Well, guess what: Perry Mason is back. Kind of. Perry Mason is kind of back. HBO is rolling out a gritty reimagining of the old Raymond Burr lawyer show from the 1950s this Sunday night, June 21. It’s got a loaded cast and a lot going on and, as we’ll get to shortly, bears little resemblance to any version of Perry Mason you might be familiar with. The show was developed and produced by Robert Downey’s production company (Downey himself was originally attached to star), and there are pieces in there that are very good and bordering on great. Unfortunately, there are also some parts of it that are… less great.

What I’m saying here is that if you, like me, were very excited about the idea of this show from the blurbs and teasers and general concept, I have some good news and bad news for you.

Good news

The cast of Perry Mason is incredible, top to bottom. Matthew Rhys plays the title character in his pre-lawyer private investigator days, all hard-scrabble and hard-boiled and unshaven and usually drunk or hungover or both. If you, like me, have been missing images of Matthew Rhys looking incredibly sad and beaten down by the world since The Americans ended its run, fear not, because there are so many shots of Matthew Rhys looking incredibly sad and beaten down by the world in Perry Mason. For such a giggly and fun man (please do watch him as himself in The Wine Show for reference), he plays downtrodden like he was born into it. His Mason is tough and troubled and burdened by a failing family farm and PTSD from World War I, and that’s before he even takes on the tough and troubling case that winds its way through the season. Matthew Rhys is good.

Also good: Tatiana Maslany as a thundering megachurch preacher whose family finds itself wrapped up in the case, too. Tatiana Maslany is the best. I’m not entirely sure she’s properly cast here, just because some of her top-end thundering doesn’t quiiiiite land, but who cares? She is such a dynamic performer, such a presence on screen, that most of the concerns fall away at some point. She does this thing where she looks at people and you can see the gears grinding away behind her eyes, revealing her true and sometimes devious intentions. She should be in more things, if not everything.

The rest of the cast is a sometimes literal murderer’s row, too. Stephen Root plays a duplicitous district attorney, John Lithgow plays the defense attorney who hires Perry to investigate, Shea Wigham plays Perry’s cohort. Put those three guys in anything and it’s going to be at least a B/B+. Chris Chalk turns in a really good performance as the one good cop dealing with the racism and corruption of 1930s Los Angeles. The real surprise here is Gayle Rankin (She-Wolf from GLOW) as a grieving mother. She’s in there with some big personalities and she holds her own in every scene. None of it really works without her pulling that off.

Bad news

This is a bleak affair. It’s all very dark and brooding, which is sensible enough for a 1930s noir, but it never really clicked for me. Some things seem to be done for shock value alone. The first 10 minutes feature a dead infant, full-frontal male nudity, and a sex scene involving food and the slathering of food that will definitely burn itself into your brain for a while. Possibly forever.

The plot slogs in places, too. Without giving too much away, it goes something like this: there’s a baby that is kidnapped and killed, there are hidden identities and corruption up through the justice system, the Tatiana Maslany mega-church gets roped in, and only Perry Mason can untangle things. It’s fine. It’s really fine. The biggest problem is that, with everyone involved (in addition to the cast, the show is helmed by Boardwalk Empire veteran Tim Van Patten, himself no stranger to violent period pieces about corruption), it feels like it should be better. I kept wanting it to be. It’s still a pretty good watch, but there’s something left on the table there.

This brings us to the larger question in all of this: why? Why are we rebooting Perry Mason, a show about a television lawyer from the 1950s, and making him a gritty private eye? I know having a familiar name can hook in a few extra viewers but a) the people who might be interested because of the old series will barely recognize the action here, and b) most of the viewers they’re shooting for are too young to be moved by the Perry Mason of it all. I wonder if this would have been better served by stripping away the IP and just making a gritty noir — everything else exactly the same — about a guy named, like, Rex Manhattan or Mick Rockledge. Those names are freebies for anyone else working on a noir project. My gift to you.

Good news

Really just a tremendous collection of mustaches in this sucker. Look.

That’s John Lithgow’s character up there sporting a bushy gray caterpillar on his upper lip. Solid, for sure, but not the best one on the show. Give me a pencil-thin old-timely mustache. Come on. Hit me.

