Category: Worldwide

Vladimir Putin’s legacy took quite a turn earlier this year when he decided to go imperialistic by invading Ukraine. His troops have since seen a series of setbacks, and we’ve heard plenty about how behind-the-scenes events are not great. Troops nearly blew up their general, Putin has fired military leaders (and secret agents) like wildfire, and a top commander (known as “The Executioner”) got whacked by a sniper with that news arriving this week.

All of these developments follow news that Putin’s inner circle is making plans to insert a successor with some eye toward restoring some type of Russian glory. In the meantime, U.S. intelligence officers revealed that Putin’s rule is secretly considered to be finite, given his rumored health woes and constant threats of assassination.

Overall, the Kremlin must be frustrated, and Newsweek now reports that some of this disgruntlement could find its way to Germany in the form of an invasion. At least, that’s the takeaway after a German official cracked an on-air joke while hurling an F-bomb, which echoed Ukraine soldiers’ own declaration and a Russian state TV host calling out Germany:

On his evening program on Tuesday on Russia-1, Solovyov introduced a clip of German Culture Minister Claudia Roth receiving a gift of two stamps from her Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksandr Tkachenko, during a trip to Odessa on Tuesday. The first stamp showed a soldier in front of the silhouette of the Moskva, the Russian Black Sea fleet flagship that Ukraine said it had sunk with missiles. On the other stamp was the image of a soldier with his middle finger raised.

“F**k you, Russian ship,” Roth said in English to Tkachenko as she laughed. This was a nod to what was reportedly shouted by Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island on February 24 when they told Russian warships to “go f**k yourself.”

From there, Solovyov referenced Operation Barbarossa (1941), which saw German troops invade Russia. He then declared outrage over the F-bomb and asked, “What are we supposed to do now? Once again shake the dust off Teutonic graves with the thundering march of Soviet boots? They will never get the message otherwise.”

You can watch the clip below, and Solovyov sure seems angry! And this is all in response to an apparent joking tone (as one can also see in this clip) from the German culture minister.

Meanwhile, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is out there saying that she has no regrets for not doing anything to stop Putin’s annexation of Crimea. International relations continues to be a source of high drama, unfortunately with the effects landing upon civilians while Putin’s Ukraine invasion continues cranking past the 100 day mark.

(Via Newsweek)

What do sailing and STEM fields have in common? For one, both have traditionally been—and largely still are—the domain of men. Sailing is a male-dominated sport, with women making up 16% of all competitors and only 5% of professional competitors in regattas last year. And though women have made big strides in STEM, progress has been uneven and women are still underrepresented in certain fields, including environmental science.

Such underrepresentation is one reason the founders of eXXpedition gather all-female sailing crews with diverse areas of expertise to research ocean plastic pollution. Since 2014, the nonprofit organization has been on a mission to “make the unseen, seen”—the unseen being women in sailing and science, the plastics and toxins polluting our oceans, and the diverse solutions to the problem.

Emily Penn founded eXXpedition after seeing ocean plastic pollution up close while working on a biofuel boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Emily Penn founded eXXpedition to bring women in sailing and ocean plastic pollution into full view.Courtesty of Emily Penn/eXXpedition

“I’d jump into the water to wash and be surrounded by plastic, nearly 1,000 miles from the nearest land,” Penn told National Geographic. “We would then stop at these small islands, and see how they were struggling so much with waste management, especially plastic. And then we’d land on beaches of uninhabited islands that had more plastic on them. After those moments of seeing it first-hand, I just couldn’t really look back.”

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During her first all-woman sailing expedition, Penn was amazed by the positive, supportive atmosphere aboard the ship. Having an all-women crew was a “magic” dynamic—surprisingly different from the mixed crews she’d always been part of—and thus eXXpedition was born.

Sea voyages are vital for environmental research, but they aren’t particularly visible to those of us on land. The eXXpedition team has utilized Facebook and Instagram to bring people aboard virtually and connect its community around the globe. With more than 18,000 Facebook groups dedicated to celebrating and protecting our planet, and environmental protection being one of the top three causes people donate to on Instagram, these platforms have been critical to driving support for the organization’s mission and sharing the results of its voyages.

See on Instagram

In October 2019, eXXpedition launched a bold, two-year mission to circumnavigate the globe called Round the World. Multidisciplinary crews of women—scientists, journalists, activists and more—set sail to conduct research over 38,000 nautical miles, traveling through four of the five oceanic gyres where pollution accumulates in dense pockets. The crews sailed across the Atlantic, throughout the Caribbean, to Galapagos and Easter Island, and across the South Pacific Gyre to Tahiti, studying the issue and collecting valuable data.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Pandemic shutdowns brought the world to a screeching halt, and sadly, the remaining Round the World legs had to be canceled. But that didn’t mean the eXXpedition mission stopped; it merely shifted.

While eXXpedition voyages provide valuable research, the problem of ocean pollution starts on land, which means all of us need to be involved in this work. However, many people simply don’t know which actions to take.

So when COVID shut things down, Penn created SHiFT, an online platform to help people hone their own environmental actions even as they navigated the unfamiliar waters of the pandemic.

“Our research has shown us that the sources of plastic pollution are endless,” Penn tells Upworthy. “This means the solutions are too. There is no silver bullet. We need to tackle the problem from every angle.

“For many people, this message can feel overwhelming,” she adds. ”Should I switch my packaging to biodegradable plastic, glass or paper, or do I need to redesign my product completely? Should I put a filter on my washing machine, or make clothes from bamboo or rethink the way we sell clothing all together? We know we need all these solutions, but many of us need help to work out which one to use and when.”

See on Instagram

SHiFT helps individuals and businesses whittle down those overwhelming options to a manageable one or two by guiding them to discover their unique strengths or “superpowers.”

