The James Harden saga in Houston came to a merciful end this week when the Rockets orchestrated a four-team deal that will reunite the disgruntled guard with Kevin Durant in Brooklyn. It was the culmination of a months-long debacle that has left a sour taste in the mouths of many fans.
Harden made it clear on multiple occasions that he wasn’t happy with the team’s direction this season and that he had no interest in trying to make it work with new teammate John Wall. He was late showing up to training camp, arrived out of shape, has looked disinterested and disengaged on the court, and let the world no after a loss to the Lakers this week that the situation can’t be fixed.
It was the final straw, and the organization was able to close the chapter on his time in Houston and set themselves up for the future. But despite all that drama, Harden is apparently pressing forward on his plans to open up a new restaurant in the Houston area called Thirteen, a reference to his jersey number.
As you might imagine, angry fans have responded in kind, with several giving bad reviews on Google before the restaurant has even opened its doors.
There were, however, a few diehards who came to his defense.
I get that people are annoyed at the bad reviews on Harden’s restaurant in Houston. But you can’t judge a whole fan base on some fans handling the situation wrong. As you can see from some of the reviews there’s a lot of appreciative fans out there. pic.twitter.com/YDUv7FSSDc
In fairness to Harden, the restaurant hasn’t even opened yet, so there’s no telling whether it’s any good, but once it opens for business on Jan. 22, it’s a safe bet that spurned fans will continue to let their voices be heard.
The Warriors are probably lucky to be 6-6. If not for Steph Curry’s heroics and the saving grace of Draymond Green’s institutional knowledge, Golden State would likely be in pretty rough shape. But for a group whose third-best player has been Andrew Wiggins, the Warriors have started to congeal into the team we thought they would be, one that defends well, moves the ball, and lets Curry cook.
As we might expect from a team that has beaten playoff sides like Portland and the Clippers due to bonkers nights from Curry, the numbers bare out that this team has been quite lucky, as the win differential metric at Cleaning the Glass shows the Warriors have played more like a 4-8 team. But that’s sort of the exact point of having Curry on your team. The Warriors were always facing an uphill battle to mesh a hastily formed team without much star power, especially after Klay Thompson went down with a ruptured Achilles’ tendon. But in many ways, their start is also reason for optimism. Most of that optimism derives from Curry, who has answered critics unequivocally through the first three weeks of the season.
After looking hapless to start the 2018-19 season before a hand injury, the two-time MVP looks healthy and rejuvenated, using nearly one-third of the Warriors’ possessions and scoring 1.25 points per scoring chance. That’s despite making an uncharacteristically low 39 percent of his triples and not keeping the defense as honest with fewer assists (6.2 a night) than usual. The difference is so far, Curry is trading in some of his rim attempts for mid-range shots, a symbol of a slightly more diverse offensive game than we’ve seen in the past.
Of course, when I put it that way, I sound like an absolute square. Anyone who’s watched Curry this season has gotten a reminder of what it’s like to feel joy. The guy who went supernova in 2015 and 2016 is absolutely back, and nobody in the NBA can take over a game like him. With Curry at peak form again, third quarters in Oakland are must-see TV once again, opponents’ transition defense looks like five guys late for a train, and Warriors games are a nightly picture book of defensive packages previously unseen in NBA games. It’s a blast.
Since Green returned, the Warriors have really come alive. He has demanded better ball movement and looks like his old self on defense. Golden State is 8.5 points per 100 possessions on defense when Green — who is only averaging four points per game — is on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass. More than anyone else, it’s Curry and Green who cemented the identity of this era of Warriors basketball, and now that both look like their usual selves, everything else has begun to click into place.
Without Thompson or Kevin Durant, though, those “janky defenses,” as Curry recently called them, are plugging things up. Despite stepping up as a shot-blocker, Wiggins is still shooting just 43 percent from the field and rates out as an overall (if slightly improved) defender statistically with a minus-1.1 Defensive Box Plus-Minus. Kelly Oubre Jr. is looking like his offensive progress in Phoenix may have been a facade. James Wiseman is learning how to affect the game offensively and is hard to count on consistenyl at 19.
