Month: August 2024

Sarah Tudzin is all over the place, whether she’s producing/engineering music by folks like Boygenius, Weyes Blood, Speedy Ortiz, or making her own tunes as Illuminati Hotties. On the latter front, there’s a new Hotties album, Power, out in a matter of hours as of this post. As one final pre-album hurrah, Tudzin has shared “Sleeping In.”

The breezy tune is a charming look at being flexible for somebody who matters, as Tudzin sings on the hook, “I don’t like laying around / but you like sleeping in / so I like sleeping in now / I don’t like anyone else / and you like sleeping in / so I like sleeping in now.”

A press release explains of the new album, “POWER is not a grief record. It is not a love record, either. Instead, it is a real-life record, a reflection of all the things Tudzin has endured or enjoyed during the too-long span since Illuminati Hotties’ wonderfully infectious last batch. Sadness, joy, and the busyness of modern existence are all bound into these 13 songs, characters and circumstances sometimes exaggerated not just for effect but to offer a modest buffer between Tudzin’s world and those inside of her words.”

Listen to “Sleeping In” above.

Power is out 8/23 via Hopeless Records. Find more information here.

Bill Skarsgard stars in The Crow, a movie adaption of the 1989 comic book series created by James O’Barr, which hits theaters this week. But it’s not the first time The Crow has been on the big screen, and fans of the original have not been welcoming toward the new version.

Director Rupert Sanders is aware that the upcoming film has been subjected to negative buzz from fans of the 1994 version, which starred Brandon Lee in his final film role. Lee was killed while filming the movie, and backlash has been ongoing since the reboot was announced, with many asking “Why?”

But Sanders insists that people need to get over it. “I think a lot of people are very active online and not so active in life,” Sanders told Entertainment Weekly. “Get out and do something and have less time throwing stones.”

Despite the new iteration, Sanders says that the original film still exists on its own, and its legacy is still there, no matter what happens. “I think it would be great just for people to know that this is a reimagining and wildly different from the original and that the original’s still there. I haven’t recorded over anyone’s VHS,” he explained. “You can still go and see that movie, and I hope this movie resonates with people who loved that movie when they were in their teens. This is my version of that text. It was my adaptation of James’s graphic novel, which I loved.”

The Crow follows Eric Draven, a musician who is killed along with his fiancé but rises from the dead to avenge her death. The reimagining’s promotional material has taken hits like Jared Leto Joker comparisons, but hey, at least we got some Skarsgard content out of it.

The Crow hits theaters on August 23rd.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Kevin Morby is getting into the festival game: This Is A Festival (the name being a nod to his latest album, 2022’s This Is A Photograph) is a Noise Pop-presented, one-day event set to go down on October 12 at Santa Cruz, California’s Quarry Amphitheater.

Aside from Morby himself, the lineup (which Morby curated) also features Jessica Pratt, Youth Lagoon, Blackstarkids, Ben Kweller, and Makaya McCraven.

Morby says in a press release (as Pitchfork notes):

“Getting asked to host a festival is very surreal. It feels like a dream in which you’re trying to rationalize how all of these different people from your life are somehow in the same place at the same time. In the case of my festival, it’s an absolute dream come true: five of my favorite artists spanning the last twenty years of my life all performing at an amphitheater that will be MC’d by my favorite podcast, How Long Gone. Come watch myself, Jessica Pratt, Youth Lagoon, Ben Kweller, Makaya Mccraven, and Blackstarkids share the stage of the Quarry Amphitheater in Santa Cruz this October — which is to really say — come be in my dream!”

Tickets will go on sale on August 23 at 10 a.m. PT, here.

Travis Kelce is a pretty popular guy right now. In addition to his football career with the Kansas City Chiefs where he has a case for being the greatest tight end in NFL history, he’s becoming an increasingly big celebrity off the field, whether that’s because of his relationship with Taylor Swift or his media career, primarily as the co-host of the “New Heights” podcast with his brother, Jason.

Increasingly, Kelce has appeared on screen. Whether that meant hosting Saturday Night Live, appearing on the series Grotesquerie, or taking over “Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?”, Kelce is a busy man. And now, he’s getting ready to appear on the big screen, with Adam Sandler revealing in a conversation with Jimmy Fallon that Kelce is going to be in Happy Gilmore 2.

