With an over $200 million production and marketing budget, Disney’s live action “Dumbo” fell very short of studio and industry expectations. That didn’t stop it from hitting the box office top spot. Jordan Peele’s “Us” and “Captain Marvel” continued performing strongly.
“Captain Marvel” has hit just over $990 million and ranks as the eighth largest domestic release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It dropped to third place which a 40 percent dip in its fourth week in theaters.
The R-rated anti-abortion film “Unplanned” scored the second-best ever start for faith-based distributor Pure Flix. It was anticipated to bring in $3 million, but the controversial movie opened to a strong $6.1 million from 1,059 theaters. That’s impressive with a limited marketing plan.
“We are thrilled, gratified and humbled,” Unplanned co-directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman said on Sunday. “We are so pleased that the American people have responded with such an enormous outpouring of support at the box office. It humbles us and we look forward to seeing what happens in the weeks ahead.”
The Walt Disney Co. said
Sunday that the Tim Burton-directed film has earned an estimated $45 million
domestically from 4,259 locations against a $170 million production budget. It’s
less than half of what “Beauty and the Beast,” ″The Jungle Book” and Burton’s
own “Alice in Wonderland” opened to.
The remake of the 1941
animated film stars Colin Farrell and Danny DeVito. It got mixed to negative reviews from
critics and currently has a middling 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Audiences who did turn
out, however, had a different response than the critics and gave the film an A-
overall, according to CinemaScore.
“We think it’s a solid
start,” said Cathleen Taff, Disney’s president of theatrical distribution.
“We’re encouraged and hopeful with audience word of mouth.”
Internationally, “Dumbo”
grossed $71 million, with $10.7 million coming from China, $7.4 million from
the U.K. and $7.2 million from Mexico.
Disney has two other
high-profile live-action remakes coming out this year in “Aladdin” (May 24) and
“The Lion King” (July 19).
“I don’t think this is a
mandate against live-action remakes. But sometimes when you don’t have the
reviews, it can affect it,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media
analyst. “For Disney, the bar is set so high. This is just a little speed bump
on what is already a spectacular year for Disney.”
“Dumbo” did bump Jordan
Peele’s “Us” to second place. “Us” added $33.6 million, down only 53%, bringing
its domestic total to $128.2 million in its second week. The Lupita Nyong’o
doppelganger movie cost only $20 million to produce.
“For a horror, which
generally have the scariest drops in the business, ‘Us’ is really holding in
there,” Dergarabedian said. “It’s good news for Jordan Peele.”
Easing the “Dumbo” disappointment,
Disney and Marvel’s “Captain Marvel” landed in third place in weekend four with
an additional $20.5 million. It’s now earned over $350 million in North America
and is expected to cross the $1 billion mark globally sometime this week.
The teen drama/romance
“Five Feet Apart” with Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson took fourth place
with $6.3 million, down only 27% in its third week.
And the pregnancy movie
“Unplanned” rounded out the top five with $6.1 million from only 1,059
theaters. It’s another success for Pure Flix, which targets the faith-based
audience.
“Serving that underserved
audience can pay off quite well,” Dergarabedian said.
Controversial Unplanned anti-abortion film surpasses box office expectations.
“Unplanned” tells the true story of Abby Johnson, who defected from Planned Parenthood to become a pro-life activist after witnessing an abortion at 13 weeks. The movie was partially financed by My Pillow founder Michael Lindell, who is a born-again Christian and outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump.
The film’s producers, who unsuccessfully fought to overturn the pic’s
R-rating, note that Unplanneddidn’t have an easy road to the big screen. A
number of TV networks declined to play ads for the film, while the movie’s
Twitter account was briefly suspended Saturday morning.
On Friday, trailer views hovered at around 250,000. That stat swelled to
1.7 million views by Saturday morning.
“To bring the story of Abby Johnson to audiences and have them show up in
such large numbers shows how abortion is so important to bring to
audiences,” said Pure Flix CEO Michael Scott. “We hope that those on
both sides of the debate will see Unplanned and begin to have their own dialogue.
This film can be that spark to bring more hearts and minds to understanding the
value of life.”
Not so lucky was “The
Beach Bum,” a stoner-odyssey from the provocative filmmaker Harmony Korine
starring Matthew McConaughey. It grossed only $1.8 million from 1,100 locations
in its first weekend.
The weekend overall is
down around 2% and the year is still lagging about 16.4%.
“Next week is going to
have two of the biggest genres hitting the multiplex simultaneously,” noted
Dergarabedian. The well-reviewed superhero pic “Shazam!” debuts along with a
“Pet Sematary” remake.
Dumbo, Hotel Mumbai, The Beach Bun and Unplanned opened this weekend.
North American Box Office
Estimated ticket sales for
Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore.
Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are
also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
“Dumbo,” $45 million.
2. “Us,” $33.6 million.
3. “Captain Marvel,” $20.5 million.
4. “Five Feet Apart,” $6.3 million.
5. “Unplanned,” $6.1 million.
6. “Wonder Park,” $4.9 million.
7. “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” $4.2 million.
8. “Hotel Mumbai,” $3.2 million.
9. Tyler Perry’s “A Madea Family Funeral,” $2.7 million.
10. “The Beach Bum,” $1.8 million.
Worldwide Box Office
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada), according to Comscore:
Vinnie Chaffee also wrote her feelings about Supernatural ending with Season 15 which you can see here. We’re happy to include Lynn’s words on what Supernatural has meant to her and countless fans around the world below.
There’s a psychological phenomenon that happens when we have an experience that shakes our world so much that our brains encode it as a “flashbulb memory”. It’s an old term, and some of you have probably never seen a camera with a flashbulb, but back in the day it used to go off and illuminate a scene you were capturing with a photo, freezing it in time forever. That sort of memory is so important, and often so upsetting, that it too is frozen in time forever in our brains. The sights, the sounds, the emotions of that moment.
It doesn’t fade like other memories or lose the emotional intensity that was there when it was encoded. Instead, it remains as clear and vivid as if it happened yesterday – we remember the clothes we were wearing when we heard the news, or exactly what we were doing or thinking, or who we were talking to. We remember our initial shock and then the moment when our emotions kicked in.
Usually
we think of flashbulb memories as things like the moment you found out about a
world-changing event like 9/11 or you got the news that a loved one passed.
That’s the level of importance. And yet, I think I may have had one on Friday
afternoon – the moment I found out that Supernatural would finally end a year from now. Don’t
misunderstand, I’m not making the ending of a television show equivalent to
those horrific circumstances, but that’s not how our brains work. When
something is important, it’s important. Especially emotionally important. Our
brains don’t judge. And for many people, that little television show that
lasted for 15 seasons is personally and emotionally important.
I’ve seen quite a few posts essentially saying “what the hell is wrong with these people that they’re grieving a TV show, get a life!” There are lots of posts from fans whose family and non-fannish friends are dismissive of their sadness and critical of them for grieving a television show. Sometimes these people mean well, but let’s face it, they really don’t understand. Luckily, there’s a lot of support in the fandom community, in all its various forms.
In fact, that’s one of the reasons that Supernatural is so important in the first place. Yes, fans are incredibly sad to be losing Sam and Dean and Castiel, the fictional characters who mean so much to us. But it’s more than that. Supernatural created a family over these past fourteen years. It’s where many fans found their best friends, their support systems, the people who finally “got” them. It’s where they felt like they belonged, maybe for the first time. That is powerful. Life changing sort of powerful.
When I was putting together Family Don’t End With Blood, it was originally going to be a book written by just the fans. We would all share our stories of how Supernatural and its characters and actors and fan community had changed – and literally saved – our lives. So there are thirteen chapters in that book written by fans that describe how important the show has been, from helping a fan get “sober for Sam” to battling cancer, from leaving a cult to having the courage to change who you are and go after who you want to be.
Testaments to the way their lives changed when they became involved in changing others’, through Random Acts or GISHWHES, volunteering for a charity or even starting one. Over the years, I’ve heard thousands more. It’s not the only show or film or book that has changed lives, but thanks to its unprecedented fourteen years on the air and hundreds of conventions, Supernatural has had a greater impact than most.
That Family Don’t End With Blood turned out to be a book written by the Supernatural actors as well as the fans is an indication of just how unique and powerful the phenomenon is. Because it’s not just us who were changed by the show. It’s not just us, in fact, who have had our lives saved by the show and the fandom. It’s the actors who bring the show to life too. And unlike many who work in a judgmental industry that demands perfection, these actors felt close enough to their fans to want to share that – in an actual book that they wrote themselves. That’s extraordinary.
Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins and so many other Supernatural actors opened up and wrote about how their lives have changed – finding the courage to pursue things they’d always wanted, finding the validation to become who they really are, surviving a life-threatening stroke, and even finding the support to get up and “always keep fighting” when one of them was at the point of wanting to stop. I don’t know another television show whose actors have been that real with their fans, or another show that has changed its cast’s lives in such a powerful way.
But as I often say when talking about the book, these are not your ordinary actors. It says something so important about Jared, Jensen and Misha that when the decision was made to end the show after next season, they told their long-time crew the news first, the people who are like family to them and whose livelihoods depend on this show. Then they took to social media themselves, recording a video for the fandom explaining that the fifteenth season would be the last.
Although all three were clearly struggling with their own emotions, they wanted their fans to hear it from them. It’s the same reason they wrote Family Don’t End With Blood in their own words because this is too important to telegraph through someone else. I respect the hell out of them for making that video.
The impact of this show doesn’t stop there, however, with the fans and the cast. Over the past few days, actors who have been on the show once or twice or have not been on it at all have weighed in on social media with messages of respect and support, thanking Supernatural for being the exemplary thing that it is and inspiring everyone in the industry. The BC film industry itself weighed in, with gratitude for what the show has done for that industry and Vancouver, including huge financial benefits and providing a talented and hard-working crew with a job they could count on for fifteen years – and one they could love. Journalists from many of the publications that cover fan-favorite shows also shared their own stories of how Supernatural has impacted them; for many, the show was responsible for them entering the field, and for some, it was a personal support system over the years just like it has been for many fans.
It’s
been four days of shock and grief for the Supernatural
fandom as we all start to cope with the impending loss in our own ways. Fandom,
ever brilliant and creative, immediately began expressing our intense emotions
with art and photos and graphics and heartfelt posts.
Who made a deal, that the show Kripke originally planned to end after Season 5 will go exactly ten seasons longer?
Fans looked back at recent episodes, and wondered if the words
were prescient.
“Humans
burn bright, but for a very brief time. And eventually they’re gone, even the
very best ones, and we have to carry on.” – Castiel, 14×14, Ouroboros
There
were clips of Rob Benedict as Chuck, singing that soulful version of “Fare The
Well” that now takes on new meaning.
There were gifs and screencaps of that pivotal scene where Sam finds out that Dean made a deal to save his life, and that he’ll go to hell for it – that scene that made so many of us realize just how different and special this show was. The first time I saw it posted on Friday, it hit me like a gut punch.
Fans reached out to other fans, offering a safe place to talk, a shoulder to cry on, whatever support might help. Within the fan community, there was an instant understanding that this was an important loss that people were facing. A realization that it wasn’t something to be dismissed or ridiculed.
Then, as fans began the inevitable process of grief adaptation, they began to look back with gratitude on what Supernatural has given each of us and to celebrate the remarkable accomplishment that this little show has been. The hashtag #SPNGaveMe immediately sprang up on Twitter, and fans started sharing all those life-changing things that Supernatural brought to their lives.
Some fans said that they had pulled out their copy of Family Don’t End With Blood to re-read the words of the actors and the fans that memorialize for all time just how special this show and its fandom have been. All over social media, fans reached out to other fans with support and comfort and empathy. I saw many posts from fans of other shows who had never even seen an episode of Supernatural, but as fellow fans, they understood the depth of this loss and reached out with sympathy. As always, fandom took care of each other.
I did my own looking back, my own assessment of what #SPNGaveMe and why this Show is so special to me. I’ve written six books about the show that trace my own journey with Supernatural and how the show and the characters have inspired me and changed me, but I don’t think I’ll ever have enough words to truly describe how profoundly this little television show has changed my life. I found my voice – and myself – through this Show and this fandom.
I found courage I’d never had – to speak up, to be real, to change jobs, to call myself a writer and get published. I found friends who have challenged me and supported me, and who I’ve traveled the world with and had the most amazing, life-changing adventures. I’ve had to open my eyes to my own blindnesses and biases and start to make progress in putting them aside. I’ve learned that I can be criticized and not fall apart, and sometimes even learn from that criticism!
I’ve gone from being the painfully shy girl who once failed geography class because I literally never spoke the entire time to giving panels at San Diego Comic-Con and all over the country – and actually enjoying it! I’ll be back again this July for Movie TV Tech Geeks, so we’ll all have so much to discuss.
