Month: July 2021

Although reactions to the International Olympics Committee ruling runner Sha’Carri Richardson ineligible for the 2021 Summer Games have been split, the colorful athlete has at least one powerful ally in her corner: Sean “Diddy” Combs, who tweeted his support for her and condemned her 30-day suspension for the use of marijuana.

Stating that his heart was broken for her, he noted, “I’m tired of white people sitting in a room making up decisions that affect our hopes and dreams. They will keep treating our athletes like slaves and entertainment until we shut down on these people!”

He then compared the judgment against her to the racist results of the US’s so-called War on Drugs, pointing out parallels that allow for the unfair treatment of people using a non-dangerous substance which was criminalized mainly due to its association with use by Black people. “So many of our brothers, sisters, mothers, daughters, and sons are rotting in jail for marijuana and it’s JUST NOT RIGHT,” he wrote. “Now, to see them using this against a young Black woman that is on the edge of her greatness, all because some white man decided to make it illegal, is shameful.”

He also noted that there’s no real reason for THC to disqualify anyone from competing because, as he wrote accurately, “Marijuana does not make you run faster.” He also noted a discrepancy between the treatment of Richardson, a Black woman, and Michael Phelps, a white male swimmer who was also previously allowed to compete after testing positive for THC. While the circumstances aren’t exactly apples to apples, his point still seems valid.

Richardson was determined to be ineligible for 30 days, beginning June 28, after qualifying for the Olympics with a 10.86-second 100-meter dash time. Unfortunately, most of that month overlaps with her events and she was not selected for the Women’s 4 x 100 relay. She said that she took marijuana to cope with the recent death of her mother. Other supporters have included Seth Rogen, who also pointed to the discrepancy in calling weed a performance-enhancing drug, joking, “If weed made you fast, I’d be FloJo.”

Black Widow writer Eric Pearson knew there was a key element missing from Natasha Romanoff’s final adventure, namely, her death scene, which in the strange world of the MCU happened two years and two movies ago during the events of Avengers: Endgame. But he’s got the perfect attitude with his simple mindset about that situation, “There’s no way around it.” Which is very true. So, instead, the focus became showing sides of Natasha we’ve never seen before. Namely, watching Natasha off the grid, drinking beer, watching the James Bond movie, Moonraker.

As Pearson describes it, way more debate went into which James Bond movie Natasha should be watching than we could possibly imagine. And Pearson shares with us a cut scene in which Natasha explains that, for her, watching James Bond is the same as how housewives watch The Real Housewives. (Pearson is admittedly proud of this line and also admittedly is clear he wishes it was in the movie.)

But, it’s not just our goodbye to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha. It’s a movie that also has to do a sort of hand-off to Florence Pugh’s Yelena. And a good way to do a hand-off is having the character we already know, Natasha, around to facilitate that. So, to ask about hand-offs, I tried to think of a bad example of a hand-off and, admittedly, this may have been too esoteric of a first question…

Are you familiar with the characters Coy and Vance Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard?

No. Actually, I’ve watched a lot of old TV, and I loved WandaVision, because I was like a big Bewitched, Green Acres guy. I never really saw The Dukes of Hazzard.

Coy and Vance are Bo and Luke Duke’s cousins that were introduced when John Schneider and Tom Wopat held out for more money. And I always remember Boss Hogg saying of Coy and Vance, these characters we never met before, that Bo and Luke looked like angels compared to them. My point is that was a bad way to do a hand-off to other characters, as opposed to showing the relationship like you do between Natasha and Yelena.

Well…

Does that make sense? It probably doesn’t…

I think so.

Like if Florence Pugh just shows up and then some other character says, “Natasha was an angel compared to Yelena,” and that’s all we get.

I totally know what you mean.

Handoffs can be difficult.

It was a tricky thing. Also, we wanted to do a Natasha Romanoff movie: this is how great she is, this is how she became who she is, here are some of her greatest hits. Here’s her, on her own, doing her own thing. I feel we did. It was a very intentional choice, too, when at the beginning of the movie, she goes on the run, she’s going off the grid. The whole idea is we feel we’ve known her for whatever: six, seven movies. She has been the most emotionally guarded, the most personally restrained Avenger. Surrounded by guys who love to talk about themselves. She was very careful about how much she’s going to let anyone get to know her. Now we get to go into this past and you realize that when she defected from the Red Room to Shield, she basically reset her life, and pretended a lot of that stuff from her past never happened.

