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Alyssa Milano stopped by The View on Tuesday morning and found herself locking horns with Whoopi Goldberg over Milano’s decision to tweet through Elon Musk‘s ravaging of the platform. When Musk completed his acquisition in late October, Whoopi saw the writing on the wall and joined a mass exodus of celebrities who left Twitter in early November. However, some high profile users like Milano have stuck around, and that led to a clash on the daytime talk show as Whoopi tried to encourage Milano to get the heck out of Dodge.

Milano argued that Twitter is now a “turf war” and it’s important that “we can’t cede territory.” Whoopi wasn’t onboard and bluntly stated that Twitter is beyond saving.

Via The Wrap:

“Nah. Not that. That one you don’t — there’s other ones you can come and grab, leave that to them,” Whoopi said. “‘Cause that’s what that is meant to be now. It’s not meant to be any better than what we’re seeing.”

Milano fired back though, arguing that if people leave, it’s more like they’re giving up the fight altogether.

“But if we’re not representing our side of the political discourse, aren’t we just saying, ‘You know what, you can have Twitter?’” she retorted.

Whoopi didn’t back down from her position, but she did implore Milano to think about abandoning Twitter for her own mental health.

“Some things you have to walk away from until you can get the control you need of it. Right now, there’s no way to get this control,” Whoopi said. “And so, find the ones that you can get and fix, and then come back and run that over. But do yourself a favor. Do yourself a favor.”

(Via The Wrap)

Need For Speed Unbound, the latest installment in the long-running racing game franchise, is set to drop in just a few days, on December 2. Ahead of then, though, what appears to be footage from the game reveals an appearance from ASAP Rocky… as the voice of a car horn.

The clip shows a customization menu where the player can pick from a number of alternate horn sounds for their car. One of them is called “A$AP” and is just Rocky repeatedly saying “beep beep.” The horn isn’t available at the very start of the game’s story and costs 2,000 in-game dollars once it is.

While the horn may have been unexpected, Rocky’s presence in the game isn’t a surprise: Rocky appeared in the game’s reveal trailer that dropped in early October. As Polygon noted at the time, “Need For Speed Unbound features music and creative input from rapper ASAP Rocky and his AWGE creative agency. ASAP Rocky appears in-game as the leader of a faction called the Takeover Scene, which is home to a replayable ‘precision driving mode’ that emphasizes style over speed and a mechanic wherein players try to claim areas of Lakeshore for themselves.”

Watch the reveal trailer below, followed by some fan reactions to the Rocky horn.

Metallica returned this week with a new song, “Lux Æterna.” In addition, the rock band announced their new album, 72 Seasons — marking the first full release in six years. The record drops on April 14 next year, as they kick off a European tour on the same day.

From there, Metallica will also play shows in North America next year. The band has promised two shows in each city with different setlists and supporting acts. By 2024, they will also visit even more cities on both continents. Currently, they are set to bring Pantera, Five Finger Death Punch, Greta Van Fleet, Ice Nine Kills, Architects, Volbeat, and Mammoth WVH on the road to various shows.

“72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves,” James Hetfield explained about the record in a statement. “The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are.”

“I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today,” he added. “Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”

For a complete list of Metallica tour dates and more information, visit their official website. Continue scrolling to view the 72 Seasons cover art and tracklist.

1. “72 Seasons”
2. “Shadows Follow”
3. “Screaming Suicide”
4. “Sleepwalk My Life Away”
5. “You Must Burn!”
6. “Lux Æterna”
7. “Crown Of Barbed Wire”
8. “Chasing Light”
9. “If Darkness Had A Son”
10. “Too Far Gone?”
11. “Room Of Mirrors”
12. “Inamorata”

72 Seasons is out 4/14/2023 via Blackened Recordings. Pre-order it here.

Girls may need love, according to singer Summer Walker, but she is no longer seeking it out from award shows. After her sophomore album, Still Over It, was notably missing from the Grammy nominations list, the songwriter has pledged to create the music she wants, not what trends.

When Walker learned that she was out of the running for the second time, she was stunned. The “Come Thru” singer responded to the perceived snub in a series of tweets, as she wrote, “and as for the Grammys for a 2nd time, the math is literally not mathing.”

