Category: Worldwide

The NBA found zero positive cases of COVID-19 this week and teams are rounding into form. For the Lakers and Sixers, it was largely a week of proof that they can compete for a championship in 2021, while others have merely been lucky to tread water. Still, the trade deadline is nearly two months away, and preseason darlings like the Mavericks dug themselves a hole during the first couple months of the season due to health and safety protocol absences and injuries.

With the NFL season wrapping up, all attention shifts to basketball and who comes away with a championship in a season that feels very wide-open, especially in the Eastern Conference. Here’s who’s up and who’s down this week in the NBA.

Stock Up: The Lakers’ offense, led by LeBron James’ scoring

This week, for the first time, the Lakers truly came into their own and were tested. Aside from the drama surrounding Courtside Karen or Anthony Davis’ so-called struggles, the Lakers went 5-2 on their East coast road trip, beating the Bucks, Cavs, and Celtics in the process, in addition to a near-comeback in Philadelphia.

Doing it with Davis’ scoring down has meant getting more out of James. He averaged nearly 26 points per game in January with a 32.1 percent usage rate and a 60.5 true shooting percentage. After operating as the Lakers’ starting point guard in 2020, James is getting his points off the ball more often now.

Per Synergy Sports, more than eight percent of James’ scoring possessions are coming off cuts this season compared with just 3.3 percent last year. That’s helped increase in his efficiency at the rim as well. And as Jonathan Tjarks noted at The Ringer, James is also trading in many of his drives for deep threes this season, plus he’s knocking down a career-best 40.9 percent of his triples overall.

It’s no wonder James was feeling himself when Courtside Karen started to heckle him in Atlanta. His game continues to evolve, but he’s as great as ever, and the Lakers are hitting their stride.

Stock Down: Kristaps Porzingis as a championship-caliber costar

Dallas is finally fully healthy, with Josh Richardson, Maxi Kleber, and Kristaps Porzingis all back and filling out the starting lineup around Luka Doncic. That means it’s our first chance to really evaluate the 9-14 Mavs, and early returns have not been great, leaving questions about how the team’s two stars fit together.

So far this season, per Cleaning the Glass, the Mavs are 1.9 points worse per 100 possessions when both Doncic and Porzingis are on the floor together, a good but not great number heavily weighed by last night’s loss to Golden State. But really, unless the pick and pop game is working, Porzingis is unlikely to make a major impact on the game. For a team that struggles so badly in crunch time, there’s not much Porzingis does consistently that manipulates the defense or makes his teammates better, aside from the obvious floor-spacing he provides with his incredible range.

What the Mavs need is more plays like this, with Porzingis using his size as a cutter to really take advantage of that spacing and make Dallas’ offense less predictable:

The play invigorated Porzingis and the whole Mavs bench, with Porzingis knocking down a three the next time down the floor that effectively iced the game. Healthy, shooting a career-high 55 percent from two-point range, and starting at center now, Porzingis has no reason not to make an impact inside. Early on with the Knicks, Porzingis’ best plays almost always came off putback dunks or insane blocks. The Mavs can’t afford for him to be relegated to a spot-up shooter, even if he gets back to being elite at that.

And right now, Porzingis isn’t even shooting like usual, in part causing a trickle-down that has left the Mavs at the bottom of the league in three-point shooting, even when open.

The reason this is a stock down is that Porzingis has rarely been able to string games like this together, and advanced metrics have always shown him to be a poor defender. The Mavs’ defense right now is better when guys like Willie Cauley-Stein or Dwight Powell play in place of Porzingis. Not to pile on after an ugly loss to the Warriors, but Porzingis is also too easy a target in pick and roll, as illustrated here by Anthony Slater of The Athletic.

In order to lift the Mavs to title contention (and in the short-term, get them out of their current rut), Porzingis needs to use his size and athleticism to play like one of the most physically imposing guys in the NBA. The Mavs intentionally subtracted some shooting from the roster in the name of defense, so until Porzingis adds occasional regular big man stuff on both ends to his impressive shooting displays, Dallas is likely to have problems.

