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Thanks to the pitch-perfect casting decision that made Alan Ritchson the star of Reacher, the Amazon series based on the best-selling novels by Lee Child, the actor has seen his star considerably rise on the heels of the show’s second season. When he’s not making co-hosts on The View swoon, he’s starring in Guy Ritchie movies and lining up projects with the biggest action star on the planet: Arnold Schwarzenegger.

However, Ritchson isn’t shy about his humble and sometimes dorky beginnings. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the towering actor that he was once wildly obsessed with one of Jim Carrey’s most famous characters: Ace Ventura.

“He was my hero,” says Ritchson. “When Ace Ventura came out [in 1994], I was in sixth grade, and I was enamored. He was so physical, goofy and unafraid. I’d never seen anything like it. I dressed up as Ace Ventura for three Halloweens in a row. I showed up to school and wouldn’t break character the entire time. I had the hair, the business card and I would walk up to people at their lunch tables and say, ‘Excuse me, I’d like to ass you a few questions,’” he says. “People hated it, but I love that it made most people laugh. Jim Carrey knew how to do that and it’s a gift.”

Before making it big in Hollywood, Ritchson actually had a brief encounter with his hero. Carrey was in Seaside, Florida filming The Truman Show, which was close to where Ritchson was living at the time. Along with his mom and brother, a young Ritchson posted up near the town square where he almost scored an autograph of the beloved actor.

“We waited for him to come out of his trailer,” Ritchson told THR. “My mom spotted him and went, ‘There he is!’ I unveiled my poster and said, ‘Hey, Jim!’ He looked over and did this big belly laugh by arching his spine backwards. My brother and I ran over to him, but a security guard was there.”

According to Ritchson, that’s the closest he’s been to Carrey since, but maybe his luck will change. He’s Reacher now. Who doesn’t want to meet Reacher?

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Keanu Reeves loves to return to a franchise year after year, as he did with Bill and Ted and John Wick, but one of his most famous roles has to be Neo from 1999’s The Matrix. That’s when Reeves went from stoner musician to action star.

After 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, it seemed like we were done with Neo & co for good, but Warner Bros has other plans. The studio announced that Drew Goddard has been chosen to write and direct the next phase of the Matrix-verse.

Goddard is known for penning Daredevil for Netflix and writing and directing Bad Times at the El Royale, as well as the cult favorite horror movie Cabin in The Woods. The writer/ director was approached by Warner Bros. to keep the Matrix World running. “Drew came to Warner Bros. with a new idea that we all believe would be an incredible way to continue the Matrix world, by both honoring what Lana and Lilly began over 25-years ago and offering a unique perspective based on his own love of the series and characters,” Warner Bros. Motion Pictures president of production Jesse Ehrman said in a statement. “The entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery is thrilled for Drew to be making his new Matrix film, adding his vision to the cinematic canon the Wachowskis’ spent a quarter of a century building here at the studio.” Lana Wachowski will act as an executive producer on the new installment. But will Reeves return?

It’s not clear if Reeves will return for the installment, though he would likely get a hefty payday if he chooses to throw on that iconic leather duster once again. Reeves reunited with Carrie-Anne Moss for the 2021 installment which also featured Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jonathan Groff.

In 2021, Reeves said he would only return if Lana was on board. “If she invites me again, I’m in,” he said. Since Wachowski is attached to produce there might be a chance of Neo’s return. But the response to The Matrix Resurrections was so muted that maybe he’ll just stick to John Wick cameos for now.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Nikola Jokic put up another monster performance on Tuesday night, with the Nuggets needing every bit of his 42 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists to beat the Spurs.

That’s largely because Victor Wembanyama posted an even more hysterical stat line, recording 23 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists, and nine blocks. A few of those came against Jokic, including a very fun sequence in the first half in which Wembanyama got the best of the two-time MVP on both ends before Jokic got him back a little bit with a dunk before Wemby could fly in for the block.

