Month: January 2023

Midsommar and Hereditary director Ari Aster is bringing the world a new nightmare, one that’s fraught with both beauty and genuine horror and, apparently, one man’s battle to exist in the outside world. Joaquin Phoenix takes another breather from Todd Phillips’ Joker projects to pop in as a lead in a film that’s delivered a nightmarish first trailer, along with surrealist tones and pops of color that are so vivid they might set off a color bomb in your mind. One that happens to cross generations, quite literally.

That surely doesn’t bode well for the title character, Beau, who is described as “[a] paranoid man [who] embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother in this bold and ingeniously depraved new film.” As well, we see Phoenix’s character at stages both older and young, including what is suggested to be an awful childhood, and Aster sure does enjoy throwing “difficult” (to put it mildly) mothers into the mix. For anyone with a hint of paranoia, there’s bound to be some anxiety in watching Phoenix fight has way home, and it might be too early in the morning for this type of adventure.

Tone-wise, the trailer emphasizes the comedic nature of Phoenix’s nightmares, and god only knows how much of this is literal when Beau ends up being struck by a car and held by Nathan Lane. Also on the scene: Amy Ryan, and the film also stars Parker Posey, Patti LuPone, Stephen Mckinley Henderson, Hayler Squires, and Denis Ménochet of Inglorious Basterds.

Beau Is Afraid has been shrouded in secrecy until now, although some suspected that the project would relate to Aster’s Beau short film, which does potentially check out.

Beau Is Afraid arrives in theaters on April 21.

Over the weekend, Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker Of The House. It took four days and 15 votes to get here, but here we are. Now the late-night shows have gotten a hold of the news and run with it on their Monday (January 9) episodes, including The Late Show. Steven Colbert’s staff’s take on the situation made use of some choice DJ Khaled clips.

The brief segment is introduced, “And now, a summary of Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become Speaker Of The House, featuring DJ Khaled.” From there, a Khaled-style instrumental played under news clips about the McCarthy proceedings, and as the various anchors share news of each subsequent vote, a Khaled clips interjects with one of the producer’s classic catchphrases: “Another one.” The video ends with an anchor noting, “The concessions to the right that led to his victory could leave him the weakest Speaker in modern history.” To that, clip Khaled responded, “Congratulations: you played yourself.”

As for what Khaled has been up to lately, he was recently pretty happy after buying Eminem’s Nike Air Jordan 4 “Encore” sneakers. Meanwhile, looking forward, he’s one of the most-nominated hip-hop artists at the upcoming 2023 Grammy Awards.

Check out the Colbert segment above.

Back in the early 2000s, Britney Spears was the face of Pepsi after signing an $8 million deal with the soda company in 2001 and starring in ads like the iconic “Joy Of Pepsi” spot and numerous others. Since then, though, she’s spent time on the Coke side. In 2013, it was reported that Spears sold some Coca-Cola stock, while Pepsi was not in her portfolio at all. Now, she’s again representing Coke… at least in her new thirst trap.

In a video shared on Instagram last night (January 9), Spears wears a red two-piece outfit, consisting of a mini skirt and a tube top, the latter emblazoned with the Coca-Cola logo across the front. In the video (which is scored by Normani and Cardi B’s “Wild Side”), Spears dances and strikes poses for the camera.

In her caption, she explained, “Here’s me going through my closet realizing outfits I have never worn !!! I am a practical shopper but I was really surprised going through my closest and what I found !!! […] Anyways, here’s me modeling RED outfit number 1 !!! That means there are way more to go … 7 is my favorite !!! I will SHARE with you lovely people !!!”

She also wrote about the photos with Paris Hilton that recently surfaced, saying, “Also have no idea about these pics of me from a birthday party … I haven’t been to a bday party in forever !!! And as for the pics, those have to be from years ago !!!”

Revisit the aforementioned Pepsi ad below.

In January of 2022, Meek Mill teamed up with Kevin Hart and Michael Rubin to donate $15 million to 110 Philadelphia schools for the 2022-2023 school year. Now that it’s 2023, they’re supporting the city again by donating $7 million in scholarships to Philadelphia private schools.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the money will go toward scholarships at 60 “private and parochial schools in need,” helping kids from low-to-moderate incomes. It will also go toward funding laptops, tablets, and WiFi connections.

Mill and Ruby both launched the non-profit organization Reform Alliance alongside Jay-Z in 2019, which just recently posted bail for 20 women incarcerated at Philadelphia’s Riverside Correctional Facility. “The women, who were unable to afford bail, will now be able to spend the holiday season with their families and loved ones. Five women were released today and will be reunited with their families, with the goal of 15 more women being released in the coming week,” the organization wrote on Instagram.

“For families impacted by the criminal justice system, the holidays can be an extremely challenging time,” Mill wrote in a statement. “No one should have to spend the holidays in jail simply because they can’t afford bail, and no child should be without their parents during this time if we can do something about it. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help these women be with their families and loved ones during this special time of year.”

