Year: 2022

Nearly a year after she dropped her last single, “Seeing Green” featuring Drake and Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj kicked off the new year with her latest release: “Do We Have A Problem?” alongside Lil Baby. The track was delivered with a cinematic music video that shows Nicki and Baby as criminals. She recently confirmed that her highly-anticipated fifth album will arrive at some point this year. Luckily for her supporters, she announced its next single is coming very soon.

In a post to Twitter, Nicki revealed that the song, “Bussin,” will be available at the end of the week. “Next week we pushin B for Bussin btch WTF IS GOOD,” Nicki wrote, referencing Gunna’s viral slogan from his No. 1 album DS4EVER. She added that Lil Baby will also appear on the song. Nicki shared a preview of “Bussin” at the end of her music video for “Do We Have A Problem?”

The news comes after Nicki delivered an awesome Adele impression and explained why “New Body,” her viral song with Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign, never came out.

You can view Nicki’s announcement above.

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

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As any cat parent would agree, the money was well worth it.

“It’s great to see him so happy because you’ve got to stimulate their brains. It’s definitely been worth the money,” Krieger told Daily Mail.

She added, ”You spend that much on a TV and this is like a TV for cats. As soon as we feed the fish, he comes running. He’s living the dream.”

@jasperthecatfish

♬ Hello, Goodbye – The Beatles Revival Band

There’s no shortage of visual delights for Jasper. The 4 ft x 2.5 ft saltwater tank is home to several tropical fish, including the parrotfish.

See on Instagram

…which looks exactly like you expect them to.

@jasperthecatfish Eyes of the World#cats #catsoftiktok #fishtank #gratefuldead #funny #eyesoftheworld #catmom #aqauarium #jasper ♬ Eyes Of The World (Live at Lockn’ Festival, Arrington, VA, 8/26/2018) – Dead & Company

None of these fish seem to really mind Jasper getting up close and personal.

@jasperthecatfish Willow wants a turn…#catsoftiktok #fishtank #jasper #funny ♬ Cute – Tik Tok

The only downside apparently is having to share his next-level aquarium with his sister Willow. Ah, the common sibling conundrum.

@jasperthecatfish #jasperthecatfish #catdaddy#cats #catsoftiktok #fishtank #catmom #cutecat #jasper #catlover #catlovers #catlove ♬ WOW – Zara Larsson

Even cat guru and feline behavior expert Jackson Galaxy was impressed, and reposted Jasper’s video. Galaxy is a well-loved top tier resource for kitty supplements, toys and activity ideas. For dog people, imagine if your pup made it into one of Cesar Millan’s Instagram stories. That’s some pet publicity right there.

As Galaxy will tell you, environmental enrichment is key for a cat’s happiness. Part of that enrichment is visual stimulation. A major, yet often overlooked, aspect of the hunting process is stalking prey. All cats have this instinct, and not having an outlet can lead to major (not to mention messy) behavioral problems, like furniture scratching and not using the litter box.

Pretty soon, the viral video had others asking, “where can I purchase this tank?” Aquatics and Exotics, the company that made the innovative aquarium, might have an influx of custom orders on their hands.

As the mother of two cats myself, I can’t help but look for corners in my tiny Los Angeles apartment that might be prime fish tank real estate.

Luckily, you don’t need to have a state-of-the-art aquarium to keep your cat stimulated. Experts recommend using something as simple as a bird feeder or window perch. There are even YouTube videos with hours upon hours of curated cat content.

Still, seeing the amount of effort that Jasper’s family put in for the sake of his enjoyment is certainly inspiring.

Our pets provide us so much heartwarming bliss, simply by existing most of the time. Finding ways to pay back that kind of unconditional love is a gift unto itself.

Generally speaking, funerals are thought of as solemn occasions. Even when someone requests that their send-off be a celebration of their life, people still cry and express sadness at the loss. Nothing wrong with that—it’s hard to say goodbye to someone we care about.

Sometimes, though, a person manages to break through the heaviness of their own passing to make their mourners laugh. It takes some forethought—and a unique personality—to pull off such a feat, but when it happens it’s delightful.

One such feat was expertly executed by Shay Bradley, a Dublin grandfather and a prankster who literally had the last laugh when he prerecorded a message to be played while his family and friends gathered at his gravesite.

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As mourners stood around the burial plot into which Bradley’s casket had been lowered, bagpipes started to play. Then suddenly, a voice called out “Hello?” followed by a knocking sound—seemingly coming from the casket.

