Month: October 2021

The season one finale of Marvel’s What If… is almost here and with it just one final question: what if the Watcher broke his oath of never interfering with the universe? According to director Bryan Andrews and head writer AC Bradley, the answer to that burning question and oh-so many more await in the first season’s ninth and final episode.

In a recent interview with EW, Andrews and Bradley divulged some pretty exciting information regarding their plans for the show as they wrap up season one and venture onward to season two. First and foremost, Bradley confirmed that all the fans who have been hoping for a chance to catch their favorite What If… characters back in action one last time are in luck.

“We will pop into and re-meet some of our heroes from the previous episodes, including the lovely Captain Carter [Hayley Atwell], Strange Supreme, Party Thor [Chris Hemsworth], and even Killmonger [Michael B. Jordan],” Bradley reveals. “Early on in the first season, like day one talking about it, there was this notion of we’re creating all these great heroes, but we only get to sit with them for 20 or 30 minutes. Wouldn’t it be great to see them again in the finale? And then once that decision was made, it liberated me to make the endings a little bit darker and bigger, knowing that we can give some sort of resolution in the finale.”

Andrews then expanded upon what kind of resolution we can expect following episode after episode of cliffhangers and unanswered questions, stating that in the episode it “feels like all the stuff that’s been percolating across the episodes, the adventure that we bring you into for the ending, ends, to a certain degree.” However, he then confirmed that despite the show reaching a climactic and star-studded “end,” all of season two’s episodes have already been written, and actually pull from a lot of what’s to come in Marvel’s ongoing phase four.

“Hopefully, we’ll see hints of Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Black Widow characters. The fun of What If…? is that we get to explore the entire infinite multiverse, so we try and bounce around as much as we can. I want to play with all these characters, and as much as I love Captain Carter, we’ve got to share the love. I’m very excited to show new worlds, new heroes.”

Lastly, Bradley said that while season one contained multiple “big, let’s end the world, let’s kill everyone” arcs, What If…‘s second season will “focus a lot more on the character stories and these heroes and showing a different side of them that people don’t expect and hopefully they can relate to,” meaning we’re hopefully in store for a lot of death and despair later on down the road. The season finale of What If… hits Disney+ Wednesday, October 6, but never fear Marvel fans, fresh MCU content won’t be away from the streaming service for too terribly long. The Hawkeye television series starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, and Florence Pugh hits the platform later this year on November 24.

The Closer (Netflix comedy special) — Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy run with Netflix has been a lucrative one for both parties. This combined body of work includes The Age of Spin, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Equanimity, The Bird Revelation, and Sticks & Stones, and the supposed final chapter is called The Closer. There’s no telling whether Chappelle and Netflix’s common goodwill (after CEO Ted Sarandos helped him receive The Chappelle Show license back, along with millions of dollars) will result in a re-upping of a deal beyond this sixth stand-up special, but for now, the The Closer (with returning, Emmy-award winning director Stan Lathan) is closing things out.

Escape The Undertaker (Netflix interactive special) — Following Bandersnatch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend, and You Vs. Wild: Out Cold, this new interactive special features WWE Superstars aplenty. Uhhh, The Undertaker’s living in an extreme haunted house and The New Day tag team is simply trying to survive his wrath. I’m not gonna lie, this is awfully confusing stuff, but our next selection is not any less baffling.

La Brea (NBC, 9:00pm) — Natalie Zea stars in this series about an LA sinkhole that sucks an unfortunate group into some primeval hellhole, where pterodactyls and bad CGI reside. It’s preposterous and not objectively good but might attract Manifest fans, and the sabertooth tiger cliffhanger dangles some promise. This week, Eve’s fighting to save Josh’s life while Gavin and Izzy attempt to launch a rescue mission.

Stargirl (CW, 8:00pm) — Pat’s reliving some upsetting memories regarding his time with the O.G. JSA due to Eclipso being on the scene and coming for the fam.

Supergirl (CW, 9:00pm) — Lena’s hesitant to resort to magic to help uncover a totem in order to help Supergirl’s case. Meanwhile, William’s struggling in writing mode.

