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Ranking Marvel movies would be an easy post, and has been done by countless other writers, but I’ve never been inspired to do one. I’m not saying I never will (quotas to fill, kids to feed, etc.), but there’s a sameness to Marvel movies which makes them a little dull to argue over. They’ve gotten worse in recent years (to the point that the “are superhero movies dead?” argument feels less sensational than ever) but for the most part they put out a consistently “fine” product. The directors’ names change, but the tone and style of the movies never seems to (in probably related news: Disney seems to have a habit of firing their most interesting directors).

Marvel’s consistency of product is admirable from a business standpoint, like McDonald’s cheeseburgers, but from a fodder-for-movielovers-who-like-to-fight-over-things standpoint, incredibly dull. DC, on the other hand, seemed to give their directors much more free reign (though notably, they do occasionally come in midway through and start monkeying around, leading to years-long fan campaigns and entire re-released movies). That arguably shakier business model has given us an arguably higher quality ceiling and lower floor. There are DC movies I love, and ones where I would burn the negatives and salt the hard drives if it was up to me.

DC brought in James Gunn late last year to be their version of Kevin Feige, and hopefully give the DCEU a more consistent tone and vision. Which, honestly, sounds disappointing. As a guy who writes about movies for a living, a franchise that ranges from great to terrible is a lot more fun than one that’s consistently “meh.”

With the release of Shazam: Fury Of The Gods over the weekend (which was shot before Gunn’s role was announced, and is now looking like a big flop), now seemed like the perfect time to rank all the weird, wonderful, and terrible movies of the “DCEU.” That is, the DC comics Expanded Universe (more on that in a second).

13. Justice League (2017)

In general, the top of this ranking was a lot easier than the bottom, where a handful of pretty bad movies compete for the dishonor of “worst.” Justice League is an outlier in that sense. This one is the worst by a wide margin. There are a lot of DC movies that are warty, uneven, and idiosyncratic, but Justice League was mostly none of those things, just terribly dull, which is a much greater sin.

Partly there are logistical reasons for that, as most people reading this probably already know. Director Zack Snyder dropped out before filming was finished and Joss Whedon took over, partly as part of a larger mandate to “lighten the tone” of the DC movies after the disappointing returns on Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice (including a 69% drop — nice — in its second weekend).

Snyder and Whedon are often depicted as perfect stylistic foils — Snyder “dark,” bombastic, and operatic; Whedon flatly lit, sitcommy, smart-alecky, and light-hearted — and whatever the truth of that, it mostly manifested onscreen as terminally unmemorable slog. Justice League had been in the works for at least a decade by the time it was released (with Fury Road‘s George Miller at one point set to direct), and it ended up feeling like I was watching a drive-in screen from a mile away with the sound off. I remember banal dreams from 10 years ago more than I remember Justice League. This was the movie so bad it spawned a campaign to have it entirely re-cut and re-released. And it was! (Again, more on that later).

Six years later, the only thing I really remember about Justice League was Henry Cavill’s CGI unmustaching (by the time Justice League was doing reshoots, Cavill was already well into shooting Mission Impossible: Fallout, and contractually obligated to keep his mustache).

One of my most closely-held opinions is that, much like every CGI Andy Serkis character would be better with Andy Serkis in his spandex suit instead of the CGI, Justice League would’ve been improved if Superman had just had a never-explained mustache in half of the scenes.

12. Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016)

While I generally take the Zack Snyder side of the Snyder vs. Whedon debate, Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice plays like the perfect rejoinder to anyone who blames Justice League sucking solely on Joss Whedon. Snyder managed to make this one bad all on his own.

On the one hand, I do really enjoy the idea of Batman as a juiced-up proto fascist so terrified about the idea of a demigod like Superman that he’ll plunge an entire realm into nightmarish war over it. At one point in this movie, Batman (played by Ben Affleck) says of Superman “if we believe there’s even a one percent chance he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty that we have to destroy him.”

It’s a speech pulled straight from Dick Cheney’s “one-percent doctrine,” and if Batman V. Superman had actually followed through on exploring the havoc that superheroes (superpowers??) could wreak through a combination of misplaced fear and “good intentions” gone wrong, it could’ve been great.

Unfortunately, it feels like no one in the movie is capable of articulating these ideas succinctly, and so we get scene after mopey scene of superheroes doubletalking like failed tech CEOs, rambling out bad ideas badly. The babbling could’ve been excused if Snyder had followed through, but it seems like he realized he couldn’t fit a genuine critique of the superhero mindset into a traditional superhero movie (which will become a theme in this list) and so he inserted daddy issues instead (that old standby!). So it is the two lead characters join forces when they realize that both their moms were named Martha.

Even with all that going on, BVS still found time for a double dream sequence (Batman having a dream inside his dream!) an incredibly grating Lex Luthor played by Jesse Eisenberg, and largely pointless introduction of Wonder Woman.

11. Black Adam (2021)

Another theme of this list is DC movies not being able to decide whether they should counter-program Marvel or imitate them. The MCU heroes are basically a benevolent CIA, and at first, Black Adam seems like it might be building up to a critique of that. It’s set in the fictional Middle East country of Khandaq, which is overrun by very Britishly-coded mercenaries. They accidentally awaken Black Adam (the Rock), champion of the local people, basically the indigenous superman, who starts dispatching them with extreme prejudice.

Ignorantly believing Black Adam a “threat to stability,” Amanda Waller (more on her later) sends in “the Justice Society,” a team of dopey, superpowered goons to neutralize him. This seems like a pretty good conflict, only instead of exploring Black Adam vs. a dumb superteam who think they’re doing good, he ends up having to battle some random guy (Ishmael, played by Marwan Kenzari) who is using the same powers as Black Adam but for personal gain. He’s doing anti-colonialism “the wrong way” essentially. A similar thing happens in Wakanda Forever and it sucked both times. Just have them kill the colonials, it’s not hard! Have you seen RRR?

