Month: August 2023

The double strike that has shut down Hollywood has seen its share of clever signs. And why not? A lot of them are professional writers after all. (Some are even among the industry’s finest gag writers.) Actors have had some great ones, too. Mandy Patinkin had a top shelf sign nodding to his most famous film, The Princess Bride. Now Mad Men’s erstwhile Don Draper got in on the action, too.

As per Entertainment Weekly, on Tuesday Sarah Silverman posted some images on Instagram from the SAG-AFTRA/WGA picket lines. One showed no less than Jon Hamm holding an excellent sign, reading, “That’s what the money is for.”

That, of course, is a reference to a beloved line from Season 4, Episode 7 of Mad Men, aka “The Suitcase.” In the scene, Elisabeth Moss’ Peggy Olson accuses Don of stealing an ad idea that led to him getting a Clio award. Don argues that all Peggy did was give him a “kernel” of an idea, which he turned into the commercial.

“It’s your job,” Don charges. “I give you money, you give me ideas.”

“But you never say thank you,” Olson responds, near tears.

Then comes Don’s iconic retort: “That’s what the money is for!”

It’s a great episode; just ask the scene’s stars. Both Hamm and Moss told EW “The Suitcase” was their favorite.

“We had not only a great time making it, I got to work with one of my favorite people in the world [Moss], and we really got to kind of play the whole range of emotion in there,” Hamm explained.

Moss felt similiarly. “I felt like that was a real sort of combination of four years work and four years of that relationship between Don and Peggy,” she said. “Jon’s my favorite person to work with so for me to have so much with him was awesome.”

You can watch the scene in question in the video below.

(Via EW)

Congrats to Lil Uzi Vert, whose Pink Tape, their daring and rewarding third album, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It also became the first rap album to claim No. 1 on the chart in 2023. That seems like child’s play compared to what Uzi encountered during their GQ Hype photoshoot.

During the shoot, the Philly-bred artist was met by Anna DeGuzman, a cardist, mentalist, and magician, who was able to correctly guess that Uzi is allergic to chocolate and that they were thinking about Pop-Tarts, their favorite snack. DeGuzman made Pop-Tarts appear out of thin air, which Uzi ate, admitting, “I’m scared.”

Next, DeGuzman performed a few mind-boggling card tricks before asking Uzi for their phone. DeGuzman asked Uzi to “count from zero to nine out loud” and (yet again) flawlessly guessed the passcode for Uzi’s friend’s phone.

Once the phone was unlocked, DeGuzman used the calculator app for her next trick. She asked Uzi’s friend how old they were when they met (23) and multiplied that by how many albums Uzi has to their name (three). That was then combined with how much Uzi’s bracelet cost (300,000) and how much they have in their bank account right now.

“We got a random number. I don’t want to know what it is. We added, divided, subtracted, multiplied, everything,” DeGuzman said. Without looking at the phone, she guessed that the result was a seven-digit number. Uzi conceded that the number started with seven, leading to DeGuzman correctly guessing 7,311,995.

“Does that number mean anything to you?” DeGuzman asked Uzi.

“Yeah, I see it,” Uzi said, bewildered.

When separated, the number is Uzi’s birthday: July 31, 1995.

Watch the full nine-minute magic show above, and check out Uzi’s GQ Hype shoot below.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Like Martin Scorsese’s Silence, Under the Silver Lake is one of the most challenging but also most rewarding films on Andrew Garfield’s CV. But there was a point during the shoot that it nearly got deeply, unimaginably unpleasant for him. In a new interview, co-star Riley Keough revealed that there was one time that she nearly made him profoundly ill (but didn’t).

“I was in the makeup trailer and I was eating, like, a granola bar or something, and I was about to shoot a scene where I have to kiss Andrew,” Keough recalled during a new Vanity Fair video (as caught by Entertainment Weekly). “And the makeup lady was like, ‘Are there peanuts in that?’”

Keough said she wasn’t sure, prompting the makeup person to flee the room and flag down a producer.

