Month: February 2023

Pamela Anderson has been a part of the pop culture conversation lately due to her new Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story and her memoir Love Pamela. It turns out Britney Spears has been paying attention to this and has drawn some parallels between herself and Anderson while offering praise.

In a now-deleted Instagram post from February 2 (as Variety notes), Spears started, “I’m such a fan of Pamela Anderson she was the only sex icon at one time in America and she still is !!!” Then, perhaps highlighting this in contrast to her sons’ apparent treatment of her, she continued, “I really respect the fact that her children stood up for her relating to the fact that people were trying to sell her story from the past !!! They said ‘why the hell bring up things that happened 20 years ago if that really messed up my mom ???’ Referring to the embarrassing subject being sold in a comedic TV comparison … he’s right !!! He went on to say because of the embarrassment she went through a very dark period in her life … I mean when I read THAT, I was like DAMN !!! With 4 documentaries released about me last year with people I adore speaking about my past !!! THAT alone was almost as hard as what I went through in my past !!!”

She went on to share a lesson Anderson’s journey has taught her, writing, “Pamela gave me an understanding that people should support you exactly where you are in that moment of your life unless cruelty rules the world ??? I mean, does it make other people and my family subconsciously and secretly feel WAAAAY better about themselves to embarrass me and bring up my past ??? The answer is yes !!! 100% !!! Unfortunately, the way my past was portrayed in those documentaries was extremely embarrassing !!! It felt semi-illegal !!!”

Find an archived version of Spears’ post below.

“I’m such a fan of Pamela Anderson she was the only sex icon at one time in America and she still is !!! I really respect the fact that her children stood up for her relating to the fact that people were trying to sell her story from the past !!! They said ‘why the hell bring up things that happened 20 years ago if that really messed up my mom ???’ Referring to the embarrassing subject being sold in a comedic TV comparison … he’s right !!! He went on to say because of the embarrassment she went through a very dark period in her life … I mean when I read THAT, I was like DAMN !!! With 4 documentaries released about me last year with people I adore speaking about my past !!! THAT alone was almost as hard as what I went through in my past !!! I confess at 25 I was finally in a secret relationship, having a private life !!! So what if all of a sudden I was rebelling !!! That doesn’t make it right for my dad to claim he’s ME and take over for 15 years of my life !!! I did MORE than enough in that time TO MAKE THINGS GOOD !!! Just saying … my brother says THAT TIME WAS REALLY GOOD FOR OUR FAMILY !!! I’M SURE IT WAS … giving me way too much work while he while they HAD THEIR MEETINGS !!! I know I’ve spoken about this a couple of times but 15 years is an extremely long time !!! So Pamela gave me an understanding that people should support you exactly where you are in that moment of your life unless cruelty rules the world ??? I mean, does it make other people and my family subconsciously and secretly feel WAAAAY better about themselves to embarrass me and bring up my past ??? The answer is yes !!! 100% !!! Unfortunately, the way my past was portrayed in those documentaries was extremely embarrassing !!! It felt semi-illegal !!! But you know I was told once we all die in the end … chill out and let it go !!!”

It’s impossible not to have an opinion about Marvel movies, and Seth Rogen may have the most nuanced one yet. It also may be exclusive to Rogen, who told Total Film that “without Marvel, The Boys wouldn’t exist or be interesting” but that he also isn’t into watching Marvel’s prodigious output because they aren’t aimed at him.

“I think that Kevin Feige is a brilliant guy, and I think a lot of the filmmakers he’s hired to make these movies are great filmmakers,” Rogen said. “But as someone who doesn’t have children… It is [all] kind of geared toward kids, you know? There are times where I will forget. I’ll watch one of these things, as an adult with no kids, and be like, ‘Oh, this is just not for me.’”

It’s just not for you? What kind of fighting words are those? Measured ones?

Rogen’s take is informed not only by his work on The Boys, but also a longer history of alternative and adult comic book adaptations like Preacher and Invincible. His bona fides are intact.

“The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema,” Rogen continued. “They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.”

It’s definitely still a nuanced take, but it’s difficult to imagine a harsher takedown than calling these blockbuster films “worldwide audiovisual entertainment.” There’s cartoon noise for kids, and then there’s art.

There’s a joke here about counting one more for the Scorsese Camp, but this isn’t really a competition, and everyone should feel free to like what they like or, like Rogen, admit that something just isn’t for you and move along to something that might be.

