Month: June 2023

As wildfire smoke envelopes the northeast, causing some pretty dystopian pictures to come out of New York City, health officials have encouraged people to wear masks to protect themselves from the dangerous air conditions. If you were around for the coronavirus pandemic, you can probably guess how conservatives reacted to that advice: They didn’t like it.

During Thursday’s episode of The View, the panel showed clips of Fox News anchors freaking out over the return of masks for what’s obviously a temporary situation. As “the left” was accused of yet another nefarious plot to make sure people can breathe, co-host Sara Haines didn’t hold back her disdain for this new round of “mask hysteria.” As she notes, unlike the pandemic, people not wearing masks are only hurting themselves, so have at it.

Via The Wrap:

“When it was early on in COVID, you not wearing a mask affected me. You don’t want to wear a mask outside, you want to inhale this stuff? Go ahead and do it,” she mocked. “I encourage everyone to embrace their liberty and just do you!”

Haines went even further by mocking conservatives who are convinced the very real and evident wildfire smoke is some sort of liberal conspiracy.

“You don’t believe any of that? You think someone’s on the side, stage left pumping some orange [into the air], like, you think they can do that?” Haines said. “Then you know what, you go and do you. I’m fine with whatever you choose.”

(Via The Wrap)

Sunset Music Festival electrified the southern United States over Memorial Day Weekend, setting off the summer festival season. The 2023 edition starred a whole lot of vibrantly colored attendees thanks to a slew of electronic heavyweights AC Slater, Audien, Adventure Club, Bear Grillz, Chris Lake, Hannah Wants, Honeyluv, and more, all the while casting a sensory overload of top-notch visual and audio production. Because what’s a party without some serious sound production to knock ya around on the dancefloor?

While SMF has annually been a staple summer kickoff event in Florida, this year wowed the masses with its new 360-degree stage shade structure, allowing fans to get down to the sweltering beats of house music and not the sun itself. Of course, a nightly firework showcase to round off both nights after days of dancing to all the likes of electronic music was truly the icing on the cake. Sorry if you weren’t there, we understand if you have FOMO.

While this year’s festival circuit has a long list of impressive musical lineups and attendee offerings, we still can’t get SMF out of our heads. It reminds us that festivals truly are one of the building blocks that fosters connection across society (just when everything seems to be crumbling down around us). Don’t mind us if we keep these photos in our heads rent-free for the next couple of months as the beat of summer is only just beginning.

Over a year ago, Grimes debuted “Welcome To The Opera” during her spellbinding performance at Electric Daisy Carnival. Today (June 8), the experimental artist is back with an official release of the song, finally. It’s a collaboration with Anyma from Italian duo Tale Of Us.

Clocking in at four minutes, the track is ethereal and enveloping; her vocals are as stunning as ever against buzzing synthesizers. The beat is club-ready and infectious as she repeats over and over: “Welcome to the opera,” an interesting incantation.

Grimes has been busy; the “Oblivion” singer just recently launched a platform where fans can use AI technology to replicate her voice. “I feel strongly that there’s way too much gatekeeping in music,” she said. “Copyright sucks. Art is a conversation with everyone that’s come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept. The music industry has been defined by lawyers, and that strangles creativity.”

“If I was dead I’d really like people to do it,” she continued. “But I’m not sure everyone would agree. I feel like maybe Prince would’ve been up for it. If it was one of his friends doing it maybe. It’s a tricky one.”

Listen to “Welcome To The Opera” above.

Yung Miami covered a special issue of The Cut in April and was asked for an update on the next City Girls album.

“Girl, I ain’t even gonna tell!” Miami said in the accompanying cover story. “I don’t know, like, it is coming, and it will be sometime this summer — for real, for real, for real. When you doing a project, it takes time. We’re trying to sit through it and make sure that that’s what we want to put out. It’s gonna hit different.”

The timetable was narrowed down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Thursday, June 8, when Miami confirmed the album is due in July (as relayed by Billboard). City Girls officially initiated an album rollout by simultaneously dropping “I Need A Thug,” a two-minute single that packs enough punch to contend as a summer anthem. (Their Instagram and Twitter accounts promise “City Girls loading…” and “#CityGirlsAreComing.”)

Billboard additionally noted that Miami and JT drew from LL Cool J’s “I Need Love” for the duo’s first featureless song since 2021. The chorus also pays homage to TLC: “I need a thug / Sex, money, and drugs / Private jet flights while I’m gettin’ my back rubbed / Like TLC said, ‘No scrubs’ / Cut a check before I even give a hug.”

Last month, City Girls hopped on Diddy’s “Act Bad” with Fabolous, and the single’s video is as raunchy as you’d expect. City Girls enlisted Usher for “Good Love” nearly one year ago, which followed in the footsteps of the Fivio Foreign-assisted “Top Notch.”

