Category: News

A few days ago, Billie Eilish dropped her latest video, for “Therefore I Am.” It was relatively bare-bones in its production, as it was filmed on a phone and features only a handful of cuts. The mall-set video has performed well so far, though, as it has over 29 million views on YouTube as of press time. Now Eilish has shared some behind-the-scenes photos and videos of the making of the visual, and it looks like she had a blast.

On Instagram, Eilish posted a gallery of photos and images of her posing with store mannequins (and her poopy puppy) and offered a glimpse at what filming looked like, which was pretty much just a cameraman holding a phone and following Eilish as she took over the Glendale Galleria mall. She and a friend also took on the “Try Not To Sing Or Dance Challenge” that is popular on TikTok, a challenge at which they failed. Eilish manages to stand still sometimes, but then there are moments when she couldn’t help but twerk.

Sharing the post, Eilish wrote, “SWIPE FOR TIA BEHIND THE SCENES LOLLLLLL. empty mall at 4 am. u see us doing the try not to dance challenge and faaaaaaailing. this shoot was so chaotic LMFAO we had so much fun.”

Check out the behind-the-scenes look at “Therefore I Am” above.

It’s been 42 years since the original Star Wars Holiday Special aired and, frankly, I don’t think that could be recreated, even in some sort of laboratory. To be fair, I’m not sure why anyone would want to recreate it, but it’s a thing unto itself. It’s truly a remarkable specimen. I would pay money to watch a family in 1978 watch it. Seriously, try to imagine that. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who saw Star Wars in theaters the year before (which was pretty much everyone) and craved something more. People didn’t really have VCRs then so, outside of seeing it in theaters that were still showing it, it’s not like you could just watch it anytime you wanted like today. (Though, watching the original, non-Special Edition 1977 Star Wars is probably more difficult today.) Regardless, this would all end on November 17, 1978 when the whole gang would return for an adventure, right there on CBS.

And, technically, that’s true. It’s still weird to think something that stars Harrison Ford as Han Solo can be so hated, but the original cast makes what amounts to cameos (Ford might actually have the most screen time, surprisingly) and, instead, most of the two hours (with commercials) is spent with Chewbacca’s family as they wait for him to arrive home for Life Day. Now, what makes this especially trying is, like Chewbacca, his family are Wookiees. And Wookiees grunt and growl and certainly don’t speak English. So, this is what most of the special consists off – oh, yeah, and there are no subtitles so we seriously have no idea what they are saying. Then, every now and then, people like Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman show up. (There is also a pretty nifty Boba Fett animated short, the character’s first appearance anywhere.) So I keep imagining those families in 1978, all sitting around the TV, starting off with big smiles, as those smiles slowly fade over the next two hours. (Or, as it’s also known, “my face while watching The Rise of Skywalker.”)

I do wish this iteration of Lucasfilm would release a pristine version of the Holiday Special. It’s not hard to find, it’s all over YouTube, but a nice, cleaned up version would be pretty great. Or at least throw the thing on Disney+, at this point the film is a historical artifact. It’s certainly not “secretly good,” or anything like that, but I’ll be honest that it’s kind of a fun thing just to have on in the background around the holidays. It’s pretty trippy to look at. It’s the best Star Wars installment that is better without sound. A good sign Lucasfilm is starting to embrace the Holiday Special is that at Star Wars Celebration in 2019, one piece of merchandise was the Star Wars Holiday Special lunchbox. Okay, sure, but it is the first piece of merchandise to ever come from the Holiday Special. and with Star Wars and all the merchandise that’s out there, that’s really saying something. Anyway, my point is if Lucasfilm ever released the original Holiday Special, I would buy it.

Another sign Lucasfilm is embracing the Holiday Special is, well, they made a new one. This time it’s Lego-themed and called The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, which will debut on Disney +. And it takes the similar theme of heading to Chewbacca’s home planet of Kashyyyk to celebrate Life Day, only this time with the cast of the sequel trilogy in Lego form. There are a couple huge differences between this version and the 1978 version. The first is, this time, very few members of the actual cast returned to voice their roles. The second is, this version is actually watchable.

