Finding a great travel movie right now offers us the chance to dream of far-flung adventures again. To fantasize about parts unknown. To get whistful for the open road. It’s visual inspiration for a life uncommon.
Hulu might not be as heavily stocked as Netflix, but they definitely have some hidden travel gems tucked away in their archives. That’s not to say these are the best travel movies ever made — some of them aren’t even specifically about travel, per se. But they will definitely stoke your wanderlust dreams until it’s safe to strike out again.
At the very least, the best travel movies on Hulu will provide a couple of hours of distraction. And we all need a little of that right now.
Wow, this movie made waves when it came out. North Korea hacking scandal, movie execs lost their jobs, people were talking of war — all for a simple buddy comedy with Seth Rogen and James Franco. That seems like so long ago now.
Anyway, the politics and history of this film aside, this is really a buddy travel movie at its heart. Two longtime friends set out to a very foreign land for work and high jinks ensue while lessons are learned. It’s formulaic, sure. But Rogen and Franco feel like real travel buddies in the this and Randall Park nails it as the North Korean dictator at the center of it all.
This is a nostalgia pick, especially if you grew up in the 80s and early 90s and watched a lot of cable after school. This is also a great adventure flick, time tested. The whole film is about getting out of your comfort zone, embracing adventure, and finding people along the way.
Sure, this is a very 80s movie. But we’d also argue it’s a great 80s travel movie that still holds up. Plus, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are on fire on-screen together next to a great comedic turn from a young Danny DeVito.
On the complete opposite spectrum of movies with travel at the core, you have this dramatic turn from James Gandolfini. Gandolfini turns in a beautifully nuanced performance as a grieving father who’s in New Orleans for business. He befriends a young stripper, played by Kristen Stewart, and he and his wife take her in, sort of.
Melissa Leo gives a wonderful performance as the grieving mother. The whole thing is a bit of a tearjerker at times but also offers a great feel for the city of New Orleans outside of Bourbon Street.
Two wandering brothers bounce from being hitmen to miners to losers (spoiler alert, we guess) in this revisionist western. The real treat of this film is the brotherhood felt thanks to Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly’s performances. They bicker so damn well in this movie but truly love each other in a way that feels very real.
Plus, they’re pretty much moving through Gold Rush era California through the whole film, adding a clear travel element throughout.
Professional wrestling is at the heart of this biopic of former WWE superstar Paige. Why is this on a travel movie list, you ask? The bulk of this film is about Paige leaving her home in very grey working-class England for the sun-kissed beaches of Florida to attend the WWE’s training camp — under the tutelage of a very understated Vince Vaughn no less.
A big plot point of this film is Paige not really digging being in a new situation, trying to change herself to fit in, and simply wanting to go home. Any traveler worth their salt knows exactly how she feels in those moments. Though, be ready to cry by the end of this one too (I definitely did)
Horror and travel are great bedmates when it comes to cinema. This absolute classic follows a group of women on their cave diving trip. It’s an outdoor adventure with a tightknit crew. Then, everything goes horrifically wrong.
If you haven’t seen the film, we’re not going to spoil it because this movie is a classic for a reason. Just be warned, this movie gets very, very claustrophobic.
This is a wild tale of a group of prisoners escaping from a Stalinist gulag and walking damn near across Asia towards freedom. The film follows a group of escapees led by Jim Sturgess playing Janusz Wieszczek, a Polish citizen who was arrested by the Soviets when they invaded Poland in 1939 alongside the Nazis. Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong, and a young Saoirse Ronan give solid performances as other escapees.
The film is also beautiful to look at thanks to direction from Peter Weir and the cinematography of Russell Boyd on location in Bulgaria, Morocco, and India (both had previously worked together on the travel-friendly Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).
This is a solid film. But, most of all, it’s a great lesson on how to travel efficiently. The airport scene wherein George Clooney schools Anna Kendrick on how to travel well when you travel all the time is worth the price of admission alone.
The whole movie does become a lesson in travel in every form from meeting random people you’ll never meet again but still having huge emotional moments with them to the drain on your life travel can be yet how deeply addictive it is.
Back in the nostalgia machine, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo’s Vacation is a family road trip classic. Hell, you don’t even need the family to have felt a lot of the pitfalls of a long road trip that are covered in this 80s comedy. This movie speaks some real traveling truths that ring true to this day — like getting somewhere only to find it closed and the severe disappointment that brings.
