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Netflix previously announced that the existing The Umbrella Academy siblings will be back, including Elliot Page as Vanya, for Season 3. We can definitely expect Robert Sheehan to get funky as Klaus again, and the rest of the Hargreeves sibling actors (Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min) will be back, too. Yet as the Season 2 finale revealed, Sir Reginald Hargreeves had kept himself busy (and up to no good) prepping another stash of superpowered progeny, who will be known collectively as the Sparrow Academy. This changes the whole game, and warring academies will likely be on the agenda.

The show will pick up production in Toronto beginning in February, and Netflix has duly announced the cast members who will portray the Sparrows. There are a few Easter eggs in there, including Justin H. Min as a very different Ben (remember, Ben’s ghost officially left the building near the end of Season 2) and the character played by Cazzie David (who recently made headlines for her memoir and is also, of course, the daughter of Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David). Here are details on Cazzie’s character and the new, unruly Ben:

CAZZIE DAVID (86’ed, NY Times best-selling author of No One Asked for This) will play JAYME, Sparrow #6.
Jayme is a loner hidden under a hoodie. She doesn’t say much because she doesn’t have to. Jayme has a fear-inducing snarl. Catch a glimpse of it, and you’ll run across the street to avoid what follows. Smart and sharp as a knife, she spends most of her time hanging with Alphonso, her only friend.

JUSTIN H. MIN (After Yang, The Umbrella Academy) will play BEN, Sparrow #2.
This is not the sweet Ben we know and love. This Ben is a Machiavellian tactician, wrapped up in a pretty boy body with a rumbling inner-squid. Vicious, pragmatic, and hyper-vigilant— Ben is determined to gain his status as the leader at all costs.

Get ready, because Justin Min has already reacted on Twitter while signalling that he’s ready to push for being a leader, rather than a follower (and a ghost who plagues Klaus).

Other Sparrow cast members include Justin Cornwell (as Marcus, Sparrow #1), Britne Oldford (as FEI, Sparrow #3), Jake Epstein (as Alphonso, Sparrow #4), and Genesis Rodriguez (as Sloane, Sparrow #5). Also, expect to see an “Existential Dread-Inducing Psykronium Cube” who will portray Christopher, Sparrow #7. That should be an interesting one. Don’t ever accuse The Umbrella Academy of not keeping it weird.

Midway through the first quarter of the Indiana Pacers’ season-opener against the New York Knicks, Domantas Sabonis worked off an Iverson screen, flowed from the left elbow to the right wing and caught a pass with 14 seconds left on the shot clock. His defender, Nerlens Noel, didn’t close out, so the All-Star big man launched, connecting on his second long ball of the game, matching any output he posted during three prior seasons with Indiana and signifying new beginnings for the fifth-year center. Watching that first game, it would not take long to understand this season will unlock a heightened version of Sabonis, and the uptick in three-point volume is only part of the equation.

Under new head coach Nate Bjorkgren, Sabonis is further solidifying himself as one of the NBA’s premier offensive big men and elevating his game to a new level. Through eight games, he’s averaging 21.6 points, 12.6 rebounds and 6.1 assists on 61.6 percent true shooting (.563/.429/.647 split). Hovering around 24 percent, his usage rate, the typical barometer for offensive domineering, has not spiked from its 23 percent mark the prior two seasons. Per 100 possessions, he’s taking roughly the same amount of shots (19.1) that he has during his four-year Pacers tenure.

Instead, Bjorkgren constructed a non-traditional heliocentric offense around his star big man, providing him newfound paths to showcase the depths of his talents. Almost everything runs through Sabonis in some capacity, though in a vastly different manner than it does, say, Trae Young in Atlanta or did James Harden with the Mike D’Antoni-led Houston Rockets. Trailing only Nikola Jokic, he’s second in the NBA in touches per game (104.1). He’s tied with Rudy Gobert in screen assists (7.6) and leads all players in passes (80.7).

