The NBA HORSE Challenge finals saw Zach LaVine, who beat Paul Pierce and Allie Quigley thanks to his wild athleticism, go up against Mike Conley Jr., who beat Tamika Catchings and Chauncey Billups thanks to ambidextrousness, creativity, and an indoor gym.

The finals were quite entertaining as Mike Conley won the coin toss and got to work with a behind the back layup and a closed eyes free throw to get LaVine a couple quick letters.

LaVine would get a couple letters back by going into his bag of tricks with the tap the backboard reverse layup and a bank shot from the top of the key.

But Conley pulled back ahead, H-O-R to H-O, with his “offhand” bag of tricks, hitting a right handed three that LaVine had no answer for.

After failing to get it to work in the semis and on his first effort in the finals, Conley finally got his spin the ball on his finger, punch shot to drop, clearly the proudest moment of the tournament thus far for him as he got within one letter of the title.

Conley then went back to the well that got him the victory in the first round over Catchings, sinking his over the backboard layup, which LaVine rimmed out to take home the HORSE championship.

It’s not a huge surprise that Conley won, given that as soon as we saw his setup compared to everyone else’s and his advantage with offhand shots we knew he’d be a problem. On top of that, he was the most creative of any player in the competition in doing actual HORSE shots — with LaVine probably in second with some of his wild layup concoctions — like spinning the ball on the finger and punching it and his over the backboard layup.

Devs — created, written, and directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation, Sunshine) — launched within the first batch of original TV shows for the FX on Hulu content hub. Quite notably, Garland’s limited series showcases Nick Offerman as you’ve never seen him before in the role of Forest, an eccentric (and tortured) tech CEO whose devotion to determinism gradually revealed itself as the limited series careened toward an end. As always, Garland paired his story with a beautifully frightening aesthetic that helped bring a disturbing parable to life. In the end, Forest ended up inside the machine he pioneered, and we finally saw him in a peaceful state.

Garland previously spoke with us when the series launched about digging into the quantum mechanics of the story, the value of casting Offerman, and why he put the tech gods in his crosshairs. He was gracious enough to talk with us again about the finale, which aired in what feels like a completely different world than only a few months ago. Naturally, he and I briefly acknowledged the “surreal” aspects of how he penned 28 Days Later (the Danny Boyle-directed movie about an incurable rage virus), although Garland believes that Steven Soderberg’s Contagion was even more stunningly and “absolutely prescient.” With the pandemic talk behind us, we turned to Devs and how Garland feels that the finale can be viewed as an ultimately uplifting turn of events.

People have grown accustomed to seeing whole seasons land on streaming platforms. Was it part of the early conversation to stream Devs weekly?

No, when I was making it, I supposed I knew that in the long-term, well, I thought that it was going to be every week because I thought that it was going to be on normal FX, the linear channel. But I thought relatively soon that it would be shown as a block on some kind of streaming service because that’s just the way that things go on. In some ways, I did think of it as something that would be drip-fed on a week-by-week basis, but I also thought, “What would it be like if these stories were bumping right up against each other?” So the end of the music of each episode is designed to smash up against the music in the beginning of the next episode. I guess I was trying to cover both bases.

Was it a big shift for you to think of eight hours rather than two for a movie?

It was daunting, but I’ve watched a lot of TV, so that helps when you’re trying to do something completely new. And there are elements of working on TV that, on a personal level, reminded me of writing books years ago, where I began my working life as a novelist before I started writing screenplays. Novels and television have something connected, partly in the breadth and the width of a story, but also because chapters and episodes have a structural similarity. There are discrete episodes, but they’re part of the overarching narrative. It was both really alien and with areas where it felt familiar.

I always think of you first as a writer, but you are also now known for combining philosophical themes with really awe-inspiring visuals. Where does planning the aesthetics land in your story-crafting process?

In the script stage. I tried to write in quite a simple, blunt way but also quite a visual way. And I see a script as being like a blueprint, like architectural plans. So you have to imply the imagery sometimes, and then from that point, it becomes a kind-of organic conversation with all the people you’re working with. Because they then contribute and expand and mutate the ideas, and eventually, you’re sticking a camera on something.

Well, when you first introduced Forest, we saw the unusual visual of him gobbling a pile of mixed greens. Where did that come from?

