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After a long day of school and work, it’s time to settle in with the whole family and enjoy a marvelous movie night at home. But what to watch? With so many options on streaming, picking something that appeals to everyone’s tastes can be as tricky as ordering pizza for all. Don’t fret. Whether you’re hungry for wacky musicals, outrageous adventures, whimsical fantasy, sweet nostalgia, or fresh fun, we’ve got you covered. Bonus: all of them pair great with popcorn!

Here are the best family movies now available on HBO Max:

1. All Dogs Go To Heaven

Don Bluth is the visionary director behind such beloved animated adventures as Anastasia, The Secret of NIMH, and An American Tail. Yet the most fun of his filmography may be this 1989 adventure, which centers on a stray dog who hustles the heavens but finds his soul. Burt Reynolds leant his bravado and voice to Charlie B. Barkin, a rascally mutt who flees the afterlife to seek revenge against the rival who sent him there. Despite this dark premise, All Dogs Go to Heaven has a sugary sweetness, born from Charlie’s soft spot for an orphan girl in need. With the help of his whimpering sidekick (Dom DeLuise), this bad dog sets out to do good. Along the way, they’ll run into kooky characters, wild situations, and some wickedly catchy song numbers.

How to watch: All Dogs Go to Heaven is streaming on HBO Max.

2. Spies in Disguise

The premise of this 2019 movie is so bird-brained that it’s sort of shocking it was even made. But the result is of Troy Quane and Nick Bruno’s high-concept comedy soars into splendid silliness. Will Smith and Tom Holland star as an unlikely team of heroes. Lance Sterling (voiced by Smith) is an ultra-suave super spy, who never makes a misstep on a mission. That is until he crosses paths with socially awkward inventor Walter Beckett (Holland), who has concocted a potion that can turn a human into a pigeon. One mistaken swig, and—poof! Sterling is a bird. No only must he fight the forces of evil, but also, he has to survive an outrageous fish-out-of-water premise. And his only help is a goofy kid-genius and a fowl but fiercely loyal band of birds! Action-packed and deeply wacky, Spies in Disguise is sure please kiddos, while parents can additionally enjoy some spunky spoofing of espionage movies.

How to watch: Spies In Disguise is streaming on HBO Max.

3. Follow That Bird

HBO Max is the home of 50+ seasons of Sesame Street from which you can choose. But don’t overlook Ken Kwapis’s wonderful 1985 feature film, which spills these memorable Muppets across America in a rollicking road trip. The trouble begins when Big Bird (Caroll Spinney) is sent to live with a feathered family far away from his friends. Realizing home is where your heart is, he begins to hitchhike back to Sesame Street. Meanwhile worried friends (Cookie Monster, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Burt, and Ernie) set out to find him. Along the way, they’ll be a slew of misadventures, song numbers, and celebrity cameos, including Waylon Jennings, Chevy Chase, Sandra Bernhard, and John Candy. Human or Muppet, they all revel in this magical world dreamed up by Jim Henson.

How to watch: Follow That Bird is streaming on HBO Max.

4. The Lego Batman Movie

Want a superhero movie that won’t give the little ones nightmares? Scroll past the live-action Batman movies (there’s plenty of time for those later), and press play on this toy-centric treat. A whiz-bang spinoff of The Lego Movie, this animated adventure follows a snarling—yet silly–Batman as he battles a barrage of baddies with a little help from his friends. Far from the why-so-seriousness of the other Gotham films, this 2017 cartoon celebrates the wackier aspects of Batman lore, from ludicrous costumes to the Z-listers of his Rogues Gallery. (Looking at you Condiment King!) Director Chris McKay masterfully stacks this brightly colored romp with exciting action, loony laughs, fan-favorite foes (from the DC universe, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and far beyond), and a flurry of familiar voices, including Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, and Michael Cera as a very plucky boy wonder. Bursting with energy, whimsy, and wit, it is little wonder critics were wowed by this charismatic crowd pleaser.

How to watch: The Lego Batman Movie is streaming on HBO Max.

5. Happy Feet

Want a toe-tapping good time? Then, check out this cool cartoon about a band of penguins, who love to sing and dance. Elijah Wood lends his voice to Mumbles, an emperor penguin who feels left out because he’s not much of a singer, like the rest of his raft. Instead, he prefers to shake a tail feather. Rhis winsome fable about learning to love yourself is directed by George Miller. Along with sweeping musical numbers, he brings together a star-studded cast that boasts Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Steve Irwin, and many more. Together, they lend their voices to cuddly critters who burst into a panoply of popular songs, like “Somebody to Love,” “Kiss,” and “Heartbreak Hotel.” A beak-to-toe delight, it’s only natural Happy Feet won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2007.

How to watch: Happy Feet is streaming on HBO Max.

6. A Little Princess

In uncertain times, a good story can sustain us. This is the lesson learned by Sara Crewe (Liesel Matthews), an imaginative young aristocrat whose doting father places her in a boarding school before joining the fight in World War I. Sarah’s battle will be against the strict headmistress, a snooty classmate, and cruel twists of fate that threaten to rip her away from her father forever. Yet in this darkness, she finds the light by sharing stories of heroism and love, making friends, and illustrating how every girl might be a little princess. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s turn-of-the-century children’s novel is brought to glorious life by acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón. Upon the film’s 1995 release, critics loved the richly realized world of fantasy and friendship that Cuarón constructed through vivid color, lush production design, and a keen eye for casting.

How to watch: A Little Princess is streaming on HBO Max.

