Month: May 2022

The world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick was a typically lavish affair. But the biggest moment of the evening was reserved for the arrival of its leading man. Rather than arrive via limo, Tom Cruise entered the party in a helicopter, the kind of bombastic declaration of one’s presence that befits only the most famous and iconic of stars.

Top Gun: Maverick is an increasing rarity in the oversaturated market of Hollywood blockbusters: a practical stunts-driven star vehicle that, while a sequel to a notable IP, is defined almost entirely by its leading man. Actors don’t tend to get above-the-title credits with MCU movies or other such franchises but Cruise’s name is right there. Cruise’s films have grossed over $10.1 billion worldwide. He’s been Oscar-nominated three times and worked with the likes of Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, and Michael Mann. At the age of 59, he is still headlining massively costly blockbusters, keeping critics and audiences on his side, and maintaining his A-List power. He’s almost invincible, the last movie star standing in a changing Hollywood.

True megastars get to do things that nobody else can. They earn more money, they demand major rewrites, and they can bend even the most inflexible of industry stalwarts to their will. That level of power demands consistency and results. And while Cruise has bounced between more serious dramas and blockbusters for the majority of his career, there is also a specific formula that he often follows, as laid out by Roger Ebert in his review of 1990’s Days of Thunder.

This checklist of nine requirements reveals the template that has strengthened Cruise’s stardom in the years since: stories of “rambunctious” scamps with undeniable talent who come up against unexpected obstacles, get the girl, learn from their mentor, and prove their mettle in the face of doom. While not every film he’s made fits into this structure, it’s remarkable how many of them do over the course of 35+ years. Cruise gets older but he’s retained that go-getter energy and thrall that fits so well into stories of heroes going up against the rest of the world. It’s not a formula he’s had to change all that much, even as fellow megastars find themselves struggling with new demands and their old ways losing popularity with audiences.

The jewel in the crown for Cruise remains the Mission: Impossible franchise. This is his domain, the platform from which he can be the unbeatable idol of blockbusters worldwide. What started out as a big-budget remake of a ‘60s TV show evolved into a singularly Cruise-ian endeavor. The first film quickly eschewed the tenets of the source material (much to the chagrin of some fans) to fully center Cruise in every way. New cast members and creatives would come and go across the franchise, but Cruise remained front and center. The Mission: Impossible franchise allowed Cruise to be the kind of movie star that simply doesn’t exist anymore. Always keen to perform his own stunts (the fish tank scene in the first film happened at his insistence, with no stunt man in his place), each movie brought progressively bigger and more dangerous set-pieces that allowed Cruise to be a real-life action man.

Stunts are dangerous, costly, and dependent on years of training and planning. There’s a reason that you don’t see any of the Marvel stars flinging themselves off of skyscrapers. Robert Pattinson doesn’t get to fly from rooftops with his Batsuit. Nowadays, stunt workers are more in-demand than ever for such work and the advancement of hyper-realistic CGI has helped to make such things safer than ever. Yet Cruise does it all himself. He jumps across buildings, shattering his ankle in the process. He does motorcycle chases without a helmet. He clings to the side of planes as they take off. He sat atop the tallest building in the world for a casual selfie. And this doesn’t even include the stunts he’s done in other movies. There are plots in these movies but, let’s be honest, people love the Mission: Impossible franchise because it’s evolved into a ceaseless spectacle of A-List stunt madness, with one of the most famous people on the planet doing the kind of things that, once again, you can only do if you’re mega-rich and powerful and no one wants to tell you no. There’s a realness to seeing an actual movie star literally skydive for our personal entertainment. Not since Jackie Chan have we had this kind of starry thrill.

It’s the Mission: Impossible franchise that has allowed Cruise to stay on top. He makes a lot of interesting non-franchise blockbusters such as Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow, both of which are great and are a reminder of how star power can get such films made. Yet it’s hard to ignore the way that his biggest project has bolstered his career during some slippery periods. In the mid-2000s, Cruise’s image took a beating thanks to some questionable interviews, his louder-than-ever support for the Church of Scientology, and the parody-ready public romance that was his marriage to Katie Holmes. Cruise hadn’t been defined in Hollywood as an everyman for a long time but this era saw him become a joke, a “weirdo,” the kind of guy that his audiences felt put off by. To many, this might be an endgame moment. But Cruise found a way around it.

