Month: May 2021

Since The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan has only directed one good ol’ fashioned horror movie, The Visit. He’s otherwise been preoccupied with building an unlikely cinematic universe (Split and Glass), working with Will and Jaden Smith (After Earth), and making the big-screen adaptation of an all-time great TV show that I won’t mention because I’m still angry about how bad it was. But with his new film, Old, Shyamalan is back to doing what he does best: creeping me the heck out. (This is a compliment.)

Based on a French graphic novel by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, Old follows “a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly… reducing their entire lives into a single day,” according to the official plot summary. The trailer above has mysteriously-aging kids, lost items buried in the sand, dead bodies, spiders, mysterious coded messages, and best of all, no one drowning in a puddle.

Old, which stars Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Alex Wolff, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Embeth Davidtz, Emun Elliott, and Kathleen Chalfant, opens on July 23.

Masked rapper RMR is a bad housesitter in the cheeky video for his new single “Vibes” featuring Tyla Yaweh. The client in question, Jamie Foxx, is away and leaves RMR the keys and some very simple instructions from the house manager. However, as soon as the house manager leaves, RMR throws a smirk at the camera as Tyla pulls up with a platoon of scantily-clad women.

However, it isn’t long before Jamie catches wind of the party via the security camera feed and makes his cameo appearance via FaceTime. Both he and his house manager are charmed into joining, even if Jamie can only be there by phone. At least things turned out better for the charming, masked artist than they did for DaBaby when he tried something similar a few months ago.

RMR, who experienced a viral breakout last year with country-trap cover of Rascal Flatts’ “God Bless The Broken Road” titled “Rascal,” proved he was more than just a one-hit-wonder with his Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art EP and its follow-up, 4th Qtr Medley, which likewise included covers of fan-favorite hits from the likes of Drake, Matchbox Twenty, and The Goo Goo Dolls.

Watch RMR’s “Vibes” video with Tyla Yaweh above.

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

A truly great actor has the ability to seamlessly transform themselves from one character to the next in a way that makes it look easy. A living legend does that, too—but also isn’t afraid to tell you about the time the horse they were riding while filming an emotional scene floated a serious air biscuit.

Dame Judi Dench—Oscar winner, owner of many BAFTA awards, Shakespearean legend, and all-around classy lady—spent some time discussing her career on the That’s After Life podcast. When the conversation turned to Mrs. Brown, the 1997 movie that earned Dench her first (of seven) Academy Award nominations, Dench recalled how much fun she had shooting with “cheeky chappy” Billy Connolly. In the film, Dench portrays Queen Victoria who, in the years following Prince Albert’s death, found comfort—and courted scandal—in the close relationship she had with her personal attendant, John Brown (played by Connolly).

Dench explained that while they were filming at Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s holiday home on the Isle of Wight, a gassy horse made it hard for her to keep in royal character. While filming a deadly serious scene in which Victoria attempts to express her feelings for Brown, Dench is riding a horse side-saddle.

“I got on to this pony, which I had to do from a pair of library stairs because riding side saddle is one thing, but riding side saddle in a corset with an enormously heavy costume,” she explained. “But the poor pony, for goodness sake, all one side, and as we walked… the pony farted at every single step we took. And Billy said, ‘Is that you? Is it you?’” According to The Daily Mail, the scene had to be filmed a number of times in order to leave no audible trace of equine emissions.

While Dench had her fair share of laughs on the Mrs. Brown set, she made sure to note later in the interview that acting is not an easy business. “I don’t think it is ever easy. It can be gloriously good fun and it can be fiendishly difficult.”

(Via The Daily Mail)

Technically, it’s been a while since we got a new Beyonce album, as Lemonade came out back in 2016. Really, though, she has offered a couple new albums since then, albeit not solo efforts: She and Jay-Z teamed up as The Carters for Everything Is Love in 2018, and she collaborated with a bunch of artists on her 2019 soundtrack album The Lion King: The Gift. Not to mention, she recently made a low-key appearance on DJ Khaled’s new album. Now, it appears she has more new material on the way.

