Year: 2022

When it comes to keeping birds as pets, people usually think about parrots or canaries. Nobody ever considers having a crow. But research has shown that crows are incredibly clever, curious and self-aware.

They recognize the faces of people they like or don’t like and have the ability to use tools.

Looking to experience the magic of crows yourself? A YouTube user named Kräri The Crow from Germany made a video on how you can befriend the crows in your neighborhood in four easy steps. All it takes is “some food and some patience.”

1. Find a pair of crows

Crows tend to live in areas where there are humans so chances are there are crows in your neighborhood. The best place to start is to find a pair with a fixed territory that you see on a regular basis. That way you’re cultivating a relationship with the same animal day after day and you can “slowly get to know each other.”

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2. Offer food

Crows will eat just about anything from insects to invertebrates to meat. They also enjoy nuts, worms and vegetables. If you offer the food in the same place at the same time of day you’ll establish a routine.

3. Be mindful

When interacting with the crow, make sure they aren’t anxious or display signs that they are prepared to fly away at any moment. Approach the birds with an open, nonpointed gaze so as to not cause alarm. Sit quietly while you wait for the bird to approach and avoid quick movements.

4. Let the birds come to you

This requires patience. The crow will be shy at first, but they know you better than you think. They will remember your face and your kindness. Give them a chance to observe you and earn your trust.

A the end of the video, Kräri The Crow reminds everyone that we should make friends with crows but they are supposed to live free in the skies and not be stuck in a cage.

For much of 2022, DJ and fashion designer Nigo has been gearing up to release I Know Nigo, his first album in more than 20 years. Nigo is best known as the founder of the clothing line A Bathing Ape, more commonly referred to as BAPE. He’s also a member of the Japanese hip hop group Teriyaki Boyz where he served as their in-house DJ since their 2005 debut. Nigo’s last solo album arrived in 1999 with Ape Sounds, and now, almost 23 years later, he’s just a few days away from dropping his second album.

I Know Nigo has been promoted with four strong singles from some of the industry’s biggest names. They include “Ayra” with ASAP Rocky, “Want It Bad” with Kid Cudi, “Hear Me Clearly” with Pusha T, and “Heavy” with Lil Uzi Vert. Now, just a few days until the March 25 release date for I Know Nigo, Nigo arrives with the project’s official tracklist. Through its 11 tracks, Nigo recruits Tyler The Creator, Pop Smoke, Clipse, Pharrell, Gunna, Teriyaki Boyz, ASAP Ferg, ASAP Rocky, Pusha T, Lil Uzi Vert, and Kid Cudi for I Know Nigo.

You can view the tracklist for I Know Nigo below.

1. “Lost And Found Freestyle 2019” w/ ASAP Rocky & Tyler The Creator
2. “Arya” w/ ASAP Rocky
3. “Punch Bowl” w/ Clipse
4. “Functional Addict” w/ Pharrell & Gunna
5. “Want It Bad” w/ Kid Cudi
6. “More Tonight” w/ Teriyaki Boyz
7. “Paper Plates” w/ Pharrell & ASAP Ferg
8. “Hear Me Clearly” w/ Pusha T
9. “Remember” w/ Pop Smoke
10. “Heavy” w/ Lil Uzi Vert
11. “Come On, Let’s Go” w/ Tyler The Creator

I Know Nigo is out 3/25 via Republic.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s become a cliché — a very tired cliché — for journalists to ask esteemed auteurs whether or not they like the dominant (almost the only) kind of movie big Hollywood studios make these days: the superhero movie. Guess what? Unless they’ve been hired to make one of them, like Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao, they’re not huge fans! Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Lucrecia Martel (who famously turned Marvel down after they wouldn’t let her direct her own action scenes) — all have dared disparage the number one game in town.

There’s also Jane Campion. The director of The Power of the Dog, currently nominated for 12 Oscars, had a brief but unambiguous take on superhero movies, despite having made a movie starring Doctor Strange himself. “I hate them,” she told Variety much earlier in awards season. “I actually hate them.”

