Category: News

In the pre-streaming age, those wanting to watch movies and TV show (or even rent video games) had to leave their homes. One place they would go to was Blockbuster. There weren’t many other options. After all, Blockbuster killed practically all the mom-and-pop video stores. But the chain got its just desserts: It itself was eventually killed by Netflix. Not content to kill Blockbuster the store, they’ve now also killed Blockbuster the TV show.

As per Variety, just over a month after dropping its first season, the streamer has axed the workplace comedy, which starred Randall Park, Melissa Fumero and more as employees of the world’s last Blockbuster brick-and-mortar, located in Grandville, Michigan. (In reality, the final Blockbuster was located in Bend, Oregon, which closed in 2019.) It lasted all of 10 episodes.

When it premiered in early November, Blockbuster received terrible reviews and never cracked the streamer’s Top 10. (At least it achieved this feat in two countries: Canada and Australia.) News of the cancellation comes at a bleak time for TV shows, not so much at Netflix as at HBO Max, where massive re-tooling has led to bad news even for well-liked shows like Minx, which was axed as shooting for Season 2 was near completion, forcing the showrunners to look for a new home.

Anyway, pour one out for Blockbuster, a chain that did so much damage to its competition that Netflix had to snuff it out not once but twice.

(Via Variety)

Remember when Kari Lake lost her gubernatorial bid? It was quite some time ago. As of this writing, it’s been nearly a month and a half since Arizona voters chose Democrat Katie Hobbs over one of Trump’s many failed hand-picked candidates. Some say Lake lost because she was more obsessed with parroting the former president’s voter fraud lies than with issues that mattered to voters. Lake claims it’s because there was voter fraud. She, of course, has offered no proof of such. What she has done, though, is go ever increasingly off the deep end.

Speaking at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, the anti-Trump news anchor-turned-losing MAGA candidate took her kooky claims of malfeasance next-level. “We just had such a huge movement going into election day, so to watch these people – these evil bastards,” Lake said to inevitable applause. “Can I say that here, is that alright?”

It was alright, so she tried another, slightly more PG-13 cuss word. “To watch them steal this in broad daylight, and if they think they are going to get away with it, they messed with the wrong bitch, ok?” she crowed.

What could she mean by that? If she’s still going by the Trump playbook, then she’s helping foment some kind of insurrection. Perhaps she can just skip ahead to where he is now, which is having a long streak of bad luck involving dining with bigots, having her business found guilty on several counts of fraud, and being mocked for NFTs even QAnon types think stink on hot ice.

(Via Mediaite)

The Vikings hosted the Colts on Saturday afternoon with a chance to win the NFC North with a win. Facing an Indianapolis team that had lost three straight, most recently getting demolished by the Cowboys in a 54-19 loss, it seemed like a great opportunity for the 10-3 Vikings to make a statement and try to fight back against the fraud allegations chasing them as a 10-win team with a -2 point differential on the season.

Unfortunately for Minnesota, they would do the opposite, playing one of the worst halves of football any team has played all season in the NFL to fall behind 33-0 to a Colts team averaging 16.1 points per game entering Saturday.

The game started with the Colts marching down the field, but having to settle for a short field goal in the red zone to take a 3-0 lead. That defensive stand to only give up three points would prove to be the high point of the half, as Minnesota’s first offensive possession was a three-and-out that ended with a blocked punt that got returned for a touchdown.

Minnesota would manage to create their first (and only) big play of the first half on the next possession, with a 44-yard scamper by Dalvin Cook that would immediately be negated by a fumble by Cook on the very next play — their only play run in Indianapolis territory.

The Colts would cash that turnover in for a touchdown on another absolute march down the field, with Matt Ryan finding Deon Jackson to make it 17-0 in the first quarter.

Minnesota’s next drive would again see them failing to pick up a first down, facing 4th and inches where they were stuffed on an inside run play to Cook.

The Colts would kick a field goal off of that to make it 20-0, making the next drive an absolute must score situation for the Vikings. Instead, they again found themselves in a 4th down situation at their 30 and this time tried a fake punt pass that failed in rather hilarious fashion as the punter’s pass sailed high and incomplete.

