In anticipation of August’s Comic-Con alternate event DC FanDome, Justice League director Zack Snyder shared the first teaser for the “Snyder Cut.” Watch it above.

In the clip, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman looks upon an ancient artifact that teases the arrival of baddie Darkseid, while Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor (as heard in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) ominously whispers, “But the bell has already been rung… and they’ve heard it. But in the dark, among the stars. Ding dong, the god is dead.”

Snyder debuted the teaser, but my man Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman in Justice League and his way-more-fun spin-off movie, shared it, too. “The best part about being aquaman is that zack synder created me so i get to see all this awesome shit before anyone,” he wrote on Instagram. “@hbomax #releasethesnydercut #DCFanDome Here’s a first ever peek at Zack Snyder‘s Justice League. cheeeehuuuuuuuuu aloha j.”

“It will be an entirely new thing, and, especially talking to those who have seen the released movie, a new experience apart from that movie,” Snyder said about the new cut, which could be four hours long. That’s 34 Quibis!

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, as it’s apparently now called, hits HBO Max in 2021.

Perfume Genius shared his euphoric album Set My Heart On Fire Immediately last month but the singer is continuing to give his fans more music. In celebration of Pride Month, the singer partnered with Amazon Music to offer a cover as part of their playlist spotlighting LGBTQ musicians. As a contribution to the playlist, Perfume Genius elected to rework Mazzy Star’s 1993 track “Fade Into You.”

Mazzy Star’s original version features wistful guitar tones and lead singer Hope Sandoval’s lethargic lyrical delivery. Perfume Genius holds onto the song’s initial melancholia while reimagining it instead with slow-burning synths. “I want to hold the hand inside you / I want to take the breath that’s true / I look to you and I see nothing,” Perfume Genius soulfully croons.

About the cover, Perfume Genius explained why he chose Mazzy Star’s renowned So Tonight That I Might See album opener: “I chose ‘Fade Into You’ because I carried it with me for a long time and I always looked to it for the warmth and the very heavy vibe that it always brings. It felt almost uncoverable but I wondered what I could do to make it sharper and maybe a little more desperate but still maintain the sort of beauty of it and the quietness of it.”

Listen to Perfume Genius’ cover of “Fade Into You” via Amazon Music here.

Set My Heart On Fire Immediately is out now via Matador. Get it here.

Revisit Uproxx’s recent interview with Perfume Genius here.

Hello, Isolators! After a brief hiatus, we are back, and it is possible that you, like some NBA players here and those who will soon travel to Orlando to live in a not entirely all the way baked social experiment where at least the rules around ping-pong are explicit, are no longer self-isolating. It depends on the country you’re in, how much that government is hellbent on moving forward, the state or province, the city, honestly even the time of day. Is it imperfect? Very. Risky? That too!

What does Self-Isolation Watch look like when we are in the middle of a collage of new and shifting rules that looks like they were made by a third grader’s art class? Well, it looks like some players still at home doing the same things they have been since the end of March, some out in the streets protesting in the largest civil rights movement since the civil rights movement, and others gearing up to spend the next four months on the shores of a swamp in the strangest Self-ISO yet. It’s a weird time, dude, and I am here to wade through it with you.

Aaron Gordon

A wonderful sentiment to start with is the one Aaron Gordon shared this week from the bottom of his pool. Well, to be fair, he first set the outlook rolling as he posed mid-practice in what I am very confident is a jumpsuit. “Be water my friends,” he captioned it, ball gently cradled as if levitating. At first this elicited a very even “K” from me and, as if sensing mine and probably many more people’s reluctance to opt into an entirely new lifestyle choice right now, Gordon doubled down hard, all the way to the bottom of his pool.

There he sat, encouraging us, to do the same. “That’s why they call it the deep end,” he said. No, he didn’t say that, he was underwater.

Rating: Many questions but the first is, does water always match its shoes to its jumpsuit?

Jaylen Brown

Brown climbed up Stone Mountain just outside of Atlanta to start off one of his days this week. The feeling that I have as a result of watching him handstand toward the horizon, at sunrise, is a heady mix of sheer joy and extreme concern!

Rating: A rush for us both.

