Category: News

Imagine a thinking man’s Sleepy Hollow with mucus-y gore effects, or a feature-length X-Files episode produced for HBO and you might have something close to Eight For Silver, writer-director Sean Ellis’s riff on Victorian werewolves premiering at Sundance this week. Like Game Of Thrones or The Witch before it, Eight For Silver is so beguiling as a straight period piece that the elements of the fantastic just feel like icing. Ellis combines Robert Eggers’ historical meticulousness with Ari Aster from Midsommar‘s flair for exuberant gore in a movie that’s arguably a little more “pop” than either.

One of the quirks of a virtual Sundance is that you can just switch to a different movie if one isn’t working for you without gathering your things in the dark and trudging through the snow to another theater. Without naming any names here, in a year of drab streamers, Eight For Silver‘s vivid yet icy compositions immediately stood out. It opens in the WWI trenches, on the front lines of the Somme where French soldiers are masking up for a charge as mustard gas explodes overhead. We cut to a surgeon removing bullets from a dying soldier. The surgeon pulls one bullet, two, and then a shiny third that doesn’t look at all like the others. “This isn’t a German bullet,” notes the surgeon. “Eight for silver,” croaks the dying man in his last breath.

From there we flash back to the 1800s, where a dour landlord — Seamus Laurent, played by Alistair Petrie — and his fellow landowners are having some trouble with a band of gypsies squatting on their land. They probably should’ve just asked the gypsies nicely to move along, or figured out a way to coexist peacefully, but this being Victorian England they definitely don’t do that. Thus, the die is cast.

With the townspeople having some… er… trouble, a handsome stranger arrives, Ichabod Crane-like, to investigate. Boyd Holbrook, the thinking man’s Garrett Hedlund, plays John McBride, an out-of-town pathologist. “Men keep speaking even after they’re dead. I listen,” he explains.

McBride shacks up with Seamus and his wife and daughter (Kelly Reilly from Flight and Amelia Crouch) at their manor house while he tries to figure out what’s going on, and even though he’s playing things pretty close to the vest, it’s obvious that he believes the trouble is something supernatural. Gypsy curses, hot people, and werewolves, oh my!

The beauty of Eight For Silver is that it’s hard to decide whether Sean Ellis is better at shooting restrained Victorian stoicism or balls-out gore; whether the next scene will bring arthouse restraint or multiplex schlock. Like Sleepy Hollow before it (though without Burtonian preciousness), Eight For Silver is a little bit of both. It works wonderfully together. It’s a movie that offers thrills, chills, and just the right amount of thinking.

‘Eight For Silver’ is playing at Sundance this week with no release date set as of this writing.

Werner Herzog is a legendary filmmaker and actor who is known for taking risks and making art that is specifically interesting to himself, but the German director is not exactly known for his ties to the extreme sports world. And yet, last week, he joined skateboarding magazine Jenkem Magazine for a video call in which they discussed skateboarding for a conversation that was pretty fantastic.

Herzog waxes poetic on the beauty of skateboarding, which to him is the constant failure, over and over and over again, in the pursuit of that one successful run or landed trick. He marvels at watching a skateboarder try over and over — “so many failures, that’s astonishing, yes” — before finally getting it right for a “clean run,” which when said in Herzog’s German accent is tremendous. The best part is how he explains why he enjoys skateboarding compared something like David Blaine’s stunts, which he doesn’t like, because the latter is for personal fame and glory while the former is a pursuit for one’s self and inner gratification, not to garner attention.

At the end he explains how he’d score a skateboarding video with a “Russian orthodox church choir” in order to create a “strange feeling of space” and make it feel almost sacred. The interview delighted skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, who was thrilled to see it and the introspection into the human condition and spirit is delightful to watch.

After her diligent voter turnout efforts delivered the state of Georgia to the Democratic Party during both the 2020 presidential election and the Senate runoff, Stacey Abrams already has a political action group working against her in case she decides to run for governor in 2022. The “Stop Stacey” group is reportedly being funded by allies of current Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and now former Senator Kelly Loeffler, who Abrams played a key role in ousting in the Senate runoff in January. Abrams hasn’t even announced she’ll run for governor or signaled any attention of running, yet, but Republicans are already concerned after suffering two major losses thanks to Abrams’ vast network of voters. Via Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“We will do whatever it takes to expose Stacey Abrams’ radical network, highlight her dangerous agenda and ultimately defeat her — and her left-wing candidates — at the ballot box,” said Jeremy Brand, a senior strategist with the group, an independent committee. “There is no time to waste: We must stand up, fight back and stop Stacey.”