Or maybe she’d like them if they gave her the chance to make her own eccentric version. Judd Apatow recently did an interview round-up for the DGA called Directors Talkin’ to Directors About Directing. The filmmaker spoke with all five of this year’s Best Director Oscar nominees for a series of loose, jokey chats. When he got to Campion, he made sure to bring up her superhero movie diss.

“I just felt bad because Marvel people never asked me,” Campion told Apatow, who replied with a furious “Me neither!” Then Campion suggested it might work if they did it “together.”

Apatow thought that was such a brilliant idea that he tried to rope in Licorice Pizza‘s Paul Thomas Anderson. Alas, while PTA though that sounded “pretty good,” he confessed he’d “rather do, like, a Zucker brothers movie,” referring to the gag-a-second parodies done by the team of Jim Abraham and David and Jerry Zucker, who burst on the scene with the Airplane! movies, Police Squad!, and Top Secret! before breaking up and doing solo movies like The Naked Gun, Hot Shots!, and the Scary Movie sequels, to say nothing of Jane Austen’s Mafia!

Apatow did remind Campion that, if she sold out to Marvel, she could “get everything you want in a movie.” Of course, on top of an unimaginable budget, she’d still have to throw in flying dudes in spandex. But maybe the genre needs a renegade entry by the auteur of The Piano. Maybe she could cast Hulk alum Sam Elliott.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Who doesn’t love birria? The popularity of the brothy Mexican stewed beef has reached new heights recently, thanks to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where videos of tacos, quesadillas and all sorts of other foods doused and dripping with mouthwatering birria consommé have seemingly become everyone’s favorite genre of food porn. Just look at this stuff:

If that doesn’t make you hungry, we probably can’t hang out.

In fact, birria love has gone so mainstream that it’s even become fast food. From now until June 1st, El Pollo Loco will be offering birria tacos, burritos, and quesadillas, complete with a cup of birria broth for dipping, at its locations nationwide.

What is birria?

If you don’t spend time a lot of time on foodTok or in Mexico or in the Southwestern part of United States, you may need a course in Birria 101. Let us break it down for you. The dish, most commonly associated with Jalisco, Mexico, is a braise seasoned with garlic, dried chiles, cumin, bay leaves, adobo, onion, and traditionally, goat meat. The resulting stewed meat and broth is red and earthy in color, with a flavor layered with smokey and spicy top notes hinted at in the tender meat and concentrated in the lucious broth — ideally combining in one perfect bite to make sweet comfort food love.

The version popular on TikTok is actually what is called quesabirria, and typically involves dipping a tortilla in birria consommé, frying it, and serving it loaded with melted cheese and birria-style beef, or birria de res. Trust me, it tastes as amazing as it looks. Goat-based birria is known as birria de chivo. Not surprisingly, El Pollo loco’s birria consists of the far more American-palate friendly birria de res, or beef-based birria (side note: Zacatecas is home to some of the finest birria de res).

As fans of birria, we’re psyched to get our hands on this stuff, but also… skeptical. A food word or genre hitting the mainstream is often the first step towards eventually being watered down or rendered meaningless. Good birria takes time and patience, and this is fast food we’re talking about. Are we really to believe El Pollo Loco is slow-braising beef in a chicken kitchen? Suffice it to say we have our doubts. Though we want to believe.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of El Pollo Loco’s Birria Menu

Remember that healthy skepticism? Turns out that wasn’t misplaced. This stuff, I’m sorry to say, is an embarrassment to good birria everywhere. But let’s start with the good. El Pollo Loco’s birria de res is tasty. It’s tender, juicy, and flavorful, just like the chain’s flame-grilled chicken.

It has an earthy flavor full of delicious spices like oregano, smokey paprika, and garlic. I like it a lot and it works well enough in the three forms presented here: as burrito, taco, and quesadilla fillings. If birria was just a taco or burrito filling, that might be enough. Real birria is more than that, even if you’d never know it from this watered down version.

