Category: News

Amid the flurry of NBA offseason moves, we have seen and heard very little of Stephen A. Smith, which is a rarity for a man who has a near ubiquitous presence on ESPN’s airwaves throughout the sports calendar.

The last time Smith was on television was in a remote hit on July 1, when Kevin Durant made his trade request from the Brooklyn Nets. As many noticed, Smith appeared to have a sling on his shoulder and wasn’t in studio, which indicated he was calling in from home and was dealing with an injury of some kind. After two weeks without Smith on air, ESPN’s biggest name let fans know what was going on, as he explained he was rehabbing from shoulder surgery due to a variety of ailments, including a partially torn rotator cuff and bicep.

Smith says he’ll be back next month, but one can bet that if anything major happens, like Durant getting actually traded, Smith will call in to offer his thoughts on the matter, because he is not one to let any big moment go by without getting his two cents in. The way Smith does TV, with over the top gestures to really emphasize his points, it’s for the best that he takes some time off so as not to aggravate that shoulder during what is mostly a down time in the sports calendar. Hopefully Smith can make a speedy recovery and we can all appreciate him playing hurt on the start of free agency by calling in despite having his shoulder in a sling, and we’ll look forward to him being back in full by the start of the NFL season. There’s no word as to whether ESPN will look to get him some rehab starts on smaller shows before returning to First Take to work his way back into TV shape.

Deadline reported in 2015 that Disney had “set its sights” on Chris Pratt playing Indiana Jones in an attempt to revive the franchise. This was around the time that Parks and Recreation went off the air and Pratt appeared in The Lego Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy, and before he was the near-universal choice for Worst Chris. There has been no official confirmation on the Pratt as Indy rumors since, but the Jurassic World star was recently asked about them while appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

In response to host Josh Horowitz asking if he’s ever had a conversation with anyone, including director Steven Spielberg, about playing Indiana Jones, Pratt joked, “I don’t even know who Steven Spielberg is. Who? Steven Who?” He went on, “No, aren’t they doing Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford? All I know is I once saw a quote from Harrison Ford and I don’t even know if it was really him but it was enough to scare me, that was like, ‘When I die, Indiana Jones dies.’ And I’m like, am I gonna get haunted by the ghost of Harrison Ford one day when he dies if I play… ?”

The exact quote is: “Don’t you get it? I’m Indiana Jones. When I’m gone, he’s gone. It’s easy.” Harrison Ford is not someone I would want to f*ck with even from beyond the grave (as a regular ghost or a Force ghost, not that Ford knows what those are), but Pratt doesn’t deny the rumors. As noted by Horowitz, “I’m no body language expert but watch this video and tell me Chris Pratt did not talk to Steven Spielberg about taking over Indiana Jones in some capacity.”

There probably were discussions until Ford agreed to play Indy for one final (?) time in Indiana Jones 5, which comes out June 30, 2023. Let’s stash the Pratt-as-Indiana Jones rumors where they belong: not a museum, but in the same warehouse as the Ark of the Covenant.

Unlike The Infinity Saga, Marvel’s Phase 4 movies and streaming shows have yet to build towards an overarching event like the two-part throwdown with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. However, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness offered the first major clue of where the MCU might be heading: Secret Wars.

During the film’s end-credits scene, Charlize Theron’s Thea arrives and demands Doctor Strange help her stop an “Incursion” caused by his meddling with the Darkholm. As Marvel Comics fans know, Incursions are the colliding and destruction of alternate Earths that the Illuminati were unable to stop in the New Avengers books. Sensing no other alternative, Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom created a new Marvel Universe where Doom served as God Emperor in the epic Secret Wars comic event.

With both the Fantastic Four and the X-Men in the mix, the MCU now has the components to make Secret Wars its next epic event, and it’s heavily rumored to be the project that brings Joe and Anthony Russo back into the fold. Over the years, the filmmaking brothers have not been shy about wanting to adapt the sprawling comic storyline for Marvel, and they were at it again during this week’s premiere of their new movie The Gray Man.

Here’s what they told Deadline when asked why Secret Wars is their dream project:

“Our love for Marvel is based on the books that we read as kids, the books that we fell in love with,” Joe told Deadline. “The one series that we adored growing up was Secret Wars. It’s incredibly ambitious. It would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame. But it’s a massive undertaking. Those two movies were very hard to make. So trying to imagine making another two movies even bigger than those two? We’re going to have to sleep on that.”

