Month: February 2024

In case any Swifties were planning on taking a trip to their local mall, Build-A-Bear has released new Taylor Swift-themed accessories to decorate your stuffed animal with. For those who are either looking for a gift for a younger loved one or just shopping for themselves, here’s what to know.

How To Buy Build-A-Bear’s Taylor Swift-Inspired Accesories

Ahead of the Super Bowl this weekend, Build-A-Bear has rolled out a bunch of new outfits and accessories — some of which are Swift-themed, given her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce. Fans can either purchase the items online through the company’s website or try at an in-person location near them.

As some examples for the Swift items, there are currently a few sets, with shirts that read “In My Football Era” and “Karma Is My Bearfriend.” If purchased as a gift set, which includes bottoms for the animal and some shoes. Through a Valentine’s Sale happening right now, the sets start at $43.80.

If you’re just looking to purchase the Swift-themed shirts, those start at $8.50 right now. Fans can even pick out their own Chiefs jersey and add a football accessory to match if you were wanting to craft a Kelce bear instead.

To view the full collection and find more information, visit their website.

Joe Budden has long been better known for his controversial opinions about pop culture than for his music, but his latest targets have equally large platforms and are fighting back against his latest rant. In the wake of the 2024 Grammy Awards, the newest episode of The Joe Budden Podcast found the New Jersey curmudgeon loudly venting against both the show itself — specifically, Travis Scott’s performance — and against streamers like Kai Cenat and Adin Ross, who were upset that Killer Mike won in three rap categories over their generation’s favorite artists like Drake, Metro Boomin, and Travis Scott.

“Shut your ass up,” he said, addressing the angry streamers. “Yo, y’all lil streaming n****s don’t always run sh*t. Shut the f*ck up! We don’t care about none of that little streaming, moshpit, marked car whatever you n****s is doing over there… I’m just so happy that the streaming — that the little f*ckity f*cks finally, finally have a look-in-the-mirror moment and say, ‘Oh, it’s not about us.’ No, adults are out, n***a. N****s got pocket handkerchiefs in. N****s got fly sh*t on. Yeah, real execs, business people, you little f*ckity f*cks.”

However, on their own respective streams, Cenat and Ross struck back. During his stream on Twitch, Cenat said, “What we have here is a case of old n**** syndrome… Stop talking about streaming n****s like we some lil’ n****s. I could buy you.” He also pointed out Budden’s habit of hating on younger entertainers, saying, “I could pull up like 20 clips of you doubting every 2016 [XXL] Freshman, and look at them boys right now,” before administering the coup de grace: “You got one hit, Joe! ‘Pump it up!’”

Meanwhile, on Kick, Ross was even nastier, saying, “Joe Budden, every time I see you or a clip of you, it’s just on some hating sh*t. I’ma be honest, bro, I don’t know what you do. I can’t even name one Joe Budden song, respectfully… You’re one of these old asses who hates. Why can’t you be more like Rick Ross or Snoop Dogg, the OGs that are cool as f*ck and show flowers to the young motherf*ckers? You have no room to talk, no room to speak.”

Unfortunately, both sides have good points. As per usual, the generational divide in hip-hop is the culprit, but neither side is taking the appropriate steps to bridge that gap (to paraphrase Dave Chappelle: Where’s J. Cole??). In the midst of Budden’s rant is a nugget of truth: maybe 22-year-olds aren’t in the best position to present themselves as authorities on rap music — especially if they refuse to engage with it past the obvious streaming favorites and hip-hop that barely counts as hip-hop.

But the streamers, jive turkeys that they are (I’m looking at white supremacist/misogynist apologist Ross here), have a point of their own: Joe Budden is a huge hater. Seriously, every time he goes viral it’s for another clip of him that sounds very much like he never got over being dropped by Def Jam, then torching his second chance at Shady Records. If anyone needs a “look in the mirror” moment, it’s Joe.

After being nominated for an Academy Award, it’s probably normal for actors to get unsolicited phone calls from random “friends” trying to congratulate them (or get a plus one to the big show). It’s not unheard of for actors to become unreachable after their big break, but Paul Giamatti seems unreachable for various other reasons.

Giamatti is up for an Academy Award this year for his role in The Holdovers. While that might seem like the most pressing thing on his mind, Howard Stern is trying to call him out for being so “unreachable.” To be fair, the guy has been pretty busy this year, but he should check his voicemail more often.

Giamatti reunited with his Private Parts costar Howard Stern when Stern revealed that he heard Giamatti was trying to get in touch with him. “Recently I got this message, I get it every once in a while, that ‘Paul Giamatti wants to speak with you.’” Stern confessed. “I call you, I get your number…maybe I’m being goofed on,” Stern said after Giamatti confirmed that he doesn’t want to speak with him. Howard Stern is a pretty frequent talker, as we all know.

But it seems like there is a lot of miscommunication in Hollywood. Giamatti explained that he also gets frequent requests from Cher, who is allegedly a huge fan. “Every now and then I get a message: ‘Cher really needs to talk to me.’ Like it’s crucial that she talks to me,” Paul revealed. “And I’m like, ‘What the f*ck? Why does she want to talk to me?’ Nobody will tell me, and then I never hear anything, and then a year will go by, and it happens again.”