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Queen Latifah, Kaitlyn Dever, Chris Stapleton

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Alessandro Nivola, Anthony Doerr, Barrett Martin

In case you missed these streaming picks from last Tuesday:

Britney Vs Spears (Netflix film) — Every streaming service is in on the Britney game these days, and Netflix is taking a stab at what really happened during the long, sordid history of the infamous conservatorship. Not only will this documentary paint a tragic portrait of a young woman who became trapped in her fame and family, but there’s also a shocking timeline to be unraveled here while, in real life, the pop singer moves toward (hopeful) autonomy.

Attack of the Hollywood Clichés! (Netflix special) — Rob Lowe brings his handsome to dig into the history and evolution of the most notorious clichés in Hollywood. Expect a plethora of guests to stop by, including Florence Pugh, along with screeners and critics and academics, all of whom deliver their takes on “meet-cutes” and “ladies running in stilettos.” Yes, there’s a “Wilhelm Scream” section, too.

While I like think of myself as an experienced home cook and a proud food lover, at this point, this site has assigned me, variously, to eat 25 different tacos, sample and judge each brand of store-bought marinara, and, worst of all, taste and critique every brand of store-bought alfredo sauce, among other things. Over the years I’ve come to begrudgingly accept the mantle of food stunt guy. So when Uproxx Life editor Steve Bramucci hit me up to ask if I would be willing to taste and rank every flavor of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, the idea of not saying “yes” barely even occurred to me.

Such things had become my burden, my sacred duty. And anyway, “eat lots of cheesecake” sounds like a plum assignment compared to “eat lots of alfredo sauce.”

At the time, I didn’t fully realize that “every cheesecake flavor” on the Cheesecake Factory’s famously expansive menu would encompass more than 30 distinct varieties of cheesecake. I knew from the experience of trying to eat 25 or so tacos that the veteran move is to eat no more than one bite of each sample. Even so, 30+ bites of cheesecake still adds up to a lot of cheesecake. Maybe that doesn’t sound like as much as it is, but trust me — it’s a lot.

I brought my wife along for the trip — nine months pregnant and due any day — both because having another person to share cheesecake with would mean wasting less cheesecake, and because feeding her all the cheesecakes she wanted seemed like one of the few things I could do to try to make an uncomfortably pregnant lady carrying my massive-headed son less unhappy (at the time, his head was measuring in the 98th percentile of fetus skulls).

Reader, would it make you respect my dedication to know that this woman, eating for herself and the eight-and-a-half-pound fetus she would expel a mere three days later, only made it to 19 cheesecakes, while I soldiered on to finish all 35? Thank you, thank you. No need for applause.

There were indeed times when I considered throwing in the towel, times when I question whether or not it was all worth it, much like Jesus in his moment of doubt and pain on the cross. For the first 10 cheesecakes, I mostly thought “Oh boy, this is great! What a fun job I have!”

Edging into the late teens, I started to feel delirious and giddy, like a late-night brainstorming session when everything suddenly becomes funny. Shortly after that, I crashed and each bite became a chore. It was around cheesecake 25 or 26 when this photo was taken.

The agony, the regret…

But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. I should set the scene. Arranged through a publicist and, I presume, Cheesecake Corporate, we arrived to a predetermined cake-tasting appointment at my local Cheesecake Factory restaurant, in Fresno, California. The very nice (and maybe slightly confused?) general manager found us a spot in the corner with a table large enough to accommodate 35 separate small plates of cheesecake.

This turned out not to be all that difficult. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been inside a restaurant as truly cavernous as the Fresno Cheesecake Factory. Which, it should be noted, is merely average-sized, relative to other Cheesecake Factories. It raised so many questions. Or maybe just one question: how does a restaurant so big, with such a variety of different things, turn a profit? Without getting into the numbers, it feels like an insult to God.

I’m actually old enough to remember when the Cheesecake Factory was the “cool new thing” among chain restaurants. Or maybe it only seemed so for dopey suburbanite college kids in San Diego. Even then I remember being intimidated, perhaps even confused and scared, by the tome of a menu. What was this, I wondered, the Kirkland Signature of food? With a dining room styled as if they’re expecting a Disney princess? It was a little uncanny and still is. All these years later, I’ll feel honored if my suffering can help just one stoned college kid sweat less on a first date by demystifying the Cheesecake Factory menu.

