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These days, shoot em ups and chop socky revenge movies are a dime a dozen (call it the John Wick effect), but good ones are still few and far between. Squibs and stage punches are probably fun for the performers, but unless all that murder and mayhem is choreographed compellingly and shot with a sense of visual wit it sort of fades into the background. In The Protege, far more care seems to have gone into the stunts themselves than the movie around them. That’s a good thing, within reason, but the film eventually expects us to be invested in motives, when the only thing compelling was ever the visual spectacle of graphic murder.

Directed by Casino Royale‘s Martin Campbell (the marketing materials conveniently ignore him having also directed Green Lantern) The Protege stars Maggie Q as Anna, the titular protege, trained from childhood to be a sought-after assassin by her mentor, Moody (Samuel L. Jackson). He discovered Anna hiding in a closet with a gun in a room full of dead guys when she was just a little girl, back in Da Nang in 1991. Moody was supposed to be doing hitman stuff, but presumably, he sensed the child’s natural aptitude for homicide and raised her as his own, schooling her in the ways of the shooting, the stabbing, the kung fu and so forth, until she eventually got so cool under pressure that she no longer looks at explosions.

Grown Anna can shoot, ‘splode, and strangle with the best of them, but her true innovation seems to be hiding knives in things. We first meet Anna when she kidnaps a Romanian mafia princeling to hold for ransom. Or so we think, at first. After a spirited pummeling by some Bucharest toughs, she’s brought before the ransomed prince’s father, who shows her to the carefully packed ransom money and promises that she won’t live long enough to spend it. At which point she turns her cell phone into a switchblade and stabs him in the neck. Hey, cool trick! Later she pulls the same thing with a cigar. Where does she get such wonderful toys?

Anna and Moody eventually return to London to count their lucre (every action movie these days has to shoot in at least five countries, must be something to do with tax breaks), and Moody, who coughs like he’s dying (which in movies means he is dying), asks Anna to check up on some kid who Moody orphaned back when Papa Roach still ruled the charts. Seems that Moody, who just celebrated his 70th birthday, is feeling repentant in his old age. Only trouble is, every person who Anna even asks about this mystery man seems to turn up dead. Simply hearing his name is tantamount to watching that videotape from The Ring.

Anna’s mission to avenge her friends and find this man eventually brings her face to face with a rival assassin named Rembrandt, played by Michael Keaton, who happens to work for the guy Anna wants to kill. Nonetheless, the two bond over knowing the same obscure Poe poems by heart (get this guy on FBoy Island!) and generally seem to have a sexually charged, enemies-with-benefits dynamic. In some ways, Q and Keaton are an inspired pairing, with an interest sort of chemistry. Keaton still has that old twinkle that always made him so compelling, and there’s a great scene where the smitten but still sociopathic Rembrandt admits “I could put two in the back of your head and then make myself lunch.”

Yet the obvious elephant in the room is that Keaton’s role seems to have been written for a man at least 20 years younger. It’s not that a woman Maggie Q’s age (42) has never fallen for a man Michael Keaton’s age (69) in real life. It’s not that Keaton’s character is basically the same age as Anna’s adopted father. It’s just that the movie never bother acknowledges any of these obvious things. We’re just meant to accept their sexual tension from the jump. Rembrandt also fights like he’s 25, piledriving henchdudes through tables and throwing people over furniture in the form of a stunt double who is almost comically Not Michael Keaton. I love seeing Michael Keaton, and there are ways to write both fight and sex scenes that make sense for a 60-year-old man (didn’t Adam Sandler have a sketch about this?), but this ain’t it.

But again — The Protege‘s stunts are actually pretty good. They’re cleverly staged (Maggie Q swinging on a fire hose) graphic with the intended impact (impaled with a meat thermometer!), and generally speaking, thump when they’re supposed to thump. Neither does Campbell his stunt coordinators (Georgi Dmitrov and Georgi Manchev) in non-diegetic music and constant hyper stylization — here I’m thinking specifically of the thoroughly forgettable Bob Odenkirk shoot-em-up from a few months back, Nobody.

