Something tells me that TikTok-ing burglary generally isn’t a great idea.

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Which classic DCOM matches your personality?

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Former SNL cast member Jay Pharoah shared a chilling video on Instagram where an Los Angeles police officer kneeled on his neck in an apparent case of mistaken identity strikingly similar to the police actions that killed George Floyd and sparked an international movement against police brutality against Black people.

The video started with images of kneeling police officers and shots of protesters and policemen walking together, which have been widely shared as signs of unity in the last few weeks of widespread protests against police brutality. While the images play, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech can be heard. The video then shows Pharoah, who explains that a week before George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota, an extremely similar incident happened to him in Los Angeles.

Pharoah explained as security camera footage showed an officer run up to him, weapon drawn, in daylight in Los Angeles while he was on a run.

“I could have easily been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd,” he said.

Apparently, officers were looking for a suspect and he fit the description: “a black man with gray sweatpants and a gray shirt.” Four officers approached him with their weapons drawn, and once he was on the ground one officer put his knee on his neck. The video, with Pharoah narrating, is a harrowing look at just how easily someone can be put at gunpoint just for being a Black man on the streets of an American city.

“I’m Jay Pharoah and I’m a Black man in America,” he said. “My life matters. Black lives always matter. They always matter.”

Our Longest Summer series will look at the eight teams whose seasons are now officially over, and will have to wait until mid-October to make decisions on what’s next and how to proceed after falling short of the cut-off for a continued 2019-20 campaign.

The Charlotte Hornets entered the 2019-20 season with exceptionally low expectations. Many, including a handful of Las Vegas oddsmakers, projected the Hornets to finish dead-last in the NBA after the loss of Kemba Walker and, at the very least, a playoff push wasn’t expected to be in the cards. Along the way, however, Charlotte overachieved significantly, posting a 23-42 record that nearly saw the team eclipse its 82-game over/under win total in only 65 games.

It would be fair to note that the Hornets’ point differential was substantially worse than the team’s record but, even when accounting for that, Charlotte was simply better than they were “supposed” to be this season. Much of that can be attributed to the rise of Devonte’ Graham, but, with James Borrego drawing encouraging reviews on the bench and a respectable overall defense, the Hornets might have a little bit of momentum with a 10th-place finish in the Eastern Conference. With that as the backdrop, the offseason arrives early for Charlotte and a number of intriguing outcomes are in play.

2020 Free Agents

Nic Batum (player option), Bismack Biyombo (UFA), Dwayne Bacon (RFA), Willy Hernangomez (UFA)

2020 Projected salary cap space (assuming $115 million salary cap)

$25.1 million, per Early Bird Rights

Areas of Strength

Even with the relatively positive overall performance this season, the Hornets aren’t overflowing with talent. The team’s backcourt was highly productive this season, though, and the duo of Graham and Terry Rozier did a lot to carry Charlotte’s offense. Though Graham cooled off during the campaign, he produced 18.2 points per game and knocked down 37 percent from three-point range on substantial volume. As for Rozier, the jokes about his (highly) lucrative contract were quieted to some degree, as he put together the best offensive season of his career by a comfortable margin. In addition to the backcourt, the Hornets may have a gem in 2019 lottery pick P.J. Washington, and 2018 lottery pick Miles Bridges put together a few flashes along the way.

Areas of Need

With apologies to Graham (or even Rozier), the Hornets still don’t have a No. 1 option on the offensive end of the floor. Every rebuilding team is in search of “the guy” and Charlotte simply doesn’t have that player right now. As a result, the team ranked near the bottom of the league in virtually every offensive category (sans three-point shooting) and the lack of offensive talent is stark when examining the roster. From there, it wasn’t as if the team was incredible defensively, failing to overcome its small backcourt without anything approaching a dominant rim-protecting force on the roster. To put it bluntly, this is a roster that needs a lot.

Biggest Decisions

With the widespread assumption that Batum will opt in to his $27.1 million player option, the Hornets still project to have more than $25 million in salary cap room, at least under the pre-pandemic projections. On one hand, it is a bad year to have substantial cap space, simply because there is a lack of top-end talent hitting the market. On the other, Charlotte isn’t usually mentioned on the list of teams ready to land max-level players in free agency, so they could use the space to acquire draft picks in exchange for toxic assets on other rosters. It will be crucial that the Hornets use their salary cap flexibility wisely and, from a draft perspective, Charlotte is in position to use a lottery pick to bolster its stockpile.

