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The 95th Academy Awards was held on on March 12, 2023. That week, nearly 2,000 people died from COVID-19 in the United States, a steep drop from the peak of pandemic, but 2,000 people is still 2,000 people.

Can you blame Jessica Chastain for wearing a mask to the Oscars?

It turns out, the worst people in the world can. “I was wearing the mask at the Oscars. I got quite a lot of flak for that. A lot of people thought I was making some political statement. I don’t know what they thought,” Chastain told the Hollywood Reporter. The Oscar winner was in a production of the Henrik Ibsen play A Doll’s House at the time, and she felt it would have been “irresponsible” for her, and rude to her castmates, to get sick and be out for a week.

“I’ll tell you,” she continued, “the best thing is someone at the stage door gave me a mask that said, ‘I’m On Broadway.’ But yeah, the SAG Awards, the Oscars, a lot of people were like, ‘What are you doing?!’ I just couldn’t get sick. And I didn’t. I haven’t missed a show.”

If only the CDC could have bottled the heat from this video of Chastain and Oscar Isaac and used it to wipe out COVID-19.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Taylor Swift comes back stronger than a ’90s trend. Her Midnights album from last October debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with what was the biggest first week for any album since 2015 at the time. Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time has mirrored that record-breaking success by spending its first 12 weeks at No. 1, but Swift gets the last laugh — at least for this week.

Per Billboard, Midnights reclaimed the chart’s top spot (its sixth nonconsecutive No. 1 week) following Swift’s May 26 release of Midnights (Til Dawn Edition) housing a “Karma” remix with Ice Spice.

The publication contextualized the chart movement:

“Midnights earned 282,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending June 1 (up 389%), according to Luminate — the second-largest week of 2023 for any album. Only the debut frame of Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time posted a bigger week this year, when it launched at No. 1 with 501,000 (chart dated March 18).

Midnights debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated Nov. 5, 2022, and spent its first two weeks at No. 1. It then notched three further weeks at No. 1 on the charts dated Nov. 26-Dec. 10, 2022. The album has never left the top 10 in its 32 weeks on the chart.”

Swift is primed to notch another No. 1 album next month, as her Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is due out on July 7. Generally speaking, Swift and Wallen are on divergent paths entering the summer. Swift is thriving on her The Eras Tour, which will next hit Detroit, Michigan next weekend. Swift recently added dates in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico for later this year, bringing Sabrina Carpenter along as her opener. Meanwhile, Wallen is currently on vocal rest.

This week’s Billboard 200 also features Lil Durk’s Almost Healed debuting at No. 3, SZA’s former No. 1 album SOS at No. 4, Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album at No. 5, and Swift’s Lover at No. 6.

Taylor Swift comes back stronger than a ’90s trend. Her Midnights album from last October debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with what was the biggest first week for any album since 2015 at the time. Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time has mirrored that record-breaking success by spending its first 12 weeks at No. 1, but Swift gets the last laugh — at least for this week.

Per Billboard, Midnights reclaimed the chart’s top spot (its sixth nonconsecutive No. 1 week) following Swift’s May 26 release of Midnights (Til Dawn Edition) housing a “Karma” remix with Ice Spice.

The publication contextualized the chart movement:

“Midnights earned 282,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending June 1 (up 389%), according to Luminate — the second-largest week of 2023 for any album. Only the debut frame of Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time posted a bigger week this year, when it launched at No. 1 with 501,000 (chart dated March 18).

Midnights debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated Nov. 5, 2022, and spent its first two weeks at No. 1. It then notched three further weeks at No. 1 on the charts dated Nov. 26-Dec. 10, 2022. The album has never left the top 10 in its 32 weeks on the chart.”

Swift is primed to notch another No. 1 album next month, as her Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is due out on July 7. Generally speaking, Swift and Wallen are on divergent paths entering the summer. Swift is thriving on her The Eras Tour, which will next hit Detroit, Michigan next weekend. Swift recently added dates in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico for later this year, bringing Sabrina Carpenter along as her opener. Meanwhile, Wallen is currently on vocal rest.

