The Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing regarding Ticketmaster and its presumed monopoly on live entertainment ticketing has been set for Tuesday, January 24, 2023, and will live stream at 10:00 am ET.
In response, Swifties filed not just one but two class action lawsuits alleging misleading business practices, arguing the company “intentionally and purposefully misled millions of fans into believing it would prevent bots and scalpers from participating in the presales,” but instead allowed “14 million unverified Ticketmaster users and a ‘staggering’ number of bots to participate in the presales.”
For this list, I pulled 20 bottles of bourbon that I think are worth drinking that cost just under $50. These bottles have value but some are a little more refined than others, so I’m also ranking them according to taste and how I’d use them. Some tend to work better as cocktail mixers (at the bottom of the ranking) while others shine as rewarding sippers too (at the top of the ranking).
Overall, this is a list full of great bourbon whiskeys that are worth seeking out. You can get a lot for your cash with bourbon, so check the tasting notes and find a few that sound like you’d dig them. A word of warning: These prices are from Kentucky’s Total Wine liquor store. Local prices will vary depending on wherever you are.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
This four-grain Kentucky bourbon is made with 70% corn, 10% malted wheat, 10% honey malted barley, and 10% malted barley. That spirit is then aged for three years in toasted and charred barrels before it’s batched from 15 barrels, proofed, and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This has a lot of apple cobbler on the nose with sweet and bright stewed apples, plenty of dark brown spices, brown sugar, buttery pastry cobbles, and a touch of honey sweetness.
Palate: The honey becomes creamy and spiked with orange zest as the malt shines through as a digestive cookie with a hint of fresh mint and more of that honey with a flake of salt.
Finish: The finish brings about that spice again with a little more of a peppery edge this time as the fade slowly falls off, leaving you with a creamy vanilla tobacco feeling.
Bottom Line:
This is a good place to start both at this price point and with Rabbit Hole as a brand. The flavor profile is distinct and full-bodied. I tend to lean toward simple whiskey cocktails with this — drinks where the bourbon can shine.
This Wyoming whiskey is a grain-to-glass crafty. The mash is wheated (with corn and malted barley) and left to age for at least four years before blending, proofing, and bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a sense of floral fruit orchards on the nose with a hint of tapioca pudding cups, caramel apples, oatmeal cookies, and mildly spiced root beer.
Palate: That floral vibe takes on a slight nasturtium spiciness with old and woody winter spices, vanilla custard, and wet brown sugar cut with butter.
Finish: The vanilla amps up alongside a sharp cinnamon stick with a hint more of the apple by way of orchard bark in the background.
Bottom Line:
This is a nice and easy-mixing bourbon. It makes a killer cocktail.
18. Johnny Drum Private Stock 101 Kentucky Bourbon
This whiskey is hewn from Kentucky Bourbon Distillery barrels (also known as Willett). The barrels are batched and proofed down with local Bardstown water for bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This starts out with apple pie filling overstuffed with a lot of cinnamon, butter, brown sugar, and vanilla that all leads toward salted caramel.
Palate: The taste has this mild orange feel with a note of dark chocolate, cinnamon cream soda, and apple fritters with a hint of sourdough funk to them.
Finish: The end has a lightness that feels like Dr. Pepper with a hint of cherry syrup next to woody winter spices and a touch of alcohol warmth (or a “Kentucky Hug” if you will).
Bottom Line:
This is perfectly suited for mixing cocktails thanks to that higher ABV and pretty classic bourbon aura. It’ll stand up nicely in a heavy mix like a whiskey sour or Sazerac.
This four-grain bourbon is all about the farm-to-glass experience. The juice is made from a mash with Bloody Butcher corn — a sweeter red corn used by Indigenous Americans throughout the Midwest and South for millennia — grown right outside the still house on an expansive Kentucky farm. The red corn is mixed with malted rye, wheat, and barley in the mash and aged for an undisclosed amount of time before proofing and bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This is like your grandmother’s garden on a berry-picking day on the nose with huge notes of rhododendrons and wisteria next to blackberry jam, blueberry pie, and mason jars of apricot jam with plenty of dark spices layered in.
