Category: News

With summer on its way out and the Delta variant on its way in, we could all use a mental and emotional pick-me-up. Here are 10 things that brought a smile to our faces this week. We hope they do the same for you.

1. The top two high jump champions choosing to share the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

When they tied for first place, they could have done a jump-off to see who got gold and who got silver. But Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi, who are friends both on and off the field, opted to share the gold medal—and their celebration is one for the ages. Read the story here.

2. Speaking of golden Olympic moments, how these swimmers celebrated with Tatjana Schoenmaker when she broke the world record.

At the end of the day, the Olympics is about excellence, sportsmanship, and international friendship. This reaction of South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker to breaking a world record in the 200-meter breaststroke is great, but the way her competitors shared in her joy is totally delightful.

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3. 7-year-old Rowyn Montgomery giving his second-grade classmates a pre-school-year pep talk.

After Rowyn was bullied at school, he decided to make kids happy by making motivational videos for them. What an amazing kiddo! Read more about Rowyn here.

Tiverton 7-Year-Old Has a Motivational Message for his Classmates

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4. Rescued chimpanzee’s affectionate reunion with his foster parents.

According to WSVN, Limbani the chimpanzee was born with pneumonia and rejected by his mother, so he was nursed to health by foster parents who gave him round-the-clock care and nurturing in the early months of his life. Though people have varying opinions about rescued animals being kept in captivity, there is no question that the affection between Limbani and his caregivers is real.

5. Speaking of reunions, this soldier surprising her mom at work is just the best.

There’s no shortage of surprise military homecoming videos out there, but they’re always awesome to see. The emotional toll of having loved ones deployed is palpable when you see the relief and joy in these reunions.

So – this daughter who just returned from deployment surprised her mother at work.

Break out the tissues…https://t.co/6GninVV1A5

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman)
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6. This abuela tossing aside her cane and showing us her incredible dance moves.

I dare you to watch this video start to finish and not smile. So much life in this lovely elder, and so much joy in watching her express herself through dancing.

7. Speaking of elders, check out this young man forming a human chair for a woman stuck on an elevator.

Cesar Larios was performing a move for his moving company in 2014 when he got stuck inside an elevator in an assisted living facility inside a 10-story building. Stuck with him was 79-year-old Rita Young who had trouble walking and standing for too long. To help her out, Larlos made himself into a chair so she could sit for the 30 minutes they had to wait to be rescued. Read the story here.

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8. On the other end of the age spectrum, did you catch the 14-year-old phenom diver who kept getting perfect 10s in her first Olympics?

Quan Hongchan of China is a marvel, truly. This Olympics is her first international competition, and she completely blew everyone else out of the water with a series of perfect dives to take home the gold. Such a joy to see such incredible talent in someone so young.

9. And even younger, the three 13-year-olds and a 12-year-old who took home four of the six medals in women’s skateboarding.

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Skateboarding made its Olympic debut in Tokyo, and the medal results show how much potential exists in the sport. But even more than that, the camaraderie and joyful support of the young athletes at the skate park was a delight to see. The six medalists in the two women’s events were ages 19, 16, 13, 13, 13, and 12, which is just incredible. Read the story here.

10. If that doesn’t dazzle you, perhaps this proud, pretty peacock will.

Sometimes a simple natural phenomenon is all we need to be reminded of the inherent beauty and wonder in the world. No matter how many times you see it, a peacock showing off its plumage is always stunning. And in slo-mo, the shimmy just adds an extra layer of awesome.

There we go. Amazing Olympic moments, incredible humans young and old, delightful reunions, and awesome animals. The world is full of beauty and goodness—we just have to keep looking for it.

Happy weekend, everyone!

There are times during the first hour of James Gunn’s remix of The Suicide Squad when it feels like it’s on track to be the best comic book movie ever made.

There’s a scene early on, a version of the “slow-motion hero walk” sequence that’s in so many superhero movies, shot gorgeously in vivid colors with the characters framed in front of a giant American flag backdrop for maximum kitsch. It functions as a pump-up jam even as it eventually reveals itself to be derisive — in the next five minutes, every slow-motion cool guy in it will die gruesomely, their gory ends played for laughs.

