Microsoft is reportedly increasing the cost of Xbox Live Gold, and some gamers are worried the news may be another indication that Xbox Game Pass is more of an inevitability than an option for Xbox owners. Xbox Live, the service that allows gamers to connect and play online, has been all but essential on Xboxes since Microsoft launched its first console.
But while pricing and plans have changed several times over the years, gamers were concerned on Friday when news of a big price increase for Xbox Live Gold made the rounds. According to The Verge, Microsoft started to notify customers who pay for Xbox Live Gold monthly that the price of the service will increase in a big way in the coming months.
The software giant has started notifying existing Xbox Live Gold members of the changes in certain markets, and it will see the price rise by a dollar to $10.99 per month in the US and $5 for a three-month membership.
Twelve-month and six-month pricing is also going up, but the increase won’t affect existing subscribers here. Three months will now be priced at $29.99, with six months at $59.99. Microsoft is also allowing Xbox Live Gold members to convert their remaining Gold time into Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (up to 36 months). The conversion means if you have 11 months of Xbox Live Gold left on your account, you can upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and convert it into 11 months of Ultimate with no extra costs.
Pricing increases are nothing new when it comes to online subscriptions, but the increase — and the option to simply convert current subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass subscriptions — drew the ire of gamers on Friday. Especially the prospect of paying $120 for a year of Xbox Live Gold.
And in a lot of ways, concerns about the increased pressure to subscript to Xbox Game Pass are legitimate. Microsoft has invested a lot of time and money into boosting the product, buying Bethesda in 2020 and adding it to Game Pass being the biggest of note. Which is why it was hard for many not to see it as a move Microsoft made in order to funnel more subscribers into Game Pass than anything of value for consumers.
Every few months, Xbox needs to do something to remind people it’s not actually that in touch with gamers or reality. $120 for a year of Xbox Live Gold (to bully people onto Game Pass) is the latest example.
Comparatively speaking, Game Pass is still a great deal for gamers who want access to a lot of things and the time to play them. But those generally uninterested in all of that access but still want to play online now have to be careful how they subscribe to Xbox Live Gold, otherwise they may not be making the most economic decision out there.
Logic announced he was retiring from releasing music back in July with his final album No Pressure. He originally stated that his retirement was a decision he made in order to focus on being a father to his newborn child, but he clarified he was going to continue making music as his way to “express” himself. Now, a masked artist has popped up on Logic’s Bobby Boy label with a new song — and some fans are convinced it’s just Logic in disguise.
Bobby Boy’s newest signee Doctor Destruction linked up with Del The Funky Homosapien and Ghostface Killah for the triumphant track “Bounty Law.” While he’s officially begun to release music, Doc D is keeping his true identity under wraps. Instead of showing his face, Doc D sports a menacing blue mask, which some fans say is reminiscent of the late MF DOOM.
After “Bounty Law” officially dropped Thursday, fans have begun to speculate that Doc Destruction is actually Logic under a different moniker. “It’s logic with his voice run thru an fx board of sorts and it’s shifting the pitch,” one fan commented under the song on Bobby Boy’s YouTube video, pointing to what Madlib did with his alter ego side project, Quasimodo. He wouldn’t be the first; DOOM himself had multiple alter egos, while Del was one of several MCs who created the side project Deltron 3030, while Kool Keith’s list of alter egos is nearly a dozen names long.
Jefferson’s/High West/ Savage & Cooke/istock/Uproxx
To some whiskey drinkers, the word “sourced” is a little bit taboo. Die-hards like to know that their favorite whiskey was distilled, aged, and bottled at the brand’s distillery and nowhere else. Tell them that the grain was grown on-site and they just might lose it.
But not every operation can afford to be fully grain-to-glass from the outset. Or at all. So you end up with plenty of great whiskey expressions that come sourced from other distilleries, often from a seemingly random state (like Indiana … a lot of it is made in Indiana, folks). And to us, that’s just fine.
If it’s good, who cares?
A little primer on sourcing here:
Sourced whiskey has a few different meanings.
The first is “contract distillation” — when a blender or new brand without a distillery or warehouse has its juice distilled and aged by a larger distillery. The whiskey is typically finished (blended or rested in a finishing barrel) by the company that will eventually label it. Those bottles then go out under the blender or new distiller’s label, along with the information as to what that blender did to make it special — think Belle Meade, Barrell Bourbon, or Pinhook.
This is also what happens when a new brand opens a distillery but is waiting for their juice to actually mature. Uncle Nearest did exactly that before their first homemade expressions were ready.
Another take on sourced whiskey is when a brand buys multiple ready-to-go barrels from big distilleries, blends them, pastes a label on them (perhaps resting or proofing them), and sells that. The new incarnation of Kentucky Owl is a good example of this.
And then there are other labels that blend their own make (the whiskey they actually distill and age) with whiskey they source. WhistlePig, Bulleit, and Angel’s Envy are the first three that come to mind in that category.
Confused and annoyed yet?
We get it. Primer done.
The bourbon whiskeys listen below are bottles we love, even though they are involved in sourcing on some level or another. Some of them are well-known brands and others are upstarts. We hope you’ll give them a try — both to better understand the endless ways bourbon can come to fruition and because they’re tasty.
If you do, you’re sure to stop thinking of “sourced” as some kind of whiskey curse.
It might seem like this limited-edition bourbon doesn’t really belong on this list. It’s by far the most expensive whiskey featured and one that many people will never get a chance to try. That doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a blend of at least 15-year-old bourbons from Kentucky that are put together in New York.
