Month: May 2021

Ellen DeGeneres is officially ending her talk show. The comedian/actress/talk show magnate has confirmed that Ellen will end in 2022 when it wraps up its 19th and now final season. The news arrive after DeGeneres has spent the better part of a year digging out of the toxic workplace scandal that erupted in the summer of 2020. After a BuzzFeed exposé accused DeGeneres of overseeing a work culture full of “alleged racism and intimidation,” she watched her reputation as the “Just Be Kind” lady circle down the drain as the show struggled to book guests and hold on to advertisers.

However, in a candid interview with The Hollywood Reporter on her decision to end the show, DeGeneres claims the recent scandal did not weigh on her decision (“If I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season.”) and that the move was based on a plan she made back in 2018. According to DeGeneres, she had committed herself to ending things in season 19 despite urgings from her brother, producers, and Warner Bros. to keep going:

When we did our 3,000th show, they showed that highlights montage and everybody was emotional. We all hugged and everyone had tears in their eyes, and Mike Darnell was here going, “You really want to [end this]?” Look, it’s going to be really hard on the last day, but I also know it’s time. I’m a creative person, and when you’re a creative person you constantly need to be challenged, which is why I decided to host the Oscars or why I decided to go back to stand up when I didn’t think I would. I just needed something to challenge me. And as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore.

As for what DeGeneres plans to do next, not even she knows. After being on the air for 19 years, her agent has encouraged her to “sit still for a minute” before diving into her next project, but she doesn’t see that happening. ” I’m like a Ferrari in neutral,” DeGeneres said. “I’m constantly needing to go.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

In a little over a week, Olivia Rodrigo will release her anticipated debut album, Sour. Ahead of then, though, she has given fans a sneak peek at how making it went with her new album trailer.

The two-and-a-half-minute video starts with clips of Rodrigo and collaborator Dan Nigro working on the album in an intimate home studio. The two excitedly hug and share an emotional moment when Nigro reveals he has put the finishing touches on either a song or the album as a whole. There are also clips from the lead-up to the album, including Rodrigo on the sets of her videos for “Drivers License” and “Deja Vu,” and of her hearing “Drivers License” on the radio for the first time.

Perhaps most notably, the video ends with a sneak peek of Rodrigo’s upcoming single “Good 4 U,” which sounds like a more upbeat and rock-oriented song than her previous singles. There’s also some footage from the video shoot, which features Rodrigo among some major greenery and in a pool.

“Good 4 U” will be out soon, as Rodrigo is set to release the song this week, on May 14. The next day, she will perform the song on Saturday Night Live.

Check out the Sour trailer above.

Sour is out 5/21 via Geffen Records. Pre-order it here.

J. Cole’s new documentary, Applying Pressure, tells us a lot we already know about the making of his new album The Off-Season. The difference is that much of it is now in his own words and voice, instead of relayed through a proxy and edited for clarity. The result is an insight into his process and his philosophy while crafting the long-awaited follow-up to his 2018 album, KOD. Specifically, we hear how his goal was to elevate his craft, and how in pursuing that goal, he approached improvement in rap the same way a basketball player might strive for improvement through strenuous exercise and targeted drills.

The comparison between sports and hip-hop has been drawn before; hip-hop is often outright described as a sport in itself, drawing parallels between the competitive aspect of battle rap and combat sports like boxing. But hip-hop is perhaps more closely tied to basketball than any other sport, in large part due to their commensurate rise in popularity in the decades since the 1970s. That rise is echoed not just in Cole’s current outlook, but also in his career trajectory overall. In Applying Pressure, he even points out how his failure to dedicate himself to working harder to earn minutes on the court mirrored an early self-made obstacle to his rap goals.

Cole describes putting himself through writing drills in much the same way a pro basketball player — or even an aspiring pro — would run dribbling, passing, and shooting drills while training to increase their agility, endurance, speed, stamina, and strength, focusing on exercises that build and protect the muscle groups and joints that players use most often. It’s not quite the same with rap; as often as basketball analogies are applied to the skills required to excel (I’ve been accused of overusing them myself a few times over the years), rap is one of those things that isn’t dulled with age. If anything, one’s rap skills should increase with experience — the bars get wittier, the range of true-life stories expands, the resources available for production and collaboration deepen.

