Month: July 2023

Despite being aligned on virtually every single culture war issue, the evangelical support for Donald Trump never really made sense. On top of his well-known penchant for slathering his penthouse in gold, the former president is a known philanderer to the point where he’s been legally found guilty of sexual abuse. Not exactly the kind of things that Jesus was big on, and yet, Trump has remained the candidate of choice for most evangelicals.

However, that support may be waning. According to former Southern Baptist Convention president Russell Moore, there are cracks forming in Trump’s evangelical base. While promoting his new book, Moore told Semafor that he is regularly hearing from evangelicals who have grown increasingly concerned with how Trump is tarnishing their faith:

I wrote the book because I’m hearing every day from evangelical Christians who are exhausted and almost in despair over the state of American Christianity. They know something has gone terribly wrong but they are losing hope that anything could be different. At the same time, I get asked by non-Christians, as a man said to me as recently as yesterday- “What the hell is wrong with you people.” An evangelical America in crisis isn’t good for anybody.

While refusing to endorse or denounce the Republican candidates challenging Trump, Moore called the former president a “unique threat, both to American institutions and to the church’s witness.”

While Moore didn’t go deeper into his concern over Trump, his new book, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, will reportedly grapple with Trump’s impact on the evangelical world.

“While the witness of the church before a watching world is diminished beyond recognition, congregations are torn apart over Donald Trump, Christian nationalism, racial injustice, sexual predation, disgraced leaders, and covered-up scandals,” the description for Moore’s book reads. “Left behind are millions of believers who counted on the church to be a place of belonging and hope.”

(Via Semafor, Raw Story)

This year is the 50th anniversary of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, one of the handful of films that could be considered the scariest movie of all-time. The occasion will be marked with pea soup cocktails (pink is out; green is in), as well as the release of The Exorcist: Believer.

Like 2018’s Halloween, it’s a direct sequel to the first film in the franchise starring an original cast member (Ellen Burstyn, reprising her role as Chris MacNeil) that’s directed by David Gordon Green. This time, instead of one demon girl, there’s two demon girls. Will any podcasters get possessed by Pazuzu? Here’s hoping! You can watch the trailer above.

Here’s more:

Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding has raised their daughter, Angela on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine, disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.

The Exorcist: Believer, which also stars Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, and Olivia Marcum, opens in theaters on October 13th.

No one seems to be sure what Elon Musk is doing over at Twitter. Rather than improve his latest toy/social media platform amid its many ongoing hiccups, he decided to proceed with a seemingly overnight rebranding. Twitter is apparently now “X,” a decision that doesn’t appear to have been planned out too well in spite of his ongoing obsession with the letters, and when Piers Morgan is cheering for something, you know that it’s worth reexamining. That’s especially the case since future cage-fighting rival Mark Zuckerberg is one of many who already claim some form of copyright registration for “X.”

Among the many ongoing jokes of this debacle, now Sesame Street has gotten involved with shading the Twitter/X CEO: “The letter X will be holding a press conference later today.”

And when Big Bird mocks you, that’s never a good sign: “Luckily I’m a bird so I can still tweet tweet!”

Oscar the Grouch does not appear to be impressed by this hot mess at all: “If you are thinking of doing this next to my trash can you can X-out that idea!”

Oscar knows of what he speaks. There’s no telling whether Elon will (again) try to pry “Twitter” off the side of the building after a permit screw up, but yeah, he probably will go there.

As difficult as it may be to believe, Post Malone is four albums deep into his artistry, with another one on the way. The rapper’s forthcoming project, Austin, will hit streaming platforms at the end of the week. Through a series of social media posts, Malone promised that this release is not going to be like anything fans have heard thus far from him, as he’s a completely different person than when he entered the industry.

In a note uploaded to Instagram, the musician shared a note to fans about the project. “This whole deal has been one of the most challenging, rewarding, and exciting records I’ve worked on. I feel it captures who I am as a man and as an artist in this moment. thank y’all so much for your patience, and thank you for being there with me in my hardest times. I love y’all so much,” penned Malone.

