This election cycle somehow feels even more exhausting than 2016 did, and Fox and Friends is feeling it, too. The morning show of President Trump’s favorite channel has been taking an interesting turn lately, too, with Steve Doocy going rogue and pushing back at Trump’s claim that he’d call into the show “every week.” That move rattled co-host Brian Kilmeade, but he also soon followed course by blasting Trump for botching “the biggest layup in American history” when he chose not to condemn white supremacy during the first debate. And on Friday morning, the three hosts — Doocy, Kilmeade, and Ainsley Earhardt — sat almost dead-eyed as Trump surrogate/personal attorney Rudy Giuliani wildly ranted about a Hunter Biden conspiracy that has shown no basis in fact.
You can watch the full clip at Mediaite, and oh boy, what a spectacle. By the end, Steve Doocy couldn’t wait to get the guy off the air. “Mr. Mayor, you brought up a lot of allegations we look forward into looking into them more,” Doocy said while waving Giuliani away, but Rudy did not go quietly into the morning sun.
Rudy has embraced many conspiracies, and Washington Post recently published an illuminating report about U.S. officials sounding the alarm to the White House about Rudy being targeted by Russian intelligence sources who were planting disinformation for him to pass onto Trump. Rudy believes that people care about Hunter Biden and alleged emails — a story that remains entirely unverified regarding some (unproven) Ukraine connection. Yet Rudy will not stop until the Fox News audience believes him. Steve Doocy, though? He’s not feeling it. Hopefully, they don’t ask Rudy to come back on the show because having him as a morning wake-up to viewers isn’t the best look.
If you have never seen The Masked Singer, the basic gist is that celebrities dress up in fun costumes and have their voices, save for their singing voice, disguised, which leads to a panel of other celebs having to guess who they are based solely on their singing voice and context clues given in little video packages. It is a very silly concept for a show, but it’s one that works out surprisingly well, as evidenced by the time Victor Oladipo went on it and absolutely brought the house down with, among other songs, a performance of John Legend’s “Ordinary People.”
This year’s The Masked Singer is in full swing, and earlier this week, we learned that someone else from the world of sports appeared on the show this season. As you’ve read in the title, it was former USC and NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez, who was eliminated earlier this week following two performances. Together, let us go through the two data points that were provided before he — dressed up in a Baby Alien costume — got eliminated.
Now, outside of the clues about being good at a job in New York — which, to be fair, could mean being the former quarterback of the Jets or, like, someone who makes really sensational pizza — there’s not a ton in here that indicates it’s him, although he did, of course, appear on stage at the Tony’s once. As for the performance, you can certainly hear it’s Sanchez’s voice once you’re aware it’s him, but regardless, this is a very solid take on George Michael’s “Faith.” Anyway, he was safe; the panelists guessed Ralph Macchio, David Schwimmer, and Freddie Prinze Jr.; and later in the episode, Busta Rhymes and Mickey Rourke got bounced.
But in true Jets fashion, it became obvious that aspirations of winning it all would not last more than two weeks. Behold:
Some decent clues here — charity work, a hot dog, Sanchez was once the victim of a crooked broker taking millions — and put forth a decent rendition of “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons. Joel McHale said the words “football player,” which was quite the coincidence, and they got an extra clue via a childhood clue: a firetruck, as Sanchez’s dad is a fire captain in California. The panelists were … all over the place, guessing Eric Bana, Jeff Dunham, Taylor Lautner.
Ultimately, though, he was eliminated, and everyone seemed to be caught way off guard by it being Sanchez, as no one came to even suspect an athlete.
Kudos to Sanchez for fooling everyone, showing off the pipes, and apparently learning a thing or two about puppetry in the process. Hopefully we get a new Jets quarterback on this every season, because I want to hear Chad Pennington sing.
The Milwaukee Bucks were one of the biggest disappointments of the Orlando Bubble. Widely expected to come out of the East, they failed to make it out of the second round after being roundly dispatched in five games by a hungrier Heat team. In the West, the Clippers were part of a similar script.
The expectation was that we’d at least get to see an all-L.A. showdown in the conference finals, with many predicting the Clippers to emerge on top. Of course, that didn’t happen, and the Clippers were sent into the offseason searching for answers about what went wrong and how to fix it.