Jokes aside, the most heartening thing about the experience was the employees coming over to check on us throughout the process. Kitchen staff, pleased with their handiwork, would stay for a few minutes, discussing the offerings. “Did you try the Dulce De Leche yet? Ooh yeah, that one is my favorite too,” and so forth. I remember feeling the same way when I worked at Starbucks. Sure, it was broadly soulless and corporate. Sure, sometimes people would complain about me not smiling enough. Sure, there were lots of weird customers, like the lady who would order a quad decaf iced latte with 14 pumps of sugar-free vanilla while absent-mindedly chewing on her baby’s fingernails. BUT if you ordered a dry nonfat cappuccino or whatever, I still did my damnedest to ensure that it was the best goddamned dry nonfat cap you ever tasted and took a weird sort of pride in it.

A NOTE ON THE RESULTS:

Maybe more so than anything else I’ve tasted, these rankings came down mostly to “what you like.” None of these were bad, some were just not for me. I’m not a huge chocolate person. Predictably, the chocolate offerings mostly make up the bottom chunk of the rankings. There were the occasional outliers, like the pumpkin flavors, which I generally liked more than I thought I would, or a few cinnamon and salted caramel options, which I liked less than I thought I would. But for the most part, cheesecakes landed where I thought they would, based on personal preference. If it sounds like something *you* would like, you probably will, regardless of what I think. I remember when a Danish filmmaker I was interning for brought in some chocolate-covered cherries one day, forcing us to try them because they were so much better then our trash processed American desserts and all that. I tried and you know what? They were goddamned awful. Borderline inedible. Because for me, chocolate and cherries is a revolting combination (chocolate and strawberries, on the other hand…).

Desserts are weirdly polarizing, is what I’m saying.

THE RANKING:

35. Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake

This is a beautiful, elegant cheesecake for someone who really, really likes chocolate, and that is just not me.

Original notes: “Soooooo much chocolate. Too much chocolate for me.”

34. 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cake

I tasted this one in the late twenties and wrote, simply, “Toooo dennnnnnssssee.”

33. Chocolate Truffle Tower

This one is also chocolate on chocolate on chocolate, but distinguishes itself by being extra tall.

Original notes: “I don’t like chocolate enough for these. ”

32. Very Cherry Ghirardelli Chocolate Cheesecake

Remember what I wrote about chocolate and cherries? That holds true here.

Original notes: “Tastes like chocolate cherries. Not my favorite combo.”

31. Oreo Dream Extreme

Oreos and ice cream is one my favorite combinations, one of those weird desserts that elevates both ingredients to something that’s so much more than the sum of its parts. The cheesecake version, unfortunately, is full of fudge and mousse and chocolate stuff.

Original notes: “Too fudgey, too moussey. Lots o’ chocolate.”

30. Caramel Pecan Turtle

This was probably the greatest disappointment of the bunch, considering caramel and pecan are on the shortlist of my favorite dessert things. But wouldn’t you know it, they just had to throw some fudge in there. I’m gonna say it: I don’t understand fudge. Not like the liquid chocolate kind you get on a sundae, but the cubes of hard frosting kind that comes wrapped in plastic wrap. What is even the point? It combines two of my least favorite dessert things, chocolate and frosting.

Original notes: “Super rich fudge layer on the bottom. Too much for me right now.”

29. Chocolate Tuxedo Cream

Too much chocolate again, but a great name for a penguin.

Original notes: “Please no more chocolate.”

28. Chocolate Mousse

Should I just skip over all the chocolate ones? There are a lot.

Original Notes: “Chocolatey as advertised. Too much choc for me but I’m not a choc guy. Less dense than expected though.”

(NOTE: You can tell I tasted this one very early in the tasting and the last one very late).

27. Hershey’s Chocolate Bar

Original notes: “Less chocolatey than it looks, still seemed too rich. ”

26. Vanilla Bean

I expected to like this one more. You’d think vanilla + cheesecake would be a winner, but apparently not. Maybe there’s such a thing as too much vanilla?

