Kanye West knows what people think about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — a fan and critical favorite that many consider to be the best album in his discography — but as it turns out, he has a contrarian opinion about that too. In a new GQ profile of the mercurial, multihyphenate superstar — May’s cover story — Kanye reveals that he thinks “Power” was his worst lead single and questions why people thought Fantasy was so much better than its predecessor or what came next.
“All these people say Dark Fantasy was this album that was so good, and then people didn’t like 808s, they didn’t like Yeezus,” he explains. “Dark Fantasy, I just made it to that level because people were saying my career was going to be over. I always felt like “Power” was my weakest first single that I ever had, because I felt like it was bowing to the expectations.”
He also elaborated on what made “Power” so unremarkable in his mind. “Just like, ‘Here’s the ultimate Kanye West song!’” he says. “Versus ‘Love Lockdown?’ ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothing?’ ‘Diamonds?’ ‘Follow God?’ I always do the songs that people never heard before. But you had actually heard ‘Power’ before. You heard ‘Crack Music.’ You heard ‘Amazing.’ You heard that song before! It’s just a mix of things.”
The NFL Draft is just over a week away, offering a rare, actual sporting event to dive into in this time of uncertainty and live sports being on hold. As such, there is maybe more attention being paid to this year’s NFL Draft than usual — a high bar to clear for something that’s become a weekend long, primetime event — but often lost in the dissection of the prospects is an appreciation for what they did at the collegiate level.
There’s a necessity to doing so in scouting, but sometimes there’s a paralysis by analysis in these exercises where you get so caught up in projecting what someone might be able to do with their tools at the NFL level that you overlook what they were (or weren’t) able to do at the collegiate level. As such, we have decided to hold a two round mock draft selecting players based solely on their college career, a mixture of how good and how fun they were. To ensure we didn’t just take all the wide receivers and running backs in the top 20, we drafted based off team need, using The Draft Network’s top needs as our guiding light in the exercise, and were only able to pick from the top three positions of need at each spot (leading to some slides by certain guys).
Bill won a coin toss so he had odd picks, while Robby had even picks. As one would expect, there are surprises and some surefire first or second round picks that slide or don’t get selected at all, but at the same time there aren’t a ton of wild picks in here. The ones that did jump are guys that we are confident are going to be good in the NFL that get overlooked due to concerns about size or speed, but when you put on the tape simply produce and are good football players.
Without further ado, we begin our mock with a bit of a shuffle at the top of the quarterback board.
1. Bengals: Tua Tagovailoa, QB (Alabama)
This was a tough one, but ultimately, Tagovailoa was a fun college football player from the moment he stepped onto the field as a true freshman. Joe Burrow’s senior year was lights out and a joy to watch, but on the totality of their careers, Tua goes No. 1.
2. Redskins: Chase Young, EDGE (Ohio State)
One of the most dominant players in recent memory in college football, Young seems to be a future perennial presence in Pro Bowls and vying for All-Pro teams as a defensive end. The choice here should be pretty easy.
3. Lions: Jeffrey Okudah, CB (Ohio State)
A cornerback who takes away half the field, mans dudes up, and has absolutely insane ball skills? Not only do the Lions need that, but there are 31 other teams that would do anything for a player like Okudah.
4. Giants: Isaiah Simmons, LB (Clemson)
When you lead the third-ranked scoring defense in the country in tackles, tackles for loss, and sacks, you’re pretty good. Simmons played all over the field at Clemson and will continue to do so at the NFL level as a linebacker that can play some safety but also come in as a lethal pass rusher in certain packages.
5. Dolphins: Joe Burrow, QB (LSU)
Burrow’s senior campaign was the most electrifying we have ever seen from a college quarterback. While we have Tagovailoa atop this draft because of his entire career, no player in college football was more exciting than Jeaux Burreaux was last year.
6. Chargers: Jalen Hurts, QB (Alabama)
There really isn’t much debate to be had about which quarterback in this class had the third best college career. Hurts was terrific at Alabama and was even better, statistically, when unleashed in Lincoln Riley’s offense at Oklahoma. He’s more likely to be a third round pick in the actual draft, but when picking off college production, there’s little to argue about here.
7. Panthers: Derrick Brown, DT (Auburn)
A monster who plays with a furious motor, explodes off the line of scrimmage, and helps his team against the run and the pass. Blocking him seems like it would really, really, REALLY suck.
8. Cardinals: Tristan Wirfs, OT (Iowa)
Can offensive linemen be fun? Absolutely. The secret is to be some combination of freakishly large and freakishly athletic, with some nasty to you that pops on film. There are a number of those guys in this draft, but there’s maybe no one that is a greater athletic marvel than the Iowa tackle.
9. Jaguars: Antoine Winfield Jr., S (Minnesota)
It is not hard to see how having a Pro Bowl defensive back for a father has rubbed off on the younger Winfield. He’s not the fastest safety and there are some injury concerns, but my god, he is an unreal center fielder and he is not afraid to mix it up. As a Penn State fan, I lost a night of sleep over what Winfield did in the defensive backfield against my beloved Nittany Lions. I would have been way angrier if he was not so breathtaking to watch.
10. Browns: Mekhi Becton, OT (Louisville)
Speaking of freakishly large and freakishly fast, meet Mekhi Becton. The Louisville tackle damn near cracked five seconds in the 40 at the Combine despite being the largest human being there. His tape will yield a number of audible gasps and laughs when he gets his mitts on a poor defender as he simply dominates and throws guys around.
11. Jets: Jerry Jeudy, WR (Alabama)
There has not been a more technically sound receiver to come out of college in some time. CeeDee Lamb and Henry Ruggs are better home-run hitters, but Jeudy can grind corners into dust based solely on his ability to just do things right. There is a relentlessness to his game that is spellbinding. There is also no wrong answer as to which order the Jeudy and the next two dudes go in.
