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Walking Excel spreadsheet David Zaslav has been winning over film fans and critics after his ascension to CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery by shelving completed films, gutting streaming services, and now firing the leadership of Turner Classic Movies. Those fired include executive VP and general manager Pola Changnon; senior VP of programming and content strategy, Charles Tabesh; VP of brand creative and marketing Dexter Fedor; VP of enterprises and strategic partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy; and director of studio production Anne Wilson. In other words, all the people who made the programming decisions for one of the few remaining bastions of mainstream cinephilia.

The grotesque move — potentially an opening salvo before shuttering the channel completely or turning it into HGTV8 — is one more blow to movies made before 1985 and public film education. TCM is a cultural touchstone still very active in birthing new cinephiles and deepening an appreciation for films of all kinds. It’s also one more item on the chopping block toward the widgetification of art under Zaslav’s leadership.

In fact, Zaslav’s anti-movie decision has united Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson in setting up an emergency call with the CEO to see what can be done to 1) keep the leadership and 2) save TCM. It’s unclear what it might accomplish, but at the very least it looks like Warner Bros. Discovery has made some heavy enemies.

Hilariously, this all comes on the heels of Zaslav claiming that he wants Warner Bros. to be a safe haven for directors — a go-to studio for the best storytellers in the world. How’s that going so far, Mr. Zaslav?

(via IndieWire)

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The world awaits word of any discoveries regarding the missing Titanic tourists aboard the OceanGate submersible. Well, everyone besides the stepson of British billionaire Hamish Harding, who decided that a Blink-182 concert was worth attending in the meantime. Then the aforementioned son started beefing with Cardi B, all while information has continued to surface about numerous red flags in the vessel’s previous operations.

A former passenger of OceanGate is now speaking out to further confirm red flags’ existence, and in doing so, 60-year-old Arthur Loibl spoke with Germany’s Bild. Loibl described his experience as akin to a “suicide mission,” for which he paid around $110,000. In 2023, the missing passengers paid $250,000 so yes, inflation is bad. Being stuck in a floating coffin for that price is even worse. Via the New York Post, Loibl offered this insight after one submarine didn’t work, and another dive was abandoned shortly after launch, followed by this mess:

Loibl explained that they ended up launching five hours late due to electrical issues — which he suspects is to blame for the Titan crews’ current predicament.

Not only that but right before the voyage, the bracket of the stabilization tube — which balances the sub — tore and had to be “reattached with zip ties,” he said.

As such, he is praying for the safe return of all parties aboard the sunken sub. “It must be hell down there. There’s only 2.50 meters of space, it’s four degrees, there’s no chair, no toilet,” Loibl described.

By all accounts, the four passengers and one crew member have less than two days’ worth of oxygen remaining. The entire world appears to have sent search-and-rescue assistance, and one can probably expect accounts to keep popping up. One bullet was dodged, however, by 61-year-old Chris Brown, who told The Sun that he nearly set off on a voyage also attended by Hamish Harding, but “[w]e decided the risks were too high in this instance, even though I’m not one to shy away from risk.” Surely, Brown, who had suspicions regarding the “steering apparatus,” is breathing a sigh of relief.

(Via New York Post & The Sun)

The 2023 XXL Freshman Class was revealed today, and many fans who checked it out found themselves with one major question: Where is Ice Spice?

It’s hard to deny that the “Princess Diana” rapper had earned the spot; after her song “Munch” went viral on TikTok last year, she skyrocketed to nationwide ubiquity, such that any woman who had curly orange hair was subjected to calls of “Ice Spice!” from passing teens in public.

She was paired up with Drake via AI, collaborated with Nicki Minaj on the remix of the aforementioned “Princess Diana,” pitted against the 2022 it-girl Latto in a made-up beef by fans of Nicki Minaj, and admitted that even she was shell-shocked by her sudden fame. She even collaborated with Taylor Swift, arguably the biggest pop star on the planet. So…

Why Is Ice Spice Not In The XXL Freshman Class For 2023?

It’s hard to say because Ice Spice herself has yet to address the list herself. But prior lists also had fans up in arms, such as in 2020, when Don Toliver did not appear on the list or even in 2009, the list that coined the “Freshman” terminology, when Drake was overlooked. The next year, Nicki Minaj was also left off. In those cases, there were a variety of reasons given by XXL‘s editorial staff. While they just straight-up whiffed on Drake — sorry, Datwon, you know what you did — Nicki deemed herself too big to be established to be considered a “freshman” in hip-hop in 2010.

