Month: April 2021

Things got weird, okay? I think we can all agree that things got weird. Harrison Ford was up there on stage pulling crumpled pieces of papers out of his pockets like someone looking for a coupon at the register in a diner, Daniel Kaluuya congratulated his parents on having sex, beloved Hollywood icon Glenn Close did Da Butt in front of God and Lil Rel Howery and everyone. And that’s before whatever happened at the end. What did happen at the end, exactly? It looked like everyone was banking on a Chadwick Boseman win and then things went sideways and we got a still frame of Anthony Hopkins and then a smash cut to Questlove saying goodnight. It was… weird. The only thing I thing we can agree on about all of it that Joaquin Phoenix is probably the single most perfect person to have up there on stage as things spiral out of control during a live broadcast. I’m not entirely sure he didn’t just say Hopkins’ name for the sole purpose of creating that chaos. Like I said, things got weird.

But let’s put that aside for now. Let’s focus on the parts that went well. Let’s focus on the Oscars at least trying something new and cool, moving away from the same old stuffy ballroom and orchestra spectacle we’ve seen for quite literally our entire lives. Let’s focus, specifically, on the opening few minutes, in which Regina King strutted into the ceremony with an Oscar in her hand while producer Steven Soderbergh gave the long single shot the full-on Ocean’s Eleven funky credits treatment. That was cool. That was so cool. A reasonable argument could be made — by me, among others — that it was the coolest thing that has ever happened in an Oscars ceremony. I mean, watch it again now.

Can you ever, at any point in your stupid life, even in your wildest Benadryl-addled dreams, picture yourself looking half as cool as Regina King looked in that opening? The whole thing gave the first half-hour or so of the show a fun little vibe, like maybe we were watching a heist movie instead of an awards show, like maybe Regina King was the main character of the festivities and we were supposed to keep an eye on her for the big twist that was coming later.

Case in point: It is my position that the funniest possible thing would have been if that Phoenix-Hopkins chaos at the end happened and then, while everyone in the room and watching at home was all scattered and trying to figure out what was going on, they cut to another long single shot of Regina King strutting out of the theater, but now while pushing an entire wheelbarrow full of stolen Oscars, like she set it all up to pull off Hollywood’s biggest heist. Cut it up with little shots of her laying the groundwork throughout the ceremony, bounce around in the timeline to show us how she did it, maybe a shot of her paying off the kitchen staff to sneak backstage or one of her winking at Glenn Close in a way that reveals the whole Da Butt fiasco was staged misdirection so she could swipe the trophies. It would have been, if nothing else, classic Soderbergh.

Even the way the credits appeared on the screen was cool, mostly because the style of the whole thing made me start to picture what an actual heist movie featuring each set of names on the screen would look like. Look at some of these combinations.

We deserve this one. A heist movie starring Angela Bassett and Bong Joon Ho, also directed by Bong Joon Ho. I had no clue prior to last night that this is something I could want at all, and now I might die if I don’t have it in 12-18 months. Please hurry. But not until you look at this one, too.

I have this theory I’m working on that Don Cheadle makes everything better. I haven’t baked it all the way through yet, but I’m close and I’ve yet to run into anything that disproves it. I bring this up now for two reasons: One, I got very excited when I saw his name pop up here because I was kind of hoping he’d show up in character as Basher from the Ocean’s movies to help Regina King steal the Oscars; and two, a heist movie starring Don Cheadle and Halle Berry would be an absolute blast.

Two options here:

• Brad Pitt is a career thief who is fresh out of the slammer and itching to pull one big score and get out of the game, and he has his sights set on the crooked billionaire private prison magnate Nelson Hoosegow, played by Cranston
• Pitt and Cranston play dads who steal the Super Bowl trophy and hold it for ransom to get money to send their kids to college

Either or both are fine.

I’m not sure if this movie would be any good but I think we should make it anyway and keep the camera rolling between takes just to capture whatever stilted and awkward conversations these two have on set. Something to consider, really.

Hell yes.

HELL YES.

In the interest of fairness and full disclosure, I had mostly been joking throughout this “let’s do a heist movie with these people” bit, but now I am serious. These last two screencaps settled it. I cannot think of any movie I could possibly want more than a heist flick starring Riz Ahmed and Rita Moreno, except maybe a Fast & Furious movie where Riz Ahmed and Rita Moreno star as the villains that Dominic Toretto and crew heist something from. I am not a complicated man. Give me this and a pizza and I will be happy for hours.

