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I’ll say “Beetlejuice” as many times as I want, but “Candyman” five times in a row? Never. Maybe that’s because I saw the 1992 horror classic when I was too young or because I’m a fearful person, but I’d rather not test fate. A hook-man made of bees coming to murder me? I’m good, thank you. So, I guess I won’t be watching the new trailer for Nia DaCosta’s Candyman, because the only way to see it is to go IDareYou.CandymanMovie.com and say his name five times into the microphone. Fair warning, this will trigger a “swarm of bees [to begin] to appear on-screen during the process, growing larger with each progressive iteration,” according to IGN.

For my fellow cowards out there, don’t worry, there’s no new footage.

Here’s more:

In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

Candyman, which stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and Colman Domingo, and Vanessa Estelle Williams and Tony Todd from the original film, opens on August 27.

Indie-rock mainstays Real Estate, who released their Half A Human EP earlier this year, are planning a series of tribute shows to honor the 10th anniversary of their sophomore album, 2011’s Days, where they’ll play the album in full. The shows will come in the form of a few stops toward the end of their upcoming North American tour, at the Anchor Rock Club in Atlantic City on November 20, Brooklyn Made on November 22 and 23, and August Hall in San Francisco on December 15.

The band said in a statement:

“It’s difficult to overstate how important Days has been to our trajectory as a band. We were really just kids when we made it. I can remember long days and even longer nights in New Paltz, NY laboring over this record. Nobody had ever held us to the standard of quality that our producer Kevin McMahon was holding us to. He even made us tune our guitars between takes! In turn, we held ourselves to the same standard, and the music is a testament to that. 10 years ago you heard it too, and that changed our lives.

So here we are, still doing it. We’re pleased to invite you to celebrate this album at a few special shows where we’ll play it in its entirety, and a bunch of other stuff too! Obviously the band has changed in countless ways over the past 10 years. Come and help us celebrate this landmark of our past while looking forward to new music and an even brighter future.”

Check out the full run of tour dates below.

11/03 — Buffalo, NY @ Asbury Hall at Babeville
11/04 — Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
11/05 — Ferndale, MI @ Loving Touch
11/06 — Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme
11/07 — Madison, WI @ High Noon
11/09 — Bloomington, IL @ Castle Theatre
11/10 — Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue
11/11 — Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
11/12 — Lexington, KY @ The Burl (Outdoor Show)
11/13 — Columbus, OH @ Skully’s Music Diner
11/14 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Music Hall
11/16 — Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom
11/17 — Portsmouth, NH @ 3S Artspace
11/18 — Holyoke, MA @ Gateway City Arts
11/19 — Woodstock, NY @ Levon Helm Studios
11/20 — Atlantic City, NJ @ Anchor Rock Club*
11/22-23 — Brooklyn, NY@ Brooklyn Made *
12/15 — San Francisco, CA @ August Hall *

*Days tribute show

Tickets for the Days anniversary shows go on sale 8/27. Get yours here.

Now that the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer has been released into the wild and officially confirmed the long-gestating rumors that the movie will feature elements from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield movies (although perhaps not the actors themselves), Spidey fans caused Bruce Campbell to trend on social media thanks to an onslaught of tweets that hope the actor will make one of his trademark cameos in the new film.

As fans of the original Tobey Maguire films know, Campbell appears in all three installments as a wrestling announcer, usher, and a French maître d.’ The actor has been a close personal friend of Sam Raimi after making the Evil Dead movies togethers, and the director has made it a point to include Campbell in each of his films. In fact, Campbell was originally cast as Mysterio in Spider-Man 4 until Raimi walked away from the project, which prompted the way for The Amazing Spider-Man reboot starring Andrew Garfield.

But now that Way From Home is pulling aggressively from the previous Spider-Man films, fans are hoping that Campbell at the very least will have a cameo if not get a chance to finally play Mysterio. While that may seem like a long shot, Marvel is very much in the Sam Raimi business again. The director is currently filming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Campbell has already slyly hinted that he may show up in the sequel. Considering Way From Home has a very strong Doctor Strange presence, Campbell’s chances of being in the film aren’t looking too shabby.

Here are just some of the fan reactions below:

When we found out that Xbox was going to be pushing into the future with cloud gaming, it was a big deal. With services like Game Pass being considered the future of games, we’re going to need ways to make playing them easier. The potential of a cloud system, where games can be accessed quickly, is a revolutionary one. Ever since consoles started downloading the games we play directly to the box it’s led to an unfortunate side effect where you can’t play a game immediately upon purchase. Cloud gaming would not only assist with moving past that problem but would also bring the potential of a Netflix-like video game service closer to reality.