Overall Offseason Focus

The Hornets are still in asset collection mode, or at least they should be. There isn’t a single “untouchable” piece on the roster, and while everyone knew a rebuild had to arrive when Walker exited, Charlotte isn’t in the kind of advanced position of teams like Atlanta or Minnesota that already have some star power on the roster. Prudence is the order of the day, and the Hornets can improve their long-term standing while keeping their eye on the ball when it comes to not pushing too hard for the short term.

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Netflix is notoriously guarded as far as its streaming figures go, and even when the service does release streaming numbers, they are based on strange, self-reported metrics. There are no reliable, objective measures of viewership on Netflix. However, back in March, days before the shutdowns around the country began to take shape, Netflix began to release daily charts showing which movies and television shows were most watched during that particular days. Those charts do not give exact viewership numbers, but they at least gives us a rough idea of what is popular (and I use them in our weekly box-office report for movies).

However, over on Reddit (via Forbes), user Lamboo has devised a point system that tracks the most popular TV shows based on those Netflix daily rankings. The point system is fairly rudimentary — it assigns a value from first through tenth place, which is added for every day the TV show is in the top ten — but it offers an interesting glimpse of what is most popular over the course of the last 100 days.

Unsurprisingly, Ozark season 3 has been the most popular TV show of the pandemic, although the series that comes close behind it, Outer Banks, may be a bigger surprise. It is followed by Dead to Me‘s second season, Sweet Magnolias, and Mindy Kaling’s series, Never Have I Never (I have never heard of Sweet Magnolias before, but now I know where Jamie Lynn Spears and Chris Klein are).

Six through ten on the list are Money Heist, the popular Spanish series in its fourth season; the second season of Altered Carbon; the third season of the teen comedy-drama On My Block; the The Last Kingdom; and at number ten, the coming-of-age comedy-drama I Am Not OK With This.

Some of the more recent entries like Space Force and Fuller House have also been very popular with the streaming service, but they haven’t been able to accumulate a lot of days on the point system yet (although both shows have ranked very well in the few days since they were released).

Elsewhere, in licensed shows, The CW seems to be dominating with All American and Riverdale taking the top two spots followed by Avatar the Last Airbender (from Nickelodeon), Netflix mainstay The Office, and Paramount TV’s Waco starring Taylor Kitsch. Don’t sleep on Community, either, which holds the number ten slot, after it returned to the streaming network back in April.

Source: Reddit via Forbes

IDK began the last quarter of 2019 with his major-label debut album, Is He Real? The album was released to positive reviews as it impressively tackled the realities and fantasies of life. Weeks after releasing the album, IDK revealed in a tweet that a companion album, one that answered the question presented in his major-label debut album’s title, would arrive in 2020. Before that companion album arrives, however, IDK revealed that he has something else in the works for fans.

Ahead of the album, which IDK confirmed to be titled U See 4 Yourself, he took to Twitter to announce a new project would precede the upcoming album. “Before I give you my second album “USEE4YOURSELF” I’d like to drop off something me and my brother made 4 y’all. 9 Tracks, details soon,” he said in the tweet.

This would not be the first time IDK released a project shortly before a full album. Less than a year before releasing Is He Real?, IDK shared his IDK & Friends 🙂 project. The 7-song effort saw features from Denzel Curry, Rico Nasty, Wale, and more.

As we await the details on the upcoming project, IDK teased a possible collaborator for it. Sharing a picture from his Macbook, IDK showed fans a folder titled “MADLIB 4 IDK” shedding light on the possibility that one or more Madlib-produced beats could land on either of IDK’s upcoming projects.

IDK’s announcement also arrives after he released his “Mazel Tov” track alongside ASAP Ferg.

IDK is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week we will dive into Most Streamed and Bestseller Lists on Fandango, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.

It’s still unclear when movie theaters will really open, and what was supposed to be the big “summer” opener, Tenet, has been pushed back two weeks to July 31st, so a regular box-office report may be at least another 5 or 6 weeks away. However, as far as new releases go, this weekend was probably the best of the pandemic, as two high-profile movies originally scheduled for theaters came out this weekend, as well as the latest from Spike Lee on Netflix.

First up, on the VOD market, there was finally some new blood, as Judd Apatow and Pete Davidson’s King of Staten Island — an At Home Premiere (and therefore a $20 rental) was the most watched movie on both Amazon’s charts and iTunes rental charts. Again, we have no idea what the actual revenue numbers are — we don’t even know what the budget for the film was — but we do know that it did better than Scoob! in its fifth week on VOD and Trolls World Tour in its third month.

