HBO Max will launch on May 27, and like a lot of people, you might be wondering if your HBO subscription will get you in the door at no extra charge. It’s a valid question, given that cable packages are pricey, with or without premium channels, and paying for HBO Max on top of HBO doesn’t sound appealing. The good news is that HBO Max is serious about standing as a formidable rival to Netflix and Disney. Not only will the service offer 10,000+ movie and TV titles (both on the library catalog and original content sides), but it’s shaping up to be competitive, pricewise. We’ll try and clear up some confusion here.

The Cost Of HBO Max If It’s Not Part Of Your Existing HBO Package:

If you’re coming to HBO Max dry — that is, if you aren’t one of the fortunate viewers who will be rolled into membership with an existing HBO subscription elsewhere or as an HBO Now subscriber — then HBO Max’s standard price will run $14.99 per month. That’s a higher price than Netflix’s standard plan ($12.99) and lower than its premium plan ($15.99). HBO Max also runs the same baseline price as HBO Now, but a special introductory deal exists to lock people into a 12-month HBO Max rate at $11.99 per month. A limited number of these discounted subscriptions are up for grabs before May 27, so visit the HBO Max home page to take advantage of the offer.

Naturally, anyone who can avoid being charged separately for HBO Max will want to do so. We’re all thrifty! So it only makes sense to look for ways to save money. First, let’s recap the other ways that you might already watch HBO: mainly, the other two HBO streaming services (HBO Go and HBO Now) already offered.

What Is HBO Max Vs. HBO Go And HBO Now?

– HBO Max is the newcomer streaming platform from WarnerMedia. The service will feature 10,000+ hours of premium content, which includes HBO’s entire library, HBO Max Originals, tons of Warner Bros. movies and TV shows, and much more.

– HBO Go is the on-demand streaming service that HBO cable viewers already receive as part of their subscription. The service includes HBO’s original content and rotating monthly selections, and access is tied directly into your specific cable TV package.

– HBO Now is a standalone, on-demand streaming offering for people who don’t hold a cable or satellite package but still want to subscribe to HBO and watch on a smart TV, laptop, tablet, phone or other compatible devices. The current price for this service is $14.99 per month, and many current HBO Now subscribers will automatically receive HBO Max access (when the service launches) without any added cost.

So If You’ve Got HBO, Do You Get The HBO Max Upgrade For Free?

Maybe. The current guidelines aren’t clear cut, and they’re very much in flux. Here’s where the issue stands as of now:

– Those who subscribe to HBO (and, in turn, HBO Go) through a cable TV service may (or may not) be in luck. As it stands, there’s no deal between HBO and many cable TV service companies (including Comcast and Cox), but that could change in the future. However, HBO subscribers who pay for the channel through Charter or an AT&T package will receive HBO Max at no added charge. That includes subscribers to the AT&T-owned DirecTV, IPTV, and AT&T TV, which means that millions of these HBO customers will get rolled into HBO Max.

– HBO Now subscribers who pay straight through HBONow.com will automatically receive access to HBO Max when it launches. So will subscribers who sign up for HBO with the Hulu add-on. And HBO Max has made a special point of saying that more partnerships might pop up before and following launch. Right now, though, it remains unclear whether those who pay for HBO Now as an add-on service through Amazon Prime, Apple, or Roku will also gain access to HBO Max with no extra charge.

– We do know that neither HBO Go nor HBO Now will be erased from existence for the foreseeable future. You can keep on doing your thing and pretend that HBO Max doesn’t exist, but you probably will want to enjoy the expanded library if you can.

Where The Topic Goes From Here:

If you’re a cable subscriber who remains (understandably) puzzled on whether you’ll receive access to HBO Max at no extra charge, your best bet is to ask your cable provider. That’s easier said than done, we know. HBO Max’s FAQ page is also a good source for updates because, soon, HBO Max will also be the only place to stream every episode of Friends and enjoy an expanding slate of wonderful-sounding HBO Max Original TV series and movies. Beyond an included cable package, the easiest way to get HBO Max rolled into an existing HBO service is through HBO Now (directly or through Hulu), so if you’re tempted to cut the cord, there’s one more reason to do so. That, however, might feel like a drastic move, so maybe hang tight and see what happens — other partnerships may very well surface as HBO Max evolves.

HBO Max launches on Wednesday, May 27.

