There’s no question that filmmaking has come a long, long way in 100 years. Thanks to green screens, digital effects and CGI, today’s filmmakers can make almost anything they can imagine come to life on screen. Moviegoers have grown used to seeing magical worlds, supernatural powers and impossible feats in movies, we get quite finicky if the quality of the effects doesn’t hold up to our high standards.
Sometimes we watch movies from decades ago and giggle at how undeveloped the special effects were. And sometimes we watch old films and marvel at what they were able to do with the technology they had available to them at the time.
That’s where Buster Keaton comes in.
Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were both kings of physical comedy during the heyday of silent film, with Keaton being known for his expressionless physical feats and Chaplin being known for his goofy expressiveness. Both men excelled in their craft, and looking at Buster Keaton’s stunts today is still incredibly impressive.
The man was fearless. And so physical. It’s like watching “Mission Impossible” Tom Cruise mixed with peak Jackie Chan. But what’s most impressive is that he did it all without the benefit of modern film technology. Naturally, there were some 1920s-era film tricks involved in some scenes, but he really did some incredibly difficult and dangerous things—things most people wouldn’t even attempt.
Such impressive feats didn’t come without a cost, however. Despite his stunt skills, he sustained some significant injuries throughout his film and television career, including broken bones, some severe neck damage and a near-drowning incident.
“He’s like a human cartoon,” someone commented, and it’s true. It’s like watching a real-life cartoon. Even today, nearly 100 years later, his physical comedy genius stands out among the best ever. Countless comedians and stunt performers have looked to him as an example and have used his performances as inspiration for their own.
It’s not often that we can look back at something someone did a century ago and still hold it up as impressive by today’s standards, but Keaton’s feats fit that bill. What a treat that we got such a talent captured on film.
Before Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson, before Chuck Jones and Jackie Chan, there was Buster Keaton, one of the founding fathers of visual comedy.
Not that she ever really left the spotlight, but the iconic Juliette Lewis has recently reached a new chapter in her stardom thanks to her role of Natalie in Showtime’s obsession-worthy new series “Yellowjackets.”
Her social media is filled to the brim with excited fan theories, juicy behind-the-scenes questions and enthusiastic character appreciation posts. There’s no question about it; people love her performance as the tough, haunted, shotgun-savvy Nat.
But fun “Yellowjackets” trivia isn’t the only thing Lewis talks about with her following. She recently posted an Instagram Q&A with the caption, “I know some things ‘bout livin, love-ASK ME.”
One fan wrote, “ a lot of times I feel alone and like no one is there for me.”
Lewis’ advice for overcoming loneliness is something I think bears repeating.
“The only cure-all for this feeling- is being there for another,” the actress replied.
Lovliness!! Was so much fun to answer peoples questions and possibly help them with a different perspective. Helped me too! 🙌❤️ https://t.co/3fZr7SEwyf
In times of helplessness, being there for someone else might feel impossible. Counterintuitive even. But research has repeatedly shown that acts of altruism can help us live longer, lift us from depression and fulfill our very basic psychological need to belong. There’s a reason why loneliness feels so awful, and why generosity is a gift that keeps on giving.
In other words, Juliette Lewis is onto something here.
Lewis really does walk the talk with this. It only took a few seconds of searching on Google to see that she regularly supports charities, including (but not limited to) Little Kids Rock, an organization dedicated to providing music education to disadvantaged schools.
But working with charity organizations isn’t the only avenue. Lewis added that a generous act needn’t be a grand gesture. Your act of kindness could be as simple as “show[ing] up for another in [a way] they’d like–a phone call, give food, give them kindness and show care/interest…chat with them…make them feel less alone…make them feel heard or happier.”
There’s an added benefit of making someone feel heard, too. According to a study published in 2017, by helping others manage difficult emotions, we enhance our own ability to self-regulate and therefore improve our own emotional well-being. Think of it as psychology’s way of saying “what goes around comes around.”
As Lewis advises, the person you help can be someone you know or a complete stranger. The only real caveat here is that it should be “a person you are not trying to get something from in return,” to prioritize “connecting without expecting.”
Odds are, those words of affirmation you long to hear … someone else longs to hear them as well. That longing you have to be surprised with a random bag of goodies … someone else feels the same way. Fulfilling another person’s wish opens us up to our own power.
As Lewis writes, “once you know you can give love to another generously I assure you [that] you will open up this energy flow. And might even notice you are not ‘needing’ as much.”
Shifting our perspective to focus on others while at a low point might at first seem like pouring from an empty cup, but maybe the opposite is actually true. Maybe by realizing how we can affect the lives of others, our cups are then filled with the discovery of how influential we really are.
