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Meghan McCain and Joy Behar are really going at it this week. During a contentious discussion about the recent CDC masking guidelines, which have stirred confusion and concern to the point where Dr. Anthony Fauci had to step in and clarify safety protocols, Behar unloaded on conservatives who are refusing to get the COVID vaccine for political reasons. Via Raw Story:

“It’s not that complicated, people. It’s not nuclear physics. All you have to do is get the damn vaccine. When you go inside, wear a mask, even if you have the vaccine,” Behar said. “There might be variants around. Get the damn vaccine. Get the booster when that time is coming. What is the complicated problem here with people? I don’t understand. Is this just to own the libs? Maybe they’re not seeing enough on television the way people suffer when they get the disease.”

Obviously, Behar’s remarks didn’t sit well with the conservative McCain, who blamed the CDC’s messaging for people not getting the vaccine. “This is coming from a place of fear. I don’t think it’s a place of politics,” McCain said. However, Behar wasn’t letting conservatives off the hook, and the situation escalated into a full-on shouting match at the 8:11 mark below:

After McCain called Behar’s claims about owning the libs “factually inaccurate,” Behar fired back that these people are getting their information from Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, which only further sent McCain over the edge as she interrupted Behar and yelled, “They are not! They are not!”

Not in the mood for any of this, Whoopi cut to commercial, as she does.

My day job is writing and editing music posts for Uproxx (and busting out a gaming post here and there). Sometimes, the job involves me going to concerts and music festivals to take photos… although not much over the past year, as you’d imagine. So, you could say that makes me a professional photographer. Now that New Pokémon Snap is out, I thought it could be fun and useful to look at the game from a photography perspective and see what sort of visuals we can squeeze out of the Nintendo Switch. So, let’s go over some tips about how to become the next Todd and produce the best Pokémon photos possible.

It’s important to note that this rundown won’t be about getting the highest score in-game, but how to take the most visually appealing photos, as those two goals don’t always go hand-in-hand. Typically, photos with the Pokémon large and in the center of the frame are most desirable for racking up points, but that doesn’t always produce the nicest image from a visual standpoint.

My first tip is to know what kind of photos you want to take. You only have so much control over your shot because in the game, you move on a predetermined path and the Pokémon can only perform so many actions. Despite that, you can still achieve a variety of shots.

Look to different types of real-world photography for inspiration — nature, portrait, pet, landscape, etc. — and find ways to apply the styles of those genres to Pokémon Snap. You could even look at the illustrations on your favorite Pokémon cards and see what those images do well. Many basic guidelines about real-world photography — the rule of thirds, using different perspectives, etc. — should be useful here, too, so going down a YouTube or Google wormhole about photography tips could serve you well.

My next piece of advice is to not worry too much about getting the perfect shot while out in the level. The reason for that is New Pokémon Snap‘s re-snap mode makes it super easy to refine your image after the fact and even re-frame it entirely. This is where the game has the advantage over real photography: If the zoom of a photo is off or your subject isn’t quite where you want it, you can use this mode to essentially freeze time, reposition yourself, and change your camera settings so they’re exactly how you’d like them. Now, timing should be the only thing stopping your from getting the perfect shot, as opposed to the dozens of other factors that impact real-life photographers.

The third and final tip is perhaps the most important for producing a high-quality final product: Enhance the image outside of the game. Post-processing is a significant part of real-world photography as well. Take your image into a program like Photoshop or Lightroom and tinker with the brightness, sharpness, saturation, shadows, and so on. If you have a specific look in mind, it can be helpful to open an existing photo that looks similar to what you’re going for and try to match its style while editing.

I notice that oftentimes, the outlines of Pokémon and other objects have a lot of pixelation and ugly jagged edges, especially when the Pokémon or object isn’t up close to you. So, feel free to experiment with blur and drawing over problem areas to help correct them. For example, here’s a side-by-side of an image I made using those two techniques, with the before on the left and the after on the right. Notice how the blur has taken care of pixelation both surrounding Magikarp and on its body, and how I’ve drawn new outlines for Magikarp (using the color grabber tool so the new lines blend in) that look a lot smoother.

If Photoshop seems intimidating (or you don’t feel like paying Adobe a monthly fee to use it), you can still get significant image improvement using basic tools. The built-in Preview app on Mac computers, for example, has an Adjust Color window that lets you alter things like exposure, contrast, and sharpness, and just those simple tweaks can work wonders. The Adobe Lightroom mobile app is also useful and is actually pretty robust (and it’s free). Whatever editing option you go with will at least be better than the in-game filters.

This is a great start, but perhaps you’ve noticed your image is still pretty low-resolution, at least in terms of photography: Switch screenshots max out at 720p (1280 by 720 pixels). For reference, compare that to my Samsung Galaxy S20 phone, which takes photos that are 9248 by 6936 pixels.

