Month: June 2022

When the news broke that Jack Harlow would be starring in a remake of the classic 1992 basketball comedy White Men Can’t Jump, many of the original movie’s fans were distraught. After all, remakes of classics are rarely as good as the originals (or so goes the conventional wisdom about such things), and Jack Harlow is far better known for rapping about Tyler Herro than imitating him on the court. As I noted way back in my interview with Jack for the Bleacher Report two-on-two for NBA All-Star, though, he’s a committed, regular hooper, so I always liked the casting.

It turns out one of the original film’s co-stars agrees with me, so I feel even better about this assessment now. During an interview with Yahoo Entertainment about his upcoming film The Man From Toronto, the hosts asked Woody Harrelson how he felt about Jack Harlow potentially recreating his role as hot-headed trash talker Billy Hoyle in the remake. Woody’s answer is unequivocally enthusiastic as he gushes, “I’m feeling great… I think Jack’s gonna crush it. They’re gonna make a better movie than we made. I’m looking forward to watching it.”

Those still skeptical about the “First Class” rapper’s basketball chops needn’t worry. Earlier this year, Jack showed out in the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, knocking in a couple of long-range jumpers — harder for the average person than NBA fans might realize, considering the length of the NBA three-point line — and played some respectable defense. He also appears in an ad for Kawhi Leonard’s New Balance sneakers alongside the Clippers star, which means he probably got at least a few pointers. And while the whole “acting” component of starring in a movie remains a question mark, the film’s producers were obviously confident enough in his audition to give him a shot. With Woody’s co-sign, the torch has officially been passed. Now, let’s see what Mr. Harlow does with it.

Twelve-year-old Jazlyn Guerra, aka Jazzy, is a hustler on the non-stop grind. You might remember seeing her interview with Jay-Z last November on the streets of her native New York, where her youthful exuberance coaxed some words of wisdom from Hov about what it takes to be successful. Well, she’s at it again as the latest guest on her Jazzy’s World TV YouTube channel is J. Cole.

Jazzy met up with Cole backstage at last weekend’s Governor’s Ball Festival and wasted no words in cutting straight to the chase with Cole. Bubbly, but beyond composed, Jazzy’s first question to the rapper was about persistence. “Why is persistence so important… no matter how many ‘no’s’ you get?” Cole got philosophical with his response:

“Let’s say you want something really bad and you keep trying and you keep trying and you keep trying. And on the 10th try you don’t get it still? And then you say, ‘Uhh… OK, it must be a sign that I need to stop doing what I need to do.’ But what if you didn’t know that on your 11th try you would’ve made it happen and got what you wanted to get? If you really truly love something and you truly believe, you should just do it for the love, and even if you don’t get to where you were trying to go, you’re still doing it for the love.”

“Heck, it might even take like a 1,000 years until you get it, right!?” the spritely Jazzy replied before asking an even harder-hitting question: “You Left North Carolina… How can leaving your hometown or your comfort zone help you mentally?” Cole was floored for a second by this one. “Hoo… that’s a deep question!,” he said, before being incredibly honest once again:

“It’s the fastest way for growth. It’s hard to grow when you’re comfortable. You’re not stretching yourself or your limits. When I left a small city in North Carolina for New York, I was for sure uncomfortable — and just like you interviewing Jay-Z — I felt some nerves. But more importantly, I felt focused and ready for the task.”

“I think that’s really important especially for kids, and everyone else, too,” Jazzy replies. “Because if you step out of your comfort zone, you might learn new skills and gain new hobbies because you stepped out of your comfort zone.”

“How old are you?” Cole asks, clearly impressed by the young journalist. “12 years old,” Jazzy says, before Cole responds, “Yeah! For sure, you got it. You already understand life, so you got it.”

Props to Jazzy for literally embodying the two traits she asked Cole about. Something tells us she’s got some more tricks up her sleeve and she looked ready for the next interview as she signed off, “Until next time, Jazzin out!”

Watch Jazzy’s World TV’s interview with Cole above.

Mike Breen has become the voice of the NBA Finals and has authored some of the most iconic calls in recent basketball memory, with his trademark being the “Bang!” call after a big shot.

Breen isn’t as constantly excitable as some commentators, instead choosing to be more discerning about when to raise his voice and let a “Bang!” fly. That wasn’t always the case, as he explained recently on the NBA Today (and more broadly on the ESPN Daily podcast), explaining that the “Bang!” call first started when he was simply watching Fordham basketball games in the stands as a student after made baskets. He would try it as he started his broadcast career but noted he didn’t like it, shelving it for awhile before eventually bringing it back — Breen also is sure to note that he’s not the first to use it, as longtime Celtics radio man Johnny Most did so across his five decade career.

