Random Thoughts

Rusty wrote:Twisters doesn't surprise me. It looks fun and Glen Powell is becoming a stud. It's the right time for him to make a pivot though. He's good and has great screen presence. Time to get some legit work with legit filmakers in under his belt.

Think of Brad Pitt. He was just some hunky heart-throb flavour of the month, but then he knocks out Legends of the Fall, Seven, 12 Monkeys, and a few others all within a 4 year period. All of a sudden everyone started to take him serious.

Rusty wrote:My Prime Day orders are starting to show up. I wasn't going to buy anything, but out of nowhere I ended up finding some deals and decided to treat myself to more than I expected.

- and Jack Carr's latest hardcover from the James Reece/Terminal List series, Red Sky Mourning.

WyldeMan wrote:

Sounds like some pretty nice deals to be found this time by you.

What's Reece up to this time around?

WyldeMan wrote:Today is the first day I've been able to move without agonizing pain since Tuesday. 

I've been sicker than I have in decades and until today, I'd been unable to stand.

I've never felt anything like this...

WyldeMan wrote:Today is the first day I've been able to move without agonizing pain since Tuesday. 

I've been sicker than I have in decades and until today, I'd been unable to stand.

I've never felt anything like this...

Rusty wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:Today is the first day I've been able to move without agonizing pain since Tuesday. 

I've been sicker than I have in decades and until today, I'd been unable to stand.

I've never felt anything like this...

Any idea what happened?

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:Today is the first day I've been able to move without agonizing pain since Tuesday. 

I've been sicker than I have in decades and until today, I'd been unable to stand.

I've never felt anything like this...

Hope you feel better. Is it COVID?

WyldeMan wrote:Twisters official 3 day opening weekend is $81.2 million. For the past month, tracking indicated it was headed for a $50 million opening.

It opened just $1.1 million short of tying Oppenheimer's opening on the exact same weekend last year.

Crazy...

In other news; Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes hits Hulu on August 2nd.

UltimateMarvel wrote:

I saw an article that said Twisters is tanking and that their budget was $200 million. How the fuck is the budget so high? Looks like another bomb because it's not doing well internationally.

Rusty wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:

I saw an article that said Twisters is tanking and that their budget was $200 million. How the fuck is the budget so high? Looks like another bomb because it's not doing well internationally.

Wiki says the budget was $155m and it has already grossed $225. It will slow down now that Wolvey and Deaders has released.

Another day, another box office record for Marvel Studios/Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine. On Wednesday, the Shawn Levy-directed movie set the record for an R-rated movie, making $19.3M. That’s miles ahead of the previous champ Joker, which made $9.6M on October 9, 2019.

The domestic total stands at $280.4M. As we told you, Deadpool & Wolverine is bound to pass The Passion of Christ ($370.7M) by EOD Sunday as the highest grossing R-rated movie ever with a running cume of $380M.

The Merc with the Mouth and Wolvie raked in $25.4M at the foreign box office and global of $44.7M Wednesday, taking their international cume to $310.1M and worldwide to $590.5M. That amount of global cash puts Deadpool & Wolverine as the fourth-biggest movie of 2024 after eight days of release, outstripping the likes of DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s Kung Fu Panda 4 ($546M) and Legendary/Warner Bros’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($568M).

WyldeMan wrote:Meanwhile....

Another day, another box office record for Marvel Studios/Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine. On Wednesday, the Shawn Levy-directed movie set the record for an R-rated movie, making $19.3M. That’s miles ahead of the previous champ Joker, which made $9.6M on October 9, 2019.

The domestic total stands at $280.4M. As we told you, Deadpool & Wolverine is bound to pass The Passion of Christ ($370.7M) by EOD Sunday as the highest grossing R-rated movie ever with a running cume of $380M.

The Merc with the Mouth and Wolvie raked in $25.4M at the foreign box office and global of $44.7M Wednesday, taking their international cume to $310.1M and worldwide to $590.5M. That amount of global cash puts Deadpool & Wolverine as the fourth-biggest movie of 2024 after eight days of release, outstripping the likes of DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s Kung Fu Panda 4 ($546M) and Legendary/Warner Bros’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($568M).

