Month: June 2022

As Jurassic World: Dominion opens wide in theaters, franchise veteran Sam Neill is opening up about how director Colin Trevorrow talked him into returning to the series after a nearly 20 year absence: Namely, through a whole lot of wine.

Neill famously played paleontologist Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park, and after sitting out The Lost World, he returned for the underrated 2001 gem, Jurassic Park III. Since then, Neill admits that he never thought much about returning to the franchise even when the Jurassic World films started up with Chris Pratt in the lead. However, that changed when Trevorrow took Neill out to lunch during a film festival, and the actor didn’t even try to hide how he was talked into joining the cast of Dominion. Via The Wrap:

I think it was October of 2019. I got a Lifetime Award at the Stiges Film Festival, which is devoted to fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, and stuff like that. And Colin turned up for that and took me out for lunch and basically talked me into it. He was persuasive that all these characters would be central to what happens in the story, they’d have their own storylines and so on.

Was there anything in particular he said that swayed you?

Look, I liked him enormously, and also we had two bottles of wine. That helps.

Of course, Neill also said that a major sticking point was that he “wasn’t going to come in and do a cameo,” which Trevorrow addressed, but clearly, the wine helped. Sam Neill loves him some vino. Case in point:

(Via The Wrap)

NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series is celebrating Black Music Month with showcases of Black artists both “at home” and at the titular Tiny Desk. The latest episode features genre-bending English singer-songwriter FKA Twig, performing in a mysterious-looking candlelit church, backed by strings and piano. In addition to singing two of her most beloved ballads, “Home With You” and “Cellophane,” as well as debuting a brand-new song, “Killer.”

FKA Twigs upped her game early this year with the release of her mixtape, Caprisongs. The tape, which featured the singles “Meta Angel,” “Jealousy,” “Bliss,” “Papi Bones,” “Honda,” and “Which Way,” highlighted her eclecticism and improved vocals, as well as featuring a spontaneity that hadn’t yet been heard from the convention-challenging Twigs. In her review, Uproxx’s Caitlin White writes, “… a more relaxed, linear style in the songwriting gives a deeper look into Twigs’ psyche than her past work.”

In addition to promoting her new tape, Twigs is expanding her resume, adding a brand-new acting role to her impressive list of achievements. In May, it was reported that Twigs had been cast in an upcoming remake of the 1994 gothic action movie The Crow — which is a perfect opportunity to showcase her martial arts and dance training.

Watch FKA Twigs’ Tiny Desk Concert above.

FKA Twigs is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Bradley Beal has the potential to be the most highly sought-after free agents in basketball this summer. Beal has a player option for the 2022-23 season, and if he turns it down, he’ll hit the open market, where the Washington Wizards have the potential to offer him a 5-year deal worth $246 million.

There is, of course, no guarantee he returns to Washington, even if the team does have the ability to offer him one more year and considerably more money than anyone else. In a recent sit-down with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report, Beal laid out what is top of mind as he enters a potentially career-altering summer.

“I know what my decision will be based off of, and that’s gonna be where I feel like I can win, that’s going to be my decision,” Beal said. “If I feel like I can win in DC, that’s what I’m gonna do. And I want people to respect that, you may, you may not, but I’m gonna fight my ass off, I’m gonna compete, and I’m gonna try to make this team better. If it’s elsewhere, it’s gonna be the exact same commitment.

“So, it’s twofold,” Beal continued. “You’re gonna have people rooting for you, saying go, you’re gonna have people saying stay, you’re gonna have people saying take less, you’re gonna have people saying all types of stuff. So, all those things are options, everything’s an option, but for the most part, I’m gonna do what’s best for me, and I can’t concern myself with what other people will say.”

Beal has indicated in the past that he’s leaning towards re-signing with Washington. The veteran guard has spent his entire professional career with the Wizards, and is coming off of season-ending wrist surgery. The Wizards have made the postseason once in the last four years and have not finished with an above-.500 record since 2017-18.

Top Gun: Maverick has been out for a few weeks now, and it’s clear that it’s easily this year’s first and biggest blockbuster. Yet in a film that was otherwise doggedly, meticulously, slavishly built around non-stop callbacks to its predecessor, there was one area in which Top Gun: Maverick notably fell short: sweat.

