Category: News

There’s been a lot of talk about Method acting over the last couple years, but there’s just one problem: Almost all of it has gotten it wrong. No, someone like Jeremy Strong isn’t “going Method” by staying in character (or something like it), and even he admits his method (lower case) has little to do with the practice developed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Andrew Garfield even said as much on a new episode of WTF with Marc Maron — then talked about some pretty crazy stuff he once did for a role that people think is Method.

So who did the erstwhile Spider-Man go faux-Method for? Why, Martin Scorsese, of course. Garfield starred in 2016’s Silence, the director’s solemn, haunting epic about Portuguese Jesuit priests who find themselves in danger in 17th century Japan. To get into the ascetic swing of things, the actor went so far as to do two things: he fasted and he went celibate for six whole months. If that sounds like a drag, well, it wasn’t, at least for him.

“It was very cool, man,” Garfield told Maron. “I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time.”

Garfield also tried to set the record straight about Method acting, and he tried to separate what it really is from, say, Jared Leto taking ages to use the toilet.

“There [have] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think,” said Garfield. “People are still acting in that way, and it’s not about being an asshole to everyone on set. It’s actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”

Garfield said he’s “kind of bothered by the misconception” people have of it, “this idea that ‘method acting is f*cking bulls*it.’” He said, “No, I don’t think you know what method acting is if you’re calling it bulls*it, or you just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor who isn’t actually acting the method at all.”

That said, he didn’t want to go into whatever version of the Method he uses, saying it’s “very private,” and he doesn’t “want people to see the f*cking pipes of my toilet. I don’t want them to see how I’m making the sausage.”

You can listen to Garfield’s WTF appearance here.

(Via Variety)

Last week, Diddy hopped on an Instagram Live session with Timbaland, Jermaine Dupri, Summer Walker, and others. In the fairly unfiltered affair, Diddy made waves for saying that he’s “not f*ckin” with Triller” anymore because of the fallout between Swizz Beats and Timbaland following a lawsuit. But his proverbial shot-heard-round-the-world, was insinuating that R&B is “dead.”

“R&B is muthaf*ckin’ dead as of right now,” he said. “The R&B I made my babies to? R&B gotta be judged to a certain thing—it’s the feeling though, doggy. No, no, no. It’s a feeling. You gotta be able to sing for R&B and then you gotta tell the truth. R&B is not a hustle. This sh*t is about feeling your vulnerability.”

Considering he recently launched his R&B-focused label, Love Records, (in partnership with Motown Records, no less) these words coming from Diddy were curious to say the least. But the hip-hop mogul walked back his words a bit in trying to set the record straight in a series of tweets:

“It’s been 3 days of the debate…This is the clarity of the message…It’s not disrespect to anybody. This conversation was out of love and me purposely wanting to bring attention to R&B! It was something that I saw the effect of the Hip hop and R&B balance. That balance is honesty and realness when it comes together, melodies, vulnerability and most importantly LOVE!!! This message is that R&B game needs more love, vulnerability, support!!”

He certainly did bring attention to the R&B debate, but this felt like a cheap shot, considering the end result of this kerfuffle is that we’ll have to see just what Diddy’s idea of real R&B is when Love Records starts putting out new music. Your move Diddy.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers enter the 2022 NFL season with lofty expectations, but it has been a bit of a rocky start for the club in training camp. Offensive line injuries have plagued Tampa Bay, including this week’s season-ending injury to potential starter Aaron Stinnie, and the franchise’s face has not been present for the majority of August. Tom Brady, perhaps the greatest quarterback of all-time, has been absent for what the club describes as “personal reasons,” but an odd theory emerged earlier this month, outlining that he could be out of pocket due to an appearance on FOX’s The Masked Singer reality program.

That pseudo-rumor was seen by many as far-fetched but, given Brady’s highly lucrative alignment with FOX, it appeared more plausible to some. However, Brady quelled the speculation on Monday, first by reporting to Buccaneers training camp for the first time and later sharing an explicit denial on Twitter.