Yesterday, Beyonce’s Destiny’s Child bandmate Michelle Williams shared an audio clip of a group chat between Beyonce, fellow Destiny’s Child member Kelly Rowland, and herself. During the conversation, Rowland talks about making soup and Beyonce adds, “I’m cooking some music.” She added with a laugh, “That’s Chef Boyar-B and Chef Boy-Kelly.”

Beyonce recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of Lemonade with a touching post. Sharing a gallery of photos, she wrote, “I’m grateful that this body of work has resonated so deeply with so many people. I’m so thankful for all the beautiful souls involved in making one of my favorite pieces of art. As I celebrate five years of LEMONADE, I encourage everyone to continue healing, loving, forgiving and uplifting. I hope you find joy today.”

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Michelle Zauner has already had a momentous 2021. In April, her first book, a memoir about her complicated relationship with her late mother called Crying In H Mart, debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, the 32-year-old singer and musician is readying the release of her third album as Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee. Not only is it Zauner’s most accomplished album to date, it might very well be the best indie record of the year.

Oh, and Zauner also directed the videos for each of Jubilee‘s three singles. And she has a poppy side project, BUMPER, with Crying’s Ryan Galloway. And she’s currently composing the score for an upcoming “coming of age” video game, Sable. Zauner clearly is a compulsive over-achiever. What drives her to work so hard? Joy? Fear? Is she a workaholic?

“After my mother passed away, I started really becoming a workaholic, in part, because I had this fear that I didn’t have enough time to say all this stuff,” Zauner confessed during a recent interview. “Also, I think it just helped to ground me. If I’m really busy, then I don’t have as much time to get sad and depressed.”

With Jubilee, Zauner made a concerted effort to move beyond the life and death themes of her book, which also dominate her first two albums as Japanese Breakfast, 2016’s Psychobomp and 2017’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet. Zauner started the project in 2013 while tending to her ailing mother in her hometown of Eugene, Oregon. (She moved there at nine months old after being born in Seoul, South Korea.) At the time, she was fronting a Philadelphia-based emo band called Little Big League, but in Japanese Breakfast she began experimenting with introspective indie pop to significantly greater effect.

While Japanese Breakfast’s early material was often classified as lo-fi, Jubilee represents the grandest music of her career, nodding to the sonically rich and expansive indie albums of the ’90s and ’00s by artists such as Bjork and Joanna Newsom. In terms of lyrics, Zauner has turned her eye to character studies that are delivered with cinematic flair. The result is a record that should put her in the highest echelon of indie scene stars in the 2020s.

Zauner spoke about the making of Jubilee, her love of “cringe-worthy” indie music from the Pacific Northwest, and how Jeff Tweedy inspired her to play an epic guitar solo.

You made this album in 2019, and it was going to come out last year but of course the pandemic screwed that up. So you’ve been living with Jubilee for a while. Has your perspective on it changed?

I actually like it more. I had a really nice experience a couple of weeks ago where I just sat down and listened to the record from start to finish. I was like, “This is pretty good! I think I did a pretty good job!” I tend to have this feeling when I finish a project, especially as I get older, where instead of feeling this gratification, I’m like Debbie Downer. And I don’t know why that is. I don’t feel it was as bad when I was younger. I had that feeling of accomplishment. But now I’m always grappling with, “Did I reach my vision?” And it never quite feels like I do. And then, time goes by and I can look back and enjoy it for what it is.

Is there a particular song that you hated at first that you like now?

Yeah. I hated “Slide Tackle” for a long time. I was like, “Man, I should have really buried that record. It’s so basic.” I didn’t know what I wanted it to be for a really long time. And then, relistening to the album, I was like, “These sounds are weird, and kind of cool. And not really like anything that we’ve done before.” I don’t know if other people will feel that way, but I certainly did while I was relistening to it.

This album made me think about that era of really expansive aughts-era indie albums like Arcade Fire’s Funeral, Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, and Joanna Newsom’ Ys. It has that kind of classic sweep to it. Were those albums on your mind at all while you were making Jubilee?

I mean, I feel like those are seminal records for me that have lived inside of me. They weren’t necessarily on my mind. I think that I am in this interesting spot where I don’t think that the records that I grew up with are cool. So, I don’t feel I’m quick to claim them, even though they’re so formative for me, including all those records you just mentioned. I feel there’s not enough distance from them, in the way that referencing a Kate Bush album or Bjork record would be. But those are albums that shaped me very, very much when I was a teenager, and I’m sure subconsciously have influenced me a great deal. I love that second Joanna Newsom record for sure.

