Month: January 2023

Ari Lennox has shared a new visual from her acclaimed sophomore album, Age/Sex/Location. On the standout track, Lennox kills time with a man, while reminding him she’s in control.

“Waste my time, get on my line / ‘Cause I got the time to waste / Use that mouth blow this back out / Back up every word you say,” sings Lennox on the song’s chorus.

In the song’s accompanying visual, Lennox is seen in a therapy session, unpacking her attraction to men who aren’t good for her. She then quickly drifts off into a steamy fantasy, which sees her getting hot with a man, wading in a pool, and dancing in the clouds. As her fantasy ends, she gives her therapist the perfect answer to her question.

Today (January 26), Lennox kicked off her Age/Sex/Location tour. Fans can still purchase tickets for the tour here, and we would advise them to do so quickly. Back in December, Lennox took to Twitter and revealed that this tour would be her last.

“I love my genuine fans so much,” she said in a since-deleted tweet, “and can’t wait to give you my all every night!!

There’s no telling whether or not Lennox will change her mind on this.

But in the meantime, you can check out the video “Waste My Time” above.

Finding a job is never easy. But finding a flexible, shift-based, or part-time job that actually fits your life, pays fair wages, and offers competitive benefits? That can feel downright impossible, especially when you use employment tools and staffing resources designed with only the employer’s needs in mind.

Want to make it easier to find a job that meets your needs? Then you need to check out Bluecrew, a modern staffing solution that helps workers find the flexible employment opportunities they deserve.

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With record inflation causing food, gas, and housing prices to soar, just about everybody could use a little extra money. An estimated 70 percent of American workers are looking for additional employment to make ends meet. So why did 10.5 million jobs go unfilled in November? Why are so many companies saying they still can’t find employees?

Some people will tell you it’s because today’s workers are lazy or they’ve become too accustomed to government handouts. But that’s not the case. People want to work. They just need jobs that fit their lives. And the reality is hiring, and employment practices have not evolved to meet new economic realities.Modern Solution For A Modern Workforce

That’s where Bluecrew comes in. This company was founded on the idea that the traditional approach to hourly staffing is broken. So they set out to create a new platform that streamlines the entire process in a way that works better for everybody.

Finding The Perfect Fit Just Got Easier

A traditional job search requires a bunch of phone calls, emails, and paperwork. But half the time, you go through the entire application process only to find out that the employer can’t offer you the shift you need or the job just isn’t right for you for one reason or another. But with Bluecrew it’s so much easier.

Bluecrew is an online staffing agency and workforce management platform that lets you search for part-time, full-time, temporary, or ongoing job assignments that fit your location, skills, and schedule. Because you will be an employee of Bluecrew, you only have to fill out one application to access dozens of job opportunities. And all of them are sent right to your phone through the Bluecrew app, along with the wage, location, job description, and company reviews.

With Bluecrew, you can decide if a job is right for you, and there are never any penalties for declining a position. Best of all, you get peace of mind knowing that Bluecrew guarantees essential protections like timely payment, overtime, paid sick leave, and workers comp.

If you’re tired of making your life fit your work and ready to make work fit your life, take a look at Bluecrew. They specialize in giving workers the power to find the perfect fit.

We are less than a month away from Gorillaz upcoming eighth studio album, Cracker Island, and ahead of its release, the animated band has shared a psychedelic new track. On their latest, “Silent Running,” the band recalls a hypnotic love, as they fall through an intoxicating wormhole in their mind. Adeleye Omotayo adds some smooth, seductive vocals to the song, glistening the background, and giving it a magical touch.

“You brought me back and made me feel free / Rowdy waves and your energy / You pulled me fragile from the wreckage / Well, I got so lost here / Machine assisted, I disappear,” sings Gorillaz lead vocalist 2-D on the song’s opening verse.

In a statement accompanied by the song’s release, Gorillaz founding member Damon Albarn described the song as “… that sort of mesmerising dreamlike state you get in when you’re just following some train of thought.”

“Sometimes I get well lost and end up in the wrong place but then it turns out that’s where I was meant to be going anyway,” added 2-D

Check out “Silent Running” above.