Stock Up: Tobias Harris as a go-to scorer

No team has benefited more from getting off to a strong start than the Sixers. Even with many players missing time due to health and safety protocols and the team having to integrate a new coach in Doc Rivers, the Sixers are leading the Eastern Conference with a 16-7 record to go with the fourth-best defense in the NBA. While the offense is still middle of the pack and a work in progress now that Seth Curry is back in the lineup, the biggest perimeter threat on the team has been Tobias Harris, finding his way back into an effective leading role for the first time as a Sixer.

While Joel Embiid is a front-runner for MVP in large part because of how he’s added to his offensive game, Harris announced himself this week with a huge game-winning fallaway jumper over Alex Caruso:

The journeyman is shooting 50.8 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from deep to put him at a career-best 20.2 points per game. Whatever promise the 2018 trade for Harris held for the Sixers is being realized now, and breathes a fresh dose of optimism into the team’s future.

Harris is running far more pick-and-roll this year — more even than Ben Simmons — and is giving enough as a shooter to pull defenses apart. The Lakers game last week was a nice indicator for how the Sixers’ offense can work in a playoff atmosphere. When Simmons’ transition attacks didn’t work, Philly worked quickly to alternate into a halfcourt set. Mostly that meant running things through Embiid, but when he was double-teamed or the Sixers tried to mix things up, Harris was a capable ball-handler and shooter. Considering Curry and Danny Green are also out there spacing the floor, it’s a rhythm that’s working for the Sixers right now.

It’s Embiid who so far has handled the vast majority of Philly’s crunch-time offense, with a 34.7 percent usage rate in those moments. Harris ranks in the 40s among field goal attempts per game in the clutch. If that balance can shift further toward Harris, it would help Philly’s offense be less predictable in those moments and also allow Embiid to save his energy. All too often, Embiid has been exhausted by the end of the Sixers’ biggest games.

In the past, Harris hasn’t come through in big spots. He shot 38 percent from the field in last year’s playoff sweep at the hands of the Celtics, and wasn’t much better in the Sixers’ second-round run against Brooklyn and Toronto the year prior. But Rivers was brought in to diversify the offense, and Harris isn’t being asked to do anything he’s not capable of. At age 28, he’s having the best season of his career so far and affecting the game in a way that should be replicable.

Stock Up: The NBA’s COVID-19 protocols

Since the NBA cracked down on some of the clearly risky activities like off-court activities, road trip guests, and contact between players, case numbers have gone down.

The league is also making sensible changes like requiring KN95 masks rather than cloth ones, which are shown to be more effective at filtering air, as well as “parking” teams (like Washington or Memphis) that have a case of COVID rather than pressing on and risking further spread within a team, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski explained here.

All this stacks up to help explain why cases are dropping. At the same time, the NBA has effectively recreated the Bubble for any travel, making sleeping at home during homestands effectively the only difference. And in some ways, the Bubble was even more lax, as players were free to mingle and connect because the league was confident the virus would not penetrate the Wide World of Sport complex in Orlando. This is the only way to play the season virus-free, but it’s not much of a life.

The NBA recently extended the stricter protocols another two weeks, but as cases in the league drop, so too do numbers around the country. And after the Suns recently became the 10th team to announce plans to host fans for games, NBA players are in many cases living more constricted lives than the general public where they live and work. It’s worth wondering whether the league can continue to ask for such harsh regulations on players while outside a Bubble without creating tension with them.

Mayans M.C. last aired an episode in November 2019, and we all know what happened a few months later. Shooting schedules everywhere went on hold, but it looks like the FX biker drama rallied and will soon deliver a Season 3 premiere. It’s actually happening sooner than reasonably expected (Tuesday, March 16), and the show has unveiled a new teaser of the club riding through the desert (alongside the sort-of border wall). E.Z.’s been patched in, so he’s definitely not riding alone, although it sure sounds as if he’s still not sure where safe footing shall be found within the group.

Showrunner Elgin James (this is now, officially, the post-Kurt Sutter era for the Sons Of Anarchy franchise) admitted as much about E.Z. while speaking with Entertainment Weekly. According to James, E.Z.’s feeling god awful about Dita’s murder (even though she asked for it), but he’ll pick up with “his new love interest” (this may or may not be Gaby… sorry, Emily?), and Angel’s hell bent upon a sex-and-booze bender after losing Adelita. Coco will continue his downward spiral, and Alvarez will need to decide whether he’s with the Mayans or with Miguel Galindo.