Lil Durk has made feeding people something of a habit. Just weeks after he hand delivered hot meals to healthcare workers in his native Chicago, Durk does the same for some of the city’s most downtrodden residents in the somber video for his latest single, “Street Prayer.”

In the video, not only does Durk feed the needy, but he also addresses the justice system and how faith plays into his charity, literally demonstrating prayer through a scene of Durk and his bodyguards observing Salah, the Muslim practice of kneeling toward Mecca. He wears a thawb and a taqiyah throughout the video, in keeping with the spiritual theme.

“Street Prayer” is the latest single from Durk’s fifth studio album, Just Cause Y’all Waited 2, which released Friday, May 8, and landed at No. 5 on the US Billboard 200 chart, making it his second top-five debut (after 2019’s Love Songs 4 The Streets 2). He also released a video for “Doin Too Much,” while his collaboration with Lil Baby and Polo G, “3 Headed Goat” marked his first Hot 100 entry as the principal artist. The album drop was also preceded by “Chiraq Demons” with G Herbo

Durk’s experienced a big bounce back from 2019, when he was put on house arrest after being charged with intent to commit murder in an Atlanta shooting. While the case still has yet to be resolved, it appears that Durk is intent on making the most of his time until the trial, donating masks and meals to health workers in Atlanta, appearing on Wild N Out with Chance The Rapper, and performing his above-mentioned acts of service.

Watch Lil Durk’s “Street Prayer” video above.

Lauv released his debut record How I’m Feeling just last month, which boasted an impressive 21 songs. The singer returns with a psychedelic video accompanying his Sofía Reyes collaboration, “El Tejano.”

Directed by Kid. Studio and filmed pre-quarantine at the LA restaurant that inspired the song, the “El Tejano” video takes Lauv on a spicy pepper-induced trip. Lauv gives into his friends’ peer pressure and eats a hot pepper. The unexpected spiciness sends him on a mind-bending journey throughout the restaurant, complete with bizarre characters and disorienting visuals.

In an interview with Uproxx following his How I’m Feeling release, Lauv said:

“My songs are just a way for me to be honest about those things and confront them, and admit them to myself. And then it’s up to me to actually look at those things and change them. So it’s something that takes practice for me, focusing on being a better friend, step by step, when my friends call me up and making cognitive changes to be more there for them, and to spend less time on the internet, and to care less about what people think of me, and fuck with substances less. Stuff like that. The first step is admitting, but the second step is actually making change. That’s sometimes the harder part.”

Watch the “El Tejano” video above.

How I’m Feeling is out now via AWAL. Get it here.

Sofía Reyes is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Aside from being the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan is also huge in the meme community, whether we’re talking about “Crying Jordan” or “Stop it, get some help.” Now the new Chicago Bulls documentary, The Last Dance, has yielded even more meme-able MJ clips, like a couple different ones of Jordan reacting to video on an iPad. The final two episodes of the ten-part series aired over the weekend, and they left the world with one last meme.

There’s a scene where Jordan is on the team bus listening to a then-unreleased song from Kenny Lattimore. The singer confirmed the story, writing on Twitter, “In 1998 I sent Michael Jordan an advanced copy of my ‘From the Soul of Man’ album. Who knew ‘Days Like This’ was his pre-game hype song though.” So we know what Jordan was listening to, but somebody saw an opportunity and made the @JordanJamming Twitter account, which puts other songs over the footage, and it’s pretty great.

The account has racked up over 21 thousand followers since yesterday, and it kicked things off with The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside”:

Naturally, they also had to get Future and Drake’s “Jumpman”:

There are a bunch of other great ones, so check some out below.

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The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Charlotte Aitchison is at her best when she works fast.

Nothing illustrates this more than “Claws,” the first single off her newest album as Charli XCX, How I’m Feeling Now, which was released last Friday. Glitchy, grunge-pop for the obsessive indoor love that tends to swell when real danger is suddenly omnipresent, “Claws” is a culmination of everything that Charli XCX does right. The production is dreamy, jittery pop intersecting with industrial clank, the lyrics are saccharine sweet nothings that pivot on a dime toward raunchy like a horny free association exercise — this is “We Didn’t Start The Fire” cadence, but make it crush culture — and, underlying it all, an unflinching vulnerability, the kind that’s impossible to achieve without a wild amount of inner strength, as anyone who has been in an adult relationship knows. Charli does all that in under three minutes, crafting the perfect first track to introduce an album she made in less than two months.