12. Raiders: CeeDee Lamb, WR (Oklahoma)
Few receivers in the country elicited more fear in opponents than Lamb. He’s not quite the technician Jeudy is, but he’s a skilled route-runner with unbelievable speed for his size. He regularly could be found running through defensive backs before running away from others at Oklahoma and was a big reason those Sooner quarterbacks have looked so good the last few years.
13. Niners: Henry Ruggs III, WR (Alabama)
Can you imagine the Niners offense getting faster? Here they get the Bama burner that was upset by running “only” a high 4.2’s 40 at the Combine.
14. Buccaneers: Jonathan Taylor, RB (Wisconsin)
Taylor will likely not be a first round pick partially due to what makes him the top running back taken in this draft. He was unbelievably productive at Wisconsin, racking up over 900 carries in his career that saw him rush for more than 6,000 yards and 50 touchdowns. He’s incredibly fast and when he puts a foot in the ground and hits the hole, he does so with conviction and the intent to go the distance.
15. Broncos: Justin Jefferson, WR (LSU)
Jefferson is the kind of receiver who turns 50/50 balls into 70/30 balls. Part of the reason Burrow was so good last year was that he could throw it anywhere near Jefferson and odds were he was coming down with it. He is a beast, and even if he lacks the game-changing speed and athleticism of some others, he’d be the WR1 or WR2 in most other drafts.
16. Falcons: Kristian Fulton, CB (LSU)
Fulton is so good that opposing offenses regularly chose to target superstar freshman Derek Stingley Jr. instead, which is part of why Stingley led the team in most all statistical categories in the secondary. He, too, will be a first round pick when his turn comes, but right now that honor belongs to Fulton, who consistently shut down his man and was a catalyst for the dominant LSU defense.
Alabama linemen are always fun. The Tide were, per usual, a nasty group up front and Wills was a big part of that dominance. He’s big, long and is quick in a phone booth, able to mirror defensive ends and stone them in their tracks with a punch.
19. Raiders: Javon Kinlaw, DT (South Carolina)
He’s big, he’s powerful, and he explodes off the line. Interior defensive linemen who can blow up what the other team is trying to do are fun. Kinlaw is one such player, and for his faults with offenses, Will Muschamp can coach up defensive players.
20. Jaguars: C.J. Henderson, CB (Florida)
Henderson failed to log a pick this past season, but like Fulton, a big reason for that is opposing offenses tended to shy away from his side of the field. He had six picks in his three year career, including four as a freshman before the SEC realized they were better off looking elsewhere in the Gators secondary.
21. Eagles: Laviska Shenault, WR (Colorado)
Shenault plays wide receiver the same way that a really good power forward rebounds the basketball. He’s big and physical and will use his size and powerful hands to reel in the ball at all costs. Dude is a warrior, and putting him with a QB like Carson Wentz would be a blast.
22. Vikings: Lynn Bowden, Football Player (Kentucky)
Aside from Hurts (and maybe including Hurts) this might be the biggest reach of this format compared to the actual draft, but I stand by it. Lynn Bowden did, quite literally, everything at Kentucky. He led the team in rushing, receiving, and was their second leading passer, closing the season out at quarterback where he primarily ran the ball (effectively, I might add) despite teams knowing that was coming. He is one of the best football players in this draft and when a smart team takes him late on Day 2 or early on Day 3, they’ll be getting someone that can impact the game in so many ways.
23. Patriots: Anthony Gordon, QB (Washington State)
We’re going for fun, and what is more fun than a chaotic Wazzu gunslinger? The Patriots need a quarterback after Touchdown Tom left and Gordon’s chutzpah is damn near unmatched in this class. There has been exactly one good Mike Leach QB in the NFL, but they’re all masters in the art of entertaining college football, and since that is our goal with this mock draft, go get paid, Anthony.
24. Saints: Kenneth Murray, LB (Oklahoma)
Kenneth Murray was the glue that held together the Oklahoma defense, and he did so without a ton of elite level talent around him. Murray led the team in tackles and tackles for loss, and was third in sacks (which is mildly absurd for a middle linebacker). He flies to the football and is a sure tackler, and would immediately bring a positive upgrade to the Saints linebacking corps.
25. Vikings: K’Lavon Chaisson, EDGE (LSU)
The numbers aren’t there and he tore his ACL in 2018, but Chaisson is a nuclear athlete whose explosiveness and motor are scary. In the right situation, the dude is going to be a monster. Even if he doesn’t end up in such a place, the stuff he can do that no one else can do will make him must-watch on occasion.
26. Dolphins: Xavier McKinney, S (Alabama)
Safeties at Alabama are going to be asked to do a lot, given that’s Nick Saban’s old position, and McKinney handled that role well. The Tide weren’t the defensive stalwarts we’re accustomed to, in part due to some youth in the front seven, but McKinney led the team in tackles, was second in interceptions, and was somehow fourth in sacks from his safety spot. He’s a physical safety with plenty of ballhawk abilities, and would be a nice addition to Miami’s secondary.
27. Seahawks: Andrew Thomas, OT (Georgia)
Not the freak athlete of the other two OTs who went in the first round, but Thomas is big and nasty and a joy to watch. His fall had more to do with other teams having more pressing needs, but the Seahawks would do anything short of giving up Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner for someone as good as him.
28. Ravens: Tee Higgins, WR (Clemson)
The one thing missing for the Ravens is a big, physically dominant receiver on the outside. That would change with Tee Higgins. The Clemson standout has caught over 2,000 yards of passes the last two years, including 25 touchdowns, and would immediately upgrade the Ravens receiving corps. He’d bring them a different dynamic on the outside and another red zone threat for Lamar Jackson to expand their passing game further outside the numbers after being so reliant on tight ends and slot receivers a year ago.