Now, again, things went sideways in places after all of this happened. It was bound to happen, in hindsight. There were so many moving pieces, so many new things being flung against the wall, so many people and institutions that were rusty at all of this business after a year of sitting inside in sweatpants and slippers. I did appreciate the ambition of it all, though. Sometimes chaos breeds invention, and some of the moves Soderbergh and company tried are worth revisiting down the line somewhere, maybe. I liked the cocktail lounge set-up of it all, and I liked that the nominees were all paired off and seated at tables instead of crammed into a fancy high school assembly for three hours, if only because it looked like everyone was having fun little conversations all night and I like to picture my stars as charming and relaxed instead of crammed into crappy padded fold-down seats in rows of 40.

Not everything worked, of course, some things more hilariously so than others, but there were some keepers in there, to be sure. Mostly that opening. It would be perfectly fine with me if every Oscars telecast for the next 10 years opens with Regina King gliding through the lobby and up to the stage with a trophy in her hand. It would also be okay with me if she did make off with that wheelbarrow full of Oscars I was joking about earlier. Maybe that’s the big takeaway here. Let’s go ahead and trim the fat. Let’s just make an actual heist movie where Regina King plays a character who steals a wheelbarrow full of Oscars.

It’s the perfect crime.

How much would you spend for a copy of a hip-hop classic? For Eminem, the going rate is somewhere between $500 and $600, as he revealed during a discussion on the popular voice chat app, Clubhouse. While the burgeoning community on Clubhouse has been known for causing controversy in the past, this past weekend, fans of the Detroit rapper held a celebratory “Shady Con” in his honor, with guests including his manager Paul Rosenberg and DJ Whoo Kid. Em himself stopped by to share some stories as well, telling fans about the time he just had to spend a little extra on his hero Nas’ seminal debut Illmatic to feed his collection habit.

As Em explained, I’ve been collecting since I was a kid, everything from comic books to baseball cards to toys, as well as every rap album on cassette I could get my hands on. Not much has changed for me as an adult.” When he found an unsealed cassette copy of Nas’ game-changing classic, his mind was blown. “I think it’s backstock from what records stores had in the back storage,” he said. “The tapes that never sold and they just kept them. That’s the only thing I can think of. Cause nobody’s going to have a f*cking Illmatic tape and not open it.” He also good-naturedly compared the value of his own debut The Slim Shady LP — which was a culture shifter in the vein of Illmatic, for sure — under similar conditions, saying it’d draw a tidy sum of “twelve cents.”

For what it’s worth, it’s not the worst way to spend money — which Em has more than enough of. An unsealed copy of a classic album on a discontinued format is exactly the sort of ultra-rare find that has wannabe collectors including Eminem going NFT crazy these days — and it also sort of shows the difference between a physical piece of owned art and the idea of owning a certificate of a jpeg or whatever.

Listen to Eminem’s amusing anecdote above.

Rick Santorum, a politician-turned-cable news commentator most famous for having the same last name as a disgusting sex act, was a featured guest at Young America’s Foundation’s Standing Up for Faith & Freedom seminar over the weekend. The program aims to assist “students at Catholic schools advance conservative ideas, with an understanding that young people encounter unique challenges and opportunities at modern Catholic institutions.” It also teaches them to ignore genocide, apparently.

While giving a speech about fighting for “religious freedom,” Santorum made some boneheaded comments about Native Americans. “If you think about this country, I don’t know of any other country in the world that was settled predominately by people who were coming to practice their faith. They came here because they were not allowed to practice their particular faith in their own country,” he said. Santorum later added, “We came here and created a blank slate. We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.” Gee, I wonder why.

Santorum is being widely criticized for his willfully ignorant comments, including by assembly-member Yuh-Line Niou (D-NY), who tweeted, “He needs to full stop stfu. Our tribes are alive and thriving. Everything we know day to day has our native cultures embedded. We are on their land. We eat their food. Use their words. Drink their water.”

Here’s more:

Go back to Urban Dictionary, Rick.

(Via Media Matters)

The streaming wars will never truly end as the landscape continues to shift and seeming alliances can fall by the wayside. Such is the case with Roku users, who probably feel like they’re never quite sure what they can watch with their devices. For several months, Roku fans felt left out of the HBO Max launch party until both services finally struck a deal. Now, the Roku bunch might lose access to YouTube TV, and this could apparently happen within a matter of days. To that effect, Roku issued is asking subscribers to contact Google to “urge them” to end a standoff.

