Month: July 2021

When the clock hit midnight on July 1, NCAA athletes were suddenly allowed to make money off of their name, image, and likeness, with the NCAA providing rather basic guidelines for schools in states that don’t have their own law regarding NIL compensation. With the knowledge that this was coming, at 12:01 a.m., plenty of athletes already had posts ready to go on social media as a new (and long overdue) world for college athletics had been entered.

There were the deals you expected from local pizza joints and car dealerships and all of the places you already expected to be working with teams and players to “help them out” but could now do so without going under the table. However, there were also some creative partnerships that weren’t expected, none getting Twitter more excited than Iowa basketball star Jordan Bohannon doing a signing at a fireworks store, Iowa Boomin’, on July 1 and doing a raffle for some game-worn sneakers.

This is indicative of how many places are ready to dive into sponsorship agreements with college players, because in places like Iowa and other states and cities without major professional sports, the big draw is going to be the college athletes. Bohannon’s fireworks deal is the early frontrunner for strangest partnership, but an honorable mention needs to go to Ohio State offensive lineman Dawand Jones whose GoPuff delivery partnership started off with a tweet about…candles?

Everyone, even your 6’8, 300-plus pound linemen loves their home smelling fresh. While football and men’s basketball players will certainly be able to cash in, the athletes that stand to gain the most from the NIL change are those in non-revenue sports who often are able to build massive social media followings in more niche sports and will now be able to cash in on those while they’re in school and at the peak of their popularity — particularly if there aren’t a lot of pathways towards being a professional in those sports.

One example of that came from the world of college wrestling, which has a rabid fanbase, particularly in the midwest and plains states, as national champion A.J. Ferrari (yes, his name is incredible), already has merch for fans to buy in a deal with a wrestling apparel brand.

Another came from women’s hoops where the Cavinder twins, Haley and Hanna of Fresno State, who have over a million followers on social media, worked two deals including one with Boost Mobile that had them on a Times Square billboard on Thursday.

It’s an incredible new world and it’s awesome to see athletes taking advantage of this new ability to make money off their own personal brands already, and it’s just the beginning of what should be a very lucrative market for athletes across all sports.

Parts of the Northwest are literally melting right now after temperatures spiked to record highs this month so, yeah, climate change is probably a legit thing. But, if you’re an Exxon lobbyist, or a Senator receiving campaign funds from that company, chances are you already knew that.

In fact, in a secretly-recorded chat between an undercover operative from Greenpeace and Keith McCoy, a senior director of federal relations for Exxon Mobil (aka, a lobbyist), one fact became pretty damn clear: these guys know what they’re doing and they’re happy to brag about it to really anyone who will listen. The conversation, which happened over Zoom and was aired on BBC’s Channel 4, featured McCoy detailing how his company gave kickbacks to certain politicians in exchange for legislative initiatives being pushed on the House and Senate floor.

“I liken it to fishing,” McCoy says in the video. “You have bait. You throw that bait out just to kind of reel them [Congress members] in because they’re a captive audience. They know they need you and I need them.”

McCoy then went on to name a few key Senators his office works with, a list that includes famously conservative Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia (aka the man who’s virtually singlehandedly killing the Biden agenda in Congress). According to McCoy, Manchin is a “kingmaker” and he has weekly calls with the Senator’s office every week. It’s that last bit of news that sounds especially troubling to Manchin’s fellow colleagues on Capitol Hill, specifically, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC is in full support of The Green New Deal proposed by key members of the Democratic Party, a bill that would seek to drastically reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions the U.S. produces each year. Naturally, she was not happy to learn that Manchin and a bunch of other Republican climate-deniers are having regular get-togethers with oil company lobbyists like McCoy.

“Imagine being a public official and having a standing weekly check-in call with ANY corporate lobbyist, let alone Exxon,” she wrote in a tweet that listed out all of the officials in Exxon’s back pocket.

