Category: News

As F9 prepared to rev into theaters in June, Vin Diesel gave an interview with Men’s Health where he essentially claimed that his infamous feud with The Rock was the result of his “tough love” approach to coaxing a better performance out of his Fast and Furious co-star. Considering Diesel’s remarks are almost a month old, it seemed like The Rock was going to just let that one go. Not so much.

While promoting the upcoming release of Jungle Cruise, The Rock responded to Diesel’s comments, and in the process, appears to be completely washing his hands of the Fast and Furious franchise. Also, Emily Blunt jumped in with a scathing burn, as she does. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

When asked about Diesel’s comments, Johnson says, “I laughed and I laughed hard. I think everyone had a laugh at that. And I’ll leave it at that. And that I’ve wished them well. I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11and the rest of the Fast & Furious movies they do that will be without me.” Blunt can’t resist extending the moment. “Just thank God he was there,” she says of Diesel. “Thank God. He carried you through that.” “Felliniesque,” Johnson says.

Here’s what Diesel said back in June about the feud, which started when The Rock, without naming names, essentially accused Diesel of being an unprofessional “candyass” who did not respect the cast and crew’s time.

“Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic. That took a lot of work,” Diesel told Men’s Health. “We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”

Clearly, The Rock sees things very differently, and from the sound of it, he’s done working with the “family.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

This article originally appeared on 09.22.17

What can we learn from letting seventh graders take the SAT?

In the 1960s, psychologist Julian Stanley realized that if you took the best-testing seventh graders from around the country and gave them standard college entry exams, those kids would score, on average, about as well as the typical college-bound high school senior.

However, the seventh graders who scored as well or better than high schoolers, Stanley found, had off-the-charts aptitude in quantitative, logical, and spatial reasoning.

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In other words, they were gifted.

In the 1970s, Stanley and his team launched a full-scale study, identifying many of America’s gifted kids and tracking them throughout their lives.

The study, called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth never ended and is now nearly 45 years in the making. It has followed countless kids from middle school into their careers as some of America’s top politicians, scientists, CEOs, engineers, and military leaders.

Professor David Lubinski. Image via Vanderbilt University/YouTube.

Stanley passed away in the mid-2000s, but psychologist David Lubinski helped bring the study to Vanderbilt University in the 1990s, where he now co-directs it with Camilla P. Benhow.

It’s not a stretch to call this the biggest and most in-depth study on intellectual “precociousness.” The results of the study thus far are equal parts fascinating and genuinely surprising — a deeply insightful look into the minds and lives of brilliant children.

1. Some of what we used to think about gifted kids turned out to be wrong.

Ever heard the saying “early to ripe, early to rot”? It basically means doing “too much” to foster a kid’s special talents and abilities at too young an age could actually cause harm in the long term.

That’s not even remotely true, at least not according to Lubinski.

That might be an outdated example. But Lubinksi says there are plenty of other misconceptions still alive today, like the idea that gifted kids are so smart that they’ll “find a way” to excel even if those smarts aren’t nurtured and developed.

Not so fast. “They’re kids,” he explains. “They need guidance. We all need guidance.”

2. Intelligence is not the same as passion.

Quick, what’s the “smartest” career you can think of. Doctor? Scientist?

While you do have to be pretty brilliant to work in medicine or science, those are far from the only career paths gifted kids choose later in life.

“Quantitatively, gifted people vary widely in their passions,” Lubinski says. Many of the students in the study did end up pursuing medicine, but others went into fields like economics or engineering. Others still were more gifted in areas like logical or verbal reasoning, making them excellent lawyers and writers.

“There are all kinds of ways to express intellectual talent,” Lubinski explains.

When it comes to doing what’s best for a gifted student, it’s just as important for parents and educators to know what the student is passionate about rather than pigeonholing them in traditionally “smart” fields and registering them in a bunch of STEM courses.

3. Hard work definitely still matters.

Measuring a student’s aptitude, their natural abilities, is only one part of the equation when it comes to determining how successful they’ll be in life. Aptitude scores can identify a particularly strong natural skill set but tell us very little about how hard that person might work to excel in that field.