What viewers want to know, obviously, is whether we’ll find out the identity of the dead SAMCRO member at the Vatos Malditos M.C. party. Here’s what James had to offer:

“[G]hosts of the past come calling for all of the M.C., both individually and as a club; from past loss and loves, to a dead SOA member buried in the Mexican desert. This is a season about reckoning. This is the season we get to know these characters beyond the kutte. This is the season we tell their stories.”

James is more than suggesting that the Mayans will succeed (at least at first) at covering up the accidental murder of the SAMCRO member, which leads me to believe that it’s someone who won’t be missed too much. As our own Dustin Rowles noted, Clayton Cardenas (who portrays Angel) hypothesized that it could be Chibs or Happy, but it surely doesn’t make sense that Chibs (as the founding chapter’s president) could be dumped in the desert, no questions asked. I don’t want to see Happy go yet, but obviously, this is someone who decided to work with VM while leaving the Mayans unaware. So, it’s someone who’s invested in the situation and we’ve probably seen before in this spinoff. That still leaves room for this to be Montez… maybe. Jacob Vargas’ IMDb page lists him as being in this episode, so that’d work out with this theory; however, he’s also listed as being in Season 3, so yeah, you’ve got me there.

Hopefully, we’ll receive the answer on March 16 when Mayans M.C. returns.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Silicon Valley, Avenue 5, and The Office actor Zach Woods likes movies about people that are a little messy, telling me about the frustrating and endearing quality of such things when we spoke the other day about his debut short film, which is in contention for an Oscar nomination after competing at Cannes. It all conjures an image of relatability. Because we’re all screw-ups pretending that we know what we’re doing or what we should be saying, including those among us who act like that isn’t so. Aren’t they annoying? And don’t you hate movies that advance that fiction of a well put together person?

Woods’ short film, David, could never be accused of that. Instead, it’s about a therapist (Will Ferrell), his son (Fred Hechinger, who nearly steals the whole thing), and his patient (William Jackson Harper) colliding over a small sliver of time and attention. It’s a comedy! Or a drama! Woods has heard it both ways, but he’s happy to let the audience decide (it’s embedded at the bottom of this interview, so by all means).

We spoke with Woods about his fascination with mess, the charm of this film, getting Will Ferrell to sign on, not taking on projects that lack urgency, the sadness of Gabe on The Office, and, most weirdly, pyro dancing.

Did you film this during Downhill?

It was after that, I got to hang out with Will a lot in these little towns in Austria where there wasn’t a lot to do and we got to talk a lot. And then when we got back from that, I guess it was a few months after that, I think.

I would imagine a lot of people ask Will Ferrell to be in their projects. How does one secure Will Ferrell to be in their first film?

I don’t know. He’s just very, very generous with his time and participation. I mean, he said he just really liked it, which is nice. I think he was also doing something sweet for me. You know? He told me that when he started reading it, he thought, “Oh, this is going to be one of those things where you read it and you say, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry, but I can’t do it.’” But that when the kid in the background is running up towards the window, that that, to him, was really funny and strange. And then he was hooked by it and that made him want to do it. He said it was too weird to not do.

If you had to describe the charm of this, what would you say it is?

I don’t know. I think the charm of the movie… I feel like there is, and maybe always was, an intolerance for the messiness of people. That with Instagram, and I suppose even in the political climate where there’s an incredible pressure and tribalism, I think there’s a lot of pressure to have a curated and blemish-free version of yourself that you put on display. And I feel like my most foundational experience of being human and dealing with humans is one that is characterized by mess. I think mess is the most quintessentially human thing to me. And it’s often what makes people both lovable and infuriating. And I think asking people to put up with your mess, and telling other people you’ll put up with theirs and embrace it… that is basically the main exchange of love in a lot of ways. And I also think it’s what is, to me, both funny and dramatic.

I heard an interview with Cherry Jones, the theater actress once, where she said theater is where we comfort each other with our shortcomings. And I thought that was such a nice line. And I guess I felt comforted in that way a lot from movies, and plays, and books, and all kinds of things where people are generous enough to invite you into their trouble. And that makes you feel less alone, even though you’ve never met these people. And to me, I wanted to make a movie that invited people into the trouble of trying to show up for people and doing it very imperfectly. And I think that struggle is very funny to me and very heartbreaking and very hopeful. So that’s the longest answer ever.

