Category: News

Video game movies used to have a lousy track record. Just think about 1993’s disastrous Super Mario Bros. But the tide has changed, thanks to the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog, last year’s Mortal Kombat, and this year’s Uncharted. Now it’s time to give Mario Bros. a mulligan. There’s a new cinematic stab at one of Nintendo’s first break-out hits, and this time it’s animated. But what else do we know about The Super Mario Bros. Movie?

When does it come out?

The movie isn’t due for a bit — on April 7, 2023 to be exact. That’s right before the summer movie season begins in earnest. But then, the summer movie season is all-year-round these days, isn’t it?

Is there a trailer?

There sure is — or a teaser, anyway. In early October, said ad dropped, and it showed a cinematic universe that doesn’t look too different from the game itself — just with more famous voice talent.

Who is in the voice cast?

Well, there’s Chris Pratt, a mildly controversial choice to voice the Italian plumber who finds himself bopping around some alternate universe, jumping on goombas and whatnot. He promised a distinctive voice, but his teaser debut received mixed reviews. Some, however, noted that he sounds a lot like the Mario of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

That said, Jack Black as Bowser, the games and movie’s dragon-like turtle-ish baddie, received widespread acclaim. Elsewhere on the voice roster, you can find Anya Taylor-Joy as the in-peril Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Mario’s fraternal twin brother Luigi, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong — Mario’s first nemesis.

Who made The Super Mario Bros. Movie?

There are two directors. One, Aaron Horvath, cut his teeth making segments for the early teens show Mad before moving onto Teen Titans GO!, for which he directed their 2018 movie. Michael Jelenic is also a Teen Titans vet, though he’s also been a producer on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the early teens iteration of Thundercats, and some more recent Scooby-Doo stuff. Credited screenwriter Matthew Fogel, meanwhile, has his name on scripts for The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Minions: The Rise of Gru, and the threequel Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son.

Will it be better than the bananas live-action Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993?

One hopes! Although that extremely batty film has since amassed some fans. Whatever happens, at least Chris Pratt knew what he was getting into before he signed up, unlike the even more esteemed thespian who played Mario in 1993: the late, great Bob Hoskins.

You can watch the teaser in the video below.

Lil Baby‘s third studio album, It’s Only Me has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, according to a report from Billboard. The album reportedly moved 216,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. and also made for the third largest streaming week for an album this year, according to Billboard‘s independent data provider, Luminate.

It’s Only Me marks Lil Baby’s third album to top the chart, the most recent being The Voice Of The Heroes his 2021 joint album with Lil Durk, as well as his sophomore album, My Turn.

Back in 2020, Billboard reported that My Turn was the most consumed album of that year.

In a recent interview with XXL, Lil Baby said that while he considers himself a “rap star,” he feels the term “superstar” is more fitting.

“I think the qualities of a superstar is like a strong fan base,” he said. “A sustainable amount of time ’cause you could be hot like a one-hit-wonder hot, like superstar hot. It could go quick. So, a different time bracket. I would say your appearance, the way you carry yourself to the way you perform. The type of things you perform at or the type of places you will perform at and the money that you get.”

It’s Only Me is out now via Quality Control and Motown. Stream it here.

The Giants entered Sunday as three-point underdogs on the road to the Jaguars despite their 5-1 record, as oddsmakers seemed to believe their luck might run out against a Jacksonville team that’s been a bit unlucky themselves.

Trailing by four entering the fourth quarter, New York scored 10 unanswered in the fourth to take a 23-17 lead with just a minute to play, forcing the Jaguars to try and march 75 yards for a game-winning score. Trevor Lawrence nearly got the job done, moving Jacksonville 74 yards in the 1-minute drill, but came up painfully short as the clock ran out.

To set all of that up, the Jaguars picked up a 4th-and-15 on a dart across the middle that also got a roughing the passer tacked on, moving Jacksonville to the 18 with 16 seconds to play.

A pair of incompletions to the end zone set up a third down where Lawrence hit Christian Kirk on the 1, but the Jags defense popped Kirk in the air and then held him out of the end zone as the clock ran out.

The reverse angles show just how close Kirk came but also that he was clearly short, with the Jags doing a terrific job on the initial tackle and then rallying to the ball to ensure he couldn’t get a second effort to cross the goal line.

That stand gave the Giants the win to move them to 6-1 on the season, while the Jaguars slip to 2-5 with some painful losses along the way — from a gambling perspective that stop was important for money line bettors, obviously, but also kept the game under the total of 43.5.