7. Ponyo

HBO Max boasts a whole hub dedicated to Studio Ghibli productions. So, subscribers have their pick of Hayao Miyazaki gems, including My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle. The best for a fun family night in; however, is this 2008 treasure about a magical goldfish who yearns to become a real girl. It all begins when a kind-hearted boy rescues the little fish, sparking a friendship that will enrage her sorcerer father and shake up land and sea alike. In this critically acclaimed cartoon, Miyazaki’s artistry is on rapturous display whether he is animating crashing waves, frolicking children, or homemade ramen. Kids will feel seen in the free-spirited young heroes, while parents will revel in the fantasy and heartfelt storytelling. Best of all, viewers can choose between the original Japanese language track or the English overdub, which features voice performances from Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, and Liam Neeson.

How to watch: Ponyo is streaming on HBO Max.

8. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure

If you’re searching for something off the beaten path of family fun, check out Tim Burton’s lively feature directorial debut. The weird but enchanting worlds he’d come to create in films like Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Batman Returns got their start in this bombastic road trip movie about a boy in search of his stolen bicycle. Cheeky comedian Paul Rubens stars as Pee-wee Herman, a live-wire (loner and rebel) whose determination to reclaim his beloved bike takes him on a jubilant journey across the nation. At every pit stop, he finds friends, trouble, or both! With this giddily odd movie, grown-ups can revel in the nostalgia of the madcap humor of the “Tequilla” dance and the frightful thrill of Large Marge. Kids can freshly enjoy Pee-wee’s wackiness and marvel over what a PG-movie looked like in 1985.

How to watch: Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is streaming on HBO Max.

9. Early Man

The Stone Age and Bronze Age collide with silliness and soccer in this 2018 comedy. Caveman Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne) must defend his tribe from invading tyrant Lord Nooth, who is armed and armored to the teeth! Rather than going to battle, they go to the soccer pitch in a winner-takes-all match full of shenanigans. Directed by Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park, Early Man delivers his signature British humor and charming stop-motion animation, creating slapstick and laughs out of clay and a top-notch cast. Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes, Richard Ayoade and What We Do In The Shadows’ Kayvan Novak lend their voices, bringing plenty of spirit to these gleefully goofy characters. If you’re family has giggled over Aardman animation offerings like Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, or Flushed Away, then you’ll cheer for this unconventional sports movie.

How to watch: Early Man is streaming on HBO Max.

10. The Wizard of Oz

Relish in the wonderful world of Oz with this 1939 classic. Adapted from L. Frank Baum’s fantasy novel, The Wizard of Oz follows Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), a brave farm girl who is magically whisked away to a far-off realm of flying monkeys, deadly poppies, and a cascade of curious characters. On her quest to get back home, she—and her little dog too–befriend a daffy scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a cowardly lion (Bert Lahr), and a tin man in want of a heart (Jack Haley). Together, they must face off against the fearsome Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) and meet the mysterious wizard. With radiant colors, imaginative production design, and a panoply of jaunty songs, director Victor Fleming ushered audiences along the yellow brick road on an adventure that’s been treasured for generations.

How to watch: The Wizard of Oz is streaming on HBO Max.

Having seen Candyman (2021) only once, I remember it in pieces. Like Bernard Rose’s 1992 film of the same name, Nia DaCosta’s story of a couple living in Chicago’s gentrified Cabrini-Greene plays like a waking nightmare — a pulsing bloom of terror that’s putrid yet intoxicating.

A waking nightmare — a pulsing bloom of terror that’s putrid yet intoxicating.

To fully appreciate what the filmmaker achieves with her part-reboot part-sequel triumph, which not only resurrects the urban legend of the original but retroactively imbues it with new meaning, would take multiple viewings. That’s good or bad, depending on your personal patience for nonliteral horror and faith in others’ commitment to unpacking Candyman’s complex themes of racial injustice and Black artistry.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris lead the film as Anthony and his girlfriend Brianna. An artist and an art gallery director, the vibrant pair begin the film as an effervescent symbol of young, Black success but soon transform into vessels for a chilling tale of multi-generational horror.

We learn the couples’ upscale apartment, decorated eerily like the studio of white protagonist Helen Lyle from the first film, exists on the lacquered wreckage of the projects. Though Anthony and Brianna’s happiness seems to float above that haunting reality, the pernicious specter of racist marginalization and oppression looms.

When Brianna’s younger brother Troy, played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, visits the pair’s home and playfully asks, “Do you guys want to hear a scary story?” Brianna smartly says no. “Too bad,” Troy spits back, before opening the metaphoric gate for the Candyman’s violent shadow to return.

The inevitability of his arrival — this demonic man surrounded by bees with a hook for a hand and a heartbreaking identity tangled up in those gruesome details — propels the blisteringly short fright fest that follows. Said into a reflection, the words “Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman…” are believed to summon him. The question of why someone would knowingly invite the Candyman to kill emerges as an intriguing undercurrent to the bigger mystery of who he is and what he represents.

The frantic symbolism of Candyman, which encompasses themes ranging from police brutality to systemic disenfranchisement, isn’t subtle. In fact, it’s so literal Brianna remarks of Anthony’s first artistic musings on Candyman that they take “a pretty literal approach.”

But it’s as Candyman beats you over the head with its timeless allegories of racism that you’ll start to see its kaleidoscopic effects. It strobes through the rage, confusion, and anguish that inevitably comes from meditating on something as searingly painful as racist antagonism with a vicious exactness. It lands a collection of prescient ideas with even one viewing, but above all captures a helplessness that seems to question what use making a movie — even an excellent movie — about these ever-present evils has in the contemporary world.