Effort, Lubinski says, is a critical factor in determining how far someone’s going to go in life. “If you look at exceptional performers in politics, science, music, and literature, they’re working many, many hours,” he says.

(And for the record, there are a lot more important things in life than just career achievement, like family, friends, and overall happiness.)

4. Regardless of aptitude, every kid deserves to be treated as though they were gifted.

The study’s focus is specifically on kids within a certain range of intellectual ability, but Lubinski is careful to note that many of its findings can and should be applied to all students.

For example, the kids in the study who were given an opportunity to take more challenging courses that aligned with their skills and interests ultimately went on to accomplish more than the students who were not afforded the same opportunity.

“You have to find out where your child’s development is, how fast they learn, what are their strengths and relative weaknesses and tailor the curriculum accordingly,” Lubinski says. “It’s what you would want for all kids.”

It may sound a bit like a pipe dream, but it’s a great starting point for how we should be thinking about the future of education in America.

If you’d like to learn more about the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, check out this short film on the project created by Vanderbilt University:

This article originally appeared on 06.01.18

If you’re a young kid, seeing a tattooed, dirt-covered man might make you do a double take.

Such was the case for a young girl in a Washington store. When construction worker Andy Ross walked to the store’s checkout line with dirt all over him after a long day at work, he noticed the young girl’s stare.

Knowing that children are curious and often stare at people, Andy paid her no mind. That is, until the mom and her daughter began walking out.

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What Andy had expected to be a mundane trip to the store turned into a teaching moment about class, appearances, and creative expression.

In a Facebook post that’s since gone viral, Andy explains overhearing some insulting words from the child’s mother about his appearance.

“As they finished and headed towards the door, I hear her mom say quietly to the little girl ‘that is why you need to stay in school.’ I figured this was a great time to educate this mother and her 7/8 year old daughter.”

Tattooed and muddy, Andy knew the mom was referring to him.

Instead of yelling or getting aggressive, Andy used the opportunity to talk to the mom and share why we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

This mother assumed things about Andy based on his appearance, so he broke it down piece by piece to explain exactly why she was wrong.

Firstly, he notes, he’s quite the outdoorsman. As the co-owner of Evergreen State Outdoors, Andy is often pretty dirty after a long day at work, an aspect of the job he truly enjoys.

He went on to defend his tattoos, a piece of his identity that he says not only represents his time in the service but also the importance of creativity.

“If you are telling your daughter to stay in school because I have tattoos up and down my arms, that will actually suppress her creativity and potentially hinder her imagination as she develops,” Andy said.

He also made a really good point about conflating one’s appearance to their education level.

“I happen to be a very educated dirty man,” Andy wrote. “I not only have a high school diploma, I also have a college degree and many medical certifications. So assuming that I am uneducated because of my appearance is actually quite ignorant in itself.”

But even though he is a college graduate, Andy notes, it shouldn’t matter whether he’s educated or not — blue-collar work is valid and deserves our respect.

Work that doesn’t necessarily require a college degree — such as construction, maintenance, warehousing, and firefighting — matters just as much as other types of work. There are about 19.6 million blue-collar jobs in the United States filled by a diverse group of hard-working Americans.

The woman who assumed that Andy was uneducated happened to be wrong, but her comment revealed her bias against blue-collar workers — a bias that, unfortunately, many Americans hold.

“People need to learn that blue collar workers are just like everybody else they meet in the world,” says Andy in a message to Upworthy. “Some have degrees, some are borderline genius, [and] some have been in trouble. They are from all walks of life and all have a story to tell. So before you assume that this dirty, farmers-tanned man or woman is unintelligent, pause and think.”

Ross’s experience shows that we shouldn’t be vilifying certain types of work to our children. We should be teaching them to respect and appreciate hard workers in all industries.

Granted, every parent gets to decide how to parent their child and what lessons they teach them.

Many parents, understandably, just want the best for their kids. But this desire to lead children to their best lives shouldn’t come at the expense of devaluing someone because they don’t meet antiquated standards of acceptable appearances.

It is absolutely possible to teach children good morals and values while also allowing them to pursue a variety of career options and safe and ethical ways to express themselves. Respecting those around us, even when they look a little different, helps to foster a more understanding and compassionate society.

