Month: February 2023

Larry the Cable Guy got a taste of conservative outrage after he made a joke about Marjorie Taylor Greene acting out at the State of the Union address. The backlash was particularly ironic given Larry (real name: Dan Whitney) is not shy about his political beliefs, and a bleeding heart liberal he is not.

“This pic reminds me of every comedians x girlfriend coming to their show and sitting in the back 6 days after the breakup,” Larry tweeted along with four photos of Greene’s Cruella-like outfit.

Despite defending Greene in the replies, Larry received pushback from Republicans and fired back on Thursday night.

“This wasn’t a political joke!” The Cable Guy tweeted. “Unbelievable. Lighten up some of you sheesh. It was about a comedian getting heckled by his x at the club. She had all the gestures. Some of you def don’t follow me or you’d think twice on your dumb comments.”

In Larry’s defense, his politics are pretty clear. A quick look through his timeline should’ve put to bed any concerns that he leans heavily to the right. Just take a look at his recent tweets and retweets.

On top of that, Larry actually likes Greene and made it a point to defend her after making his “joke.” He also shut down a Twitter user who accused of him voting for Biden.

In short, as much as conservatives love to complain about liberal snowflakes and how no one can take a joke anymore, they should probably take a good look in the mirror. When you’re accusing freaking Larry the Cable Guy from The Blue Comedy Tour fame of being “woke,” something’s gone wrong.

(Via Larry the Cable Guy on Twitter)

If Magic Mike was a movie about the realities of male stripping, Magic Mike XXL was a movie about the fantasy of male stripping. In bringing back director Steven Soderbergh for part three (Gregory Edwards directed the second), I was hoping the third might combine some of the grit of the first with some of the fun of the second.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is certainly an attempt at another romp, but Soderbergh’s return seems less to have brought it back to reality and mostly to have stripped it of kitsch. Which for a franchise about all-male revues is sort of like losing a pitching arm (a kitsching arm?). If Magic Mike was “what does the dick shaking really mean?” and Magic Mike XXL asked “what if even more dicks shaking?” Magic Mike’s Last Dance offers us “the dicks are still shaking, but they have British accents now.”

We catch up with Magic Mike Whateverhislastnameis (star/producer Channing Tatum) as he’s bartending a charity gala at a rich lady’s home. The rich lady, wouldn’t you know it, has lost her mojo, but she’s gotten a hot tip from a gal pal that the guy behind the bar was up until recently the world’s foremost purveyor of the art of getting ladies’ grooves back. This lady, Maxendra Mendoza, played by Salma Hayek, corners Magic Mike after the other guests have left and coyly attempts to inquire if perchance he might grace her with some hearty thrusting.

“Sorry, M’lady, I’m retired,” growls Mike. She asks him to name his price, he says 60 grand basically as a joke, but she offers him six for real and soon they’re making sweat angels on her satin sheets.

“So, was that Magic Mike’s last dance?” she asks huskily, cuing the pointing DiCaprio gif.

Maxendra has her groove back, in spades. To the point that she now demands Mike fly to London with her for a surprise job. The surprise, it turns out, is that Maxendra has taken over a London theater in a pre-divorce agreement (don’t ask) with her most recent ex, a rich Rupert Murdoch-esque media titan-type guy. Up until now, the theater has been staging Isabel Ascended, a stuffy Jane Austen-esque play about a Victorian lady trying to choose whether to wed for love or for money. Maxendra has hired Magic Mike as the new creative director in the hopes of adapting his life-changing private dickmatism into a stage show for London’s literati. Who’s more sexually repressed than the British, after all. Magic Mike’s Last Dance then becomes the latest entry in the good ol’ fashioned “puttin’ on a show” genre.

Maxendra’s goal with this stage show is, supposedly, to shatter the myth that Isabel should be forced to choose between two boring chodes, the rich dud or the broke Romeo. “Why can’t she just shag them all and then do as she pleases?” fumes Hannah (Juliette Motamed), the only actor from the original Isabel Ascended to stay on for the male revue version.

Why indeed (I mean, lots of reasons, probably, but put a pin in that one for now).

I’ve always said that Magic Mike was a guy movie masquerading as a girl movie. It’s ostensibly about male stripping but really it’s about broke dudes trying to wrap their brains around what it means to be a man through a kind of kitschy gender play. Magic Mike‘s Last Dance clearly actually wants to be a movie for women and about women, only it can never quite escape the fact that it’s still made by men, who can only really know women so well. Their relative unfamiliarity shows in a series of weak generalizations.

