Month: December 2021

WARNING: Spoilers for the series premiere of And Just Like That… below.

Following last week’s And Just Like That… fiasco, which involved beloved Sex and the City character Mr. Big (Chris Noth) dying of a heart attack after working out on his Peloton, the exercise company kicked into overdrive after its stock price took an immediate dip after the series premiere. Much to the internet’s amusement, Peloton was reportedly not aware that its bike would be at the center of a major character’s death, and the company scrambled to release a statement claiming that Mr. Big’s lifestyle was the cause of death and, in fact, using a Peloton probably extended his life.

However, Peloton didn’t stop there. The company rapidly busted out a new ad featuring Noth that proclaimed “He’s Alive” while a familiar-sounding narrator promoted the health benefits of using a Peloton. Turns out that narrator is none other than Ryan Reynolds who helped produce the ad in an insanely short amount of time. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Peloton produced the spot with Reynolds’ marketing company, Maximum Effort, in just 48 hours. Peloton is part of the recently launched Creative-as-a-Subscription (CaaS) service from Maximum Effort’s parent company, MNTN, which helped speed up the ad’s production process.

The ad also features Peloton trainer Allegra (Jess King) who appeared with Mr. Big on And Just Like That…, which raises all kinds of questions. Did he really die? Is he in Peloton Heaven? Is Mr. Big and/or the entire cast Sex and the City part of the Deadpool universe now? The Matrix Resurrections barely has this many twists and turns.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

The Golden Globes nominations arrived in unusual fashion this year ahead of no telecast of the awards ceremony (although some sort of ceremony shall be held to announce winners on January 9, ahead of the main thrust of the Oscars push). The telecast will apparently return in 2023, although there’s a pause there, given questions about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s representation (or lack thereof, as has been the criticism) in membership and voting procedures.

For now, however, we’ve got those annual nominations, and (virtually) everything is coming up Succession, which feels like interesting timing, given Sunday night’s season finale episode. Obviously, plenty of other shows saw some HFPA love, too, including the streaming juggernaut that is Squid Game. Other crowdpleasers including Hacks, Only Murders in the Building, and Reservation Dogs are throwing down in the below list as well, and yep, some award-worthy movies came out this year, too. What a strange year.

Please follow along with the below list as we update it.

Best Television Series, Drama
Lupin
The Morning Show
Pose
Squid Game
Succession

Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy
The Great
Hacks
Only Murders in the Building
Reservation Dogs
Ted Lasso

Best Limited Series, Anthology Series or a Motion Picture made for Television
Dopesick
Impeachment: American Crime Story
Maid
Mare of Easttown
The Underground Railroad

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy
Cyrano
Don’t Look Up
Licorice Pizza
Tick, Tick … Boom!
West Side Story

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Belfast
CODA
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog

Best Picture, Foreign Language
Compartment No. 6
Drive My Car
The Hand of God
A Hero
Parallel Mothers

Best Motion Picture, Animated
Encanto
Flee
Luca
My Sunny Maad
Raya and the Last Dragon

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Drama
Brian Cox, Succession
Lee Jung-jae, Squid Game
Billy Porter, Pose
Jeremy Strong, Succession
Omar Sy, Lupin

Best Performance by an Actress, Limited Series, Anthology Series or a Motion Picture made for Television
Jessica Chastain, Scenes From a Marriage
Cynthia Erivo, Genius: Aretha
Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision
Margaret Qualley, Maid
Kate Winslet, Mare of Easttown

Best Director, Motion Picture
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
Denis Villeneuve, Dune

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Marion Cotillard, Annette
Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Jennifer Lawrence, Don’t Look Up
Emma Stone, Cruella
Rachel Zegler, West Side Story

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Mahershala Ali, Swan Song
Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series, Drama
Uzo Aduba, In Treatment
Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show
Christine Baranski, The Good Fight
Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale
Mj Rodriguez, Pose