And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to get a little dirty sometimes?

This article originally appeared on 03.16.18

If you’re living in the modern world, you’ve probably encountered mansplaining — the word or, unfortunately, the real thing.

What is mansplaining? Are you doing it? And what do you do when you find yourself up against a mansplainer?

Luckily, the good folks over at The Nib are here with handy answers to all three — in delightful comic form.

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“Mansplaining, Explained”: “The last guy I dated was a real mansplainer.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “‘Mansplainer.’ I never get that word.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “Luckily, I’ve been on enough dates to prepare for this situation.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “It’s a word that describes a pattern of behavior in our culture.”

Mansplaining is a word that describes a pattern in our society of overlooking and dismissing women’s knowledge, experiences, and voices.

Many men grow defensive when they’re accused of mansplaining, but it’s not a direct attack on any one individual. Rather, it describes a pervasive cultural trend that almost all women face throughout their lives.

“Mansplaining, Explained”: Author Rebecca Solnit

Whether or not an individual man is guilty of mansplaining, the truth remains that it’s near impossible for women and girls to make it through life without coming up against it.

It happens in classrooms, universities, and even in instances where a woman has demonstrably more experience and knowledge on a topic than men present.

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “In elementary school classes, boys call out answers eight more times than girls.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “A 2004 study found the same pattern persisted at Harvard Law.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “Patients are twice as likely to interrupt a female doctor.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: Trump interrupts Clinton multiple times during their first debate.

Mansplaining can also be seen when women’s voices are conspicuously absent from cultural conversations — especially when the topic pertains to gender or women’s rights.

“Mansplaining, Explained”: #MeToo

It’s important to remember that mansplaining isn’t the only type of cultural silencing that occurs in society.

All minorities find themselves silenced at some point or another by majority groups.

The best way to solve mansplaining and other oppressions is to make sure you’re listening to all parties — and if the parties aren’t present, question why and fix it.

“Mansplaining, Explained”: “Who has a power and a platform in our society isn’t just about gender.”

“Mansplaining, Explained”: Who’s speaking? Whose voices are we missing?

This comic was originally published by The Nib and is reprinted here with permission.

This article originally appeared on 08.06.19

I grew up black in a very white neighborhood in a very white city in a very white state.

As such, I am a lot of people’s only black friend.

Being the only black friend is a gift and a curse. I am black and I love having friends. But I am also, at any given moment, expected to be a translator, an ambassador, a history teacher, and/or a walking, talking invitation into “I am not racist” territory. It’s a lot to handle. See what I mean about that curse?

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Don’t get me wrong, my friends are awesome, just very white. Here are me and a few of my pixelated pals before a high school dance in the early 2000s. Photo courtesy of the author.

So when I saw the animated short-film “Your Black Friend,” I felt so seen. Clearly, I am not alone.

The film, which was written, designed, and narrated by Ben Passmore and is based on his mini-comic of the same name, is a brilliant, refreshing way to examine whiteness and racism. The comic and animated short are an open-letter from “your black friend” to you, their well-meaning white friend, about bias, alienation, and what it means to be a good ally and friend.

It’s funny, honest, and heartbreaking in equal measure. And speaking from personal experience, it captures the experience of being a black friend to white people pretty much perfectly.

So if you’re a “woke” friend and ally, here are some things your black friend wants you to know.

1. You’re going to have to get uncomfortable.

It could be something as obvious and upsetting as a racist joke. Or something as “benign” as your aunt suggesting you cross the street when she sees a group of black kids walking by. But either way, if you want to be a good friend and a real ally, you’re going to have to speak up. You’re going to have to have those tough conversations with people you care about.

It’s not easy to confront strangers or people you love, but if you don’t do it, you are part of the problem. Sitting out isn’t an option. No one said being an ally is easy.

All GIFs Silver Sprocket/YouTube.

2. “Your black friend would like to say something to the racist lady, but doesn’t want to appear to be that ‘angry black man.'”

“He knows this type of person expects that from him, and he will lose before he begins,” Passmore says.

