Month: June 2021

For years, Quentin Tarantino has maintained that his tenth film will be his last. With Once Upon A Time in Hollywood coming in at number nine (the Kill Bill volumes count as one film), the writer/director has one movie left to go, but during a recent interview, he seems to be contemplating walking away from filmmaking before suffering the same fate as most directors.

While talking to the Pure Cinema Podcast, Tarantino, a notorious cinephile, shared his blunt assessment of most final films, and it’s not pretty. Via MovieMaker:

“Most directors have horrible last movies,” Tarantino said. “Usually their worst movies are their last movies. That’s the case for most of the Golden Age directors that ended up making their last movies in the late ’60s and the ’70s, then that ended up being the case for most of the New Hollywood directors who made their last movies in the late ’80s and the ’90s.”

After putting even more mustard on his thoughts by calling most directors’ final works “f*cking lousy,” Tarantino admitted that the prospect of delivering a terrible follow-up to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has him thinking about walking away with a win.

“Maybe I should not make another movie because I could be really happy with dropping the mic,” he said. “That’s the frustrating part, is a lot of the really terrific directors, it’s like their third-to-the-last movie would have been an amazing, amazing one to end on, which goes back to what I was saying about myself.”

(Via Pure Cinema Podcast)

It’s been nearly a year since Chloe x Halle released their standout sophomore album Ungodly Hour, but the two are still making sure there’s enough music to go around. They’ve been holding fans over with a number of fun covers, and they’ve now taken a stab at a rendition of TLC’s classic song “Waterfalls.”

Chloe x Halle take the sultry cover as an opportunity to once again showcase their impressive vocal range. “This song speaks so much to who we are as artists and human beings,” the duo said about the song. “We always say music is therapy to us because the lyrics are healing. There’s something about singing these words to yourself—it turns into an encouraging mantra that makes you feel inspired after listening.” This isn’t the first time the duo have covered “Waterfalls.” Back in June of 2020, Chloe x Halle shared a medley of covers to their YouTube page featuring songs by Lauryn Hill, Aaliyah, and TLC, saying they are three artists who have “inspired” them immensely.

Ahead of sharing their rendition of “Waterfalls,” Chloe x Halle have taken on a number of other hit songs. They recently released a moving cover of “Georgia On My Mind” for the 2020 Masters Tournament. Before that, Chloe Bailey took on a cover of Cardi B’s “Be Careful,” Silk Sonic’s “Leave The Door Open,” and Rihanna’s “Love On The Brain.”

Listen to their cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls” above, exclusively on Apple Music and iTunes.

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

Vince Staples hasn’t released much new music over the past couple of years but he’s set to break his silence later this month, according to a new interview in W magazine. In addition to talking about the two projects he has coming out this year, Ramona Park Broke My Heart and Vince Staples, which is partially produced by Kenny Beats, the feature also revealed the release date for the first single from his upcoming self-titled project: June 18.

Addressing the upcoming Vince Staples project with Kenny Beats, Vince said, “[Kenny] sent me a beat that I recorded on, and it just went from there. We didn’t go into it intentionally thinking that we would end up with as much as we had. We ended up working two days a week for a month, from after Thanksgiving until before Christmas in 2020. A couple of weeks in, we looked up, and we had some stuff.”

Recently, Vince let Killer Mike hear one of the two projects, prompting the Atlanta rap vet to compliment the Long Beach native as “gifted.” While we don’t know which of the two projects Mike heard, given the groundbreaking quality of Vince’s last two efforts, 2019’s FM! and Big Fish Theory, it’s just about a sure bet that he’s going to deliver something that sounds fresh and innovative, yet true to his California roots.

Vince’s next single drops on 6/18. Until then, you can check out some of Vince’s features from the past year, including Tiana Major9’s “Real Affair,” Lil Yachty’s “In My Stussy’s,” and The White Tiger soundtrack cut, “Jungle Mantra.”

