Category: News

For game designer Elaine Gomez, the goal of her nonprofit Latinx in Gaming is more than just “raising awareness.”

“It’s super important to see characters that look like you in games because that inspires people at another level,” Gomez tells UPROXX. “But [we’re here] to really change people’s lives, not just speak about needing more Latinos in games.”

There’s often a trickle-down relationship between representation and systemic change, but it can be frustratingly slow, especially for people like Gomez and fellow Latinx in Gaming co-founder and game designer Fernando Reyes. Both have faced roadblocks in their own careers and they want to prevent the next generation from encountering those same issues.

“Getting into the game industry is hard for anyone, but even harder for us,” Reyes, who’s originally from Mexico, says. “There were so many immigration problems that I faced: getting a work visa into the US, adapting to a new culture, learning a different language [so I could] explain my ideas. It was ridiculous, the amount of challenges that I had to face compared to others. If there’s anything that I could do to prevent other people from going through the same challenges, or, even if they have to go through them, to not go alone. I think that’s a success for me and for what the organization stands for.”

The group was initially founded at the Game Developers Conference a few years ago. Its president, Cristina Amaya, was looking for a way to revive the Latinx chapter of the International Games Developers Association. Gomez was part of the initial group she recruited, and Reyes joined soon after, having spent time working with the pair while organizing community events for Microsoft. The initial goal of the group hasn’t changed much over the years – though everything else about it has. They’ve got more money, more reach, and a more secure status as a nonprofit, but the founding principle of creating a space for Latinx gamers to connect, share their experiences, and help each other to succeed is still the same.

“Of course, now that we have bigger budgets and more resources to create projects, we can start giving to this community that we built,” Reyes says. “But primarily it’s all about connecting people.”

They do that by mostly listening to the needs of their community and meeting them when and where they can. The group has held panels at game conferences, inviting people to share the issues they’re facing – whether they’re game creators or just perspective gamers.

“It’s really interesting to hear the challenges that Latin American game developers face versus one’s overseas,” Gomez shares. “The issues are astronomically different. Everybody wants to know, ‘How do I get a visa to work at a big company like Ubisoft or Electronic Arts?’ and we’re trying to figure out, ‘Well, how can we help?’”

As Gomez explains it, the answer often leads to “really difficult conversations” regarding how different governments work and the disparate access to legal counsel. It’s inspired the group to offer workshops and online resources for prospective developers as well as help purchase needed equipment and software for hopeful content creators looking to level up their Twitch streams or just get started in online gaming.

“We are trying to make an impact as consciously and intentionally as possible so that people can reach their dreams and make that a reality.”

Another challenge the organization faces is, perhaps, an unexpected one: diversity.

Here in the states, we have an unfortunately narrow view of Latinx culture but Reyes and Gomez both know that there can be big differences depending on which country you hail from, which customs you keep, which dialect you speak, etc. That’s why they’re reaching out to people in those countries to learn what their specific needs are and how best to meet them.

“It’s a challenge on its own trying to serve such a diverse community,” Reyes says. “But I think we have tried to find the common ground. We have [members] representing their countries on the Latin American side within Latinx in Gaming. Just being in contact with the community itself and asking, ‘What is it that you need?” had helped solve things.”

The nonprofit regularly spotlights Latinx content creators with its large database of Latinx game devs and industry contacts, but it also provides a professional networking space where gamers can get help with resumes and job interviews, or just connect about pop culture. It’s a wide net they’re casting, but Reyes thinks that’s why they’ve been successful – they offer the tools and let the community decide what it needs.

“We really believe in the impact at a single individual level and at a country level, which is very ambitious, but I think that’s the way to do it if you have a very big community.”

The group has partnered with companies like PlayStation, Nintendo, Microsoft, and more to host job fairs and online events over the past year to help Latinx gamers stay connected. They recently won the Global Gaming Citizen Award for their work in the community in 2020. And they have big dreams for the future. Gomez hopes to one day create an incubator fund where Latinx in Gaming can sponsor creators within the community, funding their projects while they focus solely on building them. For Reyes, he dreams of turning Latin American cities into the next gaming hub, with the industry doing for places like Bogota, Columbia what it did for Montreal – arguably the biggest city for gaming ventures right now.

But both recognize the work is just beginning. Though big developers are beginning to invest more in representation and inclusion, they need to partner with groups like Latinx in Gaming to do it right.

“It’s still very young and the intention is there,” Reyes explains. “It can be very easy to just pretend that you are actively helping the situation, investing the money in projects that actually don’t give you any results. We have been doing this for a while and we understand the situation and the challenges. If they put actual resources to help enable us to create meaningful impact, that’s the way to go.”

Again, it’s one rung of the ladder at a time.

“I think that we’re getting there,” Reyes says. “But this is the start of the journey rather than the end.”