Despite Secret Wars being a top contender, Marvel has yet to confirm what its next Endgame-style event will be. Kevin Feige recently promised that it will become clear in the months ahead. Well, at least more than it is now.

“We’ll be a little more direct about that in the coming months, to set a plan, so audiences who want to see the bigger picture can see a tiny, tiny, tiny bit more of the roadmap,” Feige told Total Film last month.

(Via Deadline)

To be crowned as the Most Beautiful Vegan Celebrity by PETA, you have to be nothing short of an exemplary vegan. Merely being a vegetarian will pretty much eliminate you from contention of this high honor (just ask Drake.) Today, Lenny Kravitz and Anitta were bestowed with PETA’s Most Beautiful Vegan Celebrities of 2022 award, which Billboard reports the criteria as, “Saves the lives of nearly 200 animals a year; reduces their risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer; and dramatically shrinks their carbon footprint.”

Kravitz, who grows his own vegetables at his home in the Bahamas, is primarily a raw vegan. For Anitta, simply being a Brazilian vegan should be enough to qualify her. Eating meat is a way of life in Brazil and your family will not understand your choice the first time you explain it to them (my cousin went vegan and our Brazilian family was in an uproar.) But Anitta is the spokesperson for Future Farm, a Brazilian company that works with primarily non-GMO pea and soybean protein (Brazil is the largest soybean exporter in the world by the way. See, you learned something!)

“With more than 65 million followers between them, Kravitz and Anitta are global superstars who are inspiring millions of people to go their way and let love rule by keeping animals off their plates,” PETA’s senior VP Lisa Lange told Billboard in a statement. “PETA’s Most Beautiful Vegans of 2022 are showing the world what it means to thrive on planet-protecting, plant-powered meals.”

So there it is. Lenny Kravitz and Anitta are PETA’s 2022 Most Beautiful Vegan Celebrities.

Lauren Boebert is onto bigger and better things after news of her beloved Shooters Grill restaurant closing. (Or so she says!) This closure had been reported for weeks and followed hot on the heels of ex-employees airing their grievances about missing paychecks (and the alleged splashing out of dollars elsewhere by Boebert) and years after the eatery developed a certain reputation due to a 2017 food poisoning outbreak tied to pork sliders.

The rootin’ tootin’ lawmaker ignored the news for nearly a day, preferring to tweet all day about inflation, which is not news to anyone at all. Finally, though, Sarah Palin 2.0 acknowledged that the Rifle, Colorado joint (where servers were encouraged to carry guns on their person) was wandering off into restaurant heaven. She tweeted a statement that ended with some ominous vibes:

“Serving others is a fundamental value for Jayson and me. It’s in our blood. It is with full hearts, grateful for our staff and those who have patronized our restaurant, that we announced that Shooters Grill has closed its doors after receiving a notice that our landlord would not be renewing our lease. This decision was his to make and was purely a business decision with no political motivation.

“There is a time and season for everything, and God has called us to focus our time and energy elsewhere. While Shooters Grill is closed, stay tuned. The Shooters brand isn’t going away. There are exciting things in the works.

“May with apolitical agenda will try to spin this happy transition into something that it’s not. Rest assured that we will not allowed them to steal our joy for all that this restaurant has meant for our family.”

“There are exciting things in the works.” That’s more chilling than 85% of the Stephen King novels in this world. Hopefully, these things don’t have anything to do with Boebert’s husband, Jayson, and a bowling alley. According to Raw Story, Boebert thinks that there might soon be a “Shooters coffee shop with pastries and some easy breakfast sandwiches and merchandise.” Watch out for the pork sliders, y’all.

Read Boebert’s full tweeted statement below.

Sitting down to map out Marvel’s television timeline is a bit like looking at those high-definition images from the James Webb Space Telescope. We knew the universe was big, we just didn’t realize how big.

The MCU has spent a decade building an interconnected world of superheroes that have spanned galaxies and timelines but its TV verse is still in its infancy, growing bolder with each new story it takes on and adding to its overall value with each new character it introduces. Some of Marvel’s most beloved shows are just a blip on the bigger timeline while others are key to understanding the storytelling happening on a grander, cinematic level. (And a few not included in this list like Marvel’s What If, FX’s Legion, and Powers have no place at all within the MCU but they’re a hell of a fun watch all the same.) They all stand on their own, but if you can connect their dots, you’ll be better prepared for what Marvel has planned next. Plus, you know, all those Easter eggs the MCU likes to toss in its end credits scenes might actually make sense.