It’s just that The Protege‘s overarching revenge plot is half-baked at best. A quarter baked, really, and that’s being generous. There’s a rich guy, a disabled son, and a failed assassination attempt that we never even understand, let alone care about. Such that when the film starts trying to tie up the necessary loose ends at the end, we’re metaphorically tapping our watches.

‘The Protege’ is available only in theaters on August 20. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

In 2020, Common released his first-ever EP, A Beautiful Revolution, Pt. 1, a jazzy return to his hip-hop roots featuring appearances from Black Thought, Chuck D, Lenny Kravitz, PJ, and Stevie Wonder. Led by the Black Thought-featuring single “Say Peace,” the project found Common once again dwelling on weighty themes and socially conscious messages over Afrocentric production styles. Today, Common returned to the well with Black Thought to release “When We Move,” the first single from the second installment of his A Beautiful Revolution series, which is set to drop on September 10 via Loma Vista.

Also last night, Common dropped by The Tonight Show to debut the track live just as he’d done with “Say Peace,” giving an energetic performance alongside The Roots and longtime friend and collaborator Black Thought and Nigerian Afrobeat artist Seun Kuti, the youngest son of Fela Kuti. As usual, the two MCs brought complex, thoughtful rhymes to the bouncy production while the band channeled the energy of the Afrobeat legend.

A Beautiful Revolution Pt. 2 will continue in the same vein of collaboration for the veteran rapper with features from Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, PJ, who will once again be all over the tracklist, and Marcus King, among others. He said in a statement:

“A Beautiful Revolution Pt. 2 was created with hope and inspiration in mind. The spirit of the album was meant to emulate what a greater day would sound and feel like. We were in the midst of some tough political and socially challenging times. There was still hurt, anger and pain lingering, so I was thinking, ‘What is the next step in this revolution?’

I wanted to write about that and create music that embodied that. How could this music be an example of the beautiful aspects of revolution that include joy, self-love, compassion, dreams, peace and good times? As a piece of art, I believe we took it to different places musically only to come back to the original intention. To bring joy to people’s hearts, fun to their lives and smiles to their souls.”

Watch Common and Black Thought’s vibrant performance above.

It’s no coincidence more than 83 million viewers tuned in to watch Bridgerton when it hit Netflix last winter. It’s got everything you could ever want in a binge-worthy, feel-good romance: stunning sets, gorgeous costumes, and compelling performances from a whole lot of good-looking people intent on wooing one another out those aforementioned costumes. The show quickly became famous for its tender moments and steamy scenes, with one of its more iconic ones involving actor Regé-Jean Page’s tongue and some cutlery.

While it might seem fairly obvious the show was intended to send folks away swooning, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bridgerton showrunner Chris Van Dusen revealed just how intentional all the show’s hottest moments were. According to Van Dusen, the Bridgerton writers’ room was intent on coming up with ‘thirsty moments’ to insert throughout the show, and the infamous spoon-licking was just one of many.

The spoon lick was scripted and those were some of the best days in the writers’ room that I can remember. We challenged ourselves to come up with these, we called them ‘thirsty’ moments, and the spoon was one of them. We had such fun in the room pitching on those ideas and there were so many. There’s so many more to come in the series as well.

While unfortunately none of these future ‘thirsty moments’ will include Page, as the actor has confirmed he is not coming back for Bridgerton season 2, it’s safe to say we can’t wait for all the seductive scenes the team has planned out for the rest of the cast. The rose-tinted world of Bridgerton has yet to get a date for it’s season 2 premiere but was said to begin filming earlier this year, putting it on track for sometime in early 2022. The show, which currently has 12 Emmy nominations including one for Page’s performance as Simon, the Duke of Hastings, is still Netflix’s most-watched show ever and is definitely one to add to your binge-worthy list if you haven’t already.

LeVar Burton’s “happy Friday, y’all” wasn’t in response to Mike Richards losing the Jeopardy! host gig, but James Holzhauer’s tweet sure was.