Despite numerous achievements, including debuting No. 1 on the charts and breaking sales numbers in the R&B genre, the album has not earned Walker any esteemed awards. Now that a few weeks of passed, Walker has pleaded to remain true to R&B’s soul roots instead of changing her sound to please award shows.

In Instagram Story post, Walker wrote, “Now that I know these award shows gone play me regardless ima go back to making the soul music that I love. EP coming soon.”

Fans showed their support of the singer’s decision on Twitter.

Summer Walker hasn’t released any further details about the project. But, we look forward to seeing what art is birthed from this revelation.

The Minnesota Timberwolves lost their third straight on Monday night as the Washington Wizards rolled up 142 on them, but more concerning than another woeful defensive effort was the injury suffered by Karl-Anthony Towns in the third quarter.

Towns fell to the floor in agony with a non-contact injury, immediately grabbing for his right calf and had to be helped to the locker room by Rudy Gobert and the training staff. The All-Star big man was quickly ruled out for the remainder of the game with a calf strain, with further testing still to come to determine the severity of the injury. On Tuesday, we learned that severity as it was reported that Towns had at least avoided a significant injury with no damage to his achilles, which was a concern given how the injury looked, but will still miss 4-6 weeks with a calf strain.

Overall it’s fairly good news, considering when he went to the floor the immediate thought was that he might have suffered a catastrophic injury that could cost him the season. Still, for a Timberwolves team that’s struggled to establish a rhythm and was still trying to figure out how to make their new big man pairing work, this is a considerable setback in getting Towns and Gobert on the same page. With Towns out, the next month-plus figures to shift responsibilities, not only for Gobert but others like Anthony Edwards and D’Angelo Russell, who all figure to shoulder a larger load on the offensive end.

It looks like Spotify Wrapped has some competition this year. In addition to the year-encompassing wrap-up for which Spotify has become even more notable recently, music fans can also turn to a revamped Apple Music Replay as well as another fun retrospective app called Instafest, which turns listeners’ most-streamed artists over the year into a personalized mock festival lineup they can share with their friends (it looks like a lot of us have been rocking out to sleep aids, though, which would make for a terrible concert experience).

However and unfortunately, the features mentioned above are all distinct from one another: Instafest is not your Spotify Wrapped, as it only lists your most-played artists, leaving out songs, albums, and other context — which can often help explain some of our odder listening habits. Sorry to Apple Music adherents, as well; Instafest does not work with Apple Music, as it requires inputting your Spotify account to generate its fake fests (which probably warrants a double apology to Tidal users, as it doesn’t seem they get to join any of the festivities).

Still, Apple Music has redesigned its Replay this year to more closely resemble the fun, shareable graphics from Spotify’s more popular function, so at least Apple users have something to show off for the final month of the year.

Disney+’s Loki gave us more twists and turns and (somehow pleasant) exposition from Owen Wilson than one could have ever imagined. Granted, the show was intended as a fan favorite, given Tom Hiddleston’s enduring charisma as the God of Mischief, but the series delivered more than required to achieve that goal. We got Alligator Loki for crying out loud, and of course, we got the sassy Miss Minutes, who’s the mascot of the Time Variant Authority.

Miss Minutes scared the crap of too many people, but they loved it, and sadly, her role was seemingly cut short, given that the creative team planned more MM than the finale apparently had room to deliver. As well, Ryan Reynolds recently revealed that we were robbed of the Merc with a Mouth in a Christmas movie, so perhaps we’ll see some righted wrongs in Deadpool 3 now that the the katana-wielding sarcasm machine has ported over to the MCU?

Well as y’all know, Twitter’s like the Wild Wild West these days, and two crazy kids can’t resist stirring up intrigue. Those kids would be Reynolds and an account purporting to be authored by Miss Minutes. The mystery author of said account decided to send a wave to “Deadpool.”

She had Reynolds’ attention, and he replied, “Hello, Miss Minutes.”

What does this mean? Possibly (probably?) nothing, really. We’re talking about an unverified account, but also, verification means nothing on Twitter anymore. None of this is deterring Marvel fans of distracting themselves from the real game (wishing for a Hot Colossus solo picture), so they’re wishing for a Deadpool/Wolverine/Loki crossover film. There’s a whole lot of repeating with these GIFs, so I’ll simply include a few of them.