They started with the team and Doc Rivers parting ways, an inevitable outcome after Rivers’ postseason failings during his tenure in Los Angeles, but that might mask underlying issues within the organization, namely regarding one of its star players.
In Los Angeles, there is an unquestioned, A-1 superstar in Leonard. His presence both instantly made the Clippers a title contender and also eventually ruffled the feathers of some teammates because of the preferential treatment showed to him from top to bottom.
Players like Beverley, Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams — Clippers bedrocks before the arrival of Leonard and George — bristled when Leonard was permitted to take games off to manage his body and to live in San Diego, which often led to him being late for team flights, league sources said. The team also allowed Leonard to dictate to Rivers when he could be pulled from games, among other things. Lue was on Rivers’ bench for all of this, but the Clippers were Rivers’ show.
Paul George had taken a lot of flak for his brutal performances throughout the playoffs, but when the Clippers needed Kawhi the most in Game 7 against the Nuggets with their season on the line, he was a virtual no-show, scoring just 14 points on 6-for-22 shooting.
It’ll be interesting to see if or how those dynamics change with Tyronn Lue taking over the coaching job on a long-term deal following Rivers’ departure. Lue has certainly had some experience managing egos, as he was able to help get LeBron, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love all on the same page during their title run in 2016.
A big part of Lue’s success was his ability to push back against LeBron and demand more of his superstar. He’ll need to replicate some of that in his new position in L.A. with the team’s stars if he wants to help take the Clippers to un-reached heights. How they respond to that remains to be seen.
As part of his continued fight against Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitism, Sacha Baron Cohen reportedly broke tradition during the making of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and (through representatives) revealed his Borat gag (and true identity) to Judith Dim Evans shortly after filming a scene with her. Evans was a Holocaust survivor, and out of reverence to her experience, Cohen wanted to make it clear to the woman what his intentions are with the film. Via Deadline’s Mike Fleming:
Baron Cohen dedicates the movie to Evans, who died after filming. I’m told that he for the first time while making one of his movies — where most everyone but him is an unwitting participant — out of respect he had someone tell Evans and the friend who shares the scene with her that Baron Cohen himself is Jewish and playing an ignorant character as a means of Holocaust education, by featuring a Holocaust survivor who ends up challenging the anti-Semite by charmingly telling her own story. The filmmakers separately helped other family members of Dim Evans to create a website in her honor, and I’ve heard that Baron Cohen and Amazon Prime created a way through its X-Ray bonus content for viewers of the film to hear Evans tell the story of what happened to her family during WWII.
However, Evans’ estate has filed a lawsuit in Georgia against Cohen and the makers of the Borat sequel. The suit alleges that Evans scene was filmed to “mock the Holocaust and Jewish culture.” Further, Deadline reports that there is actually footage of Cohen breaking character and revealing the artifice of Borat to Evans, who was well aware of the gag after they talked. The actor has also been praised by the Anti Defamation League for his “evangelism” and “follow through” on holding social media platforms for allowing Holocaust deniers to spread their propaganda.
It’s pretty remarkable what Bruce Springsteen is doing. In what, let’s call, the latter half of his career, he’s just putting it all out there. For decades Springsteen has had one of the most managed public images of any celebrity on the planet and now he’s opening up to his fans about his most inner demons. At least, as he points out, to the point it doesn’t hurt anyone else in the process. Over the last three years, since his last tour with the E Street Band, he’s written a devilishly entertaining biography; converted that into a sold out run on Broadway, then co-directed a film based on his solo album, Western Stars, where he digs even deeper into the myth that is Bruce Springsteen. It’s as if, once he’s not around to tell his tales anymore (which we all assume will be many, many years from now, the only person he’s going to allow to deconstruct Bruce Springsteen is Bruce Springsteen.
Letter to You, directed by Thom Zimny (who has worked on numerous Springsteen projects, including co-directing Western Stars) is the new documentary detailing Springsteen’s recording sessions with the E Street Band for their upcoming album of the same name. If you’ve seen Western Stars, Letter to You works almost as a direct sequel. The film is filled with imagery of the E-Street band recording their new album, interlaced with images of snowy landscapes while Springsteen recites a poetic voiceover.
