Month: January 2023

Even though Rooney Mara had everyone rallying behind her as Mark Zuckerberg’s ex-girlfriend in The Social Network, the actress was pretty close to ending her movie career just before she landed that iconic role.

While speaking on LaunchLeft, Mara said that one experience, in particular, made her rethink her career goals. “A few years before [The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo], I had done a Nightmare on Elm Street remake, which was not a good experience. I have to be careful with what I say and how I talk about it,” Mara began.

Though Mara didn’t go into details about what exactly went on, it was enough for her to feel like she didn’t want to pursue acting anymore unless she found a project that she felt was worth it. “It wasn’t the best experience making [Nightmare] and I kind of got to this place, that I still live in, that I don’t want to act unless I’m doing stuff that I feel like I have to do. So after making that film, I kind of decided, ‘Ok, I’m just not going to act anymore unless it’s something that I feel that way about,” she explained.

That mentality lasted only a few months until she was cast in The Social Network. Mara says that director David Fincher was the sole reason that she ended up in the movie and subsequently continued acting. “[David] had to fight really hard for me to get the part because the studio didn’t want me for it. It was a definite real turning point in my life and my career.” Mara then went on to lead Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which Mara earned an Academy Award nomination, no thanks to Freddy Kruger.

(Via Variety)

Lola Índigo is unleashing the dragon in her “Corazones Rotos” music video . On Friday (January 6), the Spanish pop star released the dark video for her new dance track featuring Luis Fonsi.

El Dragón is the name of the upcoming album from Índigo. For the album’s third single, “Corazones Rotos,” she teamed up with Puerto Rican superstar Fonsi. Among pulsating house music beats, Índigo and Fonsi trade verses about drinking away heartbreak in the club. In the post-breakup banger, the two singers prove to be a dream duo that is ready to shake off the bad vibes.

For the “Corazones Rotos” video, Índigo leans fully into her El Dragón album era persona. First, she is shown sulking at home from heartache. Índigo is later portrayed as a fallen angel with arrows in her back. The tattoo of dragon wings on her back becomes real wings by the video’s end. After partying with Fonsi in the club, she spreads her massive wings on top of a car.

Índigo started teasing her El Dragón album last year with the track “An1mal.” She later joined forces with Argentine singer María Becerra for the second single “Diskoteca.” In 2021, Índigo achieved global success with the girl power anthem “Niña De La Escuela” featuring Tini and Belinda.

The original 2009 Avatar movie and the new Avatar: The Way Of Water film are both major hits. Box office numbers don’t lie. Regardless, there have been questions about what cultural impact the series (the first movie, more specifically) has actually had. Of course, this discourse is all subjective, but if Avatar didn’t have impact, then why is Lizzo on the beach doing Na’vi thirst traps?

In a TikTok video shared today (January 9), the right half of the frame shows a female Na’vi walking on the beach. On the left is Lizzo, doing a spot-on imitation of the character in a clip that was Avatar-ized with a video filter. She later shared another video of herself with the filter, enjoying some time in the water. “tell James Cameron I’m ready…,” she captioned the second video.

Hey, James Cameron: Lizzo is ready.

Speaking of Cameron, he addressed the “cultural impact” conversation in a recent interview, saying, “There’s skepticism in the marketplace around, ‘Oh, did it ever make any real cultural impact? Can anybody even remember the characters’ names?’ When you have extraordinary success, you come back within the next three years. That’s just how the industry works. You come back to the well, and you build that cultural impact over time. Marvel had maybe 26 movies to build out a universe, with the characters cross-pollinating. So it’s an irrelevant argument. We’ll see what happens after this film.”

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

Bob Saget died one year ago today. On the anniversary of his passing, the Full House star’s wife, Kelly Rizzo, tweeted at Twitter CEO Elon Musk with a request. “Hi @elonmusk — today on the 1 year anniversary of Bob’s (@bobsaget) passing, I saw he’s no longer verified? My husband truly loved Twitter. Out of respect for his legacy, can something be done? Thank you kindly (friends, please help),” she wrote.

In a follow up, Rizzo added, “And the only reason I’m addressing this at all is because I know Bob would be very bummed about this. He’d say “hey, if someone goes to see my page and all the jokes I’ve tweeted over the years, how will they know it’s for sure me!?”

It’s not only Saget’s jokes that need to be verified. It’s his love of Fetty Wap.

And Rihanna.

And Yo Gotti.