Eventually, the pop diva did get in touch with the actor. “All she said was, ‘I hear you want to talk to me,’” Paul laughed. “I left her a message and I said, ‘That’s great. I’d love to talk to you, but I thought you wanted to talk to me!’ And that’s the last I heard [from her],” he explained.

Even though he got the message, he hasn’t been able to reach her. “I don’t know what she could possibly want to talk to me about, and it’s killing me. I’m dying to know what she wants to talk about,” Paul concluded. “I’d love to talk to her about anything. I don’t care, it would be fantastic.” Maybe Cher is looking to cast Giamatti in a Moonstruck reboot??

Despite his mysterious relationship with Cher, Giamatti assured Stern that the radio host would be the first to get a shoutout if he won his Oscar. “I’m not kidding when I say I credit you totally [for helping launch my career],” Paul told Howard, adding, “If I win that thing, I’m going to thank you.” Finally, the Academy will recognize Stern’s important contribution to cinema.

Check out the full clip above.

Christopher Nolan is a man of distinguished taste. His favorite films include MacGruber, Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, and of course, the Fast & Furious films. Nothing but the true classics for the Oppenheimer director, as he details after the 3:00 mark above.

While this might sound like a bit, believe us, it’s not. Nolan recently sat down for a lengthy interview with Stephen Colbert where the iconic filmmaker made it clear that he’s ride or die when it comes to Dom Toretto and the importance of backyard barbecues with your family after driving a car into space.

Via Men’s Health:

“I watch those movies all the time,” Nolan continued to Colbert. “I love them! I am amazed you’ve never seen one,” he reiterated. The director then began briefing Colbert on franchise mythology, telling him it’s not necessary to rush through his viewing experience.

“You do not need to watch them all in one sitting,” Nolan warned in a schoolmasterly tone. “It’s only the last few [installments] where a very specific arc of mythology starts to develop.”

Determined to bring Colbert into the Toretto family fold, Nolan told the late night host which Fast & Furious film to start with for the best cinematic experience possible. Colbert is clearly being mentored by the best when it comes to fully appreciating the fine art of hurling cars at everything from tanks to Jason Momoa’s face.

“I would start with Tokyo Drift,” Nolan instructed Colbert, “and just watch that as its own thing, to warm you up.”

Kacey Musgraves is entering her Deeper Well era, as she dropped the title track from her next album. She had been teasing it both for fans on social media and through a trailer that aired during a commercial break of the 2024 Grammy Awards.

The song serves as Musgraves’ way of letting go of what is no longer needed, as she comes out the other side of her Saturn Return — which plays a role in the lyrics. “When I turned 27, everything started to change,” she opens the track, setting the scene for the way her life has shifted.

“Love is the prism, and my role in it,” Musgraves shared in a statement. “I make sense of the world around me by looking for balance and I’d like to think this album is for anyone who’s living life.”

As for the album as a whole, it served as a fresh start. She worked on it at NYC’s Electric Lady Studios, where she found inspiration in the Great American Songbook.

“I didn’t know what kind of record I was going to make,” she added. “Other than the fact that it was going to be soft and organic and honest. My songwriting roots. And about less meaning more. But beyond that, this album is about who I am in love, and what I’m looking for. The songs are very spiritual. I was seeking some different environmental energy for this project, and Electric Lady has the best mojo.”

Check out Kacey Musgraves’ “Deeper Well” above. Below, find the album’s cover art and tracklist.

1. “Cardinal”
2. “Deeper Well”
3. “Too Good To Be True”
4. “Moving Out”
5. “Giver / Taker”
6. “Sway”
7. “Dinner With Friends”
8. “Heart Of The Woods”
9. “Jade Green”
10. “The Architect”
11. “Lonely Millionaire”
12. “Heaven Is”
13. “Anime Eyes”
14. “Nothing To Be Scared Of”

Deeper Well is out 3/15 via Interscope/MCA Nashville. Find more information here.

Faye Webster’s forthcoming album may be titled Underdressed At The Symphony, but the album’s singles have, thus far, overdelivered. Webster’s album rollout inconspicuously began last year, with singles “But Not Kiss” in June and “Lifetime” in September. Webster announced Underdressed At The Symphony alongside “Lego Ring” featuring Lil Yachty in early January, and she shared more 2024 tour dates days later.

Add “Feeling Good Today” to the mix. The 86-second single arrived this morning, February 8, with a video shot by Pooneh Ghana and starring Lili Hayes in “a latex Faye Webster mask,” as per press release. As suggested by its brevity, “Feeling Good Today” is endearingly simple.

“I’m feeling good today,” Webster sings. “I ate before noon / I think that’s pretty good for me.” From there, Webster manages to streamline references to her brother, an exterminator, her dogs, payday, her friends, and her impulse to “find a new hobby just to ditch it.”