It strobes through rage, confusion, and anguish.

To be sure, Candyman is not perfect. With its lightning-quick runtime, this layered exploration can seem overstuffed by its ambition. A terrific performance by Abdul-Mateen becomes overshadowed by endless sequences building on an already well-established ambiance (you’ll see the same misty skyscraper from about a dozen different angles) even as his character’s story continues off screen.

Conversely, Parris’ nuanced approach to a complex character — Black women, it must be said, exist in an acutely underserved part of the Candyman legacy — has her development truncated by a clumsy conclusion that’s more hokey, sci-fi spin than blunt indictment. What’s more, a number of plot danglers, including a confusing storyline about Brianna’s father told exclusively via flashback, leave tattered edges around what is an otherwise tight and clever expansion on a much-discussed chapter of horror history.

But again, I’ve only seen the film once. DaCosta’s vision of Candyman is a thoughtful progression of the character built by Tony Todd in 1992, that through a honeycomb of introspection and social criticism oozes style and emotional impact. Poking through its sticky caverns won’t be an exploration audiences complete in a single viewing, or even through a weekend of discourse. Like the original, this will be a story we revisit time and again.

Candyman is now in theaters.

Netflix has blessed us with some truly great television shows like Stranger Things, The Queen’s Gambit, and The Crown. It’s also cursed us with chronic indecision, leaving us scrolling down the Netflix main page for hours just trying to pick something to watch. The overwhelming amount of shows and movies can be chalked up to Netflix’s dual gifts of acquiring great shows to stream and producing tons of original content, but if there’s always something new on Netflix, how are we supposed to choose?

Generally speaking, a good strategy is to only watch the good Netflix shows, but finding out which ones are good take time. Let us carry some of that burden and list the best Netflix original series released in the past 6 months.

1. Shadow and Bone

Shadow and Bone is the rare book-to-TV adaptation that took full advantage of the time between publishing and premiere and used it to improve the source materials in multiple directions. Leigh Bardugo’s original novel was a smash hit, but Shadow and Bone the series makes the cast more diverse, adds a subplot starring characters from the companion series Six of Crows, and brings forth some of the book’s messed-up romantic politics in a thoughtful and entertaining way. Casting Ben Barnes as the Darkling, long thought to be the ultimate fancast, is only the very, very good-looking cherry on top of a series that takes the thematic responsibilities of YA fantasy seriously while being a dang entertaining show. —Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter (*)

How to Watch: Shadow and Bone is now streaming on Netflix.

2. Yasuke

LeSean Thomas’ miniseries follows the life and legend of its title character, a Black samurai who served daimyō Oda Nobunaga. Years after Nobunaga’s death, Yasuke lives as Yassan, a boatsman who shuttles villagers along the water and speaks little of his past. But a young girl with awesome power undoes Yassan’s quiet life and alias, thrusting him back into a world of warriors, magic and more. The show blends together sci-fi, fantasy, and history as only anime can, with LaKeith Stanfield at the mic bringing Yasuke sublimely to life. —Proma Khosla, Entertainment Reporter (*)

How to Watch: Yasuke is now streaming on Netflix.

3. Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth was a surprisingly fantastical addition to the Netflix lineup this year and its big bet on childlike wonder paid off in spades. Even though its setting takes place after a deadly virus has decimated the human population and caused the collapse of civilization (yikes), Sweet Tooth is more of fairy tale told from the perspective of one of the other side effects of the apocalypse — a human-deer hybrid named Gus whose father sheltered him from the worst of the world until shelter became untenable. Gus’s journey through the world he barely knew existed is a beautiful coming-of-age story with a talented supporting cast and a flawless cute-to-concerning ratio. —A.N. (*)

How to Watch: Sweet Tooth is now streaming on Netflix.

4. High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America

A laundry list of successful titles proves Netflix knows how to make a good cooking show. But High on the Hog is really more than that. In this stunning four-part docuseries, food journalist Stephen Satterfield follows the journey of African cuisine across West Africa and the United States. It’s a celebration of culture and cultural preservation that not only inspires, but urges viewers to appreciate the complex origins of food and family tradition as part of our global history. —Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter (*)

How to Watch: High on the Hog is now streaming on Netflix.

5. Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Masters of the Universe: Revelation is nostalgia first and foremost, but it’s also far more than that. Kevin Smith’s sequel to the classic ’80s cartoon series (which owes its existence to a line of toys) is peddling the idea that even the childhood things we remember most fondly can live on in new and updated forms. They can change as the world changes. Just as it is in He-Man’s Eternia: The magic may be fading, as it is in this new story, but fresh faces and new ideas are always waiting in the wings to save it. —Adam Rosenberg, Senior Reporter

How to Watch: Masters of the Universe: Revelation is now streaming on Netflix.

6. Love is Blind: After the Altar

We’re still eagerly waiting for Love Is Blind Season 2 to send a new batch of sexy singles into Netflix’s infamous dating “pods.” Thankfully, while we wait, we have Love Is Blind: After the Altar — a juicy, three-episode reality event that follows up with the contestants who appeared on the series two years ago. Nearly every member of the Season 1 cast returns, with major life developments and personal news to share. See who managed to make it and who, well, didn’t. (Plus, a highly dramatic crossover event with a cast member from Too Hot To Handle sets off an all-time great reality TV storyline with Giannina Gibelli and Damian Powers…) -A.F.

