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Cardi B Turned Her Living Room Into A Winter Wonderland Complete With A Forest Of Christmas Trees

Cardi B oftentimes raps about enjoying the finer things in life, and she’s making no exception this holiday season. In order to ring in the holidays, Cardi B had her Atlanta mansion’s living room turned into an impressive display of festive decor.

The rapper took to Instagram to show off her decorative home. Panning across her living room, Cardi gives a look at all the garland, lights, and presents that fill the large space. The rapper then walks over to display her array of Christmas trees, five in total, which together create a forest of snow-lined firs.

“So I haven’t seen my home decoration because I’ve been in LA and I just got here from New York. I can’t believe this is my home,” she says in the video. “This is just beautiful. This is beautiful. I cannot believe this is my house, like a f*cking dream. Imagine being from New York and going to Macy’s and sh*t and your house look like f*ckin’ Macy’s. This amazing, I’m going to cry you guys. F*cking dream come true.”

Check out a clip of Cardi’s festive living room set up above.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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James Harrison Explains How ‘The Fast And The Furious’ Inspired Him To Get Into Acting

What does the second chapter look like for athletes after they retire? For former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison, two of the paths frequented by his brothers and sisters in sport — acting and business — seemed interesting, so he decided to try and pursue both.

On the business front, Harrison partnered with Champions + Legends to help promote their workout brand of CBD sports supplements to help athletes workout and shorten recovery time. Harrison says he was introduced to CBD products before he retired as a way for him to recover.

Uproxx Sports caught up with the former Steelers star in the midst of his second chapter. Harrison was filming in Atlanta — he’s in a supporting role in the appropriately-named upcoming Starz wrestling Drama Heels — and we discussed how football and acting are very similar, how Vin Diesel convinced him he should try acting, and why Marvel would have to create a new villain for Harrison, should they ever cast him.

When were you first introduced to CBD?

Well, I was actually introduced to CBD right before I retired. And back then, like, you know, you had to make sure you found something that was clean, pure, because if you got something that had too much of a high concentration of THC, then you’d test positive on a drug test. So that’s when I originally got introduced to it.

How’d you link up with Champions + Legends?

I met Champions + Legends almost a year and a half ago through the process and they were starting up a new company. So obviously I wanted to get involved with it and they wanted me to be involved with them. I started using the samples that they had before they started mass producing and this stuff worked. I had used different CBD stuff before — to be honest with you, it really didn’t work that well.

You’re doing acting now, what is that like?

I’m in a series right now, it’s called Heels. It’s actually going to be a new series that will be on Starz. So, I’m in Atlanta actually filming that right now. Acting has been something that I wanted to get into after seeing The Fast and Furious. And I’m like “I could do what Vin Diesel is doing.” So, that’s what made me really feel like I could do it. I mean the acting thing, I mean, I’ve been acting since I was a little kid. You know, everybody tell lies, so I just thought I was a little better at it than them (laughs).

You’ve been, from all accounts, a very structured person. So going into something with a little less structure, what were some of the adjustments to acting?

To be honest with you, acting is very structured as far as what it is you’re doing. Just learning from the people that have been doing it a while. It’s like playing football, you gotta do it over and over. I’m not having to try and reach real dramatic highs of trying to shed tears and everything like that. So I’m still more in the area of what I’m comfortable with right now as far as what I’ve done and, you know, my regular life. So it’s easier for me to get this role than it was to get another one where I would have to try and be like Denzel or something, you know?

Are the Denzel Washington roles something that appeal to you?

Yes, definitely. I won’t say all of his roles. But Training Day or something like that, you know what I’m saying? Honestly, I’d want something more geared towards like what The Rock would do, where most of his is just action. It’s not really anything that’s too drama where you gotta sit in all the emotions, bust tears and everything. I can cry, I can almost get, like, two, three tears out. I can do one for sure though.

If there’s a project and the casting director is like, “Okay, we gotta get James Harrison.” What is that role that you absolutely want front of the line for?

Like I said, anything that makes me look like I’m the hardest S.O.B around. And, it’s all The Rock roles, to be honest with you (laughs).