Likewise, Don Toliver flat-out declined appearing on the 2020 list because he didn’t want to participate in any of the peripheral content, according to XXL Editor-In-Chief Vanessa Satten. He and Nicki are not the only artists to turn down the honor, either. ASAP Rocky, Juice WRLD, Post Malone, and Young Thug all opted out and all wound up being huge stars anyway. Ice Spice may have turned down the cover because she’s already achieved greater publicity than she believes in can bring or to give that opportunity to artists who may “need” it more, or perhaps she’s just too busy to carve out the time needed for the photo shoot, freestyle, cypher, and tour that accompany it these days.

Either way, she seems to be doing alright without it, and will likely continue to be a star as long as she keeps dropping inescapably catchy songs and getting opportunities like the Barbie soundtrack.

Past Lives is one of the best movies of the year. But you knew that already. And if you didn’t: the A24 film has a 97 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and even though we’re months away from so-called “awards season,” it’s already being considered for Oscars. But that’s not what this blog is about. It’s about social media. Before you boo me off the stage, please let me explain.

Growing up in South Korea, Nora (played by Greta Lee — who is having 2023 to remember with Past Lives and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — as an adult and Seung Ah Moon as a child) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo and Seung Min Yim) are childhood friends and burgeoning sweethearts until Nora’s family moves to Canada. Twelve years later, seemingly sometime in the mid-2000s, she’s living in New York City and he’s still in South Korea, and they haven’t spoken since their nearly wordless goodbye when they were kids. But they still occasionally think about each other, especially Hae Sung, who tries to get in touch with Nora on her dad’s Facebook page. It works: Nora messages him on Facebook, they reconnect on Skype, and the movie takes off from there.

Two things kept going through my mind while I was watching Past Lives. The first: when am I going to cry? (The final 10 minutes, it turns out.) The second: remember when social media wasn’t a necessary evil? Facebook is a safe space (but don’t use those words) these days for racist memes, pivoting to video, and election interference, but around the time this section of the movie takes place, it was a wholesome way to chat with friends, poke your crushes, and post AIM-ass song lyrics. I’m trying to not be nostalgic for a social media platform that began as a way to choose which of two girls was hotter, but watching Past Lives, I did fondly recall signing up for Facebook.

It was the summer of 2005, after I graduated high school and before I started college. I was visiting SUNY Purchase for a freshman orientation, and someone in the dorm that I would eventually live in told me about this website called Face-something? -nook, maybe? The moment I got home from the orientation, I fired up my mom’s desktop computer (shout out to the hours I spent playing Snood on that thing) and signed up. Before long, I was befriending the people I just met, and anyone with the same last name as me.

Past Lives took me back there like a cinematic Facebook Memory, before one of the world’s richest people bought Twitter and made “cis” a slur to own the libs, or something. Through Nora and Hae Sung, the movie shows the promise of what social media could be — a way for people to connect — and mercifully leaves out what it’s become. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to publish this, put it on Facebook, and stare dead-eyed at the screen until someone likes it.

‘Past Lives,’ which was written and directed by Celine Song, is in theaters now

Earlier in the day on Wednesday, a report from Shams Charania of The Athletic indicated that the Boston Celtics were trying to figure out a way to get Kristaps Porzingis from the Washington Wizards via him opting into the final year of his contract. Not long after that report hit the internet, Charania brought word that a trade was close to being completed, one which involved a third team getting pulled into the mix.

According to Charania, the Celtics and Wizards were in discussions with the Los Angeles Clippers about a deal that would center around Porzingis opting in and going to Boston, while Malcolm Brogdon would go to L.A. and Marcus Morris Sr. would head to Washington — along with Danilo Gallinari to make the financials work.

Not long after, Charania and Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe reported that the deal was in the final stages of getting done, with those three players involved and draft compensation heading to D.C., including the 30th overall pick from the Clippers. Adrian Wojnarowski added that Amir Coffey was also headed to the Wizards.

Porzingis has one year left on his contract that will pay him approximately $36 million before he’s able to hit unrestricted free agency next summer. While the Wizards would need to figure out how Morris fits into their plans after the Bradley Beal trade, he could presumably be either a veteran who helps the franchise’s next era or gets moved to a team that wants to compete right now. Brogdon joined Boston last year from the Indiana Pacers, and while he became the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, reports indicated that the team was looking to take players from its bloated guard rotation and bolster the roster elsewhere.

With the first episode of Secret Invasion now streaming on Disney+, Emilia Clarke has officially entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and man, does she love how much easier it is to keep secrets than it was during her Game of Thrones days. The actress plays G’iah, the daughter of Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos and a Skrull freedom fighter who finds herself caught up in a vast global conspiracy that brings Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury out of hiding.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s so much easier now because whenever it comes up or people want to ask, you just get to be like, ‘Dude, Marvel. I can’t say anything,’” Clarke recently revealed on EW’s Around The Table series.