Palate: The palate holds onto the jammy notes but adds in the rich vanilla pudding, candied walnuts, nutmeg-dusted eggnog, and a tiny echo of cherry sasparilla.
Finish: The dry spices circle back around on the finish with a touch more of that vanilla and a whisper of fresh mint from the garden with a little dirt still on it.
Bottom Line:
This is another solid cocktail bourbon that also has some charm as a sipper over plenty of ice.
This Lux Row bourbon is a blend of high rye and wheated bourbons from select barrels that Lux Row pulled from local distilleries. Those barrels are then masterfully batched and proofed down with local water.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Old honey candies mingle with orange oils, vanilla wafers, salted caramel sauce, and a hint of mint on the nose.
Palate: A mild note of sweet cedar drives the palate as floral honey and spicy vanilla pudding round out the taste toward the mid-palate.
Finish: The orange comes back late with a dusting of black pepper next to more soft cedar dipped into that floral honey.
Bottom Line:
This has such a nice dark orange throughline that it damn near begs to be used in an old fashioned.
15. Castle & Key Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Castle & Key Distillery is the renovated Old Taylor Distillery outside of Frankfort, Kentucky. This distillery has spent years contract distilling for other brands, until this year when they released their first batch of this expression in April. The juice is a mash of 73% white corn, 17% malted barley, and a scant 10% rye. After four years, 80 barrels are chosen for this small-batch expression and proofed down with local water.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This opens with a sense of unbaked sourdough cinnamon rolls next to Graham Crackers dipped in vanilla-creamed honey served with a warm can of peach soda.
Palate: The palate leans into the fruitiness with a pink taffy vibe that’s countered by slight pepperiness, a touch of “woody,” and more of that creamy honey laced with vanilla.
Finish: The fruity take on a savory essence — think cantaloupe — on the mid-palate before circling back to the pepperiness with a bit of woody spice on the short end.
Bottom Line:
This is an excellent cocktail bourbon. It kind of works with everything from a boulevardier to a Manhattan to a highball to a sour.
14. Blade And Bow Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
This is a fascinating and unique bottle from Diageo. The core of this whiskey is orphan barrels from Diageo’s Stitzel-Weller distillery (which is now dedicated to the brand). Those last barrels from the iconic distillery — that once made Old Fitzgerald back in the day — are blended with sourced whiskeys from unnamed distilleries. The blend is then proofed and bottled with no age statement.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This is a nuanced bourbon with hints of dried apricot, cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, and a slight whisper of banana pulling you in.
Palate: The palate veers more towards the dried stone fruits and raisins, as a counterpoint of juicy pear leads towards hints of soft oak next to grain touches.
Finish: The end leans into the warming spices with a Christmas edge, with the oak and fruits fading out slowly.
Bottom Line:
This is one of those whiskeys that feels like it’ll be a great sipper but really works better for mixing up great and interesting cocktails. Try it in your next Manhattan, it’s perfect for that application.
13. Old Forester Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 1870 Original Batch
This Old Forester celebrates the distillery’s founding in 1870. Back in the day, Geroge Brown would pull barrels from his three distilleries to create a consistent blend to bottle. Today, the good folks at Brown-Forman pull three barrels from three of their Kentucky warehouses. Each barrel will have a different day of distillation, a different entry proof before aging, and different ages. Those barrels are batched and then proofed down.
Tasting Note:
Nose: This opens with a rush of fresh wildflowers next to bold citrus notes, especially grapefruit and orange oils with a dash of lemon zest in the mix.
Palate: The taste takes that lemon and layers it into a very vanilla and butter-forward shortbread with a dusting of raw sugar that leads towards an eggnog spice mix.
Finish: That spiciness drives the finish as a hint of cherry and lemon mingle on the warm and fairly long end.
Bottom Line:
This has a great citrus vibe that makes it a perfect candidate for old fashioneds, smashes, and sours. It’s also pretty good over some rocks too.