How to Watch: Love is Blind: After the Altar is now streaming on Netflix.

7. The Chair

The Chair isn’t without its flaws, but you do get a lot for a little with this smart dramedy from creators Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman. Set on the campus of the fictional Pembroke University, Season 1 of The Chair follows English department head Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) as she grapples with a scandal involving her fellow professor and love interest (Jay Duplass). Choppy pacing and some muddled messaging around cancel culture make this an imperfect, yet worthy binge, clocking in at six episodes in just three hours. —A.F.

How to Watch: The Chair is now streaming on Netflix.

Asterisks (*) indicate this entry previously appeared in another Mashable streaming list.

Pretend flat-Earther and aspiring intellectual Logan Paul says he just spent $155,000 on two NFTs tied to pixelated images of rocks. The non-fungible tokens, part of the We Like The Rocks project, represent two of 100 unique pixelated images of rocks which are (as of the time of this writing) listed for sale for anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.

And while a big sale to an internet celeb might outwardly seem like a good sign for NFT stones, all is not well in Rockville. That’s because there are actually two distinct NFT rock projects, both dating back years, which are simultaneously vying for the internet’s attention.

“The first rock NFT on Ethereum @weliketherocks; actually came before the Ether rock,” wrote Paul on Friday, referencing the competing NFT rock projects. “I know it’s ridiculous but it’s digital history and I think they’re pretty cool”

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The two projects, Ether Rock and We Like The Rocks (the latter of which Paul bought), outwardly appear quite similar. Both are NFTs initially launched in 2017, and both involve 100 unique pixelated images of rocks.

However, with groundbreaking NFT projects like CryptoPunks selling for millions of dollars worth of crypto, whichever project can claim OG status stands to gain a valuable claim to fame — a fact not lost on those behind the competing projects.

“Beware of any other projects claiming to sell rock NFT’s, which may either be scams and/or using buggy exploited contracts (e.g. ‘we like the rocks’ or weliketherocks.com),” cautions Ether Rock.

Meanwhile, We Like The Rocks is dropping meme after meme aimed at tarnishing Ether Rock’s rep.

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So what’s really going on here? One CryptoPunk enthusiast, whose Twitter bio lists them as chief of staff at the company behind Yats, attempted to explain the source of the controversy in a detailed Twitter thread.

“A great debate is happening right now in the world of NFTs,” opened the thread. “Which is the ‘real’ NFT Rock 🪨? Yes, you heard me. A rock 🪨”

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The question, which non-fungible token rock project is the real non-fungible token rock project, reads like a New Age koan — but that hasn’t prevented supporters of each project from hashing it out over Twitter in real time.

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So did Paul get “scammed” into buying a ripoff rock? Or did he score an “original”?

SEE ALSO: Say hello to Yats: Why investors are paying thousands to ‘own’ emoji

The NFT community isn’t 100 percent in agreement, but either way it has a rock bridge to sell you.

Do you like to laugh? Of course you do. Laughing is great, it’s fun.

Hell, it’s wonderful to even just chuckle or snicker. Love a good giggle.

Anyway, we collected the best tweets of the week because it’s Friday and it’s time to laugh my good friends.

OK then, enjoy the 15 best tweets of the week.

1. If you don’t get this one I don’t have the time to explain it to you, I’m very sorry

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2. A good point about the milk crate challenge

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3. Gaze and despair

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4. Remember O.A.R.?

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5. I, too, love that New Sponge Feeling

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6. Especially true if these men ever did an open mic night

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7. Obligatory dril tweet

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8. If I see this movie then this will be all I think about

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9. Built different

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10. Points for being direct and succinct

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11. Literal lol

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12. Wayne Manor’s Horn Honk Depot

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13. Mhm

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14. Can you reach me? No. You can’t.

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15. And finally, this:

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No matter how big or how small your work from home space is, Marie Kondo has a few tips for how to keep things tidy.

Addison Rae, Tanner Buchanan, and the rest of the He’s All That cast chose their ideal squad from a list of the most iconic high school characters of all-time.

Having a cat (or a few) is great. They’re soft, cute, cuddly, and make for amazing internet content. But there’s one thing about owning a cat that universally sucks: scooping and cleaning the cat litter box. This unpleasant and smelly task often takes more time and effort than we want it to. And if you get lazy, even for a moment — say after a long, bad day at the office — your cat thanks you by going outside its litter box. (Great, now you’ve got two stinky messes to clean up — definitely not worth it).

Thankfully, automatic cat litter boxes exist to help take some of the work out of looking after your cat.

How do automatic litter boxes work?

An automatic litter box can detect when your cat has soiled the litter and then takes that opportunity to rake the waste into a separate compartment. You won’t have to individually scoop each clump — you just need to empty out the waste bin regularly. It works similarly to a robot vacuum with a self-emptying base: You don’t have to clean anything each time it runs, but you do have to empty the base when it’s full.

This ensures your cat has a clean litter box every time it needs to relieve itself, which can help the cat actually go in its box instead of on the floor. So, an automatic cat box is a great investment for finicky cats that need a pristine litter box every time they go. (Note that most automatic litter boxes are meant for adult cats, and are not suitable for kittens less than five pounds.)

OK, but do automatic litter boxes actually work?

Yep, they really do. Not only does an automatic litter box do the scooping for you, it also keeps odor at bay. You’ll no longer have cat poop and pee just literally sitting out in the open in your house. It’ll be swept into a sealed chamber to help repress the smell.