(via Total Film)

Right off the bat, the trailer for The Covenant looks different than most of Guy Ritchie‘s directorial work. No whizbang camera flails, no hyper-editing jumps, no goofy heist laden with British slang that Americans will be overusing for years. It feels a lot more like American Sniper than Sherlock Holmes.

It also has all the ingredients to become your dad’s new favorite movie. US Military admiration, one man defying the odds to do his duty, and a bunch of stuff blowing up in the desert.

The Covenant is a story of revenge and brotherhood. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Sergeant John Kinley, a JTAC (he tells the planes where to aim their guns) who’s badly injured during his last tour in Afghanistan. His interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim), not only saves his life but then saves it again by dragging him arduously through rough terrain toward safety, but when Sergeant Kinley returns homes, he learns that the government isn’t getting Ahmed out like they promised. Now Ahmed is in hiding from the Taliban, and Sergeant Kinley heads back into the warzone to return the life-saving favor.

They don’t claim that it’s based off a true story, but it’s certainly based off a true situation that many Afghan interpreters found and find themselves in throughout and after the US War in Afghanistan. Sending a bearded Gyllenhaal in to save his pal feels like the romanticized response to the red tape of not getting them out. Hopefully there’s an earnestness underneath all the hoo-rah here and not just another action film with emotionally-manipulative war gloss on it. Fingers crossed for some depth. The Covenant hits theaters in April.

It’s a tale as old as streaming. Fans get used to watching on one platform, then have to jump to another, then have to jump to another. It’s that time again for baseball fans. According to The Verge, a dispute between both parties has caused YouTube TV to drop MLB Network, and the platform was only able to inform customers of the change with less than a day’s notice.

MLB Network’s official statement blamed YouTube TV, claiming “with Spring Training about to start, we regret that YouTube TV has been unwilling to negotiate a fair carriage agreement. MLB Network has offered terms consistent with what close to 300 other U.S. providers have agreed to for distribution.” YouTube TV hasn’t issued a statement, but if they did, it would be easy to guess where they’d place the blame. It’s also not the first time YTTV has dumped fan favorites with almost no notice.

So what are fans to do? Stew in frustration and impotent rage. This is the hallmark of the streaming era, where we have all the downsides of old school cable TV with the fun new downsides of losing access to the stuff we actually want at the drop of a hat. Games will still be on ESPN, Fox, and TBS, but MLB Network-specific shows are gone if you were relying on YouTube TV as your source. Instead, fans who have already cut the cord will have to consider uncutting it. They can search for MLB Network and decide whether to add to what they’re already paying, swap out, or miss out.

(via The Verge)

Holy cow, Bat Man! You’re always supposed to be aware of other vehicles when you’re driving but what do you do when you notice someone has lost consciousness while speeding down the highway?

It’s a scenario that no one wants to see play out, but for Adolfo Molina, the scenario became reality and he didn’t hesitate to spring into action. Molina was driving down the highway when he spotted a woman in a blue car who lost consciousness as her car careened down the shoulder of the highway. The concerned driver quickly pulled over in order to attempt to rescue the woman.

But there was a problem, he had to cross four lanes of traffic on the highway just to make it to the woman’s still moving car. That obstacle didn’t stop him. Molina sprinted across the highway, crossing right in front of a black pick up truck before running at full speed to attempt to open the woman’s door and stop her car.

“I realized that the woman was unconscious and dizzy, colliding with the wall, with the window,” Molina told NBC, “it was something like God protected me in that moment.” The fact that he made it across four lanes of traffic and continued to run next to a speeding car without getting himself hurt is a miracle in itself. But the true feat was that with the assistance of another driver, Molina was able to get the car stopped.

The hero told NBC that he hopes to meet the woman he helped save one day. Molina was honored by his mayor and the Dominican Consulate in Boston for his heroic actions.

Watch the heart pounding video below:

Being in a relationship can be difficult at times. Learning someone else’s quirks, boundaries, and deep views on the world can be eye-opening and hard. But usually, the happy chemicals released in our brain when we love someone can cause us to overlook things in order to keep the peace.

Jayson Gaddis, a relationship expert, took to Twitter to rip off people’s rose-colored glasses and tell them to forego marriage. Honestly, with the divorce rate in this country being as high as it is, he probably could’ve stopped his tweet right there. Don’t get married, the end. Many people would’ve probably related and not questioned the bold statement, but thankfully he followed up with three things you must be willing to do before going to the chapel.