Cracker Island is out 2/24 via Warner Records. You can pre-order it here.

Gorillaz is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Zara Larsson is shining incredibly bright on her new anthem, “Can’t Tame Her.” The upbeat synth pop instrumental propels things forward and makes it a recognizable hit upon the first listen.

“No you can’t tame the girl / Cause she runs her own world,” she sings on the chorus.

Lyrically, there’s also a ton of inspiration that Larsson pulled from the way she feels women are viewed by those who don’t truly know them.

“If you are in the public eye of any sort, I think a lot of people have a perception of who you are and who you should be,” she told Billboard. “People want to put girls in a box of what you should do or not. In the public eye, you have a lot of people telling you what’s wrong or how you should do something differently. I’m out there, I’m very loud and I try to stay true to myself and surround myself with people who care about me, so we can all help each other and protect each other. Really good friends.”

She also dropped a futuristic-style music video for the track that literally finds her seeing double. By the time the second verse hits, things take a completely different visual turn. With several costume and scenery changes and some wild psychedelic effects, this is one not to miss.

Listen to Zara Larsson’s “Can’t Tame Her” above.

The 2023 NBA All-Star game is headed to Salt Lake City, and the game will follow the same format as in recent years, with starters being selected by a combination of fan (50 percent), media (25 percent), and player vote (25 percent), with reserved voted on by coaches after.

While All-Stars continue to be selected equally from the Eastern and Western conferences, they are put in a player pool and drafted by the two team captains, who are the players that get the most fan votes. This year, the draft will happen 30 minutes prior to tipoff, schoolyard style, rather than a week ahead of time in a TV special on TNT. That could be a cool wrinkle, but will take away some of the funny moments where the Inside the NBA crew gets to prod at the captains while they make their picks.

On Thursday night, the 2023 starters were unveiled, with some genuine drama coming into the night about a few of the spots.

WEST
Captain: LeBron James (Lakers)
Zion Williamson (Pelicans)
Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
Stephen Curry (Warriors)
Luka Doncic (Mavericks)

EAST
Captain: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
Kevin Durant (Nets)
Jayson Tatum (Celtics)
Kyrie Irving (Nets)
Donovan Mitchell (Cavaliers)

The biggest surprise in the West was Zion Williamson edging Anthony Davis, as he had been just behind the Lakers star big man in the last round of fan voting, but Davis’ injury seems to have allowed Zion (also dealing with injury) to move past Davis. In the East, the frontcourt vote was likewise the site of the biggest roster crunch, with Joel Embiid being the big man on the outside looking in as Antetokounmpo, Tatum, and Durant earned the three frontcourt starting nods — Durant, of course, could be forced to sit out with his knee injury as he is to be re-evaluated in two weeks.

There will be very few issues with these 10 players being All-Stars, so now we get to the real debate about the 14 other players that will fill out the rosters. In a year with so many players having massive scoring seasons, and a number of emerging stars, there figure to be plenty of folks feeling snubbed once the coaches picks come out in a week’s time.

The original Dead Space launched in 2008, a few years after Resident Evil 4 changed the landscape for big-budget action horror games forever. Not only would developer Visceral Games meet the high bar set by Capcom in the genre they had a closed fist of dominance over, but they would also raise it substantially, becoming the premier example of how to create thrills and terror for the next decade. Under a new studio and with over 15 years of advancements in game design to play with, the series has returned — remade and reimagined for a whole new audience, right as the horror game renaissance reaches a fever pitch.

There have been many certified horror bangers since we last saw Issac crawling through the decrepit air vents of the deteriorating space freighter. A frame-by-frame remake would be a fun trip down memory lane, but it wouldn’t be enough to live up to the experience we remember, or to the many new classic moments we’ve had over the years. Motive Studio agrees, and has committed to not just making a shinier version of the scary sci-fi hit, but shaking up the formula to expand on the core concept, and make an experience capable of putting the industry on notice yet again. For my money, there are a few places that could use the benefit of review, as the things they got away with years ago may need revamping if they’re going to pull it off again.

