Category: Viral

The Big Ten made waves earlier this summer when the conference announced its decision to postpone all fall sports in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant that college football would not occur in the rust belt — and Maryland/New Jersey — this fall, which led to a major backlash that included everyone from coaches, to players, to families, to people in politics calling on the conference to reverse course.

For days, it seemed like the conference was on the verge of opting to play football, and on Wednesday afternoon, those rumblings became reality. The Big Ten announced that, following a vote by its Council of Presidents and Chancellors, an 8-game season will occur this fall, starting on Oct. 23-24 and culminating with a championship weekend on Dec. 19 in which each team will play the squad that sits in the same spot in the standings in the opposite division — 1 v. 1, 2 v. 2, etc.

The Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COP/C) adopted significant medical protocols including daily antigen testing, enhanced cardiac screening and an enhanced data-driven approach when making decisions about practice/competition. The COP/C voted unanimously to resume the football season starting the weekend of October 23-24, 2020. The decision was based on information presented by the Big Ten Return to Competition Task Force, a working group that was established by the COP/C and Commissioner Kevin Warren to ensure a collaborative and transparent process.

The Big Ten will require student-athletes, coaches, trainers and other individuals that are on the field for all practices and games to undergo daily antigen testing. Test results must be completed and recorded prior to each practice or game. Student-athletes who test positive for the coronavirus through point of contact (POC) daily testing would require a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to confirm the result of the POC test.

As the conference explained, daily testing will begin on Sept. 30, and if a player tests positive, they will be sidelined for a minimum 21 days. The conference also announced that players who test positive will “undergo comprehensive cardiac testing to include labs and biomarkers, ECG, Echocardiogram and a Cardiac MRI,” with a cardiac registry getting set up — a major reason the conference cited to postpone the season back in August was information on a condition called myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle.

The Big Ten additionally set up benchmarks that the programs and the universities will need to reach in order to play football safely, going on a green, yellow, red system.

While the remainder of the sports that are normally played in the fall and all winter sports are still up in the air, the conference announced that news regarding those will come soon.

Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead want you to see their new movie starring Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie, but not in a theater.

While other filmmakers pushed to get movie theaters to re-open while the United States creeped towards and recently crossed 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, the Spring duo released a statement warning potential viewers to avoid Synchronic in indoor spaces. “At the time of writing this, we personally wouldn’t go to an indoor theater, so we can’t encourage you to,” Moorhead wrote on Instagram. “To us, this isn’t only about feeling safe in a theater, this is also about the scientific community indicating that enclosed spaces like movie theaters are still a hazard for spreading COVID-19 to others.” Luckily, there are other ways to see the science-fiction horror film: Synchronic will play in select drive-in theaters, followed by a video-on-demand release “in a few months.”

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

When New Orleans paramedics and longtime best friends Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) are called to a series of bizarre, gruesome accidents, they chalk it up to the mysterious new party drug found at the scene. But after Dennis’s oldest daughter suddenly disappears, Steve stumbles upon a terrifying truth about the supposed psychedelic that will challenge everything he knows about reality — and the flow of time itself.

Synchronic comes to drive-ins on October 23.

Fajitas rule. They’re devilishly simple — it’s just bell peppers, onions, and a protein or two — while still very much feeling like a luxury splurge off an otherwise standard Tex-Mex menu. Part of that comes from the fact that you can build your own taco using as much guacamole, sour cream, salsa, meat, cheese, and fried veg as you want. There’s something freeing about that approach.

Then there’s the sizzle. The famed fajita sizzle — that hiss and crackle of meat and oil on cast iron — is one of the most satisfying pieces of ASMR in existence and a surefire “get the attention of everyone in a 20-foot radius” order.

But fajitas don’t have to be relegated to the restaurant setting — they’re relatively easy to cook. So I thought I’d share a riff on Surf ‘N Turf Fajitas that I made with a nice hanger steak and some large red prawns. I didn’t go overboard with the sides. I’m just using guacamole and crema. You can add your own salsa, pico de gallo, and/or shredded cheese if you want.

