Month: September 2021

Can Jake Gyllenhaal‘s smoldering hotness and intensity be contained by being “the guy on the phone?” A new Netflix Original, The Guilty, is definitely going to test that premise. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) with a script from Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective), The Guilty stars Gyllenhaal as a seemingly mild-mannered 911 operator until he receives a troubling call that sends him over the edge in an effort to save a woman who’s been abducted. Or has she?

As the trailer promises, there’s more than meets the eye, and whatever twisted tale is unraveling, it will put Gyllenhaal through the hoops. Even though he’s the sole focus of the first trailer that keeps the action contained to the call center, The Guilty boasts an impressive supporting cast, according to Deadline. Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Riley Keough, and Paul Dano also star in this remake of the Danish thriller Den Skyldige.

Here’s the official synopsis:

The Guilty takes place over the course of a single morning in a 911 dispatch call center. Call operator Joe Bayler (Gyllenhaal) tries to save a caller in grave danger—but he soon discovers that nothing is as it seems, and facing the truth is the only way out.

The Guilty starts streaming October 1 on Netflix.

One of the more fun aspects of the way streaming and social media have upended the music business is how artists no longer have to rely on traditional releases to get their new material out. Where in the not-so-distant past, everything hung on a label’s release schedule and the need to manufacture the physical products to send to stores, now, rappers like Rico Nasty can simply upload a batch of new tracks to their SoundCloud pages and notify their fans via Instagram and Twitter, with no need to classify the release as a single or an EP or an album.

And that’s exactly what the elusive, genre-agnostic DMV rapper did over the long weekend, posting the cryptic photo below captioned “Secrets on SoundCloud.” A quick perusal of the SoundCloud bears five new discoveries of unknown origin, each reflecting a different sound from the grand Rico Nasty galaxy of sonic experimentation. There’s the puffy sugar trap of “Show Me Your Love,” the JetsonMade-produced banger “How Ya Feel,” the stripped-down “Switch Places,” the spacey “Cotton Candy,” and the surprisingly vulnerable “Grow Up.”

Meanwhile, Rico has more traditionally released another pair of singles, “Buss” and “Magic,” recently, complete with music videos. Whether all this is ramping up to the follow-up to her debut album Nightmare Vacation remains to be seen, but half the fun is not knowing what she’s got planned next.

You can hear Rico’s new songs here.

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

The first Aquaman movie arrived in 2018 with no shortage of scenery chewing performances (Willem Dafoe and, yes, Yahya Abdul-Matteen II), all of which were eclipsed up by the charisma and hair of Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry. The same goes for Patrick Wilson, who portrays Orm/Ocean Master and the half-brother to Aquaman. Orm didn’t fare so well at the end of the first film; he was defeated by Aquamomoa and Amber Heard’s Mera before being exiled and imprisoned in a desert setting.

Let’s just say that the years have been transformative for Orm, and the same goes for Patrick Wilson, who generally manages to look suave and polished in every role, but not for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Director James Wan revealed a photo of Wilson, all shredded and bearded-up to the max (while “stranded on a desert beach, doing his Cast Away impression”). You might do a double (or even a triple) take for this one.

A whole lot of iron pumping has happened in lockdown mode to prep for this sequel. Orm will undoubtedly do some kind of battle with Arthur again, and Jason Momoa already showed off his thigh-highlighting battle suit for the sequel as well. Yahya Abdul-Matteen II and Amber Heard have yet to post their jacked-costume selves, but it’s gotta be coming soon, since they both posted some workout evidence ahead of camera time.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will arrive on December 16, 2022.

“Human manure spreader” Tucker Carlson is free to spew wackadoodle and potentially harmful conspiracy theories five nights a week on Fox News, but if Peter Griffin says one barely-a-swear-word on Fox, there will be hell (h*ll) to pay.

Following a week where the Tucker Carlson Tonight host went full cartoon villain (as opposed to this cartoon villain), Family Guy‘s Seth MacFarlane tweeted, “Recently on Fox News, Tucker Carlson has defended counterfeit vaccine cards, compared mask and vaccine mandates to ‘my body, my choice,’ and suggested those working to stop Covid should be ‘punished severely.’ Oh also, Peter Griffin can’t say ‘goddamn.’”

