IKEA Monkey

In my mind, tomato soup exists mainly as a condiment for grilled cheese sandwiches, and I like to maximize sandwich dip-ability. Usually I cut mine into strips, but these grilled cheese roll ups from Damn Delicious are an even better option.

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In a couple of weeks, Orlando will play host to the 2016 Invictus Games, an international athletic competition for injured vets founded by Prince Harry and with which he is very involved. To drum up enthusiasm, Harry is publicly beefing with the Obamas on Twitter.

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With the 20th anniversary of his show (September 10) just in the rear-view mirror, here are 10 of fictional Not That Bad Records' greatest hits from the not-actually-real album "Soundtrack of Science."

Early in Garry Marshall’s Mother’s Day, Henry (Timothy Olyphant) is asking his ex-wife Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) if their kids can spend part of the titular holiday with their new stepmother (Shay Mitchell). Sandy blows her top; she cannot have them on Mother’s Day. “She can have Flag Day!” she commands. “Groundhog Day!” And dear reader, it took all of my self-control not to shout out in the screening, “Shuddup Jen, you’re giving them ideas!”

If you’re fortunate enough not to know, Mother’s Day is the third holiday-set multi-narrative rom-com from director Garry Marshall, following 2010’s Valentine’s Day and 2011’s New Year’s Eve (a template clearly inspired by Love, Actually, and if that’s not incontrovertible proof of that picture’s ultimate evil, I’m not sure what is). Those two films were insufferable, maudlin bullshit; they’re both better than this film by a factor of ten. It’s marketed as a twinkly rom-com, but it’s about as depressing as Requiem for a Dream.

Let’s start with the script, which is credited to three writers yet somehow plays like a filmed outline, still waiting for another writer to come on and do the pass where they add in the jokes. And the drama. And the human interest. It’s one of those scripts where characters say each other’s names in every line of dialogue, as if a) anyone talks like that, and b) we care (It’s not like we see Julia Roberts and think, “Oh, there’s Miranda Collins”; we think, “Oh, there’s Julia Roberts”). It’s also the kind of script that thinks its audience is so mentally deficient that even the most basic exposition must be spelled out in the clumsiest possible fashion, between characters who already know all the things they’re saying. A few of my favorite lines (you can just copy-paste into the “memorable quotes” section of IMDb):

• “There’s a reason we moved here to Georgia!”
• “I’m your sister, I live next door to you!”
• “Aren’t your parents divorced?”
• “Seems like a reasonable question for a father to ask his daughter.”
• “Mom loved karaoke, remember?”
• “I have abandonment issues!”

That last one comes from Kristin (Britt Robertson), explaining to Jesse (Kate Hudson) — who she’s apparently known for about 20 minutes — why she hasn’t married her child’s father. All you need to know about Hudson’s character – about the movie, really – is that her first line of dialogue is as follows: “I ate a whole coffee cake last night! Pilates?” Most of the movie’s press thus far has focused on Julia Roberts’ awful wig (not a good sign) but that’s about all that’s noteworthy about her performance – and they don’t even explain the stupid thing, assuming that we’ll just know that it’s a shout-out to her similar blond bob in Marshall’s Pretty Woman, or her astronaut wig in Notting Hill, or something.

Aniston probably has the largest role of the ensemble, poor soul, and is thus left out to dry most; a scene of her having a full-on meltdown in a mini-van, shouting full lines of motivational dialogue, is about as cringe-worthy a scene as you’ll see in a movie – that is, until late in the picture, when Jason Sudiekis performs a family-friendly karaoke version of “The Humpty Dance.” This is a performer of real wit and charisma, so watching him stumble through this fraudulent hellscape behind a lobotomized smile is tedious indeed. (He’s first revealed emerging from behind his wife’s gravestone, a bizarre amalgam of framing, editing, and expression that gets a bigger laugh than any of the movie’s intentional “jokes.”)