That ability to highlight multiple aged bourbons in one dram is certainly an upside to sourcing. And this is certainly one of the best independent bottles you can buy.
Tasting Notes:
This highly complex whiskey begins with a nose of toasted oak, sweet mint, creamy vanilla, and rich leather. The palate swirls with hints of buttery caramel, candied orange peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sweet chocolate. The finish is long, filled with warming heat, and ends with flavors of dried cherries and caramelized sugar.
Bottom Line:
This is a truly special, hard-to-find bottle. It’s long-aged, nuanced, and should be treated as such. Keep this bad boy for a special occasion.
To say that James E. Pepper 1776 Bourbon (source from MGP Indiana) is bold is a true understatement. It’s 100 proof, non-chill filtered, and has a super high rye content — 38 percent.
It’s also very tasty and has won numerous awards and gained countless fans. With good reason.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find hints of sweet honey, charred oak, and subtle cinnamon spice. The first sip is full of creamy vanilla, buttery caramel, rich toffee, charred oak, and subtly peppery rye. The finish is medium in length, warming, and ends with a nice mix of chocolate and more pepper.
Bottom Line:
This is a well-made whiskey. So it shouldn’t be taken as a negative when we say that it’s best suited for a classic old fashioned or whiskey sour. There’s no shame in mixing, folks!
This is a blend of bourbons from Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. Each bourbon is a minimum of four years old. Once blended, the bourbon is aged for a minimum of four years in new, charred, American oak barrels before finishing in Cabernet wine barrels.
Tasting Notes:
At first sniff, you’ll find hints of charred oak, sweet caramel, and creamy vanilla. The palate is filled with flavors of spicy cinnamon, toasted marshmallows, molasses, and caramelized sugar. The finish is long, warming, and ends with hints of maple syrup and subtle cinnamon.
Old Elk’s own make comes from a proprietary proofing process that, instead of taking a few days like most whiskey, takes weeks. They call it “slow cut” and it’s designed to make the whiskey extra smooth. This expression also features way more malted barley than traditional bourbons (though most of the stock still comes from MGP).
Tasting Notes:
This dram features aromas of spicy cinnamon, subtle maple syrup, and toasted marshmallows. On the palate, you’ll find hints of toasted pecans, charred oak, sweet chocolate, and creamy caramel. The finish is long, mellow, and ends with a nice flourish of brown sugar.
Bottom Line:
You might not have ever heard of Old Elk, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try. The whiskey world is full of unknowns waiting to be discovered and this stylistic outlier is certainly one of them.
In the few short years since it was made available, this whiskey has gained a cult following as well as numerous awards. It’s a high-rye, uncut, never chill-filtered cask strength whiskey that was aged for 12 years in new, charred American oak barrels.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll be treated to hints of orange peels, maple syrup, charred oak, and sweet vanilla. The first sip yields molasses, subtly spicy rye, dried cherries, buttery caramel, and subtle pepper. The finish is long, mellow, and ends with a nice hint of spicy cinnamon.
Bottom Line:
This is a classic Tennesse bourbon (from Indiana). The folks at Nelson’s Greenbrier (a distillery, blendery, and warehouse) have given us a classic sipper here, full of textbook bourbon flavor notes.
There might not be a better bargain bourbon than Redemption. Sure, the brand is more known for its rye whiskey (both sourced from MGP in Indiana), but you definitely shouldn’t sleep on this high corn, sweet, smooth, highly mixable whiskey.
Tasting Notes:
Up front, you’ll find aromas of caramel corn, toasted vanilla beans, sweet cinnamon, and toasted oak. The first sip is loaded with sweet cream, treacle, brown sugar, and subtle spicy pepper. The finish is long, warming, and lands with a final wave of cracked black pepper.
Bottom Line:
If you want a whiskey that works just as well as a mixer as a sipper, look no further than Redemption. This highly rated bourbon is perfect for your favorite cocktails and easy to enjoy on a single rock.
High West is one of the most highly regarded micro-distilleries that also uses sourced whiskey from MGP. It’s award-winning Prairie Bourbon is a blend of straight bourbons that are aged between two and thirteen years in new, charred, oak barrels.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’re going to get hints of caramel apples, butter cookies, and subtle cinnamon. The palate is all about the charred oak, clover honey, butterscotch, and creamy vanilla. The finish is long, full of warming heat, and ends with a final flourish of buttery caramel.
Bottom Line:
When it comes to sourced blends, it’s hard to beat High West Prairie Bourbon. It’s mellow, light, and highly complex.
One of the most sought-after sourced bourbons, Smooth Ambler Old Scout is a high rye bourbon sourced from MGP in Indiana. Once it makes its way to West Virginia, it’s blended together in small, hand-picked batches.
This one is famously bold, unfiltered, and high proof.
Tasting Notes:
You’re greeted with hints of dried cherries, sweet vanilla, and spicy, peppery rye on the nose. The palate features rich leather, sweet caramel, spicy cinnamon, and a nice kick of cracked black pepper. The finish is long, warm, and ends with a nice spicy pepper kick.
Bottom Line:
If you’re a fan of high-rye bourbons, don’t let the idea that this is a sourced bourbon stop you from slowly sipping it with a single ice cube.