Magic Mike never tried to be something for all men, because they knew that would’ve been foolish to try (and that no one would expect them to, which is an underrated facet of “privilege”). It was about one weird subculture with guidance from a guy who was actually part of it (Tatum famously being a former male stripper). And yet now that Magic Mike’s Last Dance is deliberately about women, it gets over-broad and corny, asking unanswerable women’s mag headlines like “what do women really want?” and “can the modern woman really have it all?”

“Is this stage show about male strippers sufficiently feminist?” is not a question I imagine any prospective Magic Mike’s Last Dance viewer needed asked. Is it feminist to pay $6,000 for sex? Maybe? I guess? Who cares? Probably it’s most feminist not to have to ask.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Reid Carolin seem to belatedly realize that “what does this particular woman want” is a more interesting question, attempting to draw a parallel between Maxenda and the fictional Isabel (she has a rich dud and broke stud too, get it?!). That could’ve, and should’ve, been kitschy and cute and the heart of the movie. Instead, it gets bogged down in weird minutia like the theater’s building codes, the sociological history of dance, and Maxenda and her ex’s confusing British non-divorce. (A British divorce isn’t final until a man in a powdered wig decides who gets the puddings). There’s a series of sexy buff English dudes brought in to do the dick shaking but we literally never even learn their names.

It’s also hard to figure out what the conflict actually is. What’s actually stopping Maxenda from just shagging them all and then doing what she wants? A woman writer and/or director might have actually had an answer to that, but Carolin and Soderbergh don’t, and so they substitute a series of contrived obstacles instead.

It’s not hard to watch Channing Tatum dance sexily with a sopping wet, barely clothed ballerina (as he does with real-life ballerina Kylie Shea in the finale), but didn’t we already do that in the Step Up movies? Magic Mike’s Last Dance pretends to be something more but in the end really isn’t.

‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’ is available now only in theaters. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.

Just like us, Beck understands heartbreak is inevitable. The singer-songwriter shows this on his new single titled “Thinking About You,” which dropped with an accompanying visual.

The song — his first new single since late 2019, save for his contribution to McCartney III Imagined — seemingly centers on his longing for a romantic partner that has left him. Throughout the almost four-minute track, Beck broods over losing the love of his life as the guitar strums along with feelings of melancholy in the background. The song gives an acoustic, stripped-down feel as if you were almost watching the “Super Cool” singer perform it live.

“I pull the curtain and lay in bed/ I’ve got fifteen movies of you, playing in my head,” he sings. “Watching the ocean turn blue/Just thinking about you.”

The single comes ahead of the singer’s upcoming tour with Phoneix, which is set to kick off this August at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. The North American tour is expected to make stops in major US and Canadian cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, New York, and Toronto. Jenny Lewis, Japanese Breakfast, Weyes Blood, and Sir Chloe are also set to appear as openers on the tour.

Check out Beck’s “Thinking About You” above.

Three of the NBA’s most prominent players will not be able to play in the All-Star Game next week due to injuries. A pair of longtime All-Star staples, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, won’t be able to go in Salt Lake City, while an up-and-coming star in Zion Williamson is likewise relegated to the sideline. Durant is dealing with an MCL sprain, Curry has a leg injury, and Williamson is recovering from an injury to his hamstring.

With this year’s All-Star voting featuring a number of players who unfortunately missed out on the game, there are more than enough deserving replacements for that trio. And on Friday afternoon, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves, De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings, and Pascal Siakam of the Toronto Raptors are all heading to Salt Lake City to participate in this year’s game.

Shortly after Wojnarowski’s report, the NBA confirmed that this trio will make up the game’s injury replacements.

Because all three players were voted in as starters, the league went on to announce the trio of players who will slide into the starting lineup: Joel Embiid, Lauri Markkanen, and Ja Morant.

This will mark the second time that Siakam is an All-Star, as he previously made it in 2020. Edwards and Fox, meanwhile, are going to participate in the game for the first time.

Super Bowl LVII is just two days away. While sports fanatics are looking forward to the NFL’s top two titans battling it out during the big game, others will be tuning in solely for the halftime show starring Rihanna. Although the Fenty Beauty boss has changed her setlist for her performance 39 times, the world is sure to be satisfied with whatever she delivers as it will be the recording artist’s return to a musical stage. However, before the “Lift Me Up” singer grabs a microphone, the pre-game concerts are warming up the Arizona crowd.