It’s pretty early in the first episode of Hawkeye when you see director Rhys Thomas’s unique touch. As you saw in the trailer, Hawkeye has poor Clint Barton having to sit through something called Rogers: The Musical that features a musical version of the Battle of New York that we see in the first Avengers movie. And, yes, Clint is miserable. And Rogers: The Musical itself is, as Thomas puts it, his specialty of, “not too good, not too bad,” that he perfected on SNL and Documentary Now!.

Hawkeye, so far (I was given two episodes before this interview) is about the relationship between Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and the Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) who becomes his protegee after she gets into some hot water after stealing, then wearing, his Ronin costume from Avengers: Endgame. (Clint made a lot of enemies during that time period and now they think Kate is the person who caused all their troubles.)

Hawkeye borrows a lot from Matt Fraction’s highly popular run with Hawkeye from the Marvel comics and, as Thomas says, Fraction is a consultant on the show. But how that happened isn’t probably quite how you think that might happen. And it all comes back to Seth Meyers.

Pretty much right off the bat in the first episode we get Rogers: The Musical, which feels very up your alley with your background with Documentary Now! and SNL.

Yeah. That musical, early on, we were trying to figure out what’s a fun way to meet Clint. We knew he was going to be in the city with his kids, and how do you sort of introduce him? And my brain just got to work on what was the last place that he’d want to be?

You found it.

And I threw it out there in a meeting with Kevin Feige. And I kind of almost immediately backtracked on it as well. Because, suddenly, I was like, hang on a second, we’re going to have to write music and choreograph it and stage it. And it’s still a lot of work. But Kevin really took hold of it and got excited. And then next thing I know I’m getting to work with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. And, again, I think I tapped into my specialty of making something “not too good, not too bad.”

That does seem like a tricky balance: It’s got to be good enough to be entertaining, but bad enough to be funny.

Exactly. You just want it to be absurd. And, yes, I obviously had to meet the standard of this is a musical about Steve Rogers in the MCU. So obviously, it needs to feel big and produced well.

Clint getting angry at the Battle of New York scene, “Ant-Man wasn’t even there!” and then there’s Ant-Man dancing on stage is very funny.

And, again, Jeremy’s face, that’s the thing. You knew you were kind of in golden territory, because all you need to do is cut to Jeremy’s face at any point in that performance and you’re fine.

So I didn’t know until recently that Matt Fraction is involved in the production?

Yeah, he’s a consulting producer.

What does that mean? Do you talk to him? Because everyone loves his run with Hawkeye. How often do you actually consult with him?

What’s funny is, actually, I was introduced to Matt Fraction through Seth Meyers.

Oh really?

Because they’re friends.

Actually, that makes sense. Mike Shoemaker is a big comic guy, too.

Yeah. So they’re actually friends and so I kind of, Matt was just someone that I could reach out to and ask questions. He shared playlists with me. I was a huge fan of that run and so it was just kind of crazy to be able to go like, “Well, hey, what about this?” So I don’t know, he’s like a confidant slash correspondent.

So how does Seth make that introduction? is it over email? Or was it in person?

No, it was an email thing. Because I started talking to Marvel about it and sort of, kind of, got in there, I think, through persistence. But I didn’t know about the Seth connection. But I brought up Hawkeye with Seth and that I was kind of talking to them about it and kind of working and starting to figure it out. And he was like, “Oh, I know Matt!” And the next thing I know I’m emailing with Matt.

So, famously, Matt Fraction’s run is what he’s doing when he’s not saving the world. But how far can you take that angle with a live-action series? My guess is, “We want some of that, but we can’t probably do all of that.”

No, exactly. Again, luckily, I think that’s where sometimes you also have the safe hands of Kevin Feige and Marvel behind you because I probably would’ve gladly spent more time just sitting with Jeremy in an apartment staring at the wall. Because I do find that approach to that character so refreshing and funny. But you’re inheriting the Jeremy Renner, Clint Barton of 10 years of the MCU as well. And, so, I think it was a constant line. The philosophy I sort of came to understand at Marvel is, “best idea wins.” And, so, I kind of unabashedly kept grabbing on to things that I enjoyed from the run and grabbing on situations and I think just trying to get to that character. What I liked is the character study of Fraction. And so wherever I could find ways that we could kind of be hitting the same tone, whether it’s a different approach, that was the goal, ultimately.

It’s interesting Hailee Steinfeld was, famously, up for Katniss in The Hunger Games. With Kate Bishop, did you ever joke, see, you finally get your bow and arrow role?

[Laughs] No, I didn’t gloat or anything over that. Again, it’s so amazing. You’re introducing this character to the MCU. And so I think we both… the other day when we showed the show in London, Hailee sort of said, “We’ve come a long way on this.” And it is, it’s crazy. Again, it’s been a year. And to watch her grow into the role and evolve has been super cool.

