Last week, BTS did something that hadn’t been done in music before: They became the first all-South Korean artist to have a song (“Dynamite”) top the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The group is in uncharted territory, and now they’ve taken things even further, as “Dynamite” has stayed at No. 1 for a second week, on the chart dated September 12.
This week’s chart success establishes some new firsts. “Dynamite” is their first song to spend multiple weeks at No. 1, and it’s the first song by an all-South Korean artist to spend more than one week on top (it’s also the only song to do both those things). “Dynamite” was the 43rd song to debut at No. 1, but is now only the 20th of those to stay at No. 1 during its second week. It’s also the first song in nearly four years to have sold over 180,000 downloads in consecutive weeks (265,000 its first week, 182,000 this week), following The Chainsmokers and Halsey’s “Closer” in September 2016.
Of the 43 songs that have debuted at No. 1 on the #Hot100, @BTS_twt‘s “Dynamite” is the 20th to have remained on top in its second week.
With 182,000 downloads sold in its second week after opening with 265,000 in its first week, “Dynamite” is the first song to have sold over 180,000 downloads in consecutive weeks in nearly four years, since @TheChainsmokers‘ “Closer” ft. @halsey (208,000; 199,000 in Sept. 2016).
All news on the BTS front has been good in recent days. They won all four of the VMAs for which they were nominated this year: Best Pop, Best K-Pop, Best Choreography (all for their “On” video), and Best Group. Additionally, Forbes named them the fourth highest-earning musical group of 2020.
Lamorne Morris spent seven seasons serving as the lovable oddball on Fox’s New Girl, carving out a space for himself in a straightforward sitcom with a predominately white cast. His character, Winston Bishop, found his footing in later seasons, navigating his duties as an over-involved cat dad, enjoying a string of riotously bad relationships, and getting involved in the shenanigans of his adorkable roommates. Winston Bishop might’ve never amounted to more than the token Black guy on a show that struggled to hone his voice early on, but Morris wouldn’t let that happen. His new series, Hulu’s surreal comedy Woke, feels like a symbolic reward for that representational effort. It’s certainly the kind of show Morris’ limitless talents deserve.
Woke, based on the life and work of artist Keith Knight, sees Morris playing a Black man enjoying a comfortable rise to stardom thanks to his popular comic before suddenly, and violently, being introduced to the prejudice and racism he’s side-skirted his entire life. Despite living in a progressive city (this time, San Francisco) and playing by an unwritten set of rules that allow him to occupy white spaces — a boardroom, a dinner party for the one percent, a gentrified apartment complex he hopes to move into with his equally privileged girlfriend — Keef still somehow finds himself the target of racial discrimination.
Worse, he’s profiled by a trigger-happy group of police officers who mistake him for a robbery suspect and assault him in the middle of a busy square, with dozens of onlookers, in broad daylight. He’s left bruised, disoriented, listening to his white roommate — a hippie obliviously creating a new energy drink company from purified cocaine — rail at the injustice. It’s all bizarre and surreal and completely ridiculous for someone like Keef, who’s kept his head down until this point, happy to turn a blind eye if it gives him a leg up. And that’s before the inanimate objects start talking to him. This all goes down in the show’s first episode and what follows is a brutally honest, relatable, darkly comedic look at race relations during a time when we’re in desperate need of more nuanced takes within that dialogue.
Woke tackles everything from gentrification and interracial relationships to intersectionality, toxic masculinity, problematic allyship, and the aftermath of trauma, but it keeps things fresh, inventive. It’s less a politically correct guide to identifying and fighting racism (though you’ll undoubtedly learn something you didn’t know from Keef’s journey) and more a Through The Looking Glass odyssey filled with cartoonish bottles of malt liquor and sidewalk trashcans directing us on a path of enlightenment.
Or, at the very least, directing Keef, who can’t decide whether he should embrace the label of “Black artist” or fight to separate his work from the color of his skin and the bias that comes with it, spending most of the show’s early episodes raging against assuming the burden of using his art to call out social justice issues. He teeters between benefitting from his carefully cultivated image — a well-dressed Black man, a starving artist, just trying to draw toast and butter cartoons that make white people laugh — and using it to Trojan Horse his way into these guarded spaces before detonating a reality-altering bomb that makes these people woefully aware of their own complicity.
That might mean dropping a satirical “Black People For Rent” cartoon in the alt newspaper owned by Sasheer Zamata’s Ayana. Or taking to the podium during a Con to point out examples of Black erasure in his work before getting into a screaming match with his own cardboard cutout as his friends Gunther (Blake Anderson) and Clovis (T. Murph) worriedly look on. Morris does well enough to make this early exploration of his character’s internal dilemma interesting, whether that means he’s the token Black guy at a fancy party for white people that puts off some strong Get Out vibes or accidentally Black-facing his white girlfriend during an artistic presentation filled with cultural tastemakers.
