Lauren Boebert’s divorce filing surprised a lot of people last week, and when those papers were served, they apparently shocked Jayson Boebert, her husband of two decades, too. Boebert has swiftly moved on to seemingly important matters like criticizing hoodies, although she did take a few moments to point out that Jayson wouldn’t drink Bud Light while both husband and wife denied a process server’s account of his allegedly hostile response to those papers.
Jayson is still talking, this time to Westword, in which he declared that Boebert’s congressional tenure thus far has “been a difficult time,” since the two are now so busy, and also works “long hours and I take care of our boys.” He further insists that no infidelity is to blame for the split, and he told Westword that “security footage” will prove that he didn’t explode with anger toward that process server:
“I opened the door to greet the gentleman,” Jayson says. “He looked familiar like an old buddy. My dogs greeted him like they do with everyone. No threat to him. The process server approached me and said don’t shoot the messenger. I was not drinking. I was not cleaning a gun. There was no guns around. I then closed the door after I told him he was trespassing.”
According to Jayson, there are “signs all over” the driveway leading to the house where he was staying warning people about trespassing. “I said to him, ‘Don’t make me call the sheriff’ and walked into my basement,” he recalls. “I was not angry, I didn’t even know what it was about. I have security footage of this event that has been sent to attorneys.”
As Westword mentions, Jayson Boebert ran afoul of the law nearly two decades ago, including his arrests for indecent exposure and domestic violence. Lauren also wrote of “anger management” in the context of Jayson while penning her 2022 memoir, My American Life, which declared that Jayson “needed the alcohol and anger management classes” that were part of his plea deal on the indecent exposure charges. Jayson, for his part, appears to be maintaining that he’s long since turned over a new leaf and will be vindicated by that security footage. Last week, Lauren also claimed that recent reports of a tantruming Jayson running over a neighbor’s mailbox are false.
“You guys are my fans, ur my family!!! I hear yall!! Im pivoting. Different single June 2nd!! [smiley emoji, peace sign emoji, hearts emoji],” Cudi tweeted.
You guys are my fans, ur my family!!! I hear yall!! Im pivoting. Different single June 2nd!!
Cudi also updated his Twitter bio, “New vibes comin JUNE 2ND.”
In February, the multi-hyphenate creative shared his plans for the remainder of the year on Twitter: “Album this Fall. First singles this summer. The new chapter has begun… Ur not prepared man. We’ve reached a new level.” One person wished for a tour, and Cudi replied, “World tour next year. Count on it [winking emoji].” Cudi replied to another person asking what he’s excited about in 2023, “Man, so much. My clothing line, directing my first movie that I’m starring in from a script I wrote, couple movies coming out, a lil tv, Im seriously the most hyped about it all.”
Deadline reported last month that Cudi will star in and co-produce a Sony Pictures’ “action horror-comedy” titled Hell Naw that Sam Levinson (Euphoria, The Idol) will produce.
“The plot is being kept under wraps, but we do know the film is set during Paris Fashion Week and there will be zombies,” Deadline wrote at the time.
Cudi (real name Scott Mescudi) provided a statement at the time:
“This movie has been five years in the making. I am telling the world now, this film will f*ck you up in all the best ways. I have been a horror fan since I was seven years old. The first horror movies I ever saw were Night of the Living Dead and Evil Dead. And from that point on, I was hooked on the feeling of being frightened. I’ve been wanting to get into this world creating my own stories for a long time, and now, and after years of working it out in my head, it’s finally happening. Sam, The Lucas Brothers and myself have really crafted a tale we feel everyone who’s a fan of horror and comedy will enjoy. You will laugh, oh yes you will, but the horror aspect of this movie will really be something to see. You will be shook. I promise. Y’all know I don’t play around.”
With all that going on, it’s no wonder Cudi felt emboldened to name a song “Flex.”
A year ago, Carmelo Anthony was an important role player on the Los Angeles Lakers, averaging 13.3 points off the bench as one of L.A.’s most consistent three-point threats. However, this year he was without a team as L.A. looked to get younger and, after a season away from the game, he came to the realization that it was time to call it a career.
On Monday morning, Anthony posted a video to his social media accounts announcing his retirement from the NBA after 19 seasons, with the future Hall of Famer thanking fans for their support over his nearly two-decade long career.
