Category: News

Former Sons Of Anarchy cop Taylor Sheridan’s vast assembly of Paramount shows includes not only Yellowstone and multiple prequels but also the likes of Tulsa King and other impending unrelated projects, including Lioness (starring Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman) and Land Man (starring Billy Bob Thornton). With all of these balls in the air, one can expect the occasional hiccup, and the granddaddy of them all, Yellowstone, saw reports of a significant shakeup this week. If those reports are true, the juggernaut series might be ending with the departure of Kevin Costner.

Part of that report indicated that — keeping in lockstep with A-listers clamoring to enter Sheridan’s universe — Matthew McConaughey could be onboard to lead a Yellowstone offshoot. Now, Tulsa King is seeing a significant shakeup ahead of Season 2. Showrunner Terence Winter (of Boardwalk Empire fame) has exited the building due to what Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva reports are “creative differences.” The outlet adds that he has other irons in the fire, too, including more Scorsese and a passion project about the Mets. From Deadline:

Terence Winter is stepping down from the post while remaining an executive producer on the series from Yellowstone‘s Taylor Sheridan and focusing on other projects, including a top-secret streaming series with frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese and a limited series about New York Mets’ historic 1986 run, which has been a passion of his for a while, I hear. Search is under way for a new Tulsa King showrunner.

Previously, Winter mentioned to Deadline that he and Sheridan held different visions of Tulsa King with Sheridan envisioning Dwight as a non-convict who ended up running Kansas City as a reward for a lifelong job well done. Winter’s version is what materialized onscreen, so we saw Dwight exit prison after 25 years expecting a reward, only to be shipped off to the Center of the Universe.

What this means for Tulsa King, obviously, no one knows. Stallone has gone on record to say the show is the most difficult job that he’s ever pulled off in a stories career, and presumably, that includes his upcoming reality series with the Stallone fam.

(Via Deadline)

LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record at Crypto.com Arena earlier this week. Everyone in attendance was in a celebratory mood all night during the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and when James’ record-setting jumper went in during the game’s third quarter, the roof came off the building and everyone affiliated with the Los Angeles Lakers made it a point to show their appreciation for the eventual Hall of Fame inductee.

The one exception to this was Anthony Davis. In a video that went around after the game, Davis was seen sitting on the bench while everyone else was standing and applauding his teammate’s accomplishment.

Because this is the Lakers we’re talking about here, there were a ton of questions about what was going through Davis’ mind here. He was asked about this in the aftermath of the team’s 115-106 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night, and after making clear he really did not want to talk about this, he explained that his frustrations stemmed from how things were going for the Lakers against the Thunder.

“Y’all know me and Bron’s relationship,” Davis said. “It’s nothing. Upset about the game. I mean, we’re losing to [the] Oklahoma City Thunder, a game we needed, and I was pissed off that we were losing. It’s that simple, it’s nothing that had to do with Bron. He knows that, everybody else outside looking in, that’s their opinion, but I was pissed off that we were losing the game.”

The basket that set the record cut Oklahoma City’s lead at the time to five points late in the third quarter, so there was more than enough time for the Lakers to mount a comeback. That, however, ended up not happening, as L.A. went on to lose, 133-130.

50 Cent got very candid in a recent interview about how much he gets paid for live performances, revealing that it’s no small fee. The Queens-bred mogul recently graced the cover of Billboard, where he trekked through his journey from rap star to entrepreneur, as well as his entry into film and television. Prior to his Get Rich, Or Die Tryin’ days, the rapper revealed his price tag is stark in comparison to the huge fee he gets paid these days.

50 revealed that when he was booked by Master P for a handful of performances, he was paid less than $100k, now he gets ten times more than that.

“I think he gave me like $80,000, and now I’m getting like $900,000, $ 1 million,” the 47-year-old rapper told Billboard.

He continued, “The coolest thing we create in America is celebrities. If you see LeBron [James’] fan base internationally, you’ll argue, ‘Why is he staying here?’ He’s that big internationally. For the most part, I can’t speak for everybody, but the international side of the game is different.”

The rapper-turned-actor said, “I get the attention I want from music when I want it” and that he has found solace working on his film and TV projects. Despite his career highs, the Power creator noted that he’s not completely stepping away from music and that he wants to offer something new to fans.

“I just went out and toured 45 countries, and everywhere was sold out. That made me want to offer new music that I could integrate into everything now. I’ve done what I wanted to do in the [sales] capacity,” he said.

There’s a moment that I keep coming back to from this interview with Marc Maron where he’s talking about a joke in his new HBO special (From Bleak To Dark, which premieres tonight at 10PM) and how it moves from being devastating to something that “rides a line” between that and humor. The story is about Maron, the death of his partner (filmmaker Lynn Shelton), a hummingbird, and dipping into mystical thinking when held by grief.

“Over time, they became stories that I learned how to tell,” he says, speaking to the repetition and honing that helps to keep him from “succumbing to the sadness” of these stories. “I don’t know that it became routine, but they are routines, right? By nature. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Maron is, as ever, open, having unleashed raw and powerful streams of emotion on episodes of his WTF podcast in the days following Shelton’s death before developing and working out material that gets quite personal. But as he says in our conversation, “I do save a little bit for myself, but not a ton.”

This special is as sharp, funny, and devastating as you can imagine if you’re familiar with Maron’s previous work and a regular WTF listener, but it’s not a therapy session or a TED Talk on dealing (something he jokes about in the special). The point isn’t his catharsis, it’s in making you laugh by examining scary things — the loss of a loved one, a parent with dementia, aging, anti-semitism — through his unique perspective and lived experiences. And if he feels a little better having worked through some shit while working on some shit, great.

We spoke with Maron about the feel-good nature of dark comedy, grieving on the air, establishing boundaries, stressing out about other people’s kids, and talking about a thing as universal and universally avoided as grief.

The deepest laughs for me were some of those jokes that you just couldn’t believe. Like the angel factory. What is it about dark comedy that most appeals to you?

I don’t know. I don’t know that I always saw everything that I was doing as dark, because that’s just the way I think, so it’s not some sort of intentional method. This is just how my brain works. And I mean, I think there’s some lighthearted stuff in there, I guess. But I believe the way I talk about certain topics… and taking on certain topics by their nature makes it a little dark. But I don’t sit down to do dark comedy.

No, of course. But is that sort of your way through to deal with loss?

Sure. I think that comedy has always served that purpose for me, and that’s why I was attracted to it when I was a kid, and that’s why I like watching comedy. It does give you a way to see things through the lens of humor. It can disarm the most tragic events. It can take away a bit of fear around things that seem terrifying. I mean, it has the power to really sort of move you through darkness and pain and fear in a way so you can kind of handle it. So that power that comedy has, it was always helpful to me when I was a kid and it just became the way I think. So yeah, it does help me process things.

I was listening to some of the episodes of WTF from around the time when Lynn Shelton died. At one point, you said something to the effect of, “God damn, am I ever going to be funny again?” I’m curious when you felt like that was happening for yourself.

It’s hard to know. But there was a period there, a few months after Lynn passed away, where I was doing those Instagram Lives fairly regularly just in order to keep in touch with some sense of an audience. And I think that the engagement with people, and the engagement with my life around the house, and my cats and my music, and just being in that mindset of improvising, and driving around in the car people watching, (that’s when) it started to kind of happen. I think it started to happen when I began to interact with large groups of anonymous people that were in sort of the same situation that I was in, which everybody was. It was kind of terrifying, the pandemic. And just finding moments in life (was) when I was able to get into that gear again.

In terms of developing comedy around it, I think that also happened during the Lives, and it started to happen on the podcast a bit, but it was challenging to start to make that stuff work on stage. It took a while, but I think it’s a little dramatic to say, “will I ever be funny again” because there are two things working there

I mean, it was probably within a week of when everything had happened.

