John Cena & Cody Rhodes Slyly Pay Tribute To Hulk Hogan On WWE SmackDown
Last night's episode of SmackDown kicked off with a face-to-face promo between Cody Rhodes and John Cena. In a surprising turn of events, Cena seemingly turned babyface ahead of his street fight with Rhodes this Sunday at SummerSlam.
The American Nightmare was pleased with Cena's speech and decided to propose a toast to the 17-time World Champion, offering him a beer and a handshake. The beer in question? A can of Hulk Hogan's Real American Beer.
While it's evidently clear after three straight episodes of WWE programming honoring the two-time Hall of Famer, the company has moved on from front and center tributes to the Hulkster; this was clearly a tribute from Cena and Rhodes without blatantly saying it.
If you missed last night's segment, you can check it out in the embedded video below:
Cody Rhodes will challenge John Cena for the Undisputed WWE Championship on night two of SummerSlam in a street fight.
WrestleZone will have live coverage of WWE SummerSlam all weekend long.
READ MORE: John Cena Turns Babyface On WWE SmackDown
What do you make of Rhodes and Cena's Hulk Hogan tribute? Are you excited for WWE SummerSlam this weekend? Let us know your overall thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
The post John Cena & Cody Rhodes Slyly Pay Tribute To Hulk Hogan On WWE SmackDown appeared first on Wrestlezone.
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CBS News
10 minutes ago
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Riot Fest late night aftershows announced for 2025
The Damned, Sex Pistols and Bouncing Souls are among the acts playing late night aftershows for Riot Fest 2025. Organizers announced 19 late night after shows for the festival that will be held Sept. 19 through 21 in Douglass Park in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. Headliners for Riot Fest include Blink-182, Weird Al Yankovic, Green Day and Weezer. Shows will be held at The Vic, Bottom Lounge, Reggie's Chicago, Concord Music Hall, the Metro, the Empty Bottle, Sleeping Village and Cobra Lounge between Wednesday, Sept. 17 and Sunday, Sept. 21. Headliners include The Damned, Knuckle Puck, Sex Pistols, The Front Bottoms, The Cribs, Delta Sleep, Alkaline Trio, Dehd, Bouncing Soles, Marky Ramone, the Buzzcocks and Didjits. There is also a Riot eFest 20th Anniversary Show with acts still to be announced. A presale starts Wednesday, Aug. 6 and then tickets go on sale to the general public Thursday, Aug. 7 at 10 a.m. Click here to see the full slate of shows and buy tickets.
Boston Globe
11 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Yo-Yo Ma and friends anchor a Tanglewood weekend of music forged in unprecedented times
Advertisement The topic of the discussion was the year 1803, and the geopolitical tempest amid which Beethoven composed his Symphony No. 3, 'Eroica,' which was (in a piano quartet transcription) the centerpiece of Sunday afternoon's program at the Koussevitzky Music Shed: Ma and Ax with violinist Leonidas Kavakos and violist Antoine Tamestit. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The symphony's origin story includes one of classical music's more memorable bits of trivia: Beethoven, who admired Napoleon Bonaparte, supposedly had planned to name the symphony after him. But upon learning that Bonaparte had declared himself Emperor of France in 1804, he furiously retracted that dedication. 'He will think himself superior to all men [and] become a tyrant!,' the composer raged, according to his student Ferdinand Ries. He then scratched out Bonaparte's name with such force that he tore a hole in the manuscript. Advertisement On its own, that story neatly slots into the narrative of Beethoven as a cantankerous but high-minded son of the Enlightenment. But Ax offered another possibility that could cast that outburst in a different light — that the symphony may have remained 'Bonaparte' if the Little Corporal had been willing to pay him for it. The discussion circled an unspoken and unanswered question: Because Beethoven lived and worked during a period of intense political upheaval in Europe, might there be any wisdom for our time hidden in the 'Eroica,' akin to the guidance Richardson excels at distilling from the annals of American history? The three danced around the topic without touching it. Ma at one point said that 'the young people will go further than the alte kakers (Yiddish for 'old farts') like me.' Perhaps, if there is any wisdom for our current moment in the 'Eroica,' it comes from the inspiration individuals might take from it, not anything encoded in the score. If the 'Eroica' took shape in turbulent and violent times, so too did the two completely unrelated pieces the BSO performed on Saturday evening with conductor Elim Chan, Korngold's Violin Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2. The Austria-born Korngold had been hailed as a wunderkind, the 20th century's answer to