Protesters enraged over two unarmed black people killed by police led to a Minneapolis precinct being stormed and the activation of the national guard.
Month: May 2020
Over the past decade, Gucci Mane has been phenomenally prolific, releasing what has seemed like a constant and endless stream of mixtapes, albums, and singles. That hasn’t been the case this year, though. He features on Doja Cat’s “Like That,” but he hasn’t released a single of his own in 2020. Rather, he hadn’t until now: Gucci has linked up with Lil Baby for “Both Sides.”
They also shared a video for the track, and it shows snapshots of life in the city, as well as plenty of firearms. That goes along with the hook, “It ain’t my business, it ain’t my beef, I ain’t on no side / Y’all got guns and we got guns but we don’t post ours / Look, you poppin’ like the giant, he just .45 / Told him hit ’em in the leg and make them n****s your size.”
Baby has become a frequent collaborator for Mane in recent years. This is their seventh collaborative effort, and they first came together on the 2017 Quality Control track “The Load.” They went on to swap guest appearances, as Mane appeared on Baby’s “Anyway” and “Realest In It,” then Baby featured on Mane’s “ICE” and “Tootsies.” Between that, they both hopped on Khao’s “Done With Her.”
Watch the “Both Sides” video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Netflix is wrapping up this month with the highly-anticipated streaming landing of another Steve Carell-Greg Daniels comedy series. Space Force sees Carell heading up a wholly different workplace comedy, one complete with territorial disputes on The Moon and congressional hearings gone wrong. After you get your fill of his ridiculously funny back-and-forth with costar John Malkovich, queue up another comedy legend. We’re talking about Adam Sandler, whose buzzed-about Safdie Brother’s project, Uncut Gems, has finally moved to the streaming platform.
Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of May 29.
Space Force (Netflix series streaming 5/29)
Steve Carell reteams with Office creator Greg Daniels for a different kind of workplace comedy — one that comes with plenty of real-world political ties and outrageously funny mishaps. Carell plays an Air Force general forced to head up the president’s newly-created Space Force, with the aim of getting a military force in space within just a few years. He runs into plenty of problems — think Russian meddling, competition for drilling rights to the moon, and uncooperative space monkeys — but the best thing about this series might be Carell’s comedic chemistry with John Malkovich, who plays a scientist fed up with the idiots he’s surrounded by at work.
Uncut Gems (film streaming 5/25)
This adventurous mindf*ck starring Adam Sandler lands on Netflix this week, and our only advice before watching this criminally-good romp is this: prepare yourself for a wild, over-the-top ride. Sandler gives one of his best performances, and the Safdie Brothers prove they’ve got a knack for crafting thrillers textured with grit and a realness that just can’t be beat.
Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:
Avail. 5/23
Dynasty: Season 3
Avail. 5/25
Uncut Gems
Avail. 5/26
Hannah Gadsby: Douglas
Avail. 5/27
I’m No Longer Here
The Lincoln Lawyer
Avail. 5/28
Dorohedoro
Avail. 5/29
Space Force
Somebody Feed Phil: Season 3
And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:
Leaving 5/30
Bob Ross: Beauty Is Everywhere: Collection 1
Leaving 5/31
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Dear John
Final Destination
The Final Destination
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 3
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
My Girl
The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Outbreak
Red Dawn
Richie Rich
Leaving 6/1
The King’s Speech
Leaving 6/3
God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness
Leaving 6/4
A Perfect Man
“You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner: karma. That’s when I realized that I had to change. So, I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done, and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes. I’m just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.”
Most people do not remember this, but in the fall of 2005, NBC’s Must See Thursday line-up was in shambles. Cheers and The Cosby Show were long gone, Seinfeld left the air in 1998, and the network was two years removed from the last monster sitcom of the modern era, Friends. In the 2004-2005 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was running on the fumes of Will & Grace in its last two seasons, and Joey, the ill-fated Friends spin-off that was renewed for a second season because NBC didn’t have anything better to put on their schedule.
In that same 2004-2005 season, NBC decided to try an American adaptation of the most beloved UK comedy of all time, The Office. No one in the critical community thought it would work, and most audiences were hugely skeptical of an Americanized version of British sitcom, particularly after the disastrous and short-lived American version of Coupling, which was cancelled after only five episodes the season before, illustrating again how low the Must See Thursday lineup had sunk.
The Office premiered in the Spring of 2004 as a midseason replacement. The first season aired only 6 episodes, and it wasn’t particularly well received. Or, rather, the pilot episode was poorly received. It was seen by 12 million people willing to give it a chance, but after its tepid reception, it lost nearly 50 percent of its audience in its second week. Though The Office continued to shed viewers in that first season, it gained a critical spark that convinced NBC to renew it for a second season. After all, NBC didn’t have anything better to air, so it decided to take a risk on the talent that had been assembled for The Office.
