Category: News

As far as “an older man with a powerful voice and a daunting stare” goes, Christopher Walken is definitely one of the greats. He gives off a vibe that he has for sure seen some sh*t, so having him play a Padishah Emperor in the upcoming Dune: Part Two just makes sense.

Walken is the latest actor to join the cast of the highly-anticipated (and even higher-budgeted) Dune installment, which is slated to hit theaters next fall. He will act alongside Florence Pugh and Elvis impersonator Austin Butler who joined the project earlier this year.

In case you have been living under a rock or a pile of sand, Dune is the futuristic space epic that stars Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and Josh Brolin as they go to war on their desert planet. Also, there are a bunch of sandworms. Filming for Part Two is expected to begin production this fall so there is still time to add Kyle MacLachlan to the cast so he can redeem himself after starring in the failed 1984 adaptation of the same name.

Walken is known for being in over 100 movies (take that, Timothee) including Pulp Fiction, Annie Hall, and, most importantly, Antz. Most recently, he starred in Apple TV+’s hit sci-fi show Severance which was just renewed for a second season. Not bad for a guy who doesn’t own a computer!

Rob Reiner went “he’s on fire” mode in the 1980s. That decade, he directed This is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally… That’s four stone-cold classics and one underrated comedy (The Sure Thing) that Roger Ebert called a “small miracle.” Reiner’s recent efforts haven’t been able to match his 1980s (or early 1990s, with Misery and A Few Good Men) output, but he’s going back to his first movie in an attempt to turn his directorial career back to 11.

Deadline reports that Reiner will direct Spinal Tap II, a sequel to 1980’s cult classic This is Spinal Tap. Comedy legends Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer will reprise their roles as Spinal Tap members David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls, while Reiner will again play documentarian Marty DiBergi.

Here’s how Reiner described the film:

“They haven’t spent any time together recently, and that became the premise. The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away. In reality, Tony Hendra passed away. Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert. She was going to sue them if they didn’t. All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert.”

Paul McCartney is still out there playing “Helter Skelter” at 79 years old. What’s stopping Spinal Tap (combined age: 226) from doing the same with “Sex Farm”?

(Via Deadline)

Despite Netflix’s declining numbers and general lack of self-awareness, the streamer is continuing to do what they do best: make things people didn’t really ask for, instead of renewing actually good shows. Next up is a series based on the massive franchise Resident Evil.

The upcoming series will be an ambitious tale of a young woman trying to survive amongst a sea of zombie-like humanoids. So, your basic run-of-the-mill zombie story, but they added the word “bad-ass” to make it relate to the Current Times. According to the official description:

Year 2036 – 14 years after a deadly virus caused a global apocalypse, Jade Wesker fights for survival in a world overrun by the blood-thirsty infected and insane creatures. In this absolute carnage, Jade (Ella Balinska and Tamara Smart) is haunted by her past in New Raccoon City, by her father’s (Lance Reddick) chilling connections to the Umbrella Corporation but mostly by what happened to her sister, Billie. The series is from showrunner Andrew Dabb and promises to have “the best of the Resident Evil Universe DNA – bad-ass heroines, insane creatures (some new/some familiar), a battle for survival, questions about what it means to be family, Umbrella Corporation’s greed and corruption; and of course, a deep mystery to unravel.

The series will be based on the hit video game and movie franchise which debuted in the 90s, though fans on Twitter aren’t super pumped about it, with many fans concluding that it just simply does not work as a television show, and makes very little sense that it would take place in that universe. We all know Netflix doesn’t really take user feedback very well, though.

The series will debut on July 14th. Check out the spooky trailer above.

Francis Ford Coppola is gearing up to drop almost $100 million of his own cash on his passion project, Megalopolis, and the legendary director of The Godfather is definitely getting his money’s worth when it comes to the cast. Coppola has been touting the epic scope of the project for years now, and he’s bringing in some A-Listers to get the job done, according to The Hollywood Reporter:

Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Voight will star in the project that is written and directed by The Godfather filmmaker. The logline for the film reads: “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius, and conflicted love.”

As for why Coppola is putting up so much of his own money, the filmmaker says Megalopolis is the film he’s always wanted to make. Much like he did with Apocalypse Now, Coppola is willing to gamble on himself because he knows no studio will touch the ambitious project that he describes as something like It’s a Wonderful Life that people watch once a year.

“The more personal I make it, and the more like a dream in me that I do it, the harder it will be to finance,” Coppola recently told GQ. “And the longer it will earn money because people will be spending the next 50 years trying to think: What’s really in Megalopolis? What is he saying? My God, what does that mean when that happens?”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Hello there! I have the high ground, etc etc. With the Star Wars prequel trilogy nearly two decades behind us (time is a flat circle etc etc), it’s now time to show them some respect despite their glaring flaws.

