Category: News

Donald Trump has been banned from Twitter since January 8 due to his role in inciting the attack at the U.S. Capitol building that left five people dead. The former-president is also not welcome on Facebook (although that may change soon), Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and Snapchat, among other platforms. Trump’s chaotic tweets (“Sad!”) are not missed, but don’t worry, there’s many other Bad Terminator Tweets to go around.

On Tuesday, author J.D. Vance, whose best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy was turned into one of the worst movies of 2020, tweeted, “I still can’t believe the 45th president of the United States has no access to social media, and the left — alleged opponents of corporate power — is just totally fine with it. He added, “Seems important to not let a few corporations dictate who’s allowed to speak and what they’re allowed to say.” OK, fair, except for the part where Trump’s social media helped incite a violent attempt at a coup. Also, as many on Twitter are pointing out, Trump isn’t being CENSORED from releasing statements, or appearing on Newsmax or Fox News, or going on Joe Rogan’s podcast; he’s willingly choosing to remain silent, give or take a petty resignation letter.

It’s exactly like that. Oh, and in case you’re wondering about Parler:

Parler reportedly offered the Trump Organization a 40 percent ownership stake in the company if the president did whatever the Parler version of a tweet is. No deal was reached. If only there was someone who could write an elegy about it.

Fans may be not-so-patiently waiting for Rihanna to drop her anticipated ninth studio album, but the singer has been hard at work on her business endeavors. She recently launched her line of skincare products, Fenty Skin, which arrived on the heels of her success with her makeup and lingerie brands, Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty. In fact, Savage X Fenty has been doing so well that it has now reached an impressive milestone: The company is now officially worth $1 billion.

According to a report from Forbes, the lingerie company recently secured $115 million in Series B funding, which officially put it at a valuation of $1 billion. The new funding will be a way for the brand to support their growth and continue developing more products.

News of the billion dollar valuation arrives after Savage X Fenty reported solid growth over the past year and a half. According to their year-end report, the brand grew an impressive 200 percent in 2019, with VIP memberships increasing by 150 percent. Part of what makes Savage X Fenty so successful is its commitment to inclusivity. Not only is much of the underwear priced affordably, but the brand also makes clothing up to women’s size 22.

While her lingerie company is doing well, Rihanna and LVMH have reportedly opted to end their work on a fashion line. In a joint statement given to WWD, LVMH and Rihanna recently said: “Following the completion of the fundraising round where L Catterton took a stake in Savage X Fenty, LVMH and Rihanna reaffirmed their ambition to concentrate on the growth and the long-term development of Fenty ecosystem focusing on cosmetics, skincare, and lingerie.”

It’s kind of nice to use the word “travesty” in a totally meaningless way again. And this isn’t to say things are at all “good” in the world right now, they are not, but it’s fun sometimes to be hyperbolic. It can be cathartic. So let’s all take a couple of minutes of catharsis and be hyperbolic about one of the songs in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.

Back in late January, I got a “for your consideration” PR email about one of the songs featured in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar called “I Love Boobies.” At the time I had never even heard of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar and the whole thing seemed like a joke. But, it probably did have the desired effect that I asked out loud, to myself, “what is this?,” and further investigated this weird movie that I thought was either fake or something I’d never like in a million years. (I was wrong about both of those things.)

So, I get it, to a point: why someone decided “I Love Boobies” would be the song that the film would push for awards. It’s just “raunchy” enough to get attention and it is kind of preposterous that it would actually win any awards. So, then I finally watched the movie and “I Love Boobies” winds up being fairly forgettable during the course of the film. Which is countered by Jamie Dornan’s powerhouse punch of an earworm that hits the viewer like a steamroller, “Edgar’s Prayer.” (Which you can hear here, but I wish the version with the visual from the film would be made available.)

What a song! It’s set up with a slowly building tempo as Edgar contemplates his love woes. It lulls you in with just the fact Jamie Dornan is doing something pretty amazing, before it lets its wildfire crescendo hit us with, “Eagles in the sand can you hear my prayer!” The way this line is performed is like a steamroller of comedy: hilarious yet impossibly earnest. We believe this character in that moment would ask an eagle if the eagle can hear his prayer. This entire song, with its visuals of Dornan prancing and leaping on the beach, is one of the funniest sequences I’ve seen in a movie in maybe a couple of years.

