Entertainment
The Best Way To Watch RoboCop Completely Ruins The Movie
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
For this ‘80s kid, RoboCop (1987) is one of the best films ever made. As a young movie nerd, I watched the movie for its spectacle, including conniving bad guys, kooky sci-fi, and some of the best action scenes in Hollywood history. Growing older, though, I realized the real strength of the movie was its trenchant satire and social commentary. Director Paul Verhoeven held an unflinching mirror up to America, and he willingly interrupts his sci-fi opus with fake ads meant to highlight the inevitable dangers of where society was headed.
Now, RoboCop is streaming for free on Tubi, and this is arguably the best way to watch this ‘80s epic. You see, Tubi is a free streaming platform with ads embedded into every film, which is fine: a few ads are a small price to pay for this streamer’s sprawling platform of titles. However, the ads on Tubi have arguably gotten weirder than ever, including AI slop being used to sell everything from pay-to-win apps to gambling services. Now, in a truly meta moment, you can stream Verhoeven’s vision of future America and compare how strange our modern advertisements have become to the hilarious fake ads he created nearly four decades ago.
Cops And Robots
The premise of RoboCop is that in a dystopian Detroit, law enforcement is now handled by a creepy megacorporation. They want to be tough on crime, so they take a recently slain police officer and revive him inside a cybernetic body. Now, as RoboCop, this mechanical lawman is the bane of criminals throughout the city. However, there is still a glimmer of humanity beneath his dark visor, and that spark of who he was may help the city’s top cop save the day. Assuming, of course, it doesn’t get him killed before that can happen.
The cast of RoboCop includes some very fun surprises, including Ray Wise (best known for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me) and Ronny Cox (best known for Total Recall). The movie also stars Kurtwood Smith (best known for That ‘70s Show) as one of the most memorable villains to ever grace an action movie. But the real star of the show is Peter Weller (otherwise best known for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension), who is amazing as both hero cop Alex Murphy and RoboCop, a technological powerhouse who may very well be the future of law enforcement.
As an ‘80s kid myself, I had a simpler view of RoboCop. When I was younger, I loved the fact that the title character looked like an action figure, and that he fought bad guys as two-dimensional as the ones in my beloved Saturday morning cartoons. It helped, of course, that the very concept of this hero felt like something out of the fevered imagination of a sugar-addled child. After all, what’s cooler than a cop in the eyes of a kid? A robot cop, naturally!
Ironically, as I grew older, I appreciated how RoboCop functioned as a hilariously on-the-nose criticism of America’s police force. The individual cops are mostly decent people trying to make their city a better place, but they are caught up in a corporatized system that prioritizes profits over people. That system will do more than chew you up and kill you: it will then transform you into a robot zombie whose only function is to reduce human jobs and increase shareholder values. Regardless of your personal politics, that message is more resonant today than it ever was back in the waning twilight of Reagan’s America.
Tomorrow’s Future Shock, Today
Like many great franchises, no future films or shows were able to capture the magic of the first RoboCop film. Without Paul Verhoeven’s deft touch, later installments focused only on the surface-level coolness of having a nearly unkillable cop fighting everything from high-tech gangbangers to rival robots.
But it’s the satire that makes this first film an enduring classic, and the satire manages to be as hilarious as it is incisive. The most blatant satire comes from the bevy of fake ads that remind you that this is a world in which sex, violence, drugs, and even robotic cops are all just ways that a soulless corporation will try to sell you something.
Watching the film on Tubi now truly does make RoboCop that much more surreal, as your film about a corporate dystopia obsessed with money is periodically broken up by AI ads created by companies that didn’t want to pay real actors. In retrospect, Verhoeven gave us the most potent kind of satire: the one that accurately portrayed our own bleak future with unflinching accuracy and undeniable style.
RoboCop himself poses existential nightmare questions for audiences: like, how can anybody rage against the machine when the system makes us part of its gears? Today’s corpse is tomorrow’s cop, proving that even death cannot free you from the endless reach of our corporate overlords.
If you want to experience this eerily prescient movie in the best possible way, you don’t have to spend so much as a dollar. All you have to do is stream RoboCop for free on Tubi. Afterward, you might just spend the rest of your life quoting it. Because of that, make sure everyone in the room is cool before you start trying out your best impersonation of Kurtwood Smith’s hilariously iconic line: “b*tches leave!”
