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The franchise-sneaker tie-in is for better or worse, a part of modern sneaker culture. Just like brand or celebrity collaborations, every year brings a fresh crop of franchise-sneaker tie-ins that make us either cringe, scratch our heads in confusion, or salivate with enthusiasm. Sometimes they can be great, like this year’s Space Jam Air Jordan 6 Hares, but most of the time they’re blatant cash grabs that make us roll our eyes in disgust. We’re looking at you, Game of Thrones sneaker series.

Very rarely do these kicks make our weekly column, where we round up the week’s best sneakers and apparel — SNX DLX. So when I heard that an entire collection of sneakers from Adidas celebrating the 40th anniversary of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back would drop this year, I found myself in a tough spot. How could I, a life-long Star Wars fan, find a way to write about these sneakers which celebrate my favorite Star Wars movie knowing full well that I’d probably never feel compelled to include them in a single entry for SNX DLX? Time for a top to bottom ranking, of course!

As bad as the Star Wars Adidas collection is, and brace yourself, it is bad, it’s also incredibly interesting. Almost every design in this ten sneaker collection is marred by a single detail that absolutely ruins any good idea it had going for it. In a way, the sneakers manage to reflect the troubled and divisive franchise that they’re celebrating and that’s pretty fascinating.

Let’s dive in!

Star Wars x Adidas Rivalry Hi Chewbacca

Certainly, you could argue, “well, what do you want a Chewbacca shoe to look like?” But come on, this is just a little too out there. Adidas’ choice to use the Rivalry Hi silhouette is great, it has a tall, surprisingly-thin-but-sturdy shape — just like Chewbacca — but then Adidas had to go and cover the whole thing in faux fur.

They could’ve just gone with the mixed leather and suede upper, or here is an idea: they could’ve used fuzzy suede, or in place of suede, chenille. Anything but this. The fur makes the sneakers virtually unwearable unless you know, you’re insane or you’re rolling up to Burning Man or putting in a minimal amount of effort at a cosplay convention.

Bottom line: Um… the whole collection is a step up from here.

Star Wars x Adidas Superstar Darth Vader

The Adidas Superstar Darth Vader unfortunately suffers from this collection’s tendency of mixing good ideas with at least one really stupid one. Here we have an Adidas Superstar — nice choice for Vader, we would’ve gone with a boot though — dressed in a double Core Black colorway with Scarlett red detailing on the heel tag and branding with a leather upper and exposed horizontal stitching meant to resemble Darth Vader’s suit.

The Superstar’s three stripes feature a glossy black material, subtly suggesting the character it’s named for in so many interesting ways… and then you get to that cup toe. What could’ve been an awesome design is totally ruined by the bizarre decision on Adidas’ part to swap out the Superstar’s shell toe cap with a molding of Vader’s helmet.

Bottom line: It’s a little too on the nose, veering into “cool dad” dorkiness.

Star Wars x Adidas Top Ten C-3PO

Repping C-3P0 is a Metallic Gold Top Ten High with Cloud White accenting and a synthetic upper atop a rubber cup sole. No major missteps with this one, the introduction of the synthetic upper in place of the sneaker’s usual leather is a clever tongue in cheek way of referencing the character it’s named for.

Which is all to say, conceptually the sneaker is solid, but visually, we’re just not loving it. What would’ve been cool is this same sneaker in a deconstructed form since C-3PO gets dismantled in Cloud City and haphazardly put back together by Chewbacca in The Empire Strikes Back.

Bottom line: Just hire me, Adidas.

Star Wars x Adidas ZX 2K BOOST Han Solo

Released exclusively to the Japanese market, the ZX 2K BOOST Han Solo is so close to being dope. Featuring a Core Black colorway with synthetic fabrics, TPU overlays, sand leather accents, and a cushy BOOST midsole, the Han Solo is ruined by the garish “blaster buckle” that clasps over the sneaker’s lacing system.

Without the blaster buckle? Sneaker is fire, and still accurately reflects the character it’s named after, but you can’t remove it. So close Adidas, so close.

What would we have done? A GORE-TEX equipped boot — Han’s most iconic Empire moment Is when he cuts that tauntaun open on Hoth. Make that a shoe!

Bottom line: Falls victim to the “hit ’em over the head with a nerdy reference” problem again.

Star Wars x Adidas NMD_R1 Lando Calrissian

I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever designed the Adidas NMD_R1 Lando Calrissian either was a fan of Billy Dee Williams’ Lando, or has absolutely no idea who Lando is. This is one of the few sneakers in this collection that doesn’t feature an insane character detail that totally ruins the design. Instead, the sneaker captures the hue’s of Lando’s outfit accurately and features an extra responsive BOOST midsole that will make you feel like you’re walking on clouds.

Bottom line: A dorky Lando shoe would have been a travesty. This one evades that trap.

Star Wars x Adidas UltraBOOST Princess Leia

Thank God Adidas didn’t go and find a way to add cinnamon roll buns to this sneaker. The UltraBOOST Princess Leia is pretty solid, it features a breathable knit upper with an ultra-responsive BOOST midsole, with some braided graphic detailing dipped in a Chalk White, Cloud White, and Core Black colorway that resembles the princess’ fit in the film.

