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Bob Odenkirk Shared A Special Message On The One-Year Anniversary Of His Heart Attack

A year ago this week, Bob Odenkirk collapsed on the set of Better Call Saul. It was later revealed that the Emmy-nominated actor had suffered a “small heart attack” (while filming a “heart-stopper” of an episode), which he survived thanks to a “crazy coincidence” — and a nearby defibrillator. On the anniversary of his health scare, Odenkirk took to Twitter to thank his fans for the support and well wishes he’s received.

“A Thank You to you, whoever you are. A year ago today I briefly flirted with ‘quietus’ and this elicited a wave of goodwill and warmth towards me. I will forever feel unworthy of it. I will also always be appreciative and look to pass it on. Thank you. No reply necessary,” Odenkirk tweeted.

“It took three attempts to get me to [an effective heart] rhythm, which is actually a lot,” Odenkirk said during a March episode of The Howard Stern Show. “When the defibrillator doesn’t work once, that’s not good. When it doesn’t work the second time, it’s kind of like forget it. But then they jacked me up to a third time and got me a rhythm.” He also acknowledged the efforts of his co-stars Rhea Seehorn (Kim) and Patrick Fabian (Howard), “who rushed right to my side. Rhea held my head and Patrick held my hand… I turned grey right away and stopped breathing, and they were just yelling and yelling.”

The third to last episode of Better Call Saul airs next Monday with a title that should make Breaking Bad fans very excited.

(Via Twitter/Bob Odenkirk)

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Kyler Murray Calls The Response To The Independent Study Clause In His New Contract ‘Disrespectful’

Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals agreed to a contract extension that will pay the team’s franchise quarterback up to $230.5 million over the life of the deal. While the amount of money headed Murray’s way turned heads, one particular clause in the contract attracted a whole lot of attention earlier this week.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Network brought word that Murray is required to do four hours of what is defined as “independent study” every week during the season, save for the team’s bye. It led to questions about why the Cardinals felt the need to include that, with questions popping up about Murray’s work ethic and desire to study film away from the team.

Unsurprisingly, this did not sit especially well with Murray, who decided to meet with the media on Thursday afternoon to respond to some of the “disrespectful” things that have been said about himself and the clause.

“To think that I can accomplish everything that I’ve accomplished in my career and not be a student of the game and not have that passion, not take this serious, it’s disrespectful and it’s almost a joke,” Murray said.

While Murray said he’s “flattered” that a player of his size can go out and do what he’s done in his career at his size, he stressed that he believes it’s disrespectful to other players to imply that because the league is just too difficult. Murray then made it a point to list off the things he has achieved in his career dating back to his high school days.

“I’m not 6’7, 230, I don’t throw the ball 85 yards,” Murray said. “I’m already behind the 8 ball and I can’t afford to take any shortcuts, no pun intended. Those things, you can’t accomplish if you don’t take the game serious, if you don’t prepare the right way. Like I said, it’s laughable.”

Murray then mentioned that there are different ways to watch film and that he enjoys doing it with other members of the Cardinals’ QB room.

“I refuse to let my work ethic, my preparation be in question,” Murray said. “I’ve put in incomprehensible amounts of time and blood, sweat, tears, and work into what I do, whether it’s football or baseball. People can’t even comprehend the amount of time that it takes to do two sports at a high level in college, let alone be the first person to do it, ever, at my size? Like I said, it’s funny, but to those of you out there that believe I’d be standing there today, in front of y’all, without having a work ethic and without preparing, I’m honored that you think that, but it doesn’t exist. It’s not possible.”

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Hilaria Baldwin Hilariously Thinks That ‘Enemies’ Are Trying To ‘Destroy’ Her Husband Alec

Hilaria Baldwin has a very (very) long message for the haters. On Wednesday, Hilaria posted a black and white photo of herself and her husband, actor Alec Baldwin, on Instagram and used the caption feature to share what would probably be a four-page essay. The puzzling post is a tribute to her husband as well as a message to . . . the entertainment industry, which, according to Hilaria, are haters seeking to try to destroy her husband. I don’t know!

Hilaria and Alec Baldwin have been married since 2012. The couple has six children together with a seventh child along the way. In October 2021, Alec Baldwin fired a prop weapon in an incident that resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins while on the set of the film, Rust.

“To enter your world and become your person has been both a joy and an eye opening experience,” Hilaria wrote at the beginning of the post. “How many wonderful moments, meeting incredible people, doing amazing experiences, and building a family. I am forever grateful. Every day.” The tribute goes on for many more paragraphs. Just when you think it’s over, there are more paragraphs.

