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Draymond Green flipped off the fans as he exited the court early in the first quarter of Game 2 between the Golden State Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies at FedExForum. After the game, to which Green returned and played 32 minutes, he said his actions were in response to them booing him when he took an elbow to the eye and began bleeding. He also said he expected to be fined and was at peace with his actions.

On Thursday, that fine came in the form of $25,000 “for directing an obscene gesture toward spectator stands,” according to the NBA’s press release.

“You’re gonna boo someone who got elbowed in the eye and face running down blood, you should get flipped off,” Green said. “So, I’ll take the fine. I’ll go do an appearance and make up the money. But it felt really good to flip them off.

“I could’ve had a concussion,” Green continued. “If they’re gonna be that nasty, I can be nasty too.”

Memphis ultimately won Game 2 to tie the series at one game each. The Warriors and Grizzlies will kick off Game 3 on Saturday evening. Both sides will be missing key rotation players — Dillon Brooks has been suspended one game for his flagrant 2 foul on Gary Payton II, who suffered an elbow injury and will, at a minimum, miss the rest of this series.

Everyone should have a classic bourbon on their bar cart. When I say “classic,” I mean something that’s recognizable even by novices, that has a history that matters to the modern bourbon industry, and is maybe not widely available anymore. Name recognition is pretty important too, but all of that still takes a backseat to what’s actually in the bottle. The most important factor in any classic bourbon is the taste, and tasting classic bourbons blind seemed like a good way to find the best.

Since this blind taste test is about classic bourbon, there are a few things I’ll be looking for specifically: the kinds of flavors that scream “classic bourbon,” with hopefully a little extra to make it stand out from the pack. There should be big notes of vanilla, oak/wood, sweet caramel, and maybe some fruits (cherry, apple, orange) nuts, and florals too. These are, or should be, the kinds whiskeys that tell you from first nose that you’re in Bourbon Country, USA.

For this blind tasting, I’ll be pouring:

• Woodford Reserve Bourbon
• Weller Special Reserve
• Four Roses Small Batch
• Gentleman Jack
• Booker’s 2015-02 “Dot’s Batch”
• Elijah Craig 12

Let’s get tasting and find a winner!

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months

• The 50 Best Bourbon Whiskeys Of 2021, Ranked
• Every Winning Bourbon From Our 2021 Taste Tests, Blind Tasted And Re-Ranked
• The 100 Best Whiskeys Our Head Drinks Writer Tasted In 2021
• We Blind Tasted A Whole Bunch Of $30-60 Bourbons To See If Any Could Beat Weller
• The Best Ten-Year-Old Bourbon Whiskeys, Tasted Blind And Ranked

Part 1: The Taste

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

Vanilla comes through first on the nose with a good dose of caramel, soft oak, dark chocolate oranges, red berry tobacco, and the faintest hint of fresh mint. The palate delivers on those notes while layering in a soft toffee and silkiness with more dark chocolate, orange oils, and a cinnamon-forward tobacco leaf. The finish really holds onto the silken texture as the spice, dark chocolate, and vanilla linger the longest with a nice caramel sweetness.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

Leather vanilla and apple florals mingle on the nose with a hint of cherrywood, caramel candy, and winter spice. The taste moves between spicy apple pie filling with walnuts, vanilla pancakes, and a hint of maybe a dried cranberry. The mid-palate sweetens with plenty of toffee from a sticky toffee pudding while cherry syrup, dry wicker and vanilla-laced tobacco round out the finish.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

Apple and cherry trees with plenty of fruit open the nose alongside a rush of soft leather, cinnamon and nutmeg, and a hint of dried florals with plenty of caramel sauce. That caramel binds with dark red berries as more leather and dried flowers drive the palate towards vanilla pods. The finish is soft and tips between blackberry jam, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla pudding.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

This is like candy on the nose with cherry coughdrops, banana cream pie with a lard crust and plenty of soft vanilla whipped cream, white cotton candy, apple Jolly Ranchers, nutmeg and clove, and a hint of cedar. The palate layers that cedar with a spicy cherry tobacco with a good dose of dark chocolate powder next to more vanilla, leather, and apple candy. The finish rolls between the leather and spiced cherry tobacco and the super soft and lush vanilla creaminess.