Bottom line: Very solid… but just a tad boring.

Star Wars x Adidas NMD_R1 Stormtrooper

Like the Lando Calrissian, the NMD_R1 Stormtrooper features a remarkably tame design. Featuring a clean white one-piece Primeknit upper with black flecks throughout, recalling battle-scarred armor, with blue detailing on the heel, the NMD R_1 Stormtrooper is totally wearable on the streets.

Bottom line: Pretty fly, but let’s get real: Who’s a fan of Stormtroopers?

Star Wars x Adidas Ultra BOOST Yoda

The UltraBOOST Yoda features a mixed upper of Primeknit and moisture-wicking yarn that ups the sneaker’s breathability, making it an incredibly functional running sneaker that has a performance-based edge over the Princess Leia. The added texture of the yarn is a dope visual reference to Yoda’s weathered robes and the sneaker’s mix of Trace Cargo, Core Black and Raw Khaki does a good job of reflecting both the colors of Yoda and the planet of his exile, Dagoba.

Bottom line: No major errors, but it’s sort of hard to imagine someone wearing these.

Star Wars x Adidas Top Ten Hi Boba Fett

The Top Ten Hi Boba Fett is the only sneaker in the entire Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary collection that can get away with its insane character detail. While we could’ve done without the attached pouch — which, we hate it break it to you Disney, absolutely will be used for stashing drugs — this iteration of the Top Ten Hi isn’t that bad. Even solely as a collector’s item it’s a pretty solid attempt at translating a beloved character into sneaker form.

Aside from the Trace Green and Scarlett upper, the Boba Fett features yellow and powder blue detailing and “blast holes” that provided some extra breathability, all coming together to recall Boba Fett’s iconic armor.

Bottom line: This finds the right balance of character details mixed with wearability and sneakerhead coolness.

Star Wars x Adidas Stan Smith Luke Skywalker

The debut sneaker in the Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary collection the Star Wars Stan Smith Luke Skywalker is also the collection’s best. When it initially released in July of this year, we thought that surely the designs would get more flashy from here, but it turns out that’s the last thing we actually needed.

That Chewbacca sneaker will forever haunt us.

The Luke Skywalker Stan Smith features a Chalk White and Cloud White (like the Princess Leia, nice touch Adidas!) canvas upper with bright blue accents on the heel tab and tongue atop a translucent blue sole. It’s simple, desert-y, and oozing with 70’s vibes, just like the character it’s named for.

But does it say “Empire Strikes Back?” Nah, we don’t think so. In order to do that Adidas would have to just sell you just one sneaker instead of a pair.

Bottom line: The coolest of the bunch — mixing a classic look while capturing the vibe of the movie.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Somewhere between the gritty traditionalism of Rapsody and raunchy exhibitionism of Cardi B, Buffalo rapper Armani Caesar has been flying the flag for people who love both “real hip-hop” and shaking their asses. Her Griselda Records-backed debut album, The Liz, lands in the midst of a resurgence of female energy in hip-hop, yet stands on its own as a unique throwback to the energy of pioneers like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown who also split the difference between sexy and rugged, as comfortable strutting in a g-string and heels as they were posted up on the block in hoodies and Timbs.

My original introduction to the Buffalo-bred, North Carolina-educated rapper was through songs like “Big Ole Bag” and “The Nasty Song,” initially pegging her for a rapper in the same vein as what Jermaine Dupri once dubbed “stripper rap.” So it was a shock to me when Armani was announced as the successor of the “First Lady Of Gridselda Records” title in March of this year. Surely her modern presentation clashed with their throwback stance, her raps about collecting dollar bills in garbage bags at odds with theirs about getting Virgil Abloh to scrawl his signature quotes on bricks of cocaine.

But then, I considered how the origin of those garbage bag bills was just as likely from those illicit pharmaceutical deals as it was Wall Street trading, and suddenly it all made sense. According to my conversation by phone with Armani herself, that’s exactly as the Griselda gang planned it. The Liz caught my skeptical brain even further off-guard when the lead single was revealed to be the DJ Premier-produced “Simply Done” costarring fellow Buffalo bar bruiser Benny The Butcher. The vision came together; like the Westside Gunn-conceived cover of the album, I had to open up my third eye to perceive al lthe levels the project was set to operate upon.

Barreling through untimely obstacles such as the death of Buffalo mentor DJ Shay, a full album leak and resulting delay, and oh yeah, a global pandemic, rookie rapper Armani Caesar arrives on her debut a fully-fledged, multidimensional hip-hop diva in the making, completely aware of her power and versatility, and unafraid of the spotlight. As it turns out, she fits right in with the likes of Benny, Conway The Machine, and Westside Gunn, earning not just her “first lady” title, but also establishing herself as a star in her own right.