“The producer came in and was like, ‘Riley, Andrew’s very allergic to peanuts and we have to shut the set down. It shouldn’t have been at craft, and I don’t know why they’re on set,’” Keough remembered.

Keough, of course, had no idea about Garfield’s condition. She remembers thinking, “Oh f*ck, that’s crazy.” She added, “But also thank God that this woman caught it, because I had no idea!”

In Under the Silver Lake, Garfield plays a broke young loner living in a surreal version of Los Angeles. Keough plays a neighbor with whom he becomes obsessed, first as a potential romantic partner. When she mysteriously disappears, he launches into an increasingly bananas search for her that involves numerous wackadoodle conspiracy theories — a subject Garfield wound up learning a lot about.

You can watch the full Vanity Fair video below.

(Via EW)

Tory Lanez has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet, according to Los Angeles court reporter Meghann Cuniff. Cuniff, who has been following and reporting the case via her independent newsletter, Legal Affairs And Trials, since the beginning, attended the sentencing hearing, which saw the judge, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford, read out letters of support for the Canadian rapper, including one from Iggy Azalea. Cuniff’s work has earned her the affectionate nickname of “Meghann Thee Reporter” from followers online.

Tory was initially accused of shooting Megan in the summer of 2020 after a flirtation early in the year during quarantine that entertained and amused fans of the two rappers. Unfortunately, after party in the Hollywood Hills that July, Lanez was arrested for having a concealed weapon and Megan revealed that she’d been shot shortly thereafter, after initially telling police she’d cut herself on glass out of fear (this was just after the death of George Floyd).

A protracted dispute followed in which Lanez maintained his innocence, casting aspersions on Megan’s account of the shooting through surrogates and terrorizing her alongside DaBaby, who was also rumored to have had a fling with Thee Stallion. After multiple delays in the case, Tory was found guilty in December 2022 of assault with a firearm causing great bodily injury; concealing a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

While prosecutors recommended 13 years in prison, Tory’s defense asked for probation and rehab, but only after trying and failing to have the trial declared a mistrial and to have Judge Herriford removed from the case. Tory is reportedly planning to appeal with the help of Suge Knight’s former legal team.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Donald Trump is hot off his third indictment — a record for any U.S. president, all the more impressive given that all his other 44 predecessors have zero. But that’s not good enough for him. He wants four, because every time he’s charged with a crime his polls go up. Well, he’s possibly in luck: Fani Willis, DA out of Fulton County in Georgia, is on the verge of giving him a fourth. So you know what that means: time to start straight-up making up nonsense about her for his gullible fans.

As per Mediaite, Trump was at classy best at a rally in New Hampshire, doing things like making fat jokes about pal-turned-adversary Chris Christie. But his most unhinged remarks were about Willis, who he called an anti-white “racist” before smearing her with some weird BS he heard somewhere or other.

“And I probably have another where they say there’s a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta, they say racist,” Trump declared. “And they say, I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member.

“And this is a person that wants to indict me,” he added. “She’s got a lot of problems, but she wants to indict me to try and run for some other office.”

Twice Trump used the “they say” line, which he often uses when dropping suspect claims and which always inspires confidence in his truth-telling. When it came to the allegations/tall tales about her sex life, he couldn’t even get his story straight.

Why may Willis be gifting Trump with his fourth indictment? Because of his alleged, bumbling attempts at election interference in Georgia’s wing of the 2020 election.

“What’s going on in this country is, by the way, wants to indict me for a perfect phone call,” he told the crowd. “This was even better than my perfect call with Ukraine. Remember that call? That was a perfect call. This one’s better. This one is more perfect.”

How anything could be “more perfect” than an already perfect thing is not worth parsing, but the call in question — with Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger — was anything but perfect. It’s the one, caught on tape and easily found, in which Trump asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn the will of the state’s voters.

