Entertainment
Cornbread Mafia review: True crime meets stoner comedy in this outrageous documentary
If the story of the Cornbread Mafia weren’t true, you might think it’s something the Coen Bros. had dreamed up. The stranger-than-fiction tale of a motley band of “dirt-poor dirt farmers” from Kentucky growing into “the largest homegrown marijuana operation in the U.S.” fits in nicely with the likes of Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou? in terms of outlaw energy and Southern-fried comedy.
From the jump, documentarians Evan Mascagni and Drew Morris introduce the eponymous criminal organization with a disarming sense of humor. Cornbread Mafia begins on lush green farmland, where brothers Joe Keith Bickett and Jimmy Bickett pull up in a pick-up truck with a bed piled high with marijuana. Joe introduces himself and his brother from a script, but fumbles his delivery. So, they’ll do another take… in which someone’s cell phone will blare, interrupting Joe’s flow.
It’s an amusing beginning that gives the audience permission to laugh along with the Bickett brothers as their audacious story is unfurled. But more than that, by drawing attention to the artifice that exists within documentary filmmaking, Mascagni and Morris offer a subtle disclaimer that every story is shaped by its teller. What you see here might not be the whole truth — but it’s the truth according to the Cornbread Mafia. And that truth is outrageously entertaining, while offering some solid food for thought.
Cornbread Mafia is a gangster story with a comic air.
In talking-head interviews, the documentarians sit down with the Bicketts, a wide array of their notorious associates, and even the occasional lawman to reconstruct the history of the Cornbread Mafia. Their stories are hilarious and bonkers, involving car chases, half-cocked heists, tiger cubs, and an elegant ally named Susie, who’s introduced with the snarled non sequitur, “I think rats should die.”
See, the Cornbread Mafia isn’t just a name. They pulled inspiration for how they operated from the Italian mob’s concept of omertà — meaning a code of honor and silence that favored community over going to the cops. This mafia began in the 1970s as a band of farmers who’d been buying pathetic dime bags of pot from Mexico, until they did the math. A baggie of marijuana was going for $30, while a pound of tobacco was $1.50. So, picking the seeds from their purchased dime bags seemed an almost inevitable move to grow a fortune fairly easily.
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The next bit was figuring out how to develop a breed of weed that could give them the most bang for their growing buck. Enter Johnny Boone, whose sharp mind not only grew their operation across the country, hiding their crops in fields of corn, but also led to the creation of the marijuana strain Kentucky Bluegrass.
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Like any gangster story worth its grit, Cornbread Mafia charts the heady highs and rough lows of their journey, from fugitives to folk heroes. Then, it goes further, into contemporary politics, judicial hypocrisies, and life-changing activism. Yet the filmmakers never let the big topics dwarf the rollicking fun of being in (or near) the Cornbread Mafia.
Cornbread Mafia uses animation and Boyd Holbrook for educational value and whimsy.
Rather than hire actors for reenactments, Mascagni and Morris employ animation to illustrate these larger-than-life tales, as well as complicated explanations about the American justice system and the war on drugs.
The animations for both have a vaguely ’70s Schoolhouse Rock feel. Brightly colored pie charts illustrate a cheeky point about buyer demographics, while cartoon versions of the Bicketts and Boone skedaddle from the cops in a colorful pick-up truck. Then, to finesse transitions between interviews or give context to graphs, the whiskey-smooth voice of Boyd Holbrook serves as narrator.
Now, some might sneer at how this animated approach undercuts the criminality of the mafia’s actions. As bobble-headed potheads, they seem more like the Scooby gang than Scarface. But that’s precisely the point. Cornbread Mafia regards its subjects as outlaws, but it doesn’t condemn them for their crimes. Instead, the doc gives space to these growers to express how they built an industry despite the poverty that threatened to choke their whole town. Like the bootleggers or moonshiners that were their ancestors (in some cases literally), they used their wits, their resources, and their friends to grow a fortune that could care for them all. And it did until the Feds rolled in with a reckoning in the form of mandatory minimums.
