Month: July 2021

There are a lot of things Donald Trump Jr. is not very good at: sitting, staying married, dating women his dad doesn’t have to pay, and speaking coherently are just a few of the things that come to mind. Now we can add being (intentionally) funny to that list, too.

Seth Meyers returned from a two-week vacation on Monday night, just in time to see the video evidence of Don Jr. attempting to be funny—and failing spectacularly.

Over the weekend, Donald the Younger managed to snag some stage time to talk about… actually, we’re not sure what he was talking about. Or why anyone would be interested to hear what he had to say. But from what we, and Meyers, can decipher, he definitely tried to deliver some jokes, which didn’t just fall flat—they inverted. What Junior seemed to be saying was that those darn liberals in Austin were starting to become the norm in reliably conservative Texas and that the rest of the Lone Star State needed to “work on that stuff, because those people have lost their minds.”

After being met with an actually stunned silence, Junior’s face dropped like something you’d see in a Looney Tunes cartoon, forcing him to add a pathetic, “Right?” To which no one replied, prompting Meyers to note that, “Last time somebody bombed that badly, they became the Joker.” But his mocking didn’t end there:

“Don Jr. looked like he just walked into the scene in a student improv show and blanked. ‘Don, you said freeze, you gotta have something!’ Don Jr. has all the charm and charisma of a dude selling time shares in a hotel conference room whose PowerPoint just crashed.”

Clearly, he gets his sense of humor from his dad.

Have you watched the original Space Jam recently? To be fully prepared for the new film I rewatched the original and it’s … maybe a lot weirder than you remember? (At one point Michael Jordan is folded into a basketball and dribbled. At another point Wayne Knight’s Stan Podolak is inflated with an air pump and he expands and floats away.) Here’s the thing: Malcolm D. Lee’s sequel, Space Jam: A New Legacy, starring LeBron James, does not skimp on the “weird.” It’s now not just a simple Toon vs. Goon storyline with a star NBA player caught in the middle. Now the whole story is about an AI character named Al-G Rhythm (played by Don Cheadle, who hams it up like never before) who has access to a servers with every bit of IP that Warner Bros. owns and uses it to stage a basketball game with pretty much every character from the history of Warner Bros. in attendance.

When I spoke to director Malcolm D. Lee over zoom, a torrential storm was just starting to hit New York City (you may have seen the viral videos of people swimming through subway stations), which was so loud (Lee was at his offices in the Bronx, I was in Manhattan) we had to shout our answers at each other and a couple of times had to repeat what we were saying. Ahead, Lee goes into his strategy working with a lead actor, LeBron James, who isn’t really best known for acting (though, far from a lead role, he was pretty great in Trainwreck); if there was ever a possibility Michael Jordan would have come back to do a cameo; and, out of all the characters he had at his disposal in the Warner Bros. archives, what character he was most happy to have in this movie.

In the last 20 minutes, the weather has changed dramatically outside.

You can hear it out my window as well, man!

And now my natural light is gone and you can’t see me…

Yeah, I don’t know what this is. A tropical storm moving through?

I went through your old movies to see if you sneak some of your own characters into this movie, but most of your prior movies are Universal.

If I had done a Warner Bros. movie prior, I definitely would have put somebody in there.

Who would you have picked? Who would you want watching the game next to The Mask?

You mean for one of my movies?

Yes.

Yeah, Tiffany Haddish or Kevin Hart. Tiffany Haddish from Girls Trip and Kevin Hart from Night School.

I watched the original Space Jam again the same day I watched your new one. I forgot how weird the first movie is and I also think you made a very weird movie.

You’re saying that the first Space Jam was actually the weird movie?

I think both of them are weird movies.

Well, listen, they start out grounded, but then we’re going through this other world: the world of Space Jam: A New Legacy. Where Al-G Rhythm lives in a computer, and lives in a Warner Bros. Server-Verse, and is the commander of all these different IPs, but doesn’t get the credit for it and then it brings it all to Tune World. Yeah, it’s loony, man.