Last year, he ranked first in screen assists (7.0), third in passes (67.7) and sixth in touches (88.0), so Sabonis dictating the action on most plays is not a novel concept. Rather, the differentiator between this season and last season is the freedom he enjoys in each touch, and it’s helped guide Indiana from the 19th-ranked offense to fifth.

Most notably, he is afforded opportunities to lead the break, initiate outside of the paint and as a face-up scorer, with plays sometimes progressing quite slowly, but ultimately proving fruitful. The coaching staff trusts him to create and leverage his blend of ball skills, strength, craft and footwork, even if it requires lengthy stretches to unfold. Whereas his former head coach, Nate McMillan, predominantly featured him as a back-to-the-basket scorer and roll man, there’s much greater diversity this season. He was still enabled to trigger actions and play a vaguely similar style under the old regime, it’s just been vastly expanded with Bjorkgren in town.

Sabonis must be an absolute pain to battle against. He’s incredibly strong and physical, has an unrelenting motor, wields a bevy of ball and body fakes, and owns some of the best footwork in the league. There is no avenue he will not exhaust to create an opportunity for what he deems to be a quality shot. Containing him demands discipline, strength and mental acuity. Bjorkgren and Co. recognize the difficulty of meeting that criteria, and are letting their star big man operate as he pleases.

They’re also scheming him into advantageous positions as well, utilizing his fluidity to get him downhill. Most bigs cannot match his mobility and strength combination, and these plays seem reminiscent of actions we’d see guys like Ben Simmons, Pascal Siakam and Zion Williamson frequent. Indiana knows the versatility of its offensive hub, which is breeding creativity and varied scoring chances.

Part of what makes Sabonis such a good offensive player is his scalability. He’s one of the NBA’s top passing big men, a bone-crushing screener and instinctively floats into openings for easy buckets off the ball. The Pacers tap into all of that, running a motion- and screen-heavy attack that often involves him facilitating those sets.

The Pacers offense can capably run through Victor Oladipo (19.9 points per game, 26.8 percent usage) and Malcolm Brogdon (team-high 23.4 points per game, 24.0 percent usage) because of these scalable traits. Sabonis does not need to lord over the ball on every possession, while teammates remain stagnant viewers. He fosters an impact in other ways, comfortably serving as an adaptive, linking player, and aiding actions/sets.

He’s crafty and precise initiating dribble hand-offs, ensuring they are purposeful and not just action for the sake of action, swirling the ball between his palms until the proper moment arrives. Other times, he’ll commence a little pitch-and-catch game with someone to forge the advantage they’re both pursuing. It’s yet another example of the patience and credence this team grants him. Many of his assists stem from these seemingly easy hand-offs or tosses, but the build-up to achieve them, as well as his bludgeoning screens, conveys the skill they entail.

Even beyond those high-percentage passes via handoff, Sabonis is an excellent facilitator, which aptly suits Indiana’s surrounding personnel of shooters and cutters. When defenses key in on his scoring gravity, his shrewd approach yields benefits for the offense. Off the ball, he identifies openings and cuts into space as a roller or diver. These are long-standing hallmarks of his game, and further reinforce why he’s spearheading a borderline elite offense to open the season.

While the process to his shots has drastically shifted, the lone significant change in his shot profile is spurning long 2s in favor of triples. During his first three seasons with the Pacers, 14 percent of his attempts were between 16 feet and the 3-point arc, where he shot 41.6 percent, a rather encouraging mark to project extending his range. Now, he’s stepping back and prioritizing 3s. This season, only 2 percent of his looks are coming from that range, while 15.6 percent are beyond the arc, nearly double his previous best of three prior years in Indiana. At his current pace, he’ll surpass the 121 total threes he took in 210 games from 2017-18 to 2019-20 by game 53 this season.

Sabonis will likely not convert 42.9 percent (9 of 21, 2.3 per game) of his threes all season, but this retooled approach undeniably boosts his scoring efficiency, even once he regresses. Those long 2s are purgatory. For his career, between 16 feet and the arc, he’s shooting 42.4 percent, or 0.848 points per possession. To exceed that number, he’d have to knock down just 28.3 percent of his three-pointers this season.

