Quantcast
Channel: DailyDot Entertainment Feed
Viewing all 7080 articles
Browse latest View live

4 unforgettable life lessons from Maria on 'Sesame Street'

0
0

Sonia Manzano has spent 44 years entertaining and educating children as Maria, one of the longest-standing adult characters on Sesame Street. She announced her retirement while speaking at the American Library Association Annual Conference. Although the show has yet to make a formal announcement, Manzano has been retweeting fans’ outpouring of love and support over her departure.

In her four-decade tenure on the show, Manzano’s character has taught lots of important things to children across generations. Luckily, her life lessons will live on, thanks to YouTube. Take a look back at what Maria has taught us over the years.

1) Maria taught us about feminism

From arguing with Oscar the Grouch when he called her “little lady” to taking on a variety of jobs around the Street that were not your typical “woman’s work,” including stints as a construction worker and building superintendent, Maria showed us that women can do whatever they wanted, including dreaming about working for NASA, even while being a wife and a mother.

2) Maria taught us about love—and about staying friends with your exes

That’s right, Maria had two different love interests during her time on Sesame Street. First, in the ’70s, she was dating David, but in the ’80s she eventually fell in love with and married Luis. The show told us all about how to tell the pair were in love, and also about how Maria and David could stay friends even though they were exes.

3) Maria taught us about motherhood

Maria became a mom on the show, teaching kids about topics related to being a mom, including explaining how breastfeeding works while openly breastfeeding on the show. It’s a wonder there’s still national debate about a woman’s right to breastfeed in public when Maria did it without any qualms way back in the ’80s.

4) Maria taught us about loss

When one of the stalwarts of Sesame Street, Mr. Hooper, passed away in 1983, Maria was pivotal in a group scene that helped Big Bird understand the meaning of death. It’s a real tear-jerker, but terribly important.

H/T Variety | Screengrab via Mountain Lake PBS/YouTube


Rihanna literally slays in new 'B***h Better Have My Money' video

0
0

This article contains sexually explicit material.

Don’t mess with Rihanna.

In the artist’s new music video for single “Bitch Better Have My Money” (BBHMM), her character lugs a wealthy woman off in a trunk for bizarre, Weekend at Bernie’s–esque adventures before returning to the scene of the crime and getting the ultimate vengeance on an accountant character played by Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal).

She ends the video naked, bloodstained from head to toe, and lounging on an unholy pile of money; we’ll let the preceding seven minutes speak for themselves.

Any questions? We didn’t think so.

Screengrab via RihannaVEVO/YouTube

2 'Rick and Morty' episodes leak online a month ahead of schedule

0
0

Rick and Morty doesn’t return to TV until the end of the month, but the first two episodes of the new season made their way online shortly after the official release of the first trailer.

A redditor alerted Rick and Morty fans to news of the leak in a self post. Although the leak initially happened on a private torrent, it’s since spread to more public forums such as a Reddit default subreddit and Digg.

“Before you PM me, I don’t have any links to download,” BillFireCrotchWalton wrote. “It was leaked on a private torrent site, and I can’t just send you a link even if I wanted to. It's a popular show though, so I'm sure someone will make it publicly available soon.

Like with the Game of Thronesepisode leaks earlier this year, the leaks left fans with a giant conundrum: Do they wait until the episodes air to support the show and get a better quality image, or do they watch them now because they can’t wait a few more weeks?

Needless to say, the consensus was split.

Rick and Morty star and co-creator Justin Roilandcalled the leaks“a battle that can’t be won” on Reddit but told fans that the videos they saw online aren’t the final episodes they’ll see on Adult Swim once the season starts.

“Do as you please. The cat’s out of the bag,” he wrote. “Gotta just embrace that they're out there in the wild now. Just a heads up- these are press outputs and there are minor visual fixes and little things here and there that aren't cut into these. Not sure exactly what outstanding stuff isn't in these but I do know they aren't ‘final.’”

As to who leaked the episodes? It’s too early to say, but Roiland has an idea.

H/T Uproxx | Screengrab via Adult Swim/YouTube

Kyle Dunnigan on 'Inside Amy Schumer,' creating 'positive idiots,' and comedy's PC problem

0
0

In episode 2 of Inside Amy Schumer’s latest season, comedian Kyle Dunnigan plays a rapper named bbbrapskyle1975@yahoo.com. In typical IAS fashion, Schumer’s character turns a blind eye to this man’s very obvious flaws and literally works herself to death supporting her deadbeat boyfriend’s dreams of being a “body rapper.” Yes, he’s a human beatbox, and he's terrible. 

Dunnigan is good at playing terrible characters who are oblivious to their flaws. He’s been a writer on Inside Amy Schumer for all three seasons, but his face might also look familiar from Reno 911!, where he played serial killer Craig Pullin, a character that also grew on YouTube.

His body-rapping persona evolved from podcastProfessor Blastoff, which he cohosts with Tig Notaro and David Huntsberger. “I would just brag about how good I was at rapping, and it just caught on,” he said. He adds that they’re trying to keep Professor Blastoff  “alive” while the hosts do other projects. 

They’re currently on break from Inside Amy Schumer, but since we’re talking about evolution, I asked Dunnigan about how the show’s changed. 

“The first season was really trying to figure out what the show was,” he said. “A couple of the sketches that hit had Amy’s point of view and a… I don’t want to say feminist, but a female perspective. The second season, it was more focused on that. And the third season was pretty much the same. I mean, the first season was a mish-mash of ideas.”

Here are a few more revelations from our convo. 

On the flow of an Inside Amy Schumer sketch:

“Come in on Monday with five ideas for sketches, really in a basic format. ‘Hey, I have this idea about a hot dog vendor who keeps eating all his hot dogs.’ OK, write that up by Thursday. And then we’ll come back in and they’ll give you notes, and then you do another rewrite of it. And then everybody does the third rewrite, and we go through it line by line and everybody pitches jokes.”

Dunnigan wrote a sketch that got cut from season 1, and sadly you can’t find it online:

“You know those guys in the foxhole, the young soldiers, and there’s bombs blowing up? And he’s like, ‘Are we gonna be all right, Johnny? We’re gonna be able to go fishing like we used to, right, Johnny?’ And Johnny’s like, ‘Yeah, it’ll be fine.’ And then he gets his legs blown off in an explosion, and he was saying, ‘Oh, we’re gonna play baseball like we used to do,’ and now he can’t because he has no legs. So he’s like, ‘We can still go fishing, right?’ And then his arms get blown off, so he keeps making up new things they’re gonna go do because he keeps losing limbs. … That was the idea, but what came out was totally different. It became a meth lab that just kept exploding. Good luck trying to find that sketch.”