This whiskey used to be a 12-year small batch offering named after the creek that runs through Willett Distillery. It’s still named after the creek, but the 12-year age statement is gone. The whiskey is cut down to a very specific 100.1 proof with that Kentucky limestone water before bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose draws you in with notes of salted caramel, woody cherry tobacco, a touch of leather, and vanilla wafers countered by savory herbs (think rosemary and maybe sage) next to light but fresh roses.
Palate: The taste goes hard with the cherry tobacco to the point that it’s nearly sticky on the palate as the roses dry out and the vanilla and caramel almost feel dried out and attached to a dry cedar bark.
Finish: A hint of winter spice comes in late as the finish leans back into the dry roses and singed cherry tobacco leaves.
Bottom Line:
This is pretty damn fine whiskey overall. It’s a little floral for my taste, but it’s spot-on otherwise. If you do grab a bottle, try it on the rocks first and then integrate it into your favorite cocktails.
11. Wilderness Trail Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey Bottled In Bond
Wilderness Trail is the whiskey nerd’s whiskey. Dr. Pat, who started off selling yeast to brewers and distillers, helped start this distillery based on making the best of the best. This expression starts off with a high rye mash bill of 64% corn, 24% rye, and 12% malted barley. That whiskey is aged on-site and then only 12 barrels are pulled for this small batch expression.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This draws you in with a piping hot apple pie full of stewed apples, wintry spice, and a lard crust accented by vanilla, a touch of applewood, and subtle salted caramel drizzle.
Palate: The palate leans into the stewed apples at first then counters with freshly cracked black pepper before the caramel sweetness takes the mid-palate towards the finish.
Finish: The end is full of winter spices with a hint of peppery tobacco leaf and a touch of dry wicker furniture.
Bottom Line:
This is a whiskey nerd’s pour. It’s damn near perfect as a bourbon but that makes it a tiny bit boring. So I tend to use this for cocktails where you can add a little liveliness to it, then it shines brightly.
10. Jefferson’s Reserve Very Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Very Small Batch
Jefferson’s really hits it out of the park with their sourced juice. The “very old” element of this small-batched blend means that eight to 12 barrels of four unique bourbons were selected to be married, with the oldest clocking in at 20 years old. That juice is then proofed with soft Kentucky limestone water to bring it down to a very approachable 90.2 proof.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Notes of vanilla meet spicy tobacco, leather, oak, and very buttery toffee with a hint of popped corn and apple pie mingle on the nose.
Palate: The palate holds true to those notes while adding a mellow cherry with an almost cedar-infused cream soda.
Finish: The finish is short but full of all those woody, spicy, and apple pie notes again, with plenty of buttery mouthfeel and a cedar box full of rich tobacco leaves.
Bottom Line:
This is a classic and very easy-drinking bourbon. The lower ABV/proof means that you don’t need any ice to calm it down. Just pour one and enjoy.
This contract distilled juice from Pinhook celebrates the young racehorse “Bourbondini.” The whiskey in the bottle is made from a mash of 75% corn, 15% rye, and 10% malted barley. After a long rest, the whiskey is just touched with water and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This opens with a big nose full of hot apple cider spiked with clove, raisins, and molasses next to a soft bar of high-quality marzipan all with a whisper of figgy jam in the background.
Palate: The palate leans toward that savory fruit with a hint of dry tropical fruit before a chili-infused dark espresso takes over with a dash of powdered dark chocolate.
Finish: The finish sweetens with rich toffee and brown butter vibe as the charred barrel makes an appearance at the very end.
Bottom Line:
This Castle & Key-made whiskey is a shining example of the good work going on out there at the Old Taylor facility. I like this on the rocks with a dash of Angostura bitters, which means it works really well in an old fashioned too if you want to put in the effort to make one.
8. Knob Creek Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Aged 9 Years
This is Jim Beam’s small batch entry point into the wider world of Knob Creek. The juice is the low-rye mash aged for nine years in new oak in Beam’s vast warehouses. The right barrels are then mingled and cut down to 100 proof before being bottled in new, wavy bottles.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose on this feels classic with a bold sense of rich vanilla pods, cinnamon sharpness, buttered and salted popcorn, and a good dose of cherry syrup with a hint of cotton candy.
