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There is a long history of characters showing up in a Fast & Furious movie to seek revenge for something that happened in a previous Fast & Furious movie. The most prominent example here is Jason Statham popping up in Furious 7 to avenge his brother after the events of Fast & Furious 6. (The titles of these movies remain a jumbled mess in a way that feels… right, in a cosmic sense.) John Cena – who plays the secret brother of Vin Diesel’s character, don’t worry about it, it’s fine – did it, too. The Rock kind of did it but we don’t talk about that.

The best part is that enemies and rivals usually end up becoming friends and they all sort it out over Coronas at a barbecue until someone else comes for revenge and the cycle starts over again. Sometimes Helen Mirren is involved. It is all very messy and fun and the last two movies have featured Charlize Theron stealing a nuclear submarine and Ludacris and Tyrese going to space. I love these movies more than some members of my own family.

Which brings me to this: The trailer for Fast X, somehow the tenth movie in this franchise. It is incredible. We are going to get way into it. I made so many GIFs of Jason Momoa. But first, watch. Behold. Revel in the spectacle of the cinema.

I have watched the four-ish minutes of this trailer about five times already and I spent every second of each time shouting and laughing. It’s so thrilling. And again, we’ll get to it all. But first, as always, we begin at one of the aforementioned barbecues, where w-…

Well, guess what: Rita Moreno is in the Fast & Furious movies. She is an EGOT winner. And now she is in a franchise where, a few movies ago, Ludacris lamented the fact that their enemies had a tank. It’s tempting to lose track of that given everything that is about to happen. But think about it for a bit this weekend.

There’s a lot of talk about family in here, and Family, too. This is nothing new. These movies do that a lot. The big thing here is Dominic Toretto looking at his young son — named Brian, after Paul Walker’s character, who is, to be very clear, still alive in these movies but so far out of this life that he’s willing to allow his friends and loved ones to do battle with nuclear cyberterrorists without lifting a finger to help, which is kind of funny — and saying how worried he is about losing someone he loves.

This will come up again.

Enter Jason Momoa. His character is named Dante. He is on a motorcycle and wearing what appears to be a snakeskin jacket. This is perfect. As I’ve said before, he should be in every movie. Look at him. Look at his mustache. Look at him saying “Boom.” Look why he’s saying ‘Boom.”

This requires context. Probably. Context is a slippery thing in these movies. The first one was about Vin Diesel stealing DVD players and now he is some sort of off-book rogue agent who thwarts supervillains. It’s best not to think too much about it. But we need to think a little bit about it here. Because…

THIS

IS

BRAZIL

What happens next is remarkable. We get a flashback to Fast Five, the best film in the franchise by far and one where Vin Diesel said the phrase “we’re going to do one last job.” This is the fifth movie since he said that. They have done so many jobs since then. It’s literally the halfway point of their jobs. You should see the smile on my face right now.

The flashback takes us back to the heist of the Brazilian drug lord’s bank vault, the one where they ripped it out of the bank with cars and cables and raced off through Brazil. But now we learn new information. Like, for example, this.

And this.

ARE WE DOING A FAST FIVE RASHOMON?

IS THAT WHAT WE ARE DOING HERE?

TELL ME, FAST X DIRECTOR LOUIS LETERRIER

TELL ME

“[Fast Five] is easily the best movie of the franchise. It’s the greatest,” Leterrier agrees. “That chase with the safe, it’s the greatest moment in cinema history, so we were like, ’Let’s Rashomon this scene.”

Thank you.

The takeaways here are as follows:

• Momoa’s character is related to the Brazilian drug dealer they ruined in Fast Five
• It turns out he was there the whole time, which is somehow not enough close to the wildest timeline-lambada these movies have done
• He is out for revenge
• I can’t stop giggling

Hey, wanna see Jason Momoa wreck some dudes with an unbuttoned dress shirt and then lick a knife for some reason?

Wanna see Jason Momoa stand on a mountain doing the Brazilian Jesus statue pose before blowing up half of what appears to be Rome?