I guess they don’t call them Looney Tunes for no reason. There is lunacy happening.

No question.

So, based on the first movie, how crazy did you want to get with this one? Because it feels like you went all-in on that.

I mean, look, the technology is at our disposal at this point – all the special little effects that we have from the movie, all the world-building, all the worlds that existed already – and how we can turn those on their head and make these IP planets was something that was in the script, was baked into it. And then we just helped to bring it to life. And I think we certainly wanted to be a different movie than the first Space Jam, because animated movies and family movies have evolved in such a way over the past 25 years that where it’s not just for kids, it’s for adults. It’s something that everyone is going to get something out of. Plus, they are emotionally resonant nowadays. You look at something like Toy Story 3 and they’re about to all get incinerated, you’re just like, oh my gosh, really feeling something.

I still think about that scene a lot.

Iron Man sacrifices himself in Avengers: Endgame, it totally makes sense, but it’s still sad. It still makes you feel something. So we wanted to be on that level of the movies that proceeded us at this point and then bend in between the two projects.

When you mention some things in there for adults, the scene that stood out to me was the MC Hammer “You Can’t Touch This” reference, a song six years older than the original movie. How many kids are going to be like, “Ah, yes, my old pal, MC Hammer?” Maybe they do know that song…

They’ve used that song in a lot of commercials lately.

That’s true.

My youngest, my 12-year-old knows that song. And by the way, before MC Hammer it was Rick James’s song.

Gen Z, also big “Super Freak” fans…

[Laughs] Right. Exactly. I love that joke. I love that thing with Bugs Bunny dancing to that with the chalkboard dance. It’s hysterical to me.

I’m curious what it’s like to enter this project and going, okay, the success of this movie rests, at least partially, on the acting of an athlete. Who has been in movies, in Trainwreck he’s great, but he’s not the star of Trainwreck.

Well, I think that, yes, he is the lead. But what I thought about was, okay, it’s the Tunes that are also going to bring us a lot of humor. And the actors around him that are going to elevate his performance and elevate the other stuff around it as well. So I guess, whenever I take on a project, you don’t know how an actor is going to be. Are they an edited actor or are they truly legitimately delivering their takes like bang, bang, bang? They’re just on? And so I thought, well, it’s going to work out. And I felt like in the limited interaction that I’d had with LeBron previously, I felt like he could do it. And I think he could be better than what he did in Trainwreck and what he did on SNL. I thought he’d have accessibility and that I’d be able to, as long as I got him to trust me, I think I can get him to certain levels.

I noticed in the first movie, Michael Jordan always seems to have a famous actor around him, almost in every scene. Even Wayne Knight as Stan Podolak, kind of hanging out, just so he doesn’t have to carry every scene. And LeBron is carrying a lot of scenes in this.

He does. He does. I mean, look, LeBron, I think, wanted to be good. He took it very seriously. He likes to have fun. He likes to be funny. He’s very open to direction, just like I think he’s open to being coached. It’s the same kind of principle. And so, he didn’t have an ego about any of it. I told him if I want to make an adjustment in the note, he’s like, “I got it.” And then he would try it. And if I needed him to do it again, he’d do it again. No ego whatsoever.

Was there any thought during the production if Michael Jordan was going to show up for a cameo in this?

I mean, by the time I got involved with starting to shoot it, my head was just down, and I was just like, “Okay, we’re just doing the movie.” As time went on, yeah, I mean, it would have been nice, particularly when you’re editing the movie during the time of a pandemic where nothing is on TV but The Last Dance.

He’s in a lot of people’s heads right now because of that…

Right. So it would have been great to have him. But it couldn’t happen.

Obviously, you know LeBron pretty well now, but in my head, both of them are very competitive and I could see LeBron not wanting Michael to upstage him and I could see Michael not wanting to play a small role in LeBron’s movie.