Here’s everything we know so far.

Release Date

Austin is out 7/28 via Mercury Records/Republic Records. Find more information here.

Tracklist

1. “Don’t Understand”
2. “Something Real”
3. “Chemical”
4. “Novacandy”
5. “Mourning”
6. “Too Cool To Die”
7. “Sign Me Up”
8. “Socialite”
9. “Overdrive”
10. “Speedometer”
11. “Hold My Breath”
12. “Enough Is Enough”
13. “Texas Tea”
14. “Buyer Beware”
15. “Landmine”
16. “Green Thumb”
17. “Laugh It Off”

Singles

Prior to the project’s release, Malone has shared a total of three singles, “Mourning,” “Overdrive,” and “Chemical.” With Austin slated to drop this Friday (July 28), it is assumed that Post Malone will not share any more singles until after its release. With each of the records, Malone played a big part in terms of production, with additional support from Andrew Watt, Louis Bell, Max Martin, and Rami Yacoub.

Artwork

A major theme of Post Malone’s album, Austin, is finding pockets of peace in his, at times, chaotic professional life. The project’s official artwork is a reflection of that as the entertainer enjoys a tranquil poolside moment.

Tour

Post Malone didn’t wait for the album’s release to hit the road. Malone’s If Y’all Weren’t Here I’d Be Crying Tour kicked off earlier this month. View the remaining tour dates below. It is not clear whether Post Malone will extend the tour any further.

07/26 — Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
07/29 — Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion
07/31 — West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
08/01 — Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
08/03 — Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
08/05 — Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
08/08 — Houston, TX @ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
08/10 — Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
08/12 — Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
08/13 — San Diego, CA @ North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre
08/15 — Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
08/16 — Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
08/19 — San Bernardino, CA @ Glen Helen Amphitheater

A couple of years back, Ice Cube shared some of his storytelling inspirations with Uproxx for People’s Party With Talib Kweli. He popped back into Uproxx Studios in LA recently, this time, to sit down with Just Blaze and Katty Customs for Fresh Pair, and once again talked storytelling in hip-hop. This time around, he shared his five favorite narrative rap songs, which he called “the best hip-hop ever.”

Of course, Ice Cube himself wrote what has long been considered to be one of hip-hop’s top storytelling raps in his 1992 hit single “It Was A Good Day.” The second single from his third solo album, The Predator, “It Was A Good Day” peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and has been the subject of a running joke in internet culture of people trying to determine just which day Cube describes in the song (he maintains he had no particular day in mind, but that hasn’t stopped online sleuths from trying). It was also recently reproduced by Logic, drawing mixed reactions from fans — although the original artist liked it.

Somehow, Cube’s list of the best five storytelling songs does not include his own rap staple, but does have some old-school classics. Among them: Timeless, foundational hip-hop hits from Slick Rick, Dana Dane, Boogie Down Productions, and at least one left field take (it’s not really much of a story, after all).

You can find out which songs Ice Cube picked in the preview clip above; the full episode drops Wednesday, 7/26 at 3pmET / 12pmPT.

With Stranger Things not returning until 2025 at the earliest due to studios and writers/performers clashing over pay, there’s a lot of time for fans of the show to theorize what will happen in the final season.

And a lot of those theories are bad — intentionally so.

On the Stranger Things subreddit, user Tiutautikli asked, “What would be the worst possible ending for Stranger Things 5?” For them, it would be “they use tropes that are way too overused and boring. Like Will sacrificing himself and then in the epilogue Mike and El have a son that they name after Will.” If Stranger Things has a Harry Potter-ass ending, it should never comes back.

Others shared their worst-case scenario predictions:

The whole series was a D&D game played by Wills friends in his memory after his passing.

El and Mike use the power of friendship to send Vecna back to the Upside Down.