There’s working fast, then there’s nearly superhuman.

Lately, it seems like Charli might be the latter. And, “Claws” is only one song out of eleven — some of which are even better than the lead single. How I’m Feeling Now has been in the world for just about five days at the time of writing this, and already it’s inching its way up in the ranking of her discography. It’s early yet, but this one just might be the best album of her career. It’s also the most emotionally raw album of her discography, and maybe, the happiest, despite it all. She’s shared one of the biggest influences on this release is her longterm long-distance boyfriend moving in with her to wait out quarantine, and how much the physical proximity of the last few months have changed their relationship. If How I’m Feeling Now reflects anything, it’s a relationship in metamorphosis, maturing and deeping in real time.

When making her 2017 “mixtape” Pop 2, Aitchison and the tape’s producer, AG Cook, who shows up again in a big way on Feeling talked at length about how they pieced the entire Pop 2 tape together in just three months, 13 collaborators notwithstanding. Arguably her best work up until last Friday, and objectively a pivotal moment in Charli’s career, that mixtape’s popularity with fans and critics alike seemed to eclipse the painstaking care and years of work that went into Charli, last year’s official album released with plenty of press lead up, flashy music videos, and another full slate of high-profile guests. That isn’t to say Charli wasn’t a triumph in plenty of ways, I still come back to “Gone” and “Click” regularly, but her self-titled inadvertently revealed Charli’s greatest strength — she works best when working quickly, and that sense of immediacy comes through in her newest music. (She’s already compared these two albums herself, dubbing them sisters.)

With that context, the strength of this latest release — an official album this time but one created in just 39 days during isolation due to the pandemic of COVID-19 — is unsurprising in some ways. But it’s still rather astonishing to realize that in the course of six weeks, and while facing the restrictions of limited travel and minimal face-to-face contact, Charli made a better pop album than most stars can come up with when they have access to practically unlimited resources. The resonance of this album is partially due to another element that’s totally different for an XCX release — there isn’t a single guest, most likely another necessary constraint of social distancing guidelines and the speed of release.

Aitchison has always been an ally of LGBTQ artists, and always uses her platform specifically to support lesser-known musicians, yet sometimes the sheer volume of guests on songs and records would distract from the force of Charli herself. How I’m Feeling Now remedies this, too, because as much as she’s historically used her reach to prop up others in the past, there ‘ something special about the single-mindedness of just hearing… Charli. It mimics the self-examination quarantine has forced us all to grapple with, and allows her to open up lyrically like never before.

As an avid user of social media, especially now, Charli has dropped plenty of information about her inspirations for the record, like noting that the careening first song on the album, “Pink Diamond,” was inspired by J. Lo, and everyone but the most casual fans will notice that “c2.0” is a chopped up remix of the Charli standout “Click.” But most of the context listeners need is embedded directly in these songs, which are so emotionally direct it’s almost jarring, at least enough to wake listeners up out of my their relationship self-sabotage.

“Forever” is my personal favorite, an early standout and an aching love song spiked with Imogen Heap-style vocoder that acknowledges the way impermanence is tied up with every kind of love — honeymoon phase gone zen — and “Detonate” is a stark portrait of what it’s like trying to love someone while hating yourself. “Party 4 U” flips the old familiar script of girl-throws-party-to-impress-boy and makes it into an intimate moment shared between two people, while “7 Years” takes a bombastic synth beat and turns it into an anthem of devotion, bringing fans into some of the specifics that Charli’s lengthy relationship has included.

The vast majority of these songs are dedicated to analyzing what it takes to be in love with someone, and how that experience shifts and warps under pressure — whether that be global fame or a global pandemic. But, when it comes to experiencing the sudden, insane rush of pressure that accompanies isolation, uncertainty, and fear, Charli has done the work of synthesizing what life feels like now for all of us, managing to anchor herself in love despite the endless drone of white noise and static of the outside world. Thankfully, she did it quickly enough for us to give it our full attention, while we’re all still stuck inside.

How I’m Feeling Now is out now via Atlantic Records. Get it here.

Eminem has been at the top of hip-hop for decades now, and he’s worked hard the entire time. Fat Joe just shared a good story that exemplifies this, as Eminem apparently once sent Joe entirely too many verses for a song they were working on.

