As a person whose dad frequently gets compared to Bill Murray, I often wonder exactly what it would be like to have Bill Murray as a dad. Thanks to this On The Rocks trailer, I can get a taste of that; however, this Bill Murray character happens to be a larger-than-life playboy father. So, it’s not an ideal situation, but Rashida Jones’ character makes the best of it, especially because her husband, portrayed by Marlon Wayans, might be a playboy, too.
A24 joins up with Apple TV+ for this Sofia Coppola-directed movie, in which a young mother in New York worries that her husband’s having an affair. It’s up to dad to help her sniff out the truth, and although this setup might sound stressful, what results is a comical adventure that brings dad and daughter to an understanding about their own relationship. If this sounds reminiscent of Lost In Translation (and I don’t mean that in a skeevy way, given that Scarlett Johansson’s character was much younger than Murray’s aging actor), then of course that makes sense. However, Murray is trading Suntory whisky for martinis in this love letter to New York.
From the synopsis:
Laura (Rashida Jones) thinks she’s happily hitched, but when her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) starts logging late hours at the office with a new co-worker, Laura begins to fear the worst. She turns to the one man she suspects may have insight: her charming, impulsive father Felix (Bill Murray), who insists they investigate the situation. As the two begin prowling New York at night, careening from uptown parties to downtown hotspots, they discover at the heart of their journey lies their own relationship.
On The Rocks arrives on Apple TV+ (and select theaters) on October 20.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
The last time I wrote about The Killers, I was not kind. It was 2017, and they had just put out their fifth record, Wonderful Wonderful. Times did not appear to be good in Killers-ville. Bassist Mark Stoermer was publicly backing out of the band. (Guitarist Dave Keuning would eventually join him as a part-time Killer.) Singer Brandon Flowers openly questioned their relevance in interviews, rhetorically asking in Billboard, “Well, what kind of mark have I left?”
And then there were the songs. At best, Wonderful Wonderful was knowingly cheesy, like the part in “The Man” in which Flowers refers to himself “USDA certified lean.” At the record’s frequent worst, however, The Killers once again grasped at an elusive profundity, ruminating like middle-aged rock ‘n’ roll Hamlets about the fragile state of their own creative mortality. The album ended with the laughably lousy “Have All The Songs Been Written,” a self-pitying blues-rock dirge featuring some aimless Mark Knopfler guitar licks and Flowers’ greeting-card existentialism: “Has every ship gone sailing / has every heart gone blue?”
Who wanted that kind of defeatism from, of all bands, The Killers? Flowers once sang about burning down the highway skyline on the back of a damn hurricane! And now he was droning on about sailing ships and blue hearts? What is the point of this band if they aren’t playing the arrogant and indestructible arena-rockers?
At the time of Wonderful Wonderful, it was painfully clear that all the good Killers songs had indeed been written. With the band crumbling internally and struggling to recover their lost joie de vivre, I made a cruel but honest observation: “The Killers seem like a band on their last legs.”
Having written them off, I initially ignored the singles for The Killers’ latest LP, the extremely Killers-monikered Imploding The Mirage. “Why bother?” I thought. They’re finished. But on a lark, I streamed a promo of the album. The first track that queued up was “My Own Soul’s Warning.” What in the hell does “my own soul’s warning” mean? The first verse offered little guidance. Flowers sang about how he “tried going against my own soul’s warning / And in the end, something just didn’t feel right.” (Is Brandon Flowers’ soul not trustworthy? If he doesn’t have soul, does that now make him a soldier?) But like so many memorable Brandon Flowers lyrics, this line made somehow made sense because he sang it as if it made sense.
Then something incredible happened: Flowers hollered, “But man … I thought I could fly!” and there was this huge rush of synths and guitars and drums and my heart was suddenly three feet outside of my chest. Suddenly, I could feel my defenses being lowered by this silly (though sometimes brilliantly silly) band. Here was a Killers song in 2020 doing exactly what I always want a classic Killers song to do, against my will even. I could only laugh at my reaction: Were the Killers … kinda great again?
Two songs later, to my utter surprise, they did it again: On paper, “Caution” is another example of The Killers’ doing ersatz Springsteen. There’s a guileless narrator drawn to mixed metaphors like a horse to a flame. There’s a “featherweight queen” with “Hollywood eyes” that the guy is determined to whisk away to a magical land that is “wild and free.” While the plot about how they’re trying to escape this town seems straightforward, little else about “Caution” makes a lick of sense. (Sample lyric: “Doesn’t like birthdays / They remind her of why / She can go straight from zero / To the Fourth of July.”) But it didn’t matter: I was with them. I have no idea what you’re saying, Brandon, but I understand you.
