Earlier this week, R. Kelly was officially convicted of sex crimes after years of accusations. Multiple people came forward to testify against the disgraced R&B singer in court and Kelly was found guilty of racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law. Immediately following the guilty verdict, Kelly is now apparently an unwelcome face in certain parts of Louisiana.
After being found guilty of sex crimes, R. Kelly’s honorary “key to the city” in Baton Rouge has been revoked, according to a recent report from TMZ. Apparently, the same official who granted the singer the honor back in 2013, Baton Rouge Metro Council member Denise Marcelle, is rescinding the key and “regrets” even awarding R. Kelly with it in the first place. Though there had allegations against the singer when he was given the key, Marcelle told TMZ she didn’t do much research about the case and only knew he had been acquitted in 2008.
The Baton Rouge “key to the city” is actually a $250 plaque. Per TMZ’s report, the plaque won’t be physically taken from the singer’s possession, but all of its honor will be stripped. Of course, it’s not likely that R. Kelly will even be able to travel to Baton Rouge any time soon, seeing as he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years and could even be sentenced to life in prison.
Apple is having a very good month—and we’re not even talking about the release of the Apple iPhone 13. Less than two weeks after winning seven Emmy Awards for Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso, Apple Studios emerged the victor in an all-out bidding war for Jon Watts’ highly coveted, though still-yet-unnamed, new thriller that’s set to star George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apple Studios went head-to-head with some of Hollywood’s biggest players, including Sony, Netflix, and Lionsgate, to secure the rights to the film, which will see Clooney and Pitt playing two set-in-their-own-ways fixers who are assigned to the same job. The film will mark the first time the pair have appeared onscreen together since the Coen brothers’ 2008 film, Burn After Reading.
Watts first made a name for himself as the co-writer and director of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017); he has since gone on to direct Spider-Man: Far From Home (2018) and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is set for release on December 17, 2021. Watts will write, produce, and direct the film, with a producing assist from Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures and Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. While the film will surely become a big event for Apple TV+, Deadline reports that the deal also includes a “robust theatrical release.”
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the Clooney-Pitt-Watts trifecta is just the latest in a series of major names who’ve opted to sign on with the still-new Apple Studios. In recent months, the tech behemoth’s distribution arm has used its deep pockets to lure the likes of Martin Scorsese for his Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio; Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation, with Will Smith; and Spirited, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, featuring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, and Octavia Spencer.
“Haven’t heard the price tag, but I’m sure it falls in line with a lot of the recent deals for star packages,” Mike Fleming Jr. wrote for Deadline. “I have heard that between Clooney and Pitt, they left an eight-figure sum on the table to ensure the theatrical release component.” No release date has been scheduled.
Back when Venom came out in 2018, I didn’t think it was a good movie, but I made it clear how much I enjoyed the experience. To the point this lead to many discussions throughout that day reviews published about what my Rotten Tomatoes score should be. The argument was I clearly enjoyed myself, so why wouldn’t it be a positive review? This was actually a fair point. But I couldn’t get myself to actually recommend Venom to any other human beings, unless it was a midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show, “go with a bunch of friends and laugh” situation.
Also, re-reading my 2018 review, I forgot just how much plot there was in that movie. All I remember now is Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom (also played by Tom Hardy) arguing. But there’s a whole plot involving spaceships and experiments on humans and Eddie Brock as a kind of independent video blogger that is all nonsense. The key to that movie is Eddie and Venom arguing and acting like a loon. To the point it’s no secret that Tom Hardy and director Ruben Fleischer didn’t, let’s say, see eye to eye about pretty much everything to do with this movie. From the outside looking in it seems like Fleischer wanted the movie to have a plot, which, on the surface, makes sense. And Tom Hardy didn’t care about the plot and wanted to, instead, do unscripted scenes flailing around inside a lobster tank. (I remember interviewing Fleischer for this movie and him doing everything he could to contain his disdain for that particular scene.) So what we were seeing on screen was pure behind-the-scenes chaos. I still contend it wasn’t a “good movie,” but it was, no doubt about it, interesting. And there aren’t a lot of interesting big-budget movies these days, so maybe I underrated it. Also, it made a whole bunch of money.