Be aware though, a lot of self-cleaning litter boxes are enclosed, which not every cat will like. If your cat doesn’t regularly like a covered box, opt for one that’s open. Automatic litter boxes also make noise while they’re cleaning themselves, which could scare timid cats. There are quieter options out there for cats who get spooked easily.

What are the benefits of using a self-cleaning litter box?

I mean, it’s right there in the name. It’s self-cleaning. AKA, you don’t have to hunch over and tediously scoop kitty litter, which is objectively the worst household chore. And, like we mentioned, the litter box will smell up your home less and a clean box will encourage your cat to actually use it. Plus, it’s more hygienic for both of you because you won’t have dirty paws tracking bacteria and litter all over the house.

So, here are our top picks for the best automatic litter boxes for 2021.

He’s All That is at least the ninth film to adapt Pygmalion for the big screen. But behind the scenes, Addison Rae’s acting debut is more Cinderella than George Bernard Shaw.

“That’s the thing that’s fascinating about Addison,” director Mark Waters, known for aughts hits Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, explained on the phone to Mashable this week. “She just came out of nowhere.”

“This person, who is ‘just a social media star,’ is she going to be able to pull this off?”

Rae, for those unfamiliar, is one of the more quietly ultra-famous people on the planet — having made the leap from total unknown to mega-celebrity in just the last two years. The almost 21-year-old starlet, who helms He’s All That as the well-intentioned but in-over-her-head social media mogul Padgett, fittingly came to Hollywood by way of the internet. She launches her acting career this weekend with Waters’ film on Netflix, which, yes, is a gender-swapped reboot of the popular 1999 rom-com She’s All That.

“That was the big question mark,” Waters explains of his decision to direct the project, which Rae was already tied to before he signed on. (It’s penned by original screenwriter R. Lee Fleming Jr.) “This person, who is ‘just a social media star,’ is she going to be able to pull this off?”

Rae has pulled off bigger feats before, to be sure. In July 2019, as a soon-to-be freshman at Louisiana State University, she began posting videos of popular dance trends to TikTok. By that fall, Rae’s clips were appearing on “For You” pages the world over, and she had relocated to Los Angeles. There, the rising star began collaborating with members of the then-emerging Hype House, a “content creator collective” still boasting some of the biggest names in influencing.

Today, Rae has nearly 83 million followers on TikTok, with another 38 million on Instagram and close to 5 million on Twitter. She’s the highest-paid TikTok creator according to Forbes, with plenty going for her off the platform too. She has countless corporate sponsorships, including serving as the main spokeswoman for American Eagle; a flourishing friendship with the Kardashian-Jenner family, having appeared on Keeping Up with the Kardashians in its final season; a dance-pop single complete with an elaborately choreographed music video; and finally, this feature-length movie on Netflix opposite co-star Tanner Buchanan, known for his role on Cobra Kai.

“The very first thing I did was go to the app store, download TikTok, and start following Addison Rae.”

What makes Rae a lightning-rod for public attention has been tough for people to pin down — though talent agents, marketing experts, and aspiring performers everywhere are trying. She’s the first person to successfully turn TikTok fame into a major acting role, and replicating that fairytale for the internet age has become an enduring quest for those in the business of making celebrities.

For Waters, it took confirming Rae’s star potential in-person to convince him she could carry a movie.

“The very first thing I did was go to the app store, download TikTok, and start following Addison Rae,” Waters says — likening his experience of exploring the Gen Z-dominated platform in his fifties to watching a movie in a foreign language. He says his daughters, ages 15 and 19, helped him understand Rae’s TikTok persona. “But it wasn’t until I finally met with her, that I was like, ‘Oh. OK. So she’s incredibly charming.’”

Charm is well and good, but authenticity and believability were at the forefront of Waters’ concerns when directing Rae’s performance. He’s All That’s success, Waters says, hinged not only on the multi-hyphenate talent’s likability translating to film, but also on Rae’s ability to let her larger-than-life personality bow to a fictional character.

“It’s definitely always a different feeling, working with someone in a scene who is newer to acting.”

“We needed to make sure that she had the right pitch to her performance, which was something we worked really hard at,” Waters says, emphasizing the importance of audiences seeing Padgett the character before Rae the social media personality. For example, she was asked to leave her signature “Hey y’all!” TikTok greeting out of the film.

“It’s definitely always a different feeling, working with someone in a scene who is newer to acting,” Rachael Leigh Cook tells Mashable.

Cook, who starred as art nerd-turned-prom queen Laney Boggs in She’s All That, returns in He’s All That as a new character — Padgett’s mom Anna Sawyer. Although Cook didn’t know Rae from TikTok prior to filming — “I’m not cool,” she jokes — the experienced actor says the newbie’s talents were immediately apparent.

“I think Addison is definitely a stronger actor than I was when I started in 1995, for sure,” Cook says with a warm laugh. Cook arrived in Hollywood by a more traditional avenue, having made her screen debut in The Baby-Sitters Club before appearing in numerous films, including Waters’ 1997 film The House of Yes, for Miramax.

“I have such gratitude to everyone who got me through my early acting days, because I was pretty terrible,” she says. (For those interested, Matthew Lillard, who played the self-absorbed reality star Brock Hudson in the original film, also appears in He’s All That with a role that lets him dance again. “It made my year,” says Cook.)

