Month: July 2021

Domee Shi made her Pixar directorial debut with Bao, an Oscar-winning short film about a mother who eats her son. I mean, sure, there’s more to it than that, about empty-nest syndrome, about the importance of traditions, about overprotective parents, but ultimately, Bao is about a “mom nuzzling her little baby steamed bun to death.” It’s very good and very stressful — although not as stressful for the teaser trailer for Bao’s feature-length debut, Turning Red, about a young girl who turns into a giant red panda when she gets stressed. This is the Incredible Hulk movie that we deserve.

“Even though I was super young when I watched it, the first Toy Story movie was so different than all the musical animations that were coming out at the time,” Shi said about her history with Pixar. “It was probably Finding Nemo when I realized wow, they’re making different stories, stories that are really emotional and they feel real. It’s not just an animated film, it felt like there were so many more layers and emotions and stories going on in their films.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Growing up is a beast. Young actress Rosalie Chiang lends her voice to Mei Lee, a 13-year-old who suddenly “poofs” into a giant red panda when she gets too excited (which is practically ALWAYS). Sandra Oh voices Mei Lee’s protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming, who is never far from her daughter — an unfortunate reality for the teenager.

Turning Red opens on March 11, 2022.

I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, from authors Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, is the latest tell-all book about the Trump administration. I hope they never stop coming, not when the details are as wild as the former-president raging about typos (“What is f*cking wrong with these people? They can’t hit spell-check?”) and telling his then-chief of staff that Adolf Hitler “did a lot of good things.” I Alone Can Fix It has another “so wild that I absolutely believe it” claim: that Rudy Giuliani hatched the Big Lie scam after having a few too many.

The scene: Election Night at the White House. Trump is watching the results “from his bedroom alone and from a family room with Melania, other family members and some of his most trusted aides, including Hope Hicks,” according to an excerpt from the book in the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Rudy is at “his own command center upstairs on the party floor.” He was with his son, Andrew, and after awhile, the disgraced lawyer “started to cause a commotion. He was telling other guests that he had come up with a strategy for Trump and was trying to get into the president’s private quarters to tell him about it. Some people thought Giuliani may have been drinking too much.”

Giuliani went state by state asking [campaign manager Bill] Stepien, [White House chief of staff Mark] Meadows, and [advisor Jason] Miller what they were seeing and what their plan was.

“What’s happening in Michigan?” he asked.

They said it was too early to tell, votes were still being counted and they couldn’t say.

“Just say we won,” Giuliani told them.

Same thing in Pennsylvania. “Just say we won Pennsylvania.”

Later that night, after Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden, Giuliani continued to insist that Trump should say he won, results be damned. “Just go declare victory right now,” he told Trump. “You’ve got to go declare victory now.” Around 2 a.m., out walked Trump, who claimed that “we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off.” He added, “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”

Months later, he still believes this, and it’s partially because of Rudy.

(Via the Washington Post)

Over the weekend, Cardi B and Offset’s daughter Kulture celebrated her third birthday, and aside from an extravagant party, the youngster also enjoyed a high-end gift from her parents: a watch valued at at least $150,000. Cardi generates opinions pretty much no matter what she does, so naturally, people online had thoughts about the gift. Now Cardi has responded to detractors wondering why a kid that young needs such a fancy present.

Cardi explained that she’s giving her daughter the childhood she never had, tweeting, “Listen imma live my childhood dreams thru my kids [laughing emojis].” A Twitter user responded to that tweet, “Cardi honey….You openly said this? Proudly? Loudly? Yikes.” Cardi replied, “Yes why not ? Princess parties ,unlimited toys , vacations and Pools my kid loves the pool and I went to the pool like 5 times in my childhood. Different flavor cereal not just Raisin Bran.”

Cardi later said of her detractors, “They want me to be just as miserable as them .Same ol sh*t .Then speak about it for a week and play victim like if I started with them .You can’t show people you happy here it make b*tches pull their coochie hairs .”

Check out Cardi’s posts below.

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

There was a brief period when Fox News didn’t air 2020 election nonsense. It probably wasn’t because they’d had a crisis of conscience; it was almost certainly because they didn’t want to get sued. It didn’t work. Both Dominion and Smartmatic voting machine companies filed a lawsuit against the network, which they’ve attempted to have dismissed. But even the news channel that lets Tucker Carlson say whatever are clearly not taking too many chances.

On Sunday night, they surrendered their air waves to former president Donald Trump’s predictably bonkers speech at the second CPAC of the year so far. It was a Greatest Hits package, with lots of voter fraud mishegoss, plus some new ones. This is probably the first time he’s bragged, at least in public, about being impeached twice. But while he spoke, especially about voting machine conspiracy theories, Fox News tried their best to distance themselves.

“THE VOTING SYSTEM COMPANIES HAVE DENIED THE VARIOUS ALLEGATIONS MADE BY PRESIDENT TRUMP AND HIS COUNSEL REGARDING THE 2020 ELECTION,” read a chyron, which stayed on the screen as he spoke, for over 30 seconds.

