Month: October 2022

Plains is the side project of Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson. Their new album, I Walked With You A Ways, is due out this Friday, October 14th. The album is said a tip of the cap to the country and folk music that the two grew up with, from Willie Nelson to The Judds to Loretta Lynn. And Lynn, who passed away earlier this month, is the visual inspiration for the new video for “Hurricane,” directed by former SNL cast member Aidy Bryant.

“I trusted that she [Bryant] had the answer for the perfect way to visually accompany this song and from the jump she just deeply understood our vision, at moments better than we could have even explained it ourselves,” Crutchfield said. The clip is uniquely shot with deliberate lighting choices that recall Southern belles of the past, with sparkles and sheet cake to boot.

“We had a talented, hardworking crew and paid homage to Loretta Lynn’s 70’s TV performances,” Bryant said in a statement. Adding that, “I’m also going to drive the bus for their tour, so see you on the road!” Plains are heading out on tour later this month, and we’ll just have to see if Aidy is being serious about that whole driver thing.

Watch the “Hurricane” video above.

I Walked With You A Ways is out 10/14 via Anti-. Pre-order it here.

Looks like someone didn’t fall so well.

Anyway, if you get down a rabbit hole about what happened to evangelical movement heir Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becki Falwell, you will likely never come back up for air. It’s a twisty, thorny ride, and that’s the complicated mess that director Billy Corben (Cocaine Cowboys) has chosen to illuminate for us. A pool attendant named Giancarlo Granda is at the heart of the scandal, having spent 7 years in a romantic relationship with Becki, including sexual encounters filmed by Jerry. Totally cool if consensual, right? Let’s not yuck anyone’s yum. But when your public persona is a holier-than-thou preacher running a massive Christian university, it’s the kind of truth that can bring down much more than a reputation.

The trailer for the film (which was also produced by Adam McKay) promises a wild, voyeuristic ride for us to rubber neck. It also heavily, heavily implies that Donald Trump received Falwell Jr’s endorsement (and also a metric ton of evangelical support) because the fake-tanned fascist had this specific dirt on the Falwell family. That’s going to take some heavy lifting and proof to be more than a salacious, unserious jab. Still, the bulk of the documentary seems to rely on Granda’s direct testimony in talking head segments about what was happening behind closed doors. Corben is billing the project as Get Out meets The Righteous Gemstones.

God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty hits Hulu November 1st.

We are 22 years removed from Vince Carter authoring the greatest in-game dunk of all time when he jumped clear over 7’2 Frederic Weis during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Carter’s dunk remains the gold standard for posterizations, as the “jumping over someone” genre of dunking typically is reserved for dunk contests. Every once in awhile, someone will do their best Vince impression on the court, albeit never over a 7’2 opponent, but it’s still always wildly impressive when it happens.

On Wednesday night, we got a Carter-esque moment courtesy of Mouhamed Gueye, a 19-year-old 7-footer from Washington State, who got a lane to the rim in practice and jumped clear over a teammate who arrived late trying to take a charge, providing one of the cleanest leaps you’ll see, as he doesn’t even lay a hand on the guy he jumps over.

It’s not Vince Carter, but it’s still an unbelievable display of athleticism — much less from a 7-footer. The best part is his teammate’s reaction, as he spins around and falls to the ground, staring at Gueye like “what the hell did you just do?” That poor guy should have some beef with the video department for sending this out to Givony, but hard to blame them for wanting this dunk to get the shine it deserves on the internet.

Nice murder-solving lady and total badass Angela Lansbury died yesterday, and amid videos of her singing Be Our Guest and being utterly charming, a 2014 interview with Mail Online has resurfaced in which she details how she went to great lengths to keep her child safe from one of the most notorious killers in modern American history. Her son Anthony and daughter Deidre has become addicted to heroin as teens in the 1960s and fell in with a bad group that was Charles Manson-adjacent.

“It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson,” Lansbury said at the time. “She was one of many youngsters who knew him – and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.”

To keep Deidre safe (and to help detox her son), Lansbury pulled up stakes and left Hollywood for Ireland.

“I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother, and it was also somewhere my children wouldn’t be exposed to any more bad influences. I still have a house there which I try and visit at least once a year. So I refused all work for a year and simply kept house. . . Certainly, I have no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two if they hadn’t been removed to a completely different milieu, the simplicity of life in Ireland. In the end we found a doctor who prescribed methadone, a heroin substitute, which helped with the withdrawal symptoms as Anthony and Deidre were weaned off hard drugs. We were so very, very lucky we spotted what was happening just in time.”