MacFarlane is hitting all his favorite targets: the FCC (as Brian once sang, “They will make you take a tinkle when you want to take a piss”), Fox News, and Tucker Carlson. “Tucker Carlson’s latest opinion piece once again makes me wish Family Guy was on any other network,” the Family Guy creator tweeted last month. “Look, Fox, we both know this marriage isn’t working anymore. The sex is only once a year, I don’t get along with your mother, and well… I’ve been having an affair with NBC.” (In 2020, MacFarlane signed a $200 million overall deal with NBCUniversal.) Expect lots of Fox News jokes — more than usual — when Family Guy returns for season 20 later this month.

So far, Kanye West’s new album Donda is an undeniable success. The project debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and its songs are also faring well on an individual basis. Billboard shared the top 10 spots of the Hot 100 chart dated September 11 today, and two of the songs come from Donda: “Hurricane,” which debuts at No. 6, and “Jail,” which comes in at No. 10. West now has 20 top-10 songs on the chart.

While “Hurricane” and “Jail” have guests on them, they aren’t credited as featured artists, so they do not appear on the chart; “Hurricane” includes contributions from The Weeknd and Lil Baby, while “Jail” has a verse from Jay-Z.

Elsewhere on the chart, BTS’ “Butter” returns to the No. 1 spot for a tenth week, making it just one of 40 songs to ever spend at least that long in the top spot. The song’s rise comes after the group released a new remix of it featuring Megan Thee Stallion, although that version of the song didn’t drive enough listening activity to give Megan a credit on the chart.

Meanwhile, Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like” rises to No. 9 this week, making it just the second country song of the year to make the top 10, following Morgan Wallen’s “Wasted On You.”

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

To promote Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ring‘s Labor Day weekend debut, burgeoning Marvel star Simu Liu not only threw the first pitch for Sunday night’s San Francisco Giants game, but he did it with style. In the now-viral video shared by the Major League Baseball Twitter account, throws a “perfect strike” and caps it off with a backflip complete with a “ten point landing.”

As the video started to trend, the Shang-Chi star chimed in with a self-deprecating joke. “That pitch was like 500% faster in my head,” Liu tweeted. “GO GIANTS!”

Of course, the actor had a lot to celebrate. Despite the Delta variant wreaking havoc on previous releases, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings managed to defy expectations with an impressive box office haul. The film brought in $90 million for the Labor Day weekend, which is typically not a big movie weekend, but that’s the power of Marvel, baby. Via Variety:

Tracking had indicated a three-day total around $50 million, so the movie’s better-than-expected start (it made $75.5 million over the traditional three-day weekend) offers Disney and cinema owners alike a boost of confidence in audience’s loyalty to the big screen even as the studio moves aggressively into the streaming space. Making its debut more impressive, Labor Day is typically a slow weekend at the box office as families opt to spend time outside before summer ends. “Shang-Chi” smashed the holiday weekend record previously set by 2007’s “Halloween” with $30.6 million.

However, Disney and Marvel are reportedly still weighing if they left money on the table by not offering a day-and-date Disney+ with Premier Access like it did earlier in the summer with Black Widow and Jungle Cruise. According to Variety, the studio has just two weeks if it will do a hybrid strategy with Marvel’s Eternals or stick to its current theatrical-only release.

Obviously, looming in the background is Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit for releasing Black Widow on Disney+, so it’ll be very interesting to see what happens after weighing the results of the Shang-Chi “experiment,” a term that Simu Liu pushed back on ahead of release.

(Via MLB on Twitter, Simu Liu on Twitter, Variety)

Richard Spencer, the Nazi whose claim to fame is getting punched in the face during a public interview (it never gets old), is keeping a low profile these days — except for when he’s getting booed out of restaurants. I believe the word you’re looking for is “schadenfreude” (it’s a German word, Spencer should know it). The white nationalist lives in Whitefish, Montana, which the New York Times describes as “a mostly liberal, affluent community,” and the town’s residents want nothing to do with him:

Leaders in Whitefish say Mr. Spencer, who once ran his National Policy Institute from his mother’s $3 million summer house here, is now an outcast in this resort town in the Rocky Mountains, unable to get a table at many of its restaurants. His organization has dissolved. Meanwhile, his wife has divorced him, and he is facing trial next month in Charlottesville, Va., over his role in the deadly 2017 neo-Nazi march there, but says he cannot afford a lawyer.

