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Watch The Trailer For ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ A New Open-World Harry Potter RPG

The PlayStation 5 Showcase on Wednesday offered gameplay looks at a variety of upcoming games for the PS5, including a detailed trailer for Spiderman Miles Morales and the new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, as well as some first looks at upcoming games like Final Fantasy XVI.

Among those new games announced during the PS5 showcase was Hogwarts Legacy a new open-world RPG based in the Harry Potter world that will allow you to be a student at Hogwarts in the 1800s, but eventually expand to a much larger world. The plot of the game, as described by the Hogwarts Legacy website, offers some insight into what you’ll go through and be tasked with in the game.

Experience Hogwarts in the 1800s. Your character is a student who holds the key to an ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart. You have received a late acceptance to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and soon discover that you are no ordinary student: you possess an unusual ability to perceive and master Ancient Magic. Only you can decide if you will protect this secret for the good of all, or yield to the temptation of more sinister magic.

While it debuted at the PS5 showcase, it is not a PlayStation exclusive and will be available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC, with a release date sometime in 2021.

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What’s On Tonight: The Robert Pattinson And Tom Holland Netflix Movie Has Arrived

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

The Devil All The Time (Netflix film) — Robert Pattinson portrays an unholy preacher while Sebastian Stan steps into a crooked sheriff’s shoes, and Tom Holland’s simply trying to stay out of the line of fire while evil forces surround him. It’s a battle between the corrupt and the so-called just that should provide a nice midweek viewing break. This Antonio Campos-directed story spans the period between WWII and Vietnam and co-stars Jason Clarke, Riley Keough, Bill Skarsgård, Eliza Scanlen, and Mia Wasikowska.

The 100 (CW, 8:00pm EST) — An unexpected threat’s looming over Clarke and all of her friends as they’re already reckoning with what’s happened.

Coroner (CW, 9:00pm EST) — The whole place is on lockdown with Jenny separated from the team. Meanwhile, Detective McAvoy’s searching for a newly released killer.

Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Drew Barrymore

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon — Sharon Stone, Shaquille O’Neal, Kylie Minogue

The Late Late Show With James Corden — John David Washington, Michael McIntyre, Glass Animals

In case you missed these offerings last week:

Unpregnant (HBO Max film) — A 17-year-old Type A student, Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson), deals with a never-taken-lightly decision by taking a 1000-mile road trip with her former BFF, Bailey (Barbie Ferreira), and it’s a wild ride that neither of them suspected was afoot. The value of renewed friendships with a dash of both Thelma And Louise and Fast And Furious make this an unexpectedly funny film with costars including Alex MacNicoll, Breckin Meyer, and Giancarlo Esposito, and Betty Who.

Woke (Hulu series) — This show is the comedy series that Lamorne Morris (and the rest of us) deserves with a little bit of everything. It’s surreal, it’s funny, it’s serious, it’s got talking toast and trashcans, and it’s in good hands with director Maurice “Mo” Marable. The quest to “keep it light” never felt so real as Keef (based upon the life and work of artist Keith Knight) experiences a rude awakening and transformation to follow.

The Killing of Breonna Taylor (Hulu series) — The New York Times investigates the life of Bronna Taylor and her police killing (following a no-knock warrant) on March 13 while the case still unfolds.

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Working moms applaud scientist who shared the honest reality behind her CNN interview

With many schools going virtual, many daycare facilities being closed or limited, and millions of parents working from home during the pandemic, the balance working moms have always struggled to achieve has become even more challenging in 2020. Though there are more women in the workforce than ever, women still take on the lion’s share of household and childcare duties. Moms also tend to bear the mental load of keeping track of all the little details that keep family life running smoothly, from noticing when kids are outgrowing their clothing to keeping track of doctor and dentist appointments to organizing kids’ extracurricular activities.

It’s a lot. And it’s a lot more now that we’re also dealing with the daily existential dread of a global pandemic, social unrest, political upheaval, and increasingly intense natural disasters.

That’s why scientist Gretchen Goldman’s refreshingly honest photo showing where and how she conducted a CNN interview is resonating with so many.


Gretchen Goldman, PhD is the research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and she recently weighed in on a CNN segment about the Trump administration’s appointment of a climate change denier to NOAA. In the interview, she’s clearly speaking from home (as most experts are these days) but appears perfectly professional in her yellow collared top.

