Category: Viral

The above production still hails from one of Netflix’s Turkish-filmed shows, Love 101, which is one of five projects that are currently in various stages of production in the country. However, the streaming giant has pulled one production, If Only, from its lineup after Turkish authorities — whose position earlier this year was bolstered by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan supporting a cleric who declared that homosexuality “brings disease and causes this generation to decay” — pressured Netflix to censor a gay character out of the series.

Variety reports that Turkish authorities fully denied permission for the show, in which one of the five main characters is gay, to shoot using scripts as reviewed. Netflix pulled the production out of the country altogether rather than bow to pressure to alter the script or the character. Once Netflix made this move, speculation began that it would pull all of its Turkish productions, but a Netflix spokesperson insisted that this wouldn’t be the case:

“Netflix remains deeply committed to our Turkish members and the creative community in Turkey. We are proud of the incredible talent we work with. We currently have several Turkish originals in production — with more to come — and look forward to sharing these stories with our members all around the world.”

Variety notes that Netflix recently found itself in the position of confirming to Turkish media that Love 101 does not include a gay character after fan speculation that a character would come out. In the case of If Only (which was set to be produced by the Ay Yapim production house), however, Netflix stood firm in its decision (while still paying the show’s pre-production costs) to not censor an LGBTQ character, which sets quite a precedent if Turkey wants to hold onto more Netflix dollars in the future.

(Via Variety, Deadline & NBC News)

Kanye West was active on Twitter last night, and in a series of (now mostly deleted) tweets, he shared a number of claims. He said that his wife Kim Kardashian “tried to bring a doctor to lock me up,” and expressed his belief that the movie Get Out is about him. Kanye ended his tweet session by writing, “Ima focus on the music now.”

Shortly after that, he shared a screenshot of a seemingly work-in-progress tracklist for his upcoming album Donda, which he is planning to release on Friday, July 24. Kanye previously shared a Donda tracklist over the weekend, but this new one is substantially different from his previous one.

As is stands now based on what Kanye shared, the album runs for 39 minutes across 12 tracks, down from 20 tracks on the previously posted tracklist. New to this tracklist are “Stay On Em / Precious,” “I Know God Breathed On This,” and “Future Sounds” (which may have evolved from “Future Bounce” on the previous tracklist).

Also new and noteworthy is “Space X – Alien,” which could be about Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. The song’s date is listed as 2018 in Kanye’s screenshot, so it appears this one has been in the works for a couple years. That would place its origins before Musk’s support, and then seeming withdrawal of said support, for Kanye’s presidential campaign.

In a bizarre and worrying rant on Twitter, Kanye West claims that his wife, Kim Kardashian tried to have him “locked up,” among other disorienting statements that have fans concerned for the mercurial rapper’s well-being.

In the stream-of-consciousness-style burst of seemingly random thoughts, Kanye posited that “everybody knows the movie Get Out is about me” and called out several of his celebrity acquaintances, including Vogue publisher Anna Wintour, Drake, actor Shia Labeouf, and mother-in-law Kris Jenner.

Among the disturbing tweets, Kanye claimed Wintour “looked at me like I was crazy” when informed of his Gap deal, that “NBC locked up Bill Cosby,” and that “Kim tried to bring a doctor to lock me up.” He tweeted combatively toward Kris Jenner, writing “don’t play with me” and sharing a screenshot of a DM he sent her on Twitter.

As of press time, some of the tweets have already disappeared, but others remain. Screenshots are provided below to preserve as much as possible as the situation appears to be fluctuating.

This isn’t the first time Kanye went on a worrying Twitter rampage. In late 2018, he went on a similar rant, claiming that Drake was out to get him. Incidentally, 2018 was also the year that Kanye revealed his bipolar diagnosis via the cover of his summer album Ye. In 2019, he discussed the diagnosis with David Letterman, making the claim that he was not taking medication to regulate his condition.

Just over 24 hours before his latest rant, Kanye held a “campaign rally” in South Carolina, where he made the bizarre claim that Harriet Tubman never freed slaves and tearfully spoke out against abortion. It’s reported that he was not accepted onto South Carolina’s ballot.

For a long time, Charles Barkley and Draymond Green have exchanged barbs through the media. Green is well-known for his no-holds-barred attitude, both on and off the court, and Barkley is legendary for having (very) little filter in his role as the face of TNT’s NBA studio coverage.

In advance of the NBA’s restart in Orlando, TNT launched a five-part series called “The Arena,” which the network describes as “a new in-depth storytelling franchise created to provide a thought-provoking forum for content on topics occurring on and off the court of play.” Green and Barkley are both panelists, alongside Dwyane Wade and Cari Champion, and the first episode featured an early conversation between the two men on their issues in the past.

