Month: December 2020

Hugh Keays-Byrne, the actor best known for playing Toecutter in George Miller’s original Mad Max and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road (one of the best movie of the 2010s), has died. He was 73 years old. The news was broken by filmmaker Brian Trenchard-Smith (and later confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter), who wrote on Facebook, “I am sad to report that our friend Hugh Keays-Byrne passed away in hospital yesterday. A former Royal Shakespeare Company actor who settled in Australia co-starred in my Man From Hong Kong, and achieved world wide recognition as the Toecutter in Mad Max, and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road.” He continued:

“Hugh had a generous heart, offering a helping hand to people in need, or a place to stay to a homeless teenager. He cared about social justice and preserving the environment long before these issues became fashionable. His life was governed by his sense of the oneness of humanity. We will miss his example and his friendship. Vale, Hugh.”

Edgar Wright also paid tribute to Keays-Byrne, tweeting, “It’s a sad day to have to say goodbye to The Toecutter and Immortan Joe. RIP Hugh Keays-Bryne, who played indelible baddies in the first and last Mad Max films – 36 years apart,” while Mohawk director Ted Geoghegan added, “I’m continually floored that he played Toecutter, the central antagonist of 1979’s MAD MAX *and* Immortan Joe, the central antagonist 2015’s MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Thanks for all the entertainment, sir.” He was also a mask-wearing legend. Keays-Byrne shall ride eternal. Shiny, and chrome.

Claud, the first signee of Phoebe Bridgers’ newly minted label Saddest Factory, ushered in a new era of music with their lighthearted single “Gold.” Now returning with some big news, Claud announced their upcoming debut album Super Monster with the reflective single “Soft Spot.”

Over a warm-toned guitar, Claud sings of dealing with the emotions behind unrequited love. Speaking about the inspiration behind the single, Claud said, “I have a soft spot for lots of people, places, and things. This song is about knowing I can’t be with this one specific person, but my feelings won’t go away… I still hope I run into them, or they randomly text me about something. It’s just me romanticizing what I can’t have and being like ‘but what if…’”

Claud’s vibrant Super Monster cover art was also unveiled alongside the single. It’s a self-portrait depicting Claud triumphantly ascending and leaving their stuffy neighborhood behind. The artwork was actually inspired by a drawing by the late singer Daniel Johnston that Claud came across while visiting Electric Lady studios, which was titled “Claud and the Super Monster.”

Listen to “Soft Spot” above and see Claud’s Super Monster cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Overnight”
2. “Gold”
3. “Soft Spot”
4. “In Or In Between”
5. “Cuff Your Jeans”
6. “Ana”
7. “Guard Down”
8. “This Town”
9. “Jordan”
10. “That’s Mr B*tch To You”
11. “Pepsi”
12. “Rocks At Your Window”
13. “Falling At The Rain”

Super Monster is out 2/12/2021 via Saddest Factory. Pre-order it here.

When it comes to jars of pre-made pasta sauce, I’m basically a blank slate. I may have eaten it once or twice in college; I don’t remember. For the most part, I look at pasta sauce in a jar the same way I look at soup in a can: more emergency ration than everyday food. Fit more for a bomb shelter than a pantry. Incidentally, I do remember eating Phyllis Diller-brand chili out of a can growing up, so it’s not as if I was raised by ascotted gourmands in a French boulangerie or anything.

To be clear, it’s not that I thought that you’d burst into flames or explode in cellulite if you ate pasta sauce from a jar. I just thought… why? It doesn’t seem like that much of a time saver. For a really simple pasta sauce, you could put some olive oil in a pan, brown some garlic, throw in a chopped tomato or two, maybe some cream and parsley if you nasty, and you’ve got yourself a sauce. That takes maaaaybe five minutes longer than it would take to heat up sauce from a jar, and that’s being generous. In either case, less time than it takes water to boil, so it’s moot anyway.