The spacing boon the entire offense experiences also matters. The requisite room for driving and cutting lanes or windows in which to fit passes can often be marginal. Sabonis being a reliable and willing threat from 22.5 feet rather than, say, 20 feet, is the sort of increased spacing that ripples throughout an entire unit’s offensive success by broadening driving/cutting lanes and passing angles.

Although five of his 21 attempts have been induced by a dwindling shot clock, he’s also confidently stepping into early clock 3s above the break. When you do that long enough and maintain a certain threshold of success (roughly 34-36 percent, I’d posit) with triples like these, the collective offense is going to reap benefits.

On a simplified level, the primary factor behind a Sabonis-led offense ranking among the top five is his three-fold excellence. He creates for himself. He creates for others. He capitalizes on the creation of others or creation derived from the scheme. Those, fundamentally, are the pillars of offense. Advantages and scoring possibilities must be fashioned and subsequently maximized. Sabonis excels at all three parts, and it’s why the Pacers’ offense is driving their 6-3 start.

Sabonis emerged as a bona fide star last season. His absence in the bubble and Indiana’s playoff sweep diminished some of the shine from that campaign. McMillan’s departure allowed for the hiring of a new head coach, one fully cognizant of Sabonis’ wide-ranging offensive faculties and arrived prepared to optimize and illuminate them. It won’t be long before the entirety of the NBA notices them, too.

MF DOOM was a master of disguise and a consummate trickster. From sending forth his “Doombots” to do his bidding — basically, hiring a bunch of “lookalikes” to don his trademark mask and perform at shows for him — to switching identities throughout his decades-long career, DOOM had a penchant for upending fans’ expectations and leaning all the way into the schtick. As it turns out, the Villain may have gotten one last laugh from the Great Beyond after passing away last Halloween, as Okayplayer reports that seemingly everyone apparently had Daniel Dumile’s birthday wrong on their hip-hop calendars.

There’s no telling where the oft-cited date of birth for DOOM, January 9, 1971, stemmed from, but fans apparently believed it was supported in his DangerDoom song “Pretty Hair,” where he rapped, “Circa one nine seventy-one, on the mic machine it seems his work will never be done.” Obviously, that could be read as either 1/9/71 or 1971, and it appears some of us had it mixed up all along. Okayplayer spoke to some of DOOM’s closest associates and checked court records from old arrests to determine the truth.

Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, Madlib’s manager and a former Stones Throw artist who was signed to the label at the same time as DOOM, told Okayplayer, “He always wished me happy birthday on July 12th and I always wished him a happy birthday on July 13th. Unless he was just not correcting me or lying to me, that’s when I know his birthday to be.”

Meanwhile, a search through Maryland’s court records database for his 1998 arrest for possession with intent to distribute lists his DOB as 7/13/1971. That’s one fewer mystery about the multifaceted mic menace — although, it seems his supply of them is practically endless. Another that may soon need solving is a release date for MadVillainy 2, which was revealed to be in the works on a recent podcast.

After taking a few weeks off, the first new Shark Tank episode of 2021 aired over the weekend. Big-time guests sometimes appear on the show, and on the latest episode, one of the most prominent names in music popped up: Justin Bieber. Bieber appeared, via a pre-taped video, to help ALL33 CEO Bing Howenstein try to get the sharks to invest in his company, which specializes in ergonomic office chairs.

Bieber said in the video, “Hey sharks, I’m Justin Bieber and this is the ALL33. It’s the chair that moves like I do. I mean, guys, look at this perfect posture! I’ve got my chest up, my shoulders back, I’m ready for anything. If you gotta sit, this is it.” In the clip, he also shoots a basketball while sitting and takes a moment to do some seated crunches without a shirt on, saying, “I mean, have you guys ever seen a chair that can do this? I’m doing a full ab workout right now.”

While Howenstein was surely grateful for the Bieber assist, it didn’t help him secure an investment, as all the sharks passed on the deal; Howenstein asked for half million dollars for a 2.5-percent share of his company.

Watch some clips from Bieber’s Shark Tank appearance above.

