One of my favorite questions to ask friends is: what movies have you walked out of? For me, it’s only been two films, Baby’s Day Out and Miracle on 34th Street, both of which came out in 1994 when I was a bored seven-year-old with no attention span, apparently.
I haven’t left the theater early for any movie as an adult, but god knows I’ve been tempted. I’m pretty sure I was on my phone for most of Transformers: The Last Knight. (Don’t worry, it was an empty theater, which, in retrospect, should have been clue number one that it was going to be a stinker.) Stephen King also didn’t enjoy a Transformers movie-going experience, but he made the smart call and walked out.
In response to crime novelist Linwood Barclay tweeting that “Jurassic World Dominion has the distinction of being the first movie I’ve walked out on in years,” King replied, “I have walked out of only one movie as an adult: TRANSFORMERS. Would like to know what other movies people have walked out on.”
Inquiring minds had to know: did he mean the animated Transformers movie or Michael Bay’s Transformers? “Michael Bay. The first one,” the horror maestro replied.
If Bay was on Twitter, there is a 95 percent chance he would respond to King with something like, “I walked out of Maximum Overdrive, more like Maximum Crappy Movie,” followed by six explosion emojis. Instead, he’s busy making Ambulance 2 (hopefully).
James Bond did not have time to die, but you’ll have to have time to wait for the next James Bond movie. A Daniel Craig-less James Bond is not returning to a movie theater near you anytime soon.
Deadline reports that James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli (which might be an even better name than James Bond) says the next film in the historic franchise is “at least two years” away. She also confirmed that there are absolutely no actors in the running for the role as the next series of films will be a “reinvention” of Bond following the Craig Era, which was itself a very dark and very serious reinvention of Bond.
“Nobody’s in the running,” Broccoli told Deadline. “We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through. There isn’t a script and we can’t come up with one until we decide how we’re going to approach the next film because, really, it’s a reinvention of Bond. We’re reinventing who he is and that takes time. I’d say that filming is at least two years away.”
While we wait and see if Idris Elba will ever be James Bond, I might as well contemplate and insert my top five Bond films into the blog because being mad at me about my personal taste is a great use of your time. Here are my top five Bond films, ranked in no particular order with the exception of Skyfall, which is the best for its cinematography from Roger Deakins and chaotic good performance from Javier Bardem: Skyfall, Casino Royale, Goldeneye, No Time To Die, Tomorrow Never Dies. You might say I have a recency bias, and that would be true, although you should know that I feel this very deeply in my heart.
One can argue that the best genre of offseason basketball videos is the one that involves professional basketball players hanging out with children and reminding them that they are nowhere near as good as they are. A recent example came when Boban Marjanovic went to a camp and kindly invited kids to try and score on him, only to send their sh*t to another county because he is very tall.
Are you ready for a new one? Well, my assumption is you are because you clicked on this post, but, whatever: Here is a video of Zion Williamson, a physical marvel by basically any way you cut it, going to a gym and challenging a bunch of kids to play 1-on-1 against him. The children try to play some level of defense against the New Orleans Pelicans star, but instead, they learn the hard way that Zion is better at basketball than they are.
Zion rolled up to a local New Orleans gym and started trash talking and dunking on children @Zionwilliamson
The cool thing with this video — namely that second clip — is that Zion is probably going at, like, 1.5 percent of his max effort. This is way more than most athletes do in these videos, because they tend to kinda just stand there and wait for something to happen before humbling some kids. But not Zion, and for that reason, this is a good video.
When it comes to COVID-19 conspiracy theories, Joe Rogan is a name that pops up often. It was a whole thing earlier in the year when Neil Young and David Crosby pulled their catalogs off Spotify because of Rogan spreading misinformation about the vaccines. So it’s pretty notable when Gina Carano stopped by Rogan’s podcast and got shut down while trying to voice her own controversial opinion on the pandemic.
Carano, who famously got fired from The Mandalorian following a series of controversial social media posts, has skewed even further to the right since being let go by Disney. However, Rogan pushed back when the actress said that the COVID-19 lockdowns purposefully affected people’s mental health and addictions by forcing them to stay home. Via Mediaite:
“I find it really hard to believe that they — the people that shut us down, you know, some of the most intelligent people — far more intelligent than I could ever imagine, didn’t know by taking people’s jobs away from them, taking their consistency, taking their livelihoods and saying ‘We’re gonna pay you and keep you home,’ wasn’t gonna affect people’s addictions. Wasn’t gonna affect people’s suicides, purpose, you know, because I’m my best felt — I’m my best self when I’m working,” she said.