The El Pollo Loco crunchy birria taco comes with two tacos per order and features shredded meat, onions, cilantro, and cheese, served alongside a cup of broth for dipping. Notably, the tortilla is not dipped in birria or fried on a stove-top like actual quesabirria, which seems to reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of how social media’s birria obsession began in the first place.

Those images — of juicy, red-stained tortillas with gooey strands of cheese connecting mouth to taco — are what had us all hooked. El Pollo Loco’s birria tacos, on the other hand, are just sad to look at. They’re not fried in the juice, the tacos are dry, and you’re meant to dip between bites. The birria broth itself is glossy and shimmery, not really adhering to the tacos you dip in it, and it both looks and tastes as if you’re dipping your tacos into seasoned oil, not a rich and spicy stew packed with flavor.

But perhaps the most frustrating thing about this taco is that, judged in a vacuum, it’s actually not bad. It’s pretty damn tasty, all things considered, and would definitely be in the running for one of the best fast food crunchy tacos around. It’s just that calling it “birria” creates an expectation it doesn’t come close to fulfilling. It only makes that gap between expectation and reality stand out even more starkly.

And of its three iterations, the taco is by far the strongest.

The birria burrito consists of birria de res, onions, cilantro, Spanish rice, cheese, and cabbage. The burrito on its own is already pretty damn delicious, combining earthy oregano flavors with paprika, garlic and onions, all intensified when doused in the birria juice. But there’s a structural problem here: it’s not very easy to dip a burrito without your food falling out after you’ve already bitten into it. And because this glossy broth doesn’t adhere to the outside well anyway, you’re better off just pouring the juice into the top. This is, as you might imagine, kind of a mess, and not really worth it for what you get in flavor.

This brings us to the worst menu item of the three: the birria quesadilla.

Now before I talk my trash let me just say: I love this quesadilla. Layers of tender juicy meat, melted cheese, cilantro, onion, and fresh avocado are all sandwiched together inside of a warm grilled tortilla. Every bite is bursting with rich savory flavors, and that avocado slice adds a real freshness to the whole thing.

Yet because of its shape, it’s totally un-dippable. And dipping is kind of the whole point here, isn’t it?

In order to make this work, you either have to cut pieces from your quesadilla with a knife and fork like you’re some kind of maniac, or pour the birria into a small, inch-wide slit between bites — which is guaranteed to cover your hand in oily birria juice by the end of your meal.

The Bottom Line:

El Pollo Loco had a really great idea here they just couldn’t stick the landing. Any of the three dishes are absolutely worth trying if you already love El Pollo Loco. They each taste great in their own right — they’re spicy, flavorful, and smoky. But if you’re here because you’re craving something resembling birria, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. El Pollo Loco claims they’re the first fast-casual restaurant to add birria to the menu, so maybe it falls to the research and development team at some other chain to work the kinks out before the next one.

Find you nearest El Pollo Loco here.

Since going off the grid following the success of Melodrama, Lorde has preferred to use email newsletters to communicate with fans. Technically, it’s how she announced her latest album, last year’s Solar Power, and she often sends out missives on days when she has news or updates on her music and tour. Today, she launched the video for “Secrets From A Girl (Who’s Seen It All),” and sent out a newsletter to promote that, as well as share what she’s been up to so far this year.

One thing she’s been up to? Fan girl-ing over Rosalía, as so many of us have been. Motomami is, no question, one of the most inventive and exciting albums of the year, and as Cardi B herself said, you don’t really even have to know Spanish to understand the intention behind this music.

For Lorde’s part, she thinks the project is a good reminder of why pop music itself exists. “I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out,” she wrote in the 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.”

Couldn’t agree more! If you haven’t done so, feel free to sign up for Lorde’s newsletter right here.

Back in 2020, Justin Bieber was accused of sexual assault by two women for a pair of incidents that occurred nearly ten years ago. The women made their accusations on Twitter, and as a result, Bieber denied the claims, calling them “outlandish false fabrications,” and sued the pair for defamation. Well, that lawsuit has come to an end as Bieber requested for it to be dismissed. The dismissal was filed by his lawyers on March 18 according to court records that Rolling Stone obtained. A reason for the dismissal was not given, but it comes after it appeared like the case would be heading to trial as lawyers for Bieber and one of the accusers failed to reach a settlement.