“6 months without my best friend, my travel buddy, my loving husband. 6 months without your silliness, laughter, music, cuteness, caretaking, sharp wit, thoughtfulness, cuddling, and warmth,” Rizzo wrote on the six-month anniversary of Saget’s passing. “But it’s also been 6 months of looking for silver linings, learning how to brave the world without you, 6 months of care and compassion from so many who love you, 6 months of getting even closer to your magical daughters and trying to all be strong together.”

After an entire week of voting that lasted late into Friday night and almost resulted in a fist fight on the House floor, Kevin McCarthy was finally voted in as Speaker of the House in a fraught process that could fall apart any moment thanks to the large number of concessions he made it to Matt Gaetz and a handful of Republican holdouts. However, one of those holdouts was not Marjorie Taylor Greene who continued to back McCarthy throughout the entire process and is now facing fire from the more fringe elements of the GOP that, normally, she’d be in lockstep with.

Case in point, Greene appeared on Charlie Kirk’s show on Monday where she defended her vote for McCarthy, but also made it a point that she was doing exactly what Donald Trump told her to do, so everyone should maybe back off.

Via Raw Story:

“I just also need to remind everyone, while people are mad at me, President Trump endorsed and supported Kevin McCarthy,” Greene said. “Jim Jordan endorsed, supported, voted for and nominated Kevin McCarthy.”

“So, people that are overly mad at me, I shouldn’t be your punching bag,” she added. “Be very clear-eyed about what this is and I’ll continue to prove exactly who I am through my actions and not my words and emails, social media posts and interviews on television.”

In Greene’s defense (from the crazies who don’t think she’s crazy enough), she’s already embroiled in another controversy. The congresswoman posted a video of herself triumphantly walking around Congress as “Still D.R.E.” plays in the background. “It’s time to begin… and they can’t stop what’s coming,” Greene captioned the video.

There’s just one small problem. She never cleared the song’s use with Dr. Dre who wanted nothing to do with her.

“I don’t license my music to politicians, especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one,” Dre told TMZ. Shortly after, the video was pulled from Twitter for a copyright violation. That’s the ol’ Marj we know and love.

(Via Raw Story)

Following the recent controversy of throwing a fan’s phone, Bad Bunny appears to be taking a step back. Today (January 9), the Puerto Rican superstar shared the cryptic message: “You’re going to miss me.”

Bad Bunny started off 2023 in a storm of controversy. Last week, a video went viral of the singer tossing a fan’s phone after they were in his face trying to take selfies with him. Bad Bunny responded to the backlash from the incident by calling the fan’s behavior “a lack of respect.”

Now Bad Bunny’s actions on social media appear to be hinting at taking a break. He set his Instagram account that boasts over 44.9 million followers to private. Over on Twitter, Bad Bunny deleted his statement about tossing the fan’s phone. He changed his bio to read: “Me van a extrañar,” which translates to “You’re going to miss me” in English. Bad Bunny also changed his profile photo on Twitter to a picture of Bart Simpson.

After his record-breaking year thanks to the success of his Un Verano Sin Ti album, Bad Bunny previously said that he would be taking a break in 2023. Maybe the mysterious moves on social media could be leading up to the announcement of his rumored headlining spot at Coachella this year. Hits Daily Double released a report that named Bad Bunny, Blackpink, and Frank Ocean as headliners for the upcoming festival.

Vladimir Putin recently (and finally) admitted that he’s failed to provide vital supplies, including ammo and medical gear, to his troops. He made this sheepish statement at about the same time that he handed out fancy “rings of power” to his remaining allies. No matter what image that he’d like to project, however, it’s clear that his plan of invading Ukraine wasn’t well planned out at all. The war’s been ongoing for nearly a year with enormous loss of life for Russia and replacement soldiers being not so easy to recruit and train in an effective manner.

In fact, Putin called up 300,000 more troops after Russia struggled to woo volunteer replacements. Fast forward a few more months, and it seems like that wasn’t enough sacrifice for the autocrat. As Business Insider relays by way of a German news site, it sure sounds like Putin’s feeling desperate enough to begin a new (and larger) draft:

Speaking to the German news site T-Online, Andriy Chernyak, a Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service representative, said that they believe the mobilization will be announced on January 15, after the Orthodox Christian Christmas.

Chernyak estimated 500,000 people would be mobilized, with those living in cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg to be most impacted.

This, of course, not only would add up to half a million soldiers but also half a million families whose lives would be irreparably disrupted, not to mention the business-related fallout. Putin is still in it to win it, and reports have already indicated that he fears for his very life (and continued autocratic rule), should Russia continue to spiral toward full loss in Ukraine. It’s no wonder that reports have also indicated that he’s hatched a plan to flee Russia if his imperialistic war continues to go downhill.