To be fair, I’m selling it a little short for the punchline there. The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, coming in at a brisk 45 minutes, is quite enjoyable. And compared to the pacing of the first special, this one feels lightning fast. Taking place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey is trying to train Finn as a Jedi, but things are not going well. Rey takes off with BB-8 to seek guidance at an ancient Jedi temple. It’s there she discovers a mysterious crystal of some sort that allows her to time travel through some of the most memorable events of Star Wars canon. But Return of the Jedi era Palpatine and Darth Vader get wind of this and decide they want this power for themselves and chance Rey through space and time to get it. It’s all good fun!

Even though it’s not the actual cast, it’s nice to see these characters one more time in something that’s not The Rise of Skywalker, even in Lego form. (I’ve tried rewatching TROS and I can’t make it through. It’s just a depressing movie to watch, for all the wrong reasons.) Not to get too bleak, but it appears we are entering a not great time, pandemic wise. And a lot of us won’t be with our families over the holidays. So it is nice that we get a little treat from our buddies at Star Wars to help get us through.

But, hopefully, someday, things return to normal. And the way I envision it is, when this happens, Lucasfilm also does the right thing and releases the terrible 1978 version so that we can all sit around the television with our families and be miserable, together, like they were back in 1978.

‘Lego Star Wars Holiday Special‘ will stream via Disney+ on November 17. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Last Week Tonight season finale started off serious (with John Oliver discussing Trump’s refusal to concede) and took a turn for the weird when Adam Driver showed up. Yes, the Adam Driver apparently decided that it was long past time to confront the host’s obsessive remarks, and there have been a lot of them! Oliver has referred to Driver as a “f*ckable redwood” while begging the “brooding mountain,” “pensive bison,” “nasty shed,” and “irredeemable steer” to humiliate him, sexually and in various other various ways. It’s a subject upon which Oliver’s grown more intense as this year’s passed because — let’s face it — we’re all kind of losing in in 2020.

Finally, Driver showed up to play the role of an Adam Driver who would like Oliver to, uh, cool it. As the host worked his way toward the final minutes of this year’s programming madness, a hilariously mad Redwood Tree popped into view on Facetime, much to Oliver’s joint delight and fright. This was, perhaps the best way for the show to end an entirely chaotic year, although the best was yet to come.

“Do you realize over this past year what you’ve asked me to do to you?” Driver snarled. “Collapse on your chest. Tie your fingers in a square knot. Step on your throat. Shatter your knees. Pull your heart out through your ear. What’s wrong with you? You realize we’re strangers, right? I don’t know you. And now, random people on the Internet stan us, claiming that you thirsting over me is a mood.”

What did Driver ask for? An apology, for he’s “sick of people stopping me on the street and asking me if I’m gonna punch a hole in you like a Marriage Story wall.” Fair enough, although Oliver eagerly demanded to know, “Are you giving me an order? It didn’t sound like an order.” And they kept the act going until Driver urged him to get outside and experience life because it’s been a hell of a year for everyone.

To that end, Oliver did leave the “blank void” that has acted as his backdrop since March, and he stepped outside the studio to discuss how this year’s been a big, fat “holy sh*t” of an experience. That not only includes the pandemic but the deaths of iconic figures like Chadwick Boseman and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and of course, there was the election. Oliver is, of course, keeping his hopes up that next year will bring change, but he’s totally done with 2020.

“Let tomorrow be about solutions, but today is about vengeance. F*ck you, 2020. Get f*cked.” And then he blew sh*t up.

I think we can all get behind that one. See you next year, John Oliver.

A lot of factors have contributed to the viral success of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP.” Among them are the vibrant personalities of the single’s performers, the catchiness of the song itself, and TikTok. “WAP” became the center of a dance challenge that took over the platform, and now Jack Black has gotten in on the fun with perhaps his wettest video yet.

Black has always been graceful, and he puts that on full display in his “WAP” dance video, for which he dons a revealing Speedo swimsuit and is being sprayed by a steady stream of water from off-camera throughout. Black goes through the literal motions and nails them all, from high kicks to twerking to suggestively thrusting his pelvis at the ground.

Black joined TikTok back in March, and there was much rejoicing. Ahead of Halloween, he and Tenacious D partner Kyle Gass covered the Rocky Horror Picture Show classic “Time Warp,” and they were joined by Phoebe Bridgers, Karen O, King Princess, Peaches, Susan Sarandon, Elizabeth Warren, Eric Andre, Ezra Miller, George Takei, Ilana Glazer, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Heilemann, John Waters, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Peña, Reggie Watts, and Sarah Silverman.

