Month: November 2020

It’s been a long while since we’ve heard news from major music festivals following the shutdown of the live music industry. But with the COVID vaccine looking promising, it looks like some are already gearing up for next summer. Madrid’s Mad Cool Festival returned to share their 2021 lineup — and it features some big-name artists.

If things go well in the next few months, the festival will be ready to kick off the weekend of July 7. The headliners include Cardi B, Twenty One Pilots, The Killers, Deftones, Kings Of Leon, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pixies, and more. Other artists slated to appear are Carly Rae Jepsen, Glass Animals, Angel Olsen, Waxahatchee, Anderson .Paak, Kali Uchis, The War On Drugs, Haim, Phoebe Bridgers, Major Lazer, Gus Dapperton, and Sylvan Esso.

While the festival has announced a handful of exciting acts, there is more to come. Mad Cool still has two more headliners and a handful of other artists they have yet to unveil.

Concertgoers who purchased tickets to last year’s canceled Mad Cool festival can still use their same tickets, but the festival is doing even more roll-out. Per high demand, Mad Cool is making 1,178 4-days passes available for purchase this year.

Check out Mad Cool Festival’s 2021 lineup above.

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

Brittany Kinley, a mother from Mansfield, Texas, had a hilarious mom fail her and she’s chalking it up to being just another crazy thing that happened in 2020.

When Kinley filled out the order form for her son Mason’s kindergarten class pictures, there was an option to have his name engraved into the photos. But Kinley wasn’t interested in having her son’s name on the photos so she wrote “I DON’T WANT THIS” on the box.

Well, it appears as though she should have left the box blank because the computer or incredibly literal human that designed the photographs wrote “I DON’T WANT THIS” where mason’s name should be.

Kinley shared the photo on Facebook where it’s gone viral receiving over 16,000 likes and 38,000 shares.

via Brittany Kinley / Facebook

“I’m sure everyone needs a good laugh these days so thanks to my latest mom fail…you’re welcome in advance haha,” Kinley captioned the photo. “Mason got his kindergarten pictures and I didn’t want his name on the bottom so I typed in “I don’t want this” and they freaking printed this…”

Having “I DON’T WANT THIS” printed on a photo that represents 2020 resonated with a lot of people on Facebook. Probably because it’s what we’ve been saying to ourselves day after day of being stuck in the house or going outside and seeing normally busy places turned into ghost towns.

“Love! This is something I would definitely do!! and… it’s the motto for 2020,” a commenter named Chrysa wrote.

“This is a 2020 MOOD! Trying to smile but deep inside we are all I DON’T WANT THIS,” Omar added.

But Kinley is just happy she’s given people the chance to laugh in such a trying year.

“I think 2020 has been such a hard year for everyone and people need some positivity and a good laugh,” Kinley said according to Today.

“I’ve gotten so many messages from people saying they haven’t laughed this hard all year and that it made their day,” she added. “I never thought it would have that effect but I’m so glad we can spread laughter in a crazy time like this.”

Mason now feels famous after all the attention his photo is getting. “He’ll occasionally ask how many more people is he making laugh,” Kinley said, adding “his teachers gave him a round of applause and yelled, ‘I do want this!’ during drop off!'”

Kinley has tried to get a hold of the company that printed the pictures but she hasn’t had any luck as of yet.

“It’s not their fault. It was my mom fail,” Kinley said, “so no bad feelings there!”

Even if she does get new photos printed that don’t say, “I DON’T WANT THIS” she has to keep a few of the original shots because they’re sure to be a perfect reminder of the year nobody wanted.

The major flurry of offseason moves, whether via trade or free agency, have come to an end, but there are still some players on the market and deals trickling in as teams around the league fill out their rosters.

On Wednesday, one of the biggest unsigned names remaining found a home, as Hassan Whiteside reportedly agreed to a one-year deal with the Sacramento Kings, as they add another big man to their roster.

Depending on the money involved, it’s likely a low-risk move for the Kings, although Sacramento fans will have their concerns about adding Whiteside to a froncourt with younger players they’d like to see get more minutes to develop — namely Marvin Bagley Jr. who is looking to find a rhythm in Year 3 after a sophomore season marred by injury. Whiteside joins Bagley, Richaun Holmes, Nemanja Bjelica, and Jabari Parker in the frontcourt on a roster that has some promising talent but also seems to be firmly in the tier below the large group of playoff contenders in the West.

