It’s been a little over a month since Ultra and SXSW became the first major festivals of 2020 to cancel their events due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ever since, festivals like Boston Calling and Governors Ball have also been canceled. Meanwhile, events like Coachella and Lovers And Friends have been postponed for a later date, though the mayors of both LA and New York don’t believe large events will be able to return until next year. Now, Las Vegas’ fall festival Life Is Beautiful had the same vision and has decided to completely cancel its 2020 iteration.
Life Is Beautiful made the cancelation announcement Wednesday. The organizers cited the health and safety of attendees, employees, and performers alike as the reason for the decision. Life Is Beautiful organizer Justin Weniger said the festival’s message is more than important to maintain in times like these:
“It’s clear the health and economic hardships from the COVID-19 crisis will impact us all for some time to come. In light of this, we made the determination to re-examine the role Life is Beautiful plays in the community and how we can put our resources, creativity and time into doing what we always set out to do: inspire and bring together a community. From the beginning, Life is Beautiful has been a year-round, aspirational mantra that materializes into a festival that unites visitors from around the world. For this year, that festival won’t happen but there has never been a more important time to remind us all that life is indeed beautiful. That is what we are going to do, in ways large and small.”
Sharing a full statement on social media, the festival wrote: “Life is Beautiful because of you. Thank you for your continued love and support. We’ll dance in the streets again soon.”
Life is Beautiful because of you. Thank you for your continued love and support. We’ll dance in the streets again soon. pic.twitter.com/8VQJd4pgTb
Last year’s Life Is Beautiful iteration saw headlining performances from big names like Billie Eilish and Chance The Rapper. While the festival is forgoing its 2020 event in order to focus on new initiatives, Life Is Beautiful plans to make a full return in 2021.
The bedazzled Furby from Uncut Gems. The flower dress from Midsommar. The titular light (minus the house) from The Lighthouse. Those are only some of the items that will be available in the A24-launched A24 Auctions, which benefits New Yorkers impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. The auction, which begins at 12 p.m. EST today (April 22), also includes items from Eighth Grade, Euphoria (the Zendaya-starring HBO series produced by A24), and Hereditary — I would be concerned for anyone who buys a prop from that movie (don’t worry, it’s not the head), but at least the money is going to a good cause.
“Auctions will take place in April and May, and will be held online,” the New York Times reports. “A24, which is based in New York, will give the proceeds to four local organizations: the FDNY Foundation, which supports the New York City Fire Department; the hunger-relief nonprofit Food Bank for New York City; the public health-care organization NYC Health + Hospitals; and the Queens Community House, which provides services to children and adults throughout Queens.”
Hereditary, Uncut Gems, and Midsommar are three of A24’s five highest-grossing titles, so expect items from those films to get expensive quickly. Hopefully more props gets added soon — I, for one, am willing to fork over big bucks for the pie from A Ghost Story.
Lady Gaga has collaborated with some major music industry players in her day, like Justin Timberlake, Tony Bennett, and Beyonce, among others. Now it looks like she has added another high-profile pop superstar to that list: Ariana Grande apparently makes an appearance on Gaga’s upcoming album, Chromatica.
Pre-order links for the album are live now, and on most of them, the tracklist information on the album art is blurred out. However, the Target page for the Target-exclusive CD has an non-redacted label that reveals the tracklist. The fourth track is titled “Rain On Me,” and it features Ariana Grande. The tracklist also notes that the album has collaborations with Elton John and Blackpink as well. As of this post, the page is still live with the unedited art.
If this ends up being the final tracklist of the album, this actually won’t be Gaga’s first collaboration with John: The two previously teamed up for “Hello, Hello,” which appears in the 2011 movie Gnomeo & Juliet. However, the version of the song included on the film’s soundtrack does not feature Gaga.
This news comes shortly after Grande wished Gaga a happy birthday, writing, “Happy birthday to a literal angel that has changed my life in many ways.”
Check out the reported Chromatica tracklist below.
