Month: November 2022

It’s hard to wrap one’s head around just what the filmmakers involved in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had to navigate through. First, there’s the emotional toll of losing Chadwick Boseman, whose death reportedly came as a shock to everyone involved. That alone, in a normal situation, would end any direct sequels. But Black Panther, a real symbol to so many people in the real world, our world, is not a normal situation. Like Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman was also an icon and any talk of just recasting the part is preposterous. (And, as director Ryan Coogler said, was never on the table, at least for him.) So Black Panther, in some form, must continue. Well, that sets up a whole other logistical problem.

Putting the emotional toll aside for a second, how do you make a sequel to one of the most successful movies of all time without the lead actor who plays the title character. I’ve seen a lot of bad sequels that did not have this particular, overwhelming obstacle. Try to put yourself in that situation for a minute. I’ll wait … okay, seriously, where do you even begin? It would be much easier to throw your hands up and say, well, this can’t be done and walk away from the whole thing. 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.

The film hasn’t even started yet when we get to our first swelling of sadness when the traditional Marvel intro is switched out for one that only feature clips of Chadwick Boseman. It’s our first signal that, no, Wakanda Forever isn’t going to shy away from what happened and will also serve as an almost three-hour tribute to Boseman. It’s a year after the death of T’Challa (not to get too into spoilers, but all of this is handled pre-credits, off-screen, with a situation that mimics real life; it really feels like the only way to do something like this) and T’Challa’s family, Wakanda as a whole – and, let’s face it, us, really – are still mourning the loss of someone they and we admired. And the mantle of Black Panther is no longer a possibility because, in the prior film, Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) destroyed the path to that identity.

So now there’s no Black Panther, and, in theory, there can’t be another Black Panther (after Killmonger destroyed that possibility in the first film), and the world now knows about Wakanda’s supply of Vibranium and the rest of the world seems to want their cut and will go to any means to make sure that happens. The United States doesn’t attack Wakanda directly, as other countries do, but the U.S. government has built a Vibranium detector in an effort to find the rare metal other places in the world, namely the bottom of the ocean. Enter: Namor.

Namor (Tenoch Huerta) rules the underwater civilization of Talokan, a place that also has a large supply of Vibranium, and Namor isn’t too happy about people snooping around looking for it. In fact, he blames Wakanda for telling the rest of the world about Vibranium and, in exchange for not waging war on Wakanda, he wants the U.S. scientist who made the Vibranium detector brought to him and killed. Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Okoye (Danai Gurira) contact their old pal Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) for information about this scientist, who turns out to be a student at MIT named Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) who didn’t know that her invention would be used by the government. Now Shuri and Okoye must protect Riri.

Namor is one of the best villains in MCU history. A big reason is because “villain” is the wrong word for him. He’s certainly the antagonist of the movie, but he makes quite a few valid points. He’s just trying to protect his people. In the comics, Namor (also known there as Sub-Mariner) can come off as quite the blowhard, but here he’s presented as a rich character that jumps off the screen. There’s a moment in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever where it seems like Shuri has struck a sort of peace with Namor, only then for Namor to feel, quite reasonably, betrayed. It’s a movie where we can certainly see Namor’s point of view, which makes him compelling beyond the typical villain who wants to open up another sky portal, or whatever.

It’s a weird thing, because we’ve said goodbye to beloved characters before. Obviously, Tony Stark got quite the emotional sendoff. But we knew we’d see Robert Downey Jr. again in Dolittle. (Or, well, not see in that case.) But it’s kind of weird to even label a movie like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as “the most emotional MCU movie,” or whatever. Which, by nature, draws comparisons to other emotional MCU beats. But this is real life. The people who made this movie lost their friend. The people who love these movies lost their hero. It transcends any emotional beats comparisons. You can see it and feel it in every second of this film. Chadwick Boseman does not appear in this movie, but he’s felt in every single scene. It feels like a way to say goodbye. And, in that, it very much succeeds … while also being a rip-roaring Black Panther movie. Again, this movie is a miracle.

‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 4 is set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday, and according to a preview given to Billboard, there are plenty of surprises in store. In addition to a previously revealed tidbit that screen and stage legend Sheryl Lee Ralph and recently disgraced character actor Johnny Depp will appear in the show, Billboard teases the addition of actress Taraji P. Henson and details some of the musical performances in the show, which include Anitta, Burna Boy, Don Toliver, Maxell, and more.

Billboard also reveals that Toliver debuts a new song in the show, interpolating The S.O.S. Band’s 1980 debut single “Take Your Time (Do It Right).” He also performs Way Bigger” from his 2021 sophomore album Life Of A Don. The new song is Toliver’s first solo release of 2022, after he made appearances with Justin Bieber on “Honest,” Nav on Demons Protected By Angels, Kid Cudi on Entergalactic, and Trippie Redd on “Ain’t Safe” earlier this year.

In addition to the stars mentioned above, the Savage X Fenty Show will include even more stars from the music and entertainment world, including TikTok star Bella Poarch, veteran actress/model Cara Delevigne, precocious producer Marsai Martin, and Shang-Chi himself, Simu Liu.

Through the aid of an awkward teaser that leans into the uncomfortableness of its subject matter, Peacock has announced a new docuseries focused on the highly controversial Casey Anthony trial told from the perspective of Anthony herself. While she appears in the teaser, Anthony does not speak. Instead, an off-camera voice asks “Why talk to me now when you’re not getting creative control?” before cutting to black.

After being infamously accused of murdering her daughter, Anthony was acquitted and has remained relatively silent about the controversial decision. She did, however, give an interview in 2017 where she admits she sleeps “pretty good at night” and doesn’t “give a sh*t what anyone thinks about me.” In Casey Anthony: Where The Truth Lies, she appears to be taking a more somber approach.

The new docuseries will share Anthony’s side of the story as well as “feature Casey’s personal archives, behind the scenes footage and the defense’s evidence for a never-before-seen look into both sides of a story that ignited a media firestorm.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

Considered one of the first “trials of the century” that polarized conversation in living rooms across America, the Casey Anthony case is one that still leaves more questions than answers. There have been several movies and documentaries made to fill in the gaps, and yet, the woman at the center of it all remains the biggest mystery. Throughout the exclusive three-part documentary series, Casey Anthony finally tells her side of the story and addresses the public that has made so many assumptions for the past 13 years.

Casey Anthony: Where The Truth Lies starts streaming November 29 on Peacock.

Before making his official pivot to full-time musicianship, Joji built a career on going viral. The Japanese-Australian artist’s internet ties run deep, tracing through years of provocative uploads as a button-pushing YouTuber with an affinity for shock value before he retired from the platform in 2017. But when he went viral this past June, it was under much different circumstances. Returning with his first single in two years, the heartbreaking piano ballad “Glimpse Of Us,” Joji sparked an outpouring of TikTok posts — now more than a million uploads — from people who, just like him, have never gotten over anything, ever.

“Said I’m fine and said I moved on / I’m only here passing time in her arms / Hoping I’ll find a glimpse of us,” Joji sings, revealing that the placeholder relationship he’s in now doesn’t hold a candle to the one that got away. The comments beneath his post announcing the single’s release are littered with similar replies: “Joji what have you done to me?” “Who hurt you man?” “Remember, first love has a special place, but you still need to move on.” That last one is not a concept that Joji has come around to just yet — and his newly released third studio album Smithereens is tangible proof.

“Glimpse Of Us” opens the 9-track record — which splits itself into two parts with five songs on the first half and four on the latter — as a tone and pace-setting introduction to the unsettled mind of a lovelorn musician. Echoing the thematic threads from Joji’s first two studio albums Ballads 1 and Nectar, in the vein of James Blake, Smithereens revolves around the idea of love that repeatedly slips through the singer’s fingers. But he doesn’t have nearly as much to say about it on this record. With a run-time clocking in at just under 25 minutes and no collaborations, the album attempts to move Joji’s story along by lingering on the internal reverberations of heartbreak.