It’s good that Breen did bring it back because it has become one of the iconic lines in basketball vocabulary, and as Richard Jefferson notes in the video, it’s both exhilarating to hear when its for your team but one of the most deflating sounds when it’s for the other team. There are few things quite like a fourth quarter “Bang!” in a big game, and we’ll see if either the Warriors or Celtics can author such a moment in Game 6 on Thursday night.

WARNING: Spoilers for Ted Lasso Season 2 below.

After playing Nate Shelley, the under-estimated equipment boy in the first season of Ted Lasso who works his way up to assistant coach for AFC Richmond, actor Nick Mohammed had his work cut out for him as Nate made a surprising heel turn in the second season. Feeling neglected by Coach Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) who Nate felt “abandoned” him, the character began a slow, toxic descent that was only accelerated after he engineered a game-winning play. By the finale, Nate had fully betrayed Lasso and the team by accepting a job at their rival West Ham.

In a new interview on what it’s been like playing the now-hated character, Mohammed revealed that he actually had to play things very carefully around town where the British are known to take their football fandom very seriously. Via The Wrap:

Mohammed lives in the Richmond area of London, home to the AFC Richmond team that Ted coaches in the series. (He was there long before the show came along, he hastened to point out.) And that means he and his wife and kids often frequent some of the same places as the characters in “Ted Lasso” — places where Nate would once have been welcome, but now not so much.

“There was a time when some of the other cast members were a bit concerned for my welfare,” he said with a laugh. “West Ham sent me a shirt after Season 2 with ‘MOHAMMED’ on the back. And I messaged them and said, ‘I don’t know if I can wear this out just yet. I might get attacked.’”

Fears for his safety aside, Mohammed is nothing but appreciative for the chance to stretch his acting chops beyond his usual comfort zone of “slightly bumbling, awkward kind of comedy.” He relished the challenge of taking Nate down a more serious, less joke-filled path.

“In my experience, if you’re a supporting character, you don’t usually get the opportunity to go on those journeys,” Mohammed said. “The lead characters get to develop and change, but the supporting ones are often just a constant foil for them. So this was very fun.”

(Via The Wrap)

In January, FKA Twigs kicked off 2022 by dropping her Caprisongs mixtape. She’s been pushing the release over the past few months, but now we’re moving on to something new: Today, Twigs shares “Killer,” a smooth alt-pop tune. The song is her first post-Caprisongs single and its release comes not long after Twigs debuted the song during her NPR Tiny Desk Concert last week.

Twigs says of the track:

“‘It’s dangerous to be a woman in love’ — when at its worst the effects of heart break can define one’s trajectory much more than the beauty of the love itself, in my song ‘Killer’ I explore this concept. The navigation, the hunt and the kill. The death of promises, dreams and the future that was once promised. But like the wildest plucked roses, I find myself more beautiful delicately wilted, in shadow, forced solace, darkened at the edges and achingly thirsting to be tended to again.’”

It’s set to be a big year for Twigs: In addition to a press release noting that 2022 will bring more new music from Twigs, it was recently revealed she will be starring in a reboot of The Crow.

Listen to “Killer” above.

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

Elon Musk spoke to Twitter employees on Thursday for the first time since his $44 billion acquisition was announced in April. It went… remember the scene from There’s Something About Mary where Ben Stiller goes to Cameron Diaz’s house to pick her up for prom, and he ends up getting his you-know-what stuck in his zipper? It went like that.

During the all-hands meeting, Musk appeared “via a crappy cell phone camera feed,” according to the Daily Beast, and “took bizarre tangents, including briefly discussing aliens and noting that he had dubbed himself the ‘techno-king’ of Tesla.” (He’s becoming more like Kendall Roy with each passing day.) A source described the hour-long talk as “pure chaos” and that Musk only answered pre-screened questions.

The meeting opened with a question, delivered by chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, asking Musk why he loved Twitter. “I swear he’s stuttering and babbling,” the employee told the Daily Beast of Musk’s rambling reply. He eventually landed on a more cogent response about the value of self-expression. Musk then railed “on about getting rid of bots,” the person added, “which is so f*cking rich,” considering his proclivity for trolling on the platform.

Musk gallantly vowed to get Twitter up to one billion daily active users (it was at 229 million, as of March), and that he wants the social media platform to contribute to society by helping people “better understand the nature of the universe, as much as it is possible to understand.” He also said he’ll allow some “pretty outrageous tweets.”

But Twitter already does that:

Outrageous!

(Via the Daily Beast)

Just when you thought the Marilyn Monroe/Kim Kardashian dress saga had ended (did anyone really think that?), the drama continues! This time, Ripley’s is firing back at Monroe historians and collectors who claim that Kardashian ruined the $4.8 million dress when she wore it on the Met Gala red carpet, which was over a month ago, in case you are keeping track.