It’s been 60 years since The Beach Boys first formed and their music still remains influential five decades later. To celebrate the band’s seminal catalog, The Beach Boys’ record label has compiled a massive box set spanning the years 1969-1971. It includes five CDs of music, over 100 previously unreleased songs, and and exclusive photo book filled with behind-the-scenes images.

Titled Feel Flows – The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971, the box set dives into a prolific period for the band. The collection features newly remastered of their albums Sunflower and Surf’s Up and boasts 135 tracks, including 108 previously unreleased tracks, live recordings, radio promos, alternate versions, alternate mixes, isolated backing tracks and acappella versions taken from the album recording sessions.

Along with music, fans can learn more about The Beach Boys’ early days with a 48-page book. It contains rare photos, lyric sheets, tape box images, recording artifacts, insightful new liner notes, and new and archival interviews from members Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, and others.

Listen to The Beach Boys’ newly released track “Big Sur” above and check out a photo of the Feel Flows box set below.

Feel Flows – The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971 is out 7/30 via Capitol/UMe . Pre-order it here.

The best song on DMX’s recently released, posthumous album Exodus is “Bath Salts.” It’s the song that best summarizes the album’s purpose, that gives us the best glimpse of DMX as an artist hitting middle age, taking stock, and quietly contemplating the future while celebrating his accomplishments. It’s probably no coincidence that the featured guests are Jay-Z and Nas at their absolute best, as the three rappers have been peers, rivals, friends, and the rear guard of hip-hop’s turn-of-the-millennium boom era, three of the last men standing.

It’s hard to say whether the rest of the album clears the high bar set by just its second track because it’s been so long since DMX released new music on his own accord that there’s no telling whether the rest of his guest features are the result of natural evolution or algorithmic calculation. I don’t know that the DMX would have especially wanted to work with someone like Bono on “Skyscrapers” or Moneybagg Yo on “Money Money Money.” In fact, in a recent interview, the album’s executive producer Swizz Beatz even admitted the latter was a replacement choice after the desired Pop Smoke verse turned out to be unavailable.

Swizz is as much responsible for the album’s direction as anyone, the navigator to X’s driver. There are times when it feels like Swizz’s desires dictate the sound and collaborators as much as X’s did — like in Goofy Movie when Max changes Goofy’s map so he can attend the Powerline concert instead of visiting his pop’s sacred fishing hole. When Alicia Keys pops up — bless her — it smells strongly of Swizz doing favors for people in his circle. It’s a circle that had grown to include pop-favorite multi-millionaire R&B stars like Usher, but not so much the purveyors of the gritty street sounds that informed Swizz and X’s earliest work.

And yet, there are allusions to that work all over the album, making it feel less like the slapdash, stream-baiting efforts on other posthumous releases that have come out over the past few years — way too many. Way. Way. Too. Many — and more like a DMX album proper — maybe a more mellow Grand Champ. Swizz certainly sets things off properly with “That’s My Dog,” which features X’s Ruff Ryders compatriots The LOX, each member in rare form. Then, there’s the aforementioned “Bath Salts,” on which Nas makes a rock-solid case that Swizz Beatz should absolutely executive produce as many of the next albums the Queens icon cares to make (seriously, they are batting like .800 in the past few years, why hasn’t this happened yet?).

DMX proves he can still hang with his contemporaries lyrically, and his flow, despite being worn by time, still connects like an aging NBA player polishing his finesse game as time robs him of his explosiveness. It’s when he tries to get it back that the seams begin to show. Of course, again, it’s difficult to pinpoint the issue on the missteps. The yell-raps on “Money Money Money” and the Griselda Records- featuring “Hood Blues” sound rushed and off-kilter — is this intentional? Is it the result of rust? Did DMX have trouble adjusting to these beats, which are a bit unusual in his catalog as they feature Swizz’s more recently developed swing-style drums? Or is it Swizz and his engineers being in too big a hurry to finish this project before the spotlight swung away, flying vocals onto mismatched production to take advantage of the name recognition of guests?