Well, yeah. But also we weren’t doing comedy, so it was a weird question [for him to ask himself] in light of the fact that there was no more standup. And I wasn’t going to do those outdoor shows, I wasn’t going to do drive-in shows, I wasn’t going to do Zoom shows. It’s not my bag. So it was a layered question, was I ever going to be funny because of the sadness and the heartbreak, but also just the fact that I didn’t know if anyone was going to do standup anymore.

Obviously, you’ve long allowed yourself to go to a vulnerable place. You open up your life to your audience. Is there an impulse, especially with this, but with anything really, to bottle stuff up and not be as forthcoming?

Well, I do save a little bit for myself, but not a ton. Through the different mediums, through Instagram and everything else, people have a lot of access to us, and it’s a very one-sided relationship. So it really becomes about not so much me stuffing stuff down or closing up, just being careful in terms of my boundaries around people who think they know me, who think we’re friends, or who think, you know what I mean? I still have a lot of life that isn’t lived publicly. So within that, I can have some boundaries. As a performer, I’ve definitely put myself out there within the full spectrum of emotions and (been) as vulnerable as I’m going to get, but I think in life, yeah, I’m a little more protective of my emotions. I think for me, somehow, there’s less risk in just talking either on the podcast or in comedy about my emotions and vulnerabilities as opposed to with people I see every day or every other day. You’ve got to be careful with those people.

You have more control in these situations than in a conversation with someone you know.

Right. It’s one-sided.

You talk about it in the special, about grief and how it’s such a part of human nature. But with the pandemic, people are trying to move away from, I think, feeling that general sense of grief. Death is not something people are talking about as much.

It’s interesting. It seems to be pervasive in culture, the idea of grief. I tried to develop a show with FX around it, and there’s a show now with Jason Segel (Shrinking) and Amy Schumer did a grief show (Life And Beth). I mean, the Carell show about the therapist (The Patient). There’s definitely something in the culture that’s reflecting it, but there isn’t a conversation about it. And I do think it’s odd that after going through three years of terror around a disease that people really want to get past it.

A good example is, Republicans will still talk about Hillary Clinton, and it’s like, all of us just went through the most disturbing, aggravating, terrifying time of our lives on the entire planet for years. And people just wanted to get it behind us. And I do too, to a certain degree, but it’s kind of weird. People will talk about shit from five years ago, four years ago, ten years ago, references, but they really just want to compartmentalize this horrendous three-year period. It’s a weird thing, but I think that speaks to survival, but it also speaks to our inability to integrate that stuff. But what do I know? Maybe a lot of people are integrating their PTSD and their grief around that. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a fault or if it’s a survival instinct, to be honest with you.

Yeah, I don’t either. I think you just hit a level. I know when going through it, I just didn’t want to think about the worst-case scenario of it. And now I feel like all I can think about is the worst-case scenario of it. So it’s like you said, it’s PTSD.

I think that I just found that there are people out there that, I think it’s most of our nature, just like how we deal with the elderly, that there’s a lot of things people just don’t want to deal with or see, because it implies something about them. That no one’s going to get out of it alive and in how everything’s sort of a luck of the draw in a lot of ways. You can only be as safe as you can be. And all that stuff’s very frightening, so it’s instinctual to almost just repress all that stuff or compartmentalize it to a point where it isn’t dealt with. But the assumption is then it comes out in other ways, which I think is true.

You can’t really, you can’t dodge grief. It’s always kind of there. And I’m new to it within the last few years, and certainly people have lost people who have had much longer relationships, or different types of relationships, but once it’s in you, it’s in you. So you can get a handle on it, but it can sneak up on you depending on the moment or the conversation, and it’s pretty fresh under there usually, the sadness, and you just kind of let it happen when it happens.

You mentioned the old age stuff, the stuff with your father and dementia (in the special), grief, things that aren’t necessarily being talked about by people. Is that part of the motivation for you to bring these things into the special or to talk about these things in general?

Yeah, I mean, because this is really what life is, right? I mean, you can have your opinions about whatever, but ultimately if you’re lucky, you get old and die. If you’re not lucky, it happens before that. I don’t know if I’m obsessed with it, but I’m entering a stage of my life that is on the precipice. I’m 59, so there’s a point where everyone’s like, “nah.” It’s like, no, I’m not old, but I’m up there. It’s just crazy. It’s hard to even think about.

It’s just finding that balance though, between thinking about it too much and not thinking about it enough.

Well, I really think that because I don’t have kids, like I said in the special, it isn’t as in my face. I really think that seeing your kids grow has got to be, as exciting as that may be, it does indicate waning on some level.

My wife and I are talking about whether we want to, and my age and everything is starting to really hit me in the face with that conversation. So yeah, the idea of having a kid, I think it would just be a nonstop reminder.

I was talking to a guy yesterday and it was like, because he brought that up, he said he didn’t have kids either, and it was interesting to hear it talked about. I said, “Look, man, it’s like,” I just said, “I’m too selfish and I’m really too neurotic. And those things require time. You have to make time for both of those things, and that’s going to cut into the kid time.”

Did you make a conscious decision? You just were never interested in it? Or was that something that just became clear over time?

I think, it seems that people that want to have them know they want to have them. I just was never one of those people. It’s never been like I want to have them. So I don’t know what that means. I don’t have a problem with them, but I just never really feel it.

I’d say I’m somebody who’s 60/40 on it, and that’s really a hellish place to be. I wish I could just be as clear as “I definitely want them” or “I definitely don’t,” because the half on half off is rough. You can’t return them.

Some people just, it is part of life to a good many people. It’s why they’re here, in some ways, to them.

Yeah. I trend towards the selfish, like you’re saying though, so I definitely have that pop up a lot of the time where it’s just like, “yeah, but I want to travel, or I want to do this, or I want to do that.”

It’s weird. I don’t even think about traveling or any of that. I just think about not worrying. I’ve got enough on my mind. It’s not a freedom thing with me. It was just always about anxiety, to be honest with you.

Oh, it’s insane. I have a niece who, when we watched her when she was younger, four years old, almost running out into the street, falling off playground equipment, it’s just an exhausting non-stop thrill ride.

Yeah. I don’t even know how you let them go to school. So it seems like most of the people I know that have kids deal with this stuff and it just becomes, you adjust. But I have enough anxiety in my life. I’m anxious about kids I don’t have. So I don’t know.

‘From Bleak To Dark’ premieres on February 11 at 10PM on HBO.

It’s early February, which means that the annual post-Grammys furor arrived on schedule this week. At issue was Harry Styles beating out Beyonce for Album Of The Year, a turn of events that might end up being the worst thing to ever happen to Styles. Has the hunky British pop star just been Timberlake-ized? What does it mean to be Timberlake-ized anyway? Let’s hash it out.

Here’s something we did not expect this week: Steve Albini talking about how much he hates Steely Dan! But that’s exactly what the irascible indie legend did on Twitter, which sparked a lot of conversation both for and against the ’70s jazz-rock institution. While it’s not surprising that the man who is synonymous with abrasive and inaccessible rock music would not enjoy the tunes of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, it was funny to see a 60-year-old poker player from the Midwest earnestly start a sentence with “I’m the kind of punk who …”

Finally, we talked about a band that we can all agree is great: Yo La Tengo. The trio is back with another album this week, This Stupid World, and it’s one of their best efforts in years. Then again, has there ever been a bad Yo La Tengo record? We discussed what makes the new album good, and offered suggestions for newbies on where to start with the band’s big and impressive discography.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 125 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

When two of the founding members of Paramore received songwriting credits on Olivia Rodrigo’s Grammy-nominated Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “good 4 u,” the moment served as a reminder of the band’s remarkable longevity and indelible impact on the pop music scene across the 2000s, 2010s, and, now with the imminent release of This Is Why, the 2020s. For nearly two decades, Paramore has ruled the hearts of millions of fans around the world with their sleek blend of pointed, gut-wrenching lyricism and an ever-expanding sonic profile that pulls from influences as disparate as Aretha Franklin and blink-182.

