort viewing.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

4. Fight Club

Year: 1999
Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 139 minutes
Director: David Fincher
Trailer: Watch here

Ah, yes, the movie whose poster was tacked to the dorm walls of straight men everywhere for years on end. Despite the annoying film bro following that this David Fincher film developed over time, Fight Club is a decade-defining classic, featuring clever, extremely physical performances from stars Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. If you love a twist, you’ll love this, even if you see it coming five minutes into the movie.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

5. Licorice Pizza

Year: 2021
Cast: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 133 minutes
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Trailer: Watch here

Paul Thomas Anderson is obsessed with two things: Hollywood and the 1970s. Licorice Pizza combines those inside a coming-of-age story featuring performances from first-time leads Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman (the son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a frequent Anderson collaborator). The film is not Anderson’s strongest to date, but it is, perhaps his most personal film to date. Like a typical Anderson film, the narrative feels epic with many acts and many characters, some of who only appear for a scene or two. The best part of the film is Bradley Cooper’s truly wild performance as film producer Jon Peters.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

6. The Fighter

Year: 2010
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
Genre: Drama, Biopic
Rating: R
Runtime: 116 minutes
Director: David O. Russell
Trailer: Watch here

David O. Russell’s film about professional boxers and half-brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund follows all the typical beats of a sports drama and a biopic. Despite its predictability, formulaic structure can be great. In this case, it gives us the committed performances (some of the decade’s best) room to shine from Melissa Leo’s Oscar-winning performance, Christian Bale’s Oscar-winning performance, and Amy Adams non-Oscar winning or nominated performance (a casual reminder that Amy Adams is long overdue for an Oscar ).

Watch it on Amazon Prime

7. Shutter Island

Year: 2010
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Ben Kingsley
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R
Director: Martin Scorsese
Runtime: 139 minutes
Trailer: Watch here

While Shutter Island might not be one of Martin Scorsese’s best films, it is an essential one. Scorsese flexes decades of directorial experience here, going bigger than ever with his style, which has only progressed since then. Shutter Island, which follows two detectives investigating a disappearance at a remote insane asylum, also follows most thriller cliches, but Scorsese’s skill makes it twice as thrilling, and a little bit fun despite its dark tone and themes. Scorsese is going all out here and encourages his frequent collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio (his 2000s muse, in a sense) to really go for it, too.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

8. The Usual Suspects

Year: 1995
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Steven Baldwin, Benicio del Toro
Genre: Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 106 minutes
Director: Bryan Singer
Trailer: Watch here

The Usual Suspects combines elements of film noir with a standard ’90s thriller. With every second that passes in the energetic crime thriller with a sprawling cast of ’90s faves from Gabriel Byrne to Benicio del Toro, more layers are added to the mystery and, therefore, the film itself. Although the complex story builds and builds as it goes, the screenplay is packaged in a way so that it doesn’t feel as complex as it is, without condescending to the audience.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

9. The Northman

Year: 2022
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe
Genre: Action
Rating: R
Runtime: 136 minutes
Director: Robert Eggers
Trailer: Watch here

Like every Robert Eggers film, The Northman is even weirder than it looks. The film follows the Viking Amleth who devotes his life to seeking revenge on the man who murdered his father and, seemingly, took his mother. Amleth gets his revenge, but slowly and very violently. And yes, the rumors are true: there is a naked volcano fight scene in this. And also a magically unhinged performance from Nicole Kidman.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

10. The Italian Job

Year: 2003
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 105 minutes
Director: F. Gary Gray
Trailer: Watch here

It doesn’t get more 2003 than this remake of the 1969 movie of the same name. Action star of the moment Mark Wahlberg stars as professional fixer Charlie Croker, who, seeking revenge for the murder of a friend leads a team of people with various useful skills when it comes to a heist on a heist. Edward Norton plays a villain with a little mustache who often wears a beanie.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

11. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Year: 2009
Cast: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman
Genre: Animation, Comedy
Rating: PG
Runtime: 87 minutes
Director: Wes Anderson
Trailer: Watch here

