Category: News

It’s almost winter, when the outdoors are much too cold and the couch is much too comfortable for you even to consider leaving the house, so you decide to settle on that new action movie that everyone is talking about which has just conveniently landed on streaming. And while you’re all bundled up with some popcorn and hot chocolate, you notice that you cannot hear a single thing that Tom Cruise is saying to you, which is upsetting, because he has a lot to say. You are not alone in this problem.

Along with the increasingly dark scenes that have been gracing our screens, the audio production in big-budget action movies has been a common complaint as of late. Even though moviegoing is mostly back to the pre-pandemic days, many movies are going directly to streaming or getting a simultaneous release, which makes the experience differ depending on what you are watching it on. Obviously, this can cause some problems for both the viewers and the studios who push these films.

Christopher Nolan was famously criticized for opting out of a streaming release for Tenet in 2020 because he insisted his movies be watched in theaters, which didn’t land well with fans who began watching the blockbuster film on the tiniest screens they could find. Yes, he approached it in a silly way, but he did have a point: he created a movie to look and sound good in a theater, and it just does not have the same effect when you are sitting at home trying to understand what Robert Pattinson is saying while an earth-shattering explosion infiltrates your ears. Suddenly, you have no idea what’s going on in this movie, which was already so confusing.

But still, this trend in audio mixing has been getting worse according to sound engineer David Bondelevitch, as studios try to please moviegoers and also couch-watchers who might not have the same speaker set-up as your local AMC. Audio will naturally sound drastically bigger over those cushy speakers versus the Bluetooth speaker your uncle got you for Christmas or through Airpods. The bottom line seems to be that there are so many ways to watch content, but production companies are still catering to one specific way, and things get messy.

The good news is that there are some changes that could be made if you are watching a movie at home that was clearly meant for that big-screen experience. Even though Nolan has talked about wanting to “push the limits” of sound design, you should be able to hear most movies. Some experts suggest getting wireless speakers separate from your computer or TV’s audio. You can also mess with the settings on your TV, and some Roku devices have dialogue enhancement to help combat this problem. Bondelevitch even suggests adding carpets and curtains to help absorb the noise or investing in a soundbar for a better surround sound.

Of course, until Hollywood decides to solve this problem, you can also just turn on subtitles which are the Next Big Thing, according to Gen Z.

(Via WSJ)

It’s remarkable how young Warwick Davis still is today. Next year marks for 40th anniversary, somehow, of Return of the Jedi. Of course, in that third film of the original Star Wars trilogy, Davis plays Wicket, the Ewok who first finds Princess Leia and brings her back to the village. Again, in a few months this will be a 40-year-old movie, yet Davis was born in the 1970s. Part of this might be because in 1988’s Willow, directed by Ron Howard, Davis plays the title character who, in the film, has a family and two children, but at the time, Davis himself was still only 17.

When Willow was released in 1988, a movie about a group of heroes to save a young baby from an evil queen was billed as the next Star Wars and Indiana Jones. On one hand, this was a story coming from George Lucas after those other two properties, so that makes sense. On the other hand, that’s an enormous amount of pressure for a fantasy movie in an era where fantasy wasn’t as popular as it is today. And it’s a lot of pressure to put on a 17-year-old actor in his first leading role. In the end, Willow did … okay at the box office, got mixed reviews, but certainly wasn’t a touchstone piece of popular culture like those other two properties. But, over the years since, Willow has gained a following.

When talking to Davis today, no, he never thought Willow would ever be back. But he relishes the chance to dig into this character again, one that he seems to not be 100 percent pleased with his performance from back then. Davis calls this iteration of Willow a “curmudgeon” – he certainly doesn’t seem to like the wisecracks from his fellow, younger, travelers – but maybe “world-weary” is more accurate. In this new Disney+ series, premiering November 30th, this time around the baby from the film is all grown up (it’s not revealed at first just which character this turns out to be, so we will save the surprise) and she is the key to saving everyone from the forces of evil. Willow must teach her how to use magic at he leads a group on a quest to save the kidnapped son of Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and Madmartigan (Val Kilmer in the film, who in the episodes I’ve seen is mentioned a lot, but has yet to appear).

The morning of this interview, my apartment was cold and I grabbed a hoodie, which happened to be a Return of the Jedi hoodie featuring Wicket, a hoodie I wear around the house a lot. Now, I did realize this right before I hopped on Zoom, but just decided to let it ride and see what happened. Also, speaking of that 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi, is there any chance we’d see Return of the Ewok (a documentary about the making of Return of the Jedi, featuring Davis, that was filmed during the making of Jedi that has never had an official release) pop up on Disney+?