Overall, the whole recipe is all pretty straightforward Tex-Mex, which is easily sourceable at any U.S. supermarket. I’ve also done this recipe with skirt steak and strip steak but I just happened to have hangers on hand. Anyway, let’s dive in because, again, fajitas rule. Just ask our own Brian Grubb, whose Twitter handle is veering dangerously close to becoming a fajita-themed account.

Surf ‘N Turf Fajitas — DIY Recipe

Ingredients:

Steak and Marinade:

• 8-oz. Hanger Steak
• 1/2 cup Fresh Cilantro
• 1/2 cup Soy Sauce
• 1/4 cup Lime Juice
• 1/4 cup Sesame Oil
• 1/4 cup Resposado Tequila
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 4 Garlic Cloves
• Large tablespoon Cumin
• Salt
• Black Pepper

Prawns and Marinade:

• 6 Red Prawns
• 1/4 cup Fresh Cilantro
• 1/2 Chili Pepper
• 1/4 cup Lime Juice
• 1/4 cup Resposado Tequila
• Salt
• Black Pepper

The Rest:

• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Green Bell Pepper
• 1 medium Yellow Onion
• 2 Avocados
• 1/2 Red Onion
• 1/2 Tomato
• Salt
• Cumin
• Limes
• Sour Cream
• Neutral Oil

Prep:

This is the most labor-intensive part of the process. The first thing you need to do is get the steak marinating. Now, do you need to really marinate your steak? Yes. Yes, you absolutely do. To get that real Tex-Mex restaurant vibe to the fajita steak, you need to get some marinade in there.

This marinade is easy. Combine 1/2-cup soy sauce with 1/4 cup of each lime juice, sesame oil, tequila, and sugar. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Then add in the garlic, cilantro, cumin, and a generous pinch of salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

Stir to combine. Done.

I pour that over the steaks in a fridge safe dish and cover tightly with plastic wrap. I let my steaks marinate for four hours. You can let these rest overnight but I didn’t think ahead enough for that.

In the meantime, I get my prawns shelled and deveined. This process is a lot easier than it sounds.

• Step one, twist the head off.
• Step two, gently pull the shell from the meat starting from the top, where the head was. It should slide right off.
• Step three, devein the prawns by running a sharp pairing knife down the back of the prawn, about 1/8-inch deep, revealing the intestine. Remove and discard.

That’s it. It may take a little practice, but it’s easy to master cleaning raw shrimp like this. Also, save the heads and shells to make shrimp stock later. It’s the only way to make grits for shrimp and grits but that’s a story for another day.

I then add the lime juice, tequila, chilis, cilantro, and prawns to another bowl to get them marinating. I hit that with a very big pinch of salt and a few cracks of pepper. I cover and let refrigerate until we’re ready to cook (about an hour).

Next, I make some really fast guacamole. Into a bowl goes: two avocadoes, half a red onion finely diced, a handful of chopped cilantro, the juice of two limes, the other half of that chili pepper used with the prawns, a large pinch of salt, and a heaping teaspoon of cumin. I mash that together until it’s semi-smooth. I then stir in half a tomato that’s roughly chopped. I cover that with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge. I then make a quick crema with about half a cup of sour cream and the juice of half a lime. Stir. Done.

Lastly, I cut up my bell peppers and yellow onion. As you can see in the photo up top, you don’t have to go too crazy here. A pole-to-pole chop does the trick.

Cook:

The first thing I do is get my serving skillet in the oven on high. This has to get super hot to get that iconic sizzle when you serve your fajitas.

I fetch my hanger steaks from the fridge and remove them from their marinade. That’s when I realize that I forgot to trim the exess fat and sinew off. So I trim a bit off while I heat a cast iron skillet on high with a thin layer of canola oil.

Once the skillet is ripping hot, I lay in the steak. I want to get a deep sear on the thing. It’s about one-inch thick, so I leave it on one side for about 3 minutes before I flip it. I let it sear for another minute and then I turn the heat down to a medium flame. I let the steak sit for another two minutes before I flip it one last time to cook for another two minutes on the first side that touched the skillet.