This would appear to be Cole’s approach as well. In his cover profile in the latest issue of Slam magazine, he makes the distinction himself: “In basketball, you have no choice, your body tells you when,” he acknowledges. “In this sh*t, I’ve got a choice. It was a decision. It was, ‘If it happens, it’s because you allowed it to happen. This is the point where it takes place, where the n****s that you love [just don’t] hit the same. So you could fall victim to that right now and accept that and just keep either making music for the f*ck of it or just because it’s a business opportunity there, or you could really put in the hours and the months and the years it’s going to take to max out on your skill level and to max out on your ability so that when you look back you’re like, ‘Damn, I really did check all the boxes. I really did push myself as hard as I could go.’”

Rather than following in the footsteps of some of his forebears who grew lax in their own approach and let the game pass them by, Cole dedicated himself to this process of improvement with the same level of commitment with which he re-dedicated himself to pursuing his basketball dreams. The same day the documentary premiered on YouTube, just one day before appearing on the cover of a magazine best-known for its profiles of pro athletes (and potential pros), J. Cole joined the ranks of those pros by signing a contract to play for the Rwandan national team in the newly established Basketball Africa League. That feat also highlighted how the diligence to chase athletic goals can be applied to any other. It’s about the hours put in away from the spotlight, breaking through the pain and frustration of pushing yourself and of falling short, and it’s about never losing the desire to be the best of the best and knowing that the only person who controls that destiny is yourself.

If Disney and Lucasfilm were to pile up all their cash, it would likely stretch to a galaxy far, far away. While that would surely be a spectacle to behold, there are a handful of writers who have penned books for the companies and would rather see that money in their pockets, as they say they’re owed royalties and Disney won’t pay up.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the problems began back in 2012, shortly after Disney purchased Lucasfilm. More authors began having issues in 2019, following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox. While all of these companies are perhaps best known for their movie distribution wings, they’re also all in the publishing business, regularly pushing out new books related to their most popular properties, most notably Star Wars. Yet ever since Disney took over the books, several writers have complained that their royalties have completely dried up. Nor have they even received a regular royalty statement to indicate whether they’re owed anything at all.

Understanding that there is power in numbers, in late April an activist group known as the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force was established in order to help these writers be paid any owed royalties. The group has the full support of several writer organizations, including the Authors Guild and the National Writers Union (though not the Writers Guild of America).

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

The group lists a number of companies that had been identified as owing money, including three Disney-owned, or part-owned, publishers: Disney Worldwide, Marvel Worldwide (the publishing arm of Marvel Entertainment) and Boom! Studios, in which Disney owns a minority stake. According to the task force, roughly a dozen writers have claimed the royalties are owed by Disney.

One of those writers is the late author Ann C. Crispin, whose novels include a trilogy of books featuring Star Wars character Han Solo. “I discovered that an omnibus edition [of those novels] was published by Barnes & Noble when it first appeared in 2017, and I complained to the estate’s agent when there was no mention of it on the next royalty statements,” says Crispin’s widower, Michael Capobianco. “I believe at that time the agent contacted the new publisher but was unable to get a satisfactory answer. … In fact, I didn’t even realize that Disney was involved. I assumed that the new editions had been licensed under the original publishers’ contracts and had no idea what Disney had done until SFWA started publicizing [Foster’s] situation.”

According to documentation shared with THR, Disney’s stance seems to be that royalties didn’t transfer—that the authors’ original agreements were made with the original company, not Disney—and therefore, Disney has no legal obligation to these writers. But when pressed by THR, a Disney rep said that: “We are carefully reviewing whether any royalty payments may have been missed as a result of acquisition integration and will take appropriate remedial steps if that is the case.”

Whether it’s the threat of bad PR or the scary sound of the phrase “task force,” Disney does seem to be trying to rectify some of these issues. James Kahn, who wrote a novelization of Return of the Jedi in 1983, had nothing but positive things to say about Disney, saying the company was “very nice, and sympathetic, and apologetic if they’d been lax in payments.”

