Today (April 28), the first photos from an upcoming movie called Poor Things were shared. The film stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, and Ramy Youssef. It’s Stone who’s standing out early, though, as fans think that in the new photos, her character looks pretty much exactly like Lorde.
Lorde was actually a trending topic on Twitter after the photos were revealed. One fan re-shared one of the photos and joked, “First look at Emma Stone as Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor in the Lorde biopic ‘Lorde.’” Another quipped, “lorde did not release a new album today because she became an actress! so proud of her!”
First look at Emma Stone as Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor in the Lorde biopic ‘Lorde’ pic.twitter.com/1aZv1Ndwkx
— Jarod || Waiting for GotG tickets (@JAR0DC0RE) April 28, 2023
lorde did not release a new album today because she became an actress! so proud of her! https://t.co/xwPFLDDVCS
— did lorde release a new album today (@DidLorde) April 28, 2023
As for what the movie’s about, Deadline reports, “Stone plays Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.”
Kesha has become a fixture in music thanks to her breakout danceable pop tracks like “Cannibal.” However, on her forthcoming album Gag Order, the singer is breaking out of the sonic box she’s been placed in. Although her vibrant glam rock cover of Rihanna’s song “Umbrella” was a subtle display of that, she truly sheds her pop persona on her newly released singles.
Co-produced by Rick Rubin, “Eat The Acid” is a poignant song about warming others about ingesting the addicting drug that is fame. The track, co-written by Kesha, her mother, and Stuart Crichton, is a metaphor for the wake-up call she had after her legal battle with producer Dr. Luke. After realizing just how cruel the music industry can be, Kesha exhaustedly sings, “You said, “Don’t ever eat the acid if / You don’t wanna be changed like it changed me / You said, “All the edges got so jagged now / Everything you saw then can’t be unseen.”
Whereas “Fine Line,” co-written by Ajay Bhattacharya, details the aftermath of speaking out against the powers that be. Signing, “All the doctors and lawyers cut the tongue outta my mouth / I’ve been hidin’ my anger, but b*tch, look at me now / I’m at the top of the mountain with a gun to my head / Am I bigger than Jesus or better off dead,” Kesha is battling herself. The singer ultimately questions whether in the end if all the advocacy work is worth it.
In speaking about the project’s creative direction, Kesha told Rolling Stone, “I feel like I’m giving birth to the most intimate thing I’ve ever created. It’s scary being vulnerable. The fact that I have compiled an entire record of these emotions, of anger, of insecurity, of anxiety, of grief, of pain, of regret, all of that is so nerve-racking — but it’s also so healing.”
Listen to both songs above.
Gag Order is out 5/19 via Kemosabe/RCA Records. Find more information here.
John Mulaney‘s dog Petunia, who he frequently talked about in his stand-up and talk show appearances, has passed away. “Petunia, I loved you from the first moment I saw you. Rest in peace. Thank you for being my little shadow,” he wrote on Instagram.
People reports that the “French bulldog, whom Mulaney, 40, shared with ex-wife Anna Marie Tendler, at one time had her own Instagram feed, which still has 132,000 followers and features old photos of the pooch in themed costumes, New York City moments, and even her owners’ 2014 wedding.”
Tendler also shared a tribute to Petunia. “Rest in peace my sweet Petunia,” she wrote. “You were my best friend and the great love of my life. You were the funniest. You were the smartest. You were the weirdest. Everything about you was the best thing. To think I will never again hold you, hear you, or see your big, beautiful brown eyes gazing back at me seems unfathomable. Thank you for letting me be your constant companion, and for being mine. I love you with every part me. Until we meet again in our next life.”
In his special, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, Mulaney joked, “We have a four-year-old French bulldog. Her name is Petunia. The idea of people applauding for that little monster. Just, I mean, I would never tell her that you applauded. It would go right to her ego, that little monster who just rubs her vulva on the carpet while staring at me in the eye.” He later said that he and Tendler would walk around New York City with Petunia in a stroller, “and people lean in to see the baby. And instead, they see a gargoyle breathing like Chris Christie.”