What began as an experiment has become one of the most sought-after, partially sourced bourbons on the shelf (25 percent is their own make from recently purchased Kentucky Artisan Distillery and 75 percent is from other, unnamed distilleries). The brand experimented with six and seven-year-old barrels by placing them on a research vessel every year as it sails around the world. Each expression crosses the equator four times, visits five continents, and stops in more than 30 ports along the way.
While the story is unique, the whiskey is more than just a gimmick.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find aromas of creamy vanilla, subtle cinnamon, and charred oak. The palate highlights salted caramel, sweet cocoa, dried fruits, and baking spices. As you near the end, you’ll get soft, warm spice and a nice brown sugar salute.
Bottom Line:
Regardless of whether you’re going to drink it while singing shanties, you should still be able to appreciate the craft and creativity that went into making this unique whiskey.
Remus Repeal Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey Series IV
A ton of bourbon brands sources their whiskey from MGP of Indiana. Remus Repeal not only sources its whiskey from the distillery, but it’s also one of its flagship brands, making it… not exactly sourced. One of the coolest things about this whiskey is that it’s released every year and each batch is slightly different. This offering was made using two different mash bills, the first which is 77 percent of the blend and has 21 percent rye. The second part of the blend has 36 percent rye.
Tasting Notes:
Starts with a nose of dried cherries, cracked black pepper, and the must and aromas of a barrelhouse. The palate offers up sweet treacle, spicy cinnamon, creamy vanilla, and subtle pepper. The finish is long, full of heat, and ends with candied orange peels and charred oak.
Bottom Line:
This is a limited-edition bourbon that’s only released once per year. We suggest buying a bottle from last year and comparing it with this year’s offering. At the very least, you get to enjoy two glasses of whiskey.
One of the most well-known bourbon brands, Bulleit is known for its high-rye content (around 28 percent of the total mash bills). It’s 90 proof and aged for six years in new, charred American oak barrels. Owned by Diageo, the brand has a history of sourcing from Four Roses but now is making their own juice while still complementing their juice with sourced stuff (from an undisclosed distillery or distilleries).
Tasting Notes:
With a sniff or two, you’re going to note hints of charred oak, spicy rye, sweet vanilla, and subtle smoke. Spice arrives on the palate and is complemented by hints of buttery caramel, clover honey, and toasted marshmallows. The finish ends with a final stroke of peppery spice.
Bottom Line:
This bourbon is way cheaper than its quality dictates. It’s well suited for sipping, but might just be the best mixing bourbon at its price point.
Angel’s Envy is one of the most highly awarded bourbons on the market. Its flagship bourbon is made by hand-selecting barrels (from MGP in Indiana and now mixed with Bacardi’s Louisville Distilling Company’s own make) between eight and 12-years-old to be blended and finished in port wine barrels.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is all about dried cherries, charred oak, and sweet honey. The sip delivers hints of nutty sweetness, creamy caramel, candied orange peels, and sticky toffee. The finish is long, filled with pleasing heat, and closes with brown sugar and sweet berries.
Bottom Line:
Angel’s Envy is a special bourbon. After you enjoy the port wine finished variety, move on to the rum cask. You won’t be sorry.
This is a very aptly named bourbon. It’s a literal fistful of bourbons. Made up of a blend of five straight American bourbons, this well-regarded whiskey was created by William Grant & Son’s Master Blender Kelsey McKechnie with a blended Scotch whisky ideal applied to Kentucky bourbon.
Tasting Notes:
Hints of subtle spicy pepper, butter cookies, and sweet cinnamon define the nose. As you sip, you’ll notice hints of caramelized sugar, sweet cream, baking spices, nutmeg, and licorice. This dram has a nice long end, highlighted with a final kick of peppery warmth.
Bottom Line:
Appreciate this award-winning blended bourbon for what it is: A clean, smooth sipper that’s cheap enough to mix with.
First released last spring, this sourced and high proof whiskey is the first bourbon to be distilled at Castle & Key Distillery (formerly Old Taylor) in almost four decades. The bourbon was created by Sean Josephs, who came from the world of wine and applies that eye (and nose) to whiskey. This expression is made from small batching 100 barrels of juice that were aged for 34 months.
Tasting Notes:
Hints of buttercream, candied orange peels, and charred oak are present on the nose. Creamy caramel, pecans, sweet chocolate, and dried fruits define the sip. Pleasing heat and a hint of sweet treacle are the main features on the long-ish end.
Bottom Line:
This is a special bourbon. It’s high proof, bold, and works well as a base for your favorite cocktail.
Old Soul is a great example of a distillery sourcing whiskey to complete a blend. The distillery (Cathead) makes its own high rye bourbon and then blends it with two high-rye bourbons sourced from Indiana’s MGP. The result is a spicy, warming, well-balanced expression.
Tasting Notes:
Your nostrils will fill with the aromas of sweet corn, buttery caramel, and toasted marshmallows. The first sip is full of caramel apples, creamy vanilla, charred oak, and peppery spice. The finish is medium in length, warming, and ends with a final hint of nutty sweetness.
Bottom Line:
You don’t normally think of Mississippi when you think of whiskey, but maybe you should. This blended whiskey is complex, sippable, and stands up to its rivals in the Blue Grass State.
Euphoria: Second Special Episode (Friday, HBO Max 9:00 p.m., Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — This installment is called “F*ck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” so, yes, that’s cryptic. We do know that this episode will be a mirror reflections for what happened after Rue was left standing alone at a train station by Jules after the two scrapped their joint getaway plan. This led to some sad Zendaya diner action by the former, and the second episode (directed by creator Sam Levinson) will inform the audience of what went down on Jules’ end. Hunter Schafer, who portrays Jules, also co-wrote this one.
