Month: March 2024

Flow Festival Helsinki is bringing a pretty cool lineup to Finland this summer (from August 9 to 11), featuring Fred Again.., The Smile, Jessie Ware, Idles, Alvvays, Pulp, Denzel Curry, Raye, Blonde Redhead, and PJ Harvey. Now, the roster has gotten even better.

The electronic music experts over at Resident Advisor recently announced they’re hosting the festival’s Front Yard stage this year, for the sixth time. Across the festival’s three days, RA will host performances by Young Marco, Helena Hauff, Héctor Oaks, LSDXOXO, Job Jobse, Animistic Beliefs, DJ Fart In The Club, DJ Gigola, DJ Spit, Pablo Bozzi, Paula Koski, Denzel & Joni DJ, MORA, Marju, Karoliina Pärnänen, Mr Velcro Fastener, emkay, Malin Nyqvist, Laura MRLS, DJ JVS, Jeku, Mary Young, and ATI.

Tickets for the 18+ event (the whole fest, not just RA’s part) are available now via the Flow Festival website. Three-day passes start at 239€ (about $261), while a two-day pass goes for 199€ ($218) and a one-day pass is 129€ ($141) for Friday or Sunday, or 149€ ($163) for Saturday.

Flow Festival, meanwhile, was among the nominees for Best Festival Creative at the 2024 Uproxx Sound + Vision Awards. Sound + Vision is “a first-of-its-kind award honoring the creative direction that helps music connect with its audience, adding untold value and nuance to the art form.” The awards were chosen by “a panel of creative directors, photographers, designers, and industry professionals, representing projects whose impact was felt in 2023.”

The eyes.

In a profession where a story can live (or die) with a stare, a glance, or a knowing gaze, Cillian Murphy has a natural resource most actors would kill for. His are the kind of icy blues that hold an audience hostage, the ones Billie Eilish writes songs about. They can terrify, unsettle, mesmerize, and madden at whim – and throughout his nearly 30-year career, the Irish export has deftly wielded them to captivate fans of both TV and film. It’s strange that only now, after years of commanding performances that made him a regular hire with directors like Danny Boyle and Christopher Nolan, Murphy is finally receiving his flowers. His talent has always been there, easily observed or, more often than not, impossible to miss, but the purist approach he takes to role choosing means he’s eschewed the expected route of big-budget blockbuster, star-studded limited series, and superhero team-up exclusivity that so many of his peers have tread. It’s why, for every Oppenheimer and Dunkirk you’ll find an Irish-made indie crime comedy or cult-favorite thriller on his IMDb page.

Murphy can be counted on to be the best part of anything he’s in, but he’s rarely been promoted to leading man status. As we embrace the Cillian Murphy Appreciation Era and welcome others to the party, let’s take a look back at his impressive filmography – some performances we loved, and some that flew under the radar for far too long.

15. Disco Pigs (2001)

As Phoebe Waller-Bridge might say, “This is a love story.” A very fucked up, bloody love story. Born on the same day, in the same hospital, and living as next-door neighbors, Pig (Murphy) and Runt (Elaine Cassidy) bring out the very worst in each other. Reckless, isolated, and often times sociopathic — the pair tear through their small Irish town as their platonic bond evolves into something more sexual, and much darker than anticipated. This marks the debut of Murphy, who stumbled into the audition and impressed playwright Enda Walsh with his raw talent and unfiltered self-confidence. As Pig, Murphy is a heaving, shouting battering ram fueled by angst, obsession, and uncontrollable rage. You’ll have a hard time turning away.

14. Intermission (2003)

Another Irish experiment, this time shot in a documentary style that flips through multiple points of view, Intermission is a black crime comedy filled with recognizable statesmen. Everyone from Colm Meaney to Colin Farrell chews up scenery in this tale of a bank robbery gone wrong, a bleakly funny bus accident, and a break-up that pushes a man to the brink. Murphy is that man, a tortured, bumbling romantic hero trying to win back his girlfriend (Kelly Macdonald) by the dumbest means necessary. Later in his career, Murphy would choose to play more refined, stoic men with conflicts more internal in nature, so it’s a joy to watch him flail and flounder his way to a happy ending here.

