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Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish movies available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

10. (tie) Marry Me (Peacock)

Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson star as a preposterously attractive couple who get together after her character — one half of a global sensation pop duo — discovers her lover and music partner has been stepping out. That’s right, it is rom-com time over here. Will they? Won’t they? Whose hair will look better in the pivotal scene that will probably take place in the driving rain? There’s one way to find out: Grab some popcorn and comfy pajamas and set up shop on the couch. Watch it on Peacock.

10. (tie) Kimi (HBO Max)

Zoe Kravitz plays a stay-at-home digital detective in this latest thriller from Steven Soderbergh who — with the help of her friendly A.I. sidekick Kimi — uncovers a string of murders she traces back to the company she works for. She then must venture out into a pandemic-ridden Seattle in search of the reason why. Honestly, we can’t relate. But, Kravitz is quickly becoming a bonafide action star and a Soderbergh script rarely disappoints. Watch it on HBO Max.

10. (tie) Cheaper By the Dozen (Disney Plus)

Well, guess what: It’s a remake of the 2003 classic with Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, which was itself a remake of a film from 1950, only this time is stars Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union as the flustered parents and can be found on Disney Plus, a service that did not even almost exist when the other versions came out. Which is fine. Time marches on. And this one is written and produced by Kenya Barris from Black-ish, which is also fine. Good, even. Round up the family and grab some snacks. Watch it on Disney Plus.

9. West Side Story (Disney Plus)

Steven Spielberg brings the classic musical to the big and/or small screen, to the delight of both older fans and newer ones who get to experience it all for the first time. Get in there. Really let the experience wash over you. Sing along. Dance around your living room. Get in a knife fight with your sworn enemy. Okay, maybe not that last one. But the other ones, definitely. Watch it on Disney Plus.

8. Turning Red (Disney Plus)

In Domee Shi’s Turning Red, a boy band-loving teenage girl turns into a red panda whenever she experiences strong emotions, which as every parent of a teenager knows all too well, is often. Too often. It’s all the time, really. Turning Red is being called Pixar’s best movie in years, as it should. It’s about time red pandas got the cinematic showcase they deserve. Watch it on Disney Plus.

7. Deep Water (Hulu)

Deep Water is an erotic thriller that stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as… honestly, what more do you need? It’s a “weird, wild mess” of a movie from the director of Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful, with a murder mystery, duplicitous characters, and Affleck as an alpha cuck. Deep Water is the kind of sleazy mainstream movie that rarely gets made anymore, so it feels like a sexy treat that it even exists (from Disney, no less). Break out your Ana de Armas cardboard cutout and make it a double feature with Basic Instinct. Watch it on Hulu.

6. Tony Hawk: Until The Wheels Fall Off (HBO Max)

It is wild to think about how long Tony Hawk has been a figure in American pop culture. It is also wild to watch a full-length documentary about it, which is good and notable here because HBO made one. The whole thing is fascinating, the way the guy whose name is synonymous with skateboarding at this point is still doing it and does not plan to stop, and the way he’s built a career and lifestyle out of the thing he loved doing as a kid. It’s cool. And a good watch. Crank up “Superman” by Goldfinger and give it a run. Watch it on HBO Max.

5. Apollo 10 1/2: A Space-Aged Childhood (Netflix)

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood is loosely inspired by director Richard Linklater’s childhood in Texas. The coming-of-age animated film (think: Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, but more nostalgic) is set during the summer of the Moon landing, and features performances from Glen Powell, Zachary Levi, and Jack Black. Linklater brings out the best in Black (he’s fantastic in both School of Rock and Bernie), and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood looks to be no exception. Watch it on Netflix.

4. The Bubble (Netflix)

Judd Apatow’s The Bubble is a pandemic-era movie about making a movie during the pandemic. We’re through the looking glass, people. The comedy, which stars Karen Gillan, David Duchovny, Keegan-Michael Key, Pedro Pascal, and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm breakout Maria Bakalova, was produced like a “two-hour Simpsons episode,” according to Apatow, and reportedly inspired by the production of Jurassic World Dominion. If enough people watch it on Netflix, maybe we’ll get a full-length Cliff Beasts 6: The Battle For Everest movie. Watch it on Netflix.