WandaVision (Disney+ series premiere) — The Marvel Cinematic Universe has launched into Phase Four, nerds. This week, it sure looks like Age Of Ultron is coming back to haunt Wanda Maximoff with all sorts of tragedy and history, along with HYDRA and SWORD happenings, and Kathryn Hahn just might steal the joint out from the rest of the super-talented cast. This week also includes Brady Bunch references, and people are hoping for a family reunion after watching the latest madness on this wild show.
Flack: Season 1 (PopTV series moving to Amazon Prime) — Flack came out two years ago on Pop TV, presumably as a limited series, but all that has changed now. Amazon picked up the Anna Paquin-starring show for an unexpected second season, which will arrive later this year. If you are in need of some guilty-pleasure escapism, consider giving this series a whirl. It’s voyeuristic and at times thrilling to watch. Flack also feels like an amalgamation of many shows and movies you’ve seen before, including The Devil Wears Prada, Scandal, and Sex and the City.
Fate: The Winx Saga (Netflix series) — Based upon the Italian cartoon Winx Club (by Iginio Straffi), this live-action reimagining serves as a coming-of-age tale set in the Otherworld, at a magical boarding school. It’s essentially a journey for five young fairies at the Alfea school, and those with human parents don’t even know that this school doesn’t exist in the “real” world. Expect a lot of teenage drama as the young women hone their powers while dealing with all the usual stuff, like love, rivalries, and monsters.
The Sister: Season 1 (Hulu series) — ITV commissioned this series with Hulu, and it’s already a hit in the U.K. The show’s based upon Burial, a best selling novel by Neil Cross (Luther) and involves a family’s life being rocked into oblivion when a presence from the past literally shows up on the porch with some unwelcome and shocking news. This development, of course, transforms into catastrophic decisions and long-lasting effects that aren’t so desirable.
Pixar Popcorn (Disney+ short series) — There’s a good chance that your favorite characters will surface in some of these shorts that cover everything from Toy Story to Soul. Voice work will be coming your way from Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Ellen DeGeneres, Craig T. Nelson, and more. Surely, you can guess their roles?
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Season 2 (Netflix series) — Mankind will never learn to stop f*cking with dinosaurs in this franchise. The kids are dodging dinosaurs who are alternately doing their best Zoolander faces and trying to gobble up humans in their path, and it’s a disaster. Somehow, the kids realize that they’re not all by their lonesome, too. This series takes place at the same time as the first Jurassic World flick, so let’s hope that the “sinister” thing isn’t a pair of Bryce Dallas Howard’s old high heels.
The White Tiger (Netflix film) — Priyanka Chopra Jonas stars as passengers for a young hero jockey who becomes a driver, Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav). He narrates this purportedly epic story about his darkly humorous rise from rags to riches in modern India. He’s cunning and ambitious and doesn’t want to sit in his socially acceptable box, and his journey takes an unconventional and somewhat rogue turn, which leads him to become a different type of master than, again, also socially acceptable. The film’s based upon the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name.
Derek Delgaudio’s In & Of Itself (Hulu film special) — The illusionist takes his one-man stage show into movie format after filming live in an intimate New York City venue. As one might expect, Delgaudio explores illusions but also the theme of identity.
Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:
Supermarket Sweep (Sunday, ABC 8:00 p.m.) — Leslie Jones and every bit of her enthusiasm will host contestants in this revival of the grocery-shopping game show.
Batwoman (Sunday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — Kate Kane’s Batsuit is still hanging out with Ryan Wilder giving it a whirl. Ryan then realizes that the swirling chaos in Gotham can be abated by something relating to the symbol on the suit. This leads Ryan to become a confident caped crusader in her own right.
Charmed (Sunday, CW 9:00 p.m.) — Season 3 begins with the Charmed Ones working hard to defend themselves while The Faction closes in. Harry and Macy are attempting to figure out their relationship, and yeah, this series is still kicking around all sorts of magical drama.
American Gods (Sunday, Starz 8:00 p.m.) — Shadow has a dream about Bilquis while the rest search for the missing girl. Meanwhile, Wednesday discovers where his old love, Demeter (the Greek goddess) has been hanging out all this time.
A Discovery of Witches (Sunday, AMC 6:50 p.m. and 8:00 p.m) — Two episodes as follows: (1) Diana is brutally tortured by Satu, and Matthew attempts a daring rescue mission; (2) Diana learns more about her childhood and magic, and she grows devastated by learning the truth about how she’s lived her life thus far.
Shameless (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — This “Hall Of Shame” episode (one of several) breaks from the current season to dig into how Debbie, Carl, and Liam grew up so fast. Also, Liam loses his quarantine girlfriend because he’s a Gallagher, which prompts Carl and Debbie to spring into action to give Liam a hand.
In case you missed these recent picks:
One Night in Miami (Amazon Prime film) — Regina King directs this fictional account of a historic night, in which Cassius Clay, soon to be known as Muhammad Ali, celebrated a major boxing upset with three friends, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown. More than forty years later, the conversations that take place in this film continue to resonate, along with providing a chance to reflect upon the cultural upheaval taking place during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
The Ultimate Playlist of Noise (Hulu film) — A high-school senior must face up to the fact that his upcoming brain surgery will leave him deaf, and given that he adores music, he sets upon grabbing onto his own fate by recording the ultimate bucket-playlist. And then he takes a wild road trip alongside a struggling musician while they both experience transformative revelations.
