Month: January 2022

Tom Brady and The Simpsons both continue to defy the odds. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and three-time MVP led the league in yards and touchdowns this season at 44 years old, while The Simpsons is up to season 33, making it the longest-running American scripted primetime television series ever.

Because they’ve both been around for seemingly forever, Brady appeared in a season 16 episode, “Homer and Ned’s Hail Mary Pass,” as a member of the Homer Simpson Showboating Academy, along with fellow guest stars LeBron James, Michelle Kwan, Yao Ming, and Warren Sapp. It’s a fine episode, but it apparently meant a lot to TB12, who designed his new hoodie after the Simpsons version of himself:

Tom Brady’s new sweatshirt design from his just-launched Brady apparel line might look a little familiar to some eagle-eyed fans… [Brady] guest-starred in the episode, wearing hooded sweatshirts in bright colors with their last names written across their chests. Brady’s hoodie was blue, with his last name printed in white — just like the sweatshirt from his new collection.

The $95 hoodie’s “Brady Blue” color is “bold, exuding strength and confidence, imbued with an inner intensity, emblematic of his self-determination and commitment to precision,” according to Pantone. It’s not meant to be worn during stadium-wide singalongs of “Shipoopi,” though. That’s a different show.

Gunna has already been atop the Billboard 200 once before in his career with 2020’s Wunna. But now he’s officially a two-time chart-topper as DS4EVER is the new No. 1 album in on the Billboard 200 chart. The album — which features appearances from Young Thug, 21 Savage, Kodak Black, Drake, Future, Roddy Rich, and more — clocked 150,300 units sold in its first week to top the chart dated January 22, while de-throning the soundtrack to Disney’s Encanto.

It was a close race to the top this week, as The Weeknd’s Dawn FM came in at No. 2 with 148,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending January 13. Dawn FM, with features from Tyler The Creator, Lil Wayne, Quincy Jones, and Jim Carey, might have seemed the clubhouse favorite to most, with its elaborate rollout and The Weeknd’s high-profile appearances, but the runner-up spot will have to suffice for now. The aforementioned Encanto soundtrack dropped down to No. 3, despite boasting its highest weekly tally of units sold with 95,700. Adele’s 30 and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album round out the rest of the top five.

But for Gunna, this marks a steady history of success on the Billboard 200. Beyond the No. 1 status of DS4EVER and Wunna, in 2018, the Atlanta rapper’s Drip Season 3 mixtape peaked at No. 55, and his collaboration with Lil Baby, Drip Harder, reached No. 4. His 2019 debut studio album, Drip Or Drown 2 topped out at No. 3.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Oscar Isaac enters the MCU, but don’t expect him to be the typical Marvel superhero. Nor is Moon Knight like any other Disney+ series that we’ve seen to date.

Isaac, sometimes known as Space Daddy and Red Carpet Genius Extraordinaire, has moved onto what he’s been calling “the biggest workload” of his entire career. And given the intensity of this Moon Knight trailer, he wasn’t kidding or even slightly exaggerating. This TV series looks dark and moody and shambolic and haunting and spooky, and there’s no dancing Oscar to be found for miles.

Nor is it even slightly disappointing to see Ethan Hawke (who recently breathed righteous fire in The Good Lord Bird) playing a David Koresh-esque cult leader/villain who urges Oscar’s psychologically afflicted character to “embrace the chaos.” This trailer doesn’t make too much sense for at least a few watches, but here’s the logline that might help sort out things while we wait:

The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.

Disney+’s Moon Knight streams on March 30.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson does well for himself as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood and a person with plenty of business interests, and when you make as much money as The Rock does, you have to find weird stuff to spend it on, because part of being exceptionally wealthy is being able to buy stuff you absolutely do not need but decide you really want.

On Monday night, The Rock joined Peyton and Eli Manning for the second quarter of the Rams first half blowout of the Cardinals in the Wild Card round, in which he plugged his movies and tequila brand — even going for a full on pull from the bottle after a horrific Kyler Murray pick-six. But many viewers were more focused on what was behind Johnson in the wide shot of his interview, as there was a giant T-Rex head just on the ground by a window.

Eli Manning, thankfully, was also fascinated by this and had to ask The Rock about it, to which Dwayne regaled them with a tale of it being the most complete T-Rex skull in existence and being named Stan.

Somehow, this story only gets wilder from here, because a quick Google search of this gets us to a story from CNN in which Stan — which is, as Johnson said, the most complete T-Rex skeleton ever unearthed — sold for $31.8 million at auction in 2020 to an undisclosed buyer. If that is really the head, that means The Rock was the one who spent nearly $32 million on a whole T-Rex and it raises so, so many questions that I must list them out below.

