We’re all handling this epic quarantine in different ways, but it’s clear we all have one thing in common: Everyone’s watching Tiger King, Netflix’s latest true crime doc-series spectacular. Twisty, wild, and weird, the show has made a viral star out of its own star: Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, the zoo owner-turned-presidential candidate-turned-prisoner, who’s currently serving a 22-year sentence for animal abuse and murder-for-hire. He’s also a musician! Strange music videos, featuring songs that are already being covered, are peppered through the show, featuring Joe’s own brand of country music, on the subject of cats. Alas, that’s one thing too strange to be totally true.

After some “light research,” Vanity Fair reporters concluded that the songs are performed by Vince Johnson and vocalist Danny Clinton — two struggling musicians hired by Joe to write some cat songs. They did it for free, because Joe told them it was for a TV show hungrily sought by Animal Planet, Discovery, and National Geographic. They recorded songs for him, assuming he’d re-record them himself. He did not.

“I had no idea he was going to Milli Vanilli the songs,” Johnson told Vanity Fair by email. He continued:

“It was a couple of months and two or three songs [into the collaboration] when I was on YouTube one night and just happened to look up Joe Exotic. And there he was, lip-syncing and acting like the ghost of Elvis [in these music videos]. I called him up, I was hot…And he bamboozled me about his reality show—that it was coming soon and he would make everything right as rain. I just wanted the proper credit.”

The two went along with it for a while, hoping the music would at least make it to television. Instead it only went so far as Joe’s YouTube channel.

“When it finally ended, I told him they could have filmed Gone With the Wind for all I cared—let alone a crummy reality show starring a jerk-off con man kook,” Johnson added.

Johnson and Clinton’s songs were eventually heard by many, once Tiger King made it to Netflix. The two are listed in the film’s credits, but Joe himself wanted to keep his ruse under wraps. Rick Kirkham gave Vanity Fair the skinny:

“It was absolutely ridiculous … One time,” he said, “Joe got a little bit drunk and high, and we actually coaxed him into singing part of one of the songs. He couldn’t even hold a tune. It was just so ludicrous. It was a big joke within the crew and staff that it wasn’t him [singing in the videos]—but he was damned insistent to anyone and everyone, including us and my studio crew, that that was him.”

Anyway, weird world.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson went live on Instagram today and answered questions from fans, including one that’s a perennial talking point in wrestling circles: Who’s on your Mount Rushmore of professional wrestling?

The Rock, a common face on fans’ mountains, isn’t one of The Rock’s picks, but his choices are widely shared. He puts Hulk Hogan, Ric, Flair, and his arch-rival Steve Austin on his Mount Rushmore, and says “that fourth person I always kind of keep blank” because he can’t choose between Buddy Rodgers, Bruno Sammartino, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, and Dusty Rhodes.

Though his fourth pick isn’t clear, what The Rock thinks makes a wrestler worthy of Mount Rushmore status is:

You always want to pick people who have had the most impact on the wrestling business, who have moved the bottom line, but also, most importantly, they just have this intangible, this X factor, where they can connect with the crowd and connect with an audience. And the bottom line is with those three individuals that I mentioned – Hogan, Austin, and Flair – they really moved the company’s bottom line. They moved the NWA’s bottom line, the WWF and the WWE’s bottom line.

In terms of drawing power, these were the biggest draws in the history of professional wrestling and that’s all that matters. You can have 15 world titles and 27 other kinds of titles that you have nowadays, but the bottom line is how strong can you draw, and are you selling arenas out and are you breaking records. Really, that’s the bottom line, and those three guys have. I think Sammartino did for a very long time. Bob Backlund had an incredible run too as well.

Of course, these are all also qualities people could say The Rock have, and he does give himself an honorable mention:

Where am I on Mount Rushmore? I would say I’m on the back of Mount Rushmore. That’s the part you don’t see. I’m on the back all by myself and I’m raising my eyebrow and “If you smell!” and I’m doing all that sh*t. That’s me on the back.

Many of us are a good way into our quarantine as COVID-19 continues its American siege. We’re anxious, we’re angry, we’re sad, and we’re also probably more than a little bored. We need stuff to imbibe. Luckily many entertainers have stepped up to the plate: Musicians have recorded videos of them playing songs, actors have recorded videos of them reciting Shakespeare. And now Spike Lee has given you not something to watch but something to read.