Another Colts field goal followed, and the two teams would trade successful punts from there, as Minnesota finally got its first stop of the game. However, that would be the best sequence of the half for the Vikings, who had a hold on the punt return that backed them up to the five, and on third down, Kirk Cousins rifled a pass right to a Colts defender for a pick-six to make it 30-0.

Adding injury to insult, all-world receiver Justin Jefferson left the game after an incompletion the play before that interception after landing hard on a hit over the middle. On their next drive, Minnesota would have a big pass play overturned on replay and once again went three-and-out, punting it back to the Colts, who matriculated the ball down the field to, again, set up another short field goal.

It was, truly, as bad a half of football as anything we’ve seen all season — with, ironically, the Colts’ 4th quarter collapse against Dallas in their last game as one of the top contenders for that title. Minnesota finished the half with 83 total yards (half of which came on that one Cook run prior to the fumble), went 0-of-6 on third downs, allowed three sacks, punted three times (one blocked for a TD), had two turnovers on downs, threw a pick-six, and only forced one punt by the Colts all half.

Vanna White has officially made letter-turning into an art form for four decades.

The model and performer famously bombed as a contestant on “The Price Is Right,” in the early ’80s, but it wouldn’t be long before her talents found a perfect home on another gameshow. And now, literally thousands of dresses later, White’s name is synonymous with “Wheel of Fortune.”

To celebrate the milestone, White posted a throwback picture to her Instagram, showing her next to host Pat Sajak during their early days on “Wheel of Fortune.”

She also included a recent picture of herself at 65 (as classically glamorous as always) alongside her longtime collaborator, doing her iconic gesture toward an elaborate “Wheel of Fortune” themed cake, complete with multiple Vanna White dolls.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but 40 years ago today I taped my first episode of @wheeloffortune. It’s been a wonderful 40 years, too!” she wrote in her caption.

See on Instagram

“I’m so grateful to those of you who watch and everyone behind the scenes who make us look good. We wouldn’t still be here without all of you! (And the cake was delicious!).”

The show also posted a behind-the-scenes video of White’s 40th anniversary celebration.

In the clip, Sajak sweetly says, “Folks, it was 40 years ago on this very date that this young lady walked into the studio, trembling, and did her first ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ And here she is. Happy 40th, my dear.”

See on Instagram

Sajak and White have an undeniable chemistry. In an exclusive interview with People, White noted that it was their instant “brother-sister type relationship” that caught the eye of media mogul Merv Griffin. “He saw that we would be able to get along, and we do. We are like a brother and sister team.” Griffin was obviously spot-on in his assessment, because very few dynamic duos have as enduring a legacy.

The pair have become so close that as Sajak approaches retirement, White admits she laments thinking about replacing him. “I don’t even want to think about that. I mean, we’re a team,” she told People. Everybody relates ‘Wheel of Fortune’ to Pat and Vanna. We’re like Ken and Barbie, you know?” she explains. “We’ve been in everybody’s homes for 40 years, so it would be weird having somebody else turn my letters.”

Of course, Sajak will be missed, but White already held her own as the show’s temporary host back in 2019, pretty much saving the day after Sajak had an emergency surgery.

Tonight’s my first night of hosting Wheel! I’m excited and nervous! Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/4Jsz3UePFp

— Vanna White (@TheVannaWhite) December 9, 2019

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that she nailed it after only half an hour of rehearsal, considering no one besides Sajak would know the show better than her. Yes, her talent goes far beyond letter turning. Though still, nobody does it quite like her.

Congrats, Vanna. You’ve graced our television screens for decades, bringing joy with a simple turn of the wrist. How many people can say that?

Raul Zarraga is clear about what he wants for basketball fans in Mexico, down to the divvying up of time: three hours a week, at least, of their attention dedicated to the NBA.

At first glance, it may sound severe or formally prescriptive, but Zarraga, NBA Mexico’s Vice President and Managing Director, is determined to get those hours to fans in whatever ways speak most strongly to them.