As for the authors who are still hashing it out, perhaps it would be best for Disney to sort this out quickly and look to Yoda for advice: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Ever since the January 6 MAGA insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, many congressional Republicans (not Mitt Romney) appear absurdly eager to align themselves with an ex-president who (still) pushes the Big Lie. However, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WI), the daughter of former VP Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney, showed that she was not willing to march to the same lemming beat as die-hard Trumpers. Instead, she’s urged her fellow party members to distance themselves from a president who placed his own ego ahead of the constitution and incited his voting base toward deadly violence. Cheney has refused to bend the knee to Trump and, instead, consistently called out his election falsehoods. Amid an inevitable buildup to oust her from House leadership, she stood firm while declaring, “Ignoring the lie emboldens the liar.”

Well, Cheney is now truly out of her leadership role. The House GOP made this decision on Wednesday morning by voice vote during a closed-door meeting. Yep, they didn’t even bother to put their votes on the record (they also booed Cheney), and in doing so, Republicans are showing that they’re rolling the dice on a Trump future and want him back in the White House. That’s amazing, truly, since one would think that they’d run far and fast from ex-president who managed to get himself banned from Twitter and Facebook, but nope.

“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney told reporters (via CNBC) following her ouster. “The party is in a place that we’ve got to bring it back from. We cannot be dragged backward by the very dangerous lies of a former president.” She also cited Trump’s refusal to honor the U.S. Constitution and stressed that the party must pick a presidential candidate who doesn’t stomp all over the document.

Following this development, “Cowards” began trending hard on Twitter. “Cult of Cowards” was right up in there, too.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that 100 prominent GOP members want to branch off into a new party to distance themselves from the Trump taint. This ain’t over yet.

(Via NY Times & NBC News)

While weighing in on the tiger currently on the loose in Houston, Tiger King star Carole Baskin called out Ted Cruz for failing to sign on to the Big Cat Public Safety Act back in December, which she believes would’ve prevented this whole mess. Cruz not only didn’t push for a vote on the bill, but he publicly criticized Democrats for wanting to “prosecute Tiger King,” instead of focusing on the pandemic. According to Baskin, Cruz’s failure to get behind the bill is directly linked to the tiger roaming the streets of Houston.

Here’s what she told CNN via The Recount:

You know this is becoming kind of commonplace in Texas, and so I really hope that Senators Cruz and Cornyn sign on to the Big Cat Public Safety Act when they brought it up last year. Because if they had last year when the House passed the bill — the Senate didn’t bring it up — this wouldn’t have happened this time. And the reason for that is this cub’s only nine months old, which means it probably aged out of being used as a pay-to-play prop in December of last hear when this passed the House with a two-thirds vote.

As for the big cat, yes, it’s the same tiger from the viral video on Sunday. In the video, the Bengal tiger can be seen wandering a neighborhood as an off-duty officer does his best to keep people inside and contain the situation. (Warning: Audio is NSFW)

According to CNN, Victor Hugo Cuevas, the man who was illegally housing the tiger was arrested after trying to flee with the animal. Cuevas, who was out on bond for a murder charge, was eventually caught by authorities. The tiger, however, is still on the loose, which only bolstered Baskin’s further assessment that “the kind of people who own tigers are really dangerous, reckless people.”

Of course, there’s some strange irony in Baskin talking about a murder suspect and tigers, and naturally, social media is already on it:

(Via The Recount on Twitter)

Thor, the fourth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, came out 10 years ago. At that point, Chris Hemsworth was an unknown in America — outside of a brief cameo in Star Trek as Kirk’s dad, his most prominent role was a recurring part in the Australian soap opera, Home and Away. (Wikipedia tells me that the creator of the series “came up with the concept of the show during a trip to Kangaroo Point,” which is very Australian.) Meanwhile, Tom Hiddleston was an award-winning theater actor, but he was hardly the household, Taylor Swift-dating name he would become while playing Loki. To celebrate the anniversary, Hemsworth looked back to when they were both “no-names.”

“This year marks the 10th anniversary of THOR when two unknown lads were given the keys to the kingdom. It’s been a hell of a ride and we clearly haven’t aged a day,” Hemsworth wrote on Instagram, along with a Vulture article from 2009 with the headline, “Marvel Rolls Dice, Casts No-names for Thor.” An excerpt: “Despite rumors that had everyone from Shia LaBeouf to Josh Hartnett being cast in Kenneth Branagh’s version of Thor, two virtual unknowns will instead be handed the keys to the Marvel franchise.”

