While talking to Ellen DeGeneres from some sort of weird, basement cave with an assortment of odd trinkets, Jason Momoa had a lot to say about his upcoming role in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune.
The sci-fi epic features an all-star cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, and Dave Bautista, all of whom Momoa was blown away to work with. You’d think his star turn in Aquaman would’ve prepared him for filming this latest blockbuster, but Momoa says he’s “never been a part of something so big.” Here’s more of his ravings:
“I get to play this character Duncan Idaho, who’s kind of a master swordsman who’s made the right-hand man to Duke Leto who is Oscar Isaac,” the actor explained. “He’s the first person to be sent out to land on Dune and that’s when I meet the character that Javier Bardem plays. I can’t believe I had a scene with Javier Bardem! It’s a pretty massive film and I get to be this little — he’s kind of the Han Solo-esque of the group. He’s this rogue warrior who protects Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides) and serves Oscar Isaac.”
You can watch the full interview from the Momoa-Cave below or jump straight to the Dune stuff at the 8:13 mark:
According to a recent Vanity Fair feature that featured a smoldering look at Oscar Isaac that triggered all kinds of thirst traps on Twitter, filming for Dune took place in the United Arab Emirates to capture the dust planet of Arrakis. But while Momoa apparently had a blast, Chalamet wasn’t entirely thrilled with the over 100 degrees temperature. “They put a cap on it out there, if it gets too hot. I forget what the exact number is, but you can’t keep working,” the young actor told Vanity Fair. “In a really grounded way, it was helpful to be in the stillsuits and to be at that level of exhaustion.”
What We Do in the Shadows (FX, 10:00 p.m.) — Season two returns with Laszlo and Nadja testing out a new familiar — hello Haley Joel Osment — and Guillermo struggling with the truth about his family’s legacy. The vampires employ the help of a necromancer before holding a seance to get rid of their pesky ghost infestation.
Chicago Med (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) — Dr. Choi risks his life to save a child while Dr. Crockett’s past comes back to haunt him.
Riverdale (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — Kevin revives a school tradition by hosting a variety show but his planned performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch pits him against Riverdale High’s faculty.
Survivor(CBS, 8:00 p.m.) — The castaways are treated to heartfelt messages from their loved ones before a wild tribal council sends another survivor to the Edge of Extinction.
The Goldbergs(ABC, 8:00 p.m.) — Adam and Erica offer up an original production when William Penn cannot secure the rights to a well-known spring musical to stage.
The Masked Singer (Fox, 8:00 p.m.) — The show delivers its sing-along episode with songs picked from memorable season three performances.
Schooled (ABC, 8:30 p.m.) — CB takes on the role of substitute principal as Glascott recovers from surgery bu he needs Lainey’s help dealing with a group of mean girls at school.
American Housewife (ABC, 9:00 p.m.) — Katie gives Anna-Kat some advice in standing up to Taylor while Oliver feels left out after Greg fails to invite him to the Historical Guild’s latest reenactment.
Chicago Fire (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) — Severide goes overboard to help when one of the units own gets injured on a call.
Motherland: Fort Salem (Freeform, 9:00 p.m.) — Tally uncovers a shocking truth that will change the future of the unit while Abigail struggles under her family’s expectations.
Nancy Drew (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — A mysterious death leads the Drew Crew to new leads on the Aglaeca curse.
LEGO Masters (Fox, 9:00 p.m.) — In the final challenge of the season, the two remaining duos go head-to-head as they create their most epic master builds yet.
Single Parents(ABC, 9:30 p.m.) — Poppy and the rest help Sharon as she goes into labor without Ron.
Chicago P.D. (NBC, 10:00 p.m.) — Atwater runs into an officer from his past while infiltrating a gun-trafficking ring.
Sunday, ESPN will give the people what they’ve been clamoring for when they debut The Last Dance, their highly anticipated 10-hour long documentary of the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls.
The initial June release date was pushed up after fans effectively begged ESPN to move it up with no live sports programming happening right now. Once the documentary was completed, ESPN obliged and fans will be able to immerse themselves in the footage and interviews conducted for the marathon documentary soon. The Last Dance is expected to do huge ratings for ESPN, and they want to ensure that everyone is able to take it in, which is why they will have two broadcasts of the documentary.
The first will be on ESPN proper and will feature all of the cursing and foul language as it happened, unedited. The other, as Variety first reported on Wednesday morning, will be a family friendly version that bleeps cursing on ESPN2.