“If it is short form content, if it is the full game, if it is back of the house, if it is something different related with fashion,” Zarraga stresses over the phone. “We need to be adapting our offer to whatever the fans are looking for and the time that they have during the day to dedicate to the NBA, given all the other things they have in front of them.”

He’s also, at that very moment, surrounded by them — it’s halftime at the Mexico City Capitanes and Austin Spurs game, the prelude to the weekend’s main event between the Miami and San Antonio — and Zarraga has stolen a few minutes away from the high energy of the floor to discuss the growth of the game in Mexico.

“I mean, the energy, it’s amazing. I would say it’s an amazing vibe and energy and a glow with everything we’re seeing here. And I’m talking about the fans,” Zarraga answers instantly, when asked to answer a fairly ethereal question about what the energy is like at the Capitanes game, and around the city going into the weekend.

He mentions a fan he hadn’t seen since the last Mexico City game, in 2019, who staked out the media hotel lobby to get a sighting of Spurs alumni, the Iceman George Gervin. Zarraga did him one better, taking the fan’s trading card and getting him an autograph.

“And now I have to give it back,” Zarraga chuckles. “Those are the kinds of things that make me really happy. And that’s what I love about the NBA, because you find this kind of energy and the positivity of the people, any place you go.”

Zarraga says many of the fans have turned the weekend into a “double header” event, starting with the Capitanes game and carrying the excitement and energy over to the Heat-Spurs matchup — the 31st game in Mexico on the NBA’s 30th anniversary of the league’s first game in the country, in 1992.

While the NBA’s numbers when it comes to growth in Mexico have certainly added up over the years, the 30 million people in the country who count themselves as fans of the game (Source – YouGov, 2022) have largely been the result of grassroots efforts led by passionate people like Zarraga and his team. There are three pillars to the game’s growth: play, engagement, and education. Zarraga believes the number one reason why people become fans of the NBA in the first place is because they started to play basketball. In a country where soccer has long been the dominant sport, it makes sense. Anyone can take a soccer ball out and dribble it around, though the same is still possible with basketball, the game’s full mechanics are different, and even a quick game of pickup requires some semblance of a court or a hoop.

On NBA Mexico’s education efforts, Zarraga mentions the Coaching Academy, a Jr NBA initiative that allows free access to thorough and detailed lesson and game plans for educators, coaches, or people looking to become either.

“You can be a physical educator, or maybe you don’t know anything, and you want to start from scratch,” Zarraga says of the program which has seen 35,000 people subscribe to it and has a goal of reaching one hundred thousand physical educators.

The best of the program are given an opportunity to be brought into the NBA’s Latin America Academy, based in La Loma, and offered an in-person clinic alongside elite level coaches and talent. The Academy itself sits as the high-end culmination of these grassroots coaching efforts, with a developing Basketball Schools project aiming to get the game into more Mexican cities as a rung toward it on the education ladder. Zarraga knows he and the NBA can’t individually reach the country’s 40-million girls and boys, but the coaches they train can, so they want them to be the best.

It isn’t just basketball coaches and players that Zarraga would like to see developed in Mexico, he mentions referees and anyone who wants to work alongside the game.

“We need to discover the talent, but also we need to keep promoting and motivating them in any of its forms,” he stresses. “When you start a career like this and you decide that your life will depend on how good you are, and [consider] the opportunities that you could get outside, it’s not easy here in Mexico to really find an opportunity. So for that, you need to be the best. And that’s exactly what we are trying to build in different ways.”

The growth of basketball in Mexico isn’t only through the NBA. Zarraga mentions the importance of local leagues as well as having talented people around it, like Kaleb Canales, who left the NBA in 2021 after 13 years as a successful assistant coach to join the Mexican National team as associate head coach.

In terms of engagement — it also comes through entertainment. The arrival of the G League in Mexico City with the Capitanes has given local fans, already ranked top five outside the U.S. for League Pass subscriptions, an immediate and exciting team to root for.

Beyond the metrics that Zarraga and his team use to track growth of their collective education programs, and the TV and other ratings that track the uptick in viewership and engagement, the most undeniable proof of concept comes in the reception of the return of the NBA’s Mexico City game — Arena CDMX sold out in four days.