Two things:

1. As someone who has written many regrettable headlines over the years, I will not disparage another writer for accurately referring to Hemsworth and Hiddleston as “unknowns.”

2. Marvel really dodged a bullet by not casting Shia. Yikes.

Hemsworth also shared a photo of himself and Hiddleston from 10 years ago. It looks like it was taken 30 years ago.

The official class of 2021 inductees for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was announced today, and as the honorees have become aware of the news, they have offered reactions to their latest historic achievement.

Foo Fighters went funny with their reaction, referencing one of Pat Smear’s previous bands and writing, “Holy sh*t! The guitar player from The Germs is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!!!”

Jay-Z has yet to give a public reaction, but his Roc Nation shared a photo of him and captioned it, “Hall Of Fame Hov.”

LL Cool J shared the list of of nominees and wrote, “You can do anything you put your mind to. Thank you.”

Carole King also wrote, “I wanted to be a songwriter so I could meet all the great artists and they would know who I was. I thought being inducted into the @rockhall as a songwriter with Gerry Goffin was the pinnacle. Until now. Thank you for ALSO inducting me as an artist. And [thanks] to my fans always.”

The Go-Go’s are thrilled to be included in this induction class, as they tweeted, “We are so EXCITED to announce that we will be … inducted into the 2021 Rock Hall of Fame!! Women have always been a vital part of the ever changing music business and we are so proud to have our success story honored and recognized by the @rockhall and our wonderful fans!”

The induction ceremony is set to take place on October 30 at 8 p.m., from Cleveland, Ohio’s Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The show will be broadcast on HBO and later stream on HBO Max.

Mike “MyPillow Guy” Lindell held a rally at the beautiful-sounding Corn Palace in South Dakota on Monday. He spoke for 90 minutes about his social media website, cancel culture, and how former-president Donald Trump will soon be current-president Donald Trump. “He said his evidence shows that China corrupted election machines and changed the voting results in the election, denying Donald Trump from winning by 14 million votes. Lindell’s goal, he said, is for regular citizens to put significant pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the evidence. He said if that happens, Trump will be back in office as president by August,” according to the Mitchell Republic.

Lindell expected 30,000 people to hear him rant about stopping the steal, or whatever, but as Jimmy Kimmel noted during Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, “only 1,500 [showed up]. It was quite the event. Mike treated the semi-crowd to 90 minutes of paranoid rantings about election fraud. And the music act was none other than former-Saturday Night Live cast member, Joe Piscopo.” I guess Victoria Jackson was busy.

Lindell also “reached deep into the Trump time machine to pull another great entertainer out of meatballs,” Kimmel said before cutting to a sleepy clip of Ben Carson speaking to the minuscule crowd over Zoom. “Ben Carson on Zoom is like the South Dakota equivalent of the Tupac hologram,” he added.

The Lindell jokes begin around the 5:30 mark in the monologue above.

A couple weeks ago, Grimes revealed she thought she blew her chance at ever getting to perform on Saturday Night Live. And yet, she was on the show just last week, not as a musical performer, but instead making a cameo as Princess Peach in a Mario-themed sketch. Now, she has reflected on the experience and offered praise for the episode’s guests, Elon Musk and Miley Cyrus.

The day after the show, Cyrus took to Twitter and shared some photos of herself and Grimes backstage, with Grimes in her Peach costume, and wrote, “She’s not a princess. She’s a queen.” The next day, Grimes tweeted the same photos and wrote, “Gotta say @MileyCyrus is extremely siqué at music and as a human.” Then, last night, Grimes posted the photos on Instagram with a longer caption.

She started by explaining the delay behind the pictures making it to Instagram, writing, “Forgot to post these cuz I somehow caused myself to have a panic attack and went to the hospital yesterday which tbh was quite scary and I suppose it’s a good time to start therapy.” She continued, “but nonetheless – wowwwww @mileycyrus is good live and so chill! So grateful to the SNL team for being so kind and letting me sneak in as princess peach.” She concluded with praise for Musk, writing, “so proud of my beautiful E (which I know will upset the grimes fans so I apologize in advance) but he killed it.”

Cyrus also shared an old photo of herself dressed as an alien and wrote, “Hangs with @Grimezsz & @elonmusk once,” which got a laugh out of them both.

Check out all the posts below.