Deadpool 3 will go chimichangas out for a 2024 release.

It’s almost winter, when the outdoors are much too cold and the couch is much too comfortable for you even to consider leaving the house, so you decide to settle on that new action movie that everyone is talking about which has just conveniently landed on streaming. And while you’re all bundled up with some popcorn and hot chocolate, you notice that you cannot hear a single thing that Tom Cruise is saying to you, which is upsetting, because he has a lot to say. You are not alone in this problem.

Along with the increasingly dark scenes that have been gracing our screens, the audio production in big-budget action movies has been a common complaint as of late. Even though moviegoing is mostly back to the pre-pandemic days, many movies are going directly to streaming or getting a simultaneous release, which makes the experience differ depending on what you are watching it on. Obviously, this can cause some problems for both the viewers and the studios who push these films.

Christopher Nolan was famously criticized for opting out of a streaming release for Tenet in 2020 because he insisted his movies be watched in theaters, which didn’t land well with fans who began watching the blockbuster film on the tiniest screens they could find. Yes, he approached it in a silly way, but he did have a point: he created a movie to look and sound good in a theater, and it just does not have the same effect when you are sitting at home trying to understand what Robert Pattinson is saying while an earth-shattering explosion infiltrates your ears. Suddenly, you have no idea what’s going on in this movie, which was already so confusing.

But still, this trend in audio mixing has been getting worse according to sound engineer David Bondelevitch, as studios try to please moviegoers and also couch-watchers who might not have the same speaker set-up as your local AMC. Audio will naturally sound drastically bigger over those cushy speakers versus the Bluetooth speaker your uncle got you for Christmas or through Airpods. The bottom line seems to be that there are so many ways to watch content, but production companies are still catering to one specific way, and things get messy.

The good news is that there are some changes that could be made if you are watching a movie at home that was clearly meant for that big-screen experience. Even though Nolan has talked about wanting to “push the limits” of sound design, you should be able to hear most movies. Some experts suggest getting wireless speakers separate from your computer or TV’s audio. You can also mess with the settings on your TV, and some Roku devices have dialogue enhancement to help combat this problem. Bondelevitch even suggests adding carpets and curtains to help absorb the noise or investing in a soundbar for a better surround sound.

Of course, until Hollywood decides to solve this problem, you can also just turn on subtitles which are the Next Big Thing, according to Gen Z.

(Via WSJ)

It’s remarkable how young Warwick Davis still is today. Next year marks for 40th anniversary, somehow, of Return of the Jedi. Of course, in that third film of the original Star Wars trilogy, Davis plays Wicket, the Ewok who first finds Princess Leia and brings her back to the village. Again, in a few months this will be a 40-year-old movie, yet Davis was born in the 1970s. Part of this might be because in 1988’s Willow, directed by Ron Howard, Davis plays the title character who, in the film, has a family and two children, but at the time, Davis himself was still only 17.

When Willow was released in 1988, a movie about a group of heroes to save a young baby from an evil queen was billed as the next Star Wars and Indiana Jones. On one hand, this was a story coming from George Lucas after those other two properties, so that makes sense. On the other hand, that’s an enormous amount of pressure for a fantasy movie in an era where fantasy wasn’t as popular as it is today. And it’s a lot of pressure to put on a 17-year-old actor in his first leading role. In the end, Willow did … okay at the box office, got mixed reviews, but certainly wasn’t a touchstone piece of popular culture like those other two properties. But, over the years since, Willow has gained a following.

When talking to Davis today, no, he never thought Willow would ever be back. But he relishes the chance to dig into this character again, one that he seems to not be 100 percent pleased with his performance from back then. Davis calls this iteration of Willow a “curmudgeon” – he certainly doesn’t seem to like the wisecracks from his fellow, younger, travelers – but maybe “world-weary” is more accurate. In this new Disney+ series, premiering November 30th, this time around the baby from the film is all grown up (it’s not revealed at first just which character this turns out to be, so we will save the surprise) and she is the key to saving everyone from the forces of evil. Willow must teach her how to use magic at he leads a group on a quest to save the kidnapped son of Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and Madmartigan (Val Kilmer in the film, who in the episodes I’ve seen is mentioned a lot, but has yet to appear).

