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Klay Thompson won an NBA title this year. It was the end of what has been a pretty remarkable comeback for Thompson, who had not appeared in a game since tearing his ACL in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals until January of 2022 and managed to be an important part of the Golden State Warriors’ pursuit of its fourth championship in the last eight seasons.

Thompson is now living it up during the offseason, and by that, I mean he’s been spending a good amount of time at baseball games. His brother, Trayce, is a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and since joining the team in June, Trayce has carved out a role as an effective utility outfielder for a team with World Series aspirations.

Earlier this week, Thompson found himself at Dodger Stadium during an event put on by Clayton Kershaw’s charity, Kershaw’s Challenge. Johnny Wu, a magician and hypnotist, was in attendance, and thought it would be fun to hypnotize the Warriors star, presumably because that does, indeed, seem fun. Here’s what happened:

One of two things happened here: Either Thompson was in on a very good bit or the man was hypnotized here. Considering how unbelievable he found the whole thing, that second one seems correct.

2022 marks 21 years of the iconic indie rock album Oh, Inverted World by The Shins, and the band found this a great reason to celebrate by announcing an anniversary tour. To further hype up the birthday, they’ve taken the classic track “Caring Is Creepy,” known for its feature in the film Garden State, to Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Their performance is nostalgia-tinted, but it sounds as great as ever. Singer James Mercer’s vocals are clean and distinct; the instrumentation is vivid and inviting, retaining its rich, bittersweet sound that makes it special. Lots of early-2000s influential indie-rock LPs are experiencing important anniversaries — last year was 20 years since The Strokes’ Is This It, and later this year is 20 years since Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights.

About the anniversary of Oh, Inverted World, Mercer said in a statement, “Everything was so tongue-in-cheek in the indie world of the ’90s. I remember feeling a longing for some sort of romance in music again, something earnest, like a real attempt at some emotional language.”

The tour is currently underway at the moment, and will be going on through September. In 2018, they unveiled an album titled The Worm’s Heart, which contained alternate “flipped” versions of songs from the band’s 2017 record Heartworms.

Watch The Shins’ performance of “Caring Is Creepy” above.

If you don’t like a TV show, change the channel. If you don’t like a song, change the radio station. If you don’t want to read a book, don’t read it. If you don’t want your children to do something, tell them what to avoid.

Makes sense, right? Not to the majority of voters in Jamestown Township in western Michigan. On August 3, they rejected a millage to fund their local library to protest its inclusion of LGBTQ-themed books. A millage is what some municipalities use to calculate property taxes.

The voters rejected the millage by 62% to 37%. The vote gutted the library’s operating budget in 2023 by 84%. Larry Walton, the library board president, told Bridge Michigan that without the funding the library will close late next year.

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The library became the center of controversy for carrying “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” in the adult graphic novel section. After protests, it was removed from the shelves and put behind the counter.

A review on publisher Simon and Schuster‘s website says that the book, written by Maia Kobabe, is “a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand.”

But conservative activists in Jamestown Township accused the library of indoctrinating local children by having the book on the shelves. There were also complaints about a book called “Spinning” about a teen girl’s attraction to other girls and “Kiss Number 8,” a graphic novel with similar LGBTQ themes.

“They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Amanda Ensing, a member of the group Jamestown Conservatives, said of library officials, Bridge Michigan reported. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”

If you don’t like the library’s books, why not tell your kids not to go there? Problem solved.

Did the people who supported closing the library consider the fact that by closing it they weren’t just eliminating access to a few books on LGBTQ issues but countless topics and stories that they may support?

The news of the library’s impending closure inspired a backlash by people who support the LGBTQ community and reading. More than $90,000 has been raised through two GoFundMe campaigns.

Jamestown resident Jesse Dillman has raised $87,000 for the cause through his campaign that has a goal of $200,000, the amount needed to keep the library open for the good part of a year.

“The Patmos Library in Jamestown is a core part of the community fabric,” he wrote on his GoFundMe page. “I firmly believe most residents here don’t share these views and desire to continue funding our local library. Funds raised here will be donated to the Patmos Library so that we can keep it open long enough to consolidate community support for our library millage.”

Michelle Barrows has raised nearly $5,000 on her page.

“I was very disheartened that the majority of this community believes in defunding the library because it has books with subjects they don’t like or understand,” Barrows wrote on her GoFundMe page. “If you don’t like the book, don’t check it out! Books don’t make people gay. Books DO provide understanding, teach tolerance, and love of differences.”

“I hope you get to your goal, but it is a very very sad day when a public library has to get funded this way due to extreme views of a minority wishing to impose their will on others. Keep on reading!” GoFundMe donor Nancy Stryker wrote.

The people of Jamestown’s decision to punish themselves and their community by shutting down the library over a few books they disagree with is a sad display of irrational political and religious outrage. Banning books has a long history of being connected to oppressive political regimes and is antithetical to living in a society that values freedom of speech.

