nj.com • December 18 2025

This N.J. wrestler declared ‘I’m gay!’ on national TV. He changed pro wrestling forever.

Pink confetti and streamers showered the wrestling ring from high above inside Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens. Nearly 14,000 fans rose to their feet and screamed at the top of their lungs during the dynamic 2022 iteration of AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam. Anthony Bowens, short of breath and coated with sweat, hung his fatigued body on the ring ropes and managed a relieved smile as he gripped the gold-plated championship belt. The former college baseball player turned professional wrestler had climbed...

nj.com • November 19 2025

He was the architect of an N.J. Pop Warner dynasty. Now he’s reshaping high school football.

It was one of the biggest wins of Nasir Gaines’ coaching career, taking down an undefeated opponent in one of the most highly anticipated matchups of the 2025 season.But it wasn’t without difficulty. After Newark’s Malcolm X Shabazz High won a hard-fought game against previously unbeaten Kinnelon 28-14 last month, Gaines gathered his Shabazz players in the end zone.“Stop being okay with being average,” he shouted, still fuming over an interception that stopped a touchdown drive late in the first...

nj.com • November 15 2025

N.J. sports are expanding rules to limit blowouts. Not everyone is cheering.

The final score left many New Jersey sports fans perplexed. The Cresskill High girls soccer team 12, Pompton Lakes 0.The outcome of the late September game marked one of the biggest high school soccer blowouts in recent memory. Days later, Cresskill coach Adam Khriss was suspended from coaching for one game, and league officials sent a memo emphasizing “sportsmanship” and the responsibility of coaches “to model good behavior and demonstrate integrity with your team.”The blowout also reignited de...

Multipotentiality • October 15 2025

'Tron: Ares' Doesn't Know Whether To Denounce AI or Crown It As A Savior

Go on any of the various social media platforms and send out a random public message that you are not a fan of the current AI modern society incursion. There's a pretty high chance that you will be bombarded with replies ranging from “get with the times” to “AI is inevitable, so we'd better learn to live with it.” “Tron: Ares,” the second legacy sequel to the 1982 original, makes these points at two distinct junctures. It coincides with a rash of recent sci-fi films that are either trying to rat...

nj.com • October 7 2025

It was the most violent day ever on N.J. sports fields. Are we doing anything about it?

A violent brawl between high school football teams that spilled off the field and into streets surrounding the stadium.A post-game melee in the handshake line that led to a high school soccer star charging after a news photographer and grabbing him by the throat.An argument among parents at a youth football game over a cowbell — yes, a cowbell — that turned physical and led to police being called.The spate of ugly incidents exploded in rapid succession across New Jersey sports fields on a single...

Multipotentiality • October 2 2025

'Good Boy' Will Make You Want To Give Your Pup An Extra Treat

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir, but pets are great to have. Not only from the standpoints of love, companionship, and affection, but they also serve as protectors from things that escape the naked eye. How many times have you watched a horror film and wished a particular character didn’t walk down a dark hallway? If they had a dog, they would have warned them in advance. Ben Leonberg’s “Good Boy” takes the anxiousness we feel when going through a haunted house and amplifies it by placing an...

Substream Magazine • October 2 2025

'California Schemin' Provides Just Enough Sincerity To Elevate This Underdog Hip-Hop Story - Substream Magazine

Who here has heard the story of rap duo Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain, otherwise known as Silibil N’ Brains? It’s not quite on the level of Milli Vanilli, which included a Best New Artist Grammy giveth, then taken away. Everything was real, from their passion and Rhymesayers-like cadence. Well, except for a couple of things. The duo from Scotland was able to capitalize on a faux Californian identity and secure a record deal. In an early 2000s landscape where every label was looking for the next Emin...

Multipotentiality • October 1 2025

"If I Had Legs I’d Kick You" Is A Gut-Punch of a Drama With A Career Best Performance From Rose Byrne

In the opening scene of writer/director Mary Bronstein’s exquisitely executed second feature, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Linda (Rose Byrne) sits in a family doctor’s office as her daughter (Delaney Quinn) says she’s “stretchable.” Before she goes into her sadness, Linda tears up and changes the subject - instead electing to focus on how to cure her daughter’s illness (if there’s any cure at all). A voiceover from Linda proclaims in the next scene that “time is a series of things to get throug...

