Month: March 2024

Gwyneth Paltrow made her Hot Ones debut this week where the actress slash lifestyle guru fielded in-depth questions from host Sean Evans. Known for his killer research on each guest, Evans went right for an urban legend surrounding former President Bill Clinton.

As the legend goes, Paltrow was on hand for a special White House screening of her 1996 movie Emma. During the film, Clinton was rumored to have fallen asleep, so Evans asked if that actually happened. A laughing Paltrow confirmed that, yes, it’s true.

“He was snoring right in front of me,” Paltrow said as Evans started cracking up. “I was like, wow, I guess this is going to be a real hit movie. But it was, so f**k you, Bill Clinton!”

Speaking of hit movies, Paltrow also shared her thoughts on American Fiction writer Cord Jefferson’s Oscar speech where he called out Hollywood for dropping money on a $200 million superhero film instead of “20 $10 million movies.”

“I absolutely understand where he’s coming from,” the Marvel star said via Variety. “This big push into superhero movies … you can only make so many good ones that feel truly original, and yet they’re still always trying to reach as many people as possible, which sometimes hinders quality or specificity or real point of view.”

“I look back at some movies I made in the 1990s and think that just would not get made now,” she said. “You get more diversity of art when there is less at stake and people can express their true voice and make a film the way they want to make it.”

Or, you know, Bill Clinton falls asleep halfway through the film. That happens, too.

You can watch Paltrow call out Slick Willie at the 9:30 mark below:

(Via Variety)

Remi Wolf already had something to look forward to this spring, as she will join Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour as an opener on April 30. Now, the beloved pop singer is set for a big summer as well. On Thursday, March 21, Wolf announced Big Ideas will be released on July 12. The record will be her sophomore studio album following her 2021 Juno debut.

“Cinderella” is here as the lead single, and it arrives with a video co-directed by Wolf and Ragan Henderson. In it, Wolf is dressed in a jazzercize outfit and dancing freely in a Los Angeles field. Eventually, she’s joined by equally colorfully dressed dancers, and by the end of the video, viewers will almost certainly also be dancing.

“‘Cinderella’ is a lyrical collage of the ups and downs and mood swings and transient lifestyle I was experiencing while writing this album,” Wolf said in a statement, as per a press release. “Constant travel and rapid changes led me to feel such a rollercoaster of emotion — moving from feeling really insecure to feeling really good to feeling manic and depressed and then feeling OK again, while desperately craving a grounding figure to tell me I was doing a good job.”

The native Californian continued, “So, this song was me stepping in as my own fairy godmother, telling myself that I was in control. Sonically, I wanted the song to have a sense of ’70s nostalgia while still feeling like a record made today. And I wanted to make something where you can’t help but dance and move and feel good while listening. I recorded this at Electric Lady in New York at the beginning of 2023. I initially made the song with just myself and Solomonophonic — and then I was able to bring in some amazing horns players to round out the sauce.”

Watch the “Cinderella” video above, and check out the Big Ideas album cover art below.

Remi Wolf’s Big Ideas Album Cover Artwork

Big Ideas is out 7/12 via Island Records. Find more information here.

Troy Duffy’s Boondock Saints (1999) isn’t a stellar movie, but the original film does have begrudging charm and does hold a place in cult-film history. After all, this was the project that had Willem Dafoe conducting a “firefight” and also made many Norman Reedus fans light up and follow him to the ends of the (apocalyptic) world with Happy Keanu in tow. Of course, Reedus has also become known for his Death Stranding turn and will appear in The Bikeriders alongside Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, but he’ll always be Daryl Dixon and, to a degree, Murphy MacManus.

Reedus and co-star Sean Patrick Flanery did appear in the followup, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2007), but it’s fair to say that many viewers might have erased that film from memory like the MacManus Brothers washed away the dirt of Ireland in a WTF shower scene. However, the franchise is apparently not dead. Really? Yes. Deadline reports that John Wick production house Thunder Road, is in the thick of things:

The rebirth of the 1999 cult favorite film The Boondock Saints is upon us. Thunder Road, the producer behind the John Wick films, has stepped in and joined rights holder Dragonfly Films to make what they are calling a reimagining of the action film franchise about the fraternal twin Irish brothers who raise holy hell to rid their Boston hometown of all criminals.

In the current configuration, Troy Duffy will step aside as directing, after creating and helming the original and the 2009 sequel The Boondock Saints: All Saints Day.

Both Reedus and Flanery are onboard, and the duo will welcome new “Saints” to their cause. At this time, the threequel does not have a director, and yep, it will not be Duffy. He will, however, apparently be writing “a series of books” to further detail the Saints’ stories. There’s no word yet on whether Dafoe will reenter the picture, but he did make a tiny appearance in All Saints Day, so never say never (do gratuitous violence).