She didn’t specify a time in the 1960s when this would have happened, but there was a four-year gap in an otherwise steady career between Mister Buddwing in 1966 and Something For Everyone in 1970. She’d make Bedknobs and Broomsticks in 1971, presumably only a few years separated from moving halfway across the world to ensure her daughter survived.

(via Mail Online)

Fresh off fighting in the multiverse, Michelle Yeoh is set to voice the peregrine falcon-bot Maximal Airazor for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. She’ll be joined by Pete Davidson, who will voice the Autobot Mirage (also known as Dino). Mirage transforms into a red Ferrari 458, but doesn’t seem to have any RBG tattoos painted on it.

Dino last appeared in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (back in the Sam Witwicky days!) and was voiced by Francesco Quinn who passed away in 2011.

For those keeping score, Rise of the Beasts will include four races of transforming bots all fighting with and against each other as we relatively-ant-sized humans scramble around trying not to get trampled. It’s also the 7th film in the franchise which has earned over $4.8 billion globally and represents a continuation of the nostalgia-set spin-offs after the 1980s world of Bumblebee. Rise of the Beasts is set in the 1990s and will be directed by Creed II helmer Steven Caple Jr.

Peter Cullen is returning to voice Optimus Prime (is anyone else allowed to?) and Ron Perlman is voicing Optimus Primal. Dominique Fishback (The Hate U Give) and Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) will star as non-robot characters.

Yeoh and Davidson are solid additions to a cast that looks far different than the initial entry in the franchise. Speaking of which, children born when Transformers came out will be able to get driver’s licenses and take themselves to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts when it comes out in June 2023. Enjoy that fun fact while applying your back ointment, friends.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

The Whale has resurrected Brendan Fraser‘s career, garnered a truckload of awards chatter, and raised some standard questions about representation in Hollywood. Since the main character, Charlie, is a 600-pound gay man, why not hiring a gay actor? Or an obese one? In a world where leading roles large actors and gay actors are fewer and farther between, why pick Fraser over someone else?

Within the sprawling Variety feature on the likely Oscar winner and the career-reigniting director, Darren Aronofsky responded to the question by detailing the work the production went through to find their star.

“There was a chapter in the making of this film where we tried to research actors with obesity,” said Aronofsky. “Outside of not being able to find an actor who could pull off the emotions of the role, it just becomes a crazy chase. Like, if you can’t find a 600-pound actor, is a 300-pound actor or 400-pound actor enough?”

The director also worried whether a 600-pound actor could handle the grueling production schedule.

“From a health perspective, it’s prohibitive,” said Aronofsky. “It’s an impossible role to fill with a real person dealing with those issues.”

This addresses one vector of identity, but not the other. However, the answer might be lurking in Aronofsky’s explanation of his surprise that the entire world seems to love Fraser.

“I just needed the right actor for the role. But it’s amazing to see how people respond to him. I think they’re going to be impressed by how the same actor who played all those honest, innocent characters back then is portraying this complicated, messed-up person.”

(via Variety)

After months (years really) of rumors, it was announced this week that vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge has rejoined Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker in Blink-182 after splitting ways with the band in 2015. The band also announced a new album, a tour, and a new song called ‘Edging.’ DeLonge already called the new album, “the best album of our career.” But even though DeLonge left the band seven years ago, his last album with Blink came way before that.

What Was Blink-182’s Last Album With Tom DeLonge?

Blink-182 currently have nine studio albums. The run began with the epic debut,Cheshire Cat, in 1995, and the alt-radio smash Dude Ranch, in 1997. DeLonge, Barker, and Hoppus are the original trio who also appeared on Blink-182’s best selling album, Enema Of the State, in 1999. The band stayed together for three more albums from there and the last Blink-182 album that Tom DeLonge was a part of, was Neighborhoods in 2011.

In 2015, DeLonge left the band on rather questionable terms. Barker characterized his departure as “ungrateful, disingenuous,” in an interview with Rolling Stone. With Hoppus adding that, “To be honest, I wasn’t that surprised because his attitude leading up to that had been not excited and not interested.”

Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba took over for DeLonge in 2016. Skiba was with Blink-182 for two albums: California in 2016 and Nine in 2019. And Skiba has been somewhat out of the loop on DeLonge’s return along with his own place in the band. Skiba indicated in July that he wasn’t even sure if he was in the band anymore. Well know he (and we know) that Blink-182 are back to their original lineup and lots more is in store. Whether the return is a harmonious one remains to be seen.

Blink-182 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There are a lot of problems with America, and Republican lawmakers and commentators have done their best to make a few seem extra scarier to their base. (Some have even done inhumane stunts that have landed them in potential legal hot water.) One issue is inflation. Do they have any real solutions on how to combat high prices? Not really. But they can scare people by making it seem even worse. On Fox Business Wednesday, one commentator went a bit too far, making a claim about the bill at a fast food joint that even colleagues found a bit suspect.