“We take a lot of pride in sports as a communal viewing experience. All members of the family get to watch this,” says Connor Schell, executive vice president of content at ESPN, in an interview. “We felt this was the right thing to do.” Hearing the unedited interviews, he adds, “makes it feel more honest and more authentic and raw.”
On ESPN, viewers will hear every ‘F,’ ‘MF’ and ‘S.’ On ESPN2, those letters (when attached to words that are deemed scurrilous) will be bleeped out or masked by dropped audio.
For most of us, we’ll be dialed in to that ESPN broadcast, enjoying the raw, unedited audio of those legendary Bulls practices — and the colorful interviews that will be coupled with them. However, those quarantined with small kids will be appreciative of the family friendly offering with those words edited out, as ESPN looks to draw eyeballs from viewers of all ages.
We’re all looking for things to listen to while we’re stuck in quarantine. With digital streaming platforms, we have all of the music in the world at our fingertips, but still can’t seem to figure out exactly what we want to hear. Lucky for all of us, Geoff Rickly is here to help with Making A Mixtape, the new video offering from Uproxx’s Indie Mixtape. As the singer for the post-hardcore band Thursday, Rickly has a unique and experienced perspective on what it takes to craft an epic mixtape.
With Making A Mixtape, Rickly offers viewers a short playlist to fit a specific moment or experience during the day, whether that be “moody,” “energy,” or “details.” To help him brainstorm, Rickly has enlisted help from a few special guests. This week, Rickly is joined by Cloud Nothings’s Dylan Baldi to collaborate on a “Moody” mixtape for those moments where you just need to be left alone, instances that Rickly intimately understands through his music career.
Check out the first episode of Making A Mixtape above and follow the “Moody” playlist here.
Clairo — “Bags”
Joanne Robertson — “Am I Grief”
Big Thief — “Not”
The National — “Rylan”
Cloud Nothings — “So Right So Clean”
The Gordons — “Spik And Span”
Spiritualized — “So Long You Pretty Thing”
After just a few short hours, Leonardo DiCaprio‘s charity challenge is already roping in big stars to help troubled communities in a big way during this difficult time. Thanks to a video assist from Robert De Niro, the Titanic star launched the #ALLinCHALLENGE on Instagram, which offers fans a chance to have a walk-on role in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon if they make a charitable donation:
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be able to work with the great @martinscorsese_, Robert De Niro and myself, this is your chance. Robert and I are going to be starring in a new movie called Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese. We want to offer you a walk-on role, the opportunity to spend the day on the set with the three of us, and attend the premiere.
To take part, please go to allinchallenge.com and donate whatever you can.
As DiCaprio notes in his caption, all proceeds will to America’s Food Fund, World Central Kitchen, No Kid Hungry, and Meals on Wheels, which help feed vulnerable communities who need even more assistance during the current health crisis.
You can see DiCaprio and De Niro’s full announcement below:
Because this is Leo we’re talking about, it didn’t take long for other celebrities to join in. Ellen DeGeneres was the first to jump in with a Twitter video offering anyone who donates as little as $25 the chance to be her co-host for the day. She also challenged Laura Dern and Justin Timberlake to join in.
Matthew McConaughey also hopped in closely behind Ellen. The Texas actor offered fans a chance to attend a University of Austin football with him, and who wouldn’t want to hang out at a ball game with Rust Cohle himself? He also tagged in Jimmy Kimmel and Jonah Hill who probably won’t resist Leo’s call.
Music is primarily a form of entertainment, but there’s a lot that can be learned from it, even in an academic setting. That is apparently extra true of Rapsody’s 2019 album Eve, which is set to be the subject of an upcoming college course.
Rapsody shared the news and wrote, “One of the highest honors is to create art for the culture and have it taught in our educational institutions!”
Tyler Bunzey, a doctoral student at UNC’s English department, made the announcement of his UNC-Chapel Hill course on Facebook, writing, “I’m incredibly pleased to announce that I will be teaching at course at UNC this fall on Rapsody’s magnificent album ‘EVE.’ We will be examining the album track by track with readings and media to accompany each record.” He also describes the class, “In this course, we will explore the critical womanist stance of Rapsody’s 2019 release EVE, which features 16 songs titled with names of famous Black women throughout history. This course reads Rhapsody’s album as emerging from a greater tradition of womanist discourse dating back to the 19th century, and the purpose of this course is to explore that history. Additionally students will look at hip-hop historical development to engage with albums from femme-identified hip-hoppers throughout the genre’s history.”
