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The Razzies Suck More Now Than They’ve Ever Sucked Before

The Razzies released their picks for the year’s worst movies right alongside the Oscars this week, just like they’ve been doing for the past 42 years. This year, the dishonors (LOL!) belonged to Blonde, with eight nominations, Good Mourning, with seven, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, with six noms, Morbius, with five noms, and The King’s Daughter, with three noms.

I’d urge you to check out the whole list and ask yourself how many of the movies you’ve seen. I have seen four, and I am a professional film critic.

The Razzies have always kind of sucked, but the current media landscape seems to put them in an even more awkward position. Traditionally, and the reason I’ve always disliked the Razzies, is that they seem to have mostly used their platform to dunk on the most obvious critical and commercial flops of the year. Maybe that’s a little unfair; the nature of awards voting is such that awards are always sort of the least-common-denominator with a smaller sample size. Incidentally, you too can be part of the Razzies’ sample for just $40.

I’ve already been part of critics’ organizations and festival juries and I’ve never felt great about the movies celebrated in organizations where I was part of the voting bloc, so I can’t imagine spending $40 to be part of another. If you want to know what this feels like, just think of every election you’ve ever voted in and ask yourself whether you were totally happy with the results. One person’s opinion can be interesting, a group of people’s opinion almost never is.

I digress, but the reason I’ve always disliked the Razzies, irrational though that may be, is that they always seemed to take the most obvious shots at the easiest targets. Not only is that often dead wrong (as in the case of giving eight Razzies to the surrealist comedy masterpiece Freddy Got Fingered*, plus a nomination for worst film of the decade), it’s no fun.

The Razzies could and should exist to throw stones at bloated awards bait, movies like The Iron Lady or The King’s Speech or Three Billboards, things that could maybe benefit from being taken down a peg. Instead they usually just take a baseball bat to the lowest-hanging fruit (wait, cancel that metaphor, that actually does sound fun). To put it succinctly, the Razzies seem to exist to ridicule people who take risks, rather than people who don’t.

Or maybe it’s just impossible to do contrarianism by committee. You know what’d probably be better than The Razzies? Just letting Armond White do a live version of his annual, bugfuck “better than” list.

All of which brings us to this year’s Razzies, which nominated traditional Razzies targets like the openly experimental Blonde (which, yes, I enjoyed) and the famous-person-doing-a-weird-thing movie, Tom Hanks in Elvis (enjoyed that one too), and the perennial favorite, the famous-person-in-a-flop movie, Pete Davidson’s voice work in Marmaduke (which grossed a little more than $400K at the box office). In their ideal scenario, I imagine The Razzies would want to dishonor a celebrity’s bad vanity project (a lá Battlefield Earth, the movie that beat out Freddie for worst movie of the decade) but had to settle for getting one in on Pete Davidson for collecting a paycheck for what was probably one day of voicework.

These nominations uneasily shared a bill with random stuff like Good Mourning, a Machine Gun Kelly-vehicle I hadn’t heard of before this week, nominated alongside his pal the director, “Mod Sun,” another human I probably could’ve done without knowing. There’s also a 12-year-old actress from a Firestarter remake (Ryan Keira Armstrong) — a nomination Razzies founder John Wilson apologized for before I was even done writing this article — along with two nominations for the two sequels to 365 Days. 365 Days: This Day, and The Next 365 Days. 365 Days is, from what I gather, a romantic thriller franchise in Polish.

I don’t doubt that the Machine Gun Kelly movie sucks (this trailer, my God), I’ve been aggressively trying to disclaim knowledge of his existence for almost a full decade now, or that a child actor was bad at acting (as all but three or four in all human history have been). Yet this year’s Razzie nominations feel more than ever like weird flailing. And I think that says more about the state of moviegoing than it does the Razzies.

Part of the reason the Razzies feel so irrelevant this year (okay, more irrelevant) is that movies no longer occupy a significant-enough portion of mass culture for there to be bad movie touchstones. It used to be, people saw 10 or 30 movies a year and a handful stuck out as favorites and least favorites. These days there are the five movies everyone saw and the 30 random terrible ones you saw and probably couldn’t find another person in a 10-mile radius to complain about them to.

“Hey, remember that Polish rom-thriller on Netflix? That sucked!”

“…Are you having a stroke?”

Movie awards (and dishonors) rely on there being a mass movie culture, and increasingly there just isn’t one. Partly that’s due to movies being devalued by the entities who make movies. More and more the goal of a movie isn’t to be a really good movie, it’s to promote a brand; to turn you into a daily Marvel user or whatever. Lots of franchises (and again, “franchises,” not “movies”) resemble glorified NFT schemes, where a corporation already owns an obscure IP and needs a movie about it less to put butts in seats than to boost the value of that already-owned IP. Can you even remember which Avengers movie was the last one or how many there are? Probably not, and that’s the point. You remember the brand, not the movie.

