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There is, in theory, no such thing as too much John Wick. The same can also be applied to Keanu Reeves, but that is a whole separate blog. There is nothing that can make John Wick stop (unless Reeves himself decides he needs a little break in which case that’s what he deserves). But John Wick, as a concept and entity, is forever. And the universe is expanding with the upcoming John Wick 4 and the introduction of The Continental, the upcoming series based on the hit franchise.

The Continental has been in development for quite some time, but now that the Wick Machine is back up and running, the series is finally expected to hit streaming later this year. But what can we expect from the show? Probably not Keanu Reeves (sorry) but his essence will still be there!

The series, which will be released on Peacock, will work as a prequel to Wick’s storyline. Set in 1970s New York City, which is historically not the best or safest place to be in, The Continental will show to humble beginnings of the infamous hotel where all of the well-dressed assassins come to get a good night’s sleep.

Colin Woodell will portray a young Winston (who is played by Ian McShane in the film series) who is just learning about the ins and outs of rubbing elbows with the most dangerous men and women on the planet. Ayomide Adegun, Ben Robson, Jessica Allain, Mishel Prada, and Nhung Kate will also star. Of course, the biggest name on the bill is Mel Gibson, who will play a mysterious character named Cormac. This will be Gibson’s first TV credit since appearing as a cop on Complete Savages in 2004. The man has had a long and tumultuous career.

Kevin Beggs, Lionsgate Television chairman, told Deadline in 2021 that the series would lay the foundation of the movie series. “What we’re exploring in The Continental is the young Winston and how it came to be that he and his team of confederates found their way into this hotel which we have met for the first time in the movie franchise 40 years later,” Beggs said as the time. “That’s the arena. I won’t give away more than that, but Starz really leaned into this take also, and they have been great collaborators. And how we’ve approached this first season is as three essentially 90-minute events which you could construe as a limited series or a limited event series.”

As for when we will get to see the violent crew of The Continental, there has been no release date set, but hopefully, with the John Wick 4 momentum, we will be checking in soon. With a dog.

Liam Neeson has a new movie out this week, Marlowe, which I suspect not a lot of people will end up seeing, though I liked it fine. As he was doing the press rounds to promote the film, naturally some of his other upcoming projects came up. For instance, The Naked Gun reboot he’s starring in being directed by the Lonely Island‘s Akiva Shaffer.

I’ve interviewed Neeson before myself, and there’s an upright, old fashioned sort of dignity with which he carries himself (or that we impose upon him) that makes him doing anything banal and normal sort of incongruous and funny. I imagine that’s why Shaffer wanted him to play Frank Drebin in the first place. It’s also why, when Indiewire‘s Kate Erbland asked Neeson about his Naked Gun reboot this week, and Neeson went on to start just explaining bits to her from Airplane, I felt like I had to highlight and share:

At this point, is there any kind of film that you haven’t done that you want to do?

I’m going to do it this year. It’ll either be the end of my so-called career or it’ll be another little avenue. We’re going to reboot the “Naked Gun” franchise. We’ll see. The script is being developed. It’s still very funny. There’s very funny stuff in it. They were all a series of gags. Do you remember “Airplane”?

Of course!

That was a series of gags, too. Peter Graves says to the kid, “You ever seen a grown man naked?” The stuff! You couldn’t get away with that shit now. Leslie Nielsen, his whole career changed when he comes into the cockpit on “Airplane.” Peter Graves is piloting the plane and Leslie comes in and gives him some information. Graves says, “Yeah, but surely, we’ve looked at that” or something. And Leslie Nielsen comes back in again and goes, “Don’t call me Shirley.” That was the moment, I’m telling you, that changed his life, his career.

For whatever reason, Liam Neeson asking an interviewer if she remembers Airplane, and then her saying yes, and him proceeding to recount two full bits anyway, including the “don’t call me Shirley” line just because he can’t help himself, is endlessly funny to me. “They were all a series of gags! Do you get it??”

It makes me think Liam Neeson is the perfect choice to play Frank Drebin; this is exactly the kind of thing Frank Drebin would do.

In third grade, my friend Brendan got sent to the principal’s office because he started thinking about the Frank Drebin-peeing-with-a-live-microphone-on bit from the Naked Gun and couldn’t stop laughing during quiet time. “Let’s remember some bits from Naked Gun” is still one of our favorite games. As this latest interview proves, Liam Neesons is just like us.