Next time you’re having trouble keeping your chin up, see how it feels to lift someone’s spirit. This article from Mental Health offers some great ideas to start. But odds are your heart already knows what to do.
Last November, Upworthy published a popular story about Chloe Sexton, a mother who went viral on TikTok for a video she made explaining “daddy privilege” or the idea that fathers are applauded for doing things that mothers are supposed to do.
“In my opinion, ‘daddy privilege’ is that subtle upper hand men sidestep into as parents that allows them to gain praise for simply…being a parent,” she said. “You fed the baby? What a great dad! You held the baby while mommy bathed? So considerate of you! You picked up something for dinner? What would your family do without you?! It’s all the little ways mothers do exactly what the world expects of them without a second thought and then watch fathers get praised for simply showing up.”
Sadly, the post resonated with a lot of mothers, because it’s true. Expectations for fathers are so low that men are commended for handling basic parenting tasks. But if a mother falls short of perfection, she faces harsh criticism.
Mary Catherine Starr, a mother living in Cape Cod who owns a design studio and teaches yoga, is getting a lot of love on Instagram for her cartoon series that perfectly explains daddy privilege.
In “An Illustrated Guide to the Double Standards of Parenting,” Starr shares this concept by showing that when a man comes home with fast food for his kids he’s the “fun dad.” But if a mom comes back with a bag from McDonald’s she is seen as a “lazy mom.”
In the comics, the same double standards apply whether it’s how they handle technology or parent at the park.
(Note: Click the arrow on the right-hand side of the image to see the slideshow.)
Starr was quick to point out in the comments that the target of her comics isn’t fathers, but society at large. “This is not a dig at dads, it’s a dig at our society—a society that applauds dads for handling the most basic of parenting duties + expects nothing short of perfection from mothers (or even worse, shames them for every decision and/or move they make!),” she wrote.
The comics resonated with a lot of women.
“This hit a nerve with so many women! I was a single mom living in an apartment,” an Instagram user named Saturdayfarm wrote in the comments. “Next door – a single dad. Neighbors felt so bad for him that they helped him with his laundry, brought over food, and babysat. For nothing. I just shakily carried on somehow. And I had so much less money and opportunities.”
“This is exactly part of the why I feel like being ‘just’ a mom isn’t as valuable. Being so run of the mill. But if my husband has the baby in a sling, the toddler in the pram and is out walking the dog, he’s superman for letting me have one hour for zoom work,” rebecca_lee-close_yoga wrote.
A father who understands his privilege completely supports Starr’s message.
“It actually annoys me when I get those types of comments / ‘compliments’ knowing it’s totally a double standard,” JonaJooey wrote.
Starr’s comics and Sexton’s TikTok videos won’t stop the double standards when it comes to parenting, but they do a great job at holding a mirror up to the problem. Where do we go from here? We can start by having greater expectations for fathers and holding them up to a higher standard. Then, we should take the energy we put into praising dads for doing the bare minimum and heap it on mothers who thanklessly go about the most important job in the world.
(Spoilers for The Karate Kid spinoff Cobra Kai will be found below.)
The Karate Kid franchise celebrates the underdogs, and there’s no greater underdog than a revival series that hits all four quadrants. That’s Cobra Kai to the point where Netflix couldn’t help but immediately greenlight several additional seasons after picking up the show following two YouTube Red seasons. The show’s still infuratingly good, and the show left viewers with several lingering questions: (1) What will happen to John Kreese after Terry Silver betrayed him in the worst way? (2) Will Tory depart from the Cobra Kai dojo after her discovery? (3) Where the hell will Miguel end up after heading towards Mexico to find his father?
Those questions will have to wait for answers. In the meantime, when will we see Season 5 and more crane-kicking goodness? Creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg have been running a (relatively) tight ship during the pandemic by continuing to shoot at warp speed (working with a half-younger cast means that is a very smart approach), so we’re still receiving new seasons like clockwork. And here’s what Hawk actor Jacob Bertrand recently told us about the already-wrapped Season 5:
“We actually just wrapped… It was weird because we filmed two seasons in one year. In 2021, we filmed both Season 4 and Season 5, so it’s really hard to differentiate what happened before in Season 4 and things that I’m not even allowed to bring up about Season 5. This year has felt long but short at the same time.”