So if Justin Lin or anyone from The Fast And Furious called you?

I’m absolutely willing to be the villain. As long as I’m the most dominant villain that they’ve had on there so far, like, Thanos.

You brought up Thanos so I must ask. Is there a Marvel character you wanna play?

Mmm. They’d have to make up a totally new one.

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Conway The Machine Reveals How He Struggled With Mental Health After His Face Became Paralyzed

Conway The Machine miraculously survived being shot in the neck and shoulder in 2012, but his life would change following the incident. The rapper’s injuries resulted in Bell’s palsy, a partial paralysis of the right side of his face. Conway has gone on to have an illustrious career but he recently opened up about just how difficult living with his diagnosis has been.

Conway discussed the state of his mental health following the injury in a recent interview with The Athletic. The rapper said the most difficult part for him was thinking about how his kids and family would see him afterwards:

“I don’t feel like I’m disfigured or none of that, but when you gotta look at yourself in the mirror and you know that you don’t look the same or your kids gotta see you don’t look the same and your momma gotta see you like that, it definitely takes a toll and it’s like a war in your mind. In my mind it was like, ‘Man, I don’t even want people to see me like this.’ The mental part of it was harder than the physical. I had to re-calibrate. I had to strengthen my mind before I could strengthen my body. I lost it for a minute. Mentally I just wasn’t in a good space.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Conway outed the stigma surrounding honest mental heath conversations, particularly in the Black community. “I’m opening up more and knowing that it’s okay if you need to talk to somebody,” he said. “Especially in the hood — in the Black community, period — it’s like this stigma of mental health issues is equal to weakness. Even I struggle with that.”

Ahead of the honest interview, Conway had a highly prolific 2020. The rapper impressively released four projects including two collaborative EPs, his anticipated From King To A God album, and its revamped deluxe version.

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Jay-Z’s Tidal Is Reportedly In Talks To Be Bought By Square CEO Jack Dorsey

Since purchasing Tidal for $56 million back in 2015, Jay-Z has made the streaming service a big contender in the music industry. But it could be that Jay-Z is considering handing-off a majority stake in the company. The rapper has reportedly been in talks to sell the site to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and his Square Inc. payment company.

As reported by Bloomberg, Square Inc. is looking to “diversify” their assets with the purchase of Tidal. The streaming service hasn’t publicly released their year-end figures since reporting they had 3 million paying customers back in 2016, but Jay-Z’s move to put his music back on Spotify has led some to question the longevity of the platform.

Reports of the potential sale discussions were only solidified when Dorsey was spotted with Jay-Z and Beyonce back in August, then again this past month. But Jay-Z isn’t the only musician with a major stake in Tidal. According their website, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Coldplay, Madonna, Rihanna and others have an investment in the company.

Neither Square nor Jay-Z have commented on news of the potential sale, but it would the latest entrepreneurial move Jay-Z has made lately. Not only did the rapper recently release his own brand of cannabis, but he backed an at-home workout start-up, which puts him in competition with Beyonce’s Peloton partnership.

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An Oral History Of SNL’s ‘Christmastime For The Jews’

(Editor’s note: This piece was originally published in 2018 but we’re republishing it today because it’s, well, Christmastime. Enjoy.)

“You grow up Jewish and you can’t help it, it’s a big part of your life being the person who’s not celebrating Christmas,” TV Funhouse creator and former Saturday Night Live writer Robert Smigel told us recently. (Smigel, by the way, is also the mad genius behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.)

The accuracy of this remark is not lost on me as someone who was raised half-Jewish and half-Catholic and kept on the outside looking in at Christmas revelry during part of my childhood (before my parents eventually relented and started celebrating both — which is its own weird thing). That’s why Smigel’s “Christmastime For The Jews” means so much. Born on the December 17, 2005 episode of Saturday Night Live and inspired by a love of claymation Christmas specials, Wall of Sound music, and the desire to merge them with Jewish and pop culture references that swing from clever to delightfully absurd, this lovingly crafted sketch/song exists as something Jews (and half-Jews) can call our very own.