In May of 2019, rapper Lil Durk turned himself in to the Atlanta Police Department after a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection to a shooting outside of an Atlanta eatery called The Varsity. A Fulton County judge had found probable cause to charge him and the late rapper King Von for conspiracy to attempt murder, as well as aggravated assault. The shooting had taken place just days after the Super Bowl in 2019. According to reports from WSB-TV, the charges against Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk Banks, have been dropped.

“While it took three years for the State to make the right decision, in the end the right decision was made and Mr. Banks can finally put this event behind him,” Durk’s attorney Manny Arora told WSB-TV in a statement.

Durk added: “I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to run from.”

Since 2019, the Chicago native Durk has maintained his innocence.

“We found out we had a warrant actually while on tour,” Durk said in an interview with WSB-TV at the time. “Once I heard, I immediately came back.”

Elsewhere in the 2019 interview, Durk said, “I had a rough past, but by my moving to Atlanta, I just thought that changed my whole identity and my thinking.”

Matthew Perry has a new memoir out, in which he delves into both being on one of the ‘90s’ most enduring sitcoms and wrestling with addiction. There are lighthearted moments, such as the time he wrote a physics paper to lure Julia Roberts into a guest starring role on Friends. There are also bleak-o-rama passages, as when he reveals that he narrowly escaped death. Among the darker passages include the story of co-star Jennifer Aniston confronting him over his drinking.

An excerpt from Perry’s Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing published in The Times U.K. (in a bit caught by Entertainment Weekly) details how Aniston grew hip to Perry’s alcohol addiction even though he’d been careful never to be drunk on set. (He’s also previously revealed that he has no memory filming a few seasons of the show.)

“I know you’re drinking,” Aniston had said. He also reveals that he used to have a thing for the onscreen Rachel Green. “I had long since gotten over her — ever since she started dating Brad Pitt, I was fine — and had worked out exactly how long to look at her without it being awkward, but still, to be confronted by Jennifer Aniston was devastating.”

Perry also admits that he was “confused” as to how Aniston could tell. “I’ve been trying to hide it.” Perry wrote. “‘We can smell it,’ she said, in a kind of weird but loving way, and the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer. ‘I know I’m drinking too much,’ I said, ‘but I don’t exactly know what to do about it.’”

In an interview with Diane Sawyer set to air on ABC on October 28, Perry opened up more about this “scary” moment. “She was the one that reached out the most,” Perry said. “You know, I’m really grateful to her for that.”

You can watch a clip from Perry’s Sawyer sit-down below.

(Via The Times U.K. and EW)

Last night (October 22), Lizzo brought her Special tour to Atlanta, GA. Opening the show, as she has been throughout the entirety of the tour, was rapper Latto, who performed several of her hits, including “Big Energy” and her pro-choice anthem “P*ssy.”

During her performance of the latter, Latto was joined by Stacey Abrams, who is currently running for Governor of Georgia.

While on stage, Abrams held up a sign that read “My Body, My Choice.”

Abrams then delivered a brief speech, encouraging fans of Lizzo and Latto to vote in the upcoming election.

“I’m not gonna interrupt your fun,” said Abrams in a fan-captured video. “I just want to remind you that if you believe in my body, my choice, I need your vote. I need your big energy. Let’s get it!”

In a recent interview with Flaunt, Latto revealed that she first recorded “P*ssy” while Roe v. Wade was in talks of being overturned.

“[I]t ended up being overturned a month after I recorded that song,” Latto said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, this gotta come out now.’ It literally fell in my lap, it was crazy.”

Check out a clip of the performance above.

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

Cardi B and Madonna appear to have reconciled over the phone today (October 22) after Cardi expressed dissatisfaction with a message Madge shared on her Instagram Stories. Yesterday, Madonna reflected on her album, Erotica and its accompanying coffee table book Sex, which featured provocative sexual imagery.

“Now Cardi B can sing about her WAP, Kim Kardashian can grace the cover of any magazine with her naked ass, and Miley Cyrus can come in like a wrecking ball,” said Madonna in her Instagram story. “You’re welcome b*tches……. (clown emoji)”

Cardi caught wind of the comments and later said in a now-deleted tweet, “I literally payed this woman homage so many times cause I grew up listening to her …she can make her point without putting clown emojis and getting slick out the mouth,” wrote Cardi “..These icons really become disappointments once u make it in the industry that’s why I keep to myself.”

