Month: June 2023

The thing about The Righteous Gemstones is that it is a good show. It has been for a while, too, thanks in no small part to things like Walton Goggins singing a song about misbehaving and Macaulay Culkin showing up and punching Walton Goggins in the face and a bunch of other reasons that don’t directly involve Walton Goggins. Everyone on the show operates at such a high level all the time. Most of Edi Patterson’s line-readings as Judy Gemstone should be put in a museum so future generations can enjoy them. Reasonable arguments can be made that it is actually our best recent show about idiot children attempting to fill a power vacuum created by a domineering father stepping away from the family business. Sometimes those arguments are made by me. I get excited.

And when I make those arguments, one thing I plan to cite going forward is the 10-minute stretch that closed out the most recent episode, the second of the third season, which debuted as the back half of a two-part season premiere. It was kind of incredible, really, just for the ambition and range and the fact that they went ahead and made it all work. I apologize in advance for all the GIFs coming up here. I was not joking when I said I get excited.

The background of it all isn’t super important for our purposes here, but I am a professional (sort of), so let’s sketch them out quickly. The first part of the action features the three children — Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin — at a meeting of pastors who work with and under the Gemstone family brand. They are trying to convince these pastors that the leadership will remain strong and stable in their father’s retirement. It starts out fine, or at least fine-ish, but then…

What I like here is that this is almost certainly the first time this collection of words has been said out loud in this order. Another thing I like about it is that it came moments after Danny McBride — in character as a failson megachurch pastor — took off one of his shoes and whipped it from the stage at another pastor who was questioning his leadership.

And then other people started taking off their shoes and whipping them at each other, including Edi Patterson launching a high heel that caught a lady who was just unfortunate collateral damage.

And then the whole thing devolved into a conference room full of pastors launching shoes at each other and shouting and flipping double-birds about it all.

Just a massively stupid and funny and chaotic scene that somehow drives home what a disaster these children are better than any dialogue anyone could ever write. I was howling when I saw it. I’m laughing a little again now. It’s fun to think about how the Gemstone family thought this was going to go. It’s also fun to picture them explaining this to their father, Eli Gemstone, who is played by John Goodman. I would very much like to see that.

Where was Eli while this was happening, by the way? Well, this brings us to the second half of this brilliant 10-minute slice of television. He was in an SUV driven by Jesse’s son Gideon — a wannabe stuntman who just got the gig as his grandfather’s new driver — that was fleeing a group of doomsday preppers led by Eli’s maniac brother-in-law, played by Steve Zahn, because this show does guest stars and recurring characters better than any other show on television.

That’s right. We rolled from shoe-tossing straight into a car chase. A really good one, too! Like, one worthy of an actual action movie! Let’s crank through some GIFs to drive this point home.

We have nudging…

… and we have wheel-cranking turns into and around fields of grass.

It was honestly so good, and made better by Eli’s two goofball bearded nephews — nephews he was liberating from the prepper group, hence the chase — flailing around the backseat as the SUV screeched around turns. Just a lovely little chunk of business.

Anyway, it all culminated in an attempted ramming and brake-slamming bit of anarchy that left my mouth hanging open a little bit. Look at this show do work.

LOOK AT THIS SHOW — A FUN LITTLE HALF-HOUR COMEDY — DO WORK.

This is what I am talking about. Look at the range on display here. Very few shows could pound out the back half of an episode with an outrageously silly scene where men of god wing footwear at each other followed by a scene where a different group of men of god engage in a highway chase that ends with multiple airborne pickup trucks. An even smaller number of them could do it and make it work.

I’m thinking about it now and the only one that leaps to mind is Barry, another straight-up incredible piece of television that mashed together nail-biting action and slapstick comedy. Yes, this is where we mention the dirtbike chase scene from last year. Again. There aren’t many shows in this genre, the one I would best describe as “stupid comedies that are also brilliant action movies,” but I sure am glad Danny McBride and Bill Hader are doing their best to make it a thing.

The Charlotte Hornets opted to take Alabama forward Brandon Miller with the second overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft on Thursday night. It wasn’t a gigantic shock, as Miller is viewed as a more snug fit alongside LaMelo Ball and is a potential All-Star down the line, but there were plenty of folks who believed Charlotte made a mistake in passing on G League Ignite guard Scoot Henderson. Instead, Henderson fell to No. 3, where he is now a member of the Portland Trail Blazers.