Black people can’t always react or respond the way we want to. When I am followed in a department store, pulled over for no reason, or stared at while picking up dinner at the fancy grocery store, I can’t stop what I’m doing and yell, “YES, I AM BLACK. NO, I AM NOT A CRIMINAL YOU SMALL-MINDED, BIASED ASSHOLES.” Trust me, I want to. But especially when police are involved, I have to be calm, respectful, and obedient.

That’s where you come in. You, white friend, need to speak up and say something when I can’t. If you are not at risk, nor considered a threat, you have a certain amount of privilege in these situations. Use it to demand answers, speak to supervisors, or if things really get dicey, pull out your phone and hit record.

3. We are constantly monitoring our surroundings and adjusting our clothes, hair, speed, and speech to maintain white comfort.

We don’t like it, but one small choice — like deciding whether or not to wear a hood, or the speed at which we reach into our glove box — can be the difference between life and death.

When I am in a parking garage and walking behind a white woman, I intentionally cough or walk a little louder so she turns and notices me.

Why? Because when I don’t, that same white woman will often clutch her purse and occasionally let out an audible gasp as I pass her. This is something my white friends likely don’t realize I have to do. Some of them may even be the pearl-clutchers in the parking lot.

But to maintain white comfort and to avoid having the cops called on us, we often have to tamp down clothes, modify our speech and volume, even do our hair differently. We have to have “the talk” with our kids about how the world sees them, and how act in order to make sure they come home alive.

No, it’s not fair. No, we don’t like it. But so long as this country and its institutions are built on a solid foundation of white supremacy, it’s a grim reality. You need to know that, and take it up with your fellow white people about how to dismantle it.

4. “Your black friend wishes you’d play more than Beyoncé. There are more black performers than Beyoncé.”

“Lemonade” was awesome. There is no denying it. And yes, I love seeing her iconic looks on Instagram too. But there is more to black music and black art than Beyoncé. Dip a toe outside your comfort zone and try new new artists and genres you may not be familiar with. Go listen, see it, and experience it for yourself.

And while we’re here, you can’t say the n-word when you sing along. Nope. You just can’t.

5. Speaking of which, performative blackness is really uncomfortable.

When you wear that braided wig on Halloween, or use your “blaccent” when you’re around me or other black people, it hurts. It’s not cute or charming, and it definitely doesn’t make you seem cool.

Our culture and heritage are not costumes you can slide on and off at your convenience. We don’t get to be black only when it suits us. Neither do you.

6. “Your black friend feels like a man without a country.”

Having white friends and seeming to “fit in” with the majority can feel really alienating. You can feel too “white” for black people, and too “black” for white people when all you want to do is find people to eat pizza with. As Passmore wrote, “He is lost in this contradiction, and held responsible for it.”

7. We would love it if we could stop talking about our anxiety and frustrations regarding racism. But right now, that’s impossible.

Our concerns are urgent and real. We’re getting subpar health care. We’re disenfranchised. We’re over-policed. We’re thrown in jail. We’re killed by people sworn to protect us. It’s exhausting, but we have to keep talking about it. So do you.

We can’t be expected to dismantle white supremacy on our own.

Our white friends and allies need to step up and gather their people. Have the tough conversations. Speak up when you see racism, discrimination, and microaggressions. The time to talk about it is done. Be about it, or find yourself a new black friend.

Watch “Your Black Friend” in full and check out Passmore’s book, “Your Black Friend And Other Strangers,” coming in March.

This article was originally published on January 30, 2018.

Space Jam: A New Legacy sports a 31 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is high for a movie that made me question if I even like movies. That might sound hyperbolic, but you try watching a 20-years-too-late parody of The Matrix with Speedy Gonzales and Granny asking if a lady can check her Twitter (she can, but she won’t like what she sees). Anyway, the “haters” have shared their takes on Space Jam: A New Legacy, but surely the director of the original Space Jam liked it, right? Right…?

In comments made to TMZ, Joe Pytka revealed that it actually took him five different sittings to finish Space Jam: A New Legacy, rather than watching it all in one two-hour period. His biggest problem with it was mostly its protagonist, LeBron James. In Pytka’s eyes, James didn’t bring enough heart or reality to the film.