He wasn’t sure the 12 Angry Men sketch would go over well: 

“I was sort of against it, not in a big way, but I voiced my concern. And I was wrong. I was like, ‘Kids don't know that movie. Kids who watch Comedy Central don’t know 12 Angry Men.’ And it was the first time Amy wasn’t starring in a sketch, so it was the first time you wouldn’t see her for a while. I thought that might be kind of weird. But I was totally wrong. It got, like, the most attention. So I shouldn’t be head of a network. Don’t ever hire me.”

On the critique that Schumer has a ‘blind spot’ about race:

“From what I know of her, if [the Guardian story is] implying she’s a racist, I can say for a fact she is not, in my opinion. The writing [on the show] is definitely not like, ‘Hey, let’s take into account every race.’ It’s just from your own experience and what you find funny.”

His love for the ‘positive idiot’:

“Looking back, I tend to like characters that are kind of losers but they feel great about themselves. … So they’re, like, positive characters.”

Positive idiots?

“Positive idiots. Yeah, they don’t torture themselves. I think I torture myself a little bit, mentally, and beat myself up at times. And so I think that’s a release for me, my brain, to express that. It’s really weird when you start to analyze comedy because it’s not funny.”

On ‘gym guy’: 

“I don’t know what that’s from. I just think it’s funny when people are trying to get huge but aren’t actually ever going to the gym." 

On Jerry Seinfeld’s belief that political correctness is ruining comedy:

“I agree with him, wholeheartedly. In a way, the best things to talk about are controversial because there’s a lack of understanding, usually, on a topic. And then when you have a society that just says you can’t talk about something because it has a buzzword in it... you’re not listening to the content. ...But the idea that we can’t talk about them, even in a joking manner, I think is the wrong side of evolution, but that’s kind of what’s happened. Certain audiences, when they hear a buzzword, they equate that to offensive as opposed to listening to the content. … When Jerry Seinfeld’s saying you’re too sensitive, it’s time to really think about things."

Screengrab via Hulu

Netflix releases official trailer for Wet Hot American Summer original series

0
0

There's really nothing like Wet Hot American Summer. The 2001 spoof of cheesy 80s summer camp flicks became instant cult classic in its own right and Netflix has resurrected the project with an upcoming series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.

On Thursday, the official trailer for the series dropped on YouTube. For fans of the movie's signature absurdity, the tailer is a very promising sign that the series will be just as hilarious as the film.

The show is jam-packed with familiar faces like Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Showalter, Christopher Meloni, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Molly Shannon, Michael Ian Black, and David Hyde Pierce. The cast rounded out with new additions like Jason Schwartzman, Kristen Wiig, Judah Friedlander, H. Jon Benjamin, John Slattery, and Jon Hamm.

Created by David Wain and Showalter, both veterans of MTV's seminal sketch comedy show The State, the show tells the story of Camp Firewood, a Jewish sleep-away camp run by a group horny teenagers mostly played by actors in their 40s. It's ridiculous and unbelievable, but that's precisely the point.

The entire first season of Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, which is comprised of eight 30-minute episodes, premieres on Netflix on July 31 for your binge-watching pleasure.

Screengrab via Netflix/YouTube

YouTube's Buzzr game show channel returns with a fresh season and a brand new series

0
0

YouTube's premiere game show channel, Buzzr, is back with all new shows and a new season of crowd-favorite Password kicking off this holiday weekend.

The Steve Zaragoza-hosted series is back with a whole new set of YouTube celebrities trying to win the grand championship. Only time will tell if someone makes as grand a blooper as the Desert/Dessert drama of last season.


In celebration of the new season, Buzzr gave several journalists, including this one, a chance to try out their Password skills on the live set. When you're watching comfortable from the audience you can't understand how the contestants aren't getting all the clues, but once its you under the harsh stage lights, it's much more difficult.

Still, we gave it a valiant effort, even if our clue card was highly sexual in theme.


Buzzr also launched a new series, Celebrity Name Game, which kicks off with challenges centered on "Famous Doctors" and "Famous Villains." This ups their game shows to five total, with Body Language,Family Feud and Beat the Clock rounding out the collection.

Screengrab via Rae Votta/YouTube

Golfer Bubba Watson plans to paint an American flag on the real General Lee

0
0

When TV Land made the decision this week to stop showing reruns of "The Dukes of Hazzard" because of the Confederate flag painted on the famous General Lee, fans of the Duke brothers were less than pleased.

Now, one influential Southerner has decided to give the real General Lee what he believes is a much-needed makeover—and he has the power to do it. 

That man's name is Bubba Watson, and you might know him as the professional golfer who's ranked No. 3 in the world and the winner of two Masters titles. He also happens to own one of the real General Lee that was used on the show.

The latest furor over the Confederate flag, sparked by the June 17 mass-shooting of nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, has convinced Watson to white-wash the old flag off the roof of his car and paint something a little more patriotic.

Watson bought the 1969 Dodge Charger for $110,000 in 2012, and he tweeted at the time that it was his "dream car." 

Fortunately, there's always time to amend our dreams to satisfy the latest cultural mores. Yet, unsurprisingly, not everybody was in agreement with Watson's decision.

Even Cooter got involved.

Either way, the momentum is growing, and soon enough it seems, the symbol that so many see as racist will become an unseen relic of history (unless you happen to step into Cooter's store, apparently). The next step perhaps? Changing the moniker of the car itself. After all, we know for whom it's named.

Photo via nostri imago/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The 6 most godd*mn American movies on Netflix

0
0

The Fourth of July is a time for fireworks, barbecue, drinking, and swimming. But eventually, when the fireworks have all been lit, and day-long drinking and eating has everybody looking for somewhere comfortable to sit, there will come a time—as there always does—when watching a movie will be in order. Lucky for you, we've curated a list of six of movies that are verifiably, 100 percent all-American. 

Sorted in chronological order, the following films might be an extremely eclectic bunch, but they have one thing in common: They’ll all make you proud to be an American. And, if you’re reading this and you aren't American, don’t worry: They’re also all still quite good—unless you’re a high-ranking official in North Korea, in which case the last two might not be the best suited for you.

With all that said, God bless America, and onto the the first film (which, coincidentally, deals mainly with back-stabbing and corruption):

1) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Sometimes, if you want an artistic, cinematic interpretation of how the West was won, you need to watch a movie that was shot in Spain by an Italian director.

