Category: News

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla got its first combat reveal at Sunday’s Ubisoft Forward event, giving us a glimpse of the Norse combat that will take the fight to the English Isles. While we got a glimpse of some cutscenes earlier in the summer, Sunday’s trailer and deep dive into gameplay showed off lots of new details about the Viking edition of the gaming franchise.

The game will be focused on the Viking invasion of England and focus on Eivor, a character that players can explore as either a man or woman. The gameplay showed loads of new features and combat tailored to Viking abilities and exploration of the island.

The trailer showed off raiding villages for assets to develop your settlement. It also showed combat and attacking enemies, including how opponents might work together and how your viking can exploit tactics and use new abilities designed to use traditional weapons. And yes, there’s some stealth and dual wielding and all the traditional killing and fighting from Assassin’s Creed games. It’s a different look at the series, for sure, but many of the traditional gameplay elements are there as well.

Ubisoft showed off a more detailed exploration of combat and gameplay after the official Ubisoft Forward event ended, including a look at how Eivor will work to recruit allies to complete raiding tasks and a much more detailed look at the improvements to the fight system. There’s a lot of axe combat, archery and customizable combat system to explore when the title launches on basically every console this holiday season. Yes, even the new ones.

Ubisoft’s Forward event on Sunday had plenty of details about the oft-delayed Watch Dogs Legion, including a slick short story about a member of the growing resistance in the title and a video highlighting just how many possibilities are opened up with its NPC system.

Legion is ambitions, pitching itself as the end of NPCs as we know it. And Sunday’s Ubisoft Forward event detailed just how players will recruit members of that resistance and use their abilities to navigate its unique plot. The gameplay overview detailed exactly what’s going on in the futuristic police state of London, where a terrorist attacking the city caused the government to hire “a private military company called Albion” to keep people safe. Problem is, of course, Albion is corrupt, and other baddies loom as well.

To fight back, the player will use every advantage possible to undermine the police state and take back the streets of London. As the game’s developers explained, players will stumble upon a seemingly-endless number of characters on the streets of London, learning their origin story and unique abilities and roles in the process. They’re then part of your team, which you can use to complete missions and advance the larger plot of the game.

The trailer showed off some impressive skills from various characters, but also highlighted the endless possibilities for the many kinds of characters and their stories. The video promised you can recruit the “entire” population of London, and showed off examples of a construction worker fighting with tools, a police officer using stealth to gain information in an area only they can access, and an elderly woman using a taser to take down an enemy. It promised endless opportunities for combat and problem-solving, and the trailer announced a release date of October 29 for Legion, so we’ll see how it all plays out in a few short months.

It is safe to say that the wise words of Muhammad Ali stands the test of time. Widely considered to be the greatest heavyweight boxer the world has ever seen, the legacy of Ali extends far beyond his pugilistic endeavors. Throughout his career, he spoke out about racial issues and injustices. The brash Mohammed Ali (or who we once knew as Cassius Clay) was always on point with his charismatic rhetoric— despite being considered arrogant at times. Even so, he had a perspective that was difficult to argue with.

As a massive boxing fan—and a huge Ali fan—I have never seen him more calm and to the point then in this recently posted BBC video from 1971. Although Ali died in 2016, at 74 years old, his courage inside and outside the ring is legendary. In this excerpt, Ali explained to Michael Parkinson about how he used to ask his mother about white representation. Even though the interview is nearly 50 years old, it shows exactly how far we need to come as a country on the issues of racial inclusion and equality.

In this interview, Ali remembered posing the question to his mother: “Why is everything white?” He recalled being curious about Jesus being white. He pontificated as to why all angels were white—why Angel food cake is white while Devils-food cake’s the chocolate dessert. He talked about all the products of his time that were labeled “white” like White Swan soap, King White soap and White Cloud tissue paper. Oh, and where does the president live? The White House.