Wanna see John Cena body slam someone so hard that they crash through the floor of a multi-story building and end up in what I’m going to assume is the kitchen?

Wanna see some huge metal ball go bouncing through a city and tear a bud in half and then kind of explode as it bears down on Tyrese?

Sorry. I know that was a lot to throw at you all at once. You need to build up your tolerance, though. Things are not going to get less wild here. Not even a little. There’s a helicopter thing coming up that made me gasp a little bit like a startled gray-haired British woman.

Hey, speaking of gray-haired British women…

I wish I could explain to you how happy it makes me that Helen Mirren is in the Fast & Furious movies. She plays Jason Statham’s mom. She’s out here palling around with Dominic Toretto even though Dominic Toretto has kind of tried to murder both of her sons. They’re all friends now. The characters in these movies are the most forgiving people who have ever lived.

Two important things here:

• We are, I presume, back in Brazil for some sort of street race where life hangs in the balance, which we are able to presume because Dominic Toretto says the phrase, “Today, I race to stop the bloodbath,” which is just a remarkable collection of words
• LOOK AT JASON MOMOA

I am so happy he is in this movie. He was born to be in these movies. My only complaint is that it took us all ten movies to get him into one. That’s upsetting. But he’s here now and he’s dressed like a second-tier Vegas magician who lifts weights daily and draws his life inspiration from Captain Jack Sparrow. It so moving I might cry a little. Which would be a funny thing to do with this about to happen…

I don’t really have anything of value to add here. I just wanted to post a GIF of John Cena firing off a rocket during a cat chase in the desert. This franchise just up and became Mad Max for a second. I am so proud of everyone.

Quick update…

Jason Statham: Still in the movie

Han: Still in the movie

Ludacris and Tyrese: Still in the movie

Brie Larson…

Now in the movie.

I need these to go on forever and continue adding movie stars like a snowball tumbling down a mountain. Get everyone in there. Tom Cruise. Harrison Ford. Meryl Streep. All of the Stranger Things kids. Robert Downey, Jr., if Vin has his way. Keep going until the cast is so big that all other movies need to stop production while these films are shooting because there are no actors left to fill the roles. Get Scorsese to direct.

I promise I am not joking.

Oh, hey. Remember a dozen or so GIFs ago when Dominic Toretto was looking his son in the eye are fretting about losing him? Wellllll now Jason Momoa has him hostage in a speeding car. This is classic Chekhov. Which is fun to say about a movie where, uh… this happens…

And this happens, too.

To be very clear, what we have here is:

• Two helicopters firing harpoons at Dominic Toretto’s car
• The helicopters trying to haul him away
• Dominic Toretto launching his car off an overpass
• The gravity of his falling car causing the helicopters to smash into each other in the sky and explode

This is where I must once again ask you to ponder my favorite thing: Picture a 24-hour news network in the universe of these movies. Picture all the various breaking news emergencies and cuts into coverage. Picture Wolf Blitzer looking into the camera and telling you with a very serious face that there has been a helicopter collision in Brazil and police suspect the same man who led a police chase there years ago and also flew through the air between skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi while a bald man fired a rocket launcher at him. Picture the international crisis. I would watch an entire spinoff about this, kind of like how Aaron Sorkin did that show The Newsroom about real-life events from years earlier. Let Sorkin write and direct this one, too.

We have fun.

Okay, last thing. The trailer ends with a scene in a mysterious laboratory. Charlize Theron and Michele Rodriguez are on some sort of operating table. There is science happening. They see each other and immediately start having some sort of WWE cage fight inside the lab, which is probably not safe given all the… science things. Here, look.

Which is great. But I want to know what was happening in that lab. Michele’s character, Letty, already had an amnesia storyline, which is both hilarious and further evidence that these movies are just soap operas with car chases and explosions. (Not a complaint.) What could be going on here? Almost anything is on the table given the history at play.

I’m going to say…

Hmm…

Hmmmmmm…

Let’s go with body swapping. A full Face/Off twist. (I know one person who would be excited about it.) Everyone please remember I said that just in case I end up being right. Which I could be. These are beautiful movies where anything is possible. We are so very blessed to have them back in our lives.

