Year: 2022

Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall are set to triple host the 94th annual Academy Awards later this month, which marks the first time the broadcast has had a host in over three years. As for how Schumer got the gig alongside Sykes and Hall, she has no idea because the comedian plans to make a night to remember.

In an interview with Extra to promote her upcoming Hulu series, Life & Beth, Schumer joked that the Academy made a mistake bringing her on because she’s going to get herself in “some trouble.” Via Mediaite:

“I mean, I don’t know who made the decision to let me personally be a host, but it’s not a good one,” Schumer, who led the 2015 MTV Movie Awards, said. “Because it’ll burn all bridges. I’ll burn every bridge.”

However, the Oscars is already embroiled in controversy, and Schumer still has over two weeks to go before she takes the stage. The broadcast has chosen not to air several categories in an attempt to boost ratings. Namely documentary short, film editing, makeup/hairstyling, original score, production design, animated short, live-action short, and sound. The move has prompted celebrated filmmakers like Steven Spielberg to speak out against the decision.

“I feel that at the Academy Awards there is no above the line, there is no below the line,” Spielberg wrote in a statement. “All of us are on the same line bringing the best of us to tell the best stories we possibly can. And that means for me we should all have a seat at the supper table together live at 5.”

The 94th Annual Academy Awards air March 27 on ABC.

(Via Mediaite)

Finneas dropped his debut album Optimist a few months ago, and now he’s back with new music via a Spotify Singles release, which features renditions of Optimist cut “Medieval” and Bon Iver’s “Flume.” For both tracks, Finneas takes to the piano and lets his vocals shine, especially on the tender Bon Iver cover.

Finneas said in a statement, “Honored to finally be able to get into the brand new and beautiful Spotify Studios to record these songs in these special arrangements.” He also tweeted of his “Flume” rendition, “My apologies to Bon Iver for the unsolicited cover- but I f*cking love this song and I’m so glad it exists. Listen to my cover if you must, then go listen to the original again.”

Finneas has long made it clear that he’s a Justin Vernon stan. In a 2019 Forbes interview, for example, he said, “There’s a line in Bon Iver’s song, “33 ‘GOD’,” which is an awesome song off an album [22, A Million] that’s really influenced my production and writing. The line is just, ‘A child ignored, these will just be places to me, now,’ and, ‘These will just be places to me, now,’ just hit me over the head when I heard it. I’d never really heard it put that way, but that’s how all of life kind of feels. You have a significant experience, and then for some reason, that significant experience is kind of undone. And then it’s just a place, or a street, or a park, or a car.”

Listen to Finneas’ performances of “Flume” and “Medieval” above. If you’d like to fulfill Finneas’ aforementioned request, find Bon Iver’s original version of “Flume” below.

As foretold earlier this week, the Queen “commands all of you to view” this trailer for Shondaland and Netflix’s Bridgerton Season 2. And hold onto your corsets because, although the teaser gave us some intriguing peeks at Phoebe Dynevor’s Daphne Bridgerton (making us all wonder what the Duke is doing), there’s no reason to dwell on the absence of Regé-Jean Page (who retired from the show as planned) as The Duke.

Hopefully, the Duke is not off (in the words of John Oliver) “jizzing in blankets” somewhere, but it doesn’t seem to matter here if he’s smoldering elsewhere. Instead, this season is all about Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) going through the (rather humiliating) paces to find his own match. And being handsome and wealthy ain’t enough, bud. Get ready to fall into ponds while fully dressed and go fencing and maybe have a duel. Yeah, this show (no shame here) is delicious. From the synopsis:

[T]he second season of Bridgerton follows Lord Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the eldest Bridgerton sibling and Viscount, as he sets out to find a suitable wife. Driven by his duty to uphold the family name, Anthony’s search for a debutante who meets his impossible standards seems ill-fated until Kate (Simone Ashley) and her younger sister Edwina (Charithra Chandran) Sharma arrive from India. When Anthony begins to court Edwina, Kate discovers the true nature of his intentions — a true love match is not high on his priority list — and decides to do everything in her power to stop the union. But in doing so, Kate and Anthony’s verbal sparring matches only bring them closer together, complicating matters on both sides.

Also, expect Julie Andrews to continue doing the narration thing while the Featherington house has their own drama going down, in addition to Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) continuing to, well, you know what she is doing.

Bridgerton (along with Lady Whistledown) returns on March 25, and after that, three more seasons shall follow.

There ain’t no bonkers movie like a bonkers Nic Cage movie, and the star of Pig (which churned out a soulful, painstakingly dramatic performance) is back to his bonkers bullsh*t with this trailer for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, an action comedy that might feel too aggressively meta if this wasn’t Nic Cage (or John Malkovich). We already saw a teaser, in which Cage set up his Cage-esque role, Nick Cage.

