Month: August 2023

When comedian Kyle Gordon posted his first video of his DJ Crazy Times character performing “Planet Of The Bass,” a nonsensical Eurodance parody song that actually slaps, he probably didn’t expect what would follow. The song became a viral hit, which prompted him to release the full track yesterday (August 15). It didn’t stop there: He (along with the song’s Ms. Biljana Electronica, aka Audrey Trullinger) got to perform the song at the Jonas Brothers concert at Boston’s TD Garden that night.

The Jonas Brothers also shared a video from before the show, in which the JoBros, Gordon, and Trullinger mouth along with the song’s opening seconds. Before that, Nick Jonas posted a TikTok duet of himself enjoying the “Planet Of The Bass” video.

In a recent interview with New York Live ahead of the song’s release, Gordon explained the origin of the DJ Crazy Times character, saying, “This is actually a character I’ve been doing since college. There’s actually a recording of me on a CD I made with my a capella group, intro-ing it over crappy beat boxing, but then I started doing it online, just kind of doing the character.”

Watch Gordon perform “Planet Of The Bass” at the Jonas Brothers concert above.

One of the best comic book movies of the 2010s is getting the anime treatment. Netflix has released the trailer for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, an eight-episode series based on Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which itself is an adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series.

If you thought the movie was manic, wait until you watch the anime trailer.

The original cast from the movie is back, including Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Brie Larson, Jason Schwartzman, Ellen Wong, Alison Pill, and Mae Whitman. Lee O’Malley will serve as co-showrunner alongside BenDavid Grabinski, while Wright is listed as an executive producer.

“It’s strange and very fun,” Cera told Decider about the Scott Pilgrim anime. “Scott Pilgrim has such a specific energy. The whole project, the whole world of Scott Pilgrim, is very energetic and really funny.” The Barbie star added, “Every time I’ve recorded it, I have to send Brian an email saying, I love this so much. I’m so excited about it.” Not as much as he loves doing either the world’s best or worst Tony Soprano impression (I can’t decide), but it’s close.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off premieres on Netflix on November 17th.

It’s only Billie Eilish’s name that gets the primary artist credit on her songs, but fans know that Finneas is a creative partner on all her music, since he co-writes and produces his sister’s songs. Eilish has always been sure to give Finneas his flowers on that front and she values their collaborative setup so much that if Finneas didn’t want to participate anymore, Eilish says she’d just throw in the towel.

Between songs at a recent concert, Eilish addressed her audience as Finneas sat next to her, saying, “We make everything together, and, you know… if Finneas ever doesn’t want to make music with me, I just won’t make music anymore [laughs], for real. That would suck. Anyway, um… yeah, I just feel really grateful to have him on tour with me right now. I just owe everything to him, for real, in my life, and I love him very much and he’s my best friend in the world.”

Eilish and Finneas must be real close in order for her to get away with farting in his face, like she did in a recent video he shared. She also wished her brother a happy birthday recently with a video of a funny lyrical misunderstanding.

Ice Spice is in the midst of her astronomical rise to fame. Last month the rapper, who went viral with the hit “Munch (Feelin’ U),” which got its own remix by Cardi B, shared her highly anticipated project Like..? (Deluxe). She’s also collaborated with Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, and more. Despite her fame, though, she still remains loyal to her hometown.

Ice Spice is proudly from the Bronx in New York. She paid tribute to the borough with her 2023 BET Awards Performance in June. Onstage, she floated above a basketball court while rapping “Munch,” then walked to a bodega during “Princess Diana.” She closed with “In Ha Mood,” when she returned to a fake Fordham Road MTA train stop.

About collaborating with Ice Spice, Taylor Swift said, “Collaborating with Ice Spice on ‘Karma’ was one of the most natural things.” She added, “She reached out through her team just kind of saying, ‘Hey, you know, Ice has been a big fan of Taylor since she was a little kid. We’d love to collaborate if that was ever something that came about.’ And I had been listening to her nonstop like getting ready for my tour I was just listening to Ice Spice constantly.”

