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The ninth movie in the Fast & Saga, accurately titled F9, is largely being framed as a return to the movies in America, but overseas it’s already having a monster showing in another market. The final trailer for the long-delayed Fast and Furious movie was an emotional one, giving fans of the action series plenty to look forward to its June 25 release stateside.

But the movie is already out in China and a handful of other overseas markets, and according to reports, the film is having the biggest release of any film since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those big numbers are even in spite of a late cancelation of a major F9 event in China. According to Variety, the film’s opening was marred by a “threat” to a promotional event in Shanghai on Thursday.

On Friday, “Fast & Furious 9” comfortably raced to the top of the box office chart, scoring RMB231 million ($35.8 million) by 5.30pm local time, and claiming an 88% market share, according to data from ticket sales agency Maoyan. That gave it a running total of RMB292 million ($45.3 million) including sneak previews and midnight screenings.

It’s certainly a good sign for the film’s chances of leading a similar box office resurgence in the United States. With vaccinations continuing and more people feeling comfortable at indoor spaces in public as things progress, it’s looking more like the long wait for F9 will pay off both for moviegoers but for the studios who decided to wait out the worst of the pandemic with the movie still in the can. The trick for the next few weeks will be avoiding spoilers. No one tell us how or why Han is alive. No one! Leave us that small sliver of magic. We’ve waited so long already.

Last week, Florence And The Machine teased their contribution to the movie Cruella, a song called “Call Me Cruella.” Now the full track is out, and it filters the classic “Cruella de Vil” song through the lens of grimy ’70s rock. In addition to the complete track, the full score (which is out today) also features an instrumental version of the song.

Florence Welch previously said of the song, “Some of the first songs I ever learned how to sing were Disney songs. And the villains often got the best numbers. So to help create and perform a song for Cruella is the fulfillment of a long-held childhood dream. I’m so grateful to Nicholas Britell and Disney for allowing me so much creative freedom, and for trusting me with Cruella’s beautiful madness.”

Britell also added, “I am a massive fan of Florence’s, so it was a true joy to collaborate with her on ‘Call Me Cruella.’ With both this song and the Cruella score itself, the goal was to really embrace the raw rock aesthetic of ’60s and ’70s London. We recorded everything using all vintage gear and analog tape at Abbey Road and AIR Studios in London, melding orchestral elements with electric guitars and basses, organs, keyboards, and drums.”

Listen to “Call Me Cruella” above and stream the full Cruella score below.

America is on the threshold of having 50% of adults fully vaccinated from COVID-19. However, the number of daily doses administered is down about 48% from a peak rate of nearly 3.4 million per day in mid-April.

A big reason for this is vaccine hesitancy. Around 30% of Americans are hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine, which presents a sizable roadblock to reaching herd immunity. Estimates differ, but it’s thought after approximately 85% of the country has had the vaccine, the country will be on track for herd immunity.

It’s important for the health of all Americans to try to help the hesitant to understand the facts: vaccines are safe and do a great job at preventing COVID-19 infections.

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Who better to try to change people’s minds about the vaccine than one of its developers, Dr. Kizzmekia “Kizzy” Corbett?

Dr. Corbett is an immunologist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and a scientific lead for the Coronavirus Vaccines and Immunopathogenesis team that co-developed a highly effective COVID-19 vaccine based on mRNA technology with Moderna.

Meet Dr. Kizzmekia “Kizzy” Corbett ⁦@KizzyPhD⁩ one of the lead scientists in developing the #CovidVaccine https://t.co/6UEtktsAD2

— Karimah 🖖🏾 Boston (@KarimahAsha)
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Last week, Matthew Mallory, an attendee at the “Vaccinating America” town hall at Northern Virginia Community College featuring President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, admitted he was hesitant about getting the shot.

“How do you know it’s safe and who to trust?” he asked the panel.

“Does it give you confidence that Dr. Fauci, who has been working in this area his entire life was one of the very first people to take the vaccine, the Moderna vaccine?” MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell asked Mallory.

“In a way it does, I just still have hesitancies,” he replied.

So the panel asked Dr. Corbett to step in and help out.