We’re going to finally be able to see that reality this holiday season. During the Xbox Gamescom presentation on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that they will be implementing cloud gaming to the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S this holiday season, for Game Pass Ultimate members. No more waiting for video games to download before we can play them. The future is now.

“We’ve been listening to our gamers and have heard their feedback loud and clear: they want to try new games fast without waiting for an install to finish. Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) on Xbox consoles lets you play new games faster than ever, optimizing space and saving you time.” – Catherine Gluckstein, Vice President & Head of Product & Strategy for Xbox Cloud Gaming

“With cloud gaming on your console, finding your next favorite game is as easy as clicking ‘Play.’ … Excited to try the latest release, but don’t want to wait? Get playing quickly and easily without having to install the game first, including playing Xbox Series X|S games on your Xbox One.” – Jake Rosenberg, Senior Program Manager at Xbox

While obviously cloud gaming is an exciting idea, this is something we’ll need to see in action before we can start crediting Microsoft for pushing video games forward. While it’s very likely that we can launch a game from the cloud immediately on day one, we are going to have questions about stability. Will there be a lag or delay when playing these games? How will this impact players without speedy internet connections? What about those with data caps? We’ll obviously know more once this starts hitting consoles.

Even with those concerns, it’s still cool to know that the technology is finally here to make this a possibility on all consoles. The complaint of games taking too long to download has been a huge one for multiple console generations now and with video games moving in a more digital direction it was a problem that needed to be solved.

Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Show is up for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. The other shows nominated in the category: A Black Lady Sketch Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live. That’s some stiff competition, but the award should go to The Amber Ruffin Show because lord knows Saturday Night Live has enough Emmys.

Also, I love bits.

“I swear to you, if you vote for The Amber Ruffin Show for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing For A Variety Series, and we win, I will do a bit for the speech,” Ruffin tweeted. She later added, “Wait. I feel bad. You should vote for us because the writers deserve the Emmy, not because you wanna see me do something silly. Having said that, a vote for us will get you 100K dollars, cash.” Hm, that’s a good start, but $100,000 isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Not making a The Social Network reference. Also, $200,000.

“Just heard this has been bumped up to $200K and a VERY silly bit!” Demi Adejuyigbe, a writer for the late-night show, tweeted. “Wow! Vote the Amber Ruffin Show for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series!!” A vote for The Amber Ruffin Show is a vote for silly bits. The Emmys could use more silly bits. Vote Ruffin!

Images of thousands of Afghans desperately trying to flee their country following a hasty U.S. withdrawal have provoked an international outcry.

As of Aug. 22, 2021, some 6,000 U.S. troops were working to evacuate U.S. military, American citizens and Afghans who are approved for Special Immigrant Visas. SIVs are a special program to protect Afghans who risked their lives working for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. are conducting smaller evacuation efforts for their nationals and some Afghans.

The pace of these poorly planned evacuations has been slow. They are taking place amid chaos in Kabul, where crowds are being confronted by violence from members of the now-ruling Taliban and U.S. forces and facing checkpoints that are near-impossible to pass.

Shaharzad Akbar, who leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, called the situation “failure upon failure.”

As a scholar specializing in forcible displacement and refugees, I see this harrowing scene unfolding within a broader context of Afghanistan’s long-standing displacement crisis. This includes an unequal sharing of refugees between the developed world and economically disadvantaged countries.

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: UNHCR

A muted US role

The U.S. Refugee Act of 1980 standardized the procedures for admitting refugees – people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution – and put in place a rigorous vetting process. But over the past 40 years, U.S. acceptance rates for refugees worldwide have fallen significantly – from 200,000 admitted in 1980 to less than 50,000 in 2019.

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. admitted more than 20,000 Afghan refugees – an average of roughly 1,000 per year. But during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, just 11,800 refugees from around the world settled in the U.S. – among them were only 495 Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients. That number seems tiny compared to the approximately 20,000 Afghans who are currently in the pipeline waiting for a SIV and the additional 70,000 Afghans — including applicants and their immediate family members — who are eligible to apply.

Europe hosts few Afghan refugees

For decades, Afghans have also migrated or fled to Europe. Between 2015-2016, 300,000 of them arrived on the continent. They were the second-largest group of refugees and asylum-seekers after Syrians. Asylum seekers are people seeking refugee status, but whose claim has yet to be evaluated.

