Category: News

Last night, two out of three of the HAIM sisters appeared on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. While Danielle was out sick, Este and Alana were there to discuss their career in music. “I think the thing that was the most mind-blowing about being on Roc Nation is that when we would be in a huge crowd of people, Jay-Z and Beyoncé would pick us out of a crowd and hug us, which was a very crazy experience,” Alana said.

“There was one moment I’ll never forget,” she added. “We were at the Grammys. Danielle had a little piece of lint on her jacket and Beyoncé picked it off for her and was like, ‘I got you.’ And I was like, ‘Beyoncé! I’m crying! What’s happening?’”

This would be a special experience for anyone, but especially for HAIM; the trio covered Beyoncé’s song “XO” back in 2014. “That song is a masterpiece. We’re the biggest Beyoncé fans,” Alana said. “I love her so much. She is obviously an idol of ours. I don’t know if she had a reaction to [the cover], but that was one of our favorite covers we’ve ever played.”

Watch a clip of the sisters on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen above.

When it launched in February, Truth Social, Donald Trump’s attempt at a clone of the social media behemoth that may un-ban him, was another one of his many, many disasters. Lately he’s belatedly made an effort, making some, shall we say, dubious claims about the service he can’t even pronounce. But perhaps it will wind up yet another Trump dog, like Trump University, Trump Steaks, Tour de Trump, etc., etc. Indeed, even the company that’s about to acquire Truth Social doesn’t seem so optimistic.

Digital World, the “blank-check” firm planning to merge with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) issued a regulatory filing on Monday. One thing it revealed is that, when the merger is complete, Trump himself is set to control between 47% and 58% of it. Digital World felt compelled to remind potential investors of the former president’s, shall we say, checkered history.

“A number of companies that were associated with President Trump have filed for bankruptcy,” the filing reads, alluding to the six times a Trump business has done so. “There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also become bankrupt.”

It went on: “A number of companies that had license agreements with President Trump have failed. There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also fail.” It also added, “While all of the foregoing were in different businesses than TMTG, there can be no guarantee that TMTG’s performance will exceed the performance of those entities.” And mind you, said entities did not also fail miserably.

Still, at least the big guy is confident that his latest venture will succeed. He’s so sure of himself that he’s already trying to fill positions form TMTG+, a streaming service that may or may not last as long as CNN+, provided it actually gets off the ground.

(Via Insider)

The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery took place on Tuesday night. Representatives from 14 teams made took to a stage in Chicago to see if the ping pong balls would bounce their way, and by the time deputy commissioner Mark Tatum rattled off the order for next month’s NBA Draft, head coach Jamahl Mosley from the Orlando Magic stood on stage in celebration, as his team won the right to pick first overall this year.

Here is how the entire Draft Lottery played out.

1. Orlando Magic
2. Oklahoma City Thunder
3. Houston Rockets
4. Sacramento Kings
5. Detroit Pistons
6. Indiana Pacers
7. Portland Trail Blazers
8. New Orleans Pelicans (via Los Angeles Lakers)
9. San Antonio Spurs
10. Washington Wizards
11. New York Knicks
12. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Los Angeles Lakers)
13. Charlotte Hornets
14. Cleveland Cavaliers

Orlando moves up after drafting fifth in the 2021 NBA Draft and selecting Gonzaga guard Jalen Suggs, while they also used a selection on Michigan’s Franz Wagner that they acquired from the Chicago Bulls. The team was tied with Houston and Detroit for the best odds to pick first, and will now have to choose between the presumed frontrunners to go first: Duke’s Paolo Banchero, Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, and Auburn’s Jabari Smith.

The 2022 NBA Draft will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 23. Prior to that, the NBA will stay in the Windy City for the next few days for its annual Draft Combine.

Netflix has been in the original movie business since 2015’s Beast of No Nations, but they’ve always been adamant about one thing: Their movies will, with limited exceptions, never play movie theaters. Perhaps that’s one reason the streamer that started it all has recently found itself in financial peril, to the point that they’re rushing a cheaper, ad-supported version to lure in more people. And perhaps that’s why you might wind up with the luxury of watching one of their star-studded films, like the second Knives Out, in — get this — a darkened auditorium filled with strangers.

A report by Bloomberg (in a bit teased out by Insider) reveals that Netflix is considering rethinking how they release the movies they make in-house. One solution? Let them play movie theaters first then, after 45 days, finally make them available on their streaming coffers to paying subscribers. It’s a different tack than what they’ve done before, which is simply dump their films online to people who have already paid a monthly subscription.

It’s certainly a novel approach, this idea of making extra money by working with movie theaters to charge people upwards of $15 and more a head to see movies that cost quite a lot of money to produce and advertise. But there’s one problem: The nation’s biggest chains, AMC and Cineworld, refuse to play their films if they’re already streaming, as that obviously eats into their profits.

