Category: Worldwide

On December 10, it was revealed that Michael Nesmith of The Monkees died at 78 years old, with his family saying in a statement that he “passed away this morning in his home, surrounded by family, peacefully and of natural causes.” He was influential for his work with The Monkees and beyond, and Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard was impacted enough by his passing to perform some Nesmith covers on Instagram.

In a 21-minute video shared on the day of Nesmith’s passing, Gibbard covered a handful of songs, most of which were written by Nesmith: “Different Drum” (most popularly recorded by The Stone Poneys featuring Linda Ronstadt), “The Crippled Lion” (by Michael Nesmith & The First National Band) “Joanne” (a Nesmith solo track), “Me & Magdalena” (which Gibbard wrote for The Monkees’ 2016 album Good Times!), and “You Just May Be The One” (by The Monkees).

Gibbard wrote alongside the video, “Mike Nesmith passed today and I feel completely gutted. I also feel so fortunate to have called him a friend. I believe the best way to mourn the loss of a musician is to play their music. When we do so we keep the beauty of their spirit alive in our hearts. With that said, please enjoy this selection of some of my favorite Nez songs. Rest In Peace, Papa Nez. I am so grateful to have known you.”

Between songs, Gibbard spoke about the last time he saw Nesmith, saying (as Indie88 notes), “He was not in good health these last couple of years. The last time I saw him was in June. His spirit was there, he was still very funny and very personable as always, but he didn’t seem like he was doing too great physically. So the news today is sad but not entirely surprising. I just felt instead of posting with crying emojis or heartbreak emojis, I’d just play a couple of his tunes for you guys. It’s just the right way to do it, I think.”

Watch Gibbard’s covers above.

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Game Pass has been well established for a few years now, but an argument can be made that its strongest year yet was 2021. For a long time, the best part of Game Pass has been the ability to play new games at launch on day one. This has given a lot of us the chance to try new games we never had before, but until now there hasn’t been much from Microsoft itself to really sell us on that idea. That was until 2021 when multiple Microsoft owned studios released gems that turned Game Pass into something Xbox owners should get to a service that anyone interested in video games needs. With Game Pass solidifying itself throughout 2021 and expanding its services deeper onto the PC, it’s become an important part of how we look at video games. When a game releases the first question many people have will be “Is that on Game Pass?” That alone signifies how important the service is to video games as a whole now.

All of that made us ask the question, what makes a game a “Game Pass” game? We didn’t want to just pick the five best Xbox exclusives, because that’s boring, but instead chose five games that we felt defined the service in its own unique way, and why it’s better than ever. These are our 2021 Game Pass games of the year.

Psychonauts 2

We adored Psychonauts 2. Its creative level design, fantastic writing, and theming made for a game that is going to deservedly be on many lists for Game of The Year. It also was one of those first major Microsoft-owned studio games to release directly to Game Pass. Its success since then is proof of the formula working. The game was a huge success and we’re willing to bet nowhere near as many people would have played it with a $60 price tag, and that would have been a shame. The original Psychonauts, while a cult classic, flew under the radar. Thanks to Game Pass, there was no chance of Psychonauts 2 ever doing that.

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite was supposed to be a launch title for the Xbox Series X/S. Obviously, that didn’t happen. While the delay worked out to the game’s benefit, there are very obvious signs in the campaign and multiplayer that it had to be patched up before it could release. The weird part is, for the most part, nobody really cares. The multiplayer is free-to-play, the campaign’s $60 price tag is completely waved off through Game Pass, and everyone is having a really fun time playing it. This is the perfect example of how Game Pass can change how someone may feel about a game. The campaign not being completely ready at launch would have been frustrating for $60, but on Game Pass it’s just another of the many games receiving frequent updates.

Sea of Thieves

This is kind of cheating, because Sea of Thieves was released all the way back in 2018, but to have a list of Game Pass games that represented 2021 and not include Sea of Thieves would be ignoring how important that game is to the service. Sea of Thieves is an example of a game that has seen success directly because of Game Pass. When it first launched it was considered a disappointment because the content in the game, while fun, was shallow. Now, in 2021, it’s full of content, and more people are playing it than ever. This is the game that, before this year, was the reason many people got Game Pass and it’s part of why many people will continue to get it.