It’s not so much that Black Adam has “bad politics” (it’s a big-budget superhero movie, who really cares) it’s just dull filmmaking. Throughout the latter part of the film, there’s a palpable sense that the “Justice Society” is some kind of golden goose that DC doesn’t want to kill off, even though we’re only just meeting them and they kind of seem like they suck. Aside from being poorly motivated, the action scenes don’t look all that great either.

10. Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Wonder Woman 1984 came out in December 2020, at basically the nadir of the pandemmy, a story not only set in the eighties, but feeling a bit like an eighties high-concept comedy with superheroes. Trying to even remember it now is hard, but the plot concerns Wonder Woman’s jealous work friend, a first-act rom-com klutz played by Kristen Wiig, getting her hands on a citrine wishing stone that turns her super. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman wants to use the same magic stone to wish her dead boyfriend, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) back into existence after apparently having spent the last 66 years as a mourning celibate (for a supposedly empowering superheroine, she’s not very sex-positive!). It’s like a genie movie meets Ghost (Chris Pine’s soul inhabiting another man’s body) plus Pedro Pascal playing a slimy oil tycoon.

Superhero movies are almost too high stakes (how many times can we save the entire universe/subatomic fabric of reality?) so all this sounds pretty good in theory, but unfortunately it’s also a story that required Gal Gadot to do a lot swoony acting. Which she is, charitably speaking, far less good at than embodying a goddess. To put it bluntly, Wonder Woman 1984‘s love story plot was DOA and the action scenes were even worse.

9. Justice League, The Snyder Cut (2021)

Much like Wonder Woman 1984, I’ve blocked out most of my memory of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, released after much “fan” outcry in 2021. Even at four hours (I still can’t believe I actually watched this whole thing) I have to give the fans some credit. It is a substantial improvement over the original cut of Justice League. Then again, you could show me footage of my family being held hostage and it’d be an improvement over Justice League.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League at least had a more coherent style and a little panache. Gore! Characters saying the F-word! The parts in between the big battles and the plot about a giant portal were, I thought, mostly not half bad. The cast also varies wildly, from Ray Fisher (as Cyborg) and Gal Gadot, who are barely acting, to Ezra Miller (as The Flash) who is generally doing way too much and all of it very grating. (Supposedly they’re amazing in The Flash, which explains WB putting up with all their bullshit for this long, but I’ll believe that when I see it). Thank God for Jason Momoa, who should get an Oscar for being Jason Momoa.

Anyway, I give Zack Snyder’s Justice League some credit for not being nearly as terrible as I imagined, but it’s still a four-hour superhero movie about closing a portal. It should be noted that it did win the Oscar for “fan favorite moment,” for “The Flash Enters The Speed Force.” No one can ever take that away from it.

[Not Officially Part Of “The DCEU,” But If It Was, The Batman (2022) Would Go Here]

At this point, I realize that Matt Reeves movies are where my opinion and the opinion of the general moviegoing public most starkly diverge. Most people I know loved The Batman. Most of my friends loved The Batman. Whereas to me, sitting through Matt Reeves’ dour humorless slogs are about as fun as a root canal. Don’t get me wrong, a film noir-style Batman where the Riddler is basically the Zodiac killer does sound like an attractive idea on paper. And I’ll credit Robert Pattinson as an intriguing choice to play Bruce Wayne.

Yet in practice, The Batman had a climactic chase sequence that was not only so dark that I couldn’t tell what was happening, I couldn’t understand why it was happening. Which you think they would’ve had time to explain in a two-hour and 56-minute movie. I also think you lose all your “let’s make a cool film noir Batman” cred when you make the bad guy a social media phenomenon and have him meet up with the Joker. Why is this not part of the “DCEU” again? It sure seemed like they were trying to do some tie-ins. Actually, please don’t explain this to me, forget I asked.

8. Shazam! Fury Of The Gods (2023)

Shazam! was a great superhero movie, simultaneously sort of light-hearted yet heartfelt, and sugary in a way that makes Marvel feel like Nutrasweet (more on that later) by comparison. Part of its brilliance was existing in a self-contained world. The sequel tries to contextualize Shazam! inside a larger universe that also includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman… etc., with the hero on a psychiatrist’s couch in the beginning (actually his pediatrician, because he’s a teenager) complaining about his “impostor syndrome.”

It’s the movie itself that feels like it has impostor syndrome. It has characters that work (the superheroes are a family of foster kids, which I enjoy), but it keeps trying to insert them into a larger mythology that feels desperate and derivative. And then at a climactic moment, there’s basically a Skittles commercial.

DC almost always gets more smoke than Marvel from critics, but it’s hard to take any “the critics are too mean!” complaints seriously when it’s about a movie that has a Skittles commercial in the middle of it. Whereas the first Shazam! did a great job making Billy Batts seem like a fairly realistic smart-alecky teen, in the sequel he’s hyper-real and full of pop culture references, like calling the dragon-riding baddy “Khaleesi” (not to mention barely being in the movie outside of his Zach Levi incarnation).

It felt like they took a hero who was his own thing, and good at it, and couldn’t decide whether they should insert him into a Marvel-style universe (complete with pathetically worshipful Wonder Woman pimping) or turn him into DC’s Deadpool (but for kids!). There’s another thing I want to say here about the preposterousness of the post-credits scene, but… spoilers and all of that. Hopefully, it’s sufficiently vague to say that they try to a tie-in between what started as a kid-friendly superhero movie and an R-rated premium cable show. Weird!

7. Suicide Squad (2016), aka The Rap-Rock Suicide Squad

People really seem to hate Suicide Squad 2016, aka the rap-rock Suicide Squad, with the Jared Leto Joker, but I have a weird soft spot for it. I don’t know that it’s a good movie, but it does have its own singular personality, which is more than you can say for a lot of, if not most superhero movies.