Taika Waititi’s Hunt For The Wilderpeople is like a warm hug on a bad day. The film follows a young Indigenous kid, Ricky, and Hec (played amiably by Sam Neill) as they wander the New Zealand backcountry trying to avoid child services taking Ricky to a foster home.
The film has a Huck Finn foundation of wonder with Waititi’s razor-sharp sense of humor and drama layered over top. This film doesn’t pull any punches. It’s touching, hilarious, and wanderlust-inducing. You might end up watching it twice in a week and shedding a tear or two along the way.
In what’s becoming a recurring theme for the late-night host, Kate Hudson dropped a bombshell on Jimmy Fallon by revealing that he had a chance to date her back in the day, but he never made a move.
While dialing into The Tonight Show on Monday, Hudson revealed to a flabbergasted Fallon that if she had known he was into her while the two were filming Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, she would’ve been into it. Unfortunately, she never received any signals from Fallon, who apparently thought he was making his interest very clear at the time. In fact, he even revealed the crush on a 2018 episode, which Hudson saw after “like 100 people” sent her the clip, and she genuinely had no idea how Fallon felt at the time. Via Entertainment Weekly:
“Jimmy, if you would have actually made a move, I would have totally gone there,” she said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Why has Jimmy never made a move?’ And then I just kind of realized, ‘Oh, he’s not into me like that.’ And so, then I met Chris [Robinson].”
Fallon protested her retelling of events, exclaiming, “That’s not the story at all!”
While Fallon might’ve thought he was sending out strong vibes, he does have a history of completely blowing it with famous actresses. Nicole Kidman infamously stopped by The Tonight Show in 2015 and told a story about the time she went on a “date” with Fallon, who she was genuinely interested in. There was just one small problem, Fallon had no idea they were even on a date, and he honestly thought the two just happened to be at the same David Fincher party together. So instead of paying attention to Kidman, he blew her off to play video games. (Jimmy…) The whole thing left the actress so bewildered that, by the end of the “date,” she just assumed Fallon was gay and went on to marry Keith Urban.
Perhaps you’ve read the news lately, but it’s been a really good idea to spend a lot more time at home for the foreseeable future. There are a lot of ways to spend all that extra time in your dwelling, but as weeks turn to months and uncertainty remains, it may be a good idea to switch things up at this point.
Playing board games is a leisure activity that’s inevitably become more popular during life in quarantine. As people spend more time at home and slowly grow bored of activities they normally turn to for entertainment, the board games they may have collecting dust are given another chance to shine. And for those looking to deepen their collection, all this time at home might be a great opportunity to learn some new games.
Buying new board games, however, is an investment. And unless you’ve played a game before, it can be tough to know if it will work well in a variety of situations and with different amounts of players. One of those tough situations might be one you’re in right now: living with another person who may not like games as much as the other. So let’s take a look at some great two-player games to pass some time while social distancing that also play well in the larger groups you hope to host for a game night when all this is over. Maybe you already have a solid board game collection in the house to pick from, or you’re looking to make a purchase or two that fills out your collection. Bonus points awarded here for any game that also happens to play great over Zoom.
Ticket to Ride: Europe
The classic American version of this game works great with two players as well, but there’s something about a trek across Europe in this sequel title to the Alan R. Moon classic that works particularly well in pairs. The routes are a bit more unfamiliar, for one, and the added game element of tunnels and ferries make this one a bit more interesting than the original’s gameplay. The game is easy to learn, plays relatively fast and the variety of routes means there’s a lot of replay value in this one even if it’s just for two, at least for the time being.
This might be the most popular game on the list, or at least the one it’s most likely you already own, and that’s for good reason. Scrabble is a classic word game almost everyone knows how to play, but they may not have experienced it in heads-up format. That’s how the pros play it, and with all that board to work with it makes the game a fascinating one strategically. Whether you’re someone who turns the game into a territorial slog or just try to make as many fun words as possible, there’s a lot of fun to be had if you have the right opponent. You can also choose to be as strict or lax about the real rules of the game as you’d like, which is always a fun conversation to have.
Side hobby: read the excellent book Word Freak if you really want to up your game and take down the opponent in style.
Zombie Dice
Zombie Dice is a quick press-your-luck game that’s over in minutes and a great way to waste time among groups large and small. The goal is to roll the dice and harvest “brains” without also rolling three shotgun blasts, which kill the zombie (which is you). The three kinds of dice — green, yellow, and red — have different odds for rolling brains or blasts, and luck can play a big part, which means anyone can win on the first game. It’s not exactly a strategy-packed extravaganza, but not every game needs to be. Sometimes you just wanna be a zombie for a bit. This is also a game, like Ticket To Ride, that you can find at most big box stores if you need something in a hurry.