We often talk about how important it is to give stars and icons flowers while they can still smell them. Well, at least one young star took that advice literally. When NLE Choppa, who was greatly influenced by Lil Wayne growing up in Memphis, got the chance to work with his idol on a new song, he made sure to give Wayne a giant bouquet of roses. He also gave the notorious skate fanatic a brand-new deck.

“I feel like accolades never define the artist,” he said as he gave the gifts in a behind-the-scenes clip from the duo’s recent video shoot. “Personally, I feel like you supposed to have way more accolades coming your way. You should be to a point in time to where you just receiving accolades. I think it was a few days ago, you won an award. So, I just wanted to present my own accolade, physically giving you flowers and a note to let you know how much you inspired me and impacted my life. I have a skateboard too that I signed. I know you like to skateboard.”

Wayne received the gifts graciously, saying, “This is my life right here. For real, for real. Whatever cameras, if y’all watching – be like this guy, man. Be like this guy. He’s a good guy, man. For real. I do this a lot. I’m on video sets a lot – new artists, old artists. This doesn’t happen. This doesn’t happen. He’s a great guy.”

The honor that Wayne received a few days ago was at the Recording Academy Honors Presented by the Black Music Collective. Wayne was one of two artists (along with Missy Elliott) given the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. His protege Drake gave a lighthearted but loving speech, saying, “I love you so much. I know I probably get annoying with saying how much you mean to me and my family, but I think I speak on behalf of everybody when I say that our careers, our cadences, our melodies, maybe our face tats or our outfits or our decisions in general would not have been the same without your natural gift to just be yourself.”

NLE Choppa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Megan Thee Stallion has been out of the public eye since the December conclusion of the trial against Tory Lanez, who was found guilty on all three felony counts brought against him — assault with a semiautomatic handgun, carrying a loaded unregistered firearm in a vehicle, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence (as noted by The New York Times).

It was an emotional ending to a traumatic two years, dating back to Meg alleging that Lanez shot her in the foot in 2020. In court, the Grammy-winning Houston rapper vulnerably admitted that she wished Lanez “would have just shot and killed me” because of how harmful the emotional and mental aftermath has been. Meg has presumably been taking time to start the healing process.

So, it’s been nice to see traces of her enjoying some happiness this week. First, Pardi seemingly dispelled breakup rumors with a vague Instagram Story post on Valentine’s Day. Then, footage of what appears to be a surprise birthday party for Meg started circulating online. (She turned 28 yesterday, February 15).

Lanez, meanwhile, swapped his defense attorney for his appeal, and his sentencing was delayed from January 27 to February 28. Per Rolling Stone, Lanez is facing up to 22 years and eight months in prison.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Paramore’s highly anticipated new album This Is Why is out now. To celebrate, they recently took the groovy track “Running Out Of Time” to Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a charismatic performance. Now, they’ve unveiled the music video for that song.

The music videos thus far have been overflowing with weirdness. “This Is Why” was packed with unhinged dance moves, and Hayley Williams looked a little possessed in “The News.” “Running Out Of Time” is a fever dream of eccentric outfits, crazy hairdos, and unpredictable choreography. It’s safe to say they, ironically, took their time with it.

Williams recently explained that “Running Out Of Time” was inspired by Taylor Swift. “I remember when we were 19 and I was closer with Taylor Swift at that point because we both lived in Nashville and we’re both experiencing our own versions of real success for the first time,” Williams recalled. “I went over to hang out. She’s a really good cook, by the way. She’s a really good cook. She has taught me how to make stuff that I did not retain at all.”

Swift’s productivity made her realize her own faults. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, my life is so not together.’ I was like, ‘I can barely remember to send someone a card or flowers.’ There are still Christmas gifts at my house that I have not sent to my friends just sitting there in the back of my closet,” Williams said.

Watch the “Running Out Of Time” music video above.

Paramore is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Music helps us not only connect with our deeper, perhaps less accessible emotions, but it also can connect us with those who have passed. Pink’s new song “When I Get There” is a beautiful example of both.

Honoring the memory of her late father, Jim Moore, who died in 2021, the Grammy winner created a touching lyric video featuring home videos of them together. A small snippet of that video was shared on her Instagram on Valentine’s Day.

“Sometimes love leaves us too soon. On Valentine’s Day—I cherish the love I have that I can touch—and the love I have in my heart for those who have gone on to the next adventure. This one’s for you, Daddy Sir,” she wrote in the caption of her post, along with the hashtag #HeWasMyFirstValentine.