She shared a screenshot from the interview on Twitter, side-by-side with a photo of the room she was in, which is strewn with toys. Her laptop is perched on a chair on a table, and we can see what never shows in the interview—the bike shorts and sandals she’s wearing.

“Just so I’m being honest,” she wrote, including the hashtag #SciMomJourneys.

Many work-from-home moms saw themselves in Goldman’s photos—their polished, professional life sitting right next to their child-oriented home life. The home photo shouldn’t be viewed negatively—it’s just life. When you’re trying to do all the things and having to do them from home, this is what life looks like.

Commenters expressed how seeing this honesty brought home how hard moms are working right now.

Others weighed in with some practical advice:

But many just offered gratitude for making them feel better about their own unfiltered reality.

We do need to cut ourselves some slack. We need to acknowledge that what we’re pulling off is pretty darn amazing. And perhaps more importantly, while praise and accolades are great, they’re not what most working moms really need. We need to ask for and accept help, and we need people to hear us when we do.

And yes, of course, there are plenty of working dads who are in a similar boat right now. Everyone who is managing to make it through the dumpster fire of this year with their sanity in tact deserves kudos. But let’s give working moms the shout out they deserve for the million balls they’re juggling while also putting up with societal sexism and patriarchal expectations. It’s a lot, truly.

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Andre 3000 Describes A Childhood Near-Death Experience And Big-Time Help He Got From A Stranger

Andre 3000 is somebody who lives his life to the fullest, whether he’s making some of the most memorable music of his era or serenading strangers with his flute. There was one incident during his childhood, though, that Andre has described as being potentially fatal.

He was interviewed for journalist Mike Ayers’ upcoming book One Last Song, and he told a story of a car accident he was involved in as a kid and how a stranger may have helped save his life:

“When I was younger, me and my friend were in a car accident. We were riding with my friend’s mom, but we were so young, we didn’t know what happened until we woke up in the hospital. I didn’t know, I was a kid. We were on this street in Atlanta and it was a non-busy street, and fortunately, this guy who had money passed by, and he had one of the first working cell phones. It was like a suitcase. And he was able to call an ambulance. If we didn’t have that cell phone, we would have been out there for a minute and might have died. Who knows. I don’t know if that’s a near-death experience, but I was definitely lucky.”

The story came up as Andre was explaining the personal significance of the Prince song “Sometimes It Snows In April,” which he associates with the car accidents and the deaths of his mother and stepfather. He said, “When I was younger, I heard ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ by Prince. That was always a song that summed up what it is. Usually, when someone dies, unless they die of old age or sickness — it happens in a strange way. Both of my parents are gone and they both died early. Just out of the blue, when I least expected it.”

Meanwhile, fans are always clamoring for new music from the rapper, but he’s not sure if he’ll ever make another album.

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Report: Bucks Ownership Is ‘Highly Unlikely’ To Pursue Chris Paul In A Trade

Multiple reports have confirmed that Bucks owner Marc Lasry met with reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo last weekend after the Bucks’ five-game series loss to Miami in the playoffs, but additional details of their conversation continue to flow out. The latest is from Eric Nehm and Sam Amick at The Athletic, who threw water on hopes of a Bucks pursuit of All-Star Chris Paul.

The connection between Milwaukee and Paul was expected once both parties’ seasons ended and it was revealed that Eric Bledsoe could be made available. With a potential hole at point guard and the salaries to make it work, Milwaukee would certainly improve its team by pursuing Paul, but reportedly will not go after him.

From Nehm and Amick:

As for the reported prospect of the Bucks pursuing Oklahoma City point guard Chris Paul as a possible solution to the roster deficiencies, sources with knowledge of ownership’s thinking said it is highly unlikely. The cost of bringing him aboard — Paul is owed $41.3 million next season and has a player option worth $44.2 million in the 2021-22 campaign — and the potential difficulty of bringing Paul onto a roster already led by a strong personality in Antetokounmpo seems to limit the chances of the Bucks moving to pair the two All-Stars. All indications are that the Bucks would rather look elsewhere.

Reporting has also indicated that head coach Mike Budenholzer’s job is safe, so it appears the Bucks could head into 2021 with mostly the same group surrounding Antetokounmpo. At the very least, it seems that they are out of the running for the offseason’s biggest available name. Still, Milwaukee has to look into making some roster upgrades, even if not going for someone like Paul, and all eyes will be on whether the Bucks can do enough to appease Giannis by building a championship squad and keep him around long term.