I am curious where you come from with Hawkeye. I’ve loved Hawkeye since I was a little kid reading West Coast Avengers, and I’m just curious, were you always interested in him? Because I feel like, just knowing your prior work, that it would be a kind of a character you like because of his attitude towards things.

I think that was it really. I would not identify myself as a comic book nerd. Because, again, I know what that really means to people. But, I think my entry point was the MCU Clint. But I was always fascinated by, again, this human guy. And the fact that he gets hurt and that sort of journey and the way that he also kind of had this identity as kind of the fifth Beatle. I kind of enjoyed the way the audiences were kind of not that excited about it sometimes. But then I came across the Fraction run. You know, I think as a result of hunting it down and kind of looking. And obviously, other Hawkeye runs, but… I don’t know. That was always amazing: to find this run that actually tapped into what my brain wanted to know about this guy. And it was kind of the way that, if I was going to do this, this is how I’d approach it as well. It’s so funny.

See, that’s the way to play it, “I’m not a comic book nerd.” Because once you do that, then you start getting the, “Okay, well, in West Coast Avengers 15 what happens,” questions…

Exactly.

You don’t want to be quizzed.

Yeah, exactly. It’s terrifying.

The first two episodes of Marvel’s ‘Hawkeye’ will premiere on Disney+ on November 24, 2021. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Oscars love conspicuous acting. The harder it feels like an actor is working, the more awards voters seem love it. That’s the only conclusion I can draw from the Oscar buzz around Will Smith’s performance as Venus and Serena Williams’ father in the new movie King Richard. It’s not a great performance, but it’s certainly a big one. Almost as if Will Smith got so tired of being overlooked (he was nominated for The Pursuit Of Happyness and Ali) that he figured he’d better shout to be heard. It is hard to fault this logic based on the actors who actually have won Oscars lately.

An odd thing happens when you watch the first five minutes of King Richard, or even the trailer. My first thought, and the friends I’ve spoken to had the same reaction, was Wow, Will Smith is really hamming this up, isn’t he? Then I wondered, Well, maybe the real Richard Williams actually sounded like this, and had to pull up some clips. Based on what I found, the real Richard Williams didn’t sound like that, or at least felt like a much more subdued version of whatever Foghorn Leghorn-meets-Bagger-Vance thing Will Smith is doing in King Richard. Working through a scraggly beard and dirty teeth, Smith turns “heard” becomes “hoid,” “work” into “woik,” and always pluralizes words like “people” and “feet,” become “peoples” and “feets.” But hey, maybe that’s just what Oscar performances are now; odd, obvious dramatic choices that take 10 or 15 minutes of screen time to get used to. Gosh, he sure is ACTING, isn’t he?

Eventually, you do get used to his collection of conspicuous affectations. Will Smith is never a bad actor even if in this case he is sort of an obnoxious one. Yet King Richard‘s story raises even bigger questions. Namely, are we now living in the age of the vanity biopic?

King Richard, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Joe Bell, Monsters and Men) with a script by Zach Baylin, executive produced by three of the Williams sisters, is the slickest exercise in image management I’ve seen since Straight Outta Compton. King Richard is essentially The Pursuit Of Happyness with tennis, the supposedly-true tale of a kooky genius who was convinced he was destined for greatness (either as the father of tennis stars or as a rich stockbroker) and pursued it doggedly, unconventionally, refusing to listen to all the people who told him it could never work until it finally did. And in both cases, the selling of life rights to the movie you’re now watching is the ultimate trophy of success. The question isn’t so much “how much of this story is just bullshit mythmaking” (most of it, I’m guessing) but what’s new here? What insight did we gain from all this rising and grinding?

If you were looking for a glimpse into the personalities of Venus and Serena Williams, two of the greatest tennis athletes of all time, you will be thrilled to learn that, according to King Richard, they played tennis a lot. They were mostly just charming, happy-go-lucky children, they always listened to their parents and never fought. Never got jealous of each other! Not even once! Even if Straight Outta Compton was equally an unabashed infomercial for all things Ice Cube as King Richard is for all things Williams family, it’s a bit more interesting to see Cube recording “F*ck Tha Police” than it is to see the Williams sisters hit tennis balls.

King Richard is content, mostly, to shine a flattering light on things we already know while avoiding the truly interesting questions. The film positions Richard Williams as simultaneously the ultimate psychotically-driven sports parent (a category with many historical examples, from Earl Woods to Marv Marinovich) and the anti-psychotically-driven sports parent. He was a psycho, but for making sure his children didn’t burn out! The signature moment in this telling comes basically verbatim from the real-life incident in which an interviewer asks Venus Williams about her confidence, and then, when he keeps pressing her, Richard Williams jumps in and cuts it off early, making the point that she’s a 14-year-old child and the guy doesn’t need to keep trying to puncture her confidence. It’s a nice moment, of Richard Williams being willing to be the asshole in the moment, for the greater good of protecting his daughter and checking a too-intrusive media.

