Category: Pop Culture

The Mandalorian is back, and this time there are space pirates

Plus Grogu, giant alligators and more!

Do we have too much Star Wars?

The general answer for some would be probably, with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens rocket launching the galaxy back for five movies (so far), plenty of television shows (so far) and little doodads like that Baby Yoda/Studio Ghibli collab.

The over-saturation that has plagued the Marvel Cinematic Universe of late seems to be creeping itself into the Skywalker saga, with last year’s The Book of Boba Fett basically an honorary season of The Mandalorian that some folks seemed to accidentally skip over.

If you’re lost, all hell broke loose for Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin (er, the Mandalorian) when he took his helmet off to say goodbye to Baby Yoda (…Grogu) at the end of The Mandalorian‘s second season.

In The Book of Boba Fett, Djarin gets busted by his fellow Mandos for breaking their one rule about the helmet. So he’s now exiled. Baby Yoda decides it doesn’t want to be a Jedi in that side series, too, so the little guy has hopped back into Djarin’s cruiser for more episodic adventures.

The challenge for The Mandalorian going forward might also be its appeal.

Disney/Lucasfilm

We’re going to get a loosely threaded grand narrative, as Djarin has to go find a magic bath on his ransacked home planet to get back in good graces with his people. However, there’s now also space pirates chasing after him for something that happens in season three’s first episode. Taika Waititi’s IG-11 robot might not be dead. Little Babu Friks and Salacious B. Crumbs show up. Star Wars Carl Weathers is still doing Star Wars Carl Weathers things. Apparently Star Wars has Lake Placid-sized crocodile turtles now, too.

The unnecessary business of plot threads’ past and the delightful dorkiness of serialized Star Wars storytelling will come to blows with this latest Mandalorian season, and which side of this approach wins out will be critical to whatever future these live-action television shows have.

Disney will undoubtedly want the Lucasfilm fanfare back in theaters sooner than later, and with so many television shows in development, it begs the question: will people ever tire of watching this at home?

The easiest remedy is letting The Mandalorian be itself and keep grander narratives on the back burner, which thankfully happens in spurts during the third season’s first go-around.

Disney/Lucasfilm

If you’ve watched this latest episode, then you know that Mando and Baby Yoda have the general goal this season to get to the remnants of Mandalore and save Mando’s helmet-removing butt by washing him in their holy pools. This, apparently, is the way for redemption. It’s all a little extra, but then again, if the helmet removal is that big of a deal, then so be it.

The new wrinkle looks to be space pirates, led by the plant-based pirate king Gorian Shard. Shard looks like if someone crossed Boss Nass from The Phantom Menace with Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh. Shard is irate with Mando now that he’s killed a bunch of his space pirates in both a confrontation on Nevarro City (where Weathers’ Greef Karga now runs the show) and in a space battle by Shard’s big pirate ship.

So keep a tab on the most evil pirate fern in the galaxy for later in the season.

Also, we get to meet the disembodied remains of IG-11, who died in The Mandalorian‘s first season. The robot’s resurrection is now a side quest for Djarin and Grogu as they try to find all the little Babu Friks in Nevarro City some sort of memory processor thingamajig so that the little aliens can fix him to help Mando with the main mission on Mandalore (say that five times fast). Note: apparently, these little Babu Friks (Anzellans) aren’t the Babu Frik from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. As you were.

Disney/Lucasfilm

As the episode closes, we also get a side detour to where Bo-Katan is hanging out at her big Mandalorian castle. If you’ll recall from the show’s second season, Bo-Katan was the leader of a rogue group of Mandalorians that Djarin knew from back in the day. They allow themselves to take the helmet off, which seems very logical and Djarin should’ve just teamed up with them so he could take his helmet off, too, but whatever.

In season three’s first 30 minutes, we cover a lot of ground. Those absolutely befuddled as to what’s going on will have to take a few hops back on the Star Wars game board to The Book of Boba Fett to update yourself on what’s going on. For those “in the know,” you know what you came for.

While the dialogue remains a bit stilted and the grander stakes a bit low on tread, watching Baby Yoda hug a Babu Frik and seeing Djarin zip around in his space cruiser and blast space pirates into asteroids to Ludwig Göransson’s techno-thumping score remain the kind of joys that make this show worth coming back to.

At least one episode in, The Mandalorian is doing everything it used to do. It’s become the safest bet for Lucasfilm in the Disney era, but one wonders if safety will keep this show from ever really taking some risks. If The Mandalorian is tasty Star Wars comfort food, then that’s what it should be. It just begs the question of when folks will get full on frog eggs and want more franchise divergence like Star Wars: The Last Jedi or Andor.