There we go. God bless Stephen Root. The man has never been bad in anything. Newsradio, Barry, Justified, an all-around treasure. And here he is with a tiny little mustache that screams “I’m a corrupt public official who is up to no good.” It’s beautiful. Almost perfect. And still only the second-best mustache on the show. Allow me to present Shea Wigham in what I promise is a very real promotional picture that was released by HBO.

Just magnificent. If this show could have been 80 percent as successful at what it set out to do as Shea Wigham’s mustache is at what it’s doing, we could have just canceled the Emmys and dropped all the trophies off in HBO’s parking lot via dump truck. Perhaps you consider this hyperbole, or at the very least a silly and useless aside for a serious television review. I would disagree. And I stand by my statement.

Bad news

With increasingly limited options on the television and movie front due to various pandemic-related issues, I was really hoping Perry Mason could be the show that galvanizes everyone through the summer. One we could all watch and enjoy and dive too deeply into. This may have been unfair on my part. I might have been putting too much pressure on a show that wasn’t meant as a big broad smash. Again, the show is fine, good in some parts, loaded with great performances and mustaches, but it still feels like a missed opportunity.

If it does catch on, though, and it starts a trend of bringing back old detective shows from decades ago, and all that ends up getting me a fun Columbo reboot starring, say, Jake Johnson or Natasha Lyonne… well, then all will be forgiven.

BET announced the 2020 BET Awards nominations this week and as usual, a superstar artist is unhappy with their lack of nominations. Artists arguing that BET has snubbed them has become something of a tradition for the network. In 2017, Dreezy went off on BET for only nominating female rappers who didn’t even put albums out in the year before, while in 2019, Nicki Minaj was miffed at a Facebook post comparing her to Cardi B and pulled out of her appearance. This year, it looks like it’s an R&B artist’s turn to be annoyed as PartyNextDoor vented his frustration on Twitter.

“When did Black Entertainment Television get so Complex and forget Partynextdoor is the RNB artist of our generation?” he wondered. “Is it because I don’t wanna be friends? Is it because i put value in the art instead of people? Is it because it’s not the popular opinion? I am BET. I am Complex.” It seems he thinks that his recently-released album PartyMobile deserved at least a mention in the R&B category. Instead, Anderson .Paak, Chris Brown, Jacquees, Khalid, The Weeknd, and Usher were all nominated for Best Male R&B/Pop Artist, while the Album Of The Year category features strong contenders like Beyonce, Lizzo, and H.E.R.

It seems the tradition of BET making artists mad remains intact for another year, but it’s to be expected. There’s more music than ever these days and as the category field have to remain capped at some manageable number, someone is always going to end up feeling left out. As for why the BET Awards have a particular prickle factor, the answer likely lies in Black artists’ responses to their Grammy snubs. While being ignored by outsiders probably doesn’t surprise anyone, having one of the few Black-focused outlets overlook you probably stings a lot more. But no artist, including Party, should feel too hurt; he’s accomplished more than enough to feel like his spot in the game is solid. After all, he did change the modern sound of R&B forever with his self-titled debut.

Check out the Uproxx review of PartyMobile here.

PartyNextDoor is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Masks help reduce the spread of COVID-19. No one can confirm the precise percentage of reduction, but the plummeting rates in East Asian countries confirm that their take on the mask issue is working. And here in the U.S.? Well, it’s become a point of political contention with some people insisting that wearing a mask violates their personal freedom. Sadly, that mindset doesn’t take into account the health of everyone the non-mask-wearers will infect, and as a recent sentiment expressed on Twitter points out, “[M]asks aren’t exactly comfortable, but neither are bras, and a good portion of the population wears those regularly for far less important reasons.” Well, Bill Burr gets it.

During the stand-up comedian’s visit this week on The Joe Rogan Experience, Burr and host Joe Rogan dug into a number of issues, including the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. When the pandemic part of the discussion began, the The King Of Staten Island star lamented how people are out and about in the community while maskless, acting like the novel coronavirus is not a big deal. When Rogen started to coyly prod Burr on the issue, Burr immediately pushed back:

“I don’t want to start this bullshit. I’m not gonna sit here with no medical degree, listening to you with no medical degree, with an American flag behind you smoking a cigar, acting like we know what’s up, better than the CDC. All I do, is I watch the news once every two weeks — I’m like, ‘Mask or no mask? Still mask? Alright, mask! That’s all I give a f*ck about.”