Best Performance by an Actor, Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture made for Television
Paul Bettany, WandaVision
Oscar Isaac, Scenes From a Marriage
Michael Keaton, Dopesick
Ewan McGregor, Halston
Tahar Rahim, The Serpent

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Leonardo DiCaprio, Don’t Look Up
Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick … Boom!
Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza
Anthony Ramos, In the Heights

Best Supporting Actor, Motion Picture
Ben Affleck, The Tender Bar
Jamie Dornan, Belfast
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Best Supporting Actress, Motion Picture
Caitríona Balfe, Belfast
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Ruth Negga, Passing

Best Actress in a TV Series, Musical or Comedy
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Elle Fanning, The Great
Issa Rae, Insecure
Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish
Jean Smart, Hacks

Best Supporting Actor In A Television Series or Miniseries
Billy Crudup, The Morning Show
Kieran Culkin, Succession
Mark Duplass, The Morning Show
Brett Goldstein, Ted Lasso
Oh Yeong-su, Squid Game

Best Supporting Actress In A Television Series or Miniseries
Jennifer Coolidge, White Lotus
Kaitlyn Dever, Dopesick
Andie MacDowell, Maid
Sarah Snook, Succession
Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Kristen Stewart, Spencer

Best Television Actor, Musical, or Comedy Series
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Nicholas Hoult, The Great
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso

Best Screenplay, Motion Picture
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up
Aaron Sorkin, Being the Ricardos

Best Original Song, Motion Picture
“Be Alive” from “King Richard” – Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Dixson
“Dos Orugitas” from “Encanto” — Lin-Manuel Miranda
“Down to Joy” from “Belfast” — Van Morrison
“Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” from “Respect” — Jamie Alexander Hartman, Jennifer Hudson, Carole King
“No Time to Die” from “No Time to Die” — Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell

The world has been dealing with COVID-19 for a couple years now and it’s clear that we’re not out of the woods yet. The music industry has shown that in recent days, Doja Cat just had to cancel some performances after getting a positive test, and now Coldplay finds themselves in a similar situation.

Although it doesn’t appear anybody in the band has the coronavirus, some folks in their touring crew do. Therefore, the band backed out of two performances this weekend: one at London’s Jingle Bell Ball and another on The Voice Of Germany. The band wrote in a statement, “We regret to say that, due to positive COVID-19 cases in the band’s touring party, we’re no longer able to perform at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball tonight in London or on The Voice Of Germany on Sunday. We send our love to the individuals affected and wish them a swift recovery. We’re so sorry to cancel at the last minute and apologise to everyone concerned. Thank you, as always, for your support.”

Meanwhile, Coldplay had a big year on Spotify. Their No. 1 single “My Universe” has racked up nearly 300 million streams, while “Yellow” was one of the most-streamed songs that’s at least 20 years old.

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

There are plenty of bad people on Succession (there’s a lot to be said about [REDACTED]’s betrayal in the season three finale, which we’ll get to in the Succession Report Card), but there are no bad performances. Every actor and actress took it to another level in the HBO drama’s best season yet, to the point where the Emmys should give the Succession cast their entire category to — in a twist that Logan Roy would approve of — contend against each other. It’s not fair to the rest of television to have to compete with Jeremy Strong or Sarah Snook or Brian Cox .

But who do viewers think gave the best performance in season three?

If you look long enough on social media, you’ll find a case for nearly everyone on the show (Justice for Comfrey), but there are two clear frontrunners: Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy, who is still looking for a chair that he can sit normally in, and Matthew Macfadyen as the wonderfully-named (if not wonderfully-romantic) Tom Wambsgans.

Team Tom:

Team Roman:

Halsey has weighed in with their pick:

Now it’s your time to choose a fighter (who will stab you in the back the first chance they get).