Altogether, the bench has been a surprising positive, with Damion Lee, Brad Wanamaker, and Kent Bazemore the top three Warriors in individual net rating. Maybe that doesn’t hold, and the Warriors’ sterling fifth-ranked rim defense may be a product of having played bad teams and getting lucky. It’s not exactly a risky prediction to say maybe the Warriors fall off a bit once the schedule gets tougher.
This reveals what the true purpose of Golden State’s season is, and it’s not too different from last year. Because Curry is good enough to carry the offense and the team is full of veterans, the goal every night is still to win. More broadly, though, the Warriors remain on the lookout for their next trade.
Wiggins’ improvements are best looked at as an increase in his trade value, and more than the development of Lee or Oubre’s progression, Thompson’s recovery still ranks among the most prominent subplots here. Toss in a Minnesota first-round pick still in Golden State’s stockpile, and the Warriors theoretically have a chance to find another co-star for Curry to finish out his career. Maybe that player never becomes available and the Warriors go into more of a rebuild around Curry and Wiseman, but the bottom did not fall out once Thompson went down, as some expected.
To that end, the season is still somewhat of an audition period for the role players. Lee and Mychal Mulder look like somewhat capable options, as does second-year big man Eric Paschall, a small-ball center who can score from the second unit. Everyone is getting plenty of playing time, and Steve Kerr isn’t beholden to anyone outside of Curry and Green. With a more cohesive supporting cast than he had last year, Curry (whose health is, to be fair, always a question) has made it seem silly that we even wondered whether he could will a team to the postseason.
There are plenty of worse ways to use what could have been a lost season. Curry’s nightly magic show keeps the team interesting and in the playoff mix, the young guys keep improving, and the Warriors’ trade package gets a little more interesting bit by bit. No team can afford to get stuck in the middle that way for long, but there’s no real impetus or pathway for Golden State to crater to the bottom right now anyway.
After years of being an inevitable and endlessly scrutinized superpower, it’s fascinating and exciting to watch the Warriors punch above their weight and climb uphill again.
Less than a fortnight removed from an attempted coup sparked by Donald Trump, the president has been impeached a second time and dozens of the rioters that breached the US Capitol have been arrested and charged with a variety of crimes. In the days following the MAGA riot we’ve learned more about the planning and potential for the insurrection to be much worse than the already terrible reality of five people dying as a result of the attacks.
We’re also learning more about the individuals who were arrested, including the woman from Texas who took a private plane to DC to take part in the coup attempt. Jenna Ryan, a life coach and real estate broker from Frisco, Texas, was arrested on Friday after taking a private airplane to DC and documenting her part in the riot, which was an attempt to prevent the election Donald Trump lost from being certified.
NEW: Feds charge Jenna Ryan, the real estate broker from Frisco, Texas, who flew on a private jet to storm the Capitol.
Photos of her boarding the plane included in the criminal complaint unsealed in DC today —> pic.twitter.com/4Sp21WEfIK
As The Daily Beast detailed, Ryan has been publicly speaking about her actions for a while now, though in the aftermath of the riot she claimed she “answered the call of my president” and implied you can’t get arrested for trespass at the Capitol because “we the people own this building.” But as it turns out, you can get arrested, especially if you heavily document yourself committing crimes.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Ryan diligently documented her participation in the mob—starting from her flight on a “small private aircraft” on Jan. 5.
The next day, she posted a bathroom mirror selfie on Facebook with the caption: “We’re gonna go down and storm the capitol. They’re down there right now and that’s why we came and so that’s what we are going to do. So wish me luck.” She added: “This is a prelude going to war.”
In one now-deleted video, she filmed herself in a crowd going into the Capitol through the Rotunda entrance. She walked past broken windows, up some stairs, and said, “We are going to f*cking go in here. Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go.”
Ryan’s name was trending on Twitter on Friday, perhaps in part due to federal prosecutors unsealing the charges against her. They have some pretty incredible details, including photos of her quite literally boarding a private plane to a coup.