Fortunately, there are ways to increase the size of the image and get it looking pretty good. When doing this, I usually start with a website like Bigjpg or Waifu2x. Those sites and others like them use AI technology to increase the size of an image and produce a result that looks sharper and less noisy than just increasing the size in a regular image editor. Once you’ve enlarged the image, it’s a good idea to take it into an image editor again and make further adjustments. It’s at this point when I tend to focus on things like saturation and brightness.

After all that, here is my final before-and-after:

On the left is the unaltered Switch screenshot and on the right is my edited and enlarged image. On the right, most notably, Magikarp looks smoother and the colors are more vibrant. For this specific image, after taking the aforementioned editing steps, I brought it back into Photoshop (or in my case, Affinity Photo), increased the saturation, increased the brightness and contrast, used Selective Color to make the trees in the background look less washed out, and finally, intensified the shadows and highlights to give the image more depth.

When all is said and done, you should be left with an image that is larger than what’s in your Switch’s screenshot gallery and considerably better-looking. While I hope my tips are useful, they’re also not the only way to go about this. For example, Reddit user joshmassie87 seems to go deeper into color correction with their Pokémon Snap edits than I do, which has yielded some dramatic and stunning results.

All the images in this post were produced using the methods described above, so if you like what you see (or if you don’t and want to prove that you’re better than me), fire up your Switch and get shooting… and then enhancing and editing.

Much has been made about the friendship between Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift since Rodrigo broke into the music mainstream with “Drivers License” earlier this year. That conversation was whipped into a frenzy today, when the production and songwriting credits for Rodrigo’s album Sour (which is set for release tomorrow, May 21) were unveiled.

Swift is credited (along with Jack Antonoff) on the song “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back,” which had fans thinking that Rodrigo, Swift, and Antonoff either worked on a song together or that Rodrigo sampled one of the tracks the latter two wrote together. However, neither of those speculations are accurate: Uproxx has confirmed that while Swift and Antonoff have writing credits on the song, they did not collaborate on the track with Rodrigo. Additionally, the song is an interpolation of “New Year’s Day” (which Swift and Antonoff co-wrote) and does not contain any samples of it.

That’s not the only track on the album where Swift’s influence made an impact: Rodrigo previously told Rolling Stone that the bridge of “Deja Vu” was inspired by that of Swift’s “Cruel Summer.”

While Swift isn’t on Rodrigo’s new album, Rodrigo is hoping to get on an upcoming Swift project, as she recently said she’d love to be involved with a new rerecording of Speak Now: “My favorite Taylor Swift album is Speak Now. I would love to be on a Speak Now song. I’m just so excited to listen to them, though. I love listening to the vault recordings and stuff like that. I’m gonna own my masters, but I’ll listen to songs I’m not putting out and be like, ‘Maybe I’ll do a vault thing when I’m Taylor’s Swift’s age.’”

Sour is out 5/21 via Geffen Records. Pre-order it here.

What happens when one GOAT meets another GOAT? If Larry David is involved, nothing.

A few years ago, the Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator and then-New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady rode the same elevator at the Kentucky Derby. Fox Sports host Charissa Thompson was on that same elevator, and during a recent episode of the Calm Down With Erin and Charissa podcast, she recounted David’s throughly unimpressed reaction to meeting the three-time MVP.

“We turn around, so we’re facing the doors, like up against the doors, and I hear this sultry Tabasco vanilla whiskey voice go, ‘Hello, Larry.’ And I turn around and the sexpot that was Tom Brady in sunglasses and a Nick Fouquet hat. I was like, ‘Holy sh*t, I’ve never thought this guy was hotter.’ And Larry goes, ‘Eh, Tom, hi’ and looks back at the elevator doors and says nothing else,” Thompson recounted to co-host Erin Andrews. She thinks that’s why “everybody loves Larry,” because “Larry can’t be bothered, whether it’s Tom Brady, Jeff Bezos, or anyone else in between. He’s like, neh.”

If Larry was given the opportunity to go back in time and have his favorite team, the New York Jets, select Brady in the 2000 NFL Draft, I don’t think he would. Twenty years of “Brady” instead of 20 years of “Vinny Testaverde, Chad Pennington, Quincy Carter, Brooks Bollinger, Kellen Clemens, Brett Favre, Mark Sanchez, Greg McElroy, Geno Smith, Michael Vick, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Bryce Petty, Josh McCown, Sam Darnold, Luke Falk, Trevor Siemian, and Joe Flacco” would go against his brand.

(Via the Huffington Post)

Mikey Alfred’s debut feature, North Hollywood, is weirdly suited for the streaming era attention span, and not because it seems small. Where so many attempts to make younger, hipper, more contemporary content take the form of scruffy, DIY-looking, “found” footage, North Hollywood, which actually is pretty close to DIY, is the opposite. Instead, Alfred’s film looks grand, with vivid colors, dynamic compositions, and a commitment to “classic Americana.” Trends change, but “make a movie that looks good” is one value that remains fairly consistent.