Hayley Williams, the only member of the band to appear on all six of their studio albums, is more than Paramore’s glue; she is the band’s life force. In all of its iterations, the band’s lineup has provided Hayley with gorgeous soundscapes for her voice to soar over. Whether they’re shredding through punk-pop anthems like “That’s What You Get” or cooing over quieter art-rock-indebted ballads like “Forgiveness,” it is Hayley’s voice that makes Paramore what it is. Her belts cut through the most frenetic drum arrangements, and her expressive tone can simultaneously highlight the blistering defiance and wistful self-reflection that ground so many of the band’s songs.

Upon of the release of their sixth studio album, This Is Why, Uproxx has ranked the 40 best Paramore songs of their career so far.

40. “Be Alone”

Before the pandemic forced us all to spend more time with ourselves in the quiet, as the band smartly sums up on “This Is Why,” Hayley & Co. toyed with the merits of loneliness on this track from their 2013 self-titled album. Here, the band takes pride in being alone and explores how spending time with yourself can transform you into a better friend and partner. Like any great Paramore track, the lyrical narrative is gorgeously reflected through a sleek tradeoff between half-time drum breakdowns and ebullient ’80s-esque background synths.

39. “Daydreaming”

There’s nothing better than when a song proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, and that’s exactly what “Daydreaming” does. Standing in the legacy of both Blondie and the Goo Goo Dolls, “Daydreaming” balances cascading synths with brash drums to breathe new life into the song’s tried and true subject matter of trying to find your footing in a new and unfamiliar place. The thunderous chorus adds some edge to the whimsy of those synths, but it’s the undercurrent of verve in Hayley’s voice that does the heavy lifting.

38. “For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic”

Vivacious guitars and an acerbic vocal performance ground this rumination on the disappointment that comes with witnessing a person fumble the faith that you poured into them. Nonetheless, as the title denotes, simply having the capacity to even put faith in another person marks some level of optimism — and that’s a win for a band whose discography is so thoroughly enthralled with the trappings of pessimism.

37. “Emergency”

Formative moments and influences from Hayley’s childhood have found their way into many a Paramore song, and “Emergency” is no different. A melancholy banger that relays the volatility of love through a recounting of Hayley’s parents’ divorce, “Emergency” is easily one of the more memorable tracks from the band’s debut album.

36. “Fences”

Another example of Paramore’s slick contrast of their soundscapes and songwriting, “Fences” finds the band balancing jaunty chord progressions and Hayley’s sardonic vocal performance with a scathing narrative that offers insight into the cripplingly stifling nature of celebrity in the age of paparazzi, specifically for public figures in the midst of their breakout moment. The song’s closing line, “you’ll go out in style,” gets its edge from the context of the derisive chorus, but it’s Hayley’s penchant for legato-as-emphasis vocal approaches that gives the line some true bite.

35. “Careful”

Resistance and defiance are grounding principles of the punk-pop tradition, and that’s what “Careful” is all about. With a playful guitar melody and drums that are equal part militant and freewheeling, “Careful” finds Hayley prioritizing her own personal truth to access the freedom that she’s been denied whenever she tries to conform to truths that are not hers.

34. “Let The Flames Begin”

Yet another anthem of defiance, “Let The Flames Begin” smartly balances softer verses with an anthemic chorus that nods to the less obvious throughline of Christian sonic and lyrical references in the band’s discography. The song finds the band at odds with an unspecified “they,” but it’s probably the same group of people that they refuse to conform to — hence Hayley’s impassioned vocal performance.

33. “Anklebiters”

Paramore’s rejection of conformity and commitment to the freedom of individualism have allowed them to transform into countless versions of themselves over the years, both aesthetically and sonically. These allegiances, or lack thereof, have also provided their discography with a clear lyrical throughline of thinking for yourself even if it means going against what the majority believes or does. Enter “Anklebiters,” a rambunctious ode to people who struggle to form their own identities outside of collectives. Complete with catchy chants and screams sprinkled throughout the background, “Anklebiters” revels in its brashness in a way that feels, against all odds, quite welcoming.

32. “Caught In The Middle”

How does a singer who rose to fame in a genre that’s so often connected to the angst of adolescence grapple with getting older in the public eye? By making a song like “Caught In The Middle,” of course. With a chorus that pulls from the most commercial edges of reggae to a vocal performance that balances fatigue with quiet audaciousness, “Caught In The Middle” is a gem.

31. “Where The Lines Overlap”

The turbulent nature of Paramore’s interpersonal relationships hasn’t been all doom and gloom. “Where The Lines Overlap,” a joyous ode to working through issues and coming out stronger and closer than ever before, is a reminder that the band’s open communication has always been their secret weapon. For example, the song’s bridge works because you truly believe Hayley when she sings “Now I’ve got a feeling if I sang this loud enough / You would sing it back to me.” She delivers that line with the emotional heft of someone who has been through both a separation and a reconciliation. Given that previous member Zac Farro has since rejoined the band, it’s safe to say that Hayley was right.

30. “Franklin”

On this dedication to their hometown, Paramore leans more toward the literal and less into the metaphorical. Although the song may feel a bit sappy, there’s a mournful quality to Josh’s background vocals that gives the song some much-needed depth.

29. “Escape Route”

Initially left off their self-titled album because the band felt it was too reminiscent of their older sound, “Escape Route” is one of the hidden gems in Paramore’s discography. What’s interesting here is the song’s strikingly rapid pace. It’s almost as if Paramore’s new (at the time) lineup was trying to outrun their feelings about the departures of older members, as well as the memories attached to those former members. Sonically, the track is in line with much of the ground the band covered on their first three albums, but Hayley’s frantic vocal offers something a bit more sinister.

28. “Pool”

When it comes to love songs, Paramore is more likely to give you a close look at the more ominous undercurrents of those feelings than maudlin puppy-eyed schmaltz. While the song’s production is just as playful as the rest of After Laughter, it’s Hayley’s characterization of a pool as an all-consuming pressure cooker of desire that exposes the darkness of love.

27. “26”

Sometimes, when we get older, we finally understand the value of things we derided in our youth. For Paramore, that thing is the utility of dreams. “26” reverses course from “Brick By Boring Brick” by way of a delicate acoustic guitar that soundtracks Hayley’s renewed loyalty to the concept of hope after dealing with people that kept her chained to the darkness of this plane of existence.

26. “Grow Up”

With Rick Rubin-esque snares and a poppier melody than their earlier songs, “Grow Up” is emblematic of the bouncier feel of the band’s eponymous 2013 album. For Paramore, lack of growth is reason enough to leave someone behind because they refuse to be caught in a mode of stasis due to someone else’s lack of maturity. It’s an unsuspectingly harsh lyric that pairs well with the song’s spirited synth outro.

25. “Pressure”

Nearly twenty years later, Paramore’s debut single still holds up. Sonically, the single is firmly entrenched in the band’s punk-pop roots, and Hayley’s voice sounds markedly younger and more nasal. Nonetheless, the band’s promise and genius courses through the song. Their knack for dynamics manifests itself through the twinkling acoustic guitar in the background of the bridge, while the extra syllables Hayley adds to the word “pressure” lay the foundation for her peerless manipulation of her voice on later records.

24. “Proof”

It’s only fitting that the first song recorded for what is arguably the band’s best record is also one of their most stunning songwriting achievements. A song that intentionally submits to the power of love instead of basking in the bitterness that often accompanies a breakup, “Proof” finds vulnerability through casting away fear, ego, and pride. Over an ascending melody that recalls the most chipper of British folk songs, Hayley sings “If I’m half the man I say I am / If I’m a woman with no fear just like I claim I am / Then I’ll believe in what you say.” Indeed, Hayley. Indeed.