29. Titans: Alex Highsmith, EDGE (Charlotte)
Whew lord can Alex Highsmith flat-out play. He’s an explosive athlete with a motor that can best be described as “always turned to 11” and had 15 sacks last season for Charlotte. Mike Vrabel would adore him.
30. Packers: K.J. Hamler, WR (Penn State)
Aaron Rodgers could use some more toys, and Hamler would be awfully fun in the slot in Green Bay. He’s not a big receiver, but he’s shifty and has serious juice when you get him the ball in the open field. He has been, by far, the leading receiver at Penn State the last two years and would bring another dimension to the Packers offense.
31. Niners: Jeff Gladney, CB (TCU)
An incredibly quick corner with the nastiness you expect out of a TCU player, Gladney is at his best manning dudes up. He’s not some crazy, ballhawking corner, but the dude can play, has great instincts and the Niners could use him in their defensive backfield.
32. Chiefs: J.K. Dobbins, RB (Ohio State)
Kansas City has regularly been mocked as taking a running back at the end of the first round, and for good reason. They have the luxury of being able to go BPA here and, with few teams in the first valuing backs, they’ll be great options. Based off college production, Dobbins gets the nod over Swift. The Ohio State back was not just a 2,000 yard rusher last season, but he’s a capable pass catcher out of the backfield and has tremendous speed and physicality.
Reminiscent of Vontaze Burfict. Gay is a violent, aggressive, and talented linebacker who competes on every single play and can just make things happen. He also has discipline questions, both on and off the field (he missed eight games last year due to a suspension), and can sometimes run a bit too hot. Reel in some of his bad habits and dude is going to be a playmaker at the heart of a defense for a long, long time.
34. Colts: Brandon Aiyuk, WR (Arizona State)
Aiyuk is a favorite of draft folks for a reason. He is a pretty big receiver who has great speed and big play ability. Aiyuk was freshman QB Jaden Daniels’ favorite target a year ago, hauling in 65 catches for just under 1,200 yards and eight touchdowns. On top of that, he’s a very good return man and will immediately bring some extra value on special teams.
35. Lions: Cesar Ruiz, C (Michigan)
Center’s a tough position, but Ruiz is the best in this draft class. Dude’s big and nasty with the necessary football IQ to make up for the fact that he doesn’t have the measurables you might want. Still, someone is going to like him, and for us, that someone is a stone’s throw away from where Ruiz played his college ball.
36. Giants: Isaiah Wilson, OT (Georgia)
Let’s get Saquon Barkley a treat in the form of the 6’6, 350 pound behemoth that is Isaiah Wilson. He’s going to be a right tackle in the NFL because his big question mark is whether he’s got the foot speed to handle elite pass rushers, but when you let him go downhill in the run game, he is an absolute road grader. He straight up mauled folks at Georgia and the Giants, with their obsession with running the dang ball, might be the perfect fit for his skillset.
37. Chargers: Josh Jones, OT (Houston)
Jones has all the raw talent you would want but is a gigantic (literally, he’s 6’5 and 311) ball of clay. When he was matched up against AAC defensive players, he’d rag doll them. It’ll be hard to translate that to the NFL, but if he can, look out.
38. Panthers: Patrick Queen, LB (LSU)
Queen is the latest star linebacker out of LSU, and while he’s not as coveted as Devin White, he was highly productive in his season as a starter in the middle of the national title winning defense. He’s got excellent speed (4.5 in the 40) and racked up 85 tackles, including 12 for loss. He’s not the absolute strongest middle backer, but he flies to the ball and has the intangibles you want from a starting middle linebacker in the NFL.
39. Dolphins: D’Andre Swift, RB (Georgia)
Swift is the best and most well-rounded back in this class, but playing in Georgia’s offense kinda limited his ability to take over games by doing fun stuff that showcased his ability as a runner and a receiver. He is going to be a monster in the NFL and it is wild that he lasted this long.
40. Texans: Zack Baun, EDGE (Wisconsin)
He’s not as big as some teams might want from their defensive end spot, but he can straight up get after it. Baun had 76 tackles, 19.5 for loss, and 12.5 sacks last season at Wisconsin, dominating opposing tackles with his burst off the line. Once he’s in the backfield, he’s a pretty sure tackler. He’s got a good motor, scraping and pursuing down the line from the backside, and should be effective getting to the quarterback in the NFL.
41. Browns: Evan Weaver, LB (Cal)
Ah damn all my analysis here got tackled by Evan Weaver. He is tackling me as I write this, and you as you are reading this. He will tackle god some day. Evan Weaver tackles everything, and he is a delight.
42. Jaguars: Ross Blacklock, DT (TCU)
This is lower than Blacklock will probably actually go, but it’s hard for defensive tackles to really pop at the college level. Still, the TCU standout made his presence felt with 40 tackles, nine for loss, and 3.5 sacks. He’ll need to go to the right situation given that he’s not the biggest or most powerful tackle, but he loves to get upfield and attack.
43. Bears: A.J. Terrell, CB (Clemson)
Terrell isn’t quite physical enough to win battles, but he has no qualms about getting into them. He is a smooth, patient corner who can bait QBs into throws and go make a play on the ball, and would make for one heck of an addition to the Bears defense.
44. Colts: Justin Herbert, QB (Oregon)
It’s finally time. I knew this exercise would drop Herbert significantly, but even with the warranted questions about some of what he did at Oregon, he was very productive and efficient. The knock on Herbert is a lack of consistent aggression, as he didn’t push the ball downfield as much as we’d like to have seen out of someone with the raw talent he has. Still, he had 32 touchdowns to just six picks last year and would be a steal at this point in the draft.