Okay, and before we start any interview stuff allow me to say my condolences for DJ Shay. I know he was really important to you guys up there, and my heart goes out to you guys. I’m sending you all the positive energy.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that because the family is definitely, we’re close-knit. We’ve all known each other for over a decade so it was a huge blow, but we’re getting through it.

So how’s quarantine been treating you? What have you been up to?

Just working. I have the boutique, I have the projects popping. You know how Griselda drops, so I had to get in my recording bag and really catch up with everybody because them n****s drop like five albums or projects a year.

So did you have to speed up just to, what was the adjustment process from going from independently producing to doing stuff with Griselda?

It definitely takes more of the weight off of me as far as like doing it myself. I came in the game doing everything solo, I didn’t have no bag behind me. I didn’t have any producers or anything. I just had to seek everything out by myself. So now, I have a whole team be able to just help facilitate that, and it still be my vision because West is very big on us being able to still be in our independent bag. I like the fact that he gives me complete creative control and I trust his vision, so I’m able to come up with ideas and then he has his own ideas, and it just works. I just think that it’s like working with family.

When you signed to Griselda I know a lot of people were surprised because they seem to have such a different style from what you were doing with “Big Ole Bag” or “The Nasty Song.” So, what was your reaction to people saying that?

I think the biggest thing with that is just that, before people actually knew me, before I moved down to the South or North Carolina, anything, I grew up rapping on those beats. My first couple of tracks were freestyles over Alchemist beats and stuff like that. So it wasn’t foreign to me to go back and do that again, but it was foreign to everybody else that was following me once I moved down here. So that’s why it really was a no-brainer when West came to me with the idea because he already knows what I should do, because we’ve been doing this for a minute. It was just like, “Now is the time to shut everybody up.” If they don’t know, they going to know.

Obviously the biggest influence on The Liz tape is of course Liz Taylor. I see the iconic photo with the third eye, whose idea was that?

It was both of our ideas. It was us coming together in the middle ground, because it’s also Miss Elizabeth from wrestling, and that’s the reference that West brought to us. He’s super big on wrestling. So with Liz Taylor being an iconic, fly, ethereal type female, and then just throwing it on such a hard gritty, I feel like it just represented the projects more than any picture of me could have. It wasn’t as cliche. We did have another direction that we were going to go in at first.

Griselda is also big on movie samples. You guys used a clip from CB4 for “Sissy Intro,” right? You’re flipping it and using it in a different way to talk about some stuff that maybe people wouldn’t expect.

I feel like what she stated in that skit is exactly what I be on in my raps, just teaching girls to not be so caught up in the hype of trying to date the rapper, or the ball player, or any guy that you feel has money. You want to turn yourself into a boss. She was like, if not, you’re just a groupie, or you just a hoe, and it’s a lot of hip-hop hoes out here.

Now that we’re moving into the realm of females emerging, you have so many different styles. I feel like I’m bridging the gap between being free and a feminist, being able to say and do what you want to, and also having the responsibility to make sure that you’re still paying your bills, you still bossing up, so can’t nobody really tell you nothing. Because until you’re your own boss or until you are able to maintain and sustain your own wellbeing, you’re a slave to whatever they throw at you. And I’m just totally 100% for females being able to boss up and get their own, talk their shit, and run their own show.

Right. One of the things that does kind of set you apart is your focus on punchlines and getting those lines off. When you said “Elastigirl, I’m so out of their reach” I had to just stop and sit there for a second. Do you have a favorite line from the album?

I feel like all my songs are like my kids, I can’t pick just one. I don’t have a favorite because I feel like every single one hits different, and I try to go into every song saying what we all are saying as women or even we’re saying as people, but being able to say it in a more creative way. Rap is not new, and of course there’s nothing new under the sun, but I also just don’t want to be, I want to be able to say it in a way that it hasn’t been said before.

I still use lines and references that are current, and because of my sound with me having such a nostalgic sound, I want to be able to bridge the gap and make it new by being current. I’ll get ideas watching cartoons and stuff like that. I have just been doing it for so long, studying it, being around greatness because they’re all spitters. I think that just makes me push my pen harder.

That strikes me as something that you would have learned from 9th Wonder down there in North Carolina, taking his class. What were some of the other things that you really learned from working with him, or just learning under him as a professor?

We used to just have so many different things that we had to do. Every day we have to come to class with a current event. We have actual books to read, and really just digging deep into the surface of things. Even just walking into the class he would be on at his DJ station and he’ll play a old song that has been sampled, and we would have to guess which current song it was. That put me more so into digging deep, actually doing my research, and it helps everything become more cohesive, then you’re not looking to sound like everybody else. It helps you to just be a little bit more creative, and think about just music as a whole, more so as an art form than it is just a regular genre.

I don’t think there’s anybody that’s out quite like you, so you have a lane. When I think about the closest person to you is maybe Che Noir, but she’s not quite doing what you’re doing. You can switch back and do the Megan Thee Stallion, City Girl type stuff. So it’s really interesting to see that all the one person, because we haven’t really seen anybody do that in a really, really long time.