“Richard Spencer wanted this to be his happy vacation place where he could play and have fun, and people would just live and let live,” a local rabbi, Rabbi Francine Green Roston of the Glacier Jewish Community/B’nai Shalom, told the Times. “Then he started suffering social consequences for his hatred.” When he walked into the Summit House restaurant, he was “booed by pretty much everyone.”

Spencer is also facing legal ramifications for his role in the Unite the Right rally:

A group of victims and counterprotesters filed suit against Mr. Anglin as well as Mr. Spencer, along with nearly two dozen people and groups involved in the “Unite the Right” rally, after a neo-Nazi at the Charlottesville march plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and injuring at least 19 others.

Spencer couldn’t pay his lawyers (“Due to deplatforming efforts against me, it is very difficult for me to raise money as other citizens are able to”), so he’s representing himself, which always goes well. He will not find much sympathy online.

There are a lot of lyrics on Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, given that the album runs for nearly 90 minutes. One of the standout lines, though, is when he references Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo on “7am On Bridle Path”: “Could at least keep it a buck like Antetokounmpo.” The multi-syllabic name doesn’t exactly lend itself to being mentioned in a song, but Drake says he did it because he was challenged to on Twitter.

Over the weekend, ESPN re-shared a tweet on their Instagram that was originally posted after the Bucks won the NBA championship last season, a tweet that played off the fact that Drake has been known to name-drop athletes in his songs: “Drake working Antetokounmpo into a line is gonna be tricky but he’ll figure out something.” In the comments of ESPN’s post, Drake confirmed that this tweet was what inspired him to mention Antetokounmpo on “7am On Bridle Path,” writing, “Only did it cause of this tweet.”

All that said, the song is perhaps most notable for who it doesn’t mention, at least not by name, as fans are convinced that throughout “7am On Bridle Path,” Drake takes jabs at Kanye West as the two rappers continue to feud.

Scott Baio is back again for more trouncing like a bad spinoff. Fortunately, we’re not talking about a reboot of Joanie Loves Chachi, but instead, more antics from the guy who genuinely has “Chachi” in his Twitter bio. Last week, he got flattened not once but twice by 1980s hair god/pop sensation Richard Marx over the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Well, Baio thrust himself back into the spotlight, all ready to rumble, at a Labor Day rally ahead of California’s gubernatorial recall election, through which Republicans hope to unseat Gavin Newsom.

The former Happy Days actor (who was definitely not part of the 2020, Biden-geared cast reunion) stumped for right-wing provocateur/radio host Larry Elder. And if you guessed that this wasn’t the most low-key affair, well, you’d be correct. According to the Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel, Baio declared that California has “become the sh*t state” (rather than “the golden state”) due to Newsom’s leadership. He also apparently insisted that the current governor must be recalled, lest “multi-family low income housing” starts to materialize “in the suburbs.”

In the aftermath of his rally performance, Baio took to Twitter to keep it classy. He bizarrely wrote, “Now try to paint me as a racist when I’m campaigning for a black guy! @larryelder.” Yikes.

On its face, that’s a strange declaration. It’s not unlike the “I’m not racist because I have a Black friend” utterance that you’ve heard from your relatives who spend too much time on Facebook, although it must be noted that whenever Scott Baio starts stirring things up on Twitter, people tend to tweet this photoshop (which changes his Happy Days theme-song intro to frame him “as a racist”), so he’s probably feeling a little defensive.

Still, and although Larry Elder is considered by many to be the Republican frontrunner in this recall election, let’s just say that he’s a controversial candidate for multiple reasons. Elder (who has never held public office) has been accused of sexist remarks and called out for his refusal to acknowledge the gender wage gap. His critics often use a variant of the term “a Black face on White supremacy” in reference to Elder.

The above reasons are likely why people pushed back at Scott Baio’s strange decision to deny that he’s a racist because, you know, he’s stumping for Elder. And man, they really came for Chachi, as you can see below.

Baio is still going on Twitter, by the way. He’s even telling a “cookie monster” to “sit on it.” Them’s fighting words.

No one understands the horror of an unpaid internship like What We Do In The Shadows resident familiar, Guillermo de la Cruz.

