Month: July 2023

The world has officially been Pinkydoll-pilled.

After going viral last week for her strangely bewitching TikTok Live streams, content creator Pinkydoll — real name Fedha Sinon — has ushered in a new social media trend that’s done what Kim Kardashian couldn’t: it’s broken the damn internet. Let us explain.

Sinon, known to her 463K followers on TikTok as Pinkydoll, specializes in NPC streams. In the gaming community, an NPC is a non-playable character, i.e. a character with a set of preprogrammed reactions that can’t be changed or controlled by the user. What this means to a gamer is fairly simple: anytime you interact with an NPC, you already know what they’re going to say and do. Their movements and phrases are repetitive, often meant to serve as background noise or move the game’s story forward in some way. But, what this means for those who what NPC streamers like Pinkydoll on TikTok is a bit more confusing.

Most of Pinkydoll’s live streams boast hundreds of thousands of viewers who send her “gifts,” digital tokens like roses, ice cream cones, cowboy hats, and other miscellaneous emojis. Pinkydoll reacts to these tokens with preprogrammed, repetitive responses, much like a real NPC would. For example, anytime she’s sent an ice cream cone, Pinkydoll mimics a slurping sound before saying, “mmmm, ice cream so good,” in a voice The NY Times describes as “sexy baby.” That catchphrase has become a meme in its own right, and Pinkydoll’s success — she’s making thousands of dollars per stream thanks to users sending her these cartoonish tokens — has spawned a legion of imitators. Most of her fellow NPC streamers now follow Pinkydoll’s patented formula — staring directly into the camera, speaking in soft tones, uttering phrases and sound effects specific to the emojis they’re sent, and even popping popcorn kernels with a hair straightener. It’s the kind of mind-numbing, kink-adjacent content you’d expect to see streaming in the background of a David Cronenberg dystopian drama and it’s left everyone questioning our viewing habits — and broken psyches.

“It’s very stimulating, because it’s fast and very repetitive, so people sit and watch it to see the next reaction or if I will break character or mess up somehow from too many gifts,” another NPC streamer named Cherry Crush told the NY Times.

What Pinkydoll and other NPC streamers do is basically brain-smoothing viral content at its finest but it’s netted them massive followings, celebrity fans — both Keke Palmer and Timbaland have given Pinkydoll shoutouts recently — and big paydays. So maybe the joke’s on us?

Wiz Khalifa headed back to his hometown to throw out the first pitch during a Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC Park — as he was also gearing up for a performance stop on his High School Reunion Tour.

Oh, and he celebrated the honor by taking some shrooms before he stepped out at the ball game.

“Finna get stoned af and throw this first pitch at the pirates game,” Khalifa tweeted. “Shroomed out throwin a baseball is crazy.”

After he tossed the pitch, Khalifa uploaded some pics of weed and the shrooms. He also still managed to catch the rest of the game, as he shared another photo of his view from the stands, complete with some Cracker Jack and an apparent drink.

Throughout his career, Khalifa has praised his Pittsburgh roots. During a 2012 interview with MTV News (via HipHopDX), he pointed out that the city’s hip-hop scene had opened up “a whole new avenue” for kids being raised there.

“You really won’t get it if you’re not from there,” he said. “Just growing up in Pittsburgh and knowing different neighborhoods, having family there, and just loving it, it’s like no other place.”

“Pittsburgh, it’s just laid-back… Midwest almost on some country stuff,” he added.

Check out Wiz Khalifa’s tweets and his Pirates pitching skills above.

Don Jr. might soon be making more odd media appearances after word that his father has another possible indictment in the works, and this time, ex-President Trump might be forced to reckon with his January 6 actions. That would obviously refer to, as phrased by GOP presidential rival Chris Christie, the D.C. riot that was “incited by Donald Trump” in order to sway then-VP Pence and Congress to overturn the 2020 electoral college vote.

As a result of the “target letter” that Trump reported receiving from special counsel Jack Smith, Trump headlines must unfortunately take a break from the cows-and-ladders subject and move back into the legal realm. And over on Truth Social, Trump has been, of course, freaking the heck out about the Justice Department going in hard on him.