I’ve gone from someone who was too anxious to travel on my own to someone who has navigated airports and train stations and bus stations all over the world – because seeing my fellow Supernatural fans and this cast was just that worth it. The mantra of the Winchester brothers and the Show to “always keep fighting” has been my mantra too, and it has made all the difference.
I am,
quite literally, a different person than I was in 2005 when this little Show
began.
And that makes the announcement of its ending very important indeed.
Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki at the beginning.
So where was I when this flashbulb moment happened?
I was sitting at the Project Fancare table at Lexington Comic
Con, surrounded by copies of Family Don’t End With Blood and fellow fans.
Project Fancare is a nonprofit which gives fans a forum to talk openly about
how television and film and books and all sorts of fandoms have helped them get
through tough times, and why that’s a good thing. I had just finished
talking to a woman who stopped to tell me what the book and the show had meant
to her, which I will never get tired of hearing.
As the woman walked away, my friend Kim leaned over and said softly in my ear, “You need to take a break. Take your phone and go to the bathroom and watch the video that Jensen just posted.” That’s all she said, but instantly I knew. I knew from the genuine emotion in her voice and the concern for me that I could hear there. I knew because there’s a part of me that has been waiting for this and anticipating it and knew it was coming sooner rather than later.
I knew because my stomach instantly fell and my brain kicked into survival mode, blocking all my emotions and making me feel oddly calm even though intellectually I knew I wasn’t. I can vividly see the table in front of me, the books spread out there, and the woman walking away. She was wearing one of the first Represent ‘Always Keep Fighting’ tee shirts and she had red red hair and a bag with the protection symbol on it. I can see it like it’s a photo frozen in time like a flashbulb, and I can hear Kim’s voice and her words like she just finished talking, even though it’s four days later.
I
stood in the alcove by the bathroom in the giant convention center and pulled
out my phone and found the video – and as soon as I saw their faces, there was
no doubt in my mind. Jared, Jensen and Misha are extraordinary in how open they
have been with their fans, that’s why they wrote FDEWB after all. I could see
all the emotion they were struggling to contain in their faces before I ever
hit play to listen to the message. And I am forever grateful that I got to hear
it from them.
Within
minutes, my phone blew up with people wanting to know if I was okay or wanting
to express their own shock and sadness. My fandom friends texted and tweeted
and posted and called. My family members, who do understand now that this is
important to me, reached out too, checking on how I was doing even if they
don’t truly understand why the loss is so deep. I reached out to some of the
cast too, who were as emotional as I was feeling. I did a panel with Ruth
Connell the next day, so I was able to share with her in person, for which I
felt lucky. Even in the midst of grief, there was a sense of “we’re all in this
together” that was comforting, even if we might have wished we weren’t in this
particular something right now.
It’s four days later as I write this. We are all trying to find the coping strategies that work for us now. Make sure you do so without shame – not everyone will understand how people can grieve for a television show or for fictional characters who don’t exist or for friends you’ve never met in person, but that grief is real because the loss is real. There’s research in one of my books about how we get the same emotional satisfaction from spending an evening with our favorite fictional characters as we do having dinner with family or close friends.
Fictional characters play a role in inspiring us and fictional stories are a way of making sense of (and possibly rewriting) our own life stories. Friendship can transcend the physical and online communities can be amazing sources of support. All of that is real, and all of that is healthy. If you’re struggling with a way to cope with fear of losing those things, do what every single person who wrote a chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood advises – tell someone, talk about it, and get some help. There are resources at the end of this article, and don’t be afraid to use them.
It’s
also helpful to remind ourselves of the important thing that Supernatural’s very own “dad” posted
after the news broke. Eric Kripke, who created this show and these characters,
was the empathic father figure on Friday who reached out to tell us all that
what he’s most proud of is the family created by his show – and that family is
not going anywhere.
Things
will change, but not everything. We may not gather together to dissect the
latest episode or argue amongst ourselves about which way canon “should” go,
but we will have fifteen seasons of rich and nuanced and fascinating adventures
to keep watching and keep talking about. As with all fandoms, a lot of what my
SPNFamily friends and I talk about on a daily basis doesn’t even have anything
to do with Supernatural – we talk
family stresses, job challenges, kid questions, politics, that awesome thing we
found at Target – whatever! They are the people I can reach out to for
support, no matter what the problem.
Fandom
friends become forever friends, and the friendship is all the richer for that
amazing show that brought us together. Ten years from now a bunch of us will
say hey, let’s all watch the Pilot, or The French Mistake, or All Hell Breaks
Loose, or the Finale. And no matter where we are in life and who we’ve gone on
to become, we’ll all pause and be reminded of all the ways that Supernatural changed our lives. Maybe
we’ll get a little teary and reach for the tissues, and maybe we’ll share some
hugs as we dab at our eyes, either virtual or in person. Because we’ll always
have this in common, and we’ll always “get it”. Nobody can ever take that away.
For now, I’m gonna cherish every single moment I get to spend with the Winchesters and Cas and company for the next year, stock up on tissues, and remember to be very very grateful for this Show and all it’s brought me.
Misha Collins Full Letter To Supernatural Fans
In 2008, my life changed forever.
What was supposed to be a small part lasting a couple of episodes on a genre TV show turned into over a decade of my career. I had no idea that when I stepped onto that set for what I thought was a simple acting gig, I was actually being welcomed into a family–not just a cast-and-crew family (though certainly that–I’ve found some of my closest friends in Jared, Jensen, & so many others in our cast and crew), but in all of you… our SPNFamily.
In the last 11 years, we’ve been through so many profound moments together. Our crew and cast have been through a lot of struggles, several people passed away, other people got divorced or faced serious health problems… but we’ve also watched one another get married, have children, and find great personal success. There’s been a lot to mourn and a lot to celebrate. And with you, the greater Supernatural Family, we’ve had similar losses and triumphs. We’ve seen so many good people succumb to illness (mental and physical), we’ve seen some of you find new jobs, new families, and new genders. In short, it’s been a lifetime.
We have also done some really cool things together. Together, we’ve built an orphanage and a school, rescued refugees, fed hungry children, saved endangered species, and helped people experiencing homelessness or struggling with mental health issues. (There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the kindest fandom in history.) We’ve played games, created art, and fought for political change. I’ve watched so many of you grow, and you’ve watched over our kids as they were born and grew, too… And they’ve been lucky enough to find themselves in a world filled with the warmth of your embrace, their millions of half-cousins-once-removed.
It’s the first days of my last-ever Supernatural hiatus. When we go back after the break, we’ll do everything in our power to give you an incredible season you deserve, one more time.
We’re at the threshold of an ending–but remember, all “endings” are really just a beginning in disguise. We may have been brought together by this show, but we’re all family now–and that’s not going anywhere. We’ve already impacted the world for the better… and we’re just getting started.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for adopting me into the #SPNFamily. I’ll never stop being grateful, and can’t wait to see what’s coming next for us… together.
5G is the new phrase you’ll be hearing more and more, but just as people figured out what 4G was, the next generation is already knocking at the tech front door. Like 4G, 5G is to change everyone’s life again, and with smart homes becoming more mainstream, this will play a huge part in that.
The mobile industry is cranking up its hype machine for sleek new “5G” networks that it says will make your phone and everything else faster and wonderful. If you believe the marketing.
How Will 5G Change Your Life?
But no one can really say
how 5G will change your life; many of the apps and services that will exploit
its speed haven’t been created yet. Look back at the last big wireless upgrade,
though, and you can get a sense of how profound that change might be.
Apple launched the iPhone
in 2007, and it quickly become obvious that the era’s 3G wireless networks
couldn’t handle millions of people uploading photos of their kid’s playdate to
Facebook or obsessing over “Words with Friends.” Not to mention managing their
finances, health care and shopping for everything from shoes to homes.
“When the smartphone came
out it brought the 3G network to its knees,” Stanford engineering professor
Andrea Goldsmith said. “The success of smartphones was because of 4G.”
4G speeds, the ones we’re
used to today, made possible many of the things we now take for granted on our
phones — Instagram, cloud storage, Netflix streaming. Or, for instance, that
ride you got home from the bar.
Without 4G, there would be
no Uber or Lyft, which need connections fast and strong enough to call a driver
on a moment’s notice, show customers where their driver is and give the
companies the ability to track drivers in real-time. That’s not something 3G
could handle.
Today, about 80 percent of U.S. adults have a smartphone ,
according to Pew Research Center, while industry group GSMA says 60 percent of
the world’s 5 billion cellphones users do, too. Mobile video, including ones created
by ordinary people, makes up 60 percent of all data traffic globally,
according to telecom-equipment maker Ericsson.
“Video was near-impossible
to use effectively on 3G,” said Dan Hays, a mobile networks expert at
consultancy PwC. “4G made mobile video a reality.”
Its influence has marked
our world. Citizens filmed protests, police violence and revolutions on their
phones. TV and movies disconnected from the living-room set and movie theater.
Our attention spans were whipsawed by constant pings and constant hot fresh
“content.”
To watch Netflix in
high-definition video, you need speed of at least 5 megabits per second; that’s
where Verizon’s 4G network download speed range started in its early days.
(Upload was and remains slower, a frustration for anyone who has ever tried to
send a video from a crowd.)
Trying to stream a live
video over Facebook, had this feature even existed in the 3G era, “wouldn’t
have worked, or it would have worked inconsistently, or only under the best
conditions,” said Nikki Palmer, head of product development for Verizon, the
largest U.S. mobile carrier. “You would have got failures, you would have got
retries, you would have got the equivalent of stalling on the network.”
While 4G brought on a
communications revolution and spawned startups now worth
billions, even it wasn’t
all it was hyped up to be.
See AT&T CEO Randall
Stephenson in March 2011, talking about 4G and cloud computing in an attempt to
win support for a proposed acquisition of rival T-Mobile: “Very soon we expect
every business process, we expect every system in your home and in your car,
every appliance, all your entertainment content, your work, all of your
personal data, everything is going to be wirelessly connected.”
Not quite yet. Smart homes
are not mainstream, and wireless business processes are a lot of what’s exciting
the wireless industry about 5G.
Hays remembers talking
about the possibilities 4G would create for virtual and augmented reality.
Those, of course, have yet to materialize. Just wait ’til next G.
Huawei Fights For Security Legitimacy
Chinese tech
giant Huawei’s deputy chairman defended its commitment to security Friday after
a stinging British
government report added to Western pressure on the company by accusing it
of failing to repair dangerous flaws in its telecom technology.
Guo Ping’s comments came
as Huawei Technologies Ltd., the biggest global maker of network equipment for
phone and internet companies, announced last year’s sales surpassed $100
billion despite U.S. pressure on American allies to shun it as a security
threat.
Accusations that Huawei,
China’s first global tech brand, might facilitate Beijing’s spying threaten to
hamper its access to global carriers that are preparing to invest billions of
dollars in next-generation technology.
Britain’s National Cyber
Security Center added criticism Thursday on a different front, accusing Huawei
of “poor software engineering.” The agency said in a report British researchers
saw no sign that was due to Chinese government interference, but it said Huawei
had not repaired flaws that might make its systems vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Guo didn’t respond
directly to the British report’s criticisms but said Huawei will work with
regulators to improve security. He noted the company has promised to invest $2
billion over five years to improve its software engineering and expressed
confidence British regulators will “increase their confidence” in Huawei over
time.
“We prioritize
cybersecurity and privacy protection even above our commercial targets,” Guo said
at a news conference. He said the British report showed Huawei products had no
“backdoors” to permit eavesdropping.
Huawei is, along with
Sweden’s LM Ericsson and Nokia Corp. of Finland, a global leader in developing
fifth-generation, or 5G, telecoms. The technology is intended to vastly expand
mobile networks to support self-driving cars, medical devices and factory
equipment, but that makes it more politically sensitive.
Huawei is at the center of
U.S.-Chinese tensions over technology and accusations of cyber-spying and
violating trade sanctions on Iran.
The company’s chief
financial officer was arrested in December in Canada on U.S. charges of lying
to banks about dealings with Iran. Beijing has detained two Canadians and
blocked imports of canola from Canada in what is widely seen as an attempt to
compel her release.
Huawei’s U.S. market
evaporated after a 2012 congressional report labeled the company a security
threat, but sales elsewhere grew rapidly. Huawei passed Apple last year as the
No. 2 global smartphone brand behind Samsung and earlier passed Ericsson as the
No. 1 network gear seller.
Australia, Japan and
Taiwan have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology, but Germany, France and
other governments are balking at U.S. demands to exclude it from 5G networks.
Carriers complain that would reduce competition, raise prices and delay the
rollout of 5G service.
Huawei has opened testing
centers in Britain, Germany and Belgium for regulators to examine its products.
“We welcome the European
Union’s attitude,” said Guo. “They do not discriminate against vendors from any
country.”
Chinese officials and some
industry analysts have suggested the Trump administration might be exaggerating
security concerns to hinder a competitor to U.S. tech brands.