Of course, a director with an eye for color and symmetry is also a visionary in animation. Wes Anderson’s stop-motion film, based on the 1970 children’s novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, is about a fox whose series of thefts cause problems for his family and his community, as they are hunted down by those seeking revenge. Anderson co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

12. The Hunger Games

Year: 2012
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrellson
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 142 minutes
Director: Gary Ross
Trailer: Watch here

The Hunger Games novel is practically written like a screenplay, and the film adaptation stays as loyal as it can be (it was, probably pretty easy). The themes are a little heavy-handed at times, but its the direction, cinematography, and performances from leads Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson (as well as supporting ones from Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, and Lenny Kravitz) that make it staggering and thought-provoking.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

13. Minority Report

Year: 2002
Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
Genre: Sci-fi, Action
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 145 minutes
Director: Steven Spielberg
Trailer: Watch here

Minority Report is what every sci-fi action film should be: energetic, horrifying, and stimulating. Most importantly, fun. Tom Cruise stars as Precrime Chief John Anderton, whose job is to arrest people for crimes they are predicted to commit. Despite his trust of the system, John becomes one of the hunted when he is predicted to commit a crime. So, like everyone he hunts, he runs, and in the process discovers a conspiracy. The film also includes a massively underrated supporting performance from Colin Farrell, then early into his film career.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

14. Superbad

Year: 2007
Cast: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 113 minutes
Director: Greg Mottola
Trailer: Watch here

This irreverent comedy turned Jonah Hill (now an Oscar nominee) and Emma Stone (now an Oscar winner) into movie stars. The raunchy, graphic comedy went further than any comedy before it, in ways that have aged well and ways that have aged poorly. Regardless, it’s a classic. Behind all the dick jokes and weird period jokes, it’s a film about male friendship that allows men on the screen to be vulnerable with each other.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

15. The Machinist

Year: 2004
Cast: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
Director: Brad Anderson
Trailer: Watch here

Christian Bale is well known for putting on pounds or losing them for roles. For his role in The Machinist, Bale transformed himself into a rail-thin paranoid factory worker who has not slept in a year by dropping over 60 lbs. It’s definitely a gimmick, but Bale’s transformative performance is admirable and unlike anything else he’s ever done before or since.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

16. The Silence of the Lambs

Year: 1991
Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 118 minutes
Director: Jonathan Demme
Trailer: Watch here

Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs is not only one of the best horror movies ever made, but one of the best movies ever made full stop. The disturbing psychological thriller gets its energy from its rousing lead performances from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. Their chemistry on screen is a palpable force that helped earn the film – and the genre – deserved recognition at the Oscars, where it swept the five major categories: best actor, best actress, best-adapted screenplay, best director, and best picture. To this day, it is the only horror film to win best picture.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

17. Jennifer’s Body

Year: 2009
Cast: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
Director: Karyn Kusama
Trailer: Watch here

Jennifer’s Body was generally reviled by critics when it came out, but it has since gained a deserved cult following and is now regarded as a feminist classic. Written by Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, people were likely not prepared for the body horror flick as much as they were for a charming indie about a pregnant teenager. Megan Fox plays Jennifer, a high school student who develops some deadly vampiric tendencies after a ritual gone horribly wrong. Emmy-winner Amanda Seyfried plays her nerdy best friend who tries to save her bff’s victims.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

18. The Tender Bar

Year: 2021
Cast: Ben Affleck, Lily Rabe, Ty Sheridan
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 104 minutes
Director: George Clooney
Trailer: Watch here

This sentimental coming-of-age film from director George Clooney tells the story of American journalist J.R. Moehringer’s life growing up on Long Island, where he spent a significant portion of his time at a bar, which is his only escape from his complex life at home. It is based on Moehringer’s 2005 memoir of the same name.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

19. A Quiet Place 2

Year: 2020
Cast: Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds
Genre: Horror
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 97 minutes
Director: John Krasinski
Trailer: Watch here
Emily Blunt returns for the sequel to her husband John Krasinksi’s hit horror film set in a post-apocalyptic world occupied by aliens with razor-sharp hearing. Although the film is not as tight as its predecessor, the sequel still captures the family dynamics that give it heart and Krasinksi continues to show off his skill as a horror director.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