Still, in the 2005-2006 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was in tatters. Joey was kicking off its second season in the Friends old time slot of 8 p.m., although Joey would struggle so badly that it would be cancelled before the season ended. Will & Grace was in its final season, having lost over half of its peak viewership. Meanwhile, The Office — a poorly rated show that was barely renewed — slid into the 9:30 p.m. slot before E.R., huffing fumes itself in its 12th season.
Amid the flopping Joey, the struggling Will & Grace, and upstart The Office, which basically got a second-season pity renewal, came a new comedy from Greg Garcia (Yes, Dear) called My Name Is Earl. Earl starred Jason Lee, a guy at the time probably best known for his work in Kevin Smith’s films, and Ethan Suplee, another Kevin Smith regular who was five years removed from probably the biggest role of his career, a 7th billed actor in Remember the Titans. Beyond those two, Earl starred two little known actresses at the time named Jaime Pressly and Nadine Velazquez.
The premise of My Name is Earl is about as high-concept as they come: It’s about a bad person named Earl (Lee), who wins a $100,000 scratch ticket and immediately loses it after being run over by a car. While in the hospital, Earl sees Carson Daly talking about the concept of karma on his late-night television show. Earl likes the concept of karma so much that he decides to live his life by Carson Daly’s philosophy. He makes a list of 258 wrongs in his life, and he decides to right them all. The decision to do so immediately brings the $100,000 scratch ticket back into his life, validating his decision to live by the rules of karma.
That’s My Name is Earl in a nutshell, except that it barely scratches the surface of how fantastic the main characters were. They can probably best be described as lovable trailer trash, and America fell instantly in love with the comedy. The premiere was seen by 15 million viewers during a time when its lead-in, Will & Grace was getting only half of that. It wasn’t just the highest-rated new show on NBC, it was the highest rated new or returning comedy on any network in the 18-49 demo.
My Name is Earl was an instant smash-hit for NBC in 2005, and no show benefited from that more than the comedy that came on after My Name Is Earl on the NBC lineup: The Office. Viewers who had otherwise tuned out after the first season returned after Earl spiked the audience for The Office in its second season, a crucial time for the Greg Daniels’ series, as now classic episodes like “The Dundies,” Sexual Harassment,” and “Office Olympics” were airing. The combination of Earl and The Office was so successful for NBC that the next season, after Will & Grace exited, NBC moved up Earl and The Office to the 8 p.m. hour to anchor the night (while the reliable Scrubs took the 9 p.m. slot to help launch 30 Rock).
Of course, by the end of the second season, The Office could hold its own, after the ratings on My Name is Earl essentially nurtured The Office into its massive success. By Earl’s third season, it was anchoring the 8 p.m. hour and The Office had moved to 9 p.m. Sadly, that’s also when Earl started to slide creatively. It was the unfortunate nature of the show’s high-concept premise: It could only sustain itself for so long. However, Earl did manage to survive for four seasons, and before it went out, it helped NBC to launch one more successful comedy, Parks and Recreation, which was sandwiched between Earl and The Office in its first season before essentially replacing Earl on the schedule the next year.
Still, My Name is Earl is remembered fondly by most who watched it (and it is currently streaming on Hulu), even if its legacy is that of a show that was eventually overshadowed by the comedy it helped to find an audience.
When Ramy Youssef took home an Emmy for his performance in Hulu’s breakout comedy series last year, he joked that most of the audience hadn’t seen his show. That might’ve been true then, but as the series — appropriately titled Ramy because it follows the sort-of-true exploits of Youssef’s millennial Muslim, a kid trying to navigate the modern world while holding onto his sense of self – gears up for a second season, the vibe’s a bit different. Fans who have witnessed Ramy make pilgrimages to Egypt, hook up with married women, and survive the torture of living with his overbearing immigrant parents might be surprised to see a somewhat more serious version of the show: one that tackles Islamophobia, mental health issues, gender identity, and more.
That last bit is where May Calamawy’s character Dena comes in. As Ramy’s sister, she’s normally on the peripheral edge of the show’s plot, but halfway through season two, she’s recruited to help her mother Maysa (the terrific Hiam Abbass) track down a disgruntled Lyft passenger that might prevent her from gaining citizenship. It’s a wild, cringe-filled ride that touches on everything from mother-daughter bonds to what qualifies as “stalking,” and we chatted with Calamawy about season two expectations and playing a Muslim woman she can finally relate to.
Ramy’s first season did really well. I mean, you guys made it to the Emmys. And won.
Yeah, it felt really surreal. None of us knew what the reception would be. Nothing was expected.
Did that put any pressure on this second season?