For its part, the company has denied any wrongdoing, apologized for McCoy’s statements, and reaffirmed its commitment to curbing carbon emissions but Exxon’s track record when it comes to eco-conservation isn’t that great so its a good thing politicians like AOC are willing to hold everyone’s feet to the fire right now.

Ahead of the upcoming Olympic games in Tokyo, both the USA Basketball Men’s and Women’s teams will play a few exhibition games to get ready for the tournament. Those games, per a press release, will air on NBCSN.

The broadcast schedule for the men’s side — which might not have a handful of players due to the Phoenix Suns and, potentially, Milwaukee Bucks competing in the NBA Finals — is as follows (all times EST):

July 10: USA vs. Nigeria, NBCSN, 8 p.m.
July 12: USA vs. Australia, NBCSN, 8 p.m.
July 13: USA vs. Argentina, NBCSN, 6 p.m.
July 16: USA vs. Australia, NBCSN, 6 p.m.
July 18: USA vs. Spain, NBCSN, 9 p.m.

The women’s team will take the floor for a pair of warm-ups:

July 16: USA vs. Australia, NBCSN, 2:30 p.m.
July 18: USA vs. Nigeria, Olympic Channel, 5:30 p.m.

“USA Basketball is thrilled to partner with NBC Sports in showcasing its talented men’s and women’s teams ahead of the Tokyo Olympics,” USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley said in a statement. “These exhibitions will help prepare our teams for the elite competition that will exist at the Olympic Games and fans of USA Basketball and basketball in general will have the opportunity to not only witness some of America’s best athletes play, but they will also have the opportunity to see many of the best players from around the world compete in these games.”

(Warning: This story contains explicit details of sexual assault)

Following the news that Bill Cosby was released from prison after serving less than three years of a three-to-10-year sentence for aggravated indecent assault, Mickey Rourke told a lengthy story on Instagram about the disgraced comedian.

The incident didn’t happen to him, but rather, his girlfriend at the time. “Over 20 yrs ago i was dating a young girl, I believe she just turned 19 and we just start to going out. And one night when she was sleeping over in my house in the morning i woke up because I heard her crying,” he wrote. “I had no idea why and the more i kept asking her what was wrong the more severe she started to cry harder and harder.” She eventually revealed that her modeling agency sent her to a “celebrity event.” That’s where she met Cosby.

“She expressed to Cosby that she was thinking about taking acting classes and was hoping 1 day she’d become an actress,” Rourke wrote. The Cosby Show star said he could help her achieve her dream, but only if “you give me your phone number and i give you mine and 1 day this week and you can come over and have dinner with me and my wife and i can help you with getting into the acting business.” Rourke continued:

A few days later in the evening she went to Cosby’s house by herself, he answered the door walked her into the living room, one of the first things he said to her was my wife’s not here right now, she had some sort of business to attend to. They began to have dinner together and talk about acting, he said let me get us a lil wine and she said no thank you, i am not drinking. When he got back from the kitchen he had one glass of wine for himself and 1 for her and he said let’s make a toast for your future career and as the minutes past he continue to encourage her to drink more and more wine.

Fifteen minutes later, she began to feel lightheaded and frightened “because she didn’t feel her normal self. She finally said I need to go home, I don’t feel ok and he was taking her hand and pushing her and said you gonna be ok, you need to relax.” When she continued to say that she wanted to leave, Cosby stood up and pushed her back down, telling her, “You have to stay here, you gonna be fine.”

Then from behind he reached his hands down and started to grab her breast then she got frightened and when she stood up she was lil wobbling, he then grab her around her waist and put her down on the floor and got on the top of her, then tearfully with much fear she said what are you doing why are you doing this to me. He just smiled and said come on you gonna like this.

She was able to get away from Cosby and ran out the door, but he “tackled her from behind, then he got on [top] of her and he was sitting on her stomach and he tried to pin her arms to the ground. She then was screaming and he was trying to cover her mouth somehow she got up and got into her car.” After she recounted the story to Rourke, he asked if she told anyone about what happened. Her answer: “Who’d believe me, he is a big famous star and i’m nobody.” Rourke reached out to her about three years ago when dozens of women came forward to discuss being assaulted by Cosby and was reminded of her story this week after his conviction was overturned.

