Starting with his 2015 campaign, Donald Trump has been hounded by allegations of his connections to Russia, and it looks like that’s not about to change anytime soon. A former GOP operative has been convicted of funneling funds from a Russian businessman into Trump’s first presidential campaign. Making matters more damning for Trump is the operative, Jesse Benton, had already been pardoned once by Trump for a different financial crime. However, after that pardon, he was charged with six counts “related to facilitating an illegal foreign campaign donation.” Whoops.
The evidence at trial showed that Benton bought a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee (RNC) event on behalf of Roman Vasilenko, a Russian naval officer turned multilevel marketer. (Vasilenko is under investigation in Russia for allegedly running a pyramid scheme, according to the Kommersant newspaper; he could not be reached for comment.) The donation got Vasilenko a picture with Trump and entrance to a “business roundtable” with the future president.
The problem is Benton never told the RNC or anyone organizing the event that Vasilenko is a Russian citizen. Benton simply told people that he was “a friend” even though they had never met before. Not great. Prosecutors also effectively argued that Vasilenko was attempting to work his way into Trump’s favor by donating to his campaign.
“He’s sophisticated,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Wasserman told jurors. “He got access to someone he helped elect.”
Benton’s defense downplayed the $25,000 as “nothing” in an election that cost billions.
“This is not some nefarious backroom scheme to funnel millions of dollars from Russia,” he said.
Prosecutors argued that every dollar counted in a race where Democrat Hillary Clinton was far ahead in fundraising, and that Benton knew Trump needed money at the time.
The prosecution’s case worked and Benton was convicted of acting as a “straw donor” between Vasilenko and Trump’s campaign. He probably shouldn’t hold his breath for another pardon.
There are few things as inevitable as the impending fall chill. You know that seemingly random late fall (early winter) wind that makes your bones crackle when you get up in the middle of the night? Those nights lead to days that require time spent in front of a heater, a book paired with a roaring fire, or the company of a glass of warming bourbon. But when you feel like you’ve been chilled inside and out, not every bourbon will do. Some are more “warming” than others.
Typically, a “warming bourbon” is one that is a tad higher on the ABVs — 100 proof or even higher. They also often feature those “holiday spices” we hear so much about in bourbon tasting notes — cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla among them. Plus almond, leather, caramel… wintery flavors.
Nobody knows how to pick these warming bourbons better than whiskey makers and experts themselves. That’s why we asked a handful over stone cold spirits experts to tell us their picks for the bourbons they crack open and pour to get that instant warming feeling in the fall and winter. Keep scrolling to see all of their picks!
Shout out to those crazy brothers from Texas on this one. I dare say the best warming bourbon for Fall out there (that we don’t make, anyway) is Balmorhea from Garrison Brothers. First of all, I just think “warm” when I think of Texas, and when I see the color of this stuff in the glass, it even looks warming.
At 115 proof, it packs some heat, and in the best way.
Tasting Notes:
The flavors that come across to me are milk chocolate-covered cherry, toffee, and candied pecans, which I find to be so fitting. This bottle is a big-time favorite around my house.
Ranger Creek .36
Ranger Creek
Dr. Kenneth Maverick, founder of Maverick Whiskey in San Antonio, Texas
Ranger Creek .36 is my pick. Ranger Creek’s flagship whiskey is made in small batches, matured in oak barrels, and is made with Texas-grown corn for a sweet, rich, warming flavor.
Tasting Notes:
Great by the campfire with fall Texas flavors of new oak and tobacco. Vanilla, caramel, and peppery spices round out this truly warming whisky.
Old Grandad 114. This is my long-time go-to for overproof and affordable bourbon. It’s great for sipping outside in the fall. It just might be the best of the Old Grand-Dad line.
Tasting Notes:
Strong oak, with hints of chocolate and a robust palate. It’s 114 proof, but you wouldn’t even know it based on the complex, rich flavor profile. Warming on its own, neat, or mixed into a cocktail.
I’m a huge Frey Ranch fan. This Nevada-based distillery was born out of a 165-year family farming tradition. They are one of the few distilleries around the world that sustainably grow 100% of their whiskey grains onsite.
Tasting Notes:
They’ve managed to create a rich, refined and gorgeous whiskey full of earthy wood and leather notes with some cinnamon and spice. This is more of a classic style of bourbon. A perfect warming whiskey for fall.