This brings us to Venom: Let There Be Carnage. This will come as a surprise to no one, but Ruben Fleischer did not come back to direct and has been replaced by Andy Serkis. Serkis does two very smart things in this movie: one, he sides with Tom Hardy that this movie should just be insane and not at all care about such things as “plot.” (I say this is smart because if Serkis wants to make more of these movies, agreeing with Hardy seems to be a key to that.) And, two, he admits the aforementioned lobster scene is his “jumping-off point.”
So what we get in Venom: Let There Be Carnage is another display of chaos on screen, but a more controlled chaos. Or, if not controlled, let’s say more “endorsed” chaos. Hardy gets to run free in this movie and do pretty much anything he wants with the approval of his director. And I’m exaggerating a bit, there is sort of a plot, but it takes a backseat to Eddie and Venom bickering.
When this movie starts Eddie and his alien symbiote, Venom, are basically a married couple who argue all the time. Venom is mad because he wants to go out and eat people’s brains because that’s his favorite food. Eddie argues that would be bad, and besides, he’s bought Venom live chickens to eat instead. But Venom doesn’t want to eat the chickens because he’s become attached to them and looks at them now as pets. The arguing gets worse and worse and eventually results in Eddie and Venom coming to blows and breaking up. Which later results in Venom, sans Eddie, going to a rave party and, while wearing glow sticks, giving a speech to the crowd about how much he wishes Eddie were there. (It’s truly remarkable that none of what I just wrote is made up and is actually all in the movie.)
Meanwhile, Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) is on death row and wants Eddie to visit him for a final interview. Why Eddie? It doesn’t matter. The point is Eddie has to be there so that some symbiote blood gets into Cletus, which turns him into Carnage. Carnage then hunts for his girlfriend, a woman named Shriek (Naomie Harris) who has the power to make very loud noises when she screams. Why does she have this power? It is not explained and I am thankful for that. I just accept that she has this power. Anyway, at the end, they all fight! (Michelle Williams and Reid Scott are back, too, and offer some good comic relief. Basically, they sit back and look at Eddie and Venom and wonder what on Earth is going on with these two? But I would bet Williams was not on set for longer than a week.)
Look, I’m all in for these movies. Yes, this movie is so stupid! But that seems to be the point. And Serkis knows the heart of these movies is the relationship between Eddie and Venom. These two losers who, often, call each other losers. These Venom movies really should be a slog. Think back on Spider-Man 3 and how Venom was used in that movie. He was just “a monster.” And Sam Raimi has been pretty clear over the years that he never wanted to use Venom in the first place. But these movies have kind of cracked the Venom code by making it a love story between Eddie and Venom. Oh, and by making it as ridiculous as humanly possible. I’d watch ten more Venom movies.
“Every so often, an individual case of injustice captures the nation’s attention, and it opens our eyes to issues that are by no means unique to that individual, but that previously had remained hidden from the public,” the Texas senator said. “That’s what has happened with Britney Spears, one of the most iconic American pop stars of all time, who has been under a California conservatorship since 2008. The case has captured the attention of the world. I count myself emphatically in the free Britney camp.”
Jimmy Kimmel, Cruz’s longtime nemesis, thinks there’s something fishy about this.
“Since when is Ted Cruz in favor of women making their own decisions?” Kimmel wondered during Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! “He is so desperate to get one celebrity to like him. Forget it, Ted. Even Kirstie Alley thinks you’re a dick.” Also, as the Interceptpointed out, Cruz’s motivation to free Britney Spears is purely selfish:
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, used the pop star’s suffering as a grounds for his own fundraising, sending out texts that call Spears “a victim of toxic gov’t overreach & censorship.”
The last time these two interacted, Cruz was challenging “tough guy” Kimmel to a one-on-one basketball game. “Rematch, punk?” the senator tweeted. Kimmel’s response: “Oh Ted… you get so sad after you masturbate.”
You can watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue above.