Yet the only possible takeaway from it is “Gosh, what a great guy,” or, generously, “Gosh, what a complicated man who turned out to be right all along. You might not want to live with him but he sure knew how to raise tennis stars!”

There’s a thornier question here, and maybe a uniquely American one, about whether life is really something you can “win” or “lose” — about whether good parenting is designed to set your children up for “success” or to create happy, interesting, compassionate children. King Richard is far too withholding of Venus and Serena Williams’s images to ever explore this in any meaningful way. There’s one lone scene in which Aunjanue Ellis, in a solidly understated performance as the girls’ mother, Oracene Williams, calls Richard to the carpet for his glory hogging, as well as revealing his relative lack of attention towards his five children from a previous marriage. Yet this line of inquiry vanishes as quickly as it appears, and I only know the number of Williams’ other kids because I looked it up on Wikipedia afterward.

Jennifer Capriati, meanwhile, is held up as the ultimate example of When Sports Parenting Goes Wrong. The evidence for this is her arrest as a teenager (for shoplifting and pot) and the fact that she ended up winning fewer tournaments. But… maybe she was happy? What, other than tennis, was the difference between Capriati and the Williamses? That King Richard never even pays cursory lip service to these kinds of questions tells you a lot about its purpose and its built-in blind spots. It has the same kind of shark-eyed single-mindedness that has made people wonder if Will Smith is a Scientologist.

King Richard is another kooky success story that never really interrogates what it means to be successful. Richard Williams wrote up an 80-page business plan! He made his daughters practice in the rain! What an unconventional genius! In one scene, Richard Williams confronts CPS officers who have shown up at the home thanks to a call from a concerned neighbor. Williams has the kids spell hard words and prove the foreign languages they speak and the neighbor is written off as a buttinsky and a hater. But was she really the bad guy in this scenario? In any story not told so firmly from the perspective of the Williams family, we might actually be able to explore that further.

‘King Richard’ is available now in theaters and on HBO Max. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can check out his film review archive here.

Those who love live music, or have spent their careers working in the medium, have spent the last couple of years in limbo. Twin questions are looming for most people: When shows will return? And: When will I be ready to return to a show? Even as vaccines have helped facilitate a slow return to some form of normalcy, variants, the still-obvious risk factors, and a growing number of rescheduled and canceled tours keep the pandemic and the threat of Covid-19 at the front of the conversation. But this fall, into that void of fear, uncertainty, and anxiety stepped Harry Styles. Styles remains the ideal pop star for our next decade and the perfect host for plenty of fans to return to large gatherings without trepidation.

As the once and future breakout star of One Direction, Harry is an ideal performer to be throwing a lavish, kindness-infused show during a season of grief and uneasiness. He’s a seasoned vet when it comes to massive crowds, and he’s an expert MC who controls the emotion of the crowd with firm but friendly banter throughout his time on stage. He does all that, and still delivers one of the best pop performances of the last two decades. Already tapped during his first solo tour as a kingmaking performer with the ability to create an entire universe during his allotted set time, Harry set out off on rescheduled tour dates back in September, eager to bring his critically-acclaimed Fine Line album to a global audience of hungry fans.

As a fiercely inclusive icon who urges his audience to embrace themselves wholeheartedly, Styles is uniquely situated to be one of the first major pop acts returning to the stage in 2021. That’s in large part due to his self-proclaimed motto “Treat People With Kindness,” and when the song of the same name began during a tour-closing set at The Forum in LA this weekend, the track’s resonance overtook any overly earnest vibes that might’ve clouded the song’s impact when it came out two years ago. Even with just two albums out, there’s a number of songs that diehard fans seem to treasure as their own, and “TPWK” is one of them. On the other hand, some of the Fine Line-era singles have gotten so big – “Watermelon Sugar,” “Adore You” and “Golden” among them — that even attendees without much knowledge of the Styles canon seemed to at least know the hits.

But let’s face it, most people braving an indoor arena show at the end of 2021 aren’t casual fans, they’re the ones who have been looking forward to this moment for the last eighteen months. During his Saturday night show, Harry made it clear that his appreciation for and trust in the audience was just as strong as their appreciation for and trust in him. Joking about the diamond-shaped stage in the middle of the venue, he let fans know he’d be spending equal time facing them and facing away from them — pausing to let the whole room clap for his ass. This kind of easy camaraderie cut through any tension from the crush of getting into the packed venue, and set the expectation that each person at the set was just as important as the next. Sure, he might cater to his ever-whorling GA pit of most devoted listeners, but there was never a moment the rest of the stadium didn’t feel Harry’s star power, too.