Back 4 Blood

Do you ever scroll through Netflix, or Hulu, or any of those services and you’re not feeling anything, but you feel like watching a movie so you just settle on an above-average action flick? That experience is why Back 4 Blood is perfect for Game Pass. By itself, Back 4 Blood is a perfectly okay game that doesn’t blow you away. It set out to be an unofficial Left 4 Dead sequel and it achieved that goal, but it’s not a game that would be worth a full price tag to many people. Now, a game to be played for a weekend or two with friends on Game Pass? That is where Back 4 Blood shines. It is a perfect game for when nobody can decide what they want to play, so they jump on for a round of shooting zombies together. It’s an above-average action flick and you’re never unhappy you decided to start playing.

Hades

For a lot of people, Hades was their Game of The Year in 2020. The rogue-like that everyone couldn’t help but fall in love with, but unfortunately when it came out it was only available on PC and Switch. That meant a whole lot of people didn’t get to experience one of the best games of 2020. This year, it came out on Game Pass, and a whole lot of new people got to experience what a delight Hades is for the first time. This is one of the best features of Game Pass. Getting to experience, and sometimes re-experience, older games that could have been missed the first time. Everyone needs the opportunity to play Hades and Game Pass helped make sure everyone did.

WARNING: Spoilers for the series premiere of And Just Like That… below. Although, half of the world pretty much knows about this one by now.

After masterfully recovering from last week’s And Just Like That… fiasco thanks to a smooth assist from Ryan Reynolds, the Peloton social media account is starting to flex on people and possibly getting a little too sassy in the process. Granted, the exercise company pulled off a marketing coup by getting Chris Noth to show up in a new ad that it threw together in just two days, but did its Twitter account really need to start calling people out like this? I mean, sure, they theoretically brought Mr. Big back from the dead, but easy now.

“If we can put that spot together in 48 hours, you can do your workout today,” Peloton fired into a tranquil Monday afternoon without warning.

With less than two weeks to go until the holidays, and it only being the start of the work week, people were not exactly thrilled about the saucy tweet. In fact, some went so far to say that Peloton just took all of the goodwill it earned and threw it in the garbage.

However, there were people who were actually loving the energy that Peloton and its marketing team were throwing down. These people are obviously unholy exercise beasts who have never experienced the joy of doing nothing, sweet blissful nothing, but good for them for “crushing it” or whatever people who workout say. It’s a mystery.

(Via Peloton on Twitter)

On Sunday night, the Timberwolves and Blazers met in a battle of Northwest Division squads trying desperately to right the ship, as both came into the game at 11-15, with both teams struggling to find much in the way of consistency so far this season.

The battle within the battle was the matchup of Ants, with Anthony Edwards of the Wolves and Anfernee Simons of the Blazers creating some confusion given their shared nickname, as the Blazers PA refers to Simons as “Ant” after every made basket.

After the Wolves escaped with a 116-111 win, Edwards, who has quickly become the NBA’s best postgame interview, was asked about the other Ant and whether he’s alright sharing a nickname, and last year’s No. 1 overall pick was confused as to why Anfernee went by Ant, when the first three letters of his name are ANF rather than ANT like him.

It’s a valid question, and Edwards makes clear that his confusion at sharing a nickname has nothing to do with Simons’ game, offering some strong compliments to Simons’ shot-making ability and defensive effort. It’s simply a matter of why he would go by Ant when that is nowhere in his name. Ultimately, Edwards concedes that he can be “Ant No. 2” if he wants, saying he plays well enough to earn that.

Guillermo del Toro swears his Nightmare Alley is not a remake of the 1947 film of the same name. Yes, he is a fan of the original film, which stars Tyrone Power as boisterous con artist Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper’s version of this character is played a little more, let’s say, fraught), but del Toro isn’t out to remake a film, but, instead, to give a more accurate adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel. Though, it’s interesting that del Toro, just coming off a Best Picture Oscar win for The Shape of Water, thought the chances of getting this movie made were very low.

In Nightmare Alley, Bradley Cooper plays Stanton Carlisle, best described as “a man with a past.” With few prospects, Stanton finds himself working at a local carnival where he meets Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) and the two start a clever act involving word manipulation and secret codes which creates the illusion of mind reading and magic. The act becomes such a hit that the two leave the carnival and travel ballrooms, entertaining high society folk. But, for Stanton, the line starts to blur when he meets Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and the act takes a darker turn toward true deception and preying upon heartbreak and faith.

