Fox News has been the butt of several jokes over the weekend after the conservative news channel reported a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the actual words of a protester inside the Seattle “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone” (also known as “CHAZ”).
After finding the quote on Reddit, the network’s first mistake, The Story host Martha MacCallum was completely oblivious to the fact that she was reading a movie quote, and instead, tried to paint the Monty Python joke as the actual thoughts of protesters turning against hip-hop artist Raz Simone who lead the effort to form CHAZ. Via The Hollywood Reporter:
In her report, MacCallum pointed to a since deleted post on Reddit questioning Raz’s appointment, which she used as evidence of group turmoil. The post was a joke which quoted classic lines from 1975’s Holy Grail, reading: “I thought we had an anonymous collective. An anarcho-syndicalist commune at the least, we should take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.”
The Fox faux-pas has been getting brutally mocked on social media, and now Monty Python member John Cleese is getting in on the act. In a new tweet posted Monday morning, the British comedian trolled Fox News for its lack of fact-checking and journalistic standards. “BREAKING: No one @FoxNews has ever seen @montypython & The Holy Grail. #runit #goodjournalism #factchecking,” Cleese wrote.
You can see Cleese’s tweet along with a video of Fox very seriously reporting on the Monty Python joke below:
The WNBA has officially announced its plans to have a shortened, 22-game regular season followed by a traditional playoff format starting in late July at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. The league was set to have a 36-game regular season starting May 15, but WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was forced to suspend operations in early April due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Big news: The @WNBA officially announces plans for 22-game regular season starting in July with standard playoffs ending in October – with all games at IMG Academy in Florida – after players vote to approve proposal.
As ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel reported on June 4, the league’s first proposal included paying players just 60% of their normal salaries in a shortened season, but following discussions with the players’ union, the league will now pay players 100% of their salaries and provide full health benefits. IMG Academy is set to be the league’s single site for training camp, games and housing, according to the press release.
“We are finalizing a season start plan to build on the tremendous momentum generated in the league during the offseason and have used the guiding principles of health and safety of players and essential staff to establish necessary and extensive protocols,” Engelbert said in the release. “We will continue to consult with medical experts and public health officials as well as players, team owners and other stakeholders as we move forward with our execution plan. And, despite the disruption caused by the global pandemic to our 2020 season, the WNBA and its Board of Governors believe strongly in supporting and valuing the elite women athletes who play in the WNBA and therefore, players will receive their full pay and benefits during the 2020 season.”
The proposed season would take place without fans, as the league’s top priority is the health and safety of its players and staff. No details regarding testing protocol were laid out in the release, and Engelbert said that the league will continue to consult medical professionals and players as it finalizes its plans.
Additionally, several WNBA players have attended nationwide protests against racism and police violence in recent weeks, and have publicly voiced their support in this important time for social change. In the press release, the league recognized the players’ actions and said it aims to back them, writing that “the WNBA 2020 season will include a devoted platform led by the players that will aim to support and strengthen both the league and teams’ reach and impact on social justice matters.”
“We have always been at the forefront of initiatives with strong support of #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, the LGBTQ+ community, gun control, voting rights, #MeToo, mental health and the list goes on. This is not only necessary from a humanitarian perspective, but it may be one of the biggest opportunities that this league has and will ever have,” said WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike, who plays for the Los Angeles Sparks.
Oklahoma State was set to have some serious talent returning on their 2020 squad, pending, of course, the return of college football amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Star running back Chuba Hubbard, fresh off a 2,094 yard season on the ground, returns to Stillwater as one of the best players in the country, and linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga was due back for a senior year fresh off a 100 tackle (15.5 for loss) season on the opposite side of the ball. Head coach Mike Gundy has found a way to push both away from the program, however, thanks to his inability to read the room and constant support of the aggressively conservative, pro-Trump (to the point of publishing questionable at best and fake at worst stories) news outlet OAN.
Gundy wore an OAN shirt while fishing over the weekend and the continued support of the outlet — which has been vehemently opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement — led to Hubbard saying he won’t participate in “anything” for OSU until something changes, which was then supported by Ogbongbemiga.
I will not stand for this.. This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society, and it’s unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State until things CHANGE. https://t.co/psxPn4Khoq
There seems to be a movement happening within college football where star players are recognizing the power they have in these situations, most recently evidenced by Florida State players threatening not to participate in workouts after new coach Mike Norvell lied to a reporter about having individual conversations with all his players about the protests and BLM movement and Iowa players calling out their strength coach for racist comments. The results were the FSU program promising to do more in the community, particularly with the Black community in Tallahassee, and Iowa parting ways with the highest-paid strength coach in the country.
The question at Oklahoma State is what change is sufficient enough to get their star players back on board, as Gundy clearly knew what he was doing in procuring and wearing that shirt, then being photographed in it. Before anyone decides to tout Gundy’s first amendment right to wear whatever shirt he pleases, he absolutely can, but that doesn’t mean he’s shielded from any response from players who are understandably upset by his choice. One of the reasons college coaches often remain fairly quiet about their political beliefs, particularly if right-leaning, is because their job is to recruit players (many of whom are Black) and doing so would negatively impact that. Gundy has decided he’s not worried about that, and now must reap what he sowed. Oklahoma State must decide if he’s worth keeping around, despite all his success there, if players are now going to back away from the program because of his beliefs.
The 93rd Academy Awards were scheduled to be held on February 28, 2021, but due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony has been pushed back by two months, to April 25. “For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone’s control,” Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson said in a joint statement.
So, not only will the Oscars be held later than usual, the eligibility period for films to qualify for award consideration has also been revised. It’s now January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021, which is good news for January and February 2021 releases Escape Room 2, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, and future Best Picture winner Cash Truck. Is it possible for Jason Statham and the titular truck to split Best Actor? Let’s find out!
Here’s the schedule of dates leading up to the Oscars.
Preliminary voting begins: Feb 1, 2021
Preliminary voting ends: Feb. 5, 2021
Oscars shortlists announcement: Feb. 9, 2021
Nominations voting begins: Mar. 5, 2021
Nominations voting ends: Mar. 10, 2021
Oscar nominations announcement: Mar. 15, 2021
Oscars nominees luncheon: April 15, 2021
Final voting begins: April 15, 2021
Final voting ends: April 20, 2021
Oscars: April 25, 2021
The Polaris Prize is one of the biggest honors in Canadian music, as the award is given annually to the year’s best Canadian album. Today, the long list for this year’s prize has been revealed, and among the headlining albums are releases by Andy Shauf, Caribou, Daniel Caesar, Dvsn, Kaytranada, Jessie Reyez, US Girls, and The Weeknd.
In total, 40 albums made the long list. This selection was pared down from 223 albums that were considered. The long list will be further truncated when the 10-album short list is announced on July 15.
Of the aforementioned artists, previous winners include Caribou (who won in 2008 for Andorra) and Kaytranada (2016, 99.9%). Previously making the shortlist are Caribou (2010, Swim; 2015, Our Love), US Girls (2016, Half Free; 2018, In A Poem Unlimited), The Weeknd (2011, House Of Balloons), Shauf (2016, The Party), Caesar (2018, Freudian), and Reyez (2019, Being A Human In Public).
Check out the full 2020 long list below.
