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Tag: Tom

  • Where everybody knows your name: College Park’s Tom, Dick, & Hank is still serving up smoked goodness

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    Along with the food at Tom, Dick & Hank, there is also a full bar inside the restaurant. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice

    COLLEGE PARK, GA. – On a cool Friday morning on Main Street in College Park, a man grabs boxes out of the trunk of a car and loads them onto a hand truck. Then he and one of his employees made their way into the front door of his restaurant, Tom, Dick, & Hank. 

    Located across the street from the MARTA station, Tom, Dick, & Hank (TDH) is one of the many restaurants that dot the city’s main drag. Like many metro Atlanta restaurants, the idea for Tom, Dick, & Hank, a BBQ spot that offers smoked wings, traditional sides, burgers, fries, and drinks from its full bar, stemmed from a love of cooking with family. 

    “I guess I always cooked, and I learned a little bit from my grandparents,” Hank Johnson, 51, the man with the boxes, said. 

    Tom, Dick, & Hank is located on Main Street in College Park. The restaurant’s owner, Hank Johnson, liked the access to parking when he took over the space 11 years ago. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice

    Johnson said it was his smoker rig that started the whole thing. The wings at TDH are smoked on-site and offer customers a BBQ taste that stems from the passion Johnson developed early in life and honed as a neophyte business owner in 2014 when he opened TDH. He and his brother used to smoke wings and sell them at festivals, fairs, and outside of clubs. The taste and quality of service kept customers coming back and birthed the idea for a brick-and-mortar establishment. 

    TDH was born out of hustle and love of cooking. The first official TDH location was a stand on Ponce De Leon Avenue, across the street from the Krispy Kreme. 

    “It was takeout only,” Johnson remembers. “My brother had two grills, I had one, and we just got out there and did our thing.” 

    The menu at TDH includes smoked wings, dry rub wings, brisket, pulled pork, leg quarter plates, and salads. There are also the restaurant’s housemade BBQ chips. The chips are topped with pulled turkey, pork, or chicken, and include queso, diced tomatoes, and jalapenos. 

    Smoked ribs. collard greens, and Mac n’ cheese. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice

    Johnson has teamed up with fellow restaurateur Corrina Martinez, the owner of Blue Cantina, a Mexican-Southern fusion restaurant that has two locations in Atlanta. The owners partnered up a year ago in order to strengthen both businesses. Johnson described Martinez as more of the networking and facilitating star of the business, while he is most comfortable remaining the front-facing and hands-on piece of the partnership.

    “Iron sharpens iron, and steel sharpens steel,” Johnson said of the partnership. “She’s the face of the franchise now, and I’m more like Ronald McDonald. I’m a clown.”

    Johnson said other benefits to partnering with a successful business owner are the shared work, different insights, and that he learns from Martinez how she runs her business. Martinez told The Atlanta Voice that she feels the same about the partnership.

    “The benefit of this collaboration is that we have two opposing skillsets,” Martinez, a self-described analytics person, said by phone. “Part of that is learning from each other, and we feel we have a strong partnership.” 

    Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice

    Asked what he enjoys most about the restaurant business, Johnson said it was the people.

    “I like dealing with the people in the community. In this business, you get to see people grow,” said Johnson, who shared stories of hosting high school and college graduation parties, engagement parties, and catered homegoing celebrations in his business over the past decade.

    “That’s the best and the worst part,” Johnson laughed. “We do it all.” 

    There are more of those moments to come, says Johnson, who shared that he and Martinez have plans in place to expand the business in the future. TDH once had a second location on Ralph David Abernathy Blvd. in Mechanicsville. It opened in March 2015, a year after the College Park location opened, and was successful by all accounts, Johnson explained. 

    The parking situation was high on the list of the reasons Johnson said the Mechanicsville location would eventually be closed. “The space was just changing. I was sandwiched   between those two clubs, and I couldn’t really control the element.” 

    Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice

    On the other hand, TDH’s College Park location allows for plenty of parking, usage of public transportation, and walking for its customers. 

    Johnson said he has been feeling a trend of customers looking to remain closer to home, and that’s good for business. College Park has a population of nearly 14,000, and the continued growth of American downtowns and public squares has helped the business as well.

    “Places like Stockbridge, McDounough, Douglasville, people are just staying in all of their little pockets,” Johnson said.

    As for what is new at the one and only TDH, Johnson was excited to talk about the lab ribs that are debuting in December. “Everybody is doing lab chops, so I said let’s do something different,” Johnson.

    The smoked wings remain a staple, but the welcoming staff of servers, managers, and bartenders at TDH set the foundation of the business, Johnson explained.

    A sign behind the bar at Tom, Dick & Hank. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice

    He added that the restaurant grills oysters on Wednesdays and that the promotion has been well-received by patrons. Keeping the TDH menu familiar, yet exciting, has been a challenge Johnson readily accepts. 

    “You have to keep at it, and keep innovating, but stick to what you do best,” Johnson said. “I’ve seen a lot of people come, and a lot of people go.”

    TDH is still here. A sign on the wall near the bar states, “Happiness is a plate of brisket on a cold day!” 