The weight of what “Christmastime For The Jews” means to people who share an annual laugh, let the song dance around in their head for a few days, and feel utterly seen by its timeless jokes about the Jewish experience is not lost on the people who created it. Partly because they feel it too and partly because, as you’ll see, an immense amount of time, effort, and heart went into making it and getting it as close to perfect as possible. And since you’re reading this, you likely love the sketch and feel like they got pretty close. In the off chance you’ve not seen it, or just want to relive it again, here it is below.

To better appreciate the story of “Christmastime For The Jews,” you have to go back to Smigel’s past tinkerings with the themes that came to life in the sketch. Here’s the short(ish) version: In 1987, Smigel wrote a sketch called “The Assimilated Jew’s Christmas” that was, by his account, a much earlier (and direct) attempt at speaking to the dearth of Jewish holiday standards, at least in contrast to those orbiting Christmas. Smigel acknowledges that the sketch didn’t quite “hit” in the same way that others like “Hanukkah Harry,” Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song,” and “Christmastime For The Jews” did among SNL‘s best-remembered contributions to Jewish holiday pop culture (which are basically the only contributions to Jewish holiday pop culture over the last 30 years). It features Al Franken as Henry Kissinger selling an album of Jewish Christmas songs that were “acceptable for Jewish people to hear, because all Jews love Christmas carols,” says Smigel. “Christmas carols are so much better than Hanukkah songs,” he (accurately) adds before offering a reminder that many great Christmas carols were actually written by Jews.

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“The Assimilated Jew’s Christmas” and “Christmastime For The Jews” were far from Smigel’s only attempts at holiday parody. “I did two that involved a Charlie Brown Christmas, which is my favorite half-hour of television ever, probably,” he says. “I did a big one after 9/11 that was a Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer parody.”

Smigel also has an affinity for crafting what he calls “silly musical stuff” that goes back to the late ’80s, as well. He authored a jingle for the first “Mister Short-Term Memory” sketch in 1988. More jingles followed before they became so common on the show that Smigel says they were mocked by The Simpsons.

Smigel left SNL in the early ’90s to work as head writer for Conan O’Brien during his foray into late-night before joining The Dana Carvey Show, where he debuted “The Ambiguously Gay Duo.” Cartoons had also been an interest of Smigel’s going back to his time on SNL with “Cluckin Chicken” (where he worked, for the first time, with animator and eventual TV Funhouse cohort J.J. Sedelmaier). He was eager to continue playing in that space, conjuring up ideas for “Fun With Real Audio” and “The X-Presidents” before pitching SNL producer Lorne Michaels on an idea for a unique path back to the show after The Dana Carvey Show got canceled. That idea eventually became the TV Funhouse so many of us came to know and love.

“I was aware of how much fun I was having reaching back into what made me laugh as a child,” says Smigel. “It felt very pure and very exciting.”

Which brings us back around to “Christmastime for the Jews.” The stories we collected about its creation, from Smigel and the creative team involved — contributing writers Julie Klausner (Difficult People), Eric Drysdale (Full Frontal With Samantha Bee), Scott Jacobson (Bob’s Burgers), musical director Steven Gold, director David Brooks, producer Samantha Scharff, and legendary singer Darlene Love — shed some light on the mixture of insanity, brilliance, stubbornness, and catharsis that ran through the entire three-week production in addition to the irony of launching the same night that internet-culture game changer “Lazy Sunday” launched.

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It’s Never Too Late To Watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ For The First Time

There’s an inherent tendency inside of me to avoid pieces like the one I’m currently writing. Too often they drift too close to something along the lines of, “I finally watched a classic movie everyone loves and it sucked.” (Because, in all honesty, “I finally watched a classic movie everyone loves and, hey, it’s pretty good!,” is kind of boring.) Also, frankly, it’s embarrassing. Pieces like this often start out with some sort of, “Look, this movie is beneath me and that’s why I haven’t watched it,” attitude. (Check out pretty much every “I watched Star Wars for the first time” piece.) Which usually seems like a cover for the truth, which is almost certainly, “Everyone has been talking about this movie my whole life and faking my way through conversations has caused me much embarrassment, but I also feel it’s too late to catch up.” Anyway, my point is there is no part of me that’s proud I haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life, well, until now.