I place the steak on a wooden board and let to rest for ten solid minutes.

In the meantime, I add the peppers and onion to the skillet, hit them with a pinch of salt, and toss them around with a wooden spoon, bringing up all that steaky fond from the bottom of the skillet.

You don’t want to overcook the veg here. The onion should be going just translucent and the peppers should be brighter and softening with a crunch still in them. Once I hit that mark, I set the peppers and onions aside.

Lastly, I add the prawns to the skillet for about 30 seconds on each side. I just want to give them some color and heat — they’re already cooked from the lime juice.

I grab my pipping hot skillet from the oven and I’m ready to serve. I quickly slice into my steak, making about half-inch thick slices across the grain of the steak.

Serve:

I hit the peppers and onion with a little Canola oil and drop them into the skillet first and they smoke and sizzle brilliantly. I place the steak on top and arrange the six prawns around.

And … I wish you could smell and hear this sizzling skillet. The smells and sounds transport you straight to your favorite Tex-Mex joint.

I serve these with some warmed flour tortillas, a little sour cream cut with lime juice, and the guacamole. These fajitas were a big hit at my dinner table and not a morsel was left. The steak was cooked just right (on the rarer side, as you can see) with a nice umami depth thanks to the marinade. The prawns popped with a hint of spice, lime, and tequila. The veg was a nice balance with just the right amount of crunch.

Seriously, take a crack at these. You’ve made more than enough sourdough.

Fox News’ Steve Doocy went rogue and pushed back this week after Trump’s 47-minute call into Fox And Friends, and the late night hosts loved it. Doocy even crushed Brian Kilmeade’s spirit by telling Trump that his claim of calling in “every week” wasn’t gonna fly: “You may want to do it every week, but Fox is not committed to that, and we’ll take it on a case-by-case basis.” Doocy added that Joe Biden was also welcome to dial in and talk for, you know, 47 minutes, and the whole thing was probably a blow to Trump’s ego, given that he admitted to watching up to eight hours of Fox News on some nights. As you can imagine, both Trevor Noah and James Corden had a field day with this.

In the above video (beginning around the 5:45 mark) Corden briefly addressed the matter on The Late Late Show while quipping, “I think Trump just got Fox and Friend-zoned.” Yup, it sure looks like Doocy, at least, is not willing to disregard the equal-time rule and realizes that Biden should receive also Fox News air time, should he desire it.

Trevor Noah chimed in on The Daily Show by describing the moment as a clear-cut example of the writing on the wall for a Fox News co-host: “Wow, Steve Doocy just told the president of the United States, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’” Noah added, “He’s the most powerful man in the world and they’re treating him like he’s a Jehovah’s Witness who’s also selling timeshares.” Time will only tell if Fox News takes the Doocy route on Trump’s desire for lengthy on-air phone calls, but below (at around 6:45), you can see Noah enjoy the fallout so far, including Kilmeade’s downcast reaction.

Kanye West is blaming “white media” for “taking down” Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, and R. Kelly in his latest Twitter rant, arguing that a “Black media company” would never do the same to a white celebrity. In the midst of his latest multi-day tirade, which included demands for apologies from Drake and J. Cole and an attempt to upload his recording contract to Twitter, Kanye parroted popular conspiracy theories about the three entertainers, all of whom have been accused of some kind of sexual misconduct.

“Michael Jackson Bill Cosby aaaaand wait for it … R Kelly had documentaries made or were taken down by white media,” he tweeted. “There has never been a Black media company that would take down a white celebrity.” As usual, Kanye’s assertions were missing a few points — namely, that Bill Cosby and R. Kelly were accused by multiple women — supported by plenty of physical evidence — of sexual abuse. Cosby was accused by multiple (Black) women of slipping them drugs and taking advantage of them and was convicted in 2018, while R. Kelly filmed himself having sex with underage (Black) girls and is currently on trial in multiple jurisdictions while threatening witnesses through proxies.