Here he is talking about Petunia on Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj:
RIP john mulaney’s beautiful dog petunia. here’s my favorite shit he said about her pic.twitter.com/7H7ewxc3ac
The video finds Barrett in classic small-town America. She’s sitting in a trailer while the object of her affection is cruising on a motorcycle on endless back roads. He arrives outside of her trailer and brings her along for the ride. They dance, make out on a kitchen table, and toss money up in the air before getting married at sunset.
Barrett’s cheeky lyrics use religious iconography as symbols of reckless young love (“He’s got a cross on his neck / But he spends Sundays in my bed”) and emphasize her devotion (“Knees down at your altar”).
“You know all my secrets / American Jesus, baby,” Barrett sings in the hook. “Won’t you take me to heaven tonight?”
The illusion of their love is broken when Barrett is awoken by him after he spots a police car driving by their trailer and panics. They can’t escape fast enough, and tears fall down Barrett’s cheek as her love is arrested.
“It’s about the fantasy of someone who is your savior, your cowboy in a crown,” Barrett said in a statement. “Everyone dreams about a love that’s heavenly, and I know everyone will be able to relate to this.”
The blind love at the root of “American Jesus” starkly contrasts the resentment fueling her punk-infused February single “Bang Bang” — further establishing her artistic range.
Watch the “American Jesus” video above.
Nessa Barrett is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
(WARNING: Spoilers for this week’s Power Book II: Ghost episode will be found below.)
Season three of Power Book II: Ghost introduced a few new characters to the mix, one of them being a Stansfield student named Salim (played by Petey McGee). Salim initially checks into the season as Professor Benett’s teacher assistant, but he quickly took an interest in Diana, and soon enough, the two were in a bit of a romantic relationship. Things seemed to be okay at the start, but their relationship took a turn for the worse when Salim did research on Diana where he found out more about her family — specifically her father Lorenzo.
From that point forward, Salim turned into an extremely judgmental character who criticized Diana for still associating with her family, attempted multiple times to “save” her from them, and wasted no time pointing out any hypocrisies that he felt came up. After a heated argument at the repast for her dad’s funeral in episode six, Diana decided to break things off. Salim tried to redeem himself by bringing flowers to Diana’s dorm, but she had already moved on to Tariq. Still, our hotep steppin’ brother wasn’t ready to give up as he took the opportunity in episode seven to publicly read a poem he wrote about Diana with her present in the crowd. This also backfired as Diana brushed it off as something not worth her attention or response, and while Salim tried to retaliate against her, Diana played a better hand that forced Salim to simply sit there and eat his food.
Diana was not the only one who seemed annoyed with Salim. Through it all, fans made their displeasures with him very clear on social media. After his latest actions, I think it’s only right that take a moment to laugh at some of the best reactions to Salim.
After delivering a surprise hit with 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which took an obscure Marvel Comics team and turned them into the wildly popular breakout stars of the MCU, James Gunn is back to finish his unique spin on the fan-favorite space team with one last ride in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Set after the cataclysmic events of Avengers: Endgame, Gunn makes a bold creative choice by eschewing the multiversal trappings of the MCU’s recent output and centering Vol. 3 on Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) in a surprisingly emotional blockbuster that reminds audiences why they fell in love with these characters in the first place.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect to feels so sad so many times while watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. To be clear, this is by design. This movie, at times, wants you to feel very sad. To the point I had to internally scold myself, “Dude, you cannot start crying in public about a CGI raccoon. You know people here. Don’t be one of these people who cry during Marvel movies. It’s embarrassing.”
Cinematic superheroes have been going through a rough patch lately. Already this year, both Shazam and Ant-Man proved a bit at sea in their latest adventures. So it comes as a relief to report the trilogy-capping Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. achieves what it sets out to do, which is provide a stirring and audience-pleasing finale for a franchise that has proven to be one of Marvel’s biggest and most unlikely success stories.
For anyone unfussed by the minutiae of the Marvel Multiverse, returning director James Gunn is surprisingly cavalier — in a good way — about backstory, not only in terms of the first two GotG movies but in the wider world of The Avengers, too. How Quill and Gamora (Zoe Saldana), once lovers, came to be estranged is covered with a witty scene inside an elevator, and references to Thanos are scarce. The absence of clutter allows the cast to shine, notably Dave Bautista — who’s really on a tear right now in the wake of Glass Onion — as the funny, charming and only mildly psychopathic Drax the Destroyer.