Were you an indie kid growing up?

The music that I really loved growing up were bands like Built to Spill, Death Cab for Cutie, and Modest Mouse. Also, all the K Records bands and that sort of anti-folk stuff, I was into that when I was a teenager. And all the Phil Elverum projects, which had that sort of hyper-personal, confessional quality. There’s this almost cringe-worthy earnestness that accompanies the Pacific Northwest. And I feel like that type of music really influenced me growing up and is definitely a major reference point for a lot of Japanese Breakfast albums, whether or not I want to admit it.

There’s also a real pop influence on Jubilee. Where does that fit in your musical consciousness?

The only music that I remember my dad listening to were old Motown compilations and Fleetwood Mac records. Those are the most tasteful pop albums of all time, and maybe that made its way into my music. I mean, I’m not the kind of artist that likes experimental music for the sake of being difficult. I hate that. I have no interest in dissonance really. I like things to sound good.

It does seem like you were trying to ramp up for this record. It’s the biggest sounding music you’ve made as Japanese Breakfast.

Absolutely. I’ve actually never been in a band that has reached LP3, so this is my first LP3. I really nerd out on artists’ discographies. I’ll go on Wikipedia see how old they were when they made certain records, so I can understand their trajectory and map it onto my life. For me, the quintessential third LP is Bjork’s Homogenic.

I wanted to make an LP that felt like I was putting my strongest foot forward, flexing every muscle and using every tool in the box to make a record with the utmost confidence. Because I was so riddled with anxiety for the sophomore record, because I came into this later. I really felt Psychopomp was an absolute fluke, and I wasn’t working with the same producer or the same musicians. I just felt terrified that I was going to lose everything that I had gotten that year. Soft Sounds was made in a very insular environment, where it was just Craig Hendrix, the live drummer, and I. And he’s also the co-producer on this record and Soft Sounds, and very much just my ultimate creative collaborator.

I knew with this record I wanted to invite in more people. Some of that came from being on tour for the last three years, and getting to meet people like Adam Schatz, who plays saxophone and also has a network of horn players he brought in. And then Molly Germer, who still does all the violin on Alex G records. And she has her whole network of string players.

Your first two records and the book are grounded in your experiences from childhood and your relationship with your mom. Jubilee feels like moving on from that. Do you feel that making art inspired by your life has given you a new perspective?

Writing the book really helped me end that chapter of my life in a way. It was three years of excavating memories, and structuring it to be better understood by myself and other people. I think that definitely helped me make way for this new album in a lot of ways. I had written two albums about it, and it just felt like I wanted to flip myself to the other side of the spectrum and talk about this other huge part of my life.

How would you compare the process of writing a book vs. writing an album?

I think that, in that way, it’s the same, because you’re sort of collecting these pieces of your life, and then investigating them. But the actual process of writing a book is much lonelier. It’s more difficult and much more time consuming. One thing I do like about it is there’s a lot more perspective that’s built into the writing process of a book. You write the first draft and then you send it to an editor, and then you have months away from it where you don’t think about it at all. And then, you get to go back in with fresh eyes and do it all over again, and be away from it for another month.

I will say I never felt as stupid as I have writing a book. It’s like being confronted by my own limitations.

In my experience, the hardest part of writing a book is going through the emotional valleys where you feel your book is terrible.

I had the same thing with this album. When Craig and I went out for our little glass of champagne at a bar in December of 2019, we both felt that way. We were like, “I think it’s good. I don’t really know.” We lost perspective. It made me very sad that I can’t even enjoy finishing an album anymore.

The album ends with this epic guitar solo on the song “Posing For Cars,” which runs for nearly half the track. You don’t often hear guitar solos on indie records anymore. What’s your relationship with the guitar?