Top Gun is easily one of the sweatiest movies ever made. Every single character is basically bathed in sweat the entire time. In theory, all that sweat is narratively justified, considering most of the film is purported to be set “somewhere in the Indian Ocean” (against an adversary heavily implied to be the USSR though not stated outright), which I assume is a humid place. Even acknowledging that, there’s enough sweat in Top Gun that you can practically hear a PA putting in a claim for carpal tunnel from squeezing a spray bottle for 15 hours every day. The entire scene of Merlin washing out early in the film (subtext of the scene: flying planes is hard) is illustrated mainly through sweat. It’s basically an entire sweat-based storytelling system.

Between the screen makeup and the nonstop spritzing, I have to imagine that the set was covered in giant beige puddles by the end of the day. Whichever PAs weren’t crippled from the carpal tunnel probably had to remove them with giant squeegees at the end of every shooting day, fouling storm drains for miles downstream.

Here’s Goose, one scene later:

Even after the action moves to San Diego (a warm but not especially humid place) the characters stay pretty moist. Point is, it’s a very wet movie, and as Derek Zoolander taught us, moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.

Of course, Top Gun wasn’t the only wet movie of its era (though it may have been its wettest). In honor of Top Gun, I took some time out to remember some of Hollywood’s wettest movies.

A Time To Kill (1996)

“Incredibly young-looking attorney tries racially-motivated case in hot place” was a genre unto itself in the 90s, probably partly due to the popularity of John Grisham, a lawyer-turned-author who went to law school in Mississippi, where sweat is officially classified as a food group. One of the most popular exemplars of this phenomenon was undoubtedly A Time To Kill, starring a then-27-year-old Matthew McConaughey, then and now one of our sweatiest actors — nay, sweatiest public figures. He looks like he stinks, in a sexual (?) way.

The Client (1994)

Then there was The Client (another Grisham adaptation) whose plot hinged on a juvenile delinquent witnessing an incredibly sweaty man try to commit suicide via exhaust pipe. Hey, man, if you had to keep the car running anyway, maybe throw on the A/C? Just a thought.

Body Heat (1981)

When the movie has “heat” in the title and the first line of the synopsis is “in the midst of a searing Florida heat wave,” you can bet that movie is going to have some sweat. In fact, I think the entire idea behind this began with “Okay, so audiences love sweaty people, right?”

I’ll give you a nickel for every Body Heat review that doesn’t include the word “writhing.”

Do The Right Thing (1989)

One of the subthemes of Spike Lee’s breakout classic was “people get pissed at each other when it’s really hot” which is why it remains an enduring comment on Brooklyn life. If Spike Lee hadn’t made everyone sweaty he would’ve been fired for dereliction of duty.

Predator (1987)

Predator is set mostly in the Central American jungle and it’s about an alien hunter who stalks a team of commandos with his heat vision. So, again, the heat was sort of a theme. But it also revealed another important sweat factor: it really makes your arms pop. I hope the fact that it’s become a meme doesn’t take away from the magic of the original “manly handshake” scene. It’s really one of the finest closeups in all of cinema.

Alien 3 (1992)

David Fincher’s since-disavowed feature debut starred Sigourney Weaver as Ripley again, this time having crash-landed on an all-male penal colony (a penile colony, if you will). And if I know a thing or two about all-male prisons and I think I do, it’s that they’re always very sweaty and that everyone has a really nice body.

Flashdance (1983)

I still haven’t actually seen Flashdance all the way through (not enough all-male prison scenes), but one thing I do know about it is that it’s very sweaty. It’s a film about a steelworker who aspires to be a professional ballerina (you know, that old story) and was the first collaboration by producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. The two would go on to produce, yep, Top Gun. Their penchant for producing sweat-drenched hits is why they two were known as “The Wet Bandits” around town.

Falling Down (1993)

Falling Down is a bit like a West Coast cousin to Do The Right Thing, in that a big part of the plot is based on the idea that people get fed up when it’s hot out. And it’s about a guy who walks across LA on a summer afternoon, so not surprisingly it was pretty sweaty. It was also directed by Joel Schumacher, who also directed The Client and A Time To Kill. He’s the closest we have to a sweaty movie specialist. I like to think that he got a lot of jobs when the producers sat around going, “Okay, who can handle a big sweat budget?”