45. Buccaneers: Tyler Johnson, WR (Minnesota)
This is 100 percent off of personal preference, but Johnson is a technician at WR. He was coached up by P.J. Fleck and it shows — he’s sure-handed, fights hard for 50/50 balls, and runs some of the most crisp routes you will see from someone coming out of college. I do not think he will go in the second round, and he might fall to day three, but I will bet on this dude being a very good pro. Adding him to a Bucs passing attack that includes Mike Evans and Chris Godwin would be horrifying.
46. Broncos: Trevon Diggs, CB (Alabama)
Diggs is a big, physical corner who was excellent at Alabama, but personally gets dinged a bit because I cannot get the LSU tape out of my head when he was regularly run through by Clyde Edwards-Helaire on the perimeter. Otherwise, he’s a very talented corner who was highly productive in his time in T-Town and will likely be a very solid player at the next level, if not a very good one.
47. Falcons: Cam Akers, RB (Florida State)
I believe that Akers not being one of the 2-3 best backs in this draft is a product of Florida State being a mess. He has to shore up ball security and work on catching passes, but he’s an explosive, powerful running back who would be a welcomed addition into Atlanta’s backfield.
48. Jets: Bradlee Anae, EDGE (Utah)
I love Utah guys, and Bradlee Anae was a monster for the Utes last year. He is a pass rush specialist, racking up 13 sacks in his 41 tackles. He’s not the fastest or strongest, but he’s a grinder and was a big time player on one of the nation’s best defensive units.
49. Steelers: Raekwon Davis, DT (Alabama)
He plateaued after a monster campaign two years ago, but Davis possesses a whole lot of raw power and physicality. Davis can manhandle opposing offensive linemen, and at this point, that’s extremely fun.
50. Bears: Lloyd Cushenberry III, C (LSU)
The LSU offensive line was maybe the most under-appreciated part of last year’s title run, and the man in the middle of it was Cushenberry. The big fella was a rock at center, more than capable as a run blocker or in pass pro. He’ll be a nice Day 2 pickup for someone as he’s a big, physical guy with the intangibles you want out of a center with how much lifting he had to do making calls at the line for the LSU offense.
51. Cowboys: A.J. Epenesa, EDGE (Iowa)
He’s long and smooth while also packing a punch. The game looks easy for Epenesa at times, and when he can impose his will against offensive linemen, he can make offensive coordinators reconsider testing him. While he lacks the lightning-quick ability off the line some other DEs possess, his power is nothing to scoff at.
Appalachian State’s defense was very strong last year and Davis-Gaither was a big part of making it go. He had 104 tackles, including a team-high 14.5 for loss, and while he’ll get docked for size his productivity and motor is undeniable.
53. Eagles: Shaq Quarterman, LB (Miami FL)
In this house we stan Shaq Quarterman, who had 356 tackles in four years at The U. We do not care if he’s not particularly athletic and his range suffers as a result, he is an intense middle linebacker who will hit opposing players hard. A bit of a throwback, and throwbacks are fun, especially at middle linebacker.
54. Bills: Yetur Gross-Matos, EDGE (Penn State)
This is far too low for YGM, but the Bills would get a steal in this scenario. Gross-Matos didn’t take the leap some were hoping he would in Happy Valley, but he still had 15 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks on a very good defense.
55. Ravens: Troy Dye, LB (Oregon)
Kind of the opposite of Quarterman — an insane athlete whose explosiveness and range are hilarious. He does not process the game as well as you’d like, but he is still a good football player and has the upside to become a very, very good football player.
56. Dolphins: Josh Uche, EDGE (Michigan)
Uche is a tremendous athlete and was productive at Michigan, racking up 8.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss. There’s some question about where exactly he fits at the NFL level, but as a rush linebacker he can bring some dynamic ability and when he looked good, he looked really good in Ann Arbor.
57. Texans: Jalen Reagor, WR (TCU)
He has crazy speed and quickness, while physicality and drops are both concerns. But like KJ Hamler, Reagor is a guy who can just make stuff happen when you get the ball in his hands, and the thought of him playing with Deshaun Watson has me all excited.
58. Vikings: Noah Igbinoghene, CB (Auburn)
Another guy going off the board far later than he actually will, the Vikings get a spectacular value in the Auburn product. Igbinoghene locked down his man regularly and quarterbacks weren’t keen to try him, and aside from his skills as a cover man he also has some serious special teams upside, returning nine kickoffs last year for Auburn for a 35.2 yard average including taking one back to the house.
59. Seahawks: Chase Claypool, WR (Notre Dame)
A monster. Claypool is huge (6’4, 238), strong, and ran a 4.42 40 at the combine, the seventh-fastest among wide receivers. His high points at Notre Dame were quite impressive, and while he may never be a particularly quick guy, he’s a bully on the outside. Go watch his tape against Navy. Unless, of course, you suited up in the Midshipmen’s secondary that afternoon.
60. Ravens: Clyde Edwards-Helaire, RB (LSU)
Why not keep giving Lamar more toys in the form of a dynamic pass-catching back to play off of Mark Ingram. Edwards-Helaire was a revelation for the LSU offense and would be an ideal third down back in Baltimore, serving as a capable blocker and a terrific receiver out of the backfield.
61. Titans: Neville Gallimore, DT (Oklahoma)
Gallimore’s a big and quick option in the middle of a defensive line. It’s not always easy to tell how good someone who plays defense at Oklahoma actually is, but Gallimore has the tools to become a dangerous interior defensive lineman. The Titans are the kind of team that can get that out of him.
62. Packers: Jaylon Johnson, CB (Utah)
Remember my fondness for Utah guys? Here’s another in Jaylon Johnson, who has excellent size at 6’, 193 pounds and was very productive at Utah with two picks and 11 pass deflections. He could very well go higher than this as well, because as teams continue to dig into tape during this time without individual workouts, his production is going to cause someone to fall in love with him.
