Month: May 2024

Society, pay attention. This is important.

My wife, Zoe, is transgender. She came out to us — the kids and me — last summer and then slowly spread her beautiful feminine wings with extended family, friends, and neighbors.

A little coming out here, a little coming out there — you know how it is.

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It’s been a slow, often challenging process of telling people something so personal and scary, but pretty much everyone has been amazing.

However, she dreaded coming out at the office.

She works at a large technology company, managing a team of software developers in a predominantly male office environment. She’s known many of her co-workers and employees for 15 or so years. They have called her “he” and “him” and “Mr.” for a very long time. How would they handle the change?

While we have laws in place in Ontario, Canada, to protect the rights of transgender employees, it does not shield them from awkwardness, quiet judgment, or loss of workplace friendships. Your workplace may not become outright hostile, but it can sometimes become a difficult place to go to every day because people only tolerate you rather than fully accept you.

But this transition needed to happen, and so Zoe carefully crafted a coming out email and sent it to everyone she works with.

The support was immediately apparent; she received about 75 incredibly kind responses from coworkers, both local and international.

She then took one week off, followed by a week where she worked solely from home. It was only last Monday when she finally went back to the office.

First day back at work! I asked if I could take a “first day of school” type picture with her lunchbox. She said no. Spoilsport.

Despite knowing how nice her colleagues are and having read so many positive responses to her email, she was understandably still nervous.

Hell, I was nervous. I made her promise to text me 80 billion times with updates and was more than prepared to go down there with my advocacy pants on if I needed to (I might be a tad overprotective).

And that’s when her office pals decided to show the rest of us how to do it right.

She got in and found that a couple of them had decorated her cubicle to surprise her:

Butterflies! Streamers! Rainbows! OMG!

And made sure her new name was prominently displayed in a few locations:

They got her a beautiful lily with a “Welcome, Zoe!” card:

And this tearjerker quote was waiting for her on her desk:

To top it all off, a 10 a.m. “meeting” she was scheduled to attend was actually a coming out party to welcome her back to work as her true self — complete with coffee and cupcakes and handshakes and hugs.

(I stole one, and it was delicious.)

NO, I’M NOT CRYING. YOU’RE CRYING.

I did go to my wife’s office that day. But instead of having my advocacy pants on, I had my hugging arms ready and some mascara in my purse in case I cried it off while thanking everyone.

I wish we lived in a world where it was no big deal to come out.

Sadly, that is not the case for many LGBTQ people. We live in a world of bathroom bills and “religious freedom” laws that directly target the members of our community. We live in a world where my family gets threats for daring to speak out for trans rights. We live in a world where we can’t travel to certain locations for fear of discrimination — or worse.

So when I see good stuff happening — especially when it takes place right on our doorstep — I’m going to share it far and wide. Let’s normalize this stuff. Let’s make celebrating diversity our everyday thing rather than hating or fearing it.

Chill out, haters. Take a load off with us.

It’s a lot of energy to judge people, you know. It’s way more fun to celebrate and support them for who they are.

Besides, we have cupcakes.

This article originally appeared on 04.08.16.

After dropping Game 1, the Mavericks bounced back to swipe homecourt from the Thunder in Game 2 of their conference semifinals series. As the series shifted to Dallas, there was plenty of intrigue as to which team would seize control. Ultimately, it was the Mavs that were able to take advantage of a huge third quarter run and closed the deal behind a Kyrie Irving masterclass down the stretch, taking a 2-1 series lead after a 105-101 win.

PJ Washington got things started with a dunk on Saturday afternoon and was, by far, the best offensive weapon for the Mavs in the first half, scoring 19 for Dallas in the first 24 minutes.

After a sluggish offensive start, the Thunder found themselves trailing by as many as nine in the first quarter, but went on a 19-7 run sparked by Chet Holmgren’s defense (four first half blocks) and punctuated by a Jalen Williams three in the second quarter that gave OKC their first lead since the opening minutes.

From that point, there was not much to separate the two teams, as every mini-run was greeted with a swift response from the other side.

Ultimately, the Thunder took a 52-51 lead into halftime after Luka Doncic and Isaiah Joe traded threes in the last 10 seconds of the second quarter.

As the third quarter began, the Thunder opened up the first double-digit lead of the afternoon as they hounded Dallas on defense and turned that into quick offense on the other end.