“You know, Travis Kelce really wants to be part of this,” Fallon said to Sandler at the 6:02 mark of the video atop this post. “He’s talked about it on his podcast.”

“Yes, Travis, he mentioned it, so we have a nice something for Travis,” Sandler replied. “He’s gonna come by, very nice guy, you guys would love him in real life. What a big, handsome guy, and funny and cool as hell. He’s a stud, and he’s so funny.”

Additionally, Variety reported that Kelce is in talks to star in the upcoming action-comedy “Loose Cannons,” although there aren’t many details out there about the project outside of “John Wick” director Chad Stahelski serving as its producer.

In July 2019, Sabrina Carpenter graced the Good Morning America stage and performed “In My Bed” from her fourth full-length album, Singular: Act II. Carpenter’s now-universally beloved stage presence was just as captivating back then. She nailed empowered choreography with precision while delivering the infectiously repeatable hook: “I’m not usually like this / But I’m still, I’m still, I’m still in my bed about it.” The seeds for “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” her world-beating smashes that catapulted Carpenter from simmering star to bona fide A-list attraction, were evident.

After that performance, Carpenter called me from the car to talk for the cover of tmrw magazine. Then 20 years old, Carpenter spoke with conviction about how comfortable she’d come to be in her self-expression.

She added, “I’ve tried to teach myself that, just because I’m 10 steps ahead of even myself, sometimes, I forget that maybe the world is five steps behind.”

This summer, the world caught up with Carpenter’s years-long vision — beginning with Disney’s Girl Meets World and steadily evolving through five studio albums — to create a combustion reminiscent of pre-streaming monoculture.

Opening for Taylor Swift on The Eras Tour is a reliable launching pad, and Carpenter was positioned to take full advantage of that stage toward the end of last year and beginning of this year. In July 2022, Carpenter had released Emails I Can’t Send, sprouting “Nonsense” and “Feather” as Billboard Hot 100 mainstays. The low-hanging fruit is to cite the “Nonsense” outro, into which Carpenter injects sexually playful and suggestive lyrics during her live sets, as Carpenter successfully shedding of a cookie-cutter image inherent with starting at Disney. Carpenter jokingly acknowledged her explicit humor with Variety earlier this month, saying, “I’m 900 inappropriate jokes away from being a Disney actor, but people still see me that way.”

Anyone who still sees Carpenter that way after “Espresso,” which Carpenter debuted at Coachella 2024, would be in the minority. Since April, millions of people have cemented “That’s that me espresso” into the general public’s lexicon. The inescapable synth-charged earworm peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and, just when it seemed she’d hit apex, “Please Please Please” became her first-career No. 1 on the Hot 100. “Please Please Please,” produced by Jack Antonoff and co-written with Amy Allen, came with a video co-starring Barry Keoghan, her very famous boyfriend.

The 25-year-old triple threat will only heighten her hard-earned pop coronation with Short N’ Sweet, her sixth LP due out on Friday, August 23. Carpenter will simultaneously drop “Taste,” the album’s third single, with a Dave Meyers-directed video co-starring Jenna Ortega that reiterates Carpenter’s irresistible charisma. She’ll also embark on a subsequent headlining arena tour, where she will assuredly continue her now-viral tradition of the ad-libbed “Nonsense” outro.

Carpenter is playing an exaggerated character, but she openly tells everyone that she’s playing up a character, which makes her all the more endearing and genuine. The best performers thrive in embellishment, but an exaggerated Carpenter is still an extension of a refreshingly honest person. Her calculated (non-derogatory), over-the-top persona resonates because she isn’t overcompensating for anything. At her core, she has always been an artist and songwriter with substance.

Close your eyes and point your finger toward any song in Carpenter’s deep discography, and you’ll find traces of the unique artistic vein accentuated across Short N’ Sweet. Carpenter is far from the first former Disney child star to possess acclaimed staying power as an adult. Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, and Zendaya occupy most such lists. But what distinguishes Carpenter from, say, Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz era is that her autonomous awakening happened slowly, and then all at once.

During our 2019 interview, Carpenter offered insight into her forward-thinking long-term approach.

“It involves experimenting with weird makeup and maybe wearing outfits that people are like, ‘Well, that’s not normal for someone,’ Carpenter said then. “Kind of throwing preconceived ideas out the window and just doing what feels right because I’m young. When I’m older, it’s gonna be a little harder to wear crazy — or maybe it won’t be, and I’m just overthinking like I do usually. But I like to have as much fun as I possibly can.”