“We need experts in every field,” says Penn. “It’s not about everyone becoming a marine biologist or everyone dedicating their lives to this, but it’s about saying, ‘Great, you’re an engineer, let’s look at ways we can do better waste management. You’re a chemist, let’s look at ways we can reinvent plastic or a biodegradable material. You’re a teacher, then talk about it. You’re a policy maker, then let’s legislate it.’”

More than 5,000 people a month from 133 countries use SHiFT to explore hundreds of impactful solutions and narrow them down to what’s most doable for them. Penn says the global community eXXpedition has created is where the real power of the organization lies.

“The many nationalities, skill sets, sectors and approaches to solving the plastics issue together is our greatest strength since we started our sailing missions in 2014,” says Penn. “Digital tools have helped us overcome the ultimate challenge we have, which is that with everyone spread around the world it can be a challenge to bring the community together. Now we have an opportunity to bring them together virtually to connect and collaborate and go on to really drive change on land.”

In addition to SHiFT, eXXpedition utilizes Facebook and Instagram to keep that community engaged and informed. The hope is to inspire people to action by sharing ambassador stories from women who have participated in voyages, debunking myths about plastics and pollution, making research accessible and understandable for everyone, and hosting virtual events.

The eXXpedition team is encouraged by the attention that plastics and ocean pollution has been getting and by how many people are interested in helping find solutions. On World Oceans Day on June 8, the SHiFT site will be adding even more tools to help people find their role and use their superpowers to tackle ocean plastic pollution.

“We don’t need everyone to do everything,” says Penn, “but we need everyone to do something.”

If you want to do something but aren’t sure where to start, visit the SHiFT platform. You can also follow them on Facebook and Instagram, join an eXXpedition voyage, help bring ocean pollution education and action to schools, donate to support eXXpedition’s mission or join the mailing list to learn about upcoming events and opportunities.

Follow eXXpedition research and explore solutions on social media:

eXXpedition—Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

SHiFT—Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

At the moment, Lil Nas X has beef with the BET Awards after he didn’t get a single nomination for this year’s show. He was so incensed, in fact, that he dropped a diss track about BET. The network went ahead and issued a response, in which they noted the previous times Nas was nominated at the BET Awards and declared themselves “passionate advocates for the wonderful diversity that exists within our community.”

Still, Nas has more to say, but about the Black community at large beyond just BET, as he took to Twitter to discuss homophobia (a particularly relevant topic right now given we’re a week into Pride Month).

Yesterday afternoon, he tweeted, “this not over no bet award this is about the bigger problem of homophobia in the black community, y’all can sit and pretend all u want but imma risk it all for us.” Hours later, a Twitter user made note of Frank Ocean and Tyler The Creator’s previous nominations and Nas responded, “love frank and tyler to death but can we admit queer men are more respected when they do less feminine things or am i making that up?”

Somebody else responded by implying that Nas didn’t get a nomination this year because his “music sucks,” but the rapper got the conversation back on track, replying, “ok cool i suck, my music is terrible, bad nas. now answer the question ‘are queer men are more respected when they do less feminine things’ yes or no?”

Somebody else jumped in, “you’re not making it up but when will gay men understand they can be gay w/o making it their whole personality? now you act like a female rather than you just liking men and that’s where people are put off.” To that, Nas replied, “gay men should continue making being gay their whole personality as long as we are still being jailed n fckin killed in countries for it.”

Meanwhile, BET shared a gallery of images and videos of Nas on social media last night, declaring, “This is bigger than the #BETAwards. This is real life and we will always rock with Lil’ Nas X and stand for our people.” Nas wasn’t moved by that, as he responded this morning, “these are literally just buzz words placed together.”

It doesn’t seem quite right to call 2022 so far a “normal” year — as far as the music world goes, bands are still being routinely sidelined on tour by Covid as they attempt to make up for the financial devastation of the last few years. But the first several months of 2022 have had the feel of a dam that’s been busted, as scores of records from top-flight artists have dropped nearly every week.

Not only are there more albums, it seems, but the albums themselves are more. Double LPs have gone from a rare indulgence to a new normal in practically every genre. After years of being cooped up, artists are unleashing songs by the armful as they tentatively head back on the road.

In a year of supersized music, it makes sense for my mid-year list to also be super-sized. I finally settled on 22 favorites that I wanted to stump for, though even that might be inadequate. If “normal” doesn’t fit 2022 in terms of the myriad disasters still wreaking havoc in the world, it also doesn’t suit the extraordinary artistic output we’ve witnessed so far this year.

This list — which is ordered alphabetically — represents just a small sliver of the brilliance being served up during what could ultimately be the best musical year in some time.

Big Thief, New Warm Dragon I Believe In You

So much of the pleasure of listening to this masterful album — if this list were ranked, this would be at No. 1 — comes from appreciating the subtle and delicate ways in which Big Thief works and plays together, whether it’s the excellent jam that closes “Little Things,” the surprisingly heavy rock groove that subsumes “Flower Of Blood,” or the way Buck Meek’s voice rises to harmonize with Adrianne Lenker on the chorus of the stunning love song “12000 Lines.” When it came out in February, I called it a masterpiece. I haven’t wavered from that, and I doubt I will by year’s end.

Caracara, New Preoccupations

My favorite “shiny guitar” album of the half-year. Produced by “shiny guitar” aficionado Will Yip, New Preoccupations has been described by this Philly band as a druggy album about recovery, which you sense from the charged, blurred sonics and the scarred but hopeful lyrics. But, admittedly, my relationship with this record isn’t quite that deep. I love how New Preoccupations relentlessly targets my ’90s alt-rock pleasure centers. I refer specifically to the post-grunge half of the decade, when bands like Third Eye Blind and Matchbox Twenty shed the sludge and went straight for soaring hooks.

