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The Disney+ MCU shows continue to pile up, and it’s hard to keep up with the sheer quantity. Still, those first few projects entertained with pleasant twists, including one genuinely surprising cameo from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. That would be the moment when Julia Louis-Dreyfus arrives as Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (you can call her “Val”), and the Veep and Seinfeld star has spoken at length at how much fun it was to be smuggled onto set in one of the MCU’s better kept secrets.

Val was meant to debut in Black Widow‘s post-credit scene, in which she also talked to unenthused recruit Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) while she visited Natasha Romanoff’s grave (signaling Scarlett Johansson’s formal MCU exit). As it turns out, Val’s assembled group of ex-villain-types will take flight in the Thunderbolts movie, where they’ll presumably take on government-sponsored missions. In a wide-ranging Variety piece about her move into movies, Louis-Dreyfus says that she lobbied hard to “fight” in Thunderbolts, but now she realizes that getting jacked must happen. Oh boy:

In another unexpected move, Louis-Dreyfus has lobbied to kick some ass. “I pitched it; I told them I really want to fight. I haven’t seen the script yet — we’ll see if that happens,” she says. But she changes her tune when she thinks about the possible physical demands of a Marvel role: “”Ugh. I guess I’d better get in shape.”

Valentina previously swathed herself in all-black overcoats, so “jacked” wasn’t part of the equation, but fighting is a whole other ballgame. If you see how Louis-Dreyfus is clutching those Emmys in the photo at the top ^^ of this post, however, it’s obvious that she’s no stranger to being able to kick some butt. Hopefully, we’ll find out more when Thunderbolts starts filming this summer.

(Via Variety)

DJ Jazzy Jeff opened up about his experience with COVID during a new interview with AllHipHop. For those who might not remember, he was one of the first public figures to contract the disease at the start of the pandemic. It also hit him harder than fans might have known.

“I was one of the first people to get sick, and I almost didn’t make it,” Jeff said. “I got sick the day the world shut down. That was the day it hit me. I actually did a ski resort in Ketchum, Idaho, which was the nation’s first hot spot. I came home and realized the world wasn’t right.”

“We kind of looked at each other like, ‘OK, the store is going to be crazy tomorrow,’” he continued, telling a story about his wife. “The next words that came out of my mouth was, ‘Babe, I don’t feel good.’ And she was like, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘I’m just a little achy.’ She said, ‘OK, we have everything we need. Let’s go home and you can take a hot shower.’”

Jazzy Jeff also noted that, despite going to the doctor, it was written off as double pneumonia.

“Long story short, because I was in the first wave of people to get sick, I knew how serious this was very, very early,” he also shared. “I was like, ‘I know the world is not going to be in a place like we know it for at least two years.’ I knew that in April 2020 just because of how sick I was.”

Given his early experience with Covid, he appeared in a “town hall” type discussion with Dr. Fauci and LL Cool J to speak to the importance of vaccines in 2021.

After Disney+ dropped the new trailer for The Mandalorian Season 3, fans of the hit Star Wars series were left scratching their heads thanks to an awkward creative choice. If you’ve only been watching The Mandalorian, Season 2 ended with a tearjerker moment as Mando (Pedro Pascal) handed Baby Yoda/Grogu over to Luke Skywalker (an unholy CGI creation), so the little guy can begin his Jedi training. However, in the Season 3 trailer, you can see Mando and Grogu are clearly back together, which has caused a whole lot of anger and confusion as people learned that their reunion happened in The Book of Boba Fett.

Is it necessary to watch The Book of Boba Fett to understand The Mandalorian Season 3? Yes. To put it bluntly, Episodes 5 and 6 of The Book of Boba Fett might as well be the Season 3 premiere of The Mandalorian. Very critical plot points are set up in addition to laying the groundwork for Mando and Grogu’s reunion, which goes down in The Book of Boba Fett‘s seventh and final episode.

If you’re not interested in the Boba Fett spinoff, the good news is that you can jump right into Episode 5 and be completely fine. Mando literally takes over the whole show. Episode 6 is equally as The Mandalorian-centric and continues the story from the previous episode, so you’ll also be fine there. As for the finale, all you need to know is that Boba Fett needed Mando’s help to fight some dudes, and it’s frankly no more complex than that. Granted, the finale is focused on that showdown, but it does contain the pivotal moment when Grogu and Mando finally reunite amidst the chaotic action. From there, you’re all caught up and ready to roll into Season 3.