The banter between the two continued…

Burr: “I just love how wearing a mask became like this f*cking like soft thing…like being courteous…”

Rogan: “It’s for bitches.”

Burr: “Why is it for bitches?”

Rogan: (Fakes weak cough)

Burr: “Oh God you’re so tough with your f*cking open nose and throat…and your five o’clock shadow. This is a man right here!”

As this Twitter user noted, Burr basically tells Rogan to “shut the f*ck up” in the most polite way possible. You can watch the full episode here, if you have three hours to spare.

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In early 2019, Ariana Grande teamed up with Starbucks for her own drink. Lately, though, there have been rumors that the relationship between the pop star and the coffee chain has soured. Starbucks recently prohibited employees from wearing Black Lives Matter clothing (a stance they later eased up on), after which people noticed Grande doesn’t follow the brand on Instagram.

Whatever the case may be, at the very least, Grande is trying out different coffee destinations. She has been shopping around in recent days: Earlier this week, she enjoyed a drink from the wizard-themed Nimbus Coffee. She also swung by South LA Cafe for an iced drink and shared a photo from her visit on her Instagram Story (as she did during her Nimbus stop). Both of those businesses are Black-owned, and South LA Cafe reported a huge increase in business following the Grande co-sign.

South LA wrote on Instagram, “Did y’all know that @arianagrande stands with the Movement for Black Lives and Black-Owned businesses like @southlacafe? We’ve been fortunate to win her over from Starbucks this past week, as well as her incredible #arianators. (Click the first pic) They showed up in full force for today’s live of the South LA Grocery Giveaway, sending big love for our mission. This is an example of people with influence and privilege using it to forward the movement. We welcome the support and are grateful to be recognized for our impact and community leadership.”

The post also notes that they served 150 people in 29 minutes following Grande bringing increased attention to their establishment, which they say is “one for the record books.”

Grande hasn’t made a public comment about her relationship with Starbucks, but as they say, money talks.

Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger formed The Fiery Furnaces during a golden era of indie music: The year 2000, in New York City. The band went on to release eight records over the course of the next seven years following their 2003 debut. After a lengthy hiatus in 2010 in which both halves of the duo pivoted towards a solo career, The Fiery Furnaces are making a triumphant return.

“Down At The So And So On Somewhere” marks The Fiery Furnaces’ first release in ten years. Along with releasing the single digitally, the track will be pressed into a 7-inch vinyl with the bonus single “The Fortune Teller’s Revenge.”

The duo was slated to make their on-stage return at Pitchfork Music Festival this summer, which has since been canceled due to the pandemic. While the band can’t make an on-stage return for the foreseeable future, they still wanted to make an impact. Consequently, The Fiery Furnaces will donate a portion of proceeds from their 7-inch and accompanying merch to Black Lives Matter and AACM Chicago, an organization composed of Black artists who aim to preserve their craft and showcase their unique talents.

In a statement alongside the single’s release, The Fiery Furnaces said they penned the track back in February as a reflection on regret, but it has since morphed in meaning in light of recent events:

“This is the first new music from The Fiery Furnaces in ten years. The songs were recorded in New York City and a few hours north of New York City on February 3 and February 10 – 12, 2020. ‘Down at the So and So on Somewhere’ is a regretful song about having regrets. Now it seems even more sad than we thought it was back then: ‘Will you meet me,’ etc. Matthew was happy to use a Soviet drum machine. Eleanor was happy to play real drums. ‘The Fortune Teller’s Revenge’ is another sad song. We cut out the lines from the first and third verse: ‘with me; just kidding’ and ‘leave everything to me.’ Matthew likes hearing Eleanor sing ‘I’m sorry to say I’ve never made a mistake.’ Eleanor likes that you can’t quite tell who’s singing what, when.”

Listen to “Down At The So And So On Somewhere” above. Get the 7-inch release via Third Man Records here.

