Travis Hunter is the most unique football player in the nation. While the Colorado Buffaloes have plenty of question marks during the second year of the Deion Sanders era, they’re going to go into every game they play with the best player on the field, as Hunter is standout on both sides of the ball.
Hunter lines up at cornerback on defense and is a good player, but where he really shines is on offense, where he plays wide receiver and is the top target for fellow NFL hopeful Shedeur Sanders. And while the Buffs got a test on Thursday night from FCS powerhouse North Dakota State, Hunter was able to have a monster night, as he reeled in three touchdowns. The best of the bunch, which you can watch right here, was a ridiculous grab while he was heading to the ground and just plucked it out of the air in the fourth quarter while the team was on the doorstep.
It was as good of a TD snag as you’ll ever seen, and it caught the attention of LeBron James, who could not believe what he saw.
“MAN TRAVIS HUNTER IS RIDICULOUS!!!!!” James posted on Twitter. “WOW”
I said basically the same thing that LeBron did, because my goodness, what a grab. Anyway, we know Hunter is a huge LeBron fan, so I am sure he’ll be happy to see this after the game.
Mexican-American singer Becky G has some questions for a devilish lover in the video for her new song, “Como Diablos.” A pleading corrido, “Como Diablos” finds Becky demanding to know, “¿Por qué diablos fue que tú te fuiste?” which means “Why the hell did you leave?” as she notes that she gave more than asked but ended up alone while her paramour went on to find happiness despite her own anguish.
The song is the lead single from Becky’s upcoming album, Encuentros, which she announced today. The album is set for release on October 10 via Kemosabe Records/Sony Music Latin/RCA Records. Of the video, which was shot in a junkyard in Monterrey, the singer said in an interview with Rolling Stone, “It’s about how internalizing your emotions turns into this power that’s inward, but also how that translates outward. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an anger that is explosive, but it can still have this vibration that causes the ground to shake… And me being a little chaparrita, I loved this interpretation of strength.”
She says she experimented on the album, Encuentros, with each song reminding her of the memory balls from the Pixar film, Inside Out. In addition to releasing the album in October, she’ll be hitting the road for her Casa Gomez: Otro Capítulo tour, hitting 14 stops in cities like Milwaukee, San Antonio, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and San Diego, playing songs from her album Esquinas. You can find more information here.
You can watch the “Como Diablos” video above.
Encuentros is out 10/10 via Kemosabe Records/Sony Music Latin/RCA Records.
While we got a four-game appetizer in Week 0 (including a stunning top-10 upset), the college football season began in full on Thursday night as Week 1 got underway with a few intriguing games, headlined by FCS powerhouse North Dakota State heading to Boulder to take on the much-hyped Colorado Buffaloes.
It figured to be a competitive game, but Colorado was expected to have an edge with their athleticism at the skill positions. Early on that played out, as the Buffs took a 14-10 lead on a pair of touchdown passes from Shedeur Sanders to Travis Hunter and Jimmy Horn Jr., who both ran away from the Bison defense on their way to the end zone. However, as the first half dragged on, the Colorado offense couldn’t continue creating explosive plays and the NDSU offense leaned on the Buffaloes defense, taking a 20-17 lead into halftime. That put some real pressure on the Buffaloes to figure some things out coming out of halftime and find pay dirt again.
The Buffaloes marched down the field early in the third quarter, but saw disaster strike on the goal line on a freak play when a Sanders pass hit a DB’s foot, popped up into the air, and got picked off by the Bison (watch the full video here). It’s a wildly unlucky play, but was also just generally not a very good pass from Sanders to end up hitting the defender’s foot (a rare misfire from him on the night). Sanders would bounce back quickly, though, as the Buffaloes were able to get a rare quick stop on defense and Shedeur was able to find Hunter for a go-ahead touchdown on the ensuing drive.