This all started back in March when New York City went into lockdown because of the Covid-19 outbreak. I decided to use my newfound nightly free time watching classic movies I had never seen before. It’s a Wonderful Life would mark the 313th movie I’ve seen since the pandemic started. (This number also includes new movies and movies we rewatched for fun.) At first, It’s a Wonderful Life wasn’t even on my list because I had just assumed I had seen it. It’s such a huge part of the zeitgeist and played on network television so often, I just figured I had seen enough bits here and there that, over the course of all the years adding up, I had surely seen the whole movie.

A friend of mine asked me if I had seen It’s a Wonderful Life and I gave him an unconvincing, “yes?,” as a response. He asked me what the plot was and I said, “Well, George Bailey wants to kill himself and an angel shows him what life would be like without him so he changes his mind.” He then asked me why George Bailey wanted to kill himself. I responded, “Because he wants to be a banker and he realizes he will never fulfill his life’s dream of being a banker.” Not only was this wrong, this was, instead, the story Kramer tells a judge to try and get Newman out of a speeding ticket on an episode of Seinfeld. So, no, I sure hadn’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life.

I know this movie surprises people who hadn’t seen it before in that it takes the movie quite a long time actually getting to the Christmas part of the story. I already knew that. And I knew it wasn’t a very happy story, though I didn’t realize George flew into bouts of pure rage as often as he does. Though, to be fair, everyone in the movie seems to take advantage of George’s morality, so in the end he’s the only person who never seems to get to do what he wants. So, yeah, of course he’s going to erupt from time to time. But even though I knew how long it takes to get to the actual premise, I still couldn’t help but marvel at the thought of someone pitching this movie today. George would be witnessing the supernatural alternative reality where he didn’t exist within 20 minutes of the movie starting.

So, I guess it’s time to get to the parts that did surprise me. “My take,” as they say. Which is usually, in pieces like this, the part that gets the, “Hey, get a load of this guy,” sneers on social media. Well, first, it’s a slightly better movie than I was anticipating. And I was anticipating a good movie, it’s just a little less sappy and a little more fraught than I thought it would be. I think this preconception comes from that I had seen the ending before. Or, at least, it sure felt like I had. Also, the ending, in context, sure hits like a ton of bricks. For most the movie, I couldn’t help thinking something along the lines of, “This is a good movie, but why is it, specifically, a holiday classic?” But the ending is so powerful, a viewer kind of forgets that most of the movie isn’t about the holiday season at all. Speaking of the ending, I kept wondering, wait, Mr. Potter just gets to keep the $8000? Yeah, he made off pretty well! I guess everyone wins. So, most importantly, I finally understand the “It’s a Wonderful Life: The Lost Ending” SNL sketch.

A few other quick things: No one ever told me It’s a Wonderful Life had a scene set in space. I certainly wasn’t expecting there to be a character in this movie who had a catchphrase – and that catchphrase is “he-haw.” Also, it kind of dawned on me that people during this era all knew elaborate, choreographed dance moves. During the scene when the attendees of the high school dance were instructed to dance the Charleston, everyone knew it. And that has always looked like an impossibly difficult dance. When I was in grade school, we were taught square-dancing, which (a) I don’t remember at all and (b) never once used in regular life. In retrospect, I wish they had taught us the Charleston instead.

Though, the thing that amazed me the most was how It’s a Wonderful Life just kind of filled in so many cultural moments that came after. As in, “Oh, I see, that’s where that came from,” or, “Oh that scene obviously influenced this other scene in a different famous movie,” type moment. And as I watched, I just kind of felt worse and worse about myself that I had never seen It’s a Wonderful Life before. I had no excuse. There was no getting around it: I was a loser.