“Who the hell am I to think that you’re my angel from above?” Joji asks on the acoustic guitar-driven “Dissolve,” which brings the first section of the album to a close. “It’s not right,” he adds. The song captures the singer’s adoption of cynicism in the face of seeing everyone else get their happy ending while not completely understanding what it is that’s functioning as a roadblock heaping him from his own. He ruminates on relationships doomed from the beginning (“Before The Day Is Over”) and those that have run their course (“Feeling Like The End”), but he doesn’t seem to have a deep-rooted interest in fighting for anything more.

Heartbreak has left Joji cynical and acquiescent. On “Die For You,” the runner-up standout on Smithereens behind “Glimpse Of Us,” he doubles down on the endurance of his love, noting that no amount of time or distance between his past will diminish the permanence of his emotions. “I heard that you’re happy without me / And I hope it’s true,” he offers with non-manipulative sincerity. “It kills me a little, that’s okay / ‘Cause I’d die for you.” It’s another recurring motif that can have a tendency of feeling inherently repetitive, especially given its appearance throughout each of Joji’s albums. But the hope is that once he’s gotten this out of his system, maybe a door will open for his future releases to usher in a sense of healing.

On the second half of the record — produced mostly by Joji with every song title blaring like an alarm in all-caps — the singer commits to spending some time on topics that aren’t related to his sad boy R&B yearnings, though even those reflections are drenched in cynicism. On “Yukon (Interlude),” he laments about the time passing by as he moves through life, using an unexpected mid-song tempo shift to replicate a search for boundless freedom from a racing mind beholden to external expectations. “I can’t be young forever,” he considers, adding in the outro: “Empty choir, operated from above / My voice will be their voice until I’m free / My hands will be their hands until I’m free.”

For the first 22-minutes of Smithereens, Joji reinforces the tone of voice he’s established across his releases as a musician with authentic goals beyond making people laugh online. But the trope that he’s landed on, the identity of a sad boy R&B musician, runs the risk of feeling easily overdone, particularly when there aren’t any major breakthroughs or developments in the narrative to set apart one downward spiral from another. The record’s shimmering production is a welcome distraction from the amount of time spent circling the drain on the same thematic elements.

On the album’s final track, another layered piano ballad titled “1AM Freestyle” that comes in at just under two minutes, Joji still hasn’t moved on — something he communicated at the top of the record, as well — but, he at least expresses a longing to detach himself from the past. “And I’m tired of this madness,” he admits. “Tired of being stranded / I don’t wanna be alone.” It’s his lasting sense of self-awareness that saves Smithereens from the fate of being repetitive filler in his discography.

Joji isn’t releasing album after album about the same isolating burden he carries from falling in love because he thinks that’s all there is to his story as an artist. He recognizes it as an obstacle preventing him from moving forward, like his freedom is glowing in the distance and he’s close enough to see it but just out of its reach. When “1AM Freestyle” concludes with a note of exhaustion, the album loops back around to “Glimpse Of Us,” setting the cycle in motion once again and recalling the wise notion a fan dropped in the comments: “Remember, first love has a special place, but you still need to move on.”

Smithereens is out now via 88Rising. Get it here.

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

The 1975 continued their At Their Very Best tour with a massive show at NYC’s Madison Square Garden last night. However, in the days leading up to the show, lead singer Matty Healy had been making waves online for his… interesting onstage behavior. Healy had put on an oxygen mask and performed what we can only describe as a strange, sexually-charged moment that had fans torn. Is this allowed? The following night, he performed push-ups shirtless in front of a video of controversial figure Andrew Tate.