10 years ago, Eminem released Recovery, a musical return to form for the once-masterful chief mischief maker of hip-hop. In 2010, Em was in an odd place with both critics and fans. His previous albums, Encore and Relapse, had received criticism for leaning too heavily into his comedic personas and he was “still finding his feet” after getting sober as he told Rolling Stone in 2013. Recovery saw him find that balance and while it’s far from his best album — that honor still goes to The Eminem Show — it was a major turning point in Eminem’s career, bridging the gap between his drugged-out Slim Shady era and the hyper-focused technician he was to become.

There’s one major difference between this album and those both before and after it. Unlike his more recent output, he still sounds like he’s having fun, while still taking his job seriously enough that it doesn’t feel like he was making an endless, recurring fart joke. By finding the balance between those warring impulses, Eminem made an album that sounds like he was making music, not trying to make a point. For sure, he targets critics and celebrities, but he doesn’t fixate on them — Recovery is about Eminem. Some songs have aged better than others, but this is the first flash of the “mature” Em that the world has had a decade to become accustomed to.

That balance between earnest and playful is most evident in the album’s anthemic singles. “Not Afraid” is defiant without indulging Eminem’s grudges, while “Love The Way You Lie” features some of his most emotive language. Collaborations with Rihanna on “Love The Way You Lie” and Pink on “Won’t Back Down” were Em’s first and most successful experiments with bringing a feminine touch to his song construction. While they may have been as focus-grouped and algorithmically calculated as more recent attempts like the lackluster “Walk On Water” with Beyonce and the head-scratching “Nowhere Fast” with Kehlani from Revival, the chemistry he has with his first female collaborators made the plug-and-play tracks sound organic.

The proof is in the pudding; “Love The Way You Lie” became Eminem’s best-selling single ever. It showed that he could update his sound while remaining thematically true to his core content — the soul-baring, confessional raps that people related too, not the Triumph The Comic Insult Dog jokes that only appealed to a certain brand of frat humor aficionados. However, Em also showed that he was unafraid to get busy, busting out his old battle-rapper persona on songs like “On Fire,” then trading bars with the rapper who would become one of hip-hop’s most influential figures in the coming decade, Lil Wayne, on “No Love.”

There’s even a precursor to Music To Be Murdered By‘s “Those Kinda Nights” in “WTP,” on which Em coins his storytelling club-rap conceit and executes it much better than he would a decade later. Recovery‘s efficacy in comparison with latter-day efforts comes from the comfort he displays on this track, on which he sounds less invested in whether anyone thinks he’s a good rapper. He’s just rapping. In fact, he just raps on the rest of the album as well, poking just enough fun at himself throughout — admitting to the overuse of accents on his previous albums — that the focus remains on the world-class wordplay, not trying to mystify listeners into missing the genericness of his lightspeed fast flow.

While, yes, many of the issues that plague his newer albums crop up here as well, Recovery was still early enough in his career that those nitpicks hadn’t yet become nagging complaints. Some of the beat choices are a bit anachronistic and jarring — particularly “Cinderella Man” and the album closer, “Untitled” — and Em’s frequent and flagrant use of homophobic slurs firmly freezes Recovery as a product of pre-Twitter media society. In today’s world of crowd-sourced accountability, wherein Em deletes the “F-word” from a rap about Tyler The Creator and still gets dragged online, many of Recovery‘s tracks would see the chopping block or the editing room before the album saw store shelves.

But there’s a lot to admire about Eminem’s first middle-aged effort. He definitely shows his age, but he’s still in fighting shape. He hadn’t yet evolved into the crotchety commentator, grousing about how things were better “back in my day.” The stultified affect of albums like Kamikaze and Music To Be Murdered By hadn’t settled in and he was still close enough to the trauma of his past that him rapping about it felt therapeutic rather than wearying. It’d be a trap to hope that Eminem would go back to the version of himself he was on Recovery — a trap he himself couldn’t seem to avoid on his more recent offerings — but it’d be nice to hear him recover some sparks of the sense of fun and maturity he displays on it.

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For his directorial debut, Dave Franco gathered an impressive cast for a horror movie about distrust and always being watched.