Allie X — Cape God
Anachnid — Dreamweaver
Aquakultre — Legacy
Marie-Pierre Arthur — Des feux pour voir
Backxwash — God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It
Badge Époque Ensemble — Badge Époque Ensemble
Begonia — Fear
P’tit Belliveau — Greatest Hits Vol. 1
Caribou — Suddenly
Daniel Caesar — Case Study 01
Chocolat — Jazz engagé
Louis-Jean Cormier — Quand la nuit tombe
Corridor — Junior
Dvsn — A Muse In Her Feelings
Jacques Greene — Dawn Chorus
Sarah Harmer — Are You Gone
Ice Cream — Fed Up
Junia-T — Studio Monk
Kaytranada — Bubba
Flore Laurentienne — Volume 1
Cindy Lee — What’s Tonight To Eternity?
Men I Trust — Oncle Jazz
Nêhiyawak — Nipiy
OBUXUM — Re-Birth
Owen Pallett — Island
Pantayo — Pantayo
Lido Pimienta — Miss Colombia
Joel Plaskett — 44
William Prince — Reliever
Jessie Reyez — Before Love Came To Kill Us
Andy Shauf — The Neon Skyline
Riit — Ataataga
Super Duty Tough Work — Studies In Grey
US Girls — Heavy Light
Leif Vollebekk — New Ways
Wares — Survival
The Weeknd — After Hours
WHOOP-Szo — Warrior Down
Witch Prophet — DNA Activation
Zen Bamboo — GLU
Previously on the Best and Worst of Backlash: There were five championship matches where all five champions retained, most of the finishes were really bad, and the show went 30 minutes too long but still had time for a long comedy sketch in the middle. No really, that was the Backlash before this one.
One more thing: Hit those share buttons! Spread the word about the column on Facebook, Twitter and whatever else you use. Be sure to leave us a comment in our comment section below as well. I’m gonna keep trying to write bad jokes, so if you want to keep reading them, that’d be swell.
Here’s the Best and Worst of WWE Backlash for June 14, 2020.
The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever: Foreword
Before I talk about anything else, I want to note the handful of matches WWE themselves consider the “greatest wrestling matches ever.”
Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant at WrestleMania 3
Ricky Steamboat vs. Macho Man Randy Savage, also at WrestleMania 3
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 14
John Cena vs. The Rock at WrestleMania 28
Triple H vs. The Undertaker, also at WrestleMania 28
It’s mostly what you’d expect, with the one match everyone considers one of the greatest ever — Savage vs. Steamboat, which still cooks and makes 14 minutes feel like five — and a handful of others that weren’t necessarily “the best wrestling matches ever,” but are important to WWE history. Hogan vs. Andre is one of the worst matches ever performed but is eternally iconic, Austin vs. Michaels was the christening of Austin as the new top guy and the unofficial beginning of the Attitude Era, and Rock vs. Cena featured the biggest movie star in the world returning to wrestling long enough to participate in three straight WrestleMania main events. The funny one is Triple H vs. The Undertaker, though. They just had to get a Triple H match on there, didn’t they? My going theory is that the intern in charge of choosing the “greatest wrestling matches ever” watched WrestleMania 3 and WrestleMania 28, and then someone barged in screaming WE NEED THE VIDEO PACKAGE NOW and there was only time to randomly draw a Triple H match out of the hat so he didn’t get left out and feel bad.
You probably aren’t interested in this, but if I was that intern and had to pick the five WWE matches I’d consider “the greatest wrestling matches of all time,” I’d definitely have Savage vs. Steamboat on there, and Austin vs. Bret Hart from WrestleMania 13 was a CRIMINAL snub. John Cena vs. CM Punk from Money in the Bank 2011 should be on there if you want Cena represented, and if you need Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker repped I’d include the first Hell in a Cell. It’s not a great “wrestling match,” but it’s bordering on as good as sports-entertainment gets. Michaels and Taker had more famous and probably better matches at WrestleMania 25 and 26, but you should probably include some stuff that isn’t from WrestleMania, especially since the match you’re currently promoting as the greatest ever is a rematch from WrestleMania. For the fifth spot I’d go with a wildcard. There are a few I’d consider that probably wouldn’t make a pay-per-view opening video package — the Eddie Guerrero vs. JBL bloodbath from Judgment Day 2004 that’s still my favorite WWE Championship match ever, or Bret vs. Bulldog from SummerSlam ’92, or Tyler Bate vs. WALTER if you’re nasty — but if you’re promoting Edge, why not go with TLC from Mania X-7? That shit changed the mainstream wrestling business, full stop. If you absolutely HAVE to put Precious Paul on the list, go with Triple H vs. Cactus Jack from Royal Rumble 2000. Put the goddamn Boneyard Match on there before The End of an Era that didn’t actually end anybody’s era.
The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever: Prelude
WWE Promotional Image
So, here we are.
WWE is WWE’s worst enemy sometimes. They don’t ever seem to trust that wrestling fans might like to watch wrestling, so even some basic stuff that’s an automatic sell to audiences gets bells and whistles glue-gunned to it to make it clumsier and less effective. Edge vs. Orton from this show might’ve been the best-ever example of this.
Consider the scenario. Edge and Randy Orton are both 10+-time World Champions with dense WWE histories, a myriad of connections to almost all of WWE’s top stars from the past 30 years, and are former best friends and tag team champions. Edge is the “ultimate opportunist” who will do anything necessary to put himself over. Orton is a “viper” with a documented mental disorder who thinks he’s a snake and makes his butter sneaking up on people from impossible shadows to move all crazy and hit them with cutters. Edge was forced to retire due to a neck injury, and spent nine years on the sidelines watching Orton mail it in and still manage to be one of the top stars in the promotion’s history. He managed to return to the ring at the Royal Rumble, had a tense interaction with Orton, and was then consistently injured and/or humiliated by Orton over the next couple of months. Orton attacked his wife. They had a 40-minute hardcore brawl at WrestleMania that ended with Edge smashing Orton’s head between two chairs on top of a production truck and then bursting into tears because of the cruel place he had to go to to get empty revenge on a man he once considered a brother. At Backlash, they’re set to have a rematch wherein Orton leverages Edge’s ego and asks him to prove himself (and his health) in a classic, one-on-one wrestling match knowing there’s a good chance Edge’s body won’t hold up and he’ll be able to fulfill his goal of brutally and permanently removing Edge from the business he lords over.
Instead of just, you know, doing the match with all of that in the tank, WWE decided to randomly promote the match as “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever,” several weeks before it happened. Charly Caruso just said it in passing before an interview and suddenly there were graphics and THE GREATEST WRESTLING MATCH EVER was all over the posters. Out of context, it was a guy who hadn’t wrestled a normal singles match in nine years being asked to put on another 40 minute classic with Randy Orton, who has shit the bed in so many promoted matches that he’s literally had “doesn’t care and doesn’t try” weaved into his on-screen character’s persona. When it’s time for the match, they present it with “enhanced audio and unique camera angles,” meaning they snap your suspension of disbelief in half with some impossible Halftime Heat-ass cameras and a loud “laugh track” of imaginary fans loudly reacting to things actual wrestling crowds probably wouldn’t and starting ghostly, canned chants. There are few things more creatively disheartening than WWE promoting a match that hasn’t happened yet between a 46-year old man returning from injury and their consistently worst main-eventer on a June pay-per-view in a mostly empty Performance Center during a global pandemic as “the greatest wrestling match ever” and then smothering it in fake “this is awesome” chants until we believe it. Vince McMahon might as well be stomping around in the halls with a roque mallet telling wrestling fans to get out here and take their medicine.