20. Casino Royale

Year: 2006
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judy Dench
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 144 minutes
Director: Martin Campbell
Trailer: Watch here

Casino Royale is a significant departure in tone in the decades-long James Bond franchise. In 2006, new Bond Daniel Craig had a different, controversial look and feel to the Bond actors before him: his hair wasn’t as dark and he was a little less polished, rougher around the edges. Unlike Craig’s hair, Casino Royale set a dark, more serious tone for the next era of Bond by taking it a little more seriously. It influenced the Bond franchise permanently, and action films as a whole, which have gotten gritter (some in good ways, some in bad ways).

Watch it on Amazon Prime

21. Sound of Metal

Year: 2020
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 120 minutes
Director: Darius Marder
Trailer: Watch here

Riz Ahmed earned himself an Oscar nomination for best actor for his performance as heavy-metal drummer Ruben who hopes to make it in the music scene but discovers that he is losing his hearing, which changes his life and his plans to pursue a career doing what he loves. House of the Dragon’s Olivia Cooke, who plays Ahmed’s girlfriend and bandmate Lou, also delivers an impressive performance.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

22. Candyman

Year: 2021
Cast: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Director: Nia DaCosta
Trailer: Watch here

Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) directed this followup to the ’90s cult classic starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an artist who investigates a serial killer for a new project. His investigation leads him to other Black men who were murdered and secrets about his own lineage that send him on a bloody spiral. DaCosta is a visionary director with a deep understanding of disturbing, thrilling, and impactful imagery.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

23. Coming 2 America

Year: 2021
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 110 minutes
Director: Craig Brewer
Trailer: Watch here

If you love the original Coming to America, which graced theaters in the summer of 1988, you will most likely enjoy the sequel, set in the country of Zamuda, where the newly crowned king Akeem (Eddie Murphy) embarks on an all-new adventure across the globe. Ultimately, he ends up back in Queens, New York, where Coming to America began decades ago.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

24. The Lost City of Z

Year: 2017
Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 141 minutes
Director: James Gray
Trailer: Watch here

James Gray’s ambitious biopic/adventure flick is a retelling of the true-life drama of Col. Percival Fawcett. Fawcett (Hunnam), a British explorer who disappeared while searching for a mysterious city in the Amazon in the 1920s. Like most of Gray’s work, it’s a slow, but rewarding burn. The cinematography is spectacular, and there are some engrossing action sequences. Robert Pattinson is, as always, weird as ever, but it works.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

25. Ambulance

Year: 2022
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González
Genre: Action
Rating: R
Runtime: 136 minutes
Director: Michael Bay
Trailer: Watch here

When described, AmbuLAnce (it’s set in LA!) sounds fake. The film, directed by Michael Bay, includes several references to Michael Bay films including The Rock. It’s messy and all over the place, but Jake Gyllenhaal’s chaotic performance as the manic villain collides with Bay’s aggressive directing style as if they were meant to be.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

J Balvin will be making his return to concerts this year through VR. Last night (January 26), the Colombian superstar announced his upcoming show J Balvin Futurum: A VR Concert Experience.

J Balvin is teaming up with iHeartRadio to put on his VR concert. During the 45-minute set, he will perform his hits like “Mi Gente,” “La Canción,” which originally featured Bad Bunny, and “I Like It,” Cardi B‘s song that took him to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. J Balvin expressed his excitement to deliver his music through the VR medium.

“I’m always looking for new and innovative ways to expand access to art and the VR space is one with limitless opportunity,” he said in a statement. “The whole show has a futuristic vibe including some crazy robotics twice my size. It will be one of my wildest shows ever and I’m grateful to Meta and iHeart for the unique collaboration and the platform to explore my passion for technology in a way that allows my fans to experience my music together in a different way.”

There are multiple ways to watch J Balvin Futurum: A VR Concert Experience on February 17 at 6 pm PST. The 180-degree concert experience will be streaming on iHeartRadio’s Facebook and Instagram pages, Meta Quest TV, and Messenger’s Watch Together.

