Month: July 2021

Kelsey Grammer will reprise his role as Frasier Crane very soon, with his Paramount+ version representing the third show on which he’s played the psychiatrist first made famous on Cheers.

The reboot, though part of a wave of old shows coming back for new episodes, is a long time coming for Grammer. And the star (and theme song singer) seems to have a clear direction for the show in several ways. For starters, the show will apparently take place somewhere other than Boston or Seattle. He’s apparently going to be wildly rich, too.

In an interview with New York Live, Grammer said parts of the plot for the Frasier reboot are already solidified, though not actually in his character’s mind.

“He thinks he’s gonna go off and do one thing, and sure enough, his life takes him in another direction,” Grammer said in the interview. “And he ends up rich beyond his dreams.”

Then there’s the matter of one important member of the show missing from the reboot. John Mahoney, who played the father of Grammer’s and David Hyde Pierce’s Frasier and Niles, died in 2018. Grammer said that the show will “deal with that some in the first episode,” which sounds like the role will not be recast. As for the rest of the characters? Grammer said that he’s “reached out to everybody,” but no one else from the original cast of Frasier has signed on just yet.

That could mean another major reboot to the plot and who Crane interacts with, but at least we know that a character already known for being stuffy and elitist will be extremely wealthy the next time we see him on TV.

[via Deadline]

Super Mario Bros. holds a special place in video game history for sure, but this week it lost its title as most expensive video game ever sold. Several copies of the decade-old game have hit the auction block in recent months and garnered record-setting sales prices, but this week a new champion emerged from Nintendo’s stable of NES classics.

Heritage Auction, which has handled a number of high-profile video game auctions in recent months, announced on Friday that a 1986 NES copy of The Legend Of Zelda sold at auction for $870,000, surpassing a pair of Super Mario Bros. copies that held the record at times over the last year.

The copy, rated a 9.0 by a grading service, beat a near-mint 9.6-graded edition of Super Mario Bros. that Heritage auctioned off for $660,000 in April of 2021.

“I had a lot of confidence in this game, and, yet, I still feel like the reality of today’s bidding exceeded my vision of how it would play out,” Heritage Auctions video games specialist Valarie McLeckie said in a statement. “Making history is never an easy thing. I’m just really proud we got to be part of this yet again.”

Given the skyrocketing perceived value of basically every collectable over the last year, it’s entirely unclear how long this game will actually hold the title Heritage says the particular variant of this copy may be one of two unopened copies in existence, but time will tell if this holds up or we find a new record-holder as more copies are uncovered.

In other Zelda news, a Japanese man was arrested for selling modded versions a more modern Zelda game: Breath Of The Wild. Kotaku reported that Ichimin Sho was caught selling the copies, for about $31 USD, that had versions of Link with modified abilities, special weapons and other tweaks requested by gamers.

He posted his services onto an unspecified auction site, describing it as “the strongest software.” He would provide modded save files that would give the player improved in-game abilities and also items that were difficult to obtain were made available as requested by the customer. In his original listing, he reportedly was charging folks 3,500 yen (around $31 USD) for his service.

Niigata Prefecture police spotted the listing and arrested Sho on July 8 for possibly violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Law. After being arrested, the man admitted he had sold modded saves and software before, telling police he had sold about 10 million yen (around $90,000 USD)in the past year and a half.

There’s also a group of more white hat Zelda modders that are reportedly recreating an Ocarina of Time demo that debuted a year before the game’s eventual 1999 launch. All of that involves, you know, actually opening up the game and tinkering. So don’t expect any of those stories to yield as lucrative results as the auction.

The United States men’s basketball team fell in its first game before the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The Americans took on Nigeria on Saturday night, and thanks to a scorching hot shooting performance by the Nigerians, they managed to come out on top, 90-87.

While this game was expected to be more competitive than their face off at the 2012 Olympics — the Americans won comfortably that day, 156-73 — no one expected Mike Brown’s Nigeria side to head to Vegas and pick up the win. But behind a 21-point performance from Miami Heat reserve guard Gabe Vincent and 17 from Caleb Agada of Israel-based side Hapoel Be’er Sheva, the Nigerians were able to overcome being viewed as a 28.5-point underdog.

In response to the win, the official Twitter account of the Nigerian basketball team took a well-deserved victory lap.

There was even a joke at the expense of Team USA center Bam Adebayo, who was eligible to represent Nigeria but opted to play for the Americans.

The American offense was stagnant for much of the night, but they had just enough firepower to stay in it late. Unfortunately for them, one of the strangest offensive possessions we’ve seen in some time capped off the night. Down by three with a hair over 13 seconds left, the United States appeared to run a play for Zach LaVine that simply took far too long. By the time he was fouled — he’d go on to miss both from the charity stripe — the amount of time remaining on the clock did not let them do much of anything.

