Month: May 2022

The weirdest story in baseball right now involves fantasy football and group chat jokes gone wrong.

A pregame altercation between Reds outfielder Tommy Pham and Giants outfielder Joc Pederson on Friday saw Pham slap Pederson and the two being separated. On Saturday, (grainy) video of the incident emerged, showing Pham loading up and giving Pederson a pretty hard smack, earning himself a three-game suspension from Major League Baseball in the process, and Pham said Pederson crossed the line with a joke in a group chat with other MLB players about his old team, the Padres, and there was also a dispute over a fantasy football league where “big money” was involved.

Pham said the group chat comments were “disrespectful” and also referred to himself as a “high roller,” which is an objectively funny thing to say about yourself amid a fantasy football dispute.

After the Reds and Giants played on Saturday, Pederson decided to clear up exactly what happened and revealed screenshots of that group chat, in which he made a rather tame joke about the Padres, causing Pham to get very mad and then drop out of the football league — which Pederson did admit involved a lot of money.

The funniest part of this is Pham getting this mad over a group chat joke and losing money over the fantasy league caused him to lose even more money because of the loss of three game checks for slapping Pederson in the outfield. The lesson, at the very least, is to never confront someone at work over a thing like this where your bosses will see it.

Remember Star Wars movies? There’s plenty of Star Wars shows, including a new one that catches up with middle aged Obi-Wan Kenobi. But the last time there was a big screen missive from the universe George Lucas created some 45 years ago was in 2019, and that didn’t go over so well. But now there’s new hope that the next one will arrive sooner than anticipated.

This weekend marks the annual Star Wars Celebration convention in Anaheim, and they rolled out the red carpet. There was the revelation that Jude Law would be appearing in a Star Wars show about kids, to be helmed by Spider-Man director Jon Watts. Harrison Ford even showed up (to talk about the next Indiana Jones). There was also Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm honcho, who doubled down on her pledge to move away from the Skywalker Saga (i.e., the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and then the trilogy following the original trilogy). Instead, they want to create a “whole new saga,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy also discussed the next Star Wars film on the chopping block: the mysterious one from Taikia Waititi. The film and TV-maker is pretty busy, and it was assumed he’d get around to his SW film whenever he finally had time. But Kennedy claimed they were aiming to get his film ready for release “not [in] 2023, but late 2023” — a fairly confusing pile of words, but it does indicate they want to stick with the holiday release pattern they’ve been doing since The Force Awakens.

What exactly is Waititi’s Star Wars film? There are no details. But Waititi has been teasing what’s in store, telling Wired that the film so far feels “pretty me,” which may indicate that it will have some mix of goofiness and darkness, from someone who can play Korg in the third Thor, which he also directed, and make a Holocaust movie like Jojo Rabbit, which itself has some laughs.

In the meantime, late 2023 isn’t that far away, and big space movies take a while to finish. So they better get cracking.

(Via Consequence)

After more than a hundred matches between teams all over the country, the UEFA Champions League held its final matchup today. Liverpool from the English Premier League and Real Madrid from La Liga are facing off today for the championship title. Prior to the start of the game, Camila Cabello took over the stadium floor for a vibrant performance. The tracks she played, which included “Don’t Go Yet” and “Bam Bam” featuring Ed Sheeran, were both from her recently released third album Familia. While her set looked good, fans in attendance at the stadium felt like otherwise.

Once Camila finished her performance prior to the matchup between Liverpool and Real Madrid, it appeared that she was met with boos from those in attendance. Many were surprised and taken aback by the response from fans as they questioned why Camila was boo’d. It appeared that fans might have grown tiresome as the game was already a half-hour behind schedule during Camila’s performance. There’s also the possibility that fans were just uninterested in Camila’s set, as some noted on social media.

Nonetheless, Camila’s performance at the UEFA Champions League final continues what’s been an impressive year for the singer. She previously performed on Saturday Night Live and covered The Killers in an appearance on Carpool Karaoke. She’s also released videos for “Psychofreak” with Willow and “Hasta Los Dientes” with Maria Becerra.

You can view clips from Camila’s UEFA Champions League performance above and reactions from fans below.

Logic is far removed from his retirement. Following the release of his sixth album No Pressure, Logic claimed that he was calling it quits from the rap world, but that proved to be short-lived as he began releasing new records some months later. His slow return has eventually brought us to the upcoming release of his seventh album Vinyl Days. He announced the album at the top of the year, and since then, he’s released a few singles in support of it like “Therapy Music” with Russ. Now, he’s back with another track, “Orville,” featuring Blu & Exile and Like.

The track is named after the science fiction series The Orville, and throughout the song, the rappers make multiple references to the series. It includes this line from Logic to kick off his verse: “I’m Captain Mercer on the beat, watch me murder the Krill / That’s a sci-fi reference, nerd sh*t my preference.”

