There have been numerous high-profile controversies surrounding LGBTQ rights recently that make it appear as though there has been a considerable backlash in acceptance of the LGBTQ community among Americans.
There’s the Bud Light backlash after the popular beer brand used trans activist Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson. There was an uproar after the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on LGBTQ Pride Night. There has also been an ongoing controversy surrounding Target selling LGBTQ-friendly merchandise.
Clearly, if people are getting riled up over the normalization of LGBTQ culture throughout America, we must be amid a considerable backlash, right? In reality, the truth is the exact opposite.
A new poll by GLAAD has found that non-LGBTQ Americans are more accepting of the LGBTQ community than ever and want them to be treated like everyone else. So, even though there is a loud contingent of political activists pushing back against LGBTQ progress, they don’t seem to significantly impact the growing movement toward acceptance.
Simply put, the opposition to LGBTQ people may be loud, but it’s only getting smaller.
u201cGLAAD Report Finds 75% of Non-LGBTQ Adults Are Comfortable Seeing Queer People in Ads @PinkMediaWorld – A new @GLAAD study found that less than a third of non-LGBT adults personally know a transgender person.nhttps://t.co/8zCzzKuvuBu201d
The survey of over 25,000 non-LGBTQ Americans found three encouraging facts:
A 96% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that school should be a safe and accepting place for all youth.
A 91% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their lives and not be discriminated against.
An 84% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community.
The study also found that despite outrage over Dylan Mulvaney appearing in a Bud Light promotion, the vast majority of Americans are okay with seeing LGBTQ people and families represented in the media.
u201c”They want to make Pride toxic”: GLAAD’s Sarah Kate Ellis on how attacks against stores that carry Pride merchandise contradict a study that found the majority of Americans are comfortable seeing LGBTQ people in ads. https://t.co/KXSDBNb9nku201d
This corresponds with the fact that on the 2021 to 2022 TV season nearly 12% of all regular characters on prime-time television were LGBTQ. That’s a sea change over the 2005 to 2006 report that found only 2% of all characters were LGBTQ.
75% of non-LGBTQ adults feel comfortable seeing LGBTQ people in advertisements.
73% of non-LGBTQ adults report feeling comfortable seeing LGBTQ characters included in TV shows or movies.
68% of non-LGBTQ adults feel comfortable seeing an LGBTQ family with children included in an advertisement.
The strange state of affairs in America is that even though an increasing number of Americans want LGBTQ people to have equal rights, there has been a staggering number of new laws aimed at disenfranchising them that have been proposed over the past three years.
GLAAD estimates that over 500-plus anti-LGBTQ laws have been proposed in 2023 alone.
“Support for LGBTQ equality has reached an all-time high, but allyship must turn into action,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “Media, content creators, and corporate leaders need to lead and respond to hate with undeterred support for the LGBTQ community, including LGBTQ employees, shareholders and consumers. Allyship is not easy, but when values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are tested, we must defend them unequivocally.”
During a recent Paramore concert at Madison Square Garden, Hayley Williams kicked some seemingly rowdy fans out of the show, declaring, “Holy sh*t. F*ck you! What is happening? Guys, yes, I will embarrass both of you. Both of you need to find somewhere else to take care of that sh*t because that’s not happening here.”
Since that moment, though, Williams has taken some time to reflect and now she has some regret over how she handled the situation.
In a lengthy message posted on the Paramore Discord (as shared on Reddit), she noted in part, “I embarrassed the hell out of these two people, without truly knowing what the situation was. Then, as a group – all 25,000 of us or so – exiled these people from the show in record time. It was a moment that I would not fully process for a couple of days, when a friend showed me a video from the inside of the crowd, up close to the action. What I saw on my friend’s phone screen didn’t look like the fight I thought I was stopping. It didn’t look particularly kind either. But I have not been able to shake the feeling that I abused my responsibility and my platform in that moment… that I hurt those two in a way that will outlast the momentary discomfort of their poor concert etiquette.”
She later continued, “So, if you are those two people… I am sorry for whatever shame or embarrassment I may have caused you. I’m not telling you that it’s perfectly fine to act entitled or ignorant at a show. I also grew up going to hardcore shows and was a scene kid who crawled and squirmed my way to the front to see bands I loved. But these days the value of being at any show with anyone is just a different thing than it used to be. We are all trying to escape the brute force of staying alive and well in the modern world. I’m really not even saying I think there is a ‘right’ or a ‘wrong’ way here. I’m just saying that I’m sorry that I handled the whole situation like the arbiter of the same type of cancel culture that doesn’t often teach or lead in any productive way.”
