Talk about a star-studded team-up! Louis Vuitton has just dropped a new video announcing the LV x Takashi Murakami re-edition collection that combines Zendaya’s undeniable star power with Murakami’s colorful art, set to the music of visionary late producer SOPHIE. It’s loud, vibrant, psychedelic — everything you’d hope a team-up of this magnitude would produce. What a way to start off the new year.
The collection is a refresh of Murakami and LV’s team-up from the early 2000s and features reimagining of some of LV’s most popular signature women and men’s accessories and leather goods, including the Speedy Bandoulière, the criss-cross cardholder, Sunset Flat comfort sandals, cosmetic pouch, Keepal Bandoulière, trainers, belts, and more.
This collection is absolutely huge, we’d list as much as we can, but we’re talking about over 200 pieces across the entire LV catalog, all featuring Murakami’s iconic Y2K Superflat art style. So if you’re a fan of charms, psychedelic but playful imagery, or bright color palettes, you’re going to find a lot to love in this collection.
Instead of running through the best pieces of the collection, we’re going to instead point you in the direction of this BTS video where Zendaya breaks down the entire collection below. It’ll be a lot more fun than us just explaining it! Shop the full collection here.
Sci-fi devotees are feasting at Apple TV+ these days. From For All Mankind (which will spin off into the Star City series) to Foundation and Silo, no shortage of original-series hits exists. The tech giant’s streaming service is hard at work on the movie side, too, with an added secret weapon-team of atmospheric wizards, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who have scored upcoming film The Gorge. This creature feature will also star a sci-fi legend behind the leading duo, so let’s explore what to expect from his movie.
Plot
Apple TV+
This film will land during the Valentine “season.” Don’t roll your eyes because, to that end, co-star Miles Teller told Screenrant that this movie is “good alternative programming… to your typical love story,” and Anya Taylor-Joy added that this movie weaves in “so many genres” to showing that romance. Teller further promised that “they have to go through some really entertaining, engaging, high-octane, hellacious sh*t to end up with each other,” which is supported by the film’s trailer that doesn’t hold back on story hints.
Director Scott Derickson (Sinister, Doctor Strange) helms the story of two snipers (Levi and Drasa), who are recruited by Sigourney Weaver’s mysterious character to guard opposite sides of a gorge that might be “the door to Hell,” according to a character portrayed by Sope Dirisu. The sniping duo isn’t allowed outside contact or communication with each other, but they end up falling in love (as much as two people can) through binoculars. Voyeuristically? Maybe. From Apple TV+’s film synopsis:
Two highly-trained operatives are appointed to posts in guard towers on opposite sides of a vast and highly classified gorge, protecting the world from an undisclosed, mysterious evil that lurks within. They bond from a distance while trying to stay vigilant in defending against an unseen enemy. When the cataclysmic threat to humanity is revealed to them, they must work together in a test of both their physical and mental strength to keep the secret in the gorge before it’s too late.
The film involves hefty fight-or-flight scenes and heavy stunt work, but while speaking with Collider, Teller revealed that the most difficult part of the movie to film was actually a dance scene due to technical difficulties involving a camera and wifi, which led to the pair filming “a whole day” to achieve “one shot” in the dance sequence. The lo-fi trick, apparently, was when Derrickson “just [took] the camera outside and [reset] it, and that worked.”
Another presence will loom larger than the Lovecraftian creatures in The Gorge, too. That would be the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and you can always count on Reznor to be vocal about any situation. As he recently told Indiewire, the pair has now almost entirely devoted themselves to scoring films because they enjoy “the collaborative experience with interesting people.” Additionally, the pair dropped hints to GQ about their “kind of haunted, chanting murmur” that will set the mood for The Gorge, including in scenes such as “Teller and Taylor-Joy in an evil-looking spiky forest.”