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Her father’s voice can be heard at the beginning of the video, sharing what those home videos meant to him.

“I thought it would be nice if you had some memories of how it all began and where you all came from, and some of the memories through the years,” he says while his beloved daughter Alecia (Pink’s real name) blows out candles for her first birthday.

See on Instagram

We then see a progression of Pink’s school photos through childhood.

There’s also a full-length version of the song on Youtube. It shows Moore surprising Pink before a performance along with recitals, playing on a merry-go-round, singing together and cracking jokes at various moments throughout Pink’s life.

The song’s lyrics, which play upon the screen, reminisce about her late father’s sense of humor, asking if there’s “a bar up there where you’ve got a favorite chair.” Ultimately, Pink shares her yearning for the day they can reunite, when she might meet him again in the afterlife.

Watch below. (Quick heads up: The full-length video contains a wee bit of profanity at the very beginning.)

The video struck a chord with many who had also lost a father. The comments were filled with people expressing how it helped them hark back to their own happy memories or process painful feelings.

Here are some of those touching comments:

“It’s been 10 years since Daddy left but this hits deep but strangely it helps with the grief that never ends. Thank you P!NK.”

“I lost my dad in July 2022… I’ve not cried like this since his funerals… I needed this. Thank you.”

“Lost my dad suddenly in Dec 2020.. absolutely beautiful song. And now I’m crying my eyes out. He was my rock and the only 1 who didn’t judge me and just supported me in every way he could.”

“Everything and nothing makes me think of my Dad, but very few ppl can put it in words like this.”

“Absolutely beautiful. Both my parents have passed and I’d like to think they will tell me when I get there, all the things I wonder about.”

Loss is the inevitable price we pay to feel love toward the people in our lives. But holding onto their memories—be it in a song, a scrapbook or simply in our hearts—keeps them close. The pain might never go away, but neither does the impact they have on our lives.

Sometimes you come across something so dang sweet and wholesome that you just have to pass it along. That’s the case with this short video. TikTok user Bella, whose handle is @mylifeasbella, uploaded a video to the platform showing her mother and her watching a clip of Rihanna’s interpreter, Justina Miles, signing the song the star was performing at the Super Bowl.

Bella is a child of deaf adults, otherwise known as CODA, and wanted to show her mother the video since her mom skipped the Super Bowl. But as it turns out, even if she had tuned into the game, the dynamic interpreter was not shown on the screen. Bella explained in a second video that if you wanted to see the interpreter you had to go to a separate link during the halftime show.

In the video, Bella’s mom is just sort of standing there until she realizes what’s happening. That’s when you see a quick flash of surprise on her face before she starts smiling wider, and it doesn’t take long for her to start signing along with the interpreter. By the end, Bella’s mom is dancing to the beat. It certainly made people smile.

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“Why am I tearing up. This made me so happy. Representation matters,” one person wrote.

Another said, “Why did this make me cry seeing your mom react, so powerful.”

“So beautiful watching mom’s face light up,” a different commenter wrote, while another person said, “this is the cutest video I have seen all day.”

Clearly this video has people feeling all of the feels. It currently has over 7 million views and 817,000 likes. If you want to test your smile muscles, check out the video below:

@mylifeasbella

#duet with @rollingstone My mom didn’t watch the superbowl so this was her first time seeing this and SHE LOOOVED 🤩 #fyp #deafparents #ASL #rihanna #reaction #coda #xyzbca

Harrison Ford, 80, is throwing on his leather jacket and fedora for one last time in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which is expected to hit theaters in June 2023. The film is about Indy’s lifelong foes, the Nazis, being involved with NASA at the height of the space race.

It’s been 15 years since Ford played Indy on the big screen in 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” In that film, Indy makes numerous quips about being in his mid-60s, noting that he’s still a professor but only “part-time,” and after a failed swing from his bullwhip, he admits his eyesight isn’t what it once was. “Damn, I thought that was closer!” he says.

His son, Mutt Williams, even overestimates his age, asking, “What are you, like, 80?” But now that he’s 80 in “Dial of Destiny,” there won’t be any old man jokes in the picture.

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“Yeah. In [Dial of Destiny] there were a lot of old jokes in the script. We took them all out,” Ford told The Hollywood Reporter. “There is a moment where he observes himself in this situation and says, ‘What the f**k am I doing in here?’ But I hate what I call ‘talking about the story.’ I want to see circumstances in which the audience gets a chance to experience the story, not to be led through the nose with highlights pointed out to them. I’d rather create behavior that is the joke of age rather than talk about it.”