That director, of course, is the famous Sergio Leone. Being Italian didn’t stop Leone from being fascinated by our country’s history, including our wars, our organized crime, cowboys (just in general, really), and, in this case, the building of our railroads.

Leone’s films are grouped into the genre of “Spaghetti Westerns,” but, by the time he got around to making his fourth Western, things were far from spaghetti. He did his research, extensively, on the railroad game during the era of the Wild West for Once Upon a Time (and also on the Civil War for the film proceeding it, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), which means that, aside from the dramatic gun duels (and the dramatic, well… everything), the film doubles as both a beautiful slice of Americana art and a history lesson. 

Quentin Tarantino has named The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to be his favorite film of all time, but watching the opening 12 minutes of West (or even just the trailer) makes it quite clear that this film’s style is even more prevalent in Tarantino’s work; it may be almost 50 years old, but the film feels like it could have been shot by Tarantino in 2012. 

Yes, the film is an Italian production, but it nails the soul and legend of the Western frontier better than any American production ever has (with the possible exception of The Wild Bunch—but that one’s not streaming).

2) Rocky (1976)

Rocky is everything the American Dream is about: a man aspiring to make something of himself, doing so with nothing on his side but hard work and his own tireless dedication to his goals. 

To those who would call the plot of Rocky unrealistic and cheesy: First off, your cynicism is damaging your life, and you must get it under control ASAP, and learn to cry during sports films. Secondly: The story behind the making of Rocky is even more unlikely than that of a no-name boxer training to fight The Champ and lasting all fifteen rounds. 

Working as an usher for $36 a week, Stallone turned down the ridiculously large sum of $350,000 that was offered to him for the script he’d written, as producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff wanted a known star for the film’s lead, and he insisted that he play the lead himself. So: He turned down a six-figure offer, at a time when he had $106 in his bank account. In fact, Rocky’s dog in the film was Stallone’s own, real-life dog, and he was so poor when shopping the script around that he almost sold it, due to his inability to afford to feed it.

The producers buckled, under the condition that Stallone continue working as a writer without pay, and that he was paid at scale for his lead performance. When the project was taken to United Artists, the studio leads were appalled at the fact that a known actor wouldn’t be starring in the film, and slashed the budget from $2 million to $1 million. It was, in their view, an inevitable flop of a film.

They were wrong: The low-budget boxing film with an unknown lead actor went on to be the highest-grossing picture in 1976, and it won an Academy Award for Best Picture (the first sports film to do so).

If that’s not the epitome of the American Dream…

3) Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Yes, the film is a satire (and an extremely goofy satire, at that), but it nonetheless captures everything that was American at the birth of the ’80s, and the death of the ’70s. Taking place on the last day of summer camp in 1981, it was a time when Reagan had just taken office; America’s war on drugs, the Iran-Contra affair, the American funding of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban to fight the Russians in Afghanistan at the tail end of the Cold War, and the removal of pornography from cable television had all yet to happen. Satire or not, Wet Hot American Summer does a spot-on job of defining the tail end of a more innocent time in this country.

American Summer is, by a wide margin, the film on this list that was shit upon the most by critics upon its release. It has a critics’ rating of 31 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and the overwhelmingly poor critical response to the film kept a lot of comedy fans from catching it during its theatrical release.

There’s another score on Rotten Tomatoes, though—the Audience Score—and that currently sits at 80 percent. This is a clear-cut case of critics simply not understanding a film but its genius prevailing, letting it slowly build a diehard core of dedicated fans over the years. If you haven’t seen it, and you liked, say, Anchorman (even just a little bit), you need to stream this ASAP, preferably before the Netflix Original Series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, becomes available on July 31. 

Yes: One of the great deadpan gags of the film was that actors were playing teenagers who very clearly were not at all teenagers, and now they’ve made the followup, with every single original cast member (including Bradley Cooper) returning—now 15 years older—a fucking prequel. That’s how amazing this show/series is.

4) Top Gun (1986)

Top Gun is, quite simply, American as fuck: Jets, motorcycles, patriotism in the face of death, more cockiness per frame than perhaps any other film in existence, aviator glasses everywhere, and Tom Cruise all combine to make this film the ultimate snapshot of the Reagan-era, 1980s America—so much so, in fact, that Matthew Modine turned down the role of Maverick due to the film’s Cold War politics, and Bryan Adams refused to allow one of his songs on the soundtrack because he felt the movie glorified war.

Adams was right: The film not only glorified war, but it made engaging in air combat look like the most badass thing that a person could possibly do in life. In fact, the film was so goddamn patriotic that, as legend has it, the U.S. Navy set up recruiting booths outside the theaters—to catch audiences after viewing the film—and ended up with a record-high number of applications.

Like Rocky, the general consensus before Top Gun’s filming was that it would be an utter flop, with virtually every actor in Hollywood turning down roles in the film. But, also like Rocky, it ended up being the highest-grossing film of the year it was released. 

5) Team America: World Police (2004)

Before Trey Parker and Matt Stone took a break from making South Park to win eight Tony Awards for their musical The Book of Mormon, they made a satirical film about the War on Terror that starred marionettes (and, in one scene, cats).

No other film captures the American spirit of 2004 like Team America: World Police does. At the time, the country was still reeling from the attacks on 9/11, and we were entering our second war in retaliation for those attacks with Iraq, while still occupying Afghanistan. This was a time in which, due to France’s unwillingness to aid us in that second war, we renamed French fries “freedom fries.” The attitude of the day was “We’re America, fuck you.”

The film opens with the Team America heroes killing some terrorists in Paris, while also destroying the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre in the process. The mission is considered a glowing success, and that’s quite an accurate depiction of our foreign policy at the time.

The main antagonist of the film is Kim Jong-il, who is mercilessly ridiculed in the film. Nobody batted an eye at the prospect that North Korea’s leader could be offended by this portrayal, because this was 2004, a time when we were Americans, and anybody taking issue with us could just go fuck themselves. Things have changed slightly since then, as seen with the release of the final film on this list…

6) The Interview (2014)

In many ways, The Interview serves as a foil to Team America: World Police—it centers on a covert mission, designed to cause the least amount of international fallout as possible, and its heroes are consistently scared shitless in the face of their mission. Plus, it doesn’t have any marionettes. Oh, and the major difference: When The Interview was critical of North Korea’s leader, vague threats of terrorist attacks were made, and rather than telling them to fuck themselves, every major theater chain in the country folded and refused to screen the film. Over the course of 10 years, we’d gone from “America, Fuck Yeah!” to realizing that the War on Terror hadn’t so much ended, as it had made the world a lot scarier, and our gravitas had been reduced significantly in the face of violent, unpredictable threats being made against us. 