The Afghan population across the European continent remains small and unevenly distributed. Up until the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021, many Afghans were facing deportations. Germany is the largest European host, followed by Austria, France and Sweden.

For the first three months of 2021 about 7,000 Afghans were granted permanent or temporary legal status in the European Union. They are distributed between Greece, France, Germany and Italy, with smaller Afghan contingents in other EU states.

Australia – based on its 2016 census – has approximately 47,000 Afghans who are permanent residents, some of whom began arriving as early as 1979. Approximately another 4,200 Afghans have received temporary protected status.

Displaced within Afghanistan

This still leaves an enormous number of Afghans who are displaced without a permanent home. More than half a million have already been displaced by the violence so far in 2021 according to the U.N. refugee agency. Some 80% of nearly a quarter of a million Afghans forced to flee since the end of May are women and children.

As of 2021 and prior to the current crisis, at least 3.5 million Afghans remained uprooted within Afghanistan because of violence, political unrest, poverty, climate crisis and lack of economic opportunity.

Afghan refugees enter into Pakistan through a border crossing point in Chaman while a Pakistani army soldier stands guard.AP Photo/uncredited photographer

Afghan refugees in Pakistan

The vast majority of Afghan refugees do not settle in the West.

Pakistan, which shares a 1,640-mile land border with Afghanistan, has long absorbed the largest number of Afghan refugees even though it is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. Within two years of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, following the conflict ignited by the rise of the Mujahideen, 1.5 million Afghans had become refugees. By 1986, nearly five million Afghans had fled to Pakistan and Iran.

Since March 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, had repatriated nearly 3.2 million Afghans, but in April 2021, the United Nations reported that more than 1.4 million Afghan refugees remained in Pakistan due to ongoing violence, unemployment and political turbulence in Afghanistan.

Iran also remains a significant host for Afghans, with nearly 800,000 registered refugees and at least two million more who are unregistered. Smaller numbers of Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers are in India (15,689), Indonesia (7,692) and Malaysia (2,478).

Turkey – the world’s largest refugee host, with over 3.8 million registered Syrian refugees – has 980 registered Afghan refugees and 116,000 Afghan asylum-seekers.

Despite the presence of the Taliban, a group of protesters march with Afghan flags during the country’s Independence Day rally in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 19, 2021Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

As it stands today

The latest figures from the AP show that more than 47,000 Afghan civilians and at least 66,000 Afghan military and police forces have died in the 20-year-old Afghanistan war

The security situation in the country had been deteriorating in recent years. According to Brown University’s Cost of War Project, an increasing numbers of Afghans have been killed as a result of crossfire, improvised explosive devices, assassinations by militant groups including the Taliban, night raids by U.S. and NATO forces and U.S.-led airstrikes.

Even prior to the Taliban takeover of Kabul, civilian casualties had risen by 29% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. A U.N. report from July 26, 2021 found a 37% increase in the number of women killed and injured, and a 23% increase in child casualties compared with the first quarter of 2020.

With the Taliban takeover of Kabul, there is a growing concern for the safety of Afghanistan’s women and girls, ethnic minorities, journalists, government workers, educators and human rights activists. Many Afghans desperate to leave remain outside Kabul and far from any airport.

U.S. evacuations will likely end once all Americans are out of Afghanistan. A few other western countries have committed to taking in small numbers of refugees, including Canada (20,000) and the U.K. (20,000 over 5 years).

Still, adoption of hard-line policies and anti-refugee sentiments across much of Europe means that relatively few Afghans will find sanctuary on the continent. Austria and Switzerland have already refused to take in large numbers of Afghans. Turkey, already straining with refugees, said it does not want to become “Europe’s refugee warehouse.”

Other countries committing to take in Afghans temporarily in small numbers include Albania, Qatar, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia. Uganda, which already hosts 1.5 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan, has also agreed to take in 2,000 Afghans temporarily.

Ultimately, most Afghans able to leave the country will do so not in an aircraft, but on foot into Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan, already strained by its own economic and political struggles, will once again likely be the largest host for the most recently displaced Afghans.

But given that border crossings in the region are difficult and dangerous, the vast majority of uprooted Afghans will remain within Afghanistan’s borders. Their considerable humanitarian needs, economic and political challenges, security concerns and resistance to the Taliban will shape the next chapter of the country’s history.