But then something miraculous happened: I got a peek at what life would be like if I had never existed. And to be honest, the world looked pretty similar. I’ve never saved anyone’s life, so everyone was still around. Though, for the record, I would totally save someone’s life if I had the chance, it’s just never come up to this point. Also, there’s no one currently in prison because I stopped them from serving poison. And from the best I could tell in this alternate reality, everyone had pretty much the same job. But the good news is my lack of watching It’s a Wonderful Life didn’t really seem to harm anyone either. So, it’s at that point I stopped moping around because I hadn’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life until now. Instead, I took to the streets to sing its praises. “You gotta watch It’s a Wonderful Life!,” I screamed to anyone who would listen. It was then, when I returned home, the townspeople had gotten together and raised $20 so I could afford the new steel book 4k copy of the movie, so I’d never be without it again. And then my hero brother returned from World War II. And then my old buddy from New York showed up and whispered in my ear the words, “he-haw,” and everything was finally right with the world. Watching It’s a Wonderful Life in 2020 made me realize it’s never too late to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time. It’s a Christmas miracle.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

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Ariana Grande And Her New Fiancé Donated Holiday Toys To A Children’s Hospital

It’s been less than a week since Ariana Grande announced her engagement to Dalton Gomez, who she has been dating for about ten months. Though their engagement hasn’t been long, they’re already proving themselves a charitable team. Grande and Gomez decided to spread some holiday cheer this year by completing the wish lists of patients at an LA children’s hospital.

Grande and Gomez chose gifts for patients of all ages and developmental stages at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital at both their Westwood and Santa Monica, California campuses. On top of donating toys and special merch items to the patients, Grande and Gomez treated the hospital staff with holiday meals and boxes of pizza as gratitude for their hard work.

Those who received gifts were thankful according to Kelli Carroll, the director of the Chase Child Life program at the hospital. “Our patients are in love! Especially our Ariana Grande ‘superfans” in the house,’ Carroll said in a press statement. “We are thankful for all our wonderful partners who have donated in the past couple of weeks, including Ariana Grande, and for serving the needs of our hospitalized children. This pandemic may have changed how we do things, but we look for the same result – to alleviate the stresses of hospitalization and bring joy to our kids.”

Check out some of Grande and Gomez’s gifts above.

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‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘Ted Lasso’ Gave Comedy The Change It Needed In 2020

Feel-good comedy” is a label most shows would balk at. In the era of Peak TV, there seems to be a consensus that genre-fying anything somehow lessens it. Comedies – shows like Atlanta and Barry, BoJack Horseman and You’re The Worst – like to toe the line between dramatic and funny, making us question which category they fit in while harnessing the best qualities of each. And for those who don’t mind being pigeonholed, the pendulum usually swings far left, giving us shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Office, Veep and Modern Family – post-Seinfeld sitcoms that pack multi-camera gags, mockumentary confessionals, satire, and sarcasm into every episode.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that of course. Those series are award-winning pop culture behemoths that have helped shape the current landscape. But their track-record makes the success of shows like Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek, good-natured comedy that trades in earnestness and an optimistic hope in humanity, all the more impressive. Especially this year.

What’s even more notable is that 2020 – with its global pandemics and society-shifting presidential elections and government failures – didn’t directly influence either series. Schitt’s Creek, the little Canadian comedy that could, had been quietly building a devoted fanbase over on Pop TV for years. When the show migrated to Netflix, streaming subscribers (and awards shows) started to catch on to the magic creators Dan and Eugene Levy were conjuring with their fish-out-of-water tale. (The “fish” being a family of wealthy elitists sent packing to a small, unfortunately-named town when their bank accounts are emptied, and their prospects dimmed.)

Ted Lasso had an even stranger run. The Apple TV+ comedy got its start as a series of promos for NBC Sports’ coverage of the Premier League. Creator Jason Sudeikis played the titular coach, an American football fanatic who tries his hand at leading a different kind of football team to victory across the pond.

Neither show’s beginnings displayed their true promise. Those early episodes of Schitt’s Creek found the writers trying to pin down the right combination of snobbish-snark and genuine affection. The Roses were an easy-to-loathe group of narcissists whose attitude towards the townies that welcomed them with open arms was, at times, off-putting. But where the show excelled was its character-work and its investment in the familial dynamics of this removed-from-reality brood.