23. “Told You So”

In both Paramore’s discography and Hayley Williams’ two solo albums, her anxiety has been a source of the band’s literal and musical evolution. With this track from After Laughter, Paramore pulls off one of their most familiar songwriting hattricks: flipping idioms into incisive, cutting lyricism. Here, the band flips the overdone adage “I hate to say I told you so,” into an unlikely anthem of resilience steeped in the kooky gloss of After Laughter’s take on new wave. The track’s production is decidedly ebullient, but the grim imagery of the song’s lyrics (“Throw me into the fire / Throw me in, pull me out again”) offer a sharp and welcome contrast.

22. “Hallelujah (Live from Chicago)”

One of the more exhilarating live acts of the past decade and a half, no list of this nature is complete without at least one of Paramore’s live tracks. This live recording of “Hallelujah” blends Leonard Cohen’s classic with the band’s own song of the same name. The interlocked themes of steadfast faith in one’s own self, purpose, and destiny could easily read as saccharine, but the band’s frenetic energy and crowd interaction prioritizes hope and community above all else.

21. “Idle Worship”

Honestly, this might be the best commentary on stan culture from a popular musician since Eminem’s own “Stan.” That might be an overzealous take, but “Idle Worship,” with its rejection of mindless celebrity worship and embrace of not just imperfection, but also some level of villainy, is worthy of that kind of praise. Less in the new wave vein than most of After Laughter, “Idle Worship” blends the more forceful sounds of Paramore’s earlier records with the trenchant songwriting of their later work.

20. “Decode”

The emo lead single from the soundtrack for the first Twilight movie is a modern classic many younger millennials and elder members of Gen Z. Hayley’s vocal performance and lyrics expertly encapsulate the fraught love triangle of the film’s protagonists, but the band’s rousing Evanescence-esque instrumental arrangement is what truly drives the high drama of the whole affair.

19. “Conspiracy”

Upon reflection, it’s almost chilling how much of Paramore’s lyrical identity was established with the very first song they’d ever written. “Conspiracy,” which predictably details an alleged conspiracy against Hayley’s way of existence, sets up the conflict between Paramore and those who want to control them — the same conflict that can be traced all the way to “The News,” the second promotional single from This Is Why. While the lyrics are commendable, it’s Hayley’s otherworldly vocal performance that allows the song to rise above the general punk-pop clutter of the mid-aughts.

18. “Crushcrushcrush”

You didn’t seriously think a Paramore song about crushes would be all rainbows and butterflies, did you? “Crushcrushcrush,” which served as the second single from the band’s sophomore album, utilizes some of their best guitar licks, as well as vocals that range from menacing whispers to mordant talk-singing to electrifying belts. Perhaps one of their more lyrically ambitious songs, the relative incoherence of the song’s structure only bolsters the overarching narratives of two could-have-been lovers getting in the way of their own happiness.

17. “Playing God”

In a way, the sonic-lyrical contrast of “Playing God” foreshadows the bulk of After Laughter. With a bassline that recalls the best of Jimmy Eat World, “Playing God” finds Hayley ripping into the self-righteous people who seek to control her life and her decisions. It’s a decidedly angry vocal performance that, oddly enough, plays perfectly against the bouncy effervescence of the song’s instrumentation.

16. “Forgiveness”

The changes in Paramore’s lineup have been a dominant narrative in both the band’s musical evolution and their public perception. With this song, the band wrestles with the concept of forgiveness in the context of professional and romantic relationships. With nods to ska and a striking staccato delivery in the verses, “Forgiveness” effectively relays how thorny, non-linear, and, at times, cyclical the processes of forgiveness and closure are.

15. “Now”

One of the more overtly angry tracks on an album that is comparatively lighter, “Now” is an anthem of reclamation. Written, recorded, and released during a period of time that marked several conflicting narratives surrounding the truth behind the changes in the band’s lineup, Paramore use corybantic guitars and Hayley’s just-short-of-unhinged vocal performance to take hold of their own narrative. “Now” charts a path that is chiefly concerned with looking toward the future instead of dwelling on the past.

14. “Still Into You”

This song houses one of Hayley’s most nuanced vocal performances — at least in terms of her work with Paramore — and you might miss it because of how sugary sweet the song is. In Hayley’s voice lies the guilty glee of giving into a crush, the exasperation of unsuccessfully fighting off infatuation, and the sheer reverence of the staying power of feelings of love. Easily one of the band’s more middle-of-the-road pop records in both lyric and structure, Hayley’s voice elevates “Still Into You” to a place beyond sappiness — a feat that has stumped many a punk-pop love song.

13. “Misguided Ghosts”

One of the quieter and more subdued moments in Paramore’s discography, “Misguided Ghosts” taps into the listless meandering that can characterize some pockets of the curve of maturity. When Hayley drags out each line in the final chorus into a despondent descending melody, the song truly hits its stride. The acoustic guitar cradles her restrained vocal in the same way that the bombast of the band’s biggest hits boost her belts into the stratosphere.

12. “This Is Why”

Upon release, critics lauded the lead single and title track for Paramore’s latest studio album — and for good reason. At once a succinct analysis of the pandemic’s impact on social anxiety and a darker take on the funky new wave soundscapes that reverberated across After Laughter, “This Is Why” is a yet another maker of maturity for Paramore in a genre that, at times, feels too reliant of the tropes of adolescence.

11. “Brick By Boring Brick”

Instead of subverting familiar idioms, “Brick By Boring Brick” finds Paramore adopting a third-person narrative perspective as they relay the story of a girl who finds escape through fairytales. With a snarling vocal performance from Hayley and hair-raising chords from guitarist Josh Farro, the band slyly recreates the darkness of the song’s lyrics in the actual music of the track. The song’s abrupt ending robs us of closure (does the girl ever end up burying the castle?), but that stark break after the increasingly intense “ba-ba-ba’s” that close the song lift Paramore to an emotional apex that accentuates the power of their songcraft.

10. “The Only Exception”

A crowning achievement in songwriting in Paramore’s discography, “The Only Exception” finds the band expertly toeing the line between a mawkish love song and vulnerability that disarms both Hayley and, more importantly, her listeners. Dreamy acoustic guitars give way to twinkling organ keys in an arrangement that sonically replicates the throes of accepting and internalizing what love truly looks like.

9. “Misery Business”

Probably the most contentious song in Paramore’s discography, “Misery Business” has lived many lives. The lead single from their sophomore album doubled as their worldwide breakthrough hit, sold over six million copies, was later removed from their live performance setlists due to a second verse widely deemed as anti-feminist, and, most recently, spawned a widely successful spin-off in Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u.” Yeah, one song did all that — and it’s easy to see why. A chugging, insidious slow-burn that deliciously rips into an ex’s old flame, “Misery Business” finds Hayley narrating, belting, and outright screaming through her side of the story. Soundtracked by one of the band’s most raucous instrumental arrangements, “Misery Business” is the kind of no-holds-barred headbanger that solidified Paramore’s position in the punk-pop pantheon.

8. “Hard Times”

Released as the lead single for the band’s fifth studio album After Laughter, “Hard Times” marked Paramore’s shift from overt punk influences to a glossier new-wave sound. The song’s balance of funk and restraint echoes the impasse of Hayley and Taylor York’s lyrics. “Hard times / Gonna make you wonder why you even try,” Hayley croons in the song’s chorus. Colored by her own battle with depression, tensions between band members, and the general tumult of growing up and the feelings of uselessness that come with all of these things, “Hard Times” is a shining jewel in Paramore’s discography.

