Category: Viral

Francis Ford Coppola has been working overtime to promote his upcoming director’s cut of The Godfather Part III, now titled Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, and in the process, he may have tipped Paramount’s hand on the future of the franchise. While talking to Dave Itzkoff about returning to the cinematic crime family that put his name and Al Pacino‘s on the map, Coppola revealed that there were talks for a fourth Godfather movie that would’ve built on the events of the third movie, despite it being regarded as the “weaker” film in the saga. While those talks stalled in the late ’90s following the death of Puzo, Pacino and Andy Garcia quipped that the renewed attention over the director’s cut is going to have someone at Paramount sniffing around for a fourth installment.

However, both actors wouldn’t be interested in returning to the franchise unless Coppola is involved, and he has “made clear that he wants to move on.” But that doesn’t rule out The Godfather Part IV happening. Via The New York Times:

This does not prevent Paramount from making sequels if it wants to. “There may well be a ‘Godfather IV’ and ‘V’ and ‘VI,’” Coppola said. “I don’t own ‘The Godfather.’” (Paramount said in a statement, “While there are no imminent plans for another film in the ‘Godfather’ saga, given the enduring power of its legacy it remains a possibility if the right story emerges.”)

Of course, the struggle between Coppola and Paramount over sequels stretches all the way back to the first movie. While The Godfather Part II is considered to be one of the greatest sequels of all time, Coppola did not want to make second movie. He was eventually “seduced” by Paramount and their philosophy on the situation: “You’ve got Coca-Cola, why not make more Coca-Cola?”

(Via The New York Times)

Brooklyn rapper Casanova, an up-and-coming artist closely associated with the city’s burgeoning drill movement, has surrendered to federal authorities after being charged with racketeering, murder, and other offenses, according to the New York Daily News. Earlier this week, the FBI announced it had indicted 18 members of the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation group, calling for information on the rapper, the only one not yet in custody.

According to the New York Daily News, Casanova surrendered himself at the Midtown South precinct in Manhattan yesterday. Among the charges against the group are firearm possession, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and unemployment fraud, which can all apply to each member under the blanket racketeering charge, similarly to the Nine Trey Bloods to whom Tekashi 69 was affiliated.

The indictment accuses two members of using other people’s IDs to file fraudulent applications for COVID-19-related unemployment benefits, while other members are accused of selling crack, cocaine, and ecstasy throughout Co-op City and Castle Hill in the Bronx. Casanova himself is accused of punching and robbing a young woman in Greenwich Village. The most serious charge against the alleged gang is murder; one member is said to have driven an accomplice to Poughkeepsie to kill a 15-year-old.

For the second consecutive offseason, the Houston Rockets pulled off a trade to give James Harden a new backcourt running mate. Last year, the team swapped out Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook, and after rumors swirled for a few weeks about the latter wanting out, Westbrook was moved on Wednesday night for John Wall.

Whenever one half of a big-name pairing is moved, questions inevitably pop up about the role that the other had in the entire ordeal. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brought some insight into this on Thursday morning’s edition of Get Up, and after mentioning that both teams were trying to appease the stars they still in place — Harden and Bradley Beal — he revealed that Harden was especially fond of this move.

“He had a preference of John Wall over Westbrook,” Wojnarowski said of Harden when asked about what the future holds for the former league MVP, who reportedly would like a trade. “Although in the last couple years, Harden has moved teammates in and out. Brought Chris Paul in, moved him out, same with Russell Westbrook now. Whether that’s going to be enough to convince him to want to be there long-term, [the] Rockets aren’t sure about that.”

It’s a very interesting nugget because Harden and Westbrook have a long friendship, something that was mentioned a whole lot when the former Thunder teammates joined forces in Houston last year. This is not to assume there was a big falling out or anything between the two, but perhaps this was an example of something that worked well in theory and not as well once that became reality — the mind cannot help but wander to a piece done by The Athletic which indicated that Harden “wasn’t as receptive to criticism as other teammates” that came after Westbrook led a meeting in which he “went around the room indicating what was wrong and what each player needed to do to fix the losing streak, starting with himself.”