The “Stop Stacey” group couldn’t have picked a worse time to announce its efforts. On Monday, Abrams received a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize for the exact voting efforts that have Republicans scared. According to The Hill, the committee recognized Abrams for following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who won the peace prize in 1964. “Abrams’ efforts to complete King’s work are crucial if the United States of America shall succeed in its effort to create fraternity between all its peoples and a peaceful and just society.”

(Via Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Hill)

Welcome to the Age of Streaming, in which we’ve traded in outrageously-priced cable bundles for dozens of different platforms and pricing models, each promising a unique binge-watching experience. Sure, it can be mind-numbing trying to keep up with which network has gone digital this week and where you can watch what, but isn’t that what we’re here to do? After all, watching an unhealthy amount of TV is kind of our thing here at Uproxx, so we thought we’d make good use of the endless hours spent gazing at a small screen by sharing what we’ve learned when it comes to picking the right service and getting the most bang for your buck.

Welcome to the Streamer Smackdown, where we’ll pit some of the biggest platforms against each other to see who comes out on top. We’ll look at everything from content to pricing to how easy it is to find that one obscure ’90s sitcom (that you saw two episodes of when you were a kid) and name a winner. It’s not as fun as cage matches and steel chairs but then again, what is?

In round one, it’s Netflix, the O.G. streaming giant, vs. the relative newcomer, HBO Max. One’s dependable, prolific, and currently housing horny alt-history period dramas. The other’s a flashy rookie wielding a backlog of prestige TV and straight-to-streaming blockbusters.

The Case For Netflix

Most of us remember the day when Netflix used to mail DVDs in red, paper-thin packaging when streaming was just the crackpot dream of a young startup with plenty of money to make it a reality. Every streaming service alive today owes something to Netflix, and that kind of reputation holds weight. It also means the platform carries a hefty load of content, from original series and movies to international offerings, anime, and blockbuster classics.

It’s got a three-tier pricing plan, which means it’s slightly more affordable depending on what you’re looking for. The most you’ll pay is $15.99 a month, and that guarantees you four simultaneous streams, 4K viewing, unlimited downloads of certain shows and films, and the ability to watch from pretty much anywhere on any device.

And what are you watching? Oh, just a library stuffed with award-winning series and movies sporting some of the most A-list talents of the moment. There are genre shows like The Witcher and Stranger Things for sci-fi and fantasy lovers. There’s the massively popular Bridgerton for romance junkies. There are surprisingly poignant animated favorites like BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth. And there’s a ton of YA series and family-friendly fare to keep everyone in your household entertained. The biggest pro for Netflix though — besides the fact that it’s promised new shows and movies will drop every week this year — might be its cataloging system. The platform remembers the shows you watched, recommends similar series, crafts interesting subgenres, pulls hidden gems and calls out what’s new and what’s trending (effectively doing the heavy-lifting for you so you don’t waste hours scrolling for something to watch).

Pros: A huge library of originals and some old-school favorites, a cheap pricing plan, and easy navigation.
Cons: There’s still so much content people are missing out on, some of the originals are hit and miss, and we’ve already seen a lot of what it has to offer.

The Case For HBO Max

It’s weird to think of HBO and Warner Bros. as underdogs, but that’s kind of what they are when it comes to the streaming wars. HBO’s had its own service for a while now, a place where fans could deep dive into its extensive library of prestigious series and watch a handful of good movies too, but when Warner Bros. came into the picture, that model got an upgrade. Now, fans can stick to HBO Now (although, why would you?), or they can choose to try HBO Max, which combines the best of the premium cable network and Warner Bros.’ mind-boggling line-up of blockbusters — a lineup that includes the expansive DC Universe.

The pricing for HBO Max isn’t as flexible as Netflix at an unwavering $14.99 a month, and that bill guarantees just three simultaneous streams. You’ll still be rewarded with dozens of kick-ass TV shows — think Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, Succession, Euphoria — and the kind of blockbusters you’d normally pay to rent for a movie-night watch.

Another key advantage that HBO Max has in this streaming battle is its recent announcement that, because of the current pandemic, Warner Bros. will be releasing new movies in theaters and via streaming on the same day. We’ve already seen how that works with Wonder Woman 1984 (spoiler: it’s insanely convenient) and with buzzworthy titles like Dune, the Matrix 4, Godzilla vs. Kong, and James Gunn’s Suicide Squad set to drop this year, there’s really no better argument for subscribing if you’re a film junkie.

