Category: News

Take a page from his dad’s playbook, Donald Trump Jr. took to Twitter on Thursday evening to rant against President Joe Biden’s sweeping vaccine mandate. In predictable Junior fashion, the tweets were low on original thoughts and high on regurgitating right-wing talking points such as “Who’s the oppressive dictator now?” and “Actually, all the COVID comes from illegals.” Then again, we’re dealing with a guy who thinks his father terrified the Taliban with his superior “brainpower” and obliterated ISIS, despite the terrorist group still being active.

But perhaps Junior’s biggest crime is that he still hasn’t learned to thread his tweets just like dad. You can see his scattershot rantings about Biden’s vaccine mandate below:

Do we even live in a free country anymore?

In Biden’s America, American citizens who make a personal medical decision that Joe disagrees with are talked down too, segregated from society & not allowed to provide for their families, but all of unvaccinated illegals coming across the border are welcomed with open arms!!!

Where’s all the oppressive totalitarian dictator talk??? We heard it for 5 years for everything and anything Trump said but the press and the left is strangely silent when there’s actually totalitarianism happening???

Biden’s sweeping mandate is in direct response to the Delta variant continuing to tear through the country, particularly amongst the unvaccinated. With the COVID vaccine now approved by the FDA, businesses can now mandate their employees get the shot or be subjected to weekly tests if they refuse. Naturally, the announcement didn’t sit well with anti-vaxxers, but the biggest bombshell for right-wing corners was hearing Biden name-drop Fox News as one of the companies that already has a vaccine mandate, despite its prominent hosts like Tucker Carlson pushing anti-vaccination views.

(Via Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter)

Divorce is one of those life events no one prepares you for. (Take it from me, a person who has been divorced.) Because the subject is everywhere — in statistics, pop culture, and maybe even your own family unit — we kind of expect that if it must happen to us, then we’ll on some level know how proceed. (Just me?) The awful reality, though, is so much more complicated; it’s a messy emotional cocktail of guilt, relief, disappointment, anxiety, and anger. It’s also a process Kacey Musgraves, who filed for divorce from ex Ruston Kelly last year, tries to navigate throughout her masterful new album, Star-Crossed.

Amplifying the album’s overarching theme into a series of surrealist, through-the-looking-glass scenes is Musgraves’ accompanying film, which premieres today on Paramount+. Directed by Matthew Libatique (A Star Is Born, Black Swan) and featuring cameos from Eugene Levy, Victoria Pedretti, Princess Nokia, Drag Race star Symone, and comedian Megan Stalter, the Star-Crossed film offers a deeper look into Musgraves’ psyche as it pertains to divorce. The result is magnetic, colorful, stylish, at times hilarious, tragic, and surreal. A movie might be linear, but starting over is not, and in the Musgraves Extended Universe, new beginnings mean trashing a bridal boutique, undergoing broken-heart surgery, running alongside a stallion, and voguing at the club with your friends.

Just like the album, Star-Crossed also plays out over the course of three acts, with Musgraves marching through the California desert, defiantly wearing a wedding gown and preparing to enter a small, Kill Bill-looking chapel. (I think we all remember what happened to Uma Thurman’s Bride.) The first act, “I Just Want To Be A Good Wife,” eventually finds the country-pop crossover meeting up with a brightly dressed girl gang (including Victoria Pedretti, Princess Nokia, and Symone), who proceed to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting bridal boutique. “Wish I could put this game on pause / Skip this round, take the headset off / Put my lipgloss on / Kick it at the mall like there’s nothing wrong,” Musgraves soundtracks, expressing a human desire for “simple times” when life gets complicated.

Despite wrecking that boutique, thus ruining another bride’s “say yes to the dress” moment, Musgraves yanks us back into her marriage mindset. If she could just do all of the “good wife” things (“bring him coffee in bed, try to loosen up and be more fun”), maybe she could make this work? Soon, she’s attending “good wife” etiquette classes in a nondescript all-purpose room (how very The Lobster), with dozens of blonde-wigged Stepfords learning how to look after a home and not cause any trouble. As Musgraves obediently sets the table and irons, she prays for guidance: “God help me be a good wife, ’cause he needs me… And I know that I need him.”

