During a break from filming of Thor: Love and Thunder in Sydney last month, director Taika Waititi was photographed in an intimate moment with his girlfriend Rita Ora and actress Tessa Thompson. Good for them, we say! If you had the opportunity to make out with Waititi and/or Ora and/or Thompson while making a Marvel movie (a big “if”), you’d leap at the opportunity too. The internet was delighted by the viral pics, unlike Waititi’s bosses at Marvel, who were reportedly unhappy that the cozy photos are “not exactly the image they’re looking to project in relation to one of their biggest franchises.”
Waititi has no regrets.
“Not really,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald when asked if the commotion around the photos upset him. “I think in the world of the internet, everything goes away pretty quick. And also, ‘Is it that big a deal?’ No, not really. I was doing nothing wrong. It’s fine.”
If you were hoping for Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman to join the fun, I’m sorry to report that Thor: Love and Thunder has wrapped filming. “Sometimes two people come together to inspire the world and change the cinematic landscape forever. And then there’s me and @chrishemsworth who are too cool to care about anything except making movies that bring people absolute joy. Ok I don’t look cool I know that,” Waititi wrote on Instagram. “This film is the craziest thing I’ve ever done and I’m honoured to bust my ass and have a nervous breakdown so you can all see it in May 2022.”
No Sudden Move is one of those movies that feels like the filmmaker had a good movie in his head but he never bothered trying to translate it to the audience.
In the past 20 years or so, there’s been a trend towards filmmakers-as-magicians, performing sleight of hand and withholding information and tricking audiences before the big reveal. BRAAAAAHM. You’ve been incepted! But making us care about fictional strangers is still the greatest trick of all, and occasionally that requires giving us more information, not less.
Steven Soderbergh directs this HBO Max streamer, his first of 2021, after one feature in 2020 and three features plus a short in 2019, by far the best of which was his basketball movie, High Flying Bird. With so prolific a resume and such a gulf between his great movies and his B-sides, the obvious question a new Soderbergh movie raises is, will this be something inspired or will it feel like he’s experimenting on me?
No Sudden Move doesn’t feel exactly like experimentation, so much as Soderbergh just sort of forgot to tell us what it was about. Scripted by Ed Solomon (Bill & Ted, Now You See Me, Men In Black) we follow two ex-cons, Russo and Goynes, played by Benicio Del Toro and Don Cheadle. Set in Detroit in 1954, they discover in smoky bars and backseats of big cars that they’ve been hired to do a job. Their benefactors are parties unknown and their go-between is played by Brendan Fraser, newly fattened and with an abundance of excess neck meat that serves him well playing a drunken underworld guy.
The idea is for them to go to a man’s house, played by David Harbour, and babysit his family while a third accomplice, played by Kieren Culkin, takes him to retrieve a package. We’ll call it “the Macguffin.” During the course of this, Russo and Goynes, who are both estranged from their former mafia employers — Russo’s played by Ray Liotta, Goynes’ played by Bill Duke — get a lot of ideas about what this package could be, who it might be valuable to, and what it might mean for them.
Double-crosses, triple-crosses, and quadruple lindy reverse betrayals ensue, until we eventually find out, about three-fourths of the way into the movie, that the document they’ve been chasing is actually the design of a Very Important Real-Life Car Thingy (I’d tell you, but no spoilers). This information is delivered as if it’s a bombshell, as if Soderbergh secretly had been making The Insider this whole time and we only just found out at the movie’s 70-minute mark. I understand delayed gratification, but even Sting would’ve checked out by now. And even with the big delay, No Sudden Move is not The Insider. The MacGuffin might as well have been a briefcase filled with loose Skittles for all the difference it would’ve made to the plot.
It feels a bit like Soderbergh wanted to make a movie about redlining, urban renewal, and the car industry but that felt like too much work, so he made a “fun” heisty thing in which the characters occasionally pay lip service to those issues instead. It ends up being a vaguely genre-shaped thing about people we don’t really know or care about double crossing each other over a macguffin he never bothers explaining. All that fun Soderbergh seems to be having shooting these wonderful actors — who also include Amy Seimetz, Jon Hamm, and Julia Fox, who all look great in 50s clothes — in his signature fish eye lens (maybe give this thing a rest once in a while?) never really translates.
