Month: January 2022

Unless you’re Marlon Brando, a big part of being an actor is memorizing your lines. This is especially true for live entertainment, like Saturday Night Live, where you can tell when someone is using cue cards or not. On Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, former-SNL cast member David Spade discussed how frequent-host Tom Hanks can still remember every word of his sketches, even one that didn’t make it to air.

“He really lights up, he remembers everything he did on there,” Spade said about Hanks. The Tommy Boy star then told a story about the first time he met the two-time Oscar winner, who pitched a sketch about subway surfing. “First of all, I have a legal pad,” he said. “We don’t have computers back then…. I knew how to write a couple of jokes. We wrote it all night, then we did it, and it bombed.” Spade continued:

“I remember being on the subway, surfing, and he was next to me. Our eyes connected. We were like, ‘It’s over, dude.’ We were two minutes into it and we had five more. I’m like, ‘Oh it’s bombing!’ We just did it wrong… He was the host, and he cut it.”

Later on, Spade and Hanks reminisced about the dud sketch, and “he remembered the song. He sang the whole song. He remembered the song. I couldn’t believe it.” Tom Hanks: pretty good actor! Who knew. You can watch the interview with Spade above.

Spoon is getting ready to drop a new album, Lucifer On The Sofa, which they teased a few days ago with “Wild.” The album comes out in about a month, and shortly after that, the band will embark on some North American tour dates, which they announced today.

They have a show at the Observatory in Santa Ana a few days before the album release, and then the tour really kicks off with some East Coast dates in early April before heading west between then and early June.

Check out Spoon’s upcoming tour dates below.

02/08 — Santa Ana, CA @ Observatory
04/06 — Boston, MA @ House of Blues #
04/08 — New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall #
04/09 — Richmond, VA @ The National #
04/11 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club #
04/15 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore #
04/16 — New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom #
04/18 — Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit #
04/19 — Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre #
04/22 — St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre #
04/23 — Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave #
04/25 — Columbia, MO @ The Blue Note #
04/28 — Wilmington, NC @ Greenfield Lake Amphitheater #
04/29 — Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Festival
05/24 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom *
05/25 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex *
05/27 — Napa, CA @ BottleRock
05/28 — Sacramento, CA @ Ace Of Spades *
05/29 — San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore *
05/31 — Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up *
06/02 — Los Angeles, CA @ Palladium *
06/03 — Tucson, AZ @ The Rialto Theatre *
06/04 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren *

# with Margaret Glaspy
* with Geese

Lucifer On The Sofa is out 2/11 via Matador Records. Pre-order it here.

Nearly two months after the death of Memphis rapper Young Dolph, the late rapper’s fiancee Mia Jaye granted her first interview with ABC News Live Prime to talk about the effects his death has had on her and their family. Dolph and Mia have two children together, and Dolph often said that he wanted to retire from rap to spend more time with them. Mia explained how important the kids were to him in the interview.

“It’s been extremely difficult, just having to pick up the pieces and to find the strength for my children,” she said. That is the one thing: Adolph and myself felt we had a duty to them. To protect them, to raise them, to just do so much for them, and together. Now that he’s no longer here, it’s just very tough for me to be strong for them and also be strong for myself because Adolph was my soulmate when I say they stole my future, it has taken a long time to iron out the kinks.”

Dolph was shot to death outside a Memphis bakery while buying cookies. Police have made two arrests and indicted three suspects so far. A street in Memphis was renamed for the late rapper, nodding to his importance to his hometown, while collaborators like Gucci Mane and his own Paper Route Empire label have also paid musical tribute.

You can watch Mia Jaye’s interview above.

Since 2010, only six videos have been recognized as YouTube’s most-viewed video. Of the six, five were music videos from pop stars: “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga, “Baby” by Justin Bieber, “Gangnam Style” by PSY, “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa, and “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi, which held the title for 1,186 days. But in November 2020, the maddeningly catchy “Baby Shark Dance” surpassed “Despacito” to become YouTube’s most-viewed video — easily the most important thing to happen in November 2020.