Palate: The palate mixes almond, orange, and vanilla into a cinnamon sticky bun with a hint of sour cherry soda that leads to a nice Kentucky hug on the mid-palate.
Finish: That warm hug fades toward black cherry root beer, old leather boots, porch wicker, and a sense of dried cherry/cinnamon tobacco packed into an old pine box.
Bottom Line:
This is your standard bourbon “bourbon.” It’s great as a cocktail base and works perfectly well as a sipper on the rocks, especially if you’re specifically looking not to be challenged.
This is classic (sourced) Bulleit Bourbon that’s aged up to 10 years before it’s blended and bottled. The barrels are hand-selected to really amplify those classic “Bulleit” flavors that make this brand so damn accessible (and beloved) in the first place.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a lot going on with butter and spicy stewed apples, maple syrup, Christmas cakes full of nuts and dried fruit, and a hint of savory herbs all pinging through your nose.
Palate: The palate brings about smooth and creamy vanilla with plenty of butter toffee, sourdough crust, more X-mas spice, cedar bark, and a hint of dried roses.
Finish: The finish is long, warming, and really embraces the toffee and spice.
Bottom Line:
This is just good. I like it as an easy, everyday sipper over some rocks or a go-to Manhattan base.
This expression takes standard Woodford Bourbon and gives it a finishing touch. The bourbon is blended and moved into new barrels that have been double-toasted but only lightly charred. The juice spends a final nine months resting in those barrels before proofing and bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a welcoming aroma of marzipan, blackberry, toffee, and fresh honey next to a real sense of pitchy, dry firewood.
Palate: The taste drills down on those notes as the sweet marzipan becomes more choco-hazelnut, the berries become increasingly dried and apple-y, the toffee becomes almost burnt, and the wood softens to a cedar bark.
Finish: A rich spicy and chewy tobacco arrives late as the vanilla gets super creamy and the fruit and honey combine on the slow fade.
Bottom Line:
This is another bourbon that’s just good. Pour it over some rocks or mix it into your favorite cocktail. Either way, you’ll be all set.
5. Four Roses Small Batch Select Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
This expression uses six of Four Rose’s ten whiskeys in their small-batching process. The idea is to blend both high and low-rye bourbons with yeast strains that highlight “delicate fruit,” “slight spice,” and “herbal notes.” The whiskeys tend to spend at least six years in the barrel before blending and proofing with just a touch of Kentucky’s soft limestone water.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Raspberry and cloves mix with old oak and draw you in on the nose.
Palate: The palate amps up the dark berry sweetness with a bit of tartness as a stone fruit vibe comes into play. The spice heightens and leans into winter spice with a focus on nutmeg.
Finish: Finally, a wisp of fresh mint arrives to counterpoint the whole sip as the oak, vanilla, berries, and spice all slowly fade out.
Bottom Line:
This is where we get into the very good bourbon. This stuff rules neat, on the rocks, or in a simple cocktail.
The whiskey in that bottle is a cask-strength blend of whiskeys from Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Basically, the process is a sort of hybrid reverse solera technique where the blend gets more juice to keep the proof high and the blend consistent in flavor as the batch is drained off. It’s a delicate balance of mixing great whiskeys to make something better than the individual parts.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is a holiday cake with fatty nuts next to woody spice barks — think anise, clove, and cinnamon — with a nice dose of dried red fruits and honey-dipped over-ripe Granny Smith apples.
Palate: The palate edges away from the spice towards a powdered sugar sweetness with a hint of dry vanilla. Then a counterpoint bursts onto the scene with a hit of spicy, dried chili pepper flakes next to blackberry pie with a nice dose of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Finish: The end lingers for just the right amount of time as the spice fades back towards the honeyed sweetness and a final touch of vanilla tobacco buzz lands in the back of the throat.
