Month: February 2022

Even if you haven’t made it through a football game since the Rams were still in St. Louis, there are at least three good reasons to watch the Super Bowl this weekend:

1. The halftime show with Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Eminem, and Mary J. Blige.

2. The weird commercial where Gwyneth Paltrow eats her vagina (candle).

3. Nope.

Not “nope” as in “nope, I’m not going to watch the Super Bowl,” but “Nope, the new movie from Jordan Peele, the writer and director of Get Out and Us.” Almost nothing is known about the film, other than it apparently involves a creepy cloud hovering a small town below a mountain range and stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun.

Universal Pictures released a “From Jordan Peele” video looking back at instantly iconic moments from the director’s first two features, along with first-look footage from Nope. There’s Kaluuya and Palmer ignoring Adam McKay’s advice and looking up at the sky, and Steven Yeun doing the same… while wearing a cowboy hat.

I didn’t think I could be more excited for Nope. I was wrong.

The other trailers that may debut the Super Bowl include Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Jurassic World: Dominion, and (god willing) Minions: The Rise of Gru.

Idles have kept their videos aesthetically interesting lately, like their clips for “The Beachland Ballroom” and “When The Lights Come On.” That’s a streak the group continues today with their new visual for “Crawl,” a claymation motorbike journey that gets more destructive as it goes.

Talbot previously told Consequence of the song, “This is the turning point, after you’ve crashed. It’s a good anthem for me to discuss with people who aren’t on the other side or who aren’t sober. You’re not the best version of you and you need to hold yourself accountable for your addictions and who you’re letting down. But it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. ‘Crawl’ the title is like, keep going. You’ll get there. ‘Crawler’ is like the character of me in the dark warmth of my addiction — a crawler, a night crawler, someone on their knees, someone praying, someone surviving. The grit of it. The weight of the world on you. All of those things is a ‘crawler.’”

The band also announced a new run of US shows in August and September, so check out all of their upcoming tour dates below.

02/18 — Cardiff, UK @ Arena Cardiff
02/28 — Paris, FR @ Elysee Montmartre
03/01 — Paris, FR @ Elysee Montmartre
03/02 — Lyon, FR @ Le Transbordeur
03/03 — Milan, IT @ Fabrique
03/06 — Toulouse, FR @ Le Bikini
03/07 — Bilbao, ES @ Santania
03/09 — Barcelona, ES @ Razzmattazz
03/10 — Madrid, ES @ Riviera
03/11 — Lisbon, PT @ Coliseum
03/18 — Santiago, CL @ Lollapalooza
03/20 — Buenos Aires, AR @ Lollapalooza
03/23 — Mexico City, MX @ Pabellón Oeste
03/25 — Bogotá, CO @ Estéreo Picnic
03/27 — Sao Paulo, BR @ Lollapalooza
04/15 — Indio, CA @ Coachella
04/19 — Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
04/20 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex
04/22 — Indio, CA @ Coachella
04/27 — Munich, DE @ Muffathalle
04/28 — Cologne, DE @ Carlswerk Victoria
04/29 — Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom
05/28 — Wolverhampton, UK @ Creation Day Festival
05/29 — Dublin, IE @ Royal Hospital Kilmainham
06/04 — Barcelona, ES @ Primavera
06/11 — Berlin, DE @ Tempelhoff
06/12 — Dijon, FR @ VYV Festival
06/15 — Hradec Králové, CZ @ Rock For People Festival
06/17 — Landgraar, NL @ Pinkpop Festival
06/18 — Scheeßel, DE @ Hurricane Festival
06/19 — Neuhausen Ob Eck, DE @ Southside Festival
06/20 — Zagreb, HR @ In Music Festival
07/01 — Rotselaar, BE @ Rock Werchter Festival
07/02 — Roskilde, DK @ Roskilde Festival
07/03 — Stockholm, SE @ Lollapalooza
07/05 — Copenhagen, DK @ Royal Arena
07/07 — Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
07/09 — Cheltenham, UK @ 2000 Trees Festival
07/15 — Padova, IT @ Parklife Festival
07/16 — Rome, IT @ Strange Days
07/17 — Grotagglie, IT @ Cinzella Festival
07/21 — Nordfjordeid, NO @ Malakoff Rock Festival
07/23 — Tromso, NO @ Tromso Open Air
08/12 — Cornwall, UK @ Boardmasters Festival
08/17 — Parades Des Coura, PT @ Parades Des Coura Festival
08/19 — London, UK @ All Points East
08/24 — Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
08/25 — Paris, FR @ Rock en Seine Festival
08/27-28 — Pasadena, CA @ This Ain’t No Picnic
08/30 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
09/01 — Dallas, TX @ The Factory in Deep Ellum
09/02 — Kansas City, MO @ The Truman
09/03 — Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
09/04 — Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
09/07 — Toronto, ON @ History
09/09 — Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre
09/12 — Newport, KY @ PromoWest Pavilion at OVATION
09/13 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
09/14 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
09/15 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
09/17 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
10/27 — Christchurch, NZ @ James Hay Theatre
10/28 — Wellington, NZ @ Shed 6
10/29 — Auckland, NZ @ Town Hall
10/31 — Melbourne, AU @ The Forum
11/01 — Melbourne, AU @ The Forum
11/02 — Sydney, AU @ The Enmore Theatre
11/03 — Sydney, AU @ The Enmore Theatre
11/05 — Adelaide, AU @ The Gov
11/06 — Brisbane, AU @ Fortitude Music Hall
11/08 — Perth, AU @ The Astor Theatre