Then again, maybe there was some important expository dialogue that I missed during the first third of the film that was swallowed by the muddy sound mix. One of the drawbacks of the advance screener system is that we rarely get to watch things with subtitles, and a busy, muddy sound mix plus Benicio Del Toro muttering things off-camera often equals gibberish no amount of soundbar volume could unscramble. Did he say he flip me? Flip me for real? Actually knowing what characters are saying these days is an anachronistic thrill, like going on a horse and buggy ride or using a code word to gain entrance to a speakeasy.
As always, it’s impossible not to be impressed with Soderbergh’s ability to stage and shoot a scene, a talent he has historically put to use in some of my favorite stories (The Knick, for instance). But when he uses that talent to just sort of breeze through a rough draft story before flitting off to the next project, it’s a kind of disrespect to the subject.
No Sudden Move ends with some epilogue text about what happened to the Car Thingy MacGuffin, granting it this sort of bold typeface importance, consequential facts that we should all know before the credits roll. But if that was so important, why make a movie that only ever mentions it obliquely?
‘No Sudden Move’ is available on HBO Max Thursday, July 1st. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
After a year and a half of lockdown, Common is ready to reenter the world with a new perspective. Following up on the release of his 2020 album A Beautiful Revolution Pt 1, Common looks forward to a brighter future with his inspiring “Imagine” video featuring LA-based singer PJ.
Directed by Emmanuel Afolabi, the visual was filmed as LA began to lift lockdown restrictions across the city. It sees Common hitting the streets in his community, meeting with fans and preaching the importance of connecting to one another.
About the track, Common said he wrote the song during a difficult time, so he wrote the song to serve as inspiration for making it through:
“I wrote ‘Imagine’ at a time when we were all going through a lot. But something kept telling me to focus on the good and the things I wanted to see in the world. For me, music is one of the things that gives me hope and happiness throughout these times, whether I am creating it or listening to it. So I wanted ‘Imagine’ to create that feeling of how you can play a song and feel inspired. How a song can make you move and also move your spirit. Essentially, I want us all to feel like days are getting better and that great times are ours for the taking. And the first step in feeling that way is imagining it.”
In addition to being a giant in the entertainment world, mega-magnate David Geffen—founder of DreamWorks, Geffen Records, Asylum Records, and more—is equally well known for his philanthropic efforts. Particularly when it comes to the arts and investing in the talent of the future, as evidenced by premier cultural centers like UCLA’s Geffen Playhouse and Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall.
While UCLA has been the recipient of hundreds of millions of Geffen’s dollars over the years, he’s now sending some of that same generosity to the east coast with a $150 million donation to the Yale School of Drama, which Deadline reports will allow approximately 200 students per year to attend the prestigious training ground—tuition-free.
“By reducing the debt burden of the average student, we create more resilient artists and managers who are able to make braver artistic choices—they’re able to take that downtown play and they don’t have to have a career selling real estate on the side,” said drama school dean James Bundy. “Not every artist is going to break through at the age of 25 or 26 or 27. Certain kinds of careers take time to build, and entering the professions with less debt is going to make for more interesting and more resounding choices in the long run.”
Yale offers one of the most competitive drama schools in the world and its alumni include the best of the best: Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Frances McDormand, Angela Bassett, Tony Shalhoub, Patricia Clarkson, and Lupita Nyong’o are just some of the school’s acting alumni. But its programs include design, directing, and playwrighting, too, so they’ve got plenty of past students to boast about behind the camera and stage scenes, too.
Deadline reports that Geffen’s gift is the largest donation in the history of American theater. Appropriately, the school will now be renamed the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.
