The Trail Blazers, for the second time in as many weeks, faced the East’s top team, the Philadelphia 76ers, and looked to once again upset them with a short-handed roster.
Last Thursday, a Dame-less, CJ-less, Nurk-less Blazers squad took down the Sixers thanks to a massive third quarter that saw McCollum joke that maybe the starters were the problem with the team and were holding everyone back. This time, Lillard was back in the lineup and had 21 points in the first half to help keep Portland attached to Philly, who led by just three, 63-60, at the half.
Late in the second quarter, the Blazers saw yet another player go down, this time by friendly fire, when Robert Covington’s elbow caught Enes Kanter right above the eye and had him bleeding rather profusely from his face.
Enes Kanter leaves the game with a face laceration
Kanter would walk off and as anyone who’s watched boxing or MMA can tell you, a cut by the eye always bleeds a lot and he walked back to the locker room early for treatment and maybe some stitches. For a Portland team short on frontcourt options with Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins out, they would be in real tough shape going up against Joel Embiid, who had 23 in the first half, if Kanter couldn’t have continued, but he got stitched up and was back out there to start the second half.
Kanter got stitched up and will start the second half
Is it just me, or does red wine taste better when it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy an expensive bottle of wine just as much as the next person. But saving cash is the name of the game and that often means cutting back on the big bank bottles of Barolo in exchange for low-cost reds that still deliver on flavor.
Luckily for all us penny-pinchers, Trader Joe’s has a wide selection of wines that can accommodate even the most humble of budgets. If you want value-per-dollar, it’s a good place to start.
Now I’d be lying if I said that all the bottles of red wine lining the shelves at Trader Joe’s were worth trying. Some of them are incredibly inexpensive and definitely taste like it. Do yourself a favor a stay away from the Two-Buck Chuck — your tastebuds and hangover with thank you — and veer towards the 10 bottles of red vino that we’re highlighting below.
All of these bottles are currently available at Trader Joe’s stores across the country. They’re also very affordable — the most expensive bottle on this list is $15, but most of them are in the $5 to $7 range — and provide excellent value for your cash. Since TJ’s doesn’t have a web store, you’ll have to actually head out to a brick and mortar to find most of these wines, but I’ve linked the few that are available online.
Let’s get sipping!
Gambler’s Flash Red Table Wine
Wine.com
ABV: 13.9% Average Price: $7
The Wine:
Like most of the wines that are sold at Trader Joe’s, this one is from one of the grocer’s private labels — which means the only place you’re only ever going to find it is at Trader Joe’s. This black-cherry-hued vino is considered a proprietary blend, which is just a fancy way for producers to make it clear that they’re not telling you exactly which grapes are in the bottle.
Regardless of the melange of grapes used in this Paso Robles, the juice is good.
Tasting Notes:
This wine puts the fun in funky. It exudes a smokey fragrance like the underside of a charcoal grill dusted with mocha and spices. The sip is front-loaded with supple and juicy cherry flavors and notes of vanilla Pepsi while the back end develops into a melee of dried sage, coffee beans, and blackberries.
For a wine with such big character, it’s surprisingly medium in body and slips down the throat like silk before blossoming into a smoky finish that’s balanced out with a dash of acidity and smooth tannins (the naturally occurring polyphenol found in fruit skins, leaves, and seeds that produce a wine’s astringency and bitterness).
Bottom Line:
Easy to drink and even more delicious the second day after opening, this wine packs a big taste for a small price.
Oxte The Silence Red Blend
Axial Vinos Wines
ABV: 14.5% Average Price: $6
The wine:
Here’s a red blend from Cariñena, Spain, comprised of tempranillo, syrah, garnacha, and cabernet sauvignon grapes. Produced by Axial Wines, the 2019 vintage of this deep, dark red wine packs more character and body than you would ever assume for such a youthful vintage, and you’ll certainly want to pair it with some meat.
Tasting Notes:
This wine smells like black cherry lollipops and rhubarb pie, but taste it and you’ll discover flavors of blackberries marinated in crème de cassis seasoned with black pepper. The wine is smooth and soft, with nimble little tannins that leave the mouth with a fuzzy coating throughout the long and lingering finish.
Bottom Line:
You could make a mean red wine beef stew with this wine, or, you know, drink it while eating beef stew. This would also work well with grilled meats.