One of the acts featured in the pre-game festivities included Paramore. As the group continues to rev up promotions on their just-released new album, This Is Why, they performed several singles off the album, including “C’est Comme Ça” at Super Bowl Music Fest yesterday (February 9).

Between songs, Williams thanked the crowd for attending the show, then jokingly said, “Thank you for celebrating sports,” before screaming, “F*ck yeah, sports!”

Meanwhile, Williams recently said of Paramore, “At this point, I don’t understand how we’re still doing it. Because it just feels like against all odds every single time — which, honestly, I feel like we’re the most annoying band in the world because it’s always like, ‘Oh, we overcame this, and now we’re making this album.’”

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

Super Bowl Sunday is the perfect party to break out your batched cocktail skills. Who wants to be shaking and stirring cocktails all day (and night) when you should be socializing, eating wings, and watching the game? Wouldn’t it be much easier to simply pour a delicious and batched old fashioned over some ice and dive in?! But batching cocktails isn’t as simple as increasing ingredients and hoping for the best. There’s some nuance and I’m here to guide you.

The key to batching ready-to-serve cocktails is knowing the dilution ratio. Very quickly, every cocktail is a mix of a base spirit, sugar, bitters, and water. Usually, water is added to the cocktail during the stirring or shaking step when the ice melts into the drink (and cools it). It’s crucial to creating a balanced drink and is the most often skipped step when making ready-to-drink batched cocktails.

Sure, you can batch a cocktail that you then stir or shake with every drink so that you get that vital water element. But that adds time to the whole process and kind of negates batching cocktails in the first place. So below, I’m going to lay out how easy it is to batch a ready-to-drink old fashioned cocktail that you can just pour over some ice and serve. Let’s dive in!

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Batched Old Fashioned

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of rye whiskey (750ml)
• 4 oz. water
• 2.5 oz. Angostura Bitters
• 2.5 oz. demerara sugar
• Large ice cubes
• Orange peel
• Cherry

I’m using a barrel-proof rye whiskey that’s really tasty. Always make cocktails with booze that you actually enjoy drinking. No rotgut. No swill.

You’ll end up with 35 ounces of old fashioned with this recipe. Aim for three-ounce pours. You don’t have to be exact, but you should be able to get 10-12 pours from this batch.

What You’ll Need:

• Pitcher
• Barspoon
• Measuring cup
• Rock glass

Method:

• Add all the ingredients to the pitcher. Stir until well incorporated. Taste for sweetness and overall flavor. I didn’t need more sweetness, but an extra 0.5 oz. of sugar will go a long way if you want it sweeter.
• Place a lid on the pitcher or funnel into a bottle and keep it in the refrigerator.
• Prechill a glass and place a large cube in it. Pour the batched old fashioned over the cube and garnish with an orange peel (make sure to express the oils over the cocktail) and cherry. Serve.

Bottom Line:

This is delicious. I shocked myself (not easy these days) with the depth of the flavor profile of this cocktail. The Stellum Rye really popped with a deep dark cherry next to clove, cinnamon, and cedar bark that’s accented by the rich botanical barks from the bitters. The sweetness was just there, adding a nice lush mouthfeel (thanks to using thicker sugar syrup). The orange oils expressed over the cocktail really tied everything together and helped it pop on the palate.

Not to brag but.. this is the best old fashioned I’ve had in a while.

Since I’m making this ahead of time, I put it into a storage bottle and put it in the fridge. But I’m guessing I’m going to have to refill this bottle before Sunday.

What seems pretty interesting in the current state of the MCU – especially now with Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania kicking off Phase 5 – is how the multiverse saga, which features storylines that involve multiple variants of characters (with our new villain Kang, played by the wonderful Jonathan Majors, being a prime example), will play to general audiences. Now, look, this isn’t referring to die-hard Marvel fans. And I’m certainly not referring to myself. But I do wonder what Marvel thinks about all this. Because, like in politics, they can’t just play to the base and hope to still expect casual fans to show up with these fairly complicated storylines going forward. (At least, they are much more complicated than, “guy builds a suit,” or, “frozen World War II hero is back and still wants to fight evil.) So, I’m just curious how they plan to do that.

