For the fourth time in the last eight seasons, Draymond Green is an NBA champion. Green and the Golden State Warriors picked up a 103-90 win over the Boston Celtics on Thursday night, giving them a 4-2 series victory in the NBA Finals and their first ring since beating the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2018.
One question that popped up early on in the Finals was the role Green’s podcast was playing in the entire thing. Whether viewed as a reason for his struggles early on or a way for the Celtics to gain insight into what Golden State was doing, a whole lot of attention was paid to a podcast.
Well, Green podcasted after the game, and as was oftentimes the case, he spent a whole lot of time talking about one of his favorite subjects: the “New Media.” This included praise for guys like JJ Redick and CJ McCollum who use their platforms to inform folks about the game.
And then, Green turned his attention to ESPN personality and former Celtic Kendrick Perkins, with whom he’s been going back-and-forth for a few months.
“You got fools like Kendrick Perkins, dressing like a clown, come up here in a jail suit,” Green said. “And then you leave the game early tonight. Stand on your word, brother. You gotta stand on that, ‘cause one thing’s for certain: I’mma stand on mine. Four-time champ, I’m out.”
Questlove, though, isn’t hearing that. The Roots drummer, who is one of the most passionate and knowledgeable hip-hop/music fans out there, took to Twitter today to share his thoughts on the album, deeming it a “gift” and calling out haters. He wrote, “My relationship to new hip hop is mostly on a ‘how can this serve me & my dj gigs?’ & less about me listening as a fan. That said this @Drake jawn is a gift. Only people not wit the program are people who don’t move their bodies. That ain’t sexy yo [shrugging emoji].”
My relationship to new hip hop is mostly on a “how can this serve me & my dj gigs?” & less about me listening as a fan. That said this @Drake jawn is a gift. Only people not wit the program are people who don’t move their bodies. That ain’t sexy yo
For fans who aren’t convinced, though, they at least have other new Drake projects to look forward to: Last night, on his new SiriusXM radio show Table For One, Drake revealed he has a new Scary Hours release on the way, as well as a book of poetry.
The Obamas are getting into the scripted comedy business. As part of their ongoing deal with Netflix, the former first couple’s production company, Higher Ground, has announced the new dark comedy series, Bodkin, starring MacGruber and Saturday Night Live alum, Will Forte. The show marks Higher Ground’s first foray into scripted series, which will star Forte as a “charming, enthusiastic and open” podcaster named Gilbert, who might not be so open after all.
“Bodkin is a darkly comedic thriller about a motley crew of podcasters who set out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of three strangers in an idyllic, coastal Irish town. But once they start pulling at threads, they discover a story much bigger and weirder than they could have ever imagined. As our heroes try to discern fact from fiction — about the case, about their colleagues and, most painfully, themselves — the series challenges our perception of truth and exposes the stories we tell ourselves to justify our beliefs or validate our fears.”
Also joining the cast are Siobhán Cullen (The Dry), Robyn Cara (Trying), David Wilmot (Station Eleven), and Chris Walley (The Last Voyage of the Demeter).
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Higher Ground executive producer Tonia Davis shared her excitement for the project. “We are ecstatic to partner with Wiip for this wickedly wry thriller, which questions truth, narrative and the very purpose of each,” Davis said. “This entire creative team — Jez, Alex, Nash and the phenomenal cast led by Will Forte and Siobhán Cullen — will bring to life something very special and we can’t wait to share it with audiences around the world.”
With last night’s surprise release ofHonestly, Nevermind, pop culture chameleon Drake showed that he was at his shape-shifting ways once again. Listeners were surprised to hear that the album was in fact, a dance music record. This wasn’t quite the party that people were expecting to turn up to on Thursday night, but they let it rip nonetheless. So much so that Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind smashed Apple Music’s record for first-day streams of a dance music album.
Not only did Drizzy stake hold to yet another streaming records crown, he did it within the first hour that the album was available for streaming. Whew… According to Apple Music, this is one more feather in the cap of the streaming king. In a release, the streaming service indicated that Drake also holds the following notable streaming records:
” – Drake currently holds the record for the biggest album in Apple Music history by first-day streams worldwide, with Certified Lover Boy.
– Scorpion is the second biggest album by first-day streams worldwide on Apple Music.
– Drake also holds the record for the biggest song in Apple Music history by first-day streams worldwide, with “Girls Want Girls.”
Just another day at the office, leaving DJs in the dust, but he could be coming for the indie rock crown next?
Honestly, Nevermind is out now via OVO Sound/Republic. Stream it here.