Dehd, Blue Skies

I got into this Chicago trio after becoming entranced by their breakthrough third record, 2020’s Flower Of Devotion. While they can be broadly labeled as a post-punk band, Dehd doesn’t fall into the usual clichés of that subgenre — there are no monotone, talky vocals that wryly deconstruct the low-key madness of modern existence. This band is way too romantic for that. There’s a reason why so many critics namecheck Roy Orbison and The Cure when describing them — they specialize in jangly, reverb-heavy fatalism that earns the melodrama of the lyrics by putting you squarely in their goth-kid frame of mind.

Destroyer, Labyrinthitis

While the lyrics contain some of the darkest lines of Dan Bejar’s career — so dark that Bejar talks about “the singer” on this record in the third person — the music grooves hard, drawing on an unlikely but somehow compatible combination of influences drawn from techno and rave cultures as well as gloomily catchy ’80s English alt-rock bands like New Order and The Cure. It’s similar to the musical palettes utilized on 2017’s Ken and 2019’s Have We Met — Bejar considers Labyrinthitis the concluding part of a trilogy with those records — but on the new album there’s a greater feeling of exuberance. It surely is the most danceable music Destroyer has yet made.

Father John Misty, Chloë And The Next 20th Century

If an FJM album drops and there isn’t a polarizing press tour to go with it, does that album make a sound? I’ll admit I’m still getting used to this era of Father John Mum. But it feels appropriate for his most recent batch of songs. Rather than write about the familiar swaggering anti-hero that was his persona on the first four albums, Josh Tillman has instead focused on his other made-up characters — the titular “borough socialist” Chloë, a striving entertainment biz creative named Simone, the actress known as Funny Girl, an unnamed pair of ex-lovers who are reunited by their recently deceased cat Mr. Blue. It’s as much a collection of short stories as it is a record.

Good Looks, Bummer Year

I don’t think I’ve played a song more in the first half of the year than the opening track from this album, “Almost Automatic,” which is precisely the sort of small town-minded heartland rock I am comically predisposed to loving. Only people don’t make this kind of heartland rock anymore, which is the way the genre was understood in the 1980s. (In other words, it sounds more like the BoDeans than “Boys Of Summer.”) Suiting their Texas roots, this is likely the only indie rock record from 2022 that includes a song that expresses empathy for Trump voters.

Guerilla Toss, Famously Alive

Bands like this used to be more common in the late aughts and early 2010s, an era in which arty punk bands combined pop with noise to create dance music for drug-fueled hipsters. Perhaps if the indie-sleaze revival is truly a thing, bands like this will become a thing again. Though there’s not much of a sleaze factor with the deliriously fun Famously Alive — Guerilla Toss are guileless, not irony-damaged, and the party they throw on this record feels inclusive and powered by joy for joy’s sake.

Gang Of Youths, Angel In Realtime

If 2017’s Go Farther In Lightness was this Australian’s band’s Joshua Tree — the fearlessly earnest collection of guitar-based spirituals rooted in an unending desire for transcendence — then perhaps the follow-up is their Achtung Baby. An album in which beat-heavy, danceable, and often ecstatic music acts as a shield for blood-and-guts, dark-night-of-the-soul introspection. An intimate confession made to sound loud enough to engulf the entire world.

MJ Lenderman, Boat Songs

The reference points for this album — early Wilco, “ditch” era Neil Young, all periods of Jason Molina — might seem pretty standard for an alt country-leaning singer-songwriter. But as is the case with his regular band, the rising North Carolina twangy shoegaze outfit Wednesday, Lenderman has a way of taking the familiar in new and refreshingly irreverent directions, like in the song “Dan Marino,” which references the former Miami Dolphins quarterback and an obscure quote from The Last Waltz over a lo-fi guitar rumble that sounds like side two of Tonight’s The Night.

Angel Olsen, Big Time

I’ve long admired Angel Olsen’s music without ever completely falling for it … until this record. Working with co-producer Jonathan Wilson, Olsen has wedded some of her heaviest songs — the album was inspired by the recent deaths of both of her parents — with the most ravishing music of her career. Retaining the rustic and retro Laurel Canyon vibe of Wilson’s work with Father John Misty and adding a generous dose of twang, Big Time is a beautiful psychedelic country record with a grief-stricken heart. It somehow floats and sinks simultaneously.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Endless Rooms

The wonder of this Australian band’s consistently great output is how they find new ways to package the same elements — brisk riffs, mile-a-minute drums, pogoing bass lines — into insistently tuneful guitar-pop gems. While I remain partial to their breakout 2017 EP The French Press, I’m starting to think that their latest effort might be their best. The problem with this band is that I tend to think that whichever record I’ve heard most recently is their best. Like fellow Aussies AC/DC, these guys just make the same record over and over. But it’s always a really good record, so I’m really just complimenting their top-notch quality control.

Say Sue Me, The Last Thing Left

The melancholy bop of The Last Thing Left has soundtracked my late spring, as I’m a sucker for taking walks in the fresh air while taking in trebly guitars and alluringly doleful vocals. Sumi Choi — Say Sue Me’s singer, guitarist, and songwriter — really is the star of the show here, striking a perfect balance of knowing sorrow and ingratiating charm on songs that zip in and out before the heartache can set in. If you’ve grown impatient while waiting for a new Alvvays record, this album will be a salve.

The Smile, A Light For Attracting Attention

The highly anticipated side project from Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood presents itself as the most un-Radiohead-like of propositions — a guitar-driven power trio! — that happens to sound, tantalizingly, like a version of Radiohead that Radiohead no longer is apparently interested in being. Given the dearth of actual Radiohead albums since A Moon Shaped Pool, it’s almost too easy to regard A Light For Attracting Attention as the next best thing, a kind of musical methadone for Kid A nation.

