Eminem may have made his name in the rap game with drugged-up raps about pill popping, but he gave all that up years ago — 12 years ago, to be precise. The 47-year-old rapper celebrated 12 years of sobriety yesterday, posting a photo of his 12-year chip emblazoned with the slogan “One day at a time.” “Clean dozen, in the books!” he wrote. “I’m not afraid.”

While some fans weren’t entirely happy with his musical output after giving up drugs and alcohol, his 2010 album Recovery was one of his most successful albums, debuting at No. 1 and selling over 5.7 million copies worldwide by the end of its release year. Since then, the reclusive Em has released four more albums — three within the last two years — and seen his fair share of ups and downs. However, celebrating 12 years of sobriety is an absolute victory that no bad critical review can take away from him.

Em reportedly tried to give up his addiction to prescription pills in 2008, two years before the release of Recovery. Although he’d had a previous stint in rehab, he told XXL in 2009, “I wasn’t ready mentally. I wasn’t ready to give up the drugs. I didn’t really think I had a problem. Basically, I went in, and I came out. I relapsed, and I spent the next three years struggling with it. Also, at that time, I felt like I wanted to pull back, because my drug problem had got so bad. I felt like, Maybe if I take a break, maybe this will help. I started to get into the producer role more… I can still be out there with my music, like with the Re-Up album, but I don’t have to be in the spotlight the whole time.”

The first two chapters of The Last Dance, ESPN’s 10-part documentary into the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, was a hit. Unsurprisingly, the general hype surrounding the series mixed with the fact that sports are on hiatus for the foreseeable future in the United States meant that the Worldwide Leader got record ratings on Sunday night.

Based on a report by Forbes, the biggest name involved in the project is set to profit handsomely. Kurt Badenhausen wrote that Michael Jordan is in line to make “at least $3 million to $4 million” off of the series, although Badenhausen brings word that Jordan won’t see a penny of it, as he’s slated to donate all of it to charity.

Of course, while $3-4 million is more money than most of us will ever know, that’s pocket change for Jordan, whose net worth is around $2.1 billion. As for how he stands to profit so much, ESPN has previously reported that Jordan consented to the league following the Bulls around during his final season in Chicago in exchange for creative control.

“Our agreement will be that neither one of us can use this footage without the other’s permission,” Adam Silver told Jordan back when he was in charge of NBA Entertainment. “It will be kept — I mean literally it was physical film — as a separate part of our Secaucus [New Jersey] library. Our producers won’t have access to it. It will only be used with your permission.”

Fortunately for basketball fans everywhere, Jordan eventually got on board with the league and ESPN turning all of that film into something.

Since Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey launched the Office Ladies podcast, they’ve discussed Jim’s “perfect” note to Pam, the inspiration for the “Office Olympics” episode, and why “Jim is wrong” (hard agree) in his argument with Pam. There’s been a lot of Jim and Pam talk, basically, which extends to Fischer’s Instagram. A follower recently asked the actress to confirm whether she still wears the ring that John Krasinski gave her, the one from the season five episode “Weight Loss” where Jim proposes to Pam.

About that: “What a terrible rumor!” Fischer responded. “Of course not! I wear the ring my actual husband of 10 years gave me.” (She’s married to writer Lee Kirk, who also appeared in one episode of The Office.) It’s unclear where the “terrible rumor” originated from, although as BuzzFeed pointed out, Fischer once tweeted that she kept the ring, but “it was a silver prop ring, not worth $5,000, and I do not wear it in real life.”

Fischer would have kept Angela’s “cat food and water bowls,” but they sold for $475 in an online auction two years ago. Alas. Recent episodes of the Office Ladies podcast have covered season two’s “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” and “Dwight’s Speech.”

(Via BuzzFeed)

---

View Entire Post ›

In the time when the world could use some good news, Bright Eyes have offered some. In March, they released “Persona Non Grata,” their first new music in nearly a decade. They also revealed plans for a new album, and now they have shared “Forced Convalescence,” another preview of their upcoming record. The Americana-influenced track gradually works its way to an apex before cooling off and ending the song on another build-up.