Meanwhile, Michael Jackson continued to be one of the most popular entertainers in the world a decade after his death. While the Leaving Neverland documentary painted an unflattering picture of the singer, there were many who refused to believe the subjects of the documentary, questioning their motives. Jackson’s and Kelly’s songs still get millions of streams and in fact, saw increases after both documentaries were released. It’s questionable whether any of these men were “taken down” by anyone or anything but their own behavior, and with increases in streaming for some of their music, they’re arguably more popular than ever.

Kanye’s position makes a certain kind of sense. These men were obviously heroes for him growing up and it’s hard to see your heroes for what they are. Undoubtedly, more than a few Kanye fans are going through the same thing now as he pokes holes in his self-conception as a genius by the day.

As the voice of two of the most popular animated characters on television, H. Jon Benjamin has stayed busy during the production slowdown sparked by that pandemic thing you’ve heard so much about. Bob’s Burgers has continued its production and will soon launch its new season and Archer was able to wrap up season 11, which premieres tonight on FXX.

But despite that, things haven’t exactly been normal. Benjamin has moved out to the woods of Connecticut, he’s doing his job from a studio someone sent him in the mail, and he’s refinding a love of bird watching that seems to frighten him just a little bit. We discuss all of those things and the new season of Archer ahead, but the facts of the thing don’t quite sell the experience.

Benjamin is a unique interview, happy to riff and keep it a little awkward for the sake of a laugh… or quite possibly his own amusement. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
A fun thing is that I had a bunch of thought starters and I have lost that document, so we’re just going to fly here.

I’m excited.

Me too. It’s going to get dangerous. We’re going to really break some rules here.

Oh, we’re going to… Might get into the danger zone.

[Laughs] Perfect. Well, I did not mean to set that up, but it happened organically.

Yeah, no I’m sorry I even said that.

It’s the headline now: “H. Jon Benjamin Dives Right Into The Danger Zone With Archer,” and then I’ll have to resort to day-drinking after doing that, but that’s fine.

Right. Well, I already started, so…

So how has the apocalypse/pandemic been treating you?

Well, it’s moving along swimmingly, I think. Yeah. Every day getting worse and worse by slow degradation. Obviously it’s been difficult, but regarding the shows, it’s been relatively normal in a way, so that’s a good thing. The ability to do the shows has been a positive.

Yeah. With any kind of voice work and everything like that, have things been mostly been uninterrupted as far as that goes? Are you, like everybody else, recording in your closet?

Yeah. I’ve been recording at home in a sort of makeshift studio that was sent by mail. That’s been going on pretty regularly with both shows. I actually did finish up probably in May, but they did the last two recordings at home. For Archer, it’s probably been a little bit more normal because everybody recorded independently anyway so it’s basically the same setup with Bob’s Burgers. It’s a little more complicated because we don’t get to record together anymore, which is what we did as a group.

With Archer, I know Adam Reed is still involved in the process, but not necessarily directly writing episodes as much. How has that change been?

Well, to be honest, not a great deal [has changed]. Last season was perhaps the first season where he was not writing every script. I think it was a little different. I don’t think I’d ever been a part of rewriting a scene on the fly and we did that a couple of times just based on tone. Adam had been writing a series for 10 years completely on his own, pretty remarkable. I think his voice is so strong, just the shift into getting new people to try and either reproduce that or find their own particular version of the voice of the show was a little rocky at first, but not a lot. Like I said, my example is that I’ve never been like, “Hey, I don’t think Archer would say that.” I had never done that before. And I did that maybe a couple of times. To make a long story longer… Should I keep going?

Yeah, go. Go. Run.

[Laughs] No, I just wanted to say that. I have nothing else.

[Laughs] Are you surprised that you’re back in the Archer prime story?

Not really. I think…

Oh, I might have lost you.

It’s where I was standing. In an electromagnetic booth. Wrapped in tinfoil. Sorry.

Hey listen, that’s how I get my news now too, you’ve just got to make sure the 5G doesn’t get you.

Yeah, that’s where I masturbate, and I apologize for masturbating during this interview.

