This past weekend, I made the trek out to Flushing, Queens, for The Meadows Music and Arts Festival, New York's newest music festival put together by Founders Entertainment, the promoters behind Governors Ball.

From a distance, it appears the Founders team has some positively bad luck:

• Saturday's headliner The Weeknd canceled a week before the event due to a Saturday Night Live performance, then came back on, the canceled again the night before.
• A dire weather forecast called for rain all weekend, an ironic situation given the fact that The Meadows was conceived after Kanye West's headlining set at Governors Ball was canceled, along with the rest of that day's performance, due to thunderstorms and torrential rain.
• Headliner Kanye West abruptly ended his set early on Sunday when he received news that his wife, Kim Kardashian, had been robbed in Paris.

For most that attended the event, however, NYC's newest festival entrant was one the most enjoyable NYC concertgoing experiences in years. Solid administration, mind-blowing performances, and a few inspired choices made all the difference. 

Here's everything you missed:

A festival in October?

I was initially skeptical about a fall music festival in New York, imagining myself shivering outside for 8 or 12 hours amid a cold drizzle. Then I got excited thinking about those sunny and breezy October days in New York when the air is crisp and just warm enough for only a light jacket. 

What we ended up with was something in between. Despite a heavy downpour on Friday night, the weather held up for the rest of the weekend. The cool, misty, mid-60s, cloudy weather was a thankful reprieve from the sweltering swamp-like conditions that permeate summer music festivals in the Northeast. 

And though we didn't quite get the New York-in-autumn festival of our dreams, consider me sold on an October festival — warm enough to be enjoyable, but not so much so that you drip sweat with each dance move.

An excellent venue

Consider me double-sold on hosting a festival in the parking lot of Citi Field. There's been talk for the last couple years that Founders has wanted to move Governors Ball to Queens, specifically nearby Corona Park. This year, the organizers behind the Panorama Festival attempted the same gambit. 

It's now painfully obvious why.

For every person who's ever been to Randall's Island — the site of Governors Ball, Panorama, and any number of other summer concerts — the scene in and out is familiar. There's the grinding traffic into the grounds, if arriving by car, or the sun-scorched walk across the Ward's Island Bridge. Leaving a concert there is most reminiscent of scenes from the 1981 Kurt Russell thriller "Escape from New York."

And the mud. Don't forget about the mud.

When it rains, the grounds turn into a literal mud pit. Had The Meadows been held at Randall's Island after Friday's downpour, the festival would have been a complete wash. Witness Governors Ball 2013, which happened amid a Friday night rainstorm.

Contrast that scene with the one at Citi Field. Sure, some people were disappointed that the festival was being held in a literal parking lot — and not Corona Park, as some had thought— but the upside was that it was easier for organizers to clear out the rain and for attendees to keep their feet dry and dance.

Getting to and from Citi Field was also a huge plus.

The Mets/Willets Point station is well-equipped for dealing with massive crowds, given that it experiences an influx of 30-40,000 fans 80-100x a year. That means a big station and express trains direct to and from Times Square. For the fancier ones among us who decided to hop in a cab or an Uber, that wasn't too bad either.

Beyond the pluses of the locale, the setup benefited from the open canvas of the parking lot. 

The four stages were all placed in the center of the grounds, making them easily reached from one another by a short walk. Each stage faced away from one another, preventing audio spillover from one artist to the next.

In addition, food vendors and market activations lined the outside of the grounds as opposed to being situated in the center, which kept the crowd moving.

But enough about the logistics. What about the music?

Leonardo DiCaprio has achieved so much as an actor on earth, you might think he's getting a little bored of life on the planet.

Well, he teased a certain interest in Mars recently, but it looks like he was just joking. DiCaprio said during a talk with President Barack Obama about climate change that he had signed up to visit Mars on Elon Musk's first trip there. Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, plans to get humans to Mars as soon as 2025, a journey Musk expects to be quite risky.

DiCaprio said this while talking to Obama and the climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe on Monday as part of the South by South Lawn event at the White House, Inverse reports. The three discussed climate change before the premiere of DiCaprio's new documentary on the subject, "Before the Flood."

Musk and the Mars trip came up while Hayhoe was explaining the need to get regular people to connect to the reality of climate change and its effects.

"The reality of it is, if you're a human living on this planet — which most of us are, yeah?" Hayhoe joked. "As long as we haven't signed up for the trip to Mars. I don't want to know if anyone has — I think you're crazy."

That's when DiCaprio said, "I did."

But a source close to DiCaprio has told Business Insider that the actor was in fact joking about the potential Mars trip.

That didn't stop the president from making another joke. Obama reportedly deadpanned, "I think you'll acknowledge he's crazy."

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Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Westworld."

The premiere of HBO's new series "Westworld" began with a clever twist. The audience was led to believe James Marsden's character Teddy Flood was a human up against an evil robot gunslinger dressed in all black (Ed Harris). But lo and behold, it turns out Teddy was a robot "host" all along, and the Man in Black was actually the human guest. 

At least, that's what the show was trying to tell viewers at home. In the few days since the show's October 2 premiere, fan theories about "Westworld" are already cropping up. A common theory (or straight-up assumption), is that the Man in Black is simply another host. 

The "Westworld" subreddit was also immediately bogged with discussions about which characters may or may not be robots, and Ed Harris' Man in Black was a popular guess for "definitely android."

But co-creator Jonathan Nolan explicitly calls the Man in Black a human in a behind-the-scenes video. 

"He's a human guest who has taken the fantasy to its utmost extreme," Nolan says. "He wants to play the villain, he wants to be the bad guy, omnipotent, manipulative, and evil."

Nolan also explains why the set up of Teddy versus the Man in Black was so important for the premiere.

"That first confrontation between Teddy and the Man in Black suggests the difference between the virtuous, noble, handsome, courageous robot, and that's contrasted with Ed Harris' character, the Man in Black, who represents everything human in the park," he said. 

