How do you improve upon perfection? You don’t, which is why all attempts to recapture the glory of 1987’s futuristic thriller RoboCop have ranged from so-so (its 1990 sequel) to inexplicably uninspired (the 2014 reboot that wasn’t even rated R). But maybe the 10th or so time is the charm: According to /Film, MGM is working on a prequel series — and since RoboCop was an origin story, that means it’ll be the first RoboCop content sans RoboCop himself.
The news came from Ed Neumeier, who wrote the original as well as Starship Troopers, another proudly satirical blockbuster from RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven. Neumeier’s been teasing a new sequel, RoboCop Returns — which would do the fashionable thing and be a direct sequel to the first one, ignoring all others — for a couple years now, but he said a prequel show is also in the works. Mind you, it won’t focus on Peter Wellers’ Alex Murphy, the everyday Detroit cop killed by a gang with corporate ties. Instead it will zero in on Dick Jones, the crooked big wig played by Ronny Cox who funded said gang, and effectively became our android hero’s final boss.
Is it weird to have a RoboCop without RoboCop? Sure. But the RoboCop world is a rich one, with its thinly veiled attacks on late capitalism run amok via a giant corporation, OCP, that steps into “save” an ailing city (by building luxury apartments and kicking out the poor with ramped-up local police, which they also own). And Neumeier — who’s also overseen numerous Starship Troopers sequels, which took that franchise in fresh directions — thinks it’s a sharp idea.
“It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop,” Neumeier said. “I’m working with these two writers, Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs, who bought this idea to a TV producer friend of mine, who then brought it to me. The first time I heard it I knew it was a cool idea because I could see a lot of things you could do with it. It’s such an interesting character.”
Neumeier adds that “nobody necessarily starts out being the bad guy,” implying that Dick Jones will be an antihero along the lines of a Walter White or even a Michael Corleone, eroding over the long haul. Indeed, he says it will “be about the evolution of Richard Jones to Dick Jones, the story of OCP and how the world moves into the future, how the corporate world behaves.”
Actually, losing RoboCop but gaining a no doubt savage look at corporate culture at this time in history doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world.
Legendary ESPN analyst Doris Burke will serve as will serve as a game analyst during this year’s NBA Conference Finals and Finals on ESPN Radio, becoming the first woman to serve as a game analyst for the NBA Finals on any platform, ESPN PR announced Wednesday. Burke will provide radio commentary alongside play-by-play voice Marc Kestecher and analyst Jon Barry for the NBA Finals and both Conference Finals series on site in the NBA Bubble.
This season, @ESPNNBA‘s @heydb to serve as game analyst for @ESPNRadio‘s national #NBA Finals & Conference Finals coverage@Hoophall broadcaster becomes the first woman to serve as NBA Finals game analyst on any platform
The Hall of Fame broadcaster is one of the most knowledgeable voices in the sport, having spent nearly three decades covering the NBA, the WNBA, and women’s and men’s college basketball for ESPN. Burke has broken barriers in the sports broadcasting world many times in her illustrious career, becoming the first woman to serve as a full-time NBA television game analyst on ESPN and ABC in 2017 – a role she continues to hold. She typically shifts her role to sideline reporter during the conference finals and NBA Finals broadcasts, but this year will join the radio crew to bring her expert analysis to the radio booth.
In her place, Rachel Nichols will take over sideline reporting duty for the Finals and Eastern Conference Finals, as she returns to the Bubble after some time back in Los Angeles. Nichols noted on Wednesday that getting to be there to help hand out the Larry O’Brien trophy will be a “dream come true.”
HUGE congrats to @HeyDB, who is gonna kill it as usual. I’m gonna be an an incredibly poor substitute stepping into her shoes on the ABC broadcast, but getting to hand out the championship trophy at the end of the Finals will be an absolute dream come true. https://t.co/jTgNlRG6qi
Nichols will continue to host The Jump from Orlando throughout the playoffs as well, while NBA Countdown will serve as the pregame and halftime show on ABC for the NBA Finals, including new addition Stephen A. Smith alongside Maria Taylor, Jay Williams, Jalen Rose, Paul Pierce, and Adrian Wojnarowski.
