Month: April 2021

Bill Murray isn’t in the forthcoming Space Jam sequel, but his absence was very much felt on Saturday when the movie’s trailer debuted. At one point LeBron James — who replaces original star Michael Jordan and tries to save his son by winning an all-Warner Bros. basketball game — hatches his dream team, and it’s filled with superheroes and sorcerers and giant robots and kaiju: Superman, Gandalf, the Iron Giant, King Kong. That only prompted people to point out that Jordan fared well with the Looney Tunes stars and Bill Murray…and Wayne Knight.

In the 1996 original, Murray technically wasn’t playing himself, but he might as well have. He was simply a Bill Murray-esque actor who was also good friends with Jordan, who was playing himself, more or less. Murray appears relatively late in, offering his assistance in the big game. It was even reportedly Murray’s idea to do the part, even if he declined to return for more.

Space Jam arrived just before the second act of Murray’s career, in which he moved away from goofball roles and started doing more melancholic (but funny!) performances. Just two years he earned the best reviews of his career for Rushmore, and was soon doing others like it, such as Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers, even Hamlet (in which he made for an excellent Polonius). So in a way, Space Jam — along with the following year’s The Man Who Knew Too Little — were farewell to his mostly comedic early period.

So when people saw James hoping to recruit known badasses and not, say, one of the most beloved comic performers in history (and Wayne Knight, no slacker himself!), people made the same joke.

Some pointed out that Murray is a superhero in and of himself.

And others roped in another actor who’s shared the screen with Bugs and company: Looney Tunes: Back in Action star Brendan Fraser.

The Charlotte Hornets will be without another major contributor for the next few weeks. The team announced that prized offseason signing Gordon Hayward, who has looked like his former All-Star self since heading to Charlotte, will miss at least the next four weeks due to a right foot sprain that he suffered on Friday night.

“The injury was sustained during the second quarter of last night’s win over the Indiana Pacers,” the team said in a release. “The initial diagnosis was confirmed via a physician’s exam and studies today in Indianapolis. He will be reevaluated in approximately four weeks and further updates on his status will be provided as appropriate.”

Beyond the fact that losing Hayward for any amount of time would be a tough break for the team, this is especially brutal news following the news that LaMelo Ball may be out for the rest of the year with a wrist fracture. The team currently sits in fourth place in the Eastern Conference at 25-23, but are only a game and a half up on the 7-seed and a potential spot in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament.

Hayward has started all 44 games in which he’s appeared for the team this season, averaging 19.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 1.2 steals in 34 minutes per game.

In less than a week, Taylor Swift will release her first re-recorded album, Fearless (Taylor’s Version). The singer has been teasing this project since the end of 2020, when a previous contract with Big Machine, her old label, allowed her to re-record her first six albums. Why? In part because she currently does not own the rights to them. In addition to the new versions of the songs from her 2008 sophomore album, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) will also include seven previously-unheard songs. She shared the first such release — “You All Over Me” with Maren Morris — at the end of last month. As for the other six songs, they remained untitled until Saturday, when Swift debuted the full tracklist for the upcoming project.

The singer revealed a second guest appearance on the album: country singer Keith Urban. He appears on a track entitled “That’s When.” After sharing the news, Taylor spoke about the collaboration. “I’m really honored that @KeithUrban is a part of this project, duetting on That’s When and singing harmonies on We Were Happy,” she said. “I was his opening act during the Fearless album era and his music has inspired me endlessly.” She added, “I’m counting down the minutes til we can all jump into this brave world together, filled with equal parts nostalgia and brand newness.”

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is out 4/9 via Republic Records. Pre-order it here.

Though he lost the race, Donald Trump raised a lot of money in the lead-up to the 2020 election. The campaign also refunded a lot of it — some $122 million, in 2020 alone. It’s not uncommon for campaign donations to be refunded, but contrast that number with the amount the Biden team returned: $21 million. There’s a reason for the disparity: As per The New York Times, online fundraising messages from Trump had a shady way to trick supporters into giving more donations than they perhaps intended.