As caught by Deadline, the legendary filmmaker — almost certainly antsy about not being able to shoot a new project while quarantining — decided to head over to Instagram and make available an old script that never made it to production. It’s called Jackie Robinson, and it’s a biopic about the trail-blazing baseball deity. And now you can head over to Dropbox, download it and imagine it being real.

In a video posted alongside the text, Lee said it was a “dream project” that he’d planned to make with Denzel Washington not long after their 1993’s Malcolm X. Alas, it was too slow to get going, and eventually, as per Lee, “Denzel said he was too old.”

The script, which Lee wrote by himself and adapted from Robinson’s autobiography I Never Had It Made (as told to Alfred Duckett), runs 159 pages and chronicles his career as a barrier-breaking all-star player for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lee noted that his many fans shouldn’t “worry about it if you don’t like baseball or sports,” adding, “This is a great American story.”

So crack one open and imagine what a Spike Lee movie starring Denzel as Jackie Robinson would be like, asking yourself where he’d drop one of his famed “people mover” shots. There’s few better ways to flatten that curve.

(Via Deadline)

The fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the entertainment industry on every level, with movie releases delayed and an endless list of productions put on ice, all because the need to practice social distancing has made gatherings unsafe as the virus spreads. One show that was already on pause, however, was Rick and Morty.

The Adult Swim cartoon has a lot of episodes on deck, but for months now only five from the current fourth season have been made available. With fans hoping to hear news of an airdate for episode six — the last new episode aired on December 15 — any Rick and Morty is welcome.

Thankfully, Adult Swim shared a short on YouTube that features a perhaps-canon samurai battle over a very important Morty. The video starts when a Rick is pushing a Morty along and a bunch of portals open up and reveal a group of Ninja Ricks, one of which reveals that this Rick is about to be in a lot of trouble.

The Rick is addressed as Rick WTM-72, who has apparently kidnapped Shogun Morty.

“That Morty is not a Morty that you nitwits can just make off with,” the subtitles say, though the audio is Japanese and the typical Rick burps and gurgles. “Hand him over and we will let you have an easy death.”

It’s clear that the Ninjas are here to get him back, but it will not end without a bloody fight. The message carrier’s arms get sliced off dramatically just as the threat is finished, setting up a very bloody battle.

Rick WMT-72 is certainly a formidable foe, and that includes some savvy technological moves. At one point the cart carrying Shogun Morty reveals spinning blades that cut off a lot of ninja ankles. He even manages to take down an extremely large Rick, but that only draws more enemies into the field for him to fight.

Oh, and some smoke bombs that cause Rick and Morty to trip the hell out.

Even Rick WTM-72 is mesmerized, but just for long enough to realize the dancing critters floating around him through space and time are actually there to kill him. That sets up a final samurai battle with a bearded Rick and WTM-72, the ending of which I won’t spoil here. But it’s certainly a good time-killer for fans desperate for more Rick content as isolation continues. And of course, it adds yet another layer of possible canon for the show’s already very splintered and uncertain timeline.

View Entire Post ›

Here’s to looking super present in that video call while getting other stuff done just off camera.

View Entire Post ›

Miranda Priestly = goals.

View Entire Post ›

C’mon…I know you’re curious.

View Entire Post ›

The US will not be opening back up by Easter.

View Entire Post ›

Songwriting legend John Prine is one of the most influential in the world. His story of rising from a working class mail carrier to profound fame as a country and folk-leaning musician has struck a chord for decades, and even well into his sixties and seventies, Prine has remained prolific and continued to produce incredible work. He has also beat cancer twice, an underlying condition that makes him more susceptible to a disease like Coronavirus.

During the pandemic that is currently sweeping across America, Prine has unfortunately been diagnosed with COVID-19, and his estate shared today via the John Prine account on Twitter that his situation has worsened quickly. “After a sudden onset of Covid-19 symptoms, John was hospitalized on Thursday (3/26),” the statement said. “He was intubated on Saturday evening and continues to receive care, but his situation is critical. This is hard news for us to share. But so many of you have loved and supported John over the years, we wanted to let you know, and give you the chance to send on more of that love and support now. And know that we love you, and John Loves you.”

The full statement from their Twitter is below:

Sending as much love and healing strength as possible.