“The darker part is seeing behind the curtain at how some of this ‘business’ can function and the blows and sacrifices that someone in the public eye takes for speaking up for what they believe and for helping others,” she wrote. “Enemies of these missions seek to destroy you, in order to delegitimize your voice and purpose. This is not a new tactic…it’s as old as history…yet, how easy it is now more than ever to slander people and cherry pick and piece together strands taken out of context, ‘opinions’, or complete fabrications. And how some people believe it or stay silent out of fear. Alec, how many times we look at each other and say: deep breath, in this together, keep on for the good of what we believe. Somos un buen equipo.”

Hilaria added that she has experienced “dehumanization” as well, which might be referring to 2020 when she was accused of pretending to be Spanish. “Unfortunately, having experienced the dehumanization myself, (another old tactic to go after the spouse of your enemy), leads us to the moments when we think: how much more can one body and one mind take before we crumple beneath the psychological torture?” she wrote in the Instagram caption, just when you’d think she should have stopped already.

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Whitney Continue To Expand Their Sonic Palette With ‘Twirl’ And ‘Blue’

Whitney launched their new era in June by announcing the album Spark and sharing the lead single “Real Love,” which showed the duo heading in a more pop-inspired direction than their previous output. Now, they offer two new songs today, “Twirl” and “Blue,” that sees Julien Ehlrich and Max Kakacek continuing to explore different styles; “Twirl” is a meditative and lush tune while “Blue” is a more upbeat bit of soulful indie-pop.

The duo says of “Twirl,” “With ‘Twirl,’ John Congleton and Brad Cook really created the framework for us to explore a new palette. What started as a simple love song grew into a wider take on human connection that we feel lucky to have made.” They added of “Blue,” “We wrote ‘Blue’ at what I would now call ‘peak isolation’ in the beginning of 2021. In hindsight it’s clear that we were attempting to manifest a different set of circumstances through the fantasy of love.”

When Whitney initially announced the album, they also unveiled a set of tour dates, with a North American run spanning from late September to late October.

Check out the videos for “Twirl” and “Blue” above.

Spark is out 9/16 via Secretly Canadian. Pre-order it here.

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Jon Stewart Brings The Fight To D.C. As He Blasts GOP ‘Motherf*ckers’ For Killing A Veterans Healthcare Bill

Not content with slamming Republicans on Twitter for killing the Honoring Our PACT Act, Jon Stewart arrived outside the U.S. Capitol building on Thursday, and he proceeded to rage against the GOP. During the nearly ten minute long press conference, Stewart went to bat for veterans who have been denied necessary healthcare after being exposed to toxic burn pits. While the PACT act initially had bipartisan support, it was sunk at the last minute by outgoing Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, who Stewart called a “coward” during his fiery speech.

“How are these people human?” Stewart asked the crowd who gathered outside to hear him speak. “Where’s any sense of decency, from any of them?”

While there’s speculation that the Republicans blocked the bill in retaliation for Joe Manchin backing President Biden’s Build Back Better plan to the chagrin of Mitch McConnell, Stewart doesn’t care about senators engaged in “f*ckery” because time isn’t something that veterans have. Via The Daily Beast:

“Senate time is ridiculous. These motherf*ckers live to 200. They’re tortoises. They live forever and they never lose their jobs and they never lose their benefits and they never lose all those things,” Stewart said.

Veterans, Stewart continued, don’t have time. “Their time is precious…. Every minute of delay is a minute that a veteran who fought for this country and their families and their caregivers suffer and die,” he said.

“Tell their cancer to take a recess,” he said, adding one more line before he walked away from the cameras: “If this is America First, America is f*cked.”

You can watch Stewart’s full remarks below, and as you can tell, C-SPAN isn’t kidding about the language warning:

(Via The Daily Beast)

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Gorillaz And Thundercat’s ‘Cracker Island’ Video Is A Supernatural Epic

Gorillaz recently moved from their virtual home of Kong Studios in West London, to a new (also virtual) home in Silverlake, CA. The virtual band, orchestrated by Damon Albarn, had previously stated that the move to the Los Angeles neighborhood was in order to galvanize fans by having them join “The Last Cult,” where band member Murdoc is the self-appointed Great Leader, and together unlock “the one truth to fix the world.” Thoroughly confused? It’s a virtual band for crying out loud, it’s not supposed to make too much sense! Alas, some insight into this mission has been unlocked with the new “Cracker Island” video, featuring Thundercat and created in conjunction with Nexus Studios.

In a Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-like combination of live-action and animation, Gorillaz (Murdoc, Noodle, Russel, and 2D) are in an LA emergency room surrounded by cops, when supernatural occurrences start happening around them. None are trippier than the half-animated Thundercat, playing a holographic bass, with his colorful dreadlocks waving in sparkles.