“He used to he rich and famous but now he’s just a rapist living in shame but when you can do such horrible things to so many I don’t believe these kind of people live with empathy guilt or shame,” he wrote. “I hope when he’s walking down the stairs in his house he falls and breaks his fucking neck.” You can read the full Instagram post below.

Machine Gun Kelly aka Colson Baker is the kind of multi-talented artist who can float easily between music and movies, but his most recent film choice has been a cause of irritation for some. Baker’s latest project is a film called Good News, which Deadline describes as the “the story of the last days of a rising but troubled musician. While the feature is a complete work of fiction, it takes its inspiration from the arcs of such contemporary artists as Mac Miller, Lil Peep, Pop Smoke and Juice WRLD.” Well, the family of at least one of those late musicians is not at all pleased about the project.

Mac Miller’s brother, Miller McCormick, posted an Instagram story today voicing his distaste for the project. “F*ck you, f*ck your movie,” he wrote. “At least change the title.” This is a fair response given the name of the film seems to be a direct reference to a single of the same name off Miller’s posthumous project, Circles. Watching someone disconnected from a loved one make art about their life seems like a pretty brutal process, and the family recently spoke out on a similar matter about an unauthorized biography of Miller.

Machine Gun Kelly and the team behind the film have yet to respond.

Less than two weeks before the month-long Olympic break, the Las Vegas Aces are separating themselves as the team to beat in the WNBA. They’re looking like the franchise we feared most after reaching the Finals in 2020 without Chelsea Gray, Liz Cambage or Kelsey Plum. An overtime 95-92 win over the Seattle Storm on Sunday showed how many ways the Aces can knock out even the strongest competition.

In the team’s second win over the Storm this season, A’ja Wilson double-doubled with 22 points and 11 rebounds, Gray scored 21 points — including the go-ahead jumper with 10 seconds to play — with seven assists, and Plum came off the bench for 15 points. Breanna Stewart’s brilliant 35-point afternoon on 14-of-26 shooting with 11 rebounds wasn’t even enough to contend with Vegas’s absurd depth, which includes two-time Sixth Woman of the Year Dearica Hamby.

Let’s look at all 12 of the WNBA’s teams power-ranked by their performance so far, factoring in injuries and their potential at full strength.

1. Las Vegas Aces (12-4)

The rest of the league should definitely be worried, though the Aces aren’t perfect. A one-point loss to the Minnesota Lynx on a masterclass Sylvia Fowles performance on Friday proved Vegas’s flaws are exploitable. Still, it’s impossible to ignore their dominance so far, out-scoring opponents by 13.3 points per 100 possessions — best in the league. Plus, they now own the tie-breaker over the Storm (2-1).

2. Seattle Storm (12-4)

While the Aces are the team to beat, Sue Bird, Jewell Loyd and Stewart aren’t far behind. Their first two meetings against Vegas were lopsided in both directions, and their most recent game — a three-point overtime match — was the likelier representation for where both teams stand. Seattle is still damn good.

3. Connecticut Sun (11-5)

SHE’S BACK. Jonquel Jones is the best player in the WNBA right now and a 23-point, 16-rebound showing in just three quarters of a dominant win over the Washington Mystics reminded us of that fact. The Sun went 2-3 in the five games Jones missed to compete at EuroBasket, and that could cost them a top-two seed in the playoffs. It’d also mean a single-elimination game. But with the way DeWanna Bonner, Brionna Jones, and Natisha Hiedeman are playing, they’re built to compete with the teams at the top. On Friday, they knocked off the Sky even without Jonquel.

4. Chicago Sky (10-8)

They’re 9-1 when Candace Parker plays, so you can do the math of what the Sky’s record might look like if she’d been healthy all season. But the Sky are rolling with help from recently-named All-Stars Courtney Vandersloot and Kahleah Copper. Five of the team’s last six wins have come by double-digits.