Before going into his reasons for why he tells people not to get married, Gaddis explained that he is a person that “LOVEs being married.” I mean, it would probably make him a pretty weird relationship expert if he hated relationships, so it’s probably a good thing he enjoys being married. Surely his spouse appreciates his stance as well.

So why does he tell unsuspecting people not to get married? “Because a long-term partnership might be one of the hardest paths out there. It will confront everything about you and your partner. Your relationship skills will be tested. And all your unresolved childhood trauma will come to the surface,” Gaddis wrote.

Unresolved childhood trauma can become a major problem in relationships because oftentimes our trauma is present in how we react to conflict or relationship strain. According to Kaytee Gillis, LCSW-BACS, childhood trauma manifests in relationships in multiple ways including fear of abandonment, being easily irritated, constantly arguing or avoiding conflict at all costs.

u201cNever, ever get married. Unless you are willing to do these 3 things.u201d

— Jayson Gaddis (@Jayson Gaddis)
1675182104

It’s not unwise to tuck that bit of information in your pocket if you’re thinking about a long-term relationship, and Gaddis bringing this to the forefront will certainly benefit someone. That’s not to say you can’t be in a relationship if you have trauma; Gaddis is simply suggesting that you be aware of your traumas and how they may show up in the course of a relationship.

He then went on to get into his actual list of things couples should be willing to do before they get married in order to have a successful marriage.

“Learn. Learn about you, learn about them. Never stop learning about yourself and each other in the context of your relationship,” he wrote, which falls right in line with his pre-numbered suggestions.

Now, the second suggestion may have people quickly raising an eyebrow, especially if they don’t like conflict. Gaddis suggested embracing “conflict, adversity and challenges” and getting “very very good at repairing it and working it through 100% of the time.”

u201cSomething about long-term partnership invites us to face everything unloved and unprocessed in our psychology, neurobiology, and mammalian wiring. It is, at its core, a spiritual path.u201d

— Jayson Gaddis (@Jayson Gaddis)
1675182104

That’s a good one. Conflict resolution is a skill and committing to sharpening it and using it every single time could save some relationships. The third may help preemptively alleviate some unforeseen power struggles and I’m here for it.

“Share leadership and collaborate. Being teammates about everything and sharing the load together is crucial. Be honest about how hard it is to share leadership and get better at it,” Gaddis tweeted before elaborating further in the thread.

The author and relationship expert bluntly stated that if both people can’t agree to do those three suggestions, then the couple would not survive. Gaddis rounded out the Twitter thread by explaining that unless you’re ready to work on yourself and commit to the three things listed, you should stay single.

Ouch. Harsh words, but it’s better to come from a behavior and relationship expert than anyone else.

In a 1954 documentary short, humanitarian Helen Keller expressed that her greatest regret in life was being unable to speak clearly. But given that she could not see or hear, her speech was quite remarkable.

Keller was born in 1880 and, at the age of 18 months, contracted an unknown illness that left her deaf and blind. But with the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, she was able to overcome her disabilities and become an outspoken advocate for the voiceless and oppressed.

Throughout her life, Keller advocated for peace, women’s rights and the worker’s rights movement. She was a devout socialist and an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Her most lasting work was with the American Foundation for the Blind, which she joined in 1924 and would work for over 40 years. Over that time, she visited 35 countries, met with world leaders, and advocated for improved healthcare and education for those with vision loss.

However, even though her efforts changed the lives of millions, she always thought she could do more if she spoke more clearly. But her inability to do so gave her a greater understanding of the human condition.

“It is not blindness or deafness that bring me my darkest hours. It is the acute disappointment in not being able to speak normally,” she said. “Longingly I feel how much more good I may have done, if I had only acquired normal speech. But out of this sorrowful experience, I understand more fully all human striving, thwarted ambitions, and the infinite capacity of hope.”

When Billboard and Rolling Stone pull together their “Best Songs of All Time” lists, there are some tunes you know for sure will be included. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is most definitely one of them.

It has everything—the beauty of a ballad, the grunginess of a rock song, the simple solo voice, and the band in full force. “Stairway to Heaven” takes us on a musical journey, and even people who aren’t necessarily giant Led Zeppelin or classic rock fans can’t help but nod or sing along to it.