People will point to “prestige TV” or the internet as new competition stealing attention from movies (not to mention the general trend of society just being less communally present in general), but movies have always had competition from other media. The moviegoing experience as we know it, and specifically as it existed when the Razzies were founded in 1981, was built partly out of antitrust action against the old studio system. It was why you didn’t see Paramount movies at Paramount theaters — that would’ve been illegal. Content producers were not meant to be content distributors; the idea was that movies would compete on an open market.

The streaming system has been an attempt to circumvent that, and it’s been a great way for those companies to get your money directly without having to go through theater owners and cable companies (or paying the creatives residuals on it). Movies don’t really compete on anything resembling an open market anymore, so you get a bunch of basically vertically integrated entertainment entities competing to promote their brand, to the point that certain movies even kind of feel like corporate pep rallies for that brand. Theater attendance has declined alongside the decline in movies actually trying to appeal to the basic emotions of the general public.

Entertainment has transformed from art and experiences that you could buy — in the form of movie tickets, DVDs, CDs, records, etc. — into that which you can merely rent (how many streaming services do you subscribe to?). Your access to whatever content you’ve subscribed to can be altered at the gatekeeper’s discretion. All of which has radically devalued the standalone movie.

The devaluing of movies in general is especially stark in the case of the Razzies. Because if you can barely remember the movies you liked, how much are you going to remember the ones you hated?

Bad streaming movies are mostly such a throwaway experience now that roasting the bad ones is like throwing rocks at a quarry. I may not mourn the Razzies when they go, but I’m already mourning the era of movies that made the Razzies possible.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.

(*Tom Green became the first person to collect his Razzie in person, performing “a specially-composed piece of music” on the harmonica until he was dragged off the stage, which is yet another reason Freddy Got Fingered will always be legendary in my mind).

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What Is The ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’ Prize?

In the hit series Squid Game, 456 destitute individuals take part in a contest in which they play a series of children’s games in order to win big money — or die. Given the series’ dark premise, and its unrelenting violence, that it became the biggest show on Netflix when it first dropped in the fall of 2021 was a bit of a surprise. Even more shocking? When Netflix announced that it was creating Squid Game: The Challenge, a reality show based on the series, and launched an open casting call.

Unlike the Netflix narrative series, the losers of Squid Game: The Challenge presumably won’t perish — though the first day of filming earlier this week brought with it some headlines about unsafe working conditions and at least one serious on-set injury, which representatives for Netflix denied. Still, like the fictional version of the show, there’s one very big reason contestants are taking part at all: money. In the case of The Challenge, a total of 456 individuals will compete for one of the biggest monetary prizes any reality competition has ever offered: $4.56 million. All they have to do is survive a few rounds of Red Light, Green Light to get it.

While Squid Game: The Challenge has faced criticism from the get-go, original series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk sees it as an opportunity to carry the show’s important, albeit dark, themes about the dangers of capitalism and class disparity over into the real world.

“I think that even though our show does carry quite a heavy message — and I know that there are some concerns on taking that message and creating it into a reality show with a cash prize — I feel like when you take things too seriously, that’s really not the best way to go for the entertainment industry,” Dong-hyuk said backstage at the Emmys in September. “It doesn’t really set a great precedent.”

“So, I would say that reproductions of such efforts are going to bring new meaning to the industry,” he continued, “and I hope that this is going to be a great new direction for the industry overall.”

(Via TV Line)

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‘Succession’ Season 4: Everything To Know Including The Release Date, Plot, Cast, And More

The chessboard for Succession’s upcoming season is set and the war between Waystar-Royco’s heirs apparent and their tyrannical patriarch is heating up. In the words of Tom Wambsgans, the Roy family conflict is “like Israel-Palestine, but harder and much more important.”

The HBO drama dropped a tense season four trailer that teased the civil unrest within the Roy family ranks, setting up a face-off between the power-hungry Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his greedy offspring, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin). Amidst all the backstabbing and phone tagging, the short clip also gave us a preview of a different kind of royal wedding, Kendall being sad near a body of water, a possible break-up, and more Cousin Greg.

But what does it all mean and what’s in store for season four? Strap in slime puppies because we’re digging into everything we know about Succession’s latest season.

When Is Succession Season 4’s Release Date?

HBO had previously hinted at an Early Spring 2023 release date for Succession’s fourth season and they kept their promise. The first episode will drop Sunday, March 26th, with new episodes airing weekly before the finale lands sometime in May. This season will have ten episodes, which is one more than season three but on par with the episode count of the show’s first two installments.

Who’s Coming Back For Season 4?

The main players in the Roy family civil war will all be back for the show’s latest season. Besides Cox, Strong, Snook, and Culkin, Matthew Macfayden and Nicholas Braun are keeping the fan-favorite bromance between Tom Wambsgans and Cousin Greg alive while Alan Ruck is back as presidential hopeful Connor Roy and J. Smith Cameron returns as Gerri Kellman. Alexander Skarsgård is also reprising his role as tech giant Lukas Matsson who made a bid to buy the company in season three. New cast additions recently announced include Annabeth Gish, Adam Godley, Eili Harboe, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson.

What Is Succession Season 4 Going To Be About?

