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For years, Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour video game with EA Sports was the golf game on the market, but after EA dropped Woods in 2013 and the series lasted just one year with Rory McIlroy on the cover before the plug got pulled completely.

It took five years for another PGA Tour simulation video game to hit the console market, as PGA Tour 2K21 came out in the fall of 2020, built on the same engine as The Golf Club video game and it garnered solid reviews, particularly for its golf course design and online club formats. The thing that needed to be beefed up was its PGA Tour player connections, as the 2K21 edition was relatively light on players they’d gotten on board, and, by design, featured stock swings and little in the way of unique traits from golfer to golfer.

On October 14, the upcoming PGA Tour 2K23 will release with Tiger Woods back on the cover and in the game, along with 14 PGA and LPGA Tour pros on board for launch. How much the game has taken a step forward in bringing unique swings and personality to those players remains to be seen, but the folks at 2K have added a non-PGA pro as a playable character that figures to be very popular.

A Michael Jordan Bonus Pack will be available for those that pre-order the game, allowing you to play with the basketball legend whose love of golf is well-known. We can only hope that playing with Jordan also unlocks a special “Cash Game” mode, but it’s a cool crossover from 2K, which has a special Jordan Edition of NBA 2K23, and will surely boost some of their presale figures as fans will want to have access to basketball’s GOAT alongside golf’s.

Amazon Music has its sights set on locking down the concert streaming market and with incredible partnerships with Dreamville, Guap (formerly known as Guapdad 4000), Kanye West and Drake, and 88rising’s Head In The Clouds festival to its name, it’s off to a great start. Next up, Amazon and Long Beach rapper Vince Staples are inviting fans on a “Walk Through Ramona Park” to commemorate Vince’s latest album, Ramona Park Broke My Heart with a live stream of his upcoming show at The Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles tomorrow (August 23).

The 90-minute stream will encompass 30 songs from across Vince’s catalog including some of his earliest songs. The show will be available to stream beginning at 8 pm PT via the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, the Amazon Music mobile app, and Prime Video.

Meanwhile, Vince’s star continues to rise, as Deadline and Variety recently reported on a pair of upcoming acting roles. In addition to joining Jack Harlow in the remake of White Men Can’t Jump (if he doesn’t mention going to Sizzler, I will riot), he was also cast in a Showtime pilot based on The Wood. He also recently released his Z2 comic book Limbo Beach after being forced to postpone his Limbo Beach Carnival due to overwhelming demand.

“HUGE.” “Ugly.” “Assymetric.”

No, I’m not describing the Papa Bowl. That’s how author George R.R. Martin envisioned the Iron Throne, an important piece of iconography in the Game of Thrones universe (the typo should have been clue that butts are involved). “The HBO throne has become iconic. And well it might. It’s a terrific design, and it has served the show very well. There are replicas and paperweights of it in three different sizes. Everyone knows it. I love it. I have all those replicas right here, sitting on my shelves. And yet, and yet… it’s still not right,” he wrote in 2013. “It’s not the Iron Throne I see when I’m working on THE WINDS OF WINTER. It’s not the Iron Throne I want my readers to see.”

That’s not an Iron Throne. This is an Iron Throne. (I see you’ve played Iron-y Throne-y.)

(A semi-related tangent: the Game of Thrones series finale gets a lot of deserved scorn, but one very good moment in the episode is Daenerys seeing the Iron Throne for the first time and it not living up to her expectations. “When I was a girl, my brother told me it was made with a thousand swords from Aegon’s fallen enemies,” she says with semi-disappointment. “What do a thousand swords look like in the mind of a little girl who can’t count to twenty? I imagined a mountain of swords too high to climb. So many fallen enemies, you could only see the soles of Aegon’s feet.” The House of the Dragons throne isn’t at 1,000 swords, but it’s closer to what Dany imagined. Also, kids are dumb.)

One of the biggest differences between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, besides the number of dragons (more) and people named Hot Pie (less), is the look of the Iron Throne. On Thrones, it’s “big, yes, but not nearly as big as the one described in the novels,” Martin wrote. But on House of the Dragon, it’s a jagged, melted playground of swords. The design change was due, in part, to Martin not being thrilled by the original Iron Throne, but it also shows the expensive extravagance of the Targaryens.

“We went into the series knowing that this was a time of high decadence,” co-showrunner Ryan Condal explained to Vanity Fair. “We consider this the apex of the Targaryen empire, so we really wanted to communicate this idea of wealth and prosperity and the fact that there had been six years of peace. The Targaryens really were able to develop all the nice things that happened: peacetime, statues and art, and roads and fountains.” And thrones made of swords.

Condal continued:

“I think [original Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] created this very iconic thing. Just the silhouette of that shape, everybody now knows what it is. [The Iron Throne is] as iconic as a lightsaber in Star Wars. What we wanted to do is honor that, but also tell the story of a more decadent time, and also communicate that 200 years has passed. If you look very closely, you’ll see that the original throne is there. It’s just added to and augmented, which suggests that history changes things at some point in the intervening time.”