7. “Turn It Off”

Any song that opens with “I scraped my knees while I was praying / And found a demon in my safest haven” has got to be in the conversation for Paramore’s best songs. A refreshingly honest look at the tiresome reality of reconciling belief in Jesus with the more unsavory ways in which religion interacts with the world around us, “Turn It Off” reaches its towering peak in its bridge. In that section of the song, Hayley launches into one of the most unfathomable vocal performances of her career. It’s not just a moment of technical brilliance, she’s conveying so much emotion and turmoil in those belts that you just want to hand her an Oscar.

6. “All I Wanted”

An acoustic ditty that morphs into a raging wail-fest through which Hayley attempts to make sense of the perils of a dangerously all-consuming love, “All I Wanted” is one of those moments of histrionic heightened emotion that feels completely natural and justified. This is probably the greatest example of how Paramore is unafraid to dive into the inherent ugliness of truly feeling and internalizing every facet of emotion that racks the mind and heart.

5. “That’s What You Get”

The third single from their sophomore album and one the band’s signature songs, “That’s What You Get” deftly displays Paramore’s grasp of dynamics and how effortless the essence of punk-pop is for them. The track leans more into emo than their recent offerings, and that darkness grounds the band’s exploration of what it means to take responsibility for yourself. Instead of pointing the finger elsewhere, what does it mean to accept that you thought with your heart and didn’t use your head? From the dashes of disco in the verses to the arena-ready breakdown in the refrain leading into the final chorus, “That’s What You Get” is a punk-pop masterclass.

4. “Fake Happy”

“Fake Happy” is one of Paramore’s best songs for the simple fact that it effortlessly showcases the band’s ability to synthesize their core ethos — exploring the emotionally vulnerable, and sometimes obsidian, underbelly of punk-pop — into a sound that sits lightyears away from that which made them household names. Beginning with dry acoustic guitar before morphing into a mélange of new wave, synth-pop, and a roaring behemoth of a chorus, “Fake Happy” folds all of Paramore’s chameleonic identities into just under four minutes of a cathartic rebuttal of performing happiness.

3. “Rose-Colored Boy”

Paramore’s pessimism has offered the band a throughline to connect most of their albums. Simply put, optimism isn’t really the band’s ministry, and “Rose-Colored Boy” continued that trend on After Laughter. Further dabbling in that album’s new-wave soundscape, Paramore expands on the colloquialism of “rose-colored glasses” and delivers a song that yearns for the hopefulness of a rose-colored boy, but ultimately sits in the peace of accepting a moodier state of being.

2. “Hate To See Your Heart Break”

The band’s most tender ballad, “Hate To See Your Heart Break” features not only one of Hayley’s most somber vocal performances, but also some of the band’s most lush production. Hayley’s lower register and wistful tone pair beautifully with the pensive string arrangements that provide the song with its emotional anchor. Eventually, the song builds into a fervent bridge that ultimately gives way to the restraint that initially gifted the song its beauty.

1. “Ain’t It Fun”

A pristine mixture of the band’s punk-pop foundation, the formative gospel music influence of Hayley’s childhood, and the slick pop sensibilities of their songwriting, “Ain’t It Fun” is the crown jewel of Paramore’s discography. It’s not often that a commercial peak so elegantly aligns with a band’s most singular idiosyncrasies, but “Ain’t It Fun” pulls it off. The slightly bratty rhetorical question that gifts the song its title and hook recalls Paramore’s penchant for spinning crushing truths out of age-old idioms. Moreover, the song’s instrumentation and Hayley’s vocal performance find each band member firing at all cylinders. Rollicking drums, spirited handclaps, wailing guitar, and an ardent backing choir all combine to create a definitive anthem about what a shitshow growing up is. What more could you ask for?

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

Ever since James Gunn took the reins of DC Studios and announced his plan to drastically overhaul the DC Universe, some of Zack Snyder‘s more persistent fans have been circulating a hashtag demanding that Warner Bros. Discovery sell the Snyderverse to Netflix, so the director can finish his Justice League trilogy. (And maybe let Ben Affleck direct his version of The Batman.)

While Gunn has ignored the fan campaign over the past few months, he is on Twitter a lot, and clearly, grew tired of seeing it. The DC Studios chief responded to a fan pushing the Snyderverse hashtag by letting him know that neither Snyder nor Netflix are interested, so maybe let the whole thing go.

“I have to say, this has got to be the wackiest hashtag ever,” Gunn tweeted. “Since 1) Netflix hasn’t expressed any such interest (although we’ve discussed other stuff) & 2) Zack hasn’t expressed any interest & seems to be happy doing what he’s doing (and, yes, we too have talked).”

Gunn took things even further by revealing that he has spoke to Snyder, who backs Gunn’s plans to overhaul the DC Universe. Gunn also reiterated that Snyder has moved on from the Justice League fiasco, and he’s having a blast with his burgeoning Rebel Moon plans at Netflix.

“He contacted me to express his support about my choices,” Gunn replied to a fan who was curious about Gunn and Snyder’s conversation. “He’s a great guy. Again, he seems really happy with the massive world building he’s doing now.”

(Via James Gunn on Twitter)

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – What are we doing here?

There was a whole big thing about movie tickets this week. Specifically, about movie tickets at the AMC theater chain. Even more specifically, about how AMC Theaters plans to roll out a new tiered pricing system for tickets to movies. There was probably a better way to phrase all of that. I don’t know. The whole thing has kind of fried my brain a little bit. I get a headache whenever I start thinking about it, for reasons I will explain in a minute, right after this blockquote that lays out exactly how all of this is allegedly supposed to work.

There will be three different seat-pricing options. The first is Standard Sightline, described as the “seats that are the most common in auditoriums and are available for the traditional cost of a ticket.” Then there’s Value Sightline, referred to as “seats in the front row of the auditorium, as well as select ADA seats in each auditorium, and are available at a lower price than standard sightline seats.” (Value Sightline pricing is only available to AMC Stubs members, including the free tier membership.) The third option is Preferred Sightline, which are the “seats in the middle of the auditorium and are priced at a premium to standard sightline seats.” AMC Stubs A-List members will be able to reserve seats in the Preferred Sightline Section at no additional cost.

There are a lot of words that allegedly mean things in there but the main takeaway goes something like this: The best seats in the theater are about to cost more to sit in unless you sign up for AMC’s newish subscription service. And the crappiest seats are about to cost less… if you sign up for AMC’s newish subscription service. If you read all of that and thought, “Hmm, it sure sounds like AMC is just doing all of this to kind of nudge people toward signing up for their newish subscription service,” well, then you and I appear to be on the same page.

There’s a good piece over at IndieWire that lays out why you and I thought that and why we were correct and smart to do so. Here’s a little snippet.

“There are many clever ways to optimize ticket pricing that not only drive more revenue for the theaters, but drive attendance with reduced ticket pricing,” Alicia Reese, VP, Equity Research with Wedbush, told IndieWire. “Adam Aron has long been a proponent of loyalty programs and tiered seating, having come from the airline industry. I agree that AMC is trying to increase its customer retention and direct communication with its moviegoers, and the best way to accomplish that is to promote AMC’s loyalty program and provide great perks to its members. The Sightline pricing achieves that goal by incentivizing moviegoers to become Stubs members.”

Yes, great, fine. I mean, not fine, really, but I get what they want to do here. They’re going to sell it as, like, “well you pay more for better seats at concerts and sporting events and you don’t think that’s crazy, so why should movies be different?” Which, again, fine. There is a thin layer of logic here if you squint a lot. The problem they’re going to have is a long history of this not being the way it was done and a lot of people getting mad as heck about paying more for seats that cost the same as recently as a few weeks ago.

Actually, that’s only one of the problems. The other one is policing it in the theater. Sporting events and concerts hire a lot of people who wear yellow security shirts and have walkie-talkies that make them look important. Are you telling me movie theaters are going to put one or more people in every theater to enforce this? To show everyone to their seats and then make sure they stay there? For the duration of the movie? I doubt this very much. Which means they’re working on the honor system, to some degree. Which means I am going to sit wherever I want. You should, too. Who cares?

