After news hit that Amazon has acquired Val, a documentary about Val Kilmer made by Val Kilmer, the streaming giant has released the official trailer, and the documentary is already shaping up to be a must-see for fans of the iconic actor. Stretching all the way back to Kilmer’s Broadway days when he played third wheel to Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon, Val contains a treasure trove of home video footage shot by Kilmer that contains a fascinating behind-the-scene glimpse of films like Top Gun, Heat, The Doors, Tombstone, and The Ghost and the Darkness.
A mix of Hollywood intrigue and humor, Val has the potential to be the vanity project to end all vanity projects, but at the same time, it also plays as a celebration of a fascinating life coupled with the emotional struggle of Kilmer’s inability to speak after his battle with throat cancer, which leads to raw, honest moments that punctuate the trailer, and presumably, the documentary itself.
Here’s the official synopsis:
For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.
Val hits theaters on July 23 and Amazon Prime Video on August 6.
As most of you probably know by now, Miley Cyrus is the queen of cover songs. Over the years, she’s put her full-throated spin on classic cuts like Dolly Parton‘s “Jolene,” Britney Spears‘ “Gimme More,” The Cure‘s “Boys Don’t Cry,” Blondie‘s “Heart Of Glass,” The Cranberries‘ “Zombie,” Billy Idol‘s “Rebel Yell,” plus too many more to list here. On July 4, while playing a set at Resorts World casino in Las Vegas, Miley broke out a slightly more obscure cover (relatively speaking), of Cocteau Twins’ 1990 dream-pop standard “Heaven Or Las Vegas.” Introducing her rendition, Miley said, “I am gonna sing a song that no one f*ckin’ knows — but you will know it after tonight.”
Miley’s “super rock and roll” seventh studio album Plastic Hearts, which featured covers of “Heart Of Glass” and “Zombie” on some editions, arrived late last year, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Rock Albums chart. She became the fourth woman to top the Rock Albums chart in 2020, following Fiona Apple, Hayley Williams, and Alanis Morissette. That was also the highest number of solo women who had reached the No. 1 spot on the chart in a single year since 2012.
Check out Miley’s “Heaven Or Las Vegas” cover above.
Women’s basketball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is set to begin on July 24. The 12 teams that qualified for the games have already been broken into three groups. Each team is guaranteed just three preliminary games against its group (one against each team).
After those three games, the top two teams in each group, plus the two best third-place teams will qualify for the final tournament phase. In the final phase, pairings are randomly drawn with the three first-place teams along with the best second-place team playing against the remaining teams. Teams from the same group can not play against each other in the quarterfinals. The competition is single-elimination with the winner having played a total of six games.
The full groups can be found below with Team USA headlining Group B:
Group A
Canada
Serbia
South Korea
Spain
Group B
France
Japan
Nigeria
USA
Group C
Australia
Belgium
China
Puerto Rico
Games will begin on July 25 with Korea and Spain opening the tournament. USA Basketball will play its first game on July 27 against Nigeria. USA will then play on July 30 (Japan) and August 2 (France) to round out their group stage play. The complete schedule of games can be found below.
July 25
South Korea-Spain (9:00 p.m. ET)
July 26
Serbia-Canada (4:20 a.m. ET)
Japan-France (9:00 p.m. ET)
July 27
Nigeria-USA (12:40 a.m. ET)
Australia-Belgium (4:20 a.m. ET)
Puerto Rico-China (8:00 a.m. ET)
Heaven Hill is one of the biggest distillers in the world. They make 13 American whiskey brands that they release under their own labels. That’s out of the 32 brands of alcohol they distill altogether — from rums to brandies to Canadian whisky and beyond. Then there’s all the stuff they make for bottlers to slap their own labels on. Plus the bourbons they produce exclusively for the Kentucky market.
We’re telling you, it’s a lot.