Earlier this month,
Premier Li Keqiang promised at a nationally televised news conference that
Beijing never would tell Chinese tech companies to spy on foreign countries.
Huawei’s founder, Ren
Zhengfei, told reporters earlier this year the latest U.S. criticism had yet to
hurt sales. But Guo said Friday the company has to spend more time talking to
potential customers “to address their concerns.”
Despite that, Huawei’s
sales last year rose 19.5 percent over 2017 to 721.2 billion ($105.2 billion),
according to Guo. That was driven by double-digit gains for its consumer and
enterprise units, while sales of network gear to phone and internet carriers
were unchanged at 294 billion yuan ($62.3 billion).
Profit rose 25.1 percent
to 59.3 billion yuan ($8.6 billion).
Guo blamed weak network
gear sales on a temporary lull in investment by carriers. He expressed
confidence 5G sales will take off this year.
Huawei denies U.S.
accusations it is controlled by China’s ruling Communist Party and says it is
owned by about half the members of its 180,000-strong workforce. The company
has no publicly traded shares but started issuing annual financial reports a
decade ago in an attempt to appear more open and mollify Western security
concerns.
Guo said global sales for
the first two months of 2019 rose by more than 30 percent from a year earlier.
Ren, the company founder, said earlier this year’s revenue target is $125
billion.
Huawei has announced sales
of 5G
networks to a handful of carriers and contracts with major carriers in Germany
and other countries for field testing. The company says it already has shipped
more than 40,000 5G base stations to customers.
Huawei is asking a U.S.
federal court in a lawsuit filed this month to throw out a law that bars the
Trump administration and government contractors from using its equipment. The
company says that improperly punishes the company without giving it away to
defend itself.
The company’s chief legal
officer, Song Liuping, said he had no updates on the lawsuit.
“We believe the U.S. court will give us a fair judgment,” said Song at the news conference with Guo.
Mötley Crüe was that rock band that more than lived up to the hype of sex, drugs and rock music, but even members Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, and Mick Mars can’t remember everything they did. They detailed all they could recall in the 2001 book The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, co-written by Neil Strauss. The book didn’t hold back (including two mentions of rape), but the Netflix movie version certainly does hold back on many facts. Reviewers weren’t so happy with the final product.
Granted, when you’re making a biopic, it’s impossible to include every factual event, as that would turn it into a mini-series so liberties must be taken. We’ve pulled together the facts versus movie fictions as the film certainly glosses over a lot. Bassist Nikki Sixx is now claiming that the story where he “pretty much” raped a woman was either “possibly greatly embellished or made up.” He has also claimed that he was pretty fucked up during the interviews with Strauss and doesn’t recall much of that time period.
Did he or didn’t he snort that line of ants for Mötley Crüe. Ozzy Osbourne doesn’t remember it.
So, if everyone in Mötley Crüe was in the same headspace, might their memories be a little hazy? Ozzy Osbourne has also claimed that he had no memory of snorting that line of ants poolside in front of the band members. He was blackout drunk during that period, so whose memory can really be trusted?
Netflix does get a lot of the facts right, unlike how “Bohemian Rhapsody” was off the mark in some pretty big places. Here are the top inaccuracies from the film.
1. Tommy Lee’s First Encounter With Nikki Sixx Not Quite Right
The movie shows a teenage Tommy Lee going to see Sixx play a show with his band London at a Sunset Strip club and then bumping into him later at a Denny’s. Sixx tells him the band is over and he is looking to start a new one. He invites Tommy to try out as his drummer even though the only experience he mentions is playing in his high school marching band. In reality, he was the drummer in a group called Suite 19 that Sixx had seen in concert and found very impressive. They met at the Denny’s specifically to talk about forming a new band. Nothing about it was random.
2. Original Lead Singer Erased From History
When Mötley Crüe first went into the studio to record their earliest demos, Vince Neil wasn’t yet their singer. It was a fellow named O’Dean Peterson who, according to Tommy Lee, had a voice somewhere between Ian Astbury of the Cult and Klaus Meine of the Scorpions. But Nikki didn’t like his attitude and Mick Mars thought he was a hippie, which was basically a death sentence for a member of Mötley Crüe. They threw him out and history has basically forgotten that he ever existed. This movie does the same thing. (Though he still appears onstage occasionally in Los Angeles to cover the band.)
3. Meeting Vince Neil at a Backyard Party Didn’t Happen
When Neil first comes onscreen in The Dirt, he’s singing Billy Squier’s “My Kind of Lover” at a backyard party while the women up front go insane for him. (Let’s overlook the fact that “My Kind of Lover” wasn’t even out at the time.) And while he was in a cover band back then, the first meeting took place at The Starwood in West Hollywood. Neil avoided the band for a lot longer than the movie suggests, as they had to basically stalk him for weeks before he even agreed to an initial jam session. And they didn’t play “Live Wire” at their first jam because Nikki hadn’t written the song yet.
4. Elektra’s Tom Zutaut Didn’t Sign Them So Easily
In the movie version of the Mötley Crüe story, a young A&R rep from Elektra signs the band after talking to them for about 30 seconds at a bar. The only thing that slows the process down is the woman under the table trying to give him a surprise blowjob. In real life, the band created their own label, Leathür Records, solely to put out their own music before they ever met Zutaut (played by SNL’s Pete Davidson). When he initially approached the band, they were extremely suspicious and made him buy them many free meals throughout a long courtship. They were also accepting offers from Virgin. Zutaut did eventually sign them to Elektra, but it took a lot more than a quick hello at a bar.
5. Doc McGhee Didn’t Meet The Band At Their Apartment
In one of the movie’s most meta moments, the group’s future manager Doc McGhee is first seen when he knocks an unruly party guest to the floor with his fist. Mars then turns to the camera and says, “This didn’t actually happen. Doc never came to this filthy shithole. We met him at the Santa Monica Civic Center after a show. He also brought his partner, Doug Thaler. Doug was a good guy and it’s kinda shitty he got cut from this movie, but I think this is as good a version as any.” At this point, Thaler – seen briefly standing by Doc at backstage door – literally vanishes from the screen. But hey, give them credit for acknowledging they are changing history and literally erasing a major player.
6. Vince Neil Sex With Tom Zutaut’s Girlfriend Backstage Wasn’t at The Forum
Minutes before the movie version of Mötley Crüe take the stage at The Forum in Los Angeles, Neil has sex with Zutaut’s date in his dressing room as her leopard-skin bikini rests on the door handle. First off, they didn’t play The Forum until 1985 and this appears to be sometime in 1983. But Vince did have sex with Zutaut’s girlfriend that year. And she was wearing a leopard-skin bikini. But it happened at the US Festival, not the Forum. And it was after the show, not before. Movie Zutaut says “it hurt really bad” when he learned about it years later, but real-life Zutaut said the woman didn’t mean anything to him and he found the incident more amusing than heartbreaking.
7. Tommy Didn’t Meet Heather Locklear The Night of Vince’s Car Accident
In the movie, Lee meets Heather Locklear at a house party the night of Neil’s drunken car crash that killed Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley. They actually met backstage at an REO Speedwagon concert after his accountant introduced them. The movie does get right, however, that he initially confused her with Heather Thomas from The Fall Guy.
8. John Corabi Wasn’t Mute
After Neil left the band, they hired John Corabi as their new singer and cut a new album that they supported with a tour. Throughout all of that, he used his mouth to sing and even engage in conversations with actual words. Movie Corabi, however, seems to be incapable of this. He’s got the haircut right, but at no point does he demonstrate an actual ability to speak and not a single note of his music is heard. It’s quite possible some scenes were cut where he’s more than just a smirking guy in a couple of brief scenes. (Corabi is played by Anthony Vincent, an actual heavy metal singer best known for his 10 Second Songs series.)
9. Securing Rights to Their Publishing Wasn’t So Easy
Zutaut serves as the physical embodiment of the entire Elektra label in The Dirt. In the movie, he meets Sixx at a bar shortly before Neil rejoins the band and tells him the label is giving him back the rights to his publishing. This actually happened in 1998, after Generation Swine tanked, and only following a long, nasty battle with label head Sylvia Rhone. By this point, Zutaut had left Elektra for Geffen and had no involvement with any of this.
10. They Didn’t Fire Doc McGhee Over An Incident With Nikki’s Estranged Mother
The movie begins with an adolescent Sixx battling his inattentive mother and basically pledging never to speak with her again after he leaves home. Near the end, McGhee surprises Sixx by bringing his mother to the lobby of his hotel. He’s furious and fires him on the spot. What actually happened is that McGhee organized the Moscow Peace Festival in 1989 with Bon Jovi, the Scorpions, Osbourne, and Mötley Crüe. He told the Crüe that everyone would play truncated, no-frills sets. But when they showed up, not only were they placed on the bill prior to all the other acts, but Bon Jovi were doing a full set and had pyro. They fired McGhee on the spot and went with Thaler on his own, at least until the Corabi album bombed.
11. Mick Mars Didn’t Get Hip Replacement Surgery Until 2004
The timeline gets hopelessly muddled around the time the band reunites with Neil and the events of 1996 to 2005 get all smashed together in a very confusing fashion. In the film, Nikki and Tommy meet up with Mick before they mend their relationship with Vince and greet him as he leaves a hospital following hip replacement surgery. It’s sometime around 1996 in the movie timeline, but he didn’t get the surgery until 2004.
12. Reunion With Vince Neil Wasn’t So Easy
Movie Vince seems to spend his entire post-Mötley Crüe life sitting in the same bar. There’s not even a hint that he tried to launch a solo career. When the guys show up at the bar after getting Mick from the hospital 10 years in the future, they sit down and hash out a reunion over drinks and make sobby amends. The whole thing wasn’t even remotely that simple or sweet. The band wanted to make another record with Corabi and only met with Neil very reluctantly at the urging of their managers.
They actually met up with him at a Hyatt with a team of lawyers and managers around them. It was extremely tense, but Neil eventually agreed to stop by the studio and hear their in-progress record. Corabi was still involved at that point and briefly thought he’d remain as a second guitarist, but that made little sense and he was quickly pushed out.
13. Pamela Anderson Was Real For Tommy Lee
Lee married Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson in 1995 after knowing her for just four days. They had two children. There was a sex tape. He was arrested for assaulting her and spent six months in prison. They divorced in 1998. She accused him of giving her hepatitis C. All of this insanity got about 10,000 times more attention than anything the band did in the Nineties, but there’s not even a single mention of her name in the movie. Lee is shown punching his girlfriend on a tour bus in the Eighties after she repeatedly calls his mother a “cunt” and stabs him in the shoulder with a pen.
14. The Nine Years Between 1996 And 2005 Isn’t Some Amorphous Blob of Time
The movie cuts straight from a tearful group hug at the fictional Vince Neil bar reunion right to their real-life manager Allen Kovac (playing himself) knocking on their dressing room doors shortly before a big arena concert. It is implied that this is right after Vince rejoined, but they’re basically in their 2005 reunion tour outfits. There’s no mention of 1997’s Generation Swine, Tommy quitting the band in 1999, 2000’s New Tattoo, the death of replacement drummer Randy Castillo in 2002 and the band’s decision to go on hiatus that same year. It’s somehow 1996, 2005 and all points in between all at once. But at least it doesn’t show them writing “We Will Rock You” in the Eighties.
My
review of last week’s Supernatural
isn’t exactly what it would have been if I’d written it right away. That’s
because the world of every Supernatural
fan careened off its axis on Friday when it was announced that the Show would
end after one more season. Most of us have been very emotional since, and when
I went back to re-watch this episode, it was through a very different lens. A
lens that has me wanting to cherish every last second of the Winchesters and
company that I can get before this wild ride is all over. This may not have
been one of my favorite episodes, but it gave me Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean
(Jensen Ackles) on a hunt and an emotional story with Jack, and I’m feeling
grateful.
‘Don’t Go
Into The Woods’ was written by first-time writer Nick Vaught and Davy Perez,
both of whom are avid horror fans, so we knew this episode would be heavy on
the horror tropes. It started off like so many horror films do, with a young
couple making out in the woods and hearing spooky noises. Which, for some
inexplicable reason, they always think is the wind. When does the wind sound
like that?? Instead of a monster rapping on the car window, we get the horror
trope curve ball, since it’s the boy’s gruff dad – who’s also the town sheriff
because of course he is. The young woman decides to give them space and go off
to the bathroom, which is a shack in the middle of the woods and OMG WHY WOULD
YOU DO THAT YOUNG WOMAN??? Even if it wasn’t scary as hell I wouldn’t sit down
on the toilet seat like she does, btw. But she does, and the eerie whistling
starts, and then we see the deformed clawed hand reach over the stall door. Cue
screams!
That scene
was nicely done, scary and disgusting and we didn’t get to see the monster
which is always scarier anyway.