It certainly feels like this on the pop reaches, “Hold Me Down” and “Skyscrapers.” Fortunately, another Ruff Ryders appearance — this time from oft-overlooked members Cross and Infrared on a hilarious, hyperviolent skit — sets things right, setting the stage for the more confessional, emotive back half of the album, featuring the songs that X most likely had more of a hand in. His flow, subject matter, and voice certainly seem better suited to “Walking In The Rain” — the fact he performs the hook himself suggests that it was certainly one of the songs he finished before he passed. It’s classic DMX, a ruminative track that looks inward and backward, with X and Nas reflecting on life changes.

Likewise, on “Letter To My Son,” DMX speaks to the titular Exodus from the perspective of an elder addressing his son on the cusp of manhood — an opportunity robbed from him by his addiction. It’s a sobering thought, that X could foresee a world in which he wouldn’t have the chance to have the grown man chat with his son. Moments like this album closer suggest that maybe X wanted to use this project to say all the things he wouldn’t get a chance to say. Perhaps if he had been alive to see it finished, little would have changed from the product that ultimately came. That’s always the tragedy, isn’t it?

It’s funny; for all the dog imagery DMX has embraced throughout his life and career, he resembles nothing here so much as an old lion. He’s battle-scarred, he’s tired — but he’s no less noble and beautiful for it. He has the authority and lived experience that his advice rings true, yet he has little interest in holding the throne. Leave that for the cubs. He’s earned his place, he’s left his legacy. The only thing left is to say goodbye. The fiery father figure somehow found a way to do that, leaving behind a flawed but fitting testament to a flawed man.

Exodus is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

While the rush on GameStop stocks dominated headlines earlier in the year, AMC also saw its fortunes reversed during the social media-fueled buying frenzy, and the theater chain wants to give back to its millions of new shareholders who rocketed the company’s stock by more than 1,400% since the retail investing boom began.

Thanks to a new portal on its website called AMC Investor Connect, shareholders can register for perks like free popcorn and special screenings as the theater chain slowly comes back to life after the pandemic pushed AMC to the brink of bankruptcy. Via CNBC:

“During my five-plus year tenure as CEO at AMC, I’ve taken great pride in the relationships I have forged with AMC’s owners,” Aron said in a statement Wednesday. “With AMC Investor Connect, that effort in relationship building will continue apace even if our shareholders now number in the millions. After all, these people are the owners of AMC, and I work for them.”

Unlike GameStop, whose stock rush seems to be waning, AMC has been going strong in recent days, with buying reaching such a frenzy towards the end of May that purchasing had to be halted several times. However, by midday Thursday, AMC already saw a 30% drop after the company announced it would be selling millions of its Class A common stock. The plummet was a stark contrast to Wednesday where the stock “rallied 95%,” according to CNBC. Maybe get that free popcorn while the getting’s good.

(Via CNBC)

Every few years, the world rediscovers Kathryn Hahn. The cycle of Hahn’s career is an inexplicable temporal paradox of pop culture, really. She’s popped up in beloved rom-coms, made her presence felt on prestige dramas, and played the “best friend” often enough for casual TV fans and moviegoers to recognize her when she eventually steals scenes in more zeitgeisty fare like she did recently with Disney+’s streaming superhero, WandaVision.

But Hahn, like the show’s surprising villain, has been here all along, putting in the time and paying dues by making the most of each opportunity she’s been offered. Her characters live squarely in that space between comedy and drama. They’re despondent housewives who strike up friendships with sex workers. They’re quirky, heartbroken women scheming to help their friend lose a guy in just 10 days. They’re political sharks, spiritual rabbis, free-spirited single-moms, cartoonish antagonists, but they’re all memorable. So much so that, when Hahn inevitably delivers another career-making turn that gets the internet buzzing and new viewers staking a claim to her fandom, the rest of us must remind them that yes, Kathryn Hahn is that actress in that thing they loved, and yes, she was good in that too.

So, while we enjoy yet another Hahnissance, perhaps it’s time we chart the evolution of the criminally underappreciated queen of dramedy? After all, her current reign has been a long time in the making.