I will tell you, I think LeBron, I think he would love to have had him. You know what I mean? And I think LeBron is very secure in his legacy and where he is in the world, in terms of the impact he’s made on the world and the game of basketball.

Oh, no doubt.

And there seems to be, I don’t know if you’d call it a rivalry or whatever, but I think it’s more the fans than anybody.

Having all the characters from the history of Warner Bros. is really something. The Clockwork Orange Droogs are watching the game…. That is kind of stunning to see them show up to watch the Space Jam game.

Yeah, we wanted to have a mix of bad guys rooting for the Goon Squad. When people are in the stands, rooting for their teams, they get rabid. So we wanted to make sure we added the clown in It, we added the Penguin in there…

I saw Barney Rubble. I saw him up there getting very excited.

[Laughs] A real rabble-rouser, man.

But who are you most proud you got in there?

Probably Captain Caveman. That’s my guy, Captain Caveman. And during the Tune montage, the one I’m most proud of is Austin Powers and Dr. Evil. Love that cameo.

Captain Caveman and Austin Powers are in the same movie. You did that.

Yep, I did. I did. Not by myself though. A lot of support, a lot of collaboration.

‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ opens in theaters and streams via HBO Max this coming weekend. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

This week in the best new pop music saw a number of groovy releases. Billie Eilish gave another preview of her sophomore album, BTS debuted a joyous tune, and Justin Bieber teamed up with The Kid Laroi for a radio-ready hit.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop music. Listen up.

Billie Eilish — “NDA”

Billie Eilish is a few weeks away from the release of her highly anticipated sophomore album Happier Than Ever. So far, the singer has teased the LP with a handful of singles and this week, Eilish returns with the slow-burning track “NDA.” The single leans into Eilish’s dark-pop sound, using downtempo synths and sparse instrumentation to craft an eerie-yet-affecting tune.

BTS — “Permission To Dance”

Following up on their smash hit “Butter,” which has been at No. 1 for an impressive seven weeks, BTS give their fans “Permission To Dance” with their latest single. The carefree English-language single features an addictive beat and dance-ready chorus and was co-written by pop aficionado Ed Sheeran alongside Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid.

The Kid Laroi — “Stay” Feat. Justin Bieber

Australian hitmaker The Kid Laroi teamed up with Justin Bieber this week for “Stay,” a collaboration fans had been begging for. The buoyant track is sure to be Laroi’s next pop hit, combining a euphoric chorus and a driving beat for a track that’s sure to be the next song of the summer.

Bad Bunny — “De Museo”

Prolific musician Bad Bunny continues steadily dropping singles with his new song “De Museo.” The track is more vulnerable compared to the rapper’s recent songs, detailing how he’s still committed to his family and old friends even though he’s now rich and famous. The song starts off slow but picks up momentum halfway through with a bouncing beat.

Jungle — “Romeo” Feat. Bas

UK production duo Jungle teamed up with Dreamville signee Bas to share the sunny tune “Romeo” off their forthcoming album Loving In Stereo. The song’s funky production emphasizes Bas’ jaunty flow as he spits verses about embracing that which he can’t control. “We’d never had a featured artist on a record before but Bas is part of the journey of this album and so it just had to make the cut,” Jungle’s Josh Lloyd-Watson said about the single.

Omar Apollo — “Go Away”

After making a name for himself on his hypeworthy debut album Apolonio, Omar Apollo ushers in a new era of music with the shimmering single “Go Away.” The lovelorn track leans on atmospheric production and Apollo’s tender vocal delivery as he delicately delivers a ballad about the pain of watching a loved one leave.

Tinashe — “Bouncin”

After opting to leave her former label in favor of going independent, Tinashe has been experimenting with her sound on recent singles. Her latest, “Bouncin,” combines her R&B sensibilities with a club-ready beat, creating a dancefloor-ready tune that celebrates late nights out.

Ericdoa, Glaive — “F*ck This Town”

Bubbling teen hyperpop producer Ericdoa once again teams up with his friend and fellow cutting-edge pop artist Glaive to send an apathetic message to their hometown with the song “F*ck This Town.” Over a skittering beat, the two chart their rise to success while indicating how they’ve both grown out of their respective east coast towns.

