As has been discussed at length at this point, the coronavirus pandemic is keeping people inside, which gives some of those people time to do things they may not have otherwise had the opportunity to do. For a lot of artists, this means they have newly open blocks of time that they can devote to creating new material.

Where this can become an issue, though, is when fans expect increased productivity during these complicated times. That is something Rosalía has commented on in a new interview, and she says that’s not a pressure she plans on giving in to.

Rosalía said in a new Elle feature:

“I’m making progress on my music, but notwithstanding, I wanted to remark on something that seems to be happening to a lot of people, myself included. There’s this kind of pressure to be creative or busy most of the time, with lots of activities and progress, and I’m trying to run from that. I’m trying to do things that help keep me mentally healthy, and if that includes making music, then great. But I won’t lie — there are days when I just watch a show and eat a packet of cookies.”

That’s not to say Rosalía is doing nothing during this time. Last month, she shared “Dolerme” and wrote of the song, “I am in quarantine and I have lost track of time a bit because I decided that I was not going to think about it too much and that instead I was going to put my energy and my heart into doing something for others, in my own way. I know that what I do as an artist it may seem trivial, for some it will be, but for me being able to make music is mental health.”

Read the full feature here.

Like many kids born between the late 1980s and early 1990s, I loved Babe, the spunky farm-set comedy about a talking pig that grossed $254 million at the box office and received a shocking Best Picture nomination. How many talking animals have been nominated for Best Picture? Not enough I say (A Talking Cat!?! was robbed), but at least we’ll always have Babe. The movie — about a social hierarchy-disrupting pig who believes he’s meant to herd sheep — has a famously definitive ending, with Babe proving the haters wrong and everyone’s dad Farmer Hoggett, played by Oscar nominee James Cromwell, telling him, “That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.” I cried, you cried, we all cried. So, naturally, five minutes into the sequel, Babe accidentally almost kills Farmer Hoggett.

I should probably back up.

After Babe became a surprise hit, Universal Pictures greenlit a sequel. But rather than replicate the success of the original, Babe: Pig in the City took place not on an idyllic farm, but, well, “the city,” and director George Miller, who received a writing and producing credit for the original film, replaced Chris Noonan as director. (“I don’t want to make a lifelong enemy of George Miller, but I thought that he tried to take credit for Babe, tried to exclude me from any credit, and it made me very insecure,” Noonan said years later. Miller’s response: “When it comes to Babe, the vision was handed to Chris on a plate.”) At the time, and to this day, Miller is best known for the Mad Max movies, peaking with Fury Road, which celebrated its five-year anniversary last week. It’s not exactly kid-friendly material, but to be fair, Babe: Pig in the City isn’t a kid-friendly movie.

I don’t know who it’s for, actually. I saw it as a kid, but all I remember is being terrified and that I was confused that “the city” was actually every city at once.

The skyline includes the World Trade Center, the Sears Tower, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the IDS Center, the MetLife Building, the Sydney Opera House, the Hollywood sign, the Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and the Christ the Redeemer statue, among others. It’s a Choice. This movie is full of Choices, which is why, after viewing it as an adult for the first time over weekend, I must admit: Babe: Pig in the City rules. It’s weird, it’s dark, it feels like a fever dream, it was critic Gene Siskel’s favorite movie of 1998 (over Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line — Roger Ebert also had it in his top-10), Mickey Rooney plays a clown named Fugly Floom, and there’s a family of chimpanzees, all of whom wear (adorable) clothes.

But there’s one scene in Babe: Pig in the City that I keep thinking about. It’s crazier than anything in Fury Road, a masterpiece full of crazy, thrilling sequences. The scene from Babe 2 that’s on my mind isn’t thrilling, or even fun to watch, but it’s wild that it made it into a kids movie, especially the sequel to the kind-hearted Babe. First, some set up: following Babe almost killing Farmer Hoggett, his wife Esme (first-billed Magda Szubanski!) and the little pig make plans to travel to a sheepdog herding contest to pay the bills, or else the bank will evict them. But on their way, a drug-sniffing dog shows off his professional prowess to Babe, causing them to miss their connecting flight. They check into the only hotel that will have them, the Flealands Hotel, where Babe (and the mice) meets the aforementioned chimpanzees, as well as cats, dogs, and an orangutan named Thelonius, a.k.a. Thelonius Monkey. Thelonius does not care for Babe, and neither do the chimpanzees, who use the pig as a diversion to steal jellybeans. Babe, naive cutie that he is, thinks he can use his “baa-ram-ewe” trick to calm down a vicious bull terrier; instead, the dog chases him around “the city,” leaving Babe to wonder, “Something broke through the terror. Flickerings, fragments of his short life, the random events that delivered him to this, his moment of annihilation. As terror gave way to exhaustion, Babe turned to his attacker, his eyes filled with one simple question: why?”