13. Anthropoid (2016)

This tense spy thriller recounts the real World War II mission that tasked Czech soldiers with assassinating SS General Reinhard Heydrich — the mastermind behind the Nazi’s Final Solution. Along with Jamie Dornan, Murphy plays one of the agents of chaos, a reserved and focused comrade hell-bent on contributing to the war effort, even at the cost of his life and others. The film suffers from pacing issues, and Dornan’s character isn’t given much to do, but Murphy commands the screen as Jozef, a seemingly unfeeling cog in the machine whose steel facade begins to crack when his mission goes awry.

12. Free Fire (2016)

A miscommunication and a melee of bullets thrust audiences straight into the action of this genre thriller starring Murphy, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, and Jack Reynor. After an arms deal gone wrong and a double-cross done badly, Murphy’s IRA boss Chris finds himself in a ridiculously chaotic shootout where no one can truly win. Everyone earns some laughs thanks to a darkly comedic script and fast-paced dialogue but Murphy somehow manages to infuse some backbone into what could’ve been a paint-by-numbers last-man-standing type.

11. The Party (2017)

A social satire with sharp teeth, this British comedy traps a group of friends for a celebration that soon spirals out of control. Everyone’s hiding a secret and, before the canapes burn, shots will be fired. While Patricia Clarkson undeniably gets the best lines, it’s Murphy’s turn as a scorned lover / coke-sniffing investment banker that keeps things teetering on the high-wire between comedy and dread. The claustrophobic nature of the film’s setting makes Tom’s erratic physicality even more threatening and it’s his anarchic energy that serves as the catalyst for this dinner party disaster.

10. Dunkirk (2017)

Proving that no part is too small should Christopher Nolan come calling, Murphy’s turn as the “Shivering Soldier” in this historical drama chronicling the rescue mission of 330,000 allied soldiers from the beaches of France in 1940 is memorable, impressively so. Shell-shocked and sporting a one-thousand-yard star, Murphy’s lone survivor is all desperation, driven by the instinctual need to escape the horrors he knows await. In a film oversaturated with huge battle sequences and nail-biting stakes, the visceral emotions the actor conveys give the film the reality-grounding moments it needs.

9. A Quiet Place II (2020)

John Krasinski recruits Murphy for this sequel to his surprise horror hit, following Emily Blunt’s Evelyn and the rest of the Abbott family venture into the unknown following a terrible tragedy. Murphy’s Emmett is a hardened, reclusive survivor — and old friend of Evelyn’s husband — who reluctantly shelters them before accepting a rescue mission that has life-changing consequences for them all. Grimy and grizzled, Murphy’s almost unrecognizable under mountains of facial hair and a trucker cap. His lone wolf anti-hero is nihilistic, understandably so, but it’s the way Murphy plays his relationship with Regan (Millicent Simmons) that reminds us of this man’s suffering, and his ability to still see good in the world.

8. Batman Begins (2005)

Thank the comic book gods that Murphy didn’t nab the initial role he auditioned for in Nolan’s inspired superhero reboot because a cowl and cape would’ve only limited this destined villain. Instead, Nolan saw a madness glittering in Murphy’s glacial orbs, casting him as the gleefully deranged Dr. Jonathan Crane — a surprisingly worthy adversary to Christian Bale’s Dark Knight. A haystack of hair, a thinly-wired pair of spectacles, and a truly unhinged phonetic reading of the word “Batman” marks Murphy as one of the best baddies to ever do it in DC film lore.

7. Inception (2010)

The spoiled son of a dying billionaire, Murphy’s Robert Fischer is the mark, not the mastermind behind Nolan’s dream-within-a-dream sci-fi caper. No, that honor goes to Leonardo DiCaprio whose visionary architect leads a team of dream thieves on the biggest heist of their careers. As Fischer, Murphy could’ve easily leaned too far into the unlikable, giving us an aloof nepo baby we could easily root against. Instead, his heartbreaking realization that his estranged father held genuine love for him is the movie’s biggest payoff solely because Murphy sells the emotional epiphany as if his life depended on it.

