In the last few months, Netflix has made headlines for bleeding subscribers and for blowing $200 million on its widely panned attempt at an action franchise starter, Gray Man, starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans. Between that and the similarly dull and lame Bullet Train (from Sony), it seems everyone is trying (and failing) to get into the dopey fun action movie game. (See also: Nobody, from 2021).
So when I saw that Netflix’s latest title, Day Shift, was a seemingly cutesy-kitschy action comedy starring Jamie Foxx as a vampire hunter (vampires being arguably the second-laziest pre-fab genre behind zombies), I did not have high hopes. Yet I was pleasantly surprised.
I’m not going to tell you that Day Shift will make waves come awards season or that you’ll still be thinking about it months from now, but it feels far closer to what the makers of Bullet Train, Gray Man, Nobody, et. al. were going for than any of those movies. Which is to say that it’s a silly action comedy where the action is actually fun, the jokes mostly land, and neither detracts from the other. All in all a reasonably fun streamer.
Jamie Foxx plays Bud Jablonski, a name I’m reasonably certain no other Black man has ever had, a San Fernando Valley vampire hunter masquerading as a pool guy. The script, from Tyler Tice and Shay Hatten, sees Jablonski as down on his luck, having been ejected from the vampire hunter’s union and on the verge of having his ex-wife and daughter move away because he can’t afford her school tuition. Within that Liar Liar-esque frame, Jablonski inhabits a world where vampire hunters are a kind of blue-collar necessity, controlling SoCal’s “vamp” population and collecting when they bring in their quarry’s extracted fangs (which are graded and sized, like precious stones). Without the union, Jablonski is reduced to selling his fangs at pawn shop prices to a predatory black marketeer played by Peter Stormare (aka Karl Hungus).
Directed by ex-stunt guy JJ Perry, Day Shift opens with a fight scene that lasts a solid ten minutes of screen time, and to my surprise given the experience with other American action comedies, it was solidly entertaining the whole time. So much stunt work these days is strenuously choreographed and acrobatically performed, but still constrained by arbitrary rules of “realism.” Which is silly, because it isn’t realistic to begin with. We know Liam Neeson and Bob Odenkirk and even Keanu Reeves and anyone who look like them aren’t going to be throwing up flying armbars and spinning back fists in real life, so why make us suspend disbelief just to see them doing fancy MMA moves we’ve already seen? Go further.
Day Shift‘s injection of the supernatural — in the form of vampires that can regenerate body parts and can only be killed by stakes, silver bullets, and beheadings and whatnot — almost by accident adds the room for stylization so recent many stunt-based movies have been missing. It’s not that interesting to watch Jamie Foxx’s stunt double triangle choke people and do fancy pistol work, but throw in some gory beheadings and vampires who crab walk and smash through walls and suddenly it’s a new ball game. Day Shift isn’t RRR, but it’s decently fun.
In his quest to rejoin the union, Jablonski’s friend Big John Elliot, a sort of cowboy pimp played by Snoop Dogg, vouches for him, but the disapproving union boss played by Eric Lange sticks Jablonski with a persnickety union rep (Dave Franco), tasked with burying Jablonski in citations. From there Day Shift becomes a sort of odd couple/buddy cop kind of movie with Foxx and Franco.
The plot is largely utilitarian but it’s grounded in place (the San Fernando Valley) and the joke writing is just clever enough to make it work. To keep the dead vampire musk off of him, which other vampires can apparently smell, Jablonski recommends to Dave Franco’s character a harsh, neon yellow soap to scrub himself with thoroughly. Though, he warns, gravely, “Don’t get it in your butthole.”
Day Shift‘s writing is inventive where most movies like this are merely tedious; its fight choreography stylized where most movies like this are merely competent (B-movie action master Scott Adkins even shows up in a minor role). Is there a lot of character development? No. Could it have been 15 minutes shorter? Probably. Could the villains’ motives have been more clearly conveyed? Sure. But in the context of the recent crop of “fun” action movies, Day Shift is one of the few I’ve seen that actually justifies such billing.
‘Day Shift’ hits Netflix August 12, 2022. Vince Mancini is onTwitter. You can access his archive of reviewshere.
Chicken tenders are fried chicken at its finest. Unlike bone-in fried chicken (OG Fried Chicken, if you will), tenders are simple, dippable, and can be eaten with a single hand, allowing you to enjoy all the wonders of fried chicken without having to deal with the bones, the mess, or tables. And it’s summer baby, the season of road trips and eating outside. Who wants to deal with bones or tables?
I know all the nugget heads are squirming in their chair so let’s address that real fast. The chicken nugget holds a similar advantage to the tender, but the tender has class. Unlike the nugget, the good ones aren’t overly processed, which means that when you bite into a chicken tender there is a chance you’re biting into an actual tenderloin, the long muscle strip located underneath the chicken breast. When you bite into a nugget, you’re essentially eating chicken meal, a collection of tendons, bones, connective tissues, and fat, all ground up and pressed into an arbitrary shape. Sometimes they hit the spot, but the fact remains: it’s f*cking space food.