At its best, The Suicide Squad works like this, a satirical critique of both American imperialism and of jingoistic comic book conventions, delivered with punk rock panache and Corman-esque schlock. Suicide Squad is, after all, about a group of expendable anti-heroes, and it’s easy to connect that to the hundreds or thousands of would-be “freedom fighters” the CIA sent over the iron curtain or into the southern hemisphere to “foment revolution,” only for them to die or get captured almost instantly. That they just kept dying and the US just kept sending more anyway has a twisted Looney Tunes quality that The Suicide Squad is well-positioned to capture. At first, it does perfectly.

Then about three-quarters of the way through the movie, Gunn does the slow-motion hero walk again, but this time seemingly in earnest. What begins as a story about self-interested antiheroes working for an amoral government ends up just sort of turning back into a regular superhero movie by the end, complete with mindless stakes-raising, noisy and nonsensical CGI set pieces, an ill-defined villain, and characters working selflessly towards a vaguely defined “greater good.” It’s like watching Johnny Rotten lose his sneer halfway through a song.

The idea with The Suicide Squad seems to be to poke fun both at superhero movie conventions and the concept of “heroes.” It centers around a team, put together by an evil government functionary played by Viola Davis (one of the holdovers from the David Ayer Suicide Squad), of supernatural(ish) criminals sent to recapture a fictional South American island after a coup. It consists of Bloodsport (Idris Elba), a professional assassin trained to kill since birth by his father; Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), the evil clown’s hot jester (ex?) girlfriend; Peacemaker (John Cena), a sort of jingoistic three percenter version of Bloodsport; Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), a girl who can control rats; King Shark (voiced by Sly Stallone), a dopey Shark creature who eats people; and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), a nerdy oddball with mom issues whose powers are something of a big reveal.

James Gunn has a flair for absurdity, a punk rock sensibility, and a grasp of comedic timing that makes the whole thing work beautifully for a while. Yes, it feels like he’s self-plagiarizing Guardians of the Galaxy at times (Sharkman is just the new Groot, for instance), but mostly in a good way, and some of his exuberant compositions look like Ralph Steadman drawings come to life. He writes great banter between the characters, can shoot a wonderfully gory death scene, and the actors seem fully onboard with the concept. After F9 I thought I’d never want to see John Cena in a movie ever again, but it turns out when he’s not scowling for an entire movie with a camera shoved artlessly into his right nostril, his blocky head isn’t so hard to look at. He’s actually pretty charming here.

So where does it go wrong? The Suicide Squad never stops trying to be a critique of American foreign policy or a send-up of comic book conventions, but Gunn can’t seem to help turning his protagonists into his story’s heroes. That Tony Soprano isn’t the “hero” of the Sopranos, just the main character, is a distinction that The Suicide Squad doesn’t seem to be able to manage. That Gunn can’t seem to give his characters arcs without turning them into babyfaces smacks of studio meddling. Did they think we needed “someone to root for” in this story of death and destruction?

That didn’t seem like the movie Gunn was making for the first hour of The Suicide Squad.

There’s a brilliant moment where Harley Quinn murders a potential paramour, explaining why he wouldn’t make a suitable mate while he lies bleeding to death on the floor. This, for some reason, leads into a stylized sequence of Quinn taking on an entire army of South American henchman while they bleed CGI flowers. Say what? Justin Halpern, showrunner of DC’s shockingly good Harley Quinn show, has said that their model for the Harley Quinn character was Bugs Bunny, a clever and formidable character who is nonetheless entirely self-interested. In the later parts of The Suicide Squad Harley seems more like Black Widow. You can practically hear some suit whispering “yeah, but do we ever get to see her kick ass?” over James Gunn’s shoulder.

What started as this slightly subversive send-up eventually descends into the usual convoluted savin’-the-world nonsense. Gunn disguises it well, with bonkers visuals, gore, and cursing, but by the time a bystander shouts “it’s a freakin’ kaiju!” it feels like Suicide Squad has become nothing more than a Guillermo Del Toro-esque genre mash-up, inviting the nerds to simply cheer without questioning the gesture.