Ahead, del Toro tells us why, being in the post-Oscar position to make almost anything he wanted to, why Nightmare Alley was what he went to bat for. And explains his new partnership with Netflix and expands on why his long-gestating At the Mountains of Madness may become a reality.

I watched the original right before I saw yours. I kept thinking, oh I see why he wanted to make this movie. Does that make sense?

It does to a point, I read the novel first.

Oh, I see…

And then saw the movie. I don’t think either movie can encompass the novel, but the novel certainly presented aspects of psychosexual, mystery, magic, weirdness that were really interesting that were not tackled in the first version for many reasons. Including the fact that there was censorship. It was done during the code. So they really circumvented a lot of stuff that was pretty brutal in a good way.

Well, something they do in the original that I found really interesting, It’s rare for a movie from that era where it’s so clear two characters just had sex. Because they go into a truck together and Stanton comes out whistling.

Yeah. That’s it. No, [co-writer] Kim Morgan and I said, look, if we try to occupy that space, then it’s a remake. If we don’t, then it’s another patient of the novel. And we certainly made the deal to not go back and revisit the 1947 movie. Let’s use the novel and very, very pointedly, which is really interesting, let’s use William Lindsay Gresham’s biography and what he was seeking also, as a human being, as the basis for what we’re doing. Because Gresham, when he was well, he left a little scribbled note that says, “I am Stan.”

And really, if you look at Gresham, you find out that he was a seeker, like The Fool, the Tarot card. And he was looking for truth in Catholicism, and psychoanalysis, in the Tarot. He was a folk singer. He was in the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. He became a communist. He was a guy that was looking for a system to which he could belong, which is basically also what Stan is secretly looking for. But he’s also looking for the truth about himself, which is what Gresham was looking for. The movie is, by the rights, from him. He gets a lot of money and his life unravels rather fast.

He died in the same room he wrote the book. Do I have that right?

He goes back to the hotel in New York and commits suicide because he had throat cancer, yes, but also because he basically had lost so much in life at that point. His kids and his ex-wife were living now with CS Lewis. And he found, probably an answer, or a version of the truth, that led to that. And I thought it was very interesting to articulate Stanton through the search for himself. When Lilith says, “What do they want?” The marks. And Stan says, “To be found out like everybody else.” And that’s what he wants. And he’s found out in the last two minutes of the movie. After lying to everyone, he finally gets the truth.

You mention how, obviously, you just don’t want to remake the movie from ’47 and base it more on the book. Was there ever a thought of setting it in contemporary times?

No, I refused.

Oh, so someone brought that up to you and you said absolutely not?

No, no, no. I would refuse. I didn’t because no one suggested it, but I’ve had it in the past in other things, and I made it very clear in the proposal we’re setting it in the moment where the world is also going mad. The beginning of World War II and so forth. And look, the other thing that is interesting in this is we wrote it thinking it’s going to be very hard for this movie to happen. We’re going to just write the ideal screenplay that we want.

When was this? Because it feels like after The Shape of Water you could do anything you want?

No. The reality is that, look, there are two things that are very important in this movie: The ending, which, basically, the whole movie is a prologue to that ending. And the other one is the scope, which means it has to be a reasonably big movie, because we really wanted to have a telescopic, incredibly detailed reality. And in the way we photographed it, dressed the characters, decorated the sets, designed the sets, mounted the camera and all that. So we went at it and, surprise, everybody seemed to come on board to the project.

Right, but, I mean, you just won an Oscar. People seem to love these kinds of movies. I’m wondering why, in your mind, it was going to be so hard to get made? Like, “Here’s what studios might not like.”

Well, remember one thing. You’ve seen the movie.

True.

Which, I had the benefit of, in ways, because I’m the director. I see the movie.

You have it in your head.

I see the movie. But the studios don’t see the movie. Once you see them you go, “Oh, it’s this.” I remember clearly with The Shape of Water, it could only be made for $19.5 million. If we went any bigger than that, it made no sense in such a, seemingly on paper, bizarre story. And then when you see it and you feel the energy, of course it makes sense that it exists. And the same was true with Nightmare Alley. It’s a very adult, no pyrotechnics, no big action. It’s a very intimate, almost like a character portrait.