Earlier this year, Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter after the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Baldwin’s film Rust in October 2021. The charges were eventually dropped, and though the actor was the one holding the gun when it fired and eventually killed Hutchins, he maintains that he did not pull the trigger. Now, it appears that Baldwin could be charged again if there is enough evidence to confirm that the trigger was pulled.

In a new forensic report released this week, as per Variety, the team reconstructed the gun, which had previously been broken during the investigation, and concluded that it could only have been fired by a pull of the trigger. The prosecutors on the case had stated earlier this year that if the gun had been working properly, Baldwin might face more charges.

“This fatal incident was the consequence of the hammer being manually retracted to its fully rearward and cocked position followed, at some point, by the pull or rearward depression of the trigger,” the report read. “Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.”

While Baldwin’s initial charges were dropped, the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed is scheduled to appear in court in December on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Reed insists that the weapons supplier is the one responsible for allegedly mixing in dummy bullets with live ones.

Baldwin, meanwhile, is over on Instagram claiming that trees are people, too.

(Via Variety)

Cillian Murphy may be the star of Oppenheimer, but it’s not his first Christopher Nolan rodeo. One of his first big roles after breaking through with 28 Days Later was Scarecrow in Batman Begins. He reprised the role, briefly, in The Dark Knight, then again, also briefly, in The Dark Knight Rises. In between those two he was the mark in Inception. Later he had a small role in Dunkirk. That’s six Nolans — half the director’s filmography! But apparently it’s the other half that contains Murphy’s favorite of the filmmaker’s oeuvre.

In a new interview with The Independent (as caught by The AV Club), Murphy gushed about Interstellar, one of the Nolans that doesn’t feature him, not even in a walk-on.

“I adore Interstellar just because I find it so emotional,” he said. He recalled seeing it when his kids were little, and surely a film about a father who abandons his kids for a space jaunt — and in which they get older but he stays the same age — would chip away at a dad. It just had a big impact on me. It broke my heart.”

He then admitted something, “I love watching his films when I’m not in them because you don’t have to freak out about the size of your ears, or whatever.”

Murphy was also inevitably asked about “Barbenheimer,” surely for about the zillionth time. The question was a bit more creative, asking him to swap out Oppenheimer for another Nolan to see on a double with Barbie. He gamely floated two. Interstellar, he chose because it “explores similar scientific, physic themes” (to Oppenheimer, he means, not Barbie). His second was Dunkirk, which is also about World War II and which is also, crucially, “shorter.” After all, a combined five hours is a lot. Still, he could have chosen Nolan’s debut feature, the 70-minute Following.

(Via The Independent and The AV Club)

Mother’s Day is celebrated a little differently in Thailand than it is in America. For one thing, it falls on Aug 12th each year instead of the second Sunday of May. People also usually have the day off from work, and schools will host a special Mother’s Day ceremony for students to kneel before their moms to give them jasmine flowers and share their love, respect, appreciation…all the warm and fuzzy things.

However, as one can imagine, these events might feel bittersweet for those students who for various reasons can’t have their mom show up.

This was nearly the fate for a young student named Nong Cream, a girl who had been adopted by a single man named Joe Lookphonbodee, according to Bangkok Biz News.

But not only did Lookphonbodee show up for his daughter, he came completely dressed for the role.

A heartwarming video posted to TikTok shows Lookphonbodee appear in a wig and dress, completely surprising Cream. As soon as she sees her “father-mother,” she leaps into his arms, all smiles.

@joey_kp

“แม่” ฉันก็เป็นให้แกได้555

♬ เป็นทุกอย่าง – Room 39

Lookphonbodee told Bangkok Biz News that he had no regrets doing this gesture for his daughter, knowing the most important thing was for her to not feel left out.

“Personally, I’m not ashamed because I love my child,” he said.

As for Cream, there was no embarrassment felt, only gratitude.

“This year’s Mother’s Day, I want to say I love my father,” she said. “Thank you, Father, for raising me and making me happy. This life doesn’t feel like a lack of anything.”

Here’s to the dads who know the importance of truly being there for their kids. It makes a world of difference.

