Category: News

While watching a deceptively touching scene in Bros (Nicholas Stoller’s new comedy that just premiered here at the Toronto International Film Festival) between Billy Eichner’s Bobby and Luke Macfarlane’s Aaron – we see the two men, shirtless from the waist up, embracing in an intimate moment before the camera pans out to reveal both men are receiving oral sex from two additional men in the room – I couldn’t help but think, “I really can’t wait for Ted Cruz to accidentally see Bros.”

Look, other than the pandemic years, I have been at every TIFF since 2011. Bros premiered at the Princess of Wales theater on Friday night, one of those big majestic places with two balconies. I have seen a lot of movies in that place, and I’ve never experienced the amount of almost constant, uproarious laughter like I did with Bros. Now, there are probably a few reasons for this. Toronto doesn’t accept a lot of mainstream studio comedies produced by Judd Apatow. So, yes, it makes sense there was a lot more laughter last night for Bros then there was for, say, The Master in 2012. Also, after two years away (TIFF had a subdued, smaller festival in 2021) it just felt like people were ready to laugh in a huge theater like this. And they did. So much so that I probably missed 20 percent of the dialogue over the laughter.

I have a friend who I won’t name who often tells me of his exploits as a gay single man living in New York City. These stories often involve drugs, multiple men, and eventual frustration. (While listening to these stories, I often find myself feeling very, very square.) I’m not going to pretend I have any idea what I’m talking about in that respect, but Bros very much captures the spirit of almost every story my friend has told me. And I’ve never really felt like that before. My friend’s stories are never really about serious subjects like wrestling about one’s identity (obviously important topics), they are almost always about orgies. Bros captures this in a way I’m not sure any studio movie has done before. (More on this in a bit.)

Bobby (Eichner) is a successful man living in New York City who is trying to raise money for a LGBTQ museum, but, alas, he can’t find love and is tired of seeing the same faces and impersonal hookups day after day on Grindr. (There are a lot of scenes of Eichner sending and receiving messages that just say, “Hey, what’s up?”) At a party, he spots Aaron (Macfarlane) an impossibly handsome man who loves Garth Brooks and would be more into talking about a Patriots game than hearing about a new museum opening. The two have an on again, off again, on again relationship that, at its core, follows the same traditional tropes of most romantic comedies, except there are a lot more scenes of men having sex with each other than, let’s say, the average moviegoer might be used to seeing. Trouble arises when Aaron runs into an old high school buddy, with his female fiancee, that Aaron used to have a crush on back in the day. In following days after, that friend comes out, which sets up a love triangle. Well, technically two love triangles. The one the three men make in bed together, then the much more complicated emotional love triangle that Bobby has more and more a problem with. Will these two finally get together in the end? We all kind of know what will happen, the concept here doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s just a much different-looking tire around that wheel.

Here’s a weird complaint, Bros might be too funny. I do wonder if Stoller and team were worried about how all this will play in some of the redder parts of the United States and decided to divert attention away from some of the steamier scenes with a nonstop brigade of jokes. In that there’s really not that much time to process a situation in a, “Oh wow, they showed that,” which will be immediately followed by Eichner being attacked by a bee. It really is joke after joke after joke, most delivered wonderfully by Eichner. And they sure landed in front of this big audience, but I do wonder how all that will play in a more subdued environment.

Bros is kind of positioning itself as a “first” in a lot of categories for a romantic comedy that centers on a relationship between two gay men. I have no idea what of that is true and what of that isn’t, but I do think it’s noteworthy a huge studio, Universal, is going to be putting Bros in thousands of theaters. I don’t know if this is “monumental,” or “well, it’s about time” or a combination of the two (probably a combination of the two), but it all does seem, at the very least, noteworthy.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The passing of Queen Elizabeth II has inspired countless memoriams, including a confusing one from onetime monarch critic Johnny Rotten. But she — and the monarchy — remain controversial. Among the social media detritus to surface in the wake of her death was a video of Anthony Bourdain from 2018, in which the late chef and globetrotter made one hell of a face when someone he was dining with toasting the queen.

The clip was from Season 11, Episode 3 of Parts Unknown, which aired in 2018 and found Bourdain wandering about Newfoundland. It finds him in Raymond’s Restaurant in St. John’s, at a table with fellow chefs David McMillan and Frédéric Morin, about to casually enjoy some white wine.