Filmed at Springsteen’s home recording studio at his ranch in New Jersey (which I will never nottake an opportunity to mention I got to see with my own eyes about a year ago), the film depicts the reunion of the E Street Band after a hiatus of a few years, recording their album together for the first time since Born in the U.S.A.. (On all of Springsteen’s albums since then, even the albums designated as “E Street” albums as opposed to solo, from what I understand, they were basically mixed together in parts as opposed to the entire band playing together in unison. Which always made for more of a “produced” product than the legendary concert experience.) Which results in an album that comes closest to what the concerts are like. In the past, I’d listen to a new Springsteen album and wonder what it would sound like live in the upcoming tour. Well, here we are hearing almost exactly what it will sound like. (Or, sadly, would have sounded like.)
Here’s where the Western Stars and Letter to You films really overlap: Springsteen didn’t want to tour to promote Western Stars, instead waiting to gear up for an E Street Band tour that was to kick off in 2020 (their first since 2016). So to promote Western Stars, Bruce invited over some friends and performed a concert in a barn on his property, filmed it, and turned that into a both rocking and haunting experience. Letter to You was supposed to serve as kind of the kickoff to the tour that would have most likely encompassed the next year or so. But, the pandemic changed all that and now, at least for the time being, Letter to You will serve as the only source of a live performance we are going to get. The whole endeavor kind of seems fortunate now.
What a rollicking album. As I watched this early screener (which will debut on Apple TV on Oct 23rd) it hit me this was the first time I was hearing the new album in its entirety (other than the first two songs released). Because when the band is recording, we hear the songs in their entirety. It’s basically a concert film – outside of Bruce’s voiceover there are no interviews – only the finished product is the recorded song. Followed by the members of the band, with the snow falling just outside, downing a shot after each successful recording. (The album was made over the course of a few days, but the film kind of makes you think they all must be stinking drunk considering all the shots they down. In reality, I assume it was just one shot a day.) A particular highlight is when the band records two of Bruce’s somewhat “lost” rarities from 1972, “If I was the Priest” and “Song for Orphans,” here recorded with the full band for the first time. It’s pretty funny to watch 2020 Bruce be moth impressed and mystified by his younger self in the sheer number of how many different words he used to use. (If you’ve never listened to Greetings From Asbury Park, it’s quite a whirlwind of lyrics. He joked that, at the time, he was warned the English language would run out.
Again, what Springsteen is doing is a gift. He’s calling it his conversation with his fans. (For me, a year ago, this was literally true. Again, I’ll mention this any chance I ever get.) His persona has never been “mysterious,” even though, in retrospect, it kind of was. At least, after his book came out, there was a whole heck of a lot we didn’t know about Springsteen. And at the time, that was by design. But he’s now laying all of it on the table. (Or most of it, at least.) This might just be the most interesting part of his career. And Letter to You is another worthy segment of this “conversation” Springsteen is having with his fans. And, honestly, I hope this conversation never ends.
For years, Drake and Nicki Minaj had unmatched chemistry among rappers for their ability to inspire some of each other’s best performances. However, in recent years, the two have become… shall we say… “estranged,” mainly as a result of Drake’s summerlong feud with Nicki’s then-boo Meek Mill. And while Drake and Meek have since seemingly repaired their relationship, it’s been three years since the two have been on a song together and even longer than that since they’ve done so without Lil Wayne as a buffer.
That may change soon, though, thanks to something new both share in common: parenthood. Now that Nicki’s become a mom, it appears she’s found the perfect catalyst for a reunion: a playdate between their sons. She suggested as much in her verse on Sada Baby’s “Whole Lotta Choppas” remix, rhyming, “This n**** makin’ me feel erotic / He a freak like Giannis / To be honest / I hope one day we do a play-date with Adonis.”
Drake, who stays plugged into the latest releases even when he’s neck-deep in finishing his own album, agreed. He updated his Instagram Story with a screenshot of his music app playing “Whole Lotta Choppas” with the caption “Playdates soon come @nickiminaj.” While they’ll probably have to wait at least a little while — there is a two-year gap between the tykes, after all — fans of the duo’s collabs may be able to look forward to some new records if the grownups can sneak in a recording session during nap time or something. Meanwhile, there’s another potential Nicki collab to look out for; fans are convinced she and Cardi have patched things up and are releasing something soon.
In the meantime, check out Uproxx’s breakdown of Drake’s best collab partners here.