Last month, the band gave fans an update about their schedule for the coming months, saying that while their touring plans have been interrupted, they will still release a new album. They wrote, “Strange days indeed. Just wanted to send our love and solidarity to everyone out there feeling alone, frightened and isolated. You are not alone. We are in this together. We, like so many others, had many plans for 2020. We will be releasing a new album this year no matter what. We also have lots of touring plans which we are now reassessing. We will keep you informed as things progress. We very much want to get on the road and hope to see you all in person sooner rather than later.”

Listen to “Forced Convalescence” above.

Festival season was supposed to have started by now. Sadly, though, it hasn’t, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to put normal life on pause. However, there is still a way to experience some of the world’s finest performers doing what they do best on stage: In support of the World Health Organization, Warner Music Group has announced PlayOn Fest, a livestream event that will revisit outstanding live performances from recent years.

The festivities will kick off this Friday, April 24 at noon ET, and will run through April 26, all on the Songkick YouTube channel. This one-time only live viewing event is an exclusive chance to see performance videos, some of which are rare, from Coachella, Sydney Opera House, Lollapalooza, Apollo Theater, Bonnaroo, The O2 Arena, Primavera Sound, Red Rocks Amphitheater, Rock In Rio, Global Citizen Festival, and other world-class venues and events.

The full lineup of featured artists includes A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Alec Benjamin, Alt-J, Anderson .Paak, Andra Day, Anitta, Anne-Marie, Arizona, Ava Max, Bazzi, Bebe Rexha, Ben Platt, Brandi Carlile, Bruno Mars, Burna Boy, Cardi B, Chanmina, Charli XCX, Charlie Puth, Clean Bandit, Coldplay, Coldrain, David Guetta, Death Cab For Cutie, Dvsn, Ed Sheeran, Fitz And The Tantrums, Galantis, Gary Clark Jr., Ghali, Green Day, Gucci Mane, IDK, Janelle Monáe, Jess Glynne, JJ Lin, Kaleo, Kevin Gates, Korn, Lil Uzi Vert, Macklemore, Mahalia, Majid Jordan, Oliver Tree, Pablo Alborán, Panic! At The Disco, Paramore, Portugal The Man, Rico Nasty, Rita Ora, Robin Schulz, Roddy Ricch, Royal Blood, Rüfüs Du Sol, Sabrina Claudio, Saweetie, Slipknot, Stereophonics, The Flaming Lips, The Head And The Heart, The War On Drugs, Tones And I, Twenty One Pilots, Wallows, Weezer, and Wiz Khalifa.

Additionally, there will also be a look back at Nipsey Hussle’s Victory Lap album release show.

Cardi B shared a statement about the fest, saying, “Don’t play yourself! Tune into PlayOn Fest April 24-26 and help us raise money for the World Health Organization to boost COVID-19 relief funds. Thank you to all of the healthcare workers who are dedicating their services and helping to save lives! Since I can’t get on stage right now…I’m throwing it back to my party at the Global Citizen Festival to hopefully send some love and light to y’all. Stay safe everyone!”

Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the UN Foundation, also noted, “During this pandemic, we are all searching for ways to stay connected. The PlayOn Fest is a great way to come together, enjoy good music and company, and support the World Health Organization’s most urgent global work to combat COVID-19.”

Warner Music Group has also launched a pre-sale for exclusive PlayOn merch, with all proceeds going to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO.

Watch the PlayOn Fest trailer the lineup poster above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Better Call Saul is a show with range. Some characters like Jimmy/Saul lie constantly, others like Mike tell the truth to a fault. With that in mind, our coverage this season will be structured as a collection of true and false statements about each episode. Welcome to Better Call Saul Truth And Lies.

TRUTH — We’ve been emphasizing the wrong word

A few seasons back, once it became clear that Kim Wexler was going to be both an important ongoing character in this universe and an important ongoing part of Jimmy McGill’s life, a lot of us started doing some uncomfortable math. “If Kim is such a big deal here,” we’d think, “and she’s not present or even mentioned in Breaking Bad, then what exactly happens between now and then to cause that change?” Or, to put it in a more panicky, accurate way: What happened to Kim?