If you can’t be relatable or accept a shift toward playing regular old guys, then the next logical step is to be the opposite of that. What better way to solidify your place as an all-powerful and untouchable superstar of epic proportions than by doing the kinds of things in movies that nobody else can, will, or should? The last three Mission: Impossible films have helped Cruise in this effort, propelling him past those past controversies. It’s not that they aren’t there anymore, people are just distracted by the spectacle of what he’s doing on screen.

Cruise might be making physically dangerous movies but, despite his unique position (or maybe with its preservation in mind), he’s not exactly a creative risk-taker with his projects. This isn’t an actor who’s using his clout to get hubristic vanity projects made. There’s no Hudson Hawk or Heaven’s Gate in his filmography. The past 15 years or so of work have seen Cruise almost entirely eschew darker roles and the kinds of auteur-driven narratives he once felt so comfortable in. There’s nothing as nervy as Magnolia or even Interview with the Vampire in his 2010s filmography, although one could make the case that his turn as a faded rockstar in the musical Rock of Ages comes somewhat close. He doesn’t remold himself to fit new projects anymore. Rather, the movies must bend to his brand, and sometimes that leads to a clunky failure like The Mummy, a remake of a quiet horror classic that became a set-piece laden tentpole piece to match Cruise’s stunt-focused heroism in the Mission Impossible series.

Cruise’s preference to avoid those kinds of risks does feel like a loss in many ways. He could be a nervy actor, one with a ferocity and mischief that made him as good a fit for Born in the Fourth of July as it did for Jerry Maguire. He, the classic good guy, made for an impeccable villain too, as seen in Michael Mann’s Collateral, a noir-inspired drama that allowed him to use that old-school handsome demeanor for something far more chilling. Brad Pitt still works with filmmakers of ambition and curiosity. Will Smith just won an Oscar. It’s hard to imagine Cruise taking similar paths in the future.

He seems to have given up on being that kind of actor. Indeed, he’s less an actor now than a star, and that seems to be how he – and maybe the public – prefer it. We’ve been led to believe he is something more than mortal, defying perceived physical and mental limitations and the cruelty of time for a long time while continuing to be the dictionary definition of a movie star while others fade or flee from the weight of that role. For Cruise, the question may well be, why try to be anything less than that image if you don’t have to?

With the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi now streaming on Disney+, the official Star Wars Twitter account took a notably pro-active stance in welcoming Moses Ingram to the franchise. As Reva the Third Sister, Ingram has been earning praise for her compelling performance as the Jedi-hunting Inquisitor obsessed with tracking down Ewan McGregor‘s title character.

Unfortunately, a subset of the Star Wars fanbase has a recent history with hurling attacks at actors of color, forcing some of them to abandon their social media accounts altogether. John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran were subject to such brutal online criticisms while starring in the Sequel Trilogy. However, this time around, Star Wars is putting its full weight behind Ingram to, hopefully, keep fans in line.

“We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the Star Wars family and excited for Reva’s story to unfold. If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist,” the official Star Wars account tweeted. “There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist.”

Star Wars’ full-throated denouncement of racism amongst its fans arrives on the heels of Ingram revealing that Lucasfilm prepared her for online attacks. According to Ingram, Lucasfilm and Obi-Wan director Deborah Chow made sure “proper systems” were put in place to protect her, but Ingram is already with a tactic of her own. “I have no problem with the block button.”

The first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are now streaming on Disney+.

(Via Star Wars on Twitter)

Over the past few months, Afrobeats artist Fireboy DML has been in heavy rotation by way of TikTok and radio play. His song “Peru” received a co-sign by Ed Sheeran, who appeared on a remix of the track, and he was recruited by Madonna for a Sickick-produced remix of her 1998 hit “Frozen.”

Although his music has made him the life of every party, Fireboy admits he prefers spending time on his own. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Fireboy mentioned that he values remaining rooted in his humanity.

Fireboy said, “I’ve always been reclusive, placing priority on solitude, having alone time, and I’ve never really been the going-out person. Growing as a person and into the industry, seeing things, I realized how important it is to hold on to that part of me that always seeks solitude after a long period of time of exchanging energy out there.”

Still, he enjoys seeing crowds dancing and reciting the words to his songs while on tour. Earlier this year, Fireboy performed his first US tour, which he said were some of the best shows of his career.