Read the full post below.
“We made a lot of good memories this week in New York. Two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden, time with close friends and family from all over, a launch party for Good Dye Young in Ulta stores across the country… there is a lot to feel grateful for.
Yet my mind continues to trail back to a particular moment from the first night at MSG that I am really not proud of. I’ll get to that in a second.
Like plenty of elementary school kids, the biggest motivating factor in my social life was belonging. I often felt like an outcast, even when there were friends around. I didn’t belong to a specific group of friends and sort of found my social standing by not having any one group to settle into. I got along with the the other teachers’ kids, the nerdy kids, the ‘bad’ kids, the little sporty soccer players… I went to a gymnastics class with the pretty, popular girls… I most often sat with a couple black girlfriends at the lunch table and we’d laugh and laugh not realizing that the town we lived in didn’t want our cultures to overlap. I knew I could hang around with just about anyone and get along fine but I didn’t ever feel like anyone really knew me.
So that – coupled with the all too common reality of having divorced and super young parents – kind of seeded this idea that I was always searching for a real sense of belonging. And a shared purpose.
It makes a lot of sense now why I found my way into a type of music that was all about community. ‘The Scene’, we called it when I was younger. Joining a band was the best thing to ever happened to little me. I suppose the same is true for current me.
Our shows are, in a way, a manifestation of my young longing. The childlike hope that if we can just band together for any amount of time, shelter ourselves with strength in numbers, that we can override the horrors of life. A Never Never Land sort of thing.
At present, the world we are navigating is fearsome and polarizing. Music is not often the escape that it once was. Riding the line between using a platform responsibly and fostering the opportunity for respite takes what feels like an unattainable wisdom. There’s also the sense that it’s my job to protect the familial spaces we are co-creating with audiences around the world. It feels like my duty to help people feel a sense of safety and belonging enough to let go and be completely present at a Paramore show.
On Night 1, while we were midway through a song called ‘Figure 8’ , a number of people in the GA floor caught our attention, asking us to stop for what appeared to be a fight. A small sea of raised hands all pointing inward and down toward 2 people. What I could see from the stage looked like a bigger guy and a smaller girl, standing there in the middle of the action. My insides were triggered from numerous personal experiences not fit for a blog post or a microphone on stage at an arena. My outsides were trying to maintain control of a situation I felt that myself and my bandmates were responsible for. Without the opportunity for a proper back and forth (and with a looming, strict show-curfew in the back of my mind), I bared my teeth like a mother wolf.
I embarrassed the hell out of these two people, without truly knowing what the situation was. Then, as a group – all 25,000 of us or so – exiled these people from the show in record time. It was a moment that I would not fully process for a couple of days, when a friend showed me a video from the inside of the crowd, up close to the action. What I saw on my friend’s phone screen didn’t look like the fight I thought I was stopping. It didn’t look particularly kind either. But I have not been able to shake the feeling that I abused my responsibility and my platform in that moment… that I hurt those two in a way that will outlast the momentary discomfort of their poor concert etiquette.
Maybe I’m completely off. I saw some folks in the comment section cheering me on and expressing their appreciation for my reaction. Yes, I do think it’s a worthy cause to set firm boundaries for how we want the environment at our shows to feel.
I don’t feel proud though. I feel the same tension in this moment that I wrote about all over the new album. Maybe everyone is a bad guy… When given the opportunity, we’ll all throw our weight around, blissfully unaware of how it’s affecting anyone around us. I love to say we make a safe space at our shows each night… but I’m also the one who may throw someone out without really even knowing what exactly is going on.
Sure, maybe those two weren’t gonna get it any other way. But we should all try to imagine getting ridiculed and kicked out of a show in front of 10’s of thousands of people. When I saw their faces in the video, I didn’t see the smug smiles that some commenters criticized them for.
I saw embarrassment and I cried for them. I’m telling you, I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
So, if you are those two people… I am sorry for whatever shame or embarrassment I may have caused you. I’m not telling you that it’s perfectly fine to act entitled or ignorant at a show. I also grew up going to hardcore shows and was a scene kid who crawled and squirmed my way to the front to see bands I loved. But these days the value of being at any show with anyone is just a different thing than it used to be. We are all trying to escape the brute force of staying alive and well in the modern world. I’m really not even saying I think there is a ‘right’ or a ‘wrong’ way here. I’m just saying that I’m sorry that I handled the whole situation like the arbiter of the same type of cancel culture that doesn’t often teach or lead in any productive way.
