Disclaimer: While all of the products recommended here were chosen independently by our editorial staff, Uproxx may receive payment to direct readers to certain retail vendors who are offering these products for purchase.

Welcome to SNX DLX, your weekly roundup of the best sneakers to hit the internet. We’ve finally made it through the month of January which means we’re just a few weeks away from our first sneaker event of the year — Valentine’s Day. We need it, desperately — the fire drops have been seriously lacking this year, so hopefully, the holiday brings all sorts of pink, red, and white colorways and unexpected collabs from the big brands.

Another Strangelove Nike SB Dunk? Yes, please! The sneaker world loves an event to rally around.

This week follows last week’s trend of being a little lighter than we’d like. We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here, we’re still sorting out the gems from the trash but we won’t lie to you, things have been grim for sneakerheads. Luckily we have a few dope New Balance drops and Pharrell to save us!

Nike LeBron 19 Polarized Blue and Crimson Bliss

We never thought we’d say this but… LeBron is saving the sneaker season. I’ve made it no secret that so far 2022 has fumbled out the gate providing a shortage of dope sneaker drops. LeBron has been holding up the month singlehandedly, and his best this month is this week’s Polarized Blue and Crimson Bliss LeBron 19.

The sneaker features a snug fit inner sleeve, ankle aligning pods embedded into the upper with an intricate paneled overlay that combines translucent materials with TPE accents. Like all of LeBron’s sneakers, the color palette here is vibrant, combining teal shades with speckled black and primary color outsoles.

The Nike LeBron 19 Polarized Blue and Crimson Bliss is out now for a retail price of $200. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

New Balance 1500 GID

Looking for a New Balance night runner? You can’t go wrong with this glow-in-the-dark rendition of the 1500. This England-made pair features a mesh and suede upper with leather paneling dressed in purple, white and black tones and features reflective accents at the heel over a full-length glow in the dark sole.

It combines a futuristic design with a classic dad shoe shape.

The New Balance 1500 GID is out now for a retail price of $234.67. Pick up a pair at Urban Industry.

Nike Dunk High Retro White/Black

If you’re looking for a classic Dunk, Nike is finally doing a refresh of the sneakers simple white black colorway The sneaker features a padded high collar with shiny leather overlays over a pure white leather upper. It’s simple, not worthy of internet-breaking hype, but a classic that will do well in your rotation.

The Nike Dunk High Retro White/Black is set to drop on January 27th for a retail price of $115. Pick up a pair at Nike or aftermarket sites like Flight Club.

New Balance 550 Varsity Blue/Varsity Orange

The New Balance 550 is now one of the brand’s most popular silhouettes, if not the most popular. This sneaker looks good in almost every color it’s sold in, but few colorways are stronger than Varsity Blue. Or so I thought until I saw this Varsity Orange colorway.

The sneaker features a Simon leather upper with orange or blue accents over a matching outsole.

The New Balance 550 University Blue/ University Orange are set to drop on January 27th for a retail price of $144. Pick up a pair at Asphalt Gold.

Adidas x Pharrell Williams HUMANRACE Sičhona

We haven’t been this hyped for a Pharrell-designed sneaker in a while but what can I say? I’m a sucker for yellow sneakers and Pharrell’s Sičhona is a pretty dope silhouette.

This ultra-flexible sneaker features a Primeknit upper with Adidas’ Futurenatural technology, which allows for increased mobility and sits above a polyurethane midsole with textile accents over a synthetic outsole.

The Adidas x Pharrell Williams HUMANRACE Sičhona is set to drop on January 28th for a retail price of $180. Pick up a pair via the Adidas Confirmed app.

Atmos x New Balance 327 Realtree Camo

The 327 is getting the camo treatment! Made in collaboration with Japanese retailer Atmos, this 327 features a cordura upper with suede overlays, a textured heel, and a graphic tree print. The colorway combines autumnal tones with a black N logo and outsole, and a milky off-white midsole and matching laces.

It’s just a really great-looking colorway, Atmos really knocked it out of the park with this one.

The Atmos x New Balance 327 Realtree is set to drop on January 29th for a retail price of $120. Pick up a pair exclusively at Atmos’ website or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.

Some of you straight up don’t know how to make a burrito. I’ve seen you in that Chipotle line, f*cking everything up for yourself. I’ve waited patiently behind several of these burrito f*ck ups, suffering in polite silence. I’ve seen friends do it, strangers, family! I swear some of you have never eaten a burrito with the way you build these things up. I don’t say this as some sort of magical authority on burritos. I, for the record, think there are a lot of ways to make a burrito and a great burrito comes in many forms. But not at Chipotle.

At Chipotle there is really only one way to make a burrito. And now I’m going to tell you how.

