Month: March 2024

As John Williams celebrates his 54th Oscar nomination for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the legendary composer is opening up about his lengthy career creating iconic scores for Harrison Ford’s swashbuckling archaeologist, Superman, E.T., and countless others.

Most notably, Williams turned Star Wars into a space opera for the ages when he first collaborated with up-and-coming filmmaker George Lucas on the original 1977 film. While the franchise is filled with instantly recognizable themes like the Imperial March, Williams revealed that he regrets one inclusion in the classic installment that now seems awkward in retrospect.

Via Variety:

There was one blip in scoring the first movie. “I mistakenly wrote a love theme for Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker. I learned later that they were brother and sister, so it was an incestuous idea to have a love theme for them. But George never told us there was going to be a second film!”

Williams is referring to the revelation in Return of the Jedi that Luke and Leia are long-lost twin siblings, which makes their romantic interludes in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back kinda weird, George!

That said, naturally, Williams is proud of his time on the now-massive franchise, which he never expected to blow up as big as it did.

“Doing it at the time, I didn’t think it was radical,” Williams told Variety about the original Star Wars. “What made it radical was the embrace that it had. People seemed to have been starving for this kind of expression, and here was a vehicle into which it could be put.”

(Via Variety)

Back in January, it was reported that a Calvin Klein ad featuring FKA Twigs had been banned in the United Kingdom. A statement from the Advertising Standards Authority at the time explained, “The ad used nudity and [centered] on FKA twigs’ physical features rather than the clothing, to the extent that it presented her as a stereotypical sexual object. We therefore concluded the ad was irresponsible and likely to cause serious [offense].”

Now, though, BBC reports the ban has been partially lifted. A statement from the ASA reads in part:

“We have made clear that while we think the image of FKA Twigs was overtly sexual (though not sexually explicit), the ad presented her as confident and in control and, therefore, she had not been presented as a stereotypical sexual object. We have, however, maintained our decision that the overtly sexual image of FKA Twigs was not suitable for display in an untargeted medium, a poster, where anyone could see it. In that regard, we thought it was materially different to the mildly sexual and sexually suggestive, but not overtly sexual, images of Kendall Jenner in the other two posters. So, the ban still applies for that reason.”

It also notes, “While the external criticism was important and gave us pause for thought, it was not in fact the reason we revisited our ruling. That reason was our unease about the wording in the ruling explaining our rationale for our decision that FKA Twigs had been objectified. We thought it was inconsistent in its treatment of the three posters and was therefore flawed.”

Some of that external criticism came from Twigs herself, who wrote in January, “i do not see the ‘stereotypical sexual object’ that they have labelled me. i see a beautiful strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine.”

(WARNING: Spoilers for the most recent Love Is Blind episode will be found below.)

The Love Is Blind season six finale is out now! If you’ve watched the episode, you know how things came to an end, if you haven’t, I suggest you stop reading this article right now as some huge spoilers will come in the next sentences.

The episode began with Jimmy telling Chelsea that he would not marry her, making them the third couple to break things off before the set wedding day. They joined Kenneth & Brittany and Laura & Jeramey whose relationships ended earlier this season. While the hope was that the two remaining couples — Clay & AD and Amy & Johnny — would tie the knot, that did not turn out to be the case as only Amy and Johnny said “I do” to each other.

While AD was committed to marriage, Clay was not as he felt it would not be “responsible” for him to say I do as he was not prepared for marriage at that moment. Though Clay hoped their relationship could continue, AD decided it was best that things came to an end. Did the couple stay separated, or did they reunite later on after the wedding?

Are AD & Clay From Love Is Blind Season 6 Still Together?

Both Clay and AD have been asked about their current relationship, but neither has revealed the true nature of it. “I would say you would have to wait and see,” AD told Entertainment Tonight and Clay told the publication “TBD.” Despite this, Business Insider noted small clues that could tell us where Clay and AD stand. They both follow each other on Instagram and TikTok and they have both liked a good amount of each other’s posts on Instagram dating back to last spring. Clay left some fire emojis under AD’s post for her birthday in November 2023 and the two had a nice Instagram interaction after the penultimate episode in Love Is Blind season six aired.

“Turn me up @amberdesiree ,” Clay wrote under a carousel of images he shared on Instagram. “Turn me up Clay ,” AD replied. Prior to the finale, AD and Clay had another playful interaction thanks to a post that AD shared on Instagram. All signs point to things being at least okay, but probably better, between Clay and AD.

‘Love Is Blind’ season 6, episode 12 is now available to stream on Netflix.

We come to this place … to talk about movies.

With awards season in full swing, everyone is building their ballots, picking the best films of the past year that mattered to them. The hosts of Obsessed are no different. In the latest episode of the show, Taylour Chanel, Hollis Wong-Wear, and special guest Drew Dorsey got together to hype the on-screen stories that left a lasting impression on them. Some are Academy Award nominees, others are big-budget Netflix adaptations, but they’re all unique, interesting works of art that helped movies make a comeback in 2023.