I hate that there isn’t always a simple answer to even the world’s silliest problems. A ‘good’ or ‘bad’ bin to use for clean up.
I hate that the only thing I really know to say to people I deem racist or bigoted in any way is ‘you’re dead to me’ when I know that message isn’t the kind that’s going to change a hateful heart. How can I feel soft and tragic about it in one moment and ragey and rigid the next? Because that’s human.
The ‘both/and’ of all things is my own life’s boss-level adversary.
Does anyone really learn from the kind of public shaming I gave the 2 I had kicked out from the show that night? I don’t know but I don’t think so. And that really gives me a lot to think about in terms of our culture at large.
If you’re coming to a show on this tour I am practically on my knees typing, begging you to be open to the idea that every person at your show needs it as much as you do. Everyone’s story has lead them, for one reason or another, to a Paramore song that brought them to the same show that you’re attending. Everyone’s life is so complex and there is an infinite backstory to why they care about this music. It is not lost on us as a band, when we show up to your city and perform not only for you but alongside you. We ALL need the release and the joy and the sweat and the connection.
So do your best to give people their own moment and still be present in yours.
I know there is adrenaline and I know some of us started going to shows when pushing and shoving was not considered threatening. For a Paramore show in 2023 (read: NOT a hardcore show or even a post-hardcore show in 2005), pushing and shoving is unnecessary. When someone falls, it should be from dancing and losing their footing — and someone should pick them up. I don’t want us to have to stop a show for physical aggression ever again.
Rest assured, I will still have a person removed if necessary. I’ll just try with all my heart not to make it seem like some biblical era public execution next time.
Thanks for reading.
H.”
Paramore is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
For years, Shaggy‘s 2000 hit “It Wasn’t Me” has been a running meme thanks to its borderline ridiculous insistence on repeating the title after being caught in all sorts of compromising positions. Fans of The Roots also apparently have the song to thank for helping to keep the band afloat at a time “alternative hip-hop” didn’t get much support from major labels, according to Questlove. The song even ended up in a Super Bowl ad featuring real-life couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.
But according to Shaggy, fans have had the song all wrong for the past 20 years. In a new interview with People about his upcoming Hot Summer Nights Tour, Shaggy insists “It Wasn’t Me” is not a “cheating song,” despite all evidence to the contrary in the humorously over-the-top lyrics. “It was a big misconception with that song because that song is not a cheating song,” he said. “It’s an anti-cheating song. It’s just that nobody listened to the record to the end.”
He continues, “There’s a part in the record where it’s a conversation between two people and you have one guy, which is me at that point, giving that bad advice, like, ‘Yo, bro, how could you get caught? Just tell her, ‘It wasn’t me,’’ and then at the end, the guy says, ‘I’m going to tell her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused. I’ve been listening to your reasoning, it makes no sense at all. Going to tell her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused. You might think that you’re a player, but you’re completely lost.’”
“Nobody hears that part!” Shaggy laments. “That’s what the song says. But everybody’s just caught up on that, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.’ It’s an anti-cheating song. No one ever really buys into that, and I keep explaining it to people. Then, they go listen to it back and be like, ‘Oh dude, I totally missed that.’” Still, he takes the misunderstanding into stride. “I think it has helped in the life of the song,” he points out. “What’s so good about that song is that it was relatable throughout the years. People do have this whole situation with cheating, and the thing about that is that you could be young, old, Black, white, straight, gay, whatever it is, it’s still relatable.”
Now that all of the crimes have been solved in New York, it’s only natural for Dick Wolf to want to expand the Law & Order empire to other places. But why bring that said order to American cities like Boston or Philadelphia when you can go to a place rich with moose and low-stakes hockey crimes?
Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent is officially in the works up north, per The Hollywood Reporter. The debut 10-episode season will follow an elite clan of detectives who investigate high-profile crimes, much like its New York counterpart. Hopefully, Law & Order Toronto will bring in some great crimes inspired by real-life events, like a python assault and the great Maple Syrup Heist. You know, Canadian things!
The series will come from Amy Cameron, a frequent NBC collaborator who also worked on Pretty Hard Cases. Cameron said, “We are thrilled to be working with Lark Productions and Citytv to bring this series to life. We cannot wait to showcase our amazing city in the Law & Order franchise.”
Some potential storylines could include a mob boss trying to run his empire from the tippy top of the CN tower only to suffer from vertigo, a messy murder at the Hockey Hall of Fame that id disguised as just another hockey game, or Degrassi Community School finally being investigated for the various shenanigans that have been going on there for so long. Drake might be available to testify.