Until today. Coolhaus, the hipster-beloved ice cream brand, has collaborated with LA’s Common Space Brewery to make something they dub “dessert beer.” The official name is the overly wordy “Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich Dessert Beer” but the image on the can is enough to give you an idea of what we’re talking about. This is a 7% ABV flavor bomb — un-session-able both because of the alcohol content and the sweet notes.
But does that mean it’s bad? Absolutely not. In fact, I liked it a lot.
TASTING NOTES:
I drank my first one of these nice and frosty. I’m drinking one right now as a refresher course and it’s room temp. In both cases, you get a lot of malts on the nose. Remember “malts” the milkshake term? You’ll hear it a lot in old-timey movies. In ice cream parlors of the ’50s, a “chocolate malted” was far more common than a “chocolate shake.” That meant the addition of malted milk powder, a substance which I buy in bulk for my own milkshakes. That malt flavor is exactly how this beer hits on the nose.
The palate is rich vanilla. It’s beer and you get a little more hops and malt than you did on the sniff, but the ice cream and vanilla notes are strong with this one. It’s like that creamy root beer left in the root beer float after you eat the ice cream (without the sarsparilla flavors). The nice perk here is that whatever hops snuck past all the vanilla do it at the middle palate, right when the whole beer could veer off the rails into being too sweet. It’s a good catch and the only time I’ve ever really thought, “Thank god for that note of hops!”
The finish is sweet with a little fizz. The beer itself is pretty low on bubbles, but that last little kick is a nice touch. Fizz, malt, a teensy bit of hops, and vanilla sweetness — that’s what you’re left with. If you like those things and like it when they err on the sweeter side of the spectrum (as I do), this beer is for you.
BOTTOM LINE:
Get one if you like milkshakes more than you like beer (and you live in California). If you want to call it a stunt beer, fine — but it’s a prtty delectable stunt.
WHY SHOULD ANYONE CARE?
Consumer product goods — foods, beers, etc. — are all becoming calibrated to the “style drop” and “brand collab” cycles. Some work. Some fail. Some are clout chasing. All in all, for a beer newbie who likes sweetness, this one is pretty fun.
Thanks to good timing, the second season of The Mandalorian — so far still the crown jewel among Disney+’s original content, and ditto Star Wars content made in the last two-plus years — won’t be delayed due to the coronavirus. And when it does return, on October 30, it appears that we’ll be returning to the planet that started it all: Tatooine, home to Luke Skywalker when he gets caught up in the fine mess from the very first Star Wars.
Entertainment Weekly dropped a first look at Season 2, and along with news of new characters — among the new actors will be Rosario Dawson, Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff, and Timothy Olyphant — there were new pictures. And one of them, of a Tusken Raider astride a Banthas, implies we’ll be back on the desert planet. Unless Banthas can be found elsewhere in that neck of the universe.
Mind you, there’s no confirmation from Disney that this so. Besides, this wouldn’t be the first time The Mandalorian has ventured to Tatooine. One episode from last season saw Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin swinging by the iconic Mos Eisley cantina. If it turns out Tatooine is definitely one of Season 2’s destinations, it may confirm a fan theory that the show will bring back beloved bounty hunter Boba Fett, who may be played by no less than Timothy Olyphant. Of course, surely not even the return of Boba Fett could upstage Baby Yoda. Or Werner Herzog.
There’s nothing better than bingeing some good scary movies on Netflix on a dark, stormy night. From ghosts to vampires and zombies just about every morbid fantasy that your demented mind can conjure has representation. We’ve watched the best horror movies on Netflix streaming right now, and here they are, in their beastly, blood-curdling glory. It’s perfect for that late night movie binge to keep you wide awake all the way through 2020.