He goes further into why all the celebrated models of the world are white and how beauty is only seen on white women. Miss World and Universe are always white—but why? He knows that women in America have all different types of complexions, shapes and sizes. Why not embrace it? They aren’t all Barbie. He goes into Snow White, Santa Claus—noting that everything we view as “great” in this country is—you guessed it—white. In classic Ali style, he rhymes, “Everything bad is Black. The Little Ugly Duckling was the Black duck. And the Black cat was the bad luck. And if I threaten you, I’m gonna blackmail you. I said, ‘Mama, why don’t they call it ‘whitemail?” They lie too.” It’s hilarious but sadly true. It wouldn’t shock me if Ali made the entire speech on the spot. He’s brilliant.

The highlight of the interview has to be when he discusses Tarzan. Ali makes you think: how is it that Tarzan, a white man, is the king of the jungle in Africa? How can he talk to the animals but none of the Black men—who have lived there for centuries—are able to communicate with them?

Ali makes you realize that our country is completely whitewashed and always has been. He hammers home the idea that something is terribly wrong with our society. I can go on about how impactful he is. But, honestly, it would be like writing the lyrics to a Tina Turner song without listening to her music. You just have to experience Ali for yourself. Trust me, it’s worth it.

The majority of players on the 22 teams that will participate in the NBA’s bubble restart have arrived at Disney already, with a few notable exceptions like James Harden and Russell Westbrook who are expected to join the Rockets soon. For many, their two-day isolation period has ended and they are now free to roam their bubble surroundings.

For some, this has meant it’s time to hit the links and take advantage of the Disney golf courses available to them. For the non-golfers, many have taken to the resorts well stocked lakes and are happily videoing their hauls as the NBA Bassmasters Classic has officially begun.

The first fishing video that made a splash (get it?!) on social media was Ben Simmons proudly holding up a fish and then failing to toss it back into the water, allowing the poor thing to slip out of his grasp and bounce off the dock before returning to its lake home.

However, Simmons was far from the only one to hit the docks over the past 24 hours, as it’s become one of the most popular destinations for NBA players seeking a little sunshine and outdoor fun after being locked in their hotel rooms. Fellow Sixer Kyle O’Quinn got in on the action, holding his fish much more confidently than Simmons, which is what you’d expect from someone with camo Crocs and a Bass Pro Shops hat — a big hat tip to Dime’s lead Bubble-Watch expert, Katie Heindl, for the screenshots.

The Dallas Mavericks also made a trek to the docks for some night fishing, where Delon Wright and Jonas Valanciunas got in on the action, while Boban Marjanovic fell painfully short of reeling in his first fish.

Then there’s the Clippers, arguably the NBA’s premier fishing club thanks to the presence of elite fisherman Paul George, who unsurprisingly had an excellent day on the lake with George and Montrezl Harrell both hauling in some big bass.

If nothing else, the NBA can pivot to a fishing tournament if need be, with the Clippers and Paul George as a -150 favorite over the rest of the field.

Just over a month ago, the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum announced that they would be changing their band’s name to Lady A in order to remove any attachment to the pre-Civil War period of history their name is derived from. In a statement, the band revealed they got their name from “the Southern ‘antebellum’ style home where we took our first photos,” and that they decided to make the name change to “take into account the associations that weigh down this word.”

Soon after making the name-change to Lady A, however, it was revealed that Black blues singer Lady A, whose real name is Anita White, was using the name. White herself was critical of the name-change considering the fact that the country band did not reach out to discuss using the name, one White has used for over three decades. After failed attempts to reach a solution with the band, White has released a lengthy statement, which in part, explained why the country band’s name-change is harmful to her and her career.

Though they recognized their impact, Lady Antebellum has not been receptive to my proposals for correcting their infringement, unfortunately. It has already been demonstrated why co-existence will simply not work. My fans used to be able to listen to my music on streaming services; now they struggle to find me. Due to Lady Antebellum’s massive rebranding efforts, Lady Antebellum has erased me from every platform. Lady Antebellum has used their wealth and influence to intimidate and bully me into submission without offering any real recompense for appropriating my name. It is now clear that their apologies, friendly texts, and playing on my love of God were just insincere gestures aimed at quieting me. Well, I will not be quiet any longer.

