Month: June 2022

Samuel L. Jackson was in on the MCU from the very beginning, debuting his take on Nick Fury in the bumper to the original Iron Man. The acclaimed actor, who says he hasn’t cared about scoring an Oscar in ages (though he now has one), has become one of the experts on cinema’s current most popular genre. So when an actress he’d worked with when she was a kid asked him how it’s done, he naturally did his best to help. But his advice was predictably over-the-top.

Jurnee Smollett, who played the title role in the 1997 drama Eve’s Bayou when she was about 10, grew up to appear in acclaimed shows, like Friday Night Lights, True Blood, Underground, and Lovecraft Country. A few years back, she nabbed the role of Black Canary in Birds of Prey, the second film to feature Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. When she got the gig, she told The Hollywood Reporter (in a bit teased out by /Film), she reached out to Jackson, whom she called one of her “mentors.”

“I remember calling [Jackson] and being like, ‘OK, so like, yo, what do I do? Is there a way in which I should approach this any differently than how I would approach any other character? I always do so much research of the world,’” she recalled. “And he said, ‘Baby, just go and piss on your territory.’”

Looks like the advice worked: Smollett is set to reprise Black Canary in both the film Batgirl and her own spin-off of the same name. So if you ever need some unusual yet helpful advice, just reach out to Mr. Jackson.

(Via THR and /Film)

Jaden Ivey went fifth overall in the 2022 NBA Draft. Despite rumors the New York Knicks pressed hard to get him in the trade, Ivey is sticking around and, in theory, gives Cade Cunningham the kid of turbo-charged running mate that should make the Detroit Pistons’ backcourt formidable for years to come. Now that he’s in the Association, Ivey can look forward to some of the cool stuff that comes with being a professional basketball player.

For example, Ivey is going to be a player in the NBA 2K series, and any time you ask an athlete about getting that honor, they usually mention how cool it is that they’re in a game they played growing up. Ivey took to Twitter on Saturday and said just that, saying it’s a “blessing” to be able to use himself in the basketball game.

Ivey did have one gripe: The Jaden Ivey in 2K does not look like the Jaden Ivey in real life.

Someone came up with a fake name for Ivey’s character, which the former Purdue standout thought was hilarious.

There is no current release date for NBA 2K23, but if it’s like last year’s game, we can expect the game to drop sometime in early September. If that is the case, the fine folks at 2K Sports have some time to get this all sorted out before the new game drops.

Kyrie Irving’s future in Brooklyn is unclear, which has led to plenty of folks wondering what the future might hold for Kevin Durant. There have been rumblings that Durant is keeping an eye on things while Irving’s contract talks with the Nets are sorted out, and if Irving does end up deciding to leave the team, it’s been speculated that Durant might start looking around, too.

Now, there is no guarantee any of this happens, but if Durant does hit the trade market, teams will almost certainly line up to acquire one of the 2-3 best players on earth as he enters year one of a four-year contract extension. And apparently, Damian Lillard would really like it if the Portland Trail Blazers were one of those teams, as he posted a picture of himself and Durant in Blazers jerseys on his Instagram Story.

Shortly after he posted this, Jusuf Nurkic — who is technically an unrestricted free agent but has been in Portland since 2017 and is close with Lillard — decided to post the exact same picture on his Twitter account.

Durant and Lillard teamed up in Tokyo last summer to lead the United States to Olympic gold. The Blazers famously had the chance to take Durant with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, but instead opted for Greg Oden.

Following yesterday’s shocking and disheartening news about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe V. Wade, a number of acts from the music world have spoken out and/or taken action in support of abortion and reproductive rights. Lizzo teamed up with live nation to donate $1 million to Planned Parenthood and pro-choice organizations while Rage Against The Machine donated $475,000 to reproductive rights organizations. Taylor Swift spoke out and said she is “absolutely terrified” after Roe V. Wade was overturned and Phoebe Bridgers took to her performance at the Glastonbury Festival to lead a “F*ck the Supreme Court!” chant.

Similar to Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo took to Glastonbury to express her frustration with the Supreme Court’s ruling and she did so with a little help from Lily Allen. During her set on Saturday, Rodrigo invited Allen on stage for a performance, but not without speaking to the crowd first, explaining that “Roe v. Wade, which is a law that ensures a woman’s right to a safe abortion, a basic human right” has been overturned.