Carcassone
There’s certainly a bit more strategy to this one than others, but it’s fairly easy to pick up and offers a lot of replay value to hone in on how you want to play. Carcassone is a tile game where players add to a landscape and get points for building cities, farms and surrounding abbeys with land. It may sound abstract, but the goal is to build the play surface and use your colored meeples to collect points in a variety of ways, some only becoming clear after the game is over.
It’s a way to keep everyone invested in the game regardless of how they think they’re doing, and the end result can be surprising to people who feel like they’re not doing enough to win. It’s a game that works well with just two people, and if you have a lot of down time it’s a great game to work on your strategy for future game nights. If not, it’s fun to build roads and try to complete cities before your tile choices run out.
Elder Sign
If you need a bit of Lovecraftian horror in your life, this cooperative dice-rolling game is tough to beat. This is a simplified version of a game like Eldritch Horror, but it’s still a formidable test no matter how experienced of a gamer you are. The game consists of cards with specific die rolls you need to get in order to collect tools and objects needed to stop an otherworldly monster from devouring the planet. There’s a lot of replay in the characters you play and rooms you encounter, and smart planning may not be enough to win this one. But it is a fun challenge that’s worth playing in larger groups, too.
Castle Panic
Cooperative games are easy and safe to play in quarantine because there’s little chance or sparking a dispute you can’t avoid by leaving the house. Castle Panic is a perfect low stakes survival game in which the goal is to outlast an onslaught of attacking orcs and other monsters hoping to topple a medieval castle. The mechanic is simple to understand — each round moves the baddies forward and introduces new ones on the edge of the forrest ring — and your job is to kill them with corresponding cards before they reach the castle and knock down walls and towers. It takes a bit of teamwork and coordination to get it down, but it’s a quick learn that offers a bit of instant satisfaction for surviving a temporary siege. There are also some fun expansions to switch the experience up if you get a bit too good at defending your castle.
There are a lot of options when it comes to city-building games, but Tiny Towns plays great with two players and is as fast as it is cute. Players build 4X4 grid of a town using a pool of shared resources, trying not to waste squares with useless or not valuable buildings. It takes a bit of planning to get it all down and really earn your planning degree, but it’s a fun resource management game worth mastering for nights when you can dominate the six-player version.
This may be the simplest game on the list, but it’s full of endless possibilities and even works well with up to eight players. A blank board is slowly filled with tiles with lines on them, each of them unique. Players are dragons that must follow the path on the tiles, with the goal being to stay on the board for as long as possible without taking a path that leads off the side or into another dragon. It’s fast and full of seemingly random choices until, all at once, it’s a matter of life and death. On normal game nights it’s a great warm up game, but if things get competitive with your gaming partner it can quickly turn into a game you play over and over again.
Twilight Struggle
So let’s say you really want to get into it, and are willing to sit down with a multi-hour, evolving strategy game made for only two players. In that case, the only real argument here is which player wants to be the Soviet Union. Twilight Struggle is behemoth of a game, but if you’re coexisting with a serious gamer it’s an excellent title to lose a few hours in and is worth playing several times over. There’s no denying it’s a complex game, though: It quite literally is a board game version of the cold war, with each side attempting to rewrite history while also staving off nuclear disaster.
The rules of the game evolve with the passage of time, as well as real life historical events from the actual Cold War. But the results can be very different, depending on how you play, and the game is a great duel among history buffs who happen to be quarantining together.
With their upcoming album The Prettiest Curse, Hinds aim to pivot from their former lo-fi aesthetic and instead opt for crisp guitars and noisy vocals. The Madrid-born four-piece has taken all they’ve learned on the road and transmuted it into their forthcoming third record. With the latest track, “Just Like Kids (Miau),” Hinds details their loathsome touring experiences when men, without prompting, critique their looks, music, and career.
Directed by Keane Shaw, the brightly-colored video calls back to the MTV era of videos. Recorded in a studio with neon backgrounds, Hinds playfully use props to further narrate the track’s lyrics. The song itself is a tongue-in-cheek message to those who have given them unprompted advice, also known as mansplaining. “‘Can I tell you something about you and your band? / Cause I’m sure you’d love to listen to my advice / You’re always out of tune / And there’s no place there for you’ / Dude, do I know you,” Hinds harmonize on the track.