The Bottle:
This is a fun sipper. You’ll always find some new or fresh nuance or note every time you go back for another nose or taste. It also makes a hell of a Manhattan.
3. George Dickel Bottled in Bond Tennessee Whisky Fall 2008 Aged 13 Years
Master Distiller Nicole Austin has been killing it with these bottled-in-bond releases from George Dickel. This release is a whiskey that was warehoused in the fall of 2008. 13 years later, this juice was bottled at 100 proof (as per the bottled-in-bond law) and left to rest. Last fall, new releases of that Tennessee whiskey were sent out to much acclaim.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Sour cherries, maple syrup, and pecan waffles mingle with dried apple chips, old leather boots, and winter spice with a hint of vanilla wafers on the nose.
Palate: The taste leans toward spicy apple pie filling with walnuts, plenty of cinnamon, and some raisins before malted vanilla milkshakes, blueberry cotton candy, and dark chocolate milk arrive on the mid-palate and lead toward a moist oatmeal cookie dipped in salted caramel.
Finish: The end has a dry woody spiciness with star anise, cinnamon, and allspice mingling with marzipan and cherry/cinnamon tobacco.
Bottom Line:
This is one of the best whiskeys at this price point on the shelf today. This could easily cost twice as much and people wouldn’t bat an eye. All of that aside, this is a great cocktail base or sipper over some rocks. It’s just good, period.
2. Michter’s US *1 Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Michter’s really means the phrase “small batch” here. The tank they use to marry their hand-selected eight-year-old bourbons can only hold 20 barrels, so that’s how many go into each small-batch bottling. The blended juice is then proofed with Kentucky’s famously soft limestone water and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose on this is very fruity with a mix of bruised peach, red berries (almost like in a cream soda), and apple wood next to a plate of waffles with brown butter and a good pour of maple syrup that leads to a hint of cotton candy.
Palate: The sweetness ebbs on the palate as vanilla frosting leads to grilled peaches with a crack of black pepper next to singed marshmallows.
Finish: The end is plummy and full of rich toffee next to a dash of cedar bark and vanilla tobacco.
Bottom Line:
This is a quintessential bourbon whiskey. It’s also the best mixing bourbon on the list for simple, whiskey-forward cocktails. That said, it works just as well over some ice in a rocks glass.
1. Maker’s Mark Cask Strength Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky
This special release from Maker’s Mark is their classic wheated bourbon turned up a few notches. The batch is made from no more than 19 barrels of whiskey. Once batched, that whiskey goes into the barrel at cask strength with no filtering, just pure whiskey-from-the-barrel vibes.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Burnt caramel candies and lush vanilla lead the way on the nose with hints of dry straw, sour cherry pie, and spiced apple cider with a touch of eggnog lushness.
Palate: The palate has a sense of spicy caramel with a vanilla base that leads to apricot jam, southern biscuits, and a flake of salt with a soft mocha creaminess.
Finish: The end is all about the buzzy tobacco spiciness with a soft vanilla underbelly and a hint of cherry syrup.
Bottom Line:
This is delicious whiskey. It’s so clearly a good and lush bourbon, even the newcomer can taste the excellence (and the flavors are dialed, which makes analyzing it a little more clear-cut). Get some!
Last summer, Harley Quinn was renewed for a fourth season on HBO Max, making it one of the few shows that was marked safe during the merger incident. While there haven’t been many updates on the next season, fans will get a fun little treat in the form of a new Valentine’s Day special that looks and sounds like it will lean into the absurd side of the superhero series.
Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special will hit HBO Max just in time to line up perfectly with your Valentine’s Day plans (or lack thereof). In the special, Harley promises her forever girlfriend Ivy that they will have a very “lowkey” VD that, unfortunately, ends up with a bunch of people doing it in the street. HBO Max is really trying to hold the fans over until that fourth season, it seems.
Writer and producer Justin Halpern took to Twitter to let everyone know that he values this episode almost as much as a child, which is both high praise and also a little worrying. “There is a sequence in this special that is incredibly stupid and I love it like a child. Not one of my children but maybe like a niece or nephew. Anyway really can’t wait for people to see it!” Halpern tweeted.