This was great!

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

Pow! You can feel high ABVs on the nose with sharp and hot cinnamon spice, anise, cherry root beer, apple crumble, vanilla cookies, and a salted caramel sauce. The palate largely delivers on all of that with a mouth-coating heat that amps the cinnamon up to Red Hots and the vanilla to a smooth creamy sauce with a hint of pepperiness, cherry cough syrup, and vanilla wafers. The end is long, hot, and full of burnt cedar, cherry tobacco, waxy cacao beans, and creamed vanilla honey.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

The nose is a little washed out compared to the last one but there’s still plenty of caramel candy, vanilla pudding, orange/chocolate, and pine panels. The taste balances nuts, apple fritters, vanilla pods, and a touch of leathery cherry tobacco. The end is a little thin with caramel and vanilla playing nicely with leather and wood with a little winter spice, cherrywood, and dark cacao.

Part 2: The Ranking

6. Elijah Craig 12 — Taste 6

ABV: 47%

Average Price: $300

The Whiskey:

This is the discontinued version of Elijah Craig that became the beloved Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. It’s standard Heaven Hill mash of 78% corn, 12% malted barley, and 10% rye. The juice then spent at least 12 years in the rickhouse before blending, proofing with that soft Kentucky limestone water, and bottling.

How Classic Is It?

This is basically as classic as you can get given the old-school bottle and age statement. However, it was the thinnest on the nose and palate and felt a little too proofed down.

Blind Notes (From Above):

The nose is a little washed out compared to the last one but there’s still plenty of caramel candy, vanilla pudding, orange/chococlate, and pine panels. The taste balances nuts, apple fritters, vanilla pods, and a touch of leathery cherry tobacco. The end is a little thin with caramel and vanilla playing nicely with leather and wood with a little winter spice, cherrywood, and dark cacao.

Bottom Line:

I wouldn’t turn this away if someone poured it for me, but it doesn’t really excite me.

5. Four Roses Small Batch — Taste 3

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $28

The Whiskey:

Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon is a blend of four whiskeys. The blend is split evenly between the high and low ryes with a focus on “slight spice” and “rich fruit” yeasts. The whiskey is then blended, cut with soft Kentucky water, and bottled.

How Classic Is It?

Very! Four Roses Small Batch is an early “small batch” bourbon that helped give the designation prestige in the modern era. The bottle feels like it’s from a different era and the whiskey inside feels like it’s Kentucky bourbon defined.

Blind Notes:

Apple and cherry trees with plenty of fruit open the nose alongside a rush of soft leather, cinnamon and nutmeg, and a hint of dried florals with plenty of caramel sauce. That caramel binds with dark red berries as more leather, dried flowers, and leather drive the palate towards vanilla pods. The finish is soft and tips between blackberry jam, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla pudding.

Bottom Line:

This was really nice. The only reason it’s this low is that as I tasted it, it really felt like I was tasting a cocktail bourbon and not a dope sipper. So here we are.

4. Booker’s 2015-02 “Dot’s Batch” — Taste 5

ABV: 63.95%

Average Price: Limited Availability

The Whiskey:

This very limited edition bourbon is a barrel-proof blend of juice that aged for exactly seven years and 18 days. Those whiskeys are the standard Jim Beam mash of 75% corn, 13% rye, and 12% malted barley. The key difference with Booker’s is the barrel. This expression comes from barrels that survived the aging process with a gorgeous enough flavor profile for as-is bottling.

How Classic Is It?

This the fifth release of Booker’s in the modern era (1,000 cases were released in 1988 initially). This is old-school bespoke bourbon from a true master, Fred Noe, and something unique to its time.

Blind Notes:

Pow! You can feel high ABVs on the nose with sharp and hot cinnamon spice, anise, cherry root beer, apple crumble, vanilla cookies, and a salted caramel sauce. The palate largely delivers on all of that with a mouth-coating heat that amps the cinnamon up to Red Hots and the vanilla to a smooth creamy sauce with a hint of pepperiness, cherry cough syrup, and vanilla wafers. The end is long, hot, and full of burnt cedar, cherry tobacco, waxy cacao beans, and creamed vanilla honey.