Five years later, it seems easier than ever for Carpenter to say what she wants, wear what she wants, or write what she wants. At 25, Carpenter is still so young. Although her age shouldn’t preclude her from indulging her uninhibited whims. If anyone can permanently throw the preconceived notion of a shelf life for fun and flirty women in pop, it’s Carpenter — just as she has already proved that fun and flirty doesn’t have to come at the expense of insightful vulnerability.

So, maybe this version of Sabrina Carpenter won’t last forever, but like everybody tasked with navigating the inevitable fluidity of the human condition, she’s undoubtedly developing the version you’ll fall in love with all over again five years from now.

In 2018, Abubakar Salim – classically trained stage actor, filmmaker, and breakout star of hit shows like Raised by Wolves and House of the Dragon – realized he had an important story he needed to tell. Five years prior, he’d lost his father to cancer, and had suddenly become the “man of the house.” The weight of the responsibility and the blinding fog of grief trapped him in a dark place for years. Then suddenly, after completing a particularly tough platforming section of Ori and the Blind Forest, it clicked. He had a story to tell about his devastating loss, and it was going to be in the form of a video game.

“[As a child], I always wanted to tell stories,” he reminisced, almost pleasantly reliving that feeling of being a young teen full of colorful ideas and a need to show them to the world. It manifested in him making short films with his friends in his teens and early adulthood, but that hunger to create was muted for a while after his father died. The elation he felt, that many gamers feel, when they conquer a difficult challenge after furious trial and error reconnected him to a young him, that would struggle playing Sonic the Hedgehog and would be met with stern yet proud encouragement from his father when he persevered. For Salim, his father’s at least projected interest in his digital adventures made for a real and powerful connection between the two. Writing what would amount to be a eulogy for him in video game form would be a full circle moment.

There was only one problem: Abubakar Salim had no idea how to make a video game.

“I ask people questions like ‘So, how do you make a game?’ and they reply ‘Well, do you have concept art?’” He didn’t. “Do you have a company?” He didn’t. It never occurred to him that you would need to have these things moving before you could even talk seriously about getting a game developed. “You know, I’m like building as I’m learning,” he said about the very early stages of getting Surgent Studios out of his head and into the real world.

Salim credits the strength of his vision for what would become Tales of Kenzera: ZAU for getting through the early rocky period of discovering all of these unwritten prerequisites for getting a game considered by a publisher the size of EA. With a small, 15-person team “running on my bank account,” Surgent Studios – then Silver Rain Games – produced things like a pitch deck, synopsis, and a playable build of the early ZAU concept in a very tight turn around. His acting chops came in handy in presenting his scrappy studio as AAA-level competent while he was still learning the value of what producers and tech artists bring to the table. Though of the many unexpected things he had to learn when it came to getting the studio off the ground, all of the administrative work involved was the most daunting.

“Shout out to Zoe [Brown], who’s our producer. She got this game through the door. She was stellar.” Salim credits Brown’s experience and professionalism for helping him get his head around all of the things that need to get done for a video game to get to market.

In 2020, EA officially signed Surgent under their EA Originals label to ramp up production of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. Between then and 2023, the team grew to around 30 members, and in early 2024, the side-scrolling action game was released to the masses. Salim looks back on this development period with pride, and fondly remembers not being treated like an outsider when it came to the creative process. “There was really no conflict when it came to communicating that creative vision to the team.” he said. They would sometimes tease him for using other games as shorthand for inspirations for ZAU – a more common practice in his experience in film to try to call out framings and storyboard inspirations from other films or shows. Still, he trusted the expertise of his team, full of avid gamers who love what they do and worked hard to make a game they could be proud of; a game that turned his ideas into fully fleshed out stages, characters, and combat.

On the business side, there was some agita. Navigating the process with the publisher (who had specific expectations with regards to the speed of the production) as a first time studio (tasked with doing it and doing it well out of the gate) was stressful, but also illuminating for him. “I’m talking to experts who are building this thing. It’s like asking carpenters to build your house in three months, and them rightly telling you it will take years.”

Outside of trying to relay these sorts of concerns from the top down to the team, he admits he too was guilty of not always understanding the diminishing returns of scaling up. He thanks Lead Designer Zi Peters for setting him straight with a simple analogy: it takes one woman 9 months to make a baby, hiring 8 more women won’t finish the baby in a month.