“I was really looking forward to the season premiere where after an exhaustive 61-clue search for the next Jeopardy champion, the show looks past the three obvious candidates and declares Mike Richards the winner,” the Jeopardy! legend, who had a 32-episode winning streak on the syndicated game show (making him the third highest-grossing contestant of all-time), wrote on Twitter. Ken Jennings, the other household name among former-Jeopardy! contestants, has yet to weigh in. But it’s surely coming.

This isn’t the first time that Holzhauer has commented on the search to replace Alex Trebek. Following the announcement that Richards and The Big Bang Theory‘s Mayim Bialik would split the hosting duties, he tweeted, “Also new for next season: contestants can submit two Final Jeopardy responses in case the first one causes public backlash.” It’s unclear who his “three obvious candidates” are, but it’s probably fan favorite Burton, Aaron Rodgers, and “Weird Al” Yankovic from the “I Lost on Jeopardy” music video.

Richards stepped down (a.k.a. quit) as Jeopardy! host after offensive comments he made on a podcast several years ago resurfaced in an article on The Ringer. “We support Mike’s decision to step down as host,” Sony Pictures Entertainment said in a statement. “We were surprised this week to learn of Mike’s 2013/2014 podcast and the offensive language he used in the past. We have spoken with him about our concerns and our expectations moving forward.” Richards will remain an executive producer.

LeVar Burton wasn’t a very good host during his week behind the Jeopardy! podium. It’s something his biggest supporters don’t want to admit, but even Burton himself has said he didn’t exactly crush it once his much-hyped opportunity to host came around late this summer.

“I had, like all of the hosts, one day of rehearsal and the following day I shot five episodes of Jeopardy! I came backstage after taping the first episode and I said to Stephanie, ‘Well, how did I do?’ She said, ‘ehhh,’” Burton told the Associated Press in July, recalling a conversation with his wife. “Now, this is a woman who loves me enough to tell me the truth.”

It’s tough to pin down what didn’t work for Burton because there are a lot of factors at play. He got the same rehearsal time as the other hosts, sure, but the breakneck pace at which the show tapes means he had just a single day behind the podium for his five episodes while every other guest host got at least twice as many shows. And while Burton sits dead last in the guest host ratings, his lone hosting week came amid the Tokyo Olympics, which preempted syndication in several markets in the dog days of summer after a seemingly endless string of guest hosts.

The top view of all this is that after months of his biggest fans clamoring for Burton to get a shot, he failed. But the further we get away from his “ehhh” day on set, the more we know just how much of the deck was stacked against Burton, not to mention every other guest host except executive producer-turned full-time host Mike Richards. The former Price Is Right executive producer was named the official replacement of the late Alex Trebek last week and sparked a rolling wave of controversies as his past legal troubles and comments on podcasts have emerged in recent days, not to mention the concerning influence he had on the selection process that ultimately ended with himself for the job.

It’s difficult to remove Richards’ repulsive comments about women and jokes about Jewish people from the equation here, so don’t. The detailed reports and audio clips of Richards’ laundry list of inappropriate comments were the sorts of things that the show’s producers needed to catch in any sort of vetting process, and while the scrutiny Richards is facing is beyond deserved, the process (or, potentially, lack thereof) deserves just as much.

Beyond that, the reports that management miscalculated when they assumed he had already endured his legal troubles so that wouldn’t spark controversy on its own is equally baffling. It did, and things have only gotten worse for Sony and Richards when it comes to optics in the days that followed. It’s a fallout that cost Richards his job on Friday, but at this point, it’s clear that putting his past under the microscope should have immediately ended his viability as a Trebek successor.

In terms of a person with a résumé, Richards is a reasonable pick to host Jeopardy! He has experience in game shows and he looks like a game show host, more or less. He certainly sounds like someone who works in game shows. But for some of the biggest Jeopardy! fans, that’s exactly the problem: He looks like he could host any game show, so why does he get to host the most beloved game show on TV?

