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It goes without saying, but Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Taylor Swift have had a famously contentious relationship since the infamous stage-crashing incident at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Now, Ye has revealed that the situation really impacted him, so much so that during the aftermath, he fled to Japan.

The second part of Ye’s recent Drink Champs interview is out now, and in it, he revealed (as Pitchfork notes) that after the VMAs, he “did a personal exile” with Virgil Abloh in Japan because “all of America hated” him. He also said, “Everyone was like, ‘You wrong for this one, you won’t win this,’ by telling me, ‘You shouldn’t have ran on stage, you were rude,’ God forbid.”

He also addressed the VMAs in the previously released first part of the interview, saying, “I was actually talked in to going to the awards show. At that time, it was [my manager] Don C.’s job to talk me into stuff. They find new people whose job would be to talk me into doing something that I don’t want to do — influencers, people around you. So that night, I said, ‘Man, I’m not going to this awards show. I’m not sitting through this no more.’ And the very first award, they sit me in the front row. You got [Beyoncé’s] ‘Single Ladies’ video… this is one of the best videos in history. So it’s not that it’s just for her when the artist does something that’s that compelling and incredible. We got to respect it.”

Watch the new Drink Champs episode below.

Rebecca Hall, well-known British actress and daughter of mixed-race American opera singer Maria Ewing, makes her directorial debut with Passing, out on Netflix this week. Adapted by Hall from Nella Larson’s novel of the same name, Passing tells the story of Reeny and Clare (Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga), two high school friends, the latter of whom is now “passing” as white and married to a racist white man in 1920s Harlem.

Hall’s pedigree, as a theater actress at Cambridge and daughter of the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, shows in a film that feels very much like a stage play or a Masterpiece Theatre production; tasteful, erudite, meticulously staged and impeccably acted. Which is to say, it feels more like a film I know I should like than one I actually do. It’s so painfully mannered that it doesn’t have much room to breathe, where the characters talk more like people probably wrote in letters than they actually spoke in daily life. Where the lead character says things like “Clare? Why, I haven’t seen her in an unmentionable time.”

Passing sets up its premise early on when Thompson’s painfully proper Irene “Reeny” bumps into her old friend Clare (Negga), a modern cosmopolitan type who Reeny soon realizes has been “passing” as white. Complete with a husband, played by Alexander Skarsgard, who has “affectionally” nicknamed her “Nig” and who, when pressed on his racial views, specifies that he doesn’t just dislike “Negroes,” he hates them. Of course, he doesn’t realize that his own wife is African-American herself, and the situation has trapped Reeny in a kind of non-consensual passing, forced to keep up the ruse out of fidelity to Clare and fear for both their safety.

It’s an interesting, provocative situation on the face of it, but the movie basically treads water from there, basically maintaining a kind of narrative stasis until a grandly symbolic deus ex machina ending. Symbolic of what I’m not quite sure, but it seems to be going more for symbolism than realism. The flapper clothes and art deco stylings are all rendered in gauzy black and white photography, which, again, feels like a gesture of conspicuous symbolism. It invites us to ponder the artistic gesture of it all while keeping us at arm’s length from the actual feelings of its characters, who are trying to make their way in a multi-hued yet painfully colorist world. It feels less driven by the characters than by its creator making a choice.

The great André Holland, again playing a doctor in early 20th century New York just like he did in The Knick, shows up as Reeny’s husband, Brian, who seems intent on exposing his children to the horrors of race relations in America. Reeny, meanwhile, chairwoman of the Negro Welfare League, would prefer to shield them from all the gory details of the latest lynchings. This kind of thing takes up most of the movie, two characters taking opposite sides of various racial debates. Clare wants to “pass,” Reeny claims she’s happy just the way she is. Brian wants to move the family abroad, Reeny doesn’t. Issues are discussed! If you’ve seen a play before, you’ve seen these kinds of dialogues.