“I get it. I completely understand,” she told Mallory. “I’ve realized that through this moment I sit in a place of privilege where I have information on a day-to-day basis about these vaccines that the general person does not. But the one thing that reassures me constantly is seeing over time, more and more people getting these vaccines. The data are so clear and crisp and that they are effective.”

Dr. Corbett met with Mallory and his mother after the event and they talked for over 10 minutes. However, even after meeting with one of the creators of the vaccine, he still wasn’t convinced.

Mallory and his mother went home and had a heart-to-heart about getting vaccinated and decided to get their first shots yesterday at Walgreens.

Dr. Corbett proudly met the two at the drug store and comforted them while they got their shots.

Dr. Corbett Convinces MSNBC Town Hall Participant To Get Covid Vaccine

www.youtube.com

If we can cut the number of people with vaccine hesitancy by half over the coming months, it gives us a much better chance of reaching herd immunity. If not, the virus will linger in pockets of the country where hesitancy is highest, taking thousands of lives along the way.

A big part of helping people change their minds is understanding there is a lot of misinformation muddying the waters, so it makes sense that some are uncomfortable getting the shot.

Dr. Corbett displayed a great example of how to counter the misinformation by taking the time to listen to Mallory without judgement and to give him the tools necessary to make an informed decision. She’s a great example of how we can reach herd immunity by empowering people instead of shaming them.

If you haven’t started streaming Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. yet, spoiler alert, there’s a scene where the giant, villainous floating head is in the nude, and according to the show’s creators, the visual stunt was the Hulu series’ biggest challenge. With the show having a similar stop-motion visual style to Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken, a team of puppet engineers is required, and apparently, they ran into some obstacles when creators Patton Oswalt (who also voices the titular character) and Jordan Blum wanted to see the weirdly shape Marvel character naked.

In a new interview, Blum explains that it “took a lot of R&D,” but the credit department nailed it. And by it, we mean they figured out what a giant floating face would look like from the chin down. Via Polygon:

“It was the most back and forth we had with design with the puppet department,” Blum told Polygon over Zoom. “Where we were like, ‘[His head has] got to be bigger!’ And they were like ‘The body would never support this.’ We were like ‘That’s the point! The body needs to be smaller, and the head needs to be bigger.’ And they were like, ‘We’re trying!’”

Earlier in the week, Oswalt stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote his new series, but the comedian couldn’t help but get sidetracked by the recent talk of UFOs thanks to a recent segment on 60 Minutes. Instead of talking about M.O.D.O.K., Oswalt told an anecdote about his dad seeing two objects flying in the sky while serving as a test pilot for the Marines during the ’60s and ’70s. According to Oswalt’s father, pilots at the time saw all kinds of crazy stuff, but never reported it out of fear of not being allowed to fly anymore. But the real question this begs is: Was any of it weirder than a nude M.O.D.O.K.? Who’s to say?!

Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is now streaming on Hulu.

(Via Polygon)

Sascha Baron Cohen isn’t done with Borat just yet, and the latest version of the fictional character’s story involves debunking some other fictional stories plaguing modern America. A wave of new footage (and unused footage from Borat 2) is apparently becoming a six-part series that will feature some peeks into said conspiracy theories and experts trying to convince people who believe, say, that Hillary Clinton is deeply involved in Pizzagate, that what they’ve read and heard is not real.

Amazon announced the Debunking Borat series on Thursday, along with BORAT: VHS Cassette of Material Deemed “Sub-acceptable” By Kazakhstan Ministry of Censorship and Circumcision, which will include the previously unseen footage from the Borat sequel. But a trailer for the Debunking Borat series gave us a look at what that series will entail, and some of it is pretty notable, starting with Hillary Clinton confronting some people from the movie who believed some wild things about her.

Backstory will help. Borat 2, which was filmed amid the coronavirus pandemic, featured, among many other people, two right-wing conspiracy theorists with whom Cohen spent part of lockdown. “The Clintons tortured these kids,” one man from the movie said, parroting a wild accusation that’s commonly believed among QAnon enthusiasts who think the former president and secretary of state are part of a global cabal of cannibals and sex traffickers. In the trailer for Debunking Borat, a clip of that line is played, followed by images that appear to have them watching a video of some sort.

