With Thanksgiving right around the corner, it’ll be holiday gift shopping time before you know it. Every year, gift buyers are faced with the unique challenge of trying to figure out what they should be getting for their loved ones to show their love and affection. Luckily, we here at Uproxx got some of our favorite artists to help get the juices flowing with the Uproxx Holiday Gift Guide, letting the world in on the best gives they’ve ever given, received, or ones they wish they had thought of.
First up is Noa Kirel, the Israeli pop star who released her first English-language single earlier this year. “Please Don’t Suck” is what Caitlin White called in a July issue of the Pop Life newsletter “the kind of old school earworm that is destined to blare out of boomboxes, car stereos, and DJ sets all summer long.” Now, Kirel is recommending tickets to Disneyland, her new beauty collection, and more in the first Uproxx Holiday Gift Guide.
Atlantic
What’s the album (not your own) that makes the best holiday gift, and why do you love it?
I’d say anything by Bruno Mars. It’s just such feel-good music and Bruno is one of a kind.
What’s a perfect gift for your significant other, and why?
I currently don’t have a significant other, but the best gift for me is a vacation abroad. Sharing experiences, seeing new places, and being together in a new setting.
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, it’ll be holiday gift shopping time before you know it. Every year, gift buyers are faced with the unique challenge of trying to figure out what they should be getting for their loved ones to show their love and affection. Luckily, we here at Uproxx got some of our favorite artists to help get the juices flowing with the Uproxx Holiday Gift Guide, letting the world in on the best gives they’ve ever given, received, or ones they wish they had thought of.
Next up is Shinedown, who are marking the holidays with a cover of John Lennon’s “Happy X-Mas (War Is Over).” To celebrate the new cover, vocalist Brent Smith sat down to recommend handmade gifts, cash, and vinyl in the latest Uproxx Holiday Gift Guide. Check out their holiday sale here.
What album makes the best holiday gift and why do you love it?
The album that I would give as a gift would either be Back In Black by AC/DC or Appetite For Destruction by Guns N’ Roses. They’re iconic. They are also an introduction into the awesome world of rock n roll, and they’re great records.
What’s the perfect gift for your significant other and why?
Well, the perfect gift would be your love because that should be given all year around. But, also, I think if your significant other really means a lot to you, it’s always cool to do something by hand, whether it’s a card or whether you make them something. It’s just a different way of giving somebody a gift instead of going out and buying it at a store or online. If you make something for them, a lot of times they feel that that is much more significant and quite special.
Mom and dad can be the hardest to shop for. What’s a great gift for the parental figure in your life?
That really just depends on a lot of different things, but most of the time, you know, they kind of give you subtle hints through the years what they want. It’s usually stuff for the house, or, I remember a couple of years ago, I bought my mother a Mercedes because she hadn’t had a brand-new car in over 25 years. So, you just have to listen to your parents, and they kind of give you subtle hints with what they could use or what they might need.
What’s the one merch item of yours that you think makes a great gift and why?
Definitely the vinyl records because we spent a lot of time on those. We’ve got a lot of different reissues and what have you, so definitely vinyl is always a cool gift.
Some of the best gifts are experiences. What’s an experience you think would make a great gift?
Any time you can travel the world, any time that you can go to a different country and experience that culture, that’s always a great gift. So that’s what I would say. A family trip or even just a trip to a different country with friends. That’s always a great gift and a cool, cool experience.
Is there a gift not covered in these questions that you want to highlight?
There is, actually. And that is your time. Your time to sit and be present with the people that you love and respect and, you know, just listening sometimes is one of the greatest gifts that you can give, and you can give that gift all year around.
After Dave Chappelle’s alma mater disinvited him from an event, he showed up with cameras for a surprise appearance. It did not go well.
To briefly recap: Chappelle’s The Closer controversy continues to swirl with the comedian continuing to crack trans jokes on tour dates, after he declared in his Netflix special that that he is “Team TERF” (so-called for the trans-exclusionary radical feminist position held by J.K. Rowling). In response to the furor, his former high school, Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Georgetown, quietly cancelled a fundraiser where he was the guest of honor, and the school also pumped the brakes on renaming a theater after the comedian. Dave’s onstage response to this event cancellation: “They’re canceling stuff I didn’t even want to do.”