Right…

It’s not how human beings function. You can’t just say, oh, none of that ever mattered, it didn’t ever exist. I think the best way to have fun with Natasha Romanoff – a character who is very in control of her own space – since we’re talking to sitcoms, it’s The Beverly Hillbillies. The guy goes off from the farm to become the big rich banker, but then he’s got to go home and he’s terrified.

Well, he discovered oil, they didn’t become bankers. They had to meet a banker, Mr. Drysdale. They had to find one to manage their new oil money.

Man, I’m not getting anything past you. Well, you know what I mean. She chose the Avengers as her family, but she chose them on her terms. There’s a difference between the family that’s your family, not on your own terms. And those people affect you in different ways.

Sure.

I feel I was trying to have her be mission-focused, in charge all the way through, as they just keep bothering her until they just derail her and derail her until she just gets so frustrated and explodes.

Well, speaking about when she goes off the grid the scene that got me is when she watches Moonraker. I asked Cate Shortland about that and she said I needed to ask you.

Well, that’s a whole thing. This line was cut from the movie and I’m super butt-hurt about it because I think I’m so clever. The idea was she’s going off the grid and she’s got this character, Mason, who sets everything up for her. She’s going to have to be there for a while. I even thought, a great, great humanizing moment is entertainment. I thought it would be so funny if she had the complete Bond DVD series.

That is good.

The line that was cut was huge. It was like, “Really? You wanted Bond?” The line that she had, that I love, because I thought it was clever was, “Do you know how real housewives watch The Real Housewives? Those movies are like that for me.” The idea that Bond, to her, was like reality TV, cheesy reality TV? I thought that was funny. They cut it.

That is funny. I would have liked that.

Well, I will say, I couldn’t believe – especially because we’re shooting in the UK – how much discussion there was about which Bond movie it should be. I just wanted her watching Bond, because I thought it was really fun and humanizing. Also, for her to just be there having a snack and mumbling the words out of her, it was very charming to me. But, man, I think we ultimately went with Moonraker because there’s a jumping out of a plane with no parachutes.

So it’s reversed engineered? You already had that ending and you’re like, “Hey, wait, Moonraker starts like this.”

Yeah, but all that to say, there was a whole lot of opinion about which Bond movie she should be watching. I was just happy because I also knew it might be a logistic clearance thing to get a Bond clip in there. I just was pushing for her watching Bond. I also felt like, in my mind, Natasha, she doesn’t have superpowers or anything, she’s still an Avenger, she’s still a big hero. A love of movies that we like, it just helps to bring our movie to where we wanted to be on the ground.

For some reason, Moonraker feels right. That Natasha would pick a late ’70s Bond with Roger Moore.

Also, the python line is just so fun and cheesy and it was just fun for her to get to say that. But I’m so glad, I mean, that was really my move of like, “She should be watching a Bond movie, having a snack in just pajama pants.”

And there are some similarities with the arcs of Jaws and Taskmaster.

It’s so funny. I actually haven’t seen (Moonraker) in a while. I just watched a little. I saw it when I was younger and then I watched… There’s a double-take pigeon, which I didn’t know about. Do you remember that? The double-take?

Yeah. I have the GIF on my phone. There’s a pigeon that does a double-take at James Bond’s antics.

I mean, those old Bond movies blur together after a while.

I remember my parents rented it on VHS and as a kid I was disappointed the whole thing wasn’t in space. I wanted to watch James Bond in Star Wars. It plays much better as an adult. There’s a lot of globetrotting.

By the way, James Bond Star Wars? We might’ve just sold a movie to Disney accidentally.

Amazon probably has something to say about that these days, because I think they just bought James Bond.

If we get it, we can get it done faster.

Instead of the Spider-Man summit with Sony from a few years ago, it would be the James Bond summit so James can be in Star Wars.

Perfect. Love it.

So Natasha died in Avengers: Endgame two years ago. Writing it, that has to be frustrating? Because if I’m you, I’m looking at a movie like Logan, the final sendoff for this hero we’ve followed through so many movies. Then the death scene is kind of taken away from you.

Yeah. I mean, I knew that.

Well, yes.

I don’t know. It was one of those things, where, what was I going to do about it? It was like, I can either think about this or not. I want to do the best version of showing the audience a new, different side of Natasha. We’re trying to build up tension. You don’t know what’s going to happen with the rest of these people. They could all die at the end of this. They could all be snapped out of existence. You don’t know what’s going to happen there.