63. Chiefs: Damon Arnette, CB (Ohio State)
I wonder how good we’d view Arnette if his bookend at corner for the Buckeyes wasn’t one of the best corner prospects to come out in some time. He battles with receivers and has zero issue mixing it up with them, while his ball skills are rather impressive. Jeffrey Okudah is more fun, but that says more about Okudah than it does Arnette.
64. Seahawks: Curtis Weaver, EDGE (Boise State)
The more I’ve thought about this, the more I think we let Weaver slip too far. He was a monster at Boise, racking up 18.5 tackles for loss including 13.5 sacks. He’s not the best athlete of the bunch, but he’s got a great motor and he’s always been highly productive. He might slip to late Day 2 in the actual draft and someone could very well get a steal.
There was a plan in place earlier this year to have a forty weeks in a row of The Walking Dead content. Forty consecutive weeks! Now, thanks to a virus unrelated to zombies, it’s been ten days since we last saw an episode of The Walking Dead, and no one knows when the series will return. Thankfully, AMC is filling the gap with the third season of Killing Eve, and they will also air season one of Shudder’s Creepshow on AMC next month, which comes from showrunner Greg Nicotero, who does special effects on The Walking Dead and directs a lot of episodes. FYI, there’s a cool Easter egg reference to the original Creepshow in an old episode of The Walking Dead.
In either respect, though we do not know when The Walking Dead or its new spin-off, The World Beyond, will be returning, AMC did promote Fear the Walking Dead during the pseudo season finale of The Walking Dead, saying that it would be back this summer. Is that true? Hopefully! Even if it does come back, however, what we don’t know at the moment is if Morgan Jones will continue on with the series. Last we saw, Morgan had been shot by the show’s newest villain, Virginia, and left for dead, as a small horde of zombies was converging upon him.
Things did not look good for Morgan. However, we did not see him transform into a zombie, so we cannot assume anything, right? In the promo, however, we did catch a glimpse of Morgan’s eyes, which were very, very red:
AMC
I think that a lot of people would see that shot and assume the worst: That Morgan had transformed into Zombie Morgan. I actually believe the opposite: The red eyes may be evidence that Morgan is still alive. Why? Because red, blood-filled eyes are not associated with walkers on The Walking Dead. The zombies on The Walking Dead tend to have milky eyes. It’s not the case every single time, but more often than not, the eyes tend to look more like Shane’s did after he transformed:
AMC
On the other hand, “Scleral and conjunctival hemorrhages” (i.e., blood in the eyes) is consistent with gunshot wounds to the chest, as Morgan suffered in the final moments of last season. In other words, Morgan is probably not dead, which means that there’s still a chance that someone will save him. Like, for instance: Sherry.
We’ll find out this summer (hopefully). Check out the promo video in question below.
Earlier this month, Lady Gaga guested on The Tonight Show to make a big announcement, but when it came time to share the news, she actually wasn’t ready to. She apparently needed more time to get her affairs in order, and a few days later, she revealed what she had been working on: Gaga is teaming up with Global Citizen for Together At Home, a charity livestream concert event to benefit coronavirus relief.
When the performance was announced, it already had a huge lineup, and now it has gotten even bigger: Yesterday, more artists were added to the bill, including Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lopez, The Killers, Christine & The Queens, Pharrell, Camila Cabello, and Alicia Keys. They join the stacked lineup that already included Gaga, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Finneas, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Chris Martin, Eddie Vedder, Kacey Musgraves, J Balvin, Keith Urban, Alanis Morissette, Lang Lang, Andrea Bocelli, Billie Joe Armstrong, Burna Boy, and Maluma.
Sharing the expanded lineup, Gaga wrote, “Can’t wait for you to see what we’ve put together! Tune in!”
Westworld dedicated its fifth episode “Genre” to putting its newest member through the wringer with hallucinogenic party drugs and reality-jarring flashbacks. Even Caleb doesn’t know who Caleb is anymore and it’s that mystery that seems to be fueling all the fandom predictions this week.
This season seems to be relying heavily on Aaron Paul’s ability to act confused as hell. In this week’s episode, Caleb got dosed with a mind-warping hallucinogen that caused him to experience the night’s events in changing genres. Besides reality being a total drag, Caleb’s bad trip also revealed some shocking truths about his still-mysterious backstory and guys, it looks like Jesse Pinkman might actually be the bad guy. (Yes, we are in fact positing that Breaking Bad shares a universe with Westworld. Is it really that crazy?)
First comes Caleb’s uneasy interaction with Liam Dempsey (R.I.P. ya basic bitch). Caleb challenges Dempsey to tell him his projected path, which ends with Dempsey questioning, “You think I killed your friend?” He seems incredulous at Caleb’s accusation that Rehoboam sent him off to war, ultimately drugging him and trying to escape.
Later, when the group is on the beach, Dempsey launches into a monologue about the burden people like Caleb and his friends put on the system, claiming they’re the prison the rest of us can’t escape from. When Caleb tries to calm him down he attacks him with this line: “You’re the worst of them.”
And littered throughout the episode we get glimpses of Caleb’s past (or present, or future, who really knows with this show); scenes that show him undergoing some kind of treatment in what looks to be the same rehabilitation facility Serac stuck his brother and the other “outliers” he hoped to reprogram. We also get hints of Caleb’s link to his friend Francis, watching as the two seem to kidnap a businessman and prep him for a torture session in an abandoned warehouse.
The theory: Caleb may have gone to war, come back and become a criminal, which forced Serac to reprogram him or, even more intriguing, Caleb never went to war. He was never in the military. Instead, he was a thug for hire who did some terrible things, had those memories wiped, and had his service and friendship with Francis implanted as a cornerstone memory to help him assimilate into the real world. It would, at the very least, explain why his own mother didn’t recognize him.