6. Sunshine (2007)

Danny Boyle’s ode to the sci-fi classics that came before manifests as this deep space disaster starring everyone from Michelle Yeoh to Chris Evans and Rose Byrne. Along with Murphy, they play an international group of astronauts on a mission to save a dying star before the Earth freezes over. Unlike the rest of his team, Murphy’s uber-cerebral outsider is in on the secret — there’s no way home for anyone on this ship. It’s a more subdued turn from Murphy — though Boyle makes heavy use of how those endless arctic depths look against the sterile, sparse backdrop of a clunky spaceship.

5. Red Eye (2005)

Just 20 minutes into Wes Craven’s high-flying thriller you’ll come to realize you’re watching the wrong movie. What begins as a rom-com, complete with a meet-cute that feels designed by fate, quickly morphs into an agonizing hostage situation in which Murphy terrorizes poor Rachel McAdams within an inch of her sanity. Equal parts charm and menace, Murphy’s Jackson Rippner (subtle this film is not) has murderous designs that hinge on the help of McAdams’ hotel manager, Lisa. The two try to outsmart each other at every turn in a heart-pumping cat-and-mouse game filled with just enough chemistry to cause you to question whether you can have Stockholm Syndrome for a fictional character.

4. The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006)

A heartbreaking war drama centered on two brothers fighting for their country, albeit in different ways, this Ken Loach-directed period piece sports an emotionally charged performance from Murphy. As Damien, a promising young doctor eager to escape the troubles in Ireland, Murphy begins the film as a passive observer, then reluctant participant in these homegrown atrocities done in the name of freedom. Soon though, as friends dies and his brother is tortured, he’s radicalized to the call — even as it costs him everything. Murphy delivers a full-spectrum transformation here, playing Damien as a sympathetic, stubborn convert who you can’t help but root for.

3. 28 Days Later (2002)

Murphy makes one hell of a first impression in Danny Boyle’s horror franchise starter, which marks the first time a mainstream audience witnessed his talent on the big screen. As Jim, a bicycle courier who wakes up from a coma to a deserted, ravaged London infected by a virus that turns humans into mindless rage machines, Murphy is our entry point. It’s a tough job — to be both main character and plot-dumping lens — but he pulls it off, morphing from a terror-stricken young man to a by-any-means-necessary survivor with blood on his hands.

2. Peaky Blinders (2013)

Speaking of red hands, the theme song and slo-mo walks aren’t the only things that set this Steven Knight-created gangster drama apart from the rest of the prestige streaming crowd. As Tommy Shelby, a war vet suffering from PTSD who harbors insatiable ambitions and bears the weight of his family’s survival on his shoulders, Murphy mesmerizes. He’s all trimmed vests, Brummie twang, and shark-like eyes with ruthless business acumen and a tongue sharper than the razors stored in his cap. His evolution from a small-time criminal to corrupt politician is a whirlwind of double-crosses, backroom dealings, murder plots, and meticulous planning — and Murphy drives it all with a simmering rage just waiting to be triggered.

1. Oppenheimer (2023)

Surviving on a girl dinner of cigarettes and dirty martinis with haunted eyes and cheekbones so defined they’re basically a walking advert for buccal fat removal, Murphy shrinks in on himself to play the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Playing various versions of the tortured genius through time — a suicidal student, a celebrated physics professor, and the author of a world-destroying weapon — Murphy taps into the man’s mania, obsession, and self-inflated ego as he crafts a death-dealing invention with the help of his fellow scientists. But, it’s his turn as an older, more jaded, regret-riddled man reflecting on his legacy and the ethics of what he’s done that prove Murphy is practically peerless on screen.

The first reviews for Love Lies Bleeding are piling in, and the critics agree that Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian have chemistry for days. Directed by Rose Glass, this erotic noir thriller follows a gym manager (Stewart) who follows in love with a body-builder (Stewart) as the two embark on a “genuinely hot” romance that leaves a trail of bodies in their wake.

As you can tell by the excerpts below, Love Lies Bleeding has critics transfixed by the two leads and the film’s all-consuming vibes that will apparently “torment” you in all the right ways:

Kristy Puchko, Mashable:

There are movies that grab you by the throat. There are movies that punch you in the gut. Love Lies Bleeding is both, and I f*cking love it. From the mind of Rose Glass, writer/director of the 2020 stunner Saint Maud, comes a queer romance that’s as packed with thrills as it is with raw sensuality and dazzling star power. Come for Kristen Stewart sporting a DIY mullet and a dirty mouth. Come for Katy O’Brian (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s scene-stealing warrior princess Jentorra) flexing not only her muscles but her range as a beguiling bodybuilder with a perm as big as her dreams. Come for Ed Harris and Dave Franco in roles both comedic and nerve-rattling. But come.

Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com:

At first, “Love Lies Bleeding” feels like a relatively straightforward noir with the outsider in Jackie almost stumbling into decisions that can’t be reversed. It’s been compared to “Drive” and “Thelma & Louise,” but there’s also a bit of the great “Red Rock West” and other films about strangers who get stuck in the small town they just wanted to spend a night in. When a shocking and gory act of violence forever alters Jackie & Lou’s relationship, “Love Lies Bleeding” really picks up steam, pushing its characters into increasingly tight spaces from which violence may provide the only escape.

Kate Erbland, IndieWire:

It’s the pair’s crackling chemistry — which Glass funnels into a series of genuinely hot sex scenes that more than prove the necessity for such sequences in films that hinge on actual human romantic relationships — that drives “Love Lies Bleeding,” an alternately alluring and excruciating crime thriller that also smacks of body horror and midnight movie thrills. Glass, who previously earned scads of instant fans with her “Saint Maud,” again tackles the human body as a vessel for pain, pleasure, and so much more.

Brianna Zigler, Paste:

The ultimate, simple thesis of Love Lies Bleeding is embedded within its form from the very beginning. At the onset of the film, you are plunged into a world of all-encompassing sound. The horrific squelch of a blocked toilet, the slurp of a milkshake into a mouth guarded by browned nubs, the crack and squish of teeth biting into the hard shell of a beetle; the fantastical crunch of veins bulging beneath skin after a shot of steroids, the crack of a head against a glass table until it breaks open like an egg. The tactile world Glass has crafted is just as immersive and erotic in its design as it is physically between her two lead lovers.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

“Love Lies Bleeding” turns wild and garish, and you may think the film is losing control, yet Rose Glass is fiercely in control of what she’s doing. She’s made a midnight noir that shoots over the top of our expectations but lands where it should, at a place where even valorous people have to go to extremes.

Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times:

“Love Lies Bleeding” has superb technical style. We can hear the muscles rippling under Jackie’s skin, and the ominous difference between quiet and airless. Cinematographer Ben Fordesman shoots the movie like a prestige noir. At night, the desert blacks are as dense and mysterious as the La Brea Tar Pits. But Glass herds the tone toward comedy, teasing us to admit that Lou and Jackie’s predicament is funny. … Then again, “Love Lies Bleeding” isn’t really about love. It might not be about anything besides Glass’ own urge to poke and prod audiences to remember the kinky delight of movies that leave us dangling. The torment is delicious.

Love Lies Bleeding is now playing in theaters.

Being a Jack Black costar seems like a fun time. The cast of the Super Mario Bros. Movie got to find that out firsthand as they got to perform an acapella version of the game’s iconic theme song and watch the hilarious Bowser actor turn his character’s brokenhearted ballad (“Peaches“) into a bonafide cultural phenomenon.

Now, it’s the Kung-Fu Panda 4 cast’s turn to goof off with the king of goofing off. As it turns out, the Tenacious D cover of Britney Spears’ debut hit “…Baby One More Time” Black shared a few weeks ago was for the film. Now, there’s a music video to go along with it and a bunch of the cast — Awkwafina, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, and Ke Huy Quan included — teamed up with Black and his bandmate Kyle Gass to wreak havoc on Hollywood’s historic TCL Chinese Theater while performing and dancing to the song. Unfortunately, despite Black’s plea to work with Spears directly, she doesn’t show up in the video. I’m sure she appreciates the love, though.

Kung-Fu Panda 4 is in theaters now and garnering solid reviews (its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is currently a couple of points higher than the third one’s). You can watch Jack Black and co. cover Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” above.

When the Mad Max prequel was announced and Anya Taylor-Joy was cast as a young Furiosa, the burning question on everyone’s mind was if Taylor-Joy would shave her head like Charlize Theron’s iteration of the character. And Taylor-Joy was certainly on board, that is until George Miller stepped in.