There was plenty of chatter in the lead-up to the Draft over whether the Hornets would take Miller or Henderson, and there was no strong hint that Henderson would be the guy than a tweet from Shams Charania of The Athletic on Thursday afternoon which said there was “serious momentum” behind taking him No. 2.

Not long after, Troy Machir of BetRivers noted that there were some pretty stark swings in the betting market, which saw Henderson skyrocket to -910 to go second and Miller crater to +400. Eventually, these ended up leveling out, and Miller had as good as -1000 odds to become a Hornet.

All of this, mixed with a tweet by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN about how there was alignment from the beginning in Charlotte on Miller being the pick, led to some questions about Charania’s report. In addition to his work for The Athletic and Stadium, Charania is a FanDuel partner and co-hosts the show Run It Back on FanDuel TV. It is easy, then, to make the jump that something nefarious was going on here, and there were plenty of folks on the internet alleging that Charania reported bogus information in an effort to bring more money in to FanDuel — he falsely says Henderson has momentum to get picked, money comes pouring in, and then, when that ends up not happening, FanDuel suddenly has a gigantic influx of cash.

This would, of course, be a gigantic problem. But in a comment to Darren Rovell of Action Network, a spokesperson for FanDuel indicated that that there is some separation between the company and the way Charania goes about his business.

“FanDuel is not privy to any news that Shams breaks on his platforms,” the spokesperson said. Of course, every reporter gets their own information in their own way, and every reporter gets stuff wrong every now and then as a result. It’s also worth mentioning that, while Miller ended up being the pick and the Hornets were aligned, it’s certainly plausible there were last-minute conversations going on that led to Henderson’s name gaining some amount of momentum internally that wasn’t able to unseat Miller atop their board.

The only way to know what happened here is to straight up dump Charania’s phone, which is not going to happen, so for now, all we have is FanDuel’s remarks on the matter. We’ll let you know if that changes.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a stellar film, a massive box office winner, and, according to a handful of anonymous animators who worked on it, a hellacious nightmare to make. In a thorough Vulture feature, four animators involved in the production lay out why it was an especially arduous process, laying much of the blame at the feet of filmmaker Phil Lord and, to a lesser extent, his filmmaking partner Chris Miller. The main complaint is that they’re mercurial to a paralyzing degree, making big changes beyond the point where it’s humanly possible to make them. This method of building out the art to see what works was also labeled as debilitating because animators had to create over and over again only to see finished product removed. Lastly, an extended idle period meant that animators were hired, changed cities, and told to sit on their hands, meaning that all of them could see the workload growing as the time to get it done got shorter and shorter.

Rebutting the claims, Sony exec Amy Pascal said, “One of the things about animation that makes it such a wonderful thing to work on is that you get to keep going until the story is right. If the story isn’t right, you have to keep going until it is. To the question of animators feeling dispirited by this particular process, she said, “I guess, Welcome to making a movie.”

These are troubling accusations, and they’re woefully common in the animation industry. Lower pay, rushed deadlines, and increased workloads haunt what squeezes out the other end as a billion-dollar batch of entertainment. At the very least, these complaints can be added to the pile of others, ringing an alarm bell for working conditions while award chatter gets louder.

It’s also possible that this method of working will have a genuine effect on when the next installment, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, sees theaters. One of the animators, who alleges that over 100 colleagues left Across because of the working conditions, also doubted that the third film would make its listed premiere date in March 2024.

“There’s no way that movie’s coming out then,” the animator said. “There’s been progress on the pre-production side of things. But as far as the production side goes, the only progress that’s been made on the third one is any exploration or tests that were done before the movie was split into two parts. Everyone’s been fully focused on Across the Spider-Verse and barely crossing the finish line. And now it’s like, Oh, yeah, now we have to do the other one.”

As the conversation about working conditions intensifies following the WGA strike and the potential SAG strike, animators shouldn’t be left behind. (There’s also the consideration that, Spider-Verse aside, CGI is looking worse and worse because of rushed schedules.) Of course, there are a few easy fixes: pay them more and give them more time to do quality work. I know, I know. “Welcome to making a movie,” right?