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    Donnell Suggs

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  • Ranking the Best Jokes From the Tom Brady Roast

    Ranking the Best Jokes From the Tom Brady Roast

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    Like a sixth-round draft pick who goes on to win seven Super Bowl rings, The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady delivered far more than anyone had a right to expect. Over three hours live on Netflix Sunday night, the roast was a combination of no-holds-barred humor and awkward and hilarious moments between famous football friends and frenemies. The footballers on the dais more than held their own with the comics, and anyone wondering if Brady Rules would be in effect to soften the blows quickly got their answer. The show flew by because most sets worked, but it wouldn’t be a GOAT roast without some rankings. Here’s a ranking of all 19 roasters, from GROAT to WROAT—all that’s missing is Eli Manning:

    1. Nikki Glaser

    The roast really started when Glaser stepped to the podium, and she delivered the best top-to-bottom set of the night. Her bits about Gisele, Julian Edelman, er, sucking up to Brady, and her willingness to shoot her boyfriend in the face for a chance with TB12 were all great—her set really didn’t have lulls, she got a standing ovation, and her best joke absolutely killed.

    Best line: “Tom also lost $30 million in crypto. Tom, how did you fall for that? Even Gronk was like, ‘Me know that not real money!’”

    2. Sam Jay

    Often the funniest jokes are the ones you don’t see coming, and a first-time roaster going in on Drew Bledsoe was phenomenal. Jay’s “too Black for Boston” bit about Brady was excellent, but her Bledsoe jokes were just as good. The best part was watching Bledsoe react to a drive-by he probably didn’t see coming.

    Best line (to Bledsoe): “The only ring you have is the one Tom won for you. So your Super Bowl ring is just like my strap-on. Just because you wear it doesn’t make it real.”

    3. Tom Brady

    The GOAT did not disappoint at his own roast. Kim Kardashian leaving the kids at home with Kanye? Owning the Colts and Bills? Telling Gronk he’s not the father of a baby rhino? Brady was in the pocket—he’d clearly prepared, his set was one of the very best of the night—and it was the best of the bunch delivered by a non-comedian. If it seemed like he was regretting his decision to participate midway through the roast, he got the last laugh by the end.

    Best line: “Everybody asks me which ring is my favorite. I used to say, ‘The next one.’ But now that I’m retired, my favorite ring is the camera that caught Coach Belichick slinking out of that poor girl’s house at 6 a.m. a few months ago.”

    4. Bill Belichick

    It’s only fitting that Belichick and Brady were neck-and-neck with some of the best sets of the night. Brady edged out Belichick on a joke-for-joke scorecard, but Belichick had two of the most memorable lines of the night: the “10-part roast of Bill Belichick” joke about The Dynasty (the Apple TV+ docuseries), and the one about Brady and trainer Alex Guerrero. Plus, you got the sense Belichick meant it. (Tell us how you really feel about Danny Amendola, Bill!)

    Best line: “It was hard to butt heads with Tom because he was so far up Alex Guerrero’s ass.”

    5. Kevin Hart

    As host, Hart had a fun set to kick things off (watching Brady realize in real time that jokes about his divorce from Gisele would be prominent was something), but he’s here in the top five for how he quarterbacked the evening as a whole. He clocked all the big moments in real time and leaned into them while also navigating the sets from both comics and athletes, and giving the audience a few extra beats to laugh at jokes like Glaser’s crypto bit or process whatever the heck Gronk was doing. Sound it out, Gronk! But Hart’s best moment of the night was diplomatic, not comedic. The State Department should be studying how he got Belichick and Robert Kraft up on that podium together to take a shot. This is a big moment, Bill!

    Best line: “Let me tell you something: When you’ve got a chance to go 8-9, and all it will cost you is your wife and kids? You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

    6. Julian Edelman

    I’ll be honest: I did not know Edelman had this in him! His set, which was ruthless and smoothly delivered, might have been the surprise of the roast. On a night that featured more than a few one-liners about Aaron Hernandez, Edelman’s got the most potent combination of laughs and gasps. Maybe he was just good on the prompter, but Edelman was in command of his jokes enough that asides like, “I’ve been waiting for this for so long,” as he ripped Belichick’s unemployment felt ad-libbed. Surprisingly, he was the only roaster to go after Brady’s ever-evolving hairline and bone structure—and the joke landed as one of the best of the night.

    Best line: “Who’s laughing now, Tom? Not you, because your face can’t move and you don’t have a sense of humor.”

    7. Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy

    Will Ferrell seems to be entering that Ryan Gosling Zone, where he only appears in public in character. He was kind of doing his own thing, but it worked, and his run about Eli Manning was great. One of the challenges of a roast is finding the right balance between the jokes the audience knows are coming and stuff that’s out of left field, and Ferrell as Ron Burgundy mispronouncing Gisele, thinking he’s in New York and pretending to fall in love with Brady was a helpful addition to the latter category.

    Best line: “Poor Gisele, it took her 13 years to learn what we all know: Tom is boring. Dink, donk, dink, donk, touchdown, who cares!”

    8. Andrew Schulz

    Schulz seemed like he was having a blast up there. “Bill has secretly filmed more guys playing for the other team than Diddy,” didn’t draw his biggest laugh, but it elicited the biggest gasp of the night from the audience, and it’s fun to watch a comic know he’s getting a reaction.

    Best line: “Tom, you remind us that no matter how big you get, how successful you are, or how much you accomplish in your life, you can always end up a twice-divorced supplement salesman in Tampa, Florida. And for that, we thank you.”

    9. Kim Kardashian

    Serious question: Why were people booing Kim Kardashian? That was vigorous booing! Is this about Taylor Swift? I did not know people still had it out for her that way, and I don’t think she or the dais expected the audience to respond like that when she was invited on stage to give a toast. I also remain confused about her and Brady’s apparently close friendship. A lot of questions here. Anyway, she was a good sport and her set was good!

    Best line: “Honestly, it’s hard to watch people roast you, but I think enough of my family members have helped defend former football players.”