In a letter to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, over 40 Democrats are calling for “immediate action” to rein in controversial Q-Anon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. While McCarthy made an attempt to soften Greene’s rhetoric earlier in the year, she’s only ratcheted up the crazy, and her recent appearance at Donald Trump’s rally in Ohio has her colleagues justifiably concerned that her actions “could lead to violence against members of Congress.”
The letter cites Greene’s “unacceptable level” of behavior, which includes her recent attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Ohio Trump rally. Greene called AOC a “little communist” and “not an America” before joining in a chant to “lock her up.” The House Democrat members warn that Green is stirring up the segment of Trump’s base, which has already shown signs of violence during the January 6 on the U.S. Capitol building. Via CNN:
“Rep. Greene’s conduct does not comport with what we expect from a member of the House of Representatives,” the letter reads. “Moreover, we are extremely concerned that her conduct is creating an unsafe work environment for members, and that her actions could lead to violence against members of Congress.”
Of all the House Republicans, Greene has shown the greatest penchant for latching onto dangerous conspiracy theories and right-wing attacks. She’s physically stalked AOC in the halls of Congress, called Biden’s COVID vaccine passports “The Mark of the Beast,” and posted an anti-trans sign outside of her office specifically to harass a House member with a trans child. And that’s just a taste of Greene’s day-to-day insanity.
We’re in the midst of a week-long Ed Sheeran residency on The Late Late Show and there have been plenty of memorable moments to far. He gave the debut performance of “Bad Habits,” revealed his long-running prank on Courteney Cox, and became a cowboy. Last night, he performed “Thinking Out Loud,” but he also made time to re-work “Shape Of You” to make it about getting vaccinated.
The self-parody took place during the “Side Effects May Include” segments, in which Corden and Sheeran listed fake side-effects for non-medical things. Discussing the topic of “being in love with the shape of you,” the pair ran through some fake side effects, which ended up just being the song lyrics. They wrapped the bit up with the final side-effect, “adding a line in the song about whether or not you’re vaccinated.” From there, the two sang modified “Shape Of You” lyrics back and forth: “Moderna of Pfizer will do / You’ll be good after jab number two / But wait two weeks for it to take effect / It doesn’t fit in the song, but it’s important.”
Keeping track of all the new albums coming out in a given month is a big job, but we’re up for it: Below is a comprehensive list of the major releases you can look forward to in July. If you’re not trying to potentially miss out on anything, it might be a good idea to keep reading.
Friday, July 2
Attawalpa — Patterns EP (White Label Collective)
Bobby Gillespie And Jehnny Beth — Utopian Ashes (Third Man Records)
Broken Fires — New Friends EP (Phwoar & Peace Records)
Caitlin Mae — Perspective EP (Monstercat)
Chinatown Slalom — Meet The Parents EP (September Recordings)
Cloudland — Where We Meet (HeyHey Studios)
Cub Scout Bowling Pins — Clang Clang Ho (Rockathon Records)
Dennis Lloyd — Some Days (Arista Records)
Desperate Journalist — Maximum Sorrow! (Fierce Panda)
Earl Slick — Fist Full Of Devils (Schnitzel)
G Herbo — 25 (Machine Entertainment Group)
The Go! Team — Get Up Sequences Part One (Memphis Industries Records)
Izzy True — Our Beautiful Baby World (Don Giovanni Records)
Laura Mvula — Pink Noise (Atlantic Records)
Molly Lewis — The Forgotten Edge EP (Jagjaguwar)
Mr Jukes & Barney Artist — The Locket (The Locket Records/Virgin Music)
The Quireboys — A Bit Of What You Fancy 2 (EMI)
Risely — Meantime Fades (self-released)
Sebastian Plano — Save Me Not (Decca Records)
Snapped Ankles — Forest Of Your Problems (The Leaf Label)
Steve Marriner — Hope Dies Last (Stony Plain Records)
Stone Giants — West Coast Love Stories (Nomark)
Sun Crow — Quest for Oblivion (Ripple Music)
Supermilk — Four by Three (Specialist Subject Records)
Vince Mendoza — Freedom Over Everything (Modern Recordings)
Sunday, July 4
Lana Del Rey — Blue Bannisters (Interscope/Polydor)
Friday, July 9
The Academic — Community Spirit EP (Capitol Records)
Arushi Jain — Under The Lilac Sky (Leaving Records)
On July 3, 1971, Jim Morrison died in a Paris bathtub after he [extremely Jim Morrison voice] slipped into unconsciousness. But even though The Lizard King has been dead now for 50 years, people keep on burying him.