There’s a reason the phrase, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” is a cliché. In many cases, it’s an accurate statement, and one man who found himself in the middle of that cliché decided to share his biggest regret with others. Reddit user u/bagaljvkoO shared a video of a panda intercut with images of trees as a man’s voice narrated a story about missing his mom.

The man confessed that when he was younger he always felt like his mom was weird because she would do things that other parents didn’t do. One example was her sending thank you cards to all of his classmates along with homemade cookies on his birthday. The cards were thanking the kids in his class for being his friend. It’s a very sweet gesture but was probably a little embarrassing.

But one thing that made him question his mom’s sanity a little was her affinity for talking to their trees in the backyard.

“The strangest thing about my mom though is that she talked to our trees, and she even named them. There was Daphne the lemon tree, Carl the pomegranate tree, Joseph the oak,” the man says. “Sometimes I would even find her in the backyard having full-blown, one-sided conversations with the trees, and one day I told her that talking to trees like that was a little bit weird.”

The man’s mom didn’t take offense to his statement, she simply explained that the trees also needed to feel loved. From all accounts, it sounds like his mother was doting, but it was during his grief after her unexpected passing that he found out why she talked to the trees.

It turns out that the man had three siblings who were stillborn, which his mother never told him about. Their names were Daphne, Carl and Joseph, so while he assumed his mom was being weird, it turns out she was just grieving and talking to her children. After finding out this information, he now talks to the trees and even planted one in honor of his late mother.

What a sweet way to honor his mother’s memory and a heartwarming reminder to appreciate the people in your life while they’re still here.

South West News Service reports that when Sharaine, 32, and Wilson Caraballo, 42, moved their family of seven into a new home in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, last year, they weren’t sure how they’d be received.

“Our biggest fear moving into a new neighborhood was, ‘What if our neighbors don’t like us?’ What if, because we have a lot of kids, they make a lot of noise and we come from a big family, so what if there’s any conflict with the neighbors?” Sharaine told USA Today. “We’re the only Black family in our neighborhood.”

But all that fear quickly dissipated when their new neighbor, Paul Callahan, 82, showed up with a ladder and offered to help the family spruce up their new home.

“He was coming over with tools. He’d bring screwdrivers and teach Wilson how to fix up the garage, and Wilson followed all his advice,” Sharaine told South West News Service. The recently-widowed octogenarian soon became a fixture at the Caraballo house. Now, he stops by nearly every day and can always be found at the family’s cookouts.

Callahan has become a great friend to the family’s children, whom he entertains with stories from his past. “The kids run up to him like that’s their grandfather,” Sharaine said. “Paul is definitely a family member. He’s no longer considered a neighbor.”

Callahan believes that it’s all about taking the time to be friendly.

“You get many chances to talk to people. If you don’t take a chance, you may miss a friend,” Callahan said. “It doesn’t hurt to be nice. That’s the other thing, it costs you nothing, but a lot of times, you get a better return.”

To take a break from rapping, Cardi B dabbles in many extra curricular activities. She sells Whip Shots, which are her brand of vodka-infused whipped cream. She gets bewildering tattoos. She has public drama with her husband Offset that sometimes gets out of hand. Most importantly, though, she acts in films.

Her cinema career began with 2019’s Hustlers, which also featured Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Lizzo, plus some other musician-actresses, as well as famous actors like Lili Reinhart, Julia Stiles, and Constance Wu. Cardi not only played the part, but helped teach her co-stars how to give a lap dance. Then in 2021, she starred in F9, which was announced enthusiastically on Vin Diesel’s Instagram with a video featuring both of them.

It was revealed in March that Cardi would be reprising her Baby Shark’s Big Show! character for Baby Shark’s Big Movie. She’ll be Sharki B, along with Offshark (Offset) and their daughter Kulture Shark (Kulture). Other cast members include Ashley Tisdale, Lance Bass, K-pop band Enhypen, Saturday Night Live regulars Ego Nwodim and Chloe Fineman, and comedian Aparna Nancherla. The release is set for the holiday season.

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