Money. Power. Greed. And the consequences of unresolved daddy issues on entitled elder millennials. Those themes are mainstays of the show at this point but season four is drawing a clear line in the sand between the Roy siblings and their dear, old, can’t-die-soon-enough dad. In season three, after helping Logan to ruin Kendall’s chance to both take over and sabotage the company, Shiv and Roman had a change of heart — especially once they realized their father had no intention of leaving his company to either of them. Instead, Logan was ready to sign on the dotted line, entering into an agreement with Skarsgård’s Matsson that made financial sense but seriously screwed over any hopes of his children succeeding him.

Season three ended with the shocking reveal that Logan had acquired his ex-wife’s shares in the company, effectively castrating any attempt by the siblings to stop the sale of Waystar-Royco and it was Shiv’s husband, Tom, who warned Logan of their plan.

According to a recently released teaser, season four looks to pick up soon after that disastrous family meeting with Shiv, Roman, and Kendall working together to find a new avenue to gain the upper hand against Logan who’s, how can we say it … reluctant to reach out and mend any bridges he’s burned. Tom seems worried his own standing, within the family and the company, might be in jeopardy should Shiv want a divorce and he’s shoring up his position at Waystar-Royco with Cousin Greg’s help. Elsewhere, Connor and Willa (Justine Lupe) are getting married, presumably so that Connor can take his presidential plans to the next level, and the Roy siblings might be going full “beast mode” in order to tank daddy’s deal.

Will Season 4 Be Succession‘s Last?

Don’t count on it. Though creator Jesse Armstrong has been adamant that Succession is not the type of show that will go past five seasons, Cox recently told GQ he believes there are “possibly two more series and then I think we’re done.” Succession writer Georgia Pritchett has also said the show’s max run would be “five seasons,” so there’s hope that we’ll get one more 10-episode installment to wrap things up after the Roy family implodes in season four.

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George Santos Just Hired A New Campaign Treasurer — But Forgot To Tell His New Campaign Treasurer, Who Denied Being Associated With The Controversial Congressman

If it’s possible for a human to be allergic to telling the truth, then scientists may want to bring George Santos into a lab and take some tissue samples. Just when you think his lies can’t be any more bizarre — or simply that there can’t be any more of them — he comes out with a whole new doozy of a tale. Most recently, the New York congressman and full-time fabulist hired a new campaign treasurer… which was news to the new campaign treasurer in question. (Given the many questions surrounding Santos’ campaign financing, it’s hardly surprising that no one wants to work with him.)

ABC News reports that on Wednesday, several fundraising committees that work with Santos amended their organizational details to note that Thomas Datwyler, a well-known campaign treasurer who has worked with a number of political organizations, was now serving as Santos’ campaign treasurer. Which is only unusual because Datwyler quickly came out and confirmed that he most definitely was not working with the embattled congressman, who has been in office for less than a month and already become a legendary political figure (for all the wrong reasons).

While it does seem as it Santos approached Datwyler about taking on the role, he seems to have politely declined two days before Santos announced him as joining their team. Derek Ross, Datwyler’s attorney, told ABC News that: “On Monday, we informed the Santos campaign that Mr. Datwyler would not be serving as treasurer. It appears that there’s been a disconnect between that conversation and the filings today, which we did not authorize.”

Disconnect. Embellishment. Fabrication. Outright lie. All seem to be the same to Santos.

It is worth noting that an electronic copy of Datwyler’s signature was submitted as part of his new “job” with Santos. Which could pose a major problem for someone down the line.

“This is a very, very strange situation because those amendments that were filed today are electronically signed, or at least they say they’re electronically signed by the new treasurer,” Adav Noti, legal director of the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group (and former associate general counsel at the Federal Election Commission) told ABC. “I don’t really understand how this could have happened.”

We have a few guesses…

“It’s completely illegal to sign somebody else’s name on a federal filing without their consent,” Noti added. “That is a big, big no-no.”

(Via ABC News)

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Good News! You Have Another Chance To Catch ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ In Theaters… But You’ll Have To Hurry

Last year, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert did the impossible and made an enjoyable movie centered around tax season. Everything Everywhere All At Once hit theaters in March and quickly became one of A24’s largest releases ever… so large that it actually went to their heads and they thought that releasing a rock as merch for $35 would be a good idea. It wasn’t, but it sold out anyway.

But the Daniels did have a second really good idea, and that was to put EEAAO back into theaters for a (very) limited time so that everyone who missed out last year can experience the movie in theaters, as intended.

The mind-bending movie will make its way back into over a thousand screens this weekend so now your mom has no excuse not to go out and see it! You can check for showtimes near you here.

After an impressive stint at the box office, Everything Everywhere All At Once has been racking up award nominations, most recently scoring a whopping eleven Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actress for Michelle Yeoh, the first Asian woman to receive the nod. So if you want to witness a part of movie history while also watching Jamie Lee Curtis wear hot dogs as fingers, now is the time.