(via Vulture)

To paraphrase Gomez Addams, they say a man who represents himself has a fool for a client. Well, with God as my witness, Donald Trump is inching closer to being that fool.

During a speech at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday, the scandal-ridden former president claimed that he’s turned down some of the “biggest” lawyers in the country from representing him while he faces dozens of federal criminal charges. “I tell all these people, they all come in — they want to help,” Trump rambled. “The biggest, some of the biggest people, the biggest law firms, the biggest lawyers, I say listen, ‘I don’t need any help. I don’t want any help in campaigns.’”

Earlier this month, two of the former president’s top lawyers resigned from his defense team after the DOJ announced it would charge Trump with 37 counts related to his handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who previously led Trump’s legal team in Washington, D.C., indicated they would no longer represent him in the Jack Smith probe and his $475 million defamation suit against CNN.

If Trump is sentenced to 536 years in prison after representing himself in court, every minute since he was elected in 2016 will have been worth it. (OK, not really, but it would be very funny.)

(Via Mediaite)

One of the many pleasant surprises from the freshly dropped second season of The Bear is a pop-in by comedian John Mulaney who plays an amused Chicagoan in the midst of a chaotic Bear family Christmas. It’s great, specifically his exchanges with Sarah Paulson. I want a companion podcast where their two characters provide a searing running commentary about everything happening. I also want snackable videos of him paying Matty Matheson money to execute a series of dares and poorly thought-out financial schemes.

Since we’ve already taken it upon ourselves to plot out Mulaney’s career as it pertains to The Bearverse, let’s also expand into other shows he should cameo on. Because it’s nice when he shows up — as in The Bear, or Bupkis, Crashing, and Dickinson — and because we want to see him both play into and against type in shows as tonally diverse as Yellowstone, Jury Duty, and Billions. So, with that said, here are our pitch.

Yellowstone

We’re starting off with what might be the biggest swing. Yellowstone is the most-watched show in existence but many regard it more as a heartland hit than something in the mainstream (an idea that doesn’t necessarily scan, but I digress). You know what would shake that perception as we head into the show’s end run? Adding the Mulaney bump. Open the tent and bring in urban comedy nerds, Taylor Sheridan.

We’re not talking about a one-off. We want an arc, perhaps one where Mulaney plays a wasp-y big city transplant turned dude ranch operator who, it is eventually revealed, is actually John Dutton’s illegitimate child. And then what if, (gasp) he’s the one who gets the ranch in the end! (I haven’t watched this show in a couple of seasons, there’s still a ranch, right?)

Jury Duty

Now, the creative direction for this idea hinges on whether Mulaney has had time to peek Freevee’s surprise reality hit. If he’s been too busy – being a dad, putting out comedy specials – to catch why a normal bloke named Ronald Gladden is now being fan cast as the next Superman and hamming it up with J.Law at premiere afterparties, well, great. Let’s drop Baby J in season two as the unassuming nice guy a group of professional actors troll to the brink and see how long he lasts. But, if Mulaney happens to know what the words “chair pants” and “soaking” mean, well then cast him as the next James Marsden but with more power. John Mulaney as the foreperson of a fake murder trial? The jokes write themselves.

Yellowjackets

Two ways to go here. #1, John Mulaney plays a grizzled Canadian wilderness tracker who stumbles upon the survivors and leads to their eventual rescue (but he gets eaten in the interim between when he radios for help and when help arrives. These children are very hungry). Or, Mulaney plays the webmaster for the Citizen Detectives who gets suspicious about Walter and Misty and gets a little too close before getting a lot over his head. Your choice, Yellowjackets producers. These ideas are free.

Mrs. Davis

The main premise is John Mulaney as a magician-hating, Nazi-fighting nun – in full regalia atop a majestic steed. I don’t care what plot sorcery must be conjured to deliver that image. Maybe he plays Betty Gilpin’s little brother who must battle an evil AI successor? Perhaps he’s the next Mother Superior, training under Margo Martindale’s tutelage to clean up the mess made when Mrs. Davis was taken offline? I’ll suspend belief for just about anything as long as I get Mulaney in a brightly colored habit.