Though Nolan theoretically could be lying in an attempt to misdirect the viewers (as one Redditor pointed out), we doubt this is the case. The Man in Black being human, while Teddy and the other host "victims" are machines, is one of the central ideas Nolan and his co-creator Lisa Joy are trying to explore. 

Before the premiere aired, Nolan spoke with Entertainment Weekly about their chosen starting point for the series:

When it comes to the question of consciousness, we always start with ourselves as the answer. As the be-all-end-all. It's understandable – we're the only consciousness we’re familiar with. But we wanted to challenge that assumption. The 'hosts' are discovering that they've been created in our image, but beginning to question if 'humanness' is really what they want to aspire to.

The Man in Black is a frighteningly cold-hearted human for a reason — the audience is meant to question whether or not humans have reached a level of moral consciousness worth replicating. We are meant to empathize instead with the hosts the Man in Black is terrorizing. This line of thinking would go out the window if he is revealed to be a bot after all, which is why we believe Nolan. 

There is still the possibility of other characters in the show being androids when we've been led to believe otherwise, but we'll leave that theorizing for another day.

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer name-dropped Kim Kardashian during a case on Tuesday, as part of an argument concerning the legal definitions of fraud and theft.

The actual case in question is that of the appeal of Lawrence Shaw, who was convicted of bank fraud after transferring $300,000 to his account from his victim's. Shaw's attorneys argued that Shaw's conviction should be tossed, since the bank fraud statute requires their client to have possessed intent to cause the bank to lose money.

"Kardashian's thief, if there is one, believes that all that jewelry is insured. Indeed over-insured. So it's not theft?" Justice Breyer asked of defense attorney Koren Bell, implying that the scenario was indeed a theft.

He went on to ask whether a thief posing as a jewelry cleaner to steal Kardashian's jewelry shouldn't also be considered fraud — regardless of whether the thief knows the jewelry is insured or whether the hypothetical Kardashian suffered a monetary loss from the theft.

The scenario appeared to liken the fake jewelery cleaner to Shaw, who was able to steal the $300,000 by deceiving his victim's bank; Shaw had created a Paypal account in his victim's name, and linked it to the victim's account.

"I'm asking you, if the local person comes to the door and says, dear Miss Kardashian, I am your local jewelry cleaner. Please give me your jewelry. She does. And that's not fraud. He wanted to get the jewelry," he continued.

"I would have always thought from first year of law school, criminal law, that that was fraud, but perhaps I was wrong. So I would like you to explain it."

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in her Paris hotel room on Sunday, according to French authorities and Kardashian's representative. The suspects allegedly made off with $10 million worth of her jewelry.

H/t Wall Street Journal

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If you ask Facebook and Google, the "next big thing" is virtual reality — the technology that lets you put on a headset and be transported into an amazingly lifelike digital world.

The best reason to get into virtual reality at this point is to play incredible, immersive video games. Up to this point in the short history of VR, however, the most premium games have been limited to people with a lot of extra cash to burn.

Facebook's high-end Oculus Rift headset is $600 plus another $200 for its nifty motion-tracking controllers; the HTC Vive is $799. In both cases, you should be prepared to drop $1,000 or more on a Windows PC powerful enough for virtual reality. (Google and Samsung have cheaper headsets, but those smartphone-based setups can't match the horsepower of full-fledged systems).

Enter the Sony PlayStation VR. Set to launch on October 13 for $399, the PlayStation VR brings a virtual reality experience competitive with (but not quite as powerful as) what Facebook and HTC have to offer. And not only is it cheaper, but it also plugs right into every one of the 40 million Sony PlayStation 4 consoles that have already been sold.

I've been playing with the Sony PlayStation VR for the past few days. And I have to say, while it's still the very beginning of the would-be virtual reality revolution, Sony has come up with something incredibly promising, especially considering how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to get started.

And with big-ticket games like "Batman: Arkham VR," cult hits in the making like "Until Dawn: Rush of Blood," and fun multiplayer action games like "RIGS: Mechanized Combat League" coming exclusively to PlayStation VR, it will have a major leg up in the war for your wallet.

Here's what it's like to use the PlayStation VR.

SEE ALSO: Spending the weekend with 12,000 Minecraft fanatics helped me understand why Microsoft paid $2.5 billion for it

Let's first address the elephant in the room: The PlayStation VR may cost a competitive $399, but it doesn't come with everything you need to get started.

(The other elephant in the room: It's impossible to look cool wearing these. You get over it or you don't.) 

In addition to the headset, you'll need the PlayStation Camera, a $50-or-so accessory that sits on top of the TV. It handles head- and motion-tracking. You literally can't use the PlayStation VR without one.

You'll probably also want a pair of PlayStation Move $50 motion controllers, one for each hand. While many games support the PlayStation 4's regular, everyday controller, some games — like the must-play "Batman: Arkham VR" — require these controllers to simulate your hands in the virtual world. More on that later.

The future belongs to live-streaming — and it's already changing how we consume online content.

If you want to hear more about what's next for this medium, don't miss Business Insider's flagship conference, IGNITION: Future of Digital.

Joining us on stage is Kevin Lin, COO of one of Amazon's top subsidiaries, Twitch, which is aiming to contend with Periscope and Facebook Live.

This live-streaming video platform is well established in the gaming community, having amassed more than 100 million monthly unique visitors and streamed more than 241 billion minutes of video.

However, that's only phase one for Twitch.

Twitch, which Amazon purchased for $1 billion two years ago, has started to explore content outside of gaming.

Come hear the latest news about what's next for Twitch at IGNITION 2016. It's all happening December 5-7 at the Time Warner Center in New York City.

This year's speakers also include Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia; Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco; Miguel McKelvey, cofounder and CCO of WeWork; and Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global.

Sign up today before tickets sell out!

SEE ALSO: IGNITION 2016: IBM Watson General Manager will unveil the future of artificial intelligence

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Kid Cudi opened up about seeking help for depression in a Facebook post on Tuesday night.