On a similar note, Dr. Simone Drake, a associate professor of African American and African studies at Ohio State University, also wrote an academic paper about Eve and Toni Morrison’s work. The paper is summarized, “Dr. Simone Drake’s paper, ‘Toni Morrison’s Houses of Woman and Rapsody’s Eve,’ will mine Morrison’s literary oeuvre to theorize ‘houses of women’ as physical spaces in which Black women disrupt, interrupt, and erupt into societies who conceive of Black women in ways that are both limited and limiting. Drake will trace this trope into work of Hip Hop artist Rapsody and her album Eve (2019). Read together, Drake sees Black women’s cultural production as nothing short of a way to image spaces that, by centering Black women, offers lessons on what society can gain by locating Black women at the center of cultural discourse.”
As the global pandemic causes millions to become suddenly unemployed, many musicians have offered financial assistance to fans. Taylor Swift recently covered rent for a fan who lost their job due to the virus. Lil Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion offered to pay some of their fans’ bills. Now, Puerto Rican pop star Bad Bunny is the latest musician to offer financial assistance to one of his supporters, albeit in a different way.
Cynthia Coronado, a devoted fan of Bad Bunny, recreated one of the singer’s Instagram photos on a giant canvas. The detailed painting shows Bad Bunny sporting heart-shaped glasses while sunbathing. Coronado shared the painting on Twitter and tagged Bad Bunny in hopes he would see it: “hope y’all like and hopefully he gets to see it!” she wrote.
Not only did the painting catch Bad Bunny’s attention, but he loved the portrait so much that he offered to purchase it for an impressive sum of money. “yo lo quiero,” he wrote. The singer then said he would pay $5,000 to keep the painting.
While most people would have accepted the hefty sum of money, Coronado was satisfied enough that he enjoyed her work. The painter turned down the money and instead said his love of the artwork was “worth more than money.”
Que te hubiera gustado vale más que el dinero… Es tuyo!! Muchísimas gracias
After her tweet blew up, Coronado thanked Bad Bunny’s fans for their attention and said she’s working on creating prints of the artwork.
Thank y’all so much for all the support. I couldn’t have done it without y’all’s help and shares! For ones asking.. I am working on prints and they will be coming very very soon! Stay tuned.. website coming later today!
When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, UPROXX’s People’s Party With Talib Kweli found itself in stable shape. We had episodes banked that would last us a few months, including this week’s episode, featuring comedian Gina Yashere. But that didn’t mean the show’s star was going to slow down. Kweli is a notoriously restless soul — if he’s not traveling for shows, he’s writing, producing, or promoting. Quarantined in an Orange County hotel, he started going on Instagram Live, playing DJ sets for his 855K followers.
This week, Kweli’s thirst to be at once productive and creative means the release of a video for his song “People’s Party” (the theme music for the show) featuring Sorry To Bother You director and The Coup frontman Boots Riley. Quarantined in separate cities, Boots and Kweli shot their verses of the video on their iPhones and then spliced them together. Still, the personality of both rappers is on full display and the video itself is a time capsule of this strange era.
I spoke to both artists (separately) this week about making the video, the desire to create during the quarantine, and how the shutdown has affected the art they’re excited to make.
How did this project come about? What was the genesis point for this?
Boots Riley: I was visiting New York in 2015 and I needed a place to stay for the night — I was really broke, trying to get the movie done. And I had $50 to be in New York for a week, so that meant a hot dog. I was spending each day in Lincoln Center, meeting all these studios and production companies, then sleeping on people’s couches at night. So Talib was like, “Well, why are you in New York? Come to the studio.” And I was just thinking, “Okay, well that fills up a night where I don’t have to sleep on somebody’s couch.”
Talib Kweli: Boots is someone who I’ve known for a long time. I went to South Africa with him in 2001. I’ve been a fan of The Coup and a fan of Boots almost since I started listening to hip-hop. I mean they had cool videos on the Video Music Box and MTV around the time that I first figured out what good hip-hop was. Boots Riley is part of my journey.
I have a modest space in Brooklyn — it’s not fancy at all — where I run my company, Javoti, out of and Boots stayed over there. He didn’t sleep, but he spent the night working on this song and it was dope to me because this is my brother. It’s not like we hang out all the time. And we had another song together, “My Favorite Mutiny,” on The Coup’s Pick A Bigger Weapon album. But to see him sit there in the studio and work on this track — he really took his time and I’m very impressed with his verse.
Obviously, it took some time for the track to be released — which happens sometimes. With the People’s Party podcast blowing up and the quarantine leaving everybody longing to connect because of the quarantine, was this sort of the perfect moment?