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

It was all good just a week ago, quite literally, for rapper Meek Mill. During the musician’s visit to Accra, Ghana, for Afrochella, the “Going Bad” rapper made good on his promise to deliver cinematic new visuals in the new year. Unfortunately, one of those visuals has landed the Philadelphia native in hot water. The initial overwhelming warm embrace he received from the Ghanaian people didn’t stop fans in the region from quickly checking Meek for filming a music video inside the country’s presidential home.

After posting the official visual to social media, the Ghanaian people called out Meek Mill and the Ghanaian government for being careless. The visual, which featured aerial shots of the grounds, could present a potential security risk to President Nana Akufo-Addo’s safety.

As the tweets began to flood in, Meek Mill quickly acted by removing the visuals from all of his platforms and immediately issuing an apology. “No video I drop is ever meant to disrespect the people of Ghana,” he wrote.

Meek later apologized to President Akufo-Addo’s office, ensuring that he wasn’t aware of the harm he brought to him. Meek asked for forgiveness for his ignorance from the Ghanaian that despite his hiccup, he’s “still gonna push to make the connection between Black people in America and Africa.”

Based on the responses to his apology, it seems his Ghanaian fans as willing to forgive him. But just in case, Meek may want to delete his social media accounts again, at least until it blows over.

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

On Sunday, a mere two days after the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the event got its first major copycat. Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolisanaro, who lost re-election last fall (and then had to go pantsless), stormed the nation’s Congress. It was eerily similar to the events that happened in D.C. in the final weeks of the Donald Trump presidency: battles with police officers, barricades attacked, civilians flooding the inside of the building. (One big difference: There were immediately hundreds of arrests.) The incident met with widespread disdain. But the insurgents had one predictable defender.

“Consider what is happening tonight in Brazil,” thundered Tucker Carlson on Monday night’s edition of his Fox News show. He even parroted some of Bolsonaro’s baseless accusations. “Thanks to what was very clearly a rigged election, a convicted criminal – Lula da Silva – is now the president of the most important country in South America. Millions of people in Brazil understand exactly what happened. They know that their democracy has been hijacked, possibly forever.”

Carlson’s allusions to Lula’s criminal background were, of course, misleading. Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2011, was convicted of corruption. What Carlson left out was that that conviction was later annulled by a high court. Lula has claimed the conviction was politically motivated.

After spreading a conspiracy theory and misleading his audience, Carlson then downplayed the insurgency’s participants, calling them merely “protesters.” He did compare what happened to the U.S. Capitol riot, but only so he could downplay that, too.

“What’s happened in Brazil is likened to Jan. 6,” he continued. “And of course, populist leaders in this country are being blamed for it. ‘Oh, it was Trump and Steve Bannon who did it.’ That’s not true, but even if it were true, it would be just the tail-end of the story. It’d be the result of something that happened before. The obvious question is why are protestors in Brazil so angry?”

Carlson then alleged Lula “has eliminated their most basic civil liberties.” How? He didn’t say.

After his tirade, Carlson spoke with journalist Matthew Tyrmand, who spread his own conspiracy theories. He alleged that amongst the throngs were “many an agent provocateur.” He then recklessly said it “looks like this is turning into a Reichstag fire,” a reference to the 1933 arson at the German parliament that the Nazi leadership exploited to further curtail civil liberties and increase their power.

Recently Carlson admitted that he fumbled his predictions for the threatened “red wave” during last year’s midterms that never happened, but only because liberals made him hate them too much. “That loathing clouded my judgment,” he claimed.

(Via Mediaite)

When it rains, it pours. Rapper Gucci Mane knows this, unfortunately, all too well. After his label’s 1017 Records, rising act Pooh Shiesty was sent to prison in April 2022, Bigg Scarr, another artist on his roster, unexpectedly passed away days before Christmas. As the Atlanta musician attempts to pick up the remaining pieces of his label, he has announced his upcoming So Icy Boyz: The Finale album. Unfortunately, his attention has been shifted elsewhere instead of focusing on the project.

The “So Icy” rapper has found himself amid a feud with his late artist’s siblings. Initially, Quezz Ruthless, Scarr’s younger brother, took to Instagram to share that despite Gucci’s promise to pay for the funeral arrangement, the family hasn’t received any assistance. In an Instagram live broadcast, Quezz said, “You said to [the family] you was finna pay for the funeral, then you lied,” later adding, “You didn’t have to lie! You ain’t have to go ghost, either. It was gonna get paid for either way. You could’ve just said you ain’t have the money. You don’t get no type of respect for that.”

Quezz alleged Gucci requested that Scarr’s 1017 chains be returned, to which he replied, “You not getting them chains. You ain’t even text and check on the family, but you text about some chains. I can’t believe you.”

Alexandra Woods, Big Scarr’s sister, seconded her brother’s claims on social media, saying, “Yes [Gucci] asked for the chains back, and no, he not getting them back!”

Gucci Mane’s wife, Keyshia Ka’oir, took to her Instagram stories to upload a picture of a receipt for a payment to N.J. Ford & Sons Funeral in Memphis, Tennessee. In the post’s caption, Ka’oir wrote, “Payment directly to funeral home. Leave my husband alone.”