The Sidekick Years

If you were a talented comedic actress coming up in the early aughts, you likely waded through plenty of “sidekick” casting calls, but Hahn made the most of the gigs she booked. Her first major on-screen appearance came thanks to the cult rom-com hit, How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days. While Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey played the will-they-or-won’t-they couple at the center of the film — one determined to drive her suitor away on a strict deadline, the other resolved to win her affection in order to win a work bet — Hahn was happy to steal the few scenes she was in by adding an air of painfully relatable desperation to her character’s romantic mishaps. Michelle’s misguided notions of how to land a boyfriend may have sparked Andie’s (Hudson) idea for her next column, but it was Hahn’s soft-spoken shrink cosplaying scene that garnered some of the biggest laughs.

And her ability to pull focus from some of the more outrageous comedy happening in the films that pepper the early years of her IMDb page isn’t limited to rom-coms either. In fact, two of her most impressive comedic turns happened amidst the bro-heavy comedy of Adam McKay’s breakout years. She played the best friend to Christina Applegate’s ambitious morning news anchor in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, but it was her repressed housewife in Step-Brothers that still manages to make an impact on comedy fans over a decade later. Stuck in a loveless marriage to Adam Scott’s acapella-loving jerk, Hahn’s Alice enjoys some forbidden fruit in the form of John C. Reilly’s stuck-at-home man-child Brennan. The two share a charged make-out scene halfway through the film (plus a Christmas-timed romp left on the cutting room floor) that showcases Hahn’s ability to deliver outrageous physical gags with the best of them.

The Guest Star Run

Hahn took the comedy beats she honed on the big screen and brought them to TV a few years later, guesting on sitcom hits and millennial coming-of-age dramedies and Queer-focused streaming projects that invited her to add her own stamp on the changing landscape of television. Her most popular recurring spot was, undoubtedly, her role as the uber-confident foil to Amy Poehler’s bright-eyed, small-town government employee Leslie Knope on NBC’s Parks and Recreation. Jennifer Barkley was a big-city campaign manager, swooping in from D.C. to cause chaos and threaten Knope’s chances of winning a local election, but even when she was shaking people down at J.J.’s Diner and calling vilifying Knope on Perd Hapley’s morning news program, fans couldn’t help but love her.

TV was also where Hahn got the chance to stretch her dramatic muscles, guest-starring on the first season of HBO’s hit series Girls as a working mom named Katherine who hires Jessa (Jemima Kirke) to babysit her children. Jessa is a terrible caretaker, eventually sleeping with Katherine’s husband, but despite the tired trope of the “wronged woman” the show tried to box her in with, Hahn was able to breathe a bit of nuance and likability into her short tenure, making an impact on Jessa that lasted beyond their final meeting.

And she harnessed both experiences to teeter between the inherent comedy and heavy subject matter she was tasked to carry as Rabbi Raquel Fein in Amazon’s Transparent. Hahn was nominated for an Emmy for her performance as the spiritual leader who gets entangled in the mayhem that constantly follows the Pfeifferman clan. It was here that Hahn was able to play the “anchor” amidst the show’s more humorous currents, bringing a sense of groundedness to her character’s relationships with the family and pulling off the darker comedy needed to make seder meltdowns and temple-hookups-gone-wrong feel appropriate to laugh at.

The Indie Era

Technically, Hahn’s time on Transparent came after (and because of) her work on Joey Soloway’s Afternoon Delight but the Sundance darling feels like the gateway into Hahn’s indie work so we’ll pay homage to it here. Despite its uneven tone and storytelling missteps, the film works — mostly because Hahn is just so damn watchable. She plays a suburban housewife named Rachel who searches for ways to cope with the malaise of domestic life — a recurring theme in her later work — and ends up taking a young sex worker (Juno Temple) under her wing. Their friendship wreaks havoc on Rachel’s already floundering marriage and her strained friendships, but Hahn is so sympathetic, so awkwardly funny that you can’t help but feel for her character — even when she makes some problematic choices.