Bottom Line:

This was really nice but those high ABVs really were a lot. This was hot and bold and, honestly, need a rock to cool it down and let it bloom a bit more.

3. Woodford Reserve — Taste 1

ABV: 45.2%

Average Price: $30

The Whiskey:

This is where everything comes together that makes Woodford unique. The mash bill on this bourbon is mid-range rye heavy with 18% of the grain in the bill for support. The triple distilling in pot stills and blending with column distilled whiskey is utilized. And yes, this bourbon rests for six to seven years — taking time to mature before barrels are pulled for blending, proofing, and bottling.

How Classic Is It?

Woodford was one of the first “new” bourbons to hit the market in the late 1990s when bourbon was damn near dead. Brown-Forman’s belief in a turnaround and the founding of Woodford helped bourbon sort of redefine itself as a high-quality and trendy product well before the current boom began in earnest. That is classic by definition.

Blind Tasting Notes:

Vanilla comes through first on the nose with a good dose of caramel, soft oak, dark chocolate oranges, red berry tobacco, and the faintest hint of fresh mint. The palate delivers on those notes while layering in a soft toffee and silkiness with more dark chocolate, orange oils, and a cinnamon-forward tobacco leaf. The finish really holds onto the silken texture as the spice, dark chocolate, and vanilla linger the longest with a nice caramel sweetness.

Bottom Line:

This was really nice. It’s didn’t quite hit the heights of the next two but really felt like an easy sipper or cocktail mixer with a super inviting texture and flavor profile.

2. Weller Special Reserve — Taste 2

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $79

The Whiskey:

Buffalo Trace doesn’t publish any of their mash bills. Educated guesses put the wheat percentage of these mash bills at around 16 to 18%, which is average. The age of the barrels on this blend is also unknown. We do know that they cut down those ABVs with that soft Kentucky limestone water.

How Classic Is It?

Weller has some of the best name recognition in the game. It’s beloved and sought after by whiskey lovers who know good bourbon. It might be the most classic on this list because of that.

Blind Notes:

Leather vanilla and apple florals mingle on the nose with a hint of cherrywood, caramel candy, and winter spice. The taste moves between spicy apple pie filling with walnuts, vanilla pancakes, and a hint of maybe a dried cranberry. The mid-palate sweetens with plenty of toffee from a sticky toffee pudding while cherry syrup, dry wicker and vanilla-laced tobacco round out the finish.

Bottom Line:

This is just delicious. It’s so bourbon-y yet subtle and enticing. There are really no notes and I would have put serious money on me scratching a “1” next to my tasting notes for Weller. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

1. Gentleman Jack — Taste 4

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $34

The Whiskey:

Gentleman Jack is classic Jack — 80% corn, 12% malted barley, and eight percent rye — that’s twice filtered through sugar maple charcoal filtration. The hot juice then goes into barrels for a long rest before vatting, proofing down with that Lynchburg cave water, and bottling.

How Classic Is It?

This bottle goes back to 1988 when Jack Daniel’s was expanding its core lineup for the first time in a while. It’s one of those whiskeys that was all about creating a modern classic that became one over time.

Blind Notes:

This is like candy on the nose with cherry coughdrops, banana cream pie with a lard crust and plenty of soft vanilla whipped cream, white cotton candy, apple Jolly Ranchers, nutmeg and clove, and a hint of cedar. The palate layers that cedar with a spicy cherry tobacco with a good dose of dark chocolate powder next to more vanilla, leather, and apple candy. The finish rolls between the leather and spiced cherry tobacco and the super soft and lush vanilla creaminess.

This was great!

Bottom Line:

I. Am. Shook. I cannot believe I put this at this number. I would have guessed this in last place, not first.

Still, this was … fun. It was light but refined. There was serious flavor with a bourbon-y vibe (yes, Tennessee whiskey is bourbon). It just hit really well today and, well, won the day.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

I still can’t believe Gentleman Jack beat out the competition today. That just goes to show you the power of the blind taste test — you really never know what’s going to rise to the top. I know for a fact had I known what was Weller and what was Jack, I would have picked the Weller 10 out of 10 times, yet here we are.

