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Confrontation, family ties, and what is beginning to feel like a never-ending game of cat and mouse continued in ‘Game 4’ of NBA Finals.

Co-director Ime Udoka is new to this kind of Adam Silver production, but the director he’s sharing the stage with, Steve Kerr, isn’t, and Kerr paired with Silver have been known for their drawn out series in the past. This is not to knock the pacing of Finals in its entirety, because there has been some interesting off-beat action unfolding, only to point out that the major quibble with Conference Finals and Playoffs before it was that much of the action felt lopsided and entirely too fast. For Finals to swing so far in the opposite direction is clearly a nod to viewers but what have thus far saved it from being a slog are the more interesting storylines and conflicts that have been given the time and space to develop.

In ‘Game 4’ the most notable POV shift was to the series celebrated hero, Steph Curry (Steph Curry) who, after a slow burn build-up that was handled deftly by Kerr, erupted in this episode. Steph Curry stepped out into the ‘Celtics’ headquarters literally screaming. He shouted at the crowd, still decked out in costumes of green that resembled all the hues in an early summer forest, after heaving back-to-back “threes” through that brooding, inanimate apparatus both groups have shown episode after episode they are striving to protect.

Steph Curry has been a character, up to now, that appeared to be content to carry the star protagonist’s burden without drawing the same kind of attention to himself that his co-stars have been, and Finals has done a decent job in getting us to think it hadn’t been wearing on him at all. It may be the kind of accelerated bildungsroman Silver has given us before, to varying degrees of success — I think of Aaron Gordon (Aaron Gordon) in NBA All-Star Chicago: Dunk Contest and the way that character aged before our very eyes over the span of 20 or so tense, self-aware minutes, akin to the antagonist in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’s misplace choice in drinking chalice — but carried in the quiet, watchful performance of Steph Curry, his sudden bombast in ‘Game 4’ is believable.

We watch him make eye contact with a raving, green garbed man in the middle distance and we understand immediately that he has carried this series out of pride and, to a degree, a personal fixation on routine and that he is tired. Tired of being the failsafe, the good-natured workaholic, “old reliable”, and while that burden is a choice he understands, he won’t be bullied by a stadium’s worth of adults who pay solemn allegiance to a leprechaun.

Incensed, he flung the symbolic orange orb of human folly through the circle of protection 43 times.

This energy was picked up by actor-director, Steve Kerr, who barreled onto the parquet living room floor set of the ‘Celtics’ home demanding an act of “travel” had been committed. As an aside, it’s been very well-done by Finals’ writers to implement language and terminology unique to this universe so fluidly, without any clunky explainers.

“The heart on that man is incredible,” Klay Thompson (Klay Thompson) later said of his co-star, in a post-episode production that can still be counted as a cinematic extension of Finals, “The things he does, we kind of take for granted at times, to go out there and put us on his back. We’ve got to help him out on Monday.”

Klay Thompson’s allusion to help “on Monday” of course refers to the next episode of NBA Finals (9pm ET/6pm PT), but before we get to ‘Game 5’ and whether the notes of emotion and intensity evident in Steph Curry’s arc remain at the forefront or revert to smoldering just under his exterior, we have to sift through some of the more confusing beats of ‘Game 4’.

For one, an actor who looked as if he may have just walked in from outside the studio to substitute as an extra, Nemanja Bjelica (Nemanja Bjelica), had a string of confusing moments three quarters of the way through ‘Game 4’. But upon rewatch, it appears he had been there all along.

It makes sense that Klay Thompson would allude to the absence of those around Steph Curry in ‘Game 4’ via a promise to be there in the next episode, given the real-time subversion on display by the person we’ve come to understand to be the final part of a ‘Warriors’ trifecta. Draymond Green (Draymond Green), at this point, can be considered an active saboteur. He continued the storyline that was building across ‘Game 2’ and ‘Game 3’ where it seemed he was hapless against what the bigger, better familial dynamics of the ‘Celtics’ had. We understand that this is a character not accustomed to being bullied or left behind, and yet we are seeing it again and again. Draymond Green has so far responded by retreating into himself, seeking refuge in putting a great distance between himself and the band he’s meant to be an important part of, but ‘Game 4’ saw this behavior heightened enough that the actor’s mother gave some thought to a theory in-line with one floated in my ‘Game 3’ review, that this is an alternate timeline version of the character. It’s a theory that holds water, mainly because in past Silver productions we’ve not seen this kind of drastic shift from a character. Though with the recent commercial flops of such sci-fi productions like Raised By Wolves and Terminator: Dark Fate, it’s a risky move for a studio with perennial broadcast concerns on the brain, echoed by the narrators at one point who cautioned that a late-episode performance by one of the ‘Celtics’ group was, “Understanding your customers”.