This should at least slow the speculation to a crawl, especially as the attention will inevitably turn to how Brady looks on the field. Tampa Bay’s offense should be quite impressive again with Brady, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Leonard Fournette, and future Hall of Fame addition Julio Jones, and Brady has the experience to hit the ground running.

Of course, conspiracy theorists could point to Brady denying the rumor by saying he wasn’t on the show “last week” also leaves the door cracked in case he was engaged in semantics. Still, this was a wild one on the surface, and Brady has said his piece on the subject.

Phoebe Bridgers loves her dog, Maxine. Heck, Bridgers has brought the sweet little black pug along for an interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers in the past and even played an intimate acoustic show in San Francisco earlier this month while sitting on a couch on stage with Maxine the entire time. Now ‘The Maxine” is the name of Bridgers’ new “band taco” at LA Tex-Mex local chain Homestate. Following in the footsteps of previous artist-taco collaborations at Homestate from Leon Bridges and Vampire Weekend, Bridgers is the latest singer to launch a benefit taco.

The Phoebe Bridgers taco is vegan and made with, “Black beans, shiitake mushrooms, avocado, caramelized onions, crispy corn strips, served on a Kernel of Truth Corn Tortilla.” $1.25 from each taco purchase benefits CASA of Los Angeles, which advocates for children and families in LA County’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. “HomeState is one of my favorite local restaurants; Maxine and I should probably be cut off from their breakfast tacos by now,” Bridgers said in a statement.

The announcement comes ahead of Bridgers’ performance at the This Ain’t No Picnic festival in her native Los Angeles. Credit to Bridges, because while a celebrity taco might seem outlandish to some and a cleverly-timed ploy to raise the stakes for her big show, she has a history of embarking in partnerships like this that give back to causes in Los Angeles. Like CASA, Bridges released the “If We Make It Through December” Merle Haggard cover two Christmases ago as a benefit for the Downtown Women’s Center in LA. So you can comfortably have a Maxine taco for both it’s bold flavors and altruism.

Every year for the past 15 years, Four Roses has dropped their much-beloved Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon. The whiskey is a rare blend of bourbons that come together to create the ultimate expression of Four Roses via their ten unique bourbon recipes. This year’s edition will drop in September but you can enter a lottery to win the option to buy a bottle right now.

That means it’s a great time to tell you what you’d be winning by reviewing the juice in this year’s bottle.

Before we dive in… Four Roses is renowned for making and blending ten bourbons into their whiskeys (except the Single Barrel expressions, of course). There are two mash bills that Four Roses work with. One is a very high rye bourbon mash of 60 percent corn, 30 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. That’s Mash Bill B if you want to geek out a little. Mash Bill E is a lower but still high rye bourbon mash with 75 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and only five percent malted barley. How this turns into ten distinct whiskeys is through the yeast. Four Roses employ five different yeast strains on both mash bills, creating ten unique bourbon whiskeys. Those yeasts bring a different flavor profile to the mash that carries through fermentation, distillation, aging, and blending/proofing to the final product. Each of those ten bourbons then has a lettered name like OBSV or OESK or OBSF denoting the mash bill and yeast involved.

You can see them all broken down here.

Obviously, that’s a lot to work your way through, so let’s just jump right into what’s in this year’s Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon bottle. That way you can decide if you’re going to wait outside your local retailer overnight to snag a bottle.

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months

• We Blind Tasted A Whole Bunch Of $30-60 Bourbons To See If Any Could Beat Weller
• We Blind Tasted Classic Bourbons And Were Shocked By The Winner
• The Best Ten-Year-Old Bourbon Whiskeys, Tasted Blind And Ranked
• We Tasted Bourbon Whiskeys ‘Double-Blind’ And Tried To Guess Each Bottle
• All The Double Gold-Winning Straight Bourbons From This Year’s San Francisco World Spirits Competition

Four Roses 2022 Limited Edtion Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 54.5%

Average Price: $179 (available in early September)

The Whiskey:

This year’s LE Small Batch is made from a blend of 20-year-old Bourbon from the OBSV recipe (high rye, delicate fruit yeast), a 15-year-old OESK (lower rye, slight spice yeast), a 14-year-old OESF (lower rye, herbal notes years), and a 14-year-old OESV (lower rye, delicate fruit yeast). The blend is non-chill filtered and bottled at 109 proof.