Buzzard’s Roost Barrel Strength
Buzzard’s Roost
Jeremy Kasler, CEO of CaskX, a bourbon cask investment firm, in Los Angeles
I recently purchased a bottle of Buzzard’s Roost Barrel Strength Bourbon that I can’t wait to sip by the fire pit when temperatures start to cool even more. At 114.4 proof, loaded with flavors compatible with fall and all of its accouterments.
Tasting Notes:
Forget pumpkin-spiced lattes — give me a glass of Buzzard’s Roost and I’ll stay warm into the winter. This blend of high-rye bourbons has flavors like pipe tobacco, toffee, oak, vanilla, and gentle, peppery rye.
Garrison Brothers Guadalupe. I like warming bourbons for the fall and winter and one thing drives that home for me is higher proofs and cask finishes that add some holiday spice or dark red fruit notes. Garrison Brother Guadalupe is finished in tawny port barrels and checks both boxes on my warming bourbon rubric.
Tasting Notes:
There are many great, warming flavors in Garrison Brothers Guadalupe. Some of the best are berries, chocolate, espresso, tobacco, and cooked plum.
Russell’s Reserve single-barrel Bourbon is my go-to warming bourbon. It is a classic single barrel that keeps you warm on a cool fall evening. The distillers have had quite a long time to perfect this bourbon.
Tasting Notes:
Spicy, big complicated, and keeps your palate on its toes. If it had toes. It’s known for its warming flavors of bold, charred oak, toasted vanilla beans, dried fruits, and buttery toffee.
Balcones Blue Corn Bourbon is my warming pick. It is young but still complex and surprisingly well-balanced. It is vibrant probably due to its age (I like that a lot).
Tasting Notes:
Strong, sweet, savory, salty. And a very long finish. Its main flavors include candied orange peels, toasted marshmallows, vanilla beans, caramel corn, and rich oak.
Noah’s Mill
Noah’s Mill
Brad Jennings, whiskey expert at North of Bourbon in Louisville, Kentucky
Noah’s Mill is a great warming bourbon for fall. A popular whiskey among bourbon fans, Noah’s Mill is 114.3-proof and tremendously warming.
Tasting Notes:
It has a nice mix of candied pecans, vanilla beans, dried fruits, and it has a nice cinnamon and allspice flavor at the finish. It’s a highly complex bourbon you’ll use to warm you until the spring thaw.
Basil Hayden Toast
Jim Beam
Rebecca Running, CEO of Darco Spirits in Philadelphia
Basil Hayden Toast is a supremely warming bourbon. I love the new mash bill, replacing the traditional rye grain with brown rice, adding sweetness and a little less spice. The layers of flavor come from the secondary aging in a toasted then flash-charred oak barrel. I love this one outside by an open fire.
Tasting Notes:
Basil Hayden Toast is sweet, warming, and filled with flavors like almond cookies, sweet rich, vanilla beans, caramel, rich oak, raisins, and light spices.
Harrison Ford will be 80 years old when Indiana Jones 5 comes out. No wonder he called it a “long and arduous” shoot. In an interview with Empire, the Oscar-nominated (but never Oscar-winning, which is nuts) actor discussed the fifth movie in the Indiana Jones franchise, and first since 2008’s little-lovedIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. “It’s full of adventure, full of laughs, full of real emotion. And it’s complex and it’s sneaky,” he said about the James Mangold-directed film. “The shooting of it was tough and long and arduous. But I’m very happy with the film that we have.”
Unlike Han Solo, Ford seems to enjoy playing Indiana Jones. Maybe it’s because he has to deal with fewer questions about Force ghosts, or maybe he just likes wearing cool hats? Whatever the case may be, Ford said he wanted to make Indiana Jones 5 because “I just thought it would be nice to see one where Indiana Jones was at the end of his journey. If a script came along that I felt gave me a way to extend the character.”
And if the film can squeeze in a cameo from Ke Huy Quan, even better.
Indiana Jones 5 comes out on June 30, 2023, following multiple delays.
In yet another sign that Donald Trump‘s 2024 campaign announcement is not going over well in Republican corners, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly admitted that the event put her to sleep. During the latest episode of her podcast, Kelly revealed that she was kind of surprised at how “low energy” Trump seemed compared to his usual rallies. Interestingly, that’s the same phrase that Meghan McCain used when she eviscerated Trump for still making the announcement despite the dismal midterm election results.
As for Kelly, she was considerably less pointed, but still underwhelmed. Via Mediaite:
“I’ll just give you my sort of back of the envelope reaction to Trump last night. I was looking forward to watching it. I — you know, Trump never disappoints, but he kind of did disappoint a little last night,” she said.
