Month: April 2021

There’s nothing like coming “home,” which could be said of Kate Winslet’s return to HBO in Mare of Easttown, one decade after her Emmy-winning turn in Mildred Pierce. This is also true, in a metaphorical sense, of Winslet’s title character in HBO’s new limited series, Mare of Easttown, although this character is living in a perpetual homecoming when she’s never left home in the first place. The show’s a lot of things: character study, world-building portrait of small-town life, and crime drama with (here’s the kicker) a sharp-witted dramedy embedded within the confines. It must also be noted that this show wasn’t exactly well-served by the show’s trailer. Sure, people expect a quality project when Kate Winslet is involved, but the trailer forecast yet another “gritty” cop drama focused upon a world-weary, probably hard-drinking, “complicated” protagonist. Yes, Winslet does embody that trope of a TV-cop, but this show ain’t overly gritty, even if the drab color palette would suggest otherwise.

Instead, Mare of Easttown, which is very serious in subject matter, is also quite charming at times. It will lure you in with a slow-burning first few episodes as we get to know our protagonist by how others perceive her, and then all (controlled) hell breaks loose. Kate Winslet doing a Philadelphia-adjacent accent then becomes only one of the main draws; she is thoroughly fascinating. Mare’s a hard-vaping cop with a mysterious tragedy scratching away at her underneath the surface, and she’s captivating to those who enter Easttown, although those who have known her forever tend to forget that she’s, well, human. Mare Sheehan never left her childhood stomping grounds; and although she doggedly serves the small town’s residents on a daily basis as a detective (who does it all, from chasing down apparent burglars to answering house calls for those who’d rather call her cell than the PD’s main line), she’s famed in the community for a high-school basketball shot. In this way, Mare’s a familiar face and comforting presence, but she’s still somehow an outsider within her own community.

The show spins an engrossing yarn while navigating an engaging mystery, as Winslet holds it together as a woman on the verge, who’s helping everyone but herself in a town that’s cannibalizing itself. I’d really like someone to let Mare have enough time to you, know, eat a damn sandwich in peace because that’s good for the soul, but that is not in the cards here. As if that wasn’t enough, Mare’s professional abilities are called into question, and her boss pulls in a young whippersnapper of a county detective to help clean up the mess. Evan Peters (who’s still pulling off the chameleon thing, as with AHS and WandaVision) turns out to be a friggin’ delight as Colin Zabel (yes, his name sure sounds like that of director Craig Zobel), whose audience-POV reactions to Mare and Easttown are one of the greatest pleasures of this series. He’s nearly aghast at how Mare is either related to or “friends” with everyone in this town, and how everyone casually treats each other terribly while also having each other’s backs.

Like Mare, the show’s a scrappy one, at once showcasing exhaustion while also intriguing viewers. This dual-naturedness is captured by writer Brad Ingelsby (The Way Back), who hails from Pennsylvania, close to where the series is set, and who takes great pains to authentically nail the often-claustrophobic feel of small-town life. Seriously, imagine being a detective who starts to unfurl a murder, and every piece of the puzzle points to someone you’ve known for most of your life. That’s Mare’s exasperating dilemma, and Ingelsby also clearly enjoyed painting Easttown, too, as a character while burrowing into a gruesome crime that rocks the close-knit community.

The mystery takes off. Mare of Easttown is at once a sprawling, take-your-time, seven-part series (for which critics screened five episodes) and an inferno. It’ll get suck you in and refuse to let you go, and even though the show dives into some bleak material, the series doesn’t emerge as anything resembling grief porn (and thank god for that). Winslet manages to both gamely and subtly portray the stereotypical cop who’s found in plentiful supply all over TV, and you know the type: too busy cleaning up the world, so their family life suffers, and their inner self crumbles. They inevitably f*ck up at home, over and over again; they can’t cope with the thought of maintaining a personal life after they lose what’s near and dear to them; and yes, this is not new. Winslet, however, fashions her character into a revelation. She’s got an arsenal of countless tiny gestures that, at once, tell us a lot about Mare but leave us wanting more. She’s much more than a f*cked-up TV cop who’s been on an unsolvable case for a year.