That charisma was spotlighted most during moments like his clever cover of the One Direction standout, “What Makes You Beautiful,” or in quiet moments, like the interpolation of “Two Ghosts” that lead into a rendition of “Falling.” Though Fine Line might be getting more attention at the moment, Styles is careful to create a bridge between the two records, honoring early fan-favorites like “Cherry” and throwing in his debut solo single, the ’70s-throwback anthem “Sign Of The Times,” at the beginning of a lengthy four-song encore.

Finishing that encore with the unreleased cult favorite “Medicine,” his number one banger, “Watermelon Sugar,” and the dance-pit-frenzy-causing “Kiwi,” Styles left it all on the floor and then some. His insistence on creating a safe, passionate place for fans to enjoy his music live has turned his tour into one of the most powerful forces for good during an apprehensive year. And the excellence and unpredictably creative energy of his performances have helped prove that in-person concerts aren’t some kind of unnecessary luxury — they’re as much a space for healing as they are for entertainment. Check out the final setlist for Love On Tour below.

Harry Styles at The Forum, Saturday 11/20
1. “Golden”
2. “Carolina”
3. “Adore You”
4. “Only Angel”
5. “She”
6. “Two Ghosts” intro into “Falling”
7. “Sunflower, Vol. 6”
8. “Woman”
9. “Cherry”
10. “Canyon Moon”
11. “Treat People With Kindness”
12. “What Makes You Beautiful”
13. “Fine Line”

ENCORE
14. “Sign Of The Times”
15. “Medicine”
16. “Watermelon Sugar”
17. “Kiwi”

Howard Stern continued his relentless dunking on Aaron Rodgers on Monday morning by blasting the quarterback for seeking medical treatment for his recent toe injury after “doing his own research” about the COVID vaccine. While no one’s quite sure how Rodgers injured his toe (maybe tripping over one of his, uh, large appendages) Stern once again blasted the Green Bay quarterback for recklessly lying about his vaccination status and taking health advice from Joe Rogan.

Stern also slammed the NFL, which he says “should be ashamed of themselves” for keeping the “f*ckhead” Rodgers around after he “put people in danger.” Via Mediaite:

“Now I hear he has a toe injury. When he had the toe injury – did he go to the doctor or did he go to Joe Rogan? Who fixed his toe?” Stern asked. “I bet you he went to a doctor, so he goes to doctors for everything else, but on the vaccine he’s listening to Joe Rogan.”

Stern has been a vocal critic of anti-vaxxers, so naturally, he hasn’t been gone easy on Rodgers who, as a professional NFL quarterback, has a large platform to influence people’s decision about the vaccine. After Terry Bradshaw and the Hall of Famers called out Rodgers for lying about his vaccine status, Stern backed them up on his radio show the next morning.

“If there was decency in this world, I would throw this guy out of the football league so fast,” Stern said. “What he did to his fellow teammates — and bravo Terry Bradshaw for what you said and everyone else whose got half a brain in this country — but this f*cking guy, they should throw him out of the league so fast. … He said he got his information from Joe Rogan. You’ve got doctors who go to medical school — I don’t know what’s happened to this country.”

(Via Mediaite)

It has been a few months since we last received word on Phife Dawg’s posthumous album, Forever. The late member of A Tribe Called Quest had been working on the album at the time of his death and it was initially to have been released in the first quarter of 2017, but those plans were scrapped and the album had been in limbo ever since. However, in late 2020, Tribe released a statement promising the album’s release sometime in 2021 and the first single, “Nutshell Part 2,” was released in February, followed by an animated music video in March.

A live-action video followed a few weeks later, and in May, a second single, “French Kiss Deux,” dropped, but since then, there has been little information about the status of the album itself. Today, though, A Tribe Called Quest was finally able to announce an official release date for the long-awaited project: March 22, 2022, the sixth anniversary of Phife’s passing. Dion Liverpool, a frequent Phife collaborator, helped to finish the album and will also be releasing it through his Smokin’ Needles Records imprint, distributed by AWAL.

In a statement, Liverpool said, “We faced a lot of ups and downs trying to get the album completed, and only by God’s grace and patience were we able to. I would like to thank his fans for being patient and understanding that nothing that is good and timeless will happen overnight. I took on the responsibility to help the family complete Forever and honored that I was trusted to do so.” Phife’s widow, Deisha Taylor, added, “As we celebrate his life on this day, we are overwhelmed with excitement of completing Forever. This album is truly a masterpiece and will exceed all expectations. The world will absolutely love and cherish this amazing album.”

His mother, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, was also quoted, saying, “Forever, soon come. His voice a steel pan cruising the sea salt edge of Trini waters. A balm, a salve, a son’s kiss on his mama’s cheek.”