Jarred pasta sauce seems to exist on the premise that pasta needs an elaborate sauce, which it doesn’t. Most times, a little cheese and pepper works just fine.

That being said, these are simply my personal biases as an Italian-American kid inculcated with the standard prejudices. It doesn’t mean they’re right. A few weeks back, I learned to make fancy Top Ramen with Chef Melissa King, and I wondered if perhaps Italians could take a lesson from the way Asian-Americans have learned to live with and remix the instant versions of their traditional foods, rather than fighting against them. It’s possible, just maybe, that Italians are a smidge pedantic and over-precious. That’s not to say I’ve become a full jarred-sauce convert, I’m just saying I went in trying to keep an open mind.

The Method

My God, I had no idea there were so many different jarred pasta sauces. Clearly, this is a growth sector. Prego and Ragu have at least five different varieties each, plus every celebrity chef, brand, and restaurant seems to have one. This list could’ve been 50 sauces long, but I imagine nobody wants to read all that and I sure don’t want to eat all that. I ended up choosing 10 sauces, mostly from brands that I’d heard of and tried to limit my sample to marinara or the closest variant thereof.

To serve, I used a sous vide bath to heat them all up to 110 degrees inside their jars. I then sampled each, both as a dunking sauce for some store-bought garlic bread, as well as mixed with spaghetti. I used Barilla brand spaghetti. I didn’t test them with fresh noodles because if you’re taking the trouble to make fresh pasta (try my recipe) and you put sauce from a jar on it you are clearly insane.

Generally Speaking

Virtually all of these sauces were pretty passable as a dunking sauce for garlic bread. If I were ever to actually use them, it’d probably be for that purpose, or as a pizza sauce. If you’re doing the work for home-made pizza, I can definitely see the validity in just having a jarred sauce on hand. Also, and not that it would’ve mattered, but I tasted these blind, thanks to my spouse (*Borat Voice* MAH SPOUSE), who was kind enough to plate and number them.

The Competitors

Also, Truff’s super fancy Black Truffle Pomodo, which arrived after I took this photo.

The Rankings

10. LITTLE ITALY IN THE BRONX MARINARA. Price: $8.99

Notes: Porridgey texture. Few visible tomato seeds. Darker in color. Tastes very processed, like canned tomato soup or Chef Boyardee. I grade this one a D.

Thoughts: The jar said all the right things — “crafted from Imported Italian Tomatoes, Fresh Garlic & Sea Salt” — plus the charming, Godfather-esque picture of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx on the label. Yet this one, more than any of the others I tasted, had that “canned” flavor I associate with tomato soup or canned pasta. It definitely needed… something.

Oddly, it was the second most expensive of the bunch.

9. BERTOLLI VINEYARD MARINARA (with Merlot Wine). Price: $3.69

Notes: Chunkier, but no tomato seeds. Darker red color. Not great on bread, surprisingly. Tastes fresh and vegetal but somehow… not really in a good way? It’s kind of like mushy, underseasoned veg and the spice balance is baby food bland.

Thoughts: This one didn’t necessarily taste bad so much as unfinished. If you simmered it for 10 minutes and added a little salt and pepper I could see it being decent. But that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

8. RAGU OLD WORLD STYLE SAUCE (TRADITIONAL). Price: $1.91

Notes: This one just looks sad and processed. It’s dark in color and with a ketchupy consistency. Taste test confirms. Similar canned, Chef Boyardee-type flavor, though maybe not as bad as number two [The Little Italy].

Thoughts: I actually didn’t look at individual prices at all until the end, but it’s funny that the second most expensive sauce and the cheapest ($1.91! How about that!) tasted the most similar to me.

7. LIDIA’S TOMATO BASIL SAUCE. Price: Normally $8.99, but on sale for $5.99.

Notes: Bread test: good texture, visible tomato seeds, which makes me think it’s fresher for whatever reason. Taste is sweet and tomato-y. Full bite with the noodles gives more pepper flavor. It has a mildly spicy finish. Maybe an uncooked bell pepper flavor? Solid “meh.”