At this point in the review, I should be pulling the standard 2020 music-critic maneuver and link “Caution” to (waves hands at all this). Does this song “speak to the moment that we are in” by making allusions to “the apocalypse” and “our communal isolation” and [insert your favorite pandemic cliché here]? I won’t kid you: Hell no. “Caution” has nothing to say about anything, nor does any other track on Imploding The Mirage. What this album offers instead is escapism. It’s a portal to a lost world in which tens of thousands of people gather in arenas and sing along to confusing songs with irresistible choruses. A place where I desperately want to be. There are dozens of better albums I have heard in 2020, but few of those records have made me feel as giddy as the part in “Caution” when Lindsey freaking Buckingham magically appears and plays a searing guitar solo that pretty freaking accurately replicates the glory of “The Chain.” This album doesn’t comment on the pandemic; this album irradiates it temporarily from your brain.
I haven’t spoken about the rest of Imploding The Mirage all that much. It’s also pretty good — which, I must once again reiterate, is much, much better than I expected going in — but since this is a Killers album, it should go without saying that Imploding The Mirage is pretty egregiously front-loaded. In the back half, there are some inevitably goofy flourishes, like the electro-calypso pulse that moves through “When The Dreams Run Dry” or the blustery Born In The U.S.A. homages of the title track. These songs aren’t essential, but at least they approach the likability of the filler on Hot Fuss. Meanwhile, the good stuff that’s fronted — basically the first six tracks, which also include the hard-charging “Dying Breed” and the U2-like “Blowback” — is so much better than what The Killers have mustered in at least a decade. Substantial credit for that must be given to the band’s key collaborators: Jonathan Rado of Foxygen and the excellent producer and songwriter Shawn Everett, whose work on The War On Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding is an especially obvious influence on Imploding The Mirage. (Adam Granduciel himself shows up on “Blowback,” for what it’s worth. But his spiritual fingerprints all over this record.)
Given that A Deeper Understanding is one of my favorite albums of the last five years, you can take my praise for The Killers’ most War On Drugs-like songs with a grain of salt. Perhaps the fact that they’re taking cues from a younger band could be viewed as a sign of decline. The Killers certainly aren’t what they were in their aughts-era prime. Let’s be real: Imploding The Mirage is the work of a duo, Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr., trying to hold the brand together with some well-heeled hired hands.
And yet, when I put the album on, none of that matters for once. Imploding The Mirage is just plain fun, at a time when “fun” feels like the opposite of plain and more like a balm. When you hear this record, it often makes no sense. But I got it. My, ahem, own soul’s warning was that I needed it.
Imploding The Mirage is out on Friday via Island Records. Get it here.
Damian Lillard did his thing in the Portland Trail Blazers’ 100-93 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night. Lillard went for 34 points in the win, which included a collection of threes from other area codes despite the best effort of the Lakers’ defenders. They were the latest reminders that Lillard has range that no one can match in the league right now, as he was able to pull up and hit gigantic shots from way downtown when Portland needed them most.
That “right now” qualifier is a big one, because there’s a dude in Lillard’s division who has the kind of limitless range that can match Dame. However, Steph Curry’s at home during the Bubble, as injuries led to the the Golden State Warriors having a pretty brutal season.
Still, when he’s healthy, Curry is the most electric shooter in NBA history. On Inside the NBA following the Blazers game, Kenny Smith threw a bit of a challenge Curry’s way, questioning whether he still has this kind of range. Curry, in turn, thinks Smith was saying something off-base.
Kenny Smith says he doesn’t think Steph Curry can shoot as deep as Damian Lillard.
In fairness to The Jet, it has been a minute, as Curry hasn’t been able to suit up since before the COVID-19 hiatus that began in March. Still, this gives me a reason to direct you to this 12-minute video of Steph hitting threes from all over the place as a refresher for us all.
Charles Barkley is one of the folks who believe that the Portland Trail Blazers have what it takes to knock off the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1-8 series in the Western Conference. None of us can tell the future, but the Blazers took the first step towards making that prediction look really good, as Portland gutted out a Game 1 win on Tuesday night, 100-93.
