Category: News

Sometimes, it feels like Taylor Swift is receiving some sort of award on a daily basis (and deservedly so). Heck, she was recognized at two different award ceremonies just yesterday: Her video for “The Best Day (Taylor’s Version)” won Best Family Feature at the CMT Music Awards, and during the National Music Publishers Association’s annual membership meeting yesterday, she was given the Songwriter Icon Award.

Video of Swift’s acceptance speech isn’t currently available online, but Variety shared a full transcript of Swift’s acceptance speech from the virtual event. She began by explaining why songwriting feels “so magical and mystical” to her:

“I’m really, really honored to be receiving this award because it honors the part of my job that is so magical and mystical to me, still. I love songwriting so much because there’s an element to it that is still really mysterious — like I think any songwriter will tell you, when you get an idea you’re not quite sure where it floated down from, but if you can grab onto that idea and turn it into something, a piece of music, that’s where craftsmanship comes in; that’s where you have the opportunity to learn and to nurture that craft, and I want to take a moment to thank the people who were my professors, my teachers, of the craft of songwriting.”

She then thanked some choice songwriting collaborators from throughout her career, including Liz Rose, Max Martin, Johan Shellback, Jack Antonoff, and Aaron Dessner. She also expressed how moved she has been and continues to be by the support she receives from fans, saying, “To the fans who are out there who care about my lyrics: you have no idea how much it means to me that you dissect them and copy them into your journals and care about the words that I write.”

Read Swift’s full speech here.

After giving Gossip Girl fans a brief taste of the new revival series coming to HBO Max, the streaming service dropped a full-length trailer that has all the dirt on the next generation. Taking place almost a decade after the events of the original series, Gossip Girl will focus on a new group of wealthy, over-privileged teens as their tangled love lives and dark secrets are turned against them by “Gossip Girl.” Only this time, the mysterious writer has taken their game to Instagram, leaving the blogging world in the past. But to ease fans into this latest iteration, Kristen Bell is back as the Gossip Girl narrator, and it’s anyone’s guess which of the new characters are pulling the strings this time. If it’s even one of them…

Here’s the official synopsis:

Developed by showrunner Joshua Safran, a writer and executive producer on the original series, this extension of the pop culture classic takes us back to the Upper East Side finding a new generation of New York private school teens being introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark. The series is based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and the original show, developed by Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage, which ran from 2007-2012 on The CW.

Starring Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak and Savannah Lee Smith, the all-new Gossip Girl starts streaming Thursday, July 8 on HBO Max.

Fox News host Sean Hannity and the much maligned Senator Ted Cruz got together to explain the mysterious and shadowy world of cryptocurrency to the at-home audience, and oh boy. On one hand, sure, the Fox News audience has probably caught wind of all those Reddit-lurking younguns and their stock-market exploits, and they’d like to know what all of this Bitcoin and Dogecoin fuss is about. So at a certain point, the Fox News night-time guys needed to tackle the subject, and the results, so far, are entertaining.

Bless Hannity’s heart, he gave it a go, and he introduced his crypto talk by asking, “What is Bitcoin, what is blockchain, what is Doggy Coin?” It’s not a promising start, and it’s kind-of ridiculous, but he’s doing it anyway.

Although it would have been something if Hannity could have nabbed Elon Musk (he, as Anonymous put it last week, could possibly shed light on the market-manipulation, through crypto memes, in which he apparently partakes), Hannity pulled up the next dubious-best thing: Ted Cruz. And no, Cruz doesn’t understand crypto any more than Hannity does, but let’s not worry about details. Instead, let’s enjoy how Cruz attempted to explain why people are getting into crypto.

Long story short, according to Cruz (who also has no idea what crypto is but sees a lot of “potential” there), people are wanting to find alternatives to traditional money because of Biden putting the U.S. “on the verge of an inflation crisis” with federal spending: “We’re seeing lumber going up, we’re seeing homes going up, oil going up, gasoline going up.” Cruz ignores the fact that the rising prices of lumber, homes, and oil/gas are down to supply-and-demand issues, and he doesn’t seem to realize that Bitcoin has been popping for years, but Reddit and Elon Musk are pushing crypto into headlines. Yet, as Cruz admits about crypto, “To be honest, I don’t fully understand it.”

The same goes for Hannity. He imagines that although he’s debated the issue of crypto for “probably hundreds of hours” with friends, “I honestly still do not understand a lot about it.” Yet Hannity’s invested in crypto, as he admits below, and yes, this is real life.

For a long time, indie games were considered a niche and small side part of the gaming ecosystem as a whole. Then, as they became more popular, many considered them the future of gaming. Well, the future is here, because indie games are just as much a part of video games as any Triple-A title. Game of the year awards feature at least one or two indie nominations/winners every year, and these games are frequently pushing the industry in new directions.

One company, Panic, Inc. saw this happening and had an interesting idea: What if there was a console that was made exclusively for indie games? Thus, the Playdate was born. A mobile indie console with a crank on it. It’s also a clock! That may sound weird, but we promise it makes more sense when you see it in action.