Thing is, movie theater owners would love to show Netflix movies, surely not the least because theaters have seen a 40% drop in attendance since moviegoing returned slightly to normal as the pandemic has begun to wane. Bloomberg reports that Netflix execs met with top movie theater chain heads last month, suggesting that a deal, involving that 45-day theater-exclusive window, may happen after all. They may at least experiment using a couple titles, likely the first of Rian Johnson’s two scheduled Knives Out sequels and/or Bardo, from two-time Oscar-winning Birdman and The Revenant director Alejandro González Iñárritu.

If it works, it will bring to an end one of the stranger business models in cinema’s century-and-a-quarter-plus history, which has made sense for smaller films that might struggle to find an audience in a movie theater but less so for, let’s say, a $200 million blockbuster starring three megastars. Till then, imagine what it will be like to delight at Daniel Craig solving crimes, perhaps with another outrageous accent, among a rapturous crowd of people happy to be away from their sofa.

(Via Bloomberg and Insider)

Irish whiskey is blowing up in the U.S. right now. Case in point, Teeling is about to ship around 6,000 bottles of their first installment of the “Wonders of Wood” series — a bespoke line of Irish whiskeys with unique barrel agings — to the U.S. It’s both very overdue and very welcome.

The tipple from the Emerald Isle used to dominate sales in the world (especially in the U.S.) in the 19th and 20th centuries. Then Prohibition brought the industry to its knees and then mid-20th-century British trade embargos drove coffin nails into Irish whiskey for, what felt like, good. The Irish whiskey industry started to recover in the early aughts as the current whiskey boom shook the cobwebs off the old barrels and, now, Irish whiskey is surging, especially stateside. All of that means we’re seeing new and exciting expressions make their way across the Atlantic yet again.

One of them landed on my desk early this year and I was pretty excited to give it a taste. I dig what the folks over at Teeling have been up to so let’s jump right into it!

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Irish Whiskey Posts of the Last Six Months

• The 100 Best Whiskeys Our Head Drinks Writer Tasted In 2021
• We Blind Tasted A Dozen Irish Whiskeys And Crowned A Winner
• Jameson Vs. Bushmills: The Results Of Our St. Patrick’s Day Blind Tasting
• All The Brands From The Jameson ‘Family’ Of Irish Whiskeys, Ranked
• International Single Malt Whiskies, Blind Tasted And Ranked

Teeling Wonders of Wood First Edition Virgin “Chinkapin” Oak

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $99

The Whiskey:

The first installment of the Wonders of Wood series is a single pot still Irish whiskey. That means the mash is a mix of 50% malted and 50% unmalted barley. The hot spirit is then filled into new American “chinkapin” white oak barrels for an undisclosed amount of time. Those barrels are then blended into this whiskey and proofed down ever-so-slightly to 100 proof.

Tasting Notes:

This is very bourbon-esque on the nose, with clear notes of rich caramel, vanilla pods, almost raw leather, buttery biscuits, a hint of dried apple flowers, a whisper of wet oak, and a wink of fresh mint. The palate, on the other hand, starts off with a malty spiciness that leads to hints of ginger snaps and cream soda with a slight yellow straw note on the mid-palate as a softness kicks in on the mouthfeel. The sweetness returns near the finish with dark cacao and winter spice that then veers toward a thin echo of cumin before unfiltered apple cider soda and green alder round out the finish.

The Bottle:

The bottle feels like a classic Irish whiskey bottle with “Teeling Whiskey” embossed in the glass. The label is like a cummerbund around the bottom quarter of the bottle with pertinent information. The whole thing comes in a pretty big box with a full oak tree on it and plenty of info. Overall, it’s a distinct bottle with a good presentation for gift-giving.

Botton Line:

The nose is all bourbon whiskey and the palate is all Irish whiskey. I kind of like that, in that it’s the best of both worlds. I do think this might play better in cocktails but I can see pouring it over some rocks and being perfectly happy with it as a mid-week sipper.

Ranking:

89/100 — You can’t complain about a solid B+ on the first outing. However, there are some chinquapin oak-aged bourbons out there that blow this away. Still, this is very easy drinking and rewarding.

Lana Del Rey had quite the 2021 year. She released two albums in the span of seven months with the first being March 2021’s Chemtrails Over The Country Club and the second being October 2021’s Blue Banisters. Between the two albums, Chemtrails Over The Country Club was the better-performing project as it peaked at No. 2 on the albums chart. Both albums are in Del Rey’s past now, and as of late she seems very focused on crafting her upcoming ninth album, which she spoke about during a recent interview with the fashion magazine W.

During the sit-down, Del Rey revealed that she’s been practicing “meditative automatic singing, where I don’t filter anything” as she sings into the Voice Notes app on her phone. “It’s not perfect, obviously,” she said. “There are pauses, and I stumble.” She added that she’s been sending “really raw-sounding files” to producer and songwriter Drew Erickson, who she worked with on Blue Banisters. “He’ll add an orchestra beneath the words, matching each syllable with music and adding reverb to my voice,” Del Rey said. When speaking about the music they’ve created, Del Rey noted that while her 2015 album Honeymoon featured references to color, her new music contained “none of that at all.”

