Month: July 2020

Kenan Thompson has been a cast member on SNL since 2003, so he’s seen it all. The Ashlee Simpson hoedown dance, Donald Trump hosting twice, “musical guest Karmin.” But even with his sketch background, it took many years before the longest-tenured cast member in the show’s history stopped worrying about getting fired. In a Hollywood Reporter-hosted roundtable interview hosted with fellow comedians, including Ramy Youssef, Kumail Nanjiani, and Ricky Gervais, Thompson was asked how long it took him to feel comfortable on SNL. “After a couple of seasons, because you have to let that go and just do the job,” he responded. “If you’re so focused on getting fired every single show, you can’t focus on entertaining people. It just doesn’t work like that.”

Gervais had a different take than Thompson.

“No, you’ve got to try to get fired, that’s my advice,” the five-time Golden Globes host said. “Ricky, that’s terrible advice,” Nanjiani responded. “You can do that if you’re Ricky Gervais, but somebody else gets their first job, they take your advice and try to get fired and guess what?” Thompson answered for him: “They get fuckin’ fired.”

The interview is full of entertaining back-and-forths between Gervais and his fellow panelists, especially Youssef (you should really be watching Ramy). Here’s one:

Gervais: That’s the best time. When everyone’s on edge and sensitive, that’s the best time to be insensitive. My show was packed with jokes about AIDS, cancer, famine, the Holocaust. So, this is just going to top it off.

Youssef: I’m glad this helps Ricky’s brand.

And another:

Youssef: Ricky, what if God is real?

Get those two a The Trip-style movie ASAP.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Last year’s What/If proved Netflix’s dedication to offering up addictively trashy fare (revolving around extra-marital drama) with a polished pedigree. Revenge‘s Mike Kelly engineered that anthologized hit in series form, and now, the streaming giant’s offering what can only be interpreted — what else can one gather from a title like Fatal Affair? — as a straight-up homage to 1987’s Fatal Attraction. That Glenn Close-starring classic, of course, has inspired films before, including the Beyonce-led Obsessed in 2009, and my goodness, what a cautionary tale this trailer weaves.

Nia Long stars as a wife (Ellie) with a “perfect marriage” to Stephen Bishop’s Marcus, but of course, temptation strikes because (I guess) she’s bored, and the passion has faded away. Enter David (portrayed by Omar Epps), who lures Ellie into a passionate encounter, and although her conscience strikes at the last possible moment, it’s far too late to get rid of David. Soon, he’s infiltrating her whole life, and this looks like pure melodrama that should get about 24 million views.

Let this be a lesson to all who consider grabbing a drink with that “old friend” from Facebook that you didn’t know all that well in the first place. David is “dangerous and unstable,” according to the synopsis, and I believe it. The film’s directed by Peter Sullivan, who previously directed 2018’s Secret Obsession starring Brenda Song, so it seems as though this project landed in the most appropriate hands possible.

Fatal Affair streams on July 16.

Given the current state of the world, performing live concerts isn’t a good idea. That’s not stopping Vanilla Ice, though: The “Ice Ice Baby” rapper is set to perform a show in Austin, Texas tomorrow, July 3. Virtually all concerts and live events have been canceled due to concerns about the pandemic, but social distancing could actually be easy to achieve at this show: The Texas Tribune reports that according to the venue’s organizer, as of Wednesday night (two days before the event), only 84 tickets for the performance have been sold.

This comes shortly after Texas governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order to shut down bars in the state. However, Emerald Point Bar & Grill on Lake Travis, where the show is set to take place, is classified as a restaurant, so it is able to operate at 50-percent capacity.

The order also bans outdoor gatherings of over 100 people. Emerald Point owner Barret Brannam noted the capacity for the event is set at 450 people, saying, “We’re not trying to buck the system — we’re going within the guidelines we’ve been given. Music is part of Emerald Point — and it will always be part of us going forward. […] We reduced the capacity to 450 people because that’s what we thought we could space with tables. It’s really not as gross as people are making it out to be.”

He added, “[Vanilla Ice] has already been paid. If I cancel the show, […] I’m just flushing money down the toilet. […] If only a couple hundred people come out, at least those people got to see a cool show.”