According to Clarke, secrecy wasn’t a major issue on Game of Thrones until the later seasons when some “massive security changes happened.” Unfortunately, those changes were a little too tight, which often left Clarke and the other actors scrambling to figure out what their characters are supposed to be doing.

Via Entertainment Weekly:

“I was chatting with [showrunners] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and they were like, ‘Marvel. We’re just learning from Marvel. Whatever Marvel’s doing, we just want to do that.’ So that became, you don’t print anything — and then there was like me and Peter Dinklage being like, ‘I need it on paper! I can’t learn my lines without it being on paper!’”

It’s easy to see why Thrones tried to emulate Marvel. The studio is a master at secrecy. It has the process down to such a science that Clarke can just say the word “Marvel” and people get it. Plus, she actually gets to read her lines ahead of time, which we understand is pretty great for actors. They seem to like that.

New episodes of Secret Invasion stream Wednesday on Disney+.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Tom Cruise is an intense guy on the set of his movies, with advice ranging from “stop being such a p*ssy, OK?” to “lean into the douchebaggery of it all.” But even he has his limits.

Pom Klementieff told Entertainment Weekly that while filming a scene together for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, she gave Cruise permission to kick her in the stomach. “I kept telling him to just kick me here,” the Guardians of the Galaxy star said, pointing at her midsection. “I was squeezing abs. [I said], ‘You can just go for it.’ He was like ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ I was like, ‘But it’s going to help me!’ But he wouldn’t do it.” What a gentleman.

Maybe Cruise refused because he was afraid of what Dave Bautista would do to him if he kicked his Guardians buddy? Let’s go with that (let’s also get Big Dave in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, thank you very much).

Klementieff was added to the Mission: Impossible cast after director and writer Christopher McQuarrie saw her in Guardians. Her character is “very, very, very much a chaotic element in the story,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how deep in the background she is, you’re going to be watching her at all times and wondering what she’s going to do.”

And we’ll finally be able to watch Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One on July 12th.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

The world is consumed right now with the tragedy unfolding off the Canadian coast. We’re all anxiously waiting for updates on the missing submersible that was carrying five tourists on an expedition to see the Titanic wreckage some 435 miles from shore.

Well, most of us are anyway. But if you’re the stepson of one of the in-peril passengers, you’re using the tragedy to shoot your shot — at Blink 182 concerts and Onlyfans babes.

Brian Szasz — whose stepdad Hamish Harding is a British billionaire currently trapped miles beneath the ocean’s surface, slowly suffocating to death — is handling the stressful situation in a way that feels very f*cked up, even for the kid of a man who has more money than some small countries. First, Szasz cut short his vigil to attend a Blink 182 concert, claiming his family wanted him to go to the concert as the band’s music has always “helped him cope.” Szasz even used the crisis to tag the band in the hopes he could score some one-on-one time with them.

Szasz’s next method of coping involved flirting with an OnlyFans model on Twitter. He retweeted a post from @breamack in which the model showed off her scantily clad figure with the caption, “can i sit on u.” Szasz commented simply, “Yes, please!”

Naturally, Szasz’s response to the disaster has folks on social media confused and a bit amazed at how callous his behavior seems given the dire circumstances.

Young Nudy‘s album Gumbo has been out for three months, and his promotion for it is still going strong. He shared the first video since its release today, tapping his cousin 21 Savage to throw their own mini-Freaknik in the park in the visual accompaniment for “Peaches & Eggplants.” The title, an obvious reference to the two most sexually-charged emojis, gives listeners a hint of what the video’s going to contain: A lot of booty.

The video features a crowd of women shaking, wining, popping, and twerking all over the park — including on the playground equipment, which… I hope they wiped that down — as 21 and Nudy recount their tales of romantic liaisons (lol), smoke, drink, and enjoy the show.

Gumbo arrived in March after nearly 200 of Nudy’s songs leaked. Although he was rightly pretty annoyed about the violation, he seems to have taken everything in stride. “I’m 100 percent finna take my time out to find out 100 percent who exactly is leaking my music,” he threatened. “I’m 100 percent gonna pull up at whatever studio it is and I’m 100 percent gon’ beat your ass, on my mama.”

Although we don’t know if he followed through, it’s nice to see that he’s also remaining focused on supporting the music he did officially drop.

Watch Young Nudy and 21 Savage’s “Peaches & Eggplants” video above.

Gumbo is out now via RCA Records. Get it here.