But it is heartening to see that people from across the world have stood up and donated money to help keep the library alive. Perhaps those who voted to shut it down will hand back their library cards.

For reasons unknown, the hottest directors in Hollywood are Joe and Anthony Russo. The brother directing duo, whose accomplishments include Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Cherry, The Gray Man, and episodes of Community and Arrested Development have gathered an A-list cast for their next project for Netflix, despite their collectively agreed upon mediocrity.

The film, The Electric State, is an adaptation of the illustrated novel by Simon Stålenhag, adapted for the screen by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The film stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. But to balance out the Pratt of it all, Deadline reports a stacked supporting cast including Michelle Yeoh, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox, and Jenny Slate. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that Succession star and legend Brian Cox would participate in a Russo Brothers film, but maybe his iconic McDonald’s commercials should have been a sign that the man is down to clown.

At this time, it’s unknown who the newly added cast is playing, though Cox and Slate are reportedly providing voices for their characters. Per Deadline, The Electric State is “set in a retro-futuristic past, where an orphaned teenager (Brown) traverses the American West with a sweet but mysterious robot and an eccentric drifter in search of her younger brother.” The Electric State is expected to start filming this fall.

(Via Deadline)

Fortnite is maybe the greatest crossover experience ever made. While Epic Games’ free-to-play battle royale wasn’t originally designed to be a crossover experience, the influx of special characters from the fictional Naruto to the very real LeBron James has made it a unique gaming experience. Only in Fortnite will someone stumble across a gunfight between real life celebrities and fictional heroes while a giant muscled catman flexes in the corner, but that’s the bizarre experience Fortnite provides.

This only makes it fitting that the latest addition to Fortnite is going to be everyone’s favorite childhood anime series, Dragon Ball. In a short but very clear announcement on Twitter, Epic Games teased the introduction of Dragon Ball to its universe but didn’t give us much more detail than that. While it’s possible this crossover is going to stick to the show’s magical orbs, the Dragon Balls themselves, it feels like a safe bet that we’re probably going to get some playable characters as well.

This is fun, because usually when Fortnite adds new licensed characters, the devs at Epic try to include something from that crossover to make it feel like they’re really joining Fortnite‘s bizarre expanded universe. I hope what this means is that soon everyone is going to be able to fire off kamehameha waves and turn Super Saiyan within the game. If that is the case, then at some point, we’re going to get a Super Saiyan LeBron James or Spider-Man and that’s a delightful thought.

As for why this crossover is only just now happening, we assume it has to do with the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie releasing on August 19.

Succession Season 4 filming is in the works as we speak, thank god. And boy, people do miss that show, including how Kieran Culkin’s Roman screws himself over. One of the more enjoyable examples of this happening, of course, was when Roman meant to send a d*ck pic over to Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) during a meeting, but sent it to Logan (Brian Cox) instead. One must acknowledge that Roman sending this unsolicited picture to anyone was a bad idea, and the way that Logan reacted (against Gerri) was also a d*ck move. Yet I’m getting away from the point here, which is this: the Gerri/Roman relationship/dynamic was always going to be combative in a way, and that’s why a recent tweet from J. Cameron-Smith is an eye-popping one.

On August 8, Smith-Cameron tweeted, “I threw a drink in Kieran’s face tonight”

A followup soon arrived: “he had it coming.” And then came the photographic proof.

So, what happened? The subject came up when Culkin popped over to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Wednesday. And yes, he totally deserved it, after relating how a group conversation (starting with Sarah Snook talking about how mens’ ears and noses supposedly grow with age) led to Culkin giving Cameron-Smith a lot of hell (and then he kept on going), and she reacted accordingly.

It sure sounds like Kieran Culkin wanted that drink in his face. Total Roman move.

As Lisa Kudrow prepares for the 11th season of her hit genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, she recently reminisced about her early days on Friends and how it led to a, let’s say, memorable first encounter with Jerry Seinfeld. While talking about everything from her pandemic viewing habits to still being afraid to ask HBO for a third season of The Comeback, Kudrow fielded a few questions about her time on Friends, which aired during the heyday of NBC’s “Must See TV.”

According to Kudrow, she bumped into Seinfeld at a party where he immediately made a smarmy remark to her about his show leading to Friend‘s success. However, Kudrow didn’t mind because she actually agreed with him. Via The Daily Beast:

Not to take anything away from the writing on Friends, or the cast, or how good Friends really was, but the first season our ratings were just fine. We held onto enough of Mad About You and starting building, but it was in the summer when we were in reruns after Seinfeld, where Seinfeld was our lead-in, where we exploded. I remember going to some party and Jerry Seinfeld was there, and I said, “Hi,” and he said, “You’re welcome.” I said, “Why, thank you… what?” And he said, “You’re on after us in the summer, and you’re welcome.” And I said, “That’s exactly right. Thank you.”