Revealed in a statement from the country band, they are suing White after she demanded the country band give her $10 million, a move that she explained in her state, but one that pushed the country band to sue her in order to use the name. Despite the suit, White remains unmoved in her stance as she revealed in a recent interview with Vulture. “If you want to be an advocate or an ally, you help those who you’re oppressing. And that might require you to give up something because I am not going to be erased.”

Read blues singer Lady A’s full statement here.

Adding onto an already painful year in the hip-hop community, news broke late Saturday night that 27-year-old Quality Control rapper Marlo was shot and killed in Atlanta. XXL reported that the rapper was driving on Atlanta’s I-285 was he shot.

Signed to Quality Control in late 2017, Marlo was also known as Lil Baby’s right-hand man. The two rappers released their joint project, 2 The Hard Way in October 2017. The project gave Marlo some of his most popular songs, including the title track and the Pnb Rock-featured “Whatchu Gon Do.” Following the joint project with Lil Baby, Marlo would release four more projects including 2018’s 9th Ward God and The Real 1 and 2020’s 1st & 3rd. He was also featured on both volumes of Quality Control’s Control The Streets.

Fellow Quality Control artists took to Twitter to pay their respects to Marlo. Lil Yachty shared a post from a fellow Atlanta rapper with a caption that read, “We just did a song a 4 this morning smh rip brother.” One-half of the City Girls duo, JT, also commented on Marlo’s passing saying, “Rest In Peace Marlo……damn,” in a post to Twitter.

Many other artists paid their respects to Marlo in social media posts of their own including Reese LaFlare, who called his death “crazy,” and Russ who remember Marlo and Lil Baby’s 2017 project 2 The Hard Way and how it played a big part on tour for him.

View other comments and posts from artists in the industry below.

Tom Hanks has hosted Saturday Night Live ten times now, if we include his April stint as host of the show for its first episode in the midst of the pandemic. In those ten times as host, Hanks has created some of the best skits and many of the show’s most enduring characters through 40 years, including David S. Pumpkins, the one-armed tennis player, and Mr. Short Term Memory. When Hanks hosts, viewers can expect that staying up until 1 a.m. to watch the show will be worth it. He’s not only one of the most prolific hosts, but one of the best.

There’s a reason for that, beyond the fact that Hanks is just naturally funny and charming, according to Conan O’Brien, who wrote for SNL from 1987 to 1991. Tom Hanks appeared as a host in all four seasons that Conan wrote, and many will say that those were probably Hanks’ best episodes, and it’s because Hanks did something that other hosts did not.

In this week’s episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend with guest Tom Hanks, Conan spelled it out. “I remembered every time that you would host, you would stay up practically the whole night with the writers. I remembered at one point walking through the conference room at night, at like 3 in the morning, and you were lying on the conference table trying to compose a sketch.”

“Every other host,” Conan said, “would dip in and dip out, and see what everyone was up to, and then go out to dinner with Lorne [Michaels], and then maybe come back for a little bit. You were alone in your dedication to making it a great show. Moreso than any other host while I was there.”

Conan described Tom Hanks — along with Bruce Springsteen — as examples of celebrities who have succeeded because they are such hard workers. For the ever-humble Hanks, however, he dismissed Conan’s flattery. “It was a great hang,” he said. “You laugh your head off when you are there, and part of it was, I couldn’t believe I was there. I wanted to soak that up. I mean, Lorne’s a fascinating guy, but after awhile, I don’t need anymore Bob Hope stories at dinner.”

Listen to the entire Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend episode with Hanks, where he talks about his new film on Apple TV+, Greyhound, and having seen both the movie and listened to this podcast, I thought the way that Hanks talks about the movie here is even more interesting than the movie itself.

Source: Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend

During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week we will dive into Most Streamed and Bestseller Lists on Fandango, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.