Abbott Elementary

A lot of ways in here but we’re fixated on the idea of John Mulaney as an extreme helicopter parent and ultra-demanding head of the PTA who makes Ava’s life a living hell while intimidating Jacob to the point of near tears. This feels like Mulaney’s best shot at an Emmy.

What We Do In The Shadows

Nandor has Guillermo. Nadja has her creepy little doll. Where’s Matt Berry’s lackey? Why, he’s right here – a tall drink of water with elocution as recognizable as that of an 18th-century English dandy-turned-vampire. Berry’s already proven his pronunciation of the words “New York Citaayyy” contains melodies more complex than a Beethoven symphony. Add in Mulaney’s signature 1930s radio-broadcaster impression and, well, imagine the phonetic chaos these two could wreak together.

Billions

I just want John Mulaney to play a character who is as confused, annoyed, and fascinated by crypto as I am. I think he’d do well as a nepobaby investor who feels like he was wronged by Dogecoin and so now he’s come to Axe Cap to rebuild his portfolio and his faith in the market. The show turned fellow comic Mike Birbiglia loose to great acclaim earlier in its run. Time to let Johnny eat too.

Secret Invasion

I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the plot of this show is, but here’s the pitch: Skrull Mulaney. If we want to get really meta, maybe we can have his extraterrestrial alter-ego bomb during a comedy set. Not a must, just a suggestion. Do with it what you will, Feige.

Following reports that the Titan submersible most likely imploded after rescue efforts discovered a debris field, the BBC has published emails in which OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush repeatedly rebuffed the warnings from a deep sea exploration specialist.

In the messages dating back to March 2018, Rob McCallum implored Rush to cease using the Titan submersible until it was “classified by an independent body.” Instead, the OceanGate CEO responded with bluster and rage.

“[I’m] tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation,” Rush wrote to McCallum before eventually threatening legal action. However, not before the two men had an exchange that would certainly prove to be regrettable.

Via BBC:

In the messages, Mr Rush, who was among five passengers who died when the Titan experienced what officials believe was a “catastrophic implosion” on Sunday, expresses frustration with the criticism of Titan’s safety measures.

“We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often,” he wrote. “I take this as a serious personal insult.”

As the two men continued to exchange emails, Rush continued to rail against regulations that he believed were put into place by “industry players” who want to prevent “new entrants from entering their small existing market.”

Realizing his efforts were going nowhere, McCallum ended their back and forth with a warning.

“It will be sea trials that determine whether the vehicle can handle what you intend to do with it so again,” McCallum wrote. “Take care and keep safe.”

(Via BBC)

During a recent Fox News segment, host Sandra Smith — a person likely earning a high six-figure salary (or more) who can afford to live comfortably in one of the most expensive cities in the country — opened up about how the housing insecurity crisis in San Francisco has affected her.

While sitting on a The Five panel discussion about the growing community of unhoused people on the West Coast, Smith shared a personal anecdote about witnessing a person defecate on the street in New York City — a traumatic event that we assume she has yet to fully unpack with her therapist.

“The comment about defecating, it gets to me because this has recently happened to me here in New York City,” Smith began. Her co-host Greg Gutfield — as obnoxious and crude as ever — interrupted Smith to crack a joke at her expense. “You were defecating?” he asked.

“No, but I saw someone defecating,” Smith replied. “It was like within three feet of a police car, and it changes you. It’s awful. It’s really awful to see.”

You know what else is really awful? Having to live on the streets because you can’t afford even the sh*ttiest studio apartment in Staten Island on a low wage income.

Smith went on to say she “feels for” people trying to hang on and live in the city they love, but argues things have gotten out of control, i.e., she’s tired of having to ask the Walgreens attendant to unlock the toothpaste case.

“These people who are committing these crimes aren’t even from there, first of all, and now just to go shopping you’re gonna have to walk through metal detectors. I mean what is happening?” Smith asked. “And then once you get through the metal detector, they’re shutting off the second exit — God forbid there’s a fire — and then you get there and you have to go find an employee to open up the locked store shelf to get your toothpaste. I mean, it’s a mess.”

Hopefully, America can solve the housing crisis soon … for Sandra’s sake. Also, NEWSFLASH, people poop outside everywhere, even in Ron DeSantis’ state!