Alas, one of Bourdain’s fellow diners makes a faux pas, at least in his eyes, uttering the words, “To the queen.” The toast causes Bourdain to pause, slowly put down his drink, and treat the toaster to some serious side-eye. He then says, “No, I hate the aristocracy, man.”

The clip was shared by multiple people, racking up hundreds of thousands of likes each. It’s a reminder that not only was Queen Elizabeth II far from infallible, but that Bourdain was never afraid to speak his mind, even when sitting down for a nice dinner with colleagues.

(Via Newsweek)

Quinn Ewers made quite the impression early in his biggest game of his young college career on Saturday, as the Texas star made some sensational throws in the first quarter against Alabama.

The Longhorns trailed 10-3 after the first quarter but were knocking on the doorstep of tying it up thanks to an absolute bomb from Ewers to Xavier Worthy, who dropped a touchdown on a similar ball from Ewers on their opening drive.

All told, Ewers piled up 134 yards on 9-of-12 passing in the first 15 minutes of action, and really should’ve had at least one touchdown had it not been dropped. However, on the play immediately following his deep ball to Worthy, Ewers was planted into the ground by Dallas Turner as he threw the ball away and landed directly on his left shoulder, staying down in significant pain afterwards.

Turner was flagged for driving Ewers into the ground, which is among the points of emphasis in college football for roughing the passer, but it wasn’t a dirty or late hit by any stretch, just an unfortunate one particularly with how Ewers ended up spinning and landing directly on that shoulder.

Ewers would eventually get up and walk to the sidelines where he was evaluated and then walked back to the locker room with a towel over his head. Sophomore Hudson Card came in for Ewers and on the first play of the second quarter, handed it off to star back Bijan Robinson for the game-tying touchdown. However, considering how much of the Longhorns offensive success early came from Ewers throwing the ball and pushing it downfield, his absence is a significant concern for Texas not just in this game but potentially long term as we await official word on the severity of the injury.

When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February, many predicted a swift victory. That didn’t happen. Over the last six months-plus, the aggressor nation has faced untold defeats, faced untold sanctions, even had to rehab big businesses that no longer wanted anything to do with them. Throughout, Russian state TV has tried to put a positive spin on things, but now even they seem to have given up.

As per The Daily Beast, Russian propagandists have started admitting that things aren’t exactly on the up-and-up. One common thread is that Russian soldiers are facing a threat bolstered by Western weaponry and foreign intel.

“We wish courage to our warriors, who are indeed doing very important work,” said 60 Minutes host Evgeny Popov, adding, “they are resisting an enormous horde that has been trained in the West.”

Meanwhilem, retired lieutenant-general Evgeny Buzhinsky asserted that Americans are amping up Ukrainian forces. “There are not only advisers, but specialists,” Buzhinsky declared. “I think that there are thousands of American advisers and specialists on the ground in Ukraine, they’re probably present in every unit.”

Then there’s Vladimir Solovyov, host of the radio show Full Contact. “I’m worried,” he brooded. “Naturally, we want for our guys to crush [the other side] and only to advance, but life doesn’t work that way.”

On the nightly program The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, military expert Mikhail Onufrienko was even more pessimistic. “This is a difficult war, it’s a big war, the world hasn’t seen wars of this magnitude since WWII, at least after Vietnam,” Onufrienko said. “The panic is being stoked not by the Ukrainian side, not by the Kyiv regime or Western sources, but by our own patriotic [social media] channels… Nonetheless, objectively speaking, this is the most successful advance of the junta since February 24… We clearly don’t have enough troops to contain them… but they couldn’t take Balakliya.”

They have reason to worry. As per Reuters, Ukrainian forces late last week reclaimed Kharkiv, a territory in the east previously occupied by now-crumbling Russian forces. The same happened with Izyum, also in the northeast, according to The New York Times. This may be a turning point in the world — good for Ukraine, not so good for Russia, or for Tucker Carlson.

(Via The Daily Beast)

On Thursday, we saw a side of Steve Bannon not seen before: in handcuffs. The former Trump administration honcho had been indicted by Manhattan prosecutors for allegedly defrauding MAGA donors. He turned himself in and was filmed doing a perp walk through a hallway. For most, this would be one of the worst days of one’s life. For Bannon, though, it was the opposite.

The day after turning himself in, Bannon appeared on the podcast run by twentysomething Trump fanatic and permanent bedhead guy Charlie Kirk, where he explained what it was like to have his hands cuffed behind his back because he’d allegedly ripped off his former boss’ supporters.