It’s fair to say that it was probably at least modestly successful, but beyond that, we won’t know unless Universal release figures. King of Staten Island is a particularly important VOD release because — unlike the other major VOD releases during the pandemic — this one was a comedy and not a family film, and if it is a big success, it could pave the way for more comedies going straight to digital release, even after the pandemic is over. Then again, I don’t know if this was a great test case, either. It’s good — 71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes — but it’s very long (two hours and 17 minutes) and not that funny. Pete Davidson is a comedic actor, but Staten Island still more drama than comedy. In any respect, if Universal — which inexplicably pulled the movie from drive-in theaters — doesn’t release revenue figures, we’ll have to make assumptions based on how long it stays in the top runs of the VOD/rental charts.

There are a few other notables from the VOD/rental charts. Will Smith’s nearly forgotten Gemini Man jumped to number two on the iTunes rental charts (and also appeared high up on Amazon’s charts) after it was offered as a $.99 rental this weekend. Meanwhile, Gone with the Wind jumped to number six on the iTunes rental charts, probably as a spiteful response to HBO Max temporarily pulling it.

Meanwhile, three other movies didn’t debut particularly high on Fandango’s VOD charts, but they are worth noting, anyway: Kevin James (yes, that Kevin James) plays a Nazi in the home-invasion thriller Becky; Mia Wasikowska and Damon Herriman star in the very well-reviewed Judy & Punch; and Elisabeth Moss stars in Shirley.

We don’t have streaming figures for Disney+, but it’s probably fair to say that Artemis Fowl — previously scheduled for theatrical release — likely did very well for the streaming service, despite dismal reviews (it sits at 10 percent on RT). R.L. Stine, meanwhile, respectfully disagrees with critics.

Netflix also saw the release of Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which unsurprisingly debuted at the top of its streaming charts. Spike Lee has been making the Zoom rounds and promoting the film heavily, and it’s also been on the receiving end of some very good reviews (92 percent on RT), with Delroy Lindo often being singled out for particularly high praise.

Meanwhile, the Polish erotic thriller 365 Days, which makes Fifty Shades of Grey look tame — jumped to number two, probably because of all the comparisons to Fifty Shades of Grey. That is followed by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

This week’s “Where did that come from?” movie is The Guest, a spectacular but little seen 2014 action-horror film from Adam Wingard starring Dan Stevens (of Legion and Downton Abbey fame). It’s well worth checking out. Finally, at number five is The Night Clerk. It has an interesting cast — Tye Sheridan, Ana De Armas, and John Leguizamo — but reviews aren’t particularly good (35 percent on RT).

Next week on VOD, we can look forward to Miss Juneteenth and Babyteeth, while 7500, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s return to films after a hiatus to raise his family, debuts on Amazon Prime Video.

Source: Netflix, Fandango, iTunes, Amazon

With the Black Lives Matter movement still pushing strong all across the country, another police killing has the movement’s members up in arms just weeks after the death of George Floyd. Rayshard Brooks was killed by Atlanta police officers after a confrontation in a Wendys parking lot near the fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru. Protests quickly turned up as angry Atlanta residents took the streets shutting down one of the city’s major highways.

On Saturday, the Wendys that Brooks’ death occurred nearby would eventually be burned down during the protests. Killer Mike, who has been very active on the topic of social justice, took to his Instagram to speak on Brooks’ death on Saturday, saying that the man should still be alive and vowing to support groups that advocate for change.

Sharing a pair of pictures, one that simply read “Rayshard Brooks” and another that was a photo of Brooks, the Run The Jewels rapper left a lengthy caption detailing his thoughts and frustrations about yet another black to die at the hands of the police.

#RayshardBrooks should be alive this morning. He should be waking up (hungover or drunk in the tank depending on whether he was apprehended) and not dead. If I’m the Wendy’s worker who called the police, I feel like shit this morning because a call for a man sleeping in a car should not have ended with his killing. If I’m the people with the child in the car, I feel helpless and hurt. If I’m that child, I’m scared shitless of anyone with a uniform and a gun. If I’m the angry white or black guy who was filming and saying, “I watched y’all for twenty minutes,” I’m wondering what else I could have done? I am mad as hell and I am saddened beyond consolation. At a minimum, we need a law that prevents shooting a person while they’re fleeing. If there is no weapon, fleeing from an officer should be a foot chase and radio race. If a person gets away, they get away. As I have said before, I will continue to look to and support grassroots organizations who are doing the work, day in and day out. If there are groups who you know are organizing to end police killings, @ them so we can follow and support.

Killer Mike concluded the post by asking his followers to continue to “#PlotPlanStrategizeOrganizeMobilize.” It was just last week he joined Bill Maher’s Real Time With Bill Maher to speak on this concept, asking people not to riot but instead mobilize a political movement to incite change.

“But after the destruction of property, I need you to become an organizer,” he said. “I need you to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize. Protesting is the first step.”