However, Dallas once again had the answer in the form of a 16-0 run to take the lead back, with PJ Washington continuing his big night.

The rest of the third was a bit of tug of war, with Dallas holding on to a narrow lead, but in the fourth quarter they would start to open it up a touch as Kyrie Irving finally started to get his shot to fall, with it not mattering what OKC did on defense.

Still, every time it looked like the Mavs might take control of the game the Thunder would chip away to keep things close, but OKC could never fully reel in Dallas. After Dallas got in the bonus in the mid-fourth, they started hacking Dereck Lively II, which worked briefly and got Jason Kidd to play small, but Lively returned and was able to go 5-of-8 overall at the line during that stretch to keep the Mavs from losing ground.

While the Mavs weren’t ever able to pull away, the Thunder could not find enough baskets on the other end even as they started to get stops. Down three, Shai Gilegous-Alexander forced up a wild three that missed, and Kyrie was able to get a lefty finish to go on the other end to put Dallas up five.

The Thunder will look at Game 3 as an opportunity that got away, particularly in that third quarter as the 16-0 Dallas run was the difference in the game. After leading the league in three-point shooting this season, the Thunder have not had their shot from deep the last two games, going 10-of-30 from three and passing up a number of solid looks as their confidence as a group seems to be dwindling a bit. They’ll have to find that again if they’re going to even this series in Game 4, because their size disadvantage inside continues to be a factor.

Dallas dominated the offensive glass again, pulling in 15 offensive rebounds that continuously gave them extra possessions and opportunities. On a night where neither team shot it well, Dallas creating 10 more shots than OKC in a game where they were tied in the turnover battle (13 each) was key in getting the win. PJ Washington continues to be a difference-maker for the Mavs, scoring 27 to lead them on the night, while Doncic and Irving had 22 points each. As has been the case a number of times this postseason, Irving saved his scoring energy for the end, as his fourth quarter takeover was much-needed as the rest of the Mavs struggled to create much separation.

Game 4 will be back in Dallas on Tuesday night, tipping off at 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT.

Pop music fans might just be in luck. It appears that Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish’s long-awaited collaboration could be a reality, or so fans believe. Following the singers’ surprise onstage debut at Coachella 2024, users online have begged each musician to hit the booth for an original track.

While folks loved their renditions of Lana’s “Video Games” and Billie’s “Ocean Eyes,” a brand-new record is the only thing that will quench the thirst. Well, on May 8, Lana teased that the duo had cooked something up.

In a screengrab captured by a fan page, Lana left Easter eggs in the Instagram comment section. “We had fun in the studio,” she wrote to Billie. “Love you.”

This isn’t the first time the two have gush about one another. Back in February 2023, the ladies sat down for a conversation for Interview. During the chat, Eilish sang Lana’s praises.

“You really paved the way for everyone,” she said. “People have been trying to look and sound like you since you first started. I talk about this with Finneas. You changed the way the music industry hears and sees music, and you changed the way people sing.”

As of now, the collaboration remains a dream, given no formal announcement has been made. But, supporters will continue to hold out hope for the link-up.

This past saw a battle between NBA and NFL players over a quote from Austin Rivers in which he claimed he could take 30 NBA players, drop them in the NFL, and they’d succeed right away, while NFL players could not do the same in the NBA.

The response from the vast majority of NFL players who chimed in was, unsurprisingly, to say that’s a ridiculous thing to say. It’s the perfect kind of hypothetical debate to take over social media, because there is no way to prove it (no one from either sport is going to make the transition), but it’s very easy to yell about it on Twitter, a podcast, or TV show.

The truth is there are probably a few players that could make the crossover from each sport, but none would be particularly great because, well, they’ve spent their adult lives perfecting their craft in an entirely different arena. There are a few guys in the NBA that physically fit the bill and could likely hold their own. One of them is Thunder wing Luguentz Dort, who is listed at 6’4, 220 pounds and looks every bit of it. During Saturday’s Game 3 between the Mavs and Thunder, noted Dallas fan Patrick Mahomes was seated courtside next to Dave Pasch and Hubie Brown and couldn’t help but chime in on the debate, telling Pasch he thinks Dort could be an NFL linebacker tomorrow.