Well, Dave did show up to the campus despite the event cancellation. He performed at a surprise Tuesday event, where approximately 580 students gathered in an auditorium for a Q&A with the comedian. Amid a chorus of boos and cheers, Chappelle didn’t apologize to the students who had expressed concern for his trans jokes in The Closer. Instead, he cracked more jokes, even in response to their questions, as detailed in a Politico article. The piece notes that some Duke Ellington students have received “death threats” after protesting The Closer, and in turn, the school beefed up security, and students can no longer leave for lunch. And here’s some of the exchanges that went down:
During a Q&A session, one student stepped to the mic and called Chappelle a “bigot,” adding, “I’m 16 and I think you’re childish, you handled it like a child,” according to two students present. The comments were confirmed by Chappelle’s spokesperson Carla Sims.
NO APOLOGIES: Chappelle responded, as recalled the next day by the students, “My friend, with all due respect, I don’t believe you could make one of the decisions I have to make on a given day.” That peeved some students who were hoping for an apology or some semblance of one from Chappelle.
The confrontational atmosphere continued with Chappelle essentially telling any antagonistic students off with no subtlety to be found:
In response to another antagonistic question, Chappelle roughly told the student body of artists: “I’m better than every instrumentalist, artist, no matter what art you do in this school, right now, I’m better than all of you. I’m sure that will change. I’m sure you’ll be household names soon.”
The students recalled that another student in the audience shouted at him, “Your comedy kills,” and Chappelle shot back, “N—— are killed every day.” He then asked, “The media’s not here, right?”
That wasn’t all. Students told Politico that Chappelle didn’t appear to take student’s questions seriously (he frequently laughed or fired back with more jokes), and when one student walked out, he called attention to her departure: “Of course she left early.”
However, the piece does note that Chappelle spoke out against death threats received by students. The comedian reportedly then referred to the student body as his “family” while declaring, “I don’t want to hear about any threats to these kids. These kids don’t deserve that.’” In response, one student told Politico, “If [only] he [had] acted that way the whole time … There was no reason to be mean to us. He was just laughing at kids.”
For decades now, Madonna has been one of music’s premiere figures when it comes to pushing boundaries. Just last month, for example, she made Jimmy Fallon tremendously uncomfortable by straddling his desk and flashing her rear end on The Tonight Show. Now, it’s Instagram the singer is rubbing the wrong way, as she recently shared some racy photos featuring her nipples, photos that were later removed from the platform.
In the photos (which were preserved by Pop Crave), Madonna lays in, around, and even under a bed, all while striking a series of provocative poses, some of which include exposed nipples. After the images were taken down, Madonna re-shared them on Instagram, albeit censored by emojis this time around.
In her caption, she expressed her displeasure with the situation, writing, “I’m reposting photographs Instagram took down without warning or notification….. The reason they gave my management that does not handle my account was that a small portion of my nipple was exposed. It is still astounding to me that we live in a culture that allows every inch of a woman’s body to be shown except a nipple. As if that is the only part of a woman’s anatomy that could be sexualized. The nipple that nourishes the baby! . Can’t a mans nipple be experienced as erotic ??!! And what about a woman’s ass which is never censored anywhere. Giving thanks that I have managed to maintain my sanity through four decades of censorship…… sexism……ageism and misogyny. Perfectly timed with the lies we have been raised to believe about the pilgrims peacefully breaking bread with the Native American Indians when they landed on Plymouth Rock! God bless America #artistsareheretodisturbthepeace.”
How is Mike Lindell’s multi-day Thanksgiving “marathon” to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election going? Let’s see: he called it quits for the night after 90 minutes; he disappeared to eat his Thanksgiving dinner (“Maybe some of you have already had your Thanksgiving meal. I haven’t had mine yet”), and the teaser for his interview with former-president Donald Trump was met with yawns. It’s going great! Lindell also claimed that the “whole world” would be watching his marathon. About that…
Just after midday, Mr. Lindell claimed: “There are probably millions of people watching right now.” However, just 24 people were tuned into his Freedom Patriot Network YouTube channel.
On Mr. Lindell’s World-Wire website, which was also streaming the broadcast, it wasn’t clear how many people were watching, but around 90 people were participating in a live chat at the time.
I know it’s all my family could talk about during Thanksgiving dinner. “Wow, I can’t believe that’s how Mike Lindell wrote ‘Get Back.’ What a great song, and it was made right there in the studio!” Wait… Mike Lindell wasn’t in the Beatles? Never mind. We didn’t talk about him, or his frequently debunked conspiracy theories, even once.