(Via Mediaite)

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s latest presidential campaign tactic seems to be focused on giving Russian President Vladimir Putin some much-needed good press.

The longtime anti-vaxxer who plans to challenge President Joe Biden’s 2024 Democratic nomination gave an interview on SiriusXM’s The Briefing with Steve Scully in which he laid the blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine squarely at his own country’s feet. In fact, RFK, Jr. bizarrely claimed that Russia was …wait for it… “acting in good faith” when they invaded their neighboring country, and any talk of war is actually America’s fault since Putin “has repeatedly said yes” to attempted peace talks.

“In fact, he negotiated — two times he agreed to agreements. He agreed to the Minsk Accords, and then he agreed in 2022 to an agreement that would’ve left Ukraine completely intact,” Kennedy said. “It was us who forced Zelensky to sabotage that agreement. It was already signed. So, you know, the Russians were acting in good faith. … So, no, I think we’re the ones who have not been acting in good faith.”

Naturally, publicly simping for a blood-thirsty, civilian-killing, warmongering dictator has some questioning RFK, Jr.’s patriotism.

But really, did we expect anything more from a guy content to be the far right’s puppet against Biden in his attempt at a second term? Larry David was right. This guy is the worst.

(Via RawStory)

It’s a busy and exciting time in the NBA right now. Over the past few days, there were major trades involving Marcus Smart, Kristaps Porziņģis, Bradley Beal, and Chris Paul. All that was leading up to yesterday’s NBA Draft, the headline of which was the unsurprising decision by the San Antonio Spurs to draft Victor Wembanyama with the No. 1 pick.

Gradey Dick also made headlines for his dazzling red outfit before getting selected at No. 13 by the Toronto Raptors (a pretty good pick, in our opinion). After donning his Raptors hat and shaking Adam Silver’s hand, Dick’s mind was on Drake.

In a post-draft press conference, Dick was asked about Drake and he said, “Gotta get out there, see Drake. I haven’t seen him a bunch, but I’m looking forward to that. [Becoming boys with Drake], that’s the goal. I need him to wear my jersey. That’s how I know [I’ve made it]. That’s my priority.”

Now, it appears their friendship is off to a good start: a video shared by the Raptors shows an excited Dick smiling shortly after getting followed on Instagram by Drake.

Drake will surely be happy to see Dick suit up for Toronto: Per our draft analysis, “This is a good value and a good fit. Dick is one of the best shooters in the class with good size for a wing and the ability to move off the ball and shoot on the move. Defensively, he probably won’t be a big plus, but Dick improved as the season went along, and Toronto’s roster could use the infusion of floor spacing.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Vladimir Putin’s private army of mercenaries (the Wagner Group), is not known for holding back on his feelings. He has trashed Putin on numerous occasions for leaving the group twisting in the wind without adequate ammo, although nonexistent ammo might be preferable to degraded ammo that could “explode in your face.” Prigozhin has also trashed Putin for essentially turning the Wagner Group into hamburger meat in Ukraine, and Putin’s also doing the same thing to his own army, which is why he has to replenish troops by pardoning convicts.

What Putin and Prigozhin do surprisingly agree on (at least for the moment) is that Russia is performing abysmally, but Prigozhin appears to have finally had it. Via The Moscow Times, the mercenary leader lamented, “We are washing ourselves in blood. No one is bringing reserves. What they tell us is the deepest deception.” On that note, Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry and Russian leadership of “deceiving the public” by claiming that Russia defensively attacked Ukraine, which is incredible. The rant continued:

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,” Prigozhin explained in the half-hour tirade released by his press service.

“The mentally ill scumbags decided ‘It’s okay, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as ‘cannon fodder.’ ‘They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want’,” Prigozhin continued.

“That’s why it has become a protracted war … The task was to divide material assets in Ukraine. There was widespread theft in the [industrial eastern Ukrainian territory of the] Donbas, but they wanted more.”

One wonders how long Prigozhin will hang in there before declaring that the Wagner Group is out. And as Newsweek also reports, he’s growing more popular with the Russian public by the day. Some have even speculated that he might run for president, if Putin gets the boot. Well, reports have suggested that a military coup might be possible against Putin, so in all likelihood, there are more related developments to come.

(Via The Moscow Times & Newsweek)