After social media went nuts over real-life couple Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons both receiving Oscar nominations for Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Dunst is now sharing their official reaction to locking down “His” and “Her” noms for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor.

While talking to Variety, Dunst revealed the wild morning she had learning the news from her manager as Eric Kranzler and then quickly scrambling to be the first one to tell Plemons, who was working early that day:

[Eric] called me, and he said I was nominated, so I’m crying with my kids. They’re like, ‘Why the hell is mom crying?’ [Eric] calls me back, and meanwhile I’m in the throes, talking to my mom or whatever. He was like, ‘Jesse just …’ And I started screaming and I hung up the phone. Then Megan, one of my publicists, called me because she’s trying to tell me and I just screamed at her. Then I called Jesse, and I was the first person to tell him, and he was a little shell shocked. I mean, it’s just so crazy to be a couple and have our first nominations together. It’s like a storybook. You know what I mean? It’s so weird. It’s amazing.

Dunst and Plemons’ Power of the Dog co-star Benedict Cumberbatch also received a nomination for Best Actor. However, recently, Plemons revealed that dealing with Cumberbatch’s method acting was not always the best experience.

“There was one time he got under my skin,” Plemons told Variety last month. “He was like, ‘Hey, big boy.’ It wasn’t ‘fatso.’ I feel like a few people in life have been like, ‘Hey, big boy,’ and I was like, ‘Goddamn it. What the f*ck.’”

To Cumberbatch’s credit, Plemons says the British actor immediately apologized when Plemons let him know he didn’t appreciate the comment, and the two are totally cool. Oscar-nominated cool.

(Via Variety)

To the surprise of few, this year’s Oscar nominations have once again legitimized the biopic industry. There’s at least one biopic nominated in almost every category this year, led by Best Actress, in which biopics make up three of the five nominees — Jessica Chastain playing Tammy Faye Bakker, Nicole Kidman playing Lucille Ball, and Kristen Stewart playing Princess Diana. Even most pundits pick for the highest-profile snub, Lady Gaga in House Of Gucci, came in a biopic of sorts.

At this point doling out awards to biopics and especially the actors in biopics feels like inertia as much as anything. When I watched King Richard, I had to pause the movie within the first five minutes to go look up some videos of the real Richard Williams, so convinced was I that Will Smith’s Foghorn Leghorn line reads couldn’t possibly be an accurate portrayal of the real man (and based on what I found, they mostly aren’t). Thank goodness King Richard was released in the streaming era or else I would’ve had to wait the full two-hour-and-change run time to confirm this suspicion. Which would’ve been the most suspenseful thing about King Richard, otherwise mostly a movie about how Richard Williams, whose famous family executive produced the film, was a kooky guy who was right about everything all along.

This performance was nonetheless rewarded with a Best Actor nomination by the Academy, one of four nominations for King Richard, along with Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. Being The Ricardos, meanwhile, Aaron Sorkin’s latest perfunctory biopic about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, received three nominations, including Best Actor and Actress for Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman, and Best Supporting Actor for JK Simmons. This just one year after Sorkin’s Trial Of The Chicago 7 received six nominations. Say what you will about the Aaron Sorkin biopic machine, it’s brutally efficient.