In this week’s special Thanksgiving episode, Steve and Ian return to the Indiecast Hall Of Fame. In case you don’t recall, the honor was designed to honor albums in the indie rock and alternative rock realm that were influential and beloved at the time of their release, but have since been lost to the test of time and sadly — some might say shamefully — left out of the widely accepted canon of the genre. After paying tribute in past episodes to albums by Counting Crows, The Promise Ring, Saves The Day, Secret Machines, and many more, Steve and Ian are now turning their attention to albums from Jane’s Addiction, Robbie Robertson, The Stills, and The Jealous Sound.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is vibing with Frailty, the new album from dltzk that is the first digicore album he’s ever really liked. Steve is enjoying Highway Butterfly’s The Songs Of Neal Casal.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 67 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Christmas is a time for getting together with your loved ones and doing things that have meaning to you, like singing carols and making cookies and punching someone at a toy store on Christmas Eve so you can get the last Wobblebot or whatever off the shelf and keep the next morning from turning into a chaotic mess of tears and shouting. Also, movies. It’s always great to sit around and watch Christmas movies, preferably with a fire raging in the fireplace and the tree up in the corner, hopefully a safe distance from the raging fire, for reasons related to the aforementioned tears and shouting. And there are so many of them. You have an almost endless supply of choices.
One that I watch every year is The Muppet Christmas Carol, released in 1992. I had it on VHS as a kid and I’ve tracked it down in other forms over the years. It’s on Disney Plus now, along with all the other Muppet productions, including my beloved Great Muppet Caper. I really recommend you watch it if you haven’t, especially if you have kids or can borrow some. It’s adorable, and funny (like, legitimately funny in parts), and it captures the spirit of the season about as well as any movie can. I could talk about it for an hour. But since finding each of you, individually, to discuss it would be pretty inefficient, I guess I’ll just write about it. That seems simpler.
Let’s talk about The Muppet Christmas Carol.
1. The plot of The Muppet Christmas Carol is the same as any version of the original story written by Charles Dickens, in its broad strokes. Scrooge is a cheap uncaring creep, Scrooge is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve, Scrooge wakes up a new man and starts throwing money and turkeys around town on Christmas morning. (I mean, spoilers, but…) The fun of it all is in the execution. And seeing Michael Caine interact with Muppets. Michael Caine shouts at so many Muppets. We’ll get to that in a bit, but it’s important to have a baseline from which to begin. That’s all we’re doing in point number one.
2. This brings us to Gonzo. The film is narrated by Gonzo, as Charles Dickens, who pops up on screen periodically to explain what’s happening and why, and who is accompanied by Rizzo the Rat. Rizzo is the best. His purpose in the film is to serve as a kind of Greek chorus, pointing out the absurdity of the more absurd moments and repeatedly questioning Gonzo’s claimed identity. He also gets injured. A lot. He flies over fences and gets lit on fire and at one point Gonzo smashes him into a window and wipes him back and forth to clean off a layer of grime, as though a Dickensian street rat is a squeegee. The two of them make a really fun comedy team and it turns the whole familiar story maybe 30 degrees to the left, just enough to make it original. More films should be narrated by Gonzo and Rizzo. Like, the next John Wick movie, maybe. I’m barely kidding.
DISNEY
3. As we discussed earlier, Michael Caine plays Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol, which raises two important questions: One: Why would we let anyone other than Michael Caine play Scrooge? Two: We should not. Admittedly that second thing is not a question. But it’s still important. He is just so good.
A big part of that is the way he plays the role. He’s dead serious throughout. Director Brian Henson explained it in an interview with The Guardian: “When I met Michael Caine to talk about playing Scrooge, one of the first things he said was: ‘I’m going to play this movie like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink, I will never do anything Muppety. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is an utterly dramatic role and there are no puppets around me.’”
DISNEY
It’s important here to note that Scrooge’s bookkeepers, the castmembers he is treating like the Royal Shakespeare Company, in addition to Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, are played by a slew of mischievous rats. And it’s also important to note this from a recent GQ interview with Caine, which is just fun and I want you to see it.
Have your grandkids seen it?
Oh yeah, yeah. They’ve seen it. They loved it. They can’t believe it was their grandpa—and me singing! People say to me, Have you ever sung? I say, Yes, I sang in a movie. They say, Who with? I say, Kermit the Frog.
The best.
