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The 2021 NBA All-Star Game is happening, albeit in a format that players aren’t exactly excited about that will condense two days worth of events into one on March 7 in Atlanta. Fan, media, and player voting for All-Star starters completed this week and the starting fives from both conferences were announced on Thursday night, along with the two captains who will be picking teams from the All-Star pool of players.

Unsurprisingly, Kevin Durant and LeBron James won the fan vote in their respective conferences and will be the All-Star captains, and the eight other starters were named as well, as the expected names earned positions before the coaches make the remainder of the selections.

EAST

Kevin Durant
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Joel Embiid
Bradley Beal
Kyrie Irving

WEST

LeBron James
Nikola Jokic
Kawhi Leonard
Stephen Curry
Luka Doncic

The lone bit of “controversy” came in the West backcourt where Doncic and Damian Lillard tied, with Luka getting the tiebreaker as being second in the fan voting while Lillard was second in player and media voting. You can see the full voting breakdown below.

None of those players earning a starting spot come as a surprise, and you can pencil in a few selections that will almost assuredly be made by the coaches from here. For the West, Lillard and Donovan Mitchell seem like backcourt locks, while Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert, and Paul George can be penciled in as frontcourt picks — with Davis almost assuredly opting out due to his Achilles injury and being replaced by a reserve selection. In the East, Jayson Tatum figures to be a frontcourt pick while teammate Jaylen Brown is a likely backcourt selection, along with James Harden and Zach LaVine.

The rest of the rosters will be up for debate, with a number of potential first-timers making strong cases this season — guys like Julius Randle, Jerami Grant, Zion Williamson, and De’Aaron Fox — and some All-Star staples needing a coaches pick to make it in. Those decisions will be made over the next week, which will surely lead to snub talk. However, given the criticism the All-Star Game has received publicly from some big names this year, we may have more opt outs than usual and there could be some more reserve picks made than we’re used to.

Ted Cruz is back in Texas after fleeing the country in a “hastily planned” trip to Cancun that’s put his political career in hot water in a freezing cold, powerless state he abandoned on Wednesday night. The Texas senator was caught leaving Texas in a climate crisis that’s left millions without power and clean water, and instead of trying to help he decided it was better he just board a flight to Mexico.

Cruz sheepishly changed his flight plans and returned stateside on Thursday, blaming his children and their desire to vacation as the reason he left a state experiencing a crisis. The New York Times quickly got some new details about Cruz’s trip, which apparently his wife, Heidi, planned in a hurry through a group text message chain. According to the story, Heidi first told friends and neighbors that they were staying with friends to keep warm, but quickly decided they just had to get away.

“Anyone can or want to leave for the week?” she wrote. “We may go to Cancún.” She teased a “direct flight” and “hotels w capacity. Seriously.” Ms. Cruz promptly shared details for a Wednesday afternoon departure, a Sunday return trip and a luxurious stay at the oceanfront Ritz-Carlton in the meantime.

No one appeared to bite, but Ms. Cruz did extend a more practical offer. “We have gas stove so at least we can heat water little that there is happy to help anyone we can too,” she wrote.

The Times story has some other details about Cruz and the immediate fallout to what’s become, to put it mildly, an enormous political gaffe. But what the story seems to lack is details about why Cruz decided he had to join a trip that was apparently orchestrated by his wife. Cruz’s defenders seem to claim isn’t actually capable of helping Texas residents in any way here. The senator seems to have agreed with those claims and simply decided it was best he save himself rather than even try to help others.

Celebrities — they’re just like us! Except they’ve had their own high-end equivalent of The Dating Game, the game show created by Chuck Barris in the 1960s, in which the general public try to pair off without actually seeing each other. (That is, unless you count Paul Reubens crashing the show in Pee-wee Herman guise, before Pee-wee was a known entity.) But that changes now. Variety reports that a celebrity version of the classic show is in the works — called, of course, The Celebrity Dating Game — and it will be hosted by no less than Zooey Deschanel and Michael Bolton.

It’s kind of Mad Libs casting, but Deschanel is fun and the super-soft rock singer has been leaning into the jokey parody version of himself for the last few years, even if he did get rid of his iconic mullet ages ago. Will it be awkward forcing famous people to pair off? How quickly will it take to get to Grade-Z celebs? We’ll find out when ABC airs the eight hour-long episodes it just ordered.

When it arrives, it will be the fifth iteration of Barris’ game show, which was his first. (He later created The Newlywed Game and The Gong Show, as well as wrote the book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, in which he claimed he secretly worked as a CIA assassin. George Clooney turned it into a movie in 2002, starring Sam Rockwell.) The first Dating Game bowed in 1965 and ran through 1973, first in daytime and later in primetime. It came back in the late ‘70s, again in the mid ‘80s, and one more time in the mid-to-late ‘90s. But this will be the first time it paired of celebrities, as well as featured a guy known for cheesy ballads.