Mozart. Then, the Nazi takeover of his home country spurred him to relocate his family to Los Angeles, where he was already working on movie scores. Rachmaninoff penned the Symphony No. 2 in Dresden, Germany, where he'd relocated – resigning his post at the Bolshoi Theatre – to escape both the pressure of celebrity and the rumblings of the coming Russian Revolution. Advertisement It was the first time the BSO had ever performed the Korngold concerto, perhaps an oversight from the time when 'sounds like film music' was a much greater insult. The concerto doesn't just sound like film music; it incorporates themes from several films Korngold worked on, all of them keen and exquisite. Kavakos seemed to be a few hairs out of tune with the orchestra; passages that might otherwise have resounded with celestial consonance instead bristled with friction. But one can rely on Kavakos for two things, and the first of those is symbiosis with the orchestra. He's a true master at playing with an ensemble, not just in front of one. He took cues from the orchestra and Chan's agile and lush treatment of the music, and the ensemble in turn responded to what he played, adding extra zing or crunch to certain phrases to echo him. The tuning issues had mellowed out to an interesting pungence of tone by the third movement as well, and the final movement was a thrilling, high-energy caper. The other thing one can usually rely on him for is a sublime Bach encore, and he delivered that too. After intermission, Chan led the orchestra in a tremendous and sweeping performance of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, which featured (among other things) a heartstopping clarinet solo in the slow third movement from William Hudgins Never could anything with words convey pure love so clearly. Elim Chan, in her Tanglewood debut, gave the music agile and lush treatment. Hilary Scott/BSO Traffic was backed up on all roads leading to Tanglewood for the following afternoon's all-Beethoven program with Ma, Ax, Kavakos and Tamestit. The first three have been playing as a piano trio with some regularity for a handful of years, but have not formed an official ensemble; they're recognizable enough on their own that they surely don't need to. Tamestit collaborated with them at Tanglewood in 2022 during a series Ax curated, and at the time I noticed the similarities between the violist's warm sound and Ma's. In the two pieces Sunday afternoon that featured him, which were both orchestral transcriptions, he seemed to be the special sauce that bridged Kavakos's tart, papery sound and Ma's genial richness. Together, the three instruments alchemized into something larger than the sum of twelve strings, while Ax's muscular command of the piano (and transcriber Shai Wosner's keen ear for arrangements) laid an unshakable foundation. Advertisement The 'Leonore' Overture No. 3, usually a forgettable orchestral chestnut, fairly exploded with vitality. Tanglewood Music Center fellow Raul Orellana delivered a clean offstage trumpet solo, and the piano quartet beckoned him on stage to congratulate and introduce him afterwards. The Trio No. 4 in B flat allowed Ax more delicacy, with the responsibility of representing entire orchestral sections no longer on his shoulders. Here also, Ma and Kavakos were attuned to one another, responding and building on the other's input. Does the 'Eroica' pack the same punch without a full symphony orchestra behind it? No, but they're not playing in the same weight class. Wosner's transcription was written for Ma, Ax, Kavakos, and whichever guest violist they have (if you're reading this, guys: just make your nameless trio a quartet with Tamestit) and though the sonic power might not have been as overwhelming, it was playful in a way that full orchestras rarely explore. Beethoven's dynamic contrasts are often extreme – in Ax and Ma's conversation Saturday, they compared it to a film cutting away from a car crash to a completely unrelated scene – and without the large ensemble's sonic palette to work with, the musicians brought the drama of 'Eroica' by way of accents and variations, never playing anything the same way twice. Take the second repetition of the second movement's funereal melody, which usually belongs to the oboe; Ax transferred that to the piano, and each note was as smooth and discrete as pebbles in a cairn. Rather than try to mimic the oboe, he played it as only a pianist could. Advertisement BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA / YO-YO MA, EMANUEL AX, LEONIDAS KAVAKOS, AND ANTOINE TAMESTIT Tanglewood, Lenox. Aug. 2 & 3. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
Geek Girl Authority
11 minutes ago
- Geek Girl Authority
TOGETHER Spoiler Review