Sooner, Days And Nights

One of my favorite debuts of 2022’s first half is this straightforward but very pleasurable amalgam of shoegaze and dream pop. Aren’t there already a lot of amalgams of shoegaze and dream pop in the contemporary indie rock scene? Yes. But most of them can’t touch the songwriting on Days And Nights or the quality of Federica Tassano’s vocals, which sail through the tangle of noise and blissed-out guitars like dry ice in a Cocteau Twins music video.

String Machine, Hallelujah Hell Yeah

This Pittsburgh band evokes the earnest emotionalism and large-band arrangements of the mid-aughts, when legions of bands with untenably large lineups attempted to make their versions of Funeral. But whereas most of those groups collapsed under the weight of their outsized pretensions — including Arcade Fire themselves — Hallelujah Hell Yeah is full of sunny melodies and insistent hooks that go down easy. At just 27 minutes, it’s the kind of album that you feel compelled to spin again immediately once it’s over.

Sharon Van Etten, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong

Three years after her most overt rock record, 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow, one of indie’s most reliable singer-songwriters finds a way to balance her recent aggressiveness (particularly on the flinty “Headspace”) with the familiar sensitivity of her early work. With an artist as dependable as Van Etten, it’s easy to take a record like We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong for granted. It’s “merely” another very good release from a very good artist. But it continues to hit harder and deeper with each listen.

Kurt Vile, (Watch My Moves)

In the 2010s, Vile earned comparisons to classic rockers like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty thanks to durably hooky indie hits like “Baby’s Arms,” “Wakin On A Pretty Day,” and “Pretty Pimpin.” But lately, he’s favored dreamier grooves and free-floating arrangements that let songs drift for several minutes, as if lost in a stoned reverie. The languid epics of 2018’s Bottle It In signaled this change in direction, and (Watch My Moves) fortifies it.

Wednesday, Mowing The Leaves Instead Of Piling ‘Em Up

This North Carolina band — which includes the previously mentioned MJ Lenderman — is quickly becoming one of the fascinating roots-leaning indie acts. This covers album speaks to their uncommon range and ambition — country legends Roger Miller and Gary Stewart commingle with The Wipers’ Greg Sage and Adore-era Smashing Pumpkins. (Finally some justice for “Perfect.”) But my favorite tracks meet somewhere in the middle of those poles — the garage-rock take on Drive-By Truckers’ “Women Without Whiskey” and the gorgeous meltdown of Chris Bell’s immortal “I Am The Cosmos,” which just might be my new favorite version of that classic.

The Weeknd, Dawn FM

Back in January, I called my new favorite album by The Weeknd the record of 2022. That was certainly ill-advised, given that there were still another 11 months to go in the year at that point. But for now, I’ll stand behind it. There are possibly two or three albums I like better, but Dawn FM is so massive and seductive that I’m certain that this “Big ’80s” ear candy with a morbid undertow will come to define how we remember this year in retrospect. The highest compliment I can pay Dawn FM is that even the spoken-word tracks are worth hearing.

Wet Tuna, Warping All By Yourself

Matt Valentine is one of the modern masters of the intersection of indie rock and jam band music. While he’s best known for the group MV & EE, he’s lately been putting out music under the name Wet Tuna, taking a psych-rock approach to ’70s funk and jazz fusion. The third Wet Tuna album, Warping All By Yourself, is the best realization yet of this aesthetic. If you dig Herbie Hancock, Don Cherry, Songs In The Key of Life-era Stevie Wonder, and the funkiest and most coked-out disco elements of late ’70s Grateful Dead, you will enjoy this.

Wilco, Cruel Country

Now that we’re 20 years removed from Wilco’s ultimate “we’re not alt-country” mike drop, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Jeff Tweedy is more comfortable than ever with adopting country signifiers on Cruel Country. Enter Nels Cline, iconic indie-noise guitarist and (who knew?) accomplished country picker, whose plays like Don Rich with a Glenn Branca edge on “Falling Apart (Right Now).” And Tweedy follows suit, adopting a slyly funny lyrical voice on the record’s twangiest numbers. “Once I cut off my arm / I sewed it back on all wrong / Now I don’t have to bend / To reach the bottom shelf / When I need a story to tell,” he croons in “Story To Tell,” reviving the loopy John Prine-style humor of early Wilco classics like “Passenger Side” that he largely abandoned on subsequent records.

Nilüfer Yanya, Painless

This buzzy British singer-songwriter was a breakout artist back in 2019, thanks to an eclectic amalgam of influences suggesting that Yanya ultimately wanted to fuse the slinky grace of Sade with the sort of chunky and lovably punk anthems associated with Blink-182 and Libertines. On Painless, she continues to mix and match different styles and vibes, with strikingly vivid results. On stunning songs like “Stabilise” and “Midnight Sun,” she channels mid-period Radiohead through the lens of ecstatically dark-hued millennial pop.

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

Love isn’t easy. Sometimes one partner is too sure while the other lacks the certainty and confidence to commit to the risk of giving their heart over to someone else. Rae Sremmurd, in their first release ahead of their upcoming album Sremm4life, takes this topic head-on with their new video “Denial.”

The visual is set with Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi performing the record on a beach in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. In some scenes, there are beautiful women either at their side or posing in front of a window as the sun illuminates their skin. The two get their own time to get some fun poses in as well. A certain staircase should look very familiar, as it is the same one Snoop Dogg and Pharrell sat on in the classic “Beautiful” video.

