Category: Viral

This weekend, moviegoers get to see Val Kilmer reprise his role of Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick. It’s only one scene and it’s bittersweet: Kilmer spent two years battling throat cancer, and though he’s been cancer-free for four years, the ordeal left him unable to eat and turned his voice into a rasp. The new Top Gun doesn’t hide this. In fact, it finds an honorable, moving way to show what the actor has gone through off-screen. Now there’s word that Kilmer may return, in some fashion, for another ’80s revival.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+’s forthcoming Willow series, which revives the 1988 fantasy adventure, in which the beloved actor played swordsman Madmartigan, is trying to make room for the beloved actor to return. How? It’s not clear, especially given that Kilmer was not on-set during the series’ shoot.

“Val’s a huge part of this, and the first conversation I had, when Warwick and I got the green light to do this, was with Val,” said executive producer Lawrence Kasdan. “We wanted his character to be a part of the story. We wanted him to be in the show.” Kasdan didn’t elaborate, only saying Kilmer was “in the show in a big way” and that “Madmartigan lives on.”

With a story credited to no less than George Lucas, Willow followed Warwick Davis’ titular dwarf farmer, who lights out on a perilous journey involving a much-sought-after baby. Kilmer’s Madmartigan is the film’s Han Solo: a rogue who gradually becomes a good guy by siding with the more vulnerable heroes. The film underperformed at the time but over the decades has become a cult favorite, enough to prompt a revival featuring an older, grittier Willow.

Everyone, especially Tom Cruise, was stoked to get Kilmer back for Top Gun: Maverick, and it sounds like the Willow team feels the same way, however they wind up using him.

(Via THR)

The Uvalde school shooting earlier this week was the latest tragedy in what is an unnecessarily long list of mass shootings in the United States. Even worse, the incident left 19 children in addition to two adults dead in what was truly a senseless crime. People from the music world have shared their condolences about the incident and some even took a moment to call for increased gun control. In a tweet, Taylor Swift said she was “filled with rage and grief, and so broken by the murders in Uvalde.” Olivia Rodrigo said that she was “heartbroken that this is the reality that we’re living in — and we need stricter gun control laws in America.”

Now, Jack White is chiming in with his own thoughts and he didn’t hold back in a lengthy message he shared on Instagram. “As we tour in Texas these past few days, I can’t help but to feel saddened in so many ways about the latest in a long line of mass shootings, but mostly I’m exhausted,” he wrote. “Exhausted with the ignorant excuses about the inability to fix this problem, exhausted with people clinging to their political party or their ‘side’ instead of looking at the issue.”

He continued, “Exhausted with people whining about their ‘freedom’ being more important than rules that help save lives. Like the traffic light on the road, and the warning label on the poison, or the regulation of who can buy sticks of dynamite or own a surface to air missile, we already have rules, haven’t you noticed? So how about a few more rules then that ALSO save lives and protect us from serious harm?”

White’s message comes after he was announced as one of the headliners for the 2022 Music Midtown Festival alongside My Chemical Romance and Future.

You can read White’s full message in the post above.

In the wake of the gun massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two adults dead, many have tried to offer solutions on how to prevent more of the same. Gun control activists have a simple solution: gun control legislation, arguing that the easily availability of semi-automatic weapons is what enabled this and other mass shootings. Republicans, however, have blamed everything but guns. One of them, Ted Cruz, even blamed doors, earning him scorn online and on late night television.

Cruz was also one of the speakers who didn’t cancel his appearance at the annual NRA convention, held mere days after the massacre, less than a five hour drive away in Houston. His speech wasn’t as bleak as the one given by former president Donald Trump. But it might have been enough to get him heckled at a restaurant afterwards.

As per Newsweek, Benjamin Hernandez, a board member at the activist group Invisible Houston, approached Cruz at an eatery. The video begins with the two posing for a photo, all smiles. As soon as the picture is taken, Hernandez’s tone pulls a 180, and he starts grilling Cruz about his stance on gun control, which he does not support. (Indeed, during his speech, Cruz repeated the old NRA line, “What stops armed bad guys is armed good guys,” ignoring that Uvalde cops on the scene reportedly did little to stop the mass shooter.)