"Yesterday I checked myself into rehab for depression and suicidal urges," Cudi wrote in the post. "I am not at peace. I haven't been since you've known me. If I didn't come here, I wouldve done something to myself."

The rapper/singer/actor, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, explained that he's suffered with anxiety a long time, something he's touched on before. In an interview with Arsenio Hall, he talked about constant thoughts of suicide and how he tries to lift up listeners.

“I dealt with suicide for the past five years. There wasn’t a week or a day that didn’t go by where I was like ‘You know, I wanna check out.’ I know what that feels like. I know it comes from loneliness. I know it come from not having self-worth, not loving yourself," he said to Hall. "Kids don’t have music that can coach them and give them that guidance."

In his new Facebook post, Cudi assures listeners that the "album is still on the way" and that he took care of "business" before going into rehab.

"If all goes well ill be out in time for Complexcon and ill be lookin forward to seeing you all there for high fives and hugs," he said, ostensibly referring to the title of his upcoming album.

Read Kid Cudi's Facebook note below:

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Chelsea Handler made headlines two years ago when it came out that she was leaving her E! show, "Chelsea Lately."

It was the culmination of some unhappiness on Handler's end with E!'s programming and the pop-culture focus of her talk show. She was yearning to get away from the Kardashians and introduce herself and her audience to new, more useful knowledge.

Soon, she brokered a deal with Netflix that included a stand-up special, four documentaries, and a talk show. In the two years that followed, she ticked off the components of the deal. The stand-up special and documentaries came along, but where was the talk show? 

Little did we know that through her other projects, Handler was retooling the talk-show concept for Netflix. It would be a mix of stand-up, sketch comedy, classic late-night interviews, and taped documentary-style segments.

Now, four months after the show — titled simply "Chelsea — debuted, Business Insider talked with Handler about its early days, what she decided she wanted to say, why she "didn’t really have a lot of respect" for her E! job, and who she wants to speak to this time around.

Jethro Nededog: What was it like in the beginning when you were developing the first talk show for a streaming platform like Netflix?

Chelsea Handler: I feel like I was digging into something like unknown territory for me, and trying to kind of do something that was breaking with the format of a traditional talk show. And making a show that was different each night, and that wasn’t traditionally a monologue, and then the guest, and then a music guest, or whatever. I wanted it to be different in the fact that you could turn it on, and you could find yourself watching a dinner party about religion. Or you could turn it on and find an episode that’s all about my visit to Russia. Or you could turn it on and then there are in-studio guests. So I just definitely wanted to do something that would keep me interested and compelled.

 Nededog: How did you handle the criticism?

Handler: I think that any time you do something it takes a little bit of ramping up. In the beginning, it took me a little bit of — kind of just stabilizing yourself to figure out, "Okay, what’s working? What’s not working?" And how do you just kind of let all the noise not affect you going forward with your mission statement? You’re putting yourself up for critical bashing any time you try to do something different, and you have to say to yourself, "Okay, that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter. I’m going to move forward. I’m going to do what I want. I know that I can do this." And that it’s going to become the show that I want, without listening to all the noise. So that’s the hardest part, but once you get into the groove of that, and once you get your feet underneath you and things start to click, then you know you’re on the right path, and you’re doing the very thing that you set out to do.

Nededog: How do you feel about where the show is now?

Handler: So, in terms of that, I think it’s come a long way since we launched — I mean, a long, long way. I feel like we clicked in about like six weeks in. Or I clicked in, personally, on a performance level. And now it’s just everything keeps falling into place... We get to do all these really cool, nontraditional ways of talking to celebrities. I think there are certain celebrities that are great in-studio, and certain celebrities you can get a lot more out of in different environments. And certain celebrities, you’re going to get more out of talking about things that aren’t related to them being a celebrity. And so, for that component, I’m really happy about everything we’re doing. And then also, you know, getting to deal with all the politicians, and getting to deal with science people, and getting to deal with sports and athletes, and learning about things that are out of my comfort zone. I think it’s always fun television for anybody to watch.

Before I was like, 'Oh, f--- this, who gives a shit? I don’t care about anything.'

Nededog: What’s the difference between this and your E! show when it comes to the viewing audience?

Handler: I loved my show on E! for a while and I had fun doing it, but I don’t think I respected the position that much and that’s ultimately why I wanted to leave. I didn’t really have a lot of respect for what I was doing, so it was hard for me to respect the job. And even though it was a silly job and who needs to respect it, at the end of the day you want to be doing something that you’re really proud of. And here I feel like I am doing something much different.

I’m much more interactive online, on Twitter, on Facebook with all the fans and everything, because I feel like there is something of value in what we’re doing. And it makes you want to interact and show your appreciation to the people that are really supporting you and interested. And when they say they’re learning, and like, "Oh my God, I learned more about this election by watching 'Chelsea,'" you know I love that. That’s exactly what my intention has been. So I think it’s just a different level. I mean I’m obviously a little more mature — not too much more — but more mature than I was when I did that show. I feel much more responsibility with this, whereas before I was like, "Oh, f--- this, who gives a shit? I don’t care about anything." I care a little bit more now about the message I’m sending.

Nededog: How has the process of booking guests for the show evolved?

Handler: The first week of shows, you’re trying to launch it, so you have to get the really big, big stars on. And yes, it’s definitely gotten easier. But also, I had a show on for so long, so it was more about getting those politicos to come on, because they were like, "Well, wait a second. She doesn’t have a reputation for doing anything serious." So it was about getting like Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Boxer, and yesterday I filmed something with ex-governor Jennifer Granholm, from Michigan, with Larry King, we did this debate prep. We have like those kind of heavyweights — they needed to see the show before they came on board. And that has definitely changed. So those people are always coming to the show, which is really, really important to me, because it’s an edification for me. I like the idea of constantly learning about the things that we think we know, and we don’t.