(This is extra funny for me because, as regular readers know, I use a wheelchair. Earlier this week I tried to work up a mental image of some poor theater employee walking up to me, the dude in the power wheelchair, and telling me I can’t be parked where I am. That was fun. I laughed out loud in my kitchen. I would almost be proud of the person if they had the guts to do it.)

The other problem here is that it incentivizes tattletaling. The only people who will care if you march down into the good seats once the previews starts will be the people who paid the higher prices to sit there in the first place. I am already angry at these people. These freaking marks. We should not do things that incentivize tattletaling and the people prone to it. I dislike this more and more with every second I think about it.

But maybe I’m biased. That’s a possibility, too. Here’s the problem: the CEO of AMC Theaters, as identified in the blockquote up there as a man named Adam Aron, was once, about a decade ago, the CEO of my beloved Philadelphia 76ers. The team was so upsetting in that period, a middle-of-the-road turd that showed no initiative to improve as long as they got butts in seats. It was infuriating. It got so bad that, after he left, the team tore everything down and embarked on a multi-year run of purposeful futility in an attempt to rise from the ashes. I could go on. You do not want this.

My points here are threefold:

• I cannot foresee a situation where this works out well, especially not in the short term
• I am going to park my wheelchair in the most obnoxious places possible because I am a sick person who will find that funny
• Go Sixers

Thank you.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – What is happening here?

This is the trailer for an upcoming movie called Strays. You’re going to click on it and think for a second that it’s your standard talking dog movie, kind of like a live-action Oliver & Company where a dog gets separated from its owner and hits the streets and gets taken under the wings (paws?) of a number of streetwise stray dogs. And it is that. Kind of.

But then the dogs start cussing. And drinking beer. And their voices sound familiar. And the owner of the main dog turns out to be a dirtbag played by Will Forte. And then you, like me, will start poking around a bit and stumble across paragraphs like… well, like these.

When Reggie (Will Ferrell), a naïve, relentlessly optimistic Border Terrier, is abandoned on the mean city streets by his lowlife owner, Doug (Will Forte), Reggie is certain that his beloved owner would never leave him on purpose.

But once Reggie falls in with a fast-talking, foul-mouthed Boston Terrier named Bug (Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx), a stray who loves his freedom and believes that owners are for suckers, Reggie finally realizes he was in a toxic relationship and begins to see Doug for the heartless sleazeball that he is.

Determined to seek revenge, Reggie, Bug and Bug’s pals—Maggie (Isla Fisher), a smart Australian Shepherd who has been sidelined by her owner’s new puppy, and Hunter (Randall Park), an anxious Great Dane who’s stressed out by his work as an emotional support animal—together hatch a plan and embark on an epic adventure to help Reggie find his way home … and make Doug pay by biting off the appendage he loves the most. (Hint: It’s not his foot).

A few things are worth noting here:

• My first thought was that this looked very stupid, but then I saw the cast and the thing where it’s directed by the brains behind Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar and comes from the Lord and Miller production umbrella and now I’m actually kind of intrigued
• It is really funny that they slipped “Oscar winner Jamie Foxx” in there in the description for the movie about the cussing street mutts
• I wonder what appendage they are referring to

Oh well, I guess we’ll have to wait and s-…

Ah, yes. Of course.

To recap: Some of the biggest stars in Hollywood have teamed up with some of the most creative comedy minds to make what appears to be a cross between Homeward Bound and John Wick where an adorable little pup hunts down his scumbag owner to bite his wiener off. Never let anyone tell you that cinema is dead. We are all out here thriving. Kind of. Those of us that aren’t getting our ding dongs snapped off my bloodthirsty pooches. That doesn’t sound great.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – 30 Rock was a good show

Here’s what happened, and I am going to keep this brief for both of our sakes…

There is this Seinfeld AI thing on Twitch that took years of his material and started spitting out algorithm-based new bits about current events and other stuff aaaaaaand it has already been banned for sharing transphobic content. The future is really something. Here’s the exact collection of words that got Cyber Jerry in trouble, if your curiosity has already gotten the better of you.

“There’s like 50 people here and no one is laughing. Anyone have any suggestions? I’m thinking about doing a bit about how being transgender is actually a mental illness. Or how all liberals are secretly gay and want to impose their will on everyone. Or something about how transgender people are ruining the fabric of society. But no one is laughing, so I’m going to stop. Thanks for coming out tonight. See you next time. Where’d everybody go?”

This is somehow terrible and gross and deeply funny, although maybe not in the way anyone intended. This thing dropped two “no one is laughing” phrases in one paragraph and ended with a “Where’d everybody go?” The Seinfeld AI appears to be in a tremendous amount of crisis here. Like, borderline questioning its own existence. It’s probably good the whole experiment got shut down for a bunch of reasons, including the thing where it appears to be about a week or two away from heaving itself off a bridge. We invented all-knowing robots and they went and became hopelessly depressed in like three months. Explains kind of a lot, actually.

Anyway, on a… uh, brighter note… do you guys remember MILF Manor, the very real reality show about horny moms finding out they’re dating each other’s children? The one that was almost exactly the real version of MILF Island, the fake show 30 Rock came up with a decade ago when it was looking for the dumbest and most pathetic thing a network executive could pitch to grab eyeballs from distracted viewers?

Well…

It’s probably not a good idea but a part of me wants to bring back the Seinfeld AI just to tell it about this. I feel like this could be the thing that breaks it. I want to see smoke coming out of its ears like a robot in an old cartoon that just got confused by a riddle.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – An update on my favorite television character

We have discussed the Harley Quinn cartoon many times around here. We will probably discuss it a lot more going forward. It really is a blast, a solid block of funny and stupid and foul and sweet and all of it. Kaley Cuoco is great as the voice of Harley. The rest of the cast is awesome, too. This isn’t about them, though. This is about Bane.

The version of Bane on this show cracks me up. He’s voiced by James Adomian and is just a mess. He has no self-esteem and mopes around and spent a big chunk of one season angry that someone took his pasta maker. He drinks from a coffee cup that says “CAFFEINE IS MY RECKONING.” I love him very much, for a number of reasons set forth in part by that video up there.

This week, the show released a 45-minute Valentine’s Day special. It is so, so good. You probably can’t jump in blind and appreciate it, which is for the best, in a way, because you really should go watch the whole thing on HBO Max anyway. (You deserve it.) But if you are caught up and you do dive in this weekend, you will see… this.

Now, could I explain to you why Bane is 100 feet tall and so hopelessly horny that he is fornicating with Gotham skyscrapers until they crumble into massive dust clouds on the street? Yes, of course. I watched the screener twice in the last week and laughed pretty much straight through both times. But you deserve to go on this journey yourself. It’s… it’s really just very special. What a beautiful television program. What a beautiful character.

In a way, this is what Valentine’s Day is all about. I mean, a little. Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to post a GIF of Bane demolishing buildings with pelvic thrusts. Could be one or the other. Or both. It’s probably both. I feel great about it.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – This was a good sketch

There are a couple schools of thought when it comes to breaking during a sketch and giggling a little bit. Some people hate it because it feels amateurish and takes them out of the scene they’re watching. Others find it to be a charming reminder of how silly the whole thing is, and that the people on the stage are just humans, too. I tend to fall into the latter group, mostly, within reason. I don’t want to see people laughing through every sketch, or even most of them, but when a few snorts and laughs slip through the cracks, I usually find myself laughing more. Maybe I’m a simple man with simple tastes. There are worse things to be, I guess.