That North Hollywood‘s characters walk, talk, and act like the Gen Z skate crew that they are, while Alfred shoots them like a hot rod movie from the sixties, is by design. Alfred, in addition to being the 26-year-old founder of the skate-crew-turned clothing and skate brand Illegal Civilization, was also partly mentored in the film business by none other than Robert Evans, the legendary and much caricatured old school producer and studio exec of such films as Chinatown, Marathon Man, and The Godfather. Mikey Alfred’s mother worked as Evans’ assistant for more than 30 years, and in 2017 Evans told the LA Times “Mikey is the first kid I knew who reminded me of me.”

Evans died in 2018, but Alfred continued his film industry education working with Jonah Hill and A24 on Mid90s, which Alfred co-produced and which featured some of Illegal Civilization’s skaters. In many ways, the semi-autobiographical story Alfred tells in North Hollywood, about a wannabe pro skater played by Ryder McLaughlin and his old school dad played by Vince Vaughn, feels like Mid90s version 2.0 — the coming-of-age tale updated for a younger generation, the dialogue refined and the visuals polished. That the style feels so fully-formed feels downright shocking coming from a 26-year-old in his debut feature. Or maybe it doesn’t, considering this is also a guy who has had a camera in his hands almost every day since he was an early teen.

Alfred is a hustler, see, and where previous generations may have prioritized sowing wild oats or finding themselves, Gen Z, bred in a time of scarcity, seems to favor knowing one’s brand early on, and making every move possible to capitalize on it. It follows that North Hollywood‘s protagonist, Michael, played by Ryder McLaughlin, is a bit of a Bohemian slacker type worried about upsetting his traditional father, but also an intensely single-minded one, skipping school and sports not so much because he’s lazy or confused, but because it doesn’t seem to further his ultimate goal. “Do it first and ask ‘why’ later,” seem like the main operating principle, both for Mikey himself and his protagonist Michael.

Just as Michael simply doesn’t have time for things like his water polo coach or guidance counselor, Mikey Alfred doesn’t seem to have much use for gatekeepers. You’d think studios would be fighting one another to release a film from Alfred, who has already worked with everyone from Jonah Hill to Tyler the Creator to Frank Ocean. Yet when it came to North Hollywood, apparently not. But when you’ve already been releasing your own clothes and skate videos since you were in your teens, as Alfred has, not to mention hosting your own tours and events, why bother with them?

Where other people might have nurtured these kinds of slights — think Michael Jordan bringing up the kid who beat him out for the varsity team when he was a freshman during his hall of fame induction speech — Alfred seems to simply shrug at obstacles and go around. And hey, sometimes you find some pretty cool stuff on the scenic route.

I read that you grew up in North Hollywood and that you started a skate company when you were younger. How much of this is directly your story in the movie?

The movie is really a mixture of my own story, my friends that I grew up around and some people who worked on the film. It was just important for me to try to put something honest up there and that felt representative of not just me, but the whole community, you know? Hopefully, everyone can take little pieces their own way.

I also read that your mom was Robert Evans’s assistant growing up.

Yeah.

How longdid you know him? What was that relationship like for you?

My mom was his assistant for 34 years and he passed in 2018, obviously. I’ve known him my entire life, since the day I was born. He really taught me a lot about the art of filmmaking and why movies are an artform … in other ways as well, like how to get people interested and to make it weird. He taught me a lot of stuff.

How much of that was directly about the art of movie-making, and how much of it was about the business?

Mostly about the art of it. The way he approached the business in the time he was in, it’s so different than how I approach it. He’s a guy who’s coming at it as a producer, where I’m trying to be a director. The stuff I got the most value out of with him was really about the art of cinema, telling me what movies to watch and why he loves those. And then his advice as a person too. He always had these little quotes. Like, “Be meteoric, not mediocre.” He always had these little things that can help motivate you.

What were some of the movies that he had you watch?

We would always watch his movies, first of all. Rosemary’s Baby would always be on. Always Chinatown. Then not his movies, man, that list can go forever. All the way back to old silent movies that wouldn’t even have words. He’s the person who put me onto Elia Kazan. He showed me On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando.

If we only know him from The Kid Stays in the Picture and sort of the caricature versions of Robert, what are we missing?

I don’t know, I feel like that nailed it pretty good. I would think the thing you’re missing from that movie is how smart his notes on a movie are, and how much he’ll help a movie. I would show him stuff that I would work on, and the things he would call out, it’d be so simple. It’d be like, “Fuck, you’re right. That would have made it better.” There was one time I showed him and he goes, “You got to redo it.” Like, “Why?” Like, “Look at the guy’s veins. The veins in his neck, they’re not flexing. He doesn’t even look like he’s struggling. You got to redo it.” It’d be so simple, so small, but that will really change it.

Are there any parts of North Hollywood that you think of as coming directly out of his influence, or things that you learned from him?

Maybe the scene with the doctor, when Ryder goes to the doctor. You know Gillian Jacobs, that’s sort of Evan’s vibe of how he would talk, like “I don’t give a fuck if you go to college.” He’d just say, “No matter what you fucking do, you got to work hard.”

According to your bio, you started your skate company when you were 12. What did that look like? Were you making t-shirts? When you start a company when you’re 12, what are the first things that you’re doing?

