Category: Worldwide

In a new interview on the heavily anticipated Spider-Man: No Way Home, which appears to send Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man on a adventure through the multiverse thanks to some magic shenanigans with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, the Peter Parker actor revealed that filming the third installment in the Homecoming trilogy was an emotional experience for himself and cast mates Zendaya and Jacob Batalon. The three have been together since the first movie, and once they realized they were filming their last scene together for No Way Home, Holland described the moment as “heartbreaking, but also really exciting.”

As Holland explains, No Way Home was approached as the culmination of his work together with director Jon Watts, and they approached it like the final installment for this chapter of Peter’s life. Via Entertainment Weekly:

“We were all treating [No Way Home] as the end of a franchise, let’s say,” he adds. “I think if we were lucky enough to dive into these characters again, you’d be seeing a very different version. It would no longer be the Homecoming trilogy. We would give it some time and try to build something different and tonally change the films. Whether that happens or not, I don’t know. But we were definitely treating [No Way Home] like it was coming to an end, and it felt like it.”

While No Way Home may mark the end of this particular brand of adventures for Holland, there’s no way the actor is done as the MCU’s current Spider-Man. As part of the deal that brought an end to the dispute between Marvel and Sony, Holland is still under contract for one more MCU film. More recently, Venom: Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis revealed that a Venom/Spider-Man crossover is in the works. So it’s probably going to be a while until Holland hangs up his tights.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

After a year and a half of a global pandemic and domestic upheaval, most of us are feeling some variation of tired, fried, exhausted and generally done with everything. We’ve been swimming through choppy and uncharted waters, and even strong swimmers need a life jacket under such conditions.

We can all use an extra measure of grace and understanding as we navigate these waters, which is why this email from a professor to her English 101 class is so dang heartwarming. This message went out to students the day after their first essay was due, with the subject line, “You need a break today.”

Here’s what it said:

“All,

The pandemic is kicking everyone’s ass. Can I say that? I don’t know, but I did.

woman writing on dry erase board

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

This is just a reminder, based on several guilty-sounding student emails, that you can turn anything in late during the pandemic for no penalty. Yes, you absolutely can do all late work for no penalty by December 7.

Have a great day! You can do this!”

man and woman sitting on chairs

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

The student who shared the email with me says it was a huge relief to get such a message of support and understanding, especially during the pandemic when so many people’s lives have been derailed. “It felt like she cared,” the student said.

Students respond well when they know a teacher cares about them as human beings and not just temporary names on a class list. What’s beautiful about the professor’s message is that she’s clear about having expectations of students—it’s not like she said it doesn’t matter if students do their work. She simply gave them options to work on their own timeline and provided choices for certain assignments so they can learn however they learn best. This gift of empathy and understanding will likely go farther than a hard-nosed approach in gaining students’ respect.

And look at the valuable lessons being taught just in this one email: Your well-being matters. Your unique needs are recognized and honored. Authority doesn’t have to be rigid or uncompromising. There is more than one way to do things. Standards and expectations can be balanced with kindness and understanding. As human beings, we take care of one another.

These are wild and wearying times. Kudos to this professor for offering her students some much-needed, well-balanced grace and encouragement. Here’s hoping some of it comes back her way as well.

We are living in weird times in far more ways than one. Not only are we coping with a global pandemic that some people still refuse to acknowledge, but we are also dealing with an ex-president who still refuses to admit that he lost the last election, whose fan base keeps spiraling deeper and deeper into kooky conspiracy theories, and whose adopted party inexplicably failed to cut bait and run from Q-ville when it had the chance.

So now we’re watching democracy flail and sputter because millions of Americans simply reject objective reality. It’s genuinely, mind-bogglingly weird.

Such is the backdrop of Bill Maher’s recent run-down of what he sees happening in the next election. Under normal circumstances, it would be far too early for such punditry from comedic political commentators, but the U.S. sailed right past normal years ago. So now, not even a year past the last election—and with no one even announcing an intention to run—we’re already pondering what will happen in 2024. (Seriously, why does everything have to be so dumb?)

Maher laid out the plan that appears to be unfolding before our eyes in a segment titled “A slow-moving coup,” starting with the Eastman memo that basically was a blueprint for Trump overturning the results of the election he lost.

New Rule: The Slow-Moving Coup | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

www.youtube.com

“Here are the easiest three predictions in the world,” said Maher. “Trump will run in 2024. He will get the Republican nomination. And whatever happens on election night, the next day he will announce that he won.”