Where do I get off telling you how to make your burrito? Because I care that much. I spend every week deep-diving into the world of fast food, separating the good stuff from the trash, and I don’t want you wasting any more money. I’ve also eaten a lot of burritos. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, arguably the burrito capital of the world. My whole life I’ve been a stone’s throw away from great burritos, I’ve had them at family parties, friends’ houses, and the best taquerias in the city and state. I live for burritos. From San Diego to San Francisco, this state is full of unique and delicious burritos and I know them all — mission, cali, double-wrap… my expertise is impeccable.

So let me help you make your Chipotle burrito experience as delicious as possible. Because I’ve analyzed the menu to an almost unhealthy degree and I think I’ve unlocked the best burrito build.

Some Guidelines

To achieve the best burrito build it’s important to understand what Chipotle is. It’s not really the build your own burrito bar it pretends to be. It’s based entirely on the Mission Burrito, which originated in San Francisco’s Mission District. We could write a whole article on the rich and debated history of the Mission burrito (in fact, we have!). It’s fascinating! But that’s not what we’re here to do right now. Friend of the site Gustavo Arellano wrote a great piece on it for Eater. Read that for the history, read this for the best burrito.

To be brief, what makes a Mission burrito a Mission burrito is a giant steamed tortilla packed with rice, beans, meat, cheese, sour cream, salsa, fresh avocado, and lettuce and wrapped in aluminum foil. Sound familiar?

Before we get started, here are some simple guidelines that’ll help your burrito whether you make it my way or not (but you should make it my way).

Keep It Slim:

This is the biggest problem with most of the burritos I see being made at Chipotle. Stop trying to fit everything in it, just because Chipotle has something, doesn’t mean you need to include it, especially if you’re asking for “extra” anything. Meat, beans, rice, fajitas, sour cream, salsa, corn salsa, lettuce, queso, cheese, guacamole — you’re setting yourself up for a disaster. For your ingredients to shine, you need to give the flavors space to be tasted.

If the only way to make your burrito work is to double wrap it… you f*cked up.

Keep It Dry:

A burrito can only handle so much moisture, so you should keep that in mind while building your burrito. If you get beans, queso, sour cream, two types of salsa, and guacamole, the person rolling your burrito is going to have a problem making it work and they’ve probably roasted you on r/Chipotle.

The aim should be to create as little mush as possible or else that liquid build-up will rupture your tortilla. If you’ve ever eaten a Chipotle burrito and at one point you end up finishing it with a fork… you f*cked up.

Know The Flavors:

Chipotle overuses lime and onion. There is lime in the rice, and the guacamole, and onions in the fajitas, guacamole, and most of the salsa. On their own, you’d never notice the overuse, but when they combine in your burrito they compound together and create an overly sour and onion-forward flavor.

It’s the way Chipotle hides that their food lacks flavor. In fact, my biggest gripe with Chipotle is that the chain’s food all tastes like it was conceived in a vacuum, there is no harmony between the flavors. They taste good on their own, but together, the balance is all messed up. That’s what makes a real Mission-style burrito or a burrito from your local taqueria superior, the flavors have character. Chipotle has none, so you need to take that into account.

If your burrito ever makes you wince when you bite into it or leaves your breath smelling like you bit into a whole onion… you f*cked up.

Go Inside:

I know it’s a bit more inconvenient, but your burrito will come out better if it’s made in front of you. Every. Time. I know this isn’t always possible, but if you can, definitely go inside and order. Plus your burrito will be hotter. Burritos taste best when they’re hot.

If your cheese has re-solidified in your burrito… you f*cked up.

The Build

1. The Beans:

Pinto. Go pinto every time. The pinto beans are tender with a creamy inside and are considerably spicier than the black beans. They actually taste seasoned! The black beans by comparison are bland and in general, not as soft. They have a bit more of a bite to them, it doesn’t really work for a burrito. In a perfect world, you’d be able to add whole and refried beans. But we’re not in a perfect world, we’re at Chipotle — so… pinto for the win!

2. The Rice:

This is simple, white rice. Brown rice is healthier, sure, but if you want a better-tasting burrito you need to go with white rice because the flavor is less earthy and distracting and the texture isn’t as gummy.

Rice in a burrito is more about texture than flavor, the white rice tastes more neutral, so it’s our pick.

3. The Meat:

Get the barbacoa. Look, you can get any type of meat you want, but I’ve tasted and ranked each of Chipotle’s protein options and thought very deeply about which option has the best flavor and it’s the barbacoa, no contest. It has a wonderful tender texture that practically bursts with savory goodness each time you bite into it and it’s way less dry than the chicken, steak, and carnitas.

There is some actual flavor here, notes of oregano, clove, and bay leaf add a lot of earthiness. Not the silkiest and most sumptuous barbacoa you’ll ever have, but Chipotle’s best protein by a mile.

If you don’t eat meat, Chipotle’s new plant-based Chorizo easily beats the Sofritas.