The Succession Report Card is a weekly recap feature where we attempt to assign grades to the important people, things, and themes from each episode of Succession. The grades are entirely subjective and the criteria for scoring will change from week to week and occasionally mid-week. Someone might get detention. It’ll probably be Roman.

Vice President Dave

Let’s see:

• Might be a vegetarian
• Does the weird lip-licking thing
• Logan keeps calling him “Dave” to his face even though he’s the Vice President, and asked him to bring over a Coke like he’s a college intern

Dave is not going to be President.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Charisma

Connor

Connor keeps trying to push himself as an option for President to anyone who will listen and everyone who isn’t as dense as a hunk of lead — so, everyone but Connor, basically — knows it’ll never happen but they’re all either too diplomatic or too afraid of Logan or too wooed by Willa and the collective leg to say it. At one point, Logan even tossed it out to the room with an evil little twinkle in his eye and everyone started hemming and hawing like they were searching for the words to say “Freaking no, duh, look at him” until finally my sweet boy Greg actually said it out loud, for the good of the nation.

Connor will also not be President.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Situational awareness

Prison

I mean, based on everything I know about it and everything Tom has been reading on the blogs, it doesn’t seem like a great time. No thanks. Pass.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Food quality, pillow security, decreasing misadventures

Willa

On one hand, Willa looks as miserable as any person who has ever lived, sitting there at this gathering of demons, getting waltzed around by Connor like some sort of show pony, having to do this awful whole political dance that I can’t imagine she thought she was signing up for when she hitched her wagon to this bozo a few years back.

On the other hand… actually, no. There really isn’t another hand. Between all this and her play just sinking to the bottom of the sea like a torpedoed submarine, Willa is not having fun right now.

GRADE: D-

MUST IMPROVE: Romantic entanglements

Various Karls, Frank, and Karolinas

Slim pickings for this group this week as most of them were sidelined during the big trip. I do have to give Hugo credit, though, for delivering the line about no one of significance going to prison with Tom “Christmas Tree” Wambsgans standing right there in front of him. That was a good piece of business.

What do you think Karl and Frank were up to this whole time? Like, what did they have planned while this Ghoul Ceremony was taking place in Virginia to choose the next President? My working theories are as follows: Frank was hosting a barbecue and working the grill and wearing an apron with a goofy slogan on it, like “I Didn’t Burn It, I Added Flavor”; Karl was watching golf on television and sipping lemonade through a straw.

I’m weirdly sure of this.

GRADE: D-

MUST IMPROVE: Being invited to the party

Jeryd Mencken

Notes on this turd:

• A YouTube provocateur and possible white supremacist who at one point referred to Hitler as “H”
• Seems to have wooed Logan based on “getting it” and “popping” even though — or perhaps because? — he referred to Logan in the past tense and was dismissive of the entire ATN operation, like he’s some sort of pickup artiste out here negging the kingmakers
• Dropped a “Have you read Plato?” on Shiv like the biggest weenie alive
• Spells his first name “Jeryd”

I hate him very much. Which is complicated by the thing where he’s played by Justin Kirk, who plays scoundrels as well as anyone alive, and who I love very much. Real dilemma here.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: Just, like, not being this way, at all

Gerri

I choose to believe that everything Roman did and pushed into existence this week only happened because Gerri was not there to steer him back onto course using the Sex Mommy face she makes at him when he’s being a naughty little boy. I did not enjoy typing the second half of that sentence but here we all are now. No going back.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: Gerri needs a hobby, perhaps tennis

Shiv

Sheeeeesh, not a great week for Shiv, what with her husband moping around about prison and her dad calling her a sourpuss and a slick Nazi getting elevated by the family operation over her repeated passionate objections. There was a point where she and Roman were arguing over it all and Shiv said “my opinion counts for more” with this look of incredulity on her face, like she couldn’t believe any of it was happening, like she’s not as much of a dopey goon as the rest of them, especially in Logan’s eyes at this point.

It was somehow the saddest and funniest thing possible in the moment and it ended with her getting bullied into posing for a picture with the creep. Shiv is doing bad.

GRADE: D+

MUST IMPROVE: Finding a new family

Kendall

Good news:

• Might be on the road to wooing Tom
• Got another excuse to wear his black hat real low over his eyes, which he does when he’s in subterfuge mode and I suspect he likes doing a lot
• Is planning a rager 40th birthday party

Bad news:

• Is drinking kind of a lot
• Fired his lawyer because she told him things he didn’t want to hear
• Tom made a good point about him getting screwed all the time while Logan always walks away free, which does not fill potential conspirators or the audience at home with much confidence

I hope we get an entire episode about this birthday party. I hope he tries to rap again. I need to be incredibly clear about the fact that I am not joking here.