Today, we’re going to focus on the 13 American whiskey labels Heaven Hill produces in its core line, highlighting the best expression from each shingle. These bottles range pretty wildly in popularity from “oh yeah… that exists” to “that might just be the best whiskey I’ve ever tried”-territory. Our rankings are based purely on taste. We didn’t worry much about price or find-ability here.
If any of these bottles jump out at you, make sure to click on the prices to try them yourself.
Georgia Moon is a classic unaged corn whiskey. The juice in this mason jar is cut down with Kentucky water to soften it up while cooling it down, making it a bit more palatable to the passive sipper.
Tasting Notes:
This smells like rum … almost. There’s a sweetness at play, thanks to the corn, with a hint of dark spice and dried fruit. The rest gets washed out with a touch of mineral water and stiff alcohol burn. The end does have a touch of vanilla ice cream but it’s more airy soft serve than a pint of something good.
Bottom Line:
It’s hard to say when to drink this. It’s not bad but… it’s definitely an acquired taste. You could use it as a substitute for vodka in cocktails but there are plenty of vodkas at this price point that are more refined. I guess that’s why this is ranked last.
This corn whiskey has a 90 percent corn mash bill with a dose of rye and malted barley in the mix. The juice is bottled-in-bond, which means it was aged for four years in a bonded warehouse in used charred oak barrels.
Tasting Notes:
You get this nose full of circus peanuts and almost stale popcorn upfront with a hint of dry cinnamon sticks. The taste has a floral greenness that’s similar to a corn stalk with a sweet corn milk husk at the core of the sip. The finish ends hot with a sweet and grainy feel to it.
Bottom Line:
I always want to like this more than I do. I think that if there’s a nostalgia factor at play with this bottle, then it’s easy to love. Without that, it’s hard to get into.
This bourbon used to come in six and eight-year-old versions. Now, it’s released without an age statement but is likely aged at least four years in Heaven Hill’s warehouses.
Tasting Notes:
This opens up with a good rush of red cherries soaking in maple syrup with some Johnny cakes stacked up nearby. The palate has a salted caramel kettle corn vibe with a hint of woody spice and a touch of vanilla extract. The end is short, sweet, and touches back on that soaked cherry and corn cake feel.
Bottom Line:
I wasn’t sure where to rank this. It’s fine. But there’s nothing that really stands out or wows. That being said, what more could you want from a $20 bottle of bourbon? It’s good for what it is and that’s a mixer.
This rye is very much a bourbon drinker’s rye. The mash bill is only 51 percent rye with 37 percent corn, and 12 percent malted barley. The juice then matures under the federal regulations allowing it to be “bottled-in-bond” and is barely proofed down to 100 proof with that soft Kentucky limestone water before bottling.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a savory note that’s maybe dill or pumpkin next to toffee and dried fruit. On the taste, there’s a real sense of cinnamon-infused dark chocolate with notes of Christmas spice, creamy vanilla, and a mild tobacco chew. The end doesn’t linger and leaves you with a warm bite of cinnamon spice and tobacco buzz.
Bottom Line:
I actually thought this would rank a little higher. But again, this falls into the “solid mixer” box more than anything else. There’s really no reason to reach for this one as a sipper.
This is a real throwback rye whiskey. Pikesville Rye was at the center of the Maryland rye whiskey scene until Prohibition put it in the grave. Heaven Hill saved the brand and moved the production to Kentucky while holding onto the juice’s traditions of longer aging and higher proofing.
Tasting Notes:
This pulls you in with a mix of dark cocoa powder packed into a cedar box with a touch of rye bread. The taste leans into clove and black licorice with a floral honey base next to a touch of dry cedar smoke. The end mellows significantly towards a vanilla pudding spiked with eggnog spices and a touch more of that dark chocolate.
Bottom Line:
This is one of the biggest steps up on this list. That being said, we really start amping up in quality from here, so this couldn’t go much higher. Still, this is a perfectly serviceable workhorse whiskey that shines over a few rocks in a glass or in a cocktail.