Is Trump baiting Willis, nudging her to punish him so he can seem like even more of a victim to his base than he is already? Whatever the case, the big guy’s been on a roll lately with this and enraging Judge Tanya Chutkan — as well as his legal team — with his social media antics.

(Via Mediaite)

Paul Pierce and Dwyane Wade were rivals for a long time in the NBA, with Wade’s Heat more often getting the better of Pierce’s Celtics. For Pierce, the lack of overall team success has been held against him, particularly when people talk about his career compared to Wade’s, and it clearly is something that bothers him. Pierce has, on a few occasions, tried to make the point that Wade had more help and that if he had similar teams around him earlier in his career, he too might have three rings (or more).

Most recently he tried to make that point on It Is What It Is with Cam’ron and Ma$e, talking again about how if he had gotten his Big Three with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen together four years sooner, they would’ve also rattled off three titles.

As always, Pierce’s comments came off as cope, and for the most part Wade tends to avoid addressing stuff like this, but on Tuesday, Wade joined The Le Batard Show and Stugotz couldn’t help but ask him in the most Stugotz way possible about those comments. After dropping a great line about “rent is expensive and I’m living rent free,” Wade noted he’s happy to let others in the media rattle off his accolades in defense but noted that, while he did play with great players (“I got my Avengers”), part of what made him great was his ability to adapt to various styles around him, as playing with Shaq required a far different approach than playing with LeBron and Chris Bosh.

The truth is, we will never know what Pierce could’ve done with what Wade had but we do know how successful Wade was in helping lead two very different teams to titles. Pierce believing he could’ve done the same is just natural for an elite athlete, but unfortunately for him, it always comes off as bitterness. Pierce probably is right that he does not get the level of respect and appreciation he should for how good he was, simply because for a long time the Celtics were not a good team around him. That said, he doesn’t always help himself with his comments and makes it very easy for Wade to take the high road here and look good.

Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranson recently went semi-full Walter White during a speech for the SAG-AFTRA strikers. In the process, he shouted, “[W]e will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots!” For understandable reasons, emotions are running high, and that goes for the WGA strike as well, for which Ron Perlman admitted getting heated towards an anonymous studio executive who told Deadline that studios plan to hold out “until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” Another unnamed party called this “a cruel but necessary evil.”

Well, Emmy and Tony winner as well as FX’s Pose star Billy Porter is here to say that this is already happening. During an interview with the Evening Standard, Porter went off on the subject of nearly nonexistent streaming residuals. Porter hasn’t been on the picket lines yet, given that he’s been spending time in London, but he does plan upon picketing when he returns stateside. At the moment, Porter’s dealing with the fact that he has to sell his house due to the strikes. He confirmed that he’s certainly not joking, either:

“Yeah! Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work]. The life of an artist, until you make f***-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still cheque-to-cheque. I was supposed to be in a new movie, and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening. So to the person who said ‘we’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments … you’ve already starved me out.”

Additionally, Porter took issue with Disney CEO Big Iger recently expressing “that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day?” To that, Porter has “kept my mouth shut” for the most part, but he felt the need to address that unnamed exec mentioned above. And given that Porter is losing his house, one can see why he wishes to vent his frustration.

(Via Evening Standard)

Looking like the democracy-opposed, glazed donut he is, Donald Trump gave another bizarre speech to a crowd of MAGA supporters in which he both dragged and defended his political frenemy, Chris Christie.

Trump jumbled some words together for voters in New Hampshire before someone shouted a question about Christie’s 2024 presidential run. Trump then joked that Christie was “eating right now” and so “he can’t be bothered.” The two men have traded jabs about each other’s weight since Christie announced his presidential campaign earlier this summer but it’s almost always been Trump throwing the first punch.

Which is what makes what happened next during his speech so strange.

After earning some laughs at Christie’s expense, a fan shouted an insult directed towards the former New Jersey governor, and Trump pretended to switch course. Addressing a man in the crowd, Trump followed up his eating comments by saying, “Sir, please do not call him a fat pig. I’m trying to be nice. Don’t call him a fat pig.” When Trump’s supporters began to question why they should censor their fat-shaming instincts, he offered this reasoning, “You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that and therefore, we’re not going to do it. We wanna be very civil, right?” he said while chuckling to himself.