5. Minnesota Lynx (8-7)

The Lynx are still finding their way through various injuries and late arrivals, and a win over the Aces last week was big-time featuring huge showings from not only Sylvia Fowles and Napheesa Collier, but mid-season pickup Layshia Clarendon, who’s been a brilliant addition to fill the starting point guard void. The Lynx are a team to watch out for after the Olympic break once key players, including Aerial Powers and Natalie Achonwa, return to full health.

6. Dallas Wings (8-9)

Here is where the WNBA’s drop-off starts between the teams we know we’ll see in late September and the ones there’s less reason to be confident in. The Wings have shown clear improvement on both end of the floor this year, with Marina Mabrey and Satou Sabally playing better than ever and Arike Ogunbowale being Arike Ogunbowale. There are loads of questions to be asked about whether the team can hold up defensively, but some nights, they can simply shoot their opponent out of the gym, and that’s a scary thought for single-elimination playoff competition.

7. Washington Mystics (7-9)

They played with just six healthy players on Tuesday, so we’ll cut them some slack for a three-loss stretch. Natasha Cloud, Myisha Hines-Allen and Elena Delle Donne are all still sidelined to injury. The good news is Tina Charles is amazing enough — even against Jonquel Jones — to give the franchise a glimmer of hope for what could be. I’m still buying stock in Washington as a team that could benefit the most from the Olympic pause.

8. Phoenix Mercury (7-8)

The Mercury beat the Sparks easily on Sunday, and played a close game to a competitive Lynx team next. With Diana Taurasi back in the rotation, that’s to be expected. Still, something’s missing in Phoenix despite Skylar Diggins-Smith, Brittney Griner and Brianna Turner playing well. I’m not so convinced they’ve upgraded enough at the forward spot from last season to make a significant postseason push.

9. New York Liberty (8-9)

The Liberty cut long-time veteran Kiah Stokes this week in a decision that must (hopefully) mean Natasha Howard is close to a return. New York needs her back soon if it stands a chance of securing a playoff spot. Betnijah Laney can only carry the team so far, and as incredible as rookie Michaela Onyenwere has been, the team needs a boost down low. The Olympic break could be a blessing for the Liberty, too, as Sabrina Ionescu is clearly not at 100 percent either.

10. Atlanta Dream (6-9)

The Dream and Sparks are interchangeable here as fringe-playoff teams so injured that it’s tough to judge where they really stand. Tiffany Hayes will hopefully return for Atlanta after the mid-season stoppage, and Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike could be headed for the same path for L.A. We’ll give Atlanta the edge here considering they followed a blowout loss to the short-handed Liberty with a four-point win against them this week.

11. Los Angeles Sparks (6-9)

The Sparks played the Mercury competitively this week and then were dismantled by the Aces. It’s great seeing Erica Wheeler and Amanda Zahui B play All-Star-caliber ball, but L.A. is clearly a few pieces short — including their most important player, Nneka Ogwumike. She’ll be back this season, though, so don’t write this team off.

12. Indiana Fever (1-15)

Cutting their No. 3 pick from 14 months ago was a new low for the league’s worst team. The Sparks wisely scooped up Lauren Cox three days later and in one game, she’s already seen a season-high in minutes. If the season ended today, Indiana would have the second-worst net rating in the WNBA’s 25-year history. The time for the Fever to play their young players big minutes and assess how to properly rebuild was weeks ago.

R&B sister duo Chloe x Halle dropped their acclaimed sophomore album Ungodly Hour in 2020, an effort that catapulted them into the mainstream. Ever since, the duo have performed at awards shows, contributed to viral challenges, and even earned a cosign from Michelle Obama. But since Halle Bailey is currently in the UK filming her starring role in an upcoming live action remake of The Little Mermaid, Chloe Bailey is making music on her own.