“My great ambition is to be in a Fast and Furious movie. I so want to be a mad driver in a Fast and Furious movie.” That’s Helen Mirren back in 2015. Half of her wish came true: the Oscar winner — who, it’s worth repeating, claimed her “great ambition” in life was to be in a movie series that was originally about street racing and stealing old Panasonic televisions — appeared in both The Fate of the Furious and the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw as Magdalene Shaw, Deckard and Owen’s mother. But she did not drive in either film.

“I wanted to be driving, but unfortunately, I’m not,” she said before The Fate of the Furious came out. “Maybe that will come in the future, in Fast and Furious 12… I’m probably one of the few people on the set who know how to drive a gear shift car. I doubt The Rock knows. But I do. I know how to double declutch.” First off, Helen Mirren is one of the few people on Earth who can insult The Rock without fear of being flattened into a pancake. Also, Helen Mirren rules — and she’ll finally get to drive in F9.

When asked by Entertainment Weekly whether Mirren will appear behind a steering wheel in the ninth Fast and Furious movie (scheduled to come out on May 28), Vin Diesel replied, “You ask the right questions. Again, without giving away any spoilers… You know what, I’m going to give you a spoiler: Yes, she gets to drive.” He added, “It’s so awesome. She gets to drive and she gets to drive sleek.” It’s the only way she knows.

Congratulations to Helen Mirren for getting to be a “mad driver in a Fast and Furious movie.” And thank you for showing that dreams sometimes do come true.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

In an interview following last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol building, Nancy Pelosi nabbed an opportunity to shade Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during an interview with 60 Minutes. The tension between Pelosi and AOC has been part of an ongoing struggle between younger Democrats in Congress and the significantly older party leadership. However, those tensions seem to cool recently after AOC and the members of the Squad voted to re-elect Pelosi as Speaker of the House despite AOC previously saying that Pelosi needed to step down. In return, The Squad members were given more prominent committee assignments.

In Pelosi’s defense, the AOC shade popped up after 60 Minutes‘ Lesley Stahl broached the subject of age — or the “A-word,” as Stahl called it — during the final moments of an interview on last week’s Capitol attack. Via CBS News:

Lesley Stahl: Why does AOC complain that you have not been grooming younger people for leadership?

Nancy Pelosi: I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her– because we are.

When Stahl noted that Pelosi’s response was “kind of sharp” and dismissive of AOC’s concerns, Pelosi qualified her response and made it clear that she supports the next generation of Democratic leaders. “I’m not dismissing her. I respect her,” Pelosi said. “I think she’s very effective as are other– many other members in our caucus that the press doesn’t pay attention to. But they are there and they are building support for what comes next.”

You can see Pelosi talk AOC at the 11:32 mark:

Over the weekend, the “Just For One Night” David Bowie tribute livestream was held, albeit a day after originally scheduled due to technical difficulties and COVID-19 restrictions (it was initially set for January 8, Bowie’s birthday). Still, the show went on just fine, and among the highlights was Trent Reznor performing a pair of covers, “Fantastic Voyage” and “Fashion.”

On “Fantastic Voyage,” Reznor was joined by Nine Inch Nails bandmate Atticus Ross and Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson. Then, on “Fashion,” that trio welcomed Reznor’s wife and How To Destroy Angels bandmate Mariqueen Maandig Reznor into the fold.

Elsewhere during the show, other performers included Duran Duran, Adam Lambert, Peter Frampton, Andra Day, Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter, Yes’ Rick Wakeman, and a supergroup established specifically for this event, Ground Control (Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney, Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins).

Ahead of the performance, Reznor spoke about Bowie’s impact on him, telling Consequence Of Sound:

“I think in terms of chronology, it was the Scary Monsters album that I became aware of Bowie’s music. None of my friends were super-big Bowie fans. But there was something about Scary Monsters. […] And then over the next few years, I had the pleasure of going through Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust and Station To Station. He just really started to become the best archetype for someone who has a fantastic voice and was kind of an actor pretending to be a rock star, in a way, which seemed to give him the ability to reinvent himself in ways that just felt like it would take a lot of courage to have had success at something and then throw it away and try something new. […]

I still think about that dude all the time, and I still listen to him constantly. And I’m grateful that our lives intersected, and I’m grateful for, whether he knew it or not, how much he helped me in those dark times before I chose to get my sh*t together. And I can hear his voice. He penetrated through the layers of bullsh*t that I’d built around myself. I’m grateful for that.”

