The ‘Cruella’ trailer is giving off strong The Joker and Harley Quinn vibes

“Cruella” is … almost definitely NOT a kids movie.

“Cruella” is nothing like we expected.

Disney+ has taken the “101 Dalmatians” franchise and given it a new spin with strong comic book movie vibes. The 2021 film is about the origin story of Cruella de Ville, the antagonist in the 1996 kids movie (and Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians).

This … is not a kids movie.

American actress Emma Stone will star as Cruella, and the trailer shows her as an anti-hero, with a number of similarities to the DCU comic characters, The Joker and Harley Quinn. Cruella seems unhinged, dark, insidious and dangerous. And then there’s her appearance, with heavy makeup and the half-black, half-white hair. It all feels very much like “The Joker,” the newest version featuring Joaquin Phoenix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmRKv7n2If8&feature=emb_titlehttps%3A%2F%2F

“Cruella” seems to be catered to the young adults who watched the original movie as kids in the mid-90s. And perhaps, it’s an attempt for Disney+ to have a Joker character of their own, even if Warner Brothers owns screen rights to the DCU comics.

The response on social media was strong. People were seeing the connection.

A movie about Cruella seemed like a stretch, at first. But this fresh take seems to have drawn a tremendous amount of interest.

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Watch exclusive footage of the latest ‘The Challenge: Double Agents’ ep. 10 event

This one looks frustrating!

The events we’ve seen week to week on The Challenge: Double Agents have been some of the best we’ve seen in series history — remember wrestling on top of a speeding truck?

This week, we get to see a challenge that’s super frustrating. It’s called “Operation: Black Sand Ops,” in which the pairs of competitors have to dig up puzzle pieces and put together a statue. The twist: if they find other puzzle pieces from their opponents, they can either help them or re-bury the piece.

You’ll see there’s one pairing that keeps having their pieces re-buried. Devious!

Here’s the exclusive clip ahead of Wednesday night’s episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH2PCi3zMNQ

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The Bachelor live stream, TV channel, start time, preview, how to watch

The Bachelor returns on Monday night for episode 7, as the drama heats up

All of ‘Bachelor Nation’ has been wondering if the show will be aired this week due to Chris Harrison stepping down for an unknown amount of time due to his conduct in last week’s episode. Everything is a go this week and you can check out below how to stream episode 8.

Matt will take a look at the potential future with each of the remaining women and will have to make a few difficult decisions as they look toward the hometown episodes coming up.

You won’t want to miss the action-packed drama tonight, here is everything you need to know to stream the episode tonight!

The Bachelor

  • When: Monday, February 15
  • Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
  • TV: ABC
  • Live Stream: fuboTV (watch for free)

How to watch The Bachelor this season

fuboTV has complete ABC coverage and you can watch all episodes of The Bachelor via the streaming service. fuboTV has all the local channels (CBS, FOX, ESPN) and plenty more.
fuboTV is available on your phone, tablet, desktop, TV, connected TV Devices including Roku. Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV plus many more.
*Regional Restrictions Apply*

We recommend interesting sports viewing/streaming opportunities. If you sign up for a service by clicking one of the links, we may earn a referral fee.  Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

Does the ‘Justice League: Snyder Cut’ trailer change the super villain from the original film?

The appearance of Darkseid begs a great number of questions.

Zack Snyder obviously had major ambitions to overhaul the original, “Justice League” (2017), in the “Justice League: Snyder Cut” (2021). But the trailer teased the possibility of a significant difference: more villains — and perhaps a different super villain.

The trailer showed Steppenwolf, the “Big Bad” from the original. But the clip also showed Darkseid and The Joker, two characters from the DC Universe who will be new additions from Snyder. And considering Steppenwolf answers to Darkseid, it’s possible the label of “Big Bad” could fall on him. It might be strange for Snyder to change the super villain entirely. But he has also doubled the film’s length, from two hours to four hours. Anything is possible.

Here’s a look at the trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM-Bja2Gy04&feature=emb_title

For those unfamiliar with what’s going on with the Snyder Cut, Snyder was the original director for “Justice League” in 2017, but had to leave the job after his 20-year-old daughter committed suicide. That left director Joss Whedon to pick up where Snyder left off. The movie flopped, which left fans wondering: What if Snyder could have finished it? DC allowed Snyder to make the movie he wanted to make — and Snyder has made big efforts to rebrand the move, even telling reporters “it will be an entirely new thing.” (We’ve got even more information on the movie in this article by my colleague Hemal Jhaveri.)

It’s could be an exciting resurgence for DC, which had the spotlight with “Wonder Woman 1984” and didn’t exactly wow. DC will release the “Justice League: Snyder Cut” on March 18.

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American Idol live stream, TV channel, start time, preview, how to watch

American Idol will kick off its 19th season tonight with the season premiere of the show, you can stream it for free right here.