Hernandez asked Cruz about background checks, saying, “Is that so hard?” Cruz accused Hernandez of not wanting to have a real discussion. He also repeatedly asked the Texas senator, “Why does this keep happening?”

As security personnel dragged Hernandez away, Cruz smiling and waving at him, he shouyted out, “Why, when 19 children died?”, adding, “Nineteen children died. That is on your hands. That is on your hands.”

Invisible Houston describes itself on its Facebook page as “an inclusive coalition at the Houston level to fight the rise of tyranny in America.” Hernandez was part of the throngs outside the convention center, protesting the NRA’s gathering. Cruz, however, seems to have mistaken him for one of his many young fans.

You can watch the video in the tweet embedded above.

(Via Newsweek)

In just a couple of weeks, Harry Styles will hit the road for the Love On Tour. The string of shows begins June 11 in Glasglow, UK, and continues through December 10 in Curitiba, Brazil. The Love On Tour also includes 15-show residencies in New York City and Los Angeles. The tour is in support of his third album Harry’s House which is set for a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. While things were seemingly set for the tour, Harry is using his platform and the upcoming performances for a good cause.

Together with Live Nation, Harry pledged $1 million to the Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund here in the United States following the Uvalde school shooting this past week. The tragic incident occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and it left 19 children and two teachers dead, making it the deadliest school shooting since 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut back in 2012.

Harry made the announcement on Instagram saying that he would donate the funds from the Love On Tour shows to the gun safety fund, which Live Nation will match, up to $1 million. “Along with all of you, I have been absolutely devastated by the recent string of mass shootings in America, culminating at Robb Elementary School in Texas,” Harry wrote on Instagram. “On our North American tour, we will be partnering with Everytown who work to end gun violence, donating to support their efforts, and sharing their suggested action items.”

You can view Harry’s post above.

The gun massacre in Uvalde, which left 19 children and two adults dead, did a number on an event scheduled mere days later and in the same state: the annual National Rifle Association convention, held a four-plus hour drive away, in Houston. A number of scheduled speakers, including Texas governor Greg Abbott, pulled out at the last second. Donald Trump, however, did not. He showed up as planned, albeit with one stipulation: Those there to celebrate the right to bear arms were not allowed to bear arms during his speech.

Those that showed up were treated to a typical Trump speech, filled with bluster and insults and distortions. There was one section, though, that stood out from the rest: He attempted to pay tribute to the victims of the mass shooting, which was perpetrated by a teenager who legally obtained a semi-automatic weapon, a handgun, and a stockpile of bullets.

Alas Trump’s tribute was nothing more than him robotically reading the names of the victims, one by one, followed by the sound of a bell. He clearly did no research into how to pronounce the names of the deceased, many of them Hispanic and Latinx, badly garbling one after the other.

Not only was Trump’s tribute not moving. It seemed to many to be insulting and nightmarish.

Even with the attempted somber memoriam to innocent people who were preventably slaughtered, Trump made sure to end his speech with a dance.

Also in attendance was Ted Cruz, who has advocated, as Seth Meyers put it, “door control” over gun control.

While those inside the convention center were attempting to defend the use of semi-automatic weapons in the face of so much needless bloodshed, hundreds of protesters congregated outside, ranging from gun control activists to children.

Thanks to one of the best performances of his career, Jimmy Butler and the Heat are headed back to Miami and will bring the Boston Celtics with them. Despite Game 6 taking place in TD Garden and Boston having a chance to secure a spot in the NBA Finals, the Heat were able to pick up a 111-103 win to force a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Miami came out and landed the first punch with their backs against the wall. Led by a monster first quarter from Butler — who had 14 points, five rebounds, four assists, and two steals after one — and a team-wide 5-for-8 clip from three, the Heat were able to lead by as many as 10 points during the frame and found themselves up, 29-22 after one.

While Boston’s big issue — turnovers — was prominent in the first, Miami turned it over one fewer time. The bigger issue was that beyond the seven points on 2-for-3 shooting the team got from both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, the Celtics shot 6-for-17 from the field to start the game and struggled to get into a rhythm on the offensive end of the floor.

Tatum was able to get into a groove early on in the second, as he led the Celtics to within one point.