“It was during the peak winter period and people were coming out in the snow,” Fireboy said. “Family men, married people with kids. It meant a whole lot to me. When you live this life and you’re blinded by the glamour, it’s the little things that burst your head.”

Ed Sheeran and Madonna are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Although Jack Harlow is one of the most beloved new artists to emerge out of the pandemic years, not everyone has enjoyed watching his meteoric rise. Sure, his new album Come Home The Kids Miss You landed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, while its single “First Class” has been a recurring fixture at No. 1 on the Hot 100, but there are some who don’t think Jack came by his success honestly, citing his race as a big reason he was able to blow up so quickly.

However, his labelmate Lil Uzi Vert doesn’t see it that way, telling TMZ, “Nah, he doesn’t have white privilege…he’s signed to Black people.” You can see the video below.

While Uzi’s vote of confidence likely means a lot to his fellow Generation Now artist, Jack himself has regularly acknowledged that being white has afforded him opportunities he wouldn’t have otherwise. Uzi’s apparent misunderstanding of the term notwithstanding, Jack has received similar criticisms to Post Malone in his early career, albeit without some of the more obvious missteps. Most recently, though, Jack got flamed on Twitter for not knowing that Brandy and Ray J are siblings, stoking the debate over his status in hip-hop and provoking a good-natured lyrical response from Brandy herself.

It’ll always be a prickly topic, but the discussion is important to continue having to ensure that as the culture grows and changes, we never forget where it came from and continue to give credit to its creators.

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

Anita Baker is a 40-year recording industry veteran and currently performing a Las Vegas residency. During her show Sunday night (May 29), she acknowledged one guest in particular: Chance The Rapper. Baker said that Chance helped her regain ownership of her master recordings from her former labels, which she’d been trying to do until last year.

“Would you guys say hello to a friend of mine by way of the music industry, by way of helping me get a hold and ownership of my master records, Mister Chance The Rapper is right there,” she said. Chance himself later reciprocated on Twitter, posting a video of the touching moment and writing, “I saw one of THE greatest performances of my LIFETIME last night! Thank you so much @IAMANITABAKER for being an inspiration and an icon to so many of US.”

Funnily enough, Chance has also had social media run-ins with other R&B legends that led to unexpected shout-outs. In 2020, Dionne Warwick playfully teased Chance over his stage name, leading to an invitation to record together. That culminated in their November 2021 collaboration “Nothing’s Impossible.”

Meanwhile, the 29-year-old rapper appears to be rolling out a new project, releasing a new single, “Child Of God,” and writing exercises such as “A Bar About A Bar” as he highlights local Chicago artists.

This upcoming August and September, Snoop Dogg was supposed to perform in Europe and the UK for his I Wanna Thank Me tour. Then, in October and November, he had a handful of Australian dates set as well. Unfortunately for fans in those regions, Snoop recently announced he has canceled those shows, although his upcoming US concerts are unaffected.

A statement Snoop shared over the weekend reads, “Due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts, including family obligations and upcoming tv and film projects, Snoop Dogg regrets he is canceling all upcoming non-US tour dates for the remainder of 2022. He was excited to see his fans around the world and apologies to all that had already made plans to see his show. He looks forward to rescheduling dates in the future. Ticket refunds will be available at the original point of purchase.”

Snoop certainly has a lot of film and TV projects in the air at the moment: On his IMDb page, upcoming projects at some point in development include Day Shift, Spoken Mirrors, All-Star Weekend, Doggyland, and Pierre The Pigeon-Hawk. Aside from that, he also has a new album, A Death Row Summer, on the way. He shared a single from the project, “Touch Away,” a couple weeks ago.

Though it may seem far-fetched to Ted Cruz and his “One Door” crusade, Bill Burr happens to think that it’s far too easy to legally obtain a gun in America and that stricter guidelines should be put in place. As Mediaite reports, the comedian/actor didn’t hold back when he recently spoke about the tragic shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on a Thursday edition of his Monday Morning Podcast.

After warning his listeners that “I’m gonna be controversial,” Burr promised that he was going to solve America’s gun crisis right there and then:

Why don’t you just do it like a pilot’s license? Like when you get a gun, like when you get like a pilot’s license, you’re flying a Cessna or whatever, you can’t just go f**king fly an American Airlines jet—you gotta work your way up.