While Jokic had plenty of success against the Spurs, Wembanyama’s ridiculous length did bother him more than most can, with a late fourth quarter block as arguably the most impressive one of the night, as he took a big bump from Jokic, who thought he’d buried Wemby under the rim to free up a layup, only for the long arm of the Frenchman to erase it.

Denver would eventually pull ahead for a 110-105 win, but Wembanyama has certainly garnered Jokic’s respect. After the game he got asked about that early sequence and if he said anything to the rookie star, which led to a hysterical response from Jokic.

It’s a great soundbite from Jokic, and it really speaks to how there’s just nothing you can really do to avoid Wembanyama’s impact on the defensive end. The only way to ensure he doesn’t pile up the blocks is just not attempting shots around him, which was the strategy the Nuggets opted for late and were rewarded with the go-ahead three by Michael Porter Jr. after Christian Braun made a fairly incredible business decision with Wemby lurking.

That’s really the only foolproof strategy for going at the Spurs at this moment, otherwise you’re just going to have to live with some rejections at the rim and hope you get the win so you can laugh about it all after.

For at least the last six years, the biggest knock against Chance The Rapper by his detractors was that he was too big of a “wife guy” — especially on his (unfairly maligned) album, The Big Day. It looks like whenever he releases his next album, Star Line Gallery, they won’t have that to use as a bludgeon; Chance and his wife Kirsten Corley announced today that they are getting a divorce after a trial separation.

In a joint statement posted on their Instagram Stories, Chance and Kirsten wrote:

After a period of separation, the two of us have arrived at the decision to part ways.

We came to this decision amicably and with gratitude for the time we spent together. God has blessed us with two beautiful daughters who we will continue to raise together.

We kindly ask for privacy and respect as we navigate this transition.

Thank you

-Chance & Kirsten

As noted in the statement, the now-former couple shares two daughters, Kensli Bennett and Marli Grace Bennett. For what it’s worth, Chance will have plenty to keep him busy for the foreseeable future; in addition to his coaching duties on The Voice, he will presumably go on tour for Star Line Gallery, which has a tentative release date of this spring.

The haters have won; love is dead. I hope you dorks are happy now.

We are just days away from Khruangbin‘s new album A LA SALA. Centered around feelings of home, A LA SALA explores themes of surrealism and one’s own reality. A LA SALA marks Khruangbin’s first album in four years and their fifth overall.

We’ve put together a nifty little guide on what to know about Khruangbin’s highly anticipated album.

Release Date

A LA SALA is out 4/5 via Dead Oceans/Night Time Stories. Find more information here.

Tracklist

1. “Fifteen Fifty-Three”
2. “May Ninth”
3. “Ada Jean
4. “Farolim De Felgueiras”
5. “Pon Pón”
6. “Todavía Viva”
7. “Juegos Y Nubes”
8. “Hold Me Up (Thank You)”
9. “Caja De La Sala”
10. “Three From Two”
11. “A Love International”
12. “Les Petits Gris”

Features

There are no features on Khruangbin’s A LA SALA.

Artwork

You can see the A LA SALA artwork below.

Singles

So far, Khruangbin has release “A Love International,” “May Ninth,” and “Pon Pon” as singles.

Tour

You can see the full list of tour dates below and purchase tickets here.