If there’s anyone who can outwit an all-knowing A.I. in this life-size game of chess Westworld seems to be putting on, it’s Dolores. She’s accurately predicted her enemies’ moves, she probably recruited Caleb with that damsel in distress act in the show’s premiere, and she’s meticulously moving pieces on the board to achieve a still unknown endgame. But this idyllic future that Dolores envisions, one where hosts live in harmony with humans — or, worse, rule over humanity — might not have an Abernathy in it.
In fact, some Redditors think Dolores is too pragmatic to believe she could peacefully reign over this world she’s building, which is why she’s so keen on protecting Bernard. Bernard is an original, a blend of human and host who, as Dolores claims, can’t be sacrificed. She may be the Destroyer, the Deathbringer, but Bernard is the builder and she’ll need him to forge this new society she’s hoping to usher in. Add to that how many times Dolores has affirmed that she can, in fact, die and it feels like Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are foreshadowing something big for their anti-heroine.
Speaking of Bernard, while his constant state of confusion might be testing poor Stubbs’ patience, Dolores has a clear role for him to play, whether he knows it or not. The prevailing theory over on Reddit is that Dolores has hidden the code to unlock the Valley Beyond in Bernard’s pearl. He helped create the place, he seems the likely choice to have access to it. While Serac is hunting Dolores – and her clones – hoping to find a way to glean the data from the Valley Beyond, Bernard is the one who really has the key.
We can’t say we’ll miss Liam Dempsey – his fashion sense or his entitled arrogance – but his death at the end of this episode felt particularly brutal. What’s worse, some Redditors still think it’s unclear who actually killed him. Sure, Lena Waithe’s Ash was left holding the gun, but the position of the bullet wound just doesn’t match up to where she was standing in the scene. Add to that Caleb’s increasingly erratic flashbacks and his closeness to Liam and … well, you be the judge.
Okay, this theory is admittedly a bit far-fetched, but we’ll play devil’s advocate. Serac spent this episode narrating his family’s misfortunes, particularly his brother’s descent into madness. He was brilliant but uniquely troubled which is why Serac ultimately created the Outlier facility to try to reprogram his brain. We still don’t know how that turned out but we do know that Caleb was probably in that same facility and implanting someone’s memories in a host body is nothing new for this show. Just saying.
In the history of the internet, there have been a handful of visually perplexing debates. Is the dress gold or blue? Is Kendall Jenner missing a leg?
Well, add this to the optical illusions that keep us up at night. Is this guy the host from Westworld’s opening credits? And if so, what does it all mean?
In a few short weeks, DC Universe will stream the Stargirl TV series that will also air on the CW. As with the Harley Quinn animated series, this trailer suggests that DC Universe has recovered from its Swamp Thing stumble while lighting the superhero flame for a new generation. Not that the younger crowd needs incentive to enjoy comic book stories, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The special effects in this trailer also look improved over a previous trailer while promising badassery from a budding teenage heroine, Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger). And Joel McHale is there, too, doling out a variant of his famed sarcastic shtick, and that’s never a bad thing (unless you’re a diehard Tiger King devotee who doesn’t realize that McHale has a shtick).
In this trailer, we McHale’s Starman character informing Courtney’s stepdad (Luke Wilson), who was once his superhero sidekick (the Star-Spangled Kid), that his torch must be passed. Despite Starman clearly being in peril — and we don’t know if he survives, disappears, or lives on in flashbacks or as an apparition, maybe even as a cardboard cutout — he expends the effort to reveal that, nope, stepdad cannot take the torch. It must go to Courtney, who will be Stargirl, and as this trailer more-than-reveals, she’s up for the task and seizes the cosmic energy staff. From there, she begins to assemble a new Justice Society, including Hourman (Lou Ferrigno Jr., who grew up with The Incredible Hulk at home, so it really is a new generation here) and Wildcat (Yvette Monreal), to take down the Injustice Society.
Previously, McHale told us that his first superhero role will see him fly and shoot energy with the staff, which is kind-of like Thor’s hammer because only certain folks are worthy to hold the thing. That’s cool, but whichever incarnation of Starman that he’s playing isn’t quite clear, so things are obviously tweaked for 2020:
Starman was invented, well, I guess he premiered, in 1941 for real. The same exact year that Captain America premiered, and it’s a very interesting — because I didn’t know this about comic books — that competing companies would kind of release the same character… My character is resurrected from back then, and he’s had different incarnations over the years. I have a friend who’s a serious comic book aficionado, and he’s a big fan. At some point, he had an overcoat, and he always had a powerful staff. Anyway, Stargirl is the name of the series, and I am indirectly related to this girl. She plays a high schooler, so it’s a whole new universe that they’re introducing with some old characters.
Stargirl will debut on the DC Universe streaming service on Monday, May 18, and then on Tuesday, May 19 on The CW.
May 4 is Anti-Bullying Day, International Respect for Chickens Day, and Petite and Proud Day, but with all due respect to bullies, chickens, and the proudly petite, it’s mainly recognized as Star Wars Day, a.k.a. May the Fourth Be With You. For this year’s made-up holiday, which existed years before Disney turned it into an excuse to bleed nerds dry (“I need that limited edition Watto figurine, and I need it now!” — me), Disney+ is releasing The Clone Wars series finale and Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, an eight-episode documentary series about Baby Yoda. And some bounty hunters, I guess.
“Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian is an opportunity for fans of the show to take a look inside and get to see a different perspective, and perhaps a greater understanding, of how The Mandalorian came together and some of the incredibly talented contributors throughout season one,” creator Jon Favreau said in a statement. “We had a great experience making the show and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you.” The series will cover “the filmmaking process, the legacy of George Lucas’ Star Wars, how the cast brought the characters to life, the series’ groundbreaking technology, the artistry behind the show’s practical models, effects, and creatures, plus the influences, the iconic score, and connections to Star Wars characters and props from across the galaxy.”