Overall, I think it’s time to reassess where Gentleman Jack should sit on my shelf.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, which means if you’re American you’re likely celebrating by hitting up your favorite dive bar, chowing down on some $2 tacos, and washing it all down with a cheap margarita (hopefully you have the sense not to don a sombrero and poncho and shout “aye aye aye!” throughout the night, but trust me — it still happens). If you’re Mexican or Mexican American, on the other hand, you might not be celebrating anything (unless you literally live in the town of Puebla). From my experience, even young Mexican Americans don’t really vibe with Cinco de Mayo the way the Chicano college students of the ‘60s did.

That generation found resonance in a story of outnumbered Mexicans resisting a powerful white colonial invader, which… sounds pretty damn good. But ever since the holiday was co-opted by beer companies in the ‘80s, it has always served as a weird caricature of Mexican identity and, like St. Patrick’s Day, an excuse for conservative America to get sh*t-faced in the middle of the week while in (if not blatantly offensive, then certainly annoyingly reductive) costume. So before you don that sombrero, put on your favorite Bad Bunny record (he’s Puerto Rican, by the way), and start making finger guns before every shot of tequila, may I suggest — maybe you don’t?

I’m not even speaking on some “don’t wear my culture like a costume” stuff. I can’t speak for all Mexican Americans and Latinx people, but I can tell you that the people I grew up with living in the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles — first generation, second generation, and Dreamers, as well as our parents — don’t really care about that. We know Cinco de Mayo is for the gringos now. All I’m saying is…

Okay, fine — let’s talk about the sombreros for a second.

I truly don’t care or take offense to anybody wearing a poncho and sombrero on Cinco de Mayo (I get it, Clint Eastwood made it look dope and ya’ll love cowboys) but you should ask yourself when you do that, “why, exactly, am I doing it?” When you wear artifacts and emblems of a colonized people’s culture, what does that say about your relationship, as an American, to these communities, and more importantly, what does it say about you? Only you can know that and as long as you can live with it, great. But you have to admit that it might speak differently to a person who comes from those cultures and sees an element of parody or derision in your actions. And, you must admit, life is not simply about what we do, it’s also how our actions are perceived. After all, “we’re LIVING IN A SOCIETY!”

End rant.

So go ahead and wear that sombrero. But if you’re going to skirt the line between cultural respect and making a mockery (intentionally, unintentionally, or even well-intentioned-ally) of Mexican culture, I do have one ask of you: stop devaluing the food and drinks you order while wearing said sombrero. Because in 2022, after so many foodservice businesses were devastated by the pandemic, it’s definitely time to ditch the assumption that anything Mexican should be cheap. It’s actually probably about 50 years late, but whatever.

Do you know why you love Mexican food and spirits? Because they’re good. Do you know why you associate them with being cheap? Because immigrants in America have routinely had to devalue their own cultural offerings to match the perceptions of Europeans regarding what food does and doesn’t cost a lot. $5 for a croissant made of literally flour, water, and butter but only $2 for a taco made of meat, a corn tortilla, onions, tomatoes, cilantro? Get the f*ck out of here.

Point being, you’ve been conditioned to expect this food to be cheap because for generations people have had to keep margins low in order to meet customer expectations. Kind of gross,, right? If you really want your stomach to turn read “The Future Is Expensive Chinese Food,” written by Joe Pinsker for The Atlantic. In the piece, Pinsker quotes an associate professor of food studies at NYU, Krishnendu Ray, who writes on the “hierarchy of taste”:

“This hierarchy, which privileges paninis over tortas is almost completely shaped by a simple rule: The more capital or military power a nation wields and the richer its emigrants are, the more likely its cuisine will command higher prices.”

Ew. Just ew. Long story short, the reason you’re always bragging about how cheap your favorite tacos and burritos are is because… they shouldn’t be. Your stomach knows that and it’s time for your brain to catch up.

What do you find in your local taqueria? Slow-cooked beans that were soaked and simmered for hours before becoming tender, fluffy, and exploding with flavor. Braised meats that marinate in mouthwatering spices and require a skilled hand to cook properly. Tortillas made (by hand!) from heirloom corn, using techniques that go back millennia and are native to this land. Salsas and guacamole bursting with palate-enveloping flavors crushed and ground out by the strongest forearms you’ve ever seen on a little old Grandma.