Kudrow also addressed Friends creator Marta Kaufman making headlines for her $4 million donation to make up for the lack of diversity on the show. Like the Seinfeld anecdote, Kudrow’s thoughts were completely unfiltered.

“Well, I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college. And for shows especially, when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven, you write what you know,” Kudrow said. “They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of color.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Earlier this year, Warner Bros and Discovery merged to become Warner Bros. Discovery, which seemed a little strange, but everyone sort of forgot about it, that is, until the last few weeks when HBO Max made a number of confusing moves regarding its original content. This eventually led to an announcement that the streamer would be merging with Discovery+ in the summer of 2023, and now the internet is trying to piece together what to expect.

The merger is a lot to digest, considering that HBO is best known for its high-quality, critically acclaimed drama shows and fantasy-adjacent epic series, while Discovery is largely known for Shark Week. It’s…an interesting strategy. Obviously, some fans are confused about what this means about their favorite TV shows that are currently airing on HBO and HBO Max. While there has been positive news about some shows, like Peacemaker, the fate of others is still up in the air. But, it seems like both HBO Max and Discovery+ will hopefully try to stay consistent with what they are offering now and just condense their two services into one. Don’t worry, they know that both networks have extremely different content, but they seemingly aren’t worried about that.

While some HBO Max original movies were yanked from the streamer earlier this month, it’s unclear what will continue once the combined streamer launches next summer. It seems like HBO Max is also ditching its 45-day theatrical release window, which means HBO movies might not arrive on the combined streamer quite as quickly as they used to, specifically due to the pandemic.

What we don’t know is how much the streaming service will cost (or what it will be called!), considering that HBO Max currently costs $10/month with ads and $15/month without them, while Discovery+ is a bit cheaper: just $5/month with ads, and $7/month without them. It’s possible the price would combine, but that would cost upwards of $20, which is not the ideal price for a streaming service that nobody was really expecting.

Again, most things are up in the air at the moment, but here is what we know: the two streamers will join forces in the summer of 2023, where hopefully fan-favorite shows and content will still be produced, along with Discovery+ favorites like Married At First Sight. There is something for everyone! Maybe.

Remember when the kids from Stranger Things were kids? It feels like two decades ago but also yesterday. Stranger Things casting director Carmen Cuba talked about the casting process from the very beginning of the series in a video released on Vanity Fair’s YouTube channel, which includes footage of audition tapes from stars including Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and Caleb McLaughlin, who look even younger in the audition process than they did in the first season, which dropped on Netflix in 2016.

Cuba said that while part of her process includes “street casting,” which is basically finding kids and asking their parents if they want to act, it was essential that the child actors on Stranger Things have previous acting experience, so she sought out actors from all different backgrounds including theater, like Caleb McLaughlin who plays Lucas.

Cuba recalls that Millie Bobby Brown’s audition was memorable because although she is British, she spoke in an American accent throughout the entire process, even when she was not performing scenes. According to Cuba, Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin, was the first actor who created a character beyond what was written. “You couldn’t have predicted or sought out someone like Gaten, so he was an excellent surprise. What he brought to the character was not what we imagined and it also made us realize we didn’t have any idea what it could be until we met him.”

Cuba said that once the kids got together, the dynamic worked both on-screen and off-screen. “They weren’t competitive, they were really supportive and enthusiastic,” she said.

But don’t worry: Cuba also talked about casting the adults. “When I first read the script, I definitely felt a pull toward Winona [Ryder],” she said. Ryder did not audition for the role, but talked to series creators (the Duffer Brothers) about the role of Joyce Byers. Cuba said that David Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper, is an actor she’d been watching for years. “For me, as much as I love the famous person he’s always in a scene opposite, I always found myself looking at him, watching his performance.” She hoped to one day cast him in a role where he would be the famous person in the scene, and she definitely did that because that man is very famous now.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Tommy Lee is in a little bit of trouble. The Mötley Crüe drummer may have been feeling a little frisky because he shared a full frontal nude on not just Instagram but also Facebook and Twitter. Though he added the caption “Ooooopppsss,” it doesn’t quite seem like a mishap. He hasn’t taken the photos down.

His wife, Brittany Furlan, reacted in the comments, writing, “OH MY GOD.” Machine Gun Kelly, who portrayed Lee in the film The Dirt, also commented, “I’M F*CKIN DYING.” The responses have, of course, been mixed. However, if you’re a Mötley Crüe fan, what did you expect? It has prompted some good memes from surprised followers, though.

His latest release was his 2020 solo album Andro. And hey, maybe he wanted to see a bump in the sales, and what better way to do it than having the internet talk about your revealing picture for the whole day? It seems to be working. The rock star was also recently at the center of a drama miniseries Pam & Tommy on Hulu, which was about his leaked sex tape with Pamela Anderson.

You can check out the photo at your own risk at this very link.