A fun wrinkle to this game is that Barkley thought it was must-win for the Lakers. In his eyes, Los Angeles needed to win or else they were going to get swept by a hungry Blazers squad led by a superstar in Damian Lillard. Because L.A. did indeed lose, Barkley decided to go grab a broom and celebrate before Inside the NBA provided analysis on the game. Barkley went around and swept up the set, much to the delight of Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith.
Barkley went as far as to guarantee that a sweep is coming, which is quite the lofty proposition, even if the Blazers are better than most teams you’d expect to get the 8-seed. Still, if he has his way, we’re getting three more appearances out of that broom, the first of which would come at the conclusion of Game 2 on Thursday night. Chuck might need to find a different way to show off the broom, though, as that one will be broadcast by ESPN.
Just a little over a month removed from their third album, City On Lock, City Girls found themselves in a war of words with fans on Twitter shortly after Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion shared the video for their soon-to-be No. 1 single, “WAP.” Stans of both Cardi, Megan, and other rappers took issue with City Girls’ lack of support for “WAP” on social media in the mere hours following the video’s release and called out the Florida-based rappers for their slow response to the song. City Girls clapped back at fans for their attack, but many believed their slow response was due to some sort of beef with the two rappers, something City Girls denied in a recent interview on The Morning Hustle.
Bitch and I openly supported Cardi plenty of times but what y’all not finna do is bully a bitch NEXT https://t.co/8Mnxj2pc8E
“Let me correct you. Cardi [B] did promote our album,” JT said after the host incorrectly stated that her and Yung Miami’s anger was due to Cardi or Megan not supporting their City On Lock album. “We was not talking about any artist in specific. I was talking about those fan pages.” JT would also clarify their support of Nicki Minaj in any instance is not out of any spite towards Cardi B. “When we talk about Nicki Minaj, we’re not doing some shade at Cardi. We’re just personally fans. For us to be artists, we deserve to like everybody too. It’s not nothing against her, it’s not nothing against anybody, period.”
For the second time in one day, the 8-seed took a Game 1 off of a 1-seed. The Orlando Magic stunned the basketball world when they beat the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday afternoon, and that same evening, a less surprising result happened: The Portland Trail Blazers continued their torrid run of form in the NBA’s Bubble to take down the Los Angeles Lakers, 100-93. It was a tense affair, but the Blazers relied on their tried-and-true formula for success to come out on top in the Bubble: Give Damian Lillard the basketball and watch what happens.
The Blazers looked fantastic during the game’s first frame. Between Lillard doing the stuff that made him must-watch during the seeding games (15 points) and a double-double for Jusuf Nurkic (10 points, 10 boards), Portland’s offense was humming during the opening 12 minutes. They led by as many as 16 points and held a 36-25 lead at the end of the quarter.
It also helped that L.A. was ice cold. They shot 30 percent from the field, missed all eight of their attempts from three, and while Anthony Davis was the leading scorer with nine points, he was 1-for-8 from the field.
The two teams switched places during the second quarter. Portland couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat, hitting three shots from the field over the entirety of the second, the first of which came at the 4:56 mark in the quarter. Of their 21 points, eight came from the field and the rest from the free throw line. The Lakers, meanwhile, found their groove early. The team ripped off a 13-1 run while Lillard and Davis were on the bench, with James orchestrating the attack by scoring or assisting on 12 of those.
While Portland competed for the entirety of the quarter, Los Angeles was able to find a bit of a rhythm and finally took the lead when James played a cheeky pass to Davis for a dunk.
Still, the Blazers took a 57-56 lead into the locker room, with Lillard unsurprisingly being the main reason why. He had 23 points on 6-for-11 shooting, while Carmelo Anthony scored eight and Nurkic had 14 points and 12 boards. The Lakers’ dynamic duo shouldered the load for them — Davis lived at the foul line, with 11 of his 21 points coming from the stripe, while pitching in seven boards. James’ metronomic ability to dictate a game’s tempo led to him having 12 points, 10 assists, and eight rebounds at the half.
LeBron posts a near-triple double in the 1st half with 10 assists for the @Lakers! #NBAPlayoffs
The offensive struggles for both teams continued in the third. The Blazers outscored the Lakers during the frame, 21-19, in something reminiscent of when the two teams would battle in the postseason in the early-00s. CJ McCollum wasn’t quite the scoring threat he can be during the first half, but dropped 11 on L.A. in the quarter.