I am not going to argue with Mr. Mahomes on this one, as Dort certainly seems like one of the rare NBA players not only built like an NFL player physically, but embraces physicality enough to actually survive playing football. I don’t think 30 of those exist, as Rivers said, but Dort would have to be on the shortlist.

Mike Flanagan and Stephen King go together like the most terrifying (yet delicious) PB and chocolate. The TV horror maestro has already adapted King’s Gerald’s Game and The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, and now that Flanagan has completed his deadly Netflix tenure, he’s blazing a path ahead to his Amazon deal, where The Dark Tower series could eventually surface.

First, however, Flanagan and King’s meeting of the minds will occur with The Life Of Chuck, which is a film adaptation of King’s novella from his 2020 If It Bleeds collection. This project will arrive on screens sooner rather than later, so let’s discuss what we can expect.

Plot

The really promising news: last November, Flanagan announced on Twitter that he wrapped directing duties on the film, which he called “a tenacious little miracle of a movie from the start & I’m forever indebted to this wonderful cast and crew. This film is deeply special to me, and I’m elated that it’s going to exist in the world.”

Flanagan further stressed his relief at having “made something truly independent & it fed my soul to be back in the indie world where I started – especially here in Alabama, where we shot OCULUS, BEFORE I WAKE, HUSH and GERALD’S GAME.” In the same thread, he called the cast “an embarrassment of riches” while also stressing that he was en route to Los Angeles, where he would act as editor, and Flanagan made sure to stress that this “isn’t a horror movie.” Well then.

What genre is The Life Of Chuck, exactly? As Deadline initially reported, the film represents “three separate stories linked to tell the biography of Charles Krantz in reverse, beginning with his death from a brain tumour at 39 and ending with his childhood in a supposedly haunted house.” This genre project will also align tonally with Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption.

As well, Charles Krantz is an “ordinary man” type of protagonist, so let’s move on to who is portraying him in the movie.

Cast

Tom Hiddleston will be the man in Charles “Chuck” Krantz’s shoes. Flanagan faves Mark Hamill and Kate Siegel will be on hand. Also expect to see David Dastmalchian (who has turned into quite the horror king lately, and King is a fan of his recent work), Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, Mia Sara, Matthew Lillard, and Heather Langenkamp.

Release Date

As of November 2023, this movie has been in Bleeker Street’s hands for distribution, and the film is in post-production phases. We don’t know if this will be a theatrical or streaming release, but this film feels ideal (no matter the venue) for a 2024 spooky-season bonanza.

Trailer

We will be all over it when the trailer surfaces.

All eyes are on women’s sports—more specifically basketball from the collegiate level to the pros. But the WNBA isn’t the only sports league inking major deals, Ice Cube’s BIG3 is also getting in on the action.

Yesterday (May 10), Bloomberg revealed that the newest league on the block inked an eight-figure deal.

According to the report, investment firm DCB Sports has acquired the forthcoming Los Angeles franchise for $10 million.

“This is a historic day for the BIG3,” said Ice Cube. “We could not be happier to entrust part of our league to Gary [LaDrido, managing partner of DCB Sports] and this seasoned group of sports investors ahead of our most important season yet. We have all-star basketball talent, millions of loyal fans around the world, and we are one of the most viewed sports programs of the summer on CBS.”

Back when the BIG3 was founded in 2017, the league was a touring strong hold. Since rising in popularity, it has model has shifted to the industry standard “city-centric” with Los Angeles being one of its 12 teams.

In a statement, Ice Cube spoke about the transition. “Basing our teams in home cities allows BIG3 to engage local communities and fanbases,” he said. “Bringing in ownership groups each with their own sports expertise, business, and capabilities beginning in 2025 will allow BIG3 to grow exponentially. I know that DCB Sports will do right by the people of Los Angeles and together, we’ll continue to change the game.”

Although Caitlin Clark ultimately decided turn away the BIG3’s offer, given its latest expansion other stars are considering signing on the dotted line.

Jeremy Allen White and especially Zac Efron went to town during their physical prep work for The Iron Claw, which led to plenty of thirst tweets and high praise from Adele on the acting front. Lily James and Harris Dickinson also made impressions for their roles within the tragic Von Erich family, and although this film got snubbed by the Oscars, the acting performances still received audience accolades.