“Not to be too hard on him, but I know he was trying to do presidential and he was trying to not screw anything up for Herschel Walker, but he did seem a little low energy,” Kelly added.
Kelly went on to admit that she started dozing off as the speech dragged on.
“I was slightly bored, I’m not gonna lie,” Kelly said. “I did fall asleep before the end of the hour. Now I’m getting old and my kids wake me up early. But I did doze off and that’s just unprecedented for a Trump rally.”
When she asked Trump senior adviser Jason Miller why the former president was noticeably subdued, Miller said that Trump wanted to “clearly state his platform and his decision to run,” which would be a first. Usually, there’s lots of yelling about the 2020 election being stolen along with insults. Although, Trump is also falling behind in that area, too.
Taco Bell is going big for the month of November! Two months back, Taco Bell reached out to fans and asked whether they’d want to see the Double Decker Taco or Enchirito make a brief return to the menu. It looks like the Enchirito won that contest and now the wet, sauce-covered burrito is back until the month’s end. But that’s not the only new dish Taco Bell is bringing to the menu. Beginning today, Taco Bell will also launch the 7-Layer Nacho Fries as well as a vegetarian version of that same dish, and the 7-Layer Nacho Fries Burrito, which is essentially everything in the 7-Layer Nacho Fries, crammed into a warm flour tortilla.
That’s a lot of new food out of Taco Bell, so we’re pretty psyched to see whether the Bell has dropped any new menu favorites that’ll hold their own against the Mexican Pizza — which looks like it’s enjoying an extended run on the menu. Is Taco Bell slowly building up its menu to pre-pandemic levels of variety? It looks like it, but our hope is that if the Taco Bell menu gets bigger, it’s because it’s being populated with legitimately tasty dishes not just variety for variety’s sake.
We picked up the Enchirto, the 7-Layer Nacho Fries, and the 7-Layer Nacho Fries Burrito to see which new menu item is essential, and which isn’t worth your time. Let’s start with the Enchirito.
Enchirito
Dane Rivera
Tasting Notes:
While, personally, I was pulling for the return of the Double Decker Taco, I have to admit, the Enchirito is truly the dish that deserved to come back. The burrito was first introduced on the Taco Bell menu back in the ‘70s and is the Bell’s version of a wet burrito (a burrito doused in sauce that you eat with a knife and fork). It was discontinued back in 2013 — almost a full decade ago — so not only have hardcore Taco Bell fans been missing out on this dish for a whole nine years but there is probably an entire generation of Taco Bell fans who haven’t ever had or heard of this dish.
The Enchirito features a grip of seasoned beef, beans, and onions wrapped in a tortilla that is drowning in Taco Bell’s hot red sauce and melted cheddar cheese. It smells absolutely foul. Straight up, the Enchirito smells like something that shouldn’t ever be in your body, and will probably expel itself soon after you eat it. I know, I know, that sounds disgusting, but once you bite into this thing — well… any stomach pain it causes will be well worth it.
This is simply one of Taco Bell’s best dishes. It’s beefy and savory with an umami-rich mild tomato-forward sauce that tastes wonderfully decadent and satisfying. The only true sin of this burrito is that it doesn’t have nearly enough cheese.
Taco Bell’s entire menu is a lesser version of Tex-Mex and Cal-Mex style Mexican food, but the Enchirito is the closest the chain restaurant has ever come to making something as good as the classics that actually inspired it.
The Bottom Line:
Beefy and savory with a mild pepper-forward sauce that elevates Taco Bell’s seasoned ground beef into something truly delicious.
7-Layer Nacho Fries
Dane Rivera
Tasting Notes:
I’m a big fan of Taco Bell’s Nacho Fries. They’re peppered with a zesty mix of paprika, chili powder, onion powder, and salt with a crispy exterior that makes them audibly crunchy while still housing molten hot buttery potato inside. They are easily in the top five of the greatest fast food French fries of all time — seriously, they’re that good.
Frustratingly, Taco Bell is always taking them off the menu only to bring them back later in order to whip up fanfare. It’s obnoxious, but as much as Taco Bell annoys me with its marketing it’s a little hard to be too mad at them when you have a dish this good.
I mentioned that the Enchirito was one of Taco Bell’s best dishes, well the 7-Layer Nacho Fries are even better. The seven layers in question include seasoned beef, chipotle sauce, black beans, sour cream, tomatoes, cheese, nacho cheese sauce, and guacamole. No, you counted right, that’s eight layers, not seven. I don’t know why Taco Bell made this error, but I don’t really care, because like I said, this dish is delicious.