But Morris, and the show as a whole, start to solidify during the last half of the season, particularly the last two episodes which see Keef, Clovis, and Gunther attending the above-mentioned party and trekking across the city for a meeting that ends up being canceled for a surreal reason that matches the rest of the show. The series hits the right frequency when these three men, all from different backgrounds with wildly opposing views, start to hash out the micro-aggressions, the prejudice, the privilege, and their own culpability within this system they’ve come to accept. We laugh along as Gunther tries to hype himself up for a boundary-pushing sexual adventure or when Clovis’ come-ons continuously get shot down by Zamata’s Ayana, but it’s when all three men encourage, criticize, and observe each other’s behavior that we learn the most from this woke-a**comedy.
Still, as Keef comes to learn, there’s always more to be done and it would’ve been nice if this series had committed to treating Black women with the same respect as it does Black men. Zamata doesn’t earn nearly enough screen time, and Keef’s early interactions with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend are symbolic of a larger problem with how Black women are devalued in relationships — something made worse when Keef begins hooking up with a privileged, carefree white artist named Adrienne (Rose McIver). Clovis, though the show’s best form of comedic relief, doesn’t undergo the same kind of needed transformation as his cartoonist bro, beginning the series as a womanizing con-artist with a complex and ending it by… befriending one of the women he shamelessly pursued all season. (I suppose seeing women as equals worthy of your friendship instead of a quick f*ck is progress on some level.)
But even with these missteps, there’s a lot to love about how unapologetically fearless Woke is, both creatively and thematically. It’s a meaningful piece of television in an age when that can be a rare thing.
Stellan Skarsgård told us last year (while promoting HBO’s Chernobyl) that he was preparing to spend “a lot of time in the makeup chair” for Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune reboot, and he wasn’t messing around. Skarsgård plays the big bad, Baron Harkonnen (enemy of Oscar Isaac’s Duke Leto Atreides), and the veteran actor revealed to us that his role isn’t a huge one, so he only needed to be onset for about two weeks. However, Baron himself is, well, kinda huge, so Skarsgård was gearing up (with movie magic) to match the script weight of 300 pounds, of which he added, “I can’t gain that much weight and survive.” So that meant a lot of rubber prosthetics and, yup, a lot of time on set before an “Action!” call.
Well, it sounds like he had a good time. Skarsgård is now talking about his time on Dune on the day before the trailer arrives. As he told The Mirror of Baron. “He’s fat, that was fun to do.” He also remarked, “It’s sort of fun to play this huge monster, but it’s less fun to spend five or six hours in make-up every day.”
All worth it in the name of the spice, no doubt. However much fun Skarsgård had, though, his experience pales in comparison to the longest time (allegedly) ever spent each day in a makeup chair. That record still apparently belongs to Rod Steiger from 1969’s The Illustrated Man (1969), although 20 hours to paint on tattoos sounds unfathomable. Not only that, but it sure looks like Colin Farrell must have invested hefty time for his The Penguin transformation in The Batman. Hopefully, we’ll hear some claims about time spent there soon.
Dune also stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautistia, Javier Bardem, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster. The film is still scheduled for a December 18 release.
Keeping up with the best new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw Big Sean revisit a beloved mixtape and SZA drop her first new solo track in a good while. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
Big Sean — Detroit 2
Big Sean’s original DatPiff-crashing Detroit mixtape was a major success in 2012, and now Sean has dipped back into that well for his latest album, Detroit 2. Like its predecessor, Detroit 2 is packed full of guests: Making appearances are Eminem, Nipsey Hussle, Post Malone, Anderson .Paak, Ty Dolla Sign, Kanye West, Travis Scott, and many others.
Lil Durk is just a few months removed from his fifth album, Just Cause Y’all Waited 2, and he’s already blessing fans with more new material. He dropped “The Voice” last week, and on the confident track, Durk compares himself to one of hip-hop’s great icons: “I’m Durkio, but I’m Chicago Jay-Z.”
Kevin Morby — “Campfire”
Morby departed Los Angeles for an empty house in his Kansas City hometown and, often joined by Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, went ahead and recorded an album, Sundowner. The record quickly follows 2019’s Oh My God, and he heralded it with “Campfire,” a folk-leaning number with a nature-set visual to match.