Reeny seems determined to avoid Clare, and Clare is equally determined to butt into her life, to experience the Harlem Renaissance she’s been missing while cloistered amongst the whites. Brian seems to have a thing for overtly sexual Clare, who represents something different than his white-gloved wife. Glances are exchanged. Words become terse. That’s about it.

These characters all seem so locked into “types,” so studiously crafted to represent issues in debates, that they don’t have much space to evolve or banter or simply exist as believable human beings. There’s one scene, a party at the Negro League where we meet Bill Camp’s louche intellectual, Hugh, in which the film finally feels like a living breathing thing rather than just a machine for setting up premises. It’s the lone scene where the characters seem like they just get to hang out and interact with one another rather than be stand-ins and debate props for various societal issues.

Passing seems so intent on being Symbolic and Dramatic and Meaningful that it forgets to just be, to try to live in the characters just a little before forcing them into various provocative dichotomies. When the Big Ending comes, it does so, predictably, feeling like a forced attempt at having something Very Dramatic Happen, rather than as a natural culmination of believable characters interacting. It’s certainly pregnant with meaning, though it would’ve been nice if it had been pregnant with being interesting.

‘Passing’ is available now in theaters and on Netflix. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can check out his film review archive here.

Showtime’s Yellowjackets is a piece of slow-burn splatter art that hits the canvas in intense, albeit imperfect form. It’s a glorious mess that includes the somehow-never-before-attempted chemistry combination of Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci. Filling out the lead (adult) quartet would be Tawney Cypress and Melanie Lynskey, the latter of whom managed to score the juiciest role out of a show filled with juicy parts. These four ladies portray the f*cked up adult versions of 1990s teen female athletes whose plane crashed in the Canadian wilderness. Mind you, there were many more survivors of the initial crash in this group, and some of them didn’t stay alive long enough to be rescued, 19 months later. Those who did survive were (surprise, surprise) more than a little bit traumatized by their experiences.

Whatever happened in those woods did not stay behind in those woods, and the show spends a great deal of time bouncing back and forth between 1996 and the present day, a quarter-century later. Mind you, this is a show (and I’ve viewed six out of the ten episodes that shall fill this season) that is chock full of characters and developments, and it’s worth pointing out that the two casts (the young and older versions of the main characters, plus all the outliers) flow almost too well together. The show also manages to feel entirely fresh and original despite bearing very obvious resemblance to some infamous influences (Lord of the Flies, Lost) and a subtler resemblance to recent entries in the teen-drama realm (The Wilds, Cruel Summer, even a little bit of Outer Banks). Let’s talk about the reasons why this series (which hails from creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, producers of Narcos and Dispatches from Elsewhere) is worth watching:

(1) The very name of the series, Yellowjackets, refers to the girls’ soccer team but means to recall Lord of the Flies, and we’re finally getting the riot grrrl version that the template deserves. Yes, it’s different for girls; and they’re plenty tough, but there’s something different about how the way they maneuver, and how they work together, and how they might turn against each other, and how a plot point makes it necessary to mention that they’ve synched up periods. Mind you, they’re not merely operating on the social hierarchy, as has been the case for social satires or like Mean Girls or Heathers. Rather, this show stresses how survival does not end with a rescue. There’s also the lasting trauma that one must endure, along with the societal expectations for how survivors should behave. They must also deal with unwanted notoriety, along with reintegrating into a society that sure would like to know what these girls did in the woods. Inevitably, the four leads find themselves propelled toward each other in adulthood, even though at least three of them would rather not relive the past.

That’s the case even though they’re already reliving the past every day, as we see with what Melanie Lynskey’s Shauna does while cooking dinner one night. Lynskey crushes this role, which is filled to the brim with nuance. One would think that Shauna’s got the most “mainstream” life (as a housewife) that allows for enough distraction to wipe away any living nightmares, but nope. The way that she deftly navigates every obstacle that she encounters is fascinating. She acquired enough skills in the wilderness to work through any difficult “human” issue by pinpointing her opponents’ weaknesses, and it gives her an edge when confronted with any threat to the equilibrium that she’s constructed. She’s the character who I’d most like to see in a spinoff, hands down.