As Claire McNear’s excellent reporting on the subject this week detailed, the answer to that question was fuzzy to say the least. And after a process that saw Burton and even Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers eloquently explain how much hosting Jeopardy! would mean to them, Richards’ history of seeking other game show gigs while blandly expressing affection for Jeopardy! took on new context, as did his takeover of Jeopardy! behind the scenes as those outside the show reportedly assumed he’d fill a power vacuum that didn’t necessarily even exist.

As executive producer, Richards controlled nearly everything about Jeopardy!’s most recent season. Sources say this led to myriad conflicts of interest. “He was the one rehearsing and giving direction to all the guest hosts, who may not have realized they were competing with him for the job,” says a Sony employee familiar with the host search. “He could influence the promotion of those shows and the respective guest hosts. He had personal relationships with the executives involved, who had entrusted the show to him a year before.”

Burton has become an avatar for many frustrated with how Jeopardy! picked its host because it’s reflective of society on a number of levels. And Richards’ apparent grasp on the levers of power behind the scenes at Jeopardy! had many victims, including Ken Jennings and other hosts. But the conversation around Burton, in my opinion, is a bit off. His performance didn’t justify him winning the Jeopardy! job, despite the enthusiasm of his supporters. The problem is not that he didn’t get the job anyway, but that he had a single opportunity to find that success and earn the gig in the first place.

Threading that needle, especially amid some pretty obvious meddling and unfortunate circumstances, is a familiar story arc for so many non-white, non-male people across all fields. It’s not that Burton didn’t get a chance, because he did. But the playing field, it’s clear, was never quite level. It’s why, even if Burton didn’t shine behind the podium, his failure to get the job stings for so many.

Earlier in the summer, I asked Alfonso Ribeiro about the Jeopardy! job and if he had someone he hoped would get the job. For him, all he wanted to see was a fair fight.

“Whoever gets the job, let them be the best. And whatever that looks like. I’m not one that says, well, I think it has to be a Black person or I think it has be a woman. I don’t think it should be anybody,” Ribeiro said. “I think it’s whoever’s the best, as long as everybody gets an opportunity and a fair shake at it, then whoever’s the best and whoever the audience loves the most, it should be their job.”

The Catch 21 and AFV host couldn’t possibly have known just what was going on behind the scenes at Jeopardy!, but looking back at the mechanisms in place, the end result seems even more predictable. Jennings got the best ratings and may have even had Trebek’s approval. Burton got the most fan buzz. Rodgers had the most viral moments and was prepared to rearrange his extremely busy life as an All-Pro quarterback on a team with Super Bowl aspirations to potentially fit in filming Jeopardy! Seemingly every other guest host with obvious aspirations of being Trebek’s successor made clear that hosting the show would be the honor of their — in many cases decorated — professional lives. And despite all of that, it was Richards that was spit out of the machine as the big winner, flaws and all.

“If you allow everybody to get in there and have an even shake at it,” Ribeiro told me, “They’re gonna be different people in different jobs because different people have different talents.”

Regardless of his performance, it’s clear that Burton didn’t get that fair shake. And now that we know more about the process Richards spearheaded until he became a candidate, we know no one — from Jennings and Rodgers to guest hosts who ostensibly no one wanted like Dr. Oz — really got a chance to be at their best. It’s that knowledge Jeopardy! fans now have that will carry into next season, no matter who is hosting the show. It’s unfortunate, because unlike the contestants, it’s never felt like one bad day should impact whoever gets to host the most beloved game show on TV.

The host, as Trebek so effortlessly projected, is always supposed to have the answers. It was the way Richards got them, however, that was never going to sit right with fans.

BTS have officially cancelled their Map Of The Soul World Tour, citing ongoing pandemic concerns. “Our company has worked hard to resume preparations for the BTS Map Of The Soul Tour, knowing that all fans have been waiting eagerly and long for the tour,” a statement from the K-pop favorites’ label Big Hit Music read. “Due to changing circumstances beyond our control, it has become difficult to resume performances at the same scale and timeline as previously planned.”

The tour was originally announced in January 2020 and scheduled to kick off in April 2020 but was ultimately postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2020. Now, the tour has been officially cancelled, according to the statement. “We are working to prepare a viable schedule and performance format that can meet your expectations, and we will provide updated notices as soon as possible.”