Adrianne Lenker — “Anything”
Lenker is keeping up her stretch of productivity with yet another new project. Well, a pair of them, actually: The upcoming albums Songs and Instrumentals. Both were recorded after the pandemic shut down the world, and to announce them, she shared “Anything,” the type of delicate folk tune she has gorgeously pulled off time and time again.
Bill Callahan — Gold Record
Uproxx’s Steven Hyden wrote of Gold Record, “The meditative quality and low-key humor of Callahan’s recent work is endlessly fulfilling and inspiring. Gold Record moves me precisely because Bill Callahan shows you can eventually move in rhythm with life, rather than be ground down by it.”
Gus Dapperton — “Medicine”
Gus Dapperton is in the midst of an introspective shift for his upcoming album, Orca, which is evident on “Medicine.” Dapperton said of the piano ballad, “This track defines the album most explicitly. I wrote it as a song that would narrate my life. ‘Medicine’ is about someone who is self-destructive so that they can get high off of the process of healing. The hurting phase is of no concern to them.”
Finneas — “What They’ll Say About Us”
Finneas continues to prove he’s more than Billie Eilish’s brother on his latest solo effort, “What They’ll Say About Us,” a piano-pop ballad that Finneas dedicates “to all who have had to endure this year.” Indeed, the track is an appreciation of strength, as Finneas sings lyrics like, “You’re tired now, lie down / I’ll be waitin’ to give you the good news / It might take patience / And when you wake up, it won’t be over / So don’t you give up.”
G-Eazy — “Down” Feat. Mulatto
G-Eazy and Mulatto had a lot of fun for their “Down” video, which draws inspiration from the 1999 comedy Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. Here, G-Eazy plays a prostitute posing as a front desk attendant at a hotel, earning money for his boss, Mulatto. The project seems to have an official stamp of approval, as they even got a Rob Schneider appearance in there.
Chloe x Halle — “Do It” Feat. Doja Cat, City Girls, and Mulatto
Chloe x Halle are two of R&B’s brightest young stars, and they recruited some of music’s other finest women for the “Do It” remix. Joined by Doja Cat, City Girls, and Mulatto (big week for her), everybody involved puts out confident party vibes wrapped in a silky smooth package.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Last week, Nick Cannon unveiled the first part of his Kanye West episode of Cannon’s Class, a conversation that yielded a number of headlines. Now Cannon has returned with the second portion of the conversation, and in it, Kanye claims that Bernie Sanders turned down a meeting with him.
Discussing his meeting with Jared Kushner, Kanye said, “I’m not one of these, ‘I’m Black so I’m Democrat, 95 percent’… 95 percent of Black people are Democrat. I wanted to meet with Bernie Sanders before, he wouldn’t meet with me. Now, I’m fine to meet with Biden. I would meet with anybody! I love everybody! Jesus loves everybody.”
He then outlined his relationship with Kushner, saying, “I met with Jared… that’s a friend of mine. I knew them before they were in the White House. Trump used to go to award shows with Puff Daddy.”
If you were asked to name five Alfred Hitchcock movies, your answers would likely include Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, maybe Rope if you’re kinky. Those are among his most famous films — hell, they’re some of the most famous films of all-time — but none of them were nominated for Best Picture. In fact, only one Hitchcock-directed film ever won Best Picture: 1941’s Rebecca. Netflix hopes to hear that name again on April 25, 2021, during the 93rd Academy Awards.
Based on Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel of the same name, the new adaptation of Rebecca is directed by Ben Wheatley (Free Fire) and stars Lily James as a newly-married woman who finds herself living in the shadow of her husband’s (Armie Hammer) dead first wife. Kristin Scott Thomas, perfectly cast, also features as the dedicated housekeeper of Manderley mansion, Mrs. Danvers. If you haven’t seen Hitchcock’s Rebecca, I would suggest waiting until after the remake comes out, not only to avoid comparisons between Hammer and Laurence Olivier, but also because there are some surprises along the way.
Here’s the official plot synopsis:
A young newlywed arrives at her husband’s imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the shadow of his first wife Rebecca, whose legacy lives on in the house long after her death. A modern adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic novel comes to Netflix: starring Armie Hammer, Lily James, and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Mission: Impossible 7, the upcoming Tom Cruise franchise picture that does everything but send him to space, shut down production in February due to you-know-what. Getting things started again involved Cruise personally calling Norway’s culture minister before igniting a local controversy involving cruise ships. This followed a bridge kerfuffle and a gone wrong, but Paramount Pictures must be breathing a sigh of relief because it’s all happening (again) for real.
Of course, there have been occasional sightings of Cruise already leaping out of planes and all that, but one never really knows if that’s for business or pleasure. Now, director Chris McQuarrie has posted a truly “impossible” photo to prove that the beleaguered film is truly underway again. He even used this caption: “Action… #MI7 Day 1.”