At the outset, Barkley plainly says “I like Draymond,” while noting (with a smile) that “he does annoy me at times on the court.” From there, Green gives a more serious answer about why Barkley’s commentary has bothered him in the past.

“He’s a black man,” Green said. “I respect him. The issue I’ve had is that a lot of people watch the game of basketball and they don’t know what they’re looking at. So when they look at a Chuck or at different guys who have this platform, they take what you’re saying and they listen to that and they run with that. For me, it hasn’t necessarily affected my pockets. But there are a lot of guys in this league that, people run with what guys say on these platforms, and it affects guys’ pockets.”

Later, Green said of Barkley that he has “done too many great things in this league and won a lot to hear some of the stuff he is saying about me.” Of course, it will be interesting to see if anything changes with Barkley, especially when he’s not sitting next to Green on a panel, but this appears to be a situation in which both (and especially Green) were candid about their feelings. In addition, Green makes interesting points, and Barkley seems to be willing and open to listening to perhaps inform his commentary in the future.

As the NBA has begun its bubble restart at Disney, a significant topic of conversation has been the food after a number of players posted pictures that made the rounds on social media.

The initial food reviews weren’t great, as the meals players got delivered to their room during quarantine suffered from the same issues just about all mass-produced delivery food suffers from. The food has gotten better, but seeking out variety will be something many players look for as their stay in the bubble continues for the next month (or three months as the playoffs wear on). As such, the league is working on bringing in outside options for players to order in from, to avoid more Richaun Holmes situations where someone breaks the bubble zone and must quarantine because they went to grab a delivery bag of food.

As such, the league is working on partnerships with some Orlando restaurants. The first was a reported deal with Landry’s restaurant group restaurants owned by Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, which drew some criticism for not answering the call of the moment to support locally owned restaurants that have been hit especially hard by the pandemic — and particularly Black-owned restaurants in the midst of the current social justice movement. On Monday, Chris Haynes of Yahoo reported the league was working to address that concern by looking into a partnership with 10 local, minority-owned restaurants to join the bubble campus delivery program.

The league wants to ensure any food entering the bubble is being made following their safety protocols — and delivered understanding those rules — but it’s good to see the league working to address not just a concern of players in the bubble of wanting food alternatives but also stepping up to work with local minority-owned businesses. Hopefully they’re able to get all the details worked out soon and we’ll be seeing pictures of some of these restaurants offerings on player social media.

When HBO Max bowed in late May, subscribers were in for a surprise: All eight Harry Potter movies were on there, sharing space with DC movies, Looney Tunes, Adult Swim, TCM oldies, and HBO content. If that seemed too good to be true, it was, sort of: As per Entertainment Weekly, the filmic wing of the deathless franchise will be vanishing from the streamer on August 25, after only three months online.

The arrival of the Potter films — which ran from 2001 to 2011, and which made its central trio unimaginably wealthy — on the new streaming service wound up coming at a strange time. Mere weeks after HBO Max launch, Potter creator, J.K. Rowling faced severe backlash after making controversial comments about the trans community. The author has not backed off of her comments but rather doubled, tripled, quadrupled down, even prompting her still young-ish cast members — Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint among them — to speak up in defense of trans people.

Potter fan sites have also criticized Rowling’s comments, some of them even removing her name from their coffers entirely, as though their favorite franchise has no creator. That’s how strong Potter love is. In any case, you have a month and change to binge those eight movies, and good luck because most of them are quite long. But don’t worry; surely they’ll be back.

(Via EW)

The film and television industries have been on lockdown for over four months now, but of course that hasn’t meant there’s no new content. Lots of shows have relocated from the studio to the home, with performers, hosts, their guests, et al. talking into webcams in their living rooms. SNL has been among the programs to rework itself for the quarantine era, but The Hollywood Reporter are claiming that show is already plotting a studio return.

Granted, this is from a source, not NBC itself, who claims the longtime live sketch show’s 46th season will take a big step and return to its iconic studio. That being said, the full cast and crew are unlikely to return. As per THR, “One option would be to allow only limited configurations of cast and crew into the studio, which presumably would mean that a show consisting mostly of live sketches might not be in the offing for some time.”

Another probable major absence: that live studio audience. While SNL’s hometown, New York City — once the epicenter of the pandemic — has gotten considerably better, with cases relatively low and steady, the majority of indoor places, such as movie theaters and museums, are still closed to crowds. That may mean whatever cast members are back on any given week will be playing to empty seats. Maybe they could do what baseball is now doing and have cardboard cutouts — or, better yet, do what South Korean baseball did and fill the seats with stuffed animals.

Again, this is all in the larval stage, and everything can certainly change, as it often does these days. Still, shows ditching home webcams and returning to studios has already happened to certain programs. The Tonight Show, also at NBC, restarted in-studio taping last week, with Jimmy Fallon and house band The Roots keeping their social distance. As of now, the last time SNL recorded in the studio, with everyone present, was the March 7 episode hosted by Daniel Craig.