Though Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham are both used to having their love life scrutinized, it was a happy ending for the latter that brought the pair back together recently. No, Taylor Swift didn’t tie the knot to her longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn (at least, not to our knowledge), but Lena is now happily married in what Vouge, who covered the event, called a “whirlwind romance.” Well, sometimes it be like that. After a lengthy courtship with Jack Antonoff, Dunham and the Bleachers frontman eventually split, and Dunham wasn’t publicly involved with anyone for a few years.
But that changed earlier this summer when Dunham confirmed she was dating Peruvian musician Luis Felber (who performs as Attawalpa), the pair debuted their relationship on a red carpet in August at a screening of Zola and decided to tie the knot earlier this week. Taylor, for her part, seems to support the relationship and was one of eight (!) bridesmaids in the ceremony. Though she’s clearly remained quite close with Jack Antonoff — he helped work on both her most recent records, folklore and evermore — she’s also kept a strong relationship with Lena. Now, that’s a great friend. Check out more photos of the wedding below courtesy of Vogue.
After a couple of weeks worth of speculation, the music world has finally received the anticipated collaboration between Skylar Grey, Eminem, Polo G, and Mozzy. “Last One Standing” is a victorious track that finds the four artists celebrating their ability to overcome life’s obstacles. It was teased for multiple weeks with some believing that it would be Eminem’s return to music and even a sign that he had a new album on the way. However, that’s not the case as the new song finds Grey in the driver seat with the three rappers providing support for her message. The track will also appear on the upcoming soundtrack for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a film that debuts in theaters on Friday, October 1.
Anticipation behind the track first began when Mozzy’s manager teased a collaboration with Eminem. Later on, in a pair of now-deleted tweets, Polo G informed his fans to stay tuned for something arriving on October 1. Skylar Grey tied it all together with a tease of her own on Twitter. “This month has been hellish,” she wrote. “But I see the light at the end… can’t wait for October 1st… mark your calendar.” Luckily for their fans, “Last One Standing” arrived a couple of days early.
This month has been hellish… but I see the light at the end… can’t wait for October 1st… mark your calendar. pic.twitter.com/gfH8AdzKvt
While “Last One Standing” marks Grey’s first collaboration with Mozzy and Polo G, the track appears on the lengthy list of songs she and Eminem have done together. It includes “Black Magic,” “C’mon Let Me Ride,” “Kill For You,” “Asshole,” “Leaving Heaven,” and more.
You can press play on “Last One Standing” in the video above.
The rollout for Coldplay’s ninth studio album, Music Of The Spheres, has made it clear that this is a decidedly pop sound for the British band. With Max Martin on board helming production, the early singles like the sparkling “Higher Power” and the ten-and-a-half-minute closer “Coloratura,” but when they teamed up with one of the biggest K-Pop groups on the planet (the universe?), it became clear that they’re really in the pop game for real.
Debuting the massive collab, fittingly called “My Universe” last week, the two massive groups have now joined forces to create an accompanying video for the collaboration as well. According to a press release, the video is “set in the distant galaxy of The Spheres where music is forbidden, but BTS, Coldplay and an alien supergroup called Supernova 7 unite via hologram to defy the ban.” The hologram aspect probably made things a lot easier on everyone when it comes to filming during COVID-19, especially because BTS are often all the way across the planet in their native Korea. Anyone who loves Gorillaz-style virtual bands will be into the imagery here, all of which was helmed by director Dave Meyers. Check out the clip above and stay tuned for Music Of The Spheres dropping on October 15.
In the age of cord-cutting and ad-free subscription services, the mass culture experience of sitting through television ads, those once-universal generational touchstones (WAZZAAA! Less filling! Where’s the beef?!), have mostly gone the way of the Zune player. For me and probably many of us, it’s only during football season that the inescapable, unfast-forwardable television commercial resurfaces as a cultural phenomenon. It is kind of nice when so many demographics can come together and be annoyed by the same things.
