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Disc golf has become a wildly popular sport, at least in the world of niche sports, and that boom is partly because it was a thing people could play outside during the pandemic, gaining more and more popularity over the last year and a half.

On Saturday, the Professional Disc Golfers Association World Championships took place in Ogden, Utah where it turned into a battle between James Conrad and Paul McBeth down the stretch. McBeth looked to be in control, as when Conrad arrived at 18 he needed a birdie to force a playoff and found himself 247 feet out and needing a miraculous shot to have a chance at a world title. The result was absolute pandemonium in Utah, as he pulled off an impossible shot to send it to extra holes.

I am not a disc golf expert by any stretch, but I feel confident in saying this is a ridiculous shot. Also, look at that crowd! They are fired up for my guy’s heave. This seems like the basketball equivalent of a three-quarter court heave catching nothing but net to force overtime. McBeth had to watch that and hit a par putt from a pretty decent distance to force the playoff himself, and did so pretty calmly — which is impressive given what had just happened around him.

In the playoff, Conrad got the win on this short putt to close out McBeth in a wild turnaround from where he was on 18 needing a miracle just to have a shot to win his first world championship.

It’s an incredible finish and, honestly, makes me want to watch some disc golf in the future because that shot from Conrad was one of the wildest things I’ve seen in sports this year.

On Saturday, while much of America was enjoying yet another semi-post-pandemic summer weekend, Donald J. Trump held his first rally since losing a second term as president. He’s been lying low the last six months, which is to say he’s been living, it seems, alone in various resorts, peddling strangers with unhinged tales of a “stolen” election. But don’t call it a comeback. Indeed, arguably the closest thing to a big breakout wasn’t from him but one of his hype people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spent part of her time at the mic railing against her arch-nemesis in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At the rally, in Wellington, Ohio — which was ostensibly to support White House aide-turned-representative hopeful Max Miller, who’s running against incumbent Anthony Gonzalez — Greene fell back on some good old fashioned Republican red meat. “I didn’t go to Washington, DC to make friends,” she said in reference to her being booted from committee assignment after another based on her dangerous rhetoric, which involved conspiracy theories and even threatening language. Then she turned her ire towards AOC, whom she used to harass before they became colleagues.

Greene called the representative “the little communist from New York City.” When the crowd launched into a kneejerk “love ‘er up” — although it’s not clear how Greene, much less Trump, can throw a colleague in jail — she joined in. “Yeah, lock her up, too. That’s a good idea.” She then questioned her patriotic bona fides, or at least did some dog whistling. “She’s not an American. She really doesn’t embrace our American ways.”

She then launched into a diatribe about the Green New Deal, which she confessed to not reading.

Greene’s comments soon came to the attention of its target, who took the time to clap back.

“First of all, I’m taller than her,” Ocasio-Cortez joked. For the record, the New York congresswoman is 5’4”, and Greene is a mere inch shorter. Still, the point remains. And besides, like she said, that’s just for starters.

Like a lot of Republicans, Greene knew what to say to get them worked up. She doesn’t do so well, though, when asked by reporters to give even a shred of evidence for her loony claims, as CNN’s Jim Acosta recently found out.

In 1991, Samuel L. Jackson’s turn in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, as Wesley Snipes’ crack-addicted brother, was considered so strong that the jury brought back a category — Best Supporting Actor, which had only been awarded thrice before — so they could show him some love. A few years later he landed his first Oscar nomination for his proper breakthrough, as Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction. That, absurdly, is also the only time over his long and storied career he’s been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But that changes…well, early next year. According to Variety, the Academy has already decided who will receive an honorary Oscars at next year’s ceremony. And one of them is the MCU’s resident Nick Fury. Jackson will be one of four to receive Governors Awards for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry. The others are Danny Glover, who will also receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, actress/filmmaker Liv Ullmann, and actress/performer/filmmaker Elaine May.

“Sam Jackson is a cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide,” read a statement from Academy president David Rubin.

May — who broke through as part of a comedy duo with fellow future filmmaker Mike Nichols, and whose unique director CV is comprised of only four films: A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and the once-maligned cult film Ishtar — was hailed for her “bold, uncompromising approach to filmmaking.”

Ullmann, meanwhile — renowned for her work with Ingmar Bergman, and whose own directed film include the 2014 Miss Julie, starring Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, and Samantha Morton — was singled out for her “bravery and emotional transparency” and her plethora of “deeply affecting screen portrayals.” And Glover was praised for his “decades-long advocacy for justice and human rights reflects his dedication to recognizing our shared humanity on and off the screen.”

The awards will be handed out early, on Jan. 15. Of course, just because Jackson — or the other three future winners — will eventually have Oscars doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be awarded mightily for their work in the future.

(Via Variety)

It’s been a little over a year since G Herbo delivered his last album, PTSD, which was hailed as one of the top hip-hop releases from that year. Fast-forward to the present and the rapper is already gearing up to share his follow-up. Titled 25, it was recently revealed that it will arrive next week, on July 2. A trailer also accompanied the announcement and in it, G Herbo shares the inspiration for his new album.