(Via THR)

Palm Springs is reportedly breaking records on Hulu, and for good reason. The wedding-focused Groundhog Day mashup starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti is a funny and refreshing twist on the time loop movie genre without it getting too far in the weeds or too zany. Mind you, that’s tough to do when the trailer shows Samberg literally hunted with a bow and arrow.

There have been a lot of questions about the movie’s ending and what it means, but one thing we now know for sure is exactly how long Samberg’s Nyles was in the time loop central to the movie. In an interview with Decider earlier this month, Palm Springs writer Andy Siara talked about the movie’s ending, and while he wouldn’t confirm whether the two lovebirds actually made it out of the loop or what the final scenes meant, he does confirm the exact length of time that Myles was trapped in Palm Springs.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say exactly, but Nyles has in there for over 40 years. There are versions of the script where—mainly when Sarah comes in—I put titles in of how much time has passed. The main thing I hope got across was that a lot of time had passed. A lifetime of memories has passed, basically.”

Four decades is certainly long enough to forget a lot of things about your past life, especially if every day you live is exactly the same. That’s more than 14,000 days of waking up to the same thing, over and over again, enough to truly drive you crazy. Given that information, it’s certainly understandable that most of the movie is him being nihilistic about his life and the possibility of ever finding a way out. It’s a good thing, then, that he eventually got some company to help him along the way.

Trader Joe’s will begin making changes to the packaging of some of its food products over concerns that variations on the Trader Joe’s brand name can be seen as culturally insensitive. For years, the grocery chain has been altering the brand naming on its private label products typically categorized as “ethnic foods,” using monikers like Trader José for Mexican-food inspired products, Trader Ming for Chinese food, Arabian Joe for Middle Eastern products, Trader Joe San for Japenese foods, and Trader Giotto on pasta and other Italian food staples. Criticism over the branding has existed for some time and recently picked up renewed interest thanks to a Change.org petition started by a California high school student, Briones Bedell.

The name changes, Bedell writes, “Belies a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes,” and seems to imply some food items are normal, and therefore ethnic foods are deviations from the norm. Following the petition, Trader Joe’s announced their intention to change the branding and addressed the criticism over the overtones of its branding. Trader Joe’s national director of public relations, Kenya Friend-Daniel told ABC News, “While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect — one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day,” but indicated that the decision was not because of Bedell’s petition, stating that Trader Joe’s “have been in the process of updating older labels and replacing any variations with the name Trader Joe’s” since before the petition.

Trader Joe’s is currently in the process of changing the product labeling but has not publically indicated how long it’ll be until we see the new labels. Does that make your case of Trader José beer a collector’s item now? Probably not. But it’s still a pretty decent beer, so there’s that.

While the actual sports calendar is in complete disarray due to COVID-19 and the still-ongoing pandemic hitting the United States particularly hard, the virtual sports calendar has stayed relatively unchanged. Some video games have seen coronavirus-related delays, but major sports titles like NBA 2K and Madden remain on track for their traditional release windows, which are just before the real seasons would start in real life.

That changed on Monday, though, when EA announced that its upcoming hockey game NHL 21 would move from a September release to sometime in October.

To answer the most commonly asked question first, NHL 21 will launch a little later this year, shifting from our usual September window to October. This year has been full of extraordinary circumstances and we’ve had to make major adjustments in developing the game from home. This transition has been very successful and we’re happy to say that the game is on track and feature-complete against our original vision, we just need a few extra weeks to do the polish, fine tuning and bug fixing.

The announcement assured fans that the game would be “worth the wait” and EA promised a look at the nearly-finished game sometime in late August. EA Sports also announced on Monday that it would not have true next-gen releases for the game on the upcoming Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, though the game would be forward compatible and playable on those consoles with the same features it will launch with. Sports sims like NBA 2K21 will have next-gen releases, but it looks like hockey fans are left out in the cold on this one.

Another thing we’ve seen questions around is next-gen consoles. For NHL 21, we made the decision to focus on adding innovation and new features rather than the resource-heavy task of porting the game to new console technology. You’ll still be able to play NHL 21 on the next-gen consoles through forward compatibility but we are fully focused on launching NHL 21 on the Xbox One and PS4 and look forward to the opportunities the next-gen systems will bring in the future.

None of this is particularly shocking, especially when you consider that game development largely shifted, like much of the rest of industries across the world, to a work from home situation. There are countless issues that could have come up to delay the game’s release, but even with a month added to its development time the title will come out well before the next season of NHL hockey is played. That league’s bubble is expected to begin play on August 1, and no schedule for next season exists right now, either.