Month: August 2020

In his memoir, A Very Punchable Face, released last month, SNL’s “Weekend Update” host Colin Jost joked that one of the questions he’s asked the most is, “Who is the worst SNL host?” It is not a question he answers in the book, nor is it one he will answer to strangers. There is a lot of SNL lore about who the all-time worst host is, however, and a number of names have been bandied about over the years, including Milton Berle, Justin Bieber (according to Bill Hader), Paris Hilton, Chevy Chase, and — of course — Donald Trump.

But the name most associated with worst host ever on SNL is always invariably Steven Seagal, who hosted in April 1991, and who Lorne Michaels himself once said was the worst host ever on the sketch show. Lorne Michaels described the week in which Seagal hosted as “just a really hard week.” Apparently, Seagal ignored the cue cards and made up his own monologue. The episode was so bad that Seagal was reportedly banned from ever appearing on the show again.

Former SNL cast member David Spade was at SNL when Seagal hosted, and on this week’s episode of Rob Lowe’s Literally! podcast, Spade both conceded that Seagal was terrible, but also slightly defended the ’80s and ’90s action star.

“I have to defend him a little bit,” Spade told Lowe in the podcast. “I think maybe his one-inch ponytail was a little too tight that night. He was friendly to me. The only thing he did, is that he tightened up that night, which is what a lot of hosts do. ” He continued:

“You have to sort of trust these 30 people you don’t know,” Spade continued. “A lot of people think we’re there to make fun of them. But if we’re getting you on the show to host, we all want it to work. And if you make fun of yourself — this is where it gets tricky — it will benefit you. And we promise you. And if you don’t, and if you fight it too much — that was [Seagal]. He was too cool and he had his image [to maintain]. He couldn’t be relatable. He wouldn’t do kung-fu fighting as a cold open, or a monologue.

“We had something [in the monologue] where he throws in kicks or something, and it would have been amazing. And I think we walked up and get kicked and fall down. He said he would do it, but he just ‘talked it.’ He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t play at all, and then in the other sketches, he was fighting us.

“A lot of [hosts], you have to go through their people when you just want to grab someone and say, ‘Hey, what about this idea?’ And some people [like Seagal] still make you go through their people.”

In other words, it sounds like, Steven Seagal took himself too seriously to appear on a sketch show and make fun of himself, so instead of playing along and mocking himself, he fought against the writing, both before the show and during. Ultimately, that’s what made him even worse than Paris Hilton, who was at least willing to make fun of herself, just not fully capable of executing it.

Source: Literally! with Rob Lowe

Announcing her To Feel Alive EP a few months ago, Kali Uchis wrote, “can’t give you my album yet, but i recorded some demos in my room for u.” The release came out a few days after that, and now it appears she is making some headway on that album. She and Rico Nasty released their collaboration “Aquí Yo Mando” last week, which may or may not be a preview of Uchis’ upcoming studio effort. Whatever the case may be, the pair have now given the song a new visual, which debuted this morning.

In the video, the two appear to have pulled off some sort of caper, as the pair stand in a modern office room at the Mando Corporation, above a main who is on the floor, unconscious and a bit bloody. From there, the two take a bit of a victory lap and dancing and performing the song in a security room.

Rico has had a busy 2020 as well. She hopped on IDK And Friends 2 and she has contributed to some soundtracks like year, landing songs on Insecure and Scoob!.

Watch the “Aquí Yo Mando” video above.

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

Nearly two years ago, we found out that Chris Rock would be the unlikely star of Fargo‘s fourth season. Time is even weirder than a flat circle lately, though, and after a pandemic-related delay, we’re finally gonna see Rock in Fargo, along with Timothy Olyphant (picking up his lawman hat again as Dick “Deafy” Wickware) and Jason Schwartzman, everyone with very Fargo-appropriate character names. The show’s setting is moving both time and place (1950s Kansas City), and we’ve got a premiere date: Sunday, September 27.

Rock (as seen in the show’s trailer) shall portray the leader of an African-American crime family, Loy Cannon, who’s battling for his share of the American dream against Jason Schwartzman’s rising crime boss, Josto Fadda. The Italian mafia has its tentacles all up in the city, and a very tenuous truce goes sideways with loyalties tested. This season promises not only the violence and bloodshed that we’re used to from Fargo but also high drama involved with the intertwining of immigration, assimilation, and power.

Come for the offbeat crime drama of Fargo, but stay for the fantastic names, like Detective Odis Weff (Jack Huston), Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley), Ebal Violante (Francesco Acquaroli), Constant Calamita (Gaetano Bruno), Antoon Dumini (Sean Fortunato), Patrick “Rabbi” Milligan (Ben Whishaw), and Ethelrida Pearl Smutny (E’myri Crutchfield). Oh, and crime bosses who give their sons names like Satchel and Zero.