Where is the rest of the dinosaur, Dwayne?
Why is the head just sitting in what appears to be a guest room/office by a window if it costs this much money?
Did you really spend $32 million on a dinosaur skeleton just to put it in your house?
If you didn’t, did you read this story about Stan the T-Rex and then lie and say you own it on national television during an NFL Playoff game?
How many other dinosaur fossils do you own?
Do you just have a room full of dinosaur fossils that you decided to do an ESPN2 interview from?
Do you have an entire house dedicated to dinosaur fossils, because if you have $32 million to spend on fossils, we must ask this question?
Who will greenlight my screenplay about The Rock refusing to go to the police and instead choosing to personally track down a team of thieves after they heist his $32 million dinosaur?

Anyways, I hope someone takes the time to ask The Rock these pressing questions the next time he goes on a movie promo tour, because this might be the most interesting story in all of Hollywood.

UPDATE: Apparently you can buy a replica Stan head for $11,500 from the Black Hills Institute, which is possibly what The Rock did. However, I must stress that The Rock absolutely has enough money to buy a $32 million dinosaur skeleton and we cannot rule that out, because he certainly made it seem like this was the real thing and not a replica.

NFL Wild Card weekend continued with an intriguing NFC matchup on Monday night, and the battle featured a pair of teams from the NFC West. While the game began with a narrow point spread in favor of the Los Angeles Rams, Sean McVay’s team took control early, building a 14-0 lead while the offense of the Arizona Cardinals sputtered. Then, things went from bad to worse for the Cardinals, with star quarterback Kyler Murray uncorking a brutal interception from his end zone that resulted in a touchdown for Rams defensive back David Long Jr. to give Los Angeles a three-score lead.

Murray was already scuffling, completing just three of his first eight passes for eight yards with two sacks. Still, this is an example of a play that you simply can’t make from any part of the field, much less your own end zone, and ESPN analyst Brian Griese expresses some of that frustration in the clip above.

Simultaneously, though, The Rock was being interviewed during the Manningcast on ESPN2, and his reaction (alongside Peyton and Eli) was priceless.

Not only does The Rock pull tequila straight from the bottle, but the play came right on the heels of a motivational address from the always entertaining personality. Peyton Manning also delivers a trademark reaction of bafflement, and Eli Manning sounds like he died a little on the inside as well. The pick-six didn’t necessarily bury the Cardinals but, with the team’s formerly high hopes for this season in the balance, it was definitely a low point for Arizona and The Rock embodied that.

The Manningcast rolled into the NFL Playoffs with an alternate broadcast of the Cardinals-Rams Wild Card matchup in L.A. on Monday night, and viewers were quick to learn that nothing was changing from a broadcast quality standpoint just because it was the postseason.

Peyton and Eli were still in separate home studios and the charm of the somewhat DIY nature of the broadcast, with two former players and no polished host directing traffic was still very much present. One of the joys of the Manningcast this season has been the guys and their guests being extremely laid back, sometimes to the dismay of ESPN, from Eli throwing up the double birds while asking “can I do this?” — the answer was no — to Marshawn Lynch cussing throughout his appearance.

Our latest instance of Manningcast cussin’ arrived early on Monday night when some technical difficulties led to a hilarious exchange in which Eli tried to get Peyton to breakdown the Rams first touchdown of the night while Peyton grumbled “I can’t hear sh*t.”

Eli’s quick “nevermind!” is hysterical, as Peyton clearly thought he had been completely disconnected, rather than just messing up his earpiece while still being mic’d up and live. The Manningcast is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of entertaining outtakes, and while it’d be nice if they can figure out a way to clean up some of the delay and talking over their guests, I hope if they come back for 2022 they never lose this element of the broadcast.

The Las Vegas Raiders season came to an end on Sunday in a 26-19 loss to the Bengals in Cincinnati that featured plenty of officiating controversy, but also a Raiders team unable to get out of its own way at times — including on the final drive that came up just short of tying the game.

With the season ending, the Raiders could begin working on the offseason task of finding a new head coach after interim Rich Bisaccia took the helm midseason after Jon Gruden resigned in disgrace over a number of horrific leaked emails from the past between he and former Washington executive Bruce Allen. On Monday, word emerged from Adam Schefter that not only would the head coaching search begin, but the Raiders had also put in a request to interview a GM candidate, despite the presence of Mike Mayock.

That led to some raised eyebrows, and not long after that report emerged, word broke that Mayock was indeed being fired after three seasons in Vegas.

Mayock’s tenure as GM featured some wild draft picks, as the former NFL Network analyst very clearly was using his own draft board and not a consensus one, and plenty of controversies, from the Antonio Brown debacle to this season’s various off-field incidents involving players, most notably Henry Ruggs III committing DUI manslaughter and getting cut. Between all of that, his big swings in the draft not particularly panning out, and the Gruden resignation, it’s not a surprise that the Raiders are simply looking for a fresh start throughout their organizational structure.