There are only 14,100 bottles this year.

Tasting Notes:

The nose is soft and feels aged-yet-fresh with mild notes of old cellar beams that lead to a sour cherry next to sourdough pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup with a thin line of spiced cherry jam next to a bit of crumpled up old leather gloves. The palate opens creamy with a vanilla underbelly that’s countered by a whisper of barnyard funk and old barn floorboards before a chewy spiced cherry tobacco leaf kicks in with layers of nutmeg, clove, and allspice with a creamy eggnog vibe and a hint of Kentucky-hug warmth. The mid-palate gets a little warmed before diving back toward the spicy cherry tobacco and a finish that’s full of creamy brown sugar butter and hazelnut shells.

The Bottle:

The bottle is a classic Four Roses Small Batch bottle with an embossed label, allowing the amber liquid inside to shine through. It’s elegant and feels very classic. It’s a solid centerpiece bottle for any bar cart but it doesn’t scream “expensive” if that’s what you want.

The Bottom Line:

This is delicious. Drinking it neat is a lovely experience, but adding some water really lets the creamier and sour cherry notes bloom towards a softer and sweeter winter spice and a hint of dark bitterness (not quite chocolate but closer to coffee). A single rock cools down that big mid-palate warmth while still allowing the creamier cherry and spice aspects to shine through.

Ranking:

95/100 — this is a great whiskey. But not fully transcendent.

How To Get It:

You can enter the lottery from August 22 to August 28, by clicking Enjoy It First on the Four Roses’ LE Small Batch website. Notifications arrive on September 6th for those lucky enough to win the lottery. You’ll then need to bring $179 (plus tax) to the Four Roses Distillery Gift Shop in Kentucky to pick up your bottle between September 17th and October 16th, 2022.

Otherwise, bottles will be rolling out to select retailers in late September. Keep in mind, that this will be a very limited run in a few select markets.

A lot of bad things have befallen Donald Trump of late, not the least being accused of illegally hoarding classified documents. Perhaps he has so much on his plate that he didn’t notice this: Last week he lost Alex Jones. The repeatedly sued conspiracy theorist announced he was decamping for Trump’s likely 2024 Republican presidential opponent Ron DeSantis. But now he’s doing his best to backpedal.

As per The Daily Beast, Jones released an “emergency message” over the weekend directed at his favorite one-term president. Claiming he’d been taken out-of-context by the “corporate media,” the InfoWars honcho declared that he hadn’t “abandoned” him; he was just concerned that he’d been lied to by health officials about the pandemic.

“Not a warning out of any desire to hurt you, Mr. Trump, but to save your important legacy and hopefully ensure you can get back into the White House coming up in 2024,” Jones bellowed. “We know the election was stolen! We know the ‘Deep State’ is trying to set you up any way they can,” he added. “We understand you are a lion surrounded by hyenas.”

Jones also claimed that Trump had tried to call him about turning on him, but that he missed the call. He also implored him to go back and watch the show, which aired Thursday, in which he went bully for DeSantis, claiming that he wasn’t saying he was only for DeSantis.

“I understand that you’re under attack, I understand you are surrounded, and I’m trying to get you to reassess the situation,” he concluded. I know that people like [Don Jr.] are telling you that you need to reassess the situation.”

Jones has parted ways with Trump — only to come crawling back — before. Last year, he called him a “dumbass” for advising people get vaccinated against COVID, not long before the disease started disproportionately claiming Trump supporters’ lives.