In a now-deleted FB video, prosecutors say, Ryan is heard saying “We are going to f—ing go in here. Life or death, it doesn’t matter.” Just before entering the building, she adds: “Y’all know who to hire for your realtor. Jenna Ryan for your realtor.” pic.twitter.com/UMQu43FABf
Though perhaps the most startling fact is that Ryan basically did an ad-read for her business while in the middle of an attempted insurrection. Either way, it’s yet another good reminder not to film yourself while committing federal crimes. Or any crimes at all, really. Maybe just not to do crimes at all. And definitely not to make it an ad-read for your employer.
Meet Jenna Ryan, the Texas real estate broker that took a private jet to join Trump supporters at the DC rally, “We’re all going to be up here. We’re going to be breaking those windows, dealing with the tear gas… WE HAVE TO because THEY are taking our sh*t” pic.twitter.com/HD51tG3FD8
Kate Winslet’s husband has gone on quite the name journey.
Richard Branson’s nephew was born Edward Abel Smith (boring), but he changed it to Ned Rocknroll (hell yeah) in 2008 before reversing his decision in 2019; now he’s Edward Abel Smith (blech) again. That’s like if the person who invented the electric guitar decided “nah” and picked up a lute instead. On Thursday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Winslet explained the reason why her husband is unfortunately no longer Mr. Rocknroll. (“Please, Mr. Rocknroll was my father. Call me Guitar Solo.”)
“His birth name is Abel Smith. And as time went by and Ned became Ned — who is quite an original personality — he just decided at one point in his life to just change his name to Rocknroll. Ned Rocknroll. So when I met him, his name was Ned Rocknroll. This is completely true,” the Avatar sequels star told host Jimmy Kimmel. “When he changed his name to Rocknroll, I don’t think he had anticipated what might happen if he should have a girlfriend whose name was Kate Winslet and who was quite well-known and therefore the press might kind of not react so well to the fact that she had this boyfriend called then Rocknroll. So, it was a little tricky.” Having to change your kick-ass name after you start dating Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet? We’ve all been there.
But everything changed when the couple, who wed in 2012, welcomed their son Bear Blaze, 7, in 2013. Winslet is also a mother to 20-year-old Mia, who she shares with her first ex-husband Jim Threapleton, and 17-year-old Joe, who she shares with her second ex-husband Sam Mendes.
“I got to the point where I’m like, you know, I’m filling in doctors’ forms,” Winslet continued, “and it says ‘mother’s name’ and ‘father’s name’, and I’m like, ‘Honey… are we going to keep going?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’ll just change it back.’ So, he changed it back.” To me, that was the day the music (Rocknroll) died.
Bill Richards and Spandan Daftary spent this past summer trying to figure out how to adapt to a new normal while facing plenty of uncertainty about exactly how their jobs would be impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
As the two producers of Fox’s NFL studio shows, they were tasked with navigating ever-changing protocols in Los Angeles and from the NFL, and piecing together how they could make their two shows, Fox NFL Kickoff and Fox NFL Sunday, happen within those parameters. For Richards, the EVP of Fox Sports Productions and producer for Fox NFL Sunday, his goal was simple: figure out how to make the show look as close to the same as it has for the previous 26 seasons.
“There were times in July that this box was going to be one guy, this box would be another guy, and we were going to be looking at what we’re looking at now [on Zoom],” Richards told Uproxx. “We fought hard against that and there’s a lot of hoops with protocols, there’s a ton, especially in L.A., and we’ve worked around them each week and tried to deliver the show people are used to.”
Beyond the logistical hurdles of getting clearance to have the crew and talent on set, the biggest challenge they faced was in feature stories and interviews. Aside from the modified desks to provide the necessary spacing for the hosts and analysts, once they got everyone on set on Sundays, it was business as usual, with conversation, analysis, and banter. The feature profiles and interviews with players that the shows build around, however, were a much different story.
The league’s protocols didn’t allow for anyone to be in the team facilities, which meant that instead of having Fox crews in two or three complexes each week, they’ve gone the entire season without being in a single one. Every interview had to happen over a video call and required a lot of collaboration with teams to try and keep the production value top-notch.