Excitement on the team side is high too. This will be the Spurs 8th game in Mexico, and earlier in the week the team’s trainers led a coaching clinic for 150 local physical educators and teachers. The Iceman himself helped lead a Jr. NBA youth clinic for 70 kids from schools across the city. But beyond all the numbers, as Zarraga sees it, the game strikes away, at least for a night, fans barriers to basketball, “putting in their hands, their ears, and then in their eyes, the real experience that they’re looking for with the NBA.”

Donald Trump has been on a roll, but not the good kind. In the last month the former president has a) had Thanksgiving dinner with two anti-Semites, one of them also a white nationalist incel; b) launched a premature third presidential campaign; and c) watched as his business was found guilty on 17 counts of fraud. The big guy needs a win, and last week he didn’t get one. After crowing about a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT,” the surprise turned out to just be lame-looking NFTs. Even TrumpWorld wasn’t feeling it, and that now extends to the conspiracy theorist freaks at QAnon.

As per Vice, after Trump announced a line of $99 digital trading cards, the reaction among those who believe in some wackadoodle pedophilic cabal involving the likes of Tom Hanks were decidedly unimpressed. The reviews were not kind. On Telegram, one person deemed it a “sh*t storm debacle.” Another called it a “foolish NFT cash grab,” while yet another saw it as nothing more than Trump “shilling NFTs for campaign funds.”

It’s a shame as the ridiculous NFTs seemed to be aimed at QAnon types in particular. In the video announcement, Trump said the cards “feature amazing ART of my Life & Career.” But did it? Some of them depict as an astronaut and a fighter pilot. (In real life, Trump was able to dodge the Vietnam War draft.) But few from his target audience were impressed.

“This is shady sh*t,” wrote one person on a pro-Trump message board. That prompted another to write, “A f•cking NFT? He needs a new PR team.” “a dogshit play.” Another called it: “Cringe and tacky.”

Not everyone was left feeling deflated. After Trump posted another video on his rinky-dink Twitter clone, vowing to “shatter the left-wing censorship regime” if re-elected, some claimed that that was his real “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT.” Another went even further, making the auspicious claim that it was some 4-D chess plan to destroy NFTs.

“The invention of NFT was always an attempt to clamp down on free speech,” a QAnon supporter argued on Telegram. “What Trump is doing is clever, we all know the liberals will hate anything Trump supports. By creating his own NFTs he has destroyed liberal support for NFTs and thus shut down any notion that any Democrat can support the creation of the NFT legal internet censorship structure.”

Still, even they couldn’t argue that his dumb NFTs were good.

(Via Vice)

Donald Glover has a history with Spider-Man. Back in 2015, he voiced Miles Morales for two episodes on Ultimate Spider-Man. Two years later, he had a small role in Homecoming, the first Tom Holland solo outing. He played a character named Aaron Davis, who didn’t get to do much but who might have later: Davis, in one Marvel timeline, becomes Prowler, a baddie who’s eventually seduced by the good side. That never happened. But what is happening is Glover is taking on a different Spidey villain.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Glover is set to star in and produce a film about Hypno-Hustler, an obscure nemesis who first appeared in 1978. In the comics, he’s the lead singer of a band called the Mercy Killers, who use their music to hypnotize audiences then rob them blind. The project is still in the early stages, but it will feature Hypno-Hustler front and center, with Holland’s Peter Parker not likely to swing by. The script will be written by no less than Myles Murphy, the son of Eddie Murphy.

The Sony wing of Marvel has been on a Spidey villain spree. Along with the two Venom films (and, to a lesser extent, Morbius), they have both Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web in the works. Glover, meanwhile, wrapped up Atlanta, whose final two seasons aired mere months apart.

(Via THR)

What is Quentin Tarantino’s finest film? For some, it may be his breakthrough, Pulp Fiction. For others, it may be his most recent one, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Still others might say Inglourious Basterds. It’s got Jews killing Hitler, it’s got strudel, and it even ends with Brad Pitt saying, “This might be my masterpiece.” But there’s a way it might have been even better: Had it featured Adam Sandler killin’ Nazis with a baseball bat.