The movie invites us to question American meddling, then turns its heroes into an anti-imperial avenging army, then ends without them ever questioning the destruction they themselves have wrought. The first half of the movie had me convinced that this could’ve been done with a wink, a sneer, a punchline — something. Yet by the end of The Suicide Squad, the distance between how the characters see themselves and how we see them has flattened.

Is this a failure of storytelling or simply a limitation of the format? It makes you wonder just how much any creator can critique the concept of a comic book movie from within the confines of a comic book movie.

‘The Suicide Squad’ is currently available in theaters and on HBO Max. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

While it’s always exciting to see a big star sign on to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (I mean, I for one still cannot believe Angelina Jolie will be in The Eternals), there’s something even more exciting: seeing a fresh face get their start through the MCU. The latest Marvel star to get the opportunity is none other than Peter Parker’s lovable best friend Ned — though his next role is anything but soft, sweet, and on the side. According to a The Hollywood Reporter, Spider-Man breakout star Jacob Batalon is making the move to television and is set to star in Syfy’s upcoming Reginald the Vampire series.

Based on Johnny B. Truant’s Fat Vampire series, Reginald the Vampire is an hour-long dramedy that’s been picked up for ten episodes by NBCUniversal’s science-fiction network Syfy. The series follows Reginald Baskin (Batalon), a portly and unlikely hero who is thrust into the dangerous vampire underworld and finds himself an outcast among all the gorgeous (and vain) vampires we typically see in vampire media. Once he joins the world of the undead, Reginald is forced to deal with even more problems than crushes and mean bosses, including avoiding a vampire chieftain who wants him dead. Luckily for Reginald, vampirism comes with some perks and powers he wasn’t expecting and that will ultimately aid him on his hellish journey.

Harley Peyton of Twin Peaks and Syfy’s upcoming Chucky series is set to write Reginald the Vampire‘s script and serve as showrunner, as well as executive produce. Jeremiah Chechik (Shadowhunters) will also produce and direct. As of right now, no other stars or a release date have been attached to the project.

It wasn’t long ago that the price of a video game, even the rarest, would never exceed six figures. While collecting memorabilia is becoming more popular than ever before, it was always grounded in the idea that it was an expensive hobby that anyone could get into. However, as collecting becomes a more lucrative (and somehow dangerous) hobby, we’re starting to see game prices increase.

The increased prices of normal retro games are one thing, but the higher-end prices are reaching records that we’ve never seen before. A sealed copy of Super Mario 64 recently broke the million-dollar ceiling, which shocked everyone, because that game has never been considered a rare title. For comparison, back in April, the most expensive game ever sold was the original Super Mario Bros. when it was auctioned off at a price of $666,000.

Now, that game is breaking the $2 million mark and once again becoming the most expensive game ever sold.

While this game isn’t the exact same as the one that sold for $666,000 — this is a limited-run edition — it’s another example of the crazy price increases happening at gaming auctions right now. When an unopened copy of The Legend of Zelda for NES sold for $870,000 in July, it was seen as a new benchmark. It’s not even a full month later and we’re seeing game prices that are more than double that. Someone who is selling a similar copy of the game is going to put theirs up for auction in October, and there’s a good chance they not only break the original record, but shatter it.

As a Jew from New York, I have attended my fair share of bar mitzvahs, but I never had one myself. It wasn’t out of religious defiance, or whatever. It’s because I was lazy. Still am! I didn’t feel like studying the Torah, and to this day, the only Hebrew I know is the basic prayer for Hanukkah. But the nice thing about bar/bat mitzvahs is you can have them at any age, not only the traditional 13 years old. I could get mitzvah’d later this year if I felt like it, but instead, I’ll watch Eric Andre turn the Bodega Boys into Bodega Men.

On Thursday’s episode of Desus and Mero, the Bad Trip star took comedians Desus Nice and The Kid Mero to a synagogue to meet his rabbi, Rabbi Diana Fersko. They learned the basics of the coming-of-age ritual and that there’s “nothing against cocaine in the Torah,” according to Andre. He quickly course corrected, saying that he has no idea whether that’s true, but “there is nothing against weed. Genesis is pro-weed.”

The rabbi looked very uncomfortable:

Later, following the religious ceremony, Desus, Mero, and Andre celebrated with Manischewitz and Hennessy, which sounds like a Talking Dead-style aftershow to Desus and Mero. You can watch the clip above.

