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May 27, 2020: The world of video games is fun when you can be on a group call with friends and a crush, who all are streaming Overwatch co-op. Mia (Kylie Liya Page) shows off her skills as she plays and possibly gets her crush’s attention. After they finish, she gets a call from her friend Riley, hits her up on Discord to point out that her crush, Jake (David Iacono), is single and simping for her. Riley points out that Mia learned to be a supporting character on a game so that she and Riley could join Jake’s group to play with them.  Man, that is a hard crush. Even I am shipping them. Despite all this, Mia doesn’t think it to be true. She thinks that Jake is only into white girls. 

Riley suggests that Mia try a TikTok dance to get his attention. Mia at first does not want to do it but decides to stalk Jake’s social to find out what he likes. The safest choice for Mia is to upload a video of Jake’s favorite: Messi. After a quick call from her mom (fluent Mandarin is spoken) checking on her and the progress of her homework, Mia receives a message from Jake. Like any good girl, she calls up Riley for help on what to do now that she has gotten Jake’s attention. Google is the best way to assist with lying to a boy about shared personal interests. This is not going to end well in my opinion. 

Jake thinks Mia is cool and asks for her Snap. She hangs up on Riley immediately when she gets a message from him. He shows off his Messi drip. They have a good conversation going about how parents worry about the effects of the pandemic and how good Mia’s game has gotten when Jake suddenly stops messaging. A notification pops up that Jake added to his story. It’s a picture of him and a girl Kennedy back when they were kids to currently. Riley checks in on the relationship progress. The two go through Kennedy’s social which depresses Mia. Riley, being a good friend, reminds Mia that she is beautiful and just needs to remind Jake what he is missing out on. She gives Mia advice on the best way to take a photo.

Mia takes a selfie but goes through the process of editing the pic to the point of looking like an alien to me. Luckily, Jake hits her up with a decent explanation. He brings up VR chat and Mia brings up that she builds a campsite on hers. He asks to come by and see it. Riley is called in for assistance again. We must find the perfect avatar for this VR meet up. Riley thinks that the avatar that looks like Mia is probably best. Thankfully, Mia listens. Once Jake friends her, she takes him to her campsite. He brought a laser shooting cat because he knows she likes cats. That is too cute. She shows him the work she has done on the campsite during quarantine. This VR chat is a beautiful way to get away from things. Jake finds out that Mia has never been camping and suggests that they go sometime when they can. 

Jake asks to take a picture of the two of them in this world. Riley messages Mia to remind her to tell Jake how she feels. Mia finally tells him how she feels, which he states was what he was going to tell her. The only reason why he is still playing Overwatch is because she’s on there. They share a cute moment, which is interrupted by Mia’s mom’s arrival. She closes the laptop despite Mia’s insistence not to.

The next day, Mia tries to reach out to Riley but gets no response. She is on the edge of her seat when she messages Jake but he doesn’t make her wait long. Apparently, her mom disconnected the Wi-Fi and took her phone because she didn’t finish her paper. Parenting 101 right there. Jake has posted the picture he took of them on his Finsta. The caption is just a heart. She likes it then goes through his photos, which are disappointing to say the least. Jake has racist memes that call COVID the Chinese virus. Mia is hurt by this. However, she doesn’t choose to unfollow him. Riley calls to check up on her and tells Mia to forget him, there is so much more going on in the world. Mia has no clue what Riley is talking about and checks her feed. Videos of protestors for George Floyd come up. 

I will admit that for a portion of this episode, I had to ask little bro what some of these things they were playing or talking about. Socials I get, VR and video games are currently out of my lane. Finding out that Jake is racist was probably best for Mia. She lied about her interests to get his attention, which is not good. I do know how she feels, it sucks finding out that your crush is a bigot of some form. The ending leading to George Floyd is unexpected but we can’t avoid that topic. It had an impact. 

Last week, we found out that Jared Leto would reprise his role as the Joker for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Now another familiar face is joining the reshoots: Joe Manganiello will return to play Deathstroke. Manganiello previously appeared in a post-credits scene in 2017’s Justice League, where he was recruited by Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor to form an anti-Justice League.

Manganiello’s brief appearance insinuated that he would take on a larger role in the next DCEU film, which was scuttled after the poor performance of Justice League. And it was a shame, because Manganiello is long overdue for his superhero film debut. He previously appeared in Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man in a brief role as school bully Flash Thompson, but since his breakout role in True Blood and the Magic Mike films, Manganiello’s athleticism and screen presence make him an obvious choice for a big superhero/villain role.