So I heard what you said on Eric Vespe and Scott Wampler’s Kingcast podcast about At the Mountains of Madness may be getting made at Netflix.

Yes.

I knew you had that deal for the anthology series, Cabinet of Curiosities, at Netflix. And then you mentioned your pitching At the Mountains of Madness. Do you have a deal to make movies there, too? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m doing Pinocchio right now with them.

I mean, is it kind of the Fincher deal where it’s going to be making a bunch of different things?

One would hope so, yes. I’m pitching my next project there, for sure. And I think my experience with them for the last, almost, a decade with Troll Hunters, the Troll Hunters series and the universe we created was splendid, creatively and in every sense, we felt free and supported. So yeah.

I know there was that time period where it seemed like everything you wanted to do didn’t work out. And now I feel like the stuff you’ve been talking about forever might finally going to happen.

Well, I tell you. Nothing is that easy. I know once you make them and they make sense. Mountains of Madness, which makes perfect sense to me, it’s very hard for it to make sense to other people. Because even in the smaller form it’s still a pretty big horror movie. And big horror movies, tent-pole horror, if you would, is something that rarely occurs. It happens in The Exorcist, it happened in The Shining, but it also happens in The Thing. And now and then you get it, but it’s a rarity.

Well, I’m glad you got to make this movie. I think people will appreciate it.

I thank you for that. And that has been my hope. And I believe that there is a beautiful place for a new resurgence of noir, because it is the most cinematic, lush, glorious genre. And other than horror, it has been my love all my life, both in the novels and in the filming genre. I love them equally.

‘Nightmare Alley’ opens in theaters this week. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

We’re firmly in the midst of the holiday season, but this year, December is doubling as Adele season. It was revealed yesterday that 30 is on top of the Billboard 200 chart for the third straight week, and now the album’s hit single “Easy On Me” remains on top, too, as it’s No. 1 on the new Hot 100 chart dated December 18 for a seventh week.

It’s possible the song won’t stay on top for much longer, though. Over the past few weeks, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is Now” has been making its now-annual climb back up the Hot 100. It was No. 3 on last week’s chart, and now it’s up to No. 2. If the song does make it to No. 1 on the chart dated December 25 (the final Hot 100 of 2021), it would have topped the chart in three consecutive years and become the only song to ever go No. 1 in four separate years.

As far as Christmas music, Carey’s hit isn’t alone in the top 10. Returning to the space from last week are Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” at No. 3, Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” at No. 5, and Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” at No. 6. Andy Williams’ “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” is new to the top 10 this week at No. 10, rounding out the five holiday songs in the region this week.

Historical precedent says it wouldn’t be surprising to see next week’s Hot 100 flooded with Christmas music: On the chart dated December 26, 2020, six of the top 10 songs were holiday tunes. The next week, that number jumped up to nine.

[WARNING: spoilers for Sunday’s Succession]

The season three finale of Succession, “All the Bells Say,” is a member of the 9.9 club on IMDb, an honor reserved for only the best episodes of television (as voted by randos on the internet). A major reason why it’s being hailed as an instant classic is due to the impossibly tense final 20 minutes, beginning with Kendall crumbling to the ground at his mom’s wedding and ending with — in a shocking moment — Tom’s betrayal.

Matthew Macfadyen, who plays the tomlette to Greg’s greggs, was asked by GQ when he was first made aware of the twist. “Quite early on,” he said, adding, “I had a rough idea of how it might end up but I was fully prepared for it to change.” Macfadyen also explained when he thinks Tom made the decision to stick a, well, shiv in his wife’s back.

There’s a scene [in the previous episode] with Shiv in their quarters when they’re playing a sexy game and she implies that she doesn’t love him. Something is very off there. Then the following day she talks about freezing their babies. But then maybe it’s a subconscious decision. We all have that thing ticking away in our brains and you make a decision but the decision might have been made months before, and you just don’t know it yet.

Tom probably wasn’t feeling too great when Shiv didn’t seem relieved that he wasn’t going to prison, either. “There’s a collection of incremental things that he’s noticed with Shiv that’s made him think, ‘I have to look after myself. I can’t rely on anybody. My wife doesn’t trust and believe in me,’” Macfadyen said. At least he still has Greg.

