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Thirty years later, the best Batman ever is putting the suit back on. Michael Keaton is reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Flash after previously playing Homer Simpson’s favorite scientist in 1989’s Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns. He was offered the chance to return for 1995’s Batman Forever, but as he explained on the In the Envelope podcast (via IndieWire), he walked away due to creative differences with director Joel Schumacher.

“It was always Bruce Wayne. It was never Batman,” Keaton explained about how he got into character. “To me, I know the name of the movie is Batman, and it’s hugely iconic and very cool and [culturally] iconic and because of Tim Burton, artistically iconic. I knew from the get-go it was Bruce Wayne. That was the secret. I never talked about it. Batman, Batman, Batman does this, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Y’all are thinking wrong here.’ Bruce Wayne. What kind of person does that?… Who becomes that?”

Keaton and Burton shared the same creative vision for Batman, but when the Beetlejuice director was replaced by Schumacher for Batman Forever (a title that Burton amusingly hated), Keaton decided it was time for him to move on, too):

“And then when the director who directed the third one, I said, ‘I just can’t do it.’ And one of the reasons I couldn’t do it was — and you know, he’s a nice enough man, he’s passed away, so I wouldn’t speak ill of him even if he were alive — he, at one point, after more than a couple of meetings where I kept trying to rationalize doing it and hopefully talking him into saying, ‘I think we don’t want to go in this direction, I think we should go in this direction.’ And he wasn’t going to budge.”

Keaton continued, “I remember one of the things that I walked away going, ‘Oh boy, I can’t do this.’ [Schumacher] asked me, ‘I don’t understand why everything has to be so dark and everything so sad,’ and I went, ‘Wait a minute, do you know how this guy got to be Batman? Have you read… I mean, it’s pretty simple.’”

Keaton must wake up every day regretting his decision. Not because of the money or the prestige or whatever, but because he didn’t get to see Tommy Lee Jones tell Jim Carrey that he “cannot sanction your buffoonery.”

(Via IndieWire)

Jeopardy! has a long history of airing music-related clues during their segments. While no one can compare to the times Alex Trebek would impersonate musicians like Lil Jon, Jeopardy! is still keeping up with their pop culture clues. On Monday night’s episode of the long-running game show, producers had the memeified band Nickelback as an answer, but one contestant confused them with fellow Canadian rockers Arcade Fire in an indie music doomsday scenario.

One category of the episode was Billboard‘s 200 albums chart in 2021. Some of the clues included, “In 2021, his Certified Lover Boy was certified a No. 1 album” (“Who is Drake?”), “This rapper lived up to his name ‘The Creator’ of ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’” (“Who is Tyler The Creator?”), “She got a license to drive to No. 1 with Sour” (“Who is Olivia Rodrigo?”), and “This R&B w.o.m.a.n. was far from the Back Of My Mind & close to the top of the chart” (“Who is HER?”).

Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider breezed through the first four clues, but all three contestants were nearly stumped when it came to a clue about a particular Canadian rock band. The clue read, “‘The Best Of’ this Canadian band, ‘Volume 1’ included ‘Rockstar,’ ‘How You Remind Me,’ & 17 other songs.” Contestant Kate thought the correct band was Arcade Fire, as they’re one of the more prominent Canadian indie rock bands. But it turns out that contestant Harsh was right on the money when he said, “Who is Nickelback?”

The Jeopardy! clue brings up a lot more questions, namely: There’s a Best Of Nickelback album? The answer is yes. Best Of Nickelback Volume 1 was released in 2013. Not only did it include the songs “Rockstar” and “How You Remind Me,” but it opened with their 2005 track “Photograph.” Arcade Fire, on the other hand, does not have a Best Of album despite having more Grammy Awards than Nickelback (one, whereas Nickelback has zero).

Watch a clip of the Jeopardy! episode above.

“You know what a trampoline is?”, Jonathan Kuminga is asking. “For you to jump on?”, he clarifies.

The question is an answer to the question of whether the 19-year-old came to view basketball as a home during his high school hop-scotching from West Virginia to New York and New Jersey, and eventual enrollment with G League Ignite in Walnut Creek, California. It’s an abstract question and he’s responded in kind. Rather than viewing basketball as a constant, Kuminga looked at it as an accelerant apparatus — specifically, a trampoline.

“You use basketball to get everything you want, all the opportunities,” Kuminga says, with one clear distinction. “Basically it was school, and then basketball came after.”

That order of importance was as critical for Kuminga’s parents as it was for his decision to pursue basketball as something serious enough to pin his future on. Growing up in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kuminga first picked up a basketball when he was two. Both his parents — at his estimate, his mom stands between 5’10” and 6’ and his dad between 6’5” and 6’6” — were athletic, his mom primarily playing volleyball and his dad basketball, and with no gyms close to where the family lived, Kuminga relied on his parents taking him to play when they could.