Anthony concludes the video by noting his legacy will live on through his son Kiyan, as well as noting he’s excited for his next chapter off the court, and he truly seems to be at peace with this being it for his playing career. That’s important because there was a time where Anthony was not in that place, but had been bounced out of the league after a rough (and brief) stint in Houston. He was able to revive his career for three more years thanks to embracing a role as a knockdown shooter in Portland, and seems to have written his last on-court chapter in the way he wanted.
Carmelo will finish his NBA career with 28,289 points, good for 11th all-time, and he has made his mark in the top-30 of the NBA record books in a variety of offensive categories. When he’s eligible, Anthony is a lock for the Hall of Fame based on his terrific NBA career as well as his one season at Syracuse, where he led the Orange to a national title as a freshman, and his work with USA Basketball winning three Olympic gold medals.
Ice Cube does not co-sign the use of AI in hip-hop, however.
The iconic West Coast rapper visited the Full Send Podcast last week and was asked about “this new wave of rappers,” teeing him up to give a scathing review of AI.
Ice Cube’s thoughtful response began at the 47:35 mark:
“I like the beats. The artists are getting lost in autotunes, and now that you have an AI computer, I think people don’t want a computerized rapper no more. They want to hear your voice. I don’t know any rappers by they voice no more. I used to know all the rappers just – hear they voice, know who that is.
I think they need to figure out how to put that autotune down, and we need to hear what people sound like and if they’re as good because I think AI is demonic. I think AI is gonna get a backlash from real people — real, organic people — and so I think artists need to go back to using their real voice and making sure people know this is authentic and not made from a computer.”
When asked whether he was implying all artists now use AI, Ice Cube clarified, “I think autotune sounds computer-like, and I think it’s all starting to sound artificial because of AI.”
In case there was any remaining confusion regarding Ice Cube’s stance on AI, he later plainly stated: “I don’t want to hear an AI Drake song. I don’t want to hear that bullsh*t, and he should sue whoever made it.”
And if anyone dares to make an AI Ice Cube song, “I’m gonna sue the motherf*cker who make it, too, and the platform that plays it.”
Sting and will.i.am are among other artists who have shared their opinions on AI.
Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw an introspective Post Malone and a retrospective Lana Del Rey. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
In recent times, Post Malone has been open when it comes to getting sober; turns out he wants to be healthy to enjoy as much of his daughter’s life as he can. That’s great, but the process isn’t easy, as Malone sings about on “Mourning,” a new single from his personal upcoming album Austin.
Lana Del Rey — “Say Yes To Heaven”
“Say Yes To Heaven” is a newly released song, but to Lana Del Rey stans, it’s already an old classic. The song has appeared online in various capacities over the years, but last week, Del Rey gave the track — a moving, atmospheric number — its first-ever official release.
Bad Bunny — “Where She Goes”
Bad Bunny is the biggest artist in the world (at least according to him being the most-streamed artist on Spotify pretty much all the time). He offers plenty of star power on his own, but he turned it up to well beyond 11 with his new video for “Where She Goes,” which features Dominic Fike, Frank Ocean, Lil Uzi Vert, Ronaldinho, and others.
Summer Walker — “To Summer, From Cole (Audio Hug)” Feat. J. Cole
Summer Walker opens her new Clear 2: Soft Life EP by shining a light on J. Cole, who comes through with a heartwarming and well-received verse on “To Summer, From Cole (Audio Hug).” Uproxx’s Aaron Williams describes the track, “Over a mellow, piano-driven soul beat, Cole ruminates on the duo’s burgeoning friendship, congratulating Walker on her newborns and commiserating with her about the travails of the music industry.”
Blur — “The Narcissist”
Damon Albarn has to be one of the busiest people in music. The Gorillaz machine is in perpetual motion, he put out a solo album in 2021, and now he’s getting the Blur gang back together for The Ballad Of Darren, their first album in nearly a decade. They shared “The Narcissist” last week, a propulsive yet mellow indie-rocker.