Jacob obviously couldn’t spill too much about what’s going down with the questions that need answering. However, we do know that Hawk will be back and fresh off his trophy-winning spree. And we know that the creators are committed to staying faithful to the spirit of The Karate Kid franchise. They’ve kept things authentic and real here while staying just serious enough about the characters’ struggles. And we can probably expect the show to stick with a Winter 2022-2023 release, so it’ll either mean new episodes in December 2022 or January 2023. And more knockouts at the dojo(s).
Netflix’s ‘Cobra Kai’ is currently streaming the first four seasons on Netflix.
Forty years ago today, a former wacky midwestern weatherman who’d become a Johnny Carson-era Tonight Show staple and scored his own morning show, moved to late night television. That man was David Letterman, and 40 years ago today, on Feb. 1, 1982, he bowed Late Night, the show that’s now run by Seth Meyers. To ring in the big anniversary, Letterman — who has his own, very different chat show now — debuted his very own YouTube channel, which will be a great place to watch high-def clips you probably had to watch as low-res bootlegs for far too long.
Letterman bowed the channel with a tease on Twitter, which showed the very first moments from the very first show: a suitably out-there clip of Larry “Bud” Melman (real name: Calvin DeForest), the longtime regular who would appear on almost 200 Late Night and, later, Late Show episodes up until his death in 2007.
Letterman’s first show was a real banger. His first guest was no less than Bill Murray, who busted out a seemingly impromptu rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s sleazy new hit “Physical.” That clip, sadly, is not yet on Letterman’s new channel, but there are already 100 videos on there, among them iconic interviews with Andy Kaufman, Robin Williams, Carrie Fisher, Joaquin Phoenix, and more. You can also watch plenty of famous comedian’s first late night appearances, as well as the first-ever iteration of “Stupid Pet Tricks.”
Letterman had been teasing this big reveal throughout the week, including with a video of him blowing through multiple attempts to record an intro.
Letterman’s channel, described as “artisanly-produced, carefully-curated, and chosen completely at random by an old computer that used to pick numbers for the New York Lotto back in the 90’s,” can be found here. You can watch an old clip of Martin Scorsese swinging by the show in the video above.
Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B songs that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.
This week, Ella Mai returns with “DFMU,” the latest single from her yet-to-be-titled second album. It follows “Not Another Love Song,” which she released back in 2020. Pink Sweats drops off Pink Moon, his second project in under 12 months, with features from 6lack, Blxst, Tori Kelly, Kirby, and more. Lastly, PartyNextDoor teams up with OG Parker for his first song in almost two years with “No Fuss.”
Ella Mai — “DFMU”
Later this year will mark four years since Ella Mai dropped her self-titled debut album, which arrived after three strong EPs and her highlight single, “Boo’d Up.” There’s no telling what her sophomore album will sound like, but thanks to her latest single “DFMU,” the signs are pointing in a good direction. The new song finds her speaking to a new lover at the early stage of the relationship. Ella is ready to let her guard down for them, and she prepares to do so with a stern warning: “Don’t f*ck me up.”
Pink Sweats — Pink Moon
Less than a year after he released his stellar debut album, Pink Planet, Pink Sweats is back with another project. Pink Moon channels the same tender acoustic vibes that appear on his debut. This time, Pink Sweats recruits some outside help on the project’s eight songs. 6lack, Blxst, Kirby, Tori Kelly, and Sabrina Claudio all lend their vocals to Pink Moon.
OG Parker & PartyNextDoor — “No Fuss”
After a quiet 2021, PartyNextDoor kicks off 2022 with “No Fuss” produced by OG Parker. The song is set to appear on OG Parker’s upcoming EP Moments and finds PND waving the white flag to his partner. It’s a solid follow-up to the strong body of work that PND presented in 2020 with PartyMobile. As for OG Parker, “No Fuss” grants him back-to-back successful singles following last year’s “Rain” with Chris Brown, Layton Greene, Latto, and PnB Rock.
Nija — Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
At just 23 years old, Nija has written songs for some of the biggest names in the music industry. Beyonce, Cardi B, Summer Walker, Meek Mill, and more appear on her list of collaborators. Now she’s is stepping out to show off her individual artistry and it begins with her debut project, Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You. Through its ten songs, Nija blends R&B with hip-hop’s drill sub-genre for a uniquely strong project that details the highs and lows of her love life.
Amber Mark — Three Dimensions Deep
With the first month of 2022 already in the books, New York native Amber Mark has submitted her entry for the R&B album of the year with her long-awaited debut, Three Dimensions Deep. Mark lives up to the album by showing off her vocals, songwriting, and overall vision as a singer. Through 17 songs, Mark makes you feel love, glory, pain, and everything in the middle. This is absolutely an album to spend any of your days listening to.