We’re officially a few days into Pride Month, and at the top of it, Lizzo made a statement: At her June 2 performance at Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, California, she made it clear she’s all in on supporting the LGBTQ community.
In a video shared on Lizzo’s social media accounts yesterday (June 4), Lizzo waves a pride flag around as she shouts into the mic, “Drag is not a crime,” presumably in reference to recent anti-drag laws. She was surrounded by drag queens Kim Chi, Angeria Paris Van Michaels and Kahanna Montrese, along with drag king Tenderoni (as Billboard notes). Lizzo also captioned her post, “You’ve always had my back, and I’ll always have yours. [transgender flag emoji][rainbow flag emoji] Happy Pride [rainbow flag emoji][transgender flag emoji].”
This is just the latest recent example of Lizzo vocalizing her support for the LGBTQ community. After an anti-drag law was passed in Tennessee, Lizzo said on stage in April, “In light of recent and tragic events — recurring events, I was told by people on the internet, ‘Cancel your shows in Tennessee’ and ‘Don’t go to Tennessee.’ […] Why would I not come to the people that need to hear this message the most? The people that need to feel this release the most. Why would I not create a safe space in Tennessee where we can celebrate drag entertainers and celebrate our differences? And celebrate fat Black women.”
Then, in May, after Nebraska passed a law banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people under the age of 18, Lizzo said, “It really breaks my heart that there are young people growing up in a world that doesn’t protect them. Let me be your safe space tonight. Young people, don’t let anybody tell you who you are, don’t let any law tell you who you’re not. You are who you are. I see you. You are valid. You deserve to be here in any form. These laws are not real. You are what’s real.”
Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
This first Extraction movie had a, let’s say, unique release. Released in April of 2020, a time people were at home, starved for any new entertainment, here comes Tyler Rake. Yeah, a lot of people saw Extraction. This was Sam Hargrave’s first film as director and he was, of course, expecting the whole worldwide press tour for the big new Netflix movie, produced by the directors of Avengers: Endgame, starring Thor himself. Instead, he did some interviews from his shed on Zoom. Months prior, Hargrave was hoping his new action movie could stack up against the other new competition. Instead, people got to choose between Extraction or watching nothing. Turns out a lot of people chose Extraction.
Now, with Extraction 2, Sam Hargrave represents something interesting happening with action movies these days. Now, no, it’s not completely new that stunt people or stunt coordinators become directors – Hal Needham is an example; also, if you have never seen Hooper, it’s great – but there is a trend lately with David Leitch, Chad Stahelski, and now Hargrave (who worked for Leitch on Atomic Blond and Deadpool 2) all being stunt coordinators, then deciding, you know, I think I can just run this whole show. (I will not mention any specifics, but I’ve heard more than a few times, on action-heavy films, stunt coordinators feeling like they are directing most the movie anyway. So it makes sense to move on to getting paid for doing the whole thing.)
When we last saw Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), it appeared he had met his match, shot and falling off a bridge presumably to his death. But, as Hargrave says, originally, yes, the first movie was supposed to be a self-contained story, but they went ahead and later added the final scene that throws some doubt on Rake’s death. Well, there is no more doubt. Tyler Rake has recovered and is enjoying his retirement, but is now offered a job that is too personal to turn down. His ex-wife’s sister and two kids are being held hostage in a Georgian prison where her husband, a notorious mob leader, is incarcerated. They need to be extracted and if you need an extraction, there is no better extractor than Tyler Rake. Ahead, Hargrave takes us through the return of Tyler Rake and why he made the jump from stunt coordinator to director and the challenges that come with that. And he dives into the 21-minute continuous action shot that is already being both hyped and scrutinized.
Tyler Rake is just one of my absolute favorite character names.
Good. I’m glad you enjoyed it. It’s pretty catchy.
The first movie came out at a very tumultuous time in our world history.
Yeah. I mean, for example, well, this time around I’m able to go on our world press tour and experience the fun of that. Where the first time I spent two solid days in my shed in Malibu, just answering questions on the computer for 12 hours a day. So, I think, yes, it’s a little more enjoyable to get out amongst the world and travel again and share the excitement for this film with fans around the world.
I do have fond feelings for the first one. At the time it was pretty exciting to see a new movie.
Well, I’m glad that we could do that. I mean there always will be, I guess, a special place for the first film because of the time at which it was released. Because a lot of people were prisoners in their own homes, so to speak. And they had no form of entertainment outside of these streaming services. And to have something come out that was entertaining and, for some people, fun to watch multiple times, I guess, was a godsend, so to speak.