Nah, it fits perfectly. Are there films that stand out to you that do that same thing? Films that inspire you?

Absolutely. I mean, I think most of the movies I like are, in one way or another, about that. I mean, I love Ordinary People, speaking of therapist movies, and I think that’s a movie in which Timothy Hutton’s character really has to reckon with some very complicated, aggressive, shameful feelings, and welcome them in. There’s a great line in Ordinary People where Judd Hirsch’s therapist character says, “If you can’t feel bad, you’re not going to feel much of anything else either.” And I think that’s really right on the money. I also love You Can Count On Me, the Kenneth Lonergan movie with Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo. I love Kramer vs. Kramer. I don’t know if it’s exactly about mess, but I love The Lives Of Others. It’s a movie about this member of the Stasi, who’s observing this artistic couple in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall. But there’s really a million of them.

Are you actively working on something else? Are you looking to do something that’s long-form, short-form?

I just finished another short film. We’re just finishing the sound mix. I wrote it with Brandon Gardner who wrote this with me. And it’s a lot of the same crew and team, same DP, Andre Lascaris, who’s a genius, and the same producers. And we’re finishing that up now. That one’s more of a drama. That one has Michael Peña and Everly Carginella, who’s this little girl who’s truly spectacular. And so we’re going to finish that up. And then, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s next. I mean, I’m going to just keep trying to follow interest. Just be like, “What is upsetting to me? What is interesting to me? What makes me laugh?” And then figure out the form after. Anytime I’ve tried to write a specific thing, like, “I’m going to write a feature, I’m going to write a pilot. I’m going to write…” It always feels a little obligatory or something. It feels like I’m a mercenary. When I read it, it doesn’t really have a spark. I’ll just be like, “Oh, I see. You did the mad lib where you plugged in the details, but the structure was preordained and you’re…” So I’m going to try to just stay a weird airy-fairy little freak, and follow that for a while. You know?

That’s an interesting space to operate in. I’m sure you’re getting asked a lot, “when’s the feature?” It’s interesting that you’re just servicing the story and then taking it wherever.

Yeah. I can never remember who said this, but someone said making a movie should feel as urgent as having to pee, which I thought was such a great way of putting it. It should feel like, “Oh, I have to make this. Now, now, now. I have to make it.” Because God knows there’s so much to watch. And we’ve all seen movies where it feels like someone made a movie because they wanted to have made a movie. You know what I mean? Less that the story felt really urgent, and it more just seemed like it was a career move or whatever. And I don’t think you have to be completely purist about it. And I’ve definitely done things because I’ve had professional goals. I’m not claiming some sort of monastic purity here. But I do think the movies that I respond to most strongly are the ones that feel as urgent as having to pee. And my aspiration would be to make something that feels like it has urinary urgency. [Laughs]

[Laughs] So, the Office is obviously getting a lot of attention during lockdown here. I don’t think it’s a shock for me to say that Gabe was not exactly intended to be one of the beloved characters of The Office.

Yeah.

How does it feel to be, not a villain per se, but to occupy that space a little bit on a show that people love so much?

I mean, I think my hope is always to play characters who are difficult or unlikeable in a way that at least gives them some vulnerability or humanity. So that underneath their prickly porcupine behavior, you can see the soft skin of a sickly rodent or whatever. And I don’t know. I don’t really read anything that people write. So it’s hard for me to know the reception of the character or anything. But I think if people felt some mixture of alienation, understandable alienation, and also some sort of, at least, empathy or understanding for poor Gabe, then I will have done my job. [Laughs]

He is a character you kind of do want to feel bad for. I personally don’t. He doesn’t bother me to that much of an extent, which is a compliment. You don’t bother me that much. [Laughs]

Well, thank you. [Laughs]

But he does feel like someone who just tries so hard to be liked and just tries to build himself into something, which is, I think, something a lot of people can relate to.

Well, there’s nothing sadder to me than people who are desperate for… There’s no faster way to lose respect than to be frantically desperate for it. And I think Gabe is… it’s like in Mice And Men when Lenny grabs the thing too tight and kills the little bunny because he wants… Gabe is like that with anything, any authority, respect, friendship, romance. It’s all just like he wants it so bad, he just crushes it in his skeletal hands. [Laughs]

So, on your Wikipedia page it says that, as a child, you were into baseball, karate, and pyro dancing.