It’s not that biopics are never deserving of awards — Jessica Chastain’s work in The Eyes Of Tammy Faye for instance, a movie that was actually illuminating of its subject and actually had something to say, seemed more than worthy of her Best Actress nomination — it’s just that the biopic’s inherent prestige seems to outweigh any other considerations. Like, say, whether the film actually had anything to say about its subject other than that they were famous and important, as further illustrated by the fact that they were played by an actor who is also famous and important.

It’s hard to blame Will Smith himself here, who is neither a bad actor nor a dummy. Smith has been nominated twice before for Best Actor, both in biopics: in 2002 for Ali and in 2007 for The Pursuit Of Happyness. In the 15 years since, he appeared in just one other biopic, of sorts, playing Dr. Bennett Omalu in Concussion (“Tell the truth! Tell the truth.”), which shockingly failed to garner a nomination. That’s a pretty good track record! Some might say a dull-ly predictable one.

The history of the acting categories is littered with winners from biopics that seem embarrassing in retrospect — Eddie Redmayne for playing an infantilized Stephen Hawking in Theory Of Everything, Meryl Streep for playing an addled Maggy Thatcher in The Iron Lady, Gary Oldman for playing a fusty Churchill in The Darkest Hour, Rami Malek for his wild-eyed Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. The list goes on. Would anyone now argue that those were the most memorable performances of their respective years?

Biopics now seem to exist somewhere outside of movies, belonging more to public relations; flashy advertisements for their stars and validations of their subjects’ legacies. Missing is the expectation that we’re actually going to gain any insight about their subjects. Chappelle’s Show skewered this concept all the way back in 2003 when Chappelle introduced his idea for Dave Chappelle, written by Dave Chappelle. “Antwone Fisher,” Chappelle announced to his live audience. “It was directed by Denzel Washington, but, more noteworthy than that, is it was written by Antwone Fisher. Which is pretty deep. I didn’t know you were allowed to write a movie about yourself. The temptation to lie would be too strong for me to do something like that.”

It would be tempting to imagine that the general public has gotten more media savvy in the intervening 19 years, more able to distinguish art from marketing, but the history of the Oscars seems to suggest otherwise. In biopics of musicians, the commercial limitations are obvious: it’s pretty hard to make a serious movie about a music industry figure without the rights to that figure’s music, which generally requires the participation of the subject or their estate. (Without it, we might get something like Jackie Jormp-Jomp, 30 Rock‘s fictional sound-alike biopic of Janis Joplin starring Jenna Maroney). So it is we’ve gotten decidedly un-illuminating, subject-friendly portrayals such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman.

Yet if anything the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction, towards ever more indistinguishable boundaries between subject and filmmaker. First, we had the Jordan-sanctioned documentary about the 1990s Bulls, The Last Dance, and then we had the Williams family-produced biopic King William, now legitimized further by the Academy. This month also saw the release of Home Team, a sort-of biopic about former Saints coach Sean Payton (oddly structured as a Bad News Bears-style underdog sports comedy) that was co-written by Payton’s daughter’s boyfriend and produced by Adam Sandler, whose wife is that same boyfriend’s sister. Such is apparently what happens when you multiply the nepotism of Hollywood by the nepotism of the NFL. In retrospect, Will Smith’s biggest sin in Concussion might’ve been being critical of the latter.

Will there ever be an inflection point for this phenomenon? Perhaps there’s a reason for hope in this regard. Lionsgate recently announced that they would be teaming up with Academy Award-winning producer Graham King for Michael, a biopic of Michael Jackson set to be produced by King and, naturally, the co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate, John Branca and John McClain.

It’s hard to imagine that co-executors of Michael Jackson’s estate could possibly allow a movie to be made that was honest about Michael Jackson’s history of molestation allegations, but it’s equally hard to imagine audiences being able to forget the damning allegations they heard in 2019’s Emmy-winning documentary Leaving Neverland. Yet will the Academy be able to ignore a movie set to be produced by the guy who made Bohemian Rhapsody (King), written by three-time Oscar-nominee John Logan, and inevitably starring some talented performer in an Oscar-ready physical transformation? Assuming they can, the silence might speak louder than a trophy.

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

2018 was only four years, which somehow feels both like just yesterday and a lifetime ago. A lot has happened since then, making it easier than ever to forget that it was the year that helped to launch some of today’s biggest names in rap music, including Cardi B, Travis Scott, and Blueface. The latter’s “Thotiana,” which dominated radio and playlists for much of the year, was a controversial hit, inspiring as many detractors as imitators, but its impact is clear in nearly every syllable-packed single that bubbles up from the LA underground scene.