I’ve already mentioned Evan Peters as a wonderful side player, oh, and there are more. The show’s heavy on the HBO talent, given that it’s directed by Cobel (The Leftovers and Westworld), and the incredible cast includes Jean Smart (following up on Watchmen) and Julianne Nicholson (from The Outsider), whose characters both inform us of Mare’s personal life while observing how she responds to the show’s central mystery. Former Mildred Pierce co-star Guy Pearce surfaces as a love interest and an outsider and a one-time big-shot novelist. All are great here, but Smart, especially, is a natural treasure (although we already knew this from Fargo, Dirty John, and Watchmen). She brilliantly brings a necessary spark of comedy, and Jean Smart is the banisher of all things dreary. If she wasn’t about to star in her own HBO Max show (for Michael Schur), I’d already be calling for a “Mare’s Mom” spinoff.

Mare of Easttown is a pleasure to watch, with everyone in Mare’s orbit, and vice versa, as she circles in on the show’s main mystery. The horrific details of that puzzle are best left to your discovery, so that you can watch things unfold while Mare tries to extricate every local pain in her butt from sniffing around if they’re not indirectly tied to what happened. And it’s so much fun to watch Mare frustratedly deal with obstacles, despite the dark subject matter, and to watch Winslet piece together clues with the simplest of actions while there’s clearly so many inner workings underneath that surface. While standing still and doing nothing at all, while limping through a sprained ankle, and even while vaping, Winslet somehow does a lot. She’s a force of nature while eating some unappetizing pizza or stuffing a fancy hors d’oeuvre into a couch (please, someone get her a solid sandwich, because she’s earned it). All the while, Mare’s deconstructing herself and Easttown and working to save the soul of her community. I’m not sure that the residents deserve her, but HBO viewers deserve to get hooked on this series.

HBO’s ‘Mare of Easttown’ premieres on Sunday, April 18.

While the idea of Jenny Lewis reuniting with the Postal Service for new music is very unlikely, the singer has been working on a new, quarantine-born project. Lewis and Chicago musician Serengeti virtually collaborated on a handful of electric tracks including “Vroom Vroom,” “Unblu,” and the most recent “Idiot.” Sharing yet another iPhone-recorded visual, Lewis and Serengeti debut the lively collaboration “GLTR.”

Over shuffling synths and an urgent beat, the two musicians detail the myth of social media. “How’s your Instagram these days? / Did you get a lotta action when you had braids? / Looked good on that beach that time near the maze,” Serengeti sings before Lewis repeats the lyric, “What a lie.”

In a statement about the track, Serengeti said he hopes that it inspires listeners to leave their phone at home. “[It’s] a nice song about getting out of your head and having a time. Getting out a little bit. Getting out of bed and enjoying some things. Maybe putting down the phone for a sec.”

Lewis and Serengeti’s collaboration happened by chance. Ahead of the pandemic, Lewis was set to embark on a massive North American tour opening for Harry Styles in support of his Fine Line album. But after the shut down of the live music industry, Lewis hunkered down at home and decided to start a very DIY project with Serengeti. The five tracks they made for their project were all recorded on Jenny’s iPhone, along with each of their accompanying videos.

Watch Lewis and Serengeti’s “GLTR” video above.

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

American ice cream gurus Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are no strangers to taking a stance on political causes under the corporate Ben & Jerry’s umbrella. They regularly help organize and support climate marches, and last year, the company offered a strong stance (amid the George Floyd protests) to support Black Lives Matter, and they’re doing it again following the police shooting and killing of Daunte Wright after officer Kim Potter reportedly meant to deploy her taser and then “accidentally” (according to Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon via ABC News) shot Wright. Multiple nights of civil unrest have followed, and earlier this week, the Ben & Jerry’s Twitter account took a stand, arguing for rebuilding the system and defunding police departments.

“The murder of #DaunteWright is rooted in white supremacy and results from the intentional criminalization of Black and Brown communities,” tweeted Ben & Jerrys. “This system can’t be reformed. It must be dismantled and a real system of public safety rebuilt from the ground up. #DefundThePolice.”

This move has followed the conservative criticism of other corporations (including Coca-Cola and MLB) for taking a stand in Georgia over voter suppression. Naturally, the far-right’s response to these stances is to want to “cancel” the brands, which is ironic, considering how much they complain about “cancel culture.” The same silliness is following Ben & Jerry’s declaration.

In other words, an ice cream war is brewing. On one side, you’ve got foot stomping.

Elsewhere, people are surprised that some are only now noticing that Ben & Jerry’s takes stances on issues. And some are also pointing out that, beyond everything else, “the product Ben and Jerry’s makes tastes much better than My Pillow.” Ouch.