The mouthfeel is on point — it’s crispy thanks to the fries, which serve as a great base for the ground beef, whole black beans, and mix of sauces. The initial flavor is zesty, followed by a blast of salty and savory flavors with a hint of tang and spice via the sour cream and chipotle sauce with a nice buttery and vegetal finish by way of the guacamole and tomatoes.
Here is the issue with this dish though — like the Nacho’s Bell Grande — there just aren’t enough toppings here. This makes for an incredibly inconsistent dish. The first few bites will give you an explosion of flavor, but at one point you’ll just be eating slightly dirty fries with ghost notes of the toppings. If Taco Bell would be just a bit more generous with those toppings, it would elevate this dish from great to absolutely essential.
The Bottom Line:
A near-perfect mix of salty and savory Taco Bell flavors.
7-Layer Nacho Fries Burrito
Dane Rivera
Tasting Notes:
And now we need to talk about the burrito. I hate to leave this review on a bad note but this burrito takes everything that’s delicious about the above dish and absolutely ruins it. The portioning is admittedly better here, you get an equal mix and distribution of the 8 ingredients in this burrito, but something about the way the fries steam in the tortilla turns this mix of flavors into absolute mush. It’s just a chore to get through and the tortilla isn’t really big enough to properly house the ingredients, so the more you chew into it the more it starts to fall apart.
The fries are inedible here, and the tortilla isn’t warmed up enough to have the flexibility it needs to make this dish work. Maybe ordering it grilled with save it and add some texture into the dish, but as it is it’s just too muddled and messy to really taste good.
The Bottom Line:
It’s a great idea but Taco Bell hasn’t perfected the art of putting fries into a burrito yet. Skip this and order the platter instead.
At the moment, everything is a disaster for Ticketmaster. They bungled the sale of Taylor Swift’s The Era Tour tickets so badly that they ended up canceling the general sale of them altogether. Swift is really unhappy with the situation, as she wrote today, “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Now it turns out that while all of this was going down, parent company Live Nation Entertainment has been under investigation by the Justice Department.
The New York Times reports that according to “two people with knowledge of the matter,” the Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation, to determine whether the company has abused its power in the live music industry. The investigation was apparently opened months before the Swift situation and is therefore not a response to it.
Per the NYT sources, the Department’s antitrust division has “contacted music venues and players in the ticket market, asking about Live Nation’s practices and the wider dynamics of the industry” and is trying to determine “whether the company maintains a monopoly over the industry.”
The Justice Department previously approved the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger back in 2010, on the condition that the company sell some parts of its business.
Welp, it’s finally happened. After getting into businesses including breakfast cereals, children’s cartoons, and (of course) legal cannabis, the world’s most marketable rapper, Snoop Dogg, has gotten around to selling the most fitting product for a businessman with a canine cognomen: Pet accessories. One Tuesday (November 15), Snoop announced the business, Snoop Doggie Doggs, with a press release in which he said, “If my dogs ain’t fresh I ain’t fresh. These dogs and their apparel are a reflection of Tha Dogg himself, so they gotta look the role of a Top Dog, ya dig?!?!”
The line, produced in partnership with Amazon, Little Earth Productions, Inc, and SMAC Entertainment, will include dog clothes like jerseys, hoodies, and shirts, as well as other accessories like bandanas, collars, harnesses, leashes, and blinged-out water/food bowls. There are also “Doggie Doobie” chew toys and a a boom box chew toy that plays Snoop’s signature “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay” line from his 1993 hit “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?” Snoop shared the first ad for the company on his Instagram, as usual. You can check out more information on snoopdoggiedoggs.com
We all know that Mother Nature is often the best medicine to relieve stress, improve fitness and increase happiness. However, these benefits aren’t always accessible to everyone. Hiking trails are next to impossible for many with physical disabilities, especially wheelchair users.
That’s why the Aimee Copeland Foundation, an organization created by a master social worker and quadruple amputee to help build a more inclusive community, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources have collaborated to provide an innovative way to make outdoor recreation more obtainable—through a fleet of all-terrain, free-to-use wheelchairs scattered across 11 of Georgia’s state parks and historic sites.
Each chair is equipped to hike, hunt, fish and easily travel through difficult terrains like mud, water, sand and snow. And since the devices were designed with safety in mind, certification and a “buddy” are required to qualify for use. That said, visitors who qualify include those with cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries and lower limb amputations.