Snoh Aalegra — “Neon Peach” Feat. Tyler The Creator

Buzzing singer Snoh Aalegra released her impressive LP Temporary Highs In The Violet Skies this week, which featured two guest verses by Tyler The Creator. Their groovy collaboration “Neon Peach” plays up both artists’ skills, combining Aalegra’s ethereal vocals with Tyler’s tongue-in-cheek prose.

Tkay Maidza, UMI — “Onto Me”

Zimbabwean-born Australian artist Tkay Maidza has reintroduced her music with with three EPs as part of her Last Year Was Weird project. The final installment arrived this week, which included the sparking track “Onto Me” with songwriter UMI. Though Maidza made a name for herself in rap, the song highlights a her R&B side as the two musicians deliver saccharine lyrics over lush instrumentals.

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

Radiohead has made a number of generation-defining albums and songs since the ’90s, but through it all, it’s their first single, 1992’s “Creep,” that remains their biggest commercial success (in terms of individual songs). Thom Yorke debuted a re-work of the song during a fashion show earlier this year, and now he has shared a studio version of it, dubbed the “Very 2021 Rmx.”

This reimagining of the song takes the song’s original rock edge off in favor of some unsettling synths. This rendition also adopts a significantly slower tempo than the original, as it runs for a hair over 9 minutes.

The band has an up-and-down relationship with the song and have played it sporadically since the ’90s. At a Montreal show in support of OK Computer, the crowd called for the band to play the song and Yorke responded by yelling, “F*ck off, we’re tired of it.” In a 2017 interview, Yorke said of performing the song live, “It can be cool sometimes, but other times I want to stop halfway through and be like, ‘Nah, this isn’t happening.’”

As the band has had mixed feelings about the song, Dave Chappelle has fully embraced it, performing it multiple times over the years and most recently at Foo Fighters’ Madison Square Garden concert.

Listen to “Creep (Very 2021 Rmx)” above.

DaBaby is going viral on Twitter again, but it’s not for new music or quirky memes this time. The Charlotte rapper, who was captured in a video over the weekend reprimanding a pair of candy-selling kids for overcharging while in New York for the ESPY Awards, has come under scrutiny for the video. While some are defending his actions, others think he took it too far, embarrassing the kids online and playing the miser, considering how much money he flaunts in his music.

Sharing the video to his Instagram Story Sunday, DaBaby apparently intended to teach the kids a lesson in fair business ethics after they tried to charge him $200 for a box of Gushers. The boys told the rapper that their rate was $2 for each individual bag of candy but DaBaby noted that the boxes only contained 34 bags, prompting a quick math tutorial. “What’s 34 multiplied by two, my boy?” he presses them. “It ain’t $200! It’s not even $100. It’s $68.”

However, it’s his next statement that has some fans up in arms against him. “You gotta use your head, you tried to play me,” he says after giving each kid just $2 in exchange for three bags of candy — $1 each for two bags of Gushers and $2 for one bag of Skittles. “I was gonna bless you anyway. You would have gotten the $200 but now you got $2. Y’all be good.”

Some fans on Twitter expressed their disappointment in DaBaby for putting the two youths on blast the way he did, admonishing him or being cheap. Others, meanwhile, frowned on the kids for trying to finesse the rapper because they thought he made more money (to be fair, that’s what like 99 percent of fashion designers and jewelers do when it comes to rappers but that’s their business). Check out the responses below.

When James Gunn signed on to direct The Suicide Squad, he had no idea that he’d be spinning off one of the characters into a full-on HBO Max series. But then, the pandemic hit, and Gunn found himself sitting at home bored out of his mind, so he tossed what he describes as a “vague pitch” to HBO Max who immediately bit. Barely a year later, he’s now sitting on a wrapped up first season for Peacemaker starring John Cena.