Is this a pleasant watch? Not exactly, given the history of the Von Erich family, which left the survivors absolutely shattered. Yet the movie is still a mesmerizing watch, and if you didn’t catch the A24 project in theaters, then you have plenty of time to watch it at home.

Where Can You Watch ‘The Iron Claw’ on Streaming?

A24’s streaming agreement with Max mean that the Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service is the place where you can watch the movie as part of a subscription package. Additionally, you can check the movie out in VOD format, but for the monthly price of a Max subscription (currently with $9.99, $15.99, and $19.99 packages), you can also check out the other A24 movies when they land on streaming in addition to the extensive Max TV and film catalogue and new arrivals.

So, go stream to your “iron” heart’s content, but be ready to shed a few tears.

Anne Rice readers, get ready for “a new coven” to appear on AMC’s Interview With The Vampire series. You know what that means, yes? Without Lestat (Sam Reid) by their side, Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Claudia (now played by Delainey Hayles) will forge off by themselves and meet the Théâtre des Vampire troupe. That would place the series at the point where (in the movie) Armand first appears onscreen, although the character in the series (Assad Zaman) is very different from his movie counterpart.

Then again, many liberties have been taken with this show so far, including having modern-day Louis living in sunny Dubai, which makes perfect sense for a vampire. Additionally, Anderson revealed to Entertainment Weekly that Louis will be feeling “psychological and literal repercussions” for what has been done to Lestat. (Hey, it happens.) However, Anderson also promised that events in Dubai will be “really explosive,” and “Dubai really took me by surprise this season.”

Hmmm, will Lestat resurface in the freaking desert? Oh please.

When Does ‘Interview With The Vampire’ Season 2, Episode 1 Come Out?

AMC will air the episode on Sunday, May 12 at 9:00pm EST. The very simple episode description is as follows: “Louis recounts Claudia’s quest to find Old World Vampires amidst the backdrop of Europe during World War II.”

Eventually, this show will do the crossover thing with AMC’s The Witches Of Mayfair to make the Rice adaptations feel even more circular. We’re looking forward to it.

With Coachella 2024 officially in the history books, music festival season is well underway across the US. But abroad, things are still heating up. Over in Malaysia, that means the return of Good Vibes Festival. Between July 20 and 21, musicians J Balvin, Peggy Gou, Joji, BIBI, and more are set to serves as headliners at the Resorts World Awana in Genting Highlands.

However, following last year’s emergency cancellation (now referred to as kill switch) due to The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy and bassist Ross MacDonald’s kiss (to protest the government’s anti-LGBTQ laws), ticket holders are uncertain about the event. On May 8, organizer, Future Sound Asia’s Director of Entertainment Wan Alman set out to assure the public things are “back to normal” during a conversation with NME.

Read his remarks below.

We’re not going to let this one bad incident ruin everything that we’ve worked for. We’ve worked too hard for this. That’s when we decided that we’re going to go ahead with Good Vibes 2024 but at that point, we didn’t know in what form. We were still going through various iterations of what we could make work. So in the end, we decided on this two-day festival in Genting Highlands.

Alman later claimed to have the backing of local law enforcement, despite last year’s onstage protest.

Despite what happened last year, the government has actually been quite supportive. They want to work with us hand-in-hand to make sure that that sort of thing doesn’t happen again and that the live music industry and the festival industry isn’t adversely affected by what happened. We have been working with government authorities in workshops with PUSPAL (Central Committee for Application for Filming and Performance by Foreign Artistes) to come up with SOPs [standing operating procedures] to deal with incidents such as what happened last year, and also to refine and improve PUSPAL guidelines. The good thing is that Good Vibes Festival is not banned, so we’re doing it again this year.

According to the interview, Future Sound Asia in still in “legal proceedings” with The 1975 due to the kiss (which temporarily landed the band behind bars).

The Sandman has been a beloved saga for decades of Neil Gaiman readers. This is a rare comic book creation that tends to find people when they need it (just ask Mark Maron) and hit hard, and as a result, many things could have gone wrong (in the eyes of both Gaiman and fans) on the way to the screen. Heck, these terrible things already came too close to existence. Gaiman famously shut down a film adaptation by purposefully leaking “the worst script that I’ve ever read.” That was only the beginning of “30 years” of Gaiman fending off bad takes on his most renowned creation, but fortunately, that defensive status came to an end not too long ago.