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Judy Blume Is Having Another Deserved Moment With ‘Judy Blume Forever’

First of all, off the top of my head I can only name two movies that start with a name and end with the word “forever.” There’s Batman and now there’s Judy Blume, with her new documentary (directed by Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok) that premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival. This seems about right.

It’s strange how universal Judy Blume is to almost everyone, well except the morons who want her books banned. Blume herself offers good advice about those people, in that there’s no use engaging directly in heated arguments because there’s no winning that battle, and all it brings is frustration. I think this is something we’ve all kind of learned over the last few years. But, back to the point, it’s remarkable that both women and men have strong feelings about Judy Blume. I’ve thought about this a lot over the years.

When I’m asked what my favorite book is by someone I don’t know very well, I realize it’s a loaded question. It’s a good way to come off either stupid or smug. I always answer by saying Superfudge. Granted, it’s been a long time since I’ve read Superfudge, but I’ve read that book more times than any other book in my life (actually, that may not be true; I might have read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing more than Superfudge, but Superfudge is the more recognizable title so I always go with that). Anyway, it always gets a positive reaction in both a “that’s funny” kind of way and as a deeper truth.

I’m being selfish, but I do wish the documentary would have explored that aspect more. And I get it, “dude wants the documentary about how Judy Blume meant so much to women to focus more on men,” isn’t the best look, but I’m truly fascinated by this aspect. Like, how? It’s remarkable she could speak so clearly to young women about issues they were going through at the time like no one else, but she could also do that with boys. Though the more I think about it, could she accurately depict the perspective of young boys, or did we, the young boys who read her, adapt our attitudes to the way she depicted us. Did we become more sensitive because Peter Hatcher in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing wasn’t afraid to express his feeling and frustrations. (Also, I read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing when I was in first grade and I remember thinking Peter Hatcher was old and wise.)

Judy Blume is now 84 years old and looks like the epitome of health. And between this film and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret coming out in April, it’s already quite the year for Judy Blume. To be honest, there’s nothing really fancy about this documentary. But I’ve always found that aspect overrated, especially when the subject at hand is alive and well and can tell us everything we’d want to know. So I think that’s a plus here. Just let Judy Blume tell her story. And since I find the subject of Judy Blume fascinating, I was riveted.

It’s almost like the biggest problem with doing a Judy Blume documentary is she’s written too many important books and everyone has their favorites. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret gets the most attention, but everyone watching is probably wishing for a full documentary on whatever their personal favorite is. The thing I didn’t realize is how many kids wrote to Judy Blume and how often Judy Blume wrote back. (Yeah, I kind of wish I had known this back then.) Also, I was oblivious to the movement to ban her books in the 1980s. As Blume points out, the whole concept of banning books for kids is in vogue again.

There’s a great clip of Blume appearing on Crossfire and Blume says she had no idea who Pat Buchanan was before she agreed to go on, but the guy just keeps harping on minute aspects of her work before Blume blows up in his face, “Are you obsessed with masturbation!?”

Between this doc and the feature film coming soon, it does feel like a bit of a victory lap for Judy Blume. Good lord, she certainly deserves a victory lap. And I truly believe that all of us who read her books as a kid are better people because if it. Judy Blume should take her sweet time while she finishes this lap.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

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Kali Uchis Shared Her ‘Red Moon In Venus’ Tracklist Featuring Don Toliver, Omar Apollo, And Summer Walker

Kali Uchis has shared the tracklist for her upcoming album, Red Moon In Venus. Her third studio album, Red Moon In Venus is due on March 3 via Geffen and is set to feature Don Toliver, Omar Apollo, and Summer Walker. Uchis shared the tracklist via a short video clip in which a mirror with one-half of the tracklist scribbled on each side rotates in front of a garden wall, reflecting a blue, cloudy sky.

The album is meant to be the first of two different albums from the Virginia-born Colombian singer in 2023, with a Spanish-language album set to follow before the year’s end. Presumably, her promised collaboration with Ariana Grande will appear there since she predicted the two singers will work together after she completed filming the Wicked movie.

Uchis announced the tour dates supporting her new album earlier this week, kicking off with her appearances at Coachella in April. You can check out the tracklist and her tour dates below.

1. “In My Garden”
2. “I Wish You Roses
3. “Worth The Wait” Feat. Omar Apollo
4. “Love Between”
5. “All Mine”
6. “Fantasy” Feat. Don Toliver
7. “Como Te Quiero Yo”
8. “Hasta Quando”
9. “Endlessly”
10. “Moral Conscience”
11. “Not Too Late (Interlude)”
12. “Blue”
13. “Deserve Me” Feat. Summer Walker
14. “Moonlight”
15. “Happy Now”

04/16 — Indio, CA @ Coachella
04/23 — Indio, CA @ Coachella
04/25 — Austin, TX @ Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park
04/26 — Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
04/27 — Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
04/30 — Miami, FL @ FPL Solar Amphitheater at Bayfront Park
05/01 — Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live Orlando
05/02 — Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
05/04 — New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
05/07 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia
05/09 — Washington, D.C. @ The Anthem
05/10 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
05/12 — Toronto, ON @ Coca-Cola Coliseum
05/14 — Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore
05/16 — Chicago, IL @ Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
05/18 — Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
05/21 — Portland, OR @ Keller Auditorium
05/23 — Vancouver, BC @ UBC Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre
05/24 — Seattle, WA @ WAMU Theater
05/26 — San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
05/28 — Las Vegas, NV @ The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
05/30 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre

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Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila — What’s The Difference & Who Wins A Blind Test?