A few days ago, Vanilla Ice posted concert footage and wrote on Instagram, “I can’t wait to get back to this. The 90s were the best. We didn’t have coronavirus, or cell phones, or computers. we had 5.0’s, blockbuster, Beavis and Butthead, Wayne’s world, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. And Mortal Kombat is still better than fortnight but we got out of the house, We danced, we invented house parties in the 90s. The last of the great decades.”

This morning, he shared a video of street performers and, seemingly in response to the backlash his upcoming performance has received, wrote, “Music makes the world go around. It makes people happy. I think we could all use some happiness With all this corona mess Happening.”

Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s The Walking Dead character, Negan, continues to live on in the AMC television show. There is no reason to believe he will not continue to survive, especially as Jeffrey Dean Morgan is increasingly the face of the most popular television franchise on cable. However, had Negan been killed off in Robert Kirkman’s comic-book, his open-ended existence on the television show may not have been as logical. If Maggie had killed Negan in the comics — as Robert Kirkman had originally envisioned — fans of the series, and especially of the comics, might have had a harder time swallowing Negan’s redemption arc.

It very nearly came to pass, too, that Maggie would shoot and kill Negan, finally avenging her husband Glenn’s murder at the hands of Negan and his baseball bat, Lucille. In “Negan Lives,” a special stand-alone issue of Robert Kirkman’s comic arriving a year after he ended the comic series, Kirkman explains why he did not kill off Negan after he wrote the issue and sent it off to his illustrator, Charlie Adlard.

Adlard responded the Negan’s death with an email that convinced Kirkman to change his mind. At the end of the “Negan Lives” issue, Kirkman reveals the contents of the email. In the email, Adlard tells Kirkman him that he felt “unconvinced” by Maggie’s decision to shoot and kill Negan, that it “feels a bit forced”:

As I said, the more I got to know Negan — especially over these last few years — the more I wished he’d stayed around till the end. I wish redemption would’ve worked for him. This is absolutely no criticism of you at all, but more a criticism of western [at least] literature/entertainment, where, because the majority of us find the death penalty — therefore an eye for an eye adage — abhorrent, we carry it out in fantasy. Hardly any western villain gets away with not dying at the end. We, as an audience, always demand the ultimate punishment for our fantasy bad guys. It’s a shame we didn’t break the mould with Negan… the baddest of bad guys, but very far down the road to redemption and forgiveness, who pays the usual ultimate price — death. Imagine, if he lived, what we could say about our society?

That’s interesting, and it tracks some of what Carl said before his death, words that inspired Rick to spare Negan’s life. In a scene that mirrors the comics, Maggie also nearly had an opportunity to kill Negan in jail, but then Rick “died” and all hell broke loose. With Maggie coming back next season (whenever that is), it will be very interesting to see how well she and Negan play together.

In the meantime, “Negan Lives” is on comic-book stores now — and only in comic-book stores, because Kirkman wrote it and is given it away to comic-book store to kickstart their business in the wake of the pandemic. The issue covers Negan’s whereabouts in the comics between the moment Maggie decided to spare his life in Issue #174 and the final issue, #193. Because Kirkman had originally planned to kill him off, and because he had already mapped out the comic to the end by then, he didn’t want to introduce any more Negan stories. This covers that period for Negan, and while it does not advance Negan’s story beyond Issue #193, Kirkman is not completely ruling out that possibility.

“I’ll never say never,” Kirkman said.

In the meantime, The Walking Dead season finale is expected to air sometime this fall, along with the new spin-off series The World Beyond.

Source: The Insider

In multiple ways, this ongoing pandemic is bad news for the music industry. There are some immediately obvious signs of that, like all the concerts and festivals that have been canceled or postponed over the past few months. Overall, the industry is in danger, and a collection of over 1,500 artists recognize that. So, they’ve signed an open letter to the UK government an an effort to get them to take immediate action.

The letter is addressed to Oliver Dowden — Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport — and it insists that “government support will be crucial to prevent mass insolvencies, and the end of this great world-leading industry,” noting that “with no end to social distancing in sight or financial support from government yet agreed, the future for concerts and festivals and the hundreds of thousands of people who work in them looks bleak.”

In support of the letter, artists, festivals, venues, and other entities will posts photos and/or videos of their last live performances with the hashtag #LetTheMusicPlay on social media today (July 2). The list of artists who have attached their names to this endeavor is a long one, and it includes Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Paul McCartney, Coldplay, The 1975, The Rolling Stones, Lewis Capaldi, Radiohead, Florence And The Machine, Mumford & Sons, Jamie xx, The xx, FKA Twigs, Christine And The Queens, Queens Of The Stone Age, Sting, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Idles, Alt-J, and so many others.