Sada Baby is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Griselda has been crushing it all year, and Benny The Butcher has been a major reason why without even releasing a project. That’s changed with Burden Of Proof, his latest offering. The 12-song album shows Benny as gritty as ever over a suite of Hit-Boy production and rapping alongside Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Conway, and Westside Gunn, as well as Freddie Gibbs, who showed out on the soulful ”One Way Flight.”
Black Thought — Streams Of Thought Vol. 3: Cane And Abel
Black Thought is lyrically locked in on his Streams Of Thought Vol. 3: Cane And Abel project. The Philly native analyzes the tumultuous social climate throughout the release, with the help of Schoolboy Q on “Steak Um” and Pusha T, Swizz Beatz, and Killer Mike on the urgent “Good Morning.”
Ivorian Doll — “Daily Duppy” Freestyle
The UK’s Ivorian Doll calls herself the “Queen of Drill,” and she gave a good example of why on her edition of GRMDaily’s “Daily Duppy” freestyle. She talks her talk over the spastic drums, deeming herself “highly regarded, I’m hittin’ targets, labels callin’, I’m on the market.”
Homeboy Sandman — Don’t Feed The Monster
Homeboy Sandman is back with Don’t Feed The Monster, a 15-track project where the Queens MC digs deep over an eclectic soundscape. He speaks to the uncertainty of the times on his second Mello Music Group release.
Open Mike Eagle — Anime, Trauma & Divorce
One look at the title of Open Mike Eagle’s latest album should express where the Chicago artist takes it on a project that music writer James Maxbell said “gets better and sadder with each listen.”
PRICE — CLRD
Artist/producer PRICE is one half of Audio Push, but he’s stepping out on his own on CLRD, a reflective, feel-good lyrical exhibition over smooth production.
Rod Wave — “Shooting Star”
Rod Wave offered up another dose of evocative, confessional rap on “Shooting Star,” where he harmonizes, culls through his internal turmoil, and poignantly asks “what’s a life without scars?”
Sheek Louch — Beast Mode 4
A month after The Lox released their album, Sheek Louch decided to drop Beast Mode 4, his latest solo offering. The aptly-titled album, which shows the unheralded MC getting busy over energetic production, boasts features from Benny The Butcher as well as Jadakiss, Styles P, and Whispers, who show up on the smooth, “Saint Ides Flow.”
Stefflon Don — “Can’t Let You Go”
Stefflon Don gets sensual on “Can’t Let You Go,” a breezy, genre-bending single where the QC signee uses patois to urge her boo to “put it down on me.”
TM88 & Rich The Kid Feat. Ty Dolla Sign, 2 Chainz & Southside
This week, TM88 and Southside decided to break us off with a star-studded ode to blowin’ a bag on the right woman. They provided a minimalist, trap-driven melody for 2 Chainz and Rich The Kid to trade flashy verses while Ty Dolla Sign takes care of the earworm hook.
Thouxanbanfauni — “Tennessee Titan”
On “Tennessee Titan,” Thouxanbanfauni matches a smooth, synth-driven production with a relaxed triplet flow where he warns, the “choppa turn his house into a ghost town.”
TOBi — “Shine”
TOBi released “Shine,” a personal record where the genre-bending artist delves into his relationships with loved ones and his own personal growth, reminding that “everything you need you got it inside.”
Yella Beezy — “Solid” Feat. 42 Dugg
Dallas and Detroit connect on “Solid,” the latest single from Yella Beezy’s Blank Checc album. The two take turns laying out their credentials over a bouncy Monstah Beats production.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Now is a very tense time for a lot of people, but Phoebe Bridgers recently underwent 40 minutes of pure relaxation: She received an “ASMR massage” from YouTuber itsblitzzz (who also goes by Julia) in a new 40-minute video.
This isn’t some sort of reverse Hot Ones gimmick interview, as there isn’t any chatting going on throughout. The video is primarily Bridgers sitting and facing the camera with her eyes closed while her head, neck, and shoulders get massaged. It seemed like a positive experience for Bridgers: When asked how she felt afterwards, she responded with a laugh while sipping post-massage tea, “Amazing.” After Julia delivered her video outro, Bridgers told her, “Oh my god, that was so nice!”