In a statement, Hinds said the song is about all the unsolicited advice they’ve received over the years. “‘Miau’ is a cocktail of all the comments and ‘advice’ we’ve had to listen to during all this years in the band. From random strangers, ‘friends,’ and industry. Oh wait…the guy sitting next to you in the bus probably has an opinion too! if you wondered how does it feel to be a girl in a band, here you go.”
Watch the “Just Like Kids (Miau)” video above.
The Prettiest Curse is out 6/5 via Mom + Pop. Pre-order it here.
Previously on the Best and Worst of Raw:VI-KING RAY-DERS! We have beards … and this segment is weird! VI-KING RAY-DERS! We are in the car, and now our careers won’t go far! VI-KING RAY-DERS! We’re like the guys from the Sonic commercials all of a sudden. VI-KING RAY-DERS! VI-KING RAY-DERS! VI-KING RAY-DERS!
One more thing: Hit those share buttons! Spread the word about the column on Facebook, Twitter and whatever else you use. Be sure to leave us a comment in our comment section below as well. I know we always ask this, and that this part is copy and pasted in every week, but we appreciate it every week. Up next is In Our House: Money in the Bank.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for April 27, 2020.
Apollo Cries
In this week’s episode, Apollo Crews flies too close to the sun.
Raw opens in the grand old Smackdown tradition of a talk show segment where the host is condescending to the guests, they speak up only to get interrupted by unrelated heels, and it sets up a tag team match for later in the night. MVP interviewing Rey Mysterio, Aleister Black, and Apollo Crews only to be interrupted by Zelina Vega’s group could just as easily be, I don’t know, Jeff Hardy, Daniel Bryan, and Drew Gulak being interrupted by Sami Zayn, Cesaro, and Shinsuke Nakamura. And then Gulak would pin Zayn to win the match, challenge Zayn to an Intercontinental Championship match, and then lose. Because the only true thing in WWE right now is that if you’re a bad guy with a championship and it’s on the line, you’re gonna win, but if it isn’t, you’re gonna lose.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
A wild match appeared, and it’s what you’ve come to expect from these Performance Center Raws. It’s not bad, necessarily, but it’s overly long to fill time — this one goes 25 minutes when it absolutely shouldn’t have gone longer than 10 — is hurt by the absence of crowd reactions, and only exists as a cog in the build to some other match you’re going to forget happened by next Monday. It’s also an iffy match to book given you’re putting your three Money in the Bank qualifiers in the ring against what’s ostensibly your only group of heels on Raw now that Rollins’ group is mostly scattered to the wind, and you’ve already spent several weeks feeding them to whomever needed the win. So again, it’s a lot like the Artists Collective. The villains are wildly talented and great hands to have around when you need to make the heroes look good, but if they’re the only option, they start looking like complete fucking goobers.
Continuing the trend of “somebody used permanent marker on the dry erase board” Raw booking, Apollo Crews wins by pinning Andrade. Apollo Crews has pinned the United States Champion! You’ve got to think that puts him into contention for a possible future title shot, King! Words about the decision are exchanged backstage and Crews ends up getting his title shot right here tonight, but not before slapping Andrade so hard it knocks his spirit into the astral plane. This slap was easily the best part of the entire show.
WWE
But … well … you know.
As mentioned, you’ve got a much better chance of beating a champion in a non-title match than in a title match. It doesn’t matter if the champion has an OVR of 65 and you’re in the mid-90s, if the title’s on the line, the stats get reversed. See also, again, Daniel Bryan vs. Sami Zayn at WrestleMania.
During the match, Crews moonsaults from the apron to the floor and tweaks his knee. Like a lot of modern WWE matches, it becomes the focus of the story but doesn’t keep the guy with the tweaked knee from doing standing moonsaults or delayed powerslams or whatever. Ultimately Crews misses a frog splash by landing on his feet, which FURTHER tweaks the knee, and instead of that just setting up the finish they … stop the match on the spot and give the win to Andrade via sadness forfeit. The next time we see him, he’s in the back leaving the arena in his underpants on crutches, crying.
WWE
So many strange decisions here. You rebuilt Apollo Crews by bringing him to Raw and had him qualify for Money in the Bank only to immediately lose because he sucks and get taken out of Money in the Bank? What was the point of that? Will he be more compelling and sympathetic star now that he’s failed on a spectacular level and cried about it? You could argue that him not taking the pin “protects” him here, but shit, when has Apollo Crews not been able to take pinfalls? I think by “protecting” him, you actually hurt him and made him look worse. A guy losing his second 20-minute match of the night to someone who’s supposed to be the second best guy in the company in the United States Champion is one thing. A guy losing because of a worked injury and then being too verklempt to put on his clothes or speak about it is another.