There’s no status quo to uproot anymore, no baseline normal to turn upside down. Heck, even something as simple as “telling a story set on our own planet” is a little alienating, since the MCU version of Earth is just a cracked egg with the corpse of a giant space god hanging out of it. So, in a funny way, it makes sense that “Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3” is more grounded than the other Phase Four movies. Set in the farthest reaches of outer space, the only connection this corner of the MCU ever had to our reality was its vibrant, emotional characters.
Gunn’s saga comes to a close in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which repositions Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) as the soul of this team, while adding dimension to every member of the core ensemble — including relatively new recruits Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Kraglin (Sean Gunn) and Cosmo the Space Dog (Maria Bakalova). At a jam-packed, planet-hopping 150 minutes, it also feels less like a conventional moviegoing experience than the endorphin rush that comes from waiting years for the next season of your favorite TV series, then binge-watching all the new episodes in a single sitting.
If most Marvel movies make their audiences stand up and cheer, Gunn’s does something even more meaningful: make them stand up and cry. (Yes, we’re talking about the movies with the violent raccoon and the talking tree.) Gunn’s special brand of sincerity, humor, and violence has always made for a strong match for the “GOTG” crew — there are no other characters in the current MCU lineup who are so adept at cracking jokes while absolutely wrecking a room full of baddies — and he takes that alchemy to insane ends for his final chapter.
This sci-fi/action/comedy still succumbs to a few of the MCU issues of late—bloated runtime, things-go-boom finale, too many characters—but there’s a creativity to the filmmaking, dialogue, and performances that modern superhero movies often lack. Much of the recent talk has been about the potential for AI-generated blockbusters, and I like when “GoTG 3” is at its messiest. Gunn is like that kid who is not only playing with his action figures; he’s pulling them apart and smashing them back together to make them into new creations. He doesn’t just love these losers, he wants to see them save the universe again. You will too.
With Gunn heading out to run DC, it’s time for him to say goodbye to this crew, and he does so in a satisfying way with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is full of heart, humor, and action that feels like a creation only Gunn could come up with. Will we likely see some of these characters again down the line? Almost definitely. But with Gunn gone as captain, Vol. 3 feels like the last time we’ll see these characters in this way again, and Gunn gives them a wonderful sendoff.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 rockets into theaters on May 5.
There are a few reasons to indulge in a re-watch of HBO’s supernatural drama, The Leftovers. It’s a winding mindf*ck of a saga birthed from the synapses of the great Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen, the brand new series Mrs. Davis). It boasts some career-high performances by the likes of Justin Theroux (who happens to be popping up on HBO’s new series, White House Plumbers this weekend), Carrie Coon, Liv Tyler, Christopher Eccleston, and Ann Dowd. But, possibly the biggest thing The Leftovers has going for it is this: It’s a damn good show whose poignant philosophical musings and twisted, supernatural cliffhangers will alter your brain chemistry – if you let it.
With just three seasons and 28 episodes, the series paints a harrowingly plausible dystopia. An event known as the Sudden Departure strips the world of 2% of its population, leaving the remaining inhabitants of Earth in a kind of grief-stricken limbo. (The show flirts with many imagined purgatories but perhaps the real Dante’s Inferno is the one we’ve been living in all along?) Three years after this bastardized Rapture, survivors in a nondescript town in upstate New York are just trying to make the best of things. Theroux’s Kevin Garvey is a broken police chief trying to maintain order (and his own sanity). Coon’s Nora is the town’s resident albatross, a woman who lost her entire family in one fell swoop and now must parade her grief at every anniversary celebration while her reverend brother Matt (Eccleston) marks the Departed as sinners in order to soothe the fears of the still-living. There are also white-robed, chain-smoking cult members with their own exhaustingly nihilistic agenda (led by a cruel and wicked Dowd), after-life fantasies that double as Jason Bourne sequels, lion-worshipping sex cults, Wu-Tang Clan needle drops, and just enough animalistic mysticism and biblical mythology to remind you that, yeah, this is a Damon Lindelof production.
So how does one possibly assign a numerical value to a show sublimely chaotic, so full of highs and higher highs, so creatively distinct and viscerally moving? When we have a definitive answer, we’ll tell you. For now, here’s our attempt to name and order of The Leftovers best episodes.