Jimmy Butler

This is a little bit old now but was the last thing Butler shared and also a Happy Birthday wish to one of his closest friends, Carmelo Anthony, so it plays. There is a real grace in the way Butler inserts himself into the celebratory moments of others, and a real joy in the way that he knows that he’s doing it.

Rating: Which is the most buried lede — Melo’s birthday, Butler’s football equipment, all that wine? Please, never solve this puzzle.

Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan

Brodie and Deebo joined the Black Lives Matter march in Compton and both spoke at the rally. Westbrook is from Long Beach while DeRozan is from Compton, and DeRozan, who can prefer to be private, has more and more been utilizing his powerful voice in recent seasons.

Rating: Chills and tears, together at last.

Kyle Lowry, Tobias Harris, Matisse Thybulle

Two Sixers and one of North Philly’s finest took to the streets with thousands more in hopes of putting another crack in that big damn bell.

Rating: I swear this was not a subtle Sixers dig.

Damian Lillard

Lillard led protests in Portland and marched throughout the day. There’s live video he recorded of the march, his voice heard as a part of the crowd in call and response, and the weight that he gives every word will make it so you never do not pay Lillard the kind of attention he deserves ever again.

Rating: And if you already weren’t I don’t know what to tell you.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

This is a very beautiful family enjoying themselves while simultaneously making every GM the league over sweat profusely.

Rating: Who are they very kindly ridiculing?

P.J. Tucker

Tucker, in life as in basketball, is always the voice of reason. In basketball, his voice is staring guys down until they gently back away from James Harden, and in life, it is calling out the anonymous bubble violation hotline for the snitch line it is.

Rating: In a court of law you should have to swear on an old Nike shoebox that used to contain a pair of P.J. Tucker’s shoes.

Bam Adebayo

What does Bam’s dog know that we don’t? Why is this dog always going to be the one to get the job opening, the last takeout special, and the only haircut cancellation for weeks?

Rating: Is this a person who is disguised as a dog or a dog with an optometrist to the stars?

Tim Hardaway Jr.

If you know self-iso then you know Hardaway has been handling it particularly well at all times. There were the few weeks where he languidly hosed down the pair of manatees that floated up to the dock in his backyard, the few weeks where he lay out on a recliner smoking a cigar and waiting for the manatees to return. With his isolation protocols just barely loosening, he took to some open cerulean waters this week to do this pose for however long he felt like.

Rating: The secret to self-isolation is to make isolation feel like it’s lucky to be alone with you.

Serge Ibaka

Brace yourselves, because Serge Ibaka let his cheekbones LOOSE. The big man got a big cut, his first in months, and his hair, wherever it is lucky enough to be around his head, is looking great.

Rating: I like to see his barber wearing gloves of course, and how entirely nonplussed Ibaka is in what we understand to be a moment of intense relief.

Paul Millsap

I was starting to miss Paul Millsap, a strong contender in the early days of ISO for the yet to be decided NBA Self-Isolation Watch MVP candidacy. The good news is he’s back. The even better news is he’s been putting down entire things of celery with the help of what ancient civilization might have called magic but we simply call a food processor.

Rating: A few more of these things and he absolutely won’t be stopped from winning it all.

Maurice Harkless

This is powerful and honest because you can see that the camera lens and the mirror maybe need a wipe, the bathroom stuff is just out there on display even with a subtle crop, but you know what no one is around to get these photos so once again, like the 90 some odd days before this, it is up to you to take your picture.

Rating: Is he awkwardly perched on the edge of the sink? Is he standing? This photo’s proportions are the newest kind of quarantine jigsaw puzzle.

Jusuf Nurkic

Nurk alert! The Bosnian Beast came through with a saying a little more lengthy and lost in translation than what Aaron Gordon was giving us from the deep end, but one that I have a hunch the majority of people reading this will be more willing to get behind.

Rating: The look he gives you in the first photo is Nurkic welcoming you to your coffee with him, the look he gives you in the second is him hearing you tell him what Aaron Gordon did.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

Caldwell-Pope skipped up to the edge of his pool and kind of blew the surprise that was coming by checking over his shoulder but when his kids showed up atop the waterfall over the pool and covered their eyes to do a synchronized dance with him it really made the roller coaster of a reveal worth it.