3. Metal Lords (Netflix)

Game Of Thrones HBO co-creator D.B. Weiss wrote this little ditty while teaming up with Rage Against The Machine axeman Tom Morello as a love letter to the metal genre. The story revolves around two high-schoolers who seek the ultimate glory and win contests and be gods, and so on. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a bassist when Black Sabbath isn’t as popular with the kids as Justin Bieber is. The struggle is real.

2. White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch (Netflix)

The chokehold that Abercrombie & Fitch had on an entire generation of impressionable teens is just one of the many reasons watching the company’s disastrous fall in documentary form is so damn fun. This is a retail store that sold infant-sized clothes to fully-grown adults at the price of a life-time’s worth of body image issues. But if that’s just too dark to think about, it’s also a place where bare-chested men and heavy cologne assaulted you at every turn. In short, it was a hellscape disguised a shopping destination and this doc from Netflix peels back the curtains to paint a really interesting picture on discrimination in the workplace and the cost of cool. Watch it on Netflix.

1. The Batman (HBO Max)

What if Seven but with way more leather and punching? In a lot of ways, that could serve as a very simple synopsis of what Matt Reeves has done with the crown jewel of DC Comics lore, placing his take beside The Joker on the highest shelf (both in terms of artistry, societal commentary, and other adult themes) in the DCEU film library. Does it work? In some ways, absolutely, providing a grim but intriguing vision of the Batman as a detective with the mother of all chips on his shoulder as he wrestles with his thirst for vengeance and a vicious villain in Paul Dano’s Riddler, who is always seemingly one step ahead of him and Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon (a buddy cop pairing that is as awkward as it is rewarding). Throw in Zoe Kravitz’s tremendous turn as Selina Kyle/Catwoman (who also connects so well with Robert Pattinson’s Batman that you wish Reeves would have allowed for even more of their on-screen back and forth) and Gotham City’s usual mix of criminal underworld string-pulling and civic corruption and you’ve got a very full meal. Overfull? Too mature? Let’s just say The Batman can seem so grown up and dense at times that you may forget that it’s a superhero movie, for better or worse. Watch it on HBO Max.

Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

Get more streaming recommendations with our weekly What To Watch newsletter.

10. (tie) Outer Range (Amazon Prime)

It’s a shame Amazon Prime’s latest original series hasn’t broken through on our timelines because it’s one hell of a ride. Think The Twilight Zone meets Yellowstone, and you’ll be close. With a stacked cast that includes Josh Brolin, Imogen Poots, Noah Reid, and Will Patton, plus a batch of converging storylines about rival ranches, feuding families, and time-traveling wormholes that may or may not be the work of extra-terrestrials, it’s the kind of show that could become your next appointment watch. Watch it on Amazon Prime.

10. (tie) Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (HBO)

If you think about it, Winning Time (HBO’s new Adam McKay-produced series about the 1980s LA Lakers) has all the elements of a classic heist movie. Assembled by a larger than life fast talker with equally big ambitions (in this case, former Lakers owner Jerry Buss), a rag-tag group comes together, leaning on their exceptional and unique talents to paper over any personality conflicts that might arise while taking the thing (a whole mess of gold trophies) no one thought they’d ever get their hands on. This while having some wild misadventures along the way. We’re simplifying, of course, but the point is this should appeal to basketball fans and non-basketball fans alike, earning the right to be the most buzzed-about piece of basketball culture crossover content since The Last Dance helped us all stave off boredom for a few months by telling the story of another mismatched group of big personalities and champions. Watch it on HBO.

9. Moon Knight (Disney Plus)

Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke are in the MCU now, but don’t expect either of them to be the typical Marvel superhero or villain. This show is sheer chaos (and joyous to behold) with Isaac’s character plagued with dissociative identity disorder and tormented with mockery by an Egyptian god. He’s a gift-shop employee, a mercenary, and a hero? Sure. Hawke plays a David Koresh-esque cult leader. Hold on tight. Watch it on Disney Plus.

8. Mayans M.C. (Hulu)

The biker soap-opera adventure continues, and man, will these clubs ever learn to stay in their own lane? Silly rabbit, that would be no fun. This season continues the all-out war of last year with the franchise’s customary “blowback” on display from all angles. Yet the Santo Padre guys are making the grave error of trying to get back into the drug trade, which means they’re working ass-backward. And in the Sons of Anarchy universe, there can never be only one King, so good luck to all involved here while skewering that American Dream. Watch it on Hulu.