Of course, there are legitimate risks that come with trading for Wall, who has not appeared in an NBA game since December of 2018 due to injuries. But Houston’s No. 1 priority is making sure Harden is happy, and if this helps them achieve that goal, then it makes sense why this deal happened.

Kiernan Shipka’s teenage witch will soon make one more stand to save Greendale as Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina prepares for a final act. That would be the fourth season of the subversive Riverdale spinoff, which was renewed following initial success for four seasons, so it really feels like a good time to put these adventures to an end. We still haven’t received a talking Salem, but never say never. “The End Of All Things” is coming, according to Chance Perdomo’s Ambrose in this new trailer, and if that doesn’t include at least one line from a cat voice, I’m going to raise Hell.

To be more serious, however, this season follows the Spellman family after they’ve left the Satanic Church of Night. That’s caused temper tantrums that led to the summoning of The Eldritch Terrors, who could open up The Void, and the Fight Club needs to step up and help save the day. Gavin Leatherwood’s Nick (with his turkey-basting skills in tow) is also attempting to win back Sabrina after his dark time in Hell, and this looks like the aesthetically pleasing chaos that we’re used to from the show. From the synopsis:

Over the course of Part 4’s eight episodes, The Eldritch Terrors will descend upon Greendale. The coven must fight each terrifying threat one-by-one (The Weird, The Returned, The Darkness to name a few), all leading up to…The Void, which is the End of All Things. As the witches wage war, with the help of The Fright Club, Nick begins to slowly earn his way back into Sabrina’s heart, but will it be too late?

The show’s returning cast also includes Miranda Otto, Ross Lynch, Lucy Davis, Michelle Gomez, Jaz Sinclair, Lachlan Watson, Tati Gabrielle, Adeline Rudolph, Abigail Cowen, and Richard Coyle.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Part 4 will stream on December 31.

Lil Nas X has been on a spicy press run promoting his new single “Holiday” ahead of the, well, holidays, and answering plenty of revealing questions along the way. Last week, he stopped by Hot Ones to choke down fiery wings while telling host Sean Evans what John Mayer said to make him cry and this week, he popped up on The Ellen Show to answer “Burning Questions” about his celebrity crushes and dream collaborators.

Luckily for Nas, this time around, no hot sauce was involved, making “Burning Questions” more of a lightning round-style interrogation. Of course, plenty of the questions themselves were designed to make him just as uncomfortable as the Wings of Death, prompting him to cough out his answer to the “first celebrity crush” question. It turns out, young Nas was quite attracted to iconic R&B singer Usher, which… yeah, I understand.

Meanwhile, his dream collaborator is someone who shares the same goofy, internet-meme-bred sense of humor Nas has: Doja Cat. Besides having similar love for esoteric meme humor, they both love wild award show ensembles, and both have had to fend off controversies related to their pre-fame online activities — something that’s sure to become a lot more commonplace as our lives move more and more online. Both also blew up thanks to entertainingly off-kilter viral hits, so something tells me they’d have great working chemistry. Maybe this segment will help get the ball rolling.

Nas also reveals which boy band he’d join (BTS), his favorite Nicki Minaj song (“Miami”), and who would play his love interest in a movie about his life (himself). Watch Lil Nas X’s “Burning Questions” interview for The Ellen Show above.

Ariana Grande is one of entertainment’s biggest names, but it wasn’t all that long ago that she was a rising star with big music dreams. She has come a long way since then, which has allowed her to create one of the finest examples of the “how it started vs. how it’s going” memes out there.

For the unfamiliar, the format of the meme usually consists of two images, the first showing something from the past and the second being some sort of modern progression or advancement from what’s going on in the initial photo. So, for Grande’s post, the first image is a screenshot of a tweet from 2011 (when she was acting on Victorious and hadn’t yet released her first single), in which she wrote, “@MariahCarey I love you. :].” The second image shows the supreme glow-up that has taken place over the past nine years, as it’s a promotional image for “Oh Santa!,” Grande’s upcoming collaborative single with Carey and Jennifer Hudson.