Via Playdate:

Playdate is familiar, but unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It has a very special black and white screen – not backlit, but super reflective – that looks way more amazing than you’re probably imagining.

An exploded view of the internals of a Playdate device.
It also has a peppy little processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a surprisingly loud loudspeaker. And when you’re not using it, the screen doesn’t turn off – it becomes a very nice low-power clock!

What’s cool about the Playdate is that, once someone owns one, they’ll receive 24 games over a 12 week period, all on the console itself. The idea of what the Playdate could be is very cool — if it does well, it could be a console that indie devs use to launch lesser-known titles instead of relying on overfilled markets like Steam or the Epic Games Store.

Unfortunately, it’s harder than ever to launch a new console these days. With the stranglehold that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have on the industry it’s going to take a big push, and maybe a little luck, for Playdate to succeed. Anyone that wants to get in on the ground floor of this console can do so in July.

When rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, it sparked visceral feelings of terror and sadness in those who watched the events unfold on television. But Officer James Blassingame, a 17-year veteran of the Capitol Police Department, told PBS NewsHour that the reality was “was much worse in person than anything you’re ever going to see on film.” He described the scene as looking like “a horde of zombies… Just people as far as you can see, just salivating.”

Blassingame sat down with Lisa Desjardins on Wednesday night to discuss the riots, just one day after the Senate released its report detailing the number of security failures that occurred on that infamous day. As Blassingame is part of a civil lawsuit against former president Donald Trump for the part he played in these violent attacks, there was only so much he could say. But the scene he laid out was horrifying—especially once he and his fellow officers were notified that “they’re coming in the window.”

“We rolled out towards the center of the rotunda, looking north. And you just hear… just noise and people running at me as far as the eye can see, from the crypt to the north side, Senate side, of the Capitol… I looked to my left and to my right and there’s like maybe eight or nine of us and I’m thinking: Sh*t!

[We were] holding a ‘line,’ but there’s no line we’re holding because there’s an insurmountable amount of people and there’s like eight, nine officers.

I’m 39 years old. I’ve never been called a n***er to my face in 39 years. I might have been called a n***er, but I’ve never been called one to my face. That streak ended on January 6th. I was called a n***er. I was called a traitor. I was called various epithets.”

When Desjardins played a clip of various Trump-leaning politicians claiming that the events of that day, in which five people were killed, Blassingame was clear to dispel any notion that it was anything like “a normal tourist visit” (as House Republican Andrew Clyde declared like a damn idiot).

“I would think certain things are above politics. I mean, it’s deplorable to say. As bad as it looks on film, believe me, it was much worse. They can stitch together as much footage as they want to, but I’m telling you, and anybody in that was in that scrum will tell you, it was much worse in person than anything you’re ever going to see on film.”

You can watch Blassingame’s full interview below:

(Via Mediaite)

Samuel L. Jackson’s IMDb lists 196 credits for the 72-year-old actor, including approximately 47 Marvel movies but only one (1) Deep Blue Sea. He’s also been in the Star Wars prequels, Jurassic Park, The Incredibles and its sequel, and many Spike Lee films, beginning with 1988’s School Daze and most recently, 2015’s Chi-Raq. Also, some movie about snakes being on a plane. I don’t remember the title of it.

Anyway, it would be understandably difficult for Jackson to nary those nearly 200 credits down to his five favorite — I didn’t even mention his work with Quentin Tarantino — but that’s what he did during Wednesday’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

“Do you ever watch Sam Jackson movies?” host Stephen Colbert asked his guest, who replied, “Uh, yeah.” It may seem like a silly question, but as Colbert pointed out, some actors refuse to watch themselves. “Some actors lie to you about that,” Jackson fired back. “They watch their movies. It’s a ‘watch me’ business… If I’m channel surfing and I haven’t found anything I want to watch, or not specifically looking for something, and I pass something I’m in, I stop and watch it.” The actor then revealed his personal top five.

The Long Kiss Goodnight

A Time To Kill

Jackie Brown

The Red Violin

One Eight Seven

There’s some deep cuts in there. Interestingly, those five films all came out between 1996 and 1998, leaving out recent highlights like xXx and xXx: State of the Union, where he plays a character named Augustus Eugene Gibbons. Jackie Brown wants what xXx has (Vin Diesel wearing this coat). Jackson also listed his five favorite movies overall, which you can watch in the video above (it begins around the 4:30 mark).

Last weekend, Kid Rock performed at FishLipz Bar & Grill in Smithville, Tennessee. The show was definitely memorable, albeit not for a great reason: While on stage, he got frustrated with his audience and responded by using a homophobic slur. Addressing one attendee who was filming the performance with their phone, Rock said, “F*ck your iPhone, yeah!” After singing about his crotch for a little bit, he added, “You f*cking f*****s with your phones out!”

Now, Rock has responded to the situation, although instead of putting out the fire, he fanned the flames.