As per the Times, in the final two months of the campaign, the Trump started using pre-checked boxes roping supporters into making recurring donations. Some found their bank accounts depleted and frozen after making initial donations they couldn’t much afford in the first place.

Times reporters discovered that, as early as March of last year, online Trump donation forms came with a yellow box that read “Make this a monthly payment.” Thing is, it was already pre-checked, and only eagle-eyed supporters could catch that they were being automatically roped into regular payments.

By early September, the forms started adding other elements. Pre-checked boxes for monthly donations evolved into weekly payments, in what was internally referred to as a “money bomb.” One box got people to pay an additional $100 later that month. Refunds ballooned; of the $122 million returned to supporters, $64.3 million of that was done in the last two months. But despite the huge refunds, the cash-strapped Trump team got what they wanted. As per NYT:

The recurring donations swelled Mr. Trump’s treasury in September and October, just as his finances were deteriorating. He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars he raised after the election, under the guise of fighting his unfounded fraud claims, to help cover the refunds he owed.

Trump continued to raid his supporters’ pockets after he lost the election. In the days after the race was formally called for Biden, he launched an “Election Defense campaign,” in which donations under $600 simply went to a Trump Political Action Committee and to the RNC.

Time will tell how many Trump supporters will grow wise to such shenanigans, but it’s clear some of them were royally screwed. The article tells of one Stacy Blatt, who was in hospice care for the cancer that would soon take his life. He was living on less than $1000 a month, and yet he gave the then-president $500:

Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help.

What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud.

“It felt,” Russell said, “like it was a scam.”

(Via The New York Times)

Paul Pierce turned some heads in the early hours of Saturday morning. Pierce, the retired Boston Celtics legend and current analyst for ESPN, went live on Instagram from someone’s home and broadcast himself partying. A whole lot happened and clips/photos made their way around Twitter of Pierce, surrounded by dancers, smoking and drinking. If you want to see what happened, click here, here, here, or here, but know that “Paul Pierce had a house party with a whole hell of a lot going on” is fairly NSFW.

As people woke up on Saturday and started to see what Pierce had going on, Twitter exploded with reactions. No one in the basketball world had more fun with this than Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal, with whom Pierce was teammates for a year in D.C. Beal could not believe that Pierce made a cardinal sin of IG: not hitting the “close friends” button.

A handful of other NBA players got in on the fun, with Kyle Kuzma calling the future Hall of Fame inductee a “sicko.”

There hasn’t been any sort of comment from ESPN about this or anything along those lines, and we’ll keep you posted if anything comes through. In the meantime, let this be a lesson to everyone to always double check that the things you’re posting on IG that you only want your close friends to see do not break containment.

Prayers from all corners of the music world are being sent DMX’s way after reports of a drug overdose and hospitalization broke on Saturday morning. According to TMZ, the incident also triggered a heart attack, which has left him in “grave condition” in the critical care unit of a White Plains, New York hospital. A number of artists took to social media to send well wishes his way and hopes of a speedy recovery.

T.I. was one of many who sent prayers to DMX on Twitter. “I appreciate you so much for pulling up & and checking on a n****,” he wrote. “So now I’m tellin you like you told me…This too shall pass…” Rick Ross was one of the first people to speak out after hearing the news. In a video he shared to his Instagram Story, he said, “Prayers up for DMX the legend, let’s put that in the sky.” Killer Mike also chimed in with prayers of his own, saying, “May God bless the Dog (DMX). Praying for him as I have just heard the terrible news.”

DMX’s struggle with drug addiction have been well-documented over the years. He once opened up about being tricked into smoking crack at the age of 14 by his rap mentor. He’s also checked into rehab multiple times over the past few years, once in 2017 and again in 2019. Hopefully, the hip-hop legend can pull through and begin the process towards a speedy recovery.

You can read some more reactions from the music world below.

