Category: Viral

When Green Book won the Best Picture Oscar two years ago, Spike Lee — whose BlacKkKlansman was also up for the prize — tried to storm out of the Dolby Theatre in disgust, only to be told he had to return to his seat. It was perhaps the most public and ostentatious form of criticism the film received, having been chastised in some circles for its retrograde white savior narrative. But there’s one person who is definitely pro-Green Book: star Viggo Mortensen.

In a new interview with The Independent, the erstwhile Aragorn — whose performance was Oscar-nominated, though co-star Mahershala Ali did win his second Best Supporting Actor trophy — reflected grimly on the film’s violently split reputation. “It’s become a cliché to say, ‘Is this movie going to be the Green Book of this year?’” he said. “Green Book has become a pejorative.”

He continued:

“Much of the criticism that was levelled at that movie was not only unreasonable, but it was inaccurate, mendacious, and irresponsible … It’s based on a load of bulls*** and an axe to grind and little else. Does it affect what I’m doing, or how people perceive me as an actor? Maybe it does. But I can’t really do anything about that.”

Mortensen didn’t go into details about how calling out a film that features a white character “teaching” a black character how to eat fried chicken could be considered “inaccurate, mendacious, and irresponsible.” He also could have argued that its instant classic pizza-sandwich scene does atone for some of its more questionable aspects. Alas.

The acclaimed actor — whose directorial debut, Falling, in which he plays a gay man dealing with his conservative father (Lance Henriksen), just opened in the UK — has sometimes been a bit more critical of past work. In 2014, he semi-infamously said he preferred The Fellowship of the Rings to the other LOtR films, saying that with The Two Towers the series “already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third.” A handful of years later he was a bit more circumspect:

“I don’t really want to get into it … but over the years certain things that I’ve said have been taken out of context in certain ways that were unfortunate. I’ve tried to be honest when someone is asking me which movie I prefer. My preference is certain scenes that I remember and that’s natural, but the overall experience was fabulous, unforgettable, instructive. The obvious benefit is that the popularity of the trilogy around the world opened doors for us. Dave Cronenberg wouldn’t have been permitted to cast me in A History of Violence had it not been for the popularity of the trilogy, for example.”

(Via The Independent)

The New York Jets entered Sunday at 0-11 on the season, a game ahead of the 1-10 Jacksonville Jaguars for the first overall pick and, presumptively, the right to select Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence in next April’s NFL Draft.

Both teams found themselves in the lead at various points on Sunday, as the two fanbases fretted over the possibility of getting a win and ruining their draft position. Now, the players on the field of course don’t care about where they’re drafting next year, but fans surely do and for the Jets they found themselves leading by four points late in the game against the Raiders.

Las Vegasmarched down the field and had a 4th-and-3 opportunity inside the 10, but failed to convert on a second attempt after offsetting holding penalties wiped away a touchdown initially. However, with just over 90 seconds to play, Las Vegas had two timeouts remaining and were able to force a punt, getting the ball back with just over 30 seconds to play. After moving the ball into Jets territory, Vegas needed a minor miracle to escape the ignominy of being the first team to lose to New York this season, and got that in the form of a bomb from Derek Carr to rookie speedster Henry Ruggs III.

It is an incredibly Jets finish to the game, as New York somehow failed to put any safety help over the top on the outside of the field, instead leaving room for Ruggs to go one-on-one and, with his incredibly sub-4.3 speed, that’s a losing proposition for most defensive backs in the league.

Jets fans are thrilled by the result, as they maintain a stranglehold on the top spot in next year’s draft, and as such the right to take Lawrence or Justin Fields or whatever player they desire. Jaguars fans, meanwhile, not only saw their hopes for being tied for that top spot taken away but find themselves in overtime in Minnesota with a chance of moving two games out of that top pick and, likely, locking themselves into second at best.

Keeping his “Get Twisted Sundays” series alive for one last week, Tobe Nwigwe recruited D Smoke for their new collaboration, “Headshots.” Just like his other singles from the past weeks, Tobe delivers an impressive visual for the track. It begins with Tobe laying on the ground beside a few dancers. Shortly after he resorts to the seashore with a woman beside him before the visual transitions to show D Smoke rapping his verse in the water while fully-clothed. As the video comes to an end, the two rappers reunite as they sing the final lines of the song.