(Via GQ)

Bobby Shmurda‘s come a long way since 2014, but all it took to change his life was one $20/hour recording session. The Brooklyn rapper sent an encouraging tweet to his fans, recalling the single that upended his trajectory and encouraging fans to chase their dreams.

“Too many people got a DREAM that they never chased, then go through life and be angry they never tried,” he wrote. “Let me remind y’all ‘Hot N****’ took 20$ for 1 hour of studio time in the hood to create and that 1 hour of FOCUS changed my life and everyone around me FOREVER.”

That track, which Bobby recorded at some point in 2013, borrowed the Jahlil Beats-produced beat from Lloyd Banks’ 2012 song “Jackpot” and became one of hip-hop’s first modern viral hits, setting the stage for the modern social phenom to legit rap star pipeline that spawned many of today’s biggest artists like Lil Nas X. The track peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and made Bobby and his “Shmoney dance” from the music video household names.

While Bobby’s momentum was briefly curtailed by a stint in prison as the result of a racketeering investigation, since his release, he’s remained as popular as ever as fans await the release of his debut album.

The Chicago Bulls have been one of the best teams of the early NBA season, but over the last week they have seen a COVID-19 outbreak derail things, sending 10 players including stars DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine into the league’s health and safety protocols.

The shorthanded Bulls dropped back-to-back games against the Cavs and Heat, but as more and more names were added to the COVID protocol list, including some players who had been added as emergency replacements, it became clear the situation wasn’t tenable. With two games this week against the Pistons and Raptors and another player, Alize Johnson, going into COVID protocols on Monday, the league finally decided to issue its first postponements of the season, calling off their games against Detroit and in Toronto on Tuesday and Thursday.

The Bulls technically would’ve had the 8 players needed to play, but as it was clear there was still an issue with exposure and spread as more and more members of the organization went into quarantine, the league made the right call to give them the week off. Hopefully, the Bulls can get guys healthy and back in time for Sunday’s game with the Lakers, without any more internal spread. As case counts rise in the United States once again and absences due to COVID have been piling up in the first third of the season, the NBA may not be done with postponements as we have been given a stark reminder that, no matter how much people want it to be over, we are still very much in the midst of a pandemic.

Château Miraval is a large villa in Correns, France that is co-owned by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and it has a rich musical history. French pianist and composer Jacques Loussier used to town the place and while he was there, he built a recording studio, which was known at the time as Studio Miraval. The studio was part of a number of noteworthy releases; Perhaps most notably, Pink Floyd held sessions for The Wall there. Other artists who have made use of the space include AC/DC, The Cure, Sade, and The Cranberries, among others.

Muse’s 2006 album Black Holes And Revelations was one of the last projects recorded in the studio before it was shut down. Now, though, Pitt and French producer Damien Quintard are bringing the facility back as Miraval Studios, which is set to reopen in the summer of 2022. Press materials note, “Pitt and Quintard will reopen the completely redesigned and updated Miraval Studios for the future, honoring the past while pushing forward a new take on recording, amid a breathtaking vista sure to nurture all manner of creative expression.”

The space is also described:

“In addition to the original gear on which so many classic albums were recorded, the studio is built around a desk designed by Pitt and Quintard with hybrid analog/digital capacities, while boasting a fully integrated Dolby Atmos system as well as technology to handle pre-mixing for film and television. With its 25-foot ceilings, Studio One has a 100 square meter control room and 320 square meter live room that conserves what Quintard describes as the ‘heritage of the quirky sound’ of the iconic drum room pioneered by Loussier.

Quintard says, “The combination of Brad’s vision for Miraval and our common passion for taking the time to make simple but beautiful things has resulted in something that is one-of-a-kind. We are so excited for musicians of all types to be a part of what we’ve created.”

Pitt and Jolie signed a long-term lease for Château Miraval in 2008 before buying it in 2012 for an estimated $60 million, as People notes. Pitt and Jolie divorced in 2019, and now, they each own a 50-percent share of the estate (which is now worth a total of about $160 million), per Page Six.

Miraval Studios has launched some social media pages (here’s Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube), so check those out to keep updated on the status of the studio.