That’s what I wanted. I wanted it to be like the ideal female rapper that you can get everything from, because I don’t feel like any one female is one thing. I feel like you do have females that are very brash and bossed up, and sometimes they on their City Girl shit, sometimes they on their backpack shit. They want to be the one with the power, however they want to give it up, but I just felt like I’m a one-stop shop.

I really, really, really, really love to hear women rap because without women rap becomes very monotonous, it becomes very tedious and boring. So when women are rapping, not only do you bring your different stories, you also bring a wider variety of voices and clothes, and interesting different things to do. You rap about garbage bag money. And a lot of people won’t admit or don’t know what “garbage bag money” is, but you can play it both sides. And I love that.

I feel like that too, because a lot of people will try to use my past against me and say, “Oh, she’s just another stripper rapper.” At the end of the day, I always say the streets and the strip club is parallel, meaning we all hustle and do the same things. You can call it “work” or you can call it “ass and titties,” but we have to have that amount of game, you have to hustle and get in there. If the streets are messed up and dried up and there’s no money in the streets, nine times out of ten, there’s no money in the club.

So when rap about it, I’m not so much glamorizing it, but just how you would hear a Jay-Z or whoever rap about their hustling experience, I’m bringing that to it. So the average female rapper that may not get that from another rapper, a Che Noir or a Rapsody, over a hard beat, they can look at me. It’s like, “I can identify with her because I look like that, it tells me my story.”

That’s what it comes down to, all about telling a story. I just want to thank you for sharing your story with me. What’s next in your story?

This project is really just to kind of solidify my spot in the Griselda group, to let people know that I can do both. After that, I’m just stretching my wings and just doing whatever I feel like is going to make the track work. My biggest thing is that I didn’t want to be pigeonholed into having to sound like one thing. It’s always been like my superpower, I can switch and do both. That’s why I’m a star player because I can do everything. I can go into whatever realm I want to and dominate just like Kim did coming from Junior M.A.F.I.A, and moving on to doing more commercial songs.

The Liz is out now via Griselda Records. Listen to it here.

Spillage Village is just days away from releasing their album Spilligion. Judging from their singles, “End Of Daze,” last week’s “Baptize,” and the newly released single “Hapi,” it will be a far more spiritual affair than anything they’ve done before. “Hapi” is shot through with references to the celestial and the beat borrows influence from American folk music, gospel, and jazz for an avant-garde reflection featuring a spoken word poem from Atlanta icon Big Rube.

Rube, who has collaborated over the past three decades with ATL luminaries from Outkast and Goodie Mob to Future and Killer Mike, anchors the song, which opens with a sung chorus by seemingly the whole group and includes verses from Mereba, Olu, and newcomer Benji. The chorus finds the band lamenting the violent nature of their stomping grounds and praying for safety from “Gunshots ringing in my hood.”

Spillage Village also shared the tracklist for Spilligion, which will find them joined by Ari Lennox, Buddy, Chance The Rapper, Lucky Daye, and Masego and continue the quasi-religious themes of tracks like “Baptize” and “End Of Daze.”

Listen to Spillage Village’s “Hapi” featuring Big Rube above.

Spilligion is due 9/25 via Dreamville Records. You can pre-save it here.

The death of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a shocking end to a week in what’s been the longest year on record, but for many, the battle over the coming days will feel even longer. That’s especially the case for Lindsey Graham, thanks to some protesters who wanted to make it clear that they remembered his words from the last time a Supreme Court seat was open during a presidential election year.

Ginsburg’s death from pancreatic cancer sets up a showdown in the United States government over what to do with her now-vacant seat on the Supreme Court. In 2016, Republicans famously did not allow then-president Barack Obama to fill the spot with his nominee, Merrick Garland, by not holding hearings for the seat until after the next election. Donald Trump was elected, of course, and he got to fill the seat with a conservative judge and further skew the court to the right.

At the time, South Carolina Congressmen Lindsey Graham was instrumental in pushing Congress to withhold hearings on the nomination, stating that it was necessary to let the next president decide who fills the seat. But over the weekend, Graham broke with that logic and said he was “dead set on confirming” whomever Trump nominated in the coming days. As Mediate pointed out, this directly conflicts with the logic laid out just four years ago:

Graham is especially under fire since he previously said on record that “If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”

In response, protesters held Wake Up Lindsey Graham demonstrations to send a message that his words will not be forgotten as Republicans gear up to nominate and appoint a judge before the November election.

Graham, who leads a committee who will vote on a nomination before it goes to the entirety of the Senate, fired back on Twitter explaining that, in his mind, the rules are somehow different here.

It’s unclear, however, how tired he was when composing said tweets.

[via Mediaite]

With his third studio album under RCA Records coming out this fall, Louisville, Kentucky rap-singer Bryson Tiller returns to drop off his second single of the cycle, “Always Forever.” Following in the same vein as the SWV and Mary J. Blige-sampling “Inhale,” “Always Forever” is a slower song showing off Tiller’s vocals more than his bars. Finding him nearing the end of a relationship (again), Bryson implores his paramour to “say you’re done doin’ it for me, then say bye.”

