Category: Viral

Hong Chau has worked with some of the finest directors in Hollywood, including Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky. Next up for The Menu and Watchmen scene-stealer: roles in Asteroid City, the new film from Wes Anderson, and Showing Up, directed by Kelly Reichardt (First Cow, the devastating Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff).

You can watch the art world railer above.

Showing Up follows a sculptor, played by frequent Reichardt collaborator Michelle Williams, “preparing to open a new show [who] must balance her creative life with the daily dramas of family and friends,” according to the official plot synopsis from A24. Chau is a fellow artist and her landlord (she seems to be better at one than the other).

The film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it received positive reviews. “Showing Up is an absolute, wry joy of a little comedy about making art and living life,” Alissa Wilkinson wrote for Vox. “The film feels pulled from familiar reality for anyone who’s ever tried to make creative work — and it’s quiet, clever, and a whole lot of fun.”

Showing Up, which also stars John Magaro, André “3000” Benjamin, and Judd Hirsch (fresh off his scene-stealing performance in The Fabelmans), opens spring 2023.

On December 9 and 10, many Bad Bunny fanatics were left distraught outside his shows in Mexico City due to being denied entry despite their tickets. Ticketmaster’s statement claimed it was a result of fans buying fake tickets from secondhand sellers. Either way, the incident was devastating.

According to The Guardian, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is so invested in the situation that he brought it up during a morning news conference, asking Bad Bunny to give a free concert at the capital’s central Zócalo plaza. He said, “I ask Bad Bunny, I know he is overworked and tired because he works a lot, but I ask him to consider the possibility of coming to Mexico, to the Zócalo. Hopefully he comes.”

“It made us very emotional to see sad young people who couldn’t enter because their tickets were cloned, because they were cheated, some crying,” he added. “They saved for a long time to be able to buy their tickets.”

It was also previously revealed that Mexico’s Federal Attorney’s Office For Consumers (PROFECO) launched an investigation into Ticketmaster. “As we are a fiscal authority, if they don’t want to pay of their own will, we will seize their accounts then, and they will pay because they have to,” said Ricardo Sheffield, the head of PROFECO.

When it comes to Halloween, Janelle Monáe is one of the best to ever put on a costume. Her high-effort looks wow every year, like when she came through with a Fifth Element-inspired get-up this past October. Monáe sat down for an interview on Late Night yesterday (December 14) and Seth Meyers went through some of her best costumes, including her pitch-perfect The Grinch from 2021. Here’s that in case you need a refresher:

Meyers brought that up and Monáe referred to it as “Johnny Grinch,” then revealing that she had an idea for a Grinch reboot movie. After Meyers’ prompting, she explained, “If you go on my page, you’ll see the Johnny Grinch is, like, this sort of hipster. Like, you know, vegan and green eggs and ham… or wait, not really a good vegan. Anyway, forget that, forget that, forget that, I’m off course. But the pitch is: What if the Grinch had an illegitimate child? Like, he didn’t know that he had Johnny and she somehow brings him back.”

The host, ever the writer, had some valid concerns about plot logistics, like when he noted, “I also want to hear this story about how he’s like, ‘I had no idea.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, Grinch. You lived alone in a cave and you’re like, ‘I don’t know how I’m a dad.’ You know.”

Check out the full interview above.

It’s usually Tucker Carlson who makes things uncomfortable on his Fox News show with his terrible opinions. But during Wednesday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Today, it was Mike Tyson who supplied the awkwardness.

The boxer was there to discuss his famed career. “How did you feel about the guys you were in the ring with?” Carlson asked. Without any hesitation, Tyson replied, “I wanted to kill them.” Carlson laughed that unnatural laugh of his, but Tyson was dead serious. “I’m laughing nervously,” Carlson said to cut the tension as Tyson just stared at him. He doubled down on the question asking the friend of pigeons everywhere, who once bit a rival’s ear off, if he really felt that way. “Yeah,” Tyson responded. Nothing more.

Carlson then opted for a better question, asking Tyson how he came to have that frame of mind. Tyson cited his socio-economic background, which he had touched on in the same interview, a portion of which aired on Tuesday night as well.

“Just think about who I am. I don’t want to go back there no more. I don’t want to be in that poverty state of mind anymore. Not from a physical perspective; I don’t want to be poverty-stricken here,” he explained, pointing to his head.

