Month: November 2022

It looks like the “Prince of Darkness” is battling a case of extreme mover’s remorse! In a sit down with Robert Ham, the former Black Sabbath frontperson Ozzy Osbourne reveals he isn’t too happy about his upcoming return home.

The Birmingham, United Kingdom native traded in his crumpets and tea for the American Dream 20 years, intending never to return. Instead, after finding success as a solo artist, Osbourne moved his wife, Sharon, and children, Kelly and Jack, to Los Angeles, where they’ve lived ever since.

However, after his wife’s departure from CBS’ The Talk over her support for longtime friend Piers Morgan, the duo publicly announced they would return to England.

Critics of the pair believe the upcoming move is an attempt to escape Sharon’s backlash, but she ensures this is not the case. “It’s not a fun place to live. It’s dangerous here. Every big city’s got crime, but I don’t feel safe here. Neither does Ozzy,” said the former talk show host.

During the interview, Ozzy confessed, “to be honest with you, if I had my way, I’d stay in America. I’m American now.”

Ozzy’s declarations didn’t stop there. He also shared his thoughts on the public’s treatment of his wife, stating, “When my wife got called a racist on [The Talk], she is absolutely not a racist. Her friend is Piers Morgan [who made disparaging comments about Meghan Markle]. She didn’t say, ‘I agree with him.’ She just respected his ability to have freedom of speech. That’s all that she said. And she got a lot of flak from that, so we actually had to have f*cking armed guards and all that.”

Although Ozzy doesn’t want to return to England, the family wasted no time securing a new reality TV show. The BBC original series, Home to Roost, will document their move. The series is set to premiere next year.

Following the release of Drake and 21 Savage’s collaboration album, Her Loss, many fans took issue with a number of controversial disses on the album — particularly from Drake’s verses. On the track “Circo Loco,” he appeared to diss fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion, in a lyric that questions her current assault trial against Tory Lanez. Drake also took shots at supposed ex Serena Williams and her new husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Now, 21 Savage has shared his side on how he feels about Drake’s lyrical controversies. “You know, I’m pointing it out,” Savage said in an interview with Players Club. “When he sent me the song, I’m pointing out what I heard. Tell him like, ‘Yeah, talk that sh*t.’”

“Whatever he standing on, I’m standing on too,” he continues. “Say what you feel.”

Megan spoke out shortly after their joint album dropped and she received news about the song. “People attack me y’all go up for it , i defend myself now I’m doing too much … every time it never ends and this did NOT happen until I came out and said I got shot … y’all don’t fwm okay cool f*ck it bye,” she posted in a series of tweets.

Even Ohanian fired back with his own response to Drake’s several shady lyrics.

Beat Saber has done it again. One of the most popular VR games out there has been steadily adding to its song list over the last couple of years with beloved artists like Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Fall Out Boy all releasing packs as DLC for the addictive rhythm game.

Joining them next will be The Weeknd. The pop star is releasing a music pack with many of his hottest tracks such as “Blinding Lights” and the Kendrick Lamar-featuring “Pray For Me.” Those are two of the 10 songs that will be available for players to either download individually for $1.99 or they can choose to get the entire pack at a cost of $12.99.

The full song list will be:

• “Blinding Lights”
• “Can’t Feel My Face”
• “How Do I Make You Love Me?”
• “I Feel It Coming” Feat. Daft Punk
• “Pray For Me” with Kendrick Lamar
• “Sacrifice”
• “Save Your Tears”
• “Starboy” Feat. Daft Punk
• “Take My Breath”
• “The Hills”

With so many stars of music joining the Beat Saber roster, there might not be a better collection of licensed music for a single game out there at this moment than Beat Saber. It continues to be a must-have for anyone with a VR headset.

Britney Spears was all of 10 years old when she made her TV debut on Star Search. That’s roughly the same age that Millie Bobby Brown was when she was cast on Stranger Things. Both women became unfathomably famous at a young age (Millie is the same age now as Britney was when she recorded Oops!… I Did It Again), which is why Bobby Brown thinks she would make a great Britney in a TV show or movie.

“I want to play a real person and I think for me, Britney. [It] would be Britney Spears. I think her story, first of all, resonates with me,” the actress told host Drew Barrymore on Monday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. “Just growing up in the public eye watching her videos, watching interviews of how when she was younger. I mean, same thing with you.” Bobby Brown is right: let Drew Barrymore play Britney.

