Month: September 2021

Actor Michael K. Williams was reportedly found dead in his New York City apartment on Monday. According to a report from Page Six, the 54-year-old actor was found dead according to a police source.

Though nothing was initially confirmed and an autopsy was yet to be conducted, the story mentions without proof that drugs may have been involved in his death.

“The Wire’’ actor Michael K. Williams was found dead of a suspected drug overdose in his Brooklyn penthouse Monday afternoon, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

…

“No foul play indicated,” a police source said. “No forced entry, the apartment was in order.”

Williams was found dead by his nephew in the living room of his Kent Avenue pad in the luxury Williamsburg high-rise, sources said.

Williams was a standout in basically every movie and TV show he appeared in. A mainstay on HBO dramas, he shined as Omar Little in The Wire and again as Chalky White on Boardwalk Empire. He most recently appeared as Montrose Freeman in HBO’s Lovecraft Country. His movie roles included 12 Years A Slave, Inherent Vice, and in the Bessie Smith biopic Bessie.

News of his death spread quickly on Monday and resulted in an outpouring of grief on social media, with many sharing scenes from his most memorable roles and the impact he had on Hollywood.

[via NY Post]

In recent weeks, a lot of conversations have pitted Kanye West and Drake against each other as both released new albums at around the same time. Diddy is taking a more diplomatic approach, though, as he has taken a minute to offer praise for both artists and their new music.

In a video posted on his Instagram Story today, Diddy spoke about Donda and Certified Lover Boy, starting, “I listened to both these albums and first of all, I just wanna say that you guys are true kings of creativity. Both of you guys are so special and so necessary, you know what I’m saying? Just thank y’all for the inspiration. I wanna make sure that what hip-hop knows is: That’s the reach and the power that we have. I really wanna take my hat off to these brothers both sharing their truth.”

He then praised specific elements of both albums before concluding, “I just want to say, love decrees that they both win, that we win. When you’re an artist, you keep pushing it to the limit to be the best. [Not] the best not against another man — there is competition, but the best within yourself, and I think that’s why we’re witnessing two greats and enjoying them. I’m having a ball and the music sounds beautiful. Don’t stop, guys, love y’all.”

Meanwhile, Pusha T brought a different flavor to the conversation by seemingly taking pleasure in a dip in Drake’s streaming numbers.

Pusha T and Drake have one of the most famous hip-hop feuds of recent years. So, it’s not too surprising to see that when Pusha found a comparison that paints Kanye West’s new album Donda in a more positive light than it does Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, he was all over it.

It started with a recent tweet from XXL, which compares the Spotify streaming numbers of Donda and Certified Lover Boy on the albums’ first two days of availability. West’s album was streamed 94.5 million times on its first day before jumping up to 102.1 million streams on its second day. As for CLB, it had 153.4 million streams on its first day before falling drastically to 89.9 million the next day.

It’s worth noting, though, that Donda was released at around 8 a.m. on a Sunday, as opposed to midnight on Friday like most albums are (including CLB). If you do the math, Donda and CLB actually had similar numbers in terms of average streams per hour on their respective first days: about 5.9 million and 6.4 million, respectively. So, looking at streams per hour on the album’s first days versus their second-day performance, they performed somewhat similarly, with Donda experiencing a smaller day-two drop-off but CLB reaching a higher peak. So, all in all, the numbers from that tweet don’t fully represent the situation at hand.

Anyway, somebody shared a screenshot of the XXL tweet and added, “i predicted this. i said drake’s day 1 is gonna be huge off the element of surprise then its just gonna drop. donda everyone heard in full 3 weeks before it dropped, still did these numbers and is only growing in streams. crazy!” Pusha seemingly agreed with the tweet, as he gave it a like.

When West released Donda, Pusha shared a congratulatory post about it, writing on Instagram, “This is about power, money, influence and taste…nothing more, nothing less. Watching you ‘joystick the culture”‘makes us all proud. Continue to do things your way, congrats, and I’m honored to have been a part of the process.”

Stephen A. Smith has a new sparring partner on First Take, and he certainly brought up the volume during his first shouty segment on ESPN. Following Max Kellerman’s departure from the program, Michael Irvin was brought in to debate Smith on one of the network’s most popular shows. They even made a hype video for it.

To say all of this is kayfabe is an understatement, as the show started with neither Stephen A. or Irvin in their seats because they needed to have boxing-like introductions. Irvin, for his part, started in a darkened room looking out the window at the New York skyline.

It was all extremely absurd. But they eventually did do some debating. In fact, on Monday Smith and Irvin got into it during a “GOAT debate” where Irvin argued vigorously in favor of Tom Brady holding the title that really only means anything to people who like to yell loudly about such things on national television.