Per Waters, Rae had to absorb years of acting lessons in just eight weeks. Much of that work, he says, had to occur over Zoom thanks to the pandemic. Even when it came time to cast the rest of the roles in He’s All That, Rae completed screen-chemistry tests with Buchanan and the other actors entirely virtually.

“We were having people read with Addison, and watching them on different screens in different rooms and just kind of imagining them together,” Waters recalls. “We still ended up I think making the right choices, but it was definitely a stickier process than usual.”

“We still ended up I think making the right choices, but it was definitely a stickier process than usual.”

Despite the myriad challenges of starting production on He’s All That — including a brief uproar involving the potential closing of a COVID-19 testing site at Union Station in Los Angeles to accommodate filming — Rae, Waters says, was a practical acting pro by the time another social media star arrived on set.

Kourtney Kardashian, who appears in a small role as Padgett’s marketing mentor Jessica Miles Torres, has only two scenes in the movie. Both of them involve her speaking on the phone with Padgett while effortlessly pedaling a stationary bike.

According to Waters, Kardashian, who hasn’t acted since her single-episode arc on One Life to Live in 2011, was “really, really nervous.” So, Waters says, “Even though Addison isn’t [physically] in those scenes with her, Addison did come on set those times. She’s actually sitting right off camera reading with her.”

It’s quite the image: A revered queen of the Instagram era being coached by a reigning TikTok princess on the set of a real movie. As social media and entertainment continue to co-mingle, the trends we see online — those largely shaped by Millennials, Gen Z, and younger — will continue to emerge on the big screen, either in stories like Padgett’s or through casting for characters like her.

For aspiring actors, it’s eminent proof of Hollywood’s glass slipper — evidence that an anonymous someone can became a movie star seemingly overnight. Of course, that Rae is an affluent white woman speaks volumes to the privilege that positioned her to achieve such magical success. Still, the TikTok star’s lead casting in He’s All That marks an important first for the industry.

“Talent comes from anywhere,” Waters says of his plans for casting in the future. “I’m open to whatever intrigues me. If someone has that spark or that charm that catches my eye, then I don’t really care where I’m seeing it.”

He’s All That is now streaming on Netflix.

Welcome to Small Talk, a series where we catch up with the internet’s favorite Extremely Online individuals offline.

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You may have heard of Bitcoin, or Dogecoin, or any of the other dozens of cryptocurrencies. But have you heard of $HT Coin?

Initially launched by an anonymous “White Male Artist,” $HT Coin was eventually revealed to have been created by Cassils — a Guggenheim Award-winning, transgender, Canadian-American performance artist. The project is a complex questioning of how art engages with consumption, and particularly NFTs. In the project, Cassils ate a series of meals based on the diets of the most financially successful white male artists. They then pooped into tin cans and put those cans on display at 432 Park Avenue from July 26 to 30. Over a 24-hour period, from July 29 to July 30, Cassils auctioned off the five cans on the Ethereum blockchain through an online-only auction for Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, and Cassils themself.

The cans are very much real, but were sold with accompanying NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which are data stored on the blockchain that can represent anything from a photo to a song to, yes, a tin can of shit. The starting bid for each can was set at the weight of gold, roughly $1,800, in reference to Piero Manzoni’s famous piece, Merda D’Artista (Artist’s Shit).

Cassils understands the complex chaos that comes with a new digital form of currency and communicates that in a way no one else could. In an effort to find out how, I called them to chat about their work, the internet, and how that intersects with power and social expectations.

Mashable: Alright, tell me about $HT Coin.

Cassils: So $HT Coin is my first NFT project. I’m a performance artist who was trained as a painter. So I have a long training and history of a visual arts practice, but also these embodied, physical, durational performances. And during the pandemic, like everybody else, I was deeply isolated. And as someone who works in performance and whose day job, I’m also a personal trainer that works with pain management so I help people recover from all sorts of surgeries and intense physical traumas. And so I wasn’t able to do any of that work. And so I found myself really removed from my very bodied practice. And then on top of that, I had suffered a really bad back injury — one that made it such that I couldn’t even really walk.

And so I found myself immobilized in many ways. And during this time, like so many people, I was spending time online and there was kind of proliferation of NFTs that was happening, which was in some ways really exciting because of the promise of things like smart contracts that allow for a direct relationship between the artist and whomever is purchasing — because as we know in the art world, so often artists are really exploited… And so this sort of ledger of the blockchain allowing for transparency was also something that was interesting to me.

The other thing that was intriguing to me, is this idea of artists’ royalties because often this is something that exists in publishing and it exists in film and television, but for visual artists, this does not exist. It’s not that it hasn’t been thought of and actually tried to be implemented in the past, but there’s a direct resistance. And that resistance is because it behooves the collectors and those in power to not centralize an artist’s independence. And so artists are often in this space of being deeply exploited. And so the technology for all of those reasons was intriguing.

Although we have this promise of this new open-ended platform that makes space for everybody, again, we see it instantly being occupied by white male mediocrity and greed and speculation driven by market forces.

And then it’s just such an abstract concept, this idea of creating digital scarcity. When we think of art already, the idea of value is something that is already a little bit abstract. But when we take it onto something where there is actually not even an object, where it becomes almost just about bragging rights around ownership, that also was really abstract and interesting in a way to me.