So, yes, it makes me a bit crestfallen (in the meaningless kind of way) that whatever the Oscars look like this year, we won’t see Dornan prancing and leaping and asking if a seagull on a tire can hear his prayer. Because I honestly believe this song had a shot, at least to make the shortlist, but if the email I received is to be believed, the awards push was put behind “I Love Boobies.” (This is to say, if you were in the room, or, I guess, Zoom call, that day when this decision was made and you fought for the awards campaign to be put behind “Edgar’s Prayer” instead of “I Love Boobies,” I just want you to know your fight is appreciated, you were correct, and you should feel exonerated.)

Look, it’s been a lousy (checks calendar) almost a year now. (I know everyone makes jokes about losing the sense of time, but, no, really. Yesterday I heard a passing reference to Halloween and for like 10 seconds my thought process was, “Yeah, I guess that is coming up.”) “Edgar’s Prayer” just seems like a fun thing we can all share. And having it performed at an Oscar ceremony was something we could have all looked forward to watching, even if it didn’t win. But it’s not happening. No prancing. We will probably never see this song performed live. [Cue some hyperbole] We have nothing to look forward to.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Fortnite has covered lots of ground with its in-game entertainment options in recent months, with concerts and big movie announcements becoming the norm in its Party Royale mode. Its latest event expands on its movie options with a short film festival headed to its Big Screen.

Epic Games announced Short Nite on Tuesday, a short film festival featuring a variety of projects from all over the globe. The showcase will take place on February 20 and 21, starting at 2 p.m. and playing on loop in the Party Royale mode’s screening area.

The Short Nite program runs for 30 minutes, but will repeat so people in Party Royale mode can stop by to check out the series at any time over the two-day event. The list of titles starts with Bench, directed by Rich Webber and is currently long-listed for a BAFTA Award.

Here are the full list of titles Fortnite will show at Short Nite and their country of origin:

Bench – UK
Rollin’ Wild – UK
Car Park – UK
Maestro – France
Oktapodi – France
A Single Life – Netherlands
Catastrophe – Netherlands
Commuter Glitch – UK
Lynx + Birds – UK
Makin’ Moves – Japan

It’s the latest entertainment event Fortnite has added in recent months, including a series of concerts that have seen record-breaking crowds.

We’re six episodes into WandaVision and I’m feeling nourished by the diet of big story moments. I’m similarly delighted by the pacing and the weekly release structure advocated by Disney+. Unshockingly, there isn’t universal agreement on these things, so we thought it would be helpful to explore the show’s storylines and the strategy behind its supposedly slow rollout, citing some reasons why the approach might be exactly right for this show, the MCU, and this moment. So, with that said, a listicle. One with spoilers galore.

1. Things are happening.

This show has blazed through multiple decades while slowly (maybe a little too slowly at the start) unraveling a story of grief that highlights the levels one particular Avenger will go to stave off pain and simulate happiness.

Along the way, we’ve seen a potentially seismic move to bridge the X-Men universe into the MCU (or maybe not, maybe it’s just a bit of fun yet hollow fan service) and the introduction of a character that is going to play a big part in the next Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau). We’ve also seen, more clearly, the after-effects of The Blip on the government response to superheroes and the bonkers, high-property damage happenings that always seem to swirl around them.

Avengers: Endgame left a lot of questions unanswered about what comes next in the MCU and WandaVision is doing a more than capable job of trying to explore some of them. This while hanging onto the thread about Wanda’s mental health and slow playing the cracking facades of the world she’s built. That’s a lot to cover in six episodes, but it doesn’t feel overstuffed at this point.

2. Grief requires care and time to be fully understood.

We’ve seen superheroes die and the impact of that loss on their friends and the world at large. Endgame deals with this constantly — showing a world shattered by the loss of half the population and an Avengers team dealing, at various points, with the loss of key members like Natasha, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Vision. Spider-Man: Far From Home is obviously driven, largely, by Peter Parker’s grief over the loss of his mentor in Tony. We’ve also seen heroes hobbled by the loss of someone they love — Bruce Wayne, in particular. But WandaVision is doing something different, sitting with the pain and showing the personal devastation and mental health impact in full.