GRADE: C-

MUST IMPROVE: Taking criticism

Lisa Arthur

Lisa was on-screen for maybe six minutes total and got off two of the best lines in the entire episode between “I don’t do requests because I’m not a DJ” and “Do you think you’re smarter than me?” And she’s probably better off removing herself from the entire Roy circle of hell. Still embarrassing to get fired by a loser like Kendall this far into the process.

GRADE: C

MUST IMPROVE: Figuring out which horse to hitch her wagon to

Caroline and her new husband Peter Onion

Congrats to the happy couple.

GRADE: C+

MUST IMPROVE: Communicating with her children

Toilets, generally

You ever sit around and think about how weird it is that this is just how we as a society have decided to dispose of our body’s waste material? Like, how we disappear into a separate room and unload it all into a bottomless chair filled with water and then zip it all off down a drain and into some location we do not ruminate on ever again? Because I had not thought about it at all until I heard this guy go on his extended rant about toilets being both a gentleman and a bastard and now it’s kind of all I can think about.

I’m fine. It’s fine. Let’s just move on.

GRADE: C+

MUST IMPROVE: I SAID LET’S MOVE ON

Logan

While the temptation here — and probably the correct decision — is to dock Logan points for the combination of endorsing a creepo red-pill fascist for President and just generally being a black-hearted manipulative goober, we must credit the man for appearing to dance away from prosecution and securing that late-night Coca-Cola. He’ll be up all night from the caffeine and sugar, and he’s tearing the country and his family apart at the seams, but he does get results, I guess.

GRADE: B-

MUST IMPROVE: Playing better with others

Roman

In the interest of being fully transparent here, which I feel I owe you on an account of me giving Roman a good grade for an episode in which he successfully pushed an abrasive dipshit toward the Oval Office and had a mini-meltdown over his mommy’s new fiancé, this grade is based almost entirely on the thing where Shiv revealed that he once greenlit a movie titled “Dr. Honk” about a man who can talk to cars.

GRADE: B-

MUST IMPROVE: Following through on the Dr. Honk cinematic universe

Tom

To the bullet points once again:

• Is not doing great
• Keeps Googling prison things in a way that seems both massively unhealthy for him on a personal level and massively annoying for anyone around him to have to hear about
• Slandered diner food, which I will not stand for
• Is being called “the Christmas tree” because people — EVEN GREG — are hanging their crimes off of him like ornaments
• At one point Kendall called him a “country mouse,” which was uncalled for even if it was true
• Kendall snapped pics of him after their secret meeting and Tom was so hopelessly depressed that he didn’t even try to do anything about it even though he could almost certainly defeat Kendall in physical combat with such ease that it wouldn’t even burn off 10 percent of the calories he consumed in that disturbingly large meal he ate

I hope he turns on everyone, Kendall included, and burns it all down. I would love to see Chaos Tom. I think we might be inching that way.

GRADE: B+

MUST IMPROVE: Spine-growing, embracing anarchy

Kendall’s idiot friends

I need to see this collection of goofballs every week, weighing in on everything, up to and including the finer points of his new legal strategy.

GRADE: A-

MUST IMPROVE: I feel like one of them should have a performative mustache

Jess Jordan

Jess did nothing this week other than get Kendall Tom’s phone number and hover around that gathering of Kendall’s doofus bro friends, but she still gets an A based on a combination of three things:

• Track record
• HBO included her in an official promo image for the show, which I appreciate
• It’s fun to imagine her on the phone with her family and friends trying to explain her typical day at work, and I recommend you carve out some time to do that this week

Jess rules.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: Leave her alone

Cousin Greg

To recap: Greg is not getting any inheritance because his grandfather is giving the fortune to Greenpeace, but someone wrote a comment about it that Greenpeace promoted, so now Greg is considering suing Greenpeace for defamation and that made him the type of star at this Heathen Cabal that he’s crowdsurfing through a bar like he’s Axl Rose or something.

He’s definitely a little weasel. He has zero morals and it’s all getting a little worse every day. He’s as fueled by self-interest and self-preservation as Logan is and it manifests itself in ugly ways when he starts feeling himself getting cornered. But he’s also a sweet lanky boy who is worried about prison and spoke out about Connor’s presidential ambitions because he “owes it to the country.”

I apologize for nothing.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: Minimizing the Greg window

Stephen Root, generally

All Stephen Root has been doing for like 20 years now is popping up in awesome television shows as slimeballs and just bringing me heaps of joy about it all. He popped up in Justified as a kooky loose cannon judge who carried a gun and treated his courtroom like its own little sovereign county. He popped up on Barry as Bill Haden’s soulless handler/mentor who plays any angle he sees that will advance his personal interest. And now he’s on Succession as a sleazy mega-donor who is helping Logan pick a President and hitting on Willa and just schmoozing other creeps with a drink in his hand and a twinkle in his eye.