Ultimately, Boston was able to go ahead as Miami’s offense got stuck in the mud for more than six minutes. The Celtics saw themselves rip off a 13-2 run to open up a cushion of as many as four points, although the Heat were able to finish the half on a 6-0 run to take a 48-46 lead into the locker room.

While things were close right out of the break, Miami ended up going on the first huge run about midway through the third. Thanks to a 13-2 run, the Heat went up by 12 points on the road.

Boston was able to settle down and get things a little more manageable heading into the fourth. Miami led, 82-75, behind Butler’s continued huge game and a surprising resurgence from Max Strus, who hit three triples in the quarter after not hitting a single shot from behind the arc since Game 3.

Butler continued to give them hell, but somewhat-unexpected hero emerged at the start of the fourth for the Celtics, as a 5-0 run by Derrick White got them within striking distance.

Down the stretch the game went, and a familiar pattern would continuously pop up: The Celtics would look ready to get over the hump, at which point Butler would do something to create just a little bit of breathing room. But that pattern was broken with about five and a half minutes left, as Al Horford hit his first triple of the night to tie things at 94, Butler could not respond, and White canned a wide open corner three to give Boston its first lead since early on in the third.

Miami was able to get an answer on its ensuing possession when Kyle Lowry pulled up from deep to hit a three.

The teams had matching trips to the free throw line thanks to Lowry and Smart, but after Brown got fouled and missed both, Butler came down, converted a layup through traffic, got fouled, and converted. And with less than 50 seconds remaining, the dagger came on a turnaround jumper as the shot clock expired.

Butler was the game’s premier performer with 47 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, four steals, and a block in 46 minutes of work. Lowry, who has been a shell of himself for much of the series, had a double-double with 18 points and 10 assists. For Boston, Tatum’s 30 points and nine rebounds led the way, while White gave them 22 off the bench and Brown scored 20.

Game 7 between the Heat and Celtics will take place on Sunday evening. The game is scheduled to tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

An altercation prior to Friday night’s game between the Cincinnati Reds and the San Francisco Giants saw a player for each team get separated while the Reds were going through batting practice. Video of the incident showed that players from both teams were scattered around left field, and while details were scarce, it eventually came out that Tommy Pham and Joc Pederson got into it with one another.

According to C. Trent Rosecrans and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, Pham slapped Pederson. While he was originally in the team’s starting lineup for the game, he was scratched prior to it beginning and was not with them in the dugout at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. ESPN reported that the pair were “quickly separated.”

The reason for the kerfuffle, per The Athletic, was something related to a fantasy football league involving both players.

“According to multiple sources, the beef stems from a disagreement the two had in a fantasy football league including players from several teams,” The Athletic reported.

“We’re investigating and learning as much as we can about the incident,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said prior to the game. “I don’t have much more for you than that right now. I sense that we’ll have a clearer understanding after the game.”

Pham and Pederson have never been teammates in the majors with one another.

My story of how I found Secular Sabbath seems pretty similar to a lot of people. “I was on Instagram, saw a picture posted by a friend of a friend, and it looked really __________ .” Fill in the blank according to your disposition. “Cool” “fun” “creative” — you get the idea.

For me, it was “weird-but-in-a-good-way.” Not the most elegant descriptor but also… sort of fitting? I mean, I think this was the first clip I saw:

Y’know, just the widely beloved musician Rhye singing in his trademark falsetto to a super fat bunny. Or maybe it was this picture of the artist Buckley (whose work is incredible, by the way) covered in bodypaint while communing with a stuffed moon.

Seems like the best type of weirdness, right? It reminded me of the video for Edward Sharpe’s “Home.” Or old stories of the Source Family — which started as a health food store, built a commune in the Hollywood Hills, spawned a band, used weed as a sacrament, and dressed in velvet and linen.

I mean, when you see these tintype photos of Secular Sabbath, that comparison’s not too crazy of a stretch:

The point is: I had a hunch that this movement would be my jam.

Of course, it was nothing more than an educated guess, made based off of Instagram — perhaps society’s most deceptive social media platform. But it was surely enough to make me want to see Secular Sabbath in person during their recent retreat in Joshua Tree. Over a two-day span, the crew hosted a long-awaited second retreat in the desert (their first was pre-pandemic and was considered to be sort of an anti-Coachella), featuring ambient music, ice baths, yoga, tattoos, and a collaboration with the fledgling psilocybin outlet/ merch brand Yawn.