BTS joins a handful of other big-name acts who’ve cancelled tour dates due to ongoing concerns around Covid’s highly contagious Delta variant. This week, Garth Brooks called off the next five dates of his stadium tour, citing COVID safety concerns: “In July, I sincerely thought the pandemic was falling behind us. Now, watching this new wave, I realize we are still in the fight and I must do my part,” Brooks said in a statement. Nine Inch Nails also cancelled the remainder of its 2021 shows, saying, “When originally planned, these shows were intended to be a cathartic and celebratory return to live music. However with each passing day it’s becoming more apparent we’re not at that place yet.”

Plenty of (pretty, pretty, pretty good) Curb Your Enthusiasm jokes followed recent news of Larry David unloading in a screaming match with high-profile attorney Alan Dershowitz on Martha’s Vineyard. The confrontation took place in a grocery store, as first reported by Page Six, which relayed the exchange for all to see. David was all kinds of upset about spotting Dershowitz with his arm around former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose contribution to the unfolding catastrophe in Afghanistan hasn’t gone unnoticed. There’s been no further word from David on the incident, but Dershowitz is happy to talk (and then talk some more).

While speaking with Newsmax, Dershowitz relayed how his former friend couldn’t stomach the sight of him, following their previous fallout over Dershowitz representing Donald Trump. “Larry starts screaming at me!” the former member of O.J. Simpson’s dream team said. “He just couldn’t couldn’t control himself. I thought he was gonna have a stroke! … I was all these horrible, horrible things.”

Dershowitz, who remarked upon how he’s lost an awful lot of friends despite mostly representing Democrats (including Bill Clinton) in legal disputes, appeared to be aghast over David’s dismissal of their decades-long friendship. “This is a guy whose daughter I helped get into college… I represented him and his family pro bono in a dispute he had on Martha’s Vineyard,” Dershowitz asserted while adding that Pompeo was his former student, so he wanted to support the guy. “Just because I defended President Trump in front of the Senate and I patted Mike Pompeo on the back, that’s enough to end a 25-year friendship.”

As for where this dispute goes from here, Dershowitz maintained, “I’m not gonna engage with him in a screaming match.” Still, he added that he’s been cancelled by many friends and endless organizations, which he finds unfair: “This is pure McCarthyism. When you start blaming the lawyer because you don’t agree with the client, that’s McCarthyism.”

However, Dershowitz conceded that his analogy might not be a perfect one. “I didn’t lose my job,” he admitted. “I haven’t lost my living the way some people did during McCarthy’s time, but I have lost lots and lots of friends.” Well, U.S. citizens do have the right to an attorney for sure, so legal ethics are one thing, but people also have the right to step away from friendships as a result.

A few weeks after announcing his fifth full-length, Friends That Break Your Heart, James Blake has dropped a yearning new single, “Life Is Not The Same.” Opening with eerie, echoing vocal effects, “Life Is Not The Same” comes co-produced courtesy of duo Take A Daytrip, who you might recall also co-produced the Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow track “Industry Baby” with Kanye West. “Life Is Not The Same” also follows “Say What You Will,” a song the Grammy-winning songwriter released featuring Finneas.

“The song is about finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing,” Blake said when “Say What You Will” dropped in July. “Comparison really is the thief of joy.”

Chatting with MixMag late last year, the reclusive Blake opened up a bit about how his in-public persona has evolved in the last 10 years:

“I think early in my career, I just didn’t do that much press, because I was quite anxious and nervous,” he said. “And that essentially equates to mystery in a way because unless people know about you, and they hear about music through the grapevine, they don’t know what you like, and all that stuff. But actually, in my real life, I found that the mystery didn’t help me. It made me feel less understood! I understand from a consumer’s point of view, there’s probably some lore to that, but I don’t resonate with it at all. But in terms of can you still be mysterious?