And that same level of craft and care go into Mexican spirits. The best bottles of tequila and mezcal you’ve ever sipped (sip the good stuff, dammit!) were produced by the hands of farmworkers who spend their lives toiling in fields harvesting agave at exactly the right moment and use elaborate and traditional methods to roast and extract that agave. Your margarita shouldn’t be cheaper, that jimador deserves a raise!

This food and drink require labor, love, and skill, just as much as more valued cuisines like Italian, Japanese, or French. So if you’d like to really celebrate Cinco de Mayo, start by appreciating Mexican food and craft for the marvel that it is.

If you’re having a hard time doing that, a new generation of Mexican American chefs like Wes Avila (Guerrilla Tacos, Ka’teen), Carlos Salgado (Coi, Commis), and James Beard Award winner Bricia Lopez-Maytorena (Guelaguetza) will help guide you. Through their respective restaurants, they’re making great efforts to elevate people’s idea of what Mexican food is and can be. You should follow them and if you’re in their respective cities, eat your big Cinco de Mayo dinners there.

So what are we saying here, don’t support cheap taco places anymore and only buy food from chefs putting that gourmet spin on the cuisine? No, definitely do both. But the next time you pick up that $5 bundle of tacos that you know should cost more from that hole-in-the-wall taqueria that has always been in your neighborhood, leave a fat tip for the hard workers breaking their backs in the kitchen. And on the flip side, the next time you hear someone complain about how expensive a taco is, slap that taco out of their mouth. They don’t deserve to eat it.

It’s the least you can do, it is Cinco de Mayo after all. You know, Mexican Independence Day (nope, just joking).

I leave you today with one of my favorite quotes from the late Anthony Bourdain — a person who truly understood the value of Mexican contribution to the United States — in the hopes that some of his brilliance will rub off on every American who celebrates Cinco de Mayo today and in the years to come.

Americans love Mexican food. We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortillas, enchiladas, tamales, and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities. We love Mexican beverages, happily knocking back huge amounts of tequila, mezcal, Mexican beer. We love Mexican people. We sure employ a lot of them. Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our laws, wash our dishes, and look after our children. Any chef will tell you our entire service economy, the restaurant business as we know it in most American cities would collapse overnight without Mexican workers.

Dig that? Great! Now it’s time to start acting like it.

The Memphis Grizzlies will not have the services of starting guard Dillon Brooks for Game 3 of its series against the Golden State Warriors. The NBA announced on Thursday afternoon that Brooks has been given a one-game suspension for the foul he committed in the early moments of Game 2 on Gary Payton II.

Brooks was ejected at the 9:08 mark of Game 2 after clotheslining Payton as he attacked the rim. Payton elevated before Brooks could get off the ground, but Brooks opted to contest his shot, and as a result, his arm raked Payton across the face, causing the Warriors’ guard to go down in pain and eventually leave the game. It was announced after the game that Payton suffered a fracture in his left elbow as a result of the incident.

Following a review, Brooks was assessed a flagrant 2 foul and immediately ejected. The fifth-year guard came under fire from Warriors coach Steve Kerr during his interview with TNT in between quarters, and after the game, Kerr accused Brooks of breaking one of the league’s unwritten codes about jeopardizing the health and well-being of opposing players when you challenge one of their shot attempts.

Game 3 between the Warriors and Grizzlies will take place on Saturday, May 7. The game is scheduled to tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

Since their 1998 debut album Something About Airplanes, Death Cab For Cutie has been consistent with their album release schedule, dropping a new LP at least once every few years, with the latest being 2018’s Thank You For Today. That was their ninth album and now it appears a tenth is on the way soon.

Yesterday, Ben Gibbard and company shared a photo of themselves in a recording/performance space and wrote simply, “New album done. New music May 11.” They also shared a pre-save link for that new music, but it doesn’t offer additional info about what specifically they have planned for next week.