Tensions aside, the game launched in April of 2024 to what Salim considers to be a solid success. “Metacritic. We gotta hit that Metacritic,” he recalled from his conversations with EA, emphasizing that doing well critically was a make-or-break metric for them. “I remember that was the scariest thing, you know? It’s all opinion-based, how are we gonna do this?” He touted the early reviews, which averaged around the mid-70’s (it currently sits at 76 after 65 critical reviews), as the first sign of promise. “Never made a game before. First time running a studio. Okay, that’s a good hit!” Of course, before they could celebrate this win, the next challenges arose: player counts and sales. The pre-order figures were promising, and the actual launch sales exceeded the studio’s expectations. Salim recalled a bizarre phenomenon he experienced in the face of the release, where a small but at the time growing group took to social media to harass developers they suspected were employing DEI measures in their organizations for some nefarious purposes. “And I think for a while – even though we’re in the seat and seeing the numbers, we’re seeing the facts – we almost were made to feel like it wasn’t.”

All this was before the studio was forced to lay a dozen of its staff off in July 2024. “It was heartbreaking, man. Especially when you’ve built this A team over the years, only to have to face the reality of the beast.” The beast here, being a game’s industry that, in his estimation, is built on a cycle of growth that can never be sustainable.

Salim has seen folks come and go from projects on films and TV sets in the past, but there are structures in place in that industry, like widespread unionization, that makes these cycles feel less dire. “In film and TV, for example, your hair and makeup department, your VFX peeps, your audio team, the construction team; these people are all gonna move on to the next project, until maybe you get picked up for, like, a season two or whatever.” There’s only ever a core group of VIPs that are a part of a project in a permanent way, and everyone going in knows it. There is tons of temporary contract work in games, of course, but full time employees do not get to live with a certainty that they will be a part of the studio in the time between projects, and making a successful game is proving to be less and less of a lifeline. Games spend more and more time attempting to emulate film in their products, but not in the infrastructure that makes them.

Salim isn’t letting these hardships discourage Surgent from taking another shot. As of our conversation in early August, he was actively shopping around the follow up to ZAU, while balancing new film projects and a new recurring spot at the Critical Role table. I asked the multi-hyphenate renaissance man if he had any advice as someone who walked into game development as a fan, knowing absolutely nothing about how the sausage gets made, and eventually shipped a game. His mouth slid into another nostalgic smile, remembering what he was told in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in the early days of his training to become an actor, “If you really love this, be prepared to eat beans on toast and water for the rest of your life.”

Last summer, FLO caught up with Uproxx and hinted at their collective mindset around their forthcoming debut full-length album.

“You never know what people are gonna latch on to, so you want to make sure that everything you’re doing is something that you’re like 100% proud of,” Jorja Douglas said, adding, “We’re not in full bloom yet. We really want people to just stick around and watch us develop and turn into the incredible artists that we know we are deep down inside.”

On Thursday, August 22, FLO confirmed they’re ready to bloom by announcing Access All Areas, their debut LP due out on November 15. The British trio also consisting of Renée Downer and Stella Quaresma have released “Walk Like This,” “Caught Up,” and “Check” as singles this year.

“We were just 3 girls from the UK who loved to sing, we’ll never forget how [‘Cardboard Box’] introduced u to us and us to this crazy new life, our label didn’t even want us to drop that song first,” FLO wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The 2023 BRITs Rising Star Award winners elaborated across a series of subsequent posts, as excerpted below.

“We know we’ve taken our time with putting out an album… but one thing about us is that we are perfectionistssss! All areas of our craft have to be ready and that took time.

We’re not fully grown, but we’re no longer teens. It’s a strange but exciting time, we’re growing into this new era in front of all of you…the work is non stop and we’re away from home every 2 mins but we have the most loyal supporters who make our dream our reality.

We’re excitednervousgassedproudscreamingcrying to have finally gotten to the finish line. we’re ready for the soundtrack of our lives to be YOURS.”

Access All Areas is out 11/15 via Island Records. Find more information here.

John Cena brought some much-deserved attention to costume designers when he appeared at the 2024 Oscars to present the award for Best Costume Design wearing nothing but a modesty garment to cover his junk. It was one of the most memorable moments of the ceremony, but the Peacemaker star was initially apprehensive about doing the bit.