So in celebration of the greatest fried chicken form factor (an appetizing phrase if we’ve ever heard one), we’ve decided to rank all the fast food chicken tenders in search of the very best. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, but it’s been nearly two years since our last ranking and there are new birds on the scene. Not to mention that some birds have massively dipped in quality. This ranking reflects the best chicken tenders you can get right now, as well as the best dipping sauces for each. Let’s dip!
14. Del Taco — Crispy Chicken Strips
Del Taco
Tasting Notes:
The absolute worst. For the record, I love Del Taco. I think they do a much better job approximating the flavors of Mexican food than their more popular cousin, Taco Bell. And the chain’s “American Grill” menu is pretty solid too (the burgers taste way better than they should).
But the chicken strips, which are a fairly new addition to the menu, are objectively awful. The batter works more like a sleeve than a breading. You can bite into this chicken and actually pull the sliver of chicken meat out from the fried casing. If that’s not a sign of a bad tender, I don’t know what is. But the horror doesn’t end there. The flavor is also awful, a weird mix of too much salt and not enough pepper, and the texture is rubbery and off-putting.
Best Dipping Sauce:
The trash, only you don’t dip it in, you throw it. And then leave it there.
Sonic’s Crispy Chicken Tenders are akin to your typical cheap frozen chicken fingers, the sort of stuff you’d find in the freezer section of your favorite grocery store. They are, at best, marginally better than the sort of thing you’d make at home because Sonic has deep fryers.
The chicken is super dry with a stringy texture, and the flavor is bland and flour-y with some blunt black pepper notes on the aftertaste.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Sonic’s Signature Sauce. It’s a golden BBQ (honey mustard + smokey BBQ) which isn’t everyone’s thing, but to me, this is the flagship flavor of Sonic. It earns the best dipping sauce pick from us.
The Bottom Line:
The sort of chicken tenders that you NEED sauce to enjoy. Not bad, but forgettable. It’s better to skip or order one of Sonic’s other finger foods, like mozzarella sticks.
Arby’s is a weird place, because they’re pretty good at what they do — Roast Beef sandwiches — so good in fact that if they just focused on that, they’d probably be one of the more respectable fast food chains out there. I’m talking In-N-Out and Chipotle levels of respectability here! Instead, they choose to dilute their brand with all of these sub-par sides that don’t accomplish much beyond wasting menu space. These chicken tenders are just fine, they’re practically interchangeable with Sonic’s. The batter delivers most of the flavor but doesn’t taste like much more than black pepper and flour.
It beats Sonic because the black pepper tastes a little more natural here, it doesn’t have that weird bitter bluntness of Sonic’s.
At least give me a hint of spice, Arby’s! Garlic, onion powder… something. This is sadly another tender you can’t eat without the dipping sauce.
Best Dipping Sauce:
It depends. If you can get your hands on Arby’s Three Pepper Sauce, get that. It’ll easily elevate these chicken tenders up a few ranks. Unfortunately not all Arby’s carry the Three Pepper Sauce, in which case, just go with BBQ. If you’re not down with BBQ, get the classic Arby’s Horsey sauce.
The Bottom Line:
A waste of menu space. If you really want chicken from Arby’s, get the nuggets. They don’t taste any different, but they are smaller, and that’s the best you’re going to get with Arby’s sub-par chicken.
I feel like I spent the entire opening paragraphs of this article praising the culinary wonder that is the chicken tender, and so far we haven’t hit a single chicken tender that I actually like. Unfortunately, we’re a far way away from that still. Dairy has the edge over Sonic and Arby’s because the ratio of chicken to batter is better here.
Dairy Queen’s strips are a lot meatier and the chicken isn’t quite as dry and stringy as Sonic and Arby’s but it’s still nothing to write home about. Luckily Dairy Queen has a special dipping sauce that turns these very bland chicken strips into something actually worth ordering.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Country gravy! It needs to be a standard at every fast food restaurant that sells fried chicken tenders. It adds a savory satisfying quality to each bite. It’s the only way you should ever eat Dairy Queen chicken.
The Bottom Line:
If you’re starving and the only food place for miles is for some reason a Dairy Queen, by all means, get the tenders and dip them in that country gravy! If you have any other options, go there instead.
10. Kentucky Fried Chicken — Nashville Hot Tenders
KFC
Tasting Notes:
Hot chicken is having a moment right now. Hot chicken chain restaurants are popping up everywhere. You’ve got Hattie B’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Joella’s, and my personal favorite, LA’s Howlin’ Rays, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that KFC, one of America’s biggest national chicken chains, has taken a stab at the country’s new favorite style of chicken. But KFC needs to stay in its lane.
If you’ve never had Nashville-style hot chicken, these taste fine. They’re smokey, sweet and spicy. But they taste nothing like actual Nashville-style hot chicken. KFC uses way too much vinegar, creating this wet saucy glaze that makes each strip soggy when it should be crispy. The mouthfeel of the sauce is also very oily, so it tastes like something you probably shouldn’t be eating.