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

Travis Scott is as big as most any brand out there. He’s dominating the hip-hop space, burning up the streetwear scene with his Cactus Jack label, making moves in the virtual world, and he’s even dabbled in the fast-food universe. So it should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that now Scott is lending his dusty desert aesthetic to a spiked seltzer — another extremely popular cultural fixture.

CACTI is made in collaboration with Anheuser-Busch and is Scott’s answer to White Claw. Don’t be fooled (or charmed) by the sound of “agave spiked seltzer,” though. CACTI is made from water, fermented cane sugar, a hint of lime juice, and agave syrup — it doesn’t have tequila in it. It’s basically the same ingredient set as White Claw and Truly. But it’s made way sweeter by thanks to that agave syrup, which also means it’s about double the calories of those other brands.

The upshot is that at 7% ABV, it’s a lot stronger. You’ll feel the buzz after a single can — definitely a good thing when each serving is 150 calories.

CACTI is brewed in Los Angeles and available in just three flavors as of now — Lime, Pineapple, and Strawberry. It’s dropping in a 9-count 12-oz variety pack, as well as 16oz and 25oz jumbo cans (only available in Lime and Pineapple). We got our hands on a case and decided to see how it stacks up to the competition in the over-saturated spiked seltzer market.

Is this a legit attempt at a worthwhile beverage or a simple cash-grab?

The Packaging

Before we dive into each flavor, special mention has to be given to the packaging of CACTI. It matches Travis Scott’s dusty desert vibe perfectly, which helps to drive home that you’re drinking Travis Scott’s spiked seltzer and not something else. The cans themselves have a nice matte finish to them that would make Marques Brownlee weep with joy. It’s not the most important thing in the world but it really sets you up for a positive experience.

Before I cracked a can open I wanted to like it, just because I loved the way the packaging looked and felt. That’s kind of genius! But only really matters if the product delivers from a flavor standpoint.

CACTI — Strawberry

On the nose, the strawberry flavor is superior to every other flavor in the CACTI line. It’s akin to a basket of freshly washed in-season strawberries from the grocery store. Unfortunately, that’s where the association with anything remotely natural ends, because on the palate, CACTI Strawberry is a candied disaster.

Okay, maybe “disaster” is too strong but this tastes overly sugary. It’s no wonder why the strawberry is the only flavor to not release in larger size options — getting through a can feels like a chore.

While the initial blast of a freshly opened can is a bit overwhelming, once this flavor mellows out a bit it becomes a little more palatable. At its best (midway through the can, still cold), it tastes exactly like what a strawberry Jello-shot made with bottom-shelf vodka tastes like.

The Bottom Line

If you live for sweet drinks, this is certainly one of the sweetest spiked seltzers on the market. But if you hate Jello-shots, stay far away from this brew.

CACTI — Lime

Each of the CACTI seltzer flavors features a drop of lime juice, so they’re doubling-up on the lime here and it pays off! I was initially wary as to whether I’d like the Lime, as it presented almost no aroma when I cracked open a can. But I was pleased to find that this was a considerable step up from Strawberry.

The flavors just gel so much more harmoniously here, the lime juice and “natural flavoring” is the perfect complement to the blue agave syrup, resulting in a smooth, highly vegetal expression that really sets itself apart from other lime flavored seltzers. Where White Claw and Truly’s lime seltzers are spikey and tart, CACTI Lime is like syrup, it almost begs for an additional shot of a good vodka or tequila.

Which we’d recommend if a single can of CACTI wasn’t enough to get you buzzed. It definitely is.

Bottom Line:

The smoothest lime-flavored hard seltzer we’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking. Highly vegetal and grassy, offering a complexity unseen in the hard seltzer space.

CACTI — Pineapple

If I had to choose a single flavor of CACTI to bring home it would be… Lime, just because it’s more versatile. But if I’m ever reaching for a single can? It’s going to be Pineapple, which tastes the best as a standalone product. Cracking open a can reveals heavy tropical notes. It doesn’t recall the sharp tart qualities of pineapple so much as the rounder qualities of mango.