The right-wing social platform also features missives from the (also) right-wing user known as “Catturd” (who has been critical of Twitter lately). And Catturd is not thrilled with FBI Director Christopher Wray, who he appears to believe should be impeached, but Catturd thrice declares, “[T]he Rep Party is too chicken sh*t to impeach him.” In response, Trump would really like some help from his MAGA fanbase please, via Raw Story:

“The Republican Party must fight fire with fire, and right now, or it will be extinguished!!!” Trump posted. “The Republican Party must get tough, now. This is the strong sentiment that’s flowing through the veins of Patriots. DO SOMETHING!!!”

Hmm. The last significant time that the MAGA crowd really “did something” in the scope of what Trump appears to be hinting at, the deadly insurrection happened, and as a result, those who stormed the U.S. Capitol ended up shouting for “freedom” and then lost their freedom to a series of prison sentences. So it doesn’t seem as likely as it did then that Trump’s call will be heeded, but nonetheless, he will surely keep pushing ALL-CAPS missives into the ether.

(Via Raw Story)

We are just over a month away from the release of The Armed‘s fifth studio album, Perfect Saviors. Ahead of the album, the band has shared their new song, “Everything’s Glitter,” along with its accompanying video.

On “Everything’s Glitter,” lead vocalist Tony Wolski delivers fueling vocal chops as he channels the rock legends of yesteryear.

“This track uses [David] Bowie’s famed first US appearance in 1971 for a 3-week press tour as a framing device to consider the razor’s edge between icon and clown,” said Wolski in a statement. “It’s funny how any genius must ultimately be willing to look like a complete fool. Perhaps fittingly, it’s also the closest thing we’ve made to an arena rock song.”

The song’s music video, which was directed by Wolski himself, features the band rocking out and performing the song as various colors shine upon the stage.

According to a press release, Perfect Saviors concludes a trilogy of albums — the first two being Only Love and Ultra Pop — all of which were crafted to dissect pop culture in the age of limitless information and ever-evolving technology.

You can watch the video “Everything’s Glitter” above.

Perfect Saviors is out 8/25 via Sargent House. Find more information here.

A few notes before we begin:

• What we have here is an updated version of our rankings of the films in the Mission: Impossible franchise, up through Dead Reckoning Part One
• These movies have been so fun for so long that I think we might all be starting to take them for granted a little bit
• Please do not yell at me

Thank you. Here we go.

7. Mission: Impossible II (2000)

Let’s be clear about something: I am not here for your Mission: Impossible II slander. Yes, I’m ranking it last, that is true. But that has more to do with the other films in the franchise, all of which are so good that it makes the least-attractive sibling look like a gargoyle. It’s unfortunate. Mission: Impossible II is the worst Mission: Impossible movie and it is still kind of fun to chill out and watch on a rainy Saturday, if only for the silliness of it all.

Oh, yes, I know. The film is hot nonsense. You’ll get no argument from me on that. It has the weakest plot of any of the films. There are viruses and antidotes and whatever is going on with Tom Cruise’s hair, which yes, I do consider part of the plot because it was more fascinating than most of the exposition. But it’s still fun and watchable. Someone gave John Woo and Tom Cruise $100 million and told them to go nuts and they super did. Find a flaw in that sentence.

And then, when you don’t, look at the scene posted above. It’s a seven-minute motorcycle chase that features multiple cars turning into fireballs the instant they’re touched and it ends with two men launching their motorcycles into the air and flying over a cliff in a bear hug as their bikes crash into each other and explode in the air behind them. It’s like someone added flour to a normal John Woo scene and thickened it up into a roux. The only thing missing from this scene is fluttering white doves and don’t you dare worry because those show up later during an indoor gunfight. John Woo would never let you down, at least not when it comes to fluttering white doves.

The thing to remember in all of this is that the Mission: Impossible films all have their own style. Some of them are more artistic, some are more straightforward action, some are kind of action-comedies. Mission: Impossible II is just insane. There’s room for that.

6. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

The thing about Mission: Impossible III is that Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the villain and he is so, so good at it that he steals every scene he’s in, which is impressive in any movie but even more impressive when most of the scenes you are in also feature Tom Cruise doing the types of things Tom Cruise does in the Mission: Impossible movies. He’s so good that, for a long time, I thought this was my favorite movie in the franchise even though, upon review, it was not even all that close. I don’t know if that says more about him as an actor or me as a viewer.