Reznor, as well, praised his musical partner for their symbiotic process, in which Reznor tends to watch a scene and “improvise some music,” and then Atticus uses his “superpower” to pull everything together to actually work with the scene. Their approach has made them a go-to pair for prestige-project scores since David Fincher’s The Social Network.
Cast
The creature(s) and the atmosphere do plenty of acting in this movie, but Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy are headlining with Sigourney Weaver picking up her sci-fi queen crown for another go.
Release Date
Happy Valentines Day: The Gorge streams on Feb. 14, 2025 on Apple TV+.
Trailer
The trailer sets up the movie’s romance and adventure:
PinkPantheress spent some time touring in 2024, but other than that, she was relatively quiet in terms of musical output, aside from the single “Turn It Up” and collaborations with LE SSERAFIM and Kaytranada.
It appears 2025 will be different.
On X (formerly Twitter), PinkPantheress shared a couple of photos of her in a minimal home studio setup, featuring a couple laptops and a few pieces of audio and production equipment on a desk. She also wrote, “oh we are soooo back #2025 i missed y’all [heart emojis] thanks for waiting on me [single tear emoji].”
If a new album is set for 2025, it will be PinkPantheress’ first since 2023’s Heaven Knows.
Meanwhile, PinkPantheress spent some time in 2024 ruffling feathers with her thoughts on albums and songs. In an interview, she said, “I don’t listen to albums. I just listen to songs. […] That’s why when it came to my own album, I was like, ‘Do people care about tracklisting?’ I couldn’t believe it. Some people would were like, ‘Oh, it’s a great album, but the tracklisting doesn’t make sense.’ I’m like, ‘Just listen to the songs.’”
In another interview, she declared, “I was able to experiment and making short songs was just a result of me experimenting. A song doesn’t need to be longer than two minutes 30, in my opinion. We don’t need to repeat a verse, we don’t need to have a bridge, we don’t need it. We don’t need a long outro.”
Like many of us, Rihanna rang in 2025 by counting down the final seconds of 2024.
Rihanna’s video of her New Year’s Eve celebration shows her and a group of friends eagerly waiting for 2025 to arrive. After the clock strikes midnight, Rihanna exclaims, “Y’all, I didn’t drink all year! I didn’t drink all year!” The post is also captioned, “New Year, New Me.”
While Rihanna may have been celebrating an alcohol-free 2024, some have interpreted what Rihanna said as a joke: When she spoke, it had been 2025 for just a matter of seconds, so perhaps she was playing off the fact she hadn’t yet had any alcohol in 2025.
Either way, Rihanna has seemingly not been drinking much over the past couple years. She presumably abstained while pregnant with her and ASAP Rocky’s son Riot, who was born in August 2023. Then, in April 2024, Rihanna sparked pregnancy rumors when she was spotted pretending to sip champagne.
Famously, though, Rihanna did go day drinking with Seth Meyers in 2019, and Meyers later said, “We drank the same amount and then she definitely went out. Like, she was fine. She walked out, she looked as good as she did when we started. I went home, immediately fell asleep in the hallway of my apartment. Got in the door, fell asleep.”
Meanwhile, in the comments of the New Year’s post, a user named Lorenzo wrote, “We want an album forehead.” Rihanna fired back, “listen Lorenzo! You ain’t cute enough to be calling me by my black name you dizzy f*ck!”
Something strange is happening at Taco Bell. For whatever reason, the fast food brand keeps dropping fried food outside its usual M.O. and each time, they’ve knocked it out of the park. The brand’s super-limited chicken wings are some of the best in fast food, their fries are way better than they should be, and they’ve even made a valiant attempt at doing a chicken sandwich — which again, tasted way better than anyone could’ve imagined.
And now, they’ve done it again with the new Crispy Chicken Nuggets.
Not only are these nuggets good, but they may also be the absolute best fried food dish at Taco Bell, which is really saying something considering the fries are easily top ten material. And we’d know, because we ranked 36 different fast food french fries and Taco Bell’s Nacho Fries came in 7th overall. Now imagine pairing those fries with some delicious white meat chicken nuggets? It’s weird to say but, if you want one of the best chicken and fries orders in fast food in 2025, there is an argument to be made that you might find it at Taco Bell.