It also didn’t help that the Nigerians played some spectacular basketball — the side played with a chip on their shoulders all evening, with guys like Miami Heat youngster Precious Achiuwa sending an attempted layup by Kevin Durant into the stands with authority.

With the caveat that this is an exhibition without three players expected to contribute due to their playing in the NBA Finals, this was a rough loss for the Americans, which enter every game during Olympic season with aspirations of winning big. USA Basketball will try to right the ship on Monday, July 12, during its next tune-up game against a pesky Australian team that has aspirations of winning a medal, even though standout guard Ben Simmons opted to pass on going to Tokyo.

Bo Burnham took the internet by storm earlier this year with a Netflix special called Inside. Created and filmed amid the coronavirus pandemic, it was an intimate and revealing look at Burnham’s unique style of comedy. Burnham announced the special in April of 2021, and it soon arrived on Netflix to remind everyone about the weirdness of the last year or so that was.

What’s followed is an album of the show’s songs, as well as widespread critical acclaim to boot. While many pieces of entertainment have hit streaming services during the pandemic with movie theaters shuttered, few have captured the emotions of actually living through it for so many. And now that work of art will hit now-open theaters for people to enjoy in a new context.

On Saturday, Burnham announced that the special would also be coming to movie theaters. Billed as one night only event, Burnham tweeted about the July 22 screenings in theaters nationwide.

The comedian soon tweeted that tickets were going fast, so they were adding showtimes and theaters in the coming days. Burnham’s website for Inside can search for the closest theater to you that’s playing the movie later in the month, so if you’re eager to watch some comedy about the internet and isolation among a group of strangers in a darkened theater you’ve got a date on July 22.

As Major League Baseball hits its All-Star break, the topic of the day for many fans around the sport was injuries. Some notable players begged off actually playing in the game, for example, as they want to rest or rehab injuries. And one team hoping to avoid disaster on the field and failing was the Atlanta Braves, who saw star Ronald Acuña Jr. go down on Saturday and need to be carted off the field.

The visuals were awful all around, as Acuña injured his right knee going after a fly ball in right field in the bottom of the fifth inning against the Miami Marlins. Acuña tried to stand and walk off under his own power but could not, bringing concerned members of the team and eventually the injury cart to his spot in the field.

As Acuña lay in pain on the field and a number of other Braves players went over to both check on him and retrieve the ball, Jazz Chisholm Jr. turned the play into an inside-the-park home run. Which is probably why the Marlins tweeted about the run-scoring play, including video of what clearly looks like a pretty serious injury to another team’s opponent with the phrase “Want to see Jazz hit an inside-the-park home run?”

The run made the score 5-3 Braves, but the tweet was widely seen as celebrating the injury of a significant piece to Atlanta’s postseason run and insensitive to say the least.

The Marlins account quickly deleted the tweet, but fans shared screenshots and criticized the account throughout the evening. The post had some extra curious context to it, as earlier in the series, Acuña had complained to umpires after being hit by a pitch. It was the second straight game the star got chin music, adding to the tension between the two clubs to say the least.

Absolutely no one should want to see players get hurt, especially ones as talented and fun to watch as Acuña. Hopefully whoever thought this run was worth celebrating with a post, especially given the context, will give the idea of tweeting something like that a second thought in the future.

Quentin Tarantino is a student of filmmaking as much as he is an actual filmmaker. His astute understanding of the business, for example, is one of the reasons he cites when explaining his impending retirement from directing. And someone as well-versed in cinema history as the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood director certainly understands notable industry trends.

Which is probably why he was asked about Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the HBO Max-launched four-hour epic reframing of the DC Universe team-up film that was the talk of Hollywood earlier in the year. Interestingly, though, the director had a much more positive answer about the whole endeavor than many who’ve publicly commented on the project. And those who have, well, actually seen the Snyder Cut in its entirety.

In an interview with Cinema Blend, the director admitted that he hasn’t seen the Snyder Cut just yet, but he’s interested in seeing it eventually. That’s because he found the whole thing “really groovy” in general.

“Well, I haven’t seen it because I don’t have HBO Max, but that’s something I would like to see. I never saw it when it was at the theaters, but I’d be kind of curious to see this four-hour, you know, his original version on that,” Tarantino said. “No, I actually thought that was really groovy. And I actually thought the fans were really groovy, the fact they kept persisting on it and everything,”

That persistence came by fans essentially tweeting the project into existence after years of social media protesting and pestering to see Snyder’s vision for the film that was first released under Joss Whedon’s guidance after the former left the project. While some may have been bristled by all that “persisting,” Tarantino apparently found the process interesting to watch.