We’ve done the hard job of putting Marvel’s TV lineup in chronological order in case you want to watch these shows in a way that makes the most sense.

Agent Carter

2 seasons | 18 episodes

Steve Rogers may have been sitting comfortably on ice for nearly 70 years but Peggy Carter was using that time to do some avenging of her own. This series, which chronicles Carter’s work becoming a kick-ass spy and ultimately creating S.H.I.E.L.D., is set in the 1940s with Hayley Atwell reprising her role and being joined by Howard Stark and his butler named Jarvis. See the tie-ins there?

Agents of Shield

7 seasons | 126 episodes

Now, finding the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s place in the ever-expanding Marvel timeline is a bit tricky. They’ve hopped between quite a few eras, traveling to both the future and the past – plus space – so it’s a bit hard to pin this team of genius scientists and superpowered agents led by Phil Coulson to any one decade. But, because the show’s early season tied directly into Marvel’s Avengers and the following sequels, watching this series after Agent Carter makes the most sense, chronologically. Just be warned, later seasons don’t dwell too much on what’s happening in the MCU.

Daredevil

3 seasons | 39 episodes

Daredevil was Marvel’s first TV project with Netflix and, arguably, its best. The show follows a blind lawyer by the name of Matt Murdock (an excellent Charlie Cox) who serves up his own brand of vigilante justice after hours. The show made some mention of bigger MCU events – like the battle of New York – but Daredevil was always more of a street-level hero, a guy with vulnerabilities that felt more human, and more relatable. This is a terrific entry point into New York’s lineup of B-level superheroes, especially considering Murdock and his arch-nemesis Wilson Fisk are returning for another Marvel series, Disney+’s planned Echo.

Jessica Jones

3 seasons | 39 episodes

Krysten Ritter plays a boozy private detective harboring inhuman strength and some traumatic memories in this Netflix-launched Marvel series. Jessica Jones’ first season had a terrific villain in David Tennant’s Kilgrave and tackled the kind of difficult subject matter – like domestic abuse, addiction, and trauma – most of its peers on this list shy away from. It’s a necessary watch to understand later team-up projects, and a fun one for fans craving more badass women in the MCU, but it doesn’t sport too many connections to the larger universe. Yet.

Luke Cage

2 seasons | 26 episodes

The third entry in Marvel’s Defenders series, Luke Cage follows the title character — introduced originally in Jessica Jones — to Harlem, where he works as a sweeper in a barbershop and as a dishwasher in a restaurant. Cage –who has superhero strength and unbreakable skin — gets dragged against his better instincts into crime-fighting in order to save Harlem from violence and corruption. It’s a very focused and contained story that enriches the background of some small-time Marvel heroes, especially if you need a break from the big, CGI-fueled galactic adventures happening in the MCU right now.

Iron Fist

2 seasons | 23 episodes

Marvel had been trying to make Iron Fist happen for a while before Netflix gave it a series order and while some elements fall flat, the show does mark the studio’s first foray into the world of martial arts. That world would be expanded on in later Doctor Strange movies and in Shang Chi, but here, it’s contained to the story of Danny Rand, the heir to a billion-dollar company who returns from the dead with special abilities and a desire to make his small slice of the world better by using them.

The Defenders

1 season | 8 episodes

The Defenders was Marvel’s attempt at an Avengers-style team-up for television and, in a lot of ways, it worked. The show brought together Jessica Jones, Matt Murdock, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand to fight an intimidating villain (hello Sigourney Weaver) with an army ready to take control of New York City. Most of the fun in this series comes from watching these heroes who normally go the solo route when it comes to their vigilante jobs, try to work together, combining their abilities and managing their personality clashes to save their city.

The Punisher

2 seasons | 26 episodes

It’s likely that The Punisher was never meant to be its own show, but when Jon Bernthal guested on season two of Netflix’s Daredevil, he had fans clamoring for more of Frank Castle and his bloody form of justice. The Punisher ties in most closely with Matt Murdock’s universe, though with shows like Hawkeye and Echo also set in New York, there might be room for him to join Marvel’s next phase. Still, even if Castle’s run just amounts to these two seasons, it’s worth a watch for how brutal and brilliant Bernthal is in the role.