I was just really inspired by Wilco. Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline write some of the greatest guitar solos. But they’re a specific type of guitar solo. They’re not like a bad rock solo. They have a narrative. I was really inspired by that song “At Least That’s What You Said.” It feels like this sort of very quiet moment between two people that’s really stripped down for the first minute or two, and then Jeff Tweedy just says everything that’s not said between these people in his guitar solo. “Posing For Cars” is very much about two people who love each other in very different ways, and how both are really valid and deep. It felt like that same kind of buildup moment, where I needed to express all of the underlying emotion in that song through a guitar solo.

I don’t really feel that confident as a guitar player, and I definitely wanted to shy away from doing it. I wanted to have Meg Duffy play it because they’re a much more virtuosic wizard of a guitar player and could do a much better job at it. But it felt necessary that I be the one who created the narrative in a way.

It’s not like Jeff Tweedy is a virtuoso, either. But his playing on “At Least That’s What You Said” is so primal.

That was how I rationalized playing it. He could have tapped Nels Cline to do it. Nels Cline is definitely an objectively better guitar player than Jeff Tweedy. But in the same way that you don’t have to have this massive literary vocabulary to write a great book, you just have to have a great voice and personal style, I think that the same could be said for guitar solo.

What do you think it is that ultimately drives you creatively?

I feel like a little bit of a late bloomer in some ways. I had been playing in bands since I was 16, but I never had any kind of recognition really until I was 25, and Psychopomp started getting press. I just had really done the grind for 10 years. I’m seeing so many of my friends who I’ve always considered to be more talented than me not make it. Or make it and then get dropped or forgotten about. So I feel like I’ve always felt this need to make a backup plan, or take advantage of the eyes on me while I can because I love what I do for a living and I want to always be working.

Do you feel in retrospect that there was a benefit to not becoming famous when you were 21?

Yeah, I think I would have been a chaotic egomaniac if I had come into it earlier. I think that I could really appreciate it, too, because I never felt it was owed to me. I felt I really worked hard and I won a lottery, and I should really cherish that.

I’ve seen some younger artists whose first album blew up, and that’s all they’ve ever known. They don’t know what it’s like [to not be successful]. I always feel like I have to really push myself. And I wouldn’t have known that if this had come earlier to me.

What do you want to do that you haven’t done yet?

I would love to play with an orchestra. And there are certain festivals that I’d love to play. I think I’d love to direct a feature someday, down the line, but not right now.

What kind of feature would you want to make?

Part of me would love to direct the Crying In H Mart adaptation, but part of me is also terrified of doing something like that. I’m honestly in this place right now where I don’t have a lot of new ideas. I’ve been sitting on this record for a year, and working on this book for three years. I am in kind of a pleasant but anxious place of not knowing what my next project is for the first time in six years. So, I’m trying to let myself be chill with that.

Jubilee is out on June 4 via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

Rose Byrne is a comedic treasure with scene-stealing performances in Bridesmaids, Get Him to the Greek (“Ring Round” is a genuine banger), Neighbors, and Spy. Especially Spy. I might watch it again tonight. But only after checking out the trailer for Physical.

The Apple TV+ comedy-drama stars Byrne as Sheila, an ’80s housewife who’s married to a recently-fired “ding dong,” and while she tries to eat healthy, she panic-orders three cheeseburgers, three large fries, and a chocolate shake at the drive-thru window. But Sheila finds her happy place at the fitness studio at the mall, where she transforms into a confident lifestyle guru. Before long, she’s punching with the best of them, building a life for herself, and saying things like, “Go get ’em, tiger.” I will, Rose Byrne!

Feel free to start blasting Olivia Newton-John (or Dua Lipa). Here’s the plot summary:

Sheila Rubin is a quietly tormented housewife in ’80s San Diego, who, behind closed doors, battles extreme personal demons and a vicious inner voice. But things change when she discovers aerobics, sparking a journey toward empowerment and success.

Physical, which also stars Rory Scovel, Dierdre Friel, Della Saba, Lou Taylor Pucci, Paul Sparks, and Ashley Liao, premieres on Apple TV+ on June 18.

If Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine really is Brockhampton’s penultimate album as a group, they’re going out with a bang. The group appeared on last night’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to perform the album’s pensive but electrifying cut “Don’t Shoot Up The Party.”