“Our mission is to provide outdoor opportunities for every Georgia citizen and visitor,” said Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites Director Jeff Cown in a press release. “I am proud to partner with the Aimee Copeland Foundation to offer access to visitors with mobility or physical disabilities.”
As Cory Lee, 32-year-old travel blogger and wheelchair user, notes in an interview with The Washington Post, this could be life-changing for many people. Lee has covered accessible adventures throughout the world, and yet has never been able to properly explore his home state of Georgia, as his regular wheelchair couldn’t handle the trails.
Lee had previously traveled to other states that provided terrain-ready wheelchairs, like Muskegon State Park in Michigan. Traversing the three-mile shoreline in his rented all-terrain wheelchair “allowed me to have so much independence on the sand,” he said. Now, he and others will be able to have that kind of independence in even more places throughout the country. In addition to Michigan and Georgia, South Dakota, Colorado and Minnesota have similar programs.
Independence and mobility have been noted to be the most vital factors in determining quality of life for those with disabilities. Despite the stigmas surrounding them, wheelchairs are valuable tools for providing this kind of autonomy. It’s lovely that more advancements are being made to improve a device that already helps so many fully live their lives. Hopefully even more take on this idea.
Remember the Wii U, the Nintendo home console that launched 10 years ago today? Avid video game fans probably do, but you might not if you’re part of the select group known as “most people,” because the Wii U was an undisputed commercial failure.
The console preceded the Nintendo Switch, which, unlike the Wii U, has been a huge success — 114 million Switch consoles have been sold so far. The thing is, though, the Switch owes a lot to the Wii U, which is worth remembering and appreciating on the ill-fated console’s 10-year anniversary.
But first, how did we get here? In its era, the Wii U was an afterthought in the video game landscape. By the time the Wii U was discontinued in 2017, Nintendo ended up selling just 13.56 million of the consoles. That is bad.
The Wii U is Nintendo’s worst-selling console, right behind the GameCube (itself another Nintendo commercial failure) at 21.74 million sales. For further reference, the Wii U’s competitors, the Xbox One and Playstation 4, sold 51 million and 117.2 million consoles, respectively. The Wii U defaulted its way into bronze in that race and secured its own section on the “List of commercial failures in video games” Wikipedia page. Then the Switch came out and, being the runaway hit it is, only needed 10 months to top the Wii U’s lifetime sales.
Despite the fact that it flopped, the Wii U was a neat piece of hardware. Think of it as a TV-based DS/3DS: While one part of the game was happening on the TV (the top screen in this comparison), a completely different visual — like a map or menu or other gameplay element — could be displayed and interacted with on the GamePad’s touch screen. (Sometimes, though, the GamePad just mirrored what was on the TV, depending on the game.) The DS and 3DS were both major success stories — especially the DS, the best-selling handheld console ever — so having faith in a console that combined (3)DS gameplay capabilities with the console-style gaming of the Wii seems reasonable enough.
What has so far ended up being the Wii U’s most enduring legacy, though, is the games. Despite how things went with the console, many of them were actually fantastic. In fact, if you’re a Switch owner, you’ve probably played most of the Wii U highlights.
Derrick Rossignol
Twenty-one Wii U games sold at least a million copies, and of those, 10 — Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Pikmin 3, Lego City Undercover, Hyrule Warriors, and Pokkén Tournament — have been ported to the Switch. There’s also The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, which was a simultaneous release on Wii U and Switch, so up that figure to 11. An additional six of those top 21 games — Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Mario Party 10, Yoshi’s Wooly World, and Mario & Sonic At The Rio 2016 Olympic Games — also have a Switch presence via sequels.
The Wii U games that are on Switch have performed admirably, too: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the platform’s best-selling game, while Breath Of The Wild, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury are all in the top 15.
So, with all these worthwhile games, why didn’t the Wii U work out? The primary, most obvious, and oft-cited reason for its failure is bad marketing. Look at when Nintendo revealed the Wii U at E3 in 2011: They focused so heavily on the GamePad controller that they didn’t bother to actually show off the Wii U console, which can only be seen off to the side in some shots. It was never in a frame by itself or even really acknowledged. So, given that and the console name just adding a “U” onto “Wii,” the Wii U sure seemed like just a new type of controller for the Wii. There wasn’t much to indicate it was actually a new console of its own.
Here’s that E3 presentation, check it out:
After watching that video, are you really supposed to know what the Wii U’s deal is? Clearly, many did not.