WARNING: Spoilers for The Suicide Squad below.
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With The Suicide Squad now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max, writer/director James Gunn has opened up his upcoming HBO Max spinoff series starring John Cena’s Peacemaker. Admittedly created out of sheer boredom during last year’s quarantine, Gunn has been vague about the timeline for Peacemaker, which makes sense given that part of The Suicide Squad‘s thrill is that literally any character could be killed at any time — including Harley Quinn. In fact, Cena’s character seemingly bites it in the film’s final battle until the end credits reveal that he’s a tough “douchebag” to kill.

In a wide-ranging interview, Gunn confirms that the Peacemaker series will continue the events of the end credits scene, which sees Steve Agee and Jennifer Holland’s characters saddled with the task of handling Cena’s liberty-obsessed anti-hero. Gunn also confirmed that the series will have a similar tone to The Suicide Squad, but also deviate as needed for the story. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

It’s very specifically about a different group of people, so it’s a little bit more about society. One of the leads is Peacemaker and one of the leads is Danielle Brooks, who plays Leota Adebayo. And she has a very different political view of the world than Peacemaker does. So it’s just a little bit about what’s going on in the world, but also being a TV show, you really do have more time to delve much deeper into these characters and much more deeply into the drama and comedy of them. So it has a lot of similarities, but it’s even more grounded, more natural and more real. But it’s still within a big science-fiction storyline that lasts for one season.

While Peacemaker will wrap up its “main storyline” in the first season, Gunn teases that the show could potentially have more seasons. He also dropped an interesting tidbit about the DC Extended Universe, or DCEU, as its better known. While Warner Bros. and DC Comics have attempted to lean away from that label and the concept of a shared cinematic universe, Gunn said that’s not the case anymore.

According to Gunn, DC Films is “really just trying to make everything fit together much better,” and that applies to Peacemaker as well, “which is definitely connected to The Suicide Squad and it ends up being connected to other DC properties.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

For such a short clip, AMC really packed a lot of drama, fire, knives, and tension in the latest teaser for The Walking Dead‘s eleventh and final season. While we see a lot of the Commonwealth and the Reapers — as well as Judith training the next generation of young zombie slayers — what’s most compelling is what seems to be in store for all the show’s fan favorites. In addition to Daryl’s situation looking pretty grim as a building burns behind him and he is enclosed by figures, the teaser ends with Maggie presumably falling from a height that would leave even the most badass of badasses severely injured or worse. We’d say there’s no way they could do it, but then again… we’ve seen enough prestige television to no longer utter those words.

If like so many of us you’re wondering just how the showrunners are going to tie up every loose thread and tragic storyline in The Walking Dead‘s final season, rest assured it’s going to be quite a bit bigger than any of the show’s previous seasons. Whereas former seasons of the AMC show run 16 episodes long — excluding the first and much shorter couple seasons, of course — The Walking Dead‘s final season will contain 24 episodes. However, before you get too excited, we’ll also be waiting a whole lot longer to watch them all. While season 11 premieres August 22, only the first 8 episodes are scheduled for release. The other 16 won’t come until sometime in 2022, so here’s hoping whatever cliffhanger we end on won’t be too brutal.

The Walking Dead‘s final season premieres August 22 on AMC. However, if you’re an AMC+ subscriber, you can watch each episode of the final season a week earlier via streaming. Regardless of when you watch, final seasons tend to have countless twists, turns, and spoilable-moments, meaning avoid the internet and your chattier friends like they’re a hoard of the undead themselves until you do.

The Call of Duty franchise has never been afraid of trying something new or following a trend. We saw this when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare added an incredibly popular multiplayer mode and we saw it again when Call of Duty: Black Ops III added a battle royale mode. They might not invent the wheel, but they definitely take a popular concept and try to improve on it.

We may see that once again with Call of Duty entering a space we’re not used to seeing: party games. One of the most popular party games ever, Among Us, blew up in 2020 when everyone needed something to do with their friends online amid the pandemic. Call of Duty is clearly trying to emulate the success of Among Us with its new “Double Agent” mode. The trailer showcases players trying to capture other players that want to sabotage from within. A lot of the game seems based on communication among the group, which was a key to the success of Among Us and makes it such a fun party game.