Sometimes we have to wait weeks (months?) in order to know if a show will be renewed for another season, and it seems like a renewal announcement has turned into a Thing as of late, with fans beginning Twitter campaigns to save their favorite shows and buying real-life billboards in order to get the attention of those giant streamers. HBO, on the other hand, just seems to do whatever it wants, and today it announced that The Last Of Us has been renewed for a second season, despite the fact that the first season is not even halfway done. But that’s a real sign of confidence on their part!

Season one of the series is expected to wrap up the storyline that was introduced in the first game over a decade ago. A second game, The Last of Us Part II, was released in 2020 and took place five years after its predecessor, which would be a very convenient timeline for a show that takes a year to make.

Earlier this year, showrunner Craig Mazin said that while they are open to a second season, the first season will have its own conclusion. “The narrative of the first game was gorgeous, it was complete, it deserved a season, we knew how to do it within a season. And so that was kind of a no brainer,” he told RadioTimes, adding, “If we are lucky enough to get more seasons, and keep telling the story, we will continue to make sure that every episode is worth its weight.”

Considering the fact that Part II takes place years after the first, it’s likely that there will be quite some time in between the seasons, which is already something HBO does anyway. Good thing Bella Ramsay recently said there is “no limit” to how many seasons she would sign on for, so we just might be watching The Last Of Us for the rest of our lives. Or until a fungus-based infection kills us all.

The Last Of Us airs Sundays at 9 pm on HBO Max.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – This is a fashion blog now

Succession is a show about power. Power in business and power in relationships and the way one wields that power to get what one wants, whether it’s by strong-arming someone weaker or flattering someone stronger and using it all to achieve your almost exclusively personal and selfish ends, collateral damage be damned. It is a show about manipulation and domination and crushing your enemies and even your friends if their interests do not align with your own at the moment. It is, to be sure, all of that. But it is also a show about hats.

Bad hats, specifically. Weird plain black ones that have no logos or markings on them. Hats that you almost never see a person wear on the street in real life. They love these hats. They wear them all the time. Especially Logan, the patriarch played by Brian Cox, and Kendall, the doofus failson played by Jeremy Strong. I am not the first person to notice these hats. Everyone notices the hats. But I am the one writing this paragraph, so let’s press on.

Here is Kendall in one of the stupid hats.

Here is Logan in one of the stupid hats.

It is, to put a reasonably fine point on it all, a whole thing. And it’s something you can’t stop noticing once you notice it the first time, or once some stupid guy on the internet brings it to your attention. (Sorry.) (Kind of.) They look like hats you would wear to try to go undercover or blend in but would result in someone looking at you and your weird black hat and being like “that guy over there in the weird plain black hat sure looks suspicious.” They look like hats you would wear to scope out a bank you plan to rob the next day. They look like hats a creep would wear in a live-action kids’ movie. They’re not good hats.

And guess what: They’re back. The first teaser trailer for the upcoming fourth season dropped this week, and if you were wondering how long it would take for someone on the show to pop up in a plain back hat, you got your answer pretty fast. Like, right away. Because this was pretty much the first shot of that sucker.

And then moments later, Kendall and his siblings were shown striding across the runway of a private little airport and, yes, there he is in his weird spy hat.

It’s important to note here that other stuff happens in the teaser. Lots of it. The last season ended in chaos with the family splintering and various members declaring war on each other and my sweet boy Cousin Greg getting yoinked around by everyone like a gangly little ragdoll. This teaser… well, teases how that’s all going to go down. I’m legitimately very excited to see how it all plays out when it comes back.

But… I mean, come on. How can I be expected to focus on any of that when Kendall has on his stupid plain black hat and is doing whatever the heck he thinks he’s doing here?