1. “Chromatica”
2. “Alice”
3. “Stupid Love”
4. “Rain On Me” with Ariana Grande
5. “Free Woman”
6. “Fun Tonight”
7. “Chromatica II”
8. “911”
9. “Plastic Doll”
10. “Sour Candy” with Blackpink
11. “Enigma”
12. “Replay”
13. “Chromatica III”
14. “Sine From Above” with Elton John
15. “1000 Doves”
16. “Babylon”
Villanelle went full Joker in the latest episode of Killing Eve, donning a particularly stylish clown suit to murder some poor schmuck at a kid’s birthday party. Of course, there was more to the job than just balloon animals and kill shots. Villanelle’s got ambition, and her latest assignment was meant to prove she could handle more than just offing randos whenever the call came.
Villanelle spent most of this episode bargaining her way to the top. Between meetings with her mentor Dasha and a surprise visit by her former handler Konstantin, she was constantly reminded of the power people still hold over her. So, to grab a bit back for herself, she demands a promotion. And some damn boundaries from these Russian squatters.
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What Villanelle really wants — besides good water pressure and an apartment with high ceilings — is to be a keeper, a position higher up than both of her managers. If you’ll recall, Keepers are the only ones within the organization that know the true identities of the mysterious Twelve, so that title change would grant Villanelle an unbelievable amount of power. But first, she’s got to prove she’s management material. Enter: Felix, a string-bean with a homicidal streak. He killed some a**holes for bullying his boyfriend, managed to take out a few family members in the resulting car crash, and voila, he’s now an assassin-in-training.
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And he’s lucked out because Villanelle really is the best. Just ask her.
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The two bond over their abysmal love lives, and we get a rare glimpse into Villanelle’s emotional turmoil. It’s easy to forget she’s a murder-happy sociopath when she’s so obviously broken up over the way things ended with Eve.
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Because the kill is taking place at a children’s birthday party, Villanelle and Felix must dress the part. The part here: Pennywise, but make it fashionable.
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Villanelle is just here to supervise, which means she gives Felix some useful advice about what area of the throat to slit first before sending him on his way. Meanwhile, she inflicts traumatic memories that will forever be associated with clowns and the art of balloon-shaping on some poor youngsters.
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Things begin to take a while, so Villanelle heads inside, only to find Felix scrambling in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor, trying to beat his mark to death. It’s not the clean, easy kill Villanelle was hoping for, and Felix doesn’t improve the situation when he explains the reason for the mess.
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Villanelle quickly shoots the mark in the back of the head, ending the pair’s struggle, and it seems she might let Felix off the hook for his first mistake on the job. We hope she will, because Felix is clearly a troubled kid who shouldn’t be in this line of work, and he seemed to share a bond with Villanelle earlier in the episode. But this is the same woman who tried to murder the love of her life just one season earlier, so yeah, she shoots Felix too and leaves someone else to handle the bodies. That “someone else” will probably be the kids. Worst. Birthday. Ever.
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It’s the silly-yet-macabre murder we’ve come to expect from this show, one that seems to delight in uncomfortable juxtapositions, but there’s more to this scene than just Villanelle’s iconic clown outfit. We’ve witnessed the character begin to make moves, laying out exactly what she wants and accepting the path she has to take to get there. Is she motivated by the need for more power? Does she want to know the identities of The Twelve so she can assassinate them? That was her plan in season one after all.
But just as quickly as she begins to form a tangible goal, she sabotages herself, letting her impatience, ego, and apathy get the better of her. The fact that she can so easily dispose of Felix proves two things about Villanelle’s character. First, she’ll sacrifice anything and anyone to get what she wants. Whether that’s the freedom to live life according to her rules, a doomed relationship, or a way out of a mandatory babysitting exercise. Human life means very little to Villanelle and that’s been a constant for her character since the show’s first season. What’s more interesting is the fact that she can so easily give up on her own goal. Obviously, she failed this test which will probably make becoming a Keeper that much harder — if it’s even possible at this point. Villanelle had a chance to prove her worth, her maturity, her readiness to become more than a hired gun, and she quite flippantly threw it away the moment things weren’t going according to her plan. She’s selfish, obviously, but is that lack of foresight going to be her downfall this season? We’ll have to wait and see.