I also love this scene, where Michael Douglas’s character is like “Look, I might be a violent reactionary, but I’m not a racist violent reactionary.”

Die Hard (1988)

At the time, it was revolutionary casting Bruce Willis as the lead in an action movie on account of he wasn’t super buff like Schwarzenegger and Stallone. But director John McTiernan correctly surmised that we would accept Willis as an action hero as long as he was super, super sweaty.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

I guess if I put Die Hard and Predator on here I have to put Rambo. The opening shots of the trailer really are just lingering shots of Stallone’s glistening torso. My only hesitation: is Rambo really a sweaty movie or is it more of a greasy one? Discuss.

Perfect (1985)

I love that in the eighties you could make a whole movie about people going to exercise classes. How did we never get a Peloton movie? A Soul Cycle movie? I blame the cocaine shortage.

Honorable Mentions

The Last Boy Scout
Slumdog Millionaire
The Last King of Scotland
Amistad
City Of God
Chinatown
Dog Day Afternoon
In The Heat Of The Night
Amistad

—

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

After much beefing with her record label, Halsey finally released their new single, “So Good,” last night. Now, hours later, Halsey has shared a video for the song. It’s a meta visual, in which Halsey plays herself, directing a video for the song. The clip also stars her partner Alev Aydin, who works with a blue-wigged actress. Halsey later wears the same wig and looks back at their relationship with Aydin. While Halsey “directs” the video within the video, Aydin directs the actual video (if that makes sense).

Halsey says of the video, “The film we created for ‘So Good’ really tells the full story of the song in the way I intended. Samsung helped us share our vision, giving us the creative freedom we needed to make something we are really proud of. Using the Freestyle, Alev and I were able to share a glimpse of the way that we fell in love: watching romantic films together. But this time, the Freestyle is playing real home movies from our life together. For us, this makes ‘So Good’ come to life in a really special way that we’re so excited share with fans.”

After the song’s release, Halsey had some words for their fans, tweeting yesterday, “guys stop texting your exes lmao this song isn’t about an ex that worked out later on! It’s about the friend that was always there for me, who I realized I was in love with one day. text that angel instead!!!!!” They added, “I think this is the biggest and best reaction to a song release I have ever seen from you guys. I’m truly giddy. all of this was so worth it. I had a gut feeling this was a good one. ily.”

Watch the “So Good” video above.

The Staircase, HBO Max’s limited series starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, has been a hit with viewers and critics (our own Carrie Whitmer called it a “masterpiece”). But the real people both at the center of the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson, and the 13-part docuseries it inspired, aren’t part of its fan club.

In an exclusive interview with Variety, Michael Peterson—Kathleen’s husband, who was convicted of murdering her in 2003 in a homicide case that turned into a legal roller coaster—expressed his dismay with the series, which he ultimately blames on Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, who directed the original 2004 documentary series. (Got that?)

Just last month, de Lestrade spoke with Vanity Fair about how he and his fellow filmmakers felt “betrayed” by Antonio Campos, who created the fictionalized HBO Max series. The French filmmaker took particular issue with the way in which the series suggests that de Lestrade and his editor Sophie Brunet (who began a romantic relationship with Peterson in real life—again, got that?) crafted their documentary in a favorable way so that it might help Peterson with his appeal. “I understand if you dramatize,” de Lestrade said. “But when you attack the credibility of my work, that’s really not acceptable to me.”

Peterson himself has heard de Lestrade’s complaints, but believes the fault in these negative portrayals ultimately rests with the documentarian. “I have read about Jean de Lestrade’s sense of betrayal by Antonio Campos and HBO Max’s presentation of The Staircase,” Peterson told Variety. “But what has been forgotten or overlooked or simply ignored is his betrayal of me and my family. We feel that Jean pimped us out—sold OUR story to Campos for money—what word other than pimped describes what he did?”