“We don’t have gyms anywhere near the house, you have to walk a couple miles for you to get there,” Kuminga recalls. “And so for a young kid, that’s not safe. Even if they see a future ahead of you, they’re not going to let you just go by yourself anywhere and be in a critical situation and things like that.”

But when Kuminga turned 10, he remembers something changed, “That’s when my parents started letting me go to the gym by myself.”

It was a decision that shaped his trajectory for the next nine years both in choosing basketball as a possibility, and in an acquiescence from his family.

“They never really let me do anything. Especially basketball wise. They’d rather me stay home and not play basketball,” Kuminga says. “So, for my parents just trusting me, letting me go to the gym by myself sometimes, I think that’s when I realized that I had a chance to be whatever I wanted to be if I keep doing the same thing.”

His parents’ protectiveness taking a necessary backseat to allowing him to pursue his dreams would only add to a young Kuminga’s determination and drive. “I think that’s when I really fell in love with the game, and just wanted to be at the gym every single day,” he remembers. “Like it don’t matter what time. And I think that’s when I started believing in myself.”

It’s a moment of distinction that’s difficult to describe, but something all professional athletes share. The alignment of a love for something with the realistic assessment of being good enough to turn the dream into tangible reality and make it their job. Chance is also tied up in that calculation, specifically, trusting yourself enough to know when to take one. For Kuminga, it was turning down college offers from Duke, Texas Tech, Kentucky, Auburn and more to opt into a brand new program offered by the NBA’s G League.

The G League Ignite started as an alternative for blue chip high school recruits who didn’t want to play the requisite one year of college, or one year overseas, in order to declare for the NBA Draft. With Ignite, players would be paid to play and simultaneously take classes focused on sports business, from managing their brand, state and municipal tax considerations, and financial literacy, like what percentage of salary they could expect to pay their agents. They would also get on-court reps — a lot of them.

Alongside Kuminga in Ignite’s initial roster were Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd, who also went on to be drafted in 2021. So too were veteran players Amir Johnson, Jarrett Jack and Bobby Brown. While his time in the program was derailed by the pandemic, Kuminga played 13 games, averaging 15.8 points, 7.2 rebounds in 32 minutes per game.

“It’s a lesson in learning the NBA itself and how it operates — practice structure and travel — and the Ignite team mirrors that in many ways,” Jama Mahlalela, the Warriors new Director of Player Development and Assistant Coach, has said of Kuminga’s road to the NBA through Ignite. “Having teammates like Amir Johnson and Jarret Jack who had been through it, and learning from them, helped Jonathan as he’s come to us.”

Kuminga was drafted 7th by the Warriors, a distinction he shares with his cousin, Emmanuel Mudiay, who was drafted 7th by the Nuggets. When asked if it irked him not to go at least one higher so he could tease Mudiay, Kuminga turns serious.

“I wanted to go one,” he says, his voice decisive. “I know I was going one, but I don’t know what happened. I can’t control it, but I dropped to seven.”

While he admits being drafted to a team like the Warriors is something he was still “really happy about,” there’s a sense when speaking to Kuminga that the results of the Draft have become a source of stubborn inspiration for him, evident on the floor this season and in his quick crumpling up of a potential opening icebreaker.

Kuminga plays with no trace of levity. That is, he is as imposing in his size and strength, using them to unbalance his defenders easily, as he is in his resolved composure on court. For being the youngest player in Warriors history to score at least 20 points, in a December game that was a short-manned matchup with the Raptors, or coming into a league rife with flashy gunners with a reputation for deliberate, purposeful shooting, there’s not much of Kuminga’s age evident in his professional bearing.

“He sees the game way better than I thought he’d see the game,” Kuminga’s famously blunt teammate, Draymond Green, said of the rookie’s skills at the start of this season, “The way he can put the ball on the floor, collapse the defense and kick it out, I didn’t expect him to read the floor like that. He does a great job of it, and I think that is the biggest surprise for me.”

“I’ve got so much in my game that I really haven’t shown to people,” Kuminga says of that intuitive sense of the game Green touched on. “But I feel I got so much in my game that whenever I play, a lot of people be surprised that I’m able to do things like that.”

Green, along with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, are the veteran players Kuminga says he’s worked to build trust with the most this season. He sits next to Green in the locker room and has made an appearance on Thompson’s beloved boat. He admits there’s not many rookies who are afforded the kind of insight he’s getting in his first season in the NBA, and that Green “doesn’t believe in a lot of things and a lot of people,” but asked whether he’s folding any elements of their games into his own and he’s clear. “Nah, we’re different types of people. But as much as I can gain from them, that’s all I wanted.”