It’s a manic, illogical recipe for disaster.
The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever
And that brings us to the shocking truth of the match: it was really good.
It’s certainly not the greatest wrestling match ever, but it’s one of the best matches of Randy Orton’s career and an impressive feat for Edge at this stage of his career, under these circumstances. It told a story. It was built on wrestling, like wrestling matches should be, with a build dedicated to both establishing and communicating the rules of professional wrestling to an audience and making sure the events of the bout are purposeful and constructive. It has callbacks to previous matches to solidify its place in the timeline, and I’m not just talking about Edge vs. Orton matches. They even did a callback to the cool leapfrog RKO counter Orton pulled on Christian back in the day and Edge countering it, only for Edge to make another of Christian’s famous mistakes and springboard off the second rope into the move. There are layers upon layers upon layers here, which isn’t a unique invention or some kind of WWE masterstroke; it’s what professional wrestling’s supposed to be. Because professional wrestling is the BEST THING.
But, as I said before, WWE is often WWE’s greatest enemy.
The only real problem I can find with the match (aside from the fact that it was still probably too long … Steamboat vs. Savage only went 14:35, long =/= good) is the presentation. The presentation is awful. There are a lot of little insults. You’re promoting this as the “greatest match ever” on a show with several other matches, including five title matches. You’re using the ghost of Howard Finkel to ring announce, which has the same vibes as when they’d bring out Jim Ross at WrestleMania to do “good” commentary for matches instead of the commentary they use for everything else. It’s like a series of little admissions of either disrespect or purposeful mediocrity. got a lump in my throat hearing Fink’s voice again too, but it felt a lot like when companies CGI Audrey Hepburn into their candy commercials. The poor PC recruits having to act their way through a HOW TO CHEER FOR WWE order was hard to properly reconcile already before WWE had them out there standing up for 45 minutes only to dub a different fake crowd over them.
To put it simply, they took a ready-made, possibly great wrestling match with two established stars, promoted it as a legendary thing we all remember fondly before it happened, used “wrestling” as a gimmick like they were in a fucking catch-as-catch-can Punjabi Prison, gave it a Big Bang Theory studio audience, had it go almost an hour because long equals good, had the announce team incessantly insist how unfathomably great every aspect of it was until we had 45 minutes of emotional motion sickness, and still had it end with a low blow with the ref standing there staring at it. That doesn’t even begin to touch the awkwardness of obvious re-tapes, wacky camera angles like looking up at Edge’s face while he’s in Orton’s draping DDT, and so on. They more or less declared they’d created the best wrestling match in history before they actually did anything, had Edge and Orton use their decades of experience and know-how to actually craft something approaching the possibility of “best ever,” and then colored all over it.
The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever: Postlude
WWE Network
In case you didn’t want to read all of that, it was a really good match that WWE worked really hard to make worse. It was better than we could’ve imagined, despite a seemingly impossible challenge. The wish that it was happening “in front of thousands of fans” and could have real crowd reactions sits at about the same level for me as wishing there was a version on the Network without the laugh track making it feel like I was watching somebody play a video game. It is what it is, nuance and context don’t matter to most of the audience, and I truly appreciate the hard work that went into putting something like this together.
I also want to say that I get the “greatest match ever” promotion. I do. I think it’s stupid dumb baby garbage, but I get it. Giving pay-per-view matches little hooks like that get people interested and involved, and I’d be lying if I said the novelty of watching them promote a match as THE GREATEST EVER for a month before doing it and seeing whether they succeeded or failed was one of my major interests in the show. It works. I guess we’re at the point in our popular culture now where we have to be annoyed and offended into being interested, and nobody does “annoying and offensive” quite like WWE.
I look forward to Triple H battling The Undertaker in The Actual Best Wrestling Match Ever at Extreme Rules.
The Worst Wrestling Match Ever
It turns out cinematic matches in WWE were a mistake. Sorry, everybody.
I loved the Firefly Fun House match at WrestleMania. I liked the dorky but sincere Boneyard Match. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano and Velveteen Dream vs. Adam Cole were about 10% as good as they would’ve been as normal wrestling matches. Money in the Bank had characters getting framed photos smashed over their head and running around with it still on their shoulders and two (2) falling murders that were retconned by a “secondary roof.” Now the Raw Tag Team Championship is being decided in a months-long feud involving golf, bowling, axe throwing contests, decathlons featuring turkey leg eating competitions, and, now, an advertised Tag Team Championship pay-per-view match that turns out to be an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers directed by “two of the six writers” of Scary Movie.
At the time, I described AEW’s Stadium Stampede match as, “Money in the Bank made by people who like wrestling and have a decent sense of humor.” I’d like to follow that train of thought by saying the Street Profits vs. Viking Raiders “match” at Backlash was like Vince McMahon (or Brother Love, or whomever) watched a YouTube clip of the fight from Anchorman for the first time on Saturday afternoon and scripted an entire WWE “spoof” of it from memory without bothering to watch it twice. This shit made me stop wanting to watch wrestling, and I’m the guy who obsessed over time-traveling-ass cannibal-cage-brother-ass pissed-off-ninja-skeleton-ass Lucha Underground and cheered for Bray Wyatt causing John Cena to get so depressed about his life that he literally disappeared. I’m not above it. This was just terrible.
In case you missed it, the thing that was supposed to be a match featured:
Braun Strowman’s car windshield getting busted again without any callbacks or consequences, making me wonder if WWE randomly decided to support somebody’s Orlando metro area windshield glass replacement service
lazy callbacks to the various skits from Raw, most notably a standoff between the Profits holding golf clubs and the Raiders holding shields and a bowling ball, as if the ring psychology of this pay-per-view blowoff is the reason we got 1,000 weeks of “anything you can do we can do better”
people getting hit in the balls with balls, evoking the legendary comedic influence of Al Snow hardcore matches
a spear through a window, which was the only thing that seemed cool or violent in the entire segment
Akira Tozawa, of all people, randomly showing up in command of a Japanese biker gang of ninjas (?) that causes the Profits and Raiders to put aside their difference to team up as the “Viking Profits”
more top of a production truck shenanigans, as seen in Ciampa/Gargano and Orton/Edge at WrestleMania, which somebody in creative is SUPER INTO right now
both teams literally falling into the garbage
the teams being attacked by a mysterious monster that lives in the dumpster, which is obviously a Star Wars joke for some reason but plays more like it’s a rubber alligator that makes tiger noises
My only reasonable theory is that they needed Edge vs. Randy Orton to seem especially great to wrestling fans, so they prefaced it with the corniest, most half-assed bullshit they could imagine. Montez Ford needs to get the hell away from these people as soon as possible. Quick side note: how do you call them the “Viking Profits” when STREET RAIDERS is the other option? Come on. Even Profit Raiders or Street Vikings would’ve been better. You picked the worst possible combination of those words.
Additional side note: remember when Bianca Belair existed?
Best: The Opening Two Matches
These get their own section for being pretty good wrestling matches that didn’t spectacularly sink themselves with bad finishes. The first was the triple threat for the Women’s Tag Team Championship featuring Bliss Cross Applesauce and the IIconics, complete with Billie Kay’s good luck championship match Maleficent horns, challenging Sasha Banks and Bayley. If I haven’t said it enough, Bayley’s finally getting into her character again and developing it beyond people telling her she sucks and has a mom haircut, and it’s been great. She’s killing it. Combine that with Sasha Banks being Sasha Banks and the Women’s Tag Team Championship suddenly being a priority again — thanks again, Alexa Bliss — and you’ve got a stew going.