Cut to the
bunker, where Sam is researching and starting to feel maybe a little bit
better, though it’s clear the guilt over the AU hunters being killed is still
there. Dean walks in to find Sam hunched over the laptop, and I get
unexpectedly emotional because that’s such an iconic Winchester scene and SHIT
we’ll only have 24 more episodes to get more of those! Where are my tissues?
Dean: Whatcha looking at? Porn? Sex tapes?
Nip slips?
Sam: The internet is more than just naked
people, you know that, right?
Dean: Not my internet.
Iconic
Winchesters. I smile through my tears.
Sam shares
the case and offers to go get Cas (Misha Collins), but Dean explains that Cas
left that morning, feeling too cooped up and needing to stretch his legs. Sam
asks about taking Jack, but Dean says no, that he’s gotten them in trouble
before with his powers and he just got them back. Much to Sam’s disagreement, Dean doesn’t tell
Jack the truth though, instead making up a fairly lame story about Jack needing
to be there in case Mary comes by (why?) and them needing him to go on a supply
run.
Jack, still
trying his new strategy of not worrying Sam and Dean, agrees to do the supply
run.
Me: Wait, so you think he’ll be less likely to get into
trouble going into town ALONE??
But this is
a horror movie, so I guess the bad decision fits, and we all know that what’s
coming can’t be good.
Jack looks
so eager to please as he says “I’ll do it” and it breaks my heart.
Winchesters
in FBI coats and fed suits, and once again I’m hit by a wave of anticipatory
nostalgia that I have to swallow down. The Sheriff (Adam Reuben Beech) isn’t
nearly as moved as I am, not exactly wanting them there but reluctantly
allowing them to examine the body of the murdered young woman.
This scene
is also scarier than these scenes usually are on Supernatural, because as soon as they pull out the drawer, her arm
falls off the side and hits Dean, who jumps back like he’s been electrocuted.
Sam makes a face, incredulous.
Sam: Seriously?
Dean insists
he has cat-like reflexes, can’t help it.
Me: Ohgod, I can’t lose them, this is painful…
Also, the body
is seriously scary because her eyes are OPEN. *shudders* Nice work, someone.
The sheriff,
meanwhile, lies to his son about what killed his girlfriend. The son is eaten
up with guilt, much like someone else we know. Another couple of clueless kids
hike into the woods and this time the guy gets killed, which prompts the
sheriff to close the woods and bar everyone from them, including Sam and Dean.
Dean: We should probably do what he says.
Sam: Oh yeah, definitely.
So, of
course, they head into the woods as soon as it gets dark. Love me some
Winchesters.
The Sheriff
surprises them and gets them at gunpoint, but Dean quickly overpowers him and
turns the tables.
The
Winchesters sense that he knows more than he’s saying, so they let him know who
they really are and give him his gun back and ask for his help. The Sheriff
tells them more about the Kojunta they’re hunting, which is a really morbid and
gruesome story about a young settler whose family was starving to death – so he
took extreme measures.
Dean: Like Donner party?
Me: That’s right, damn it, Dean is smart!
The
Sheriff’s tribe cursed the young man to be a Kojunta, to wander the forest
endlessly hungry.
Sam and Dean
explain that they hunt these sort of things.
Dean: We kill them.
Sheriff: Just the two of you?
Dean: We know what we’re doing.
Me: That’s the story, right there. Oh god, where are my
tissues?
The Sheriff
says they should tell people what’s out there, make youtube videos or something,
but the Winchesters shake their heads.
Dean: Knowing about monsters and fighting
them are two different things.
Sam: No. People die. Even when they know
how to fight, people die.
Oh Sam.
Still so guilty.
The
Sheriff’s son, also consumed with guilt, goes after the monster, and the
Winchesters and the Sheriff go after Tom.
The Sheriff
fills in the missing information – you can kill a Kojunta with a silver blade
to the heart.
Sam: (pulling out a silver blade) Silver
blade? Can do.
Me: (fans self) Competence kink, let me show you it.
We get wet
boys in the dark in the rain in the woods running with flashlights. The monster
tackles Tom in the old cabin, but his dad arrives in time to distract it and it
attacks him instead. That gives Dean time to pick up Tom (in one easy motion,
swinging him into a fireman’s hold, and is it hot in here?). Sam shows up and
shoots the monster a few times, until it drops the Sheriff and attacks poor Sam
instead, but Dean comes back and grabs its attention away from Sam.
Dean: Come on!
He lures it
out the door, where the Sheriff is waiting to impale it with the silver blade.
The monster melts into a disgusting pile of goo just as Sam staggers out the
door, slightly the worse for wear but okay.
Dean: Whoa. Like full on Raiders.
The Sheriff
checks on his son, and calls back, “He’s alive.”
Sam and Dean
share a loaded look, then nod to each other. It’s all they need to say a lot of
things. Job well done. We needed a win. Saving people, hunting things. The
family business.
Me: Ohgod, I need another box of tissues…
Meanwhile,
Jack goes into town and predictably gets himself in trouble. He runs into the
three high school students we met in “Lebanon”.
Stacy and
Max are continuing their romance and Eliot is obsessed with Sam and Dean and
currently watching episodes of The Ghostfacers. They befriend Jack, who
absolutely eats up their interest and tries to show off what he knows. He’s like every young teenager who
desperately wants other kids to like him, and is willing to do whatever it
takes to try to seem cool, and it breaks my heart. Oddly, the teenage clerks
are allowed to sell him beer, but when they ask for ID, Jack looks perplexed.
Jack: ID?
Nevertheless,
the kids invite him to hang out with them later.
Max: Do you ever hang out?
Jack: We have movie nights….Dean usually
picks…
Me: Family movie night OMG. Where are my tissues??
Jack joins
them at a remote cabin later that day, bringing some of the Winchesters’ books
on monsters and demons. Max and Stacy flirt and part of me thinks aww that’s
cute and part of me keeps wondering what the CW is doing with these kids and if
they think we’ll just accept them as a
replacement for Wayward Sisters. Except we don’t know or care about them so
pretty sure the answer is an across the board no. Or perhaps the network just thinks the cast
is too old and they need actual teenagers, which again, NO.
Jack: What’s that noise? (contemporary
music playing)
Stacy: Music?
Jack shares
that Dean says that only classic music like The Who is any good (doesn’t suck
ass) and Max snorts.
Max: That’s because Dean is also old.
That
actually doesn’t do anything to make me like these kids, to be honest.
Jack wants
desperately to impress his new friends, so he shows them an angel blade and
tries to throw it properly. After repeatedly failing and feeling ridiculed,
Jack is frustrated.
Caps by kayb625
He finally taps
into his powers and embeds it into the fence. When the kids respond with oooh
and aahhh he’s thrilled, showing off by making the blade fly through the air in
circles, faster and faster.
Eliot: (in awe) Are you a Jedi?
Jack: (so proud) Kinda.
Me: Uh oh. Oh Jack…
Of course,
the kids become frightened and tell Jack to stop, but he’s beyond listening,
lost in the heady thrill of being able to impress someone.
For some
inexplicable reason, Stacy steps forward right into the line of the flying
blade (to stop him? I don’t know) and gets stabbed right in the chest. She
falls to the ground with a tearful Max leaning over her and begging her not to
leave her.
Jack is
devastated. Desperate to make it right, he manages to heal her, but the
frightened kids still tell him to stay away. They walk away, leaving Jack alone
and heartbroken.
My own heart
broke for him too, and sunk at the realization that the Show really does seem
to be sending him down the path to going darkside in some way. I’ve really
liked the character of Jack, so that realization hit me hard and made me even
sadder than I already was – and that’s really saying something!
Having
finished their hunt back in story line number one, Sam and Dean have a talk
with the Sheriff as his son is taken to the hospital, advising him to tell Tom
the truth.
Sam: How about the truth? He’s your son,
he deserves the truth.
Clearly Sam
isn’t just talking about Tom.
On the way
home in the Impala, Sam tells Dean that he’s not sure Dean lying to Jack was
the right thing to do.
Dean protests: He said he was fine.
Sam: And how many times did we tell Dad
we were fine just to make him happy?
Dean has no
answer to that, and the glimpse of their difficult childhood makes me emotional
all over again. Remember the 300th episode just a few weeks ago when
we were all so happy?
They do tell
Jack the truth when they get back to the bunker.
Dean: We were trying to be nice. Because
we care about you. But because we care about you, you deserve the truth.
I love Sam
and Dean in Dad mode.
Jack reports
that he got the supplies, except for the beer.
Jack: I didn’t have ID.
Dean: You have tons of IDs!
Jack: They’re fake.
Dean: (is incredulous)
Sam just
laughs fondly.
It would be
a touching family moment, except Jack doesn’t tell them about the incident with
the kids, just calmly promises them that he won’t use his powers without
permission. Dean heads out to get the beer, and Sam sits with Jack.
Sam: So anything else happen?
Jack: No. Nothing.
Oh Jack. You
really are a Winchester now.
It’s an
ominous ending once again. I found that I liked the episode more on second
watch. On first watch I was impatient with its slow pace, and with the focus on
the teenagers. On second watch, I appreciated the emotion of both story lines
more – and like I said, I just feel incredibly grateful to still have Sam and
Dean on my TV screen.
Someone on
social media pointed out a parallel that hadn’t struck me, but as soon as it
did, it made me emotional all over again.
Supernatural Season 1: A
less confident brotherly duo, on unsteady footing with each other, struggling
with emotional baggage, go into the woods to kill a monster bent on eating
human flesh. (Wendigo)
Supernatural Season 14: A
confident brotherly duo, on steady footing with each other despite the
emotional baggage, do the same.
Both with a
guy named Tommy as a main character. That parallel may or may not be
intentional, but it almost serves as a metaphor for how the show and the
brothers have evolved. Also, fandom is brilliant, and I love this damn Show.
Four more
episodes of this Supernatural season,
and then we’ll go through the very last hiatus (hellatus) that the show will
ever have. It will be a year of lasts, and I’m already thinking of buying stock
in Kleenex.
He made it official on Sunday via Instagram that he’ll be retiring from the NFL after nine, Super Bowl packed seasons. Going out on top is always a smart choice as you venture into your next career.
Yeah, but what about
Gronk?
Well, the party is about
to go bazooka .
Look out for Gronk gone
wild, Gronk unhinged, Gronk unleashed. Without football strings attached,
Gronkowski is suddenly a hot free agent year-round, his talents pitched to far
more than 32 suitors, from Hollywood to endorsements to, well, whatever Gronk
wants.
He was fun-loving and
fearless, a dominant tight end whose
Super Bowls were won with New England and whose playful personality won over
even the most casual fans. Gronkowski, who announced Sunday that he is retiring
from the NFL after nine mostly dominant, title-filled seasons, set scores of
records for the Patriots at his position and could light up the scoreboard like
his smile can light up a room.
The numbers only tell a
speck of the story.
Super Bowl wins were great.
Boy, was it so much more
fun just being Gronk.
He stood
tall at the Super Bowl and WrestleMania ; won big games and took on
gamers; starred on the field and in film; and did it all with a goofy charm
that belied a gritty tight end who seemingly always played through pain. The Patriots
are going to miss Gronkowski as they try for yet another Super Bowl
championship.
But Gronk’s not going
anywhere.
So let’s take a look at
what made Gronk so great, and what could be ahead:
GRONK THE GOAT
Gronkowski never would
have had a sustained run as a popular pitchman, hosted kids shows or popped up in
movies had he not been one of the greatest tight ends — yeah, probably the
greatest — in NFL history.
Gronkowski was hobbled by
injuries last season and played just 13 games, and each ache raised constant
questions about possible retirement. Gronkowski had plenty left in the Super
Bowl and still had clutch catches in the tank on New England’s final drive. He
had two catches on the Patriots’ go-ahead touchdown drive, the second catch set
up Sony Michel’s 2-yard score in the win over the Rams.
“I like making big catches
like that,” Gronkowski said.
Gronkowski went out a
champion — and he may be headed to Canton.
He had 10 catches for 145
yards and three touchdowns in New England’s win at Denver in an AFC Divisional
playoff win in 2011. Gronkowski might have been more impressive in the 2015 AFC
championship game, when he converted two fourth-down attempts on the game’s
final drive and had eight receptions for 144 yards and one touchdown, perhaps
his best effort in a crushing defeat.
Gronkowski is the only NFL
tight end with more than 500 career receptions who averaged more than 15 yards
per reception.
He averaged nearly 69
yards per game and cracked juvenile jokes about setting a record 69 TDs for a
tight end, thanking his mom when
he reached the mark. He finished with 79 TDs receiving and one rushing.
GRONK GONE WILD
The final image of
Gronkowski in a Patriots uniform, greatness.
The final image of Gronk
out of uniform, hilarious.
He celebrated the Super
Bowl title on the parade route by
stripping off his shirt , chugging beers, flipping his hat
backward and acting like a frat boy on a float. A hurled beer from the crowd
that ricocheted off his hulking chest was the final hit in his career.