The knocking continued, as Bradley called out “Hello? Hello? Let me out, it’s f*cking dark in here! Let me out. Is that the priest I can hear?”

Bradley’s f-bomb-laced recording making it sound like he was alive in his casket made his loved ones laugh. And when he launched into a rendition of Neil Diamond’s “Hello Again,” even those who appeared reticent to laugh at least cracked a smile.

Bradley’s daughter Andrea originally shared the video on Facebook, writing “My dad’s dying wish, always the pranksters, ya got them good Poppabear. And gave us all a laugh just when we needed it!!”

Bradley’s wife, Anne Bradley, told Bored Panda that he had made the recording over a year before he died, but she didn’t know about it until the day before the funeral. Only the closest family members knew it was going to happen, so most were caught by surprise.

“Shay was a prankster, always thought outside the box and wanted to leave his family laughing,” Anne said. “He was a larger than life character and sadly missed by anyone who knew him,” she concluded.

The video originally went viral in 2019 but has gotten new life thanks to shares on TikTok and Reddit this week. People love the story for the message it sends: Go out making people smile.

“This dude gets it,” wrote one Reddit commenter. “I want my funeral to be a party so people remember the good times.”

“He went out with laughter,” wrote another, “that’s a gift not every person can have.”

“This made me cry because it is such a selfless act to want to comfort your loved ones with humor one last time,” wrote a TikTok commenter. “I’m sure they miss him deeply.”

Indeed. Humor can help people cope with grief. What a gift to his friends and family to make them laugh in remembrance as they bid him farewell.

Nearly a year after she dropped her last single, “Seeing Green” featuring Drake and Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj kicked off the new year with her latest release: “Do We Have A Problem?” alongside Lil Baby. The track was delivered with a cinematic music video that shows Nicki and Baby as criminals. She recently confirmed that her highly-anticipated fifth album will arrive at some point this year. Luckily for her supporters, she announced its next single is coming very soon.

In a post to Twitter, Nicki revealed that the song, “Bussin,” will be available at the end of the week. “Next week we pushin B for Bussin btch WTF IS GOOD,” Nicki wrote, referencing Gunna’s viral slogan from his No. 1 album DS4EVER. She added that Lil Baby will also appear on the song. Nicki shared a preview of “Bussin” at the end of her music video for “Do We Have A Problem?”

The news comes after Nicki delivered an awesome Adele impression and explained why “New Body,” her viral song with Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign, never came out.

You can view Nicki’s announcement above.

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

How To with John Wilson is one of the more improbable and hard-to-describe TV successes of the modern age: a show that’s nothing but a guy and his small camera tooling about New York City (and occasionally other places, like Florida, Vegas, Cancún or Pennsylvania), shooting strange stuff. Sometimes it’s a weird sign; sometimes it’s a woman placing a live pigeon in a Duane Reade bag like it was produce. Whatever it is, it’s likely never been on television before. And now even more of it will be coming to TV in the future.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has greenlit a third season of the show, which purports to be tutorial — episode titles include “How to Make Small Talk” and “How to Cook the Perfect Risotto” — but wind up snaking in strange and philosophical directions. Last season found our host learning about real estate, wine, and what to do with dead batteries. But those were just jumping-off points for what amounted to half-hour long essay films that veered into deep and often strange directions. (One episode featured a most unexpected cameo from future convicted cult leader Keith Raniere.)

In the meantime, Wilson has another several months to wander around the city in which he lives and who knows where else, miraculously stumbling upon the unexpected and inexplicable, and gifting us with TV’s best awkward voice that doesn’t belong to Joe Pera.

(Via THR)

James Gunn doesn’t take kindly when major auteurs speak ill of superhero movies. After all, he’s made a few of them. In the past, he’s repeatedly clapped back at no less than Martin Scorsese, the king of comic book movie critics. But he had a more gentle response when Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh claimed that the genre has a despairing dearth of sex.

In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Soderbergh was asked if he — brains behind the Ocean’s and Magic Mike movies — was ever approached to do, say, a Marvel movie. He said he wasn’t, and that even if he was he wouldn’t know what to do with them. Not only is he not sure how to handle their more outlandish aspects, he pointed out that “there’s no f*cking. Nobody’s f*cking! Like, I don’t know how to tell people how to behave in a world in which that is not a thing.”

Not quite, Gunn wrote the following day. In a post featuring images from last year’s The Suicide Squad and the new show Peacemaker, showing superheroes in compromising positions, he wrote, “With all due respect, Steven Soderbergh, some people are f*cking.”