Adidas has been under severe financial stress since parting ways with Kanye West. According to the company’s CEO Bjorn Gulden, the athletic brand is projected to lose nearly 1.3 billion dollars in sales this year, CNBC reports. In a statement released on February 9, the company notes that the significant dip in sales is linked to its recent separation from the Chicago-bred mogul after being unable to sell off its remaining Yeezy apparel.

The company could also lose an additional $534 million if it cannot repurpose the remaining Yeezy stash, the statement read.

“The numbers speak for themselves. We are currently not performing the way we should,” Gulden said. He also noted that 2023 would be a “year of transition” for the company.

In 2022, Adidas parted ways with the controversial rap star after several anti-semitic comments that he made, as well as the several incidents that followed — including making a pitstop on InfoWars to chat with Alex Jones about his admiration for Hitler and Nazism.

However, the brand shared it would still use its designs without the Yeezy label. So far, they haven’t found much success.

On the other hand, Kanye hasn’t had the best luck either. The former billionaire’s recent antics were hilariously parodied in an episode of South Park. He’s also being investigated for battery after snatching a woman’s phone last month.

All this comes after it was reported that Adidas is taking a $200 million loss on Beyoncé’s Ivy Park.

Kevin Gates has evolved exponentially since his entry into music. Whether through his highly entertaining interviews or vast discography, the “Major League” rapper has spoken in great detail about his spiritual journey, battles with suicidal thoughts, weight loss, and sexual abuse. Continuing his exploration further into sexual healing and liberation, Gates dropped a new single, “Breakfast.”

Produced by DJ Chose, Charley Cooks, and WZRD BLVD, the track totes the line of sensual and raunchy. As the track opens, Gates sets the tone for what is to come, rapping, “Girl, you taste good, you my food, girl.”

The chorus, “Early breakfast for you, I got somethin’ special for you / I’ma beat that p*ssy ’til you snorin’ / Turn ’round, bend you over, I ain’t leavin’ no leftovers / Droppin’ d*ck off in the mornin’ / Mm-mhm, girl, you taste good, you my food, girl / Laid back, I’ma snack on you ’til your toes curl / Early breakfast for you, I got somethin’ special for you,” soon follows.

Gerard Victor of Shot Selection directed the accompanying video, making it clear that although the song doesn’t explicitly say who Gates is tussling in the sheets with, leading lady Dreka, who is Gates’ long-time partner, makes it quite clear she is the muse behind the track. The pair gives us a peak behind the curtain of the love nest in the mountains.

“Breakfast” comes on the heels of Gates’ re-release of his debut project, The Luca Brasi Story (A Decade Of Brasi), which celebrated its 10-year anniversary.

Watch the video above.

Kevin Gates is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Pamela Anderson appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine 14 times. That’s more than anyone else, including Drew Barrymore. The actress and delightful talk show host was on the cover only once, in January 1995; the issue also featured the “untold story” of sex and Prozac and an interview with Jean-Claude Van Damme. What a time to be alive!

On Friday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Barrymore and Anderson — who is promoting a Netflix documentary and memoir — reminisced about their Playboy days. “When I was doing Playboy and loving it and having so much fun and don’t regret a thing and love it, I didn’t know I’d have kids later,” Barrymore said.

Anderson recalled bringing her “kids to the Playboy Mansion every Easter and I was getting in the car and [her son] Brandon came out [and said], ‘Mom, do you know what [Playboy founder Hugh Hefner] does for a living? He takes pictures of naked girls!’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, get in the car. Let’s get out of here!’” The Baywatch star also shared what she learned from her time spent at the mansion.

“I learned that there are such things as philanthropists and art and gentlemen and chivalry,” she said. “And as crazy as people really want me to always say something bad about it, I didn’t have a bad experience. That was so much better than where I had come from.”

You can watch Anderson’s interview above.