Three notes in conclusion:

• It is my position that Kendall wears the plain black hats because he has seen Logan wearing them and he is so desperate to be respected by/like his father that he has adopted this aspect of his personal style either by choice or subconsciously
• I hope they introduce a charismatic and powerful new character this season who wears plain unmarked hats that are bright red, if for no other reason than to see if Kendall starts wearing plain red hats, too
• Hats

Thank you.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – Shoutout to Lloyd Morrisett

Lloyd Morrisett passed away this week. There’s a decent chance that name doesn’t set off any bells in your head. But even if you weren’t familiar with the man, you definitely knew his work. Lloyd Morrisett is widely recognized as being the driving force behind making Sesame Street, like, a thing. He was a psychologist who worked for a big-money non-profit and he went to a dinner party in 1966 and basically pitched the framework of the show to a producer of public television named Joan Ganz Cooney. His idea went something like this: Kids can memorize crappy ad jingles when they’re fun and set to music, so why can’t we do that with stuff that actually promotes education and other useful stuff? Lloyd was a smart dude.

“I said at one point in the conversation, ‘Joan, do you think television can be used to teach young children?’” he said in an interview on “BackStory,” a podcast about history, in 2019, “and her answer was, ‘I don’t know, but I’d like to talk about it.’”

The idea was intriguing enough for Mr. Morrisett, along with Ms. Ganz Cooney, then a producer of public affairs television programming, and others to begin brainstorming about creating a program for preschoolers, particularly poor children who were likely to fall behind in the early grades, that would educate and amuse them.

Even if that’s all he did, it would have been something. That’s… it’s a really good idea. Especially for the 1960s, when half of the ads on television were for cigarettes. But that wasn’t enough for Lloyd. This guy had the follow-through. He and Joan Ganz Cooney saw this sucker through with a combination of fundraising and savvy political maneuvering.

At Mr. Morrisett’s request, and with money from the Carnegie Corporation, Ms. Ganz Cooney traveled the country interviewing educators, animators, puppeteers, psychologists, filmmakers and television producers to produce a study, “The Potential Uses of Television for Pre-School Education.” That study became the blueprint for “Sesame Street.”

This is really cool. What a legacy. Think about this the next time you’re having dinner with your friends. Some crazy idea one of you has might end up changing the freaking world. I say “you” and “your friends” here because me and my bozo cronies are usually just talking about various ways the Philadelphia Eagles have brought us joy and/or wronged us. We can’t leave this one up to me.

There was probably a better video to put at the top of this section than the one of Elmo freaking out on his nemesis Rocco. I don’t know. I really like it. Even today. As a fully grown adult. So… there it is. Thank you to Lloyd for that, too.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – Good show doing special episode

We have discussed Harley Quinn a few times now. There’s a simple reason for that: It is so good. It’s an adult animated series on HBO Max that takes everything you know about the world of Batman and smashes it in the face with a pie. Harley and Poison Ivy are a couple. Joker ran for mayor on a platform somewhere to the left of socialism. Bane is a big dumb idiot and I love him a lot. It’s a good show.

This is the teaser for its upcoming Valentine’s Day special. I watched the screener for this thing earlier in the week and I feel confident telling you that it is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen, which I mean as the highest compliment I know how to give. I really need everyone to watch this just to see the journey Bane goes on. Watch the rest of the show, too, if you haven’t. There are three seasons so far. You can bang through the whole thing in a week or two if you commit a little bit. You will not regret it. Jim Gordon and his Bat Signal bits have taken up residence in my brain in a way very few things from very few comedies have. I know I post these screencaps every time I mention the show but I’m going to do it again anyway.

I feel great about it.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – More like craptocurrency, in my opinion

Cryptocurrency never made sense to me. It always seemed like this weird nebulous concept that people got really excited about for… like, reasons? I tried to wrap my head around it a few times. I’m a reasonably bright dude. I have a law degree in a closet around here somewhere that has about an inch of dust on it, which I realize as I say it does not do a great job of making my case that I’m a reasonably smart guy. For a couple reasons. But whatever. I’m not the one on trial here. Cryptocurrency is.