Tom Cruise is Hollywood’s last great movie star, and he has the credits to prove it. His filmography includes 31 films that have made over $100 million at the box office, including 1999’s sex cult drama Eyes Wide Shut, which is crazy to think about in 2022 when the only movies that even get made anymore are sequels.
Deadline reports that Maverick is officially the highest-grossing movie in Cruise’s long career (not adjusted for inflation). It’s made $806.4 million at the box office: $422.2 million in the United States and $384.2 million internationally. Maverick, which is also a hit among critics, passed Mission: Impossible – Fallout ($791.1 million) for the honor.
This has also happened in just 21 days of theatrical release. Already in that time, Maverick is Paramount’s second highest grossing release ever. Internationally, Maverick is now the biggest Cruise movie in 23 markets, including the UK, Australia and Brazil. It is also Paramount Pictures’ biggest live-action title in 15 markets, including the UK, Australia, France and Brazil.
No wonder Cruise said Maverick going direct to streaming was “never going to happen.”
In case you were wondering, the lowest grossing movie in Cruise’s career? 1983’s sex comedy Losin’ It, about “four rowdy teenage guys travel to Tijuana, Mexico for a night of partying when they are joined by a heartbroken housewife who is in town seeking a quick divorce.” It made all of $1.2 million. Fun fact: the next Mission: Impossible was going to be called Losin’ It before they settled on Dead Reckoning. Probably a good call.
Earlier this week, Nathan Fielder teased his upcoming seriesThe Rehearsal with a cryptic video of a room with dozens of cameras surveilling a house while Fielder looks on. He captioned the video with “very soon.” For once, he was being serious!
Today, HBO released a poster and a little more info on the mysterious series, which will likely be a cringey masterpiece of comedy. This will be the first time Fielder has led a show since his acclaimed series Nathan For You, which aired its final season in 2017. According to the new plot description:
Nathan Fielder (Nathan For You, HBO’s How To with John Wilson) returns to television for a new series that explores the lengths one man will go to reduce the uncertainties of everyday life. With a construction crew, a legion of actors, and seemingly unlimited resources, Fielder allows ordinary people to prepare for life’s biggest moments by “rehearsing” them in carefully crafted simulations of his own design. When a single misstep could shatter your entire world, why leave life to chance?
Along with the convoluted plot is a promo image of Fielder with a family of mannequins with dead eyes that will haunt you for days.
The Utah Jazz could look like a very different team next season, with coach Quin Snyder resigning and rumors swirling about the potential for trades sending Rudy Gobert out of town to shake things up around Donovan Mitchell after another first round exit.
While we wait to find out how different the roster looks, the team unveiled a new design aesthetic for the upcoming season. Gone is the blue, green, and yellow look they’ve worn in recent years and in its place is a highlighter yellow and black that, well, isn’t great. There is some good news, as their beloved purple unis from their best years as a franchise in the 90s are back, but those terrific threads really make it clear just how miserably sterile and bad the other ones are.
Along with the new uniforms are new court designs for the upcoming season, with the purple court once again making the regular court look dreadfully plain and uninspired.
The Jazz redesign comes on the heels of the Philadelphia Eagles announcing a similar change to a “modern” design with their wordmark, which is apparently a fancy way of saying you are creating a design without any character. Bland font and a uniform design with absolutely nothing unique or fun about it is certainly a choice you can make as an organization. They look like the uniforms you’d see in a video game or movie that couldn’t afford to get actual licensing from the NBA. Maybe Jazz fans will feel differently, but I’d venture a guess that the purple unis will far outsell any of the other looks and hopefully that’ll push the team to make tweaks in the future to bring some life to the white, black, and yellow set.
This is also where I’ll note that it is interesting that the person they chose to model these new uniforms is Jordan Clarkson and not Donovan Mitchell. Probably nothing, but it was noticeable.
Britney Spears and Sam Asghari’s wedding was a star-studded affair and among those in attendance was Selena Gomez. Now, she has talked about what it was like to be there for Spears’ big day, on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night.
Gomez was on the show alongside her Only Murders In The Building co-stars Martin Short and Steve Martin (the latter of whom appeared via video chat due to being on the tail end of a bout with COVID-19). Kimmel brought up the wedding and joked that maybe Spears and Asghari were trying to save money by having the ceremony on a Thursday. He also showed a photo from the reception, which features Donatella Versace, Paris Hilton, Spears, Madonna, Gomez, and Drew Barrymore.
“I am really happy for her,” Gomez said. “It was beautiful.”