Get ready for September 27, y’all.

The last time we checked in with Tomi Lahren, the conservative pundit was mocking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which spectacularly backfired on her, and getting called out by rapper YG for criticizing protestors. Over the weekend, she took her Fox Nation shtick to a smartphone, where she called out “all men” for being “trash” in a video rant.

“This is a PSA for all the men out there and all the boys who think they’re men, but they’re actually boys,” she said, merely warming up for the good stuff. “This is going to be the summer of canceling boys.” It’s like Don Henley once sang, my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have been canceled. “Now from my own personal experiences and the experiences of all of my friends, which range in age from 24 to 36, we’ve all got issues,” she continued. “I will say this, all of my friends are attractive, all of my friends are successful, all of my friends have something going on…” You get the idea. Lahren never says “all of my friends are white,” but it’s implied:

Calling herself a “woman of value,” and applying that tag to her friends, Lahren tongue-lashed the games men play and the fact that they’re not appreciative of women like her. “It will be a cold day in hell before I chase a man,” said Lahren, who moved from Los Angeles to Nashville last spring after calling off her engagement to soccer player and one-time California 33rd District Congressional candidate Brandon Fricke.

Don’t be offended (or as she would put it, “triggered”) by Lahren calling all men “trash.” Save that anger for her filming a vertical video. It’s 2020, we should know better.

What is the most important part of a video game? Story? Graphics? A purpose? If you answered any of these, then Fall Guys might not be for you. But if you yelled out “FUN,” the PlayStation 4 release is perfect. In an era where so many games are trying to wow us with what they are capable of, very few fall back on the idea of simplicity as a way to be successful.

For Fall Guys, it takes the idea that simple is best and has resulted in one of my favorite video game experiences in 2020. The concept is very easy: You are on a game show with 59 other contestants, competing in five rounds of challenges. Whoever is the last one standing at the end of the fifth round is the winner. The game loosely creates a thin universe by claiming this is all a TV show, but in reality, it’s just a bunch of different colored marshmallow figures running around chaotically trying to complete objectives while the world does whatever it can to take you down.

What you do in the five rounds is random, and there are a variety of different game modes. Some are a race to the finish, while others have you score soccer balls into nets, steal tails off other players, try to stay on a giant cylinder and not fall off, or just survive as long as possible so you aren’t the last person to fall in the goo at the bottom. You may play the same map and mode a few times, but the order is always different and that helps keep games fresh. It also keeps you coming back for more with a bit of random excitement to see what you could possibly get next. As you play through the different modes, the hope is that you might be able to get a little bit farther if you get lucky this time around.

The controls are simple. Move, jump, dive, and grab. The control itself is a little cumbersome, but you can tell it is by design. You have just enough control over yourself and your movements, but the movement is just finicky enough that it never feels precise. It’s clear this is not a game meant to challenge your platforming skills and reward victory to the best, most precise jumping skills. Randomness is constantly at play, and sometimes seems to take over altogether. There will be many “I SWEAR I COULD MAKE THAT JUMP” and “I’M STUCK AGAINST 20 OTHER PEOPLE” moments that will leave you enraged and also maybe in tears, hopefully from laughter.

Also, whoever decided to add the ability to grab other players is either a maniacal genius or a sadist, because it has brought out the absolute worst of mankind. Other players will grab you to pull you back so they can get ahead. They will grab you to make you fall to your doom and be eliminated. They will stand at the end of the course and wait for players to come by so they can grab them and make them lose. Of course, it doesn’t always work out for them because of how janky the controls are. Sometimes, they will successfully grab you, and other times they will be hiding behind a propeller trying to push people off into the abyss only to make themselves fall over and cost them the round. I witnessed the latter, and it was sweet karmic justice.

It doesn’t take very long to understand what is going on, and that is to the game’s benefit. This is the kind of game where getting into the action quickly is a big part of what makes it so sticky. As rounds go on, players are eliminated in relatively large bunches. You’ll run through these Wipeout-style obstacle courses, and speed is important here, too. Take too long and you will eventually be eliminated and forced to go back to the title screen and start this weird battle royale-style game all over again. There are plenty of players on the servers right now, though, which means finding games almost instantly is not a problem.

There is an incredible dopamine effect in playing Fall Guys, and I’m not sure when it will end. Thanks to the number of people who get eliminated every round, along with some luck, you will sneak your way into later rounds fairly often. So even when you do get eliminated, there is an overwhelming feeling that if you just play a little more you might finally win it all and take the crown. Of course, to do that you will have to get through the rest of the players, and not everyone is nice.