Nededog: You don't hesitate to talk about your personal and family life, and your politics. Do you ever think about pulling back?

Handler: No, I don’t think that. I think if I get self-conscious at all, I think that it’s a vicious circle. And I think you can’t ever do that. And even if you do something, you’re like, "Maybe I shouldn’t have said that," I think apologizing is a vicious circle, too. You don’t want to get in the habit of apologizing for anything you’ve said.

You don’t want to get in the habit of apologizing for anything you’ve said.

I know myself well enough to know when to stop. And if you don’t know that, then you don’t really have business being on TV anyway, then you’re Donald Trump. So I don’t look back and go, "Should I have done it?" You just try to learn from your mistakes and try to be responsible with what you’re saying, and my opinion is my opinion, so it’s not waffling that often. So you kind of know what you’re saying is how you feel, and as long as you’re confident in the fact that you’re going to alienate a certain group of people — I’m okay with that. I’ve been doing that my whole life, before I was a celebrity.

Nededog: Do you think there’s some truth to that argument that media have helped Trump’s rise?

Handler: Yes, absolutely! Absolutely! I mean, giving him airtime is just like, why? We can’t. We shouldn’t even be talking about it as if it’s a real situation. I was just listening this morning to Ashleigh Banfield on my way into work on CNN, and she’s just going off. Like it’s funny to see how all these journalists just start losing it, and are like, "No. Forget about being a journalist. This is not okay for this to happen." I don’t understand how Anderson Cooper always keeps his cool. I’m like, "Hey, buddy. We gotta make sure this doesn’t happen. This is terrible for the world." So I understand the journalistic, professionalism aspect of it, but I don’t have that kind of professionalism, and luckily I don’t have to uphold myself to that.

Nededog: You don't have to worry about ratings since it's Netflix, but would you ever have Donald Trump on as a guest?

Handler: Yeah, I don’t need to have him come on for ratings. I’m sorry, that’s not going to be my motivation for something like that.

Nededog: I've become pretty aware of how busy you are. But there's a perception that you left E! and now you're doing a relaxed schedule with just three shows a week.

Handler: All I can say is I get up earlier than I ever have, and I work harder than I ever have. E!, I was there for three hours a day. Here, I get here at like 7:30. We have a production meeting at 8:30... So it’s not like I’m chillaxing. And I’m happy to work. I like working. You know, you get run down, and you’re exhausted, but it’s good exhaustion. It’s the best kind.

 Nededog: I think it’s hilarious how you talk about not having kids all the time because it feels so anti-American in a way.

Handler: It’s very anti-establishment.

Nededog: And it kind of throws people off a little bit, every time you say it.

Handler: Yeah, I’m just saying what so many people are thinking.

Nededog: I noticed that you've developed a sort of uniform for the show. It's typically a band tee and something nice on the bottom. Was that your idea?

Handler: Well, I have a person who dresses me, but I just decided to go with one look and stick with it. I want the show to be about something instead of what I’m wearing. The last show it was all over the map. You know, you’re in one outfit the one day, and then you’re dressed a completely different way the next day. It’s just trying too hard. So I just wanted to find something that was like cool and simple and that I could maintain. And luckily, there are enough band t-shirts to last for the next seven years. So I found something and I’m sticking with it.

Nededog: Is it important to you that you like the band?

Handler: No, not at all. That doesn’t even factor in.

Nededog: Recently, you've started closing the show by saying bye in different international languages. Netflix has really been focusing on the international market. Did they ask you to do that?

Handler: No, I was just paying attention to social media and people saying hi from different places. I mean it’s always been on my mind since they announced that they were going into 190 countries. I just want to be mindful of it, because it is such a big platform. And it’s nice to acknowledge those places. You know, Mexico was so appreciative when I did an episode dedicated to their country. So I like to just make sure we’re saying hi to all the different pockets of the world where people may be watching us. And also, part of the show is like trying to talk about different countries and talk about what’s going on in different parts of the world, so they can feel included in the conversation. What I’ve been surprised most about is how interested other countries are in American politics. I’m always like, "Really?" It’s so fascinating that they care so much.

Nededog: In your mind’s eye, do you see who your audience is? Who are you speaking to?

Handler: No, I mean, I’m sure it’s tons of women. I know that. It’s definitely like the 18-to-34 demographic of females, but then there’s a lot of mothers and daughters. There’s a lot of gay guys. There’s a big gay audience, obviously. And then I think older men — old, old men, like in their 80s.

SEE ALSO: A day in the life of Chelsea Handler on the set of her Netflix talk show

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Cable TV companies could lose nearly $1 billion to people cutting the cord over the next year, but some channels will be hit harder than others.

Earlier this year, analysts at Barclays argued that channels you watch when you're feeling lazy, "inertia channels," will have a tough time competing moving forward. Others, like BTIG's Rich Greenfield, have questioned the value of ESPN.

But looking to the past can give us a flavor of what will happen in the future. On Wednesday, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla tweeted a chart from Deutsche Bank, which showed the linear TV channels with the biggest subscriber losses over the last four years.

In it you can see both "inertia" channels and "sports" channels have been hit hard. MTV and VH1, which are great for simply flipping to without knowing exactly what's on, saw big losses, as did ESPN and ESPN2. The Weather Channel saw the biggest dip.

Here is the full chart:

A study last month by management consulting firm cg42 estimated that 800,000 cable customers will ditch their subscriptions in the next 12 months. Cg42 expects each customer to be an average loss of $1,248 annually. Cg42 also found that the average cord-cutter saves $104 per month by canceling.

As people leave cable, there are a bunch of companies stepping into the gap to offer more flexible streaming TV services tailored toward younger people. The pioneer is Sling TV, which offers a "skinny bundle" package of 25 channels for $20 per month. But there are other live TV alternatives from companies like Hulu, AT&T, and Amazon reportedly on the way.

Some of these services will preserve the "big bundle"  of dozens or hundreds of channels, but some won't, which will put pressure on channels that aren't deemed necessary.