Here is our full review of the surprisingly delicious Crispy Chicken Nuggets. Let’s eat!
Taco Bell’s Crispy Chicken Nuggets
Dane Rivera
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
I ordered these nuggets with the highest amount of skepticism a person could have. I fully expected them to be downright awful. So if you’re going into this thinking, “How could these possibly be any good?” I’ve been there. Even visually, these nuggets leave a lot to be desired. When I opened my box and saw these nuggets, they struck me immediately as low quality. I imagined them to be dry, over-salted, and processed to the point that the meat would no longer resemble chicken.
I was completely wrong. Biting into this nugget, I was struck by how tender and flavorful this white meat chicken tender is. There is a well-seasoned blend of salty, garlic, onion, and black pepper flavors, with the meat giving off a juicy and tender texture. After the initial surprise of how good this dish is, I wondered if maybe I was just taken by surprise.
“Maybe this nugget isn’t good,” I thought. “Just way better than I expected.”
But nope, a few bites later, and still delicious!
Dane Rivera
When we taste test new dishes, we don’t go in hungry, as that might influence our feelings about a dish. So I had already had lunch by the time I tried the nuggets, and I ended up liking the dish so much I finished every nugget — all without every dipping one in sauce. When a chicken dish doesn’t need sauce, that’s the sign of greatness.
What blows my mind though is not that Taco Bell’s chicken nuggets are good, but that they’re so much better than a lot of the brands in competition. McDonald’s, Burger King, Del Taco, Jack in the Box, and Wendy’s have nuggets that take a backseat to these. Hopefully, this inspires the other brands to step up their game.
The Bottom Line:
Taco Bell’s chicken nuggets are so damn good that you need to try them ASAP. Taco Bell is carving up new lanes for itself and consistently proving that it’s one of the best fast food brands in operation right now.
During a meet and greet for his money-making Las Vegas residency, the “In Da Club” rapper posed for a photo with actress Danielle Fishel, who played quintessential ’90s crush Topanga Lawrence on the ABC sitcom that aired for seven seasons.
“@daniellefishel just said fvck it, shes gonna be fine forever. Happy New Year’s Eve. Vegas vibes!” he wrote on Instagram. In the replies, Fishel commented, “AHHHH! I had the BEST time – thanks for putting on such an amazing show. You were the perfect way to end 2024. G-Unit forever!”
50 Cent has never shared his favorite TV show of all-time (maybe he prefers Girl Meets World to Boy Meets World!), but we do know his No. 1 movie.
“Oh baby, I got so many movies I enjoy. I’m a man on the road. Just gimme a DVD player and a great movie and I’m happy. But if I had to pick my favorite one, I love Friday,” he told author Cindy Pearlman in the 2007 book You Gotta See This, according to Far Out. “I could sit down and watch it right now. I could watch it anytime. That movie makes me laugh.”
Netflix’s biggest non-English language show (the first season still retains the top spot on that list) has a good start at snagging another all-timer spot with “265.2 million views,” at least according to Netflix’s publicly released data, since the second season’s Dec. 26 release.
Those numbers are particularly impressive given the wait time between seasons with Squid Game first debuting in September 2021 and the second season arriving in December 2024. That’s a three-year gap, albeit broken up by the franchise’s reality-show stint, Squid Game: The Challenge, which streamed in 2023. Also, Netflix revealed that a third (and final) season was in the works from creator/director Hwang Dong-hyuk and star Lee Jung-jae.
When? Netflix has only specified that the third installment is “due out in 2025,” and it reinforced that news with a New Year’s Day teaser “introducing” a new animatronic doll, Chul-su (or Cheol-Su), that appeared in the second season credits. Is there a precise release date, though?