Yeah, this morning it was cold and I just threw on my hoodie without thinking about it. I didn’t even think of the connection until a few minutes ago.

Wow. That’s amazing. Now and again I get sent one, but they’re way too big, often. Like that one, I’d be drowned in that.

I hope you get a dollar or something anytime something with your likeness sells on it.

I’d be a very rich man if I did.

I can’t believe there’s more Willow. I feel like we’ve been hearing about this for a long time…

What you’ve been hearing is in fact the fans. I mean, there’s never really been any official kind of word and discussion about a sequel film, it’s mainly from the fans going, “I wish there was a sequel to Willow, or there should be.” And that was really the voices that were heard, and they were heard by the right people in the end. Mainly Jon Kasdan, screenwriter of Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Disney of course. So yeah, it was really kind of chance that me and Jon worked together on Solo and him telling me how much he enjoyed Willow and embarrassing himself, as he says. And also the fact that Ron Howard was the director on Solo, and Jon got talking about Willow and its success and the potential for more Willow, either as a film or as a series. Those two coming together, and me being involved as well, really gave the project some kind of legs, really.

So do you think without Solo, this doesn’t happen?

I don’t think it would’ve, no. The fact that I’m sat in Fuerteventura with Jon, in the desert just chatting, and he was able to start to really get his creative mind going and come up with what ended up being our series.

I’ve been to enough Star Wars Celebrations where I know that you do get asked about Willow quite often, and you’re always very like, “Who knows?” But did you actually ever think this would come to fruition?

Definitely not. I mean, sitting here talking to you today, I’m suddenly like, “Yeah, this is actually happening again.” We had a screening last night in London and it was really surreal. Because I’m like, Wow, now we’re showing an audience something that has been like a pipe dream for so many years. It’s every actor’s dream to come back to a role. I played Willow when I was 17. A very inexperienced actor back then. Very young for the role.

Right, you’re playing a father in the movie, and in reality you’re a teenager.

Yeah, I was very, very young. But I’ve always sort of looked back on it and thought, You know what? I think I probably could have done a better job. And so, now, I get to revisit the character. Now I’m older. I’m more experienced as an actor. I’ve got more life experience too, which is often important when you’re an actor. You have to bring some type of life experience into the roles. And now Willow, because obviously he’s had a lot of life experience in the series, he’s been through a lot, bad things have happened. And so I take all of that and layer it into the character I played back in 1988, the 17-year-old version of Willow, and try and then develop the character further. And I think it really works. I think the older Willow is indeed a more interesting and well-rounded character.

This series is filled with a lot of humor that works very well today, and Willow just isn’t into it. There’s a scene where you’ve had enough, “Oh, I forgot, you’re hilarious.”

He’s a very stressed-out character really, Willow. He worries a lot. I mean, it was one of the lines in the original film, Madmartigan said, “You worry too much, peck.” and I still do in Willow the series, and I think it’s pointed out by one of our other characters as well. He does worry about things, a lot of angst, he’s always reluctant to do things, and I think that’s quite interesting. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon, if you like.

Yeah, but he’s still Willow. He’s world-weary.

Indeed, yeah. He just wants to be at home in the Nelwyn village, he doesn’t want to go out on these quests. But yes, as you mentioned, the humor, I mean that was a very important part of the original film. Kind of what set it apart from other fantasy offerings of the decade, the fact that it was funny. It looked at itself and had a laugh, didn’t take itself too seriously. And that has really carried through into the DNA of what we’ve done in the series.

Actually, that’s a really good point about the fantasy aspect of it, because that has had a huge comeback over the last decade. Or even since Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, I mean, the ’80s, I grew up, my teenage years were throughout the ’80s, and we had so many great offerings in the fantasy genre, didn’t we, film-wise? And then that kind of stopped when we got into the next decade. And now here we are, as you say, looking back. There are many more fantasy offerings now on the table, and Willow, this feels like the right time for Willow to come back.

I’m curious how you felt back then. Willow was really kind of billed as like, “Star Wars, Indiana Jones, now here comes Willow.” Which is a crazy amount of pressure. And then it comes out and does okay. It doesn’t do as well as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. So, how are you feeling at the time? What was going through your head?

Well, I mean, you always want your work to be seen by the widest audience, and I guess at the time I was a little disappointed. I would like, “That’s a shame that didn’t fly.” But I did kind of get it, because at the time Rambo III was coming out, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? came out, and everyone turned their attention to that. We had a lot of competition in the box office and I think people just, they pick and choose what they want to see and Willow wasn’t one of those things at the time. But due to the fact that we sell through VHS and stuff, it then gained its own kind of momentum and life beyond the theatrical release and became a success and a fan favorite.

