Image credit: Bachir Moukarzel
Dubai is one of the most important and luxurious Middle Eastern metropolises, drawing tourists by the millions every year.
Caesars Palace Dubai
Image credit: Bachir Moukarzel
From its origins as a humble fishing, pearl-diving, and trading port, Dubai has exploded to become one of the world's most innovative and impressive cities.
Atlantis, The Palm
Buddha-Bar Dubai
In Assouline's new travel series photo book, Dubai Wonder, readers can truly take in this futuristic city's uniqueness and cultural diversity.
ShuGa Photography
Courtesy of Cipriani Dolci Dubai
From Al Quoz, the cultural center of the city, to the powerful Dubai International Financial Centre to residential Jumeirah, home to some of the city's most noted resorts, it's a full-on tour, no passport necessary.
Image credit: Bachir Moukarzel
Courtesy of Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts
Dubai Wonder also takes in the Art Dubai fair and the art galleries that line Alserkal Avenue. Readers will also get a look at Expo 2020 Dubai, delayed by the pandemic to October 2021, predicted to be the most impressive world fair ever.
Assouline
If you're planning a trip or simply one of the many who have seen images in movies and documentaries of the towering Burj Khalifa (still considered the tallest skyscraper in the world) or any of the other many almost otherworldly visions that come out of this remarkable city and want a closer, more detailed look, cop Dubai Wonder for $95 from Assouline.com.
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The Brooklyn Nets played golf at Torrey Pines after their first practice of the season Tuesday. And they are likely to be spending some time with billionaire owner Joe Tsai, who lives in La Jolla, California, near their training camp site at the University of San Diego.
(The Nets are currently 3/1 favorites to win the 2021-22 NBA title at MaximBet.)
Strange place for a team from Brooklyn to be assembling for training camp. But what's not strange about life in 2021?
The pandemic continues to play a major role in all of our lives, and how people react to it continues to impact the way we live and the way we survive. We all have to make accommodations for those who refuse to be vaccinated.
Even in the NBA, we are looking at a situation in which Kyrie Irving—a heck of a basketball player and philanthropist but also a scientific doubter—could be limited to just 38 games, the ones the Brooklyn Nets play in cities other than New York and San Francisco.
Irving has refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine. But a new municipal ordinance in New York will prohibit him from even setting foot inside the Barclays Center or the Nets’ practice facility until he gets his first shot. He also will not be allowed to play road games against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, or the Nets’ road game against the Golden State Warriors at the Chase Center in San Francisco, where a similar ordinance threatens to prevent Andrew Wiggins from playing in home games.
This will be Pandemic Season III for the NBA as life refuses to get easier or less complicated. The league met with the players’ union over the summer and requested that vaccines become mandatory for all players, just as they are for team staff and referees and most other league employees. But Irving, who is on the union’s executive committee, was one of the voices saying that was a non-starter.
About 40 NBA players are refusing to be vaccinated, and who they are and how their stances will impact their teams’ daily and championship odds remains a mystery.
Irving may eventually be convinced by his teammates, including close friends Kevin Durant and James Harden, to go ahead and get vaccinated, which would allow him to be eligible for all 82 games. Nets general manager Sean Marks said two weeks ago that there was a “plan” for making this happen, but it would appear that he was using the word “plan” rather loosely.
Here are some things to remember about Irving, who is as stubborn as he is talented. He alternates from being a private person and being a very public person, he is extraordinarily popular among young NBA fans, and he unwittingly leads by example—bad news for those of us who want our normal lives back.
And while Irving has every right under U.S. law to refuse a vaccine, he also is setting a bad example for all of the doubters out there who are being led astray and making mask culture prevalent again, especially in New York City, which used to be a lively place but now resembles a surgical ward in a zombie apocalypse. Take it from a New Yorker.
Irving is not making it any better, and the mystery surrounding the question of whether he will relent is going to cause a major disruption in the U.S. sports gambling world.
Right now at MaximBet, the Brooklyn Nets are prohibitive favorites to not only win the Eastern Conference, but also the NBA championship. But if this guy, who once actually proclaimed the Earth is flat, is unable to play in home games during the regular season and the playoffs … well, let’s just say that all bets are off.
Lenny Estrin, head of props trading at MaximBet, indicated his team would not be setting an over/under on how many games Irving will play for the Nets.
“Those options would be quite difficult to set odds for,” Estrin said. “We could consider removing the home games in the total, but it would be difficult to account for injuries, trades, or change of vaccination status. So, no, it is not something we’ll be offering odds for.”
Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic is another player who has been outspoken about not getting vaccinated, and the identities of other holdouts will become apparent as time proceeds forward. This week, we learned that Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns is actually suffering from COVID-19 and has lost his senses of taste and smell. One of last year's NBA finalists is not available for the start of training camp.
With a few dozen others like him around the league, who exactly is available for certain teams on a nightly basis will be somewhat of a mystery. This is going to have a major impact in the sports gambling market, where wagering is now legal in roughly half of the United States.
Will the vaccination status of these players and others impact the timing of odds released for given games? Or will the sportsbooks view it as they would a player questionable due to injury?
“The first couple of weeks we’ll certainly monitor the situations closely, but if their absences are prolonged then we’ll settle into a normal post time groove,” Estrin said. “For the Warriors, Wiggins isn’t going to impact the game line too greatly, if at all. Kyrie is worth more to a line than Wiggins, but with the talent and depth on that Nets team even his value isn’t as high as it would be if he were on a team like the Pistons.”
Irving can make this all go away by going ahead and getting vaccinated, but nothing is uncomplicated when it comes to this guy. Just ask LeBron James, who won a championship with Kyrie but could not co-exist peacefully with him in Cleveland. Or ask the fans in Boston, who loved Irving like a native son until he suddenly wanted out and bolted Beantown as a free agent.
Last week, while players were still enjoying their late summer vacations, Irving was on an Indian reservation in South Dakota (he has Native American blood) and was the only person not wearing a mask.
He is anti-mask just as much as he is anti-vax, and he has a right to be both of those things because he is an American. But at the same time, all Americans are sick and tired of being locked inside their homes too much, of having the rules change on almost a daily basis, of political polarization, and of having the “new normal” being completely abnormal.
Well, if Kyrie goes out and gets a jab, it would send a strong signal to both the NBA community at large and and minority communities, where anti-vax sentiments are strongest, that a vaccination shot is not the worst thing in the world.
Harden and Durant were holdouts for a long time too, and both of them eventually got vaccinated. Here’s hoping that they get into Irving’s head, perhaps on an overnight excursion to Tijuana after one of their practices this week.
Kyrie is not a bad guy. He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Native American tribes, impoverished communities and student scholarships. Among teenage girls, there may not be a more popular player. But among hardheads, there may be nobody captaining the team quite so capably.
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Netflix has great comedy in store this October with Dave Chappelle's new standup special, The Closer. Watch a newly-released teaser for the show above.
Netflix / Youtube / Screengrab
Of course, when it comes to new streaming entertainment available in October, naturally many might think of horror first, what with those eerie Halloween stores mysteriously popping up in every strip mall and jack-o-lanterns grinning from every doorstep. Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon, and Disney+ all have viewers covered there.
For example, Netflix has chillers based on true events like David Fincher's masterful 2007 serial killer drama Zodiac as well a new season of Locke & Key, a horror series based on comics by Stephen King's equally talented horrormeister son Joe Hill.
HBO Max is delivering a gritty return to Tony Soprano's world (its own kind of horror for anyone on Tony's bad side) with the premiere of The Many Saints of Newark on October 1. Set in the tumultuous late 1960s, the movie is a prequel that tracks the early rise of the Sopranos mob boss (played by the late James Gandolfini's lookalike son Michael Gandolfini) that starts when he gets into "business" with his uncle Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola).
Over on Hulu, you can choose from sci-fi with just about every Star Trek movie ever to the comedy-horror of Teen Wolf—or the 2020 B-movie thriller with the ridiculous, over-the-top title, Cheer Camp Killer, if that's more your speed.
Amazon Prime is bringing new horror with selections like The Manor—an Amazon original movie about an old folks' home with creepy secrets—and giving us more Daniel Craig in the form of his surprisingly intense 2011 sci-fi thriller Cowboys and Aliens.
Meanwhile, Disney+ is keeping things mostly light this October with selections for kids (or possibly very high adults) like The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular! and the surely bone-chilling Muppets Haunted Mansion. We're hoping that one involves a zombie Fozzie Bear.
As for Dave Chappelle—he's only scary if you're afraid of the raw, unvarnished truth. As he says in the trailer, "Comedians have a responsibility to speak recklessly. Sometimes the funniest thing to say is mean. I’m not saying it to be mean, I’m saying it to be funny." Chappelle's The Closer drops on Netflix October 5.
Make your fright night party plans with the selections listed below.
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MGM
The critics have spoken: No Time to Die was worth the wait. After several delays spanning almost two years, the 25th James Bond movie—and last to feature Daniel Craig in the leading role—premiered in London.