4. The film replaces Jacob Marley with “the Marleys,” plural, which one can only assume was an excuse to have Statler and Waldorf roast Scrooge. A great decision, regardless.
DISNEY
5. Spirits in The Muppet Christmas Carol, ranked:
Present – Big fat forgetful guy who loves food. These kinds of dudes are my people.
Past – Creepy partially translucent young girl who insists on making you go back and relive your biggest regrets. No thanks.
Future – Faceless reaper who shows you your own grave instead of cool future stuff like flying cars and Roombas. Come on, guy.
You will never change my mind on this.
6. It is and always will be a little hilarious to me that the two best movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol feature Michael Caine shouting at Muppets and Bobcat Goldthwait chasing Bill Murray around a television studio with a shotgun.
7. If I have one complaint about The Muppet Christmas Carol, it would be this:
DISNEY
Now, the issue of if and how Kermit and Miss Piggy can ever have children has been around as long as the first overly inquisitive viewer saw a pig lusting after a frog and arched an eyebrow, so much so that there’s an entire page devoted to it on Muppets Wiki that opens with a declaration that the question “has been the subject of debate and turmoil throughout the years.” But what in the barnyard hell is happening here? All the male children are frogs and all the female children are pigs. That’s… that’s unsettling. I get that Disney and Henson Studios probably didn’t want to frighten its mostly young audience with some sort of terrifying cross-species abominations bouncing all over the house. And I get that there’s probably no “right” answer or simple way out of it once you establish that a pig and frog are in a monogamous relationship. But I just have so many questions. So, so many. So many that if I find someone who can answer them I will keep going until they have security drag me away as I shout “IS THIS MEANT TO IMPLY THAT ALL FROGS IN THE MUPPET UNIVERSE ARE BOYS AND ALL PIGS ARE GIRLS? I’M JUST ASKING YOU TO CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT. IT’S A FAIR POINT. I’M NORMAL.”
And do you know who else has questions about all of this? Guess. Did you guess Larry King? You probably did. It makes sense. Anyway, I really must insist that you watch this entire video.
This aired on CNN in primetime in 1993. You could make a very good argument that this was the best thing that ever happened on cable news and that the whole industry hopped on a bullet train straight to the crapper as soon as the credits rolled on this episode. Also, picture them on, like, Hannity, today. “Drain the swamp” has never been such a personal threat.
8. Speaking of things that could be sad and disturbing to children, here’s a fact: The home video version of the movie, the one I practically wore out on VHS, contains a song titled “When The Love Is Gone,” sung by Scrooge’s girlfriend during his trip back to the past. It is a little devastating. It’s all about how he’s choosing money over love and it ends up being the pivotal moment in him becoming an old miserly crank. It’s some heavy stuff for a kid’s movie. Which is why Disney’s then-CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg demanded it be removed and replaced with something lighter for its theatrical release. And yet, the frog/pig children remain. Hypocrites, all of them.
9. That decision didn’t help much at the box office, though. The Muppet Christmas Carol got smoked, coming in sixth in its first week, behind A Few Good Men, Home Alone 2, The Bodyguard, Aladdin, and The Distinguished Gentleman. Nothing gets you in the mood for the holidays quite like Jack Nicholson yelling at Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy playing a con man who gets elected to Congress. I have always said this.
10. Okay, let’s take a quick second to discuss The Muppet Christmas Carol’s place in the Christmas movie genre. I maintain that it is the best Christmas movie. But to be fair, let’s look at some other contenders:
Home Alone: Good, but not narrated by a tiny blue monster and a talking rat
A Christmas Story: Overrated, Michael Caine does not yell at Muppets
Die Hard: Okay, look, if we’re going to do the whole “action movies that just happen to take place at Christmas count as Christmas movies” thing, then that’s fine, but we have to have a long talk about whether Die Hard is really better than the first Lethal Weapon movie, which also takes place at Christmas and ends with Gary Busey fighting Mel Gibson to the death in Danny Glover’s front yard
Lethal Weapon: Also not as good as The Muppet Christmas Carol
Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, which means that you are probably already a little bit tired of turkey and tofurkey and everything in between, especially canned beets. To that end, it’s time for a real escape into entertainment, so head to your nearest streaming device and fire up the Netflix. This week, there are a few holiday-ish offerings, including a chocolatey series and a super spooky series that’s about nightmarish elves, which might make you reconsider those mantle declarations, at least for the moment.