Upper Eden Pinot Noir
Vivino
ABV: 14.2%
Average Price: $13
The Wine:
If you’ve been in the mood for something light that isn’t just a floral and fruity pocket full of posies, here’s a treat for you. This pinot noir — from the Santa Lucia Highlands of Monterey County, California — is light and easy, but it displays an unexpected depth that only makes the wine more enjoyable over time.
Tasting Notes:
This bright, translucent red wine smells like Rock & Rye Faygo pop with a hint of granite. On the sip, you’ll find deep dark fruits like black cherry and black plum and vegetal notes. Then comes a wave of black pepper, acidity, and tight tannins that soften over time, giving the wine some complexity in the extended finish.
Bottom Line:
This is a good wine for drinking with food, whether it’s as simple as a cheeseburger or a whole roasted chicken over potatoes.
Château Maris Natural Selection Biodynamic Syrah-Grenache
Not only is Château Maris one of the five most environmentally friendly wineries in the world, but the estate’s vineyard in the Minervois La Livinière region of France (over in the Languedoc) was also the first to be certified bio-dynamic. The grapes grown on the winery’s property—like the syrah and grenache used for this vino—are completely organic. Château Maris even has horses that work and till the land to promote biodiversity.
Tasting Notes:
This wine is so deep red it’s almost purple. Fragrances of ripe black, blue and purple fruits escape from the bottle once it’s uncorked. The sip leans into flavors of elderberry and wraps up with pleasant, spicy notes of chili oil, peppercorns, and a hit of fresh acidity that leaves your mouth zinging.
The tannins are firm but silky while the finish is long-lasting.
Bottom Line:
Drink this wine in the dead of winter when you need something to knock off the chill. It’ll warm you right on up.
Bodegas Tinedo Ja! Tempranillo
Noe Valley Wines and Spirits
ABV: 14.5$ Average Price: $7
The Wine:
Here’s another certified organic wine worth investigating at Trader Joe’s. It’s produced by the Alvarez-Arenas family, who has made wine since 1742. This wine is created with tempranillo grapes grown in the Castilla La Mancha region. It’s not all that light (as it has some weight to it), but its structure isn’t super dominant, either.
Above all things, it’s the fruit that really shines through in this wine.
Tasting Notes:
This wine smells of sweet and brandied cherries and a little hint of leather. The wine is clean with summertime strawberry and bing cherry flavors that get a dynamic upgrade with a little bit of minerality and astringency in the back end of the sip. The finish isn’t all that long but it has some character with notes of smoke.
Bottom Line:
This is a clean juice that gets a facelift with a nice, slightly firm tannic structure, but it’s still very easy to drink. Pair this with one of those Trader Joe’s frozen pizzas and you’re in for a good night.
Fallen Bridge Zinfandel
Trader Joe
ABV: 15% Average Price: $7
The Wine:
This 100 percent zinfandel hails from the Lodi region of California where the grapes grow big and fat—a key indicator of the wine’s ultra juicy profile.
Tasting Notes:
The nose on this wine makes it pretty clear you’re in for a juicy fruit treat. It smells of cinnamon sticks, ripe cherry, black plum, and dark chocolate, but on the sip, the wine shows red fruits and vanilla with a hint of orange zest. It’s a rounded red wine that somehow makes your mouth even wetter after the long finish.
Bottom Line:
This is like a grown-up version of fruit punch without the colorful little box and straw. Drink this with everything or drink it all by itself.
Finca De Los Padrillos Malbec
Binny
ABV: 13.5% Average Price: $9
The Wine:
This is an inky, dry red wine from Argentina’s Mendoza region, made of 100 percent malbec that’s aged in oak vats. It’s produced by Ernesto Catena, who cares for more than 30 retired polo ponies that live at his vineyards, hence the cute horses on the bottle’s label.
Tasting Notes:
This wine has a fresh floral aroma like a potpourri bouquet of violets, bluebells, and allspice. The sip really leans into that all-things-dried profile, with notes of dehydrated red berries along with speckles of cherry and plum; while the finish exudes an after bite full of white pepper.
This wine isn’t incredibly bold—its youthfulness makes it easy to drink—but it is quite dry. If you like that quality, you’re sure to enjoy it.
Bottom Line:
There’s a reason why the malbec is free-flowing at the traditional parillas in Argentina—this wine goes hand in hand with grilled steaks and meat.