Best Dipping Sauce:
No sauce necessary, the glaze is sauce enough.
The Bottom Line:
KFC isn’t just out of its lane with this poor take on Nashville-style chicken, it’s on the wrong side of the damn road.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Jack in the Box’s old chicken strips recipe was delicious. Each strip was unusually flat, like the tender had been pounded out before being fried, but that didn’t matter because the flavor was delicious. A medley of garlic, onion, and pepper flavors, with a crispy batter that housed always tender — albeit thin — bites of chicken. Then sometime in 2019, Jack in the Box launched a spicy chicken tender that had a totally different shape, with meatier strips and a drier texture.
Those spicy strips weren’t good and have since been discontinued, but for some reason, Jack in the Box decided to keep the meatier chicken and now the old strips have been replaced with these… things. They’re awful — dry, salty, and noticeably low quality.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Frank’s Red Hot. It’s not technically a dipping sauce and JiB doesn’t advertise that they have it on the menu, but it’s always there behind the counter and it’ll turn your boring chicken strips into delicious mouthwatering hot strips.
The Bottom Line:
If you’ve had the old Jack in the Box strips, it’s a little hard to get used to these things, but with the right sauce, they’re at least edible.
The first few times I had Carl’s Jr’s Hand-breaded chicken tenders I thought they were amazing. The chicken was juicy and the breading was thick and craggy, the perfect sponge for absorbing sauce. I think those visits might’ve been a lucky fluke though because every time I’ve ordered these in the last year I’ve been disappointed.
Carl’s Jr’s tenders are strangely small, almost more like large nuggets than proper strips. The buttermilk batter is still thick and craggy, but unfortunately, that absorbent quality often ends up absorbing all the oil the chicken was fried in, resulting in chicken that ends up overcooking from the hot oil after it’s been removed from the fryer, leaving you with dried out chicken that isn’t nearly as juicy as you want it to be, with a sour dirty oil after taste.
Best Dipping Sauce:
BBQ sauce. It’s not that Carl’s Jr’s BBQ sauce is particularly good, but the chain doesn’t have very many notable sauces in its roster. This is sadly as exciting as it gets.
The Bottom Line:
Too small, too oily, and almost always over-cooked to the point of being dry.
Burger King’s Chicken Fries are chicken strips at their worst. If you order these hoping for minimally processed white meat chicken, you’re not going to get it here. The texture of the meat is almost sludge-like. Despite the name, Chicken Fries taste like neither chicken nor fries. Instead you get an interestingly zesty mix of paprika, black pepper, and onion powder flavors, and you know what? Aside from the questionable texture of the meat, they’re actually pretty damn good.
I can’t emphasize the word ‘zesty’ enough. It’s spicy but not enough to be considered hot, but it still leaves your taste buds dancing.
Best Dipping Sauce:
BBQ. Burger King’s BBQ is pleasingly smokey with a nice balance of sweetness that never gets overwhelming.
The Bottom Line:
Look at that, Burger King finally landed in the middle of one of our fast food rankings! The Chicken Fries are weird and disturbing, but they taste good, so if you can get past the form factor and the strange texture, the flavor delivers.
I like KFC, though you wouldn’t know it the way both tender offerings have hit the middle of our list. But I actually think the Colonel’s Original Recipe blend of spices is one of the best-tasting flavor combinations of any fast food chicken chain. Unfortunately, KFC doesn’t make Original Recipe Tenders, they only make it in Extra Crispy, and KFC’s Extra Crispy chicken batter is pretty damn basic.
This tender is salty with a hint of garlic powder. That’s it. The quality of the meat is pretty good, it’s tender and juicy and never dry but the basic breading holds it back from being truly delicious.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Luckily it’s really easy to improve the flavor of these bland tenders with KFC’s side dishes. Skip the sauce and order a side of mashed potatoes and gravy or Mac and Cheese and dip your strips to your heart’s content.
The Bottom Line:
KFC can make a really amazing tender if they wanted to, unfortunately, they don’t seem to want to. These are good, not great.
Rally’s new fry-battered chicken tenders are good but misleading. If you’re expecting the same garlic-forward, black pepper-infused light and crispy batter that Rally uses on the fries, this isn’t that. It’s sort in the same taste ballpark but doesn’t manage to capture half of the magic of the fries.
I’m not sure if that’s a result of Rally’s leaving this in the frier a bit too long, masking the flavors in its crunchiness, or because they had to adjust the batter recipe to be able to adhere to a big piece of meat rather than potatoes or mozzarella cheese. But I suggest skipping the tenders and grabbing a big Mother Cruncher instead.
Best Dipping Sauce:
It’s a toss-up between the BBQ and Honey Mustard. Both are a bit too sweet, but that goes for all of Rally’s sauces.
The Bottom Line:
The name is a false promise. This doesn’t taste nearly as good as the fries or the fry-seasoned mozzarella sticks. Order those instead.