For all its quirk and cheeriness at the start, the show’s commitment to being a meditation on grief and loss stands out as its most daring and revolutionary part. Wandavision is pioneering a new level of human emotion and exploration for cowls and capes fiction that can help to broaden the reach of these things beyond escapist fantasy. The MCU needs to keep its eyes fixed on the stars but it also needs to continue keeping one foot on the ground, showing the vulnerabilities of its heroes as they wrestle with relatable and tangible things in the midst of planetary and superhuman challenges. It can never lose sight of the need to keep pushing boundaries there, same as it does with the boundaries of scale and spectacle.

Look at this from where we stand right now, six episodes in. It’s clear that Jac Schaeffer her creative team chose wisely. The moral ambiguity of Wanda’s actions couldn’t be revealed upfront. We needed to get the impact Vision’s death has had on her mental health and sense of the world. We needed to see the illusion-as-a-salve in full — the projection of an uncomplicated life, as seen on TV, that could give her the kind of happiness with Vision that she’d never get to feel in the harsh light of reality due to his death. Then we’d be sympathetic to hazy actions that might turn her into a straight-up villain sans context. Something that gets into our heads, causing us to question how far we’d go, what rules we’d break, to steal the same kind of fantasy with the one we love if we cruelly lost them. In short, it hits us differently because of the way this story is being told. It hits us right in the chest. Which is important because…

3. We need things to talk about.

The debate between releasing a show all at once for easy bingeing or taking a more tantric approach to the payoff by dropping new episodes every week comes down to personal preference. Sure, some shows are better built for one model over the other — and WandaVision falls into that category, best served by the weekly model — but the moment also matters.

In normal times, with 8500 streaming options, we’d be inundated by new shows and grateful for the time to stop, sit, and watch a story unfold over the course of a weekend. That might be the only way we’d actually absorb it. Because it’s hard to track a number of stories over a large expanse of time and really feel their impact or even hold on to them. But right now, with scattered production delays and all the other impacts levied by COVID, we aren’t dealing with quite as many options. As such, it’s easier to go week to week with a story. And it’s better, giving us all something to talk about that isn’t completely wrapped up in the news cycle.

From The Last Dance to the second season of The Mandalorian, the weekly model has proven successful at offering us a weekly communal obsession/distraction. It’s practically a public service… and a smart business move that grows our obsession with these things, garnering free media in the form of reviews, hot takes, easter egg discussions, and the like. We can’t stop talking about these things because they won’t stop giving us fresh things to talk about. And so a show becomes a months-long relationship, which is going to inspire a stronger attachment than something we spend a weekend with. Because what’s more memorable, a relationship or a fling? OK, I suppose that depends on the contents of those experiences, but in this case, WandaVision is making its case, slowly, to stay in our heads.

Currently, large swaths of the country are experiencing power outages thanks to a winter storm sweeping the midwest. Texas is among those states hardest hit, with millions in cities like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio without power as temperatures continue to drop and more snow is expected this week. And all of this is terrible, especially for the people suffering — and dying — because they don’t have enough heat, but it’s also prompted Twitter to remind Republicans from the state of their own hypocrisy.

Senator Ted Cruz is among those politicians whose tweets are now coming back to haunt them. Cruz, along with GOP members like Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Representative Dan Crenshaw, and Senator John Coryn, threw a fit late last year over California Governor Gavin Newsom’s energy conservation campaign. The state was experiencing a heatwave that plunged millions into rolling blackouts and Newsom’s directives — simple requests like turning off unnecessary lighting and avoiding using major appliances — drew the ire of Republicans who blamed everyone from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Joe Biden (who wasn’t even president at the time) for the “failed” energy policies of the state.

Now, with Texas suffering a similar fate — the cold weather has caused an increase in energy usage, and the state can’t keep up with the demand for more power — Cruz and his buddies’ words are coming back to bite them.