Kuminga’s road to the NBA was a non-traditional one, and getting his first preliminary taste of the floor in a pandemic — initially in the G League Bubble, now a season juddering on its rails with Omicron practically train-heisting team rosters — has held his rookie year to the same strange parameters.

“I’ve been a professional since last year, but the G League is way different,” Kuminga says of the adjustment between Ignite and a championship franchise like the Warriors. “It’s a lot of things that come ahead of you that you wasn’t expecting, that you just gotta know how to control them. And some of them you cannot control, but just that type of adjustment that you need to do to stay in this league and be one of the greatest.”

That knack for adjusting has afforded Kuminga a distinct versatility, something he further capitalized on in the early-season minutes racked up shuttling between the Warriors and their G League affiliate in Santa Cruz, and gaining NBA starting minutes when Golden State managed its COVID protocols.

“He kind of showed how talented he is, how young he is, how high his ceiling is and how far he has to go – all in one night,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Kuminga’s performance in Toronto. “But that’s the whole point of getting him reps.”

Those reps and experiences, good and bad, are all invaluable to his development. In a December 28 loss to the Nuggets, Kuminga missed seven free throws and with 12 seconds left and a two-point difference, sprinted down the court to get clear after a steal by Otto Porter Jr., who flipped it to Curry who daisy-chained it back to Porter to find Kuminga under the basket, who was then dutifully blocked by an immovable Nikola Jokic. Against the Pacers two weeks before that the Warriors instead shaved out a win by two, and while Kuminga played just over six minutes, he was +11 on the floor for Golden State. It’s growth by increments, and the team’s keenest and most important eyes are seeing it.

“I think in order for us to go far, he is going to have to play a part in that. He just has some things that none of us other guys bring to the table,” Green said of Kuminga’s brief but impactful time on the floor in Indianapolis, “Some of the things, the tools that he has as a basketball player as far as his quickness, his speed, his athleticism, his strength, and youth. The majority of us don’t have that.”

“I think more so for him it’s just to get over that feeling that he had in the first quarter, I think it could be good for him in terms of dealing with a tough stretch and staying confident in yourself,” Curry said after Kuminga’s tough, late break with Denver. “Because that’s all you can do in this league. You’re going to go through pretty much everything at some point. Excited to see how he bounces back.”

The dynamics of a winning team are inevitably more forgiving, and Kuminga being ensconced in the dominating record of the Warriors this season gives him much more freedom to not just play, but to make the mistakes necessary for a rookie to improve. Comparatively, you only need to look to what the Warriors asked of Kuminga’s predecessor, James Wiseman, in the turmoil of last season to see what a difference a functional, flourishing team makes to establishing a young player’s ceiling.

In 25 games, Kuminga is making 49.4% of his shots, with most of those coming from up close in the paint with dunks, hook shots or second chance points. That’s from averaging between nine and 10 minutes per game. Compared to his draft classmates like Scottie Barnes and Evan Mobley, who play between 33-35 minutes per game and return the same shooting percentage (albeit a larger sample size for shots attempted), Kuminga’s shot percentage is competitive. Factor in that he’s playing on a team where the ball is naturally going to get in Curry’s — and Thompson’s once he’s back — hands, then his shooting, for small sample size of opportunities he’s getting, seems even more a miracle.

With the Ignite, Kuminga shifted between small and power forward spots, using his quickness and speed to capitalize on mismatches. For the Warriors, his versatility may be his best attribute, evidenced in the defensive assignments he’s had against DeMar DeRozan and Chris Paul, the former on whose legendary pump-fakes Kuminga refused to bite and the stubborn latter who he even more stubbornly stayed stuck to. On a team that helped bring small-ball into popularity, Kuminga’s future could be as much as a small-ball center as it is on the wing, all the while still encouraging him to hone his 3-point shooting.

“I want him shooting 3s. I want him shooting open 3s. But I want him to recognize when to shoot, when to drive and when to pass. Those are things that sound simple, but it’s not simple,” Kerr said after his starting assignment in Toronto. “So much of a young player’s development is figuring out, ‘What am I in this league? What position do I play? What’s my game?’ In today’s game, to be a top-level player, almost without exception, you have to be able to knock down perimeter shots. For him, that’s going to be the case.”

That goes double when you’re playing on a team that’s built its championships, and superstar players, around the ability to out-shoot, on any given night, any other team in the league.