She continued, “I don’t know her, but when I look at pictures of her, I feel like I could tell her story in the right way and hers only.”

A different Stranger Things star should play every artist on the Now That’s What I Call Music! 2 album. Millie as Britney. Winona Ryder as Sheryl Crow. Gaten Matarazzo as Robbie Williams. David Harbour as, uh, the guy from Everclear. Let’s make it happen.

You can watch The Drew Barrymore Show clip above.

(Via People)

Once upon a time, Justin Bieber and Judith Sheindlin (who’s better known as Judge Judy) were neighbors. To this day, Sheindlin, who stands at 5’1″ and just turned 80 in October, apparently strikes fear into the heart of the 28-year-old pop star, if her understanding of where they stand is to be believed.

In a recent interview with Access, Sheindlin said, “He’s scared to death of me. […] “There was a period of time before he grew up, when he was foolish, and doing foolish things. I must have said something about it, and then I understood that he was paying the front door people to let them know when I was there [laughs], coming and going, so he wouldn’t have to bump into me.”

Indeed, there is some history there: After Bieber’s 2014 DUI arrest, Sheindlin shared her thoughts about the then-embattled pop star, saying, “Being a celebrity is a gift; you can either treat it reverently, or you can make a fool out of yourself, and he’s doing a very good job of making a fool out of himself. And I think it’s sad. Nobody’s going to remember that he was a marginal singer, but they’re going to remember a young kid, who had a chance to have it all, and who is blowing it by acting like a fool.”

Perhaps one of the best concerts of 2022, the recent news from JYP Entertainment and Stray Kids comes as no surprise.

Following a very successful US tour, the pioneering fourth-generation K-pop act is set to take their MANIAC tour a step further with a US stadium show. Officially announced earlier this morning (November 8), Stray Kids will hold their MANIAC Encore shows in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, and Los Angeles. Compared to a one-night stadium show at the Banc of California, the octet will hold two-night shows at Tokyo’s Saitama Super Arena and Osaka’s Kyocera Dome.

https://twitter.com/Stray_Kids/status/1589482912571092992/photo/1

The new announcement makes Stray Kids the second K-pop boy group to perform at a North American stadium with more than 20,000 seats after BTS. This will also mark the group’s first dome tour across Japan.

Before the announcement, it was revealed the group will also make its way to Southeast Asia, Australia, and the United States during the first half of the year. Stray Kids just wrapped up the Seoul dates last September as well as the promotion for their latest EP MAXIDENT!, which surpassed 2 million pre-orders and topped the Billboard 200 chart.

Tickets to Stray Kids’ MANIAC Encore go on sale Friday, November 11 at 3 p.m. PST on Ticketmaster.

Drake and 21 Savage aren’t the only ones facing a lawsuit over their recent work. Drake’s former frenemy Kanye West has also been sued for copyright infringement, according to Rolling Stone, by Boogie Down Productions, the Bronx-based pioneer rap group fronted by KRS-One.

KRS filed suit over the Donda song “Life Of The Party,” which samples BDP’s 1987 song “South Bronx,” the lead single from the group’s debut studio album Criminal Minded. The lawsuit claims that after submitting a licensing request for the song July 15, 2021, he retracted the request on November 16, 2021 — after using the sampel on the final release, which dropped on August 29. Both Kanye West and Kano Computing Limited, the makers of Kanye’s Stem Player are named in the lawsuit, as well as G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam Recordings, and Universal Music Group Recordings. Donda was Kanye’s final album under Def Jam.

The complaint says, “By illegally incorporating South Bronx into the Infringing Track and authorizing the distribution of the Infringing Track through the Stemplayer and its associated website, all Defendants have allowed for the widespread distribution of the Infringing Track and have direct financial interest in the same.” Meanwhile, a Stem spokesperson told Rolling Stone, “The KANO and STEM team were assured by Kanye and Yeezy that they would provide music with ‘all intellectual property rights, licenses and consents. This was important to us, because STEM is built from the ground up to be a more fair and immersive medium than the current music business. On STEM, creators own and control their own work, pricing, rights, and distribution in full. We just heard about this claim, and we are investigating it now.”