Despite her best efforts, Musgraves still finds herself hurtling forward in her car as the second act arrives and the weather rapidly changes outside her window, mirroring the jumbled emotions found in “Justified” (“Moving backwards, hurt comes after / Healing doesn’t happen in a straight line”). Then, as our phones always do, Musgraves’ reminds her that she has “MEMORIES” to review. The constant dinging sends her careening headfirst into an oncoming truck, and what follows is a hyper-literal look at what divorce feels like: being china-doll shattered and clumsily fitting yourself back together.

A literally broken Musgraves gets carted off into the Star-Crossed Center (“for broken hearts and such”), where she is reassembled by Dr. Eugene Levy (“I know you’re feeling kind of all over the place,” he cracks). With a little bad bedside humor and a metal breastplate, Musgraves is up and running through the LA River alongside a stallion. She’s ready for the final act: “There Is A Light.”

As the film comes full circle, Musgraves swaps her white wedding dress for a crimson gown, singing a striking cover of Violeta Parra’s “Gracias A La Vida.” Translated, the opening words mean, “Thanks to life, which has given me so much.” Musgraves has so much to be thankful for. That’s the good part about starting over. Eventually, getting through each day involves a little less effort. This is clearly the case for Musgraves, who, post-surgery at the Star-Crossed Center, is ready to go out dancing at the disco. “There is a light inside of me, uh-huh,” she acknowledges. Now, walking away from the little Kill Bill-looking wedding chapel, which has a sign in the window advertising annulments for $15.95 (if only dissolving a marriage was really that cheap), Musgraves is on her own again, but undoubtedly stronger than before.

Here are some things that happen in the first six minutes of the first episode of FX/Hulu’s Reservation Dogs, before the opening credits even start:

• A group of rascal teens steals a potato chip truck — the entire truck, with the spicy chips inside — and drives off with it in broad daylight
• They speed past a police car in the stolen truck but the cop doesn’t notice because he is fully distracted by conspiracy theory videos he’s watching on a tablet
• The rascal teens sell the stolen truck to a salvage yard owner named Kenny, which is mostly notable because Kenny is played by Kirk Fox, Sewage Joe from Parks and Recreation, who appears to have found a wonderful sewage/salvage niche on television

This is good. This is exactly how you should start your television show. It’s crazy that no other show figured this out already. And I am pleased to report that the good news does not stop there, not even for a second, because after all that happened the show pulled out a Wu-Tang needle drop as it displayed the title.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a show zero in on my exact interests this efficiently. I love rascal teens and snack heists and incompetent police officers and Sewage/Salvage Joe/Kenny and when shows slip in Wu-Tang songs. It’s even better because this is the same song that was used in the trampoline scene of The Leftovers, so it also led to me remembering how good that show was. I have nothing to complain about with any of this. It’s all just about perfectly ideal.

But let’s stop here and zoom out a little. Let’s move from the specific to the general. Let’s talk about Reservation Dogs as a whole. The show — created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi — follows four Indigenous teenagers as they run around Oklahoma committing small-scale crimes and pocketing the proceeds as part of a long-term plan to eventually bounce to California. Is there a rival gang of teens? Of course. Are there paintball shootouts that are edited to look like dramatic death scenes from classic movies? At least one. Is one of the rascal teens named “Cheese”? Yes, and please know I would never lie to you about something that important.

The show is more than just rascals teens stealing stuff, though. It is funny and sweet and sad and strange as all hell in places. There’s really very little you can even compare it to. I’ve been cranking away on it for a while and the best I’ve come up with is “Atlanta but in Oklahoma and sometimes there are female serial killers with deer hooves for feet,” which is both a fun thing to type and just terrifically unhelpful. Maybe that’s for the best. It’s always nice to have something truly original on television. Reservation Dogs is nothing if not original.