In a Pitchfork interview from this summer, Bridgers cited Julia’s channel as one of the things that influenced her Punisher album, saying, “I have been watching ASMR videos since I was a teenager, before they were all that. They were called ‘whisper’ videos back then. I was doing a school paper on the lymphatic system and I stumbled upon all these weird massage videos that were specifically for people to fall asleep to. I would watch them for hours at the school library. Maybe a year or so ago I was trying to fall asleep and stumbled upon this hipster wellness witch. She’s a vlogger who also does ASMR videos, which is a very weird thing to be into, but I watch all of her sh*t. She apparently lives very close to me, and we have a ton of mutual friends. She’s very sincere, which is a quality that I usually find very cringey. But I love that she’s just someone I would consider cool and is also a vlogger; I thought that was mutually exclusive.”
Julia said in the YouTube description that article led to the two of them talking and getting this video together: “Basically, we chatted on the internet (how else do people meet these days?) and then she came to my house to film and it was a very relaxing time with good convo and lots of humor.”
Among his many outstanding achievements in the field of horror movie excellence, Wes Craven directed all four Scream movies, three of which are really good (that’s a strong hit-to-miss ratio for a horror franchise). Sadly, the A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Last House on the Left filmmaker won’t be back for Scream 5, as he passed away in 2015. Neve Campbell, who plays Sidney Prescott in the slasher series, was originally reluctant to return for a fifth film without Craven, but then new directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett sent her a letter that won her over.
“I’m excited to get back to it. I’m excited to see Courteney and David. Im excited to see this young new cast. I’m excited to work with these new directors,” Campbell said on The Talk. “I had been apprehensive because, you know, our director, our incredible director Wes Craven passed away, and I wasn’t sure about doing a film without him. But the new directors came to me with this beautiful letter saying that they’ve become directors and love film because of these films, and because of Wes, and they really want to be true to his story and his journey with these films, so I was really happy to hear that.”
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett directed Ready or Not, one of the more fun horror movies in recent memory, so the meta-franchise is in good hands. Having re-watched all four Scream movies this week, I’m pulling for Matthew Lillard to make a cameo in Scream 5. “But didn’t he…?” you might ask. He did, but if David “Dewey” Arquette can become a redeemed wrestler, anything is possible. Scream 5 comes out on January 14, 2022.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE — I love him
Are you watching Fargo? I hope you are. I hope you are watching Fargo for a lot of reasons. It’s a good show. And I want more people who I can talk to about it. And because there are many worse things you can be doing — probably are doing — with the hour a week the show would cost you. You could be spending that hour doomscrolling through your social media platform of choice, or something slightly less self-destructive like repeatedly smashing yourself in the foot with a hammer. But mostly I hope you are watching Fargo so you can see what Salvatore Esposito is doing with the character of Gaetano Fadda.
Quick background: Gaetano Fadda is the younger brother of Josto Fadda, played by Jason Schwartzman, which is great because the size difference between the two men is massive. Gaetano is huge, and just back from Italy, and violent and short-tempered, and he has this teeny-tiny mustache on his big body. At one point he said the sentence, “In the land of taking and killing, Gaetano is king,” which is great on a few levels before we even get to the third-person part.
He is also — and I must stress here that this next part is not hyperbole — doing so much, all the time. You have never seen so much acting. It’s not that he’s just chewing up the scenery. This isn’t a Kevin Spacey in House of Cards situation, or even a John Travolta in anything but especially the O.J. show situation. He’s going big — HUGE — with every single line, with every movement, on purpose, in a way that is extremely Fargo. Look at what he does with this cigarette.
FX
Did you see it? Did you see my beautiful ornery rhinoceros take a lit cigarette out of his mouth and crush it with his massive fist? Why would he do that? Why would anyone do that? Other than to delight me, I mean. Because if that was the goal, baby, consider the mission accomplished. I don’t know if any show on television mixes the dramatic and absurd quite like Fargo. It’s got long thoughtful speeches about what it means to be American when America is a nation of immigrants, and who gets to be considered American first, and those speeches are occasionally delivered by a man named Doctor Senator who is neither a doctor nor a senator. Two of this season’s first three episodes featured powerful farts that played a legitimately important part in the action. Fargo contains multitudes.
But I’m getting off-topic. Look at Gaetano take this shot.