Original notes: “Nice crust, too vanilla-y.”

25. Cinnabon Cinnamon Swirl Cheesecake

Huge surprise here as cinnamon rolls are one of my favorite desserts, right up there with pecan pie and bread pudding. Sadly, this one seems designed more for people whose favorite part of cinnamon rolls is the frosting, which I don’t even like on my cinnamon rolls.

Original notes: “Lots going on here. VERY sweet. I love cinnamon rolls, but this is maybe too frosting heavy.”

24. Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake

The addition of peanut butter improves chocolate immensely.

Original notes: “SUPER peanut buttery. Def tastes like Reese’s.”

23. Fresh Banana Cream

Bananas are polarizing in desserts, but I’m actually a big fan. Banana cream pie? Absolutely. Banoffee pie? Yes, indeed. Bananas foster? Sign me the fuck up. This I think went too heavy on the cream part of banana cream.

Original notes: “I like bananas but not this. Too creamy? Too sweet?”

22. Caramel Apple Cheesecake

There are these little crunch balls in this one, making it one of the cooler-looking cheesecakes. Those little crunch balls rule, they should be in every cheesecake. Too much apple though.

Original notes: “Weird crunchy balls on top. Balls are good, cake has too much apple pie filling in there.”

21. Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple

This one *sounds* like it has a bunch of heavy stuff I don’t like, but in practice, it tasted more like a Butterfingers. I don’t know who the hell Adam is, but I forgive it.

Original notes: “V rich, smells like butterfingers. Better than I imagined.”

20. Chocolate Caramelicious Cheesecake Made With Snickers

This one has arguably the most elaborate name of any of these cheesecakes, and characteristically, maybe a few too many flavors.

Original notes: “Tastes like those snickers ice cream bars in cake form. Good, but a lot.”

19. Salted Caramel Cheesecake

I love salted caramel and expected to love this. Except that it seems to have a crust made of chocolate chip cookie dough. I like salted caramel and I like chocolate chip cookies, but together they’re a bit much.

Original notes: “Cookie on the bottom? A little dense/rich for me.”

18. Toasted Marshmallow S’Mores Galore

With a torched, melted marshmallow layer, this was the coolest-looking cheesecake by far. But again, too much chocolate. Which is a shame, because the graham/marshmallow/cheesecake combo was a winner.

Original notes: “Coolest looking by far. Dig the graham, but drowned out by chocolate.”

17. Mango Key Lime

A nice, simple-looking cheesecake, with a straightforward flavor in theory, but mango plus lime plus coconut shreds is maybe too many things.

Original notes: “Tastes like lemon meringue, but mango. A bit heavy on the mango, plus coconut shreds kind of stick in your teeth.”

16. Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Pineapple upside-down cake is one of my all-time favorite desserts. No frosting and fried in butter is probably the best thing you can do to a cake.

Original notes: “Good, maybe too much pineapple. I love pineapple upside-down cake, but mostly for the sugar/butter crust, where this is more about the pineapples.”

15. Coconut Cream

Original notes: “Is there chocolate in this too? Fuck. Tastes like those coconut popsicles with a hint of mounds bar.”

14. Pumpkin Pecan

There was SO much going on in this one (a pecan pie layer inside a pumpkin cheesecake?!) that I really didn’t think I was going to like it — but I actually did.

Original notes: “This one looks… daunting. I didn’t think I was going to like it, but… I really do. It’s like pumpkin pie with better texture. Extremely rich.”

13. Limoncello Cake Cheesecake

Original notes: “Like a lemon bar. Good cake.”

12. Lemon Raspberry Cream

Basically every cheesecake from here on down I wholeheartedly endorse. The filling in this one was delicious, but it had more of a cake crust where I would’ve preferred a crunchy, more graham-crackery one.

Original notes: “Spongey crust. Lemon cake crust? Tasty, if slightly fruity for me.”

11. The Original

Original notes: “Classic ass cheesecake. Not as light as some of them, but rich and good.”