(Via Decider)

It should go without saying that having your private business shared with people you didn’t consent to hearing about it can be upsetting. But imagine having it shared publicly, with the entire town after you took on a prominent role. It would be devastating. Except what happened to Dawn Clements, interim superintendent of Ben Hill County Georgia, was even more upsetting. Someone publicly outed her as gay.

Coming out as part of the LGBTQ+ community is something that someone does on their own time in the way they feel most comfortable. It can take years for someone to build up the courage to do it, and some people never feel comfortable enough to share that part of themselves with the world. But no matter when or if someone comes out, their existence within and outside of the queer community is still valid.

And while many people respect that the decision to come out is deeply personal, not everyone does and Clements was on the receiving end of hateful behavior. According to LGBTQ Nation, Danny Pate wrote the letter outing Clements as gay and sent it to local pastors before the letter began circulating the community. This led to Clements handing in her resignation.

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Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community doesn’t make you any less capable of doing your job, so it’s strange that someone would go out of their way to push a competent person out. Clements has worn many hats in the school district, from teacher to principal, according to LGBTQ Nation. She’s more than qualified to hold the position of interim superintendent and her feeling pushed into resigning is heart wrenching.

But the school board wasn’t having any part of her resignation. In fact, when Ben Hill County school board met, they outright rejected the resignation.

“Cheers erupted among hundreds of students and other community members and colleagues who gathered in support,” LGBTQ Nation wrote.

Turns out she had a whole community behind her ready to fight against hatred. Beth McIntyre, an area blueberry farmer told Georgia Public Broadcasting, “When something that hateful and mean-spirited is written about our people, we don’t like it.” With McIntyre knowing Clements since she was a child, it’s not surprising that she’s likely feeling protective.

Clements has been with the school district for 22 years and when the school board met, hundreds of people crowded in to show her support, according to GPB. But if you’re expecting Clements to respond to the upsetting letter and subsequent outpouring of support in a public way – you might just turn blue holding your breath.

“She’s a low-key person. he doesn’t want to be a poster child,” McIntyre explained to GPB that a public comment won’t come.

While the school board rejected Clements’ resignation, she has not returned to her position and its currently being filled by the human resources director with the hopes Clements returns.

“It is very heartening to see a community come out so overwhelmingly in support of someone who simply is just, by all accounts, worthy of doing a good job and should continue to be employed by the school district,” Executive Director Jeff Graham told GPB.

Hopefully, the superintendent returns to her post after taking a moment to herself. It’s clear that the community wants her to continue to fill her seat.

Even though it has become a popular internet bit to joke about all of Leonardo DiCaprio’s various young girlfriends, it is based on the well-known fact that this man consistently dates people who weren’t even alive when Titanic hit theaters. And it seems like he’s always been this way, though it was significantly less weird when he was in his 30s.

Still, it is well-known that DiCaprio has a history with younger women, even going back almost 20 years. In a newly resurfaced 2005 Harpers Bazaar interview with The OC star Mischa Barton, the actress claims her team encouraged her to hit on DiCaprio in hopes of advancing her career. Barton, who was 19 at the time, was told by her rep to “go sleep with that man” referring to DiCaprio, “for the sake of [her] career.”

Barton decided to pass at the time, saying “Isn’t Leo, like, 30 or something?” Now, DiCaprio is 48 and still being linked to teenagers, though sometimes he goes above 25, just to keep everyone on their toes. Though breaking up with his last long-term girlfriend right after she turned 25 was a little fishy.

Of course, DiCaprio was probably unaware of the exchange between Barton and her rep (who knows if he was a fan of The OC back in the day) but the fact that this story is from nearly 20 years ago and could still be applied to the actor’s love life today is a bit troubling.

(via Page Six)

Gracie Abrams has a big year ahead of her. Last month, she announced her debut album Good Riddance arriving in just a couple of weeks. Next month, she’ll be bringing those songs out on the road to massive audiences with the one and only Taylor Swift on the much-discussed Eras Tour.

Today, she shared a new Good Riddance single called “Amelie.” The twangy song highlights Abrams’ knack for visceral storytelling right off the bat: “I met a girl once / She sorta ripped me open / She doesn’t even know it.” The whole song is poignant and previews an album that’s likely to be an emotional experience.