People like to say that they don’t enjoy red wine because red wines are “too dry” or “not sweet enough,” and to that I say: You clearly haven’t tried a Gamay from Beaujolais. Now sweet isn’t how I’d describe this wine from Georges Deboeuf—one of the French region’s most regarded and respected producers of Gamay—but this red wine is pure, easy to drink, refreshing, fun, fruity juice.
Tasting Notes:
Obviously, wine is made from grapes but this is a straight-up fruit bomb. Cherry? Check. Raspberry? Check? Strawberry? Check. Blackberry and blueberry? Double Check. Literally, all the berries show up in the smell and the sip of this wine. The body is impeccably light, smooth, and splashy, with a barely-there finish.
Bottom Line:
This is as easy-drinking as it gets for red wine. Enjoy it when you’re in the mood for something light and bright. Give it a little chill in the fridge to really kick this one up a level.
Yet another organic wine, this one here is made from montepulciano grapes in Abruzzo, the region of Italy where the most montepulciano is grown. The grape is typically used to create two different styles of wine, which I like to classify as “regular Tuesday wine” and “special occasion wine.” One style is soft and approachable, good for drinking at any time, like a Tuesday after work. The other is more structured and refined, definitely a bigger wine with a more astringent profile that could use some time opening up before drinking — making it perfect for those celebratory moments and big holiday dinners when you need something a little fancier.
This one here is definitely a Tuesday wine.
Tasting Notes:
This ruby-red wine has the aroma of red fruits and berries and cedarwood. The fruit is prevalent on the palate, but there’s this savory, herby quality reminiscent of rosemary and thyme that stands out the most. The wine is a bit dry but overall clean and soft with velvety tannins that give it a little structure.
Bottom Line:
Give that fast-food cheeseburger a splash of elegance with this soft and balanced wine. This wine is also dry enough to sop up a greasy pizza and other oily dishes but soft enough to not overpower the intricacies of food flavor.
Angelo Rocca & Figli Trentatre Rosso
Cellar Tracker
ABV: 14% Average Price: $6
The Wine:
This wine comes from the Apulia region within southern Italy. Its name Trentatre, which is the number 33 in Italian, is a play on the grapes the wine is made with—33.3 percent cabernet sauvignon, 33.3 percent, Merlot, and 33.4 percent Montepulciano.
Tasting Notes:
This is a robust, full-bodied, nearly purple-colored wine that features powerful aromatics of red and black fruit and a medley of spices and chocolate. The sip is booming with blackberry jam, hazelnut, cocoa, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It’s almost as if someone slathered a piece of raisin bread with Nutella, sprinkled it with cocoa and baking spices, and turned it into juice.
The finish is incredibly long, with luscious tannins that give the wine a body that’s equally rich and dry.
Bottom Line:
This is another good food wine that should cost a lot more than its price. If you’re making an extravagant meal, this is the excellent table option everyone will think you paid the big bucks for. Decant it in clear glass and they’ll never know!
Post Malone and Ozzy Osbourne’s first-ever collaboration came in the form of their 2019 track, “Take What You Want,” which appeared on the former’s Hollywood’s Bleeding album. Their second would arrive in 2020 with “It’s A Raid,” and more than a year after its release, the duo returns with a new video for the track.
In it, Posty and Ozzy are a pair of runaway individuals who flee from police officers after they were spotted with a sizeable amount of drugs at Ozzy’s home. Despite a lengthy pursuit and several attempts to break free from the officers who followed behind him, the duo would eventually be caught after they crashed their car.
It appears the video for “It’s A Raid” is somewhat based on a true story. According to Billboard, during a SiriusXM listening party last year, Ozzy revealed that the inspiration for the song came when he accidentally triggered the security alarm to his home while he recorded Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 in Bel Air, California. The action, of course, led to a number of police cars arrive at his house and surrounding it completely. Ozzy reveals that he had “piles of marijuana and cocaine,” when they arrived and yelled, “It’s a f*ckin raid,” before he hid the drugs and ingesting some of the cocaine as he hid in a bathroom.
Brady and Chiefs defensive back Tyrann Mathieu went at it multiple times during the game itself and, following the game, ESPN reported that Brady reached out to Mathieu to apologize for his actions. From there, Mathieu fired an interesting (now-deleted) tweet about Brady that received a lot of attention.
“He called me something I won’t repeat but yeah I’ll let all the media throw me under bus as if I did something or said something to him,” Mathieu’s tweet said. “Go back to my previous games against TB12 I showed him nothing but respect. Look at my interviews about him… I show grace.”