For the latest edition of Uproxx’s How I Blew Up, the Mid-City native stops by the studio to explain his recording process, reveal the moment he first knew “Thotiana” was a hit, and recall working with future No. 1-selling artist Cardi B on the song’s remix. He also explains how he fell into the “off-beat” style of rapping that became his signature, saying, “The inspiration was no inspiration.” And while that quirky rhythmic approach received its fair share of side-eyes in 2018, many of the buzzy names that followed — names like 1TakeJay, AzChike, BlueBucksClan, Remble, and more — have clearly taken the baton and run with it.

2018 was a long time ago, but at the same time, it wasn’t that long ago, either. Blueface has since proven he’s no one-hit-wonder, but he’s also still just getting started. Check out the latest episode of How I Blew Up above.

Summertime in Chicago’s Grant Park is inextricably tied to Lollapalooza festival. Now, the organizers behind Lollapalooza, Rosarito’s surging Baja Beach Fest, and Chicago-based promoter Reventon, are producing a new reggaeton and Música Latina festival called Sueños, and the opening lineup is loaded.

The two-day festival takes place in Grant Park on Memorial Day Weekend from May 28th to 29th. The headliners for the first annual Sueños include reggaeton behemoths J Balvin, Ozuna, and Wisin y Yandel. The vision for the fest is to better represent Chicago’s Latinx community and Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot echoed that in a statement: “Chicago is home to one of the largest Mexican populations in the country–making events like Sueños Festival an important opportunity to highlight the culture and the cultural contributions of our Latino community as a whole.”

Baja Beach Fest’s Aaron Ampudia added that “Reggaetón is a massive genre but remains underserved by live festivals in the US. We’re extremely proud to expand to the US and serve our community and everyone who enjoys Latin music.”

Other acts on the bill include Jhay Cortez, Myke Towers, El Alfa, Sech, Natanael Cano, and a lot more.

Check out the festival poster with the full lineup below. Pre-sale registration is open now here and the pre-sale begins Friday, February 11th at 12 p.m. CT. General on-sale begins Friday at 2 p.m. CT, all at the same link.

This morning, The Mitchells vs. the Machines was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature and, this may come as no surprise: director Mike Rianda, and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, are very happy today. It’s been a long, kind of strange road for The Mitchells vs. the Machines. This pretty weird movie was supposed to be a Sony theatrical release, but, due to the pandemic, Sony sold the domestic distribution rights to Netflix. And then, it seems, literally everyone watched this movie. As Rianda, Lord, and Miller say ahead, while making it they were concerned no would would like it. Then, with the pandemic, they were concerned no one would see it. And, now today, The Mitchells vs. the Machines is an Oscar nominee.

Do you know what’s funny? We’ve spoken in passing a lot but I have never interviewed you guys. This is it.

Phil Lord: This is the time. Get it all in. Ask them all.

I promise, you don’t want that. But I always like doing these, because everyone’s in a great mood.

Phil Lord: Yes, true. So true. True. I’m not exhausted. I’m not still wearing the bracelet from The Sparks concert last night.

You’ve had quite a 24 hours.

Phil Lord: I fell asleep in it.

Christopher Miller: I would say this is the most chipper I’ve been at 7:30 in the morning without having had any coffee.

It’s 10:30 here and I’m still tired. But, then again, I don’t have the adrenaline. I didn’t get nominated for anything this morning.

Phil Lord: Nominating you for best interview.

All right. I’m getting the adrenaline now. I haven’t won yet…

Phil Lord: Right. Feel it. You feel it?

Mike Rianda: It’s a long way to victory though. It’s a long way to victory.

That’s true.

Christopher Miller: We have 73 nominees. So it’s an honor just to be a nominee.

The path to today seems fraught. The movie gets delayed, then moves from theatrical to Netflix. But then it was perfect timing because everyone saw this movie. Then you get an Oscar nomination.

Mike Rianda: I mean, because it was such a long journey to make it. And it took years and years, but we had this like world’s most wonderful team of people. So it was really a joy to work on and they created tools that are changing, the innovation and they’ve just been so wonderful. So it’s, basically, when the movie came out, we were just sort of trying to make everybody proud. It was kind of a weird coincidence that the movie is about a giant global apocalypse, sort of. And what you need to do in that. And it’s sort of like, hang close to your family and hang close to your relationships. And I think the whole world is going through that right now, because there’s a giant pandemic where people are having to sort of cling to their families and actually use technology. It’s the only way we can see each other right now. And just like the movie is about, you have to sort of find a good relationship with technology and figure out, because it’s sort of part of the family, how to live with it and have it reveal our humanity instead of hide it.