While doing press for the upcoming Disney+ original series Obi-Wan Kenobi which hits the streaming platform in the US on May 27, Ewan McGregor delivered a passionate, emotional monologue about the critically panned prequels and talked about how the younger generation’s fondness for the films has improved his relationship with the franchise. In the clip which made the rounds on Twitter dot com, Ewan delivers the following nearly two-minute speech to a reporter who says they love the prequels:

I guess you were a kid when our films came out. So we sort of made them for you. It was an odd experience to make those movies. When you step into this world, it’s a big deal. It’s scary. And then those films were critically not liked very much, or they weren’t written very nicely about by the critics. What we didn’t hear at the time was people your age. We meet people now who really love our films, but it’s taken us, like, fifteen years to hear that. It’s so nice. It’s really nice, and it’s changed my outlook on my relationship with <em>Star Wars</em> because of that, I think. We put our heart and soul into them and they were difficult to make because the second one, the third one, there was so much green screen and blue screen because George [Lucas] was pushing into this new realm that he had designed that he was for. He wanted to max out that technology. But that meant for us that we were very much on green screens and blue screens, and it was hard work. And to do that and be passionate about it and then for the films to not be very well-received was really tough. It’s really lovely to have this new relationship with them now and watching them again. I hadn’t seen them since they came out, in preparation for this show. To watch them again was really cool. I like them, you know? I like them. Episode 3 is a really good movie.

Co-star Hayden Christensen, who portrayed Anakin Skywalker in the prequels and will return in Obi-Wan Kenobi added to the enthusiasm for Revenge of the Sith. “It’s a phenomenal film,” he said. “Nonstop action.” So what I think Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen are trying to say is that they stan General Greivous.

A pelvic floor doctor from Boston, Massachusetts, has caused a stir by explaining that something we all thought was good for our health can cause real problems. In a video that has more than 5.8 million views on TikTok, Dr. Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas says we shouldn’t go pee “just in case.”

How could this be? The moment we all learned to control our bladders we were also taught to pee before going on a car trip, sitting down to watch a movie or playing sports.

The doctor posted the video as a response to TikTok user Sidneyraz, who made a video urging people to go to the bathroom whenever they get the chance. Sidneyraz is known for posting videos about things he didn’t learn until his 30s. “If you think to yourself, ‘I don’t have to go,’ go.” SidneyRaz says in the video. It sounds like common sense but evidently, he was totally wrong, just like the rest of humanity.

@sidneyraz

on vacation and remembering #vacation #tips #bathroom #travel #tipsandtricks #todayilearned #todayyearsold #islandlife #traumabrain #roadtrip #inmy30s

“Pelvic floor physical therapist here, and I work with a lot of people with overactive bladders, stress incontinence, urge incontinence, the whole nine yards,” Dr. Jeffrey-Thomas began her clip. “And here’s why you shouldn’t go ‘just in case.”‘

In the video, Dr. Jeffrey-Thomas explains the three levels of feeling the need to pee.

“The first one is just an awareness level that tells you that there’s some urine in the bladder,” she said. “The second one is the one that tells you to make a plan to use the toilet, and the third is kind of the panic button that says, ‘Get me there right now, I’m about to overflow.’”

Then she made her case by giving a visual explanation of how going when we don’t need to teaches our bodies to prematurely send signals that it’s time to pee. The simple explanation has a lot of people wondering if their pee sensor is still working correctly.

@thepelvicdancefloor

#stitch with @sidneyraz I know it sounds counterintuitive and goes against everything your momma taught you – just out here trying to save your bladder 🤍

In a rare display of humility on the internet, Sidneyraz saw the video and thanked the doctor for the correction. “Oh hey thanks for correcting me!” he wrote.

The video shocked a lot of people who feel like their entire lives have been based on a lie—at least when it comes to something most of us do six to eight times a day. “TikTok is basically just a bunch of videos telling me I’m doing life wrong,” joked one commenter. “Like Jesus, really? I’m peeing wrong?”

Yes, you are.

“Who else hears their mom in their head say ‘go just in case’ when you’re out and about and near a bathroom?” another commenter asked.

The good news is that if you’ve always been the type to go “just in case” and you constantly feel like you need to go pee, there is hope. With the help of a doctor, you can retrain your bladder so that you only feel the need to go when it’s time. Now, who’s going to be the first brave person who doesn’t go when they feel the need, just to see if their body’s pee sensor is off?