Not true.

What’s pyro dancing?

[Laughs] I don’t know. That’s just the internet doing its beautiful thing. I mean, unless, the pyro dancing, I guess the only thing I can think is that maybe I was into pyro dancing and there was something completely traumatizing that happened related to the pyro dancing and I’ve blocked it out, but someone else remembers it. Other than that, I can say with some certainty that I’ve never done pyro dancing. Not because I’m scared of fire, but because I’m scared of dancing.

Should I go in and fix the Wikipedia entry, or just leave it?

Honestly, please delete everything else and just leave the pyro dancing. [Laughs]

You can watch ‘David’ below.

Leaving Neverland was an Emmy-winning documentary about the sexual abuse allegations made against Michael Jackson that forever altered many people’s perceptions of the pop star. Allen v. Farrow may do the same thing for Woody Allen.

The four-part HBO documentary series from Oscar-nominated filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (The Invisible War, The Hunting Ground) uses home movies, court documents, police evidence, and audio tapes to “reveal the private story of one of Hollywood’s most notorious and public scandals: the accusation of sexual abuse against Woody Allen involving Dylan, his then seven-year-old daughter with Mia Farrow; their subsequent custody trial, the revelation of Allen’s relationship with Farrow’s daughter, Soon-Yi; and the controversial aftermath in the years that followed,” according to HBO. Allen v. Farrow features interviews from Mia Farrow, Dylan Farrow, Ronan Farrow, family friend Carly Simon, and prosecutor Frank Maco, as well as investigators and other relatives, many of whom are speaking publicly about the allegations for the first time.

Here’s more from HBO:

Once celebrated for their on and off-screen partnership, Farrow and Allen’s lives were irrevocably fractured and their sprawling family torn apart with the public disclosure of the abuse allegations and the vitriolic disputes that followed.

Allen v Farrow premieres on February 21 on HBO Max.

Longtime actor and screen legend Christopher Plummer passed away Friday morning at the age of 91 in his Connecticut home. The versatile performer who made his stage debut in 1946 is probably best known — much to his chagrin — for his portrayal of Captain Georg Von Trapp in the Oscar-winning musical The Sound of Music before going on to become a Hollywood staple in a wide range of films that included Stage Struck, The Man Who Would Be King, An American Tail, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, 12 Monkeys, The Insider, Inside Man, and more recently, Rian Johnson’s mystery whodunnnit Knives Out. In 2012, Plummer became the oldest actor to win an Academy Award after being nominated for his role in Beginners. Via Variety:

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words,” said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager of 46 years. “He was a national treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.”

While Plummer has been frank about his dislike for The Sound of Music, which he reportedly refered to as “The Sound of Mucus,” the actor was always thankful that it opened the door to his long and varied acting career. Plummer became so versatile of a performer that he famously replaced Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World and had to reshoot all of Spacey’s scenes with less than a month before the film’s release. Not only did Plummer pull it off, but he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

News of Plummer’s death has led to an outpouring of tributes:

And finally, from not-Hollywood, we’ll leave you with this little slice of dark humor..

This week, I was lucky enough to get to blindly taste single malt Scotch whiskies between 20 and 25 years old. It was a serious learning experience. The biggest thing I learned? 20-year-old single malt scotch is way easier to drink than 20-year-old bourbon. Whereas the bourbon can get more intense with all that age, single malts tend to soften dramatically while still holding onto their flavor profiles.

So while the bourbon sweet spot is often 8-12 years (with some exceptions), with scotch you don’t have a really firm upper limit.

Considering that we’re talking about single malts that spent a long time in barrels, you won’t be surprised to find that there was no price factor in this blind tasting. These bottles range from $200 to $900 — if you can find them at all. Also, I wasn’t guessing which was which. I know most of these well enough to make that a breeze. There’s no misidentifying an Ardbeg or Oban, for instance. Still, doing a blind helped me to trust my palate rather than a label.

What’s always interesting about these blind tastings is how these drams change when stacked up against something you don’t usually taste them with. Little nuances pop up that may have not been there before while flavor notes you thought you really liked can disappear. It’s a fun experiment in whisky tasting that always brings about new knowledge.