It’s a company now. Back then, when I was 12, it was just a crew. It’s a skate crew and we all make videos together. At first, that’s all it is. Then when we got to be in high school, ninth and 10th grade, it became t-shirts. Now let’s sell some DVDs instead of just giving them out. Now let’s try to travel and do trips. That’s when it started to become, now it’s a real thing.

Do you think that experience, just shooting all these different videos from the time that you’re young, influenced the look of this movie? I watched it and almost from the beginning, it just didn’t look like other movies that I’d seen.

I appreciate that. For sure, me and the photographer, we looked at a lot of picture books. We had a lot of references from photos. Then we watched a movie, it’s called, The Trip to Italy. I really like that movie and the cinematography in it. That was super inspiring for the look of the film. And then just getting those colors and making sure it felt very vibrant and it felt like summertime. We were getting that feeling of the sun and the water and you’re feeling all that.

That’s an interesting movie to mention. The first things that came to mind with this movie, it feels like you’re going for a vintage Americana vibe with, I don’t know, Beach Boys-esque, Southern California stuff. I assume you’re consciously going for a vintage look with this movie?

Not necessarily vintage. I’m just really into ’50s cars, stuff like that. You feel that in the music, obviously. Then I feel like phones, more often than not, kill the drama in a show. Where now I’m watching people text and things are unraveling over a screen. I always like a movie where everything has to be in person. The characters have to meet up and stuff, that kind of thing. That’s another reason we have that vintage feel, because you’re seeing people use the rotary phones.

With the little pebbles on the window and whatnot.

Right. Instead of it being on a screen or in a text.

Is there a big distributor behind this? How are you guys putting this out?

This is completely independent from production to distribution. We have some partners that are amazing that have helped us get it onto iTunes and all that kind of stuff. We did an online theatrical window where we had a partner, they helped us get that up. I’ve just been really thankful for all the support from the community and from people just all over the world. It’s been really amazing.

Did you intend for it to be an independent release all along?

No, we made the movie independently because we couldn’t get anybody to make it from the very start, so we just made it ourselves. Then once we had it, we tried to get it out there through all the normal distribution channels, Netflix, whatever. That didn’t work, so then we’re like, “Fuck it, man,” and we just did it ourselves. It’s actually been going really good.

Why do you think that other distributors didn’t want to put it out? It seems like you had a track record and connections and a movie that would be fairly commercial.

We had been told that a lot of people just didn’t believe it would really go outside of the skateboard community, which I can totally understand. All good. I couldn’t tell you why because that’s on them. All I know is it happened and it’s all good. Now we’re doing it ourselves and I’m really happy that we were able to put it out ourselves because that’s repeatable, and we could start to help other people and make their movies too.

I’m assuming that the actors did all of their own skate tricks in the movie?

Yep. There was no stunt doubles.

How did you find so many guys who could both do those tricks and act convincingly enough to carry a movie?

It’s really just believing in the person, each different guy. Man, everyone stepped up. Ryder [McLaughlin], Aramis [Hudson], Nico [Haraga], they all really brought it and had fun too. It was new for everybody and we just treated it as a fun experience.

One of the things that really struck me about the movie was how natural they felt when they were hanging out as friends, which is something that doesn’t usually look natural in movies. Were they friends ahead of time?

They were friends ahead of time. That was really important to me as well, to capture that feeling and make sure it felt natural.

Then tell me about the Catholicism scenes. When you think of Gen Z skateboarders, you don’t necessarily think of altar boys.

I grew up doing altar serving and doing it in a huge space that was really dramatic. I always had that in my head of kinda like, it’d be sick to put that in a movie.

Was that something that your parents wanted you to be involved with?

It was, but then the school I went to, I went to a school called St. Charles, in the valley. I sang in the choir there and the choir director was a guy named Paul Salamunovich. Paul directed a choir that sang at the Vatican. He also did It’s a Small World After All, for Disney. If you look at the original It’s A Small World, it says, “Directed by Paul Salamunovich.” He had been Grammy-nominated. He was an amazing guy and was really a mentor for me, especially Pete and them as well. I don’t know, there was something about him and altar serving and all that stuff where my parents did put me into it, but then I started to like it myself.

Ryder in the movie and then Vince Vaughn as his dad, how much did you and your father’s relationship influence their relationship in the movie?

Me and my dad’s relationship definitely influenced it. It’s not a perfect depiction. I would say me and my dad probably argued more. We definitely got more violent than in the movie, but it’s got pieces of it for sure.

What was his background? I read in another piece that he had a construction company.

My dad, basically he grew up in LA. He lived in between LA and New York in the ’80s. He was friends with Fab 5 Freddy and knew a lot of art people and knew a lot of musicians and stuff. He had gotten in trouble, he got locked up. He did a few years. He came out, he started his construction business and it was on from there. My first day of preschool and shit like that, it was just me and my mom.

Then did you live with him later, towards your teen years?

No. The second he came home, he was home. I would say the Vince character in the movie too, he had some of my mom in it as well. I think it’s both of them.