The song is set to be released tomorrow and it comes as part of Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special, which also premieres tomorrow, on Apple TV+. Along with the aforementioned people, the special will also feature Snoop Dogg, Jermaine Dupri, Tiffany Haddish, Billy Eichner, Misty Copeland, Mykal-Michelle Harris, and Carey’s twins, Moroccan and Monroe.

Cast members from The Lord of the Rings movies have reunited to save the home where J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his masterpieces, including The Hobbit. The author’s former-residence at 20 Northmoor Road in Oxford, England, will be put on the open market in a few months, which is why Project Northmoor has started a fundraising campaign to raise $6 million and turn the house into a literary center dedicated to Tolkien’s work.

The campaign has the support of actors John Rhys-Davies, Martin Freeman, and Sir Ian McKellen, who said in a statement, “We cannot achieve this without the support of the worldwide community of Tolkien fans, our fellowship of funders.” Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli, added, “If people are still reading in 1,000 years, Tolkien will be regarded as one of the great myth-makers of Britain and it will be evident within a matter of years that not to secure this place would have been such an act of arrogance and ignorance and folly on our part.” He added that the goal is to turn the home “into a literary hub that will inspire new generations of writers, artists and filmmakers for many years to come.”

Tolkien and his family moved into the home in the 1930s while he worked as a Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the nearby University of Oxford, and remained in the home for the next 17 years. It is during this time that Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and also hosted fellow fantasy writing legend C.S. Lewis. (Via)

The donations are tiered by Hobbit Gifts, Dwarf Gifts, Human Gifts, Elf Gifts, Wizard Gifts, and Valar Gifts. But an ent-sized gift would be most appreciated.

(Via People)

Childhood tennis star. Academic genius. MTV Award winner. Style icon.

Take a good look at Tkay Maidza’s myriad credentials — she’s quite the polymath. In fact, at just 23-years-old, the hip hop queen-elect has more talent than you can shake a racket at. If touring with Mark Ronson and Charlie XCX and starring in a Champagne commercial alongside Usain Bolt wasn’t enough to convince you that this girl’s going places, then maybe a refresher of the past six months will:

After signing to British indie label 4AD (Grimes, St. Vincent), Tkay dropped the most banging-est mash-up album you’ll likely hear this year when, back in August, Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2 came into the world. The second entry of a trilogy of works, it combines influences as diverse as Missy Elliot, Janet Jackson, and The Beatles on tracks like ‘Shook’ and ’24k’. And since the release, the Zimbabwean-Australian starlet has popped up everywhere from Vogue and Pitchfork to the FIFA 2021 soundtrack.

With her freshest songs racking up over two million plays apiece on Spotify in just a few short months, the latter half of 2020 has been “like a crazy adrenaline rush,” Tkay says. “Everything just feels like a bigger splash than the last.” At the rate she’s going, Tkay will be riding a tsunami into 2021.

It’s clear to see why. Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2 is a record that bursts with color and energy — and Tkay has built a whole universe around it by utilizing the same creative verve in her visual presence as she does in the music. With vibrant music videos, ’90s-inspired photoshoots, and high-concept merchandise all combining under one roof to present a Last Year Was Weird package that bursts with personality, Tkay has few rivals in her field.

“It was always meant to be a statement to say that I can exist in different ways,” she says, flanked by an array of pot plants while speaking from her parents’ house in Adelaide. It’s just like she told Nike back in 2017: “If you really want people to notice you, you need to have a really cool visual package.”

It’s clear that no part of the Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2 presentation has been an afterthought. With Pinterest mood boards, video treatments, and a book’s worth of Instagram pages informing every element of the graphic design process (from pointed, blocky type fonts to bubblegum color schemes), Tkay has been plotting the look of her most recent release from the very earliest stages of development.

“I let the music write itself,” she exclaims. “But then I see a whole world evolve around it. When I know the song is good, I can picture exactly what I’m going to wear — and what the vibe of the video is going to be like.”