In recent months, Chloe has passed the time without her sister by sharing soaring covers of some of her favorite musicians. She’s taken on songs by Rihanna, Silk Sonic, Nina Simone, Cardi B, and more. But in order to celebrate her 23rd birthday, Chloe is preparing to release an original solo single.

The singer teased her solo debut with a brief, steamy preview of the song’s video. It features Chloe’s swooning voice over a vocal sample saying, “Booty so big / Lord have mercy.” The video itself reflects the sample’s theme, with Chloe twerking on a bed as she fires off boastful lyrics.

Posting the teaser to Twitter, Chloe wrote, “this is 23… HAVE MERCY” alongside a peach emoji.

Watch Bailey’s teaser above.

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

WhokilledXIX’s glitchy new single “Spy?” is currently a TikTok favorite, reaching Spotify’s Viral 50 USA chart and sparking interest in the experimental duo, so it’s only natural that’s the song they’d play in their first UPROXX Sessions appearance. The track’s a rebellious anthem dedicated to suburban teenage angst, with defiant lines decrying poseurs and praising individuality over conformity.

WhokilledXIX is described as an experimental rap duo from Connecticut consisting of “lifelong best friends” Yung Skayda and Karm The Tool. Their music has become a favorite of TikTok’s influencers like Lele Pons and Charli D’Amelio, with their December 2020 EP 19 spawning “Spy?” and generating buzz for their April 2021 EP Fall Damage. Embracing an anti-establishment punk image and harnessing the antsy, contrarian energy of the more edgy corners of their online haven, the duo was able to parlay their viral success into a label deal with Masked Records.

Watch WhokilledXIX’s glitchy performance of ‘Spy?’ for UPROXX Sessions above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

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

The Tomorrow War, opening on Amazon Prime this week, is a big, dumb, beautiful blockbuster starring Chris Pratt as a time-traveling ex-soldier science teacher battling aliens who look like giant killer lice. I appreciate a film that takes big swings, and The Tomorrow War is the Babe Ruth of narrative conceits.

Pratt plays Dan Forester, an Iraq War veteran and current high school science teacher who learns, during a Bane-style interruption of a climactic moment of the soccer World Cup, that scientist/soldiers from 30 years into the future are locked in a losing battle with a species of pestilential, man-eating aliens known as “white spikes” (I prefer their older stuff).

In 2051, humanity is down to its last 500,000 people, but they’ve figured out how to open a “rudimentary wormhole” into the relatively recent past. They’re using this bridge, like two rafts on a running river (because “time only moves in one direction”) to draft the manpower future humanity needs to fight off the aliens from the most abundant source of it: the pre-alien invasion past. In other words, the future folk need present people to fight “The Tomorrow War.” Get it? You get it.

One day, while trying to convince a classroom full of defeatist high school kids that science is the key to their future (they’re rightly a little lukewarm on the idea of dutiful self-improvement knowing they’re all probably just going to get eaten by aliens in 30 years) Forester gets an amber alert on his phone demanding that he report to the draft board. A group of fresh-faced, curiously attractive doctors and soldiers from the future order Chris Pratt to take off his shirt for unclear reasons and affix him with a metal wrist cuff that will both facilitate his time jump and alert the authorities if he tries to desert.

So it is Forester is forced to leave behind his modest life and adorable family (which includes precocious daughter and beautiful wife played by a mostly-wasted-on-this-minor-role Betty Gilpin) to join a rag-tag crew of regular Joes about to be sacrificed to the future bugs. This crew includes characters played by Sam Richardson (Veep, Detroiters) and Mary Lynn Rajskub (It’s Always Sunny, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) part of a larger, weirdly-effective Tomorrow War strategy of casting comedic actors in not overtly-comedic roles.