This a G-rated kids movie. Oh yeah, and when Babe jumps off a bridge, the bull terrier follows him, except he gets stuck before fully plunging into the water, resulting in the horrifying sight of a dog dangling off a bridge while drowning. Babe saves his attacker, because he’s the Paddington of dogs, but not before George Miller shows us this:

Uh, thanks George? My father should be arrested for taking me to this movie as a kid. (I do not want to know how they filmed this scene.) Shortly after the near-drowning incident, we get this harrowing anecdote from another, much tinier dog.

Why does George Miller hate dogs? And I haven’t even mentioned the scene where a courageous Jack Russell terrier with his hind legs on wheels dies in horrific fashion, goes to dog heaven, and is cruelly returned to this hell-pit we call Earth. Poor Flealick.

Needless to say, Babe: Pig in the City was not nearly as popular as Babe — it grossed only $69 million on a $90 million budget; it also inspired an infamously terrible video game and was nominated for an Oscar (Best Original Song), but lost to “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt. But I, and many others who have reevaluated the film in recent years, can now appreciate Miller’s f*cked-up vision of how the big city is full of cruel people who will chew you up (literally, if you’re a pig), if you let them. In that sense, the Babe sequel isn’t so different than Fury Road, with the Citadel as “The City.” Except Fury Road has a blind mutant playing a double-necked, flame-throwing guitar. Babe: Pig in the City has a dog almost drowning. The Doof Warrior makes sense to me, though — he’s in a dystopic R-rated action movie from the same guy who set a movie in a Thunderdome and created characters named the Lord Humungus and Master Blaster. Nothing about the unexpectedly nightmarish Babe: Pig in the City makes sense, especially at that point in Miller’s career, before he made the dancing penguin movies.

It’s the wildest film in a wild filmography. That’ll do, George. That’ll do.

Much of the pre-release hype surrounding Netflix’s Space Force is that it’s a The Office reunion of sorts, with star Steve Carrell working with creator Greg Daniels for the first time since playing Michael Scott. But don’t overlook the rest of the cast. There’s John Malkovich as a fussy scientist, Ben Schwartz looking not for actual heroes but people who “look” like heroes, and Lisa Kudrow as Carell’s “chipper-if-opportunistic wife” (someone from The Office being married to someone from Friends is peak Netflix algorithm), as well as Tawny Newsome, Jimmy O. Yang, Noah Emmerich, Diana Silvers, Jane Lynch, Chris Gethard, and the late Fred Willard. Check out the latest trailer above.

Here’s more:

A decorated pilot with dreams of running the Air Force, four-star general Mark R. Naird (Carell) is thrown for a loop when he finds himself tapped to lead the newly formed sixth branch of the US Armed Forces: Space Force. Skeptical but dedicated, Mark uproots his family and moves to a remote base in Colorado where he and a colorful team of scientists and “Spacemen” are tasked by the White House with getting American boots on the moon (again) in a hurry and achieving total space dominance.

Space Force premieres on Netflix on May 29. It will also have a 10-part tie-in podcast, Inside Joke, hosted by Yang.

Warner Bros.’ Justice League landed in 2017, and it feels like that long since diehard Zack Snyder fans have been clamoring to see his take that got shelved when Joss Whedon was hired to pump out a theatrical version. Over the past year, especially, we’ve heard from various parties, who would allegedly be in the know, that the once-fabled “Snyder Cut” actually exists. Kevin Smith came first to warm up DC fans to the prospect before Jason Momoa claimed to have seen the “ssssiiicccckkkkkk” thing, and Momoa even showed off an apparently filmed incident that never surfaced from Whedon. In December 2019, Snyder further fueled rumors by posting a photo of film cans that showed off a 214-minute runtime for his version, and now fresh speculation — perhaps the most convincing that people have seen so far — suggests that if a Snyder Cut’s gonna surface, it might happen very soon.

Much of the excitement correlates with the fact that we’re about one week away from the HBO Max launch date of May 27. Given that Warner Bros.’ entire stable of superhero films (every Batman movie, Joker, just all of it) will be part of the immense HBO Max library, it really seems, logically, that if the Snyder Cut surfaces anywhere, putting it on HBO Max would make the most sense. I can’t think of a more immediately effective way for HBO Max to encourage nerds to sign up as fast as possible for a $14.99 subscription if they’re not already one of the lucky HBO subscribers who will get it rolled into their existing subscription. Also — and this might be telling — Snyder is going to host an event (formally, a Man of Steel Watch Party on Vero) on Wednesday, May 20, which some have speculated will include an announcement. Will that announcement be that the Snyder Cut will surface, you know, on HBO Max?