Via The Verge, a Roku statement accuse Google of playing favorites with its own products (in this case, Google’s separate YouTube app), and negotiations between the two companies appear to be coming to no happy agreement. Here’s more:

“Google is attempting to use its YouTube monopoly position to force Roku into accepting predatory, anti-competitive and discriminatory terms that will directly harm Roku and our users. It should come as no surprise that Google is now demanding unfair and anti-competitive terms that harm Roku’s users.”

Roku is further alleging in its statement that Google might (via Deadline) require (as a condition for Roku to continue hosting the YouTube app) Roku to invest in upgrading equipment. And Roku claims that Google has demanded that Roku provide a search row that’s dedicated to YouTube within the Roku platform interface; additionally, Roku says that Google is allegedly asking for access to customer data. The Verge notes that Google has not responded (as of yet) to these accusations.

Deadline says that Roku has worded their call to action to recognize how the disappearance of an app can adversely affect users. “We believe consumers stand to benefit from Google and Roku reaching a fair agreement that preserves consumers access to YouTube TV, protects user data and promotes a competitive, free and open marketplace.” Roku declared. “We are committed to trying to achieve that goal.”

(Via The Verge & Deadline)

In his return to Tiny Desk Concerts, the newly rechristened and slimmed-down Shelley invites viewers into a softly-lit study for a simmering performance of songs from his upcoming album, Shelley FKA DRAM. Thanks to Tiny Desk’s “(At-Home)” designation, the Virginia native gets extra comfy, donning a set of food-patterned PJs that works just as well as an eye-popping suit, packing his band into the smaller confines, and delivering soulful renditions of songs like “Exposure,” “The Lay Down,” “Cooking With Grease,” and the debut of “Rich & Famous.”

The last time Shelley played Tiny Desk — way back in 2017 — he was promoting the lighthearted, melodic hip-hop debut album Big Baby DRAM. He makes note of the change during his return performance, reintroducing himself as Shelley — his government name — and calls the moment “a new beginning. Full circle.”

Shelley first showed glimpses of the shift in 2018 with his That’s A Girl’s Name EP, shifting to groovy but still swaggering R&B. Then, in 2019, he shared “The Lay Down” with HER (who’s now an Oscar and Grammy winner), presaging the new, grown-and-sexy direction he’s adopted for his next project, which releases April 29 in honor of his mom’s birthday.

Watch Shelley’s smooth NPR Tiny Desk return performance above.

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

The members of Mannequin Pussy spent much of 2020 apart thanks to the pandemic, but after their forced hiatus, they booked some studio time to work together again. The result of those sessions was the band’s Perfect EP, which is set for release in May. They announced the project and shared “Control” last month, and now they’re back with the title track.

They’ve shared a video for the song as well, which is a tribute to Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion. Therefore, the clip is all about a high school reunion, and it features mischievous drag queens making a scene.

The band’s Marisa Dabice (aka Missy) says of the song:

“Last year, I found myself spending more time on my phone than I ever had in my life. Physically separate from other people, I spent hours of time watching other humans perform on my rectangle. I realized that through years of social media training, many of us have grown this deep desire to manicure our lives to look as perfect, as aspirational as possible. We want to put ourselves out there, share our lives, our stories, our day to day – and these images and videos all shout the same thing: ‘Please look at me, please tell me I’m so perfect.’ It’s simultaneously a declaration of our confidence but edged with the desperation that seeks validation from others.”

Listen to “Perfect” above.

Perfect is out 5/21 via Epitaph Records. Pre-order it here.

At Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony there was a great moment when Daniel Kaluuya, accepting his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, made a reference to his parents having sex. Then the camera cut to Kaluuya’s mom who was making the perfect, “What on Earth?” face. It’s just one of those moments that can’t be planned and is a big reason, over the years, that people like watching the Oscars. Hey, anything can happen! But, unfortunately, there was, again, no host at this year’s ceremony so it was left up to Twitter to make the jokes. This is because, without a trained and skilled host, we are left with presenters who are reading from a script they’ve already rehearsed. There’s no room for them to come on screen and even make a reference to what we, the audience, just saw. (And the truth is we probably don’t want presenters going off script because if they don’t know what they’re doing, well that could be its own disaster.) I kept imagining a world where, I dunno, Chris Rock comes back on stage with a big smile and starts bantering with Kaluuya’s mom about what happened. To really memorialize this great thing that just happened. Instead, the show stuck to the script like it never happened. And then there’s that ending … oof. We’ll get to that.