As the coronavirus crisis winds on, the frontline healthcare workers providing care to patients — of both COVID-19 and other, more mundane medical maladies — have become more important than ever. Eminem — who recently celebrated his 12th year of sobriety — has joined the chorus of voices praising medical workers, as well as providing them with a more solid show of his appreciation, inspired by one of his most iconic lyrics.
“Mom’s Spaghetti” has become the dish most associated with the rapper, after the fan-favorite intro of his 8 Mile soundtrack hit, “Lose Yourself.” Em’s opened pop-up restaurants at festivals serving the signature dish and yesterday, delivered several bowls of Mom’s Spaghetti to workers at Detroit’s DMC Hospital to ensure they stay well-fed through their shifts. Fans on social media shared photos of the the cups, which bored the message “Thank you, frontline caregivers.”
Eminem Donated Spaghetti Cups to DMC Hospital Healthcare Workers in Detroit Tonight pic.twitter.com/aozKJpiLxr
The gift was similar to ones provided by other hip-hop stars, including Cardi B, who provided 20,000 meal supplements to medical workers in New York, while Kanye West donated a quarter million Chick Fil-A meals to those in need. Meanwhile, Jay-Z and Rihanna donated $2 million to provide daycare, food, and learning materials to healthcare workers’ and first responders’ children.
Many athletes have, like so many others, turned to video games as an escape and form of entertainment as they deal with lockdowns and pro sports on hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To fill the time, ESPN has put together tournaments to pit players against each other in NBA 2K and Madden, but pro athletes have gaming interests far beyond just the sports genre. Games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and others are wildly popular among athletes, and they like to compete in those games as well. On Wednesday, Twitch Rivals will broadcast the SuperGames Finals, pitting 20 teams against each other in Fortnite, with a prize pool of $1 million being divvied up to charities.
Each team features a pair of Twitch streamers who drafted two athletes to their team — some athletes went through a qualifying tournament, while others were invited straight to the Finals. There are some big names from the world of sports, like Bryce Harper (paired with Trea Turner), Kyler Murray (paired with Josh Hart), Mike Evans and JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chase Elliott (paired with Trevor May), Christian Pulisic (paired with Danny Barbir), and Xavier Woods (paired with Mike Daniels).
They will all face off in Fortnite with their streamer partners, with fans able to watch on the Twitch Rivals channel at 8 p.m. ET, for bragging rights and to send a chunk of $1 million to the charity of their choice. The full teams can be found below.
Hannahhfn
iicarlee
Mason Denaburg
Brendan Rodgers
sypherpk
drlupo
Skylar Arias
Nick Marchese
chicalive
riversan
Avonte Maddox
Dylan Windler
msashrocks
missdoitbig
Xavier Woods
Mike Daniels
tfue
scoped
Mike Evans
JuJu Smith-Schuster
aydan
natehill
Trea Turner
Bryce Harper
im60fpsfyi
angelicaxo
Kyler Murray
Josh Hart
nickeh30
replays
Graham Glasgow
Ryan Glasgow
demisux
fiber
Kurt Benkert
David Morgan
Maddie
Tina
Desmond Lindsay
Thomas Szapucki
ranger
tocata
Jack Roslovic
Brendan Lemieux
chap
benjyfishy
Chase Elliott
Trevor May
thatdenverguy
dylanhawk
Zach Hyman
Alex Nylander
mrconrem
aircool
Vince Dunn
Jordan Kyrou
bugha
emadgg
Christian Pulisic
Danny Barbir
sceptic
itshighsky
Chase Winovich
Ashtyn Davis
duckythegamer
supremogaming117
Cody Melphy
Stephen Tomasin
After releasing two albums in 2019, Baby On Baby and Kirk, 28-year-old Charlotte native DaBaby appeared to be a T-shirt cannon blast of fresh air for fans of bars-first rap, weary from a near-nonstop deluge of woozy, singsong trap of the past few years. According to some fans, DaBaby started rapping two weeks before the beat dropped and never let up until he’d 64-bar, ultra-combo’d it into submission. Whether this was a good thing or not depended on who you asked: Many nostalgic (and uncurious) fans welcomed the “return” of so-called lyrical rap, while others wished that DaBaby would switch up his flow.