Which means a lot of people saw that first movie. So I do think a lot of people are really looking forward to the sequel.
Hey, it’s a good way to see success. Right? [Laughs] Just have no competition. No, I’m kidding. But the second movie, yes, I can feel the response to the trailer that we put out a couple of weeks ago. Last week has been overwhelmingly positive, so from that reaction, yeah, I’m feeling the love. And I feel like fans are waiting for this movie. Hey, if the same amount of people, or more, that watch the first one enjoy this one, we’ll be doing good and I’ll be happy.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Tyler Rake is alive. At the end of the first one, we think he might have met his end. Was it always a plan to do a second one and bring him back?
Well, you never know when you make a movie and it’s an original idea, especially how it’s going to be received. So we were hopeful, yes, but it was planned as a single installment. There was never, going into the first one, a plan for a second one. Once we got a little bit deeper in and started to get positive feedback and see the potential for this character, when we went back to pick up some additional things for story and character development. We actually did an additional ending which ended up in the movie as a way to hedge our bet, so to speak.
Oh, the scene where we see Tyler Rake out of focus?
Yeah. Where the kid comes up out of the water and you see a figure in the background that resembles Tyler Rake, but out of focus. So the reason we landed on that idea was so that if, for some reason, the movie flopped and nobody wanted to see it beyond the first movie, then we had a satisfying ending for Rake’s journey. And if those same fans enjoyed it enough to clamor for a second one, you could then argue, “Oh, that was Tyler Rake.” And it made for really interesting parking lot conversations.
It’s interesting to hear you even say “if it flops.” Because I know when you were filming it, you didn’t realize the circumstances it was going to come out under. But it would be something if Netflix was like, “Hey, people chose nothing over Extraction.”
[Laughs] That would be a strong statement, and I probably would have to reconsider my choice of career if that was the case. Fortunately, I’m able to make a second movie, which I’m eternally grateful for Netflix and AGBO. So it wasn’t the case, thankfully.
Was there ever a thought of making that Tyler Rake’s thing? At the end of every movie he’s just presumed dead?
Not necessarily, but that’s a really actually a funny idea. You just keep always yanking the chain of the audience. They’re like, “Oh, he is dead this time.” No, he is not. No. I think we, myself included, and Chris, we all believe strongly enough in this character of Tyler Rake that we were able to make a strong statement at the end that he is very much alive and very much ready for another adventure should the audiences desire such a thing.
It does seem like, lately, a lot of stunt coordinators are becoming directors. Obviously, we can go back to someone like Hal Needham, it’s not like this is brand new. But the way movies are done now, with stunt coordinators directing large portions of big superhero movies now that they’d just move on to directing the whole thing.
I don’t think it’s as simple as saying, because we were in the stunt world, thusly, we make good directors. I think it goes a little deeper than that. I think the way that like Chad and Dave and myself approached the filmmaking process was part of it – as filmmakers rather than just action designers was a large part of it. We always kind of wanted to be filmmakers, wanted to tell stories, so when collecting your experience on the set as a stunt coordinator and fight coordinator and second unit director, it’s with the eye towards telling your own stories.
And the plus side, I mean, one of the many plus sides, is you get on-the-job experience. There are not a lot of film schools that you can go to that you can collect 10,000 hours of on-the-job experience where you’re managing budgets, you’re managing a team, you’re part of a larger production where there’s a lot of responsibility on you. You’re communicating with actors every day, you’re getting to shoot action. So, there’s a large correlation between that approach to getting into the stunt world with the on-the-job experience of directing and communicating that you get while doing the job of stunt coordinator, if that makes sense.
You compared it to a film school. When someone like David Leitch is the director, is he teaching you about other aspects of directing?
I mean, very much so in an informal way. I mean, he’s not saying, “Here, I’ll teach you all you need to know to become a great director.”
“Be my competition someday.”
But they’re giving you opportunities to create, and a lot of the on the job experience of directing came through choreographing and shooting and editing – where you would take an action sequence, if it’s written in the script, and because they’re directing and they’re too busy, they got a bunch of stuff to do, they would hand it off to whoever’s under them. Which I got to be, graciously, for a number of movies.
I’ve just heard too many stories through the grapevine. I’m sure you’ve heard this too, or maybe experienced it, and that’s what I guess my point was earlier: why so many people who do what you do are becoming directors now, and good directors, obviously, is because I’ve heard stories of people in your position feeling like, “Hey, I’m actually the one directing most of this movie.”