Last night’s Oscars looked pretty enough under the circumstances and some of the speeches were good. But everything in between the speeches seemed robotic. Too planned. There was not a sense that anything could happen, which kind of goes against the reason why people like watching live television in the first place. And, look, we’ve all been sitting around the last year trying to avoid the plague, would it have been the worst thing to have someone who is a trained host to come on and do what the best hosts do: guide the audience through and be the cipher for the audience. That’s why people liked Billy Crystal, he somehow seemed both excited to be there but also wasn’t opposed to taking the proceedings down a couple of pegs when it got too stuffy. So, yeah, it would have been nice just to have a constant person there to say, “Yeah, this has been a tough year, but maybe let’s try to have a little fun tonight, what do you say?” Instead, between the speeches, we got more speeches. These host-less Oscars just have no personality. And it stood out even more this year because the production desperately wanted us to think that it did have a personality.

(Also, as an aside, with getting people together being limited, wouldn’t this have been the year to do a grand death montage? With a bunch of great clips of all these people in their primes? This should have been a 10-minute segment! Instead, it was presented as if someone hit fast forward on the old VHS tape.)

So, here’s one big problem: No one wants to host the Oscars. I did a little snooping around about why this is and the consensus seems to be it’s a no-win situation. Anyone who hosts now knows in the weeks leading up to the show people will be looking through their history. It’s a pretty heavy layer of scrutiny. And even for people who have not made any serious mistakes in the past don’t seem to like the idea of going through a public background check. And, from what I heard, the salary for the host is surprisingly low. (I want to be clear, it’s a decent amount of money for you or me, but for a famous person who will be subjected to weeks of scorn, it seems low.) So the Academy is still trying to hire a host pretty much based on “prestige” alone, even though there’s not much prestige left with this gig. Any comedian at that level (in normal times) could do a two-week stand in Vegas and make a lot more money. So what’s the incentive? “Hey what if you made a lot less money for doing a lot of work and, oh, most likely everyone will hate you. So, what do you say?”

Obviously, the Academy has to come to the realization that its prime gig doesn’t have the cache that it used to. Which means they can’t continue to pay hosts on mostly prestige alone. They are going to have to actually pay people who are good a lot of money to make this thing work again.

Also, about that ending last night. What a mess. Look, this has nothing to do with Anthony Hopkins winning and, actually, what the Oscars did kind of screwed him over. A few hours before the show when it was announced Best Actor would be the last award given out, I just assumed, since it’s a weird year anyway, maybe the secretive protocols were dropped at the powers that be were tipped off that Chadwick Boseman had won. Because the production really went “all in” on Boseman winning and the show ending on a touching and well-deserved tribute to his life. And the thing is, maybe the thought was also, even if Boseman didn’t win, well, whoever wins will obviously say some nice words about Boseman.

Instead, Joaquin Phoenix read Anthony Hopkins’s name, who wasn’t there to accept, then Phoenix skedaddled off stage as quickly as possible. Guess what … there’s no host, so there’s no one to run up to the microphone to say anything. It just ended on a thud. Imagine if the La La Land, Moonlight year didn’t have a host. We at home would have seen a huddle, then a quick announcement that Moonlight had won and that would have been it, with no one to explain what just happened.

I always love Jimmy Kimmel’s retelling of that story, as he’s in the audience to do a bit with Matt Damon to close the show and Damon says to him, “someone should go up there and explain what’s happening,” and it hit Kimmel, “Oh, I guess that’s me.” But, last night there wasn’t anyone to say “I guess that’s me.” No one to say, “Hey, before we go, he may not have won, but let me say a few words about Chadwick Boseman.” Instead, we just got the thud.

Anyway, enough of this: bring back the Oscar host and also make it worth their while to do it.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

While riding high on the streaming success of their recently released compilation album Slime Language 2 and collaborative single “Ski,” Young Stoner Life Records rappers Gunna and Young Thug performed a little community service over the weekend, paying bond for 30 inmates of the Fulton County Jail according to Atlanta local news. The two Atlanta natives shared a video of former inmates being reunited with family members as they were released; most were being held on minor charges but didn’t have enough to post bond.

As Thug explained, “This is where we are from. We just woke up and went to the jail with the lawyer and DA’s and the prosecutors, the bonding companies, and just got as many people as we can out.” Gunna echoed, “You never know what somebody been through. There was people sitting out three or four years and couldn’t get out on a bond. If they did the crime, then they can do the time, then it’s all right. But it’s like you’re giving them a bond higher than what they stole.”