That was Nick Offerman. That’s the kind of beautiful detail that actors offer up, and you’d better make sure you’re listening when they say it. I think in the script, he was eating a pastry, which I saw as being kind-of arrogant in a funny way. Like, you’ve got this kid who’s showing you a presentation that he cares so much about, and you’re just sitting there with a pastry and a coffee and treating it all over-casually. And then Nick — I don’t even know where it came from — he just said, “It should just be a salad, like a box of salad with no salad dressing or nothing. I just wanna be eating a box of salad.” I think Nick came up with it pretty early. It was in rehearsals. I thought it was so funny. I was so pleased when he suggested it.

It sort-of sets us up to think that he’s a granola-type character, and then we find out that’s not how he’s motivated. His motivations are more personal, right?

Yeah, totally. And it’s got that funny, sort-of Californian vibe with the relaxed living and the sneakers and the hoodies masking all the naked capitalism.

Let’s talk about Forest’s “private joke” from the finale. He revealed that the real spelling of “Devs” is actually “Deus.” How important was it for you to characterize that as a joke?

It was important because it was partly a joke. I didn’t want it to be this big, fanfare, trumpets-blaring reveal. The original idea of the story was that it was a companion piece to the Ex Machina film. The full phrase, of course, is “Deus Ex Machina,” and I saw the two stories as being cross-related, so in some respects, it was like a private joke. The two stories together complete the ideas I was trying to explore, so then it was the question of, “What’s the right way to present that?” And in a way, Forest speaks for the show, to an extent, but that’s often what he does.

I didn’t want to offend you by presumptuously connecting these two projects, so I’m glad that you did it. Is it correct to call Devs a spiritual successor?

Totally. Probably more explicit than that. The basic idea was this: in Ex Machina, you’ve got a man who acts as if he’s god by creating a completely new life form, which is a godlike act. And in Devs, you have a collection of people, but in particular, Katie and Forest, who are not acting like gods, but they’re creating a god. Because they’re creating something that is all-knowing and all-powerful. And that is often the description we give to a god or gods, and so in that respect, they’re companion pieces. They’re like two forms of the ambitions of science and technology.

Of course, Devs is a limited series, and you left Ex Machina open as far as where Ava goes. Do you ever want to explore that with a sequel?

No. My private sense of it, partly because in my mind, Ava was like the hero of the narrative, was that I hope she goes and prospers somewhere, but the story is completely over. And the same is true with Devs. I’ve got no interest and no intention of ever doing a sequel. But in some respects, but Devs is sort-of a version of a sequel because the two are so linked.

They also both nail their architectural feel. You chose a Norwegian hotel-spa location for the Ex Machina shoot. How did you settle upon the Devs location at UC Santa Cruz?

Actually, just by some of the normal processes of how you go about putting a production together. This was Mark Digby and Michelle Day, who are the production designers of the show. They went out scouting around and casting a wide net around San Francisco. As soon as they found that campus, we went through the photos and knew that was it. It was these strange… they’re not as elegant as the buildings in Ex Machina, they’re much more brutalist. And the surrounding landscape is slightly weirder. Redwood forests have a really strange vibe about them, and so basically, it just felt perfect.

At the end of the season and all the quantum mechanics, the story comes down to determinism and whether free will exists. And then Lily breaks the Devs system, so what’s the message there?

It’s not a message as much as the offering up of an argument. At that moment, does Lily act with free will, or is she just falling back into a new deterministic state which has been changed just by an extra bit of information? So it’s like a conversation to be had. And then there’s a secondary thing, which is about, “What are the personal implications for us about thinking that we may not have free will, or we may have it?” Or we may just live in one universe, one state, or we might be living in a massive number of parallel states, some of which are similar to each other, and some of which are wildly different. And how does that make us feel about what we are, and what we care about?

It’s a little scary, honestly. Is it okay if I admit that?

Yeah, in some ways, it is scary, but in some ways, it’s like there are reassurances in it. For me, the deterministic way of looking at things is actually very compassionate. It means that it doesn’t stop you from caring about anything. Lily and Jamie love each other equally, whether they’re in a deterministic state or not in a deterministic state. It means that actions become more forgivable, in a sense, because aren’t responsible for their actions in a way that we think they are. So what might seem like an act of casual indifference or cruelty which hurts us in a certain way can be unpacked, slightly differently. And maybe more easily.

How is this all wrapped up in the idea of big data?

I think that what it feels like, and what it is, is the arrival of big data that feels like it is stripping us of our agency.

At the end, Lily and Forest are in the system. Is that a happy ending for them, or should we see that as ambiguous?