First, The Sandman received a deserving three-part Audible treatment (during the pandemic) that continued to help Gaiman’s fans endure the punches delivered by life. Then the Netflix series arrived in August 2022 with resounding praise, especially for Death’s episode, “The Sound Of Her Wings.” The reception was so positive, in fact, that Netflix unveiled a bonus episode while the streaming service considered whether to renew the popular but expensive series. That (positive) decision finally came, so let’s talk it out.

Plot

The Sandman is an enormous creation, both as a printed work and in the TV medium, as well as a labor of love in non-linear storytelling. For that reason, it’s impossible to predict precisely which stories will be adapted in this show and when they will happen, but we have received clues, and also, expect this second season to feel personal to the viewer. That’s always the overwhelming response from Gaiman readers, and the Netflix series keeps that spirit alive.

We do know that in addition to seeing much more of Tom Sturridge’s Dream/Morpheus, we will some new siblings from The Endless, particularly Delirium. Also a strong possibility? Destruction and Destiny.

And from the looks of these episode titles reported thus far (via Redanian Intelligence), you would think that there’s much more of Gwendoline Christie’s Lucifer on the way, too:

– “The Song of Orpheus”
– “More Devils Than Vast Hell Can Hold”
– “Brief Lives”
– “Family Blood”
– “The Ruler of Hell”
– “Season of Mists”

That assumption would be correct. Gaiman has explained to Variety that Lucifer’s revenge should figure prominently into what people shall see:

“I take too much fu*king pleasure in saying to people who do not know anything about what’s coming up in ‘Sandman,’ ‘If we do Season 2, we’re going to be having the rematch and Morpheus is going to be going back to hell. And Lucifer has some surprises in store that Morpheus is not expecting.’ And they are all like, ‘Ahh!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, and I know how that’s going to work, and you don’t. And everybody who’s ever read ‘Season of Mists’ knows how that’s going to work and you don’t. But that’s good because not everybody will have read ‘Season of Mists’ and this is going to be so much fun.”

Additionally, there will be more of Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s performance as Death than the first season gave us. That’s in line with the comic books and the Audible performances, where Kat Dennings also threw herself into the role. However, that’s also a response to Death’s first-season episode being a smash hit with viewers. Death — the TV version is very different than the comic-book and Audible versions but Howell-Baptiste’s version is tremendous — recently made an appearance in Netflix’s recent Dead Boy Detectives (an offshoot of The Sandman), and Howell-Baptiste did tell Collider that Neil intends to give viewers what they asked for in this season.

Will there be any more offshoots, perhaps even spin offs? Here’s what Gaiman told Variety about Johanna Constantine and Death possibilities:

“We also have the ‘Death’ books. It might be great to go off and do one of those as a sideline, in addition to which, anybody who has seen ‘Sandman’ Episode 3 has sidled over to us at some point or other in the last six months and said, ‘Do you think there’s any possibility that we could do a Johanna Constantine show with Jenna Coleman?’ And, oh my God, she’s a star and you just want to see her going through battling demons and destroying other people’s lives. So that’s in there, too. We can keep going on this for a long time to come.”

Cast

A key piece of the puzzle that has yet to be revealed is the casting of Delirium, who has been confirmed to appear in the second season. In all likelihood, we will soon see Destruction and Destiny as well.

Otherwise, casting has already been pitch perfect. Nobody could replace Tom Sturridge as Dream/Morpheus, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Mason Alexander Park as Desire, Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian, Patton Oswalt as Matthew the Raven, Kyo Ra as Rose Walker, or Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine. And as viewers damn well realize, that’s only the surface of what we’ve seen thus far.

Release Date

2025 will likely be when we will see more of Dream and his siblings together (and apart) again. That seems like a too-long wait, but Neil Gaiman and his fans already waited decades for this show in the first place. Also, that’s not an enormous turnaround considering that the show resumed post-strike filming in November 2023 and has extensive VFX work on its plate. If this season is as successful as the show’s debut, the wait will truly be worth it.

Trailer

We aren’t lucky enough to see Season 2 footage yet, but Dead Boy Detectives‘ first season takes a spin off from The Sandman comics with a few key cameos from the Netflix show. Yes, The Sandman universe is in process! Additionally, here’s a first-season deleted scene involving a conversation between Death and Dream/Morpheus.