10. Low-Licious Cheesecake With Fresh Strawberries

This was the low-carb option, which is sort of a weird ask in a cheesecake. But it was simple and light and good.

Original notes: “Nice and light, just what I want after 21 cheesecakes.”

9. Pumpkin

Am I becoming a “pumpkin spice” guy? Probably not, but pumpkin and cheesecake was a much more successful combination than I’d imagined.

Original notes: “Very light and airy. Thank god. Pretty good actually.”

8. Celebration

Original notes: “Looks exactly like the fake food from Hook. Like four birthday cakes at the same time. Tastes like good cake. Not a cake guy but this is solid.”

7. Ultimate Red Velvet

I like to bash red velvet as being mostly a name that’s fun to say and a food brand that seems to have an especially good publicist, but I couldn’t deny the tastiness here. I still think the cream cheese frosting does most of the heavy lifting on anything red velvet and the actual red velvet part is mostly replaceable, but I can’t deny the general quality.

Original notes: “Love that cream cheese frosting. V good.”

6. White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle

I don’t know that I would’ve ever ordered this one based on the name but it was good as hell.

Original notes: “V creamy, I like this one.”

5. Fresh Strawberry

Original notes: “Good old fashioned cheesecake. I like the simple ones. ”

4. Tiramisu

This one was so good that even tasting it well into the late twenties it was still hard not to go back for seconds.

Original notes: “Really good. I’m dying but that’s delicious.”

3. Key Lime

I don’t remember the last time I had a key lime pie, but based on how good this was, I’m going to order it next time I see it.

Original notes: “Cousin to the lemon meringue. Excellent.”

2. Lemon Meringue Cheesecake

I love lemon meringue pie. I love cheesecake. Lemon meringue cheesecake tastes just like lemon meringue pie in cheesecake form. I love lemon meringue cheesecake.

Original notes: “A+. Tastes like what it says.”

1. Dulce De Leche Caramel Cheesecake

Much like lemon meringue, this cheesecake tastes like what it is, and what it is happens to be a thing I love. I tasted this in the first round and ate three bites before I remembered I needed to pace myself.

Original notes: “Nice texture, caramel-y. Yum. Candied almonds… A++”

THE EPILOGUE:

I made it. As far as I know, I still don’t have diabetes and haven’t suffered any debilitating health effects, though I did get pretty tired an hour or so after I ate all these cheesecakes. My wife also gave birth to a healthy boy four days after eating 19 cheesecakes. Neither of us have yet sworn off cheesecakes.

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Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Freedom is a lie in video games. Maybe in real life, too, but especially in the virtual worlds we create. Even games with the most open of worlds have rails and limits and restrictions. And a lot of repetition.

It’s by design, of course. A game needs to have limits because otherwise it would be impossible to finish making. It’s not something many think about while they play, but reusing locations and designs often makes things easier for the people actually creating the game. More than that, though, we’ve grown used to the mechanics of games without ever really wondering whether they make any sense. We take for granted the idea that characters simply respawn after they die, that certain things go back in place after a while and ammo and heath packs sit scattered about.

The makers of Deathloop know all of that. But what makes the game so excellent is that Deathloop is designed to make all of those rules and assumptions have meaning. The Bethesda game has gotten rave reviews in the early weeks since its release for the quality of gameplay, impressive style, and sense of humor. It has all of those, for sure, but while playing it, I was struck by two things. The first is very inside baseball: I’m surprised a game that’s seen delays and teased everything but its most crucial element — invading other players’ timelines as Julianna — actually came to market so polished and working so seamlessly. In the age of Cyberpunk 2077-like fiascos amid a plague year, a game launching Day One as good as Deathloop still feels like a small miracle.

The other observation is more important. What makes the game so thoroughly satisfying is that it understands exactly where the limits of game mechanics live and creates explicit purpose for those rules and regulations. It does so with a wink and a nod that makes you more than willing to play along anyway. Maybe it’s coincidence that “FREEDOM IS A TRAP” is spray painted on various walls around Blackreef, the four-region island you zip through at different times of the day, unraveling its mysteries and killing its most powerful inhabitants. But Deathloop puts you in a circle you’re doomed to repeat unless you play well enough to escape. The fun, somehow, is in all that repetition.