Riley: Yeah, it’s been one of those songs that’s been around. It’s been like, “Oh, is it going to come out or what? What’s happening?” Then Kweli sent it to me and said, “Hey, we’re going to do a video for it.” So, I had to listen and had to relearn the part to do the video.
Kweli: I mean, I didn’t know that the show and the song would come together like that at all. But that’s just how things happen, I suppose. That’s the part that they call a mystery, but if you really think about it it’s not really a mystery. Even with the way that we released video — we had all these grandiose conversations about what the video was going to look like and we were going to get ADs and scout locations. We had a lot of conversations, but then the quarantine came and it was like, “Let’s just shoot on our iPhones.”
Boots, did you know that we’d been using it as the intro song for People’s Party?
Riley: No, actually. As a matter of fact, he mentioned it before we did the video — before I sent him my performance. But yeah, no, I didn’t know. I’ve been so locked in a cage, writing my next projects, that I haven’t really been catching much of anything. I knew he had the podcast and we really tried to connect a few times when I was in LA, but the timing just never matched up.
Kweli: I asked Boots to do a video with me last year, when we first started the podcast, and we just never got together to do it or our schedules didn’t line up. Then, a few weeks ago, I was sitting at the hotel and I was like, “Shit, maybe Boots is free to do a video now.”
And you literally just shot him a text?
Kweli: Yeah. And then he set the tone from there. I said, “Listen, I want to do a video. Everyone is quarantined so you shoot your part on your phone and I’ll shoot my part on my phone. I’ll send it to my editor Chino Chase and we’ll see when it comes out of it.”
So you shot it on your phones, during the quarantine —
Riley: It’s a true quarantine video, shot on my phone while I’m at my home. A selfie quarantine video. I like performing. I like putting on a show, so it’s all going to come out — even in a unique situation like this.
Kweli: I shot mine with the iPhone at the hotel that I was staying at. But people have been using the iPhone in creative ways for music videos for a long, long time. We’re hardly the first to do that. When I was working heavy with Jean Grae she was very… I feel like Jean Grae has done a whole TV shows on her iPhone.
What do you think it is that’s bringing people to want to create under these circumstances? Is it boredom or is it the desire — the innate human desire — to tell stories, especially in tough times?
Riley: I think — especially for folks who are already leaning towards creating things — that right now is a time when you have fewer distractions. There are less things that you can do; less things that you can handle. So I think it lets people just kind of get in this pure maybe… more pure creative place.
So for instance, I would normally have to go take my kids and drop them off in the morning and blah, blah, blah. But now just everybody’s just here at the house all day. So, in one way, it’s weird. But at the same time, I’m just always writing and spending time and all that. So it’s all mixed up in this sort of strange schedule of creating and putting things out. On one level, I think the quarantine has messed with production schedules, messed with the regular way that we have to deliver the things that we make. So people are doing things for more personal reasons. I’m interested to see what things come out of it and what aesthetics are built from this time.
Kweli: I think for me it’s very simple. For me — and I imagine it’s like this for a lot of people but I’ll only speak for myself — the focus right now is: “How am I going to feed my family?” How am I going to survive and how am I going to feed my family in this unstable world? How can I ensure that my people are not going to want for anything so that I can be more productive?
A month before this started I was hustling, but it was more like an autopilot hustle. Like things were in place. But now, once I make something — to feed that part of my soul — the focus immediately shifts to how can I get this out and support myself with it, because I deserve to and because I need to. That’s definitely, to me, more pressing now than it was a month before this started.
Uproxx / Talib Kweli
As a creator, is everything different after this? The systems that have failed us seem to be more clearly on display. Does that change how you create?
Kweli: Personally, I don’t know the temperature enough to know whether or not the masses are looking deeper into how capitalist systems work or if people are just looking for ways to be comfortable and convenient during this time. But I definitely think that it’s an interesting time for artists because we have to deal with pain and we have to provide comfort and we have to still figure out ways to make a living.
Riley: Look, what this situation, what this crisis has done is put a magnifying glass on who has the power and who has our interests at stake, which is why right now we’re in an unprecedented strike wave happening across the US. I think there’s somewhere between 35 and 40 strikes that have happened over the last two weeks, right? And a lot of them are still going on where people are saying, “Look, we don’t care” — or rather, “We do care. Your business is going to make no money or you’re going to make less money by keeping us safe.” And some of the strikes that are happening are things like the GE workers who were making jet engines and said, “No, we’re going on strike and demanding that we make ventilators.”