Rodrigo continued, “I’m devastated I’m terrified and so many women and so many girls are going to die because of this. I wanted to dedicate this song to the five members of the supreme court, who showed us that at the end of the day they truly don’t give a sh*t about freedom. This song goes out to the justices, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barret, and Brett Kavanaugh. We hate you.”

Rodrigo and Allen then jumped into a performance of the latter’s 2009 song “F*ck You.”

You can watch a clip of Rodrigo and Allen’s “F*ck You” performance in the video above.

Lily Allen is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When Cyndi Lauper released “Sally’s Pigeon’s” back in 1993, the singer wove a tale of two young girls growing up with aspirations of American life. But as the song’s harsh lyrical themes played out, one of the girls died getting a back-alley abortion and was never able to realize her dreams. It’s a story that happened before the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 made abortion legal in America, but now it’s a tale that might become a sad reality for many women once again, with the announcement that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this week.

Now as musicians are continuing to take action, Lauper has released a rebooted version of the song in light of the week’s turmoil and it rings with eerily similar feelings. “50 years later we find ourselves in a time warp where one’s freedom to control their own body has been stripped away.” Lauper said in an Instagram post. The redux version leans on a somber piano and acoustic guitar, instead of the early 90’s soundscapes of the original; almost as if it now bears the wear and madness of how things have regressed to pre-Roe v. Wade 1970s America.

Listen to Lauper’s “Sally’s Pigeon’s (Redux 2022)” above and read her full statement below.

“The Supreme Court’s radical decision today makes the re-recording and re-release of ‘Sally’s Pigeons’ more relevant than ever. In my childhood, women didn’t have reproductive freedom and 50 years later we find ourselves in a time warp where one’s freedom to control their own body has been stripped away. When I wrote this song with Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1991, we wrote about two little girls who dreamt of stretching their wings like the pigeons they watched that flew above them. They dreamt of being free. But freedom then for women and unfortunately now comes at a big price. If we don’t have control over our own bodies then we have no real freedom. We are second class citizens. We need to mobilize. We need to let our voices be heard.”

Conservatives haven’t been rejoicing too much about the end of safe and legal abortion across the whole of America. Even the former president who made the Supreme Court decision possible is reportedly worried it will lead to a massive backlash against the GOP. Others are worried about violent protests. It’s true, police have been attacking protesters across multiple cities. But so far, the only violence from protesters has been made up by the far right.

On Friday, hours after Roe v. Wade was overturned after almost half a century, possible future former restaurant owner (and lawmaker) Lauren Boebert posted an ominous image: several piles of bricks sitting on a road in D.C. She tweeted at the Capitol police, asking “why are there 20 pallets of bricks one block from the House Office Buildings?”

Alas, all she had to do was take a closer look. The Daily Beast did, and they revealed that, as per signs right next to the pallets, was a sign informing passersby that it’s part of an ongoing construction project on First Street in D.C. There was even a permit. She could have also consulted the District Department of Transportation’s website, which informs citizens that that part of First Street is indeed “under construction.”

Had she approached the bricks, she would have also seen a construction site, with a back alley in the midst of being ripped up, complete with a nearby bulldozer.

Perhaps what Boebert was trying to do was make a call-back to the summer of 2020, when conspiracy theories abounded about pallets of bricks “mysteriously” showing up near Black Lives Matter protests sites. Conservatives would claim that they were put there for antifa members to wreak havoc. Antifa members wondered if they’d been planted by the far right to discredit them. Alas, there was never evidence of either.

Boebert’s tweet tricked a lot of people on the right, but others took the time to educate her about a mystery she could have easily solved on her own.

Naturally Boebert has, at least of this writing, not taken down her misleading tweet.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The Phoenix Mercury sit in fifth place in the Western Conference through 18 games this season. The team is 6-12, and now, one of its major offseason acquisitions is on the move.

The team posted a tweet indicating that Tina Charles, who joined the team prior to the year as a free agent following one season with the Washington Mystics, was on her way out. Shortly after, the Mercury released a statement from general manager Jim Pitman that confirmed the 2021 WNBA leading scorer will not longer play for the team as part of a contract divorce.