Yup, he’s a version of his true self, and that fictionalized version is probably not quite as wild as being the IRL guy who deals in dinosaur skulls like it ain’t no thing. In this story, he’s dodging both the judging eye of Neil Patrick Harris but also the Pedro Pascal-shaped, super-wealthy superfan who might be more sinister than he seems, as he reels Nick (fresh off quitting acting) into some sort of sketchy scenario. Tiffany Haddish is also onboard, and why yes, there is a speedboat scene in this trailer, and we’ve also got a joke about Con Air. Sold.

From Lionsgate’s synopsis:

Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, the fictionalized version of Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan (Pedro Pascal). Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative (Tiffany Haddish) and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones. With a career built for this very moment, the seminal award-winning actor must take on the role of a lifetime: Nicolas Cage.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent premieres on April 22, 2022.

Ed Sheeran is currently in the middle of a plagiarism court case, as songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue accuse Sheeran of using elements of their 2015 single “Oh Why” (which Chokri released as Sami Switch) in his own “Shape Of You,” specifically the “oh I, oh I, oh I” hook. Sheeran took the stand yesterday and as part of his defense, he sang bits of songs by Nina Simone and Blackstreet.

BBC reports Sheeran wanted to illustrate how the “Shape Of You” melody is common in pop music, so he made his point by singing parts of Simone’s “Feeling Good” and Blackstreet’s “No Diggity.”

“If you put them all in the same key, they’ll sound the same,” he said.

Furthermore, Sheeran denied having heard “Oh Why” before writing “Shape Of You” in October 2016 and rejected the idea that friends may have played it for him. Regardless, due to the legal battle, Sheeran’s royalties from the song (estimated at about £20 million, or around $26 million) have been frozen since Chokri Ross O’Donoghue made their copyright infringement claim in 2018.

Elsewhere, Sheeran “briefly became irritated” when a portion of an unreleased song of his was mistakenly played in court. He looked at his lawyers and asked, “That’s a song I wrote last January. How did you get that? I want to know how you got that.” He was told some of the music played in court was coming from “Shape Of You” co-writer Steve Mac’s laptop and that the wrong file was accidentally played.

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

Like another show that premiered in 2016, Stranger Things is coming to an end after two more seasons. Season four of the Netflix series will be split into two parts, with the first half of the season premiering on May 27 and the second half on July 1, while the fifth and final season will hopefully debut sometime before the kids are in their late 30. Early 30s? The CGI team can handle that. But mid-to-late 30s is tough. Believe me.

Stranger Things producer and director Shawn Levy explained the decision to end the show in a recent interview with ScreenRant. “We never wanted to run on fumes and we wanted to only tell as much story as [creators Matt and Ross Duffer] saw and feel with clarity. So it’s been clear for a while that they know exactly where we’re headed and this is the arc. We wouldn’t want to stick around for one moment beyond that vision and the clarity of that voice,” he said. “So rather than focusing on that sad day that happens who knows when, the end of season five, I’ll just once again reaffirm what I’ve told everyone, which is it has been a long-ass wait for season four.” Levy added:

“I swear to God, the world will realize it’s worth it.”

David Harbour agrees:

(Via ScreenRant)

The Brooklyn Nets are making the trek down to Philadelphia on Thursday night for a showdown between two teams that pulled off the biggest trade of the season last month. Brooklyn parted ways with James Harden and Paul Millsap, and in exchange, the 76ers gave up Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and a collection of draft picks.

Thursday will be the first time those teams have gone head-to-head since the move, and while he’ll watch the game from the bench as he works his way back from a back injury, Simmons’ return to the City of Brotherly Love is in the spotlight, as the expectation is that Sixers fans won’t exactly give him a warm welcome.

In the aftermath of the team’s 132-121 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday night, Kevin Durant was asked if he’s discussed the hostile environment Simmons will walk into.

“Absolutely not,” Durant said. “That’s one of those things he’s gonna have to experience for himself. I can’t go over there, nobody’s gonna hold his hand, I’m sure it’s gonna be personal attacks, there’s gonna be some words that may trigger you, personally, but that’s just how fans are. They wanna get under our skin, let their voices be heard. Part of the experience of coming to an NBA game is to heckle — some people don’t even enjoy basketball, their lives are sh*tty that they just get to aim it at other people, so it’s easy to kinda get that release at a basketball game.”

Durant did say that he believes Simmons understands this, and that some of the stuff he might hear could end up being pretty funny.

“But at the end of the day, we realize that life is amazing, we play the game of basketball for a living, and a little bit of trash talk is what it is,” Durant finished.

In a follow-up, Durant said that Simmons hasn’t asked him about his first game back in Oklahoma City after leaving the Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors. Durant famously faced a pretty hostile crowd that evening, but if the Nets are lucky, Simmons’ return to Philly will end the same way that Durant’s return to Oklahoma City ended — the Warriors won that game, 130-114.