Which brings me to this clip of Bomani Jones on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Bomani Jones is one of those guys who is so smart and good with words that he can make weird nebulous confusing stuff sound simple. That’s what he’s doing here. He’s explaining cryptocurrency through the lens of its sudden flooding of the sports world via endorsements and naming rights and all of it. Watch it now. It’s maybe the best explanation of the whole thing I’ve ever seen. It makes it all seem so obvious now. Which it probably should have been all along. And he uses the word “dorks,” which more people should do while discussing boring economic principles.

Very useful and informative. I know I just said this is a fashion blog now but it is also educational. A blog can be two things.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – THIS IS IMPORTANT

So here’s what happened.

I saw this tweet earlier in the week…

… and it changed my entire life. Look at that cast list. Look at the character names. Look at, like, all of it. It’s incredible. It was one of those things where I simultaneously needed to know everything about it at once and nothing else about it ever. Real risky situation. Because there was a chance of more gold being out there for me to find with a little sifting… but there was also the chance I could ruin something perfect by researching the fun out of it. That happens to me sometimes. I get too excited and I start clicking and everything goes to hell. A dilemma.

But I pressed on and I am glad I did because I saw this entire paragraph on the Wikipedia for the game.

In May 2002, The Starlight Children’s Foundation, chaired by Steven Spielberg and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf announced the educational CD-Rom. It was developed using input of an advisory team of national pediatric asthma experts. The making, funding and distribution of “Quest” was assisted by Home Shopping Network, Technicolor, Ivy Hill Corp., ImagEngine Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline, and it was described as “widely distributed”. It was made available for free at the National Library of Medicine’s Virtual Asthma Exhibit. In November 2002, the developers received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) adolescent and school health program, allowing them to distribute the game to school nurses at more than 30,000 elementary, middle and high schools free of charge. Due to a grant from The California Endowment, the game was included in a distributed Asthma Tool Kit. In 2007, Starlight converted the game to a web-based platform.

Steven Spielberg and Norman Schwarzkopf teamed up in 2002 to make a CD-ROM game about asthma and they got Shaquille O’Neal and Kelsey Grammer to voice characters in it. This is… it’s remarkable. I’m kind of speechless here. I’m also kind of angry that I did not know about it until now. How did I not know about this until now? Where was I the last 20 years? Where were all of you? Why didn’t any of you tell me about this? Why isn’t this the only thing you told me about? Why isn’t it a live-action movie that was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred this exact cast? I’m so mad at everyone now.

This is what I mean about ruining something by researching it. I went and made myself furious. Jesus Christ.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Pete:

I have two questions about Poker Face that I need you to answer. The first: Did you create this show in a laboratory? The second: Assuming you did, how long until the Muppets show up?

Pete, this is a good email. Partially, because it allows me to link to my review again and partially because it allows me to link to my thing about how I want the Muppets to be in the next Knives Out. To be clear, though: I did not create it in a lab, even if “the Knives Out guy made a mystery of the week show where Natasha Lyonne plays a hard-drinking Columbo with a 100 percent accurate lie detector for a brain,” sounds like a thing I would make in a lab. You can tell because the Muppets would have already been in it. I wouldn’t risk wasting time like that. Too much can happen. You need to do the important things first.

It also lets me direct everyone to this thing Rian Johnson said about Natasha Lyonne’s cameo as herself in Glass Onion during an interview with Screenrant:

Well, you want to hear a twisted web? Try and untangle this. She is Natasha in that she’s in her trailer on the set of Poker Face. If you look at her background, it’s her trailer. She’s in between takes when we’re shooting Poker Face. I just said, “Get on the Zoom real quick and do it.”

So, I have no idea how you untangle that. I guess in the Glass Onion universe, Poker Face is a show that’s being shot. I’ll have an episode of Poker Face on the background in the next Benoit Blanc mystery, maybe.

I love all of this very much.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Hawaii!

One of the world’s most prestigious and storied surfing contests — dubbed the “Super Bowl of Surfing” — went forward Sunday in Hawaii for the first time in seven years with towering wave faces and a gigantic swell that was expected to grow throughout the day.

I need to be clear about two things here:

• The fact that I am disabled and used a power wheelchair is about fourth or fifth on the list of reasons that I did not enter this big-wave surfing contest
• You have to stick around to see where this goes

Moving on.