It’s fine. I talk to a lot of standup comedians.

I just love your voice.

[Laughs] It’s silky.

[Laughs] So… What were you saying?

I was asking if you were surprised to be back in the Archer Prime story.

Not really. I think Adam, Matt [Thompson], and Casey [Willis] probably had discussions back and forth about ending the show after the last coma/dream season, which would have been Space 1999. And then they probably just shifted because, in good part, I think there was probably a lot of discussions (and I’m just guessing this) from the world of Archer, including the fans of bringing the show back to where it was. I think they were probably just working to find a way to do that, so it was probably two things at once and they went with continuing the show, which was… That’s a good thing. I know that Adam in particular had a notion to end the show as a creative choice for him, but I think he shifted as well once they started talking about bringing it back to the world of the original Archer.

The amount of time that’s passed is obviously a significant aspect of this season and how Archer is dealing with the world now and how the world is dealing with Archer. Is that re-energizing for you to voice the character when he’s maybe not at his best and he’s having to be back on his heels a little bit?

From an acting perspective, not at all. I don’t do a deep dive into figuring that stuff out, it’s pretty much on the page. In certain cases, Archer has been faced with some amount of introspection or tragedies that he has to overcome. In other seasons there was the cancer thing and obviously having the child with Lana, so there’s a little bit more going on here than probably the coma seasons, which were just sort of flights of fancy, I guess, for Archer. But on the whole, yeah, I can’t cop to being a good actor.

Well, as a fan of the show, were you excited to see the development of this season? Assuming you’re a fan of the show. If you want to admit to not being a fan of the show, that’s totally fine, I’ll run with it.

[Laughs] Not really a fan, yeah. I’m not loving it, guys. Not loving it. Yeah, it’s hard. I would say you’d have to go back to a lead actor hating his show as much… the only example I could think of is According To Jim, Jim Belushi. I think I hate Archer as much as he hated According To Jim.

Did you see that he’s a professional weed farmer?

A wheat farmer?

He’s a weed farmer out in, it might be Oregon. There are some amazing pictures of him in the fields.

Good for him.

He’s becoming a titan of the legal weed industry.

Oh, you mean weed farmer. I thought you said wheat.

No, weed. Much more interesting.

Oh, that’s way less interesting. Wheat farmer is very interesting, weed farmer is not so much… Honestly, good for him, I guess, if he’s an independent farmer and harvesting weed. The only thing I’ve seen of his recently was the clip of him mowing his lawn, but maybe he was mowing weed.

Maybe. That seems like a waste.

I don’t think that’s how you harvest it.

Maybe he’s just bad at it.

There was something on like Tik Tok or Instagram of him on one of those zero-turn mowers. [Laughs] Which is like a piece of art. I would loop that and put it on my wall, a video of Belushi turning on a mower and it keeps looping.

Speaking of social media, The Bird Report…

Oh my god.

Is it a natural love of ornithology that sparked that?

In the beginning of quarantine, I left New York City, not that there aren’t birds there, but we rented this small house in Connecticut in the country and I started… There were a ton of birds in the backyard. For some reason, I had a weird sense memory of studying birds when I was really young and I think I memorized all the birds when I was a kid from the Audubon book and I hadn’t thought about that for years. I saw a mockingbird, I think it was a northern mockingbird, in the backyard and for some reason, I knew that it was a northern mockingbird, which is at the moment very crazy, as in I can’t believe I know the name of that bird. [Laughs] So I assumed the massive anxiety of feeling a deep, existential panic from the initial response to the quarantine inspired a memory from childhood that I knew somewhat about birds. Yeah, that was a good thing, but that was my repressed memory, just knowing about birds.

Were there more frightening choices that you could have dipped into?

No, I’m just glad that was the thing that I was shocked to remember, as opposed to some horrible incident. I also probably had a lot of bourbon and ecstasy and LSD, so it might have been that.

And this is all while recording The Bird Report or you’re saying that you had repressed memories of drinking bourbon and taking LSD as a child?

No, I have absolutely no repressed memories of that, I remember all of it.