I don’t know. I get what they’re doing, but it feels too much like someone typing the same paragraph and deleting it, over and over. It doesn’t matter how good the paragraph is if you delete it, and you can’t write a cohesive story until you start chaining paragraphs together.
Sorry you don’t get to do standing moonsaults in an office building, Apollo. I sure hope Brock Lesnar doesn’t randomly get your spot and win by tipping over Titan Towers from the ground floor.
Also On This Episode
Wait, we’re there already?
LOL Yes
… shit …
Speaking of strange decisions, the only match WWE advertised for this episode before it aired was a triple threat between Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, and Asuka. Then, instead of, you know, doing the match, they have it end before it begins with Nia manhandling the two most dominant women in NXT history and (for some reason) doing the Ultimate Warrior gorilla press to a ladder.
WWE
Then her music plays, which … means she won, I guess? I don’t know. They don’t know either, it’s fine. Like the opening six-man tag, this was one of those matches you probably would’ve benefited more from not booking. For whatever reason WWE’s still under the impression that the best way to advertise a pay-per-view match is to have the participants wrestle on every Raw or Smackdown leading up to it and look like dipshits for several weeks. Asuka and Shayna Baszler were total losers in a baited-and-switched non-match in service of promoting the one woman in the Money in the Bank match you can’t currently rely on to get through an arm drag and a twist without hurting somebody. Without exaggeratedly bagging on Nia, whom I really do like as a person and a character concept, there are real, visible problems with some of the stuff she does in the ring, and they aren’t going to be softened by giving her a weapon and asking her to climb to the top of a ladder.
Quick question: What is Liv Morgan’s character? I believe the only information we’ve been given is that she took a series of bubble baths and decided to dye her hair and stop eating candy, and she had an affair with Lana.
Last week, Liv defeated Ruby Riott with her finisher, which didn’t have a name. This week, Liv defeats Ruby Riott with her finisher, which now HAS a name. Oblivion. Ob-Liv-ion, get it? Do you get it. She’s still getting better, although I’m sure some of that has to do with Ruby. If you’re gonna push Liv, you need to keep her in the ring with people who know what they’re doing.
After the match, Liv introduces us to the Genesis of Mor-gillicutty:
“I fill like … I’ve had so many chapters, and there’s gonna continue to be so many more chapters with me, but right, now I fill … I fill like a lot of people my age, I’m just still, I’m still trying to figure out who I am and exactly what that means and exactly who that is, but … I’m gonna figure it out and … [tries to remember lines] … I’m confident, that I will figure out.”
On a related note, best of luck in your future endeavors to Ruby Riott. I don’t know if she’s leaving or sticking around or what, but regardless, I hope she her future endeavors are better than these.
Speaking of Lana, Bobby Lashley has to compliment her into inaction so he can concentrate on defeating the Great Value 2015 Angelo Dawkins, Denzel DeJournette. Surprisingly, Donald Trump’s Champion for Trial By Combat is able to score the win over a guy whose only contribution to WWE television to date has been doing Public Enemy’s entrance before getting stomped by Imperium. And he even got most of THAT from Dawkins.
Dawkins and Montez Ford exchange promos with the Viking Raiders, who are back to pretending to be threatening after a week of Carpool Karaoke with dorky chanting instead of songs. And not even chanting as songs. They’re going to have a match next week, which hopefully ends with the Profits going over and the Raiders being penalized one match per “VI-KING RAY-DERS.”
This week’s most important development is the return of Jinder Mahal, star of a WWE Championship run that was terrible, but everyone says was great now. At least it was different? Not every title run has 90% Singh Brothers interference finishes, racist promos about Shinsuke Nakamura, and The Great Khali showing up to help you win a Randy Orton Punjabi Prison match. But yeah, compare it with the bug projector and the House of Horrors and the House of Horrors and Mahal’s run starts looking like Bruno Sammartino’s.
Anyway, if Zelina Vega’s group are Raw’s version of the Artists Collective, Jinder appears to be Raw’s version of Sheamus. A former WWE Champion returns after a long absence with a trimmed down and ridiculously cut physique to beat jobbers every week. Here he goes over Akira Tozawa, who is still stuck on enhancement talent duty despite being in the Interim Cruiserweight Championship tournament. It’s too bad they can only pay attention to one weekly several-hour prime-time TV show from this one empty venue at a time.