The track arrives ahead of Tobe’s Cincoriginals project which the Houston rapper will drop at the end of the week on December 13. It will be his second project of the year following The Pandemic Project which he shared in August. Cincoriginals is led by “Bozos” and “Father Figure” and flaunts guest appearances from EarthGang, Duckwrth, Big K.R.I.T., Royce Da 5’9,” Black Thought, D Smoke, Bun B, Trae Tha Truth, and more.

As for D Smoke, the video arrives after the Inglewood native landed a Grammy nomination in the Best Rap Album category for his Black Habits debut. He joins Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist’s Alfredo, Nas’ King’s Disease, and Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony.

You can watch the “Headshots” video above.

Cincoriginals is out on 12/13 via Tobe Nwigwe. Pre-order it here.

The Milwaukee Bucks enter this season as the favorites to win the Eastern Conference once again, and spent this offseason retooling their roster to try and build a team that can finally get over the hump and make it to the NBA Finals.

They traded a bounty of first round picks to New Orleans for Jrue Holiday and, after having a Bogdan Bogdanovic sign-and-trade fall apart, spent the rest of the offseason bringing in various role players to fill out the roster and try and build out some depth around their strong starting unit. The centerpiece of everything in Milwaukee, of course, is Giannis Antetokounmpo, and whether this offseason is viewed as successful or not is dependent on whether the reigning two-time MVP signs his supermax extension by December 19.

Antetokounmpo celebrated his birthday on Saturday, as he turned 26 years old, and on Sunday when the Bucks met with the assembled media Khris Middleton was asked how they celebrated with their star teammate. The fellow All-Star had quite the response, noting that the entire team decided to get Giannis what they felt was the perfect gift, 19 pens that they hope he will “enjoy and use.”

It’s a not so subtle message from Middleton and the Bucks, and if Giannis does indeed sign his extension this will be a clever and fun thing everyone can look back on. If he doesn’t, then, well, it will be incredibly awkward for all involved and this season will be with one eye on the future and hoping the superstar doesn’t depart for elsewhere should they fall short of their ultimate goal once again.

Joe Biden campaigned, in part, on the fact that he wouldn’t break news on Twitter once he was elected president.

It’s a promise he reiterated last week, saying that he would not first disclose important news or decisions about legislation on the social media platform. Donald Trump, however, has made no such promises and has famously fired people and announced his own COVID-19 diagnosis on Twitter. He’s spent the weeks following the election spouting election misinformation on social media in a desperate and fruitless attempt to overturn results that clearly elected Biden president.

But on Sunday, he broke some very interesting news in a realm he’s largely ignoring: the rising coronavirus crisis in America. On Sunday, he tweeted that his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had contracted coronavirus, though he used a racial slang for it he’s often leaned on to deflect blame for the pandemic that’s killed more than 220,000 Americans.

“@RudyGiuliani, by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, and who has been working tirelessly exposing the most corrupt election (by far!) in the history of the USA, has tested positive for the China Virus,” Trump tweeted. “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!”

The news drew plenty of reaction online, as well as concern about his jet-setting legal battle to prop up baseless allegations of election fraud that’s drawn colorful and bizarre characters viral fame in recent days. Now the actual viral nature of Giuliani is an immediate concern, which makes all of this a lot less funny and far more dangerous.

It’s unclear what Giuliani’s status is right now, as there’s been plenty of speculation about him and his health as he appears in increasingly bizarre press conferences and public hearings while maskless. But hopefully he hasn’t turned what’s already been a needlessly prolonged and baseless legal fight into a multi-state superspreader event, too.

Much to the chagrin of movie theater enthusiasts, HBO Max got a lot more valuable to cinephiles last week when Warner Bros. announced that its entire 2021 slate of movies would premiere on the streaming app the same day they hit theaters. But the news was especially cruel to some streaming enthusiasts, mainly those that rely on Roku to get their digital media in this fragmented streaming marketplace.

The lack of an HBO Max app on Roku devices, including smart TVs, has been a sticking point for both owners of said devices and those at Warner who want to see the platform grow. Without a true app on Roku, only a screen mirroring trick or maybe using Apple AirPlay on certain devices served as a proper workaround. Unless you, of course, have another device hooked up like a gaming console or an Amazon FireTV device, which officially added HBO Max in late November.