Major spoilers ahead for Together. You've been warned. * * Although it's never really gone out of style, body horror is enjoying a reemergence that's coming with some critical respect. With flicks like The Substance (2024) winning major awards, and recent entries like Bring Her Back (2025), Nightbitch (2024) and body horror master David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future (2022), the sub-genre that makes us cringe and squirm the most only continues to draw us in. Together tries throwing relationship drama into the mix. Does it create a successfully scary story? Read on to find out. RELATED: Superman Spoiler Review Together begins with the search for a couple of missing hikers. As a search party combs a heavily wooded area, some of the volunteers with dogs find a strange cave with furniture in it and a pool of water. The dogs drink from the pool before continuing to search. That night, the dogs' owner puts them in their kennel, noticing that they're acting strangely, just lying across from each other, staring. Later on, the owners hear what sounds like the dogs fighting and go in to find that the two dogs have somehow fused. Two dogs act strangely after being in an underground cave in Together Meanwhile, in Seattle, a couple named Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) are hosting a going-away party, preparing to move out to the country. A musician who's flailing about without direction (and employment), Tim talks to his friends, Jordy (Karl Richmond) and Luke (Jack Kenny), who try to talk Tim into going on the road with their band, so he'll at least have a steady gig. Millie's a teacher, and they're moving out to a small town where she has a new job waiting. Millie's girlfriend, Cath (Mia Morrissey), kind of trash-talks Tim to her, knowing he's dragging her down with his aimlessness and unwillingness to commit. Dude can't even drive. But Millie won't hear it. In fact, she makes a grand gesture of proposing to Tim in front of everyone, even though she doesn't have a ring. But Tim doesn't really respond; he just stands there flummoxed for an embarrassingly long time. By the time he blurts out an anxious 'Yes,' it's too late. Millie's mortified. RELATED: Movie Review: Osiris Later that night, as they try to sleep, Tim apologizes, but Millie's understandably angry. Tim sees a creepy-looking woman sitting in a bed, smiling at him while a dead man lies next to her. Tim pulls his covers up only to see the creepy woman crawling toward him, then he wakes up from his nightmare. Millie and Tim decide that they'll stay together despite the obvious issues they're having. They arrive at the new house, and Tim playfully carries Millie inside. Then, he notices a rancid smell that leads him to a light fixture. He pulls it apart to find what he thinks is a dead rat, but it turns out to be a live one with other rats fused to it. Tim takes it outside and chucks the horrid mess into the woods. Millie starts her teaching job, and in the staff lounge, accidentally takes a tea bag from a teacher's stash. She apologizes to the crusty old guy and then meets another teacher named Jamie (Damon Herriman). They find out they live in the same neighborhood, and he offers to show her around. Alison Brie and Dave Franco in Together The next day, Tim and Millie decide to go hiking to check out the area. They find weird bells tied up in some of the trees. Then, it starts raining pretty hard, and they get lost. Tim then slips into a hole, and when Millie tries to pull him out, they both end up falling in. It turns out to be the same hole that the searchers and dogs were in. They decide to stay put until the rain stops. They build a fire with a lighter Tim has, and Millie realizes he's still smoking even though he said he quit. But then Millie has cigarettes on her, even though she said she quit. They end up drinking from the same water hole the dogs drank from. Millie asks Tim how he was able to smell the rats. RELATED: Thunderbolts* Spoiler Review Tim tells her that when he was a kid, his dad made him look for the source of a bad smell coming from his room. Tim couldn't smell it, but his dad tore his room apart and found a dead rat. The smell had built up gradually so that Tim couldn't detect it. Later, when his father died, his mother suffered a psychotic break and sat in bed next to his rotting corpse for days. This explains the source of Tim's nightmares and a lot of his issues. Tim and Millie wake up the next morning to find their legs stuck together. They figure it's some kind of weird substance, like maybe mildew (as little sense as that makes). They painfully pull their legs apart and then climb out of the hole. When they get back home, Millie decides she'll go to the grocery store since they have no food. Tim gets in the shower, and as he stands under the spray, he goes into a weird trance. As Millie drives, turning the car this way and that, Tim also turns in the shower, smacking into the wall and the door. Jamie drops by the house later on and has dinner with them. But the conversation between Millie and Tim is contentious, no matter what they talk about. Jamie decides to leave, and afterwards, Tim is convinced that Jamie has the hots for Millie. Tim