Legendary actor James Earl Jones has died at the age of 93, according to Deadline. Known for roles ranging from Broadway to Star Wars, Jones amassed nearly 200 screen credits in his 60-year career.
One of a very short list of performers to ever accumulate the EGOT award circuit (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), Jones was perhaps best known to audiences as the imposing voice behind one of the greatest screen villains of all time, Darth Vader. As Vader, Jones menaced heroes through four decades of Star Wars movies and shows, right up to 2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, he also played a polar opposite father figure in Disney’s The Lion King, voicing the titular protagonist’s father, Mufasa. He reprised the role in the 2019 live-action remake.
In live action, he shook up the screen in roles in films like Coming To America and its 2021 sequel, Field Of Dreams, The Hunt For Red October, and The Sandlot. He narrated numerous documentaries, lending gravitas with his distinctive bass voice, and on stage, he played roles ranging from Othello (twice) and King Lear to Hoke Colburn in Driving Miss Daisy. In 2008, he won the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and in 2011, an Academy Honorary Award for his standout career in film.
Beyoncé caused a major splash when she announced late last month that she would be releasing a whiskey — called SirDavis — in partnership with the mega-conglomerate Moët Hennessy.
Here’s the lowdown on what’s in those beautiful ribbed bottles:
The liquid was blended by SirDavis co-founder Dr. Bill Lumsden, who earned his stripes in the whisky world as the mastermind head of distilling for mega brands Glenmorangie and Ardbeg, earning the International Whisky Competition Master Distiller of the Year five times along the way. SirDavis whisky was also created with the help of the whisky blender and Ardbeg’s Global Head of Advocacy, Cameron George. The final result, of course, was vetted and approved by Queen Bey herself.
We’ve been anxious to try this one since it was first announced. Given Beyoncé’s long-established love affair with whisky and the bona fides of its creators, this one has all the makings of a product that can buck the trend of boring celebrity cash grabs. So, will it succeed, or is SirDavis destined to become the latest in a long line of forgettable alcohol brands with famous faces attached?
It’s finally time for our SirDavis Whisky review, so let’s find out!
SirDavis is a bespoke blend of American whisky made with a grain recipe that’s 51% rye and 49% malted barley, meaning this is officially a rye whisky. Once the whisky, hand-selected by Dr. Bill Lumsden, reached maturity, it underwent a secondary aging process in Texas. For that aging process, it was dumped into Pedro Ximénez sherry casks, imparting it with a ruby hue, a creamier texture on the tongue, and a more berry-forward flavor profile.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Cherries and rye spice delight the nose at first, and with a twist of orange rind in the mix, it actually smells a lot like an Old Fashioned cocktail. Swirl SirDavis in your glass, and you’ll also begin to pick up notes of honeyed wheat toast, oregano, and black tea.
Palate: The flavor of fresh mint sprigs, vanilla pod, and nutmeg greet the tongue while notes of honey and ripe cherries begin to spring up once you get past that initial wave of baking spices. The notes of nutmeg and black pepper kick up again at the end of each sip, as does some sherry flavor, which leaves a whisper of Brazil nuts with a gentle kiss of dessert wine sweetness.
Finish: On the finish, as the whisky trickles off your palate, the taste of sherry is again prominent. Fresh hazelnuts, oak from the barrels it was aged in, and black pepper are also evident. The flavors dissipate fairly quickly, giving the whiskey a smooth impression overall. For its final act, you’ll notice that your mouth begins drying out, encouraging repeat sips so you can return to the flavor found early on.
Bottom Line:
This whisky lends itself well to mixed drinks and features luscious, balanced flavors, making it an attractive, moderately proofed option for drinking neat. Its unconventional production method, from the grain recipe to its secondary maturation under the Texas sun, offers enough intrigue to entertain hardcore whisky enthusiasts and the sweet, sherry-enhanced approachability helps corral newcomers.
In a nutshell, SirDavis is a strong debut that will definitely win over whisky cocktail fans. It’s far from another paint-by-the-numbers celebrity whisky.
Fyre Festival promoter Billy McFarland has been a promising a follow-up to the 2017 music festival despite the original’s failings, and today, he announced that not only does Fyre Festival 2 have a venue, but dates have also been selected in 2025. “Fyre Festival II is happening April 25, 2025, so we’re seven and a half months away,” he told The Today Show. “We have a private island off the coast of Mexico in the Caribbean, and we have an incredible production company who’s handling everything from soup to nuts.”
