GoneTrending

Yesterday, SZA dropped the entertaining video for her hit song, “Kill Bill.” Drawing visual inspiration from the Tarantino movie of the same title, SZA enlisted one of the original actresses, Vivica A. Fox, to help her carry out a revenge plot.

Still, fans watching SZA’s music video were clearly on the hunt for any and all possible Easter eggs. Given that she’s dropped clues in her past videos, from teasing snippets of songs at the end of “Shirt,” to using a license plate to announce when her sophomore album, SOS, would drop — it’s not far-fetched that there could be some secrets embedded in “Kill Bill.”

Fans spotted that the motorcycle license plate used in the “Kill Bill” video read August, sparking speculation that the deluxe version of SOS would be dropping this summer. (It also had “SOS” in bright red letters.)

However, SZA logged on to social media to shut those theories down, tweeting, “The deluxe is not coming out in august lol it’s just a license plate.”

Despite her statement, fans in the quotes joked back about the fact that the deluxe version might be dropping earlier and the fact that they couldn’t trust her. “She knew to have these comments off,” one person wrote.

“Then wtf is coming on aug 2023,” another added.

View some additional fan reactions to SZA’s SOS deluxe tweet.

Vladimir Putin and his remaining allies sure are a sensitive bunch. Perhaps those fancy “rings of power” do something to the psyche? There’s no telling if that’s the case, but Putin’s ego has led him to persist in reportedly planning to draft another 500,000 Russian recruits for his ill-fated Ukraine invasion. And from there, the massive casualties look to pile up even further.

The Daily Beast relays how the Kremlin currently has its nose out of joint after David Pressman, the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, referred to Putin as a “small man” who can only “can only lead through fear and intimidation.” Pressman also credited Ukrainians for refusing to “return to a broken, abusive system that had failed them for so long.” And from there, the Kremlin apparently spurred up a response from a Russian embassy regarding Pressman’s remarks:

In a Telegram post on Tuesday, the Russian embassy in Hungary went on a tirade against Pressman’s “unacceptable” remarks about “the personality of a foreign Head of State,” calling his comments “an outrageous violation of basic diplomatic protocol and practice,” according to Russian state news agency TASS.

In addition, Pressman (and his “lack of professionalism”) received a recommendation to absorb the works of Henry Kissinger, including Diplomacy. It’s bizarre! There’s no word on whether Vladimir Putin was in on this bookstore push, but he’s also got enough to clean up, considering that his war has been going for nearly a year with zero signs that a Russian victory is in the cards.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The Banshees of Inisherin is an unusual movie. Martin McDonagh’s extremely Irish film documents the sudden dissolution of a long friendship. Colin Farrell plays Pádraic, a man living on a small island off the coast of Ireland in 1923. He’s a simple man. He loves animals, especially his donkey, Jenny. Every day he goes to the pub with his best friend Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson. One day, Colm decides that he doesn’t want to be friends with Pádraic anymore. Pádraic can’t take the hint and spends the entire film trying to win his BFF back. The consequences are dire: every time Pádraic talks to Colm, Colm chops off one of his own fingers.

Farrell’s performance as the hurt, rather dense Irishman is a career-best. It’s subtle but resonant. His eyebrows have never been more expressive, but the rest of the performance is quiet and personal. It’s difficult to visually represent the pain over losing a friend, but Farrell captures an overall heaviness both in mind and body with his innocent doe eyes, an insecure slouch, and the weighty urgency of someone in a crisis. Farrell works brilliantly with Gleeson to make both men’s challenging perspectives make sense.

But Farrell’s greatest challenge in Banshees is his greatest accomplishment as an actor in his decades-long career: Pádraic is completely ordinary but also completely compelling. This is the essential element to Farrell’s performance: the audience has to understand Colm’s perspective but empathize with Pádraic, which requires endless layers of awareness, making every blink, word, and step essential. If Farrell’s performance had been a little too sweet, the film wouldn’t work. If his performance had emphasized Pádraic’s dullness just a bit more, it wouldn’t work, either. Farrell strikes an impossible, invisible balance. On top of all that, Farrell, within seconds of screentime, establishes an emotional bond with a donkey that leads to one of the most gut-wrenching moments in modern cinema, even though the concept of a donkey dying because it choked on the finger of a man who was chopping off his fingers because he didn’t want to be friends with someone anymore is violently funny.