Halle Bailey — “For The First Time”
“Part Of Your World” is of course the big Ariel song from The Little Mermaid, so we’ve definitely already heard Halle Bailey give it a go by now. The live-action remake’s full soundtrack album dropped last week, though, and that offered a look at “For The First Time,” a more upbeat number from the film that shows off Bailey’s powerhouse vocals in a different way.
Zara Larsson — “End Of Time”
Larsson told Uproxx of her new single, “I love the melodies. I love that it feels big, but it feels like a classic song. And in a way, it’s danceable, it’s pop, and it’s just like a very existential love song about wanting to love somebody until the very end of time.”
NxWorries — “Daydreaming”
Anderson .Paak has proven over the years that he’s a superb collaborator, with a voice and energy that regularly plays well with others. Right now, the focus is on NxWorries (the duo of .Paak and Knxwledge), as they dropped “Daydreaming” a few days ago. It’s a relaxed and warm tune ready for summer that’ll be the perfect score for warm nights of lazy afternoons.
Paul Simon — Seven Psalms
Paul Simon is 81 years old and the Simon & Garfunkel legend is clearly not done adventuring. His new album Seven Psalms, for example, is an atypical undertaking: It’s a completely acoustic project that consists of one multi-segment song, meant to be heard in one 33-minute sitting.
Conan Gray — “Never Ending Song”
Conan Gray is one of pop’s more exciting young stars right now, and the fresh-faced artist goes for a decidedly nostalgic sound on his latest single, “Never Ending Song.” The synthy number sounds like a lost ’80s hit, with Gray even adopting a vocal style reminiscent of the era, but he gorgeously adapted the aesthetic to something that works here in 2023, too.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
With The Little Mermaid set to splash into theaters this week, the first reviews are rolling in, and the critics are head over fins for Halle Bailey. The young actress scored the coveted role of Ariel in the live-action remake, and virtually every review cites that casting decision as the film’s most powerful weapon. Bailey’s rendition of “Part of Your World” is frequently cited as a show-stopper that, dare we say it, could be on par with the original.
While the rest of the film received so-so remarks, Bailey’s performance appears to be worth the price of admission alone, and it’s certainly convinced more than one critic that these Disney live-action remakes can be more than moneymakers.
Halle Bailey is all the reason that any audience should need to justify Disney revisiting this classic. Director Rob Marshall found his Ariel, and together, they’ve made a keeper. Just wait till you hear her sing “Part of Your World,” delivered with all the conviction of Jennifer Hudson’s career-making rendition of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” A star is born, and as if to punctuate our discovery, Marshall poses Bailey there on a rocky outcropping and smashes a giant wave against her back.
Thankfully, Bailey doesn’t disappoint as Ariel. Her performance adds edge to what is ultimately a serviceable film. Whether she’s belting out a newly arranged “Part of Your World” or silently observing her less than charming prince (Jonah Hauer King) navigate his own social constrictions, her charisma radiates off the screen. The Beyoncé prodigy and the other half of the Grammy-winning duo Chloe x Halle gracefully presents her own Ariel: The character is still sweet and sharp-tongued, but there’s a touch more bite to her defiance. Her voice, the narrative’s raison d’être, sounds ethereal, too. Reconciling the strength of Bailey’s portrayal with the rest of the film, however, takes some work.
The film is far from a mere remake; it expands the universe of the original movie, with a sprawl that jumps off the screen and directly into its viewers’ hearts. The charm of the original doesn’t just remain intact, it’s augmented tenfold. Some new songs and shaky visual effects may not feel so seamless when jammed into an already bloated runtime. But even when its pacing stumbles, The Little Mermaid remains magical, thanks largely to the brilliance of Bailey, who is destined to bring this iconic role to a new generation.
Marshall has made a movie with all the magic required to pull it off and, if not replace the original in our hearts, at least has made a movie that can stand next to that one to also become a memorable part of our cinematic world. With a David Magee script that sticks to the story, the catchy Alan Menken and Howard Ashman songs like “Part Of Your World”, “Kiss The Girl”, and Oscar winner “Under The Sea” now joined effortlessly by three new tunes from Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a perfectly chosen cast, this Mermaid has all the right stuff. Disney will probably print money with this one, but it will be justified.