Craig and co-stars Rami Malek, Lea Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ana de Armas, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, and director Cary Joji Fukunaga as well as "No Time to Die" songstress Billie Eilish all attended the long-awaited opening.
“This is amazing,” Daniel Craig said on the red carpet stage, per the Hollywood Reporter. “I really genuinely didn’t think we’d get here, but we are. … I can’t wait to celebrate with everybody.”
BroBible rounded up several critics' initial Twitter reactions. The outlet's own reviewer enjoyed all the "Bonding: looking cool, kicking ass, traveling the world, drinking whiskey, dropping one-liners."
Others praised Craig's "perfect finale," bringing his Bond full-circle. One critic stated that the "spectacular action sequences, stunning set pieces, and jaw-dropping cinematography" make No Time to Die "a must-see."
Multiple critics also indicated there are surprises in store, but they managed to do so without giving up spoilers. One, in particular, referred to "a powerful, unexpected & very emotional payoff."
What few criticisms have been written so far are padded between compliments.
The BBC, for instance, gave Bond 25 a perfect five-star review even as the British broadcaster somewhat incongruously declared Rami Malek "too young, too wet, and too unscary" to go down as a classic Bond villain. (The New York Post writes that Malek's scenes all "ring of a horror film," for what it's worth.)
More lighthearted commentary dubbed No Time To Die "nonsense," with a "Roger Moore-level absurd plot" and "the silliest and most serious" of Craig's performances as Bond.
Pass your own judgment when No Time to Die hits theaters in the US on October 8.
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Demi Lovato claims to have seen aliens...or an alien-piloted UFO, anyway.
The 29-year-old pop star is branching out as the host of Unidentified With Demi Lovato, a new show that follows Lovato and friends on a road trip as they "search for the truth about UFO phenomena."
To promote the series, Lovato--who now uses "they" pronouns-- purported their encounter with extraterrestrials in a new interview with E! News.
"We laughed a lot and we saw some really interesting things that we captured on camera," said Lovato, who uses they/them pronouns. "I just have a curiosity about this topic that I've always had so I wanted to find out for myself."
Friend and former non-believer Matthew Scott Montgomery chimed in with "I would say I'm definitely a lot less of a skeptic than I was before."
Meanwhile, Lovato's sister Dallas Lovato insisted that the key to understanding UFOs involves "being open and ready to accept it."
But Lovato claims to have first made contact with otherworldly spacecraft well before landing the TV gig.
"We went out into the desert in Joshua Tree and I basically saw this blue orb that was about 50 feet away, maybe less, and it was kind of like floating above the ground, just like 10 or 15 feet, and it was kind of keeping its distance from me," Lovato explained. "It was a beautiful and incredible experience."
"It definitely changed the way that you see the world," Lovato concluded. "You have an inkling and then all of a sudden that inkling is confirmed. It changes your reality, for sure."
Unidentified With Demi Lovato premieres September 30 on Peacock.
Dave Bautista is 6'4" and weighs over 250 lbs. Daniel Craig, the outgoing James Bond, is just above average height at 5'10" and weighs less than 180 lbs.
The former WWE star and the actor are a total mismatch even for an onscreen fight, but they fought a good one in 2015's Spectre, trashing most of a train, Craig's knee, and ultimately, Bautista's nose.
In the video above of his recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Craig was at his most relatable in describing how he responded to realizing he'd broken the much larger, more powerful man's nose: "I heard this crack and I was like ‘Oh God no’ and ran away."
Bautista is so physically imposing he seems like someone you'd run from if you merely stepped on his toe.
Craig was on Norton to promote the upcoming premiere of his final turn as 007 in No Time To Die. He described in amusing detail just how grueling Bond's fight with Bautista's deadly henchman character, Mr. Hinx, truly was.
Playing James Bond may be almost as dangerous as being a real special agent. First, after Craig told Bautista he could be rougher in one part of their fight, Bautista obliged—and Craig broke his knee.
Then, though the actor was still in a brace, Craig and Bautista returned to film the scene again. This time it was Bautista's turn to get hurt:
I didn't [really punch Bautista] deliberately. Clearly, it was a mistake. Like I said, he's a big guy, he's a professional wrestler. You really wouldn't mess with him.
I threw this punch, I hit him on the nose and I heard this crack. I went, 'OH GOD NO!' and ran away because I thought he was gonna come after me.
Dave Bautista, however menacing he seems, apparently knew getting hurt might be part of the job.
Craig said the wrestler-turned-actor "was so sweet, and he literally did something like this..." Craig mimed Bautista resetting his nose.
"I mean, he's a lot tougher than I am."
Just resetting your own broken face bones without a medic's help? That certainly is pretty damn tough.
