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Jeremy Lin, in a lengthy post on his Instagram account, spoke out against the racism experienced by those in the Asian-American community. As Lin noted in one of the images used in the post, hate crimes against Asian Americans have skyrocketed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, something Lin noted has impacted him personally, as he alleged that he has been called “coronavirus” during basketball games.

“Something is changing in this generation of Asian Americans,” Lin wrote. “We are tired of being told that we don’t experience racism, we are tired of being told to keep our heads down and not make trouble. We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they’re REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we’re inherently unattractive. We are tired of the stereotypes in Hollywood affecting our psyche and limiting who we think we can be. We are tired of being invisible, of being mistaken for our colleague or told our struggles aren’t as real.”

Lin, who spent last season with the Beijing Ducks of the Chinese Basketball Association but recently returned to the States to join the Golden State Warriors’ G League affiliate in Santa Cruz, went on to discuss his commitment to making things better for everyone in the Asian American community, from “my elders,” to “my niece and nephew and future children,” to “the next generation of Asian American athletes.”

From there, Lin went on to talk about the various things that define him (and others in the Asian American community) do not necessarily mean he, and others, are not capable of experiencing things in certain ways.

Being an Asian American doesn’t mean we don’t experience poverty and racism.
Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn’t protect me from being called “coronavirus” on the court.
Being a man of faith doesn’t mean I don’t fight for justice, for myself and for others.

“So here we are again, sharing how we feel,” Lin wrote before concluding with a question. “IS ANYONE LISTENING??”

This is hardly the first time that Lin has spoken out about the racism experienced by the Asian American community in relation to the pandemic. Back in March of last year, Lin used his Twitter account to excoriate then-president Donald Trump for the racist verbiage he used to refer to COVID-19, writing “I wish you would powerfully support the vulnerable people that will suffer due to our mismanagement of this virus, including those that will be affected by the racism you’re empowering.”

In his quest to become America’s longest running punchline, Ted Cruz decided to end his CPAC speech by screaming one of Mel Gibson’s iconic lines from the movie Braveheart. After opening things up by awkwardly joking about his Cancun trip, Cruz definitely didn’t stick the landing by attempting to pull off the epic battle cry. Before exiting the stage, Cruz decided to quote “the immortal words of William Wallace” by screaming “Freedom!” into the mic in an attempt to rally conservatives who have grown weary of following COVID-19 restrictions. (Plus the usual Republican concerns of living under a Democratic administration.)

But instead of leading a throng of courageous warriors into battle against a tyrannical government, Cruz mostly just got dunked on as people couldn’t help but notice that he clearly missed the point of Braveheart. Folks also pointed out how unfair it is that Howard Dean‘s presidential ambitions ended in 2004 for a yelp that was nowhere near Cruz’s odd Mel Gibson impersonation.

Of course, the Braveheart scream is just one of a growing list of embarrassing moments coming out of CPAC. While Cruz is clearly the winner with his awkward yell and Cancun joke, the conservative event was already off to a bad start when a golden statue of Donald Trump was spotted being wheeled around the premises. The situation didn’t improve when the CPAC organizers found themselves being booed for asking people to wear a mask. Turns out conservatives aren’t that concerned with the rule of law after all, and it probably doesn’t help things when a United States senator starts screaming “Freedom!” into a mic.

(Via Aaron Rupar on Twitter)

With its limited settings, intimate cast, and fractal structure, The Father seems almost specifically designed to drive a quarantined audience insane. Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony, a charming old London pensioner just barely holding onto reality as his mind deteriorates from dementia. The film is hallucinatory, constantly remixing a kaleidoscope of domestic scenes, putting you firmly inside the mind of this sad, disintegrating old man. It’s staggeringly brilliant and I can’t imagine why anyone would enjoy it.

Anthony lives alone in his apartment, or maybe with his daughter Anne, or possibly in a nursing home. Anne is mostly played by Olivia Colman from The Favourite, but sometimes Olivia Williams from Rushmore. (Now that I’m writing this I do appreciate on a conceptual level them both being named Olivia). Anne has a boyfriend, or possibly a husband, played by Mark Gatiss or Rufus Sewell depending on the scene, with whom she’s either living unhappily in London or going off to see in Paris. “Paris? They don’t even speak English there!” Anthony scoffs.