Cedric Alexander and Ricochet get a quick, four-minute win over Chase Parker and Matt Martel, formerly known as Team 3.0, currently known as EVER-RISE. If you don’t read the Best and Worst of NXT column, no, the team name does not make any sense, and yes, it somehow manages to sound like both the word “ovaries” and a brand of biscuit flour.
The winners continue the Circle of Life for underappreciated cruiserweight tag teams by debuting a new finisher, a top rope double-stomp and Flatliner combination, which is reminiscent of the Lucha Bros’ top rope double-stomp and Package Piledriver combination, which in itself is reminiscent of Low Ki and Homicide’s top rope double-stomp and Vertebreaker combination. I’m excited for eight years from now when NXT Superstars Eli Everfly and Lucas Riley debut their tag team finisher, a top rope double-stomp and rolling cutter combination.
WWE Network
Triple H Appreciation Week continues, and I swear to God, if I never see this clip of D-Generation X “invading Nitro” on a tank that’s actually a jeep again, it’ll be too soon. Easily the least consequential thing to ever happen but be treated like a cultural tent-pole by WWE. They rode around in the parking lot before the show and pointed at their dicks, it’s not the moon landing.
Additional note: Am I the only one hoping Jinder Mahal would run back out to help Drew even the odds?
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Mr. Bliss
Zelina’s out here with the 5 biggest heels on RAW….Andrade, Theory, Garza, her left shoe and her right shoe.
AshBlue
Of all things, I would think a contract signing is a perfect example of work that could be done at home.
CFCarboni
“Look at the power of Theory!”
Unless you’re a Board of Education in the South.
Clay Quartermain
Seth: “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you Drew. You need to stay off Twitter.”
AJ Dusman
Jinder Mahal vs Akira Tozawa followed by Andrade vs Apollo Crews. Jerry Lawler shouldn’t even be doing an internal monologue while watching this Raw.
The Real Birdman
“Jinder Mahal is back in action next!!”
GIPHY
Taylor Swish
Zelina’s pants are like Raw writers’ plots. Full of holes and you can’t figure out how they actually put them on.
ActualKyleArlyn
Byron: “Apollo Crews was written off by people who said he wasn’t good enough. That he’d never be a champion. That his career would never amount to anything.”
Vince:
AddMayne
I’m cool with acting like the Carpool Chanting thing was a gas leak segment
JayBone2
Brandon tomorrow:
Last week Liv Morgan beat Ruby Riott only for Liv Morgan to beat Ruby Riott this week. Tune in next week as Ruby Riott faces…(sighs) Liv Morgan.
(I had to delete this exact sentence when I saw the comment.)
WWE
when you have to watch Raw every week
That does it for another episode of The Best and Worst of Increasingly Depressing Quarantine Raw for one of (if not the) worst empty PC show they’ve done so far. Just an illogical, uneventful slog for three hours. Even the stuff that happened got erased before the episode was over.
Anyway, ss always you can help us out tremendously right now by sharing the column on social media, as well as dropping down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of the show. I will keep trying to watch these and say something constructive about them, but if I fall into existential, nihilistic despair waiting for real episodes with fans to return, throw me in cryogenic freeze.
Join us back here next week for more build to Money in the Corporate Headquarters, Liv Morgan vs. Ruby Riott probably, and the Street Profits vs. VI-KING RAY-DERS VI-KING RAY-DERS VI-KING RAY-DERS. See you then.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has completely put a halt to WWE’s traditional business model. While weekly shows are still airing, they’re all being broadcast from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando in front of an empty house. Furthermore, WWE’s live events — while not the moneymaker for the company that they’ve been in the past — have been practically completely wiped from the calendar. This is impacting the product more than monetarily, as house shows are where WWE Superstars would be able to work out their matches in front of a live audience before taking it to the bright lights of Raw or Smackdown.
Taking a look at WWE’s live events calendar, it’s unclear just what live events are still scheduled. But one trip that won’t be happening is WWE’s tour of Australia and New Zealand, slated for August 6-8. The Raw-branded trek was set to include Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Drew McIntyre and others (including Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson — whoops). Promoter TEG DAINTY shared the following message via social media:
We thank you for your continued patience and understanding as we work with WWE to secure our new return dates.
The superstars of Monday Night RAW can’t wait to get back and put on one hell of a show for you in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland.
In the meantime, let’s keep safe, look after each other and we’ll be back with new details very soon.