Woods later confirmed Ka’oir was telling the truth. Still, their contributions did not cover the entire funeral service. Stating in an Instagram live, “Yeah, Gucci sent $10,000, and somebody else had another $10,000. So it was $20,000 in all. We ain’t get the flowers. I don’t give a f*ck what nobody says. Like I said, Gucci ain’t help with sh*t.”

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

Since bowing in the fall, Tár quickly became an Oscar frontrunner, as well as a fixture of social media jokes. (It’s also worth noting that its impressive Tomatometer is a few percentage points behind the one for M3GAN.) But it has its detractors. Among them is one of the female conductors referenced by Cate Blanchett’s cancelled figure, who is calling the movie “anti-woman.”

In a new interview with the U.K.’s The Times (as caught by Variety), Marin Alsop, music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, was asked what she thought about the film. It was a good question: Not only does Blanchett’s Lydia Tár namecheck her in the film’s opening interview sequence, they have a lot in common. Both studied under Leonard Bernstein, both are lesbians, both are married to orchestral musicians, and both were, until recently, the only women to lead a big orchestra. (Tár leads the Berlin Philharmonic.) One significant difference: Unlike Tár, Alsop has never been accused of sexual misconduct.

Some reviewers have noted the similarities. But Alsop was not flattered, not the least because writer-director Todd Field has not alerted her that she had likely inspired the anti-hero of a major awards season titan.

“I first read about it in late August and I was shocked that that was the first I was hearing of it,” Alsop told The Times. “So many superficial aspects of ‘Tár’ seemed to align with my own personal life. But once I saw it I was no longer concerned, I was offended: I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian.”

Alsop went on:

“To have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and to make her an abuser — for me that was heartbreaking,” she continued. “I think all women and all feminists should be bothered by that kind of depiction because it’s not really about women conductors, is it? It’s about women as leaders in our society. People ask, ‘Can we trust them? Can they function in that role?’ It’s the same questions whether it’s about a CEO or an NBA coach or the head of a police department.”

“There are so many men — actual, documented men — this film could have been based on but, instead, it puts a woman in the role but gives her all the attributes of those men. That feels antiwoman. To assume that women will either behave identically to men or become hysterical, crazy, insane is to perpetuate something we’ve already seen on film so many times before.”

Tár is now in theaters. If you want to see a film about Alsop, you can check out the 2021 documentary The Conductor.

(Via The Times and Variety)

Georgia spent half an hour whooping up on TCU in the first half of the College Football Playoff championship game on Monday night. Outside of one scoring drive, the Horned Frogs got absolutely nothing against the No. 1 team in the country, while Georgia showed off an extra gear that few other teams can match en route to a 38-7 halftime lead.

The game is on ESPN, and the College GameDay crew’s resident Georgia alumnus got a chance to flex a little bit at the desk during halftime. David Pollack, a former All-American linebacker for the Bulldogs and one of the best defensive players of his era, said that “Georgia, obviously, you’ve seen the past couple of seasons now, they’ve really taken hold of college football. They’ve done an unbelievable job.”

As Pollack said that, the camera cut to include the person sitting right next to him, who just happened to be Alabama coach and noted guy who competes against Georgia 24/7/365 Nick Saban. And boy, you can tell he did not appreciate being confronted with what is, at this point, a pretty indisputable fact.

Of course, Saban has probably heard this exact thing a billion times over his tenure in Tuscaloosa, so we will make sure to remember this moment in the event Alabama plays Georgia next year and wins by a lot.

From When We Were Young Fest to Coachella, this year is packed with festivals. Today, January 8, the lineup was revealed for the BottleRock festival, the self-proclaimed “best music, wine, food and brew festival” that takes place at California’s Napa Valley Expo. The headliners are not to be missed: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Post Malone, Lizzo, Duran Duran, Lil Nas X, and Smashing Pumpkins.

There are over 75 acts who will be taking the stage. Some noteworthy performers include Leon Bridges, Wu-Tang Clan, The National, Sheryl Crow, Carly Rae Jepsen, Japanese Breakfast, Yung Gravy, Tove Lo, Phantogram, Dayglow, Bastille, The Struts, Kennyhoopla, Cautious Clay, Billy Strings, Caamp, Nile Rogers & Chic, Taj Magal, The Wrecks, Starcrawler, Jean Dawson, The Stone Foxes, Teddy Swims, Lupe Fiasco, and more. It’ll be happening from Friday, May 26 to Sunday, May 28. It’s the festival’s 10th anniversary.

Last year’s lineup had headliners like Metallica, Pink, Twenty One Pilots, and Luke Combs, with other performers including Greta Van Fleet, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Bleachers, Spoon, Banks, Alessia Cara, Saint Jhn, Vance Joy, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Silversun Pickups, The Wailers featuring Julian Marley, Yola, Tai Verdes, and more.

Tickets go on sale Tuesday, January 10, at noon PT. Find more information on their website.

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