Since these are all things I like unabashedly, attending was a no-brainer.

But what I found in Joshua Tree surprised me. Not with how weird it was (though I think our society needs a lot more weirdness and I will fight to the death for the non-harmful weirdos out there), but with how clear its objectives were. Above everything else, I witnessed a community — people relating authentically (mostly without phones), honest discussions, and no Burning Man-esque stratification between attendees.

This, I’d learn, was all very much by design.

“Secular Sabbath was born out of my upbringing, at Esalen Institute in Big Sur,” Genevieve Medow-Jenkins told me last week. “As Esalen has become more commercial, I felt sad to see it taken away from the people that I loved. So I’ve created a community that isn’t tied to a specific place but rather the people that make it up — so no one can take it away from us.”

Within that context, the role of music in Secular Sabbath can’t be understated. Rhye played multiple sets, along with other ambient music acts. In fact, most Secular Sabbath events have some ambient music tie in and they recently started their own record label. On Friday night, the music went literally through the night. Rather than dancing, or even swaying very much, people lounged on air mattresses and lawn chairs under the desert sky. This chillness is also intentional.

“All I wanted out of the event was to spend time with people in a genuine way,” Medow-Jenkins said. “From that place, people can realize that if I can create as unique and strange as Secular Sabbath, they can create whatever their dreamscape is as well. What I aimed for was simply to create an environment in which people can grow and expand together.”

Watching my son sit in rapt attention during the performances (not seeking any other sort of stimulus beyond the music, my hand on his back, and the stars above) certainly left me feeling like my own dreamscape is within reach. Maybe the slice of the event I witnessed wasn’t as weird as I’d expected but it was every bit as profound. And daring. Because in a world in which division is a constant and authenticity is scarce, true connection and community, like what I saw at Secular Sabbath, becomes the wildest risk of all.

The Lakers have been in the coaching market ever since their season came to an end. After a season in which Los Angeles missed the play-in tournament, the team opted to fire head coach Frank Vogel, opening up a search for a coach who will help them return to the postseason.

The list of candidates got whittled down to a trio of finalists — Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson, Bucks assistant Darvin Ham, and former Blazers coach Terry Stotts — and right before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and the Milwaukee Bucks tipped off on Friday evening, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Ham will be the one to get the job.

The news was confirmed by Shams Charania of The Athletic, who reports that Ham will get a four-year deal to leave Milwaukee for Los Angeles.

As Wojnarowski noted, Ham is taking the job as a first-time head coach. After spending more than a decade playing in the NBA, Ham became an assistant with a trio of teams: the Lakers, the Atlanta Hawks, and the Bucks. One of Mike Budenholzer’s most trusted assistants and a member of the staff that helped guide Milwaukee to a championship last season, Ham inherits a Los Angeles team that went 33-49 this past season.

Apparently, it doesn’t matter how many “Super Dad” moments Kanye West is making sure get caught on camera because his divorce attorney just severed ties with the rapper. West’s lawyer Samantha Spector cited, “an irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship,” in her withdrawal filings obtained by The Blast, which is some incredibly ironic language for a divorce attorney to take.

This marks the fourth lawyer that will now be representing West in the divorce proceedings against his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. In March, Ye switched up his legal counsel the day before the couple’s divorce hearing, firing Chris Melcher and replacing him with Spector, who previously served as the attorney for Dr. Dre’s ex-wife Michelle Young in their divorce. Now, the person listed in Spector’s documents as the new current representative for Mr. West is an out-of-state attorney from Pennsylvania, who isn’t even a divorce attorney.

While Kim and Kanye have worked hard to bring a sense of harmony to their relationship as parents moving forward, the divorce proceedings have been anything but harmonious. Kanye initially lobbied to have his social media posts kept out of the hearings (now why would he want that??) and has looked to employ loopholes to stall the proceedings altogether. And while Kim has said that she wants them to be the figure for “co-parenting goals,” in the latest episode of The Kardashians, she formally apologized to her family for her ex-husband’s antics.