FX
I adore it. I love it so much. Every single time he’s on-screen he is just doing the absolute most he can. Every movement is exaggerated as far as it can go, every staredown results in his eyeballs bulging halfway out of his head, every line is delivered as though it might be the last thing the character ever gets to say. It’s kind of like the show plopped a character from a silent film right into the action and let him start speaking two languages. I know it might not be for everyone. I’ve spoken to a few people who find it a little grating. And that’s fine. The nice thing about this country is that you can be as wrong as you want in public and we usually won’t throw you in jail for it. But again, I do love it very much. It’s one of the reasons I appreciate Fargo, this mix of the smart and the ridiculous, the subtle and the huge. Gaetano Fadda sums this up perfectly.
I hope, before the end of the season, someone whacks him on the head with a frying pan and a big red lump grows out of his head and a bunch of little tweeting birds start circling it, like he’s in a cartoon. This would make me happy.
ITEM NUMBER TWO — Whatever, reboot everything, see what I care
Showtime
Well, guess what: Dexter is back. It doesn’t matter if you wanted Dexter back, or if you had even considered Dexter coming back to be a thing you could want, or if you had kind of forgotten Dexter even existed. It’s back. Showtime is bringing it back. For a 10-episode limited series. That continues the story where it left off. Which, as I have been informed by people who watched Dexter after the first season, ended with Dexter becoming a lumberjack for some reason? Not important. Or maybe it is. Who knows? The point here is that Dexter is back.
And this is where the logical and what I’ll call “thinky” part of my brain wants to start throwing stuff. It’s mostly because of the thing we discussed last week where lots of good and fun shows with more niche-type audiences are getting axed — after being renewed — due to the COVID if it all (rising budgets, goofed-up schedules, etc.) and it is bumming me out tremendously. There’s a future we’re staring down in the entertainment industry that mirrors what we’re staring down in the restaurant industry, with lots of neat little spots disappearing and the massive chains and their larger cash reserves being the only survivors. The Dexter revival series, despite being something no one asked for and something not half as interesting as a GLOW or High Fidelity, will probably do numbers those shows never did. Maybe the better analogy is Hollywood going all-in on blockbusters and sequels a few years back because they knew those would get butts in seats. Maybe I only used the restaurant analogy because I’m hungry right now. I guess we’ll never know.
There is a second part of my brain, though. This part is not as logical. This is the part that loves anarchy and rascals and cackling at truly awful scenes from television and movies. And that part of my brain saw “Dexter is coming back” and immediately remembered the treadmill scene from the final season. A season I did not even watch. That’s how flabbergasting the scene is. It has embedded itself in the deepest parts of my subconscious and set up a dwelling there for over five years despite the fact that I have no idea what is happening or why. You might be with me on this. Or maybe you’re about to be. Watch this clip twice.
That stunt double is so clearly a 33-year-old man that I’m surprised the actress playing his mom — Yvonne Strahovski — did not bring him a glass of scotch after the fall. I love it so much. So, look, while I do not, in principle, support unnecessary reboots, especially in a time when better shows are dropping left and right like blond children on treadmills, if each renewal can bring me as much fleeting joy as this one brought me, fine. I’ll sign off. I’m still mad about GLOW and High Fidelity, and I still want answers and/or heads at some point. But I’ll give you all a pass this time.
ITEM NUMBER THREE — Congratulations to James Caan
James Caan is probably best known for playing tough guy Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, and for playing a string of similarly tough guys in movies and television shows over the next 40-plus years. I say this not to judge the man’s career, mostly because you can do pretty much whatever you feel like if you have The Godfather on your IMDb page. No, I say this because it makes the next thing I am about to say much funnier, which is all that matters to me in most situations. Here goes: James Caan is, today, in 2020, apparently, really into Angry Birds.
I spend too much time playing Angry Birds. End of tweet
This was August. Fine. Great. We’re all looking for ways to pass the time right now. I have no issue with beloved actor James Caan developing an Angry Birds habit. There are far worse ways to spend your day. As long as it’s not consuming him and sending him into wild and/or hilarious conspiracy-fueled fits of fury that he also posts on Twitter or something. That would not be healthy. Anyway, let’s scroll ahead to Septemb-
I’m convinced the Angry Birds game cheats sometimes. I cleared a level using only one bird and I got 1 star Give me my 3 stars! End of tweet
Well, this certainly took a turn. Please do stop here to picture James Caan mustering all of his Sonny Corleone rage and absolutely exploding in his living room about the number of stars he’s receiving from a video game so old that there have already been multiple movies made about it. It’s a fun visual. Especially if the image in your head features him unshaven and manic, as though he was playing the game non-stop between the two tweets, letting his life go to hell as the birds and pigs consumed him.
