Category: News

The best of the WNBA took center stage on Sunday afternoon in Chicago for the annual All-Star Game, and while there were plenty of storylines coming in. None were bigger than it being the final time we’d see a pair of legends, Sylvia Fowles and Sue Bird, in an All-Star Game.

Both Fowles and Bird have announced this will be their final season, and both earned starting nods and co-captain spots in Chicago. Fowles got to work early for Team Wilson, knocking down a three on the first possession of the game to set the tone, as she made clear she was ready to show out in Chicago.

The three was just an appetizer, though, as midway through the second quarter Fowles got a steal and had nothing but open court in front of her, throwing down a dunk that had the entire arena rocking and all of her teammates (and some of her opponents) bouncing up and down.

It’s pretty incredible for Fowles to be able to get up like that in Year 14, and she definitely gave the fans what they wanted in her final All-Star Game. Her fellow WNBA stars were also super hyped on the dunk, with Candace Parker demanding Fowled retract her plans to retire and stick around longer cause she’s clearly still got some juice in those legs.

On Friday, the world lost another Sopranos legend: Tony Sirico, who played Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri, the soldier-turned-capo with the best hair in the DiMeo crime family. He was 79 years old. Sirico led a colorful life. He started out in crime himself, and even served a relatively short sentence in Sing Sing, which is where he caught the acting bug. The Sopranos made him a star, and it led to all manner of gigs. Some paid tribute to his most famous role.

For instance, one time he — along with Steve Schirripa, aka Bobby Baccalieri — invaded Sesame Street. In 2013, the two reunited for Christmas Special sketch, in which they played no less than Bert and Ernie. Sirico even wore a unibrow. Hey, kids have to learn about The Sopranos at some point.

The sketch is a meta one, with Bert and Ernie directing the two small screen mobsters to do a version of their banana-in-the-ear bit, with a holiday twist. Alas, Sirico and Schirripa’s performances are not to their liking. First they screw up the main joke. Then neither can duplicate their distinctive laughs. Eventually chaos reigns, and the two actors try to find a way to split.

It’s one of the many Sirico clips, stories, and tributes that have been made their way through social media in the wake of Sirico’s passing. And it happens as the show has repeatedly come under fire by, of all people, super fun guy Ted Cruz, who’s mad that they’re trying to keep kids safe during an ongoing pandemic.

The Philadelphia 76ers have spent this offseason trying to bolster their depth in order to make a deeper playoff run next season. The biggest additions have been PJ Tucker and De’Anthony Melton, but they also brought in the reigning G League MVP, guard Trevelin Queen.

When free agency opened on July 1, word broke that Queen had agreed to a two-year, $3.3 million deal with the Sixers. Queen, who averaged 22 points per game in the G League last season, figures to bring some more guard depth to a team that needs it, and whether he can crack the playoff rotation or not, he’ll be a helpful regular season player, providing some scoring punch off the bench. It seemed like a good deal for all parties involved, but Queen himself didn’t know about the deal being put in place in the moment.

During Summer League, Chris Haynes detailed how Queen was actually on a cruise when free agency started and as such had no cell reception, so he tasked his agent with finding the best deal and trusted him to make an agreement for him that he’d find out about when he got back.

It obviously was a plan that worked, as Queen’s agent got him a deal on a playoff team, but that is an incredible level of trust between a player and his agent. In the future I’d probably suggest picking an earlier week for a cruise than the week of July 1 if you’re going to be a free agent, but I guess if you have a good enough agent you can hit the seas and find out where your career will take you next when you get back.

In a normal world, Rage Against The Machine would’ve held their reunion tour by now as they originally announced it back in February 2020. The string of shows was set to feature Run The Jewels as an accompanying act, but the coronavirus pandemic caused the tour to be pushed back. Finally, after more than a two-year wait, Rage Against The Machine began their reunion which stood as their first show together in eleven years. The concert took place in East Troy, Wisconsin at the Alpine Valley Music Theater and they kicked off the night with a performance of “Bombtrack,” the opening track from their 1992 self-titled debut album.