He’s kind of a hard ass. He goes between hard and loving as a character.

Right, exactly.

Well, I’ve taken a lot of your time and I really appreciate it. I really like the movie. Do you have anything that I didn’t ask you about that you want to add before I let you go?

No, man. I’m stoked. I appreciate the interview. Thank you.

HBO Max just dropped its lineup of movies and TV shows fans can stream in June, and if you haven’t already, this is the month to hit that subscribe button.

A ton of content is landing on the streaming platform — think all of the Harry Potter films and a handful of classic comedies — but we’re most excited for the originals HBO and HBO Max have in store. Another Conjuring flick, a second season of the uber-cool Betty, and the long-awaited debut of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s In The Heights are the highlights this month.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) HBO and HBO Max this June.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (Warner Bros. Film Premiere streaming 6/4)

The Warrens are back in this long-awaited third installment of James Wan’s original, bone-chilling franchise, and they’re taking on their most infamous case yet — one based on a true story, no less. The couple ditches their typical paranormal investigating to take on the case of Arne Johnson, the first man in US history to plead “not guilty” for reasons of demonic possession.

Betty: Season 2 Premiere (HBO series streaming 6/11)

The coolest kids on TV return for a season set amidst the backdrop of the current pandemic. The crew is stepping firmly into adulthood, juggling jobs, romance, turf wars, and trying to find new places to skate, but they’ll have some conflict within the group to sort out if they hope to challenge the status quo.

In the Heights (Warner Bros. Film Premiere streaming 6/11)

Lin Manuel-Miranda’s highly-anticipated Broadway-original-turned-blockbuster-musical debuts on HBO Max this month to make us forget about all of that Dear Evan Hansen nonsense. Anthony Ramos plays Usnavi, a charming bodega owner who dreams of escaping the city to his native Dominican Republic while the rest of his friends navigate their own journeys into adulthood.

Avail. 6/1
A Shot In The Dark, 1964 (HBO)
The American President, 1995
The Aviator, 2004 (HBO)
Bangkok Dangerous, 2008 (HBO)
Black Rain, 1989 (HBO)
Bless The Child, 2000 (HBO)
The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1990
Camelot, 1967
Cold Case
The Conjuring 2, 2016
Curse Of The Pink Panther, 1983 (HBO)
Dirty Pretty Things, 2003 (HBO)
Disaster Movie, 2008 (Extended Version) (HBO)
Doctor Sleep, 2019 (Director’s Cut) (HBO)
Dr. Strangelove, 1964
Drillbit Taylor, 2008 (HBO)
Eight Men Out, 1988 (HBO)
El Cantante, 2007
El Nombre Del Hijo (Aka The Name Of The Son), 2019 (HBO)
El Remedio (Aka The Prescription), 2019 (HBO)
Extract, 2009 (HBO)
Eyes Wide Shut, 1999
Fast Company, 1979 (HBO)
Feast Of Love, 2007 (HBO)
The Green Mile, 1999
The Grifters, 1990 (HBO)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 2001
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2002
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2004
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2005
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2007
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 2009
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, 2011
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, 2005 (HBO)
How To Be Single, 2016 (HBO)
Humboldt County, 2008 (HBO)
Iris, 2001 (HBO)
It Takes Two, 1995 (HBO)
Jerry Maguire, 1996
Just Married, 2003 (HBO)
Kajillionaire, 2020 (HBO)
Kung Fu Hustle, 2005
Leapfrog: Math Adventure to the Moon, 2010
Leapfrog: Numbers Ahoy, 2011
Leapfrog: The Letter Factory, 2003
The Manhattan Project, 1986 (HBO)
Matchstick Men, 2003 (HBO)
Mindhunters, 2005 (HBO)
Miss Congeniality, 2000
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, 1989
National Lampoon’s Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea, 2013 (Extended Version) (HBO)
National Lampoon’s Vacation, 1983
Orange County, 2002 (HBO)
Other People’s Money, 1991 (HBO)
Pale Rider, 1985
The Pink Panther, 1964 (HBO)
The Pink Panther, 2006 (HBO)
The Pink Panther 2, 2009 (HBO)
The Pink Panther Strikes Again, 1976 (HBO)
Presumed Innocent, 1990 (HBO)
Rat Race, 2001 (HBO)
Return Of The Pink Panther, 1975 (HBO)
Revenge Of The Pink Panther, 1978 (HBO)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991
Shazam!, 2019
Sherlock Holmes, 2009
Son Of The Pink Panther, 1993 (HBO)
Stoker, 2013 (HBO)
Take Me Home Tonight, 2011 (HBO)
This Is 40, 2012 (Extended Version) (HBO)
Three Days Of The Condor, 1975 (HBO)
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, 2005
Trail Of The Pink Panther, 1982 (HBO)
True Romance, 1993
Victor/Victoria, 1982
Wedding Crashers, 2005
The Wedding Singer, 1998
Without a Trace

Avail. 6/2
To Your Eternity (Dubbed) (Crunchyroll Collection)