Hmm. Stupid and obscene. Sounds like a winner.
Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special will premiere on HBO Max on February 9th. Check out the trailer above.
With Marvel Phase 5 set to begin with the February premiere of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the MCU is now entering its 15th year of dominating theaters. After nearly 30 films — and more in the pipeline — surely, audiences will have to grow tired of comic book movies at some point, right? Not if you ask Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige! In fact, he has no idea what you’re talking about.
“From probably my second year at Marvel, people were asking, ‘Well, how long is this going to last? Is this fad of comic book movies going to end?’” Feige told The Movie Business Podcast. “I didn’t really understand the question.”
As Feige goes on to explain, Marvel Comics have been around for 80 years, and in that time, it produced an endless array of narratives that stretch across numerous genres, all of them ripe for adaption. To him, asking if people will get tired of superhero stories just doesn’t make any sense if you understand the nature of film. Via Variety:
“It was akin to saying after ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ‘Well, how many more movies can be made off of novels? Do you think the audience will sour on movies being adapted from books?’ You would never ask that because there’s an inherent understanding among most people that a book can be anything. A novel can have any type of story whatsoever. So it all depends on what story you’re translating. Non-comic readers don’t understand that it’s the same thing in comics.”
“I found that if we tell the story right, and we adapt them in a way that the audience still — knock on wood so far — is following us along 22-plus years later… we can [make] any types of movies that share two things,” Feige said. The Marvel Studios logo above the title and a seed of an idea from our publishing history.”
It turns out that watching a bunch of people lie to each other and accuse each other of lying with no compelling evidence while living in a literal castle in Scotland is incredible television. Every now and then, you deserve a smooth-brained treat. By which I mean: everyone deserves to consume mindless entertainment, especially during awards season dominated by a film about a man who would rather cut off his own fingers than talk to his best friend and a drama about Stephen Spielberg’s childhood. Peacock’s reality competition series The Traitors is the perfect cleanse for too much drama, too much trauma, too much pain, or too much crying in your recent film and television consumption.
The series puts a plethora of reality television stars from a variety of shows including Survivor, Big Brother, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Bachelor in a castle with regular people who have never been on reality television. There, they meet their host and Lord of the castle Alan Cumming, who gives the performance of his life to this role when he most certainly didn’t have to try. Cumming, who almost always wears on-theme plaids, tweeds, capes and kilts, secretly assigns three players as traitors. Every night, the traitors pick a player to “murder” (a note is slipped under the door of their bedroom). After a group challenge and a day of whispering in lavish castle rooms with thick wool carpets, deep leather chairs, and fireplaces, the entire group votes on who to eliminate from the game after a group discussion. Why are they doing this? Because they’re trying to win money. The catch is that if any traitors remain by the end of the game, they get all they money. If no traitors remain at the end of the game, the good guys, called the “faithfuls” in this show, share the winnings. In their daily challenges, the players earn the money that will be the winnings.
Cumming’s commitment to the show (as committed as I am to Colin Farrell, for context) is contagious: it increases the enthusiasm amongst the contestants and the audience. The entire cast is charming, even Olympian swimmer Ryan Lochte, but two stand out in particular. Cirie Fields, a nurse and iconic Survivor player often referred to as the best to never win, manipulates everyone in a role she’s used to from her previous reality television experience. Fields’ only match is Kate Chastain of Bravo’s yachtie show Below Deck. Chastain’s personality convinces everyone that she is a traitor leading to her becoming so miserable that she spends a majority of her time on the show saying that she wants to go home, but she knows how compelling she is so she serves every time she’s on camera. Some people are born great, and Kate Chastain was born to be on reality television.