Dementia, or Alzheimer’s, which my own grandmother died from some years back, is a disease that turns loved ones into strangers and vice versa, in which the sufferer gets trapped in a time-loop of their own obsessions. They repeat the same stories, ask the same questions, get confused and angry, and usually end up taking that anger out on the ones who love them the most — those are invariably the ones nearby, trying to help them through it. Occasionally, their disconnect from cold reality allows them to regress into some hopeful, energetic younger incarnation. For Anthony, his obsessions include his other daughter, Lucy, who he says over and over was always his favorite, believing it to be a genuine revelation he’s having in that moment. There’s also a lost wristwatch, a nurse who looks like Lucy, and Anne’s hard-to-keep-track-of love and work life. The Father repeatedly evokes that grinding embarrassment of hearing a loved one about to launch into a familiar story that will only affirm their worst qualities.

Anthony Hopkins is perfect in the role, vacillating between dreamy, confused, sad, angry, suspicious, and lonely. He expresses so much with his pale, blue eyes. Likewise, Olivia Colman is the same generational talent she’s been in all of her recent roles (the film was nominated for four Golden Globes including best picture, best screenplay, best actor for Hopkins, and supporting actor for Colman). The features of dementia are eerily accurate and cleverly conveyed — how better to simulate the feeling of your loved ones becoming strangers than to have the actors constantly switching roles? The film, directed by Florian Zeller from his own play, repeats entire scenes and snippets of conversation, like the choruses of a song, to the point that you’re almost humming along by the third or fourth repetition. “Paris? They don’t even speak English there!” It’s almost a call-and-response gag.

It’s elegant, intelligent, inventive — and yet all in the service of realistically putting us in the shoes of a lonely old man trapped inside a non-descript apartment while he slowly loses his mind. I can’t imagine anything worse. Or any life I’d less rather experience vicariously right now that someone else stuck inside the same few interiors seeing the same three or four people.

I want to appreciate the artistry of The Father but I can’t quite fathom the gesture. It’s a showcase for the storyteller but what does the audience get out of vicariously blubbering into our nurse’s shoulder? It’s like watching someone pull the wings off of a fly, but not gratuitous enough.

Dick Johnson Is Dead remains one of the only good movies about dementia, probably because it offers a framework for magical thinking. Despite ostensibly being a documentary, it attacks the inherent claustrophobic loneliness of dementia by being expansive, by being fantastical, with stimulating and inventive scenes that are just as emotionally accurate, but also insightful and life-affirming. The Father is brilliantly structured and executed, but in the end it’s just a cleverly constructed way to depict the mundane. It never finds that level of the fantastic or allows for the kind of magical thinking necessary to escape its dreary reality. Ultimately it wallows in the pathetic. Who needs this?

‘The Father’ is now in theaters and streaming via VOD. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Folks who follow podcaster/comedian/actor Marc Maron on Instagram know that he often takes time to get on Instagram Live to chat with followers and answer questions. Maron is an enthusiastic music fan and his fans think he should learn more about Kevin Morby, whose latest album was his impressive 2020 effort Sundowner. However, over the past few days, Morby has actually become a bit of a thorn in Maron’s side.

Last weekend, somebody mentioned Morby during one of Maron’s broadcasts. Seemingly annoyed, Maron said, “I have no idea who Kevin Morby is, but somebody always throws his name out there. I asked somebody about Kevin Morby the other day.” Morby had fun with that, sharing that clip on Instagram and writing, “Have me on and I’ll tell you all there is to know [kissing emoji] @marcmaron.”

Yesterday, Morby posted a clip from a different Maron broadcast of him saying, “I don’t know who Kevin Morby is.” Morby captioned his post, “Marc Maron not knowing who I am being a part of his morning programming is really making my week. I’m a huge Maron/WTF fan ever since hearing the Fionna Apple interview in 2012 and have logged many hours since so hearing his voice keep saying he doesn’t know who I am is an honor. I don’t know who I am either Marc [lips emoji] (@marcmaron).”

None of this amusing interaction seems to be amusing Maron. In a broadcast since Morby’s posts, Maron said, “To the Morby situation… I get it. So Morby’s aware that I don’t know who he is and he thinks it’s funny that it’s become a thing on this dumb little show that we do here, that I don’t know who he is.” Morby shared that clip and wrote simply, “#themorbysituation.”

It’s not clear why Maron seems to be so against Morby, a popular indie-rock musician who seems like a chill guy and whose work over the past decade has been looked upon favorably by fans and critics. Whatever the case may be, at least Morby appears to be having fun with it.