For now, fun adventures with Djarin and Baby Yoda will certainly scratch the itch. The more spirited and disconnected these episodes are, the better.

Mandalorian fans are mad that Season 3 won’t make sense unless they watched The Book of Boba Fett

C’mon, Star Wars franchise! Big mistake here.

WARNING: POSSIBLE MANDALORIAN SEASON 3 SPOILERS AHEAD! 

Ready? OK.

So: I’m a huge Star Wars fan. But for some reason, even when everyone told me The Book of Boba Fett was really just a half season of The Mandalorian squeezed in, I completely forgot to watch and figured it’d be fine to start Season 3 without it.

Turns out that’s not the case. Because when we last saw Grogu, he was going to be trained in the Force by some guy named Luke Skywalker.

But apparently some stuff happened that got Grogu back with Mando — our Mitchell Northam has a great recap of what happened to them in Book of Boba Fett — and so fans are mad, understandably so!

C’mon Star Wars franchise! Know that everyone doesn’t watch everything!

The Mandalorian: What happened in The Book of Boba Fett with Mando and Baby Yoda?

Let’s help you if you didn’t see The Book of Boba Fett.

Grogu and bounty hunter Din Djarin (portrayed by the great Pedro Pascal) are back on March 1 when Season 3 of The Mandalorian debuts on Disney+.

If you didn’t watch The Book of Boba Fett (yes, he’s alive), then it’s been a while since you’ve seen Mando and his cute little green buddy. The final episode of Season 2 of the Disney+ Star Wars show was released on Dec. 18, 2020. And that episode – directed by Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed – was a banger (even if it was a bit predictable) featuring one of our favorite original lightsaber-wielding heroes.

But a lot has happened since then. The latter part of The Book of Boba Fett essentially turned into Season 2.5 of The Mandalorian. While Boba was busy hanging out with Tusken Raiders and taking over Tatooine, Din and Grogu went through some significant things too.

To catch you up, here’s everything that has happened to Din, Grogu and their friends since the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian.

If you haven’t watched The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett, spoilers are ahead.

What time do new episodes of the Mandalorian drop on Disney+?

How late (or early) do you have to be awake for new episodes of The Mandalorian?

The highly-anticipated new season of The Mandalorian returns on Disney+ on Wednesday, March 1. Pedro Pascal returns as the titular masked bounty hunter as he sets off to wash in “the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore” to regain his status as a Mandalorian after removing his helmet (several times) in his efforts to save his little green buddy, Grogu.

If you’re trying to remember what has happened since we last saw our Beskar-encrusted fighter and his adorable sidekick, check out our refresher.

New episodes will drop weekly on the streaming-only platform at midnight PT each Wednesday or 3 a.m. ET.

We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. FTW operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

I took my grandmother to see Cocaine Bear. Here’s what happened.

Yes, I did take my grandmother to go see Cocaine Bear.

Have you ever taken your grandmother to see a movie where a giant black bear gets outrageously high on cocaine and goes on a violent killing spree?

Probably not, if I had to guess. Most people take their grandmothers to dainty lunches with chicken salad sandwiches, to shop for antique clocks or to meet up with their knitting-circle friends. Most people don’t take their grandmothers to see Cocaine Bear.

I am not most people.

This past Saturday, my wife and I met my 85-year-old grandmother at our local AMC theater to see Cocaine Bear, the movie inspired by the 1985 true story of a 175-pound black bear that overdosed on cocaine and died.

My grandma has probably gone to see more movies with me than any one person. During that time, she was stuck taking me to see movies within the “G” and “PG” realm. She weathered some humdingers with my brother and me, which absolutely included films like Shrek, Pokémon: The First Movie, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and Osmosis Jones. She was a trooper.

Nearly 30 years of moviegoing between my grandmother and me has culminated in her actually wanting to see a flick about a murderous, cocaine-fueled bear biting a man’s leg off and sending him falling to his doom. How could she not? Southern people love bears; it feels like something you’re born with. Going to a slasher movie about a cocaine bear feels as Tennessee-proud as playing Dolly Parton while you’re watching the Vols on Saturday.

Universal Pictures

The trailers were not what you’d expect an 85-year-old grandmother to want to see. The one that really flummoxed her was the red-band trailer for the upcoming R-rated comedy Strays, which features dogs saying curse words, getting high on mushrooms and humping garden gnomes.

While she barely was able to contain her displeasure at whatever the hell was going on in the hyper-creepy red-band Evil Dead Rise trailer, she just looked over at me as these talking animals saying potty words and basically said, “I don’t think I want to see that one.” I don’t really think AMC planned the trailers well on Cocaine Bear for grandmothers.