Phil Lord: And definitely felt like a movie that needed to be seen this year. And it was really exciting that Netflix loved it so much and wanted to put it out. You know, we were thinking to ourselves, well, when on earth could this come out? Would families head out to a movie theater and feel comfortable?

Christopher Miller: We still don’t know-

Phil Lord: But, thankfully, Netflix was so excited to put it out and as he said, it got so many more people seeing it than would’ve seen it otherwise at a time when it was really needed. So it was really special.

Was there a moment where you felt like no one’s ever going to see this?

Christopher Miller: Every moment we worked on it.

Phil Lord: It was kind of like actually Netflix was like a guardian angel in a way, because it was supposed to come out in September 2020, and then it was October 2020. And then we were like, okay, maybe March 2021? And then as it just kept getting pushed, we were thinking when is this ever going to come out? And we worked so hard on it and we’re so proud of it. And it’s so relevant to what people are going through right now. And then, Netflix came upon with just a lot of passion and love and excitement for the film. So it ended up being a wonderful thing, even though it wasn’t how we planned it.

Mike Rianda: We were at a studio that didn’t fire everybody right away. There were other places that, it was like, they were just massively up and Sony was like, No, we are holding the line, this is our film family. Like we’re keeping it going. So finding ways to put movies out was important, because it meant that our friends in different departments could keep working. So it was a real win-win when Netflix came knocking, and said, hey, incoming call, we’d like to make a big deal out of this movie. We’re like, Yes, thank you. Let’s all do that so that Jesse can keep his job in marketing.

I mean this as a compliment, but judging from your Twitter accounts, you really wanted this to happen today. It’s still shocking The Lego Movie didn’t get nominated. And I guess since then, have you been like we can’t take this for granted? We have to be out there and talking this up?

Phil Lord: Well, we certainly don’t take anything for granted, right? We never know what’s going to happen. And we were hoping for something like this, because we were really proud of the film, [laughs] but we certainly have learned never to assume anything. So it’s been a great joy and relief today.

Christopher Miller: We’ve experienced every side of this. We missed out when The Lego Movie came out, but we also made a bunch of Lego afterwards. Now they sell those at the Academy store. We got a chance to win for Spider-Verse. It was such a proud moment for everybody to work on that movie. And you know, this movie is like those in the sense that it’s trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, it doesn’t look like any other movie. It’s innovative in every department and trying to move the ball forward in animation. And so when you do that, you’re like, I don’t know if anyone is going to like this. But who knows? Let’s set out, let’s go make somebody’s favorite movie. And so when it gets traction, like Mitchells has gotten, and it becomes such a hit on streaming and it becomes whatever it was one of the top 10 streaming movies of the year…. and it just makes an impact. You are so happy for everybody, because they didn’t do it for that reason. They did it because they loved the media of animation.

Mike Rianda: Yeah. You just hope it connects with people and it’s been really super satisfying to see it.

Christopher Miller: And we couldn’t have made this movie anywhere else, you know? That’s one of the things, it’s such a wild thing. It doesn’t follow a formula. Hey, here’s an original movie about my friend Mike and his family.

Well, spoiler, people really like this movie and you got nominated for an Oscar today. So I think it worked out.

Mike Rianda: It seems good. It seems good. It’s very nice. And it’s nice to hear from everybody. And my family, who the movie is based on earth, currently in the other room losing their minds. So that has been very gratifying too.

Christopher Miller: You know what else? This is really silly, but who I’m super happy for is Katie Mitchell. Katie Mitchell is a film student. She’s bold and she’s queer. And she’s going to go find her people and this is how we’re sending her into college.

Mike Rianda: That’s sweet.

That’s a really nice sentiment. Also, best of luck going forward. You only have just under two months until you find out what happens next.

Phil Lord: Oh my God. It’s such a crazy long time. It’s going to be great.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Stan Pulliam is the mayor of Sandy, Oregon, a tiny city of approximately 11,000 people that’s located less than 30 minutes from Portland. Stan Pulliam is also a candidate for governor who will be on the Republican ticket for the state’s upcoming primary in May 2022 primary. Lesser known, though much more excitingly, Stan Pulliam is also a swinger—or at least he was—but he’s not letting his Austin Powers-esque lifestyle stop him from gunning for a gubernatorial run. And why should it?