It's almost certain that some will die during the transition.

SEE ALSO: Cable TV companies could lose nearly $1 billion in the next year from people ditching their subscriptions

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Stephen Colbert had something to say about Mike Pence's "that Mexican thing" comment from Tuesday's vice presidential debate. He may not have known it at the time, but social media also took issue with the comment and made it a meme.

The line happened after Republican vice presidential candidate Pence got fed up with his Democratic opponent Tim Kaine bringing up Donald Trump's comment on Mexican immigrants being "rapists."

Apparently after Kaine's fourth reference to the comments, Pence said, "You've whipped out that Mexican thing again."

"The Mexican thing? It has a name, Governor. I call it Pedro," Colbert joked. "And it taught me Spanish. S0, ole!"

On the internet, the meme spread like wildfire:

 As for the rest of the night, Colbert felt Pence won the debate.

"Both men tried their hardest," he said, "but it was like watching a loaf of white bread get pistol-whipped by a jar of mayonnaise. Not a lot of flavor, but there was a clear winner, okay."

Later he addeed, "Pence's strong performance bodes well for Trump, because everybody knows the team with the best backup quarterback always wins the Super Bowl."

Watch Colbert critique the debate below:

SEE ALSO: Seth Meyers has a theory for why Donald Trump is hiding his taxes: 'I think you're poor'

DON'T MISS: Trevor Noah slams Donald Trump for hypocrisy over taxes

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NOW WATCH: Watch the tense moment a GOP pollster described as Mike Pence's 'knockout punch' of the debate

With a record-breaking $17.5 million purchase of Nate Parker’s directorial debut “The Birth of a Nation” at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Fox Searchlight is going full-throttle on the release of the movie, though the controversy surrounding Parker’s involvement in a rape case has taken a bit of the wind from its sails.

The biopic of Nat Turner (played by Parker), who in 1831 led a slave rebellion in Southampton Country, Virginia, will be released in 2,100 theaters beginning Friday, an ambitious move by Searchlight to attract both arthouse and multiplex audiences.

"Birth of a Nation" mirrors in some ways the current social climate in America, with the Black Lives Matter movement still grabbing headlines as African-Americans are shot and killed by police. TV ads for the movie even use current protest footage intercut with Turner’s rebellion in the movie. And with its relevance and early awards attention, Searchlight is staying optimistic that the movie can still generate the box office it hoped for before Parker’s rape case resurfaced in August.

In 1999, a woman accused Parker and another man, Jean McGianni Celestin (who has a story writing credit on "Birth of a Nation"), of raping her while they were students at Penn State University. Parker was acquitted of the rape charge in a 2001 trial. Then in August, it was revealed that the woman killed herself in 2012.

Searchlight and Parker have since been on the defensive. Though Parker has shown remorse that the woman has died, Parker has declined to apologize to the woman’s family, stating on “60 Minutes” that he was “falsely accused.”

Box-office projections have the movie opening this weekend between $7 and $8 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter, though some tracking services have it opening around $10 million.

The film, which won both the grand jury and audience award prizes at this year's Sundance, would need to have around a $50 million lifetime box-office gross to break even, according to TheWrap.

"Unlike say, Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, Nate Parker is really in his infancy as an auteur, and dealing with the rape controversy while promoting his first film is surely an exhausting and no-win prospect," Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, told Business Insider, comparing Parker's situation to Allen and Polanski's past charges of sexual abuse. "The box office is now in the hands of the people’s court, they will decide the outcome."

Typically movies released by a independent distributor start with a limited opening (say, New York City and Los Angeles), and then open wide across the country in the weeks that follow.

“12 Years a Slave” in 2013 did that and in its fourth week when it went wide (1,144 screens), it took in $6.6 million. The movie went on to win best picture. “Selma” in 2014 (though released by Paramount, taking a page from the indie playbook) did the same and in its second week went wide (2,179 screens) and had an $11.3 million weekend.

Bock believes Searchlight's aggressive release will pay off and predicts a $10 million opening weekend for the film.

"Fox Searchlight is going for the box-office gusto," Bock said. "While the move risks it being forgotten come awards season, its $17.5 million investment should be secure."

SEE ALSO: The 23 best horror movies you can watch on Netflix right now

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Seth Meyers believes that Donald Trump hasn't been able to move on from the "disastrous" first presidential debate and it's hurting his campaign.

"Not only was his debate performance last week disastrous, he's spent an entire week talking about it," Meyers said on Tuesday's "Late Night." "He's like a kid who wets the bed at a sleepover, and a week later he's still telling you, 'I told you I spilled my juice box.'"

In a bid to change the story, Trump's campaign told reporters that he would be making a nine-sentence statement disputing Hillary Clinton's comments about many millennials who supported her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders. But it reportedly took Trump 25 minutes to make the statement, because he couldn't stick to it.

"Why did it take 25 minutes to read nine sentences?" the host asked. "Because Trump had to do some classic stand-up comedy, like when he mocked Hillary Clinton's pneumonia and a brief fainting spell she suffered as a result... He's doing an impression of a sick person."

To top it off, Trump implied that Hillary Clinton is cheating on her husband, Bill Clinton, who has his own history of infidelity. "I don't even think she's loyal to Bill," Trump told his rally crowd.

"That's a shocked crowd reacting to a baseless accusation of infidelity," Meyers said. "Trump rallies have just become episodes of 'The Maury Povich Show.'"

Watch Meyers break down Trump's post-debate spiral:

SEE ALSO: Stephen Colbert mocks Mike Pence's most ridiculed line of the VP debate: 'That Mexican thing'

DON'T MISS: Seth Meyers has a theory for why Donald Trump is hiding his taxes: 'I think you're poor'

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NOW WATCH: 'He never said that': New Clinton ad shows Trump contradicting Pence's VP debate denials

Netflix's latest superhero series "Luke Cage" premiered last week to great fanfare and critical acclaim. 