Watch the “Feeling Good Today” video above, and check out Webster’s Underdressed At The Symphony artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Thinking About You”
2. “But Not Kiss”
3. “Wanna Quit All the Time”
4. “Lego Ring” Feat. Lil Yachty
5. “Feeling Good Today”
6. “Lifetime”
7. “He Loves Me Yeah!”
8. “ebay Purchase History”
9. “Underdressed At The Symphony”
10. “Tttttime”

Underdressed At The Symphony is out 3/1 via Secretly Canadian. Find more information here.

Vampire Weekend announced their anticipated new album, Only God Was Above Us, marking the band’s first new record in five years. Recorded around the globe in cities from Tokyo to London, they were “inspired and haunted by 20th Century New York City,” which carries as a theme throughout the songs.

While there are no songs yet released from the album, they did reveal what fans can expect in terms of the tracklist. Vampire Weekend pulled the album title’s inspiration from photos that Steven Siegel took of a New Jersey subway graveyard in 1988.

“In the album’s cover, a man in a toppled subway car reads the May 1, 1988 edition of the New York Daily News — the cover story detailing the horrific explosion that tore the roof off Aloha Airlines flight 243,” the press release notes. “The headline quotes a survivor: ‘ONLY GOD WAS ABOVE US.’”

Along with planned festival appearances, they have also announced that they will be performing at Austin’s Moody Theater on April 8, with the concert starting at noon to time up to an eclipse. Tickets for this will go on sale on Tuesday, February 13 at 10 a.m. CT. More information can be found here.

Check out the album trailer above. Continue scrolling to view Vampire Weekend’s Only God Was Above Us tracklist and cover art.

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.

Kate Winslet and HBO can’t quit each other, thank god. Many years after Mildred Pierce, the Titanic star brought it with Mare of Easttown, a canned cheese-fueled mystery/thriller/drama that left viewers wanting another season. That could eventually happen, but first, Winslet will appear as a messy authoritarian ruler (of an unspecified European country) in an upcoming limited series, The Regime.

As the above trailer shows (with a dash of Hugh Grant), Winslet is the chancellor of a dying regime, for which she will do anything to stay on top. That includes becoming increasingly awful to her underlings and apparently driving the country into war. She even takes a Zoom call from an ice bath, so at least we haven’t seen that in the U.S., right? Yet. From the show’s synopsis:

The darkly comedic six-episode series tells the story of life within the walls of a modern authoritarian regime as it begins to unravel. After not leaving the palace for quite some time, Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet) has grown increasingly paranoid and unstable when she turns to a volatile soldier, Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), as an unlikely confidant. As Zubak’s influence over the chancellor continues to grow, Elena’s attempts to expand her power eventually result in both the palace and the country fracturing around her.

The series also stars Martha Plimpton, and Matthias Schoenaerts, and Guillaume Gallienne.

HBO’s The Regime premieres on Sunday, March 3.

The New York Knicks are making a move at the trade deadline to bring in a pair of veterans. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Knicks and the Detroit Pistons agreed to a deal send Alec Burks back to New York.

Wojnarowski and Shams Charania of The Athletic added the details on what Detroit will get back for Burks, who is entering the final year of his contract before hitting unrestricted free agency this summer. In addition to a pair of future second-round picks from the Knicks’ war chest of draft capital, third-year wing Quentin Grimes is on his way to the Motor City.

And then, word came out that this deal is much bigger than just Burks and Grimes. Both Wojnarowski and Charania reported that New York will also acquire Bojan Bogdanovic, with Evan Fournier and Malachi Flynn making their way to Detroit in the deal.

Burks and Bogdanovic — the latter of whom has a partial guarantee on his contract for next season — have been two of the most prominent names to watch as we’ve approached the deadline, and both should give the Knicks a shot in the arm on the offensive end of the floor, particularly as they are waiting for guys like Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, and Mitchell Robinson to return from injuries. As for the Pistons, Grimes is the headliner here, as they turned a pair of their older players into a young wing who has flashed two-way potential during his time in New York. He has, in the past, voiced frustration about his role with the team.

Bogdanovic is averaging 20.2 points per game while connecting on 41.5 percent of his attempts from three, while Burks is at 12.6 points a night and 40.1 percent shooting from behind the arc.

One The Big Bang Theory spinoff is coming to an end soon, but at least two more are sprouting in its place.

Following seven seasons of its nerdy title character constantly getting dunked in toilets by various bullies (I assume), CBS’ Young Sheldon will wrap up in May. The Big Bang Theory is too popular and too valuable a property to lie dormant for too long, so more spinoffs are inevitable — including a spinoff of a spinoff and another that will premiere on Max. The premise of the latter series is being kept a secret, to the point where even Kunal Nayyar, who played Raj on The Big Bang Theory, doesn’t know what it’s about.

“I have not heard anything about this other than what the media has spun out,” he told TVLine. “I’m not entirely sure what it’s about.” As for whether Nayyar would be interested in reprising his role, he replied, “To be honest, it feels a little too soon. Can you do a [revival] only four years after your show ends? That’s not a reunion show; that’s just another season.” However, “if [the spinoff] were to happen,” he added, “we’ll see what the universe says.”

The universe says: all future Big Bang Theory shows need “secret sauce.”

(Via TVLine)