Oh, yeah. No, it happens. Sometimes what’s interesting is, as a director, if you’re signing on to direct an action movie, half of the description of the genre that you’re making, “action movie,” is action. So, if you don’t pay as close attention to the action side of what you’re shooting and directing as you do the acting and the drama, you’re going to have half a successful movie, I think. Or you turn it over, you’re giving up control to other people who know it better than you. I think, for me, at least, I felt very confident with action. But when I did the first film, what I tried to focus on and turn my attention to, was becoming much better at the dramatic side and the storytelling side because that was something I felt like I just didn’t quite have as much experience with.
A lot is being made about the continuous shot. It’s a pretty neat scene, but it’s being used in the marketing and now people will scrutinize it…
I mean, when it comes to marketing, Netflix has their algorithms and they’re experts that know what’s going to draw the eyes. And I think, because of the success of the first film and the buzz around that one shot that we did, or the “oner,” we call them, it was a logical place to push the envelope. We knew going into this that it was going to be a lot of scrutiny because of the first movie. And if you did one, you know people are going to look at it and judge it against the first, so we were aware that it was going to be scrutinized. And it will be, and people are going to find fault in it, as they can in any piece of art. It’s far from perfect, let me tell you. I’ll be the first one to admit it. But we swung for the fences.
It’s a pretty good one.
Which, hey, we fully committed. And we can’t find, or at least I can’t hang my head in shame of, “Oh, well, we didn’t try our best.” Because we did. Every single person involved in that sequence gave everything they had, and I think it shows on the screen. And I’m proud of what everybody did.
Obviously, it’s not one continuous filmed shot and movie magic is involved. Though, the beginning of that sequence does look pretty continuous. What’s the longest actual shot in the sequence?
Well, I mean a lot of that are trade secrets. Got to keep you guessing! But I can tell you, methodologically speaking, what we tried to do is create a style. And we did it with the first one, the experiential camera moving – camera operating to where stitches and cuts were kind of part of the nature and the style of the camera movement. So when something happens, you, as the audience, are experiencing it as if you were in the sequence with our hero. So, if something happens or we hear someone yell to the right the camera looks to the right as you would reacting. Or if somebody falls and they start to leave your frame, you tilt down because that’s where the action goes. So you’re following things as if you were experiencing them. And because of that, it allows us to seamlessly hide a lot of different cuts in there for different reasons, both creatively and logistically. But it maintains the experience of a continuous shot, a continuous moment or sequence. I don’t know exactly the length. I think the longest one was upwards of three minutes plus.
With that much going on, that’s pretty long.
Yeah. It’s not bad. I mean, because of course when you first started out, the desire is to do it all.
At the end of the movie, it hints at the worst of the worst of villains might be coming up in the next one. Do you have someone in mind already or have you talked to someone? I was almost expecting a post-credit scene with a reveal.
Well, I think that I can say that the reason there’s no post-credit scenes is because we haven’t yet landed on who that is. There are a lot of ideas floating around between Netflix and AGBO, and whoever that is will be a gnarly emmer effer.
So the answer is yes, you do have someone in mind.
Oppenheimer will be shown in multiplexes, indie theaters, drive-in theaters, the crappy TV on airplanes, and your friend’s Nintendo DS. But if you want to see Christopher Nolan’s 12th film the “correct” way, you’ll need a IMAX 70mm screening — assuming you can find one.
“The sharpness and the clarity and the depth of the image is unparalleled,” Nolan told the Associated Press about shooting with IMAX film cameras. “The headline, for me, is by shooting on IMAX 70mm film, you’re really letting the screen disappear. You’re getting a feeling of 3D without the glasses. You’ve got a huge screen and you’re filling the peripheral vision of the audience. You’re immersing them in the world of the film.” The “gold standard” of Oppenheimer, as Nolan put it, will only play in 30 theaters for a limited time (not limited enough for Tom Cruise). If you live in New Hampshire, buy a plane ticket now.