I’m thinking if there’s a young kid and this is their first Marvel movie, it’s going to be very confusing to learn the title character died off-screen.

Yeah, there’s no way around that.

There’s no way around it. No, you’re right.

It’s true because it’s also, I don’t know, that’s the nature of the MCU, I think.

Right.

Do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of when I didn’t watch the first season of Lost. I was at my friend’s house. They were like, “Oh. Lost is back.” I was like, “What’s Lost?” Just, somehow, I didn’t know. I just didn’t know what it was. Then we watched the first episode of the second season of Lost and I was like, “Oh, God.” I went back, I had to get Netflix, all the DVDs?

They had to mail them to you.

If this were somebody’s first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, that’s most I could hope for, because if that’s their case, I would hope that they would see this and then be like “What?” Then, just have to like, “Uh.” And want to learn it all, because I do. You can enjoy them for one story, or you can try and enjoy them for 1/24th of this story, depending on how much you want to engage.

I want to see parents walking out of the movie trying to explain Natasha’s death and their young daughter saying, “Wait, who’s the Red Skull?”

But yeah, by the way, and the best thing that you could have then, is there are answers for you.

“Black Widow” launches simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access in most Disney+ markets on July 9, 2021. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Tyler The Creator has a new video for Call Me If You Get Lost single “Lemonhead.” Clocking in at about a minute and a half, the brief clip shows Tyler pantomiming playing a tuba (next to an actual tuba player wearing a sailor get-up), driving a speedboat boat through fields (kind of brings to mind images of Luke Skywalker riding his Landspeeder through Tatooine, if you will indulge me for a second), and ultimately wheeling off into the sunset via penny-farthing. As one does!

This is the latest visual offering from Tyler’s sixth studio album. Prior to this, he released the video for the song “Corso” the day after appearing at the 2021 BET Awards to perform “Lumberjack.” Call Me If You Get Lost, which the rapper released last month, became his second consecutive chart-topping album after it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. In his review, Uproxx’s Aaron Williams called Call Me If You Get Lost a “top-level rap album,” writing, “On Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler is most like himself, free of the artifice that he no longer feels the need to hide behind — and free to finally let his nuts hang, so to speak.”

Watch the video for “Lemonhead” above.

Call Me If You Get Lost is out now via Columbia. Get it here.

Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow solo movie arrives on July 9, both in theaters and in streaming format via Disney+ Premier Access. In the movie, Natasha Romanoff’s in post Captain America: Civil War mode, which means that she’s still sporting red locks even though she’s technically in fugitive mode. There’s time to clear up all those pesky details later, right? What matters here is that Scarlett’s reflecting upon Natasha’s different looks over the years, which began with a catsuit tour in Iron Man 2 before the character spun through several hairstyles, including rocking those i-can’t-be-bothered-with-nice-hair-post-apocalypse red roots after the snap.

Beginning in The Avengers, Black Widow’s look became increasingly practical, and by the time that Captain America: The Winter Soldier rolled around, Natasha was allowed to sport comfier clothing. That included a brown leather jacket over a black tank and pants, as well as a movement-friendlier catsuit. That wasn’t always the total plan, however, and Scarlett has now opened up about how the below scene — in which Natasha drives up to Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson and cracks a joke about looking for a “fossil” — could have rolled very differently.

As Scarlett describes things to Fatherly, the writers initially wanted Natasha to pull up in the sports car while wearing (presumably) short-skirted tennis outfit with a blonde wig. That idea swiftly got axed, and Scarlett attributes the idea as being down to “a lot of male writers,” which makes this all the more amusing:

When we were doing Captain America: The Winter Soldier — this is a really funny thing — the look is fantastic and utilitarian. She first drives up in this beautiful car and picks up Cap, and initially in the script, it was like, she arrives in her tennis whites, with a blonde wig. It was very quickly killed.

You work with a lot of male writers. Things were shifting. You have to be a part of the change. Audiences are also demanding stuff and there’s a cultural shift and it feeds everything into a more progressive direction. It’s been a process, it’s been a process.

Scarlett also explains that Marvel initially wanted Black Widow to be “a shape-shifter,” but even if that had turned out to be the case, an all-legs tennis outfit would have been bizarre. That’s especially the case because Steve Rogers couldn’t even handle profanity at the time. The dude got used to it, but he probably would have turned bright red to see Natasha in a blonde wig at that point, which may have meant a larger CGI budget, and so on. Alright, now I’m being the silly one, but seriously, thank goodness for an absence of Tennis Natasha in the MCU.