While Swae Lee has been relatively active since Rae Sremmurd’s last release, 2018’s Sr3mm, Slxm Jimmi and the duo as a whole have taken a significant hiatus. There were previous rumors that they were going to split up, but the announcement that Sremmlife4 silenced all of those. Rae Sremmurd hit the ground running upon their debut with LPs Sremmlife and Sremmlife 2, so there is much anticipation for what is to come in this next chapter.

Check out the video for “Denial” above.

Just when you think you have Kristen Stewart pegged, she goes ahead and stars as Princess Diana (and gives one of the best interpretations of the late royal yet seen). Then follows that up with what the 32-year-old describes as a “super gay ghost-hunting adventure” reality series.

After mentioning the project in a November 2021 interview with The New Yorker, Variety reports that the paranormal reality series, which Stewart will executive produce, has announced an open casting call. On Monday, CJ Romero, K-Stew’s hairstylist/pal/collaborator on the project, posted a video to Instagram in which the actress — who appears in David Cronenberg’s polarizing Crimes of the Future — said she was “scarily excited to announce that I’m teaming up with Scout, the producers of Queer Eye, Legendary, and The Hype, on the most gayest, most funnest, most titillating queer ghost-hunting show ever. And casting begins!”

Stewart went on to explain that in order to make the show all it can be, “We need to find the most incredible LGBTQ+ ghost hunters, paranormal specialists, mediums, psychics, [and] investigators who will lead the pack on this super gay ghost-hunting adventure.”

Sound like you? If so, you can apply to take a super gay paranormal journey with Stewart here. Top that, Zak Bagans!

(Via Variety)

First of all, in retrospect, it makes no sense whatsoever that Laura Dern, as she says here, wasn’t asked back for The Lost World, the second of the now six Jurassic movies. She makes a good point that, back then, she really didn’t think of the first Jurassic Park as a franchise. The press surrounding the movie was about the dinosaurs, and it was underestimated how much people liked the human characters — notably Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum, who now appear onscreen together in a Jurassic movie for the first time since 1993. Dern made a brief appearance in Jurassic Park III, but now 29 years later, her Ellie Sattler (finally) returns as a starring role. (But, seriously, it’s really remarkable it took this long to reunite the main three characters from one of the most successful movies of all time.)

In Jurassic World: Dominion, Dern’s Ellie Sattler is investigating swarms of large locusts that are destroying the world’s food chain. She suspects their DNA is being manipulated with dinosaur DNA, which leads her asking for help from her old friends Alan Grant (Neill) and Ian Malcolm (Goldblum).

Talking to Laura Dern is quite the experience. Not many actors today can casually mention how they met Alfred Hitchcock (on the set of Family Plot, which starred her father, Bruce) then, out of nowhere, ask if I want to hear a story about Clint Eastwood meeting a T-Rex that she’s never told. The answer, by the way, was, “Yes. Yes I would like to hear the story of Clint Eastwood meeting a T-Rex.” And then, for good measure, she tells us how much she loves Bill Hader.

By the way, I just have to say, since the pandemic started I have watched so many of your movies and your entire family’s movies. So, hours and hours of entertainment.

Aw, that’s so beautiful to hear. It’s my dad’s birthday today!

Oh, it is? I got to interview him once for Nebraska. He’s great.

Aw, well I will tell him you said that. Beautiful.

I just watched Family Plot this week. I had never seen that. It’s really funny.

Oh my gosh!

I didn’t know it was a funny movie.

I know! It’s really funny and odd and kind of amazing. I was on that set ….

What? Really?

Yes.

So you met Alfred Hitchcock?

Yes.

Okay wow.

Incredible. I know. So lucky. That was amazing.

So with Jurassic World: Dominion, Colin Trevorrow said one of the most important things about making this movie was getting you onboard. I don’t know if you’ve heard him say that…

No.

Because he felt some of the sequels had been driven too much by men as characters and I know you’re in Jurassic Park III, but not as a main character. Do you agree with that? Because I do.

Oh, that’s beautiful to hear. What I agree with is if Ellie was going to come back that she would have to come back very specifically, having evolved in her area of science, having evolved in her independence, in her activism, in her feminism – or she should just be who she was in the original movie. And that really mattered to Steven and to Frank Marshall and, obviously, to Colin in his vision. And so, when I spoke to all three, and then Colin and I had lunch and he laid out his plan of great mastery and consideration, he was very open to my collaboration with he and Emily Carmichael. And really, talking about what that would look like. And that’s when it really clicked for me and felt like … For all the fans, really, who’ve come up to me saying the influence that this female character had for them, both now in their work and their path in life, but also young men and boys saying to me, “This is the first female character I saw who was an equal to the boys in the movie.”

Right.

That was amazing thing to want to be protective of.

Back in the ’90s, I always just assumed that you were doing other things and that’s why you weren’t in The Lost World. Reading more about that productions, it sounds like they just didn’t write you into it.

To be direct, I was not asked. I was doing other things…

Oh, obviously. You made a lot of movies around then.

Yeah. No, I mean, I was so happy to be playing other characters, I guess I should say? I didn’t think of Jurassic Park as a franchise film when we made it. So, I just felt so blessed to work with Steven and tell that story and, yeah, was off discovering all kinds of different universes. But it was not a consideration. And in Jurassic Park III, it was, “Would you come and save the day in this little moment?” Which seemed fun to be with Sam and that was lovely. The director of that movie I’d just done a film with called October Sky and he was lovely.

Right, Joe Johnston.

Yeah. So all of that, it was somewhat organic. Alexander Payne, who was working on some scenes for it …

And you had just done Citizen Ruth with him…

Exactly. So it was just like confluence of friends. But there had never been a conversation of, “What if Ellie Sattler came back and really affected change in the stories?”

That’s really interesting what you said about not looking at it as a franchise. When Jurassic Park came out it was like, “You have to see these dinosaurs!” But I think people were into those characters: you, Sam and Jeff. And maybe that was overlooked for awhile.