“I was so excited to shave my head, then [filmmaker George Miller] saw me in real life, and went, ‘No, we can’t,’” the actress revealed to Empire. While they did not end up taking a buzzer to her head, with the magic of CGI and some good wig caps, Furiosa is still seen with her iconic buzzcut in the trailer.

As for Theron, who has previously mentioned that seeing someone else step into the role is “too hard,” she had been in touch with Taylor-Joy throughout the film’s production. “She’s been so classy and kind in letting me go and do it,” Taylor-Joy said of Theron. “But I feel very lucky that, from the second I read the script, I just knew this person. I felt so fiercely protective over Furiosa, and fiercely protective of her interests,” Taylor-Joy revealed.

Even though the two haven’t met in person, Taylor-Joy has been open about her love for Theron. In 2020, the actress spoke highly of Theron and her take on the character. “The level of commitment by those that have come before me, I endeavor to match that. That makes me really excited. [Charlize is] unbelievable. I have so much respect for the originators of this crazy world.”

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which also stars Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, and Nathan Jones, will follow the young heroine as she travels across a wasteland to try to make her way back home. The movie will hit theaters on May 24th.

(Via Empire)

After years of referring to him as “Sleepy Joe” and fueling concerns about his age (while conveniently ignoring that Donald Trump is only four years younger), Fox News now thinks Joe Biden is too energetic after he delivered a fiery State of the Union address. Which one is it, guys?

Sean Hannity led the charge by referring to Biden as “Jacked Up Joe” in his post-SOTU commentary. According to Hannity, Biden was “hyper” and an “angry old man,” which seems to be the opposite of “sleepy.” Like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Fox News clearly didn’t know how to react to a Joe Biden who moved so quickly on his feet and took the fight directly to Trump.

Hannity’s rant, via Mediaite:

Tonight, President Joe Biden laid out his radical wishlist for America. His speech was so hyped up it was bizarre. I will not be shouted at the whole hour. Frankly, so at odds with Everyday Joe, it’s even frightening to me. He spent most of the night shouting, speeding through his speech, and clearly overcompensating from the normal, everyday Joe that can barely string two sentences together. At times it became uncomfortable watching him screaming and yelling and speeding through that speech. The AP affectionately called it “feisty.” I guess that’s one way to describe it. Tonight, America saw, let’s say, a very different Joe Biden. I might call him “Jacked-Up Joe.” And that’s being charitable. He sounded like a hyper-caffeinated, angry, old man.

Not one to miss out on public humiliation, Ted Cruz was also on-brand when he repeated Hannity’s talking point verbatim that Biden seemed like an “angry old man.” Cruz also accused Biden of spreading “lie after lie” during his address, which were also Hannity’s exact words at the top of the show.

In short, Cruz brought nothing new to the table except for saying the same words as Hannity, but in a weirder voice. Maybe they could use a little more energy, too.

(Via Mediaite, Fox News)

Ariana Grande’s new album Eternal Sunshine is out now, which has put the spotlight back on the artist. Her relationship with Ethan Slater was a big pop culture story in 2023, so today, people might be wondering:

Are Ariana Grande & Ethan Slater Still Dating?

It would appear so, yes.

As InStyle notes, during a recent interview on The Zach Sang Show, Sang asked if there was anything Grande wished people knew and she answered, “Plenty. We don’t have enough time. I feel like we don’t need to go into any specifics, but, of course, there’s like an insatiable frustration, inexplicable, hellish feeling with watching people, misunderstand the people you love and you and anything.”

Sang then asked if the new album will set the record straight and Grande said, “I hope so. I think it does. I think it’s the absolute worst idea. Pieces of it touch on things that are real and then pieces of it are part of the concept. So, what is that separation? It’s scary to leave it up to these selective memory people to decipher.”

As for Eternal Sunshine, fans are convinced “The Boy Is Mine” is about Slater (as Cosmopolitan notes). In a Zane Lowe interview, Grande said of the song, “It’s kind of like, ‘OK, I’ll play the bad girl, here’s your bad girl anthem. […] I kind of was like, ‘This is a very bad idea, I think, but there is a large group of my fans that really, they do love a bad girl anthem.’ And this is kind of an elevated version of that.”