Sinead Harnett — Ready Is Always Too Late (Deluxe)
Sinead Harnett’s 2021 debut album, Ready Is Always Too Late, stood as one of the highlight R&b releases from that year, delivering 11 songs with features from Lucky Daye, Earthgang, Masego, and VanJess. Now, just eight months later, Harnett returns with its deluxe reissue. She adds three songs to the project: “Let Go,” “Where You Been Hiding,” and a live cover of “At Your Best (You Are Love).”
Col3trane — “Bag” Feat. Lucky Daye
Since releasing his third project, Heroine, in 2019, Col3trane has stayed extremely consistent in the singles department. The latest example is “Bag” with Lucky Daye, which is Col3trane’s first single of the year and his and Lucky Daye’s first song together. On the track, the singers voice the pain that a past love has left them. Col3trane’s latest release joins impressive songs he’s released over the past couple of years with artists like Kiana Lede, Mahalia, GoldLink, and more.
Samm Henshaw — Untidy Soul
Over the past few years, English singer Samm Henshaw earned worthy attention for himself thanks to strong singles like “Church” with Earthgang, “Only One To Blame,” and “Grow.” All that was left for him to do was release a new project, which would be his first since 2016’s The Sound Experiment 2. At long last, Henshaw did just that with his official debut album, Untidy Soul. The project is a soulful experience backed by Henshaw’s hearty vocals and guest appearances from Tobe Nwigwe, Maverick Sabre, and Keyon Harrold.
Lady Wray — Piece Of Me
Years after she was discovered by Missy Elliot and granted the crown of “first lady” of Roc-A-Fella Records, Lady Wray, who previously went by Nicole Wray, is back with her third album under her new stage name. Piece Of Me offers 12 songs and features from Kenneth Wray Sr. and Melody Bloom Bacote. Altogether, Piece Of Me continues the approach Lady Wray has taken throughout her career.
Eli Sostre — 566
Brooklyn singer Eli Sostre had a quiet 2021, which is unusual for the normally-active singer, but everyone deserves a break, right? Thankfully, he’s back in action in 2022 and it comes with his 566 EP. It bears three songs to its name and is an appetizing follow-up to Emori, his most recent project which he delivered in fall 2020.
BenjiFlow — The Thrill
Back in spring 2020, London singer BenjiFlow dropped off his debut EP with six songs. Less than two years later, he’s back in action with his second EP, The Thrill. This body of work is produced by BenjiFlow himself and Nigerian producer Juls for an effort that showcases guest appearances from Oxlade, Juls, and Niji Adeleye.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
In the wake of the state-sanctioned murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia in 2018, many corporate entities condemned the Saudi government and vowed to divest from business interests in the country, including Vice Media (even Nicki Minaj canceled a planned show there in 2019). However, according to a new report in The Guardian, Vice instead organized a multi-million-dollar music festival there. The Azimuth festival took place in March 2020, just at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in “the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert” with a reported budget of $20m and performances from British rapper Tinie Tempah and American electronic duo Chainsmokers.
Vice apparently took pains to hide its involvement as well, having contractors on the festival sign non-disclosure agreements and ensuring that the Vice brand name didn’t appear on any public marketing, despite the festival being organized by Vice’s creative marketing agency Virtue. The Guardian also reports that Vice opened a permanent office in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and struck a deal with the Saudi Research and Marketing Group to produce promotional films for the country.
Meanwhile, Vice staffers, quoted anonymously, expressed dismay at the situation, saying, “Vice employees have for years raised concerns over the company’s involvement with Saudi Arabia – and we’ve been fobbed off with empty statements and pathetic excuses.”
There are a number of eyebrow raising allegations (including some damning evidence) in the lawsuit, most notably some text messages from Bill Belichick that he accidentally sent to Flores that were meant for Brian Daboll, congratulating him on getting the Giants job after talking to people in New York and Buffalo. The problem was, he sent them to Flores days before the ex-Dolphins coach was set to interview in New York, meaning they had given the job to Daboll prior to Flores even interviewing. The result was a sham interview in which he knew he wasn’t getting the job, but the Giants did the song and dance routine to ensure they filled the NFL’s Rooney Rule requirement of interviewing at least one Black candidate.
It’s long been assumed teams were doing this, but it is about as solid a bit of evidence of it as we’ve seen and Flores hopes it will push the league to maybe, finally address the real issues of the lack of minority head coaches and GMs in the league by demanding Black voices be in the room for hiring decisions. On top of of taking aim at the Giants (and Broncos for a similar sham interview in 2019), Flores had some rather spicy nuggets in the lawsuit about Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, offering his side of the story as to why he ended up getting painted as “difficult to work with” and a bad “collaborator” as was given as the reasoning for his firing.