“I’ve been saying ever since he lost, he’s like a shark that’s not gone, just gone out to sea,” said Maher. “But actually, he’s been quietly eating people this whole time. And by eating people, I mean he’s been methodically purging the Republican Party of anyone who voted for his impeachment or doesn’t agree that he’s the rightful leader of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Maher explained how the small number of Republicans who outwardly opposed Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election will be gone by 2024, and how state legislatures and election officials are being replaced with loyalists who will hand him the presidency whether he actually wins it or not. He predicted that Republicans would win the House in 2022.

“And yet, 2024 comes and Democrats treat it as a normal election year,” he said. “They are living in a dream world where their choice of candidate matters, their policies matter, the number of votes they get matters, none of it does. I won’t even predict who the Democratic nominee will be, because it doesn’t matter.”

Maher explained that even if the Democratic nominee wins the election, “Trump won’t accept it.” But this time, his conspiracy theories about election fraud “will be fully embraced by stooges he is installing right now.”

The only thing that kept the U.S. from a full-blown constitutional crisis was that some Republican elected officials and put their foot down and insisted on reality. What happens without people who are willing to go against pressure from their party and do the right thing?

“The ding dongs who sacked the Capitol last year? That was like when Al Qaeda tried to take down the World Trade Center the first time with a van. It was a joke. But the next time they came back with planes,” Maher said.

“I hope I scared the shit out of you!” Maher said, in conclusion.

Yeah. A majority of Americans are already there, Bill.

In a bouncy performance of his song “No Chances” for UPROXX Sessions, Alabama-born newcomer Baby Rich switches from a smooth, staccato flow to melodic crooning and back as he details all the chances that he won’t take in a relationship. From the lyrics on the swooning chorus, Rich’s philosophy would seem to be “money before women,” while the rapid-fire verses explain exactly why he feels that way.

While he’s not a super well-established face yet, fans attending DDG‘s currently ongoing tour with Kevin Gates can catch Baby Rich as his opening act. Born in Birmingham, Baby Rich has since relocated to Los Angeles and signed with DDG, who appears on another of Rich’s singles, “Simon Says.”

Still at the outset of his career, Rich has all the potential to become a breakout star in his own right with DDG’s guidance and the increased exposure from accompanying his mentor on tour. He’s already adopted DDG’s approach of video logging his experiences on tour, sharing with fans on his YouTube channel. You can even catch a glimpse of him recording his UPROXX Sessions performance in one.

Watch Baby Rich’s UPROXX Sessions performance of “No Chances” above.

Over the past few months, the live music industry has been crawling its way back to normal. Now, SZA is joining that push, as she just announced she has a string of shows coming up on November.

For one reason or another, she insists it’s not a proper “tour,” writing on Twitter, “Uhhh Iss not a tour but I WILL be singing songs in multiple cities at night time lmao ..COME.” While the list of dates isn’t massive — she’s playing Houston, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, and the Day N Vegas Festival — they seem to be presented as a tour, under the “Good Days Fall 2021” banner.

Beyond getting these shows planned, SZA has kept busy in recent times. Last month, she dropped a video for her Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack contribution “The Anonymous Ones” and sang in Spanish on Kali Uchis’ “Fue Mejor” remix. Last week, she also linked up with James Blake for “Coming Back.”

Find the full list of SZA’s upcoming shows below and get tickets here.

11/03/2021 — Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
11/06/2021 — Austin, TX @ Emo’s Austin
11/07/2021 — Dallas, TX @ South Side Music Hall
11/09/2021 — Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
11/11/2021 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union
11/14/2021 — Las Vegas, NV @ Day N Vegas Festival

Former professional wrestler Jacques Rougeau has a story about the time four guys confronted Andre the Giant, the seven-foot-four mountain of a man, in a bar. “Maybe they had too much to drink and decided to try him out or call him out. But the guy slapped Andre, slapped him to provoke him. And when Andre got up at the bar, the guy just looked and he couldn’t believe what had happened,” he said. “The guy jumped in the Volkswagen and Andre just took the car and he flipped it on the top.”

Daniel Craig is no Andre the Giant — he’s roughly 300 pounds lighter — but he would like to avoid a situation where some drunk picks a fight with him so he can brag to his buddies about how he “totally kicked the crap out of James Bond.” This, Craig explained on the Lunch With Bruce podcast, is why he regularly goes to gay bars.

“I’ve been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember. One of the reasons: because I don’t get into fights in gay bars that often,” Craig, who has been married to Rachel Weisz since 2011, said (“Adele wrote a song about me” is probably a more effective pickup line at a gay bar). He got “very sick” of the “aggressive d*ck swinging in hetero bars,” and “I don’t want to end up being in a punch-up. And I did. That would happen quite a lot. And it would just be a good place to go. Everybody was chill, everybody.”