Eleven dies/ loses her powers forever.
It was all a dream.
Will dies (“bury your gays” trope) while all the straight characters live happily ever after.

Along with the things that others have said, I’d hate to see a time travel story where they fix their problems by going back in time and changing their history so the events of the series never happened.

But the most upvoted terrible ending belongs to Sweetbeans2001:

You really want the worst possible ending? Vecna possesses Will without anyone’s knowledge. Will spends all season 5 picking off the others one-by-one like a bad 80’s slasher movie, starting with Jonathan and Joyce.

Only Will, Mike, and El are left in the final episode. All of Hawkins had been consumed by the upside down. El figures out that Will is possessed and knows she has to kill Will in order to kill Vecna. She struggles to find the courage and strength to attack Will. Mike encourages her to do so in order to save the world. She is heartbroken and crying when she kills Will.

Immediately, the scene brightens and the surroundings start coming back to life. Mike embraces El in a hug, whispers to her that he is Vecna and stabs her in the back. She dies with her eyes open showing despair and betrayal. Vecna returns Mike to normal long enough to show him the vision of what he did to El. He is then horribly killed Chrissy-style.

The final scene is Max waking up from her coma, still blind and crippled, calling out the names of everyone (starting with Lucas) while the hospital and all of Hawkins outside of her window are turned back into the upside down.

Honestly? I don’t hate it. Someone should pitch it at Horror Nights.

(Via Reddit)

Despite right-wing outrage merchants like Ben Shapiro completely melting down over the Barbie movie’s fun-filled skewering of the patriarchy, the Greta Gerwig film lit box offices on fire all across the country — even in red states. There’s no denying that Barbie is a cinematic phenomenon, and the ladies of The View had a field day skewering the Ben Shapiros of the world who couldn’t stop the pop culture juggernaut.

Never one to tolerate nonsense, Whoopi Goldberg wasn’t having Shapiro’s complaints that the Barbie movie is “angry, feminist claptrap that alienates men from women, undermines basic human values and promotes falsehood all at the same time.”

Via Entertainment Weekly:

“It’s a movie. It’s a movie about a doll. I thought y’all would be happy. She has no genitalia, so there’s no sex involved, Ken has no genitalia so he can’t [either]. It’s a doll movie,” the 67-year-old said on Tuesday’s live broadcast. “The kids know it’s colorful and it’s Barbie, they haven’t lived through what the adults have lived through, so when they’re seeing this movie, that’s not how they’re looking at it. The kids are looking at it as a Barbie movie.”

Goldberg then challenged these quote-unquote conservative manly men to look their daughters in the eye and repeat the talking points they’ve been spewing.

“You guys, I want you all to tell your daughters why you’re not taking them to see the Barbie movie,” Goldberg said. “I want you to explain to them what’s wrong with Barbie.”

Of course, it wasn’t long before Joy Behar slipped in a Matt Gaetz joke. The conservative congressman took his wife Ginger Gaetz to a promotional screening where she criticized the film for giving Ryan Gosling’s Ken “disappointingly low T.”

“I read that Matt Gaetz complained about Barbie,” Behar quipped. “But it’s rated PG-13. Seems like his crowd.”

After getting in some more laughs at Shapiro, Goldberg wrapped up the segment by encouraging The View audience to see Barbie.

“It’s not meant to do anything but give you a good time,” Goldberg said. “Go see the movie.”

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

It’s not just Donald Trump who’s souring on former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

According to Newsweek, Lake doesn’t have much support amongst voters in her home state, and what she does have isn’t nearly enough to justify a Senate bid — something the right-wing firebrand has been contemplating since her 2022 midterm loss. Of course, Lake is still arguing that she actually won the race for governor that took place nearly a year ago, fighting to have the election results overturned in court. But, should she ever give up and admit defeat, many political pundits have predicted she’ll turn her sights to Washington D.C. and, with Trump’s backing, they assumed her senate campaign would be a slam dunk.