And despite the glut of big releases soon to hit HBO Max, it doesn’t seem like either side is ready to budge on this stalemate just yet. As Variety laid out earlier in the week, even the kind of application HBO Max would be on Roku is up in the air right now.

Sources confirm to Variety that WarnerMedia and Roku are in active talks. But both sides have signaled that they are unwilling to budge on their positions: Roku wants to keep HBO/HBO Max as a channel it can sell directly to its own customers, while WarnerMedia is insisting that HBO Max be available as a standalone app. The companies are also hashing out the terms for how they will divvy up ad inventory for the ad-subsidized version of HBO Max, which WarnerMedia plans to launch for a reduced price later in 2021.

In other words, things are tied up in quite literally what kind of access to HBO Max would be allowed on Roku, let alone where the money goes from that app or channel if it existed. And neither side seems intent to make a deal despite the additional pressure that will come, starting on Christmas Day, when Warner Bros. movies start hitting HBO Max. As Variety laid out, Warner’s general thesis is that the pressure is on Roku as Christmas is often a time people buy streaming hardware, and not necessarily subscriptions, as gifts. Meanwhile, Roku feels its large user base is incentive enough for HBO Max, which now needs to see its subscriber base grow to make up the billions it’s likely to lose by surrendering big box office returns in 2021.

As a result, HBO Max’s annual average subscriber base would need to be 8.4 million higher than its current pace of additions for WarnerMedia to make itself whole, according to Moffett. “The market has shown a clear preference for go-big-or-go-home digital strategies,” he wrote in a research note Friday. “The most obvious takeaway from yesterday’s news is that AT&T is, come hell or high water, going to drive traffic to HBO Max.”

And Roku, boosted by the COVID pandemic, has seen significant momentum. The company will close out 2020 with an estimated 52 million user accounts — with have a footprint representing around 40% of all U.S. broadband households, according to Rosenblatt Securities.

The deal that got HBO Max on Amazon devices, it should be noted, meant that Amazon could no longer sell HBO subscriptions through its Prime Video Channels. That’s essentially what Roku wants to do with HBO Max, as its research claims channels sold through that tend to get more customer usage than those presented simply as apps. That’s likely because, well, people want to justify their purchases with use, which just so happens to play into Roku’s desire to sell HBO Max as a channel and then tap into ad revenue.

The easy solution for frustrated streaming subscribers is, of course, the most inconvenient one: to have multiple options for streaming content and just be willing to switch HDMI inputs or navigate your way to blockbuster movies with a gaming controller. But as is often the case with these things, it’s just another inconvenience for the people doing their best to stay entertained while they’re stuck at home during a public health crisis.

[via Variety]

Taylor Swift has been having a great year, even during the disruption of a pandemic and quarantine restrictions, she took the extra time at home and created one of her best albums to date with Folklore. We recently cited it as the best album of 2020, in fact, but turns out Taylor has another totally different high-profile fan she just found out about.

The legendary Dionne Warwick has been getting into Twitter recently, and her shout out to Taylor Swift makes it clear she’s a fan: “Hi
@taylorswift13,” she wrote last week. “I hope you’re in good spirits and having a wonderful day. Keep your head high!” Now, Taylor has been busy with the Long Pond film about the making of Folklore, and of course the gargantuan task of re-recording her masters, so apparently she didn’t see the note until today.

But once she did, the outpouring was swift: “I just saw that you tweeted me!! I’m a huge fan and I respect you so much, thank you for wishing me well,” Taylor wrote. “I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, thank you for spreading joy,” she finished with a string of emojis. Collab in the future? Check out the sweet exchange below.

Morgan Wallen was set to make his debut on Saturday Night Live back in October, but a careless decision from the country singer caused him to lose that slot because he violated NBC’s coronavirus protocols. A news report from Tuscaloosa, AL showed Wallen at a maskless party in Alabama and videos on Instagram and TikTok found the singer drinking and making out with maskless partygoers after a Crimson Tide football game at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

It resulted in him getting dropped and replaced by Jack White for the October 10 episode. Less than two months later, Wallen made his return to the SNL stage, but not without addressing the party in a skit.