“Yesterday was one of the best days of my life,” Bannon told Kirk. “It was a very powerful, spiritual day for me. A lot of things came into high clarity.” He added, “I was totally in the zone, as you say in sports, the entire time. They’re not gonna shut me up,”

Bannon is in hot water over his involvement in a fundraising organization called We Build the Wall, which pledged to complete Donald Trump’s beloved Southern wall project. The group raised millions in donations, but allegedly they funneled some of that money into the pocklets of not only Bannon but other people involved with the scheme.

Bannon faced federal charges over the project in 2020, but he was pardoned by Trump during his last days in office. But those were federal charges. These are local charges, meaning Trump’s pardon doesn’t protect Bannon. Bannon and his legal team have vowed to fight the charges. At this point, Bannon must be used to being indicted on criminal charges, having blown off the Jan. 6 committee last year.

In the meantime, here’s that perp walk.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Today, Taylor Swift made an appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she screened the short film accompanying her song, “All Too Well (10-Minute Version),” on 35mm film. “All Too Well” was first released on Swift’s fourth studio album, Red, which came out in 2012. The first version of “All Too Well” Swift wrote came out to be 10 minutes long, however, she cut it down to five minutes and 30 seconds for the album’s original iteration.

Fans didn’t hear the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” until last year, when Swift released a re-recorded version of Red. While the song had been a fan favorite among Swifties, there also wasn’t a music video for the song until last year, which came in the form of the Swift-directed short film, starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien.

Variety reports that when speaking to the audience at TIFF, Swift shared that the song didn’t receive a music video until nine years after its release because it hit too close to home at the time.

“For me, the song was so tough because it was about something that at that point was very current for me,” she said. “I would have a really hard time performing it at the time. I had to force myself to focus on other things to try to get through it during tour. So there would be no world in which I could have made a visual element to that song at that time. I needed ten years of retrospect in order to know what I would even make to tell a version of that story visually. And I’m so grateful that I was able to do that with some crazy stroke of all these different twists of fate.”

As the adage holds, good things take time. Last month, the short film took home the Video Of The Year award at the MTV Video Music Awards. During her acceptance speech, she teased her 10th studio album, then took to social media to reveal its title, Midnights.

Midnights is out 10/21 via Republic. Pre-order it here.

Ahead of her fourth studio album Star-Crossed‘s first birthday tomorrow, Kacey Musgraves has shared a brief documentary detailing the making of the record.

In the 14-minute clip, titled Star-Crossed: Making The Album, Musgraves is seen in the studio working with her collaborators and laying down tracks for the album. She also shares interview footage, in which she details certain songs, and how they came together.

One of the album’s standout tracks is “Breadwinner,” on which, Musgraves sings of a man who feels insecure about her financial success. In an interview with Time, she revealed that she drew from her own personal experience with this type of dynamic, as well as that of many other women.

“I’m not the only one who’s experienced that,” Musgraves said, “and I’m not going to be the last. It always makes it easier to put vulnerable thoughts out there when you know they’re going to be met with connection. As more women have moved into power, it’s been interesting to see the effects. It’s important for men to know there are so many things you can bring to the table other than money. If you’re with a woman who earns more than you, maybe look at what you can bring emotionally, mentally, or around the house. I feel really lucky to be with someone who is so secure and is a champion of me reaching for every star possible. It’s a really beautiful thing for a man to be able to support a woman in that way and not take it personally.

Check out Star-Crossed: Making The Album above.

The highlight of day one of D23 Expo 2022 was the “Celebrate the Magic of Disney and Pixar” panel, which included sneak peeks of upcoming live-action and animated Disney and Pixar movies. Not every trailer will be released to the public this weekend, or even for weeks or months, but here’s what was featured:

–Hocus Pocus 2 (September 30, 2022), reuniting Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy

–Disenchanted (November 24, 2022), the sequel to the delightful Enchanted

–Peter Pan & Wendy (2023), with Jude Law as a Jack Sparrow-ish Captain Hook

–Haunted Mansion (March 10, 2023), a campy and creepy take on the iconic theme park ride with Rosario Dawson, Lakeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Jared Leto (all but confirmed as the Hatbox Ghost), Danny DeVito, Winona Ryder, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who made a surprise appearance in a Doom Buggy