On a recent episode of the Drink Champs podcast, Joe discussed some potential upcoming Versuz battles with Lenny S, DJ EFN, and N.O.R.E. While touting Eminem’s greatness, Joe spoke about the time Eminem sent him 30 different versions of his verse for the “Lean Back” remix, saying:

“He sent me that same verse 30 different times, saying it with a different tone, lighter tone… he wouldn’t make up his mind. 30 different takes and verses… the same verse! Same verse! Different flows, different high or low… I don’t know what to tell you. This dude is such a perfectionist. It was like, ‘Alright, we know the verse! Can we let it go? We’re running down to the wire.’”

Joe wasn’t always Eminem’s most fervent supporter, though. Back when Eminem was young and just trying to get his demos heard, Joe didn’t listen. He said last year, “Eminem out here in Miami, he gave me his demo like six different times. Everywhere I went was this little white boy and he kept giving me his demo. He was like, ‘Yo, listen to my music, I’m telling you, I’m nice, I’m nice, I’m nice.’ […] I didn’t do it and now he’s the biggest guy in the universe.”

Revisit the “Lean Back” remix below.

After her Hot Pink song “Say So” went from viral sensation to Billboard No. 1, it looks like Doja Cat is the unofficial queen of TikTok. Users on the app took the album cut, choreographed a simple dance routine to it, and uploaded so many videos of the dance that Doja and her label made “Say So” an official single and shot a music video featuring Doja and her backup dancers performing the fan-created moves. The already highly-charting song was then remixed by Nicki Mina, shooting it at last to the top of the Hot 100 chart.

Now, it looks like Doja might do it all again, thanks to TikTok users latching onto her latest sound — a song that hasn’t even come out yet. As she does from time to time, Doja played the unreleased track during an Instagram Live session with her fans. On the chorus she sings, “N****s ain’t sh*t,” leading many to assume that would be the title.

One line in particular seems to have stood out to her fans, prompting them to start uploaded videos reciting the bar to their TikToks. “That’s not cheatin’ if I wasn’t with your ass, yo,” Doja raps on the second verse. It seems to be a relatable sentiment; a bunch of videos have since cropped up on TikTok, as fans emphatically perform the lyrics into the camera — presumably to the would-be romantic partners in their lives.

Might Doja Cat have another huge hit on her hands? It’s more than possible; when Drake similarly previewed “Toosie Slide,” it took him less than a week to have a viral hit on his hands once he actually put the song itself out. While “N****s Ain’t Sh*t” is a lot less family-friendly and doesn’t have a catchy dance behind it (yet), it does have one thing in its favor — Doja Cat can make a viral hit out of nearly anything, from a retro disco dance number to a song about being a cow.

Check out videos of Doja previewing her new song and the fan responses to it from TikTok above.

Kumail Nanjiani is, at long last, ready to talk. He is, after all these years, finally* breaking his silence. It’s here, today, that he throws caution to the wind and speaks openly and candidly about two subjects that he’s never discussed publicly before: the 1982 Don Coscarelli film The Beastmaster, and the 1983 Peter Yates epic, Krull.

*So, when this interview was being set up, Nanjiani mentioned that he wanted a break from the more standard set of questions about his new film, in which he co-stars with Issa Rae that premieres on Netflix this week, The Lovebirds. A movie in which Nanjiani and Rae play a couple on the verge of breaking up who, after witnessing a murder, are thrust into an all night adventure in the seedy underbelly of New Orleans. Which, as Nanjiani pointed out, does lead to a question like, “Was there any improv on set?,” more than you’d probably think. When I asked him what he wanted to talk about instead, the speed in which he replied The Beastmaster and Krull was pretty remarkable. So, it was set, we’d both rewatch The Beastmaster and Krull – two movies neither of us have seen since we were children – and discuss what these movies are like watching through adult eyes.

As for the title, about a week ago there was an article about Matt Damon living in quarantine in Ireland and the headline was something like, “Matt Damon breaks his silence about living in Ireland,” and I just thought it was perfect and wanted one of my own. So here it is.

Are you finally ready to break your silence about The Beastmaster and Krull?

Yes.

That should be the headline. Accompanied with a photo where you look somewhat forlorn like, “I’ve got something important to say.”

Yes, exactly. I finally worked up the courage to talk about this. I know you’ve been waiting.