Here they are:
Arizona
Harkins Arizona Mills 25 & IMAX – Tempe, AZ
California
AMC Metreon 16 & IMAX – San Francisco, CA
Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood & IMAX – Universal City, CA
TCL Chinese Theater IMAX – Hollywood CA
Regal Edwards Ontario Palace & IMAX – Ontario, CA
Regal Irvine Spectrum 21 + IMAX – Irvine CA
Esquire IMAX – Sacramento, CA
Regal Hacienda Crossings & IMAX – Dublin, CA
Florida
AutoNation IMAX, Museum of Discovery & Science – Fort Lauderdale, FL
Georgia
Regal Mall of Georgia & IMAX – Buford, GA
Indiana
IMAX Theatre at Indiana State Museum – Indianapolis, IN
Michigan
Chrysler IMAX Dome Theatre, Michigan Science Center – Detroit, MI
Celebration! Cinema Grand Rapids North & IMAX – Grand Rapids, MI
New York
AMC Lincoln Square 13 & IMAX – New York, NY
Pennsylvania
Regal UA King of Prussia & IMAX – King of Prussia, PA
Rhode Island
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The Succession finale aired over a week ago, but fans of the prestige HBO series are still poring over the final moments for clues as to what happened to the characters after the futre of the Roy family empire was decided in a bombshell board meeting. The show purposefully left their fates ambiguous, but Jeremy Strong has already admitted that he tried to engineer a more definitive ending for his character Kendall Roy.
In the Succession finale, a visibly deflated Kendall is seen walking down to Battery Park with his dad’s former bodyguard, Colin (Scott Nicholson) following behind him. As the series ends, Kendall stares out at the Hudson River as the episode fades to black. However, Strong recently revealed that he made a run at the water and actually climbed over the barrier.
“I got up from that bench and went as fast as I could over the barrier and onto the pilings, and the actor playing Colin raced over,” Strong told Vanity Fair. “I didn’t know I was gonna do that, and he didn’t know, but he raced over and stopped me. I don’t know whether in that moment I felt that Kendall just wanted to die—I think he did—or if he wanted to be saved by essentially a proxy of his father.”
According to series creator, Jesse Armstrong, Strong’s improv movement happened very quickly and basically scared the crap out of everyone.
I was terrified. I was terrified that he might fall in and be injured. … He didn’t look like he was going to jump in. But once he climbed over that barrier — when you film, there are generally a lot of health and safety assessments made, and that was not our plan that day. And normally I know that if we’d even been thinking of that happening, we would have had boats and frogmen and all kinds of safety measures, which we didn’t have. So my first thought was for his physical safety as a human being, not anything about the character. That’s what I felt on the day. Good Lord, above.
Executive producer Frank Rich also revealed that an “alarmed” Nicholson reacted purely on instinct and was “functioning as a person as much as a character in that moment.”
In recent days, Hayley Williams fans have been convinced that the Paramore singer is set to appear on Taylor Swift’s upcoming Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Now, we know that the speculation was correct, as Swift unveiled the project’s tracklist today (June 5). Furthermore, the album also features Fall Out Boy, and Swift explained why she decided to include them and Williams on the album.
In the caption of her reveal post, Swift wrote, “I’m VERY excited to show you the back cover of Speak Now (my version) including the vault tracks and collaborations with @yelyahwilliams from @paramore and @falloutboy. Since Speak Now was all about my songwriting, I decided to go to the artists who I feel influenced me most powerfully as a lyricist at that time and ask them to sing on the album. They’re so cool and generous for agreeing to support my version of Speak Now. I recorded this album when I was 32 (and still growing up, now) and can’t wait to unveil it all to you on July 7th.”
Meanwhile, Paramore recently opened for Swift on The Eras Tour and Swift said of the experience, “Having Paramore join me on tour is such an honor. We came up alongside each other as Nashville teenagers writing our own music, so it feels insanely special to kick off the tour together nearly two decades later. I just remember being constantly floored and inspired by their writing, originality and artistic integrity. Hayley is such a riveting performer because she’s so multifaceted — bold and playful and ferocious and completely in command. It’s a dream come true to join forces like this.”
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is out 7/7 via Republic. Find more information here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
For the past year and some change, FLO – the British girl group comprised of singers Stella Quaresma, Jorja Douglas, and Renée Downer – have captured the hearts, attention, and most importantly, the support of people all over the world. One of the most impressive aspects of FLO is that they check off the boxes of music lovers with different tastes from different generations.
Their music sounds like it was made from the 1990s-2000s era of shimmering and theatrical R&B production, enough so that millennials will smile and maybe gain a bit of hope for the kids of today. Their soaring vocals and pristine harmonies will make the R&B traditionalists send a hallelujah or two into the sky in relief that their beloved vocals are still important in the genre. Gen-Z can beam in delight at the sight of girls from their generation who shares similar qualities: the resistance to tradition, being fearlessly outspoken, and having confidence in all the best ways.
FLO has it all, and with that, there’s no denying that they’re ready to take over the world.