Kimmel then noted he had “a very serious question” before asking Gomez what kind of food was served at the wedding, which got a big laugh out of Gomez, who revealed they had “finger foods.”
Meanwhile, Gomez recently noted that she’s working on a new album and said of a potential tour, “I’m open to a tour, one thousand percent, but I obviously have obligations and things I wanna do, so when the time’s right. It’s not the top of my priority list.”
Drake’s new album, Honestly, Nevermind, has thrown a curve at his legions of fans who expected more somber, reflective R&B and petty rap verses from him. Instead, they got 11 Virgil Abloh-inspired tracks awash in house influences with just two traditional rap songs, and it threw many of them for a loop. They were so put off, in fact, that in addition to launching Drake to the top of Twitter’s trending topics, as expected, they also made a few other terms trend — the names of some mall mainstays like Forever 21, H&M, and Zara.
On reflection, the comparisons were probably inevitable. While dance and house music are super popular globally and aspects of them often creep into American pop, the most exposure many if not most Americans have to these styles is when they’re trying on clothes at fast-fashion bastions like the ones named above. I’m betting if you walked up to the average millennial or zoomer and asked their thoughts on amapiano, they might make a Beethoven reference, not realizing that it’s a subgenre of house from South Africa heavily influenced by local instruments. And getting anyone not from SA to pronounce “gqom” would likely be an exercise in frustration.
Fans’ reactions are ranging from confused and distraught to outright vibing, but it is pretty amusing to see so many people cracking jokes about stores they probably haven’t been in since the early 2010s. And who knows? Maybe those fine establishments will get a boost from all the added attention — something they desperately need as online retailers like Shein and Fashion Nova have basically eaten their lunch for the past few years.
Check out some of the funnier responses below.
I thought Drake was finna rap his ass off. He gave us Forever 21, Hot Topic, H&M ass music pic.twitter.com/EttAvT3i86
Why does music have such a strong impact on how we feel? It’s literally just a series of sounds put together in a certain order. How can something so seemingly simple make us happy or sad or scared or melancholy?
Research shows that listening to intensely emotional music can tap into deep, evolutionarily ancient circuits in our brain. Our relationship with music stretches back throughout human history and when dopamine is released from those deep circuits, the result is pleasure.
According to a study from the British Academy of Sound Therapy, it takes 13 minutes of music to help us release pent-up sadness, and nine minutes of music to help us feel happy. (It also takes 13 minutes of music to relax and 13 minutes to focus, in case you were wondering.) Nine minutes. That’s all it takes for music to work its happy magic on us.
Music really is magical, isn’t it? So are animals and kids, which is why those three things make up 90% of this week’s list of things that made us smile. Seriously, can anything make us happier faster than music, animals and kids?
Maybe a great story about a sweet old man. Cool, we’ve got one of those, too.
Each week, we offer a roundup of smileworthy content to lift people’s spirits and brighten people’s days. If you find yourself smiling, pass it along to share the joy with others.
1. This wee one jammin’ out with his broken ukelele and his adorable smile.
I wrote a song for The Kid I Babysit. It’s called Victoria’s Secret 🤫 ❤️ 👙 @TheLascherFamily #victoriassecret #fyp #bodypositivity #originalmusic
Once you get past the “too fat and too flat” rage, this video is the best. I’d buy this single, seriously. (Read the full story about how Victoria’s Secret really was made up by a dude here.)
3. A guy thinks he’s rescuing a kitten. Then they just keep on coming.
Holy moly. It’s like kitten heaven and kitten hell all at once. Robert Brantley, the man who found them, has been posting updates on their adoptions. Read the full story here.
4. When the parrot he rescued walked for the first time, his reaction is pure gold.
Same animals, two different videos. The doggo lying down so carefully so as not to disturb his friend, and the cat literally standing on the dog before booping him in the face. Hilarious.
7. Who knew Chewy had the most compassionate customer service ever?
u201c@alcesanna @Chewy I work at an animal shelter. This is legit. We often have people reaching out to donate because Chewy told them to reach out to a local shelter. I canu2019t express what this means to shelteru2019s like mine. Truly a gift.u201d
People in the thread shared how Chewy sent them flowers—and sometimes even a portrait of their pet—when their pet passed away, and always told them to donate the food they had left rather than return it. Read the full story here.
8. He took his grandpa with dementia to a football game and it turned out to be a day to remember.
Animals, kids and music, I tell you. They’ll make you smile every time. Come back next week for another roundup of joy and delight and have a fabulous weekend!
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