From Leave The World Behind to Past Lives, The Holdovers, and of course, Barbie, the ladies break down why their picks deserve a place on everyone’s must-watch list. Dorsey’s choice of apocalyptic thriller practically changed the game in terms of world-ending disaster movies last year while Wong-Wear loved the understated heartbreak of Celine Song’s romance drama and Chanel found a feel-good watch in a story about a cranky college professor babysitting his students over the holidays. And all three film fans were ready to gush over Greta Gerwig’s feminist coming-of-consciousness story seeped in nostalgia, drenched in pink, and set to a killer soundtrack.

Watch the episode above to hear more about their films of the year and why you should add them to your binge-watching queue. Like, now.

There’s nothing quite as terrifying to imagine as being trapped in a house fire. Most people are taught what to do if they smell smoke or a fire breaks out in their house. In fact, one of the biggest positives for encouraging closed doors in the home is the door helps keep the fire contained outside of the door for a longer period of time. This gives anyone trapped inside the room a chance to climb out of the nearest window or a longer window of rescue if the room has no escape.

One couple found themselves living this nightmare when their apartment caught fire while they were trapped inside with their dog. The situation could’ve turned into a much greater tragedy had it not been trash day. Tiffany Dupree, her partner Zac(corr) Braden and their dog Skye were stuck in their burning apartment in Tipton, West Midlands in England when a garbage truck drove by and saw the fire.

Steve Whitehouse and Kevin Marriott were the garbage truck workers who spotted the flames coming from the apartment and spotted Dupree screaming on the balcony. Instead of just calling it in, the garbagemen pulled their truck over and got to work rescuing the occupants inside without hesitation.

— (@)

“I saw a young woman screaming from the balcony and all I could think was that I needed to get to her as quickly as possible, Whitehouse tells BBC Radio.

Upon seeing the woman, Whitehouse jumped out of his truck and scaled a wall in order to get to the balcony, pulling the woman out of harms way within seconds. When Dupree was safe, the garbageman turned his attention to the thick smoke coming from inside the apartment.

“The smoke was getting thicker. I called to anyone else who might be inside and could hear a young man shouting in distress for his dog. I managed to bundle up the dog in a blanket, jumped back down to the ground, and got the owner to throw the dog to me. I then went back up to help him,” Whitehouse explains to BBC Radio.

According to the Daily Mail, firemen believe the fire was started by an e-bike battery exploding while it was charging on the bottom of the stairs. Since the fire originated at the stairwell, it made it impossible for the couple to escape the blaze. Dupree is currently awaiting to be relocated by the council but in the meantime, the couple was only able to escape with the clothes they were wearing and their dog.

“‘It was about 8 am when I heard popping and rustling sounds. I thought it was my dog, Skye, but he was asleep in the kitchen. I heard three bangs and as I opened the living room door there was a huge boom,” Dupree tells Daily Mail.

Dupree and her partner don’t live together, so it’s only her things that need to be replaced, so her sister-in-law Keeleigh Seymour created a GoFundMe to help replace clothing and furniture.

Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve helped arrange a private screening for a man whose final wish was to see the film.

In January, a patient in his 50s at a palliative care facility in Quebec, Canada, reached out to end-of-life worker Josée Gagnon with a request: he wanted to see the Dune sequel before he passed away.

“I thought to myself, what can we do? Then my husband reminded me that I could make anything happen. So I posted on social media and we were in contact with Villeneuve’s team within 12 hours,” Gagnon told Global News.

The initial plan was for the man (who is unnamed to protect his privacy) to be flown to Montreal or Los Angeles to watch the film, but he was “too weak” to be moved, according to the Washington Post. Instead, Villeneuve’s assistant flew to him with the director’s laptop.

The man didn’t speak English and had to watch the film with French subtitles, Gagnon told the Post. He “was so weak that we thought he might die while watching the film,” she wrote on Facebook. The man ultimately was not able to watch the full 2 hours and 46 minutes of the film. He was in pain and saw only about half of it before he had to stop, Gagnon told the Post. He died a few days later.

Gagnon is inspired by the man’s determination, even if he wasn’t able to see the entire film. “It’s extraordinary what this man went through. The ending of a film, when you’re going to die, it doesn’t mean anything… All this existed for him,” she said, adding, “People have to continue to believe that everything is possible when it is done with heart.”

Gagnon still hasn’t watched Dune: Part Two, but when she does, “I’ll smile like an idiot the whole time thinking about this beautiful story.”

(Via Global News and the Washington Post)

Though country artist Zach Bryan only has two albums out, each one is stacked with hits. Last night, the “Something In The Orange” hitmaker kicked off his Quittin’ Time Tour at the United Center in Chicago.

The first show boasted several of the songs that have already become instant fan favorites. His “I Remember Everything” collaborator Kacey Musgraves also made a surprise appearance to perform the song live together for the first time.