“I ain’t never seen myself going this far in life, I always wanted to be somebody since I was a kid,” he says in the opening of the video. “I’ve seen death way too many times. I’ve been shot, been to jail, I done been broke and I took everything that came with this street shit … all the killing, fear … overcoming that fear.”

He adds, “Now that I’m ’25,’ I feel like I’m at the top of my game. All the bad sh*t I’ve been through, that’s why I am the way I am I always just kept my head high, staying 10 toes down … I know it’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

You can view the cover art and trailer for 25 above.

25 is out 7/2 via Machine/Epic. Pre-order it here.

At the end of 2020, Beabadoobee shared her debut album Fake It Flowers. The project certainly made an impression on listeners across the pond as it cracked the top-10 of the UK album charts. The full-length effort, which was a completely solo effort from Beabadoobee, arrived after a string of EPs that included 2019’s Loveworm and Space Cadet. The singer continued that streak this week with the release of her EP Our Extended Play, which she promoted through a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The Filipino-British singer took the stage to perform “Last Day On Earth,” which was produced and co-written by Matty Healy and George Daniel, of The 1975. Beabadoobee’s set was curated to look like a performance in the middle of a party, with the packed with people mingling with each other.

As for Our Extended Play, Beabadoobee revealed in a press release that she wrote it with her labelmates “on the countryside” and that it was an effort where she wanted to “experiment on the sounds and sonics even more and the EP to me has a feeling of togetherness to it… how we’re all in this joined as one.”

You can watch Beabadoobee perform “Last Day On Earth” in the video above.

Vin Diesel may be built like a brick s*ithouse, and he’s long been typecast because of it. But he has dimensions. Layers. While promoting F9, the long delayed (and reliably ridiculous) Fast and Furious ninequel, on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he wound up talking about his foray into recording music. Later his host circled back, asking him if he’d be into a “full-on” musical version of Fast and the Furious. It may have sounded like a wacko question, but, actually, Diesel was into it.

“Well, I’m dying to do a musical,” Diesel giddily responded, adding that he’d spent his high school doing musicals. “I’ve been dying to do a musical my whole life. I was this close to doing Guys and Dolls with Steven Spielberg, but we ended up not doing that.”

It’s too bad that didn’t work out, though at least Spielberg — whose only brushes with the genre have been in one dance set piece in 1941 and the dazzling opening “Anything Goes” number in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — got to do one with his forthcoming take on West Side Story. Sure enough, when Clarkson asked him about his dream musical, he went right back to the classic show about gamblers and their dames.

“For the longest time, I thought the Nathan Detroit role in Guys and Dolls would be a very interesting one to revamp — the character that Frank Sinatra played,” he said, citing the 1955 movie adaptation, which also starred noted non-singers Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons.

Diesel has occasionally tried to break out of the mould Hollywood has long had him in. He was quite good in the courtroom crime drama Find Me Guilty, for legendary director Sidney Lumet, and ditto in Ang Lee’s war film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Diesel also expanded on his upbringing, which was not spent working on his pecs in gyms but among a family into the arts. “My grandmother loved musicals,” he told Clarkson. “My family is artistic, and I’m blessed to have that, and I’m blessed to have been in a family that’s supportive of these crazy dreams.” He added, “Definitely dream crazy. But support people that want to think outside of the box and dream something impossible, because there’s’ great beauty in that.”

Speaking of dreaming crazy, F9 includes a scene where the crew finally drives a car into space. And after a long, pandemic-instigated delay, that craziness is now in movie theaters. You can watch Diesel talk with Clarkson above. The musical business begins around the 15:10 mark.

(Via EW)

At the end of last month, New Hampshire police publicized an arrest warrant they had in place since October 2019 for Marilyn Manson, who had failed to turn himself in on assault charges. The singer is accused of spitting on a cameraman during a show at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion. TMZ obtained video of the incident, which resulted in Manson getting hit with two charges of simple assault. Now, according to the Los Angeles Times, the singer will finally turn himself to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Gilford Police Chief Anthony Bean Burpee shared the news in a statement that was shared on Friday. It’s unknown when exactly the singer will turn himself in. As for the incident in question, police said a videographer was hired to shoot the concert on camera, which was meant to provide a live feed for those in attendance. At some point during the show, Manson spit on the camera, with some of it landing on the videographer, which prompted them to press charges.

According to Burpee, the videographer reported the alleged crime to the Gilford police department the day after the concert occurred. However, the arrest warrant was not filed for nearly two months as this was the time that was needed for officers to complete their investigation into the incident.

When the arrest warrant was made public in May, the Gilford police department emphasized that it was in no way connected to Manson’s recent string of domestic violence and sexual assault accusations.

The Portland Trail Blazers made the decision to hire Chauncey Billups as their next head coach on Friday evening. Billups’ name has popped up in coaching searches for a few years now, and after spending a year on Tyronn Lue’s staff with the Los Angeles Clippers, he’s getting his chance.