7. They Call Me Magic (Apple TV Plus)

Despite the swirl of bitterness from some who feel not super about their portrayal in HBO’s Winning Time dramatization of the ’80s Showtime LA Lakers, it’s a great time to be a fan of old school basketball and the glamour of the time, indulging in the aforementioned series and looking forward to additional projects that are coming from a more officially blessed place. That includes an upcoming docuseries on the Lakers, but Apple TV+’s brand new four-parter trains its eye specifically on the life of Showtime’s brightest star, Magic Johnson, offering the chance to get more insight into the remarkable life of a man that helped establish the NBA as an icon factory before branching out to help set the blueprint for post-career moguldom. Watch it on Apple TV Plus.

6. Roar (Apple TV+)

Roar is a feminist manifesto written by someone on shrooms. No, really. It’s a magical mystery tour filled with ruminations on race, internalized misogyny, feminine guilt, and whose stories are worth being told – wrapped up in surrealist storylines and Wes Anderson-esque cinematography. It’s absolutely unlike anything you’re watching on TV right now, and that’s without mentioning Merritt Wever’s sex scene with a duck or the montage of Nicole Kidman chowing down on old photographs like they’re a five-course meal. Do yourself a favor and bask in its weird-as-hell vibes. Watch it on Apple TV Plus.

5. Russian Doll (Netflix)

With a release date of 4/20, this show got trippier and swaggier after a close to perfect first season presented quite a dilemma, which was how to follow up the debut while believably upping Nadia and Charlie’s existential journeys. The time loop has now given way to time travel, and Natasha’s sense of physical comedy, never fails to command the screen while diving deep into the trauma of generations past. It sounds stressful, but the show never forgets to entertain. Watch it on Netflix.

4. The Flight Attendant (HBO Max)

The first season of The Flight Attendant was a blast, just fizzy chaos and murder from the opening scene to the very end, with Kaley Cuoco carrying the action as a party girl airline employee who finds herself wrapped up in about eight layers of international flim-flammery. It’s back for a second season, thank God, with her character, Cassie, now assisting the CIA. That probably sounds like an insane twist to you if you didn’t watch the first season. And it is. But more importantly… why haven’t you watched the first season yet. Good Lord. Get in there. You deserve a good time. Watch it on HBO Max.

3. Barry (HBO Max)

It should not be possible to enjoy watching a sweet man like Bill Hader destroy his life and the lives of those around him, and yet, here we all are, ready for season three of Barry, one of the best shows on television. It’s a dilemma, honestly. Not as much of a dilemma as, say, being a hitman who stumbles into an acting career and has to occasionally kill more people to prevent other people from learning that he has a history of killing people, but still. There’s an embarassment of riches at play here. Find another show that features Henry Winkler and Stephen Root and D’Arcy Carden where none of them are the funniest character, somehow, against incredible odds. This is the power of NoHo Hank. You either know what that sentence means or you desperately need to binge Barry as soon as possible. Watch it on HBO Max.

2. Atlanta (FX/Hulu)

Well, guess what: Atlanta is back, four years since its second season and just as ready and willing to throw you for a loop. Earn and Paper Boi and Darius are still off in Europe on that tour they were en route to way back then, but there are detours and flights of fancy and all the other weird, stunning, inventive stuff that made (and makes) this one of our greatest shows. Donald Glover and this crew are pretty good at this stuff. It’s great to have them back. Watch it on Hulu.

1. Better Call Saul (Netflix, AMC)

Better Call Saul is back, soon, finally, after an extended layoff. It remains one of our greatest shows, a ball of tension and comedy, the former of which is amped up even more as it heads into its final season. What will happen to Kim? What will happen to Nacho and Lalo? The Breaking Bad timeline is rapidly approaching and it’s time to answer these questions once and for all. It’s okay to be nervous. We’re nervous, too. Take some time for a quick Season 5 rewatch on Netflix and then strap in for the new episodes on AMC Plus

In 2020, it looked like Janelle Monáe had come out as non-binary after tweeting “#IAmNonBinary.” They later clarified in an interview, though, “I tweeted the #IAmNonbinary hashtag in support of Nonbinary Day and to bring more awareness to the community. I retweeted the Steven Universe meme, ‘Are you a boy or a girl? I’m an experience,’ because it resonated with me, especially as someone who has pushed boundaries of gender since the beginning of my career. I feel my feminine energy, my masculine energy, and energy I can’t even explain.”