Bieber was hit with both accusations of sexual assault in June 2020. They were originally made anonymously before the women’s names were revealed to be Khadidja Djibrine and a woman identified only as Danielle. Dijibrine was the lone woman in settlement talks with Bieber as Danielle was never officially located. In their accusations, Danielle accused Bieber of sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Austin in March 2014 following his performance at the SXSW Festival. In response, Bieber’s lawyer said that the singer did not stay at a hotel, but rather, he spent the night at a rental property with Selena Gomez, who was his girlfriend at the time. Bieber went as far as to share the receipt for the stay on Twitter.

Dijibrine shared her sexual accusation against Bieber the same day that Danielle did. In her case, she says that the incident occurred at a hotel in New York City in March 2015. Once again, Bieber’s lawyers noted that he did not stay at that specific hotel and they backed up their alibi with photos of Bieber at the Met Gala and at an after-party during the time of the alleged assault.

Rolling Stone notes that attorneys for Bieber and Dijibrine did not return their requests for comments.

Back in 2020, Justin Bieber was accused of sexual assault by two women for a pair of incidents that occurred nearly ten years ago. The women made their accusations on Twitter, and as a result, Bieber denied the claims, calling them “outlandish false fabrications,” and sued the pair for defamation. Well, that lawsuit has come to an end as Bieber requested for it to be dismissed. The dismissal was filed by his lawyers on March 18 according to court records that Rolling Stone obtained. A reason for the dismissal was not given, but it comes after it appeared like the case would be heading to trial as lawyers for Bieber and one of the accusers failed to reach a settlement.

Bieber was hit with both accusations of sexual assault in June 2020. They were originally made anonymously before the women’s names were revealed to be Khadidja Djibrine and a woman identified only as Danielle. Dijibrine was the lone woman in settlement talks with Bieber as Danielle was never officially located. In their accusations, Danielle accused Bieber of sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Austin in March 2014 following his performance at the SXSW Festival. In response, Bieber’s lawyer said that the singer did not stay at a hotel, but rather, he spent the night at a rental property with Selena Gomez, who was his girlfriend at the time. Bieber went as far as to share the receipt for the stay on Twitter.

Dijibrine shared her sexual accusation against Bieber the same day that Danielle did. In her case, she says that the incident occurred at a hotel in New York City in March 2015. Once again, Bieber’s lawyers noted that he did not stay at that specific hotel and they backed up their alibi with photos of Bieber at the Met Gala and at an after-party during the time of the alleged assault.

Rolling Stone notes that attorneys for Bieber and Dijibrine did not return their requests for comments.

A decade-and-a-half ago, John C. Reilly helped kill the musical biopic dead. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story mercilessly mocked movies like Walk the Line and Ray, skewering their tropes so devastatingly that no one dared make them for years and years. But they were bound to one day rise from the dead. And so they have. The last few years have seen movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, about Queen and Elton John, make a ton of money, all while reviving the clichés that once made the genre ripe for satire. So why hasn’t anyone done one yet about Dolly Parton? That’s what Dolly Parton wants to know.

According to CNN, the country music goddess, too occasional movie star, and theme park owner last month appeared on the radio show Mr. Nashville Speaks, where she discussed her first novel, Run, Rose, Run. She also revealed that she’s in talks to do a big screen Dolly movie.

“I do intend someday to be on Broadway, but I’m thinking now that I might do my life story as a feature,” Parton told host Larry Ferguson. “Maybe possibly even a musical feature, so we’re in talks about that.”

Parton said that a Broadway Dolly musical almost happened, but the pandemic delayed that so long that she changed her mind. Now she’s pursuing a Dolly movie.

But who on earth could ever hope to summon even a scintilla of the charisma of one of the great entertainers? Parton had some ideas.