Her most recent video, ’24k,’ is as good a place to start as any. While the Mad Max “tech romance” inspired clip for ‘Shook’ (directed by Beyonce and Dua Lipa collaborator Jenna Marsh) made a massive statement combining junkyards, biker gangs, dancers, and deserts, ‘You Sad’ and ‘Don’t Call Again’ dialed back the scale and amped up the color with kaleidoscopic CGI and references to Charlie’s Angels. The latter two had to be shot on green screen due to COVID-19 restrictions, so when given a chance to get out into the world again for her latest single, Tkay made sure she made the most of it.

“It’s so important to get my personality in there because this project represents everything that I’m about,” she says assertively. “I’ve played sport my whole life — tennis, soccer, everything — so I wanted to have that balance of being feminine, but in a masculine way. Sport feels like an honest representation of that. It’s what being a tomboy is all about.”

No surprises then — ’24k’ turns the energy up to 100, filling out gym halls and boxing rings with breakdancers and strobe lights to amplify the boisterous energy supplied by the track’s pumping beat and rhythmic vocals. Most striking, though, are Tkay’s bodacious outfits; they’re the kind of high-concept get-ups that hark back to the golden years of MTV.

A jumpsuit-mermaid-wedding-dress hybrid and a zebra-print trenchcoat are among the highlights in ’24k’. “It’s a way to express how fun you are,” says Tkay, citing the couture garmets supplied by Berlin label Namilia as central to the concept from the get-go. So much importance was placed on styling, she admits, that they ended up postponing the shoot for three weeks to wait for the clothes to arrive from Germany: “It was in the middle of the pandemic — DHL was like, “We don’t know where the parcel is!”

But for Tkay, fashion means more than just surface impressions. “With strong, structured clothes you create new shapes. Your existing body doesn’t matter — you can become whatever you want.” And since the Last Year Was Weird story is “all about growing, and evolving,” it’s important to reflect that in the imagery. “When I’m making all these Pinterest collages, I’m thinking of the ultimate Tkay. If she were a real person, what would she wear?”

As the Pinterest mantle ‘POWERPUFF BITCH’ rightly suggests, this determination and zeal stems back to her childhood. The ’90s, Tkay says, was a “simpler time,” where people expressed themselves through color and comfort; baggy pants and big shirts. “You could really tell what kind of person someone was based on what they wore back then,” she continues, citing the “hyperreal” and “tomboyish” looks of Lauryn Hill, Naomi Campbell, and Aaliyah as key inspirations.

“When you grow up, you want to find where you come from more and more,” says Tkay, laughing as she sends over a photo of her younger self, dressed in a crop top and shorts. “A lot of people mirror who they were as a child in their clothes — I literally don’t think my style has changed since then!”

It’s “future nostalgia,” as she describes it, that is at the heart of her identity: a sense of longing for the sounds and sights of her youth, seen from the vantage of the present, and powered with the energy to take it somewhere new. With this concept in mind, it’s no surprise to learn that founding a personal fashion brand was the final piece in the puzzle for Tkay’s far-reaching Last Year Was Weird campaign. Inspired by the entrepreneurship of musicians like Rihanna and Tyler, The Creator, and a love for vibrant start-up brands and independent designers like Mowalola, Tkay knew from the start that the standard artist merchandising route wasn’t for her.

“When I was in high school, I remember making these big collages and printing them onto shirts. But it was so expensive, and I did not know much about promoting clothing back then,” Tkay reflects of her early forays into the world of design. “But it became more important to me again around Last Year Was Weird because I wanted the project to exist in so many different ways — not just pigeonholed as one thing. And I’ve been doing music for so long — I need other avenues to be creative, to express myself.”

The Last Year Was Weird clothing range, then, has its sights set on much greater things. “I want to do pop-ups in London, New York, LA — and I would love to open a flagship, to bring it to festivals and creative hubs, and to have musicians plan so we can promote each other’s brands.”

“I really believe in the concept of a brand being by the people, for the people — That’s what excites me more than anything.”

With the third and final EP of the Last Year Was Weird series due for completion in 2021 after Tkay jets back to LA this winter (“Adelaide’s a bit too relaxed for me — anyone with big dreams leaves eventually!”), Tkay’s already thinking about how she can expand her world even further. “It’s all about just doing anything I can do maximize the project,” she says.