The Story

The tale of ship systems engineer Issac Clarke’s very bad day on the USG Ishimura is straightforward and effective. It leads with blood, guts, and chaos and through memos and voice notes reveals a struggle against the dark seduction of a psychic alien race. You don’t need to change too much about this formula, though in an interview with IGN, senior writer Jo Berry revealed that adding a few more points of conflict early, as well as re-touching the pace at which the story’s layers reveal themselves, is certainly on the agenda. This has to include undoing the old silent protagonist trope Issac was cursed with in the original game (and freed of in the subsequent sequels). A main character speaking doesn’t have the adverse effect on “immersion” we once thought it did, especially now that video games are, on the whole, far better written than they used to be. And a late-game twist that felt out of nowhere previously might land far better if we get to know and like Issac as his own person and not just an avatar for corpse stomping.

The Gameplay

Maybe the part of the original Dead Space that most staunchly stands the test of time is its combat. Gangly, twisted monstrosities had to be delimbed after being incapacitated or they could spring back to life, but it got pretty routine hours into the process since many enemy types were shaped similarly and moved predictably. What if that wasn’t the case? What if the common Slasher could appear with more or less than two-bladed arms, or they had multiple or uneven sets of shootable limbs? The new peeling system — where enemies’ flesh actually flays and tears as you damage it — is supposed to be a sort of version of this in that it can reveal how much damage a creature has taken and how close it is to falling, but this seems more cosmetic than anything. Knowing you have to treat a Slasher a particular waywhile always being aware of new variables can make a difference, engagement-wise.

Many of the other changes on this wishlist have already been hinted at or explicitly revealed to be happening in some form. Weapons are getting new and adjusted alternate fire options, as well as new modding mechanics from the Dead Space sequels. The old 3D map was hard to read and largely unreliable and will be replaced by a simpler 2D version, as well as an updated objective locator. The menu, which opens as a projected AR user interface projected from Issac’s helmet, will remain untouched, meaning that stopping to sort through your gear doesn’t pause the action.

The Tech

Part of the obvious value of remaking an old game is using modern technology to do things you previously couldn’t. We tend to consider this idea in a strictly visual sense, but there’s way more that can be gained with the help of processing power, coding techniques, and AI tools that were unheard of in 2008. Two new systems in particular seem to be the fruits of this sort of labor — the ALIVE System and the Intensity Director. The former adjusts Issac’s audio cues based on his physical and mental state. When he’s injured or gets jump scared or is tired from a recent stint of running for his life, his heart rate and breathing may spike or struggle, which in turn informs his dialogue and other audible efforts. The latter watches your progress, adjusting the atmosphere of locations in the ship based on how you’re doing. This could mean that the rooms you’re revising may be completely dark now, or filled with monsters that weren’t there before.

These both work to provide what I hope to be the largest focus of this remake: endless suspense. The original Dead Space knew exactly how to keep you under pressure, but it did so largely by clever jump scare placement and crafting clever encounters by hand. This remake though seems to be ensuring that a game like this could stress you out in new and interesting ways even across multiple playthroughs. The Frostbite engine allows for some impressive lighting and visual fidelity as well. Walls with messages written in blood or covered in alien flesh can now deliver some terrible vibes to players in 4K.

Motive Studio has a big opportunity to re-introduce one of the most potent and memorable horror games to a new generation that has had their interest piqued by modern games like Resident Evil: Village or SIGNALIS. Now that it’s here, we can only hope that their vision for the Dead Space Remake aligns with our modest expectations.

It’s safe to say that things are in flux over at HBO Max. While HBO keeps churning out prestige content — hello, The Last of Us — its sister streamer is going through an overhaul.

What does that mean for our streaming libraries this February?

Expect few new originals, but the ones we are getting will be worth it. A Harley Quinn Valentine’s Day special, a new season of Last Week Tonight, and more episodes of The Last of Us are the highlights this month.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) HBO and HBO Max this February.

Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special (premieres 2/9)

HBO Max’s animated Harley Quinn series is one of the best on TV so, naturally, we’re psyched that the show is getting a sort of romantic holiday special. Banes got a date he hopes to impress and the rest of the villains struggle to celebrate the special day but it’s Harley’s obsession with making sure her first Valentine’s Day date with Ivy is perfect that causes the bulk of the mess.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (premieres 2/19)

Season 10 of the Emmy award-winning talk show lands later in the month with host John Oliver returning to make sense of the weirdest real-life headlines — and make us laugh in the process. There’s a reason this variety talk show takes home all the trophies come awards season, so we have high hopes for this next installment and the Adam Driver thirst content it will provide.

Here’s everything coming to HBO and HBO Max this February:

Avail. 2/1
A Vigilante, 2018 (HBO)
Acts of Vengeance, 2017 (HBO)
Another Country, 2022
Blair Witch, 2016 (HBO)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), 2014 (HBO)
Blame it on Rio, 1984 (HBO)
Bride Wars, 2009 (HBO)
Bull Durham, 1988 (HBO)
Can’t Hardly Wait, 1998, (HBO)
Casino Royale, 2006 (HBO)
Catch Me If You Can, 2002 (HBO)
Come and Find Me, 2016 (HBO)
Cooties, 2014 (HBO)
Diamonds Are Forever, 1971 (HBO)
Don’t Play Us Cheap, 1972
Dr. No, 1962 (HBO)
Eighth Grade, 2018 (HBO)
Factual: Love Off The Grid, Season 1
Food: Hungry for Answers
Footloose, 1984 (HBO)
Force Majeure, 2014 (HBO)
Girl with a Pearl Earring, 2003 (HBO)
Goldeneye, 1995 (HBO)
Good Boy!, 2003 (HBO)
Gossip, 2000 (HBO)
Graffiti Bridge, 1990 (HBO)
Hannibal, 2001 (HBO)
Heist, 2001 (HBO)
High Society, 1956
Honeyland, 2019 (HBO)
Hotel for Dogs, 2009 (HBO)
How I Live Now, 2013 (HBO)
I Am Wrath, 2016 (HBO)
Just Cause, 1995 (HBO)
Live Free or Die Hard, 2007 (HBO)
Luce, 2019 (HBO)
Mandabi, 1968
Mannequin Two: On the Move, 1991 (HBO)
Mermaids, 2003 (HBO)
Moonraker, 1979 (HBO)
Never Grow Old, 2019 (HBO)
Niaye, 1964
Nothing Like the Holidays, 2008 (HBO)
Octopussy, 1983 (HBO)
Own: The Great Soul Food Cook Off
Pens & Pencils, 2022
Person to Person, 2017 (HBO)
Platoon, 1986 (HBO)
Quantum of Solace, 2008 (HBO)
Red, 2010 (HBO)
Scary Movie, 2000 (HBO)
Scary Movie 2, 2001 (HBO)
Scary Movie 3, 2003 (HBO)
Sleepy Hollow, 1999 (HBO)
So I Married an Axe Murderer, 1993
Space is the Place, 1974
Superbad, 2007
Suspect Zero, 2004 (HBO)
Swiss Army Man, 2016 (HBO)
Take This Waltz, 2011 (HBO)
Taxi Driver, 1976
Thanks For Sharing, 2012 (HBO)
The Art of Self-Defense, 2019 (HBO)
The Best of Blaxploitation
The Crazies, 2010 (HBO)
The Living Daylights, 1987 (HBO)
The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974 (HBO)
The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009 (HBO)
The Mexican, 2001 (HBO)
The Miracle Worker, 1962 (HBO)
The Monster, 2016 (HBO)
The Music Man, 1962
The Show, 2020 (HBO)
The Silence of the Lambs, 1991 (HBO)
The Story of a Three Day Pass, 1967
The Terminator, 1984 (HBO)
The Vow, 2012
Throw Mama from the Train, 1987 (HBO)
Thunderball, 1965 (HBO)
TLC: The Culpo Sisters
Tommy Boy, 1995 (HBO)
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 (HBO)
Village of the Damned, 1960
War of the Worlds, 2005 (HBO)
Wayne’s World, 1992 (HBO)
Wayne’s World 2, 1993 (HBO)
White Bird In A Blizzard, 2014 (HBO)
You Only Live Twice, 1967 (HBO)