Halle Bailey is an immediate standout as Ariel, evoking the wide-eyed innocence of a naïve, lovestruck teenager while belting out musical numbers with the gusto of a Broadway star in the making. Similarly, Hauer-King’s Prince Eric is given more dimension than in the 1989 version as a wanderlusting dreamer, so he serves as a solid romantic counterpart to Bailey. However, the rest of the cast is a mixed bag.
This iteration of The Little Mermaid is the studio’s freshest catch since it kicked off this live-action trend with 2015’s Cinderella, featuring refreshing storytelling that captures the magic of the original. Director Rob Marshall at last has found material that fits him as well as 2002’s Chicago, his splashy theatrical style merging with the tropes of musical comedy and something darker around the edges.
In this new live-action adaptation things are not as bubblegum sweet and bright as the last time we visited Ariel’s story. The sea is rougher, less forgiving. There is, as Ariel sings in the famed “Part of Your World,” something starting inside the heart of a tender, curious, and desperate mermaid the same way it did in 1989, but Marshall’s vision finds the raw humanity within the story, grounding a once-completely fantastical tale with a strong sense of realism that works to its advantage.
But it’s star Halle Bailey, appearing in her first leading role, who makes the best case for why this classic Disney tale needed to be made into a live-action affair. Just look at her face, so expressive and so open, so deeply and wonderfully human and alive. There are some things even the most lovingly rendered pieces of hand-drawn animation just can’t match, and Bailey’s emotive skill is one of them. (And her stunning singing? Further icing on the “this young woman is a movie star” cake.)
In just a few days, the first spin-off in the Power Universe series, Power Book II: Ghost, will air its season three finale. Over the course of its third season, fans of the Power Universe often wondered about what was next for Power Book IV: Force which has yet to start its second season. Power Book IV: Force is centered around Tommy Egan (played by Joseph Sikora) who, just like Tariq St. Patrick in Power Book II: Ghost, was in the original Power series. Fans waited long enough for word and an official release date on Power Book IV: Force season 2, and finally, it’s here.
When DoesPower Book IV: Force Season 2 Come Out?
Good news: There’s an official premiere date for Power Book IV: Force season 2. Bad news: It’s not for a few months. STARZ announced that Power Book IV: Force will return for season 2 on September 1, meaning that the Power Universe will break for the summer. STARZ also unveiled its first teaser trailer for season 2 and in it, Tommy remains the most wanted man in Chicago as he continues his takeover of the city’s drug game.
STARZ also shared new details about the plot of season two:
After cutting ties in New York, Tommy Egan’s newfound family and ruthless drug game enticed him to stay in Chicago. The explosive second season begins with Tommy on a mission to avenge the death of Lilliana, his former nemesis turned business partner. With Diamond (Isaac Keys) and Jenard (Kris D. Lofton) at odds, the Flynn organization weakened, and a new connect on the scene, Tommy is more determined than ever to take over the Chicago drug world.
You can watch the teaser trailer for Power Book IV: Force season 2 above.
‘Power Book IV: Force’ season 1 is available to stream on STARZ. ‘Power Book IV: Force’ season 2 arrives on September 1.
A few preliminary notes before we dive into this ranking of the ten Fast & Furious movies that exist as of this writing:
Ranking these movies is fun but also a little impossible because there’s such a ridiculous range throughout the franchise, to the degree that the first and tenth movies have almost nothing in common beyond Vin Diesel driving cars very fast
It’s nuts to sit back and think about how these movies have been a consistent part of pop culture around the world for over 20 years, kind of like Star Wars but if Mark Hamill had kept playing Luke Skywalker straight through the mid-1990s
It would be really funny if Star Wars pulled a reverse-Fast and the final film in the entire franchise was about Han Solo’s descendants stealing consumer electronics from speeding 18-wheelers on Southern California highways
Let’s get into it. As always, these rankings are based on personal taste and your mileage may vary substantially. That’s fine. If we have learned nothing else from the adventures of Dominic Toretto, we have at least learned that you can always put your differences aside over a Corona or two at a backyard barbecue. Even if you’ve tried to kill each other with rockets. Which, I must stress here, I do not want you to do to me. Please do not shoot a rocket at me. Ever. For any reason. But especially not over these rankings.
Thank you.