But the hire is not coming without waves of criticism. Back in 1997, Billups and then-Boston Celtics teammate Ron Mercer were accused of sexual assault, and while no criminal charges were filed, the pair settled a civil suit with the accuser several years later. Billups’ hiring has led to an outcry among Blazers fans, some of whom are upset with Damian Lillard, who reportedly had Billups on his list of preferred candidates earlier in the search and was in communication with him during the process.

In response to this, Lillard took to Twitter and offered up a defense of himself, saying “I don’t support Those things” along with the claim that “I wasn’t aware of their history.”

When pushed on this, with the original poster conceding it’s possible Lillard wasn’t originally aware of the allegations Billups faced but that “I just can’t believe that you weren’t aware before the decision was made,” Lillard did not directly respond.

There is no word on whether the response to the hiring will lead to the Blazers considering someone other than Billups, as the team has not formally announced his appointment. But reports from Friday indicated he’s their man, despite the controversy that news has created this weekend.

Patty Jenkins’ foray into the Star Wars universe apparently found its writer, and has past work may be a bit of a surprise to fans of the sprawling sci-fi series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the man most widely known for a Ricky Gervais comedy will apparently be responsible for penning the script for Rogue Squadron, the highly-anticipated next film in the franchise.

The outlet reported that Matthew Robinson, who co-wrote and co-directed the 2009 film The Invention Of Lying, will be responsible for the script that Jenkins is expected to shoot sometime next year.

Little else is known about the project nor is it clear how long Robinson has been on it, although sources say he is currently furiously keyboarding away on a draft. The project is hoping to go into pre-production this fall for a shoot sometime in 2022. It has a Dec. 22, 2023 release date.

Since the end of the Skywalker Trilogy with 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and previous missteps such as Solo: A Star Wars Story, the beloved George Lucas-created sci-fi fantasy has retrenched and been reborn as an acclaimed, Emmy-winning Disney+ franchise that can still influence pop culture. Squadron will be the first feature to come since that rebirth.

Robinson’s best-known work is likely the Gervais-led Invention Of Lying, which drew mixed reviews more than a decade ago. The plot of the movie is simple: Gervais’s character lives in a world where everyone tells the truth, brutally and without remorse, all the time. Until he alone realizes that he can lie. And hijinks, of course, ensue.

That movie had a loaded cast, with Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Rob Lowe in the mix. In more recent years, Robinson has written the screenplay for 2019’s live action Dora The Explorer film and also has a number of projects still in the works, most notably the post-apocalyptic Love and Monsters and an Edge of Tomorrow sequel still in development. That pivot to action-adventure movies is likely what landed him the Star Wars gig, but it will certainly be interesting to see just how much humor is injected into the plot once Rogue Squadron sees the light of day in December of 2023.

[via THR]

Quentin Tarantino is infamous for promising things he never delivers. The Vega brothers movie. The Kill Bill sequel. A James Bond movie. A Star Trek movie. The John Brown biopic. The ‘70s-style softcore sex movie. But there’s one promise he’s seemed adamant about keeping: He wants to retire from filmmaking early. At one point he swore he’d only make ten movies. Recently he’s teased that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his ninth, could be his swan song. On Friday, to promote his new novel version of the film, Bill Maher did his best to talk him out of this, and given that the normally hyper-articulate Tarantino was left stammering, flinging off excuses his host quickly debunked. Maybe — who knows! — it even made him change his mind.

But there was one tidbit Tarantino squeezed in at the end of their debate — one idea it doesn’t seem he’d ever made public before. Maher, in trying to convince him that he was still evolving as a film director, asked him about his debut feature. “If you were making Reservoir Dogs tomorrow, would you make the exact same movie?” Maher asked him.

“No, of course not,” Tarantino admitted. When Maher asked him if he thought he could make it even better, he replied that the movie, released in 1992, was “a captured-time-in-a-moment kind of thing.” He then dropped a big reveal. “I have actually considered doing a remake of Reservoir Dogs as my last movie,” he said, laughing. He then quickly put the kibosh on it. “I won’t do it, Internet. But I considered it.”

Thing is, it’s not a bad idea. Plenty of great filmmakers have remade their own movies. Hitchcock redid The Man Who Knew Too Much, in 1934 and 1956. John Ford turned his 1934 Will Rogers vehicle Judge Priest into 1953’s The Sun Shines Bright. In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade 1934’s The Story of Floating Weeds as, simply, Floating Weeds, and 1932’s I Was Born, But… as Good Morning. Tarantino favorite Howard Hawks remade the screwball Ball of Fire as the musical A Song is Born. And Michael Mann expanded his 1989 TV movie L.A. Takedown, six years later, into no less than Heat.

In other words, not only should Tarantino not retire, he should remake the one that started it all, showing how much he’s changed by dramatically reworking it, maybe even losing some of the iconic bits (the ear scene, “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ’70s”), just for fun. After all, he’d be in the same company as such luminaries as Hitchcock, Ford, Ozu, Hawks, and Michael Mann. As Ruben from I Think You Should Leave would say, I think it’s a good idea, and I stand by.

You can watch the Maher-Tarantino debate in the video above. The novel version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is not quite a “novelization,” hits stores on June 29th.