“It’s like a responsibility that you just, you just took away their structure,” Carano continued. “So I just really find it hard to believe that this wasn’t on purpose.”
Despite endorsing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president and praising his hands-off pandemic measures, Rogan did not agree with Carano’s theory that the government intentionally set out to harm people with the lockdowns.
“I don’t think it was on purpose,” Rogan said. “I think you’re dealing with Monday morning quarterbacking. And I think people are looking at it and going ‘How’d they not know this and how’d they not know that.’”
After a back and forth with Carano, Rogan stuck to his guns. ““I don’t think they knew. I think they were in a panic and I think they shut everyone down,” he said. When Carano expressed shock at Rogan’s “positive outlook,” he explained that he tries to remain “objective” and he looks at “the actual facts.” So it’s time to be shocked because this is the guy who fell for a fake news story about Steven Seagal personally helping Russian troops invade Ukraine.
Calvin Harris’ first Funk Wav Bounces album, which was released in June 2017, has become something of a cult favorite among dance music fans, who’ve agitated for a follow-up ever since. Harris recently began the rollout for Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, dropping its first single, “Potion” featuring Dua Lipa and Young Thug, in May. Today, he finally shared the project’s long-awaited release date: August 5. He also teased the guestlist via a short video of waves crashing on a sunny shore with the names flashing across the screen.
Those names include 21 Savage, 6lack, Charlie Puth, Chloe, Halsey, Jorja Smith, Justin Timberlake, Latto, Lil Durk, Normani, Offset, Pharrell, Pusha T, Shenseea, Snoop Dogg, Stefflon Don, and Tinashe.
Ironically, there couldn’t be a better time for Harris to return with Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, as a new wave of dance music — particularly dance music crafted by some of the world’s biggest entertainers — appears to be cresting. Just weeks ago, Drake surprise-dropped his club-influenced new album, Honestly, Nevermind, prompting a renewed interest and discussion of Black musicians in the art form, then Beyonce followed up with her new single “Break My Soul,” which even had national news programs looking up vocal house legend Robin S. to get her take on the out-of-nowhere revival of Black house music.
You can pre-save Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, out 8/5 via Columbia Records, here
Emoni Bates is headed back to his home state of Michigan. Bates, the former No. 1 recruit in America who spent his freshman year of college playing for the Memphis Tigers before entering the transfer portal, told Joe Tipton of On3 that he’s made up his mind, but it comes with a pretty big twist: Instead of suiting up for Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans or Juwan Howard’s Michigan Wolverines, Bates is going to his hometown of Ypsilanti to play for Eastern Michigan.
Breaking: Memphis transfer Emoni Bates has committed to Eastern Michigan, he tells @On3sports.
“People probably look at me crazy because I’m considering Eastern,” Bates told On3. “But if I went there, I would be like the neighborhood hero. I used to play at Eastern during my high school games when I was at Lincoln, and we used to pack it out every time. That would be crazy for me to be able to bring love to the city.”
Bates played his high school ball at Lincoln before transferring to Ypsi Prep Academy. He established himself as the top player in the class of 2022 before reclassifying and committing to Penny Hardaway’s Tigers as a top-10 recruit.
That first year at Memphis featured some bumps in the road, as he appeared in 18 games due to injuries and averaged 9.7 points a night. Because of his age, Bates was not able to make the jump to the NBA at the conclusion of his first year out of high school. Now, he’ll join an Eagles team coached by former Arkansas coach Stan Heath. The team plays in the MAC and went 10-21 during the 2021-22 campaign.
One of D.C.’s top conservative newspapers is predicting Donald Trump’s political career is dead thanks to Cassidy Hutchinson’s damning testimony during the Jan. 6th hearings this week.
“Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump’s political career,” the article began. “Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.”
The scathing takedown lists out many of Trump’s transgressions as told to lawmakers by Hutchinson during the House Oversight Committee hearings while also defending the young woman’s credibility. Hutchinson had previously worked under Senator Ted Cruz and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise. She had some of the highest security clearance in her role as aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “In short, Hutchinson was a conservative Trumpist true believer and a tremendously credible one at that,” the paper wrote, subtly pushing back against some right-wing media trying to paint the GOP aide as less than trustworthy. Trump has also lashed out at Hutchinson, calling her “bad news,” “a total phony,” and a “leaker.”
But the Examiner seems to view Trump’s outraged dismissal as evidence of his own wrongdoing.
“Hutchinson’s testimony confirmed a damning portrayal of Trump as unstable, unmoored, and absolutely heedless of his sworn duty to effectuate a peaceful transition of presidential power,” the article continued. “Considering the entirety of her testimony, it is unsurprising that Hutchinson said she heard serious discussions of Cabinet members invoking the 25th Amendment that would have at least temporarily evicted Trump from office. Trump is a disgrace. Republicans have far better options to lead the party in 2024. No one should think otherwise, much less support him, ever again.”