Tequila is growing so fast as a popular spirit in the U.S. that it’s head-spinning — and not the good head spinniness you get from a nice tequila buzz. New expressions are always hitting shelves. The agave-based spirit is so popular that it’s evolved into a whole new category called “Agave Spirits” — a sort of catch-all for all the spirits that are made with agave but don’t fit into the narrow parameters to legally be called either a “tequila” or even “mezcal.”

See? Head spinning.

Very quickly, to be called “tequila” legally, the spirit in your bottle has the be made with Blue Weber agave in Jalisco, Mexico. So a Blue Weber agave spirit that’s made in, say, Baja California or Chiahuaha cannot be called “tequila” by law. Likewise, “Mezcal” needs to be produced in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Puebla, and Zacatecas with any type of agave plant (though there is pushback on those regional rules these days). But what happens if you ferment and distill an agave product in California, Texas, or outside of one of those Mexican states?

You get “Agave Spirits.” And yes, we know, the name leaves a lot to be desired.

This begs two questions: Are there any good agave spirits out there? Do they even begin to stand up to classic tequilas? That’s where a blind taste test comes in. Our lineup today is the following bottles:

  • Revel Avila 100% Puro De Agave Blanco Triple Distilled
  • Don Julio Tequila Blanco
  • Nashville Barrel Company Barrel-Aged Agave Spirits
  • Revel Avila 100% Puro De Agave Reposado Triple Distilled
  • Camarena Tequila Reposado
  • Tequila Cazadores Reposado

For this blind taste test, I’m focusing on blanco and reposado “agave spirits” and “tequila” only. Adding a Mezcal would be super obvious thanks to the smoky factor (moreover, Raicilla is a subgenre of agave spirits/tequila from Jalisco, so I’ll save those for another day too). Instead, I’ve selected good, standard tequilas and shuffled them amongst the agave spirits with the same vibe and aging, making this much more 1:1 in the blind tasting.

When it comes to the ranking, this is all about taste. There’s nothing extraordinary or next-level in this lineup. The prices are generally in the middle ground to a little pricey ($75 is the peak). Still, the overall agave vibe of these spirits is where the true depth falls and that’s what I’m looking for. Let’s dive in!

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Blind Taste Test Posts Of The Last Six Months

Part 1: The Tasting

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Taste 1

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose is classic blanco with a nice mix of soft orange sweetness, a hint of white pepper, and touches of juniper berries.

Palate: There’s a clear sense of white pepper powder and roasted agave next to a dash of lemon pepper.

Finish: The finish is short and slightly sweet thanks to the citrus with a distinct peppery buzz at the very end.

Initial Thoughts:

This was nice. I honestly cannot tell if it’s “tequila” or not because it tastes like perfectly fine blanco tequila.

Taste 2

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a lightly roasted agave vibe that leads directly into lemon oils, white pepper, and a hint of grapefruit pith.

Palate: The agave lurks in the background as hints of lemon pepper and maybe a touch of sourness lingers on the palate.

Finish: The end is short-ish and has a watery-proofed vibe that’s bolstered by clear white pepper and lemongrass on the finish.

Initial Thoughts:

This was pretty good but a little light. Again, it tasted like a perfectly fine blanco tequila.

Taste 3

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose is leathery and full of whiskey caramel and vanilla with a counterpoint of star fruit and blood orange.

Palate: The palate leans into bourbon vanilla pods and salted caramel that’s countered by an orange tobacco vibe next to cinnamon bark and a good dusting of white pepper and dry roasted agave.

Finish: That caramelized agave and vanilla lead back to a leatheriness on the finish that’s well-balanced and long-lasting.

Initial Thoughts:

This is leaps and bounds better. It’s really good with a sense of sweet aging that’s perfectly balanced with the roasted agave spirit below.

Taste 4

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a bit of barnyard funk on the nose that leads to black pepper and a sense of floral hibiscus, maybe even sandalwood.

Palate: There’s a light toffee sweetness and butteriness that moves with clear sandalwood incense before veering into the fertilizer aisle of a garden shop.

Finish: The finish is very earthy and swings back toward the woody oak and a hint of sweet toffee next to light pepperiness.

Initial Thoughts:

This was interesting but not necessarily good. I’m on the fence.

Taste 5

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a sweetness that attaches to the lightly roasted agave on the nose with a hint of vanilla and caramel lurking in the background.

Palate: The palate leans into the roasted agave with freshly cracked black pepper and clove berries mingling with a touch of vanilla tobacco and a mildly sweet butterscotch mid-palate.