Overall, the best-case scenario for Kuminga in the interim is to stay fluid with the cushion and benefit of a team needing him in bursts, and without the pressure to crack a dedicated rotational spot this season. He can still develop on an accelerated timeline but without needing to be everything, all at once. Considering his age, even if it doesn’t show up that much on the floor, that’s crucial for his decision-making and his probing at his own potential.

Kuminga, who has referred to himself as a sponge (a term Mahlalela often uses), clearly sees this.

“We’re basically trying to tighten up my game, and knowing where I need to be. And just telling me that it doesn’t matter if I play or I don’t, I shouldn’t be mad about it,” Kuminga says of the work his development coaches Kenny Atkinson and Mahlalela are doing, as well as the advice Leandro Barbosa has given him. “At the end of the day, whenever the time comes, I gotta be ready for that time to shine. Basically just those little things, that’s what they’ve been telling me.”

Kerr has credited Kuminga’s perspective, noting that while it may be “undoubtedly frustrating” for him at times, he’s kept a level, and proactive head. It’s a mindset that Kuminga has no doubt developed on his own, but the foundation started with his family. Asked whether his parents kept up with his high school games, his joining Ignite or even the Draft, Kuminga demurs each time, almost with a faint sense of surprise. The only time his basketball world came to collide with his parents’ hope for him was when Kuminga saw them for the first time in six years, the night before the Draft. But even then, what surprised them most wasn’t the stage their son was about to cross or the platform he’d find himself on, but the physical changes to his face, his body.

“I guess [I was] like a whole different person that they didn’t expect,” he says with a small laugh. “I think my face changed. Like everything changed in my body. It’s like a different type of person that to actually get to see in person, that they have been seeing on internet or anywhere over the past six years.”

His parents unfamiliarity with his basketball wasn’t out of disinterest, but what mattered more to them was whether he was happy and safe. The rest were just details, marks of progress after his initial divergence, the day when his parents let him walk to play ball alone. So while he’s learning from winners now and aspiring for more, perspective, for his family and for Kuminga, has always come from a wider scope.

(Plenty of SPOILERS from Cobra Kai will be found below.)

Cobra Kai‘s fourth season proved that The Karate Kid is still (arguably) the best franchise revival out there while crane-kicking the generation gap and bringing us more of the Battle of the Bad Senseis. Those, of course, are characters from the movies, and viewers love to see them, but in the process, fans have grown to love the cast of assorted younger characters. One of the more prominent roles of the bunch would be Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz, who was born with a cleft lip, for which surgery left him with a distinguishing scar, the experience of being bullied, and an eventual transformation into an at-times-villainous member of Johnny Lawrence’s dojo.

Hawk’s a complicated guy, for sure. And although Jacob Bertrand has rolled through dozens of roles, including appearances on Community and Parks and Recreation, he’s never played a role like this one. He transformed into the Hawk with a Mohawk and an enormous back tattoo, but as Cobra Kai has shown us, Season 4 saw this character reach the highest of highs and a devastating low. That includes the moments after his glorious mohawk was reduced to a few purple tufts of hair, courtesy of John Kreese and Terry Silver’s karate-kid goons. Yes, I was very sad about this development. And I still haven’t recovered, even though Hawk ended Season 4 in a much better place.

Jacob was gracious enough to talk us through Hawk’s hair trauma, and we also chatted about bruises, Andrew Garfield’s Cobra Kai love, and much more.

You are one busy dude. Are you guys still shooting Season 5?

We actually just wrapped.

The show really powered through the pandemic (while others shut down) and blew through a few seasons.

It was weird because we filmed two seasons in one year. In 2021, we filmed both Season 4 and Season 5, so it’s really hard to differentiate what happened before in Season 4 and things that I’m not even allowed to bring up about Season 5. This year has felt long but short at the same time.

We’re cool to hit some Season 4 spoilers here, by the way.

Sweet!

First, let’s talk about Andrew Garfield and the video where he comes out as a Cobra Kai superfan. You teased him by saying that Hawk is his favorite character.

[Laughs] Yeahhhhh, I was kinda teasing him a little bit, but it was very weird. Sometimes I forget that it’s possible that other actors have seen the show. It felt super surreal because he even said in the interview, “Wow, I can’t believe they know who I am!” And my first thought, when I got an email about it, was “Wow, Andrew Garfield knows who I am!” I think it just shows that he’s such a humble, normal dude that he has the same thought. He was Spiderman and has done amazing work afterward, and it was really, really cool to see that he likes the show. I’d love to meet him in person someday, but I think it would be cool if he like played my dad or something.

That must be possible, and he’d be so into it.

I freaking hope so. Now that I know he’s a fan, I’ll be like, “Dude, you should come on the show.”

So, Hawk is really something. We’ve seen him through some impulsive and violent behavior, and going from being bullied to being bully-ish. Were you surprised that he decided to leave Cobra Kai and join Johnny’s Eagle Fang dojo?