A reminder: Billy McFarland was only recently released from prison over the first Fyre Festival, which did not go well at all. That hasn’t stopped curious, adventurous, and probably suicidally optimistic people from buying up all the pre-sale tickets last year, proving that there really is no such thing as cancel culture. Maybe those music fans truly believe McFarland will deliver, or maybe they’re willing to brave the dangerous conditions that befell the original to have a story to tell — or perhaps an opportunity to make themselves famous by documenting any potential carnage.
Or maybe they just really don’t remember the disaster that was the 2017 Fyre Fest, which left hundreds of would-be concertgoers stranded on an island in the Bahamas without food or water, packed into overcrowded and underprepared campgrounds, and (I think it should be needless to say) defrauded out of thousands in ticket sales for a concert that never happened. Artists the festival organizers claimed had been booked for months revealed they’d never been paid, the government of the Bahamas is still out for McFarland’s hide (and a bunch of money he never paid it), laws were rewritten to govern influencers and advertising on social media, and poor Ja Rule was raked over the coals by the entire internet for like the fourth time in the last 20 years.
Oh, and this guy got famous for what he was willing to do to get those people a container load of water bottles.
Maybe those people who bought tickets should brush up on the events of Fyre Festival 1; there are two different documentaries they can watch.
At a certain point in one’s acting career, they have to move on from the fluffy romcoms and musical love stories and just grow up. They just can’t be a heartthrob forever, and eventually, the Timothée Chalamets and Jacob Elordis of the world might be in their late 50s looking to star as an emotionally unavailable dad or jaded office worker. But Hugh Grant is not one to give into Hollywood stereotypes, so he can do whatever he wants.
Last year, that meant starring as a rambunctious Oompa Loompa in Wonka. The year before that, he had a small cameo as Daniel Craig’s baking husband in Glass Onion. And now? He’s starring in Heretic, the upcoming horror movie from A24, in which he sings Radiohead’s “Creep” in an unsettling tone. Who would waste this man’s talent in a rom com?!?!
Grant stars as Mr. Reed in the film, which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Mr. Reed is visited by two Mormon missionaries who hope to convert him to the religion, but he has other plans, which also includes a Jar Jar Binks impression that he reportedly does in order to prove that God isn’t real. Moviegoers seemed to enjoy this.
Could this be the year Jar Jar is finally recognized? It’s been a long time coming. Even Ahmed Best, the actor who played him, is still proud of the character, despite years of hate. And Jar Jar even has his own storyline as Darth Jar Jar in the upcoming Disney+ series Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy. So was this Jar Jar shout out a perfectly-timed campaign to bring Binks back into our collective consciousness? Probably not.
When it comes to his Radiohead impression… it might have already caused a ripple effect in the industry as the band was recently confirmed the be rehearsing together. Will Hugh Grant be the ones to bring Radiohead back? Again… probably not. But maybe! If Oasis can, anyone can.
Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, had to postpone the Houston, Texas, show of his The New World Tour over the weekend due to illness. Now, the rest of the North American dates on the trek have been called off (for now), too.
“hey everyone. unfortunately i have to postpone the rest of the north american tour to focus on my physical health for a few weeks,” Glover wrote on X on Monday. “hold onto your tickets. ALL tickets will be honored for the upcoming dates in north america when they are rescheduled. thanks for the privacy. thanks for the support. thanks for the love.”
The New World Tour kicked off earlier this month, following the release of Glover’s final album as Gambino, Bando Stone & the New World. “It really was just like, ‘Oh, it’s done.’ It’s not fulfilling,” the Community star told The New York Times about retiring his long-time moniker. “And I just felt like I didn’t need to build in this way anymore.” He added, “Success to me is, honestly, being able to put out a wide-scale album that I would listen to. For this album, I really wanted to be able to play big rooms and have big, anthemic songs that fill those rooms, so that people feel a sense of togetherness.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a fun time but imperfect. It’s a wonderfully weird dip into the imagination of legendary director Tim Burton and a reminder that Michael Keaton is a highly esteemed comedy maniac. It also has a bunch of plot holes and is a tad overstuffed before Burton starts dropping new characters through escape hatches or rendering them mostly irrelevant. Still, the overall reception has been largely positive and the opening box office was stellar ($110M over three days). If Michael Keaton wants to play the title role in a third film and Burton is down to party, then a party they shall almost assuredly have.
What would or should a third Beetlejuice movie look like, though? Those questions are traditionally reserved for the filmmakers and people paying for these movies and not critics and bloggers, but why not waste some time and toss out a few ideas on a Monday?