GameStop, the actual physical company that sells video games and, increasingly, Funko Pops, is enduring the coronavirus pandemic just like the rest of the planet. But the company’s stock, however, is doing better than ever thanks to a fight between day traders on Reddit and an investment company that thinks they’re all fools.
The battle, which is having a real impact on the volatility of the stock market, took a turn on Friday as the company’s stock price hit an all-time high. GameStop was for sale in 2018, and the shifting industry of buying and selling video games has made it less essential to gamers, especially as downloads become the norm and the world continues to endure a pandemic. All of that was why the stock price was so low to begin with, but it became a bit of a pet project for Reddit day traders who invested in the stock of the company and have sparked a roaring comeback for the business that used to charge you very little for that copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004.
On Friday afternoon, trading of GameStop stock was abruptly halted after it saw a Reddit-fueled surge in trading.
According to Bloomberg, the volatility is in part because of a Reddit campaign to pour huge amounts of money into the stock.
GameStop’s 75% gain through Friday comes after it more than doubled the week before and marks the most volatile 10-day period on record, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The stock was halted at least four times in New York as it surged as much as 79% to $76.76 as Reddit users ran wild. It was was last 44% higher after trading resumed.
At one point, the video-game retailer was the most actively traded U.S. company with a market value above $200 million, data compiled by Bloomberg show, as millions of shares exchanged hands every few minutes.
As Bloomberg’s reporting and many others have pointed out, the stock price of GameStop is now no longer tied to what the company is doing even a little bit. Prices for these things often reflect news about the overall health of the company, but GameStop is up 226 percent in January, according to Bloomberg, for doing little more than becoming a topic of interest online among day traders. And while amateur day traders on TikTok and Reddit encourage people to buy more and more to help the stock get bigger, professionals on Wall Street are lining up to reap the benefits once they fail.
As Vice pointed out, Citron Research is short selling GameStock, essentially betting against everyone who is buying stock of the company and assuming that its value will not hold.
“Everyone on Twitter never has a losing trade. Everyone on Reddit is a genius,” Andrew Left of Citron said in a much-anticipated video about why GameStop investors are wrong. He suggested the people buying GameStop stock are going up against hedge funds who know much more than them, and that GameStop investors are losers who are trying to hack his Twitter account, are ordering pizzas to his house, and signing him up for Tinder.
As GameStop trended on Twitter on Friday, people couldn’t help but make it a meme of sorts.
“The name of the company, Gamestop It is a cutting edge video game store out of the Grapevine, Texas awaiting imminent patent approval on the next generation of virtual reality omni directional gaming devices that have both huge military and civilian applications now.” pic.twitter.com/FS31zsd8GM
The last time I stepped into a GameStop they offered me $25 for my Xbox and a copy of Dance Dance Revolution but good for them I guess pic.twitter.com/1E8UYHRagU
It’s making for a very viral and weird moment on the stock market, but it’s another example of how the market is increasingly unrelated to the actual heath of the economy. As millions of people remain unemployed, people struggle to provide for their families, and coronavirus continues to put a strain on daily life in America, a stock like GameStop is fluctuating wildly and, for some, appears to be a get rich quick scheme that’s actually working. For some, for now, at least.
The time it takes to conceive, pitch, and produce a movie may account for all the border wall stories we’re only just now getting, presumably inspired by Donald Trump’s border wall rhetoric revival tour. Just in the past week I’ve seen Liam Neeson’s The Marksman, in which he protects a young border crosser from imminent deportation, listened to American Coyote, Imperative’s podcast about a Mormon people smuggler, and heard a segment on This American Life about a border agent who finds out his own papers are fake. 2019 gave us the MAGA version, in Stallone’s ghoulish, gory Rambo: Last Blood, and this week, from IFC, comes No Man’s Land, a VOD rental that attempts to do for the borderlands what Crash did for race relations in LA.
No Man’s Land, from director Conor Allyn, stars his younger brother, Jake Allyn (who also co-wrote the script) as Jackson Greer, a handsome baseball prospect weighing his options between an offer to play AA ball with the Yankees or to stay on and work the family farm with his handsome parents (Frank Grillo and Andie MacDowell) and older brother (Alex MacNicoll). I have to admit, every time I see Frank Grillo, part of me silently wishes he was Jon Bernthal. Anyway, that Jackson practices by throwing baseballs at an old metal sign while wearing a pearl snap cowboy shirt should give you an idea of the kind of old-fashioned cinematic drama they’re attempting here.
The farm is situated, naturally, in “no man’s land,” the strip of sunbaked land in Texas between the actual border and the border checkpoints and wall. Jackson’s dad and his obnoxiously perfect hair think Jackson is crazy to even consider staying on their snake-bitten dirt farm instead of playing baseball, but Jackson seems to feel a never-quite-explained sense of duty towards this land. This despite their frequent trouble with migrants, often led by cartel-connected coyotes, who are always fleeing across their ranch land, stampeding the cattle who scatter to the winds and cost the family $2,000 a head in potential earnings.
