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D.R.U.G.S. Are Not Reuniting in 2018

DRUGS
Jason Tate

Substream has confirmed that D.R.U.G.S. are not reuniting next year and someone has taken control of the band’s Twitter account without their knowledge:

According to another person connected to the band that we spoke with, whose name we are protecting upon request, the members of D.R.U.G.S. have not had access to the account in some time. “There was a phishing scheme,” the contact told us. “Something involving a fake charity.” This contact also provided Substream with the name and contact information of the person the believed to currently be controlling the account.

Martin Scorsese on Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office Obsession

Film
Jason Tate

Martin Scorsese, writing at The Hollywood Reporter:

There is another change that, I believe, has no upside whatsoever. It began back in the ’80s when the “box office” started to mushroom into the obsession it is today. When I was young, box office reports were confined to industry journals like The Hollywood Reporter. Now, I’m afraid that they’ve become…everything. Box office is the undercurrent in almost all discussions of cinema, and frequently it’s more than just an undercurrent. The brutal judgmentalism that has made opening-weekend grosses into a bloodthirsty spectator sport seems to have encouraged an even more brutal approach to film reviewing. I’m talking about market research firms like Cinemascore, which started in the late ’70s, and online “aggregators” like Rotten Tomatoes, which have absolutely nothing to do with real film criticism. They rate a picture the way you’d rate a horse at the racetrack, a restaurant in a Zagat’s guide, or a household appliance in Consumer Reports. They have everything to do with the movie business and absolutely nothing to do with either the creation or the intelligent viewing of film. The filmmaker is reduced to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer.

He’s not wrong.

And as film criticism written by passionately engaged people with actual knowledge of film history has gradually faded from the scene, it seems like there are more and more voices out there engaged in pure judgmentalism, people who seem to take pleasure in seeing films and filmmakers rejected, dismissed and in some cases ripped to shreds.

Sounds a little like popular music criticism as well.

Travis Barker and More Open Up on Fighting Addiction and Depression

Travis Barker
Jason Tate

Steve Baltin, writing for Forbes, interviews a variety of artists on fighting addiction and depression:

Travis Barker: Sobriety saved my life. My only my regret is it didn’t happen sooner. It was sad that it took a plane crash and almost dying to finally sober up. My second chance at life and my kids was enough to never touch drugs again. Being present and sober is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. Music is my drug.

And:

Anthony Green: I don’t have the answers for what we do, but I know that in Circa Survive and with my situation, the forefront with everything in the band is each other. That stuff comes before making money. From the beginning of the band we wanted it to be a family that cared about each other. So when I needed to go to rehab and I needed to have my mental health issues addressed, the band got put on hiatus and pause. I think that a lot of these guys are in situations where they’re afraid to stop the train from rolling because a lot of people depend on them financially. I think putting the idea of your mental health in front of making money is one thing you can do.

Today is World Mental Health Day and there’s some great insights from a variety of people in this piece.1

  1. I hate trying to use Forbes’ website though, so I’m sorry about that.↩

Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories

The New Yorker
Jason Tate

Ronan Farrow, writing for The New Yorker:

In the course of a ten-month investigation, I was told by thirteen women that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them, allegations that corroborate and overlap with the Times’ revelations, and also include far more serious claims. […]

Sixteen former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein’s companies told me that they witnessed or had knowledge of unwanted sexual advances and touching at events associated with Weinstein’s films and in the workplace. They and others describe a pattern of professional meetings that were little more than thin pretexts for sexual advances on young actresses and models.

Fuck this scumbag.

The Szechuan Sauce Fiasco

McDonalds
Jason Tate

Ben Kuchera, writing for Polygon:

This is a weird situation for everyone, because Adult Swim had nothing to do with the promotion, nor did anyone from the show itself get a heads up about how McDonald’s would try to take advantage of the joke. McDonald’s, for its part, didn’t seem to understand what it was tapping into when it leaned into this gag.

No one was prepared for the enthusiasm of Rick and Morty fans, who are already getting an online reputation for, believe it or not, narcissism and toxicity. And they took that toxicity out on McDonald’s employees, who had little idea of how bad their day was going to get.