Ah yes, Donald Trump, a beacon of civility in these dark times. In all seriousness, someone should check on old Donny — sweating that much outside of physical exercise can’t be an indicator of good health.

(WARNING: Spoilers for the most recent The Chi episode will be found below.)

The Chi is back!

The series that chronicles the events in the South Side of Chicago returned for its sixth season over the weekend. The show picks up after a dramatic end to season five which concluded in the fall of 2022. Quick run-down: Douda killed Quentin after finding out that he was stealing money from him, Kevin voiced his desire to move to his own apartment to his stepmom and mother, Victor came clean about his fake relationship with Tierra and live out his truth with Fatima, Emmett agreed to let Douda invest in Smokey’s, and lastly, Keisha and Tiffany repaired their relationship. So what happened to kick off season six?

In the inaugural episode of season six, we pick back up with Emmett and the new relationships in his life. Similar to the last five seasons of the show, Emmett’s relationship with the woman in his life — Keisha — isn’t going too smoothly at the moment. The episode starts with an argument over getting the kids ready for school in the morning and the episode ends with them arguing over Emmett’s decision to buy Tiffany a new car without talking to Keisha first. Elsewhere, Emmett sees the darker side of Douda, someone who walks around with an armed bodyguard and kills people over chewing their gum too loud. Through this, it’s clear that Emmett is second-guessing his partnership with Douda, but for now, it seems like he’s content with the money that it brings him.

Elsewhere, Kevin is comfy in his new apartment and even throws a kickback to break it in. After the kickback, he and Maisha share a surprising kiss that could lead to something new now that the two are single. Jemma struggles to accept a new woman in her father’s life and Papa has his eyes set on a new woman who works with him at Smokey’s. Lastly, Victor wins his race for city council by a slim, yet victiorious margin.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways that we have after season six’s first episode, “New Chi City”:

Kevin’s New Love Will Bring New Problems

Kevin is the epitome of a lover boy, and it’s something that’s been quite clear over the past couple of seasons of The Chi. For the most part, we saw it with his initial interest in Lynae towards the end of season four, but that didn’t amount to a relationship. Instead, Kevin spent most of season five with his astrology-loving girlfriend Simone. That relationship lasted all of three months — as Kevin reveals in the season one opener — after she broke up with him due to not being able to spend more than three months with a Virgo. All of that leads to the season six opener where Kevin and Maisha share a kiss at the end of the episode. It’s a full-circle moment from earlier in the series where Maisha was in full pursuit of Kevin, who did not reciprocate the interested, prior to her relationship with Papa.

Over time, Maisha and Kevin became good friends which is the perfect foundation for their soon-to-be relationship. The thing is, will everyone respond well to it? Kevin and Maisha, if they choose to fully go through with it, can hold their own, but it won’t come as a surprise if her ex-boyfriend Papa or others question or object to it. However, this doesn’t mean that things won’t be stressful for the lives of two kids that already are far from normal. It also doesn’t help that hours before their kiss, Papa made it pretty clear that his feelings for Maisha were still minimally present, and at the bare minimum, he didn’t get the closure he deserved.

Emmett’s Will Have To Redfine Or Double Down On His Values

Everything that Emmett’s wanted in his life has finally come his way. He’s a successful businessman with Smokey’s, a restaurant that’s bringing him plenty of money to support his blended family with his new girlfriend Keisha. Even his romance with Keisha is a new bright spot for him as it’s a relationship that isn’t toxic and problematic like his previous one with Tiffany. Yet, despite all of these positives, there’s a negative large enough to overshadow it all: Douda. Emmett recently took an investment offer from Douda, which has resulted in an abundance of money, a new car, and other nice items. However, as do all things with Douda, it all comes at a price.