It started mostly reasonable, comparing Brady and Michael Jordan in a mostly apples to starfruit kind of way. But skip to the next video if you want to see some wildly unhinged yelling.

There is something truly special here, perhaps in Smith’s belabored patience while Irvin goes off on him. It also helps that they’re both standing, for some reason, so they can both (in theory) gesture wildly while making exaggerated points. It’s oddly threatening, but not actually important enough to actually feel dangerous.

The two eventually did sit down to continue to trade takes, as they are paid to do here. Even Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones dropped in to make things weird.

If you are actually someone who comes to these kind of shows for takes, they certainly started Monday off with a bang. But we’ll see how long Irvin’s voice holds out if he’s going to keep this pace five mornings a week.

There may never be a better time to play indie games than, well, right now. PC gaming is as accessible as ever, and with vibrant independent stores giving small developers a chance to reach a wide audience games like Among Us can rocket to relevance and immense popularity seemingly out of thin air.

It’s a good time to like video games, is what we’re saying, especially if you like indie games and have a Nintendo Switch. And thanks to an app starting to gain some traction, you can add “having an iPhone” to that list of great indie gaming tools.

PlayByte is an app that’s been in beta for some time now, but got some solid press late last week as a great way to test out amateur games in rapid-fire quickness. Billed as a TikTok-like platform for indie gaming, PlayByte actually lets you make your own games. But just like TikTok and Vine before it, oftentimes the best experience is just taking in all the content everyone else is making.

@team_playbyte

Making games on your phone can be that easy ##playbyte ##gameapp ##gamecreator ##robloxdev

♬ Game – Playzy

“Whether you like story and cutscenes, intense boss battles, or oddball puzzles, there’s something for every gamer on Playbyte. All you have to do is play what you like and skip what you don’t and you’ll find an endless feed of games that feels personalized for you,” the app’s description says. “We make it easy for you to discover and create your own original video games by providing easy-to-use tools. Take your games to the next level with trending art, backgrounds, and by creating new game assets with custom rules.”

As Gizmodo pointed out, many of the games are extremely weird. But, well, user-created content usually is. And while it isn’t exactly the breeding ground for the next AAA smash hit, it’s certainly a fun way to waste time poking around to see what other people have made with the platform.

@team_playbyte

Get the loot and get out ##playbyte ##gameapp ##gamecreator ##gaming

♬ Gimme the Loot (2005 Remaster) – The Notorious B.I.G.

You can try PlayByte out for yourself, if you have an iOS product. Or check, of course, their TikTok account to see more stuff from the platform.

The Delta variant of the novel coronavirus has once again made Hollywood push pause on a number of projects that were supposed to hit theaters, but one Marvel movie apparently has found an opening in the schedule and actually moved up its release date to earlier in the fall.

Deadline reported on Monday that the Venom sequel that had seen a delay to October 15 — and was reportedly in danger of another push into 2022 — actually pushed its release up two weeks. This comes following a series of delays and rumors about its release date that seem to have been tied to how well another Marvel film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, performed over Labor Day amid the still-ongoing pandemic.

It was the worst kept secret in Hollywood that Sony was bound to vacate Venom: Let There Be Carnage from its Oct. 15 release date, but after the enormous $90M Labor Day weekend success of Disney/Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the Culver City lot has decided to go earlier with their own Marvel sequel on Oct. 1.

…

This returns Venom to its early October stomping ground, the first movie in 2018 setting an opening domestic record for the month with $80.2M before Warner Bros’ Joker pushed the Marvel pic to No. 2 for October a year later with $96.2M. I’ve heard that tracking among males is really hot for Venom 2, and Sony has every reason in the world to keep it in 2021 versus pushing the Andy Serkis-directed pic to January 22 (which was the rumor).

It’s certainly welcome news for fans who wanted to see Let There Be Carnage as soon as possible, and Shang-Chi setting a box office record over the weekend seems to indicate, despite all the Black Widow drama about poor box office numbers, that people still will go out and see movies in the pandemic. Given the chaos that the first Tom Hardy-let Venom had in it, this certainly has a lot of buzz heading into the fall. As the Deadline report notes, there was a lot of competition for the film on October 15, so they decided to let everyone get a little Carnage at the start of the month, as a treat.

[via Deadline]

Chvrches are fresh off the release of a new album, Screen Violence. As a band does when they have something new to push, they’ve been on the promotional circuit in recent days, and this weekend, they took to CBS This Morning to perform for the program’s “Saturday Sessions” series. For the show, the group took to the stage to perform Screen Violence highlights “Good Girls,” “He Said She Said,” and “California.”