Meanwhile, the band and Gibbard have kept busy with other endeavors since Thank You For Today. In 2020, Gibbard was one of the biggest figures in the pandemic-prompted livestream concert scene, as he started giving daily livestreamed performances from his home in March. The year before that, they shared The Blue EP. More recently, he curated Ocean Child: Songs Of Yoko Ono, a tribute album in honor of the titular musician. Death Cab offered a rendition of “Waiting For The Sunrise” for the collection.

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s a shame for Doctor Strange 2 (aka Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, directed by Sam Raimi) that it’s opening while Everything Everywhere All At Once is still in theaters. Perhaps never before have we had such a stark illustration of the difference between what happens when a filmmaker-driven movie plays with an idea vs. what happens when a massive IP-driven corporate entity-produced franchise movie plays with that same idea.

The idea, in both cases, is the multiverse; the idea that the universe consists not just of our present, visible reality, but infinite, slightly distinct realities running in parallel. What might happen when a character or characters travel between those parallel dimensions through a plot conceit? (Shoutout to Sliders for doing this concept all the way back in the mid-90s, right down to a “green light means stop” gag that Doctor Strange 2 steals).

Released within weeks of each other (depending on where in the world you live) Doctor Strange 2 and Everything Everywhere are playing with that same idea, such that it’s almost impossible not to compare the two. And it’s a comparison that at every level isn’t especially kind to Doctor Strange 2. It’s not for lack of talent or ambition that Doctor Strange 2 comes up short, it’s more that its basic structure prevents it from being able to have fun with the subject matter in the same way. It’s a bit like watching two daredevils shred the same waves, only one is riding a jetski and the other is driving an oil tanker.

While Everything Everywhere can bank off lips and attempt wild moves (even a few that aren’t entirely successful, like the hot dog fingers) Doctor Strange 2 has to carry along with it millions of tons of crude IP, the decomposed fossils of 27 other movies and however many TV shows currently make up the “MCU” — which is so meticulously planned and outlined that Wikipedia can tell you that Doctor Strange 2 is part of “Phase 4.” When the commercial imperative is to try to maintain as much IP as possible, things like story and conflict tend to take a backseat (at least until the time that Disney can “own” a plot).

Doctor Strange begins (boldly, I can acknowledge) with a massive setpiece set in some CGI purgatory (think Dalí meets Escher meets a 90s screensaver) where Doctor Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is using his vaguely-defined powers of telekinesis (mind bullets! hand bullets! force fields!) to try to protect a teen girl in a denim jacket from a massive squid-like creature with a giant eyeball. They jump from floating platform to floating platform like Super Mario Bros, trying to reach some kind of magical glowing book. The squid wants the girl’s powers, and to keep the evil squid from getting them, Doctor Strange tries to suck her powers out of her body to use them himself, which is apparently another superpower he has (so strange!).

“But that will kill me!” she screams.

“I know, but in the larger calculus of the multiverse, this sacrifice will be…” and so forth.

Doctor Strange wakes up in a cold sweat. He later learns that the girl in the denim jacket is America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teen who pointedly has two lesbian moms (“mis madres!”) — I say pointedly because there’s little else we ever learn about her — and can travel between dimensions. The opening scene Strange thought was a dream was actually another him from a different dimension, which is what dreams actually are.

It seems that Wanda, aka The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), whose kids are apparently dead (maybe this happened in Wandavision? I’ve only seen the 27 other MCU films but not the MCU television shows so I’m unclear on whether I missed something here), has been sending squid demons (which is a power I guess she has) after America Chavez. The Scarlet Witch wants to steal America Chavez’s dimension-swapping powers (stealing powers being a power I guess The Scarlet Witch has) in order to get to a different dimension where Wanda’s kids are still alive. At which point I guess she will kill the Wanda of that reality and assume her life and live happily ever after with her two young boys. Which is, uh, bad, I guess.

Aside from all that window dressing, the main conflicts of Doctor Strange 2 are whether the hero, Doctor Strange is an asshole (he must grapple with the fact that Bizarro Strange was willing to kill a teen girl) and whether he’ll get the girl — in the form of a fellow doctor, Christine Palmer, played by Rachel McAdams. In the main universe, she was Strange’s on-again-off-again lady friend, who apparently moved on during the five years Strange spent turned to dust by Thanos (I’m so tired).