Listen to “I Need A Thug” above.

Yung Miami covered a special issue of The Cut in April and was asked for an update on the next City Girls album.

“Girl, I ain’t even gonna tell!” Miami said in the accompanying cover story. “I don’t know, like, it is coming, and it will be sometime this summer — for real, for real, for real. When you doing a project, it takes time. We’re trying to sit through it and make sure that that’s what we want to put out. It’s gonna hit different.”

The timetable was narrowed down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Thursday, June 8, when Miami confirmed the album is due in July (as relayed by Billboard). City Girls officially initiated an album rollout by simultaneously dropping “I Need A Thug,” a two-minute single that packs enough punch to contend as a summer anthem. (Their Instagram and Twitter accounts promise “City Girls loading…” and “#CityGirlsAreComing.”)

Billboard additionally noted that Miami and JT drew from LL Cool J’s “I Need Love” for the duo’s first featureless song since 2021. The chorus also pays homage to TLC: “I need a thug / Sex, money, and drugs / Private jet flights while I’m gettin’ my back rubbed / Like TLC said, ‘No scrubs’ / Cut a check before I even give a hug.”

Last month, City Girls hopped on Diddy’s “Act Bad” with Fabolous, and the single’s video is as raunchy as you’d expect. City Girls enlisted Usher for “Good Love” nearly one year ago, which followed in the footsteps of the Fivio Foreign-assisted “Top Notch.”

Listen to “I Need A Thug” above.

Nikola Jokic has turned the 2023 NBA Finals into his own personal playground, as he’s averaged 33.3 points, 14 rebounds, and 9.3 assists in 42 minutes per game while shooting 59 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from behind the three-point line. Try as the Miami Heat might, the Denver Nuggets‘ two-time league MVP has been nothing short of spectacular during his first trip to the Finals.

Jokic was the subject of a debate on Thursday morning’s edition of First Take, where Stephen A. Smith, Jay Williams, and J.J. Redick all talked about stuff with one another, as they are wont to do. At one point, Smith brought up one of the more insane takes we’ve ever heard on the show, which led to Redick pointing out that the take was, indeed, insane.

“Jokic isn’t known for having some kind of dominant post game now,” Smith said while both Redick and Williams made faces as if they thought this was one of the craziest things they have ever heard someone say. “That’s not his game.”

Redick immediately jumped in, and even as Smith was asking if Jokic is a dominant post player, made it a point to interject and correct the record.

“Stephen A, we’ve got 10 years of tracking data,” Redick said. “Do you know what the No. 1 most efficient halfcourt play is, in 10 years, across the NBA? A Nikola Jokic post-up.”

Everyone but Smith took this as an invitation to pretend they were dropping a mic, while Smith asked if he could respond.

“Listen, Nikola Jokic got such a beautiful touch, he reminds me more of a [Kevin] McHale than a Shaq, is what I’m trying … you understand the difference that I’m saying?” Smith asked. “McHale was something special 10 feet and in, and I get it, but I’m just talking about drop step, dominant, when you look at Shaq, that was another level.”

Smith — who did go on to say “I stand corrected” as they were going to break — appears to be making a physicality vs. finesse argument, which doesn’t totally hold up here, as Jokic is capable of overpowering opposing players and cooking them with his bag of tricks. Still, seeing Stephen A. get totally caught off guard is rather rare, even if he is completely in the wrong on a subject.

Nikola Jokic has turned the 2023 NBA Finals into his own personal playground, as he’s averaged 33.3 points, 14 rebounds, and 9.3 assists in 42 minutes per game while shooting 59 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from behind the three-point line. Try as the Miami Heat might, the Denver Nuggets‘ two-time league MVP has been nothing short of spectacular during his first trip to the Finals.

Jokic was the subject of a debate on Thursday morning’s edition of First Take, where Stephen A. Smith, Jay Williams, and J.J. Redick all talked about stuff with one another, as they are wont to do. At one point, Smith brought up one of the more insane takes we’ve ever heard on the show, which led to Redick pointing out that the take was, indeed, insane.

“Jokic isn’t known for having some kind of dominant post game now,” Smith said while both Redick and Williams made faces as if they thought this was one of the craziest things they have ever heard someone say. “That’s not his game.”

Redick immediately jumped in, and even as Smith was asking if Jokic is a dominant post player, made it a point to interject and correct the record.

“Stephen A, we’ve got 10 years of tracking data,” Redick said. “Do you know what the No. 1 most efficient halfcourt play is, in 10 years, across the NBA? A Nikola Jokic post-up.”

Everyone but Smith took this as an invitation to pretend they were dropping a mic, while Smith asked if he could respond.