You be the judge. “Many of us are struggling during this difficult time,” Snyder recently tweeted. “Felt it could be cathartic to come together now for a Man of Steel Watch Party and celebrate the ultimate symbol of hope.” The director will also field a Q&A session.

So, what do we make of this? The timing of the HBO Max launch with this fresh round of speculation is one thing. The fact that this is all going down during a pandemic — when millions of people under quarantine, could use some hope, or at least something they’ll be happy watching — is another factor that makes people want to believe. And on top of that, DCEU Mythic’s Jeremy Conrad and (who tends to be at the forefront of rumors that happen to be later confirmed) seems to be leaning toward thinking that the Snyder Cut will actually surface, and soon. Read Conrad’s reasoning here. Trusted nerd voice Peter Sciretta of Slashfilm may now be a believer as well. 2020 is strange!

None of this speculation, of course, means that the fabled Snyder Cut is truly coming to HBO Max. We won’t now if that’s happening until it does, or until we hear some sort of joint announcement from Snyder, Warner Bros, and HBO Max.

If it happens, though, let’s just say that there’s gonna be a lot of very excited people. That will not only include hardcore nerds but also Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck, who have vocally added their voices to the chorus to demand the release as opposed to a few dissentors, including Man of Steel Henry Cavill, composer Danny Elfman, and, reportedly, Warner Bros. itself as of late last year. Yet as we know now, more than ever, things can change fast, so we’ll see what happens during Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel Watch Party on Wednesday.

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There are 73 episodes of Game of Thrones, and 68 of them have at least an 8.0 user rating on IMDB. That’s very good. IMDb ratings are an imperfect science, based on the whims of dudes with names like DothrakiLord666, but they are nonetheless valuable in discovering the general consensus among fans for the “best” and “worst” episodes.

For instance, “The Rains of Castamere,” “Hardhome,” “Battle of the Bastards,” and “The Winds of Winter” all have near-perfect 9.9s, and they are, objectively speaking, probably the four best episodes of Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, there are only two episodes below a 6: season eight’s “The Last of the Starks” (5.9) and the final episode of the series, “The Iron Throne” (4.6). To call the reaction to the Thrones finale “polarizing” would be an understatement, although Carice van Houten believes “some people” were/still are being “ungrateful” for questioning David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ vision.

“The fact that some people were so disappointed is because everything before that was so good,” the actress, who played Melisandre, told Insider. “So it feels a bit ungrateful. You’ve had such great times and then yeah, you’re going to be disappointed because it’s not going to go exactly how you anticipated. Of course, you’re going to have all sorts of criticisms and I just thought it was a sign of how good the show was.”

At least now we know who to blame for season eight.

(Via Insider)

The latest Billboard Hot 100 chart was revealed yesterday (just the top ten spots, more accurately), and Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande’s “Stuck With U” claimed the top spot. Going into it, Tekashi 69 seemed to think his comeback single “Gooba” had a good chance of going No. 1, but a few days ago, he called out Billboard for what he thought was some shady accounting, which he believed was an effort to keep him from topping the Hot 100.

With all this criticism floating around, Billboard decided to offer a response to the rapper with an article on their website, titled “How Billboard Came to Its Calculations in This Week’s Race For the Hot 100 No. 1.”

The post begins by reiterating that Bieber and Grande’s song went No. 1 while “Gooba” debuted at No. 3. The post continues:

“This was met with some controversy on social media, as 6ix9ine had taken to Instagram shortly before the chart’s reveal to assert that streams of his single had been improperly discounted, and allege that the powers behind ‘Stuck With U’ had ‘bought’ their No. 1 through ill-gotten sales totals. […] In the interest of transparency, Billboard wanted to clear up the Hot 100’s chart rules and tabulation process, the calculations that go into the determinations of its final rankings, and the stats accumulated by the two singles that marked this week’s highest debuts. Here are the facts.”

From there, Billboard addresses specific criticisms levied against them by Tekashi. For example:

“The Hot 100 forecast 6ix9ine referenced in his Instagram video: The chart forecast referenced was not created nor provided by Billboard to the industry. Those with access to sales, streaming and radio data from various sources often create their own chart models and update them at their own frequency. Billboard does not distribute any Hot 100 ranking forecast to labels, management or artists.”

Also:

“6ix9ine’s claims that not all of his streams were properly counted: […] Each data provider provides a post-audit number to Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data — excluding streams that do not meet long-standing charting parameters, such as U.S.-based-only plays, minimum play length, excessive plays and lack of user verification. This is applied to all songs from all artists.”

And:

“6ix9ine’s claims that ‘six credit cards’ were responsible for a hefty percentage of the ‘Stuck With U’ sales: Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data conducts audits on all sales reported with access to purchase-level detail, and works with data partners to recognize excessive bulk purchases and remove those units from the final sales total. All titles this week, as in every week, were put under the same scrutiny.”

Read Billboard‘s full response here.

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