Watch Reznor perform for the Bowie tribute above.

Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were shot back-to-back, and both movies are directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and feature much of the same cast. But they are two distinctly different blockbusters — one has Korg, one doesn’t have Korg — leading to an endless debate over which is better. Elizabeth Olsen is definitively Team Infinity War.

The actress, who has played Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch for the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Captain America: The Winter Soldier, was recently asked by CinemaBlend to name which of Marvel’s two highest-grossing movies she prefers. “Well, I feel more connected to Infinity War, because I got to experience more of it. Endgame, I was confused. Because I was like, ‘Where did I just come from?’” Olsen replied, referring to the ambiguity surrounding where half of all life went when they got Snap’d. (She was probably stuck in a Janet-like void watching Full House re-runs 24/7. The horror.)

Scarlet Witch was originally going to survive the Snap, but “the problem was she’d gotten so much mileage and story in the first movie that she didn’t really have anything that equaled that in the second. So it was a step down,” Markus revealed. Luckily, Olsen will have a lot to do in Disney+’s WandaVision, which premieres this Friday, January 15.

(Via CinemaBlend)

While 2020 came and went without much new music from Harlem rapper ASAP Rocky, that may change sometime in this young year, as the 32-year-old MC sparked speculation about an imminent project by clearing his Instagram.

As you may well know, it’s a move that artists have used as a provocative suggestion to their fans to prepare for a wave of promotional content, which is usually attached to a collection of music. Drake, Future, and Kendrick Lamar have all used the tactic in the past, and just this year, both Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj used the move to make their first overtures, with Doja inviting fans to guess at the significance of the six followers she kept and Nicki prompting rumors of both a potential new album and beef with her own mom.

Of course, ASAP Rocky would be what many fans consider overdue for a new project; Testing, his last full-length release, dropped in 2018, going gold and peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart. No one can blame him for being preoccupied, though. It’s been reported that he started dating international superstar Rihanna, whose bad habit of trolling fans over her next album may be rubbing off on him.

In any case, ASAP Rocky was recently featured on grime artist Slowthai’s new single “Mazza,” appearing in the video through the magic of editing despite filming his segment an ocean away.

Following the unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol building by Donald Trump supporters who were determined to use violent force to stop the certification of the 2020 election, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sat down with 60 Minutes to detail her experience during the attempted coup. As a regular target of right-wing rhetoric even before Trump took office, Pelosi’s life was in significant danger, specifically as the intruders stormed into her private office. One of the insurrectionists, Richard Barnett of Arkansas, mockingly propped his feet on Pelosi’s desk and boasted to news outlets that he stole a piece of mail from her desk. He’s since been arrested by the FBI.

While touring the Capitol building with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl, Pelosi showed a room where her staff had barricaded the door and hid silently under a table for hours while attackers banged on the door. It was a harrowing situation that could’ve easily turned deadly. Via CBS News:

Nancy Pelosi: The evidence is now that– that it was a well-planned, organized group with leadership and guidance and direction. And the direction was to go get people. They were vocally saying, “Where’s the speaker? We know she has staff. They’re here someplace. We’re gonna find them.”

But despite the now historic assault on the Capitol building, Pelosi coordinated with Senate Leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to still certify in the Capitol building as a “show of strength.” Vice President Mike Pence, who was targeted by Trump supporters chanting “Hang Pence,” backed the decision to finish the vote. However, even after the violent scene, Republican members of Congress still attempted to challenge the election results. “Shame on them,” Pelosi said before calling out two-thirds of the GOP House members who are still enabling Trump. “I remember when Republicans in the Senate went to see Richard Nixon and said, ‘It’s over.’ That’s what has to happen now.”