Manganiello will join Leto, Ben Affleck, Ray Fisher and Amber Heard for reshoots with Zack Snyder, who is turning his film into a four-part miniseries set to debut sometime in 2021. The actor has declined to confirm or deny his appearance, saying “If I was a part of it, that wouldn’t be my place to announce that. That would be Zack’s place. So, whether or not that’s happening, that is an answer that is below my NDA level, or whatever you wanna call it.”

Deathstroke, aka Slade Wilson, was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. He made his comic debut in The New Teen Titans #2 in 1980, and frequently appeared as the archenemy of the Teen Titans. A deadly mercenary, Deathstroke is skilled in combat and has regenerative healing powers, making him a popular foe for DC superheroes.

After what must have been a disappointing start in the DCEU, we’re excited to see what Manganiello brings to Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

(via Collider, image: Warner Bros.)

• Look closely at this season 3 promo for Titans. (via CBR)
• Dan Harmon discusses the new female character joining Rick and Morty. (via Syfy)
• DC and Warner Bros. allowed James Gunn to kill off any member of The Suicide Squad. (via io9)
• This site is doing the Lord’s work. (via McBroken)

I reverse engineered mcdonald's internal api and I'm currently placing an order worth $18,752 every minute at every mcdonald's in the US to figure out which locations have a broken ice cream machine https://t.co/2KsRwAdrMd

— rashiq (@rashiq) October 22, 2020

• Did comedian Jay Pharoah coin the term “Karen”? (via Entertainment Weekly)
• Here’s a zombie movie round-up just in time for Halloween. (via Collider)
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has wrapped filming, according to Simu Liu’s Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

We made a baby!!! We can’t wait to introduce him to the world in 9 months… 😍😍😍 #WRAPPED

A post shared by Simu Liu (刘思慕) (@simuliu) on Oct 24, 2020 at 6:24am PDT

• Help, we can’t stop watching this:

For some reason the X-Men theme fits perfectly with the Garfield and Friends intro. pic.twitter.com/jfTYaAs7ay

— Nacho (@MrTonyNacho) October 22, 2020

How’s your Sunday going, Sue Believers?

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We all know that the Trump administration is doing nothing to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. But to hear them boldly admit to it, 9 days before the election, is still shocking. But White House chief of staff Mark Meadows did just that in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, where he told host Jake Tapper, “We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas,”.

After several aides, including his chief of staff, tested positive for Covid-19, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says VP Pence will keep campaigning: "Essential personnel, whether it's the Vice President of the United States or anyone else, has to continue on" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/2ZWMmwUHG3

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 25, 2020

This frank confession comes 8 months into the pandemic, when 8.6 million Americans have tested positive, and nearly 225,000 have died from COVID-19. This also comes as coronavirus cases are surging across the country, and five members of Vice President Mike Pence’s staff have tested positive. Pence and his team are, ironically, heading up the White House’s coronavirus task force.

But this second White House outbreak won’t deter Pence from the campaign trail. “I spoke to the vice president last night at midnight and I can tell you that what he is doing is wearing a mask, socially distancing and when he goes up to speak he will take the mask off and put it back on,” Meadows said. “He is wearing a mask as it relates to this particular thing because the doctors have advised him to do that.”

Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short, who works closely with Pence, was one of those who tested positive. And despite CDC recommendations that Pence quarantine for two weeks, the White House is labelling him as an “essential worker”, because campaigning is essential work now I guess.

Meadows claimed that the US wasn’t going to able to control the spread “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu,” adding the Trump administration is “making efforts to contain it.” Meadows of course threw a 70-person indoor wedding for his daughter in May in Atlanta, GA, which doesn’t sound like much of a containment effort to me.

Many on social media took Meadows to task for the administration’s refusal to combat the virus:

This is unbelievable.

Mark Meadows on @CNNSotu: "We're not going to control the virus."

The Trump admin is finally clear about their #covid19 national strategy: capitulation.

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) October 25, 2020

BREAKING: Trump Chief Mark Meadows just literally said they aren’t going to “control the pandemic.” What kind of f*cking attitude is that? People are dying. People are f*cking dying. And they shrug their f*cking shoulders? Vote these negligent f*cking criminals out. Vote Biden.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) October 25, 2020

Mark Meadows admits on camera, 9 days before the election that the White House has given up trying to control the virus that has killed more than 220,000 Americans

Vote for Joe Biden https://t.co/4Ad6kQrRT1

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) October 25, 2020

Meadows admitted it: They surrendered. They capitulated.