You won’t be surprised, but I really enjoyed the IIconics here. I think they’ve been done a great disservice by a lot of writers and opinion-havers on the Internet who (1) never watched SHIMMER and (2) don’t seem to remember that Billie and Peyton wrestle like that as the IIconics not because they suck, but because they’re supposed to suck. That sounds like an excuse, and honestly it probably is, but a lot of what they get shit for — the loudness, the obnoxiousness, the comedic exaggerated selling — is clearly on purpose. I don’t see them in there botching more moves or making things look worse than anyone else, and they’re like 15 solid steps up in the ring from Natalya, and at least as many steps up as characters and orators than Natalya.
I also liked the rare instance of a triple threat tag team match having three people wrestle at a time instead of two. It never made a ton of sense to have the third team just stand out on the apron, and at best gave us moments like when the New Age Outlaws subverted the rules by ending up in the ring together and having one pin the other. It informed the finish as well, as Bliss hit her finish on Peyton Royce and forgot Sasha Banks was also technically legal. It’s a totally reasonable mistake for the character, allows the IIconics to kind of stay in competition without looking too good or getting pinned, and makes Sasha look smart and skilled. Plus, Bayley Dos Straps can loudly brag about winning a match her partner straight-up won on her own. Good stuff.
That’s followed by Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus, which plays out like a really good Smackdown match from like, three years ago. Before the darkness came. It’s a little over 15 minutes of solid work with clear alignments that followed the perfect structure of a heel vs. face wrestling match without doing what the main event did and having 15 people stand around the ring pointing and yelling LOOK AT HOW GOOD THIS WRESTLING MATCH WE PUT TOGETHER IS.
Scott Heisel filled in for me on this week’s Best and Worst of Smackdown so I didn’t get to write about it, so here are my thoughts on Jeff Hardy throwing a HUGE cup of prop piss in Sheamus’ face. First of all, god damn, Jeff, drink some water. Your pee looks like Mountain Dew. Second of all, I’d be more reactive to the segment if I didn’t remember Shawn Michaels and the McMahons doing the same exact segment with the same punchline 14 years ago. Don’t have any new ideas? Think about what you did over a decade ago and hope nobody remembers, or has YouTube, or subscribes to your network full of archived footage! You’re good at jokes, Bruce!
P.S. (or “pee-s,” since that’s the level of humor we’re working with here), Sheamus is way too decorated and way too experienced and in way too good of shape to be stuck having bottom-of-the-barrel DUI and urine feuds with Jeff Hardy in the year of our Lord 2020. You seriously can’t find something better to do for a tenured, multiple-time World Champion who can work and talk and looks like he’s chiseled out of quartz?
Worst: Ewtreme Rules
WWE Network
You forgot the WWE logo is also a letter, didn’t you?
Whatever, nobody cares about Extreme Rules. I want to skip ahead and see what happens at SummerSlaw.
The Rest Of The Show: Good Matches With Bad Endings
But what can you expect from the WWE quarantine era? Before I get too deep into dissecting the rest of the show, I wanted to reiterate that even though I’ve developed some incredibly low expectations for the company and honestly believe they operate in bad faith more often than not, I realize trying to run half a dozen weekly wrestling shows in the middle of a global disaster in a country currently going through a civil rights revolution and continuing to fumble into ignorant fascism is a no-win situation. Wrestling’s supposed to be a reflection of society. How can it be that right now? Wrestling’s supposed to entertain live crowds. It can’t right now. They can’t travel. They can’t do spectacle in a small gym in central Florida. A sizeable chunk of the roster is either fired for shitty reasons or in self-imposed and completely understandable quarantine. It’s tough. I couldn’t do any better. All Elite Wrestling‘s barely doing better. New Japan went away for months and JUST came back. Shit’s hard. I get it. Sorry for all the disclaimers, I’m just dedicated to making sure anybody who actually reads this knows I’m not complaining about wrestling because I “don’t like wrestling.” I do. I just want THIS wrestling to be better.
Nia Jax vs. Asuka was good while it lasted, but had a terrible finish. These two have surprisingly good chemistry with one another — I think Asuka might be the only woman on the roster who is impervious to Nia’s stumbly-bumbly hoss style and knows how to construct a match around her limitations to make her look strong and imposing — and this was another example of it. And then, boop, the match ends with a double count-out. Did they not have a finish in mind because they accidentally signed Nia as Asuka’s opponent in the middle of an Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair program? Did they just not know what to do? You have Asuka win, guys. That’s what you do. It’s Asuka.
The best compliment I can give the Universal title match is that Miz and Morrison weren’t immediately double powerslammed and pinned in a pile.
This was easily the worst thing on the show (that was actually a match) for me. I don’t know why you couldn’t have done this exact same set-up with Miz as a single challenger or Morrison as a single challenger with the other at ringside as their second. “Burying” is probably the wrong word, but it’s not doing a former WWE Champion who is one of the social faces of your company and his recently returned 5-time Intercontinental Champion tag team partner any favors to have them lose a 2-on-1 match, bumble through some goofy pranks, and have even the PRANKS backfire on them. They couldn’t even get and maintain PRANK HEAT. It’s not their fault Braun’s cold boogers on a paper plate right now and is building his first title reign on sheep masks, sassy haunted puppets, and Kayla Braxton getting slimed like she’s on fucking Double Dare.
It’s somehow better and worse than I expected at the same time. I’ve got low opinions about Braun right now, sure, but can his next opponent be someone promoted as Worth A Shit? Because that seems like a better use of your main event singles championship. I dunno. Maybe not, though. What’s signed for Ewtreme Rules, Strowman vs. Lucha House Party in a Lucha House Rules match?
Finally we have the WWE Championship match between Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley, aka WWE Backlashley, aka WWE MacLash. This was really damn good while it lasted, and is the kind of WWE Championship match I’ve been dying to see. I want to see two big or strong or skilled or something Superstars going HAM on each other in pursuit of their job’s top accolade. If Bobby Lashley looks like Bobby Lashley, I want him kicking ass like Bobby Lashley. If Drew McIntyre spends a month screaming I WANT YOU TO TRY REAL HARD TO KICK MY ASS and that’s the core plot point of the program, I want, for example, to see Lashley jump him before the bell and put the fear of God into him with a bad-ass full nelson with a leg scissors. McIntyre got SHOOK in this match, and that’s a thousand percent what I want to see.
And then — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — they aren’t confident enough to just end the match on the merits of competitive pro wrestling and go full Sports Entertainment with it. Lana shows up, gets up on the apron, and causes a completely unnecessary distraction that leaves Lashley open for a cheap Claymore Kick. It’s a finish that I’d expect on Raw or Smackdown, but feels extra disappointing when it’s at the tail end of what was building up to be one of my favorite title matches in a long-ass time. Again, I get it. I get that the focus is on the characters, and to WWE and most of the audience it’s probably more important to push the cornball soap opera stuff as the “point.” I’m sure a lot of people tuned in to see how the MVP vs. Lana drama would play out. I’m just one of the ones who tuned in to see one big guy try to beat the guts out of the other. At least I kinda still got that.
If this sets up a rematch and the rematch has to have a special stipulation because it’s on one of WWE’s dedicated gimmick pay-per-views, what do they do? A submission match? Is Drew gonna tap Bob to the Iron Maiden?