When Carlson again asked if Tyson thought about his opponents, he answered, “Absolutely. The more you hurt them, the higher you go in life. That’s just my mentality: the more you hurt them, the more people love you.” Carlson can relate, if the “them” is Joe Biden / Anthony Fauci / AOC / other Republicans / rap lyrics and “people” is the average Fox News viewer.

You can watch the interview here.

(Via the Daily Beast)

Lil Nas X had a big year, most notably with his Long Live Montero tour. Now, as 2022 winds down, the rapper is enjoying some much-deserved leisure time with a visit to Japan, as he has been chronicling on social media over the past week or so. His latest dispatch is especially noteworthy and particularly NSFW.

On Twitter yesterday (December 14), Nas shared a three-image gallery from his trip, a photo set that leads off with the rapper smiling as he holds a couple of pornographic videos and is surrounded by similarly saucy materials, seemingly in a store that specializes in it.

That’s his latest post, but it’s not his only one. One in particular that generated some attention (with about 28 million views as of this post) is a TikTok video in which he stands in a busy part of Japan and goes unnoticed by passersby. The video is captioned, “me realizing i’m not famous in japan,” and in it, Nas mouths along to a sound (originally from the 2022 movie Pearl) in which an exasperated person screams, “No, I’m a star! Please, I’m a star!”

Elsewhere, he surprised some on-the-street Twitch streamers in the country by unexpectedly popping up and making an appearance in their broadcast.

Check out some more posts from Nas’ Japan trip below.

Kendrick Lamar gave us a lot to celebrate in 2022. Namely his long-anticipated first album in five years, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. The follow-up to the Pulitzer prize-winning Damn sees Kendrick once again placing the microscope firmly on himself as arguably the best rapper on the planet, waxing on subjects that other MCs wouldn’t touch. But besides putting out another brilliant album, it’s everything that surrounded that release that really made Kendrick Lamar stand out in 2022. Here are his best moments of the year:

Super Bowl Halftime show

Kendrick appeared with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and 50 Cent in February. Taking place at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, Kendrick let his hometown crowd know that he was back. The performance even netted three Emmy Awards.

“The Heart Part 5” video

Before Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers dropped, Lamar shared the video for what many thought would be the album’s first single. Turns out it was a one-off cut with an incredible video that was later tacked on as a bonus single on the streaming version of the record. The clip saw Kendrick using deep fake technology to morph into a variety of famous faces from OJ Simpson to Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle.

Inspiring Fans (And Security Guards) On The Big Steppers Tour

Shortly after Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers came out in May, Kendrick set off on a glorious tour. Portraying himself on stage as a Christ-like figure with a crown of thorns, his worldwide performances were highlighted by delivering an inspiring message to a young boy, using his Glastonbury platform to champion women’s rights, and making a security guard cry with his lyrics. The latter went extremely viral, and for good reason.

Saturday Night Live Performance

Kendrick’s third stint on SNL was another one for the ages. He performed a medley of “Rich Spirit” and “N95” and then brought out Sampha for “Father Time.” It was an incredible artistic display from the rapper, no doubt.

A Cherry On Top With Six Grammy Nominations

Kendrick led all rappers at the 2023 Grammy Awards with six total nominations and bringing his grand total to 47. Among this year’s awards, he’ll be up for Album Of The Year and Song Of The Year. It’s indeed the ultimate cherry on top for an illustrious 2022 for Kendrick, that’ll surely lead to a big 2023.

Reese Witherspoon has been dominating dramas for a while now, primarily with Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, and The Morning Show. According to Deadline, she’ll get a chance to spread her comedic wings and soar once again as the star of All Stars, a forthcoming Prime Video series about a former cheerleader teaching the sport to girls in a coastal town in England. The concept caused a robust bidding war which resulted in Amazon buying two full seasons outright, straight to series.

Comedy veteran Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) is at the helm, acting as showrunner, writer, and director for half the episode while Witherspoon is also executive producing alongside Hello Sunshine collaborator Lauren Neustadter.

Their benevolent cheertatorship is just revving up, but we’ll get a chance to see how funny Brosh McKenna and Witherspoon can be together because they have a rom-com hitting theaters February 2023. Your Place or Mine stars Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher as best friends who get even more entangled when she goes after a dream job, and he signs up to take care of her teenage son.

Witherspoon can nab all the Emmys she wants — a return to this kind of unfussy comedy is really exciting. Not less because it sounds like Prime Video really wants their own Witherspoon-led version of Ted Lasso, and because Brosh McKenna is gold. Plus, it’ll give Witherspoon a chance at winning a bunch of awards without having to swim in the shark-infested waters of private school parents or morning news programs.