It’s funny now in retrospect … I talked to Steven the other day and he said, “I may have done a disservice, in some ways, by talking so much about what we were able to do.” It’s about the dinosaurs coming to life. It’s about the first CGI film. And he was like, “But, Laura. Everything we’re experiencing, and people’s excitement about these characters, is a reminder. I knew the only way to make this work was I had to make a movie about the people.” Which is why we didn’t even see our first dinosaur for half an hour.

Oh yeah, that’s a great point.

And I was like, “Whoa.” And now that the franchise is embedded in knowing what’s coming, you need all these characters that we now have gotten to know. But again, I think in this culmination story, knowing who they are, knowing where their love stories and their friendships and their passion, knowing what happens with corporate greed when it’s not harnessed by activists around it using their voice. All of those things were an embedded part about what this franchise has become so we had to have this movie hold all of that.

I guess my point is it’s kind of nuts it took almost 30 years to get you three back together again doing these movies, especially because there’s been six of them.

We certainly feel it. And just hearing from people, as people are beginning to see the movie, people speak about that as part of the great excitement of the experience for them, which is amazing. And it’s interesting. It is interesting to think about this feeling of getting away with something in 1993 with an equal character who, when in jeopardy, wasn’t a damsel in distress, but took care of things by herself and didn’t need a man. And she was human. She wasn’t a superhero. And she wore no make up and had practical clothing. And all those decisions took so much effort from so many people to agree. But it is amazing that at that time when you think about, “Well, who would be the character that we might have lead the show?” It just inevitably was going to be a male character at the time.

Right.

And unless they were super heroines and had a big gun, they weren’t traditionally allowed to be in a position of power in the same way. And now, here we are these years later and we are all equals and there are other amazing badass women with me. And that feels incredible.

And anecdotally, a lot of people ask me, “Is Laura Dern actually really in it? Or is it just a cameo?” And people seem excited when I tell them you are legitimately a main character.

That’s so awesome. Yeah, I know. And that’s a tribute to Colin. He said, “When I’m asking you if you’re up for this, I mean the movie’s got to be about all of you, or we don’t do this.” That felt really good. And then really focusing on the environmental storyline that she would want and also the question of this love story and also this still kind of awkward dynamic between the three of us.

But that awkward dynamic works.

It so works. It so works.

You three just went back into the dynamic between each other like it was yesterday. Did it feel like that on set?

Instantly. The moment Ian Malcolm showed up, even though it was about needing to sell me secrets, our intimacy felt so inappropriate to Sam, and Alan Grant is miserable. And it just was so fun to be back in that play with those two amazing, gorgeous gentlemen who are dear friends of my heart, for sure.

The first scene with you three together, was there a buzz on set?

Sam and I had done another scene together but it’s the first time I saw him with Alan Grant’s hat on. And I turned to my right and Jeff walked up to me with a black leather jacket on and we got into a jeep for a scene we have in a jeep. And we sat down and camera was almost ready and we looked out thinking they were still buzzing around getting ready. And as we looked out, the whole crew had stopped and people were wiping tears.

Oh, wow.

And we got choked up, all three of us. And then Colin just came over and took pictures and he’s like, “Laura, text this to Steven.” And I texted Steven and Steven’s like, “Oh my God. I’m starting to cry right now.” Just that we all, together, all of us, shared something iconic seeing that first movie. And it wasn’t like three of us were just actors in a movie. We were just like you because we’d made a movie where we had this new technology that none of us knew what it was.

Oh right, I had never really thought of that.

So we sat in a movie theater with Steven for the first time watching this come to life.

Right, “How are they going to do this?”

“This will never work.” I have to tell you. I’ve never told this story but I’m just remembering it. I was so lucky. We were on the lot at Universal. We had been through a level five hurricane. They were juggling unbelievable crew coming together to rebuild sets now on the lot.

Okay…

And the dinosaur had a tough morning. The T-Rex had slowed down a bit and needed some massaging, if you will. And we were waiting and I was going to finish the movie and work with Clint Eastwood.

Right, A Perfect World.

Yes. And Clint came to the set.

Whoa.

We were going to have lunch at the commissary. First of all, I am such a movie lover so to be on the Universal lot, to go to the commissary to have lunch with Clint Eastwood is crazy. Pinch me! And then, because it broke, Steven came and joined us and Steven said to Clint, “Come back with us and see the T-Rex.”

Amazing…

Nobody had seen it. Nobody was allowed in. And this is one of my favorite moments remembering Clint. He is seeing this life-size beast. He was like, “That’ll scare the hell out of you!” I was just like, “Oh my God, my life is so amazing.”

Dirty Harry Callahan didn’t like what he saw with that T-Rex.

No. No! Probably why I still have PTSD about dinosaurs. People are like, “Was it so great going back?” I’m like, “No. I was with a raptor again and there’s nothing I hate more!”

In this interview you had a Hitchcock story and a Clint story. Those are pretty good pulls right there.

Can I just say, I say this as the highest compliment because I worship him as an artist, director, writer, actor and person… One of my dear friends is Bill Hader.

Oh, yeah. He’s great.

And you guys have a similar rhythm. Just the way you speak. There’s a similar rhythm in your cadence or something.

Oh, okay, I appreciate that. No one’s ever said that before.

It’s a compliment!

Oh I very much take that as a compliment.

Isn’t he great?

Oh, he’s the best.

Barry is so brilliant.

I’m a fan.