Just like Matt Damon breaking his silence about living in an Irish village.

People have been beating down his door.

I haven’t seen either of these movies since I was a little kid. But rewatching now, Rip Torn is the villain in The Beastmaster. I had no idea.

Obviously, I didn’t know who Rip Torn was back then. But I think of Rip Torn as such a contemporary personality. And then he’s playing some sort of evil priest. I think he’s a religious sorcerer, but we don’t see him do any actual magic.

His magic trick is picking up children and throwing them into fire. He does this a few times. It is an evil thing to do.

He hates children. He is very cool just murdering children.

This movie is disturbing. I do remember a kid being scared of those creatures that have the wings that turn people into slime.

Yeah, they do an external digestion thing. I did not remember that. First of all, when you said disturbing, I thought you were going to talk about the sexual assault that our hero lays on the heroin the first time he meets her. He has his ferret steal her clothes as she’s bathing naked. Then he forces a kiss on her. It’s like, really?

Yeah, Kodo and Podo steal her clothes. Overall, this movie is a lot more, let’s say, “erotic” than I remember? I’m surprised my parents were cool with me watching this on a neverending loop.

I know. As I was watching it, I understood why nine-year-old Kumail was very intrigued by this movie. The other thing I want to say is I think Kodo and Podo steal the movie. The entire time I was like, if anything happens to these two little fuckers, I’m going to be so upset. Then Kodo or Podo sacrifices himself to kill Rip Torn.

That was Kodo. Then Podo has kids at the end.

Right. There are more Kodo’s coming.

My memory of Kodo’s death is much more graphic. In reality he just kind of jumps at Rip Torn then they both fall and that’s it.

In little Mike’s brain that was all filled in. What I remember most about this movie was, and I didn’t realize until I watched, was the eye and the ring. That was the image. As soon as that came on, I was like this is burned into some part of my brain. By the way, eye in a ring is the most obvious spy tool ever. Obviously, that thing is checking out what you’re doing. The eye, put shades on it.

Right, it’s a ring with a giant eyeball, just looking around. And to kill it, John Amos uses a flaming hot wood stick poker. And even an eyeball inside a ring, it’s really gross to see it hit with a flaming stick.

And it’s cool when it gets hit by the stick, and then it cuts to the witch woman getting it in her eye. I thought that was a cool image. What I noticed was that this was directed by Don Coscarelli, who has done a lot of great horror movies. You could definitely see that a horror director made this because there are horrifying things in this movie. Like the winged people who do the external digestion, as you were saying.

Yeah, I don’t like them at all. So, Marc Singer…

Yes!

If you told me back then that in 2020 Marc Singer isn’t the most famous actor on earth right now, I would have be shocked. He’s Beastmaster and he’s Mike Donovan in V.

Yeah, exactly. At that time, I think he was looking in the mirror going, “This shit is too easy.”

Mike Donovan in V was my first Marc Singer experience and when I first saw him…

“The Mark Singer Experience” is pretty good title…

You should title your next podcast that.

What were you going to say when you first saw him in V?

Well, he just looks like this normal guy in V. And then you see him in The Beastmaster and he’s huge. Then I watched V again and it’s like, oh, yes, he’s huge, but he’s just wearing clothes.

Yeah, I was surprised watching The Beastmaster. I knew Marc Singer was in both, but re-watching The Beastmaster now, I was surprised at how big he is in the movie. He looks the part in V because in my head I was like, “Oh, they took normal city guy,” which is how I remembered my Mike Donovan.

I think Mike Donovan was a television cameraman?

Yeah. He was just a normal guy. And I was like, “What? They put him in The Beastmaster?“ When I started watching it last week, I was expecting it to be a guy who’s a little soft around the edges, but he looks great. He looks like a barbarian!

Are you at a stage now with your workout regiment where you look at Marc Singer and you’re comparing notes? Do you think, “I know what he did. I know how he got to Beastmaster shape”?

Yes. I was thinking it the entire time I was watching the movie. This is embarrassing to admit, but I was like, “Okay. He stayed away from carbs and he dehydrated himself a little bit. I know what kind of workout you did.”

Were you thinking to yourself, finally in your life you could go pound for pound with the Beastmaster?

Nowadays, when you’re doing a movie like that, you prep for the one day where you’re going to be shirtless. That dude was shirtless the entire time. Watching the movie was actually a stressful experience for me, because I imagined that he had to watch his diet the entire time. This movie was shot, I looked it up, for five and a half months.