Writer and director Yorgos Lanthimos loves to make his audiences uncomfortable, whether it’s in the subject matter presented on screen or the way he presents it. He loves using fish-eye lenses and extreme depth-of-field to distort the image, making even the most mundane moments in his films feel extraordinarily unsettling. Most of the time, his movies are also pretty funny, drawing humor from the absurdity of the human experience. His latest film, Poor Things, is definitely funny, but it also has more than its fair share of truly uncomfortable ideas and scenes.

Like Lanthimos, multi-hyphenate creative Nathan Fielder loves to provoke and disturb, leaving his audiences laughing and cringing in equal turn. When added to the searing discomfort that comes with the work of writer/actor Benny Safdie, you get The Curse, a Showtime limited series in turns hilarious and horrifying and almost always manages to be awkward.

Both The Curse and Poor Things use deeply discomforting humor to deal with topics like womanhood, pregnancy, and playing God, but they’re more deeply linked by actor Emma Stone, who stars in both. In Poor Things, she plays Bella Baxter, created by a Dr. Frankenstein-like father called God (Willem Dafoe) when he discovered a pregnant body washed ashore and chose to put the woman’s unborn infant’s brain inside of the adult mother’s body. She’s hyper-sexual but spends about a third of the movie in a toddler-like state, which can be both comical and tough to stomach. In The Curse she’s Whitney Siegel, an architect and interior designer who is trying to both get pregnant and create a HGTV series about her special eco-friendly homes with her husband, Asher (Fielder).

The characters could not be more different. Whitney is hyper-sensitive to how she’s perceived at all times, carefully manufacturing a persona that will help her sell houses and bring good to the world, albeit performatively. She longs to be put on a pedestal, objectified, like a deity or regent. Hell, the name of her HGTV series even ends up being “Green Queen.” Bella, by stark contrast, would rather disappear into the world so she can both observe and enjoy it. She has been objectified by men since her unconventional birth and longs only to be her own person.

In The Curse, Stone wrings comedy from the awkward situations Whitney finds herself in, so desperate to be politically correct and well-liked that she can’t see how much people loathe her and find her fake. She’s cringey because she cares way, way too much about what other people think, while Bella in Poor Things is the opposite. She doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks, really, following her own desires and moral compass without apology. Her brand of cringe comes from how many of her actions feel out of line with societal norms, while the people around her often react in big, emotional ways.

Where Stone allows herself to be the butt of the joke as Whitney, inspiring laughs by skewering liberal women’s white guilt, as Bella the joke is often more juvenile. Bella loves sex, which she calls “furious jumping,” and we see her having all kinds of sex with a variety of people, though it’s never played for titillation. As Alan Rickman said in Dogma, sex is the joke of heaven, and Lanthimos highlights the absurdity of human sexuality with awkward camera angles and lingering shots of slapping bodies. It’s not shown as shameful, but people around Bella are ashamed of her openness, making for plenty of slightly uncomfortable laughs.

Both roles require intense vulnerability from Stone, who lays herself bare both physically and emotionally. Where some actors might balk at looking so incredibly foolish, she gives it her all. She disappears into both roles, her own ego completely removed from the equation, and audiences are all the better for it. That’s not to say that her co-stars aren’t also bringing their A games, as Fielder and Safdie are both intensely discomforting and often unlikable in their roles, and Poor Things features hilariously uncomfortable performances from Mark Ruffalo, Christopher Abbott, and Margaret Qualley. But Stone is the center of both of these worlds, and they hinge entirely on her ability to be captivating as well as cringe-inducing. Since both Poor Things and The Curse seem to exist in worlds just adjacent to our own, she has to ground things for the audience and feel human enough to follow.

Stone has always been great in roles that tiptoe right around the edge of cringe comedy, first evidenced in teen comedies like Superbad and Easy A and the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love. In 2018, she starred in the Netflix miniseries Maniac and in her first collaboration with Lanthimos, The Favourite. This was the beginning of her ascent to cringe comedy queendom.