That brings me to this sketch from the most recent episode of SNL. I have watched it maybe 10 times this week. I’m probably going to watch it again in a second. It’s so silly and stupid and watching all of that wash over Pedro Pascal’s face is really endearing. The man is a professional. He has done this for years. He’s a real actor. But he, like me and probably you, could not hold it together while Ego Nwodim sawed away at her extremely well-done steak. It’s just a nice little piece of business all around. I love a smart piece of cultural commentary. I love cutting political satire. But I also love physical comedy about wobbly tables. It is okay to have a broad set of interests.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Kelly:

Congratulations on getting what I have to assume is a consulting producer credit on the new Pierce Brosnan heist show on the History Channel. I didn’t see your name in there when I watched it live but I’ll keep an eye out next time.

Kelly sent this to me on Twitter this week. It was nice. I have good news and bad news about it all. Bad news first.

I did not receive any kind of credit for this show, titled History’s Greatest Heists, which is introduced and narrated in part by Pierce Brosnan. It’s weird, I know, given how much of my day is spent tweeting pictures of Pierce atop news stories about the silliest heists I can find. But still. Out of my hands. I will simply have to be glad it exists at all.

Which brings me to this, the aforementioned good news: Just a few minutes into the first episode of this sucker, an hour-long look into a famous diamond heist in Antwerp, Pierce looked into the camera and said this.

Ladies and gentlemen… we did it. We made it happen. I am so proud of and happy for us all. Especially me. And Pierce. I am mostly happy for me and Pierce.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To France!

A convicted Italian mafia killer on the run since 2006 has been caught in France, having hidden in plain sight as a pizza chef for at least three years.

This is easily one of the greatest sentences I have ever read. Just perfect from beginning to end. I’m going to press on because I am a professional but know that I do so carefully, just because I don’t want to ruin something this beautiful.

[Edgardo] Greco, 63, was wanted for the murder of two brothers during a “mafia war” between two gangs in the early 1990s.

Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo were beaten to death at a fishmonger’s in the city of Cosenza in January 1991. Their bodies were never found and are believed to have been dissolved in acid.

Well, uh… this got dark. But it does provide some solid background. Let’s continue…

Eight years later, he settled in the French city of Saint-Étienne, southwest of Lyon, eventually taking up the job of pizzaiolo in an Italian restaurant.

Greco took on a new identity, calling himself Paolo Dimitrio. By now he had been given a life sentence back in Italy and was the subject of a European arrest warrant.

Two things are undeniably true here:

• A mob fugitive getting a job as a pizza chef in France sounds so much like the plot of a movie that I kind of can’t believe it isn’t one yet
• I need someone to get Bobby Cannavale’s agent on the phone immediately

Wait until you see this next part.

But in July 2021 he was sufficiently confident of his new alias that he appeared in a local newspaper feature, boasting of his restaurant’s “regional and home-made recipes” such as ravioli, risotto and tagliatelle.

Please know that I gasped out loud when I got to this paragraph the first time through. The man was wanted for a double murder where he may or may not have dissolved his enemies in a vat of acid and he’s out here posing for pictures in local interest stories about pizza. This is maybe one or two steps short of like DB Cooper finally getting busted after revealing himself to be the owner of a greasy spoon in Reno on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Which is also a movie I would watch, if anyone is taking notes.

Greco, using the name of a criminal from Puglia in the southeast of Italy, now had a grey beard and glasses. The feature called him an Italian by birth but at heart a local to Saint-Étienne.

He was, however, still being pursued by Italy’s foremost anti-mafia prosecutor, Nicola Gratteri, who has spent decades tackling the rise of the ‘Ndrangheta.

I’ll leave you with this: Please take a moment this weekend and picture Nicola Gratteri, Italy’s foremost anti-mafia prosecutor, opening up his newspaper at home in the morning and seeing a picture of a legendary mafia hitman smiling and proudly displaying a pizza on a long wooden pizza peel and then spitting his espresso all over his dress shirt. Don’t worry about why he gets a French newspaper delivered to his house in Italy. This is too good to ruin with logic.

The Pizza Fugitive. Coming to theaters in summer 2024.

Tove Lo is wasted no time releasing new music. Given the fact that the Swedish pop star’s latest album, Dirt Femme, which featured “2 Die 4” and “True Romance,” was only released in October. However, as Lo embraces her musically independent status, she lets her creativity fly high with an emotionally alarming new single, “Borderline.”

Co-written along with fellow international pop sensation Dua Lipa, Jakob Jerlström, and Ludvig Söderberg, “Borderline” is a tale of a romance you’ll spend years and thousands of dollars of therapy recovering from. Opening with the lyrics, “Good people do bad things too / Pretend they don’t know, but they do / It takes one to know you’re mine / You and me, we are one of a kind, it’s true,” strap yourself in as you are being prepared to embark on the whirlwind this is intoxicating love.

The track produced by The Struts is a champion piece to Lo’s song “No One Dies From Love,” featured on Dirt Femme. However, the level of romantic desperation reaches an all-time as she sings, “I like to feel my bones when they crash into my heart / I like the taste of blood when you’re tearin’ me apart / I like to push you to the edge as long as you say you’re mine /Borderline,” on the pre-chorus.

By no means is this Lo’s first swing at a dark pop track, but “Borderline” is her most polarizing effort yet. As the stanza, “Tonight, for the rest of my life / I’m gonna be stuck on you / Hold on till I’m makin’ it right / No other love felt like you / I can’t give it up in this fight / I cross my heart and hope to die / Borderline,” repeats throughout the chorus you don’t know if you want to burn up the dance floor or host an intervention.

The song’s lyrics may be unsettling, but according to Lo, the collaboration process was nothing of the sort, writing on Instagram, “Thank you to the usual suspects I can’t live without @utz_utz_utz_struts & @jakobjerl and tons of love to Dua Lipa for trusting me with this baby! This is the very first song we wrote together and the very start of our friendship, so this feels extra special.”

To which Lipa replied in the comments, “iiiiiiihhhhh, I’m so excited!”

Listen to the whole track below.

It’s certainly not a bad time to be Paul Rudd right now. (Although it never seems like a bad time to be Paul Rudd.) The multi-faceted actor is promoting his latest Ant-Man film – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – he no longer has to worry about the pressures and responsibilities of being the sexiest man alive, and his favorite team is back in the Super Bowl.

Rudd, who has made a career out of leaving space for whatever comes his way, has seen his career twist and turn a bunch over the years. Take a random sample and you might get a bit confused. Wait, this guy was in Romeo + Juliet? Oh yeah, he was on Friends. Hold on, Brian Fantana from Anchorman is Ant-Man? But for Rudd it’s perfectly simple; each project made sense at the time, within the context of when he took it, and saying yes to things is what got him here in the first place. While not a classically trained comedian, Rudd has all the tenets of a good improv scene partner. He listens, he lets life take him where it’s naturally going (whether the camera is rolling or not), and he goes all in, all the time, with a classic facial expression or witty aside at the ready.

Uproxx Sports caught up with Rudd in the midst of a whirlwind week that saw the Quantumania premiere, the debut of a new Super Bowl ad with Heineken 0.0, and his beloved Chiefs set to take on the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII.

I’ll start off by asking, you’ve done a lot of interviews the last few days especially, what do you want to talk about with our time today?

Oh boy. What do I want to talk about? I leave it to you. I’m an open book, Martin. Whatever you want to know.

I appreciate that. Well, one thing I’m been fascinated by in following your career, and I have for the entire time you’ve been an actor, is just the sustainability and consistency that you’ve had, really from the jump, in taking roles. If you look at the diversity of projects that you’ve had, even from the nineties with Romeo + Juliet and Clueless and Friends and everything else there into the comedy work that you’ve done into some of the television work that you’ve done, and joining the MCU, what do you ascribe some of that to? Was that part of the plan, or is it just by nature of just riding the wave more so than anything else?