Jason Lee, host of radio show Hollywood Unlocked, later revealed that he had listened to Cardi and Madonna talk on the phone.

“On the phone with Madonna and Cardi,” said Lee in a tweet. “Listening to both women share their perspective on the communication going on has broadened their love for each other. Love this [signed a fly on the wall].”

Shortly after, Cardi confirmed that the aforementioned conversation did, in fact, take place.

“I talked to Madonna,” said Cardi in a tweet.”…It was beautiful….Have a great day and drive safely yallll.”

Madonna responded, reaffirming her love for the “WAP” rapper.

“I love you @iamcardib,” said Madonna “Always have and always will.”

Perhaps we can expect a collab in the future?

Cardi B and Madonna are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Travis Scott is once again finding himself in the middle of cheating rumors.

Last week, a model named Rojean Kar, who was rumored to have had an affair with Scott back in 2019, shared a video on her Instagram Stories of what appeared to be a video shoot for Scott. The post raised speculation that Scott had been cheating on his longtime girlfriend, Kylie Jenner.

“It’s a lot of weird sh*t going on,” said Scott. “An uninvited person was sneaking photos on, what was supposed to be, a closed set while I was directing a video. I’m saying this for the last time. I don’t know this person. I’ve never been with this person. So please stop with the continuous cyber games and the fictional storytelling.”

Kar responded to Scott’s comments on her story, saying, “Saying you don’t know me and you’ve never once been with me when you’ve definitely been with me, when f*cking everybody’s seen you with me, when I have pictures and videos of you with me, come on.”

Kar then said she and Scott spent Valentine’s Day together.

“I saw you,” she said. “I ran out the door and you had every single girl I know blowing me up, like, ‘Trav’s asking for you, come back.’ Are we pretending that didn’t happen too? Like, come on. You cheat on that b*tch every single f*cking night. The whole f*cking city sees it.”

Scott once again refuted this claim, and shared a picture of a Valentine’s Day table set-up, captioned with “If u wasn’t at this table on V day then u wasn’t with me.”

Jenner has not publicly responded to the rumors.

Donald Trump is a little busy these days, with so many fires raging that he might have missed one of them: Last week, he was finally and formally subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee. Will he blow it off? Or will he actually show up and do his best to derail the proceedings? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has a theory on what he’ll do, and it’s not a compliment.

Pelosi went on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show, where host Jonathan Capehart asked if she thinks the former president will actually do the thing that Steve Bannon wouldn’t.

“I don’t think he’s man enough to show up,” Pelosi responded. “I don’t think his lawyers will want him to show up, because he has to testify under oath. But I don’t think he’ll show up, I don’t think he’s man enough. We’ll see. Let’s see if he’s man enough to show up.”

Pelosi added, “Nobody is above the law. If we believe that, then they should make a judgment about how he responds to that request.” Should he not show up, Pelosi said the American people should intuit that he thinks he’s “above the law.” But at least he’s manly.

Capehart also asked Pelosi about Marjorie Taylor Greene, who demanded that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy give her more power should the GOP retake the House. But Pelosi brushed that off, insisting that Democrats will retain control, referring to her only as “what’s-her-name.”

You can watch Pelosi’s segment below. The business about Trump begins around the 3:35 mark.

(Via Raw Story)

Ahead of his upcoming memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, Bono of U2 has issued an apology for putting U2’s 2014 album Songs Of Innocence in every iTunes user’s library that year.

In an excerpt shared with The Guardian, Bono revealed that Apple CEO Tim Cook was initially averse to the idea of paying for several digital copies of Songs Of Innocence and giving them to iTunes users for free, but the band ultimately persuaded Cook to go through with the idea.

At the time of its release, many were chagrined to find Songs Of Innocence on their iPhones. Bono recalled some social media comments saying “Woke up this morning to find Bono in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, wearing my dressing gown, reading my paper,” as well as, “The free U2 album is overpriced.”

“If just getting our music to people who like our music was the idea, that was a good idea,” said Bono in the memoir. “But if the idea was getting our music to people who might not have had a remote interest in our music, maybe there might be some pushback. At first, I thought this was just an internet squall, but quickly realized we’d bumped into a serious discussion about big tech. I take full responsibility. Not Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue. I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite.”

Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story hits shelves 11/1.