Around the time the Switch came out, even Nintendo admitted they goofed with the Wii U. Comparing the Switch and the Wii U in a 2018 interview, Reggie Fils-Aimé — Nintendo of America’s iconic, meme-able president from 2006 to 2019 — said, “What we’ve been able to do with Nintendo Switch is a number of very important things. First, we’ve been incredibly clear with the positioning of the product. Why should you purchase this device? Well, it’s because you can play this great content, anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Tell me what the Wii U proposition was in 10 words or less. We weren’t as incredibly clear.”
Even though the Switch has mostly replaced the Wii U today, I’m happy to say I was there for the Wii U era. I bought mine, I believe, on Black Friday 2013. It wasn’t even on sale, I just wanted it. I look fondly back on the hours spent in my college apartments, creating courses on the original Super Mario Maker and playing through Super Mario 3D World. Whether or not the world knew it, the console had a lot going for it, and being there to experience it first-hand felt like being part of a secret club, a story I can tell my disinterested grandchildren in 40 years (even if they’d probably rather go back to their brain chip games than listen to me blabber on about “buttons,” “discs,” and other nonsense words).
Now, a decade later, the secret’s out: Thanks to the Switch, the Wii U has been redeemed and given at least some of the life, acclaim, and love it missed out on in 2012. Whether folks are playing formerly underappreciated games like Mario Kart 8 and New Super Mario Bros. U on a Wii U or a Switch, at least they’re finally playing them.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – Listen to me
I have tremendous news: the trailer for the third movie in the Magic Mike trilogy — Magic Mike’s Last Dance — dropped this week. It has Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek and various thrusts and gyrations taking place across Europe. Watch it now if you haven’t watched it yet. Watch it again if you have. Please never underestimate how wild it is that we have a full-on big-budget movie franchise about greased-up male strippers traveling the world that straight men and straight women and gay men and gay women all get kind of equally fired up about. The degree of difficulty on this was remarkably high. And yet. Here we are. It’s kind of incredible.
I really only have one complaint about all of this, which I tipped off in the headline and which any of you probably could have guessed anyway if you’ve spent more than 45 seconds around me: This third film in the trilogy should have been a heist movie.
I say this for three primary reasons, which I will outline below…
REASON ONE: It feels right. The first movie was an underdog story, kind of like Rocky if Rocky had been a Tampa exotic dancer instead of a boxer from Philadelphia, which is a wild thing to type and have be completely true. The second was a road trip movie with a bunch of sweet himbos on a bus and occasionally inside a convenience store covered in Cheetos and water. It just makes sense that the third movie would be a heist film, kind of like how the Fast & Furious movies started out about cars going vroom and the Fast Five was about robbing a Brazilian crime lord. Am I suggesting that they keep making Magic Mike movies until Channing Tatum goes to outer space with Ludacris and possibly gives a lap dance to an alien queen? Hmm. I think I am.
REASON TWO: There is history here. These movies are directed by Steven Soderbergh, who also directed the Ocean’s trilogy and Out of Sight and, perhaps most notably here, Logan Lucky, a heist film that starred Channing Tatum. Everyone here has experience and is good at this and it would be something squarely inside their various wheelhouses. It feels right. We should not fight the natural progression of things.
REASON THREE: I would like it. I really would. Show me Channing Tatum and Joe Manganiello in tearaway security guard uniforms with glistening torsos hidden underneath. Let them hypnotize female pit bosses with a series of wiggles and thrusts. Have them slither through a room filled with crisscrossing lasers that bounce off of their shiny abdomens and shoot back into the source and fry millions of dollars worth of high-tech security equipment. Bring back Al Pacino as Terry Benedict and give me a series of shots of him frowning at various monitors from inside a bunker. I would watch this movie right now if it were on television. I wouldn’t even finish typing this paragraph. I need you to know that I am not joking about this.
Please. Please. Channing Tatum and Steven Soderbergh. Consider this. It’s not too late. Do it for the people. And for me. Do it for the people and me.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – Hey, speaking of dancing and/or Logan Lucky
Here’s the new commercial for Belvedere vodka. It features Daniel Craig dancing and strutting and smirking through the halls of a hotel. I love it very much. I’ve probably watched it 20 times this week. I bet I will watch it another five or six times this weekend. It makes me so happy. Look at him and his face and his arms and legs. He is so happy to be done playing James Bond. Between this and stuff like Knives Out and Logan Lucky, he has become devoted to silliness to a degree that I did not see coming but really appreciate. Good for Daniel Craig.
Variety has a really solid write-up on the spot — which was directed by Taika Waititi, one of those facts that make perfect sense after you learn it — and the Bond of it all. It’s a good read. Here’s the highlight.