Writer/director Trey Edward Shults followed up his unnerving family portrait in 2015’s Krisha with a look at another family under the most desperate of circumstances. After an unknown illness has wiped out most of civilization, a number of threats — both seen and unseen — come for a family held up in their home out in the wilderness. It’s a subtle, dream-like tale that stars Joel Edgerton and Christopher Abbot as two patriarchs intent on keeping their families safe, no matter the cost.
Hannibal Lecter is one of horror’s most iconic characters, but it’s a testament to the creepiness of Anthony Hopkins in a leather muzzle that, no matter how many times the film gets quoted, hearing him tell Clarice Starling he’s having an old friend for dinner still sends chills up our spines. Jodie Foster plays the FBI agent tasked with catching another serial killer with Lecter’s same M.O. and she does it by striking up unnerving conversations with the guy, but Hopkins is the real star here, playing Lecter with a restrained insanity that makes his small talk of enjoying human liver with fava beans so much more nightmarish.
Before Ben Feldman played a lovable know-it-all on Superstore, the guy was surviving a terror-filled jaunt through the catacombs of Paris in this horror movie. Feldman plays George, a reluctant sidekick to Scarlett (Perdita Weeks), a young alchemy scholar and his former girlfriend. Scarlett convinces George a few others to venture into the famous Paris underground in order to find the fabled philosopher’s stone (Harry Potter kids should know all about this thing, we’re not explaining it here). What they find instead is basically Dante’s Inferno come to life as they face down cults, demons, ghosts, and all manner of horrific beings. Let this be a warning, children: Nothing good happens this far below street level. Nothing.
Allison Williams, who’s become something of a scream queen after her work in Get Out, continues her horror track record with this thriller about a gifted musician who befriends the talented student who replaced her. Strange happenings begin to occur, events that sabotage the young girl, but as terrifying as this story is, there’s absolutely no way you’ll be able to predict its ending.
Al Pacino playing the demonic head of a New York City law firm with Keanu Reeves serving as his greedy, equally-evil protégé? Yes, please. Look, this horror flick doesn’t have as many frights as some on this list, but it’s filled with tense moments, strange happenings, and a twist you don’t see coming. Reeves plays Kevin, a talented attorney from the South, who makes his way to the Big Apple after winning some high-profile cases. His clients were guilty, but what does that matter, right? Charlize Theron plays his barren wife, Mary Ann, a woman who at one point encounters visions of a baby eating her ovaries, and Pacino plays Milton, Kevin’s boss and Satan himself, literally. It’s a whacky ride into the occult, but the performances are worth it.
This 2002 prequel to Silence of the Lambs features everyone’s favorite cannibal – Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) – and a copy cat serial killer played by Ralph Fiennes. The film follows a detective named Will Graham (Edward Norton) who gets roped into solving a string of homicides that are committed by a killer known as The Tooth Fairy, a guy who eats his victims in the hopes of transforming himself. Fiennes is chilling in his portrayal of a psychopath whose childhood trauma causes him to target the innocent and Norton is the kind of hero you root for in weird, terrifying stories like these.
This Netflix nightmare follows a group of friends who venture into the Scandinavian wilderness in order to honor their recently-murdered brother. The guys, Luke (Rafe Spall), Phil (Arsher Ali), Hutch (Robert James-Collier), and Dom (Sam Troughton) are forced to take a different path from the one planned, a mistake that leads them to cults and sacrificial offerings and an ancient being who prefers to stake its prey. The scenery is gorgeous, the chemistry of the cast is spot on, and the premise — how these men confront their fears and failures thanks to a supernatural being — starts out promising, though it could’ve delivered a better ending.
Ethan Hawkes plays a washed-up true-crime writer in this grisly flick filled with occult deities and possessed children. Hawke’s Ellison Oswalt moves his family to a home whose last residents all hanged themselves in order to uncover the reason for the killings and who was behind them. Unfortunately for Ellison, supernatural forces seem to be at play and he finds a box of snuff films, all depicting gruesome murders across decades, all featuring families who moved into the house. The movie combines the best of the horror genre — creepy kids, weird home videos, demons, etc — and Hawke does a good job of playing a father desperate to save his family from the mess he made.