It’s been largely quiet on The Batman front since September’s DC Fandome event, which showed off Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s gothy take on the Caped Crusader. Now, there’s an international trailer that goes heavy on procedural vibes (that’s fitting, considering that HBO Max is plotting out an upcoming prequel series that goes procedural with an eye on police corruption). As well, this trailer spends more time with the baddies of the Reeves movie, including more of the film’s presumed central villain, Paul Dano’s Riddler.

Notably, this trailer skims over the movie’s unabashed use of the most glorious movie cliché (as uttered by Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman) in history: “Maybe we’re not so different.” She does make an appearance, however, as does Colin Farrell’s Penguin; John Turturro’s crime boss, Carmine Falcone; and Jeffrey Wright’s Commissioner Gordon. There’s something else here that seems, well, fuzzy, as well as possibly a figment of the imagination. This is where I mention Hollywood Reporter‘s Dec. 10 edition of Heat Vision, which plays with the rumor of “Barry Keoghan maybe, maybe not, playing the Joker” in this film. THR neither confirms nor squashes that rumor, but the newsletter suggests (via anonymous sources) that “Warner Bros. has been testing two different cuts of The Batman, one with a certain actor, one without.”

No one (who isn’t supposed to know) knows whether there’s a grain of truth to the rumor, but this trailer does nothing (intentionally or not) to put the rumor to rest. There’s zero definitive evidence that the Joker will appear in The Batman. I’m not sure too many people would even be interested in a new Joker actor right now? Then again, there are unlimited Batmans in this world. And even though we don’t need any more Joker takes, the speculation is out there, and so, let’s pass some time by looking at a few interesting moments in the above trailer.

Shot 1 #1: At the 0:10 mark, we presumably see The Riddler’s stalker-photo collage.

Let’s have a closeup on a key panel, which shows off an unsettling, Joker-esque smile in the background. Nightmare fuel.

Shot #2: At the 1:30 min mark, we catch a glimpse of a giggling menace with his face hidden. It’s hard not to think of a certain scene from 2008’s The Dark Knight here, although (from the rest of the trailer) it seems that The Riddler’s your guy here.

For what it’s worth, The Batman and the Joaquin Phoenix-starring Joker both sit outside of the DCEU. Yes, Joker got sneaky and tried to insert a Bruce Wayne origin story into Joker, but there’s no indication that the opposite will happen here. Again, yeah, it’s definitely not needed. The Batman, however, takes place same universe as the Gotham PD-focused HBO Max series coming up. And Colin Farrell’s Penguin will see his own HBO Max spinoff, too. The Goth-Bat universe is already sprouting wings, man.

The Batman arrives on March 4, 2022.

Kid Cudi has been in a cinematic place lately: He’s fresh off a role in the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up and last month, he shared a documentary called A Man Named Scott. It looks like next year is going to be all about the music, though. He has been teasing an album called Entergalactic for some time now and plans to drop it next summer, and ahead of that, he wants to drop another new project.

During his set at the Rolling Loud festival yesterday, he told his audience, “I’m teasing all this stuff because as you know, I have Entergalactic coming in the summer, but I wanna drop another album before that. I got some tasty surprises and I really am excited about all this new sh*t, this new music to give to you guys. So that’s why I’m teasing this sh*t now, because it’s coming out soon. So tonight, record this sh*t.”

As for the teasing Cudi was referring to, during the set, he performed a new song called “Freshie.”

Cudi fans have been able to enjoy new music from the rapper in recent days, as he and Ariana Grande teamed up for a song from Don’t Look Up, “Just Look Up.”

Watch clips from Cudi’s Rolling Loud performance above.

The Chicago Bears have been one of the NFL’s worst offenses this season, and while Justin Fields was returning to the starting lineup on Sunday night against the Packers, few anticipated a huge breakout coming against their rivals in Green Bay.