While the narration of Finals continues to work in the abstract, a running commentary removed from the action of the series and the motives of its characters (for example, yelling “Bang!” as abruptly as someone might sneeze), one did allude to not being able to “wait for the podcast” that Draymond Green would deliver. It’s another experimental move by Silver which feels, a little, like a move toward the literary tool of autofiction.

Though a lot of the storyline of ‘Game 4’ was centered around the ‘Warriors’ characters, their shortcomings and motivations, it left off with a feeling that the ‘Celtics’ side will be seeking their due next episode. With the setting due for another change, back to the more demure framing of what’s been Finals’ interpretation of San Francisco, let’s hope that the most memorable thing in that reveal doesn’t turn out to be how much we miss the clamor and strain of all those incensed green people.

This year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show was led by Dr. Dre who brought on a star-studded cast of acts for the show. Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Anderson .Paak, and 50 Cent all joined him on stage for the epic performance. Afterward, it appeared that The Game, who’s collaborated with some of the aforementioned artists on multiple occasions, implied that he should’ve been among the performers for the show. However, he later denied that he was upset about being left out of the show. “I don’t feel no way about not being included,” he said at the time.

A few months later, The Game has now backtracked on his denial. The topic came up in an upcoming episode of the I Am Athlete podcast — led by Brandon Marshall, Pacman Jones and Nick “ Swaggy P” Young. The episode was teased in a preview clip. “The real reason I wasn’t on the Super Bowl [Halftime Show] is because I’m not a ‘safe’ artist,’” The Game said. “You don’t know what the Game gon’ do when he get up there. So, it’s just like, ‘He not safe,’ so they went with the safe artists.”

He continued, “We, on the West Coast, are the only motherf*ckers who have this crab-in-a-barrel mentality, where we wanna keep n****s down. Snoop Dogg is icon. Dre is icon. Em is an icon, but Em is not from L.A. 50 is not from L.A. I’m not taking away from the fact that they’re were on the Super Bowl, but L.A. [artists] wouldn’t have been in the Detroit Super Bowl or New York Super Bowl. It just wouldn’t have happened … L.A., L.A., L.A. all around the Super Bowl and I didn’t get the call.”

The Game then admitted he was “hurt” that he was left out of the lineup. “I talk to Dre often. I just know if I was Dre and he was Game, he would’ve been up there,” he said. “That’s just it. It’s L.A. I am L.A. I’m in the streets … So, yeah, I was hurt. Now am I bothered by it today? I’m not bothered by it today.”

You can watch the preview clip above.

It was just a month ago that Kodak Black made a trio of surprise appearances on Kendrick Lamar’s fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Due to the rapper’s controversial past, many thought that a collaboration between him and Kendrick would never come to fruition, but as we saw last month, that was far from the case. On Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kodak appears on “Worldwide Steppers,” “Rich (Interlude),” and “Savior,” but now, the Florida native is looking to share some music with another rap superstar: Drake.

“Me and Drake we got some more music,” Kodak said during a press conference for his Kodak Black Day music festival in his hometown of Pompano Beach, Florida. “It’s really on whenever bruh might feel like he ready and stuff.” He added, “They be like, ‘Is we gone drop the album? We gon’ do this?’ It’s really on him. We got a lot of songs though.”

Kodak’s past collaborations with Kendrick and his possible releases with Drake continues the trend of the rapper receiving love from some of the industry’s biggest names. Jay-Z included Kodak on his memorial Day playlist for Tidal and Future recruited him for an appearance on his I Never Liked You album.

You can watch Kodak talk about his collaborations with Drake in the video above.

Kodak Black is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Who’s more unhinged: Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert? Usually it seems it’s the former. Other times they even team up. But every now and then Boebert one-ups her by doing something truly creative. On Saturday, she did just that, telling the audience at a Christian center after hoping President Joe Biden wouldn’t be around much longer.

The Colorado representative was speaking at the Family Camp Meeting at Charis Christian Center, located in her state, when she decided to be truly Christ-like. “I do want you to know that I pray for our President,” she told the crowd. “Psalm 109:8 says, ‘May his days be few and another take his office.’” The joke earned huge raves from the crowd, prompting Boebert to beam and throw in a mock-“Hallelujah!” as well as a “Glory to God.”