Avail. 6/3
The Fungies!, Max Original Season 2A Premiere
Juan Luis Guerra 4.40: Entre Mar Y Palmeras (HBO)

Avail. 6/4
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Warner Bros. Film Premiere, 2021
El Ultimo Balsero (Aka The Last Rafter), 2020 (HBO)

Avail. 6/5
Clueless, 1995 (HBO)
Off the Air, Season 10

Avail. 6/6
Rizzoli & Isles

Avail. 6/8
Billy on the Street
Killerman, 2019 (HBO)

Avail. 6/9
Young Hearts, 2020

Avail. 6/10
F9: The Fast Saga: HBO First Look, (HBO)
Hacks, Max Original Season 1 Finale
Lazor Wulf, Season 2
Legendary, Max Original Season 2 Finale

Avail. 6/11
Betty, Season 2 Premiere (HBO)
In the Heights, Warner Bros. Film Premiere, 2021

Avail. 6/12
The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 2005 (HBO)

Avail. 6/15
Revolution Rent, Documentary Premiere (HBO)

Avail. 6/17
Summer Camp Island, Max Original Season 4 Premiere
The Little Things, 2021 (HBO)

Avail. 6/18
Super Friends

Avail. 6/19
Fatale, 2020 (HBO)

Avail. 6/22
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBO)

Avail. 6/24
LFG, Max Original Documentary Premiere

Avail. 6/25
Explota Explota (Aka My Heart Goes Boom!), 2020 (HBO)
PAUSE with Sam Jay, Season 1 Finale (HBO)

Avail. 6/29
The Legend of the Underground, Documentary Premiere (HBO)

Leaving 6/5
Sesame/CNN: Standing Up To Racism, 2020
ABC’s Of Covid-19: A Cnn/Sesame Street Town Hall For Kids And Parents Part 1, The, 2020

Leaving 6/13
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, 2019 (HBO)
Those Who Wish Me Dead, Warner Bros. Film Premiere, 2021

Leaving 6/14
Coyote Lake, 2019 (HBO)

Leaving 6/19
Contraband, 2012 (HBO)

Leaving 6/29
Galveston, 2018 (HBO)

Leaving 6/30
10 To Midnight, 1983 (HBO)
16 Blocks, 2006
All About The Benjamins, 2002
Alpha And Omega, 2010 (HBO)
The Angriest Man In Brooklyn, 2014 (HBO)
The Banger Sisters, 2002 (HBO)
Best In Show, 2000
A Better Life, 2011 (HBO)
Big Fish, 2003
The Bodyguard, 1992
Boogie Nights, 1997
Caddyshack, 1980
Caddyshack II, 1988
Class, 1983 (HBO)
Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, 2003 (HBO)
Constantine, 2005
Day Of The Dead, 1985 (HBO)
Dennis The Menace Strikes Again!, 1998
Dennis The Menace, 1993
Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985 (HBO)
Dirty Harry, 1971
Down And Out In Beverly Hills, 1986 (HBO)
Dreamscape, 1984 (HBO)
El Astronauta (Aka The Astronaut), 2018 (HBO)
El Cantante, 2007
Fifty Shades Of Black, 2016 (HBO)
Flags Of Our Fathers, 2006 (HBO)
Flushed Away, 2006 (HBO)
The General’s Daughter, 1999 (HBO)
The Getaway, 1972
The Girl With All The Gifts, 2016 (HBO)
Hacksaw Ridge, 2016 (HBO)
Hawaii, 1966 (HBO)
He Said She Said, 1991 (HBO)
Inside Daisy Clover, 1966
Josie And The Pussycats, 2001 (HBO)
Joyful Noise, 2012
Killing Streets, 1991 (HBO)
La Bamba, 1987
The Last Boy Scout, 1991
Legends Of The Fall, 1994
The Lost Boys, 1987
Lost In Space, 1998
Love Don’t Cost a Thing, 2003
Madeline, 1998
Malcolm X, 1992
Margaret, 2011 (Extended Version) (HBO)
The Mask Of Zorro, 1998
Miss Julie, 2014 (HBO)
Money Talks, 1997
Money Train, 1995
MXP: Most Xtreme Primate, 2004 (HBO)
My Left Foot, 1989 (HBO)
My Name Is Maria De Jesus, 2017 (HBO)
The Natural, 1984
Nina Errante (Aka Wandering Girl), 2018 (HBO)
No Country For Old Men, 2007
Pale Rider, 1985
Penelope, 1966
Reflections In A Golden Eye, 1967
Righteous Kill, 2008
Rock Of Ages, 2012 (Extended Version) (HBO)
Rock Star, 2001
RV, 2006
Scanners, 1981 (HBO)
Secretary, 2002
Sex And The City (Movie), 2008
Sex And The City 2, 2010
Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero, 2018 (HBO)
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants, 2005
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2, 2008
Soylent Green, 1973
Sudden Impact, 1983
Suicide Kings, 1998 (HBO)
Summer Catch, 2001
Sunday In New York, 1964
Tejano, 2018 (HBO)
Three Kings, 1999
The Three Stooges, 2012 (HBO)
Thx 1138, 1971
Underclassman, 2005 (HBO)
Underwater, 2020 (HBO)
Unfaithful, 2002 (HBO)
Van Wilder: Freshman Year, 2009 (Extended Version) (HBO)
Victory, 1981
Wag The Dog, 1997
Walk Of Shame, 2014 (HBO)
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, 1971
Yo Soy Taino (Aka I Am Taino), 2019 (HBO)
You Can Count On Me, 2000 (HBO)