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Faye Webster Lazes Around The House In The Video For Her Psychedelic Single ‘Better Distractions’

In 2019, Atlanta musician Faye Webster dropped her third album (and first on Secretly Canadian), Atlanta Millionaires Club. She has shared a pair of new singles since then, both earlier this year: “In A Good Way” and “Both All The Time.” Neither are attached to an announced album, and neither is her latest, “Better Distractions.”

The song is a dose of mellow psychedelia, in a Kurt Vile sort of way but more folk than rock. As for the video, it’s a simple clip of Webster and her cohorts doing things like jumping on a trampoline, playing with a yo-yo, and otherwise tooling around at home.

Webster says of the song, “I wrote this song kinda without knowing I was writing it. It’s a kind of free association, just thoughts running straight from my head onto paper untouched. I also think it’s best my band has ever sounded on record.”

The musician has also announced a one-off ticketed livestream performance, “Live From Chase Park Transduction.” The performance will be live and Webster will be joined by her full band (for the first time in 2020) in the Athens, Georgia studio where she has recorded her music in recent years. The show goes down on October 6 at 9 p.m. ET.

Watch the “Better Distractions” video above, and get tickets for the livestream here.

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Jim Carrey Will Return To His Sketch-Comedy Roots To Play Joe Biden On ‘SNL’

Twenty-six years after leaving In Living Color to become one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Jim Carrey is returning to his sketch-comedy roots. He will appear on SNL next season, the show’s 46th, to play Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

“Jim Carrey is going to do Biden,” creator Lorne Michaels told Vulture. “There was some interest on his part. And then we responded, obviously, positively. But it came down to discussions about what the take was. He and Colin Jost had a bunch of talks. He and I as well. He will give the part energy and strength, and… Hopefully it’s funny.” Hopefully! Carrey previously hosted in 1996, 2011, and 2014 after auditioning for the show in 1980; he was not selected (Charlie Rocket was), but his rubber-faced audition tape is online.

It’s disappointing that Michaels don’t trust any of the show’s actual cast members to play Donald Trump or Biden (he confirmed Alec Baldwin will be back as Trump, along with Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris), but Jim Carrey is in the funniest scene in movie history, so I’m not too upset.

SNL also announced that Andrew Dismukes, Lauren Holt, and Punkie Johnson have joined the cast. You can view some of their work below.

(Via Vulture)

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LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, And Luka Doncic Headline The All-NBA Teams

NBA Awards are steadily rolling out as the playoffs now enter their final month, with the Conference Finals set with the Heat-Celtics and Lakers-Nuggets, and on Wednesday the league announced one of the most important honors in the All-NBA teams.

LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo were unanimous selections to the first team, being joined by James Harden, Anthony Davis, and Luka Doncic — who edged out Kawhi Leonard for the final spot on the first-team by 44 points.

All-NBA First Team

LeBron James
James Harden
Luka Doncic
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Anthony Davis

All-NBA Second Team

Chris Paul
Damian Lillard
Kawhi Leonard
Pascal Siakam
Nikola Jokic

All-NBA Third Team

Ben Simmons
Russell Westbrook
Jimmy Butler
Jayson Tatum
Rudy Gobert

The closest vote race for the second and third team was between Pascal Siakam and Jayson Tatum, with Siakam edging Tatum by 15 points.

Those that just missed out on All-NBA honors were forward Khris Middleton (82 points), center Joel Embiid (79 points), and guards Bradley Beal (32 points) and Kyle Lowry (26 points). The biggest shockers among the voting was Andre Drummond getting a second team vote and Zach LaVine getting a third team vote. The biggest gripe might be Beal being behind Westbrook, but overall there are 15 very, very good basketball players that earned spots on this year’s All-NBA squads.

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The Samuel L. Jackson Alexa App Is About To Start Cussing At You A Whole Lot More

Do you want Samuel L. Jackson to swear at you? Sure, we all do. And that’s exactly what Alexa users are getting more of in a new upgrade to the app that swaps out Alexa’s voice for the legendary Pulp Fiction actor.