Pros: A massive library of guaranteed-to-be-good shows and a lineup of theatrical releases coming this year.
Cons: The original content is lacking, so if you’ve already seen older series, there’s not much on the TV side to sway you here.

The Verdict: Netflix Edges Out HBO Max (for now)

This one was tough, especially because we’re all pining for the day when we can once again enjoy eating stale popcorn in a crowded theater while watching superhero franchises on a big screen, but Netflix’s original offerings, both current and planned, feel like a better reward for its price tag. Now, if you’re a DC diehard, or you want to re-watch award-winning dramas from TV’s Golden Age, HBO Max is probably the choice for you. But if you’re basing your decision on which platform gives you more — more shows, more quality originals, more options for how and where to watch — then Netflix is the way to go.

But let this fight put the streaming kingpin on notice because, by the end of 2021, HBO Max might reign supreme.

TMZ reports that Dustin Diamond, best known for playing Samuel “Screech” Powers on NBC’s long-running sitcom Saved by the Bell, died on Monday morning from stage 4 lung cancer. He was 44.

(Via TMZ)

Dave Grohl famously has the uncommon distinction of being in two era-defining bands: Nirvana and Foo Fighters. Naturally, there were differences between the groups, one of which Grohl has pinpointed in a new interview.

Speaking with The Big Issue, Grohl described Nirvana as being more dysfunctional than Foo Fighters, saying:

“Of course we loved each other. We were friends. But, you know, there was a dysfunction in Nirvana that a band like Foo Fighters doesn’t have. You also have to realize, from the time I joined Nirvana to the time it was over was only about four years. It wasn’t a long period of time. Was I [as] close to Kurt [Cobain] as I am to Taylor Hawkins? No.”

He went on to say, though, that the music brought Nirvana’s chemistry to a new level: “When I see Krist now, I hug him like family. But back then we were young, the world was just so strange. But that emotional dysfunction in Nirvana was relieved when we put on instruments. If the music hadn’t worked, we wouldn’t have been there together. I truly believe that there’s some people you can only communicate with musically. And sometimes that’s an even greater, deeper communication. There are people that I might feel a little awkward talking to but once we strap on instruments, it’s like they’re the love of my life.”

He also revealed that he almost never played music again post-Nirvana, saying, “There was a particular trauma after the end of Nirvana that lasted for a while, but, you know, I think that love of music I had when I was a child eclipsed everything, and I realized that music was going to be the thing that would write me out of that depression. For a while there, I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to play music again. But it came back. And thankfully, just as I had hoped, it healed me. To me, music has always been about life. It was the thing I most loved about life, more than anything else. After Nirvana, I needed it to keep me alive, and it’s the reason why I never stopped.”

Check out the full interview here.

As hundreds of millions continue to be gained and lost on GameStop stock, Netflix is at work developing a movie that will pit Redditors against Wall Street. Deadline reports that Mark Boal, the Oscar-winning writer of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, is “in negotiations” to write a screenplay about everything happening with GameStop, Reddit, hedge fund investors, and Robinhood. Margot Robbie and her bathtub are busy, but To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before star Noah Centineo is attached “to play a major role,” hopefully as Robinhood’s Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3-looking CEO, or maybe an Elon Musk-type billionaire who tweets too much. Spill the beans, dude.

The still-untitled film will “use the GameStop episode as a specific way to shine a light on the phenomenon of how social media has leveled the playing field and allowed the masses to challenge status quo gatekeepers, for good and bad,” according to Deadline. “The examples range from the stock spike for GameStop, AMC, and other formerly lagging stocks that are subject to the short-selling maneuvers of billion-dollar hedge funds, to the social media spread of unfounded election rigging charges conveyed by conservative social media sites and Trump tweets that fired up right wing extremists to storm the Capitol while President Joe Biden’s election was being certified.”

That seems like A LOT to cover in one quickly-written movie, even with a writer as talented as Boal. But there’s likely to be multiple movies about the GameStop drama (MGM is on it, too,). Aaron Sorkin must be furious he didn’t get to it first, though.

(Via Deadline)

Record label drama has long been part and parcel of the recording industry (Rule #4080 seemingly always applies) but in recent years, more artists have been increasingly vocal about their corporate issues thanks to the advent of social media. Artists like Lil Uzi Vert and Megan Thee Stallion have taken their business partners to task while others, like Jersey boy Russ, have extolled the virtues of remaining independent and accepting greater risks for greater rewards.