4. Fajitas:

Skip them. I know, it’s shocking because the fajitas add some delicious aromatics to the whole dish, but ultimately they end up diluting the flavor of the barbacoa. You don’t want that, fajitas work a lot better on top of Chipotle’s salad, bowls, and tacos than they do in a burrito.

5. Salsa:

Consider ordering your salsa on the side. Nothing is lost by ordering it on the side, instead, it makes your burrito a whole lot less wet (keep it dry!) and allows you to portion out the perfect amount per bite.

I think when it comes to choosing a salsa, like the meat, there is some flexibility here. I love Chipotle’s tomatillo-green chili salsa, but it’s a bit too onion-y and sour, and we already have those notes covered once we add the guac. So I suggest the tomatillo-red, it adds an earthy, slightly floral, and smokey flavor to your burrito. It’s the spiciest sauce Chipotle has and the most complex.

6.Sour Cream:

Skip it. If you love sour cream go ahead and get it on the side and dip your burrito in it before putting on the salsa, but something has to be compromised in this burrito, you can’t have it all (keep it slim!).

7. Cheese + Lettuce:

Get them. It’s a Mission-style burrito, it’s supposed to have lettuce, it’s their thing. And it’s going to add needed texture. As for the cheese… I shouldn’t have to tell you to put cheese in a damn burrito.

8. Guacamole:

This is what we’ve been working towards. The reason I’ve had you skip the sour cream, get the salsa on the side, and avoid the queso is to make room for the guacamole. The best Mission-style burritos I’ve had were made with fresh avocado, which is more structurally sound and less mushy than guacamole. You don’t have that luxury at Chipotle, so we had to make room for this necessary ingredient by ditching everything else that creates mush and moisture (except, of course, the beans). This is why sour cream had to be left on the cutting room floor.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

If you’ve followed these steps, your burrito should look like, well, a burrito, not some weird tortilla boulder that needs two foils or tortillas to wrap. It also won’t explode all over your hands while you eat it.

Tasting Notes

A touch of sweetness from the barbacoa hits you followed by an immediate burn across the palate courtesy of a healthy dab of salsa. The heat starts to dilute once the ingredients combine through your chewing, easing back and introducing the creamy-earthy flavors supplied by the meat’s marinade and the beans.

Crisp lettuce and rice help to create a mouthfeel that isn’t overly mushy, which allows the guacamole in all its onion-y and lime-y glory to really shine as your burrito’s softest substance. You’ll be thankful you skipped the fajitas and corn salsa, this is all the onion you need in this baby.

Take note of how many ingredients I left out of this burrito. And it’s still gargantuan! But it’s balanced, and that’s what a great burrito is all about.

The Bottom Line:

This is the best way to make a burrito at Chipotle. Look, at the end of the day you might not agree with me, but at the very least I hope you use my advice as a springboard for creating your own burrito masterpiece at the embattled chain. And then we can put our burritos head to head.

Spoiler: I’ll win. This is as good as Chipotle gets — trust me, I’m an expert.

Click to download here.

And You May Find Yourself in Johnny Sack’s House

Lend us your ears, ye piggies. Matt and Vince are joined by writer, host of the Hysteria podcast, and Janice Soprano apologist Erin Ryan, to talk about episode 10 of The Sopranos season 6A, “Moe n’ Joe.”

The episode, written by Mad Men creator and father of M. Holden Weiner, Matthew Weiner, features both a recreation of Led Zeppelin album cover using Sal the lawnmower man, and visual gag using a model train entering a tunnel as a metaphor for gay sex. This Weiner is a “mad man” indeed!

Tony Soprano is both a man and mad at all times. This week he’s mad at Bobby for Janice reasons, at Janice because she’s Janice, and at Johnny Sack for talking about that thing of theirs to the prosecutors. The result is a rare combination of spite and grace to screw Johnny out of his house and give it to Janice. At least Janice, and by extension, Erin get something they want.

Another thing Erin wants: to warn Gen Z about the perils of bringing back Y2K fashion. If you can hear her words over the sound of your puka shells rustling and your Slipknot track jacket swishing, please heed her warning.

Tell Matt what you think about his Mickey Mouse impersonation in a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe to Pod Yourself A Gun on Apple Podcasts

Email us at [email protected]; leave us a voicemail at 415-275-0030

Support the Pod: become a patron at patreon.com/Frotcast and get more bonus content than you could ever want, AND if you sign up for the Pod Yourself a Shoutout tier, you can bask in the glory of hearing your name on the podcast like this week’s newest members: Jaeger, The Gooze, DeTrolio, In Living Color, The Flunky, Jackie Two Shoes, Who’s Your Guys, and Kenley Bidding War.

-Description by Brent Flyberg.

The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Kyle, NLE Choppa, Saba, and more.

Whew, what a week. In addition to videos for Denzel Curry’s “Walkin,” Gucci Mane and Lil Durk’s “Rumors,” and Blxst’s “About You,” we got a flurry of new music from Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J (“Backseat” with Project Pat) and Yella Beezy (“Talk My Sh*t“).