(via Deadline)

What’s the perfect accessory for Austin Butler‘s chiseled face? Trick question. It’s two accessories. A Santa hat and a goblin mask. This is empirically true.

Some might not see the deeper element to this promo (besides his perma-Elvis voice), but it’s clear that Butler is genuinely game to be silly and/or the butt of the joke during his appearance for the final 2022 episode of Saturday Night Live. That’s big. Especially for a talent that is in talks for an Oscar nomination for fully embodying one of the most famous people in modern history. He recently said he didn’t see his family for three years while filming Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of The King, which seems intense, so it’s nice to see him let loose a bit.

While he’s sneaking around stealing presents and Suessically skirting copyright law as the Santa goblin, he’ll also be introducing Lizzo as the musical guest. Hopefully she’ll bring an entire slew of Presidentially-owned musical instruments to jam out with on stage. We want to see Lincoln’s mouth harp. Millard Fillmore’s theramin. Ronald Reagan’s bongos. Just call the Library of Congress, and tell them to unlock every drawer they’ve got.

Butler and Lizzo’s show takes place December 17th on NBC.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Since taking over Twitter a month and change back, he’s proven an erratic leader, to say the least. He’s touted himself as a free speech absolutist while threatening employees who leaks intel to the press. He’s made brazen, possibly short-sighted moves that have lost companies money and locked people out of accounts. And he really doesn’t like it when people say mean things to him (or boo him en masse).

There’s been one account he’s been particularly obsessed with: a bot account called “elonjet,” which uses public information to show where the Tesla/Space X/Twitter honcho goes on his private aircraft. He initially said that by not suspending his account, he was showing what a good sport he was. On Wednesday, he suspended it. Then he un-suspended it. Then he suspended it again. On top of that, he threatened to sue its owner, a college student, whose personal Twitter account he also suspended.

“I gotta be careful. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on,” a baffled Jack Sweeney, a 20-year sophomore, told The Daily Beast. “I never meant for any intent of like, any harm or anything,” he added. “And I don’t think there’s that much of a risk of posting data that’s already there.”

The same day he reinstated then un-reinstated Sweeney’s account, Musk announced a new policy: “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.”

He later added, as though belatedly realizing there were some genuine exceptions to this rule, “Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.”

Musk later explained his suspension of Sweeney’s two accounts, claiming that a “crazy stalker” had mounted the hood of a vehicle carrying his son, X Æ A-12, “thinking it was me.” He then pointed the blame towards the former owner of the defunct @elonjet account, writing, “Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”

As of Wednesday night, Sweeney says he’s heard nothing from Musk far as legal action is concerned. Nor has he heard from Musk since the time Musk offered him $5,000 to close his account. Sweeney asked for $50,000 instead. Musk did not pony up.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Jay-Z has once again shared his playlist on Tidal of his favorite songs of 2022. And while it might not be as downright expertly curated like Barack Obama’s always popular seasonal playlists, it’s nonetheless filled with heaters.

Let’s admire Jay-Z’s early sequencing for a moment: The playlist begins with Beyonce’s “Plastic Off The Sofa,” and then Drake and 21 Savage’s “Jimmy Cooks,” Lil Yachty’s “Poland” and then SZA’s “Shirt.” He really sets a chill vibe at the top of this playlist and it keeps going for a while. It isn’t until the playlist shifts over to Burna Boy’s “Last Last,” Bad Bunny’s “Tití Me Preguntó,” and Rosalia’s “Bizcochito” that the party turns up.

But for the most part, Hov plays it safe. There’s a lot of certified hits from 2022 and not a lot of new discoveries. Not that that’s a bad thing, just know that you’re not coming to Jay-Z to find about who’s “next up” in hip-hop. Most every artist in his 40 tracks is well-established, including his wife, Beyoncé, who claims three spots in the mix off of Renaissance (also including “America Has A Problem” and “I’m That Girl.”) Save your nepotism claims though, because 2022 might very well go down as the year of our Queen Bey come Grammy time.

One gripe though. There’s no rock and roll. Like, not even a casual Phoebe Bridgers nod my dude? That’s cool though, you don’t get to become one of the most influential people in hip-hop, by bigging up rock music I suppose. Hov clearly did his thing on this one and it’s a solid collection of this year’s most ubiquitous hip-hop joints.

Check out Jay-Z’s 2022 playlist on Tidal here.