Luckily, (or unluckily, depending where you come down on that visual), the story now has a happy (or unhappy) ending.
“Important” update: Today I’ve been getting 3 stars one level after another on Angry ‘s. End of tweet
Because this is the future and everything is stupid, there’s at least a 30 percent chance that this is a bit concocted by a team of social media professionals to trigger discussions exactly like this one. I know that. I do. But I’m going to put the blinders on anyway, mostly because I just want it to be true. I want to live in a world where Sonny Corleone is sitting at home conquering silly video games from a decade ago that feature furious birds causing destruction. And so, if only through sheer force of will, I am living in that world. It’s nicer here. Come visit. Bring some barbecue chips and iced tea.
Anyway, congratulations to James Caan on his success.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Space stuff, continued
It was only a few weeks ago that we discussed the increasingly loony Hollywood space race, starting with the Fast & Furious franchise fulfilling its destiny and — allegedly! — launching itself into the cosmos at some point in the long-delayed ninth film, and extending to Tom Cruise trying to one-up everyone by fulfilling his destiny and actually filming an actual movie in outer space. I stand by everything I said at the time, but I also apologize, because I did not foresee just how far all of this would go.
First, Moonbase 8, which I forgot about, somehow. That’s the trailer up there. Here’s the description:
Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly star in this new comedy series as three astronauts stationed at NASA’s Moon Base Simulator in a remote part of the Arizona desert. While working vigorously to qualify for their first lunar mission, they encounter many obstacles including loneliness, self-doubt and their own incompetence. In spite of it all, they remain determined to prove they have the right stuff to reach the moon.
I love these guys. I like this idea. I should not have forgotten about it. My working theory is a combination of 1) me being too excited about Vin Diesel and Tom Cruise in outer space, and 2) my brain blocking out space comedies altogether after I was let down by Space Force and Avenue 5. It’s either that or I’m bad at my job. Hmm. Let’s move on. It’s about to get weirder.
How weird? Hoo, buddy. Is “a secret and possibly plotless movie about Disney World’s Space Mountain roller coaster, despite the fact that Space Mountain does not have a built-in mythology and is not even called Space Mountain anymore” weird enough for you. I bet it is. From THR:
The ride has no overarching theme nor memorable “scenes” or characters seen in such rides as Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, Space Mountain in Disneyland has turned into Hyperspace Mountain and given a Star Wars make up on occasion. As such, the story is being created whole cloth with the ride acting as inspiration.
Logline details are being kept hidden amidst the rings of Saturn but it is described as a family adventure.
The funniest thing here would be if this is not, in fact, a movie loosely based on the roller coaster and set in outer space, but instead a movie based on the actual roller coaster, in Florida. Like, one where an armed militia takes over the park and sets up its headquarters inside Space Mountain and a Disney security guard — a disgraced Navy SEAL who drinks too much and is fighting for custody of his daughter and is played by Gerard Butler — is the only one who can stop them. I would watch that movie. On basic cable. If nothing else is on. Probably.
The six-episode series “SpaceX” will be based on the book “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” by Ashlee Vance. It will document how Musk, in pursuit of his lifelong dream to make humankind a multi-planetary species, handpicks a team of engineers to work on a remote Pacific Island where they build, and launch, the first SpaceX rocket into orbit. It spurred a new era of privately funded space exploration, culminating in the first manned Space X launch of the Falcon 9 on May 30, 2020.
To be completely truthful, I have no opinion about The Elon Musk Show at this moment, mostly because all I can think about right now is the thing where Billions had a character that was basically “if Elon Musk was more charming and handsome,” and he was played by Prince of Television James Wolk, and they killed him off by blowing him up in his own spaceship.