Some highlights live on longer in the memories of sports fans than others. “The Shot” that saw Michael Jordan eliminate the Utah Jazz. Bobby Orr diving across the crease in overtime to win the Stanley Cup for the Boston Bruins. The Immaculate Reception, maybe. But no sports highlight quite contains the power of bowler Pete Weber asking an unanswerable question, then answering it anyway.

Friday marked a big anniversary in sports history, and amid the chaos of everyday existence during a pandemic many on social media took time out to honor Weber screaming nonsense after winning a bowling championship. In 2012 while Weber was bowling to secure his fifth US Open title, he captivated the sports world with a celebration that’s been shouted all over alleys across the country when random people stumble their way into crossover strikes.

Weber’s shout of “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, I AM?” is the stuff of legend, and the clip instantly broke contain from the sports world for a variety of reasons. The nonsense of the phrase, his signature style of wearing sunglasses indoors, and a general detachment from the reality of the athletic feat Weber had accomplished with that single strike meant it was an instant viral hit.

Every so often the clip would go viral once more, and it happened again on Friday when people celebrated its nine-year anniversary.

It’s actually impressive how many different tweets containing the same video were widely shared on Friday as people reveled in the anniversary of one of the greatest sentences in the history of television.

There were even some parodies done by other pro teams.

There are actually a lot of layers to the clip, as were also discussed on Friday.

As explained in a NJ.com story, the phrase was the capper to an epic day of trash-talking. In the second frame of the match, he was going back and forth with a heckler in the crowd and complained that people were moving behind him during his shots. And he had another legendary comeback after the win, dismissing concerns that some say he’s “washed up.”

“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘When are you going to retire, grandpa? Do you need a cane?’ I’m like, ‘you know what? … ‘ ”

He finished the sentence by holding up the middle finger on each hand, and smiled.

Double birds all around in honor of the king. You are, as you made clear nine years ago, one of a kind.

This NBA season hasn’t exactly gone smoothly in terms of navigating the challenges of the pandemic, while resuming a relatively normal schedule that requires teams to travel around the country to play games. Several games have already been postponed so far, and numerous players have missed time due to COVID protocols.

But the league has opted to press ahead in the face of these issues, in no small part due to the economic realities involved. That extends to the annual All-Star Game, which is scheduled to take place next month in Atlanta, albeit in a largely scaled-down version, and despite criticism from several star players.

This week, the Toronto Raptors became the latest ones forced to miss time, as the team announced on Friday that Nick Nurse, along with five other coaching staff members, will not be on the court for their game against the Rockets, as first reported by Marc Stein of The New York Times and later confirmed by a team release.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse and five other members of the Toronto coaching staff are entering the league’s health and safety protocols and will not coach tonight, @NYTSports has learned

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) February 26, 2021

Per Raptors: Due to health and safety protocols, six members of the Raptors’ coaching staff, including head coach Nick Nurse, will not be on the bench beginning with Friday’s game vs. Houston.

— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) February 26, 2021

It’s unclear how long they will be out, but given the nature of the protocols, they could be held out of upcoming games as well. The Raptors are 16-17 on the season and currently hold the No. 5 spot in the East.

On the subject of “what is Steven Seagal up to this week?” the answer is “attending the International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi (aka IDEX 2021) where he has become ‘the brand ambassador for the UAE-based Streit Group.’”

The UAE-based Streit Group, which was once under investigation for violating United Nations arms embargoes in Libya and Sudan, was founded by former Russian police officer Guerman Goutorov, and now makes armored vehicles from its “12 state-of-the-art production facilities and 25 offices worldwide.”

This week at IDEX 2021 (which I assume is like Comic-Con for aspiring warlords), Seagal is helping them unveil “four new armored vehicles, including the country’s first electric tracked vehicle, called STORM.”

Mostly, that seems to mean standing by a big truck looking drowsy. Wearing his trademark scarves and a black military shirt big enough to tent a house, Seagal told UAE’s National News: “I’m interested in weapons, military history, tanks, and armored cars and I’d heard about Streit, I was very impressed. [These] armored vehicles are probably the best in the world.”

Doesn’t he sound like Trump? Steven Seagal was doing Trump-speak way before Trump.

The National News asked what sparked Seagal’s interest in armored trucks, which is a hilarious question, and also lead to a classic Seagal response — delivered in a style I like to call “petulant sphynx”: “Why do people like purple instead of green? I was always interested in that since I was a child.”

Of the STORM, Seagal said, “It is gorgeous and does a lot of great things. It goes on water, goes on land – it is armored and bomb-proof. That thing is amazing. If I could have any one of those vehicles, I’d have that one.”