(Via Deadline)

A professional athlete like beach volleyball star Geena Urango is always thinking of the future. What’s the next play? The next match? The next tournament? And, ultimately, the next phase of their career? It’s that ability to plan ahead that has served the AVP champion well, on the sand and the topic of money.

In the latest episode of Cash Class, accredited financial counselor and personal finance expert, Lissa Prudencio sits down with Urango to dig into her journey — from promising young athlete to podcast host and entrepreneur. The Mexican-American athlete needed a crash course in financial literacy at the beginning of her career. After turning pro, Urango learned she’d be solely responsible for filing her taxes, funding her career, and building her wealth. She sought advice from financial mentors — accountants, counselors, managers, and other pros — on how to navigate building her brand from the dollar up. And now, she’s hoping to help other young athletes do the same.

“Everything is on your own dime,” Urango tells Prudencio. “That’s the hardest part about a lot of these athletes starting to play this sport is, they’ve got to learn how to properly manage their finances. Ultimately, I just want to do whatever I can to help grow the sport and to encourage some of these younger athletes — to give them some advice on how to navigate this territory.”

That advice — from Urango and Prudencio — focuses on building a financial cushion, by saving, investing, spending less, and taking control of your debts. If you’re operating your own small business, tapping a professional to guide you through the process of tax write-offs and money management may be the best option. (It was for Urango.) But there are plenty of small changes all of us can make to ensure we’ve got a sturdy financial foundation to build upon.

To hear more of Urango’s story, how she’s helping the next generation of athletes and tips on how to better organize your own bank account, watch the full episode above.

Before “Barbie World” became as inescapable as every other aspect of the Margot Robbie-starring film, music fans were wary of Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj’s newfound friendship. After all, Nicki and Megan Thee Stallion appeared to be fast friends during the “Hot Girl Summer” of 2019, and we all see how that ended up.

So, it comes as no surprise that Minaj’s most enthusiastic fans, the Barbz, have taken it upon themselves to call out Ice Spice for perceived disloyalty over allegedly recording a verse for Kanye West. Earlier this week, influencer YesJulz shared a screenshot of a text thread between herself and West — presumably from before she was “fired” from YZY for supposed breaches of contract — in which Julz claims she sent the beat for Kanye’s song “New Body” to both Doja Cat and Ice Spice to see “who sounds best.” Only a day later, Kanye reported via his Instagram Story that the “Munch” rapper had indeed sent verse, but lamented that “her team is saying we can’t use it.”

Members of Minaj’s fanbase — and even her entourage — sent shade at Ice Spice for even sending the verse in the first place, as Nicki had previously refused to clear her verse on the track for the first installment of Kanye’s Vultures project. The Song, which Nicki and Kanye originally recorded in 2019 for placement on his since-canceled project Yandhi, had seen multiple revisions, leaks, and other issues, which spurred Nicki to deem it “past its time” and refuse permission to use it — something West took very personally, calling her out in a listening party rant that seemingly put paid to any friendly feelings the two artists have shared. It’s also telling that he went to two ostensible Minaj proteges in Doja and Ice, perhaps hoping to get under her skin. Or, at least, that’s how many Barbz seem to perceive it, as seen in the representative examples below:

There’s a lot to be said here, but I think this sums it up best:

The use of AI in pop culture has been a pretty touchy subject, as many observe that it can take opportunities away from actual humans, but it’s already being implemented in some big projects.

Late Night With The Devil is the upcoming horror film starring David Dastmalchain as the host of a fictional variety show Night Owls with Jack Delroy. On Halloween night 1977, Delroy invites a formerly possessed girl to attend his live taping, and all hell literally breaks loose. It’s a highly anticipated horror movie that premiered at SXSW last year, though now the creators are getting pushback over the use of AI in the film.

Viewers pointed out that a handful of the still images in the film appear to be AI-generated. It includes title cards for the fictional show, which feature some eerie-looking skeletons.

After the discovery made the rounds on various social media platforms, Late Night with the Devil directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes released a statement to Variety defending the film’s use of AI. “In conjunction with our amazing graphics and production design team, all of whom worked tirelessly to give this film the ’70s aesthetic we had always imagined, we experimented with AI for three still images which we edited further and ultimately appear as very brief interstitials in the film,” it reads. “We feel incredibly fortunate to have had such a talented and passionate cast, crew and producing team go above and beyond to help bring this film to life. We can’t wait for everyone to see it for themselves this weekend.”

On the surface, using AI to create a number of unimportant images might not seem like a big deal. But when companies start adding fake celebrities into their projects or studios start using it to write scripts….then maybe we should be afraid. It’s what the devil has always wanted.

Late Night with the Devil comes to theaters on March 22 before streaming on Shudder on April 19.

(Via Variety)

Keeping up with Machine Gun Kelly’s announcements is a full-time job. Or is it only “mgk” now? He may or may not have changed his stage name earlier this month. In February, MGK revealed an all-black, nearly full-torso tattoo. And that’s without even mentioning his on-again, off-again relationship with Megan Fox. But in January, MGK wrote something on X (formerly Twitter) that unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) correlates with his latest announcement: “Ultimately, I’m sad at how people perceive me in general.”