Now it seems the woman Trump reportedly dubbed a “spotlight hound” isn’t as beloved by the MAGA crowd as she thought. A poll of 1,000 registered voters showed that 51% of voters in Arizona hold a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of Lake. The Republican candidate is also viewed unfavorably by 51% of independent voters, a key demo she’ll need to win in order to compete against current Senator Kyrsten Sinema and her Democratic challenger Ruben Gallego. Lake said she was considering a senate run earlier this month claiming she had, “a lot of options on the table,” but these new poll numbers show she’ll have a steep climb to keep up with her running mates. New data published earlier this year shows that Lake would lose to Gallego, possibly trailing him by double-digits, should she run as a Republican in the race.

Here’s hoping Trump doesn’t mind letting her couch surf at Mar-a-Lago a bit longer.

(Via Newsweek)

Ten years ago, we had the “c*nt punch” sorority girl. Now, it’s the “queen of chaos.”

Rayanna Brock, a former student at Eastern Kentucky University and Western Kentucky University (she was reportedly expelled from both) and member of the “Kentucky Chicks” sorority, recently went viral after appearing on the “mugshawtys” Instagram account. She’s been arrested 11 times, and in most of the mugshots, she’s seen smiling. Brock has leaned into the nickname, but she’s also ready to retire that side of her personality.

“I think why I smiled is, honestly, because I was just high, and I just really didn’t care about anything,” she told The Messenger about her viral mugshots.

Brock became homeless when she was a teenager following the death of her grandparents. “I couldn’t even make it to school half the time,” she said. “I had no way to get to school. Where I was living was so far that the buses didn’t reach the house, and I didn’t know where I was staying half the time.”

Despite the challenges, Brock was accepted into college, but she was expelled not once (after being caught with LSD), not twice, but thrice. “In just the five years since she turned 18, Brock had been arrested on multiple charges, including probation violations, stalking, harassment, shoplifting, wanton endangerment, and evading police,” according to The Messenger.

Today, Brock says she is off drugs and has turned her life around after finding a support system in her boyfriend, stepfather, and other friends who can relate to her struggles… Her dream is to return to school, and she hopes to pay things forward by becoming a counselor for drug-adducted youth — while discovering more about herself along the way.

Brock will tell her story on her TikTok called, what else, The Queen of Chaos.

(Via The Messenger)

Ten years ago, we had the “c*nt punch” sorority girl. Now, it’s the “queen of chaos.”

Rayanna Brock, a former student at Eastern Kentucky University and Western Kentucky University (she was reportedly expelled from both) and member of the “Kentucky Chicks” sorority, recently went viral after appearing on the “mugshawtys” Instagram account. She’s been arrested 11 times, and in most of the mugshots, she’s seen smiling. Brock has leaned into the nickname, but she’s also ready to retire that side of her personality.

“I think why I smiled is, honestly, because I was just high, and I just really didn’t care about anything,” she told The Messenger about her viral mugshots.

Brock became homeless when she was a teenager following the death of her grandparents. “I couldn’t even make it to school half the time,” she said. “I had no way to get to school. Where I was living was so far that the buses didn’t reach the house, and I didn’t know where I was staying half the time.”

Despite the challenges, Brock was accepted into college, but she was expelled not once (after being caught with LSD), not twice, but thrice. “In just the five years since she turned 18, Brock had been arrested on multiple charges, including probation violations, stalking, harassment, shoplifting, wanton endangerment, and evading police,” according to The Messenger.

Today, Brock says she is off drugs and has turned her life around after finding a support system in her boyfriend, stepfather, and other friends who can relate to her struggles… Her dream is to return to school, and she hopes to pay things forward by becoming a counselor for drug-adducted youth — while discovering more about herself along the way.

Brock will tell her story on her TikTok called, what else, The Queen of Chaos.

(Via The Messenger)