Tazreena Sajjad is a Senior Professorial Lecturer of Global Governance, Politics and Security at the American University School of International Service as well as a pro-bono advisor for Refugee Solidarity Network (RSN).

This article first appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got the the epic sonic departure from Deafheaven, the announcement of a new Bedouine album, and a pair of lo-fi hits from Hovvdy. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Deafheaven – Infinite Granite

The new record from San Francisco black metal heavyweights Deafheaven doesn’t sound very much like black metal at all. Instead, Infinite Granite is a genuine departure, a straight-up shoegaze record that starts the band on a completely new path. Where singer George Clark previously leveled up the intensity with his harsh vocals on past records, Infinite Granite has him trying on a more melodic vocal, while the rest of the band is keen on shimmering expansive, reverb-soaked instrumentals.

The Joy Formidable – Into The Blue

Veteran Welsh rockers The Joy Formidable have been more or less prolific since the 2011 release of their breakthrough album The Big Roar. The band has just released their sixth LP in ten years, Into The Blue, which certainly doesn’t lack in the group’s penchant for big guitars and pummeling percussion, all buoyed by Ritzy Bryan’s entrancing, ethereal vocals.

Alien Boy – Don’t Know What I Am

If you, like me, have been yearning for more distortion-infused alternative rock like peak Smashing Pumpkins, Portland quartet Alien Boy are here to scratch that itch. With a pedal board comparable to that one Bloc Party had at Riot Fest a few years ago, the group’s latest album Don’t Know What I Am cranks the amps up to 11 and delivers the sludgy alt rock goods.

Angel Olsen – Aisles EP

While we wait patiently for the follow-up to 2019’s All Mirrors, Angel Olsen has shared a short-form release to tide us over. The Aisles EP is a collection of five relatively faithful covers of ’80s tracks, including “Forever Young” and “The Safety Dance.” That being said, Olsen does offer up some of her stylistic brooding interpolation to truly make the songs her own.

James Blake – “Life Is Not The Same”

A few weeks after announcing his forthcoming album Friends That Break Your Heart, James Blake has shared another new single. The yearning and eerie “Life Is Not The Same” is about “finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing,” Blake explained in a recent statement.

Bedouine – “The Wave”

It’s only been four years since Bedouine’s stunning self-titled debut forced its way into the rotation. After following it up with the equally wonderful Bird Songs Of A Killjoy in 2019, Azniv Korkejian is now prepping her third full-length. The announcement of Waysides arrived with “The Wave,” a tranquil, grief-fueled new single that welcomes us back into Korkejian’s world.

Hovvdy – “Junior Day Lease”

Austin lo-fi heroes Hovvdy are preparing to drop their fourth full-length album True Love later this year. We’ve already heard the album’s driving, beautiful title track, and now the duo is back with more tunes. “Junior Day Lease” is what Rachel Brodsky described for Uproxx as a “mellow, late-summer jam,” a track that Will Taylor explained is about “being in a daze on a fast day in a new town. Falling enamored with the people you’re with and the setting you’re in. Letting things move around you, rather than trying to control them.”

Teddy Grossman – “Power In Pain”

With his debut album Soon Come later this year, Teddy Grossman has shared another fresh new track. “Power In Pain” combines sonic elements of both Americana and R&B, evoking some of the best American songwriters. The track was written more than three years ago, ruminating on the transformative power of community in the face of human struggle.

Yellow Shoots – “Body Bag”

Just a few weeks after releasing their latest effort The Green Album, Yellow Shoots are back with a new bonus track. “Body Bag” is a haunting and complex response to personal loss, utilizing a soft, pulsing beat and a mixture of acoustic and electric guitars to create a unique sonic environment. Featuring contributions from Ryan Mitchell Grey, “Body Bag” serves as a tribute to Yellow Shoots’ uncle, who passed away from Covid.

Political correctness has never been one of comedian John Cleese’s strong suits, and his willingness to confront taboo topics head-on is part of what makes his work with Monty Python and on Fawlty Towers so groundbreaking. But as comedy is in the midst of a cultural reckoning, humor that was once considered cutting-edge is being reevaluated and, at times, censored, as Cleese has found out the hard way. So, as The Guardian reports, the 81-year-old comedian is about to embark on a quest to better understand the current climate with a new docuseries titled John Cleese: Cancel Me.

According to The Guardian:

The new documentary will reportedly explore “why a new ‘woke’ generation is trying to rewrite the rules on what can and can’t be said.”