However, now, Monáe has gone ahead and declared as directly as possible that they are in fact non-binary: In a new Red Table Talk interview (as Billboard notes), Monáe told Jada Pinkett Smith, “I’m non-binary, so I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely. I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘he’ or the ‘she,’ and if I am from God, I am everything.”

Monáe continued, “I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women, but I just see everything that I am, beyond the binary.”

Monáe also discussed why they decided to come out now, saying, “Somebody said, ‘If you don’t work out the things that you need to work out first before sharing it with the world, then you’re going to be working it out with the world.’ That’s what I didn’t want to do.”

Watch the full Red Table Talk episode here.

In recent years, it has seemed that musical content in hip-hop and R&B has been firmly divided by genre – and gender. Hip-hop gets to be the sole domain of men with toxic narratives driven by rappers like Drake and Future. They play aloof and apathetic toward the women in their lives, gaslighting them for being hoes while loudly proclaiming they’ll never settle down themselves. Meanwhile, it’s the women in R&B, like Grammy winner Jazmine Sullivan and Summer Walker, who have to play the fed-up victims of men’s mind games. Seemingly every song sounds wounded — or barring that, encouraging women to recover from the wounds inflicted on them by destructive relationships.

Kali, the 21-year-old Atlanta rapper who won viral fame thanks to beloved clips of her songs on TikTok, is dead set on upending this particular convention in Black music. In March, she unleashed her major-label debut EP, Toxic Chocolate, pointedly reversing the dynamic and staking a claim on space for women in the toxicity conversation in hip-hop. “If somebody think they going to play games with me,” she explains of the EP’s contrarian philosophy, “I’m going to show you, look, I’m competitive, and you’re going to lose this game, sir, ma’am, anybody. It’s just, like, put your foot down. The girls need to get their power back.”

That’s what she does on the EP with songs like “UonU,” a role reversal anthem that would make Michael Scott proud – oh, how the turntables… etc. There’s also “Standards,” which finds the young rapper drawing her line in the sand and demanding consistency from the men she deals with. And on the EP’s title track, she offers the following flippant missive: “I’m really in love, I ain’t really toxic / Just playin’, I’m lying / Fuck on the side, oh he throwing up crying.” Kali’s debut is what would happen if Megan Thee Stallion got stuck in the Brundle teleporter with Future while Destiny’s Child’s “Independent Women” played in the background.

Of course, she doesn’t see it that way. For her, it’s just about flipping those sad songs into veritable bangers, slathered with a greasy layer of Southern crunk. “I always hear girls, even myself… We’d be like, ‘Oh, I would never, I wouldn’t do him like that.’ But, we got enough music telling us that, enough sad music to cry about. It’s time to just be like, ‘You know what? He did it to you, why you can’t do it to him?’ Summer Walker’s stuff had just came out. Everybody sliding down walls, and crying. It was just like, ‘No, that’s not the vibes anymore.’ Do that man how he did you. Let’s see who can really take it.”

If this seems like a prescient outlook for someone who just reached drinking age, well, it is. But Kali has always been precocious, starting her rap career at the age of just 12 years old after writing down her pre-teen feelings in a journal and earning the right to her own bedroom by meeting her father’s challenge of writing a full album’s worth of rap songs to the beats he made at home. Through high school, she pursued soccer to avoid her parents’ scrutiny over her subject matter, but upon graduation returned to her first love: rapping. After a brush with early stardom thanks to an audition on Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow, Kali overcame a few more early career setbacks to achieve viral fame when she uploaded her song “Do A Bitch” to TikTok in late 2020.

That song, which she later remixed with Rico Nasty, laid the groundwork for her next viral single, “MMM MMM,” to truly take off. “My first reaction [to the song going viral] was, ‘I did it again,’” she recalls. “‘I’m doing it again, y’all.’ I can say, ‘I got the plan, I just need the platform.’” The platform came just a few weeks later when fellow Atlanta rapper Latto reached out to her to jump on the remix. There likely couldn’t be a better candidate; aside from sharing a hometown, the two rappers both started their rap careers young, both garnered a bit of initial attention thanks to a reality TV rap competition, and both were given the co-sign of an older, more established artist – the very epitome of paying it forward.