The Kentuckian Trapsoul pioneer began his comeback late last year with a feature on Summer Walker’s debut album Over It, dueting with the breakout singer on “Playing Games.” From there, he provided feature vocals on projects from Wale (“Love… (Her Fault)“) and Kyle (“The Sun“) this year after a relatively quiet period in the wake of his second album, True To Self, released in 2017.

With few details about his upcoming third album revealed, fans have been impatiently waiting for a True To Self followup for nearly three years. With two singles released in the same month, though, it appears Tiller might finally be ready to show them what he’s been working on and the next evolution of his ’90s R&B sample-driven sounds.

Listen to Bryson Tiller’s “Always Forever” above.

I had no clue what to expect from the 2020 Emmys. The only things I knew going in were: no audience, nominees basically Zooming in from their homes, very high potential for chaos. As a fan of this last thing, I was intrigued. Award shows can be very stale and formulaic, by design. Even the fun moments typically fit inside the same nice little box year after year, whether it’s a decent monologue zinger or solid presenter banter or a notable speech. There’s a plug-and-play feel to it all that I understand and accept, but that gets tedious.

This was not that. This was exceptionally weird and not always polished and there were historic wins and raging fires and farm animals. It was a mess, which I mean as nothing short of the highest compliment I know how to give. It was… kind of a blast. The Weird Emmys were fun. Let’s dig and discuss, with the classic Winners and Losers format.

WINNER — All of whatever exactly that was

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report that I loved the Weird Emmys. That’s what I’m calling them, now and forever: The Weird Emmys. It was delightful, more like a cable access show that had been given a multimillion-dollar budget than your standard slick awards show. Would I have liked it if they had tried to do something this crazy under normal circumstances, not as a result of a global pandemic, just to mix it up? I don’t know. I doubt it. The whole thing had a very strong “yeah, we don’t know either, let’s just try a bunch of stuff and see what happens” vibe that made me much more forgiving to whiffed bits and technical difficulties than I might have been any other year. Everyone was doing the best they could. I can appreciate that.

But yes, it was very weird. Some notable moments included:

• Jennifer Aniston putting out a stubborn trash fire before the first award was even handed out
• Randall Park presenting an award with an alpaca in a bow tie
• Tracy Morgan hijacking the entire proceedings for about 90 seconds after showing up on-screen with a Tracy Ullman mask
• Hilarious high-school shop-class quality mystery boxes that opened up and shot an Emmy and confetti at both John Oliver and RuPaul, who are, in opposite ways, kind of the two most perfect people to shoot an Emmy and confetti at

And so on! Again, if you tried any of those things in a standard awards show, I bet I would have groaned about it being a little much. Here? It fit surprisingly well. The whole thing was fun and weird and chaotic and the underlying “something could go wrong at any moment and I don’t want to miss it if it does” quality gave what is usually a cookie-cutter event a high-wire level of danger. By the end, I was rooting for things to go wrong, not necessarily because I wanted anyone to be embarrassed on live television, more just because everything was rolling with it and game for anything. I have very few complaints about any of it, which is an odd place to be in the morning after the Emmys.

WINNER — Schitt’s Creek, Watchmen, Succession, Etc.

One of the stranger parts of the night, even given how many strange things I just listed, was how… normal things went otherwise. Schitt’s Creek cleaned up in a huge way, sweeping the comedy awards for acting and picking up some writing and directing ones, too. Succession won a bunch of awards and I got to hear the music from the show each time it won, which softened the blow of Cousin Greg losing the Best Supporting award to Billy Crudup. Watchmen won a zillion awards, one of which went to Regina King, who promptly and correctly stated “This is so freaking weird.” Another went to writer Cord Jefferson, who, in his acceptance speech, thanked Jeremy Irons for “farting in space,” which I really appreciated because it gives me a chance to post these screencaps again…

… and to point out that Jeremy Strong, in character as Kendall Roy on Succession, the role for which he won the Best Actor award, pooped the bed last season. The lessons are twofold: One, it’s kind of funny that the two big drama winners this year prominently featured poop/fart content and the big comedy winner didn’t, really; two, I am a child.

LOSER — Lots of other good shows

It bums me out a little that shows like The Good Place and Better Call Saul and especially What We Do in the Shadows got shut out this year. It’s not that the winners weren’t deserving. Pretty much every award that got handed out was understandable or at least defensible. The Schitt’s Creek trophy parade was adorable and I was very happy to watch it chug along. That said, there’s something that feels, I don’t know, wrong about “On the Run,” the legendary Jackie Daytona episode of What We Do in the Shadows, not getting recognized at all. This is why there should be a Best Fake Name category at these shows. I have always said this.

WINNER — Dan Levy being very happy for his real and/or TV family

This was honestly my favorite part of the Schitt’s sweep, just watching Dan Levy in the background when his co-stars won, absolutely beaming like he was their father, which is weird because one of his victorious co-stars was his real father, Eugene Levy. Find one person in your life who is as unequivocally happy for your success as Dan Levy is for the cast of Schitt’s Creek. Find that person and never let them go.