It also features one of my favorite television characters of the year. While all four of the young leads are good at delivering jokes and carrying heavier moments in a way that most actors twice their age could struggle with, the standout here, for me, is the character named Willie Jack, played by Paulina Alexis. Willie Jack is a blast, all sharp edges and cuss words and rough exterior until someone digs a few layers deep to hit some vulnerability. She has at least one line each episode that makes me laugh out loud. She might be television’s second-best f-word-sayer, just behind Roy Kent from Ted Lasso, which is as high a compliment I know how to give.

Look at Willie Jack work.

Look at Willie Jack work.

Every now and then you’ll see something that makes you realize you’ve been living your life wrong. That’s how I felt when I saw this scene and realized I’ve never held a bag containing the hair of my enemies. I need to rectify this as soon as possible.

You know what else is cool about Reservation Dogs? I’ll tell you: It is inclusive in the right way. Sometimes a show will pay lip service to inclusion by, like, casting people from different backgrounds (good!) but then writing those characters in the same boring and/or stereotypical ways (bad!). Reservation Dogs goes the extra step, with a cast and crew and creative team filled with Indigenous voices. This allows the show to have it both ways: they can tell a true story with all the little shading and shadowing that makes it feel real, and they can also blast through the stereotypes to show you that the characters are also just regular kids at heart. Ones who steal trucks filled with snacks. And collect the hair of their enemies.

Hmm. I’m not sure I’m explaining that well, this idea of maintaining an identity while also depicting relatable human experiences. Luckily, the creators have explained it all much better. Here they are in the New York Times.

“We are making fun of non-Native audiences’ expectations while acknowledging aspects of that part of Native culture,” said Harjo, 41, a founding member of the Native American comedy troupe The 1491s. “We’re teasing the audience using the history of cinema. Native Americans grow up on pop culture — it’s how we learn what the rest of the world is up to.”

Waititi added: “We’re tired of seeing ourselves out there wandering through forests talking to ghosts, putting our hands on trees and talking to the wind as if we have all the answers because of our relationship with nature. And there’s always flute music.”

“I don’t know any ghosts and I don’t talk to trees,” he continued. “I grew up loving comic books and being interested in girls just like the other kids.”

And here’s Taika Waititi — who, between this show and Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do in the Shadows and Jojo Rabbit, really does not miss at all these days — putting a finer point on it at in a chat with Deadline.

“Now we don’t want to tell stories like that, we don’t want to depress people. There’s so much humor in our communities, so many jokes,” Waititi said. “All they want to do is see us riding whales, talking to the trees, playing flutes on mountaintops and talking to ghosts and learning something from our grandmother. To subvert expectations is such a powerful thing.”

This rules. As a member of another group whose stories are not often told well on television (I’m in a wheelchair and stories about people in wheelchairs are often depressing or gratingly inspirational), I dig this approach. It doesn’t have to feel like taking medicine. It just takes some cool stories told by people who have the right perspective on things. It helps if one of those people is Taika Waititi.

What I’m getting at with all of this is a pretty simple point: I think you would like Reservation Dogs. It’s good and fun and introduces you to characters that are wholly original. These characters steal snacks and get in fights and go through some real-life stuff. One of these characters is named Cheese. I know I said that already but I really like saying it, so here we are. And each episode is only 30 minutes long, which is nice. You’re pretty busy. And there are so many shows. I try not to recommend things lightly. But I do think you would like this one.

Go watch Reservation Dogs.

The 20th anniversary of September 11 is bringing back painful memories of that horrible day for many Americans, including Steve Buscemi. The actor was a New York City firefighter in the 1980s and returned to volunteer following the attacks on the World Trade Center; he worked 12-hour shifts, searching through the rubble for signs of life but more often found death. As you might imagine, this experience left him shaken.

“I haven’t experienced any health issues, and I get myself checked out. But definitely, yeah, post-traumatic stress? Absolutely,” Buscemi said on WTF with Marc Maron. “I was only there for like five days, but when I stopped going and tried to just live my life again, it was really, really hard.” He added, “There are times when I talk about 9/11 and I’m right back there. I start to get choked up and I realize, ah, this is still a big part of me.”