In addition to all of the Ben & Jerry’s love out there, there’s also plenty of people reminding Posobiec about the 2015 Listeria outbreak that’s tied to Blue Bell. So, it looks like Ben & Jerry’s will keep on standing for multiple reasons.

Thanks to his bookish knowledge of pop culture and gift for storytelling, The Roots drummer Questlove has become one of music’s foremost historians — albeit, an informal one, in most cases. So, it’s fitting that his next book is titled Music Is History and will take on the task of examing the last 50 years of pop culture through the lens of the music that inspired it and was inspired it. The book is due in October through Abrams Image.

According to a press release, in the new book, Questlove will choose an “essential” track he believes defines each year, and “unpacks each song’s significance, revealing the pivotal role that American music plays around issues of race, gender, politics, and identity.”

Choosing the year 1971 as the book’s starting point, Quest gives it a link to his own personal history — he recently celebrated his own 50th birthday — and will also include personal anecdotes to highlight the way grand themes like race and politics can have a huge impact on the individual, as well. Topics will include the blaxploitation era, disco, and “the secret ingredient in all funk songs,” which will also be the theme of one of the playlists Questlove is curating to promote the new book. He’ll also be recording the audiobook version, releasing it through Recorded Books.

Rock band Greta Van Fleet has a new album, The Battle At Garden’s Gate, coming out on Friday. Environmental activist Greta Thunberg does not have an album dropping this week. Somebody should tell that to Liam Gallagher, as he seems to have gotten the two confused.

A few days ago, somebody tweeted at the former Oasis member, asking, “Are you excited for Greta Van Fleet’s new album to come out on Friday?” He responded, “She’s amazing I love her work esp for climate change.”

It’s entirely possible Gallagher was joking, of course. If he genuinely thought that Greta Van Fleet was Thunberg, though, then it’s a hilarious misunderstanding. That said, it wouldn’t actually be that outlandish for Gallagher to think that Thunberg is releasing an album, really, as she’s not a stranger to recorded music: Last year, she featured on The 1975’s self-titled song from the album Notes On A Conditional Form, on which she speaks about the state of the planet.

Gallagher’s tweet came on a day when he was particularly active in responding to fans on Twitter. For example, one person asked, “how does it feel knowing that more than 1 billion people have heard your voice sing wonderwall?” He came back with a cheeky response: “I feel happy for them.”

The Battle At Garden’s Gate is out 4/16 via Lava/Republic. Pre-order it here.

The first trailer for F9 came out in January 2020, which was over a year ago in case you forgot how months work because time has lost all meaning. The ninth movie in the Fast & Furious franchise was scheduled to come out on April 19, 2019 (blame Hobbs & Shaw) until it was pushed back to April 10, 2020, and again to May 22 (blame the pandemic), then April 2, 2021, then May 28, but now on June 25, we’ll finally, FINALLY, get to see the magnet plane, Helen Mirren driving, John Cena as Dom Toretto’s brother, and not-dead Han. Also, based on the trailer above, the dream of having a Fast and Furious movie set in space might become a reality. They did it. Those bastards really did it.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob. F9 sees the return of Justin Lin as director, who helmed the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters of the series when it transformed into a global blockbuster. The action hurtles around the globe — from London to Tokyo, from Central America to Edinburgh, and from a secret bunker in Azerbaijan to the teeming streets of Tbilisi. Along the way, old friends will be resurrected, old foes will return, history will be rewritten, and the true meaning of family will be tested like never before..

F9 stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, and Charlize Theron.

Back in February, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Rob McElhenney confirmed that they had purchased a soccer team together, which seemed pretty random at the time, considering the two didn’t have any sort of working relationship and never showed signs of even knowing each other. Turns out, there’s a reason for that. The two really didn’t know each other, and only got to know one another after Reynolds reached out via text one day to offer McElhenney booze, which he gladly accepted. From there, they formed a bond of daily text messages and Zoom calls during the pandemic, which is still going strong despite the fact that they’ve never met each other in person yet.