American Idol will kick off its 19th season on Sunday, February 14th with plenty in store for Idol fans this season. All the judges will be returning to the set including Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie, and will be back in the studio airing the show live, which is a big plus for Idol fans.

One contestant that will be featured in the audition process for Idol is Claudia Conway, who is the daughter of former Senior Counselor to former President Trump, Kellyanne Conway. This will definitely push the boundaries and should add to the drama of the show this season.

You won’t want to miss the first episode of American Idol tonight, here is everything you need to know to stream the show tonight!

American Idol Season Premiere

  • When: Sunday, February 14
  • Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
  • TV: ABC
  • Live Stream: fuboTV (watch for free)

How to watch American Idol this season

fuboTV has complete ABC coverage and you can watch all episodes of American Idol via the streaming service. fuboTV has all the local channels (CBS, FOX, ESPN) and plenty more.
fuboTV is available on your phone, tablet, desktop, TV, connected TV Devices including Roku. Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV plus many more.
*Regional Restrictions Apply*

We recommend interesting sports viewing/streaming opportunities. If you sign up for a service by clicking one of the links, we may earn a referral fee.  Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

3 theories about our biggest burning question in ‘WandaVision’

We try to find answers.

This article addresses a number of important plot points (and ensuing questions that stem from those plot points) from Season 1, Episode 6 of “WandaVision” from Disney+. If you don’t want to read spoilers from that episode, you should close out the browser now.

Pietro Maximoff basically broke through the fourth wall when he turned to Wanda and asked: “How are you doing this?”

That’s what has been on my mind during the first six episodes of WandaVision on Disney+, and, after the most recent episode, “All-New Halloween Spooktacular,” viewers still don’t have an answer.

We now understand — or think we understand — why she’s has created the Westview Anomaly: grief. She’s mourning the loss of Vision (and Pietro and basically everyone she’s ever loved), and has built an alternate reality to cope with the immense loss she suffered. But as Pietro acknowledged, Wanda’s power has rapidly grown beyond anything he’s known.

“It’s a pretty big leap from nightmares and shooting red wiggly-woos out of your hands,” he said, of Wanda controlling everyone in Westview.

Wanda proved to be one of the most powerful Avengers during “Endgame” in her duel with Thanos, a villain that proved a major challenge for Thor, Iron Man and Captain America. The Scarlet Witch seemed to have a significant advantage in a 1-on-1 fight with Thanos in the middle of the final battle sequence — so much so that he orders a massive assault that kills his own soldiers. So we know she’s very powerful and capable of more than “wiggly-woos.”

That said, Wanda’s demonstrations of power grow in scale with each episode. The latest example, of course, is that she makes the Westview Anomaly large enough to swallow the S.W.O.R.D. facility on the edge of the bubble. The last thing that we see is that it’s still growing.

So how did Wanda’s power scale so enormously?

Justin Timberlake’s apology to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson is too little, too late

It took over 17 years to come up with this weak mess.

Almost 19 years ago, Justin Timberlake was the one to blame Britney Spears in the press for their break up. 17 years ago, Timberlake barely lifted a finger to defend Janet Jackson from public blowback after he ripped off her bodice during their Super Bowl halftime show.

Both those events, plus others, have cast a long shadow on Timberlake’s likability with some fans who can’t and shouldn’t forgive him for the way he treated both those women.

Now, almost 20 years later, Timberlake has issued an apology on social media, saying he is “deeply sorry for the times my actions contributed to the problem.” Yet, the apology, like all celebrity mea culpa’s, lacks specifics and comes so far after the events it’s close to meaningless.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLMxYbGhTno/

Timberlake starts by saying he feels pressure to respond due to the increased social media attention brought on him by the new FX, Hulu and New York Times documentary, Framing Britney Spears. 

The documentary has brought renewed focus to the harsh and sexist treatment the pop sensation received throughout her career. In it, Timberlake does not come off looking good. In hindsight, and through a trove of old interviews and clips, it’s clear that his behavior over their breakup played into a misogynistic narrative. All those years of mistreatment, coupled with his lack of support of Jackson, have never really been addressed by Timberlake in any meaningful way, and this apology doesn’t change that.

The social media post hits many of the beats people apologizing for their part in propping up structural racism and sexism seem to think they need to hit. Timberlake admits he made mistakes, he acknowledges that he has privilege, he also says he wants to learn and grow…and yet, there are no specifics, nothing that sounds like a PR team didn’t huddle over various smart phones market testing each word.

It is clinical, it is a Bingo card of “woke” sentiment, devoid of any heart, meaning or real empathy. None of these words mean anything compared to the lasting damage the women he’s addressing have already suffered. Spears was subject to gross, sexist treatment from the press, Jackson was banned from the Super Bowl halftime show for something she had no control over. A few words tossed on a Notes app aren’t enough to make up for years of neglect and willful ignorance.