‘Archer’ returns Wednesday, September 16 at 10PM on FXX

Damon Albarn is neck-deep in his work with Gorillaz lately, as the group’s Song Machine project is going strong. That’s not his only mega-successful band, though, as he has plenty of fans who are most interested in his Blur-related endeavors. The group has been mostly quiet since releasing its 2015 album The Magic Whip (which was their first record since 2003), but Albarn says he would be happy to perform more concerts with Blur.

Albarn was asked in a recent interview, “have we heard the last of” Blur, and he responded, “I really hope not. I love doing those gigs, they’re great, but it’s not something I need to do. I only do it because there’s a joy in doing it. It’s an absolute treat. I can’t wait to sing Parklife again.”

This echoes what Albarn said in a 2018 interview: “A reunion is never not a possibility. I think most definitely at some point we’ll play those songs again. I’d hate to think I’d never play with those musicians again. […] You want to feel that people really, really, really want you to do it, otherwise you’re kind of becoming a tribute act to yourself. You destroy everything that you’ve created if you do. Some days I really fancy doing a Blur song in the middle of a Gorillaz set. I’ve never tried it, but I probably shouldn’t.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Before the Toronto Film Festival starts, any attendee will read through the descriptions of the movies to get a sense of what’s playing. Because these are all just a bunch of new titles thrown at us that mean almost nothing. When reading about I Care A Lot, I got the sense it would be about how the elderly in the United States can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous predators. I thought this would be a sad movie about the plight of older Americans who can’t take care of themselves. Rosamund Pike plays that unscrupulous lawyer who preys on Dianne Wiest’s character, becoming her legal guardian through dubious means then using that power to steal her assets. What I didn’t know about the movie is Peter Dinklage plays Wiest’s son, a Russian mob boss, and the movie descends into a bloody, violent ever escalating face off between two sociopaths: Pike’s Marla Grayson and Dinklage’s Roman Lunyov.

Ahead, we spoke with both Pike and director J Blakeson about this surprising bloodbath of a movie. Of course, none of us are actually in Toronto (we all wish we were), but we made the best of it over Zoom as Pike and Blakeson talk about this crazy movie that is not what anyone would possibly expect. Oh, and also Chris Messina, who plays Roman Lunyov’s attorney, who wears some pretty crazy suits. (Also, on the day of this interview I was uncharacteristically late. The publicists handling this movie were also handling a movie called Monday, so of course I wrote down the wrong day. Which led to me waking up to a lot of emails asking where I was, then rushing to my computer and spared everyone my “just got out of bed” look by keeping my video off.)

Sorry, my video isn’t on. I had a mixup and came straight from bed. Anyway … this movie was not what I was expecting at all.

J Blakeson: Yeah, I mean, it’s going to go down in some certain places I don’t think people were expecting it to go. Especially with seeing the cast, that they’re all pretty surprising in this, I think. So, yeah. I think people are surprised, but that’s not always a good thing. I think it’s better than doing what they’re expecting.

I read the description and I really thought this was going to be about the sad plight of how we treat our senior citizens and how they’re taken advantage of. At one point I had to check if it was based on a true story. And then the mobsters show up.

Blakeson: [Laughs] Well, they do have mobsters in the world, but this isn’t based on a true story.

Rosamund Pike: Even mobsters get old. That’s what Marla says, even sadistic and moral assholes get old.

It’s funny, the last time I interviewed you was for Barney’s Version, ten years ago. I re-read that interview and a good portion of it is you being disappointed because you thought they said Meg Ryan was coming in to interview you.

Pike: [Laughs] Oh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Mike. That’s why you didn’t want to get out of bed today.

Ha, right. Well, I too would be disappointed if I walked in instead of Meg Ryan. Oh, do you know what movie that I kept thinking of when I was watching this? It had a War of the Roses vibe to it.