And the movie ends with a perfect setup for something to take place now, with a baby now being an adult…

Well, it might have been set up to do a sequel at the time. Because George Lucas then was king of doing that kind of stuff, wasn’t he?

That’s true.

Did the Star Wars trilogy. So, I guess you always have to think, “Has it got legs to go further?” And that’s often how you pitch a movie to a studio, they go, “Okay, this is great, but can there be more of these if it’s a success?”

This next May is the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi. Use your clout to finally get Return of the Ewok on Disney+.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

It would be cool. And next year would be the perfect year for that.

I mean, I think the challenge with Return of the Ewok is that so many people gave their time, there are these wonderful cameos in there, crew gave time during lunch hours to make it, and nobody ever signed off on their involvement. So, for some kind of lawyer, it’d be a massive amount of work to get everyone signed off so that we could actually use it commercially, I suppose, if you like.

Disney, they’ve got those. They’ve got those lawyers.

They’ve got those lawyers. I’ll get them on it to get the legwork done.

Yeah, get in there. “Hey, the star of your new series wants this up.”

It would look great sitting on the platform, wouldn’t it?

I’ve seen that assembled-together version that’s on YouTube, but so many people still don’t know about this and would be delighted. There’s the scene of you with Harrison, Carrie, and Mark all in costume in the hallway. When I post screenshots, people are always like, “What is that?” It’s really fascinating.

It is, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, I wrote an autobiography, and in that book I put little screenshots from the film, Return of the Ewok, as like a comic book kind of thing, telling the story for people who haven’t seen it. But it really is one of those found in the attic kind of creations, isn’t it, in its very raw form? There’s unfinished sound, the print is very rough, but I think that’s one of the charms of it, really.

I’m out of time. Congrats on finally getting Willow back.

I appreciate it very much. Keep rocking that Ewok shirt.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Sacramento Kings have been one of the most fun teams in the NBA this season, as their high-octane offense has made them a League Pass darling for fans around the league.

That their offense is among the league’s best is not a huge surprise considering how they’re constructed, with a dominant post presence in Domantas Sabonis (who is also capable of stretching the floor), arguably the fastest point guard in the league pushing the pace in De’Aaron Fox, and a number of shooters around them, headlined by Kevin Huerter who is off to an absolute heater in the first 19 games of the season.

The other end of the floor was and still is the question mark for the Kings, and is among the biggest reasons they hired Mike Brown to be their head coach after his tenure as the Warriors’ defensive coordinator of sorts under Steve Kerr. Brown has lots of work to do to get the Kings where he wants them on that end, but you can see how energized he is coaching the young Kings on the sidelines. In Monday night’s close loss to the Suns, Brown gave an incredible example of what that coaching process looks like when he pulled Terence Davis aside during a timeout and gave him a tutorial on where he was supposed to be on defense, staying on top of the restricted area, and then had it immediately pay off in the form of a charge.

Davis running over to Brown after taking the charge on the exact play they were going over is truly fantastic stuff, and you can see how excited Brown is to see that quick lesson get a positive result so quickly. There’s still plenty of coaching and teaching to do for Brown, as the Kings have struggled to get stops consistently all season, but it’s not hard to see why there’s so much optimism that Brown is the right man for the job in Sacramento.

Either the soft lighting that seems to permanently follow Kari Lake around like a lingering fart has somehow taken ahold of Donald Trump’s brain, or the same power that allowed him to declassify thousands of stolen documents with his mind has made him think he can just will the kooky Arizona political wannabe into office. He was president for a little while, after all!

As Rolling Stone reports, Trump seems to be totally over the idea of democracy — and/or might be holding on to some serious resentment about losing the state of Arizona to Biden in the 2020 presidential election. As such, he jumped aboard Lake’s bandwagon and decided that he’d only accept the results of this year’s gubernatorial race in Arizona if Lake won. Which she did not. So in the early morning hours of Monday morning, the former president decided that Lake should simply just be “installed” as governor. Which is apparently just how it works now.

Trump’s reasoning behind the governor switcheroo is what he described as:

Massive numbers of “BROKEN” voting machines in Republican Districts on Election Day. Mechanics sent in to “FIX” them made them worse. Kari had to be taken to a Democrat area, which was working perfectly, to vote.