Despite a cast that includes Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, and Glenn Close, this unusual, post-apocalyptic film got a bit overlooked during its brief theatrical release. It’s best enjoyed without knowing too much of the plot. Suffice it to say that Melanie (Sennia Nanua), the girl of the title, isn’t quite what she seems, and there’s a reason that she, and others her age, are kept in a secure military facility. But the best trick of the film, thanks in large part to Nanua’s winning performance, is the way its innovations go beyond just putting twists on a familiar genre and, instead, making us question where our sympathies ought to lie.
When a punk rock group accidentally witnesses the aftermath of a murder, they are forced to fight for their lives by the owner of a Nazi bar (Patrick Stewart) and his team. It’s an extremely brutal and violent story, much like the first two features from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin and Murder Party), but this one is made even tenser by its claustrophobic cat-and-cornered-mouse nature. Once the impending danger kicks in, it doesn’t let up until the very end, driven heavily by Stewart playing against type as a harsh, unforgiving, violent character.
Robert Eggers’ Sundance hit attracted some of the oddest complaints directed at any film in recent years when some disgruntled audience members suggested it wasn’t scary enough. Maybe they were watching a different movie? Set in colonial New England, the austere film follows a family outcast from their strict religious community and trying to make it on their own at the edge of some deep, dark woods. It essentially takes the witch-fearing folklore of the era at face value, watching the family disintegrate under the insidious influence of a nearby witch. It’s a slow-burn horror movie, light on shocks, heavy on unease, and thematically rich in ways that only become apparent later.
Patrick Wilson stars as the father of a little boy trapped in a coma who’s been possessed by evil spirits. Rose Byrne plays his wife, and while the story itself is a bit muddled, the premise is solid nightmare fuel. Really, is there anything more terrifying than a demon child?
This indie comedy quickly became a cult classic, turning familiar scary movie tropes on their heads in bloody and hilarious ways. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine star as two bumbling-yet-well-meaning hillbillies who get pulled into a nightmare scenario when a group of horny coeds think they’re trying to kill them. In a series of events that escalates in violence, Tucker and Dale try to do the right thing while managing to stay alive in the process. As one of the best horror comedies, it’s a hidden gem waiting to be discovered by those looking for off-the-beaten-path hilarity.
This Thai horror film follows a young man named Tun and his girlfriend, Jane, who accidentally run over a young woman after a party and are haunted by her spirit. Hauntings and horror go hand-in-hand, but this film digs deeper into the supernatural trope by revealing a surprising, gruesome connection between the woman’s ghost and the film’s protagonist. We won’t spoil anything here, but let’s just say there’s a reason this death follows this guy wherever he goes.
This supernatural horror flick isn’t the best-rated fright-fest on this list but it does feature a superb performance by Florence Pugh (before she got big) which makes it worth a watch. You’ll still come away terrified watching Pugh play one half of a brother-sister duo scamming people out of their money by pretending to commune with the dead, especially when she starts actually conversing with some pissed off spirits.
Mike Flanagan, who directed Oculus and Ouija: Origin of Evil, expertly directs this simple tale of a deaf woman being menaced by a masked (and later unmasked) killer in her remote home. This is nothing you haven’t seen before, but Flanagan brings real panache and visual energy to a film that could have easily felt redundant in the hands of a lesser filmmaker.
Succession’s Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch star in this horror mystery about a father-son coroner team attempting to identify a Jane Doe who was harboring all kinds of dark secrets. When a corpse is brought into a small-town coroner’s lab, he and his son begin to experience supernatural phenomena. Tommy (Cox) and Austin (Hirsch) try to escape the lab but quickly realize that they’re dealing with something far more dangerous than a dead body while demonic spirits, old curses, and witches come to life.
This survivalist horror story starring Kiersey Clemmons is more than it appears. Sure, the main story follows Clemmon’s Jennifer, a young woman stranded on a remote island after the boat she was partying on with her white, privileged friends, sinks and it contains monsters — both fantastical and extraordinarily human — but it also trades in allegories about emotional abuse, class warfare, and believing survivors. Basically, it’s a horror flick that packs a savvy metaphorical punch.