Jollibee’s chicken has an interesting balance of sweet, sour, and salty flavors distinct enough to pick out in a blind taste test. No other fried chicken tastes quite like this, and the batter is equally unique with a light crispiness that makes it the most audibly crunchy chicken in this ranking.
The chicken itself is good but not great, it’s tender but not nearly juicy enough to warrant a spot higher than this.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Gravy! I’ve already mentioned how gravy is an ideal fried chicken dip. Good gravy adds a richness to chicken that makes it greater than the sum of its parts.
The Bottom Line:
Unique enough that it deserves a trip to Jollibee if you’ve never been, but this is far from the best menu item at the mighty bee.
Chick-fil-A’s Chick-n-Strips are pretty damn good. The chain marinates its chicken in pickle brine, giving each bite of chicken a real depth of flavor and a tender juicy mouthfeel that sets it apart from a lot of the other chicken chains on this ranking. The use of peanut oil is another great move, ensuring each tender has a perfectly crispy exterior. Chick-fil-A’s better is also considerably lighter than a lot of other chicken chains, offering a meatier ratio of white meat chicken to breading.
But despite how good these things are, they are easily Chick-fil-A’s worst chicken product.
The nuggets are way juicer, and the breast filet used on the sandwiches if in another league entirely. So as good as these are, we can’t recommend ordering them over their other choices.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Everyone has their favorite Chick-fil-A sauce but if we had to choose a best dip for the chicken, we’re going with the namesake, the Chick-fil-A sauce. It’s a mix of barbecue and honey mustard, with a ranch-backed tang that adds a nice smokey and rich quality to the fried chicken.
The Bottom Line:
You certainly wouldn’t complain if someone gave you an order of Chick-fil-A Chick-n-Strips but if you have the choice to order anything else, do it. These are good, but far from Chick-fil-A’s best chicken offering.
I was going to separate these into two individual categories but they ended up slotting right next to each other in the ranking so I’m just going to kill two birds with one stone here. Generally, I think the Spicy style tenders offer a bit more, supplying a cayenne kick to Popeyes’ buttery, garlic, and onion powder forward batter that makes the chicken taste more interesting. Having said that, as far as which one tastes better, it kind of depends on how fresh the chicken is.
If you’re ordering inside of a Popeyes you can usually see the fried chicken they have on hand behind the cashier. If the pile of spicy tenders is high, order them, they probably just came out. If it looks like the spicy tenders are running low and the mild tenders look fresher, order those instead. Popeyes chicken tastes best right when it’s out of the fryer. Once it cools down a little bit the texture of the chicken becomes oddly chunky and not tender and juicy.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Honey. It adds a little floral sweetness to the heat.
The Bottom Line:
Popeyes is the king of chicken sandwiches, and probably the king of bone-in fried chicken. Their tenders could use a refresh to get them to the level of the menu’s GOATS.
Ecstasy of the mouth. The other tenders on this list don’t even come close. Raising Cane’s uses fresh chicken that is marinaded for 24 hours, hand-battered, and fried to perfection. Each bite of chicken is bursting with tenderness like a goddamn Otis Redding song (it helps that Raising Cane’s uses actual chicken tenders) with the perfect texture that melts in your mouth. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood while eating Cane’s.
Because the strips are hand-battered on sight using fresh non-frozen chicken, the batter isn’t always the crispiest, but that’s easily remedied by asking for your chicken “extra crispy.” Cane’s will then leave your chicken in the fryer for anywhere between 30-60 seconds, resulting in a perfect golden finger that is as crispy and crunchy as it is delicious.
Best Dipping Sauce:
Cane’s Sauce, obviously, I mean they throw it right in the box with the chicken. Cane’s sauce is a classic comeback-style sauce (mayo, ketchup, Worchestershire, spices) that adds a savory umami quality to each tender bite.
The Hack To Make It Better:
Dane Rivera
Order your fingers ‘extra crispy,’ add an extra order of toast and ask for both to be made BOB style (That’s buttered on both sides if you’re not hip to that Cane’s culture). Stick a tender between the two pieces of toast, douse it in Cane’s sauce, and you have one of the best (and smallest) chicken sandwiches in all of fast food. It’s a damn crime that it’s not on the menu.
The Bottom Line:
The fried chicken tender perfected. You’ve probably seen the drive-thru lines and wondered if its worth it. It is (But we suggest ordering inside, you’ll get your order in half the time).
Rod Wave has been lauded for years for his innate ability to convey sadness that many listeners feel as well through melodies and croons. Thus, his new album Beautiful Mind is being well received by the people and they are making their voices heard.
Rod Wave really Fantasia for niggas, music is fire though I ain’t complaining.
One Twitter user labeled the 22-year-old as “Fantasia for n****s,” referencing the “Free Yourself” singer’s 2000s music loaded with heartbreak and internal turmoil. Another said that his music gets listeners in their feelings from the very first beat, and the album has zero skips. In true Twitter fashion, the album led another person to fantasy book a dream collaboration between the St. Petersburg artist and the legendary band Nickelback, which many people seemed to agree with.