It was the barest minimum of butt-covering, unlikely to make any Trump supporter doubt the efficacy of his claims, but also unlikely to result in further lawsuits. It’s a similar tactic adopted by the even more die hard pro-Trump networks OANN and Newsmax, which have to tow a line between airing propaganda and not getting sued off the air.

But most non-Trumpists just thought it was somewhere between amusing and pathetic.

Meanwhile, the failed blogger in question, who lives in resorts with strangers and who can’t speak without getting disclaimers from even his biggest cheerleaders, continues to be the Republican frontrunner for 2024.

Over a period from 1992 through 2019, the men’s USA Basketball team won 54 out of 56 exhibition games while deploying NBA players. On Monday evening, Team USA lost its second exhibition game in three days, following up a shocking loss to Nigeria with a close-fought defeat at the hands of Australia. In the aftermath, many were quick to lament the team’s recent play but, in the post-game press conference, Team USA and San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich had a relatively heated exchange with a reporter over whether the United States had a history of blowing out opponents in this setting.

The specifics of the disagreement may be a bit fuzzy, but Popovich and the reporter, Joe Vardon of The Athletic, clearly don’t see eye to eye in this instance. Popovich dug his heels in by insisting blowouts are less frequent at the highest levels of international competition, while Vardon was seemingly focusing on the United States’ lofty average margin of victory when using NBA players.

As a result, the exchange was certainly tense, with Popovich insisting that he finish his statement and Vardon continue to interject. This certainly isn’t the first time that Popovich has had a viral-level moment in an exchange with a media member, but the frustration of back-to-back losses may be boiling over in advance of Team USA heading to Tokyo for the Olympics. On the floor, the United States can take solace in having the most talented roster, but the early returns are not particularly strong, and many will be asking whether Popovich, his staff and this particular group of high-level players can right the ship.

Over the weekend, the men’s USA Basketball squad got beaten in a shocking upset by Nigeria — who went on to beat Argentina on Monday and prove they may just be for real — in exhibition action in Las Vegas. It was a stunner, but one Team USA suggested could be a needed wake-up call before they head to Tokyo for the Olympics.

On Monday, they had a chance to right the ship against Australia, a team that beat them in exhibition action back in 2019 before the FIBA World Cup, the first signal of potential major issues that ended up seeing the U.S. bounced early in China. However, the bounce back performance from Team USA was not to be, as they struggled once again offensively in a 91-83 loss to the Boomers, who were led by Patty Mills (22 points) and Joe Ingles (17 points) as they look to find the podium for the first time in the nation’s Olympic history in a month’s time.

Ingles did much of his damage early, hitting his first three attempts from long range to keep the Boomers within striking distance of a similarly hot start for Team USA.

Damian Lillard was the one who got it going early for the Americans, finishing with a team-high 22 points himself.

Kevin Durant had 17 for Team USA and Bradley Beal added 12, but for a team that boasts so many scorers, they have clearly not figured out how to all coexist on offense, particularly late in games. Jayson Tatum’s struggles continue as he had eight points on 4-of-12 shooting, and no one seems to know quite what to do to create good offense in the halfcourt as they are currently constructed. Adding the three players they’re currently missing due to the Finals figures to help that some, but they’ll have even less time to work those three into the rotation and build that cohesion that is so clearly missing right now for the squad.

For Australia, there was no doubt who they were going to down the stretch, as Mills took over as he so often does for the Boomers. He carved up the U.S and, while he didn’t need to produce late heroics like against Argentina, he was relentless in attacking and poking holes in the USA defense to keep them at bay.

On defense, Matisse Thybulle’s length bothered the Americans, as he got a rare block on a KD jumper and stuffed the stat sheet for the night with 12 points, three assists, two rebounds, two blocks, and three steals — including a big three during Australia’s late third quarter run to take a five point lead into the fourth.

If the loss to Nigeria was a wake-up call, then this loss to Australia has to ring at least a few real alarm bells for Team USA. There’s certainly still time and ample talent to figure things out, but if nothing else these exhibition games are showing the world this U.S. team is more than vulnerable and any fear factor the All-Star roster creates seems likely to be almost completely worn away. There was a time where the USA men never lost in exhibition games, and have now equaled their exhibition loss number over the past 30 years in one week.

As for Australia, it further builds their confidence that this can be the year they win a medal, even without Ben Simmons playing, as Mills and Ingles give them some serious offensive firepower, and they have a lot of length elsewhere on defense to make life difficult for other squads. Nigeria, fresh off its win over Argentina, took to Twitter to welcome Australia to the “beat the USA in Vegas” club.

Team USA will have one final game tomorrow night against Argentina (6 p.m. ET) to try and get that first win and build at least a bit of confidence going into Tokyo.

Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani has been the biggest story of the 2021 Major League Baseball season. The 27-year-old is a unique figure in the game, excelling as both a pitcher and hitter, and Ohtani entered the All-Star break as MLB’s leader in myriad offensive categories. Included in that is a league-best 33 home runs in only 84 games and, as the Home Run Derby arrived on Monday evening, many were intrigued with the show Ohtani might be able to put on as the betting favorite to claim the title. Ultimately, though, Ohtani wasn’t able to win the event, but he did provide all kinds of fireworks alongside Washington Nationals star Juan Soto in the opening round.