Blakeson: Yeah, because that’s a story about two people, neither of which are willing to back down and they’re willing to destroy everything to win. And they’re pretty terrible people, but you’re really enjoying the movie. And they got sort of delicious relationship between the two leads. And I think, for that, I think it’s kind of a similar thing. There’s something very fun about having two exceptionally good actors go head to head in a duel to the death across a movie. That’s always sort of a delicious thing for me. And I haven’t seen War of the Roses for many, many years, but I remember enjoying it when I was younger. And I think, yeah, that sort of spirit of enjoyable, terrible people is in this one as well.

Did either of you have to Google interesting ways to almost kill people?

Blakeson: No, that’s just imagination. If I Google that, then I’ll get on some list somewhere, I think.

So how is this working this year with film festivals and a lot of it being at home? I kept imagining the reaction at a packed Toronto screening.

Blakeson: I mean, it’s bittersweet. It’s really great that everybody at TIFF has managed to get this happening in the way they got it happening. And the fact that we do have physical screenings, drive-in screening, that I’m upset I can’t be there, because there’s nothing like watching a film with an audience for the first time. My first film played at TIFF some years ago and that was a great experience for me. So, I’m missing out on that experience, but at the same time, we’ve been working hard on the film for a long time and we’re very proud of it. And I won’t be able to see it. It doesn’t really start to live it’s life until it’s out in front of people and you start hearing what they think of it.

But, of course, it’s I’d much rather be doing this interview at Toronto somewhere, and having a great festival experience, when you meet all the filmmakers and see other films. And you just have those happy accidents of bumping into people who you would never meet anywhere else. And there’s only one director on a movie most of the time, so I never meet other directors. It’s not like I’m an actor in a cast of other actors. I never meet other directors apart from a place like festivals or events. So, the last time I was at TIFF, I met some great filmmakers and it was really exciting. So, it’s a shame I can’t be there. But at the same time, it’s exciting. So, as I said, it’s bittersweet.

And Rosamund, I always hear actors say, “Oh, I just love watching movies.” And I don’t always know if I believe that. But I’ve actually seen you at Toronto just show up for movies you’re not in. I’ve seen you just kind of cruise in and watch movies.

Pike: I’m really sad not to be at Toronto this year. I love doing that because, for a start, when you’re there talking about your own film all the time, it’s such a relief to go. And I mean, it’s the first thing I ask when I arrive in Toronto, “When am I free? Let’s see the schedule. Can you get me tickets for this and this and this?” And I sometimes try and go two extra days either side. So, I see other people’s films. And it’s some of the best experiences I’ve had, seeing films that have been in Toronto. Because I love seeing things at nine o’clock in the morning, when you’ve got that sort of shock. It’s a different experience seeing a film at the beginning of the day. Oh, I do miss it.

Yeah, I can confirm.

Pike: I do love doing that. It puts a level of normalcy on to it. It’s like you know that your film exists in context with all these other films that are part of that year. And you get a sense of what is being talked about and, oh, it’s so… I miss it so much. Yeah.

I know a lot of people just get in and get out. But it’s always nice when you see people stay. I remember Jon Stewart was there for Rosewater, but he was there the whole week just seeing as much as he could. I thought that was neat.

Pike: It might just mean that I’m not busy.

I doubt that’s true. You seem like a very busy person.

Pike: A lot of time on my hands, maybe? Yeah, I mean, actors are always saying that, aren’t they? “I can only be there for six hours. I have to fly in and I’m flying out. I’m going to walk the red carpet and then I’m going to fly out.” I mean, it sounds very glamorous, but also not nearly as fun.

Blakeson: No.

Do you get to see anything this year or no? Do they send you links for other movies?

Pike: We’re not allowed to, because everything is geocoded. I’ve tried, but no one can join the live screenings unless you actually have an IP address in Canada.

And it’s just a weird watching these movies on my couch. Being in New York, I’ve been on my couch a lot in the last six months.

Pike: Well, that can be our other quote. We had one interview where he said it played great on a laptop, you can put that on the poster. And you can also say, “great from your couch.”