According to WSBTV, the jail was 400 inmates over its 2,500 inmate capacity just two months ago — during a global pandemic(!) — and a city councilman described the conditions as the worst he’d ever seen. And although the rappers didn’t know how much money they spent on this photo opportunity — yes, the scenes will be part of an upcoming music video — they also promise it’s not going to be a one-time event, encouraging their peers to follow their lead.

Other music videos from the compilation — which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week — include Thug and Unfoonk’s “Real.”

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

HER is only 23 years old, but she’s already racked up four Grammy Awards and picked up an Oscar last night, as she got the Best Original Song win for her Judas And The Black Messiah track “Fight For You.” This puts her halfway towards an EGOT (winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award), on which she has now set her sights.

Speaking with ET after her win, HER said, “Oh, there’s absolutely going to be an EGOT in my future, hopefully. But yeah, I’m also super passionate about acting as well, so you may see me up here as an actress also. And I love musicals, me and Brandy have been talking about it a lot. She’s inspired me since she did a musical [Cinderalla]. Honestly, I cannot believe that we’re here. […] I’m still speechless, I feel like the Oscars are happening tomorrow and I’m dreaming right now. I’m still pinching myself, so I have no words.”

Only 16 artists have ever achieved EGOT status, although four of those artists finalized the feat in just the past few years. In 2018, John Legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Tim Rice simultaneously EGOT’ed after collectively winning an Emmy for producing Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert. Alan Menken also got his EGOT by picking up an Emmy last year.

If HER pursues an EGOT in earnest, she has a shot at becoming the youngest person to ever do it. The current record-holder is Robert Lopez, who is known for his work on projects like Frozen and The Book Of Mormon and was 39 years old when he completed his EGOT. Legend is a close second, as he was 39 years and 8 months old when he got the EGOT.

Find the full list of this year’s Oscar winners here.

Showtime announced last October that it would be reviving the most successful series in the network’s history, Dexter, which last aired on the network in 2013. The show’s original showrunner, Clyde Phillips, has returned, and he suggested this is not Season 9, but it is a continuation, only it picks up years after the original left Michael C. Hall’s Dexter as a lumberjack in Oregon. Both Phillips and Hall have suggested that this will be something of a do-over, allowing them to provide Dexter with a better ending (and here’s three things that fans will insist upon).

Details have been scant, but we also know that the series will not return to Miami, but instead will be set in the town of Iron Lake in upstate New York. Dexter’s major nemesis will be the mayor of that town, played by Clancy Brown. The city of Iron Lake, New York, however, will be played by Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, and thanks to an update from their local newspaper, The Greenfield Recorder, we also know that the revival will be set during the winter.

In fact, though it was shot in Shelburne Falls in April, the city has been remade with Christmas decorations to give it a holiday setting. No release date has been set for the return — even after the release of the teaser this week — but winter settings often beget winter releases, so I wouldn’t expect Dexter to air until late this year.

Jamie Chung (Lovecraft Country), Julia Jones (Goliath), and Alano Miller (Jane the Virgin) have also been announced as cast members. Meanwhile, there have not yet been any confirmations regarding the show’s original cast members. However, rumors that Yvonne Strahovski’s character, Hannah, would return have recently been debunked. A local newspaper captured a photo from the set of a woman (wearing a mask) who looked like Strahovski, but it was later learned that she was a crew member.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Carpenter — who played Debra Morgan — recently posted a picture from a set, though not necessarily the set of Dexter, but fans of the series are convinced that it is. The timing checks out, and some conspiracy theorists are convinced that the crew member on the set with her is wearing a Dexter lanyard, but there’s no confirmation of this assertion.

In the photo, Carpenter is also wearing a striped shirt, and Debra Morgan frequently wore striped shirts on the series. That’s not in any way confirmation, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and wears a striped shirt like Debra Morgan …

The best evidence of Debra’s return, however, may come in photo posted to Instagram from the set back in February by Dexter director and producer, Marcos Siega, in which he tagged Jennifer Carpenter along with other cast members.

Though Debra died in the original series, and though showrunner Clyde Phillips insisted that they are “not undoing anything,” he also said that “there is some flexibility to do some movie magic.” This has led to speculation that Debra would replace Dexter’s father, Harry, as his Dark Passenger — the ghost that offers him deadly advice.

We’ll find out more when Dexter finally returns later this year.

Source: Greenfield Recorder, Instagram, Instagram