I would watch four episodes about the Jawas going to town on that egg alone.
DISNEY+
Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian premieres on May 4, with new episodes every Friday.
In 1980, director Bob Clark earned the greatest acclaim of his career with Tribute, a well-received drama that earned Jack Lemmon the Best Actor prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and Best Actor nominations at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Tribute looked like the culmination of Clark’s long ascent to respectability, one earned the hard way by first making low-budget horror films in the States and then working within the Canadian film system. It’s not everyone who can go from making Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things to directing Jack Lemmon in an eight-year span. Success earned Clark some creative freedom. Obviously, another, even more prestigious film seemed like the next logical leap. Clark had other plans. He knew exactly what sort of film he wanted to make next: Porky’s, a coming-of-age comedy inspired by his teen years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Modestly budgeted and frostily received by critics, Porky’s would nonetheless become one of the most influential films of the 1980s, one whose mark on the movie landscape would prove long and lasting. In 1981, there was nothing else like it. Just one year later, the theaters flooded with teen-targeted sex comedies that would enjoy long afterlives on video store shelves and late-night cable. Clark drew from his past for Porky’s, which he’d had plans to make for 15 years and first attempted to script in the mid-’70s. But he couldn’t have calculated a better combination of elements to succeed in the early ’80s. Porky’s channeled the raunchy spirit of big-budget, star-packed comedies like Animal House and Caddyshack into a relatively low-budget film that counted Susan Clark and Alex Karras as its biggest stars. What it lacked in name recognition it compensated for with the ample nudity the relaxed standards of the era allowed, a fixture of the era’s horror movies just waiting to be plucked and applied to a different sort of teen-appealing genre.
It proved an irresistible combination for audiences, albeit one that almost never happened. On an audio commentary recorded for the film’s DVD release, Clark recalls Fox canceling the production shortly before filming was supposed to begin. The studio began funding the project again only when Clark kept making it with his own money. Though it might sound odd to think of a movie most famous for a scene in which a character has his penis painfully pulled from the other side of a peephole as a passion project, Clark treated it as such. Whatever its commercial prospects, he saw it as an attempt to recreate the early-’50s in a way that showed the less innocent side of the era, one that had become synonymous with squeaky clean suburbia.
Clark, who grew up poor among more privileged Florida teens, also saw it as a chance to layer in a little social commentary. That largely takes the form of a subplot about one character rejecting his anti-Semitism by befriending a Jewish kid he’d previously tormented, another detail pulled from Clark’s memories of the past. “Basically Fort Lauderdale was an anti-Semitic, racist place in the early ’50s,” he recalled. “It had signs on the beach ‘No Jews Allowed’ and [in] the clubs and things. That’s how outrageous it was.”
It wasn’t those elements that caught moviegoers’ attention, however, even if they didn’t go unnoticed. A 1982 TV spot better explains why audiences showed up:
Offering brief glimpses from the film, the ad promised a bounty of not-safe-for-TV images for those who made it to the theater. “This is only so much we can show you of the locker room scene,” the narrator intones over an image of a young coach (Boyd Gaines) embracing his co-worker (Kim Cattrall) while surrounded by dirty jockstraps. It ends with shots from the film’s centerpiece scene, showing some of the young male stars staring through a peephole into the girls’ shower. The poster, meanwhile, offered a glimpse from the other side with an eye leering at naked flesh.
The ads helped stir interest in the film. The film itself delivered on their promise. Nudity alone probably wasn’t enough to make it a hit, but it certainly helped draw in crowds in the first place. And though it’s hard to imagine now, in a moment in which the internet has put a bottomless array of pornography at our fingertips at all times, the mere promise of nudity had a powerful pull, particularly when it was available at the nearest multiplex (or, a little down the road, on VHS or television). That didn’t mean people didn’t also want to watch the movie around the nudity — or that they didn’t enjoy it.
It’s easy to see why. Though it would be difficult to make a case for Porky’s as a great movie, it’s an amiable one that aims low but hits its target as it leisurely galumphs from one scene to the next. It also, by depicting its protagonists as being in a constant state of arousal and sexual frustration, offers one of the more honest depictions of male adolescence put to film, one that owes as much to Portnoy’s Complaint as Happy Days. Clark doesn’t let his nostalgia for the ’50s lead him to idealize the era. But like other humorists of his generation, roughly the same generation that produced National Lampoon, he doesn’t make the imaginative leap to see the world beyond the perspective of his not-particularly-reflective protagonists, whose thoughtlessness largely goes unjudged. The eye leering through the peephole and the film’s point-of-view are pretty much one of the same.
Hence, an opening gag that revolves around hiring a local who looks like “an African Zulu man” to serve as the scary punchline to a practical joke (though two of the more relatively enlightened high schoolers chastise their friend for using a racial slur to describe him). Hence, a film in which Porky, the owner of an anything-goes Everglades roadhouse, is made a villain in large part because he refuses to hire out some Cuban-born dancers as prostitutes. Hence the sense the peeping tom scene is all in good fun and not a horrible violation of privacy (even without a long, cruel gag involving an actress who’s heavier than the others).
It’s never particularly fruitful to apply today’s standards to yesterday’s entertainment. But poke around and you’ll usually find that others took issue at the time. In a Chicago Tribune article that found him trying to figure out its appeal as it played to packed houses for weeks, Gene Siskel asked, “As one who loathed Porky’s for reasons that have nothing to do with comedy — I hated the way it used racist remarks as entertainment, portrayed women as nothing more than sex targets, and humiliated fat people — the obvious question is: Why? Why is Porky’s a hit?” His simple answer: people thought it was funny.