After releasing the feature a year ago, Amazon quickly learned that when people downloaded Jackson to their device, they wanted to be cussed out by the actor on the regular. While the app offered the ability to turn off explicit phrases, over 74% of users not only left the profanity on, but overwhelmingly demanded more cussing from Marvel’s Nick Fury. On top of already responding, “What the hell do you even want me to say?” when users ask Jackson to speak them, the upgrade will reportedly add over 30,000 new phrases and five times the profanity. There’ll be no survivors. Via Variety:

As part of Jackson’s new repertoire on Alexa, if you ask “Hey Samuel, roast me” you will get responses including “Why the f— do you want to be roasted? You really think you can handle that?” and “I’m just gonna ignore that request, because if I really roast you, your sorry ass will be destroyed on impact.”

Damn, Samuel L. Jackson the App.

As for how Jackson has time to record so many phrases, this next part is either extremely interesting from a technological standpoint or absolutely terrifying if you think about the implications of teaching robots how to talk like Samuel L. Jackson:

Note that Jackson didn’t need to sit in recording studio to speak the thousands of new phrases for Alexa. His virtual voice is synthesized using Amazon’s Neural Text-to-Speech technology, which replicates speech patterns after being “trained” by a set of a person’s voice recordings.

There are worse ways for humanity to end.

(Via Variety)

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A Speculative Ranking Of This Week’s Ill-Advised Corporate Beverages

Wonderful news on the chain food and beverage front this week. First, Taco Bell announced that they’ll be selling their own wine. “Jalapeño Noir” is a Pinot Noir (that’s red wine, grandma) with “notes of wild strawberry, cherry, and beetroot,” which will be “released in Canada to help promote Taco Bell’s new Toasted Cheesy Chalupa.”

Wait, Canada only?! Damn, first universal healthcare and now this. We need a presidential candidate who promises to close the chalupa gap. The chalupa, by the way, “features six-month aged cheddar cheese toasted right onto the chalupa shell,” as well as all the regular Taco Bell stuff inside, like Space Beef and the Colonel’s magic blend of Mex-I-can spices (yes, I made that last part up).

Elsewhere, Mountain Dew has teamed up with Red Lobster for a specially-branded “Dew ‘Garita,” which sounds like a nickname Doogie Howser got during med school hazing but is actually a branded margarita-adjacent cocktail made with Mountain Dew. It’s meant to pair with Red Lobster’s famous Cheddar Bay Biscuits. Seems like a weird pairing — considering one allegedly comes from the mountains and the other from the bay. Hillbillies and lobstermen dining together? Am I the only one who gives a shit about geographical consistency? Still, better than a Duggar-ita.

Finally, rounding out the rule of three, PepsiCo has announced plans to launch a new drink to aid sleep. Driftwell “is meant to help consumers relax and unwind before bed,” and is being described as an “enhanced water drink.” It contains “200 milligrams of L-theanine and 10% of the daily value of magnesium.” Which, I’m being told, are “what plants crave.”

Driftwell will be available nationwide starting in December. It contains no booze, which seems pointless, but L-theanine is an amino acid found in certain teas and mushrooms, which “a few studies have suggested can improve sleep quality and can help reduce the physical symptoms of stress.”

Ah, but what if my main symptom of stress is drinking Pepsi?

As astute readers may note, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Taco Bell are all part of PepsiCo and/or Yum Brands, which has a lifetime contract with its original parent company, PepsiCo, so it may be that this is all part of some coordinated stunt-marketing effort. Probably spearheaded by some guy named Chad Presswick, the world’s raddest product consultant.

All of which brings us to… a ranking of drinks I have not tried yet.

Here’s how I stack them:

1) Jalapeño Noir

It’s red wine. I don’t care if you pair it with a Chalupa or a chicken salad, it’s fine by me. Plus I like the name “Jalapeño Noir.” It sounds like a movie genre Robert Rodriguez invented.

2) Dew ‘Garita

Being that I wasn’t born in Appalachia and have never worked as a systems engineer, I consider Mountain Dew one of the fouler liquids on the planet. That being said, it can’t be that much worse than Triple Sec. The Mountain Dew Cheddar Bay Margarita sounds like a Kamikaze shot in a glass. And as long as I’m at a Red Lobster already, what the hell, might as well give it a whirl.

3) Sleepytime Pepsi

Sorry, Driftwell, Pepsi is just not something I traditionally associate with stress relief. Though I do appreciate the thought process behind trying to apply “the choice of a new generation” toward the generation of Xanax rappers with face tattoos. “Hey… you kids like… relaxing… right?”

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.