Kanye has been the target of numerous similar lawsuits over the years, especially for Donda. Earlier this year, a Texas minister sued Kanye for sampling one of his sermons on “Come To Life,” and the publisher for Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 house track “Move Your Body” sued Kanye for an uncleared sample on “Flowers” from Donda 2. West is also facing a lawsuit over the King Crimson sample on his 2010 hit “Power” from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

The first reviews for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are roaring in, and the consensus is clear: Writer/director Ryan Coogler pulled off an impressive feat by not only delivering a sequel without the presence of Chadwick Boseman, but by making one with an epic scale that lives up to the impressive standard set by the first film.

According to the critics, Wakanda Forever makes Boseman’s loss (both in the real world and the Marvel Cinematic Universe) feel palpable, as the kingdom of Wakanda is faced with its greatest foe yet: Tenoch Huerta’s Namor. The leader of the underwater realm of Taloka is on a collision course with the seemingly unprotected African nation, and his verbal and physical clashes with Letitia Wright’s Shuri are frequently highlighted in the first round of reviews.

You can read what the critics are saying about Wakanda Forever below:

Pete Hammond, Deadline:

The whole idea of carrying the story forward without its key driving on screen force of King T’Challa would be a tall order for anyone. Fortunately for us it is one that has been largely met with dignity, grief over unthinkable loss, and a determination to do the right thing by director Ryan Coogler.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

Teaming up again with co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole, the filmmaker has woven the demise of his leading man into the very firmament of his story. As the characters, led by Letitia Wright’s Shuri, the princess of Wakanda who is T’Challa’s younger sister, proceed to mourn T’Challa’s death, they tap deeply into our collective feelings about Boseman. That sounds like a standard thing for a movie in this predicament to do, except that where Coogler goes further is in building his entire drama — the drive, power and passion of it — around the wounding hole in Wakanda left by T’Challa’s death.

Toussaint Egan, Polygon:

Wakanda Forever somehow feels even more intimately woven into the tapestry of its own moment, which is both extraordinary and fitting. With T’Challa’s death (and Boseman’s) at its crux, Wakanda Forever is an altogether darker, more complicated film than its predecessor. Coogler’s script, co-credited to Joe Robert Cole, focuses on the ways grief can morph into something awful and hateful under duress, and if left unresolved for too long. In their respective mourning, Shuri and Namor are foils, accentuating by example the self-destructive ways in which denying grief only serves to prolong it.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:

Even if the length feels overextended, Coogler and his editors deserve credit for allowing breathing space between the action scenes for character and relationship development, with Ludwig Göransson’s African-inflected score enhancing both those quieter moments and the big smackdowns. It’s impossible for Wakanda Forever to match the breakthrough impact of its predecessor, but in terms of continuing the saga while paving the way for future installments, it’s amply satisfying.

Todd Gilchrist, The A.V. Club:

Wakanda Forever doubles down beautifully on the first film’s celebration and showcase of marginalized cultures, first by expanding its depiction of the late T’Challa’s eponymous country, and then by adding Namor’s native Talokan in all of its magic and beauty. The new film delivers on action that’s as intense — if perhaps not quite as cleanly executed — as before, and offers a humanistic spotlight for the motivations, and stakes, of everyone involved.

Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge:

Huerta brings a raw magnetism to his performance as a Namor who’s always just as ready to charm as he is to murder while sizing up other monarchs he deems worthy of his recognition and presence. In particular, scenes between Namor and Shuri stand out not for their visually dazzling qualities but because of the crackling intensity of the current running between them — two conflicted figureheads of state trying to be strategic about how they interact.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

Coogler’s subthread of the MCU continues to operate at a significantly higher strata of thought, artistry, and feeling than the rest of Marvel’s assembly line. Every major character in Wakanda is left to determine whether T’Challa’s memory will be a blessing or a torment, and the movie around them is so wracked by the same tension that even its most formulaic moments are heavy with a human weight that blockbusters seldom have the strength to carry.

Mike Ryan, Uproxx:

This is why I keep calling Black Panther: Wakanda Forever a miracle. Honestly, after all everyone went through, it’s a miracle if they made a movie that’s even remotely watchable. Let alone good. Let alone great. It feels like a Doctor Strange type situation of going through each and every scenario until the found the one that wouldn’t end in failure. Well, they did it. They found the one true path.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters on November 11.