There’s a lot of changes in the years between the reigns of Viserys Targaryen and Robert Baratheon — and House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones. The Iron Throne is only the beginning.

(Via Vanity Fair)

After two years away from the spotlight, Korean pop quartet Blackpink came roaring back with their new song “Pink Venom,” the lead single for their upcoming sophomore album, Born Pink. The time away apparently didn’t do much to dull enthusiasm for the new single, either; according to Variety, the “Pink Venom” music video had the biggest YouTube premiere of 2022, and the platform’s third biggest ever.

YouTube announced today that “Pink Venom” had officially hit 90.4 million views in the first 24 hours, surpassing the record previously held by the girl group for their 2020 single “How You Like That,” which had 86.3 million views. Meanwhile, K-pop still owns the top two spots; BTS’ “Butter” and “Dynamite” both cleared 100 million in their first 24 hours with 108.2 million and 101.1 million views, respectively. YouTube updated its view-counting method in 2019, excluding paid advertising videos to ensure that the numbers reflected what fans actually watched on their own.

It’s a pretty big accomplishment for Blackpink ahead of their second album, and bodes well for the eventual reception of Born Pink. They’re going all-in on the rollout for the album; they’ll perform their new song on the MTV VMAs on August 28, then hit the road for the Born Pink World Tour starting in October and running through next summer.

Watch Blackpink’s “Pink Venom” video above.

Born Pink is out on 9/16 via YG Entertainment and Interscope.

Harry Styles has graced the cover of Rolling Stone‘s September issue where he discussed not only his pop music takeover but also his upcoming movies My Policeman and Don’t Worry Darling and their sex scenes (of course).

In My Policeman, Styles stars as Tom, a gay police officer who hides his sexuality by dating a schoolteacher, played by The Crown’s Emma Corrin. The trio gets caught in a love triangle between Tom, his wife, and his real lover, Patrick, played by David Dawson. “It’s obviously pretty unfathomable now to think, ‘Oh, you couldn’t be gay. That was illegal,’” Styles explained to Rolling Stone. “I think everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it. It’s not like ‘This is a gay story about these guys being gay.’ It’s about love and about wasted time to me.”

Styles explains that the sex scenes in My Policeman are not like other movies, specifically his upcoming thriller Don’t Worry Darling with its infamous Florence Pugh sex scenes. “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” Styles told the mag.

“There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [director Michael] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.” If anyone can perform in a sensitive sex scene and then turn around and sing “Little Freak,” it’s Harry!

My Policeman will get a theatrical release on October 21st before heading to Amazon Prime on November 4th.

(Via Rolling Stone)

(Spoilers from The Boys first three seasons will be found below.)

It seems like only yesterday and 20 years ago (due to our ongoing global situation) that The Boys first obliterated the superhero realm amid a sea of (arguably) overly buoyant and overly gritty Marvel/Disney and DC/Warner Bros projects, respectively speaking. Soon enough, fans gleefully surrendered to the mayhem wrought by Showrunner Eric Kripke, his crew, and his cast, organized into The Seven (along with the powers that be) and the title vigilante group who’d long since had enough.

A lot has happened since then with The Boys recently delivering a “Herogasm” that actually managed to eclipse what the show had gotten away with already. And The Seven is a largely different group now. Starlight has left the Vought building (although she’s still around) whereas Queen Maeve will go enjoy civilian life. Translucent bit the dust early on, but the dust hasn’t yet settled on Black Noir (who might be back as a different Black Noir next season?). Then there’s Anthony Starr’s Homelander, who’s progressively been losing it even more after jerking off from atop a skyscraper.

Homelander has officially pulled what Trump once “joked” about doing by committing homicide in broad daylight, and now, he’s got his son, Ryan, along for the Compound V-fueled ride. And Starr is now looking back fondly on Season 1 with a throwback photo.

Yep, Season 4 is officially filming, which means that we should see it sometime in late 2023. Before that happens, the college-age spinoff, Gen V will arrive. Stills from that series freaked out Arnold Schwarzenegger, so it sounds like a bloody good time for all involved.

The Little League World Series has become a major event on the ESPN calendar, as games are given primetime spots on big ESPN as well as weekend timeslots on ABC.

For many, the appeal of watching some of the best 12-year-olds in the world play baseball is how pure it all feels, with heartwarming stories about players, touching shows of sportsmanship, and a bunch of kids playing the game they love (at a high level). However, for the kids themselves, this is the most important thing they’ve ever done, and plenty of them are hypercompetitive and are in “win at all costs” mode, which can lead to some unintentionally funny moments.

On Saturday, we saw that when Iowa held a 6-3 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning over Washington, needing just one out to secure the win. A pitch that certainly looked a touch off the plate was called a ball on a 3-2 count to put runners on first and second and bring the tying run to the plate. While it was a borderline pitch, the kids from Iowa thought it was strike three and had begun to trot off the field, standing in disbelief at the ball call.

Their coach brought everyone together to calm them down and help them move on, but the shortstop was not ready to let go just yet and hot mics caught the young man blaming ESPN for rigging the game for ratings.