The show follows the exploits of Marvel Comic hero Luke Cage — played by veteran actor Mike Colter — as he works as a "superhero for hire" in Harlem, New York City.

The Netflix original series currently boasts a 96% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which beats out previous Marvel Netflix shows "Daredevil" (86%) and "Jessica Jones" (93%). And it has "universal acclaim" over at Metacritic.

Read on to see why critics are calling "Luke Cage" the best superhero series yet:

SEE ALSO: 'Luke Cage' star Mike Colter says his Netflix show 'has no agenda,' but there is a nod to #BlackLivesMatter

Many critics praised lead actor Mike Colter's performance as the linchpin of the show.

"'Luke Cage' does an excellent job giving each of its cast members (however long they stick around) distinct personalities and memorable moments that create immediate stakes," Collider wrote. "But none shine as brightly as Colter."

Source: Collider

"Colter (perhaps best known, before 'Jessica Jones,' for 'The Good Wife') not only oozes charisma but manages to look like a superhero just walking around in a sweatshirt, or even (in rare moments) a jacket and tie," CNN said.

Source: CNN

Perhaps the headline of this article is unfair. I didn't just spend two hours drinking at Barstool Sports' new global headquarters in Manhattan.

I spent two weeks watching videos, listening to podcasts, and reading posts on the website that has captured the imagination of the young-adult sports-loving American male.

You might call them bros.

Of course Dave Portnoy — who founded Barstool in 2004 as a free newspaper that he used to hand out in Boston's financial district — understands that the internet is a place for the unfair.

His site has faced the internet's fury plenty of times; it has been called misogynistic, crude, and plain stupid. Here's a sample of the worst offenses:

• Babygate: That time Portnoy posted a picture of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen's naked baby boy running on the beach and complimented the size of his genitalia. (Portnoy said it was a joke and that he did it without thinking. The post has since been taken down.)
• Al Jazeera: The time "KFC" (a Barstool guy) went to war with Al Jazeera fans on Twitter after he said couldn't understand why people trusted the network.
• Emily Austen: Barstool ruffled feathers after it deleted an interview with Fox Sports reporter Emily Austen. She had said a bunch of racist stuff, and, to be fair, the guys did look visibly disturbed.

But it has also been called hilarious — and that's the point.

"We mean this to be a comedy brand," Portnoy tells me in one of the immaculate conference rooms at the new office.

It's not just any comedy brand. It's a new kind of comedy brand in the age of social media where communication is constant and a comedian has access to an audience at all times. Portnoy sees his site as an online "Saturday Night Live," a cast of characters he's assembled to serve his audience. They are known as "Stoolies."

Stoolies like sports. They like sports betting. They like jokes about buying ghosts on Craigslist and joining pirate gangs. They hate the NFL. They love Chipotle. They do not like political correctness. They like looking at attractive women, whom they feature on "smokeshows."

They like trolling Martin Shkreli, and they like posting emails from a guy named Zonker who totally hates them. They like black lights, and blacking out, and moving the frat party onto the internet where it need never end.

They're either total geniuses or total idiots.

What I present below is something of an argument for both.

'Fail'

Portnoy founded the company 12 years ago because, he says, he hated his job and wanted to tell jokes. Financial success — in the form of a 51% buyout from media investor Peter Chernin at the beginning of this year — was unexpected despite the site's popularity. In the last 5 years the site has grown from 1.4 million unique readers monthly to 8 million as of January, and was reportedly valued at $10 million to $15 million in the stake sale.

Already the sale has brought with it some big changes: The boys who all once worked from their respective cities are moving to a shiny new office in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, and the staff has been doubled, to 27 employees, to boost video and podcasting.

The company also has a grown-up at the helm — a female CEO named Erika Nardini. She's a longtime media executive whose résumé includes chief marketing officer of AOL and stints at Microsoft and Yahoo.

Now what's really interesting about what Barstool is doing with this new office is that it actually serves as a set piece. It's a stage, which is why it's so important that Portnoy's hires be natural characters.

"We wired this office and everything is on camera — 24/7 they're rolling. That story is what we're trying to get out," he says.

The boys have their trepidations about this new performance. On his podcast, "The Caleb Pressley Show," former UNC football "Supervisor of Morale" Caleb Pressley (one of the boys) and Handsome Hank, the producer of Barstool's new podcast, "Pardon My Take," both admitted that things could get awkward and "cliquey."

And indeed they already have. When the boys moved to New York City — which it seems most of them don't care for — half the office got invited to see Kanye West perform from a private box; half did not.

"It was like a real source of tension, and it became a storyline for two days, but that was real and uncomfortable," Big Cat, one of the hosts of "Pardon My Take," explained.

But no matter. The cameras are rolling.

Emergency presser

In true Barstool fashion, the sale was communicated directly to the Stoolies by El Presidente, Portnoy's pen name, in an "emergency press conference."

In a video in which he is surrounded by three of his most loyal lieutenants — a shirtless Big Cat, Kmarko, and KFC — Portnoy calmly explained to his readers that Chernin understood Barstool's humor.

"Chernin knows about the Size 6 skinny-jean joke. They know about Babygate. They know about Al Jazeera. They get it," he assured his Stoolies, listing a few of the site's various capers. He wanted to convey that the sale is not a form of selling out. Barstool's voice would remain, and Barstool would get bigger.

"But we needed help," he says. "We had a lot of fails. We have very smart people that are going to help us succeed ... When you were a young comedian in the '80s and you graduate, you had to send your resume to 'SNL' ... in five years... there's only going to be one place to send the résumé, and that's Barstool Sports."

One of those smart people is Nardini of course.

"I've worn Barstool T-shirts for 10 years," she tells me. "The writing is very smart and they get very little credit for it, so the discovery and the knowledge of that it's smart is part of the joy of Barstool. Also, they're brutally honest. And then just personally, I'm scrappy, I'm super hungry and I want to win."