When Vinyl Days arrives next month, as it holds a release date on June 17, it will extend his streak of consecutive years with a project to 12. Since 2010, Logic has released 15 projects in total with his last one being 2021’s Bobby Tarantino III.

You can listen to “Orville” in the video above.

Vinyl Days is out 6/17 via Def Jam. You can pre-save it here.

The country is still reeling from the gun massacre in Uvalde, which left 19 children and two adults killed. There’s debate on what to do next. Most Republicans are adamant about blaming everything but the easy availability of guns. Gun control advocates, meanwhile, found themselves some unlikely allies. Meanwhile, two big shows that dropped this weekend both had scenes that were inadvertently reminiscent of what happened in Texas. And now both have content warnings.

One was Stranger Things, whose Season 4 premiere opens with the aftermath of a violent act at a school, with images of dead students. Netflix quickly added a disclaimer. The other was Obi-Wan Kenonbi, the new Disney+ Star Wars spin-off, which follows Ewan McGregor’s older, more weathered Jedi master. That premiere begins by revisiting the scene from Revenge of the Sith in which young students are massacred at the Jedi Temple, showing the killings in greater detail.

Netflix went all in on their disclaimer, directly addressing the massacre and saying they’d filmed the season a year before. Disney+ decided to be a bit more vague, with a cryptic warning that There are some scenes in this fictional series that some viewers may find upsetting.”

Then again, while the Uvalde massacre is the worst K-12 school shooting since the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012, there have been 27 shootings at school in America in 2022 alone. And it appears that the GOP won’t be taking action anytime soon, at least none that actually make sense.

(Via Variety)

The Kid Laroi is preparing to release his debut album Kids Are Growing Up, which is set to arrive at some point this year. While things on the music end may be all set for Laroi, who is still enjoying the success of his single “Stay” with Justin Bieber, things on the management end haven’t been so consistent. Laroi departed from Scooter Braun’s SB Projects last fall — a move that was in part due to Braun’s lack of direct involvement with him according to Billboard — and joined Adam Leber’s Rebel Management. His time there didn’t last too long as Laroi departed Rebel Management last month.

Eight months after he left SB Projects, Laroi is back with Braun’s management group. According to Billboard, Laroi reconnected with Braun after his mother Sloane Howard re-approached Braun which led to a deal being finalized just a week ago. Keeping Laroi’s frustrations about Braun’s lack of direct involvement with their last deal in mind, Billboard says a source tells them that Braun will now oversee all aspects of Laroi’s career.

The new deal comes after Braun and Laroi played a prank on fans as a part of the promotion for the latter’s “Thousand Miles” single. Laroi seemed to throw shade at Braun in a TikTok, but the following day, Braun clarified that it was nothing more than a joke the two planned together.

For years, Jon Voight — brilliant, Oscar-winning actor and former Democratic activist who actively protested against the Vietnam War and even helped two-time presidential candidate George McGovern register voters — has been a rabid cheerleader for Donald Trump. He’s recorded multiple unhinged videos in which he’s praised the former president. They’re so strange that even one of his Ray Donovan costars has dragged him. But after the gun massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which took the lives of 19 children and two adults, he broke ranks.

In the video, Voight is unequivocal about gun control laws many in his party do not agree with. “[We must] ensure that we never see this horror again in our lifetime,” Voight says. “We must identify every individual for their credentials for their mental capacity to bear arms. There should be proper qualifications for gun ownership. Proper testing. One should only own a gun if they’re qualified and schooled.”

Voight’s video dropped the same weekend as the annual NRA convention, which began mere days after the tragedy in Uvalde, and in Houston, a mere five-hour drive away. Its speakers, including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, have been adamant about defending second amendment rights, even with semi-automatic weapons meant for war. Few Republicans have put the blame on easy access to guns. Cruz, in fact, has been widely dragged for blaming doors instead.

So when one of the few loud Trumpists in Hollywood called for background checks and more, people could not believe they finally found they were in agreement with him.

Others couldn’t believe the GOP had lost Voight, at least on this issue.

The only downside? A lot of people, including Ron Filipkowski, who helped make Voight’s video go viral, know how to spell his surname.

Late Thursday night, after the Warriors had cruised to a Game 5 win over the Dallas Mavericks to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals, Stephen Curry and noted Turner employee Draymond Green made their way through the sea of fans outside Chase Center to join the Inside the NBA desk.

After talking about what it meant to get back to the mountaintop after their two years away from the playoffs, Shaq pressed Draymond on who he wanted to face in the NBA Finals. Green initially tried to talk about how good both Miami and Boston were, but Shaq wouldn’t let him coach speak his way out of answering and Draymond eventually relented and told Shaq “I’m gonna tell you who I think we’re gonna play. We’re gonna play Boston.”