    10. Peyton Manning

    Manning is great at a roast because he never sounds like he’s being mean. One of the things this roast got right was the sequencing—both choices of Ferrell, a.k.a. Burgundy, to introduce Belichick and Manning to introduce Brady himself were smart.

    Best line: “Tom and I both golf. My handicap is 6.4, and his handicap is blowing leads to my brother Eli in the Super Bowl.”

    11. Rob Gronkowski

    Gronk had some great moments, like when he went after Belichick about running the infamous hill, but the most memorable part of his set wasn’t a specific joke but how off-the-rails it was as a whole. I think that shot glass he spiked was made of real glass? I am docking Gronk a bit for making at least four too many gay jokes that felt right out of 1997, but the avocado line did make me laugh. And I believe Gronk when he says he worked on his own material.

    Best line (to Edelman): “Julian, you’re the only one who used tongue.”

    12. Drew Bledsoe

    Bledsoe was brave enough to be first on the dais, and standing up at the podium drinking a glass of his own wine was a nice touch. His set had some lulls, but the bits about confirming he hates Brady were funny, and the closing wedding anniversary jab was one of the first signs of the night that no one would be holding back. Bledsoe also had a great sense of humor throughout the night when he was targeted.

    Best line: “My favorite wine is our world class cabernet. Tom’s favorite whine is, ‘Where’s the flag?!’”

    13. Jeff Ross

    Ross has had more memorable roast sets, but the Roastmaster General is a huge winner given the overall success of the event. He was also the only roaster to go after Kraft, though Brady apparently didn’t care for his massage parlor joke.

    Best line (about Brady’s book): “The TB12 Method, very helpful. In fact, Kevin Hart has been sitting on it all night.”

    14. Tony Hinchcliffe

    Purely on a jokes-per-minute basis, Hinchcliffe had the set of the night. His Gronk jokes in particular had a cheeky charm.

    Best line: “Tom is afraid of the Giants, which is why Kevin Hart is hosting tonight.”

    15. Randy Moss

    Moss struggled with some of his delivery, but the bit in which he asked why the Patriots didn’t cheat when he was on the team was funny. Several others delivered “Randy Moss doesn’t have a ring” jokes, but his approach to the topic was the most clever. Moss gets bonus points for the line “Who the fuck is Nate Ebner?” Not sure that lands with anyone who isn’t a Patriots fan, but I know they were laughing in New England.

    Best line: “You know how hard it is to look your kids in the eyes and say, ‘They just don’t trust me enough to cheat’?”

    16. Tom Segura & Bert Kreischer

    On a night with this many roasters, it’s good to have a couple weird bits thrown in. Segura and Kreischer’s slideshow connecting Brady with various historical psychopaths and serial killers definitely qualifies, though I did spend the last few beats of their allotted time thinking: “I wonder why Bill Burr isn’t here.”

    Best line: [Showing picture of semi-nude Brady clutching football] “Was he pregnant?”

    17. Robert Kraft

    Despite the fact that the evening was surprisingly light on massage parlor jokes (and given Brady’s response to the one Ross made, it’s fair to wonder if that’s what was taken off the table) this was a tough evening for Kraft, who had to weather that moment, Belichick’s iciness and several Deflategate jokes during which he appeared to be dissociating. Perhaps accordingly, Kraft seemed nervous during his short set, though it had a few lines that landed.

    Best line: “Tom, good luck buying the Raiders. They did your favorite thing for you already—they got rid of Jimmy Garoppolo.”

    18. Dana White

    White only got a minute to roast and wasn’t able to do much with it. It’s not ideal if you have to say “come on, that was a good one” mid-set.

    Best line: Unfortunately for White, they were all in Andrew Schulz’s set.

    19. Ben Affleck

    Speaking as someone who watched every minute of The Greatest Love Story Never Told, I must ask: is Ben Affleck OK? He spent most of his time at the podium yelling about internet commenters and not telling jokes. It was weird! Matt Damon, come get your friend. He’s killing the vibe.

    Best line: Saying Brady overcame “the physique of a professional bowler with a smaller right arm” to play football.

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    Nora Princiotti

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  • Hunger Games’ director says Tom Blyth blew every other auditioner ‘out of the water’

    Hunger Games’ director says Tom Blyth blew every other auditioner ‘out of the water’

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    Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson’s performances as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark defined the original Hunger Games movies. But the prequel movie, set 64 years before Katniss and Peeta’s story, needed a new set of actors who could hold their own.

    The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an origin story for Panem’s dictator, President Coriolanus Snow. It takes fans back to a time when Coriolanus was just an ambitious young student who had not yet become the cutthroat politician we see in the main books and movies. His story is entwined with that of Lucy Gray Baird, the District 12 Tribute he’s assigned to mentor, whose natural flair for showmanship and captivating songs inspire him to turn the brutal Hunger Games into more of a flashy spectacle.

    Director Francis Lawrence tells Polygon the filmmakers were looking for fresh faces when it came to the lead roles. A lot of actors auditioned for the role of Snow, specifically, but Lawrence says Billy the Kid star Tom Blyth immediately “blew everybody out of the water.”

    “Part of it is physical,” he admits. “He has those great blue eyes — [you] could see in his face, Okay, I could buy that maybe 65 years later, he could turn into Donald Sutherland.”

    Image: Lionsgate Films

    Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, dressed in the crisp uniform of a Peacekeeper in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

    Image: Lionsgate

    But it wasn’t just about how feasibly Blyth could look like a younger Donald Sutherland. Whoever landed the role had to walk a line between being charming and conniving, someone you want to root for, yet aren’t surprised when they end up turning into a villain. Blyth brought his acting chops to the role, and Lawrence was continually impressed throughout filming.