The temptation here is to open with some elaborate and flowery introduction. Just a whole paragraph about the passage of time and building a career and long overdue recognition finally coming, complete with metaphors and fancy descriptors and all of it. Some real writerly bullcrap. But this is an article about Jean Smart and I feel like Jean Smart would hate that. Let’s skip it entirely. Let’s get right to the point. Welcome to the goddamn summer of Jean Smart.

You know Jean Smart. Everyone knows Jean Smart. She’s now in her fifth decade as a fixture in the television landscape. She was on Designing Women in the 1980s. She was on Frasier in the 1990s. She was on 24 in the 2000s. She played the Governor of Hawaii on CBS’s Hawaii Five-0 reboot. She’s kind of — and I must stress here that I mean this as a compliment, mostly because I do not want Jean Smart to yell at me — the Forrest Gump of television, popping up throughout its history at notable moments, crisscrossing across genres and styles, adding a little dash of something special to everything she was in.

The problem was that people only ever called on her to be that dash, the seasoning on the main course, never the entree. She discussed this recently in a profile in the New York Times. It’s all quite infuriating to think about, especially given what we know now (more on this in a second), but this quote especially is enough to drive you up a tree.

“I was always kind of part character actress, part leading lady, and they didn’t know quite where to put me sometimes,” she said. Sometimes that hurt.

“For actors, I think the most painful thing is knowing how much you have to offer and never being given the opportunity to do it,” she said.

That stinks! We should have done more to remedy this situation. Yes, I’m including you and me in this round of blame even though most of us are not casting directors or showrunners and did not have much power to address it directly. There was probably something we could have done, even if it was something small. We could have knocked on doors. We could have put up fliers. Anything. Who knows, maybe one of us would have unknowingly set in motion a chain of events that changed history. A butterfly flaps its wings and Jean Smart wins an Oscar for Best Actress.

Luckily, eventually, the universe started correcting itself without our help. Noah Hawley cast Jean Smart in Fargo and Legion in meaty roles that, even if they were not lead roles, were at the very least lead-adjacent. Damon Lindelof cast her in Watchmen and let her be a little silly in a show that mixed silly and serious remarkably well. She got to voice a character named Depression Kitty on Big Mouth and, buddy, if you think Jean Smart can’t voice a giant imaginary cat who has a southern drawl and wants children to be sad, you have a whole bunch of other things coming.

All of this represented progress, to some degree. The roles were all juicy and fun if not substantial. The projects were all run by the kind of tastemaking creators who have the quote-unquote right kind of audience. And sometimes, I suppose, this is how things happen, slow and deliberate and piece-by-piece and then suddenly AllAtOnceVeryFast. I do not know how else to explain Jean Smart starring in two huge HBO shows at the same time and the world finally all waking up and noticing together.

This brings us to the present. Jean Smart is currently starring in both Mare of Easttown and Hacks. The shows and roles appear almost opposite on their face. In Mare of Easttown, she plays Helen, a Pennsylvania mother and great-grandmother who lives in a small community and has lived there her entire life and will probably die there. She shares a house with multiple generations of her family and drinks Manhattans at night and she always has a snappy comment about whatever is happening. In Hacks, she plays a fabulously wealthy aging comic who lives alone in a giant mansion outside Las Vegas and eventually hires a scrappy young fabulously unwealthy comic to help punch up her tired routine. One wears muted housecoats and sweaters, the other wears loud rhinestones and technicolor blouses. These two women lived very different lives.

But dig a little deeper and you might see a common theme. Both of them are a little prickly. Neither of them take a single ounce of guff from anyone. Watch both shows back-to-back and you can start to see that Deborah is kind of a version of Helen who had dreams that catapulted her out of Pennsylvania, and Helen is a kind of version of Deborah who valued family over career. There’s a through-line that connects the characters, that adds depth and heart and a tough exterior that protects a mushy center. That’s the Jean Smart magic right there.

It’s not nothing either, to be pulling this off so well. Sometimes stacking projects on top of each other like this can reveal an actor’s limited range. You can start to see the seams in their performance, the tics and crutches they return to in a performance. This can work when the actor is a walking charisma bomb (Paul Rudd kind of plays Paul Rudd in most of his projects and no one anywhere has ever complained about it, nor should they), but it can get really tricky when someone is shooting for nuance in characters who are flip sides of the same coin, as I just posited Helen and Deborah are.