This one was directed by David Ayer (who directed Fury and End of Watch, and who wrote Training Day) whose work has also been described as “dark.” But whereas with Zack Snyder “dark” seems to mean sort of grandiose and operatic, with Ayer it means kind of scruffy and sleazy and misanthropic, like hanging out at a strip club all day. This Suicide Squad seemed like it should’ve had a cameo by Shift Shellshock from Crazytown, which is neither a criticism nor a compliment, simply an observation.

That’s why I call it “the rap-rock Suicide Squad”: it’s a little like a cinematic Papa Roach song, very of a piece with early aughts nü-metal, starring a bunch of characters who are all a little messed up inside, dog, even if they don’t know all the right college-y words to express it.

The movie consists almost entirely of Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis, one of the few elements of the film not to get ret-conned) introducing all the suicide squad characters in baseball-card-style vignette packages. Apparently what had happened was, David Ayer and his original editors finished one cut of the film, but then Warner Bros’ executives saw the middling response to Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, worried it was “too dark” (sound familiar?) and hired the company that had made the teaser trailer to recut the entire movie. The final cut was supposedly a “consensus take” of the two cuts, but the baseball-card-style intros came from the teaser company cut.

It’s a shame there hasn’t been the RELEASE THE AYER CUT!!! outcry for Suicide Squad to match the Snyder Cut campaign. I’d be very interested in an even-more-nü-metal Suicide Squad (and also a little scared). Preferably with a tie-in cameo from Shia Labeouf playing “Creeper” in The Tax Collector (Ayer’s next movie).

6. Wonder Woman (2017)

When it came out, people were, understandably, a little high on the idea of Wonder Woman being, at long last, a stand-alone movie about a female superhero directed by a woman. It also seemed to have some high-minded ideas, about Wonder Woman’s strength being her compassion rather than the steely detached qualities so prized in male superheroes. So she sets out to vanquish the God Of War and stop a senseless war (WWI!).

Call me crazy, but having her accomplish that by killing a bunch of German teenagers seemed to undercut the point a bit. It also had a weak villain and a hero with very vaguely defined powers. That being said, it mostly looked good, the hero looked the part, Chris Pine was solid as the sidekick/love interest, and no one had to destroy any portals. Of the DC canon, Wonder Woman feels the most like a Marvel movie — a competently-made, solid B that’s hard to get too worked up about in either direction.

5. James Gunn’s Suicide Squad (2021)

James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is the toughest movie on the list to rank, because it’s alternately the most exciting and most disappointing movie in the DCEU canon. The first half of it is the satirical critique of American jingoism and comic book conventions I always wanted from a superhero movie (with due respect to Kick-Ass and Super, the latter of which Gunn also directed), delivered with the punk rock panache and flair for “low art” absurdity of a guy who got his start directing Roger Corman movies. Gunn’s strength is that he seems to understand that superhero movies should go BONK and SPLAT, not deliver lectures

Yet the second half of the movie infuriatingly couldn’t seem to manage the distinction between heroes and anti-heroes. These scruffy antihero characters couldn’t pull off the ending without going full babyface, in a stunted arc that smacked of studio meddling (or maybe I was just giving Gunn too much credit solely because I like his style). In the latter part of the movie, you could almost hear some suit whispering “but when does Harley Quinn get to kick ass” and “shouldn’t we have someone to root for?”

No, you shouldn’t! Anti-heroes are supposed to be delicious, not admirable! By the time a bystander shouted “it’s a freakin’ kaiju!” I was basically soured on the whole enterprise. Which is a testament to how much I hated that, given that this is otherwise the funniest, most exciting, and visually inventive movie on the list. The Starro scene is probably the coolest CGI set piece in all of superherodom (one of the few that didn’t bore me half to death). And yet as a whole the movie still feels like a missed opportunity.

4. Birds Of Prey

Birds Of Prey, directed by Cathy Yan, had all the abundance of style and lack of substance of The Suicide Squad without ever getting my hopes up that it would be something more. It has some of the best stunts and, thanks to Margot Robbie and Rosie Perez, probably the best acting of any of the movies on this list. And yet narratively it’s… some sort of post-modern, theater kid riff on a girl who just wants to eat an egg sandwich. Uh… sure?

3. Man Of Steel (2013)

Man of Steel would become an unfortunate harbinger for the DCEU in that it’s a great movie and a shit one just sort of smooshed together. The part that’s a Superman origin story works beautifully. With gorgeous compositions, gratuitous slow-motion, and Hans Zimmer in just the right doses, Man Of Steel gives us a Superman who’s a product of two fathers — one for whom Superman represents the last embodiment of the squandered potential of a dead civilization, and another for whom he represents an ideal towards which a young civilization can strive, if they can be mature enough to accept him. It gave Superman a depth that I’d never quite grasped before.

Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner are perfectly cast as Jor-El and Pa Kent, and Amy Adams is clearly slumming it as Lois Lane. All the stuff on Krypton works shockingly well. And then it feels like Zack Snyder and David S. Goyer belatedly remembered that they were trying to make a Superman 2 homage, Zod shows up, and the whole thing goes to shit. It takes a lot for me to be sad about Michael Shannon showing up, but Man Of Steel managed it. The bad guys don’t have any coherent motives and so the entire climactic battle basically feels like it’s happening because that’s what the filmmakers had originally pitched, even if they ended up stumbling upon a better story in the process. It got a lot of grief for killing bystanders, but not enough grief for not “killing its darlings,” as they say in writing school.