The morning of this interview, my apartment was cold and I grabbed a hoodie, which happened to be a Return of the Jedi hoodie featuring Wicket, a hoodie I wear around the house a lot. Now, I did realize this right before I hopped on Zoom, but just decided to let it ride and see what happened. Also, speaking of that 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi, is there any chance we’d see Return of the Ewok (a documentary about the making of Return of the Jedi, featuring Davis, that was filmed during the making of Jedi that has never had an official release) pop up on Disney+?

Yeah, this morning it was cold and I just threw on my hoodie without thinking about it. I didn’t even think of the connection until a few minutes ago.

Wow. That’s amazing. Now and again I get sent one, but they’re way too big, often. Like that one, I’d be drowned in that.

I hope you get a dollar or something anytime something with your likeness sells on it.

I’d be a very rich man if I did.

I can’t believe there’s more Willow. I feel like we’ve been hearing about this for a long time…

What you’ve been hearing is in fact the fans. I mean, there’s never really been any official kind of word and discussion about a sequel film, it’s mainly from the fans going, “I wish there was a sequel to Willow, or there should be.” And that was really the voices that were heard, and they were heard by the right people in the end. Mainly Jon Kasdan, screenwriter of Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Disney of course. So yeah, it was really kind of chance that me and Jon worked together on Solo and him telling me how much he enjoyed Willow and embarrassing himself, as he says. And also the fact that Ron Howard was the director on Solo, and Jon got talking about Willow and its success and the potential for more Willow, either as a film or as a series. Those two coming together, and me being involved as well, really gave the project some kind of legs, really.

So do you think without Solo, this doesn’t happen?

I don’t think it would’ve, no. The fact that I’m sat in Fuerteventura with Jon, in the desert just chatting, and he was able to start to really get his creative mind going and come up with what ended up being our series.

I’ve been to enough Star Wars Celebrations where I know that you do get asked about Willow quite often, and you’re always very like, “Who knows?” But did you actually ever think this would come to fruition?

Definitely not. I mean, sitting here talking to you today, I’m suddenly like, “Yeah, this is actually happening again.” We had a screening last night in London and it was really surreal. Because I’m like, Wow, now we’re showing an audience something that has been like a pipe dream for so many years. It’s every actor’s dream to come back to a role. I played Willow when I was 17. A very inexperienced actor back then. Very young for the role.

Right, you’re playing a father in the movie, and in reality you’re a teenager.

Yeah, I was very, very young. But I’ve always sort of looked back on it and thought, You know what? I think I probably could have done a better job. And so, now, I get to revisit the character. Now I’m older. I’m more experienced as an actor. I’ve got more life experience too, which is often important when you’re an actor. You have to bring some type of life experience into the roles. And now Willow, because obviously he’s had a lot of life experience in the series, he’s been through a lot, bad things have happened. And so I take all of that and layer it into the character I played back in 1988, the 17-year-old version of Willow, and try and then develop the character further. And I think it really works. I think the older Willow is indeed a more interesting and well-rounded character.

This series is filled with a lot of humor that works very well today, and Willow just isn’t into it. There’s a scene where you’ve had enough, “Oh, I forgot, you’re hilarious.”

He’s a very stressed-out character really, Willow. He worries a lot. I mean, it was one of the lines in the original film, Madmartigan said, “You worry too much, peck.” and I still do in Willow the series, and I think it’s pointed out by one of our other characters as well. He does worry about things, a lot of angst, he’s always reluctant to do things, and I think that’s quite interesting. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon, if you like.

Yeah, but he’s still Willow. He’s world-weary.

Indeed, yeah. He just wants to be at home in the Nelwyn village, he doesn’t want to go out on these quests. But yes, as you mentioned, the humor, I mean that was a very important part of the original film. Kind of what set it apart from other fantasy offerings of the decade, the fact that it was funny. It looked at itself and had a laugh, didn’t take itself too seriously. And that has really carried through into the DNA of what we’ve done in the series.

Actually, that’s a really good point about the fantasy aspect of it, because that has had a huge comeback over the last decade. Or even since Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, I mean, the ’80s, I grew up, my teenage years were throughout the ’80s, and we had so many great offerings in the fantasy genre, didn’t we, film-wise? And then that kind of stopped when we got into the next decade. And now here we are, as you say, looking back. There are many more fantasy offerings now on the table, and Willow, this feels like the right time for Willow to come back.