What?

Five and a half months that dude had to eat like that!

How many pushups do we think Marc Singer did on set?

I bet he could do a hundred pushups without pausing. And I bet he did those once every other hour or so.

Rip Torn, the main enemy of the movie dies, and I swear I thought that movie was over. It goes on for like another 30 minutes.

Oh my God!

They just keep fighting people. I don’t even know where they were coming from.

I remember when Rip Torn died, I was like, listen, I enjoyed the movie, but I was like, Okay, I can live my life now. And then I hit to see how much time was left and it was about another 25 minutes. It’s crazy that the main bad guy, whose name we know, whose face we can see, is killed and then the faceless bad guys show up.

It would be like killing Darth Vader. And then, well, I guess we need to spend 45 minutes killing Stormtroopers.

Exactly! You’re like, “Kodo is dead! What else is left to do?”

What are your thoughts on Krull? God, what a weird thing we’re doing…

Okay, here’s my thoughts on Krull! Krull, I was very excited of the theme anesthetic of this movie. It’s swords and lasers! I love Masters of the Universe. It’s got technology and magic. Immediately I’m like, I love this. In the beginning, there’s a couple of surprises in the credits. You’ve got Liam Neeson.

Right. Liam Neeson’s in this movie. It was just like Rip Torn in a “what are you doing here?” way.

Liam Neeson in a pretty small part of the movie, too. He and Robbie Coltrane are sort of in the gang and not big members of the good army. They’re sort of fringe members. And I thought that the beast, the main bad guy in this, looked awesome. I thought the design of the black fortress – which is the spaceship capital of the bad guy, with the matte paintings and stuff – I thought that that was awesome. I was very surprised at the overlaps in both movies. Both movies have prophecies, obviously. Very prophecy heavy movies. Both movies have eye stuff. In the first one, you have an eye in the ring. In the second one, you have the cyclops, which is the image that I remember really well from this movie. And then both movies have quicksand in them, too.

Yes, these are both quicksand movies. Quicksand used to be very popular.

Which can explain why I was terrified. Oh my God. This explains why I was terrified of quicksand as a kid. I really thought I’d encounter it in my life.

So, there were a lot of moments in The Beastmaster I remembered. I didn’t have that with Krull except one. The advertising for Krull focused on the weapon, which is called Glaive and looks incredibly cool. About 100 minutes into Krull I was like, “When is he going to use Glaive?!?” Which is the same reaction I had as a kid. He doesn’t use that thing until the end.

Yeah. If you have that, just use it all the time!

Well, he wants to use it right away! And then his trainer is like, “No, you can’t use that. You’ll know when to use it.” Apparently, that’s two hours later.

Also I thought that the weapon was named Krull because, in my defense, in the beginning, you see the weapon spinning around, and as it goes by it leaves the title of the movie behind. I was like, okay, it’s spelling out its name as it exits screen right. But it’s called the Glaive. Krull is the name of the planet. I don’t like that.

See, I thought the guy was named Krull. Ken Marshall, who plays the lead character, Colwyn, when he shows up I was like, “Here comes Krull. He’s going to save the day.” I knew the weapon was called something else, but I couldn’t remember what it was called. But I thought the guy was Krull.

What’s his name?

Colwyn.

What?

Colwyn. C-O-L-W-Y-N.

And Beastmaster’s name is like Arg or Barg, or something like that?

Dar.

Gosh.

These iconic characters today that we can’t forget.

[Laughs] Yes. Oh my God. Now they have to be like, “Are you a Dar, or are you a Colwyn?”

Nothing against Ken Marshall who played Colwyn, do you think there was any moment on set Peter Yates. who directed this thing, was like, “Oh man, we really should’ve maybe cast that Liam Neeson guy as the main guy”?

Exactly.

Anytime Liam Neeson has a line, you can tell he’s really good.

I would watch him in the background of scenes and even when he had no lines, he was fully present, really giving it his all. He was pulling focus without being the focus just by being such a great actor. Also, I was surprised to realize that Krull is a much bigger budget movie than The Beastmaster was. In my memory I was like, “Krull‘s the low budget one and The Beastmaster was a huge movie.” It’s the other way around.