Latto continued to pay it forward, recruiting Kali to her first-ever headlining tour. At the stop in Los Angeles, I got to see the impact of Kali’s music firsthand as the sold-out crowd at the Novo recited back her lyrics bar-for-impressively-witty-bar. “A lot of people have been telling me, ‘Kali, your tape is no-skips, straight through,’” she humblebrags. “‘I’ve listened to this every day straight through.’ Even being on tour, people knowing the words already – and it hasn’t even been that long, and I’ve only had like five shows – is super crazy to me, it makes me so happy. Every show, I see that one person that knows every song, word for word, and even a crowd singing along by the second hook, I’m like, ‘Oh, well y’all really is tuned in.’”

Kali admits that there’s been an adjustment to the newfound fame, but she’s already ready for more. “I want to do my own tour,” she muses. “I would love to do that. That’s why I’m putting in so much work on this one… I leave the show with a goal every day: Hopefully, someone left the show like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know Kali, but I’m going to look up more of her music.’ I just want to be super big. So whatever I got to do to be big, that’s what I’m going to do.” When I ask whether or not she accepts the claims that she’s rap’s women’s answer to Future, she demures.

“No, no, this is a toxic phase,” she laughs. “I’m just letting you all know, I don’t play games. This is not that. So, if you ever trying to shoot your shot, just make sure you listen to the tape first. Before you show me your A-S-S, I got you. But as soon as you do that, Toxic Chocolate will appear. And I would throw a toxic tantrum.”

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

Alec Baldwin has remained relatively quiet since the tragic shooting on the set of Rust last fall, which took the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Early on in the investigation, Baldwin was notoriously uncooperative with authorities, insisting he wasn’t guilty, but not giving up his phone for evidence.

Now, the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau have found that Baldwin was innocent in the matter, saying that he was not responsible for the errors that caused the shooting. The actor posted a poorly cropped notes app statement on his Instagram from his attorney:

We are grateful to the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau for investigating this matter. We appreciate that the report exonerates Mr. Baldwin by making clear that he believed the gun held only dummy rounds. Additionally, the report recognizes that Mr. Baldwin’s authority on the production was limited to approving script changes and creative casting. Mr. Baldwin had no authority over the matters that were the subject of the Bureau’s findings of violations, and we are pleased that the New Mexico officials have clarified these critical issues. We are confident that the individuals identified in the report will be held accountable for this tragedy.

Despite being cleared by the New Mexico OHSB, Baldwin still faces a wrongful death lawsuit from Hutchins’ husband. The set’s armorer has also sued the ammo supplier that provided the live rounds.

Hutchins was fatally shot on the set of Rust in October. Baldwin was allegedly holding the gun at the time, though he insisted he did not pull the trigger. Baldwin was seen heading back to work in February for the first time since the incident. Meanwhile, the lawyer representing Hutchins’ estate believes Baldwin’s refusal to take accountability is “shameful.“

Nicole Scherzinger has confused her old white men and in doing so, prolonged our chronic nightmare. The singing competition series The Masked Singer on FOX will let anyone be on the show, from judge and noted anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy, to former mayor of New York City and noted enemy of democracy Rudy Giuliani.

During Wednesday night’s episode of the seventh season of The Masked Singer, Rudy Giuliani, who performed as Jack in the Box, was unmasked. Fortunately, Giuliani’s reveal was not welcome. For his final song, Guliani, who helped proliferate former President Donald Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was “stolen,” sang “Bad to the Bone” horribly. At first, the judges who could not figure out who the singer was based on their clues were hyped, as they always are when a competitor is about to be unmasked. But things came crumbling down into chaos once everyone — including a horrified audience who did not sign up for this kind of chaos — realized Jack in the Box was Rudy Giuliani.

As if this reveal could not get any worse, confused judge Nicole Scherzinger turned to judge Ken Jeong and said, “is that Robert Duvall?”

After confirming to his confused, uninformed colleague that the unmasked man is certainly not revered character actor Robert Duvall, Jeong said, “I’m done,” and promptly exited the stage. Robert Duvall is an Academy Award-winning actor, known for his work in To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Godfather, Network, and Apocalypse Now.

Not that it’s important, but Giuliani explained that he came on The Masked Singer because he just had a granddaughter, which is an interesting way of saying “this was the only gig that I, an enemy to my own country, could get.” The show was filmed in January, and Deadline confirmed Giuliani was a participant in February.