“The truth is that LeBron ain’t Michael,” Pytka said.

I’m sure Cavaliers, Heat, and Lakers fans are taking this well.

Pytka criticized A New Legacy for its “insignificant” soundtrack and that unlike supporting cast members Charles Barkley, Muggsy Bogues, and Bill Murray in the original, he thinks Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and Damian Lillard (and Rick and Morty) didn’t add much. Pytka also laid into how Bugs Bunny was depicted in the sort-of sequel.

“[Bugs] looked like one of those fluffy dolls you buy at an airport gift shop to bring your kid when your business trip has taken too long,” he said.

That’s still one of the kinder things someone has said about Space Jam: A New Legacy.

(Via the Wrap and TMZ)

There’s a fine line between being a cool dad and dishing out nightmare fuel to your children, and — much like his art as a whole — Quentin Tarantino teeters on the edge. In a recent interview with Deadline, Tarantino shared when he thinks his now infant son, Leo, will be ready to watch some of his cult classic films and uh… it’s pretty young. According to Tarantino, and if Leo takes after his old man, he anticipates he’ll be ready to watch Kill Bill by no later than 7 years old:

“If we’re judging by me, I saw a lot of stuff early on when it came out, you know, so I would imagine [early]. If I had to imagine, he would probably, as a little boy, be most attracted to Kill Bill anywhere between 5, 6 or 7.”

If that age feels a bit a bit inappropriate to you, rest assured the director has confirmed he leaves Kill Bill‘s infamous “Pussy Wagon” behind on family outings (yes, that’s in the interview) — primarily because each time he takes it out, the situation becomes an impromptu press tour that he’s not ready to subject his son to. However, jumping back to that whole age thing, it’s worth nothing that according to Tarantino — and as detailed in his upcoming book, Cinema Speculation — around that age is when he began watching more mature films, such as 1967’s Point Blank. And hey, seeing as how his early interest in cinema and violence worked out pretty damn well for him, who are we to judge?

In addition to sharing his thoughts on when his son will be ready to watch Lucy Liu’s character be decapitated, Tarantino also discussed writing novels, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, revisiting Reservoir Dogs, and cleared up some retirement rumors that have been circling around in his exclusive interview with Deadline.

(Via Deadline)

Chance The Rapper hasn’t performed live in quite some time, both as a result of him taking a break after releasing his debut album The Big Day and due to the global pandemic that shut down festivals and tours for over a year. However, in August, he’ll premiere his concert film Magnificent Coloring World in select AMC Theatres across the country, which will give his fans a chance to see him again, and he’ll return to the stage this September at Summerfest in Milwaukee.

In a new interview about the film with Billboard, Chance says the process of editing the film “made me super thirsty” to perform live again. “Watching a performance of mine from four years ago, I’m like ‘I would have done this’ or ‘I would have done that,’” he says. “I’m saying to myself ’I can’t wait to perform this particular song now. I’m looking at it as a performer, but also as a filmmaker.”

Magnificent Coloring World celebrates the five-year anniversary of Coloring Book, Chance’s critically-acclaimed, Grammy-winning third mixtape, and he’s putting it in theaters because “there’s just something different about going to see something in theaters, instead of watching it in your bed or whatever,” he says. “I always knew that I wanted this to be experienced in a group and on a huge screen with crazy surround sound.”

You can catch Magnificent Coloring World in select cities 8/13. Find out more here.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura, for those who don’t know, is the driving force behind the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies. (And a lot of other stuff, but these are our topics today.) For these two properties, someone like Kevin Feige’s role at Marvel – at least as far as the person who makes a lot of the big decisions and being the spokesperson about where things are headed – is a fair comparison.

The approach I had with this interview was pretty much, “So where are we?” We know we have Snake Eyes coming out this weekend, which, after only two G.I. Joe movies, is a complete reboot of the franchise. And next year we have Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which comes after the Transformers franchise didn’t do a complete reboot with Bumblebee, but certainly rebooted its tone. So, again, where are we? What does Lorenzo di Bonaventura want to accomplish with future G.I. Joe movies? (He goes into a surprising amount of detail on future G.I. Joe projects that are in development.) And why is G.I. Joe such a tough nut to crack?