Rating: You can tell his son was really getting on him about making sure he worked his knees right.

Danny Green

Danny Green got engaged! On the beach! At or around sunset!

Rating: Congratulations, Danny!

Kyle Kuzma

This is cute, Kuzma put on an incredibly intricate fit to try and upstage his girlfriend, Winnie Harlow, who did the same thing but also, remember, does this for a living.

Then he went paddle boarding a little bit awkwardly, with the ankle strap firmly affixed and a tension line to grab onto, which is kind of the perfect analogy for a new relationship.

Rating: There’s a young love blossoming in the desert reference to be made here but I’m also not Sting.

Jordan Clarkson

This isn’t a food blog but Clarkson just had what looks like a really nice dinner.

Rating: I miss restaurants. The little lemon wedge plate. The overpriced bottle of sparkling water. The fries for the table. The goblet drink with a straw!

Otto Porter Jr.

Porter burned miniature rubber this week when he hit the go kart track with some (one?) friend(s). First I was going to say this seems like a good setting to wear a mask in but then I saw they were alone, with fresh air whipping into their faces at a speed of 12 miles per hour.

Rating: He really loved these karts.

Jarrett Allen

The tallest and most wonderful nerd you’ve ever seen, Jarrett Allen, built a new keyboard for himself this week. Every step had its own dedicated sequence — “KEYBOARD BUILD TIME,” “SOLDERING TIME,” “SOLDERING” (no B.S. here), “KEYCAP TIME” — and the finished product just a thing so sleek it doesn’t even have letters or numbers on it.

Rating: My heart truly cannot COMPUTE the love I have for Jarrett Allen.

Josh Hart

Even though he can’t get his favorite thing (beignets) right now, Josh Hart is making the most of it by enjoying a cup of Sno-Cone, so, a Sno-Cup.

Rating: And I hope he’s enjoying it from the comfort of his pickup truck at the pickup truck Sno-Cone Rally based on those other three trucks lined up in front of him.

Reggie Bullock

I am very ashamed to say that I either had no idea Reggie Bullock was a beautiful and talented painter or that an entire genre of fine art dedicated to painting portraits of Reggie Bullock casually dangling his legs over the abyss in a new kind of American Gothic had been invented until this moment.

Rating: Eat your heart out, the literal American Gothic.

Hassan Whiteside

Here is another dog in a car that looks like they’ve seen your future and can’t bear to have their deeply human eyes make contact with your own.

Rating: But at least Bam’s had a little bowtie on to distract you from the news.

Enes Kanter

To be fair, this was about a week ago and NOT in Orlando, but, is a pretty funny and sad and accurate depiction of what it’s going to look like, times a hundred more of these reusable packing boxes full of disinfected basketballs once everyone gets to Disney World.

Rating: How many balls must a man wash down/Before you can call them germ-free?/How many seas must the Lopez brothers sail/Before they get to ride Splash Mountain?/The answer, my friend, was probably to rescind the season/The answer was probably to rescind — Bob Dylan

Mitchell Robinson

Would it be wrong to say this seems like the most fun Mitchell Robinson has had all season? No, because he plays for the Knicks.

Rating: He caught a fish and nonchalantly walked away from it while it was still on the end of the line. Paul George, eat your heart out.

PAUL PIERCE’S PLACE

You will be relieved to know Paul Pierce has resurfaced and that it’s on a beach. He was kept away from the ocean for too long in isolation, no longer does he need to “break into” the beach itself, but is he happy? Or did he begin to live for the rush of sprinting heedless toward the waves, ignoring all cautionary signage, his mask never on properly? He wiggled his toes here, but it felt forced.

We’re still seeing fallout from one WWE developmental talent testing positive for COVID-19 after attending TV tapings, something the rest of the workers didn’t even find out about until basically when the public did. It doesn’t help matters nobody at the tapings has been wearing masks (whether or not WWE specifically told them not to). The company had to cancel tapings on Tuesday so they could test everyone for the virus, leading to chaotic and overstuffed tapings on Wednesday as they attempt to catch up. One WWE Superstar who didn’t attend those tapings, and may continue to stay home for the forseeable future, is Kevin Owens.