The movie itself is definitely fine, though. Tom Cruise starts out retired and is lured back in because a) dammit, he’s the best there ever was, etc., etc., and also, b) because Keri Russell is in danger, which, as far as reasons to get lured back in from retirement go, are about as good as any. Everyone’s hunting for something called the Rabbit’s Foot. There’s a whole Michelle Monaghan death ruse and then a whole Tom Cruise death ruse at the end. J.J. Abrams co-wrote and directed this one and he really gave it the full-on early-2000s J.J. Abrams, for better and worse. Again, it’s definitely fine and almost definitely really good.

Here’s a fun little game to play, though: Picture this movie, exactly the same, shot-for-shot and line-for-line, but with literally anyone else in the villain role. It’s not nearly as good, right? I will answer that for you: Probably not! That’s how great Philip Seymour Hoffman was in Mission: Impossible III. He almost single-handedly vaulted it over a John Woo movie with exploding motorcycles in a ranking compiled by me, a person who really loves John Woo movies and exploding motorcycles. That’s saying something.

5. Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015)

Rogue Nation:

• is the closest the franchise has come to straight-up making a Bond movie
• introduced Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, who immediately became the franchise’s best female character and remained in the top-three over the next few movies, too, depending where you rank various blond international arms dealers and pickpockets played by Hayley Atwell, who we will discuss a bit more in the very near future
• has a bad guy (Sean Harris) who has shark eyes and a raspy little voice that makes him even more terrifying
• also has a bad guy named The Bone Doctor, which is awesome
• opens with Tom Cruise clutching the side of a dang flying airplane
• loses a few points because the big pencil-diving, breath-holding, card-swapping action sequence drags a tiny bit

I love this movie so much and it still landed in the bottom half of my rankings. The quality and longevity of this franchise is nuts. Heavy hitters galore.

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

ON ONE HAND

This movie rips pretty much from the very beginning, with exploding submarines and car chases and train chases and motorcycles flying off cliffs and all of it. Hayley Atwell shows up as a pickpocket who finds herself neck-deep in an international game of chicken with Tom Cruise and an all-knowing artificial intelligence system known as “The Entity.” The White Widow does a top-secret black market transaction inside a castle that is filled with neon lights and thumping techno music and about 1000 gyrating strangers. Shea Wigham shows up every 20 or 30 minutes to chase Tom Cruise around and is just soundly thwarted by the entire world around him every time. All the boxes are checked here.

ON THE OTHER HAND

A three-hour movie should probably have, like, an ending.

Lots to consider here.

3. Mission: Impossible (1996)

Honestly, any of these top three movies could be number one on your own personal list and I would not argue with you for even five seconds about it. I’ve gone back and forth in my head and in this actual written-out list a few times. The tricky thing is that they’re all so different. The original movie — directed by Brian De Palma almost 30 years ago, which again, is crazy — is more of a thriller than the others and way more psychologically taxing, in a good way. The twists and turns twist and turn, the action sequences are tense (think “Tom Cruise hanging from wires in a silent room with beads of sweat dripping off his face” versus “Tom Cruise sprinting away from an explosion”), and there are scenes like the one above, which is just a conversation in a restaurant and is still more exciting than a lot of entire movies.

Maybe “just a conversation” is underselling it. The scene contains a big reveal and ends with a huge aquarium blowing up and water gushing between the tables. I like to think there was one guy at that restaurant who was like, “I don’t care if my shoes are wet, I waited 45 minutes for this table and I’m finishing my pork chop.”

Let’s close with this: Tom Cruise is older today (61) than Jon Voight was when this movie came out (58). Really wrap your head around that for a couple of minutes some afternoon.

2. Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018)

Three things are important to note here:

ONE: Fallout is so good. It is so good. The movie has about three different action scenes that are better than the biggest expensive showcase action scene in most big-budget movies. (The helicopters!) The twists and reversals are smart and fun and thought through in a way that’s almost rude to other action movies. (Soloman Lane!) There’s a fight in a public bathroom between Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill that, at one point, features Cavill strutting back into battle while kind of cocking his fists like they are little shotguns, which is cool. (It’s cool!) Again: so, so good. And it has Angela Bassett in it as the new CIA director. More movies should feature Angela Bassett as the new CIA director. Please work on that.