Marvel’s Runaways

3 seasons | 33 episodes

Hulu’s first Marvel foray follows a group of supernaturally-gifted teens trying to uncover a conspiracy that the adults in their lives seemed to be wrapped up in. It’s a bit like if The O.C. met the MCU and while there’s not much mention of a bigger universe, it does hint at there being more superpowered people out there than we first thought. Not too heavy, not too light, it’s a good show to watch if you want to capture the same vibe as some of Disney+’s more recent series.

Loki

1 season | 6 episodes

Where exactly does Loki fit in the chronological timeline? Hell if we know. The trickster god spent an entire season jumping from one multiverse branch to the next, eventually retconning his entire stay with the Time Variance Authority and throwing the timeline into absolute chaos. But, if you’re forcing us to put this Asgardian reject somewhere, we’d place his most recent exploits in the same space as most of the post-Blip, Phase 4 action. Wherever he really belongs, this show luxuriates in the concept of a multiverse which is set to be a big theme of future Marvel movies, so it’s best to dive in here if you want to understand the trippy dimensional travel happening in that Doctor Strange sequel.

WandaVision

1 season | 9 episodes

Taking place just a few weeks after the Blip, WandaVision had a lot of responsibility on its shoulders. It had to bridge the gap from Marvel’s movie verse to its expanding TV empire and it had to lay the groundwork for the series to come. We now know that while Wanda Maximoff (Elisabeth Olsen at her best here) was grieving the loss of Vision by enslaving the minds of an entire town-worth of people and living out her own sitcom fantasies, the events of future Spider-Man movies and TV spinoffs had yet to happen. Wanda’s little hostage situation didn’t have too much effect on Peter Parker or Sam Wilson’s arcs but what happened in Westview did influence Doctor Strange’s storyline and will likely play a role in that planned Agatha Harkness spinoff.

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier

1 season | 6 episodes

Set six months after the Blip, Disney+’s second original series followed the journey of Sam Wilson from The Falcon to the new Captain America after Steve Rogers decided to have a do-over, remaining in the past with Peggy Carter to live a normal life. In the present, Rogers hands off his shield to Wilson who initially refuses the mantle, which leads to the creation of a terrifying new villain and forces him to team up with Bucky Barnes to protect their friend’s legacy. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan have extremely watchable comedic chemistry and the characters introduced here – especially the villains, like Wyatt Russell’s John Walker – are set to play a bigger role in future Marvel TV shows.

Hawkeye

1 season | 6 episodes

Hawkeye’s placement in the timeline is tricky because, throughout the show, references are made that might lead fans to believe it’s another Marvel project jammed into the year 2023 (see Eternals, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for reference). But, according to showrunner Rhys Thomas, Clint Barton’s Christmas vacation in the Big Apple happens in December 2024, a full year after the events of Endgame. That distinction explains why Hawkeye is so rusty when it comes to his avenging duties, why Yelena is still hunting him on orders from Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and how the hell an entire Broadway show dedicated to the Avengers was erected in such a short time span. Clearly, you’d need more than a few months to choreograph the Battle of New York for the stage.

Moon Knight

1 season | 6 episodes

Marvel has confirmed that Moon Knight takes place after the events of Hawkeye which would most likely set it in the year 2025. Again, that feels like a good fact to know in terms of grounding this series in reality because everything else that happens on this show – from Egyptian Gods hijacking human bodies to use as their own personal avatars to Oscar Isaac’s frequent blackouts to a superhero with multiple personalities to a talking hippo – is completely nuts. But, you know, in a good way.

Ms. Marvel

1 season | 6 episodes

Marvel’s latest TV offering might be its most important yet. Not only does the show introduce a brand-new superhero – Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel – who has grown up in a post-Blip world idolizing the same Avengers who have saved the universe time and time again, but the story also sets up movies to come, including the sequel to Captain Marvel, by way of some surprising cameos. Khan has abilities of her own that are activated by an heirloom passed down in her family that introduces the concept of supernatural beings called Jinns but there’s something different about her DNA too, a tease added to the end of the series that might just be a gateway to bring the X-Men into the Marvel-verse. So yeah, there are plenty of reasons to watch this one.