On Wednesday night, Nicolas Cage made his first national talk show appearance in 14 years on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent star came loaded with the kind of stories that only Nic Cage can tell. After dazzling Kimmel with his shiny silver chrome suit, Cage talked about living in Las Vegas for the past 17 years. (He also admitted that he may have been there for “tax purposes.”) According to Cage, he had planted such firm roots in the “small town and big city” that he was all set to build a movie studio until a certain electric car maker screwed the whole deal.

Via IndieWire:

“I tried to get a movie studio built there, and then Elon Musk came in,” Cage said, “and all the money I got for the movie studio – I got $80 million — they put it into the Tesla cooperation. Which then, ironically, drained all the water out of the city.”

Cage joked, “I almost had it.”

If Cage is trying to make Musk so mad that he tries to buy him now, too, hats off. Solid plan. However, Cage followed up his tale of losing out on building a movie studio by regaling Kimmel with a gambling tale. While the actor says he’s not big on gambling, he did have a crazy hot streak in the Bahamas. The actor said he was just feeling the “mojo” that nothing could go wrong for him that night, so he headed to the Roulette table where he proceeded to turn $200 into $20,000 in 30 minutes.

However, Cage didn’t pocket the money or convert it into a dinosaur skull. Instead, he took the cash to a local orphanage, met all of the children, and slapped his winnings into the hands of the headmistress. After that, he said he’s never gambled again so he wouldn’t tarnish that special moment.

(Via IndieWire)

At HBO Max’s For Your Consideration event last night, kicking off Emmys season, the Euphoria cast made a glamorous appearance. Among the cast in attendance was Alexa Demie, who plays the scrappy Maddy Perez on the show.

Earlier this year, Demie was one of several actresses who allegedly auditioned for the upcoming Madonna biopic, among the likes of Bebe Rexha, Florence Pugh, and Julia Garner. The audition process was said to be thorough, with the actresses said to have gone through an intense boot camp to learn the choreography.

In an interview with Variety‘s Mark Malkin, Demie coyly shrugged when asked if she auditioned to play Madonna and went through the boot camp.

“Do you know who Madonna is?” Malkin playfully asked.

“Of course, I know who Madonna is,” Demie replied.

“Have you ever met Madonna?” He asked.

“Yes, I’ve met Madonna,” she replied. “She’s an icon.”

Malkin then proceeds to ask Demie what her favorite Madonna song is. Demie said, “There are so many. I really like this one that maybe not a lot of people know, called ‘I Want You.’ She has an orchestral version that’s amazing.”

“I Want You” is a cover of a Marvin Gaye song from his album of the same name. Madonna re-recorded the song with Massive Attack as part of a tribute album called Inner City Blues: The Music Of Marvin Gaye. The orchestral version appears on Madonna’s Something To Remember compilation album, containing several of Madge’s iconic ballads.

Also rumored to have auditioned for the Madonna biopic are fellow Euphoria actresses Sydney Sweeney, who plays Cassie Howard, and Barbie Ferreira, who plays Kat Hernandez.

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

Every move Dyson Daniels has made from the time he was 14 years old has been done with one goal in mind: making it to the NBA. From going to the NBA Global Academy at the Australian Institute of Sport to joining the NBA’s G League Ignite team ahead of its 2021-22 campaign, Daniels’ life has had one very clear objective.

This summer, that will all come to fruition. Daniels, a jumbo Australian guard, is expected to hear Adam Silver read his name early in the 2022 NBA Draft. He had a basketball in his hands from the time he was seven months old — according to his father, North Carolina native and Aussie hoops standout Ricky Daniels, he could only push it around the house — and while he’s gotten exponentially better at dribbling since then, the game has been such a constant in his life that it’s hard to imagine him doing anything else.

“I grew up playing basketball,” Daniels tells Dime. “I started when I was five years old. Dad played four years at NC State and then came up to Australia and played in the senior league in Australia. So for me, I’ve always been in basketball.”

Ricky played his basketball for the Bendigo Braves in the southeastern state of Victoria. He was named league MVP in the former Australian Basketball Association in 1999 and 2000 — Dyson was born a few years later — and in 2011, the club retired his number. A malleable, high IQ basketball player who played inside and out, Ricky would have a trio of fans in the stands who would cheer a little louder for him than the rest of the crowd — sons Dash, Dyson, and Kai.