Entertainment
How The World’s Most Famous Stoner Accidentally Became Part Of Star Wars History
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When The Mandalorian and Grogu came out, it offered several surprises for Star Wars fans. This included Mando getting a new Razorcrest (a big upgrade over that old Naboo starfighter) and finding a new purpose: hunting down sleazy Imperial warlords on behalf of the New Republic. Plus, it was undeniably cool to see Sigourney Weaver suit up and hop in an X-Wing (in space, no one can hear her enemies scream!). However, the biggest surprise is that Rotta the Hutt didn’t speak in his native language. Instead, he spent pretty much the entire film speaking English (or Galactic Basic, if you want to be technical), which was jarring whenever he was onscreen.
Many fans thought the sight of a Hutt speaking their own language was more than a bit surreal. Still, it made a kind of sense. Rotta was voiced by The Bear star Jeremy Allen White, and it would have been pretty stupid to hire him just to have the acclaimed actor make Hutt noises. However, what really weirded out the Star Wars fandom is that White didn’t really sound like himself throughout The Mandalorian and Grogu. According to fans all over the internet, he sounded more like another very famous actor: everyone’s favorite carefree stoner, Seth Rogen!
Smoke’em If You Got’em
Who is Rotta the Hutt, exactly? In this famous galaxy far, far away, he’s the son of infamous crime lord Jabba the Hutt, and someone Din Djarin ends up helping out in The Mandalorian and Grogu. In our own galaxy, it’s more accurate to say that this Hutt is Dave Filoni’s baby. He included Rotta as a nasty, farting Huttling in the 2008 Clone Wars movie and brought him back for this latest Star Wars movie. Rotta is all grown up now and can speak for himself (which is a big step up from being a burbling monster). Unfortunately, every single thing that comes out of his slimy mouth is insanely distracting.
Why is that? Rotta the Hutt is voiced by Jeremy Allen White, which seemed like an insane bit of stunt casting. Nonetheless, the actor has a fairly distinctive voice in The Bear, so Star Wars fans kept an open mind about his performance. However, even superfans of the actor ended up being disappointed because White sounds nothing like himself in The Mandalorian and Grogu, presumably because Disney put some kind of filter over his voice. That would have been bad enough, but according to countless fans on social media, White’s voice sounds distractingly like Seth Rogen!
All Too Human
The problems with White’s voice acting are compounded by the fact that Rotta the Hutt sounds so weirdly human. He doesn’t sound like Seth Rogen doing an alien voice or anything, which would make more sense for someone voicing one of the most fearsome creatures in the galaxy. No, The Bear star sounds almost exactly like Rogen in his various stoner comedies like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express. Because of this, fans have transformed already-bad lines like Rotta’s “I’m my own man” into hilarious memes, underscoring the fact that The Mandalorian and Grogu is one big joke.
So far, it’s not entirely clear why Disney wanted their stunt-cast actor to sound like the world’s biggest stoner. Was this meant to make him more relatable compared to his frog-eating slaver of a father, or were they counting on his lines being turned into funny TikToks and Reels? Whatever the reasoning (if there was any real reason at all), this decision was fairly insane. It could be worse, though. In The Clone Wars, we meet Ziro the Hutt, Rotta’s great-uncle, who sounds exactly like Truman Capote. That was even more distracting than Jeremy Allen White’s performance, turning what could have been an interesting new Star Wars character into a weirdly offensive gay stereotype.
More Like “No, Chef”
Chances are, we’ll never know why Disney hired Jeremy Allen White to voice Rotta the Hutt and then made the actor sound like the most famous stoner in the world. It’s a decision that makes the film memorable in all the worst ways, and one of the biggest criticisms of The Mandalorian and Grogu is that Rotta’s voice is so distractingly weird and human. Honestly, I just kept expecting him to ditch Mando and go buy a Hutt-load of spice from an alien voiced by James Franco.