“I could meet girls there, ’cause there are a lot of girls there for exactly the same reason I was there. It was… an ulterior motive.”

I was really hoping to see Daniel Craig the next time I’m at Buffalo Wild Wings. Guess not. You can listen to the Lunch With Bruce podcast interview above.

(Via Out)

While Disney is known for being a bit secretive when it comes to how their magic gets made, an upcoming documentary is here to shed some light on the company’s history as well as a whole lot of iconic artifacts that are sure to make fans swoon. For the first time ever, Disney is opening their archives up to the public in a full-length documentary titled Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives. While the film has previously been viewed by members of D23 — the official Disney fan club — this marks the first time the company has viewing access to the general public, well, if you have Disney+, that is. The documentary is set to premiere exclusively on the streaming service on November 19.

According to Collider, Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives will take fans on a journey through “the company’s vast history, examined through the lens of the objects and ephemera stored in the Walt Disney Archives.” Among the items showcased in the documentary are Mary Poppins’ carousel horse, the Haunted Mansion’s hitchhiking ghosts, and the piano used by Richard and Robert Sherman when they wrote “some of Disney’s most iconic songs, such as “Feed the Birds,” Walt Disney’s favorite tune.” In addition, the film will also feature never-before-seen interviews with some of Disney’s best and brightest, including executive chairman Bob Iger, Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige, Pixar’s Pete Docter, Star Wars star Mark Hamill, and more.

The film comes shortly after The Walt Disney Archives celebrated its 50th anniversary. Founded by Disney veteran Dave Smith in June of 1970, the archives were created to “collect, preserve and make available for research the historical materials relating to Walt and the company he founded.” Over the past 50 years, the archive has collected millions of items pertaining to Disney’s history, and have contributed to several museums and exhibits across the country, such as the Heroes and Villains: The Art of the Disney Costume exhibit which is currently on display at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.

Directed by John Gleim and hosted by Don Hahn, the producer of iconic Disney films such as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives “will explore beloved parts of Disney’s history as displayed in the archives, speaking with team members to uncover iconic pieces remembered fondly by fans the world over.” While you’ll have to wait until November 19 to watch the film over on Disney+, you can view the trailer now.

In 2020, Bill Burr absolutely blasted Joe Rogan for saying that people who wear masks during the pandemic are “bitches.” Rogan, of course, went on to contract Covid-19 and then grew enormously fed-up (“bro, do I have to sue CNN?”) when people mocked him for taking Ivermectin, a medicine used for farm-animals as a dewormer, as part of his “kitchen sink” arsenal against the virus.

Well, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta decided to accept Rogan’s invitation (although he noted that friends tried to talk him out of the gesture) for a 3-hour podcast discussion, so that happened this week, and Rogan took issue with being mocked because “I literally got it from a doctor,” and “I can afford people medicine, motherf*cker.” Gupta ended up conceding that taking “horse dewormer” isn’t the most flattering thing to hear about yourself on TV, and well, was Gupta’s actual mission accomplished? Presumably, this was an “olive branch” sort of appearance from Gupta and meant to help pro- and anti-vaxxers to understand each other, and The View weighed in on the visit’s possible effectiveness. Sunny Hostin quickly established her position, which is basically that this was a waste of Gupta’s time:

“Sanjay said he went there to understand his thinking. I love Sanjay, we worked together. We used to do these medical legal segments on CNN. Sanjay is a brilliant man. I’m not so interested in understanding the Trump mind. I’m not so interested in understanding the anti-vax mind. Because I’m not interested in understanding crazy. I don’t think you can make sense of crazy.”

Hostin’s remarks arrived around the 2:40 mark below.

Point taken, but it’s worth noting that Hostin was the only lady of the bunch who felt the way. The rest of them (Ana Navarro, Joy Behar, and Sherri Shepherd) agreed that it was worth a shot for Gupta to maybe convince a few of Joe Rogan’s millions of monthly listeners on the subject of vaccines. Clearly, Gupta meant well, but whether or not any Rogan listeners who change their minds actually do speak up remains to be seen.

Two strangers sat down next to each other at Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille in Gainesville, Florida, and had a great conversation that should have been filmed for all of America to see. It all started when Mark Hall of Ocala, Florida, commented on Dr. Duane Mitchell’s choice of appetizer: Brussel’s sprouts.

“That sounds awful. No, thank you,” Hall joked.

Dr. Mitchel told Hall he was a researcher at the University of Florida studying human diseases which kicked off a contentious but friendly conversation about the coronavirus vaccines. Dr. Mitchell had got the vaccine, but Hall had been firmly against it for a year and a half.