This week’s Billboard 200 also features Lil Durk’s Almost Healed debuting at No. 3, SZA’s former No. 1 album SOS at No. 4, Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album at No. 5, and Swift’s Lover at No. 6.

Reddit was founded in 2005, and since then, the social news and discussion website has become a pillar of the internet. It’s one of the world’s most-visited websites and has been a valuable resource for people interested in pretty much any topic the world has to offer. The platform is well known for its AMAs (“Ask Me Anything”), a Q&A format in which an expert, celebrity, or otherwise notable person answers user-submitted questions.

Specifically in regards to music, we’ve gotten some great, insightful, and fun AMAs from people like Paul McCartney, Lucy Dacus, Carly Rae Jepsen, Snoop Dogg, and many, many more. Beyond that, Reddit also has a number of genre-specific or artist-specific communities that are home to a lot of valuable fan discussion.

Now, though, there’s some drama happening on the platform and the site’s biggest communities, in music and beyond, are getting involved.

It all started a few days ago, with a post from the developer of Apollo, a popular third-party mobile app used to access Reddit, in the Apollo subreddit. The post currently has over 154,000 upvotes (which is a lot) and is titled, “Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing. Bad news for third-party apps, their announced pricing is close to Twitter’s pricing, and Apollo would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year to keep running as-is.” The post goes into greater detail and notes that Apollo would likely cease to exist under this model, which would be prohibitively expensive. Developers of other third-party Reddit apps have shared similar posts.

Since then, there has been a movement to protest this. A June 2 post from the newly formed r/Save3rdPartyApps subreddit is leading the charge and it does a great job at summarizing the situation. It states:

“A recent Reddit policy change threatens to kill many beloved third-party mobile apps, making a great many quality-of-life features not seen in the official mobile app permanently inaccessible to users.

On May 31, 2023, Reddit announced they were raising the price to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will kill every third party app on Reddit, from Apollo to Reddit is Fun to Narwhal to BaconReader.

Even if you’re not a mobile user and don’t use any of those apps, this is a step toward killing other ways of customizing Reddit, such as Reddit Enhancement Suite or the use of the old.reddit.com desktop interface .

This isn’t only a problem on the user level: many subreddit moderators depend on tools only available outside the official app to keep their communities on-topic and spam-free.”

The post then lays out a plan for a protest: “On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love. The two-day blackout isn’t the goal, and it isn’t the end. Should things reach the 14th with no sign of Reddit choosing to fix what they’ve broken, we’ll use the community and buzz we’ve built between then and now as a tool for further action.”

Since this post, a number of major subreddits have either shared similar posts or linked to that one, to declare that they too will be participating in the protest. That includes r/Music, which has over 32 million members and is the fifth-largest community on all of Reddit. Notable genre-specific communities like r/hiphopheads and r/indieheads, which have around 2.5 million members each, have also vowed to join the protest.

A list of other significant subreddits getting involved in the protest, some of which have tens of millions of members, can be found here.

As Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse racks up rave reviews from critics and blows up the box office, the big question is when will the next sequel, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse arrive in theaters.

While there was a significant five year gap between the original film and Across the Spider-Verse, the good news is Spidey fans won’t have to wait nearly as long to catch up with Miles Morales and his multiversal crew. Beyond the Spider-Verse is currently locked into a March 29, 2024 release date. That’s less than a year away barring any delays.

As for plot details, those are being kept tightly under wraps, but without getting into spoilers, Beyond the Spider-Verse will pick up directly after Across the Spider-Verse‘s cliffhanger ending. That film is being hailed as another animation masterpiece, but early reviews have noted that it does abruptly end, so expect Beyond the Spider-Verse to hit the ground running. Or the wall-crawling?

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen Across the Spider-Verse, here’s what Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan had to say:

“On paper, these [Spider-Verse movies] really probably shouldn’t work. ‘An ambitious mess,’ would be the most likely headline,” Ryan writes. “Instead, it’s one of the most, if not the most, immersive superhero stories going, pushing far beyond the boundaries of what superhero stories should and could be.”

Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse swings into theaters on March 29, 2024.

(Via Digital Spy)

Rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert’s antics keep coming at a breakneck pace. Over the weekend, not only did we receive the unlikely news of Boebert in relation to a wrestler’s paternity test, but she chose to deviate from her usual trend of ignoring her own slip-ups. This unusual tactic happened on the subject of missing the debt ceiling vote after raging so hard against the legislation

Yet Boebert has somehow made the matter worse. She initially decided to change the subject by trolling Pride Month, but over the weekend, she decided to (falsely) claim that she skipped the vote as “a protest.”

She did so despite Axis reporter Juliegrace Brufke already outing her for scrambling up The Capitol steps too late to vote. And guess what? Video surfaced of Boebert running in heels up those steps, and CNN producer Morgan Rimmer posted it for all to see on Twitter. It’s worth watching again:

Did Boebert decide to circle back and own up to her lie? Nope. She’s never owned up to her “lipstick” oddness either, so we shouldn’t be too terribly surprised. This time, instead of fessing up, she decided to wildly tweet about seemingly everything else in an apparent attempt at distraction. Those subjects included not only “illegal aliens” and how “DC is an absolute cesspool, but also “there is no greater honor than representing Colorado’s 3rd District.” Then came a bizarre, confusing tweet about a “[b]ucket of goats.”

As one can imagine, people were all too happy to call her out for lying about the reason that she missed the debt ceiling vote. That video will probably haunt her forever, and Twitter users found several ways to drag her over it.

The week is young, so stay tuned for more rootin’ tootin’ madness.

After HBO’s “softcore porn” series, The Idol, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, creator Sam Levinson defended his work from accusations of, well, ickiness. “I think we live in a very sexualized world,” he said, later adding, “There’s two things that happen when you have a character that has such a strong sense of self and such a strong sexual sense — you end up underestimating her because you’re not quite sure why she’s doing this, why she’s wearing this… And at the same time, it’s also what allures people, it’s what attracts an audience, it’s what attracts an imagination.”

The ratings for the premiere episode aren’t in yet, but if Levinson’s attention was to allure, he succeeded: The Idol packs more provocation into its first five minutes than most shows do in a season. That’s neither an insult or a compliment; it just is. An intimacy coordinator is locked in a closet for doing his job; one character instructs another to “stop trying to c*ck block America”; and photos of Jocelyn (Rose-Depp) with bodily fluids on her face leak online. But the most racy moment came (pun intended?) at the end of the episode.

Jocelyn invites Tedros (Abel Tesfaye), who she previously met at the nightclub he owns (RED FLAG), to her recording studio. “I don’t know, it feels like it’s too superficial or something,” Jocelyn says after playing her new song. He responds, “It’s good yeah. Just one minor note: if you’re gonna sing a song called ‘I’m a Freak,’ you should at least sing it like you know how to f*ck.” After sliding an ice cube down her leg, Tedros takes off her robe and puts it over her face. “You need to block out the world,” he instructs her while wrapping the robe belt around her neck. Jocelyn is struggling to breathe, until he takes out a knife and pokes a hole in the robe around her mouth. “Now you can sing.”

Two things. First off, Tedros is the villain of the show: he destroyed a perfectly good robe. Also, The Idol viewers have a lot of thoughts on this scene.

Roots Picnic was this past weekend, and on June 3, Lauryn Hill performed her set. In a surprise move, to wrap up her time on stage, she brought out Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel for a six-song Fugees reunion performance. The group had been trying to make a reunion happen for some time now, and they finally did.

What’s bittersweet here, though, is that this could be the last time the three perform together.

In April, Pras was found guilty on a number of federal charges, including money laundering, campaign finance violations, acting as an unregistered agent for China, concealment and false record-keeping, witness tampering, and making false statements. Ultimately, he could spend up to 20 years in prison, meaning that future Fugees performances with him do not seem likely.