After The Marilyn Monroe Collection spotted noticeable differences in the fabric of the dress, they shifted the blame to Ripley’s, who granted Kardashian access to the iconic gown. Everyone weighed in, including some Monroe historians and Trevor Noah, of course, and it was revealed that Ripley’s was even advised against loaning the dress for fear of it being damaged further. Social media users took to Twitter to blast both Kardashian and Ripley’s though Ripley’s is not taking this laying down.

The company released a statement saying that there was no more damage done to the dress when Kardashian wore it, and while the dress is damaged, it has been that way since before Ripley’s even acquired the dress in 2016. A source stated: “A report written on the dress’s condition in early 2017 states, ‘a number of the seams are pulled and worn. This is not surprising given how delicate the material is. There is puckering at the back by the hooks and eyes’ among other instances of damage.’”

Ripley’s VP of Publishing Amanda Joiner added, “From the bottom of the Met steps, where Kim got into the dress, to the top where it was returned, the dress was in the same condition it started in.” Kardashian wore a fur jacket over the back, to cover up the parts that didn’t zip. Despite the ordeal, and with a ton of Marilyn media coverage as of late, it’s sad that the public cannot just let this poor woman rest!

The Philadelphia Eagles are one of the most interesting teams in the NFL as we approach the start of the 2022 season. The team went 9-8 and earned a Wild Card spot in the NFC last year behind a 6-1 stretch towards the end of the year. With second-year head coach Nick Sirianni, another year of development for Jalen Hurts, the acquisition of AJ Brown at wide receiver alongside DeVonta Smith, and a defense that added a pair of standouts from last year’s indomitable Georgia Bulldogs team in the Draft, Philly looks like a team that could make the postseason for the fifth time in six years.

And they will try to do that with a new wordmark for their logo that freakin’ stinks. The team announced the news on Thursday that they stripped away the design that made the word “EAGLES” look like an eagle. Instead, they went in a more modern (read: worse) direction by taking the word “EAGLES,” italicizing it, and then … I dunno it looks like they tried to cut a slice of pizza out of both of the E’s.

The good news is that, per Shamus Clancy of Philly Voice, it “should not replace the ‘Eagles head’ brand mark, which will continue to serve as the team’s primary logo.” The bad news is that any striving for a sleek, modern design in a rebrand has fallen to 0-for-every time. Maybe next time!

Every now and then, Britney Spears surprises fans by deactivating her Instagram account. Well, she did it again, as her Instagram account is not currently accessible. The first tweets of fans noticing Spears’ Instagram deactivation started popping up today at around 12:45 p.m. ET.

It’s not currently clear why Spears has decided to take her Instagram offline, although it’s possible she has a similar mindset to when she and now-husband Sam Asghari got engaged: In September 2021, Spears explained via Twitter, “Don’t worry folks … just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement !!!! I’ll be back soon.”

Spears’ latest deactivation comes shortly after her June 9 wedding. Following the ceremony, Spears shared multiple gleeful posts about her big day. A few days after that, she took some time to address her brother Bryan Spears and rumors that he was invited to the wedding, writing, “You were never invited to my wedding so why even respond ??? […] I know you’re my blood and yes blood runs deep but no family of mine would do what you guys did to me. […] GO F*CK YOURSELF Bryan – F*ck you [middle finger emoji] …”

Meanwhile, on a potentially relevant note, in April, Spears expressed her discontent with some ways in which online life has changed the world, writing on Instagram, “I’m sharing this because we all seem to alienate behind our phones and computers … I’ve never opened a computer my whole life … just a phone. […] I say all this but I will probably buy a computer today !!!”

Things have gotten so bad for Mike Lindell that now, even Walmart won’t sell his MyPillow products.

The professional voter fraud conspiracy theory pusher has spent the past year — and over $35 million of his own money — trying to prove that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. He’s helped concoct elaborate stories about dead Venezuelan presidents influencing voting technology, claimed to have proof of ballots being destroyed, and promised multiple times to personally reinstate Trump as president after Joe Biden’s win. Of course, none of that happened. What has happened? Lindell has been sued for billions by companies like Dominion Voting and state governments that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to disprove his wild theories. He’s also lost a ton of business, with retailers pulling his pillows from their shelves.

But the final nail in his coffin might’ve just come from Walmart, who just joined companies like Kohls, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Sam’s Club, and Costco in dropping all of Lindell’s MyPillow products from their stores. Lindell shared the news on his socials and filmed a Facebook Live video in which he claimed to offer his products at a reduced rate but top Walmart execs just weren’t interested.

“You guys are canceling us, just like the other box stores,” Lindell said during the video. “It’s devastating. That’s $100 million in wholesale sales that we don’t have anymore. Shame on you Walmart, you’re disgusting!”

Former Trump legal advisor Jenna Ellis shared the news, asking MAGA supporters to help Lindell boost sales on Twitter.

Watch Lindell’s full meltdown on Facebook.