While Whiteside does bring legitimate rim protection and rebounding, his desire to chase blocks can be used against him by opposing offenses as he’ll rotate out of position and offensively he is best served as a lob threat and clean-up man. This isn’t a needle-moving signing by the Kings, but it’s also not some kind of disaster as some may try to paint it. Whiteside is a useful player, particularly in the regular season, and the Kings can use those players so long as he doesn’t cut into time someone like Bagley is spending on the court.

Thanksgiving week is here, and that means a smorgasbord of mid-week NFL football. While it would be nice to be a little bit hotter entering Week 12, it is easy to get excited about the slate, beginning with Thursday’s triple-header. Before we dive into this week’s quintet of ATS selections, let’s take a step back and examine the progress through 11 weeks and 55 total picks.

• Week 11: 2-3
• 2020 Season: 27-26-2

Come get these winners.

Washington Football Team (+3) over Dallas Cowboys

Thanksgiving football! Catch the fever! Dallas is a touch overvalued after they looked… decent last week. From there, NFC East underdogs are 7-1 against the number in division games this season, and Washington has the better defense by a wide margin. It’s a “hold your nose” play, but that’s okay.

New York Giants and Cincinnati Bengals UNDER 43 points

It is brutal for everyone involved that Joe Burrow is out for the season. That is first and foremost. However, I don’t see how the Bengals score consistently without him, and I’m a believer in the Giants defense. Short fields and mishaps from Cincinnati’s offense could doom us at a low number, but we have to take it.

Atlanta Falcons (+3) over Las Vegas Raiders

I can’t believe I’m giving out the Falcons again, but this is an example of playing the number and the situation, rather than the team. On the look-ahead line, this game was a pick’em. That is what the line should be, and it’s a violent overreaction to get a full field goal with the Falcons at home. I get it. It’s gross. We must do it anyway.

San Francisco 49ers (+7) over Los Angeles Rams

In general, I’ve thought the Rams were undervalued this season. That may be changing after a showcase win last week, and the Niners are a team that can keep this close. Grabbing the full seven is pivotal here, and I don’t endorse the play below that, but that’s where it sits at the time of this post.

Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers UNDER 45

We’ve enjoyed some success with the Bears defense and we’re going back to the well. Having Aaron Rodgers on the other side is at least slightly frightening, but Chicago’s offense is dreadful and I trust their defense. It would’ve been better to snag 45.5 at the open, but the fact that the number ticked down is also probably a good sign.

Earlier in November, word broke that Johnny Depp was being asked to leave the Fantastic Beasts series, whose third installment is currently mid-shoot. The reason? It had to do with him losing his libel case against the British tabloid The Sun, who had labeled him a “wife-beater” when describing his marriage to Amber Heard. But who would replace him? Early reports claimed it would be acclaimed Danish actor (and reliable franchise player) Mads Mikkelsen. Jump a couple weeks and — whaddaya know? — Depp’s official replacement is officially Mr. Mikkelsen.

The news came from a press release, aired by IndieWire, which formally welcomed the thespian to the Harry Potter spin-off series. Depp had played Gellert Grindelwald, the movies’ main villain, who had, as per the title of the second film, committed some crimes. Mikkelsen will actually be the third actor to assume the role. In the first film, Colin Farrell played Grindelwald, albeit in disguise, posing as one of the good guys. The final minutes find his mask being ripped off, revealing Depp.

Will something similar happen in the still unnamed threequel? After all, Depp did shoot one entire scene, for which, thanks to a contract hiccup, he will still be paid his full agreed-upon (and quite large) salary. If Depp makes the final cut, he’ll almost certainly net the highest paycheck for the least amount of screentime in cinema history. If he doesn’t make the cut, he will almost certainly net the highest paycheck for zero minutes of screntime in cinema history.

In the meantime, good on Mikkelsen, a great serious actor (you can currently see him in the drinking drama Another Round), a great Bond villain actor, and a great Hannibal Lecter actor. Maybe this will help NBC (or whoever) finally greenlight that fourth season of Hannibal, so they can finally remake The Silence of the Lambs, but for network television.

(Via IndieWire)

Since the release of her acclaimed debut solo record, Jaime, last year, Brittany Howard has been a staple on late-night television. The singer recently shared performances of her music on The Late Late Show and The Tonight Show. But in an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Howard went off-script.

Instead of sharing a rendition of one of her own songs, Howard chose to pay tribute to one of the greats: Nina Simone. Taking the stage backed by a full band, she shimmied around the set as she delivered the lyrics to Simone’s poignant 1969 track “Revolution.” Howard put her soul into the performance, belting out the stirring lyrics with animation as her band kept time with jazzy instrumentation. “And now we got a revolution / Cause I see the face of things to come / Yeah, your Constitution / Well, my friend, its gonna have to bend,” she sang.