On Twitter yesterday afternoon, Rock shared a tweet, written from the perspective of “Bob Ritchie” (the musician’s full legal name is Robert James Ritchie). In the tweet, he writes about “Kid Rock” like he’s a completely different person, but that’s not even the most baffling thing about the post: Rock decided to address his use of the slur by using the slur again. He wrote, “If Kid Rock using the word f***** offends you, good chance you are one. Either way, I know he has a lot of love for his gay friends and I will have a talk with him. Have a nice day. -Bob Ritchie”

The response to the tweet has been divided. Some Rock fans told detractors to “calm down” and one praised the artist for “standing up to the woke bully left.” Then there are those who mocked Rock’s decision to discuss himself in the third person. One user replied, “thanks Bob, be sure to tell him no one respects him,” while author John Pavlovitz responded, “You’re both idiots.”

Blizzard’s goal was clear when Overwatch released to PC in 2016: give this competitive shooter the potential to be the next great eSport. That meant devs were going to focus on balance and making the game a fair, and fun, experience for all players.

One of the biggest disparities in Overwatch, however, has always been the difference between console and PC. The PC game was a faster and more intense beast. Players had a significant advantage with a mouse and keyboard compared to those who played with a controller. While other competitive shooters were finding ways to add crossplay, making it so anyone with the game could play them, Overwatch always held out as an exclusive experience.

That is changing. Overwatch devs announced on Wednesday that they were going to be tearing the crossplay barrier down. PC players can play with anyone on a console and console players can play with PC players, a huge shift against how they have handled Overwatch up to this point.

On the surface, this is just Overwatch doing something that other shooters have already done. Apex Legends and Fortnite, for example, have thriving competitive environments despite being crossplay titles. Now that Overwatch is joining them, it makes the game more accessible for everyone, but there is more to it than that.

Overwatch was one of the final crossplay holdouts. If anyone had a good reason to not go to crossplay, it was Overwatch, because it has been designed to be an eSport since it launched. By adding crossplay, developers now have to put time and effort into how it will perform on consoles and make sure the balance for that is fair, or else they will develop the game and make it very clear that one platform is going to struggle compared to others. It’s a massive shift in how they’ve always viewed their game. It’s also the final nail in the exclusivity coffin.

Video games used to be an exclusive experience. Someone bought a console because it was what their friends have, but now, a group of four can have a Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and still play games together. Five years ago, when Overwatch released, that sentence would have made no sense. Video games have changed and Overwatch shifting to crossplay is a sign of that change.

The last time that Dave Grohl was a guest on The Howard Stern Show in February, he spoke about getting together with his surviving Nirvana bandmates to jam and record new music. Recently, Grohl returned to the program to promote Foo Fighters’ upcoming Madison Square Garden concert. While there, Stern again got Grohl talking about those Nirvana get-togethers.

Grohl suggested that the material he, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear (a touring member of Nirvana) have recorded together may never get released, or at least it wasn’t designed for an audience outside of themselves:

“Krist Novoselic is a pilot, he flies his own plane. He lives up in the Pacific Northwest and whenever he comes down to Los Angeles, you know, we always love to see each other and we’ll have dinner. Last time he was here, I made dinner for us and we hung out. Pat’s always around and the three of us, you know, we like to be together, we like to see each other. If there are instruments around or a studio that’s available, we’ll just get together and kind of jam, you know? We don’t, like, run through a big ol’ Nirvana setlist, but we do like to just fool around, and sometimes, as we’re fooling around, songs happen. And if we’re in a studio, we’ll record them. We’ve recorded some stuff that’s really cool, but we’ve never done anything with it. I think to us, it’s just more friends jamming around. It doesn’t seem like any big official reunion or anything.”

Stern then asked if Grohl handles vocal duties during these jam/recording sessions and Grohl said, “No, I’m just playing the drums. We don’t have a singer. We kind of record these instrumentals and just mess around. It’s very casual. There’s no pressure on us to do something that the world will have to hear. It’s more really just for fun and a lot of it’s really cool. It reminds you that when the three of us get together in a room and start playing, it sounds like it did, it sounds like it used to. When you put the three of us in a room, it makes that noise, it still does. […] It sounds like Nirvana. We just make that sound when we play together. It’s really cool.”

Watch Grohl discuss getting together with his Nirvana bandmates below.

In Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, a happy-go-lucky bank teller who learns that he’s a non-playable-character in an open-world video game. It’s kind of like the “Raiders of the Lost Arcade” segment in the “Anthology of Interest II” episode of Futurama, except instead of defeating the Space Invaders, Reynolds has to save his world from an evil tech millionaire played by Taika Waititi. Free Guy also stars Jodie Comer as Milly, who explains the rules of the game to Guy, and Lil Rel Howery as his best friend Buddy.

“I do think it’s the best movie-making experience that I’ve ever had, easily, but also the best movie I’ve ever done,” Reynolds said about Free Guy, directed by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things). “It’s the most pertinent to our times.” He praised it for speaking “in a broader spectrum of where we are in the world and how we are in the world.”

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

In Free Guy, a bank teller who discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game decides to become the hero of his own story… one he rewrites himself. Now in a world where there are no limits, he is determined to be the guy who saves his world his way… before it is too late.

Free Guy, which has been postponed three times due to the pandemic (it was originally scheduled for last July), finally opens on August 13.