About Good Riddance, Abrams crafted a heartfelt message about the record and the help of Aaron Dessner on social media.”It’s difficult to imagine these songs living anywhere other than my most secret places, but @aarondessner reminded me that holding space for brutal honesty in songwriting is kind of the whole point,” Abrams wrote. “I feel an unbelievable amount of gratitude for the opportunity to have made this album. Writing this record allowed me to grow up in ways I needed to. It forced me to reflect and be accountable. It allowed me to walk away from versions of myself that I no longer recognized. It allowed me to let go.”

Listen to “Amelie” above.

Good Riddance is out 2/24 via Interscope Records. Pre-save it here.

Larry the Cable Guy got a taste of conservative outrage after he made a joke about Marjorie Taylor Greene acting out at the State of the Union address. The backlash was particularly ironic given Larry (real name: Dan Whitney) is not shy about his political beliefs, and a bleeding heart liberal he is not.

“This pic reminds me of every comedians x girlfriend coming to their show and sitting in the back 6 days after the breakup,” Larry tweeted along with four photos of Greene’s Cruella-like outfit.

Despite defending Greene in the replies, Larry received pushback from Republicans and fired back on Thursday night.

“This wasn’t a political joke!” The Cable Guy tweeted. “Unbelievable. Lighten up some of you sheesh. It was about a comedian getting heckled by his x at the club. She had all the gestures. Some of you def don’t follow me or you’d think twice on your dumb comments.”

In Larry’s defense, his politics are pretty clear. A quick look through his timeline should’ve put to bed any concerns that he leans heavily to the right. Just take a look at his recent tweets and retweets.

On top of that, Larry actually likes Greene and made it a point to defend her after making his “joke.” He also shut down a Twitter user who accused of him voting for Biden.

In short, as much as conservatives love to complain about liberal snowflakes and how no one can take a joke anymore, they should probably take a good look in the mirror. When you’re accusing freaking Larry the Cable Guy from The Blue Comedy Tour fame of being “woke,” something’s gone wrong.

(Via Larry the Cable Guy on Twitter)

If Magic Mike was a movie about the realities of male stripping, Magic Mike XXL was a movie about the fantasy of male stripping. In bringing back director Steven Soderbergh for part three (Gregory Edwards directed the second), I was hoping the third might combine some of the grit of the first with some of the fun of the second.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is certainly an attempt at another romp, but Soderbergh’s return seems less to have brought it back to reality and mostly to have stripped it of kitsch. Which for a franchise about all-male revues is sort of like losing a pitching arm (a kitsching arm?). If Magic Mike was “what does the dick shaking really mean?” and Magic Mike XXL asked “what if even more dicks shaking?” Magic Mike’s Last Dance offers us “the dicks are still shaking, but they have British accents now.”

We catch up with Magic Mike Whateverhislastnameis (star/producer Channing Tatum) as he’s bartending a charity gala at a rich lady’s home. The rich lady, wouldn’t you know it, has lost her mojo, but she’s gotten a hot tip from a gal pal that the guy behind the bar was up until recently the world’s foremost purveyor of the art of getting ladies’ grooves back. This lady, Maxendra Mendoza, played by Salma Hayek, corners Magic Mike after the other guests have left and coyly attempts to inquire if perchance he might grace her with some hearty thrusting.

“Sorry, M’lady, I’m retired,” growls Mike. She asks him to name his price, he says 60 grand basically as a joke, but she offers him six for real and soon they’re making sweat angels on her satin sheets.

“So, was that Magic Mike’s last dance?” she asks huskily, cuing the pointing DiCaprio gif.

Maxendra has her groove back, in spades. To the point that she now demands Mike fly to London with her for a surprise job. The surprise, it turns out, is that Maxendra has taken over a London theater in a pre-divorce agreement (don’t ask) with her most recent ex, a rich Rupert Murdoch-esque media titan-type guy. Up until now, the theater has been staging Isabel Ascended, a stuffy Jane Austen-esque play about a Victorian lady trying to choose whether to wed for love or for money. Maxendra has hired Magic Mike as the new creative director in the hopes of adapting his life-changing private dickmatism into a stage show for London’s literati. Who’s more sexually repressed than the British, after all. Magic Mike’s Last Dance then becomes the latest entry in the good ol’ fashioned “puttin’ on a show” genre.