Jack White is a professional musician, but before that, his primary trade was upholstery. It’s a passion he has actually kept up with as The White Stripes and his solo career took off over the years. At one point, in fact, White offered to upholster the furniture for Conan O’Brien’s Conan talk show on TBS, but that didn’t happen because the host didn’t think it was a serious offer, despite the fact that it very much was.
White guested on a recent episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast (which uses The White Stripes’ “We’re Going To Be Friends” as its theme song, by the way) and O’Brien told the story as White laughed and nodded along. O’Brien said:
“One [regret] is when we were doing our show at TBS, you contacted me and — I had no idea you were serious — you said, ‘I’d like to do the upholstery… I’d like to make you your talk show couch,’ and I was like, ‘That’s so hilarious, man, that’s great.’ And later on, you were like, ‘No no no, I was serious. I would have made your…’ You would have made… and I felt like [it was] such a lost opportunity to have a talk show where Jack White made my talk show couch.”
So, while that didn’t end up working out, White did recently upholster a piece of furniture for another famous figure: Adam Savage, formerly of Mythbusters. In an early-May video on his Tested YouTube channel, Savage showed off and spoke about a workshop stool that White had recently reupholstered for him, a task White approached with a lot of care and attention to detail.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
There’s an age-old adage that part of queer culture is going through a second adolescence in your late 20s, as your younger years weren’t yours to live. On Muna’s self-titled third album, the trio evokes the feelings of a late coming-of-age due to repressing one’s queerness. Muna marks the group’s first album since being dropped from RCA and signing to the Phoebe Bridgers-helmed independent label, Saddest Factory. Liberated from the crutches of a major label and from patriarchal forms of gender and sexual expression, Muna is the trio’s most fluid and honest effort to date.
At the top of 2020, the members of Muna, lead vocalist Katie Gavin and instrumentalists Josette Mankin and Naomi McPherson, were feeling defeated after being let go from RCA. Unsure about the future, the trio felt a “natural reprieve” from creating once the pandemic hit in March of 2020, just six months after the release of their sophomore album, Saves The World.
“We didn’t really plan to step away from making music [after getting dropped],” Gavin says. “But I think just inherently, circumstantially, globally, we were allowed a slight breath in between album cycles, and in what felt like a very odd time. Even if we had been making music, I feel like we would have wanted to take a little bit of a break anyway.”
Muna signed to Saddest Factory in May of 2021. Working with Bridgers, who, like all three members of Muna, identifies as queer, allowed them to create an experimental body of work showcasing a range of queer emotions.
“I think signing with Saddest has just been really nice, because it was a fresh start,” says Mankin. “Also, it’s nice to work with Phoebe, someone who is also of a marginalized gender. She just gets us. Not that our A&R at RCA didn’t get us and wasn’t wonderful, but it’s been a nice experience working with Saddest.”
Upon playing the album from the beginning, the listener is taken back to their teenage years, experiencing the whirlwind of feelings accompanied by a queer crush. Or, perhaps, they are present in their late 20s or early 30s, as they finally invite those feelings of queerness in after years of repressing them. The album’s opening track, a duet with Bridgers called “Silk Chiffon,” captures the saccharine emotions of infatuation.
“Life’s so fun, life’s so fun / Don’t need to worry about no one / She said I got her if I want / She’s so soft like silk chiffon,” sing Gavin and Bridgers on their respective verses, over a soft, sweet, guitar-and-drum-driven instrumental.
While “Silk Chiffon” is more romantic in nature, the album’s second track, “What I Want,” is a more convivial song, which details the honeymoon phase of coming out and making up for lost time. Over a fast-paced, futuristic, Gavin details a debauched night, in which she finally knows what she wants, after years of pushing back her desires. “I want the full effects / I want to hit it hard / I want to dance in the middle of a gay bar,” she sings on the song’s chorus.
“As a queer person, I do think you go through multiple adolescences,” Mankin says. “There are so many layers to being queer, whether it’s your sexuality or gender. I don’t know how many adolescences or coming outs I will have. I feel like my childhood was so confining, but I feel like society also is, and it takes a long time to figure out who you are.”
“After feeling torn up by having big secrets, you’re longing for a certain kind of freedom,” adds McPherson. “You’re wanting to be able to fly by the seat of your pants and enjoy being young, sweaty, sexy, and horny. When Katie sent the top line for that song over a little sh*tty beat, In my head. I was immediately like, ‘Oh f*ck, we gotta go hard on this for the gays.’”