At the very least, we’re already getting funny memes out of this. If the rehabilitation of The Phantom Menace shows us anything, it’s that Star Wars fans can meme themselves into thinking that anything is good. In the meantime, you’ve got a ready-made punchline whenever you watch The Mandalorian and Grogu with your friends. Just wait for Rotta to open his mouth for the first time, make eye contact with your closest buddy, and drop this banger on them: “somehow, Seth Rogen returned.”
Entertainment
The Absurd Adult Swim Short That Predicted Our Sloppification
By Robert Scucci
| Published
If there’s one piece of media that sums up our current consumption habits, it has to be Adult Swim’s Too Many Cooks. It’s an 11-minute musical short that plays out like a classic family sitcom intro before quickly going off the rails, devolving into sci-fi, crime procedurals, medical dramas, and even slasher territory before it concludes. The song itself is about how when there’s too many cooks in the pot, everybody loses the plot, and then we just kind of have to roll with it.
The segment originally aired on October 28, 2014 during Adult Swim’s Infomercials block, debuting at 4:00 a.m. Having seen this one live in real time, I remember wondering what the hell I ate before bed, and then when I looked it up the next day, it all started to make sense. It wasn’t a fever dream, but it plays like one. When you’re drifting in and out of sleep, it just seems like a bunch of senseless non sequiturs, but the more you unpack it, the more obvious it becomes that this bit, written and directed by Casper Kelly, was more prophetic than it had any right to be.
It’s slop, but it’s satirical slop. Looking back at it now, it feels like a warning shot.
It Takes A Lot To Make A Stew, A Pinch Of Salt And Laughter Too!
Too Many Cooks starts out like any other family sitcom from the ‘70s, ‘80s, or ‘90s. A sickeningly upbeat song plays while the principal characters are introduced. The problem is, the characters never stop being introduced. It just keeps going. First, it’s your typical nuclear family. Then there’s a talking puppet cat. Then we’re introduced to people in the neighborhood. Suddenly, you start to notice that one guy has been lurking in the background the entire time, and he just so happens to be a serial killer on the loose, primed to go on a rampage.
The short runs its audience through every genre imaginable, and the characters keep coming. Even worse, everybody living in Too Many Cooks becomes vaguely aware they’re trapped in a never-ending sitcom intro loop, and there’s no escape. The glowing floating signs that tell us each character’s name are actually real, and they follow the characters around. This becomes especially inconvenient when a damsel in distress hides from the crazed killer in her closet, only for her name sign to illuminate through the slats in the door.
Pushing into increasingly dark territory, the most harrowing sequence in Too Many Cooks involves the girl running through the production lot, the music coming and going depending on where she’s located. It creates a Doppler effect that’s infinitely more unnerving if you’re listening with headphones. It makes everything feel real, as if you’re running for your life while an upbeat song plays from the other room, almost like it’s laughing at you.
Things get truly absurd when Too Many Cooks goes full-on Battlestar Galactica, introducing an entire sci-fi premise where the serial killer is now loose in space, and C.O.O.K.S. stands for Cybernetic Operational Optimized Knights of Science, who defend humanity against the Beast Rebels of the Hellscape, or B.R.o.T.H., boasting the tagline, “When it comes to the future, you can never have too many cooks.”
Too Many Cooks Predicted Conformity Gate
Too Many Cooks is a prime example of what happens when too many people get involved in a single project. Without a hint of irony, it reminds me of Stranger Things Season 5. What started as a simple cosmic horror Netflix series with a tight, ensemble cast playing into our fear of the unknown, suddenly named its primary antagonist Henry and made him a weird tentacle tree monster. The mysterious Upside Down that robbed Hawkins, Indiana of its safety and innocence suddenly had dozens of rules and explanations, and none of it made sense. It just kept barreling forward, becoming increasingly ridiculous, convoluted, and unhinged, completely unaware of the fact that it lost the plot after Season 3.
Suddenly, the ensemble cast featured way too many secondary, tertiary, and ancillary characters taking on more significant roles, leaving little room for the growing staff writers, producers, directors, guest stars, and guest directors to properly housekeep. It got so bad that by the time Stranger Things wrapped for good, half its fanbase had a psychotic break, broke down every continuity error, and used them as “evidence” to suggest there’s actually a secret series finale coming that will somehow make it all better. An embarrassing blip on our screens known as “Conformity Gate.”