And that relatability extends to another stand-out indie performance Hahn gives in the Tamara Jenkins-directed Private Life. Playing one-half of a middle-aged couple struggling to conceive, Hahn’s Rachel masks her grief and frustration with a dry sarcasm that comes naturally to the actress. There’s a desperation and achingly authentic brokenness Hahn brings to the part that ensures the dramatic beats land, but she’s just as capable in the comedy department, playing for quieter laughs than you might expect.

The Suburban Doldrums

There’s a definitive shift in the kind of stories Hahn’s been telling lately, one that can be traced back to her indie days. Sure, the “suffering housewife” trope has been done to exhaustion on TV, but somehow, the actress has consistently found ways to breathe new life into that particular archetype. In fact, some of Hahn’s best work to date sees her deconstructing the myths and malcontent of TV’s most comforting staple: the suburban mom. She does it in Amazon’s I Love Dick, playing an unfulfilled artist who follows her husband to Texas and develops an unhealthy obsession with a ten-gallon hat-sporting Kevin Bacon. Hahn’s Chris makes us question our own preconceived ideas about marriage and accepted gender roles, even as we squirm over the content of her unsent letters to a man she barely knows.

And that provocative exploration of women’s sexuality only continues in the HBO dramedy Mrs. Fletcher as Hahn bares all to play a divorcee whose only son heads off to college, leaving her with plenty of time to kill. She fills it with late-night porn searches and the kind of sexual awakening you’d expect from a teenage coming-of-age rom-com but despite its incomplete ending, Hahn manages to shine. Her Eve is endearingly messy, insatiably curious, and proof of the rich storytelling that happens when the full kaleidoscope of the female experience is shown on screen. She’s funny and heartbreakingly sad at times, balancing both ends of the emotional spectrum while challenging the accepted narrative of motherhood … and what comes after it.

The Hahnissance

In fact, most of Hahn’s artistic trajectory is about challenging our ideas of what she’s capable of. She can do slapstick comedy alongside Will Ferrell and Steve Carell before quickly pivoting to scene-stealing guest roles on long-running comedy shows before switching things up once again to broach the more serious subject matter. She can be loud and crass and wildly funny as a Brazillian wax technician in the Bad Moms franchise before dimming that humor down to inhabit the dour, depressing setting of a Mark Ruffalo-starring limited series. She can voice fan-favorite villains in imaginative animated superhero epics and sing along in musical cartoons that double as an ode to New York City life.

At this point, no one should be surprised that Kathryn Hahn can, in fact, do it all but if you’re still wanting proof, then just look at what she did with her role in WandaVision. As Agnes/Agatha Harkness, Hahn began her run as a 50’s sitcom-esque sidekick, the nosy neighbor who pops up for some momentary comedic relief, delivering some memorable lines and gags before leaving the way she came. But over the course of the show’s 10 episodes — and its many different decades — Hahn’s Agnes morphed into the kind of brilliantly manipulative, deliciously wicked antagonist Marvel’s rarely able to deliver on. It’s not just her catchy theme-song or her iconic cackle that makes Agatha Harkness — a centuries-old witch who helps Wanda Maximoff hold an entire town hostage in order to siphon her immense power — the best part of an already-terrific series, it’s Hahn’s ability to deftly switch between over-exaggerated comedy and dramatic intrigue that adds an eerie, devious undercurrent to the story. Agnes’ villainous turn is shocking, yes, but it’s not unbelievable and that’s because Hahn managed to lay breadcrumbs in each episode, hiding them so well we only realized how damn good she was once the first season’s credits rolled.

So yes, Kathryn Hahn is the unchallenged queen of dramedy — an actress who refuses to be categorized as being good at just one thing — and she’s got decades’ worth of work to prove it. Can we stop acting surprised now?

Paul Walter Hauser has been pulling focus from main characters for over a decade. That’s the case even when his fellow cast members qualify as A-listers. He was the dubious mastermind in I, Tonya and, most recently, the henchman of Cruella, and also, he popped into Cobra Kai for some memorable Season 2 moments (as Stingray), but Hauser did not appear in Season 3 of the mega-popular Netflix series.