Now? I think you can, probably more easily because, you know, there’s just so much turnover in music and if you want to remain anonymous, then all power to you. But ultimately, if you want to make a living as a musician it’s a lot harder to do that. If you’re anonymous now, some of that is those guerrilla tactics, like keeping a name off the flyer and doing hand-stamped pressings, that’s cool. But now, I sort of don’t really see why you would want to limit yourself with it.”

Friends That Will Break Your Heart is out 9/10 via Republic Records. Pre-order it here.

For nearly the entire decade or so that music streaming platforms have been a thing, there’s been one artist’s catalog more elusive than any other — that of late R&B singer Aaliyah Houghton, known mononymously as Aaliyah. Known for breaking boundaries and elevating the style in the late ’90s and early-2000s, as well as pioneering the first big breakthrough to Hollywood for hip-hop-generation R&B singers with hit films like Romeo Must Die and Queen Of The Damned, Aaliyah’s catalog has been subject to a legal dispute sparked by her death in 2001 that prevented her music from ever being provided to streamers.

That is, until recently. Today, for the first time, Aaliyah’s music became available on streaming via a partnership between her original label Blackground and Empire, the independent distributor, as One In A Million, her second album and first produced by Timbaland, hit streaming services. Technically, the label is now called Blackground Records 2.0 but it’s still under the ownership of Aaliyah’s uncle and former manager Barry Hankerson. Within hours, it had reached the top spots on nearly every service, to the joy of fans. Meanwhile, Aaliyah’s estate recently released a statement condemning the release, calling it an “unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah’s music without any transparency or full accounting to the estate.”

That hasn’t stopped fans from rejoicing in the music’s availability, as multiple generations informed and influenced by such hits as “One In A Million,” “Try Again,” “Are You That Somebody?” and “Rock The Boat” re-discover her groundbreaking oeuvre. Blackground 2.0 intends to continue rolling out the remainder of Aaliyah’s catalog in the comings weeks, so don’t be surprised to see more of the same for a while. Check out the responses below.

The state of Texas has an official motto: Friendship. Meanwhile, the Lone Star State’s current leadership may have adopted another unofficial motto, too: Blame it on Black people!

It’s that second guiding principle that the state’s lieutenant governor Dan Patrick seemed to be leaning into when chatting about his state’s rising COVID numbers with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night. Currently, Texas is just behind Florida in the race to have the most new cases of COVID with a total of 114,913 versus Florida’s 142,671, according to Healthline. But as Raw Story reports, Patrick thinks he has a pretty good idea of what’s causing these numbers to escalate:

“The COVID is spreading, particularly—most of the numbers are with the unvaccinated.”

Sure, that makes sense.

Then came this:

“The Democrats like to blame Republicans on that. Well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated. The last time I checked, 90 percent of them vote for Democrats, in the major cities and major counties. So it’s up to the Democrats to get, just as it is up to Republicans, to try to get as many people vaccinated. But we respect the fact that if people don’t want the vaccination, we’re not going to force it on them. That’s their individual right. But in terms of criticizing the Republicans for this? We’re encouraging people who want to take it to take it, but they’re doing nothing for the Africa… African American community, that has a significant high number of unvaccinated people.”

“Them.”

You can watch the clip below.

So when Patrick says that Republicans are working to get as many people vaccinated as possible, is he talking about his boss, governor Greg Abbott—who currently has COVID—outlawing mask mandates? Or walking-talking ad for sterilization Ted Cruz’s vow to create a federal law banning all mask and vaccine mandates?

We’re not exactly sure when the “last time” Patrick checked his stats, but The Washington Post already called bullsh*t:

The latest data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that the African American population there is not driving the increase in cases. Black residents in Texas accounted for 16.4 percent of the state’s cases and 10.2 percent of deaths as of Aug. 13. Black people make up about 13 percent of the state’s population, according to census data.

Health data scientist Jorge Caballero was much more forthright in his criticism of Patrick’s claim, telling WaPo: “Making a statement that casts blame on a racial or ethnic minority for the spread of disease is a well-known racist trope that predates most of us. People are already getting hurt by this virus, and it makes absolutely no sense for us to add insult to injury.”

(Via Raw Story)