It’s a shame we’re still trying to convince some of these politicians that climate change is, in fact, real because all of that wasted energy could’ve already been spent keeping Texans warm during a freak snowstorm.

As the NBA presses on with the 2020-21 season, there are a number players that have returned to the court after having bouts with COVID-19. One of the things that has made the pandemic so difficult to deal with has been the variance in how different people are affected by the virus, and that has extended to the NBA.

Some players have remained asymptomatic and returned to play apparently no worse for wear, while others have battled more severe cases. Karl-Anthony Towns detailed the scary nights he had with the virus, as he battled a difficult case that kept him off the court for 13 games. Others, like Jayson Tatum, had more mild cases but are still dealing with lingering effects, as he explained on Tuesday in speaking with reporters ahead of Boston’s game with the Nuggets, via Tim Bontemps of ESPN.

“I think it messes with your breathing a little bit,” Tatum said after the team’s shootaround Tuesday afternoon ahead of hosting the Denver Nuggets. “I have experienced some games where, I don’t want to say [I was] struggling to breathe, but, you know, you get fatigued a lot quicker than normal. Just running up and down the court a few times, it’s easier to get out of breath or tired a lot faster. I’ve noticed that since I’ve had COVID. It’s just something I’m working on. It’s gotten better since the first game I played, but I still deal with it from time to time.”

Tatum says it’s not a constant issue, but it’s something he has to be in communication with the Celtics medical staff and coaches about during games whenever he feels that fatigue coming on. For a player that logs as many minutes as Tatum — 35.3 per game this year, the most of his career — that’s a significant concern. He’s seen a drop-off in efficiency since returning from his five game absence with the virus, shooting 42.7 percent from the field and 36.5 percent from three in the 11 games since he came back and it stands to reason that getting tired faster could play a part in that.

He also noted that he’s not alone in noticing that effect, and has talked with other guys in the league who have come back from COVID absences to deal with the same thing.

“I guess it’s just a long process,” Tatum said. “I’ve talked to other guys that have had it and they say they experienced the same thing and it kind of just gets better over time. But as much as we play, I guess it takes a little bit longer.”

The condensed season certainly doesn’t help matters, as he notes, because the downtime isn’t there for significant recovery. Hopefully Tatum can continue to see improvement in his conditioning and breathing, but it’s something the league and teams will have to make sure they are monitoring when it comes to players coming back from positive cases.

It’s been nearly 26 years since Ice Cube starred in the iconic F. Gary Gray-directed film Friday. To this day, the cult classic still holds a number of memorable one liners, most notably Ice Cube’s now memeified quote, “Bye Felicia.” Now, Ice Cube is bringing the film into the modern era with a new brand of cannabis products inspired by Friday.

Ice Cube took to social media to announce the availability of his cannabis line, aptly named Fryday Kush. Made in partnership with Caviar Gold cannabis company, the Fryday Kush products are for sale in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Oklahoma only. According to Ice Cube, his strain is 46.2 percent THC and 10.78 percent CBD.

The rapper’s bud comes in glossy packaging printed with his face on the front. Caviar Gold describes Fryday Kush products on their website as incredibly potent: “From the man that needs no introduction, these infused cones and high potency buds are the strongest nugs on the market, personally developed by Ice Cube.”

Ice Cube isn’t the only mid-90s film star who has broken into the cannabis industry with Caviar Gold. Kevin Smith, filmmaker and star of the 1994 Clerks, welcomed Ice Cube to the Caviar Gold family in a post on social media.

Check out Ice Cube’s new endeavor above.

Dave Grohl has found himself involved with a lot of musical endeavors outside of Foo Fighters over the decades. One of the most beloved was Them Crooked Vultures, a supergroup he formed with Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones that released a self-titled album in 2009. Now, Grohl has taken some time to reflect on the band and he revealed that he hopes the group is able to get together again.