UltimateMarvel wrote:I hope this means more R-rated movies from Disney.

WyldeMan wrote:Glen Powell heard me complaining about how he only does remakes instead of taking risks so to prove my point he has signed on to Edgar Wright's The Running Man remake with his Anyone But You co-star, Sydney Sweeney.

WyldeMan wrote:Damn, the Olympics were crazy this year.

A Turkish marksman clearly revealed himself to be a lethal as fuck assassin and a frenchman lost a gold medal in pole vaulting cause he got caught on his dick as he went over the bar, lol. 

Well if you're going to lose, lose big and become an overnight sensation with the ladies.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Can't believe it's been 2 weeks. Fuck! Summer is almost over.

WyldeMan wrote:Last night while watching Twisters, mother nature decided to bring the natural ambience in a big way and let loose a massive thunder, lightning, rain and hail storm during the entire movie's run.

We haven't had a storm like that in ten years so the timing was impeccable and deeply amusing to me.

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:Last night while watching Twisters, mother nature decided to bring the natural ambience in a big way and let loose a massive thunder, lightning, rain and hail storm during the entire movie's run.

We haven't had a storm like that in ten years so the timing was impeccable and deeply amusing to me.

Nice! You got the 4D experience. lol I was going to mention that Twisters was out. Haven't seen it yet though. How'd you like it?

Rusty wrote:I've been around but haven't posted in a bit. Dealing with some health shit - my Dad's for the past month, and now my own over the past week.

As for randomness, my Macbook Pro decided to no longer charge a week or so go. After some wiggling and holding it in a certain position I could occasionally get it partial charge, but as soon as a moved or simply bumped it, it would stop. I guess 4 years of constantly inserting and removing the USB-C cable to charge eventually wears it out.

It died completely 3 days ago, and I had nothing backed up. I've had to resort to using a cheap Windows *shudders* run Laptop that I bought my Dad last year.

Last night I finally managed to charge the Macbook. I noticed that the few times the charging would engage, I would have to hold the cable up, so last night in a moment of randomness I plugged it in, and placed the Macbook down on it's lid. Upside down. Woke up this morning and checked it ... Full Charge!!! LOL

Not going to waste the battery and use it yet though. Waiting on a new portable external Samsung SSD to arrive from Amarzon so I can copy everything to it. Then I'll make the decision to have it repaired or replaced.

Football season is almost here… and Chad Powers is getting back on the field.

Hulu has released a first-look photo of Glen Powell as the titular quarterback in the upcoming series, which has officially started production, the streamer announced on Thursday. The Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You star headlines the half-hour single-camera comedy based on former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s popular ESPN+ sketch.

Co-written and exec produced by Powell and Loki creator Michael Waldron, Chad Powers centers on hotshot college football QB Russ Holliday, who, after nuking his Division I career due to bad behavior, disguises himself and walks onto a struggling Southern football team as the talented, affable Chad Powers.

“We’re both diehard college football fans,” Powell and Waldron shared in a joint statement. “When we saw Eli as Chad Powers, we knew that was the way into a big, fun story about this world. We’re excited to be part of this team, and can’t wait to get Chad in the game.”

Added Eli, who also serves as an EP on the project alongside brother Peyton Manning, Jamie Horowitz and Ben Brown: “The love for Chad Powers has surprised me in spectacular ways. I played 16 years in the NFL, but now when I’m in a restaurant or walking through an airport, it’s not uncommon for fans to scream, ‘Hey Chad!'”

UltimateMarvel wrote:Damn! Yeah, this was not a great choice for him but work is work I guess.

Tom Hanks’ A League of Their Own character famously said, “There’s no crying in baseball,” but folks might make an exception today. A baseball park east of Los Angeles that has been a popular filming location for movies and TV shows was badly damaged in a fire overnight.