The Church of England, also known as the Anglican Communion, forbids its ministers from performing or blessing same-sex marriages. In 1998, the church reaffirmed its commitment to Biblical teachings rejecting “homosexual practice as incompatible with scripture” and upheld “faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union.”

The church holds this opinion because the Bible harshly condemns homosexuality although it says nothing about same-sex marriage.

“Church of England ministers can not carry out or bless same-sex marriages, but your local church is still there for you,” the Anglican church says on its website. “At any time you are welcome to come and pray with us, or ask us to pray for you.”

The Right Reverend Dr. Steven Croft, Anglican bishop of Oxford, made a bold push against Anglican orthodoxy on November 3 when he published a 52-page essay “Together in Love and Faith.” In the essay, he says that clergy should marry same-sex couples if they wish and apologized on behalf of himself and the church for denying LGBTQ people the right to marry.

Bishop Croft is the most senior clergy in the church to come out in support of same-sex marriage. It’s illegal for any Church of England minister to bless or marry same-sex couples.

“I need to acknowledge the acute pain and distress of LGBTQ+ people in the life of the Church,” Bishop Croft wrote. “I am sorry that, corporately, we have been so slow as a Church to reach better decisions and practice on these matters. I am sorry that my own views were slow to change and that my actions, and lack of action, have caused genuine hurt, disagreement and pain.”

He added that the highest value the church should promote should be love.

“Any settlement must be founded on love and respect: love and respect for LGBTQ+ people and their families within and beyond the Church, love and respect for those who take different views,” he wrote.

u201cSame-sex marriage: should the Church of England affirm culture, or confront it?nhttps://t.co/D5dHcSp78Du201d

— Archbishop Cranmer (@Archbishop Cranmer)
1667812302

The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) quickly rebuked Bishop Croft’s essay.

“CEEC continues to believe that the Church of England’s current position on human sexuality is built on the teaching of scripture and is therefore good for individuals and society as a whole,” a CEEC spokesperson said according to Christianity Today.

“We are therefore committed to praying and working for the outcome of the Living in Love and Faith process to be one of joyful reaffirmation of this position,” the statement continued.

Even though Bishop Croft’s essay was rebuked by the Church of England, he should be commended for taking a bold stance against discrimination in favor of promoting a higher principle, love.

Throughout history, Christians have jettisoned ideas in the Bible because they fell out of fashion, including slavery, condemning those who eat pork and sport certain haircuts, and silencing women in the church.

But in the face of changing attitudes toward LGBTQ people, many churches are standing their ground. Studies show that one of the biggest factors driving young people away from Christianity is the church’s attitudes toward LGBTQ people. Isn’t it time the church changes with the times once again before its pews become empty?

Jason Momoa knows how to enjoy his itty-bitty loincloth downtime, but he also knows how to get back to work. At present, he’s gearing up for the release of Netflix’s Slumberland, which sees him sprouting horns to play an over-enthused, Willy Wonka-evoking character who spreads exuberance and chaos throughout the dream world. It’s a very different kind of The Sandman than we recently saw on Netflix. As well, Momoa’s looking towards the future of the DCEU, which has recently experienced a bit of a bloodbath with the Warner Bros. Discovery rollout.

Yep, I’m talking about the shelving of Batgirl, which ripped a Brendan Fraser movie away from audiences. That’s tragic, and many other Warner Bros. movies and TV shows still hang in the balance. Momoa, however, sees some positives to the situation because that’s how he rolls. There ain’t no enthusiasm like Momoa enthusiasm, and while speaking to ET Canada, Momoa revealed that the new WBD DCEU powers that be are doing something very cool from his perspective:

“I think with Peter Safran and Mr. Gunn at the helm now at DC, I’m very excited about that. There are a lot of cool things that are going to be coming up and one of my dreams come true will be happening under their watch, so stay tuned.”

Hmm, what could this “dream” be.. Aquaman literally talking to fish? Or as James Gunn’s mind went in The Peacemaker finale, to a joke-turned-reality regarding Aquaman doing sex things with fish? Well, The Deep already cornered that market on The Boys, so I’m guessing this is simply about another Justice League feature film, or maybe The Rock has actually agreed to let someone kick his butt onscreen for a Black Adam appearance. Or not! Watch Momoa do his thing below.