LOSER — Any future award show that does not feature a beloved castmember of Friends extinguishing a stubborn fire before the first trophy is handed out

I touched on this in the opening section but it must be discussed again, in more detail. Before the first trophy of the night was handed out, Jimmy Kimmel started a fire in a trash can and Jennifer Aniston tried and failed to put it out a number of times. Zip ahead in the clip up there and watch it again. Watch Jennifer Aniston’s face as the fire keeps flaring back up. Watch her especially the last time, when it becomes clear the situation has moved from “silly bit” to “potentially dangerous situation involving smoke and fire.” Here, look.

I can’t possibly describe how happy this made me. If you had come up to me before the show started and told me “Jennifer Aniston will have to frantically extinguish a trash fire before the first commercial break,” I might have kissed you on the mouth, social distance be damned. That is all I wanted out of this bozo circus, flaming garbage and anarchy and a television icon in a fancy dress wielding a fire extinguisher as we all inch closer to a situation where the fire alarm goes off and the sprinklers turn on. I wish there had been more fire. They could have done the entire show inside the burning building as the cast of Friends fought the blaze for all I cared. Give Schwimmer a fire hose. No half measures.

WINNER — In-home acceptance speeches

Can I be honest for a second? Like, really honest, bordering on earnest? Most of these were charming. Bouncing from one person’s house to the next throughout the night made it feel kind of like we were checking in on various slumber parties. And it was cool to see the various ways people did or did not get into it. John Oliver wore a hoodie. Some people were in t-shirts. Titus from Kimmy Schmidt appeared to be drinking from a red Solo cup. But my favorite was Best Actress winner Zendaya, who got dressed as hell, quarantine or not, and was there with like her whole family supporting her and whooping in the background. That was cool. It felt like there was more real excitement going on, with everyone comfortable in their own homes and not trying to march through a crowd to the stage as an orchestra plays.

Even the speeches played better, I think. I can understand if some viewers were turned off a little by the heavy political nature of some of them, but given the situation and the fact that none of them were interrupted by self-satisfied applause breaks from the crowd, it felt more real, more intimate, like it was all from the heart and not part of the pretentious show this can sometimes devolve into. Some of them felt very sweet. There’s something to be said for letting people get comfortable on the couch and giving them a glass or two of wine instead of putting them in formal attire on a stage in front of other famous people. I don’t know what we can do with this going forward, but it’s still true.

Also: It was very funny to me that the astronaut who sent a message to the audience from a space station orbiting the earth from the cosmos appeared to have a better connection than Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Aniston, the former of whom sounded like he was the one in space and the latter of whom appeared to be operating on a satellite delay like a war reporter in the Middle East. You people are millionaires. Figure out your damn WiFi. Or don’t. This was actually funnier.

WINNER — The bits, surprisingly

Again, there’s no way to separate this from the overall tone and weirdness of the night, but most of the bits worked for me, even the opening monologue with the fake audience ruse that lasted longer than I expected it to. This is strange because I am often anti-bit at award shows. So many of them seem forced or dragged out, or like they might have looked great on paper before someone actually tried to create them. But this time around, I mean, sure. NoHo Hank from Barry as a Russian mailman named Derek Magicjohnson? Why not? Letterman in a tuxedo in the wilderness for a few minutes? Absolutely, could have lasted longer. Sterling K. Brown bounding onto the stage and selling the holy hell out the whole “my show won an award whooooops I’m just here to present” gag to a completely empty room and therefore zero bailout laughter? I respected it so much.

WINNER — Me

This was the most fun I’ve had watching an award show in… maybe ever. I don’t think there are a ton of lessons we can learn from it. I don’t think it’s something we can recreate in another year, without the very bad circumstances that made it a necessity. (At least I hope not, Jesus Christ.) I wonder how, or even if, we’ll remember it 10-15 years from now, if it will go down as a famous moment in history or just be a bonkers one-off, more of a footnote than a whole chapter. I don’t know any of that even a little, as this is all still just as strange for us at home as it was for the people there taking part in it. I do know that I liked it a lot, though. It was fun to watch everyone throw stuff out the window and against a wall and try to figure it out together. It’s more or less what we’re all doing right now, as a society.

.The Weird Emmys were a blast. Let’s never do it again.

Within minutes of the new WandaVision trailer making a surprise drop in the middle of Sunday night’s Emmy awards, Marvel fans began going wild with speculation that the Disney+ series would be a Marvel Cinematic Universe adaptation of the comic book storyline “House of M” — but with a twist. The fan fever was so strong that “House of M” started trending on social media, so here’s a quick breakdown for all of you non-nerds out there.

In “House of M” comic storyline, the full potential of Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch’s powers are revealed as she alters the very fabric of reality itself following the “loss” of her two children. (They never really existed, but we won’t make this too complicated.) By the end of the storyline, reality is restored to its previous state before Wanda suffered a mental breakdown, but there are damaging consequences across the entire Marvel universe as mutants lose their powers and are no longer being born.