Read the full letter below, find the complete list of artists who have signed here, and learn more about #LetTheMusicPlay here.

“Dear Secretary of State,

UK live music has been one of the UK’s biggest social, cultural, and economic successes of the past decade. From world-famous festivals to ground-breaking concerts, the live music industry showcases, supports, and develops some of the best talent in the world – on and off-stage.

As important as it is, our national and regional contribution isn’t purely cultural. Our economic impact is also significant, with live music adding £4.5billion to the British economy and supporting 210,000 jobs across the country in 2019.

Like every part of the entertainment industry, live music has been proud to play our part in the national effort to reduce the spread of Coronavirus and keep people safe. But, with no end to social distancing in sight or financial support from government yet agreed, the future for concerts and festivals and the hundreds of thousands of people who work in them looks bleak.

This sector doesn’t want to ask for government help. The promoters, festival organisers, and other employers want to be self-sufficient, as they were before lockdown. But, until these businesses can operate again, which is likely to be 2021 at the earliest, government support will be crucial to prevent mass insolvencies, and the end of this great world-leading industry.

Government has addressed two important British pastimes – football and pubs – and it’s now crucial that it focuses on a third, live music. For the good of the economy, the careers of emerging British artists, and the UK’s global music standing, we must ensure that a live music industry remains when the pandemic has finally passed.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s hard to imagine the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being better than the Oscar-winning original, which we named the best comic book movie of the 2010s. I probably said the same thing about Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, though, and then Alfred Molina was cast as Doctor Octopus for Spider-Man 2. Little is known about the still-untitled Spider-Verse follow-up, other than it’s scheduled to come out on October 7, 2022, and Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld are returning as Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, respectively, but producer Chris Miller claims it will be “groundbreaking.”

On Thursday, Miller, one-half of the team behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie, tweeted, “The development of new groundbreaking art techniques being done for the next Spider-Verse movie are already blowing me away. It’s going to make the first movie look quaint.” Considering Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the most visually striking animated movies ever, that’s an exciting update.

Spider-Ham is going to look amazing.

If you can’t wait until October 2022 for more Spidey, there’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the sequel to the fantastic Spider-Man, on PlayStation 5 to look forward to. It’s out later this year, while Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man returns in November 2021 (for now).

Or just listen to this Weird Al song.

(Via Twitter/Chris Miller)

Since the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, earlier this year, protesters have taken to the streets across the country to demand equal justice and police reform, as the Black Lives Matter Movement has captured the national attention in a way it never has before.

The hiatus from professional sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic has offered many athletes an opportunity to engage in the movement in a way they never have before, as stars from the NBA, WNBA, NFL, and other leagues have joined protesters in their home cities and used their influence and their celebrity status to help spread awareness.

Some athletes have been entrenched in the battle for equal rights long before this year’s nationwide mobilization. WNBA star Maya Moore, for instance, sat out last season and the upcoming season in order to focus on the fight for criminal justice reform, and in March, she was able to help a man get his 50-year prison sentence overturned.

Jonathan Irons, who is now 40, has maintained his innocence on a burglary conviction that has imprisoned him since he was 18, and when he was finally released on Wednesday, Moore was there to greet him. Via Kurt Streeter of The New York Times:

Irons, 40, an African-American man convicted at age 18, was met by Moore and her family outside the Jefferson City Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison off a countryside thruway called No More Victims Road. Then Irons took his first steps into liberty as an adult.

It was the culmination of a yearslong effort by his supporters to win his freedom, a campaign that factored in a decision by Moore last year to forego playing in the W.N.B.A. at the peak of her success.

WNBA star Maya Moore sat out the entire season last year and helped overturn the conviction of Jonathan Irons, who was serving a 50-year prison sentence.

He was finally released today.

(via @MooreMaya) pic.twitter.com/fUWEEFP1nz

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 2, 2020

Irons was convicted by an all-white jury, with testimony from only a single eyewitness — the victim — who didn’t initially identify him from a lineup, and no DNA, fingerprint, or blood analysis evidence. Irons’ conviction was overturned back in March, but he wasn’t freed from jail until Wednesday due to the lengthy appeals process to his sentence being overturned.