In a lot of ways, The Interview’s mission to quietly assassinate a world leader is a return to the days of old for our country, when our leaders would speak kindly about countries while having their leaders assassinated in ways that couldn’t be traced back to us. And, although it’s undeniably a satire, it’s an accurate reflection of our place in the world 10 years after invading Iraq.

But The Interview also has a special quality to it, and one that sets it apart from any other film in the history of American cinema: Despite the fact that major chains cancelled their screenings of it, the indie theaters that opted to go ahead and show the movie as planned ended up with lines around the block of people wanting to see the film just to stick it to North Korea. 

People came out in droves to prove they couldn’t be bullied by another nation, and it's an odd thing, but seeing The Interview in a theater was what Independence Day is all about: It was a way to show that, regardless of danger, the American people will ultimately not let another country dictate whether they’re going to see a Seth Rogen film on the big screen.

Illustration by Jason Reed



Interactive video lets you mix chemicals and see which ones make the biggest bang

0
0

BY SAM GUTELLE 

As this insane video proves, the science of chemical reactions can make for some explosive YouTube theater. If you’re looking to get a little “yeah science, bitch” this holiday weekend, head over to the BBC Brit YouTube channel, where a series of interactive videos invite viewers to find the “Biggest Bangs.”

The “Biggest Bangs” series with a central video that presents eight different chemical elements and asks viewers to select two of them through YouTube annotations. Each pair links to a separate video that shows what happens when those two elements combine. Some of them are duds, but others produce bombastic reactions, which the BBC ranks from most explosive to least. The goal is to find the two elements that together produce the biggest bang.

The video is a worthwhile addition to the collection of fun science videos available all over YouTube. And for Americans who will spend their weekend watching salvos of brightly-colored explosives, it’s a nice science lesson that explains what exactly causes things to blow up.

Now, there’s only one question left. Can you find the biggest bang? I’m certainly not going to tell you what it is. No really, I’m not going to tell you. You can go find it yourself. OK, fine. If you must know, it’s this one.

Screengrab via BBC Brit/YouTube 

Chelsea Handler celebrates her independence by wakeboarding topless on Instagram

0
0

This article contains sexually explicit material. 

The #FreeTheNipple movement continues to pick up steam as celebs like Chrissy Teigen and Miley Cyrus find creative ways to protest Instagram's murky policies on nudity, but on this day of independence, let us not forget the woman who continues to take her top off in protest, over and over

Chelsea Handler's act of July 4th protest is a "booby bonanza" she uploaded to Instagram, showing her wakeboarding topless and falling in the water in slow motion. She labeled it her "piece de resistance." 

It looks like the video has already been removed, and now just some screenshots of the video remain. 

However, she helpfully uploaded it to Twitter as well. 

H/T Death and Taxes| Photo via Fortune Live Media/Flickr (CC BY ND 2.0)

Dave Grohl's leg is still broken, so now he's performing on a throne

0
0

The Iron Throne has nothing on Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters-inspired chair of royalty.   

Grohl, who broke his leg in June during a concert in Sweden, returned to the stage Saturday in a cast to perform at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. 

Grohl performed most of his Foo Fighters set from a movable throne adorned with his band's logo. 

And here's Grohl jamming out in all his injured glory: 

H/T Uproxx | Screenshot via RTMorasonMD/YouTube

5 directors Marvel should consider for 'Black Panther'

0
0

Marvel fans, brace yourselves: The director of our dreams won't be helming Black Panther after all.

Selma director Ava DuVernay, who has spent months rumored to be the only choice for the 2017 Marvel film, told Essence she will not be directing the film due to creative differences with Marvel's strict studio system.

The magazine caught up with her at its annual Essence Festival in New Orleans, where DuVernay received an award. "I guess I'll declare my independence from this rumor on 4th of July weekend and Essence weekend!" she joked.

Although DuVernay apparently met extensively with Marvel executives and lead actor Chadwick Boseman, she said she and Marvel ultimately couldn't align their visions of the project:

I think I’ll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they’re fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me...

...In the end, it comes down to story and perspective. And we just didn't see eye to eye. Better for me to realize that now than cite creative differences later.

DuVernay was unfailingly positive about the experience and the project, stating she "loved meeting" the creative team and "will be first in line" for the finished film. But the news is a blow to fans who had considered her all but confirmed.

DuVernay's passing on the job means that Black Panther is one of three Phase Three films that are currently directorless; the other two are Captain Marvel and Inhumans. So far, the only known candidate is Anchorman director Adam McKay, who is confirmed to be under consideration to direct any of the Marvel films currently in development.

Of course, with Black Panther's focus on an East African nation and a character, T'Challa, who strides cultural borders while becoming the leader of his tribe, it's probably not the greatest idea to hire a white dude as the director. So here are some picks from us for alternate candidates we'd love Marvel to consider:

1) Dee Rees

This director has been slaying independent cinema ever since the release of her acclaimed 2007 debut short Pariah. The Tisch graduate made a name for herself directing tour de force films showcasing powerful women, like Bessie, HBO's recent biopic of Bessie Smith starring Queen Latifah, and Eternal Salvation, a look at her own grandmother's return to war-torn Liberia. 

As a documentarian with a close perspective on the challenges facing African natives who return to their home countries, Rees would be in a particularly unique position to examine the cross-cultural lens that makes T'Challa unique in the pantheon of Marvel superheroes.

2) John Singleton

The director of the iconic Boyz n the Hood has continually brought his unique aesthetic to films with multicultural elements, from 2 Fast 2 Furious to the remake of Shaft starring Samuel L Jackson. Most recently, he directed one of the most acclaimed episodes of Empire's first season, "Dangerous Bonds." The real question: Why hasn't this man been given a Marvel director's chair already?

3) Amma Asante

This director made a splash with 2013's acclaimed Belle, based on the real-life story of a mixed-race British noblewoman whose family was influential in ending slavery in England. Asante is the daughter of West African immigrants, and like Rees would be well-positioned to tell the story of T'Challa. Plus, in addition to being showered with awards, she's already made a foray into big-budget studio productions—she was briefly attached to the action thriller Unforgettable for Warner Bros. before leaving last month. Snap her up while you can, Marvel!