As Mediaite reports, the wannabe governor has freely admitted that he and his wife MacKensey like to keep things interesting in the sex department. OK, so maybe it was coaxed out of him a little bit when someone posted a screen shot from 2016, shortly after the couple were joined Swinger Facebook Group PDX, a Facebook group of more than 500 Portland-area locals who were all up for a little partner swapping.

By way of introduction, Pulliam said that he and MacKensey were “excited to be added to your little community! Some of you we have already had the pleasure to meet and we look forward to getting to know the rest of you! Cheers and happy Saturday!

Spoken like a true politician!

According to Willamette Week, Pulliam confirmed that the screen shot was indeed authentic, though that the couple has since retired from the swinging game. The 40-year-old mayor told the paper that he and his wife had “explored relationships, mutual relationships with other couples, for a brief period of time before ultimately deciding that it wasn’t for us.”

While he would not give specifics or dates about when the couple put the kibosh on their swinging ways, Pulliam did say that it was long before he decided to run for governor. “I think people can relate from all different parts of the state who have been involved in marriages,” he said. “There are different stages of marriage and different ebbs and flows. This is something that was for a brief period in our past and is in the past.”

He also apparently found it important to note that “I’m a heterosexual male. And I’ve only personally engaged in heterosexual activity,” in response to reports that he is bisexual.

Pulliam, who is a devoted Trump supporter, has also touted himself as a true conservative with small-town values. And has found a way to point to his free lovin’ ways as proof of that.

“In Oregon, we really cherish values of individuality and liberty,” Pulliam told Willamette Week. “The decisions that we made were for MacKensey and I to make in the privacy of our own homes. We’re certainly not asking anybody to participate or practice or do any of the things that we have decided to do in the past. But we’re also certainly not ashamed of decisions that we’ve made in the past either, as they’ve made us stronger.”

(Via Mediaite)

Pearl Jam leader Eddie Vedder is in the midst of a solo tour, but he’s not alone, as his backing band consists of Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Josh Klinghoffer (an RHCP member until recently), Andrew Watt, Chris Chaney, and Glen Hansard. A couple days ago, the crew was performing in Newark, New Jersey and while there, Vedder saw an opportunity to continue his feud with Mötley Crüe and took it.

During a Smith drum solo, Vedder said, “That drum kit — that silver, beautiful machine that he is the engine of — does not need to elevate or rotate to do its job, let me just point that out!”

That seems to be a clear reference to Mötley Crüe’s live shows, during which Tommy Lee was famous for elaborate drum set-ups that featured him on a roller coaster track. That caused issues at the band’s farewell concert in 2016, when Lee found himself stuck upside down.

As for what this Vedder/Crüe feud is all about, it has a short but rich history. Basically, Vedder criticized Crüe in a recent interview, Nikki Sixx clapped back, Vedder clapped back at Sixx’s clap-back, and now, here we are.

How close did Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg get while filming Uncharted? Close enough that Holland seriously thought Wahlberg gave him a sex toy as a gift during an awkward car ride.

With the film adaptation of the hit video game series arriving in theaters next week, the two sat down with Access Hollywood to talk about the whirlwind production that saw Holland go straight from Uncharted to filming Spider-Man: No Way Home. We’re guessing Wahlberg noticed Holland looked understandably tense when they first met, so he gave Holland a device that, well, puzzled the young actor. Via IndieWire:

“Mark Wahlberg was kind enough to give me a massage gun after I left his house in L.A. and he drove me back to my hotel,” Holland said. “I was confused as to what kind of massage gun this was, having never seen one before, and I thought it was the type of self-pleasure.”

Holland joked, “I thought Mark Wahlberg was driving me back to my house for other reasons other than just being a gentleman. I didn’t know you — it’s Hollywood, baby. Who knows what’s gonna happen?”

Wahlberg couldn’t believe that — this whole time… like, months — Holland thought the massage gun was a sex toy and told his co-star to “get your head outta the gutter.” After the interview clip went viral, Wahlberg took things further by posting an Instagram video where he makes it clear that the device he gave Holland was non-sexual.

“Massage tool strictly for muscle recovery @tomholland2013,” Wahlberg wrote in the caption while showing off the drill-looking device, which raises all kinds of questions about what Holland thought he was supposed to do with it. There’s a pretty reasonable chance this ends up being more fascinating than anything that happens in the movie.

Uncharted hits theaters on February 18.

(Via Access Hollywood)