Finish: The finish leans away from the agave toward the vanilla and butterscotch for a sweet and slightly peppery finish.

Initial Thoughts:

This is pretty damn good. It’s clearly built and has a lovely balance of agave and aging.

Taste 6

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose is classic repo tequila with hints of spice, roasted agave, and white pepper with a sweet edge — think rock candy.

Palate: There’s a sense of dry dill and aloe vera plants next to more white pepper.

Finish: The end is very thin and peters out toward an almost cardboard vibe.

Initial Thoughts:

This starts off strong but falls off a cliff by the end.

Part 2: The Ranking

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

6. Tequila Cazadores Reposado — Taste 6

Cazadores Reposado
Bacardi

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $20

Tequila:

This tequila is made with 100$ Blue Weber Agave. The hot juice spends two months resting in new American oak barrels before blending, proofing, and bottling.

Bottom Line:

This felt like a cheap but fine mixing tequila.

5. Revel Avila 100% Puro De Agave Reposado Triple Distilled — Taste 4

Revel Avila Reposado
Revel Avila

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $75

The Agave Spirit:

This 100% Blue Weber Agave Spirit (fair-trade, organic, sustainable) is distilled in the state of Morelos (south of Mexico City). The agave spirit is aged for 12 months in new American white oak barrels before blending, proofing, and bottling.

Bottom Line:

This was funky — that barnyard nose and earthy body as a lot. It wasn’t bad though, just different. I can see it working in cocktails or highballs pretty easily.

4. Don Julio Tequila Blanco — Taste 2

Don Julio Blanco
Diageo

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $45

Tequila:

This is classic double-distilled tequila. It’s bottled unaged and with a fair amount of proofing water.

Bottom Line:

This was good but felt like a solid shooter or mixer more than anything else.

3. Revel Avila 100% Puro De Agave Blanco Triple Distilled — Taste 1

Revel Avila Blanco
Revel Avila

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $55

The Agave Spirit:

This is Revia’s same triple-distilled agave spirit from Morelos that’s left unaged. The spirit goes into the bottle as-is with a good dose of proofing water.

Bottom Line:

This was pretty nice overall. It was still a standard blanco but had a touch more depth. That said, I’d still focus this on cocktails or shooters over slow sipping.

2. Camarena Tequila Reposado — Taste 5

Camarena Reposado
Familia Camarena

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $21

The Tequila:

This tequila from the Southern Highlands of Jalisco is fairly modern. The twice-distilled juice goes into oak for 60 days before it’s proofed down with deep well water and bottled.

Bottom Line:

This was tasty. I’d still say this makes a great cocktail over it being a sipper. That said, I can see drinking this over a lot of ice with a squeeze of lime and not being made about it.

1. Nashville Barrel Company Barrel-Aged Agave Spirits — Taste 3

Nashville Barrel Company Agave Spirits
Nashville Barrel Company

ABV: 55.87%

Average Price: $69

The Agave Spirit:

This is a 100% Agave Spirit that’s distilled in Mexico. That hot juice is then sent up to Nashville, Tennessee, where it’s loaded into used whiskey barrels. After four-and-half months, the barrels are batched and bottled 100% as-is without proofing water.

Bottom Line:

This was by far the best sip of the panel. It was deep, balanced, and tasted like a quintessential reposado product. I didn’t for a second think it wasn’t “tequila.” I like this as a sipper over a rock but really look forward to making some easy tequila cocktails with it.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

Agave Spirits Vs. Tequila
Zach Johnston

These were all very close in taste, texture, and vibe. Tequila is “tequila” thanks to generations of tradition in Jalisco and there’s no taking that away. Still, great agave spirits go well beyond “tequila” and it’s pretty exciting that we’re starting to see more and more.

Also, these all ended up being pretty equal flavor-wise. There really wasn’t that much difference between the tequilas and agave spirits bottles. There wasn’t some huge loss in quality between the two.

What does it all mean then? I think it’s time to try an Agave Spirit the next time you’re in the mood for tequila, you might be pleasantly surprised.

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Pamela Anderson Does Not Mince Words About The ‘A**holes’ Who Made ‘Pam & Tommy’ And ‘Owe Me A Public Apology’

Pamela Anderson has been through some stuff, to say the very least. This includes the release of Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, which arrived with a shadow over it even though the series was largely a rollicking ride. Certainly, it cannot be forgotten that the show revolves around a heist that truly hurt people — Pamela first and foremost — who resolved to never watch the show and will soon tell the world “the real story” in a Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, which streams on January 31.

Anderson made it clear from the beginning of the Hulu show that she would not co-sign the dramatization of that tumultuous time in her personal and professional lives, and she previously declared that she won’t even read the letter sent to her by Lily James. Sebastian Stan declared that he was very much in favor of Pamela’s wishes and her Netflix endeavor. However, Pam is now telling the world how she really feels about the people who made the Hulu series, as she told Variety:

“A**holes,” she says when asked to describe the people behind the Hulu series. “Salt on the wound. … You still owe me a public apology.” She hasn’t watched a single minute of the show, but she couldn’t escape the billboards promoting James in prosthetics and Sebastian Stan as her heavily tattooed, pierced partner. “It just looked like a Halloween costume to me,” she says.