While wheated bourbons are all the rage at the moment (Pappy and Weller being the most sought-after examples), wheat whiskies have not quite hit as resoundingly … yet. Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey flips the script on those bourbons and uses mostly winter wheat that’s supported by small doses of corn and malted barley. The juice is then aged for seven years in new oak.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a honey sweetness that works well with the grain and vanilla on the nose. The sip hits on notes of spice, bright berries, and buttery toffee with a velvet body. The end brings about round, toasted oakiness with a little more of the spice and buttery toffee as it fades across the senses.
Bottom Line:
Like a few bottles on this list, the awards are starting to roll in for this whiskey. This really is a hidden gem that’s still pretty damn cheap, all things considered.
The juice is standard Evan Williams that’s barreled in a federally overseen warehouse. Then, after those barrels are blended, the juice is just brought down to 100 proof, allowing a bit more of that Heaven Hill craft to shine in the bottle.
Tasting Notes:
This opens with a dry cornmeal base next to salted caramel, rich vanilla, and a touch of that oak. The palate adds in whiffs of black pepper next to musty cellar wood and a hint of spicy, chewy tobacco. The end is short-ish while highlighting the sweet cornmeal, spicy tobacco, and rich vanilla.
Bottom Line:
This is just a good goddamn whiskey. It’s very drinkable on the rocks, in a highball, and especially in a cocktail. It’s not overly wrought, making it the best shooter on the list.
All around, this is a winner. The only reason it’s not ranked higher is that every whiskey below is a stone-cold killer.
6. Larceny Bourbon — Larceny Barrel Proof 2021 Second Edition
These barrel blends from Heaven Hill are meant to highlight the precise quality of the distillery’s prowess from grain to bottle. This small batch of wheated bourbon is derived from barrels between six and eight years old. The juice then goes right into the bottle with no cutting or filtering, allowing the masterful craft to shine through in every sip.
Tasting Notes:
This has a mellow nose that ebbs and flows between soft maple syrup cut with cinnamon sticks, a light touch of brioche, new leather gloves, and bruised apples. It offers a warm rollercoaster ride through figgy puddings touched with burnt sugars, dried fruits and nuts, holiday spices, and a brandy butter silkiness. The taste has a hint of almond or walnut shell on the end that marries to a dry mouthfeel, vanilla, and a touch of tobacco chewiness.
The warmth lingers pretty long but never overpowers and almost becomes halfway between fizzy and buzzing as it fades, leaving you with a woody, bourbon vibe and a very late wet straw note.
Bottom Line:
There’s a reason this wheated bourbon has been winning all the top awards. It’s consistently delicious and refined. It might not be my exact cup o’ tea, but I respect the hell out of it and use it in cocktails all the time at home.
5. Parker’s Heritage Collection — Promise Of Hope Bourbon
This yearly release from Heaven Hill is, indeed, rare. The edition from 2013 was a personal mission for Parker Beam. He selected 100 barrels of high-rye bourbons that are at least ten years old for this expression. Those barrels were married and then proofed down to a very accessible 96 proof.
Tasting Notes:
Imagine a still-warm apple pie full of spices, brown sugar, buttery crust, walnuts, and maybe even a raisin or two topped with the richest vanilla ice cream scoop you’ve ever had and you’ll be on the right track. This smells and tastes like home on a summer day with that perfect apple pie vibe up front that mellows towards a stack of pancakes smothered in browned butter and maple syrup as a note of tobacco chew warms up the back of your throat. The end is very long and full of a sweet maple syrup tobacco buzz.
Bottom Line:
If you can find a bottle of Parker’s Heritage on the shelf, snatch it up. It’ll increase in value. Or just drink it. These whiskeys are always one-off masterpieces.
This expression has been a touchstone bottled-in-bond since 1939 and remains a go-to for many bourbon lovers. The juice is a very low rye (only ten percent) mash bill that’s left to age for an extra three years.