Let’s get tasting!

Part 1: The Taste

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear sense of honey on the nose with dried fruit, malts, and light oak. The taste leans into the honey and malts while a sweet red berry flourish arrives. There’s a hint of butter toffee next to those whisky malts.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

This is mildly malty with hints of tobacco spice, dried and candied fruits, and a bit of light molasses sweetness. There’s a body of the slightest dark chocolate chili note that leads towards a whisper of sourness at the end.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear smokiness but it’s more akin to a smoked stonefruit that’s started to harden a bit. The taste has a honeyed apple nature with an oaky chew that leads back to a very faint wisp of that smoke again.

It’s almost like smoked almonds without the salt.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

This has a real malty nature with hints of sweet oak, boardwalk-style salted caramel in wax paper, and a hint of chewy sweet fruit. The body has a dark chocolate/hazelnut vibe that’s like the best bespoke Nutella cut with a touch of toasted coconut and a hint of mint. This is also pure velvet on the tongue and leaves you with notes of sweet yet spicy oak.

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

This is very light and approachable with a hint of pear candy drawing you in and developing on the palate. Notes of worn leather, spicy tobacco, and light malts really blend well with that pear/apple candy sweetness and a touch of vanilla.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

Cream, smoked toffee, lemon pith, and ashes from a campfire open this one up. Then there’s this real sense of potting soil that’s still in the plastic from the garden shop next to uncooked smoked bacon rashers with a slightly sour edge leading back to that cream. Finally, hefty/ spicy tobacco chewiness brings about a full-on head buzz — it’s a wild sensation.

Part 2: The Ranking

6. BenRiach The Twenty One Four Cask Matured (Taste 3)

ABV: 46%

Average Price: $185

The Whisky:

This newly-released whisky from BenRiach is a combination of peated and unpeated malts. The whiskies are then aged for 21 years in ex-bourbon barrels, ex-sherry casks, virgin oak casks, and former Bordeaux red wine casks. Those are then blended after their two-decade rest and proofed with that soft Speyside water.

Bottom Line:

I’m not a peaty whisky drinker, but I actually was kind of underwhelmed by the thin smoke in this dram. I need the peat to be earthier and smokier, with a bit of fat to it. This didn’t have those qualities.

5. Aberfeldy 20 Exceptional Cask (Taste 1)

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $190

The Whisky:

This special release from last year spent 20 years mellowing in re-fill bourbon and sherry casks. Then the prime juice was married and filled into hand-selected Sauternes sweet wine casks from France for a final year of maturation. The results hold onto the signature honeyed heart of Aberfeldy while adding more sweetened nuance to the dram.

Bottom Line:

In the end, it’s light and approachable but left me a little cold this time around. Also, I’m a big fan of their 18-year Expecptional Cask, released last year, thanks to deeper notes of cedar and tobacco which are muted in this dram.

4. Mortlach 21 2020 Rare By Nature (Taste 2)

ABV: 56.9%

Average Price: $835

The Whisky:

Mortlach is a Dufftown icon. The juice in this bottle are single malts that are small-batched and then refilled into former Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso sherry seasoned casks for final maturation. The whisky was then bottled at cask strength, allowing you a full vision of what was in the barrel.

Bottom Line:

This is really interesting. However, that sourness came out of nowhere and kind of threw me off. It could be from oxidization in the sample bottle I have… Tough to say.

Still, this is a damn fine whisky that really shines.

3. Cragganmore 20 2020 Rare By Nature (Taste 5)

ABV: 55.8%

Average Price: $200

The Whisky:

Cragganmore is another Speyside classic. This one-off expression from last year is a mix of single malts aged in refill casks and new oak with a fresh char for 20 long years. The juice is then bottled at cask strength.

Bottom Line:

This really hit well today. And, like the Mortlach above, it’s baffling that these are both “cask strength” given how delicate they are. That pear candy undercurrent hit the right spot of fruit and sweet with such a soft touch.

It really is like drinking the softest whisky you can think of while still holding real texture and flavor.

2. Ardbeg 25 (Taste 6)

ABV: 46%

Average Price: $900

The Whisky:

The newest expression from Ardbeg also happens to be their oldest expression (in the core line). The whisky is the epitome of peat on Islay. What makes this expression so special and extremely rare is that it was distilled and casked when Ardbeg was on its knees as a company, in the early 1990s. They simply weren’t making that much whisky back then and there’s hardly any of it left.