(Via Variety)

Though 2020 was a brutal year in a lot of ways, fans of both Haim and Taylor Swift received a bounty of new music. Each of these artists, who have been known for their friendship in the past, managed to produce their best work in years during a trying time, and Haim’s Women In Music Pt. III is widely considered to be one of the best records of the year (hello Album Of The Year Grammy nom), as well as the greatest album the band has ever produced. Then there’s Taylor’s pair of world-stopping forays into indie, Folklore and Evermore, the latter of which Haim themselves joined her on for the full-on country murder ballad, “No Body, No Crime.”

Well, perhaps given the overwhelmingly positive response to these two folk-pop forces coming together, they decided to do it again. Teasing a remix of one of WIMP‘s best tracks, “Gasoline,” first with a cryptic Twitter photo and then via a TikTok preview yesterday, it’s officially confirmed that Taylor is hopping on the track. In an Instagram video earlier today, Haim let fans get an even longer preview, and announced the remix would be dropping today. Now it’s here, and you can listen to it below. Guess 2021 is going to be a bountiful year, too.

You can listen to the new remix above

Carson Wentz’s tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles will go down as one of the strangest in NFL history. The former No. 2 overall pick was sensational as a sophomore before he got injured and saw backup Nick Foles lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl title. Injuries would plague his career from there, but for the next two seasons, when he was on the field, he looked sensational and earned a massive extension in the process.

Then 2020 happened and Wentz was so bad the Eagles had to turn to rookie Jalen Hurts to close out the season, all but signaling the end of his time in Philly. Now Wentz is headed to Indianapolis for a fresh start, after the Colts traded a 2021 third round pick and a 2022 conditional second rounder (that could become a first) to Philly for him. It was a move the Eagles seemingly had to make as both parties needed to move on, and Indy gets a quarterback they hope can be their future after Philip Rivers’ retirement (and, before that, Andrew Luck’s sudden retirement).

Wentz’s past success when healthy and his disaster of a 2020 campaign makes him among the most polarizing players in the league. There are some who think he might be cooked, while others still believe he can recapture that MVP-level magic from earlier in his career. ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky can be firmly counted among the latter group, and on Thursday’s NFL Live he drove poor Mina Kimes to the brink of a breakdown on air while insisting this trade vaults the Colts into the title conversation in the AFC and that he expects Wentz to be an MVP candidate again.

Let’s go through the many emotions of Mina, who is a tremendous analyst and also one of ESPN’s most meme-able figures, as she tries to stay quiet while Dan keeps doubling down on his Wentz love.

First, we get her “serenity now” moment as she can see where this is going.

Then we get to the real gem which is the post “Wentz is going to be an MVP candidate” reaction which is full hands-on head, smiling in disbelief.

As Dan continues, she tries her best to let him finish before her response, trying to hold it all together on air.

Finally, we get to his “home run” for the Colts assessment which draws one last cringe.

All the while, Laura Rutledge is loving every minute of it.

How do you follow-up winning an Oscar? Especially when the film industry is still grappling with a once-in-a-century pandemic? For Joaquin Phoenix, the answer is to be patient. The actor, who nabbed a Best Actor trophy for the renegade comic book movie Joker, has taken his time picking his next roles. And while he has a couple projects in the pipeline, it looks like his first big post-Academy Award gig will involve teaming up with the guy who gave everyone nightmares with Hereditary and Midsommar.

According to Deadline, Phoenix will take the lead in Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd., which will be made and produced by the high-end indie, highly cult-friendly team at A24, who’ve handled the director’s two previous pictures. Details are thin on the ground, and all we know is that it will be “an intimate, decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time.”

It’s not the only project Phoenix has on deck. He’s set to play no less than Napoleon for his Gladiator director Ridley Scott, though that likely won’t start filming until 2022, clearing the path for whatever can’t-un-see nightmare Aster has up his sleeves. Moviewatchers will see Phoenix before then, though, in C’mon C’mon, from 20th Century Women’s Mike Mills, but that was filmed in 2019, well before the esteemed thespian finally had him a goldie.

(Via Deadline)

Donald Glover announced a new Mr + Mrs. Smith with Phoebe Waller-Bridge last week, and on Thursday word came of a new deal with Amazon to make a whole lot more in the coming years. And now we know at least one unknown writer will get a shot at breaking into the television industry because of that deal: Malia Obama.

The relative unknown and daughter of former president Barack Obama will reportedly join the writing staff for Glover’s Amazon series called Hive. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the details are sparse on Hive, but it will have a writer who’s very familiar with fame and the White House on staff:

The Amazon deal, which has been in the works for weeks, will also see Glover exec produce other projects for the retail giant and streamer. Sources note one such project is already beginning to come together: a potential series called Hive, which is rumored to revolve around a Beyoncé-like figure and stem from writer Janine Nabers (Watchmen, Away). The project has already begun staffing a writers room, with sources noting Malia Obama is among those recruited to work on the series. (Additional details were not readily available; Amazon declined comment on Hive, too.)

