Month: February 2024

Two of the most prominent teams in Saudi Arabia’s top soccer league stepped onto the pitch on Thursday, as Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr went head-to-head in the final of the Riyadh Season Cup. It’s an event that also included Inter Miami, whatever, don’t worry about it, because we are not here to talk about footy in the slightest.

Instead, we are here to let you know that something completely insane happened before the game started. For some reason*, The Undertaker showed up, in full The Undertaker garb, and did his full entrance while his music played at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.

He walked out to where the trophy was and removed the cloth that was covering it, again, after doing his ENTIRE ENTRANCE. I swear, I did not expect to be doing a blog about Saudi Arabian soccer and The Undertaker on the day of the NBA trade deadline, but this is, truly, one of the most absurd things I have ever seen. Do you think promotional appearances by WWE superstars were written into the promotion’s deal with Saudi Arabia when that got signed years ago? Do you think there were conversations about whether he should have done the American Badass bit instead of this? Do you think Cristiano Ronaldo (who is playing in this game) knows what is happening? This is all so weird. I’m in awe.

(* — the reason is, almost certainly, a lot of money)

The Phoenix Suns entered the NBA trade deadline looking for reinforcements around their trio of stars. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, they were able to find that by calling up the Brooklyn Nets and working out a deadline deal for the second year in a row.

Charania brought word that Phoenix acquired three-and-D wing Royce O’Neale in a deal that would cost them three second-round picks. And that’s not all, as the Memphis Grizzlies are getting in on the fun and sending David Roddy to Phoenix, as well.

According to John Gambadoro, the Suns will send a handful of end of the rotation players out, as Chimezie Metu, Yuta Watanabe, Keita Bates-Diop, and Jordan Goodwin depart Phoenix in the deal for O’Neale and Roddy.

Phoenix was closely linked to a move for Miles Bridges before it was reported that he won’t waive his ability to veto a trade. It is unclear if the team was going to pursue O’Neale and/or Roddy prior to that, but regardless, both of these players should give them the sorts of wings with defensive chops that they could use around Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant.

O’Neale is averaging 7.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game for the Nets on 38.8/36.6/68.2 shooting splits this season. Roddy, meanwhile, is at 8.4 pints and 4.2 rebounds in 23.2 minutes per game for the Grizzlies, but has struggled to hit shots from behind the three-point line, as he’s connected on only 30.1 percent of them this year.

Christian Bale had a rather eventful 2022 with roles in The Pale Blue Eye, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Amsterdam on large and small screens. His voice appeared within Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron in 2023, but otherwise, we have had a Bale-free entertainment scene for over a year. The former Bruce Wayne has been busy, however, not with method acting but his actual passion project, which is to help foster kids patch up their lives after losing their parents.

According to Hollywood Reporter, Bale has been integral from the inception of the Together California “village,” which has broken ground and will include at least a dozen homes, transitional housing, and an enormous community center. The name of this game will be to keep foster-care siblings from being separated. The former Newsies star is reportedly “knee-deep in the trenches” and co-founded the organization, and he delivered a speech at the breaking ground ceremony this week:

“With our Together California model, [the village] is something absolutely new, totally transformative and something completely needed. Imagine the absolute pain and the trauma of losing your parents or being torn from your parents, and then losing your brothers and sisters on top of that, that’s no way to treat kids,” explained Bale, who recently celebrated his 50th birthday. “And so, we will be the hub for that. I hope that this village will be the first of many, and I hope that people, Californians and Angelenos, know to come join us in opening our eyes to what’s happening right under our noses. These are our children, and we must help our children.”

With all of the pain in the world today, it’s reassuring to know that somewhere, there’s a little bit of light.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

It’s crazy to think, but Usher‘s biggest hit apparently almost never happened. Rico Love, a producer on Usher’s Confessions album, revealed the backstory behind the track during a recent appearance on Home Grown Radio (via TMZ).

Love pointed out that Usher’s first listen of the demo, which Sean Garrett wrote, resulted in him not liking the song — and he flat out did not want to record it. Specifically, Usher also started laughing because he thought the song’s opening lyrics were too cheesy.

While Usher had planned for “Burn” to be the first single from his album, it was L.A. Reid who pushed him to not only make the song his own but drop it as a single. Love said that Reid told Usher to just “do the f*cking song” during a call, and then hung up.