With Ted Lasso, Sudeikis, and co-creator Bill Lawrence had an even steeper hill to climb to make him a likable leading man. In those early NBC commercials, the character was a judgmental dope, a mascot for the kind of eye-rolling American exceptionalism that earns us deserved ire from the rest of the world. Never mind that the original futbol is the most popular sport on the planet, that it earns more ratings and money than the NFL could dream of, Lasso’s approach to the game was to make snide digs at its ability to stomach ties and try to reinvent what a tackle looked like on the pitch.

But both shows underwent a transformation, an alchemical metamorphosis that wouldn’t just alter their own makeup – it would fundamentally impact what comedy looked like in 2020.

For Schitt’s Creek, which celebrated its final season by somehow nailing that elusive “happy ending,” 2020 gave the show a chance to double down on everything that made it so beloved amongst its growing fanbase. The Levys spent seasons crafting characters that felt both comedically bizarre – Catherine O’Hara with her warbled Mid-Atlantic accent, Annie Murphy’s limp-wristed Kardashian caricature – and surprisingly relatable. What’s more, it gave them all room to grow, to evolve while still staying true to their roots. We saw Dan Levy’s David, a quick-witted sardonic introvert riddled with social anxiety not only launch his own successful business and find love in the process but do so while still maintaining the eccentricities that made him a memeable icon. (He made compromises when it came to bachelor party escape rooms and town-hall-set nuptials, but he did so while also bemoaning the lack of Tahitian dolphin cruises and melting down over his haikuist officiant Fabian canceling because his penny-farthing couldn’t withstand the rain.) We saw Moira, a woman who once wished for a “good coma” when presented with living in a run-down motel at the beginning of the series, shape-shift into a mother with genuine maternal instincts (she rescheduled her flight once she realized it conflicted with her son’s wedding day, sacrificing lie-back seats, after all) who managed to retain her singular linguistic verbosity and deeply-selfish-yet-incredibly-charming point of view (as did her daughter).

What Schitt’s Creek did so well in its later seasons by leaning into its unabashed wholesomeness and letting the humor emerge from the capriciousness of its wholly original characters is what Ted Lasso managed to perfect in just the handful of episodes that made up its first season. Sudeikis and Lawrence have both gone on record to emphasize how the sense of hope and empathy the show inspires was intentional from the start, though they did enjoy the benefit of timing.

“The show predated the pandemic, but the inherent cynicism that was out there in social media and in the ethos did exist,” Lawrence told Entertainment Weekly.

With this new version of Lasso, Sudeikis held on to the essential elements that gave the show its comedic bent – it’s still about a football coach who is sorely out of his depth when he accepts a job to coach soccer in the UK – but it tossed out a lot of the cutting cynicism and snark in favor of crafting a character that feels like the human equivalent of a warm hug, an aggressively-positive man who spouts motivational quotes to his players and bakes biscuits for his boss and takes an almost militant approach to making everyone in his immediate vicinity like him, even if they’re determined not to.

And this niceness extends to other characters on the show as well – from the club’s sometimes-devious owner, Rebecca (the underrated Hannah Waddingham), to the team’s aging grump Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), to party-girl-turned-PR-maven Keeley (Juno Temple). Ted Lasso delights in crafting the old bait and switch with its cast, building them up as one thing – a villain, a thorn in Lasso’s side, a potential love interest – only to deftly pull the rug out from under us by showing how kind, how broken, and how earnest these people are about trying to be better.

That’s really what Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso have in common – this idea that people can change and that change can be good.

They don’t torture their characters in order to achieve it either. Sure, we see Lasso reeling from his imminent divorce, we cringe-watch as Alexis rebounds after her break-up with Ted – but these are normal obstacles so many of us have to overcome, they almost seem less world-ending when we watch these sunny, singular, incredibly funny people do the same.

And it’s easy to point to this year, with all of its setbacks and anxieties and tragedies, as the reason why audiences are gravitating to the feel-good comedy these shows have perfected. After all, when the world’s literally on fire, who doesn’t want a good comfort watch? But there’s also something remarkable about how beloved these shows became, and how quickly, even as comedy itself has hit a bit of a roadblock.