Along with the Penny Marshall-directed 1992 pic that starred Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna and Lori Petty, the park also has hosted film shoots for such features as the 1988 Charlie Sheen-John Cusack Black Sox movie Eight Men Out and the 1992 biopic The Babe starring John Goodman as Babe Ruth. It also has been used for numerous TV commercials, the city said.

The blaze was reported around 11:30 p.m. Thursday at Jay Littleton Ball Park in Ontario. An Ontario Fire Department spokesperson told Key News Network that the fire was fully involved when the crews reached to the scene. An investigation into the cause was ongoing and damage still was being assessed today, but no injuries were reported. much of the facility burned to the ground, fire officials say.

According to the City of Ontario, which is about 40 miles east of L.A., baseball has been played for more than 80 years at the park, which hosted one season of pro ball with the Ontario Orioles in 1947. A wooden grandstand erected in 1937 had remained in use until the fire. Boasting a centerfield seven feet deeper than Dodger Stadium, the stadium recently has been home to Little League Baseball Senior League games. The field was dedicated to Joe “The Jay Bird” Littleton in 1997. It was given historic landmark status in 2003.

WyldeMan wrote:America is still in love with the Hawk Tuah girl Hailey Welch, I still see her popping up in interviews on a nearly daily basis and every time she continues to talk about her growing business empire which has already branched from clothing to include hot sauce. Last week she threw out the first pitch at a Mets game but her being invited angered fans because she's the Hawk Tuah girl so she was all over the news for that too. It's nice to see that women everywhere now have such a strong female role model to look up to and see that with great head game, comes great opportunities.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Tested positive for COVID. Felt miserable the whole day today.

She got invited to a Mets game? Sounds like things are working out great for her. I don't know how long she can keep it going.

WyldeMan wrote:I was just on Netflix and noticed that after five years since it ended, iZombie will be expiring on September 5th from the service. 

It will likely be headed for one of those FreeVee or Roku tv type apps so I wanted to give you guys a heads up and chance to jump in while there was still time for a rewatch before you can no longer do so commercial free.

Babe Ruth’s jersey, worn when he famously “called the shot” during the 1932 World Series, has been sold for a record-breaking sum.

Ruth’s jersey sold for $24.12m at auction, becoming the most expensive item of sporting memorabilia ever sold at auction.

The BBC reports that the sale dwarfs the previous record sum of $12.6m paid in 2022 for a 1952 Topps baseball card featuring New York Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle.

Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions at Heritage Auctions, called it “the most significant piece of American sports memorabilia ever offered at auction.”

EXCLUSIVE: Ted Lasso fans, this is not a drill. In a major step toward the long-awaited fourth season of Apple TV+’s hugely popular soccer comedy, the series’ studio Warner Bros. Television has picked up the options on the three original cast members who had been contracted under the aegis of the UK acting union Equity, sources tell Deadline. They are Hannah Waddingham, who plays AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Walton, Brett Goldstein, who plays hardman Roy Kent and Jeremy Swift, who plays Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins.

After securing the trio, the studio is expected to start reaching out to Ted Lasso cast members with SAG-AFTRA contracts whose options had expired, so they will need to make new deals, we hear. In addition to co-creators/executive producers Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso) and Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard), that is believed to include Juno Temple (Keeley Jones). We hear one of the Ted Lasso OGs, Phil Dunster (Jamie Tart), has not been picked up, presumably due to a conflict with another series; he is on both Prime Video’s The Devil’s Hour and Apple’s Surface.

It is unclear which other stars may be approached about Season 4; the cast have all said repeatedly that they would be happy to reprise their roles if an opportunity arises. Many would likely pop in for guest appearances.

Getting the cast back paves the way toward a Season 4 greenlight, contingent on budget approval and scheduling as actors whose options have lapsed may have joined other series that have them in first position, sources said.

While the outreach to the cast is underway, early preparations are also being made to open a writers room. If all elements come together, we hear production on a fourth season is eyeing an early 2025 start. Reps for WBTV and Apple TV+ declined comment.