Stephen King’s 1992 novel transpires mostly in one isolated lake house’s bedroom where its protagonist, Jessie, lies bound to a bed after her husband dies in the midst of a sex game. That makes it a tough story to film, which may explain why it took 25 years to get turned into a movie. But the wait was worth it: director Mike Flanagan delivers a resourceful, disturbing adaptation anchored by a great Carla Gugino performance (with some fine supporting work from Bruce Greenwood). Forced to find a way out of her situation, while confronting her own past, Gugino’s Jessie is made to go to extremes, which leads to, among other things, one of the squirmiest scenes in recent memory.
This Iranian horror flick manages to tie in relevant world events with a darker story of demonic possession. The film follows Shideh, a former medical student and mother trapped in her home during the bombings of Tehran with her daughter, Dorsa. The pair are soon haunted by a djinn, a malevolent spirit who can possess a human by taking what’s most important to them. For Dorsa, it’s her doll, for Shideh, it’s a medical textbook her dead mother gave her. The two fight to survive the bombs and this evil spirit, and you’ll be fighting to get to sleep after the nightmares from this one begin
After losing her father, young Veronica (Sandra Escacena) and two classmates attempt to contact the other side with a Ouija board during a solar eclipse. Something more sinister breaks through, though, as Veronica is haunted by a dark presence everywhere she goes. Veronica excels phenomenally in the cliche horror bits every viewer has seen a thousand times over, such as mishandled Ouija use, frightening entities that only the protagonist is privy to, and twisted dreams. Based on a true story, the film relies on the strong performance of newcomer Escacena, highlighted by her haunting expressions of terror and anguish.
Not only did Paranormal Activity spawn a horror franchise that’s given us nightmares for the better part of a decade, you can also blame the supernatural thriller for the emergence of the found-footage craze when it comes to blockbusters. After a young couple moves into an idyllic suburban home, they begin to notice unusual events taking place. In order to figure out what’s happening, they strategically set up cameras throughout their house in hopes of capturing some evidence of any kind. It’s the classic “be careful what you wish for” from there.
This ’80s Sam Raimi creation launched the director’s career and has since become a cult classic. The story follows a group of college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in a remote wooded area when they find an audio tape that somehow releases a legion of demons and spirits. Most of the group suffer varying degrees of possession which leads to gory mayhem (hence the film’s NC-17 rating).
One of the better found-footage movies to come down the pike in Paranormal Activity‘s wake is this creepy gem about a videographer (director Patrick Brice) who answers a strange Craigslist ad from a man (Mark Duplass) who requests to be followed around with a camera for 24 hours. There are a few points late in the narrative where suspension of disbelief becomes an issue (a not-atypical problem for the genre), but if you can look past that, you’ll be treated to a very scary turn by Duplass and a supremely-unnerving epilogue.
(Spoilers for Creep🙂 What could have very well been a stand-alone character exploration in 2014’s Creep is heightened in Creep 2, which sees Mark Duplass’ chameleon-like killer seeking a different kind of self-portrait. Burned out on his string of murders, Aaron reaches out to a woman who’s looking for her own kind of story by meeting and filming the lonely people she meets online. Instead of a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing path the killer normally follows, he tells the woman what he is off-the-bat and what he wants: An ending to his journey. With all his cards (seemingly) on the table — and her hiding some of her own — it’s an even more fascinating tale than the original.
Zombie movies have been done to death, brought back to life, and repeated a few more times. But that doesn’t mean there still aren’t entertaining stories to be found in the genre. Train To Busan doesn’t bring anything exceptionally original to the walking undead, but it’s no less of a thrilling ride. An overworked dad is riding the rails with his neglected daughter when a Z-word outbreak strikes, causing savagery from corpse and living alike. Its fast-moving, contorted foes are genuinely freaky in the movie’s cramped setting, making the story feel like a zombified Snowpiercer. It’s a fun action flick with a slightly heavy-handed but solid emotional core that’s unsurprisingly getting an English remake.
