Category: News

Ennio Morricone, one of the most renowned and iconic composers in the history of film, has passed away at 91 years old.

The New York Times reports that the Italian composer died on Monday, July 6, in Rome. Morricone’s lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, confirmed the composer’s passing, and noted that he was hospitalized last week after fracturing his femur in a fall.

Morricone was perhaps best known for his score for the 1966 Clint Eastwood classic The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, which is widely considered to be one of the finest film scores of all time. The main title theme and “The Ecstasy Of Gold” have even enjoyed success outside of the film. For example, Metallica covered the latter for the 2007 tribute album We All Love Ennio Morricone, and their rendition earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Morricone was also known for much more than just that one film, though. His career lasted for over six decades, during which time he scored more than 500 movies. The final film that Morricone scored was 2016’s The Correspondence. Immediately before that, he scored Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 film The Hateful Eight, which won Morricone the Academy Award for Best Original Score that year, his first competitive Oscar.

Drake seems to have kept busy so far this summer. When he hasn’t been playing cornhole, he’s been in the studio, working on new music. He dropped Dark Lane Demo Tapes back in May, and he also has a more traditional album on the way. He has occasionally shared updates from the studio, and he did so again last night.

In one photo of himself on his Instagram Story, he wrote, “80%,” a not-so-subtle suggestion that whatever he is working on is nearing completion.

Back in April, he discussed new music with Diddy, saying he’s been working on his next album for some time now: “I’m working on the album, I’ve been working on it for a while now. Another silver lining is, when God does get you to sit down. I remember the last time I had to sit down was when I tore my ACL. And I made a great album out of that. Obviously, God has us all inside the house right now sitting down, so the amount of focus I’m able to put into this album is probably way different than it would’ve been if I had to go through the residency in Vegas and be able to go meet up with Justin in Miami or whatever. Saying that, this is the most excited I’ve been about an album in a long time. A lot of little stuff has been trickling out, but all the stuff on the album is fresh, is brand new, and I’m excited. This is probably the most music I’ve been sitting on. I’m hyped.”

March 10, 2020. That was the day many Americans started to take the coronavirus seriously, as it was the day Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson revealed their COVID-19 diagnoses. (It was also three days before my “last” movie in a theater, The Hunt, though that’s slightly less historically significant.) “My wife lost her sense of taste and smell, she had severe nausea, she had a much higher fever than I did, [while] I just had crippling body aches, I was very fatigued all the time, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than about 12 minutes,” Hanks said about the contracting virus in an interview with the Guardian, so it’s no wonder he thinks you’re a “p*ssy” if you don’t wear a mask. (Or maybe he said “prick.” Hanks seems like a “gosh darn” instead of “damn” kind of guy.)

In that same Guardian chat, America’s Dad (whose new movie, Greyhound, comes out on Apple TV+ this week) also offered guidance to get through These Trying Times.

“It’s funny how this stuff blends into the art you hope to create. When we put together Castaway, we knew there was a card missing from that deck of 52, and the consternation over what was missing from that movie drove us insane. It was that elusive kind of beat, and it was what we’re talking about right now: how do you go on? In Greyhound, Krause has a little card that says: ‘Yesterday, today, and forever.’ That’s all we have as human beings and that’s all we have in the midst of the 19 different crises that we’re facing right now, between Covid-19, worldwide economic disaster, what happened to George Floyd – the great reckoning that we’re all going through. What do we have that we can have faith in? Well, we can have an understanding of yesterday, we can have a plan for today, and we can have hope for forever, and that’s it. That’s my wisdom. It ain’t much… but is there anything else?”

Thanks, Dad. Sorry I forgot to send you a Father’s Day card.

(Via the Guardian)

The BTS Army has mostly used their energies for good lately, like when they recently raised over $1 million for charity. The group’s fan base is a powerful force, and unfortunately, though, Charlie Puth recently found himself at the wrong end of it.

Over the weekend, BTS fans took to Twitter en masse to accuse Puth, who has reciprocated love shown by BTS’ Jungkook over the years, of using the group for “clout.” Puth caught wind of the conversation and decided to respond. He said he’s not even sure what is being said, and implored internet fan bases to be nicer to each other:

“I don’t usually pay any mind to things like this, but something has to be said. This dangerous, toxic, internet screaming match between ‘fandoms’ has to stop. I’m 28 years old, so it doesn’t really mean anything to me when some person I don’t know writes a nasty message to me saying things like ‘I used BTS for clout’. I don’t know what that means- I love those guys and they are super talented.