Watch Black’s “WAP” video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This week’s episode of The World Beyond, “Truth or Dare,” centers on Huck, and it’s the best episode of the series’ run, so far, although the bar is not exactly high. Through its first six episodes, The World Beyond has been a complete mess, and “Truth or Dare” rises to the level of watchable, in part because the episode gets uncharacteristically dark for what has, so far, felt like a The CW series set in the zombie apocalypse.

One interesting note before we begin the meat of the episode: during Huck’s flashback to the beginning of the outbreak, a soldier can be heard saying of the zombie virus, “I heard it came back on a rocket, that it started in space. Somebody breathed it in, it turned their stomachs, and then they got on a plane.” That is quite possibly a small Easter Egg, alluding to an idea Robert Kirkman had about the origin of the zombie virus coming from space spores.

Beyond that detail, Huck’s backstory, as we learn, is considerably darker than what we have seen, so far. Silas killing his Dad was dark, but Huck killing her entire platoon is next level. We learn in Huck’s flashbacks that she was once a soldier and that she and her platoon were tasked with dealing with the zombie threat in the beginning of the outbreak before they had a clear understanding of what was going on. Huck and her platoon were given a mission, in which they were asked to kill everyone — zombies and non-zombies alike — because the Marines feared that everyone near the walkers might have been infected. Rather than kill a large group of uninfected civilians, however, Huck kills her entire platoon with a machine gun from virtually point-blank range.

It’s the first truly disturbing, messed up moment of the entire series. It won’t be the last; in fact, it’s not even the last of the episode. In the present timeline, the new characters, Percy and Tony, have ingratiated themselves into the group and they have agreed to drive the rest of the gang to New York. What they need, however, is gas for their truck, and it so happens that Tony has a map of CRM refilling stations. The gang crashes the refilling station together, and over the course of the mission, Hope is abducted by a stranger who has been bitten. Huck manages to manipulate the stranger to let Hope go by convincing him that she can help him survive the infection by amputating his arm. However, once he frees Hope, Huck kills the stranger, which is more an act of mercy than one of cruelty.

Meanwhile, Huck and Hope bond over the experience, and Hope eventually confesses to Huck that she accidentally killed Elton’s mom when she was a young girl. Huck wisely advises Hope to keep that information to herself, and Hope wisely agrees. Also, Percy and Iris start spending some time together, and it’s clear that Percy develops feelings for her. After the mission is complete, Percy asks Iris to meet her in the truck an hour later. When she arrives, Percy has romantically turned the back of the truck into a museum to impress the art-obsessed Iris. Percy, however, is nowhere to be seen, and Iris falls asleep waiting for him to return.

Iris is awoken by the sound of breaking glass and what the subtitles describe as “departing footsteps.” Iris goes inside to investigate and discovers that Tony’s face has been bashed in and Silas’ wrench is sitting next to him. After Iris calls in Felix, Huck, and Hope, they find Silas in the adjoining closet, holding a bottle and apparently drunk.

Did Silas kill Tony? Maybe? He was obviously jealous of Percy, because Silas had his own crush on Iris, and he was distrustful of Tony, as well. Moreover, Silas is known to have a raging temper, and once used that temper to kill his own father. So, did he get drunk and kill Tony?

I’m not convinced. Silas may be capable of it, but I don’t think that he’d be so jealous of Percy that he’d violently murder Tony, not unless Tony gave him reason to do so. Moreover, we heard glass breaking and — as the subtitles state — “footsteps departing.” That means that someone else was there — like Percy — so it’s possible that he orchestrated the murder of Tony from the start, beginning with the invitation he extended to Iris to meet him in his truck.

The motivation for killing Tony, however, remains unclear. However, he is a con artist, so it’s possible that someone Tony scammed had tracked him down and murdered him (with Silas’ wrench?), or maybe Silas intentionally killed Tony after witnessing him attempt to steal all of their stuff. Again, Tony is a con artist.

On the other hand, maybe Tony was killed trying to protect Percy from Silas, and Percy broke the glass to escape. Recall earlier in the episode when Tony told Felix that, he knew after a day that he would die for Percy. Sacrificing himself for Percy would certainly track.