Tasting Notes:
The nose on this is like a vanilla ice cream scoop that’s been drizzled with salted caramel and then dipped in dried honeysuckle petals inside an old leather pouch. That caramel and dried floral honey feel drive the taste towards a somewhat dry Graham cracker maltiness with a touch more of that leather and a whisper of toffee tobacco. The end leans into an eggnog spice mix with more of that sweet and buttery tobacco and a final note of sweet cherry and old cellar beams.
Bottom Line:
This is another one of those bottles that are annoyingly well made. It feels like classic bourbon from nose to finish and leaves you feeling … happy. It’s kind of like Evan William’s more beautiful and richer older sibling.
3. Henry McKenna Single Barrel Aged 10 Years Bottled-in-Bond
Henry McKenna Single Barrel Bottled-in-Bond continues its winning streak. The ten-year-old bourbon is a real crowd-pleaser that offers serious depth, which makes it great for both sipping and mixing.
Tasting Notes:
This is classic bourbon from jump, with rich and almost creamy vanilla pudding spiked with eggnog spices next to a salted caramel carnival apple. The palate mellows the sweetness towards cinnamon-spiced honey with hints of soft cedar, apple tobacco, and smooth vanilla. The end is long and really holds onto the honeyed sweetness while touching on the warmth of the eggnog spiciness.
Bottom Line:
This only ranked higher than the bottled-in-bond above because of the age. There are 10-year-old bourbons on the shelf right now that cost three or four times as much that aren’t necessarily any better. That means a lot, especially if you’re trying to find older and more refined whiskeys to try.
This is what you get when you take standard Elijah Craig and let it rest in just the right spot for 18 years. The 18-year-old barrel is hand-selected after a long search through the warehouses. Once selected, the juice is cooled slightly with that soft Kentucky limestone water and then bottled.
Tasting Notes:
You get a sense of oak with a touch of a rock-hewn cellar next to notes of dark chocolate oranges, mild brown spices, a touch of vanilla cream, and a hint of honey. That vanilla takes on a nutty edge as the spices build and the wood softens towards cedar with a hint of fruity tobacco chew. The vanilla creaminess really drives the finish towards a silken mouthfeel with plenty of spicy/fruity tobacco, leaving you with a mild buzz across your senses.
Bottom Line:
It would have been so easy to put a Barrel Proof expression in this slot. And those are great. But this is better. This is one of those whiskeys that’ll break you through to the other side, where you’ll bask in the light of what a great whiskey can be.
1. Old Fitzgerald Bottled-In-Bond — 2021 Spring Release, Aged 8 Years
This year’s spring release is a marriage of eight-year-old whiskeys produced in the spring of 2013. That distilled juice rested in barrels spread throughout three warehouses on several different floors. In spring of this year, those barrels were vatted and whiskey was proofed down to 100 (per bottled-in-bond law). Then the whiskey was filled into Old Fitzgerald’s signature decanters and sent out into the world.
Tasting Notes:
The nose draws you in with warming eggnog spice, creamy vanilla pudding, rich toffee, mild fruit, and a hint of wet cedar and very muted citrus. To say this is “smooth” would be an understatement. The silky taste dances around oven-hot pans of pecan and maple-glazed sticky buns with plenty of cinnamon and nutmeg next to caramelized orange peel vibes and lightness that’s almost hard to believe. The finish is long, effervescent, and leaves you with this soft sense of having just eaten the best oatmeal raisin cookie of your life with just the right amounts of oats, spice, raisins, brown sugar, and crumble.
Bottom Line:
This is perfect and is in competition to be my favorite release of the year. It has some hefty competition, but this whiskey is going to be hundreds of dollars by the time summer is over. Still, it’s likely worth it for a truly special bourbon experience.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
Before “Butter,” BTS’ biggest chart hit in the US was “Dynamite,” which had spent three weeks in the No. 1 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That personal best was broken by their latest hit, which continues its chart prosperity this week: On the Hot 100 dated July 10, “Butter” is No. 1 for the sixth consecutive week.
— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) July 6, 2021
It was also a big week for Doja Cat and SZA, whose collaborative single “Kiss Me More” rises from No. 4 last week to a new peak at No. 3 this week. The song is Doja’s second top-10 single as a primary artist, as well as her highest-charting single as a primary artist since her No. 1 hit “Say So,” which topped the chart in 2020.
Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran’s latest, “Bad Habits,” makes its debut on the chart at No. 5, making it his eighth top-20 single and his first since his 2019 Justin Bieber collaboration, “I Don’t Care,” which peaked at No. 2. Dua Lipa and DaBaby’s “Levitating” also stays in the top 10 at No. 4. As Pop Crave notes, it’s now the first song by a female artist to spend half a year (26 weeks) in the top 10 of the Hot 100.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
UK post-punk standouts Dry Cleaning made their NPR Tiny Desk Concert debut over the weekend, taking over East London record store World Of Echo. Framed by tapes, vinyl, tote bags, T-shirts, and posters of The Fall and Wipers, the four-piece dove into spoken-word cuts from their critically acclaimed 2021 release New Long Leg, such as “Her Hippo, “Unsmart Lady, and “Leafy,” plus “Viking Hair,” which is taken from 2019’s Boundary Road Snacks And Drinks EP.
“Some people definitely find it uncomfortable to watch me, that’s something I’ve heard a lot of people say–to me, for some reason,” lead vocalist Shaw told Pitchfork back in April of the band’s sing-speak style. “It’s not a persona. My way of getting into it is just to concentrate very hard and to observe the room very carefully and to feel things that usually I am holding back.”
She added, “The thing about Dry Cleaning is that it’s only space, so you don’t have to worry about someone mishearing it or there not being a gap for you. Maybe the timing comes with that, not having any doubt about how to deliver the vocals, the kind of self doubt that I have all the time in normal life.”
The 2021 NBA Finals are set to begin on Tuesday night in Phoenix, but the events of this weekend in the NBA media space has caused some last minute changes for ESPN.
Malika Andrews will join the team to provide sideline reports throughout the series. The quartet will call the action courtside from Phoenix and Milwaukee.
The press release, unsurprisingly, doesn’t mention specifically that Nichols was removed, just that Andrews is joining the Finals broadcast team and Nichols will be hosting The Jump. The company did release a brief statement on the move to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, saying the goal was to keep focus on the Finals.
ESPN said, “We believe this is best decision for all concerned in order to keep the focus on the NBA Finals. Rachel will continue to host The Jump.”
Taylor, of course, will continue hosting NBA Countdown from on site for pregame and halftime, and you can almost guarantee that her colleagues, particularly Jalen Rose, will have something to say at the start of the Game 1 broadcast on Tuesday night.
One of my favorite Friends subplots happened off-screen. David Schwimmer, the future-“Juice” loving actor who played Ross on the NBC sitcom, did not get along with his frequent season one scene partner, Marcel the Monkey.
“I hate the monkey. I wish it were dead,” he toldEntertainment Weekly back in 1995. They say time heals all wounds, but not here. During HBO Max’s Friends reunion, Schwimmer said, “Here is my problem: The monkey, obviously, was trained. It had to hit its mark and do its thing right at the perfect time. What inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out, and it would get messed up, because the monkey didn’t do its job right.” He added, “It was time for Marcel to f*ck off.”
But Marcel’s trainer think it’s time for Schwimmer to f*ck off.
“I have never ever watched Friends because of Schwimmer’s comments about the monkeys. I have refused to ever since he did an interview after the animals got written out of the show and he said they tried to bite him and throw poop at him. They didn’t do any of that,” Mike Morris told the Sun. “None of it is true, when I was there, none of that ever happened.” He’s speaking out now because he feels Schwimmer’s comments are disrespectful to Monkey, one of the two capuchins who played Marcel on Friends; she passed away last year at 36 years old (the other, Katie, is still alive).