Banshees arrived just months after Farrell’s transformative performance as the Penguin in The Batman, which came out in March 2022 (feels like it came out two weeks ago or twenty years ago now, though). Farrell has a singular edge to him, both in his performance style and personal life (a favorite pastime of mine is browsing photos of him going on runs where he somehow captures this vibe perfectly). This bad boy-but-soft quality is evident in his best and worst performances in films like In Bruges (best), Daredevil (worst but still iconic), Minority Report (best), and True Detective season 2 (worst, and I bet you forgot about it). Behind pounds of unnecessary prosthetics as the Penguin, Farrell’s edge still shines, adding a new layer to the mobster caricature. The performance, undoubtedly more inspired by Mario the plumber than Chris Pratt’s voice performance as Mario the plumber in the upcoming Super Mario Brothers animated film, proved Farrell’s range stretches far beyond what anyone could imagine, probably even Farrell himself.

While Banshees is more of a return to form for Farrell, it is his most in-depth, personal work: a culmination of his personality, performance style, and decades-long career that has, at times, floundered. The Best Actor race this awards season is more competitive: almost anyone in the conversation from Austin Butler in Elvis to Bill Nighy in Living has a chance, and anyone could easily make an argument for them to win, kind of like how there are compelling arguments for both Pádraic and Colm. But please, personally I am begging every awards voter to vote Farrell for his touching, sensitive performance in Banshees of Inisherin, which is a lot more than it appears on the surface, not to mention the fact that he’s one of modern Hollywood’s great gentlemen.

While accepting the Golden Globes award for Best Musical or Comedy Series, Abbott Elementary creator Quinta Brunson couldn’t help but give a shoutout to Brad Pitt after she spotted him in the audience. During her emotional speech, in which she thanked everyone who helped make the hit ABC series a success, Brunson became noticeably starstruck at the sight of Pitt and even co-star Janelle James was surprised that he was just sitting right there.

You can see the adorable and now-viral moment below:

And if Brunson is feeling a little embarrassed, she shouldn’t be. Celebs getting starstruck by other celebs is a Golden Globes tradition as evidenced by the videos below:

The Brad Pitt shoutout also exploded on Twitter as tons of people found the reaction very relatable. Who wouldn’t have reacted the same way?

As for Brunson’s speech, Pitt wasn’t her only shoutout. (Although, his shoutout may have been the most enthusiastic one.) Brunson also made it a point to thank Henry Winkler, Bob Odenkirk, and Seth Rogen. Via PEOPLE:

“I created this show because I love comedy. There are so many people in the room tonight who are the reason why I’m here today. Not to be corny, but Henry Winkler you’re one of the reasons I’m here today because of watching you. Bob Odenkirk I know you’re in your drama bed now but Mr. Show made me want to make television. Seth [Rogen], I know you’re probably high, but from the heart, everything that you’ve ever made made me want to make comedy. Comedy is so important to me. Comedy brings people together.”

Of course, at that point, Brunson spotted Pitt but she quickly pulled it together and brought her speech in for a landing.

“This is my cast and I love them,” she said after rebounding from seeing Pitt. “I don’t know where I’d be without them. We get to make this show for everyone. During a very tough time in this country, I’m happy that Abbott Elementary is able to make so many people laugh.”

(Via PEOPLE)

Rapper Gunna is looking to reenter the public fold and its good graces since his incarceration last May. While detained, the musician remained optimistic despite having his request for a bond denied three times. However, that didn’t stop him from writing a letter to his loved ones calling 2022, “one of the best years of my life.”

Although the “Pushin P” rapper has been out of jail for weeks, he’s remained uncharacteristically quiet on social media until yesterday. Taking to Instagram, Gunna shared an image of himself inside of his lush home with the caption, “N****s acting like they switching to a side. But it’s only one side,” adding the hashtags #YslTheLabel #FreeThug&Yak to show his seeming advocacy for his label head, Young Thug who is still incarcerated and awaiting trial. The rapper closed the post with, “Gunna Bacc!”

Gunna’s return to social media didn’t stop there. The rapper also uploaded a message to Twitter, writing, “R.I.P Keed. I love you, and I miss you, twin.” Unfortunately, Lil Keed, a fellow YSL Records artist, passed away shortly after Gunna’s arrest.

People didn’t take too kindly to Gunna’s mention of Young Thug or Lil Keed, including Lil Gotit, Keed’s brother. So Lil Gotit posted a subtle response to Gunna’s post. In the first message, Gotit writes, “N****s got to stop the cap,” implying Gunna’s public show of support for Young Thug is all a facade. Then Gotit follows it up with, “Don’t call me twin,” confirming all ties have been severed.

Notorious rap troll Tekashi 6ix9ine left a comment echoing Lil Gotit’s sentiments, “In court, you said it was a gang. Here on Instagram, you’re saying the label. LOL, you can’t make this sh*t up.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago back in August 2022, it was a last-measure effort to collect more than 1,200 classified documents that Donald Trump reportedly took with him when he left the White House and refused to give back after being alerted that he was not allowed to have them. It’s a far cry from the 10 classified documents discovered in Joe Biden’s private office which — when discovered — were promptly returned to the National Archives. But don’t try telling a MAGA that!

On Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel shared a handful of clips from pro-Trump and/or anti-Biden robots like Fox News’ Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity, conspiracy theory loving congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and devil’s spawn Donald Trump Jr., who refused to concede that the two situations were very different. As Kimmel explained:

[L]ast night CBS reported that Joe Biden left a handful of classified documents from when he was vice president in his private office at the University of Pennsylvania. The documents were discovered by his lawyers, they were packing up files, they found these documents, they contacted the National Archives, they reported what they found. There are said to be just under a dozen documents related to Ukraine, Iran, and the U.K. And for the MAGA crowd, this was like Christmas and the McRib coming back at the same time.

Don Jr., as usual, had the most unhinged response: The slurry son of the former president seemed to be taking his anger out on his phone when he asked, “Is the Justice Department going to send in the FBI? The FBI’s hostage rescue team?!”

Again, Don Jr. and all the rest of them — the same folks who defended Trump and his ability to simply declassify documents with his mind — seemed perfectly satisfied to put the two infractions on the same level. Despite them being wildly different. Though Kimmel also couldn’t help but wonder if Little Donnie’s manic slurring was possibly due to his wearing a retainer or… something?! “What’s going on with his teeth?,” Kimmel asked.

Of course, it didn’t take long for Trump himself to react to the situation. As Kimmel shared, the former president took to TRUTH Social to ask: “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified.”

“It’s like his dream come true,” said Kimmel, who added that: “It’s alarming when you realize how much our national security relies on old men keeping track of loose pages.” (He could have just ended that sentence at “old men.”

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 1:45 mark.

It may be a while before we hear Lil Yachty’s psychedelic Sonic Ranch album, due to the project falling victim to leaks last month, but that’s not keeping him from pursuing other ideas. Yesterday (January 10), the “Poland” rapper announced that he’s looking to form an all-women band.

“Yachty is putting a band together. I want an all-girls band,” he said in an Instagram post, noting he’s looking for two to three background singers, a guitar player, a bass player, a drummer, and a keyboard player. The post was captioned, “Tryouts for my band Thursday. Shall the most talented women please pull up… Let’s Meet! See U Soon Ladies.” It is also worth noting that this is currently the only post on his Instagram page, as his account appears to be cleared — a common practice for artists as they begin to tease new album eras.

It is unclear whether Yachty is wanting to put together the band as part of a new album, for a backing band for an upcoming tour, or for another purpose. However, in an interview with Icebox that took place over a year ago, he revealed that he wants his future projects to spawn from a different creative process.

“I’ve met all these amazing musicians and producers,” he said when speaking about his upcoming album. “It’s like a psychedelic alternative project. It’s different. It’s all live instrumentation. I’ve changed my dynamic. I’m telling you, this album and on, I’m creating music a whole lot differently.”

Maybe time has gotten away from you, or maybe you just don’t care, but it’s been about 10 months since The Slap debacle of 2022. Yeah, we thought that we had all moved on. The summer came and went, new memes lived and died, and we thought that finally this whole thing would be put behind us. That is until Award Season 2023 began.

The Golden Globes took place last night, and after all that has gone down with that award show, the calm thing to do would be to not mention The Slap at all and keep everyone on their best behavior. But when you put a bunch of famous (and rich) people in a room, it’s pretty hard to control the situation.

We had some great moments: Jennifer Coolidge and Quinta Brunson secured their legendary status by just being themselves, meanwhile Mike White was bawling like a toddler at all of the wins (as he should be). And, yes, host Jerrod Carmichael made a short reference to Will Smith, but the real joke of the night was told by Eddie Murphy.

Murphy was accepting the Cecil B. DeMille award when he was giving some important life advice to the next generation. “It’s very simple, just do these three things: pay your taxes, mind your business and keep Will Smith’s wife’s name out of your f*cking mouth!” Honestly, it could have been worse.

Of course, Twitter had some thoughts about the comment, with some saying it was a stale punchline, while others were happy that Murphy was the one to get the last laugh.

While Murphy’s joke was pretty mild, many decided that it should have been left in 2022.

Let’s just hope that the Oscars pay attention to what the people actually care about: more Michelle Yeoh!

During last night’s digital pre-show for the 2023 Golden Globes, the cast of Netflix’s hit series Wednesday revealed their thoughts about a major pop star potentially joining season two.

That’s right: rumors about Lady Gaga making an appearance have started swirling — as she’s become significantly tied to the show’s promotions. Her 2011 song “Bloody Mary” became the soundtrack to a viral TikTok dance trend that recreates what Jenna Ortega (who plays Wednesday) did in an episode.