Substream Magazine • October 1 2025

'The Smashing Machine' Pulls Back When It Should Have Landed A Knockout Blow - Substream Magazine

Benny Safdie knows exactly the cadence you’re expecting when walking into a sports biopic. To his credit, he at least tries to disrupt the formula and compose something fresh in “The Smashing Machine,” based on the life of former mixed martial arts titan Mark Kerr. Even with the unconventional storytelling method and the quadrants it looks to place its hallmarks in, there are still benchmarks you’d recognize. There’s the rise of the superstar and soon after, the dizzying fall. After the taste of...

nj.com • September 28 2025

Skateboarding is saving this N.J. city’s soul, one kick flip at a time

Twenty years ago, Jason Klotz was a local skateboarder, doing kick flips and ollies with friends at his favorite skating spot, near the Atlantic City High School complex.Now, as the founder of Skate AC — a non-profit organization dedicated to building an inclusive skating community in South Jersey and the Jersey Shore — Klotz has spearheaded the opening of Uptown Atlantic City Skatepark, a new park built in the same place where local police used to chase him and his friends away. Opened in Augus...

Substream Magazine • September 18 2025

'Him' Loses It's Way Around It's Own Imagery Stuffed Playbook - Substream Magazine

Long before the Roy family battled and schemed for control of Waystar RoyCo on Sunday nights, succession has been a consistent occurrence in sports. More specifically, with the quarterback position in football. The tension between Joe Montana and Steve Young’s San Francisco 49ers in the 1990s and Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers’ stop-and-start fiasco with the Green Bay Packers in the mid-2000s are examples of the tension between old and new. Careers don’t last forever, but the intoxication of powe...

Substream Magazine • September 18 2025

'Charlie Harper's' Non-Linear Approach Clouds A Love Story We've Seen Before - Substream Magazine

While told in a non-linear fashion, the passionate and troubled love story within “Charlie Harper” is one that fans of romantic dramas would be familiar with. It’s one of two people who have different struggles and thoughts on what they want out of life, but manage to fall for each other despite those differences. The film’s entry point shows Charlie (Nick Robinson) seeing Harper (Emilia Jones), presumably years after an intense breakup. Early on, Harper recounts knowing the beginning and end of...

Substream Magazine • September 16 2025

'The Long Walk' Runs Comradery Up Against A Dark Competition

A palpable and perpetual state of societal bleakness resides within the first stories of Stephen King’s extensive writing career. Amidst the classics of “Carrie” (1974), “Salem’s Lot” (1975), and “The Shining” (1977) (a hell of a beginning three-peat if I do say so), there were the tales written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Rather than chronicle the psychological effects of a family of three coming apart while caring for a haunted mansion, some of the “Bachman” novels spoke to societal d...

Substream Magazine • September 16 2025

'Eleanor The Great's Moral Quandary Intrudes Upon It's Overall Lesson - Substream Magazine

We indeed have to keep the stories of the past alive to learn from them truly. But what happens if that same story is a little too complex and much too heavy for us to tell alone after someone is gone? Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, “Eleanor The Great,” strives to make an earnest bridge between a sweet generational comedy while tackling a heavy subject. While the film means well in its exploration of the importance of history, the premise proves to be a bit too weighty for the great per...

nj.com • September 15 2025

At Sea Hear Now, Blink-182 unloads pop-punk mayhem, gets goofy with massive N.J. crowd

READ MORE: Hozier shouts soul, love, and an urgent call to actionThirty-three years later, Blink-182’s brand of juvenile humor, catchy songs and onstage banter is still headliner material. To this day, the California pop-punk titans’ list of hits make you question your own likability after the age of 23 and have you unexpectedly finding yourself mimicking singer/guitarist Tom Delonge’s elongated “where are youuu” from “I Miss You” (2003). If Hozier’s Sea Hear Now headlining set Saturday night ex...