And then I’d say lastly, the content of the work itself, thinking about value, thinking about the ways in which values are anointed. So often we think of value being linked to merit, but we of course all know that there’s not necessarily the same. This is not necessarily true. And I was hearing a lot of utopic technical discourse around the possibility of NFTs being this anti-hierarchical, horizontal platform, when, in fact, what we were seeing, in February with the sale of something like Beeple’s $69 million sale, from my perspective as an artist who rigorously works on both formal and conceptual and poetics, I found that to be a really banal piece. And so, although we have this promise of this new open-ended platform that makes space for everybody, again, we see it instantly being occupied by white male mediocrity and greed and speculation driven by market forces. So all of that led me to making $HT Coin.

Which diet was most flavorful?

I have a sweet tooth and usually I have this athletic, disciplined practice. So this was like a very strange project to research and find that it was not often surprising that some of these guys died young because their diets were really bad. But, actually, Warhol’s diet was one of my favorite diets because it was such a portrait of his artistic production. The whole idea of if you walk the walk, well he ate what he painted, like he ate industrialized edible product, like he really was, through and through, an example of post-war America. He would eat these sandwiches made of white wonder bread and chocolate bars, which he called cake.

He would also eat, as a sort of almost like performative gesture, a single mushroom or he would eat the bananas he painted, he would eat Kellogg’s corn flakes, he would eat Campbell’s soup. It was really interesting to see how people’s diets really stood in for portraits of that artists’ belief system, class status, economic status, and also cultural proclivities. That was kind of my favorite one.

How do you deal with interacting with the internet as a tool for your art without also feeling used by it as an artist?

I was fortunate enough to grow up before the internet, which feels like an ancient thing to say. But it wasn’t a big part of my life until I was probably mid-twenties. All technologies are tools and it depends on how the tool is wielded. I feel like in many ways it gives us this opportunity to have a direct relationship with a much faster community. And that’s exciting. And I do feel like, for example, as someone who’s trans, who’s gender non-conforming, who grew up without any kinds of representations of artists like myself, it’s a tremendous gift to be able to have a conversation back and forth. The flip side of it, which I find very frustrating, is that people really don’t take time to really think about what it is that they’re looking at.

All technologies are tools and it depends on how the tool is wielded.

And there’s often just this kind of finger-waving snap judgment. And just not a lot of deep thought that goes on and I find that incredibly frustrating. And so I feel like there is this pressure to synopsize complex and challenging ideas into these tiny mouthfuls, which is often in opposition to the greater cause. So I feel like, although the internet offers this tremendous outreach platform, it is also kind of fraught with these conditions of having to deal with a culture that is not really that interested in paying deep attention and is also rife with folks that want to quickly make snap decisions and point fingers. I find that part hard, to be honest.

How do you combat that frustration?

It really depends on the work itself. I think the difference with this work, is that people were hanging upon the visual of the NFT, which is this rotating can of shit that looks very much like a reboot of Manzoni and Manzoni’s cannon. Of course, this work, $HT Coin, is a homage and inspired by and very purposefully taking the ideas of the artist Piero Manzoni who in 1961 made a piece called Merda d’Artista, which is artists’ shit. And he was making a commentary on this notion of greed and speculation in the art world in 1961. Now about 20 years after the second world war, standing in post-fascist Italy, looking across at New York City and Warhol and all of the frenzy and fervor around pop art.

And he was thinking, this is kind of ridiculous. And so he made this work where he canned his own feces and sold 30 grams of his own shit for 30 grams of gold. He has long passed this world, but last year, one of his cans of shit sold for upwards of $300,000. And so his work continues to impact this critical dialogue that’s very playful. And I thought it was really important to take that concept and insert it into the blockchain because it instantly plays with this idea of value, how we ascribe value, which I think is such an important discussion, and talking about NFTS before we rush into the gold rush of it. And also to think about something that was linked to a gold standard like currency, which is no longer linked to the gold standard.

The performative part of my project, which was to go undercover as a crypto bro, and to take on the name White Male Artist [as a] pseudonym was a huge part of the piece.

So even, even our FIAT currency is deeply abstract and reliant upon a trust in a government, right? Which is, to be fair, a little bit more trustworthy than something like cryptocurrency. The problem with the NFT is that the performative part of my project, which was to go undercover as a crypto bro, and to take on the name White Male Artist [as a] pseudonym was a huge part of the piece. And that’s not something that shows up in the visual. And so I felt like people were seeing the visual, not reading about the context, not reading about the performative aspect of how I was literally dropping these on the market every day, and despite not having any kind of provenance or history, being able to sell these works as a White Male Artist.

And then, for me, the real work was what did it mean to then uncover my identity and to see how, in an exercise of behavioral science, how would value be ascribed to my work based on the subjectivity of my identity. So that’s not something that shows up in the visual itself. What shows up in a visual is a can that looks much like Manzoni’s — purposefully so. But the difference as well is that rather than just releasing artists’ shit, I was eating the diets of the top-grossing white male artists. And that commentary came from the fact that, in the midst of the pandemic, having an existential crisis as to why I dedicated 45 years of my life to being an ephemeral performance. I realized that, this is not surprising, but this notion that 98 percent of successful artists in this world today, are cis men. Which begs the question, who are the remaining 2 percent?

Are they just women? You know, what about the rest of us? Where is the room for that kind of inclusion? And so as someone who’s wedged open a steel door to make space for myself in the art world, it’s not luck, it’s not merit, it’s willfulness and strategy, as well as working hard and hoping to contribute work that has merit and talent. That makes sense that only 2 percent exists — it feels that way. And to moonlight was a big part of the work, and that was difficult to translate because of course my identity was hidden. And then to summarize the complexities of all of this — I mean, you can see how long I’m talking.