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
PatsShredShack
This man framed me for drunken assault, throwing my career and my life into a tailspin i thought i may never recover from. I hate this man with every fiber of my being.
… Better start with a headlock.
LastTexansFan
Samoa Joe congratulating A.J. Styles on being able to celebrate with his family is a nice little dig.
SHough610
I’m still trying to figure out why FTR would have wanted to leave the WWE.
DarO
My mom walked in my room and i switched over to tentacle hentai because that’s significantly less embarrassing to explain
Westy
Cant wait for the directors cut of this, I hear there is 28 mins cut of Randy Orton rest holds. #ReleaseTheDunnCut
EvilDucky
I mean, this match is ok, but it’s no Melina v. Alicia Fox
AddMayne
Mr. Bliss
The Viking Profits? The 4 Norsemen was right there!
The Real Birdman
Braun Strowman will forgive them for messing up his car since Ivar is cute
Not A Crook
“feels like they’re doing too much here” – Johnny Gargano
“yeah it’s a bit excessive, what’s the finish, someone pulling out a shotgun?” – Tommaso Ciampa
“couldn’t agree more, guys” – Adam Cole
Samoa Joe deserves a raise for the work he put in last night. Full stop. ♫ Oh Wennnndyyyyy ♫
That about does it for another edition of the Best And Worst Of A Thing I Watched On The Network and Hope You Agree With, At Least Mostly. If you did, or you at least laughed at something or thought a point was interesting, consider giving the column a share on social media to spread the word and help us out. We’ve been doing this a while, but there’s always room to grow, both as writers and as critics. And, I guess, as people who run wrestling websites during the plague.
Make sure you’re here on Monday night for Raw and again on Friday for the backlash to Backlash, and we’ll see you here for the build to Ewtreme Rules. We hope you’ll stick around even longer, since Surwiwor Series is coming up in the fall. Thanks again for reading The Greatest Wrestling Column Ever.
In a landmark decision Monday, the Supreme Court has ruled 6-3 to protect members of the LBGTQ+ community against discrimination in the workplace. The ruling expands the definition of discrimination in Title VII of the pivotal 1964 Civil Rights Act to further prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Lauded by musicians and allies everywhere, the ruling was praised by Taylor Swift, Kesha, Jonas Brothers, and many more.
Taylor Swift has been an outspoken ally to the LBGTQ community for years. Sharing news of the ruling, Swift wrote: “Thank you to the Supreme Court Justices who voted in favor and all the advocates who have fought so hard for this! We still have a long way to go to reach equality, but this is a beautiful step forward.”
YES!! Thank you to the Supreme Court Justices who voted in favor and all the advocates who have fought so hard for this! We still have a long way to go to reach equality, but this is a beautiful step forward. https://t.co/zTd3i5P2TL
Other musicians followed suit and celebrated the decision on social media. The Jonas Brothers praised the news as a “historic day for the LGBTQ+ community.” Kesha also offered a happy reaction.
Tegan And Sara supported the Supreme Court’s decision on Facebook, writing: “A terrific and unexpected victory. Some people have spent their entire lives fighting for this. Some died waiting to hear the ruling.”
The historic decision aptly arrives partway through pride month. As pointed out by Associated Press, the ruling could have a big impact on lawsuits that are pending over transgender athletes’ participation in school sports, as well as cases dealing with gender-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Donald Trump and Howard Stern used to be friendly (it’s unclear if Trump is capable of having an actual “friend”), as the president appeared on The Howard Stern Show over 20 times. But their relationship has soured in recent years. Stern voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and while he stated that he doesn’t “hate” Trump, the Sirius XM host believes that Trump is secretly (and accurately) “disgusted” by his MAGA hat-wearing supporters. Now, the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr. has gotten involved, too, after tweeting a link to a 27-year-old comedy sketch of Stern in blackface.
Yikes!
NSFW: Howard Stern says N-word too many times during awful blackface impression that should have Libs yelling “CANCEL!” https://t.co/b9XJg2krnS
Deadline reports that the clip “was interspersed with Stern’s recent appearance on The View, where he claimed during the appearance that he’d never used the racial slur…. Stern was reportedly playing the part of Ted Danson, with Sherman Hemsley playing Whoopi Goldberg, Danson’s girlfriend at the time.” (Danson wore blackface to a Friars Club roast in 1993.) Stern acknowledged the footage during Monday’s recording of The Howard Stern Show, calling his former-self the “craziest motherf*cker” on radio.
“The sh*t I did was f*cking crazy. I’ll be the first to admit. I won’t go back and watch those old shows; it’s like, who is that guy?” he said. “But that was my shtick, that’s what I did and I own it. I don’t think I got embraced by Nazi groups and hate groups. They seemed to think I was against them, too. Everybody had a bone to pick with me.”
Stern has since, as he put it, been able to “change my approach, able to change my life, and change how I communicated,” unlike the Trumps. “It f*cking distresses me that Donald Trump, Jr. and Donald themselves won’t go into psychotherapy and change. Why not change the way you’re approaching things, because, wearing a mask is not a bad thing. Telling people the actual size of the crowd at your inauguration is OK. Attacking me during the coronavirus and Black Lives Matter is absolutely f*cking crazy.”
“I cringe when I look at myself 30 or 40 years ago, and that was 27 years ago… Am I a bad guy? I don’t think so. Donald Trump didn’t think so, he was on my show 27 times. Donnie Junior did the show. On TV he said, ‘I’m really disappointed in Howard, he’s changed,’ that I’ve gone Hollywood. Which is it? Do you want me to get in blackface and make fun of Ted Danson? … I remember how badly Donald, Jr. wanted to take a picture with me.”
It’s only a matter of time before, somehow, Ted Cruz gets involved in all this.
The Netflix name has meant many things, including the best shows not on TV. And while there are some glaring omissions in their selection of good movies, there’s still plenty to peruse. Narrowing them down to just 50 of the best Netflix films wasn’t easy. Nonetheless, here’s a ranked list of the best movies on Netflix streaming no film lover should miss, all of them just a simple click away.
The Indiana Jones franchise has been housed on Amazon Prime for a while now, but it’s finally making its way to Netflix with the streaming platform hosting all four feature films. Of course, nothing beats the original, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and as far as travel and adventure go, this movie has everything you could possibly want. A hero with a love for archeology and whips? Check. An adventure to recover a stolen artifact with destructive powers? Check check. Harrison Ford beating up Nazis while uttering sarcastic one-liners and with a twinkle in his eye? Did movies even exist before this?
The Wachowski sisters created one of the greatest sci-fi films in cinematic history with their mind-bending Matrix trilogy, but the original is hard to top. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a young man unplugged from the matrix — a kind of alternate reality that keeps humans docile, so machines can harvest their life energy. He teams up with a band of rebels fighting the machines (Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus and Carrie-Ann Moss as Trinity) and faces off against a henchman named Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). The real draw of this trilogy, besides its inventive storyline, is the CGI effects. The movie also sports some of the most imaginative fight sequences you’ll ever see on the big screen.
Daniel Day-Lewis stars in this gritty, Oscar-winning drama from Paul Thomas Anderson playing a turn-of-the-century prospector, who risks his faith and his family for oil. Daniel Plainview is a shrewd, callous businessman who adopts the orphaned son of a dead employee to make himself look more appealing to investors. When he hits oil in California, he wages a war with a local preacher and his family who stand in the way of Daniel’s progress. Violence and yes, plenty of blood, follow.