Fittingly, the Ohtani-Soto battle was the final matchup of the first round, and Soto posted 22 home runs in his opening run. Ohtani struggled a bit early but, on cue, he fired things up and was able to tie Soto in the final seconds.

That forced a swing-off, with each player having a minute to add to the previous scores. Soto knocked six baseballs over the wall, reaching 28 in total, and Ohtani answered by matching him swing for swing.

To break the second tie, both players were given exactly three untimed swings and Soto did the unthinkable in blasting all three for home runs.

That put the pressure firmly on Ohtani and, when he missed a home run on his first swing, the favorite went down.

While it would’ve been a fun story to see Ohtani win the whole thing, this was a wild back-and-forth and Soto is a beloved figure in his own right. The 22-year-old superstar moved on to the semifinals with the win, but the Derby is heavily about vibes, and this matchup had all the drama one would want. Ohtani didn’t win, but he gave the people what they came for which was to see mammoth blasts, as he put a ridiculous six home runs over the 500 foot mark, while Soto wasn’t hitting cheap ones himself, with the longest blast of the night at 520 feet.

Vince Staples has been back lately in a big way, even though he never left. The Long Beach-raised rapper is brutally honest enough to talk about the way the music industry monetizes people’s struggles, and on the heels of releasing his latest full-length album, Vince Staples, he’s shared another new video for “Are You With That?” The video follows up earlier singles like “Law Of Averages,” oh and an explosive LA Leakers freestyle, giving fans more of what they were hoping for in the lead up to the new project.

In the first half of the clip, Vince is portrayed under glaring spotlight in a number of mundane situations, doubling down on the unsettling nature of surveillance, and the way Black people are scrutinized in a specific way, especially those who grew up in neighborhoods like Vince did. In the second half, Vince portrays the process of burying and holding vigils for his friends in an even more explicit way, showing himself deeper and deeper in a grave each scene. Vince Staples came out last Friday, but it’s only one of several projects Vince is working on lately. He’s also previewed his graphic novel Limbo Beach and teased yet another new musical project, Ramona Park Broke My Heart to follow up this record. Check out the new video above and stream his new record here.

The baseball world turned its attention to Coors Field on Monday for the annual tradition of the Home Run Derby. While the “main event” for the week takes place on Tuesday with the 2021 MLB All-Star Game, the Derby often lends itself to high-end entertainment and, with the thin air in Denver, expectations were sky-high for moonshot after moonshot from some of the game’s best sluggers. In the early stages of evening, though, one of the more action-packed moments came when Oakland Athletics first baseman Matt Olson throttled a baseball into the stands.

In short, a fan took quite a tumble over a railing into the tunnel while doing his best to snag the ball. Twitter then took notice of the video and it made the rounds.

First, let’s hope that the fan is okay and healthy. That seems to be the case in that he popped up after the hard landing, but it’s always important to note.

From there, this was objectively amusing in that he didn’t hold back in the slightest. It takes a certain type of effort to really let it go and dive in this fashion and, even with a barrage of baseballs set to fly into the crowd on this particular night, this baseball was the one that he simply had to have.

Sometimes one little piece of advice can be so powerful it transforms our lives for the better. Many years ago, someone told me that “you can’t change other people, you can only change how you react to them.”

That piece of advice taught me that instead of trying to forcibly change others, I can get them to act differently by changing how I react to them. For example, sometimes ignoring someone’s behavior instead of calling attention to it can get them to change.

Simple psychological hacks are no way to treat serious psychological issues such as anxiety or depression. But they can help us break free from negative patterns, create stronger personal boundaries, and improve our mindfulness.

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Certified Coaching Practitioner Elisabeth Donatella has earned over 500,000 followers and four million likes on TikTok for her simple, but practical self-help videos.

Donatella, who goes by the name Coach Lisy, became interested in coaching after fighting her own internal battles and then deciding to use what she learned to help others.

“As a former self-loathing, people-pleasing perfectionist living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I focused so much of my time and energy obsessing over everything,” she wrote on her website. “I struggled with an eating disorder, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and worst of all, I had severe self-doubt.”

“Four years ago, after I had hit my own personal rock bottom, I decided to make a change,” she continues. “I decided to dedicate my time and energy on learning how to love myself…and, most importantly, accept myself.”

Since, she has completed countless trainings and seminars, including the Robbins-Madanes Training, the official Coach Training School of Tony Robbins.

These days she provides advice on relationships, mindfulness, mental hygiene, and self-awareness on TikTok. Here are 10 of her most powerful self-help tips.

How to stop procrastinating, tip 1: Plan out your day

How to stop procrastinating, tip 2: List the reasons why your activities are important

How to break a bad habit

Your thoughts shape your life

A fixed mindset versus a growth mindset

Witness your thoughts

How to set a boundary

How to deal with unwanted thoughts

Money management tricks

“Because I don’t want to” is a valid reason to say no to anything.