This wasn’t exactly a shocking take, given the Celtics were up 3-2 against a very banged up Heat team going back to Boston for Game 6 on Friday night. However, after Jimmy Butler carried the Heat to a rather stunning win to even the series once again and sending them back to Miami for a Game 7, some of Miami’s veterans expressed some anger with Draymond for going on national TV and declaring Boston would win the series, as they made clear to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.

“Draymond broke the code,” Udonis Haslem told Yahoo Sports after the Heat’s 111-103 victory. “You ain’t supposed to say some sh*t like that. That’s disrespectful. He know better than that. … He let Shaq peer pressure him into saying some sh*t he ain’t got no business saying,” Haslem told Yahoo Sports. “I didn’t sleep much after he said that. That was some bullsh*t.”

“I don’t know what part of the game is that,” Heat forward P.J. Tucker told Yahoo Sports of Green’s comment. “A player picking a team before they’re out. That’s crazy, bro.”

It’s pretty funny that this started more “broke the code” talk, as Draymond really didn’t say anything outlandish or even say anything negative about the Heat, he just said he thinks Boston’s going to win the series (which they still might). Also, the Heat probably shouldn’t need Draymond Green to pick the Celtics to win the series the night before in order to find the motivation to win Game 6 with their season on the line.

Still, it does show that in this new media age where active players are hosting podcasts and, in Green’s case, inking national TV deals where they end up talking about teams around the league, there’s a change in that “code” coming, in that players that choose that path can no longer avoid making picks or offering up strong takes about other teams that might ruffle some feathers.

This weekend, moviegoers get to see Val Kilmer reprise his role of Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick. It’s only one scene and it’s bittersweet: Kilmer spent two years battling throat cancer, and though he’s been cancer-free for four years, the ordeal left him unable to eat and turned his voice into a rasp. The new Top Gun doesn’t hide this. In fact, it finds an honorable, moving way to show what the actor has gone through off-screen. Now there’s word that Kilmer may return, in some fashion, for another ’80s revival.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+’s forthcoming Willow series, which revives the 1988 fantasy adventure, in which the beloved actor played swordsman Madmartigan, is trying to make room for the beloved actor to return. How? It’s not clear, especially given that Kilmer was not on-set during the series’ shoot.

“Val’s a huge part of this, and the first conversation I had, when Warwick and I got the green light to do this, was with Val,” said executive producer Lawrence Kasdan. “We wanted his character to be a part of the story. We wanted him to be in the show.” Kasdan didn’t elaborate, only saying Kilmer was “in the show in a big way” and that “Madmartigan lives on.”

With a story credited to no less than George Lucas, Willow followed Warwick Davis’ titular dwarf farmer, who lights out on a perilous journey involving a much-sought-after baby. Kilmer’s Madmartigan is the film’s Han Solo: a rogue who gradually becomes a good guy by siding with the more vulnerable heroes. The film underperformed at the time but over the decades has become a cult favorite, enough to prompt a revival featuring an older, grittier Willow.

Everyone, especially Tom Cruise, was stoked to get Kilmer back for Top Gun: Maverick, and it sounds like the Willow team feels the same way, however they wind up using him.

(Via THR)

The Uvalde school shooting earlier this week was the latest tragedy in what is an unnecessarily long list of mass shootings in the United States. Even worse, the incident left 19 children in addition to two adults dead in what was truly a senseless crime. People from the music world have shared their condolences about the incident and some even took a moment to call for increased gun control. In a tweet, Taylor Swift said she was “filled with rage and grief, and so broken by the murders in Uvalde.” Olivia Rodrigo said that she was “heartbroken that this is the reality that we’re living in — and we need stricter gun control laws in America.”

Now, Jack White is chiming in with his own thoughts and he didn’t hold back in a lengthy message he shared on Instagram. “As we tour in Texas these past few days, I can’t help but to feel saddened in so many ways about the latest in a long line of mass shootings, but mostly I’m exhausted,” he wrote. “Exhausted with the ignorant excuses about the inability to fix this problem, exhausted with people clinging to their political party or their ‘side’ instead of looking at the issue.”

He continued, “Exhausted with people whining about their ‘freedom’ being more important than rules that help save lives. Like the traffic light on the road, and the warning label on the poison, or the regulation of who can buy sticks of dynamite or own a surface to air missile, we already have rules, haven’t you noticed? So how about a few more rules then that ALSO save lives and protect us from serious harm?”

White’s message comes after he was announced as one of the headliners for the 2022 Music Midtown Festival alongside My Chemical Romance and Future.

You can read White’s full message in the post above.