The Oscar-winning animated film follows a young kid named Miles, who becomes the web-slinging hero of his reality, only to cross paths with other iterations of Spider-Man across different dimensions who help him defeat a threat posed to all realities. Mahershala Ali, John Mulaney, and Jake Johnson make up the film’s talented voice cast, but it’s the striking visuals and daring story-telling technique that really serves the film well.
Martin Scorsese delivers another cinematic triumph, this time for Netflix and with the help of some familiar faces. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino team up (again) for this crime drama based on actual events. De Niro plays Frank Sheeran a World War II vet who finds work as a hitman for the mob. Pacino plays notorious Teamster Jimmy Hoffa, a man who frequently found himself on the wrong side of the law and the criminals he worked with. The film charts the pair’s partnership over the years while injecting some historical milestones for context. It’s heavy and impressively cast and everything you’d expect a Scorsese passion-project to be.
Christopher Nolan’s imaginative sci-fi adventure will most likely be remembered as one of the best genre films in cinematic history, and for good reason. The movie — which stars everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy to Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, and Michael Caine — is the ultimate heist flick, following a group of thieves who must repurpose dream-sharing technology to plant an idea into the mind of a young CEO. DiCaprio pulls focus as Cobb, a troubled architect with a tragic past who attempts to pull off the impossible so that he can return to his family.
Oscar-winning writer/director Alfonso Cuaron delivers what may be his most personal film to date. The stunningly-shot black-and-white film is an ode to Cuaron’s childhood and a love letter to the women who raised him. Following the journey of a domestic worker in Mexico City named Cleo, the movie interweaves tales of personal tragedy and triumph amidst a backdrop of political upheaval and unrest.
Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, and Cybill Shepherd star in this Martin Scorsese crime thriller about a veteran with mental health issues who works a night job, driving a taxi around New York City. De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a Vietnam war vet who moonlights as a cap driver to cope with his insomnia. During a long shift, he contemplates assassinating a politician to help out the woman he’s fallen in love with (Shepherd) and killing a pimp after befriending an underage prostitute (Foster). It’s a wild ride, full of darkly comedic moments, and an even more harrowing looks at the consequences of war.
Greta Gerwig’s love letter to her hometown of Sacramento, California follows Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as they navigate the often-frustrating relationship between mother and daughter. Ronan plays “Ladybird,” a young woman attending Catholic school who longs for the culture and change of scenery that New York City promises. Her mother, Metcalf, is overbearing and overprotective, and the family’s lack of money and social standing contributes to a rift between the two. Some hard truths are explored in this film, but watching Ronan manage teenage angst, first love, and everything in between will give you all kinds of nostalgia.
Alex Garland’s sci-fi thriller breathed new life into the tired A.I. trope when it landed in theaters a few years ago. The film focuses on a naïve young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson), who’s selected amongst a pool of applicants to evaluate a new A.I. life form. The poor kid is whisked away to a remote villa to spend time with the eerily-human-looking robot, Ava (Alicia Vikander), and her eccentric, often cruel creator Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a genius with an ego to match his talent. The film takes some twists you don’t expect, and Isaac gives cinema one of its greatest dance sequences, in case you needed more reason to watch.
Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy war epic focuses on a young girl named Ofelia, who grows up during a time of political unrest in her native Spain after a brutal Civil War ravages the country. Ofelia escapes the horrors committed by her stepfather when she accepts a challenge from a magical fairy, who believes her to be the reincarnation of Moanna, the princess of the underworld. If she completes three tasks, she’ll achieve immortality. The film is a play on folklore and fables from Del Toro’s youth, but there’s an undercurrent based in reality — the real cost of war — that grounds this film and makes it even more compelling.
Another Quentin Tarantino classic, this violent visit back in time to America’s era of slavery carries major Western vibes and gives Lenoard DiCaprio a refreshing turn as the film’s big bad, a plantation owner named Calvin Candie. Tarantino favorite Christoph Waltz plays a German bounty hunter who teams up with Jamie Foxx’s Django, a former slave looking to free his wife (Kerry Washington) from Candie’s clutches. There’s a lot of gore and uncomfortable dialogue and over-the-top action, really, everything you’d expect, but DiCaprio, Waltz, and Foxx make it all worth it.
Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay star in this gripping drama about a mother and son held hostage for nearly a decade. The film, based off a work of fiction, pulls elements from real life trauma cases as it follows a woman named Joy (Larson) and her son Jack (Tremblay) who exists in a singular room, cut off from the outside world. The two plot an escape, are eventually rescued and must cope with the effects of their harrowing ordeal while adjusting to life outside of the room. Larson is deserving of every award she won for this thing, and her chemistry with Tremblay will have you grabbing for the tissues throughout the film.
Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz, and Eli Roth star in Quentin Tarantino’s imaginative World War II drama about a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers with a plan to assassinate Hitler. The film flip-flops between Pitt’s Southern-accented Lt. Aldo Raine’s mission to scalp Nazis and blow-up an exclusive event for SS officers in Paris and French actress Melanie Laurent, who plays a theater-owner with a devious plan of her own. It’s full of mesmerizing performances and Tarantino’s unique brand of humor — oh, and a lot of Nazi killing.
Steven Spielberg is the genius behind this mind-bending, futuristic crime drama starring Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell. Cruise plays John Anderton, a police chief in charge of a unit capable of arresting criminals before they commit their crimes thanks to a trio of psychics called “precogs.” When Anderton is identified as a future murderer, he goes on the run with one of the precogs and uncovers a deeper conspiracy that forces him (and us) to question the nature of free will.
It’s hard not to watch this Aaron Sorkin-penned, David Fincher-directed masterpiece and have your viewing experience colored by Facebook, and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s, many political misdealings. Jesse Eisenberg plays the boy genius, an outcast whose brainchild is the product of a bad breakup and sexism. He partners with Andrew Garfield’s business-minded Eduardo Saverin and the two create the famous social networking site before Zuckerberg outs his friend and alienates himself. The story isn’t new, but watching it play out is still thrilling, mostly because Eisenberg is just so damn good at being a dick.
A stone-faced Ryan Gosling steers us through the criminal underworld created by director Nicolas Winding Refn in this high-speed thriller. Gosling plays a near-silent stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway man. When he gets involved with his next-door neighbor and her young son, his carefully cultivated life is thrown into chaos, forcing him to align with criminals and take on risky jobs to protect the pair and keep a firm grip on the wheel.
The early aughts action-comedy borrows elements from famous Kung Fu films of the ’70s and pairs them with a completely ridiculous plot and some impressive cartoon-style fight sequences to produce a wholly original flick that we guarantee you’ll marvel at. The film follows the exploits of two friends, Sing and Bone, who impersonate gang members in the hopes of joining a gang themselves and inadvertently strike up a gang war that nearly destroys the slums of the city. Of course, the real draw here is the absurdist, over-the-top comedy that takes place during some of the film’s biggest action sequences. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, but only if you check your brain at the door.
You can’t think of classic ’80s teen comedies and not include Matthew Broderick’s rebellious school comedy in those musings. Broderick brought Ferris Bueller, a smart-mouthed kid with a flair for the dramatic, to life in this beloved movie that also stars Alan Ruck and Jennifer Grey. Bueller goes to extreme lengths to skip school with his best friend and girlfriend, leading them on an adventure that includes a musical parade in the city and a brush with the law. Being bad never looked so fun.
Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz star in this dark, absurdist comedy about a man searching for love under some very strange circumstances. Farrell plays David, a man whose wife recently left him. David is sent to a hotel where he’s told he must find a mate within 45 days or be turned into an animal. While there, David witnesses strange rituals and must follow strict rules in order to find love, but it’s not until he ventures into the woods, where the “loners” live, that he pairs up with a woman (Weisz) who may be his soulmate. It’s weird, eccentric, and the perfect Farrell-starring vehicle.
Spike Jonze imagines a world in which Artificial Intelligence can become something more than just a personal assistant program. Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a depressed introvert going through a divorce who starts up a relationship with an OS named Samantha. Things get serious before Theodore begins to realize that romance with an A.I. is more complicated than he thought. What follows is a thoughtful exploration of love, relationships, and the ways human beings find connection in a plugged-in world.
We’re in the end game now. The Russo brothers return to direct the first of this two-part wrap-up. Josh Brolin plays the ultimate villain, a purple meat-head named Thanos, who’s insistent upon solving the Universe’s over-population problem. The film does a good job of giving fans some long-awaited pairings — Thor meets the Guardians of the Galaxy crew while Tony Stark and Doctor Strange square off — and it manages to fit its enormous, A-list cast into an over two-hour flick that never feels like it’s running too long.
Robert Eggers’ Sundance hit attracted some of the oddest complaints directed at any film in recent years when some disgruntled audience members suggested it wasn’t scary enough. Maybe they were watching a different movie? Set in colonial New England, the austere film follows a family outcast from their strict religious community and trying to make it on their own at the edge of some deep, dark woods. It essentially takes the witch-fearing folklore of the era at face value, watching the family disintegrate under the insidious influence of a nearby witch. It’s a slow-burn horror movie, light on shocks, heavy on unease, and thematically rich in ways that only become apparent later.
Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight will always be remembered for winning the Academy Award for Best Picture after a mix-up that initially named La La Land as the winner. But that’s just an asterisk attached to a momentous coming-of-age story set over three eras in a young man’s life as he grows up in Miami, grappling with the sexuality he feels will make him even more of an outcast while searching for guidance that his drug-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) can’t provide. The film is both lyrical and moving and won justifiable acclaim for its talented cast, including a Best Supporting Actor award for Mahershala Ali as a sympathetic drug dealer.
Noah Baumbach’s star-studded divorce drama is pure Oscar bait, but in the best way. The film takes a look at messy breakups with Scarlett Johansson playing an actress and mother named Nicole, who is intent on separating from her stage director husband Charlie (Adam Driver). Laura Dern and Ray Liotta play their hard-hitting lawyers, who don’t help in diffusing the tension and resentment building between the pair when Nicole moves herself and their son across the country. It’s an intimate look at the emotional wreckage of a divorce and the struggle to put a family back together again, and it’s carried by some brilliant performances by Driver and Johansson.
This adventurous mindf*ck starring Adam Sandler finally landed on Netflix, and our only advice before watching this criminally-good romp is this: prepare yourself for a wild, over-the-top ride. Sandler gives one of his best performances, and the Safdie Brothers prove they’ve got a knack for crafting thrillers textured with grit and a realness that just can’t be beaten.
This iconic ’80s comedy franchise might have wrongly-assumed we’d have flying cars, hoverboards, and self-tying shoes by now, but it got a lot of other tech predictions right. Still, that’s not what makes this film a classic. Christopher Lloyd playing a brilliant-but-eccentric scientist, Michael J. Fox playing a smart-mouthed teenager who can time-travel, and a brilliantly-funny script from director Robert Zemeckis. That’s what makes this comedy a classic.
Before he scored his own MTV show, filmmaker Nev Schulman was exposing cons on the internet in this documentary, that basically introduces the term “catfish” to the cultural lexicon. The film captures Nev’s growing online-only friendship with a young woman and her family, exposing the secrets and lies they’re keeping along the way and reminding us all: you really can’t trust people.
This beautifully animated French fantasy film follows the story of a young man named Naoufel, or rather, his hand which has been severed from his body and spends most of the film escaping labs and trying to get back to its owner. The film flits between the past and present, watching Naoufel’s life unfold from a young orphan to an accidental carpenter’s apprentice — which is how he lost his appendage — all while exploring themes of love, loss, and destiny.
Any Spike Lee joint is worth a watch, but this genre-bending thriller about a group of Black Vietnam war vets returning to the battlefield decades later feels especially timely. That’s because Lee manages to shed light on a little-known part of our shared history: the way our country treated Black soldiers returning from the war, but he also raises the stakes with a subplot that includes a buried treasure hunt and a heartwrenching mission to retrieve the remains of a fallen comrade. The cast, which includes Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman, is brilliant, the story is gripping, and you’ll probably be seeing more talk of it come awards season, so go ahead and watch it now.
After a stint in Hollywood, Alfonso Cuarón returned to Mexico for this story of two privileged high school boys (Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal) who road trip with an older woman (Maribel Verdú) in search of an unspoiled stretch of beach. In the process, they discover freedom like they’d never imagined — and maybe more freedom than they can handle. Cuarón’s stylish film plays out against the backdrop of Mexican political upheaval and plays with notions of upturning the established order on scales both large and small, all the while suggesting that no paradise lasts forever.
Bill Murray has some great comedies living on his resumé, but few are as iconic, or at least, well-loved as Groundhog Day. That’s because watching Murray play a surly weather-man forced to relive the same day over and over again is basically a comedy goldmine of a plot. At first, Phil (Murray) enjoys the time loop, binge-drinking, filming some half-hearted news segments in a hick town in Pennsylvania, having one-night stands, etc, but eventually, he realizes that in order to escape his never-ending bed-and-breakfast hell, he’s got to better himself, not an easy task.
Netflix spent much of 2017 trying to establish itself as an alternative to movie theaters as a place to find quality new films. The results were mostly strong, and none stronger than Mudbound, Dee Rees’ story of two families — one white and one black — sharing the same Mississippi land in the years before and after World War II. Rees combines stunning images, compelling storytelling, and the work of a fine cast (that includes Jason Mitchell, Carey Mulligan, Garett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, and Mary J. Blige) to unspool a complex tale about the forces the connect black and white Americans and the slow-to-die injustices that keep them apart.
Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas Buyer Club is a searing look at how the world failed the LGBTQ community during the devastating AIDS crisis. McConaughey stars as Ron Woodruff, a man diagnosed with the disease in the 80s during a time when the illness was still misunderstood and highly stigmatized. Woodruff went against the FDA and the law to smuggle in drugs to help those suffering from the disease, establishing a “Dallas Buyers Club” and fighting in court to the right to aid those in need. The story is all the more powerful because it’s true and McConaughey delivers one of the best performances of his career as Woodruff, a man who changes his entire outlook on life after being dealt a tragic blow.
Chris Evans stars in this sci-fi thriller from auteur Bong Joon-ho. The film, set years into the future following a devastating ice age caused by mankind, follows Evans’ Curtis who lives in poverty on a train that continuously circles the Earth and contains all that remains of human life. Curtis is part of the “scum” that the people relegated to the back of the train while the “elite” enjoy the privilege of wealth and status that comes with living in the front. Curtis sparks a rebellion that ends in bloodshed and a devastating reveal when he makes it to the train’s engine room and discovers just how the elite have been fueling their operation. It’s a dark, grimy action piece that should give fans a new appreciation for Evans’ talent.