It turns out we might have been emphasizing the wrong word in that last sentence. It might not be so much “What happened to Kim?” — with the implication being that some outside force caused her to disappear from Jimmy’s life — as it is “What happened to Kim?” Maybe this was never a situation where Kim Wexler ends up being a victim of circumstance, a person who things happened to, a person whose options are limited to “die or flee New Mexico in heartbreak.” Maybe all of this actually unlocked something in Kim that was there all along. Maybe, despite her protests and scowling in the early stages of Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, deep down, she… likes it.

Maybe Kim Wexler breaks bad, too?

I fully cop to the fact that I did not see this coming, at least not in this way. Last week should have been a tip-off, though, the way she shredded Lalo and sent him packing when Jimmy couldn’t get a convincing word out of his mouth. Kim really leaped into action there in a way that seemed natural. She’s always been good at it, dating back to her tequila-gridding days as Gisele St. Clair. She’s been better than Jimmy at times, too. The difference might have been as simple as Kim having a governor on her motor put in place by the expectations of polite society.

Well, it looks like something knocked that governor loose. Watch her face when she was talking to Jimmy about ruining Howard’s life with falsified claims of mismanaging client funds, a substantial step up from Jimmy’s “bowling ball through the windshield” revenge. Watch her eyes light up as she talks about that Sandpiper money. Watch her do the same finger guns Jimmy did at the end of last season when he crossed over to the dark side.

Her path was even similar. They both left HHM, they both got folded into a big firm and focused on one big client (Mesa Verde, Sandpiper), and they both had the realization that they’d rather be in it for themselves as criminal defense lawyers. Kim might even end up being more diabolical in her journey because she has the innocent cover of pro bono work, whereas everyone knows Jimmy is all flash and sleaze. I could be taking this too far. I think I just made her a supervillain.

The truth is that there still is an anvil hovering over her head. This doesn’t change any of that. Kim Wexler does not show up in Breaking Bad. She exits Jimmy’s life in some way, probably sooner than later. What this episode teeters toward is a version of that story where that exit is not a result of something Jimmy did, but instead of her own future shady behavior. It’s a lot to consider. We should have considered it already. Kim Wexler was never a damsel in distress. She might very well be her own danger.

LIE — Jimmy has it all under control

He sure does not!

A big part of this is still him dealing with the PTSD of that gunfight. A similarly large part has to do with Lalo showing up at his door and his — apparently mistaken! — belief that he needs to protect Kim from harm. However the math of it all works out, my dude is spiraling right now, showing up at Mike’s house in a breathless panic and trying to plan an entire day of pampering to convince Kim to stay in the hotel. He’s scared, a lot, in a very real way, and the discovery that Lalo Salamanca did not in fact die in Mexico will not help that feeling at all.

We know it won’t last. We’ll see him later on in that strip mall full of bluster and bravado, hair combed to perfection and neon dress shirt pressed perfectly wrinkle-free. This might all be one of the foundational experiences that gets him from here to there. But it’s still strange to see, especially with the roles flipped, where Jimmy was preaching skittish caution and Kim was charging ahead recklessly. It makes me kind of sad this show is a prequel, really, because now I’d like to see Jimmy and Kim as a shenanigans-performing husband-wife defense team for a period of decades. I feel like Kim could have handled Walter White.

Screw it. Let’s alter history and do it. It would be fun.

TRUTH — Lalo went full-on Kevin McCallister

Two of my favorite things:

• Movies and television shows where a character is forced to defend his home from invaders using a series of booby traps and gizmos, kind of like an adult Home Alone, with examples including Skyfall and Hobbs & Shaw and The Martian, if we want to make the leap to a situation where the role of the Wet Bandits is played by the harsh and unforgiving cosmos
• Lalo Salamanca

And so, yes, of course, I loved watching him thwart Gus Fring’s assassins with hot oil and secret tunnels. It was just classic Lalo, improvisation crossed with startling athleticism. Lalo has the same problem Kim and Nacho have — I’m sorry to keep harping on it, it’s unavoidable — where we know they’re not around a few years down the line. We know Gus is around, too. Lalo does not win this war. I am very glad this was not his time, though. I need as much Lalo as I can get.