Stephen Broussard has been a producer on five prior Marvel movies and two of the Disney+ offerings. He was a producer on the previous Ant-Man and the Wasp, but Quantumania is a whole different kind of movie. The last two Ant-Man movies were both released after an Avengers movie and would get described as “palette cleansers.” That is not the case this time out as Quntumania has to set up the new MCU villain, Kang. And set up everything to come in this next phase of Marvel movies. But, again, what about the person who just liked the prior two Ant-Man movies and doesn’t follow the rest?

The two Ant-Man movies before were always referred to as palate cleansers. No one’s calling this one that.

We had what I describe as a healthy chip on our shoulder about that. We knew it was a certain type of movie that had come after these giant Avengers movies. And we challenged ourselves because we were lucky enough to get a part three, to get that next at bat, to say, what if we were epic and big and huge and the entire MCU turns on the events of this? That felt like a reason to do it, if you’re lucky enough to get a third time at bat.

The first two movies set up Scott Lang’s world with all these quirky characters. Was it difficult to give them all up for this one?

It was difficult in the sense that, once we decided to do it, we had to go and do it. You know what I mean? And it’s fun to think about and to talk about, but then, in practicality, you’re building an entire world. And cracking a narrative that makes sense. But it was exciting. I mean, structurally, it’s very different than a lot of Marvel movies. It’s almost like a Jurassic Park movie or something, where you get pulled into this adventure.

Literally, they get pulled in.

Exactly. Wizard of Oz looms large, obviously, and it’s something we talked about a lot. But it was kind of about embracing what it is and embracing that worldview and that tone, which I think is readily apparent as you point out on those first two movies and dropping that. Can you mash that tone up, and that point of view up through Scott, into this big weird sci-fi epic?

The other two Ant-Man movies are really unique. But this one has to tie in with the other movies, it’s setting up a lot of stuff. So this has to be different than what’s worked before.

It does, yeah. And it’s scary. You’re sort of stepping out on the ledge of what’s worked before.

Right, because this has worked before, and this is what people like about these. And I do wonder about the person who may not keep up with everything in the MCU, but likes Ant-Man. For that person a lot has changed.

I mean, we’d sort of approach those movies… the key is to enjoy it, and having fun with the movie. That is the job of that movie. And the more movies we have in our rearview mirror, the more we have to be mindful of that, I think moving on. And looking backwards and of course looking forward with anything it sets up. But we try to be very mindful of that. I’d be curious… I imagine, given your profession, you’re probably well versed in kind of where we are at…

I am, yes.

I mean, I did talk to some people, the more casual people in my own life, and they seemed to understand it. We put the film up in front of audiences, and we asked the question of like, “Well, how many of you have seen Loki?” I also got to work on that a little bit. And about half of them had seen it, half of them hadn’t. But, “How many of you enjoy Jonathan Majors?” And every hand goes up. Everyone really just gets the gravity of who this guy is.

And if you want to go deeper, if you want to make the connections, I think they’re there for you. That’s kind of always been what the MCU is about. But if you want to just have the thrill of the visceralness of what Jonathan is giving you in the moment, I think you get engaged with a film like that as well, too. And it’s unique. It’s a unique question to be asked to the MCU, but we’re mindful. We’re mindful of it. That’s what I’ll say going into it. We don’t take it lightly, or dismiss it.

You mentioned Loki, which kind of serves as instructions for how variants and the multiverse work. But you know not everyone watched that. So every movie, you have to now re-explain variants and the multiverse. So how do you do that? Is it just going to be exposition in every movie going forward? I’m sure you’ve thought about that.

It’s a fair question. I mean, what I would say is that all movies are sleight of hand. Every movie, regardless of the genre, is a magic trick of sleight of hand. And if you look at any movie too closely, you can pick apart the logic, or, “Would the character do this?” But a movie is successful, or is a failure, based on how much they’ve hidden the sleight of hand. You know? Whether that’s exposition, whether that’s character motivation, stuff like that.

But we’ve gone from a guy who built a suit to, “Hey, there are multiple universes now. There are multiple variants of each character.” It’s a lot.

It is a lot.

And I certainly understand it. But I’m worried about someone like my uncle.

Totally. Well, look at this film. How does this film open? This film opens up with a conceit about Scott Lang has written a memoir about everything he’s been through. And it reminds you of the things that he’s done, and the movies he’s been in. And it’s also tied into character. It’s not just this expositional tool, “Previously, on Ant-Man…” It doesn’t play like that.

Yeah, it’s a good one.

