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One of the great moments in Twitter history was the time Russell Crowe was not having any of Clickhole‘s rubbish. After The Onion spin-off website published a fake quote from the Master and Commander star as part of their “They Said What?!” series, Crowe tweeted, “@Clickhole what is this rubbish? Where does that quote from?” Beautiful.

Elon Musk v. Hard Drive is no Russell Crowe v. Clickhole.

Over the weekend, The Onion of video games called out the Tesla founder for posting a picture from one of the site’s articles without attribution. “hey i’ll give u a horse if u stop cropping our name off our articles,” @HardDriveMag tweeted, a reference to Musk reportedly offering a SpaceX flight attendant a horse in exchange for an erotic massage. Musk (who thinks of himself as a memelord even though he’s more of a meme lifter) replied, “Well, if you make something that looks like a meme & someone (not me) crops off your name, so it goes. Also, this is only a 6/10 meme, so maybe step down from that high horse! The selfless art of anonymous meme creators is something to be admired.”

Hard Drive fired back by asking for Musk’s thoughts on an article with the headline “Elon Musk Admits He Wants to Travel to Mars Because No One Hates Him There Yet,” to which the real-life Kendall Roy tweeted, “Less funny than SNL on a bad day. This could make a drunk person sober. Try harder!” Musk really set himself up here.

Musk deleted the original meme and got buried. To paraphrase Russell Crowe, we are entertained.

(Via Hard Drive)

The Boys‘ third season is nearly upon us, and fans are eager to see showrunner Eric Kripke reteam with Supernatural star Jensen Ackles, who’s pulling a Soldier Boy here. Ackles had previously showed his stuff in costume after (gruffly) admitting that he’s exhausted to be ripped, but it’s all nearly about to happen. Granted, Chase Crawford’s worried that he might never work again after what The Deep soon does onscreen, but it’s nonetheless happening.

To further anticipation, here’s Eric Kripke’s tweet about how the show’s got a living time capsule (and a Captain America parody) on its hands in Soldier Boy. To showcase that vibe, the show’s released a Nancy-Reagan-style, 1980s PSA with Soldier Boy telling children that their biggest superpower is the ability to say “no.”

Of course, this ad puts Vought International’s hypocrisy on blast, given that its very own superheroes indulge in drugs on both a recreational (as we’ll likely again see in the upcoming “Herogasm” episode) and professional basis. Yup, I’m thinking about A-Train (and others), who essentially uses Compound V as a performance enhancing drug. And this ad sure gives us a feel for how Soldier Boy previously filled some shoes that Homelander does today. Here’s his glory days highlighted in a Payback-themed poster.

Soldier Boy previously led the group of Compound V-powered Supes called Payback. In the comics, Stormfront was part of that group, although god only knows if we’ll see her return in flashbacks or whatnot. Although Payback members are also failed candidates for The Seven, Kripke previously (to Entertainment Weekly) stressed the importance of how Payback “was the Seven before the Seven.”

The Boys are back (that’s obligatory phrasing) on June 3.

Bleachers leader and producer extraordinaire Jack Antonoff and The Leftovers and Maid actress Margaret Qualley were first rumored to be dating last summer; They were seen kissing in New York City in August. They made their public debut as a couple this past March, when they showed up at the Critics’ Choice Awards together.

Things have apparently progressed significantly since then: People reports that per a source, Antonoff (who is 38 years old) and Qualley (27) are now engaged. Neither Antonoff nor Qualley have confirmed the news and it’s not yet known how or when a proposal went down.

This comes a few days after Qualley was seen wearing what appeared to be an engagement ring on the 2022 Cannes Film Festival red carpet. The Diamond Pro CEO Mark Fried told Page Six of the ring, “Margaret’s beautiful diamond ring looks to be 4 carats and I’d estimate the value is near $100,000 depending on the quality of the stone. The ring is made of either white gold or platinum and carries a timeless look [and] likely has some unique detailing near the diamond, giving it personal meaning and flair.”