Otherwise, the content floweth overboard this week with the most recent batch of Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation series. Bill Burr’s animated show also receives a fifth heaping helping, and there’s also the joint limited series project starring Wesley Snipes and Kevin Hart. Halle Berry also stars in and directs a female fighter movie, and when you’re finished with all of that, there’s a Mark Millar series and the three eldest Jonas Brothers roasting each other. Netflix knows that the time is right for digestion, and they’ve got the couch fuel to help meet that goal.
Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) the streaming platform this week.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation: Part 2 (Netflix series streaming 11/24)
Kevin Smith channelled his childhood, blood, sweat, and literal tears into this show. Sure, some people overreacted, but overall, the first batch of episodes hit a home run while staying loyal to the O.G. show’s spirit and putting some real stakes behind the He-Man vs. Skeletor rivalry. This second edition picks up with Skeletor holding the Sword of Power while Eternia’s heroes must square off against an actual threat to, well, eternity.
Wesley Snipes and Kevin Hart star in this Philly-set story about a famous comedian who touches down in his hometown for a tour stop. In the process, his personal life rears its head, of course, and he must confront existential dilemmas, including the importance of protecting what’s near and dear to one’s heart. A lot of that drama comes from the comedian’s brother, which proves that no one knows you better (and worse) than your own family.
Waffles + Mochi’s Holiday Feast (Netflix special streaming 11/23)
No word on whether Michelle Obama returns for this special, but the adorable duo returns, at least. Waffles has made up her very own holiday, and then they must figure out the menu, which leads (somehow) to an international quest (to Norway) and more hijinks than anyone expected. This is all about making food and memories with good friends, and good on this show for being irresistible, even for curmudgeons like myself.
F Is For Family: Season 5 (Netflix series streaming 11/26)
Bill Burr returns to the 1970s with his animated fever dream of a time when no such thing as political correctness (or helicopter parenting). Not only is the voice of Burr back but also Laura Dern, Justin Long, Sam Rockwell, and more.
Halle Berry lands in the director’s seat for the first time and also in the cage as a disgraced MMA fighter working toward redemption (both on the professional and personal levels). A classic tale! Really though, Halle’s here to redeem sports movies, as well, which could use some sprucing up following the Space Jam 2 mess. The Oscar winner portrays Jackie Justice who’s full of regret over the shambles her life has become and attempts a career comeback when her soon unexpectedly pops back into her life.
Jonas Brothers Family Roast (Netflix special streaming 11/23)
The Jo Bros are back and making music, so of course, this is also a great time for the trio to roast the hell out of each other. The special aims to prove that no one can get to the root of a roasting quite like another family member, and everyone’s gonna pick on Kevin, right? Expect some special guests along the way to help juice things up even more.
Super Crooks: Season 1 (Netflix series streaming 11/26)
Another Mark Millar title hits streaming, and hopefully, this one will fare better than the Jupiter business. These small-time thieves end up with super powers, somehow, and they’re recruited for “one last job, so hopefully, they’ll actually gain some luck. The animation arrives courtesy of Japanese anime studio Bones, so at least we know it’ll look fantastic.
School of Chocolate: Season 1 (Netflix series streaming 11/26)
Do you want some pastry envy in your life? If you’re stuffed after Thanksgiving and can’t eat another bite but still want to live vicariously, do stop by to visit these pros as they do battle for Amaury Giuchon, a master chocolatier who’s chocolate snowpieces are to die for. Who will be the Best in Class? All of them, as far as I’m concerned.
This surprisingly spooky show revolves around a family who believes that they’re going to reconnect on a remote island, but then fierce creatures that are actually elves make themselves known. If that wasn’t awful enough, then a fiercely religious human population is there to make things even weirder. There’s a tenuous balance at work, though, and this family sure as heck disrupted it, so this turns into a survival tale. Yikes.
Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:
Avail. 11/20 Arcane
New World
Avail. 11/22 Outlaws
Vita & Virginia
Avail. 11/23 Masters of the Universe: Revelation: Part 2 Reasonable Doubt: A Tale of Two Kidnappings
Waffles + Mochi’s Holiday Feast
Avail. 11/24 A Boy Called Christmas
Bruised
Robin Robin
Selling Sunset: Season 4 True Story
Avail. 11/25 F is for Family: Season 5
Avail. 11/26 A Castle For Christmas
Dig Deeper: The Disappearance of Birgit Meier
Green Snake
Light the Night
School of Chocolate
Spoiled Brats
Avail. 11/28 Elves
And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:
Leaving 11/29 Man Down: Seasons 1-4
Leaving 11/30 3 Days to Kill
A Knight’s Tale
American Outlaws
Are You The One: Seasons 1-2 Battlefield Earth
Chef
Clear and Present Danger
Freedom Writers
Glee: Seasons 1-6 The Happytime Murders
Ink Master: Seasons 1-2 Letters to Juliet
The Lincoln Lawyer
Million Dollar Baby
Peppermint
Pineapple Express
Rake: Seasons 1-4 Richard Pryor: Live in Concert
School of Rock
Stargate SG-1: Seasons 1-10 TURN: Washington’s Spies: Seasons 1-4 Waterworld
While many of us celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday by getting together with family and/or friends, Ye spent his Turkey Day sharing his “Thanksgiving Prayer,” a five-minute video in which the rapper speaks about what he’s thankful for, as well as his shortcomings.
A significant portion of the spoken-word piece (backed by some Sunday Service gospel music) is dedicated to family. The artist formerly known as Kanye West says, “All I think about every day is how I get my family back together and how I heal the pain that I’ve caused.” He later discusses the impact his politics had on his family: “Good Lord, my wife did not like me wearing the red hat. Being a good wife, she just wanted to protect me and our family. I made me and our family a target by not aligning with Hollywood’s political stance and that was hard for our marriage. Then I ran for president without proper preparation and no allies on either side. I embarrassed my wife in the way that I presented information about our family during the one and, thank God, only press conference.”
Elsewhere, he discusses his mental health, alcohol issues, and more, so watch the video above and find a full transcript of it below.
“Boom, boom, boom. Westside. Kanye West. Conway West Side. You never noticed that, did you?
The uh… Hello, my name is Ye and this is my super, super, super, super, super long Thanksgiving Prayer.
On this Thanksgiving, I’m so thankful for family, my blood family, my fans, and our haters. We love you, too. On Thanksgiving, on Christmas morning, not the night before or the day, just the morning.
We’re thankful for our current civilization of 8 billion people, our ancestors, and our children. I’m writing this prayer on my way back from taking my Mini Me to his first football game. Saint got to play catch with Tom Brady before the game. This is a God’s dream.
My Mini Me is a mix of two of my favorite things: Me and my wife’s face. All I think about every day is how I get my family back together and how I heal the pain that I’ve caused.
I take accountability for my actions. New word alert: Misactions. The one thing that all my successes and failures have in common is me.
Let’s start with A: alcohol. I would drink to take the stress away, to knock the edge off. Drinking affected my health and the health of people around… around me, because I already had a hair-trigger temper and this just heightened it.
B: episodes. I went into a manic episode in 2016 and I was placed under heavy medication. Since then, I went on and off the medication, which left me susceptible to other episodes, which my wife and family and fans have had to endure.
Ego. My ego has a tendency to go past the threshold of being motivating and entertaining to just being overbearing. There are ways to show confidence without arrogance.
Temper. Now I know, none of y’all would ever picture this, but sometimes I scream. And that screaming might have helped me tell off everyone who doubted me in music, but that screaming did not help me keep my family together.
Religion. Self-righteous Christian behavior. When I got saved, it did not immediately make me a better person. It made me a self-righteous Christian. Mix that with being rich, famous, and very, very, very, very, very attractive and you got a Molotov cocktail ready to be thrown through the window of anyone who ever disagreed with me. I was arrogant with my Jesus, like I just got me some Jesus at the Gucci store with a stimulus check.
Let’s go with politics here. Good Lord, my wife did not like me wearing the red hat. Being a good wife, she just wanted to protect me and our family. I made me and our family a target by not aligning with Hollywood’s political stance and that was hard for our marriage. Then I ran for president without proper preparation and no allies on either side. I embarrassed my wife in the way that I presented information about our family during the one and, thank God, only press conference. All my dad had to say afterwards was, ‘Write your speech next time, son.’
F is for finances. I spent money like crazy. I mean, it’s the craziest thing I’ve done, and I’ve done a lot of crazy things. As the priest of my home, I must watch my own money and secure our finances. This is America, so people don’t consider stealing to be stealing. They just chalked it up to greed, consumerism, and capitalism.
I’ve let people use me. I’ve had giant entourages. People around me just to make me feel good about myself. I’ve had to learn that I have to take accountability. We always judge and tell other people what they should do, but we can only take accountability for ourselves and our children.