Fightful Select first reported that Kevin Owens has decided not to attend WWE tapings in light of Coronavirus concerns. They also added that WWE officials didn’t put pressure on him to attend when he decided not to, and that there’s reportedly no heat on him over this decision.

It would be in pretty poor taste if WWE wasn’t accepting his decision, considering that according to Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer, KO’s wife’s grandfather just recently died from COVID-19, so understandably his family would be especially concerned about the virus. Although honestly, what seems strange to me at least is how unconcerned most other people seem to be.

It was around this time last year when Vanity Fair published the first major cover story about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, even if it seems like that (and the public’s subsequent disappointment) was about 17 years ago. But it’s been long enough that the article’s writer, Lev Grossman, is now sharing what didn’t make it into the final piece.

One of the big things Grossman learned from speaking to the cast and crew is that Adam Driver wanted to explore Ben Solo/Kylo Ren’s backstory, “to show us more about why he turned to the dark side,” as the writer told Inverse Happy Hour. “[Adam] had a lot of interesting thoughts,” specifically about Ben Solo’s childhood. Grossman continued:

“This is actually something Adam Driver said. He said that both Han Solo and Leia were way too self-absorbed and into this idea of themselves as heroes to really be attentive parents in the way a young and tender Kylo Ren really needed. There wasn’t really that much of it in the movie, so I just think we have to assume his childhood sucked.”

That’s a fair assumption, and something that would have been interesting to see in The Rise of Skywalker (maybe Disney will make a Kylo prequel series about a young boy who turns to the Dark Side and becomes the ultimate evil — I don’t think that’s been covered in Star Wars before). Instead, we got Ben’s instantly iconic final words: “Ow.”

(Via IndieWire and Inverse)

Well, guess what: Perry Mason is back. Kind of. Perry Mason is kind of back. HBO is rolling out a gritty reimagining of the old Raymond Burr lawyer show from the 1950s this Sunday night, June 21. It’s got a loaded cast and a lot going on and, as we’ll get to shortly, bears little resemblance to any version of Perry Mason you might be familiar with. The show was developed and produced by Robert Downey’s production company (Downey himself was originally attached to star), and there are pieces in there that are very good and bordering on great. Unfortunately, there are also some parts of it that are… less great.

What I’m saying here is that if you, like me, were very excited about the idea of this show from the blurbs and teasers and general concept, I have some good news and bad news for you.

Good news

The cast of Perry Mason is incredible, top to bottom. Matthew Rhys plays the title character in his pre-lawyer private investigator days, all hard-scrabble and hard-boiled and unshaven and usually drunk or hungover or both. If you, like me, have been missing images of Matthew Rhys looking incredibly sad and beaten down by the world since The Americans ended its run, fear not, because there are so many shots of Matthew Rhys looking incredibly sad and beaten down by the world in Perry Mason. For such a giggly and fun man (please do watch him as himself in The Wine Show for reference), he plays downtrodden like he was born into it. His Mason is tough and troubled and burdened by a failing family farm and PTSD from World War I, and that’s before he even takes on the tough and troubling case that winds its way through the season. Matthew Rhys is good.

Also good: Tatiana Maslany as a thundering megachurch preacher whose family finds itself wrapped up in the case, too. Tatiana Maslany is the best. I’m not entirely sure she’s properly cast here, just because some of her top-end thundering doesn’t quiiiiite land, but who cares? She is such a dynamic performer, such a presence on screen, that most of the concerns fall away at some point. She does this thing where she looks at people and you can see the gears grinding away behind her eyes, revealing her true and sometimes devious intentions. She should be in more things, if not everything.

The rest of the cast is a sometimes literal murderer’s row, too. Stephen Root plays a duplicitous district attorney, John Lithgow plays the defense attorney who hires Perry to investigate, Shea Wigham plays Perry’s cohort. Put those three guys in anything and it’s going to be at least a B/B+. Chris Chalk turns in a really good performance as the one good cop dealing with the racism and corruption of 1930s Los Angeles. The real surprise here is Gayle Rankin (She-Wolf from GLOW) as a grieving mother. She’s in there with some big personalities and she holds her own in every scene. None of it really works without her pulling that off.