And yet, again, magic. Watch her bring a little levity to Mare of Easttown, a bleak murder drama where all the characters are miserable and gray clouds fill the sky every day. Watch her bring some gravitas to Hacks, a fun comedy where the colors are occasionally saturated within an inch of their lives. She’s providing balance to two high-profile shows at the same time from opposite ends of the scale. Do you understand? Do you really get what’s happening here? None of this is easy! The fact that she’s making it look this easy — that a lot of us are just ho-humming it — is incredible! We should be talking about it every day!

In a way, though, I suppose this is kind of Jean Smart’s fault. All those years of supporting roles, the multiple decades of popping up in shows we watch and making each of them a little better, might have lulled us into complacency. We’ve just become conditioned to it all, to seeing Jean Smart be competent and brassy and tough and vulnerable on our television screens, to the point that we expect it now. We didn’t even realize it was happening. Our tolerance built so slowly over such a long period of time. But here we are.

So, with that in mind, let’s all agree to do something this weekend. Let’s flip on Mare of Easttown and/or Hacks and try to come at them with fresh eyes. Let’s watch Jean Smart work like it’s the first time we’ve seen it. And when we see her do something cool, when we see her ground a flight of fancy or release her patented cackle to brighten up a grim endeavor, let’s all stop for a second and appreciate it. Allow it to sink in. There’s never been a better time. It is, after all, the goddamn summer of Jean Smart.

This February, country singer Morgan Wallen was caught on camera using a racial slur. Following the incident, Wallen was dropped by his label and reprimanded by fans and fellow country singers alike. Wallen has since apologized and promised to “do better,” and has slowly begun to discuss his upcoming tour plans. The singer recently got on stage and performed for the first time since being caught using the racial slur, and it’s no surprise that it was at Kid Rock’s Nashville bar.

Wallen was captured on video performing music at Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk and Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse in Nashville Wednesday night. He got on stage to what looks like a packed crowd. “This is my first time singing in public in a long time,” he said. “So, I’m going to need y’all to sing loud with me, alright?” Per a report from TMZ, the country singer delivered some of his hits including “Wasted On You” and “Whiskey Glasses.”

This isn’t the first time Kid Rock’s establishment has made headlines. In June of 2020 when cities began closing bars and restaurants to protect against the spread of COVID-19, Kid Rock’s bar went against the restrictions. They continued to serve patrons at their bar, a direct violation of the city’s public health ordinance. As a result, the city issued a handful of citations and also revoked their beer permit for five days. Later that month, Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk bar joined several nearby establishments in suing the city of Nashville for closing restaurants in order to protect against the rapid spread of COVID.

For years, some film buffs have been under the impression that Zack Snyder‘s politics lean more towards the right, due to his very public love of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and what appears to be Objectivist themes in his films, i.e. “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” In fact, Snyder recently compared himself to Howard Roark, The Fountainhead‘s protagonist, while describing the arduous process he went through with Justice League.

However, during a recent Q&A, Snyder shot down rumors that he’s libertarian or “rightwing,” quite the contrary, and he says audiences might be seeing a political agenda that isn’t there. Via The Guardian:

I vote Democrat! I’m a true lover of individual rights. I’ve always been a super-strong advocate of women’s rights and a woman’s right to choose, and I’ve always been surrounded by powerful women. And, of course, I’m a huge advocate for the rights of all ethnicities and every walk of life. I would say I’m a pretty liberal guy. I want to make sure everyone’s heard and everyone feels included. I don’t have a rightwing political agenda. People see what they want to see. For me, that was not certainly the point.

Interestingly, the question came from Army of the Dead actress Sarah Polley, who wrote: “A lot of people see a rightwing political undercurrent in some of your films. Where do you stand politically and has that changed over the years? (Bonus hint: Don’t evade the question. Love you!)”

To Snyder’s credit, he answered the question head-on, and it’ll be interesting to see how his legion of fans react to the director finally setting the record straight on his political beliefs.

(Via The Guardian)

We’re coming up on eight years since Rockstar North released Grand Theft Auto V. Originally released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, GTAV will appear on its third generation of consoles a little later this year, as the game is slated to be available on both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X starting in November.

The game is unique both in how it has managed to evolve as time has gone on (namely with the addition of Grand Theft Auto Online) and the fact that it’s, you know, really good. It’s also a huge game placed inside the world of San Andreas, so getting through it takes some time … well, unless you’re YouTuber UnNameD, who was able to beat the entire thing in a nine-hour speedrun that took place across three videos. Even more impressive: UnNameD took zero damage across the entire run.

IGN laid out how they managed to pull this off — as you might guess, this wasn’t exactly a “try it once and have it go perfectly” thing:

Speedrunner UnNameD managed the feat earlier this week, posting their three-part video to YouTube. UnNameD says it took them 48 attempts to actually achieve it, using a mod known as One-Hit Knock Out, which sets character health at a measly one point. As if that weren’t hard enough, the speedrunning rules also forbid UnNameD from using any armor to protect themselves, and the mod disables Trevor’s invincibility ability.

It took me at least 40 hours to beat GTAV the first time I played it and I died a whole bunch of times, so this is the most impressive thing in the world to me.