Have you been longing for the late 2000s/early 2010s when vampire entertainment was inescapable between True Blood, The Vampire Diaries (still the CW’s best show), and The Twilight Saga?

For years and years, vampire people have sat back while zombie apocalypse stories surpassed vampire stories in popularity, with FX’s vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows and Megan Fox keeping us patient. Now, our time is back. Netflix just dropped the trailer for its upcoming vampire show First Kill, which tells the story of two teenage girls who fall in love despite the fact that they are mortal enemies: one is a vampire, and the other is a hunter, sworn to kill monsters including vamps. Juicy! The trailer teases lots of teeth, teenage girls kissing, and some demon guys who look like they stumbled in from the 1998 set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a compliment).

Here’s the official description from Netflix:

UPROXX Sessions goes global (again) with Australian R&B singer Rini, who brings a silky performance of his sensitive track “Talk To Me” to the set. Rocking a snakeskin-patterned shirt, Rini shows off his smooth falsetto as he sings of a simmering attraction and prepares to make his play.

Rini got his start busking on the streets of Melbourne before putting out the self-released After The Sun EP and embarking on an Austrailian tour in 2018. Then, in 2019, he relocated to Los Angeles, looking to truly break out on an international scale. In 2020, he told DJ Booth he wants to bring Melbourne’s diverse culture to the US, while also opening up opportunities for the R&B scene back home. He certainly has the chops for it; as demonstrated on singles like the Earthgang featuring “Out Of The Blue” and “Red Lights” with Wale.

Watch Rini glide through the pleading performance of “Talk To Me” for 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.

Today is a particularly good day to be an Arcade Fire fan: They performed a cover of Harry Styles’ “As It Was” that was unveiled today and now they’re also doing some space stuff.

In the center of our Milky Way galaxy is Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole. (More accurately, “Sagittarius A*” is the name of the location of the black hole.) The funny thing about black holes is that it’s pretty darn hard for stuff to escape their strong gravity. That includes light, which makes them tough to photograph. Today, though, astronomers revealed the first-ever photo of the Sagittarius A* black hole, a major scientific achievement.

Arcade Fire, a Canadian rock band that didn’t previously have a noted association with the scientific community, comes into play because their new album We has a song called “End Of The Empire IV (Sagittarius A*).” So, at the European Southern Observatory’s introductory press conference about the photo, the band performed the We song.

Win Butler wrote in a post about the black hole:

“There is so much that we don’t understand about ourselves; our minds, our planet, our solar system.

When I first read about Sagittarius A*, the super massive black hole that sits in the center of our galaxy, it felt symbolic of all we seek to understand about ourselves, and yet fail to fully grasp…

And today, WE know a little bit more, thanks to the collaboration of a vast network of telescopes and scientists all over the world. A testament to what we can accomplish together as humanity…

Perhaps ‘We’ll see one day, what’s on the other side.’

Thank you so much [European Southern Observatory] for the invitation to perform, it was an honor.

Luv
Win.”

Check out a clip of the performance below.

Is it weird that I’m more concerned about the fate of Lalo Salamanca heading into the final few episodes of Better Call Saul than I am about the fate of Kim Wexler?

I’m starting to think it is, based on two factors: One, Lalo is a violent cartel boss who has murdered something like a half dozen people on the show and does not appear to feel remorse for any of it, even a little, while Kim, even while breaking bad a bit herself to ruin her old boss, is still working as a lawyer for the poor and underprivileged; two, when I posed this exact question to Tony Dalton (who plays Lalo) and Michael Mando (who played Nacho until… you know) in a chat over Zoom before the season, they both kind of yelled at me. Mostly in good fun, to be sure, but still. Here is the unedited chunk of the transcript to drive it home.

Tony: Yeah. That’s very weird.
Michael: It’s very weird. We have a problem, Brian.
Tony: I’m worried…
Michael: We have a problem.
Tony: What are you talking about?

In hindsight, this was a fair reaction. Also in hindsight, this was not an ideal way to start an interview. There’s a lot of reflecting that needs to be done here. By me, mostly. Maybe by the rest of us. But definitely by me.

The problem is that Lalo Salamanca is basically a perfect television character, a walking charisma bomb in a floral-patterned shirt who would just as easily slap you on the back as he would slit your throat with a broken soda bottle. Dalton described Lalo later in our chat — once we got the train back on the tracks — as “having this sort of carefree way about life, where he just doesn’t really care if he lives or dies, because that’s kind of what I think would be to live in that world,” adding that, because Lalo accepted his life could end at any minute “maybe he takes life a little less serious.” I think this sums things up pretty well. As does this GIF of him pulling up to a compound filled with armed cartel operatives.