Both Antonoff and Qualley have been busy lately: Antonoff helmed the stacked Minions: The Rise Of Gru soundtrack while Qualley stars alongside Joe Alwyn (who of course dates Antonoff collaborator Taylor Swift) in Stars At Noon, the film that’s the reason Qualley was at Cannes.

Nick Castellanos is a terrific baseball player who just so happens to have an uncanny knack for hitting home runs at somber moments on a baseball broadcast.

Castellanos famously hit a home run in the middle of Thom Brennaman’s on-air apology after saying a homophobic slur on a hot mic during a Reds broadcast, and a year ago hit another deep drive into left field during a Royals broadcast while they were honoring a World War II hero. On Monday, the Phillies broadcast was coming out of a commercial break and discussing the unveiling of the Gold Star Mothers gold chair at the Phillies ballpark, and before the announcer could even shift focus back to the action, Castellanos was first pitch swinging and, of course, hit a drive deep to left field for a home run.

It is honestly unbelievable how this keeps happening, and at this point you almost wonder if TV production trucks are doing this purposefully and putting their serious monologues and tributes up when Castellanos is due up. If not, this man just has a knack for switching the tone of a broadcast up and socking dingers, although at least this was on the home broadcast so everyone could be appropriately excited for the home run.

Warning: This post contains some mild spoilers about the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, the show that catches up with Ewan McGregor’s now-middle-aged Jedi, premiered over the holiday weekend, and the first two episodes alone managed to cram in some familiar faces (and some new ones). We saw Jimmy Smits’ Bail Organa, Joel Edgerton’s Uncle Owen, to say nothing of a certain, unexpected, major character. Even C-3PO made an appearance. There’s still four more episodes left, and there will be more where that came from — with a catch.

In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes TV (as caught by ComicBook.com), Deborah Chow, the show’s director, teased that there will be more surprises. “I don’t think it would be Star Wars if we didn’t have some Easter eggs, and we didn’t have some cameos. So there definitely are some to come,” Chow said. Just don’t expect them to be of the lazy, mere fan service variety. “I think for us, what we do have in the show, it needed to come out of character for us. We didn’t want to just put things in for the sake of it.”

In other words, Chow and team have tried to make any cameos organic to the show, not just to score some viewer gasps. The distinction between organic and cheap cameos was well-explained by /Film:

For example, when Denis Lawson shows up for a few seconds as Wedge Antilles in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” it’s really just an Easter egg. On the other hand, when Max Rebo (RIP?) appears in “The Book of Boba Fett,” it both acts as an Easter egg and subtly fills us in on what became of Jabba the Hutt’s old crew after his death.

New episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi drop on Thursdays on Disney+.

(Via Rotten Tomatoes TV and ComicBook.com)

Earlier this year, Draymond Green became the first active NBA player to ink a full-time media deal with Turner Sports, joining the Inside the NBA crew as a regular contributor after previously jumping on set for some spot duty during the postseason the past two years.

Green is now no longer alone in the active player ranks with a full-time media deal, as Pelicans guard CJ McCollum will be joining ESPN on a similar deal as an NBA analyst for the network, starting with Game 1 of the NBA Finals on their ESPN2 simulcast, as well as launching a podcast with ESPN, joining the ever-growing list of players entering the podcast business.

“I am excited to bring what I feel is my unique perspective, based on my vast knowledge of the game that I’ve gained during my nine years as a player in the NBA,” McCollum said in a statement. “To have an opportunity to put my journalism background to use on the largest stage with the many talented professionals at ESPN is a dream come true.”

McCollum, famously, was a journalism major at Lehigh University and has long been on the path to a post-playing career in media, but now he gets a head start on that, getting some reps doing game analyst work during Summer League and on Finals megacasts, launching a podcast, and also joining ESPN’s various studio shows throughout the year. It’s part of the ever-changing landscape of sports media, where active players are not just starting their own media operations, podcasts, and TV shows, but joining league network partners in official, full-time capacities, which can lead to some very interesting situations.

We’ve already seen this postseason how that can get a little awkward or a little spicy, whether it be Patrick Beverley’s victory lap on ESPN after Chris Paul and the Suns were eliminated by the Mavericks or the Heat getting mad about Draymond Green proclaiming the Warriors would face Boston in the Finals after Game 5 on the TNT set (which, ultimately, was correct). As more players work out these deals and this becomes a more regular thing, but we’ll see how long it takes for McCollum to voice opinions on a topic that rubs someone the wrong way elsewhere in the Association.