John Cleese: Cancel Me will see the British comedian and actor meet various subjects who claim to have been “cancelled” for their actions or statements, and activists who have led opposition to various public figures.

Cleese is no stranger to controversy. In June 2020, the BBC-owned streaming service UKTV removed an episode of Fawlty Towers titled “The Germans,” in which a character named the Major used the N-word. In an interview with The Age, Cleese claimed that censoring the episode was missing the point entirely, noting: “The Major was an old fossil left over from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them. If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?” (The episode was made available again shortly thereafter.)

As for this latest project, Cleese issued a statement noting:

“I’m delighted to have a chance to find out, on camera, about all the aspects of so-called political correctness. There’s so much I really don’t understand, like: how the impeccable idea of ‘Let’s all be kind to people’ has been developed in some cases ad absurdum.

I want to bring the various reasonings right out in the open so that people can be clearer in their minds what they agree with, what they don’t agree with, and what they still can’t make their mind up about.”

Just last week, according to Variety, a fan tweeted Cleese asking whether they needed to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend a show on his upcoming U.S. comedy tour. Cleese’s reply? “No, you just need a certificate promising that you have not attended specifically to be offended.”

(Via The Guardian)

Bless me father, for I have sinned. I have had impure thoughts about the idea of Christian Bale playing a naughty preacher. As Deadline reports, Charles Randolph, the Oscar-winning co-writer of The Big Short, is re-teaming with Bale for a new project: The Church of Living Dangerously, which the Oscar-winning former Batman will produce and star in.

The story, which is adapted from a Vanity Fair article by David Kushner, tells the story of John Lee Bishop, a charismatic pastor-turned-drugged smuggler who started taking meth and heroin as a way to help him help his son overcome a severe drug addiction. It’s just the kind of multilayered character that Bale knows how to play to perfection, as he has proven time and again (with four Oscar nominations and one win to show for it). And as far as complicated characters go, this one’s a doozy. As Mike Fleming Jr. writes for Deadline:

John Lee Bishop emerged from a rough and tumble childhood to become pastor of The Living Hope Church, which became so big at his peak that it filled an 8500 square foot former K-Mart superstore in Portland Oregon. A natural showman who would bring exotic animals for a sermon on Noah’s Ark, and once almost got mauled by a Bengal tiger he brought to the pulpit, Bishop became wealthy as the star performer. While the church catered to lost souls with the theory anyone could be forgiven, Bishop didn’t handle the affluence well and his parishioners would not forgive him when the married preacher was caught in an affair with a church employee, and for a raging painkiller and drinking problem. Bishop’s son, David, who developed a meth and heroin habit, and the preacher found a perplexing method of intervention. Bishop had a terrible childhood, subjected to bare knuckle fight club matches with other kids organized by his uncles for their amusement. Determined not to fail his son, Bishop insisted on taking the drugs with the youth, to understand their power over him. That led to Bishop’s road to smuggling drugs for a Mexican cartel. Caught at the Mexican border after 20 runs, Bishop was convicted and sentence to five years behind bars.

Ultimately, it was Bishop’s son who helped turn his dad’s life around—which is just the kind of ending that makes the story so ripe for adaptation. Kushner and Randolph will executive produce the film for New Regency.

(Via Deadline)

In discussions about her conservatorship, one topic that comes up regularly is Britney Spears’ plans to tour. The singer often said she refused to perform until her father, Jamie Spears, was removed as her co-conservator. But seeing as Jamie has made his plans to step down from his role clear, the question of whether or not Spears will ever return to the stage remains.

The last time Spears performed for an audience was on December 31, 2017, the final day of her lengthy Britney: Piece Of Me Las Vegas residency. The slew of shows spanned from 2013 to 2017 and included nearly 250 performances. In a recent post on Instagram, Spears recalls how hard she worked during that era, saying she only went out two times during the entire four-year stint:

“I’ve been thinking about life and what my version of success is … to me it’s knowing I’ve used my heart over my head and it’s hard sometimes because of ego … but sometimes ego is protection !!!! I gotta get the hell out of here … ok … I’m talking nonsense. Either way … me in my white dress !!! I was thinking about when I did shows in Vegas … the four years I was there I went out only two times !!!! Unfortunately I’m not lying but that’s not why I’m sharing this with you guys … it was the only one time I wore a white costume.”

The singer added that no one her her backup crew wore colorful outfits throughout her lengthy residency. “it may be uncool but let’s start wearing bright colors,” she wrote.