However, throughout Cocaine Bear, there was plenty of laughter coming from the seat to my left. As much as you’d might believe this movie “wouldn’t be for her,” my grandmother had a great time watching this R-rated movie that, at one point, features Margo Martindale accidentally blowing a man’s head off with a shotgun and coked-up baby bear cubs eating a man’s intestines.

One of the things I can’t help but do in movies like this is catch glances at the people next to me when I take them to see movies like this. When I took my grandmother to see Nope, she had this look of befuddlement on her face the entire time. As I kept my head on a swivel to watch both my wife and my grandma, I couldn’t help but notice the smile on my grandma’s face during this grizzly, ridiculous movie about a rabid bear on drugs.

Universal Pictures

When things got especially violent, you could kind of hear a chuckle of disbelief. My grandma mainly spends her television time watching Western reruns of old serials like Wagon Train, Gunsmoke and Clint Walker’s Cheyenne. However, she loves a good creature feature, so the more obtuse moments of gore didn’t really seem to phase her. Somebody goes flying out of ambulance on a stretcher and skids their face across pavement to her doom? No worries; Granny saw the disembodied head scene from Jaws in the ’70s.

Her biggest laugh came in one of the movie’s best moments. About midway through the film, the titular cocaine bear finally reaches the nadir of its latest high and plops down on for a nap on Alden Ehrenreich, who was laying on the ground to unsuccessfully avoid bear contact. You heard some downright cathartic laughter in that theater for that one, and I think whatever violent insanity that bookended that scene was worth it for her for that one sight gag.

By the film’s end, she said that the movie was “certainly interesting,” but I know she had a good time deep down. I’d guess she’d put Cocaine Bear somewhere a little lower than her other 2023 film ventures, 80 for Brady (very high marks) and A Man Called Otto (a very solid review). Forgive the bear pun, but I’m going to guess she’d give this movie a “B.”

While I’m not exactly sure that she’s going to think Cocaine Bear deserves a bevy of Academy Award nominations, she had a grin on her face as she walked back to the theater lobby. Did she actually have fun watching the violent rampage of the Cocaine Bear, or was it just all worth it to spend time with family and do something she’s loved to do for decades? Maybe a mix of both.

While, yes, I really enjoyed a movie that’s basically a mix of James Wan’s Malignant and the bear scene from The Revenant. I think I enjoyed even more the sound of my grandma laughing along with the rest of the crowd at something so delightfully ridiculous that you can’t help but chuckle.

Goodness willing, my grandma and I will have plenty more movies to go see in the years to come. None of them will have a Cocaine Bear in them, unless there’s some sort of sequel in the works. (Cocaine Bear vs. Bigfoot)

If this weekend taught me anything, it’s that you don’t run from a bear on cocaine because it will chase you and rip you to pieces.

It also taught me that you never know what little moments as a kid will help make you what you are, and how those moments will flow, decades later, into a delightful afternoon out with your wife, your grandma and the Cocaine Bear. Grandmas are very cool, and they can absolutely hang with movies like that. Mine had a great time, and I bet yours will, too.

Bachelor Ep. 6 recap: Contenders, pretenders and power rankings

Witches! Wife-carrying competitions! Naked saunas!

Good news! Zach is back! After an episode last week that saw our lead go down for the count with a positive COVID test, leading to a missed group date and solo date. The group relocated to Estonia since we last saw them, prompting one of the women to say it “reminded her of Frozen” because “it was cold and there are castles.” OK then!

In order to make up for last week, Zach re-invites Charity on the first one-on-one date. Things got spicy before they even got out the door, however, as Kat pulls him into the hallway for a chat before he departs with NOT her on a date. Unsurprisingly, the other women didn’t love that move, even when Kat explained it was because she [checks notes] missed him a bunch.

That led to a lot of tension with Brooklyn, who continues to call out people for their nonsense (therefore making her my favorite).

Charity and Zach had a lovely time going around Estonia by horse-drawn carriage, trying alcohol from men they just met and participating in a wife-carrying competition that felt like it was made for Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Zach took the ladies of the group date to an Estonian witch in the woods, and that’s all I have to say about that.

The second one-on-one with Ariel involved a sauna, a hot tub and a naked old couple. Despite that description, it went really well, and it’s clear Ariel and Zach have immense chemistry.

Things stayed spicy at the cocktail party as Charity tried to tell Kat she didn’t appreciate the latter smooching her boyfriend right before their date. Brooklyn interrupted that conversation (honestly, pretty unnecessarily), and it’s clear that drama is sticking around for another week.

Let’s get into the contenders, pretenders, those that have work to do and our Top Five.