Howard’s performance came on the tail-end of some exciting news. Just before she took Colbert’s stage, the Recording Academy nominated her for five Grammy Awards. She’s been nominated for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Alternative Music Album, Best R&B Performance, and Best American Roots Performance.

Watch Brittany Howard perform Nina Simone’s “Revolution” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert above.

Jaime is out now via ATO. Get it here.

Kurt Russell doesn’t seem like the kind of actor born to play Santa Claus; he’s too macho, with his John Wayne-style drawl, to hang out with elves and delivering presents. And yet there he is, doing his second go as a more studly Kris Kringle in The Christmas Chronicles 2, the sequel to Netflix’s Yuletide hit from two years back (and, according to its star, a bit reminiscent of, uh, The Passion of the Christ). But one person on Twitter has a theory, one that makes Russell playing Santa seem like perfect casting.

The theory involves MacReady, the grizzled badass Russell played in John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing, about a shape-shifting, super gross alien that picks off a research crew in Antarctica, one by one. The movie ends ambiguously, with MacReady and one of his colleagues, Keith David’s Childs, alone together, unsure if either of them is secretly possessed by the alien, if neither of them is or what. But, Twitter user Kevin Biegel posits, maybe we have our answer, and that answer has been supplied by The Christmas Chronicles cycle.

“MacReady survived the end of ‘The Thing,” Biegel writes, “because he was picked up by Santa and brought to the North Pole MacReady then killed Santa for being a b*tch, assumed Santa’s role, and his adventures are chronicled in ‘The Christmas Chronicles’ films. These films = same universe.”

Why not! They do have almost the same beard! Of course, believing this — even in a tongue-in-cheek way — does ruin one of cinema’s great open-ended endings — a rare case where running the credits before a resolution has been reached doesn’t seem like cruel and cheap and lazy. On the other hand, it is amusing to imagine MacReady forced into a second life as a symbol of generosity and gregariousness.

And then there’s this: Along with Escape from New York, also by John Carpenter, The Thing helped Russell — who first became a star as a child and then teen actor, appearing in Elvis movies and ludicrous Disney comedies like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes — utterly bulldozer his squeaky clean image. It would be funny if, having escaped the hell of family fare movies, Russell got sucked back in, and all because he made The Thing.

The Christmas Chronicles 2, which also features his real-life longtime partner Goldie Hawn, can now be streamed on Netflix. The Thing, however, is not part of any streamer’s subscription. But one can, however, head to Disney+ and watch the young, amusingly square Russell in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Strongest Man in the World. If that’s one’s bag.

Saved By The Bell (Peacock series, Wednesday) — Here comes the official reimagining of the original series with a lot of the O.G. crowd on board for more neon-tinged adventures. Zack Morris is now (a terrible) California governor, Kelly Kapowski’s his first lady, and Elizabeth Berkley and Mario Lopez are back as Jessie Spano and A.C. Slater, respectively. If you’re lucky, you’ll see the return of Zack Attack. Screech is sitting this one out, but prepare for some (still lighthearted) social commentary.

The Flight Attendant (HBO Max series, Thursday) — Kaley Cuoco busts away from the The Big Bang Theory with a fun flight of (darkly comedic) fancy. She plays portrays an airline stewardess whose international jet-setting lifestyle includes falling into bed in various countries with various handsome men. During the course of one particularly fateful encounter, Cassie wakes up next to the dead body of a one-night stand. She spends the rest of the series attempting to clean sh*t up. Surrender to this madcap ride.

Mosul (Netflix film, Thursday) — Anthony and Joe Russo produce this Matthew Michael Carnahan-directed project about men who fight to take back homes and territory seized by ISIS. Prepare for a dangerous guerrilla operation to go down onscreen, along with an extraordinary display of heroism.

Superintelligence (HBO Max film, Thursday) — This action-comedy stars Melissa McCarthy and James Corden and follows an all-powerful A.I. that stands on the verge of either enslaving, saving or destroying humanity.

In case you missed these picks from the past several days:

Shawn Mendes: In Wonder (Netflix documentary) — The floppy-haired heartthrob takes fans behind the scenes of his demanding rise to the top, which led him towards a reckoning of sorts. The film promises a heartfelt glimpse into the pressures experienced while coming-of-age in front of absolutely everyone. While charting his path from precocious troubadour to global superstar, the project also includes never-before-seen footage of his private life and worldwide travels.

Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square (Netflix film) — Everyone loves Dolly (who helped fund a promising COVID vaccine), so at least there’s one thing that you won’t be arguing about with your relatives (over Zoom) this holiday season. Featuring an album full of original Dolly music, this film (which co-stars Christine Baranski) revolves around how the coldest of hearts can melt in the face of family, love, and the enduring Christmas spirit of a small town.