Steven Seagal once ran over a man’s house in a tank while investigating a cockfighting ring so that checks out.

The irony of Steven Seagal is that he famously used to brag about weird things like knowing the truth behind Iran-Contra and the death of Brandon Lee, heavily insinuating that he was some kind of spook. Which was almost certainly bullshit at the time, but now, solely through his own vanity (say what you will about the man, he enjoys being flattered by Vladimir Putin), he runs in the kinds of circles real spies could only dream of.

Steven Seagal: Actor, author, martial artist, guitarist, kimono enthusiast, allegedly prolific sexual assaulter, and now: booth babe for stateless arms manufacturers. He is, for better or worse, the real-life world’s most interesting man. Stay thirsty, my friends.

It’s barely been a week, and already Ted Cruz is cracking jokes about his tone-deaf trip to Cancun while the state of Texas laid paralyzed from a freak winter storm. While speaking at CPAC in Orlando, Florida on Friday (dude just can’t resist a vacation), Cruz thought it was a good time to test out his new material on the conservative crowd after firing off a Zodiac Killer joke earlier in the week about his latest round of disastrous headlines. Immediately after taking the stage at CPAC Cruz yelled, “Orlando is awesome,” before quipping, “It’s not as nice as Cancun.” Noticeably, not even the audience of Republicans laughed, and it didn’t take long for video of Cruz’s “stand-up special” to hit social media, where the Texas senator was roasted all over again for abandoning his constituents to freeze while going for days without power and water.

Cruz’s trip to Cancun isn’t just getting mocked by random people on Twitter. In a bad sign for his presidential ambitions, Cruz is being trolled by his own colleagues. When arriving at the congressional gym on Wednesday, senators found printed-out memes taped to Cruz’s locker along with messages written in Spanish welcoming him back to the United States. Via NBC News:

The rendering featured a manipulated photo of Cruz from his well-documented trip to Mexico, dragging his luggage across an arctic landscape while holding a tropical cocktail garnished with a slice of fruit in his other hand. He is shown walking toward an image of a masked Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. with his arms crossed and wearing striped, knitted gloves — a pose famously captured during January’s inauguration.

Cruz reportedly let the prank go without filing a complaint.

(Via The Recount)

Yesterday, the horrific news that some thieves had shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker in order to steal her dogs, and the walker was in the hospital in critical condition. Gaga offered a $500,000 reward for the return of her dogs “no questions asked,” and her father Joe Germanotta spoke with Fox News about the missing pitbulls, Koji and Gustav, asking fans to help them “help us catch these creeps.”

Gaga has not issued a public statement, and is busy making sure her dog walker, Ryan Fischer, is ok following the unexpectedly violent situation. Fischer is expected to make a full recovery, and according to TMZ, his family issued a statement of thanks for Gaga’s support. Check out their statement below:

Ryan is receiving extraordinary care in the hospital right now and his doctors expect him to make a full recovery. We cannot possibly say enough to thank all of the first responders, nurses and doctors who have worked so tirelessly to care for Ryan. Of course, we also want to thank Lady Gaga who has shown nothing but non-stop love and concern for Ryan and our family right from the outset. Ryan loves Gustavo and Koji as much as Lady Gaga does; so we join in her plea for their safe return.

Wishing a speedy recovery to Ryan, and the quick return of Gaga’s dogs.

Video game documentaries seem to be all the rage lately, as the age of the industry itself has allowed for some introspection on how it became a billion-dollar business with gigantic influence over modern culture. The latest is a look at Nintendo’s rise to gaming dominance in the industry’s early days.

Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story, is a five-episode docuseries about the rise of Nintendo in Japan and its takeover of the gaming industry in America. Narrated by Sean Astin, the story is also told by a number of people from the gaming industry, such as head of Xbox Phil Spencer and former Nintendo CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé.

Nintendo’s rise from playing card maker to iconic video game maker was covered in series like High Score on Netflix, but the Crackle series promises a thorough exploration of the Nintendo story.

In this exclusive clip from the series, Playing With Power sets the scene for the start of the console wars which were sparked when Service Games, or Sega, decided to enter the gaming fray in a big way.

As laid out in the clip, Nintendo was a bit “drunk on their own success” and didn’t really anticipate the challenge that Sega and its Genesis console — not to mention a spunky blue hedgehog named Sonic — would offer in the years to come.

Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story premieres on Crackle on March 1.