The Greers’ counterparts are a Mexican family led by patriarch Gustavo (Jorge A. Jimenez), a “good” coyote who has a green card himself but is shepherding across his wife and son to reunite with him after they’ve been denied visa requests. Gustavo’s family assumes every white person they meet along the trail to the border is a potentially murderous “minuteman,” while the Greers assume every Mexican crossing the border is a potentially murderous cartel soldier. Assumption meets assumption one night in a deadly event straight out of Crash, and Jackson is forced to flee south on horseback. He’s being pursued by a non-Spanish speaking, Mexican-American Texas Ranger played enjoyably by comedian George Lopez. The anachronistic Old West nature of this conflict is not accidental, with one Mexican responding to Lopez announcing himself as a Texas Ranger with, “They still have those?” in one of the film’s best lines.
In any case, Jackson is off on his familiar journey to see how the other half lives, stowing away in conveniently-timed horse trailers and working for his keep at a Mexican horse ranch. It’s a straightforward concept, and the Allyns attempt valiantly to play up the old-fashioned romance of it all (Connor Allyn also directed a rodeo movie for Netflix). Mostly, though, it comes off sorta clunky. Partly their lead just looks corny, with Jake Allyn not quite pulling off the transition from well-built hair model to fully-formed leading man. But also his character is written so naively as to defy belief. I can pretend for the sake of argument to accept a cornfed farmboy-turned-baseball prospect story like we’ve Quantum Leaped into a nineties Scott Bakula vehicle (written by Nicholas Sparks), but are we really to believe that a guy who grew up walking distance from the Mexican border hasn’t learned the word “culo” by age 19 and pronounces Guanajuato “gana jotto?” As someone with a Spanglified upbringing myself this was a non-starter.
An even poorer choice is No Man’s Land‘s antagonist, a tweeky, tattooed weasel with a mohawk and head tattoos who I guess works for the cartels (?) played by Andrés Delgado. No Man’s Land never quite gets around to telling us what this guy’s whole deal is but we’re left to mostly infer that he must be bad because he talks like a Bond villain and dresses like a Mexican cyberpunk Chuck Liddell. Moreover, when the entire movie is structured as an empathy-building exercise in not generalizing based on people’s appearance, it’s not great when the bad guy looks an anthropomorphized Scar from The Lion King.
All of which to say, No Man’s Land aims for timeless and classic, and has a few nice moments and performances here and there (it’s a bummer to focus on the hair models when you’ve got George Lopez and Andie MacDowell in your movie), but it’s undone by a persistent corny reductiveness, and ends up coming off blandly derivative. I suppose the best we can hope for is that movies about the fraught border conflict become an anachronism.
‘No Man’s Land’ is available January 22nd in select theaters and VOD. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
A tense exchange occurred between Utah Jazz standout Donovan Mitchell and Inside the NBA‘s Shaquille O’Neal on Thursday night following Utah’s 129-118 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Mitchell, fresh off of a 36-point outing, had the big man say he didn’t have what it took to take his game to “the next level,” and he responded by getting pretty upset, noting that he’s heard that from the day he walked into the league.
It was rather odd to hear Shaq say something like that after Mitchell had a big game — in particular because he’d been beefing with Mitchell’s teammate, Rudy Gobert, in recent days — but there were some folks who questioned why Mitchell wasn’t a big fan of hearing something like that from someone who has won everything there is to win in the league, including four championships.
In fact, that question — to paraphrase, why aren’t current players receptive to criticism from legends — got asked by Cuffs the Legend on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, and two of the league’s most respected veterans decided to chime in: LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
James and Durant are no stranger to getting critiques from older players throughout their careers for various reasons, so it is interesting that they chimed in and made clear that guys who are out of the league don’t always have the most positive impact when they offer up criticisms in some form or fashion.
They, of course, did not specifically mention the Mitchell and Shaq exchange, but that’s the sort of thing that seems to pop up every now and then — an older player, either in good faith or some other reason, says something that rubs a current player the wrong way, and we get a news cycle out of the exchange. At the very least, those players in the Mitchell camp can probably take some solace in knowing two of the league’s current elder statesmen appear have their back when this sort of thing goes down.
In the aftermath of the latest Verzuz battle between Ashanti and Keyshia Cole, fans are already fan-casting their desired follow-ups. One such suggestion got the attention of its subject, but rather than accepting, he made an intriguing counteroffer that now has both artists trending on Twitter. When a fan account posited a Freddie Gibbs Vs. Pusha T battle for the title of “King Of Coke Rap,” Gibbs himself chimed in. “F*ck a versus,” he rejoined. “I would make this album tho.”
It isn’t too far out of the realm of possibility for the two cocaine rap aristocrats. They previously collaborated on a pair of tracks: “Palmolive,” from Gibbs’ joint album with Madlib, and “Good Morning,” from Black Thought’s Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able EP. Both songs also featured Killer Mike. Meanwhile, both Gibbs and Push have collaborated with Griselda Records’ Benny The Butcher, as well as receiving production from Madlib, who Pusha hinted was also producing one of his upcoming projects.
As far as that last Verzuz goes, fans were disappointed that the show started almost an hour late, but later delighted when O.T. Genasis cameoed, squashing his feud with Cole over his Crip anthem rendition of her song “Love.” Meanwhile, 21 Savage entertained fans on a stream of his own as the usually deadpan, menacing MC traded in his tough-guy schtick to belt out full-throated renditions of the Verzuz contestants’ songs.
Just for fun, check out Freddie Gibbs and Pusha T’s “Palmolive” above.