Now, ProFootballTalk is reporting, via a source, that NFL Films will not be sharing any of the audio or video content captured between Brady and Mathieu, citing the fact that “NFL Films typically does not reveal the audio of such squabbles between players.” Because there is a shroud of mystery with regard to this particular exchange, this public acknowledgement won’t exactly pour water on the fire, even if NFL Films’ assertion is very likely true that they usually wouldn’t share something like this in a public forum.
This denial won’t help to dampen rumors about what Brady may or may not have said, though it is noteworthy that Michael Irvin recently shared with Rich Eisen that his comments did not include any slurs. That, of course, doesn’t rule out any inappropriate language but, unless NFL Films changes course, the general public may never know what was said.
Following a four-month prison stay for possession of a knife, UK rapper Headie One returned to the rap scene in April 2020 to continue work on his debut album. That project, Edna, would arrive later in the fall where it would be met with rave reviews. Now, Headie One will begin his 2021 on a much higher note with the deluxe reissue of Edna. The re-release comes with a new video for his and Burna Boy’s joint track, “Siberia.”
The visual kicks off with Headie One standing out in the cold while he reflects on a past that was as harsh as the freezing climate he finds himself in. He also makes sure to flex his riches to listeners rapping, “Sat there by my gun and my b*tch YSL / If I style in Chanel, shawty’s stylin’ as well.” After laying off the song’s hook, the attention shifts to Burna Boy who finds himself in a much warmer area with the help of a beautiful woman beside him. The afro-fusion star’s contribution is braggadocios and filled with confidence as he flaunts his material possessions and his standoffish approach to his peers he deems unworthy of being around him.
In addition to “Siberia” with Burna Boy, the deluxe edition of Edna brings eight new songs to the album for a total of 28 tracks. Rich The Kid, Rv, and Northsidebenji will join Future, Drake, Kaash Paige, Mahalia, and others who appeared on the albusm standard edition.
Watch the “Siberia” video above.
Edna (Deluxe) is out now via Relentless. Get it here.
With Mardi Gras festivities called off this year, it’s the perfect time to learn how to make the iconic hurricane cocktail at home. That being said, there’s a lot to this rummy cocktail and you’ll need one hard(ish) to find ingredient: Passion fruit puree. This key ingredient gives the cocktail a silken texture while adding a unique flavor that makes it, well, a hurricane.
You should be able to find a bottle of passion fruit puree at a good liquor store. In a pinch, you can always use passion fruit juice. But, you’ll be losing that silken aspect of the classic version of the drink. Of course, you can always get some passion fruit, de-seed them, and simmer it down into your own puree but that’s a bit much for what should be a fun and easy cocktail.
Other than that, this really is a pretty straightforward tropical shaker. That means a lot of rum, citrus, and sugar served in a big ol’ hurricane glass. It’s the ray of sunshine that’ll break through the bleakest winter days.
I like using freshly squeezes juices. You don’t have to do a whole lot. One regular lime will yield just about one-ounce of juice. So, I ten to squeeze the juice right into the shaker. Likewise, half an orange usually yields about one-ounce of juice too. Still, you can juice all of this separately, strain it, and measure it out while you’re learning.
One quick tip, usually this recipe calls for a bit more of the syrups. It’s already fairly well sweetened with the orange juice and passion fruit, so I tend to go a little easier on the syrups. But, if you want it a little sweeter, add more of the grenadine (an ounce is plenty) as that’ll also add color.
Lastly, there’s the matter of the rum. I’m using a dark and light rum I have on the shelf. That happens to be Appleton Estate Signature and Havana Club 3. I also make these with Goslings Black Seal in place of the Appleton. Then sometimes, there’s an over-proofed rum float that goes on top of the cocktail. This is already a pretty strong drink so I’m skipping the float. If you have an ovenproof rum on the shelf, I’m not stopping you from floating a shot of that shit over your cocktail. You do you.
What You’ll Need:
Hurricane glass or pint glass
Cocktail shaker
Cocktail strainer
Jigger
Juicer
Sieve
Barspoon
Pairing knife
Cocktail stick
Zach Johnston
Method:
Fill your glass with ice.
Add rums, juices, puree, simple syrup, and grenadine to a cocktail shaker.
Top up with ice, affix lid, and shake vigorously until outside of shaker is frosted over and ice-cold to touch.
Strain the cocktail into the waiting glass.