The event — alternatively known simply as The Eddie — is a one-day contest held in Waimea Bay on Oahu’s North Shore only when the surf is consistently large enough during the winter big-wave surfing season from mid-December through mid-March. The wind, the tides and the direction of the swell also have to be just right.

This is just more context. Google “The Eddie” if you want more information. Mostly, I just need you to know that there are five full paragraphs like this before we get to… this.

On Sunday, the sets were already big, with the swell expected to grow as the day went on, and an estimated 60,000 people packed the beaches and surrounding area to catch a glimpse of the spectacle. One huge wave swept onto the beach and hit a family, sweeping a baby under a house, but the child was not injured, Hawaii News Now reported.

Two notes here:

• It is funny to me in ways I cannot fully articulate that this article dropped “baby carried away by wave, washed under house, survived” like 60 percent of the way through a story about surf dudes riding tsunamis
• There is a non-zero chance that this baby either was invincible before this or became invincible because of it, like maybe it’s an origin story for how he becomes a superhero eventually, with the power to control the seas and everything in it

Am I saying this baby is Aquaman? No. Of course not. That would be crazy. But am I saying this baby could become Aquaman?

…

…

I’m not not saying it.

Vic Mensa teams up with jazz-soul superproducer Thundercat on his latest single, the spaced-out “Strawberry Louis Vuitton.” Thundercat offers a cotton candy backdrop for Mensa to pen a lyrical love letter to a woman who’s got a hold on him.

Singer Maeta provides backing vocals, bolstering Vic’s own sung chorus, and as the song progresses, the instrumentation grows more and more elaborate, culminating in Thundercat’s falsetto bridge and a crunchy bass breakdown. Check it out below.

Mensa is fresh off the success of his and Chance The Rapper’s Ghana-based music festival, Black Star Line Festival, which also created the opportunity for Vic to build water boreholes that will provide clean water to over 200,000 Ghanaians. Over the holidays, Vic also gave away $10,000 of gas money in his hometown, Chicago, continuing the streak of philanthropy and activism which has defined his career so far. Musically, his last collab was with Chance on The Rapper’s “Wraith (Writing Exercise #3),” the latest in a string of new collaborations they’ve created since reuniting a few years ago.

Thundercat, meanwhile, has been working on some interesting projects of his own, including a contribution to a tribute album for Japanese jazz great Ryuichi Sakamoto and an upcoming tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Flea called ‘Cat his favorite modern bassist). He also popped up on the title track for Gorillaz’s upcoming project Cracker Island, kicking off his 2023 with plenty of high-profile appearances.

Picking All-Star Game participants is hard. Picking All-Star starters is even harder. Unfortunately, someone is going to end up missing out who deserves a starting nod in the NBA’s mid-season showcase, and in the Eastern Conference, the player who has the most justifiable gripe about not starting in Salt Lake City next month is Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid. One of the frontrunners for the MVP award this season, Embiid lost out on a starting spot to Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, and Jayson Tatum.

Now, for a collection of words that will come to the surprise of absolutely no one: Daryl Morey thinks Embiid got “completely hosed.” Morey appeared on a Philadelphia radio show on Friday morning and touched on Embiid missing out, and blamed “the shameless Boston media” that is “way overrepresented” in the voting process.

We think Morey is having some fun with this for an audience of people — Philadelphia fans who listen to sports talk radio — who are very likely to get some joy out of jokes about Boston sports media. This is in part due to the fact that the media voted Embiid third, behind Tatum in first and Antetokounmpo in second. The players also put Embiid in third (Antetokounmpo and Durant were ahead of him), while the fans were the ones who put Embiid the lowest, as they had him in fourth behind the three dudes who ended up getting sporting nods. (Daryl, if we have an incorrect read on this and you are actually trying to wage war with Boston sports media, we will happily correct.)

Morey did go on to bring up the NBA’s resistance to making All-Star and All-NBA teams positionless and rewarding “the 5-best people” despite the fact that “there’s so many players that are unique to history that you can’t put ’em in a box of an F label, or a G label, or a C label.”