But, first, we start with Cobra Commander. A fan-favorite character that got a pretty unusual treatment in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and now di Bonaventura explains why that character inherently rubs him the wrong way.

When do I get my Cobra Commander origin story movie?

It’s so funny. You know what? I have this funny reaction about Cobra Commander, which is he kind of looks like he’s from the KKK.

Not with that helmet.

Not with that helmet, you’re absolutely right.

The hood, I agree with you. Not a good look. But you can do the helmet and visor.

Yeah. You can do the visor for sure. I don’t know what the next one’s going to be.

Is that why you changed his look so drastically for the Joseph Gordon-Levitt version in The Rise of Cobra?

A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. I probably was the first person who went, “Are you guys sure? Doesn’t he look a little, like from the KKK?” And everybody’s looking at me like, “How dare you say that.” Some of the Hasbro guys were horrified. It was one of the reasons. The idea of why did you want to cover up his face was also interesting to us. What does he look like?

I’ve noticed Hasbro hasn’t put out a hooded version in the Classified series. It’s all the face shield. Maybe you influenced that.

Yeah. I think I might’ve affected that because I’m just like “Guys, it’s pretty obvious to me.” They kept saying, “You have to put it in, you have to put it in.” I’m like, “I will not put it in, whatever the vibe of that is.”

Every time I see marketing for ‘Snake Eyes’ it’s calling it a spinoff. Why isn’t the fact it’s a complete reboot put more out there?

I don’t know how to answer that one. Because I guess, I don’t know. I don’t know why that hasn’t gotten out there.

Because you’re “spinning it off.” I think that makes people think it’s spinning off from the other movies as opposed to starting something new.

Well, it’s probably too late for our messaging, but it’s never too late. We’ll work on that.

Why did you want to reboot after two movies?

I think, first of all, as you know, really as a fan, Snake Eyes is the most popular character and the dynamic between him and Storm Shadow is just too rich. And we thought that for the people who’ve grown up with it and know it, it’s such an interesting experience. Actually see Snake Eyes and hear him talk. And so we felt like that was really a lot of new news for the fan base.

Speaking of the fan base, do you worry they won’t like Snake Eyes talking? To be fair, when I was a kid, before I read the comics, my Snake Eyes action figure had a lot to say.

What’s great about having fans is they are so passionate, and what can be a burden is that they have a very strict interpretation of things at times. I just thought, first of all, it was really hard when he was in the G.I. Joe movies. He’s really a hard character because he doesn’t say anything. You know what I mean? And you can’t see him. I thought that was the interesting part. What is going on under that helmet? And who is that guy?

He worked well in the comics with Larry Hama writing him. But even in the cartoon, he didn’t do much. It was all Duke and Shipwreck and that parrot.

That parrot cracks me up.

I’m going to take that as a hint that the parrot is the next origin story.

Yeah. That would be funny. No, we actually wrote a script now that I’m remembering it. I’ll think about it while we’re talking. Because we did try a G.I. Joe script. Let me think. I’ve a distant memory coming, but I don’t have it…

It sounds like an interesting statement. I want to hear it.

There’s a couple things we have in development right now for G.I. Joe, which is not really origin stories. It is and it isn’t. But what is interesting is it takes a G.I. Joe and essentially brands him a traitor, and then the story is, how does he prove he’s not? And what I liked about that idea was how personal it was. I think that was the goal of Snake Eyes, to find a size of a movie that made you go, okay, we have time to develop the character. The burden of spending a lot of money is that it demands a different kind of movie. In this case, relatively speaking in Hollywood terms, it’s a middle-priced movie that allows you to spend time with the character and really explore what’s driving this guy.

Do you feel that was a problem in the first two movies? That there are so many characters?

I think it’s the problem with, frankly, almost any group, when you actually go to a group movie it splits the narrative so much that it’s tricky. I’ve done movies in the past where you pull the gang together and do the recruitment and go for the mission.

Obviously, in the world of this Snake Eyes movie, G.I. Joe already exists. But is the goal to do a few origin movies, then make a team movie?

I’m a little antithetical to this idea of planning the universe. I find there’s a certain rigidity to that, that doesn’t appeal to me at all.