“Think of it as the final scene in the movie, the bit after the grand finale when the hero (me) is about to stride into the sunset, credits rolling,” 2-D said in a statement. “That’s right, we’re starting at the end. Why? COS I WORK IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS.”

Watch the video for “Cracker Island” above.

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

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Paolo Banchero Believes The NBA Putting A Team In Seattle ‘Should Be Mandatory’

The NBA has not had a team in Seattle since 2008. At the conclusion of the 2007-08 campaign, the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City in a highly-criticized move, and ever since, there’s been a groundswell of support for the NBA to make its return to the city.

Seattle has a very proud basketball culture even beyond the Sonics, as the Storm are one of the best organizations in the WNBA and the city has produced a number of prominent hoopers. This includes Paolo Banchero, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft who will start his career as a member of the Orlando Magic.

Banchero appeared on the latest episode of Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s “All The Smoke” podcast. At the 9:37 mark of the below video, Barnes asked Bancheo about whether he views it as important that the NBA makes its return to Seattle. Unsurprisingly, Banchero has some pretty strong thoughts on the matter.

“I think it needs to happen, I think it should be mandatory,” Banchero said. “Not just because I’m biased, but because it’d be a great look on the NBA. It’s a great city, the fans there are crazy. If you get a team in Seattle, they’ll automatically be a top … not the top, but a top fanbase. Those games would be sold out right away.”

Banchero mentioned that he was young when the Sonics moved, but recalled watching players like Chris Wilcox, Earl Watson, and Kevin Durant play in Seattle while he was growing up, in large part because of his mother’s career as both a basketball player and coach at Holy Names Academy.

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Sampa The Great Spreads South African Music With The Bass-Heavy ‘Bona’

Last month, Zambian-Australian rapper Sampa The Great announced her upcoming sophomore album, As Above, So Below after releasing two singles, “Lane” and “Never Forget” featuring Denzel Curry. Today, she has released the album’s third single, the bass-heavy “Bona.” According to its press release, it’s influenced by the music Sampa heard as a child in Botswana, borrowing the genres that originated in neighboring South Africa such as kwaito and amapiano.

In a statement, Sampa described the meaning of “Bona,” saying, “I haven’t yet shown the influence Botswana has had on me musically; this is the style, language, and swag of Botswana youth. ‘Bona’ is a chance for me to shine light on other elements of music that I was influenced by when growing up, outside of Zambian music. I want to bring a Southern African anthem to the mix and DJ desks, and show that there’s an array of music coming out of Africa, on top of Afrobeats.”

In a roundabout way, the track represents Sampa joining a growing trend of artists reclaiming dance music, especially through genres originated by Black artists, such as house and techno. In her case, though, she’s an African artist introducing African genres to wider audiences, showing that the continent has more to offer outside of Nigerian Afrobeats.

Listen to “Bona” by Sampa The Great above.

As Above, So Below is due on 9/9 on Vista Loma. Pre-order it here.

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Rosalía Unveils ‘Despechá,’ A Catchy New Song

Rosalía does not rest. She released one of the biggest albums of this year, Motomami, which received praise from Cardi B and even Barack Obama. Now, she’s already back with brand new material, unveiling the song “Despechá” today.

“There are many ways to be Despechá, in this theme it is from the freeness or the craziness, moving without reservations or regrets,” she said. “This is the place from where I make music, from where I did it when I first started and where I will continue to until God says so.”

She added, “I’m grateful for having been able to travel in recent years and have learned from music from other places including the DR, where artists like Fefita La Grande, Juan Luis Guerra and Omega have inspired me and without them this song would not exist.”

Motomami was also praised by Lorde. “I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out,” the “Royals” singer wrote in her newsletter. “F*ck, it’s so good, I gagged when I heard that interpolation of ‘Archangel,’ ‘Hentai’ is genius, ‘Sakura’… projects like this remind me why I live for pop music — at its best, there’s nothing better.”

Listen to “Despechá” above.

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Lawrence Kasdan On ‘Raiders,’ ‘Empire,’ ‘Jedi,’ And His New Special Effects Docuseries, ‘Light & Magic’

On the surface it makes sense that Lawrence Kasdan – you know, the guy who wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens and Solo – would do a deep dive, six-part documentary on the history of the special effects team at Industrial Light and Magic. Before this interview, for research, I read an interview with Kasdan from 1981 in Starlog where he was talking about how he was fascinated with the effects in The Empire Strikes Back because it’s the part of the movie he had the least to do with. And then it kind of hit: right, that makes sense. Kasdan has never actually directed any of these movies for Lucasfilm. And when Kasdan does direct, they are more character studies, like Body Heat, The Big Chill, and The Accidental Tourist. Anyway, my hunch was right that a big reason Kasdan wanted to make this project was because he, too, wanted to learn what it is, exactly, that goes on at ILM.