One thing that may surprise audiences is that Keaton’s character isn’t exactly ever-present. At least not physically. Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz is haunted by the thought of him at the start and she tries her best to warn her wormy fiance (Justin Theroux) and eye-roll enthusiast daughter (Jenna Ortega), but Beetlejuice is held back for maximum impact later on. That strategy mirrors the first film, which was a team lift between Ryder’s character, Catherine O’Hara’s Delia, the house-haunting Maitlands (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, who sat out the sequel), and Keaton’s “ghost with the most.”
It’s hard to argue with the results – maybe too much Beetlejuice would cause him to be over-exposed. But I kinda want to find out, preferably in a movie that’s more detached from what/who we’ve already seen across these first two films.
Don’t get me wrong: it was great to see Ryder reprising the role of Lydia and O’Hara absolutely EATS when given more opportunities to be scathing and ridiculous as Delia’s ultra-pretentious artist in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Without spoiling too much, each character also has something approaching a fulfilling arc, meaning I’m just not sure how much more there is to do with them within this franchise.
With the setting, it was also amazing to see the ghost house, the town of Winter River, and parts of the afterlife so lovingly recreated and gently expanded from the original, but now I have seen that. What’s next?
Interestingly, the answer may come from the non-canon lore of the franchise.
Launched in the aftermath of the first film and serving as a gateway drug into Beetlejuice for ‘90s kids (including myself), Beetlejuice the animated series feels, in reflection, like goth Rick & Morty. Sanding down Beetlejuice’s rough edges, he and his bestie Lydia go on adventures and pal around the netherworld with a bunch of extremely esoteric ‘90s animation characters including a French skeleton who wants to be a bodybuilder.
I am not suggesting a third Beetlejuice film faithfully adapt a PG 30+ year old cartoon completely. It’s more about building on the scenes in the most recent film when Beetlejuice helps Lydia – a fun, all too short pairing. Slightly pivoting the Beetlejuice character from antagonist into more of an uneasy trickster aly can be fun and won’t be too much of leap. Teaming him with Ortega’s Astrid would only add to it, giving us the chance to see Ortega (who as demonstrated in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and her title role in Wednesday, completely gets Burton material) play off of Keaton’s chaos wavelength while exploring the afterlife in a way that would make more sense for a newer character; one who is still processing her ability to see ghosts.
Break into “The Great Beyond” that’s oft mentioned in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – be it heavenly, hellish, or both. Mine another aspect of the “Handbook For The Recently Deceased.” Or, if Burton’s interest in the afterlife is more limited to its waiting room, crack open another part of Beetlejuice non-canon and let Beetlejuice finally, at long last, go Hawaiian, paying off the plans for a long-ago scrapped sequel that saw the shifty demon follow the Deetz family to paradise and the haunted resort they opened.
The point isn’t so much that Burton do these specific things, it just seems vital that a third film keep expanding on the idea of what a Beetlejuice movie can be. And based on things like claymation plane crashes and all-Italian black and white origin stories, it feels like Burton is pretty up to the task.
On Monday, September 9, FKA Twigs wrote on Instagram, “do you feel alone? you’re not alone.
EUSEXUA is coming. the first offering, Eusexua, from my third studio album 13.09.24.”
The presumption is that “Eusexua” is the lead single and title track from FKA Twigs’ forthcoming third LP.
The British artist didn’t let August end without dropping more specific clues in an Instagram video showing FKA Twigs shaving her head before “EUSEXUA” flickered across the screen.
Last week, FKA Twigs an even more detailed Instagram video captioned, “Have you experienced EUSEXUA? Discover September 13.” In it, various people explain their definitions of the term “Eusexua.” For one, it’s “a feeling of ‘I’m that b*tch.’” For others, it’s “trust in your body” or “oxygen — the thing that makes me feel alive.” By all accounts, Eusexua appears to embody visceral experiences and sexual awakening.
Eusexua will be Twigs’ first LP release since Magdalene arrived in November 2019. Her Caprisongs mixtape dropped in January 2022.
“I moved to Prague a couple [of] summers ago, fell in love with techno,” FKA Twigs wrote on Discord this January, as per Rolling Stone. “The album isn’t techno but the spirit is there [for real].”
(SPOILERS for this week’s Industry will be found below.)
