Month: July 2021

How does one watch a movie when it stars one (or more) of your parents? It’s something the spawn of big stars have to deal with. For Matt Damon’s 15-year-old daughter, the solution is simple: She only watches the ones she thinks are bad so she can give her old man a hard time. That’s why, the actor recently revealed, she’s never seen the film that made him a name: the 1997 hit dram Good Will Hunting.

“She doesn’t want to see any movies that I’m in that she thinks might be good. She just likes to give me s*it,” Damon told CBS Sunday Morning while promoting Stillwater, the drama-thriller that just debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. So while she “refuses” to watch the one where he’s a reluctant genius who gets therapy with Robin Williams, she will watch one of his bigger bombs, from 2016.

“My daughter said, ‘Hey remember that movie you did, The Wall?’ I said, ‘It was called The Great Wall.’ She goes, ‘Dad, there was nothing great about that movie,’” he said, adding, “She keeps my feet firmly on the ground.” (That said, both are arguably a little hard on The Great Wall, an enjoyably silly yet handsome alien invasion movie made by master Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou.)

Damon didn’t just become a big star with Good Will Hunting. It won him and Ben Affleck Oscars for Best Original Screenplay. (Robin Williams, meanwhile, won for Best Supporting Actor.) It’s arguably the reason he’s a name at all. Its merits may have always been in question, but at least that “apples” scene is pretty darn good.

(Via EW)

On Saturday night, the Red Sox-Yankees game in New York was delayed briefly after a fan in the left field bleachers at Yankee Stadium threw a ball at Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo, resulting in Boston’s entire team walking off the field until the fan was identified and removed.

It was an ugly scene and, unfortunately, something that has seemed like an all-too-common occurrence at sporting events since fans were allowed back into arenas and stadiums. The NBA saw a number of incidents involving unacceptable fan behavior during the postseason, including an injured Russell Westbrook having popcorn dumped on him, a Knicks fan spitting at Trae Young, and a fan running onto the court in Washington. Even golf has seen unruly spectators, with a fan running onto the fairway and hitting shots at the U.S. Open as Bryson DeChambeau’s group was coming through.

After the game, Verdugo spoke on the incident and called for fans to simply remember that the players are people too, with feelings and lives off the field just like the fans, and calling for a basic level of respect to be offered their way.

On Sunday, the Yankees and MLB announced that the fan who threw the ball at Verdugo has been banned for life from all 30 ballparks.

It is the appropriate course of action from MLB in terms of doing what was the minimum they could and doing so in a timely manner. As is always the case with stadium bans, one can’t help but wonder exactly how enforceable that is given the availability of tickets on the secondary market, but it is still the step they have to take here and it will hopefully serve as another reminder to fans that there are consequences for unacceptable behavior like this.

So many shocking stories from the three forthcoming end-of-Trump books have already been revealed that there may be little left when they finally drop. (Or, more likely, they contain so much good dirt that the news cycle will never starve.) So here’s another: According to Michael Wolff, author of Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, Giuliani — already a much-reported drunk — was so tanked on Election Night that White House staff was worried he’d break some expensive china.

Wolff actually broke the story himself during an appearance on MSNBC, where he was hawking his new tome. He described Giuliani as being pretty wobbly on the night his client, Donald J. Trump, lost re-election. At one point, Wolff claims, staff started pulling him away from certain delicate items.

“And at that moment, Rudy was incredibly drunk, weaving this way and that way,” Wolff recalled. “And the china, those place settings from every president are very valuable, and Trump’s aides were obviously, or rightfully, concerned about what Giuliani was saying to the president about the election, and giving him this misinformation.” He added, “But they were also concerned that he was going to break the china.”

And thus is revealed yet another unflattering story about the former NYC mayor, whose Manhattan home was raided by the feds back in April. This isn’t nearly as embarrassing as other Giuliani antics. But then the bar is pretty high.

You can watch Wolff’s full MSNBC interview here. Landslide will be released on July 27.

(Via Raw Story)

The music world is less than two weeks from the release of Billie Eilish’s sophomore album, Happier Than Ever. Since announcing it in May, Eilish has kept her fans happy, dropping five singles: “My Future,”Lost Cause,” “Your Power,” “Therefore I Am,” and “NDA.” Now, the singer returns with a new acoustic performance with Finneas

Eilish and her brother, who doubles as her frequent collaborator, shared a stripped-down performance of “Your Power.” In the video, the two sit next to each other while Eilish elegantly sings the track’s lyrics, with Finneas providing supporting vocals as he strums away at the guitar.

The video comes after the singer admitted to always thinking about her past words. “I said so many things then that I totally don’t agree with now, or think the opposite thing,” she said to Vogue Australia. “The weirdest thing is how nothing ever goes away once it’s on the internet. Every interview I did when I was 15 is still out there, and I think about it constantly.”