Maxendra’s goal with this stage show is, supposedly, to shatter the myth that Isabel should be forced to choose between two boring chodes, the rich dud or the broke Romeo. “Why can’t she just shag them all and then do as she pleases?” fumes Hannah (Juliette Motamed), the only actor from the original Isabel Ascended to stay on for the male revue version.

Why indeed (I mean, lots of reasons, probably, but put a pin in that one for now).

I’ve always said that Magic Mike was a guy movie masquerading as a girl movie. It’s ostensibly about male stripping but really it’s about broke dudes trying to wrap their brains around what it means to be a man through a kind of kitschy gender play. Magic Mike‘s Last Dance clearly actually wants to be a movie for women and about women, only it can never quite escape the fact that it’s still made by men, who can only really know women so well. Their relative unfamiliarity shows in a series of weak generalizations.

Magic Mike never tried to be something for all men, because they knew that would’ve been foolish to try (and that no one would expect them to, which is an underrated facet of “privilege”). It was about one weird subculture with guidance from a guy who was actually part of it (Tatum famously being a former male stripper). And yet now that Magic Mike’s Last Dance is deliberately about women, it gets over-broad and corny, asking unanswerable women’s mag headlines like “what do women really want?” and “can the modern woman really have it all?”

“Is this stage show about male strippers sufficiently feminist?” is not a question I imagine any prospective Magic Mike’s Last Dance viewer needed asked. Is it feminist to pay $6,000 for sex? Maybe? I guess? Who cares? Probably it’s most feminist not to have to ask.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Reid Carolin seem to belatedly realize that “what does this particular woman want” is a more interesting question, attempting to draw a parallel between Maxenda and the fictional Isabel (she has a rich dud and broke stud too, get it?!). That could’ve, and should’ve, been kitschy and cute and the heart of the movie. Instead, it gets bogged down in weird minutia like the theater’s building codes, the sociological history of dance, and Maxenda and her ex’s confusing British non-divorce. (A British divorce isn’t final until a man in a powdered wig decides who gets the puddings). There’s a series of sexy buff English dudes brought in to do the dick shaking but we literally never even learn their names.

It’s also hard to figure out what the conflict actually is. What’s actually stopping Maxenda from just shagging them all and then doing what she wants? A woman writer and/or director might have actually had an answer to that, but Carolin and Soderbergh don’t, and so they substitute a series of contrived obstacles instead.

It’s not hard to watch Channing Tatum dance sexily with a sopping wet, barely clothed ballerina (as he does with real-life ballerina Kylie Shea in the finale), but didn’t we already do that in the Step Up movies? Magic Mike’s Last Dance pretends to be something more but in the end really isn’t.

‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’ is available now only in theaters. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.

Just like us, Beck understands heartbreak is inevitable. The singer-songwriter shows this on his new single titled “Thinking About You,” which dropped with an accompanying visual.

The song — his first new single since late 2019, save for his contribution to McCartney III Imagined — seemingly centers on his longing for a romantic partner that has left him. Throughout the almost four-minute track, Beck broods over losing the love of his life as the guitar strums along with feelings of melancholy in the background. The song gives an acoustic, stripped-down feel as if you were almost watching the “Super Cool” singer perform it live.

“I pull the curtain and lay in bed/ I’ve got fifteen movies of you, playing in my head,” he sings. “Watching the ocean turn blue/Just thinking about you.”

The single comes ahead of the singer’s upcoming tour with Phoneix, which is set to kick off this August at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. The North American tour is expected to make stops in major US and Canadian cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, New York, and Toronto. Jenny Lewis, Japanese Breakfast, Weyes Blood, and Sir Chloe are also set to appear as openers on the tour.

Check out Beck’s “Thinking About You” above.