When this French coming-of-age drama premiere in 2013 it sparked plenty of controversies. The film centers on a blooming romance between a naïve teenager named Adele and her free-spirited lover, Emma. Praised for painting an honest portrait of a lesbian romance on screen while also scrutinized for its sometimes graphic sexual content, the film marked a turning point in how the LGBTQ community was represented on film and gave people a heartbreaking look at a young woman discovering herself and her sexual identity in an unforgiving world.
Cate Blanchett plays the famous monarch in this period piece that charts her earliest days on the throne. Blanchett’s Elizabeth is a young woman being held prisoner by her older sister, the current Queen, before wearing the crown when that woman dies. She must contend with the political machinations of older men in her court, a religious uprising, and the scandal of having a married lover and yet not taking a husband for her own. It’s really the best kind of British drama.
Writer/director Trey Edward Shults followed up his unnerving family portrait in 2015’s Krisha with a look at another family under the most desperate of circumstances. After an unknown illness has wiped out most of civilization, a number of threats — both seen and unseen — come for a family held up in their home out in the wilderness. It’s a subtle, dream-like tale that stars Joel Edgerton and Christopher Abbot as two patriarchs intent on keeping their families safe, no matter the cost.
Before Greta Gerwig was directed Oscar-nominated coming-of-age dramas, she was writing and starring in this black-and-white dramedy about a young woman also trying to find her way in the professional dance world of New York City. Gerwig is magnetic in the titular role of Frances, a dancer dissatisfied with her career prospects and forced to contemplate a move to Tribeca on the whim of her best friend and roommate. That trek across Manhattan serves as a jumping off point for Frances, who travels home, then to France, before settling in Washington Heights on her journey to self-discovery.
Look, it’s hard to keep track of the Marvel Universe timeline so we’re not going to explain where Ant-Man and the Wasp fits into the grander scheme of this blockbuster monopoly. The only thing you really need to know about this action flick, which sees Paul Rudd returning to play the shrinking superhero and Evangeline Lily playing his partner in fighting crime, is that it’s a hell of a fun watch. Rudd returns to the character more seasoned in the superhero verse and thus, more comfortable with his leading man status, but he benefits greatly from a team-up with Lily and a well-written script.
This classic Western starring Clint Eastwood follows the adventures of a stiff-lipped bounty hunter, a sociopathic mercenary, and a fast-talking Mexican bandit. The trio is connected by a grave full of gold, a few near executions, and a lot of bad blood. Highway robberies, assassination attempts, and a famous Mexican standoff make this a worthy entry on the action flicks list, plus it’s one of Eastwood’s most iconic roles.
Disappointing sequels aside, the original installment in J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield trilogy remains one of the greatest works of found-footage in the history of film. Most of that is because the narrative style lends itself to the tension, chaos, and horror of fleeing a monster destroying New York City. The film follows a group of friends caught in the bedlam after a Godzilla-like creature begins attacking the Big Apple. While trying to save each other and make it out of the city before the bombs drop, the friends document their journey. The directing by Matt Reeves is superb, almost too good, because you often feel a part fo the action, for better and worse.
It seems almost perverse to think about watching The Hateful Eight at home, given how big a deal Quentin Tarantino made of its 70mm format at the time of its release. And while it looks great on the big screen it’s not like that’s an option right now. And, in some ways, the film feels just at home on the small screen, since it’s at heart a chamber mystery that brings together a collection of unsavory characters (Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, and Jennifer Jason Leigh among them) as mystery and murder unfold in their ranks.
When a punk rock group accidentally witnesses the aftermath of a murder, they are forced to fight for their lives by the owner of a Nazi bar (Patrick Stewart) and his team. It’s an extremely brutal and violent story, much like the first two features from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin and Murder Party), but this one is made even tenser by its claustrophobic cat-and-cornered-mouse nature. Once the impending danger kicks in, it doesn’t let up until the very end, driven heavily by Stewart playing against type as a harsh, unforgiving, calculating character.
Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce play off each other in this fictionalized comedy about two of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church. Hopkins plays Pope Benedict XVI near the end of his tenure as he struggles with the disillusionment of his role and his faith. Pryce plays Cardinal Bergoglio (who would later become Pope Francis) who’s also going through a crisis of faith and wishes to leave his post. What follows is two hours of two of the greatest actors paling around with each other, delivering some laughs as they get deep about the philosophical leanings of these two great men.
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence star in this drama that’s equal parts rom-com and a harrowing look at mental illness. Cooper plays Pat Solitano, a former high school teacher who recently completed a stint at a mental institution. Things aren’t going well for Pat. He’s moved back in with his overbearing parents (a wickedly-funny Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver), his now ex-wife cheated on him, he doesn’t get along with his therapist, and he’s operating under the delusion that if he gets fit and gets his sh*t together, he can get his wife back. Lawrence plays Tiffany, a young woman with problems of her own. She’s depressed after the death of her husband and prefers sex with strangers to drown the pain. The two strike up a friendship that pushes both to their mental and emotional limits. It’s a messy, complicated love story, which makes for a nice change of pace if sappy-sweet rom-coms just aren’t doing it for you.
Few teen comedies have found a permanent place in the cultural lexicon like this 90s flick from director Amy Heckerling. Inspired by a Jane Austen plot and modernized with a Beverly Hills setting, the story follows a shallow, rich Queen-bee named Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) who begins matchmaking fellow students and teachers at her school only to be confronted with her own shortcomings in the romance department. The fashion, the catchphrases, and Silverstone’s magnetic performance — they’re all standouts here.
Walking Dead alum Steven Yeun stars this psychological thriller from South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong. Yeun plays Ben, a rich millennial with a mysterious job who connects with a woman named Shin Hae-mi on a trip to Africa. The two journey back home together where Ben meets Shin’s friend/lover Lee Jong-su. The three hang-out regularly, with Lee growing more jealous of Ben’s wealth and privilege while he’s forced to manage his father’s farm when his dad goes to prison. But it’s when Shin disappears, and Lee suspects Ben’s involvement, that things really go off the rails.
Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges star in this neo-Western crime thriller about a pair of brothers who go on a bank-robbing spree to save their family’s ranch. Pine plays Toby, a down-on-his-luck father struggling to live right under mountains of inherited debt while Foster plays Tanner, his ex-con brother who has a wild streak that often endangers the two men on their jobs. Bridges is the aging sheriff tasked with bringing them to justice but his job is made harder by the locals, who have no love for the bank chain the boys are stealing from. It’s a gritty, unapologetic tale of a forgotten America brought to life by some brilliant performances and an impressive script from Taylor Sheridan.
This coming-of-age indie is based on a beloved book, but if fans were worried that the story of a depressed teenager who finds friends and a sense of belonging in a group of lovable misfits wouldn’t translate on screen, they shouldn’t have been too concerned. Stephen Chbosky wrote the novel, but he also penned the screenplay and directed this flick, which sees Logan Lerman play Charlie, the social outcast, and Emma Watson play Sam, the alt-pixie-dream girl he falls for. Everyone’s good in this, but it’s Ezra Miller’s Patrick who really stands out.
Recent Changes Through June 2020:
Removed: Mystic River, Magnolia, The King’s Speech, Steve Jobs
Added: Lady Bird, Uncut Gems, Clueless, Da 5 Bloods
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: Foreword