Friday saw the releases of Coi Leray’s “Anxiety,” Benny The Butcher’s stellar “Johnny P’s Caddy” and featuring J. Cole, and Quavo’s “Shooters Inside My Crib” along with the releases listed below.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending January 28, 2022.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

Babyface Ray — Face

The Detroit rapper has made a name for himself over the past year, working with the likes of Big Sean, Hit-Boy, Jack Harlow, and Lil Yachty. Today, he dropped his debut project on Empire with features from 42 Dugg, G Herbo, Icewear Vezzo, Pusha T, and more. Babyface Ray has officially arrived.

BlocBoy JB — Bacc 2 Da Blocc

A few years removed from his breakout single “Look Alive” featuring Drake, things haven’t quite panned out for BlocBoy. The Memphis rapper still has the star power to carry a project provided the right partnerships though, and there’s no greater producer for him to pair with than Tay Keith, who EPs major-label debut for Interscope.

Doe Boy — Oh Really?

Freebandz rapper Doe Boy spreads his wings on his new album, stepping out from Future’s shadow to prove that he can be a star in his own right. He certainly has superstar connections, tapping everyone from fellow rising stars 42 Dugg and Nardo Wick to booming superstars Roddy RIcch and Ty Dolla Sign.

Dro Kenji — With Or Without You

Parlaying his association with Internet Money into a crisp-sounding full-length project, the melodic South Carolina rapper makes a declaration of independence on the follow-up to his 2020 debut Tears And Pistols. It might rub purists the wrong way, but this is the sound of rap radio in 2022 and Dro comfortably goes with the grain.

Kyle — It’s Not So Bad

On his first album since splitting with Atlantic, Kyle taps into his “R&B Kyle” persona for an 11-song collection of thoughts on love. Released as an NFT, It’s Not So Bad sees Kyle settling back into the driver’s seat of his own career and pulling from a variety of inspirations, including early-2000s pond-hopping crooner Craig David, who guests on “Unreplaceable” after getting sampled on “Sunday.”

NLE Choppa — Me Vs Me

Choppa goes for the soft reboot on his latest after recalibrating from the raucous teen upstart of his debut project into more of a spiritualist life coach in the past couple of years. However, he still shows he’s capable of tapping the troublemaking tendencies of his past to make compelling club bangers amid his more introspective moments.

Singles/Videos

AZ– “This Is Mine”

Look here: I am a sucker for Golden Era hip-hop and any artist from back then who manages to avoid sounding dating, bitter, or problematic as the world evolves around them. AZ may as well still be the 19-year-old Brooklynite who stole “Life’s A Bitch” from under Nas, rhyming as naturally and smoothly as most of us draw breath.

Joey Badass — “Temptation”

This week, I’m choosing to ignore Joey’s more headline-grabbing antics in favor of highlighting his musical output. Produced by Statik Selektah, Joey’s latest single once again mines the throwback Golden Era sound that helped him make his name, and… well, see the previous blurb for my feelings about that.

Kenny Muney — “Role Model”

Another single from PRE’s loving dedication, Long Live Dolph, “Role Model” finds Kenny holding up his mentor as the standard he’s bound to keep pursuing as he and his labelmates work to find their way in the rap game without their stalwart captain.

Method Man — “The Last 2 Minutes”

Another Golden Era vet who refuses to age, Method Man has been doing two things since the Wu’s heyday: Staying out of trouble and rapping his ass off. I’m okay with this. Keep going.

Pink Siifu — “Wayans Bros.” feat Peso Gordon

Pink Siifu is one of generation of rising rappers and producers from the internet’s primordial underground who blends sensibilities from all genres and regions of rap to form a compelling melange of styles and aesthetics that defies both boundaries and expectations. “Wayans Bros.” is a fine example.

Saba — “Survivor’s Guilt” feat. G Herbo

When I asked Saba about bridging the supposed gap between the two most prominent styles of Chicago rap with this song, he told me, “I think it’s not that it’s really two sides to Chicago. It’s two perspectives of Chicago… We’ve got a lot of the same influences. Just because you make one thing doesn’t mean you can’t be inspired by something else, so I think it’s all a matter of perspective.” Well said.

Sada Baby — “Sada Wada”

Detroit rapper Sada Baby’s momentum slowed up — in large part, through his own efforts — but he’s still one of his city’s most captivating rising stars when he focuses on capturing the unhibited energy of his breakthrough hit “Bloxk Party.”

Travis Thompson — “Psycho”

My soft spot for Seattle super spitter Travis Thompson remains intact, and Travis keeps rewarding my enthusiasm with joints like this that display both his pop songwriting sensibilities and slick-tongued wit.