On Wednesday, March 20, MGK and Trippie Redd announced Genre:Sadboy, “a project by us.” It will arrive next Friday, March 29.

The punk-rap artists (and fellow Ohioans) jointly introduced the project with a black-and-white Instagram video showing them vibing in the studio to one of their unreleased songs, and it’s particularly sad — even by Genre:Sadboy standards.

“I recorded two tonight,” MGK sings. “One is for all those I love, this one’s for the suicide / Everything is blue inside / Everyone ain’t you and I / People won’t say how they feel about you until you die.”

Genre:Sadboy also has its own Instagram page, which could mean that MGK and Trippie’s collaborative partnership will extend beyond what drops on March 29. This afternoon, March 21, MGK and Trippie Redd premiered a YouTube documentary about the project this afternoon, giving deeper insight into the process behind it and what can be expected from it.

As long as we’re drawing parallels between MGK’s recent online behavior and Genre:Sadboy, we may as well do the same for Trippie Redd. In late January, he went on Instagram Live to (yet again) shut down rumors that he worships the devil.

“I’m just a weirdo, bro,” Trippie said, in part. “I like to get tats on my face! I like to wear all black! I like to look goth! Feel me? Sh*t’s a lifestyle. Maybe I’m depressed. Maybe I like to be the gloomy one in the room. I’m from Ohio. It’s always gloomy there. Y’all don’t get it. I’m a real sadboi. I’m a real loner. Maybe I hide it with my personality and sh*t, but so what? I’m human.”

MGK last released Mainstream Sellout in 2022, while Trippie dropped Mansion Musik, A Love Letter To You 5, and Saint Michael throughout 2023.

Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood will be publishing a new book titled How To Disappear: A Portrait Of Radiohead. It will include photographs of the band’s journey, giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at their tours, rehearsals, and more.

“For years now, I’ve been taking fugitive snaps of my band, Radiohead,” Greenwood shared in a statement. “I’ve tried to catch out my friends with my small black Yashica T4 Super. On stage and in the rehearsal studio, they are so lost in their own moment of performance that they don’t see me with the camera.”

Along with the photos, Greenwood will write stories and detail different memories, making it a special item to add to any Radiohead fan’s collection. He describes himself as being “taken with photographs as evidence, forensic records of how we worked and changed a space, from barn to country house to empty arena.”

His book will also primarily focus on Radiohead’s “middle years: all the joy and doubt and confidence and uncertainty we would oscillate between,” providing a better idea of the period that will be displayed in the images.

More details about Greenwood’s book will be announced closer to its release date.

How To Disappear: A Portrait Of Radiohead is out 10/15 via John Murray Press.

Donald Trump is continuing to freak out about how much money he owes. Last month, a New York judge ordered that the former president must pay $355 million in fines, plus interest, for lying about his wealth. Long story short: he’s struggling to come up with the money, to the point where he might have to sell his Mar-a-Lago property. Now where will Vanilla Ice play on New Year’s Eve?!?

While whining about the ruling in a lengthy Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump compared the judge to an old-school SNL character and took a cheap shot at the current version of the comedy series.

“Even though I did nothing wrong, a Radical Left New York Judge, a true Trump Hater, Arthur Engoron (Are we allowed to speak about his Unconstitutional Gag Order?), picked a number out of THIN AIR, $355,000,000, plus interest (reminiscent of John Lovitz, ‘The Liar,’ on SNL when it was good), & wants me to bond it, which is not possible for bonding companies to do in such a high amount, before I can even Appeal. That is CRAZY!” Trump wrote. It goes on from there, but you get the idea.

What’s your favorite part? Mine is when he misspells Lovitz’s first name. It’s Jon, not John. If only there was another Lovitz character that could accurately describe Trump’s post…

Thank you, Jay Sherman.

(Via Raw Story)

A little over a year ago, Megan Fox sparked rumors that she and fiancé Machine Gun Kelly had broken up, first by deleting some Instagram photos, then by being spotted out and about without her engagement ring. So, what’s the deal?

Are Megan Fox And Machine Gun Kelly Still Engaged?

On the March 20, Fox-featuring episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, host Alex Cooper noted that Fox “got engaged, then I think it was called off,” as NME notes. Fox replied, “All those things you said were accurate things that have occurred.”

Fox then spoke vaguely about the current status of her and MGK’s relationship, saying, “I think that what I’ve learned from being in this relationship is that it’s not for public consumption. I think, as of now, I don’t have a comment on the status of the relationship, per se. What I can say is [he] is what I refer to as being my ‘twin soul’ and there will always be a tether to him, no matter what.”

So, what appears to be the case is that at one point, Fox and MGK broke off their engagement, and it’s not currently clear if it is still called off, or what they current relationship status is.