(Via Business Insider)

The theme of 2023 seems to be “women dancing in pink in order to rebel against societal expectations” and so far, things are looking up! The latest girl-power moment will be Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies, a new series on Paramount+.

Rise Of The Pink Ladies will follow the “original girl gang” aka The Pink Ladies at Rydell High, made famous in the hit john Travolta musical Grease. The series is expected to show how the notorious Pink Ladies began their reign in a 1950s high school when everyone was all about hair combs, skin-tight leather pants, and hanging out in an automotive shop and fixing cars at the ripe age of 16. This was the fifties, after all.

The series will be led by Marisa Davila as Jane, the leader of the group, who just wants everyone to feel included and wear a snazzy pink jacket. She is joined by Shanel Bailey as Hazel, Madison Thompson as Susan, Johnathan Nieves as Richie, Jason Schmidt as Buddy, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper as Wally, and Jackie Hoffman as Asst. Principal McGee. The show will also feature 31 (!!) original songs for all of your karaoke needs.

Davila recently told Entertainment Weekly that despite being a prequel of an existing universe, the cast is well aware of how much pressure there is to please all of those diehard Grease fans (they exist, they’re just old) while also shuffling in a new, young audience. “It’s a really big responsibility bringing something this iconic back,” says Davila. “Getting to be in the same colorful universe was the way we connected to them and honoring what they were able to do.”

Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies will begin streaming on Paramount+ on April 6th.

Wiz Khalifa claimed during a recent trip to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that he learned Michael Phelps has “better lungs than Aquaman” after smoking with the all-time Olympic great. Could Wiz beat Phelps in a swimming race? Most likely not. But we have proof that he can at least handle his nine-year-old son, Sebastian, in basketball.

A video shared by HipHopDX shows Wiz, who reportedly stands at at least 6’2″, easily scoring on Sebastian and another one boy. At one point, one of the boys complains, “You’re cherrypicking!” But Wiz isn’t here for the excuses.

Wiz gave fans a window into his training methods this morning, January 9. “Don’t matter if you sore from last week still get yo ass in the gym this week,” he tweeted. Of course, two weed-centric tweets preceded it:

A lighthearted game of backyard basketball was probably the perfect antidote for Wiz after he “tripped and fell in the pool in my 10 thousand dollar suit” on New Year’s Day.

The multiplatinum-certified rapper performed his breakthrough “Black And Yellow” and last year’s “Memory Lane” for the Los Angeles hub of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, which also featured performances by Halle Bailey, Finneas, Dove Cameron, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and more.

Watch Wiz’s performances below.

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

Chris Harrison has made his first public comments since exiting The Bachelor back in 2021 following a tense situation involving his apparent defense of a contestant’s racist past. Harrison had voluntarily stepped down as host after attempting to downplay unearthed photos of Rachel Kirkconnell attending an antebellum-themed party, which did not go well for him. Harrison made the poor choice of defending Kirkconnell from Extra‘s first Black lead anchor, Rachel Lindsay, which only added fuel to the controversy.

While there were behind-the-scenes attempts to reinstate Harrison, those plans were squashed after another disastrous interview with Michael Strahan, who was not thrilled with Harrison’s apology nor the network’s attempt to rehabilitate him so he could return to The Bachelor. That interview ended Harrison’s shot at coming back and sparked a contentious negotiation over his severance pay as he allegedly threatened to spill secrets.

However, Harrison is back with a new podcast, and he opened up for the first episode by addressing the elephant in the room. Via The Wrap:

“For my part in this, I was sick to my stomach. I lost 20 pounds. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I was scared to death not of my job but of my family – my fiancé, my kids. I’m a bit of an empath and I am very loyal to a fault and I am a team player,” Harrison said on his new podcast “The Most Dramatic Podcast … Ever.” “When this happened, while I was sick to my stomach and so disappointed that the interview went that way and it was on me because I controlled what I had to say. And while the point I was trying to get across I stand by, the way I did it was messy and disappointing and it’s just not me.”

Harrison admits that he was “being sloppy, wrong, inappropriate in that moment,” and that the “timing” of the whole thing didn’t help. That timing being the recent George Floyd protest. While Harrison seems to genuinely understand what he did wrong, he still stands by his defense of Kirkconnell and his overall point that “we must have grace and patience for people or else you’re just getting nonsensical, reactive emotion.”

Harrison also blasted pundits on both the right and left for using him for their “political purposes.”

(Via The Wrap)