When I first heard about that — I was a little bummed. Just because I really liked playing the villain and being on the evil side, and I still hold the belief that playing the villain is a little more fun than playing the hero.

For sure. Hugh Grant and so many other actors would probably agree.

But with all of that being said, I definitely think that for the character, it was time to switch, and it provided a really good arc for the following two seasons. And I will say that I love getting to work with Gianni [Decenz], and I love the relationship that Demetri and Hawk have, and the whole binary-brothers relationship. So, it was really fun to get back into that.

I was not happy about Hawk’s, uh, involuntary haircut. That’s such a symbolic thing to take away from him. How did that hit you when you found out?

Yeah, you know, the writers had talked about that since — I wanna say Season 1. It was something that was at least joked about, cutting off Hawk’s mohawk. So it was always something that I knew about, and when they talked to me about it in Season 3, they were like, “Yeah, in Season 5, we’re gonna cut it, it’ll be this whole arc.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, that’d be sweet.” And then when Season 4 came around, they were like, “Actually, we’re gonna do it this year.” And I was like, “Oh no, wait, wait. You said Season 5! Dude, wait, I’m ill-prepared for this.”

It’s so damn sad to see him with those little tufts of purple on his head!

I was nervous. I had a mohawk, and I’ve had a buzz cut once before in my life. But all-in-all, it was really fun. I never really had to do something that dramatic, physically for a character. It made it easier to go back into the Eli mindset because I, in the beginning, did feel uncomfortable in a buzz cut. And it was also weird because everyone on the set knew that I’d got pinned down and my head buzzed. They were making jokes about it, and I was like, “I feel sad for this kid and for myself, almost, because I had this weird haircut.” It was definitely a big change that I was not ready for but ended up being something that I look back on, and I’m like, “That was actually a fun little thing I got to do for this character.” I got to push myself and moved out of my comfort zone in acting.

Well, I think the element of surprise probably helped you with the role.

Yeah, I definitely was very surprised when they told me.

Now, when you had the mohawk and you’ve got the huge back tattoo, how intense was the makeup job for that stuff?

So, when I had everything — the nine-inch tall mohawk, the back tat, the chest tat — I think in total, I did about two hours in hair and makeup. So I got to get called in bright and early. That was a big adjustment for me, personally. Before I did this show, I’d maybe spend 15 minutes in hair and makeup. With hair, they never really did anything to me, and with makeup, they’d just throw on some foundation in there and call it a day, but when I got all of that stuff, I’d have to come in so early, and I’d be sitting in the chair for so long, I actually had to focus. ‘Cause I’m bad at sitting still for too long. It’s something that I’ve never been super good at, so I actually had to practice being good in the chair and not moving around too much when they’re trying to do the mohawk and put this giant back tat on me, so that was definitely a challenge for me.

And onto the physical part of this role, I’ve heard that you guys actually do about 90% of the actual stuntwork.

That’s true. We do pretty much everything. Usually, there are one or two very technical things that they don’t have time to teach us that a stunt double will do.

Does the bruising ever end? I imagine you’ve gotten some gnarly ones.

You definitely get bruised, that’s for sure. I’ve never gotten hurt or injured on set. They do a really great job, our stunt coordinators, of making sure that we’re safe. In Season 4, there’s definitely a few times where I accidentally punched Tanner [Buchanan], or he accidentally punched me, but honestly that’s because one of us forgot our choreography, not the other way around. I will say that because my arms are so bony and sharp, I know I gave Tanner a couple of bruises while blocking some of his punches. Because when you block, you do it with the blade of your forearm, and I forget not to do that super hard.

And then Hawk ends up winning at the All Valley Tournament in the male division. Did that feel like it happened at the right time?

Yeah, when they had first told me that my head gets buzzed, they’re like, “You’ll have a super cool arc in this series from that.” And going into this season, all of the cast had talked about and placed bets on who would win the tournament, either Robby or Miguel. I heard that, and I thought, “I know I’m not going to win the tournament, but it’s really cool that I get to have an interesting arc this season.” That in itself was enough for me in a season. I’m glad that I get to have fun, and the writers still trust me enough to give me some stuff to do on the show. Then finding out that I won the tournament, that was such a huge cherry on top because who doesn’t wanna win a tournament? Everyone is so attached to their characters on this show. Everyone’s a little competitive about it. And I’m probably one of the most competitive out of everyone. So me winning was like, “Oh my god.” This could not have gone any better, I feel so amazing. This is me lamenting to the writers, but…

You’re truly at the mercy of the writers.