I have been running the above message in italics since last March, and while theaters aren’t open for new theatrical movies yet, we are starting to get actual box-office numbers again, largely from drive-in theaters, which represent most of the moviegoing business being conducted at the moment. It’s a shame most of them ran out of business over the last 30 years, because they are doing very well now.

To wit: Empire Strikes Back is the top movie at the weekend box office, thanks to drive-in theaters. In fact, this is the third different year that Empire has led the box office: In 1980, upon its release; with the 1997 re-release, and now during the 2020 pandemic, when it is occupying most of those drive-in theater screens around the country. It should earn around $500K this weekend, which ain’t bad for a 40-year-old film. Meanwhile, as a sign of how the more things change, the more they stay the same in a pandemic: Even in decidedly lo-fi drive-in theaters, Disney holds all three of the top spots this weekend, with Empire and the re-releases of Marvel’s Black Panther and Pixar’s Inside Out. Disney has apparently come in and chased even the low-budget movies, like Wretched and Becky, out of theaters.

Back in our living rooms, where most of the business is still being conducted, Rod Lurie’s The Outpost (based on the book by CNN’s Jake Tapper) is now dominating both the Fandango and iTunes charts. I’ve seen a lot of promotion for it on Twitter, but that’s probably because I follow Jake Tapper on Twitter. Beyond that, there’s not much to say about the VOD charts this week, as it’s mostly titles we’ve ran across a number of times over the last four months: Trolls World Tour, King of Staten Island, and Mel Gibson’s Force of Nature is doing OK. Honestly, if viewers are really into watching a movie set during a storm, watch Crawl, an alligator film set during a hurricane. It is fantastic, and super fun. Trust me!

There were a couple of other indie flicks released to VOD this weekend that I wish had broken out, and are at least worth mentioning: Relic, the atmospheric horror film starring Emily Mortimer that has scored 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and A24’s First Cow, which sits at 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Check them out.

Maybe the two best mainstream films of the summer were also released on streaming platforms this weekend, although neither one of them was Tom Hanks’ Greyhound, which I’m sure is doing well for Apple TV+, even though I thought it was a snoozer [Vince disagrees, and so do most critics (79 percent on RT)]. I am more referring to Hulu’s Lonely Island Groundhog Day movie, Palm Springs, which is hilarious and maybe the best movie I have seen this summer (both Vince and Mike agree, as do most critics, who have given it a 93 percent on RT).

The other is the weekend’s top film on Netflix, Charlize Theron’s Old Guard, which Mike correctly suggests is probably the closest we’re going to get to a summer-blockbuster this summer, although with 81 percent on RT, that’s better than most summer blockbusters. It’s a really fun movie, and I say that as someone who hasn’t been all that impressed, yet, with some of the big-budget Netflix movies, like Bright and Extraction. This one is both very good and very fun.

On Netflix, The Old Guard was followed by The Lorax, the Netflix original Desperadoes, and a 2019 indie horror flick I’ve never heard of called Only. It stars Frieda Pinto, Leslie Odom Jr. (from Hamilton), and Chandler Riggs, the latter of which suggests I should at least see what this movie is about (the smattering of reviews for it give it mostly mediocre marks). Meanwhile, for reasons that elude me, the terrible 2008 Kevin James and Adam Sandler movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is at number five. Adam Sandler does very well on Netflix.

I’m not seeing that much worth mentioning among next weekend’s VOD and Netflix releases, which means it’s probably a good time to catch up on any of the great movies released this weekend you didn’t get around to like: Relic, First Cow, Old Guard, and Palm Springs. Or Hamilton on Disney+. Or, you can head to the drive-in. I think that Beetlejuice is making the rounds in drive-in theaters next weekend.

Sources: Deadline, Fandango, Netflix, iTunes

Disney World in Orlando opened up on Saturday, one of two Disney parks that saw paying customers for the first time in nearly four months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For those desperate to distract themselves from the daily realities of rising case counts and death tolls, it was welcome news. But many saw the parks reopening in Florida amid skyrocketing infections across the South as an unsettling dismissal of medical and safety advice.