A Loose End:

— We find out that Huck’s real name is Jennifer. We did not find out where her bizarre, confusing accent comes from.

Remember cruise ships? Even if you’ve never been on one, there’s a good chance you won’t be on one anytime soon. It’s one of many industries mostly taken away from us during the pandemic. In fact, when/if this is all over, they may never look the same. But that’s where movies come in: They allow us to experience lives we can’t lead, to watch others doing things we cannot, to show a time that may be bygone — like a world with safe cruise ships.

Enter Let Them All Talk. It’s the latest from the ever-prolific Steven Soderbergh, and, title be damned, its new trailer implies it’s more than a mere chat-a-thon. Meryl Streep plays a renowned author who, her latest manuscript soon due to its publisher, decides to take a restorative ocean voyage with old friends. Those would be Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen — legends with 25 Oscar nominations and five wins between them. (Yes, most of the noms belong to Queen Meryl, namely 21. But don’t write off Wiest’s two wins.)

The trailer is filled with bon mots and promises of bickering, as well as supporting players Lucas Hedges and Gemma Chan. And then there’s Soderbergh, who can always be counted on to find new avenues for his diverse career. It’s about time he made a cruise ship movie — a genre that hasn’t been in vogue since the 1930s and whose last major entry appears to be 2011’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. But if someone can make talkfest set aboard an ocean liner visually exciting, it’s Steven Soderbergh.

You can watch the trailer in the video above. Let Them All Talk hits HBO Max on December 10.

Somehow, someway, six episodes into the sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead, the series has only managed to get better, improving on each successive episode. Where has this show been for the last six years? If Fear had been this good since the beginning, it might have overtaken the parent series creatively and in terms of popularity around the time that Rick left TWD. Fear has now entered a stretch of six episodes that could probably rival any six-episode run in ten seasons of The Walking Dead.

I know I sound hyperbolic, but Fear really is spectacularly good this season.

The latest episode, “Bury Her Next to Jasper’s Leg,” centers primarily on June and Virginia, who hold cross-purposes but also seem to want some of the same things, namely to keep everyone safe and alive. Virginia is being confronted by the biggest threat of her reign, namely the mysterious gang of spray-painters who continue to graffiti, “The end is the beginning,” in various places around Virginia’s community as a sort of threat. It’s unnerved Ginny, who tracks down one of the spray painters in the episode’s cold open, but the woman fatally shoots herself rather than give up any information to Ginny. It’s a serious move and leaves one to wonder if Ginny’s group — the Pioneers — is the precursor to CRM, or if this spray-paint gang is the real origin of CRM?

Meanwhile, June (with Sarah as her assistant) is single-handedly running the medical operations for Ginny’s communities. Unfortunately, she’s stretched too thin and doesn’t have the necessary resources, so she keeps losing people she can’t get to in time. June wants a hospital for the community, but Ginny won’t give her one.

Ginny and June are brought together when the spray-paint gang blows up oil town, and June has to try and save as many people as possible. While Ginny also wants to save lives, she’s more interested in finding out who is responsible. She thinks that Wes (who is severely wounded) is involved, and refuses to let June care for him while she interrogates him. June eventually overrides Ginny’s wishes. However, in the chaos of a huge explosion, Ginny gets bitten by a zombie on the hand.

This is where the episode gets really interesting, because June has the ax, and if June wanted to, she could let Ginny die. It would solve a lot of problems, not least of which is John Dorie’s desire to run as far away as possible (it would also liberate Sherry’s group, which exists solely to kill Ginny). The alliances on Fear, however, are getting muddy, and that’s what’s so compelling right now. Ginny genuinely seems to believe that she is serving the greater good, and some in Morgan’s group (like Strand) seem to be leaning into that goal. Until Janice’s death, John Dorie had also bought into Ginny’s system.

Here, June has a choice: let Ginny die, or amputate her hand and save her. There hasn’t been an amputation of an infected limb in The Walking Dead universe in eight years (since Hershel’s leg was removed). Here, writer Alex Delyle pulls off a new twist: June leverages the amputation. She tells Ginny that she’ll ax off her hand, but only if Ginny builds her a hospital. Ginny agrees, and June whacks off the infected hand and saves Ginny’s life. It’s a simmering sequence full of emotional conflict. It’s also the most dramatically tense scene I can remember from the series.