15 of our favorite photos from the SAG Awards red carpet, from Zendaya to Austin Butler

The stars were out in California on Sunday night.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards took place Sunday evening (February 26), bringing glitzy and glamorous celebrities from television and movies to the red carpet in Los Angeles. As to be expected, the stars shone brightly in gorgeous dresses and stunning tuxedos.

Although everyone looked fabulous, we’ve picked 15 of our favorite shots from Sunday night’s affair. Unsurprisingly, the Everything Everywhere All At Once crew of Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu shone — the former also took home a SAG Award — and Austin Butler made everyone else look bad just by being too handsome.

Enough talking. Let’s get to the pictures.

Bill Walton reacts to a spot-on SNL impression of him with his own chaotically poetic Twitter thread

He calls himself a “spiritual nomad” and provides live commentary for a game that will happen in the future.

THROW IT DOWN, BIG MAN. THROW IT DOWN.

SNL’s James Austin Johnson, a cast member who also impersonates President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on the sketch comedy show, joined Michael Che for a segment impersonating Bill Walton.

From the moment that he came on the screen, Johnson captured so many of the idiosyncratic specificities of what it’s like to listen to the Basketball Hall of Famer whenever he is providing color commentary for a game.

Johnson, as Walton, called SNL “perhaps the premiere comedy show in the history of Western civilization” and he then quickly rattled off a handful of new nicknames for Che.

The comedian completely nailed Walton’s voice, smile, teeth, rhythm, cadence, wardrobe, expressive hand gestures, metaphors, tendencies to relate everything to the Grateful Dead, and signature catchphrases.

He calls himself a “spiritual nomad” and provides live commentary for a game that will happen in the future, and he discusses how basketball moves him to tears. It felt just like a conversation with Walton.

Just as perfect, though, was how the 1977 NBA Finals MVP reacted when he saw the performance. Here was how Walton responded on Twitter:

“there I was, alone in my hotel room, in glorious Oregon,

trying to come down, from the veritable quandaries of yet another scintillating buzzer beating ending to a Conference of Champions BB game,

I had the TV on,

suddenly, I was watching and listening to myself,

and it all came into focus, and everything was crystal clear,

as I drifted and dreamed my way into another perfect night of being comfortably numb

on a series of white puffy cumulus clouds,

floating my way once again to The Promised Land,

in wondrous anticipation of Throw It Down”

Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly how you would expect Walton to feel about unexpectedly seeing an impression of himself on live television.

Walton hosts “Throw it Down with Bill Walton” as an alternative game telecast streamed exclusively on select Mondays on NBA League Pass via the new NBA App.

The commentator also spoke to For The Win to share the true story of why you see tie-dyed Lithuanian basketball shirts at Grateful Dead shows,

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The Ted Lasso Season 3 trailer dropped and fans immediately had so many theories

The Ted Lasso trailer has dropped!

TED LASSO! SEASON 3 TRAILER! AAAAAAAAAA!

OK, sorry, I just got really excited. But if you’re a fan of the Apple TV+ series, you’re counting the days until March 15 when the third season finally — FINALLY! — drops after a certain character went evil at the end of Season 2 (I won’t spoil it, I promise!).

After it dropped — it was a YouTube link from Apple UK that was soon pulled, with everyone wondering if it was accidentally released (UPDATE: It’s now on YouTube, see below!) — fans started coming up with theories for what they saw. And if you haven’t seen Season 2 of the series, here’s where we’ll give you a WARNING: TED LASSO SPOILERS AHEAD!

[afflinkbutton text=”Watch Ted Lasso” link=”https://apple.co/3EL2i0h”]

Ready for the theories? Let’s go:

An emotional Brendan Fraser delivered a powerful Best Actor speech at the SAG Awards

Everybody loves Brendan Fraser, and he’s now got a SAG Award to prove it.

Everybody loves Brendan Fraser, and now he’s got a Screen Actors Guild award to prove it.

The longtime actor edged Elvis star Austin Butler and The Banshees of Inisherin co-star Colin Farrell for SAG’s Best Actor honor, positioning him to possibly repeat at the Academy Awards in March.

Fraser’s on-screen turn in The Whale has earned him the best reviews of his career, and his fellow actors rewarded him handsomely for the performance on Sunday night.

Fraser became overwhelmed with emotion during his fantastic acceptance speech, one of those moments that you don’t forget anytime soon. An Oscar moment could be next.

Fraser has long been one of the warmest personalities in Hollywood and is the object of plenty of nostalgic love for his many notable performances from the ’90s and ’00s.

With Butler winning the BAFTA last weekend in the same category, it figures that Fraser and Butler will be the two vying for Best Actor next month.