Kasdan’s series, Light & Magic (which is streaming on Disney+ as you read this), plays as a love letter to what these crazy geniuses used to have to come up with to make a shot work. There’s respect for what ILM does today with CGI, but Kasdan’s doc shows there’s something clearly missing today. Before, there was something preposterous about the whole endeavor. They used to have painters, puppeteers and mechanics all working together for some crazy goal. Now it’s all done on a computer. One of the wild stories told in the doc is how ILM used actual maggots to make the Tauntaun fur in The Empire Strikes Back. (Something tells me maggots aren’t used very often these days at ILM.)

Ahead, Kasdan takes us through what he learned while researching ILM and takes us through his experience with them when he was helping to create some of the, still today, most popular movies of all time.

Before we start, during the worst part of the pandemic, I believe one night I tweeted at your son, Jon, “Could you pass along to your dad that we’re watching French Kiss and this movie rules?” Just in case you didn’t get that message.

[Laughs] That’s great. I’ve heard that a couple of times during the pandemic. It’s a pandemic movie, I guess.

You’ve heard that more than once?

It has a following, a devoted following.

Yeah, people really like that movie, but it’s not on streaming anywhere. We had to order the Blu-ray to watch it.

I think that must be due to the producing kind of thing. It was Polygram, and I don’t know why it’s not available.

You making this series on ILM is interesting. I read an interview with you in Starlog from 1981. You’re talking about The Empire Strikes Back and you’re complaining about how the arcs of C-3PO and Chewbacca were cut from your script, but you’re fascinated by the effects because that’s the thing you have the least to do with. So you’ve been part of this Lucasfilm family, but have never been directly involved with the effects. Now you’ve made a documentary about them. Does that make sense?

It makes absolute sense. I felt that way myself going in. I had this interest in visual effects and told them I’d like to do something about the history of visual effects. And then they suggested ILM because they already an arrangement with Lucasfilm. And I said, Oh, well that’s perfect. Because I felt like I was going back to a reunion. I knew a lot of these people, but not well, and I knew a little bit about the processes, but not much. But I’d always been fascinated that there was a place that housed all these geniuses. And I wanted to see, how did they get there? Who were they at? How do they get paid? What was it like between them, these brilliant people interacting all the time?

That Starlog interview is also interesting because it ends with you saying, “And that’s it for me with Star Wars. No more.” And they had to add an addendum with another interview from you going, “Oh, well that was wrong. I’m now writing Revenge of the Jedi.” I am curious when you wrote Jedi, were you more conscious of what ILM did? I know you had more time on that than you did Empire. Were you ever thinking, “Can they visualize what the stuff we’re putting down on paper?”

I never thought about what can they do, because the answer was “anything.” And you couldn’t know how they were going to do it, but they reached the point very early on in the life of the company where they could do anything. And the directors who were coming to them didn’t always know what they wanted, but they knew that this was the place they were going to get it. They had a vision, but it wasn’t necessarily terribly defined. But they knew that when they embraced ILM as a partner in the process, they were getting all this firepower. And they just loved it and they kept coming back. And that’s why they all wanted to be in the series and everything. There’s a real affection for ILM.

The ILM artists from that era, their enthusiasm is infectious. Harrison Ellenshaw, who paints Matte paintings, is hilarious talking about the painting he did under the tractor beam that Ben Kenobi has to turn off. “Why would that even be there on the other side of this thing where you could fall?” But who cares? It’s fun!

Absolutely. It’s something that people don’t give George Lucas enough credit for. But when I met George, when I took on the job of Raiders, and then when it suddenly got extended and he said, “Will you write the sequel to Star Wars?” He was a very … He’s fun. He was funny. He did all the voices. He was delighted. There would be a lot of tension and hard work to get A New Hope out, as you can see in the show, but he had actually achieved something he’d been working on for years. And he was in a good mood. And when we went to work on Empire, it was total fun. There wasn’t this pressure because there were people on payroll and stuff. I loved working with him. And Kershner would come in, he’d be an entirely different tone. And he had his own major gifts. And to see this very heavy Kershner meeting with George’s sensibility… George had studied with Kersh at USC. Kersh was very much this sort of the guru kind of guy.

I was lucky enough to interview Kershner right before he passed away. He’s fascinating.