However, the Bears were keeping pace in an early shootout, leading 17-14 in the second quarter thanks to a pair of touchdown passes from Fields. After forcing a Packers punt near midfield, Chicago’s offense figured to be backed up as Jakeem Grant made what is usually an ill-advised decision to field a punt inside his own five yard line. The good news for the Bears was Grant, already with a touchdown on the night, made up for committing a cardinal sin of punt returners by somehow escaping a wall of Green Bay defenders to find the sideline and breakout for the first punt return touchdown in the NFL this season, going 97 yards to the house.

It’s certainly one way to give your offense a boost, scoring with them seated on the sideline. It’s a sensational job by Grant to set up a wall of blockers by darting right and then cutting back hard to the left sideline, causing the Packers coverage unit to overflow, get out of their lanes, and then it’s just all speed to get him to the end zone.

Unfortunately for the Bears, Grant’s touchdown might’ve been too quick, as the Packers had the answer to make it 24-21 going to halftime in a rather surprising shootout in Green Bay that went over the full game total in the first 30 minutes.

The Brooklyn Nets sit atop the Eastern Conference standings at 19-8, which comes as little surprise given they were the heavy title favorites coming into the season, but to get there they’ve had to navigate life without some key players. Kyrie Irving’s absence all year has been well documented, but Brooklyn has also been without sharpshooter Joe Harris for half of the year as he had ankle surgery late in November.

That has placed a heavy scoring burden on Brooklyn’s two remaining stars in James Harden and Kevin Durant, and with Harden stumbling out of the gate in terms of scoring, Durant has had to carry the load. While Harden has started to regain his form of late, the Nets gave the Beard a night off to rest on Sunday against Detroit, figuring a date with the East’s worst team was as good a time as any to steal a night of rest.

The Pistons had other ideas, taking a five-point lead into the fourth quarter behind a strong effort from rookie star Cade Cunningham, but the night, ultimately, belonged to Durant who refused to let the Nets drop a game in Detroit, piling up 51 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds in 41 minutes of work, shooting 16-of-31 from the field (5-of-10 from three) and 14-of-15 from the free throw line.

Durant hauled the Nets back into the game, tying things early in the fourth on a pullup three-pointer, and Brooklyn ultimately went on to win the fourth quarter 30-13, running away to a 116-104 win.

His last two buckets were emblematic of what makes KD impossible to deal with as a scorer, as he attacked downhill on both buckets. When the defender gave him a driving lane to stay close for a shot, he went to the hoop, and when he had a lane cut off by help he pulled up for a midrange jumper.

It’s Durant’s first 50-point game as a Net and the seventh of his career, and he sets the early mark for the highest scoring game of the 2021-22 season.

He has been sensational all season for the Nets, firmly planting himself in the MVP conversation, and he has been almost defiant about playing as many minutes as possible to ensure Brooklyn lands at or near the top of the East when the playoff seedings arise. On Sunday, the Nets needed all 41 minutes of effort from KD, even against a struggling Detroit team, and he delivered one of the best performances of the season in return.

Looks like Doja Cat will be spending at least some of her holiday in quarantine. Although she was slated to appear for some Jingle Ball performances during the annual iHeartRadio Christmas tour this December, the rapper-pop-star had to disappoint fans when she tested positive for coronavirus. Doja has been performing behind her new album, Planet Her at various award shows this year, like the VMAs, but has yet to announce a full tour. Probably a good thing considering she now has to cancel some slated appearances.

“As most of you probably heard earlier, a few members on my production team tested positive for Covid-19 and I had to cancel a couple of my upcoming performances as a safety precaution,” she wrote on Twitter. “Unfortunately, I’m sad to share that I just tested positive as well and will no longer be able to perform on the rest of the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour. While my spirits are down since I can’t be there to celebrate the holiday with my fans in Philly, DC, Atlanta and Miami, I’m doing ok and look forward to recovering and getting back out there as soon as I can! The rest of the tour stops have some really great lineups, wish I could be there. Much love xo.”

Get well soon Doja! And everyone else, please remember to wear masks and social distance, we’re not out of the woods yet.