04/14 — Coachella @ Indio, CA
04/18 — Alex Madonna Expo Center @ San Luis Obispo, CA*
04/21 — Coachella @ Indio, CA
04/23 — Brooklyn Bowl @ Las Vegas, NV*
04/24 — Brooklyn Bowl @ Las Vegas, NV*
04/26 — Revel @ Albuquerque, NM*
04/27 — Revel @ Albuquerque, NM*
05/22 — The Met @ Philadelphia, PA^
05/23 — The Met @ Philadelphia, PA^
05/25 — Boston Calling @ Boston, MA
05/26 — Saratoga Performing Arts Center @ Saratoga Springs, NY^
05/28 — Rockin’ At The Knox @ Buffalo, NY^
05/29 — Jacob’s Pavilion @ Cleveland, OH^
05/31 — History @ Toronto, ON^
06/01 — History @ Toronto, ON^
06/02 — History @ Toronto, ON^
06/04 — The Masonic Temple Theatre @ Detroit, MI^
06/07 — The Salt Shed @ Chicago, IL
06/08 — The Salt Shed @ Chicago, IL^
06/09 — The Salt Shed @ Chicago, IL^
06/11 — Red Hat Amphitheater @ Raleigh, NC
06/14 — Bonnaroo @ Manchester, TN
08/15 — Greek Theatre @ Berkeley, CA%
08/16 — Greek Theatre @ Berkeley, CA%
08/18 — Edgefield @ Troutdale, OR%
08/19 — Edgefield @ Troutdale, OR%
08/21 — Kettlehouse @ Bonner, MT%
08/22 — Kettlehouse @ Bonner, MT%
08/24 — Granary Live @ Salt Lake City, UT%
08/27 — Red Rocks @ Morrison, CO&
08/28 — Red Rocks @ Morrison, CO%
09/20 — Forest Hills Tennis Stadium @ New York, New York+
09/21 — Forest Hills Tennis Stadium @ New York, New York+
09/23 — The Anthem @ Washington, DC$
10/02 — The Factory @ St. Louis, MO$
10/03 — The Factory @ St. Louis, MO$
10/09 — Saenger Theatre @ New Orleans, LA$
10/10 — Saenger Theatre @ New Orleans, LA$

* with Hermano Gutiérrez
^ with John Carroll Kirby
% with Peter Cat Recording Co.
+ with Men I Trust
$ with Arooj Aftab

This week, a new song called “I Like The Way You Kiss Me” by the singer Artemas has made its way to No. 1 on the global Spotify chart with over eight million streams. Following the announcement of the rising musician taking over, many online had questions about who exactly he is — and how the song got so big.

Here’s what to know about him.

Who Is Artemas? Meet The “I Like The Way You Kiss Me” Singer

Artemas is an English-Cypriot singer who was born in 1999. His first single, “High 4 U,” dropped in November 2020. He has since followed that up with “If U Think I’m Pretty,” which got a boost of viral popularity and landed him on the UK Singles Chart this past February. That same month, he dropped his mixtape titled Pretty.

He hasn’t slowed down either, which led to the release of “I Like The Way You Kiss Me.” The song so far has reached No. 13 in the UK, and is charting even higher in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. By getting a boost from listeners around the globe, this has totaled up to earning him the top spot on Spotify — even if people in the US haven’t heard of him or the song yet.

As for Artemas’ placements on the US charts, the song is currently at No. 8 on Billboard‘s Hot Alternative Songs chart and No. 70 on the Hot 100 overall.

Check out Artemas’ “I Like The Way You Kiss Me” above.

If it only seems like yesterday since Invincible‘s second season returned from hiatus, you’re not too far off with that internal calendar. The weekly series recently returned with four more episodes, and now, the season finale is already (almost) here. At least the weekly release schedule draws out the deliciousness of Amazon’s ability to keep the Supe fires burning while the rest of that world tries to regain its access.

What Time Will ‘Invincible’ Season 2, Episode 8 Be On Prime Video?

Thursday, April 4 is the magical day when you can gobble up the episode called, “I Thought You Were Stronger.”

That title actually corresponds to a well-known set of comic book panels for those who are into reading that medium, but we shall not spoil anything here.

Instead, we’ll note that once this episode is over, you’ll start wishing it was already time for the third season. And do not worry on that front because Amazon renewed the second and third seasons at the same time. Hopefully, we’ll see the next season drop sooner than the 2 1/2 year wait we had between the first and second seasons, but thank goodness that Robert Kirkman’s other brainchild, The Walking Dead, will continue to churn out second seasons of the new spin offs on AMC in 2025. And of course, Amazon will bring us more of its adaptation of Garth Ennis’ The Boys comics soon, too.