–Mufasa: The Lion King (2024), directed by Moonlight‘s Barry Jenkins

–Snow White (2023), with Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot (seemingly channeling Emma Stone in Cruella) as the Evil Queen

–The Little Mermaid (May 26, 2023), another live-action remake starring Halle Bailey as Ariel; there will be four new songs, one of which opens the film, as well as classics like “Part of Your World” (that sequence was screened to the D23 crowd — Bailey kills it)

Now to the Pixar section…

–Elemental (June 16, 2023), about two literal elements, Fire and Water, who look past their differences… and potentially fall in love

–Win or Lose (2023), Pixar’s first long-form series for Disney+ where every episode follows a different character on the same day (this was the best trailer I saw all panel)

–Elio (2024), about an 11-year old boy who is mistaken for Earth’s intergalactic ambassador by aliens

–Inside Out 2 (2024), which takes place inside the head of the same girl as the original, except now she’s a teenager; there will also be new emotions joining Joy, etc.

And finally, the Walt Disney Animation Studios projects…

–Zootopia+ (November 9, 2022), six standalone episodes set in the Zootopia universe

–Iwájú (2023), the first collaboration with an outside studio (Kugali) in Walt Disney Animation Studios history

–Strange World (November 23, 2022), a story of three generations of explorers inspired by the adventure stories of yesteryear; the voice cast is led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, Lucy Liu, and Dennis Quaid

–Wish (2023), a musical that blends watercolor animation with CGI — classic meets contemporary — in honor of 100 years of the Disney company

In all my friend groups, I am considered a bit of a woo ambassador. Whether it be from a crystal, intention-setting candle or meditative bath bomb, I love seeing the look of fascination and intrigue on a loved one’s face after receiving a bit of magic.

My favorite thing to do is gift someone their first oracle card deck. You’ve probably heard of tarot cards—oracle cards are like tarot’s laid-back younger sibling. Each card has a symbolic picture along with a simple, yet poignant message, usually of the empowering variety.

Sure, they’re a common staple of a modern-day spiritual practice, but the main reason I adore them, and why these little cards have become so mainstream over the years, is that they can be valuable self-reflection tools, helping us to make new connections, break old patterns and creatively work on personal development. Plus they’re endlessly fun and who doesn’t love pretty things?

There is, however, one issue. Oracle card decks can be given pretty much any theme you can think of—be it unicorns or angels or pop music icons—and yet, very few feature diverse images or delve into minority cultures. Understandably, when a person cannot even see themselves authentically reflected in the cards, it can leave them feeling missing from the equation. Assuming that it wasn’t created for them, some don’t explore the cards at all. Which is a shame, considering what a powerful tool they can be.

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Being a seasoned cardslinger, I was egregiously aware of this during my recent search for an appropriate deck to give my friend as a birthday present.

Luckily, I found the perfect one.

The African Goddess Rising Oracle deck contains 44 cards (works of art, really) that focus on prominent figures of African culture. From deities like Oshun—the Yoruba goddess of love—to real-world icons like Voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau, each character helps the reader connect to what deck creator Abiola Abrams describes as the “foundational beliefs” of African spirituality: ancestral veneration, reverence for elders and community, respecting natural phenomena, and the power to transmute obstacles.

Abrams’ bio will inform you that she is an award-winning author and first-generation American daughter of multigenerational healers, seers and farmers in Guyana, South America, who are descended from several West African nations. But truly, one glance through her gorgeous deck will just as easily reveal her impeccable knack for storytelling and personal connection to the myths passed down in her family.

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Because of its rich historical context, this deck has a much more grounded quality than other more fantasy-based cards—it feels a bit more like receiving wisdom from a wise elder than a heady, esoteric concept. Because, well, that was all by design. As Abrams explains, her creation is “faithful to our sacred truths and secrets passed down through oral tradition.”

In case you were curious—my friend loved it. The very next day after receiving it, she told me how validating it felt to “see even my ancestors telling me I’m on the right track.” It’s that kind of insight and affirmation that oracle cards can help cultivate, which is why it’s so important to have diverse representation. Everyone needs that sort of thing now and again.

To be fair, there are other highly honorable mentions for more inclusive oracle card decks, but something about African Goddess Rising hits different. It helps that Abrams is also a recognized leader in the personal growth space—the empowering messages come from a sensible, well-founded place with simple, actionable steps.

Also—in case it wasn’t obvious, the African Goddess Rising deck can be for anyone. Each message is universal, rooted in humanity and able to speak to us all. I have since procured my own copy, and you can do the same here.