“I love Kristin Chenoweth,” Parton said. “She’s just absolutely fantastic.” But perhaps Chenoweth, if she’s comfortable inhabiting the shoes of the woman who wrote both “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same frickin’ day, would only be one of multiple Dollys. “We’d probably have to have-as long as my career has been-like a little Dolly and a middle Dolly and then the older one.”

So there you have it, Hollywood. Go forth and make a Dolly Parton movie. In the meantime, go watch the too few movies she’s made over the years. Yes, even the one with Stallone.

You can watch Parton’s Mr. Nashville Speaks interview in the video below.

(Via CNN)

When Ted Cruz was busted throwing a hissy fit at an airport this weekend, it appears he had a very important destination: He had to rush back to D.C. to make a bigger show of himself than he usually does. This week finds Congress lording over the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, who may wind up replacing the departing Justice Stephen Breyer. The GOP made a whole show of swearing it wouldn’t turn into a circus. That promise didn’t last long.

At least Republicans spaced out their tomfoolery. Josh Hawley’s nonsensical attack on her was scheduled for Monday. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, was saved for Tuesday. He did not disappoint. Among the issues he grilled her on was Critical Race Theory, the academic discipline Republicans openly admit they don’t understand, despite making it one of their favorite culture war go-tos.

Cruz was dead-set on catching Jackson allowing books espousing CRT in Georgetown Day, a private school her kids attend and where she’s on the board of directors. Cruz then started pulling out books that are allegedly “either assigned or recommended” to young kids. One of them was called Antiracist Baby, a children’s book by How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi.

“There are portions of this book that I find really quite remarkable. One portion of the book says babies are taught to be racist or anti-racist,” Cruz steamed while giant blow-ups of the book were placed behind him. Enraged that a children’s book may point out that racism can be taught by racist guardians, Cruz then asked a possible future Supreme Court justice with a prolific judicial record, “Do you agree with this book that is being taught with kids that babies are racist?”

Jackson took a long pause — and a bottomlessly weary sigh — before responding. “I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or though they are not valued or though they are less-than. That they are victims. That they are oppressors,” she told Cruz. “I don’t believe in any of that.” She also reminded him that critical race theory is “an academic theory is taught in law schools,” which is true.

Cruz was, of course, not satisfied. He went on to cite out-of-context passages from another Kendi tome, a kids edition of his 2016 book Stamped From the Beginning. Eventually Jackson had to point out that none of these books “come up in my work as a judge, which I’m, respectfully, here to address.”

If Jackson can calmly respond to Ted Cruz, then maybe she deserves any gig, not the least a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Bad Vegan‘s a limited series with only four parts, but it’s apparently already doing huge numbers for Netflix. The show began streaming less than a week ago, and in five days, the latest scammer story — and perhaps the most what-the-hell-is-happening option in recent months — is telling the tale, alright. The show details how celebrity restauranteur Sarma Melngailis fell from grace and ended up (about five years ago) as a fugitive of the law (and then served time on Rikers Island). And people are gobbling it up, according to Netflix’s Top 10 Global chart.

That chart aims for transparency (after years of Netflix not being entirely clear about what “views” meant), and as of now, the show has reportedly accrued 26.96 million hours of streaming time over five days. That’s enough to bump it into the #5 spot on the global TV chart, and that could very well continue, considering how much conversation the show has generated already.

This controversy has (obviously) landed largely upon the show’s subject, Sarma, who declared that she felt “sick” over how Netflix was marketing the series, by “mocking” how she had fallen for the dog-immortality claim made by Anthony Strangis (who she initially knew as “Shane Fox”). Sarma claims that Strangis lured her into coercive control while progressively coaxing her to withdraw sums (from her restaurants) and take out loans from investors. She subsequently insisted that all her Netflix dollars went towards paying employees back.

Sarma has also expressed concern that the ending of the series “is disturbingly misleading” because it (arguably) creates the appearance that she’s still in contact with Strangis. Series director Chris Smith and executive producer Ryann Frase have defended their decision to end the show that way, claiming that the ending makes their subject appear “to be confident and strong.”

Bad Vegan is currently streaming on Netflix.