This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the family that my wife has given me, I’m thankful for the life that God has given me, and I’m thankful for your time, attention, and patience. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
We don’t talk about Jack Black enough. It’s something I blame most of our societal problems on — this collective silence when it comes to giving one of the greatest comedy actors of our generation his due. We don’t talk about his eclectic filmography, his wholesome bro-next-door persona, or the fact that, despite archaic Hollywood standards trying to cage his sex appeal, he is, in fact, extremely bangable.
But we really don’t talk about his rom-com leading man potential, something that’s on full display in the timeless festive classic, The Holiday.
The Nancy Meyers-directed, Christmas-themed romantic dramedy currently streaming on Netflix is an oft-overlooked holiday treat. It hit theaters in the early 2000s when Black was battling for supremacy amongst a lineup of comedic heavyweights at the box office — blockbuster arch-nemeses like Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Zach Galifinakis — and the rest of the stacked cast, names like Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, and Kate Winslet, were in the prime of their careers. Its plot synopsis is of the generic Hallmark variety: two women with troubled love lives named Iris (Winslet) and Amanda (Diaz) decide to swap houses for a hastily planned Christmas vacation. Diaz heads to a tiny English hamlet where she quickly finds love with Law’s character, a single father and book publisher who manages to ooze sex appeal even when a napkin is covering his face. Theirs is the more conventional, predictable pairing.
Winslet’s West Coast vacation takes her down an infinitely more interesting route to find love, one that involves aging Hollywood icons and annoyingly-persistent ex-boyfriends and, eventually, Jack Black. It’s that final ingredient in the Matzo Ball soup — this film also recognizes Hanukkah which feels revolutionary compared to any other winter-set rom-com you’ll see — that elevates the whole film to something unique, perhaps even unforgettable.
You see, Black has spent decades honing his on-screen charisma. He’s a ball of chaotic energy, all disheveled hair, and curved eyebrows, and sardonic smiles. His stocky, short frame often regulates him to best friend roles despite his inherently magnetic presence on screen. His confidence and self-assuredness can be played for laughs — like in the quirky wrestling comedy Nacho Libre and in Stiller’s action-comedy Tropic Thunder — or it can be used for more dramatic effect — like in Peter Jackson’s divisive King Kong remake. In either case, Black always imbues his characters with a sense of earnestness, and an almost boyish desire to do good, or at least, do better. Even when he’s starring in dark comedies about morticians who murder aging widows, he’s likable, relatable, tangibly real in a way so many leading men with their carb-deficient physiques and polished press junket personalities just aren’t.
And when he’s really in his element, combining his love of music with his theater troupe background like he did for the seminal musical comedy School of Rock, he’s in a league of his own. Charming as hell, invested in his storytelling, easily lifting the performances of a cast comprised of child actors — Black is capable of making audiences forget that the premise of this film is about a struggling musician who impersonates his best friend to acquire a teaching position before turning his classroom into a month-long rehearsal space for a local band competition. He’s that good.
Which brings us back to The Holiday, a film that could’ve saddled Kate Winslet with another boring male hunk but instead gave her Black who improvises and interacts with the material in a way that throws the normal rhythm of a movie like this delightfully off balance. He’s apologizing for boob grazes at sushi spots, he’s delivering glorious music lessons within the hallowed walls of a Blockbuster (R.I.P), he’s hosting movie nights, attending Hanukkah parties, and helping Winslet’s character find herself. He’s a friend before he’s a romantic interest, which feels wildly refreshing. And, he gets perhaps the most swoon-worthy scene of the entire film when he not only crafts a song to represent the object of his growing affections but then tells Winslet’s Iris he “used only the good notes.”
I say again, how is this man not on the cover of every romance paperback?! Where is his Tom Hanks era?
The Holiday is a lovely film, but it’s made so much better by Black — as is every movie he’s in. If we’re being honest, life has been made better by Jack Black, especially during a pandemic when some A-listers offered cringe sing-a-longs and hollow tweets of encouragement. Black spent the past year hosting a Youtube channel with his kids, donning ridiculous costumes to convince people to get vaccinated, and playing Wesley in a virtual table read of The Princess Bride. He’s the only reason anyone’s going to go watch that live-action Mario monstrosity. He’s been putting in the work to be Hollywood’s next leading rom-com hero. He’s ready. The world is ready.
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