The Mandalorian Season 3 premieres March 1 on Disney+.

Taylor Swift is arguably the most successful active pop star of this generation and shows no signs of slowing down.

Throughout 2022, the singer made history on several musical fronts. Despite the Ticketmaster debacle surrounding her upcoming The Eras tour, the shows have reportedly already brought in half a billion dollars. The songwriter also was dubbed the ‘Queen Of Vinyl’ after selling 1.695 million vinyl records across her entire catalog, including Midnights (at No. 1 with 945,000 sales); Folklore (No. 7, 174,000); Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 11, 153,000); Evermore (No. 14, 134,000); Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (No. 30, 97,000); and Lover (No. 36, 91,000).

Fast-forward to today, her last album, Midnights, released in October, has set yet another record for the musician. In addition, the breakout single from her tenth studio album, “Anti-Hero,” just set a new personal Billboard chart record for Swift.

For the eighth week, on the new Hot 100 chart dated January 21, the track has held onto the No. 1 spot, beating out SZA’s “Kill Bill” to become Swift’s longest-leading No. 1 hit. According to Billboard, “Anti-Hero” has dethroned Swift’s 2014 song “Blank Space” for that honor.

While Swift is no stranger to the charts, the success of “Anti-Hero” may very well set a few more records for the entertainer as it continues to grow in popularity thanks to social media platforms like the video app Tik-Tok.

Iggy Azalea is used to causing controversy but she really made waves on Friday (January 14) when she announced the launch of her official OnlyFans account to coincide with a new project, Hotter Than Hell.

The announcement was met with both skepticism and excitement after she had previously vowed never to join the platform, which is still mainly known for explicit media even though many creators have foregone such content. As with stars like Cardi B and Bhad Bhabie before her, what it seemed some fans wanted to know most, though, was how lucrative the pivot was for Iggy.

Thanks to gossip accounts like DJ Akademiks and SayCheeseTV, those fans believed they had their answer: $307,000. However, as is so often the case with those accounts, it doesn’t seem like they did much research into those figures (again, sources matter, folks. I’ll stop saying it when y’all start listening).

Iggy herself shot down the reports on her Twitter, writing, “Lol, Y’all just be saying sh*t to say sh*t at this point cause that number was pulled outta thin air.”

The Australian rapper certainly isn’t hurting for money in any case. In November, it was reported that she’d sold part of her publishing rights for an eight-figure sum.

If a movie makes twice its budget, it’s a success. If a movie makes 60 times its budget, it’s a sensation. Skinamarink is a sensation.

Kyle Edward Ball’s directorial debut was the talk of every film festival it played, and last week, the “early contender for the scariest horror movie of 2023” was released in theaters. It made $890,000 during the long weekend, which doesn’t sound like much compared to, say, Avatar: The Way of Water approaching $2 billion. Until you remember that Skinamarink only cost $15,000 to make — if Avatar 2 made 60 times its reported $250 million budget, well, let’s just say (because I don’t want to math) that James Cameron would have a blank check to make as many as Avatar movies as he wants.

Oh wait. He already does. Here’s more on Skinamarink:

Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. To cope with the strange situation, the two bring pillows & blankets to the living room and settle into a quiet slumber party. They play well worn videotapes of cartoons to fill the silence of the house and distract from the frightening and inexplicable situation. All the while in the hopes that eventually some grown-ups will come to rescue them. However, after a while it becomes clear that something is watching over them.

If you missed Skinamarink in theaters, it’s reportedly coming to Shudder next month.

Jesse Eisenberg has been on a roll after his celebrated performance in Fleishman Is In Trouble, and now his directorial debut (which he also wrote) is heading into theaters accompanied by that spiffy A24 logo.

When You Finish Saving The World stars Stranger Things‘ Finn Wolfhard as Ziggy, a misunderstood teen who just wants to share his classic folk-rock music with the world, much to the dismay of his tightly-wound mother, portrayed by Julianne Moore. As per the official description:

Evelyn and her oblivious son Ziggy seek out replacements for each other as Evelyn desperately tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, while Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.

Eisenberg’s project first debuted as an Audible Original drama with Eisenberg lending his voice. And even though he doesn’t star in the movie, his signature wit is definitely present.