(2) What a slow burn of a story. That’s the best way to describe what happens here, but it’s also more like this: an adrenaline-pumping scene, then the slow teasing of anticipation until you can’t bear it, then boom, it’s time to be rewarded for the wait, and repeat. For the most part, the show does not disappoint with that type of pacing (this drives home the girls’ slow realization that they won’t be rescued within days, and maybe a lecture about not eating all the Corn Nuts on the first day will turn out to be a sad waste of energy). The show inevitably churns out more disturbing developments (including cannibalism) as these characters cannot shake their collective ordeal for decades to come. The show’s at once a survival tale, a psychological thriller, and an incredibly disturbing coming-of-age story, along with an examination of how humans turn out to be bigger monsters than the ones that might be hiding in the woods.

(3) Speaking of monsters, there’s one part of Yellowjackets that doesn’t flow too well for me — the suggestions of supernatural stuff. Granted, that’s tied to the story of how the four lead survivor characters come back together in adulthood, but the execution of exactly what the supernatural aspects mean, well, that’s not clicking yet. It’s the weakest link in the entire show, and I’m not convinced that it couldn’t have been left out altogether with some rewrites pulling the past and present together in a more effective way. Like I said, it’s possible enough for humans to do terrible things without otherworldly influence, and for hallucinations to be explained through drug use, PTSD, and so on. This isn’t enough to derail Yellowjackets, and maybe things come together more in the final portion of the season. I’d enjoy being proven wrong on this note.

(4) The casting directors did the thing. It’s truly worth noting that this show goes an extra 100 miles when it comes to matching up actresses to play the younger and older versions of these survivors. That’s particularly the case when it comes to casting the younger version of Juliette Lewis’ stoner character, Natalie, who’s also portrayed by Sophie Thatcher as a punky blonde whose coping skills were already honed during a horrible home life; and the Christina Ricci’s straight-up warped Misty, who’s forged out of eager resourcefulness gone terribly wrong by Samantha Hanratty. If not for the younger actresses’ performances, we’d never be able to believe how the adult versions came to be, especially when it comes to Misty. Trust me, you don’t want to see this nurse coming your way, ever.

And she’s only one of the reasons why Yellowjackets will stick with you, although the ’90s soundtrack (including Hole, Salt-N-Pepa, Liz Phair, the and PJ Harvey’s “Down By The Water”) is quite a contender, too. The show’s a nightmare, alright, but it’s one you’ll likely be eager to keep watching.

Showtime’s ‘Yellowjackets’ debuts on Sunday, November 14.

If it sometimes feels as if we’re all living inside a dystopian movie we cannot escape from, that’s because we sometimes are. Case in point: At this very second, elected officials and school board members in Virginia are very seriously discussing the possibility of an organized book-burning session in order to rid their community of books that someone, somewhere, has deemed inappropriate for the area’s younger readers.

As Insider reports, it all began when Virginia’s Spotsylvania County School Board demanded that any and all “sexually-explicit” books be removed from library shelves in the county starting immediately. But since deeming what might be too explicit can be a matter of personal taste, there are also a series of books that are up for review by the school board; if they fail the board’s smut sniff test, into the burn pile they’ll go.

As John Haltiwanger wrote for Insider:

The directive to remove “sexually explicit” books was seemingly prompted by a school board meeting on Monday during which parents expressed concerns about literature students can access via the Riverbend High School’s digital library app.

One parent was apparently alarmed by the availability of “LGBTQIA” fiction, the Lance-Star said, and found a book called 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp especially troubling. The American Library Association named the book a Best Book for Young Adults in 2004. According to a Publishers Weekly review, the book is “dark tale about three runaways who understand hatred and violence better than love.”