“Hello Jim and Jerry,” Clinton says, right before the trailer ends.

That will certainly be the big draw of series, as hearing people say these conspiracies in the movie was one of the wilder things in Borat 2, non-Rudy Giuliani category, of course. But with all the Borat coming and all the weird things he’s said in character, it’s kind of nice to assume this bit of the Borat universe doesn’t require a layer of irony.

[via The Wrap]

Like Senator Bernie Sanders before him, President Joe Biden wants young people to get lucky.

No seriously. The Biden administration’s latest strategy to get as many Americans vaccinated as possible now includes dating apps like Tinder and Bumble promoting vaccinated matches. On Friday, Biden’s press team sent out a memo detailing their latest rollout plan, explaining how hookup apps including Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, BLK, Chispa, Plenty of Fish, and more are working with the White House COVID Team to get younger generations to swipe left on vaccine hesitancy by altering algorithms to favor vaccinated singles and allowing users to add stickers, badges, etc to prove they’ve gotten their shot.

“In support of President Biden’s goal of getting 70 percent of adults at least one shot by July 4, the largest dating apps in America will launch new features to encourage Americans to get vaccinated,” the memo states, via USA Today.

Those new features differ depending on which app you prefer. On Tinder, users can pick from a couple of different badge stickers, have access to premium content that helps them stand out in the scroll, and connect to a “Vaccination Center” filled with relevant resources. Over on OkCupid, vaccinated users get their own matching system with free “Boosts” to their profile. And over on Bumble, influencers are amplifying the need to get jabbed while regular users can get complimentary credits for premium features.

Basically, Biden wants you to know it pays to be vaccinated when it comes to the world of virtual dating. Unfortunately, not even a Pfizer shot can protect you from unwarranted d*ck pics.

(Via USA Today)

When Lil Nas X first rose to stardom with “Old Town Road,” it was rumored that he was so into Nicki Minaj that he used to operate a fan account about her. That turned out to be true, although Nas wasn’t forthcoming with that information for a while because he feared being outed as gay. Now, Nas is both openly gay and openly a Minaj fan, both of which he addresses on his latest song, “Sun Goes Down.” However, the Barbz, as Minaj’s fans are called, want Nas to keep her name out of his mouth and it appears he’s going to do just that.

On the track, Lil Nas X reflects on his past, including his admiration for Nicki Minaj, rapping, “I’d be by the phone / Stanning Nicki mornin’ into dawn / Only place I felt like I belonged / Strangers make you feel so loved, you know?” After the song was released, it seems some Barbz thought Nas was using her name for attention. The backlash was apparently severe enough for Nas to vow to stop talking about Minaj.

Taking to Twitter, he wrote, “to the barbz who feel i’m using nicki’s name for attention, the song i released last night was recorded last year. and it’s about my life which 6 of those years were dedicated to nicki. it’s no fake love. but i understand how it looks so i will no longer mention her.”

After Nas admitted he previously denied being a Barb, Minaj responded, saying that while she was initially hurt by that, she understood, writing on Twitter, “It was a bit of a sting when you denied being a barb, but I understand. Congratulations on building up your confidence to speak your truth.”

The cosmopolitan cocktail is a modern classic. The drink goes back to the mid-1980s and Miami bartending legend Cheryl Cook. Cook wanted to create something new for the martini glass and decided an elevated Kamikaze shot was the play. With that, the cosmo was born.

This drink is so easy to make and master. It’s a simple shaker that blends citrus vodka, fresh lime juice, orange liqueur, and cranberry juice. That’s it. You don’t need any special syrups or unique shaking skills. You really just need about 30 seconds and you can make this.

The weekend is almost here so let’s get shaking. Check my video below for a little visual instruction.

Cosmopolitan

Ingredients:

• 1.5-oz. citrus vodka
• 1-oz. orange liqueur
• 0.5-oz. fresh lime juice
• 0.5-oz. cranberry juice
• Lime peel
• Ice

The key to this drink is citrus vodka. Yes, you can make this with plain old vodka. But it won’t have the same citrusy depth and brightness. And that’s kind of the whole point. I like using Stoil Lime because it’s a truly limey vodka that helps this drink pop. It’s also only $20 for a bottle. That’s a good price for a good mixing vodka.