Presumably, these are just actors director Chris McKay knows from his past comedic work, directing The Lego Batman Movie, Robot Chicken, and working in the animation department under Lord and Miller. While there isn’t anything overtly parodic about The Tomorrow War, which is mostly a straightforwardly earnest alien drama, you can tell McKay is having a blast making it, which helps make a lot of the silliness work. McKay and screenwriter Zach Dean are constantly finding the distinction between corny dialogue that makes you groan and corny dialogue that’s so perfectly on-the-nose that it’s kind of brilliant. “I’m just trying to save my daughter,” Forester explains to a fellow grunt, “And if I have to save the entire world to do it, so be it.”

That’s a corny line that could’ve been the tagline to dozens of movies, from most of the Seagal/Neeson/Willis ouvre to Ben Stiller’s “Scorcher” franchise from Tropic Thunder. Yet the Russian nesting doll of spoiler-y plot conceits that The Tomorrow War constructs to justify it are almost avant-garde. The Tomorrow War manages to combine the best bits of Edge Of Tomorrow, Arrival, Armageddon, Alien, Independence Day, and God knows what else in the kind of movie that Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich would’ve directed in their primes if they’d had more talent.

People who’ve speculated about Chris Pratt’s transformation from chubby comedy guy to ripped action hero, and his apparent religious awakening along with it (Pratt is or was a member of Hillsong, the same celebrity megachurch that baptized Justin Bieber) will find endless fodder in The Tomorrow War. Pratt plays a scientist-soldier-teacher who is essentially defined by his faith in a brighter future and his willingness to stick his neck out for others. He’s also a crack shot with a submachine gun, a supportive father, and an expert troop motivator. Did I mention the strong jaw and washboard abs? Image conscious Will Smith was known to only play heroes for a big chunk of his career, but Pratt’s babyface act in The Tomorrow War is so relentlessly ingratiating that it puts Will Smith to shame. His character is so thoroughly heroic that there are times when The Tomorrow War feels like a pro-Chris Pratt propaganda film produced by the Church of Scientology.

Clocking in at 140 minutes, a less-bold version of The Tomorrow War would feel overlong or padded, but The Tomorrow War doesn’t, partly owing to at least three distinct phases. There’s Forester the reluctant soldier, Forester the single-minded scientist, and Forester the unlikely leader of a band of Arctic explorers, which includes his estranged, doomsday prepping, Vietnam veteran father, played by JK Simmons (who I’m not sure is even old enough to be a Vietnam veteran?). Each phase individually would’ve had enough content to fill the entirety of lesser movie. But every time it seems to paint itself into a narrative corner, The Tomorrow World blows through a wall with high explosives or invents a just-plausible-enough interdimensional portal.

Most of the movie is so ridiculous that you figure no finale could possibly do it justice. Yet even after time travel, alien invasion, biological weaponry, and an arctic expedition, The Tomorrow War‘s finale manages to be plausibly “grand,” even compared to what came before it. Never before has a streaming release so capably evoked “Summer blockbuster.”

‘The Tomorrow War’ is streaming on Amazon Prime July 2nd. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

There have been a lot of developments in the Britney Spears conservatorship situation as of late. The singer recently requested that her father Jamie Spears be removed as her co-conservator, a request that it was reported yesterday was denied. It turns out there may actually be a change in who is handling those things, though: TMZ reports that Bessemer Trust, the financial institution that was set to become Britney’s co-conservator, has backed out of the arrangement.

Citing “sources with direct knowledge,” the publication notes that Bessemer has decided to stay away from the Spears conservatorship in light of recent controversies and has described the situation as a “hornet’s nest.” Furthermore, the company is apparently has issues with both Jamie and Britney’s lawyer Sam Ingham.

So, at least for the time being, Jamie will remain the sole conservator of his daughter’s estate.

As for Britney, she has been spending time on vacation in Hawaii recently, although paparazzi are spoiling the trip for her. In a recent Instagram post, she wrote, “So being here in Maui is pretty crazy now … the paps know where I am and it’s really not fun !!!! It’s pretty hard going anywhere cause these silly faces keep popping up to take my picture. […] It’s rude and it’s mean so paps kindly F*CK YOU AND F*CK OFF [lip emojis] !!!!”