    “Telling a story about a young man’s descent into darkness, you have to have somebody that can earn the audience’s empathy, but then believably also descend into that darkness,” Lawrence says. “[Blyth] is really, really good. This sort of charisma continued to astound me. His sense of control in his performance and nuance also astounded me. That really caught me off guard and surprised me in a fantastic way.”

    Blyth stood out in auditions, but when it came to casting District 12 songstress Lucy Gray, Lawrence had a first choice in mind from the get-go. Rachel Zegler’s acting and singing in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story made her Lawrence’s top contender for the role.

    “So she and I met, I think, for four hours or something the first time, and had a great chat about the book and about the character and about the music,” Lawrence says. “I just knew she was the one right away.”

    Lucy Gray looks shocked as she walks forward in a crowd

    Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate

    A big part of Lucy Gray’s character involves music. She’s a member of the Covey, a traveling band of musicians inspired by similar performing groups from turn-of-the-century America. Her passionate outburst of song at her Reaping immediately sparks something in Snow, who recognizes that her performing talent is key to getting her to survive the games. So Lucy Gray’s singing had to be life-savingly good and fit in a specific genre.

    “I had high expectations, because I think she’s a great actor and a great singer, but the singing blew me away,” Lawrence gushes. “The fact that she could shift right from theatrical kind of singing — something you would do in West Side Story or on stage — into the exact genre of country bluegrass that we were doing in this movie that feels like it’s from the turn of the century to the [19]20s-30s Appalachia. To be able to hit that style and do it so effortlessly, and sing live every day, that was pretty mind-blowing.”

    The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is out in theaters now.

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    Petrana Radulovic

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  • The Death of Bellator, Tom Aspinall’s P4P Rankings Debut, and Why Jon Jones Vs. Francis Ngannou Might Still Happen!

    The Death of Bellator, Tom Aspinall’s P4P Rankings Debut, and Why Jon Jones Vs. Francis Ngannou Might Still Happen!

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    Still buzzing from last weekend’s UFC 295, Ariel, Chuck, and Petesy have a lot to get into on today’s show. First, the guys discuss this weekend’s final Bellator card and why the energy (or lack thereof) surrounding Bellator 301 is symbolic of the promotion’s entire existence. Then, the guys break down their latest pound-for-pound rankings before taking Discord questions about Alex Pereira’s legendary run, Ian Garry’s beef with Team Renegade, how the Saudis could convince Dana White to make the fight of the century, and more. Plus, a classic game of Buy or Sell.

    To enter into our lovely Discord community, click this link.

    TOPICS:

    • Intro (00:00)
    • The end of Bellator (03:07)
    • Why Bellator doesn’t invoke the same nostalgia Strikeforce does (08:49)
    • Saturday’s Paul Craig vs. Brendan Allen card at The Apex (21:02)
    • Ariel’s conundrum with getting Tom Aspinall into his November pound-for-pound rankings (24:19)
    • UFC fighters we feel most emotionally connected to (37:38)
    • How the Saudis could get Dana White to make Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou (57:30)
    • Buy or Sell (01:05:09)

    Hosts: Ariel Helwani, Petesy Carroll, and Chuck Mindenhall
    Producer: Troy Farkas

    Subscribe: Spotify

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    Ariel Helwani

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  • More vampires need to play with their food

    More vampires need to play with their food

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    Even vampires deserve treats. One of the many sacrifices that people make in exchange for eternal life in vampire lore is flavor. They can only eat one thing for the rest of their elongated lives, and it’s a metallic, salty, sinister thing. We all know this. We accept this. But vampires shouldn’t have to give up texture, too. So, in 2013, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch was brave enough to create a vampire with the vision to turn that blood into something good to eat: Eve and her blood Popsicles in Only Lovers Left Alive.

    As a millennial woman, I have consumed more than my fair share of vampire stories. I grew up entranced by Interview with the Vampire. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series of books and films fell into my lap right on the heels of another fantasy series that, er, need not be named. Then there was True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, binge-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the then-new app Hulu. But just once has drinking blood ever looked appetizing to me. Once have I ever vanted to suck blood, and that’s thanks to Eve.

    Jarmusch’s moody hangout comedy stars Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as vampires named Adam and Eve (don’t worry about it) who’ve been on-again-off-again spouses for centuries and reunite when Adam is in a particular state of ennui. He’s got a hookup at a local blood bank, so he doesn’t need to do any killing. But Eve gets experimental. In an effort to surprise and cheer Adam up, she freezes some O negative. Very refreshing, especially when you’re in “a hot spot,” she says. Now, Hiddleston enjoying “blood on a stick” is a finger-licking image by itself, but this is not that kind of thirst blog. Hand to Lilith, this is the first and only time I have felt represented on screen by a fictional vampire. This is exactly the type of thing I would do if I were undead. I love to eat Popsicles. I love to make Popsicles.

    Have you ever been in a situation where you had limited ingredients in your house — because of money, college, a thunderstorm, or a pandemic, for example — and had to get creative in order to avoid eating the same thing every day? Imagine that plus immortality. Shouldn’t vampires be messing around in the kitchen in an attempt to spice up their lives, like, all the time? The titular cannibal on Hannibal enjoyed sanguinaccio dolce, an Italian pudding, with human blood instead of the traditional pig’s blood. You can’t tell me Lestat wouldn’t be into that.