Given the viral moments, fans were wondering what exactly Healy would incorporate into their MSG show. The answer? All of the above… and even more. While Healy’s oxygen scene (or, “performance art” as he called it) wasn’t as intense as past shows, he did go full method for the push-ups. The concert, which was streamed on Twitch, saw a stagehand bring Healy what appears to be a giant piece of raw meat — which he proceeded to eat.

Then, the fitness began. Healy performed push-ups in front of a television montage of former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, Mark Zuckerberg, Bored Ape NFTs, and… Rey from the recent Star Wars trilogy. While it was intended as some sort of social commentary on masculinity and society, many were at least partially disturbed by Healy’s meat moment.

Continue scrolling for some additional fan reactions on The 1975’s Matty Healy at MSG.

Jimmy Kimmel has never missed an opportunity to sh*t all over Donald Trump for the many, many (MANY) terrible things he has done — both in and out of office. And it turns out that all that MAGA vitriol may have lost Kimmel about half his audience — a statistic the late-night host was proud to share while appearing on the Naked Lunch podcast last week.

When ABC executives reportedly asked Kimmel to tone down his anti-Trump rhetoric, he stood his ground and told them to replace him if they wanted.

While it’s Kimmel who was the clear winner in his fight to do the show the way he wants to, Trump, meanwhile, has been taking a victory lap to celebrate how he “destroyed” late-night TV as we know it. And the former president has clearly been listening to Kimmel’s response, because he mentioned him by name at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night. “It turns out Fiberace gave me a shout-out during one of his blue-collar comedy tours,” Kimmel explained on Monday night, “and I have to say: Sometimes it feels like he doesn’t like me that much.”

While stumping for his fellow Republicans in Latrobe, Pennsylvania over the weekend, Trump boasted about how “all these people who don’t like us are dying. I saw Jimmy Kimmel said that his show is practically dead because nobody that likes Trump will watch. And guess what? That turned out to be a majority of the people. The show is dead. And so are the other ones.” Which had Kimmel laughing, and ready to fire back:

That’s right. Our show is dead. Our show is so dead he’s going to bury it next to his ex-wife at one of his golf courses. You know what’s dead? I’ll tell you what’s dead: All those endangered animals your chinless sons shot, that’s what’s dead. You know what’s dead? The look in your wife’s eyes when you beg her for sex on your birthday.

And I will say: In January, our show will have been on for 20 years. You got kicked out after four, ok? I’m on television; you’re on the toilet at your golf club screaming at yours.

Kimmel also couldn’t help but note the irony that Trump was calling him out while at a rally for Dr. Oz, who the host described as “a total phony.” You can watch the full clip — including a personal story about a dinner Kimmel once had with Oz and a story he told him about Trump — above, beginning around the :30 minute mark.

In 2019, the man who invented the Labradoodle called the hybrid pup his “life’s regret,” noting that he “opened a Pandora’s box and released a Frankenstein’s monster” that has resulted in the unethical breeding of various other “designer dogs.” The way Trevor Noah sees it, Oprah Winfrey might just know what that feels like. Because, despite her many wonderful contributions to the world, she’s also largely responsible for Dr. Mehmet Oz — which doesn’t seem to be among her proudest achievements.

Last Thursday, Oprah participated in a virtual event where she admitted that, “[I]f I lived in Pennsylvania, I would’ve already cast my vote for John Fetterman, for many reasons.” It was a major bombshell — one that had Noah saying “Wow!” And not just because she was throwing her support behind Fetterman, but because “she came out against Dr. Oz — the man she created. The TV doctor she made famous.” Ultimately, however, Noah didn’t seem terribly surprised that Oprah refused to back her own horse:

“And that’s always how it goes, people. At some point in life, you have to kill the monster you create. Yeah, Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature. Obi-Wan and Anakin. Parents and their kids. Every parent knows the day will eventually come where you have to fight your children to the death to determine who will control the remote control.”