De Lestrade did sell Campos his archive of documents and footage, which is a big part of why the documentarian feels betrayed. “I really trusted the man,” he told Vanity Fair. While he did receive an executive producer credit on the HBO Max series, de Lestrade never read any of the scripts or participated beyond sharing the information he had. Which is exactly what Peterson is taking issue with.

“He released his archive to Campos who then created a fictional account of events, most of which trashed me (which I really don’t care about) and my children—which I really do care about,” Peterson told Variety. “There are egregious fabrications and distortions of the truth in the HBO series, well beyond what may be considered ‘artistic’ license.”

While Peterson claims that de Lestrade never told him that he had sold his archived material to Campos, the documentarian disagrees. He says he informed Michael and his family of the transaction around 2008. “Since I knew that Antonio had in mind to tell the story of Michael and the documentary, I thought that it would be better to cooperate, and be involved in the process then to stay totally outside as a stranger,” de Lestrade told Variety. “In a way I thought I was protecting Michael and his family by being involved, but I was wrong.”

De Lestrade can’t recall whether he informed Peterson that the HBO Max series was happening (oops!), and told Variety that, “If I didn’t, I should have.” While the documentarian claims he was paid just over $9,000 for his materials, Peterson believes that number is a lie.

“Jean should have known that when you sell your ass/property, you assume the risk of getting f**ked/betrayed,” Peterson said. “Every hooker knows this. So he got betrayed/f**ked. Why should he be surprised?”

Someone should make a documentary about this.

(Via Variety)

There’s a common theme among reviews for Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth and possibly final installment of the Jurassic Park/World series. See if you can guess it.

From Mashable: “A big, dumb animal that deserves extinction.”

From Entertainment Weekly: “Let’s get these dinosaurs to the nearest tar pit.”

From Collider: “Please, God, let this franchise go extinct.”

And my personal favorite, from The Independent: “Yikes!”

Jurassic World: Dominion has a 33 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest among all the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies. But in one respect, it’s better — or at least more accurate — than Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster masterpiece.

[Dominion paleontology consultant Steve] Brusatte’s job on the new film was primarily that of an asset-on-call, being available for any questions creatives on the film had relating to the film’s dinosaurs. Brusatte aimed to make Jurassic World Dominion the most accurate depiction of dinosaurs yet, all coming down to one mega-important detail: feathers.

“I’m really pleased with the feathers,” he told Variety. “That’s the biggest thing of all because we’ve known that dinosaurs had feathers for a long time, but they haven’t made it into Jurassic World, frustratingly. Or Jurassic Park.”

Brusatte said he was “always annoyed” about the lack of feathers, but he understood why the more bird-like dinosaurs didn’t make their Jurassic debut until Dominion, as “the first film came out before the discovery happened,” Variety explained. Or it’s because dinosaurs with feathers look stupid. One of the two.

Another paleontologist was less forgiving. “The whole thing drove me nuts,” Jim Kirkland raged. “They could have just said, you know, ‘Oh, originally we were using frog DNA as the template. Now we use chicken DNA, so we get much better dinosaurs.’ And then you get feathered dinosaurs! And you’ve explained it in one sentence!”

Never challenge a paleontologist to a dinosaur trivia-off. You might go extinct.

(Via Variety)

Vladimir Putin’s comparing himself to an all-powerful Russian monarch, but does he really have a personal poop collector? Yikes.

Let’s back up a moment. Over 100 days ago, Putin made the imperialistic decision to invade Ukraine. His troops have run into molotov cocktail-wielding grandmas amid news that the troops are so frustrated that some nearly blew up their general. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have lost their lives for one man’s quest to rule as much of the world as possible, all while Putin’s so upset about the slowness of his progress that he’s firing military leaders. In addition, one of Putin’s top commanders got whacked by a sniper, and Putin is allegedly out of Botox, so what else could go wrong with this war?

Well, Putin’s rumored to be suffering from both health woes and assassination attempts, so that seems to have amped up his sense of paranoia. Via Yahoo, things are getting strange in that regard, but it’s been building up for years (since 2019, and it’s still ongoing), according to French media reports. That is to say, there’s reportedly a Putin poop collector, who sends his stuff back to Russia. And you thought your job was hard:

The journalists found indirect evidence about the work done by the “special” bodyguard back in 2019, when Putin visited Saudi Arabia. The same person accompanied Putin on bathroom visits during a visit to France.