Its simplicity and quick fun, win or lose, makes Fall Guys is brilliant. It’s pure, stupid fun and chaos incarnate in a video game. I don’t know how long the good times with this are going to last because the 60 player knockout round is the only mode in the entire game, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, even if a grab or two ruins my chances at fake TV glory.

If you’ve been waiting to watch Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame for the first time because you’re marathoning your way through the Marvel Cinematic Universe but you’re struggling to make it past Iron Man 3 (I understand), stop reading here. For everyone else: of all the deaths in Infinity War — the actual deaths, like Heimdall and Loki, not the turned-to-dust “deaths” — the one that hit the hardest was Proxima Midnight. Not because the Black Order member was a particularly interesting character, but because she was played by Uproxx (but not Emmys, sadly) favorite Carrie Coon.

Proxima was killed by Scarlet Witch in Infinity War, but “Coon was invited back by directors Anthony and Joe Russo to appear in the sequel,” according to EW, because what is dead may never die in the MCU. “I got a voice-over audition; it was not specified what the project was. They were being very secretive about it, but I was given some of the lines that did end up being in the film,” The Leftovers star told PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing. “[Anthony and Joe Russo] were excited about the possibility of me actually physicalizing the character as well, and they invited me to come down to Atlanta. I was pregnant and doing a play at the time, so I [was] on set with them for about 12 hours.”

For 12 hours of work, you can say you were in one of the highest-grossing movies ever. Not a bad deal. Coon wasn’t in THE highest-grossing movie ever, however, because while Proxima technically appears in Endgame, due to some wibbly wobbly, timey wimey-ness, the character doesn’t have any lines, and she’s played by Coon’s stand-in.

I say f*ck it and put Carrie Coon in every Marvel movie. She can play a different character every time. Would anyone actually complain if she’s the new Captain Marvel?

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” video set the internet ablaze last week, and one of the reasons for that was the cameo appearance from Kylie Jenner. Her presence wasn’t exactly beloved by all, and now Cardi has explained why she decided to put Jenner in the video.

A Twitter user wrote, “Normani did ALL this and Kylie walked down the hall and opened a door. If that’s not a perfect visual indication of Black women having to do the most and white women do the bare minimum to get somewhere, I don’t know what is.” To that, Cardi offered a number of responses (in now-deleted tweets).

She replied, “Normani is one of the best female artist that dances Like she dances her f*ckin ass off!Why would she open a door? Please tell me how that would make sense?The best part of the song is the beat & hook it what makes you want to shake your ass.” She then added, “Not everything is about race.Theres issues out here in the world that it is about race that I i preach all the time about .Thjs is not about f*ckin race.”

In one more tweet, she explained Jenner’s inclusion in the video, saying, “Why did i put Kylie on my music video?she treated my sister and daughter so lovely at her kid bday party .Travis and Set are real close and Kris Jenner have giving me advice on certain things I ask for and her husband real cool with mine.”

Aside from some critics, “WAP” has generally enjoyed a white-hot reception, but not from Carole Baskin.

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

College football is facing a crisis, as teams around the country are trying to bring players back and get practices underway on campuses around the country amid a pandemic that’s still seeing tens of thousands of cases a day.

For some, testing has gone well and safety protocols are in place that players feel comfortable with — particularly at big programs with significant funding to do so — while others have seen outbreaks and had to shut things down. What that’s led to is a player movement, initially starting in the Pac-12 and continuing to the Big Ten in which players are organizing and calling for uniform protocols for health and safety, insurance for players, and — in the Pac-12’s case — compensation.

On Sunday, players led by Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence — the presumptive top overall pick of next year’s NFL Draft — began posting about a #WeWantToPlay campaign, explaining that they are desperate to play football this fall and don’t want a season canceled, with others around the nation joining in.

It got tons of traction with college football fans and media, particularly those that have balked at the calls for the season to be shut down, especially recently amid more leaks that the fall season is in serious peril. At midnight Eastern, Lawrence and players from all five power conferences, including Justin Fields at Ohio State, Najee Harris at Alabama, some of the founding members of the Pac-12’s We Are United coalition, and many more, posted an image with demands for this season that include uniform safety protocols, allowing players to opt out without penalty, and, most importantly, the formation of a College Football Players Association and representation to be allowed for all Power Five conference players.