“And that’s a wrap on Day 131 & Season One of #Peacemaker,” Gunn tweeted. “Less than a year ago I pitched a vague pitch to @HBOMax – here we are 11 months later with 8 astounding episodes in the can. Cast & crew: I love you all. Thank you for putting your hearts & souls into this project.”

Plucked from his upcoming reboot/sequel of The Suicide Squad, which hits theaters and HBO Max next month, “Peacemaker is an opportunity to delve into current world issues through the lens of this superhero/supervillain/and world’s biggest douchebag,” Gunn said in a statement when the show was announced. And like all of his projects, he’s fiercely defended the John Cena series from misinformation online. Not long after Peacemaker was announced, a site tried to claim that an edited version of the series would air on The CW. Gunn laughingly shot that rumor down.

“Lol. No. If we edited it for broadcast TV it would be forty seconds long,” he tweeted.

Peacemaker is expected to start streaming on HBO Max in January 2022.

(Via James Gunn on Twitter)

While festivals regain their footing and museums are eager to re-open to the public, a new hybrid model between the two has emerged in — where else? — Brooklyn. The focus of Undercurrent, which is described on its website as “a new event that immerses visitors in over 10 original audiovisual art installations, created by influential musicians to inspire positive impact around the Climate Crisis,” is focused on artist’s reactions to the looming issues of human impact on our environment.

So far, installations by artists like Bon Iver, Grimes, Jorja Smith, Khruangbin, Miguel, Actress, Aluna, Jayda G, Mount Kimbie, and Nosaj Thing had been announced, but today, Undercurrent is adding two more massive artists to the bill — Grimes and The 1975.

In a press release Grimes explained why she decided to join the project. “If we don’t protect the environment the future of consciousness will be artificial, not biological,” she said. “Would mental health and wellness even be relevant in a world where emotions aren’t an evolutionary advantage? A.I. Meditations were created by a generative language program that was provided with meditations made by humans and, based on those models, created its own meditations without the guiding aid of human emotion. Personally, I find beauty in this work, but it represents a distinct artistic shift from things written by humans. This work isn’t critical of A.I., but rather a neutral depiction of what the wellness landscape might look like without us.”

That’s one perspective that’s unique only to Grimes. More about Undercurrent: Each installation is designed to draw awareness to one of the three partner nonprofits, Kiss The Ground, Ocean Conservancy, and Global Forest Generation.

The installation opens in Brooklyn on September 9, with a trailer previewing it above. Tickets are available here.

Though Ben Gibbard is known for his definitive work with the cult favorite electronic group, The Postal Service, the Death Cab For Cutie founder hasn’t been working in that space of late. That changes today with “Only Love,” his second collaboration with Tycho, who remixed the Death Cab track “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive” back in 2016. Both artists had plenty to say about their new track, which touches on the issue of climate change in subtle and serious ways.

From Tycho, describing how Gibbard’s vocals brough the song to life:

“I had been a fan of Ben’s work for a long time when, in 2016, I had the chance to do a remix for Death Cab For Cutie’s track “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive.” Ben’s voice was a very inspiring element to work with from a production standpoint, I felt it really meshed well with the kinds of sounds and instrumentation I gravitate towards. “Only Love” started life as an instrumental, but something was missing. I sent a rough demo to Ben and he recorded some vocals over it. The first time I heard the rough vocals the whole song suddenly made sense and the arrangement flowed out of that. After my early experimentations with vocals on Weather this felt like a great opportunity to put everything I had learned during that process into practice. It was certainly an honor to be able to work with such an iconic voice.”

Gibbard also had a lot to say about the collaboration:

“In 2014 while reading This Changes Everything: Capitalism And The Climate by Naomi Klein, I came across a quote from Montanan goat rancher and environmentalist Alexis Bonogofsky that moved me immensely. Speaking about the fight to protect public lands in southeastern Montana from the mining company Arch Coal, she said: ‘(The) connection to this place and the love people have for it, that’s what Arch Coal doesn’t get. They underestimate that. They don’t understand it so they disregard it. And that’s what in the end will save that place. It’s not the hatred for the coal companies, or anger, but love will save that place.