[Not Officially Part Of “The DCEU,” But If It Was, Joker (2019) Would Go Here]

Todd Phillips is basically my reverse Matt Reeves, in that I always seem to enjoy his movies far more than the general public. It’s hard to believe this was less than four years ago now, but as I remember it, the Joker discourse was basically that people were mad that Todd Phillips had had the gall to turn the Joker into some sort of hero for disaffected incels. As if the previous decade of Joker memes hadn’t already made it clear that the Joker was a hero to disaffected incels.

Todd Phillips got blamed for articulating a phenomenon that existed well before he got there, which was also wrapped up in a classic depiction-does-not-equal-endorsement debacle. Which was especially weird, because if you ask me, Christopher Nolan and David Ayer seemed like they were trying to make Joker a lot “cooler” than Todd Phillips did. Todd Phillips’ version mostly seemed like a sad loser.

One gets the sense that Phillips just wanted to make a classic 70s loner movie (as he reportedly told Joaquin Phoenix, “We’re gonna take $55 million from Warner Bros. and do whatever the hell we want.”) and so he did. The other charge against him was that he was ripping off Scorsese, which he absolutely was, but I could think of about a thousand other much worse things for a filmmaker to do. Joker certainly suffers a bit from its cursory attempts to tie it into the larger Batman mythology, but I could’ve easily watched another 90 minutes just about the machinations of Gotham’s clown union. Give me an entire The Wire season two-style series about the clown union hall.

Joker supposedly isn’t technically part of the DCEU, but maybe this (more than a billion worldwide) and The Batman ($770 million worldwide) are examples of what the DCEU should be. Aren’t auteurs’ weird riffs on DC characters (who don’t team up!) more exciting than trying to copy Marvel anyhow? Again, DC could be a great anti-Marvel when it isn’t imitating Marvel.

2. Aquaman (2018)

Can we let James Wan make all the blockbusters, please? Wan, who also made by far the best Fast/Furious movie (Furious 7) seems to have a better handle on what makes a goofy-brilliant big-budget spectacle than anyone else out there. No one makes stupid movies more intelligently than Wan, who also made Malignant.

In Aquaman, he gave us an Aquaman who was basically a superhero version of Jason Momoa, an effusive, Polynesian bro himbo. Just letting Jason Momoa be Jason Momoa is one of the smartest things Hollywood ever did and you have to credit James Wan for inventing the blueprint. Also, it had an octopus playing the drums. Perfect comic book movie, no notes.

1. Shazam! (2019)

I had never heard of Zachary Levi or director David F. Sandberg (previously a director of multiple horror movies produced by James Wan) before Shazam!, let alone the character of Shazam. And yet Shazam! is probably my favorite superhero movie of the last decade.

In a genre where most of the heroes are descendants of ancient monarchies, Shazam!‘s Billy Batson (played by Asher Angel) is a 14-year-old foster kid abandoned by his mother who gets his superpowers, basically by accident, from a dying wizard played by Djimon Hounsou (an excellent movie wizard). When Batson gets his superpowers, he and his new foster kid buddy (played by Jack Dylan Grazer, Brian Grazer’s nephew) do… basically what you would imagine 14-year-old boys would do with superpowers. Use them to buy beer, sneak into R-rated movies, and impress chicks. The discovering-their-superpowers scenes remain one of the few stock superhero movie scenes that don’t bore me to death, and Shazam! manages to capture the innocence of early adolescence without denying its natural mischievousness.

Paradoxically, by not shying away from the fact that superhero stories essentially appeal to kids, Shazam! manages to appeal to adults. We were all 14-year-olds once, after all. On the surface, the bad guys in Shazam! are the seven deadly sins, as represented by weird goofy gargoyle dudes made of smoke (another good move for superhero movies is to not deny the inherent silliness).

Yet in a genre that often tends towards Calvinism, with heroes who are intrinsically good and villains who are bad because they’re the enemies of good (a tautology), underpinning it all is the idea that the villain in Shazam! isn’t really one bad guy so much as the general concept of being an asshole. The climactic battle is basically a metaphor for the internal, age-old struggle to be a less shitty person, all wrapped up in a love letter to found family. I really do love this dumb movie.

Shazam!, grossing a relatively paltry $366 million worldwide, never quite got its due in its time, but to me stands out as an example of how good these kinds of movies can be, even if they usually aren’t.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can check out his archive of reviews here.

Bridgerton‘s Duke-less second season doesn’t have as much steaminess on display as with the series’ infamous first-season, female-orgasmic focus. However, it looks like the juggernaut’s first spinoff will be bringing that flavor back. Netflix and Shondaland are already spinning off (beyond the principal series’ third and fourth seasons) into a prequel focused upon Queen Charlotte.

Accordingly, we are now seeing the trailer for Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. The show will explore Charlotte’s origins, both historical and otherwise detailed, and the personal details will naturally receive emphasis. This is Bridgerton, after all! Expect to see present-day Charlotte as well (Golda Rosheuvel, so good with the discerning gazes) along with visits from present-day Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Lady Danbury (Lady Danbury). And I do not know if we’ll see a Snorting Habit Origin Story, but here’s to hoping.

Presumably, the bulk of this prequel will revolve around the younger Charlotte, portrayed by India Amarteifio, who is not at all thrilled to be shipped off for an arranged marriage (and lots of babies) with King George. His role is picked up by Corey Mylchreest, who is probably not intentionally channeling any royal roles portrayed by Nicholas Hoult, but you never know. There’s something going on behind the scenes, according to this trailer, although I doubt that it’s too treacherous. Maybe a past lovechild? We’ll soon find out, but the trailer does preview Charlotte-George sex scenes. Here’s the series logline:

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story will stream on May 4, and Netflix has released a buffet of royal-themed photos.

Out-team, out-tough, out-together. It’s been the motto Zakiyah Franklin has been playing with since she joined the women’s basketball program at the University of Kansas. Now, in her last few months of being a senior and with an uncertain amount of time on the court in front of her, it’s become both a tangible approach to attacking the games she has left and a fair summary of the lasting legacy she’ll leave on the program when she graduates.