It is almost unreasonable how good a character Lalo is. To pull this off after five seasons of this show and the full run of Breaking Bad, to just up and introduce someone this charming and evil and perfect, is basically showing off. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are doing a Globetrotter routine right in front of our faces, fancy dribbling and confetti buckets and all of it. I have no choice but to respect it.

LIE — Nacho is doing a great job of getting out of the game

Buddyyyyyyy.

All Nacho wants to do is run from New Mexico with his father and keep them both safe. He only has a few small problems: his dad won’t leave; Gus won’t let him out and is threatening his father just to drive that home; Lalo brought him to Don Eladio with the intent of having him step up in the cartel; and now Lalo seems to (correctly!)suspect him of working with Gus to stage an assassination that resulted in the deaths of people close to him.

Nacho is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock and the hard place both have guns. One of them has a terrific mustache. This analogy is falling apart. I think the point stands.

TRUTH — I love Don Eladio

As far as I can tell, Don Eladio spends all day having pool parties and drinking tequila and accepting exotic sports cars with piles of cash in the trunk, which is located in the front of the car and is therefore called a “frunk,” by him, to his great delight. I realized as I watched this episode that I have never not been very excited to see him. It angers me in a surprising way that Gus takes him and (presumably) Lalo off the board eventually.

Eh, screw it. If we’re already letting Kim live as Jimmy’s rascal law partner, let’s let Lalo and Don Eladio defeat Gus, too. Let’s pretend. Or at least pitch a Don Eladio prequel. We can age Steven Bauer down with that Irishman CGI. The budget will be like $25 million per episode. I’ll start passing the hat now.

LIE — It is a terrific time to be Howard Hamlin

Every character on this show has grown and/or changed since season one. That’s not exactly shocking because, like, that’s how storytelling is supposed to work. Jimmy is becoming Saul, Mike is working with Gus, Kim… well, we discussed that earlier. But let’s not overlook the borderline hilarious arc that Howard Hamlin has been riding.

The man was the closest thing the show had to a Big Bad in the beginning. He was the antagonist that pushed and drove Jimmy. He was formidable and powerful and not some buster to be clowned on. Cut to four-plus seasons later and he is getting clowned on all day. There was the bowling ball and the hookers, of course, and then when he told Kim about it all, when he tried to “warn” her, she laughed right in his very tan face. He must be so confused all the time about what happened to his life. It’s delightful.

And it might be getting worse, now that Kim is pitching an even more malicious fate for him. This whole series could end with him broken into a million pieces and sleeping on a park bench. I’d love to sit in on one of his therapy sessions to see how he feels about it all.

TRUTH — There is no greater decadence than a midnight cheeseburger

This was the coup de grace of Jimmy’s plan to stay in and pamper themselves while hiding from Lalo in the hotel and, I must say, it would have swayed me. There are some situations where a midnight cheeseburger is sad and troubling, I’ll grant you that. But in the right circumstances, if you’re treating yourself after a hard day or capping off a great night, a midnight cheeseburger is as decadent as it gets. The grease and indulgence of it all, my god.

You might not feel great about it in the morning, both because of the lack of sleep and the congealing mess ravaging your insides, but that’s a problem for later. You do not concern yourself with the future while eating a midnight cheeseburger. A midnight cheeseburger is about the moment, this moment, right now. There are no regrets allowed while eating a midnight cheeseburger, unless you forget to order fries with it. You wouldn’t do that, though. You know this is a decadent treat. This is not your first rodeo.

LIE — This show stinks!

This is not the time for the debate about whether Better Call Saul will end up being better than Breaking Bad. There is a time for that, maybe later this summer when we’re all sweaty and irritable and bored. We can yell and call each other names and really get after it. It’ll be fun. But right now, today, this is about celebrating an incredible season of television. How good was this? All of it, too, from beginning to end. The way this world has grown and expanded and gotten more dangerous step-by-meticulous-step, never rushing, making the journey from mailroom failbro to cartel-adjacent lawyer seem perfectly logical. It’s basically a magic trick. And it keeps getting better.