(Via Fatherly)

Britney Spears’ legal battles have been making headlines for well over a year. The public’s interest in Spears’ situation has apparently led to her current conservator receiving death threats. As a result, the conservator has reportedly asked Spears’ estate to front the cost of a 24-hour security team. But she didn’t receive any sympathy from Spears’ team, as they’re apparently used to taking the brunt of public criticism.

According to a report from TMZ, Spears’ court-appointed conservator Jodi Montgomery filed court documents requesting the singer’s estate to pay an estimated $50,000 a month for around-the-clock security, citing a “flood of death threats” following Spears’ public statements about her conservatorship. Spears’ father Jamie reportedly filed an objection to the request, stating that he’s “been getting death threats for years,” as has Spears’ former attorney Sam Ingham.

Jamie didn’t deny Montgomery’s request completely, according to TMZ’s report. He said that the court should evaluate the cost of a reasonable amount of security to ensure Montgomery remains safe. But if he was expected to shell out $50,000 a month for Montgomery, Jamie anticipates that multiple others would come forward with the same request.

News of Montgomery’s security plea arrives shortly after Jamie blamed her for Spears’ frustrations about her restricted personal freedoms. In her public statement about her conservatorship, Spears claimed the situation was “abusive” and that she has been denied the right to remove her birth control.

On Wednesday was the Balenciaga 50th Couture Collection show for Paris Fashion Week. Aside from the inherent noteworthiness of the brand itself, also drawing attention to the festivities were high-profile attendees like Kanye West (and his elaborate face mask), NBA star James Harden, and Lil Baby. The latter two spent time together outside of the show, and there was one moment that has left the rapper trending today.

A clip shows Harden and Baby seemingly caught off-guard by some paparazzi photographers. Some of them shouted his name, but instead of Lil Baby, they seemed to have put a French spin on it by calling him “Le Baby.”

The rapper seemed a little amused by either the nickname or the attention in general, as he offered a polite smile and a wave. Following that run-in, both “Lil Baby” and “Le Baby” were trending on Twitter, with some users suspecting that Lil Baby was low-key into the new moniker.

Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Lil Baby was one of streaming music’s top songwriters of 2020, according to a report. He also recently was crowned the ASCAP songwriter of the year and performed at the BET Awards alongside Kirk Franklin.

Check out some more reactions below.

Last night, Japanese Breakfast offered a performance for the ages on Jimmy Kimmel Live, playing Jubilee single “Paprika” from the Sellersville Theater in Pennsylvania.

Backed by horns and banging a gong, band leader Michelle Zauner wore a billowing white dress with her hair tied back into two slick braids. The rest of the band were in formal attire as well, rocking full tuxes and playing all manner of instruments: strings, keys, percussion, the aforementioned horns. The pale spotlight onstage also created a gauzy, sepia-toned look for the camera, which complimented “Paprika”‘s lighthearted melody. Check out the performance above, introduced by guest host Wanda Sykes.

It’s probably safe to say that Zauner is exceedingly close to becoming a massive pop cultural triple-threat right now, what with the glowing reviews for Jubilee, plus her New York Times bestselling memoir Crying In H Mart, which is going to be adapted into a film, for which Japanese Breakfast will provide the soundtrack. As if that wasn’t enough, Zauner is behind the soundtrack of the anticipated new game Sable, coming September 23. So yes, 2021 is a pretty good year to be Michelle Zauner.

Check out our interview with Zauner about her new album here, as well as our more recent interview about her video game endeavors here.

Jubilee is out now on Dead Oceans. Get it here.

Face/Off is a lot of things: an extremely mid-1990s action-thriller; John Woo’s second highest-grossing movie after Mission: Impossible 2; a showcase for John Travolta and Nicolas Cage to not chew but devour the scenery. But one thing it’s not is “sexy.”

Tiffany Haddish may disagree.

The Tuca and Bertie star will soon appear in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, where Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself. “I don’t know Nicolas Cage, and he seems to be like the kind of guy that’s like, all right, so now we’re going to do this scene, and this is how it goes,” she said on NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders about meeting the Oscar winner. “And, all right, here we go. Nice to meet you. I’m like, I’ve been watching you my whole life, and I have to tell you this, like, thing.” That thing?