In a recent interview with Collider, Eisenberg explained how he reworked the story as a feature-length film. “After I finished the Audible book, I decided to write a story from [the mother’s] perspective,” Eisenberg explained. “I also had written his perspective, and I thought it’d be such an interesting clash of cultures, of ideologies, of generations. He plays a guy who’s very popular online, playing his music to thousands of adoring fans, and his mother is a social justice activist who runs a shelter, and they have to live in the same house with each other. And there’s a clash of ideologies, cultures, generations, and values.” This movie may or may not be Lady Bird but for teenage boys, which is a good thing!

In addition to Eisenberg, the movie is produced by Emma Stone and Dave McCary and stars Alisha Boe, Jay O. Sanders, and Eleonore Hendricks. When You Finish Saving The World hits theaters this Friday, January 20th. Check out the trailer above.

Joe Biden celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day paying tribute to Dr. King by attending the National Action Network’s annual MLK breakfast on Monday. Which just so happened to be the birthday of Arndrea Waters King, wife of Martin Luther King III and daughter-in-law of the late civil rights icon. So, as Jimmy Kimmel shared on Monday night, the president was kind enough to shine some of the spotlight Arndrea’s way by leading the crowd in a rousing “Happy Birthday” serenade… which took an unfortunate turn.

While delivering the keynote speech during Monday’s breakfast, Kimmel noted that the president’s “eggs got a little scrambled and the ol’ Amtrak went a little off the rails.”

While at the podium, Biden shared that his wife Jill has “a rule” in their family: that when it’s someone’s birthday, you sing “Happy Birthday” to them. Which seems more like just a normal thing you do versus a “rule,” but we’ll let Joe call it whatever he wants.

Though the singing itself was horrendous, that wasn’t even the embarrassing part: it was when Biden got to the line in the song where you insert the name of the person whose birthday it is, i.e. “Happy Birthday dear Arndrea.” Except it was at this moment that Biden either forgot who he was singing to or realized he didn’t know her name in the first place. So “Arndrea” came out as something that sounded more like “Valley?” (even the closed-captioning agreed):

“Vel-meh was really actually very touched by the… whatever your name was,” Kimmel said. “Joe Biden is the Finding Dory of presidents.”

You can watch the full Kimmel clip above, beginning right around the 2:00 mark. Or get straight to the mortifying birthday snafu, which C-SPAN caught, below.

Rising country star Zach Bryan has achieved his first Top 10 hit, as his song, “Something In The Orange,” rose on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In addition, Bryan’s song is one of only fifteen to hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart and also make it into the Top 10 on the Hot 100. Other songs that have reached this feat include Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” and their collab with Bebe Rexha, “Meant To Be,” Sam Hunt’s “Body Like A Back Road,” Gabby Barrett’s “I Hope” remix with Charlie Puth, Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like,” and more.

Bryan first wrote “Something In The Orange” after watching the sunset from a cabin in Wisconsin, according to Genius. The single appears on his 34-track long album, American Heartbreak, which arrived last spring. (The album also reached the Top 5 on Billboard‘s 200 Albums chart.)

“I was like, don’t put your guitar down, keep going, something’s going to happen,” he told the New York Times last fall. “Not because I felt driven. Not because I wanted to be famous. Not because I wanted to be rich. I literally just would sit there and think about my mom and be like, Something is telling me not to stop doing this.”

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

Brett Maher had the game from hell on Monday night, as the Dallas Cowboys kicker missed four consecutive extra points, etching his name in the history books as the first NFL player to miss that many in a game since at least 1932.

Early on, the misses felt like foreshadowing for disaster to come, causing meltdowns from Dallas fans and Peyton Manning, but the good news for Maher is his dreadful night didn’t have an impact on the outcome of the game, as the Cowboys ran away with a 31-14 win over the Bucs — although, those four points proved very important to some, as the game’s over/under total was set at 45.5. That overall team success may have also saved Maher his job, as after the game a jubilant Jerry Jones told reporters the team wouldn’t be looking for a replacement for Maher before the Divisional Round showdown with the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

Patience isn’t always a trait associated with Jerry Jones (his loyalty to head coaches being the exception, here), but in this case he seems to recognize that the grass isn’t always greener and this game was clearly an outlier for Maher, who had missed three extra points all season on 53 attempts. One of those was his last kick of the regular season, though, so Cowboys fans will hope his lone make on his fifth extra point try in Tampa will break him free of his kicking yips and get him back on track.

Against a much better Niners team, the Cowboys are very likely going to need Maher to make some kicks, so giving him a public vote of confidence isn’t a bad idea — that is, unless he can’t shake Monday’s effort off.