The late lead singer of The Doors has been slagged by contemporaries like Jerry Garcia (“I never liked The Doors”), Lou Reed (The Doors were “stupid”), and David Crosby (Jim Morrison is “a dork”). He has been listed among the worst musicians of all time, and inspired podcasts about how much his band sucks. On Twitter, he has been linked to the launch of the Vietnam War, of all calamities, and even inspired disgruntled fans to burn his infamous biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive, because he’s “a bad role model for youth.”
With the exception of Eric Clapton — who to be fair is way, way out in front in this regard — I don’t think that there is a significant figure in classic rock history whose reputation has taken a worse hit in the past several decades than Jim Morrison. And I think I understand why. Because I used to also hate the guy’s guts.
I came of age as a music fan in the early ’90s, which coincided with a wave of Doors revivalism inspired by Oliver Stone’s bombastic 1991 film, The Doors. At first, as an impressionable 13-year-old, I thought Jim Morrison was pretty cool. He sang in a deep, evocative baritone that seemed to signify a mix of sexual mystique and disturbing morbidity. Also, he could wear the hell out of a pair of leather pants. He seemed like a prototypical rock star. He drew me in.
But it didn’t take long for me to change my mind about Jim Morrison. And, again, that had a lot to do with Oliver Stone’s movie. In the film, Val Kilmer plays Morrison as a hellbent hedonist who is both an immature child and a self-immolating egotist. It’s a portrait that syncs with Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman’s 1980 book No One Here Gets Out Of Alive, which ranks with Stephen Davis’ Led Zeppelin bio, Hammer Of The Gods, as one of the most sordid works of rock ‘n’ roll pulp semi-fiction. (I mean that as a compliment.)
If I was better-read as a teenager, I would have also been aware of the chapter from Joan Didion’s epochal 1979 essay collection The White Album that witheringly profiles The Doors during the sessions for their third album, 1968’s Waiting For The Sun. Morrison (who is joined at the session by a teenaged girlfriend) comes off as a dim-witted himbo in Didion’s unsparing prose:
Morrison sits down on the leather couch again and leans back. He lights a match. He studies the flame for a while, and very slowly, very deliberately, lowers it to the fly of his black vinyl pants. [Keyboardist Ray] Manzarek watches him. There is the sense that no one is going to leave this room, ever. It will be some weeks before The Doors finish recording this album.
Manzarek later objected to Stone’s film (particularly the scene where a drunken Jim gleefully lights a closet on fire while his girlfriend screams madly inside) as crass and factually dubious exploitation. It was also horrible PR. The very things that boomer-era hagiographers chose to emphasize about the Morrison myth — the self-serious pretension, the heavy-handed pseudo-philosophizing, the frankly assholish behavior — are what fuels a lot of the animus his name inspires today. The caricature that was originally intended to make him look like a tragic hero has instead transformed him into an easily hateable villain.
That portrayal certainly turned me off for a long time. But not anymore. At some point, I realized that loving The Doors is a lot more fun than hating The Doors. If you can manage, I ask that you temporarily suspend your knee-jerk Doors hate and allow me to explain how I broke on through to Jim Morrison’s side.
First, let’s state a simple but weirdly overlooked fact: Even if you dislike Jim Morrison, you probably like the scores of artists he influenced. Iggy Pop has cited Morrison’s vocal style on The Doors’ 1967 self-titled debut as a crucial creative touchstone, while Patti Smith called him one of “our great poets and unique performers.” Ian Curtis of Joy Division, possibly the most seminal singer in the history of post-punk, was another Morrison acolyte who passed down their shared “mournful croon” vocal style down to everyone from Echo And The Bunnymen to Interpol and literally dozens of other punk, alt-rock, indie, and goth bands in between.