4) Ryan Coogler

This new director made an instant name for himself with 2013's electrifying Fruitvale Station, a dramatization of the events surrounding a 2008 police shooting starring the Fantastic Four's Michael B. Jordan. The 29-year-old genius won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and a prize for best debut film at Cannes. He's currently garnering lots of buzz for helming Creed, the first Rocky franchise installment in nearly a decade. No wonder he already seems to be Twitter's top choice to take over Black Panther.

5) Lupita Nyong'o

You probably only know Nyong'o as the Oscar-winning actress who frequently owns the red carpet, but she's actually a talented director as well. This trailer is from her 2009 film In My Genes, a documentary exploring the issues of albinism in Kenyan society. With her upcoming role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Nyong'o has the same geek cred as other Marvel directors who've come before her. Not only that, but she's the only A-list director we know who actually hails from the same region of the world as T'Challa: His fictional nation state of Wakanda borders her sometimes-home of Kenya.

H/T Comics Alliance | Screengrab via DP/30: The Oral History of Hollywood/YouTube

Philly's mayor literally drops the mic on 'Rapper's Delight'

0
0

The Roots played a hometown show last night in Philadelphia, and a very special guest joined them onstage to literally drop the mic. 

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter joined the band at July Jam, and proceeded to lay down an energetic version of the Sugarhill Gang's classic "Rapper's Delight, complete with mic drop. 

And you can actually call it a comeback: Mayor Nutter performed the song with the Roots back in 2012, with DJ Jazzy Jeff in 2010, and at his inauguration in 2008. 

H/T Vulture | Photo via Knight Foundation/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

U.S. women win first World Cup since '99

0
0

Against China in the quarterfinals and against Germany in the semifinals, Carli Lloyd had to wait until late in the game before scoring her heroic goals and shooting her American teammates into the next round of the Women's World Cup.

But in the finals on Sunday, with the United States hoping to avenge its World Cup title loss to Japan from four years earlier, Lloyd went ballistic in the first 16 minutes, scoring a hat trick and helping give the Americans a four-goal lead early in the first half en route to a 5-2 win.

It's the first time in women's soccer history that a country has won three World Cup titles, and for the Americans, this year's crown will be added to the titles from 1991 and 1999.

Lloyd, who's been the hero so many times for the U.S. in this World Cup, scored twice in the first five minutes of the game, and Japan had no answers as the game slipped away just as fans were getting settled into their seats. It's the fastest hat trick ever in a Women's World Cup game.

The first.

The second.

And with the Japanese defense and goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori on their heels—and probably in a state of shock—and after Lauren Holiday knocked in her own score, Lloyd did this. 

According to Fox, that final blast from Lloyd covered 54 yards.

And just because we're not a website that only features heroics from Lloyd, here was Holiday's blast to the back of the net.

In the 27th minute, the Japanese got on the scoreboard with a goal from Yuki Ogimi, and they struck again early in the second half off a set piece when the ball struck American defender Julie Johnston in the head and bounced past goalie Hope Solo to cut the American lead to 4-2. 

The U.S. and Tobin Heath, though, responded thusly.

While the Americans had been disappointing for much of this tournament—they continuously won but were somewhat underwhelming —Lloyd was always in the right place to pick up her teammates and send them forward in the tournament. In part, that was because of Megan Rapinoe's yellow-card accumulation suspension for the China game that forced American coach Jill Ellis to put Lloyd in a position to be more aggressive on offense.

Against China, Lloyd's header into the net in the 51st minute provided the only goal of the game, and vs. Germany, Lloyd's successful penalty kick was the first score in the U.S's 2-0 victory.

After the unreal first 16 minutes of action, the Internet paid homage to Lloyd and her teammates.

In the 79th minute, with the game well in hand, Abby Wambach—one of the all-time American greats who had been relegated to the bench for the past few games—was inserted into the contest to take her own personal victory lap.

And who was the player who gave up her on-field captain's armband to place it on Wambach as soon as she stepped onto the pitch? You could probably guess.

Photo via Fox Sports

John Oliver recorded some 'shallow dives' to tide you over while he's on break

0
0

We're used to John Oliver picking up the slack from cable news and doing 20-minute deep-dives into controversial topics. But hey, we just had a holiday weekend, and even comedy news anchors are entitled to some vacation time.

Instead of a regular episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver posted a rapid-fire round of frivolous news stories this Sunday.

Dogs? Good. Bagels? Donuts that gave up on their dreams. Flip-flops? Lingerie for foot fetishists. (That's certainly one to ponder during the summer months.) Oliver crammed an impressive number of topics into this mini-episode, and unlike most of his serious fare, none of them are remotely meaningful.

It's exactly the kind of coverage we need to get us into the spirit of the summer.

Even when he's covering totally pointless non-news "news" stories, Oliver is still somehow better than most TV anchors. One week without a real Last Week Tonight episode is one week too many.

Screengrab via Last Week Tonight/YouTube


Britney Spears re-created the cover of 'Oops!... I Did It Again' with her sons

0
0

Over the weekend, Britney Spears recreated the album cover for Oops!... I Did It Again with her sons at Disneyland, because that’s what family does on July Fourth weekend. 

The Spears hit, which just turned 15 years old in May, defined new millennium pop and edged her away from bubblegum of 1999 hit “...Baby One More Time.” The single's cover was fairly innocent, but the video became source material for countless parodies and tributes

So now, 15 years later, Spears is essentially parodying herself, and the circle is complete. 

Screengrab via BritneySpearsVEVO/YouTube | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III 

Fireworks accident claims the life of former Disney World performer

0
0

Devon Staples, who used to perform as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast at Disney World, died on July 4 when he accidentally lit a firework on top of his head.

Devon Staples’ brother, Cody Staples, told theNew York Daily News that Devon, 22, was playing with a mortar tube on top of his head while he held a lighter and that he accidentally set off the firework.

“There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there,” Cody Staples, who said he was standing five feet away from his brother at the time, told the newspaper. “It was a freak accident … But Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh.”

While YouTube commenters and other unsubstantiated reports linked Staples to the Gaston who went viral because of a successful arm-wrestling contest caught on video or to this flirty Gaston, Staples doesn’t appear to be either of those men.

Instead, Staples’ version of Gaston doesn't look or sound like the other two characters, as seen in this video posted to Staples’ Facebook page.

Wrote his fiancée Kara Hawley—who was engaged on Feb. 2, according to her Facebook page—“Devon ... never forget and will never be forgotten I Love You and Always will.”

Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for Maine’s Department of Public Safety, told the Orlando Sentinel that Staples and his friends were drinking alcohol and lighting fireworks in the backyard of a friend’s home in Calais, Maine. Staples is reportedly the first to die from a fireworks accident since the state legalized them in 2012.

“He loved making people happy,” Cody Staples said of his brother. “He was someone everyone should want to be like when they grow up. He was my younger brother, and I looked up to him.”

H/T WUSA 9 | Photo via JWL Media/YouTube

Gorillaz singer Damon Albarn carried off stage after 5-hour festival set

0
0

It’s summer festival season, and you know what that means: enjoying a five-hour performance from Blur and Gorillaz singer Damon Albarn. 

That’s apparently what happened at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark this weekend. Albarn, who was performing with Africa Express, covered Randy Newman and jammed Gorillaz hit “Clint Eastwood” with rapper Shystie. As a bit of foreshadowing, he also performed the Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go,” then returned to that song’s chorus later as security attempted to get him to leave the stage around 4am. 

In the clip, a security guard approaches Albarn, who’s initially behind a piano, and attempts to break him out of his marathon performing trance. But Albarn’s not ready. After what feels like another five hours, he’s finally carried offstage like a cartoon character. 

What an odyssey.  

H/T Telegraph | Photos via Mike Mozart/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Bill Ebbesen/Wikipedia (CC BY SA 3.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

Download the 5 best rap mixtapes of 2015

0
0

Free, online mixtapes may be outliving their function to rap music. Buzz is almost exclusively attained with hot singles, and albums are now getting released with no promotional push. It's hard out here.

For a period, a mixtape uploaded to Datpiff or Livemixtapes could be a showcase for newbies and veterans alike. They could liberally borrow 10 of the hottest rap songs of the moment and embarrass the original artist on his or her own project. In 2015 however, not only would a rapper be hard-pressed to even find 10 recent, hot rap songs, but by the time they finished the project, eight of those songs would be stale as last night’s beer. Just ask Lil Wayne. Instead of jacking for beats on a mixtape, rappers just upload a rushed “freestyle” on their YouTube page before the original hit falls off the trending topic list.

Mixtapes can still serve a purpose. The channel of releasing unencumbered music straight to an audience is starting to find a home in other genres, which is at least in part why three of these five mixtapes below are by rappers who sing or singers who rap. R&B artists can use mixtapes to explore places they can’t go on an album, or to leave unfinished half-thoughts that would never fully be fleshed out. Meanwhile, a lot of rappers are basically uploading 22 outtakes to a single file and calling it a day.

But until fun and great rapping are extinguished from free online rap mixtapes, I’ll keep listening. And after listening this year, these are the best five rap tapes of 2015. (So far.)

1) Future - 56 Nights

After the Atlanta rapper, singer, fire marshal, and astronaut Future released his sophomore album Honest in 2014, there was a widely held sense that he had fallen off. The album had received a fraction of the commercial and critical acclaim of his debut, and Future looked like he’d run out of magic. He cheated on R&B goddess Ciara in real life and in the process lost the “Future mystique” he’d cultivated in dungeons and outer space. But like a supervillain origin story, Future embraced his dark side with whining, brooding, unrepenting mixtapes called Monster and Beast Mode.

The best iteration of this new Future aesthetic, at least thus far, is on his most recent tape, 56 Nights. The title is inspired by the amount of time Future’s DJ, DJ Esco, spent in a Dubai jail, but the theme of the tape is much closer to escapism than incarceration. It’s all drugs and debauchery. Future still wears the monster mask that allows him to be completely uninhibited, and his flows are just as feral. He’s not rapping circles around the competition, he’s rapping in spheres and trapezoids from start to finish.

The production is handled almost exclusively by Southside, head of the sprawling Atlanta production team 808 Mafia. The trippy siren noise from Quincy Jones’s theme song for the 1960s TV series “Ironside” (best known today from appearing in Kill Bill, Vol. 1) that was used like a damn dancehall airhorn on last year’s “Fuck Up Some Commas” is muffled throughout 56 Nights. In the course of nine songs and a fictional three fortnights, the production sounds like science-fiction cinema. Future doesn’t alienate his audience though, with both “March Madness” and “Trap N***as” standing alone as radio singles.

2) T-Pain - The Iron Way

Everyone deserves a second chance, perhaps no one more so than T-Pain. The Tallahassee, Florida, singer became associated with the worst, fake-lowbrow aspects of Auto-Tune just as the voice-tuning technology was accepted as a medium for high art. He was even ridiculed by Kanye West in front of a star-filled studio with backup singers, which is the most devastating act to a person’s confidence imaginable. But T-Pain defied all odds and returned this year with his first release since 2012’s mixed-bag mixtape Stoic.

The Iron Way is beautifully anachronistic to most rap and R&B trends while never sounding outdated, and it’s not just because of the features from younger rappers, more established artists, and others influenced by Caribbean sounds. The tape is fun and full of pent-up bravado, with T-Pain unbuttoning his shirt and hop-scotching all over these club tracks. He’s a much better rapper and singer than most people give him credit for, but he also knows what sounds best. That’s why there’s still Auto-Tune after he showed off how amazing his voice is with no effect, and why Pain handles a lot of the production himself. T-Pain will always deserve another chance, but I’m not so sure society does, after the way we treated him the first go-around.

3) K Camp - One Way

The best rappers in 2015 are intertwining melodies into their wordplay, like Future, Fetty Wap, and Young Thug. Just below that top tier is Atlanta’s K Camp, who had a gold single in 2013 with “Cut Her Off.” Some of that song’s success is because of the 2 Chainz feature on the remix, but Camp has spent the time since then proving he’s a lot more than a one-hit-wonder. He cashed in on “Cut Her Off,” as well as his other early hit “Money Baby,” by sticking those two songs at the end of an EP he released on iTunes last year, which in turn spawned a couple more singles. This year he dropped a new mixtape One Way, which could and should be good enough to force Interscope Records to put out the album that was announced to drop this year then never heard from again.

K Camp is a rapper first, but his biggest talent is writing hooks. Even on his most technical and lyrical numbers, the hook is what leaves the most lasting impression. Camp shows off the full span of his hit-making ability on One Way and maybe paves the way for him to focus on singing. “Lil Bit” stretches a lot out of the chorus and the melody that’s repeated on every bar. “1Hunnid” is still K Camp rapping, but with some added inflection over the bouncy, summery beat. “Marilyn Monroe,” on the other hand, is a fully realized R&B love song with some of his best songwriting. Camp’s newest single “Comfortable” puts all these elements together with multiple flows in his verses and an arresting, soaring hook. Both “Lil Bit” and “Comfortable” are slated to be on K Camp’s debut album, which might come out.