Noah might have felt badly for the quack TV doctor, knowing that having his mentor turn on him was probably a heartbreaking experience. Fortunately, he’s sure Dr. Oz has some sort of fake medicinal cure for it.

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 3:40 mark.

Welp. That was fun while it lasted. Drake and 21 Savage’s cheeky rollout for their album Her Loss certainly had its admirers, but not everybody has a sense of humor lately (especially not Vogue Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour, if the thinly veiled analog from The Devil Wears Prada was even remotely accurate). TMZ reports the rappers’ Vogue cover troll has drawn the magazine’s legal department’s ire; Vogue has filed a lawsuit against them, saying that Vogue and Wintour “have not endorsed [Her Loss] in any way,” despite Drake thanking the EIC for her blessing on Instagram.

Drake and Savage promoted their fake cover with straight faces — along with an accompanying “What’s In My Bag” segment featuring 21 — confusing some fans into believing they were really on the October cover (even though the October issue had already hit newsstands). In reality, the duo’s street team (remember those!?) handed out copies of the phony magazine, which contained photoshopped features and ads putting the two rappers front and center. Still, Vogue isn’t laughing; the lawsuit reportedly demands at least $4 million in damages.

However, not every outlet took the campaign as seriously. NPR expressed enthusiasm for a potential Tiny Desk in response to the fake one, while Howard Stern praised the boys’ fake interview with him. COLORS Studio and SNL have yet to respond.

Update: COLORS didn’t have thoughts, but they certainly reacted.

Michael Jackson’s discography is full of songs that are timeless classics, one of which has been getting some increased attention lately: On the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart (dated November 12), the 1982 favorite “Thriller” re-entered pretty high up, all the way near the top at No. 26.

As for why Jackson’s 40-year-old song is doing so well all this time later, it would seem the explanation is a seasonal uptick in interest due to Halloween.

On the Spotify Global Daily chart for October 31, “Thriller” had 1,947,543 plays, good for No. 51 on the chart. However, “Thriller – 2003 Edit” fared well, too, garnering an additional 1,769,662 streams and sliding into No. 63. Combined, the two versions had 3,717,205 plays that day, and if the versions had been lumped together in the rankings, they would have reached No. 13.

The two “Thriller” versions fared even better on the US chart: “Thriller” was No. 21 and the “2003 Edit” was No. 23. The versions’ combined 1,882,804 streams would have been good enough for No. 2 behind Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.”

“Thriller” did well on Spotify’s weekly charts, too. On the Global chart dated November 3, only the base “Thriller” made the top 200, sliding in at No. 195 with 6,371,382 streams. In just the US, though, both versions charted, and combined, they would have hit No. 29 with 5,032,990 cumulative streams.

Revisit the song’s iconic video below.

Mean Girls is like a classic Seinfeld or The Simpsons episode, where nearly every line is a memorable quote. “Stop trying to make fetch happen.” “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” “Get in, loser. We’re going shopping.” But there’s one quote from the 2004 comedy that star Lindsay Lohan hears more than any other.

On Tuesday’s episode of GMA, the actress was asked to name the Mean Girls line that she gets “over and over again” from strangers. Lohan replied, “I get the ‘Lindsay, what day is it?’ and then I always fall for it. It’s October 3, like, they have to do it to me every time!” It’s probably better to hear that than “oh my god, Danny DeVito! I love your work!”

Lohan was on GMA to promote her wild-sounding Netflix movie, Falling for Christmas, which includes a cover of “Jingle Bell Rock,” the song she memorably performed with Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried in Mean Girls. “It wasn’t really suppose to happen like that, it was just a conversation,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, this would be fun if we did the Mean Girls song.’ And after the movie was finally done editing, they were like, ‘But you promised you’d do the song!’ And I was like, ‘OK, let’s do it!’”

Lohan better not fall for “what day is it?” on Christmas, of all days.

(Via EW)