That’s the pun. That’s the joke. There were too many cooks in the pot, and what started as one thing became something else entirely. Across 11 minutes, the shift is gradual at first, but then it barrels headfirst into a surreal void of insanity that never lets up or makes any sense. Too Many Cooks is funny as its own standalone bit, but looking at the bigger picture, and how shows are jammed through a slop machine and written by committee today, it certainly feels like one writer’s desperate attempt to warn us about what was coming, and we didn’t listen.
It’s only fitting that Too Many Cooks, which is available to watch on Adult Swim’s YouTube channel, plays out like a show that jumped the shark years ago but doesn’t know how to call it quits. After all, it’s 12 years later, and we’re still getting new episodes of The Simpsons.
Entertainment
New Music Friday May 29: Paul McCartney, Ariana Grande, Hilary Duff, Latto, Tim McGraw, Riley Green and More
Happy New Music Friday! The weekend is here, which means more streaming, new playlists and the best that music has to offer — and ET has you covered for everything in between.
Riley Green will be co-hosting CMA Fest presented by SoFi with Lara Spencer which will kick off June 4 in Nashville. The three hour concert event will be filmed during the 53rd CMA Fest and will air June 25 on ABC and stream next day on Hulu. Riley has also announced his fourth studio album, That’s Just Me, will be out on September 18. His new summer anthem “Think As You Drunk,” which pays tribute to Toby Keith, is out now.
Role Model has announced his third studio album, Chuck Timely & The Hourglass, which will arrive on August 7. Last week, he began teasing his new album with select fans from his community receiving old-fashioned acquaintance cards int he main from the mysterious “Chuck Timely.” Role Model’s first single from the new album “High Hopes 3000” will be out on June 3.
Alex Warren kicked off his Finding Family on the Road Tour earlier this week at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. During his sold out show, Alex brought out Luke Combs for a special duet of his hit song “Ordinary.”
The Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association’s Music City Rodeo kicked off May 28 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville with headliner Miranda Lambert. Miranda sang her new single “Crisco” and Little Big Town made a surprise appearance and joined her on stage for a couple songs. Charley Crockett and Jon Pardi will headline this weekend.
Plus, new music from Paul McCartney, Ariana Grande, Latto, Tim McGraw, Cody Johnson, Riley Green, Carlos Santana, Becky G, Cara Delevingne, Bebe Rexha, aespa, Labrinth, Lauren Alaina and more.
The Boys of Dungeon Lane – Paul McCartney
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“hate that i made you love me” – Ariana Grande
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Mine – Hilary Duff
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Pawn Shop Guitar” and “Song for America” – Tim McGraw
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Mi Gran Amor” – Carlos Santana & Becky G
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Take Me Back (Leave Me There)” – Cody Johnson
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Think As You Drunk” – Riley Green
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Big Mama – Latto
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“I Forgot” and “Out of my Head” – Cara Delevingne
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Sad Girls” – Bebe Rexha & David Guetta
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Mr. October” – Wyclef Jean feat G Herbo
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
LEMONADE – aespa
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Over and Over” – Little Big Town
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Cosmic Opera Act II – Labrinth
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Better Off” – Lauren Alaina
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Do Not Disturb: Late Checkout – Young Miko
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Don’t Lose Your Head” – Tiësto
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
K-POPS! (Music from and inspired by K-POPS! Motion Picture)
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Kill It” – The Band Perry
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Detour – Kim Petras
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Epilogue: The Cellar Tapes – Don Williams
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Come My Way” – Sơn Tùng M-TP & Tyga
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Mad About It” – Dasha
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
I HOPE THIS HELPS – Alana Springsteen
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
Be Sweet To Me – Violet Grohl
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Can You Be Mine” – Justin Blau & Timbaland
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Strange Little Game” – Jessica Lowndes
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“BIRTHDAY” – Faouzia
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Baby Driver” – 070 Shake
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Brighter” – Michael James Scott
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“She Knows” – David Nail
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
EI8HT – Shinedown
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“Beneath The Pines” – Zach John King
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
“dark magic” – Quadeca
Stream it now: Apple / Spotify
How The World’s Most Famous Stoner Accidentally Became Part Of Star Wars History
Microsoft under fire for threatening security researcher with criminal investigation