    Vampires are inventive, prolific even, in many ways. Across literature, film, and television, their fighting styles vary. They choose to spend their daytime hours in different ways. You can always count on a fictional vampire to experiment with fashion. But not food. Whether the story is romantic or horrifying or a bit of both, we usually see vampires feeding on fresh human blood by sucking directly from their victim’s neck, wrist if they’re polite, or femoral artery if they’re nasty. It can be scary or erotic, but never exactly tasty. If a vampire doesn’t want to kill, and we have plenty of sullen and brooding faces in popular culture, they’ll find more palatable methods. The immortal teenagers on The Vampire Diaries drink blood-filled IV bags like Capri-Suns. Baz in Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On series, Interview with the Vampire’s Louis de Pointe du Lac, and the “vegetarian” Cullen family in the Twilight series hunt animals. Still, they’re drinking from the source. There’s no sense of fun. There’s no flair.

    I can think of some notable exceptions. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampire Spike alludes to enhancing his blood with burba weed for flavor and crushed-up Weetabix for texture. At least once in season 6 we see him doing it, so we know it wasn’t a dry joke (hard to tell with those Whedon types). What We Do in the Shadows has a little fun, too. The vampires can get high off the blood of people who are on drugs. They can mix blood with Bud Light and get drunk. Still, that’s not very elegant or inventive. I expect more from them.

    Others just merit an honorable mention. The glamorous antagonist known only as the Countess in the 1985 sex comedy Once Bitten drinks a glass of blood with a celery stalk. Occasionally you’ll see vampires drink their blood from a red wine glass or a flask. Presentation is important, so I appreciate that. Amy Heckerling’s romantic comedy Vamps mixes it up by having Krysten Ritter stick a straw into the rat she’s draining. That’s (a) gross and (b) boring! And True Blood, of course, is built around a synthetic blood that vampires can buy bottled and drink “out” in society. However, many of the vampires on True Blood prefer the real thing and tend to drink it in the usual way. Russell will stick his hand into a human’s chest cavity and pull out their heart, but he apparently can’t be bothered to prepare his food.

    Come on! Where are the foodie vampires? I know that Hollywood’s best and brightest can do better. What about blood foam? Blood soup is already a dish in many cuisines. There are lots of foods cooked with blood, like black pudding or coq au vin. Where’s the whipping, frying, curdling, and coagulating? Show me a vampire starting the day with a steaming cup of hot blood. I don’t see why you couldn’t make freeze-dried astronaut blood for an afternoon snack. If Popsicles are possible, why not a bloody shaved ice, slushie, or sorbet?

    I don’t even think I’ve ever seen a vampire lick a rare steak. Let’s face it: Being a vampire looks fun! Except for drinking blood, of course. That can change. If vampire fiction is here to stay, we owe it to them to give them something good-looking to eat instead of just someone good-looking to eat.

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    Leah Marilla Thomas

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  • Netflix’s One Piece Live-Action Series Delivers More Than It Disappoints

    Netflix’s One Piece Live-Action Series Delivers More Than It Disappoints

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    One Piece is a series built on lofty promises. Chief among them: that its hallowed treasure, which still has yet to be revealed since the series began 26 years ago, will be worth the journey; that protagonist Monkey D. Luffy will someday fulfill his dream of becoming the king of the pirates; and that its long-running manga series and intimidatingly long anime will ultimately end on a satisfying note. The release of Netflix’s One Piece live-action series adds yet another promise to the series’ tab—the promise that, in being adapted to live action, it will emerge as one of the good ones, avoiding the dismal fate of so many anime that have made that journey before. The show doesn’t completely succeed in keeping this promise, but it makes a decent if uneven first impression, beckoning long-time fans and newcomers alike to stay aboard and see where it could go next.

    Netflix’s One Piece Live-Action Trailer Has A Treasure Trove Of Anime Easter Eggs

    Read More: Every Upcoming Hollywood Anime Live-Action Adaptation That’s Got Fans Stressed

    The live-action anime seas are treacherous waters for anime fans who’ve, either earnestly or out of morbid curiosity, watched as series like Dragon Ball Z, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Fullmetal Alchemist, and most recently Cowboy Bebop, capsized under the weight of their own misguided ambition to recapture the magic of their source material by throwing real people into the mix. These experiments, for lack of a better term, led to the consensus that any subsequent live-action adaptations would be doomed to fail because the grand worlds, battles, beauty and kineticism of anime can’t be reproduced in a live-action format, at least not without looking cheap and uninspired by comparison.

    One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda has been more than aware of fans’ trepidation that the One Piece live-action series could well besmirch his magnum opus’ legacy by becoming yet another example of live-action drivel. Stoking those fears was the fact that producer Marty Adelstein’s Tomorrow ITV Studios also did Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop, which was promptly canceled after its first season. Still, Oda promised that the adaptation, on which he serves as an executive producer, wouldn’t “betray” fans who’ve been supporting the series for the past twenty years, and stressed that the show wouldn’t launch until he was satisfied with it.

    Netflix

    The first season of the One Piece live-action series, which covers the major story beats from the start of the manga’s opening East Blue saga up until the conclusion of the Arlong Park arc, sees Luffy assemble his pirate crew as they set sail to find Gold Roger’s titular hidden treasure. The show covers a lot of ground, especially when you consider that it’s condensing what would be 93 chapters (or roughly 17 hours of anime) into eight hour-long episodes. The result is an occasionally clumsy show that opts to streamline major story beats by dual-tracking arcs together in a single episode, thus giving fans who felt intimidated by the manga and anime’s lengths a gateway into Oda’s grand world.

    And while it leaves a bit to be desired, the Netflix One Piece is one of the rare well-made live-action anime adaptations. The show is full of heart, from its vibrant set and wardrobe designs to the disarmingly charming found-family dynamic that the live-action crew so effectively exudes.