Buscemi also wrote an essay for Time about the trauma of 9/11:

“Never forget,” everyone said. Some people have no choice. What’s surprising is who has to be reminded. Shortly after the attack, Congress created a Victim Compensation Fund to help first responders cope with the aftermath of the day. When the money began to run out, survivors had to launch a lobbying campaign to secure permanent funding, which finally came in 2019. It was an effort led by Jon Stewart and activist John Feal and backed by every former firefighter who cannot laugh without coughing, and every family member who pretends not to notice.

Never forget, because people are still struggling. People are still dying.

You can listen to Buscemi’s WTF episode below.

(Via Time)

Sacramento reality rapper Mozzy returns with a new album and the video for its first single. “Straight To The 4th,” which released today at midnight, finds Mozzy waxing nostalgic on his fallen friend Skeemo and giving his directives for what to do upon his own passing: “If I die before I wake, then take me straight to 4th,” he rhymes on the chorus. A helpful flyby shot of a 44th Street sign in Mozzy’s home neighborhood Oak Park elucidates his meaning.

Along with the video for “Straight To The 4th,” Mozzy announced the impending release of his next album, Untreated Trauma, which will be his second of 2021 and fifth project in the last two years. In 2019, he dropped Internal Affairs, while in 2020, he put out two projects, Beyond Bulletproof and Occupational Hazard. The former became his highest-charting project to date, peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard 200. Meanwhile, earlier in 2021, Mozzy teamed up with Compton rapper YG for the collaborative album Kommunity Service, which included the singles “Bompton to Oak Park,” “Perfect Timing” with Blxst, and “Vibe with You” featuring Ty Dolla Sign. Untreated Trauma, set for a September 17 release, will include appearances from Babyface Ray, Celly Ru, E. Mozzy, EST Gee, Kalan.FrFr, and YFN Lucci.

Watch Mozzy’s “Straight To The 4th” video above.

Untreated Trauma is due 9/17 via EMPIRE. You can pre-save it here.

The children of Queens Of The Stone Age leader Josh Homme are apparently looking to keep some distance from their father: According to a TMZ report, Homme’s sons, 10-year-old Orrin and 5-year-old Wolf, have filed for domestic violence restraining orders — through their mother, Brody Dalle — because he is “scary.” The children are seeking restraining orders that would mandate Homme to stay 100 yards away from them and the family dog at all times.

The report indicates the kids are scared Homme will hurt them, and that Homme allegedly yells at Dalle (his ex-wife) and drinks and drives with the children in the car. According to a court filing, Orrin alleges there was a recent incident in which Homme grabbed his private parts, and he accuses his father of “physical abuse, such as flicking his ears, hitting his head, poking his chest and throwing things at him — while calling him fat and allegedly making threats about murdering Brody’s boyfriend.”

Wolf also claims Homme calls his mother curse words, drinks and drives, and grabs the children by their necks and ears. He also says he’s scared when he goes to his father’s home.

Homme’s attorney, Susan Wiesner, tells TMZ, “Ms. Dalle has previously brought these claims to the police, DCFS, and the presiding judge of the family law court, all of whom have declined to take any action based upon these spurious claims.”

Typically, hearing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s name in the news is not a good thing—at least in America. If it’s not because he’s threatening to annihilate us with all the nuclear power he can muster, it’s because he’s torturing and murdering American students or sending Donald Trump sweet, possibly scented, love letters. Which makes the fact that he’s currently making headlines for his newly svelte appearance totally unexpected and kind of bizarre.

On Thursday, Jimmy Kimmel shared some footage of a visibly slimmed down—and tanned—Kim attending a parade in North Korea:

“Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, has been out of sight for quite some time. But he’s back and strutting his stuff at a midnight parade in Pyongyang last night.

Hell-ooo, handsome! He’s like a young Wayne Newton… Somebody had a hot girl summer or something. They think he lost about 44 pounds… new suit, new haircut, tan.

“Rumor is this transformation may have had to do with five new friends he made,” Kimmel continued, while showing a (just for the record: Photoshopped) picture of Kim with the Queer Eye guys.

While Kimmel admitted that Kim is “a monster,” he did seem genuinely happy for the dictator’s horse: “That poor thing was exhausted.”

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 1:05 mark.