Joined by Jason Bateman and Bowen Yang, Morgan Wallen takes viewers back to the October “party.” The singer is first met by Bateman, who arrived via time machine and plays Wallen from one month in the future. A few minutes later, Yang steps out of the time machine and announces that he is also Wallen, but from two months in the future. Both of the future Wallens warn the country singer of the repercussions he should expect as a result of his attendance at the party, but Bateman and Yang end up ignoring their own warnings and quickly seek out some drinks to enjoy the rest of the night. Luckily, present-day Wallen sees the wrong in his actions and opts to turn the situation into a song of reconciliation.

“It’s hard to focus on the future/When the present’s full of girls/But if all you do is kiss all day, you’ll miss out on the world,” he sings. “So let’s all raise a glass up/And I thank you in advance/For giving this poor Southern boy a second yankee chance.”

In addition to the skit, Wallen also performed “7 Summers” and “Still Goin Down,” which will both appear on his upcoming 2021 album, Dangerous: The Double Album.

You can watch the skit and his performances in the videos above.

Dangerous: The Double Album is out 1/8. Pre-order it here.

While there are multiple ways for fans to listen to music these days, streaming has definitely become the most popular way to do so. And despite the popularity of Apple Music and Tidal, Spotify has become a major player in the game as well. What the most-streamed artists of 2020 data from Spotify revealed is that men do way better on the platform than women do, but when it comes to who is winning there among female musician, Ariana Grande is on top.

According to Chart Data, she just became the first female artist to every surpass 70 million followers on the app, a statistic that fans can easily access from every artist’s Spotify page. Just for context, Taylor Swift has around 39 monthly listeners at the moment, and another pop star having a huge year, like Dua Lipa, has 60 million. But in Ariana’s case, there hasn’t been a woman who has hit the 70 million mark before for the streaming app, so it’s a milestone for Grande’s career.

Guess Positions has the kind of playability that makes it ripe for repeat listens. At the time of writing this, Ari has 71, 592, 320 monthly listeners in the app. Kudos to her on the big win, and who else is daydreaming about what it will be like to finally hear those new songs live on tour?

Athletes care about the weather, too, which is probably why Jarome Iginla got interviewed about a nor’easter by a Boston TV station on Saturday. Amazingly, though, the station didn’t seem to know who the NHL legend was until hockey fans started sharing the story on Twitter.

New England got its first true blast of winter weather on Saturday, and if you’re in local news you know that means a story about the weather that must include interviewing some commuters. Improbably, Iginla was interviewed by Boston 25 News for a story datelined in Lexington, MA. You can clearly see him interviewed on camera, instantly recognizable by pretty much any hockey fan who saw him play over the last two decades.

It’s difficult to explain how funny it is to see Iginla, a wildly popular and recognizable figure in Canada and the larger hockey world, be interviewed like any old person. It was probably a welcome change not to be recognized. If you, like the interviewer, don’t know who Iginla is he played 16 seasons for the Calgary Flames, leading them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2004. This is a guy who scored 52 goals in 2002 and helped Canada win gold twice at the Olympics just randomly chatting about a snowstorm and handing out winter driving tips.

“I like the snow, I like the winter, but not necessarily this,” said Jarome Iginla. “May be a little too much.”

Visibility was poor on the highways as heavy snow came down for a few hours. Getting around was a challenge, even for those who are used to this.

“Pretty tough, we’re from Canada, so it’s not too crazy,” Iginla said. “I mean we got some winter tires. Used to this growing up so, it’s not great, I’ll tell you, you get some tough stretches, but if you don’t go too fast it’s doable.”

What’s particularly funny about all this is that Iginla actually played for the Boston Bruins during the 2013-14 season, so it’s not like he’s an unknown stateside.

It’s just one of those things about humanity: not everyone knows everything, and even famous people can go unnoticed by the right typically dogged reporter. What’s even odder about this is that it’s not the first time a hockey player has gone unnoticed in a story about the weather. Here’s former all-world goaltender Roberto Luongo talking about how nice a day it is a few years ago.

It all made for a very fun Sunday for hockey fans, who are still very uncertain about whether there will be another NHL season amid a pandemic. At least we know Iginla is still out there, navigating a fairly mild New England winter storm safely.