And if you’re worried that this all sounds mighty white for a movie set in Atlanta, not to worry: there’s poor Asif Mandvi as Hudson’s husband (a doctor, of course), plus a full-figured sassy black lady, and the usual supporting turn from Marshall regular Hector Elizondo, whose unwavering devotion to the director should, by this point, qualify him for some sort of hazard pay. Mandvi is brought on as a foil to Robert Pine and the great Margot Martindale, as Hudson and Sarah Chalke’s racist/homophobic Texas parents, who are written and played with the approximate subtlety of Ma and Pa Kettle. Frankly, the most distressing thing about Mother’s Day is the sight of normally authentic actors like these being asked to mug wildly, pull faces, and generally play Keystone Kops.

Mother’s Day is Marshall’s 18th feature film, but it plays like an unpromising debut. Even on the levels of the most basic filmmaking craft, it’s stunningly incompetent: ponderous pacing, gummy camerawork, clumsy ADR, a push-button score under nearly every scene, shots that slam into each other like bumper cars, staging that’d look amateurish at a church Christmas pageant, scenes that are organized seemingly at random, and meander so far after the point is made, you’d swear someone had accidentally left the camera running. And Marshall’s primary auterist flourish seems to be the notion that there’s no scene that can’t be escaped with a zany cutaway; the best/worst is probably getting out of a scene at “Shorty’s” bar with a shot of the owner, a little person, announcing “I’m just the owner!”

Garry Marshall should, by any reasonable definition, be considered a national treasure. He developed The Odd Couple for television; he created Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, and Laverne and Shirley; he wrote for Dick Van Dyke, Lucy, and Bob Hope; he’s made numerous memorable acting appearances (including Louie, A League of Their Own, Soapdish, and his immortal turn as the casino manager in Lost in America); and his initial run of directorial efforts included The Flamingo Kid, Nothing in Common, Overboard, and Pretty Woman. And he knows he’s beloved; among the more desperate moments in Mother’s Day are his in-joke references to previous works, like when soccer coach Sudeikis tells a team member, “There’s no texting in soccer!… There’s even crying, but there’s no texting,” or when Elizondo departs a brunch meeting by telling Julia Roberts, “Oh you’re right — that is the salad fork,” and she all but winks at the audience.

But Marshall hasn’t made a good film since 1991’s Frankie and Johnny, and his filmography since has included such claptrap as Exit to Eden, The Other Sister, Raising Helen, Georgia Rule, and the aforementioned Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve. These are bad films, and yet he’s somehow getting worse. Marshall is now 81 years old, and the saddest thing about Mother’s Day is that it plays like a two-hour presentation for mandatory retirement.

Mother’s Day is out today.

Smell those roses, girl, you deserve this.

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A dead body was discovered on Wednesday morning in a conference room at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. According to the San Jose Mercury News, the deceased was a male employee of the tech giant who suffered a head wound.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sergeant Andrea Urena said in a press conference that the death was an isolated incident, and that no suspect is being sought—an indication cops don't believe there was foul play.

The initial emergency call came in around 8:35 AM local time on Wednesday, resulting in initial reports that security was escorting a wounded person around the Apple campus who may have had a gun. Members of the Santa Clara Fire Department showed up to assist with the wounded person, but law enforcement sent them on their away.

"This is currently a coroner's case, and we don't have further details at this time. It will be up to the coroner to determine the manner and cause of death," Urena said at the press conference. "There's nobody else at risk, and nobody else is involved."

The sheriff confirmed the tech company's campus remains open Wednesday, though employees have reportedly been told they can take the rest of the day off, and grief counseling has been made available.

Apple had yet to release a statement about the incident at the time of publication.

The yogurt business is not the happy field of pleasant cows that you might imagine. It’s a seething hive of trickery, con jobs, and hustlers who will go to almost any length to make you, the consumer, forget that you are eating bad yogurt.