The original recipe called for Cointreau. I don’t have that on my shelf. But I have a fancy-smancy French triple sec that is perfectly fine for this (it’s basically the same thing).

My only real variation from the original recipe is that I express the lime peel oils over the drink. Usually, you’d just garnish with a lime wheel. I feel those almost bitter lime oils add that x-factor that takes this drink from “not without its charm” to “start shaking another right now because this one is going down fast!”

The rest is pretty easy. Fresh lime and some good cranberry juice from the grocery store are all you need.

What You’ll Need:

• Pre-chilled coupe, martini, or Nick and Nora glass
• Cocktail shaker
• Cocktail strainer
• Hand juicer
• Mini strainer
• Jigger
• Paring knife

Method:

• Pre-chill your glass, preferably overnight.
• Add vodka, orange liqueur, lime, and cranberry to a cocktail shaker.
• Fill about 1/2 with ice, affix the lid, and shake vigorously for about ten seconds.
• Retrieve the pre-chilled glass from the freezer and strain the cocktail into the glass.
• Express the oils of the lime peel over the glass and drop the peel into the cocktail.
• Serve.

Bottom Line:

This might be my drink for Summer 2021! This is so f*cking delightful, I basically made another immediately.

It’s a burst of glowing citrus tempered by a subtle cranberry tartness. The ease of this cocktail is a little too easy. It goes down fast, especially when it’s still ice-cold. The bright-yet-bitter lime oils really do tie this all together and add that little something extra that’ll keep you going back for more.

I hadn’t had this drink in years and now it’s all I can think about. I might have to make this by the batch for a backyard BBQ later this month.

The weather is heating up and these days we’re spending more time outside and with each other, which means summer streetball season is about to explode in full force. No city goes HAM on the courts like NYC so it’s fitting that Nike chose the Big Apple as the source of inspiration for what is becoming one of the most hyped Dunks of the summer season.

Also, these babies sort of glow in the dark and that’s always a win.

Dubbed NY vs. NY (after the New York summer streetball league), this Nike Dunk Low colorway features a leather upper in Sage Green, with white tumbled leather paneling, and orange accents on the swoosh and tongue tag, and sits atop an icy translucent midsole that lists some scheduled tournament dates at famous New York street parks. Other details include the “NY vs NY” branding on the lateral heel, which glows along with the sneaker’s seams when exposed to black light.

You’re never going to find black light on the street courts, which means aside from a basketball sneaker, this design doubles as a dope nightclub or bar pair. When has a sneaker ever been able to do both? That’s the power of the SB Dunk.

As of right now, a firm release date has not been set but the Nike Dunk Low NY vs. NY is scheduled for a summer drop at a retail price of $100. To see the NY vs. NY at every angle, head to YankeeKicks for a more in-depth look.

After publicly calling out Lucasfilm for failing its POC Star Wars character, John Boyega has been an advocate for better representation on screen that goes beyond the standard practice of just putting diverse characters on the posters then failing to give them meaningful moments. So it’s notable that Boyega felt the need to express his admiration for the great job Marvel did elevating Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

In a new interview, Boyega dives into how the problem with representation is that “the characters are only as good as the moments that you give them.” In his experience with Star Wars, those moments were repeatedly missing, so he was happy to see Disney get things right with Falcon. Via NPR:

When we talk about, you know, Captain America and him kind of facing off Thanos and his army, when you talk about these moments that are given to characters, it’s only because these moments are written by somebody. These moments are put in there on purpose to elevate characters.

We’ve got people now watching “Falcon And The Winter Soldier,” and a lot of people have been commenting about the elevation of Falcon’s character – right? – in the series and how they’ve really done well with bringing him up, which I also agree as well. You know, and we can see there is – that’s because you give characters these special moments, you know.

As Boyega told British GQ back in September 2020, Star Wars characters like Finn and Rose were short-changed while all of the “nuance” went to the white leads. “[You] knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver, you knew what to do with these other people,” Boyega said. “But when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f*ck all.”

(Via NPR)