Thoughts: I imagine that “uncooked bell pepper” I thought I detected was probably the basil. This one looked and tasted fresh, like real tomatoes, I just found the spice mix slightly off. It was the spiciest, but the other spices were just not quite right.

6. NEWMAN’S OWN MARINARA. Price: Normally $3.19, on sale for $2.79.

Notes: Porridgey in texture. Dark red, with no seeds, which makes me think “less fresh” in my head for whatever reason. On bread: tastes like standard pizza sauce. Is that dried oregano, maybe? Ketchup-like texture. Sweet and tomato-y but otherwise not that well spiced.

I grade this a C. It tastes like canned pizza sauce.

Thoughts: Paul Newman has been dead since 2008. Makes you wonder who’s really been making the sauce over there.

5. MEZZETTA ITALIAN PLUM TOMATO MARINARA. Price: $5.99.

Notes: Lighter red with visible tomato seeds, which at least makes me think it’s going to be fresher. This tastes much different than the others, way less straight canned tomato flavor. Although I think maybe it’s just much oilier. It definitely doesn’t have that tomato soup flavor but I’m not sure I love what it has, either.

Call it a C+.

Thoughts: This is the one I probably would’ve bought first, just based on the jar design and look alone. It also has the kind of name that makes you want to make the Italian hands whenever you say it. Ay, Mezzetta, where-a you puttem-a you-a papa medallione? This one was just such an outlier in terms of flavor and texture that it might’ve just been a weird juxtaposition. It had so much more olive oil than the others, you could see the oil just looking at it (not necessarily a bad thing, I generally have a fair amount of olive oil in my homemade sauce). Which makes a lot of sense, considering I mostly knew Mezzetta as an olive brand before this.

Y’all laundering olive oil over there??? Someone should look into this.

4. PREGO TRADITIONAL. Price: $3.99.

Notes: Medium red in color with green (?) flecks in it. Kind of a puree texture. Good with the bread, though noticeably sweet, even with the bread. Much more visible herbs than the others. On noodles: sugar, sugar, sugar! This one is just straight sugar, it’s practically a jam. That being said, it does mask the canned flavor very well. It’s pretty good in these small bites though I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t want to eat a lot of it.

Thoughts: Yes, this one had the most sugar of any of the brands. Making your pasta sauce this sugary is sort of like putting a super heavy limiter on your audio track. It makes it stand out in a crowd right away, but you lose all the dynamic range in the flavors and you’d end up probably getting sick of it real fast.

It tastes good, but in a way that feels like cheating.

3. CENTO MARINARA. Price: $7.49.

Notes: Nice texture, not too ketchupy. Darker red in color. Some visible seeds. Tastes balanced on the bread. On the noodles it’s a little thin, but the spice balance is right and it tastes like “real” tomatoes. This tastes the most like my homemade marinara to me. Though it doesn’t especially knock my socks off, either.

Has a marinara ever knocked my socks off? Probably not. I give this a solid B+.

Thoughts: I could definitely see using this as a pizza sauce if I got lazy. I think I’d still rather make a bunch of sauce myself and freeze it, but this is certainly passable.

2. TRUFF BLACK TRUFFLE POMODORO. Price: $30 for two, at Neiman Marcus.

Notes: Obvious truffle smell, not hard to guess which sauce this is. Beautiful orange-red color with dark flecks (presumably truffles). Nice purée texture, no visible seeds, oil coats the noodles just right. The lighter reds seem fresher for whatever reason. Tasting… oddly I don’t taste truffles nearly so much as I smell them. Taste-wise it’s much heavier on sweet-tomato, though not artificially sweet-tasting, like a lot of them. It’s also probably the spiciest, both black pepper and something else. Maybe crushed red pepper?