Avail. 2/2
Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over, Max Original Premiere
Super Villains, The Investigation (Supervillains, l’enquête), Max Original Premiere
Flordelis: A Family Crime (Flordelis: Em Nome da Mãe), Max Original Premiere

Avail. 2/3
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014 Extended Version (HBO)

Avail. 2/6
C.B. Strike: Troubled Blood Premiere (HBO)

Avail. 2/7
All That Breathes, 2022 (HBO)
Edge of Tomorrow, 2014 (HBO)
Empire of Light, 2022 (HBO)

Avail. 2/8
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm, 2022, Adult Swim

Avail. 2/9
Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special, Max Original Season 3B Premiere

Avail. 2/10
Marcella Arguello: Bitch, Grow Up! (HBO)

Avail. 2/11
Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark (HBO)

Avail. 2/12
Puppy Bowl XIX

Avail. 2/14
King Star King!/!/!/, Adult Swim

Avail. 2/16
U.S. Women’s Soccer vs Canada, Live Sports

Avail. 2/17
Poor Devil, Max Original Season 1 Premiere

Avail. 2/18
Family Restaurant

Avail. 2/20
Ballmastrz: Rubicon

Avail. 2/23
Gravity, 2013

Here’s everything leaving HBO and HBO Max in February:

Leaving 2/1
This is Where I Leave You, 2014 (HBO)

Leaving 2/9
Mo Willems Storytime Shorts! (2020)

Leaving 2/10
Central Intelligence, 2016

Leaving 2/11
Batman Begins, 2005
The Dark Knight, 2008
The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

Leaving 2/12
Vacation, 2015

Leaving 2/13
Fruitvale Station, 2013

Leaving 2/24
Boy Interrupted (HBO)