Starting the process for a Season 4 greenlight indicates that the main Ted Lasso driving force on and off-screen, Sudeikis, is on board for a new installment as the studio would not have proceeded without his consent.

The fate of Ted Lasso has always hinged on Sudeikis, who’d originated the character in NBC Sports videos. While being open that they would love to extend Ted Lasso, one of the biggest and most acclaimed comedies of the past decade, Apple and Warner Bros. executives have made it clear that it would be up to Sudeikis whether the show would continue.

The Saturday Night Live alum, who co-created Ted Lasso with Hunt, Joe Kelly and Bill Lawrence, had originally conceived the comedy as a three-season story arc and he stuck with the plan despite the series’ enormous success. But he had not shut the door to more Ted Lasso — which is why Season 3 was not labeled as final — contingent on finding the right idea. Much to Ted Lasso fans’ delight, more than a year after the Season 3 finale, it looks like that has happened.

With its uplifting tone and a good-natured, eternal optimist lead character, Ted Lasso was the perfect show to launch at the height of the pandemic in August 2020. The comedy became an instant global hit and Apple’s signature and most-watched ever original series.

In addition to its immense popularity that catapulted it into the pop culture zeitgeist, Ted Lasso earned 13 Emmy Awards during its original three-season run, including two back-to-back Outstanding Comedy Series trophies and acting wins for Sudeikis (2), Goldstein (2), who is also a writer-producer on the show, and Waddingham.

The May 2023 Season 3 finale saw Keeley and Rebecca potentially partnering for a new venture, AFC Richmond Women’s Team, with all the main characters getting a happy ending, including Ted, last seen coaching his son on a soccer field in Kansas.

Source: Deadline

WyldeMan wrote:COVID is making a big comeback in my town right now. You've also had it before right? Have they made any real advancements in treatments over the past few years?

WyldeMan wrote:My favorite thing about her is that she now has her own BBQ sauce, you know because it's the one thing you never want a woman to eat before performing the Hawk Tuah.

UltimateMarvel wrote:I don't know, I'm just taking Tylenol and letting it pass. Eating and drinking fluids as much as I can. My cousin had a baby so they threw a party last Sunday and 4 days later I started getting the symptoms. Then I found out that most people started getting sick after the party too.

UltimateMarvel wrote: BBQ sauce already? She's working fast and honestly she should be doing that before her 15 minutes of fame is up.

Nicole Kidman has still not seen Babygirl, and she’s not sure whether the Venice International Film Festival premiere next week will be the place to do it. “There’s something in me going, Okay, this was made for the big screen and to be seen with people,” she tells me. “But then I’m like, That’s a high-wire act. I’m not sure I have that much bravery.” She sounds as if she’s working out her plans while we chat, in her first interview about the movie. Having just seen it, I get it. “Maybe I will see it that way—I’ll let you know,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve made some films that are pretty exposing, but not like this.”

Without question, the film directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) showcases the actor at her movie-star best, with the chance to give a deeper, bolder performance in a feature than she’s had in some time. It also fits within her decorated résumé, and her well-known willingness to take on projects with frank portrayals of female sexuality. Yet Babygirl still enters surprising territory. In Reijn’s hands, it’s a masterclass in kink, blasting through a collective shame around sexual fantasies by presenting one woman’s journey without judgment and in rich, complex layers. It ranges from silly to scary to messy to profoundly sad. Well, and sexy. Always sexy.

“I know we accomplished one thing, and that is that we made a really hot movie,” Reijn says with a wide smile. “I don't know about good, bad—that’s up to everybody—but I’m sure of that.”

An accomplished Dutch stage actor turned director, Reijn wrote Babygirl out of her enduring love for the erotic drama. She came into her own as an artist on the work of directors like Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct) and Adrian Lyne (Indecent Proposal). “They made me feel less alone with my own hidden sexual fantasies and desires, and from that moment on, I started to dream about being able to create something like that myself—but from my own perspective,” she says. “This gave me more fire to try to shine a light on that, because I’m still struggling with my own shame around it.”