After games, Ricky’s boys would make their way onto the floor and shoot around, even when that wasn’t always allowed.

“I think being around the basketball environment all the time, watching dad play, that made me love basketball more, and every time after he’d finish his game, we’d go shoot on the court after, even if we weren’t allowed to,” Dyson recalls. “We’d always have to get told off five times before we stopped shooting on the basketball court.”

While basketball was the first (and lasting) love, Daniels dabbled in a bit of everything throughout the sports calendar. There was cricket and tennis — the latter was the sport his mom, Brikitta, played. He credits soccer for helping him develop the lateral quickness that has turned him into a promising defensive prospect, and while he played Aussie rules until he was a teenager, he ultimately decided to focus his time and energy into playing hoops. He suited up for Victoria’s under-12 state team alongside his friend Josh Giddey, won a silver medal, and has been racking up appearances with state teams of various age levels and appearances for Australian youth national teams ever since.

At 15, Daniels signed a professional contract with the Braves, taking the floor for the team that has his father’s name and number hanging above it. A year later and he went to the NBA Global Academy’s outpost at the Australian Institute of Sport, which presented a unique opportunity to learn how to play under the NBA’s umbrella.

“I knew I wanted to be there because if I wanted to take basketball to where I wanted to, which was NBA, I knew that that was the place that I had to get to get my best development,” he says. “And then I spent two years there where I got a lot, like really, really good development.”

That development opened up three doors when it came time to choose a next step. There was the path his dad traveled en route to a professional career, college basketball, a tried-and-true way for young athletes with aspirations of playing in the NBA to get to where they want to go. There was exploring opportunities with Australia’s top professional league, the National Basketball League, which in recent years has created a springboard to the NBA called the Next Stars program and has seen players like Giddey and LaMelo Ball become lottery picks.

And then, there’s the newest option of the bunch: the recently-formed NBA G League Ignite team. Launched in 2020 as a path for precocious basketball players with an eye on making it to the league, the Ignite team puts teenagers in a basketball-obsessed environment from the jump with the primary objective being their development.

While he stressed that there would have been benefits to the NBL or college basketball, going to a place so hyper-focused on his development appealed Daniels, as did getting the chance to sit down with G League president Shareef Abdur-Rahim and the Ignite team’s coaches. While he was hired a few months after Daniels decided to join the team, Ignite head coach Jason Hart has a theory for why it’s an appealing destination for players of Daniels’ caliber.

“You only come here if you think you have what it takes, obviously, to be a pro,” Hart says. “And that’s very important. Because if you have any self-doubt, this is not the place for you. So all these young guys that are here, they feel a certain way about themselves.

“Now, just because you’re young, and you’re not ready to be a pro at 18, that doesn’t mean you won’t become an NBA player,” he continues. “I mean, Tim Duncan was in college for four years. So these guys are just a step ahead of those guys, because they believe they’re pros, and right now they’re more physically gifted than the majority of the kids in college at their age.”

From the first time he watched Daniels go through a skill workout and saw a 6’6 player with guard skills, Hart knew he was working with a potentially special basketball player. While the physical tools are easy to see, for Hart, it’s been Daniels’ mentality and workmanlike approach that have impressed him the most.

“The thing that stands out for Dyson and his teammates is that they’re so professional, they come to work every day, and they’re dependable,” Hart says. “And one thing you have to be in the NBA is those things: dependable, and you have to have availability, meaning not hurt a lot. He brings that to the table every day, and for that to be done at such a young age is pretty remarkable.”

In Daniels’ eyes, the bet he has made that the Ignite team would place his development at the forefront of his experience has paid off. Getting tossed into games with NBA officiating, NBA rules, NBA coaches, and most importantly, NBA players gave him the wake-up call that comes for many young players: he had to work on getting stronger. But beyond that, Daniels learned that he had to be able to take the strength he’d build up and apply it on the basketball court.

In the first few games, the physicality and ball pressure he faced from defenders made him realize he needed to work on tightening up his handle. Getting to the rim and finishing through contact would be huge, too. Under the careful eyes of Rod Strickland, the team’s program manager, and Thomas Scott, its head of player development, Daniels believes those skills have come a long way from the time he joined the club. Hart identifies his ability to handle the ball when asked to name Daniels’ biggest area of improvement from day one.