Gronk seemed to make as
many TMZ clips as NFL Films highlights.
Gronkowski has a standing
offer from WWE to move from the gridiron to the squared circle and become a
professional wrestler like his childhood friend, Mojo Rawley. Gronkowski
stormed over the barricade at WrestleMania in 2017 and bro-hugged
Rawley after he won the Andre the Giant battle royal.
Gronk vs. The Rock?
Gronk vs. Brock?
With WrestleMania just
weeks away, the goofy Gronkowski could crash the show again and get mixed up in
more shenanigans. Heck, “Gronk” doesn’t even need to make up a ring name.
GRONK THE ENTERTAINER
Gronkowski might find his
NFL bio condensed on a Hall of Fame plaque down the road but there’s almost no
way it could fit in his offseason activities. Gronkowski was a hit with the
average fan — from kids to grandparents — because of his endearing persona that
made him about as A-list as any athlete. He had a personal ”Talk with Gronk ” that poked fun at any
idiot who wanted to eat a Tide Pod. He hosted “Crashletes” on Nickelodeon , was a fed a
beer bong by Patriots teammate Julian Edelman in the “Entourage” movie, and
played a heightened, animated
version of Gronk on “Family Guy.”
Gronkowski found victory
lane just as fun as the end zone when he partied with Daytona 500
winner Kurt Busch and
team owner Tony Stewart in 2017. He had Monster Energy drinks and Monster girls
all around him, a winning combo in an offseason pit stop for Gronk.
“I’m just having a blast,”
he said. “I never really got to tailgate. I never really got to run-around (on
Sundays). It’s cool to run around and meet people, enjoy the atmosphere, see
what really goes down on this side of the stadium.”
Always the life of the
party, Gronkowski quipped he was the party in an interview with ESPN Deportes
after one of New England’s Super Bowl wins. He was a hit in any language,
especially compared to the milquetoast Brady. Among his best just-for-laughs
takes, reading erotic Gronk fiction to Jimmy Kimmel such as, “I would have the
pleasure to spike a football between butt cheeks,” he told a Boston talk radio
station that he was a virgin and said Patriots fans were “going bazooka” at
Gillette Stadium.
But he went from whimsical
to warm on the Insta post where
he called it a career.
“Cheers to all who have been part of the journey,” he wrote, “cheers to the past for the incredible memories, and a HUGE cheers to the uncertainty of what’s next.”
Rob Gronkowski Makes It Official – He’s Retiring From NFL
The party’s
over for Rob Gronkowski. Then again, it might just be getting started.
The New England Patriots’
fun-loving, touchdown-spiking tight end announced Sunday that he is retiring
from the NFL after nine mostly dominant, Super Bowl-filled seasons.
The four-time All-Pro
posted his decision on Instagram, saying that a few months shy of his
30th birthday “it’s time to move forward and move forward with a big smile.”
“It all started at 20
years old on stage at the NFL draft when my dream came true, and now here I am
about to turn 30 in a few months with a decision I feel is the biggest of my
life so far,” Gronkowski wrote in his post. “I will be retiring from the game
of football today.”
Drew Rosenhaus,
Gronkowski’s agent, confirmed his client’s decision to retire.
The playmaking tight end,
who turns 30 in May, leaves as a three-time Super Bowl champion who established
himself as one of the most dominant players at his position and one of Tom
Brady’s favorite targets. His personality — on and off the field — was as big
as his biceps, and he always seemed to be the life of the party.
“In the nine years that I
have known Rob Gronkowski, I have never known him to have a bad day,” Patriots
owner Robert Kraft said in a statement. “He always has a youthful exuberance
about him and is a joy to be around.
But Gronkowski has been
dogged in recent seasons by back, knee, ankle and arm injuries that have
limited his ability to stay on the field.
It led him
to hint at retirement following New England’s Super Bowl loss to the
Philadelphia Eagles to end the 2017 season and again last month after the
Patriots’ Super Bowl win over the Los Angeles Rams.
In his Instagram post,
Gronkowski thanked the Patriots organization, coach Bill Belichick and New
England’s fans for their support during his nine NFL seasons.
“Thank you for everyone
accepting who I am and the dedication I have put into my work to be the best
player I could be,” Gronkowski wrote.
Belichick said Gronkowski
was a major reason the Patriots won championships.
“His production spoke for
itself, but his daily attitude, unmistakably positive energy wherever he went
and toward whoever he touched will never be forgotten,” Belichick said in a
statement.
Gronkowski’s teammates
also almost immediately began to flood social media with well-wishes.
“Love you man!!” Brady
wrote on Instagram, along with an emoji of a goat to refer to Gronkowski as the
greatest of all-time. “Couldn’t be a better person or teammate!!!!”
It was a sentiment shared
by receiver Julian Edelman.
“The other goat,” Edelman
posted on his Instagram page, also referring to Brady.
Though he won’t have the
longevity of some of his contemporaries at tight end, Gronkowski is expected to
get strong consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame when eligible.
Gronkowski, a second-round
pick in the 2010 draft, had his fourth career 1,000-yard receiving season in
2017 and was an All-Pro for the fourth time that season.
But at times he looked
like a shell of himself during the Patriots’ Super Bowl run this past season.
Gronkowski finished the 2018 regular season with just 47 catches for 682 yards
and three touchdowns.
He had one of his best
games of the season in the Patriots’ Super Bowl win over the Rams, hauling in
six catches for 87 yards, including two receptions on New England’s only
touchdown drive during their 13-3 victory.
A fan favorite in New
England for his gregarious and playful persona that included awkward dance
moves and touchdown celebrations, Gronkowski was one of the most dominant tight
ends of his era.
His 12 career postseason
touchdown receptions are the most by a tight end in NFL playoff history. His 81
career postseason catches are also best among tight ends.
He’ll also retire with 79
career TD catches — regular season and playoffs — which is third all-time by a
tight end behind only Antonio Gates (116) and Tony Gonzalez (111).
Brady and Gronkowski connected
on 78 TD passes. It is the second-most scoring connections between a
quarterback and a tight end in NFL history behind only Philip Rivers and Gates
(89) and is fifth overall between quarterbacks and all pass-catchers.
“Rob will leave an
indelible mark on the Patriots organization and the game,” Brady said, “as
among the best, most complete players at his position to ever play.”
After the news hit on March 22,
2019 about Supernatural ending after
Season 15, I lamented that I always thought I’d be prepared for this news. In
fact, I thought I knew exactly when the news would come; with the season 16
renewal news.
I hate being wrong.
It was Friday afternoon. I was
working. I was busy, unusual for a Friday. My friend called and that wasn’t
exactly weird, she texts me several times a day and I often get a call around
3:30pm as she walks home. Heck, if I don’t answer she always has a “how dare
you not sense me calling you?” quip. I answered and she said, “did you see my
texts? Why aren’t you answering me?” and I said, “no, lemme check,” assuming it
was screenshot or a meme. She said, “don’t bother, I’ll just tell you: it’s
over.”
I didn’t have to ask what she was
talking about, her tone gave it away. My stomach dropped like it was the mid
‘90s and I was back in San Antonio on the original Rattler rollercoaster. My
skin prickled. I felt a wave of heat spread through my entire head. My vision
swam.
Supernatural was done.
We talked for a bit, not long. I
finished up the work I was doing and I checked Twitter. I’m a fangirl, it’s
what we do when news breaks. There it was, Jared Padalecki’s video post was the
first to let us know. My timeline was a mess of anguish; early years of being
on the bubble and tulpa’ing a next season into existence, a writers’ strike,
being shuffled off to Friday for season 7 by a network head that wanted to be
rid of the workhorse series that didn’t fit her vision and then rising like a
phoenix from the ash thanks to a new boss and a sweet Netflix deal,14 seasons
nearly in the can and a whole season to let us down slowly and it’s still not
enough.
I waited to cry.
The tears didn’t come. But neither
did the jokes. Crass and/or dark humor are how I deal with things. I couldn’t
joke about this. Nothing was funny. I couldn’t deflect. I felt weirdly angry,
not at anyone or anything in particular. Certainly not at Jared and Jensen, but
there was just a low simmer of anger that’s still there. Is it a mourning
stage? Perhaps.
This show is a huge part of my
life in ways I never imagined. When it premiered in 2005 I didn’t watch it, I
refused. Angel had been canceled the
previous year with the then WB network stated that while the show had done well
in its fifth season it simply didn’t match where the network was heading; they
wanted out of the horror genre. They wanted brighter, younger, more dramatic
and romantic popcorn programming. They wanted to ride their Gilmore Girls high even higher, wanted
the magic of Dawson’s Creek back. And
then they launched a shadowy, grimy show about two brothers hunting ghosts.
Well, I guess since one was on Gilmore Girls and the other on Dawson’s Creek, close enough, right?
I wanted nothing to do with it. It
was replacing a show whose loss was still a fresh wound.
I had friends from BtVS/Angel fandom and Queer as Folk fandom promising me that
I’d like it; I still refused. So how did I get sucked in? Almost by force;
season 2 was already airing and I went to visit a friend in Oklahoma, who also
was refusing to watch, and another friend (in Canada, no less) overnighted
bootleg burned DVDs of the first half of season 1 to the house. FINE. That was
effort. And money. So we watched. And it was game over. I came for the Woman in
White (or as I knew it, La Llorona) story and stayed for these beautifully
broken, brave, and devoted brothers.
I came home and immediately bought
the season 1 boxed set and roped another friend and her sister into watching.
By the time I caught up with season 1 and the first half of season 2 (via a
super secret,
have-someone-vouch-for-you-and-then-let-us-check-out-your-LJ-account-to-make-sure-you’re-legit
LiveJournal download community) the second half of the season was about to air.
I mean, I’d just caught up with “Croatoan” and here I was poised to watch
“Hunted” live in mere days.
Let me tell you something: you
don’t get to choose your fandom, your fandom chooses you. You can’t force it,
you can’t rush it. You can love a piece of media and never fall into its
fandom, you just consume and move on. It takes something that worms its way
into your brain and heart and makes you need, not want, but NEED, more.
Something to fill the space until the next bit is served to you. It may be
fanfic or fanart, it may be fanvids or a playlists, it may just be screaming
with friends online or in person at conventions. Whatever it may be, it’s a
takeover.
I’ve done a lot in this fandom. I’ve read fic, I’ve written fic, I used to make LJ icons, I collect gifs, hell I DEMAND gifs from friends, I have a 59 song long and growing Winchester playlist, I tweet with my friends daily, I’ve been to oh, so many cons, I’ve written reviews, reports, and recaps for various sites, I co-admin the very first Supernatural fansite (winchesterbros.com), I co-host the podcast for said site, I’ve been to the set; my friend Becky and I were name checked in an issue of the now defunctSupernatural magazine. I’m not listing for bragging rights, I’m listing to show that my investment in this show is… intense. Casual? I don’t know her.
Right now, I feel like my decade
plus takeover has a countdown clock over it in a way that my previous fandoms
didn’t have. Those shows were cancelled fairly abruptly. I’m not sure if Jared
and Jensen letting us know this early was a blessing or a curse. Was it a
cruelty or a mercy?
And I’ll let you in on a secret,
too: I’m scared. Who am I without this show? I’m not sure anymore. Will I get
to keep my friends? I have such a small number of friends left from my BtVS/Angel days and none from my Queer as Folk days. Is this going to be
different? Will longevity and the real-life connections I’ve made with all
these people win out? I really hope so. Will I still want to write? Will anyone
read what I write? How long before those 59 and counting songs stop making me
think of Sam and Dean?
How long before I just stop
thinking of Sam and Dean Winchester aside from the random, fleeting, nostalgic
thought?
It took me awhile to figure out
the feeling I was experiencing. Heartbreak. I’m utterly and completely
heartbroken.
With “Us,” Jordan Peele once again holds the mirror up for society, and it’s record breaking box office numbers show just how much moviegoers are happy to look at that reflection. Hollywood studios usually avoid politically charged films, but Peele has shown them how to do with horror.
He’s not the first to do this, as the masters of horror like Wes Craven and George Romero were one of the firsts to do this. Peele has just taken it further and really held the mirror up higher. With the success of “Get Out,” audiences were primed and ready for “Us.”
Jordan Peele
has done it again. Two years after the filmmaker’s “Get Out” became a
box-office sensation, his frightening follow-up, “Us,” debuted with $70.3
million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The opening, well above
forecasts, had few parallels. It was the largest
debut for an original horror film (only the “It” remake and last year’s
“Halloween” have surpassed it in the genre) and one of the highest openings for
a live-action original film since “Avatar” was released 10 years ago.
In today’s
franchise-driven movie world, seldom has a young director been such a draw. But
moviegoers turned out in droves to see what kind of freak-out Peele could
muster in his sophomore release.