The problem, however, is this: having convinced Ginny to build her a hospital, June can’t bring herself to run away with John Dorie, who is spiraling in the wake of Janice’s death. “John, the hospital is happening,” she tells him. “We can’t just leave. I don’t want to leave… every time I run, it leads me to something worse. I don’t want to run.”

John insists that June has “the wool pulled over her eyes,” and as they are heading back to their settlement, John — following behind them in his truck — pulls off, and heads away, leaving the love of his life behind because he can’t bring himself to work for Ginny any longer. Heartbreaking.

Additional Notes

— In what appears to be a good-faith gesture to June for saving her, Ginny also reunites Wendell and Sarah in a big, crowd-pleasing moment near the end of the episode.

— Colby Minifie, who just signed on as a series regular to The Boys, is the true MVP of this season. She’s got some real Negan energy: She’s a ruthless villain, but it’s hard not to root for her a little bit. I could not believe that I found myself hoping that June would save her life rather than killing her. I’m not ready for Fear to lose Minifie.

— She doesn’t figure that much into the plot, but Luciana is in the episode if only to remind us that she’s still around.

— The stand-alone episodes have been working wonders for Fear. The one downside, however, is that we haven’t seen Alicia since the second episode.

— I suspect that John will eventually run into Dwight, Al, and Morgan’s gang, so it’s not like Garrett Dillahunt is leaving the series or anything. I do expect Dorie to continue his mental slide, at least in the short term.

— The “spray-paint gang” does not sound particularly menacing, but it is the most descriptive label we have for them now.

It’s remarkable to hear Steve McQueen sound unsure of himself, even when he’s speaking about himself in the past tense. Because when you look at McQueen’s filmography up until now – Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave, Widows – this is the work of a very confident filmmaker who is in total command of his craft.

Let’s never forget the dinner scene in Shame, a six-minute masterclass in filmmaking. It’s just two people (played by Michael Fassbender’s and Nicole Beharie) having dinner, but over the course of those six uncut minutes, we watch a first date go from something that is hopeful, like most first dates start out, to something tragic. McQueen never seems to enjoy talking about these types of uncut shots, but my best guess is because they are almost treated as magic tricks, instead of what they are intended to do: Put us, the viewer, in the best possible vantage point to see and hear what McQueen is trying to tell us.

Well, with the five films that make up McQueen’s Small Axe (a number that now more than doubles his filmography), McQueen has a lot he wants to tell us. But the difference this time is the subject matter is so close to him, such a pivotal part of who he is as a human being and a filmmaker, again, as he says, he found himself scared. But McQueen’s slightly morbid, but undeniably true mantra is that we are all going to die, so might as well take a chance. Because what’s the worst that could happen?

The result (which will be available via Amazon Prime on November 20th) is an anthology about the West Indian experience in London told over the course of five films (with unconnected plots, timelines and casts) in which McQueen presents the Black experience of London in the ’70s and ’80s. To pick two, Lovers Rock is a joyous part filled with music and love. It’s infectious. Red, White and Blue stars John Boyega as a man joining the police force. As McQueen points out, he looks at it as art imitating life, because like Boyega joining Star Wars, barriers are broken, but once the barrier is broken, that doesn’t mean things automatically change.

Over the years I’ve interviewed McQueen a handful of times, but this time felt different. McQueen, as an interviewee, likes to keep journalists on their toes and it’s best to come very prepared. He is a person who knows what he’s talking about. But this time McQueen seemed more emotional than normal, which was apparent even over Zoom. With Small Axe, he’s a director who is putting his whole heart out there, and now he has to wait and see if people respond.

With Small Axe, you’ve more than doubled your entire filmography in one month. With Lovers Rock, being at the virtual version of New York Film Festival, a lot of people here needed to at least watch a party like that.

I was just very enthused in New York with the reception of Lovers Rock, and the other two as well. But I think with Lovers Rock, it was this one thing about the liberation of the senses and the impression that people were just sort of taking with it, because of the unfortunate situation we find ourselves in with sensuality. There’s the liberation of hearing, of smell. It was pretty. Yeah, I was very touched. Very very touched.

Seriously, it just felt great to watch that.