The new album just begs for an intimate listening session — and that’s exactly what his André’s companion film, Listening To The Sun, is. To star the 90-minute film, André introduces the album, lights a candle, and lets the mood move him as the album plays. “I hope you enjoy the ride as much as we did,” he says. “What you hear is what we did as it was happening.” The film, directed by Terence Nance, isn’t terribly complex, but the soundtrack takes care of that.
Although New Blue Sun was well-received in general, though, André’s comments about rapping after 40 while promoting it certainly ruffled a few feathers. Lil Wayne called André’s thoughts “depressing,” while LL Cool J shot down the idea that there are no new ideas after 40. Still, most fans seem to be holding out hope that André will rediscover his inspiration, after his most recent rap verse, on Killer Mike’s “Scientists & Engineers,” not only scratched their longstanding itch for new André 3000 wordplay, but also helped Mike sweep the Grammys’ rap categories.
You can watch André’s film, Listening To The Sun, above.
With Travis Scott’s breakout mixtape Days Before Rodeo finally coming to streaming after ten years, it looks like the master promoter is making the most of the occasion. In addition to surprising fans with the release of a music video for tape standout, “Drugs You Should Try It,” he’s followed up with a second release of supplementary material, including vaulted tunes, a chopped-and-screwed version, and a live recording from his Atlanta tenth anniversary concert. All the new, old material can be found at shop.travisscott.com.
The consummate multi-brand pitch man, Travis announced that he was branching out yet again and living out one of his biggest dreams: Teaming up with WWE legend Rey Mysterio for an upcoming match. He wouldn’t be the first music star to partner with the wrestling promotion; last year, an extensive storyline saw Bad Bunny team up with, then turn on, fellow Puerto Rican Damian Priest in Puerto Rico, suffering a back injury in the process that should put paid to all those rumors about wrestling being fake.
At the very least, it should give the Houston native a productive outlet for some of that destructive energy, because he’s made almost as many headlines for brawling, trespassing, and assault arrests as for his music this year.
When he first founded New England Barrel Company, James Saunders had no idea that the project, which began as an after-hours gig, would soon grow to become the region’s biggest whiskey brand. Over the span of four years, New England Barrel Company has risen to prominence, winning major awards and becoming the whiskey of choice throughout the six states representing its home base. The credit for that rapid ascent belongs to the visionary entrepreneur behind the brand, who began creating a template for diversifying the alcohol business after he became fed up with what he was seeing at local liquor stores in his backyard.
“What I was seeing take place really bothered me,” said James, “in 2017, I saw prices starting to tick up, and that continued at a steady pace for three years. I realized that the consumer didn’t have an opportunity to enjoy accessible whiskey for under $60 anymore. That’s when I decided I wanted to bring sanity back to the American whiskey space.”
James launched New England Barrel Company in September 2020, and despite the difficulty of launching a business in the heart of a pandemic, he has seen his company flourish. Winning awards from industry-leading tasting competitions like the San Francisco Wine And Spirits Competition has helped raise the brand’s profile among discerning whiskey enthusiasts, and strategic investment from the Diageo-backed incubator program, Pronghorn, has enabled New England Barrel Company to extend its reach outside of its home market.
Frank Dobbins III
“I wanted to work with (Pronghorn) because I know it’s not enough to find money for investment; you have to find smart money. For example, I didn’t know I needed to be a geopolitical expert to make whiskey, but having Pronghorn involved, I don’t have to be. They can marshall resources to help me overcome obstacles with the global supply chain for obtaining things like glass for bottles.”
New England has a rich culture of distilled spirits that stretches back to the time of George Washington when rum was all the rage, and the influx of imported molasses into Boston and Providence turned the region into our nascent nation’s biggest rum exporter. Since that time, however, its distilling success has seen a downturn due to shifting tastes, which saw rum fall out of favor as whiskey’s popularity grew. Today, New England is on the rebound, with just north of 30 distilleries calling the area home, and none of them are as nationally recognized as New England Barrel Company.