Wearing matching jumpsuits — as per usual for the extremely coordinated, self-professed “boy band” — the group performs from a tiered platform surrounded by massive LED screens projecting their performance back at them. The effect is suitably trippy for the glitched-out, magnetized VHS look they’re fond of embracing, and as always, their energy is unmatched, despite being sort of constrained by the small set.

Kevin Abstract, the group’s de facto leader, informed fans ahead of Roadrunner‘s release that their next two projects would be their last. With Roadrunner out now, that leaves one album to go — although Abstract later offered a glimmer of hope in explaining the band’s oncoming dissolution. Writing, “we all love each other and we wanna continue making the best music we can everybody just getting a lil older and got a lot to say outside of group projects,” Kevin revealed that the band may have a bonus project on the docket — the previously postponed Technical Difficulties, which he says has “hella samples to clear.”

Watch Brockhampton’s Late Show performance of “Don’t Shoot Up The Party” above.

Emily Blunt stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday to promote A Quiet Place Part II for the second time after the film held its premiere back in March 2020, only to watch the world shut down immediately. While sitting down with Kimmel and cracking a joke about how she’s been promoting the film for an entire year (“but it’s worth it,” Blunt said), the conversation turned to birthday parties and an anecdote about how Blunt’s first kiss was almost as horrifying as The Quiet Place.

After describing a quintessential ’90s birthday party with roller blading and boys rocking the “curtain” hairstyle (think Ryder Strong and Will Friedle from Boy Meets World), Blunt said that eventually, the room full of 13 year olds decided to play Spin the Bottle. When it was her turn, the bottle landed on a boy she had a crush on, and Blunt was initially excited for the moment. After setting the stage that she was somewhat familiar with the concept of French kissing, but thought it “sounds weird,” her crush apparently was very familiar with the idea, and Blunt was not a fan of the experience. In fact, she was “horrified.”

“[He] slipped you the tongue,” Kimmel asked, to which Blunt replied. “Oh, massively. Well, not ‘slipped’ because that sounds kind of delicate.”

After asking if she still stays in touch with the boy, Blunt said, “no,” but she did show a moment of regret about using his name while recalling the awkward teenage moment.

In news that should make Sex and the City fans happy, Chris Noth is officially returning as Mr. Big in the revival series headed to HBO Max. Considering original cast member Kim Cattrall is not returning, there was justifiable concern that Noth wouldn’t reprise his character when the new series started rolling. However, HBO Max confirmed his return in a press release with a statement from Sex and the City executive producer Michael Patrick King. Noth’s return also doubled as an announcement for the revival’s new title: And Just Like That…

“I’m thrilled to be working with Chris again on ‘And Just Like That…’” King said. “How could we ever do a new chapter of the ‘Sex And The City’ story without our Mr. Big?”

While Cattrall’s absence is still a sore spot for fans, the series will attempt to bring itself into the future by diversifying its cast. According to TVLine, the revival will be “dramatically expanding Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte’s social circle with roughly a half dozen new characters. And three of those newbies will be full-fledged series regulars and women of color.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

This new chapter of the groundbreaking HBO series “Sex and the City” follows “Carrie” (Sarah Jessica Parker), “Miranda” (Cynthia Nixon) and “Charlotte” (Kristin Davis) as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.

The ten-episode, half-hour series will start production in New York this summer.

Time flies, and although it’s been less than a year since an iconic fly camped out on Mike Pence’s head during a debate, someone tried to snatch the fly-attracting mojo away from the former VP. It all went down when a silent clip began to circulate on Twitter, which took things viral because it sure looked like Ted Cruz, while talking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, swallowed a fly and washed it down with a gulp of water.

This seemed too good to be true, and people wanted to know the truth.

It’s so gross to behold, but this was actually a cleverly edited clip, and as Mediaite points out, this footage sources from a June 2019 appearance of Cruz talking to Hannity while clearing his throat. Still, everyone likes to pounce upon Ted Cruz (who does plenty to deserve contempt), although nope, he did not top the booger that was truly on his lip during a 2016 presidential primary debate. At least, he didn’t do so on live TV.

Regardless of the truth, #ToadCruz began to trend. It couldn’t be stopped, nor could the “No Fly list” jokes be avoided.

So far, Ted Cruz has not commented upon the edited clip, but it would be a grand day on Twitter if he did so.