From the very beginning, Lake has claimed that she would only accept the results of the election if she won. And double-downed on that position over the weekend when she told far-right media outlet Real America’s Voice that “We know we won this election,” and “We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that every single Arizonans vote that was disenfranchised is counted.”

(Via Rolling Stone)

Usually when someone walks into McDonald’s they expect to walk out with something to eat, not a baby.

But for new mom Alandria Worthy, that’s exactly what happened. Worthy was on her way to the hospital but needed to use the bathroom so she had her fiancé make a pit stop at McDonald’s.

After a few minutes of Worthy being in the bathroom, workers heard the mom to be screaming which prompted Tunisia Woodward, the manager on duty to check things out. The her surprise, she was about to turn into a labor and delivery nurse.

Woodward explained in an interview with 11 Alive that she saw feet under the stall door before saying, “I opened, and she was on this toilet lying back, screaming. Then I knew to tell my crew, ‘We’re having a baby today.’” Woodward was right, the baby was coming and the three moms are duty were there to help.

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If you’re wondering where Worthy’s fiancé was, he was waiting in the parking lot growing concerned. When he went to see what was taking so long, he walked in on a surprise and had to get right to work in order to catch his baby. Deandre Phillips told 11 Alive that Worthy was frantic so he was focused on getting her to breathe and to lay down on the floor so she could deliver the baby, which only took a few minutes and three pushes.

Talk about a fast delivery, though I’m sure they likely would’ve preferred a fast pizza delivery and not a baby so eager to see the world that making it to the hospital was out of the question. But what do I know, watch the new parents tell you all about their new “Little Nugget” themselves below.

Spotify is getting a lot of attention right now because we’re approaching a fun time of year: the release of Spotify Wrapped, a summary of users’ listening habits over the past year that annually takes over social media for a couple days. Let’s not forget the Apple Music users among us, though, as there are a lot of them: As of 2021, Spotify is in the lead with 31 percent of the streaming music global market share, but Apple Music is in second with 15 percent.

Thankfully, Apple Music users have a similar option: Apple Music Replay, which serves pretty much the same purpose as Wrapped. One advantage that Replay has over Wrapped, though, is that Apple’s option is available right now. Apple has a support page on how to access it, but in summary: Head to replay.music.apple.com, sign in with the Apple ID associated with your Apple Music account, and hit the “Get Started” button.

From there, you have a few options. Per Apple:

• “Get insights throughout the year: Once you’re eligible, you can see the songs, artists, and albums that you listened to so far this year, along with play counts and the time that you’ve spent listening to them.”
• “See your year-end Replay: At the end of the calendar year, you can see your top songs, artists, albums, genres, playlists, and stations, along with play counts, totals, and the time that you’ve spent listening to them.”
• “Play your year-end highlight reel: Celebrate your year in music with an audio and visual recap of the music that you listened to the most.”
• “Share insights: Tap the Share button to share your personalized listening insights in a message and on social media.”

On top of all that, Replay got a fresh coat of paint this year, so it ought to look and work better than ever.

Drake and 21 Savage dropped their collaboration album, Her Loss, earlier this month. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and it’s apparently the final installment of a trilogy. While some songs feature the rappers tackling alternating verses, like “Rich Flex” and “Circo Loco,” others find Drizzy and 21 detailing their thoughts solo. Despite this, the duo still worked on Her Loss together behind the scenes — even if one of them didn’t vocally appear.

21 Savage recently opened up on Sirius XM’s Sound 42 about what their creative and collaboration process was like for this new record. “I ain’t gonna cap, Drake wrote some of my verses on this album,” he said. “These facts. I don’t give a f*ck what a n**** say. Drake helped me with some of my verses on this album.”

“By the way, you also helped me with sh*t, too,” Drake replied to 21’s claims in the interview.

While it’s unclear what songs Savage was specifically referencing where Drake wrote his verses, it does appear that the two rappers work well when they bounce ideas off each other. Plus, Drake has enjoyed writing for quite a while.

“I pulled my weight when it came to my pen,” Drake previously shared in a 2019 interview with Rap Radar. “Anybody that knows me knows that my strongest talent is writing… That’s why people ask me to write songs for them.”

A month ago, the Dallas Mavericks narrowly beat the Toronto Raptors in a 111-110 thriller, but the talk after the game was mostly about referee Tony Brothers after Spencer Dinwiddie addressed the media and said Brothers called him a “b*tch ass motherf*cker” while talking to Reggie Bullock about a technical foul Brothers had hit Dinwiddie with.