Eventually, Ludacris and Lil Jon joined Usher on “Yeah,” the track dropped, and the rest was history. It was cemented as a dancefloor anthem that spent twelve weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

And now, Usher will likely even treat this weekend’s crowd at the Super Bowl to a “Yeah” live rendition, as Ludacris and Lil Jon appeared in an Apple Music Halftime Show teaser earlier this week.

With Miles Bridges off the board entirely, P.J. Washington immediately became the most prominent member of the Charlotte Hornets who could move at the NBA trade deadline. It turns out that Charlotte was, indeed, able to find a suitor for Washington, who will head to the Western Conference for the first time in his career.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Washington will become the Dallas Mavericks’ big trade deadline acquisition, as the team is sending Grant Williams, Seth Curry, and a future first-round NBA Draft pick to Charlotte in exchange for the fifth-year forward.

News of the deal was confirmed by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who added that the pick is a “lightly-protected” selection in 2027. Charania brought the specifics on the protection, saying that it’s only protected for one of the top-2 picks.

Dallas will, presumably, hope that Washington can fill the role it acquired Williams to play this past offseason, as the team desperately needs guys who can shoot and play defense around Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. As for the Hornets, they were able to get a first, while Williams and Curry are both North Carolina natives and should bring some level of a veteran presence if they stick around long-term.

Washington is averaging 13.8 points and 5.3 rebounds per game on 45.2/33.1/72.2 shooting splits in Charlotte. He’s currently in the first year of a 3-year, $46.5 million extension he signed in August, and is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in 2028.

Barry Keoghan has made enough of a name for himself so that when he shows up in a movie, you just know some weird and/or gross stuff is going down. A few examples include that scene in Saltburn, or that scene in The Green Knight. Or that other scene in Saltburn. Or any of Saltburn, honestly!

But one of Keoghan’s earlier roles was alongside Nicole Kidman and his buddy Colin Farrell in the unsettling 2017 thriller The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Keoghan stars as Martin, a troubled young boy who befriends a family and causes a series of eerie coincidences and mysterious illnesses around him. As the film progresses, Keoghan’s character slowly descends into madness, which inspires one of the creepier scenes involving Kidman and Keoghan.

While Keoghan was attempting to eat spicy wings on Hot Ones, he explained how the scene came to be. “You’re sitting there in front of Nicole Kidman as well, you know in your boxers; it’s kind of intimidating and you’re eating cold pasta,” he began. In the film, Keoghan’s character has an ominous type of power over Kidman and her family. In order to play such a character, he had to freak her out a bit. “I was like what will I do to freak her out…so I put the spaghetti in my mouth, take it back out and I remember doing that and she looked at me like what the f*ck. And it worked.” Sometimes, actors aren’t acting! They are genuinely terrified, just like Kidman!

Keoghan, who is known for his bizarre roles, also added that he doesn’t really end up on the cutting room floor too often. “I’m going to sound cocky, but they don’t really cut my scenes. They keep them in and wish they had more.” You hear that, Hollywood? We need more grave-humping Barry.

Check out the full interview above.

Travis Kelce just wants to play Super Bowl LVIII already. His Kansas City Chiefs will face the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, February 11, with a shot at becoming the first team to repeat as Super Bowl champions since the New England Patriots 20 years ago, and Kelce has made it abundantly clear that all he cares about is winning that game.

The problem with that is he’s dating the world’s most famous pop star (or perhaps person, in general), and reporters can’t help themselves. Throughout Super Bowl week in Las Vegas, Kelce has been asked more questions about Taylor Swift (and her newly announced album, The Tortured Poets Department) than about football, and he has fielded them with a level of patience I will never claim to possess, but then, he was asked to sing “Karma,” Swift’s Grammy-nominated Midnights track.

The Kansas City Chiefs livestreamed today’s (February 8) press conference on YouTube. Around the 51-minute mark, a reporter asked, or sang-asked, “I was wondering if you could help me complete this lyric here: ‘Karma is a guy on the…’” Kelce played along with a very straightforward response, “Chiefs, of course.”

Then, the reporter pressed her luck and, almost assuredly, immediately regretted it. “Finish it!” she said. “‘Coming straight…’” Kelce looked around with an uncomfortable and confused yet polite grin on his face while the reporter leaked confidence and meekly completed her own line, “‘Home to me…’” Kelce smiled and said, “What’s the second question?” The media scrum collectively laughed, and then the reporter shifted gears into asking about Kelce’s perspective on the Chiefs being known as a dynasty should they win their third Super Bowl in five years.