Oh yeah, it’s definitely a thing, it’s a relationship. They say, “You gotta do this,” and I’m like, “Okay! Maybe you can have extra hot chocolate on set for me, and that’ll be the trade, how about that?”

Can we hear about your work with Smile Train? How did you get involved, beyond the Hawk connection?

Over the pandemic, Smile Train came up to my agent, and they’re the largest cleft-lip charity in the world. With 77 countries, they’ve been involved for over 20 years, and they wanted me to be involved with their ambassador program. And I knew nothing about cleft-lip surgeries or palate surgeries. I knew a little bit from the research that I had done when I first booked the role, but I didn’t really know the emotional and physical stress that it takes on someone. One thing that I didn’t know is that cleft palate and cleft surgery is not just purely cosmetic. After surgery, you have to get different and specific neoplants and go through speech therapy. These are not given all the time. This is something that Smile Train does, the comprehensive care. They provide all of these things afterwards. They don’t just go in and do surgeries. They don’t just fly doctors in, they keep doctors there and empower them to continually do surgeries in that area. And they make sure that people are set up after the surgeries and that they’re taken care of. And that, to me and what I thought, is what’s very different about them from cleft organizations. Smile Train is going above and beyond, and it made me really excited to partner with them.

That partnership must go a long way with those viewers who identify with Hawk, and how he was bullied and then empowered himself.

That was something. I was bullied as a kid, I obviously don’t understand what the effects of having a cleft lip or palate could be, but that’s one thing with Smile Train because I got to meet a lot of people who are cleft-affected, and I got to talk to them and hear their stories. I feel like I’m not just walking around in the dark to play this character, so to speak. I’ve gained just a little bit of knowledge about other people’s experiences, and they’ve been kind enough to share that with me. It’s a really cool community and filled with really good people.

We are about out of time. If you could take Hawk out of Cobra Kai and have him visit another show, where would you want him to go?

Oooooh, another show. I think, hmm, that’s a really good one. Hawk would have been really cool to see his character interacting with some people in Breaking Bad. He could have been Jesse’s crazy cousin who comes in and is like his muscle or something, and that could have been pretty fun.

‘Cobra Kai’s fourth season is currently streaming on Netflix.

Back in September of 2021, Saweetie promised that her collaboration with Cher would “unfold during the holidays” after she credited the pop goddess for inspiring her to tweak her album yet again. Unfortunately for fans who were expecting a collaboration of the musical variety, it turns out that the two artists instead worked together on a brand partnership alongside MAC Cosmetics for the brand’s new “Challenge Accepted” campaign, which begins rolling out today.

In the TV ad spot, Cher can be seen applying lipstick in the mirror while Saweetie peppers her with questions. “How did you do it, Cher?” she asks, seemingly referring to the elder artist’s nearly 60-year career at the forefront of pop music. “I’m like this lipstick,” Cher replies. “When I’m on, I’m on.” The background music for the commercial is, of course, Saweetie’s made-for-TV hit, “Fast (Motion),” which has already become an unofficial anthem for WNBA and soundtracked the commercial for her McDonald’s meal last year.

What’s been rolled out so far appears to just be part of a wider campaign, so it’s possible we’ll still get some music from this unlikely duo. If not, though, you still have to celebrate another clear branding win for Saweetie, whose profile only grows as fans await her debut album, Pretty Bitch Music.

Nearly three years ago, Sony gave us a first look of Jared Leto as the moody title character in Morbius: The Living Vampire, which was initially supposed to arrive on July 10, 2020. As everyone knows, most 2020-scheduled movies got derailed by you-know-what, and despite several eventual tentpole successes (including Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, A Quiet Place 2, Fast 9, and the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home), Omicron is leading to another wave of theatrical postponements.

One of those casualties: Morbius. Not only that, but this film has now earned a dubious distinction by no fault of its own. And it’s a thing that appears determined to make Leto’s comic-book-movie tenure remain confined to being the Worst Joker in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad and (arguably also still bad in) Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut. Do you wanna see Leto vamping out? Well, sure, it might not be good, but I’ll watch that; yet it’s not happening anytime soon. Sony (which seems to be doing alright, thanks to Spidey) decided to bump the blood-sucker of their Spider-Man universe to April 1, 2022.

Nope, that’s not a joke. And as the Geek To Me Radio Twitter account has pointed out, this announcement qualifies Morbius as the “Most Delayed Film” of the pandemic (with five scratched-out dates), even eclipsing The New Mutants in the process.

Well, we should eventually see this movie, sometime. Who knows if it will be through streaming or if Omicron will crest that wave and push the pandemic into endemic status, but fingers are crossed that we’ll finally see Michael Keaton (again, confusingly even to him) as Vulture and Jared Harris (holding steady) as the most dignified guy in the building. Also, Ripped Leto, which ain’t nothing.