The Doors are so foundational in rock that they filter down to artists who either don’t like or even know their music firsthand. Basically any singer in a rock band who dips into a lower register owes something to Jim Morrison. (Glenn Danzig, meet Matt Berninger.) I would go even further and suggest that any group in which a person talk-sings over drone-y music is connected to Morrison and The Doors. To cite just one example, you can hear traces of The Doors’ influence in New Long Leg, the 2021 debut full-length by the acclaimed U.K. post-punk band Dry Cleaning, in which lead singer Florence Shaw talks over tribal guitar licks about how people are strange.
In a 1981 interview, Jerry Garcia dismissed Morrison as a Mick Jagger clone. But as much as I love Garcia, I must object to this reductive take. It’s true that Morrison, like Jagger, adopted a highly sexualized bump ‘n’ grind performance style designed to drive audiences into hysterics. But Jagger was also an emotionally remote cynic who could move freely between participating in the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll party of the ’60s and ’70s and commenting on it in his lyrics from a remove. There was no such remove for Morrison. He lived out the metaphors in his songs about unlimited excess and all-encompassing doom in his actual real life. Unfortunately, you can’t live like a metaphor in your actual real life, which is why he died.
In that way, Morrison is a lot like Lana Del Rey, another polarizing poet obsessed with death and glamour and messianic posturing and all-American decadence who sings her words in an artless but highly affecting croon. “No one’s gonna take my soul away / I’m living like Jim Morrison,” Del Rey sings in 2012’s “Gods And Monsters,” a title that perfectly captures Morrison’s duality. (I also suspect that all of those really long songs about the apocalypse on Norman Fucking Rockwell were inspired by Del Rey going through a “The End” phase.)
What separates LDR from Jim Morrison is that she had the benefit of learning from Morrison’s mistakes. She knows now that metaphors should be kept in their proper place. Jim Morrison was her rough draft. He was the rough draft for a lot of people.
If I had to distill the current cultural dislike of Jim Morrison down to a single cause, it would be that his very essence as an artist and performer is totally contrary to what is in vogue now. Morrison was highly theatrical and worked almost exclusively in larger-than-life gestures. He sang about setting the night on fire and dancing on fire and lighting your fire. He would carve out a good 20 minutes every night to perform something called “The Celebration Of The Lizard.” Again, he was his own metaphor; he sang about sex and self-destruction and lived a life of sex and self-destruction. He was never a chill, normal dude.
Today’s pop stars are praised for the opposite of this sort of thing. They’re expected to be accessible, relatable, and naturalistic while also being role models. They’re aspirational as ethical figures, which — if you can step outside of current cultural morés for a quick moment — is sort of nuts. Even in his prime, I don’t think anyone looked at Jim Morrison as a good person. That was never even intended to be part of the package. (It should be noted that Jim Morrison was extremely young when he died. How would you be remembered if you were defined forever by your behavior in your mid-20s?)
From the beginning, Jim Morrison was an anti-hero, which partly explains why there were so many waves of Doors revivalism in the years after he died. At every moment in modern history other than right now, anti-heroes have always been awesome. Of course there are many good reasons for anti-heroes being temporarily unfashionable. But it also makes me think that the next generation is poised to react against to the more puritanical leanings of our time. Because there will be some kind of reaction. (We have not reached ideological perfection in the year 2021, as much as we like to kid ourselves into thinking that.) And then, I wonder, will Jim Morrison be back once again?
Because as much people like to bury Jim Morrison, they also like to dig him back up. Put on a generation-defining movie from the 1980s like Less Than Zero or The Lost Boys and you’ll hear The Doors. In 1993, when The Doors entered the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, they were inducted by that era’s generation-defining rock singer (and another obvious artistic child of Jim Morrison), Eddie Vedder. A few years later, grunge made way for nu-metal at Woodstock 99, but The Doors were still welcome. In 2001, in the wake of Sept. 11, Jay-Z sampled The Doors and Julian Casablancas credited Morrison and co. with making him want to start The Strokes. A decade later, as dubstep took over the culture, Skrillex collaborated with the surviving members of The Doors. Today, whenever I play “Break On Through” in the minivan, my kids know it because that damn song was in Minions.