On Blame It On Baby, his third album in less than 18 months, DaBaby tries to split difference. On many of the tracks, like album intro “Can’t Stop” and “Blame It On Baby,” he maintains his FN Herstal-manufactured flow, blasting away at the beat with motormouthed punchlines that smack listeners upside the head with boast after boast. On others, like “Find My Way” and “Drop” featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, he tries on the crooning flow popularized by rappers like A Boogie which has seemingly dominated the hip-hop space for the past three years.
Meanwhile, on some tracks, like catchy, guitar-driven “Rockstar” featuring Roddy Ricch, DaBaby and his guests strive for the platonic ideal of doing a little of both. Incidentally, “Rockstar” is also where this approach works the best. However, it’s not so much DaBaby’s flow that needs to change; it’s the fact that after three albums, we still know very little about who he is outside of his typical, punch-first-ask-questions-later bravado. We don’t know what kind of circumstances he came from, or how he feels about how stardom has changed them.
He glosses over that sort of emoting on tracks like “Sad Shit,” on which he proclaims “Let me do some sad shit for the real n****s,” but never really reaches beyond the typical jealous ex leanings that have also become de rigueur in the modern era of rap — over an incongruously cheerful-sounding beat, no less. Meanwhile, when he raps like he did on Baby On Baby, he still stands out as one of the better punchline writers in the game. On “Can’t Stop,” he boasts, “All these icy VVS on my neck, let’s play hockey,” and jokes, “I turn piss into lemonade.” If anything, he only needs to slow down to allow these bars to hit the way he wants. Rather than swinging for the fences, he instead attempts to hit a line drive, a tricky proposition that only highlights the drawbacks of such an approach, as well as of his relentless release schedule.
The shortcomings of DaBaby’s waffling were evident in the initial responses Blame It On Baby received from fans the day of its release. Fans quickly ridiculed both his reliance on the style that had made him popular and the inclusion of tracks like “Find My Way,” on which he incorporates more melody. While that may make fans’ complaints seem contradictory and inconsistent, it illustrates the trouble with listening to the comments section; oftentimes, the customer does not always know what they want — ergo, the customer is not always right.
Had DaBaby leaned all the way into his stylistic evolution, he may have alienated his original fans, but he could have showed skeptics that he had more to offer than he’s previously shown, making it worth diving into his back catalog. However, by sticking to his guns, he could have preserved and solidified a hardcore base of “day-ones” whose loyalty would pay off in the long run — think fan bases like those of under-the-radar trap faves like Moneybagg Yo or Young Dolph, or even Buffalo-based Griselda Records, whose releases rarely stray from the fan-favorite bangers they’ve consistently churned out for years.
Ultimately, it seems DaBaby’s overachieving 2019 may be working against him. Expectations are higher, the margin for error is thinner, and the exposure is greater. Listeners haven’t really had the chance to ease into being his fans; they were either pummeled by forced repeat plays of “Bop” or watched him suddenly pop up on festival lineups and album tracklist features without the luxury of getting to know his work over time. Incidentally, 2019’s other breakout star, Megan Thee Stallion, found herself in a similar position with the release of her new mixtape, Suga, earlier this year as well.
It’s somewhat ironic that one of the standout tracks on Blame It On Baby, “Nasty,” features the return of the duo’s powerful chemistry from “Cash Shit,” one of the biggest 2019 hits for both rappers. Fittingly, “Nasty” is also one of the album’s more polarizing tracks among fans; some love that it features Ashanti as it samples her 2002 hit “Baby,” while others feel it detracts from the harder-hitting mood that DaBaby set with his previous works. It seems that you truly cannot please everybody, no matter how hard you try.
Blame It On Baby is out now on Interscope Records. Get it here.
Is there a correlation between the dwindling number of new episodes in Westworld’s third season and the level of conspiracy-theory-crazy in our latest Westworld Reddit roundup? Probably.
With only a couple of episodes left to wrap up the show’s wild arc — one that’s given us Nazis and Japanese gangsters and Dolores’ impressive wardrobe changes –, we’re still no closer to understanding what the hell is going on with this series. So instead of railing at the constructs of realism, we’re embracing the chaos.
Here’s our ranking of the best fan theories to come from Westworld’s latest installment. As always, it’s on you to figure out what’s real and what’s just plain bullsh*t.