If you haven’t yet climbed onto HBO’s Industry train, the show’s currently barreling through the third season, solidifying its position as more addictive than Succession. Last week, some of the show’s focus was diverted off topic when Harry Lawtey surfaced as one side of Harvey Dent in a Joker 2 teaser, but after Sunday night’s episode, the focus is right back on the complex relationships of the series, including what has been going on between Marisa Abela’s Yasmin and Kit Harington’s Sir Henry.
Yasmin has obviously been having a god-awful season, and this week, she confessed to Rob (although he surely did not take this seriously) that she “killed” her father. Followup will not arrive there until next week, so for now, we’ll focus on what happened between Yasmin and Henry in the shower. She had already taunted him with the sound of a tinkle (after learning about his fetish), and now, Henry felt comfortable enough to ask her to do the deed on him while they are showering. “I’m not a pervert,” he insisted. “I’m practical. This is the one situation where I get to control my helplessness.”
Yasmin didn’t need much persuading, and the moment allowed Henry to express relief about his vulnerability. It was kind-of sweet, really. Of course, Henry still finds a way to be boorish later, but what’s important here is that Decider’s Meghan O’Keefe spoke with co-showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay about the scene, and Konrad revealed that it was Harington’s idea to use the pee scene as a humanizing moment:
“You know, whenever me and Mickey’s big flights of fancy were kind of getting away from us, like the urine fetish, for example, he was always trying to tether it into some sort of truth about the person. The urine fetish being about control.”
“Because he even intellectualized it as, ‘I’ve lost my dad.’ This is one area where he even says, like, ‘This is where I can sort of understand my relationship with this person,’ through this weird fetish.’
No further comment necessary, other than that Kit Harington captured himself quite a role, and the coming weeks will further illustrate that point.
HBO’s Industry airs on Sunday nights and can be streamed on Max.
Community is one of the smartest sitcoms of the past 20 years, but one of its best jokes is very — and I say this with complete affection — dumb.
In the season 1 episode “Communication Studies,” Jeff (played by Joel McHale) and Michelle (Lauren Stamile) are having a conversation in the Greendale parking lot when she asks what’s the name of his blonde friend. “Bitter? Butter? Beetlejuice?” she wonders. That was the first time the Ghost With the Most was mentioned on Community, but not the last.
A season later, in the classic season 2 episode “Cooperative Calligraphy,” Britta (Gillian Jacobs) accuses Jeff of usually wearing “stripe-y turquoise Beetlejuice” underwear. That’s twice! If you can’t guess where this is going, well, then you haven’t seen season 3’s “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.”
Early in the episode, Annie (Alison Brie) is going through Britta’s party playlist, which includes the Beetlejuice playlist. That’s three times! And a pay off to a joke years in the making. It’s never commented on, but if you look behind Annie’s shoulder in the scene, you’ll see a person dressed up as Beetlejuice walk by the study room.
You can watch it above.
Since the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Community‘s visual gag has resurfaced with many fews noticing it for the first time. “Wait I never noticed this but this video pointed out that Community has beetlejuice walk by in the background after the THIRD time he’s mentioned in the show, I love this tiny detail!” one person wrote on X, while another added, “I need more people watching and loving community because there is no other show more committed to setting up jokes over SEASONS, and the pay off is always great.”
Maybe Micheal Keaton can make a cameo in the Community movie (yes, it’s actually happening), or better yet, Troy and Abed can show up in the inevitable Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. ♪ Troy and Abed are in mourning ♪
Now that Las Vegas residencies are cool again, it seems every artist of a certain stature either has one scheduled or is rumored to be working on one. The Killers just completed a run of shows for the 20th anniversary of Hot Fuss, Janet Jackson will finish out the year and open the next with a slate of shows at Resorts World, and Nas, who took his own advice in getting out of his comfort zone with three shows with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, has just announced his return to the Encore Theater at Wynn after that successful debut.
The dates for the new shows are February 5, 7, and 8, 2025. Tickets will go on sale this Friday, September 13, 2024, at 10 AM PT. The press release for the new dates notes that during his show on August 31, Nas said, “I could get used to doing this Vegas thing. I might extend it.” You can find more information here.
As with many of his peers’ residencies, Nas’ collection of shows celebrates the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Illmatic, with classical renditions of its instrumentals performed by the Las Vegas Philharmonic orchestra — a concept he pioneered at the Kennedy Center in 2018. Nas will continue to get out of his comfort zone this year with a pair of potentially eyebrow-raising projects: a Broadway adaptation of Beat Street, and a concept album inspired by the cult film The Warriors produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame.
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