In January 2022, Mr. Flores, who spent three years as the Head Coach of Defendant Miami Dolphins, Ltd. (the “Dolphins” or “Miami”), found himself without a job. He was fired by the Dolphins after leading the team to its first back-to-back winning seasons since 2003. The purported basis for his termination was alleged poor collaboration. In reality, the writing had been on the wall since Mr. Flores’ first season as Head Coach of the Dolphins, when he refused his owner’s directive to “tank” for the first pick in the draft. Indeed, during the 2019 season, Miami’s owner, Stephen Ross, told Mr. Flores that he would pay him $100,000 for every loss, and the team’s General Manager, Chris Grier, told Mr. Flores that “Steve” was “mad” that Mr. Flores’ success in winning games that year was “compromising [the team’s] draft position.”
After the end of the 2019 season, Mr. Ross began to pressure Mr. Flores to recruit a prominent quarterback in violation of League tampering rules. Mr. Flores repeatedly refused to comply with these improper directives. Undeterred, in the winter of 2020, Mr. Ross invited Mr. Flores onto a yacht for lunch. Shortly after he arrived, Mr. Ross told Mr. Flores that the prominent quarterback was “conveniently” arriving at the marina. Obviously, Mr. Ross had attempted to “set up” a purportedly impromptu meeting between Mr. Flores and the prominent quarterback. Mr. Flores refused the meeting and left the yacht immediately. After the incident, Mr. Flores was treated with disdain and held out as someone who was noncompliant and difficult to work with.
If he can prove the part about Ross offering him $100,000 per loss to tank in 2019, that is the biggest bombshell of this entire lawsuit. An owner making under the table payments to a coach to lose, even when everyone knows tanking is a thing, is the kind of thing that compromises the integrity of the sport and leads the NFL to get very mad — unfortunately, moreso than discriminatory hiring practices. The tampering allegation is, reportedly, related to the pursuit of Tom Brady (not Deshaun Watson, who would be connected to the Dolphins a year later in 2021), and is more funny than anything that Ross thought an “accidental bump-in” at the damn yacht club would seem above board enough for Flores who already said he wasn’t going to tamper.
We will see how quickly the NFL tries to resolve this lawsuit, and that will depend on how much of the goods Flores really has on the Ross allegations. For now, it’s dreadful PR at the start of the week off before the Super Bowl and there is some serious explaining to do for the league.
HBO’s Euphoria may be receiving some mixed reviews this season, but many viewers agree that the teen drama is an intense but realistic depiction of teen life (well, not everyone) and its actors have received a slew of praise, including an Emmy for Zendaya. So, it has to be one of those shows that is renewed season after season, right? When will the third season of Euphoria air? It’s a tricky question.
The HBO show premiered in June 2019 with the first season consisting of eight hour-long episodes. Season two was set to premiere sometime in 2020, but, you know, a lot of stuff that was supposed to happen in 2020 didn’t. Instead, there were two “special” episodes that aired in late 2020 and early 2021.
Season two premiered last month on January 9th, 2022. Since the show has a lot of hype, it’s safe to assume that HBO will want the drama to come back for season three, but there is no confirmation at this time that it will happen. If the shooting schedules continue the way the show had originally planned, we can assume that, if there is another season, it will shoot this year and premiere early next year. But, again, only time will tell. There is still time to campaign for Sydney Sweeney’s Emmy, though.
Movies are really long these days. Even the next movie about a rich guy who dresses up as a flying mammal is pushing three hours. Back in the early ’70s, movies were shorter. Indeed, super mogul Robert Evans claims he had to coerce director Francis Ford Coppola into making his gangster saga, The Godfather, into a three-hour epic. It’s one of many things you may learn when you watch Paramount+’s forthcoming miniseries about the making of the deathless mob classic, which by the way runs 10 episodes, meaning it will last about 10 hours — or about an hour longer than the entire trilogy put together.
One of Ruddy’s earliest successes was the first Godfather, but it wasn’t easy. As the trailer teases, he had to battle both Hollywood and its outsized egos (including Matthew Goode’s Evans) as well as the mob, who didn’t take kindly that a movie would portray them so accurately. And it all comes from screenwriter Michael Tolkin, who knows a thing or two about how Hollywood works, having savagely it in his script for the Robert Altman favorite The Player.
You can watch the trailer for The Offer above.
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