It was amazing to make it, too. What was happening on the other side of the cameras was just… you know, sometimes you can be in a situation where you are, and I’ve said this before, but you are a witness. No! Not even a witness, I would say you’re invited. Regardless of your presence, it would have happened anyway. That was the environment that we create, I created. The fact that it happened that way in such an infectious way – euphoric sort of visceral way – was fantastic.

Last time we spoke you were talking about seeing North by Northwest with a big crowd. You said there’s no point looking at a movie on your laptop and the thrill of cinema is to be in an audience with 200 people. Now we don’t have that. People are going to watch these on whatever setup they have.

Yeah. Well, listen, there’s a positive out of it. I won’t even say the negative, just positive. The positive is that hopefully we’ll get back to those screens very, very soon. Again, when this thing is over, I can’t wait.

Me neither.

I think there’s going to be a cascade, an avalanche, a stampede of people to the big screen. I’m hoping that people hold on because there will be a lot of people, their thirst will be quenched by cinema. I mean, people want to go to the cinema!

Yes, they do.

It’s not a dead medium. It’s actually going to be crazy. On the other side of that, we still have this other medium, the streaming situation, that people can actually still see films. Of course not with each other, but at home. At the same time, it’s something that we can actually just have at least. It’s something we can actually celebrate, at least, because we’re still active, it’s still active. It’s not like it’s … how would you say? it’s not like it’s cinema, but at the same time at least we have this medium. I think it’s great. I’m very grateful for it. More people see it than they would in a cinema. Nothing can beat the cinematic experience as far as I’m concerned. But for film, this comes close.

I was actually surprised when this was first announced because last time we spoke you were talking about your experience with HBO, which didn’t go well. It sounded like you were pretty against doing anything like that again. Why did you change your mind?

I think it was to do, firstly, with the BBC. I wanted this to be on the BBC because, for me, these stories, these small acts, were national stories. So the fact that anyone in the UK who turned on the TV had access to these stories was very, very important to me – rather than limiting to a cinema release or whatever. So that was very much a turning point for me. Also, how these films were received at Cannes, New York Film Festival, Rome and London? It’s just having the best of both worlds. Yes, I wanted these to be on television and in a streaming situation because I wanted people to have access to these stories the way they wouldn’t have had if it was only cinema release.

I know you’ve been wanting to do these since right after Hunger. Did it work out the right way that it’s coming out now? It sounds so cliché to go it’s of the moment, but it really feels like this was meant to come out this year.

Well, I wasn’t mature enough. I didn’t live enough. I didn’t understand enough until now. Now was the time to make these films. Sometimes the things you know about, or are close to you, are under your nose, under your chin. You can’t see them. You need perspective on them to sort of have a real understanding of them. The whole idea of what happened with these movies coming out now with the unfortunate situation with George Floyd, well all I can say is that I’d rather George Floyd would be alive today to be honest. But in this situation, you know, there’s never a good time or bad time to release something. Yeah, I don’t know what to say about that. These stories go on and on and on.

I am curious, too, because you mentioned last time, when you were talking about Collin Farrell’s character in Widows, and you were mentioning there’s some Bush there, there’s maybe some Trump there. How much was Trump or Boris Johnson on your mind when you were making these films? Or maybe not, since Lovers Rock is such a celebration.

It’s not about Boris or Trump. It’s about this sort of continuing narrative of unfortunate situations or unfortunate individuals that prop up or keep up a certain kind of mentality. So, for me, that’s why it was just about a celebration of the Black experience as much as them having to sort of deal with the unfortunate surroundings. With Black people we’re always in a situation where we’ve always been inventive within the tragedies often we find ourselves in. How do we make something bad into something good? That’s what we do. If it’s in the arts or whatever, we’ve always had a situation where we have to sort of turn the environment into something else. Look at it differently. That’s the only way to survive.

In Red, White and Blue, John Boyega is becoming a police officer tells a friend he’s joining the force. The reply is, “You’re going to be a Jedi?” I wasn’t expecting a Star Wars joke and I’m curious what John thought of that.

Courttia Newland wrote that line.

Ah, okay.