The Stoolies were told of her hiring during another Barstool Times Square announcement. The company prides itself on transparency, and in this instance it was also able to relish in telling the kind of joke Barstool specializes in — a joke in which Barstool is at once the comic and the punch line.

"This is a man's city. We needed somebody with big-ass balls,” Portnoy says in the video. “We have found our CEO, our boss, our masculine boy." And then Nardini appears and ultimately leads the boys off the set.

Portnoy tells us that he loves trolling his viewers, and that video was made for his comments section, which he says he hates but won't get rid of.

"People blend our comment section with us," he says. "We hate these people! Tell me what our employees say. It's never anything we say — it's always these idiots in the comments section. They drive me insane."

That said, it is Barstool's ethos to welcome people saying whatever absurd thing that comes to mind. That has made it all the more crucial that, in the new office and with new corporate bosses, Nardini has become the Wendy to Portnoy's Peter Pan. Precious few processes were developed within Barstool's Never Never Land over the past decade.

Employees, for example, used their Gmail, not their work email, for communication. Being spread around the country meant the guys hadn't shared space with one another. In one of her first orders of business, Nardini suggested they have an off-site.

"They said, 'What's an off-site?'" Nardini recalled.

'Literally in flames'

Barstool really found its footing in 2010 and 2011. In 2010 it threw a college concert tour called Stoolapalooza that left UMass Amherst "literally in flames" (Portnoy's words). Then 2011 was the year of Barstool's first Blackout Party at Clemson. Yes, it involved loud music, tons of booze, and black lights.

It was also the year Barstool hired a self-described "degenerate gambler"* named Big Cat who ultimately quit his job in Chicago so that he could stand in the middle of Times Square in the freezing cold without a shirt on. He now has a massive following and hosts Barstool's "Pardon My Take" with fellow Barstooler PFT Commenter. It was a natural fit.

"I always enjoyed writing. I always enjoyed f---ing around and doing the things that we do. That's probably the reason we're successful," Big Cat tells me. "We're just doing what we like to do. A lot of the stuff we do is stuff I was doing in college, chasing ghosts and s--- like that. But now we turned it up and it's a living. Who we are is pretty true to who we were before Barstool and the blog world."

Who they are is a bunch of guys who got arrested after handcuffing themselves to one another at the NFL headquarters and demanding to speak with Roger Goodell, the league's commissioner. They killed a goldfish named Larry in one day and now use his replacement, Larry 2, to pick bets on game day. (You can watch it here, but be warned: PFT Commenter barfs).

They started a now massive internet meme called "Saturdays are for the boys" where guys just post themselves (or anyone, really) doing ridiculous stuff with their friends — or, in Michael Phelps' case, with their children.

They are guys who used to hate-troll public enemy No. 1, Martin Shkreli, but now think "he's just a very sad person who doesn't have any friends," Big Cat says. Now they regular-troll him.

But of course one cannot know oneself without knowing the other, so mark 2011 as important because it's the year that the guy who owns the email address tips@barstool.com got so tired of the deluge of emails sent incorrectly to his inbox (the correct address is tips@barstoolsports.com) that he started lashing out at the boys.

He goes by "Zonker," and when he gets upset, he sends emails that provide a clear picture of what he thinks a Stoolie is. Zonker has become a character on Barstool. 

Here's one piece, which we edited for clarity (the unedited email is embedded at the end of this article).

Dear Stoolie,

I have been monitoring these emails randomly for several years, and I think I finally figured out what a Stoolie is (and presumably you are one). A composite (oh look it up) of a Stoolie:

You're that guy who passes out at the party and his friends do all sorts of humiliating and gross things to you while recording it, then you proudly post the video yourself. You whine a lot. You're one of the dumbest sports fans in existence.

Basically you're that loser who just can't see what a loser they are. Even though everyone else knows. You know the type — there's a reason you're friends with so many.

So you're trying to get to the right place but, unsurprisingly, you're not competent enough to type the right email address. So I'm going to explain where you went wrong. I'll type slowly so you can read slowly enough to understand. The address you want is tips@barstoolSPORTS.com.

The capitalized part (the part in bigger letters) is very important. You left it out in your first email, and now you are subject to ridicule (oh hell, you're probably totally desensitized to it by now), and god only knows what will be done with YOUR EMAIL address.

Creating characters

Since Zonker is ridiculous, he's become a character on Barstool. This is fitting as creating characters is something of Portnoy's specialty. When he hires someone he turns them into legend, listing their various exploits to build their persona.

For example, Handsome Hank, the producer of Pardon My Take, was introduced to the Stoolies with a bunch of 'most interesting man in the world' type anecdotes.

Here's one: "He may or may not be the heir to the Taco Bell throne."

And another: "Hank hasn’t missed a Boston playoff game in the past decade.  He also has never paid for a ticket.  He just sneaks in everywhere with a butter knife."

It should surprise no one, then, that Portnoy has big, unconventional plans for Barstool's place in a new age of media. They're doing all the normal things to be legit — they're launching an app this week and with Nardini's help the boys actually got verified on Twitter — but they still do the things they've always done, they just do it all on camera in the office.

On game day, for example, you can watch the boys watch the games through their Facebook Live feed.

Sometimes, if you're very lucky, you'll see a freak out like this:

Here's Zonker's letter in full:

*Some betting advice from Big Cat that he imparted to Hank: "The only way to get out of a hole, Hank, is more overs."

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On Thursday, Paisley Park — Prince's famed and highly secretive studio complex — will open to the public for the first time since the pop star's death in April.

Located in Chanhassen, Minnesota, the $10 million estate is slated to become a museum that will run tours for an expected 2,000 visitors a day. 

The museum was expected to open on October 6, but three days earlier, the City Council voted to postpone a decision about the rezoning proposal connected to the museum. As The New York Times notes, the Council said they need more time to consider the plan because of concerns about traffic, parking, and public safety.