Lauren Boebert has been in rare form lately. The Colorado representative, whose antics can be easily confused with that of bestie Marjorie Taylor Greene, is hot off of publicly showing how little she knows about Russia. Then there’s last week’s State of the Union, in which both she and Greene were total nuisances but only Boebert heckled President Joe Biden as he was ahout to talk about his dead son Beau. Her timing is terrible, as further evidenced by her attempt at a Biden diss involving a mysterious “Prince John.”

As per Mediaite, Boebert was one Fox News’ newish hit show Jesse Watters Primetime, where she was talking about high gas prices again. Specifically, they discussed how leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates both reportedly refused to speak with Biden about exporting more oil. They suggested Biden isn’t respected, with Boebert getting into some convoluted joke about him selling oil to foreign powers, then buying it back, or something.

“I’m just worried if we are going to call on Alaska to start producing this, is Biden going to want to sell it to the Saudis or Venezuela, and think that’s the only way that he will be able to buy oil and gas from Alaska?” Boebert tried to joke. “But, in all seriousness, here’s Biden’s energy policy: anyone but America. OPEC, Venezuela, you name it, if it’s not American energy, Joe doesn’t want it.”

She then badly fumbled another joke. “And I don’t know who is running the federal government these days, Joe Biden or Prince John from, uhh — Prince John,” she said, visibly realized she forgot the punchline, if there ever was one. “But they are taxing us into poverty.”

There are a number of Prince Johns throughout British history, but perhaps she was referring to the prince regent who ascended to the throne in 1199, reigning over the following 17 years. Historians take a complicated view of his tenure, but his negative qualities inspired many villainous depictions in fiction, amongst them in the legend of Robin Hood. Prince John doesn’t always play a big part in modern day Robin Hood retellings; he’s not in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (nor the Taron Egerton one you may have already forgotten), and he plays only a smallish role in the one with Russell Crowe. But he’s a memorably louche baddie in Disney’s 1973 animated take, in which he’s a sleepy lion voiced by Peter Ustinov.

Did Boebert’s brain stop on a Disney movie she probably watched as a kid then break down mid-joke? Is even that giving her too much credit? Whatever the case, when the clip hit social media, people tried to figure what on earth she was talking about.

Some just made jokes.

Or maybe she was telling the truth, but only about herself.

In the meantime, Boebert has a challenger to her congressional seat, and he recently released an ad featuring lots of literal s*it.

(Via Mediaite)

It’s been almost three years since Nicki Minaj released an episode of Queen Radio. The platform, which Nicki has used to promote her music and share announcements in addition to some other controversial moments, has not held an episode since 2019. That same year, she promised that Queen Radio would make a return alongside the release of her single “Megatron.” While “Megatron” was released on time, there was no episode of Queen Radio. Now, at long last, it’s coming back.

On April 8, Queen Radio will make its return, though it won’t do so on Apple Music’s radio platform, where it was previously housed. Instead, it will make its return on Amp, a new app from Amazon. Through Amp, listeners will be able to enjoy music and commentary from Nicki and even call in to speak with her — if she decides to allow them to. They can also share the tracks that they’re enjoying. Amp has access to tens of millions of songs from Universal Music Group artists, while other names like Big Boi, Tinashe, and Pusha T will also host shows on the platform.

Nicki shared the announcement about her show’s return during a livestream on Instagram. You can watch a clip from the livestream above.

It’s been a minute since the Oscars had a host. The last time was all the way back in 2018 with Jimmy Kimmel, who’d also played emcee during the ceremony that notoriously ended with the Best Picture trophy almost going to the wrong movie. Since then, for a variety of reasons, the show has gone hostless. Not this year. The telecast that occurs at month’s end already has plenty of controversy, but they at least made up for the three years without a host by hiring, well, three hosts.

That trio is Amy Schumer, Regina Hall, and Wanda Sykes, who were named after a long search that included such possible hosts as Pete Davidson and the heroes of Only Murders in the Building. So how’s their chemistry? Pretty solid, as judged by the first promo for the show.

It finds the three sitting at a kitchen table right out of a Nancy Meyers movie, vowing to do “better than last year’s host.” Who was last year’s host? Whoever it is, Schumer jokes, “they must have sucked.” Only Hall remembers that there wasn’t a host last year, or the year before, or the year before. “Boom! We’re already winning,” cracks Sykes.

It’s a lighthearted promo for a show that’s already mired in heartbreak. The producers, under intense pressure from ABC to fun up a show whose ratings have fallen into the toilet, announced they wouldn’t air about a third of the winners live, leading to much pushback. But even bad press is good press, right? We’ll find out on March 27.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)