Spear an orange wheel with a cherry and drop it into the glass.
Serve.
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
This is too easy to drink. Though, I did resort to using a straw. The fruitiness is the real bright spot of this cocktail. The citrus is sharp yet smooth thanks to that passion fruit. The rum is just there as a reminder you’re about to get pretty tipsy pretty fast (I’m not kidding … I had two of these and was feeling it).
In the end, this is a really good introduction to the wider world of tropical cocktails from the Pacific to the Caribbean and all points in between. If you can make this, you can whip up a zombie, Moonraker, or Mai Thai as well.
The Los Angeles Lakers don’t technically have the best record in the NBA but, at 20-6 and with an active six-game winning streak, the reigning champions are also the favorites to repeat in 2020-21. To that end, the regular season isn’t necessarily the overriding focus for the Lakers and, with that in mind, star big man Anthony Davis has missed the last two games with what the team is calling right Achilles tendonosis.
Davis has appeared in 21 of 26 games this season but, unlike other injuries that he may attempt to play through at this juncture in the season, he told the media Thursday that the Achilles is a different story.
“This is just a different circumstance with it being an Achilles. If it was a quad or finger, anything like that, I wouldn’t mind playing,” Davis said. “But I just don’t really want to play around with an Achilles. Today was the first day we were able to practice, get some run-in with some guys to really test it out.”
Quite honestly, this makes a lot of sense. There is absolutely no reason to push anything for Davis, and that would be true in the regular season even if the Lakers weren’t dominating the competition. The All-NBA big man is a fixture at the highest level of the NBA but, in addition to common sense surrounding any player, Davis is 27 years old and signed long-term, meaning the Lakers have even more incentive to be careful.
“I just don’t want to play a game where I still feel it and then get hurt and now I’m out for the playoffs or whatever or for multiple weeks, where it’s something I can’t control and maintain right now where you miss two games or three games early on in the season or midseason and be ready to go for the rest of the season,” Davis said.
The Lakers host the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday before hitting the road for a quick, two-game trip to Denver and Minnesota. Lakers head coach Frank Vogel shared that Davis did “no-contact drill work” on Thursday, with his status up in the air for Friday until they see how Davis feels.
“He’s going to see how he feels with it today, but more importantly how it responds overnight and see how he feels tomorrow before making any decisions on the game,” Vogel told reporters.
Davis and his team will seemingly take this day-by-day until otherwise noted. Even if he can’t play on Friday, though, Davis is intent on taking a cautious approach and that seems like the best way to operate.
In addition to being America’s most trusted source of Succession episodes, HBO has a lovely collection of movies available ranging from trashy action thrills to elegant period pieces to star-studded comedies. With all the recent changes to HBO’s streaming services, though, it can be confusing to know what the heck is on which app. Here is a ranking of the 25 best movies on HBO (previously known as HBO Now) that you could and should be watching right now. We also rounded up the best movies on HBO Max in another guide.
With just a few bars on the piano and an oversized mechanical shark, Steven Spielberg terrorized generations of moviegoers with Jaws. The film follows a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer who team up to hunt a great white shark who has a worrisome bloodlust and seems to be targeting a small beach town during the busiest time of the year. Spielberg’s camera work — the lingering, underwater shots, the quick cuts of flesh being torn from bone and rows of teeth flashing to the surface — make this exercise in inciting aquaphobia even more chilling. You’ll never look at a carefree day at the beach the same way again.
Jordan Peele’s nightmarish follow-up to Get Out cements the director’s status as a master of horror. This twisted tale follows an African-American family on vacation who encounter evil doppelgangers of themselves that hint at an even darker conspiracy. Lupita Nyong’o, and Winston Duke play a married couple, Adelaide and Gabe Wilson, who must protect their family from beings known as the “Tethered,” clones of themselves who have been trapped underground for decades and who are ready to take over on the surface. Peele takes fans on a thrilling ride, causing us to constantly question what’s real and who’s who but you probably won’t get a good night’s sleep after watching this thing.