passionately kisses her, and she eagerly responds, there having been a lack of intimacy in their relationship. But when they pull apart, their lips stick together. Dave Franco in Together Later that night, Millie wakes up to tell Tim that he's lying on her hair. But when she turns over to look, she's horrified to see Tim swallowing her hair. She has to forcefully pull her hair out of his throat, and Tim wakes up, having no idea what he was doing. The next day, Tim's supposed to head back to the city for a gig, but Millie doesn't think he should go, given what's happened – and he doesn't look good. But Tim says he can't afford to miss it and needs her to drive him to the train station. Millie reluctantly goes along and leaves him at the station. But it isn't long before Tim starts feeling weird again. He leaves his gear at the station and walks to the school. RELATED: Movie Review: Jurassic World: Rebirth Millie spots Tim when he gets to the school and grabs him, rushing him into a bathroom. Tim passionately kisses Millie, saying he has a thirst for her, and they end up having sex. But then, when they try to separate, they find they're stuck together. Yeah. Eww. As Tim painfully pulls himself out of an agonized Millie, a student comes into the bathroom. Tim and Millie stay quiet until the student leaves, then they finally separate as the student returns with a teacher. Tim jumps up onto the toilet so he won't be seen as Millie stumbles out of the stall. The teacher turns out to be Jamie, and Millie just stands there like a deer in headlights as Jamie lets her know she's in the boys' bathroom. And that she should clean up, noticing the blood running down her leg. On his way out, Jamie sees Tim's feet inside the stall, stepping off the toilet. Later, Millie goes to Jamie's to apologize for what happened. Jamie plays it off as a non-issue, chalking it up to 'lady problems.' Millie expresses sadness about her relationship with Tim. Jamie talks about Plato and his story about the origin of love, how humans were originally born with two faces and two sets of limbs, but were split apart by Zeus. Hence came the eternal search for our soulmates. Damon Herriman in Together Then, they end up talking about the area, and Millie mentions the cave that had what looked like church pews in it. Jamie says there used to be a chapel there that collapsed. Apparently, it was some kind of cult into weird rituals. Millie then spots a dazed-looking Tim standing outside and quickly excuses herself. They rush back home, where Millie yells at him for putting her job in jeopardy. That night, while Tim's reading messages from his bandmates berating him for missing the gig, Millie shows up outside the door. But she seems to be stuck to the glass in the door, moving whichever way Tim does. When he opens the door, Millie's hovering off the floor in a trance, and he has to slap her awake. RELATED: 28 Years Later Spoiler Review Tim goes to a clinic to get checked out, and the doctor assumes it's panic attacks. He prescribes a muscle relaxant, diazepam, and sends him on his way. On his way home, Tim notices the flyers for the missing hikers from the beginning. He looks up their Facebook pages and discovers that the last photos they posted also had those bells in the background. Tim finds that the location of the photos is close to the house. He tries to tell Millie, but she doesn't believe it's relevant. They decide to sleep in different rooms to keep anything else weird from happening. But then Tim wakes up later and realizes that something is dragging him across the floor. He manages to stick his feet out and catch the door frames, just as Millie's door tears open and she comes sliding out. Millie contorts and flips over as she slides towards Tim, who flips himself over. Their hands join and start to fuse, moving up each other's arms. Tim gets the idea to use the diazepam to keep their muscles from working and knock themselves out. They rush to chew and crush and snort the meds and pull their arms apart before they pass out. Alison Brie and Dave Franco in Together When he wakes up, Tim finds Millie has taped him to a chair. She sits on his lap, feeding him whiskey, and Tim realizes that their arms are stuck together again. Looking crazed, Millie uses a reciprocating saw to slice their arms apart. Yow. Then, they bandage up and sit at opposite ends of the kitchen from each other. Millie decides they need to go to the hospital, but then realizes she left the car keys at Jamie's. Millie leaves Tim behind, telling him not to do anything stupid. But as soon as she leaves, he goes back to the cave. Once back inside the cave, he looks around to see other fused monstrosities, including the hikers, who come out of the shadows and attack. Tim fights it/them with a knife, cutting off its/their fingers before escaping. RELATED: Bring Her Back Spoiler Review When Millie gets to Jamie's, she finds the door open. She sees a video playing on a monitor, some kind of wedding