Though this would be a first for Obama’s writing career, she’s no stranger to the entertainment world. As the New York Post reported, she’d worked on HBO’s Girls in the past and is set to graduate college later this year:

Malia, 22, is a student in Harvard University’s class of 2021, and this would mark her first professional entertainment gig after several A-list internships, including a stint on the set of HBO’s “Girls” in 2015.

It’s actually been a big month for Obamas in the entertainment industry: the news comes after her mother, Michelle Obama, revealed she made a Netflix children’s show, Waffles and Mochi.

(Via Hollywood Reporter & New York Post)

There were two big touchdowns on Thursday: The robot rover NASA sent to Mars successfully landed. And then there was Ted Cruz. In what was perhaps the most covered celebrity airplane arrival since The Beatles first landed in America, the Texas senator arrived back on U.S. soil, tail between his legs, having been shamed into cutting short his impromptu, highly insensitive vacation in Cancun. And, of course, one of the most mocked people on Twitter inspired still more jokes.

Late Wednesday night word broke that Cruz — already under fire for helping to foment the failed MAGA coup of January 6 — had been spotted boarding a plane for Mexico. What was wrong with that? Only that he seemed to be skipping town while millions of people across his state were freezing and without power, all thanks to a freak winter storm. Even the requisite conservative spin, including his own, seemed to be half-assed. Everyone else was furious, many angry enough to channel their rage into social media yuks.

Every step of Cruz’s journey inspired online coverage, so much so that CNN boasted about scoring the first image of him on the plane, preparing for his walk of shame.

Some on the same flight made sure to make some pictures public.

Some caught him flanked with security guards, though they couldn’t protect him from jokes.

When he landed, some made some Mars landing jokes.

There were a lot of cameras waiting for him when he arrived back home.

And there were many, many jokes.

All in all, it really brought us all together during a difficult time.

Republicans are fuming over Nancy Pelosi selecting retired General Russell Honoré to lead a House investigation into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building following Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. While Pelosi recognized Honoré as “a respected leader with experience dealing with crises” thanks to his coordination of the military response to Hurricane Katrina, Republicans latched onto his profanity-laced tweet about Missouri Senator Josh Hawley in the days after the riot. Hawley was famously seen raising his fist in support of the insurrectionist crowd and still attempted to derail certifying the election resulys even after the attack.

On January 11, just five days after the Capitol assault, Honoré wrote the following about Hawley in a now-deleted tweet: “That little peace of shit with his @Yale law degree should be run out of DC and Disbarred ASAP @HawleyMO @tedcruz aaa hats. These @Yale and @Harvard law grads is high order white privilege.”

Honoré’s tweet became a hot subject on Tucker Carlson’s show on Wednesday night where Hawley appeared dropped by to criticize Pelosi’s choice of Honoré, leading to this hilarious chryon placement:

However, Hawley’s concerns that the Democrats are using the “criminal riot as an excuse to seize power, to control more power, to step on people’s Second Amendment rights to take away their First Amendment rights” has sparked other Republicans to join in him denouncing Pelosi’s commission. Via The Kansas City Star:

“General Honoré is an extreme partisan and should be the LAST person to head up an investigation of what happened at the Capitol on Jan 6th,” Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a close ally of Hawley, said on Twitter minutes after the segment aired.

Despite the growing criticism from GOP members of Congress, Pelosi is standing her ground on selecting Honoré to lead the investigation into the Capitol attack. “General Honoré is committed public servant whose name is synonymous with integrity and professionalism,” her spokesman told the Star.

(Via The Kansas City Star)

Annie Murphy ended her run on Schitt’s Creek with an Emmy, and her next project looks considerably darker to say the least. Thursday brought a trailer for AMC’s Kevin Can F*** Himself, a dark comedy where Murphy will play a disgruntled housewife plotting to get herself out of a frustratingly sexist sitcom.

“It’s about a woman who keeps playing the perfect housewife,” Murphy narrates as she makes a picturesque breakfast and delivers it to a much-brighter sitcom-styled living room. “Then one day, she realizes what she wants.”

The trailer jumps from the stylized scene to one that looks more realistic, and gritty. Murphy’s character seems to imagine herself breaking a glass and stabbing her husband with it, while in the other sitcom universe Kevin instead makes a sexist joke and everyone moves on.

The plot of the show, however, seems to be getting rid of the titular Kevin altogether.

“The world revolves around him. And if it doesn’t he just blows it to hell,” Murphy says later in the trailer. “It has to stop.”

There’s a bit of a WandaVision similarity in a character who appears to know they’re starring in a sitcom, more or less. But this looks considerably darker. And funnier.

We’ll see if the sucker punches, key bumps and other insanity amounts to any real trouble for Kevin later this summer.