During production for Thor: Love and Thunder earlier in the year, Chris Hemsworth routinely blew up the internet with his ridiculously jacked arms. Those things were so pumped they looked like they were about to explode. At one point, his body double had justifiable concerns about being able to match the actor’s muscles. So with Love and Thunder wrapped, you’d assume Hemsworth would ease up a bit. Guess again.

According to the actor’s Instagram, he’s now heavily into training for Extraction 2, and somehow, he looks even more jacked than ever despite pivoting his workout towards speed and mobility to prepare for the sequel’s brutal fight scenes.

“Gearing up for @netflix Extraction sequel,” Hemsworth wrote in the caption. “Transitioning from heavy weight training to a lot more body weight functional movements concentrating on agility, strength and speed. Give this little work out a go and let the lungs scream for mercy!”

The actor also detailed his intense training routine, which apparently makes your triceps the size of a freaking Thanksgiving turkey:

3 minute boxing round (cardio)
50 squats (lower body)
40 sit thrus (mobility)
20 reps for each (core)exercise
25 push ups (upper body)
Rest 2 minutes 4 sets in total

But don’t take our word for it, you can see Hemsworth getting super jacked below:

(Via Chris Hemsworth on Instagram)

It’s been four years since the last Paul Thomas Anderson movie, his masterpiece Phantom Thread, but his new one is coming soon. And if you were lucky enough to be in Los Angeles or London this week, you might have seen the first trailer. According to the Film Stage, the first teasers for Licorice Pizza (I am not a hungry boy for licorice pizza), previously titled Soggy Bottom, played in select repertory cinemas.

Premiering in front of screenings of American Graffiti and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America at London’s Prince Charles Cinema, the 35mm trailer then screened last night at LA’s New Beverly between the double feature of Kiss Me Deadly and Repo Men, as well as at the American Cinematheque before a screening of Strangers on a Strain and at the Aereo before Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!.

A new PTA trailer debuting in front of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America? Chef’s kiss. “Licorice Pizza” was the name of a Southern California-based record store chain in the 1970s, when the film is set. (It’s also an Abbott and Costello reference: “Well, we could sprinkle cornstarch on the bottom and sell them as Licorice Pizzas.”)

Those in attendance did their best to describe the ~vibe~ of the teaser:

Licorice Pizza, which stars Bradley Cooper, Cooper Hoffman (that’s Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son), Benny Safdie, Alana Haim (one of the Haim sisters), Maya Rudolph, Tom Waits, and Skyler Gisondo, opens in select theaters on November 26 before a wide release on December 25. Other movies out this Christmas: Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Matrix Resurrections, Sing 2, and on Netflix, Don’t Look Up.

(Via the Film Stage)

Maybe it was the popularity of the Silhouette Challenge that planted the seed for Pepsi’s newest campaign with its sample of ’50s star Paul Anka alongside the sultry vocals of modern pop phenom Doja Cat. In the new ad, which promotes the brand’s new “soda shop” line of flavors, Doja Cat again takes on a retro classic, but this time adds another layer of meta flair with a cover of Olivia Newton-John’s Grease showstopper “You’re The One I Want.”

Recreating a handful of scenes from the ’70s film with the ’50s aesthetic, the new ad puts a modern spin on both, updating the rock-and-roll style music with glittering contemporary pop and utilizing a multicultural cast of greasers and preps. Meanwhile, despite taking on the role of Sandy, it turns out Doja’s mission isn’t so much hooking up with Danny, but getting her well-manicured hands on his can of Pepsi.

In an interview with Billboard about the new campaign, the MTV VMA host admitted having trouble locking down the vocal approach on the classic. “I sing, but I feel like I have a lot of trouble singing certain things, even my own songs,” she said. “This was one of those songs where I had to really push and find different parts of my singing ability to make it happen.”

“Back then, music was so different and so carefully done. It wasn’t just loops and beats, which is why I feel like this was a bit harder for me. I can’t believe I was able to kind of hit some of those notes because it’s a very difficult song to sing. I’m happy about it.”

Watch Doja Cat cover “You’re The One I Want” for Pepsi above.