Still, even as New England has been rebuilding its distilling culture more recently, Covid presented a new set of challenges that caused several distillers to call it quits. James explains,
“We’ve seen a number of distilleries close, which is sad for the communities they’re in. I wanted to create a brand that would put New England on the map because this is not just about me. We’ve got some amazing small distilleries that need to receive recognition as well, and if my success can shine a light on them, that’s something we aim to spearhead.”
By conservative estimates, the U.S. spirits business is a nearly $40 billion industry, and as one of the key pioneers putting a new face on the industry, James Saunders plans to use his influence to create a rising tide that lifts all boats. Starting in New England, he envisions collaborations on the brand level as well as a craft-centric whiskey festival to showcase the spirits that he and his neighboring distilleries are producing.
“Pulling those disparate communities together and paying these things forward is of the utmost importance to me. Raising awareness is just a start.” The idea is that by working together to pull in consumers as well as experts from across the country, New England will once again be one of America’s preeminent alcohol-producing regions.
New England Barrel Co.
New England Barrel Company recently received its Distilled Spirits Plant number from the TTB, with licensing set to arrive this fall. That will allow the brand to officially begin distilling spirits on their home turf (up to this point, they’ve been contract distilling at another facility) in Redding, Massachusetts. Having learned from his experience distilling in Kentucky, which he likens to being a guest chef in someone else’s kitchen, James Saunders aims to fully restore New England’s distilling tradition by controlling the entirety of his production process and setting aside a portion of their production capacity to distill spirits for other upstart companies.
Regarding the keys to his success in a space that has historically excluded BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) business owners, James credits his willingness to take such a community-minded approach. Despite its yawning embrace of inclusivity in positions of power, the American whiskey industry is more ready than ever to accept new folks into the fold. In fact, it has to be if the industry’s historic growth will continue.
Thanks to strategic partnerships like the Advancement Initiative established by Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniel’s and the investment from companies like Pronghorn into New England Barrel Company, the alcohol industry has seen an uptick in successful black-owned businesses and their achievements are enriching the category as a whole. Consumers are eager to support these businesses because they know as well as anyone that having diversity in the space only means a wider variety of affordable, high-quality options on the shelf, and that’s the exact problem James Saunders set out to fix.
“The whiskey industry works like this,” James concluded, “you work hard to make your whiskey good, you engage with your consumers, you expand who your consumer is, and if they like your whiskey, they buy it. If they don’t like your whiskey, you don’t survive.”
In fact, in a new interview, he assigns blame for his treatment by the public to his hip-hop origins, asserting that he’s stigmatized as a white rapper — but mostly by other white people. On Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, MGK told the internet troll turned part-time WWE superstar, “I won’t deny that there is a subconscious stigma around that — being white in hip-hop. To me, it’s so funny because the streets f*ck with me so tough. It’s honestly from other white people that give me the most sh*t.”
He also has a bit of a theory about why that might be — and it connects to that battle with fellow white rapper Eminem. “The crazy thing is there’s only been one who’s done it,” he said of dissing the hip-hop legend, who has been considered something of a North Star for other white rappers like Jack Harlow, Mac Miller, and Russ. “There’s only been one who’s done it and crossed that line of acceptance.”
You can watch the full episode above; the conversation about hip-hop begins at the 37-minute mark.
There has been a ton of wide receiver drama in the NFL this offseason, with three superstar names finding themselves in tense negotiations on a new deal with their current teams: Brandon Aiyuk, Ja’Marr Chase, and CeeDee Lamb. While Chase’s situation has yet to be resolved and Lamb has already signed a new deal to remain in Dallas, on Thursday evening, we finally got a resolution in the Aiyuk saga that will keep him in San Francisco.
Aiyuk wanted to sign a new deal this offseason, but the defending NFC champions worked on paying him while simultaneously looking around to see if they could figure out a trade — the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers were two of the teams that were heavily linked to the second-team All-Pro selection, who requested a move to a place that would pay him earlier this year. Ultimately, San Francisco was able to get something done, which theoretically lets them turn their focus to arguably their best player, as star tackle Trent Williams is holding out in search of a new contract.
Aiyuk had a career year in 2023, as he caught 75 balls for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns, all of which led the team.