The other thing I kept thinking, Peter Suschitzky is the cinematographer, who was also the DP on The Empire Strikes Back. I wonder when he’s filming if he’s thinking, “I know what they’re going for, but this ain’t it.”

Right. Exactly. This was definitely a “you’re no Jack Kennedy moment.”

So, some two hours later Colwyn finally uses the Glaive and it basically just bounces off some rocks and knocks some rocks down. Then it stabs the bad guy, but doesn’t kill him. The bad guys like, whatever, and just dismisses it. Then Colwyn shoots fire out of his hand and kills the bad guy.

It’s a lot of mixed messaging. The fire out of his hand, you forgot before the fire scene, while the beast is there, he and the princess have a weird romantic moment that they take their time with before he shoots the fire.

Right. She somehow hands him the fire.

Yes, that’s right. This movie really leans into the romantic chemistry between Colwyn, and … Lyssa?

Princess Lyssa, yes.

This is the emotional spine of Krull, that relationship. That movie starts with the two of them and it ends with the two of them. They had sizzling romantic chemistry, and I think they really missed the trick in separating them for most of the movie.

[We are told there’s time for one last question.]

Was there any improv on the set of Lovebirds?

[Laughs] No, we just stuck exactly to the script.

‘Lovebirds’ begins streaming via Netflix on May 22. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

No band I ostensibly like annoys me more than The 1975. They annoy me so much that I can probably no longer accurately describe myself as a fan. If this is where I exit the bandwagon, it might as well be with their most bloated and self-important album, the forthcoming 22-track, 80-minute Notes On A Conditional Form, due out Friday.

Before we get into that, however, let’s revisit happier times: I remember being a defender of this band after their infamous performance on Saturday Night Live in 2016. I truly got a kick out of Matty Healy’s “non-satirical Aldous Snow” shtick — the naked torso, the leather pants, the crotch-thrusting, the tongue-wagging. Here was a guy who was seemingly smart enough to realize that he was the frontman of an enjoyably dumb pop-rock band, and he was having an absolute blast with it. They were like a hipper, more self-aware Imagine Dragons. Their reach exceeded their grasp, sure, but perhaps by reaching too far they would eventually stumble upon greatness.

Unfortunately, The 1975 had already hit their peak. Their second and best album, I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It — I even found that album title charming back then! — set a template that each subsequent 1975 album has followed. For all of the talk about this band’s eclecticism, and how it supposedly reflects the omnivorous musical tastes of an entire generation, their last three albums are actually strikingly similar. You start with a core of three to five singles that are essentially homages to the most critically reputable music of the ’80s and ’90s. And then you surround those bangers with a whole lot of filler that falls into one of three categories: middling R&B ballads, sleepy ambient “soundscape” pieces, and hit-or-miss copycat genre exercises.

This is not a successful formula for producing albums that are worth playing from beginning to end. It is, however, effective for a group that is interested more in signifiers than originality. The 1975’s most praised track, “Love It If We Made It” from 2018’s An Inquiry Into Online Relationships, is the ultimate example of this. By piling so many references to Internet culture ephemera on top of each other, “Love It If We Made It” seems to say something profound about all of this without actually ever saying anything at all.

It’s kind of genius, creating such an irresistible and intellectually blank canvas for culture writers to project their pet thinkpiece themes. (Full disclosure: I fell for it, too.) But what is the actual point of view of “Love It If We Made It”? What does this song say beyond “we’re all screwed on the Internet,” which frankly is something anybody on social media can tell you? Isn’t it just … a bunch of memes? This will sound like backhanded praise but I truly mean it as a compliment: The 1975 are extremely good at being superficial. When they stick to that, they can be very good. Get in and out with a perfect piece of four-minute fluff like “Love Me” or “The Sound” and I’m thoroughly delighted. However, The 1975 now see themselves as deep, and it has completely undermined what was so likable about them in the beginning.

During the album cycle for Notes On A Conditional Form — which kicked off 10 months ago (!) with the release of the album’s spoken-word opening track featuring environmental activist Greta Thunberg — Healy has come off like a man high on his own supply of recent music-critic plaudits. He has matter-of-factly declared The 1975 “the definitive band” of the 2010s, complimenting himself on “fucking up mainstream discourse” with his art while chastising musicians who play in bands that aren’t massively successful, because “it’s not aspirational; it’s a hobby.”