Bad news

This is a bleak affair. It’s all very dark and brooding, which is sensible enough for a 1930s noir, but it never really clicked for me. Some things seem to be done for shock value alone. The first 10 minutes feature a dead infant, full-frontal male nudity, and a sex scene involving food and the slathering of food that will definitely burn itself into your brain for a while. Possibly forever.

The plot slogs in places, too. Without giving too much away, it goes something like this: there’s a baby that is kidnapped and killed, there are hidden identities and corruption up through the justice system, the Tatiana Maslany mega-church gets roped in, and only Perry Mason can untangle things. It’s fine. It’s really fine. The biggest problem is that, with everyone involved (in addition to the cast, the show is helmed by Boardwalk Empire veteran Tim Van Patten, himself no stranger to violent period pieces about corruption), it feels like it should be better. I kept wanting it to be. It’s still a pretty good watch, but there’s something left on the table there.

This brings us to the larger question in all of this: why? Why are we rebooting Perry Mason, a show about a television lawyer from the 1950s, and making him a gritty private eye? I know having a familiar name can hook in a few extra viewers but a) the people who might be interested because of the old series will barely recognize the action here, and b) most of the viewers they’re shooting for are too young to be moved by the Perry Mason of it all. I wonder if this would have been better served by stripping away the IP and just making a gritty noir — everything else exactly the same — about a guy named, like, Rex Manhattan or Mick Rockledge. Those names are freebies for anyone else working on a noir project. My gift to you.

Good news

Really just a tremendous collection of mustaches in this sucker. Look.

That’s John Lithgow’s character up there sporting a bushy gray caterpillar on his upper lip. Solid, for sure, but not the best one on the show. Give me a pencil-thin old-timely mustache. Come on. Hit me.

There we go. God bless Stephen Root. The man has never been bad in anything. Newsradio, Barry, Justified, an all-around treasure. And here he is with a tiny little mustache that screams “I’m a corrupt public official who is up to no good.” It’s beautiful. Almost perfect. And still only the second-best mustache on the show. Allow me to present Shea Wigham in what I promise is a very real promotional picture that was released by HBO.

Just magnificent. If this show could have been 80 percent as successful at what it set out to do as Shea Wigham’s mustache is at what it’s doing, we could have just canceled the Emmys and dropped all the trophies off in HBO’s parking lot via dump truck. Perhaps you consider this hyperbole, or at the very least a silly and useless aside for a serious television review. I would disagree. And I stand by my statement.

Bad news

With increasingly limited options on the television and movie front due to various pandemic-related issues, I was really hoping Perry Mason could be the show that galvanizes everyone through the summer. One we could all watch and enjoy and dive too deeply into. This may have been unfair on my part. I might have been putting too much pressure on a show that wasn’t meant as a big broad smash. Again, the show is fine, good in some parts, loaded with great performances and mustaches, but it still feels like a missed opportunity.

If it does catch on, though, and it starts a trend of bringing back old detective shows from decades ago, and all that ends up getting me a fun Columbo reboot starring, say, Jake Johnson or Natasha Lyonne… well, then all will be forgiven.

BET announced the 2020 BET Awards nominations this week and as usual, a superstar artist is unhappy with their lack of nominations. Artists arguing that BET has snubbed them has become something of a tradition for the network. In 2017, Dreezy went off on BET for only nominating female rappers who didn’t even put albums out in the year before, while in 2019, Nicki Minaj was miffed at a Facebook post comparing her to Cardi B and pulled out of her appearance. This year, it looks like it’s an R&B artist’s turn to be annoyed as PartyNextDoor vented his frustration on Twitter.

“When did Black Entertainment Television get so Complex and forget Partynextdoor is the RNB artist of our generation?” he wondered. “Is it because I don’t wanna be friends? Is it because i put value in the art instead of people? Is it because it’s not the popular opinion? I am BET. I am Complex.” It seems he thinks that his recently-released album PartyMobile deserved at least a mention in the R&B category. Instead, Anderson .Paak, Chris Brown, Jacquees, Khalid, The Weeknd, and Usher were all nominated for Best Male R&B/Pop Artist, while the Album Of The Year category features strong contenders like Beyonce, Lizzo, and H.E.R.