Here’s what’s such cool fun about the Belvedere commercial. Craig, playing “Himself,” gallivants through the hotel in a funky, hot, preening dance-club way that is so not James Bond, yet the joke is that it’s almost as if it were Bond doing it. Craig exchanges the rock-hard masculinity of Bond for a different kind of masculinity, one that’s a lot more sexually fluid. Yet if you look at his worn-granite face, he’s the same rugged king-stud dude. In the commercial, his face tells one story and his body tells another. The story the commercial is telling is about the dialogue between the two.
Agreed. I’m glad someone out there watched this and took the time to piece together this interpretation, both because I enjoyed reading it and because it allowed me to blockquote something in this section to look smart instead of just typing “imagine you are staying in a five-star hotel and wake up and stumble to your door to grab the waffles and coffee and orange juice you ordered from room service the night before and you crack it open and look to your left and the first thing you see is international movie star Daniel Craig sashaying down the gallery toward you.”
The worst part of this would be — even as you watched it happen in three dimensions right in front of your face — knowing that no one would ever believe you. They might now, though, after this commercial. Let’s go ahead and that to the list of reasons it’s all just very good.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – Being a stuntman seems cool
In what appears to be my ongoing quest to hammer John Wick content into this column every week, I come to you with this: Collider interviewed the franchise’s director and general mastermind Chad Stahleski to talk to him about the arc of the saga and the recently released trailer for the fourth movie and dogs. Lots of dog chat. Which is fair, for a lot of reasons, some having to do with the whole arc of these movies starting with a dead puppy and some having to do with the thing where it’s just fun to talk to people about dogs for a while. Try it this weekend.
Anyway, the dog talk led to this, which has rocketed into my top five behind-the-scenes movie things ever.
You have to get to know your friends. So in order for the dog to be very playful, and safe, and have the confidence just like a human would, they have to spend time with each individual stunt guy. So we had to rotate every hour. One of our 10 main stunt team guys would go and play. That was his job. He had to go play with the dogs, and get tackled by the dogs, and play Frisbee with the dog. So you get acclimated to our canine friend and then that’s how we started working it. But it was about a little over five months.
There are parts of being a stuntman that do not seem fun to me. Throwing yourself off buildings, lighting yourself on fire, heading into the emergency room with yet another broken bone or squirting wound or charred extremity. This part seems cool, though. The only downside I see is that it would make it impossible to complain about your job to anyone.
YOU, A STUNTMAN: Wow, my legs sure are sore from playing with those dogs all day on the set of the smash-hit Keanu Reeves movie.
YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER, WHO IS LIKE A NURSE WHO JUST WORKED A DOUBLE IN THE ER AND HAD TO SPEND TWO HOURS IN THE EXPOSURE UNIT BECAUSE A PATIENT’S BLOOD SQUIRTED IN THEIR EYE: Sorry to hear that.
This is a real problem.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – I do not think I would enjoy explaining this to Oprah but good for Quinta Brunson
We can knock this one out with a series of bullet points:
Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson is going to sit down for a long interview with Oprah
This is cool
Quinta Brunson rules and I am happy to see her blowing up to “lengthy sit down with Oprah” levels
Quinta Brunson also played a very loosely adapted version of Oprah in the Weird Al movie
Imagine you played a goofy version of Oprah in a movie and then you sat four feet away from her and she asked you about it
I do not think I would enjoy that at all
I would immediately retreat into “student getting a stern talking to from the principal” mode
No thank you
Congrats and good luck, Quinta.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Finally, Christmas movies for me
FOOD NETWORK
It is my great pleasure to report to you that HGTV and the Food Network, for reasons that are borderline unknowable but can be loosely covered by “if Hallmark can do this crap so can we,” are getting into the business of Christmas movies this year. Like, they are making their own. With actors and stories and everything. And guest appearances by the big-name state of the networks. It’s extremely weird and kind of insane and I enjoy it very, very much.
An example will help. Here is the plot summary of the upcoming Food Network Christmas film A Gingerbread Christmas, starring Tiya Sircar from The Good Place and Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes.