Rod Wave really Fantasia for niggas, music is fire though I ain’t complaining.
Despite Rod Wave being a “sad boy,” the people are pleased with his offering to a music landscape where sad boys arguably thrive more than ever before.Beautiful Mindclocks in at 24 songs with features from Jack Harlow and December Joy. It comes almost a year and a half after his 2021 album Soulfly.
On January 6, 2021 (the day of the MAGA insurrection), rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert woke up and tweeted, “Today is 1776.” That tweet somehow still exists.
Although no one would ever accuse Boebert of knowing the particulars about the Revolutionary War (she once confused “Samuel” and John Adams and doesn’t give a flip about education), it’s clear that she was attempting to reference that specific period in U.S. history. And that tweet is a big reason why the Proud Boys indictment made people side-eye Boebert for her possible contribution to planning what happened that day.
Fast forward to Trump’s announcement that the FBI raided his beautiful Mar-a-Lago compound, and Boebert has already made her perspective known. She called this “Gestapo crap,” and following Attorney General Merrick Garland’s poker-faced declaration that he authorized the raid, Boebert is hopping mad.
The Rifle Republican is, naturally, tweeting up a storm with one standout remark. “AG Garland personally approved the raid on President Trump,” she typed before making a huge leap. “This is nothing short of a coup.”
AG Garland personally approved the raid on President Trump.
That wasn’t all. Boebert doesn’t understand (or she’s willfully ignoring) how Garland is not trying to seize power from Trump. He is no longer the president but a private citizen who shouldn’t have access to those boxes of classified documents that could even contain nuclear dirt. And furthermore, the feds only went in to recover these improperly placed (and some might say stolen) documents. So, people pushed back at Boebert while also telling her that the word “coup” doesn’t mean what she thinks that it means.
If you’re going by definition 1 then no, he’s a private citizen, NOT the government. Definition 2, it was for sure a successful move. I’m assuming that’s what you meant pic.twitter.com/B0eKihLRLp
#LaurenBoebertIsSoDumb she thinks apprehending and seizing classified documents is a “coup.” No darlin, it’s called, when someone STEALS classified documents from the government, it’s called STEALING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS FROM THE GOVERNMENT! God you really are stupid aren’t you?
One of the cooler parts of Madden 23 this year is all the ways it plans to honor the iconic coach and namesake for the game, John Madden. Not only is he going to be on the cover of the game, but he’s going to be all over the game itself from his virtual appearance in modes like Ultimate Team to a game mode dedicated entirely to him.
The John Madden Legacy Game is a mode in Madden 23 where players will be able to play with one of two John Madden’s, one dressed in his iconic pinstripe and tie look, and another in the same outfit he won Super Bowl XI in. Both teams are full of some of the NFL’s greatest to ever play including players who were named to John Madden’s personal “All-Madden” team.
Madden 23
This is another really cool way EA and the Madden devs are choosing to honor John Madden and remind everyone about his legacy as not only a football coach and broadcaster, but everything he did for video games. It’s hard to believe, but the next game in the franchise comes out in only seven days so we don’t have to wait too long to experience everything EA has waiting for us.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – I need you to understand that I am serious about this
You know how sometimes a thought will come screeching into your head out of nowhere and kind of set up residence in there for a while? Maybe not. Maybe this is just how my dilapidated funhouse brain works and the rest of you are thinking about, like, important issues facing the nation or which supermarket has the best deal on paper products. I don’t know. What I do know is that it happened to me again this week when, while minding my own business and watching a Phillies game, this sentence popped in there fully formed: What if Henry Winkler goes on Hot Ones?
I need you to understand a couple of things here: One, I have been thinking about this a lot, so much, in the past few days, in part because I’ve been kind of watching a lot of old episodes of Hot Ones lately and in part because I think about Henry Winkler a lot. It’s the fish pictures, mostly. I have written about this and retweeted the tweets and even asked him about them when I had a chance to interview earlier this year, which is a lot of fun to explain to people when I try to tell them about my job and use “I interviewed Henry Winkler” as a reference point and they Google the interview and see like five questions about fishing. But, like, come on, look at this.
Which brings us back to the Hot Ones thing. Henry Winkler, if you are reading this, please go on Hot Ones. Please. For me. Henry. HENRY. Go on Hot Ones. Listen to me.
Hmm. I suspect a list of reasons will help. Let’s do that:
Henry Winkler has had a long career in Hollywood, dating way back to playing The Fonz on Happy Days and continuing all the way up through his work on Barry in the present
He seems by all accounts like a delightful man
I want to see what happens when Henry Winkler tries to answer a question after eating a very spicy wing
That’s it. That’s all I got, at least by way of logic. All of it really just boils down to “because I would like it,” which is probably not enough to get an idea in Hollywood greenlit, at least not yet. But still. I would really like it. And it’s not an unreasonable ask. We can have Henry Winkler on Hot Ones. That’s within the realm of possibilities. It would be like the time Paul Rudd showed up on the show and did this…
… but way more sincere. I really must stress that I am serious about this. I know I’ve said that a few times now but I worry some of you might think I’m funning around here. I am not. I simply would like to see Henry Winkler go on Hot Ones and I am using the fact that I have a silly Friday column where I can say almost whatever I want to put it out into the universe.