“Listen, Nikola Jokic got such a beautiful touch, he reminds me more of a [Kevin] McHale than a Shaq, is what I’m trying … you understand the difference that I’m saying?” Smith asked. “McHale was something special 10 feet and in, and I get it, but I’m just talking about drop step, dominant, when you look at Shaq, that was another level.”

Smith — who did go on to say “I stand corrected” as they were going to break — appears to be making a physicality vs. finesse argument, which doesn’t totally hold up here, as Jokic is capable of overpowering opposing players and cooking them with his bag of tricks. Still, seeing Stephen A. get totally caught off guard is rather rare, even if he is completely in the wrong on a subject.

Tom Hanks recently owned up to being an occasional menace on movie sets, so a spot has opened up next to Keanu Reeves’ place as an all-around awesome dude to everyone that he encounters, on set and off. And since Bill Hader probably wouldn’t mind adding something positive to his off-camera reputation other than what his ex, Rachel Bilson, said about his “big” dong, this is as good a reason as any to lighten the load on Ali Wong’s perplexed shoulders by diverting with a Barry crew member’s take on Hader.

Sometimes, it’s also simply nice to hear some nice things. More often than not, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees don’t have too many positive run-ins to report on the various IA Stories social media accounts, but The Verge reporter Amrita Khalid singled out this summation of Hader’s conduct as Barry director.

Spoiler alert: he rules.

The Verge reporter Amrita Khalid amplified this anonymous story while tweeting, “Add Bill Hader to the list of Hollywood directors who treat their crew like humans and aren’t a**holes.” Here’s a mere chunk of the raving:

“The series finale of Barry is now wrapped, and I’d like to share some thoughts on my experience working with Bill Hader and his team. All of the actors have spoken about what a great director he is, but he’s also great from a crew standpoint, and it makes me believe that people like him who worked as a PA will end up making the best directors.

“He knows firsthand how much of a beating the crew can take when a director comes in ill-prepared. Bill worked extensively in prep and always came to set knowing exactly what he wanted.

“As a result, we worked the shortest hours I’ve ever worked in my whole career,

“Also, he knows who everyone is on the crew and what their job is, who to talk to for what he needed….

“When you for for someone like that, it makes you want to do your best work.

Watch out, Keanu. You can read the rest of the (extensive) Hader praise below.

Tom Hanks recently owned up to being an occasional menace on movie sets, so a spot has opened up next to Keanu Reeves’ place as an all-around awesome dude to everyone that he encounters, on set and off. And since Bill Hader probably wouldn’t mind adding something positive to his off-camera reputation other than what his ex, Rachel Bilson, said about his “big” dong, this is as good a reason as any to lighten the load on Ali Wong’s perplexed shoulders by diverting with a Barry crew member’s take on Hader.

Sometimes, it’s also simply nice to hear some nice things. More often than not, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees don’t have too many positive run-ins to report on the various IA Stories social media accounts, but The Verge reporter Amrita Khalid singled out this summation of Hader’s conduct as Barry director.

Spoiler alert: he rules.

The Verge reporter Amrita Khalid amplified this anonymous story while tweeting, “Add Bill Hader to the list of Hollywood directors who treat their crew like humans and aren’t a**holes.” Here’s a mere chunk of the raving:

“The series finale of Barry is now wrapped, and I’d like to share some thoughts on my experience working with Bill Hader and his team. All of the actors have spoken about what a great director he is, but he’s also great from a crew standpoint, and it makes me believe that people like him who worked as a PA will end up making the best directors.

“He knows firsthand how much of a beating the crew can take when a director comes in ill-prepared. Bill worked extensively in prep and always came to set knowing exactly what he wanted.

“As a result, we worked the shortest hours I’ve ever worked in my whole career,

“Also, he knows who everyone is on the crew and what their job is, who to talk to for what he needed….

“When you for for someone like that, it makes you want to do your best work.

Watch out, Keanu. You can read the rest of the (extensive) Hader praise below.

“Give ’em hell, Indiana Jones!,” yells Indy’s longtime compatriot, Sallah – right before our hero, Indiana Jones, steps into traffic and almost gets run over by a car outside the airport. These are just kind of the way things are now for Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford, who is legitimately great in this), who, when we first meet him in 1969, is a shell of who he once was. A man who has faced loss and hasn’t quite given up – he still teaches archeology; now at Hunter College on Manhattan’s Upper East Side – but now needs a lot of whisky to get through his days and nights. As we see, often waking up in the morning, passed out on his reclining chair with the television still on, woken up by the hippies next door blasting The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.”