You have all these folks that are coming into not just the consciousness about what’s going on, but an awareness of where they’re able to apply power. That’s creating a new era that is going to guide artistic creation, not just for me but for millions of people who are not just coming up in a time where we’re stuck in our houses but coming up in a time when many of us are stuck in our houses and others are figuring out how to withhold their labor to demand compromise from the system, which ends up teaching young creators a lesson about how power works under capitalism.
All of this affects what I think needs to be said in my art. I don’t know exactly how it affects it, because it’s kind of like what I’m already talking about. But it affects where I think folks are at, and it affects how I think my art will be received, and it affects it aesthetically. It also affects it because I know that there will be other people making this art, and I think there’ll be a lot more. I didn’t come out of nowhere, I came out of a movement.
There’s a radical militant labor movement growing right now and we’re seeing it. We’re seeing it play out right now. I can’t predict what’s going to happen. I don’t know what kind of retaliation is going to happen. I don’t know what the capacity is for us to answer that retaliation. But it’s happening and it’s a different time that we’ll be talking about it — not just because of COVID-19 but because of how people dealt with it.
All of these contradictions in how the system works are becoming really glaringly obvious and there’s this whole new kind of radicalization of people in the United States. So you’d think that the art that big companies put out would be like, “Hey, let’s make something that all those folks agree with.” You’d think that we’d see more of that. But no, you’re about to see a lot of stuff come out like this fucking movie that I didn’t even see, but The Banker or whatever on Apple, whatever, where it’s like, “You want to see black power? See The Black Banker!” Just mark my words, you’re going to see a lot of that. You’re going to see both sides. You’re going to see people building and you’re going to see an effort to make it seem like this new radical movement isn’t happening.
Maverick’s video was part gracious, teary farewell, part promo. He said that he’s “very grateful” that WWE is still allowing him to compete in the tournament for an interim NXT Cruiserweight Champion, which will begin on tonight’s episode of NXT. The tournament’s round-robin format means Maverick has three more WWE matches, and he says “it’s very likely those will be the last matches I’ll ever have” and promised fans that “you’re going to get everything I have.”
I wanted 2 say thank you to the WWE for the time I spent there.I made many new friends and had the opportunity to work with so many talented people. To the Superstars, continue to entertain the WWE Universe as well as you possibly can. They’re the best fans in the world. #itstrue
Retired wrestling legend Kurt Angle bid the WWE Universe farewell with a tweet, saying “I wanted 2 say thank you to the WWE for the time I spent there.I made many new friends and had the opportunity to work with so many talented people. To the Superstars, continue to entertain the WWE Universe as well as you possibly can. They’re the best fans in the world. #itstrue.”
To everyone on Gods green earth. Thank you for the kind words. I’ve been doing this for 46 years(Wrestling)I pray you all get through this and we can share a hug and drink again. Stay healthy. (SD)
Fit Finlay, who was furloughed from his position as a WWE producer, also reacted on Twitter. After responding to a comment that all the pubs in Ireland should be obligated to give him free pints for life with “These guys know!!!!”, he thanked his fans and wished the wrestling industry well: “To everyone on Gods green earth. Thank you for the kind words. I’ve been doing this for 46 years(Wrestling)I pray you all get through this and we can share a hug and drink again. Stay healthy.”
Shane “The Hurricane” Helms responded with a funny tweet, then an optimistic statement that “I truly believe that this is just temporary. There are many people in this world in far worse situations than I am, so please don’t worry about me too much.” Curt Hawkins said he wasn’t in the mood to joke about his release this time around.
Last time I got fired I had a really funny tweet in response to it. Doesn’t really feel appropriate today. I will say this, a lot of very talented ppl lost their jobs today and out of this disaster the PRO WRESTLING community will rise stronger than ever!
Former Cruiserweight Champion Lio Rush released a longer statement about his WWE journey, and promised that “This isn’t the end nor the last you will be hearing the name #LioRush.”
Andrea Listenberger, the writer behind the Otis and Mandy storyline, revealed that she had been let go as well. She reflected that “I’m proud of the work I’ve been able to do since starting in Dec., and glad that the storyline I worked on resonated with so many people. That’s what writing is about for me.”
Rusev reacted to his release just long enough before WWE officially announced it for people to think he was trolling, with a tweet that said, “Thank you All, Rusev out!” This might be the WrestleMania tank entrance of WWE release reactions so far.
More statements from former WWE workers are likely to be released throughout the day, and this article will be updated accordingly.
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te doy $5,000 por el
(@sanbenito) 