The report suggests that this agent collects the excreta of the Russian leader in special bags, which are then packed into briefcases and dispatched to Russia. This is done presumably so that nobody can get information about Putin’s health.

We truly live in incredible times. Speaking of which, Reuters reveals that Putin gave a Thursday speech that reveals how he views himself, and he’s comparing his legacy to that of Tsar Peter the Great while suggesting that, while invading Ukraine, he’s only taking back what already belongs to Russia. Yep, Putin said this:

“Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned (what was Russia’s),” Putin said after a visiting an exhibition dedicated to the tsar.

As NBC News notes, this will likely only amplify concerns that Putin also wishes to invade Poland and Finland if he’s ever finished waging war on Ukraine. And amid all of that seriousness, Putin’s freaking out about anyone digging into his own poop. Fitting.

(Via Yahoo, Reuters & NBC News)

While covering the January 6 hearings for NewsNation, former Fox News editor Chris Stirewalt dropped a bombshell that he will be testifying in front of the House Select Committee on Monday. Stirewalt was fired from the network after he defended the decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden during the tumultuous 2020 presidential election. Since then, he’s been a vocal critic of what he saw going down on Fox, and now, he’ll be sharing his experience with the Jan. 6 committee.

Stirewalt made the revelation during a Friday morning broadcast of Morning In America with Adrienne, which caught host Adrienne Bankert by surprise. She literally asked “why in the world” is he testifying. Since they were discussing the Thursday night hearings, Stirewalt wanted the information out there in the spirit of full disclosure. Via Mediaite:

CHRIS STIREWALT: Well, I am not in a position now to tell you what my testimony will be about. I just want to make sure that folks know that I am so that it so so that I’m not playing any hidden ball tricks here. I was asked to testify and I, and I got to go.

ADRIENNE BANKERT: Yeah, but just to inform people, because there are all kinds of people who are asked to testify, including journalists. Is it because of some of the reporting that went out that day? Can you at least tell us that?

CHRIS STIREWALT: As I say, I’m not in a position to tell you what I’m going to testify about. I just wanted to make sure that folks knew that I was going to participate there.

Since his firing from Fox News, Stirewalt has criticized the network’s coverage of the January 6 attack, particularly in Tucker Carlson’s documentary, which Stirewalt called “beyond reckless and is another mile marker down the road to the kind of Alex Jones-ian Info Wars-ian garbage that makes it impossible to have any kind of a conversation.”

(Via Mediaite)

It’s a real mess out there on cable news for Donald Trump after a televised hearing of the House Select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection proved that many of the former president’s closest allies eventually accepted his loss in the 2020 Presidential Election. Even though Fox News’ Sean Hannity is praising the MAGA leader, not everyone at the conservative news network agrees.

Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, who’s spent the past year trying to convince Trump and his MAGA supporters to move on from their baseless claims of voter fraud, recapped the first night of the hearings in which previously unseen footage and interviews with Trump allies like Bill Barr, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump were aired for the first time. While Kilmeade tried to downplay the violence of alt-right white nationalist groups like the Oath-Keepers and the Proud Boys, saying the new footage didn’t show anything worse than what audiences have already seen, he took a harder stance against Trump’s continuing efforts to cast doubt on the election results.

“[What] you sat there the whole time saying is, number one, you gotta accept the results of an election,” Kilmeade said. “Get your legal team out there. You go ahead and pursue it aggressively, responsibly. And after that, when William Barr, your greatest ally turns around and said there is nothing there when your MVP Mike Pence who has been with you through every step of the way said there is nothing there, when Ivanka Trump and Jared [Kushner] say we can’t see any proof that there is anything there, you turn the page.”

Of course, Kilmeade also went on to absolve Vice President Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and to a lesser degree, Trump himself, from the eventual insurrection their claims of voter fraud caused, pointing to texts on the day of the attack on Capitol Hill that proved none of Trump’s inner circle though things would go that far. But, if you scream fire in a crowded theater just for some attention and it ends with a mob killing people, culpability still exists — and it looks like Trump is now losing the backing of some of his biggest supporters on his favorite network.

(Via Mediaite)