Fans of the late pop singer and actress Olivia Newton-John are in for a treat. Following her untimely passing in August, admirers of Newton-John scoured the internet to learn more about her career. Tributes for the star poured in, highlighting her breakout role in the 1978 film, Grease, but her entertainment career started much earlier than that.
According to Variety, filmmaker R.J. Cutler is in the works to produce a feature-length documentary to explore all parts of Newton-John’s life and work. The documentary is set to showcase her long career as an actress, a recording artist, and advocacy work in animal rights, environmental, and wellness causes.
While the director of the project hasn’t been named, after securing full authorized access to Newton-John’s music and personal archives, we know the film is in good hands with Cutler’s company, This Machine.
To name a music documentary, This Machine has produced Billie Eilish’s documentary, The World’s A Little Blurry. In addition, Cutler is working on Elton John’s documentary, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The Final Elton John Performances and the Years That Made His Legend, for Disney+.
With a career spanning nearly half a century and Olivia Newton-John’s life already been told as part of the Lifetime Network’s miniseries Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted to You, the team over at This Machine has their work cut out for them.
Despite Magomed Ankalaev dominating Jan Blachowicz in the final three rounds of the main event of UFC 282, a split draw meant the UFC light heavyweight title is still vacant. UFC president Dana White is looking to ensure the belt finds a home sooner rather than later, and has jumped at the opportunity to give former champion Glover Teixeira another shot at gold.
Teixeira will square off with Jamahal Hill at UFC 283 in Rio de Janeiro, pulling Hill away from a scheduled showdown with former contender Anthony Smith in March. Hill later revealed that he apparently got the call for the bout while Ankalaev and Blachowicz were still in the Octagon.
Dana really didn’t take long to decide on Glover Teixeira vs. Jamahal Hill: “Before they even left the cage, my phone rang” #UFC282pic.twitter.com/wqxuP4gTKy
The light heavyweight title scene has been in constant disarray since Jiri Prochazka vacated the belt due to a shoulder injury that required surgery and would keep him out of action for six months. Teixeira, who was slated to face off in a rematch against Prochazka following his submission loss, reportedly declined a title opportunity and last-minute switch to fight Ankalaev. He instead requested a move one month later to UFC 283, which was declined, and the showdown at 282 was handed to Blachowicz. Now, he gets a fight on his terms in his first return to the Octagon since his loss last June.
Hill heads into the biggest fight of his career on a three-fight win streak, finishing former title contender Thiago Santos with a fourth-round TKO.
Last month, indie icon Andy Shauf announced his new album Norm: “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” he said. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realize that it’s sinister.” So far, he’s released “Wasted On You” and now “Catch Your Eye,” a stunning, memorable ballad.
“Catch Your Eye” is fragile and soft, centering on the immensity of longing: “I need to meet you / I need to catch your eye,” he repeats innocently, though there’s a subtly dark edge to the determination. However, the animated video by Mary Vertulfo that accompanies the song is wholesome. “Catch Your Eye” falls as the second track on the LP, following “Wasted On You.”
In our 2020 interview with Shauf, he discussed growing up in a Christian household surrounded by secular music. “Yeah, my dad was really into Southern gospel music but also pretty into ABBA,” he explained. “I was in a worship band all through school, and we would try and make the worship songs punk. [So,] I would play punk beats. Really embarrassing.
Watch the full video for “Catch Your Eye” above.
Norm is due out on 02/10/2023 via ANTI-. Pre-order it here.
As if everyone’s favorite H-Town hottie didn’t have enough on her plate, as the center of one of hip-hop’s most heated criminal trials against singer Tory Lanez for allegations of assault, that hasn’t stopped social media users from linking the “NDA” rapper has been looped into a new rumored romance.
What’s the rumor? Well, according to the whispers, Megan Thee Stallion is now seeing NBA player Ben Simmons. After stepping away from social media following a spat with rapper Drake over the lyrics included in his song “Circo Loco” with 21 Savage, the rumors grew even bigger. Fortunately, the Brooklyn Net star took a moment to put the rumor to bed indirectly.
The notoriously private basketballer, who is fresh off a breakup with model and reality tv star Kendall Jenner, uploaded a video clip of Rick Ross yelling, “Accusations. These are false accusations” on his Instagram story as his unofficial comment.
It may seem out of place, but the video clip is short and direct, leaving viewers of the story with no room to misinterpret his message.
YouTube
It looks like Megan Thee Stallion might want to look into enforcing non-disclosure agreements in her circle to avoid such frivolous rumors from popping up in the future.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It’s no secret that everyone could use a little kindness in their lives and it can come in many forms. Sometimes it’s the neighbor cutting your grass when your husband’s away and you’re too busy to get to it yourself. Other times it’s sending a card to the elderly widow down the street.
One woman in Arkansas has taken to spreading kindness through writing letters to strangers. Allison Bond, 25, started writing letters over a year ago during COVID-19 when she couldn’t attend school due to her medical condition. Bond has cerebral palsy and is at greater risk for serious illness should she contract the virus. Writing letters was an act of kindness that didn’t require a trip out of the house.
Bond began by writing to soldiers and inmates. In fact, the first letter she received back was from a soldier. Bond told 5News, “I have one framed from a soldier. He had all his battle buddies sign it. So I framed it so I could put it up.” She’s kept every letter she’s received.
People continue to write Bond back, and she’s turned her hobby of writing letters of kindness into a mission called Kindness Through Letters Mission. She has a post on her Facebook page asking people who would like to help to donate supplies to help her continue writing these letters. The list is fairly short and straightforward: She needs paper, cards, envelopes, pens and stamps—all the staples of a letter-writing venture.
Bond says she writes the letters in hopes that she makes someone’s day a little bit brighter. But her mission to spread kindness honors what her grandmother told her before she passed away, “Keep doing something good.” Bond has developed several pen pals through her letter-writing ventures and would eventually like to turn her mission into an official nonprofit.
The 25-year-old has even developed pen pals in other countries. According to Washington County Enterprise Ledger, Bond has writing buddies in Russia and Japan as well as several states in America.
If you’d like to help Bond with her Kindness Through Letters Mission, you can send supplies to her PO Box:
Allison Bond
P.O. Box 1205
Lincoln, AR 72744
It’s hard to believe that there was once a time when Bond didn’t enjoy writing, but her mom, Kathy told 5News, growing up Bond hated writing but it has now become a passion. What an amazing passion it is.
Love stories can take many twists and turns. But for one couple, one such detour lasted more than 40 years. In 1972, Jeanne Gustavson met Steve Watts at the German club at Loyola University and was instantly attracted. Their love story should’ve continued from this day forward, but sadly it was cut short when Gustavason abruptly broke up with the man she loved.
Gustavason explained to CBS News that her mother did not approve of her interracial relationship and wasn’t shy about expressing her disdain for the couple. This disapproval of the courtship is what led to the breakup. Eventually, Gustavason and Watts married and divorced other people, but they never forgot about the love that ended too soon.
You’d think after four decades apart and all the life lived in between that the pair would have fully moved on. But it seems that true love really doesn’t die because Gustavason went looking for Watts in 2021, and she found him.
However, Watts had experienced several major setbacks in life, including two strokes that had left him bedridden. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the couple’s love and determination to be together. The soon-to-be-bride arranged for her long lost love to be moved from the nursing home into her home in Portland, Oregon, where she took on caregiving duties.
Though things may look different, these two love birds are getting their happily ever after. The pair recently got married surrounded by friends and family, and now they can live out the rest of their days making up for the time spent apart.
For thousands of years, people around the world have been honing the art of agriculture. For the vast majority of human history, people planted and harvested and sorted produce largely by hand, gradually developing tools and machines over time that would make farming more efficient.
Many crops still have to be harvested and/or sorted by hand, but thanks to a rather mind-blowing machine, tomatoes aren’t one of them. A machine that harvests tomatoes saves a ton of time and labor, but as tomatoes don’t all ripen at the same time, pulling up an entire tomato plant results in a good number of green ones getting into the mix.
One solution to this problem would be to have the tomatoes transported down a conveyor belt in a factory while workers spot and remove the green ones by hand. However, an automated green tomato sorter does it right in the field as the tomatoes are being harvested, and a whole lot faster than any person ever could.
How many humans would it take to separate 32 green tomatoes from red ones in a single second? Um, a lot.
We’ll get to the technology of how it works in a minute, but first you have to see the sorter work in slow motion. The machine is so fast you can’t even really see what it’s doing until you slow it down, but when you do, the wow factor is awesome. There are occasional misses, of course, but for how fast it’s going, the accuracy is remarkable—and impressive to watch.
As James Vincent put it in The Verge, “It’s sorting tomatoes, but it looks like the fingers of God flicking damned souls straight into hell.” Check this out:
How does it work so precisely and freakishly fast to flick them away?
Am I the only one with a sudden urge to play Fruit Ninja?
The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation dove into a few of those questions with Don Douglas, president of Weco, a company that builds the optical technology behind the sorter. Douglas explained that light is used to create a reflection off the tomatoes and a sensor connected to software determines which tomatoes are green using that reflection.
It’s actually tech that’s been used for decades, but it’s obviously been perfected and optimized over the years. Watch the machine at work and hear Douglas explain how it does what it does:
It’s not always better to have machines do work humans can do, and there’s certainly plenty of reason to be concerned about human labor being replaced by machines. But when that labor is back-breaking and tedious, technology can be a big help. Some inventions are also such prime examples of human innovation and ingenuity, you just have to marvel at them—even if they’re just sorting green tomatoes from red ones.
Christmas time is here again, and along with it can come the stress of purchasing gifts. This probably goes double for parents with young children. Whether it’s the latest toy, tech or item of clothing, there’s an overwhelming amount of stuff that people can be pressured to purchase to see faces of their loved ones light up.
However, actress and talk show host Drew Barrymore would argue that perhaps what’s more important than physical gifts during the holiday season is creating lasting memories.
In an exclusive interview with ET, Barrymore shared a fairly unconventional Christmas tradition—rather than spotting Christmas gifts under the tree, her two daughters (Frankie, 8, and Olive, 10) go on a trip every year.
Barrymore admitted that at their age, not getting presents was a bit of a hard sell. But she continued to affirm the importance of her decision, telling them, “I think we’ll remember the place and the photos and the experience and that’s what I want to give you.”
She also clarified with ET that “they get plenty of things throughout the year, so I’m not like some weird, strict, cold mom who’s like, ‘You don’t get any gifts!’ I just feel like a better gift would be a life memory. I’d rather invest [in that than in] a doll house or something. It all evens out and it’s fine.”
There’s no rigidity in the plan—over the pandemic when travel restrictions were at an all-time high, Barrymore did offer Christmas gifts. And unprecedented global events notwithstanding, she still prefers to keep things open to change.
“[I try] to remember that one holiday won’t be probably the same as one 10 years from now, that your life can dramatically change, and new people and new traditions can come into it,” she said. “I like looking at the holidays through a comedic, realistic lens of, ‘we’re gonna have a lot of different holiday stories. What one do you want to keep going and build as a tradition?’ Rather than, ‘this is my tradition and I’m stuck in it.'”
Obviously, for many people, buying trips is even less financially feasible than buying presents. But the real point that’s illuminated through this story is that focusing on experiences can be just as rewarding (and many times more rewarding) than getting stuff. The pressure to spend money during the holidays is real, but what’s more important is making memories with the people who matter most. Especially in our modern world where everything moves at a mile a minute and carving out quality time is a difficult task. Luckily, that doesn’t have to cost a penny.
Even people who are extensively wealthy are choosing to invest in Christmas differently. Recently a successful CEO made headlines for sharing that she only gives her children one gift each year, and uses the rest of the money to provide gifts to other kids who might go without a gift. Odds are, those kids will remember learning how to embody kindness and generosity long after the shiny newness of whatever gift they got has faded.
It can be hard to not feel as though Christmas gifts will somehow make the day feel more Hallmark Channel-worthy. But it’s true that presence is a precious gift unto itself, and simply being there with loved ones might be all it takes to get that warm, fuzzy Christmas feeling.
Living on a planet with approximately 8 billion other people is interesting. We are unique individuals, but we are also part of a collective humanity, and the push and pull between the “me” and the “we” is something that has fascinated sociologists and philosophers for centuries.
The concept of courtesy bridges the gap between “me” and “we,” as it encourages seeing the needs and circumstances of other people and treating them with respect. In our highly individualistic society, however, that bridge must be built purposefully, with children being taught courtesy purposefully.
That’s one reason videos of young children role-playing as adults riding on a bus in early elementary classrooms are going viral.
Two videos have been circulating on social media this week showing kids in two rows of chairs set up as bus seats. A “driver” sits up front and as various passengers come aboard, the kids who are seated practice giving up their seat for those who appear to need it more than they do.
For instance, one kid role-plays boarding the bus as an old person with a cane, another as a person carrying a baby and another as someone pregnant. Not only do the kids who are already sitting practice offering up their seat, but they even practice providing physical assistance to help the person sit down.
(Note: The first video implies that it takes place in Japan, but it does not appear to be Japan. The original source of the video is unclear.)
u201cThis is a u2018courtesy lessonu2019 taught to elementary school children in Japan.u201d
The way they pretend to hold onto the invisible straps is adorable. You can see that they’re being trained in specific steps and walked through them to create the habit of seeing who is entering the bus and providing a seat for those who may need one.
u201cHow our creative teachers are teaching ‘Civic Values’ in rural schools.nnHere’s a beautiful clip where students enacted scene offering seats to fellow needy passengers in an invisible bus..nnGuaranteed to bring tears to your eyes.u201d
Much like the Japanese concept of “atarimae” that prompts Japanese soccer fans to clean up the stadium after a match, the idea that one would give up a seat for an elderly, pregnant or infirm person is just ingrained in some cultures. But that doesn’t mean it happens naturally. Making courtesy lessons a part of early elementary school curriculum, as we see in these videos, creates those habits of seeing a need and being willing to sacrifice for a fellow person from an early age.
What if all schools taught these habits to all kids? What influence would such lessons have on society? It’s not just about manners on public transit—it’s about being aware of the needs of the people around you and looking for ways to be helpful. It’s about recognizing that equity means some people have a need for some things more than others, even something as simple as a seat on a bus.
It’s great to see lessons in courtesy being taught so directly and thoroughly to young kids. This kind of role-play makes showing others respect and consideration not just a vague concept but specific behaviors and habits that should simply be a matter of course. If all 8 million of us learned these kinds of habits growing up, imagine what a different world we might live in.
When comedian Chris Farley was found dead from an overdose on December 18, 1997, he left behind an impressive body of work for someone so young. Farley was a breakout hit on “Saturday Night Live” from 1990 to 1995 and would go on to star in the comedies “Tommy Boy,” “Black Sheep” and “Beverly Hills Ninja.”
Farley was beloved by his fellow cast members on SNL in the mid-’90s, many of whom went onto superstardom. including Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Mike Myers.
Even though Farley has been gone for 25 years, Sandler still hasn’t gotten over the loss, and on the latest episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, he admitted that he still gets choked up when talking about him on stage. Sandler has been playing the “Chris Farley Song,” a tribute to his late friend, during his one-man show since 2019.
He played an emotional version of the song in 2019 when he returned to SNL to host after being fired from the show 24 years earlier.
Here’s an excerpt of the lyrics to “Chris Farley Song” by Adam Sandler:
On a Saturday night my man would always deliver
Whether he was the bumblebee girl
Or living in a van down by the river
He loved the Bears and he could dance
That Chippendales with Swayze
When they replaced his coffee with Folgers
He went full-on crazy
The sexiest gap girl
Without him, there’d be no lunch lady
In lunch lady land
Oh, I’m thinking about
I’m thinking about my boy
Chris Farley
“The first few times we played that song, I would tear up and I couldn’t really sing it well because I’d get so emotional and then I felt it and was able to get it out there,” Sandler told “Happy Sad Confused” host Josh Horowitz. “It’s weird, but when that song starts, I go, ‘Oh f–k, alright, don’t cry and don’t do that’ still. I’ve sang it maybe a hundred times already, but it rocks me.”
He misses him deeply because he knows him as much more than a performer.
“I think it’s because we show a video of Chris and I see his face,” he said, referring to a montage that plays behind Sandler as he sings. “And I remember his dad and I’m friends with his brothers and his mom and everybody and they still miss him a lot. So yeah, it gets me.”
It’s hard for Sandler to talk about Farley but it’s wonderful to hear how much he is still loved.
“I love hearing the crowd go nuts for Farley,” he said, adding, “Every show I do, by far the biggest applause of the night is talking about Farley and any time I mention his name, the audience goes nuts. It feels great.”
Sandler said that when he and his friend David Spade, who was also Farley’s comedic partner, went on tour together, he had a hard time hearing the song. “He’s like ‘Man, sometimes I can’t listen, I gotta walk away because I get so upset,’” Sandler said of Spade. “We loved him. We loved him so much … He was as cool as it gets.”
Farley’s life ended in tragedy, but his memory lives on through his work and friends like Sandler and Spade, who keep his memory alive. It’s a testament to the love that these friends had for Farley that his memory still brings up such strong emotions. It’s a testament to his talent that audiences are still overjoyed when they hear his name.
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