“I think like everybody else this technology has helped and there’s been a bunch of teams, many of them have really good video departments now, they’ve been willing to help out and shoot them a little better,” Richards said. “We went into the season with a few meetings about this, and what you’re looking at now is what we didn’t want to see. We didn’t want to see boxes and it be the same for Erin Andrews and Aaron Rodgers as it is for Jimmy from accounting and his boss.
“It’s just become a different way for us to do things, but some of them have been just as good if not better in a way,” he continued. “The way that Seattle helps us out with shooting, there was a Russell Wilson feature where it wouldn’t have been any better if they were in the same room.”
Daftary, the senior coordinating producer for Fox NFL Kickoff, echoed Richards’ points about the logistical hurdles of the remote interviews, crediting Fox’s production team with coming up with creative solutions to making them look as close to normal as possible. But Daftary also notes that within that challenge came some unique opportunity, as the normalization of video calls and teams and players growing more accustomed to those opened up some avenues for them to do more. For example, as the lead-in show, Kickoff can yield some additional interviews to build on a big story they’re featuring on Sunday.
On top of that, it opened up chances for Fox to better tap in to some of the connections their analysts have for unique features that normally they wouldn’t have considered, like having Michael Strahan interview Aaron Donald or Tony Gonzalez interview Travis Kelce.
“Because of schedules, it’s not always easy to get a Tony or a Strahan to a team facility, especially Strahan during the week,” Daftary said. “And this year, we’ve had a couple of Strahan features that we wouldn’t have gotten in previous years, quite frankly. And I think of Tony and Travis because of their relationship, and they were able to sit down and have, really, as good of a conversation as they would’ve had in person and quite frankly I don’t know if that could’ve happened last year. Because we’ve been always in the mindset of we want them in the same room, and if we looked and Tony’s schedule didn’t work out we would’ve sent somebody else. But the Tony-Travis connection is a special one.”
Charissa Thompson, who hosts Fox NFL Kickoff as well as doing interviews and features, also tried to look at some of the changes as an opportunity. She noted that it provided more access to players and teams because it was as easy as setting up a video interview rather than having to travel from city to city, crediting the creative production team at Fox for coming up with ways to make each interview look unique.
Thompson saw the remote interviews as a challenge to continue honing her craft as an interviewer and an opportunity to get better at that aspect of the job. Not being in the same room and not having the opportunity for as much small talk before can make it more difficult to create the same comfortability during the interview, and for Thompson, this provided an opportunity to test her skills.
“I found it to be a great opportunity for my own interview style to try and just still create a comfortable environment when interviewing the athlete,” Thompson told Uproxx over the phone. “My approach has always been, be whoever you are when the camera is not rolling, because there’s no worse thing to do when you’re interviewing someone than being like, ‘OK, we’re ready to start.’ That person all of a sudden is a different person than they were just a couple minutes before when you were being loose and light. So Fox has always done a great job of piecing it together where you don’t even know when the interview started. So I like to think that that is the same even in the same of Zoom versus in person. I guess just for me, the new layout of it provided an opportunity to continue working on my interview style, which has always been casual and laid back and try to bring out the best in these guys.”
That lack of face time wasn’t just a challenge for interviews, but for the production staff as well during the week, because they weren’t on the Fox lot in their offices. That meant more calls and texts between them than usual, but they missed the spontaneous conversation that they felt led to some of the best ideas.
“The part that for me that I miss the most is Bill and I when we’re in the offices is we’re right across the hall from each other, doors are open, and it’s that free flow of ideas, whether from Bill to myself or the rest of the production staff that can come up,” Daftary said. “We hang for a little bit and come up with stuff, now it’s a little more structured. To Bill’s point, on the text chains, even with the production staff, it’s like, ‘Hey, what about this idea and this idea,’ but I feel like if I had one thing that’s been a gut punch for 2020 it’s been the open door policy of, ‘Hey, come in and let’s throw some stuff against the wall and see what we like.’”