Substream Magazine • September 15 2025

'Exit 8' Mixes The Right Amount of Gamer Homage and Originality

If there’s a central issue in translating modern-day video games to the big screen, it’s that the medium has already transcended into full-fledged productions in its own right. As series such as “Resident Evil” and “The Last of Us” have shown, you can build out different characters nestled in lore and plot that make one feel as if they are playing a living, breathing film. Horror game adaptations face an additional degree of difficulty because there’s a difference between attachments to protagon...

nj.com • September 14 2025

Sea Hear Now 2025 Review: Hozier shouts soul, love, and an urgent call to action

The seventh annual Sea Hear Now in Asbury Park may as well have started on a Sunday. Irish singer-songwriter Hozier transformed the Surf stage into a pulpit, powerfully vocalizing his catalogue of songs, which chronicle injustice and love for 80 minutes. Thousands of fans intently watched, swayed, and acknowledged every one of the Grammy-award-nominated singer’s call to action. Their feet weren’t gracing an antique church floor, but rather nestled deeply into the soft sand with a slight chill fr...

nj.com • August 28 2025

System of a Down at MetLife Stadium: Power, chaos and massive N.J. return after 13 years

If a band is going to continue touring, despite having released their last album 20 years ago, they better have made a lasting impression. “Hypnotize” and “Mezmerize” were System of A Down’s double album magnum opus (and almost their swan song). It made them the fourth artist ever to have two studio albums debut at No. 1 in the same year in 2005, and pushed their already immensely creative brand of heavy metal to the maximum. It also nearly destroyed them due to creative tensions and the hiatus...

Substream Magazine • August 12 2025

'Weapons' Presents It's Purpose Early. That's Why The Mystery Works - Substream Magazine

When I was a kid, I was an avid watcher of the series Unsolved Mysteries (which has since found new life on Netflix). The late Robert Stack narrating a series of cold cases, ranging from abductions, UFOs, and conspiracy theories, all set against a backdrop of thick fog, sporting a trenchcoat. It’s amazing how the combination of the frightening and unexplainable serves as a form of mental catnip for human curiosity. Much remains to be said about the economy of grief and the rabbit holes of possib...

Substream Magazine • August 5 2025

Lollapalooza 2025: In Portraits - Substream Magazine

During the 2018 and 2019 editions of Lollapalooza, Substream Magazine conducted our first portrait sessions with a diverse range of artists throughout the four-day festival. Seven years later, we returned with a 2025 edition of backstage portraits. 
This year, we were able to catch up with artists such as Ocean Alley, Two Friends, Winnetka Bowling League, Star Bandz, Joey Valence & Brae, Wild Rivers, and Cassandra Coleman. Check the pictures out below.

During the 2018 and 2019 editions of Lolla...

Substream Magazine • July 17 2025

One Person's Journey of Buying 'The Odyssey' Tickets

Going on Fandango at midnight Eastern time to attempt to buy tickets to “The Odyssey,” the forthcoming epic from super director Christopher Nolan, I realized how insane it was. Not only is this film due to be released in a year, but it’s not even finished yet. But it’s Christopher Nolan, one of the best bets when it comes to creative auteurs as they come. So, why not indulge in Universal Pictures’ ingenious marketing strategy and see if I can grab a ticket?
Wait, does this feel like a concert t...

nj.com • July 17 2025

How a small N.J. theater company is elevating the next great playwrights of color

For a successful play to come together, it often takes a village.But on a small stage in Newark, Reynaldo Piniella managed to evoke thoughtfulness, emotion, and a love for history all by himself. “No History,” written and performed by the two-time Broadway actor, detailed the comprehensive history of historian Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, his lifelong quest to preserve African history, his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance, and his struggles with his Afro-Puerto Rican heritage. For an hour at t...

Substream Magazine • July 16 2025

'I Know What You Did Last Summer' Fights To Be Remembered

How does a slasher film build upon its legacy if it’s attached to a more iconic sibling franchise? The 1997 original, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” was written by Kevin Williamson, who also penned 1996’s “Scream.” While the film is somewhat based on the 1973 novel of the same name written by Lois Duncan, the similarities between IKWYDLS with a mysterious antagonist with an identifiable weapon and method of communication, a cast full of up-and-coming young stars, and, lest we forget, a notab...

Substream Magazine • July 15 2025

'Brick' Miscalculates Where It's Strengths Actually Are - Substream Magazine

The pastiche of the enclosed German sci-fi thriller “Brick” would work best as a tight, 30-minute episode of an anthology series. Just imagine waking up one day to find that a large set of magnetized metal bricks had taken over all the exit points of your apartment.  No cell service, no internet, and no way out. That’s a well-stocked amount of nightmare fuel. While writer/director Philip Koch puts forth an intriguing premise with a creative use of set design. However, the overall story mechanics...