Siskel and others who objected to the film weren’t necessarily wrong, but the film’s amiable spirit helps paper over some of those issues. And, as Clark later argued, “The ladies are the ones who are in control here. They’re not the ones being made fools of by their sexuality. […] Only the boys are ever made fun of.” That claim might stand up to scrutiny in the particulars, but it’s true of Porky’s on the whole. The whiny Pee-Wee (Dan Monahan) may be the focal character, but the hunky Meat (Tony Ganios) is almost as hapless. Sex makes fools of us all.
Sex also served as the focus of a pair of other 1982 films: the great Fast Times At Ridgemont High and the bizarrely downbeat The Last American Virgin (a remake of a 1978 Israeli film). Both were made too close to Porky’s to bear its influence, but the films’ marketing emphasized their most Porky’s-like elements. The Fast Times poster, for instance, suggested it was mostly a film about Sean Penn being surrounded by scantily clad women. Then, 1983 brought a deluge of quickly would-be Porky’s: Spring Break, Private School… For Girls, Screwballs, Joysticks, and numerous under-the-radar efforts like Troma’s The First Turn-On. Even films with loftier aspirations felt Porky’s influence. Martha Coolidge recalls producers giving her a wide berth when making her winning Romeo and Juliet-inspired comedy Valley Girl so long as she included the requisite number of bare breasts.
Most of what followed lacked Porky’s winning qualities. Screwballs strips the Porky’s formula down to its essence, with scene after scene that mixes crude comedy and nudity with little connective tissue. Spring Break has a wet t-shirt contest scene that seems to take up a third of the movie. Critics rejected them when they wrote about them at all. (The Boston Globe on the video game-themed Joysticks: “witless cinematic trash.”) But they made money, sometimes a great deal of money.
So the trend rolled on, and some of its worst tendencies came to the fore the longer it lasted. In Fraternity Vacation, spring breaking frat bros compete to bed the same woman using deceit and rigging a telescope to peer into her bedroom. Revenge of the Nerds is both a triumph-of-the-underdogs fantasy and a movie-long expression of perceived sexual aggrievement that culminates in a scene in which one of the heroes disguises himself as his object of desire’s boyfriend to have sex with her. Writing of the movie in 2019, critic Glenn Kenny noted “it’s almost shocking that streaming services still carry the movie. And yet they do. You can watch it on Hulu right now, as a matter of fact. And, in so doing, can readily discern that the movie condones rape. Recommends it, even.”
Putting aside extreme examples like Revenge of the Nerds, time has made it easy to be a bit nostalgic for that wave of movies, in part because of the darkness that followed. As the ’80s deepened, sex grew scarier. A breezy comedy could easily make jokes about herpes, but less easily about AIDS. Perhaps not coincidentally, movie sex shifted toward erotic thrillers inspired by Fatal Attraction, films that mingled sex and death in ways, say, Hot Dog… The Movie never attempted. Out went the notion of sex as fun. In came the idea that sex could kill you, and the wave of films that worked that idea lasted even longer than those that imitated Porky’s as Fatal Attraction gave way to Sea of Love which gave way to Basic Instinct and on and on through the end of the Clinton administration and beyond.
Clark made one sequel for which he later expressed mixed feelings, 1983’s Porky’s II: The Next Day, and much of the cast returned for a third, Porky’s Revenge, in 1985, by that point looking a bit too old to play high-schoolers. Most would soon fade from view, though Cattrall went on to great fame, most prominently via Sex and the City. (Where American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused made stars of its young cast members, Porky’s seemingly had the opposite effect for most of its stars.) Clark’s other 1983 film, A Christmas Story, would prove enduring in other ways, and his career would take him on a zigzag path that would include everything from the Dolly Parton/Sylvester Stallone flop Rhinestone to the Baby Geniuses. He was still working when he died alongside his son in a car accident in 2004. Among the projects he had in the works: a remake of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things.
Porky’s cultural footprint is now both deep and almost invisible. The style it popularized went out of fashion almost as swiftly as it appeared and its moment had drawn to a decisive close by mid-decade, as films like Malibu Bikini Shop largely skipped theaters before settling into their natural home on cable. There’s little to champion in the films Porky’s inspired and it takes a lot of squinting to see real greatness in Porky’s itself. But its influence has persisted, surfacing in the late-’90s by way of the Porky’s-esque American Pie, which in turn inspired another wave of teen sex comedies. (Many were lamentable, but the mix also included Superbad.) But other aspects of its legacy are harder to get a handle on, like the way the sexual attitudes and those of the films it inspired shaped a whole generation raised on them, and the ripple effects that’s had on the generations that followed. In the world of Porky’s and its ilk, sex is silly, ever-present, and often treated as an entitlement of men who grow frustrated when they can’t obtain it — when they find themselves stuck on one side of the peephole looking in. After the mayhem settles down and as the credits roll, Porky’s ends with a character looking at the camera and shrugging. In some ways, we’re still figuring out what to make of it all.
The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” enjoyed a nice run at the top of the charts until recently, although it’s still near the No. 1 spot. He hasn’t been afraid to push the song, and other After Hours material, since the album’s release. Shortly after the record came out, The Weeknd shared a remix of the track featuring Lil Uzi Vert, and now he’s back with another new iteration of the song: Today, he has shared a “Heartless” remix by Major Lazer.
Diplo and company flipped the track into a dancehall-inspired banger, replacing the dark vibes with a more upbeat disposition, which shows just how possible it is to totally re-contextualize a song while retaining its core elements.
The Weeknd has greatly expanded After Hours since its initial release. Aside from the aforementioned remixes, he also shared remixes from Oneohtrix Point Never (who provided the music for the Weeknd-starring Uncut Gems), Chromatics, and The Blaze. Additionally, he added a trio of brand new songs to the deluxe version of the album: “Nothing Compares,” “Missed You,” and “Final Lullaby.”
Listen to the Major Lazer remix of “Blinding Lights” above, and read our review of After Hourshere.
After Hours is out now via Republic Records. Get it here.
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