We are living in the dumbest timeline.

Harvey Weinstein Fired After NYT Report of Sexual Harassment

The New York Times
Jason Tate

Famous movie producer Harvey Weinsten has been fired by the studio he founded, The Weinstein Company, in the wake of a New York Times investigation uncovering decades of misconduct:

An investigation by The New York Times found previously undisclosed allegations against Mr. Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Company.

People knew about this for years and it took until now for something to finally happen.

Crooked Media Announces New Website and Network

Crooked Media
Jason Tate

Crooked Media has launched a new website, podcast, and network of contributors:

That’s us and that’s it. We’re proud of what we’ve built so far and excited for what’s next. Truth is, none of us expected to be doing this. Crooked wasn’t born of some master plan or a slick PowerPoint presentation with a battle-tested business model. We bet there were people like us who were frustrated and looking for something more. That people have responded has meant the world to us. And we couldn’t get through this roiling clusterfuck of a presidency without all of you.

The website looks good and the contributor network is full of great voices.

Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. Were Close to Being Charged With Felony Fraud

Legal
Jason Tate

ProPublica:

In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump’s two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., found themselves in a precarious legal position. For two years, prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had been building a criminal case against them for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development that was failing to sell. Despite the best efforts of the siblings’ defense team, the case had not gone away. An indictment seemed like a real possibility. The evidence included emails from the Trumps making clear that they were aware they were using inflated figures about how well the condos were selling to lure buyers.

This country is being run by the the worst people.

Dropbox Unveils New Logo and Brand

Dropbox
Jason Tate

Dropbox have announced a new logo and “brand” (and the website feels like it was written by hipster Don Draper):

Our old logo was a blue box that implied, “Dropbox is a great place to store stuff.” The new one is cleaner and simpler. And we’ve evolved it from a literal box, to a collection of surfaces to show that Dropbox is an open platform, and a place for creation.

Armin, over at Brand New (no, not that one), has a good run-down on the changes:

While there is something exciting about all the individual identity elements, concepts, and executions of each, perhaps there is too much to each of them and when they come together, it’s hard to tell what we are supposed to take away from it. Right now, you can see the new identity on this Dropbox area of their website and it all feels kind of random, from the color of the logo to the background colors to the co-creation image. I feel like I should like this more than I do and perhaps it’s my hesitation to accept Dropbox not just as file-storage but as a tool that enables and empowers me to be more creative… because it is not. It would be like saying that my portable 1 terabyte hard drive allows me to come up with ideas. It does not. The same way Dropbox does not. Which is fine as I am not expecting or looking for a product like Dropbox to inspire me.

The logo looks fine, the type looks great, but I don’t know why all the other stuff is needed. I still love me some basic Dropbox though. A folder that syncs. That’s all I want.

The NBA All-Star Game Gets an Overhaul

Basketball
Jason Tate

The NBA All-Star game is getting an overhaul. Paolo Uggetti, writing at The Ringer, describes the changes:

Instead of an East vs. West matchup, teams will be picked based on playground rules, with two captains selecting from the remaining pool of players, according to an announcement by the NBA on Tuesday.

The initial All-Star voting process will remain the same as last season: five players (two guards and three frontcourt players) from each conference will be selected by votes from fans, players, and media, and the remaining 14 players will be chosen by NBA head coaches. But now the top fan-vote-getters in each conference will be enlisted to choose, fantasy-draft style, who among the remaining 22 gets to play for which team.

Seems like a needed fix when most of the All-Stars are now in the western conference. Hopefully it makes the games a little more fun as well.

We Have to Stop Pretending We Can’t Do Anything About Gun Violence

Jason Tate

Lauren Duca, writing for Teen Vogue:

Firearms are shamefully under-regulated in this country. While details of the Las Vegas shooting continue to emerge, the broader contours of the gun control problem have long ago been cast in sharp relief. It is not too soon to get political. Politics affects everything, from where you get your water to where the latest attacker purchased their assault rifle. There are regulatory policy solutions that would make it more difficult to acquire these weapons. For change to occur, our distraught energy must be translated into an organizational force that insists on an institutional shift in our national approach to violence.