Now, as an avowed fan of artists like Billy Corgan and Noel Gallagher, I’m not averse to arrogant rock-star behavior. I tend to find bombastic interviews highly amusing. But even at their most delusional, Corgan never believed that “Tonight, Tonight” was going to end global warming, nor did Gallagher ever claim that “Wonderwall” was “fucking up the mainstream discourse.” They were both, in other words, smart enough to realize that they were in enjoyably dumb pop-rock bands, and acted accordingly.

Healy, however, has come to see himself as an oracle for our troubled times. “Upon reflection, there was an almost eerie feeling when recording it,” he whispered to Vulture about the making of Conditional Form. To GQ, he mused, “I suppose the question is: Can this center really hold? I’m not prophesying or predicting anything. I’m just saying: This shit feels fucking weird now”

It sure does, Matty. But after spending some time with Notes On A Conditional Form, I’m at a loss to pinpoint many (if any) moments from this album that feel eerie or predictive or even accidentally insightful about life under quarantine. If I’m feeling charitable, I could point to the skittering, low-key social anxiety ode “Frail State Of Mind,” which opens with the lyric, “Go outside? Seems unlikely.” If I’m feeling very charitable, I could also include another skittering, low-key electro-pop song, “Yeah I Know,” and this rather nondescript lyrical aside: “Time feels like it’s changed, I don’t feel the same.” Otherwise, the most explicitly political lyric on this album comes in the unconvincing fake-punk song, “People,” in which Healy screams (with a welcome lack of enunciation), “Well, my generation wanna fuck Barack Obama / Living in a sauna with legal marijuana.” Eerie, indeed.

If Healy isn’t exactly envisioning our dystopian future, what is he writing? Rom-coms. Many of these songs are excuses for Healy to play the lovable rapscallion in pursuit of a comely object of affection, like the self-explanatory “Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)” or the amiably bouncy “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know),” which literally sounds like a rip-off of the Pretty Woman soundtrack. “I see her online, all the time, I’m trying not to stare ‘down there,’ while she talks about her tough time,” Healy purrs. “Girl of your dreams, know what I mean?”

I don’t have a problem with rom-coms. I like rom-coms! It’s just that Hugh Grant doesn’t claim to be Noam Chomsky when he makes Notting Hill. But the main fault of Notes On A Conditional Form isn’t that the lyrics don’t come to delivering on the pompous boasts from Healy’s interviews. It’s that the album is so preposterously lumpy, with way too many songs that simply don’t need to be there. The first half is particularly murderous: It starts with that Greta Thunberg track, which goes on (and on) for five minutes. Then it’s the shouty “People,” then an orchestral interlude, then the pleasant but sluggish “Frail State Of Mind,” then another orchestral interlude.

By my estimation, it takes about a half-hour for Conditional Form to gain momentum — perhaps that’s forgivable for a 10-episode Netflix series, but it’s a disaster for an album. But even the tracklisting is a signifier with this band, and what it’s meant to communicate is “we are ambitious, and we make grand, important statements.” That’s another lesson Healy should have learned from Corgan and the Gallaghers: At some point, bombastic arena-rock acts stop making better albums, and instead make longer albums. Spending 80 minutes with The 1975 makes them less endearing, not more.

After immersing myself in this behemoth, it became painfully clear just how derivative The 1975 are. As Healy himself has admitted, “The way that I write music is that I listen to a song I love and I copy it,” and you can hear examples of that kind of “songcraft” all over Conditional Form, whether it’s the transparent Pinegrove homage (with the wincing Pinegrove lyrical reference) “The Birthday Party,” or the callow Bon Iver tribute “Don’t Worry.” Sometimes, he simply inserts himself into someone else’s sonic world without bothering to eject the originator, like the ridiculously titled “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America,” in which an otherwise affecting Phoebe Bridgers song about unrequited love is subsumed by The 1975. If this is artistic invention, then Dracula was “artistically inventive” when he subsisted on the blood of his victims.

If The 1975 were untalented, I probably wouldn’t find them annoying. But this band’s slide into insufferable boorishness has made it impossible for me to enjoy the qualities I once responded to: their humor, their shameless bravado, the knack for familiar but inviting melodies. It’s that very frustration that fuels my ire. At this point, a more noble experiment for The 1975 would be to write an album where every song is good, or at least necessary. They haven’t done that yet.

Notes On A Conditional Form is out on 5/22 via Dirty Hit. Get it here.