Throughout the night, Rage Against The Machine also flashed political messages on the screen like one that read, “ABORT THE SUPREME COURT” and a visual of a cop car on fire. That of course comes after the band donated $475,000 from the sales of charity tickets at the East Troy show, as well as one in Chicago, to reproductive rights organizations in Wisconsin and Illinois. “We are disgusted by the repeal of Roe V. Wade and the devastating impact it will have on tens of millions of people,” the group wrote in part through a message about the donation.

Rage Against The Machine’s first show in over a decade ended with a performance of “Killing In The Name,” which is also housed on their self-titled debut album. The band’s next show will be on Monday night in Chicago.

You can watch clips from the band’s first performance in 11 years in the videos below.

The romance between Elon Musk and Twitter seems to be over, with the Tesla honcho formally withdrawing from a deal that would have cost him a fortune. The two will likely now duke it out in court, which is bad news for them, but also bad news for a certain disgraced former president. Musk had floated the idea of reinstating the permanently banned account belonging to Donald Trump. But now that Musk is (probably) out, that frees Trump up to trash him at his rallies.

On Saturday, the legally perilous ex-leader was in Alaska, where he yet again teased his 2024 run, let Sarah Palin inarticulately ramble, and even literally took the (very weird) shirts off the back of at least one supporter. During his usual airing of grievances, he singled out Musk for degradation.

“Elon is not going to buy Twitter. Where did you hear that before? From me,” Trump said, which is actually true. “You know, he said the other day, Oh, I’ ve never voted for a Republican. I said: ‘I didn’t know that.’ He told me he voted for me. So he’s another bulls*it artist.”

Trump also called Musk’s scotched deal “rotten” and made a pitch for his own rinky-dink Twitter clone.

Anyway, not only does it take one to know one, but it’s a very rare case of Trump telling the truth, which he usually does by accident.

The Strokes are currently touring the world in support of their 2020 album The New Abnormal. Right now, the band is in Europe where they’ve performed at a few festivals including Denmark’s Rokslide Festival and Lancashire’s Lytham Festival. The Strokes’ latest stop was in Scotland for the 2022 TRNSMT Festival, and it’s here that fans were once again left worried about The Strokes’ lead vocalist, Julian Casablancas, after the performance. Some labeled his onstage behavior as “worrying” while others believed he was heavily intoxicated and in need of an “intervention.”

This isn’t the first time in the past week that fans have expressed their concerns about Casablancas. Following The Strokes’ set at Denmark’s Rokslide Festival, similar concerns were shared about Casablancas. After that performance, Casablancas took to Instagram to respond to fans’ worries in a now-deleted Instagram post. “I’m not tuned into twitter things enough to know what some confused fan thinks or pretends they know, but i’m fine… far as i know,” Casablancas wrote. “People been asking me weiiird questionnns – ahh the dumb side of social media… Lame-Os running around so hard and free.”

He added, “PS the concerns and questions are kind and fine! it’s the strangers announcing /acting like they know some sh*t that’s dumb. (weird questions not the dumb side haha).”

You can read the comments from those who watched The Strokes at the TRNSMT Festival below.

Over his decades-long career, Martin Scorsese has done so much for movies. Like his pal George Lucas, he’s a champion of film preservation. He’s helped out other filmmakers, like Akira Kurosawa, Spike Lee, and the Safdie brothers. And of course, he’s directed untold masterworks. But to some, he’s the guy who dissed comic book movies almost three years ago. Some have never gotten over it, including, it seems, comic book superfan and fellow filmmaker Kevin Smith.

In an interview with Forbes, Smith — who recently unveiled the first trailer for his threequel Clerks III — took some time to weigh in on how the maker of Goodfellas and Silence may not be so into movies like Thor: The Dark World or Aquaman.

“In our very tribal culture, somebody like Martin Scorsese referring to comic book movies as amusement parks and theme park rides gets a bunch of people who have made comic book movies their lives for the last 10 years very unhappy,” Smith said. But he does wonder why people were so shocked by his statements.