This is a one-and-likely-gone whisky.

Bottom Line:

I was really sort of blown away by this. It was such an unexpected gathering of flavors that didn’t seem to make sense at first, then combined to create something more than the sum of its parts. I mean come on! Cream and raw strips of bacon with potting soil and campfire embers!?

It sounds so ridiculous, and yet here we are. Plus, that final buzz really was something. If I was a peat-head, this would probably have landed at number one in this ranking.

1. Oban 21 (Taste 4)

ABV: 57.9%

Average Price: $480

The Whisky:

This whisky from 2018 is much-sought-after. The classic juice from the tiny Oban Distillery spends 21 years resting in a combination of used European oak barrels in Oban’s small warehouse nestled between a black rock cliff and the lapping of the sea. The juice is then married and bottled at cask strength, capturing all the nuances and uniqueness of Oban in the bottle.

Bottom Line:

Yeah, this is the shit. It’s just so well-balanced, nuanced, and easy to drink that it’s almost criminal it costs what it does. It’s also shocking every time I read the ABVs and realize this is cask strength. I literally have to look two or three times to assure that I’m reading the ABVs correctly … it’s that f*cking smooth and soft.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

There’s a certain pain to knowing that the whisky you’d love to drink as an everyday sipper is so far out of your budget. Still, that Oban 21 is really one of the best whiskies out there of any style. If you get a chance to drink some, don’t hesitate.

All of that being said, that Ardbeg 25 was the biggest surprise. It’s really … just interesting and new and kind of fun. But again, you’ll have to get one soon, as it’ll sell out very soon.

In the end, this wasn’t about accessible bottles you can just run out and buy. This was about learning, expanding, and taking a moment to appreciate just how beautiful a great dram of Scotch whisky really can be.

A recent airing of “Grease” on the BBC resulted in a backlash online with some calling for it to be banned from further showings.

Critics cited the scene where John Travolta’s character Danny Zuko repeatedly tries to put a move on Sandy Osbourne, played by Olivia-Newton John, but she pushes him away.

They also called the film homophobic because the dance contest is for straight couples only.

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People also objected to how Rizzo, played by Stockard Channing, is slut-shamed for being with multiple men. There’s also a line in the song “Summer Loving” where a T-Bird asks, “Did she put up a fight?”

Thematically, It’s also pretty cringey that Sandy wins over Danny in the end by dressing herself up for the male gaze by putting on skintight black pants.

All of these critiques seem to forget the fact that the film was made in 1978 about teenagers in the 1950s, an era that was far more sexist, segregated, homophobic, and racist than the one we live in today.

The film is also about men who are in a gang who talk about getting into rumbles and carry switchblades. Those types aren’t usually known for being too progressive.

Olivia Newton-John pushed back against people who believe the movie is too problematic in a recent interview on the “A Life of Greatness” podcast.

Newton-John said the movie was “not [meant] to be taken so seriously.” She believes that the criticism is “kind of silly, because the movie was made in the ’70s about the ’50s. It was a stage play. It’s a musical. It’s fun.”

“We need to relax a little bit and just enjoy things for what they are,” Olivia continued. “I think it’s just a fun movie that entertains people. That’s all.”

The actor’s call for people to mellow out is refreshing in a world where many people are scared and quickly dismiss work they’ve done in the past if it doesn’t live up to the exacting measure of our times.

“Grease” clearly falls short of the standards that we have today. But it also has some amazing music, choreography, and wonderfully charismatic performances from Newton-John, Travolta, and Channing.

We should have a bit more faith in people by believing they can walk and chew gum at the same time when watching an outdated piece of culture. Most mature adults have the capacity to watch something that is old and separate the inappropriate material from the wonderful music and dancing.

If we can trust people to watch a horror film and not come out the other side an axe murderer, we can let them see a film with outdated portrayals of gender without thinking they’ll become raging sexists.

In other “Grease” news, Travolta and his daughter Ella make a brief appearance in a new Super Bowl ad for Scotts Miracle-Gro. In the ad, the Travoltas recreate the “Hand Jive” dance that Travolta and Newton-John do in the film. But this time, instead of dancing to Sha Na Na, it’s to Surfaces’ “Sunday Best.”