The Rental follows two couples, Charlie and Michelle (The Guest‘s Dan Stevens and Community‘s Alison Brie, Franco’s real-life wife) and Mina and Josh (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night‘s Sheila Vand and Shameless‘ Jeremy Allen White), who rent an ocean-side house for some rest and relaxation. But before they can even browse through the house’s DVD library, which is the first thing I do at every rental property, the owner (icon Toby Huss) makes an odd comment about being a peeping tom, and things only get weirder from there. Brb, I’m adding “camera in the shower head” to my list of nightmares.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Two couples on an oceanside getaway grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly perfect rental house may be spying on them. Before long, what should have been a celebratory weekend trip turns into something far more sinister, as well-kept secrets are exposed and the four old friends come to see each other in a whole new light. Alison Brie, Dan Stevens, Jeremy Allen White, and Sheila Vand star in this unnerving and sophisticated debut thriller from Dave Franco.

IFC’s The Rental premieres on On Demand and in select theaters on July 24.

Our Longest Summer series will look at the eight teams whose seasons are now officially over, and will have to wait until mid-October to make decisions on what’s next and how to proceed after falling short of the cut-off for a continued 2019-20 campaign.

It may seem like a lifetime ago, but the 2019-20 Detroit Pistons were supposed to compete for a postseason berth in the Eastern Conference. The Pistons landed in the playoffs last season and, with Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond anchoring a team with a respectable roster, there was optimism, at least in some circles, for a repeat performance. Fast-forward to the end, however, and Griffin appeared in only 18 games, with Drummond seeing only 49 games of action before being dealt to Cleveland before the deadline.

In some ways, Detroit’s demise was foreseeable, especially with regard to Griffin’s injury issues. The All-Star forward was banged up considerably by the end of the 2018-19 campaign and, while unfortunate, it wasn’t totally shocking that he wasn’t able to play at full strength this season. Still, the Pistons heavily relied on his brilliance in 2018-19 and, without that centerpiece available, the lack of talent on the roster became glaring on the way to a 20-win performance in the aggregate. Now, the Pistons shift fully to rebuilding mode and the 2020 offseason provides a number of questions for the team to attempt to answer.

2020 Free Agents

Christian Wood (UFA), Tony Snell (player option), Brandon Knight (UFA), John Henson (UFA), Langston Galloway (UFA), Thon Maker (RFA), Jordan McRae (UFA)

2020 Projected salary cap space (assuming $115 million salary cap)

$33.9 million, per Early Bird Rights

Areas of Strength

This is a tough one. There are some intriguing young pieces on the roster with Luke Kennard and Sekou Doumbouya, though neither is established enough to specifically build around. From there, Christian Wood emerged in a big way this season, but the young center now hits the free agent market with unrestricted status. The Pistons certainly can afford to bring Wood back at a considerable number but, if they don’t, things become even more adventurous. Detroit did benefit from a strong season from Derrick Rose, who remains under contract at a reasonable cap figure, and flexibility is the order of the day for this franchise.

Areas of Need

Aside from a magic potion to make Griffin 100 percent healthy again, the Pistons need a focal point. Though Wood’s emergence is encouraging, Detroit still lacks star power and, though they could get lucky in the draft lottery with a path to select a prospect like LaMelo Ball, every rebuild begins (and sometimes ends) with the quest for a franchise player that the Pistons don’t have for the future. Beyond that, Detroit’s roster is (very) thin when accounting for only players that are firmly under contract, and Griffin’s highly lucrative contract is tough to navigate.

Biggest Decisions

Wood is the team’s only free agent that should command a large sum on the market, and Detroit’s willingness to pay up is perhaps the franchise’s most interesting decision of the offseason. If the Pistons believe Wood is an average starter (or better), bringing him back would plug a hole and give the team more of an identity. If the bidding gets out of control and Detroit sees the need to move on, the canvas is even more bleak. From there, the team’s lottery pick will be key to everything and, in advance of that, the Pistons are a team that could really use some lottery luck and a path to selecting a prospect with legitimate star equity.

Overall Offseason Focus

Though there may have been chatter that the Pistons could avoid the full-scale rebuild, that evaporated this season. Barring some sort of miraculous effort to send Griffin’s large contract elsewhere, the parameters appear to be set in Detroit and the franchise simply needs to patient in accumulating assets and doing anything they can to find a young star. That is easier said than done, but the Pistons are in a vastly different place than they were even nine months ago, and that is the reality.