The vote means Paisley Park will only be allowed to open for three days — October 6, 8, and 14 — even though 10 days' worth of tickets have already been sold. Those who bought tickets for the other seven days are now being offered refunds, but many also bought flights to Minneapolis and reserved hotel rooms.

The estate was closed to the public while Prince was alive, except for occasional shows or parties he threw there. The complex is also thought to contain unreleased recordings.

Keep scrolling for a glimpse into where Prince made magic happen.

SEE ALSO: Here's the moment that made Prince a superstar

Completed in 1987, Paisley Park was designed by Los Angeles architect Bret Theony. Pyramid-shaped skylights on the roof would light up purple when Prince was home.

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 Source: Billboard

When you walk in, you're greeted by Prince's Love Symbol No. 2 glyph on the floor.

Paisley Park served as Prince's recording lair. Though he made music in locations all over the world, the 55,000-square-foot estate was considered his home base.

The NFL’s ratings this year are in the gutter.

Every single one of the NFL’s primetime offerings (Sunday, Monday, and Thursday Night Football) is down double-digits, according to Sports Illustrated. That is not good news for the NFL’s TV partners.

But one of them, CBS, isn’t worried, according to Pacific Crest analysts Andy Hargreaves and Evan Wingren. The analysts wrote in a note that CBS’ management was “largely unconcerned” about the year-over-year declines in NFL ratings.

CBS cited three reasons, according to Pacific Crest:

• Small sample sizes (there haven’t been enough games yet)
• Injuries
• Unfavorable matchups (for instance, NBC's last “Sunday Night Football” had a Steelers-Chiefs matchup that was down 26% from last year, but last year's game was Saints-Cowboys, and the Cowboys are the NFL’s biggest TV draw)

But there’s another reason that CBS didn’t even touch on: the elections. In an interview with Sports Business Daily, Mike Mulvihill, a senior VP at Fox Sports, said the current season reminded him of fall of 2000, a year which included the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush. 2000 was the only year during the decade 2000-2010 where the NFL saw a downtick overall, Sports Illustrated notes.

Must-see TV

That doesn’t mean, however, that the NFL couldn’t face the same struggles as some of its "live sports” peers, and live events in general.

NBC had a disastrous TV showing at the Olympics, which saw a sharp viewership dip for the first time since 2000. NBC's Olympics primetime broadcast was down 15% versus 2012. The damage was even greater among younger people. Among 18- to 49-year-olds, there was a 25% drop for the bulk of the games, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. 

Online viewership for the Olympics did go up. About 24% more people have streamed the Rio Olympics through NBC's app and website than streamed the London Games over the same period. But 98% of people still watch the Olympics on TV, the medium that has seen its audience plummet.

The question for the NFL is whether its current struggles are a blip, caused by unfavorable matches, random chance, or even the election, or whether it will be hurt by a secular downward trend in “must-see TV.”

SEE ALSO: These are the TV channels getting crushed by people ditching their expensive cable packages

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In the new film "Patriots Day" based on the true events of the Boston Marathon bombing, Mark Wahlberg will play a Boston police sergeant who aids in the search of the bombers after the attack. The story will include the characters of Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon), Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons) and nurse Carol Saunders (Michelle Monaghan).

The film will release nationwide on Jan. 13, 2017.

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While viewers the world over have fallen in love with Netflix's original sci-fi series "Stranger Things," there's some comfort in the fact that the eerie story is fiction. But what if one of the scariest aspects of the show were real?

On Wednesday's episode of "Chelsea," host Chelsea Handler had United States Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on to discuss the very real threat of climate change. But the host also had something else she wanted to ask the high-ranking government official about the streaming giant's hit.

"On ['Stranger Things'], they have a department of energy and they spend a lot of time investigating a parallel universe. What can you tell us about that?" Handler asked, referring to the Upside Down that some of the characters occupy in "Stranger Things."

"I can tell you first of all that I have never seen it, but I'm aware of it," Moniz said. "Secondly, I believe this fictional D.O.E. laboratory was operating in the 1980s. You can draw any inference you need from that. Third, I will note that actually we do work in parallel universes."

Now we weren't expecting him to confirm that. But Moniz went into a little more detail about how the real US Department of Energy oversees such efforts.

“We are also a big supporter of very basic science and that includes trying to understand the basic particles of nature and the structure of the universe,” he said. “Theoretical physics ... looks at things like higher dimensions than three dimensions, and parallel universes.”

As we previously learned from a theoretical physicist, it looks like the science in "Stranger Things" isn't such a crazy work of fiction after all.

Watch the "Chelsea" interview below:

SEE ALSO: Chelsea Handler explains why she left E! and how her Netflix show is 'a different level'

DON'T MISS: Here's what the young breakout stars of Netflix's 'Stranger Things' look like in real life

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NOW WATCH: How to find Netflix’s secret categories

PlayStation VR (PSVR) is finally available for around $399, which is drastically cheaper than the Oculus Rift or HTC VIVE. And while PSVR is having some minor issues out of the gate, it is by far the easiest and most accessible way to get into virtual reality. So, we grabbed a bunch of people who have never tried PSVR before in order to get their first impressions.

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Natalie Portman has been under the radar recently as she's taken on motherhood and directing her first feature film, but the actress has proven once more that she should be in the conversation of top actresses working today with her performance in "Jackie." 

The explosive portrayal of a grieving Jackie Kennedy following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in has been receiving rave reviews since "Jackie" premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The film then found itself in an intense bidding war after it played at the Toronto International Film Festival (Fox Searchlight came out as the winning distributor). 

Portman could find herself with an Oscar nomination for the role (she won the best actress Oscar in 2011 for "Black Swan"). 

Here's the first trailer for "Jackie," which displays Portman's powerful performance alongside the movie's haunting score.

Fox Searchlight will release the film in select theaters starting December 2.

Watch the "Jackie" trailer below:

SEE ALSO: How Natalie Portman prepared for her Oscar-worthy performance as Jackie Kennedy

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