That’s all that’s happening. I feel okay about it.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – CIGARETTE SHOWDOWN
AMC
It brings me great pleasure to report that I saw a good tweet. It was in response to my recap of this week’s episode of Better Call Saul, an episode in which a lot of things — important things! — happened, some of which involved Life Alert pendants and brown hair dye and signed affidavits. It was, again, a lot, and not something I’m going to spoil for any of you on the off-chance you have somehow not seen the show and are planning to get in there. But, that said, the good tweet.
Who puts out a cigarette better—Kim Wexler or Judy Gemstone? This question could plague me into old age.
Context will help, at least a little. In this week’s episode of Saul:
Kim Wexler was going through it
Rhea Seehorn put on a damn acting clinic
At one point near the episode, she was smoking a cigarette in the rain and just kind of processing a lot
Then, she did… well, this:
AMC
Which was maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And yet still maybe not the best bit of cigarette-related business on television this year because, in an episode of The Righteous Gemstones, for reasons I could explain but absolutely will not, Judy Gemstone, played by Edi Patterson, who has been putting on a different kind of acting clinic, did this:
HBO
The takeaways here are as follows:
I love both of these moments very much and I refuse to choose between them
We are so blessed to have both of these women on our televisions just revolutionizing the genre of tobacco disposal
I think, when this is all over, the two of them should play mismatched cops in a Knives Out-style murder mystery, either episodic or feature-length, which is only slightly complicated by the fact that Edi Patterson was actually in the first Knives Out
This was an excellent conversation.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – Casa Bonita chaos
Comedy Central
Hey, let’s check in with the South Park guys and their recent acquisition of the actual Casa Bonita restaurant that they once depicted on the sh-… aaaaaaand it’s chaos. Just madness straight through. We go now to the Denver Post for an update.
It’s been nearly a year since “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone purchased Lakewood’s iconic restaurant Casa Bonita, but they’re no closer to figuring out when it may open.
Not ideal. Could be better. Sounds kind of like an episode of that show Kitchen Nightma-…
“Have you ever seen ‘Kitchen Nightmares’? It’s the very, very worst one of those you could possibly ever imagine,” said Parker. “What we thought would be, ‘Oh this will be cool. We can buy this and open it and it’ll be around again,’ turned into ‘Oh this is going to be what we have to put all our money into and hope that it works.’”
Putting aside the obvious point that this is a joke and they have more money than one can possibly sink into a local Mexican restaurant, it would be really, really funny if two cartoon entrepreneurs run themselves bankrupt due to food-based calamities. Imagine explaining that to anyone. “Yeah, the South Park guys are broke now because they bought a real restaurant they depicted on the show and it was a disaster” is just a deeply wild collection of words.
As for other landmarks, such as the Coney Island Boardwalk hot dog stand, that have since hit the market, Parker and Stone said they’ve considered saving them.
“I told Les Claypool (of Primus) about the hot dog and he [expletive] flipped out. He was like, ‘You have to buy that hot dog,’” said Stone.
Is it weird that I think this might be a better show than another season of South Park? Like, we’ve seen plenty of that show. We will all be okay if they decide to close up shop and move on to a reality show where they buy famous food-related landmarks and attempt to save them, potentially with disastrous results. Get Guy Fieri in there to help. I don’t think the South Park guys would love that part but we’ve moved beyond that into the realm of goofus hypotheticals. Let’s just do the weirdest stuff we can think of here, just to see what happens.
Something to consider.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – I must have this immediately
Getty Image
A couple of things are important to note before we get to a pretty incredible quote, so let’s do that in the name of professionalism. The first thing is that Jason Momoa is going to appear in Fast X, the tenth Fast & Furious movie. Good for him. Good for all of us, really. “Jason Momoa appearing in a Fast & Furious movie” is one of those things that is so perfect and obvious in hindsight that the most notable aspect of it all is that it had somehow not happened already. It’s great. It makes me very happy. I’m still a lot upset that they’re calling it Fast X instead of FasTen Your Seatbelts, but I’ll get over it. I can deal. Probably.
In the tenth Fast and Furious film, Momoa plays a villain whose toenails are painted purple and pink, with a lavender car to match, and who enjoys laughing maniacally as he blows up co-star Ludacris’s car. “I’m a peacock at the highest level and I’m having the time of my life,” he grins.