Tomatoes and spice are the dominant flavors.

Thoughts: A late-entry into the contest, Truff sent us their black truffle sauces while I was writing this. For the record, I didn’t ask for it and this is not advertorial. I can’t deny that it’s pretty good. And it has truffles, so it’s sort of cheating. For $30 I could get a gourmet plate of freshly-made pasta at a restaurant. At that price, a jar of truffle sauce should make me feel like a Tuscan piggy with a snout full of fungi — this just doesn’t.

That being said, the quality difference between this and the $3 stuff is pretty obvious, and it’s a pretty solid spicy tomato sauce.

1. PIONEER WOMAN FOUR CHEESE PASTA SAUCE. Price: $4.99.

Notes: Pretty color, nice texture — clearly more “body” in this one. Maybe one of the cheese-based sauces? Good on bread, as they all have been so far (I tasted this one third). With pasta — best so far. Definitely some meat or cheese flavors detected here. This is very clearly not an entirely plant-based sauce. The spice mix is nicely balanced. Oil seems emulsified.

Solid B+.

Thoughts: This was just the first jar I grabbed off the shelf, and I left it in the challenge even though it wasn’t strictly a marinara, just to see what would happen. It would be surprising that a decidedly non-Italian sauce from the cowboy lady with the gingham label (*dismissive wanking motion*) would be my top choice, but then it’s not very surprising in light of the fact that it was the only sauce with cheese.

That being said, it was pretty tasty. The spice balance was on point. I ate all of my tiny little spaghetti bowl of it. I could definitely see putting some of this out for a bread-dunking sauce and it being a hit.

Snoop Dogg wears about a billion different hats, with his latest one being donned over the weekend when he hopped into the announce booth for the Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. fight and turned in a performance that got a whole lot of people into the idea of him being around boxing more frequently. According to Ryan Kavanaugh of Triller, the company that put on the fight, fans are going to get their wish sometime soon.

Kavanaugh spoke to TMZ and revealed that he’s joining forces with Snoop on a boxing league called The Fight Club. Apparently, the Tyson-Jones fight — which ended in a split draw after eight rounds — was just an appetizer for something even bigger in the works.

“I can tell you that the main fight — I can’t say it yet — but it’s gonna be something that everybody wants to see,” Kavanaugh said. “If you thought (Tyson vs. Jones) is big, I think that this would be even larger from a worldwide-appetite perspective and something that people want to see.”

It is unclear whether the plan is to have fights between older fighters that are still big draws or if this would be used as a way to elevate some of the biggest up-and-coming names in the sport. Regardless, as long as Snoop is in the announce booth, we suspect people are going to be really, really happy.

After spending 2019 promoting her album On The Line, Jenny Lewis has mostly laid low in 2020. She dropped a charity single at the top of the year and did some Postal Service things in October, but in terms of public activity, not much went on between or since then. However, she returned with a new song today: “Unblu” is a downtempo collaboration with Chicago rapper Serengeti (real name David Cohn) on which they both provide hushed vocals.

The pair also shared a note about their collaboration, revealing that his is one of five songs they made while collaborating remotely during the pandemic. Lewis made the tracks on her phone, which were then further produced by Andrew Broder.

Watch the “Unblu” video above and read the duo’s note below.

“Jenny met Dave down a long hallway in a former Communist Media Center in East Berlin during the People Festival of 2018. Dave asked Jenny to sing on a song about Tom Selleck passing on the part of Indiana Jones. Can you imagine a world where Tom Selleck is Indiana Jones?

A fast friendship was born as they skulked about, cracking jokes and chatting about their mutual love for boxing.

Jenny threw a show for Dave at Dino’s in East Nashville when they returned from Europe. The bartenders said it was the best show they ever had. Jenny was among the 9 fans that attended and danced their asses off.

To cap the torrid evening, Dave said ‘J, I need 7 tracks! Just piano or guitar or whatever!’ Jenny inquired if one would do?