For several seasons, a singular question has swirled around the Boston Celtics: Can Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown win a championship together? The two star wings have redundant skill types that don’t necessarily amplify one another on a roster that lacks high level playmaking.

The noise got even louder after the Celtics started 16-18 and fell to 11th in the Eastern Conference, with plenty of fans and media wondering aloud whether Boston should pick one to build around and move the other at the deadline. Well, Jayson Tatum heard the noise and he said it fueled he and Brown all season after the Celtics’ Game 7 win over the Miami Heat moved Boston into the NBA Finals.

“I think all of those things have helped. From saying that we need to split the group up or get rid of somebody or me and JB cant play together. That fueled us to figure it out and not run from it. That you know we’re obviously going to be here for awhile and that we trust in each other and that we have to be better. So yeah, I think instead of separating, we became closer and that’s shown throughout the season.”

It turns out that deploying two 6’8 shot-creating wings who defend at a high level works really well in the playoffs. Boston dismissed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, endured seven games of Giannis hell, and overpowered a resilient Heat team all behind the leadership of Tatum and Brown. The duo now has a sneaky long playoff resume and an Eastern Conference trophy to display. The noise around their ability to play with one another always felt a bit premature and the duo has all but silenced that with their run to the Finals.

The existence of the Hulu documentary Look At Me: XXXTentacion is sort of perplexing. XXXTentacion was an artist who was almost excessively documented. Blogs, magazines, and newspapers covered what seemed to be his every move — starting with the move that kickstarted his infamy. Oddly enough, with all that documentation, it seems the enormity and repugnance of that initial move were never truly reckoned with, despite the Florida-born artist emerging at the height of an era in which nearly everyone can obsessively and thoroughly document their own lives, in real-time for audiences of thousands (the film seems pretty disinterested in doing so, as well).

Against those circumstances, the new documentary raises more questions than it answers, and the one hovering over all of them is: Who is this for? Produced by XXXTentacion’s manager, his mother, and the co-founder of The Fader magazine, the two-hour production functions at first as a biography. There are interviews with pivotal figures in X’s early career such as his former manager and friends like Ski Mask The Slump God. However, early problematic behavior like beating up another young man for a live stream on Periscope is characterized as simply marketing tactics or the reckless behavior of an exuberant personality. That’s the first sign of which way this documentary seems to be heading.

The tension increases upon the introduction of Geneva Ayala, the young woman who dated X shortly after some of his initial success — and who he nearly beat to death in horrific instances of alleged domestic abuse that were again recounted in lurid detail in court documents that surfaced in the years-long case that was never resolved. Ayala describes herself as “lost” as she continued her troubling, controlling relationship with XXXTentacion. It takes nearly an hour for the film to finally address the elephant in the room, and then strategically placed title cards seem to cast doubt on Ayala’s assertion that she was pregnant when X attacked her. She also admits to infidelity, which you can’t tell me isn’t another strategic move to undermine Ayala as a victim.

This is where XXXTentacion’s story highlights the grotesque of the entertainment industry. As X languishes in jail but receives heightened attention as a result of the gruesome charges against him, labels come calling, looking to capitalize on the publicity — no matter what it implies about their prospective partner. And while scenes recounting his record deal negotiations rightly reflect X’s business acumen at such a young age, they also — perhaps unintentionally — indict those who looked at him as a cash cow rather than a troubled young man who needed a different kind of help.

The movie reverts back to an examination of his album recording process for 17 and the album’s resulting success. Throughout the course of this act of the documentary, recordings are dredged up to reflect XXXTentacion’s fractured mind state — his paranoia, depression, and anxiety. It’s almost like the film is begging for sympathy for him, as if his talent and his mental illness could justify or excuse his behavior. While the filmmakers never shy away from the things he did or deny them, it’s hard to shake the sense that the producers — the people closest to him, who benefitted from his career the most, even as they likely had the most responsibility to get him into counseling or encourage him to restore his victims — are bargaining for absolution for themselves.