    Read More: I Just Read 1,025 Chapters Of One Piece, And It’s A Damn Masterpiece

    Image: Netflix

    What Netflix’s One Piece live-action series does right

    What surprised me most about Netflix’s One Piece live-action series is how it deviates ever so slightly from being a rote, SparkNotes summary of the source material’s first major arc by adding its own original wrinkles to Oda’s epic, allowing one of the series’ subtler relationships—that between Admiral Garp (Vincent Regan) and marine recruit Koby (Morgan Davies)—to take center stage.

    Throughout the season, the show balances this thread with the cat-and-mouse chase of the Marines pursuing the Straw Hats as they sail toward the Grand Line. While manga and anime One Piece enjoyers like myself know the pair eventually develop an unbreakable bond, we never get to see how the relationship between the fearsome admiral and the former pirate takes root outside of a few stray manga panels interspersed between latter arcs in the series. Thankfully, the Netflix series is more than willing to dedicate time to depicting the humble beginnings of their wholesome friendship.

    Throughout the live-action series, Garp instills agency in Koby by teaching his subordinate that he should get out of his own head and trust his gut instincts. In one of the earlier episodes, Garp instills this lesson in Koby over a game of Go, which Koby proceeds to best Garp in after accepting his advice. While innocuous on the surface, this scene serves to fill in the anime’s gaps in Koby’s sudden and awesome character development, as he goes from being a timid coward to one of the Marines’ bravest heroes.

    This all comes to a head when Koby chooses to defy Garp’s orders to detain Luffy because he believes his friend is a good pirate—something marines are indoctrinated into believing doesn’t exist. Instead of chastising Koby, Garp praises him for being honest with himself and doing what he thought was right.

    Rather than feeling like filler or glorified fan fiction, Garp and Koby’s conversations build upon the series’ long-running theme about throwing caution to the wind in the pursuit of one’s dream. For Koby, that dream is being a good marine.

    While the series does an exceptional job of characterizing the dynamic of the Straw Hats’ burgeoning camaraderie, Garp and Koby’s flourishing relationship steals the show, and instilled a desire in me to see other relationships explored more deeply in the live-action series, should it get renewed for a second season.

    Read More: Twitch Star Hasan Thinks One Piece Is Socialist (And He’s Right)

    A One Piece live action still shows the Straw Hats setting sail for the Grand Line.

    Image: Netflix

    Netflix’s One Piece suffers from growing pains, but they aren’t deal breakers

    That’s not to say that Netflix’s live-action series doesn’t make some sacrifices along the way. In the show’s slightly brisker pacing, which combines both origin stories and early character-defining arcs for characters like Sanji and Zoro, you miss moments of character development for Usopp and Luffy, who come off as one-dimensional bystanders to whatever scenes they accompany. This is particularly disappointing considering their manga and anime counterparts play a more active role in their crewmates’ arcs by having salient conversations about how their friends are feeling. Instead, the live-action pair are often delegated to onlookers who either incessantly comment about how strong their friends are or, worse, quip like Marvel heroes.

    While the CGI in the live-action One Piece series is on par with what you’d see in Netflix’s Witcher series, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment whenever the show attempted to recreate Luffy’s rubberman fighting style. Mind you, my disappointment wasn’t with how uncanny it looked, but how sparingly the series showcased Luffy’s devil fruit powers. Whenever he actually fights using his rubber man abilities, it’s contained in brief, tight camera shots, as if the showrunners were self-conscious about how goofy it might look to viewers. If anything, the series would’ve benefited from hanging on shots of Luffy going wild with his rubber man antics, especially considering the great first impression the show makes by displaying how effective Luffy’s Tom and Jerry-esque punches are at knocking folks out.

    As a whole, the first season of Netflix’s One Piece live-action series is a satisfying start, one that’s faithful to the source material while adding its own fresh, welcome insights. Whether the show’s success eventually leads its live-action crew to sail to the sands of Alabasta, the clouds of Skypiea, or the impenetrable fortress of Enies Lobby has yet to be seen, but I hope to witness its efforts to live up to its promising first season.

       

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    Isaiah Colbert

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  • ‘Succession’ Ends With Roy Family Saving Christmas

    ‘Succession’ Ends With Roy Family Saving Christmas

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    NEW YORK—With the beloved characters joyously sharing the warmth of Yuletide cheer as snow fell gently upon Manhattan, HBO’s hit drama Succession concluded Sunday with the Roy family saving Christmas. “After years of sibling squabbles over who would take the throne at Waystar Royco, the hit series has elegantly stuck the landing with an episode that follows Kendall, Shiv, and Roman after they discover that recently deceased family patriarch Logan Roy was not only their father, but Father Christmas himself—and that his passing meant there would be no Christmas unless they could set aside their differences to deliver presents to the world’s children,” wrote New York Times TV critic Miranda Lawrence, praising the way the Roys finally accepted the spirit of the season and gave up their riches to make sure the Christmas wishes of all little boys and girls came true. “My heart melted when Roman put his arms around Rudolph, begging him to believe in himself so his nose would glow again. Each family member learned their own special lesson from the three Christmas ghosts, even Tom, who finally felt secure enough to let Greg turn back into a snowman and go live in the Magical Winter Woods. This finale is sure to go down as one of the greatest of all time, especially after that final shot where the three Roy siblings flew Santa’s sleigh through the night sky in their matching footy pajamas as the voice of Logan Roy could be heard saying, ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a fuck off!’” The review also praised Peter Friedman and David Rasche, who played Frank and Karl respectively, for their beautiful rendition of “O Holy Night.”