From comedians using stand-up sets to attack the notion of cancel-culture to poorly-aging gags resurfacing on long-ended sitcoms, comedy’s been undergoing a transformation in recent years. What is and isn’t funny is changing – it always does – but the pushback to that change from certain comedians and their fans has felt oddly defensive and, admittedly, frustrating, especially because it seems like their resistance isn’t aimed at propelling comedy forward in any meaningful way but actively inhibiting its growth to preserve their own brand of funny. And while some shows try to be everything to everyone – comedy and drama, show and “six-hour-movie” – others like Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso are finding a different kind of niche, one that’s just as prestigious and even more needed right now.

They’re fine with that “feel-good” label, and they’re proving, when it comes to comedy, we need more of it.

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Be Careful What You Wish For: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Is Not Dark Or Gritty, For Better Or Worse

“Be careful what you wish for” is both the theme of Wonder Woman 1984 and what it represents in the comic book canon. It’s not dark and gritty. It’s not an extended teaser for a future movie. It’s not a jumbled collection of tie-ins. In fact, it embodies none of the many comic movie tropes we’ve already grown tired of, and in their place it seems to lack any guiding aesthetic principle at all.

The plot of Patty Jenkins’ sequel — originally scheduled for this past summer, but bumped to a streaming release on HBO Max because of the pandemic — concerns a citrine wishing stone. Wishing on the stone grants the user whatever he or she wants, but with a catch (naturally). Here again the be-careful-for-what-you-wish-for rule is illustrated most acutely: WW84 has granted our wish for its plot not to hinge on heroes having to close a giant portal or battle a madman with a doomsday machine, but what we get instead feels like the plot of a Brady Bunch vacation episode, or a holiday-themed TGIF sitcom. One of those one-off magical realist episodes sitcoms loved to do in the eighties.

Oddly enough for a movie conspicuously set in 1984, the high-concept, Weekend At Bernies-esque plot is probably the most eighties thing about it. Here again, it’s great that WB didn’t spend two hours on intense, Stranger Things-esque nostalgia pimping or do a rehash of all the same jokes from Hot Tub Time Machine, but it does leave open the question of why it bothered with the eighties at all.

Wonder Woman 1984 maintains this perfect balance of refreshing and disappointing for the entirety of the film. I suppose setting it in 1984 did allow for Kirsten Wiig to wear a bad perm. Wiig plays “Barb Minerva,” your classic klutzy rom-com ditz, who sputters awkwardly when spoken to, seems inexplicably invisible to men, and can’t walk well in heels. Basically, the first act of a Mentos ad. But fresh goes better when Barb, who works in antiquities with Gal Godot’s Diana at the Smithsonian, happens upon the wishing stone one day at work. How this comes to be isn’t worth explaining, but suffice it to say, like all plot points in WW84, it’s yadda yadda’d through at light speed, too fast to explain its significance or allow us to get invested.

Anyway, Barb does the natural thing one does with a wishing stone, and wishes she could be more like Diana — strong, beautiful, cool, and sturdy in heels (Barb’s wish wisely doesn’t extend to Diana’s Dracula accent). Barb’s arc is the most compelling of the film, but even Barb’s story feels more like something WW84 is itching to get though rather than savoring. Diana, meanwhile, wishes to be reunited with her old flame Steve Trevor, the man who died ending WWI and for whom she’s apparently been pining away chastely since he Charleston’d off the mortal coil at the end of the first movie. Again, you’d think they’d try a little harder to justify 66 years of celibacy over Chris Pine but the movie just blows right past it.

Steve Trevor then shows up, his soul inhabiting another man’s body, Ghost-style, and he and Diana pick up where they left off. Another classic rom-com scene ensues, where Steve emerges from this man’s closet in different outfits (a la 27 Dresses) that Diana rates with either a head shake or a nod. I guess this counts as utilizing the setting? Hey, remember blazers with rolled up sleeves??

The bad guy in all of this is Maxwell Lord, played by Pedro Pascal, a fast-talking businessman who sells shares in his “Black Gold” oil cooperative via infomercial. Lord, naturally, covets the wishing stone. Why? Because he wants to “have it all.” Lord longs to prove to his young son Alistair that he can indeed “be number one.”