After back-to-back big studio bombs, Karyn Kusama returned to her scrappy indie roots with this contained, brilliantly suspenseful study of the darkness that can arise when people don’t allow themselves to feel. The Invitation isn’t a perfect film, but Kusama does a lot with the scant resources she had to play with here, and you have to appreciate her willingness to tackle grief so directly in a genre that tends to have little time for genuine human emotion.
A varied group of people is stuck in a bar after a man is gunned down outside. As the paranoia spreads and they turn on one another, they discover a mysterious sickness could be the culprit. It’s a bottle-type plot that has been done before — locking a bunch of frenzied folks in a cage and let instincts take their course — but this Spanish horror comedy injects its own dark humor and keeps the answers to a minimum, making an entertaining story that unfortunately favors the “dark” over the “comedy” in its final act.
Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper collaborate on this nightmare-inducing horror flick about a suburban family whose young daughter is kidnapped by malevolent spirits. Steven and Diane Freeling live a relatively normal life, taking care of their three children, the youngest of which begins conversing with a static television and issuing ominous warnings about ghosts. Steven and Diane hire a medium to figure out why their house is haunted and discover spirits are using the children’s bedroom closet to kidnap them and bring them to another dimension, forcing both parents to confront their own fears to save their family. It’s the ghost story that all other ghost stories are modeled after, and there’s nothing more terrifying than little blonde-headed girls that are possessed.
A man (Legion‘s Dan Stevens) travels to an island to infiltrate a brutal cult in the hopes of saving his kidnapped sister. As the group’s leaders close in on discovering his identity, the dark secrets of the island start to present themselves. Written and directed by The Raid: Redemption director Gareth Evans, Apostle is a tense, beautifully shot thriller that doesn’t even seem like a horror film from the get-go. Stevens provides another icy, powerful performance alongside Michael Sheen’s turn as the leader of the harsh cult. It’s certainly a highlight among the Netflix original films.
How do you make a sculpture garden that is home to a 20-foot witch head and an already-frightening Humpty Dumpty even more terrifying? Just add a historically devastating series of wildfires to give the sky a hellish red tint, and you’re there! Right now, much of the western United States — from California’s southern border with Mexico to Washington’s northern one — is engulfed in flames, as wildfires continue to burn throughout the three states. If images of Oregon’s Enchanted Forest theme park bathed in blood-red or San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge glowing orange like Blade Runner 2049 feel a little apocalyptic, that’s because they are!
According to CNN, while 11,479 acres burn in Southern California’s El Dorado fire, Central California is battling the Creek Fire which is burning an area roughly the size of Central Park every 30 minutes and is currently 0% contained. As a result, the usual blue skies of Northern California’s Bay Area have been stained a rusty red from the 150,000 acres that have burned in the Plumas National Forest since August 17th, when a lightning storm set off the blaze. 14 wildfires rage in Oregon, painting the sky a deep red, and Washington is grappling with a fire season that has burned more acres this Monday alone than over the past 12 fire seasons.
Thousands of people and animals are being displaced all across the Western United States, and hundreds of thousands of acres will continue to burn as firefighters struggle to contain the wildfires, it’s a pretty dire situation and a clear reminder that we have myriad opportunities to take better care of our planet. The West’s devastating wildfires have followed New Orleans and Texas’ own natural disaster just last week in Hurricane Laura, and coupled with a global pandemic we just want to know — what’s next for this truly sh*tty year?
Several people across California, Oregon, and Washington have taken to Twitter and Instagram to share scenes of how the smoke from the fires is blocking out the sun and adding an apocalyptic filter to everything. So thanks 2020, for letting us know what the dinosaurs saw as the planet became uninhabitable for them and they all gradually suffocated.
California National Guard crew were sleeping cozily in their beds when they got the call. Dozens of campers were stranded by the Mammoth Lake Reservoir, northeast of Fresno, trapped on all sides by the fast-moving Creek Fire. All exit routes were blocked in the blaze. Firefighters had no way in to get them out.