Scotts & Miracle-Gro Big Game Commercial | Keep Growing :45

www.youtube.com

Foo Fighters recently sat down with EW for a career-spanning oral history, and a section of the piece was dedicated to perhaps the most memorable Foo Fighters moment of the past decade: the 2015 show where Dave Grohl broke his leg. It turns out that gig is Grohl’s favorite one he ever played.

Grohl said, “When someone asks me, ‘What’s your favorite show you’ve ever played,’ I’ll say, ‘The one where I broke my f*cking leg.’” He went on to give his account of how he reacted in the immediate aftermath of the break:

“I put weight on my right ankle, and it’s just not there. It was dislocated, I’d torn all the tendons. I snapped the bone in my leg. Immediately I thought, there’s no way we’re not finishing this show. There are 50,000 people here who paid a lot of money to see this band, and we’re two songs into a three-hour set. Like, there’s no way. So, they picked me up, and they put me on a gurney to the side of the stage as I’m looking at Taylor like, ‘Just keep playing, just keep playing.’ […]

This guy looks at me and he goes, ‘Your ankle’s dislocated. We have to put it back in right now.’ I looked at my tour manager of 25 years, and I go, ‘Dude, get me a case of Crown Royal.’ And I f—ing took a hit of the Crown Royal, put my wife’s leather jacket in my mouth, took a bite as they put it back in. That was it. […] We play another two-and-a-half hours, I go get surgery, and we decide to stay on the road for another 60 shows. That to me was the best thing that had ever happened to the band.”

Check out the full feature here.

Trevor Noah had a lot to work with Thursday night when it came time to focus on wacky QAnon congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who was stripped of her House committees by the Democratic majority earlier in the day. Thanks to her past social media use revealing a cornucopia of controversial activity like harassing Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg, supporting calls for the execution of Nancy Pelosi, writing that the California wildfires are caused by Jewish-owned space lasers, and accusing Hillary Clinton (and other Democrats) of being part of a satanic cabal that mutilates and eats babies, Greene attempted to downplay her QAnon beliefs by admitting that school shootings and 9/11 are “absolutely real.” Or as Noah described it, “I’ve never seen someone try to delete her browser history in real life.”

However, The Daily Show host questioned the decision to remove Greene from her committees, which he called a “pretty sweet deal” that could backfire on those who wish to silence her. “Her punishment is to do less work for the same amount of money,” Noah said. “The last thing you want to do with a crazy person is to give them more time to be crazy.”

In an either hilarious or terrifying coincidence, Greene had the exact same thought. The embattled congresswoman fired off a tweet on Friday morning where she essentially threatened to make ample use of her recently opened schedule.

“I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving some one like me free time,” Greene tweeted. “In this Democrat tyrannical government, Conservative Republicans have no say on committees anyway. Oh this is going to be fun!”

(Via The Daily Show with Trevor Noah)

Indian-American singer Raveena Aurora has a unique visual style that highlights her silky vocal range and earthy, heady lyrical themes, and once again puts them to use in the video for her new single, “Tweety.” In the dazzling, colorful video, she mugs for the camera with super distorted features and some impressive hair art. She also plays a hippie-themed solo game of Twister and tries her hand at some light rapping.

The 26-year-old pop-soul star is preparing to follow-up on her self-released 2019 debut album, Lucid. Distributed by Empire, the album garnered near-universal acclaim as Raveena expressed her story through the jazzy, dreamy influences of singers like Minnie Riperton, exploring surprisingly mature themes of trauma and healing with a polished, light touch. Her sound is a favorite of Tyler The Creator’s, as well — in 2018, the burgeoning mogul included her on the lineup of his Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival (I mention Raveena in my review).

Now that she’s got the co-signs out critical outlets like NPR — her Tiny Desk Concert is a sight to behold — she’s using her platform to speak on a variety of social issues as well as taking more direct action. In 2020, she helped to establish a community fridge in her adopted city of Los Angeles, and she talks openly about mental health, social justice, and issues affecting the Sikh community in her parents’ native India. She’s an artist that you should keep a close eye on as she expands her range and grows into a star in the making.

Watch Raveena’s “Tweety” video above.