Me, too.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The Duffer’s choice to use Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” as the song that was able to break the demonic Vecna’s hold on Max during season 4 of Stranger Things keeps yielding benefits. And not just for Bush, who saw the song chart for the first time since the mid-’80s. We’re also getting a bit of insight into what friends, interesting strangers, and show stars alike are using to cling to this realm thanks to social posts and interviews. And this is one such interview. Well, it’s a snippet from our upcoming conversation with Jim Hopper himself, David Harbour. Look for it at the end of the month as Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 2 approaches. But, until then, here’s Harbour on what song would save him from the oily beast.

“I’m a weird creature of [habit]. I go through one month or two-month-long phases where I’ll just hit a song really hard. Part of it has to do with the fact that I may be acting in something. I like to center that thing,” said Harbour, adding that he’s been listening to “Dance Monkey” by Tones And I on repeat while walking down the street. “I guess, should Vecna capture me now, it would be that.”

While that answer certainly checks the box, it didn’t quench Harbour’s need to reveal his ’90s soul while pondering if he’d have to go way back to break Vecna’s hold. And so, with a brief bit of further ponderance, he went on to push through the smoke to take us way back to a time of pained howls by the likes of Scott Weiland and Pat Monahan.

“In general, it’s terrible ’90s rock ballads, the stuff that I listened to when I was smoking weed in college. Like ‘Drops of Jupiter’ [from Train] or Stone Temple Pilots or Counting Crows,” he admitted. “Revealing music, I feel like, just reveals how dorky I am but I might give it up for Adam Duritz and those Counting Crows. I want something raging like a Counting Crows song. I’m showing my ’90s, but yeah, that would be it for me, I think.”

So there you have it, never find yourself hanginaround David Harbour without a copy of This Desert Life and a Discman handy. We need him!

‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Volume 1 is available to stream on Netflix right now and Volume 2 is set to stream July 1.

It’s been a little over a week since Stranger Things dropped and while the rest of the cast kept busy teasing season four for fans, Jamie Campbell Bower is just now getting to talk about his game-changing role.

That’s because Bower, who you’ll recognize from other fantasy franchises like The Mortal Instruments and Twilight, is this season’s big bad – a terrifying villain named Vecna (a.k.a. One, a.k.a. Henry Creel) who has some surprising ties to Eleven and the rest of The Party in Hawkins. The Duffer Brothers love a good monster story – Demogorgons, Demogogs, and Mindflayers have littered past seasons – but Vecna (a play on an infamous Dungeons & Dragons character) is a different breed. Calculating, vengeful, formidable, and on a mission to create his own twisted utopia that sadly doesn’t include the cheerleaders, jocks, and Max Mayfields in this cursed town.

We chatted with Bower about how he transformed himself (quite literally) for the role, Vecna’s endgame, and which bop would rescue him from the Upside Down.

Do you still have the mood board that you created when you got the role and what’s on that?

I still have all the work that I’ve done for the show, yeah. The original board was predominantly for Vecna, so it started with Will Byers in the middle. Then came more of the kids, the world, and particularly the world of the Upside Down and it started to spread. From there I started to use more culturally popular references in terms of characters that I love and that we’ve experienced before. Then I would put Post-It notes up of things that would just pop into the brain. I’ve got countless notes on my computer of all these little things that would pop up as I was reading, and I’d print those out and stick those on. It just developed more over time, but yes, I still have everything. The more work I do on film … I try to keep as much of that as possible because it’s great to look back at it in years to come and remember the process and go, “Man, that was mad.”

I’m guessing you had to hide it when friends would come over.

It’s funny, I was living in Atlanta while shooting this, in this guest house of these two lovely people called Bryce and Sue. Occasionally, they’d need to pop in to just check on a boiler or something, and I’d always have to say, “Oh, can you just let me know before you are going in just so I can put some things away.” They were really interested in what I was doing, but obviously, I couldn’t say anything because the character is such a big deal.

Were there any pop culture references you used when creating this character that the Duffer Brothers axed?

There was never anything that came up that they said, “Absolutely no, you’re way off the mark there.” One of the great things about Matt and Ross is their inspiration and their references, if you want to and you are interested in doing this, you can very, very quickly pick up on them. One of the jobs that I had was to make sure that I really dug into a lot of those references. I did go further than perhaps I needed to. There was one thing that we did on film that I … have you seen Hellraiser III?

I have seen the first film, but not the other two.

Oh, well there’s nine of them.

I have seen the first film but not the other eight, then.

There’s a scene where Doug Bradley, as Pinhead, walks into a church and he pulls out some pins from his head, puts them in his hands, and spreads his arms out and says, “I am the way,” and then the windows blow out. I was like, “Oh, I really want to reference that. I really want to put my arms out like this,” and I did it and it looked absolutely awful. So bad, and so we very quickly were like, “Yeah, no, let’s not do that.” But that was the only thing that we tried that didn’t work, and I think that’s me wearing the reference too much on the sleeve.

Are we going to learn more about where Henry Creel’s abilities came from?

The way I always saw it was that he was the first person to be born very special and very different. I never saw it in terms of what it would be like to be Spiderman. In Spiderman, he gets bit, and then from being bitten, he garners these powers. I always saw Henry as this person who was just born with this natural ability and it took him going to this deep depths of despair and isolation for those powers to come to fruition and to become real.

What’s his endgame? He’s choosing his victims for a specific reason? Is it because he wants to create a world where people don’t lie? That seems pretty impossible.

Well, let’s also remember that he’s existed in this facility with a sort of patriarchal figure who has used him to create others, who has suppressed his abilities and oppressed him as a person. Within that, I think for me, what happened was it just compounded this already preexisting idea of what the world is. He’s witnessing Brenner not only be quite brutal to some of the others, but he’s also witnessing Brenner lie to everyone around him, which is what he grew up with. I do believe that, ultimately, his goal is to live in this world where people don’t lie. Friends don’t lie.