TEG Dainty
Additionally, WWE’s upcoming European tour, originally slated for May, has been pushed back to October, yet somehow, WWE’s upcoming Japanese tour in July is still on sale, further illustrating the instability and uncertainty surrounding COVID’s continued impact.
As for domestic touring, Ticketmaster doesn’t have any live events listed until mid-July, with Extreme Rules slated for July 19 at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, but it feels less and less likely we will see WWE in any arena, domestic or international, for the foreseeable future. Let that be motivation for all of us to stay home as much as possible: The sooner we flatten the curve and beat COVID, the sooner we can go back to booing Baron Corbin in person.
Livestream concerts have been a big deal in recent months, but that’s not the only option when it comes to livestreamed music entertainment. Rappers and producers have been squaring off in Instagram battles, pitting their discographies against each other to see who has more and bigger hits. An upcoming battle is set for April 30 at 8 p.m. ET, and it features two hip-hop legends: Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s Krayzie Bone.
This battle does not seem to be fueled by any animosity, as it is being billed as more of a celebration than an all-out brawl. Bone wrote while making the announcement on Instagram, “Celebrating over 50 combined years of hits. Limited edition Collab merch available. Share share share, don’t miss this celebration!”
Indeed, the two have had a lot of success between them. Three 6 Mafia have released a number of Platinum-selling hits and a handful of top-10 albums since the mid-’90s. Additionally, their Hustle & Flow track “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” made Three Six Mafia the first hip-hop group to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was also the second hip-hop song to win an Oscar, following Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”
Meanwhile, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is commonly regarded as one of the top hip-hop groups of all time, thanks to their two No. 1 albums (and their pair of No. 2 albums). Their biggest single is “Tha Crossroads,” which won the group a Grammy for Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group in 1997.
Jalen Green, the potential No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, became the first player to commit to the G League Select Team earlier this month, popularizing a potential pathway for highly-regarded high school players who are comfortable with skipping out on college basketball. Green will be joined by Isaiah Todd, a five-star who was committed to Michigan before opting to take this route.
Not everyone who has been offered the chance to go down this road has taken it — Greg Brown, a five-star center in the 2020 class, decided it was best to attend Texas. But on Tuesday afternoon, the Select Team got its latest player, much to the dismay of Mick Cronin and the UCLA Bruins.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Daishen Nix is headed to the G League. Nix, a five-star point guard in the class of 2020 and the No. 15 recruit in America by 247Sports’ Composite rating, had previously signed his letter of intent to head to Westwood.
Five-star prospect Daishen Nix has decommitted from UCLA and plans to sign in the NBA G League, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA@Stadium.
Charania reports that the deal Nix signed with the Southern California-based squad is expected to pay him handsomely, somewhere around $300,000.
G League deal for Daishen Nix — arguably the best point guard in the 2021 NBA draft — is expected to be in the $300,000 range, sources said. https://t.co/V96P84WInb
It is still unclear exactly how the Select Team will function and what their potential schedule look like, but it’s already putting together quite the roster of talent. Nix stands 6’5, attended Trinity International Schools in Las Vegas, and was a McDonald’s All-American Game selection alongside Green and Todd.
While people across the country remain in quarantine to curb the spread of the coronavirus, musicians have been forced to get creative about releasing videos. To celebrate his recent track with Guapdad 4000, Rich Brian discovered a clever way to record a visual while also raising funds to donate to charity.
For his “Bali” video, Rich Brian decided to give some neighborly love to his friends by sending some gag gifts to their houses with a drone. The rapper attached a bag to the flying camera and filmed it arriving at his friends’ doorsteps. Over the course of the video, Rich Brian sends condoms to Cuco, celery and wine to YouTuber Cody Ko, hair products to his bald friend Noel Miller, Pokémon cards to Thundercat, and a $10 bill to Guapdad 4000 as a cheeky thank-you gift for featuring on the track.
Along with sending gifts to his musician friends, Rich Brian tapped them to donate cash to charitable funds. The combined donations from Guapdad 4000, Cuco, Thundercat, Denzel Curry, Kenny Beats, Lil Yachty, and others raised a large sum. The funds made it possible to donate 125 meals to the LA County Hospital, supplement lease late payments for a local food truck, and give funds, food, and face masks to the organization Asian Americans For Housing.
Watch Rich Brian and Guapdad 4000’s “Bali” video above.
Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
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The 1975 — “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)”
We’ve been talking about The 1975’s Notes On A Conditional Form for the better part of the last year. Somehow, the album is still nearly a month away, but the band has shared another sampling of the 22-track effort to tide us over. “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” is another song from the band that sounds completely different from the last, an 80’s-tinged number that even features a “Kenny G-style saxophone interlude,” according to Carolyn Droke for Uproxx. “If You’re Too Shy” once again shows us how good The 1975 are at writing songs.
Bright Eyes — “Forced Convalescence”
The return of Bright Eyes over the last few months has certainly been welcome, and although the band was forced to postpone their comeback tour, they are still pushing forward with the release of their new album. “Forced Convalescence” is the latest taste of the as-yet-untitled album, and reminds us why we fell in love with Bright Eyes in the first place. Structurally, the song “gradually works its way to an apex before cooling off and ending the song on another build-up,” writes Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx,
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit — “Dreamsicle”
Reunions, the latest effort from Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, is out in just a few weeks, but they aren’t slowing down with the release of new music. The latest offering is both triumphant and nostalgic, opening with intricate finger-picking on the guitar before diving into an almost Springsteen-esque narrative. “With his textured vocals, Isbell narrates the story of a boy coming-of-age and having a difficult time realizing he has to leave the town he grew up in,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx.
Jónsi — “Exhale”
Jónsi’s work with Sigur Rós has kept him occupied over the better part of the last decade, and his solo work has been dormant in the interim. Now, he has returned to his solo work with “Exhale,” a unique and experimental orchestral single. “Opening with soft, resounding piano, Jónsi’s reverberating vocals wax and wane until a vivid crescendo of synths and percussive elements arrives part-way through the track,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx.
James Blake — “You’re Too Precious”
A year removed from the release of Assume Form, James Blake hasn’t slowed down with the release of new material. However, “You’re Too Precious” is the first sampling of new music since releasing a deluxe version of the album and several video treatments. The track was originally teased during an Instagram Live stream earlier in April, where Blake also covered songs from Billie Eilish, Frank Ocean, Radiohead, and more, as part of a commitment to playing more piano.
Helado Negro — “I Fell In Love”
Helado Negro has been prolific since 2017, releasing an album every year as well as a handful of supplementary standalone singles. “I Fell In Love” falls into the latter category, and is a sign that Roberto Carlos Lange has no plans of slowing down in 2020. Sonically and thematically, “the song uses rhythm and sound as a medium to explore the euphoric and comforting feeling of first falling in love,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx.
City Mouth — Coping Machine
On their latest album, City Mouth sound like a cross between Motion City Soundtrack, The Format, and The 1975. The music sparkles like early 2000s pop punk, but with more depth and a virtuosity that is not often heard from bands of this scene, anchored by Jessica Burdeaux‘s impressive and ear-catching drumming.
Destroy Boys — “Honey I’m Home”
Carrying on the Riot Grrrl legacy, Destroy Boys have earned high-profile fans like Billie Joe Armstrong and Laura Jane Grace, all before graduating from high school. “Honey I’m Home” is the band’s first new music since their sophomore album Make Room earned them slots on tour with the likes of SWMRS and Mannequin Pussy, and very quickly shows why so many are quick to latch onto the band.
Skullcrusher — “Places/Plans”
Ahead of her self-titled debut EP for revered indie label Secretly Canadian, Helen Ballentine has shared “Places/Plans,” a track that fittingly examines solitude and isolation. Ballentine takes a deep dive into her own psyche “armed with an acoustic guitar and her soaring vocals,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx. “I thought a lot about my self-worth during this period of uncertainty,” Ballentine said in a statement. “‘Places/Plans’ attempts to communicate the beauty and vulnerability of being alone and what it means to let someone else in to see that.”
Golf Alpha Bravo — “Stuck Being Me”
You might know Gab Winterfield from his work in Jagwar Ma. Now, the Australian songwriter is unveiling his debut solo album, prefaced by “Stuck Being Me,” a track about being comfortable with yourself. “At a time where we’re all spending a lot of time with no one but ourselves, ‘Stuck Being Me’ seems weirdly apt,” notes Winterfield in a statement. “I think that our greatest strengths can often be disguised as our most perceived flaws, and perhaps the lyrics reflect that.”
The World Is… — “In Circles” (Sunny Day Real Estate cover)
It’s always great when a modern emo band with a really long name covers a classic emo band with a slightly shorter, but still pretty long name. For this reason, this new cover of the classic Sunny Day Real Estate track by The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die certainly does not disappoint. TWIABP have managed to inject the SDRE track with some space, extending the track out to a nearly seven-minute epic.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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