Vegas joins Chicago, Minnesota, and the New York Giants as teams looking to fill both a GM and head coaching vacancy this offseason, with the Raiders as the lone playoff team doing so.

Steven Adams’ reputation precedes him when it comes to being one of the strongest players (if not the strongest) in the NBA. His screens leave even the toughest players bruised and battered (ask Jimmy Butler), and his mere presence when a scuffle breaks out tends to deescalate the situation quickly, as he has a tendency to physically separate parties by himself and his calm demeanor and terrifying strength keep guys from trying to go at him.

Our latest exhibit of “Steven Adams is strong as hell” comes from Monday’s game in Memphis between the Grizzlies and Bulls, in which Memphis had runaway to a big advantage in the fourth quarter when Tony Bradley stuck a leg out to trip up Ja Morant on a drive, leading to a tussle between the two. Bradley grabbed Morant by the jersey and wouldn’t let go, which led Morant to shove the ball in his face as things escalated.

It was at that point that Adams stepped in to make sure his All-Star teammate didn’t get into any actual fisticuffs or trouble with the league, and quite literally picked up Bradley and carried him like a child out to midcourt.

The funniest part of it all is Bradley’s reaction, as the 6’10, 245 pound center is in disbelief that he is getting physically carried by someone and is almost laughing as Adams takes him for a stroll. It is an incredible visual and another reminder that Adams is a preposterously strong individual, as well as being a beloved teammate.

Prior to the New York Knicks-Charlotte Hornets game on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, New York City mayor Eric Adams spoke to the crowd. In trying to weave together honoring King’s legacy with basketball, Adams, well, made a fool of himself, which is not exactly a new development for him.

“When the Civil Rights battle was on the line,” Adams began, “Dr. King wanted the ball in his hands.”

Of course, there’s simply no need to link Civil Rights advocacy and basketball. People are capable of understanding the gravity of Dr. King’s work without that comparison, and doing so comes off as minimizing and demeaning. Adams has a history of saying foolish things during his time as a politician, so this isn’t exactly surprising.

It’s nonetheless an absurd quote. The fact Adams felt he needed to parallel sports with King’s work is odd, at best, and should’ve been left in the drafts. It’s hard not to get a chuckle or two out of it as well, mostly stemming from the fact Adams thought such a weird metaphor would resonate well and the crowd offering him the most New York of responses, as someone yells for him to “shut the f**k up.’

Whoever came up with that line, whether it be him or someone else, probably needs to go back to the drawing board. Anyhow, thanks for the laugh, Mayor Adams, if only you offered more as a leader than you do as an unintentional comedian.

Every Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the same thing happens: Republicans publicly honor the civil rights leader’s legacy while doing the things he fought against. This year, the GOP are doing their best to block two voting rights bills, both of which are languishing in part because the GOP has filibustered them. So when prominent Republicans took to social media to praise King Jr., a proponent of voting rights and a hater of the filibuster, they were torched for their hypocrisy.

The two bills are the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Both seek to combat voting restriction bills enacted at the state level by Republican lawmakers. Joe Biden vowed to enact similar legislation early in his presidency. Instead, it met predictable pushback from Republicans, who have used the filibuster to keep them in limbo. Democrats can’t get rid of the filibuster partly thanks to two members of their party: Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

On MLK Jr. Day, members of the leader’s family joined several hundred activists for a march in D.C. They demanded the Senate finally put an end to the filibuster and pass legislation that would have done something King Jr. thought was paramount: easier access to voting for all.

Meanwhile, Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and more — all lawmakers against such legislation, and even against the teaching of racial issues in schools — were releasing fawning tweets about someone who would almost certainly find their actions worth protesting.

McConnell — who denounced Biden’s fiery speech in praise of the voting rights bills as “profoundly unpresidential” — even earned a direct plea from King Jr.’s youngest daughter, Bernice King.

“Pass voting legislation,” she asked him. “In the United States, that is among the most authentic ways to honor my father. If these state voter suppression laws persist, the America my father dreamed about will never come to be. Be a vessel for right.”

Others simply called him out.

McCarthy also tweeted about King Jr., writing that “His words and example inspire us today.” He, too, was called out.

Ditto DeSantis, who late last year actually quoted King Jr. while announcing bizarre legislation meant to stop “Critical Race Thory” — which is not taught in public schools — from being taught in public schools.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, meanwhile, had the distinction of passing a bill that eliminated requirements that teachers teach King Jr. in public schools, then praising him on the holiday established in his name.