Then the world shut down and Jenny & Dave hunkered down in Los Angeles & Chicago, respectively. Jenny smoked weed every day and Dave stayed totally sober.

The result is five songs made on Jenny’s iPhone, for Dave. Beats, bass, drums, digital tanpura & topline, sent via text, ripe for Dave’s poetry. To accompany the music, Jenny made videos on her phone during the witching hours, editing while under the covers.

Then Jenny texted the tracks to another People alumnus — Andrew Broder in Minneapolis — who co-produced and mixed the songs, taking them from Garageband phone music to music that gently thumps you. Music to dance around your living room in a Day-Glo bathing suit to. Music to go bananas to while watching the news & Forensic Files on mute.

Thank you for reading this.

Enjoy, Jenny Lewis & Serengeti

P.S. It’s almost Christmas!”

Jenny Lewis is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Thanks to her prominent role in The Clone Wars animated series, Ahsoka Tano is a fan-favorite in the world of Star Wars. So when Rosario Dawson was tapped with the daunting task of playing the first live-action version of the beloved character, she received some surprising inspiration for the role. In a new interview, Dawson revealed that The Mandalorian showrunner Dave Filoni, who shepherded Ahsoka through both The Clone Wars and Rebels, told her that the wayward Jedi is in a similar place as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. Via StarWars.com:

“It was just interesting playing with an amalgamation of all that,” Dawson says. “I wanted to kind of have some her playfulness and her fun — the cocky eyebrow thing that she does. You know that she’s got that feistiness. You know that she’s willing to push the rules a little bit in order to get what needs to get done. But I also really like that she does have that wisdom. She’s gone through a lot. She’s really gone through a lot of things. And she’s grounded, more than when you first meet her as a young teen. It was really fun to find moments to throw homages to the different aspects to Ahsoka that I’ve always loved.”

Dawson’s portrayal of Ahsoka has been a smash hit with Star Wars fans who are receiving much credit for the actress landing the role. She recently revealed to Vanity Fair that Filoni saw tweets fan-casting Dawson and Ahsoka, and he kept them in his back pocket in case he ever got the chance to make a live-action version of the animated hero. Clearly, those tweets came in handy.

(Via StarWars.com)

By now we know that a massive aspect of the Clippers’ disappointing 2019-20 season was that they failed to gel as a team, and that in particular, the way that superstar additions Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were treated by management and the coaching staff rubbed some of the other players on the team the wrong way.

A new report from Jovan Buha of The Athletic further explains the tense situation, including how George’s lack of playoff achievement made teammates chafe at his “preferential treatment” over the course of the season:

Teammates had a level of acceptance of Leonard’s preferential treatment, as his status as a two-time champion and two-time Finals MVP — the then-reigning Finals MVP, at that — was indisputable.

But George’s treatment was more of an issue within the locker room, league sources said. George, while a perennial All-Star and All-NBA candidate, didn’t carry the same cachet with his teammates. There was a sentiment among certain teammates of, “What have you accomplished in the playoffs?” multiple league sources said.

The story explains how George and Leonard were the only Clippers to have their own security and training staff, how the duo controlled the team’s practice schedule, and dictated when and how they spoke to media, occasionally putting teammates in the awkward position of speaking on behalf of the team.

Perhaps that was more accepted when it came to Leonard, who had just done things his own way in Toronto en route to a title, but less so with George, who has not won a championship and performed poorly in the Bubble playoffs. Both are still on the team, however, meaning Lue may have his hands full repairing relationships in the locker room and charting a path forward for the team.

Contrary to the roster turnover some believed was coming for the Clippers, their only big changes came in letting Montrezl Harrell leave in free agency, signing Serge Ibaka, and trading Landry Shamet for Luke Kennard. Outspoken veterans like Patrick Beverley and Lou Williams are still around, at least for now, and they’ve brought back Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson in free agency.