Douda commits murder once again in one of the final moments of “New Chi City.” He mercilessly shoots a man for seemingly chewing his gum too loud during a meeting with Emmett. It remains to be seen if this moment is the last straw for Emmett, but it’d be hard to imagine that it would be. Emmett is completely enthralled with his new lifestyle, and he seems willing to deal with the bad as he knows it with Douda. The truth of the matter, however, is Emmett is putting his family at risk through his continued partnership with Douda. If Douda can kill a man over chewing his gum loudly, there’s no telling what could be in store for Emmett. At this point, Emmett has to redefine his values and adjust his life to match that or double down on them as they are, but do more to protect the people he loves.

The Truth Set Victor Free

And free at last is Victor. That is, free from the worry of where life would take him if he failed to win the race for city coucil. Thankfully for him, he won the role by staying true to himself, though that wasn’t the case from the beginning. Victor’s campaign began with a fake relationship with Tierra, as the two were placed together for optics in hopes of appealing to voters in Chicago. Through this, Victor developed a very real relationship with Fatima, a transgender local news journalist. Soon enough, Victor was forced to decide between living a lie with Tierra or living out his truth with Fatima. To close season five, Victor opts for the latter as well as a new campaign team, and it proved to all work out in his favor as he now holds a position on city council. You can only live a lie for so long before things turn out of your control. Victor learned that before things got out of hand, and now, he’ll have to continue living his truth and everything that comes with it — both the good and bad.

Douda Is Never Going To Change

In a world where everyone is trying their best to be the best person they can be, there’s Douda, who continues to wreak havoc in the South Side of Chicago. To start season six, we see him pick up where he left off in his new investment partnership with Emmett and Smokey’s where all signs point to there being somethhing sinister up Douda’s sleeve. This goes together with him enlisting people to have cars stolen to be broken down in exchange for cash as well as killing people for chewing their gum too loud. For someone who said they would lay low after they were exposed for beating up Chicago politician (and Jemma’s dad) Marcus St. John, Douda is doing anything but that. Additionally, he also uses his charm to slither his way back to Tracy whenever he wants a moment of intimacy (Tracy needs to stay disciplined to her achieve her goal of growing out of Douda’s orbit, but that’s a conversation for another day). Case in point, Douda is never going to change, no matter how often he alludes to wanting to better his ways.

New episodes of ‘The Chi’ are available through the Paramount Plus With Showtime plan on Fridays at 3am EST/ 12 pm PST. Weekly episodes also air Sundays on Showtime at 9pm EST/PST.

On Monday, the latest episode of Paul George’s Podcast P show featured Klay Thompson dropped and featured one clip in particular that had people talking.

George asked Thompson about his favorite piece of trash talk he dropped on somebody, noting the rather infamous moment last season when Klay flashed his four fingers at Devin Booker during a game to remind him of his four rings. Thompson then gave a response not many would’ve expected, as he called that a weak move and noted Book was “busting my ass” that game and he was just “in my feelings.” He went on to say he wasn’t proud of that moment, noting Booker’s the kind of guy he really admires for working hard and staying focused to become one of the game’s best despite a bad circumstance in Phoenix for the start of his career.

It was a refreshing answer from Thompson to be able to say he wishes he could take that one back and to say that just wasn’t a cool move on his part. Devin Booker appreciated that comment, but then turned his attention to Paul George, commenting on ESPN’s Instagram asking if that was the answer he was looking for to that question.

That led to George being asked about that by someone in the chat while he Twitch streamed some Call of Duty, with George brushing it aside and calling it a “sorry ass response” before then noting he’s going to be on his “bully shit” next year and will see “who’s tough.”

It’s not often you end up with NBA beef starting in early August, but in this era of player podcasts, it’s much easier for someone to say something that gets another player upset, even if unintentional. This is the rare three-platform beef, as we have podcasts, social media comments, and a live-stream combining powers to give us a little extra juice for that first Clippers-Suns game next year.