“We stand by that, those three things,” Franklin says over the phone from the Jayhawks coaching offices, her voice as steady as ever.

The Kansas women’s team did not get to where it first aimed when the season got underway. Coming off an appearance in the 2022 NCAA Tournament that snapped a nine year drought, a second consecutive postseason berth was the goal for Franklin, as well as seniors Holly Kersgieter and Taiyanna Jackson. With Jackson’s defensive prowess, Kersgieter’s shooting, and Franklin’s steady playmaking all combining to create a purposeful style of play, the team found itself firmly on the Bubble entering the stretch run of the year. But in a heartbreaking turn in the Big 12 Championship, KU fell in the final seconds to TCU, and two days later it was announced the Jayhawks were one of the first four out of the Tournament.

After months of steady propulsion with the three seniors’ eyes fixed on the same goal, it appeared their season was over — with it, the three of them playing their pragmatic brand of basketball together, at least in the small city of Lawrence, again.

“I was so bad, like, I would airball a layup” Jackson laughs, remembering herself as a lanky, uncoordinated kid with plenty of bounce but no game. “My granny told me, stick with it.”

From a young age Jackson, along with her twin sister Tiara, were encouraged to play basketball by family and teachers.

“I used to be uncomfortable in middle school cause I was just so tall and I felt like, oh my god, everybody is so tiny,” Jackson recalls. Even with early coaches and her parents telling her to be patient, that she’d grow into things, she didn’t always agree. “I didn’t wanna feel like I was forced to play because my height, I wanted to play because I liked the game,” she says.

Begrudgingly, Jackson started playing AAU basketball and found that with the travel, variety in teammates, and who she was going up against, she was able to fall into a rhythm. She found the tempo of games and practice good for her head. After going the junior college route for two years, Jackson was approached by the Kansas women’s program, joining the team ahead of their 2022 season. In her junior year, Jackson was the first player in program history to be named to the Big 12 All-Defensive team, ranked fourth in the nation in blocks, and shot 61.4 percent from the field. In a group that had largely been together since their freshman years, she fit in so well that Kersgieter likened her presence around the rim to a “security blanket.”

“The people here make me feel at home, make me feel like a family,” Jackson says over the phone, her bright and assured voice growing quiet, “it’s not just about basketball.”

Kersgieter’s praise was doubly meaningful considering what she and Franklin walked into when arriving in Lawrence, and how they’ve both shaped and shouldered the program since. Kersgieter and Franklin joined the Jayhawks after the team spent the years since their last Tournament berth consistently towards the bottom of the Big 12. Both had, in conversations with head coach Brandon Schneider and one another, agreed that turning the women’s program around was a big ask, but a worthwhile one. Their freshman year was cut abruptly short by COVID, and their sophomore year was one of incremental growth that ended without an invitation to the NCAA Tournament or the WNIT.

For Kersgieter, who grew up in Tulsa watching Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant lead the Thunder as close as they’ve ever been to a title, cumulative growth made sense. It was also fun — at least that’s how Durant, who she counts as her favorite basketball player, made it look. Much like Durant, Kersgieter tends to keep a cool, almost distant approach to in-game action, as if she’s moving around on a plane slightly adjacent to a sequence’s roil and tangle. For how fluidly and deftly she picks he shots, it’s hard to believe that in her freshman year, worried about doing too much, she resisted shooting to the point where Schneider bluntly told her she had to do more. She attributes her level-headedness to her older brother — who she grew up playing alongside and who didn’t go easy on her — and to her AAU coach, Brian Morgan.

“One moment he would kind of obliterate you and put you on the spot and call you out. But then the next moment he was your biggest fan and he was the first person to help you take that next step. And at the end of the day, I kind of just took from that, that brutal honesty is very helpful,” Kersgieter laughs, “especially in sports.”

It’s been that kind of honesty that Kersgieter credits as the foundation of the relationship she shares with Franklin.

“She doesn’t let stuff get to her and even if it does, she doesn’t show it,” Kersgieter says. “I really observed her in that way over the last few years. As people, we’ve learned each other, we just know each other really well. Neither of us celebrate that big, neither of us are super loud people off the court. So after that it’s just kind of letting each other be each other, on and off the court, and just accepting that, and being there for each other.”

On the floor, that’s translated to the two seniors being able to intuitively know where the other person is during plays, but also the both of them recognizing when to step up as leaders. Kersgieter notes she and Franklin looked for opportunities, more this year than ever, to communicate to their team when it was necessary. “Especially the little things, like in huddles, or in little moments of the game where maybe not everyone notices, but it’s things that we notice and we need to step up and say something,” she says.

“I think we’ve been a balance,” Kersgieter adds, mentioning with a chuckle that in-game she’ll be the one to yell if yelling is needed. “I try and get her to express somewhat emotions from a leader standpoint and just trying to get people’s attention. And then she’s kind of on the opposite for me, like teaching me how to be a calm, quiet leader.”

Like Kersgieter, Franklin is faster to speak about her teammates than she is of herself, which is the quality of a calm, quiet leader as much as it is an athlete who’s spent the last four years watching everyone around her on the floor to figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and how to fix it. Franklin’s own development as a Jayhawk has been full of similar adjustments.

“Each year I try to go in with the mindset of working on the things that I need to work on, but also trying to add at least something to my game,” Franklin says. “Whether it was finishing around the rim — obviously I play in the Big 12, so we’ve had a lot of shot blockers — adding a floater, or the next year it might have been a pull-up jump shot, or working on defense, and the next year extending my range to the three-point line when they pushed that back.”