Still, stars on both sides of the equation had highlight moments in the third. Davis showed off his ability to make things happen on both ends of the floor, while Lillard ended things with a flourish when he sliced through Los Angeles’ defense to set up a dunk for Hassan Whiteside.
The Lakers managed to get the lead early on in the fourth. A slow start for Portland led to Kyle Kuzma tying things with a triple before a bucket by James nudged them ahead shortly after. Lillard was eventually able to stop the 9-0 run L.A. found itself on to start the frame, knocking down his first bucket of the second half at the 7:37 mark. Before Dame Time could get going, though, James came right back with a triple of his own.
But this Blazers squad has been defined by its resiliency in the Bubble, and thanks to an 11-3 run in which Lillard canned a triple from 30 feet out to tie things up, they were able to go back up by two, 89-87.
Danny Green stopped the bleeding for a moment with a layup to tie things up, but thanks in big part to some stellar rim protection by Whiteside, Lillard threw a haymaker.
From there, the Blazer offense hit some gigantic shots, while the Lakers couldn’t quite find enough juice. Anthony and Gary Trent Jr. connected on a pair of triples, with Nurkic capping things off with an uncontested dunk as Los Angeles bizarrely opted to not foul down five.
The 34-point outing by Lillard, who pitched in five rebounds and five assists, led the way. Both Nurkic (16 points, 15 rebounds) and Anthony (11 points, 10 rebounds) had double-doubles, while McCollum went fo 21 points. Whiteside contributed off the bench, recording seven points, eight rebounds, and five blocks. The Lakers had monster games from James (23 points, 17 rebounds, 16 assists) and Davis (28 points, 11 rebounds), but the team struggled to hit shots all evening. That was particularly the case from three, where L.A. went 5-for-32 (15.6 percent).
The two teams will square off again on Tuesday evening on ESPN, with things tipping off at 9 p.m. EST.
A month ago, people began to be concerned for Britney Spears after a series of strange social media posts from the pop singer arrived on TikTok and Instagram. Fans began to theorize that the videos were Britney’s way of calling out for help, and soon the second wave of the #FreeBritney movement began. Shortly after, a report arrived refuting claims that Britney was being held captive by her conservator, her father James Spears, who labeled the movement as “a joke.” However, thanks to new court documents, it’s apparent that Britney no longer desires that her father retains that role.
According to documents obtained by the New York Times, Britney says she is “strongly opposed” to having her father regain his role as sole conservator and requests that it “be changed substantially in order to reflect the major changes in her current lifestyle and her stated wishes.” In 2019, James temporarily surrendered the role due to health issues and the position was given to Jodi Montgomery, a licensed professional conservator. Per the new documents, Britney does not desire to have Montgomery removed from the role, but rather, she seeks power to end the conservatorship role altogether.
Britney also revealed her career plans, including her “desire not to perform at this time.” Her lawyers expect her father to strongly fight against Britney’s request and that they are planning to push back via a legal team with “substantial expertise in handling contested litigation in a highly complex case such as this one.”
Earlier today, Travis Scott spoke about some of his upcoming music — specifically his forthcoming joint album with Kid Cudi — in a new profile with GQ. Despite being “hesitant to offer details” on upcoming work, he did confirm that he and Cudi are working on that one. On Tuesday, Travis was back with more news, namely an upcoming single, which is set to be a part of the soundtrack to Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film Tenet. The single, entitled “The Plan,” will be released later this week, on Friday, August 21.
Taking to his Twitter page, Travis posted the song’s artwork in a tweet that said, “FLAME x CHRIS NOLAN COOK UP THE PLAN FRIDAY.” The song would serve as Travis’ fourth release of the year, following “The Scotts” with Kid Cudi, “TKN” with Rosalía, and “Wash Us With The Blood” with Kanye West.
Travis’s announcement arrives after Nolan spoke about the rapper’s contribution to his Tenet film, saying, “His voice became the final piece of a yearlong puzzle. His insights into the musical and narrative mechanism [composer] Ludwig Göransson and I were building were immediate, insightful, and profound.” As for the film itself, Tenet is the much-anticipated — and, to the consternation of Nolan fans, repeatedly delayed due to COVID — and it stars John David Washington,Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and others.