I’m curious how you felt back then. Willow was really kind of billed as like, “Star Wars, Indiana Jones, now here comes Willow.” Which is a crazy amount of pressure. And then it comes out and does okay. It doesn’t do as well as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. So, how are you feeling at the time? What was going through your head?

Well, I mean, you always want your work to be seen by the widest audience, and I guess at the time I was a little disappointed. I would like, “That’s a shame that didn’t fly.” But I did kind of get it, because at the time Rambo III was coming out, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? came out, and everyone turned their attention to that. We had a lot of competition in the box office and I think people just, they pick and choose what they want to see and Willow wasn’t one of those things at the time. But due to the fact that we sell through VHS and stuff, it then gained its own kind of momentum and life beyond the theatrical release and became a success and a fan favorite.

And the movie ends with a perfect setup for something to take place now, with a baby now being an adult…

Well, it might have been set up to do a sequel at the time. Because George Lucas then was king of doing that kind of stuff, wasn’t he?

That’s true.

Did the Star Wars trilogy. So, I guess you always have to think, “Has it got legs to go further?” And that’s often how you pitch a movie to a studio, they go, “Okay, this is great, but can there be more of these if it’s a success?”

This next May is the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi. Use your clout to finally get Return of the Ewok on Disney+.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

It would be cool. And next year would be the perfect year for that.

I mean, I think the challenge with Return of the Ewok is that so many people gave their time, there are these wonderful cameos in there, crew gave time during lunch hours to make it, and nobody ever signed off on their involvement. So, for some kind of lawyer, it’d be a massive amount of work to get everyone signed off so that we could actually use it commercially, I suppose, if you like.

Disney, they’ve got those. They’ve got those lawyers.

They’ve got those lawyers. I’ll get them on it to get the legwork done.

Yeah, get in there. “Hey, the star of your new series wants this up.”

It would look great sitting on the platform, wouldn’t it?

I’ve seen that assembled-together version that’s on YouTube, but so many people still don’t know about this and would be delighted. There’s the scene of you with Harrison, Carrie, and Mark all in costume in the hallway. When I post screenshots, people are always like, “What is that?” It’s really fascinating.

It is, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, I wrote an autobiography, and in that book I put little screenshots from the film, Return of the Ewok, as like a comic book kind of thing, telling the story for people who haven’t seen it. But it really is one of those found in the attic kind of creations, isn’t it, in its very raw form? There’s unfinished sound, the print is very rough, but I think that’s one of the charms of it, really.

I’m out of time. Congrats on finally getting Willow back.

I appreciate it very much. Keep rocking that Ewok shirt.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Sacramento Kings have been one of the most fun teams in the NBA this season, as their high-octane offense has made them a League Pass darling for fans around the league.

That their offense is among the league’s best is not a huge surprise considering how they’re constructed, with a dominant post presence in Domantas Sabonis (who is also capable of stretching the floor), arguably the fastest point guard in the league pushing the pace in De’Aaron Fox, and a number of shooters around them, headlined by Kevin Huerter who is off to an absolute heater in the first 19 games of the season.

The other end of the floor was and still is the question mark for the Kings, and is among the biggest reasons they hired Mike Brown to be their head coach after his tenure as the Warriors’ defensive coordinator of sorts under Steve Kerr. Brown has lots of work to do to get the Kings where he wants them on that end, but you can see how energized he is coaching the young Kings on the sidelines. In Monday night’s close loss to the Suns, Brown gave an incredible example of what that coaching process looks like when he pulled Terence Davis aside during a timeout and gave him a tutorial on where he was supposed to be on defense, staying on top of the restricted area, and then had it immediately pay off in the form of a charge.

Davis running over to Brown after taking the charge on the exact play they were going over is truly fantastic stuff, and you can see how excited Brown is to see that quick lesson get a positive result so quickly. There’s still plenty of coaching and teaching to do for Brown, as the Kings have struggled to get stops consistently all season, but it’s not hard to see why there’s so much optimism that Brown is the right man for the job in Sacramento.