The girls’ recent steps have come through the releases of “Fly Girl” with Missy Elliott and “Losing You,” records that both fit the mold of FLO’s DNA despite being polar opposites sonically. “I think they’re quite contrasting and I think that’s kind of what we’re about,” Stella says about these songs over a Zoom call with Uproxx. “We’re very multifaceted.” Similar to their The Lead cut “Another Guy,” “Losing You” leans into the characteristics of an R&B ballad to bid a final goodbye to a past lover who mistreated them in more ways than one and share the relief that came with their exit.
On the other hand, “Fly Girl,” similar to “Summertime,” is steered by the feisty fun that lives in the heart of a lively part. FLO is fierce, confident, and dismissive to anyone and anything that falls short of their reasonably high expectations because, I mean, c’mon, it’s FLO we’re talking about! “I think that they were good contrasting songs to put out one after the other,” Stella says. “That’s also what our album gonna be about, just us and our journey and being honest about everything.”
FLO’s journey began with the release of their debut EP The Lead in the summer of 2022. A viral clip of one of their music videos on Twitter help make them the beloved darlings to fans that they are now, but the music on that project sufficed as the most ideal launching pad toward their current success. “It was quite a journey getting to that list of songs,” Stella says. “We’re proud of it [The Lead] and proud of the songs and proud of the list. We worked really hard to get everything on there to be how we wanted it.”
That work paid off thanks to excellent entries to The Lead like “Not My Job” and “Immature” which once again find insufficient men as the subject their heavenly harmonies dive into. These songs, as well as others like “Cardboard Box,” stand out as the most quality entries, or “bops” as the girls call them, in their discography. Think they can’t top these? FLO has something to tell you about that. “We like the kind of pressure that, [because] we keep putting out bops, we need to top them because we want to grow as artists,” Jorja says. “We just want to keep pushing ourselves because we want to release the best music possible. We don’t feel pressure from anyone else, we just feel a healthy pressure [from ourselves].”
As the saying goes: pressure creates diamonds. Though the girls still have plenty to achieve in their careers, they have successfully created a career that their younger selves would be proud to see. “It’s really important to us that we stay true and honest to ourselves and each other and to the people that we’re working with who have the power over our music,” Jorja says. “The way we carry ourselves through and navigate these situations is something that our younger selves would be really proud of.”
These situations include their first US tour which came to an end at the end of April with a closing show at Los Angeles’ Fonda Theater. Over the course of two weeks, FLO made stops in major cities like Atlanta, New York City, and Chicago to not establish an audience across the pond, but meet and connect with fans who’d been supporting them for months at a minimum.
“I don’t even think that we’ve had time to process how people are receiving like our shows because it’s [been] so fast-paced,” Jorja admits. “As much as we love meeting people, we kind of hate meeting people in that rushed setting where it’s like, this is this person, ‘hi!,’ next person, next person. I don’t feel like we’re actually like connecting with this person and like getting to know them and actually processing the things that they’re saying.”
Despite that, the girls are still taking in and appreciating these moments as best as they can for the circumstance at hand. “We’re very happy that like overall everyone is really enjoying the show,” Jorja added. “We can’t wait for it to be over so we can actually process how amazing the experience has been.”
Now that tour is over, FLO will get back to work on their upcoming debut album. Though details on it are slim, the project is undoubtedly a highly-anticipated follow-up to The Lead and FLO’s ambitions for the alum are just as high as the excitement from fans for it. “I think definitely around the album, a personal goal is for us to create a video that, through and through, we’re really proud of and there’s no doubt about it that this is just the best video that we’ve created,” Jorja says.
Stella’s response was a bit different saying, “It would be really cool to get some cool features on the album with people we’re inspired by” while Reneé notes, “I’m most excited about having a final piece and being able to reflect on the process of getting there. That’s gonna feel really special and be a very key point in our careers and I want to make sure that we’re able to feel the most amazing feelings about it, even though it’s a crazy process and things might go wrong, the outcome, I want us to feel really proud of it.”
FLO has plenty to be proud of and it’s evident with their upcoming album which is one of the more anticipated debuts in recent time. Through this process, the girls have learned lessons and received advice that will be extremely handy in their expansive toolkit. One of them is simple but equally important to their growth: always do your best. “You never know what people are gonna latch on to,” Jorja says. “So you want to make sure that everything you’re doing is something that you’re like 100% proud of.”
Another example comes with the reminder that this is just the beginning of a career that FLO hopes will turn them into household names like Beyoncé and Whitney Houston. “We’re not in full bloom yet,” Jorja says. “We really want people to just stick around and watch us develop and turn into the incredible artists that we know we are deep down inside.” Taking over the world is in FLO’s destiny, and with the cards they have in their deck, Stella, Jorja, and Renée have just what they need to make that a reality.
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