This gets us to the dilemma I’m facing now. I know Lalo is a bad dude. I know he deserves whatever exactly is coming to him. I know that “whatever is coming to him” probably includes a death at the hands of Gus Fring, mostly because if you are a newly introduced character in a prequel who is at war with a character who exists in the original show, things are probably not going to work out for you, but also because Gus literally says the sentence “All of the Salamancas are dead” in season four of Breaking Bad. These are all true statements. But here’s another true statement that I think we all need to consider: I love him very much and want him to live forever.

A big part of this is Tony Dalton. He plays Lalo with this puffed-out gregarious machismo that makes the character endlessly watchable. Everything he does, even just having a pleasant conversation with a housewife, is soaked in menace. He can turn it on or off at any moment, with the smile below his glorious mustache turning into a thin flat line and the charm fleeing his eyes. It is my position that you could drop this character into almost any television show and it would improve the show by a factor of five, at minimum. Lalo Salamanca showing up on Ted Lasso when the cartel buys a rival soccer team as a money-laundering ploy. Lalo Salamanca showing up on Barry to start a turf war with NoHo Hank. Lalo Salamanca showing up on Succession at some all-inclusive resort and just scaring the hell out of Cousin Greg for 10 minutes next to the pool. These are all good ideas that are free for anyone to use.

It’s also part of why the character is so fascinating to me right now. To date, he’s been portrayed as something one or maybe two steps short of a comic book supervillain. (Not to be confused with the actual comic book supervillain Dalton played in Hawkeye, which was also a delight.) Lalo is hyper-proficient at everything. He can show up in Germany at a fancy martini bar and woo a sad widow. He can hop over fences and disappear out of second-story windows like an Olympic gymnast. He can tell a crew of heartless human traffickers to be nice and then kill all of them off-screen in about 90 seconds. It’s kind of like if you crossed John Wick with Danny Ocean.

And, like… once you’ve created someone who is almost indestructible, how do you go about destroying him? This is sort of what I was getting at with the question I asked at the beginning of this whole thing. You can see how this goes sideways for Kim Wexler and Howard Hamlin and most of the other characters on this show who do not make it to Breaking Bad. I still don’t think either of those two characters dies, but wheels are spinning fast on both fronts and there are many potential non-lethal outcomes in play. Kim could get disbarred and flee back to the Midwest, another example of Saul’s actions harming only those surrounding him. Howard’s plot could wrap itself up cleanly and he could fade back into the background and just not be a part of Breaking Bad at all without Kim around. They could both go to jail for all we know. You can see the potential escape hatches here. But Lalo, just because of the way he fills the screen and the minds of so many different characters, pretty much has to die.

And he almost certainly has to die at the hands of Gus Fring, too, which is also fascinating. Gus and Lalo are two sides of the same coin, in a way. They’re both masking ice-cold killers behind pleasant exteriors, Gus using the uber-polite restaurant manager and Lalo grinning and kissing babies across the southwest. I asked Dalton about this aspect of the show, too, about how Gus and Lalo are actually, in a way, not so different, and his answer hit on a couple interesting points. “I think that there’s a little bit of this peeking through, of just this evil on both sides,” he said. “I think it’s just that maybe they’re a little bit the same in that area, where they can be polite and they can be sort of nonchalant about something. But when you have to get down to business, you know that both of them are not going to think twice about pulling the trigger.”

This is, to put a point on it finer than the tips of Lalo’s mustache, the thing. We’ve already started to see how this can play out, with Lalo hunting for clues in Europe and Gus setting booby traps in New Mexico. We know how it has to end. We know Gus, barring a truly wild left turn like Lalo deciding to fake his death a second time and escaping to Japan and becoming a high-ranking Yakuza boss (MAKE THIS SHOW VINCE GILLIGAN I AM BEGGING YOU), is going to win here. We know this because we’ve all seen or at least Googled Breaking Bad. Lalo Salamanca is not long for this world. He can’t be.

Which, again, at the risk of becoming a broken record, is fascinating. Because as much as I want Lalo to live forever and plop into my other favorite shows and maybe become a major figure in the Tokyo underworld, I also want to see how this plays out. How do you kill a borderline invincible man? What does that look like? Even though we probably know the destination, the journey itself could be a wild ride.

Or, to quote Dalton one last time from the chat that started with him thinking — fairly — that I was a crazy person: “What I can tell you is that Lalo is on a warpath. He’s got vengeance in his eyes and he’s mad. He wasn’t mad in the last season and he’s mad in this one. So, I think that a lot of stuff is going to go down.”

I don’t know if I’m ready for all of this but I do know I am very, very excited. And scared. But mostly excited.