Feeding this fire is the promise of newly-minted Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin, who promised during his campaign that banning the teaching of “critical race theory” in the classroom was something he would address on day one of his tenure.

While this particular incident is relegated to Virginia, it seems to be a microcosm of conversations taking place at school board meetings across the country. In an analysis of the book-burning chatter being heard across the country, Philip Bump wrote a piece for The Washington Post in which he noted:

One might justifiably dismiss this incident as an exception, one member of one small school board making one comment about destroying books. The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, though, points out the broader context. Republican officials (like those in Virginia) have repeatedly called for the removal of books from school and public libraries in recent weeks, or have called for material to be reviewed as a first step to that end.

What’s useful to keep in mind about these efforts is how they contrast with the efforts to which they’ve been compared, the burning of books in Nazi Germany. As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum points out in this video, the impetus for removing books from university libraries in the 1930s was largely to eliminate anti-German rhetoric and thought. Though it eventually became a tool of the state, many initial efforts stemmed from enthusiastic university students who sought a sort of ideological purification of their schools.

If by “useful” Bump means “terrifying,” then he’s absolutely right.

(Via Insider)

This week’s episode of Indiecast is dedicated to two of the greatest indie rock success stories over the last decade. First up is Idles, whose new album Crawler follows up 2020’s Ultra Mono and continues down a musical path toward what Steve recently called “the mix of political righteousness and musical bluntness that once caused people to call The Clash ‘the only band that matters.’” Does Idles actually pull of the tightrope walk on Crawler?

Next on the review list is Courtney Barnett, whose new album Things Take Time, Take Time is her first in a little more than three years. While Barnett isn’t necessarily as consistently discussed on music publications and music writer Twitter as a band like Idles, her albums are always well-received and her touring business is consistently growing and lucrative, making for an ideal situation for indie rock stardom. Things Take Time, Take Time is surely to continue Barnett’s trajectory and build her fervent fan base.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is plugging the latest release from SeeYouSpaceCowboy, and Steve is enjoying A Way Forward, the second album in two years from Brooklyn trio Nation Of Language.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 65 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Dave Chappelle has been a long time supporter of his alma mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Georgetown, and has often credited the school with saving his life. Along with other notable alumni like Bradley Cooper and Chris Tucker, Chappelle regularly visits the campus and holds master classes. But following the backlash from his Netflix special, The Closer, the student body at Ellington have made it clear to administrators that Chappelle is not welcomed with open arms on the campus.

The stand-up comedian was scheduled to be honored during a fundraiser (to raise money for a theater named after him) on November 23, but the event was “quietly canceled” as a student revolt began to build behind the scenes. Via Politico:

Two students tell Playbook that their peers got into a heated debate with faculty after being told that they were expected to help assemble an exhibition to honor Chappelle on the same day as the fundraiser. With many of their classmates identifying as LGBTQ+, the students were uncomfortable supporting the comic, and some even talked about staging a walkout if the tribute went forward. Ellington ended up canceling the fundraiser, even though an invite had already been sent to multiple patrons.

While Chappelle has repeatedly embraced his new “canceled” status and boasted numerous times that he “loves” it, he notably took the time during one of his Netflix specials to visit Ellington because his experience at the school means that much to him. It will be interesting to see if being canceled by Ellington sparks a more open-minded response from the comedian, or if he’ll continue going down the J.K. Rowling path.

(Via Politico)

Handicapping NFL games can be a challenge, and occasionally it can even be hilarious. In Week 9, we enjoyed success with a 4-1 performance that featured a pair of large underdogs winning outright. The funny part, though, is that the pick with the most closing-line value of the week was the single losing selection. In fact, the 49ers were routed by a Cardinals team without Kyler Murray and others, and that is a spot in which you just have to chuckle.

Alas, Week 10 is another opportunity to find value, and we’ll try to do just that. Before we do, here’s a glance at the season-long progress in this space.

• Last Week: 4-1
• 2021 Season: 26-18-1

Come get these winners.

Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots UNDER 45 points

The Browns are rounding into form defensively as the team’s health improves. Cleveland has allowed 15 points per game in the last three contests and the early-season struggles stemmed more from personnel absences than anything else. Meanwhile, the Patriots are a top-four scoring defense in the league, and it isn’t as if the Browns are *terribly* explosive on offense, particularly if Nick Chubb doesn’t play. Give me the under.

New Orleans Saints and Tennessee Titans UNDER 21.5 points in the first half

The full game under is also interesting here, but the Saints and Titans are very conservative. New Orleans has been leaning heavily on the ground in the first half of games, and Tennessee’s offense is still finding itself. On top of that, the Titans are playing surprisingly well defensively and the Saints have been undervalued on that side of the ball all season.

Atlanta Falcons (+9.5) over Dallas Cowboys

Dallas is better than Atlanta, but this line is a touch high. Yes, the Falcons can be maddening, but they’ve shown some rumblings in recent weeks as things get comfortable under Arthur Smith. Matt Ryan played very, very well a week ago, and the narrative will be toward a “bounce-back” for Dallas after a bad loss.

Detroit Lions (+8.5) over Pittsburgh Steelers

I don’t believe in the Steelers offense. That’s the majority of what this is, but the Lions are also a team that has shown the willingness to push hard until the final whistle. With the backdoor potentially open, Detroit should be live here.

Minnesota Vikings (+3) over Los Angeles Chargers

This may be a last stand for the Vikings. They’ve lost two in a row to fall to 3-5 and things won’t get too much easier. Minnesota has the firepower to make this interesting but, as we’ve stated in this space many times, the Chargers don’t have homefield advantage. Should the Chargers be a full field goal favorite on a neutral over the Vikings? I don’t think so.

Today marks the release of Red (Taylor’s Version), and during the week leading up to now, Taylor Swift has noticed that she’s having a much better time this time around than she did before releasing the original Red album.

On Late Night yesterday, Swift told Seth Meyers:

“One thing that I noticed about just this week in general is that I think back to the release week of Red, which is the album that is, you know… just in case anybody missed it. It came out originally about a decade ago, and I was 22 and that release week was so stressful because nobody’s heard any of the music, there are like 14 different genres on this album. It’s a real patchwork quilt of genres, really experimenting. […] But I think that I was so focused on, ‘Is anyone going to like it,’ and I was also like at the time, honestly, really said, because I had actually gone through the stuff that I had sung about! But this time, I’ve got sunglasses on and a mojito and just like… it’s chill this time. It’s really nice to be able to put this album out and not be sad and not be taking breaks in between interviews to cry. I’m telling you, it’s much better this way. Much better.”

Watch the interview clip above.

Red (Taylor’s Version) is out now via Republic. Get it here.

With one Oscar (out of four nominations) and a slew of Emmy Awards, one of the keys to Aaron Sorkin’s success is that he isn’t afraid to bend or break the rules, and he really, truly does not seem to give a sh*t about what other people think of him or his work. It’s a rare quality in the hyper-sensitive land of Hollywood, and something that could be considered a kind of superpower. So when sitting down with The Hollywood Reporter’s Lacey Rose to discuss Being the Ricardos, his upcoming Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz biopic, Sorkin was ready to talk about the backlash surrounding his casting of Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as the movie’s stars.

When talk inevitably came around to his controversial casting choices, Sorkin made it clear that he was looking for people who could play the characters he had written—not do the best impersonations of the Lucy and Desi they knew from TV. As Sorkin explained:

We made this movie during COVID, and so in Zooming with Nicole and Javier and everyone else, I’d make it very clear to them that I am not looking for a physical or vocal impersonation of these people. Leading up to the first rehearsal, I’d write to them every day, “Just play the characters who are in the script.” I know that Nicole was working on Lucy’s voice for a while, and I wanted to relieve her of that. As far as audience anticipation, that’s something I’m just not worried about. I’m certain that when people see the movie, they’ll leave feeling that Nicole has made a very solid case for herself, but moreover, I’ve found that you can really leverage low expectations. I learned that with The Social Network. People assumed it was going to be a romantic comedy, where, like, Paul Rudd “friends” Drew Barrymore and they fall in love. And I just thought, “Great, they’re not expecting what they’re about to see.”