When Scott sent me the music for “Only Love,” it seemed perfect for this statement. Since reading Alexis’ words, I’ve carried them as a universal truth; that the only way we preserve the people, places or things we care for is with love, not hatred. This is often easier said than done, of course. But I find myself coming back to her statement as if it were a mantra. I grew up hiking and camping on public lands here in Washington State and my love for them has only increased since becoming a mountain / ultra / trail runner. They were in the forefront of my mind while working on this song.”

Check out the collaboration above.

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

With cannabis sales increasingly becoming legal in the United States (and beyond), there’s seemingly a shop on every corner in some cities, and that goes for billboards, too. When it comes to Borat mastermind Sacha Baron Cohen, however, he’s setting the record straight after a cannabis company tossed the character’s likeness onto a billboard for the heck of it. Cohen has filed a lawsuit against Solar Therapeutics for their billboard (posted next to a Massachusetts highway) that features the satirical character doing his thumbs-up gesture with an “It’s Nice!”

News of the botching of the “Very Nice!” slogan arrives courtesy of Hollywood Reporter, which published excerpts from the lawsuit. In the filed documents, Cohen alleges that the company committed copyright infringement and false advertising, among other civil wrongs, and there’s another detail worth mentioning — Cohen wishes to make it very clear that neither he nor Borat would ever endorse cannabis. “To the contrary, Mr. Baron Cohen never has used cannabis in his life,” the lawsuit penned by attorney David Condon reads. “He never would participate in an advertising campaign for cannabis, for any amount of money.”

Here’s more from Hollywood Reporter:

“With his ‘Ali G’ character, portrayed by Mr. Baron Cohen in the HBO television series Da Ali G Show, Mr. Baron Cohen has spent much of his career making a mockery of ‘stoner’ culture – a culture which the Defendants’ Billboard overtly celebrates,” writes Condon in the complaint, which is embedded below. “In addition, Mr. Baron Cohen was born into an Orthodox Jewish family; he is an Observant Jew; and he is proud of his cultural heritage. He does not wish to be involved in the heated controversy among the Orthodox Jewish community about whether cannabis can be used under Jewish traditions, customs, and rules.”

Yep, this lawsuit apparently suggests that the defendants aren’t wholly familiar with Cohen’s body of work. That’s a slam if there ever was one, but as for the lawsuit itself? More than fair enough. As with any other product, Cohen’s entitled to crack down on the unauthorized use of his likeness and ask for monetary compensation (which he’s doing) after the billboard’s removal. He’s doing just that, including not only “statutory damages plus actual and punitive damages and disgorgement of profits attributable to the billboard.” In other words, Solar Therapeutics surely won’t have a “very nice” time with this matter.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox’s relationship is full of intense experiences, and on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, Fox told guest host Arsenio Hall about another one they had: Using ayahuasca deep in a Costa Rica jungle.

Fox began, “We went to Costa Rica to do ayahuasca, like, in a proper setting, with indigenous people. We were in the middle of the jungle. […] I was thinking it was like glamping or something like that, like it was gonna be some kind of five-star experience. But you get there and you really are in the middle of the jungle, and you don’t get to eat after 1 p.m. You have to walk a very far distance to get your water, you can’t shower because they’re in a drought. […] Nothing glamorous about it. It’s all a part of sort of making you vulnerable, so you sort of surrender to the experience.”

After explaining how the process began with vomit-inducing tea, Fox explained her experience, saying, “Everybody’s journey is different, [but on] the second night I went to Hell for eternity. Just knowing [it’s] eternity is torture in itself, because there’s no beginning, middle, or end. So you have a real ego death. […] It just goes straight into your soul, and it takes you to the psychological prison that you hold yourself in. So it’s your own version of Hell, and I was definitely there.”

Check out the full interview above.