According to ABC News, the National Guard took two helicopters, a CH-47 and a UH-60 Black Hawk, through the thick smoke and fire to rescue the men, women, and children who had found themselves encircled by fire in the middle of the night. When the helicopters arrived, they found the campers gathered on a dock just 50 feet from the encroaching blaze.
“There are a couple pictures out there and—not bravado—but it was five times worse than any of those pictures,” CW5 Kipp Goding, who piloted the Black Hawk, told ABC. “Every piece of vegetation, as far as you can see around that lake, was on fire.”
Knowing they were running out of time, they packed as many people as they could onto the helicopters—women and children first—in the first of several trips to retrieve more than 200 campers. Crew members were told they could bow out at any time if they felt it was too dangerous. Though some got nauseous from the smoke, they kept going.
“This was an entire crew, and an entire team decision, to keep on going,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joseph Rosamond, the pilot of the Chinook, told ABC.
“The conditions were pretty extreme,” said Rosamond. “There were points along the route where … we were just about ready to say that’s enough.”
Goding, the Blackhawk pilot who had 25 years experience as an Army helicopter pilot, including combat missions in the Middle East, told ABC that it was the No.1 or No. 2 most dangerous mission he’d ever flown.
After the overnight rescue at Mammoth Reservoir Saturday night, the continued helicopter missions as conditions permitted to get other people trapped by the Creek Fire out of harm’s way. According to CBS Sacramento, the National Guard ultimately flew 373 people and 16 dogs to safety.
We need this kind of story right now. From southern California to northern Washington, the West Coast is experiencing a catastrophic fire season with no end yet in sight. People in Oregon are sharing surreal photos of apocalyptic red skies midday, a small town in eastern Washington saw 80% of its buildings and homes burn to the ground in a matter of hours, and Californians are battling both record-breaking heat and record-breaking fire loss, with 2 million acres already torched. Even people not directly impacted by fire are impacted by smoke and hazardous air quality.
This is nuts. Downtown Stayton at 12:22pm. Be safe, everyone. #KGW #Oregon #Fire #Smoke #LionsheadFire @KGWNews https://t.co/ff4MKKU4qm
Here’s to the heroes risking their own lives to save others as 2020 continues to bring unprecedented disaster to our doorstep. If we have to deal with natural disasters on top of a freaking plague on top of economic hardship on top of missing hugging our friends, these inspiring examples of humanity and heroism help keep our spirits up.
Last Friday, a police officer in Salt Lake City, Utah shot a 13-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder who was suffering from a mental health crisis. According to a GoFundMe page, the boy was left with serious injuries to his shoulder, ankles, intestines, and bladder.
The boy’s mother, Golda Barton, requested a crisis intervention team to transport her son to a hospital for treatment and believes the police reaction was excessive.
“He’s a small child. Why don’t you just tackle him?” Barton said according to NPR. “You are big police officers with massive amounts of resources. Come on, give me a break.”
This story out of Salt Lake City is another in a long list of incidents over the past few months that have inspired Americans to rethink the role that armed police officers have in society.
via GoFundMe
A recent program out of Denver, Colorado has found that having unarmed mental health professionals respond to matters that don’t threaten public safety can be even more effective than armed officers.
On June 1, Denver’s new Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) program hit the streets. The STAR program builds off of Denver’s co-responder program that paired mental health professionals with armed police officers starting back in 2016.
Since its launch, it has responded to more than 350 911 calls often connected to unmet mental or physical needs.
These teams, made up of mental health professionals and paramedics, are better equipped to handle Denver’s most vulnerable populations and they also allow police to respond to violent situations.
The team has responded to unhoused people in distress, people having suicidal ideation, indecent exposure calls, trespassers, and people simply acting strangely.
STAR teams aren’t pressured to respond to more pressing, violent calls so they take a more personal approach to helping people. The team has been able to work on some calls for up to two hours.