Boebert was being a little ambiguous. Did she mean she hoped Biden would be somehow removed from office, only a year-and-a-half into his four-year term? If so, would that person be the former president who may end the Jan. 6 committee hearings with reams of lawsuits against him? Did she mean something worse?

Biden isn’t the first person to be condemned by Republicans with the same Bible verse (which is usually translated into “place of leadership,” not “office”). Early in Barack Obama’s term, when Biden was Vice President, his detractors started using it, even putting the it on bumper stickers and the like, prompting some to worry about an assassination. Those using it tended to leave off the words that immediately follow the verse: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

In other words, everything old is new again.

Boebert’s antics come shortly after audio was made available of her being angrily confronted after dangerously posting the whereabouts of Nancy Pelosi during the Jan. 6 riot.

(Via Yahoo! News)

One of the best dungeon looter franchises ever made is Diablo. Every game that involves dungeon crawling, looting, and the addiction of playing the same level constantly with friends has to thank the Diablo franchise in some way. It perfected the formula that everyone is still emulating to this day.

On Sunday, during the Xbox and Bethesda showcase, Activision Blizzard unveiled a new trailer for Diablo IV. The trailer not only gave us a potential release date for the game, sometime in 2023, but it also gave us a new class with the Necromancer. After this unveil, the showcase spent a lot of time diving into how the new open world of Diablo IV is going to change the franchise in a new way.

“We can’t wait to open the gates of Hell next year—the talented team behind Diablo IV puts gameplay first in everything they do, and they have built the biggest and most ambitious vision of Sanctuary yet,” said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment, via an official press release. “This sprawling world draws deeply from the dark well of the franchise’s 25-year history and is designed around the philosophy of player choice, offering an adventure unlike anything Diablo players have experienced before.”

Also mentioned in the press release was how Diablo IV will have cross-play and cross progression. No matter the console players will be able to carry over their progress and that’s a fantastic addition to a franchise where loot matters so much.

Even the innovators eventually have to innovate and that’s what Diablo IV being an open world game feels like. While it’s certainly fun exploring the same dungeons and looting to our hearts’ content, the world of video games have changed. The freedom of an open world and the fun of exploration are what many fans desire and this has the potential to be a great new step for this franchise. It’s a chance to experience Diablo in a new way and that is never a bad thing.

Overwatch 2 is finally going to be playable this October. During the Xbox and Bethesda showcase on Sunday, Activision Blizzard announced during the showcase and a press release that Overwatch 2 would be hitting early access this October. Unfortunately, this means that the single-player for the game is still in development but the PvP multiplayer will be available to players.

Not only was a release date announced for the multiplayer of Overwatch 2, but we also got new information about a brand new hero. The often rumored, and fan requested, Junker Queen is finally a playable character. She’s going to be a tank in the game’s new 5v5 setup.

“We can’t wait to roll out the beginning of the Overwatch 2 experience on October 4 and introduce an exciting new competitive vision, featuring amazing new content and a reimagining of the iconic heroes, maps, and gameplay that made the original game so compelling,” said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment, via an official press release. “This is the beginning of an always-on and always-evolving era for the franchise, and a recommitment to serving players with frequent and substantial updates planned well into the future to keep Overwatch 2 fresh and fun for many years to come.”

After an extremely tumultuous development, Overwatch 2 finally releasing is going to be a relief for many fans of the franchise. The original Overwatch stopped receiving major support around the time Overwatch 2 was announced and it’s led to a lot of apathy among the fanbase. This could be the boost it needs to get people excited about playing Overwatch again.

At worst, the multiplayer is supposed to be free-to-play so the barrier to entry to try it out is fairly low.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, it’s been hit with untold sanctions that have all but isolated them from much of the world. Their exports are not being exported. Businesses that were once all over the country have pulled out. That includes McDonald’s, which shuttered hundreds of outposts nationwide. But Russia has found ways to deal with the crippling of their economy. In the case of their long-gone McDonald’s outposts, they simply rebranded.

On Sunday, as per Reuters, 200 of the 850 former McDonald’s locations had reopened, this time with a new name: Vkusno & Tochka, which roughly translates to “Tasty & That’s It.” (“Tochka” means “period,” as in the end of a sentence.) The menu, though smaller, is largely the same. The Golden Arches are gone, replaced by a new logo that looks like two fries and a little burger patty. Also MIA are the Big Mac and McFlurry. The Filet o’ Fish is now simply a fish sandwich. There’s also a new slogan: “The name changes, love stays.”