TWO: The stakes are real and personal for most of the main characters and they all tie back to the previous films without being tied down by them, which is a good time to mention the thing with Michelle Monaghan at the end and a great time to mention that this movie also introduces Vanessa Kirby as international arms dealer Alanna “The White Widow” Mitsopolis, who a) inherited her international arms dealing business from her mother, Max, who we last saw way back in the first movie, and b) fascinates me in an “I would absolutely watch a prequel about her in her 20s as she starts to take over the family business” way, kind of like if Tommy Boy was an action movie that starred Vanessa Kirby instead of Chris Farley. That sentence was very long but I feel great about where it ended.

THREE: At one point in this movie, Tom Cruise says “Is that clear?” and another character replies “Crystal,” which made me, a person who has seen A Few Good Men maybe 500 times on basic cable, squeal with joy in the theater.

And yet, it still comes in at number two, just behind…

1. Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011)

Three things are important to note here, too:

ONE: Ghost Protocol features the best action sequence in the entire franchise, starting with perilous glass-scaling and moving straight into a car chase during a sandstorm. It’s a little crazy when you think about how it was directed by Brad Bird, who is best known for directing animated movies like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. It’s a little less crazy when you realize The Incredibles movies — especially the sequel — are basically cartoon action movies.

But yes, the scene in question. Watch it again up there. And then, consider this: If you watch a few of these movies together in a short period of time (say, like a week or two), you’ll start to realize that Tom Cruise spends a not-insignificant chunk of the Mission: Impossible movies hanging and/or dangling off of things, from cliffs to wires to airplanes to runaway trains to, here, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. And he does most of it himself, despite the fact that he does not have to and probably should not. Tom Cruise is completely out of his mind.

TWO: It is the most rewatchable of all the Mission: Impossible movies. I’ve probably seen it 10 times. I would watch it right now if it were on some cable channel. Which is probably is. Rewatchability is an important part of a movie’s legacy.

THREE: Really has nothing to do with the quality of the movie itself but it is just a lot of fun to say “Ghost Protocol.” It’s probably my favorite post-colon/dash phrase in an action movie title, or at least top-two with “Tokyo Drift.” And with both of those phrases, it is even more fun if you start slapping it at the end of other movie titles. John Wick: Ghost Protocol. Paddington: Ghost Protocol. My Cousin Vinny: Ghost Protocol. I’ll stop here only because I might end up doing it all day if I don’t cut bait early. I know this because it has happened before. A bunch of times. I just did it again last weekend after I rewatched it for like the 11th time. But you can keep going. Crank away on this one some afternoon, too, maybe as a palette cleanser after the kind of upsetting Voight/Cruise thing we talked about earlier.

Ghost Protocol is the best Mission: Impossible movie.

The Marvels has five co-leads: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, and Nemo and Tango. You probably know about the first three, who play Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan, respectively, but the final two are the real stars. They play Goose, the adorable orange cat that’s actually a tentacled alien known as a flerken. The Captain Marvel favorite is back in The Marvels, along with a litter of meowing kittens/possible flerkens.

“The crew was delighted whenever the kittens were around,” executive producer Mary Livanos told Entertainment Weekly. “It was like Christmas when we had our bigger kitten scenes. Everyone had their own favorite.”

Everyone but Larson, that is.

The Oscar winner is allergic to cats. “I’m still allergic,” Larson said. “I hope that changes. But until it does, a lot of the CGI budget goes towards me and the cat.” Suddenly, the inflated budgets of Marvel movies makes sense.

Here’s more:

Carol Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau.

The Marvels opens on November 10.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

New York’s Times Square recently erected a new permanent outdoor stage, and today, the first performance to take place there has been announced. Post Malone will be the first to perform on the TSX stage, giving a free concert including songs from his upcoming album, Austin. He made the announcement in a typical low key way on Twitter, although billboards promoting the concert went up in Times Square announcing the show as well. The show’s scheduled for 5 PM.

https://twitter.com/PostMalone/status/1681308350552883212

If you’re not going to be in New York City today to see the concert, have no fear. He’s currently on his If Y’all Weren’t Here I’d Be Crying tour, which heads up north to Ontario, Canada tomorrow, then makes an East Coast swing, circling around to the Southwest in August (you can see the setlist here). Meanwhile, Post has been prepping fans for the release of the album with the singles “Chemical,” “Mourning,” and “Overdrive.”