In a lengthy interview on their budding bromance and body transformations, McElhenney opens up about receiving that first message from Reynolds, who admittedly became obsessed with the Always Sunny actor after seeing his critically acclaimed performance for “Mac’s Dance” in the Season 13 finale. Via Men’s Health:

Rob McElhenney: I was in Mexico and I had posted a photograph of my wife and me drinking tequila. I remember getting a DM from Ryan, and he was like, “Stop drinking that sh*t. I’m going to send you a case of Aviation Gin.” And I was like, “Oh, okay, that sounds good. I’ll drink anything.” Then Ryan said, “Oh, by the way, I’m a big fan of yours.” And I said, “Obviously I’m a big fan of yours.” And we just became text buddies.

As for purchasing a soccer team, the two realized they both had a similar work ethic, but McElhenney admits that his wife, Always Sunny star Kaitlin Olson, gave him pause when he asked her if the business venture was a good idea. “Well, that depends on whether or not your ego can take sharing space with Ryan Reynolds.” Eventually, McElhenney got over it, and the two bought the team.

(Via Men’s Health)

TMZ reports that R&B star Chris Brown is being sued by the sister of his housekeeper, who claims that his dog mauled the housekeeper while she was cleaning his home in Tarzana, California. According to the plaintiff, Patricia Avila, the two had been hired to clean twice a week for $600 a day under the condition that the dogs would be kept in a separate part of the property while they cleaned.

However, Avila says that when her sister went into the backyard to empty a vacuum cleaner, one of the dogs, a Caucasian Shepherd Ovcharka, had found its way there and attacked. Avila says that her sister was bitten on the arm, face, and leg. Eventually, the dog was removed and Brown called an ambulance for Avila’s sister, who she says was treated at the hospital for several days, including at least two surgeries. She says that her sister now has PTSD and panic attacks.

She is suing for damages, although the report doesn’t specify how much, saying that Brown failed to protect the sisters from the risk of attack by his dogs. There is no information on a separate suit from the actual alleged victim or a response from Brown.

Taylor Swift has sort of collaborated with Big Red Machine. The group’s Aaron Dessner was a primary collaborator on Swift’s 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, and the other Big Red Machine member, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, featured on one song from each of those albums. It looks like an official Swift/Big Red Machine collab could be on the way, though, as Vernon previewed a new song featuring Swift.

During a recent Instagram Live session, Vernon played part of a track featuring Swift vocals and said, “This is the Taylor one. It’s awesome, I think it should be the single.” As users of the Bon Iver subreddit noted, he also previewed tracks featuring Anaïs Mitchell and Fleet Foxes leader Robin Pecknold.

Dessner previously hinted that Swift could pop up on some Big Red Machine material. Back in September, he was asked if there were songs of his own he didn’t want to offer Swift while they collaborated on her albums and he responded, “Definitely. It was more that there were some songs that are specifically one thing or another. The Big Red Machine stuff is quite far along — and actually, Taylor has been amazing [at giving feedback]. I’ve shared all of that stuff with her, and she has been really helpful.” He was then asked if Swift would appear on a Big Red Machine song and his answer was intentionally vague: “I can’t really say, so I guess I’ll say neither yes nor no.”

Check out a preview of the Swift-featuring song above.

It’s been a few weeks since Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s racy performance of their hit song “WAP” at the 2021 Grammys, but the performance is still causing controversy among more conservative viewers. While it was previously reported that the performance drew a number of FCC complaints, yesterday, Rolling Stone turned up a more exact number — over 1,000 angry emails from viewers who compared it to porn and packed their long-winded missives with plenty of slut-shaming and melodrama.

Of course, Cardi herself has been the target of conservative complaints ever since she helped Bernie Sanders with his 2020 presidential campaign, so she’s used to the histrionics. She remained unbothered when the complaints were brought to her attention quote-tweeting a fan account’s screenshot and adding a .gif of a smug-looking Wendy Williams smirking at the camera to an eye-roll emoji and several laughing ones.

Maybe Cardi is unfazed because she sees through the disingenuous intentions behind such complaints, as she pointed out a few hours later. Commenting on conservative voices’ apparent silence after a Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police officer shot and killed resident Daunte Wright — on camera, no less — Cardi noted the glaring hypocrisy. “Where the f*ck are you Twitter blue-check Republicans at?” she wondered. “Y’all are the loudest in this motherf*ckin’ app. Y’all not saying nothing, y’all not complaining. Y’all blame everything with what’s wrong with America beside the police! Y’all have been very silent! What’s going on?”

Check out Cardi’s responses to the FCC complaints above, and read more of them here.

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