To me, it’s a happy ending because the world that they exist in would be indistinguishable from the world that you and I are talking in now. And it has this other really wonderful dimension to it, which is that people who are dead don’t have to stay dead. And the hardest thing that we encounter is the death of people that we care about. And more than our own deaths. And this would remove that as a problem that we all have to deal with.

FX’s ‘Devs’ can now be streamed on Hulu in its entirety.

View Entire Post ›

Thanks to a pair of singles, Demi Lovato has had one of the better years in music thus far. It began with an emotional performance of her new song, “Anyone,” at the 62nd Grammy Awards in January, followed by ta soaring rendition of the national anthem at Super Bowl 54. A month later, she shared her second single of the year, “I Love Me,” a song that came attached with a video centered on self-appreciation. Refusing to let the coronavirus halt her momentum, Lovato and Sam Smith join forces for their new single “I’m Ready.”

Showcasing their own edition of the Olympic games, as the 2020 Olympics were postponed until next year, Demi and Sam participate in a wide array of games, including wrestling, track and field, and diving. At video’s start, Sam Smith is found in the middle of a wrestling match before hitting the track for a literal drag race. Over at a pool, Demi Lovato sings her verse while walking on a diving board as nearby divers dive off with their best form into the water.

The single also comes a couple of weeks after Demi Lovato gave a quarantine style performance of “I Love Me” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

You can watch the video for “I’m Ready” above.

The second semifinal of the NBA HORSE Challenge pitted Allie Quigley against Zach LaVine in a Chicago battle of Sky vs. Bulls, and from the get go it was clear LaVine was not going to ease up when it came to skirting the “no dunk” rule after skunking Paul Pierce in the opening round.

LaVine gave Quigley her first letter with a between-the-legs reverse layup and did most of his damage the rest of the way on similar efforts.

He even admitted to being afraid of getting in a shooting contest with the WNBA sharpshooter, who tried to goad him into taking jump shots by noting he was one of the NBA’s best three-point shooters and pointing out how he made 13 threes in one game this season. She did have a few openings, as LaVine missed a few of his efforts, and put three letters on him with her patented hopping on one leg shot and seated bank shot, but ultimately, he regained control of shot choice and did too many wild layups.

To close things out, LaVine went off the backboard and between the legs, with Quigley unable to even get an attempt off, advancing to the finals against Mike Conley Jr.

It was a question going in whether LaVine would continue using his athletic advantage after dusting poor Paul Pierce in the first round with similar attempts. Quigley hung in there and made a few, including a bounce between the legs layup, but ultimately, LaVine was doing too many dunk contest quality layups for her to keep up.

“People had been doing some filming with celebrities from home, but it was still at that stage that it felt a bit like it was a brave new world of production.”

View Entire Post ›

The coronavirus has placed a heavy weight upon the shoulders of healthcare workers all across the country. On top of that, the healthcare workers are also risking their lives by coming in close contact with infected patients. Looking to protect the workers as best of the can, many in entertainment, including Future, Jay Z and Meek Mill, and Diddy, have done their part to help with relief. Thursday night, Beyonce joined the likes of Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Christina Aguilera on ABC’s The Disney Family Singalong to deliver a heartwarming performance of “When You Wish Upon A Star.”

“I’d like to dedicate this song to all the healthcare workers who have been working tirelessly to keep up healthy and safe. We greatly appreciate you,” Beyonce said as the sounds of a piano begun to flutter in the background. Video of her performance, which lasted a little over a minute, was played online for viewers who tuned into the singalong. Upon concluding her rendition of “When You Wish Upon A Star,” a song which was first heard in Disney’s 1940 film Pinnochio, Beyonce delivered words of hope to those who were watching. “Please hold on to your families tight,” she said. “Be safe, don’t give up. We’re going to get through this, I promise.”

You can watch Beyonce’s performance in the video above.

The last three weeks have been quite thrilling for Tory Lanez and his fans. After premiering his Quarantine Radio show towards the end of March via Instagram Live, Tory has kept his fans and celebrities friends entertained with talent shows, twerking contests, and sporadic appearances from some of entertainment’s best known talents. Whether it was intentional or not, Quarantine Radio wound up being a perfect platform for Tory to promote his new album, The New Toronto 3, but first-week projections imply that doing that didn’t boost sales.

Regardless, Tory’s can always take comfort in the fact that he’s now an independent artist. With The New Toronto 3 serving as his last project under Interscope, he is free to do as he pleases with little resistance. After sharing a self-directed video for “Who Needs Love” earlier this week, Tory takes a seat in the director’s chair once again, this time for his “Dope Boy’s Diary” video.