“Peele has really crafted
an extraordinary story that I think once again is going to capture the cultural
zeitgeist,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “He is recognized
as just an amazing talent. He crafts films that make you think, that are
extraordinarily well-acted, well-written and are amazingly entertaining.”
“Us” took over the top spot at
the box office from “Captain Marvel,” which had reigned for two weeks. The
Marvel Studios superhero release slid to second place with $35 million in its
third week. In three weeks of release, it’s made $910 million worldwide, and
will soon become the first $1 billion release of 2019.
Other holdovers — the
animated amusement “Wonder Park” and the cystic fibrosis teen romance “Five
Feet Apart”— trailed in third and fourth with about $9 million each in their
second week.
But the weekend belonged
overwhelming to “Us,” which more than doubled the $33.4 million domestic debut
of 2017′s Oscar-winning “Get Out.” The former “Key & Peele” star’s first
film as writer-director, “Get Out” ultimately grossed $255.4 million on a $4.5
million budget.
“Us” cost $20 million to
make, meaning it’s already a huge hit for Peele and Universal Pictures, which
notched its third No. 1 release of the year following “Glass” and “How to Train
Your Dragon: The Hidden World.”
It’s also, as Peele has
said, more thoroughly a horror film. While “Us” has drawn very good reviews (94
percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), audiences gave it a relatively low “B″
CinemaScore. Paul Dergarabedian chalked that up mainly to moviegoers feeling
shell-shocked when they emerged from the theater.
“Us” stars Lupita Nyong’o
and Winston Duke as vacationing parents whose family is faced with eerie
doppelgangers of themselves. The film added $16.7 million from 47 international
territories.
While “Us” was propelled
by a number of things, including Nyong’o and buzz out of its SXSW premiere, the
main selling point was Peele. The 40-year-old director already has an
imprimatur matched only by veteran filmmakers like Clint Eastwood.
“It’s really difficult for
a director to become a superstar whose name gets people in theater, and Jordan
Peele has done just that,” said Dergarabedian. “He’s a superstar director with
a brand all his own, and that’s with two feature films under his belt. That’s
pretty astonishing. That just doesn’t happen.”
After a sluggish January
and February, the overall box office has rebounded thanks to “Captain Marvel”
and “Us.” The weekend was up 15.3 percent from last year, according to
Comscore.
The weekend followed an
especially tumultuous week in Hollywood. On Monday, Warner Bros. chief Kevin
Tsujihara stepped down following a sex scandal. On Wednesday, the Walt Disney
Co. completed its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
In absorbing one of the
six major studios in 20th Century Fox, Disney quickly made many layoffs and
shuttered Fox 2000, the Fox label behind hit book adaptations like “Hidden
Figures” and “Life of Pi.”
North American Box Office
Estimated ticket sales for
Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore.
Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are
also included.
1. “Us,” $70.3 million
($16.7 million international).
2. “Captain Marvel,” $35
million ($52.1 million international).
3. “Wonder Park,” $9
million ($5 million international).
4. “Five Feet Apart,” $8.8
million ($6.2 million international).
5. “How to Train Your
Dragon: The Hidden World,” $6.5 million ($6 million international).
6. “A Madea Family
Funeral,” $4.5 million.
7. “Gloria Bell,” $1.8
million.
8. “No Manches Frida,”
$1.8 million.
9. “Lego Movie 2: The
Second Part,” $1.1 million ($6.2 million international).
10. “Alita: Battle Angel,”
$1 million ($1.6 million international).
Worldwide Box Office
Estimated ticket sales for
Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore.
Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are
also included.
1. “Captain Marvel,” $52.1
million.
2. “More Than Blue,” $29.6
million.
3. “Us,” $16.7 million.
4. “Song of Youth,” $11.3
million.
5. “Money,” $10.3 million.
6. “Green Book,” $8.1
million.
7. “Bohemian Rhapsody,”
$7.6 million.
8. “Five Feet Apart,” $6.2
million.
9. “Lego Movie 2: The
Second Part,” $6.2 million.
10. “How to Train Your
Dragon: The Hidden World,” $6 million.
Facebook has asked forgiveness for its privacy issues, misuse of users private data and security mishaps so many times, we’ve lost count. Now, shortly after Mark Zuckerberg announced major changes to the social media giant’s privacy plan, yet another screw up comes along.
Most companies of this size will scramble user passwords with a cryptographic process known as hashing before saving them to their servers. This makes it so that even if someone hacks into the passwords, they won’t be able to read them. Plus, no matter how sophisticated a computer they had, it wouldn’t be able to unscramble them.
Facebook knows that this would be a hackers dream come true, but they chose not to go the smart safe route. They might have a server farm worth a fortune, but it’s not worth a dime when they leave an open door like this for hackers.
Yup, Facebook Did It Again To Users
Facebook left hundreds of millions of user passwords readable by its employees for years, the company acknowledged Thursday after a security researcher exposed the lapse.
By storing
passwords in readable plain text, Facebook violated fundamental
computer-security practices. Those call for organizations and websites to save
passwords in a scrambled form that makes it almost impossible to recover the
original text.
“There is no
valid reason why anyone in an organization, especially the size of Facebook,
needs to have access to users’ passwords
in plain text,” said cybersecurity expert Andrei Barysevich of Recorded
Future.
Facebook
said there is no evidence its employees abused access to this data. But
thousands of employees could have searched them. The company said the passwords
were stored on internal company servers, where no outsiders could access them.
Even so, some privacy experts suggested that users change their Facebook
passwords.
One More Oversight At Facebook
The incident
reveals yet another huge and basic oversight at a company that insists it is a
responsible guardian for the personal data of its 2.3 billion users worldwide.
The security
blog KrebsOnSecurity said Facebook may have left the passwords of some 600
million Facebook users vulnerable. In a blog post, Facebook said it will likely
notify “hundreds of millions” of Facebook Lite users, millions of Facebook
users and tens of thousands of Instagram users that their passwords were stored
in plain text.
Facebook
Lite is a version designed for people with older phones or low-speed internet
connections. It is used primarily in developing countries.
Last week,
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted a new ”privacy-focused vision” for the
social network that would emphasize private communication over public sharing.
The company wants to encourage small groups of people to carry on encrypted
conversations that neither Facebook nor any other outsider can read.
Encryption Is King
The fact
that the company couldn’t manage to do something as simple as encrypting
passwords, however, raises questions about its ability to manage more complex
encryption issues — such in messaging — flawlessly.
Facebook
said it discovered the problem in January. But security researcher Brian Krebs
wrote that in some cases the passwords had been stored in plain text since
2012. Facebook Lite launched in 2015 and Facebook bought Instagram in 2012.
The problem,
according to Facebook, wasn’t due to a single bug. During a routine review in
January, it say, it found that the plain text passwords were unintentionally
captured and stored in its internal storage systems. This happened in a variety
of circumstances — for example, when an app crashed and the resulting crash log
included a captured password.
Sloppy Security
But Alex
Holden, the founder of Hold Security, said Facebook’s explanation is not an
excuse for sloppy security practices that allowed so many passwords to be
exposed internally.
Recorded
Future’s Barysevich said he could not recall any major company caught leaving
so many passwords exposed. He said he’s seen a number of instances where much
smaller organizations made such information readily available — not just to
programmers but also to customer support teams.
Security
analyst Troy Hunt, who runs the “haveibeenpwned.com” data breach website,
said the situation may be embarrassing for Facebook but not dangerous unless an
adversary gained access to the passwords. Facebook has had major breaches, most
recently in September when attackers accessed some 29 million accounts.
More Common Than Admitted
Jake
Williams, president of Rendition Infosec, said storing passwords in plain text
is “unfortunately more common than most of the industry talks about” and tends
to happen when developers are trying to rid a system of bugs.
He said the
Facebook blog post suggests storing passwords in plain text may have been “a
sanctioned practice,” although he said it’s also possible a “rogue development
team” was to blame.
Hunt and
Krebs both likened Facebook’s failure to similar stumbles last year on a far
smaller scale at Twitter and GitHub; the latter is a site where developers
store code and track projects. In those cases, software bugs were blamed for
accidentally storing plaintext passwords in internal logs.
Facebook’s
normal procedure for passwords is to store them encoded, the company noted
Thursday in its blog post.
That’s good to know, although Facebook engineers apparently added code that defeated the safeguard, said security researcher Rob Graham. “They have all the proper locks on the doors, but somebody left the window open,” he said.
Twitter
dealt with a very similar plaintext
password-logging bug last May; it too didn’t require users to reset their
passwords, saying it had no reason to believe that the passwords were actually
breached. Similarly, Facebook says its investigation hasn’t revealed any signs
that anyone intentionally accessed its hundreds of millions of errant passwords
to steal them. But whether you get a password notification from Facebook or
not, you might as well go ahead and change it as a precaution.
Changing Your Facebook Password
To do so on Facebook desktop, go to Settings → Security and Login → Change Password. On Facebook for iOS and Android, go
to Settings
& Privacy → Settings → Security and Login → Change Password. On Facebook Lite for Android, go to Settings → Security and Login → Change Password. Changing your account password on
either main Facebook or Facebook Lite changes it for both.
On Instagram, go to Settings → Privacy and Security → Password to change your password.
Instagram and Facebook do not use the same password, but can be linked to log
into one with the other.
While you’re at it, the easiest way to keep track of and
manage your passwords so you can easily change them after incidents like this
is to set up a password manager.
Facebook says that the plaintext password issue is now fixed, and that it doesn’t think there will be long-term impacts from the incident, because the passwords were never actually stolen. But given the company’s apparently endless stream of gaffes, it’s difficult to know what will come next.
Comcast is
launching an aggregated bundle of existing streaming-TV apps for $5 a month to
appeal to cord-cutters.
The new service, “Flex,” available March 26, brings together apps that customers already pay for, like Netflix, Amazon’s video or HBO, and free services like YouTube, Pluto, and Tubi, and lets users search for TV shows and movies across the different services.
An Offer To Easily Refuse
Something
that might make Comcast’s offer a hard sell? All these apps are already
available on a TV through a Roku, which costs $30, and several other gadgets
and platforms. Comcast hopes customers will pay for its version, which comes
with a 4K HDR box and a voice remote, and will become tailored to users’ preferences
like Netflix is. It’s trying to make it easier for users to find TV and movies
they want to watch as the number of video app subscriptions and free services
grows. Flex is only available for Comcast internet users.
The cable
giant has been trying to reposition itself as a “connectivity” provider of
broadband as more people dump traditional $100 cable bundles.
Some video
services that compete with Comcast won’t be available on Flex, like the
internet versions of cable, such as YouTube TV or DirecTV Now. Comcast doesn’t
offer those with Flex because it hopes that users interested in live TV will
upgrade to a Comcast bundle instead. That function isn’t available yet at
Flex’s launch.
I watched this episode of Supernatural from an unusual perspective (for me, at least). I
wasn’t able to watch Peace of Mind live, nor was I able to watch it for almost
an entire week thanks to being on family vacation. (Despite what most people
would probably assume, I actually do prioritize the kids over my favorite show.
Okay, maybe I did sneak off and try to watch a bit of the episode on the CW app
on Sunday, but that lasted about five minutes, so I gave up after only a single
attempt. Pretty respectable, I think.)
This meant that I was partially spoiled for the episode, but more importantly,
that I already knew what most of my social media timelines thought of it.
I intentionally have a wide range of friends and
acquaintances on various platforms, and they have a wide range of reasons why
they love Supernatural, so it’s not
surprising that some people loved the episode and some people hated it. If you
really needed a break from the angst and a good laugh, you probably loved it.
If you watch for quality Misha Collins content, you were pretty pleased. If you
ship Sastiel or are amused by Misha Collins and Jared Padalecki’s real life
(adorable) teasing friendship, you got way more than you ever dreamt you would
and were probably over the moon. If you watch for Sam and Dean and expect them
to be interacting alot, maybe you weren’t. In other words, as in most things
fandom, your mileage may vary.
When I tweeted that I hadn’t been able to watch and had
no clue whether I’d like it or not, I had a lot of predictions from people in
all those contingents about how I’d feel when I finally sat down to watch,
which was also really interesting to hear. That watching thing finally happened
last night, and guess what? Even I didn’t predict my reaction very accurately!
I didn’t have a strong emotional reaction in either
direction, perhaps because I was already prepared for what the episode would
contain. That allowed me to look at it with two different lenses, which is not
the way I would usually do a review, but I think it’s helpful here. As a 42
minute piece of episodic television, I think Peace Of Mind was well done – and
very enjoyable. Collins and Padalecki together in Charming Acres were comedy
gold, both of them hitting just the right notes, and Meghan Fitzmartin’s
teleplay giving them all the right dialogue to play with. They looked like they
were having the time of their lives and that enthusiasm carried right over onto
the screen. That story line – let’s call it the A story line – was particularly
well done.