And be it “strapping a tripod to a bike” or flying a drone around the Australian outback, you can be sure that Tkay will go the extra mile to deliver her craft with an element of swagger. Because in her world, if you want to prove your substance, you need to have some style.

Bryan Cranston’s new Showtime limited series, Your Honor, will definitely remind you of several other shows. There are the inevitable comparisons to Breaking Bad, of course, and to be sure, Cranston’s character executes his most Walter White-like maneuvers since Heisenberg left the building with AMC’s 2013 “Felina” finale. Some The Wire vibes echo throughout, and the presence of Isaiah Whitlock Jr. only encourages that feeling, along with Michael Stuhlbarg doing mob-affiliated things like he did in Boardwalk Empire. Margo Martindale is also around to remind everyone of her wealth of prestige-drama work. I could go on naming other titles, but it’s probably best to cut that conversation short, other than to mention Your Honor‘s commonalities with Apple TV+’s recent Defending Jacob, starring Chris Evans.

Like Defending Jacob, Your Honor features an A-list actor portraying a father who works in the justice system and goes to unorthodox lengths to shelter his son. In both cases, the kid’s potentially on the hook for homicide, so there are some ethical shenanigans happening, to an extreme degree with the latter show. Both shows stuff themselves full of fine performances, and both let their casts down with bloated, drawn-out pacing. Both shows are good, though not great, and that might be enough if you want a Panic-Cranston fix while we all wait to see whether Walter White will appear in Better Call Saul‘s final season. Again here, he’s playing a sort-of everyman (albeit one with more power than Walt), who tangos with the criminal underworld after making an incredibly bad decision that quickly sets off a series of even worse decisions, eventually leading to a sh*tload of collateral damage. And a lot of Panic Faces.

Yes, that component cannot be ignored: Bryan Cranston excels at Panic Faces, and it is damn enjoyable to watch his skills in a crime-drama again. To be fair as well, Showtime only screened 4 out of 10 episodes for critics, so it’s obviously not possible to judge the season as a whole. The first episode, also, is quite gripping in places, albeit agonizing to watch at times. That’d include the aforementioned homicide, which is viscerally rendered when the aforementioned son, Adam (Hunter Doohan), inadvertently kills a motorcyclist and lingers on a street with the dying victim before deciding to hit-and-run.

My god, this scene’s a tough several minutes to stomach, but there’s an audience payoff soon after when Cranston’s character, New Orleans-based judge Michael Desiato, makes his initial very bad choice. What later transpires would add up to a decent show under normal standards — meaning a series that does not star Cranston as a character who won’t let you forget his greatest role. It’s frustrating, really, to not only witness Cranston in an intense debut episode, but then to watch the show slide into dilemma-land. By that, I mean the dilemma often faced by prestige dramas, which often draw out what could be a two-part movie into a ten-hour season. Even after only four episodes, where Cranston’s character transforms from an upstanding citizen to someone whose actions really hurt people, there’s a lot of padding.

Let’s talk about the setup here. Judge Desiato recently became a widower. The story kicks off on the one-year anniversary of that tragedy with Adam visiting the Lower Ninth Ward venue of his mother’s untimely death. There’s an instance of extreme panic that causes Adam to lose sight of the road while driving, and he ends up killing the son of a ruthless crime boss, Jimmy Baxter (Stuhlbarg). And Desiato decides that the best move is to help his son stay out of prison, where he surely could not stay alive due to the whole mob thing. Well, Desiato’s decision and his privilege lead to a despicable situation fraught with social inequity. This situation ultimately grows even uglier than the crash scene, but the story’s momentum falters, so that by the time Margo Martindale shows up, it’s more of an event than what’s actually happening onscreen. That’s the case for the entire (stellar) supporting cast, all Hope Davis, Lorraine Toussaint, and Amy Landecker. Like Martindale and the male co-stars, all onboard do their best to bring multiple dimensions to their characters, filling them out in a way that doesn’t receive justice from a story that contains far too much filler to properly showcase their performances.