During the Chiefs’ bye week in early November, Kelce traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina to watch Swift perform a show on her ongoing The Eras Tour. “Karma” is the last song at every The Eras Tour concert, but on November 11, she altered the lyrics, “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me.” The lyric previously was “the guy on the screen,” referring to her ex, British actor Joe Alwyn.

“I had no clue — well, I might have had a little bit of a clue,” Kelce said of the lyric change on the following week’s episode of New Heights, “but, definitely, when I heard it come out of her mouth, it still shocked me. I was like, ‘Oh, she really just said that.’”

The Raptors and Nets are both on the outside looking in on the East’s Play-In race as we reach the NBA trade deadline, with each having to take a look at retooling around young wings in Scottie Barnes and Mikal Bridges.

The Nets, by all accounts, still want to try and win this year, while Toronto has reason to bottom out, as their first round pick is only top-6 protected after trading it to San Antonio for Jakob Poeltl last year. That made the two teams interesting trade partners at the deadline, as they engaged in a rare player-for-player swap at the same position, with Spencer Dinwiddie heading to Toronto and Dennis Schroder and Thaddeus Young making the move to Brooklyn, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Dinwiddie is averaging 12.6 points and 6.0 assists per game on 39.1/32.0/78.1 shooting splits, as he’s had a rough shooting year in Brooklyn, while Schroder is averaging 13.7 points and 6.1 assists on 44.2/35.0/85.2 shooting splits in Toronto.

The deal gets Toronto off of the $13 million owed to Schroder next year, while the Nets get a point guard having a better season (who also has some defensive chops) to play alongside Bridges and Cam Johnson. All told, it’s shuffling deck chairs for both teams, but a move that makes sense for both.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes, but Star Wars fans are absolutely wondering what’s going on with the Disney-owned franchise. Earlier today, the X account for Empire magazine wrote, “TOMORROW. 4PM,” along with an image of the recognizable Star Wars background with the words “hello there…” That’s all the information out there so far, but considering the “hello there…” quote is Obi-Wan’s oft-repeated catchphrase of sorts, the top speculation is that Obi-Wan Kenobi season two will be announced tomorrow.

The thing is, Obi-Wan himself, Ewan McGregor, recently told Variety there’s been “no talk” of a second season. He added, “There is a lot going on at Disney.” But McGregor “would love to do the second season,” and he’s even pitched ideas to director Deborah Chow.

“You always think you’re going to end a series like this in some magnificent way, but instead you end up in a parking lot with second unit and hardly anybody there. It’s always so anti­climactic, but as Ewan and I finished our very last shot on second unit and I was literally taking off my headphones, he was already pitching me ideas for season two,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. “There’s another 10 years with plenty of stories, and I don’t think it’s off the board. It is a ‘never say never’ situation, but we really did conceive this to be a limited series.

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. Fingers crossed for a Kit Fisto movie.

Vampire Weekend’s last album cycle couldn’t have gone any better. Father Of The Bride, which Uproxx lauded as “The Adult Pop Album That 2019 Needed,” claimed Best Alternative Music Album at the 2020 Grammys. By December 2021, lead vocalist Ezra Koenig shared Vampire Weekend “almost” had “an album’s worth of songs,” and last June, a Vampire Weekend newsletter teased its forthcoming album “just might be our best yet.”

We will soon find out.

This morning, February 8, Vampire Weekend announced Only God Was Above Us, their first album in five years, will arrive on April 5. And there was even more good news in the press release: “Vampire Weekend will celebrate the upcoming release of their fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, with a special live performance in Austin, Texas, during the historic total eclipse on April 8 at 12 p.m. at the Moody Amphitheater.”

How To Get Tickets To Vampire Weekend’s Total Eclipse Concert In Austin

As per press release, the general public on-sale is set for Tuesday, February 13, beginning at 10 a.m. CST. On Vampire Weekend’s official website, click “PRESALE” next to the Moody Amphitheater date, and you will be sent here to “RSVP for first access to presale tickets,” which will start on Friday, February 9, at 10 a.m. CST, by entering your phone number. Find more ticketing information here.

Watch the album trailer above, and check out the Only God Was Above Us cover artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Ice Cream Piano”
2. “Classical”
3. “Capricorn”
4. “Connect”
5. “Prep-School Gangsters”
6. “The Surfer”
7. “Gen-X Cops”
8. “Mary Boone”
9. “Pravda”
10. “Hope”

Only God Was Above Us is out 4/5 via Columbia Records. Find more information here.