That person is Scott Martin, a honcho at a wealth management company and a Fox News contributor. He’s no household name, but on Wednesday he went viral for claiming he’d blown a ton on Taco Bell.

“You wanna know how bad inflation is?” Martin asked. “Yesterday, I had a nice lunch at Taco Bell — cost me about 28 dollars at Taco Bell for lunch.” If that seems like a lot, then you aren’t alone. Even anchor Neil Cavuto was incredulous, partially because Martin doesn’t look like he can house that much faux-Mexican food. “For me, that’s the opening appetizer,” he cracked.

So what happened? Did Martin really load up on chalupas and gorditas, maybe even some Cinnabon delights? Was it those darned UberEats fees? Well, no, what he really did was order poorly and pay more than he had to by not ordering some of them as combo deal packages. He could have only spent about $23 on Taco Bell!

Whatever the case, a lot of people found Martin’s claim of gorging on nearly 30 bucks of Taco Bell to be impossible, or at least worrying.

https://twitter.com/chipfranklin/status/1580332904215109632

Some broke down what 28 bucks at Taco Bell gets you.

There were also, of course, lots of poop jokes.

Some didn’t see a problem with ordering $28 in Taco Bell.

Meanwhile, over at Defector, reporter Patrick Redford bravely accepted the job of biking to one of the joints, ordering his own $28 (or thereabouts) meal, then eating it all. So how did that go?

Somehow I wrote the above (I think) incisive paragraph, as well as the moronic ones surrounding it, after crushing my tray full of garbage. I ate it all. I did not buy or bring a drink. I rode my bike home as the gunk sloshed in my stomach and my body’s alarm system began to ring. The effects of the sodium felt akin to a mild hallucinogen. My lips puckered, my mind felt untethered from my body, floating above me as I rode (unfortunately uphill) back home as if it was trying to distance itself from the damage it had caused. My colleagues expressed their sympathy for me, but mostly for my partner, who works very hard at a normal job and was making work calls while I was destroying my body for a stupid blog post.

He’s not the only one who can eat a lot of Taco Bell. Uproxx writers have done it, too, albeit not all in one sitting.

There are no surprises here. Paradise City looks like exactly the kind of movie Bruce Willis has been making for the past decade, albeit with a higher gloss and some bigger names. It’s also going to be one the last chances we have to see Willis on screen, following his retirement announcement and the revelation that he’s dealing with the brain disorder anaphasia. The revenge action flick didn’t announce a release date in this fun-loving trailer, but we shouldn’t have to wait too long. Plus, Willis is set to be in back-to-back Detective Knight movies set for December 2022 and January 2023 before saying goodbye to the silver screen.

Here’s the official synopsis for Paradise City:

“When bounty hunter Ian Swan (Willis) is shot and presumed dead after disappearing in Maui waters, Swan’s son, Ryan (Blake Jenner), his ex-partner (Stephen Dorff), and a local detective (Praya Lundberg) set out to find his killers. After being threatened by a ruthless power broker (John Travolta), it appears Ryan and his team are out of options — until an excursion to the closely guarded island community of Paradise City unites them with an unforeseen ally.”

A lengthy rivalry, some quippy one-liners, and a lot of kick-punching offer exactly what we want and expect from a movie like this. There also seem to be plenty of scenes where the good guys and bad guys talk menacingly at each other, which is almost always a recipe for magic. On top of being a Pulp Fiction reunion for Travolta and Willis, it’s also directed by Chuck Russell, who last notably directed Scorpion King (and who also made The Mask), so there are some serious 90s vibes clashing on the island wonderland.

Earlier today, a judge ruled that disgraced right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay close to a billion dollars to families of children whose lives were lost in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Jones has infamously spewed a lie for a decade claiming that the horrific act never happened. Probably not somebody that you’d want to use to prove a point, right? Well apparently rapper and provocateur MIA doesn’t feel that way.

In a tweet posted today, MIA used Jones as an example to push anti-vax rhetoric. “If Alex Jones pays for lying shouldn’t every celebrity pushing vaccines pay too?,” she wrote. That’s quite a line to draw in the sand and a fairly despicable analogy, especially given the timing of her new album, Mata, due out this Friday, October 14th.

And we can’t even begin to understand why MIA would choose such an unfathomable tragedy and nefarious person to cite when coming totally out of left field with anti-vax sentiments. Recently, MIA spoke to Zane Lowe to talk about how her new album is about a “clash” of “ego and spirituality.” Adding that, “…as a musician, you need some ego.” Perhaps she’s showing a bit too much of that ego here, just like Alex Jones always did.