“I just don’t agree with it, if anything he threw off their timing if we want to be truthful. Schwimmer was fine with the monkeys for the first couple of episodes and happy to be there. But people would laugh at the monkey and I think he got jealous because it wasn’t him getting the laughs. He seemed to get a little bitter about them being there after that.”
Morris added, “It got to the point where he just really resented the monkey being there, he obviously had a problem with her and he’s still talking about it now… I find it despicable for him to still be speaking ill of her.”
Vince Staples is just days away from the release of his self-titled album, sharing its latest single, “Are You With That?” to not only build buzz for the project but to also show off his intriguing artistic growth. Usually known for pairing his fatalistic lyrics with doom-ridden, menacing soundscapes, Vince takes a different tack with “Are You With That?,” hum-rapping a reflective meditation on the Pyrrhic choices that often face folks who grow up the way he did over an upbeat, almost nostalgic tune that belies the paranoid subject matter.
Vince explained the stylistic switch up to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe as he premiered the new song, admitting, “I was just having a lot of conversations with a lot of people around me… and people always say, ‘Oh, you used to always say these stories and this and that, and I don’t notice much about these specific things. Why don’t you put it into the music?’ And it’ll be stuff that has been in songs for years. And then I realized the backdrop wasn’t right for certain things I was saying or vice versa. I feel like [Vince Staples] is kind of very descriptive and distinct… it’s not a bunch of glory stories or things like that, I guess it’s just more personal.”
Listen to “Are You With That?” above. Check out Vince’s previous Vince Staples single “Law Of Averages” here.
Vince Staples is due 7/9 on Motown. Pre-save it here.
It may be July but that doesn’t mean we’re done with our summer full of video game announcements, presentations, and showcases. After E3 and Summer Game Fest came and went, it was just kind of assumed that Sony wasn’t going to be showing us anything this summer. They remained quiet throughout the month of June and if they didn’t have anything to show us then there wasn’t much reason to force a presentation.
Well, either something at Sony changed, or they always had something to show and wanted to keep it under wraps, because Sony will be hosting a summer presentation after all. On Thursday, July 8, Sony will be hosting a State of Play to show off the upcoming Deathloop, some indie games, and third-party titles. In other words, don’t expect anything from Sony proper but we can still expect to see some video games coming to PlayStation.
A new State of Play arrives this Thursday. Tune in for a Deathloop gameplay deep dive, plus lots of updates on indies and exciting third-party games. https://t.co/oCn4suuAuupic.twitter.com/KCP0WfHGYX
This is an interesting announcement because it comes following a rough week for PlayStation’s PR and reputation. It hasn’t been a secret for a while now that PlayStation has shifted a lot of its focus to major blockbuster titles. That focus led to some issues where, according to Bloomberg, developers working with PlayStation didn’t feel like they had the tech giant’s support when making games. Where their focus lies was again called into question within the last week when many indie developers came forward to IGN to express their frustration when working with PlayStation. Now, this does not mean they threw this presentation together in response to that criticism, because events like this take way too much time to put together to suddenly host one in a week. However, considering they’re advertising the third parties and indies, in particular, this may be their way of trying to show that they aren’t what recent reports are showing them to be.
As for what we want to see from this presentation, we won’t be getting any news on God of War or Horizon, so let’s just hope we get a nice variety of games to watch.
This showcase will not include updates on the next God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, or the next generation of PlayStation VR. Stay tuned throughout the summer though, as we’ll have more updates soon.
It would also be nice to get a little bit more information on what exactly Deathloop is supposed to be. We know it’s a fun action shooter, and have seen some gameplay in the past, but details beyond what we’ve seen have been sparse. Either way, these presentations are always fun and it’s great to get a chance to see more more video games this summer.
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