of two young men. One of them sort of looks like Jamie. Millie recognizes the setting being the same setup as the cave. Then, Jamie pops up behind her, revealing himself to be the completely fused version of both men. The cult's whole purpose was to bring people together to become whole, which is what Jamie wants for Tim and Millie. Jamie then slashes Millie's arm across the artery, telling her it will speed things along. Millie gets back to the house as Tim does, and they try their hardest to resist the pull to join together. Tim's prepared to slit his throat to stop the merge and tells her how much he loves her. But by the time they come together, Millie's lost too much blood and dies in his arms. Alison Brie in Together But wait! Millie then wakes up to find herself back in the house, still alive thanks to Tim fusing his arm to hers. Exhausted, but unwilling to be parted from each other, they decide to accept their fate. Tim puts on Millie's favorite album – the Spice Girls' debut. As '2 Become 1' plays, they strip naked and embrace, letting the full fusion happen. The next day, Millie's parents (Tom Considine, Melanie Beddie) arrive for lunch. The door opens to reveal the androgynous person who is the fully integrated Tim and Millie. *** I have kind of a love/hate relationship with indie flicks. Regarding indie horror specifically, for every Hereditary (2018), The Witch (2015) or It Follows (2014), there are dozens more like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) or Skinamarink (2022 — many have called it genius, I call it 100 minutes of my life I can't get back). More often than not, indie horror is an absolute field of crap you can spend days sifting through to find the rare gem. RELATED: Sinners Spoiler Review Relationship drama is something else I stay far away from when looking for something to watch, especially if I'm spending theater money. So, needless to say, I went into Together with trepidation. The trailer drew me in, but I was fully prepared to be disappointed and wouldn't have been too surprised if I outright hated it. Thankfully, none of that happened. While it's far from perfect, Together has just enough of what it needs in each genre to make it work. Alison Brie and Dave Franco do a terrific job handling most of the story's heavy lifting. They work hard to make their characters at least somewhat sympathetic, if not likable. And while their codependent relationship gets tiring to watch, by the time it becomes truly annoying, the horror aspect of the story kicks in. While the body horror in Together pays homage to the greats that have come before it, especially David Cronenberg's version of The Fly (1986) and John Carpenter's version of The Thing (1982), it also has its own take that helps it stand out. The stretchy way their Tim and Millie's lips stick to each other, the way Tim swallows Millie's hair, it's harrowing. Props to the visual effects team for creating a unique, especially fleshy look to the gore. Alison Brie and Dave Franco in Together I was especially impressed by the scene where Tim and Millie get pulled toward each other in the hallway. Alison Brie's unnatural contortions as she flips and twists her way along the floor are chilling. But then there's some comedy thrown in as Tim tells Millie to take the medicine. 'Valium?' she says. 'It's called Diazepam now!' he replies, as they're both in agonizing pain. The unexpected humor takes you off guard and makes you laugh despite the situation, which is pretty genius. I have to credit writer/director Michael Shanks for keeping moments like that in the mix to keep both the relationship drama from getting too aggravating and the horror from getting too oppressive. RELATED: Final Destination: Bloodlines Spoiler Review Together does have its issues. As with many other flicks, its last act goes a bit off the rails and loses the focus it managed to maintain in the race to wrap things up. We learn almost nothing about the cult, one of the most intriguing ideas. What little you do find out gets dropped on you at the last minute because they wanted to guard Jamie's identity. It wasn't worth it. And like many other flicks, Together's ending leaves a lot to be desired. The flick doesn't end so much as it just stops, leaving you with no resolution. I mean, Millie's parents are standing there looking at who they think is a stranger. How does that work out? Most of all, there's no answer as to whether Tim and Millie are happier as an integrated being because you don't get to see it. That said, as indie horror flicks go, Together works better than most. Alison Brie and Dave Franco's strong performances draw you into a crazy-scary world where it's physically possible to join with your soulmate. But of course, the real question is: Would you really want to? Written and Directed by: Michael Shanks Release date: Jul 31, 2025 Rating: R Run time: 1hr 42min Distributor: Neon THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Spoiler Review