“Cause we’ll sit on the couch in the office and just talk. You don’t get on Zooms unless you have at least a little bit of an agenda,” Richards added. “So it’s never just, ‘Ah, what do you think of this.’ So the pop-ins to the office, I agree with him completely. Spoon and I talk on the phone more than we used to but I think it’s missed a little bit and I worry that a couple great ideas never made it to light.”
Lily Hernandez – FOX Sports
The communication has shifted to texts and calls, trying to keep everyone involved and in the loop as much as possible, but that shift in communication doesn’t stop on Sundays. Fox NFL Sunday host Curt Menefee is in constant contact with Richards, going over what the show will look like and bouncing ideas off of each other, but notes that even during the show, the protocols keep the number of staff allowed on set way down and requires even more effort to have the show run as usual with the same pipeline of information available to the guys at the desk.
“The in-person staff has always been a lot larger than it was allowed to be this year due to COVID protocols,” Menefee said. “So we were working with a lot fewer camera people, a lot fewer audio people, fewer research people in the building. They were all still working, but from home. So you have a Zoom call in the morning to discuss research that you need or during gameday I’m texting with people, Bill’s texting with people to find stats and get information. That’s a challenge that, as long as it comes off flawlessly, people at home have no idea, but it’s a little bit different than when you’re in studio and you can go, ‘Hey [Mike] Berger, how many first downs does this team have?’ Now it’s got to be a text and all these different sorts of things.
“So I think those kinds of things have, again, hopefully been things people at home haven’t noticed, but that’s a big, big thing for the guy who’s in charge to work with fewer bodies there. Or to have different ways of communicating with each other when it’s live TV and everything is spur of the moment. So I think Bill’s done yeoman’s work with that.”
For everyone involved, the lessons of this season will be things they can learn from in the future, with some opportunities and ideas that came to light that they believe they can build on moving forward. Recognizing the ability to do quality interviews and features without necessarily having to fly talent out to various team facilities will open up some more interesting combinations, particularly for someone like Strahan, who can’t leave New York during the week due to his other television commitments. Instead, Fox can send a producer and their own camera equipment so they can shoot it on both ends and continue upping the quality.
As the season nears its close with two more weeks of shows for Fox, starting with this weekend’s Divisional round action with Rams-Packers on Saturday (4:35 p.m. ET) and Bucs-Saints on Sunday (6:40 p.m. ET), Richards and Daftary look back on a season filled with uncertainty and feel proud of how the crew was able to make both shows happen. There were plenty hurdles and changes, with things like stand up segments for halftime and postgame were moved outside, but for the most part, Sunday afternoons on Fox looked and felt an awful lot like they always have.
“I’m just super proud of the fact that the issues behind the scenes haven’t made it to the viewer,” Richards said of the season. “It really, it’s a lot, there’s a lot of people working hard, there’s close calls, but at the end of the day – before the first week I told the guys, everything’s the same to you. Except for when you look out the person behind the camera has a mask, but to the viewer, I want to have the same show. They get that, they want the same thing. I think the production staff and the talent have done a really good job of not ignoring it, but not letting it make the show too compromised.”
“I second everything and your point that in watching the shows it doesn’t seem too different,” Daftary followed up. “That’s always been the goal for Bill and myself and everyone at Fox was, it’s the NFL, it’s our biggest property, let’s make sure it feels as 2019 as we can. And I think it’s a credit to a lot of creative people on our production staff that say, alright, how do we go interview Dak Prescott and not make it feel like the Zoom we’re talking about. There’s really, really creative people who took that challenge and keep upping the bar every week. I’m tremendously proud of all of those people.”
As if we haven’t had enough strange things happen this year (which we’re only two weeks into, by the way), you may have noticed a sudden proliferation of sea shanty videos come through your social media feeds. While a welcome alternative to the footage of violent insurrection and rising pandemic death tolls in the U.S., the question is: Why sea shanties, and why now?
Though there’s actually a wide range of sea shanty communities online, what brought it into the mainstream was a TikTok video from Scottish singer, Nathan Evans, pounding a drum and singing a well-known shanty, “The Wellerman.”