Thus, it’s partly with a sense of nostalgia that I write that the “fancy like Applebee’s ad” absolutely has to go. I mean just look at this thing:
This must be the worst television commercial produced in a generation. It’s probably the worst ad since the Geico mandolin guys. Almost everything about it seems designed to make me grind my teeth into dust, and I hope I’m not alone when I say that everyone who made it should be in prison.
The 30-second spot consists of a series of real “heartland America” types — nurses! newlyweds! wakeboarders …an old man fashioning a kayak out of a log! — dancing to a song in which a blandly handsome white man rap-sings the Applebee’s menu. The lyrics go something like this:
Yeah, we fancy like Applebee’s… on a date night Got that Bourbon Street steak with the Oreo shake Get some whipped cream… on the top too Two straws, one check, girl, I got you Bougie like Natty… in the styrofoam Squeak-squeakin’ in the truck bed all the way home Some Alabama-jamma, she my Dixieland delight Ayy, that’s how we do, how we do, fancy like, oh
Those lyrics were an especially easy pull, because believe it or not, this song actually once existed independent of the Applebee’s ad. Written and performed by stereotypical country man Walker Hayes, “Fancy Like” spent eight weeks (and counting) at number one on the Billboard Country Music charts. It racked up 50 million plays on Spotify, and that was all before Applebee’s decided to turn it into an annoyingly ubiquitous ad. You read that correctly: this motherfucker wrote an ode to Oreo shakes on spec!
And then there’s the ad itself, which consists of a food montage intercut with a series of people dancing to the Applebee’s song. If I had to choose a worst moment, I’d probably go with the triptych boomerang of the cowboy man butt shaking to the infectious Applebee’s music:
Applebee
It’s honestly difficult to put my finger on what it is that’s so infuriating about being danced at by a man in a cowboy hat, I just know that I hate it. Am I being detained?? Please stop dancing at me! I should probably discuss this with a therapist.
The song also has first verse that you don’t hear in the commercial, which is arguably even more puke inducing:
Ayy My girl is bangin’ She’s so low maintenance Don’t need no champagne poppin’ entertainment Take her to Wendy’s Can’t keep her off me She wanna dip me like them fries in her Frosty
She wanna “dip” you? Like… fries into ice cream? I’m not being deliberately obtuse here but I don’t even get it. “Dipping” sounds courtly, yet fries dunked in a milkshake is undeniably sexual imagery (are the fries your wiener? what body part does the dairy product represent?). PG porn is always the grossest porn. Of course, in terms of things that make this song and commercial so insufferable, that line wouldn’t even make the top 10.
Once upon a time, our corniest hip hop acts would name drop luxury brands in songs, presumably in the hopes of freebies or sponsorship deals. The Black Eyed Peas come to mind. I think Will.i.am is a professional techno futurist now so it seems to have worked out for him. This phenomenon has apparently come to country; only now it’s not Bentleys and Gucci they’re name dropping, it’s Oreo shakes and Frosties. It’s one thing to sell out for a $200,000 car, it’s another to do it for a fast casual milkshake.
And yet, a guy writing an ode to the Applebee’s menu on spec and immediately being rewarded with an Applebee’s ad deal is basically the beau ideal of a modern country song. The song is like a layer cake of corniness, which is perfect, because, I would argue, the only real defining characteristic of modern country is being corny. Hayes’ collaborator, a professional hitmaker named Shane McAnally, essentially admits as much.
“Those first two lines of the chorus — the perfection of ‘steak’ and ‘shake’ rhyming — it literally gave me chills,” McAnally says with a laugh. “Because I know how hard it is to make something sound dumb.”
There you have it: sounding dumb is a feature, not a bug.
Musically, there’s nothing even really “country” about this song. No fiddles or lap steel guitars, no shuffling beat or harmonies, etc. It’s basically a hip hop song with an 808 beat and scatty, rap-like rhymes, performed in a hybrid blaccent and redneck drawl, both delivered with equal fraudulence. (Is it redundant to point out that a guy singing about Applebee’s probably grew up in the suburbs? According to this profile his father owned a real estate business). And yet “Fancy Like” is undeniably a country song, based solely on the sentiment being expressed. A sentiment which goes, roughly, “don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine.”