You gotta get rated. You know, I don’t think if you get like a f**king gun license, I think the first thing you should get regardless of your f**king age is you get a little six shooter. That’s all they give you. Or maybe one of those little Saturday night specials. You get a little one shot thing. That’s all the f**k you get, right?

Then as you work your way up to more and more powerful guns that could potentially do way more f**king damage, you have to pass major, major psychological evaluations. If you do, the world is your oyster and you can have whatever f**king weapon you want. How about that? Does that work out for everybody?”

According to the Texas Tribune, the unprecedented series of mass shootings we’ve seen in America have only led to looser gun laws in the state of Texas. In 2021 alone, following back-to-back mass shootings, Lone Star State lawmakers actually made permitless carry legal, meaning that anyone who legally owns a gun in the state does not need a license to carry it in (or them) public.

Like millions of others approaching America’s gun epidemic with common sense, Burr just doesn’t seem to think that the repeated act of the Left and the Right simply yelling at each other about what should be done in the wake of a tragedy like the one in Uvalde, then ultimately doing nothing, is working:

I think the left is f**king stupid. They start yelling at people on the right. Not saying everybody on the right has a gun. Not saying everybody on the left doesn’t like guns. I’m just saying like that this f**king thing where you just start yelling at the other side.”

Just go, ‘Hey, what if we do this?’ What if we try to weed out the bad apples by doing this: As long as you’re not f**king crazy, we’ll give you a f**king bazooka. Right? And you can take it outside in your backyard and go f**king shoot at something. I don’t give a f**k. Someone would have a problem with that. ‘Oh, that’s a way to control people.’

You can listen to Burr’s full podcast below.

(Via Mediaite)

Exactly one week ago, a teenager walked into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and proceeded to kill 21 people, including 19 children. Fortunately, one high-powered lawmaker is taking the situation seriously enough to propose a bill that would put a cap on the sale, transfer, and import of all guns into his country. Unfortunately, that person is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who seems to understand the power of taking swift and proactive gun control measures better than any politician in America, the country that actually has the gun problem

On Monday, as CNN reports, Trudeau introduced his new bill, which would help prevent America’s gun problem from spilling over the border of our neighbors to the north.

“What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau explained during a press conference. “In other words we’re capping the market.”

As The New York Times explained, if passed, the bill would work retroactively—meaning that current owners of what Canada considers ‘military-style assault weapons’ would have to rid their homes of these weapons via a government buyback program.

“Gun violence is a complex problem,” Trudeau explained. “But at the end of the day the math is really quite simple: The fewer guns in our communities, the safer everyone will be.”

According to the BBC, there are currently an estimated 120.5 firearms per every 100 residents in America, which is why you so often hear people say that we have more guns than people. Yemen has the second-highest number of civilian gun owners, but they’ve got less than half of our supply, with approximately 52.8 guns per every 100 people. In Canada, meanwhile, there are approximately 34.7 guns per every 100 citizens.

While gun control has been a major concern of Trudeau’s for several years now, particularly following a 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia that took the lives of 20 people—the deadliest in the country’s history—that is still being investigated as part of a public inquiry that has cost the country more than $25 million. Yet it’s clear that the timing of Trudeau’s bill is in reaction to the recent events in Uvalde and Buffalo, New York.

“As a government, as a society, we have a responsibility to act to prevent more tragedies,” Trudeau said on Monday, noting: “We need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action, firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter.”

(Via CNN)

In a weekend dominated by Top Gun: Maverick, it’s Barry that feels the need, the need for speed (on a motorbike).

Barry has been one of the best shows of 2022, and “710N” was the season’s best episode. The HBO Max description — “What kind of guy wouldn’t want to put a hot tub up there?” — intentionally underscores the craziness that ensues: Fuches (Stephen Root) is left for dead after being shot by a member of a Motocross gang led by Traci, the sister of a deceased ex-Marine; Sally (Sarah Goldberg) joins the writers’ room on The New Medusas, a show (that replaced her own on the BanSHE homepage) about three women who run a salon in New York City, and they have snakes for hair; Vanessa Bayer makes this face; NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) is invited to co-run a beignet franchise by Mitch, my new favorite character on TV; Gene (Henry Winkler) offers at least $400,000 to Annie (Laura San Giacomo), one of the many people he’s wronged over the years, to direct his MasterClass series; and oh yeah, Barry is nearly killed by the Motocross gang. And later poisoned or drugged, but let’s focus on the dirt bikes.