This is fascinating to me. What could possibly be a better development for this franchise than “Jason Momoa as a pastel aficionado and madman who blows up a car belonging to Ludacris, who went to outer space in a NoS-powered Pontiac in the previous movie”? I honestly do not know. I keep wondering where the franchise can go from the absurd lengths it reaches each movie and then, pow, here we are. It’s thrilling, in a way. I hope Jason Momoa’s character drives a hovercraft through the streets of Paris.
The best part is that we really can’t rule this one out. We can’t rule anything out. There is almost nothing that could happen in these movies that would shock me at this point. Again, thrilling.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Fargo… still good
FX
The television version of Fargo is better than it has any right to be and has been since the very first season, thanks in large part to Billy Bob Thornton playing a hitman named Lorne Malvo and the guy in the screencap up there whose name was Calamity Joe and sold various forms of illicit paraphernalia out of the back of his van, including bags of clean urine. Every season has told a new story with all new characters and almost everything has been a blast. It’s a good show.
I think my favorite part of the show, because I am an idiot first and foremost, is the thing where it takes pleasure in casting an impressive group of actors and giving their characters the silliest names you can imagine. Allison Tolman played a cop named Molly Solverson. Mary Elizabeth Winstead played a hustler named Nikki Swango. I’m still not over that last one. And, because sometimes things can be pretty okay out there, the new season appears to be pressing forward with this strategy.
Fargo has rounded out the main cast of its upcoming fifth installment, with Joe Keery (Stranger Things, Free Guy), Lamorne Morris (New Girl, Barbershop: The Next Cut) and Richa Moorjani (Never Have I Ever) joining the previously announced Juno Temple, Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
This is good. This is very good. But tell me some names.
GIVE ME SOME NAMES.
I NEED IT.
Set in 2019, Season 5 of the Noah Hawley-created anthology series answers the question, when is a kidnapping not a kidnapping, and what if your wife isn’t yours?
Joe Keery will play Gator Tillman; Morris will play Witt Farr; Moorjani will play Indira Olmstead.
Gator Tillman.
Yes.
Yes, this will do just fine.
Fargo is still a good show.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From John:
Why does Bosch write with his left hand but shoot with his right? His daughter also does this.
This is a wonderful email that I do not have anything approaching an actual response for. I include it here for three important reasons:
I am so jealous of John for noticing this and for the rush he must have felt upon putting it together
I am honestly kind of honored/touched that anyone would have this realization and think “I should email Brian about this,” in a way that somehow validates every career-based decision I’ve made to this point
I am going to post some screencaps of Lance Reddick grumbling Bosch’s name
Yes, again.
AMAZONAMAZON
And that was not the only objectively perfect email I received this week. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, we have a TWO EMAIL SITUATION. Look at this.
From Joe:
Do you ever think about how the Fast and Furious movies are our generation’s version of the Beatles? They both came onto the scene when we were teens or young adults and grew/matured with us as we got older. Both introduced western audiences to eastern culture, the Beatles with religion and philosophy, and Fast and Furious with the concept of Tokyo Drifting. Both were super popular, but also had groups of people who will say they never “got them.” Obviously Paul Walker is the John Lennon of this analogy, each dying much younger than anyone expected. Lastly, both the Beatles and Fast and Furious will cause men of certain ages to go on long rants, much like this email I sending to you. Not sure how fleshed out this idea is, but somehow it makes sense to me and I knew I had to send it to you.
The thing I enjoy about this, in addition to, like, all of it, is that this analogy almost certainly means Ludacris is Ringo. That was a fun thing to get to think and type. I do not take any of this for granted.
An unknown suspect reportedly stole “thousands of dollars worth of briskets” from an Austin favorite, la Barbecue, early Thursday morning.
BRISKET HEIST
WE HAVE A BRISKET HEIST
I NEED EVERYONE TO FOCUS
According to the restaurant, the unknown suspect allegedly broke into the restaurant on East Cesar Chavez Street in East Austin shortly after 4 a.m. The restaurant said he jumped over the side fence, cut off barbecue pit locks and loaded more than twenty whole briskets into an SUV before driving off.
There’s a lot going on here in a lot of ways but I want you to stop and take a second and think about this guy’s entire day leading up to the moment he decided to hop a fence and steal 20 whole briskets. That is so much brisket. What is he even doing with it all? I need a six-episode docuseries about it as soon as anyone can get one shot and edited.
The restaurant is asking for help in identifying the suspect and asks that anyone with information call the Austin Police Department. The incident is reportedly la Barbecue’s fifth break-in.
I changed my mind. I want a 10-episode docuseries now. There is too much to get to in six. Especially now that we might have a meat heist epidemic on our hands. I like to think it’s all the same guy and he has a walk-in cooler full of slow-cooked meats the way an art thief has a room full of paintings he stole. I hope he just sits there and admires them sometimes, like how Thomas Crown stole a painting just for the rush and kept it in his house hidden in a wall.
After already dropping $3.1 million to purchase Casa Bonita, a beloved Mexican restaurant in their hometown, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are reportedly spending more than four times that amount in renovations. According to plans, permits, and photos obtained through an open records request in Lakewood, Colorado, Parker and Stone are dropping over $12 million to restore the restaurant to its former glory after years of neglect.