I would counter that by saying you did two the other way and you are rebooting already. So that tells me you weren’t satisfied with how those went. If that strategy didn’t turn out the way you wanted for the first two, then why not maybe look into that a little bit?

Well, you’re giving me too much credit. I think I would say about the first two movies: I struggled sometimes with the tones of them. I think one of the things I was hoping to find here, and I think Robert Schwentke did a great job with it, is that it has a very unified tone and it takes itself seriously, but not too seriously. That’s what really appealed to me in terms of Snake Eyes: unveiling the character that people don’t know that much about.

I know you’re always going to have your fans who are like, “No, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow fought in Vietnam together with Stalker, and Snake Eyes got blown up and lost his voice.”Look, I’m the whitest guy ever from the Midwest and I was disappointed that Snake Eyes was just some blonde white guy.

I always think the trick of any of these properties that people have some kind of really hard one allegiance to is the trick of the filmmakers, how do you move the story forward and make it fresh? I remember Transformers one, I don’t know how many times I read, “Michael Bay’s going to ruin my childhood.”

I remember the flames on Optimus Prime was the big problem.

It worked okay, didn’t it? And brought a whole new generation of fans.

Every time I talk to you, and you did it again just now, you’re basically like, “Hey, the Transformers movies worked.” But with G.I. Joe you always have this look on your face that’s it’s a tough nut to crack for movies. Why is that?

I think the hard part about G.I. Joe is that the very name still calls up that little green soldier that I grew up with. And there is a rub between that and the fantasy that was created. It fights it. The very name of it fights what the audience is expecting from it.

I know people who are not from the United States originally who will say, “No, I was never a fan of a toy series based on the U.S. Military.” And I’m like, “Oh, but the Larry Hama stuff.” And it’s still, “It’s not for me.”

I think that is part of the rub of it. That’s why I said, tonally, I think there’s some issues with the first two movies that either are too serious or too fantastic. And when we thought about doing this, there was a grounding effect about going infiltrating a Ninja clan that has a philosophy that our hero – which is hard to do in this time and age, to give a hero the amount of awards we give Henry – has to learn to be righteous, if you would. And switch. I think there’s a total thing with G.I. Joe that’s very tricky.

I asked Henry this, but if he winds up doing 10 of these movies, is eventually he going to be wearing a mask and not speaking?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. I would think so. Yeah, for sure.

Because he seemed into that idea. Still being paid and not having to say dialogue.

He might not like wearing that helmet all the time. I remember Ray Park, several times, taking that thing off and he was all sweat when he took it off. I think you want to get to that place where you see the helicopter crash – and we’ll pick a more modern war and see that transformation. I don’t know where, but I guess if we’re successful enough and I don’t know how to measure success right now, that’s what’s so tricky. I would have guessed that in the third movie, that’s when we would have done that.

If you got your way, what would you want the next chapter to be? Not of Snake Eyes, but just the next time you see G.I. Joe in general as a movie?

It’s funny, there’s 10 pages of one draft that got the tone exactly where I thought it should be. And I gave it to every director and every writer, and then they rejected it.

What was it?

The short version of it it was, one of the Joes is taken. The command says, “Nothing we could do.” Four or five of them band to say, “All right, we’re taking our leave.” They dress up in civies. And they go into a territory, let’s call it…

Val Verde.

[Laughs] There you go, Val Verde, right. An environment in South America, the three borders, do you know what I’m thinking of? A triple frontier? The scene is they arrive, they have no money. They walk into a police station. They look at the most wanted posters on the wall. The police, the captain says, “What are you doing?” And they go, “Well, we’ll be back. We’re going to get this guy.” And our guys are smart enough. They’ve tapped into the phone line. So now they know where this wanted guy is and then there’s a hard cut. The end of the day, they walk in, they’ve got their guy and the police captain is like, “What?” So it’s clever. It’s fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it shows great competence actually. And it doesn’t require firepower to show the ingenuity of the team.

As you said, the Transformers worked. But, but by the fifth one, The Last Knight, it didn’t do as well. Then you did a dramatic tonal shift to Bumblebee. Will the next one, Rise of the Beasts, have the Bumblebee tone?