Daniel Craig shouldn't sell himself short, however—he took on one of the most physical action roles imaginable into his early 50s and can still walk unaided, last we checked.
No Time To Die, starring Craig, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes, and Lashana Lynch, hits theaters in the U.S. on October 8.
Cooper Spirits Co.
Lovers of Old Fashioneds and quality cold brew coffee now have a bottled cocktail of their very own: Cooper Spirits Co. has unveiled the “Slow & Low Coffee Old-Fashioned," an elixir that infuses the classic cocktail with a jolt of caffeine.
The 80-proof bottle is inspired by Café Brûlot, the classic coffee drink from New Orleans, where the Slow & Low brand first launched. It's produced in partnership with Intelligentsia Coffee, and is apparently the first bottled coffee cocktail that uses real brewed java from this renowned roaster.
The Slow & Low Coffee Old-Fashioned contains a blend of straight rye whiskey aged two years; Intelligentsia Cold Coffee made from a blend of coffees from Ethiopia, Guatemala and Peru; raw honey; demerara cane sugar; aromatic bitters and orange peel.
Cooper Spirits Co.
“Slow & Low is more than a bottled cocktail, it’s a lifestyle, a complete mindset that celebrates a free spirit, the will to push boundaries and create new discoveries,” gushed Chad Solomon, Cooper's Director of Trade Advocacy and Innovation.
Cooper Spirits Co.
“This ethos is what led us to partner with Intelligentsia, an iconic player in the coffee industry. We were excited to collaborate with them, thereby innovating on both coffee culture and Slow & Low to bring a new version of the classic coffee cocktail, Café Brûlot, to life."
If that sounds like a bottled cocktail you'd like to try, keep an eye out for the $26.99 blend when it rolls out nationally this fall.
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UFC 266—held Saturday in Paradise, Nevada—was headlined by a featherweight title fight between Australian champion Alexander Volkanovski and American challenger Brian Ortega. The pair recently wrapped up a trash talk-filled stint coaching The Ultimate Fighter. That added plenty of sizzle to their championship showdown.
Volkanovski dominated most of the fight, nearly finishing Ortega with strikes on more than one occasion. Ortega did reaffirm, however, that he is one of the toughest fighters in combat sports. He survived the brutal, full 25 minutes with the champ, who nearly ended things with an attempted guillotine in round three. It made for one of the best UFC title fights in recent memory.
With his unanimous decision win over Ortega, Volkanovski established himself as one of the best fighters in mixed martial arts today. It's not clear where he'll go from here, but one likely possibility is moving up to lightweight and a fight with Max Holloway.
At the UFC 266 post-fight press conference, Volkanovski said, "I'm expecting Max to go out there and do his thing [against Yair Rodriguez], and we're gonna be running that trilogy. That's gonna be a huge fucking fight."
"[Holloway's fight isn't] until November, and I want to fight," Volkanovski continued. "So, do I move up, fight at lightweight, maybe fight the champion? Give me something because I had 14 months off because of this whole [lockdown]."
UFC 266 was co-headlined by a flyweight title fight between Valentina Shevchenko, the division's seemingly unbeatable champion, and the underdog Lauren Murphy. As expected, Shevchenko dominated, toying with Murphy en route to a fourth-round TKO.
With her win over Murphy, Shevchenko has effectively buzzsawed through her division. However, it might be time for her to head back up to a weight class to challenge the ferocious bantamweight champion, Amanda Nunes. Nunes has beaten Shevchenko twice previously—but both fights were controversial decisions. Since then, the pair have become two of the most dominant champions in MMA. It sounds like it's time for a trilogy.
Perhaps the most compelling UFC 266 fight was a main card middleweight bout pitting former welterweight champion Robbie Lawler against fan-favorite Nick Diaz, returning from a six-year hiatus.
Lawler stalked Diaz like a predator from the opening bell, landing stinging blows to Diaz's body and head. Diaz hung in there, firing back with hundreds of crackling punches. Lawler's pressure proved too much for him to handle in the end. Lawler dropped Diaz with a right, and the fight was stopped.
It was Lawler's first victory in four fights, and he seemed satisfied.
"That's what I expected," he said in his post-fight interview. "I expected him to push the pace and try to break me. And I didn't let him."
Diaz has not won a fight since a 2011 decision win over the great BJ Penn. Hard to say where he goes from here—retirement seems like a real possibility, but a fight with a fellow veteran like Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone or Demian Maia could be fun.
"At least I put on a show," an agitated-looking Diaz said in his post-fight interview. "I knew I had it coming. There was a lot of stress coming into this one."