The Clippers remain among the short list of championship contenders by way of their talent, but it’s clear mistrust runs deep in the organization run down based on how consistently these reports have come out over the past year. Getting past that will likely be their biggest hurdle, beyond the presence of the Lakers, if they are to put things together and achieve their full potential.

After a lengthy hiatus, the Strokes officially returned this year with their aptly-tiled album The New Abnormal, their first full-length release in seven years. Though most of their plans were thrown off course, the band was still able to share a couple of videos to their new songs and make an appearance on SNL. Now returning once again, The Strokes offer a visual to their album opener “The Adults Are Talking.”

Directed by Roman Coppola, the visual opens with each one of the Strokes’ members going to bat against a team of cyborgs. Of course, they were no match for the AI pitcher’s perfect throw, so each struck out immediately. Finally, vocalist Julian Casablancas got on base from a walk and was able to bring it on home when bassist Nikolai Fraiture hit a ball out of the park. After Casablancas slid safely into home plate, their team celebrated their first run against the cyborgs, who had a score of 56 in the last inning.

Ahead of the visual’s release, Casablancas admitted that while he was excited about The New Abnormal, the album is far from his favorite. “It’s my fourth favorite record I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. Casablancas didn’t name his favorite album, but said he ranks the group’s first two albums, 2001’s Is This It and 2003’s Room On Fire, above it.

Watch The Strokes’ “The Adults Are Talking” video above.

The New Abnormal is out now via RCA. Get it here.

Dexter is coming back next year as a limited series. As our own Dustin Rowles pointed out, this news is not so much a surprise as an inspiration for questioning why it took so long. Original showrunner Clyde Phillips plans to make good on remedying the maligned (and rather silly) “lumberjack” ending to the series, and the show is primed to attract an even bigger audience for Showtime. Come to think of it, this might be the best time for it to happen since almost all release dates are shuffling back, so why not add some return-serial killer mayhem to the mix?

What is very clear, however, is that anyone who wishes to catch up with Dexter on Netflix will need to get on it, and fast. All eight seasons are currently available for streaming, but that won’t last long. On December 30, the Michael C. Hall-starring series will evaporate from the streaming giant, which will leave people with the option of paid streaming (either through a Showtime subscription or Amazon Prime, etc.). Of course, anyone who wants to watch the upcoming limited-series followup will likely end up watching it on Showtime anyway. Yet if you’re looking to get ahead (even though it feels weird to say that about a show that ended in 2013), Netflix can help you do the deed, but only for three more weeks.

Incidentally, December 30 is the day that AMC’s Hell on Wheels and Showtime’s Nurse Jackie leave Netflix, too. In other words, you’ve got a lot to do, in addition to watching 96 episodes of Dexter. I have faith in you.

It’s Spotify Wrapped Day, so music fans are sharing what artists, songs, and albums they listened to most in 2020. As they continue to do so today, artists are taking notice of their names popping up on these lists and taking time to thank their fans for the support. Artists also have access to their own Wrapped recap where they learn about their overall streaming numbers, so posts about that are being shared as well.

Maggie Rogers is grateful for the streams she has received this year, as she wrote, “getting weepy seeing all this spotify wrapped stuff. from the bottom of my heart — thank you for spending time w my sounds this year. and for continuing to let me conjure sparkling noise for you.” Tinashe offered some praise for her fans, writing, “If I’m in your Spotify wrapped this year, you have top tier taste and I love you so muchhh.”

Meanwhile, some artists used Wrapped as an opportunity to criticize Spotify over the common perception that they doesn’t pay artists well. Clipping wrote, “One thing about all these Spotify posts–this was the first quarter as a band where our Spotify royalty payments totaled about as much as our three personal Spotify subscriptions.” Pronoun also noted, “would be EPIC if Spotify WRAPPED it up with PAYING us :).”

Check out some more posts from artists below.

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