The lore of Deathloop, while interesting, is far less important than the goal: Gather information about your targets, complete tasks to discover new ways to kill them, and build up your own abilities and arsenal to dispatch of them however you see fit. The variety of ways to carry out these assassinations runs the gauntlet of open world play styles. You can creep around and gain abilities that make you largely invisible or, at the very least, quiet enough to get in and out without a trace. Or you can tank up, go in guns blazing, and mow through waves of Eternalists wondering how you’re still alive in the first place. Or you can just let the ballistic turrets do most of the work for you.

Stylistically, the game’s look and feel is crisp and clever. Colt, the main character, is funny. Julianna is, too. The facts you learn about the other Visionaries help flesh out people your sole purpose is to wipe off a looping timeline. Even Julianna’s “invading” of your timeline felt right. Interrupting your game as you try to carry out important tasks is annoying, but that’s the point. And the rewards for taking her down feel worth the effort, even if you might not have enough juice left in the day to do much more than collect her slab upgrades and try again next loop.

That play variety is boilerplate across similar games at this point, but what makes Deathloop feel special is how it values your time. There is surprisingly little fetch questing and backtracking, and puzzles are largely left unexplained. Curiosity is rewarded, but not entirely necessary to succeed. Though death is far from permanent, the stakes always feel real despite Colt’s own regeneration abilities giving you considerable leeway as you attempt to complete tasks around Blackreef.

During one loop in Updam, I tried to solve a puzzle that ended up being, well, way too hard to tackle just then. Frantically, I tried my best to hang in as wave after wave of Eternalist tried to gun me down, sprinting and sliding and shifting around the map to relative safety. It was legitimately thrilling, and I realized that the more I played the better I got at surviving those situations and remembering where health recovery options were on the map.

I also got better at knowing when to cut my losses and escape through the tunnels, especially if I had abilities or ability-modifying trinkets I needed to protect by “infusing” them before I was killed or the day ended and I “looped” again. That inevitably meant return trips and repeating attempts to complete tasks, but it never quite got old. Those return trips, whether at a different time of day or simply with new abilities and plot points, give you new perspective on areas you may have snuck past or gunned your way through, ignorant of their secrets. There’s a lot of repeated kills and goals in Deathloop, but each variation on your skills and play style makes them all new. And the experimentation of it all is far closer to fun than it is something to simply endure.

There’s a beauty, I think, in making people forget that they’re essentially wasting time. Our lives are not infinite, and what we do with that time has meaning whether we choose to accept it or not. That a game like Deathloop can so effortlessly meditate on mortality and how we spend that time while still being incredibly fun to play is an achievement you rarely see in video games, let alone executed this well. Deathloop is the kind of game you don’t want to spoil but is relatively easy to explain: it’s kind of a mystery shooter version of Groundhog Day. The point in both is to break the cycle, sure, but the best lesson to learn is that the time you spend stuck doing the same things again and again can still be incredibly valuable.

Joe Rogan recently shared a video on Instagram where he seemed to compare vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. “As soon as you give politicians power, any kind of power that didn’t exist previously, if they can figure out a way to force you into carrying something that lets you enter businesses or lets you do this or lets businesses open, historically, they are not gonna give that power up,” the popular podcast host said over footage of Nazi Germany (and Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “I’ll be back” from The Terminator, for some reason). The video has been viewed over five million times, but an actual Holocaust survivor wants Rogan to take it down.

“Mr. Joe Rogan… I am an 86-year-old survivor of the Holocaust and I saw your video on American freedom and the COVID vaccine,” Gidon Lev said on TikTok. “It included images of the Holocaust and of Adolf Hitler, the monster who murdered my father, 26 members of my family, and 6 million Jews and others in gas chambers, in ditches, in firing squads, and even in gas trucks.” Lev criticized Rogan for “absolutely not promoting freedom, but promoting hate, antisemitism, and possibly even more violence and constant hate. You should apologize to us all, remove the video immediately. It is disgusting and thoughtless and careless and I am shocked by your lack of sensitivity.”