With Abigail, directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin were prepared to make a fun little horror flick featuring a star-studded cast and some ballerina motifs. You know, to prepare you for 2025’s John Wick spinoff, Ballerina. But it turned out to be a lot bloodier than one would think a vampire flick would be. At least compared to Twilight, anyway.

Gillett revealed that while making the film, there was no such thing as too much blood. He told Collider, “It’s fun… At the end of the day, shooting your actors with a blood cannon, they’re excited for it, as well.” Yes! You read that right: A Blood Cannon. Just picture those Nickelodeon slime canons but with fake blood. We come to this place for magic, after all.

The filmmakers wanted there to be so much blood, you can almost feel it seeping out of the screen. Bettinelli-Olpin joked that they used “all the blood on planet Earth” while filming, much like when Barbie used all the pink paint on Earth. It balances itself out eventually.

Abigail follows Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Angus Cloud, and Kathryn Newton as a group of kidnappers who look after Abigail, the aforementioned ballerina and daughter of a crime boss. Unfortunately, that crime boss happens to be Dracula, and Abigail has an appetite for blood. She would be besties with M3GAN.

The movie is over-the-top, but that’s the point. “For us, the audience can just latch onto something if it’s real, whether they know it’s fake or not , it’s obviously not real blood, but you feel it in the room,” Bettinelli-Olpin explained. “The actors can interact with it. Everything just becomes more alive, and it has that energy to it when you’re doing it for real on set. We came up trying to shoot everything almost doc style — running around, you can shoot up, down, left, right, spin around, go anywhere you want.” This seemed to work for Immaculate, so things are looking good!

Abigail hits theaters on April 19th.

(Via Collider)

Wisp’s debut EP Pandora might be the most audacious shoegaze release of 2024, simply because it exists. After all, what’s a greater risk than putting reality in competition with a narrative developed by the online hivemind? For the past year, Wisp has been the semi-anonymous New Face of Shoegaze, a blank canvas upon which nearly 1.8 million monthly Spotify listeners and a much smaller crowd of skeptics could project their hopes and fears for the genre’s future. If Interscope is signing artists like Wisp off one song, last year’s viral TikTok hit “Your Face,” is this the first sign of Gen Z and Alpha rejecting therapy-speak and pop hegemony to usher in an unprecedented commercial boom for one the most ego-free forms of guitar music? Or, is it just proof that no genre is immune from TikTok? Is Wisp an artist that happened to arrive fully formed or, sigh, an industry plant? Or, as some have speculated, a veteran musician going incognito to jumpstart their career?

But when I talk to Wisp the day Pandora is officially announced, she’s simply a 19-year-old with braces named Natalie trying to get decent wifi in a parking lot.

If the influence of Interscope or the pressure to score a second “Your Face” weighed on Wisp, it’s not apparent here. “Every time I wrote something that I thought wasn’t as good as ‘Your Face,’ I would get a little upset,” she admits, but ultimately, the practical desire to have an actual release to tour behind won out; plus, she points out that shoegaze is a genre in which EPs have been celebrated as canonical events.

The resulting Pandora is an assured, reverent collection of sultry shoegaze, albeit reverent of a mutant, distinctly American lineage that likely baffles anyone over the age of 40 – sure, all bloodlines eventually lead back to My Bloody Valentine, but Pandora draws more from the fuzzed-out reveries of Siamese Dream, Hum’s stargazing and the knife’s edge glimmer of Deftones. She claims that both Beach House and Title Fight helped her through the darker times in her life and of course Hyperview, the latter’s once-divisive shoegaze/hardcore hybrid, is her personal favorite.

Nothing about Pandora seems designed to game TikTok algorithms, but it’s about as punchy and direct as you can expect for songs that hover below 80 bpm. This reflects Wisp’s own listening habits, skimming through the “shoegaze” tag on Bandcamp, often determining within the first five seconds whether or not she has a keeper – a process that can seem diametrically opposed to shoegaze’s immersive qualities until you remember how quickly “Only Shallow” or “Vapour Trail” announced their intentions.