Babygirl stars Kidman as Romy, a powerful New York business executive who’s seemingly balancing professional success and personal fulfillment in her marriage to a theater director (played by Antonio Banderas). The crack in that façade reveals itself late at night, when Romy masturbates alone, after having sex with her husband. She’s disconnected from her desires. The specific focus on the female orgasm is central to Reijn’s intent. “In movies, you still so often see a woman have an orgasm oncreen that is anatomically not possible,” she says. That reality hints at Romy’s internal torment: “The more perfect you want to be, the more dangerously things start to crumble down—and you have to deal with the things that are actually inside you.”

Enter Samuel (Triangle of Sadness’s Harris Dickinson), the company’s new intern—and the instigator for this movie to get steamy-fun. When he manages to get Romy assigned as his official mentor, he makes his attraction to her clear. From there, the bounds of a forbidden sexual dynamic are ironed out, beat by beat, and fueled by differences in power, age, and gender. Reijn invests in the actual negotiation between two people exploring desires that edge toward peril and submission. The director calls this aspect of Babygirl an “X-ray” of kink. It’s compelling, oddly revelatory—and crucial to the film’s irresistible erotic power. “They try to play these different, fun roles with each other, but they can also be scary and embarrassing,” Reijn says. “We don’t show this glossy fantasy; it’s actually an attempt to show the human side of all of that. In my eyes, it’s way more hot because it’s not just a perfect end result—which is often how it goes in the bedroom.”

Romy and Samuel’s first true encounter, a brilliantly staged duet in a shabby hotel room, crystallizes all this and redefines Romy for the audience. “When we meet her, we just see the upper layer of her existence that looks very attractive and Christmassy and Sound of Music–like,” Reijn says. “In a hidden hotel room, we see a very different animal, if you will. I think a lot of women are not at ease with the beast in themselves. They’d rather outsource it to a bad boyfriend.”

Reijn wrote Babygirl with Kidman in mind. As an actor herself, when she was waiting in the wings and about to go onstage, she’d think of Kidman’s screen work to steel herself to get on with the show. “I was so scared that I wanted to vomit and I wanted to die, so I would channel Nicole—I never knew her personally, of course, but her fearlessness in her movies was a torch that I was humbly trying to carry,” Reijn says. She knew Romy would need an actor of that fearlessness—and she got one. “I just kind of went, ‘Right, that’s it. I will open myself up to you every which way, and let’s see where we go together,’” Kidman says. “I would hope that you feel us in the movie, because it’s very much an us.”

In their extensive preparation, Kidman and Reijn met often in New York. They’d talk about their rawest life experiences, and examine the script’s most provocative scenes and revise them together. “A lot of the themes in my movies have been explored through the lens of sexuality,” Kidman says. “I’ve not eliminated that or tried to pretend it isn’t there.” Still, telling a movie so explicitly from a female point of view, with a woman behind the camera, felt unique. The collaboration offered Kidman a level of intimacy into that kind of filmmaking she’d never experienced before.

“It was being able to talk unbelievably honestly and graphically—and that’s woman-to-woman, as though you are sitting on your bed and talking to your sister or your best friend,” Kidman says. “That’s incredibly safe. Halina has a very strong maternal instinct, so she was very protective of all of us. But particularly me.”

When it came to choreographing the sex scenes, which Reijn captures in radically long takes, safety was emphasized. Kidman and Dickinson worked with intimacy coordinators who could precisely structure a given sequence’s many twists and turns, signaling moments of pleasure, discomfort, and everything in between for the actors to play authentically. These were blocked out in rehearsals and then adjusted during actual production as necessary. When it came down to it, the actors were dialed in, with Reijn’s camera just rolling and rolling. “I never came out of it, really,” Kidman says.