Today is an exciting one for League Of Legends players at it marks the start of “Star Guardian 2022,” a new 10-week event. Porter Robinson has a role to play here, as his new track “Everything Goes On” serves as the theme song for the event.

In an interview with The Verge, Robinson noted the song started as a story about two fictional characters, saying, “The song that I wrote was written from the perspective of the last night that they would spend together. It’s just this bittersweet last night where he knows what he needs to do, but of course, it’s really painful because he loves her. And this was the story I had in my head.”

The tune only clicked for him, though, when he shifted his approach to be more based on his real life. He said, “Somebody who I really love was going through something really painful, and I started writing about that, and that was when it really clicked for me because I wasn’t faking anything anymore. The emotions I was writing about were really sincerely held and painful. And when I finally figured out the second pre-chorus, I literally cried in the studio. My entire heart was in it.”

Watch the “Everything Goes On” video above.

Like the inspiration for his name, Jacksonville, Florida rap crooner Seddy Hendrinx favors melodic trap bangers about his interior thoughts, but unlike Future, Seddy leans further into his R&B influences to tackle more introspective material — material like his laid-back Well Sed single “Lights,” which he stopped by Uproxx Studios to perform for UPROXX Sessions.

Although still a relative newcomer, Seddy has quite the catalog under his belt already, beginning with the 2018 mixtape Death B4 Dishoner Loyalty over Everything. Since then, he’s released projects at a pace equivalent to one year (he dropped two in 2019 and two in 2020, using 2021 to work on his 2022 debut album Well Sed, which dropped this week via Atlantic Records). His releases have included an impressive array of features, including 24Hrs, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Fivio Foreign, G Herbo, Gunna, T-Pain, and his Generation Now labelmate, Jack Harlow.

Watch Seddy Hendrinx perform the laid-back ‘Lights’ on UPROXX Sessions above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

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

Japanese Breakfast was scheduled to play a show at the Main Street Armory in Rochester, New York in September, but the band have taken a stand and cancelled it. Turns out, the venue was set to host a tour stop from the right-wing Reawaken America Tour, a tour that NYMag called “the start of QAnon 2.0,” and was set to feature appearances from highly questionable members of the Trump entourage like General Michael Flynn and supervillain Roger Stone.

In a series of tweets, Japanese Breakfast indicated that they were under the impression that the show was cancelled but “later learned it was secretly still moving forward.” Local leaders in Rochester had been calling for the event to be cancelled, telling RochesterFirst that the community was “concerned that this will lead to further bigotry within our country, violence, hate…”

Whether the Reawaken America “Thrive Time” show happens or not, Japanese Breakfast will no longer be appearing in Rochester. The band made that very clear in their Twitter statement:

“Re Rochester show at the Armory. We have cancelled the event because a number of people reached out letting us know they were boycotting the venue because of the Reawaken America tour. We were told the event was cancelled and later learned it was secretly still moving forward. It’s a picket line we support and are not interested in crossing. We are unfortunately unable to move the event to a different venue this time but we love Rochester and I am sure we will return someday soon.”

Check out the full list of Japanese Breakfast’s other tour stops here.

These days it seems like everyone either has a podcast or will have a podcast soon — especially rappers. Whether it’s viewed as a post-rap career pivot or simply another revenue stream to tap into, it seems more and more recording artists are following Joe Budden and NORE into the podcasting game. While some, like Nicki Minaj and Fat Joe use their platforms to discuss whatever’s on their minds at the time, others such as Uproxx’s own Talib Kweli or Open Mike Eagle, bring on special guests to discuss their careers and current hot topics online.

The next rapper to join the trend will apparently be Rick Ross, who woke up with the idea on his mind, sharing his plans with his 15.5 million followers on Instagram via an Instagram Story. Strutting around his massive mansion in a Versace bathrobe, Ross said, “I woke up, just had a beautiful idea. A boss idea. I’m a start a podcast. Deadass serious.” After chuckling a bit, he offered fans a chance to participate in the process by suggesting names for the show. “If I decide to use your name, guess what. I’m a bless you with the holy trinity.” Unfortunately, rather than a percentage of future royalties or anything like that, the “trinity” turned out to be a quartet of bottles of Ross’ various liquors: sparkling win Luc Belaire, Villon Liqueur, Bumbu Rum, and the elaborately named gin, McQueen And The Violet Fog. I’d say, if you win, do a little negotiation — or hang onto those bottles in case they’re worth money someday.