But what I do know is that 10 years ago, language like this directed towards me would’ve affected me deeply in a very negative way. And I’m thinking about all the other younger kids on twitter seeing stuff like this on a daily basis. It may sound cliche, but please be nicer to each other on here. No more screaming about made up nonsense. It does nobody any good. We all need to love each other MORE THAN EVER RIGHT NOW.”

Find Puth’s tweets below.

Charlie Puth is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Of the three most recent actors to depict the Joker on the big screen, two won an Oscar: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. Then there’s Jared Leto. Many of his scenes in Suicide Squad were cut, either because he “brought so much to the table in every scene that it was probably more about filtering all of the insanity,” or “it just didn’t make sense” (guess which explanation belongs to Leto). The edgelord Joker, the one with the “damaged” tattoo, is not without his defenders, though.

Over the weekend, Justice League director Zack Snyder was asked, “What are your thoughts on Jared Leto Joker? Would you have liked to see an interaction between him and Batfleck too?” He replied, “I always loved him in the part.” David Ayer, who directed Leto in Suicide Squad, saw Snyder’s praise and quote-tweeted the interaction.

In other Ayer news, he’s being accused of “brownfacing” Shia LaBeouf in his new movie The Tax Collector, including by Pulitzer Prize-nominated cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz (“Tell all the kids how you’re Hollywood’s top cholo auteur, and your pretzel reasons Shia Lebeouf is sort of kind of playing a weird movie cholo in a cop movie and how all of this isn’t really #brownfacing”). After being asked whether LaBeouf was playing a Latino character, and if so, why the part didn’t go to a Latin actor, Ayer wrote, “Really important answer – Shia is playing a whiteboy who grew up in the hood. This is a Jewish dude playing a white character. Also the only white dude in the movie.” He later added, “Shia’s not playing Latinx he’s playing a whiteboy who grew up hood and is a Southsider.”

The Tax Collector is scheduled to come out on August 7.

J. Cole seemingly addressed Noname on “Snow On Tha Bluff” last month, and that sparked a bit of a feud between the two rappers. That conversation mostly died down a couple weeks ago, but Noname addressed the situation again over the weekend.

When Cole elaborated on the song following its release, he implored his fans to follow Noname on Twitter, saying, “I love and honor her as a leader in these times.” However, Noname doesn’t agree with Cole’s assessment about her being a leader and doesn’t want the followers he sent her way. In a tweet that has since been deleted, Noname wrote, “if cole brought you here because ‘she’s a leader in these times’ unfollow me. i’m not a f*cking leader. im a confused n**** reading difficult books trying to understand this sh*t like everyone else. i tweet recklessly and smoke reggie. im nobodies leader.”

Noname also further discussed Beyonce, after doing so last month and getting an earful from Beyonce’s fans. Addressing the use of the word “queen” by Beyonce and others, Noname wrote, “the idea that blk americans are only legitimate human subjects because we are descendants of ‘kings and queens’ is ahistorical and continues to push capitalist logic. most africans werent royalty and thats ok. beyonce is great but she got rich from a system that exploits the many.”

Meanwhile, Noname has a new album, Factory Baby, on the way, but it could be her last.

Seven years since it left the air on NBC, The Office continues to be one of the most popular television series on the planet, as it still regularly appears among the top shows on Netflix, week after week (it will move over to The Peacock in 2021, where a spin-off is possible, though unlikely). Viewers never seem to tire of the series, its brilliant cold opens, new revelations about the series (like how Creed was nearly written out), gossip about its stars (like the only time famous nice guy Steve Carell lost his temper), and news about what could have been (like, how close we were to The Office starring Bob Odenkirk as Michael Scott).

We have not, however, heard that much from Leslie David Baker, who played Stanley on the long-running hit sitcom. Recall that, at the end of The Office, Leslie David Baker’s character, Stanley, retired from Dunder Mifflin and moved to Florida, where presumably he has been living grumpily ever after.

Until now.