As CNN reported, the sights and sounds from inside the park were certainly different as safety measures like plexiglass, social distancing measures and mask use try to combat rising COVID-19 cases in the region where the self-described “happiest place on Earth” resides. Videos showed the usually packed park with sparse groups of people in masks, and reports of short ride waits were everywhere. Many tweeted videos of masked employees waving to guests as they shuffle through a very different park than existed before coronavirus.

A recording also reminded people to wear masks, and video of it echoing through a mostly empty park quickly went viral.

The New York Times has a good on-the-scene report as well, highlighting the efforts the park has made to control reporting on the reopening from inside the park, the reaction from union employees who are returning to work as well as enthusiasm from its patrons.

“We will take any amount of normalcy and any amount of joy that we can get,” Jose Villanueva said as he rested in the shade in Tomorrowland with his wife, Kacie. “I know that some people are upset about having to wear a mask or there being no fireworks. For us, we feel lucky to be here. This was the first thing that made us feel like we could leave our house and still feel safe.”

Why?

“It’s Disney,” Ms. Villanueva said. The couple made the trek to Florida from their home in Laurinburg, N.C.

But what got most of the attention online as Disney reopened was a video of employees welcoming guests back to the park for the first time in nearly four months. First shared on the @DisneyParksJobs account, it showed various employees readying the park and welcoming people back while wearing masks.

The video was discussed so widely on Twitter that it was deleted, though as of this posting it was still available on Instagram. Many described it as unsettling and it quickly became a meme of sorts, with people adding effects to the video to make it more like a horror film trailer.

Adding “Mad World” and some black and white filters really drives the point home.

The music from pretty much any horror movie works here.

Even Midsommar, which does fit thematically in a way.

The A24 vibe was certainly picked up by a lot of people.

Here’s The Shining, if you need it.

And Saw.

Others simply changed the video to say “stay home” instead of “welcome back.”

Inside the park, though, there were plenty of happy people who traveled a long way to get their Disney fix. Not everyone, however, was convinced that was the best idea right now.

Kamaru Usman (17-1) earned a decision victory over Jorge Masvidal (35-14) to keep the welterweight championship in the main event at UFC 251 from “Fight Island” at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Masvidal opened the first with a slew of swift leg kicks, but Usman caught one of them and took the challenger to the mat. Masvidal worked off his back and jumped back to his feet, where he landed stinging knees and a sharp elbow. Usman went for the takedown again, but the challenger fought it off. Masvidal appeared to stun Usman with a right hook late before the end of the round.

Throughout the second, Usman had Masvidal backed against the cage, where he traded stomping his feet and attacking his body. Toward the end of the round, Masvidal showed some life and landed a handful of shots.

The third was much of the same, with Usman dropping Masvidal with back-to-back takedowns. Usman controlled the ground and went to work on Masvidal’s midsection. Usman pushed Masvidal against the cage to open the fourth yet again, trading foot stomps with body shots. Masvidal exploded out of the clinch and moved forward with his own burst of attacks. That was short lived though, with Usman yet again earning an advantage by holding Masvidal against the cage.

In the final round, Usman took Masvidal to the ground again, where Usman chipped away with elbows and maintained a dominant position. With less than a minute remaining, Masvidal made his way back his feet and began throwing a flurry of strikes but didn’t have enough left to finish the fight.

After resurrecting his career to the tune of three consecutive wins, most recently winning the Baddest Motherf***er championship, Masvidal has called for a title shot for the last six months. Gilbert Burns got the opportunity instead, but Masvidal stepped in on one week’s notice after the challenger tested positive for COVID-19.

His opponent, Usman, also saw a meteoric rise over the last year, beating Tyron Woodley in an incredibly one-sided tilt before breaking Colby Covington’s jaw in an impressive first title defense.