On the palate, CACTI Pineapple feels a little one-note — a bit like unripened pineapple — but the finish is sweeter and conjures a custom-made pineapple Jolly Rancher. The fact that this will get you buzzed is sinful, this is straight-up candy as an alcoholic beverage. And unlike the strawberry flavor, the sweetness here actually works.

Bottom Line:

Delicious. Sweet but not to its detriment. Among hard seltzers, and I’ve ranked them all, CACTI Pineapple lands amongst the very best, flavor-wise.

Grab a 9-pack case of CACTI here.

As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.

There have been a number of hints about what we can expect to see in Space Jam: A New Legacy, and on Saturday morning, we got our most thorough look yet at what we can expect out of the upcoming film starring LeBron James and the Looney Tunes when its first trailer dropped.

We didn’t get to see a ton of basketball in the trailer, as it instead decided to focus on the general plot of the film — LeBron’s son gets lost in something called The Serververse, Don Cheadle is the bad guy, the bad guys are called “The Goon Squad” instead of “The Monstars,” LeBron and the Looney Tunes have to take them down to get his son back, etc.

One of the few basketball moments we did get, though, is one of the most well-known moments from James’ career. At one point, Lola Bunny lobs a ball up into the air, which James goes and gets. The camera then shows Lola celebrating while he’s still in the air, a nod to when Dwyane Wade threw his arms out before James dunked as a member of the Miami Heat.

The big difference, other than Lola lobbing this up and Wade playing a cheeky bounce pass, is that James finished the dunk against the Bucks. In Space Jam, he appears to smash into a big pixelated wall, which does not seem like a particularly good time.

Space Jam: A New Legacy hits theaters and HBO Max on July 16, 2021.

It’s been almost three years since Vince Staples delivered a project. Back in 2018, the the Long Beach native released his mixtape FM! to acclaim, but since then his musical contributions have been limited to guest features, like his most recent remix of Tiana Major9’s “Real Affair.” However, thanks to some recent comments from Killer Mike, we now know Vince Staples upcoming third album is near completion.

Killer Mike recently connected with Staples at a recording studio, where the Long Beach native played him the upcoming project, and after getting through a listen of it, Killer Mike had nothing but good words. “Every time I C @vincestaples my spirit is lifted,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “After hearing his new project I repeat and repeat he beyond “Gifted”. Love & Respect always! His mother raised a, G. God bless her his dad and his hood!”

Staples first announced the project in 2019, and did so in a very playful fashion. “Tryna see if I should start third album or master my chili recipe,” he wrote. Despite replying to that post with “Fasho the chili,” It’s now clear that the former was completed as well.

You can check out Killer Mike’s post above.

In another, better timeline, Black Widow — the long-threatened solo outing for Scarlett Johansson’s Avengers trouper Natasha Romanoff — would have kicked off last year’s summer movie season. Instead it’s being dropped into the middle of this one’s. Not only that, it’s bowing in theaters and on Disney+, as one of their pricey PVOD options. But lest you forget it’s still en route, a new trailer has arrived, stressing the existential dilemma of its resurrected hero.

The new ad doesn’t skirt around one detail: In the MCU timeline, Black Widow is dead. She sacrificed herself in Avengers: Endgame so that the rest of humanity may live. She didn’t get a royal send-off like Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, but she did get her own, belated movie, which will presumably fill in some chapters in her life.

The latest trailer has her intoning on the narration track about her curious relationship with her identity — someone who’s been a part of two families, one by choice, one by chance. We see her with her fellow colleagues, some of whom have also passed on. And we see her with her biological relatives, including sis Florence Pugh and parents Rachel Weisz and David Harbour. There’s also some glimpses of Ray Winstone, the main baddie, giving the acclaimed North London thespian one of his juicier parts in years.

You’ll finally get to see Black Widow on July 9, when it hits theaters and Disney+, both for pay.