Prior to that, Eilish shared behind-the-scenes clips and photos from her “NDA” video shoot, in which viewers can see her mom nervously watch her shoot dangerous scenes for the video, which resulted in the singer receiving a few bruises.

You can watch their performance in the video above.

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

With both an album (Sour) and a single (“Driver’s License”) enjoying long runs at the top of the charts, Olivia Rodrigo took a victory lap this week at the White House. The singer met with President Joe Biden, where she urged the youth to get vaccinated, met with Dr. Fauci ,and read funny vaccine tweets along with the commander-in-chief. All in all, it was an eventful week that ends well, too: Sour returned to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the chart dated July 24.

This is the second consecutive and fourth overall week that Sour topped the Billboard albums chart, which it achieved with 83,000 albums units — a slight decline from last week’s 88,000. Sour is now the first debut by a woman in over 11 years to spend four weeks at No. 1 since Susan Boyle did it with her 2009 album, I Dreamed A Dream. That singer’s reign spanned six consecutive weeks, from December 12, 2009 to January 16, 2010.

Sour also passed Justin Bieber’s Justice to become Spotify’s most-streamed album of 2021, which came shortly after she released her concert film, Sour Prom. She recently discussed the misogyny she’s dealt with in the past. “I feel like I’m surrounded by people who really respect me and treat me with kindness,” she told NME in May. “I’m really lucky in that regard and I hope that my generation of artists can really forge a path for younger artists.”

Bruce Springsteen’s fans have spent the better part of the last century trying to figure out the correct lyrics from a line on “Thunder Road,” a song from the singer’s 1975 album Born To Run. On the song, The Boss sings, “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves/ Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.”

Well, at least that’s what many believed Springsteen said on the Born To Run effort. For what it’s worth, those exact lyrics were included on the liner notes for Born To Run and on every official lyric sheet since the song’s release, but according to the singer’s longtime manager, those lyrics are incorrect.

Rather than “waves” as the lyrics state, Jon Landeau says “the word is ‘sways,’” per an email to The New Yorker’s David Remnick on Sunday. “Any typos in official Bruce material will be corrected.” Landeau added, “By the way, ‘dresses’ do not know how to ‘wave.’ That’s the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s the way he sang it on Born To Run, in 1975, that’s the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that’s the way he sings it right now on Broadway.”

To add to Landeau’s point, “sways” rather than “waves” was the word uses when Springsteen quoted the song in his 2016 autobiography, also titled Born To Run, which helped kick off the debate.

Jim Belushi has had a pretty interesting and diverse career. He’s done comedy, he’s done action. He’s been a movie star, a TV star. Nowadays he’s a cannabis farmer. He has great Tupac stories and he’s very open to learning more about anime. One thing you may not remember is that he did two seasons on SNL, where he made history, of sorts: He was the first cast member to be fired then rehired. In a new interview with Vulture (in a bit teased out by IndieWire), the performer says that his stint almost broke him, but it wound up making him a better person in the end.

Belushi was on the longtime sketch show from 1983 through 1985, following in the footsteps of his older brother John, whose own stint made him a legend. At one point he was briefly canned by then-executive producer Dick Ebersol. When asked why, Belushi did not sugarcoat it.

“I was out of control,” he told the publication. But he saw it as a wake-up call. “It was the best thing to ever happen to me. I was out of my mind. I was throwing a fire extinguisher at Dick Ebersol, a hissy fit.” The experience inspired him to get his stuff together. “I went back to him with my tail between my legs. I drop the ego, I got humble. I stopped drinking the rest of that season.”

He added, “Dick put me in my place, rightfully, and had the courage to do it. I came back; I begged [him] for forgiveness, and he put me on probation. My wife at the time said, ‘You thrive on probation. You were on probation from freshman to senior year of high school. You operate better with boundaries.’”

Still, it sounds like his whole stint was a kind of trial by fire. “SNL’is the hardest thing I ever did, and that’s including divorce,” he said. “I survived it, barely.”

Belushi’s return didn’t last that long. After his second season, Lorne Michaels, who had departed the show in 1980, returned five years later, and proceeded to overhaul the cast and writing staff. But it all worked out in the end: In 1986 alone, Belushi appeared in four big movies, earning acclaim for About Last Night… and Oliver Stone’s Salvador and becoming a bankable name for the silver screen.

He also discussed his brother John, who was one of SNL’s original cast members and who famously left early. He recalled giving him a hard time: “John did four years and he quit. I said, ‘What the f*ck, man? What are you quitting for?’ He said, ‘Jim, it’s like high school: Senior year, you’ve got to move on.’”