Upworthy may earn a share of proceeds from items purchased on this list.

For fantasy fans, it truly is the best of times, and the worst of times. On the bright side—there’s more magic wielding, dragon riding, caped crusading content than ever before. Yay to that.

On the other hand, have you noticed that with all these shows, something feels … off?

No, that’s not just adulthood stripping you of childlike wonder. There is a subtle, yet undeniable decline in how these shows are being made, and your eyes are picking up on it. Nolan Yost, a freelance wigmaker living in New York City, explains the shift in his now viral Facebook post.

The post, which has been shared nearly 3,500 times, attributes shows being “mid,” (aka mediocre, or my favorite—meh) mostly to the new streaming-based studio system, which quite literally prioritizes quantity over quality, pumping out new content as fast as possible to snag a huge fan base.

The result? A “Shein era of mass media,” Yost says, adding that “the toll it takes on costuming and hair/makeup has made almost every new release from Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu have a B-movie visual quality.”

He even had some pictures to prove it.

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Yost first addressed the Amazon Prime Series “The Rings of Power.” One of the many, many things that makes Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy so iconic is the costumes. But that legacy was the direct result of dedication to detail.

“The production spent years hand-making every single piece of armor with real metal, hand-dyeing all-natural fiber fabrics, and designing distinct embroidery and hairstyles specific to each race in Middle Earth that had continuity through the story,” Yost wrote.

He added, “the natural dyes and dedicated layers of fabrics for elves, for hobbits, wool/dyes, and for men had a much more muted/medieval look, yet ethereal because of the slight detail you don’t really notice, but the depth draws your eye to every inch of the costume regardless.” This, he says, is why those three movies stand the test of time.

Compare this to the two images from “The Rings of Power,” below. In one photo “they barely scrapped together an unnaturally gilded scale mail breastplate and just screen printed a stretched long sleeve shirt to match underneath, all over a skirt in a single layer of a warped poly skirt.”

The other image shows “they just saved money on an Elven wig altogether for a 2022 pompadour, with a velvet pleated priest smock (with crushed parts not even steamed out), and a neckline that isn’t tailored to fit like we’ve seen previously with Elrond or Celeborn.”

Yost then moved onto HBO’s “House of the Dragon.” Arguably even those who have never seen a single episode of its predecessor, “Game of Thrones,” would still recognize Daenerys Targaryen for her platinum white hair—an attribute that Yost notes was quite expensive.

He explained that for the show’s final season alone, Daenerys’ wigs cost tens of thousands, requiring human hair to be custom made into multiple wigs. Yost made a comment in his Facebook post that indicated he even supplied those hairpieces back in the day, so it’s safe to say he knows what he’s talking about.

Luckily, there was only one character with that signature look in the show. For “House of the Dragon,” however, with a cast almost entirely made up of silver-haired brooding powerhouses, Yost surmises that due to budget constraints, the creators opted for synthetic wigs.

You can see below the problem this cost-cutting decision makes in terms of authenticity.

“Synthetic hair reflects light throughout the whole hair shaft and it tangles extremely easily,” Yost writes. “With any shot where a character isn’t actively moving or is performing dialogue and the hair isn’t being actively smoothed down every couple of seconds between shots, each flyaway is going to show up on camera if there’s any indirect lighting and look messy. Not only that, synthetic hair is also twice as thick per strand than human hair, so regardless of that the wigs are going to look bulky in an uncanny valley sort of way.”

This affects not just sci-fi and fantasy, but other genres meant to transport viewers into other worlds, like period pieces, which Yost points out with a picture from “Bridgerton” by Shonda Rhimes.

“It’s obviously not meant to be historically accurate, which is totally fine,” he writes, but without important details or embellishments or even proper undergarments to make the clothes fit well, everything looks like a slightly more expensive Halloween costume.

Yost’s insightful post really shines a light on what audiences are having to trade off for the sake of constant output. The phrase “done is better than perfect” takes on a new meaning altogether as studios race to meet a deadline with whatever is easiest to mass produce. But if viewers are so easily taken out of these stories because of noticeable corner cutting, then perhaps it’s a sign that what we really want and need are stories worth waiting for, ones that truly pull us in and leave us captivated. This is no easy ask, for studio execs or customers alike (I too am a voracious binge-watcher), but as we can see in these examples, the most valuable experiences rarely, if ever, come from rushing.