The trio takes several different approaches when writing songs. Gavin often starts out recording lyrics and lines on Ableton, and then will send the bones of the song to her bandmates. Or, she’ll play an idea on an acoustic guitar, and the three will come up with a beat together. Or, McPherson will craft an instrumental and send it to her, and Gavin will write over that.
Gavin admits that bringing in outside co-writers isn’t easy for the group, but for Muna, she had “more successful co-writes” with other songwriters on this album than either of the band’s previous two albums. “What I Want” was co-written by openly gay songwriter Leland, who has penned tracks for the likes of Selena Gomez, Ava Max, and the performers of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Another song, the sensual, lustful “No Idea,” was co-written by Mitski.
“Mitski was coming into town to do some co-writing sessions for other people’s music,” Gavin recalls. I don’t think we had ever met before that, and she just came over to Naomi and Jo’s apartment that they had at the time. I had just started ‘No Idea’ and I played it on acoustic guitar. I remember her just being like, ‘That’s hot,’ and my soul leaving my body. It was really cool to work with her, because she’s like, not only my favorite songwriter of our generation, but she’s also just such a wonderful musician who loves music, and she was really fun and exploratory in the studio. Her music has so much raw sexuality in it, to me.”
With queer sexuality and queer love often comes queer heartbreak. On “Anything But Me,” which was released this past March upon the announcement of Muna, Gavin has no regrets about a breakup, and is willing to be there for her ex should they ever need anything — anything but her. In May, Muna released “Home By Now,” a more regretful song, in which Gavin finds herself asking “Would we have turned a corner if I had waited? Do I need to lower my expectations? If we kept it in the same direction, would we be home by now?”
While “Home By Now” is five tracks ahead of “Anything But Me” on the album’s tracklist, creating a more linear path to healing from heartbreak, the order in which the songs were actually released as singles feels like a more realistic reflection of dealing with a breakup in adulthood — breaking up with someone definitively, then, months later, questioning if you made the right choice.
“I wish [the release strategy] was that well-thought out,” McPherson says. “It’s funny, when were putting together the album sequence, there are a couple of moments where lyrically, the songs seem to be in opposition with each other, like in ‘What I Want,’ we’re talking about ‘We’re gonna go out, we’re gonna drink, and party, and have fun. But in the beginning of ‘Runner’s High, [the following track], we’re like ‘We haven’t been drinking, we’re meditating.’ That’s just the way life is, you know? I think i’ve arrived, but I’m swinging on a pendulum forever.”
With Muna, the members were able to breathe life into a project so fluid in terms of genre and sexuality, yet so cohesive in capturing an aural queer journey. Over the course of the album’s 11 tracks, the listener will embark on a path that feels all too familiar. They’ll smile, they’ll cry, they’ll feel the secondhand cringe of adolescence — but most importantly, they’ll dance their ass off.
Muna’s tour in support of the album kicks off on July 28 at Lollapalooza in Chicago. While they are keeping the details of the tour mum for the time being, they promise that each show will be a hot, sweaty, queer wonderland, with plenty of dancing.
“Muna fans are so dope,” says Gavin, “and they turn the f*ck up at every show. It’s just a pleasure at every show, to see people who are there just to see us, and they know every goddamn word, and they sing so loud.”
Muna is out now via Saddest Factory. Stream it here.
R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to Variety. The R&B star was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking in New York in September of 2021. Kelly was accused of recruiting women and teen girls (and at least one boy) in a sex-trafficking ring throughout the ’90s and 2000s, using his status, money, and connections to violate anti-sex trafficking laws and cover up his crimes. Federal prosecutors had previously recommended a sentence “in excess of 25 years,” believing him to be a continued danger to the public.
The earliest examples of Kelly’s crimes date as far back as 1994, when he illegally married the underaged Aaliyah, allegedly bribing public officials for phony documents saying she was of age. Meanwhile, he went on trial for child pornography in the early 2000s after a videotape emerged depicting Kelly urinating on a young teen girl. When the victim refused to testify, Kelly was acquitted but apparently never reformed, continuing his illegal activities throughout the following decade and a half.
His crimes were once again exposed by the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, in which many of his victims came forward to detail his abuse. With the uptick in campaigns such as “Mute R. Kelly,” his resources for dodging the authorities became scarce; he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. In addition to the federal case brought against him in New York, he faces a separate criminal trial in his home state, Illinois, where he is charged with ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse including more child porn charges. That trial is set to begin in August; Kelly has secured Bill Cosby’s former legal team ahead of the trial and is expected to appeal his New York case with the same team.
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