Naturally, there were some questions about this seeming omission, particularly because a very beloved character, Aisha, also did not return, and actress Nichole Brown has been vocal about her dismay on the issue.

How could Aisha not come back, when there’s still room for the show’s worst character to somehow show up onscreen and eat a popsicle? That might be a question for another day, but Hauser has explained why Stingray was not on hand for the last batch of episodes. While speaking to Insider, Hauser revealed that this was all down to timing and scheduling conflicts:

“There were conversations of how to put in Stingray, but I think it came down to the wire because they were prepping it at the same time I was heading out to shoot Cruella, so it just wouldn’t have worked out timing-wise. But maybe going forward there will be time to slip me back in there.”

As for what Stingray might up to these days, Hauser believes that he’s in a bathrobe eating a danish and sitting in a family member’s living room looking for jobs on the internet.” That sounds about right, but Hauser is doing just fine. He’s nabbed roles in Spike Lee movies and his name popped up as an apparent Easter egg (on Bucky Barnes’ lengthy list of amends) in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Not too shabby.

(Via Insider)

In 2019, Drake announced the launch of his cannabis company, More Life Growth Company. Today, a little over 18 months since, Bloomberg reports that More Life’s partnership with Canadian cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. to distribute in global markets has ended. Canopy filed to terminate the partnership in March this year. The company reportedly “derecognized” almost C$33.7 million in remaining minimum royalty obligations to More Life. Although both parties expressed excitement at the partnership in 2019, somewhere in the past year, it would appear those feelings cooled.

BlogTO, a free afternoon newspaper in Toronto, reported that Canopy’s CEO David Klein expressed discontent with the lack of attention to the brand from Drake, who was splitting his time between recording his new album Certified Lover Boy and running a pro-am basketball tournament out of his house (which may have resulted in him reinjuring his knee, causing the CLB release to be pushed back). “[More Life] has not been progressing as originally intended and we’re still working on details to determine where it goes… [and] it may be something that can’t get to where we all want it to go,” Klein was quoted in BNN Bloomberg.

Klein also wasn’t impressed with More Life’s business plan, noting that, “In many regards, at its essence, it’s almost a real estate play where More Life is going to do a lot of activity on cannabis destinations. I don’t know if that still fits anybody’s way of thinking, at least in the COVID world.” He would know: Canopy is also the business partner for both Seth Rogen and Snoop Dogg‘s weed brands. Meanwhile, the market gets more and more crowded by the day, with Jay-Z, G-Eazy, Ice Cube, and Russ all jumping in the marijuana game in the past few months. Drake’s property was apparently a low enough priority without planning to compete in destination spots, which would have looked cool, but likely struggled to sell. This leaves Drake on the outside looking in for now, as many of his peers and contemporaries look to cash in on the lucrative cash crop.

With E3 quickly approaching we’re starting to see more dates for upcoming press conferences. Despite the all-digital format this year, a lot of developers are treating this as business as usual. Just because there isn’t a stage hall full of people doesn’t mean that we can’t have exciting announcements to anticipate.

The latest conference date we’ve been given is Square Enix. Their conference will be held on June 13, but their teaser for what they plan on showing is missing arguably Square’s biggest title. Final Fantasy. Instead, the show seems to be focused on developer Eidos-Montreal and what they have to offer. Eidos-Montreal are the developers of Square Enix titles like Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, and Marvel’s Avengers.

It’s surprising that, as far as we know, there are no plans to show off anything related to Final Fantasy at this year’s E3 press conference. This may be because Square already showed everything they could with Final Fantasy during February’s State of Play event. What we’re being teased instead is more information on Marvel’s Avengers as well alongside the latest Life is Strange game.

Marvel’s Avengers is a curious choice because that game didn’t exactly take the world by storm. It was admittedly kind of a dud despite being such a well-known franchise. However, it sounds like Square Enix is sticking with it and support for a game is never a bad thing. To go with the Avengers game, this is maybe time to announce the Guardians of the Galaxy title that has reportedly been in the works for quite some time now. We’ll just have to see what Square Enix has up its sleeve.