On a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s podcast Club Random (as caught by Variety), Tarantino confirmed a long-standing rumor that the Sandman was the original choice to play Sergeant Donny Donowitz, aka “The Bear Jew.” He’s the member of the mostly Jewish squadron who beats German soldiers to death with a club. He’s also one of the soldiers who actually guns down Adolf Hitler. He even shoots Hitler’s corpse in the face until it’s mashed potatoes. Eli Roth did a fine job playing the Bear Jew. But imagine a world where Happy Gilmore killed Hitler.

“I wrote the Bear Jew for Adam Sandler,” he recalled. “When I was doing Little Nicky, he’s telling me like, ‘Oh man, I get to f*cking beat up Nazis with a bat? F*cking script! F*cking awesome! I can’t fu*cking wait! I can’t f*cking wait!’ He was like telling every Jewish guy, ‘I’m going to f*cking play this guy who beats up Nazis with a f*cking bat.’”

Alas, it was not to be. When Tarantino finally got around to filming Basterds, it coincided with Judd Apatow’s Funny People, in which Sandler played a self-hating sorta-version of himself.

“Here’s the problem. [Judd] wrapped up all the good Jews [for Funny People],” Tarantino explained. “That was the problem. Seth Rogen and all the good Jews were doing ‘Funny People.’ I’m killing Hitler with baseball bats and there’s no good Jews available! David Krumholtz, nobody! All the good Jews were all wrapped up! I’m doing the Jewish male fantasy!”

Mind you, there were many good Jewish actors in Basterds, Roth and B.J. Novak among them. And Basterds is still one of his finest works. Still.

(Via Variety)

Fifteen Decembers ago, just like this December, James Cameron had a gigantic movie out in theaters. It was called Titanic, and it was for a very long time the highest grossing movie ever made (not adjusted for inflation). Eventually it was unseated by another movie: James Cameron’s Avatar. Will its belated sequel unseat it? Too early to tell. In the meantime, people are still talking about Titanic, particularly its ending, particularly whether Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack had to eat it. But Cameron, long annoyed by this debate, finally has a concrete answer for that.

In a new interview with The Toronto Sun (as caught by Deadline), Cameron addressed the biggest debate about 1997 money-gobbler: Whether both Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose could have fit on that door in the middle of the Atlantic. His answer: No. And he even did a scientific test to prove it.

“We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all,” said Cameron. “We have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert who reproduced the raft from the movie, and we’re going to do a little special on it that comes out in February.”

Here’s how it worked:

“We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive.”

Cameron’s test contradicts a previous test done in 2012 on the show Mythbusters, which concluded that Jack’s death was “needless.” But it’s Cameron’s film, and not only has he scientifically proven that Jack had to die, but his death fit in with the story’s themes.

“It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality,” Cameron said. “The love is measured by the sacrifice.”

(Via The Toronto Sun and Deadline)

The Weeknd can now add another award to his extensive collection of accolades. Today, The Slaight Family Foundation awarded the pop icon with their coveted Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award.

The Humanitarian Spirit Award is given to one Canadian artist, duo, or group each year, recognizing their social activism and philanthropy, as well as their support of humanitarian causes.

“That this is a Canadian award sits deep with me,” The Weeknd said in a statement. “Allan and The Slaight Family Foundation are known across the country for their generous philanthropy, and it means a lot to be acknowledged, and is an honor to be recognized along with the legendary Canadian artists who received this award before me.”

Over the course of the past few years, The Weeknd has donated to several causes, including $100,000 to Uganda-based maternity and children’s medical facility the Suubi Health Center, $50,000 to the St. Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Toronto, as well as donations to Black Lives Matter and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Back in September, he met a young fan with cancer backstage at one of his shows.

The Slaight Family Foundation’s CEO and President Gary Slaight explained how he chose The Weeknd as this year’s recipient.

“The global success of Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye makes every Canadian proud,” said Slaight. “What Abel has done with his success is something that we can be doubly proud of–and this is to improve the lives of people in need, in Canada and around the world. His altruism, in a word, is exemplary.”

On top of the award, The Slaight Family Foundation will make a $50,000 donation to a cause chosen by The Weeknd.