According to a fan-shared list posted to setlist.fm, the setlist from the Chicago show contained songs from both Bryan’s debut album American Heartbreak, as well as his self-titled sophomore album.

Though Musgraves probably won’t be performing with Bryan at every show, we imagine the Quittin’ Time Tour setlist will remain largely the same at each show.

You can see the show’s full setlist below.

Zach Bryan’s 2024 Quittin Time Tour Setlist

1. “Overtime”
2. “Open The Gate
3. “God Speed”
4. “The Great American Bar Scene”
5. “Fifth Of May”
6. “Tishomingo”
7. “Deep Satin”
8. “Oklahoma City”
9. “Nine Ball”
10. “Boys Of Faith”
11. “’68 Fastback”
12. “Better Days”
13. “Condemned”
14. “Tourniquet”
15. “Oklahoma Smokeshow”
16. “I Remember Everything”
17. “East Side Of Sorrow”
18. “Dawns”
19. “Highway Boys”
20. “Something In The Orange”
21. “Heading South”
22. “Burn, Burn, Burn”
23. “Hey Driver”
24. “Quittin’ Time”
25. “Revival”

Zach Bryan is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Zach Bryan performed in Chicago last night (March 5) as he is just kicking off his The Quittin Time Tour for 2024. During the set, he also had a fun surprise in store for fans. Kacey Musgraves joined him for a duet of their collaboration titled “I Remember Everything,” which was released on Bryan’s self-titled album.

While the song was released back in August, it has since become a major hit as people are drawn to the vulnerable way that Bryan and Musgraves look back on past relationships — something that most can relate to. Even the crowd can be heard singing so loud along with them.

As Musgraves shared in a recent interview that’s going to air on Sunday Today With Willie Geist on March 10, she was actually sick when they recorded the track together. “I got asked if I wanted to do the song, and of course, I was like, ‘I’m down,’ but I wasn’t feeling well,” she shared “Like, my throat was hurting. I had just gone on like this trip. And they were like, ‘Well, we kind of have a deadline. Like, if you want to be on this song, you kind of got to get it in by, like, this day.’”

She also spoke kindly of Bryan. “I connected with him immediately, and I’m just grateful he asked me,” Musgraves added in the early interview clip.

Check out a video of Bryan and Musgraves performing “I Remember Everything” above.

Zach Bryan is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Following reports that Elon Musk recently visited Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the embattled Twitter CEO wants to set the record straight: He’s not giving money to anybody.

Trump’s finances have taken a sizable hit thanks to massive back-to-back judgments against him in the E. Jean Carroll and Manhattan fraud cases. His recent visit from Musk suggesting that maybe the world’s second richest man would help out the former president as the Tesla CEO has shown an increasingly right-ward slant in his politics.

Most recently, Musk has been blasting Joe Biden over the “border crisis.” However, Musk has no intention of cutting checks as the presidential election narrows down to Biden and Trump.

“Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” Musk tweeted.

Of course, Musk’s refusal to make political donations could have less to do with his principles and more to do with Twitter hemorrhaging revenue as advertisers flee the platform. The social media site is reportedly worth less than 70% of what Musk paid for it thanks to a string of controversial decisions that sparked the aforementioned advertising exodus.

There’s also the possibility that Musk’s statement isn’t exactly as cut and dried as it seems. Users flocked to his replies to note that he could technically donate to Super PACs, which would not be a direct donation to Biden or Trump.

Reporter Luke Zalenski took things even further by noting that Musk was already donating to Trump by virtue of turning Twitter into a MAGA playground.

“This site is an in-kind contribution to Trump,” Zalenski wrote, “and has been since you bought it and reinstated him and his army of election-and-vaccine denying propagandists and platformed and promoted their conspiracies and disinformation and pretended it was because the woke mind virus made you.”

(Via Elon Musk on Twitter, Mediaite)

You can take the man out of the Bazinga but you cannot take the Bazinga out of the man, or his younger counterpart. Variety has confirmed that Jim Parsons will return to reprise his role of Sheldon Cooper in the series finale of Young Sheldon. The show is a spinoff of the nerdy sitcom Big Bang Theory which also starred Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki and ended in 2019.

Young Sheldon is in its seventh and final season and follows a younger Sheldon (hence the name) as he grows up in the mid-90s. Parsons has served as producer since the beginning and narrates the show, though this will be his first time appearing in person. Plot details remain under wraps, and the episode is set to air on May 16th.

Parsons isn’t the only familiar face to appear in the series finale. Fresh off her Jeopardy hosting stint, Mayim Bialik will also return as Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon’s future wife.

Bialik had previously been hosting the syndicated version of Jeopardy! since 2021 before she was let go in December. “As the holiday break begins in Hollywood, I have some Jeopardy! news. Sony has informed me that I will no longer be hosting the syndicated version of Jeopardy!” she wrote on Instagram. “I am incredibly honored to have been nominated for a primetime Emmy for hosting this year and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of the Jeopardy! family.” Luckily her Big Bang family was prepared to welcome her back for another go!

(Via Variety)