The Traitors is what every reality show should be: its biggest strength is that while it is a reality show, it is not intrusive. Contestants are filmed a lot, but they aren’t filmed 24/7. There is downtime at night (you’ll never see where they sleep), and it appears that the cast gets off-screen time together outside the game. Contestants aren’t punished either. They are, at least seemingly, in a balanced, healthy environment that contributes to their high, positive energy and performance. If you need a quick, fun binge that won’t involuntarily send your body into the fetal position, let it be The Traitors on Peacock.
Most television shows don’t see an increase in ratings from the series premiere to episode two. The Walking Dead, for instance, went from 5.35 million viewers in week one to 4.71 million in week two. But another zombie show pulled off this rare feat.
Sunday’s episode of The Last of Us, “Infected,” brought in 5.7 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max. “That marks a 22 percent increase from last week’s record-breaking 4.7 million, a number that Warner Bros. Discovery later reported had already jumped to 10 million after two days,” Variety reports. That 22 percent jump is also the “largest week 2 audience growth for an HBO Original drama series in the history of the network.”
The network also offered yet another update regarding the series premiere’s viewership, stating that “after one full week of availability, episode one is now tracking at 18 million viewers, up nearly 4x from its premiere night audience.”
HBO estimates that Sunday viewership makes up only 20 to 40 percent of the final viewership, so expect “Infected” to climb to 20 million, at least. Will the ratings continue to climb? Considering next week’s episode brings together Ron Swanson and Armond from The White Lotus, I’d wager my chicken sandwich on it.
With a new year comes a whole new slate of exciting new releases that will probably dominate the conversation over the next few months. Netflix recently unveiled its movie release schedule for this year, and it’s chock full of highly-anticipated projects that will surely inspire memes and viral tweets, which is really all that you can ask for from a Netflix movie. One of this year’s biggest movies will be Pain Hustlers,the upcoming conspiracy drama led by Chris Evans and Emily Blunt.
Pain Hustlers, based on the New York Times article of the same name, will follow Blunt’s character Liza as she takes unexpectedly becomes involved in a drug conspiracy after taking a job at a pharmaceutical company. According to Netflix’s official description: “After losing her job, a blue-collar woman who’s struggling to raise her daughter takes a job out of desperation. She begins work at a failing pharmaceutical start-up, but what she doesn’t anticipate is the dangerous racketeering scheme she’s suddenly entered.”
In addition to Evans and Blunt, the movie also features Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy James, and Chloe Coleman. While we have yet to see a trailer, Netflix revealed a very quick glimpse in their 2023 sizzle reel. A trailer will likely be coming closer to the release date.
The movie is set to be released on Netflix on October 27th. Even though there hasn’t been any talk of a theatrical run, we know that Netflix has been open to experimenting with that in the past, so you never know!
On December 9, 2022, SZA released SOS, her latest album. Since it was chart-eligible, the LP has not known what it’s like to be anything but No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It debuted in the top spot of the chart, and that’s where it remains on the latest rank: Billboard announced today (January 23) that on the new chart dated January 28, SOSis No. 1 for a sixth total week.
That’s the most weeks at No. 1 on the chart among R&B and hip-hop albums since Drake’s Views logged 13 non-consecutive weeks in 2016. Narrow the scope to just R&B albums and SOS has the most chart-topping weeks since Usher’s Confessions was No. 1 for nine total weeks in 2004.
Furthermore, this is a notable moment for women artists. In the last decade plus, the only women with albums to spend at least six weeks at No. 1 are Adele, Taylor Swift, and now SZA. The last album by a woman besides those three to have at least six No. 1 weeks was Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream in 2009 and 2010. When it comes specifically to women in R&B, SOS has the most weeks at No. 1 since Mariah Carey’s Daydream, which had six non-consecutive weeks on top in late 1995 and early 1996.
Karol G proved to be the top female Latin artist of 2022 on the streaming and touring front. At last night’s Calibash concert in Los Angeles, she used her platform to highlight another Latina artist on the rise: Young Miko.
Calibash was a two-day Latin concert that took place at the Crypto.com Arena. Karol G headlined Sunday night. The line-up also included Becky G, Feid, Sech, Blessd, and Farruko. Puerto Rican duo Zion y Lennox dropped out of the event after their flight couldn’t make it to LA on time.