“You’re asking a guy who made ‘Goodfellas’ what he thinks about Spider-Man, what do you think you’re going to get?,” Smith said. “He’s a very serious filmmaker, and he’s a man who’s of a certain age and stuck in his ways. You should not be surprised that’s his response.”

Scorsese’s comments came around the time The Irishman was released, which became one of the most-watched original Netflix films in the streamer’s history. In an op-ed for The New York Times, he wrote, “I don’t think they’re cinema,” and bemoaned how they’ve cornered the market at the multiplexes. “In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever.” Indeed, The Irishman only had a tiny theatrical run, with most people watching it on their TV screens.

In the meantime, Smith this weekend got to celebrate a very important anniversary.

(Via Forbes)

Christian Bale is one of the silver screen’s most aggressive chameleons, willing to gain or lose a ton of weight for a role. (Though those days may be over.) But it appears he may have almost met his match in Gorr the God Butcher. In interviews, the Oscar-winning actor has already complained about one minor costume issue he had with playing the baddie of Thor: Love and Thunder. Turns out he nearly turned down the role over a sartorial choice.

In a new interview with The Wrap, Bale talks about when he was first offered the role, which led him to check out how his character is portrayed in the comics. That’s when he nearly passed on the gig.

“I did have a look briefly and said, ‘He’s got a G-string on. Nobody wants to see me like that,’” Bale said. “He was also crazy musclebound in the comics. And I was in the middle of making another film where I was really quite skinny. I said, ‘Dude, nobody wants to see me in a G-string.’”

As such, Bale and Waititi collaborated on a new, G-string-less version of the character, one that was different but just as imposing. And while the film has received mixed reviews, one thing most people agree on is that Bale nails it.

(Via The Wrap)

On Friday, Politico ran an opinion piece floating a wild idea: Maybe Jon Stewart should run for president. The idea was in reaction to the idea that Tucker Carlson could volley for the Republican ticket. After all, Stewart was the one that helped end his CNN tenure in the Bush II era. Alas, one of the piece’s detractors appears to be the man himself.

The day after the piece was published, Stewart dropped a cryptic — but not that cryptic — tweet, writing simply, “Ummm…No thank you.” He did not explain what he was referring to, but anyone paying attention to the news knew what he meant.

The Politico commentator wasn’t the only one who thought the 47th president should be the second host of The Daily Show. Pete Davidson recently opined that he’d make a fine commander-in-chief, but acknowledged that “he’s smart enough to not want the job.” Looks like he was right about that one.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden appears to still be adamant about running, despite his low ratings and frustration amongst his base over his lack of urgency in regards to matters like gun control and various radical Supreme Court rulings. On the other side of the aisle, it’s currently a battle between former president Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis. And it’s still only summer of 2022.

(Via Deadline)

A few months ago, it was announced that Polo G’s misdemeanor charges — public servant/influence performance threat and resisting an officer without violence — from his summer 2021 Miami arrest had been dropped. The charges were dropped after Polo G completed an anger management class. Prior to that, the two felony charges from the Miami incident, battery against a police officer and threatening a public servant, had also been dropped. With that being said, it was pretty clear that the saga between Polo G and the Miami PD was over, but that changed when a video of the rapper berating a Miami cop arrived online.

The video captures Polo G questioning and clowning the cop’s lifestyle and mocking his career path, and it’s earned a response from Polo G’s lawyer Bradford Cohen. In a conversation with TMZ, Cohen accused law enforcement of releasing what he describes as “heavily redacted” body cam footage that only features “the parts that disparage the defendant.” Cohen continued, “They didn’t show him getting slammed to the ground or the reason why was pulled over. Of course, they wouldn’t show that.”

Polo G’s lawyer believes that the body cam footage was released because the Miami Police Department is embarrassed about the whole incident. However, TMZ reached out to the Miami PD and a spokesperson said that the department is not responsible for the video’s release. In response, Cohen said there is clearly a leak at the Miami PD. “I have never seen a department react to their malfeasance by disseminating highly edited disparaging video,” he said, adding that the “childish” move is why “a lot of people are losing faith in policing.”