Tarantino understands the value of going back and revisiting old work, though. He revealed recently that he debated remaking Reservoir Dogs as his final film instead of whatever’s coming next for his supposed swan song. Either way, it’s interesting to see Tarantino praise Snyder’s work here, even if he hasn’t actually seen how it all turned out.

[via ComicBook.com]

On Friday, Vince Staples ended the nearly three-year-long stretch that he went without releasing a full-length project to fans. The Long Beach native shared his official third album, Vince Staples, and it arrived following weeks of frequent headline-making comments and interviews from the rapper.

Vince continues that streak with a recent sit-down with The Independent where he shared his thoughts on the current landscape of the music industry and how some rapper use gang affiliation to boost their rise and appeal in hip-hop.

“This is a business where we monetize people’s struggles, pain, death and murder,” he said. “If you’re a kid from a situation, and you feel the only way that you will get out of the situation where there’s immense poverty or bad home life or low self-esteem is by doing this thing that everyone is selling, you’re going to try to sell that thing.”

He added, “We’ve seen people market and distribute death and destruction within our communities for decades; they do these things because it gets attention. What do we really expect when we give people millions of dollars to say they’re tough? They’re gonna say they’re tough. It’s common sense.”

The rapper also pointed out that rather than focus on the individuals doing good, the media instead choose to pay attention to those who fit a “bad boy” image.

“These people who do the wrong thing are always brought up [by the media], but no one who’s done the right things has been mentioned,” he said.

Vince Staples is out now via Blacksmith Recordings/Motown Records. Pre-order it here.

Good news for the Italian national team: Football is not coming home.

Ok, well, that’s not quite true, at least not yet. Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, whose anthemic track “Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home)” has been belted out by supporters of the English national team during its run to the final of Euro 2020, will not be allowed to perform the track at Wembley Stadium prior to Sunday’s match against Italy.

“There was a suggestion that we sang (‘Three Lions’) on the pitch before the final on Sunday and UEFA said it was too partisan and not fair to the Italians to have that,” Skinner told English television show The Last Leg, according to Sky Sports. He did, however, make it a point to mention that “Andrea Bocelli sang ‘Nessun Dorma’” prior to the first match of the tournament, in which the Italians took on Turkey.

The song, originally released in 1996 to celebrate Euros taking place in England that year, has become ubiquitous as the team made its way through group play and the knockout stage. While the vowel at the end of this piece’s author’s last name does, indeed, mean he is biased towards the Azzurri on Sunday, “Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home)” is extremely catchy.

The good news, at least for those who like the track, is that we can expect to hear it on Sunday at Wembley Stadium, regardless. In a comment to Reuters, a UEFA spokesperson said, “The song ‘Three Lions’… is the fan song selected by the English Football Association, and will be played during the players’ warm-up, as has been the case for England’s previous matches.”

We’re still a few weeks away from the arrival of Billie Eilish’s second album, Happier Than Ever. It’s an effort the singer hopes will at least match the level of success of her debut effort, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. So far the singer has released five singles ahead of her sophomore project’s arrival:“ My Future,” Lost Cause,” “Your Power,” “Therefore I Am,” and her latest effort, “NDA.” The new track came with a thrilling video that captured the singer in middle of a road as a group of cars race by her in different directions.

Just a day after she shared that video, Billie took to Instagram with some behind-the-scenes photos and videos from the video shoot for “NDA.”

“hope u liked it (also pls enjoy the fifth slide of my mom and team losing their minds being scared),” she captioned the post. One image displays the bruises the singer got on her knee as a result of falling down to the concrete in the video. Another slide shows the singer’s mom’s extremely worry as she watches 25 cars zoom by her daughter.

You check out the Instagram slides in the post above and revisit the “NDA” video here.

Happier Than Ever is out 7/30 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.

While legal troubles have kept Pooh Shiesty in the news, the Memphis native isn’t letting it stop him from sharing new content with fans. His latest release comes in the form of a new visual for “Switch It Up” with G Herbo and No More Heroes.

The video is quite the reverent effort as the trio gets busy on both the good and bad sides of the laws They accomplish some light flexing throughout the video while giving viewers a look into the not-so-good deeds they involve themselves in.

The song is housed on Shiesty’s spring deluxe edition of his debut album, Shiesty Season, which he released back in May. The project’s arrival came just before a string of low moments for the Memphis native. In the weeks that followed, the rapper would be arrested and charged for two separate shooting incidents in Miami, for both of which he was denied bond and remains in police custody. The first came during a club event where he allegedly shot someone after money was apparently stolen from him. This led to a charge of aggravated battery. The second came from a 2020 Miami robbery that went wrong and led to the rapper and a friend shooting two men. In this case, he was charged with discharging a firearm during a violent crime, conspiracy, and robbery under a law regulating commerce.

You can watch Pooh Shiesty’s new video above.

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