Of course, it’s also been so ubiquitous (or overplayed, as some would claim) to become a meme among musicians. Signs saying “No Stairway to Heaven” in guitar stores point to how sick of the song many guitarists get, and when Oregon radio station KBOO told listeners they would never play the song again if someone pledged $10,000, Led Zepelin singer Robert Plant himself called in and gave the donation.

Musicians can often tire of performing their songs over and over again, but it’s a different story when someone else puts their spin on it. And at a Led Zeppelin tribute concert at the Kennedy Center on Dec. 2, 2012, rock legends Heart and the son of John Bonham, Led Zeppelin’s original drummer who passed away in 1980 at age 32, performed a rendition of “Stairway to Heaven” that brought the surviving members of the band to their feet—and to tears.

It helps that Heart’s Ann Wilson had been a huge fan of the song since she was 19 and that her voice has a similar quality to Plant’s. But what makes this performance so epic is the contrast between its simple beginnings and huge, full climax with an orchestra and full choir wearing bowler hats (a touching shout out to Bonham, who famously wore one) behind the band.

It’s quite a ride to see the audience grow more and more excited as the song builds and to see Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones clearly awed at their own music being performed with such excellence. As one commenter quipped, “I think this is the first time Led Zeppelin was feeling what people felt listening to them all their lives.”

It’s definitely worth a watch. Enjoy:

Samuel J. Seymour was one of the approximately 1,700 people at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. He was also the last to live long enough to talk about that historic night on television.

Seymour was 5 years old when he went to see the play “Our American Cousin” with his nurse, Sarah Cook, and Mrs. Goldsboro, the wife of his father’s employer.

When Booth shot Lincoln, he pulled the trigger during the biggest laugh of the night so that it wouldn’t be heard. What caught Seymour’s attention was when Booth fell from the balcony after a scuffle with Henry Reed Rathbone.

Chaos erupted in the theater and Seymour was ushered out by his nurse. While they fled he overheard people screaming, “Lincoln’s shot! The President is dead!”

“I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat,” the old man later recalled. “That night I was shot 50 times, at least, in my dreams—and I sometimes relive the horror of Lincoln’s assassination, dozing in my rocker as an old codger like me is bound to do.”

Two months before Seymour’s death at the age of 95, he appeared on the game show “I’ve Got a Secret,” where panelists tried to guess his secret: “I saw John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln (April 14, 1865).”

Seymour didn’t speak much during the show but he did make a historic understatement when panelist Jayne Meadows asked if his secret was “a pleasant thing,” to which Seymour replied, “Not very pleasant I don’t think. I was scared to death.”

Lizzo has taken her hero status to new levels in her latest music video—becoming a full-fledged caped crusader.

The story follows Lizzo as a waitress with a secret identity as a Marvel-esque superhero, who saves strangers from peril. In particular, she saves a little Black girl from getting hit by a car, reminding her just how special she is.

We also see that while doing heroic deeds, Lizzo is adored by the crowd—even by those who initially hold up signs in protest. As a regular Black woman, however, Lizzo (or “Melly,” as it says on her waitress name tag) doesn’t garner nearly as much respect. That is, until she starts standing up for herself.

The video, of course, is for her song “Special,” which has universal resonance as a power anthem of self-love. But in a voice note shared to her Instagram account, Lizzo explained that for the visual story, she wanted to tap into the specific point-of-view of a Black woman.

“The music video starts off as showing the superhero, the Black woman as superhero. And it’s like, America loves a Black woman as superhero, but absolutely hates her as a human being,” she said.

See on Instagram

She continued, “The glorious superhero, you see her doing the regular life-saving, press, everyone loves her. And then she takes off her costume, it’s a Black woman and just showing the juxtaposition of how she gets treated in the real world.”

In her caption, the singer shared how she would like for others who look like her to receive the same kind of love that she gets from her fans. “Every night on stage I say ‘thank you for supporting me. For loving me. And when you see someone that looks like me in the Real World, keep that same energy.’ What good is representation if I’m the only one benefiting?”

While that perspective might have been the “seed that planted” the idea for the video, Lizzo did share that the story “is for anyone who has felt unseen, alone, disrespected. I see you.”

Watch the superpowered video below:

Real heroes lift others up. They help make the world a better place for everyone. If anyone fits that bill, it’s Lizzo. And she doesn’t even need a cape to do it.