For Franklin, team goals are the same. Pick one thing, place it top of mind, and work at it. Where this year’s main goal for the team did not materialize, in the incremental steps year over year to get here, Franklin, Kersgieter and Jackson have done something bigger. It wouldn’t have been a practical, or even tangible goal, to have when each of them stepped foot on the floor. But as they leave it, they’ll have created and handed off what they’ve crafted with care and effort: a new path for the Kansas women’s basketball program.

It’s hard enough to compete in the crowded world of college sports, it can be harder still when the men’s program on campus is an institution in the sport. Kansas won the men’s NCAA Tournament last year and is regularly one of the top programs in the country, which brings perennial perks like more funding, more fans, and more opportunities for athletes after college. The three seniors leading the women’s team have brought the team to prominence in just four years, the past two with palpable excitement from the KU community, but all are realistic about the work it’s going to continue to take.

“It’s truly a work in progress, but it’s been a work in progress that we’ve definitely improved on,” Kersgieter says. “At the end of the day, women’s sports all around the entire world are still working on this. But I think obviously here with the attention that basketball gets, we saw the possibilities we can have when we are a winning program, when we have this positive culture around us. People wanna be around that. And so we definitely have seen the potential and how far we can go and how much we can build it.”

“We’re getting to that point in the women’s side where we’re starting to see the same fans who were pretty much here from day one and got to see the program grow to where it is now,” Franklin adds, “It’s really become not only just a community, but a family, honestly.”

Of their own, individual legacies and impacts on the program, the answer is tougher. Jackson, with a laugh, flatly says she can’t think about it, not yet. Franklin says while she’s definitely thought about it, and acknowledges the work she and Kersgieter did to turn the program around in a positive way, she still handles it with the day by day approach that she perpetually uses. Kersgieter picks up where Franklin leaves off, and looks at it as something open-ended, still growing.

“I think in the beginning, our freshman and sophomore year we struggled with [it]. We were like, we’re really trying to make a difference, but we’re not quite there yet. But I think that also led into why we are still here. We didn’t quit. We didn’t wanna give up,” Kersgieter says. “We’re not done yet.”

And literally, they aren’t. After the crushing end to their regular season, the team was invited to the Women’s NIT. They’ve since won two in a row, first by taking care of business against Western Kentucky and then, satisfyingly, running longtime rival Missouri out of the gym by 28 points.

“I think they’ve really responded in the right way. They’ve really channeled that disappointment and anger into gratitude for the opportunity to compete,” Coach Schneider said of the Mizzou win.

“The season has definitely flown by, but there are moments where it’s like, okay, this stretch has been here for a minute, so it’s like, is it ever gonna be over?” Franklin reflects, “But that’s the part that you have to enjoy, because obviously moments like this right now, March has gotten here fast, you just gotta enjoy these moments, even the long stretches, and just stay present.”

For a group that’s always blended pragmatic, in-the-moment basketball with their overarching approach to reaching much larger goals, the apparent change in tack is only really that way on the surface. This KU women’s team has always been clear about what it is they want to do: play as much basketball as they can together, as long as they can. This contest isn’t a consolation, it’s just a different road to the same steady ambition.

“Regardless of when we leave this place, I think it’ll be growing and evolving for a long time. Because we were a part of when it wasn’t growing and we wanted to change that. Not just for us, but for people who come after us and for women in general,” Kersgieter says. ”People get tired of being in the shadows and we work just as hard, we do just as much, we do all the right things, so we get to a point where you kind of wanna provide that for yourself and not just see it around you.”

Raphael Saadiq is having a productive year so far, taking a prominent hand in producing Beyoncé’s 2022 triumph Renaissance (and should have shared in an Album Of The Year victory, according to most people) and Daniel Caesar’s forthcoming Never Enough, including Caesar’s February single “Do You Like Me?”

Incidentally, Saadiq shared news yesterday, March 22, that people are liking a lot.

The two-time Grammy winner (and 18-time nominee) — and one-time Oscar nominee for his musical contributions to Mudbound, and he’s also composed for smash series like Insecure, Lovecraft Country, or the newly premiered Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, if you needed any more proof that the phrase multi-hyphenate was coined on the back of him — announced the Just Me And You Tour is scheduled for this year.

The photo features him sitting alongside his brother, D’wayne Wiggins, and his cousin, Timothy Christian Riley, which teases, “Raphael Saadiq Revisits Tony! Toni! Toné!”

The Instagram post was flooded with comments. John Legend wrote, “Ok I’m there!” Questlove chimed in with, “Man y’all Better Stop Playin Wit My Emotions—this better be REAL.” Bun B, Joe Budden, Lena Waithe, and Keri Hilson also expressed their bewildered excitement.

Identical billboards were spotted around Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, California, and Saadiq posted to his Instagram Story, “For more info about Tour Dates Text Me Now @ (310) 861-2685.”

Tony! Toni! Toné! last put out an album in 1996 with House Of Music before their 1998 split. In June 2019, Saadiq foreshadowed a reunion while on Sway’s Universe and doubled down on it with NME that August.

“I’ve been working on new Tonys music for about 15 years,” he told NME. “I just felt like we should do something, a few songs, maybe seven or eight of them and then do a few shows. So I’m not gonna be back-back because I have way too many things going on, but as far as doing a tour and an EP or something, I’m down for that. I’d actually like to perform the very last record we did together, House Of Music. We never toured that record, so if everyone is up for it, I’d like to do that and put out three new records.”

Oh, they’re up for it.

See some of the best reactions below.

Raphael Saadiq announced he’s going on tour + reuniting with Tony! Toni! Toné!… I need a moment 😩😭 pic.twitter.com/mO4kr3qab6

— jazzy 🌸 (@_thatssojazzy) March 23, 2023

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has fired back at Donald Trump and House Republicans for their attempts to derail a state investigation into the former president. Trump kicked off a media circus last weekend when he claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday for allegedly making hush money payments in violation of campaign finance laws. However, Tuesday came and went with no legal action taken against Trump, but the former president got what he wanted: chaos.