And you know what? They like that song! And they like it for an obvious reason: Because it’s a jam. It’s fine if you think Jim Morrison is an amoral, obnoxious gasbag. I get that. But can we at least admit that his band did not suck and in fact had many, many jams? “Break On Through,” “Light My Fire,” “End Of The Night,” “The End,” “People Are Strange,” “When The Music’s Over,” “Hello, I Love You,” “Roadhouse Blues,” “Peace Frog,” “L.A. Woman,” “Riders On The Storm” — does anybody else feel like riding the snake right about now? You know that it would be untrue to say no.
The Doors are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
After Britney Spears spoke about her conservatorship in court recently, some of her peers in music came forward with messages of support for the pop star. Now, Iggy Azalea — who collaborated with Spears on the 2015 single “Pretty Girls” and performed with her at at 2015 Billboard Music Awards — shared some experiences she had with Spears, her father, and her team.
In a tweet she tagged #FreeBritney, Azalea showed support for Spears and wrote that she “personally witnessed the same behavior Britney detailed in regards to her father last week.” One example she noted was, “I saw her restricted from even the most bizarre & trivial things: like how many sodas she was allowed to drink.” She also wrote, “Her father conveniently waited until literally moments before our BMAs performance when I was backstage in the dressing room & told me if I did not sign an NDA he would not allow me on stage.”
Azalea concluded her post, “Britney Spears should not be forced to co-exist with that man when she’s made it clear it is negatively impacting her mental health. This is not right at all.”
Find Azalea’s post below.
“Its basic human decency to at the very least remove a person Britney has identified as abusive from her life. This should be illegal.
During the time we worked together in 2015, I personally witnessed the same behavior Britney detailed in regards to her father last week and I just want to back her up & tell the world that: She is not exaggerating or lying.
I saw her restricted from even the most bizarre & trivial things: like how many sodas she was allowed to drink. Why is that even Necessary?
Her father conveniently waited until literally moments before our BMAs performance when I was backstage in the dressing room & told me if I did not sign an NDA he would not allow me on stage.
The way he went about getting me to sign a contract, sounded similar to the tactics Britney spoke about last week in regards to her Las Vegas show.
Jamie Spears has a habit of making people sign documents while under Duress it seems, and Britney Spears should not be forced to co-exist with that man when she’s made it clear it is negatively impacting her mental health.
On Wednesday, Roku quietly updated its homepage to prominently display the new remote for its recently released Roku Express 4k+. While this seems like an innocuous event, analysts are latching on to a significant development for the remote: It now includes a button for Apple TV+. After years of keeping its products walled off, this move is believed to be the first time that Apple has put its branding on a competitor’s device, and analysts are saying it’s a “shocking” sign that the streaming service is desperate for new subscribers.
“Nobody ever would have expected this,” LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield told the New York Post. “The thought that Apple, rather than create a device that’s going to replace Roku is now buying a button next to Netflix or next to Disney+ just shows you that as they get into the content business, they need to be everywhere.”
While Apple TV+ shows like Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest have become critical favorites, that acclaim has not boosted subscriber numbers, which are reportedly “sputtering” compared to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. One major issue has been the company’s practice of extending free trials, which has led to a glut of users who aren’t paying for the service.
According to a January study by MoffettNathanson of nearly 19,500 customers, a whopping 62 percent of Apple TV+ subscribers are still on the free promotional offer. Nearly 30 percent said they don’t plan to resubscribe once the promo expires, while another 30 percent said they plan to renew at the $4.99 monthly price. The rest said they were unsure what they would do.
According to CNet, Apple plans to cut back aggressively on free trials ahead of the Season 2 premiere of Ted Lasso.
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