I think it was really because of the character. The character was so lovable and just so endearing that it led us to that, in a sense. I think it’s very hard to maintain a series over a long period of time, especially one where we’re carving it out each time. I think the audience, to some extent, just started to feel like we were a little bit of a one-trick pony. What we did was we switched it up and said, “Let’s do a really emotional heartwarming story with Bumblebee.” Christina Hodson did a great job with the script. It was almost like in the first draft you knew this was a really good idea. One of the hard things about that movie is that some of the fans really didn’t feel satisfied because there wasn’t enough, wham, smashing and crashing, et cetera. Where’s all the action?

Like that early Cybertron scene? Which is basically straight out of the cartoon.

Yeah. And on purpose. One of the reasons we picked Travis Knight to direct it was because he was a guy who grew up with it and really had this sort of intrinsic DNA in him. I think that’s really helpful.

When are the Transformers and G.I. Joe going to team up? They did this all the time in the comics.

You know, the truth of matter is, the studio has always been against that. Every regime that’s been at Paramount is against it because it’s taking two franchises and making them one, but I think it’s inevitable.

Universal is all but certain to do the Jurassic Park, Fast and Furious stunt. Once that makes like $7 billion, I think everyone’s going to change their mind on combining the two.

If they’re actually going to do something like that and it works, yes. Or maybe the audience will think that’s a little too cynical. I don’t know.

Do you really think there’s any human being out there that wouldn’t be there the first day for Fast and Furious and Jurassic Park? That would be the biggest movie of all time.

The dinosaurs are chasing the cars.

Or maybe the opposite, we don’t know. We’ve got to watch it to find out who’s chasing who.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s funny. I do think it’s inevitable. I just think that we haven’t run out of storytelling yet to require us to put them together in a sense. I don’t know about you, but Alien vs. Predator, in a way, besmirched both of them.

Okay, but that was a long time ago.

I’m an old-timer. I learned the lessons. Yeah, I think it’s a possibility, there’s no doubt about it. It comes up almost every single time we start to debate what the next script is in either one of them. Then it gets pushed aside and then it’ll come up again.

I’m imagining that one person in the room every time, “What if we…”

Well, it’s funny, Steven Caple, who’s directing Transformers right now, is a huge G.I. Joe fan, too. And he was like, “Why aren’t you doing that?” Everyone was like, “Well, try to make a Transformers movie really good. Then we’ll talk about that.” Maybe Steven will be the one to crack through because he loves them both so much.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Porches, aka New York singer-songwriter Aaron Maine, has announced the follow-up to last year’s Ricky Music. Titled All Day Gentle Hold !, it’s his fifth studio album over all.

Along with the news, Maine shared a new single, “Okay” — an upbeat tune with an opening guitar line that frankly reminds me a whole lot of Akron/Family’s “Running, Returning.” As for the accompanying video, which is directed by Maine, the singer is shown performing on a makeshift rooftop in an “I Heart NY” T-shirt, then in a full-on angel get-up. “I recorded this album in my room between October 2019 and April 2021,” Maine said of his new LP in a press release. “The world was flipped and I wanted to make something injected with as much love, urgency, and lust for humanity as I possibly could.”

Last year, in an interview around Ricky Music, Maine told CR Men about experimenting with his sound, saying, “I think it was a wakeup call to be very considerate. [I realized I needed to be] thoughtful and still experiment, and not let it make me quit music. Even though I kind of felt like it could…I felt like shutting up. And then I made these songs, and I kept growing, still. I wanted to make things better. I wanted it to feel like an offering with as much love as I could possibly inject in these songs. In the end, I creatively benefited from having to see the gravity of my words and my position and platform.”

Find the All Day Gentle Hold ! art and tracklist below.

1. “Lately”
2. “I Miss That”
3. “Okay”
4. “Swimming Big”
5. “Back3School”
6. “Swarovski”
7. “Watergetsinside”
8. “In A Fashion”
9. “Inasint”
10. “Grab The Phone”
11. “Comedown Song (Gunk)”

All Day Gentle Hold ! is out 10/8 via Domino. Pre-order it here.