Along with stirring up his supporters, House Republicans demanded that Bragg testify in front of Congress about Trump’s arrest, which again, has yet to materialize. In a scathing letter, the DA rejected the GOP member’s demand and blasted Trump for manipulating them into intervening.

Via Mediaite:

The investigation into Trump, wrote Bragg, “has been conducted consistently with the District Attorney’s oath to faithfully execute the laws of the State of New York,” but the Republicans’ letter was “an unprecedent[ed] inquiry into a pending local prosecution,” and “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”

Bragg took things even further by calling the Republican’s efforts an “unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty.” He labeled the inquiry “indefensible” and bluntly stated “Congress is not the appropriate branch to review pending criminal matters.”

(Via Mediaite)

It’s been five years since Elizabeth Olsen has starred in a non-Marvel project. Making that bank and all, but it will be refreshing to see her in something that isn’t part of a cinematic universe — something like Love & Death.

The HBO Max limited series, from director Lesli Linka Glatter and writer David E. Kelley, stars Olsen as Candy Montgomery, a Texan who killed her best friend with an ax. There’s more to the story, as you can see in the trailer above, but if you liked prestige soap opera Big Little Lies, you should watch Love & Death. But even if you didn’t like Big Little Lies, you should still watch Love & Death, because it stars Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons. Those two could star in a remake of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, and I would watch it.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea… Anyway, here’s the plot synopsis:

Love & Death takes a close look at Candy Montgomery’s shift from a bright, devout Christian housewife to a merciless ax-murderer and the peculiar affair that started it all. Set in a close-knit, trusting Texas community full of carefree families and faithful churchgoers, it’s an idyllic picture — and the perfect cover for dangerous secrets and vicious jealousy left unchecked. With executive producers David E. Kelley and Nicole Kidman and stars Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons, the limited series promises sky-high pedigree, style with substance, and the complex, psychological nuance necessary for such an unbelievable true crime story.

Love & Death premieres on April 27th on HBO Max.

Last month, Daniel Caesar announced his new album Never Enough. He’s shared “Do You Like Me” and “Let Me Go” so far, as well as an intriguing trailer. Now, he revealed that before he hits the road on a big tour, he’ll be giving small scale performances on the Almost Enough: The Intimate Sessions Tour, starting next month.

The tour kicks off on April 6 in Los Angeles, California. The run includes Toronto, Paris, London, Berlin, and more; the lower-capacity venues allow for a more personal experience.

“Ok last thing.. After seeing the responses to ‘where should I go’ I decided to have an intimate tour before the real tour kicks off,” the musician wrote on Instagram. “A chance for me to sing the album to a select few fans that have really been here since the beginning. Excited to connect with each and every one of you. So here it is… “Almost Enough: The Intimate Sessions” tour. Pre-sale for you guys starts this Thursday at 10am local with password: ‘NEVERENOUGH’ And for everyone else on-sale will be Friday at 10am local. Till then check the link in my bio. Never know what you might find.”

Find ticket information here and the tour dates below.

04/06 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco
04/11 — New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
04/13 — Toronto, ON @ History
04/18 — Paris, FR @ Élysée Montmartre
04/19 — London, UK @ HERE at Outernet
04/22 — Berlin, DE @ Huxleys Neue Welt

Never Enough is out 4/7 via Republic. Find more information here.

Throughout Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s lengthy relationship, it seems like JLo has really opened up her husband’s eyes to the world. For one, she taught him how to relax, which is great because he drinks so much Dunkin’ coffee. She also brought him out to the Grammy’s, despite the fact that he really did not want to be filmed. But the real benefit of them getting back together? JLo has gotten her husband hooked on Yellowstone. Stars really are just like us.

Affleck was recently a guest on The Bill Simmons Podcast alongside Matt Damon, where he admitted that his wife has got him hooked on the hit ranch drama. “I’m kind of disturbed that my wife really likes Yellowstone,” Affleck said, adding, “Part of me thinks that she’s really drawn to the romance between Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly.” Who isn’t?!

Affleck admitted that he was shocked that his wife was a fan of Rip and Beth’s (often tumultuous) love story that spans most of the series. “Jen showed me a clip of her off of Instagram, the monologue she has with the kid in the car about the ways to become rich,” he said, despite the fact that he supposedly hates Instagram. He continued, “And then she was like, ‘I love this story of these two.’I was like, ‘Wait a minute? With Hauser? With Cole Hauser? What do you love about it?’” An up-and-down relationship that finally ended with a fairytale wedding! Sound familiar?

Even though he might not understand the hype, Affleck praises Cole Hauser, who portrays Rip. “He is very convincing as that guy,” he said. “I think America believes he is Rip.” That’s how acting works, right? You want to be convincing without really turning into the character… most of the time. Unless you’re Jeremy Strong.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

There are many things that teachers think but cannot say aloud. Teachers have to have a certain sense of decorum and often have strict rules about the things they can or can’t say about children, especially to their parents.

Plus, it’s a teacher’s job to educate, not judge. So, they find ways to kindly say what’s on their minds without having to resort to name-calling or talking disparagingly of a student.

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Jess Smith, 33, is a former teacher who goes by the moniker Miss Smith as a stand-up comedian and on her podcast, Hot Mess Teacher Express. She decided to have a little fun with euphemisms, or the “secret code” she had to use when speaking to parents about their children.

The video has gone viral on TikTok, receiving over 70,000 views, after being shared by the Bored Teachers page.

@bored_teachers

Have you used our secret Teacher Code when talking with parents?? 🤫 #teachersoftiktok #teacherlife #secret #teacher #parents

“We have a code when we email parents,” Smith said in her video. “When we use phrases like, ‘Your child is very social,’ that means they won’t stop talking,” she explained. “’Their excitement in the classroom is contagious,’ translates to ‘They will not calm down,'” Smith said, adding that a “natural born leader” is a polite way of saying “super bossy.”