It seems the tradition of BET making artists mad remains intact for another year, but it’s to be expected. There’s more music than ever these days and as the category field have to remain capped at some manageable number, someone is always going to end up feeling left out. As for why the BET Awards have a particular prickle factor, the answer likely lies in Black artists’ responses to their Grammy snubs. While being ignored by outsiders probably doesn’t surprise anyone, having one of the few Black-focused outlets overlook you probably stings a lot more. But no artist, including Party, should feel too hurt; he’s accomplished more than enough to feel like his spot in the game is solid. After all, he did change the modern sound of R&B forever with his self-titled debut.

Check out the Uproxx review of PartyMobile here.

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

Masks help reduce the spread of COVID-19. No one can confirm the precise percentage of reduction, but the plummeting rates in East Asian countries confirm that their take on the mask issue is working. And here in the U.S.? Well, it’s become a point of political contention with some people insisting that wearing a mask violates their personal freedom. Sadly, that mindset doesn’t take into account the health of everyone the non-mask-wearers will infect, and as a recent sentiment expressed on Twitter points out, “[M]asks aren’t exactly comfortable, but neither are bras, and a good portion of the population wears those regularly for far less important reasons.” Well, Bill Burr gets it.

During the stand-up comedian’s visit this week on The Joe Rogan Experience, Burr and host Joe Rogan dug into a number of issues, including the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. When the pandemic part of the discussion began, the The King Of Staten Island star lamented how people are out and about in the community while maskless, acting like the novel coronavirus is not a big deal. When Rogen started to coyly prod Burr on the issue, Burr immediately pushed back:

“I don’t want to start this bullshit. I’m not gonna sit here with no medical degree, listening to you with no medical degree, with an American flag behind you smoking a cigar, acting like we know what’s up, better than the CDC. All I do, is I watch the news once every two weeks — I’m like, ‘Mask or no mask? Still mask? Alright, mask! That’s all I give a f*ck about.”

The banter between the two continued…

Burr: “I just love how wearing a mask became like this f*cking like soft thing…like being courteous…”

Rogan: “It’s for bitches.”

Burr: “Why is it for bitches?”

Rogan: (Fakes weak cough)

Burr: “Oh God you’re so tough with your f*cking open nose and throat…and your five o’clock shadow. This is a man right here!”

As this Twitter user noted, Burr basically tells Rogan to “shut the f*ck up” in the most polite way possible. You can watch the full episode here, if you have three hours to spare.

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In early 2019, Ariana Grande teamed up with Starbucks for her own drink. Lately, though, there have been rumors that the relationship between the pop star and the coffee chain has soured. Starbucks recently prohibited employees from wearing Black Lives Matter clothing (a stance they later eased up on), after which people noticed Grande doesn’t follow the brand on Instagram.

Whatever the case may be, at the very least, Grande is trying out different coffee destinations. She has been shopping around in recent days: Earlier this week, she enjoyed a drink from the wizard-themed Nimbus Coffee. She also swung by South LA Cafe for an iced drink and shared a photo from her visit on her Instagram Story (as she did during her Nimbus stop). Both of those businesses are Black-owned, and South LA Cafe reported a huge increase in business following the Grande co-sign.

South LA wrote on Instagram, “Did y’all know that @arianagrande stands with the Movement for Black Lives and Black-Owned businesses like @southlacafe? We’ve been fortunate to win her over from Starbucks this past week, as well as her incredible #arianators. (Click the first pic) They showed up in full force for today’s live of the South LA Grocery Giveaway, sending big love for our mission. This is an example of people with influence and privilege using it to forward the movement. We welcome the support and are grateful to be recognized for our impact and community leadership.”

The post also notes that they served 150 people in 29 minutes following Grande bringing increased attention to their establishment, which they say is “one for the record books.”

Grande hasn’t made a public comment about her relationship with Starbucks, but as they say, money talks.