“After a devastating workplace development throws Hazel Stanley’s (Sircar) job prospects as a full-time architect into question, she leaves NYC to spend the holidays with her father Ted (Varughese) in her suburban Chicago hometown. While there, she discovers that the family bakery is even worse off than she imagined, having been on the decline since the passing of her mother. And to add insult to injury, her former best friend Shelby (Teresa) has opened a trendy new bake shop across the street. When all seems to be lost, she gets the idea to enter a Gingerbread house competition led by homegrown food celebrity Mark Clemmons (Goldman) offering a $100k prize — enough to get the ailing bakery back on track. While working on her magnificent cookie edifice, a romance begins to bloom with a local contractor James Meadows (Bendavid) who — along with his daughter — has been helping her father out by lending his baking prowess to the place while trying to fix it up in his spare time. A series of frustrations and misunderstandings threaten to tear them apart, but will the magic of the holiday lead everyone to have a Merry Christmas?”
Dear lord, this one checks all the boxes. We have:
An architect from the big city
Who returns home to help with a struggling family business
And enters a baking competition
With the help of a single dad who presumably has a jawline you could slice a sheet cake with
It’s perfect. I am so proud of everyone involved in making this happen. All I need now is for this to be a big enough success that they do it again next year with double the budget so I can pitch them my idea about Santa Claus breaking his ankle while going down a chimney and Guy Fieri stepping in to take over. I am barely joking about this. They already have a lot in common.
I will not rest until this happens. That’s not true. I will rest a lot. But I’ll be thinking about it. Sometimes. When I remember. But still. Something to consider.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Joe:
I’m not sure if you remember the awesome History Channel show Dogfights, where they would talk about famous air battles and interview historians or even the pilots who were part of the conflict, all while using early 2000s computer technology to re-enact the battle. The show was great and it featured the best moment to ever happen on History, when Jefferson Deblanc talks about how he was rescued after getting shot down in the Pacific Theater in World War Two. This man had to have told this story a million times and I’m sure he loved doing so each and every time.
Okay. First things first, Joe included the clip with the timestamp, which I appreciate almost as much as the fact that this man’s name is Jefferson Deblanc. Really great stuff all around.
The other thing: So back when I was a freshman in college, a million years ago and before my spinal cord injury, a buddy of mine named Rob found a flier advertising a job making $20/hr to work during a Philadelphia Eagles game. We responded and showed up and it turned out the gig was like a security thing with bright yellow “EVENT STAFF” coats and walkie-talkies and all of it. At one point, we were stationed down by the field while the cheerleaders were rehearsing their dance to the song “Let’s Get Loud” by Jennifer Lopez. I turned to Rob and said “How funny would it be if we just walked into the end zone and started dancing, too?” and Rob thought for a second and motioned to our Event Staff jackets and said “Who’s going to stop us?”
So we did. For a while. The cheerleaders saw us and pointed and giggled. It was awesome.
I bring this up now because I tell this story to every single person I meet and it is maybe 10 percent as good as Jefferson Deblanc’s story. If I were him, I would never shut up about it for a single second. I would not be a good fighter pilot.
Customs officers at New York’s Kennedy International Airport seized $450,000 worth of cocaine from a traveler who was smuggling the drugs in the wheels of her wheelchair, federal authorities announced.
Two things are important to note here…
The first thing is that this is at least the third time this year a person has been busted smuggling cocaine into an airport inside a wheelchair. It also happened in North Carolina and in Italy. The second note is something I need to be very clear about: None of these people were me. I have never tried to smuggle drugs through an airport inside my wheelchair. As far as any of you know.
The bust happened Nov. 10 when Customs and Border Patrol officers stopped a woman traveling from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic with a wheelchair whose wheels weren’t turning, agency officials said.
The officers X-rayed the wheelchair and noticed an “anomaly” in all four wheels, CPB officials said in a news release. Officers checked the tires and found a white powder that tested positive for cocaine, they said.
I have this image in my head of these big lopsided tires going CLOMPCLOMPCLOMP through the terminal and leaving a puffy cloud of cocaine dust in their wake. People behind who walk through it getting high as a kite and being jittery and miserable trapped in a huge metal tube on a cross-country flight. This is an episode of 9-1-1 that I would watch tonight.
A total of 28 pounds (12.7 kilos) of cocaine with a street value of $450,000 was removed from the wheels, officials said.
So, a couple notes that I want to cover before we wrap this up:
This is actually kind of a bummer because a lot of disabled people struggle financially and might be doing stuff like this to make money to pay for like medical supplies or groceries or rent
I really must stress once again that I have never smuggled cocaine or any other drugs inside my wheelchair, unless you count the times we hid a bottle of bourbon in my lap and snuck it into my dorm building when I went back to school after my injury, which I like to think is more of a “boys will be boys” situation than whatever this is
I am serious about this being an episode of 9-1-1
Thank you.
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