10. Fast & Furious (2009)
The weird thing about this movie is that I remember almost nothing that happened in it despite watching it multiple times. It’s just kind of… there, the bridge between the franchise losing its stars and heading off to Tokyo and the whole thing becoming a multibillion-dollar enterprise about super-spies with rockets and futuristic technology and everything else it became in the ensuing decade. You could make an argument that it’s the most important movie in the franchise, just for the foundation it laid and the little chronological two-step it did that allowed Han to stick around and tie a few loose ends together. I say “you” could make this argument because I sure as hell am not going to. Not when there’s so much else to discuss.
There is one other thing worth noting here. This film wasn’t the entire bridge between the two parts of this franchise. There was also a short film called Los Bandoleros that came out in 2009, two months after Fast & Furious, that attempted to explain how Dom and Han knew each other. It was directed by Vin Diesel and is 20 minutes long and features some of the crew hijacking gas trucks in the Dominican Republic. It’s really fun to explain this to people who have only watched these movies casually. I recommend doing it as often as you can.
9. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
2 Fast 2 Furious has two things going for it that cannot be overstated:
It introduced Ludacris to the franchise – officiating a jet ski race with a bullhorn, as one does – and set in motion one of the greatest characters arcs in the history of cinema
Its dramatic conclusion featured a speeding car flying through the air and crashing into the bad guy’s boat, which set a precedent for “cars crashing into things or dragging things that crash into other things” that has continued through the franchise, from Fast Five (dragging a safe through the streets of Brazil) to Furious 7 (cars flying between and through skyscrapers) to Fast X (cars taking out helicopters, cars taking out bombs, really just the whole movie)
I’m serious about the Ludacris thing. Name one other movie character who has gone from jet ski race officiant to expert computer hacker to amateur astronaut. He is easily the most fascinating character in this franchise.
8. Fast X (2023)
There’s a fine line between acknowledging the past and becoming stuck inside it, and I think Fast X went racing over it in a NoS-fueled muscle car. The action scenes are still there and they still rip extremely hard. The stuff in Rome with the giant rolling bomb is very fun. It’s nice that someone woke up one morning and said “Hey, what if Jason Momoa played like an extremely jacked version of the Joker?” I like that we’re just blowing up planes and helicopters by the dozen now. But the rest of it has started to careen from fun implausibility to… it’s a bit much, man.
Every new character that’s introduced is a previously unmentioned relative of one we knew before. People keep coming back from the dead. The movie is like 40 percent flashbacks to other movies that attempt to explain why the stuff happening in this one is important, instead of just doing a lot of cool new stuff. I kind of want to see it again with someone who has not seen any of the previous nine movies, just to hear them explain what they think is going on.
That would be fun.
7. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
A few important things are happening here:
Tokyo Drift is the first movie in the franchise that was directed by Justin Lin, who took the series to its creative pinnacle a few films later
It also marked the first appearance of Sung Kang as Han, a character so good they had to twist the entire timeline of the film into a pretzel to bring him back for the next films in the franchise
Bow Wow played a car-obsessed high school student in this movie and then, six movies and 15 years later, the same character was the scientific mastermind behind a jet-powered Pontiac that sent Ludacris into outer space
Also, it’s a surprisingly fun watch, even today, many years and many improbable adventures later. Go watch it again sometime soon.
6. Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
We have discussed this before but it’s worth mentioning again, if only because it is still both true and a little hilarious: The titles of the films in this franchise are an absolute mess. There’s nothing even resembling a uniform structure. We have both a “The Fast and the Furious” and a “Fast & Furious.” We have wordplay with the eighth movie having the word Fate (F8… get it???) in the title. We have a Fast Five, with the number spelled out; and a Furious 7, with the actual number; and in between we have this movie, with both a Fast and a Furious and the number 6. It is unfiltered chaos and somehow not even a top-five wildest thing about the franchise and I love it a lot. The tenth movie introduced Roman numerals. There are no limits to how weird this can all get.
Anyway, this is a fun movie. It introduced the Shaw family, which led to both Jason Statham and Helen Mirren joining the franchise. It ended with an insane scene where a bunch of cars chased an airplane down a runway that was apparently 40 miles long. Vin Diesel drove a car out of the aforementioned airplane straight through the nose with a massive fireball trailing him. There’s really not much more you can ask for on a Saturday afternoon at like 2 pm when you’re glued to the couch.