That sense comes through strongest in a round table scene toward the tail end of the film in which X’s aunt laments that X’s abuse hung over his head and defined him as much as his music. “How do you fully redeem yourself if every time, on every corner, it just keeps popping up?” his mom wonders. An off-screen interviewer counters, “How do you redeem yourself without ever admitting that you did something wrong?” The answers are as vague as X’s own responses on the issue; a focus on judgment, on his sense of personal accountability, the potential of his lost life. X’s mom offers her belief that he would have changed if he’d only gotten the chance — but would he? And what does it say about his fame that so many were so willing to excuse him if he didn’t?

That’s the true tragedy of a life cut as short as XXXTentacion’s was: We’ll never know. Yes, with more time, he could have turned his life around, perhaps in prison, perhaps on probation, perhaps years or even decades later after much therapy and self-reflection. But the flip side of that, the one this movie and X’s fans and the whole entertainment apparatus that benefitted from covering his blowups, his meltdowns, his triumphs, his failures, and yes, even his untimely demise can’t seem to acknowledge is that he could have stayed the same. He could have gotten worse. That’s the “complex” part of having a “complex legacy.” Look At Me, which seems to be as much for Jahseh’s closest associates to salve their guilty consciences as anything else, never really wants to look at that.

Jane’s Addiction guitarist and former Red Hot Chili Peppers member Dave Navarro is an important figure and personality in rock music and television, where he hosts the show Ink Master. So, fans are upset about his since-deleted Instagram post detailing his struggles with long COVID, which he has been battling since December of last year.

The statement mentions that he’s sharing this information so others dealing with the same struggles can feel less alone; he also describes his ways of getting through it, which include meditation and yoga. Read it below.

So yeah, I’m one of the ones who came down with the ‘long haul covid’. Been sick since December and supposedly will be back to my old self in… nobody knows how long.

If there are any of you who are still suffering long after your negative results, I’m just saying you aren’t alone. The fatigue and isolation is pretty awful but try to spend your time with the ones you love and stay creative. That’s how I’m trying to get through this thing. Also lots of spiritual practices, meditation and yoga have been very helpful. I’ll be ok, just don’t know when.

PS I’m not sure why I chose this picture to say all this. Maybe because who really cares and you gotta find fun somewhere? Or at least some levity. Love and laughter are wonderful antidotes for a sickness that you really can’t track.

Anyway thanks for listening and don’t worry about me. All indicators are pointing to a full recovery at some point!

There’s really no more to say on the matter so I’d appreciate not receiving a bunch of DMs or texts. Not out of disrespect for you guys, I’m just so tired of talking about this, I’m sure you can imagine!

Sending you all love and light. Even to those of you who are stoked I’m sick!

The ‘Mona Lisa,’ arguably the most famous work by polymath Leonardo da Vinci, has attracted its fair share of eccentricities. Perhaps you recall the petition to get Jeff Bezos to buy and consume the painting. (Da Vinci himself has inspired action movies.) But on Sunday, it caused something truly unexpected: a cake attack.

As per The New York Times, a man disguised himself as an elderly woman in a wheelchair so he could get close to the Louvre’s most popular attraction. He then proceeded to spring into action, standing up and smearing a cake onto the protective glass that shields it from such assaults.

His motive appears to be environmental. After attempting to smash the glass, he screamed about “people who were destroying the planet,” saying “that’s why I did it.” He was tackled by security, escorted out of the museum, and turned over to the police.

Images and video surfaced on social media of the defaced glass, which made it look like a big, white smudge had taken up real estate on the bottom half of the painting.

It’s not the first time the Mona Lisa has drawn attackers. In 1956, a man threw a stone at the painting, causing a chip of paint to fall off. (He later said he did it because he was homeless and hoped to be jailed for the winter.) In 2009, a woman threw a teacup, which was shattered upon impact with the protective glass. As for, da Vinci, he can rest easy knowing that a few years ago one of his paintings, a portrait of Jesus Christ, sold for more than any other painting in history.

(Via NYT)