Where Among Us and Double Agents might differ, however, is there appears to be more roles than just regular players and those looking to sabotage everything in the latter. The trailer features the “investigator” role that can assist players and give hints on who is trying to sabotage the group. If anything, this seems more reminiscent of the popular “Trouble in Terrorist Town” from Garry’s Mod than Among Us, but it’s hard to not feel like this wouldn’t exist if Among Us hadn’t gotten so popular in 2020.

How fun Double Agents will be is going to be like any other party game in that it depends on the group playing it. Any game can be fun with the right group of people, but even the best games can be boring if nobody is into it. Anyone with an old Among Us squad that also enjoys Call of Duty may want to give this a try when the new game mode launches on August 12.

The hip-hop landscape is as crowded as ever, but what has helped Tom The Mail Man (real name Sean Brown) stand out is the fact that hip-hop isn’t his only terrain. The artist is fresh off the release of his 2021 album Sometimes Sorry Isn’t Enough, and the project features everything from contemporary rap to straight-up ’90s rock tunes like “Last Night.” Tom has established himself as an essential artist worth paying attention to, and the latest Magnum Scenes video is an opportunity to learn more about him, the scene where he found his comfort zone, and how it has influenced him.

Inspired by musicians who resist the urge to play within a select genre, Tom went outside the box experimenting with his sound and eventually found Airwaves in Atlanta, a hive of other self-described “weird kids” like Sam Levine and Daniel Hartzog. Together, they formed a kind of second family that helps each other navigate loss and the process of making music, allowing Tom The Mail Man to approach his dream of being a legend who can bring people together with his sound.

Take a look at the above video to find out more about Tom’s rise, the story behind his name, and his ambition to be bold, authentic, and a “long-lasting character in the game.”

The MyPillow Guy needs an intervention — or a nap. For months, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been peddling election fraud conspiracies and swearing up and down that he’s got a mountain of evidence to prove the bizarre tales he’s telling. Yet not one person — expert or regular old sane person — who has been shown any part of this alleged smoking gun has been able to make heads or tails of what Lindell is showing them, or talking about. As Raw Story reports, CNN reporter Drew Griffin is Lindell’s latest victim.

On Thursday night, CNN aired Griffin’s recent interview with Lindell, which went off the rails faster than you can say “That’s a mighty big crucifix necklace you’re wearing, Mr. Lindell.” Describing Lindell’s claims as “complete nonsense,” Griffin went on to explain:

“Despite every piece of so-called ‘evidence’ that Lindell has presented so far — three videos, a lawsuit, [and] screenshots he sent to CNN, there’s still no proof that the election was hacked. And that’s according to two dozen cyber experts and election officials contacted by CNN.”

Annoyed that no one’s buying The Matrix-like screenshots he’s selling as proof that the 2020 election was hacked, Lindell is now changing his story a bit. And claiming that he’ll be sharing the real evidence at the cyber symposium he is putting together which, according to Griffin, “will be streamed live, with MyPillow discounts throughout.”

Last Friday, Lindell attempted to whet CNN’s appetite for helping him expose the truth about the election by sending him six screenshots that looked like this:

Griffin’s question to Lindell about this particular piece of information was simple and pointed: “What is this?”

Lindell stumbled through some nonsensical answer that was really just a string of words that didn’t really make sense when put together, which is when Griffin dropped the bomb that CNN had sent the “proof” to their own experts, who concluded that it was “proof of nothing.”

Lindell’s response? “So he said that’s nothing, huh? Well, he’s wrong. Then you didn’t hire a cyber expert.”

Big words from a man who believes that starring in his own commercials, and showing up in people’s medicine cabinets like goddamn Candyman, is the best way to sell… pillows?

Let’s just say that the interview only went downhill from there — CNN’s experts described Lindell’s screenshots as everything from “extremely rudimentary metadata” to “completely ridiculous.” But it’s truly worth a few minutes of your own time to witness it all firsthand, as it devolves into what seems more like an SNL sketch for Chris Farley. Also: Air quotes are used.

You can watch the full interview above.

(Via Raw Story)