Your Old Droog & Tha God Fahim — “No Days Off”

Of the two tracks that the two underground rappers released this week ahead of their new joint project Tha Wolf On Wall St 2: The American Dream (which also dropped today), this one was my favorite, but only by a hair. The beats are lush and soulful, the rhymes and dextrous and daring, and the whole project fits into a breezy 22-minute runtime — all things that recommend it for repeated plays.

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

Teachers are heroes under normal circumstances. During a pandemic that has upended life as we know it, they are honest-to-goodness, bona fide superheroes.

The juggling of school and COVID-19 has been incredibly challenging, creating friction between officials, administrators, teachers, unions, parents and the public at large. Everyone has different opinions about what should and shouldn’t be done, which sometimes conflict with what can and cannot be done and don’t always line up with what is and isn’t being done, and the result is that everyone is just … done.

And as is usually the case with education-related controversies, teachers are taking the brunt of it. Their calls for safe school policies have been met with claims that kids aren’t at risk of severe COVID, as if teachers’ health and well-being are expendable. Parents’ frustrations with remote or hybrid learning are taken out on the teachers who are constantly scrambling to adjust to ever-changing circumstances that make everything about teaching more complicated.

Superheroes, seriously.

But as Toledo, Ohio high school teacher Katie Peters says, teachers aren’t looking for accolades. They’re doing the jobs they love, even though they’re incredibly difficult right now. What they do need is for people to understand what a teacher’s day looks like and to extend them some grace.

Peters’ TikTok video describing what she did one day as a teacher in addition to the six classes she taught has been viewed more than 2.5 million times.

After sharing that she taught six periods and subbed during her planning period, she said, “I helped a young man find safe housing. I found a winter coat for a girl who didn’t have one. I located a student’s missing backpack and arranged for a Chromebook replacement for that student. I gave a student a little bit of cash for a haircut and made sure another student had enough food to last them through the weekend.”

She also comforted a student who had cramps, supported a student who was going through his first heartbreak, saved a student’s art project with some super glue, walked a student to class so they wouldn’t feel alone and wrote a card for a student who was struggling.

That was just during the school day.

After school, she had a meeting, tutored a student, then wrote a college recommendation letter for a student who brought her the request the day before it was due.

Then she spent four hours at home planning “fun, inviting, exciting lesson plans that could, at the drop of a hat, need to go virtual without any warning.”

But Peters said she didn’t want a single accolade. “No teacher I know wants a pat on the back or gratitude,” she said. “What they do need is grace.” She pointed out that doing all of these things are what teachers love to do and what fulfills them. But it’s also why they’re tired. The pandemic has made everything harder.

Peters said a piece of her was shattered when she read a comment in a community forum about her district going back to in-person learning, “Oh, it’s nice the teachers decided to work again.” As if teachers have not been working the hardest they ever have during all of the pandemic upheaval? Please.

“Nobody, in the history of ever, has been motivated by ugly,” she said. “Loving kids is the purest form of beauty that exists—and it’s always going to beat your ugly.”

Well said.

Peters told TODAY that negative comments make teachers feel defeated, which impacts their job. “I’m not sure how much people realize that their words carry over into our ability to care for their children,” Peters said. “We need you to hold space for us and understand that we are doing our best given the circumstances.”

People loved Peters’ honest and heartfelt account of what teachers are experiencing and what they really need from the rest of us right now. Grace. Patience. Understanding. Not ugliness or blame.

If anyone who isn’t a teacher has something negative to say and thinks they could handle the job better, they are more than welcome to get their teacher training education and certification and try their hand at it. Otherwise, give teachers the respect they deserve and the grace they so desperately need right now as they try to keep their hole-filled lifeboats afloat with paperclips and a hot glue gun.

Teachers, we see you. We’ve got your back. Hang in there.

So, I’ve been pulling together these weekly roundups of goodness for several months, and I’ve noticed some common themes emerging in the things that tend to bring us joy:

1. Animals. Always.

2. Children. Kids are often hilarious.

3. Older folks. Our elders have much to teach us about embracing life.

4. The arts. Few things universally bring people together like enjoying creative expression.

Practically every “10 things that made us smile this week” post so far has been dominated by these categories, with zero intention for that to be the case. And this week’s list is no exception. Animals, kids, elders and arts. That appears to be where most of our small daily joys can be found.

I’m sure we could delve into the deeper reasons for each of those things, but do we need to? Nah. But if people are looking for a quick shot of happy hormones, perhaps that’s where they should be looking.

Thankfully, you can find those things right here, every Friday. I truly hope you love this week’s collection of smileworthy, joyworthy, delightworthy tidbits from around the internet. Enjoy!

5-year-old gives his mom advice for overcoming nerves. It’s both adorable and spot-on.

See on Instagram

Twitter user @EPrecipice shared an exchange she had with her son, and it’s the best. Click the side arrows to scroll through and see his advice. Totally going to steal “I am brave of this meeting!” “Don’t put a skunk on a bus” seems like a solid bit of wisdom. And I’m definitely going to start thinking about the donuts of my day whenever I’m feeling down.