Leaving 2/28
9½ Weeks, 1986
42, 2013
Above the Rim, 1994
Action Jackson, 1988
After the Sunset, 2004 (HBO)
American History X, 1998
American Psycho, 2000 Extended Version (HBO)
American Psycho II: All American Girl, 2003 (HBO)
Americano, 2017 (HBO)
Amistad, 1997
Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever, 1939
Andy Hardy Meets a Debutante, 1940
Assassins, 1995
Assassination Nation, 2018 (HBO)
Atonement, 2007(HBO)
Bandslam, 2009 (HBO)
Beau Brummel, 1954
Blood on the Moon, 1948
Blast from the Past, 1999
Blow-Up, 1966
Bombshell, 1933
Bringing Down the House, 2003 (HBO)
Bug, 2007 (HBO)
Captain Blood, 1935
Captains Courageous, 1937
Chain Lightning, 1950
Chasing Papi, 2003 (HBO)
Chips, 2017
Cimarron, 1960
Coming to America, 1988 (HBO)
Contagion, 2011
Crash, 2004
Crazy Rich Asians, 2018
Crazy, Stupid, Love, 2011
Doctor Zhivago, 1965
Double Jeopardy, 1999 (HBO)
Dragged Across Concrete, 2018 (HBO)
Dragon Blade, 2015 (HBO)
Executive Decision, 1996
Fantastic Voyage, 1966 (HBO)
Final Analysis, 1992
Freaks, 1932
Free Willy 2 The Adventure Home, 1995 (HBO)
Free Willy 3 The Rescue, 1997 (HBO)
Friends with Benefits, 2011
Friday, 1995
Ghost Town, 2008 (HBO)
Gigi, 1958
Going the Distance, 2010
Grand Hotel, 1932
Greased Lightning, 1977
Gridiron Gang, 2006
High Anxiety, 1977 (HBO)
Hairspray, 2007
Hotel Coppelia, 2021 (HBO)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, 2008 (HBO)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 1932
I Am Legend, 2007
In the Fade, 2017 (HBO)
Ivanhoe, 1952
Libeled Lady, 1936
Limbo, 2021 (HBO)
Little Children, 2006
Love Jones, 1997
Lord of War, 2005 (HBO)
Loser, 2000 (HBO)
Love & Mercy, 2015 (HBO)
Magic Mike XXL, 2015
Mars Attacks!, 1996
Max Payne, 2008 Extended Version (HBO)
Meet Dave, 2008 (HBO)
Melancholia, 2011 (HBO)
Money Talks, 1997
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, 2020
Next Friday, 2000
Open Season, 2006
Open Season 2, 2009
Pacific Rim, 2013 (HBO)
Please Stand By, 2018 (HBO)
Princess of the Row, 2019
Rent, 2005 (HBO)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991
Roots (Mini Series),
Screaming Eagles, 1956
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 1954
Shadow Dancer, 2013 (HBO)
Shadow of the Thin Man, 1941
Show Boat, 1936
Smart People, 2008 (HBO)
Stomp the Yard, 2007
Stomp the Yard: Homecoming, 2010
The Adventures Of Tintin, 2011 (HBO)
The Butterfly Effect, 2004 Director’s Cut (HBO)
The Butterfly Effect 2, 2006 (HBO)
The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1936
The Cincinnati Kid, 1965
The Craft, 1996
The Eyes Of My Mother, 2016 (HBO)
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift, 2006 (HBO)
The Fog, 2005 (HBO)
The Great Ziegfeld, 1936
The Hangover Part II, 2011
The Haunting In Connecticut, 2009 (HBO)
The Impossible, 2012 (HBO)
The Lake House, 2006
The Mustang, 2019 (HBO)
The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946
The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1981
The Rocker, 2008 (HBO)
The Ruins, 2008 (HBO)
The Savages, 2007 (HBO)
The Sea Wolf, 1941
The Secret Garden, 1993 (HBO)
The Snowman, 2017 (HBO)
The Tailor Of Panama, 2001 (HBO)
The Uninvited, 2009 (HBO)
The Vow, 2012
The Wedding Singer, 1998
The Wood, 1999 (HBO)
The X-Files, 1998 (HBO)
Two Girls And A Guy, 1998 (HBO)
Two Weeks Notice, 2002
Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married (HBO)
Universal Soldier, 2007 (HBO)
Valentine’s Day, 2010
Walking With Dinosaurs 3d, 2013 (HBO)
Warrior, 2011 (HBO)
When Harry Met Sally, 1989
Within, 2016

The Oscars went went into blockbuster mode this year while ignoring the horror genre, although that last detail isn’t too surprising. Even Jordan Peele’s Nope got snubbed in 2023 after he won Best Original Screenplay in 2018 for Get Out. Yes, this is generally what happens when it comes to spooks and scares, and that’s certainly why Mia Goth didn’t receive a Best Actress nod for her most recent entry in Ty West’s X trilogy, Pearl. Well, Mia Goth fans sounded off in her defense following the Oscar announcements, but Mia seems to take this inevitable outcome in stride.

While promoting her role opposite Alexander Skarsgård in Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, Mia responded to a question from Fox 32 Chicago’s Jake Hamilton about why the Oscars don’t give horror any respect.

Yes. she does (as Decider’s Alex Zalben observed) “pleasantly” sound similar to “one of the orphans in the chorus of Oliver,” but Mia makes some spot-on points:

“I think that it’s very political, and it’s not entirely based on the quality of a project, per se. I think there’s a lot going on there. A lot of cooks in the kitchen when it comes to nominations … and categories that are recognized. I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t say that, either … I think a change is necessary, a shift should take place. If they want to engage with the wider public, it would be of benefit, really.”

You heard her. Let’s get M3GAN some Oscars, too. Yet what’s really important here is that Mia Goth loves what she’s doing in the horror realm because (as she previously said) “the material is challenging,”yet “those are the movies I enjoy watching!” Also, it doesn’t hurt that (as our own Josh Kurp observed) she gets to put a leash on a Skarsgård while attending a premiere. Good times.