Both motives and methods exist as only the vaguest sketches in Doctor Strange 2. The beauty of Everything Everywhere, and it wasn’t exactly reinventing the wheel by doing so (though it did so deftly), was to ground the metaphor of the multiverse in one, recognizable human relationship — one first generation immigrant’s fraught relationship with her struggling mother. Both movies have a same sex romance angle and POC heroines, but only in Everything Everywhere does it not feel like a corporate-mandated diversity initiative, because it isn’t.

Doctor Strange 2 lacks any human scale, or really even any human frame; no sense of “who is telling me this and why.” So it ends up being mostly just metaphors piled on metaphors, conceits designed to justify other conceits, leaving the audience nothing to hold onto beyond the general idea of “scale.” And it is, to be fair, impressively “large,” and especially loud, though that could’ve just been the IMAX screen I saw it on.

Who is America Chavez? Who does she care about and what does she want? There aren’t any human-level answers to any of these questions, only plot conceits (She’s a girl who can jump universes! She wants to get back to her moms!) mixed with totems of progress that might look good in a press release (Lesbian moms! A feisty Latina heroine!).

No one involved in these movies seems empowered to make artistic choices based on inspiration or personal preference (too big and too important is the IP, with too many people involved), so all that’s left is to achieve self-created benchmarks of “representation” — increasingly the only form of artistic criticism that holds any sway anymore. And even those benchmarks are getting hopelessly watered down with qualifiers (we already had gay superheroes in Eternals, not to mention straight ones having face-to-face missionary sex).

To put it bluntly, when no one is empowered to make artistic decisions, you get shit art. It’s an oil tanker adrift, hoping some current of the zeitgeist will push it somewhere interesting. Which is especially a bummer coming from great artists like Sam Raimi, who happens to be one of my favorite directors. He made my all-time favorite superhero movie. Hell, I even liked Oz, The Great And Powerful.

In Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, Raimi seems to only be granted occasional cubes of autonomy, within which to shoot charmingly out-there set pieces with a characteristically bombastic score, and periodically remind us that he’s the guy who made Drag Me To Hell and Army Of Darkness. Yet the connections are more literal than spiritual, more a branding device than a reflection of personality. This Malibu Stacy has a Sam Raimi! Increasingly, Marvel characters are the Apes and the directors are just the Slurp Juice.

I hope Doctor Strange 2 makes however much money it takes for Sam Raimi to be allowed to make more Sam Raimi movies. This one feels uninspired and uninspiring, almost from the first minutes. The only level on which it seems capable of relating to us is on the level of recognition, and while I vaguely enjoy the sensation of remembering Drag Me To Hell, I must’ve missed whatever Wandavision or Moon Knight episode that would’ve make me care about Doctor Strange or Wanda or America Chavez.

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is playing select theaters nationwide. ‘Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness’ hits theaters everywhere Friday May 6th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. More reviews here.

Welp, the NFT market is reportedly “collapsing,” and an Elon Musk tweet may be a nail in the coffin. According to a new analysis that dropped this week, NFTs saw their astronomically priced sales plummet 92 percent since September 2021. That’s quite a drop, and not a good sign for the digital tokens that were being aggressively pursued by celebrities, musicians, and the video game industry.

Via The Independent:

Analysis by the website NonFungible, first cited by the Wall Street Journal, found that NFT sales fell to a daily average of 19,000 this week, compared to 225,000 seven months ago.

Active wallets, which are used to store NFTs, also dropped by 88 per cent. The article concluded: “The NFT market is collapsing.”

Following the report on the NFT collapse, Musk fired off a pithy response that could have a devastating effect on the tokens. “I dunno … seems kinda fungible,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday morning.

On Twitter, which Musk is in the final stages of purchasing, the Tesla CEO has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to severely affect crypto markets. In June of last year, he sent the price of Bitcoin plummeting and caused a run on, we kid you not, semen-themed cryptocurrencies. (“Cumrocket” was a particular favorite of the enigmatic billionaire.)

However, according to a recent report, a sizable portion of Musk’s Twitter following are actually spam bots. If the social media company were to fully and effectively them from the platform, Musk would reportedly lose nearly half of his followers. As for whether that would impact his ability to influence crypto markets with just a few words… well, who knows. But sorry about your apes.