The film’s writer and director, James Mangold, said that the film reflects where Indy is currently in his life.

“The mistake you can make in movies is when someone is of a ripe age but the movie continues this charade that they’re not that old,” Mangold said. “Every challenge he faces is through the reality of what someone of that age would be dealing with.”

Ford’s decision to excise all the old man jokes in his last run as Indiana Jones is a blow to one of the oldest “isms” still prevalent in Hollywood: ageism. Older people are subject to all sorts of negative stereotypes, so it’s great that Ford—a man in incredible shape for his age—doesn’t want to promote them.

The notion that older people are bumbling, forgetful, out of touch and physically frail can have a very negative effect on their well-being.

“Ageism remains one of the most institutionalized forms of prejudice today,” Todd Nelson, Ph.D., professor of psychology at California State University, Stanislaus, told the Association of Health Care Journalists. “Our entire society tells older people, you are useless, unwanted, and a burden. It tells younger people that getting old is bad, and being old is worse.”

Further, everyone ages differently. To paint such a large swatch of humanity with the same brush reduces people to little more than a number. When in reality, age brings a host of qualities that younger people should wish to have such as experience, confidence and wisdom.

It’s wonderful that we get to see Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in one final adventure, regardless of how old he happens to be. After all, as he famously told Marion Ravenwood in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “It’s not the years” that matter, it’s the “mileage.”

For the past several weeks, the anticipation for Chlöe‘s long-awaited debut solo album In Pieces has been approaching a fever pitch. However, the “Pray It Away” singer’s announcement for the album’s “second piece,” a single titled “How Does It Feel,” put a damper on the fervor after fans found out it features an unwanted special guest.

Posting the title and what appears to be a screenshot from an accompanying music video, Chlöe revealed that “How Does It Feel” features controversial R&B singer Chris Brown. Brown, of course, has a notorious reputation for being… well… a bit of a jackass, to put it nicely. Since the big turning point, his 2009 assault of Rihanna, he’s been accused of harassment, battery, sexual assault, and more.

The singer has his defenders — most notably an extremely vocal contingent of online stans rivaling the stringency of the Barbz, Beyhive, and Navy — including Kelly Rowland, but fans still reacted poorly to Chlöe’s announcement.

To be fair, she’s far from the only young singer to employ Brown’s services as a guest singer. In recent years, Danileigh, H.E.R. Sevyn Streeter, and Tinashe have all dueted with him — a testament to his stardom and appeal in the 2000s (formative years for most of the young women who grew up loving his music). Chlöe Bailey was all of 12 when Brown first fell from grace and likely has her own positive personal experiences with him since.

Still, he’s not the most beloved character in the music world, as the reactions to his feature show. More than likely, this will just end up being a hiccup in what will turn out to be a successful rollout. Still, you have to wonder who thought this would be such a good idea.

In Pieces is due this March through Parkwood/Columbia.

Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has been having real, devastating, life-shattering effects. You’ve surely seen those dire headlines and heard about the videos of Russian soldiers being told to pack tampons to treat their own bullet wounds. However, there’s been a fair amount of dark humor to be found in stories about Russia’s sad attempt at a McDonald’s clone. As well, we’ve heard about how Putin’s apparent love of Botox (he sure looks “embalmed”) has been thwarted by war-bound supply shortages.

Now, they’re coming for the Viagra. I say “they” as though there’s a big, bad villain at work. And surely, there are jokes to be made about Big Pharma, but considering that Putin has an alleged penchant for love-child production, this is actually amusing news from The Moscow Times:

Viagra’s brand owner has suspended deliveries of the erectile dysfunction pill to Russia, the country’s Industry and Trade Ministry said Wednesday.

The U.S. pharmaceutical corporation Viatris had notified Russia of the suspension as far back as early 2022 following Moscow’s initial invasion of Ukraine, the ministry told Interfax.

Panic in the streets? Probably not, but still, this could be cause for angst. However (!), there’s already been pushback from Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry, which insists that manufacturers can and will make their Russian Viagra versions after conducting some clinical trials back in the day. This may or may not be comparable to the Russian army having to resort to crappy, outdated ammo that could “explode in your face.” I probably cannot be forgiven for the bleak joke that’s running through my head right now, so I’ll stop. Pour one out for the Viagra lovers.

(Via The Moscow Times)