Courttia Newland wrote that line, which I thought was fantastic. It’s just one of those things where, yeah, what’s interesting enough about Leroy Logan, he kind of parallels John’s life in the movie. He’s the golden boy. He goes into the force, just like our man John in Star Wars. There were all these expectations and all these things which were sort of going to occur. What happens is he comes up against something. He’s not allowed to proceed further. So, in some ways, it’s art imitating life, in a way, with John’s situation. Not just John’s situation, not just Leroy Logan’s situation, but with a lot of Black people’s situation within the corporate world or in the workforce. That’s what they will come up against in whatever sort of environment they’re in: that they want to integrate in order to change things, but not be allowed to progress. So this is something which, you know, groups in the UK but also groups in the US will identify with immediately. They will recognize it.

In the film, he calls for backup but they don’t arrive. Which kind of feels like art imitating life, in a way, with when he speaks out on social media. I hadn’t thought about that until you said that.

Well, I’m only basing my opinions on obviously what we’re reading in GQ. Obviously we were all there, we all saw, so that’s happening.

The music is just phenomenal throughout. I might be wrong on this one, in Red, White and Blue, you only hear it for a few seconds, was that the original Gloria Jones version of “Tainted Love?”

Yes.

Also, I certainly didn’t expect to hear “Uptown Girl.”

Ha! I love that tune.

It’s great.

Also, Al Green was huge in this picture, just because there’s a real kind of soulfulness about him and also that was one of Leroy’s favorite artists.

For you, how important were the song selections in all these films? They do seem to be there to help tell the story.

Absolutely. I mean, again, it’s always been the refuge, often for music. I did this thing in the Shed last year. The inauguration exhibition at the Shed in New York. I made a crazy show – Grace Jones, myself – called Soundtrack of America. It is the bloodstream of Black life. It is kind of the soundtrack of Black life. You hear it often when you’re walking down the street in your head. So, to translate that and put it into these films was vitally important. It was the perfume that had to be in the air that fueled a lot of things and sort of heightened a lot of things. We should definitely do a conversation just for the music, but it would go on forever.

When I asked you about that scene in Widows when Colin Farrell is in the car and going from one section of Chicago to the other, you played it off as, look, I’m a British filmmaker, we got to stretch a pound. But now you did five movies. If you’re stretching pounds, how did you do this?

I think it’s passion. Nothing becomes hard because it’s the passion, you want it so much. Again, these were somethings which I had to do. These were things I had to do, so it didn’t feel hard, it felt like… What did it feel like? It felt like a gift. It’s kind of corny to say that but it did. It was a privilege. It was a privilege to tell the stories of my ancestors and my family, which had never been told. It was a privilege to do that. I went to work, I ran to work. I ran to work! And I stretched a pound. Amazon helped a bit but it’s, yeah.

Well, it certainly doesn’t look like it. It looks like a very expensive production.

That’s the trick! Make it look easy!

You mentioned earlier you weren’t mature enough after Hunger to make this? When did it hit you? Was it after doing a certain film? Was it after 12 Years a Slave? What was it where you were just like I understand what this needs to be?

I knew I could do it now, but was I ready?

Right, okay.

Doing it, yes, I know how to do it. But was I ready upstairs?

You mention the passion. Could you have summoned that then, to do what you did today?

I was scared. I was scared. I was scared because it was things that I knew about, but I didn’t know… I told them, I was scared. Can you imagine? Isn’t it strange? Things that are so close to you that you feel are the easiest things to do? I did not feel that. I felt the further it was away from me maybe, so it’s a very strange thing. I had to sort of prepare myself in some ways for it. The day before I shot, I didn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep. The day before we shot, I didn’t sleep a wink. I couldn’t sleep. So I don’t know, maybe I knew I was ready to do it, but there was something that wasn’t there? Again, you’re making something that you know, or is so close to you? No, I haven’t answered that, I don’t know what that was. Sometimes you just got to jump. Don’t look at how you’ll land, just jump. That’s what I did.

Something you said last time that’s really stuck with me, especially this year, I think we were talking about Widows but you so bluntly said, “We all die, why not take a chance because we’re all going to die.” I think about that a lot, especially this year when everything seems so terrible.

Yeah. That’s me, that’s my mantra. Go for it, what’s there to lose? Absolutely. You will die anyway, what’s the worst thing that can happen to you? What’s the worst thing that can happen to you? Just go for it. Who gives a shit! You know? I think that’s the thing. Propel yourself, because why not? If you’re too careful nothing ever happens. You got to go for it. Sometimes do something and ask questions later. You know?

Right.