Gunn pointed to the other directors who’ve made superhero movies featuring shtupping. Zack Snyder (Watchmen), Tim Miller (Deadpool), and Chloe Zhao (Eternals) all feature on-screen boudoir antics. Some of them are even R-rated. (He also cited Richard Donner, whose Superman: The Movie invented the serious comic book blockbuster, but perhaps he meant Superman II, from which he was booted mid-shoot and which features some post-coital lounging between Lois and Clark.)

When one person chimed in with an all-too-common refrain — that sex scenes aren’t “necessary” in the comic book movies — Gunn responded, “It isn’t necessary in any single story. But to have an entire antiseptic sexless film universe is a denial of who we are as human beings (and how every single one of us got here).”

Still, considering how many superhero movies there are, the batting average of ones that do feature superheroes knocking bedposts is not exactly high.

(Via IndieWire)

It’s obviously among the least of the problems caused by the pandemic, but COVID really did a number on Hollywood. Release dates are still being shuffled around. Theaters are still nowhere near what they once were (unless it’s about a young guy in spandex). The actual filming of movies has been greatly impacted, too. Just look at Mission: Impossible 7, which took just over a year to film thanks to all the COVID-related calamities that plagued the shoot. Now we’ve learned those issues alone added a ton to an already jaw-dropping budget.

As per Variety, movie theater owners gathering for the annual CinemaCon in Las Vegas were treated to behind-the-scenes footage from the seventh in a series that dates back to the Clinton era. What they also saw was the budget, all $290 million of it. That’s far from the most expensive movie ever made. That honor still goes to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($379 million). M:I 7 would only place sixth, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Justice League, tied for fifth at $300 million each.

Still, M:I 7‘s budget was tens of millions more than the money people expected to spend. (For perspective, the series’ previous entry, 2017’s Fallout, cost a mere $190 million.) So what accounted for that massive uptick? You can thank the pandemic:

A significant factor in this budget escalation is that “Mission: Impossible 7” was initially scheduled to begin shooting in Venice in February 2020, but it had to stop and start production seven different times, insiders said. Day one of principal photography, which was supposed to involve an elaborate action sequence staged during the Carnival Venice, an annual festival renowned for its elaborate masks, took place on the same day that Northern Italy went into COVID-19 lockdown. The production then scrambled to move shooting to Rome, only to once again be forced to shut down when cases spiked.

The hits kept coming. They finally started shooting in early September of 2020, but each time they shut down — despite star Tom Cruise’s well-publicized attempts to keep the virus at bay — they had to pay for cast and crew to quarantine. And there was more:

There are also costs associated with having to shut down streets and canals in major cities, such as Rome and Venice, only have to scrap those plans and reschedule them. Though the film’s backers tried to be nimble, the complexity of mounting an international production, one that hopscotched across a half-dozen countries including Poland and the United Arab Emirates, meant that no matter how hard the “Mission: Impossible” team tried, it couldn’t outrun a pandemic that knows no borders. Further complicating matters were global supply chain issues, other insiders added, which brought unforeseen costs via lumber and additional materials.

Eventually Paramount wound up shouldering an additional $50 million after its production company partner, Skydance, reached the limit they could spend, leaving the studio to pony up or else. To make matters worse, they wound up delaying the film from Sept. 30, 2022, until July 14, 2023, blaming it on “delays due to the ongoing pandemic.”

Then there’s still Mission: Impossible 8, now being released June 28, 2024 (previously due July of 2023) and which is supposed to be the “culmination” of Cruise’s stint as Ethan Hunt. And, of course, they still have to shoot that one.

(Via Variety)

Meta — formerly known as Facebook — is giving Oculus Quest 2 users the opportunity to have a jam session with The Roots and attend a virtual Young Thug concert for Black History Month. Accessible through the Horizon Venues app, the two concerts are just part of the programming planned for the month. In addition to The Roots jam session and Thugger concert, DJ Snoopadelic will spin a set of his favorite hip-hop and funk, while Bounce icon Big Freedia will deliver a New Orleans dance party for the ages.

And while the music might be the highlight, there will be educational experiences too, including VR experiences about “Traveling While Black,” America’s history of protest, reform, activism, and social justice, and a virtual visit to the White House with President Barack Obama. New VR content will be made available each week, while Facebook’s Lift Black Voices hub will offer more traditional content, and Instagram will have its own collection of Reels and video series highlighting Black history — which is really just American history without the filter of default whiteness. You can find out more here.