Fair enough. Pamela’s more in-depth version of events was produced by one of Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sons, Brandon Lee, and one can guess that he had his mom’s back for the duration. We can likely also expect to see even more rawness than portrayed by Lily James in the Hulu limited series. Also in the course of promoting this documentary, Anderson revealed that Tim Allen flashed her during Home Improvement, and she realized almost instantly that marrying Kid Rock was a mistake. As I said above, she’s been through some difficult times, so here’s to hoping that she deals with far less chaos and awfulness these days.

Netflix’s Pamela, A Love Story arrives on January 31.

(Via Variety)

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The Whole FTX Fiasco And The Present State Of Crypto, Explained

For the better part of the last three years the term “cryptocurrency” has stirred all sorts of emotions in people. There are three common responses to the idea of a virtual coin:

  1. You’re a true believer and you think cryptocurrencies are the future of money, a tool to create generational wealth for a set of young investors that hold the most minuscule amount of wealth in the country. Millenials control just 8% of wealth according to the Fed, the smallest of any previous generation by a wide margin.
  2. You think cryptocurrencies are nothing more than digital fool’s gold. A risky investment that can pay big, but isn’t based on or grounded in reality.
  3. A subset that doesn’t understand crypto, refuses to understand crypto, and wishes the whole thing would just go away.

Given the recent crypto crash and the total collapse of the digital currency exchange FTX, if you’re in that third camp you just might get your way. By now you’ve undoubtedly heard about FTX and how its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, once the super-young face of crypto and touted as possibly “The Next Warren Buffet” by Fortune Magazine, was essentially just running a Ponzi scheme. But how did a celebrated philanthropist wunderkind go from being worth an estimated $16 billion to being a disgraced alleged crook who was arrested in the Bahamas, extradited, and released on a historically high $250 million bail to live with his parents while he awaits trail, and, more importantly, what does that mean for cryptocurrencies as a whole?

We’re going to break it down, but first, we’ll explain the FTX collapse if you haven’t been following with a close eye. In truth, the FTX scandal is big and interesting enough to be a plot of a Wolf Of Wall Street or The Big Short style movie and undoubtedly will be. It’s also sure to generate a whole lot of non-fiction bestsellers. So understand that this is truncated — if we talked about all of it, you’d be reading a book, not an article.

What Is FTX?

FTX was a digital currency exchange that massively simplified the more technical aspects of buying and selling cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, DogeCoin, and Ethereum. It’s important to note that FTX wasn’t just favored by small-time investors, major venture capital groups also bought in and NBC News reports that such groups invested as much as $2 billion in the company. FTX was very much seen as a legitimate business and a smart and functional way to get in on the crypto market for both small-time and large investors.

The main idea behind FTX, according to NBC News, was that people could keep their money in accounts and earn higher yields than if they kept money in traditional banks. As for the technical aspects, rather than needing to figure out how to set up an external hardware crypto wallet, FTX allowed people to easily buy and sell their digital assets via what is called a “custodial wallet.”

Custodial wallets, according to CNET, make the exchange of cryptocurrencies easier, but the major drawback is that they offer less security as the exchange — in this case, FTX — has the private keys to your cryptocurrency. That’s where things start to get shady.

In November of this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Bankman-Fried said in an investor meeting that the trading firm Alameda Research owed the company $10 billion, loans that were extended to Alameda using money that customers had deposited on the exchange. At the time FTX had $16 billion in customer assets, meaning FTX lent more than half of its customer’s money to Alameda Research to place risky bets. Even worse than that, Alameda Research was a sister company of FTX, meaning FTX was essentially passing money to itself, gambling with its customer’s funds.

If that sounds shady it’s because it is!

What Is Alameda Research?

Alameda Research is a trading firm co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried that specializes in cryptocurrencies and actually predates FTX by two years, first launching in 2017. The company made its money primarily via what it called “arbitrage.” According to Protos, arbitrage (in this sense) involves buying an asset on one exchange and selling it for a higher price on another exchange.

In 2017, bitcoin was valued higher in Japan, so according to Yahoo! Finance, Bankman-Fried organized a way to buy bitcoin cheaply in the US and sell it higher in Japan, wire the proceeds to the US, and repeat the process until the gap closed. In that time, as crypto experienced a crash and the price of crypto on both sides of the Pacific began to align, Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research made about $20 million in profit. Not only was all of this legal, but it was also celebrated and helped to solidify Bankman-Fried as a young genius who made a risky bet and profited big.

Why Is All Of That A Problem?

Things started to fall apart late last year. In early November the digital currency news publication CoinDesk revealed that much of Alameda Research’s $14.6 billion in wealth at the time was tied up in a digital currency created by FTX called FTT. Meaning if the price of FTT were to drop for some reason, Alameda would be at risk of insolvency.