With the Disney+ series WandaVision (parts of which take place in the 1950s), the trailer appears to question what is real and what is not, which parallels the events of “House of M.” Plus, as Forbes notes, there’s a pretty significant Easter egg sitting right out in the open:

The House of M theory got a big boost after the trailer last night when a certain wine bottle got a surprising amount of screen time for an 80 second trailer. The name on the wine bottle, “Maison du Mepris,” translated from French means “House of Contempt” or some are saying…House of Misery. Literally “House of M.”

Of course, theories that “House of M” would factor into WandaVision have been kicking around ever since the show was announced over a year ago. But with this new trailer, fans are leaning hard into what implications a “House of M” adaptation might have for the MCU as a whole. While the comic book storyline saw the reduction of mutants, there’s a prevailing theory that WandaVision will essentially be “House of M” in reverse by creating a shift in reality that brings the X-Men into the MCU.

Of course, these are just fan theories for now, but as the Twitter user notes below, the MCU has a long history of playing very fast and loose with its adaptations of comic book story lines. Anything is possible.

WandaVision will premiere on Disney+ in December.

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong may have sent an “un-thank you” message to Donald Trump and Boris Johnson after winning Outstanding Drama at Sunday’s Emmys, but that wasn’t the most notable acceptance speech of the weekend.

That honor belongs to Dave Chappelle, whose comedy special Sticks and Stones won three awards, including Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded), during the Creative Arts Emmy virtual ceremonies. He beat fellow nominees John Mulaney and Tiffany Haddish, among others, despite Sticks and Stones being widely panned for taking “aim at everyone from queer and transgender activists and the #MeToo movement to critics of R. Kelly, Kevin Hart, and Louis C.K… He even mocks the men who accused Michael Jackson of child sex abuse in the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, which he calls ‘gross’ and urges his audience not to watch,” according to Vox.

Chappelle (who never won an Emmy for Chappelle’s Show) took aim at his critics in his acceptance speech. In front of an audience, he sarcastically called the win a “complete surprise. I mean, I read all the reviews and they said so many terrible things. They were embarrassed for me; I had lost my way, it wasn’t even worth watching. I hope all you critics learn from this. This is a teachable moment. Shut the f*ck up forever.” Chappelle also ripped the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for not giving Stan Lathan, who won Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, a directing Emmy until now.

He said this:

“Stan Lathan has been directing television since 1968,” Chappelle continued in regards to the director of Sticks & Stones. “Any show I watched growing up, he directed it… And finally, you motherf*ckers finally gave him an Emmy tonight. He deserves so much more, but I’m glad you came around.”

You can watch the speech below.

(Via Complex)

Jackson State University made quite a splash late last week when reports emerged that they were hiring Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders to be their new head coach. While there was pushback officially on the Sanders news, that JSU seemed to want to keep a surprise, it was confirmed and on Monday he made his debut at the HBCU.

Sanders has been rumored to be eyeing an entrance into the college coaching ranks in recent years, with his name popping up in various coaching carousel rumors. Primetime has long been involved with youth and AAU football, including a coaching role at Under Armour’s High School All-America Game for years. Now, he’ll take over a Jackson State program that was a perennial SWAC contender for years under coach Rick Comegy, but since his departure in 2013 has struggled to reach the same level of success.

One thing is certain about Sanders’ impact as a head coach, and that is that he will bring plenty of attention to the Tigers program and should be capable of making a splash in recruiting. Primetime has never been one for keeping a low profile and his entrance on Monday to his introductory presser made clear that he’s bringing that swagger and flash with him to Jackson State.

Coach Prime, as he has quickly adopted as his new preferred name, explained why he wanted to join Jackson State and what he planned to bring to the Tigers.

It will be, if nothing else, fascinating to see what Sanders can do with the Jackson State program, as its profile has raised immensely just with this hire.

Good Joe Bell (which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival) is Reinaldo Marcus Green’s followup to his fantastic 2018 debut feature length film, Monsters and Men. The thing the two films have in common is neither has that big cathartic moment, because in reality that sometimes never does come. Though, he does admit he’s tempted. GOing as far to have those scenes filmed, but resisting putting those in the final cut. And what he does here with Mark Wahlberg as the title character is pretty remarkable.

It’s an unusual pairing, which doesn’t seem lost on Green. His last film was inspired by the death of Eric Garner, and now he’s directing Wahlberg, an actor who has made four Peter Berg movies over the last seven years. But, as it turns out, it’s a pretty great pairing – with Wahlberg, in a true story about a father trying to raise awareness about bullying after his gay son commits suicide, giving maybe his best performance to date. But it’s Wahlberg who sought out Green, and Green tells us how that all went down. Also, he gives us an update on his next film,King Richard, which has Will Smith playing Richard Williams the father of Venus and Serena.

Mark Wahlberg is also a producer on this film. Did he hire you? How did that work?