It sets up his entire journey for the film. Which is, “My race is run.” “Hey, guess what, dad? Your race is not run.” It’s thematically interesting. And gets beyond that, it’s hilarious. Not to toot our own horn, but I think it’s a really funny sequence. And audiences have told us that. It’s a really fun sequence. So to answer that question, for this movie in particular, it’s very intentional with that problem, right? You have to get a lot of backstory about where Scott’s been, a lot of backstory about the MCU.

It’s very clever.

You get it couched in humor and character, and that was the answer for this movie. To future movies, that question will be asked, and will be answered in ways that are entertaining. Time travel, in Endgame, it’s very complex, and we couched it in Back to the Future Part II. And then I’m like, Okay, I get it. I remember Scott saying, “Back to the Future is bullshit.” But you know, it’s a sleight of hand.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Alison Brie, just like the rest of us, recently rewatched Community and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the series is still (mostly) just as good now as it was when it aired back in the NBC golden days. Not that she should be surprised, but Community is known for committing to the bit or even taking three seasons to lead up to a single throwaway punchline.

Now that the series is fulfilling its legacy and getting a movie, Brie admitted that the show holds up a lot better than other beloved shows that probably wouldn’t air today. While chatting on the We Might Be Drunk podcast, Brie admitted, “It holds up. I recently rewatched some of it because I love to watch my own work,” Brie joked before adding, “No! It went up on Netflix during COVID, and I just rewatched a bunch of it, and I loved it.”

Brie explained, “We were in that block. It was The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, and us. That was the dream three years or however long that block was going. It was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome.’” Even though Community aired alongside some heavy hitters, it still managed to hold its own against the other shows of its time. “It’s very edgy too,” she added. “I think a lot of that writing was toeing the line for a network comedy of, like, getting in some good jabs.”

The gang will reunite for some more good jabs for the upcoming movie which is expected to begin production this month. All of the original stars are expected to return (besides Chevy Chase, who doesn’t really care). It will be exciting to see how the characters interact together after all this time. Maybe they will all actually get jobs!

(Via Indiewire)

Britney Spears’ husband Sam Asghari has spoken out to set the record straight about recent reports regarding his pop star wife.

Rumors began swirling about the “Baby One More Time” singer’s mental health over the past couple days, after outlets like TMZ reported that her closest family and friends, including Asghari himself, had attempted to hold an intervention for the Mississippi hitmaker. This past January, Britney was spotted in local restaurant near her home, where witnesses reported she was acting “manic.”

However, despite the recent incident, Asghari makes it clear this his wife is in perfectly good health and capable of making her own decisions. The personal-trainer-turned-actor firmly maintains that the rumored intervention didn’t happen.

“An intervention did not occur,” he told Access Hollywood host Mario Lopez in an exclusive statement. “My wife is in full control of her life and will continue to make all decisions involving her care regardless of circumstances.”

He continued, “Speculation on her health is inappropriate and should end immediately.”

The pair have been dating since 2016, and got engaged in 2021, nearly two months before her 13-year long conservatorship had ended. The couple finally tied the knot last June, with 60 guests — including a bevy of her famous friends like Madonna, Paris Hilton, Kathy Hilton and Drew Barrymore — in private ceremony in Los Angeles.

Paramore‘s long-awaited new album This Is Why is finally out now after the release of bewitching singles like the title track, “The News,” and “C’est Comme Ça.” Hayley Williams already revealed Bloc Party and Dry Cleaning as influences, and now she name-dropped another artist while discussing the track “Running Out Of Time.”

In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Williams talked about how her experience with Taylor Swift over a decade ago inspired that song.

“I remember when we were 19 and I was closer with Taylor Swift at that point because we both lived in Nashville and we’re both experiencing our own versions of real success for the first time,” Williams recalled. “I went over to hang out. She’s a really good cook, by the way. She’s a really good cook. She has taught me how to make stuff that I did not retain at all.”

Swift showed Williams a closet full of gifts for people she’s grateful for. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, my life is so not together.’ I was like, ‘I can barely remember to send someone a card or flowers.’ There are still Christmas gifts at my house that I have not sent to my friends just sitting there in the back of my closet,” Williams said.

She continued, “I wish that I was the person that felt like I had all my sh*t together and I was like, ‘Oh, I had some extra time, so I’m just popping by with some flowers.’ That kind of thing, that is my idealized self.”

Watch the interview above.