The latest artist to take his label grievances online is Rod Wave, the gospel-infused St. Petersburg, Florida rapper whose heartfelt debut project Ghetto Gospel and its follow-up Pray 4 Love made him an instant favorite online and a 2020 XXL Freshman. The husky Floridian posted a screenshot of the cover for his next album Hard Times to his Instagram Story, adding text that read, “P*ssy ass label playing wit a n**** sh*t I ain’t dropping sh*t f*ck ya pay me. Y’all wanna album ask @alamorecords.”

He’s been signed to Alamo Records since 2018 behind several well-received mixtapes released a year prior. While it’s unclear just what his dispute with the Interscope-backed imprint could be, other artists who’ve struggled with their labels in the past have cited publishing splits, creative control, and management/representation. Other artists signed to the gritty, streets-focused Alamo include 03 Greedo, Comethazine, Lil Durk, Smokepurpp, and Wifisfuneral.

The NBA axed the planned 2021 All-Star Weekend, set to be in Indianapolis, back in November, but reserved the right to discuss a modified All-Star format with the NBPA as the season progressed and we learned more about where we may be headed with the COVID-19 pandemic.

A week ago, word emerged that the two sides had opened those discussions, with Atlanta as the focal point for an All-Star Game, given the ease with which Turner would be able to get from its Techwood Ave. studios to State Farm Arena — or another location. Chris Paul, the NBPA president, is among the proponents of playing an actual game, and there’s discussion about doing so to benefit HBCUs as well as COVID-19 relief. Even so, tying charity to the All-Star Game won’t make it look all that much better if case counts continue to stay high and the vaccine rollout remains slow, but it seems momentum is growing towards there being an actual game.

Further evidence that some form of an All-Star Game will take place in March is the latest from Marc Stein of the New York Times, who reports they are now talking about also adding in a three-point and dunk contest to a two-day All-Star Weekend.

It’s not surprising that, if they’re willing to discuss a physical game, they would also look to add truncated Saturday night festivities, which are also a big television draw. The biggest question is how they’ll handle the three-point and dunk contest participants. Will they hold it as normal with non All-Stars or, to limit how many people they bring together from other teams, would they choose to make it an All-Star only affair, with players playing in the game itself as the ones to put on the dunk and three-point show. The latter option would both be better optics in terms of tacking on an extra event to an already questionable game, because you’re already bringing these players in, but also would be a much bigger draw if you had it billed as All-Star only festivities.

We’ll likely learn full details in due time, but for now, All-Star voting is open and it seems that will be for more than just a symbolic place on a team.

Director Rodney Ascher (who previously directed the deep dive into every theory about The Shining, Room 237) admits his new documentary, A Glitch in the Matrix, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, isn’t really what he initially envisioned. We’ve all had those moments maybe after a couple pints, where someone asks some form of, “Hey, what if we live in a simulation?” which is usually followed by a couple of weird stories that are maybe best summed up by the word, “coincidence.” Then everyone laughs. But, then, what if?!?! Anyway, it sounds like the original idea for the film was stories like this from true believers.

Instead, Ascher’s film is a dark and twisted path into some really disturbing topics. The conversations change from, “what if we all live in a simulation?,” more to, “What if I’m the only real person and everyone else is fake, an AI video game bot?” This all culminates with an interview with a man who killed his parents because he decided we didn’t live in reality. Ahead, Ascher takes us down his journey into this world and explains the dangers that come along with getting in too deep.

So, I noticed a lot of the people you interview start off with, “Are we living in a simulation?” But then the longer they talk, the more it sounds like they think life is a video game and they are the main character. It goes into some dark places.

That’s the first fork in the road, what does that mean about other people? Is everybody I see, like me, in a pod in the matrix? Or am I the only person and everybody else is just sort of some AI-controlled video game character. And which of those forks you take has some pretty serious consequences.

There’s a big difference between thinking “we’re all in a simulation together” and “other people are just AI.”

Yeah. Well, I don’t think it made it to the final cut, but at one point, one of them says it all depends on what the purpose of the simulation is. Perhaps this is for some rich guy in Korea to perfect his golf game, right? North America is just instructed to make sure that the wind blows through their bodies correctly so that things are accurate on the other side of the planet.

There are people who think they when they’re walking down the street that the people they see aren’t real people. That seems like a real problem.

Yeah, well, you don’t even necessarily need the digital metaphor to think about other people as less than in some way. To my thought, at a certain point, simulation theory just becomes another creation myth. But everything else is still more or less the same.

That seems the healthy way to look at it?