After the bikers break into Barry’s house (where Nick and Jermaine are recording the world’s worst comedy special) and discover his whereabouts, Barry is surrounded by Traci and her goons on the way to a dinner thrown by Sharon, the widow of Barry’s ex-military friend Chris who he shot in the head. “I think this is the guy. Is this the guy?” the bikers wonder while a confused Barry looks on inside his car. It finally clicks what’s happening — or about to happen — when Traci suggests that they shoot him. What follows is an incredible six-minute chase sequence through Los Angeles.

Look at Bill Hader’s getaway car face:

Barry screeches away from the bikers in a residential neighborhood — until one of them goes straight through his window. Following a quick exchange of looks with a mailman, Barry trades his car for a bike. He thinks he’s clear to make it to Sharon’s house for a dinner party uninterrupted (he even continues singing a song that Hader improvised), but Barry is spotted by the other members of the gang, who follow him onto a gridlocked expressway. There are no quick cuts or cheats in the editing; the camera patiently follows Barry from overhead, giving us an eagle eye look as Barry weaves through traffic. (I’m sure some of the chase involved computer trickery, but I honestly can’t tell which parts, if so.) I held my breath while Barry was whooshing past the cars, expecting him to go flying. Instead, that happens to a biker after whiffing on a firearm handoff.

The action continues at a car dealership, where the owner, Mr. Kleintop, is interrupted during a TMI pitch (“You know, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but, uh, recently, I’ve been, the wife and I, I’ve been having an affair”) by Traci driving on the roof and opening fire at Barry. “Ah, f*ck. No f*cking way. Not today, not today,” Mr. Kleintop says, sounding like a Tim Robinson character, as he runs inside and grabs his gun. He blasts two shots to kill the biker as Barry slinks away from the chaos, precious beignets in hand.

Like last season’s triumphant “ronny/lily,” “710N” — which was directed by Hader himself and written by Duffy Boudreau — is everything Barry does well: it’s laugh out loud funny, tense, violent, weird but grounded, unpredictable, and utterly unique. Note the lack of music during the Fury Road-inspired expressway chase. If Barry stunt coordinator Wade Allen had been left to his own devices, “there’s a good chance there would be some kind of Metallica soundtrack. It would be motocross porn and stunts, and it would be awesome,” he told Primetimer. “But Bill had this notion of how he wanted it covered and how he wanted it to sound, and it ultimately elevated the entire piece in a very different way.” He continued, “That’s what makes the show work. You never know when you’re going to make the switch. Are we staying serious the whole time, or are we going to get funny right now, out of nowhere?”

That master of genre-switching is what separates Barry from other action-comedies. They often fail because the jokes are fine but the action isn’t impressive, or the action is the highlight but the jokes fall flat. Or sometimes both stink. Barry excels at action and comedy (and heart-wrenching drama) in every episode, but especially “710N.”

Forget Mr. Cousineau, let Bill Hader teach a MasterClass.

Former child actor turned right-wing televangelist Kirk Cameron is back with a new hot take on schools. The Growing Pains star is getting roasted on social media for pushing his newest film, The Homeschool Awakening, which urges conservative parents to pull their kids out of public schools where they’re being exposed to — you guessed it — “grooming.”

Since the creation of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, “grooming” has been very loosely tossed around to define anyone who dare to think it’s okay that LGBTQ+ teachers and students simply exist. As a far-right provocateur, naturally, Cameron latched onto the phrase to promote his new film and attack public schools, which he also says spread “sexual chaos.”

Via Fox News:

“The problem is that public school systems have become so bad. It’s sad to say they’re doing more for grooming, for sexual chaos and the progressive left than any real educating about the things that most of us want to teach our kids,” he told Fox News Digital. The solution to the problem, he said, was for parents to take the lead on their children’s education and teach them at home. To make the case, the award-winning actor referenced his upcoming movie, “The Homeschool Awakening.”

Following the Uvalde school shooting, some conservatives have been saying that the solution to protecting students is to home school them, which is clearly not realistic for millions of working families. So Cameron wading into the already contentious topic did not go over well, and there’s been significant pushback to his hypocritical assault on public schools.

You can see some of the reactions below:

(Via Fox News)