Considering what even a viral tweet does to anyone’s ego, Wisp appears enviously, even eerily, level-headed. Her decision to remain anonymous at the outset was not part of a Weeknd-style, protracted multimedia campaign. “If she breaks kayfabe, don’t worry,” her PR rep joked beforehand, although her name was already published in a small college blog interview from January and she performed her two sold-out shows at Los Angeles’ El Cid without any sort of cloaking device (a la Parannoul). As the DistroKid proceeds started rolling in from “Your Face,” her biggest splurge was a new phone; her previous one was actually used to record the vocals from that song. Likewise, as a result of her Interscope advance, “I would just constantly take my parents out to eat, they just ate really good food,” she laughs. “That’s how I treated myself.” Even beyond their approval of her decision to put college on hold, Wisp appreciates how her father helped man the frontline as the bidding war commenced. “When ‘Your Face blew up, I got a lot of phone calls from labels and I would take them myself,” she laughs. “And I remember not knowing the difference between managers and A&Rs.”

Perhaps not every teenage musician has the dream of posting a song on SoundCloud and almost immediately being flooded with phone calls from label execs, A&Rs and managers. But who wouldn’t want to be in the position of Wisp, able to ask every single one of these suits the same question – what can you do for me that I can’t already do for myself?

I suppose that answer arrives in Wisp’s decision to uproot herself from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, a move that seemingly confounds the hazy, heavy shoegaze that she actually makes. “I feel a lot more creative in LA,” she explains, and yeah, the weather, but also closer proximity to her collaborator Max Epstein, the producer better known as Photographic Memory.

Again, practicality wins out as Wisp gears up to speedrun the apprenticeship she seemingly missed out on due to the immediate success of “Your Face.” Her only prior experience playing live music came in middle school when she shifted from orchestra to playing in a cover band that favored Oasis and Black Sabbath selections. For the next month, she’ll be opening Panchiko, a band who emerged from total obscurity to stunning online fame in 2020 upon the rediscovery of an album made before Wisp was even born. “They were probably the first or second concert I ever saw,” she recalls.

Wisp and Panchiko make for a fascinating contrast, one artist that became labelmates with Eminem, Imagine Dragons, and Kendrick Lamar after releasing three minutes of music and another that turned down the chance to relive their thwarted major label dreams at 40 because it involved too much paperwork. Yet, both withstood accusations of being deep fakes or astroturfed artists in light of their path to online fame because the alternative explanation is that of a pure meritocracy – that the promotional muscle of the majors are, at times, powerless against the vicissitudes of TikTok and Reddit users. Besides, even Wisp herself can’t even wrap her head around how to make another “Your Face,” though many have already tried. “A lot of people ask me for tips on how to make music…and I don’t think I have said anything that was super mind-blowing,” although she does have one jewel of wisdom for the next Wisp – “definitely don’t take so many phone calls in one day.”

While most of the focus this weekend will be on the Final Four action in Glendale and Cleveland, respectively, it’s also a big weekend in the basketball world because the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2024 will be officially announced. During NBA All-Star Weekend, the 14 finalists were announced, with the biggest names on the NBA side being Vince Carter and Chauncey Billups getting a chance to go in the Hall.

On Wednesday, Shams Charania reported what most assumed when the finalists were announced, which is that those two players will headline this year’s Hall of Fame class.

Carter was an 8-time All-Star, with two All-NBA nods, and finished 21st on the NBA’s all-time scoring list after playing an NBA-record 22 seasons. He was also part of the gold medal winning USA Basketball team in 2000, authoring one of the greatest in-game dunks of all-time. Billups, meanwhile, won the 2004 NBA title with the Pistons and made his way onto five All-Star teams and three All-NBA squads, playing 17 total seasons in the league.

We’ll learn the rest of this year’s Hall of Fame class over the weekend, with Seimone Augustus, Michael Cooper, and others hoping to hear their name called along with Carter and Billups to be enshrined in Springfield.