“It’s the future of law enforcement, taking a public health view on public safety,” Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen told The Denver Post. “We want to meet people where they are and address those needs and address those needs outside of the criminal justice system.”
Having the STAR and co-responder teams gives dispatchers a better chance to solve problems by giving them a the opportunity to match situations with those best trained to handle them.
“We’re really trying to create true alternatives to us using police and jails,” said Vinnie Cervantes with Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, one of the organizations that helped start the program.
The STAR program is currently only working in the central downtown area of the city, but community groups hope it will expand citywide. Organizers are also working to help other municipalities, such as nearby Aurora, to adopt similar programs.
“It really kind of proves that we’ve been working for the right thing, and that these ideas are getting the recognition they should,” Cervantes said.
It’s impossible to know whether a program like STAR would have prevented a 13-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder from being shot in Salt Lake City. But there’s no doubt that armed police officers shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all solution to keep our cities and their residents safe.
Woke (Hulu series) — This show is the comedy series that Lamorne Morris (and the rest of us) deserves with a little bit of everything. It’s surreal, it’s funny, it’s serious, it’s got talking toast and trashcans, and it’s in good hands with director Maurice “Mo” Marable. The quest to “keep it light” never felt so real as Keef (based upon the life and work of artist Keith Knight) experiences a rude awakening and transformation to follow.
The Social Dilemma (Netflix film) — The sprawling consequences of social-media dependence come to a head in this documentary that examines what we tweet, like, and share. Are social media platforms a lifeline or a way to reprogram civilization? That’s one of the many questions confronted by director Jeff Orlowski.
So Much Love to Give Film (Netflix film) — The best of both soap-opera worlds doesn’t turn out so hot for a prestigious physician who’s living a double life with two wives. Monday-Thursday with one, and Friday-Sunday with the other? I’m not sure which one of these ladies has the better deal, honestly. Free weekends away from one’s (obnoxious) spouse might actually be a relationship goal.
Get Organized with The Home Edit (Netflix series) — Move over Marie Kondo, you’ve got company. Master organizers Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin take on closets of their celebrity clients, including Reese Witherspoon, Rachel Zoe, Khloe Kardashian, Eva Longoria, Neil Patrick Harris, David Burtka, and Jordana Brewster. I would be willing to bet that Neil’s got the coolest closet.
The 100: (CW, 8:00pm) — Back from hiatus, the sci-fi series picks up with Clarke’s plans derailed by the red sun.
Coroner: (CW, 9:00pm) — Detective McAvoy faces off with the brotherhood of blue while Jenny’s digging into an officer-involved shooting.
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Kevin Hart, Josh Charles, Chika
Late Show With Stephen Colbert: Chris Christie, Gregory Porter
Late Night With Seth Meyers John Cleese, Glenn Howerton
P.J. Tucker, one of the most hard-working and versatile defenders in the NBA, added to his career-long streak of having never appeared on a league All-Defense team when he finished fifth among forwards in voting this year.
Finishing in front of Tucker in voting among forwards were Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo and Kawhi Leonard, all of whom were excellent in their own rights on that end. The Houston Rockets’ big man was asked about being “snubbed” again and showed that he’s trying to make peace with what the media believes about his place in the hierarchy of NBA defenders versus how the Rockets feel about his value.
His body of work, he said, speaks for itself, and as long as those that make roster decisions and sign his paychecks know how good he is on that end, that’s what matters.
P.J. Tucker on All-Defense snub:
It is what it is. My body of work speaks for itself. I don’t need anybody in the media to tell me I’m a good defensive player. I’m cool. As long as Tillman Fertitta and Daryl Morey see it, I’m ok.
Houston is, of course, the team that outbid Toronto and other suitors for Tucker in free agency three years ago and rebuilt their team this trade deadline around his ability to hold up as a small-ball center. They maximized his talents as a spot-up corner three-point shooter, rebounder, and all-around defender en route to three straight seasons of contention in the Western Conference.
There’s no need for Tucker to see his value through the lens of this one award, but it would probably feel pretty good to be recognized.
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