He’s been stuck in one for over a decade, cleaning up dead bodies and babysitting a group of idiotic immortals as they battle topiary-wrecking werewolf clans and semen-stealing witches and email chain curses. Harvey Guillén has had fun doing it all, but come season three, his character is feeling a little less subservient and a little more like slaying some sh*t. After Guillermo’s theater rampage and lineage reveal, the group is left wondering how to handle their friendly Latino Van Helsing which puts a strain on the relationship between familiar and master and causes plenty of other problems as they embrace their new roles on the Vampiric Council.

UPROXX chatted with Guillén about Guillermo’s strange journey this season, what it means for his bromance with Nandor, homemade buñuelos, and a possible Jersey Shore cameo.

Last season, Guillermo found out some disturbing news about his ancestry. Is he still struggling with that revelation this season, or is he embracing his slayer roots?

I think that he’s at a crossroads right now. He’s found out he’s a Van Helsing, but he also has devoted over 11 years now to wanting to be a vampire. So what do you do? It’s like … this is the moment. This season we find out that people can be pushed, and Guillermo is no exception and he’s going to be pushed to his limits.

Right, the bromance between Nandor and Guillermo is in real trouble right now. What kind of strain does Nandor’s romantic life put on their friendship this season?

I think it’s hard because he’s third-wheeling it. [Nandor] has an old love come into his life and of course, he gets a little bit jealous — that happens with friendships, with two best friends and one of them is dating and the other one isn’t. It makes you a little jealous and understandably so, but also, I feel like he’s been in this position before. Nandor goes through these waves of old romances or new romances where he’s wooing someone new at a 24-hour fitness place. So all of these new additions to his everyday life kind of throw a wrench in his plan.

Are there deeper feelings there, on Guillermo’s part?

There are definitely feelings there. After working for someone, you have to have feelings for them. You have to have a love for them to stick around and put up with the shit that he puts up. Unfortunately, it’s like a toxic relationship in many ways, but a lot of people stay in those relationships for years. It’s hard to see from the outside looking in. It’s like, ‘No, you don’t see. Yes, he gets angry. Yes, he says mean things …’ You always excuse people’s behavior.

I do think that Guillermo has feelings for him — whether that’s romantic or whether it’s true friendship … [Nandor] is really the only friend he’s ever known. That’s all mixed in there and it makes the waters very murky to swim in. So we’re trying to get some clarity.

Originally, Guillermo was supposed to be decades older. He was a very different character before you were cast. Has there been anything you’ve brought to who this guy is that you’re really proud of?

Yeah, for season two we had a conversation about when we meet Guillermo’s mom. That was very important to really represent what it’s like to live in a household with this Mexican heritage. It’s incorporated into everything, into what they’re eating — even down to the buñuelos that were being made. We shoot in Toronto, so it’s not a big buñuelo spot. The show literally had them flown in and they were Colombian buñuelos. There are different kinds, but we needed a Mexican buñuelo, and they got the wrong one. So I said, ‘It’s okay, we’re just going to make them.’ So we got a stack of flour tortillas and then we got cinnamon and sugar and some canola oil, and I made the buñuelos on set right before we shot the scene, which was very important to me.

I know no one else would have noticed, but I was like, ‘No, they would have made buñuelos and this would have been the dessert around this time of year.’ It was really important because people were messaging me on social media, at Comic Cons, letting me know, ‘Oh I noticed the buñuelos. I felt like I was at home with my mom.’ So even having that on-screen was like a little bit of magic.

I feel like this is a real merch opportunity for the show. FX needs to package this dessert and brand it.

Yeah, ‘Guillermo’s Buñuelos.’

Guillermo obviously still has a desire to be turned. If he were to become a vampire right now, which pop culture vamp would he emulate?

At this point in season three, it’d be a little bit of a combination because he’s at a crossroads with Van Helsing and with wanting to be a vampire. So it would be a little bit of Wesley Snipes, maybe some Victorian-style outfits, and a wink to Antonio Banderas as well. I think it’s like a melting pot of vampire energy.

The group goes on a trip to Atlantic City this season. They’ve already been clubbing in Manhattan and we had Jackie Daytona go to Pennsylvania. Is there anywhere else in the tri-state area you’d like to visit?

Oh man, it would be fun to go to the Catskills, maybe like for an overnight camping adventure, but Jersey Shore has the nightlife. That’d be kind of a fun night out on the town. We can bring the cast of the Jersey Shore along.

Snooki could take you guys to Karma.

Right? What if Snooki gets bitten in before I do?