It’s hard to summarize that into Twitter, or an Instagram post. So I felt like when people would see the can and they’d say, ‘This is a rip off of Manzoni,’ and they freak out. As opposed to understanding all of the thought and care that went into it. The depth of the work, I guess.

What kind of response did you get?

I got mixed responses. It was really interesting. I thought that, in revealing myself, I was hoping for a sort of rush of support. It’s a complicated work that isn’t about modeling a perfect solution. And artists we are often tasked, and it’s a task I greatly take on with honor, is this idea of envisioning a better world. And I have done that in my past works many times. I have envisioned representations that have yet to exist for trans and nonbinary people. With something like In Plain Sight, which was a work where I worked with 80 artists and my amazing co-founder Rafa Esparza and 17 immigrant justice orgs to highlight hidden sites of immigrant detention, to educate the U.S. Population on the Fourth of July, and to give them the information on how to free people via bail funds. That’s a very didactic, direct work that highlights injustice and provides possible solutions and agency for the viewers.

That’s something that can be done, but also in a work like that, which is not contained in the visual of the work, I experienced deep networks of racism, sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and, in that work, we chose not to focus on that, but that’s something that you go through every day as an artist. And so $HT Coin is a work that is complicated because it enacts a sort of Trojan horse embodying of the problem. And then twists it to showcase the reveal. And in that reveal, it offers, ‘Hey, this is who I am, is my work still valuable?’

Related Video: A beginner’s guide to NFTs, the crypto potentially worth millions

Beyond $HT Coin, a lot of your art is deeply physical. You have pressed your body against ice for hours, and set yourself on fire for seconds. I imagine it would be hard not to live in the moment when you’re doing something so physically straining.

The two main consistent things in my life have been athletic training and being an artist and the training part came because, when I was a kid, I was extremely ill, but my illness was diagnosed as being psychosomatic. And I was in fact, and I ended up having to have several surgeries and almost died when I was 14 years old. And that led me to realize at an early age, a few things, which was that mortality is really something that we can’t take for granted. So I think it really gave me a good sense of the possibility of death at an early age. And also that you can’t really trust the medical-industrial complex, which has also led to my decisions around how I choose to transition or not. And thinking very much and wanting very early on to have a sort of sense of agency when it came to my own body became important and that has informed my physical and artistic practice. The physicality for me is this sort of like analog, daily way of having that agency, of making those choices that allow me to have longevity, less pain in my body, maybe be able to flag gender in a way without having to take injectable hormones — not to say that there’s anything wrong with that, but coming from a place where I was so ill and mistreated by the medical-industrial complex, I’m suspicious to sign on to a life of big pharma. I’m suspicious of the rhetoric of embodiment being tied to a corporation.

And these are discussions that we don’t get to have without seeming or quickly being called transphobic, but I actually think that the sort of intersection between capitalism and embodiment is something that needs to be had. And so I feel that art and the physical practice as an intersecting point is a way to explore the sort of peripheries of agency, the peripheries of what aspects of control we have and do not have. And I really see that the body is a node that really exemplifies that.

All of our coping mechanisms were taken away from us during the pandemic, how did you deal?

That’s why I threw myself into this project. This project has a tremendous amount of research. I decided to take on an NFT. The works that I’m inspired by, when it comes to artists who have used technology in the past, there’s an incredible exhibition up right now at SF MoMA, which is a retrospective of Nam June Paik’s work. And I made a pilgrimage to go and see it, not during the pandemic, but just a couple of weeks ago. And there’s this one brilliant piece that has a high-powered magnet on a television set. It’s a work that misuses technology to show its limitations. And I was interested in taking on that challenge of how can I perform this invisible web of power that is not spoken to, or easily visualized when it comes to the culture of NFTs. And so in the height of the pandemic, I do what I always do when I feel like the walls are crushing in, which is to make art, because that is the thing that allows me to feel free. Yes, I felt all of that paralysis and loneliness and isolation that everybody else did, but in July, 2020, that was when I was in the midst — and that was like early days in the pandemic when it was really bad, it was also like the height of uprisings here in Los Angeles and across the nation — and it was in the midst of that I mounted In Plain Sight, which was the sky typing campaign. And this piece that was using the sky as a canvas so that even when you were in your house, you could look out the window and see this artwork. And it was really thinking like, yeah, my situation sucks, but how much more would it suck to be in a box for profit when you’ve come here seeking asylum because you’re queer. The other way that I maintain that sanity is to really think about the perspective of things and to understand that I’m actually in a position of tremendous privilege, even though it is difficult. So it’s not to undermine that difficulty, but it’s also to keep things in perspective and to constantly remind myself as to how we can leverage our individuality to have more of collective freedom. And that is very important.

Is there anything else that you wish I had asked?

I feel like it’s really important, when these larger systems fail us, when artists are not given long-term support… I know that artists are often in precarious situations, and so to place the burden upon us to lift each other up and say, well, why are institutions doing that? Or why aren’t there artists unions, or why aren’t there more labor laws? Why aren’t these systems in place to empower artists and why is it so inequitable? Why is there 90 percent cis men in the market? And so few people who do not fit that definition?

And I really think that, if all of us were to think about how we could model and change that, that change would be possible. My hope with, obviously in terms of making $HT Coin, it’s a larger project, but that the ethos is that, are there ways, in these imperfect systems, that we can think about ways to free each other and not be so cynical? Yes, it’s difficult. And? And what can we do? I would just hope that if there are other artists or other folks out there who want to see that change, reach out to me because I’m down to organize.