The post struck a chord with parents and teachers who shared secret codes they’ve heard or used.

“My son’s pre-k teacher told me he was the most scientific kid she’s ever had, she prob meant he asks a million questions allll day long,” Tina Marie wrote. “In kindergarten, I got ‘is overly helpful’ when my parents asked the teacher said I was finishing my test and giving answers out so we could play,” Tallulah the great added.

“When I first started teaching, I was told to tell parents their child is ‘spirited’ if they never stop talking and can’t sit still,” Allie commented.

See on Instagram

“‘Your son is going to make a great lawyer,’ which is code for: your kid won’t stop arguing with me,” C added.

However, the post wasn’t a hit with everyone. Some believe teachers should speak to parents in a straightforward manner and avoid using euphemisms.

“As a parent. I would rather a teacher just tell me, instead of using codes. We know our kids. We live with them and you have them for 8 hours,” happily_married wrote in the comments.

“It’s time to start saying it like it is. Why are we so afraid of laying the truth on the line?” QYMSC added.

In an interview with the “Today” show, Smith assured everyone that when she was a teacher, she had no problem being straightforward when necessary. “If a serious conversation needed to happen, I didn’t sugarcoat it,” Smith said. But the code was a way for her to share difficult information politely, in a non-confrontational way.

“Connecting with the parents was always important to me, and I never wanted them to feel like, ’This is your problem to take care of.’ No, this is something we can work on together. I’m here to help your kid,” Smith said. “I found that parents just responded better to the code.”

Charlotte Flair entered the wrestling world more than 10 years ago in arguably the biggest shadow of any second-generation athlete. The daughter of arguably the greatest wrestler to ever lace up a pair of boots, Charlotte has likewise turned into an all-timer over the course of her decorated career.

With more than 1,300 days combined as a singles champion and having held every major title WWE has to offer, Flair has earned the distinction of an active WWE legend, something that will be prominently displayed in this Sunday’s A&E Legends documentary. The following weekend, she’ll step into the squared circle at WrestleMania 39 to defend her SmackDown Women’s Championship against Rhea Ripley.

This path wasn’t something Flair dreamed about. She learned along the way, enjoyed the challenges that came with her rise next to the Four Horsewomen — Becky Lynch, Bayley, and Sasha Banks — and has unquestionably become one of the best to ever step inside the ring.

“If I just walked out on the ramp and no one knew who I was, you can’t deny that I don’t have something,” Flair told Uproxx Sports. “So take away Flair, take the last name away. Would I have the same amount of hate? I’m talking a very small, like, cult group that really follows wrestling. But would you not say she carries her own, like her presence, her demeanor, how people gravitate toward (her)? I know I have that.

“And in terms of physicality, I definitely think that my dad wasn’t big for a guy,” she continues. “I’m not saying my dad was little, but my style has more range than his. If I wasn’t in my head all the time, I could be as good as he is on the mic, but I let things get to me, just being honest. I’m human. But when someone sees me wrestle, they’re not going, ‘Oh, she’s just good for a woman.’ And I think that’s what has allowed me to carve out my own path.”

What makes Flair’s journey that much more compelling is that the expectations were sky high from the outset, and she’s been able to exceed them. She’s managed to create her own standout moments among arguably the most talented women’s roster in WWE history.

Flair exploded onto the scene in NXT. Had she taken a more traditional route of coming up through the independent scene, however, she recognizes that things may have been much different.

“The Four Horsewomen are why I’m here today,” Flair says. “Wanting to be as good as the three of them, wanting to have that passion. Each of them had their own special feel. We’re all in totally different roles right now and are very much apart, but had I been on the indies, maybe I wouldn’t have had the same learning experiences or the same tools or the same coaches. Basically, you’re on your own.”

Flair has had plenty of memorable bouts over the last decade, but she points to her first title win in NXT as the moment that put the wrestling world on notice.

“The match with (Natalya) definitely put me on the map,” she says. “I don’t want to say story-wise or fundamentally it was my best match, but it was my best match that made everyone go, okay, she means business. That has to be the most important match in my entire career. After that, I’d say me versus Asuka at WrestleMania 34. So those two matches, game-changers for where I am.”

Reaching the top of the mountain over and again the way Flair has creates a sense of pressure for her to always outdo herself. She feeds on the pressure, embraces it, and looks forward to challenging herself yet again when she squares off with Ripley at WrestleMania 39 next weekend.

Flair praises Ripley for how comfortable she makes it look each week, her work with Judgement Day and Dominick Mysterio, and how the challenger is soaking in the moment. The build for her match at WrestleMania has been entertaining, with Flair and Ripley brawling through last week’s SmackDown. But if it were up to the champ, she’d have mixed it up with the Dominick along the way, as well.

“I pitched (being in the men’s Royal Rumble) this year,” she says. “I don’t think it made it very far, but I feel like if things were 100 percent going toward (a match with) Rhea Ripley, I thought it would have been a cool opportunity to enter and then maybe have a moment with Dom, then she comes to save him. But I don’t think it made it very far.”

Flair has done basically everything that’s possible in the WWE. But after WrestleMania, when she looks at her future, there’s one thing that sticks out: She wants to work with her husband, Andrade El Idolo, who is currently signed to AEW.

“Wrestling with my husband, getting to manage him,” Flair mentions when asked about what she has left to accomplish. “Whether that’s a mixed tag or just being the mouthpiece. I miss (being on the road with him), but getting to see all the couples able to (travel together), it looks so fun and rewarding. I’ve learned so much from him, so I can’t imagine how much I’d learn being on camera with him.”

For now, Flair’s life and career will take center stage for A&E’s Legends documentary this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.