No, I don’t think you can have too much of a plan because nothing will ever play out the way you think it would. If I had any kind of hope, really, it was that I would get to work on things that I was interested in and that I liked. And so if I was lucky enough to get the job and it met that criteria, I was happy.

And over the course of many years, sometimes it has turned out to be something unique in pop culture or something that resonated even after the fact. As far as, I think, maybe with some of the comedy stuff, stuff like Wet Hot American Summer or Anchorman, I think I made a real attempt … I mean, I remember really wanting to work on those movies because those two comedies, that kind of stuff really spoke to me. I was such a comedy fan and still am. And it had a unique sensibility, and you didn’t really get to see that kind of stuff in big movies or really any movies, that kind of tone.

Those were instrumental, I think, in allowing me to work in comedies for many years. And then that turned out to be a bit of a wave. And I just went with that and got to work with a lot of the same actors. So I was really fortunate there.

But other things lead to other things. And sometimes there is just this Forrest Gump quality that I’ve experienced at different times. Like, “Oh my God, how is it that I am now working on some episodes of Friends? How did I wind up here? This is an amazing experience, but I can’t believe that I’m standing in the room.” And over time I’ve looked back and found myself in different kinds of groups or on different kinds of things that do resonate with the public. And obviously Marvel is the biggest. It’s so huge and global that, to be a part of this is … it still feels all a bit surreal.

I’m glad you mentioned Wet Hot American Summer. The comedians associated with that. And Role Models is maybe my favorite comedy ever. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched that movie and noticed something different in that one. I know you’ve talked about the role that improv has played in some of the projects that you’ve done and the fun that you’ve had along the way. And I’m just curious, who taught you to basically leave room for that improvisation, and is that something that you carry into your life as well? You’ve said you don’t have a plan. If you leave room for those moments and that grace, there will be gifts given to you, and I think that’s probably shown in some of the projects that you’ve been fortunate to work on.

Oh. Well, hey man, thanks a lot for that. That was nice to hear. Yeah, I don’t know, as far as the improv, I’ve always liked doing improv comedy. I did it in high school, but I was in speech class. I don’t have any kind of background in it. I just thought it was fun to do, but it’s not really my background. I didn’t go through Second City or Groundlings or any of that kind of thing. I’m sure there’s rules of improvisation. I know there are, and I don’t think that I know what they are.

But I studied theater, and I do know the importance of listening when you’re in a scene with somebody, whether you’re reciting memorized lines or improvising. And if you’re improvising, you have to listen. And I think it’s just learning to be perhaps relaxed enough that you can just go off of what somebody’s saying or at least … I’ve been really lucky to work with some really, super funny people, and I was able to thankfully have the ability to know where maybe they were going with a joke, and I could just stand back and hopefully set them up with a setup, and they can spike it because they’re hilarious. So, you learn that kind of back and forth, I guess, over time, how to do it or improve in that way of working.

Sometimes magic will happen, and you can, in the moment, think of something, and it’s funny, or it’s moving, or it’s whatever it is. But it’s a really incredible work. And I think on Anchorman, I experienced it on a movie for the first time. I had done other little smaller things, but I couldn’t believe it. And then it really had this effect on me that I loved doing that, certainly on comedies. And I have stayed with certain things. Even in the Marvel stuff, there’s always some takes or some times where it’s just spontaneous.

I think listening is such a big component of that, and it’s something we all need to get better about, or at least we can work to.

Sorry, what was that? I wasn’t paying attention. What did you just say?

See, that’s it. I love it, Paul. Thank you.

That one was a gimme. Sorry.

I know! That’s a layup. I do want to ask about the Super Bowl. Seeing the Chiefs back in the Super Bowl is obviously special, but also the big thing for me is being able to share those moments with your kids. What does that mean to you, not just to have your favorite team, but to have your kids be along for the ride? What else have you shared with them, whether that’s some of your favorite bands that you grew up with that you’re surprised that they like, or maybe favorite films or anything like that?

Well, it’s the best part of this. And I watch every game with my son who, since he was a little kid, this kid’s born and raised in New York, but he’s a diehard Chiefs fan. Has been since he was about six or seven years old. So to be able to watch sports with your kid and share in the victories and share in the miseries is a very special, specific kind of thing. And when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, it was really one of the most magical things.

It would’ve been amazing if it wasn’t for my kid. But because we experienced that together; it was so much more profound. And yeah, it’s just the best. It really is just the best. As far as music and stuff, he’s always found his own thing. Both my kids, they have really great taste of music, and it’s really a wonderful surprise. Same thing with movies. They’ll discover something on their own and I think, wow, that’s really cool that they like that.

But most of the time, like if I ever go to either of my kids, say, “You got to hear this song, check this out,” they’ll be like, “I don’t care, dad.” Or “You got to see this. Hey, look at this.” They’re like, “No. No. We’re not interested.” They’re kids, and I’m their dad. And ultimately, they have their own opinions, and their own lives. And so maybe on a good day they’ll listen to me and check it out, but they have their own stuff that they’re into.

What’ll happen is they’ll find something they told you about years later. They won’t say it out loud that it was you who introduced them to it, but they’ll know.

I’ll tell you the coolest thing is actually, now when your kids get older, they get into something, and then they play it for you, and you’re like, “Whoa, that is really interesting.” My son is obsessed and has been for many years with a composer named Ryuichi Sakamoto. And yeah, he’s scored several films, but he’s an amazing, amazing composer. And I got turned on him because of my son.

Amazing.

So the reverse thing happens, and that’s super cool when it does.

When your kids develop that taste, it’s really, really incredible. I want to make sure I ask you about Heineken 0.0. I participated in dry January this year. I didn’t even mean to, but I’ve been trying to be a lot more mindful about really everything. And I know you’ve had some times where you’ve taken a break, or pressed pause. You’ve been under intense scrutiny to take care of your body, especially for the Marvel Universe, which it’s almost another full-time job you have to worry about. How do you feel about the rise of the sober-curious movement, and what does it mean to have just, I guess, more options in the NA space as you continue to focus on yourself and focus on mindfulness and your health?

Yeah. Well, I think it’s awesome. It’s gotten so good. The beers taste great. They really do taste pretty great. And you almost can’t really tell. I felt that way when I had this one. And I don’t know, it was the kind of thing I didn’t think about that much. I have a pub in my house, and I have my buddies come over. But when I first set this up, one guy, a friend of mine didn’t drink. He drank non-alcoholic beer. And he was sober. And so I got some, just thinking, oh, he might want a beer in this setting. And he was so touched that I had done that.

And I realized, oh yeah, there should be more options here. This is a real thing. And by the way, sometimes you just want to have a beer, but you just don’t want the alcohol. Sometimes you’re driving. Or I want to be clear-headed. And so, to be able to have something like this and that it’s becoming much more of a common thing, I think, is terrific.

I do have one very quick thing I’d love for you to answer if you have a moment.

Sure, yeah, what is it?

What is your favorite Mac and Me drop that you had with Conan over the years?

It’s such a silly bit that I had no idea it was going to last as long as it did. And it was never the intention. It was really, the first time, I was talking about this a while ago. The first time was just because I just didn’t want to … I felt like such a hack, just having to promote my own movie. “Here’s a clip from my own movie.” I said, “Why did I have to do that? Why can’t you show a clip from another movie?” [Laughs.]

But this last time I did it on the podcast was particularly gratifying because he really did not see that coming. There was such a banal, dumb buildup to it that I almost put him to sleep with the explanation of what this thing that I’d been writing was, that when it played and he just heard it … I think the joy was sitting across from Conan, and as soon as he heard the strings, and then he could hear the sound of the wheelchair. I’ll never forget, sitting across from him and seeing the look on his face as the realization of what I was just playing kicked in. And so that one was special.

You could almost hear his face on the audio. That was an amazing moment.

Yeah, that was legit. He goes, “No, it doesn’t work. It’s a visual medium.”