Misha shared at the Nashville Supernatural convention last weekend that there had been a scene
where Sam lands on top of Castiel, and that Jared had way too much fun with
that, including making “an impact”. That little tease primed me for the scene,
and when it actually happened I laughed out loud, imagining all the fun
Padalecki must have had with a trapped Collins who’s trying to stay in
character. I’m crossing all my fingers and toes for lots of gag reel content
from that one, because Phil Sgriccia was directing and he definitely knows when
to let the cameras keep rolling!
I loved the set dec and locations that transformed a part
of Vancouver into the idyllic and picturesque (according to Cas) Charming
Acres, and the campy music and back-in-time costumes. Supernatural never cuts corners and it shows.
The B story line, as Dean tries to figure out if Jack is
in the angel or devil camp (at times with a Twinkie choice test), worked less
well for me, but perhaps that’s inevitably colored by having expectations for
how these characters would be feeling after recent canon events. There was
humor there too, but it didn’t work as well for me in the B story line. That
may be because there just wasn’t as good a reason for the departure from the
Show’s usual angst and darkness, like there was in the A story line. Alex
Calvert and Keith Szarabajka (Donatello) had some lovely scenes together, but I
think the back and forth between what was happening in Charming Acres to Cas
and Sam and then to what was happening with Jack and Dean kept jarring me. I
was more invested in the Sam and Cas story and didn’t want to keep being yanked
away, which is a recurring problem with me and Supernatural when they have two separate story lines running.
From purely the perspective of an episode of television,
the bookended brief Winchester brothers moments at the start and end were a
separate thing too. They worked for me, and I was glad they were there, but
perhaps that’s largely because I was waiting for them as a Supernatural fan.
So that’s the first perspective. Congrats to Meghan for
her first episode as a writer and to Steve Yockey for his co-writing,
especially for the entire Charming Acres story line. I literally laughed out
loud – more than once!
The second perspective is of someone who has watched Supernatural since the beginning and is
emotionally invested in this season’s story line as well as in the individual
characters. From that perspective, I wasn’t quite as happy with the episode.
Did we need a break from the angst? I know some people did, but I was in my
happy place after the emotion-drenched episodes we had in the middle of the
season and craving nothing more than a continuation of that angsty Winchestery
goodness. I do enjoy the “funny” episodes, and I did enjoy this one, but I was
also a little frustrated that it popped into the middle of a pretty serious
overarching story arc.
The departure from that angst-ridden story arc into some
humorous moments worked pretty well with the Sam and Cas story line for me as a
Supernatural fan too – it made sense
because there was a reason for the departure. Sam wasn’t really Sam, so of
course he wasn’t brooding and angsty and consumed with guilt. That’s the whole
point. That Dean also wasn’t brooding
and angsty and consumed with guilt in the B story line didn’t have as ready an
explanation, so the humor in that story line didn’t work as well.
The A and B story lines also differed in terms of my
understanding of what was going on with Sam and Dean. I understood Sam and
recognized him as the character I know and love throughout the episode. Although
we didn’t get to see as much as I wish we did, we did see that Sam is
understandably traumatized by the slaughter of the AU hunters essentially in
his living room. Everywhere he looks, he sees their bodies. Repeatedly, he sees
and hears Maggie call out his name, which has got to be the most upsetting thing
ever. I can’t even imagine! (As much as I didn’t like the character, I think
Sam took her under his wing, so for her to die screaming for him to save her
must have been unbearable – and he had to witness it!) It makes perfect sense
that Sam would want to get out of there, to get away from the sights and sounds
that are constantly triggering him. So Sam’s mental state and his actions made
sense to me.
It makes less sense to me that Dean didn’t go with him,
and I wish we had gotten to spend more time hearing the two of them talk about
it so I could understand why (other than practical constraints of availability
for filming). I can weave my own explanation – Dean is giving Sam space,
understanding that he needs time to get past what happened and that he’s also
feeling guilty as hell – but we don’t really see that and it’s not necessarily
how I would have predicted Dean would react. I guess I’ll go with there’s
tension between Sam and Dean also because Dean snapped at Sam when Michael got
out, and Dean feels bad about that and so gives Sam his space, but again, I’m
making this up as I go along and I don’t like having to do that.
I’m much less clear about what’s going on with Dean. He
was devastated by Michael’s escape from his mind and the carnage that resulted,
and has to be consumed by guilt. I agree that Dean has made progress in not
blaming himself 1000% for every bad thing that happens, but I don’t think he’s
made that much progress. Actually, I
can’t imagine anyone not feeling guilty if that happened to them, even if
you’re not Dean I’m 100% Guilt Winchester. In this episode, we get a Dean who
seems anxious and a little jumpy, but who also seems to be trying to be almost
upbeat in his interactions with Jack. Maybe he’s trying to act like everything
is okay so he can get a read on what’s going on with Jack? Maybe he’s in denial
about the horror that just played out in his living room and making jokes and
eating giant sandwiches as a result? I honestly don’t know, and I don’t like
not knowing.
I was also confused about Castiel and Jack’s interaction.
I’ve really enjoyed the relationship between Cas and Jack and thought that Cas
was doing a pretty damn great job of being a comforting father figure to Jack
from his unique perspective as an angel. In this episode, Cas gave up oddly
quickly on their conversation and left Jack to his snake ponderings. He also
seemed unable to tell whether or not Jack had any soul left, when he’s been
able to sense that in others multiple times. Why?? Head scratch.
As an episode of Supernatural,
I also will never jump up and down when an episode has two minutes at most of
Sam and Dean having actual conversation. I can separate myself enough to
realize that complaint doesn’t have any bearing on the quality of an episode of
television from my first perspective, but from this second perspective, it
doesn’t feel like Supernatural with
Sam and Dean hardly interacting at all.
With those diverse perspectives in mind, let’s take a quick
trip through the episode itself. After a preview that includes Dean and the
snake from Yellow Fever, we start with a guy running at breakneck speed down
the road – another Yellow Fever call back so I half expected him to be chased
by a Yorkie! Instead he makes it to a gas station and then his head explodes,
with all the gore you’d expect from a Supernatural
episode. Shout out to the guy playing shopkeeper Griffin, because his reaction
was the first to make me laugh out loud.
Griffin: Dude, you need
help?
[Brains fall from the ceiling]
Griffin: [pukes all
over]
I feel you, Griffin.
Meanwhile, Jack is concerned about the snake, who won’t
eat, but insists that “I’m good, Castiel” when Cas checks on him. Castiel has
some helpful on-the-nose things to say about how it impacts all creatures when
there’s a lot of change in a short period of time. Concerned, he asks Jack if
he still has some soul left, to which Jack replies that he doesn’t know. It
seems to me like his concern for the snake suggests he does, but I guess we’ll
see. I personally think the snake would
enjoy a bigger cage, but that’s just me.
Next we see Sam’s flashbacks, which is fairly
heartbreaking and well done. Jared does a great job showing the depth of Sam’s
pain in just his facial expressions and some involuntary winces.
Then we get 30 seconds of Sam and Dean as Sam announces
he’s found a case and Dean insists that he needs rest.
Dean: We both do.
Sam gruffly insists he’s going anyway, and Cas offers to
go instead. Dean acquiesces though he does ask why, and Cas is unusually in
charge as he tells Dean that he should stay behind and try to figure out what’s
going on with Jack.
Cas: He looks up to
you. And his soul, you’ve seen this before…
Me: How about Sam
has EXPERIENCED this before, why isn’t anyone encouraging SAM to talk to
Jack??? Remember all those awesome Sam and Jack scenes we got early on??? Their
close relationship?? Anyone??
No one hears me, so Sam and Cas head out to investigate
exploding head dude’s death. Sam yawns, but continues the mantra of mid-to-late
Season 14, insisting to Castiel that “I’m good.”
Cas: Yeah, I know,
everyone is good.
Misha delivered that line flawlessly, and I loved it. It
might have been the first time I knew that the Sam and Cas content in this
episode was going to be a fun ride indeed.
Castiel: You need rest.
Sam says he can’t, and I believe him. He’s just not at a
place where he can slow down, because if he does, he’s going to have to process
all this trauma and loss.
Sam and Cas ask Griffin about “the incident” and Griffin
is incredulous.
Griffin: The incident?
That’s what we’re calling it now?
Griffin is every normal person who encounters the
weirdness that is everyday Supernatural.
Nicely done, Meghan.
Sam and Cas roll into Charming Acres to continue their
investigation, which looks like a Rockwell painting come to life. Cas comments
that it reminds him of the Saturday Evening Post, which he apparently reads
after Sam and Dean fall asleep.
Cas: It’s very soothing.
Awww, Cas.
When they realize Charming Acres is a little bit off,
they do think to call Dean, but conveniently there is no cell phone access.
They encounter Justin Smith and his wife, who think that the dead guy had an
aneurysm. Castiel corrects them.
Cas: Oh no, his
head exploded. Like a ripe melon on the sun.
I laughed out loud again, because Misha nailed that line
– and Jared nailed Sam’s reaction. The Smiths are perplexed, but what’s more
interesting is that they’ve clearly never seen a cell phone before. And that’s
definitely weird.
Cas: Maybe they’re
Mormon?
Sam and Cas have a milkshake (or at least Sam does), and
Cas manages to once again shock the townsfolk with the truth about what
happened to Justin, much to Sam’s chagrin.
They then visit the hotel where Justin was staying and
split up to search it. Sam enjoys the landlady’s coffee and wants to stay for
her pot roast, already acting a little off, and Cas finds some cards and
letters hidden under Justin’s mattress. He tells Sam they were “passionate”.
Sam: Passionate
how?
Cas: She talks
about the shape and heft of his…
Sam: Okay okay, got
it!
Me: lol
Sam insists on staying the night and finally getting some
of that much-needed rest (and if Cas didn’t know Sam was off before, he should
have known then), but when Cas knocks on his room’s door the next day, Sam is
already gone. The landlady (oddly wearing what look like very modern ear buds)
tells him where to look after an amusing conversation that keeps referring to
Sam as “the very tall man” and Cas goes to the Smith house to interview Mrs.
Smith about her husband’s death and to find Sam. Random moment that made me
laugh out loud – Mrs. Smith screaming NOOOO when Cas almost sits in her
husband’s chair and Misha’s expression when he leaps up. Priceless!
Cas describes Sam to her, now adding that “he has
beautiful hair” and I can hear my Sastiel shipper friends dying in the
background. Sam himself appears, but he’s now the new Justin Smith, all that
beautiful hair pulled into a man bun and some lovely dorky glasses on his
handsome face. I gotta say, the look totally worked for me. I have a thing for
any of these guys in glasses, what can I say? And I like the man bun, don’t
yell at me.
What follows is a hilarious scene between Misha and
Jared, as Cas tries to get Sam to snap out of it and Sam flirts with his fake
wife.
Justin: I’m feeling
adventurous.
Mrs. Smith: Rawrrrr.
Justin: (hilariously):
Rawr!
When Castiel tells him to “snap the hell out of it”,
Justin responds with pearl-clutching offense and ushers Cas right out of the
house. By this time, I was laughing so much I might have teared up. ALL the
kudos to Jared and Misha for playing this exactly right (and providing the
fandom with gifs until infinity)
Cas now knows something is very wrong here (ya think?)
and confronts the milkshake waitress Sunny to find out why. We get some pretty
badass Cas here, which I always appreciate.
Cas: Tell me or
I’ll rip it from your mind!
Turns out it’s not Sunny but her deranged father, a mind
control psychic who’s controlling everyone in the town to create his own vision
of “happiness” after the death of his
wife, who shows up to confront Cas – along with Justin aka Sam and a few other
mind-controlled guys.
Here I have to say that I couldn’t help but view this
part of the story as similar to one of my other favorite shows, Wayward Pines.
I know it’s a trope that’s been done numerous times, but this episode really
did play out just like that series began and had the same vibe to it. I was on
set for much of the filming of that pilot thanks to director Night Shyamalan,
so that episode is deeply ingrained in my memory. That episode was also filmed
in Vancouver, in fact, and I kept being distracted by the parallels.
Anyway, we get a well choreographed fight scene from Rob
Hayter and company, and Castiel actually gets to be somewhat effective this
time. He says he won’t hurt Sam, and seems to be trying not to hurt any of the
other mind-controlled people either, which I appreciate. Eventually we get the
scene I’ve been waiting for, as Sam tackles Cas and pins him to the ground. In
a scene reminiscent of the time Dean had Cas pinned and an angel blade held
over him while Cas tried to talk him out of it, Sam grabs Castiel’s angel blade
and raises it to kill the angel.
Castiel: I know what
it’s like to fail as a leader, but you have to keep fighting! If you don’t you
fail everyone we lost.
Sam: (continues to
struggle)
Cas: You fail Jack…
Sam: (raises blade)
Cas: Sam, you fail Dean!
Sam struggles to take that in, then crashes the knife
down to the floor, and rips off his glasses, the spell broken.
Cas: Sam?
Sam: Cas?