Listen, I don’t know what the strike zone was in this game prior to that pitch and Little League zones can be pretty wide so that might’ve been a strike all day, but it certainly appeared off the plate. Also, just generally, the umpiring at that level is so uneven (even with the best) that blaming a questionable ball/strike call on ESPN rigging things for ratings is pretty funny.

If nothing else, the Little League World Series joins the NBA Finals (and pretty much every other major sporting event) as being things ESPN has been blamed for rigging, with the Iowa shortstop playing the Ayesha Curry role here.

The good news for Iowa is they got out of the jam with no damage done and won the game 6-3, despite the best efforts of those dastardly ESPN executives pulling the strings in Williamsport.

A little over a week after posters appeared in Brooklyn teasing a new single from The National featuring Bon Iver, “Weird Goodbyes” has officially arrived. Apparently starting out its life as “Bathwater (Mount Auburn),” the song — which the band debuted during the Paris stop on their European tour in May and has been playing ever since — was renamed and released today. It’s a midtempo but reflective head-nodder, which prompted one YouTube commenter to “bring out those sad dance moves.”

While Bon Iver just wrapped up a North American tour in June and is preparing to head to Europe and the UK in October, The National just finished up their own European swing and are now currently crossing the US on their own North American tour — their first since 2019. You can see the remaining dates below.

09/12 — Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
09/13 — Kansas City, MO @ Grinders KC
09/14 — Minneapolis, MN @ Surly Brewing Festival Field
09/16 — Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
09/17 — Maryland Heights, MO @ Saint Louis Music Park
09/18 — Indianapolis, IN @ TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
09/19 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts
09/22 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
09/24 — Harrisburg, PA @ Harrisburg University
09/25 — Bridgeport, CT @ Seaside Park / Sound on Sound Festival

Listen to The National’s “Weird Goodbyes” featuring Bon Iver above.

Earlier this year, The xx’s Oliver Sim went solo, releasing the singles “Romance With A Memory,” “Fruit,” “Hideous,” and “GMT” over the course of the past five months. Today, with the release of Sim’s debut album Hideous Bastard just a few weeks away, Sim reunites with Jamie xx for an expansive remix of his most recent single, “GMT,” which Jamie stretches an extra seven minutes, adding long breakdowns and riding the groove that makes “GMT” such an infectious jam.

Sim previously explained the reasoning behind the song’s Beach Boys sample on Apple Music, telling Zane Lowe, “[Sims and Jamie xx] spent a few weeks in Sydney, did a road trip down to Byron Bay, listening to music, swimming a lot… we were listening to a lot of The Beach Boys at the time. When we arrived in Byron Bay, we started ‘GMT.’ Sampling is such a personal thing. You’re not just sampling because of how beautiful it sounds but because of all of the emotional memories you have locked into it. We had to solidify the moment.”

In addition, he also announced tour dates beginning this autumn.

09/29 — Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
10/01 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
10/02 — San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
10/05 — Chicago, IL @ Metro
10/06 — Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix Concert Theatre
10/08 — Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
10/09 — Boston, MA @ Royale
10/10 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
10/11 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
10/20 — Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
10/22 — Paris, FR @ Le Cabaret Sauvage
10/23 — Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
10/24 — Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
10/26 — Berlin, DE @ Admiralspalast
10/27 — Hamburg, DE @ Uebel & Gefaehrlich
10/29 — Manchester, UK @ New Century Hall
10/30 — London, UK @ KOKO

Hideous Bastard is out 9/9 via Young. Pre-order it here.

After almost three months in theaters, Top Gun: Maverick‘s box-office domination is still firing on all cylinders. The Tom Cruise sequel has been an unstoppable juggernaut with audiences, and now, it’s starting to zip past some Marvel heavy-hitters. According to the latest receipts, Top Gun: Maverick has overtaken Avengers: Infinity War to become the sixth highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office.

As of this writing, Top Gun: Maverick is sitting at a domestic haul of $683 million, which bested Infinity War by $5 million and put Black Panther in the Cruise sequel’s sights. However, that would require Maverick to beat Panther‘s $700.4 million haul, which will be no easy feat, but the Cruise film has done a stellar job at defying odds. Via Variety:

It would require a bit of endurance at this point, but it’s certainly not out of the question. Even though “Top Gun 2” lands on home entertainment on Tuesday, the movie is likely to continue selling tickets in theaters because there’s not a ton of competition on the horizon. It’ll be fairly desolate at the box office until November, when “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” opens in theaters. Then again, Disney is likely to re-release the first “Black Panther” in anticipation of the follow-up, which could propel the original’s grosses even higher. But “Maverick” is no stranger to overcoming the impossible.

As Variety reports, Top Gun: Maverick will hit VOD on Tuesday, but notably, not be freely available for streaming on Paramount+. Audiences could choose to purchase the film at home, but Cruise and the plethora of glowing reviews have done an amazing job of selling the theatrical experience as the best bang for your buck.

It’ll be interesting to see how this showdown between Cruise and Marvel shakes out, but for now, he’s got at least one Thanos-sized notch on his belt.

(Via Variety)