As of yesterday, a version of the song by a British folk band, The Longest Johns, was #2 on the U.S. Spotify viral chart and had reached #5 on the global chart the day before.
.@TheLongestJohns’ “Wellerman” has risen to #2 on the US Spotify Viral Chart & to #5 on the Global Spotify Viral Chart (Jan. 13).
So why sea shanties and why now? There are some theories about that.
As this video from Going Off-Topic explains, a sea shanty was a work song sung by men who had to coordinate their movements while doing repetitive on a ship at sea. We’ve seen similar communal work singing or chanting among various groups, from the military to prison chain gangs. (But with sea shanties, you don’t have the ominous underpinnings of war or the disturbing inhumanity of criminal justice to wade through in order to enjoy the rhythmic singing.)
What might be behind the newfound obsession with sea shanties is the current moment we find ourselves in the communal nature of the singing, adding voice upon voice—and especially doing so virtually through TikTok. Finding a way to create such harmonies together strikes right at heart of the human connection we’re desperately missing right now.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we talked a lot about how we were “all in this together,” but the months since have shown us that no, actually, we’re not all in this together. Some of us are still denying we’re in it at all, and that loss of a shared vision and purpose—which were always vital for us to avoid the disaster we’re in, losing 4,000 Americans a day—is painful. These harmonies feel like a healing balm of sorts for that societal wound. They also fill a void we all feel in being distanced from our friends, family, and community.
As science journalist Leigh Cowart points out, “behavioral synchrony feels really, really good to humans and many of us have been social distancing for months and deprived of this.”
sea shanties are popular right now because behavioral synchrony feels really, really good to humans and many of us… https://t.co/wFbZfNewQF
For further proof of how much we need this proof of community in harmony, please try to watch this video of 500 people singing a shanty together and not get teared up:
Leave Her Johnny Mass Choir Community Video Project!! We hoped we could get 100 people together to sing this wonder… https://t.co/aVlrGupRxD
— The Longest Johns (@The Longest Johns)1609357500.0
If that’s a little too much mushy emotion for you, the nature of these work songs may also reflect the feeling of the “seemingly endless, labor-filled test” of our resolve that pandemic living has forced us into, as Dan Sheehan points out. We’re all heaving and hoeing just to make it through the day at this point.
Why are sea shanties popular again it’s not like everyone is simultaneously experiencing a seemingly endless, labor… https://t.co/7X7X9cHPah
They’re also just…fun to sing. And catchy. The repetition of the chorus throughout makes it easy for anyone to join in and add their own unique voice to the mix. Watch this guy slowly get won over:
A new challenger has arrived, and his name is Promise: https://t.co/pDi63kRU1W https://t.co/P9I9dysUd4
Who knows how long the sea shanty trend will last, or what creative lengths it will go to. After all, we’ve already hit electro-shanty territory, which I guarantee nobody saw coming a few months ago.
#Seashantytiktok the gift that keeps giving #Wellerman https://t.co/hcjuK9BI3u
Maybe we’ll end up with an entirely new genre of music when all is said and done. There are definitely worse things that could come out of a year of pandemic misery than a harmonious reminder of community and creativity.
If Liam Neeson’s latest Taken adventure is any indication, the public’s appetite for vengeful mayhem and vigilantism may have dimmed somewhat of late. Which is… probably a good thing? Certainly a good thing for the world, if not for art, assuming Taken movies qualify as art.
Admittedly, I use the term “Taken movie” somewhat loosely. Neeson’s latest vehicle, opening in select theaters and as a VOD rental this weekend, isn’t technically a Taken sequel, nor does it come from any of the original creative team from Taken. But we all know what “Taken movie” implies at this point, right? Almost every Liam Neeson vehicle made since 2008 has been a spiritual sequel to Taken if not a literal one, starring Neeson as a pissed off old guy with a gun and a particular set of skills, unleashed to avenge his daughter/wife/nice vegetable patch (“Killing you isn’t going to bring my goddamned eggplant back.”). Point being, we know what we’re getting with this particular genre, and The Marksman, starring Neeson as a Texas rancher protecting a young boy from drug cartels, is a perfectly adequate exercise in providing it. If it lacks some of the panache and grindhouse appeal of previous installments, it also avoids the xenophobia and general mean-spiritedness.