Your self-doubt could stop you from doing anything. If you start questioning things too often, you end up sort of discounting yourself. Well, this was the hardest thing I ever did in some ways. Definitely the hardest thing I ever did because I was confronting myself in that way. I had to basically shout that mantra to myself every morning.

‘Small Axe’ premieres on BBC on November 15, and Amazon Prime on November 20. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Arizona Cardinals have had a wild ride the past few weeks, with an outrageous win over the Seahawks on Sunday Night Football and then a gutting loss to the Miami Dolphins last week, but this Sunday’s game with the Bills managed to be an even more ridiculous ending than any of those.

The Bills were able to take a 30-26 lead with just over 30 seconds to play on a sensational throw from Josh Allen to a diving Stefon Diggs in the front corner of the end zone that seemed likely to be the game-winner.

However, the Cardinals were able to get the ball to midfield quickly, but needing a touchdown it was going to require a miracle to get a win. That miracle was granted by Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins, with the young quarterback escaping pressure and then firing up a prayer to the end zone that, somehow, was hauled in cleanly by the star receiver over the outstretched arms of the entire Bills secondary.

Just look at how Hopkins manages to squeeze this over three Bills defenders.

Murray’s heroics in this shouldn’t be ignored as he had to not only evade a sack but also square himself on the run and launch the ball 50 yards downfield on target and managed to do so. It’s an all-time Hail Mary, though, because of how Hopkins caught it. Fully contested, not tipped, and just calmly squeezed and brought in by the All-Pro receiver, proving exactly why the Cardinals traded for him this offseason and gave him a big extension.

Now, from a gambling perspective, the big swing with this play was the Cardinals were 2.5-point favorites and with the extra point would’ve covered, but to not risk a block being returned for the tie, they took a knee on the extra point to win by two, failing to cover. On top of that, the game’s point total closed at 56 or 56.5, meaning that touchdown either ruined a push or a winner for many Under bettors. So, yeah, a lot happened in the final minute of this game.

It’s been cool to hate on the Star Wars prequels for almost as long as they’ve existed, much as it’s long been cool to do the same to the original trilogy’s Special Editions. (Neither discredits their maker, George Lucas, who’s used his untold riches to become one of the great saviors of film history.) But there’s a chance all of this — or at least The Phantom Menace — could have been avoided. As per IGN, an old Empire interview with Lucas from 1999 is making the rounds, and it finds him admitting that he was warned up and down that making a movie about a 10-year-old Anakin Skywalker might “destroy the franchise.”

Mind you, people weren’t telling Lucas to avoid a young Anakin altogether. They just wanted him to skip to the part where he wasn’t a little whippersnapper whose yen for saying “yippee!” clashes with him growing up to be a genocidal half-robot. In the piece, Lucas talks about how people kept telling him to skip to him being a teenager, devoting the trilogy to his relationship with Natalie Portman’s Amadala. But Lucas held forthwith.

“I kept it as it was originally intended,” Lucas said. “You can’t play too much to the marketplace. It’s the same thing with the fans. The fans’ expectations had gotten way high and they wanted a film that was going to change their lives and be the Second Coming. You know, I can’t do that, it’s just a movie. And I can’t say, now I gotta market it to a whole different audience. I tell the story.”

He does admit it would have been easier to sell…though what’s easier to sell in 1999 than the first Star Wars movie in 16 years. (And Menace was the year’s top box office draw, by a lot.) Still:

“I knew if I’d made Anakin 15 instead of nine, then it would have been more marketable … If I’d made the Queen 18 instead of 14, then it would have been more marketable. But that isn’t the story. It is important that he be young, that he be at an age where leaving his mother is more of a drama than it would have been at 15. So you just have to do what’s right for the movie, not what’s right for the market.”

When Lucas stuck with his guns, Fox execs told him, “You’re going to destroy the franchise, you’re going to destroy everything.” He also remembers how he wound up admitting to colleagues that was “making a movie that nobody wants to see.”

Lucas did what he wanted, though, casting Jake Lloyd as the boy Anakin and, inadvertently, making the poor guy’s life a living hell. Instead, we might have wound up with a bit more Hayden Christensen. But when he sold the property to Disney for a princely sum — a good chunk of which he reportedly donated to charity — fanboys could no longer come after him when a Star Wars turned out to be not very good.

(Via IGN and Empire)