“So basically, I was at the movie theater seeing Face/Off. I was about 17 years old, on a date with this guy. And nobody else was in the theater, really. It was just us in the back of the theater. And we started to make out. We started making out and stuff. And then it was my first time being fiddled with. I will say it like that, OK? As I was achieving a momentous moment that I had never experienced in my life, I opened my eyes, and the eyes of Nicolas Cage are looking into my eyes super big, right?… That was my first big O.”

Haddish was initially hesitant to tell Cage this story (“I don’t want him to hit me with the sexual harassment”), and when she did, “all I [could] think about is the guy that I went to the movies with and how we were like, you know, and we were making out and then that feeling and then how weird I feel in remembering this in front of him. And then there [Cage] is looking at me.” Lucky for Haddish, Cage “laughed super hard” at her confession. He was probably relieved that her “first big O” wasn’t during Leaving Las Vegas. Now that would be weird.

You can watch the NPR interview below (the Cage story is at the 10:30 mark).

With Loki coming to an end in less than a week, Marvel has dropped the latest trailer for its next Disney+ outing, What If…? The animated series explores various alternate realities in the MCU where small changes have huge impacts on the heroes (and villains) fans have come to love. Right out of the gate, the latest trailer recreates the opening of the first Iron Man movie, but with a critical twist: Black Panther‘s Killmonger shows up and saves Tony Stark before he’s hit by missile shrapnel and helped captive in an underground lab where he invents his Iron Man suit. It also marks the first return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. (Don’t get too attached though. The role has always been touted as a “brief” appearance.)

In a similar vein, the trailer also goes heavy on the new twist on Star-Lord. In What If…?, Yondu doesn’t come to Earth to acquire Peter Quill. Instead, he takes Wakanda’s Prince T’Challa, who becomes this alternate reality’s version of Star-Lord. Adding gravitas to this multiverse twist is the voice work of the late Chadwick Boseman, who recorded his lines shortly before his tragic passing.

The trailer also offers brief flashes of Doctor Strange having a multiverse crisis of his own, and the real showstopper is Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter who, in this reality, takes the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. Of course, the larger question is whether or not What If…? ties into the MCU. Currently, the cinematic universe is being torn apart in Loki, and the next Spider-Man and Doctor Strange films are expected to delve even deeper into the Multiverse. Will the animated series be a part of that reality-bending fun, or is it simply a creative exercise to prep casual audiences for the unlimited flexibility of the Marvel characters? Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long for an answer.

Marvel’s What If…? starts streaming August 11 on Disney+.

Last fall, Omar Apollo shared his third project in as many years with Apolonio. The album presents nine songs that displayed the singer’s growth as an artist along with some outside contributions from Ruel and Kali Uchis. Fast-forward nine months and Apollo is back to show off his improved artistry with his latest single, “Go Away.”

The breezy effort finds him dreading the moment he has to once again say goodbye to a loved one. It comes with a visual that captures the singer enjoying the many elements of nature. From the greens of a bustling garden and the glow of a warm fire to the relaxing feeling of a lake, Apollo experiences it all in the new video.

The track arrives Apollo announced last month that he will be hitting the road later this month on the Desvelado Tour. It kicks off on July 27 in Chicago, and continues for about four months before coming to an end on November 10 in Boston. Apollo will also be accompanied by Deb Never, Maye, Sofia Valdes, and Niko Rubio on select dates while making solo festival stops at Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and Music Midtown.

You can press play on the video for “Go Away” above and check out the full dates for the Desvelado Tour below. Tickets for it can also be purchased here.

07/27 — Chicago, IL @ Metro
07/30 — Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza
09/03 — Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo
09/18 — Miami, FL @ Space Park
09/19 — Atlanta, GA @ Music Midtown
09/28 — Tucson, AZ @ Hotel Congress
09/29 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
09/30 — El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
10/02 — Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
10/03 — Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/05 — Oklahoma City, OK @ Tower
10/06 — Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
10/08 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Union Event Center
10/10 — Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/12 — San Francisco, CA @ Warfield Theatre
10/13 — Chico, CA @ Senator Theatre
10/15 — Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
10/16 — Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
10/17 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox
10/19 — Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
10/20 — Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
10/23 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Shrine
10/25 — Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
10/27 — Denver, CO @ The Ogden
10/29 — Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall
10/30 — Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave
11/02 — Detroit, MI @ The Majestic
11/03 — Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
11/04 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
11/06 — Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
11/09 — New York, NY @ Terminal 5
11/10 — Boston, MA @ Big Night Live

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