“I got all the people behind the camera, but then I walk out in front of a room of my peers, many of which I’ve never met because I haven’t worked my way up to meet [them],” he said on a recent episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast. “I have the most decorated performers, producers, directors in one room and I’m gonna go out there with my balls in the wind, with an index card covering my stuff like, ‘Hey guys, is this funny? Are we good?’”

Cena also discussed the humiliation of filming on-screen sex scenes. “There are so many people you need to make a movie,” he said. “There’s nothing intimate about it. Nothing. Like it’s really embarrassing.”

As an example, Cena recalled a sex scene with Amy Schumer in 2015’s Trainwreck. “On top of that, to do a comedic sex scene, where you’re like, making fun of yourself? They literally [said], ‘Try to have the most awkward sex you possibly can.’ I don’t want to say it sucks, but it’s different than you all think it was,” he shared. No wonder sex scenes are going extinct.

You can listen to the podcast below.

There are only a handful of Hollywood directors who could, if it really came down to it, survive in a haunted house for a night. Tim Burton would be fine at first, though he would try to befriend the ghosts with disastrous consequences. James Cameron would probably try to reason with the ghosts by throwing a few million at them and the promise of a sequel, but ultimately be unsuccessful. But Guillermo del Toro… he would be the one to survive. At least, he should be, based on his resume.

The iconic filmmaker is currently in Scotland, presumably getting some shots for his upcoming Frankenstein adaptation, where he revealed that he would be staying at a supposedly haunted establishment.

Earlier this week, the director posted the following (filled with typos for dramatic effect — we’ll get to that later) on social media:

Whilst in Aberdeen, I am staying in an old 1800’s hotel. i am in the Most Haunted room of it- which was vacated this morning by one of our producers. Odd electrical and physical occurences scared her into leaving asap. Stay tuned- if anything happens I will report. I always stay in “the most haunted rooms“ but onlybonce did I experience anything supernatural- the rest of the time: nothing. I have high hopes.

I love Scotland- and, even when my links to it are not by bloodline, I feel close to it. My mother’s family side, has lineage going to Ireland- the O’Colligan family. My Grandfather (after whom I am named) was Guillermo Gomez O’Colligan.

It appears that one of the producers with del Toro had been too spooked to stay in a seemingly haunted room, so he took over and wanted to see the place for himself. This was on Tuesday.

Then, by Thursday, del Toro was clearly distressed, as evident by his increasing number of typos:

UPDATE-. I can only say:. Nothingbhas happened yet, but the atmosphere in the room is opressive and I am not gonna spend much more time there. It may be suggestion, but at this point I kept it but am sleeping in another room- I need 6 hours of sleep to have a good shooting day- Im stopping there early and late in the day- but something is in that room with me… If anything happens or Nothing does expect one or two more updates.

It’s concerning that we don’t quite know what we’re up against here. Is it a demon? A ghost? Hellboy? Unclear. But hopefully we can raise enough awareness to that del Toro will opt for a Marriott hotel next time.

Del Toro is safe (for now), and he posted one more update: “6:28 Scotland. Finished the shooting day. Going into the room now- dinner at 8:00 Anything happens and I will update. the room has more than vibes there is something angry and teritorial there. A shred of rage. Room #4” Maybe the “vibe” is just a entity asking for a cameo in Pans Labyrinth 2.

Last June, Jeremy Zucker dropped his Is Nothing Sacred? EP. Last October, Chelsea Cutler dropped Stellaria, her third full-length album. Cutler and Zucker are each extremely successful singer-songwriters, but fans can’t get enough of their collaborative relationship in the Brent universe.

On Thursday, August 22, Cutler and Zucker met the incessant fan demand for more Brent by teasing Brent Forever, which will be their third joint project. The 40-second video takes us back to the Brent cabin, where Zucker walks in with a guitar to be met by Cutler sitting at the piano. As of this writing, no further information about the project has been confirmed, but Brent Forever is available to pre-save here.

Cutler and Zucker released their Brent joint EP in May 2019. Standout track “You Were Good To Me” is two-times-platinum-certified. Brent II followed in February 2021, and “This Is How You Fall In Love” is certified gold.

Each of the Brent EPs has been five tracks, so it would make sense for the third installment to also consist of five tracks. However, if Brent is meant to be a trilogy and this is the end, maybe Brent Forever is a full-length album.

Cutler and Zucker will surely divulge more details sooner than later.