A film noir set in the Ozarks of Missouri, Winter’s Bone was the breakthrough role for Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Ree Dolly, a 17-year-old who looks after her family since her father disappeared. With the looming threat of losing her home, Ree goes in search of her missing father, ending up in a world of distrust and violence. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and though it didn’t take any Oscars home, it did win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
HBO managed to pull off the seemingly impossible with this follow-up movie based on a series that left us too soon. Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, and the rest of the residents of the camp are back to celebrate the South Dakota’s statehood in the only way this dusty drama knows how — with reignited rivalries, betrayals, bloodshed, and lots of swearin.’ The show became a fan favorite thanks to its gritty performances and nuanced storytelling, and the movie continues the tradition, investigating the lives of these pioneers who’ve endured plenty of hardship for their piece of the American dream.
In case you didn’t catch it in theaters, or you just want to revisit the chaos and mayhem of Joaquin Phoenix’s troubled clown, Todd Phillips’ Joker is now on HBO Max. This gritty origin story imagines the DC supervillain as a mentally-ill clown-for-hire named Arthur, who spirals when his stand-up career turns sour, and he discovers some details about his lineage. Really, it doesn’t take much to put this guy over the edge.
Ridley Scott basically invented sci-fi horror with this alien thriller about a crew on a commercial space tug who must battle a violent extraterrestrial being that’s infiltrated their ship. Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley, an officer aboard the Nostromo, who’s forced to face down the titular Alien, an aggressive lifeform intent on killing the ship’s human crew. Most of the action revolves around Weaver’s attempts to destroy the creature and save her shipmates but it’s Scott’s direction behind the camera that creates the suspense and terror this film has become known for.
Visionary director Taika Waititi gives us this World War II-set satirical masterpiece (and Oscar screenplay winner) that follows a young German boy, whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler. The kicker is that Waititi plays the genocidal maniac, making him a weak, comedic caricature of the infamous mass murderer, and as Jo Jo (a terrific Roman Griffin Davis) begins to bond with a Jewish girl hiding in his house, his worship of the dictator wanes in hilarious ways. Scarlett Johansson does some of her best work here as Jo Jo’s mother, a woman fighting to help the Jews, and Sam Rockwell steals every scene he’s in, playing a queer Nazi commander. Yet the joy and humor in this belongs to Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, and Archie Yates — the kids who give the film some much needed heart.
There are timeless classics and then there’s David Fincher’s exercise in understanding modern masculinity (a.k.a. Fight Club). The film has managed to remain relevant over the decades, with fans finding new themes and messages to dig into when it comes to Edward Norton’s depressed, unfulfilled office worker and his machismo friend, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). The two start an underground fight club — with a now-famous set of rules — and wreak havoc on the city as they let loose their aggression and search for the meaning in life. But it’s the film’s surprise, introspective ending that really elevates this bloody drama.
Bruce Willis stars in this action classic that gave birth to a genre-defining franchise. Willis plays John McClane, an NYPD officer tasked with rescuing his wife and children from a group of German terrorists who hold a Christmas gathering hostage at an LA hotel. Alan Rickman plays the group’s leader, and it’s his bad guy that makes this thing so enjoyable to watch. That, and Willis’ iconic one-liners.
A master assassin (Uma Thurman) is betrayed by her former associates and left for dead, only for her to awaken from her coma and vow to take uncompromising vengeance. Possible issues with director Quentin Tarantino aside, it’s impossible to say that watching his movies isn’t a distinct experience. Each piece of the Bride’s journey, while very different, fit together perfectly throughout the two films. Tarantino’s recognizable comedy, music, and slight self-indulgence come through in Kill Bill, which has just the right and an excessive amount of tongue-and-cheek and fake blood, respectively.
Inspirational without being self-congratulatory or condescending, Mick Jackson’s Temple Grandin places Claire Danes in the role of the real-life title character as she develops into a voice in animal science that cannot be ignored. A world that’s unaccommodating to autism and women in the ranching industry does not make things easy for Grandin and Danes portrays her with detail, intelligence and heart. Bonus points awarded for having the courage to include comedy and taking the effort to make something with warmth. You don’t get that too often in movies featuring the inner workings of slaughterhouses.
Laura Dern gives a hauntingly beautiful performance in Jennifer Fox’s autobiographical drama, The Tale. The film recounts Fox’s own history of sexual abuse at the hands of a riding instructor who was three times her age. Dern plays a grown-up version of Fox, a woman struggling to recall illicit memories of her past, to reconcile the relationship she thought she had as a teenager with a man old enough to be her father with what actually happened — years of grooming, mental, and physical abuse at the hands of adults she had put her trust in. It’s a brutal but necessary watch.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonard DiCaprio, and Cameron Diaz star in Martin Scorsese’s historical epic that re-imagines the birth of New York City. DiCaprio plays Amsterdam, an Irish immigrant who returns to the Five Points years following his father’s murder, looking for revenge. To get it, he infiltrates Bill the Butcher’s (Lewis) gang, a group of proud natives tired of the influx of foreigners in their city. Diaz plays a prostitute who forms a relationship with Amsterdam as he befriends Bill, then struggles to follow-through with his plan to kill the man who murdered his father and lead the Five Points in a rebellion against the city’s elite.