We’re at the stage in our public discourse where, for many people, a white man simply acknowledging his faults and his privilege is treated as worthy of applause. Yet, while Timberlake does say that he’s decided to be more “vocal about this,” he doesn’t give any specifics, only trots out that well used chestnut, “I can do better and will do better.”

I am not particularly interested in Timberlake’s slow and way too late reckoning with his faults. It would take years and years, quite frankly, to prove that he’s actually changed. Some may say an apology is a good start, but this doesn’t even meet the very low bar for that. This is not an apology, but crisis management from an actor who has a new movie to promote.

In the Timberlake’s case, the sad truth is that there’s little recourse to all the damage he’s caused. He’s stayed silent for so long and reaped so many rewards for his shrewd manipulation of the system that almost anything he says now wouldn’t be enough. He trampled Spears into the ground to further his own career and he stayed quiet while Jackson was being unfairly maligned for his actions. Unless he can go back in time, there’s nothing he can do or say that would make any of that OK.

No, Gina Carano was not fired for being conservative

She was fired for antisemitism, transphobia and promoting baseless conspiracy theories.

MMA icon and actress Gina Carano was fired from the Disney+ show “The Mandalorian” earlier this week after sharing an anti-Semitic social media post.

On Wednesday, Lucasfilm announced that Carano, who played the popular Cara Dune, was no longer employed by the company.

“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” a Lucasfilm spokesperson said. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

That post, which has since been deleted, compared the treatment of conservatives and Republicans to that of Jewish people during the Holocaust.

“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views”

 

 

Whether or not the Nazi Germany post meets a personal bar for antisemitism is something others can quibble over, but at the very least, it was a really dumb, incredibly offensive and totally thoughtless thing to share. This isn’t the first vile social media post Carano has made. In the past, Carano has tweeted election fraud claims, made transphobic jokes and mocked mask mandates.

Carano’s firing has set off a predictable firestorm, with the political right rending their garments over another perceived victim of “cancel culture,” claiming that she was fired for her conservative beliefs. But, Carano wasn’t fired for being conservative, unless conservatism is now directly aligned with antisemitism, transphobia and baseless conspiracy. Just because these views are commonly held beliefs” within the Republican party these days doesn’t mean any employer can and should tolerate them. Simply labeling them as “conservative” doesn’t give anyone a pass.

Carano is the epitome of a right wing social media  s*** poster, engaging in the worst kind of baseless rhetoric and crying foul once she’s held accountable for it. In other posts, Carano has said that people shouldn’t expect to align politically with everyone they meet, yet that is hardly the issue here. What Carano shared weren’t mere differences of opinion over policy, but deeply offensive and factual incorrect statements that no one should stand behind. Just because Carano’s beliefs are gaining wider acceptance, doesn’t make them right and certainly doesn’t guarantee her a job.

“I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob,” Carano said announcing a collaboration with Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Caller. “I have only just begun using my voice which is now freer than ever before, and I hope it inspires others to do the same. They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them.”

Carano can believe what she wants, she can join the legions of QAnon nuts who cleve onto whatever latest conspiracy is blowing up their Facebook feed, or dive deeper into narratives of imagined persecution, and she can post all of it on her social media accounts. She can label all of it as “conservatism,” but she can’t be surprised when her employer decides that enough is enough, and one too many crackpot things have come out of her mouth. Hollywood has tossed promising careers away for far less and Disney doesn’t need to waste any more time on such a mediocre actress.

Carano didn’t lose her job because she’s conservative. She got fired because the garbage coming out of her mouth shouldn’t be tolerated, not even in a tweet.

J Cole made a basketball shoe. Really. Unboxing Puma’s BRAND NEW RS Dreamer 2

Seriously.

It’s not necessarily out of the ordinary for a rapper or an entertainer of some sort to have their own signature shoe line.

I mean, think about it. You’ve got folks like Kanye West, Beyoncé, Travis Scott and even Pharrell all with their owns signature shoe lines and their own apparel.

So it makes a lot of sense for a guy like J Cole to have a signature shoe. But for him to have a signature basketball shoe? As a rapper? Yeah, that’s wild.

That’s right. Cole has a signature basketball shoe. The same way that Kyrie Irving has a signature shoe, J Cole has a signature shoe.

And we talk about why it makes sense on this episode of Special Delivery.

The 52 best movies streaming free for Amazon Prime members (February 2021)

Need something to watch?

You’ve got nothing else to do. It’s time to stream a movie. But for fear of scrolling from now until forever on Amazon (or another streaming service), you’d like to select your movie before you turn on the television. Well, we’re here to help. We’ve compiled the best movies available to Amazon Prime members. We’ve compiled all sorts of films, from comedy to drama to romantic comedy to documentary.‏

Not a Prime member? You can sign up here.

You can also check out some of our other lists:

Alright, let’s get to Amazon’s best: