Category: News

Since it was announced in the spring of 2021, the forthcoming movie Cocaine Bear has garnered a lot of attention. And why not? It’s called Cocaine Bear. What’s more, it is, as you might guess, about a bear who’s high on cocaine. Do you need to know any more than that? Possibly not, but in case you do, here are some basics about the forthcoming film.

So it’s called Cocaine Bear, but what is it actually about?

Cocaine Bear is about a black bear who unwittingly consumes a ton of cocaine. It then goes on a murderous rampage.

Who are some of the human actors the cocaine bear attacks?

Keri Russell heads the ensemble cast of potential cocaine bear chow. She’s joined by O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Jessie Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Washington Jr., Margo Martindale, and — in one of his final appearances, and looking even more criminal than Goodfellas’ Henry Hill — Ray Liotta.

The story of a bear that unwittingly consumes a ton of cocaine sounds familiar. Is it based on a true story?

It is! A wild true story, which may be hard for the film to top. It stems from a 1985 incident, covered at the time by The Associated Press, which told of a man named Andrew Thornton, who led a colorful life. The son of wealthy thoroughbred owners, he became a military paratrooper, then a police officer, then a lawyer. His last gig was as a prominent Kentucky drug smuggler.

Thornton’s life up to this point could make for an engaging film in its own right. But there’s more. Investigators believe Thornton was transporting millions in cocaine on a small plane over Tennessee. The cargo was too heavy, though, and Thornton threw some of it out, which landed near a 175-pound black bear. Said bear then consumed 70 pounds, or 40 percent of its body weight. It was found dead four days later, which is sad. No animal deserves to die of a drug overdose.

I’ll bet there’s another, also shocking thing about this story.

Yes, there is. Thornton also fell out of the plane, albeit with a parachute. He was considered an expert skydiver. Unfortunately his parachute didn’t open and he was found dead on top of someone’s driveway.

Wasn’t something like that in Season 4 of Justified?

It was. Yes. This cocaine bear story is a rich text.

How much of this stranger-than-fiction story will be in Cocaine Bear?

It’s not clear. Perhaps Stanton is a character. Perhaps not. They should include it, though.

Are there parts of Cocaine Bear that did not happen in the real cocaine bear story?

Yes, there are. While many details have yet to be made public, there’s one major thing that’s in the film that did not happen for real. As mentioned, the cocaine bear, who’s had a lot of cocaine, goes on a murderous rampage. That part didn’t happen. The only deaths were the bear and Thornton. So that’s good, at least.

Who made Cocaine Bear?

It was directed by Elizabeth Banks, the actress who expanded into filmmaking. She’s previously directed Pitch Perfect 2 and the latest Charlie’s Angels reboot. Cocaine Bear looks like it will borrow from both, the comedy of the former (although of a much darker variety) and the action of the latter (though mostly for creature feature thrills). Its producers include the very funny duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of the 21 Jump Street diptych, The Lego Movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and more.

Is there a trailer?

There is, and you can watch it here. People had a lot of reactions to it when it dropped.

Finally, when can one see this Cocaine Bear picture?

It hits theaters on February 24, 2023.

Yes, the teaser trailer for Shrinking is just funny people jumping on a trampoline. No, it doesn’t tell us anything about the series except who is in it and how much mad air they can catch. It’s not the most electrifying teaser trailer of the year, but it’s worth get excited about the show itself.

The Apple TV+ show was written by Ted Lasso duo Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein as well as Jason Segel, who stars as therapist who stops being polite and starts getting real.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“Shrinking follows a grieving therapist (played by Segel) who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives … including his own.”

As you can tell by following the bouncing stars, the show also features a grumpy Harrison Ford, and the presumably non-grumpy Christa Miller, Jessica Williams, Michael Urie, Luke Tennie, and Lukita Maxwell.

It’s a great cast! Plus, Shrinking adheres to The Bill Lawrence Rule: we should watch everything Bill Lawrence makes. Ted Lasso famously dove deep into therapy last season, so it will be interesting to see what kind of harsh and humane comedy this team wrings out of the profession.

Shrinking drops its first two episodes on Apple TV+ on January 27th with new episodes landing every Friday after. For 8 more weeks. Not, like, forever.

Latto has been dealing with a lot this month. It was only a couple of weeks ago that 130 of her unreleased songs were leaked, yet she showed off her indifference to the situation by flexing that she was “trending.” Now, she’s already announcing more music that’s coming very soon.

Today (November 30), she tweeted about a collaboration with GloRilla and Gangsta Boo arriving just this Friday. “Latto x Glo x Gangsta Boo THIS FRIDAY ,” she wrote on Twitter.

GloRilla has been rising rapidly, making headlines for not knowing ham is pork and for getting a special shoutout from the one and only Nas. Cardi B joined her onstage at the AMAs, and she’s even nominated for a Grammy. Meanwhile, Gangsta Boo is a hip-hop veteran many are stoked to hear in this collaboration.

Notably, Glo and Gangsta Boo are both from Memphis. In September, Gangsta Boo praised GloRilla on an episode of Drink Champs. “I been watching them girls for the past couple of years and I was like, ‘What the f*ck?’ It made me feel good. They represented Memphis right,” the Three 6 Mafia legend said, as noted by Revolt. “A year later, GloRilla got signed. I got distracted because I was thinking of her glow-up. I think she was 19 — remember when [I] was that age?”

GloRilla broke through earlier this year with “FNF (Let’s Go),” which received the remix treatment from Latto and City Girls’ JT and earned her a deal with Yo Gotti’s CMG Records.

Earlier today, GloRilla made the news when she called out a DJ who claimed she wanted to work with him. “So GloRilla just called me and told me to pack my bags,” he wrote in a statement on Facebook. “It’s time to turn my state up one more time.” She replied by simply writing, “What are you talking about,” and then adding, “Ian said sh*t like dat.”

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

It’s probably not all that surprising to learn that riffing with George Lucas in the 1980s was slightly more creatively freewheeling than crafting a series for Disney in 2022, but at least we have firm confirmation now. Bob Dolman, who wrote Willow and was part of the writer’s room for the reboot series, told The Hollywood Reporter that the mammoth corporate entity was pretty interested in the day-to-day on their investment.

“It felt that the studio was over our shoulder quite a bit — the studio being Disney and also Lucasfilm,” Dolman said. “They had good input; they had good notes. You have to move a series along, and you have to be involved in it. But I felt like we weren’t left alone enough just to toss ideas around and have the kind of freedom that I had when I was working with George and Ron. And not be worried about whether or not an idea was good or bad, but just trying things out and taking a chance and having the courage to even find a bad idea, knowing that it could lead to a good idea.”

“There are a lot of voices, and some of them aren’t necessarily voices that know more than the people that have been hired,” he went on to say. “But those voices are heard, and notes are given. In the writing room of Willow the TV series, there was constant input from other sources outside of the room. So it felt to me like we were never really alone in the room.”

Dolman was overall positive about the experience — and who wouldn’t be? His criticism is measured, but it also turns out that Disney and Lucasfilm suits might know a thing or two about what sitting on shoulders because the series is currently a big critical hit. Way to go, suits! Willow is on Disney+ as of today, November 30th.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Entering Week 13 of the 2022 NFL season, there’s still a long way to go before we know which two teams will fight for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LVII at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. But we’ve known since September that Rihanna is making her triumphant musical return as the Super Bowl halftime performer — there might even be a documentary — and, today (November 30), we learned the exciting lineup for the fourth annual Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest.

The Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest will get fans ready for the big game on Sunday, February 12, 2023.

Paramore is taking a page out of Rihanna’s book and making their comeback Super Bowl-adjacent. The beloved band will kick off the three-day Music Fest on Thursday, February 9 — one day before the release of This Is Why, their first album since 2017’s After Laughter. The February 10 show will be headlined by Dave Matthews Band with special guest DJ Pee .Wee, and Imagine Dragons and Kane Brown will wrap things up on Saturday, February 11. All three shows will take place at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

“This music festival continues to be at the heart of the Super Bowl Fan Experience and will continue to offer everyone an unforgettable lifetime of memories,” President Of On Location and IMG Events Paul Caine said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited for those in Phoenix to experience an amazing lineup of headliners who normally wouldn’t perform together for fans.”

Director Of Experiential Marketing For Bud Light Lane Joyce added, “Music and football are core to Bud Light’s DNA, and we’re thrilled to bring our annual Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest to Phoenix. Beyond the Super Bowl itself, our three-day festival has become the marquee event of Super Bowl week. This year, we have an all-star line-up of musicians from various genres, ensuring we have something for all fans whether they’re traveling early for the game or live right here In Arizona.”

In previous years, the Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest has staged performances by the likes of Bruno Mars and Cardi B, Halsey and Machine Gun Kelly, Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, Miley Cyrus and Green Day, and Post Malone and Aerosmith.

Tickets for all three 2023 shows go on sale here beginning Friday (December 2) at 10 a.m. local time.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Driving a car for the first time can be a terrifying experience. But did your maiden vehicular voyage take place in front of a camera — while you pulled off some insane stunt? That’s what it was apparently like for Anya Taylor-Joy, who got her driving legs while filming a movie by one of the kings of automotive mayhem, Mad Max director George Miller.

As per Entertainment Weekly, the in-high-demand Queen’s Gambit actress recently appeared on The Graham Norton Show (while seated next to Bruce Springsteen, no less). At one point, the host busted out a clip she posted to her Instagram account, which finds her on the set of Furiosa, the Mad Max prequel about the early days of Charlize Theron’s Fury Road badass. In it, a car, driven by Taylor-Joy, speeds towards the camera — only to do a perfect “juicy lift 180,” where the car comes to a complete stop, but only after doing a U-turn.

It’s pretty impressive! But you know what’s even more impressive? That it was, she says, her first time driving. “What’s really crazy and slightly upsetting about that is that that’s my first time in a car,” Taylor-Joy told Norton, et al. “So I don’t have a license, I can’t parallel-park, I can’t go on the highway. I still don’t have one, but I can do that. At some point that will come in handy, I’m assuming.”

Furiosa wrapped principal photography late last month after spending the summer shooting. Driving a car wasn’t the only first Taylor-Joy recently enjoyed. She also played with The Beach Boys, as we all do it some point in life.

You’ll have to wait awhile to see how Taylor-Joy equips herself behind the wheel: Furiosa doesn’t hit theaters until May 24, 2024. But for now, you can watch her talk about driving in the video below.

(Via EW)

The Arizona Cardinals have struggled a lot this season, sitting at 4-8 through 12 games, which is well outside the playoff picture currently in the NFC.

That’s not where they expected to be after inking quarterback Kyler Murray, head coach Kliff Kingsbury, and GM Steve Keim to long-term extensions this offseason, and there’s plenty of blame to go around for their woeful season thus far. After their most recent loss, blowing a fourth quarter lead to the Chargers, Murray was asked about a botched 4th and 1 play that ended in an interception and very bluntly said they were “f*cked schematically,” seemingly placing a chunk of the blame on the coaching staff.

That clip became a talking point and on Wednesday, Murray’s former teammate and current Vikings cornerback Patrick Peterson discussed that and the Cardinals’ overall struggles with Bryant McFadden on their All Things Covered Podcast. Both noted that Kingsbury was a lock to be the first fall guy for Arizona’s issues, but Peterson said he wasn’t surprised by Murray’s postgame comments because “Kyler Murray don’t care about nobody but Kyler Murray.”

Unsurprisingly, that clip got a lot of attention and even grabbed Kyler’s, who responded in a tweet saying Peterson was on some “weird shit” and called him out for saying he was a “big bro” and then trashing him “so your podcast can grow.”

This is one of the tricky parts of the “new media,” as Draymond Green calls it, because active players talking critically of other players, particularly those they’ve played with in the past, feels much more personal than when someone else in the media does it. Kyler certainly seems to think Peterson crossed a line here with regard to the code players should follow, and it’s hard to blame him for being upset. That said, if Peterson is going to dip his toes in the media waters, these are the types of things people want to hear — blunt criticism that doesn’t hold back — and unfortunately for us, the Vikings and Cardinals already played this season.

Olivia Rodrigo is looking to officially move on from Sour, her wildly successful 2021 debut album. She celebrated its one-year anniversary this May, but she was spotted back in the studio with producer Dan Nigro by August. “Hopefully I won’t be so sad on the next record,” Rodrigo had said in an Elle feature earlier in the year, adding, “I’m definitely not as sad as I was when I wrote Sour. I’m so excited to make my next record and explore more colors and textures and feelings and grow as a human being even more.”

And it seems we’ll get to hear what she meant sooner than later.

Spotify Wrapped took over social media today (November 30), and Rodrigo had a special treat for her top listeners of 2022. “Hey, it’s Olivia! I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening to my music this year,” the three-time Grammy winner said in a pre-recorded video. “[I] really, truly couldn’t be more grateful, and I’m so excited for next year and all of the new things and the new music that 2023 will bring. So I’m sending so much love your way, and thank you again. Bye!”

Rodrigo dropped her monumental debut single “Drivers License” in January 2021 and hasn’t looked back, dominating the charts and Spotify. Earlier this month, Sour became the first album by a female solo artist with four singles individually eclipsing one billion (with a capital ‘B’) Spotify streams: “Drivers License,” “Deja Vu,” “Good 4 U,” and “Traitor.”

“TikTok is destroying humanity,” – some boomer.

No sir, TikTok is elevating humanity into the upper echelons of evolutionary potential (while also inventing some fun dances). Our ancestors fought tooth and nail (often losing their lives, RIP) for valuable information like…. how to soften butter without a microwave, how to ensure cereal never goes stale, and how to get the secret discount at Panda Express.

TikTok is an ever-growing archive of human wisdom, and recently added to the TikTok lexicon is a mind-bending innovation to optimize one of our most cherished meals, eggs. Deviled eggs, in specific.

This Thanksgiving, North Carolina native Carolina Van DerWerker discovered a shockingly simple method to separate the yolk from the white of a hard-boiled egg in one clean fell swoop.

Just roll the egg gently with the blade of the knife. Brilliant! Considering hors d’oeuvre has been around for centuries, how did no one find out about this, or better yet, who’s been keeping it a secret? This witchcraft was shared with the world via TicToc to absolute astonishment and uproar. The coveted top comment reads, “$22,000 for culinary school and THEY DIDENT TEACH ME THST.” [sic]

Naturally, this got some other TikTok Foodfluencers (please god, don’t let that phrase take) got excited and tried it themselves:

No longer must we suffer the burden of scooping our yolks. Never again will an egg white’s pristine form be compromised. Once again we say thank you TikTok. This Christmas expect Deviled Eggs to be mass-produced.

Since its release in 2003, the Christmas-themed rom-com “Love Actually” captured hearts and became one of the most beloved holiday films of all time. True to its title, the film celebrated love—all kinds of love—as it actually is, and managed to maintain optimism without being overly saccharine. This, coupled with a truly stellar ensemble, made it so well received among audiences, despite the mixed reviews from critics.

Nearly 20 years later, the film’s writer and director Richard Curtis (who also brought us “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary”) reflects back on why it might have meant so much to so many people. As an artist who has made a name for himself creating enduring love stories, perhaps it’s no surprise that he feels it’s something the world is in constant need of.

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As part of the ABC special “The Laughter and Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later”, Curtis told host Diane Sawyer “we get thousands of films about serial killers and there’s only ever been about nine of them.”

“And yet,” he continued,” there’ll be a million people falling in love, feeling it’s the most interesting moment of their lives. Good deeds inside families, and good deeds inside communities.” He went on to remark that during the COVID-19 pandemic people displayed an “extraordinary sort of bravery and heroism.”

“Every day has the potential, in all its simplicity, just to be gorgeous,’ he concluded.

Curtis also noted that despite its timeless themes, that there are definitely some choices he would no longer make. “Thank god, society is changing. So, my film is bound, in some moments, to feel, you know, out of date. I mean, there are things about the film, you know, the lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid,” he said.

Sawyer held interviews with not only Curtis, but with Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy, Laura Linney, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Olivia Olson and Martine McCutcheon, who all starred in the movie.

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Thompson, who played upper-class mom Karen, and Bill Nighy, who played aging rock star Billy Mack (and, let’s not forget, gave the film its iconic tune “Christmas is All Around”) seconded Curtis’ sentiments.

“Time and time again, we forget that love is all around us,” Thompson told Sawyer.. “It’s all that matters. [Curtis] reminds us in a film that is very funny about love and all its messiness and its unexpectedness. That you’ll find love in the weirdest places.”

Similarly, Nighy said “I love films that emphasize how remarkable people can be. It was full of love and heart and all those words that you resist, perhaps, and why not?”

Perhaps it’s this refreshingly positive attitude of appreciating life’s simplest, yet most profound moments that helped the movie defy the odds. After all, even the cast admitted to finding the story pretty out there. Hugh Grant, who played Prime Minister David, joked that he originally thought it was all “a bit psychotic.”

“But the thing is,” he added, “with [Curtis], what you have to remember is when he writes about love, he means it. And that is quite rare.”

It’s because of Grant’s commitment to Curtis’ vision that gave us one of his characters most iconic moments—when the Prime Minister gets caught by his secretary while dancing to “Jump (For My Love).”

“I saw it in the script and I thought: ‘Well, I’ll hate doing that,'” Grant quipped… “No Englishman can dance sober at 8 in the morning.” But in the end he honored what he called his “contractual obligation,” though he would like us to know getting caught by the secretary was his (“genius!”) idea.

The special contains all kinds of fun behind the scenes stories that will make you love the film even more. One particularly funny bit is when Curtis shares a story about Keira Knightley wrongly predicting her next role in the major blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” would be a flop. “I remember sitting down with Keira while we were shooting, and saying, ‘what are you doing next?’ And she said, “oh, I don’t think it’s going to work. It’s a pirate film and they always fail.’” Sometimes it’s nice to be very, very wrong.

If you’d like to watch the full special, it’s available on Hulu. And if you haven’t seen “Love Actually,” do yourself a favor and watch it right this second.