A greedy scam artist who wants to be number one at all costs fits the eighties theme while offering only the most toothless, surface-level critique of eighties culture (and by extension, 2020 culture). Pedro Pascal is a fun actor to watch but there’s no distance at all between what Maxwell Lord represents and who he is as a person. Ideally, we’d understand him as a chess piece and be interested in him as a human, someone with a personality and unique idiosyncrasies. But as with everything else, WW84 doesn’t have time for all of that. He wants to have it all, get it? Okay, moving on.

Wonder Woman herself suffers from this same implosion of symbol and personality. In her way, she too wants to “have it all” against all logic, risking world peace so that she can canoodle with her dead doughboy boyfriend*. Gal Godot, great at evincing power and determination all while looking flawless, doesn’t seem to have the emotional range to make us believe that she’d spend two-thirds of a century Pine-ing for this guy (see what I did there?), all while denying herself any personal connection. Though maybe that’s too big of an ask for an actor to simply embody such a desire when the script does nothing to flesh it out.

WW84 offers only the broadest of broad strokes, which extends even to the action sequences. Never really explaining the rules and scope of Wonder Woman’s powers becomes a problem in a movie where the plot hinges on her losing them. It’s not as if we need to write up a detailed report every time Wonder Woman wrecks a henchman with her magic lasso, it’s just that it’s easier to be invested when we understand beforehand what’s at stake. In Wonder Woman 1984, we only know what is and isn’t dangerous to Wonder Woman after the fact (including… electricity?). This turns us into entirely passive observers.

And Wonder Woman 1984 is a perfectly fine movie to passively observe. It’s neither as aggressively dull as Justice League, as aggressively commercial or militaristic as most Marvel movies, or as aggressively nü metal as Suicide Squad. In fact, it doesn’t seem to inspire much of anything either way.

‘Wonder Woman 1984’ hits HBO Max and theaters on December 25th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

*As in Wonder Woman 1, Steve Trevor seems only too happy to throw himself into the thresher to stop the machine. The “happy martyr” is lazy writing, and I would’ve loved to see a version of Wonder Woman 1984 where Steve Trevor comes back to life with the knowledge that the great beyond is a hall of horrors and desperate to avoid being dead again at all costs. I will kill everyone on Earth if it means avoiding the slimy tentacles of Cthulhu for even five more seconds!

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Rina Sawayama Said Her Second Album Is Half-Finished And Teases Nashville Influence

Well, fans of excellent pop music can rejoice, because the artist behind one of the year’s single best debuts, Rina Sawayama with her self-titled Sawayama, just confirmed that she’s half done with a follow-up. Yes 2020 has been a dumpster fire, but there’s been tons of excellent music released anyway — and excellent pop music for that matter — so my worry that 2021 is going to be sparse is officially laid to rest. Sawayama 2, as I’m casually dubbing the new album for a working title, is going to make sure pop fans are fed next year.

As Pop Crave reports, in a new interview with Music Feeds, Rina lets it slip that she has a new era already underway. “Oh, the next era has already started! she told the interviewer when he asked about her plans. “I’m already writing, and the songs are so interesting. Again, as much as I try, cannot for the life of me write a heterosexual love song. Keep trying, I can’t do it. But, I’ve let the pressure go and am just letting myself do what I want, or need. I’m enjoying reading other people’s works and listening to other people’s songs. There was a moment there where I was scared to listen to anyone else’s music because I was in such a weird mental state of comparing myself to other people. But now, I’m free of that. So it’s good.”

To his follow up questions, she mentioned that she’s inspired by Taylor Swift and might even consider some sessions in Nashville (!) What a curveball, love that.

“I’ve got about half an album of working songs already,” she continued. “I’m going to keep writing, and I’ve heard that I might be going to Nashville to write which is one of my dreams. That’s important to me because country music and people who write in country – they are so about the story. That’s why I love Taylor Swift – folklore was amazing, she’s such an exemplary songwriter.”

Check out the full interview here, and hopefully we’ll get to hear some new songs soon! Rina’s take on Taylor Swift? I’m, ahem, ready for it.