He was a fascinating guy. And to see those two sensibilities meeting and they’re each turning to me and saying, “Well, how can we make that? What could you do? What could we write? How do we make that better?” It was really educational.

At one point in this doc, Lucas tells you, “Forget the story, forget the actors. It’s about movement.” In that interview in Starlog, you’re talking about Body Heat coming out soon and are kind of like, “Well, it’s a lot of talking.” Body Heat is incredible, but I’m curious what you think when he says that because your philosophy to filmmaking seems a little different than what he’s saying.

When anyone says that, I think, “Oh yeah, that’s a part of this.” That was not my area of concentration, but the things that hooked me on movies when I was 10 years old were that: they were action, they were movement. They were heroic characters who maybe had to be forced to do the right thing. But once they did the right thing, they were the best there were. And I think I have concentrated on interpersonal relationships, but always with an enormous affection for the action.

Silverado comes to mind as a movie of yours that does have action, but I’ve always wondered, you wrote Raiders, Empire, Return the Jedi, Solo, The Force Awakens, but you didn’t direct any of those. The movies you direct, you seem to eschew that and want to do other things. You direct movies like The Accidental Tourist. Is that by design?

I know. An opportunity finally arrived for me to do it in 1991 with Costner (The Bodyguard), but I had just started working on Grand Canyon with my wife. I made a commitment to do that movie and that movie turned out to be very satisfying, and I got to take part in the fun of The Bodyguard‘s success. To this day, there are road shows all over the country, all over the world. It’s a theater situation. It’s a musical and it never stops.

We rewatched it recently. That movie is incredible.

Yeah. The story just has a lot of appeal.

So, is it just circumstance that you’ve not really directed a movie that would need ILM?

Well, I made one and it was a disaster, so I don’t really think I’m good at it.

The doc gets into how after the first Star Wars, ILM had nothing to do. One of their only offers was a pornographic movie called Flesh Gordon.

Yeah. And they had no idea that this would go on forever. You know? And they were just sort of winging it. And no one had an idea at that moment, that 40 years later it would still be an institution.

The situation with John Dykstra is interesting. He’s running ILM, wins an Oscar for Star Wars, but when the company moves to San Fransisco, George Lucas does not invite him to come. He seems to still have trouble talking about that.

Well, I love that you pick up on that because that’s an important story. And when we started out, I’d say, Well, I’ve heard rumblings about this the whole time. I’ve never understood what happened. And I want this show to explain what happened and to the extent that we can get the naked testimony of the people involved, that’s great. And it turned out that everybody was willing to open up and talk about it.

Obviously, people who work on effects today are still extremely innovative. They’re the best at what they do, but it almost feels like there’s a preposterousness that’s missing today how they came up with ideas for things. Is something missing because that preposterousness is not there? I don’t know if that’s the right word or not…

No, there’s no question that … It’s like a lot of things that have passed. I liked it better when you’d go downtown, you could walk from store to store, there were no malls. That kind of thing. It was a different world. It was a more innocent world. And you could run into people on the street. That doesn’t happen when you pull into a parking lot with 4,000 spots. And this is comparable to that. It was handmade. It was a handmade industry. And the people that were thrown together in the beginning didn’t really know much about movies and that wasn’t really their primary interest. A lot of them were mechanics or sculptors or painters. And they all got thrown together for this brand new enterprise, something that didn’t really exist before that. There had never been this job in this generation. Oh, we take a group of a motley crew and put them together and they all have special skills.

Something you did, you’re talking to Kim Smith from ILM and she’s talking about ILM then versus ILM now with computer effects. And she just says, “Well, so be it.” But then you linger on her face and she doesn’t look very happy. And you leave it there for a bit. I mean, you can tell she’s thinking about the old times and how much crazy stuff they did.

Although what you just said is the highest compliment for the show because you got right to the heart of what I wanted it to be. And right from the get-go, I said, “This is not about the technology. This is about the people.” I had never gotten an idea of what the people were like. What did they feel when they were there? And as the thing went through various phases and how alienated did they get? How much did they want to hang on? Or how many much did they say, “Well, this is just not for me anymore.”?

Like I said, the people who do effects today, they’re the best at what they do today, but I really doubt today they’re using actual maggots to make Tauntaun fur. I had never heard that before. That is truly crazy.

That is maybe my favorite story in the whole show. I love it. And the more we understand, what he’s saying is outrageous and funny! And yet they were just concentrated on this problem. And that was the solution. I love that they took that kind of ad hoc solution to things. You don’t get that feeling today. You get the feeling like, “Oh, we got to write another program.” You got to do a hair-in-water program. You know? That’s not what was going on then.

‘Light & Magix’ is streaming now via Disney+. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.