SHOWTIME
This was a very good chat about space.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE — An incomplete list of television shows I would watch based on the title alone
ABC
Miami Justice Miami Justice: South Beach Nights Miami Justice: Monte Carlo Justice Miami: Supreme Court Nights Dirtbike Cops Dirtbike Cops: Bermuda Nights Dirtbike Cops: Monte Carlo Ronda Biloxi: Private Investigator Pablo Escobar and the Malfunctioning Time Machine The Cheese Calamity The Hot Dog Fiasco Pizza Chaos The Mustache Squadron Non-Stop Car Chases Set To The Chicken Dance The Saxophone Heist Blade: Substitute High School Teacher John Wick: Substitute High School Teacher Atomic Blonde: Substitute High School Teacher Hacker Dogs Hacker Dogs: The White Hats Hacker Dogs: Monte Carlo
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Erik:
Other than the obvious #1 (Hitler), who would you say are the most commonly depicted historical figures in film and television? I was tempted to say Jesus has gotta be up there, but there really haven’t been that many movies with him (not counting weirdo Kirk Cameron-type stuff). Lincoln seems a good bet (historical dramas plus goofball stuff like “Bill and Ted” and “Vampire Hunter”). I also feel like Pablo Escobar is a real dark horse here. Who else ya got?
Erik, this is a good email. I had not thought about this subject even once before I received it, and now I am fascinated by it. Fascinated enough by it that I actually did some research to find an answer. Okay, I just googled “historical figure most often depicted in movies” and scanned the first page of results. But still! That’s more than I usually do for these questions!
In my “research,” I learned two things:
All of the results claimed that the most depicted historical figure was Napoleon
All of the results linked back to the same questionably sources study from like 20 years ago
Anecdotally, this just feels wrong, doesn’t it? I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of movies in my life and I can only think of one that had Napoleon in it. To be fair, that movie was Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and most of the movies I’ve seen are shoot-em-ups where a hotshot or team of hotshots must get revenge and/or steal a large jewel, so this could be another one of those “Brian is not very cultured, it appears” situations. I don’t know. I still think you’re right that it’s Hitler or Lincoln. Maybe Julius Caesar.
The lesson here, which I should have known going in, is to never do research. That’s on me. I can and will do better going forward.
An Albany Fire Department ladder truck was stolen sometime Sunday night or Monday morning.
…
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Fire truck heist?
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FIRE TRUCK HEIST!
Police were notified of the stolen fire truck when a passerby saw it parked in the 1500 block of State Street in Schenectady at 7 a.m. Monday. Colonie police are investigating the crime because the truck was stolen off the Municipal Training Center lot on Wade Road in the town, Lt. Robert Winn said.
FIRE TRUCK HEIST
FIRE TRUCK HEIST
FIRE TRUCK HEIST
Winn also noted that the severe storm that had recently blown through the Capital Region, knocking out power for days, had shut down surrounding surveillance systems they would have normally referred to. However, police recovered forensic evidence — including potential fingerprints and DNA — and are waiting for laboratory results.
I choose to believe, and I should note here that no amount of hard evidence can dissuade me, that the storm was caused by a massive weather satellite that some supervillain hijacked for the sole purpose of causing a storm strong enough to knock out power in this specific location so he could steal a fire truck. Let’s just go ahead and call it Geostorm 2. Gerard Butler can star in it after he makes the Space Mountain movie I just cast him in a few paragraphs ago.
A Baton Rouge preschool program said Monday that a school bus taken on a joy ride by an 11-year-old boy was not stolen from its Scotlandville campus, and police determined late in the day that the vehicle actually belonged to someone else and had been taken from private property 2 miles away from the school.
Excuse me. A school bus heist? Masterminded by a child?
This changes everything.
McKneely said the chase lasted over a half hour and included several attempts to stop the bus, including when officers placed spike strips in the road. The boy spotted the spike strips and swerved to avoid them, McKneely said. At least 10 officers were involved in the chase, some stationed at intersections to stop traffic.
I want to be clear about something. I know this is bad, okay? I know that, in real life, I should not be excited about a child stealing a school bus and leading the police on a chase through town. There are probably dozens of reasons this story is sad and troubling once you look into it beyond the surface level. That’s why I’m not going to do that. That’s why I’m just going to show you this next paragraph and end the column. Didn’t we just talk about the dangers of research? Besides, I mean, come on. Look at this guy.
The child was so small that he apparently had to stand up to reach the pedals, McKneely said. He added that at one point, the boy reached his hand out the window and made an obscene gesture toward pursuing officers. The child’s name isn’t being reported because he’s a juvenile.
Giving police the middle finger from behind the wheel of a stolen school bus is the single most Bart Simpson thing I’ve ever seen. Let’s just call him not guilty on account of living out my wildest childhood dreams.
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Give me my 3 stars! End of tweet
‘s. 