Moore, who met Irons prior to beginning her UConn career, first began to concentrate her efforts on the criminal justice reform in 2016, following the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. She’s now missed two straight WNBA seasons, while still arguably in the prime of her career, and says she has no immediate plans to return to basketball.

(The New York Times)

Helena Bonham Carter has had a very all-over-the-place career. The English actress made her name with period pieces, with costume dramas like Room with a View and Howards End. Then again, she’s also done phantasmagoric Tim Burton movies, Woody Allen comedies, and, of course, Fight Club, in which the Merchant-Ivory regular was able to transform into the epically self-destructive Marla Singer (a role that was reportedly once supposed to go to Janeane Garofalo). That film has remained popular over the last 21 years, but some of its bigger fans are not who you’d think.

Carter was doing a Zoom chat with Deadline for their retrospective series The Actor’s Side, and she spoke about the roles that continue to get the most attention from fans. She then related the time she spoke with an older lady, upper class and British. “You just see her and go, ‘She’s going to be a Merchant-Ivory [fan],” Carter said. But she was taken aback when she learned the real answer: She loved Fight Club. “How great is that?” Carter gushed.

Then there’s the other side of the age spectrum. She spoke about hip 20-something men — long the target audience of David Fincher’s classic. They, too, have a surprising answer: the Harry Potter films, in which she played evil Bellatrix Lestrange. These young adults, of course, grew up watching her play what she describes as a “psychotic person,” and “they still have that inner child that goes, ‘What the f*ck!’”

The lesson her? Never assume what will stick with people. “You just don’t know what people want to talk about,” Carter says. “It’s not my doing. I don’t make these films. I’m so lucky to feature in the imaginations of these people — but very different imaginations.” She then explained her career’s wild diversity. “There’s absolutely no consistency to my career whatsoever. But that’s just me, because I like changing things up and I’m curious.”

You can watch the full interview over at Deadline.

The Houston Rockets will enter the NBA’s restart in Orlando with hopes of competing for a championship, led by their star duo of James Harden and Russell Westbrook and their frantic, small-ball attack.

The Rockets rely heavily on their core contributors and have a relatively short rotation, but going into the bubble and coming out of such a long hiatus, having depth is going to be maybe more important than usual for playoff teams, as those first round series will very likely still see players trying to round into game shape. On Wednesday, the Rockets lost a bit of versatility and depth in their rotation as forward Thabo Sefolosha has reportedly decided to opt out of the restart, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Rockets will have a chance to seek out a replacement for Sefolosha, and like every other player that has opted out, it is more than understandable that he would choose to do so. While Sefolosha played a relatively small role on the Rockets this season in his 41 appearances off the bench, he is a versatile wing defender on a team that relies heavily on switchability and versatility to stay afloat on that end. One would expect Houston would look to the free agent pool for someone that can fit that role, at least in part.

Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time. That’s basically Chris O’Dowd’s excuse for taking part in one of the first, and one of the most poorly received, pieces of content to emerge during the pandemic: the Gal Gadot-led “Imagine” video, in which an army of celebrities weakly sang their way through the John Lennon classic. The Bridesmaids actor finally broke his silence about taking part in the video, and his excuse essentially boils down to semi-blaming another of its participants.

“I’ll do anything Kristen [Wiig] asks me to do, so of course we just did it,” he said in an interview with the BBC’s “Grounded” podcast, as picked up by ET Canada. “It took five minutes, didn’t think about it. I presumed it was for kids. I know that Gal works for UNICEF, so I presumed it was a charity thing.”

Much like most people, O’Dowd didn’t seem to think very highly of the end results, saying it emerged during “that first wave of creative diarrhea” at the beginning of the nationwide quarantine, when the world was basically “just a bunch of people running around thinking that they had to do something when we really didn’t. We just needed to chill out and take everything in.”

The video had an impressive who’s-who of celebrities wanly singing Lennon’s song, from Mark Ruffalo to Will Ferrell to Natalie Portman to Maya Rudolph to the original screen Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter. Despite their good intentions, O’Dowd conceded that “any backlash was justified,” and said that it was “bizarre to be part of that maelstrom, I’m glad it’s over.” But is it over? After all, he oral history of Gadot’s “Imagine” video that will be done when humanity finally licks this virus should be lots of fun.

(Via BBC & ET Canada)