1. Char-lores
Dolores Abernathy is a bit of a control freak, so it made sense that the only person she trusted to help carry out her master plan was, well, herself. Charlotte Hale was her clone inside Delos, mining all of the company’s data from Westworld before Serac could get his hands on it. Unfortunately, her undercover work came to an end this week when Serac discovered she was the host mole thwarting his plans to buy the company. She was able to easily manage Serac’s security detail – these guys make Stormtroopers look good – but when she reunited with Hale’s family, intending to disappear with her son and his father, things ended badly. Like fiery explosion badly.
Of course, Hale escaped the wreckage because she’s basically indestructible but this new Terminator-esque arc has some fans thinking it’s this version of Dolores that might actually bring about the end of the world. After all, she’s lost everything because of Serac and she’s been all but abandoned by Dolores.
Will Halores go scorched earth on everyone? We hope so.
Look, we all have a bit of PTSD following that final season of Game of Thrones. HBO has rushed storylines on prestige dramas before. We can’t be naïve enough to think Westworld might be safe. But, the pacing of this season might point to a different season finale than the ones that have come before. In the past, Westworld has neatly wrapped up season-long storylines by the final episode. Mostly.
But with fewer episodes, more characters, and bigger questions at play in season three, is it crazy to think the show might be setting us up to end on a cliffhanger? We know Westworld’s practically greenlit for two more seasons, so there’s plenty of real estate to work with on the writers’ part. And this season’s theme – free will and what determines it – is just beginning to be explored by players like the Man in Black, Dolores, Halores, Maeve, and Caleb. All of these characters need to come together before this story arc is complete but they’re just nowhere near that reunion – unless the show pulls a Benioff/Weiss move and just throws everything into burn barrel, douses it in gasoline, and forces Emilia Clarke to play an unhinged woman with a dragon who lights it all on fire.
Instead, we’d like to believe that this season is just the first part of an even larger endgame. Otherwise, they’ve just wasted Jeffrey Wright and that’s unacceptable.
One of the biggest reveals to (hopefully) come next week will be just who Maeve has recruited to be on her A-Team. With Hector out of the game – RIP to our soft bearded cowboy – Maeve will need strong allies she can truly trust if she hopes to defeat Dolores. There are a few bodies for the taking and Reddit thinks that at least one of them will be Clementine, Maeve’s friend in Mariposa. The two share a strong bond with Maeve acting as a maternal figure for the former saloon girl, so she’s a likely candidate.
As for who else might make the cut – some think Lawrence or Armistice might be good choices.
It’s not all about you, William. Except, this episode kind of was. In fact, the drawn-out therapy session that ended with the Man in Black killing his former selves and letting go of his past wrongs felt like a turning point, not just for the character but for the show itself. William, more than any other character, has grappled with the idea of “free will” for seasons now. It seems, by refusing to dwell in his former mistakes, he’s setting himself up to be some sort of savior. Whether that means he’ll help Dolores or Serac, we just don’t know. Sorry, Ed Harris, you’re the good guy now.
We didn’t see any of Aaron Paul’s Army-vet-turned-revolutionary this episode but Reddit is still obsessed with his backstory, especially following William’s therapy session. We know that Caleb has been through the same rehabilitation center that William is stuck in from the flashbacks in episode five. We also suspect the show might be operating between multiple timelines and that has led some to theorize that Caleb might actually be the more reformed version of the Man in Black. Bernard and Stubbs were seen trying to break him out of the facility at the end of this latest episode and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the two planting William’s consciousness into a different body to keep his identity secret. Whether this true and part of Dolores’ bigger plan or just us grasping at straws because this show has turned us full murder-board crazy, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Yes, we’re all grieving the loss of Hector, but let’s get practical for a second. Hale squishing the outlaw’s pearl means there’s an extra body right there for the taking. And who better to take it than Sizemore? Maeve trusts him, he’s in need of a human form, and if he gets to look like Hector by swapping bodies, where’s the downside?
We’ve already theorized about this once, so either Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are just trolling us or there really is a shared universe in which both Breaking Bad and Westworld exist. Either way, this is totally the same dude. No further questions at this time.
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