I joke about all the other spinoffs and prequels I want after this show ends (Gus in Chile, Don Eladio’s rise, Mike in high school), but I’m only barely joking. It’s been such a treat to watch this universe open up. If they can do this — again, all of this — with the comic relief character from a heartbreaking show about drug dealing and personal loss, I mean, why stop there? Keep expanding it. Go full Marvel. Tell me a series of interconnected stories about this fictional world until the sun grows and grows and swallows our real-world whole, incinerating plants and animals and buildings alike and bringing an end to the experiment we call Earth.

Or, uh, maybe just one more. For now. Better Call Saul is a good show. That’s what I’m trying to say.

---

View Entire Post ›

When Cary Fukunaga took over for director Danny Boyle on The Film Previously Known As Bond 25 No Time To Die, it was unexpected news, to say the least. He’d just come down from a cerebral, crazy ride of a limited series, Maniac, and his reputation still rode high for directing the first True Detective season, which was (and let’s say this in a Woody Harrelson-Matthew McConaughey hybrid voice) totally wild, man. So I thought maybe, just maybe, we’d see a slightly more unconventional Bond installment this time around. Perhaps that was an unfair assumption, True Detective‘s twists are penned by Nic Pizzolatto, and Fukunaga wasn’t the only mind behind Maniac‘s twists (Patrick Somerville wrote much of the series), but my hunch was not entirely off base.

The Beasts of No Nation director did, in fact, attempt to make this Bond film an atypical one. He originally pitched a more cerebral take, and it sounds like kind-of a mindf*ck, honestly, even though it would have bounced off the Spectre acts of Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld. As Fukunaga tells Miranda July for Interview Magazine, he wanted the first half of the movie to take place inside 007’s head. Yes, he was completely serious:

“I swear to God, I had an idea that this movie could all be taking place inside the villain’s lair from the last film. There’s this scene [in Spectre] where a needle goes into James Bond’s head, which is supposed to make him forget everything, and then he miraculously escapes by a watch bomb. And then he and Léa blow up the place, and go on to save the day. I was like, ‘What if everything up until the end of act two is all inside his head?’”

At that point in the interview, July suggested that perhaps Fukunaga creates stories like she does, meaning that he’s attempting to work out other things in his life through his own work. In response, he admitted that “it’s so hard to separate the project from a chapter in my life,” and given that he helped write No Time To Die (after recently concluding Maniac), this all makes more sense in terms of Fukunaga wanting James Bond to be on some mind-altering substance. However, Universal/MGM obviously shut this pitch down, so we can expect No Time To Die (the last James Bond turn for Daniel Craig) to be more in the feel of the 007 pictures that we’ve come to expect. Fukunaga will probably shake up the franchise a little, sure, but we’ll have to see how much that’s possible when the movie arrives on November 25.

(Via Interview Magazine)

When HBO Max debuts on May 27, the streaming service won’t have its biggest “get” (the Friends reunion special, which has been delayed due to the global coronavirus pandemic), but it will have a solid selection of launch-day titles. There’s a ton of HBO series, obviously, including The Sopranos, The Wire, and Sex and the City, and 20 films from the Studio Ghibli library, as well as Friends, Rick and Morty, and The Big Bang Theory. There’s also original programming, like Looney Tunes Cartoons and Love Life, Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick’s first foray into scripted television as a lead.

Created by Sam Boyd, Love Life “is about the journey from first love to last love, and how the people we’re with along the way make us into who we are when we finally end up with someone forever,” according to the gooey, generic plot description. But hey, it’s a show starring Kendrick and Scoot McNairy — I will watch (and probably love) it.

Here’s more day one offerings:

The slate includes the scripted comedy Love Life, starring Anna Kendrick; Sundance 2020 Official Selection feature documentary On the Record; underground ballroom dance competition series Legendary; Craftopia, hosted by YouTube sensation LaurDIY; the all-new Looney Tunes Cartoons, from Warner Bros. Animation; and Sesame Workshop’s The Not Too Late Show with Elmo

To sign up for HBO Max, click here.