From there, Cornbread Mafia explores the sentencing laws that regard non-violent drug offenses on the same level of punishment as double murder. (Sadly, this is not a hypothetical, but a tragic true story that ties into the Cornbread Mafia’s saga.) However, because this movie reflects its subjects’ lust for life and devil-may-care energy, Cornbread Mafia doesn’t tread carefully into a formal march through history, politics, and opposing views. This is a raucous dance of a documentary.
The cartoons, suave voice-over, and lively interviews challenge the narrative that drug dealers are bad guys, presenting these good ol’ boys as rebels with a wild streak. Like the folk hero outlaws who came before them, they are beguiling rule-breakers who inspire awe, envy, and outrage. And Cornbread Mafia does right by them by welcoming its audience into the thrall of that outlaw American legacy.
Simply put, Cornbread Mafia is a sensational true crime doc that gives fresh verve to the standard talking heads, rigorous reenactments, and voiceovers by leaning into the crooked-smiled charms of its subjects. They’re not made to explain themselves, but invited to share their stories. And they do so with joyfulness and frankness that is intoxicating. Cornbread Mafia is not just eye-opening and provocative; it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
Cornbread Mafia was reviewed out of SXSW.
Entertainment
Pride is almost here! Check out the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
We know Pride is all year round, but there is something special about the month of June. We’re not there quite yet, but if you want a main squeeze for all the parades and parties, you gotta start looking now. How about on a dating app?
As a lesbian, you probably know all about them. Lesbian Americans (along with bisexual and gay Americans) are far more likely to have ever used dating apps than straight Americans: 51 percent to 28 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
There are a few reasons why LGBTQ people might turn to online dating more quickly than straight folks. For one, you might live in an area without a thriving LGBTQ community, and in-person dating may be hard. If you don’t know other lesbians to begin with, how can you meet more IRL to date? (Sometimes, lesbian spaces can also be co-opted by The Straights.) Unfortunately, in-person dating may also be less safe, depending on where you live.
Hookup apps for everyone
AdultFriendFinder
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readers’ pick for casual connections
Tinder
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top pick for finding hookups
Hinge
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popular choice for regular meetups
Thankfully, we live in a time where we can find people like us with a few swipes. Lesbians are welcome on major dating apps, and there are also niche ones specifically for lesbians and other queer women and people. But which one to choose?
How to find the best dating apps for lesbians
Niche lesbian dating apps aren’t your only option for finding love.
Credit: Stacey Zhu / Mashable
In Mashable’s recommendations below, you’ll find both general dating apps and apps specifically for queer people. As the former appeals to the general population, you’ll find more users in these spaces. The caveat, however, is that when you swipe on other women, you might find those coupled with men who are looking for another woman to have a threesome with (aka unicorn hunters). No judgment here, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for. Then again, people of all types are on dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. You never know who you may come across.
Then there are apps specifically for the community, like HER and Lex. If you yearn for a smaller dating scene, head for these apps. While there’s no “Grindr for lesbians” — we go into why in the FAQ section — these apps are more so like stepping into your neighborhood lesbian bar than an app like Bumble.
You can also try multiple dating apps, as each one below has a free version. You can filter by the gender you identify with and are looking for, and sometimes, as with OkCupid, there are many options to choose from.
Diving into the dating pool isn’t easy, but the water’s fine. Check out our guide below for the full rundown of our recommendations and dating app reviews.
Entertainment
OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT 5.5 Instant as the new default model for everyone
Last week, OpenAI managed to stop ChatGPT from talking about goblins all the time. This week, there’s a whole new model for users to play with.
The company announced in a blog post on Tuesday that ChatGPT 5.5 Instant has begun rolling out to all users as the new default model for the popular AI chatbot. The new model is a follow-up to GPT 5.5, which was released in April.