Blakeson: I haven’t been to the cinema, like everybody, going six months. And then I had to watch this in the cinema, just to check the DTP. And it was the first time I’d been in a cinema for six months and you sit there, and the lights go down, and the film comes up. Even though I’d seen it 2,000 times before, it’s still really exciting to be in a cinema again. I just wished it’d been an entirely different movie.

Pike: Were you on your own?

Blakeson: I was there with some of the post team, just checking it through. So, I had a few people walking around, so it felt like a daytime screening at Noting Hill Gate or something. It’s nice.

Yeah, it’s a strange experience from the press side of it. My Toronto from my couch yesterday was this movie, Nomadland, and then Con Air for some reason.

Blakeson: [Laughs] Just a good simple film, if you do an all-nighter.

Can we talk about Chris Messina’s suit?

Blakeson: Yeah, you can. Which one? He’s got two different suits. The white one?

I think my favorite was the one in court.

Blakeson: The shoes, his shoes were fantastic as well in that scene.

I just like to think he showed up like that and that wasn’t a costume.

Blakeson: Well, you say that, but Chris came along with a lot of ideas on the character. And we had a lot of conversations with him – me and Deb, who did the costumes. And so a lot of that comes from Chris’s take on the character. That sort of flamboyant, sort of slimy lawyer look. I mean, I really enjoy Chris in the movie. I think he’s great and he looks fantastic, what can I say.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Los Angeles Clippers entered this year with sky-high expectations. Instead, the team suffered an all-time postseason collapse, going from 3-1 up on the Denver Nuggets and leading by double-digits in each elimination game to blowing those leads in every game en route to a Game 7 loss in which they went out with a whimper.

Considering everything that went into building this particular team, not even making the conference finals is an abject disaster. One can argue that this team needed to win a championship to justify the investment they made into this squad, both financially and in terms of what they gave up to put this team together over the years, but according to one member of the franchise, no one in their locker room believed the bar was that high during the 2019-20 campaign.

Paul George spoke to the media after the game and said that, while the expectations to win a ring existed, they never had the sort of title-or-bust mentality among themselves.

“It’s obvious pressure to live up to title expectations,” George said. “But as a player, I mean, you want that. You want that. Again, it’s the first time I’ve been in that situation where we’re expected to win. But it is what it is, it’s no cop out. Fact of the matter is, we didn’t live up to that expectation, but I think internally, we’ve always felt this is not a championship or bust year for us. We can only get better the longer we stay together and the more we’re around each other. The more chemistry for this group, the better, I think that’s really the tale of the tape of this season, we just didn’t have enough time together.”

George does make a point about the external expectations the team faced and that the team didn’t play enough together this season due to injuries, load management, and a handful of other factors. Still, it’s interesting that George discussed the team’s internal expectations, if only because back in June he appeared on Kevin Hart’s “Cold As Balls” and said otherwise.

“I think immediately, we expected to come in and win it all,” George said. “We didn’t have no other, like, hey, this was gonna take a year to get used to one another.”

Brooklyn Nine-Nine will address the nationwide protests against police brutality in season eight rather than stick to the Copaganda “fantasy” that has previously guided the comedy. Scripts were re-written, the goofball tone has shifted, and while star Andre Braugher admits that B99 could “fall flat on [its] face” in going from Halloween pranks to tackling systemic racism and police misconduct, he’s optimistic about the new season.

“Can a comedy sustain the things that we’re trying to talk about? I don’t know. It could be a really groundbreaking season that we’re all going to be very, very proud of, or we’re going to fall flat on our face,” the two-time Emmy winner, who plays Raymond “Hot Damn” Holt, told Variety. “But I think this is a staff, a cast, and a crew that’s willing to take it on and give it our best. I think we have a damn good chance to tell the kinds of stories that heretofore have only been seen on grittier shows.”

Braugher isn’t sure how season eight will depict Holt, who could be “a staunch defender of the NYPD, or he [might try] to burn the whole thing down.” But the actor assures that he’s still a “loving, robotic person. I’m anxious to see what that’s all about, and I have no idea what season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine is going to be, because everything’s changed.”

We’ll find out when Brooklyn Nine-Nine returns in 2021.