HBO
10. The Garveys at Their Best (Season 1, Episode 9)
Maybe it’s the ingrained nostalgia but we love a good flashback episode and this one from the show’s first season feels especially important. There’s something about witnessing what these characters were like before the snap that makes the Departure even more tragic. Sure, the Garveys had their marital issues, Nora was exhausted by motherhood, and Patti was harping on about ominous feelings of dread and despair. But guys, Jill as a happy, well-adjusted teen who likes cat memes? Kevin Sr. winning man-of-the-year awards? What is this life? The best reveal though is the one centering on Laurie, who was always meant to go through it if her weird behavior here is any indication. Laurie had problems but those problems became unfixable once the Departure took her unborn child and forced her to mourn that loss alone. The whole cult thing kind of makes sense after a trauma like that.
Without fail, every episode ranking of a TV series that includes its pilot laments the difficulties of establishing a story on the small screen. Even truly great pilots have something wrong with them and The Leftovers is no different. What is different about its inclusion here is that it’s not just an obligatory shoutout, one of those “yeah, it’s probably not among the show’s best episodes but without it, where would we be” entries. No, The Leftovers pilot is good. It’s darker, more melancholy, and less morbidly funny than later episodes, but still, good. It kicks off on the day of the Sudden Departure, Oct. 14th, with a woman frantically searching for a baby that vanished from her car seat and then slingshots us three years into the future to witness the emotional malaise and societal collapse this rapture-like event has wrought on a small town in upstate New York. It introduces characters we’ll come to love, despise, and begrudgingly root for as flawed, helpless nobodies trying to establish a new sense of normal now that their closest friends, family members, co-workers etc. have been ripped from their lives leaving holes still unfilled. It gives us antagonistic cults, weird animal symbolism, laugh-out-loud pop culture references, and an excuse for lighting up a cigarette that’s so ridiculous, we can’t believe Big Tobacco didn’t co-opt it for marketing purposes.
We’re not in Mapleton anymore. The season two premiere of The Leftovers introduced fans to an entirely different show, tonally at least. It’s chipper in that bleakly comedic way that can make funerals such a riot. And, it introduces a handful of new characters in a divinely-blessed locale that set the groundwork for the kind of expanded sense of storytelling the show needed after its season one finale. Some questions are answered. Kevin, Nora, Jill, and the orphaned baby have migrated to a place called Miracle, Texas where no one vanished during The Departure. They buy a house, set up shop, and are forced to mingle with the town’s sinister fire chief and his strange family. The Murphys are The Garveys of Miracle but with their secrets firmly under lock and key in this episode. The tension between John Murphy (Kevin Carroll) and literally anyone he interacts with – be it locals or Miracle interlopers looking for their own heavenly sign – is the visual equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Nauseating. All-consuming. Never-ending. He immediately feels like a villain, but the episode’s twist ending paints him in a confusingly sympathetic light. And look, we haven’t even touched on the excellent Kubrickian opening introducing this supernatural setting via prehistoric pregnancies, errant snake bites, and tribe-wiping earthquakes.
7. Two Boats and a Helicopter (Season 1, Episode 3)
Christopher Eccleston has some terrific moments over the course of this series – see the lion-worshipping sex cult entry below – but this episode early in the show’s run was the first promise of great things to come from Rev. Matt Jamison. A man so consumed with his imagined holy war that he can’t see he’s the subject of the episode title’s parable, Matt scrambles to find ways to save his church. His congregation has left in a crisis of faith spurred by the Departure which is why he constantly dubs the vanished as sinners, comforting the left behind with sermons that assure them they’re not cursed. His church building is in foreclosure, about to be sold to an LLC if he can’t dig up tens of thousands of dollars to foot the bill. Ironically, he does unearth that money, remembering that Kevin Sr. buried some cash before being shipped to the loony bin, but, despite all of the ways Matt could’ve lost that windfall in this episode – by gambling with it to increase the pot, by getting caught up in a parking lot brawl, by helping a GR member, by his extended hospital stay – the reason he’s ultimately unable to save his church is brutally simple. He wasted too much time.