It’s a massive step forward in the players movement in college football and was brilliantly executed. One of the reasons college football was suddenly moving towards potentially ending the season was the potential for it to prove that the “student-athletes” were far more than that and deserved to be paid. They were willing to call this season off instead of have that be potentially admitted, and now players have recognized the opportunity to take a different stance — that could yield the same end result.

By getting legions of fans on their side with “We want to play” messages, the players were able to grab positive support and now can issue these demands from a stance of power in terms of negotiating with college football. Rather than come out and say “pay us” they simply say “give us uniform protocols, allow us representation, and to form a players association.” That plays far better than calling for money during a pandemic, but, if one connects the dots, unionizing college football players would almost assuredly lead to some form of negotiations for payment down the road.

It is incredible to see this movement happening in real time, spreading around the country and leading to players coming up with this kind of well thought out plan and executing it so well. What happens next will be fascinating, because there’s power in numbers and for the first time it seems like a unionization effort in college football has gone nationwide.

The Portland Trail Blazers entered Sunday’s game against the 76ers desperately needing a win to keep pace in the race for the playoffs in the West. Entering the game tied with San Antonio for ninth and just a half game up on Phoenix in 10th, a loss would’ve put the Blazers behind the proverbial 8-ball entering the final week of the seeding round.

Despite Joel Embiid playing just six minutes before exiting with an ankle injury, Philadelphia gave Portland all it could handle, and the Blazers had to call upon Damian Lillard to go deep into his bag of tricks to pull out a come from behind win. Lillard did just that, finishing the game with 51 points on 16-of-28 shooting (4-of-12 from three) along with seven assists, three boards, and a pair of steals, including this ridiculous 4-point play late to give the Blazers the lead for good as he had 18 in the final quarter.

Dame followed that up with another three and a pullup two to make it nine-straight points to give Portland the necessary cushion to get a win they desperately needed to claw back within a half-game of Memphis for 8th — and a half game clear of San Antonio for ninth.

The Sixers had a shot in the air to tie it, but Josh Richardson’s shot went begging as he was unable to add three more points to a highly productive 34-point outing to force overtime. The Blazers saw a regression to the mean from three-point range on Sunday, as the bubble’s hottest shooting team only hit 31.4 percent of their shots. Still, Lillard was able to put the team on his back and get to the rim and the foul line, assisted by a strong 20-point night from Carmelo Anthony (in 36 minutes), 16 points from C.J. McCollum, and 15 points — including two key free throws late — from Jusuf Nurkic.

It was some redemption for Lillard after missing a pair of key free throws late in a loss to the Clippers earlier in the weekend — which led to an Instagram comment battle with Paul George and Patrick Beverley. His 51-point outing showed exactly why the Blazers are considered a threat should they make it to the 8-seed, although the flipside of that coin is that they seem to need him to produce that level of heroics on far too consistent a basis to have a shot in a seven-game series.

For those counting at home, the Portland win officially eliminated the Kings and Pelicans from playoff contention in the West, leaving Phoenix, San Antonio, Portland, and Memphis (who lost to Toronto on Sunday) to battle things out this week for spots in a play-in series.

It’s been almost three years since it was revealed Louis C.K. engaged in multiple cases of sexual misconduct, and after laying low for some time, he has gradually re-emerged on the comedy scene. He even released a comedy special in the early days of the American quarantine, for “those who need a laugh.” More recently, word broke that he made two separate appearances at Dave Chappelle’s summer stand-up series, although it’s not clear yet if he performed or was merely a guest.

This comes from Entertainment Weekly, which showed that the comic appeared in two separate Instagram images related to Chappelle’s series. The first appeared last Tuesday, with C.K. standing alongside comics Michelle Wolf and Mo Amer at a show in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The other came Saturday night, also in Yellow Springs, via another photo, this time with Sarah Silverman, Tiffany Haddish, Talib Kweli, and Common in attendance.

The second image was re-grammed by Chappelle’s tour DJ, DJ Trauma, who wrote in the caption that “Louis CK came thru and rocked with us!!!”

That’s pretty vague, and C.K. may have just been hanging with longtime friends, many of whom have stuck with him after his actions were made public. Chappelle has been one of his most vocal defenders, talking about it in his special Sticks & Stones:

“Louis C.K. was a very good friend of mine before he died in that terrible masturbation accident…He didn’t do anything you can call the police for,” the comedian said in the August special. “I dare you to try….They ruined this n—’s life, and now he’s coming back playing comedy clubs and they’re acting like if he’s able to do that that’s going to hurt women. What the f— is your agenda, ladies?”

Chappelle’s summer shows have been held for small crowds of under 100. Viewers at home got a glimpse of what they’re like in his esteemed special 8:46, released shortly after the killing of George Floyd.

(Via EW)