So in simple terms, Alameda Research, a trading firm created by Bankman-Fried was gambling with the digital currency of customers whose money was being stored on FTX, a digital currency exchange also owned by Bankman-Fried, and derived most of its value from a digital currency created by the same platform it was borrowing said money from. Without surprise, this raised red flags for anyone who had serious money invested in FTX.

How FTX Collapsed

According to NBC News, after the balance sheet was leaked, Changpeng CZ Zhao, the CEO of Binance, a major FTX rival, announced on November 6th that this company would sell all of its FTT tokens, resulting in a sharp price drop and a subsequent bank run as worried investors attempted to pull their money out of FTX before it became worthless. Only two days passed before FTX stopped allowing customers to take money out of the platform. On November 9th, The Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources that said Bankman-Fried told investors that FTX needed $8 billion to cover the gap between what was owed and what it could pay out to customers looking to withdraw.

On November 11th, a disgraced Bankman-Fried stepped down as the CEO of FTX, and all the companies he oversaw filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But it doesn’t end there, according to CoinDesk between November 11th and the early hours of November 12, $400 million mysteriously flowed out of FTX accounts due to an alleged hack. Many blockchain experts have pointed to several clues that the hacker was an FTX insider.

What Happened to Sam Bankman-Fried?

SBF
Getty Image

In December, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and charged by Federal prosecutors with wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes. The Securities and Exchange Commission also separately charged Bankman-Fried for allegedly defrauding FTX investors. Bankman-Fried has since been extradited to the US and released from jail on a $250 million bond. Vox reports that Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, two former top executives at Alameda Research and FTX respectively, have since pleaded guilty to several fraud charges and are cooperating with federal prosecutors in the investigation.

On January 3rd, 2023, Sam Bankman-Fried plead not guilty to federal charges, his trial will begin on October 2nd.

So What Does This All Mean For Crypto?

It’s not looking good. Bitcoin, arguably the most trusted and safest digital currency peaked in 2021 — during FTX’s reign — reaching a value of above $65,000 per coin and crashed during the summer of 2022 dropping to $21,000, and dropping again to around $15,000 after the FTX collapse. Today, as of this writing, the digital currency sits around $23,000. Is this the end of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole? Far from it, but what was once touted as the ‘future of money’ is seeming riskier than ever.

But with risk comes reward, and while a lot of small retail investors who put a lot of money into a belief that crypto would fundamentally change their lives have lost a lot of money, this downturn can be an opportunity for those willing to take a risk. And true believers in crypto haven’t lost faith. We spoke with Glauber Contessoto aka the “Dogecoin Millionaire” about how the FTX fallout would affect crypto in the long haul and he gave us some interesting insight and revealed that this larger downward trend predates FTX, he sent along the following:

It first started with the Celsius collapse, then the Voyager and the Luna/UST collapse which ultimately saw the FTX collapse. These are all setbacks that push crypto down more than it already is given the overall larger bear market and crypto winter currently happening. Everything is cyclical and crypto will come roaring back in the bull market. Typically we’re looking at a 4-year cycle in crypto so given our last bull run being in 2021 our next should be 2025 or 2024 at the earliest. (I also feel like these cycles will shorten as crypto becomes more widely accepted) Having said that I expect this year to remain bearish and it’ll probably be the best time to invest. This is not financial advice and I am not a financial advisor.

It should be noted that Contessoto, who made an initial investment of $180,000 in Dogecoin and grew his money to over $1M and never sold, isn’t an on-paper millionaire anymore. But considering Contessoto was bringing in a yearly income of $36,000 from a regular paying job, grew up poor, and made a risky investment that paid big, he represents exactly the sort of investor that FTX targetted and became a sort of folk-hero amongst the Reddit investment crowd. Does Contessoto think he should’ve sold some of that coin when it was hot? Absolutely, and he now focuses his investments on safer digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

When asked how the same mistakes made with FTX can be avoided in the future, and whether crypto needs more government regulation, Contessoto responded with the following:

I feel like government regulation is something that will inevitably happen in the near future given the popularity of crypto as it moves into eventual mass adoption. I do believe there are a lot of scams, pump-and-dump schemes and rug pulls that need to be regulated and there should be some type of governance over this so people don’t continuously lose money investing in projects that aren’t real or get abandoned soon after launch. I think it should also pattern itself after Wall Street in a way but not as rigid. There should just be more accountability and transparency when it comes to the people launching projects in the space so if they do end up being scams these people get jail time and not just rinse and repeat these over and over. As far as SBF, crypto can’t be run like the traditional banking system. They shouldn’t be allowed to loan out customer funds ever and everything should always be backed 1-1 and there should be transparency on where these funds are held.

So should you start investing in digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum while they’re valued at historic lows so you can flip some a bit of cash into a whole lot? To borrow from Contessoto, we’re not financial advisors and this is not financial advice: hell no. Just kidding, we honestly, have no f*cking clue! THAT. IS. THE. LESSON. OF. FTX. — very few people can predict how these markets operate. But one thing is for certain, digital currencies and the people who believe in them, aren’t going anywhere, regardless of what happens to Bankman-Fried.