6. The Prodigal Son Returns (Season 1, Episode 10)
Few shows have matched The Leftovers ability to pull off a cliffhanger so maddening, so exquisitely warped, and so filled with both promise and frustration. The season finale of the show’s initial run is the first entry in that tradition. Sure, the episode before this features a blistering monologue by Ann Dowd and a gasp-wrenching plot twist that leaves you dumbfounded when the screen fades to black, but what’s always more interesting when a TV show drops that kind of bomb is when the writers sift through the fallout – and The Leftovers is rooting through the rubble for even the faintest signs of life in this episode. A spooked Kevin buries a body but misses the burning of Mapleton after the town’s residents riot against the latest act of emotional terrorism carried out by the GR. (They really bought lifelike replicas of The Departed and set them up all over town in the exact spots they vanished, huh? This show is just so f*cked up.) But even though some happy endings are found – for Kevin, Laurie, Jill, and Tom – more questions are asked, and bigger threats (hello Liv Tyler) loom.
The Leftovers was at its best when it simply posed existential questions, but there were a few times it pulled us back from the cliff’s edge with answers that felt so banal and obvious, you couldn’t help but laugh at yourself for conjuring such silly theories. This season two finale was one of those times. Of course, Evie wasn’t a late rapture, or the victim of some new supernatural phenomenon that drained an entire reservoir and stole away a couple of teenagers in the process. No, she was just a damaged, rebellious, psychotic young girl sick of living in a town that believed itself to be divinely favored, among parents so good at strapping on blinders to their own issues that they didn’t even notice her contempt and disillusion with life. Her plot with Meg (a deliciously evil Tyler) to throw Miracle into chaos is a highlight of the episode, as is Kevin’s eventual reconciliation with John – who shoots him and leaves him for dead before inviting himself over for a post-riot nightcap. We also get another glimpse of the afterlife and Theroux crooning a Simon and Garfunkel classic. What more could you ask for?
4. It’s A Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World (Season 3, Episode 5)
We’ll admit it, we’re suckers for a good cold open and this episode has what might be the best of the entire series. A French sailor is slo-mo sprinting through the narrow hallways of a submarine, naked as the day he was born, his genitals flapping in the wind as he murders his crewmates and performs his best Reed Richards impression, twisting a pair of keys at the same time in order to set off some nukes. This is the roadblock a dying Matt (with John in tow) must work around in order to make it to Australia. With flights canceled thanks to nude Gumbys antics, they board a Tasmanian party boat that’s cruising with a bunch of sex cult members on board hellbent on orgy-ing their way Down Under and worshiping a lion named Fraiser. That same lion ends up mauling their leader Burton – a man with a terrible God complex – by the end of the episode, but plenty of strange sh*t happens in between.
3. The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother) (Season 3, Episode 7 )
A Mission Impossible-esque romp through Limbo, this near-deathalmost-death post-death adventure is just as wild, confusing, and darkly funny as the first (see below), though the stakes are undeniably raised. Gone are little girls and wells. Instead, Kevin Harvey’s got a new assignment: kill the president before he can launch some nukes. How did we get here when the episode started with Kevin and Nora naked in a bathtub whispering sweet nothings about their preferred method of body disposal? We still don’t know. But amidst all the shots of a soaked-to-the-bone Justin Theroux flailing in and out of bathtubs like a fish on roller skates, gunning down past enemies and literally burning the afterlife to the ground, the show poses a central question: What does Kevin Garvey want? We won’t spoil the answer here.
Like Nora, who struggled with the choice of whether to attempt interdimensional travel at the risk of incineration in order to see her family again, we too had an impossible decision to make when it came to the placement of The Leftovers’ series finale on this list. Did it stick the landing in a way that broke our hearts and melted our brains? Absolutely. Was it a playful rebellion of the storytelling adage, “show, don’t tell,” that secretly delighted us to no end? Of course. Did it give us so many close-ups of Carrie Coon that we couldn’t possibly find a fault in it? Well, no, but then again, a show can always use more Carrie Coon close-ups. In the end, “The Book of Nora” was a surprisingly sentimental bow wrapping up a grandiose philosophical query that left just a few loose strings – enough to plague us with doubts for years to come. It cemented itself as both an epic love story and a puzzling musing on the purpose and futility of life. Still, the greatest mark against it is that this is the episode that marked the end, and it’s hard to look back fondly on goodbyes – even perfect ones.