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This was the scene earlier this week at the 2016 Copa Libertadores soccer tournament between the Mexico Pumas and Venezuela’s Deportivo Tachira, when a plucky dog ran out and interrupted the game by enthusiastically starting a game of “catch me if you can.” After leading both teams on quite the chase, eventually someone was able to wrangle the pup and carry it off the field, while fending off a vicious barrage of puppy kisses.

I’m not sure which team got more points at the end of the game (because I’m too lazy to do a simple Google search, apparently), but I think it’s pretty clear who won. You just keep doing you, soccer dog.

(Via Tastefully Offensive)

Board games, womens’ professional apparel, and a popular pressure cooker kick off Monday’s best deals.

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Forgive me for leading the morning roundup of celebrity gossip with a silly item about the unpleasant behavior of a dead man, but it’s Throwback Thursday and I’ve never mentioned Peter O’Toole in Dirt Bag before, so why the hell not?

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In today’s Tweet Beat, Jim and Pam rise again, Martha Stewart is being Martha Stewart and Chelsea Peretti is a married woman.

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If you’re lost out in the wild, finding a source of drinkable water is one of your number one priorities. These four pesky little bugs might actually save your life.

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In a nice development for your flagging faith in state governments, Colorado’s very successful program providing low-cost long-acting reversible contraception such as IUDs and hormonal implants for teens is getting funded again.

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For fans of the Alien movies who are able to pull off sneaker boots, Reebok’s issue of main character Ripley’s sneakers was welcome news. Only there was kind of a problem with the product’s sizing: the shoes belonging to an iconic female sci-fi hero were only released in men’s sizes 8-10.

When contacted about this, Reebok told io9 that the shoes are intended for all people, but the sizes were given in U.S. men’s scale because that’s their default for unisex styles. “The Alien Stomper is a unisex style and was produced in sizes (US Men’s) 3.5 – 12,” the Reebok representative explained, but no one has actually spotted any of those shoes smaller than 8 or larger than 10 for sale in real life.

While there are plenty of women who wear size 10 shoes, most don’t. Are sneakers honoring one of the most badass female science fiction characters really being sold in sizes that don’t fit most women?

Maybe it doesn’t matter in the end anyway, since there were only 426 pairs of the limited-edition sneakers distributed worldwide, and they’re now selling for lots of money on eBay.

Reebok Only Sold Ripley's Alien Reeboks in Men's Sizes (UPDATED) [io9]

A Labrador mix dog that had been shot and tied to an Illinois bridge with his mouth taped closed so he wouldn't bark was starting to show signs of recovery from a long list of injuries, a veterinarian said Wednesday.

The dog, known as Bear, has a broken jaw, wounds from shotgun pellets and infected...

Don’t look now, but Taste of Chicago has yet another strong main stage music lineup for its 36th annual edition. The gustatory blowout, which runs July 6–10 in Grant Park, has been upping its sonic game of late. This year continues the trend, even as there is a little bit of “Um, OK ... “ mixed...

Please, a round of applause for Vincent. Vincent is a rescue who just won the 37th Beautiful Bulldog contest. He received a crown and a cake.

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It’s one of the saddest facts of life that female public figures endure distasteful, horrific and sometimes scary harassment online for no reason other than that they are female. Even among women online, female sports writers get some of the worst abuse. Legions of sports fans have proven themselves to be hateful at anyone who’s seen as criticizing their beloved teams, but when a male writer gets abuse, they’re called idiots or assholes. Women get it much worse, from gender-based slurs to outright threats of sexual violence. This is a fact, and you should be suspicious of anyone who denies it.

The optimists in us hope that most people are simply unaware of what female sports writers go through, which is why the #MoreThanMean campaign sat some men down to read some of the abuse that’s been spewed at two sports writers in particular, Julie DiCaro and Sarah Spain. The video has a simple and powerful message: Online, it’s easy to say whatever you want without witnessing the impact it has on your target. In person, it’s impossible to ignore exactly what your words mean. The guys were as uncomfortable and upset by the words they were given as you or I would be, and that’s why this campaign is so meaningful — we need to combat such dehumanizing tactics with even more humanizing tactics of our own.