Seven seconds of the world’s most adorable kitten.

literally everyone needs to see this videopic.twitter.com/8v71gwqMxr

— Qwobby (@Qwobby)
1643139633

They’re right. Literally everyone needs this.

Golden retriever meets new puppy and offers it a gift. 

Doggone it, this is cute. When big doggo gives little puppo the stuffed toy? Stop it. It’s too much.

Life is hard, and so we dance.

The situation with my mom (cancer and heart) and my dadu2019s (Parkinsonu2019s and dementia) health has been making me so sad. I wish I could be with them right now. So my sister sent a video of them together tonight, dancing to Neil Young. Take a moment to love your loved ones.pic.twitter.com/y2fBu26NlP

— Holli (@Holli)
1642899068

It’s the little things. And the love. Just beautiful.

Seniors enjoy some childlike thrills with an indoor inner tube ride.

We all need fun in our lives, regardless of our age or stage in life. How delightful that these residents of the StoryPoint Saline retirement community are getting this kind of care. Read the full story here.

The Gardiner Brothers tap dancing to Queen is thoroughly enjoyable. (SOUND UP)

Meet the @Gardiner_Bros again.pic.twitter.com/WEXqslT3Xg

— Don Winslow (@Don Winslow)
1643160537

What is it about the sound of tapping that’s so satisfying? Follow these five-time world champion Irish dancers, Matt and Mike Gardiner, here for more awesome performances.

The #BettyWhiteChallenge has raised more than $12.7 million for animal welfare.

Fans of Betty White wanted to do something special for what would have been her 100th birthday, which prompted a grassroots challenge to raise money for animal shelters and rescues in her name. Meta announced that more than $12.7 million was raised just through Facebook and Instagram donations alone. Read the story here.

World-class pianist regains the ability to play after 20 years, thanks to bionic gloves.

See on Instagram

Just watching his face as he plays tells the story. So beautiful. Technological innovation can be life-changing.

Woman interviews animals with a tiny mic and it’s oddly entertaining.

Maya Higa’s “tiny mic interviews” have become a hit on YouTube and it’s easy to see why (once you get through the disclaimers at the beginning—you can skip the first minute with the understanding that these are rescued animals in a sanctuary, not pets). Who knew a porcupine made that noise? Read the full story here.

Kid really, really, really loves komodo dragons, even though “they eat people.”

See on Instagram

This video is never not hilarious. His fascination with komodo dragons is just so wholesome (despite the whole wanting to see one eat a person thing).

Hope that made your day! Check back in next Friday for another roundup of the internet’s most delightful finds.

The long-awaited Masters Of The Universe live-action is finally getting some movement. The movie has been in development hell for over a decade, but Netflix has finally acquired the rights to the film, which is slated to begin filming this summer. Adam and Aaron Nee are attached to direct, with the screenplay written by David Callaham, known for his work on Shang-Chi and Wonder Woman 1984.

Along with the Netflix acquisition, West Side Story star Kyle Allen is attached to star as Prince Adam aka He-Man. Sorry to Noah Centineo, who reportedly bulked up for the role several years ago. Maybe he can be cast as Skeletor?

Robbie Brenner, the executive producer of Mattel Films, told Deadline: “Masters of the Universe is an iconic property that shaped the imaginations of an entire generation of kids with the message of becoming the best version of yourself. With our partners at Netflix, we look forward to showing audiences that anything can happen in Eternia. We are continuing to unlock this global franchise in new ways, and we can’t wait to see Kyle battle it out with Skeletor in this epic live-action saga.”

Masters of the Universe has seen many rebrands and variations over the years, but this is the first live-action take since the 1987 movie starring Dolph Lundgren as He-man, which was a box office disaster, but its legacy lives on.

This isn’t the first Masters content to come from Netflix, which brought an animated series to life last summer with the help of Kevin Smith.

Hollywood is not an artistic utopia where all creative visionaries are welcomed as equal. It’s a profit-hungry machine, one that runs on conventional storytelling from a mostly male cadre of tried and true directors churning out franchise behemoths and superhero sagas to appease the entertainment-craving masses. And yet, women are finding a way to get their stories made. They have been for decades, confronting the comfort of oft-repeated formulas — in front of and behind the camera — that normally sideline female storytellers and their singular insight, pushing back against stereotypes and forcing the powers that be to take notice.

Despite some disheartening industry reports that detail how the percentage of female directors involved in top-grossing films fell in 2021, there’s a crop of veteran filmmakers and up-and-coming talent breaking down gates that have been kept closed to them for too long. Some have years of experience behind the camera, quietly disrupting the status quo with beloved rom-com classics while some are just dipping their toes into original storytelling. The one thing they all have in common? They’re all on the rise, readying to have their names dominating the conversation this year and forging a new path for the female directors that follow. These women are crafting fresh and inventive stories within the genre spaces fans have come to love, helming Star Wars spinoffs and Marvel series. They’re also trudging familiar treks, turning out indie darlings and award-winning miniseries that prove original storytelling isn’t dead — it’s just waiting for the right director to bring it to life on-screen.