The White House might have surrendered. But Americans haven’t.

In NY, we proved that we CAN control this virus.

And that’s what we’ll keep on fighting to do. Let’s keep it up.https://t.co/e5oQZyBaH6

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) October 25, 2020

Mark Meadows is one of the worst people I have ever seen in public life. Awful in Congress, worse as White House Chief of Staff. Dangerous to the country, dishonest ,radical. Imagine what a second Trump term would look like with Meadows having even more power.

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) October 25, 2020

Surrendering to coronavirus is a hell of a strategy for the Trump campaign. Let’s how this shakes out for them in November.

(via CNN, featured image: screencap/CNN)

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Aaron Sorkin’s latest film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, hits Netflix today. The synopsis of the film is as follows:

What was intended to be a peaceful protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention turned into a violent clash with police and the National Guard. The organizers of the protest—including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale —were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot and the trial that followed was one of the most notorious in history.

Making a film about a trial interesting is not the easiest of tasks and one that Sorkin sometimes gets right and sometimes fails at. The film starts off at a pace with all the activists making their way to Chicago to protest against the increased draft during the Vietnam war, but it quickly slows down as we fast forward into the beginning of the trial proceedings. The Trial of the Chicago 7 wisely goes backwards in time at various points to flesh out what we’re being told in court.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a true ensemble piece. The eight activists and which actors play them in the film are as follows: Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne of The Theory of Everything, Fantastic Beasts), and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp of Broadway’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), both were of the Students for a Democratic Society. Counter-culture Yippies Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen of The Spy, Borat) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong of Succession, Molly’s Game). MOBE organizers David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch of Fargo, The Founder), John Froines (Danny Flaherty of The Americans, King Jack) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins of Masters of Sex, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). The eighth defendant and the one who isn’t part of the titular Chicago 7 is Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of Watchmen, Aquaman).

That’s quite the cast, without even mentioning Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, Ready Player One), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, Snowden) and Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon, Good Night and Good Luck). Frank Langella is the standout performer amongst the whole cast, as the grumpy and extremely biased Judge Julius Hoffman. Having a huge cast like this means a lot of people aren’t actually in it very much or they’re just sat at a table. But being the Judge allows Langella to have a hand in a lot of the proceedings.

This being an Aaron Sorkin film, you can expect a lot of talking but surprisingly not that much walking. Sorkin wrote and directed The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is only his second directing credit after Molly’s Game. He’s obviously best known as a writer for The West Wing, The Social Network and Moneyball among many others. There are a lot of words in this script and sadly there isn’t a lot of energy in those words outside of Sacha Baron Cohen’s humorous Abbie Hoffman. There are few moments for the actors to show their emotions rather than talk talk talk, a feature of a Sorkin film that I don’t love.

Sorkin is within his right to change history for a dramatic feature, but from what I have read he has changed quite a bit and the change in Gordon-Levitt’s character is perhaps one of the biggest missteps. Gordon-Levitt is defence attorney Kunstler, who was very against the activists and what they were trying to achieve in real life. In The Trial of the Chicago 7, Kunstler isn’t sure whether he is on the right side of history. Sorkin gets a lot of negative criticism thrown his way for putting his liberalism into his films, on this occasion I would agree with the criticism. You have to change some things to make it more cinematic but making Gordon-Levitt be this stereotype doesn’t add anything and really isn’t necessary.

Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) isn’t a large part of The Trial of the Chicago 7, unsurprisingly he isn’t treated well by the police as a Black Panther in the late sixties. His mistreatment was shown through the shock of the other activists, none were black, and essentially becomes a moment for them to grow. Seale may not be part of the Chicago 7 but his story wasn’t handled with care and was more about what the white people felt than what he was going through. Sorkin should have done better.

The film was released in cinemas before its release on Netflix to make it eligible for awards season. In a normal year, I would expect it to get a lot of nominations but few wins. This year, it could win a lot. The Trial of the Chicago 7 probably is one of the best theatrical releases of the year, because we haven’t had many. It’s shot well, the score is strong and there are some very good performances but it’s not a classic. It feels very pertinent to today despite it being based in 1968 because we haven’t grown as a society in fifty years.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is very much an Aaron Sorkin film, a bit too much talking and a little preachy, but also well-made and entertaining. The quieter moments of the film allow the actors to actually show the characters they’re portraying but those moments are too few and far between. Sorkin has a tendency to add 100 words when 10 would do. Many love his scripts, personally I find them a little much at times but this film will please all the Sorkin fans out there.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is available now on Netflix

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