(Via Jake Hamilton)

The Razzies released their picks for the year’s worst movies right alongside the Oscars this week, just like they’ve been doing for the past 42 years. This year, the dishonors (LOL!) belonged to Blonde, with eight nominations, Good Mourning, with seven, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, with six noms, Morbius, with five noms, and The King’s Daughter, with three noms.

I’d urge you to check out the whole list and ask yourself how many of the movies you’ve seen. I have seen four, and I am a professional film critic.

The Razzies have always kind of sucked, but the current media landscape seems to put them in an even more awkward position. Traditionally, and the reason I’ve always disliked the Razzies, is that they seem to have mostly used their platform to dunk on the most obvious critical and commercial flops of the year. Maybe that’s a little unfair; the nature of awards voting is such that awards are always sort of the least-common-denominator with a smaller sample size. Incidentally, you too can be part of the Razzies’ sample for just $40.

I’ve already been part of critics’ organizations and festival juries and I’ve never felt great about the movies celebrated in organizations where I was part of the voting bloc, so I can’t imagine spending $40 to be part of another. If you want to know what this feels like, just think of every election you’ve ever voted in and ask yourself whether you were totally happy with the results. One person’s opinion can be interesting, a group of people’s opinion almost never is.

I digress, but the reason I’ve always disliked the Razzies, irrational though that may be, is that they always seemed to take the most obvious shots at the easiest targets. Not only is that often dead wrong (as in the case of giving eight Razzies to the surrealist comedy masterpiece Freddy Got Fingered*, plus a nomination for worst film of the decade), it’s no fun.

The Razzies could and should exist to throw stones at bloated awards bait, movies like The Iron Lady or The King’s Speech or Three Billboards, things that could maybe benefit from being taken down a peg. Instead they usually just take a baseball bat to the lowest-hanging fruit (wait, cancel that metaphor, that actually does sound fun). To put it succinctly, the Razzies seem to exist to ridicule people who take risks, rather than people who don’t.

Or maybe it’s just impossible to do contrarianism by committee. You know what’d probably be better than The Razzies? Just letting Armond White do a live version of his annual, bugfuck “better than” list.

All of which brings us to this year’s Razzies, which nominated traditional Razzies targets like the openly experimental Blonde (which, yes, I enjoyed) and the famous-person-doing-a-weird-thing movie, Tom Hanks in Elvis (enjoyed that one too), and the perennial favorite, the famous-person-in-a-flop movie, Pete Davidson’s voice work in Marmaduke (which grossed a little more than $400K at the box office). In their ideal scenario, I imagine The Razzies would want to dishonor a celebrity’s bad vanity project (a lá Battlefield Earth, the movie that beat out Freddie for worst movie of the decade) but had to settle for getting one in on Pete Davidson for collecting a paycheck for what was probably one day of voicework.

These nominations uneasily shared a bill with random stuff like Good Mourning, a Machine Gun Kelly-vehicle I hadn’t heard of before this week, nominated alongside his pal the director, “Mod Sun,” another human I probably could’ve done without knowing. There’s also a 12-year-old actress from a Firestarter remake (Ryan Keira Armstrong) — a nomination Razzies founder John Wilson apologized for before I was even done writing this article — along with two nominations for the two sequels to 365 Days. 365 Days: This Day, and The Next 365 Days. 365 Days is, from what I gather, a romantic thriller franchise in Polish.

I don’t doubt that the Machine Gun Kelly movie sucks (this trailer, my God), I’ve been aggressively trying to disclaim knowledge of his existence for almost a full decade now, or that a child actor was bad at acting (as all but three or four in all human history have been). Yet this year’s Razzie nominations feel more than ever like weird flailing. And I think that says more about the state of moviegoing than it does the Razzies.

Part of the reason the Razzies feel so irrelevant this year (okay, more irrelevant) is that movies no longer occupy a significant-enough portion of mass culture for there to be bad movie touchstones. It used to be, people saw 10 or 30 movies a year and a handful stuck out as favorites and least favorites. These days there are the five movies everyone saw and the 30 random terrible ones you saw and probably couldn’t find another person in a 10-mile radius to complain about them to.

“Hey, remember that Polish rom-thriller on Netflix? That sucked!”

“…Are you having a stroke?”

Movie awards (and dishonors) rely on there being a mass movie culture, and increasingly there just isn’t one. Partly that’s due to movies being devalued by the entities who make movies. More and more the goal of a movie isn’t to be a really good movie, it’s to promote a brand; to turn you into a daily Marvel user or whatever. Lots of franchises (and again, “franchises,” not “movies”) resemble glorified NFT schemes, where a corporation already owns an obscure IP and needs a movie about it less to put butts in seats than to boost the value of that already-owned IP. Can you even remember which Avengers movie was the last one or how many there are? Probably not, and that’s the point. You remember the brand, not the movie.

People will point to “prestige TV” or the internet as new competition stealing attention from movies (not to mention the general trend of society just being less communally present in general), but movies have always had competition from other media. The moviegoing experience as we know it, and specifically as it existed when the Razzies were founded in 1981, was built partly out of antitrust action against the old studio system. It was why you didn’t see Paramount movies at Paramount theaters — that would’ve been illegal. Content producers were not meant to be content distributors; the idea was that movies would compete on an open market.

The streaming system has been an attempt to circumvent that, and it’s been a great way for those companies to get your money directly without having to go through theater owners and cable companies (or paying the creatives residuals on it). Movies don’t really compete on anything resembling an open market anymore, so you get a bunch of basically vertically integrated entertainment entities competing to promote their brand, to the point that certain movies even kind of feel like corporate pep rallies for that brand. Theater attendance has declined alongside the decline in movies actually trying to appeal to the basic emotions of the general public.

Entertainment has transformed from art and experiences that you could buy — in the form of movie tickets, DVDs, CDs, records, etc. — into that which you can merely rent (how many streaming services do you subscribe to?). Your access to whatever content you’ve subscribed to can be altered at the gatekeeper’s discretion. All of which has radically devalued the standalone movie.

The devaluing of movies in general is especially stark in the case of the Razzies. Because if you can barely remember the movies you liked, how much are you going to remember the ones you hated?

Bad streaming movies are mostly such a throwaway experience now that roasting the bad ones is like throwing rocks at a quarry. I may not mourn the Razzies when they go, but I’m already mourning the era of movies that made the Razzies possible.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.

(*Tom Green became the first person to collect his Razzie in person, performing “a specially-composed piece of music” on the harmonica until he was dragged off the stage, which is yet another reason Freddy Got Fingered will always be legendary in my mind).

In the hit series Squid Game, 456 destitute individuals take part in a contest in which they play a series of children’s games in order to win big money — or die. Given the series’ dark premise, and its unrelenting violence, that it became the biggest show on Netflix when it first dropped in the fall of 2021 was a bit of a surprise. Even more shocking? When Netflix announced that it was creating Squid Game: The Challenge, a reality show based on the series, and launched an open casting call.

Unlike the Netflix narrative series, the losers of Squid Game: The Challenge presumably won’t perish — though the first day of filming earlier this week brought with it some headlines about unsafe working conditions and at least one serious on-set injury, which representatives for Netflix denied. Still, like the fictional version of the show, there’s one very big reason contestants are taking part at all: money. In the case of The Challenge, a total of 456 individuals will compete for one of the biggest monetary prizes any reality competition has ever offered: $4.56 million. All they have to do is survive a few rounds of Red Light, Green Light to get it.

While Squid Game: The Challenge has faced criticism from the get-go, original series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk sees it as an opportunity to carry the show’s important, albeit dark, themes about the dangers of capitalism and class disparity over into the real world.

“I think that even though our show does carry quite a heavy message — and I know that there are some concerns on taking that message and creating it into a reality show with a cash prize — I feel like when you take things too seriously, that’s really not the best way to go for the entertainment industry,” Dong-hyuk said backstage at the Emmys in September. “It doesn’t really set a great precedent.”

“So, I would say that reproductions of such efforts are going to bring new meaning to the industry,” he continued, “and I hope that this is going to be a great new direction for the industry overall.”

(Via TV Line)