Morbius supposedly now arrives in theaters on April 1, 2022.

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.

Bo Burnham — Inside (The Songs)

Is Inside (The Songs) a comedy album? If you’re the Recording Academy, you might not think so. Regardless, the album and its parent Netflix special were some of the year’s most talked-about pop culture, and now the music is available on vinyl. That means you can listen to songs about the internet on a format that pre-dates it.

Get it here.

Fucked Up — David Comes To Life (10th Anniversary Edition)

Matador has spent a good chunk of the year reissuing some beloved releases from across their catalog, and the latest album to get that treatment is Fucked Up’s David Comes To Life. This 2-LP edition is pressed on “lightbulb-yellow” vinyl, and if that isn’t enough, the group is embarking on a brief tour in January, during which they’ll perform the album in full.

Get it here.

The New Pornographers — Mass Romantic (21st Anniversary Reissue)

Speaking of Matador, here’s another rerelease from the label, of The New Pornographers’ Mass Romantic. That LP turns 21 years old this year and this new edition of it comes with a bonus 7-inch, Letter From An Occupant, that includes two rare B-sides, “The End Of Medicine” and “When I Was A Baby.”

Get it here.

Cults — Cults (Deluxe 10th Anniversary Reissue)

Cults had a hit on their hands with their 2011 self-titled debut album, and now the beloved LP is ten years old. The band is celebrating that milestone with a special anniversary vinyl edition that features, alongside the original album, three bonus tracks pulled from the original recording sessions. The reissue is limited to just 1,000 total copies spread across three distinct pressings: 250 copies on gold vinyl, 250 on black and milky clear colored vinyl, and 500 on standard black vinyl.

Get it here.

Marvin Gaye — What’s Going On (50th Anniversary Edition)

There’s not much more to say about What’s Going On, as essentially every music fan knows how excellent and important the legendary Marvin Gaye project is. The album turned 50 years old in 2021 and this new anniversary edition is now the best way to enjoy the project on your turntable. The 2-LP release features direct-to-analog mastering and four rare tracks making their debut on vinyl, including a previously unreleased “stripped” version of the title track.

Get it here.

Pom Pom Squad — Ow EP

Ow, the 2019 EP that preceded Pom Pom Squad’s 2021 debut album Death Of A Cheerleader, wasn’t released on vinyl, but that changed this month. It comes pressed on cream white vinyl with a red label, a simple but striking visual accompaniment to the album art.

Get it here.

Fela Kuti — Vinyl Box #5

Partisan Records is working through a massive Fela Kuti reissues series, and they got Coldplay’s Chris Martin on board to help with the fifth installment. He helped curate this new collection, which features Why Black Man Dey Suffer, Noise For Vendor Mouth, Kalakuta Show, Excuse O, Ikoyi Blindness, Original Sufferhead, and Overtake Don Overtake Overtake. Each album is presented here with meticulous detail, as the art for all of them was carefully re-created from the original vinyl pressings.

Get it here.

Aeon Station — Observatory

The Wrens released The Meadowlands in 2003 and fans have been waiting for its follow-up ever since. Well, this month, one sort of arrived, as Kevin Whelan made (with help from Greg Whelan and Jerry MacDonald) a new album called Observatory, under the name Aeon Station. While this may not be the continuation of The Wrens that fans had in mind, its at least something and the striking blue vinyl will look real sharp spinning on a turntable.

Get it here.

Danny Elfman — Big Mess

Danny Elfman stays busy as one of the most esteemed purveyors of film and TV scores in the industry, but 2021 brought Big Mess, his first non-classical solo album since 1984’s So-Lo. Now he has wrapped up the year with a massive box set version of the project, a 4-LP edition that’s limited to just 1,500 copies. Aside from the core album, it includes Elfman singing a duet on “True” with Trent Reznor, as well as goodies like a life-size light-up model of Elfman’s hand, a 60-page hardcover art book, and more.

Get it here.

E-40 — The Hall Of Game (Vinyl Me, Please Reissue)

As the year comes to an end, take a minute to be thankful for Vinyl Me, Please, who have spent 2021 and the years preceding it busting out exclusive vinyl reissues of some classic releases. Their current hip-hop album of the month is a winner: E-40’s The Hall Of Game. This edition is pressed on exclusive 2-LP “Rapper’s Ball Red” Galaxy vinyl and comes with a booklet of listening notes.

Get it here.