I think that’s the healthy way to look at it, but in a way, that’s also assuming that it’s not real. Because if it is real, then is your obligation to find a way to get out of it? To communicate to the programmers or to find a cheat code? What is it created for? What is it asking of us to do?

When you first envisioned doing a film about this, is this movie darker than you thought it’d be?

Yeah. Especially, in that last third. In my mind’s eye, this movie was going to be a sort of Reddit thread, “glitch in the matrix” stories people talk about. “I was thinking about my girlfriend, I went outside, and then she was there.” These weird, looping, impossible experiences that people have had. And I thought we were going to be doing a series of those, but that’s not where the path led me.

And instead you’re getting into the guy who killed his parents because he thought they weren’t real, that is very difficult to listen to.

Absolutely. And I had no idea that that’s where it was going to go. We reached out to him because, in my research on simulation theory, I came across the idea of The Matrix defense. And that at least a half dozen people, I think, have used the fact that they didn’t believe the world this real. And I thought that that was a fascinating thing about the real-world implications of this. And me being me, I didn’t want to talk to a lawyer who would explain it in sort of a dry, impersonal way. I wanted to talk to someone with skin in the game, someone who had lived it. And we found Joshua and that’s where his story went.

Are you different about this subject from before you started and after? Just as an observer, I always thought it was just something kind of fun to talk about every now and then. And now after watching this it seems dangerous.

Yeah. I still think it’s fun to talk about and to spin around…

Yeah, but I bet people get hooked on QAnon — “oh, this is kind of fun” — and next thing you know, they’re storming the Capitol.

I don’t disagree. And I think QAnon and a hundred other conspiracy theories sort of tie into this idea of, what evidence do people need to decide about how the world works? And then where do they go from there? I don’t necessarily have an answer, but I think part of the question that this movie tries to get at is how do people decide we are all living in the same world? Or is everybody living in a world that they construct from what they read on the internet, what their friends tell them, what they learn in school? Is there a hope for us to establish a consensus reality?

What I have learned over the last couple of years is there are a lot of people out there who don’t think this is just a fun game to talk about. Whether it’s QAnon or this, which, like you said, kind of ties in a little bit anyway.

In a lot of ways it’s a religious idea. For most people religion is a time for, once a week, to get together with their community and to humble themselves in front of a greater power and meditate on ancient stories. But for other folks, it can be a call to battle.

So what would you say to people who really want to start exploring this idea? I want to be clear, I have no idea what happens to a person when they die so I’m not being dismissive…

I would be suspicious of anyone who is a hundred percent sure.

Right. But I feel some of the people you talk to feel pretty confident that this is real. And again, some people have acted dangerously based on those assumptions. How would you present it to someone who’s like, “Hey, I want to really start getting into this.” It feels like that can be a dangerous road.

For him, the school didn’t realize that he had issues. His parents weren’t there for him. He never got a diagnosis for his schizophrenia. This didn’t get into the film, but it’s pretty relevant, is that when he went to the sporting goods store to buy a gun, it was the easiest thing in the world. And he was like, “I’m the last person anybody should sell a gun to. And if they didn’t sell me a gun, I wouldn’t have done anything. I didn’t have the guts to stab anybody.”

Why did you cut that out? That seems like an important point to make.

Well, because in the timing of the movie, there was only one slot it could have gone in. And the choice I made was between that and when his father confronted him about seeing the search in his cache page. And I thought that was more dramatic and ultimately it was like another system failure. That should’ve been a warning sign for the parents to take action. But also more tragically human, right? And, ultimately, it only answered the question, where did he get the gun? Well, he got it at the gun store.

I’m just imagining if this was a normal Sundance, being at Eccles, I can see that line getting a gasp with that crowd.

Possibly. I’m sure there’s a thousand versions of this movie. But this is the one that I wound up putting together.

Well, obviously that scene is on your mind, because you mentioned it.

Yeah. Well, someone might have done an entire movie about Joshua and it would have a thousand other little nuances, and that’s one of the painful things of making a film like this. You’re taking 30 hours to 40 hours of interviews and condensing it into an hour and forty. And how does that make the most satisfying story? There’s that phrase, kill your darlings.

I guess I just worry because, like a lot of people, I’ve lost friends recently down conspiracy theory wormholes. And you show the dangerous side of this.

Yeah. Absolutely. I don’t know the solution to that, but I hope that this kind of thing prompts the question of how are people making sense of the world. And is everybody trapped in their own simulation? Are there ways to break those bubbles? Is consensus reality possible?

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.