Questlove shared a video of the performance on Instagram and wrote, “@MsLaurynHill did us a solid by letting us not only letting us celebrate with her the classic #MiseducationOfLaurynHill but she also made a moment by bringing together her bredren @WyclefJean & @PrasMichel ……in what could possibly be one of the last times we will see this institution together in this setting. I’m giving all the gratitude for making this miracle of a night happen.”

Lately, The 1975’s Matty Healy has mostly been in the news due to things like his rumored relationship with Taylor Swift and Noel Gallagher calling him a “f*cking slack-jawed f*ckwit.” Previously, though, it was his on-stage antics that were generating the attention. Now, he’s gotten back to his roots in that regard.

This weekend, The 1975 performed at NorthSide Festival in Denmark. As NME notes, since 2014, Healy has taken to kissing audience members as the band performs “Robbers.” He got a smooch in at NorthSide by kissing a male security guard during the song.

Of course, the context is different this time, as Healy is supposedly dating Swift. He actually refused to do any on-stage kissing back in January, when Swift was in attendance, saying, “I’m not kissing anybody in front of Taylor Swift, have some respect. In front of the queen? It’s not happening.”

Meanwhile, Healy seemingly addressed the Swift rumors recently, saying at his band’s set at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival in Dundee, Scotland, “Is it all a bit? Is it sincere? Will he ever address it? All of these questions and more will be ignored in the next hour. Ladies and gentlemen, this is The 1975.”

The Miami Heat have evened the NBA Finals at a game apiece after stealing Game 2 in Denver thanks to a furious fourth quarter comeback to beat the Nuggets 111-108.

It was a wild game, with Miami taking a double digit lead in the early going before Denver went on a 40-14 run to seize control in the second quarter. In the third, the Heat clawed back into the game, but saw Nikola Jokic put the Nuggets on his back to close the quarter, pushing Denver out to an 8-point lead going into the fourth quarter.

There, Miami finally took advantage of the non-Jokic minutes, with Duncan Robinson spearheading the effort to open the quarter as he scored 10 points in the first 2:16 of the fourth quarter to push Miami out to a three-point lead (with some help from Gabe Vincent who had 23 points to lead the Heat in scoring).

Miami would continue growing that lead steadily through the rest of the quarter, and a Bam Adebayo dunk looked like an early exclamation point on a win for Miami as they took an 11-point lead with just under five minutes to play.

However, the Nuggets would get hot late, with a pair of late threes helping get Denver within three.

From there, Jimmy Butler would miss a three to give Denver a chance at the tie. Murray brought the ball up the floor, as Michael Malone opted against a timeout, which was understandable right up until Murray had to go backwards towards midcourt and circle around for a desperation shot that rimmed out.

Malone not wanting to go up against the Heat defense when set and let his stars go to work in semi-transition makes plenty of sense, but once that broke down it’s hard not to wonder if they should’ve tried to draw something up. In any case, they now have to go win a game in Miami to reclaim an advantage in this series, and they’ll need all of the non-Jokic players to step up in a way they did not on Sunday.

Jokic scored 41 (along with 11 rebounds and four assists) on 16-of-28 shooting, but the rest of the starting five aside from Aaron Gordon (who is supposed to be the fifth option) struggled. Murray finished with 18 points on 7-of-15 shooting, thanks to that late flurry, but they’ll need a steadier game from their second star going forward. Also of concern is the continued shooting woes from Michael Porter Jr. and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who combined to go 2-of-9 from three.

That stands in stark contrast to the Heat who bounced back from some shooting struggles early in Game 1 and once again knocked down nearly 50 percent of their threes on the night as a team (17-of-35). Max Strus once again took 10 threes but this time made four, while Vincent was 4-of-6 from deep to continue his incredible postseason and Duncan Robinson and Kyle Lowry combined to go 4-of-6 off the bench. The refrain all postseason has been “can Miami keep shooting like this?” and, once again, the answer was yes. Denver was out of sorts on a number of occasions defending screen actions, losing shooters due to poor communication, and as opposed to Game 1, they were punished for it.

Now the series shifts to Miami, where it still feels like the Heat are operating with less of a margin for error but also have shown they can execute at a level where that doesn’t prohibit them from winning.