Small Axe (Amazon film collection) — Five Steve McQueen-directed movies will drop each Friday over the course of five weeks. The stories, set in London’s West Indian community, will explore the endurance of the human spirit despite setbacks from discrimination and rampant racism, all set from the late 1960s to the 1980s.

Run (Hulu film) — Starring Sarah Paulson and directed by Aneesh Chaganty, this suspense film might be the perfect distraction. Paulson plays an obsessive mother who controls her daughter in total isolation, and her daughter’s now only beginning to grasp the secretive (and unnatural, possibly sinister) reasons for this behavior.

Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix film) — The Ron Howard-directed film isn’t getting great reviews, but audiences can now have their say while watching Amy Adams and Glenn Close both transform themselves for an Appalachian-set drama. This film’s based upon J.D. Vance’s memoir of the same name, and the story follows how Vance, a Yale Law student, returns to his hometown for a family crisis. In the process, he’s dealing with high drama amid his mother’s addictive struggles. It’s a modern-day exploration of the American Dream as fueled by complex dynamics and a multigenerational take on the common-yet-somehow-uncommon journey that each family member faces in different ways.

Black Narcissus (FX, Hulu) — All three hour-long episodes of FX and the BBC’s miniseries (starring Gemma Arterton) are now available on Hulu. This is a more methodical and reflective version of the story than the 1947 film and revolves around a group of nuns, led by Sister Clodagh, who journey to a remote part of the Himalayas on a mission, only to set up camp in a structure that once housed a harem and contains mysteries that could awaken forbidden desires.

After news of Chicago rapper King Von’s death broke earlier this month, the hip-hop community mourned the loss of the up-and-comer. His death had a huge impact on Asian Doll in particular, who had dated the rapper from 2018 up until this past August.

Still reeling in the days following Von’s death, Asian Doll decided she was going to pay tribute by getting a tattoo of him. When she first revealed her plans, she said she wanted to get it on her face. But after fans advised her not to, she instead decided to get the ink placed somewhere else.

Just ahead of King Von’s tragic death, Uproxx had the opportunity to sit down with him for his final interview. When asked about who he made music for, he replied:

“People that grow up in Parkway with single mothers. You know, that Section 8 sh*t. Grow up around there, with drug dealers around. People that grew up in sh*t like that and f*cked up predicaments. It’s a lot of people. And then people, just as entertainment, and sh*t, I guess. The suburban kids. Everybody who f*ck with the music, man.”

Sofia Coppola is widely considered to be one of the most unique filmmakers working right now, and she even has a much-liked new movie: On the Rocks, which reunites her once more with Bill Murray. But things weren’t always so hot for her. A lot of people’s introduction to her was in The Godfather Part III, the not-terribly-well-received threequel to what is otherwise a pretty flawless franchise. And when it came out in 1990, critics absolutely savaged Sofia, who played the teenage daughter of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.

Jump 30 years later, and Sofia’s father, Francis Ford, is ready to release a new cut of the film, called The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (spoiler!). And another of its stars, Diane Keaton, has seen it and has two things to say about it: a) it’s a massive improvement and b) Sofia is, at least in this new version, really, really good.

In a new interview with Variety (in a bit picked up by IndieWire), the legendary actress says, like many, she wasn’t that into the original version. But after Francis showed her the new cut, she did an about-face.

“It was one of the best moments of my life to watch it,” Keaton said. “To me it was a dream come true. I saw the movie in a completely different light. When I saw it way back, it was like ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ It didn’t seem to do that well and the reviews weren’t great. But Francis restructured the beginning and the end and man, I’m telling you it worked.”

What’s more, even Sofia — who replaced Winona Ryder at the last minute — is pretty great. At the time, her gawky, unpolished performance was as a bad case of nepotism.

That’s not going to happen anymore,” Keaton told Variety. “She’s what a daughter would be like if you had this guy as your dad, the head of a criminal organization. She was not so sure of herself and is kind of quiet. Kind of haunted. I thought she was fantastic.”

Sofia has acted since, albeit in small roles. Did you know she has a tiny part in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace? But she transitioned into filmmaking, made a massively acclaimed feature debut with The Virgin Suicides, and the rest, as they say, is history. But maybe she’s so good in this cut that we’ll wish she’d been acting ever since, on top of making movies like Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, etc.

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone arrives in whatever theaters are still open on December 4 and hits VOD on December 8.

(Via Variety and IndieWire)