So we were living in Italy and I had to fly from Italy to Boston to meet him. So I flew, I touched down, I had the meeting, and I flew back. And I didn’t know that that was the hiring process. But I met him and I sat down with Mark and we had an hour-long conversation. He had another day left on a movie with Pete Berg that he was shooting in Boston…

That could be any timeline over the last eight years, that he was finishing up a movie with Pete Berg.

[Laughs] I know. Whatever the last one he was doing in Boston.

I think that was Spencer Confidential?

That’s the one. And look, we hit it off. And by the end of it, Mark told his assistant, who was sitting far in the back somewhere, “Give him my number.” And I was like, “Wait, am I supposed to call Mark?” And then I remember just being pretty happy flying all the way back to Italy and thinking, “I might’ve just gotten this job, but what does that mean, and when do we start?” But that was the process. And then at that point, we started pretty much FaceTiming every day, talking about the script and what we wanted to do.

It’s fascinating that you two have come together on this. I kept thinking that while watching it. Did he just want to do something different?

Well, when I saw that he was attached, I thought it was a really interesting choice. I loved Mark as an actor and always thought that he was great in a lot of things that he’s done. He’s been able to be a crossover actor in many ways. And so I was fascinated already by the idea, and excited by it. And of course part of meeting Mark, as much as I was being interviewed and trying to get a job, was trying to see, is this real? Is he going to give the time and the passion towards this project? And I guess what I respected most about it is that we just talked about it like a film, making a great film. His work ethic is unbelievable. I had never seen that before. And it’s not that other people don’t work. I had just never had that much access to someone who works that hard.

It’s weird because he’s your boss, too, and you’re directing him. I mean, if he’s not happy…with Deepwater Horizon J.C. Chandor changed into Pete Berg pretty quickly. That would be in the back of my mind.

And I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s where we come from. I never felt that with Mark. I grew up with guys like Mark and he makes you feel that way instantaneously. And so I think, yeah, absolutely. It was sort of in the back of my mind, like, I hope I could give Mark the platform to give the best performance of his career. I mean, that’s every director’s dream, right?

Right, but you might have done that.

And maybe he looked at me like, “Wait, this guy actually thinks he can do that.” I don’t know. Sometimes you’re giving off that energy, too. It is a really complicated role. It’s not easy. It doesn’t give you easy answers. Mark is tough, but he’s loving, and he’s got that vulnerability. I’m sure you’ve seen The Last Dance, but it’s like Michael Jordan was willing to take the shot, whether he missed it or not. He just wanted the ball. I just want the ball and I’m willing to take that shot.

This movie resists the big moment. Which is fitting since it’s about a father searching for something he never quite finds.

And maybe it’s my style. It’s my preference of how I like to see it. But yeah, we knew that, right? It is a true story, right? You put Mark in that role, a lot of people want to see Mark with his shirt off. There’s no room for that in this film. This is not what that movie’s about and I didn’t want to distract. Mark is someone that’s supposed to be the Joe Bells of the world, right? But then you’re seeing something that you’ve never seen of him before, right? So we’re constantly, I think, trying to subvert all of those expectations and surprise people as well.

And then, in the end, it’s this tragic tale anyway. But you’re waiting for that release and it doesn’t come. The big stirring moment…

And I’d be lying to you if I didn’t tell you we didn’t have it on the hard drive. I think it’s the scenes you shoot, and you realize that that’s not true to the story. It’s the scene that you have, and you realize that we can’t let Joe off the hook here. It’s important not to. That’s essentially what the movie’s about, right? But we have that scene. We have that release. In Monsters and Men I had that release, too, and I had to resist strongly not putting it in because I thought it would do the movie a disservice. And those are difficult decisions to make. It’s like, do you want to see him have that? And we’re conditioned sometimes to want that, and it’s really hard to not.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say Reid Miller’s amazing in this movie, too. I mean, my goodness.

A star is born. It’s rare you find someone that possesses the qualities of an actor of his age. But, also, he possessed the outward strength that Jadin had, but also the deep vulnerability that he needed to get to in the film. He just had so many elements that worked in his favor. And look, he’s such a sensitive kid and he’s a sweet young man. You can tell he was going through things of his own, as we all are, and those are the intangibles that … I can’t do that. I hopefully directed him and got a great performance, but he’s admitting things that are happening in his own life, and you feel that. And I think the camera’s capturing that.

Your next film is about Richard Williams, played by Will Smith, and his obviously very famous two daughters, Venus and Serena. Is that still on track? Is the pandemic affecting what that is going to be or when it’s coming out?

It’s back on track. So it comes out Thanksgiving 2021, and we are currently in prep and scheduled to return to shooting. So, we shot three weeks, so we have another, I think, six or seven weeks left to shoot and we start shooting at the end of October. It’s another heartbreaker. But I think it’s a really, really exciting story and one not a lot of people know. We know the Williams sisters, but we don’t know this story. And I think that’s what really excites me: is for us to really get to know the Williams family and what brought to the greatest athletes to our shore. It’s amazing. It’s a story behind two of the greatest athletes that ever walked the planet.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.