I’m sure it was a hilarious scene to film, but the final
cut works so well as a dramatic scene, as Cas uses the one thing he correctly
predicts will get through to Sam. He won’t let his brother down.
I also loved the “always keep fighting” reference,
intentional or not, to Jared Padalecki’s real life mantra that means so much to
fans.
The bad guy psychic insists to his horrified daughter
that he’s God in this town, and Sam and Castiel disagree.
Sam: No you’re not.
We’ve met God.
Castiel: (indignant)
God has a beard!
Me: lol
More kudos all around.
It’s Sunny, the bad guy’s daughter, who finally takes him
out just before Sam’s head explodes like a ripe melon on the sun.
She zaps him with her own mind control skills and locking
him inside his own mind in a place that he’s happy but can’t hurt anyone.
Sunny: You want to be
happy? Be happy.
It’s kind of a theme of the episode, the question of what
is happiness and what gets you there – and what’s the price of staying there.
Meanwhile, in story line number two, Dean talks to Jack,
who is still attempting to get his grieving snake to eat. (Do snakes really eat
that often?) This story line also
attempts to be funny, perhaps to mesh better with story line number one, but
the humor just didn’t hit for me throughout the Dean and Jack section. And
that’s saying something, because everyone knows that I find Jensen Ackles’
comedy talents very impressive!
Dean tries to pretend he’s totally cool with snakes and
in fact has always liked them, suggesting that Jack feed his snake some bacon
and then inexplicably deciding to fry some up himself (after inexplicably
consuming an oversized sandwich, which would usually amuse me but….why? Is Dean
eating to avoid his own guilt feelings? If so, why is he enjoying it so much?
At any rate, I didn’t laugh out loud).
It did make me smile a little when Dean opens what he thinks might be a
tasty treat for the snake and it’s a box with two live white mice in it. Poor
little things.
Eventually Jack and Dean and the snake climb in the
Impala for a little road grip, still talking about the snake and how much Dean
likes them. When Jack is confused and notes that they’re dangerous, Dean comes
up with the odd answer of “it’s not the snake, it’s the bite” which somehow
made me think of the gun control debate and threw me out of the story for a
second. Dean then gives Jack the choice of Angel Food or Devil’s Food twinkies
and is relieved when he chooses the Angel Food one. That intended-to-be-humorous
moment also really didn’t work for me. Dean, of all people, knows how serious
this is, and he has to be genuinely worried about Jack, but that’s not really
what we see.
Dean takes Jack to see Donatello, who I always enjoy.
He’s an interesting character, a man who’s struggling to be “good” despite
having lost his soul through no fault of his own. That’s fascinating both from
a character standpoint and an ethical one and I love that Supernatural is allowing Donatello to be a recurring character. Donatello
tries to tell Jack what it’s like not to have a soul, describing it as being
bright and shiny on the outside, but in the center there’s just emptiness.
Donatello: I don’t feel
anything.
His strategy? Ask himself what the best man he knows
would do in a given situation – Mr. Rogers. Oh Donny, I do love you.
Jack: Sam and Dean
are the best men I know.
So for Jack, it’s “WWWD” – what would the Winchesters do?
And right now, Jack’s goal is to make sure they’re not too worried.
Me: Oh this won’t
go wrong…
Dean hangs out at the car while Jack and Donatello talk,
and while I was amused by Dean being nervous around the snake and scootching
his way to the front of the car instead of by the window, I still don’t quite
get where Dean is coming from.
He asks
Donatello how things went, and clarifies: So Jack is not
like you.
Donatello. Oh no. I’m a prophet of the lord, but Jack is
the most powerful being in the universe…
Me: That’s not
ominous at all…
Dean and Jack head back to the bunker, and shortly after
they return, Sam and Cas arrive too. Cas has clearly already called Dean and
filled him in, presumably as soon as they got service.
And Sam and Dean actually have a little bit of
conversation!
Dean (gently
teasing): I hear you wore a cardigan.
Sam: (glares at
Cas)
Dean (with a little more genuine emotion in his voice
this time): He said you were really happy… Really happy, huh?
This is a tiny scene, just a small fragment of the
episode, but somehow when you give Jared and Jensen a chance to be Sam and Dean
in the same scene, they invest every line with so many nuanced emotions, it
riveted me anyway. Dean goes from teasing his brother to a trace of that
long-standing worry that so characterizes their relationship. Was Sam happier
without him, without the life they’ve both chosen? That’s a subtly threatening
thing to think about, and their brief conversation reminds me of the one when
Dean came back from the Djinn’s fabricated “happiness” world.
Sam answers similarly.
Sam: I guess…. It
wasn’t real.
And it wasn’t. It’s worth noting that the first Justin
Smith, when he was shocked out of his trance by the existence of Sam’s cell
phone, immediately remembered the people he really did love and desperately
wanted to get back to them, especially his daughter. The happiness that the
Mayor created was fabricated, and so were the other emotions.
Sam reminds them both that it wasn’t real. And then he
gets real.
Sam: I hate this
place right now. I see them, everywhere I look. I was desperate to get out of
here, but I can’t keep running. This is my home.
Dean is listening closely, his expression full of
empathy.
Sam: This is our home.
That was enough to make me tear up, not with laughter
this time, but with genuine emotion. And that is why I love Supernatural. That’s what I want more
of. In this small quiet ending scene, I recognized the characters I know and
love, and the bond that connects them to each other and me to the Show.
Sam: (anguished)
Dean, I just think I need some time.
Dean: (softly) Okay.
He clasps Sam on the shoulder in silent support, and
leaves Sam to start the difficult work of processing his losses. The small
nonverbal gesture says more than words probably could have: I understand, I
don’t judge, and I’m here if you need me, always.
We end with Jack, trying to make things right for the
snake he thinks is grieving his previous owner – trying to make him happy.
Jack: You miss your
friend. I’ll help you see your friend again. In Heaven.
Me: Uh oh.
Jack turns the snake to ash, and we all start to have
some doubts about his judgment and the state of his soul.
Caps by kayb625
Through a crack in the open door, Castiel watches,
looking equally worried.
Despite some mixed feelings, I did enjoy the episode,
especially the A story line. I have
nothing but congrats to everyone involved for the Charming Acres story and for
Misha and Jared’s incredible comedic performances, and I loved the little bit
that we did get of Sam and Dean, with Sam haltingly opening up and Dean being
supportive. I even liked the ominous ending, although I’ve really loved the
character of Jack and am not looking forward to him perhaps going darkside. But
I am on pins and needles for the next episode to find out where we’re going,
and maybe that’s what loving a show is all about!
Any new film by Quentin
Tarantino is automatically on the list of the most anticipated premieres of the
season, so you can’t miss the premiere. The film takes place in the summer of
1969 – a tragedy involving the actress Sharon Tate took place: she fell victim
to the maniac Charles Manson. The role of Tate went to Margot Robbie. DiCaprio
plays the neighbor of the actress, actor Rick Dalton, who became famous for the
series, is now trying to make it on the big screen. Brad Pitt played the role
of his backup. This is the first film in which Pitt and DiCaprio took off
together. Also, Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood is the first Tarantino film, based on a true story.
Rocketman
Rocketman
is among the most awaited biographies of all time which is based on the life of
the cult pop-rock musician Elton John. Like the Bohemian Rhapsody (last year), the movie faced some difficulties in
production. People have heard about its production way back in 2012. Since
then, the project has changed the director and the leading actor several times,
until the choice finally fell on Dexter Fletcher and Taron Egerton,
respectively. Earlier, their creative tandem already presented to the world an
ironic sports drama Eddie the Eagle that
received good reviews, which allows us to expect excellent results from this
one as well.
Nuestro
Tiempo
The poet-cowboy Juan (played by Carlos Reygadas) is in a polyamorous marriage with Esther (Natalia López, the real wife of Reygadas), but soon, this loose relationship cracks apart. This is the most, as it seems, personal drama of the director of Battle in Heaven and Silent Light, Carlos Reygadas, which has been nicknamed as “Mexican Tarkovsky” by his fans. The movie promises to be a very aesthetics-heavy movie, with lots of effects to help a person to immerse themselves in the movie. As for the drama, the movie is 3 hours long, and we are sure that Carlos managed to do a lot in these 180 minutes. The film was actually already released in Mexico, but viewers from the rest of the world have not yet had the opportunity to watch it.
After
Tessa Young is a young girl, a
diligent student from a good family. Nothing bad can be said about her. Hardin
Scott is a beautiful rebel. All the women go crazy for him. These two are
completely different, but, as you know, opposites attract. They met in college
— it was during these years that you need to enjoy youth, freedom, and the
opportunity to hang out with other students. At first, Tessa did not want to
let Hardin close, but time took its toll. Now she can’t imagine her life
without her boyfriend. But does Tessa know his chosen one well enough? Does she
know everything there is to know about him? The director of the film was Jenny
Gage who previously directed only small indie projects.
Here’s an article by Collider
that covers all of the most anticipated movies of 2019. Be sure to give it a
look.
Five
Feet Apart
Love is an incredible thing.
It can destroy walls, conquer worlds, heal souls. It’s a trip like no other in
the world. But Stella will never feel it. Because of her cystic fibrosis, the
girl is forbidden to approach other people closer than one and a half meters.
The thing is, that way she can infect them with deadly bacteria. Stella would
have spent her life all alone if she had not met Will. The guy has the same
diagnosis, but he still cannot get used to it. The guy and the girl began to
communicate a lot, despite all the restrictions. This is true love, love at a
distance of one and a half meters. The director of the film is Justin Baldoni
who previously directed 95 episodes of the TV series The Virgin.
The
Souvenir
Julie is a film school
student, a girl from a privileged class who lives in a bohemian apartment,
plans to make a film about the workers, falls in love with a strange guy
Anthony from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a manipulator and an aesthete.
Anthony takes her to Venice where he invites her to visit the museums to look
at the works of old masters, including the Fragonard’s “Souvenir.” This
relationship will come to destroy her plans and life in general. What will
Julie do?
Another thrilling regular season in the NHL is coming to its conclusion, revealing all of the teams which have proved themselves worthy of competing for the Stanley Cup in the playoffs across their grueling 82-game schedule.
As could be seen by many NHL fans
from the very start, the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to be the team to beat.
Before the season had even come to an end, the Lightning joined a very elite
group by becoming the 12th team to ever land at least 55
wins in one season according to the NHL. With five more wins in the ten
games after their 55th win, this group of Bolts would become only
the third team to seal 60 wins in one season.
Sitting 19 points above their
next closest opposition in the overall standings with ten games to play, it
seems almost unfathomable that any other team could uproot the Lightning in the
playoffs. But in the postseason, anything can happen. We’ve witnessed multiple
seasons where the improbable and the almost impossible has come to pass; the
example of the Vegas Golden Knights going all the way to the Finals last season
is a recent reminder of this fact.
So, which teams are best
equipped or have shown the ability to oust Tampa Bay?
As you would assume, across
every metric put out by various experts, the Lightning are by far and away
considered to be the favourites to win the Stanley Cup in 2019 and are
considered to be the very best team in the league. With Tampa Bay sitting atop
every respected power ranking, such
as the one put up by CBS Sports, other expert insights have followed suit
to put the Lightning far ahead of any other contender.
Prior to the conclusion of the regular season, the Lightning were favourites at 9/4 to win the Cup, with many bookies putting the San Jose Sharks at 7/1 as the next best team. In hot pursuit of the Sharks are the Calgary Flames at 8/1, the Boston Bruins at 10/1, the Washington Capitals and Toronto Maple Leafs at 12/1, and then the Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets at 14/1. So, as you can see, the Bolts are heavily favoured.
Given Tampa Bay’s immense strength in depth, it’s very difficult to see a team thatcan match the Lightning in all phases of the game. But sometimes, you don’t need to match a team throughout, merely stifle them and take your opportunities.
The only team of the top
contenders who have proven themselves to be capable of smiting the Lightning
are the Nashville Predators. Despite their powerplay woes, the Predators have a
2-0-0 record against Tampa Bay this season, scoring seven and only conceding
three. Due to the structure of the playoffs – with the top Eastern Conference
team meeting the top Western Conference team – the earliest that the Predators
would meet the Lightning would be in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Another team that is not to be forgotten in this race is the San Jose Sharks. Pegged as the bookies’ second-favourite, they are already being careful with their stars in preparation of the postseason, allowing Erik Karlsson to take his time recovering from his groin injury, per Mercury News.
Both the Sharks and Predators
boast rosters filled with recent Stanley Cup Finals experience too, with the
two Western Conference teams falling to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and
2017. Both teams have improved significantly since those Finals losses, making
them both experienced in the high-pressure situation and better equipped to
handle whatever the Eastern Conference throws at them.
It’s going to be an exciting
postseason, and if any teams have what it takes to bring down the Lightning –
assumedly in the Finals – it’s the Sharks or the Predators.