5. The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Some notes here:
Charlize Theron shows up as a cyberterrorist named Cipher who has braids for some reason
Jason Statham’s character, who tried to shoot Dominic Toretto out of the sky with a rocket in the previous movie, is now a good guy who protects Dom’s infant son with his life during a pretty funny fight with multiple goons on an airplane
There is a nuclear submarine now
Lots of other stuff happens, too. The Rock gets framed for a crime involving an off-book retrieval of an EMP device in Berlin and goes to prison. There’s a huge scene with cars being controlled remotely and crashing into each other a lot. There’s a whole car chase on top of a glacier. But mostly I just like the things in those bullet points.
4. F9 (2021)
Wellllllllllll we are in space now. That’s the main thing here. John Cena is here, too, as Dominic Toretto’s estranged brother Jakob, whose entry on the F9 Wikipedia page describes him as “a master thief, assassin, and high-performance driver,” which, I mean, yeah, sure, let’s add one of those to the mix. There are big magnets and satellites that can control nuclear weapons and Charlize Theron’s character has leather pants and a stylish bowl cut despite being housed in a plexiglass jail cell that she eventually breaks out of. There’s all of that.
But the space thing is the story here. It remains deeply funny to me that they did this. They actually did it. The dudes from Tokyo Drift built a rocket and strapped it to a Pontiac Fiero and Ludacris and Tyrese got inside and launched themselves into the cosmos to prevent Armageddon. It’s all just remarkable. Please remember this whenever anyone tells you that your dreams are unattainable. Remember both parts of it. Remember the thing inside the Fast universe where these characters went from humble beginnings — street races and jet ski competitions in Miami — to actual outer space, but also remember the thing where this whole franchise started with stolen DVD players and now has seen its characters thwart multiple nuclear-adjacent plots. Anything is possible in this life if you truly believe.
3. The Fast and the Furious (2001)
This all brings us back to the beginning, where this all started. Back when Vin Diesel was running a lunch counter and feuding with a local gang about stolen DVD players. When Paul Walker — whose character, it should be noted, is still very much alive in these movies, which is a whole extra level of bonkers, because it means the one character in the Family who has actual law enforcement training is just sitting at home and straight-up refusing to help while his closest friends and wife attempt to prevent cyberterrorists from turning the world into a nuclear wasteland — was just an undercover cop who liked driving fast. It’s all kind of quaint, really. Go back and watch this sometime and then chase it with one of the later installments and see how far we’ve all come. It’s staggering.
It is a good movie, though! It’s basically Point Break with cars, which is not a complaint. “Point Break with [literally anything]” is a good starting point for any movie. Point Break with basketball. Point Break with chain restaurants. Point Break with the Westminster Dog Show. These are all free ideas for anyone who has the juice to get them made. Especially that last one. You never know, man, it could lead to a multi-decade franchise that ends with an award-winning corgi preventing a dirty bomb from going off in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve. Stranger things have happened. In this very franchise. We really can’t rule anything out.
2. Furious 7 (2015)
Furious 7 asked a very important question that more movies should ask at some point: “But what if Statham, also?” Because, really, the biggest surprise here isn’t that Jason Statham appeared in a Fast & Furious movie. The biggest surprise is that it took everyone until the seventh film in the franchise to get us there. Although he did appear in the post-credits scene of the sixth, so it’s not like a “full” seven. And I guess if we’re being technical about it all, now that we know he was driving the car that killed Han (“killed” Han, technically, as no one in these movies ever really dies, kind of like death is a suggestion more than an act of finality), he was kind of in Tokyo Drift, too, in an offscreen, uncredited role. This is a lot of fun to think about while watching Tokyo Drift now, by the way, years later. The secret Statham of it all.
But anyway, yes, Statham. Between his introduction as a villain and the skyscraper car heist/escape and the ending scene with Dom and Brian where they drive off into the sunsNO YOU CRIED DURING AN ACTION MOVIE ABOUT CARS THAT GO ZOOM AND VROOM.