Anna Kendrick, multi-hyphenate talent that she has proven to be for decades, is taking her first whirl in the directors chair with the film formerly known as The Dating Game, which has given way to Woman of the Hour. This is a true-crime narrative feature that was snapped up by multiple international markets before filming began, and although there will be a theatrical release in some markets, the movie will soon make a streaming debut on Netflix.
The film’s subject matter is both horrific and laced with the bleakest of humor as confirmed by Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, who calls it “an unshakable debut,” and Collider’s Nate Richard described the film as a “tense and has a great knack for dark humor, but it also has a lot on its mind.” Let’s talk about what viewers, should they dare to watch this story, can expect.
Plot
Kendrick’s extensive involvement in this project arrived around the same time that she starred in Alice, Darling, a film that she starred in to help exorcise an incredibly bad relationship. As it turns out, Woman of the Hour arrives with a similar theme but on a mass scale, given that this movie looks back on that time that a serial killer, Rodney Alcaca, appeared as a contestant on the true-to-life, 1970s-era The Dating Game show. Kendrick stars as aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw, who was unlucky enough to pick Alcaca as her date, but fortunately, she made it out of the situation alive.
Tragically, 100+ other women could not escape Alcaca’s clutches and lost their lives in the process. Some victims likely still have not been identified, according to photographs acquired by police following Alcaca’s arrest, and he served over three decades on death row before dying behind bars. The below video revisits Alcaca’s appearance on The Dating Game:
Netflix describes this movie as a “searing film” that “explores the way women navigate a world of violent men” — an especially sobering thought since Alcaca was at the height of his murder spree (and had already served time) when he decided to find a date on TV. When this film was announced, TIFF stressed that this story does not indulge in “gruesome details,” and that Kendrick’s project “harbours a dark truth: when you’re confronted by the rage of men, the only way to make it out alive is to play the game.”
Cast
Led by Anna Kendrick as Cheryl Bradshaw, the cast includes Daniel Zovatto as Alcaca along with Kathryn Gallagher, Tony Hale, Max Lloyd-Jones, Darcy Laurie, Kelley Jackie, Dylan Schmid, and Nicolette Robinson.
Release Date
In the U.S., Woman of the Hour will stream on October 18, only on Netflix. In Canada, the VVS Films-distributed movie will arrive in theaters on October 11.
Trailer
This trailer does not reflect well upon (due to Alcaca’s stalking specter) men who menacingly roam with cameras.
Despite being the It Girl of the ’80s and ’90s and being a part of a majorly popular show, Winona Ryder doesn’t really keep up with current pop culture trends. She doesn’t use social media. She doesn’t like Wikipedia. She probably doesn’t know what Brat Summer is, and that’s fine, she doesn’t shame people who do! But this is what sets her apart from her Stranger Things co-stars who, at the time of season one, were barely teenagers when they all met.
In a new interview with Esquire while promoting Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ryder spoke of her love for old-fashioned things and her mild hatred for more modern technology. This must be why she chose to do Stranger Things, which takes place in the ’80s. But when she first met the rest of the cast, which consisted of Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard, she was shocked to learn they didn’t know what a vinyl record was. “I cried,” she joked to the magazine. Ryder then said that the sound of a record needle dropping is the greatest sound in the world.
Even though she’s not against social media per se, she does think it has drastically altered how people view the world. “I just think that social media has changed everything, and I know I sound old. I’m very aware of that,” she began. “But I just think there was such an abundance: the history of film, the history of photography, it’s so rich, and there’s so much there, and I don’t mean we should go backwards, but I wish and I hope that the younger generation will study that.”
On the other hand, with the internet, there is so much more accessible information out there. But Ryder says that younger people seem to only use the internet for engagement, “If you try to find out what they are into…it’s this idea of followers and how many you have. That’s all that matters, that you’re rich and famous,” she explained.
It’s nice that Ryder found a co-star in Jenna Ortega, who has a similar approach to social media by not approaching it at all anymore.
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