    Ho, Ho, Ho! I Saw You Masturbating!

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  • Bringing Authenticity And Humor To Like A Dragon’s ‘Western Renaissance’

    Bringing Authenticity And Humor To Like A Dragon’s ‘Western Renaissance’

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    The Like a Dragon series (formerly known as the Yakuza series) is the most video game ever. This melodramatic crime drama series about a bunch of burly gangsters with the power to rip their suits clean off from their lapels has wacky plotlines where you hire a chicken as a real estate employee, manage a cabaret maid cafe, and battle a bunch of criminals with a diaper fetish. The series is a hoot.

    Read More: Like A Dragon: Ishin!: The Kotaku Review

    Most of the hilarity emanating from Like a Dragon and its spin-off series, Judgment, comes from the franchise’s snappy dialogue and the absurdist character and item descriptions of its English translations. For example, Like a Dragon’s stalwart protagonist, Kiryu Kazuma, can go from calling a new fighting technique he saw on the street “rad” to vehemently explaining that his propensity to brawl with thugs in public doesn’t make him a “fisting artist.”

    Sega (EN) / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    Don’t let the fact that developer Ryu Ga Gotoku’s samurai spin-off, Like a Dragon: Ishin!, is a historical period piece that takes place in 1867, make you think that it won’t contain the same levels of ludicrous sidequests and wacky dialogue as its predecessors. If anything, the fact that Kiryu’s feudal stand-in, Sakomoto Ryoma, partakes in similar madcap misadventures in the year of the Meiji restoration and the downfall of the Shogunate only adds to the game’s zaniness.

    Read More: I Met The Most Annoying Yakuza NPC In Like A Dragon: Ishin!

    In that spirit, I spoke with Marilyn Lee, the senior localization producer for Like a Dragon: Ishin!, to get some insight into the work that was put into crafting Like a Dragon: Ishin’s English translation.

    Localization in a nutshell

    Much like how Like a Dragon’s bombastic heat system fighting moves ought to make you feel like an extreme beast of a man, a localizer must ensure that every bit of text in Like a Dragon emanates an authentic Yakuza experience.

    Read More: The Yakuza Devs Are Stunting On The Entire Gaming Industry

    “The translating team takes the raw Japanese and churns out a direct translation as true to the meaning of the Japanese as possible but ultimately clunky, dry, and not especially what we’d call natural,” Lee said. “The team of editors then takes that line and brings in the characterization, makes it sound like natural dialog, which becomes the final script.”

    Sega (EN) / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    ‘Translation is not mathematics’

    One way of providing context for players that’s often used in translated works of Japanese games is to swing south with dialogue translations of characters with Kansai accents and give them a southern Texan drawl. But while folks who consume Japanese media have become accustomed to Osakan characters having the vernacular of a person hailing from Alabama or the Bronx, Lee said the LaD localization team strives to “avoid making a direct analog between specific English and Japanese dialects.”

    Lee credits the LaD localization team’s decision to examine vernacular characteristics and accents “on a deeper level” to Scott Strichart, a senior localization producer at Sega and “the former architect of Like a Dragon’s Western renaissance.” “While our philosophy on Kansai-ben involves many colloquialisms that might independently register as Southern, we’ve failed if players are categorically hearing all Kansai speakers with a twang,” Lee said. 

    “In the case of Ishin!, we would invite players to compare characters like Majima and Saejima (or Soji and Nagakura) to the game’s Gunman trainer, William Bradley, who was deliberately written to evoke the manner of a late 19th-century Southern cowboy. Likewise, this game also introduces the archaic Tosa-ben dialect, which we hope is difficult to attach to a given style of English and more so simply reads as rustic and insular,” Lee said.

    Sega (EN) / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    Read More: The Samurai Yakuza Game Will Guest-Star A World-Famous Wrestler And An Internet Hottie

    When it comes to how much free reign the LaD localization team has in terms of cursing, Lee says games with the localization caliber of the Like a Dragon series “can’t simply mechanically swap out ‘kuso’ for ‘damn’ because “translation is not mathematics.”

    “Cursing is a vital linguistic component in English, and therefore our editors generally have leave to employ it as freely as they would in any other M-rated title (within reason),” Lee said.

    “Localization, as we view it, favors recreating the experience of the source language user rather than risking a sacrifice in writing quality to stay devoutly faithful to the source language itself. If a skillfully deployed curse is going to make a joke hit as well in an English line as it did in a curse-free Japanese line, then we’ll almost always use that curse.”

    Localization funsies

    You better sing, Ryoma.
    Screenshot: Sega / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    My most hot-button question for Lee was which character in Ishin! was her favorite to localize. It should be noted that when I sent Lee this inquiry via email, I made sure to include the tagline “and why is it Majima?” To my delight, Lee replied saying Majima is “fun to watch, he’s fun to fight, and he’s absolutely fun to localize.”

    “Majima is the cross-section of so many compelling character types: he can be hilarious, he can be frightening, he can oscillate between being oblivious and being the smartest man in the room and somehow it always feels authentic. Yakuza 0 players also know that deep down, there’s a real human there, projecting all these personality traits for reasons he may not even remember (in the main series’ continuity, anyway).”

    Read More: Yakuza Producer Surprised Y’all Find Majima So Sexy

    Majima’s cult of personality notwithstanding, Lee said Ishin’s minor characters deserve their due just as much as the Mad Dog of Shimano (period piece edition).