That is a twisted callback to what Eleven would say in the first seasons of the show. I’m guessing there’s more between these two when the show comes back?

There’s a lot more to explore between the two of them. They now have history.

It’s you under those prosthetics as Vecna, and you’re also doing the voice of this monster. How did you nail down what he should sound like?

The voice took a minute. It’s like singing. If, when we are singing, we are tight and tense our muscles tend to close up. We don’t breathe from our diaphragm. I had to really relax. When I first started trying the voice out, it came from a really different place. It was quite throaty, and then as I understood that that wasn’t where I wanted to go, I had to look at it in a different way. I would do these diaphragm warmups where you are humming, you are gently tapping your diaphragm to loosen everything up, and then just lean into that low vocal range a lot more, and then the other interesting thing is that, as Vecna, I’m wearing these teeth molds so that my teeth are very nasty and just discolored and pretty grim.

I was worried about how I would be able to talk with those. But actually, they became a massive help because I was able to grind my teeth which sort of brought forwards this more tense jaw almost. I would listen to very dark music, music that’s got very low-frequency sounds, and talk over that. I’ve got videos of me trying it out and it working because the other thing, as well, is obviously I don’t want to be selling in the eyes that I’m thinking about doing the voice. So, the voice has to come, and then the focus has to be the thing that takes over so it has to become second nature. I would just walk around doing the voice as often as I could, basically.

Your poor barista.

[laughs] Actually, and this is not something I’ve spoken to anybody about, which is the emotion, the frequency of the vibration within the body, particularly when I was being Henry. I remember wearing Henry out and about when he’s being really nice, and the way people would interact with me differently to when I was going further and going dark.

I was still being kind and congenial to people, but just the way people would pick up on whatever was inside of me became very interesting. I remember walking back from the shops one day, after doing the first Henry – the nice one — and calling someone and going, “It works.”

Did you think people could sense something in you, as Henry?

It wasn’t that I was saying anything different when I was in a different state of being, but people could pick up on things. It was very interesting. People are a lot more intuitive than I think we give them credit for.

What song would rescue you from the Upside Down? And keep in mind, Noah Schnapp has already claimed “W.A.P.”

[laughs] My god. Okay, I’ll give you two answers to this. My sort of sensible response would be Placebo covering the song by Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill.” I love Placebo, so my smart and connected response is “Running Up That Hill” with the Placebo cover. But, I’ll say this here, just in case it doesn’t translate: We stan Kate Bush.

Obviously.

But if I’m to be naughty and giggly about it, “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus.

Oceans are essential to life on our planet. They produce more than half of the world’s oxygen as well as ingredients used in cancer-fighting medicines. And they are also just plain beautiful! Summers wouldn’t be the same without a wade through waves and watching dolphins jump in the distance.

But our oceans are in trouble. Single-serve plastics and pollution threaten them and the estimated 1.6 million species that call them home. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help.

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By supporting brands with ocean-forward initiatives and cutting back on single-serve plastics, you can make a huge difference in preventing damage to our oceans and the species that live within them.

In honor of World Oceans Day, we’re showcasing five brands that not only make awesome products, but help create a more sustainable future by protecting our seas. Whether they’re removing ocean impact plastics or offering longer-lasting alternatives to single-serve necessities, each of these brands is making a major splash. Let’s dive in!

1. GOT BAG. The cat is out of the gotbag, or at least that’s part of this brand’s mission. By collecting plastic from our oceans, coastal waterways, mangrove forests and the delta areas of nearby rivers and using new, innovative recycling technologies, GOT BAG has developed a line of super stylish and sustainable backpacks made of ocean-impact plastic! The company works with a network of more than 2,500 Indonesian fishermen who catch plastic waste as bycatch. The plastics are then removed from the ocean and coastal areas, cleaned and recycled, then ground up and processed into high-quality yarn and polyester fabric. GOT BAG turns trash into treasure by creating lightweight, durable, fashion-forward backpacks, bags and accessories that are not only great for everyday use, but recycle roughly 9.9 pounds of ocean-impact plastic per product! To date, GOT BAG has recovered and recycled nearly 1 million pounds of plastic from oceans and other waterways. From June 8 to June 14, get a 20% discount on the entire GOT BAG assortment, while the brand plants five mangroves in Indonesia for every product sold.

2. G95. The G95 Oceanshield is a modern response to a modern problem. It’s no secret that single-use masks have become a big pollutant including winding up floating in our waterways or washed ashore on our beaches. With the G95 Oceanshield single-use mask, everything from the ear straps to the nose guard to the state-of-the-art filtration system is made from plant-based materials that and will completely biodegrade within 90 days! Or you can send your Oceanshield mask back to G95 free of charge and the company will recycle the masks for you, so they don’t end up where they shouldn’t and can be reprocessed and reused.

3. Package Free. A brand that truly lives up to the name, Package Free provides plastic-free versions of the products we all use daily, including laundry detergent, refillable body lotions, compostable cat litter bags and refillable cleaning supplies. It also offers recycling services for difficult-to-recycle produces such as certain packaging materials, electronics and plastics.

4. SeaVees. Sea the change with these super stylish and comfortable shoes! One dollar from every pair of shoes in the collection goes to SeaTrees, a nonprofit that works to restore blue carbon coastal ecosystems and ocean health globally. The company also works with Un Mar de Colores, an organization that helps bring future generations of historically marginalized youths to the sport of surfing. And while they can’t yet let you walk on water, they do just fine in the sand—we’ve checked!

5. Lollygag. Run, don’t walk but lollygag over to this site! Lollygag makes replacing single-serve plastics with unique and environmentally sound alternatives a walk in the park! Try the reusable travel flatware, chic cloth napkins, Swedish drying cloths and silicon straws with their own carrying cases.