So what sets this one apart?
When the bad foreign guys in Taken mess with Neeson’s family, they awaken his worst impulses — his rage, his willingness to torture and kill — and before long he’s merc-ing Eurotrash henchmen left and right and stabbing old ladies in the arm to extract information. This is all delivered on the assumption (a correct one) that it’s fun to watch Liam Neeson kill young men and stab old ladies.
When the bad guys come to town in The Marksman, by contrast, a Mexican drug cartel chasing a young mother and her boy across Neeson’s character’s land, it’s notable that what they stir up in Neeson’s character isn’t vengeance and murder and revenge (okay, a little murder) — it’s his compassion, his willingness to stick his neck out for others, and to some extent, his reason to go on living. Neeson still plays a crotchety, mean old son of a bitch (would we have it any other way?) but rather than being a happy retiree who finds reason to be a cold-hearted killer again, he’s an embittered retiree who finds someone worth killing for.
It’s probably relevant to note here that Marksman director Robert Lorenz is known for being a second unit director on a handful of Clint Eastwood movies (as well as directing Trouble with the Curve) so maybe it’s just logical that The Marksman would be more like Grand Torino than Taken. Usually, latter-day Taken knockoffs are directed by European music video (or commercial) directors, and there’s probably enough material there for a thesis examining Americans-as-Europeans-see-us vs. Americans-as-we-like-to-see-ourselves through the lens of who directed which Liam Neeson action film. That is — borderline psychotic, dangerous to piss off, stabbing random bystanders, killing lots of people; vs. fundamentally decent, compassionate, turns to violence as a last resort, kills lots of people, but only to protect the weak. We never forget to couch our violence in good intentions.
I’ll leave that for someone else to flesh out, but in any case, in The Marksman, Neeson plays Jim, a widowed Marine veteran with a Silver Star from ‘Nam who’s six months behind on the payments for his tiny cattle ranch on the Mexican border and whose only friends since his wife died of cancer are a delightful border collie named Jackson and an unrealistically attractive Border Patrol agent played by Katheryn Winnick. But one day, a young mother (Teresa Ruiz) and her son, Miguel (Jacob Perez) stumble across Jim’s land, with enforcers from a cartel, led by Mauricio (Juan Pablo Raba) in hot pursuit.
Mauricio tries to pull the whole “we’re not so different, you and I,” with Jim — he’s a soldier for the cartel, Jim was a soldier in Vietnam — but ol’ Jim isn’t buying it. Nonetheless, Mauricio will note Jim’s Marine status in every subsequent interaction, referring to Jim as “Madine Coors” in his delightful accent. “Ju mess with the wrong cabrón thees time, Madine Coors!”
The cartel chases Jim and Miguel across the country, and that’s pretty much the movie. Jim and Miguel don’t quite have the sporadic chemistry that Eastwood and Bee Vang had in Gran Torino (I say sporadic because it came and went, presumably on account of Eastwood’s notorious refusal to shoot extra takes) but it’s… pleasant enough. Jim is… mostly a pretty stand-up guy. He won’t let the Border Patrol deport Miguel, no matter how hot an agent they send after him.
The Marksman also does a surprisingly good job humanizing its bad guys and not demonizing the entire country of Mexico, which is a difficult balancing act to perform in a movie created to fulfill the promise of an old white guy killing people. If you want to see the openly xenophobic version of The Marksman, there’s always Rambo: Last Blood.
Of course, The Marksman isn’t quite as sickenly entertaining as Rambo: Last Blood either. Though it does do a decent job of being reasonably enjoyable without being actively evil, if that’s what you’re after. Think of The Marksman as a zesty, low-cal Last Blood with 85% of the flavor and none of the guilt.