Purgatory has been imagined on TV before – as a Utopian neighborhood littered with delicious food puns, a TV-equipped torture chamber that plays the worst day of your life on loop, a diner that doesn’t serve flapjacks, and an island filled with underground bunkers, Egyptian ruins, and polar bears. But Purgatory as a hotel that tasks its guest with donning a tuxedo and carrying out an assassination attempt even James Bond would balk at? That’s a game-changer – not just for storytelling on screen but for the world of The Leftovers. This episode marks Kevin’s first foray into the afterlife (though it certainly won’t be his last) and it also acts as a kind of launching pad to the next (metaphysical) level Lindelof and company end up taking the show. Theroux switches effortlessly between befuddled terror and suave confidence as he bashes skulls and carries out a bit of Godfather homage-ry, all while Kevin wades through a mind-bending gumbo brewed by his own subconscious. He eventually does the right thing and pushes that little girl down the well, but it’s the journey to that murderous act that feels more revelatory and, weirdly, fun.
James Corden illustrated Harry Styles’ aura during an interview with Howard Stern earlier this week by admitting that his celebrity was nothing compared to Styles’ during past vacations, as Corden was only acknowledged by fans to take photos of them with Styles.
Styles was one of Corden’s guests for the final episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden last night, April 27. Around the 17:45-minute mark of the full episode on YouTube, Styles was revealed to the audience. He began walking toward the stage and casually fist-bumped an excited fan.
She promptly fainted, it appeared.
A fan fainted after Harry Styles fist bumped her in the final episode of The Late Late Show. pic.twitter.com/T7aJXO3YI7
Will Ferrell surfaced at the same doorway twenty seconds later, and the fan had recovered enough to stand and clap for him.
Once Ferrell and Styles were seated on the couch across from Corden, Styles revealed a “Late Late” tattoo on his arm because the show has meant so much to him since it premiered with Corden in 2015. Ferrell requested one last game of “Spill Your Guts Or Fill Your Guts,” which led to Styles being forced to address whether a One Direction reunion will ever happen.
“I would never say to never to that. I think if there was a time where we all felt like that was what we wanted to do, then I don’t see why we wouldn’t,” he said.
I can only imagine how viscerally the Previously Fainted Fan reacted when Styles said that.
Fans who were worried about a potential curse on Lil Baby can rest easy; if his video for “Go Hard” is anything to judge by, his skills as a rapper and a hitmaker remain untarnished. The new track is vintage Lil Baby, with a string of breathless verses in which he insists he “Need a Nike deal how I’m runnin’ sh*t” and that he’s “savin’ the ghetto” framed by yet another relentless hook asserting he’s “back goin’ hard again” (a running theme in his music).
Meanwhile, if fans thought that his photo op with the Kardashians meant a romantic entanglement, the visuals for “Go Hard” should lay those worries to rest as well. Baby and his crew throw a yacht party with all the debauchery of an Atlanta strip club, amped by what could very well be international waters. Very scantily clad women twerk all over the boat, proving there’s more motion in the ocean (sorry, I couldn’t leave that one on the table). It’s a wonder the ship doesn’t capsize from all that rocking.
“Go Hard” is thought to appear on Lil Baby’s next album ever since he previewed the track on Instagram in 2020. It certainly appears to be his first original song since releasing It’s Only Me in October, although he dropped a video for “Forever” with Fridayy in February. Could a new Lil Baby era already be on the way? Considering his philosophy about going hard, it’s not out of the question.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect to feels so sad so many times while watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. To be clear, this is by design. This movie, at times, wants you to feel very sad. To the point I had to internally scold myself, “Dude, you cannot start crying in public about a CGI raccoon. You know people here. Don’t be one of these people who cry during Marvel movies. It’s embarrassing.”
So, I’m going to be upfront right off the bat, I think James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is incredibly well done, but if the torture and mutilation of animals at all disturbs you, and I’m assuming it will, there are a couple of pretty rough scenes in this movie concerning Rocket’s backstory. It’s not flippant and they drive the entire plot of the film. The movie knows these are rough scenes, but they will cause some pretty intense emotions that at least I’ve certainly not felt during a Marvel movie. To put it bluntly: this movie fucked me up a bit. (Speaking of, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 also gives us our first MCU F-bomb.)
Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is in rough shape. The Guardians are living on a floating space colony called Knowhere and Peter, still devastated by the loss of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), and the return of a Gamaora who doesn’t know him, passes the time getting black-out drunk. One night, a mysterious and powerful visitor rampages Knowhere looking for Rocket (Bradley Cooper). This visitor is Adam Warlock (Will Poulter, having quite a great time) and he’s been sent by the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji, who isn’t just chewing scenery, but more rolling up the scenery into a pipe and smoking it) to retrieve Rocket for extremely sinister reasons. Adam Warlock’s mission fails, but it leaves Rocket mortally wounded. Nebula (Karen Gillan, who takes on a much larger role this time around) discovers any attempt to operate on Rocket will trigger a fail-safe device inside of him that would be immediately fatal. So the rest of the Guardians mount a mission to retrieve the code to turn off the fail-safe device in an effort to save Rocket. And to do this they will need Gamora’s help, who is currently hanging out with the Ravagers, led by Sylvester Stallone. (I’m just going to pretend Stallone is playing himself.)
As Rocket fights for his life, he has flashbacks to his time with the High Evolutionary and the experiments that were run on him and his friends, as the High Evolutionary tries to make the perfect being in an effort to create a new Earth filled only with perfection. This is pretty rough stuff that involves animal abuse and mutilation. It’s certainly effective. Again, it’s never flippant or done for laughs. It knows this is pretty grim stuff. I’ve never felt this emotionally involved in a villain getting his comeuppance before. To prepare you, at one point we watch the High Evolutionary literally shoot and kill a cute animal. It’s an emotionally devastating scene that informs the entire movie. But the one complaint I have here is, right after this scene, we cut to Drax (Dave Bautista) clotheslining a guy riding a motorcycle. Yeah, I just watched an animal get brutally murdered. I’m not sure I’m ready for some laughs quite yet.
James Gunn bets big that you love each and every one of these Guardians. It’s a movie about friendship and the love these characters have for each other and risking everything to help the people you love. Without that bond to these characters, this movie doesn’t work. It’s still a funny movie with some cool action scenes and a lot of nonsense going on, all glued together by this really powerful emotional core. There is a scene that sticks out, after Drax ignores an order that gets the team into some hot water. Nebula unloads on Drax, but Mantis (Pom Klementieff) comes to his defense, telling Nebula she can’t say these things to Drax because at the end of the day he loves us and we love him. It’s such a dumb simple thing, but gosh it works.
In an era of superhero fatigue, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 still feels fresh because this isn’t a superhero movie. These are sci-fi action-adventure movies. It’s always weird when they crossover into other movies involving superheroes. It’s like if Thor teamed up with Marty McFly. “Wait, why is Marty McFly here again?” And, mercifully, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a self-contained story that has nothing to do with the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a movie about the friendship and love between the members of this team, not a movie that wonders what Sub-Mariner or Shang-Chi are up to these days. The closest Guardians 3 strays to this is the introduction of Adam Warlock. This movie could exist without him. But he was teased way back in Guardians 2 (which was, somehow, six years ago now) and Will Poulter is having so much goofy fun playing Warlock as a kind of an imbecile nitwit, yeah it all works.
This is the end of the road for this version of The Guardians of the Galaxy. James Gunn is, famously, now running the show at DC. A few members of the cast have made it clear this is it for them. But, we will no doubt see other members of the team in future projects. But we won’t see this team again, which gives the whole proceedings a melancholy feel. And knowing this was it, it’s a bold move to make Rocket the central figure of the film. And it’s even bolder to make it this emotional and devastating. (I often get asked, hey, can I take my kids to this? Look, I saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in a theater when I was nine. A guy gets his heart ripped out of his chest and is then burned alive. I usually come down on the side of “your precious kid will be fine.” I’ll admit, this one gives me pause.) But you leave this movie feeling the bond between these characters and what makes them all so special. This is not “a superhero movie.” This is a movie about characters we love and that we will miss.
Again, I didn’t expect to feel so sad while watching this movie.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ opens in theaters on May 5th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
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