“After discussions with Tina and her agent, it was best for both parties to go our separate ways at this time,” Pitman said. “Due to circumstances both in and out of our control, our season has not gone according to our plan, and we will continue to pursue all avenues for improvement.”

Charles, an All-Star selection in eight of the last 10 seasons, started all 16 games in which she appeared for Phoenix this season, and averaged 17.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.8 blocks in 33.1 minutes per game. She led the team in rebounding and was second only to Skylar Diggins-Smith in scoring. There is no word on which teams are going to look to acquire Charles now that she is free to head elsewhere.

Nearly two months after a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion confirmed that Roe V. Wade would be overturned, that ruling was made officially by the Court on Friday. The announcement was met by anger and protests by many all over the country. A number of entertainers also expressed their displeasure with the ruling as 26 states in the US have already or will make plans to ban abortions for any reason in their states. Rage Against The Machine is one of the musical acts that took a moment to criticize the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion.

“We are disgusted by the repeal of Roe V. Wade and the devastating impact it will have on tens of millions of people,” the group wrote in an Instagram post. “Over half of the country (26 states) is likely to ban or seriously restrict abortion very soon, if not immediately, which will have a disproportionate impact on poor, working class and undocumented BIPOC communities.”

The band went on to say that their fans helped raise $475,000 from the sale of charity tickets for shows they had in East Troy, Wisconsin and Chicago. Rage Against The Machine revealed that they will donate that money to reproductive rights organizations in those states.

The band concluded their message, writing, “Like the many women who have organized sophisticated railroads of resistance to challenge these attacks on our collective reproductive freedom, we must continue to resist.”

You can view the Instagram post above.

Earlier this month, BTS announced that the group would be going on a hiatus so that individual members could pursue solo projects. The announcement came after they released their 35-track anthropology project, Proof, but the report was clarified by a representative of the group who said that a hiatus was not in order for BTS. The rep said that the group will just “take time to explore some solo projects at this time” and they assured that they will “remain active in various different formats.” Less than two weeks after that news arrived, we now know which member of BTS will be the first to release a solo project.

J-Hope announced his debut album and even shared when its lead single will arrive. Jack In The Box is set for a release on July 15 and its first song will touch down on July 1, according to Billboard. A statement about the upcoming project said that it “represents [J-Hope’s] aspirations to break the mold and grow further.” The album will also feature “diverse content to show J-Hope’s creative identity as an artist will be introduced.”

Jack In The Box will arrive just in time for J-Hope’s headlining set at Lollapalooza’s Chicago festival at the end of next month. J-Hope’s headling gig will make the first time that a “South Korean artist will headline a main stage at a major U.S. music festival.”

You can view J-Hope’s Instagram post about Jack In The Box above.

The Detroit Pistons have been mentioned as a potential suitor for Deandre Ayton. Following the trade that sent Jerami Grant to Portland earlier this week, Detroit seemed prime to use their considerable cap space to send the restricted free agent a max offer sheet, which the Phoenix Suns would have to either match for a player they reportedly do not want to have on a max or watch as the former No. 1 overall pick leaves for nothing.

Despite the fact that Ayton apparently has some interest in heading to the Motor City to play alongside Cade Cunningham, a new report from James Edwards III of The Athletic indicates that might not be in the cards anymore. Detroit was viewed as one of the winners of the 2022 NBA Draft for its selection of Purdue’s Jaden Ivey and its acquisition of Memphis center Jalen Duren, and according to Edwards, the thought of signing one gigantic free agent is less appealing now.

The Pistons now move into the next phase of their “restoration” with one of the more intriguing young cores in the NBA — Cade Cunningham, Ivey, Saddiq Bey, Isaiah Stewart and Duren — as well as enough cap space to make a run at a max-level player. However, while all signs have pointed to Detroit making a serious run at Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton over the last few days, that appears less likely after the Pistons walked away with two of the players highest on the organization’s big board.

Edwards reports that the Pistons would rather use their cap space to acquire “multiple veterans” as opposed to going all-in on one guy like Ayton. It makes a ton of sense from their perspective, especially if they believe that Duren has the potential to become the perfect frontcourt compliment alongside Cunningham and Ivey.