Nicole Kidman, Lucas Hedges, and Joel Edgerton star in this queer drama directed by Edgerton based off the memoir of author Garrad Conley. The film follows the son of a Baptist preacher (Hedges) who is outed to his strictly religious family and forced to undergo his church’s gay conversion therapy camp. There, he’s abused mentally and physically because of his queerness and his bonds with his family are tested.
Erin Lee Carr’s spellbinding crime doc Mommy Dead and Dearest plunges into the bizarre and absorbing true story surrounding the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard. It’s an absorbing, strange and disturbing watch that doles out enough jaw-dropping moments in 83 minutes to put full seasons of TV to shame. Sundance hopefuls would have a field day with the visuals in this documentary if they were to try and adapt this stranger-than-fiction tale of manipulation, murder, and motherhood.
Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith star in this Bonnie & Clyde remix with a timely narrative twist. Penned by Lena Waithe, the story follows a Black couple whose first date turns deadly after a cop racially profiles Slim. The violent incident forces the two to go on the run, connecting with their pasts in unexpected ways and finding a deeper understanding of each other while fighting the system and trying to make it out alive.
Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, and a handful of other embarrassingly talented actors carry this heartwarming family drama about two kids in search of their father. Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska play Laser and Joni, siblings conceived by artificial insemination. Their moms Jules (Moore) and Nic (Bening) each used the same sperm donor to have them and now, as the kids have grown up, they’ve become curious about this mystery paternal figure. Enter Ruffalo who plays a hippie restaurant owner named Paul that seems more interested in hooking up with Jules than getting to know his kids. It’s messy and difficult, but it’s a relatable story about unconventional family dynamics that feels refreshingly original.
Baz Luhrmann’s bohemian rhapsody set in 1900s France follows the tale of a struggling writer who falls for a beautiful courtesan. Ewan McGregor plays Christian, a poet with grand ideas on love who move to the Montmarte district to write a novel and truly experience life. A trip to a pleasure theater called the Moulin Rouge introduces him to Satine (Nicole Kidman), a gorgeous performer who’s also caught the eye of a rich duke. Torn between her love for Christian and the trappings of her luxurious life, the pair embark on a forbidden romance that has disastrous consequences for everyone.
Kevin Smith’s slacker comedy has become a cult classic over the years. The premise of the film is pretty straight-forward: a guy working at a convenience store is called in on his day off and ends up having the shift from hell. Dead girlfriends, rooftop hockey games, attempted robberies, a breakup, and maybe even a life epiphany happen before the credits roll, but the real fun is in watching two dead-beats try their damndest to avoid work by getting into some sticky situations.
In Bruges was the movie that revealed Colin Farrell could be funny. A character actor stuck in a leading man’s body, Farrell gives arguably the best performance of his career as Ray, a rookie Irish hitman on the run with his partner and mentor, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), after accidentally killing a kid while executing a priest. While that may not sound much like the premise of a comedy, director Martin McDonagh crafted a truly hilarious movie. Farrell and Gleeson play off each other wonderfully all the way to the film’s dark finale. But as great as they are, they’re overshadowed at times by an incredible performance from Ralph Fiennes as their boss, Harry. Fiennes is at once funny and terrifying as a man steadfast in his principles, even when that involves committing murder.
It’d be rude for a Liberace-focused film not to be showered in sparkly awards upon release, don’t you think? Steven Soderbergh’s HBO Films take on Scott Thorson’s memoir Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace earned Emmys galore for its blend of effective drama and dark comedy. Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, and Scott Bakula all scored well-deserved praise and trophies for their work in this gripping (and appropriately stylish) drama that will have you scrambling down many a Wikipedia rabbit hole after.
Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore star in this HBO remake of the 1975 documentary of the same name. Lange plays “Big Eddie,” aunt to former First Lady Jackie Kennedy, while Barrymore plays “Little Edie,” Kennedy’s first cousin. The two women became famous when it was revealed that their estate, Grey Gardens, was in ruin and they’d been living there in squalor for years. The film chronicles their journey to destitution, following “Little Edie” as she tries and fails to make a name for herself away from her mother while “Big Eddie” tries to prevent the end of her marriage. It’s a gripping, tragic tale, one made more visceral thanks to some stellar performances by Lange and Barrymore.
It’s always surreal when life imitates art but watching Steven Soderbergh’s star-studded thriller during the age of Corona feels more like a warning than anything. That’s because Soderbergh approaches the film’s plot — a deadly virus originating in China ravages the planet forcing regular civilians and CDC workers to do the unthinkable in order to survive — with a methodical, scientific formula. There are real stakes, especially when we watch Matt Damon’s character scramble to save what’s left of his family or Laurence Fishburne fail to manage the crisis as a CDC head, but there’s also so much scientific jargon that this could be taught in schools. It probably should.
Elisabeth Moss stars in this terrifying tale of the consequences of a toxic relationship. Moss plays Cecilia, a woman haunted by the specter of her abusive ex. Everyone believes the guy took his own life, except Cecilia, who he left his immense fortune to with the caveat that she remain of sound mind. The whole film centers on his goal of driving her insane, torturing her in invisible form as her friends and family slowly question her sense of reality. It’s horrifying simply because it could easily be true. And well, he’s invisible, so the jump scares are also strong here.
Living up to the immense hype it earned at Sundance that year, Real Women Have Curves is a coming-of-age tale that balances drama and comedy while shining a spotlight on the acting skills of future Superstore star America Ferrera. (The film marked the actress’s cinematic debut.) Ferrera plays Ana García, a young Mexican-American woman navigating cultural, societal and familial expectations in Los Angeles as she works toward her goal of heading to college. Smart, dignified and occasionally bittersweet, Real Women Have Curves is a movie unafraid of its warmth and humanity.
While there are still two hearings left in Britney Spears’ pending conservatorship case, a judge delivered a ruling on Thursday that pretty much solidified the nature of the singer’s estate for the foreseeable future. According to Variety, Judge Brenda Penny denied Jamie Spears’, Britney’s father, objections to the decision to appoint Bessemer Trust Co. as co-conservator of the singer’s estate.
Back in November, Penny named Bessemer as a co-conservator after denying Britney’s request to completely remove her father from the conservatorship. As a result, the singer’s attorney, Samuel Ingham, proposed for the new co-conservatorship, but Jamie Spears’ lawyer objected to it and claimed it inappropriately reduced his powers within the estate.
In court on Thursday, Ingham responded to the objections and said it would give Jamie and Bessemer “an equal division of responsibility, in the hopes that they would sit down and figure out together the best way to handle this complex estate for the benefit of my client.” He added, “It’s no secret that my client does not want her father as co-conservator, but we recognize that removal is a separate issue.”
The ruling comes after New York Times released their Framing Britney Spears documentary on Hulu and FX. The film criticizes the singer’s conservatorship and has helped amplify a second wave of the #FreeBrintey movement online with many of its supporters appearing outside the courthouse for the ruling on Thursday.
Disney announced on Thursday that, as of January 2, the company had passed more than 90 million subscribers in the month of December, another indicator of the huge growth the streaming platform has seen that’s surprised even Disney.
The streaming service notched 94.9 million customers worldwide as of Jan. 2, 2021, the company announced.
That’s up more than 8 million in just one month, from 86.8 million paid subscribers as of Dec. 2. It also now tops Disney’s original projections of landing up to 90 million subs for Disney Plus within four years.
Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but the news of the big December (and 2020 overall) for Disney+ comes just hours after social media movement toward a Disney+ boycott after news of Carano’s departure from The Mandalorian was made official. That came on the heels of yet another cycle of social media backlash about insensitive posts Carano has made on social media about a number of topics, including gender and mask usage to stop the spread of COVID-19.
We’ll see how big an impact any potential boycott of Disney+ actually has on Disney’s subscriber base, but it’s unlikely there will be an immediate 1:1 comparison possible to make in this case. Pricing for the platform will go up in March, which may scare some people away. Though as WandaVision‘s first season continues and other Disney+ shows grow closer to release on the platform it certainly would have to be a significant movement to counteract the increased interest Disney has seen in the platform’s first two years, and the growth it saw in 2020 has already put it on a pace well ahead what the company predicted it could see ahead of its launch.
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