For the most part, the plans indicate the iconic elements inside Casa Bonita such as the dive pool, Black Bart’s Cave and seating areas will undergo repairs and improvements to match the original feel of the restaurant.
Yet the kitchen and bathrooms are undergoing substantial renovations while audio and visual elements are being improved, such as new projectors, loudspeakers, lighting, and security cameras throughout the restaurant.
The South Park creators are also dropping a significant amount on better accessibility for Casa Bonita. The duo are building ramps, adding a new vertical platform lift, and clearing space for “increased accessible seating.” In short, they’re not sparing any expense in bringing Casa Bonita back to life even though they’ve fully admitted that the situation is a “nightmare” and taking on the project was “really dumb.”
During a recent interview, they revealed that the previous owners did nothing to bring the building up to code, and that’s required the South Park duo to basically redo everything including razing and reinstalling Casa Bonita’s iconic fountain.
“The previous owners deferred maintenance in an almost superhuman way,” Stone told The Denver Post. “They just didn’t take care of anything. And they ran it completely into the ground.”
Jessie Reyez is back with the announcement of her new album Yessie out this fall. This comes with the release of her new single “Mutual Friend,” a sonically haunting track with vividly resentful lyrics that tell an immersive story: “Our mutual friend / Don’t know that you’re too self-serving / But I do and that’s why your words don’t mean sh*t,” she sings, and adds: “And guess what? / This heartbreak morphed into hate.”
The video is as powerful as the song, depicting Reyez singing in a house and getting swept up into a visceral dance choreography. One scene captures the singer sitting on a couch surrounded by dying flowers — a heavily symbolic image that evokes the same intense emotions as the ballad does. The lyrics grow even more clever and razor-sharp as the song continues to build over the course of nearly four minutes: “And guess what / Your karma’s that you love me still,” she sings.
After watching the first episode of the record-breaking fourth season of Stranger Things, I nearly pitched an article to my editor with the headline, “Stranger Things Has A Toy Story Problem.” The gist of the post would have been with every season and movie, Stranger Things and Toy Story, respectively, add new characters, leading to diminished screen time for our old favorites. I enjoyed Ducky and Bunny in Toy Story 4, but not as much as I love Rex, who barely factored into the (still very good) film. The reason I never pitched the piece, however, is because by episode two of the Netflix series, I was obsessed with Eddie, Chrissy (even if she didn’t make it past the premiere), Argyle, Enzo, and most of the new characters. Except Jason. Jason deserved what he got.
It must be tempting for creators Matt and Ross Duffer to try and find another Eddie for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things (Metallica would enjoy that), but in an interview with IndieWire, the brothers vowed to keep the focus on the original cast. “We’re doing our best to resist [adding new characters] for season five. We’re trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess,” Ross said.
Matt also discussed the process behind adding a new character:
“Whenever we introduce a new character, we want to make sure that they’re going to be an integral part of the narrative. So that’s something with Eddie this season, where we go, ‘Well, we need a character here for this storyline to really work, and to give it the engine that is needed.’ But every time we do that, we’re nervous, because you go, ‘We’ve got a great cast of characters here, and actors, and any moment we’re spending with a new character, we’re taking time away from one of the other actors.’ So we’re just very, very careful about who we’re introducing. And then specifically in the casting process, it took a very long time to find Joe Quinn, and you just go through so many edits, because you know that we can’t add someone that’s going to just take away from our characters if they’re not terrific.”
Stranger Things season five is expected to premiere, well, there’s no expected premiere date yet. But hopefully it comes quicker than the three years between seasons three and four.
The past few days have been tough for Michelle Branch. On August 11, she accused husband and The Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney of infidelity, writing in a now-deleted tweet, “Just found out my husband cheated on me with his manager […] while I was home with our 6 month old daughter.” This morning, she confirmed she and Carney are separating, saying in a statement, “To say that I am totally devastated doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel for myself and for my family. The rug has been completely pulled from underneath me and now I must figure out how to move forward. With such small children, I ask for privacy and kindness.”
Now, there’s another layer to the story: Branch was reportedly arrested for domestic violence against Carney.
TMZ reports that police were called to Branch and Carney’s home for a possible domestic disturbance. This happened at around 2 a.m. on Thursday morning (August 11), which was shortly after Branch shared her aforementioned tweet, which was posted just minutes earlier at 1:28 a.m. According to court documents, Branch admitted to slapping Carney in the face “one to two times” and was arrested and taken into custody. Carney did not appear to have any visible injuries.
Page Six notes the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office confirmed with them that Branch was released late Thursday after posting a $1,000 bail. TMZ notes “it appears she was released from custody early because she’s breastfeeding the couple’s 6-month-old.” Page Six reports Branch has a hearing scheduled for November 7 to face a charge of domestic assault by offensive/provocative conduct.
Carney has yet to offer a public statement about the alleged infidelity or Branch’s domestic assault charge.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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