“Baby Shark” has also became the first video to hit 10 billion views. Via a press release:

The Pinkfong Company, creator of Baby Shark, announced that its iconic “Baby Shark Dance” music video has officially become the world’s first video ever to hit 10 billion views on YouTube, making it the most viewed video in YouTube history, as of January 13th, 2022. The video was released in June 2016. Since surpassing “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee in November 2020, “Baby Shark Dance” has reigned as the most-viewed video on YouTube for 15 consecutive months.

“Despacito” has 7.7 billion views, meaning “Baby Shark Dance” is now 2.3 billion views ahead of second place. For comparison’s sake, the gap between “Baby Shark Dance” and “Despacito” is basically the same as the total number of views for Bieber’s “Baby,” which was YouTube’s most-viewed video for over 800 days.

That goddamn shark is inescapable, as every parent knows all too well.

Let’s get this obligatory line out of the way first: love is dead.

From there, we can reflect upon the surprising news that See and Aquaman star Jason Momoa and A Different World and Mustang-lover Lisa Bonet called it quits. They’ve been together for about sixteen years, married for five years, and share two children; and yep the marriage has run its course.

Momoa announced the parting of their ways on Instagram, where he explained that “We have all felt the squeeze and changes of these transformational times.” He added, “We share this not because we think it’s newsworthy ~ But so that~ as we go about our lives we may do so with dignity and honesty.” Further, he declared that “We free each other.”

All of this is happening amid pandemic conditions, although that doesn’t appear to have slowed down the career front for Momoa. Rather, he’s moved from losing his mind in “gnarly” quarantine before going “blonde” for Aquaman 2. It happens!

Whatever the cause of the split, people are shocked to hear the news. Reactions are mixed, but the news has made some people emotional… and yes, it’s also a “huge blow for hot people.”

Some people are looking on the bright side and seeing this as a tiny shred of “hope” amid the ongoing 2022 mess.

Then there are important questions to discuss, like who gets custody of “hotness” and Lisa’s other ex, Lenny Kravitz.

RIP to both Jason and Lisa’s DMs, and good luck to them both.

And think of poor Pete Davidson! The dude has a new dilemma in life.

Angel Olsen has been compared to ’60s folk favorite Karen Dalton on numerous occasions, and today brings news that should please fans of both artists: Olsen has covered “Something On Your Mind,” from Dalton’s 1971 album In My Own Time.

The recording is part of Light In The Attic’s Cover Series and is being released on a 7-inch vinyl that also includes Dalton’s original recording on the B side. After that, on March 25, the label will share a 50th anniversary edition of In My Own Time.

Olsen says of the song, “‘Something On Your Mind,’ for me, is about letting yourself face something that keeps setting you back.”

Of course, this comes shortly after the 2021 documentary Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, in which Olsen read some of Dalton’s journal entries. In an interview, co-directors Richard Peete and Robert Yapkowitz spoke about Olsen’s involvement with the film, with Peete saying, “It was just a perfect way for her to contribute, and she nailed it. She got the nuance and the certain little comedic beats and the sad parts. She did a really incredible job.” Yapkowitz added, “It’s nice to have someone else like Angel read it just to contribute in some way besides sitting down and giving an interview and saying, ‘I love Karen Dalton’s music,’ you know? There’s only so many times you can hear that before it loses its meaning, so to have people like Angel and Julia Holter, who did the score, contribute in those ways is not only showing their support for Karen and her legacy, but it’s also truly helping tell the story.”

Listen to Olson’s cover of “Something On Your Mind” above.

After watching the trailers for HBO Max’s Peacemaker, which picks up the story of John Cena’s character following the aftermath of The Suicide Squad, the show appears to be a mad-cap action comedy complete with a majestic eagle sidekick who join Cena’s Christopher Smith on his quest to achieve peace by any means (a.k.a. shooting everything in sight). One comparison you probably would not make is the more exploratory prestige drama like AMC’s hit Breaking Bad and its prequel series Better Call Saul, but there’s exactly where Peacemaker writer and director James Gunn went in a new interview.

While talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn cited Vince Gilligan’s meth drama as a major influence on his “douchebag” superhero series:

“It’s the ability to take its time in telling the story,” Gunn tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Both Saul and Chris are kind of sad-sack characters who are really good at one thing and then really bad at a lot of other things. So I think it’s really just taking that incredibly smart dialogue, that relaxed nature of grounded life and then mixing that with the other things that I wanted to do with the show. But I love Better Call Saul. I think it’s one of the best shows on TV, if not the best.”

Of course, this raises significant questions like is Eagly the show’s Jesse Pinkman or Mike Ehrmentraut? Or perhaps even its Kim Wexler? Fortunately, there won’t be long to wait to find out because the first three episodes of Peacemaker are now streaming on HBO Max.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

It looks like Fontaines DC have established themselves as regulars on The Tonight Show. They returned to the show in 2020 to perform the title track from their album released that year, A Hero’s Death, and they were on the show again for the third time last night. This time, they played their just-released new song “Jackie Down The Line,” from the newly announced album Skinty Fia. The performance, which was pre-taped remotely, essentially mirrors the video they just released for the track, featuring everything from the tall and pointy red had to a stage covered in roses.

When the band shared the single, they wrote of it and of Skinty Fia on Instagram, “This is Jackie Down The Line. The first single from our new upcoming album. This is Skinty Fia. The album we’ve been waiting to share with you for pretty much a year. Sorry it’s not disco, we lied. It’s an album of terrible lows and even worse highs. We love yous all.”

If you like what you saw, there will be opportunities to catch the band live later this year, as they also just announced their first North American tour dates since 2019.

Watch Fontaines DC perform “Jackie Down The Line” on The Tonight Show above.

Skinty Fia is out 4/22 via Partisan. Pre-order it here.

With hospitals at capacity and the wait to get a doctor’s appointment stretching for months, many people (not just Joe Rogan podcast listeners) are taking health care into their own hands. The Wall Street Journal reports that “more consumers are turning to gadgets, home kits, apps, and monitors for tasks and tests previously handled by trained medical workers. They are monitoring their own blood pressure, conducting EKGs, tracking blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and pricking their own fingers for blood tests normally done at the doctor’s.” DIY patients are also handing their own, let’s say, waste — and if they do, Jimmy Kimmel knows where to send it.

“One common result of the pandemic is that people are taking health care into their own hands,” the late-night host said during Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. “Doctors and hospitals have been so overwhelmed, it can take like a month to get an appointment, so people are treating themselves at home. So much so there’s a name for it now. They’re calling it ‘do-it-yourself’ healthcare, and they’re selling products.”

There’s even an at-home test to screen for colon cancer. “You collect your own stool sample and you ship it to the lab from your house. And it’s easy to do. If you have a stool sample, you collect it. There are several locations where you can send it or drop it off, they’re all listed right here,” Kimmel said, while the office locations for his long-time “desperate for attention” nemesis Ted Cruz were displayed. “Write the word ‘Ted’ on it. They will love… Just make sure he knows it’s not Tucker Carlson’s, so he doesn’t eat it.”

You can watch Kimmel’s monologue above.

Pete Davidson. Women adore him. The Academy Awards reportedly want him. He does a great Rami Malek, and vice versa. And now he’s making yet another perhaps unexpected life move: He’s doing a horror movie.

As per Deadline, the comic and actor is teaming up with James DeMonaco, best known as the guy who created the Purge series, for a horror thriller called The Home. Here’s how Deadline describes it:

Davidson will play Max, a troubled man who starts working at a retirement home and realizes its residents and caretakers harbor sinister secrets. As he investigates the building and its forbidden fourth floor, he starts to uncover connections to his own past and upbringing as a foster child.

His Judd Apatow movie The King of Staten Island aside, Davidson hasn’t ventured too far into the world of cinema. He didn’t make it terribly far into The Suicide Squad, the only movie he was in last year. So it will be interesting to see how he handles not only another major film role, but also a genre new to him. Given how strong he was in the Raging Bull-inspired SNL sketch that aired last month, where he played an older, washed-up version of himself, we think he can do it.

(Via Deadline)