In a video message to fans, he broke down the importance of the album’s title. “That is my name,” he said. “It’s been some of the funnest music, some of the most challenging and rewarding music, for me at least. You know, trying to really push myself and really do some cool stuff. I played guitar on every song on the record and it was a really, really fun experience, and I’m super, super excited to share it with you.”

Paul McCartney is going to be giving fans a chance to hear the backstories behind some of his most famous songs as he will launch a new podcast, McCartney: A Life In Lyrics.

According to Rolling Stone, each episode will center around a single song, as he will discuss it with Paul Muldoon. (Muldoon contributed the foreword to McCartney’s The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present book.)

Starting September 20, the first season’s 12 episodes will all be available to those who have a Pushkin+ membership. For other listeners on standard platforms, the first episode will premiere, with subsequent ones being released each week from there.

“I wanted to become a person who wrote songs and wanted to be someone whose life was in music,” McCartney shared in the podcast trailer. “It was like going back to an old snapshot album, looking back on work I haven’t thought much about for quite a few years.”

“When we listened back to the tapes, we realized there was something very special happening in these conversations,” Muldoon added in the prologue, according to the publication. “It was McCartney unfiltered.”

As for some of the songs that fans can expect to hear about in the first season, the list includes: “Eleanor Rigby,” “Let It Be,” “Live and Let Die,” “Back in the USSR,” “When Winter Comes,” “Penny Lane,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Here Today,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Jenny Wren,” “Too Many People,” and “Helter Skelter.”

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that it’s been too long without a new Alexander Payne movie. Six years! Joyously, the Trailer Gods have blessed us with an enticing look at The Holdovers.

The throwback trailer, complete with a deep-toned voice over, promises a wry, sweet, Nebraska-esque look at humanity via Paul Giamatti playing a rumpled sourpuss charged with taking care of rebellious Youths in school uniforms.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).”

Yes to all this. It’s one thing to make a movie about found families, but these three are essentially forced to endure each other until they make a deep connection. So, just like a normal family.

It’s easy to point out Giamatti rocking this type of role again, but it’s also great to see Randolph emerge in a serious supporting role. She’s done some sharp work lately, especially stealing scenes in Only Murders in the Building, and she’s clearly got the chops to do great things.

The Holdovers is in select theaters October 27th before going wide November 10th.

The Philadelphia 76ers have not had a particularly good offseason so far, as they saw a couple of rotation players leave this offseason and have done little to replace them, because their entire focus has had to be on James Harden’s trade request.

While there was hope Harden would change his mind after attending various Michael Rubin-hosted parties with his fellow Sixers stars, he informed the team last week that he still was adamant about being traded. His preference, by all accounts, is to go to L.A. and join the Clippers, who likewise stayed very quiet in free agency as they focused their efforts on acquiring Harden. To this point, there have been no real updates on those talks, which seem to be in a holding pattern until the Damian Lillard trade request in Portland is sorted out. That is for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being if Portland can find a better offer from a team other than the Heat, Miami could become a Harden suitor and force the Clippers into a stronger offer.

In the meantime, the Sixers are making it known they’re willing to let this drag on. On Tuesday, Daryl Morey went on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philly to discuss the offseason, confirming Harden still wanted to be traded while laying out what the Sixers demands are in return — a “very good player” or the draft picks to allow them to later get a very good player.

Given that the Clippers don’t particularly have draft assets to move, it seems clear that Philly will be holding out on them until they put the best package of players together — which is apparently more than Marcus Morris and Norman Powell. Terrance Mann’s inclusion could be a sticking point, as he is the type of young, versatile wing that both the Sixers and Clippers would want to have on the roster to provide depth and Philly may hold out hoping to land him alongside Powell.

We have seen in the part that Morey is willing to let things get uncomfortable, as he held out as long as possible on trading Ben Simmons before ultimately landing Harden. In Tuesday’s interview he even touched on that situation, noting Harden was the only star that was ever really put on the table in talks for Simmons.

Overall, nothing Morey says here is groundbreaking, but it does provide a firsthand account of what the Sixers are looking for in Harden talks, as well as confirmation that they’re not going to acquiesce to a trade request if they can’t get back what they feel they need to remain a contender.