However, no one can accuse Your Honor of not giving the audience plenty to look at (Cranston spends a lot of time in a New Orleans cemetery, as the header picture indicates) while meandering. The show’s written by Peter Moffat (who’s also showrunning), who clearly meant to explore the same issues of race and social injustice that he did with HBO’s The Night Of. With Your Honor, he’s remaking an Israeli series as seen through a NOLA-based lens, contrasting the more well-to-do areas with that of the Lower Ninth Ward, where the more violent crimes of the series take place and where Desiato’s collateral damage ends up wreaking the most havoc. There’s also an intriguing blend of exploring all of these different neighborhoods but still taking a small-town view of NOLA, as a place where everyone’s connected and knows-a-guy who can make things happen. That aspect lends a lot of storytelling promise, but the delivery lacks adequate depth, perhaps because shallow waters of story-filler bog down the whole.

That’s the thing here. Your Honor did arrive with a lot of promise, not only with a fantastic cast but a lot of effort poured into making this at least look like an exploration of inequity as contrasted with white males who can easily manipulate the system with a little effort. And who knows, the back half of the season might make use of more powerful metaphors than Judge Desiato literally running while attempting to escape secrets and lies in a story where no one wins, although some characters lose a lot harder than others. It’s a grim show, one that has bursts of intensity without enough structure to prop them up for more. There’s also not a lot to root for here when it comes to Judge Desiato, unlike with Walter White, who managed to keep viewers on his side for long enough (and even at the end) long enough that some of us felt kinda guilty about it.

Again, the comparisons between leading characters, and even between Your Honor and Breaking Bad feel unfair. I do feel terrible for continuing to mention the AMC show because it set such an impossibly high bar to meet, but one doesn’t cast Bryan Cranston in a role like this without inviting those comparisons. So, Cranston ends up not only being the biggest asset in this show, but also something of a weakness, since presence encourages the use of an unfair measuring stick. When you watch him in a crime drama, you unavoidably expect top-notch storytelling. However, Your Honor regularly doles out reminders that it doesn’t come close to approaching Breaking Bad levels of excellence. It’s not fair, but them’s the breaks.

Granted, Cranston plays this type of lost-his-moral-compass guy so deftly that it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Desiato. He swings so admirably down into the gutters of corruption while (at least at first) maintaining a wholesome exterior that it’s a pleasure to watch his performance, and to wonder to what lengths this badly-behaving character will devolve and, eventually, fundamentally change. I wouldn’t call this show a swing-and-miss, more of a matter of keeping one’s expectations in check. The meandering pace might be offset enough for you by the fine performances, including — and I want to type this one more time in closing — Panic-Cranston.

Showtime’s ‘Your Honor debuts on Sunday, December 6.

As basically the biggest name in hip-hop for almost three decades, Jay-Z’s annual year-end playlist on Tidal is one of music fans’ most-anticipated traditions. He even dropped a mid-year list this summer, driven by the energy of nationwide uprising. Due to his status as one of the rare rap elder statesmen who never lost touch with the youth movement in the genre, Jay’s list often includes additions that highlight his awareness and ear for stars, giving light to both the biggest hits and some of the rising newcomers in the game.

This year’s list does it again. While there are plenty of obvious selections — Beyonce’s “Black Parade” is here, lest the man never gets a moment of peace at home again (it is a good song, though), and Jay Electronica naturally makes a couple of appearances (giving Jay-Z a chance to put himself on his list, as well) — there are also some surprises. Jay digs deep to surface underground gems from Boldy James, Mach-Hommy, Morray, and Roc Marciano and shows off his global taste by including Burna Boy and Master KG. R&B singer KeiyaA gets multiple placements, making her someone to watch for in 2021.

That said, much of the list is given over to the year’s brightest stars. Drake appears multiple times, as does Jay’s former nemesis Nas, while younger rappers like Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Megan Thee Stallion, Pop Smoke, and Saint JHN round out the list. 2 Chainz’s “Southside Hov” is also something of a cheeky add on the part of the Roc Nation CEO, reciprocating the appreciation Chainz shows on the track.

You can check out the list on Tidal and preview songs below.