He’s still working on his shooting, believing in his mechanics and is driven to become a “great shooter,” although he is quick to mention, “I don’t think I’m a bad shooter, but it’s definitely something that I need to work on.” There’s still plenty of faith in his ability to make things happen on offense in the meantime, particularly when he’s getting downhill and using his feel as a passer to set up his opponents or his floater as a way to score.

Daniels’ greatest impact, though, comes on the other end of the floor. Hart lavishes praise onto his young guard’s defense, saying his ability to pester opponents is his best attribute. When asked about the players he likes to study the closest, Daniels immediately jumps to Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton as a fellow jumbo playmaker and Chicago’s Alex Caruso for his ability to read the game and move his feet to stay in front of opposing players.

“He’s a premier defensive guard,” Hart says. “I think he’s one of the best defensive guards in the whole draft. So, I think that’s what the scouts are enamored with, his innate ability to guard the ball on and off.”

For Daniels, the challenge of being able to turn defense into offense and check players revered for their ability to win games is something he relishes.

“I’m first and foremost a defender,” he says. “I like to lock people up, guard the best player every night, get deflections, get steals, and offense is a lot easier if you play good defense. You’re able to get out and run, you don’t have to run plays and stuff like that.”

For a young player like Daniels, being in a professional environment has some advantages in accelerating his maturation process as well. He admits to dwelling on off nights too much, at times losing sleep over them, but is learning how to navigate the ups and downs of a professional season by keeping an even keel. Daniels lauds the coaches and players around him who are able to uplift him when he goes through a rough patch, and notes he’s able to contact one of the team’s mental health professionals if need be. And beyond those resources provided by the Ignite, he can always count on the expertise of the guy who’s been there with him from the jump.

“That’s when he gets a text from dad that says, ‘Let it go, move on to the next game,’” Ricky says with a smile.

Daniels is the kind of player who will never be satisfied with where he is. A gym and film junkie who loves learning about the game just as much as he loves getting extra shots up after practice, Daniels’ dreams have evolved considerably from the time he was a 14 year old hoping to make it to the NBA.

That is, for all intents and purposes, going to happen, so he’s set a new goal: he wants to be great. At the 2022 NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland, Daniels participated in the Rising Star game on Friday night, then got to take in the festivities on Saturday and Sunday. He made it a point to get “used to the feeling of the norm of what it’s like to be at an All-Star weekend,” and while the bitter cold of Cleveland was a bit of a nuisance, he plans on participating in the NBA’s premier midseason event as his career goes on.

It’s very easy to say he’s going to accomplish that, it’s another thing to actually do it. But after spending a season around him, Hart is confident that Daniels’ desire to succeed at the highest level is the sort of thing that gives him a chance to stick around and potentially win a championship some day.

Less than a decade ago, when the average episode of Game of Thrones cost $6 million, co-showrunners Dave Benioff and D.B. Weiss had to practically beg HBO for an extra $2 million to make “Blackwater” as epic as they imagined it. How quaint. By the final season, every episode of Thrones had a $15 million price tag. The Mandalorian is also around $15 million, while Disney+’s Marvel Cinematic Universe shows like WandaVision, Loki, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reportedly have a $25 million budget.

Stranger Things is about to blow them out of the (Black)water (Bay). In a fascinating article about how Netflix‘s days of “carefree spending” might be over, the Wall Street Journal revealed how much every episode of the sci-fi show’s fourth season will cost.

The holy grail for Netflix is to find shows like Squid Game that are inexpensive and yet become hits. Virgin River, at a cost of roughly $3 million per episode, is a relatively low-budget soap opera with no big stars, but has been a huge success for Netflix. That means it is more efficient than pop-culture hit Bridgerton, which costs more than three times as much, say people familiar with the streamer’s efficiency measurement. Under-the-radar, relatively low-cost hits are necessary to balance out the costs for big-ticket programming such as the special-effects-filled show Stranger Things, whose new season has a per-episode cost of $30 million, according to people close to the show.

At $30 million/episode, Stranger Things doesn’t appear to cost that much more than Loki‘s $25 million. But the difference is that Loki season one was only six episodes long; season four of Stranger Things has nine episodes. A single episode of Stranger Things costs as much as the last three Best Picture winners combined. That’s some Lord of the Rings-level spending.

Stranger Things returns for season four on May 27.

(Via the Wall Street Journal)