With Russell Westbrook ruled out for the start of the team’s first round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, skeptics emerged concerning the Houston Rockets and their ability to advance. After Game 1, however, some of that skepticism likely evaporated, with the Rockets controlling the action virtually from start to finish on the way to a comfortable 123-108 victory.
Despite strong offensive pedigree on both sides, the early minutes of the game were marred by inefficiency. Houston did end the first quarter with a flourish, taking an eight-point lead after 12 minutes, but the Rockets weren’t at their best and the Thunder visibly struggled. Oklahoma City shot just 6-for-20 in the first quarter, including 0-for-7 from Chris Paul and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the Thunder also committed five turnovers in the opening frame.
Making matters worse for the Thunder, the Rockets scored the first nine points of the second quarter, taking full control with a 37-20 lead.
Oklahoma City did begin to show some life on the offensive end but, just as that took place, Houston began to ramp up its explosiveness on the offensive side. A pair of three-pointers from Ben McLemore and P.J. Tucker, along with a layup from James Harden, capped a Houston push to give the Rockets a 20-point edge midway through the second quarter.
Houston’s lead grew to as many as 21 points, but the Thunder did respond to make things interesting before halftime. Led by the battle-tested five-man group of Paul, Gilgeous-Alexander, Dennis Schroder, Danilo Gallinari, and Steven Adams, the Thunder zoomed to a 12-2 run to slash the margin to 60-49.
The Rockets did push the margin back to 16 by the break, remaining in control of the proceedings. Much of that success was predicated on efficient offense, with Harden scoring 15 points and Eric Gordon adding 16 points in the first half. Houston buried 11 three-pointers and 13 free throws in the first 24 minutes, leaning on their analytically-inclined approach. Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s three leading guards combined to shoot 5-for-19 from the floor, helping to explain their deficit on the scoreboard.
Though a technical foul leading into halftime gifted a free point to the Rockets before the third quarter even began, the Thunder began chipping away at the margin with improved offense. Oklahoma City scored 16 points in four minutes, slashing the lead to ten, and that put Houston on notice.
After that explosion, the Thunder never seriously threatened again, although Oklahoma City did cut the deficit to 13 with four minutes to play. Ultimately, crunch time came and went without drama, with the Rockets cruising to a series-opening victory.
Despite a slow start, offense wasn’t the overall problem for the Thunder, with Gallinari scoring 29 points and Oklahoma posting a perfectly respectable offensive rating. However, the defensive end of the floor was challenging, which could inspire dread when remembering Westbrook is due to return at some point in the near future.
Harden finished with 37 points and 11 rebounds, and he was helped by big nights from Eric Gordon (21 points) and Jeff Green (22 points, six rebounds). All told, the Rockets buried 20 three-pointers and scored more than 1.2 points per possession, both of which are disturbing trends for the Thunder as the series moves forward.
The Rockets and Thunder will return to action on Thursday with a 3:30 pm ET tip-off in Orlando, with the Thunder looking to avenge this defeat and even the series.
The shooting incident that took place between Tory Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion captivated the music world, with many looking to find out what happened that night in the Hollywood Hills. Weeks later, the general consensus labeled Lanez as the aggressor in the situation, as he was reportedly the one who shot Megan twice in the foot. As a result, many have stood with Megan. Among them were Kehlani, who revealed that Tory Lanez’s verse on her song “Can I” would not appear on the upcoming deluxe version of her album It Was Good Until It Wasn’t. Instead, it would be replaced by a yet-to-be-named artist. Joining the crew at Chicago’s WGCI radio station, Kehlani explained her reasoning behind the decision to remove his verse.
“As someone with a large platform, as someone that people look up to, as a woman that makes other women feel safe and empowered, people were asking me, ‘Are you gonna keep somebody on it who doesn’t necessarily make us feel safe or empowered as a woman?’” she said. “And not only that but, you know, this situation was involving someone that I [am] extremely close to, so I just felt like on some loyal sh*t, and on some do the right thing, you have to be responsible. Absolutely I’m changing up the record.” She would also clarify her relationship with Megan saying, “It was business and it was also loyalty to a situation. This is not an industry friendship. That’s really my friend and someone I say I love you to.”
Kehlani’s explainer arrives after she shared a video for “Can I,” which did not feature Lanez but rather sex workers, as she showed appreciation for their work on content-sharing websites like OnlyFans.
You can watch the video above to hear Kehlani’s explanation.
Kehlani is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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