Gorillaz — Gorillaz (20th Anniversary Reissue)

Damon Albarn has been dominating the virtual band space for two decades now with Gorillaz, meaning the band’s self-titled debut album celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, the band has unveiled a super deluxe vinyl box set, which includes early demos and rarities, along with a “previously unknown 27-page DMC dossier of leaked documents, memos, faxes, and some early Jamie Hewlett drawings.”

Get it here.

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

Since last year’s deal between Aaliyah’s original label, Blackground Records, and EMPIRE was inked, fans are finally getting their long-awaited wish of her music on streaming services. Blackground is owned by her uncle Barry Hankerson, who also happens to own the rights to all of the late R&B singer’s back catalog masters.

Through this partnership, the track “Poison” featuring The Weeknd was released last month and is slated to be on Aaliyah’s posthumous album, Unstoppable. At press time, the track has already clocked over 5 million Spotify spins and Hankerson is clearly pleased with this. “One of the songs that’s out now is doing incredibly well. And that’s the song that she did with Weeknd [“Poison,”] he said in an interview on The Geno Jones Show. He then further elaborated that the new album is coming this month and that it’ll feature some very big names. “Because of that success, we think it’ll only get better with people such as Ne-Yo and Snoop Dogg, Future, and Drake — one of her biggest fans. Those are the features that’ll be on the record and that’ll be out in January.”

Aaliyah’s music coming to streaming services hasn’t come without controversy. Aaliyah’s estate, which is not affiliated with Hankerson, has noted that several of the artists involved with her back catalog will not see profits under the deal between Blackground and EMPIRE. It raises an issue for fans who are surely happy to have Aaliyah’s music at their fingertips but then have to ask themselves, whether this is the way they wanted it to happen. Regardless, Unstoppable is officially set to drop later this month.

Dan Crenshaw and Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s social media feud is showing no signs of slowing down even as Greene finds herself permanently banned from Twitter and allegedly suspended from Facebook. This time around, Crenshaw is firing back after Greene accused him of hurting the conservative “brand” by suggesting that FEMA should be bolstering COVID test sites and help set up new ones.

“No FEMA should not set up testing sites to check for Omicron sneezes, coughs, and runny noses,” Greene wrote on Instagram, her only social media account that hasn’t been banned. Yet. “And we don’t need FEMA in hospitals, they should hire back all the unvaccinated HCW they fired. He needs to stop calling himself conservative, he’s hurting our brand.”

After catching wind of her retort, Crenshaw shot back by accusing Greene of being a Democrat after basically calling her an idiot. Via Houston Chronicle:

Crenshaw, who has been critical of Greene and her Freedom Caucus before, responded to Greene’s criticism in an Instagram story saying, “Hey, Marjorie, if suggesting we should follow Trump [SIC] policy instead of Biden mandates makes you mad, then you might be a Democrat — or just an idiot.“

As the Chronicle notes, this is not Crenshaw’s first time taking Greene to task. In early December, the Texas congressman put the QAnon representative and Lauren Boebert on blast by accusing them of being “grifters” who aren’t concerned with actually passing conservative policies.

“There are two types of members of Congress: there is performance artists and there is legislators,” Crenshaw said. “Performance artists are the ones who get all of the attention, the ones you think are more conservative because they know how to say slogans real well. They know how to recite the lines that they know our voters want to hear.”

(Via Houston Chronicle)

Kodak Black wants a Verzuz battle with Jay-Z and is willing to bet a lot to make it happen. Despite the obvious imbalance in audience and legacy, the Florida artist is apparently convinced he can hold his own. In fact, he’s so confident in his ability to pull out a win, he’s offering up 15% of his catalog should he lose — although he stands to gain more with a win, banking on a Vice President role at Jay’s Roc Nation management company. “I’ll do a versus wit Jay Z,” he tweeted last evening. “‘IF’ he win, he get 15% of my catalog! I win he make me Vice President of roc nation.”

It’d be unexpected were Jay to accept any of these terms — there’s little evidence that Kodak has any managerial experience, let alone with such a prominent position. Plus there are the obvious risks of hiring an executive-level employee who’s just as likely to get locked up within a year as anything (please see: Kodak’s laundry list of offenses including gun possession, sexual assault, and more). Jay hasn’t even accepted challenges from those he considers peers, such as Rick Ross and Snoop Dogg, boasting that “no one can stand on that stage with me.”

That hasn’t stopped a number of rappers, from Kodak to Future to Young Thug, from sending out challenges and expressing their belief that they could beat him — even where there’s no significant overlap in their fanbases. Truth be told, there’s rarely actually been a clear “winner” in most of the Verzuz battles, which are more about celebrating legacies than they are settling competitions. Still, it speaks to Jay’s towering profile in the hip-hop world that so many artists still want a piece of him It looks like he still has the throne — and he’s not giving it up anytime soon.