But the composition of the food offerings largely remains the same. According to The New York Times, the Russian McDonald’s are more or less self-sufficient, minus the name and key menu items:

When McDonald’s opened in the Soviet Union in 1990, the Americans had to bring in everything. Soviet potatoes were too small to make fries, so they had to acquire their own russet potato seeds; Soviet apples did not work for the pie, so the company imported them from Bulgaria.

But by the time McDonald’s pulled out this year, its Russian stores were getting almost all of their ingredients from Russian suppliers.

Reuters talked to a teenager who weighed on in how Vkunso & Tochka compares to McD’s. “The taste has stayed the same,” he remarked. “The cola is different, but there really is no change to the burger.”

It’s rare mostly good news for Russia, which has struggled to pull off an invasion that they once thought would be over in a flash. Morale is reportedly so low that soldiers have been trying to set up sham marriages to get out of duty, while President Vladimir Putin himself is reportedly losing what’s left of his sanity. Maybe he can refuel by recreating one of those disastrous menu hacks.

(Via Reuters and NYT)

One of the most popular racing franchises is Microsoft’s series of Forza games. The most recent Forza Horizon was extremely well regarded and even managed to earn some discussion in Game of the Year discussions around the industry.

On Sunday, during the Xbox and Bethesda showcase, another entry into the acclaimed racing series was announced. A new trailer for the Forza Motorsport franchise was shown off and a heavy emphasis was placed on the game’s day and night cycle.

Between Horizon and Motorsport, the preference really comes down to the player. Horizon is a more arcade-like racing game compared to the more simulation-like experience in Motorsport.

So with all that in mind, how did this look into the next entry of Motorsport look? Not bad! It featured a lot of really nice landscapes to look at while driving, and we already know the technical aspect of the game is going to work well. We do want to see a little bit more from the game before it launches in 2023, but there’s still plenty of time for more information to come out.

What’s really great though is that, no matter how you feel about the game, you’re gonna get the opportunity to play it on launch day thanks to Game Pass.

Last fall, before Netflix fell on some hard times, they had a new sensation. Squid Game became the streamer’s biggest-ever hit, outdoing even Bridgerton. The dystopian show about desperate people competing in deadly games for cash inspired Halloween costumes and SNL sketches. It was inevitable that there would be more, but only now, some eight months after its premiere, has Season 2 been officially announced.

On Sunday, Netflix dropped a very short teaser, featuring animation of the animatronic doll that figured heavily in the show’s maiden season. “Red light… GREENLIGHT!” the caption read, with the doll’s one eye flashing the number two.

Along with the teaser, Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s writer, director, and executive producer, penned a brief letter ringing in the occasion. “It took 12 years to bring the first season of ‘Squid Game’ to life last year. But it took 12 days for ‘Squid Game to become the most popular Netflix series ever,” Hwang wrote. He thanks the fans and teased what lay in store:

And now, Gi-hun returns.
The Front Man returns.
Season 2 is coming.
The man in the suit with ddakji might be back.
You’ll also be introduced to Young-hee’s boyfriend, Cheol-su.

Join us once more for a whole new round.

Thing is, fans will have to be patient. Last month, Hwang said the show likely won’t be ready for public consumption until late 2023, maybe even 2024. Till then, they’ll have to subsist on that brief, creepy teaser.

Taylor Swift stepped out into the public eye this past weekend to make an appearance at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. She was invited to the festival to speak about the 15-minute short film she released for “All Too Well,” a record that topped the charts to become the longest No. 1 song of all time. There was a screening of the film for those in attendance, but Swift also took a moment to discuss her approach to filmmaking during a conversation with Mike Mills. During the sit-down, Swift was asked if she would consider making more films in the future.

“It would be so fantastic to write and direct a feature,” she replied. “I don’t see it being bigger in terms of scale. I loved making a film that was so intimate with a crew that was relatively small. Just a really solid crew of people that I trusted.” Elsewhere in the conversation, Swift discussed how different shots in the “All Too Well” film were used to capture the ups and downs of the characters’ relationship.

“I wanted to show their closeness with handheld shots, I wanted to be so close we could count freckles,” Swift said. “As things fell apart, I wanted to reflect the remoteness she feels, this desperation she feels, because her world opened up to this big passionate intense love and all of the sudden, overnight, it boiled down to nothing, and the floor fell through.”

Swift also gifted attendees with a live performance of “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version),” making for a truly fulfilling and enjoyable moment for those who watched the conversation at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

You can watch some moments from Taylor’s Tribeca Film Festival appearance above.