Two things are true here:

• While I am thrilled to have him on the show now, in hindsight it does feel like he should have been involved much earlier, just because no fit has ever been as perfect as “Stephen Root + Succession”
• I shouted “THAT’S STEPHEN ROOT” when he appeared on screen

This is all good news.

GRADE: A+

MUST IMPROVE: Being a castmember in, like, The Righteous Gemstones next

During the most recent edition of Ye’s Sunday Service, his Sunday Service Choir introduced an unusual new selection to its repertoire: Drake’s 2018 no. 1 hit, “God’s Plan.” While the choir has played numerous contemporary classics over the course of the past few years, this one was different in that Kanye and Drake had been feuding for nearly the entirety of the choir’s existence. Although the origins of the feud remain unclear to this day, the performance of the new song was made possible by the recent ceasefire the two stars called at the behest of J. Prince and Larry Hoover Jr.

In fact, Ye was apparently so amped about their reconciliation, the choir not only opened Sunday Service with “God’s Plan,” but also reprised it after several Donda songs, according to HipHopDX. The performance may well have constituted a preview of Drake and Ye’s upcoming concert to benefit the elder Larry Hoover’s efforts to have his life prison sentence commuted, which the pair officially announced yesterday as well.

The concert is set for December 9 at the Los Angeles Coliseum and will see the two rappers join each other on stage for the first time in nearly a decade. The architect behind both the concert and the truce was apparently Houston impresario (and rumored threatening figure) J. Prince, who first posted alongside Kanye imploring Drake to bury the hatchet before the two rappers were seen together with Prince in a photo suggesting they’d done just that.

After starring in hit after hit and winning an Academy Award for her efforts, Jennifer Lawrence had a rough 2016 through 2019. She starred in two little-loved X-Men movies (X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, the most contractually obligated movie of all-time); Passengers and Red Sparrow were quickly forgotten; and while mother! has its passionate defenders, it also received a rare “F” CinemaScore grade. Other movies to get an “F” CinemaScore include Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s Disaster Movie and the Lindsay Lohan-starring I Know Who Killed Me. Not ideal company.

Following Dark Phoenix, Lawrence took a hiatus from acting to get married, have a kid, and as she explained to Vanity Fair, re-focus on choosing better projects. “I was not pumping out the quality that I should have,” she said. “I just think everybody had gotten sick of me. I’d gotten sick of me. It had just gotten to a point where I couldn’t do anything right. If I walked a red carpet, it was, ‘Why didn’t she run?’ I think that I was people-pleasing for the majority of my life. Working made me feel like nobody could be mad at me: ‘Okay, I said yes, we’re doing it. Nobody’s mad.’ And then I felt like I reached a point where people were not pleased just by my existence. So that kind of shook me out of thinking that work or your career can bring any kind of peace to your soul.”

The time away from Hollywood seems to have worked: hype is high for her next movie, Don’t Look Up, where she and Leonardo DiCaprio play scientists who try to save Earth from an approaching comet. Lawrence will also star in an A24 movie, Red, White, and Water; Paolo Sorrentino’s Mob Girl; and possibly a biopic of Theranos founder and con artist Elizabeth Holmes, which is excellent casting. The press tour has been fun, too:

It’s good to have J-Law back.

(Via Vanity Fair)

This past spring, Will Forte told us that he was patiently waiting for Peacock to officially greenlight the MacGruber TV show, and a few months later, word came down that the series was happening. Peacock has now announced a premiere date (December 16), which is approximately 11 years after the MacGruber film, which was (of course) based upon Forte’s recurring SNL sketch. The raunchiness of the film, co-starring Kristen Wiig as MacGruber’s sidekick (Vicki St. Elmo), surpassed the network incarnation of the sketch, but sadly, the title character’s sitting in prison these days, and that’s where this first teaser clip (a jailhouse interview) comes into play.

As you can see, MacGruber isn’t exactly friendly when (a decade into his life sentence following the demise of Val Kilmer’s Dieter Von Cunth) quizzed upon the specifics of why he told the court to “eat my sh*t,” and so on. It’s no wonder that Forte once promised fans that that this series (written by Forte) was too “filthy” for network TV. Here are details from the show’s synopsis:

After rotting in prison for over a decade, America’s ultimate hero and uber patriot MacGruber (Will Forte) is finally released. His mission: to take down a mysterious villain from his past — Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth (Billy Zane). With the entire world in the crosshairs, MacGruber must reassemble his old team, Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe), in order to defeat the forces of evil.

In other words, welcome back to the aviator sunglasses. Forte and Lorne Michaels both executive produce here, and god only knows whether his “Disgraced American Hero” vibe will fly. Expect to see some Mickey Rourke in this series, and here are some first-look stills, including the return of Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe, along with the gloriously bewigged Sam Elliot and ultra-serious Laurence Fishburne.

MacGruber comes to Peacock on December 16.