In 2022, these women are poised to go mainstream in an exciting way, delivering long-awaited TV shows and buzzworthy awards fare that Hollywood can’t help but take notice of. Here’s a handful of female directors to keep on your radar this year and beyond.

Nia DaCosta

Past Work: Little Woods, Candyman
Up Next: The Marvels

An acolyte of auteurs like Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola, Nia DaCosta’s filmography is littered with the kind of gritty, thrilling crime dramas that her predecessors are known for. What makes DaCosta different is her subject matter, and the emotional sensitivity she brings to stories that feel both universal and impressively singular.

Her first feature, the Sundance breakout Little Woods, centered on two estranged sisters, living in poverty and determined to earn a better life for themselves – by whatever means necessary. With subtly brilliant performances from Tessa Thompson and Lily James, DaCosta’s directorial debut touched on everything from women’s reproductive rights to the oppressive nature of poverty to toxic masculinity and more. When Jordan Peele tapped her to direct Candyman, a spiritual sequel to the iconic Black horror franchise, she incorporated timely themes – like gentrification, artistic gatekeeping, and America’s refusal to reckon with its racist past (and present). She’s pushing some of those social issues even further forward when she helms The Marvels, the sequel to Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, that features the studio’s first female Pakistani lead superhero, Kamala Khan — a film that feels destined to continue her growing legacy on screen as she weaves in more serious subject matter into genre and superhero fare.

Gina Prince-Bythewood

Past Work: Love & Basketball, Beyond The Lights, The Old Guard
Up Next: The Woman King

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s seminal romantic comedy Love & Basketball defined the genre in the early aughts. Starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps, the love story follows a pair of talented basketball players as their friendship morphs into something more over the course of a decade. The film not only gave audiences an authentic look at the trials and pitfalls of young love, but it also sported a female lead that happened to be a confident, capable Black woman breaking ground in a predominately male sport. What other early 2000s rom-com can say that?

What makes Prince-Bythewood’s filmography so impressive is her range. She adapted the bestselling novel The Secret Life of Bees, a story about the unflinching resilience of Black women and the enduring bonds of sisterhood, before creating the pop music-infused romantic drama Beyond The Lights. She switched genres again in 2020, becoming the first biracial woman to direct a comic book property with Netflix’s adrenaline-packed action-adventure The Old Guard – earning praise for crafting elaborate fight sequences and globe-trotting, fantasy-tinged storylines that played to star Charlize Theron’s strengths. Next, Prince-Bythewood is producing a sequel to the film and helming the highly-anticipated drama, The Woman King. Based on true events, the historical epic stars Viola Davis as the general of an all-female military unit in the Kingdom of Dahomey, an 18th-century African state whose Amazonian soldiers fought off French invaders.

Karen Maine

Past Work: Yes God Yes
Up Next: Rosaline

Karen Maine co-wrote the Jenny Slate-starring dark comedy, Obvious Child – a messy tale of a quick hookup gone wrong that manages to mine humor from failed relationships, unfulfilling careers, and abortion. So really, it shouldn’t be surprising that her directorial debut was the hormonally-charged teenage comedy, Yes God Yes. Starring Stranger Things’ Natalie Dyer, the film harnesses Maine’s dark comedic leanings to tell the story of a sexually-repressed Catholic schoolgirl who uses a spiritual retreat to explore her own carnal desires. It’s raunchy and bold. But it’s also incredibly sweet at times – a hard balance to strike but one Maine seems to handle with ease. She’s building up her romantic comedy street cred with a revisionist take on the Shakespearean tragedy, Romeo + Juliet, but instead of focusing on the titular lovers of fair Verona, Maine’s more interested in the scorned Rosaline and her attempts to break up the doomed couple.

Maria Schrader

Past Work: Unorthodox, I’m Your Man
Up Next: She Said

Maria Shrader’s devastating limited series Unorthodox is a difficult binge on Netflix, but a worthwhile one all the same. It tells the story of a young, ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman who flees her strict, religious upbringing following an arranged marriage. The subject matter is dark at times and the performance from star Shira Hass is haunting, but Schrader brings an integral lens through which she conveys a different perspective on female empowerment and spirituality. Her feature debut, I’m Your Man, is equally poignant with Dan Stevens playing a humanoid robot learning to be… well, human, for the first time. Soon, she’ll be tackling even more serious fare, heading up She Said, an interpretation of the groundbreaking investigation by New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor into the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the feminist movement it sparked.