Not officially. Yet there is speculation surrounding word from a Forbes report, which claimed that Netflix Korea’s social media accidentally revealed a June 2025 release date in a briefly surfaced video reel. That seems awfully (and too) fast, even though the second and third seasons were simultaneously filmed last year. As of now, however, Netflix Korea is running with a reel that only promises a 2025 return. In other words, the wait for a release date is on, although we might not have to wait long to find out.
In a late December interview with Variety, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk hinted at a date coming soon. He also offered a few third season story points:
“I believe we will be announcing the launch date for Season 3 soon. I probably expect that to launch around summer or fall next year. But as for the storyline of the third season, Gi-hun having lost everything, including his best friend, and all of his attempts going to failure, it’s now, what is he going to be like? What state is Gi-hun going to be in? And what will he choose to do? Will he continue on with the mission? Is he going to give up or persist? And so you’re going to meet our character Gi-hun at a very critical crossroads as we begin the third season. Gi-hun will not be the man he was in Season 2.”
The first two Squid Game seasons and Squid Game: The Challenge are currently streaming on Netflix.
Aside from Rod Stewart playing the Legends slot, Glastonbury hasn’t yet announced its 2025 lineup. That didn’t stop Neil Young from declaring that he (and his band, the Chrome Hearts) has decided to remove himself from the iconic UK festival’s lineup.
“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all time favorite outdoor gigs. We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being. Thanks for coming to see us last time!
We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be. Hope to see you at one of the other venues on the tour.”
Rolling Stone notes that BBC and Glastonbury have actually had a long-standing relationship, as BBC broadcasts and streams some of the event, including globally for the first time in 2024. Based on Young’s post, it’s not clear what specific issue has with Glastonbury and BBC.
The NBA’s ratings have been a constant topic of conversation for the better part of five years, even though they should only matter to a handful of people in the league office and various network partners. There have been countless arguments about the state of the game and why it seems fans aren’t watching as often as they used to — many of which, it should be said, have been steered by bad-faith arguments about the league’s politics.
The reality is that television ratings are down for most everything that’s not football (particularly the NFL), and the NBA cannot replicate the NFL’s success for a variety of reasons — chief among them being that they do not play football. Still, that hasn’t stopped the arguments and attempts to “fix” the NBA, with this season’s focus being whether teams are taking too many three-pointers and driving away fans because the game has changed so much.
The topic of NBA ratings breached the mainstream sports conversation once again on Thursday, when Caitlin Clark was asked about it during an appearance on the New Heights Podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce. Clark used the question to go to bat for the NBA, as she lauded the incredible skill of NBA players and said she felt part of the problem is that fans think players are so good that they make it seem like they’re not trying. She also, unsurprisingly, does not think three-pointers are an issue, saying watching guys launch threes is one of her favorite things in the sport.
“Honestly, I feel like the average basketball fan doesn’t understand how good NBA players are, and they think it looks like they’re not trying,” Clark said. “I promise you they’re trying, they’re just like, so good. That’s why it looks like they’re not trying. And obviously the physicality of the league has changed a lot, and I wasn’t around when it was much more physical and maybe people want more beef and physicality and people think it’s gone soft. But, I think it’s also because the skill has changed. That’s what’s great about basketball, it’s always evolving. It’s gonna be different than when MJ played. It’s gonna be different in 10 years than it is now. So it’s hard for me to put my finger on why it’s gone down — and also it’s competing against a lot of football right now, you have to take that into consideration. Football is just, that’s America’s favorite thing. I mean, I love three-point shooting. I love seeing guys launch threes, but not everybody loves that, so, I don’t know.”