‘The Marksman’ hits select theaters and VOD January 15. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
After being recognized by GLAAD as one of only four showrunners who were responsible for 20 percent of all LGBTQ representation on television, Shonda Rhimes couldn’t help but notice that she was only the straight creator on the list, and it did not sit well with her. In an outspoken tweet following the GLAAD announcement, Rhimes called out straight creatives in Hollywood for not doing their job when it comes to LGBTQ diversity, and racial diversity while she’s at it.
“You know what bugs me? I’m the only straight person on this list. That is not okay,” Rhimes tweeted. “It’s like the same problem with ANY kind of diversity. White people don’t do their job when it comes to representing people of color. Straight people don’t do their job when it comes to representing queer people. WHY?”
Straight people don’t do their job when it comes to representing queer people. WHY? (and PS: I’m not suggesting I’m special — most of this work was done by @KristaVernoff!)
Rhimes’ tweet also included a link to GLAAD’s annual “Where We Are On TV” report where she was named along with Ryan Murphy, Lena Waithe, and Greg Berlanti for being the top creators in LGBTQ representation, which, unfortunately, declined in 2020. While citing the pandemic and “and a transition into a new political era for this country,” GLAAD emphasized the importance of LGBTQ-inclusive shows like Schitt’s Creek, Batwoman, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power as evidence that audiences will show up in large, dedicated numbers for more diverse content.
“It must be a priority to introduce nuanced and diverse LGBTQ characters in 2021 and beyond, ensuring that this year’s decreases do not become reverse progress as the industry continues to evolve and adjust to this unique era’s challenges,” GLAAD president Megan Townsend said in a statement.
Lil Nas X has been teasing his debut album for a while now, but today, he has narrowed down when it’s coming out.
A frustrated fan tweeted at the rapper, “There’s only so many times we can listen to 7 and holiday @LilNasX we kinda need the album. No pressure or anything but drop the album or I’m manifesting a ant to crawl up your pp hole.” Nas couldn’t leave that kind of tweet hanging, so he responded with an approximate release window for the album, replying, “lmaooo more singles coming. album drop middle of the year.”
lmaooo more singles coming. album drop middle of the year.
While there’s no exact release date yet, he at least seems to have a running order in mind, as he shared a part of the album’s tracklist back in September, revealed that some of the songs set to appear on the release include “Call Me By Your Name, “One Of Me,” “Don’t Want It,” and “Titanic.” He also revealed that before the pandemic, he had hoped to work with Miley Cyrus, but that hasn’t ended up happening yet. He told Andy Cohen, “I had plans to work on this one song with Miley earlier last year, and then the pandemic happened. So we didn’t get to like meet up or anything, but, you know, maybe it’ll happen now.”
The Washington Capitals are fresh off a win against Buffalo Sabres to start the 2021 NHL season, and now we know what head coach Peter Laviolette was watching while the Caps were on in the offseason. The Caps head coach saw his squad start the year with a 6-4 win in Buffalo, and in his postgame speech introduced a new element to team awards inspired by Cobra Kai.
The web series — which debuted on YouTube but was picked up by Netflix and saw a third season premiere on New Year’s Day — apparently has a big fan in Laviolette, who introduced two headbands representing the titular dojo and its rival Miyagi Do.
“I was off for a whole year, so I watched every show out there. Every series out there,” Laviolette said on Thursday night. “The best series by far was Cobra Kai. So I thought about it and got this bandana right here for the most offensive player of the game.”
Laviolette then awards it to T.J. Oshie, tying the black headband on him while the players react. But he’s not done yet.
“Then there’s Miyagi’s camp. That’s strike, first hard,” he said, pointing to Oshie’s headband. “Miyagi’s all about defense.”
The two winners then squared up for some fake karate, with Oshie setting up for a crane kick he never delivered. But the team seemed enthused by the new awards, which should make for some fun if the Caps keep winning.
The show’s Twitter account clearly appreciated the love as well.
We’ll see if a third dojo gets some recognition from the Caps at some point this season. Though perhaps that would best be saved for an outdoor game, if possible.
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(@GSWRevenge2021) January 14, 2021
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!!!