(Via Vulture and IndieWire)

Everyone makes mistakes when playing video games. Whether it’s jumping the wrong way into a bottomless pit, or just forgetting to look at the time and watching the opposing player run out the clock, we’ve all made mistakes that made us want to uninstall and never play the game again. However, most of us are not professional players. The large majority of us log in on the weekends or play a few rounds after work or dinner.

Call of Duty League players on the other hand live and breathe their game and the kinds of mistakes they make when playing don’t even come close to the ones us average players do. That’s why this clip of Los Angeles Thieves player Johnathon “John” Perez is stunning to witness. In a round of search and destroy he was planting the bomb when he felt some suppression fire, so he wisely moved out of the way and threw a grenade in response. The problem is that grenade landed right in front of the wall he was hiding behind killing him instantly. The kill feed added insult to injury by stating “mistakes were made” next to his accidental death.

Unfortunately for Perez, it didn’t get much better. The Thieves went on to lose the game of Search and Destroy giving the Paris Legion a tie in the best of five series at 1-1. Very unfortunate for him, but the 2016 Call of Duty World League MVP should be able to bounce back. You don’t become a pro by letting mistakes like this get you down. Still, for the rest of us, while shocking to see happen in this kind of environment, it’s nice to know that even the very best at COD sometimes blow themselves up too.

Last month, Dame Dash was hit with a lawsuit from Roc-A-Fella Records after he attempted to sell an NFT of Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt as well as his stake in Roc-A-Fella Records. Dash owns one-third of the company along with Jay-Z and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, which brings some confusion for the lawsuit.

So far, a judge has blocked the NFT of Reasonable Doubt Dash tried to sell and shut down an attempt from him to stop a meeting between Jay-Z and Biggs. While the matter is far from solved, Dash spoke with HipHopDX to share his thoughts on the lawsuit.

“From my perspective, it feels like this was all done to devalue this asset,” Dash said to HipHopDX’s Kyle Eustice. “I just don’t understand why. What’s odd is that they knew I was only trying to sell one-third, but they’re trying to say I tried to sell the whole thing. But we all know that that’s not the case, so why do they keep saying it? The question is, why is it such a big deal? Why is everyone so scared for me to sell my one-third?”

Dash then addressed Biggs and Jay directly. “Honestly, I think this is corny,” he added. “If there’s an issue, just call me. Why do I have to hear it? Why do I have to get sued? Biggs, Jay, call me and tell me what the play is but if you swing on me, I’m going to have to swing back. And when I say that, I’m saying now that I’m looking under the hood, it looks crazy, but I just do believe that I don’t need all of this.”

He then spoke about an issue he recently discovered with Reasonable Doubt.

“And then insult to injury, just very oddly, we look at Spotify and we see that it says ‘Copyright owned by S. Carter,’” Dash says. “And we’re like, ‘The copyright is owned by Roc-A-Fella, Inc.’ I’m looking at the ledgers and they’re not showing anything that reflects income from any streaming service. So where does that go? I just want to know who authorized that. That’s all I want to know.”

He then revealed that he was offered $1.5 million from the co-founders for his stake in Roc-A-Fella before adding:

When they offered me the 1.5, I was like, “Let me see the books. Let me see how much it’s making.” When I looked at the ledgers, I was like, “Yo, I don’t see any income coming from streaming services.” And then I look on the streaming services and it’s on the streaming service. I don’t remember authorizing any of that. So we’re sitting here thinking, “What’s the long game here? Why f*ck with me?” If I want to sell my third, then you don’t have to be my partner. What’s the problem? You’re making shit up. Why not call me?

You can read the full interview between Dash and HipHopDX here.

LeBron James has read your lackluster review of the new Space Jam sequel, but what matters to him is its box office success. The NBA superstar who took the reins from Michael Jordan in the Looney Tunes sporting universe posted a simple message on Twitter for critics who didn’t seem to enjoy Space Jam: A New Legacy nearly as much as everyone hoped.

The film, which was widely panned, hit HBO Max and theaters this weekend 25 years after the first film debuted. James sat courtside on Saturday night at Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and ABC even brought up the poor reviews of the film when they showed him on the broadcast.

Perhaps that’s a bit of corporate chiding here, as Disney owns ESPN and not the Warners feature that essentially dove into every intellectual property the company has. And there’s also the fact that it was matching up against a Disney-owned Marvel feature, Black Widow, for supremacy at the weekend box office.

James had a simple message on Twitter amid news that Space Jam would top the box office on its debut weekend.

“Hi haters” with a smiley face doesn’t make people actually like the movie, but it certainly shows that people were curious how Warners would handle the sequel to one of the most beloved basketball movies of all-time. That film, mind you, wasn’t exactly Oscar material no matter how charming that Pulp Fiction reference was. So maybe LeBron and the folks that put all that intellectual property on display know what they’re doing after all.