As for The Roots, Big Freedia, and Young Thug, they’ve all been keeping busy with various projects. The Roots’ Questlove and Black Thought recently launched their Disney Plus series “Rise Up, Sing Out,” and Questlove has been nominated for an Oscar for his documentary, Summer Of Soul. Meanwhile, Young Thug is helping his artist Gunna “push P” and Big Freedia is fresh off a 2021 spent remixing huge pop hits by Lady Gaga and Rebecca Black.

If you didn’t spend all of January 2022 singing “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” to yourself several times a day, what were you even doing?

People who have watched Disney’s “Encanto” and become enchanted with the songs—which is hard not to do when Lin-Manuel Miranda is involved—have joked about what an earworm “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is. But it’s not a joke. That song gets in your head and takes over everything. Only unlike many earwormy songs, you end up not minding too much because it’s such a good song. It’s not No. 1 on the Billboard Chart—both domestically and globally—for no reason.

(Hot tip: When “Bruno” inevitably gets stuck in your head, it’s best just to lean into it. Turn it on and turn it up. Sing it out loud and dance around the house. Get your family to join in. Fighting it is futile.)

My family really didn’t think “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” could get any better. We’d seen some remixes and mash-ups, but nothing made the original any better—until now.

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Last month, Disney released a version of the song that seamlessly incorporates 21 different languages. Disney movies are beloved around the world and their popular films get dubbed into various languages. It’s a formidable task, trying to match up the voices and timing and meaning as closely as possible to the original while still sounding good in different languages. As with all things Disney, the standards of quality are high, which becomes apparent when you see how well it works to put these languages together.

For those who haven’t heard it (First of all, how? Secondly, why?) the song is sung by various members of the Madrigal family, whose individual magical gifts help them serve the village of Encanto. The gift of one family member, Bruno, was the ability to glimpse the future, which had caused some problems in the past when people misunderstood his predictions as actually causing those things to happen. He disappeared one day, leaving behind nothing but rumors about how he had made all kinds of terrible things happen, which is what this song illustrates.

Watch:

Amazing, right? It’s mind-blowing how many languages there are in the world (this is just 21 of thousands) and that humans have so many ways of saying—or singing—the exact same thing. Many of us may have never even heard some of these languages spoken before. And some of them sound a bit different when they are sung versus being spoken. So fun to listen to.

The video has been viewed more than 27 million times. And now Disney has released a version of another “Encanto” favorite “Surface Pressure” in 27 languages. And yes, it’s just as impressive.

“Surface Pressure” is the theme song for Luisa, the Madrigal family member whose gift of strength is constantly being called upon by the family and community. She sings about how much pressure she feels beneath the surface to always be strong, never breaking no matter what. Her song has resonated with people everywhere who suffer from expectations of perfection and being able to handle it all, either from themselves or others.

It’s an internal reality people in various cultures face, so hearing it sung in more than two dozen languages truly feels right.

Well done, Disney. Just when we think you’ve achieved unmatched greatness yet again, you turn around and make it even better.

Like all relationships, marriages are held together by couples keeping certain thoughts and opinions to themselves. Healthy relationships are rooted in honesty, but things can quickly become unhealthy when people share every judgment, annoyance and desire with their spouse.

While glamorous couples like actress Scarlett Johansson and “Saturday Night Live’s” Colin Jost seem like they play by different rules than the average husband and wife, a new ad they helped create for Amazon shows they’re just like everyone else.

Besides the fact, they are incredibly good-looking, rich and talented.

Jost and Johansson got engaged back in 2019 and were married in October 2020. The couple has a baby together named Cosmo and Johansson is mother to a daughter, Rose, 7.

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In a new ad for Amazon’s Echo, the couple finds themselves living in a dreamworld where Alexa can read their minds. Who knew that Scarlett Johansson has terrible morning breath? Or that Colin Jost doesn’t always approve of Johansson’s acting decisions?

Perhaps, the most devastating moment is when Jost has to confront the idea that Johansson may enjoy making out with “hot” actors on camera. “It’s the worst,” she assures him as “Little Lies” by Fleetwood Mac pops on the Echo.

The ad is funny and shows the couple has a great sense of humor about their relationship. It probably rings true with viewers because they helped write the ad. Claudine Cheever, vice president of global brand and fixed marketing for Amazon says they were “very involved in the joke writing” for the commercial.

Now, can we get a sequel to the ad where Alexa can read Michael Che’s mind?