Lev and his wife, Julie, run the True Adventures of Gidon Lev website (its slogan: “Rascal. Holocaust Survivor. Optimist”). There’s a FAQ section that ends with, “No, Gidon does not support comparing getting vaccinated or requirements to wear a mask to the Holocaust.” You can watch his TikTok videos below.

(Via Insider)

Elton John’s been pop icon for literal decades, yet he shows few signs of slowing down, even as age is starting to catch up with him. In fact, he’s experienced something of a career resurgence, expanding into the world of hip-hop via collaborations with Lil Nas X and Young Thug. In a new interview with Billboard, Elton praised the latter, revealing the career advice he gave to Thug (despite having “no understanding of how rap records are put together”), and explaining why he was so blown away by Thugger’s recording process, even going as far as comparing it favorably to Eminem’s, another rapper with whom Elton maintains a friendship.

Recalling meeting Thug after the Atlanta rapper sampled his hit “Rocket Man” on the 2018 single “High,” Elton said, “He wanted to meet me…and we shot the breeze for 40 minutes. He said, “What do you think? What advice would you give me?’ I said, ‘Did you sing in the choir?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, of course I sang in the choir. Gospel choir.’ I said, ‘Sing more. Don’t just rap, sing more, because the mixture of rap and musicianship and melody is what really makes rap take off.’ And he’s doing that now.”

Of watching Thug record his song “Always Love You” by essentially freestyling it, Elton remembers being “just blown away. I mean, I’ve seen Marshall [Mathers] do it in Detroit, but I’ve never seen someone like Thug come in and do that. In the end, I had to leave because I think he felt a bit intimidated that I was there and I just wanted him to relax. But it’s just an amazing moment in my musical life… I have no understanding of how rap records are put together and it’s fascinating to watch.”

Read Elton John’s full interview here. Elton’s duet album Lockdown Sessions, which will feature Thug, as well as 6lack, Lil Nas X, and Nicki Minaj, among others, is due 10/22 via EMI and Mercury.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Irish post-punk group Silverbacks has been on the rise as of late (enough so to get a co-sign from Uproxx’s Steven Hyden in a recent Indiecast episode). Now, they’ve signed to Full Time Hobby and announced a new album: Archive Material is set for release on January 21, 2022. Ahead of then, they’ve shared a video for the album’s rhythmic and immediately catchy title track.

The band’s Daniel O’Kelly says of the song:

“The initial demo version started from a drum sample taken from the opening of Jean-Pierre Massiera’s ‘Bonne Annee.’ When we fleshed it out as a full band and Gary gave the track his usual kick up the arse, the song went full Les Baxter exotica mode.

When writing the lyrics, I imagined a bunch of government officials in the deep underground of their building digging into archives. As the night continues, they get unusually aroused by the access they have to top secret information that the common folk never see.”

Listen to “Archive Material” above and find the Archive Material art and tracklist below, as well as Silverbacks’ upcoming tour dates.

1. “Archive Material”
2. “A Job Worth Something”
3. “Wear My Medals”
4. “They Were Never Our People”
5. “Rolodex City”
6. “Different Kind of Holiday”
7. “Carshade”
8. “Central Tones”
9. “Recycle Culture”
10. “Econymo”
11. “Nothing To Write Home About”
12. “I’m Wild”

10/21 — Limerick, IE @ Kasbah Social Club
10/22 — Dublin, IE @ The Grand Social
10/24 — UK, Birmingham, UK @ The Hare & Hounds
10/25 — UK, Glasgow, UK @ Hug & Pint
10/27 — UK, Brighton, UK @ The Hope & Ruin
10/28 — UK, London, UK @ The Victoria
10/29 — UK, Southampton, UK @ Heartbreakers
10/30 — UK, Bristol, UK @ The Crofters Rights
11/17 — Spilt Milk Festival, Sligo

Archive Material is out 01/21/2022 via Full Time Hobby. Pre-order it here.