In his show Thursday, Jones sure seemed to have pivoted away from the big guy. “I am supporting DeSantis,” Jones averred. “DeSantis has just gone from being awesome to being unbelievably good. And I don’t just watch a man’s actions, as Christ said. Judge a tree by its fruits. I can also look in his eyes on HD video, and I see the real sincerity.”

He added, “This is what Trump should be like. And I’ve been hammering this point, and he’s doing it now. And we have someone that is better than Trump. Way better than Trump.” Sure sounds like he was taken out of context.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Those of us who lived through the ’80s remember well the heyday of the mullet, that business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back hairstyle many feel should’ve been left in the annals of history under category of “humanity’s bad decisions.”

However, the mullet has apparently been making a comeback in recent years. For some, it’s a kitschy statement, for others it’s a morbid curiosity and for some … well, for some it’s a lifestyle. #mulletlife

In fact, since 2020, the USA Mullet Championships has crowned winners for the best mullets, offering cash prizes and a whole host of bragging rights to the child, teen and adult who sport the ultimate mullet. Say it with me now: “Yeee hawww!”

The child and teen category winners have already been named for the 2022 contest. Prepare to be amazed, impressed and maybe a little mortified.

The top spot in the kid’s division went to Emmitt Bailey of Menomonie, Wisconsin, with his spikey-curly combo mullet. In second place, Epic Orta—yep, his name is Epic—came rolling in from La Joya, Texas, with some tousled, epic ombre action. And finally, William Dale Ramsey of Pataskala, Ohio, came in third. (If that kid doesn’t go by “Billy,” then nothing in this world makes sense anymore.)

It’s the wraparound sunglasses that really bring out the mulletness on all three, isn’t it?

Moving on to the teen division, another Wisconsinite took the top prize. Cayden Kershaw of Wausau barely eked out a win with less than 20 votes separating him from second place. Gotta say, that big feathered action up top perfectly harkens back to the true ’80s mullet. Second place winner Fisher Monds came in a solid, though, representing Florida with those gorgeous sun-tipped curls. And Max Weihbrecht, yet another Wisconsinite (what’s with the mullets, Wisconsin?), came in third.

(Personally, I think it was the aviators that lost it for him. Get that boy a pair of wraparounds—he’s got a bright mullet future ahead of him.)

People are loving the mullet championship updates, not necessarily for the love of the mullet itself but for the sheer entertainment value. Who among us has not stared in awe at a mullet before? Who among us has not encountered a dedicated mullet man and asked the ultimate existential question, “Why?”

To be fair, the mullet predates the 1980s, and not just a little bit, according to the Mullet Championships website:

“According to some historians, the mullet has been around since at least Ancient Greece, where the style was as much for function as it was for fashion. Cropped hair around the face with longer locks in the back allowed for both visibility and a protective layer of hair for your neck. Homer even described a haircut that sounds eerily familiar in The Iliad: “their forelocks cropped, hair grown long at the backs.” The Greeks weren’t the only ones sporting the mullet, though. There is evidence that Neanderthals and our oldest ancestors would wear this ‘do,’ as well.”

Another fun mullet fact: The name of the hairstyle was actually coined by The Beastie Boys in the 1994 song “Mullet Head.” The term “mullethead,” meaning “a stupid person,” has been around much longer, but the Beastie Boys described the mullet hairstyle in their song: “Number one on the side and don’t touch the back, number six on the top and don’t cut it wack, Jack.” (“Number one” and “number six” referring to the clipper guard sizes on a set of hair shears.) The name stuck, and now here we are nearly three decades later holding national mullet competitions.

The USA Mullet Championships folks actually held a live mullet competition in May 2022 and the video from it is a must-see for reasons I can’t really explain.

The open division is accepting registrations until August 31. We shall be waiting with bated breath to see which adult takes first prize in the USA Mullet Championships.