While on a break from his normal routine of showing up to Donald Trump rallies looking like Dick Tracy’s Nazi uncle, Roger Stone has written a scathing op-ed eviscerating Steve Bannon for receiving a presidential pardon. Back in August 2020, Bannon was arrested for multiple counts of fraud by the U.S. Postal Service police, which was particularly ironic at the time because Trump’s new postmaster general was in the process of sabotaging the postal system in an effort to impede mail-in voting during the presidential election. Bannon and others allegedly embezzled funds raised by Trump supporters to “Build the Wall” between the United States and Mexico, and it’s for that offense that Stone thinks he should’ve been denied a pardon. Via Stone Cold Truth:
The crime Steve Bannon was accused of had nothing to do with Donald Trump or the Trump campaign. He stole $1 million from small-dollar donors who thought they were trying to build the wall. Bannon has been a less than loyal ally of the president, even openly discussing a challenge or an effort to succeed Trump himself in the White House.
The progenitor of hobo chic, Bannon actually chases down hobos to get their clothes. The rest is dumpster diving. A little hot water and soap wouldn’t hurt either.
Nothing like having your fashion sense criticized by a guy who dresses like a Batman villain. Of course, the real reason behind Stone’s salty rant, which he mentions several times in his screed, is the fact Bannon testified against Stone in court and accused of him being an “access point” between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. While Stone was found guilty, he was pardoned by Trump before he started his sentence. However, while Stone clearly thinks he deserved his pardon for remaining loyal to Trump while Bannon did not, Stone is confident that he’ll be having the last laugh.
“Bannon will be charged with money laundering along with another foreign-born individual soon,” he wrote. “So in the end, his pardon by President Trump will not spare him from the incarceration he so richly deserves.”
Jay-Z isn’t exactly a rapper who’s synonymous with smoking weed. HOVA doesn’t name-check strains in every verse like Snoop, he’s never been the “lonely stoner” type like Kid Cudi, and these days he seems far more likely to pour a dram of impossibly expensive whiskey or his partially-owned D’ussé XO cognac in the booth than he is to rock a Phillies blunt. But while Shawn Carter isn’t a stoner legend, he is a savvy businessman (he’s a business, man) which means he’s well aware that the cannabis market is booming right now.
So it’s no shock that Jigga is leveraging his name and making a play in the weed game. In fact, we’re surprised it took this long.
If you buy all the brand speak, Jay spent 18 months putting together MONOGRAM, calling on the talents of cannabis industry veteran DeAndre “De” Watson, who helped curate and cultivate each of the five strains.
“Cannabis has been around for thousands of years, yet it is still an industry whose legacy of skilled craftsmanship is often overlooked,” Jay-Z said in a press release. “I created MONOGRAM to give cannabis the respect it deserves by showcasing the tremendous hard work, time, and care that goes into crafting a superior smoke.”
That is… very PR sounding. But for better and worse, MONOGRAM genuinely is unlike any other weed brand in the game. We smoked four of the brand’s five strains in all three form factors currently offered, got the full luxury experience, and have a lot of thoughts. Let’s dive in!
The Products & Presentation
Dane Rivera
One of the things that will strike you first about MONOGRAM is just how different the products look compared to many of the other weed brands out there. That’s a good thing — graphic design in the weed space can be a mess with busy labels, an over-use of psychedelic color palettes, horrible font choices, and sometimes even ridiculous, embarrassing names (I bring this example up a lot but… “Chemical Cat Piss,” anyone?). MONOGRAM has none of that, presenting each of its products (pre-roll loosies, a hand-rolled joint, and flower jars) in sleek black containers with minimal labeling and no strain names at all.
Instead, the strains are numbered (seemingly arbitrarily) — No. 1, No. 3, No. 70, No. 88, No. 96 — and designated with a sensory descriptor of light, medium, or heavy. Whether each strain is an indica, sativa, or hybrid is not disclosed, along with any packaging dates, THC percentages, or CBD content. This is sure to annoy more selective stoners and we’re kind of right there with them on this one. While THC percentage certainly isn’t everything, those with a higher tolerance will want to have a clear idea of what type of high to expect, and MONOGRAM doesn’t make that easy.
(The information is available on the website — and in this article! — but we would’ve preferred it on the packaging. I mean, at least print it on a sticker on the bottom!)
MONOGRAM’s herb is offered in three form factors, a four-pack of mini-pre rolls (No. 88 and 96), two and four-gram flower jars (No. 1 and 3), and a large hand-rolled joint (No. 88 and 96). Altogether, the presentation is great, and aside from a few design decisions that mildly annoy us, we’re going to go ahead and conclude that Jay-Z nailed it on the presentation side of things.
But pretty packaging is just that — packaging. Here are our thoughts on what truly matters.
Least Essential: Strain No. 96 — Pre-Roll Loosies
Dane Rivera
Price: $40 THC: $25.3%
We’ll start what feels like the least essential MONOGRAM product, the Pre-Roll Loosies. As we mentioned, the packing here is great — four individual mini pre-roll joints individually wrapped in their own plastic airtight vials in a sleek black flip top box. That fine attention to presentation translates to the joints themselves, which are tightly packed with finely ground weed to ensure a nice steady and slow burn, thereby saving you product in between drags.
Which is a good thing because these things are small!
Their slight size makes these Js seem specifically curated for the pandemic era we live in. The days of passing joints between friends might be done (even with a vaccine), but popping open a pack of mini loosies for a quick session in your friend’s backyard? These little joints seem made for that. Still, hardcore stoners won’t get what they’re looking for here, and neither will anyone who winces at the idea of sharing $40 pre-rolls this small.