On a recent episode of Apple Music’s Medicine At Midnight Radio, Grohl spoke about what it was like being a part of that trio, saying:

“Them Crooked Vultures is a dream band for any drummer because I got to be a part of this three-piece rhythm section because Josh isn’t just a soloist. Josh plays the drums. He plays the guitar like a drummer and John Paul Jones is the greatest rock’n’roll bass player in the history of music. When we sat down to start playing, it was about 30 seconds to a minute and we realized this is a real band. This is the real deal. We would walk into the studio every day with no ideas. We would sit down, we’d have tea, we’d have coffee, we’d start jamming. By the end of that night, we’d have an eight-minute-long opus. Just a rock masterpiece. It was incredibly inspiring. It was a really incredible time. I hope that someday we do it again.”

Describing the band as “a dream come true for me,” he also discussed how it came to be:
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“For years Josh and I had talked about doing some side-project. Something that wasn’t Queens Of The Stone Age, something that wasn’t Foo Fighters. Maybe it was just Josh and I. Maybe he plays drums, I play guitar. Maybe he plays guitar, I play drums. Just something that was just an experimental project. I was invited to go to London to give an award to the members of Led Zeppelin. I had met John Paul Jones before because he had performed on a Foo Fighters record and he had performed with us on the Grammys once. John Paul Jones is one of the most wonderful, generous, kind people you’ve ever met. He’s just a great guy. He’s obviously brilliant, but he’s just cool. He’s fun to hang out with. I said to Josh, I’m like, ​’Hey, I’m about to go give the Zeppelin guys this award. Do you want me to ask John Paul Jones if he’ll play bass?’ Josh was like, ​’You know John Paul Jones?’ I’m like, ​’Well, not really, kind of. I’ve jammed with them before.’ Josh said, ​’Yeah, let me know how it goes.’”

The good news for Vultures fans is that Homme is on board with a reunion, as he indicated in 2019 that he’s basically just waiting for Grohl to get the ball rolling, telling Rolling Stone, “The ironic thing is that we all want to do another Vultures record and I think everyone has certain roles they play in the Vultures, and in all honesty, I feel like part of Dave’s role — since he got it together the first time by saying, ‘Hey, do you wanna try this?’ — I feel like that’s part of in his job description in Vultures. I have my various things that I’m supposed to do I think, but that isn’t one of them. But I’m always ready to be in Them Crooked Vultures again.”

While the ladies of The View attempted to discuss the fallout of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, Meghan McCain bristled at her co-host’s thoughts on the current state of the Republican Party and derailed the conversation into a proclamation of her pro-life beliefs. The contentious moment arrived after Sunny Hostin labeled the GOP the party of MAGA, QAnon, and the Confederate flag while blasting Mitch McConnell for his “shameful” use of his Senate powers to push the impeachment trial to after Trump left office only to turn around and say Trump can’t be convicted because he’s no longer president. While McCain had no interest in discussing McConnell’s efforts to protect Trump, she did have a whole lot to say about the insinuation that the whole party is a bunch of QAnon nuts and “Nazis”:

“I think it’s easy to say that the Republican party is only the party of QAnon and all these things. If that’s the truth, then the Democratic party is the party of socialism, and late-term abortion, and cancel culture, and no responsibility or ramifications for any of your actions, and you can burn down cities like Kenosha and it’s fine.”

Here’s more, via Raw Story:

“Part of the problem is, for someone like me, when I hear that I automatically get tribal, and I’m like, well, I don’t want the left. I’m the most intensely pro-life person that I know of, particularly on mainstream TV. I believe that abortion is murder, I believe that life begins at conception. I know that the opposite party says there are some people that don’t agree with me, that think that abortion should happen up to late term. I think the idea that the Republican Party is just one swath is just — it’s just not nuanced, and the problem I have is the only way to become a good Republican is to become a Democrat, according to the media. I don’t know what to do anymore because I can’t keep going on TV and saying we’re [not] all Nazis.”

Apparently, McCain’s digression into arguing over abortion rights was the last straw for Whoopi Goldberg, who fired back at McCain with the line, “Let me just say something for poops and giggles,” before launching into an impassioned defense of reproductive choice. She also didn’t let McCain get away with claiming that QAnon and the insurrection doesn’t represent the GOP.

“But for me, the Republicans, you showed your faces,” Goldberg said. “You said you were okay with everything that happened. You said it’s okay and you opened the door for these people to continue to act poorly.”