Verdant Tea has a simple tea challenge: take tea leaves, put them in your favorite mug, pour in hot water and enjoy. No steep-timers, no scales, no worries. Just a simple love for sweet, fresh, aromatic tea leaves. Ones with complex flavors and aftertastes. Seems like an unimaginable thing to do with the old blends that are tucked away in little mesh baggies in the back corners of your cupboard, right? That’s the Verdant Tea difference.

Verdant Tea

Verdant Tea takes a new business model and applies it to an often-outdated industry: By partnering with small farmers and skipping the middlemen, teas that have never left China before can be delivered straight to your door. This new model gives clean, organic, sustainable farming practices an opportunity to flourish.

Every batch of tea is crafted by hand. And that’s why brewing Verdant Tea is no fuss – their farmers already got all of the hard work out of the way so that all you have to do is sit back and savor the goodness that they created. With a healthy, biodiverse landscape, deliberate farming practices and dedicated craft, each of these family farmers delivers a product that’s unlike any tea on the shelves. And that’s because their teas never make it to “shelves” where they become overly dry and stale. Instead, they ship directly to your door so that you can experience and enjoy the incredible flavors of farm-fresh tea leaves.

Verdant Tea was founded in 2011 after David and Lily visited China on a research grant to collect the folklore and tradition of tea. After realizing the true taste difference of tea straight from the farm, they partnered with a tea farmer, He Qingqing, to bring her family’s teas to people all over the world.

Tea has only been growing in Laoshan for a few generations. Before tea, the He Family’s farm barely produced enough crops to feed them, let alone turn a profit. But by partnering with Verdant Tea, the He Family is now able to take risks, like making Laoshan Black tea and Laoshan Oolong – teas that are now becoming internationally famous.

If you’re not sure about Black or Oolong, try tasting true Dragonwell with Mrs. Li or other teas like white jasmine and silver buds yabao. If you’re not sure how to possibly pick, don’t worry, Verdant Tea has you covered. Join their tea of the month club or order a tasting kit so you can try a little bit of everything before you decide what you like (spoiler alert: you’re going to love them all!). Their website also provides in depth descriptions of different flavor profiles so you can feel confident about your choices.

Good tea is made by good people; by farmers that have the skill, craft and commitment to what they do. It’s made by people who own their land and control their entire process with creative freedom. Verdant Tea farmers take their generational knowledge and apply it to every step of the hand-crafted processes.

But don’t just take our word for it, see for yourself and steep up a pot of tea from one of Verdant Tea’s partner tea farmers today!

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There’s a lot of pressure for people these days to live the perfect Instagram-worthy life. People place so much emphasis on their social media image that it ends up running their lives. This social anxiety is keenly felt by young couples planning their weddings.

A U.K. survey from 2019 found that 42% of couples feel the pressure to make their weddings look great on Instagram. Social media has pushed people to spend more on their weddings so that they can look gorgeous as a couple and make sure there are plenty of Instagrammable moments for their guests.

The pressure is probably why a TikTok video of a couple who took their engagement photos at an Olive Garden has more than 260,000 views. The couple’s photos were so good that they fooled a lot of people into thinking they were shot at an exotic locale, but for those who got the joke, it was hilarious. It’s a total win-win.

@hunterlasheaphotography

tennessee but with Italy Vibes✨ #engagementphotos #engagementphotoshoot #engagementpictures #bride #weddingtiktok

According to BuzzFeed, Tennessee-based photographer Shea Cravens thought that a local Olive Garden would be a perfect stand-in for an exotic Italian photoshoot, and fiances Carlsey Bibb and Caden Mills thought the idea was fantastic. The exterior of an Olive Garden is designed to resemble a Tuscan farmhouse with painted pottery, lots of exposed wood and cypress trees. What’s more Instagrammable than that?

“I asked Shea—our photographer and longtime friend—if there was anywhere she had been wanting to shoot but hadn’t yet,” Carlsey told BuzzFeed. “That’s when she mentioned Olive Garden!”