“I’m sure Netflix would love that,” Ortega told Variety at the event before sharing a sweet story about a past interaction between her and Gaga. She continued, “You know what’s funny? A long time ago I worked with a hairdresser that worked with Gaga and I just had seen Gaga in concert a few years before. [The hairdresser got] Gaga [to make] me a video saying she heard I was a fan. Gaga made me a sweet video. I doubt she remembers. But to see her to do that now… it’s one of those moments you realize life changes really fast.”

Ortega was asked about if Gaga hypothetically joined the series, which character would she play? “If Lady Gaga were to be a part of it, they’d have to be two monsters who understand each other,” she described, noting that the pop star’s relationship to Wednesday would have to be similar to the dynamic between her and Mrs. Thornhill (Christina Ricci).

However, as for an official confirmation or denying the rumors, the Wednesday star admitted she doesn’t really know a lot. Given Netflix just announced the renewal of season two, it seems it will be at least a couple of months with writing and filming — with or without Gaga.

“I have seen nothing and I know nothing,” Ortega added. “As the actor you’re told what to do. I’m waiting on it! I think they’re just starting to get a writers room together so we’ll see.”

There used to be movies like Plane all the time. If Plane had come out in the ’90s, it would be called Deadly Turbulence, or something like that, get terrible reviews, and probably make a lot of money. It reminds me a little of movies like Executive Decision, which, when it came out, made money and was enjoyable enough. (Rewatching Executive Decision recently, when compared to the all CGI movies we get today, it feels like some sort of action movie masterpiece.) Now, Plane, first, has to have a unique title like Plane to garner attention on social media, which it certainly has. And now a movie like Plane is so rare and such a throwback, it comes off as a refreshing breather from what we usually get fed at theaters these days. Like its title, Plane is a tight and to-the-point movie and I had a whole lot of fun watching it. (Also, as a bonus, like most movies from that era, once the plot is wrapped up, it “just ends.”)

Also, it is remarkable that one of the few actors who seems immune to the direction movies are going today is Gerard Butler. He’s never gone down the superhero route, though I’m sure he certainly could if he wanted to. But why would he? He produces his movies and has a lot of creative control over the final product. Also, producing movies that make money is a lucrative career. Why would he give up his time spent making his own movies to agree to six Marvel movies, or whatever it is these days? Gerard Butler, for the time being at least, seems to have one of the best positions in filmmaking today. If I’m him, I’d just keep making movies like Plane for as long as I possibly could.

In Jean-François Richet’s Plane, Butler plays Brodie Torrance, a commercial airline pilot stuck doing lousy routes because he once got into an altercation with an obnoxious and rowdy passenger. On an overnight flight out of Tokyo, a cost-conscious executive makes the decision to send Brodie’s flight through a storm as opposed to using extra fuel to go around it. A lightning strike knocks out the power on the plane, forcing Brodie to ditch in the ocean … if not for being saved at the last moment a small island on the horizon.

Unfortunately, this island is run by warring militias and now, having pulled off a miracle landing, the airline doesn’t know where to look for them and Brodie has to keep his crew and passengers safe from the militias. A good decision made about the plot of this movie is that it wasn’t a full flight. So there aren’t that many passengers, which allows us as a viewer to kind of get to know their personalities (a few of them aren’t thrilled with the current situation), which raises the stakes when they are in danger. But complicating this, one of the passengers (Mike Colter) is a prisoner accused of murder being transported by a federal agent. And, wouldn’t you know it, the federal agent doesn’t survive the crash. So now Brodie has to also figure out this particular situation as well. (It’s probably not too surprising to learn there’s a lot more to Colter’s character than what we are initially told.) So, yes, Brodie Torrance has quite a bit on his plate. And leading the search and rescue operation is a kind of awesome Tony Goldwyn who is playing one of those kind of characters we don’t see as often anymore who, by god, just knows how to get things done.

Plane is the kind of movie in which Gerard Butler literally flies a plane into a bad guy. (For the record, I applauded.) I think everyone involved knows what they are doing by naming this movie Plane. It’s such a, frankly, nonsense title, it’s hard to ignore, to the point it becomes a genius title. But the little trick up Plane’s sleeve is the movie actually delivers. It never gets convoluted or caught up in itself like movies with meta-sounding titles sometimes tend to do. It’s a ’90s style, R-rated action movie that just keeps moving, with very little fat, and delivers some true applause moments. (There’s one moment in particular when Butler is giving a rousing speech to his passengers about what they had to do next to survive that is a phenomenal action movie moment. It involves a plane.)

I am not naive to the point I think Plane could signal a return to fun action movies being an actual option at the local cineplex. Last year’s Ambulance had some similar attributes – a movie that I consider one of my favorites of 2022 – but never caught on at the box office. (For the record, Plane has far fewer drone shots.) But we just have to hope Gerard Butler can continue this streak and keep delivering this particular type of R-rated action movie … because he’s about the only one left who can.

‘Plane’ opens in theaters nationwide this weekend. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.