“It’s more just like: I’m angry. The songs are very conversational,” Del Rey said. “For the first song, I pressed record and sang, ‘When I look back, tracing fingertips over plastic bags, I think I wish I could extrapolate some small intention or maybe get your attention for a minute or two.’” She continued, “It’s a very wordy album. So there’s no room for color. It’s almost like I’m typing in my mind.”

It remains to be seen when Del Rey will release this “angry” and “conversational” music. Until then, you can enjoy her most recent release, “Watercolor Eyes,” which was heard in an episode of HBO’s Euphoria.

You can read Del Rey’s full interview with W here.

Megan Thee Stallion is having a good year. The Texas rapper just made her Billboard Music Awards debut, performing “Plan B” and “Sweetest Pie,” and she was given the key to her hometown of Houston at the start of this month. Yesterday, though, she went to the Webby Awards and revealed on the red carpet that her new album is almost done.

“Anything I want to give away? Actually, I’m probably like 95% done with my new album,” she told the interviewer. “I want to tease that for the hotties. I haven’t even told them nothing about my album.” The record will be a follow-up to October’s Something For Thee Hotties, as well as to the aforementioned songs “Plan B” and “Sweetest Pie” plus “Flamin’ Hottie.”

Something For Thee Hotties ended up being the subject of lawsuits when her label, Carl Crawford’s 1501 Certified Entertainment, said that it wasn’t technically an album. After Megan sued them, they sued her back, with the attorney stating: “MTS knows that each ‘album’ must include at least twelve new master recordings of her studio performances of previously-unreleased musical compositions.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Mark Ruffalo still hasn’t gotten his own solo Hulk movie, but he seems fine with that. In fact, he seems fine popping up in other characters’ spin-off shows, even if they also focus on another lumbering green beserker. Witness the trailer for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, a comedic take on the character Stan Lee introduced in 1980, as the more mild-mannered, non-superheroic cousin of always beleaguered Bruce Banner.

The preview for the show, due in August, finds Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters, a lowly lawyer who finds herself turning green after receiving an infusion from her superhero relation. When she learns that she can turn into a rage machine at the drop of a hat, she is decidedly non-plussed.

“Your transformations are triggered by anger and fear,” Bruce tells his cousin.

“Those are like the baseline of any woman just existing,” she replies.

But the connections run deeper: One of Walters’ clients just happens to be Emil Blonsky, aka Abomination, who was played by Tim Roth all the way back in the Edward Norton-fronted The Incredible Hulk from 2008, meaning the beloved actor will be back in the MCU for the first time since the George W. Bush era.

Though there are plenty of MCU shows that have either already aired or are en route, She-Hulk share a bit more DNA with one of them in particular: WandaVision. Indeed, it’ll be a little closer to an Ally McBeal-like legal comedy, focusing more on her job than on her battling baddies, which she doesn’t seem wont to do anyway. What’s more, each episode will run a mere 30 sitcom-y minutes.

You can watch the trailer for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in the video above. It debuts on Disney+ on August 17.

A few months ago, Travis Scott was still living under the radar following the tragedy that took place at his 2021 Astroworld Festival. That incident resulted in ten deaths and nearly 5,000 injuries as well as nearly $3 billion in lawsuits. While many have placed a majority of the blame on Travis for the tragedy, others like the rapper himself feel otherwise. It’s probably why Travis began a slow return to the spotlight, one he completed with his recent performance at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards. Travis has also used the last few months to give back to the community, something he recently did with a donation to college students.

According to TMZ, Travis donated $1 million in scholarships to 100 students enrolled at HBCUs across the country. The students all are set to graduate with the Class of 2022, so his contribution ensures that students are able to do so without running into financial troubles in the near future or further down the line. The upcoming graduates, who finished their final semester with a GPA of 3.5 or higher, will each receive a $10,000 scholarship from Travis’ Waymon Webster Scholarship Fund.

In total, the scholarships were handed out to seniors at 38 schools which include Alabama A&M University, Central State University, Jackson State University, Morehouse College, Texas Southern University, Grambling State University, and more. The $1 million in scholarships are also a part of Travis’ Project HEAL initiative which he launched in March with a $5 million donation to community-based programs.

A lot of touring artists are testing positive for COVID, from noted anti-vaxxer Eric Clapton to the Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron. For the latter, the band reached out to former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, Richard Stuverud, and original Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen who left the group after the first album.

Krusen is the most recent talent to serve as the replacement at the band’s show in Fresno, California last night. On stage, he stated that he didn’t get to play many shows with Pearl Jam when he was actually in the band. “It looks like this week we’re going to get to make up for it,” he said. After exiting Pearl Jam in 1991 because of issues with alcoholism, he went on to play in bands like Candlebox, Hovercraft, Unified Theory, and Sons Of Silver.

This also follows Pearl Jam recruiting a high school student named Kai Neukermans to fill in for Cameron. Eddie Vedder introduced him by saying, “He hasn’t graduated high school yet. This is the year, right? Everybody, this is Kai. Kai, this is everybody!” Neukermans later said of the experience: “It was surreal, the amount of people that were there. The arena lit up and everyone was screaming.”

Watch Pearl Jam with Krusen on the drums perform the song “Once” above.