Deborah Chow

Past Work: The Mandalorian, American Gods
Up Next: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Not only is Canadian filmmaker Deborah Chow the first woman and first person of Asian descent to direct a live-action Star Wars project with The Mandalorian – but she’s also the creative genius who gave us the iconic Werner Herzog delivery “I would like to see the baby,” in the show’s third episode. Chow got her start directing shorts and the critically well-received indie drama The High Cost of Living, but it’s through the Star Wars universe that she’s been able to pay homage to her Chinese father’s love of Hong Kong action films. Her climactic action sequence in the show’s first season is a tense, Yojimbo-like standoff between a group of Mandalorians and the bounty hunters that proves she’ll bring a visionary inventiveness to her next space epic, the highly-anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Meera Menon

Past Work: Farah Goes Bang, For All Mankind, The Magicians
Up Next: Ms. Marvel

A student of storytellers like Mira Nair, Lynne Ramsay, and Sofia Coppola, Meera Menon is an Indian-American director unafraid to challenge the perceived limits of her artistic capabilities by wading into multiple genres and juggling thought-provoking themes from her spot behind the lens. Her first feature, Farah Goes Bang, is a wild mix between a road-trip buddy comedy flick and a sexually-charged coming of age narrative with political undertones. And her work on shows as varied as Syfy’s The Magicians and Apple TV+’s space drama For All Mankind prove she’s confident in every timeframe and every alternate universe contained within the bounds of cinema. It’s a good thing too because next up is Ms. Marvel, the Disney+ miniseries promising us a long-awaited introduction to Marvel’s first Muslim superheroine, Kamala Khan.

Neil Young has officially pulled his music off Spotify, citing his distaste for the streaming service giving a platform to known anti-vaccine conspiracist, Joe Rogan. In the past, Neil has taken umbrage with streaming services that didn’t support high quality sound, even going so far as to create his own mp3 player at one point.

Now that most of his music, at least, is off Spotify, he’s taken back up that old point to further criticize the platform. Today, Young wrote a short missive on his site about the situation, and he also repeatedly notes that when he left Spotify “I felt better,” and encourages listeners to really dig into their experience with the platform. Read it here or check it out in full below.

“When I left SPOTIFY, I felt better.

Digital music has been with us about 40 years now. Digital, rather than reproducing copies of the music as we did back in the analog day, reconstitutes it from 1s and 0s and plays back data that you hear as music.

This allows business people like those who run SPOTIFY to cut the quality right down to 5% of the music’s content. It’s just math. It’s easy to do that with digital, thus allowing more songs and less music to stream faster. That’s because 95% is missing. Thats what SPOTIFY the Tech company does. SPOTIFY then sells you the downgraded music.
When I started everyone got to hear all the music. 100%.

AMAZON, APPLE MUSIC and Qobuz deliver up to 100% of the music today and it sounds a lot better than the shitty degraded and neutered sound of SPOTIFY. If you support SPOTIFY, you are destroying an art form. Business over art. SPOTIFY plays the artist’s music at 5% of its quality and charges you like it was the real thing.

AMAZON, APPLE MUSIC and Qobuz now deliver the real thing. SPOTIFY is ripping you off and has been since day 1. No goosebumps from SPOTIFY sound!

Switch to one of the alternatives – companies that support the arts. Real sound is available there. AMAZON, APPLE MUSIC and Qobuz You just have to leave Spotify and go to a new place that truly cares about music quality.

I met Danile [sic] Ek when he started SPOTIFY. it sounded to me like he was really going to be getting into it. That was a long time ago. I wonder what happened.

When I left Spotify, I felt better.

I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information. I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.

As an unexpected bonus, I sound better everywhere else.

love earth be well neil”

Even though HBO Max’s hit The Righteous Gemstones just returned for its long-awaited second season this month, many are wondering if the series will keep going after the season finale, which airs later in February.

The show, which began in 2019, follows the Gemstone family and their shenanigans as a televangelical family that might not be as squeaky as their church-members believe them to be. The first season was met with critical acclaim. But will there be a third season after the second finishes up? Or will the story end there?

The good news is that HBO Max renewed The Righteous Gemstones for a third season, which will most likely air sometime in 2023. While no official premiere date is set, it definitely will exist. We have not seen the last of the Gemstones.

Executive Vice President of HBO Amy Gravitt confirmed the news earlier this week, saying “After a season of literal fire and brimstone, blood, sand, and rollerblading, who wouldn’t come back for more?” says Gravitt. “The Gemstone family makes us laugh like nobody else.”

The show stars John Goodman as patriarch Eli Goodman and his children, eldest Jesse (Danny McBride), middle (and often looked-over) Judy (Edi Patterson) and the youngest, Kelvin (Adam DeVine). Other stars include Cassidy Freeman, Tony Cavalero, Tim Baltz, Skyler Gisondo, Greg Alan Williams, Walton Goggins,and Jennifer Nettles.

You can catch up on all of the Gemstones drama, streaming on HBO Max.