After Sony Pictures pulled the trigger on developing a sequel to 2008’s Venom that would pit Tom Hardy’s symbiote against his classic Marvel Comics rival, Carnage, the visual effects team quickly got to work making sure that they delivered a version of the iconic villain that fans would recognize and love. In a new interview, VFX supervisor Sheena Duggal revealed that she went down a rabbit hole of Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter fan art to make sure the sequel got the look of Carnage just right.

“I wanted to see what they wanted from this character and what behavior and look was important to them,” Duggal told Variety. “We wanted fans to be very happy with this.”

However, thanks to its PG-13 rating, the movie couldn’t entirely adapt some of Carnage’s more gruesome moments, which resulted in one scene landing on the cutting room floor for using a bit too much tongue. Via Variety:

One sequence inspired from the comic books but deemed too gruesome for the audience was Carnage putting his tongue down someone’s throat as a way to kill them. “We had to tone that back a bit. He does it with a tentacle [in the comics], but I thought it would be fun to have him use his tongue to add that extra gruesome element.” In the end, the sequence was toned down considerably for the big screen.

Clearly, the VFX team nailed the look of the classic Marvel rivals as Venom: Let There Be Carnage delivered the biggest weekend opening since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Then again, who doesn’t want to see Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson battle it out as wild tentacle monsters for 90 minutes? Those tickets sell themselves, and the proof is in the alien goo pudding.

(Via Variety)

The Ben Simmons rumor mill continues to churn as the All-Star guard’s holdout led to him missing his first preseason game on Monday evening. Simmons is still waiting for the Sixers to acquiesce to his demand for a trade, while Philly is continuing to wait for a team to clear the exceedingly high bar it has set for a deal.

Some teams have been tossed around as potential destinations for Simmons, with one squad being mentioned on a few occasions being the Indiana Pacers. Earlier this year, it was reported Philly turned down a return of Malcolm Brogdon and a first for Simmons, while a recent report indicated Indiana is one of the teams that have kept in touch with the Sixers’ front office.

According to Ian Begley of SNY, part of the conversations between the two sides included Indiana mentioning Caris LeVert as a player who would head to the City of Brotherly Love.

League sources confirm that the Pacers are among the teams who have talked to the Philadelphia 76ers about a potential Simmons trade. Caris LeVert was among the players brought up in those communications, per SNY sources.

It is unknown if talks between Philadelphia and Indiana have progressed beyond run-of-the-mill contact.

Indiana is one of the more interesting landing spots for Simmons, as they’re the kind of team that is rarely ever to convince All-Star talent to join in free agency. Simmons, who is under contract for the next four years, would give them that sort of player on a long-term deal, even if the fit would be a bit cumbersome alongside Domantas Sabonis and, should he stick around, Myles Turner. LeVert might not be enough on his own to get Simmons to Indiana, but at the very least, his skillset as a 1-on-1 scorer whose ability to create for himself and others would be interesting alongside Joel Embiid.

LA-based electro-pop duo Magdalena Bay welcome viewers to get offline (well, sort of), and join them in the endlessly campy world they’ve built around their upcoming debut LP Mercurial World. Sharing a new, reality-breaking video to their latest single “Hysterical Us,” the duo composed of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin build a vibrant fantasy.

Magdalena Bay’s “Hysterical Us” asks the big questions over a buoyant beat and shimmering synths, masking its cerebral themes with glistening pop production. “‘Hysterical Us’ is about our anxieties, paranoias, and existential musings,” the band explained in a statement. Continuing to speak about their new single’s colorful video, Magdalena Bay said, “We loved being able to interpret all these heavy questions through the colorful world of MILAGROS Collective.”

Mercurial World, which is set to debut this Friday, was entirely written, produced, performed, mixed and mastered by the band. The LP follows their recent EP A Little Rhythm And A Wicked Feeling which, much to the band’s misfortune, was released the same day many cities across the US went into lockdown in March of 2020.

About the LP as a whole, Lewin says they were inspired by the isolated world they lived in after releasing their 2020 EP. “We spend all of our time together, and in some ways Mercurial World is about that particular sense of madness in containment. We live together and make art together; this immerses you in our creative, insular universe.”

Watch Magdalena Bay’s “Hysterical Us” video above.

Mercurial World is out 10/8 via Luminelle Recordings. Pre-order it here.