During her set, Karol G took a moment to cheers with the audience. She raised her cup to Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko who was in the audience. Karol G called Young Miko to the stage to cheers with. She also sang a bit of Young Miko’s song “Putero.”
“There are new artists constantly that one goes crazy over, and tonight, there is one in the crowd called Young Miko,” Karol G said in Spanish. “She’s from Puerto Rico! My second home. Invite me on a song so we can kill it together.”
Since the release of her debut EP Trap Kitty last year, Young Miko has emerged as a strong female and queer voice in the Latin trap scene. She freely raps about her bisexual identity in her sassy songs like “Bi” and “Riri.” During his homecoming concerts in Puerto Rico last July, Bad Bunny invited Young Miko to the stage to perform “Riri.”
The Drop, streaming on Hulu this past week, is one of those movies that feels like it should be really funny and just isn’t. Like everyone assumed that they could just get a bunch of talented people together and eventually a movie would break out, only it doesn’t. It mostly offers that vicarious feeling of watching a friend try to bullshit their way through a meeting they were clearly unprepared for.
The premise: a bunch of comedy actors you know and love, including Jermaine Fowler from Sorry to Bother You and Anna Konkle from Pen15, have gathered together at a quirky destination wedding in Mexico. It’s there that Konkle’s character drops her friends’ baby. “The Drop,” get it? It won’t make me forgive them for lifting the title from a much-better Tom Hardy movie, but I can acknowledge the soundness of the logic.
The Drop‘s seems like a perfectly cromulent premise (bonus points for the tagline: “it’s not the baby, it’s how you handle it!”) and I was one of the few people who actually loved writer/director Sarah Adina Smith’s sophomore feature, Buster’s Mal Heart. Unfortunately, it feels like everyone involved also thought the premise sounded good and just figured they’d work out the finer points on location.
Letting your actors improvise seems like a not-idiotic proposition when the cast includes veterans of funny shows like Aparna Nancherla from Corporate, Jillian Bell from Workaholics, Robin Thede from A Black Lady Sketch Show (et al), but it feels like they’re all trying to add quirks with no foundation. And so they just end up with this weird ball of quirks. At one point, Thede’s character performs an awkward one-woman show based on a character type that up until that point we hadn’t been introduced to yet.
Konkle and Fowler play Lex and Mani, newlyweds running an artisanal bakery in LA (I actually got most of this information from the official synopsis, in the movie Konkle’s character also seems like she’s a writer’s assistant for Robin Thede’s character?). They’re also in the midst of trying to conceive while jetting off for their friends’ destination lesbian wedding in Mexico. Plans go awry once they land when Lex drops the couples’ baby, and hijinks ensue. Or at least, you get the sense that they were meant to. Bits include Nancherla’s character maybe turning into a Republican, and Thede’s character’s adopted son, Levi (Elisha Henig) having a no-wanks-based YouTube channel. God help them, they keep trying to make this weird horny son funny and he never is.
The story is bare-bones yet still manages to be sort of confusing, and the construction doesn’t help either. One of the few moments that genuinely made me laugh was Jennifer Lafleur’s character leaning her baby in for Konkle to kiss, and Konkle accidentally burping on it. The idea was funny and it was nicely abrupt, though I actually didn’t even know who had burped at first. It was a shot of multiple people and Konkle was only half in the frame, and the burp sounded like an effect they added in post. Almost every facet of The Drop seems designed to prove the truth of the old comedy adage, “no one laughs when they’re confused.”
“Almost funny” sounds like an insult, and mostly it is, but it’s still important to draw a distinction between almost funny and unfunny, or anti-funny. Genuinely bad comedy makes you a little bit angry. The Drop is more sad, or merely disappointing. The experience is a little like the parts of Some Kind Of Monster where you watch the boys from Metallica noodling around trying to find melodies that, for whatever reason, just weren’t coming together for them that day.
‘The Drop’ is now streaming on Hulu. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.
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(@timmyg43) January 22, 2023