This week, Leslie David Baker launched a Kickstarter campaign in an effort to bring his character back to the screen in a spin-off project called Uncle Stan: Coming Out of Retirement. “After several years of enjoying a relatively uneventful retirement lifestyle,” Baker’s announcement reads, “Uncle Stan receives an urgent call for help from his favorite nephew, Lucky: a recent widower with two small children and a motorcycle repair/flower shop in Los Angeles. Soon Uncle Stan finds himself dishing out all the support and guidance he has to offer in his new California home.”

Baker is attempting to raise $300,000 to get the project going, although it is unclear if he’s even received permission to use the character in another project, which would otherwise have very little to do with the original The Office. It would not, however, be the first for a project of this ilk. Recently, the Coen Brothers gave John Turturro permission to spin-off his The Big Lebowski character into a stand-alone film, Jesus Rolls, which came out earlier this year.

Meanwhile, here’s Baker, in character as Stan, giving his pitch for the spin-off:

(Via Kickstarter)

The first weekend of The Basketball Tournament in their Columbus, Ohio bubble was, by all accounts, a success as they offer something of a test case for a bubble basketball league.

The first round of play (the Round of 24) saw some exciting finishes as the bottom 16 seeds played their way into the “Super 16” for this week’s play. One of those teams was 12th seeded Brotherly Love, which took down the Stillwater Stars in a fairly dominant 87-71 performance to set up a matchup with fifth-seeded Eberlein Drive. However, that matchup will not take place as Eberlein Drive had a player test positive for COVID-19 during their quarantine period after arriving in Columbus.

As is TBT’s policy, a positive player test means the team is removed from the tournament and their opponent moves on to the next round. In the release, TBT offered the testing stats, noting that as the quarantine period has gone on their positive percentage has dropped precipitously.

It’s unfortunate for Eberlein Drive, but also shows how seriously TBT is taking the situation and trying to keep the rest of the teams safe. While the NBA won’t be taking as aggressive steps towards positive tests, the Tournament’s decline in cases since reaching their bubble offers some hope that the league will see a similar trend once players are at Disney.

We’re living in the strangest timeline, so it probably didn’t seem too weird when, on July 4, Kanye West announced he was running for president, against the very man who made the MAGA hat he used to wear everywhere. It was still an announcement worth mocking. That’s what Tiffany Haddish did. As caught by Entertainment Weekly, the comic and actress took to Twitter to troll the musician but good.

Haddish’s tweet borrowed from West’s verbiage, writing, “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I too am running for president of the United States.” There followed a hashtage: #2020Vision. She followed that up by announcing her running mate, Dave Chappelle.

Haddish wasn’t the only celebrity who chimed in with similar jokes. Paris Hilton did one:

And so did Toni Braxton.

Hilary Duff did so, too, burying the big message at the bottom of a lengthy July 4 family post.

Bob Saget also announced his faux-run.

Saget later doubled down, even announcing his own running mate: longtime fellow Full/er House cast member John Stamos.

So which of these celebrities, all of whom have as much government experience as our current president did when he ran for president, would make a better president than our current one? Our vote’s for the one who deservedly won several awards for Girls Trip.

(Via EW)

While the NBA is preparing to head to Orlando for its restart at Disney, The Basketball Tournament has already begun in Columbus, Ohio, as the 24-team tournament tipped off this weekend as a first glimpse at what bubble basketball will look like.

With the return of TBT brought us the return of the Elam Ending, last seen in this year’s All-Star Game, in which once they reach the first stoppage inside four minutes to play in the game, the game clock is turned off and it becomes a race to eight more points than the leading team has. On Sunday, the 22-seed Sideline Cancer took down 11-seed Team Hines in a thriller, in which Marcus Keene had a big game, including hitting the game-winner to give Sideline Cancer a 93-91 win in the race to 92.

What makes the Elam Ending work is how the stakes of each possession late in the game are heightened not by a dwindling clock but instead by a need to reach a certain score first. In blowouts, it can allow things to come to an end quickly, while in close games it allows runs and creates an intensity on both ends. In this instance, Keene comes off a (very) high pick and roll and is able to get the big that steps out on him off balance to clear space for a pull-up jumper to win it.

That shot moves Sideline Cancer on to the “Super 16” to face off with the 8-seed, Challenge ALS, later this week.