4) RJ & Choice - Rich Off Mackin

The West Coast is still eating off the minimal, futuristic sounds of mid-2000s Bay Area hyphy music. The L.A.-based star producer DJ Mustard has acknowledged the impact of hyphy just as newer Bay artists have accused him of pilfering it. But most every hyphy song, from “Hyphy” to “Super Hyphy,” is on the Internet for anyone’s taking. And until people stop requesting Mustard songs on the radio, the producer hilariously aptly named Dijon will keep eating off this sound. There is a feeling that Mustard has run out of juice with only a couple songs on the radio instead of 10, but there are still a lot more combinations to arrange the handful of synth sounds he uses to make beats.

Both RJ and Choice (FKA Royce the Choice) have been making music with Mustard for a while–RJ has a solo mixtape from earlier this year with production from Mustard–but Rich Off Mackin is a more convenient setting. Rather than carrying 22 songs on his own, RJ shares duties on each of these 15 tracks, nine of which have another featured guest. These are much better serving sizes. It all adds to the party vibe with RJ and Choice’s raps about chasing girls and not fucking with anyone who doesn’t share their perspective. RJ is usually blunt, leaning on his straightforward flow and letting the beat do the heavy lifting, but he sounds like he’s spitting the slickest pimp talk compared to Choice. Still, they get to where they’re going. Even more transcendent than the club bangers are the lidded R&B tracks made for neighborhood park cookouts—smoothing out the two unpolished West Coast rappers. Rough edges don’t belong in a California summer or potato salad.

5) Travis Porter - 3 Live Krew

It has been more than 25 years since the seminal Miami bass album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew. That was before any of the three members of Travis Porter were born, but there is a living spiritual connection between the two groups, if only their shared ambition to get butts to move. Travis Porter could have actually created so much more synergy had they used any 2 Live Crew song as either an instrumental or the baseline for a remix here. That said, there is a dope flip of the Miami bass classic “Scrub the Ground.” Travis Porter tends to get lost in the mix when discussing Atlanta music, but they prove here why the group is so quietly influential. The middle of this tape–with banger after banger recreating the energy from the ground up–is the most fun you'll have with rap music in 2015. (So far.)

Screengrab via FutureVEVO/YouTube

The best new movies and shows on Netflix in July

0
0

We here at the Daily Dot are big fans of streaming TV and movies, but we also know how easy it is to become overwhelmed by the massive lists of Netflix’s comings and goings each month. Here’s our curated take of what’s new on Netflix this month.

July 2015

1) An Honest Liar (July 1)

Stage magician James Randi has spent the last several decades using his knowledge of illusion and deception to debunk self-proclaimed psychics, faith healers, and other con artists who use their skills to prey on the emotionally vulnerable. An Honest Liar chronicles Randi’s long career as an icon of reason and skepticism, including his frequent appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and his crusading attempts to make life difficult for people like spoon-bending celebrity psychic Uri Geller. In addition to the main attraction of Randi himself, the filmmakers also interview luminaries from the worlds of magic, science, pop culture, and skepticism, including “Science Guy” Bill Nye, MythBuster Adam Savage, illusionists Penn & Teller, and rock legend Alice Cooper.

2) Set Fire to the Stars (July 1)

British TV helmer Andy Goddard (Torchwood) makes his feature directorial debut with Set Fire to the Stars, which stars co-writer Celyn Jones as legendary Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. (One of Thomas’ best-known works was “Do not go gentle into that good night,” which featured prominently in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.) Elijah Wood co-stars as John Malcolm Brinnin, a meek poetry professor who gets the chance to host his literary hero, Thomas, during a weeklong visit to the States. Brinnin’s uptight nature clashes with Thomas’ heavy drinking and larger-than-life hedonism, and the trip soon becomes an object lesson in why it’s sometimes best not to meet your idols.

3) Knights of Sidonia: Season 2 (July 2)

Netflix boasts a decent selection of anime, but in 2014 it expanded the variety of its Netflix Originals catalog with Knights of Sidonia, based on the manga series by Tsutomu Nihei. Knights is set in the year 3394, a millennium after the Earth was obliterated by a race of giant alien monsters and the remnants of mankind regrouped and fled, Battlestar Galactica–style. The Sidonia is the last-known surviving ship of this exodus, a massive vessel populated by over 500,000 people. Having grown to adulthood living in the bowels of the ship and training on a mech simulator, the heroic Nagate Tanikaze is perfectly suited to join the fight when the deadly Gauna creatures threaten his home once again.

4) Faults (July 3)

Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a strong-willed cult member kidnapped and forced into a round of deprogramming at the behest of her desperate parents. Her guide back to “normality” is Ansel Roth (Leland Orser), one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of mind control. Suffice to say, Claire isn’t giving up her convictions without a fight, and the power struggle between the two makes Faults both funny and ferocious. Faults premiered at South by Southwest in 2014 and balances dark humor and satire against more serious commentary about manipulation and brainwashing. Winstead in particular has been singled out for giving perhaps the best performance of her career thus far. It currently holds an 88 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

5) Monsters: The Dark Continent (July 9)

Gareth Edwards’ understated creature flick Monsters posited a world where huge, tentacled alien beasts had overtaken much of Mexico, forcing the country into military quarantine. Monsters was a deliberately paced, ground-level look at fantastic events, even holding off the really good looks at the creatures until the film’s climax (a trick he repeated with Godzilla). This sequel runs counter to that philosophy in just about every way. Set 10 years after the first Monsters, The Dark Continent takes a more action-oriented approach that drops four soldier friends into a Middle East positively swarming with the alien creatures. So long, character work and nuance; hello, explosions and monster stampedes.

6) Serena (July 9)

Based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Ron Rash, Serena stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as a pair of newlyweds running a timber company in Depression-era North Carolina. Anyone who saw Cooper and Lawrence’s chemistry in Silver Linings Playbook would be excited to see the actors playing an on-screen couple again, but unfortunately the pair’s performances are one of the only things critics praised about Serena. It’s rocking a cringe-inducing 20 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment, so if you’re curious, watch it for Cooper and Lawrence and moderate your expectations appropriately. (Fun fact: Serena was originally going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky and star Angelina Jolie.)