See on Instagram

“A little over a year ago I had the idea of doing a session at Olive Garden, I mentioned it to some friends but never got around to doing it,” Cravens wrote in an Instagram caption. “Fast forward to today, it finally happened and I am so happy with the outcome.”

What’s great about the photos is that they look like they were taken in Italy instead of at a chain restaurant. The photos were taken at 6 a.m. so as to not disturb the business and so they have wonderful sunrise lighting. It also helps that the couple looks incredible.

See on Instagram

“If you threw those on the gram and tagged Italy I honestly wouldn’t even give it a second thought! I would just think it was a cool garden?” Madison S. wrote. “I would’ve never known! gorgeous,” Krista Stevens agreed.

“May your love be as endless as soup, salad, and breadsticks,” a well-wisher named Emily commented.

Most importantly, the couple was over the moon with the tongue-in-cheek photos. “They were way better than we could’ve ever imagined,” Carlsey told BuzzFeed.

In the end, it isn’t about whether the photos were taken in Italy or at an Olive Garden, it’s about the couple themselves. Couples that are truly in love don’t need to mask their relationship by posing in a romantic locale, they can find love at a chain restaurant. As anybody who’s been married for a while can tell you, things aren’t always pretty in a marriage, but if you keep your sense of humor you can get through anything. Carsley and Caden are certainly starting off on the right foot.

It’s not every day your Uber driver stops the car to don a cape and become a hero. OK, there wasn’t a cape, but there was certainly a hero. Recently, Fritz Sam was driving for Uber and he was on his way to drop his passenger off at LaGuardia Airport when he noticed flames spilling out of a brownstone window. Instead of continuing his route, he stopped to help.

You may be thinking, “What about the passenger?” Well, Sam consulted with his passenger before leaping into action. The passenger was Jemimah Wei, a 29-year-old writer, and she helped Sam yell up to the second story window to check for people still inside. Sam told PIX11, “Together we just started shouting, ‘Is anyone inside?’ Screaming at the top of our lungs, ‘Come out, come out, there’s a fire.’ I think I just made a decision at that moment to just go inside.” According to The Washington Post, when Sam made it into the building he saw a man and a woman, but the woman refused to move when he urged her to evacuate.

u201con the way to the airport this morning and drove by a burning building, my Uber driver LEAPT out of the car and INTO the building while the rest of us screamed at the top of our lungs for people to evacuate, the fire truck came, we rushed to airport, I made my flight. NEW YORK.u201d

— Jemimah James Wei / u9b4fu4fe1u5b50 (@Jemimah James Wei / u9b4fu4fe1u5b50)
1660739683

Sam told The Washington Post that convincing the woman to leave “took a little bit of negotiating.” He told her, “I’m not leaving without you. If you’re not leaving, I’m not leaving.” He told the publication that the woman eventually left with him and made it safely outside. But Sam wasn’t done, the man was still inside, so Sam went back in a second time.

Eventually, Sam was able to guide the man to safety, telling PIX11, “I held his arm because he was a little wobbly and we just walked to the front door. The officer was there. The first firefighter was coming through the door with a hose. So the professionals are here. I’m gonna get out.”

Thankfully, everyone was able to get out of the building safely and no one was injured in the fire, according to multiple news sources. Saving the people in the building was a community effort. Without realizing it, Sam gave his cellphone to a stranger before running into the building and he left his car in the road in front of a fire hydrant, he explained to CNBC.

According to CNBC, a stranger realized Sam’s car was blocking the hydrant and was able to get his keys to move the car down the street. His phone was also returned and, surprisingly, he hopped back in his car to drop his passenger off at the airport.

Funnily enough, Sam apologized to Wei for the delay and was concerned he smelled like smoke, but Wei wasn’t concerned, according to The Washington Post. “Firstly, you smell fine,” Wei recalled telling him. “And secondly, you just saved a life. Maybe multiple.”

Even after saving people from a burning building, Sam was still providing excellent customer service. Yes, she still made it in time for her 10 a.m. flight, because of course she did. What an amazing story!