Maniac showed her ability to balance pitch-black humor with real emotional dramatic weight. In Maniac, she plays Annie, a woman with borderline personality disorder who forms unhealthy attachments to people and seeks to heal herself through a pharmaceutical trial. The series gets as deliciously weird as both The Curse and Poor Things, though it does not push as many potentially uncomfortable buttons as either. It allowed Stone to really show her range and her ability for more complicated kinds of comedy, as she played multiple versions of the same character, each with their own neuroses. The Favourite forces her into some pretty debasing positions as a grasping potential lover of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). She ended up enjoying working with the Greek director so much that she starred in his short, Bleat, before going on to collaborate again on Poor Things.

Stone doesn’t just inhabit these characters and bring them to life — she also helps shape their worlds behind the scenes, as she is a producer on both The Curse and Poor Things. For the latter, she’s been nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Picture. She already won Best Actress for her role in the slightly schmaltzy 2016 Hollywood musical La La Land, so it will be interesting to see if she can snag a second trophy for a very different kind of performance. Regardless of whether or not she takes home any Oscars for Poor Things, she’s clearly made her mark as a complex comedian to be reckoned with. All hail the new queen of cringe. Long may she reign.

Ariana Grande’s latest album, Eternal Sunshine, is out for all to enjoy. However, due to the controversy surrounding her latest rumored relationship with Ethan Slater, most are tuning in to pick it apart for clues. After news of the “Yes, And?” singer’s split from her now ex-husband Dalton Gomez (no relation to Selena Gomez), users online were in a frenzy.

Instead of addressing the questions about her divorce from Gomez or her relationship with then-married Slater, Grande has remained silent. Now, with the project available across streaming (leakers be damned), it appears that she has used her art yet again to respond to the attacks on her character. But did she ever reference Slater? Continue below more.

Are Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine Songs About Ethan Slater?

Life inmates art. But, in the case of Ariana Grande, fans believe it to be quite the opposite. Just as the Arianators are excited to listen to Eternal Sunshine, so are the tea sippers. After combing through the project, users online believe Grande made several mentions of her rumored relationship with Ethan Slater.

According to listeners, Grande wasted no time diving straight into it on the album’s opener, “Intro (End of the World).” The opening verse alludes to her seemingly falling in love with Slater after their first interaction.

“How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship? / Aren’t you really supposed to know that sh*t? / Feel it in your bones and own that sh*t? I don’t know / Then I had this interaction I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout for like five weeks / Wonder if he’s thinkin’ ’bout it too and smiling / Wonder if he knows that that’s been what’s inspirin’ me / Wonder if he’s judgin’ me like I am right now,” sings Grande.

Other references throughout the album are vague, but on “The Boy Is Mine,” Grande seems to be calling back to their secret relationship yet again. “Please know this ain’t what I planned for / Probably wouldn’t bet a dime or my life on / There’s gotta be a reason why / My girls, they always come through in a sticky situation / Say, ‘It’s fine’ / Happens all the time,” sings Grande.

The forbidden love fest didn’t stop there. In the official video for “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love),” folks online have begun to compare Evan Peters, who stars in the visual, and Slater.

Eternal Sunshine is out now via Republic. Find more information here.

Lola Brooke is four months removed from the release of her debut album Dennis Daughter and keeps her momentum rolling in 2024 with a new single, “Bend It Ova.” The hyperactive single is a borough-blending, region-crashing crossover, featuring verses from Bronx rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and New Orleans Bounce icon Big Freedia. The beat blends the best of both artists’ favored production styles, pairing A Boogie’s moody piano riffs with a flashy NOLA beat for a track that is sure to see listeners doing exactly what the song says.

Earlier this year, Lola Brooke followed up her first project with an appearance on Wyclef Jean’s PSA “Paper Right” alongside R&B star Capella Grey, coke rap mainstay Pusha T, and hooper-turned-rapper Flau’jae Johnson. Meanwhile, her September track “You” with Bryson Tiller remains a fan favorite, racking up 15 million views on YouTube and over 13 million streams on Spotify.

A Boogie is also planning on expanding his discography this year, promoting his upcoming album Better Off Alone to capitalize on the buzz he acquired from appearing on “Calling” from the Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse soundtrack by Metro Boomin.

Listen to Lola Brooke’s “Bend It Ova” featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Big Freedia above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.