I’m sorry. I’m still a little emotional about all of this. What I’m saying is that this movie is a big, ambitious, heartfelt endeavor and it had a rocky run-up with the actual death of Paul Walker before filming was completed. It was a miracle they pulled it off and it was a great piece of work by director James Wan and it remains extremely rewatchable today, even with the ending that yoinks on your heart a little.
And, again, it has Statham. And the scene where Vin Diesel soars through the Abu Dhabi sky from one skyscraper to another inside a million-dollar sports car. And at one point The Rock says “Daddy’s gotta go to work” and flexes his broken arm so hard that his cast breaks off and turns to dust on the floor of his hospital room. We should make it a point to think about all of that every few weeks.
1. Fast Five (2011)
An incomplete list of things that happen in Fast Five:
— Vin Diesel’s character, Dominic Toretto, is freed from police custody by his best friend and his sister when they intercept an inmate transfer bus and send it tumbling down a deserted road. Despite the bus flipping over at least four times, Vin Diesel survives. The accident is covered on television by the same actor who played Perd Hapley on Parks and Recreation. This is the first thing that happens in the movie.
— The crew takes part in a train heist that sees them yank a number of expensive racing-type cars off the train while it is speeding down a Brazilian track, and the train heist ends in disaster and explosions and Vin Diesel and Paul Walker flying off a cliff in a sports car and splashing to safety 100 feet below, at which point they are promptly captured by Brazil’s biggest drug lord. This is the second thing that happens in the movie.
— The Rock is introduced as a U.S. government agent named Luke Hobbs who (A) travels to Brazil to arrest Dom and Brian as though jurisdiction is a mere suggestion; (B) has a wardrobe that consists exclusively of military-issue cargo pants and Under Armour t-shirts so tight that you can see his heartbeat through them; and (C) re-introduces the audience to all the characters by saying, “I know you, I read your file,” then ticking off all the history and personality traits “from the file” that you need to know to get caught up. Useful, that guy.
— This scene…
Universal
— They rip the drug lord’s cash-filled vault out of the corrupt Brazilian police force’s downtown headquarters and drag it behind two muscle cars through the streets of Rio, flinging it into personal property and storefronts and doing what one has to assume is millions of dollars in damage before fleeing the country.
If Daenerys Targaryen is the Mother of Dragons, what does that make Kendall Roy? The Brother of Dipsh*ts? The Succession / Game of Thrones crossover came to mind during an interview with Jeremy Strong, who plays the co-CEO (for now) of Waystar Royco, following Sunday’s episode.
“It’s kind of like a Dracarys moment for Kendall,” the method actor told the Hollywood Reporter about Kendall’s maneuvering, including telling Roman that he “f*cked it,” being mean to Jess, and hiring his father’s driver and confidante, Colin. “Dracarys” is the command that the Targaryens, including Dany, use when they want their dragons to light some poor sucker on fire.
As long as Succession doesn’t end like Thrones (a bold move on Strong’s part to even bring mention the show!), keep the references coming.
Strong continued, “Starting from the end of episode six, really, I think he can see the endgame. A lot of things happen in the ninth episode. Him feeling blamed for the election and his culpability in making this kind of Faustian bargain, really, he’s compromised himself utterly, and he knows it. I think he’s in turmoil. The real moral jeopardy that we see in the previous episode.”
At the end of 2022, Foo Fighters shared a message in which they noted that after the death of Taylor Hawkins, the group was “going to be a very different band going forward.” This led to a bunch of speculation about who the group’s new drummer should be, and now we know that touring with the band will be Josh Freese. He’s not exactly a household name, but who is he?
Well, it’s worth noting that after the aforementioned 2022 message, when Foo fans started discussing who should be the band’s next drummer, Freese’s name was among the most mentioned. One commenter at the time called him “the ultimate rock session drummer,” and indeed, he’s performed with artists like Devo, The Vandals, Guns N’ Roses, A Perfect Circle, Puddle Of Mudd, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, Sublime With Rome, Paramore, and Sting, among many others. On top of that, he also played with Foo Fighters during their Hawkins tribute concerts in 2022.
Freese was officially revealed as the new Foo Fighters touring drummer during the band’s Foo Fighters: Preparing Music For Concerts livestream, but there were indications that Freese was the pick before that. As Variety noted, Freese recently pulled out of performance obligations with The Offspring and Danny Elfman.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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