(Via The Independent)

Mayans M.C. has done well to build its own brand of mayhem before really reeling in some former Sons Of Anarchy members for action. Not that the show hasn’t delivered several nods to the Kurt Sutter flagship series. Quite the contrary, for both Chucky and Potter delivered their vaguely unsettling presences early in the game before Potter got truly nasty again. Then Happy turned out to be the killer of EZ and Angel’s mother, and Chibs finally showed up in Season 3 to curse out everyone like a boss (which he is).

Who next? J.D. Pardo once told us (jokingly) that he’d love to see Jax somehow make a cameo, and of course, it’d have to be flashback or Zombie Jax mode for that to happen. Now that I’ve typed it out, I’d really like to see the undead Jax Teller riding past on his bike with a green screen in tow. However, there’s another popular (but moderately loathsome) SOA character who’s about to ride onto the scene. That’d be Tig, portrayed by the mustache-wielding Kim Coates, who’s coming this season.

This development arrives after speculation, which Coates confirmed on Twitter. “Please forgive me not to get back to the 2.5 million screams and quotes ( ok it wasn’t 2.5 mil but it was a lot 🙂 peace and love,” he wrote. “Bring a seat belt when Trager finally arrives.”

Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was this: if we’re gonna see Tig, then Walton Goggins’ Venus Van Dam could hopefully receive a shoutout. Is it too much to ask for a snippet of actual Goggins, too? My kingdom for that Southern drawl.

Though regularly cited and often slighted for his relentless hedonistic nature, Future has proven yet again that he’s just as committed to giving the people what they want in his new visual for the I Never Liked You standout record “Wait For U” featuring Drake and Tems. The Director X-lead video opens up with an introduction for viewers to the impending toxic king fairytale, set in medieval times. Future finds himself at odds with the queen after being betrayed by a knight played by 4YE’s Trey Richards, whose snitching leads him to later be killed by the 38-year-old.

Drake appears later in the video, embarking on his own journey to rescue a damsel from two villains. In the end, the woman he sought to rescue ends up saving him from an untimely death. While Tems is noticeably absent, the song’s producer ATL Jacob and rapper Strick both make cameo appearances.

I Never Liked You was released on April 29 under Freebandz and Epic Records. In addition to Drake and Tems, the album featured Kanye West, Gunna, Young Thug, EST Gee, Kodak Black, and later added Babyface Ray, Lil Baby, 42 Dugg, Lil Durk and Young Scooter on the six deluxe tracks released Monday (May 2).

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Killing Eve has been a fan favorite since debuting in 2018 to critical acclaim, though the second half of the series was considerably less well-received. When the series ended last month, the shocking finale left many fans confused and even angry at the (spoiler alert) untimely death of the lead Villanelle, played by Jodie Comer.

While the books end in a less depressing manner, with a very genuine happily ever after, the fourth and final season of the show finally has the two main characters, Eve (played by Sandra Oh) and Villanelle, becoming romantically involved, just before Villanelle’s death. Oh is very aware of the backlash from the finale, and tried to explain it as best as she could. The former Grey’s Anatomy actress told Deadline that the initial plan was to kill off her character, instead of Villanelle.

Due to COVID production delays, the story was written and re-written. Oh says she and writer Laura Neal were chatting about “how we were going to end this,” when Oh suggested Eve be killed. “I was like, ‘You should kill my character.’ I thought that would be the strongest and the most interesting [ending].” It is the name of the show, after all. Instead, Comer’s character was the one who was killed.

“Eve was starting to get into, like, a nihilistic place, and we’re like, ‘Let’s just continue that line and go straight into it.” Oh explained. Eventually, the writers opted against it. “They came to me, and they said, ‘We can’t do it. We need to change it… Eve needs to live.’” So Eve lived, but Villanelle did not.

“We switched it around,” Oh says, insisting that Comer “was very much on board for that.” Though Comer was on board, many fans critiqued the ending for its tragic outcome after the last four seasons left them cheering for the duo to get together.

“Eve is the way into this world. She’s our everywoman,” Oh concluded. “So it’s kind of really super depressing if she dies.” It was going to be depressing either way, so maybe the actual murderer dying wasn’t the worst move?