Our loosies came in Strain No. 96, which MONOGRAM designates as “Heavy.” Does that mean it’s an indica? We’re not so sure. The high didn’t make me feel particularly heavy or weighed down. I didn’t feel an energy sap, experience munchies, or slip into the dreaded couch lock. It felt a lot more along the lines of a hybrid to me but I can’t say for sure.
Each drag was surprisingly smooth though, with a pleasing fruit flavor and a subtle fruity kiss lingering in the milky smoke. Alas, at $40 a pack I’m not sure when I’d reach for these again.
Bottom Line
If you’re just looking for a head change or a light crossfade while you host your favorite brew and you like the look of them or need a conversation starter “This is Jay-Z’s label!” these make for an ideal accompaniment. Those seeking a more serious high should look elsewhere.
Soild Choice: Strain No. 1 — 2G/4G Flower Jar
Dane Rivera
Price: $40 for 2 gram jar/ $70 for 4 gram jar. THC: 34%
Before we gush, we need to go on a bit of a rant. We get that Jay-Z is trying to present weed in a different light, one that is more aligned with his modern-day Rockefeller vibe, and we can truly see Beyonce reaching into an expensive designer bag and pulling out a jar of MONOGRAM weed at the end of the night, but this two-gram/four-gram shit is not luxurious, it feels cheap — like my “luxury” weed is being pinched by a dealer who doesn’t have a scale and is “good at eyeballing it.”
We can’t figure out why Jay-Z cut corners here ditching the more traditional eighth (3.5 grams) and quarter (7 grams) weigh-outs. Even if that means bumping up the price by $10, if the product is good enough, people will pay!
Alright rant over, the weed here is, as with the loosies, very good. Designated “Medium,” which again, feels meaningless, strain No. 1 presented me with fluffy deep green buds flecked with orange hairs and a distinct fruity smell, making this weed a joy to break up by hand for a fresh bowl. Don’t do this weed the disservice of tossing it in a grinder.
Lighting this herb brings out a deep piney-meets-skunky aroma and while the smoke is nice and milky here, it does have a bit of a spicy finish that will mildly irritate the nose. The high knocked me out with a single bowl and when I resurfaced it was with the thought that I definitely prefer this form factor over the loosies.
The Bottom Line
Despite a major misstep in sizing, this is a solid choice and certainly makes the case for why a Jay-Z branded weed is a good idea.
Essential: Strain No. 3 2G/4G Flower Jar
Dane Rivera
Price: $40 for 2 gram jar/ $70 for 4 gram jar. THC: 34.9%
In my blind rage over sizing, I forgot to mention what I love about the MONOGRAM flower jars. They’re glass, which is a great touch, and they’re totally blacked out, protecting your herb from ultraviolet light. We can’t stress the importance of keeping your weed in a dark place and buying MONOGRAM once will give you a great weed jar for life.
Nice touch, Hov.
Strain No. 3 is easily MONOGRAM’s best sporting frosty, aromatic buds with shimmering crystals and hints of purple petals weaved with wiry orange hairs. Another “Medium” strain, we’re pretty confident this is a hybrid strain. No. 3 is sticky and dense, with cakey crystals — so you should break it up gently by hand. You want those crystals preserved until the moment the fire hits the plant.
No. 3’s true strength is in the flavor, which has hints of minty grape, with a sweet finish that leads to a powerful high. I don’t know that I can attribute this to Strain No. 3, but in the days I was working through the jar I was having some seriously vivid dreams. Whether there’s a correlation there or not, this is definitely an herb ideal for tripping out on your favorite music or going deep into your own thoughts.
The Bottom Line
MONOGRAM’s best tasting and looking strain with a powerful and vivid high. One of the best herbs we’ve smoked so far in 2021.
Best Experience: Strain No. 88 Hand-Roll
Dane Rivera
Price: $50 THC: 24.9%
I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to like this one. I scoff at the idea of a $50 joint — I don’t care if this one was hand-rolled by Beyonce herself. But I ended up loving it.
De Watson — MONOGRAM’s aforementioned Culture and Cultivation Ambassador — is listed as the chief architect behind MONOGRAM’s OG Handroll. It was clearly his choice not to feature your typical fine grind of weed, and instead load this thing up with tiny nugs, weighing in at over 1.5 grams. That’s more than half an entire MONOGRAM flower jar.
Its gigantic size might lead you to believe this thing was made for sharing, but it wasn’t. It was designed to be able to save for later — just drop it back in its discreet plastic carrying case. (Counterpoint: don’t do that. No joint will ever taste as good and smoke as smoothly as the first time you light it.) Puffing this monster solo and to completion is where MONOGRAM’s promise of luxury comes to fruition.
That’s what I did, and let me tell you: It’s a decadent experience.
This is a special occasion smoke, something you save for celebratory moments. It burns slow and evenly, with sweet and spicy notes mingling in MONOGRAMs stinkiest strain, No. 88. I’d give some notes on what the high was like here, but I smoked the whole thing and my brain was absolutely blasted to another planet. Sorry, not sorry.
The Bottom Line
A $50 hand-rolled joint probably won’t make it into your regular weed purchasing rotation, but when a special occasion rolls around we definitely recommend reaching for this. The experience is unparalleled and the hand-rolled attention to details truly delivers on Jay-Z’s highbrow concept.
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