GPT-5.5 Instant replaces 5.3 Instant, which will remain available for the next three months for paid users but will otherwise be sunsetted.
Unlike Claude Opus 4.7 from Anthropic and GPT-5.5, which are only available to paid customers, GPT-5.5 Instant is “available to everyone.” OpenAI says it should produce fewer hallucinations and better overall results for everyday ChatGPT usage.
“This update makes everyday interactions more useful and more enjoyable: stronger and tighter answers across subject areas, a more natural conversational tone, and better use of the context you’ve already shared when personalization can help,” OpenAI’s blog post said.
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According to OpenAI, GPT-5.5 Instant produced 52.5 percent fewer hallucinated claims in internal testing than GPT-5.3 in “high stakes” topics like law, finance, and medicine. In addition, the new model “reduced inaccurate claims by 37.3% on especially challenging conversations users had flagged for factual errors.”
The company also says the new model is better at deciding when to use web search for a prompt and analyzing image uploads than before. The new model is also allegedly more concise in its answers, while also maintaining something of a personality in how it talks to the user. GPT-5.5 Instant should also be better at understanding and referencing context from a connected Gmail account and other integrations to provide quality answers.
And, again, most importantly, it should avoid mentioning goblins unless absolutely necessary.
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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
Entertainment
The Bears Gary cliffhanger explained: What just happened to Richie?
There’s only one thing more shocking than The Bear dropping surprise episode “Gary,” and that’s the ending of the episode itself.
Written by The Bear stars Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal, “Gary” flashes back to a work trip Richie (Moss-Bachrach) and Mikey (Bernthal) once took to Gary, Indiana. Their worst impulses soon derail their mission, culminating in Mikey drunkenly (and publicly) dressing down Richie’s penchant for fucking up, and Richie missing the birth of his daughter.
The entire episode takes place long before The Bear Season 1, except for one somber coda that could have massive repercussions for The Bear Season 5. “Gary”s final scene cuts from Richie and Mikey sitting in Mikey’s car to Richie sitting alone in his car in the present day. He stares at his empty passenger seat, reminiscing about Mikey. Then, as he pulls forward into an intersection, another car careens straight into him. Cue the credits, along with my incredulous yell, “Did Richie just die?”
So, did Richie really just die in The Bear?
Ebon Moss-Bachrach in “The Bear.”
Credit: FX
Here’s the thing: The Bear probably isn’t going to kill off Richie, one of its most beloved leads, during a surprise episode that dropped between seasons. Especially not when the show is gearing up for its fifth and final installment. However, Richie’s car crash could be the major event that sets Season 5 in motion.
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At the end of Season 4, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) quit The Bear, choosing to step away from the kitchen in the hopes of healing himself. He turned full control of the restaurant over to Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), along with Richie and Natalie (Abby Elliott). What does Carmy’s upcoming journey of self-discovery look like? Even he’s not sure. He just knows it should take place far, far away from the stressful environment of any restaurant kitchen. That includes his family, both work and blood-related.
But you know what could bring Carmy back into the fold in Season 5? A need to be there for an injured Richie, and to support the rest of the reeling restaurant staff. Basically, the end of “Gary” appears to be a bridge to the start of Season 5, and the catalyst that will reunite Carmy with the people he walked away from in Season 4.
It’s a bit of a bizarre move on The Bear‘s end, in no small part because a car-crash cliffhanger sends the show skidding into soap territory. But it’s also a strange choice heading into Season 5. Why relegate such a key incident to a standalone episode, instead of keep it as part of the season itself? Plus, in tacking such a shocking moment onto the end of “Gary,” the episode loses some of its power. Instead of leaving viewers contemplating Mikey and Richie’s dynamic, they’re left with the WTF factor of the car crash and questions about what’s next. There’s no meditation on The Bear‘s past, just a collision with its future.
“Gary” is now streaming on Hulu. The Bear Season 5 premieres this June on Hulu.
Pride is almost here! Check out the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT 5.5 Instant as the new default model for everyone