I personally didn’t feel any of that pressure. [Laughs] But a couple of days ago, we posted some artwork for season two. That was the first time that I was like, “Oh my God, are people going to like this?” But I think the truth of the matter is we gave so much of ourselves to it, it almost doesn’t matter. I feel validated about our experience. If people’s expectations aren’t met, I almost don’t mind it. I really enjoy Ramy’s vision, and I trust it.
I think we all recognized how differently this show depicts Middle Eastern culture. Was that apparent to you when you first got the scripts?
Yeah, for a year, the only things I was auditioning for were Arab women who were in some sort of a struggle — who were veiled and in a fight for something. This one, she was just a girl. She felt like me. She was just figuring out who she is. It’s funny, there was nothing really to her that was going on, but that was what attracted me, because I was like, “Oh, wow, you can really get to see what someone is going through without all this other stuff on the outside.” I don’t know how to say “normal.” I guess I saw myself in her in a way. And I saw many women that I know in her.
In season one, Dena has one of the worst TV dates I’ve ever seen with a barista played by Jake Lacy. It’s a really uncomfortable interaction for her. Was it uncomfortable for you to shoot, too?
It’s funny because we were still working on that episode up to the last day, which was scary and also fun. I’ve never experienced anything like that before but I feel like, with Dena, she’s examining what she understands about womanhood. She wants to step out of that comfort zone, and redefine her identity. She’s also stuck in the pattern of constantly checking herself because of the system that she’s grown up in. She’s creating that control over her body, and her decisions. And in a way, even though the experience is the opposite of what she hoped it would be, just that act, or the choice, was liberating.
Yeah, she can’t help that the guy was a jerk.
I feel like she doesn’t wallow in that self-pity of it. Do you know what I mean? It’s more just like, “Are you f*cking serious? Okay. All right.” And that’s what makes it funny. And ironic. She finally decides to go do this, and then this is what happened.
That episode also opened up a bigger conversation about what Muslim women face. Do you think the show does a good job of trying to understand that struggle?
I think it’s an ongoing topic because no matter how much we talk about it we still don’t know what is right or wrong on this path, or in life. I mean, I grew up in the Middle East, but I’ve also spent time in America, and I have a mix of these views. I understand for women here, sex is really not a big deal, and it’s just intimacy, it’s beautiful and sacred. In the Middle East, it’s also considered sacred, but there’s so much shame around it and around trying to explore yourself before you’re married. I think the show did a good job of showing she’s stuck. Ramy is stuck, he’s sort of mirroring her in certain ways, but he’s allowed to make mistakes. He gets to be wild and explore whatever instinct he has. On the other hand, she has to think twice about going on a date with someone. I think that it’s so nuanced. I guess because I did it, maybe I’m like, “Yeah, I feel like we showed it.” For her, it’s this rite of passage to just get over with. I think that starts to happen to a lot of people who’ve grown up in conservative households when they start to come into themselves, and their logic doesn’t really match up with the logic that’s been put on them.
This season, we see Dena and her mom go through some things. There’s such a divide between those two. Is it more of a cultural gap or a generational one?
I think it’s both. In the West, you’re more exposed to certain things, so you can adapt really fast. Whereas, someone living in the Middle East will probably be really shocked watching this because some things that are common here aren’t common over there. It’s just the reality.
Right. Even when Maysa’s trying to understand, she ends up misgendering one of her Lyft passengers and makes the whole situation even more awkward.
Maysa sort of lived in her bubble. She wants to expand and wants to learn, but I guess our generation is just, again, it’s exposed faster — there’s more of a curiosity. Whereas, with the older generation, it’s like, “What are you doing? Why are you [a man] in a dress?” I feel like, for them, it’s just a harsher judgment because it doesn’t make sense in their head. I see similarities in my own dad. He’ll make comments, and I’m so shocked sometimes. I know how pure he is, he’s such an amazing human that I’m not mad at him, I’m just like, “Oh wow, that’s really where you’re living still?” Maybe full acceptance is still scary?
That particular episode with Dena and Maysa also exposes how hard women are on each other, and themselves. Do you think that’s another reason why their bond is so strained?
I guess sometimes women can feel alone. We put all these pressures on ourselves because they were put on us at a certain age, and unless we’re conscious of them at a certain point, we end up living with them, and they control us. You can be next to your own mom, and you’re both going through the same thing, and then you’re not able to connect, because you’re both trying so hard to, I don’t know, please. I feel like Dena looks at her mom and can see why she is that way at that moment and it really touches her heart. There’s a bit of an awareness, and a bit of compassion. And then that also opens Maysa’s eyes as well, because she really does want the best for her daughter, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Maysa needs someone to just give her a break. They actually both want the same thing. And if they can at least give it to each other then that’s [a start].
Hulu’s ‘Ramy’ arrives for a second season on May 29.