7) Creep (July 14)

The found-footage horror/comedy Creep stars co-writer director Patrick Brice as a videographer who answers a cryptic Craigslist ad from Josef (co-writer Mark Duplass), a terminally ill man who wants someone to film him in a series of videos for his unborn son. The situation soon takes a turn for the, well, creepy when it becomes clear that Josef may be… shall we say “less than stable.” Creep scared its way to a 91 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, earning positive reviews from outlets such as the Hollywood Reporter and Indiewire. Bonus points if you pretend Duplass is playing his character from The League the whole time.

8) Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau (July 14)

Director Richard Stanley was fired by New Line a mere three days into filming his 1996 attempt to bring H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau to the big screen. Things didn’t get any better from there. John Frankenheimer stepped into the vacated director’s chair, but he faced a sea of troubles that included script problems, production delays, and a pair of uncooperative egos named Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. The end result is one of the worst movies ever made...which, thankfully, makes for a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary. In addition to revisiting the shitshow that was The Island of Dr. Moreau’s actual shoot, Lost Soul examines Stanley’s original vision for the film, including his plans for Bruce Willis to play the role that eventually went to Val Kilmer.

9) Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (July 15)

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus tells the story of Dr. Hess Green (Stephen Tyrone Williams), a respected anthropologist who is inflicted with a hunger for blood after an encounter with a cursed African artifact. Director Spike Lee actually turned to Kickstarter to fund Da Sweet Blood of Jesus—a first for Lee—and the movie was filmed in only 16 days.

Lee describes this particular “joint” as being about “Human beings who are addicted to blood. Funny, sexy and bloody. A new kind of love story (and not a remake of Blacula).” It received a VOD release this past February, just in time for Valentine’s Day. And am I the only one disappointed that it isn’t a remake of Blacula though?

10) Changeling (July 16)

Based on strange-than-fiction real-life events, Changeling stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a woman in 1920s Los Angeles whose son vanishes. Her relief when the LAPD announces they have found him is soon dashed by the discovery that the kid they bring forward isn’t actually her boy—even if they keep insisting he is. Soon the scandal-plagued department is trying to shut her up and brush the case under the rug, but Collins never gives up hope or stops trying to find her son. Writer J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Netflix’s Sense8) spent a year researching the real-life Collins case, and even included newspaper clippings in copies of the script to remind people that this bleak and bizarre story was based on true events.

12) BoJack Horseman: Season 2 (July 17)

Easily the weirdest original show in Netflix’s stable, BoJack Horseman stars Will Arnett as the titular Horseman, a washed-up sitcom star in a world where humans share the planet with anthropomorphic animals who are apparently not very creative when it comes to choosing last names. BoJack is eager to try and rekindle his fame, just like any other has-been celebrity—horse-headed or neigh. In addition to Arnett, BoJack Horseman’s impressive voice cast includes Amy Sedaris, Paul F. Tompkins, Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Patton Oswalt, Stanley Tucci, J.K. Simmons, and Community’s Alison Brie as BoJack’s ghostwriter/love interest. Season 2 also adds Friends star Lisa Kudrow into the mix.

13) Tig (July 17)

On Aug. 3, 2012, comedian Tig Notaro walked on stage at Largo in Los Angeles and opened her set with these words: “Good evening, hello, I have cancer. How are you?” The crowd laughed, expecting a bit. Instead, Notaro delivered a set that has become justifiably legendary in the standup world, with the comic opening up about her diagnosis, only days before, of invasive stage II breast cancer. The documentary Tig explores Notaro’s fight against her illness, her reignited career in the wake of that unforgettable Largo set, and even her finding love in the wake of a dark and difficult time. On a related note, you should definitely listen to Tig’s bit about how she is cosmically bonded to former ’80s teen pop icon Taylor Dayne.

14) Teacher of the Year (July 23)

“Surrounded by the eccentric faculty of Truman High School, Mitch Carter wins the California Teacher of the Year award and immediately receives a tempting offer that may force him to leave his job.” Key and Peele’s Keegan-Michael Key co-stars as a character named Ronald Douche (pronounced “doo-shay”), so on the surface this flick could easily be a trainwreck. However, Teacher of the Year did well on the festival circuit, the reviews currently listed on Rotten Tomatoes are mostly positive, and the trailer actually looks like this one might be worth your time. Honestly, I’d check it out for Key’s presence alone, but throwing the Sklar Brothers into the mix just cements the deal.

15) The Guest (July 25)

Director Adam Wingard gave the world the outstanding 2011 slasher flick You’re Next. With 2014’s The Guest, Wingard reunited with You’re Next screenwriter Simon Barrett for a thriller about a family mourning the loss of their oldest son, Caleb, a soldier who died in Afghanistan. When a stranger named David shows up claiming to be a friend of their late son, the family embraces him and welcomes him into their home. David is polite, helpful, and seemingly a great guy… but events soon begin to suggest that he harbors dark secrets and a violent streak that could put the entire family in danger. (July 25 is a long way away, so we highly recommend checking out Wingard’s You’re Next in the meantime if you haven’t already.)

16) Comet (July 28)

I’m a sucker for Emmy Rossum, but ever since Tusk, I can’t see Justin Long without subconsciously superimposing the walrus mustache back onto his upper lip. That’s bound to interfere with my enjoyment of this high-concept romantic comedy/drama that explores a six-year star-crossed relationship in non-linear fashion. Writer/director Sam Esmail received a “story by” credit on the 2014 found-footage horror flick Mockingbird, and more recently he created the thriller series Mr. Robot for USA. If nothing else, the fact that this isn’t a guy I’d expect a rom-com from intrigues me, and Comet looks to be playing with stylistic and narrative flourishes that could be interesting. Plus, let’s be honest: I’ll follow Emmy anywhere.

17) Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (July 31)

Wet Hot American Summer was a flop when it was released in 2001, but it’s since become a cult classic thanks to a script that deftly skewers ’80s teen sex comedies and a dynamite ensemble cast that includes Paul Rudd, Janeane Garofalo, Elizabeth Banks, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Molly Shannon, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Poehler, to name just a few. A decade and a half later, Netflix is taking viewers back to Camp Firewood in this prequel series. And yes, you can be sure there will be plenty of jokes about the fact that the “teenage” cast is now several decades past their first pimple. First Day of Camp is set earlier in the same summer explored in the original movie, and includes appearances by Jon Hamm, Chris Pine, Jason Schwartzman, Kristen Wiig, Judah Friedlander, Michael Cera, and “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Screengrab via Netflix UK and Ireland/YouTube

Viewing all 7080 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images