In the video, a young girl resides in the director’s chair while Tory makes his way to the makeshift stage, where he delivers anecdotes about his past struggles and current successes. The dimly lit video showcases a dark and almost sinister side to Tory, much different from the well-spirited Quarantine Radio host we’ve seen in the past few weeks.

You can watch the video for “Dope Boy’s Diary” above.

The NBA HORSE Challenge rolled on with the semifinals and finals on Thursday night, with Chauncey Billups taking on Mike Conley Jr., who continues to have a prohibitive advantage thanks to his indoor gym in Columbus, Ohio.

Conley jumped out to a quick H-O lead thanks to a banked in three and over the backboard swish shot that Billups was unable to answer.

Billups was able to avoid total disaster by matching Conley on a spinning, one-legged effort from the top of the key.

Conley handed Billups his third letter with this corner three after throwing the ball in the air, spinning, catching it and shooting off one leg.

It was the second time Billups got behind three letters in this competition, but unlike against Trae Young, he wasn’t able to go on a huge run. He did get a letter back with a bank shot from the top of the key to avoid a disaster.

Conley hit an “off-handed” three, as he continues to break out his ambidexterity in emergency situations when he needs a to pick up a key letter, with Billups clanging a left-handed effort in response.

Billups would draw things back to H-O-R-S to H-O with a banked in three from the break, but Conley ultimately closed things out with a granny shot free throw to move on to the finals.

Conley has to be the prohibitive favorite at this point, given his ability to effectively steal letters at will with “offhand” shots, and his indoor gym. He’ll face the winner of Allie Quigley and Zach LaVine later on tonight’s broadcast.

Michael Jordan is a mythical figure, both in the sports world and in the greater consciousness around the globe. Most believe the former Chicago Bulls (and Washington Wizards) star is the greatest basketball player of all-time and, because he ruled the NBA in a world before social media, there are many legendary tales about Jordan, both on and off the floor.

One such anecdote is Jordan’s infamous quote of “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” The quote has been attributed to Jordan in many different contexts, especially when discussing his well-known avoidance of political matters. In fact, full investigations have been assigned to the quote’s origin, including a deep dive by Slate’s Laura Wagner in 2016.

Within it, Wagner cites Second Coming, a book written by Sam Smith in 1995 and centering on Jordan, and it references this excerpt as the first use of the now widespread wording, even if “sneakers” wasn’t originally included.

Another time, he was approached by U.S. Senate hopeful Harvey Gantt, a black politician who was running against Jesse Helms in North Carolina, Jordan’s home state. Gantt had hoped that Jordan’s name would help him defeat Helms, widely regarded as a virulent racist. But Jordan declined. He wasn’t into politics, he explained, didn’t really know the issues. And, as he later told a friend, “Republicans buy shoes, too.”

With that in mind, Smith himself wrote this week about the story behind what he describes as a “misunderstood” quote. To set up the context, he shared that “Jordan loved the media give and take,” saying that Jordan often spurned pre-game warmups in favor of verbal exchanges with the media and the plain fact that Jordan loved to get the last word.

From there, Smith gets to the goods, painting the picture of himself “blathering on about Jesse Helms and that North Carolina senate race” that took place in 1990. Smith made sure to say that “Jordan knew how much the NBA had been asking players to stay away from this kind of stuff, and the truth is he didn’t need to protect his shoe company investment.” At the same time, Smith was, by his own admission, arguing on behalf of Gantt.

Then, the fireworks happened.

It didn’t matter if it was a game, a bet, the first to get dressed or taped, the first bag down the conveyor belt at the airport which he’d, by the way, arranged with a ten for the baggage handler. Conversation and can-you-top-this was a competitive event to Jordan. There were more skilled players, but no one with that manic, never drained reservoir of competitive energy and desire. It’s why he worked harder, also. Not necessary to be better. But not to lose to anyone at anything.

So he shot me the last word.

“Republicans,” he said with a smile, “buy sneakers, too.”

Smith says he laughed and also had his thoughts “derailed” by the response but, most importantly to the context of the story, he admitted that “it was the final word” from Jordan.

In some ways, this explanation won’t satisfy everyone, even when accounting for the fact that Smith was, well, the person to report the quote in the first place. Smith ended the piece by emphasizing (with an exclamation point and everything) and Jordan’s quip was a joke, and he implores everyone to “stop taking yourselves so seriously.” Whether that, in itself, is a mythical creation after 25 years is up for interpretation but, if nothing else, the original purveyor of the world-famous quote has weighed in.