In a recent interview, the band told Uproxx about the origins of Screen Violence, with Lauren Mayberry saying, “Screen Violence was actually a proposed band name that we didn’t end up using. So, we were thinking in summer 2019 of what we wanted to do and then that list of names resurface and that phrase just really jumped out of the page. ‘Cause we all love that, filmmaking and making a David Cronenberg-y take on it and the questions that he was posing. And even sonically, a lot of the instruments that we use and the composers and writers that we admire were working on those films. And then after writing a few songs, I think for me, it was partly talking about violence through screens and by screens. […] I think that’s been really fun to play with, especially with the imagery on the record and the imagery in terms of the album artwork and the videos and the visuals. How can you take that genre and bend it to tell your stories?”

Check out the CBS This Morning performance above.

Screen Violence is out now via Glassnote. Get it here.

Jason Momoa isn’t done with his role in Aquaman just yet, and a new move in the DC franchise actually means he’s getting a new suit to smolder in. The actor revealed over the weekend that his aquatic-based superhero will have a new look for a second film in the franchise, debuting it on Instagram to much acclaim.

Momoa won’t reprise his role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom until next winter, but he’s already showing off his battle suit from the upcoming picture. He posted it to Instagram on Sunday and drew rave reviews from fans familiar with the Stealth Suit he will rock at some point in the movie.

“Second round. New suit. More action,” Momoa wrote on Instagram.

The suit drew plenty of reaction, and even The Rock seemed to like it. And the film’s director, James Wan, also shared the images on Sunday with an explanation of what direction the film wanted to take the look.

“Atlantean tech based on cephalopod’s camouflaging ability,” Wan wrote, explaining what he and Aquaman 2’s writer intended for the outfit. “David Leslie Johnson and I were inspired by the 80s ‘blue suit.’”

We’ll have to wait and see what that cephalopod technology can do in the movie next year when it arrives on December 16, 2022.

Cardi B started 2021 by sparking pregnancy rumors that turned out to be inaccurate. Not too long after that, though, she actually got pregnant, which she announced at the BET Awards this summer. Now, that process has reached the next logical step: Over the weekend, Cardi gave birth to her second child.

Today, she shared a photo from the hospital, of her holding the baby in her arms as she and Offset gaze at it. Cardi’s caption is seemingly the child’s date of birth: “9/4/21.”

Cardi has yet to share any other information about the child, like its sex or name. On a related note, though, she did recently address Texas’ new abortion laws, tweeting on the day of her child’s birth, “It’s crazy how they only giving women 6 weeks I didn’t even know I was pregnant till around 11.This country is soo damn backwards.”

This new baby is the latest addition to Cardi and Offset’s family, as the pair already has a daughter together, Kulture, who celebrated her third birthday this summer. She did so in supreme style, too, getting a six-figure watch from her parents.

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

One of the cooler parts of the PlayStation 5 is the ability to play any PlayStation 4 game on it. It’s given players a huge library of games to choose from and play on their console while we wait for developers to start developing for it. Another perk has been that the majority of next-gen upgrades for those PS4 games have been free. Games such as Yakuza: Like A Dragon, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and Final Fantasy VII Remake all required no additional charge to get next-gen perks. Even the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West will feature a free next-gen upgrade for players who purchase the standard or special editions. Unfortunately, it appears that will be the last of its kind.

In a PlayStation Blog Jim Ryan, President, and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, announced that moving forward these next-gen upgrades will no longer be a free upgrade if they were developed by PlayStation. Games such as God of War: Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7, originally PS5 exclusives, will be available on both consoles but anyone who purchases the PS4 version will have to pay the $10 fee to get a next-gen upgrade.

Last year we made a commitment to deliver free upgrades for our cross-gen launch titles, which included Horizon Forbidden West. While the pandemic’s profound impact pushed Forbidden West out of the launch window we initially envisioned, we will stand by our offer: Players who purchase Horizon Forbidden West on PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade to the PlayStation 5 version for free.

I also want to confirm today that moving forward, PlayStation first-party exclusive cross-gen titles (newly releasing on PS4 & PS5)–both digital and physical*–will offer a $10 USD digital upgrade option from PS4 to PS5. This will apply to the next God of War and Gran Turismo 7, and any other exclusive cross-gen PS4 & PS5 title published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

This is unfortunate news, but there is a little bit of logic to it. PS5 games developed by Sony are going to cost $70 while PS4 games still cost the original $60 price tag from the last generation. Since every PS4 game can be played on a PS5 there is nothing stopping someone from buying the PS4 version of a new game and then upgrading the game to give themselves a $10 discount. By requiring that players pay the $10 fee they’re essentially telling them that they must pay the full price of the game.

While the move logically makes sense, that doesn’t mean it’s one that anyone has to be happy about. The $70 barrier is already touchy for a lot of people, and right now it’s only Sony that is pushing it as a constant. They’re determined to make $70 games the new norm and some fans are not going to get on board with that. However, with PS5’s still selling incredibly well it doesn’t seem like their policy decisions are hurting them right now.