    “Working for days at a time on minor characters such as Tom the would-be samurai, or the cryptic, slang-weaving Mysterious Merchant gives our team the chance to craft a wide variety of voices. Truthfully, it demonstrates how tenacious the settings of RGG games are, that they support so many [people] of so many dispositions and still feel cohesive.”

    Lost in translation

    A screenshot shows Ryoma squaring up with a "large man" in a sauna with a generous amount of steam.

    True.
    Screenshot: Sega / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    Recently, Viz Media translator Kumar Sivasubramanian famously threw in the towel after having the unenviable task of translating Cipher Academy, a mystery series by the creator of the Monogatari series. Sivasubramanian called it quits with Cipher Academy because a bulk of the series’ dialogue was filled with cultural or phonetic puns that don’t make sense in English. Like Sivasubramanian, LaD’s localization team is also confronted with the herculean task of translating Japanese puns or jargon for English-speaking players.

    Read More: Translator Steps Down From Shonen Jump Manga After Declaring It Untranslatable [Update]

    Whenever there are nuances and phrases that don’t have a true 1:1 equivalent in either English or Japanese, Lee said the LaD localization team uses their “best judgment” to find “suitable methods to convey things as closely as possible to the essence of the source language.”

    Although some LaD fans can be “diehard purists,” Lee says most have a generally subjective line on what sounds “‘true” to the source material.

    A screenshot shows Ryoma getting ready to beat up a goon for hurting a woman.

    Ryoma is a god among men.
    Screenshot: Sega / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    With Like a Dragon, we believe that players can tell that the writing is meant to harmonize with every other aspect of the presentation. If a moment has an over-the-top zoom-in and we replace a simple ‘Nani!?’ with an English line that matches the absurdity of the cinematography, we haven’t betrayed the authorial intent there—we’ve done our best to execute on that intent across countless linguistic and cultural chasms.”

    Much like colloquialisms in Cipher Academy, Lee said Japanese puns “never translate.” Whenever a pun is uttered in the LaD series, Lee said her team must “roll with them as they come and commiserate together for the real tricky ones.”

    “Thankfully, that also means there are afternoons spent with the whole team shouting out funny chicken names, which is basically the entire reason we all got our college degrees,” Lee said.

    Measure twice, cut once (Yakuza style)

    A screenshot shows a man lamenting about a deadline he's been procrastinating.

    He just like me fr.
    Screenshot: Sega / Ryu Ga Gotoku

    In total, Lee said it took the localization team a little over a year to finish localizing Ishin! to have the game ready to launch on February 21 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. Meanwhile, the games that took the longest to finish localizing are Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 because they were a part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection, Lee said.

    “Some projects took a long time from start to finish just due to the localization process was intertwined with the development of the game. Some took long because of the number of languages involved. Others took a long time because of the sheer volume of the project,” Lee said.

    While localizing the drama and humor in Ishin! was par for the course with other games in the series, the trickiest part of localizing the spin-off was ensuring players weren’t lost with the historical context and geography in Ishin!

    “Our updated glossary and new memoir feature can do some of that work, but ultimately it falls to astute translation and sharp editing to be successful. Creating context for the audience is critical,” Lee said.

    Historical context for the Meiji Restoration period

    Sega (EN) Ryu Ga Gotoku

    For historical reasons, Ishin! has an unapologetically negative stance toward Americans and European pressure at the end of the Edo Period, which staff writer Sisi Jiang expanded upon in their review for Ishin! When it came to handling the localization of a game that criticizes the countries some players come from, Lee reiterated that it’s a localizer’s job to ensure the experiences designed in a game are brought to players from different countries, even if aspects of translated text offend people.

    “Our job as localization professionals is to convey the meaning and sentiment of a piece of media as accurately as possible in another language. Sometimes this means tackling a challenging subject, especially in Ishin’s case where many characters are driven by different political ideologies that are linked to a historical time period,” Lee said. “We did our best to convey the text, and players have the freedom to come to their own conclusions.”

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    Isaiah Colbert

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  • US-Best-Sellers-Books-PW

    US-Best-Sellers-Books-PW

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    US-Best-Sellers-Books-PW for week ending 11/12/2022

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  • And Now For A Very Different Kind Of Cosplay Gallery

    And Now For A Very Different Kind Of Cosplay Gallery

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    Image for article titled And Now For A Very Different Kind Of Cosplay Gallery

    We post galleries from major cosplay shows all the time, and they’re always excellent, but for the recent New York Comic-Con one photographer wanted to do things a little differently.

    Wanting to try something beyond just taking nice photos, veteran photographer Andrew Boyle (disclaimer: I wrote the foreword for his book) thought that for this year’s show he’d try and make the cosplayer “the sole focus” of his work.

    “After my cosplay photo book ‘Heroes & Villains’ came out in 2017, I thought I’d relax it up a bit with the subject matter, but it kept pulling me back; the effort, the enthusiasm and the sense of community amongst the costumed fans”, Boyle tells Kotaku. “I shoot in a uniform style inspired by the portraits of Richard Avedon, so that the sole focus is the subject without background distraction.”

    “I also work in collage pieces and motion I wanted to integrate a unique hand made feel for each selected subject. For some, I used cut out pieces that referred to the character, others were repetition of shapes, or color blocking with paper and textures. It was a way to differentiate from other cosplay photography, all of which has it’s own approach, and take a different feel to celebrate all the effort and energy the NYCC crowd brings. Plus I love reading the reactions people have to seeing themselves portrayed in such a way.”

    The result is this heavily-stylised gallery which, by removing the usual convention background, really lets each cosplayer, their outfit and their performance shine.

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    Luke Plunkett

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