Clark is, of course, naturally inclined to enjoy the three-point shooting boom we are currently in, as she’s part of that on the women’s side, but I do think she makes some very good points overall. Her point about the game constantly evolving is a particularly important one because most of the conversations are being driven by people who are nostalgic for a past era that just doesn’t exist anymore. Nostalgia drives a lot of things (there’s a reason we are getting so many remakes and reboots in film and TV) but sports are the rare form of entertainment that will always press forward (albeit with splashes of nostalgia in the form of throwback uniforms). People always think things were at their best when they were growing up, and that is definitely the case with sports fans. Clark reminds everyone that the game is constantly evolving and always has, which she notes is a feature, not a bug.
Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.
Whatever you might be into, each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody. Some stand out above the rest, naturally, so check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of December below.
Paul Grimstad — “Evening Mirror” Feat. Talia Ryder 7-inch
In celebration of the one-year anniversary of the film The Sweet East, there’s a special 7-inch single of one of the movie’s soundtrack highlight, “Evening Mirror.” The release was available exclusively at a record release party on December 22, but is expected to be made available via other venues in the future.
For David Byrne and company, it all started with Talking Heads: 77, which has been given an amazing new reissue. The “Super Deluxe Edition” features, among other goodies, rarities, unreleased outtakes, and the previously unreleased Live At CBGB’s, Oct. 10, 1977.
Fang Island — Doesn’t Exist II: The Complete Recordings
Joyful Noise
This Providence, Rhode Island band burned fast and bright, leaving behind a couple of beloved albums and a spattering of EPs and lesser-heard gems. Now, you can have it all with this complete box set, capturing the legacy of the band in a hand-crafted, laser-etched wooden box. With it, you get everything the band released, an exclusive 7-inch record featuring “Starquake” b/w “Patterns On The Wall” feat. Andrew WK, and a poster. They aren’t producing many of these boxes (300) and they’re sold out online, so follow the link below to see where they may have some in stores. Both albums, Fang Island and Major, are also available individually here.
Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto’s iconic film Interstella 5555: The 5Tory Of The 5Ecret 5Tar had a one-night-only screening earlier this month. If you missed that, there’s still Discovery: Interstella 5555 Edition, which includes the original Japanese edition artwork, stickers, and Daft Club card.
The soundtrack to end all soundtracks. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but the influence of Pulp Fiction, both as a film and an album, can’t be overstated. I watched the film recently in a crowded theater and was struck by just how “music video” it all still plays, with big musical numbers tying the scenes together. This new pressing for the film’s 30th anniversary comes on glow-in-the-dark vinyl, and will please any vinyl lover in your life.
Motown has spent much of 2024 pushing a fantastic series of reissued from its storied catalog, and now, we’ve reached the end of the road. Among the December drops is a reissue of Solid Rock, The Temptations’ pivotal 1972 album.
J. Cole — 2014 Forest Hills Drive Vinyl (10 Year Anniversary Edition)
It doesn’t get much more iconic than 2014 Forest Hills Drive when it comes to rap albums, and now J. Cole is celebrating ten years of the landmark project with a new anniversary reissue. Aside from new cover art, there are also four new bonus tracks.
The Cure — Songs Of A Lost World (Blood Red Moon Edition)
Fiction/Capitol Records
In 2024, Robert Smith and company managed to come through with Songs Of A Lost World, one of the best-received albums of The Cure’s storied career. Uproxx’s Steven Hyden said of it, “As much as The Cure have recaptured the sound of their 1980s work, they’ve reanimated the spirit, a desire to give each album a distinct mood that blots out all others in the world.”
This is from Rhino’s high fidelity series and is limited to only 3,000 copies — and appears to be out of stock online. The collections features all of the albums released during Jim Morrison’s life, from the self-titled debut to L.A. Woman. The set is held in a pretty awesome faux lizard skin hardshell slipcase and features rare photos and new liner notes from Doors archivist David Dutkowski. It essentially would knock out all of your Doors needs in a single set.
Tender Buttons was a critically beloved dream pop album from the mid-2000s, and this year, it turns 20 years old. Vinyl Me, Please is marking the occasion with a reissue pressed on magenta and cyan vinyl, which provides a vibrant contrast to the black-and-white cover art.
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