“I’ve been against the shot since the shot was even born,” the Ocala resident said in a University of Florida video. “Timelines weren’t adding up for me. It seemed like the perfect storm.” However, that didn’t stop him from wanting to learn more and it made all of the difference.

“I literally just started bombarding him with questions,” Hall said. “It was a back and forth,” Mitchell, 50, told The Washington Post. “It was clear that he was skeptical, but he kept asking questions.”

Hall says his extensive personal research led him to be a vaccine skeptic. “It seemed like the information was forever changing. … I’ve stayed up dark, dark nights looking into information,” he said.

“Being that there’s so much political bias … I’m honestly not [a Republican conspiracy theorist or a liberal],” he said. “I try to think for myself and make rational decisions based upon facts.”

But there’s a big difference between doing your research online versus in a laboratory.

A Conversation Between a Vaccine-Hesitant Man and a Doctor

www.youtube.com

Dr. Mitchell enjoyed talking to Hall because “he was inquisitive instead of just opinionated,” and he enjoyed hearing his “preconceived notions” and “some of the information he had already heard.”

Dr. Mitchell never thought that he would change Hall’s mind but when both finished their dinner and drinks he made his final ask.

“He’s like, ‘So, have I convinced you to maybe get your vaccine?'” Hall recounted in a video posted by the University of Florida. “I made a joke. I said, ‘If you give it to me, I’ll take it.’ “

“Done. We’ll figure out a way,” he remembered Mitchell saying.

The two men exchanged numbers, although Dr. Mitchell doubted that anything would come of it. But soon after, Hall sent him a text and they set up an appointment for him to get his shot at the university’s clinic.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mitchell told The Post.

Hall gave a simple answer when his friends asked why he changed his mind after a year and a half. “Because I shook a man’s hand,” he said. “I could look him in the eye and I knew with sincere conviction that he meant everything that he said.”

The encounter between the doctor and former anti-vaxxer shows what can happen when people listen to one another. Hall deserves a lot of credit for actually being someone who tries to make “rational decisions based upon facts,” instead of cherry-picking information that suited his preconceived notions. He’s also a wonderful example of someone being able to publicly admit they changed their mind which is tough for anyone.

Hall gets his shot with Dr. Mitchell.via The University of Florida / YouTube

As the NBA season approaches and training camps get underway, we’ll be taking a look at the player on each team that holds the key to unlocking their potential, and in Boston, that means their new point guard.

The Celtics underwhelmed last season and it led to an offseason with some significant changes. Gone is Danny Ainge, the longtime leader of the front office. In his place, Brad Stevens moves upstairs from the bench, with Ime Udoka coming in as head coach. Kemba Walker got flipped for Al Horford in an effort to get bolster their frontcourt and Walker’s replacement will be Dennis Schröder, snagged from the bargain bin of free agency.

Schröder is coming off a solid, if unspectacular season in Los Angeles (15.4 points, 5.8 assists, 3.5 rebounds, 1.1 steals per game on 43.7/33.5.84.8 shooting splits) with plenty to prove after getting effectively iced out by the rest of the league in free agency. He needs another prove it year to earn the big contract he thought was coming this summer, while the Celtics need a steady hand in the backcourt, making for a snug fit for both parties. Much like in L.A., there’s no doubting who are the leaders in Boston, both on the court (Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) and in the locker room (those two plus Marcus Smart), which should allow Schröder to simply fall in line and play ball.

His point of attack defense remains a plus, even if his off-ball attention and effort can wax and wane to a frustrating degree, but when engaged and locked in he is a positive, pesky defensive presence. Offensively, his fit will be interesting. It would seem that with the Celtics he can fit more into a role like he played on the 2019-20 Thunder, where he thrived as part of a three-guard lineup with Chris Paul and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, posting the most efficient offensive output of his career as a legitimate Sixth Man of the Year candidate. With Tatum as an elite on-ball creator and Brown improving in that regard as well, Schröder, if he can embrace that role again, will be part of a team-effort of setting the table and running the offense, with more creators around him who can set him up for shots.

Shooting has never been a strong point, but his last year in OKC was his best by far, hitting 38.5 percent from deep. Last year he fell back to 33.5 percent from three, certainly not helped by the lack of spacing in L.A., but there’s ample reason to be skeptical that season with the Thunder was anything but an outlier. If there were ever a spot where he can recreate some of that magic, it’s next to a pair of wing players that draw attention on the ball the way Tatum and Brown do. How effective he is as a shooter will likely dictate just how successful he is in Boston, and how much he can add to a Celtics team looking to get back into the top half of the East.