While much of the conversation around Kidman’s casting is indeed related to whether the two look alike, and whether Kidman has the comedic chops to pull off playing such an expressive and iconic actress, the issue surrounding Bardem’s role is much more politically charged. Casting Bardem, who is Spanish, as Desi Arnaz, who is Cuban, is not sitting so well with some people. But again, Sorkin stands by his decision:

First of all, Amazon’s casting department had a Latina casting consultant [who was focused on all Latinx casting] on board. I found out, for instance, because there was an actor who I was considering who’s Brazilian, and I was told by the casting consultant that Brazilians aren’t considered [Hispanic] because they speak Portuguese. So, Javier is Spanish and the casting consultant was fine with it. But I don’t want to use the casting consultant as cover. I want to tell you my opinion on this and I stand by it, which is this: Spanish and Cuban aren’t actable, OK? They’re not actable. By the way, neither are straight and gay. Because I know there’s a small movement underway that only gay actors should play gay characters. Gay and straight aren’t actable. You could act being attracted to someone, but most nouns aren’t actable.

What it ultimately boiled down to for Sorkin was: Are we demeaning anyone by casting a Spanish actor in a Cuban role? And he feels comfortable that the answer to that is no—and Ball and Arnaz’s daughter agreed.

“We know when we’re being demeaning,” Sorkin said. “We know that blackface is demeaning because of its historical context, because you’re making ridiculous cartoon caricatures out of people. We know that Mickey Rooney with the silly piece in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and that makeup, doing silly Japanese speak, we know that’s demeaning. This is not, I felt. Having an actor who was born in Spain playing a character who was born in Cuba was not demeaning. And it wasn’t just the casting consultant who agreed, Lucy and Desi’s Cuban American daughter didn’t have a problem with it. So, I’m very comfortable with it.”

Being the Ricardos will be released on December 10, 2021.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

The follow-up books to the Trump administration keep yielding more evidence of an unorthodox presidency, to say the very least. Particularly during Trump’s bid to maintain power, the meltdowns kept coming, according to Jonathan Karl’s new book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump, which revealed Trump’s threat to quit the GOP and how his Tulsa COVID rally was even more of a sh*tstorm than previously reported. Now, we’re learning that those “hang Mike Pence” chants didn’t worry Trump at all while the insurrection happened. Yikes.

Karl interviewed Trump with a direct inquiry on whether Trump worried about Pence’s safety during the failed MAGA coup. And you guessed it, Trump wasn’t even slightly concerned, despite many of the insurrectionists harboring more violent intents than the Q’Anon Shaman (who claimed that he protected Senate muffins from theft). Rather, Trump appeared to think that those chants were justifiable because “people were very angry,” and “it’s common sense” for the rioters to want “to protect” because Pence decided to certify the electoral vote. From the Axios transcript:

Jonathan Karl: “Were you worried about him during that siege? Were you worried about his safety?”

Trump: “No, I thought he was well-protected, and I had heard that he was in good shape. No because uh I had heard he was in very good shape.”

Karl: “Because you heard those chants, that was terrible. I mean, you know, those–”

Trump: “He could have — well, the people were very angry… Jon, it’s common sense, that you’re supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”

Somehow, this actually doesn’t feel too surprising, considering the flat tone and apparent apathy (to loss of life) that we watched Trump display throughout the pandemic. That makes Axios’ “Why it matters” section on this story particularly surreal: “Well, it is unprecedented for a former president to openly say it was OK to threaten the life of his vice president.” And yep, that nails it.

(Via Axios)