When Kidman digs in, there’s nothing quite like it. “It left me ragged. At some point I was like, I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to do this anymore, but at the same time I was compelled to do it. Halina would hold me and I would hold her, because it was just very confronting to me,” Kidman says. She admits this remains the case, months after filming: “It’s like, Golly, I’m doing this, and it’s actually now going to be seen by the world. That’s a very weird feeling. This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.”

“I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being,” she continues. “I had to go in and go out like, I need to put my protection back on. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do?”

The seductive dynamic between Romy and Samuel plays out as distinctly modern. Credit surely goes to Reijn, who’s coming off of the bloody Gen-Z satire Bodies Bodies Bodies with another savvy understanding of contemporary mores. And Dickinson is a wholly unexpected foil in this two-hander: He can issue an imposing command and a puppy-dog apology in the same breath, and somehow keep it sexy.

“How Harris plays the dom is so different from how someone of Gen X would have played the dom in my time,” Reijn says. “I wanted to create a male character that was experimenting and also confused by, Who am I supposed to be as a man right now? What is masculinity and how do I ask for consent, if at the same time, I’m being asked to be a dominator?”

Babygirl will land in the thick of ongoing debates among younger viewers as to the necessity—and quantity—of explicit sex in movies. Reijn was keenly aware of that conversation, and feels the effects of digital saturation herself. “It’s very important in a society that is polarizing all over the place, in every way, that we keep shining light on the things that we’re afraid of,” she says, before joking that friends sometimes refer to her as a “prude.” It’s hard to believe after watching Babygirl, but perhaps that’s exactly the point. The film is undeniably titillating (Reijn prefers “juicy”)—and rather than operating in the dark, fatalistic mode of many an erotic drama, it’s a rollicking, risqué entertainment that winds its way toward hope. It’s strangely, even sweetly moving.

When I mention to Kidman the current controversy around sex in movies, she’s stumped. “What did you say?” she asks. I explain the topic more thoroughly. “I’m not familiar with many things,” she says. “I just work with abandonment.” This much is evident in Babygirl. She tells me that she hadn’t gotten to work in this “A24, indie filmmaking” style in a long time and found it inspiring. “You’re grabbing things when you can, you’re doing what you can—you’re in a very limited timeframe, but everyone’s there sharing heart and soul,” she says.

What did Kidman share—and gain—in the making of Babygirl? “It’s personal,” she says quickly. She feels like she still doesn’t have her “armor” on right now, as the premiere waits around the corner. A wide array of reactions, she knows, lie ahead. “That’s vulnerable, but I’m never going to shy away from that to my dying day,” Kidman says. “I’ll place myself in a vulnerable position, and see where that takes me.”

Babygirl will premiere this Friday at the Venice Film Festival before being released in U.S. theaters by A24 on December 25. This feature is part of Awards Insider’s exclusive fall film coverage, featuring first looks and in-depth interviews with some of this coming season’s biggest contenders.

WyldeMan wrote:I have avoided all parties since COVID hit and I don't plan to to break that rule any time soon. Also, I'm an anti-social sumbitch.

WyldeMan wrote:Bro, she's 21 and she's already riding a massive wave of momentum with multiple cash streams to build up quite a nut for her future and that's without even going the obvious OnlyFans route. Even if this wave ended tomorrow for her, I'm pretty sure she'll be just fine. Her interviews show she's got a lot of personality and she doesn't come across like an idiot. Besides it's not like this was her future life plan a few since she was a kid.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Yeah, she'll be alright. I'm the idiot with the student loans.

WyldeMan wrote:Manwhile Hawk Tuah girl "Done been dropped out of college for a year or two" and shes moving herself to New York city.

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:Manwhile Hawk Tuah girl "Done been dropped out of college for a year or two" and shes moving herself to New York city.

Well, how about that! But NYC instead of LA or Texas is an interesting choice.

Rusty wrote:She's getting terrible advice, or she's simply delusional. There's no way she's making enough money to maintain New York rent & lifestyle. She'll be on Onlyfans before Christmas.

She should have transitioned to being a guest host @ Barstool and worked on her Podcast game.