While that led to jokes and some discourse about ref-player relations, we didn’t hear much more about it in an official capacity from the league and Brothers has continued to officiate games. On Tuesday, Marc Stein brought word of how the league handled the situation, noting that Brothers was taken off his next assignment but wasn’t given an official suspension without pay.

That seems like he was just given a night off, which isn’t exactly punishment, and the league just let the news cycle move forward with Brothers staying out of the spotlight for long enough for this situation to blow over. It’s an odd situation because we’re fairly used to seeing players call refs names, and that can get them a fine from the league, so there will certainly be some wonder if the NBA let Brothers off too easily by simply removing one of his assignments and not hitting him with a sturdier penalty, even if not a suspension.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is celebrating Twitter’s more “relaxed” stance towards the spread of Covid misinformation by likening masks to flatulence-susceptible underwear, naturally.

Greene — whose unseasoned Thanksgiving Day turkey recently haunted everyone’s timeline — took to social media to air her thoughts on the CDC’s mask-wearing guidelines. Spikes in COVID-19 transmissions are expected during the holiday season, and it’s recommended that people use caution and don face coverings when inside and around large groups. Which … fair enough. Who wants to get sick before Christmas? But this reasonable excuse to mask up again has gotten Greene all up in her feels — and prompted her to maybe reveal a bit too much about her personal issues.

After remarking on how “so many people” are still wearing masks, Greene posed this question to her Twitter following: “If a pair of underwear, really thick ones, high-quality cotton, can’t protect you from a fart, then how will a mask protect you from covid??”

Philosophical meanderings on flatulence aside, this Tweet has left us with so many questions. What medical-grade underwear is Greene using? Why does it have to be “really thick?” What does she mean when she says “protect you from a fart?” Is it launching grenades? Being expelled from the anus with knives out? She’s likening passing gas to spreading germs, does she believe farts are just her butthole’s way of breathing? Has she visited a doctor to figure out why her vapors are so noxious even “high-quality cotton” can’t contain them?

We don’t often dispense medical advice but Marjorie, girl, you might need to see someone about that.

Ever miraculously wake up a minute before your alarm goes off? That’s your Circadian Rhythm showing off its love for consistency. Break it and there’s a world of trouble in store. That’s why when you cross over a couple of time zones and end up in Frankfurt for lunch when it’s really 3 AM back home, you feel oddly chipper. But that’s followed by a disgusting Khabib Nurmagomedov-style KO once your body realizes you’ve betrayed its careful planning.

This breach of the Circadian Rhythm is commonly referred to as Jet Lag, or simply put by the CDC “a mismatch between a person’s normal daily rhythm and a new time zone.” As the holiday season travel comes into full swing, Jet Lag will inflict millions of travelers with drowsiness, insomnia, irritability, and other issues related to sleep deprivation. To stay ahead of the opponent, here’s some advice from the experts.

Adjust Before Travel:

To beat this foe, training is in order. To ease the stings of Jet Lag, The CDC recommends “gradually moving mealtimes and bedtimes closer to the schedule of your destination. Before traveling from the East Coast to Europe, go to bed a half-hour earlier than usual for several nights. If you’re traveling a few time zones westward, stay up a half-hour later for several consecutive nights.”

Apps like Timeshifter can help optimize this pre-travel acclimatization.

Book Flights Strategically:

Additionally, book your flight for a morning or mid-day arrival. When traveling far, it can be beneficial for resetting your biological clock to arrive during the day, as “it jump starts you much more quickly,” says Luxembourg-based sleep coach Christine Hansen.

Sleep Well During Flight:

To stay sharp, it’s imperative to get some good shut-eye on the plane, but for some, that can be a near-impossible feat. Strong pharmaceutical drugs are an immediate DQ, so the healthier options include:

1. Packing an eye mask, as darkness induces melatonin, the hormone most present in sleep.
2. Taking some natural Melatonin pills (available over the counter)
3. Investing in comfort tools: Co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences, Jamie M. Zeitzer claims, “anything you can do to get comfortable enough to sleep can have a very strong placebo effect.” Try noise-cancelling headphones, a C-shaped pillow, or even a foot hammock

Bonus Tips:

1. The CDC recommends planning to arrive at least two days before an important event.
2. Stay Hydrated: While alcohol might get you to snooze, don’t count on it for a good sleep.
3. According to Harvard Health, engaging in exercise and social events upon arrival can expedite a biological clock reset.

A combination of any of these tips will help grapple with Jet Lag. Good preparation and a comfortable in-flight rest seem to be the best solutions. If a tussle with Jet Lag can’t be won, rest assured that the knocks are only temporary.