But, of course, only in a very personal way. As Walker Hayes, tells it, Applebee’s had a very special place in his childhood memories, as the “splurge” restaurant.
“My dad could get fajitas, but none of us kids could,” Hayes told the LA Times earlier this month. “We had to get, like, a quesadilla. So if you saw a couple of Bourbon Street Steaks sizzle by, you were like, ‘Ooh, what’s that table celebrating tonight?’”
Aw yeah. Remember that? Quesadillas at the Applebee’s? Those were the days, huh? Hoo boy, that was a good one. Who else has some stories?
Country has long been a genre that prized paeans to half-remembered mass media myths — wide open spaces and lonesome cowboys and all of that. I don’t know if it’s infuriating or just sad that we so effectively killed the small town in America that country musicians are now writing love songs to the chain restaurants that replaced them. Great work, man, now do a song about the freeway system! Whom among us doesn’t remember that old saying, “it’s as American as a Skittles strawberry blast extreme apple pie sundae, new from DQ!”
DANCE ALONG, CHILDREN, AS WE SING THE HYMN OF OUR HOMOGENIZATION!
This commercial is delivered like a party anthem when everything about it is sad as hell. It makes me feel depressed, queasy, and old, in a way that has nothing to do with Applebee’s food. I grew up in the country eating at mediocre chain restaurants (to be fair, “Applebee’s” certainly has better rhyming potential than “Golden Corral”), I promise I’m not above it. In fact, Applebee’s, I will make you a deal. I will eat at your restaurants every day for a month if you stop playing this commercial forever. Please?
Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
Denzel Washington is more than simply one of America’s most beloved actors. He’s also a sometime director. Every now and then he uses his clout to get a personal project made. Think Antwone Fisher, The Great Debaters, and Fences, the latter which brought the legendary playwright August Wilson to the big screen. He has one other directing credit, though: a 2016 episode of Grey’s Anatomy. And at one point star Ellen Pompeo and he did not get along.
On the latest episode of her podcast Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo, the longtime Meredith Grey remembered a time when she went off-script, ad-libbing a line during an emotional scene she shared with Patrick Dempsey.
“I was like, ‘Look at me when you apologize. Look at me,’” Pompeo recalled yelling. But her director didn’t like that she improvised. And her director was Denzel Washington. “And Denzel went ham on my ass. He was like, ‘I’m the director. Don’t you tell him what to do.’”
But Pompeo responded in kind. “I was like, ‘Listen, motherf*cker, this is my show,’” she recalled. “This is my set. Who are you telling?”
Pompeo clarified that it was a one-time spat and that she has the “utmost respect for him as an actor and director.” Besides, it happens. “So, we didn’t get through it without a fight, but that’s actors for you,” Pompeo added. “Passionate and fiery and that’s where you get the magic, and that’s where you get the good stuff. So, it was an amazing experience, it really was.”
In other news, Denzel Washington has directed a single episode of television, and it was for Grey’s Anatomy. How about that.
Megan Thee Stallion has given the world a few guest verses in recent months, and the latest finds the Houston native joining up with Spanish singer Maluma and Rock Mafia for the vibrant track “Crazy Family.” The song will appear in the upcoming film The Addams Family 2, which arrives in theaters on October 1 and features Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Kroll, Javon Walton, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, and more.
“Crazy Family” comes after Megan joined Lil Nas X for “Dolla Sign Slime,” which the latter said he hoped would also include an appearance from Drake. Prior to that, Megan went international with BTS thanks to a remix of the band’s hit song “Butter.” She has also shined on the solo side of things with songs like “Thot Sh*t” and freestyles that include “Out Of Town” and “Tuned In.”
As for what’s next, fans can catch Megan at Post Malone‘s curated festival, Posty Fest, during the weekend of October 30-31. She will also join Dua Lipa for a trio of shows during the singer’s Future Nostalgia Tour in 2022.
You can listen to “Crazy Family” in the video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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, new from DQ!”