Yikes… so basically a ramp that leads into the sky? Sounds about right for this franchise and the thrill-seeking leading man. The Norweigian scenery is certainly amazing, and we don’t know exactly who is standing atop that terrifying structure, but there’s a solid chance that it’s Mr. Tom Cruise himself. The Light the Fuse podcast and various Twitter users have posted video of the Cruise in action with a motorcycle and parachute, and my god, he must be so happy.
Mission: Impossible 7 should be released on November 19, 2021.
Drum battle participant Dave Grohl has flexed his storytelling abilities in recent months with his Dave’s True Stories Instagram account. Now the Foo Fighters and Nirvana member will be sharing that passion with another rock legend: He and AC/DC leader Brian Johnson will chat on the upcoming special Brian Johnson Meets Dave Grohl, which will air on September 17 on the UK TV channel Sky Arts.
An official synopsis for the program reads, “It’s a meeting of rock legends as AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson meets Foo Fighters lead singer and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl at the Foos’ LA studio to share stories about life on the road.” Johnson also offered a quote about the meet-up, saying, “Dave Grohl’s passion for rock music is infectious, we had a ball reminiscing about the early days in our different careers. If he ever runs for President, he’d get my vote.”
The @SkyArts website now lists this as airing Sept 17th.
It’s a meeting of rock legends as AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson meets Foo Fighters lead singer and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl at the Foo’s LA studio to share stories about life on the road. https://t.co/N2pny9YKJ3
This ought to be a memorable experience for Grohl, as he has shown love for Johnson’s legendary band in the past. A couple years ago, he named AC/DC the one band he hasn’t played drums with yet but would love to, saying, “AC/DC. That’s my last one. […] If you dive back into their back catalog, that early sh*t, there was a little bit more dynamic, then they settled into the groove. That’s the thing. And it’s because of Phil Rudd. It’s AC/DC, but that guy holds the key.”
Quentin Tarantino has long said that he plans to retire from filmmaking after directing 10 movies, although he’s also hinted that his ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, might have been his last. “I think when it comes to theatrical movies, I’ve come to the end of the road,” he confessed in 2019. Only QT knows for sure what his “show-stopping climax” will be, but if he does direct (at least) one more movie, it might involve the Bride.
The Oscar winner told Andy Cohen last year that a third Kill Bill movie is “definitely in the cards” and “if any of my movies were going to spring from my other movies, it would be a third Kill Bill.” One potential idea he’s thrown out: “It would focus on the daughter of Vivica A. Fox’s Copperhead,” according to the AV Club, “the first of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad killed in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and her quest for revenge against the woman who killed her mother,” Uma Thurman’s the Bride. Fox has expressed interest in Zendaya playing her on-screen daughter (“Tarantino, cast Zendaya!” she said), and in the new issue of Empire, the Euphoria star was asked about the casting rumors:
“I saw that! I was quite honored that she would say that,” she said. “Obviously she’s incredible and I’m very flattered that she would think of me.” Of course, none of this means the project is any closer to happening – and Zendaya herself seems aware its all rumor-kill and scuttle-butt for now. “You know, it’s just an idea,” she says. “The internet kinda takes things and run with it.”
I’m going to run with this until crossing the finish line: Tarantino, cast Zendaya!
She told the host about a sexist comment that one of the show’s directors made towards her while discussing production details:
“I was just asking some questions, not even on some diva sh*t. I wanted the lights to be turned off and then the lighting of the room to just be lighting me. So no key light, no beauty light. Beauty light is always used on women, and I said, ‘Turn the f*cking lights off.’ You would never tell Travis Scott or Adam Levine that he couldn’t turn the beauty light off.
They said, ‘Okay, we’ll just do the same thing that we would do with the guys,’ because that’s what I want. And then something that I was doing […] for the VMAs, my bracelets kept getting caught in all this sh*t and they said, ‘You want to be treated like a guy and lit like a guy? We wouldn’t be dealing with this if a guy was doing it.’
And I said, ‘Well, a guy wouldn’t be doing this, because a guy doesn’t sell your show with sex the way that I’m going to,’ and I’m aware of that. I had these conversations with the directors talking to me. It’s a ridiculous conversation and also embarrassing.”
Watch the clip below.
Miley Cyrus tells Joe Rogan the directors for her #VMAs performance made disrespectful comments after she asked to be treated like a guy:
“They said, ‘you want to be treated and lit like a guy, we wouldn’t be dealing with this if a guy was doing it.’” pic.twitter.com/XiF5zgnnnv
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