Actually, let’s back up, because, when we actually first meet Indy in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it’s 1944 in the thick of the second world war. This is the 20 plus minute opening sequence that has gotten a lot of attention for bringing the Indy we knew from the first three movies back to the big screen with the latest in de-aging technology. I have to admit, it looks pretty good. I feel comfortable saying it looks as good as this sequence could possibly look with today’s technology. The main issue is when Indy talks, Ford does his best to put a youthful spin on his voice, but it’s not always there and often sounds like the more gruff current day Ford. But regardless, it’s still pretty remarkable and is about the correct length where James Mangold and the filmmakers involved can show off what they accomplished, but also doesn’t wear out its welcome. (I suspect in five years this won’t look near as good as it does now, but, again, for now, this is the best I’ve seen.)

This whole sequence is to establish the Antikythera, the dial from the title of this movie. (There is no actual mention of a “dial of destiny” in this movie just like there is no actual mention of a “temple of doom.”) Indy and his partner, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), infiltrate a Nazi stronghold to rescue an ancient artifact from the hands of Hitler – only to realize the piece they are after is a fake anyway. But, while there, they come across half of the Antikythera, a pet project of a Nazi engineer named Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen, chewing scenery) who believes the dial has incredible powers. As you may know, Indiana Jones does not like Nazis and fights Voller to keep that half of the dial out of his hands. Indy and Basil succeed and are rescued by the Allies.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Helena Shaw winds up being a much more interesting character than advertised. The daughter of Basil, she comes snooping around Indy’s school asking about Antikythera, which became her father’s obsession. Helena tricks Indy into showing it to her, then promptly steals it from him and heads off to Tangier to sell it to the highest bidder in a black market auction. Helena represents a version of the Indiana Jones we meet in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom if Indy hadn’t learned any life lessons and was still in it for the “fortune and glory.” I’ve always maintained that’s why I find Temple of Doom being a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark so interesting. Indiana Jones is an asshole. His motivation, again, is fortune and glory. Helena represents this side of Indiana Jones, with some obvious parallels: a degree in archeology, a father obsessed with one specific artifact, and she even has a young kid as a partner (Ethann Isidore) who she caught trying to steal from her. Helena saw what archeology did to her father and decided to skip all the soul searching and move onto the fortune and glory part.

Helena is a scoundrel and Indy doesn’t like her very much, but the two do realize they need each other’s expertise to find the other half of the dial: Helena knows everything about the dial from memorizing her father’s journals. Indy can read languages and codes she can’t, and more importantly has connections at every stop along the way who can get them to where they need to go – like Antonio Banderas’s Renaldo, who owns a diving boat that Indy needs. (It’s funny, Banderas seems to be having a great time, but also seems to only be in this movie because he just really wanted to be in an Indiana Jones movie. I can’t blame him.) Why does Indy want the dial? Because his old enemy Jürgen Voller (now living under a different name in Alabama, helping the United States build rockets that won the space race) wants the Dial. And Voller and his Nazi lackeys, as you might not be surprised to learn, are still sore about the whole “losing WWII” thing – Voller refuses to concede the Allies won WWII, his contention is Hitler was stupid and lost the war – and think the dial can help change all that. (Mixed in with Voller’s crew is a subplot about the CIA helping them that goes absolutely nowhere and, at least at the beginning, adds confusion and is eventually dropped and probably should have just been dropped completely.)

So here’s the thing, the third act of this movie is both audacious and outlandish. But the crazier it got, the more I liked it. I’ve re-watched the other four movies very recently. I think there’s a misconception from people who haven’t seen them in awhile that they are based on some sort of gritty reality. I re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with someone who hadn’t seen it before and she found the ending over the top. Basically, here’s this movie set in reality, then all of a sudden ghosts are flying out of the Ark killing people while Indy does a whole bunch of nothing. Personally, I’m just so used to Raiders I’ve never really thought of it that way before. I love the movie, but she’s not wrong. All the movies are like that. And the thing about Dial of Destiny is it doubles down, or even triples down, on that idea. Dial of Destiny is much less about nostalgia than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull even was (a movie I also just rewatched and has some good moments, but makes little sense and not much of anything happens), instead coming at us with the attitude of just going, “all in,” and you are either in for this ride or you are not. (I very much was.)

One last thing, without getting into spoilers, this is a very fun movie (as I tried to convey in the headline), but Indy’s arc is poignant and also sad. It’s kept in the background, but it’s there. In that I found the ending of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny much more satisfying than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, to the point I teared up a bit and that’s not something I’ve ever done during an Indiana Jones movie before. I mentioned earlier that Indiana Jones is in a bad place when we first meet him in this one. He’s the only one who doesn’t seem to realize that, often mentioning that Marion was the one who he couldn’t help. It becomes increasingly obvious as the movie goes on it’s the opposite. Indiana Jones comes pretty close to making a decision at the end that I would have hated. Luckily, his support system won’t allow it. But he’s at a point he feels he’s got nothing left. But that’s not true. In the final scene of any Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford we will ever get, he’s asked, “are you back?” Not from his adventure, but from his anguish; cutting off the people in his life who love him. Yes, Indiana Jones is back.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.