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When things start heading south for Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, he demands that his yacht sail through a monstrous storm that, shocker, sinks his boat. The scene has almost nothing to do with the plot and everything to display the lengths of desperation and unearned confidence the cheating money man has stuffed in his pockets. It turns out all the money in the world can’t stop nature from sending your luxury party barge to the bottom of the sea. It also turns out that we almost never got to see the absurdist comeuppance because unnamed powers that be were interested in cutting the thing altogether to bring down costs.

According to screenwriter Terence Winter, Martin Scorsese fought to keep it in, much to the delight of schadenfreude connoisseurs.

“Because [the script] was so long, you know, the fear was there were going be things that we were gonna have to cut — like the sequence where the boat sinks and they get rescued at sea,” Winter said. “It was on the chopping block for the longest time because it was so wild and so expensive. To his credit, Marty just kept fighting and said, ‘We have to have that. I have to have that.’”

He makes a great point! There are a multitude of bizarre and shocking things in the movie, but nothing on such an epic scale. It’s the rug that really ties the room together.

Now if we could only get that four-hour cut…

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred is almost fifty years old and timeless. It’s the quintessentially American novel, so it had to be daunting to approach the work for an adaptation. Judging from the trailer for the FX series from showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), it’s hewing close to the letters on the page.

In the series (and obviously the book), Dana (Mallori Johnson) is a young Black writer who moves into a new house and starts to have dizzy spells that send her back to a plantation in 1815 Maryland. This understandably freaks out her husband, Kevin (Micah Stock), a white man who eventually helps guide her through a truly horrifying, uncontrollable situation. Dana ultimately comes into contact with her own ancestors, jumping between a time of grotesque systemic racism and also the pre-Civil War era. The most curious thing will be how far this series can go since it’s on FX, although Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale may offer a guidepost there while still needing to find its own balance. Butler’s work is profoundly harrowing, and it might be a serious misstep not to reflect that in the show.

Even from the trailer, though, it looks like a winner. Johnson, who had a brief arc on WeCrashed is a real find. She clearly owns this role.

Fortunately, all 8 episodes of the series will land at the same time on Hulu December 13th.

Are Pete Davidson and Emily Ratajkowski dating? That’s what some sources have told reporters. Neither of them has confirmed nor denied the allegations, but if you’ve never heard of Davidson’s latest (alleged) squeeze, you might need a brief primer. So here goes.

Ratajkowski is a model and actress. Born in London to American parents and raised in San Diego, she began her career in the former. At 14, with the approval of her parents, she launched her career as a model. Around the same time, she started auditioning for acting roles. One gig she got was a two episode stretch on iCarly.

Her big break came in 2013, when, after years of modeling, she was cast in the risqué video for Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” She had already been seen in videos for Taio Cruz’s “Fast Car” and Maroon 5’s “Love Somebody,” but the attention “Blurred Lines” garnered — partly thanks to a more explicit version of the video also made available — made her into a sex symbol.

David Fincher soon snapped her up for a small but key role in Gone Girl, in which she played the student Ben Affleck’s teacher sleeps with. She went on to act with Zac Efron in the DJ drama We Are Your Friends, with Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty, with Natalie Dormer in In Darkness, and with Aaron Paul in Welcome Home. In the 2015 Entourage movie, she played a version of herself.

In 2020, Ratajkowski wrote an essay published in New York magazine in which she offered detailed allegations of sexual assault from photographer Jonathan Leder while shooting nude photos at his house.

She’s also written a book of essays, entitled My Body, in which she explores what it means to be a woman and use her body as a commodity.

Whether or not she and Davidson are dating, she has talked glowingly of him before. “Pete’s, he’s got the height. Obviously women find him very attractive,” she said on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She even hatched a theory about why men seem puzzled about all the high-profiel women he’s dated. “Guys are like, ‘Wow. What’s that guy got?’ And I’m like, I mean, he seems super charming. He’s vulnerable. He’s lovely. His fingernail polish is awesome. He looks good!”

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has somewhat quietly blossomed into one of the NBA’s elite guards over the past few years in Oklahoma City, taking yet another leap this year into full-blown superstardom.

Entering Wednesday night, Gilgeous-Alexander was averaging 31.5 points, 5.8 assists, and 4.4 rebounds per game on 53.9/37.8/93.4 shooting splits, and he only increased those averages with another sensational performance against the Wizards in a comeback win. The Thunder fell behind by as many as 17 in Washington and it seemed like the red-hot Wizards would run away with a win, but Gilgeous-Alexander had other ideas, tying his career-high with 42 points on a ridiculous 14-of-21 shooting night, including the game-winner with 1.1 seconds to play.

SGA poured in the stepback three in over the contest from Monte Morris, as he continues to cement himself as one of the league’s best shotmakers in crunch time. Gilgeous-Alexander now has 10 games with 30-plus points this season (in just 14 appearances), and maybe most impressively, he’s shot above 50 percent from the field in all of those performances.

His development into an All-Star has allowed Oklahoma City to hang around .500 this season despite not even having the services of the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, Chet Holmgren, as Gilgeous-Alexander is willing this team into just about every game this season. Of the Thunder’s eight losses this season, just two have come by double-digits, and they are proving to be a handful night in and night out despite an apparent talent deficit — one SGA is making up for in a big way by regularly being the best player on the floor, no matter the opponent.

It’s that time of the year: Holiday songs are arriving. Christian Lee Hutson, who released Quitters earlier this year, might be one of the first musicians to tackle the task. Today, he released his own rendition of “Silent Night,” except it’s, as he puts it, for loners.

“Some of my favorite songs are Christmas songs, but they’re often about Jesus being born or old men riding on donkeys to give presents to a baby king,” Hutson explained about the song. “Lyrically, they’re all pretty scary, and I imagine this baby holding humanity hostage. So, I wrote my own version of one of my favorites about spending Christmas in Ohio.”

He opens the song with emotional lines: “Silent night / Over the Rhine / Standing in the checkout line / Weather report on the radio / 65 percent chance of snow / I wanna call but I don’t / I wanna call but I don’t,” he sings, capturing the particular heartbreak and isolation that comes with the overwhelming, forced joy of the holiday season. This downtrodden version is fitting, considering in Uproxx’s 2020 interview with the singer-songwriter he summed up his music in the following four words: “Quiet, nostalgic, guilt, forgiveness.” He also named Elliott Smith as his biggest inspiration, explaining, “I learned how to play guitar by learning his songs.”

Listen to his version of “Silent Night” above.

A-listers have had Ice Spice’s name in their mouths after she broke through with her Drake-approved single “Munch (Feelin’ U)” and last month’s “Bikini Bottom.” Cardi B uploaded an unofficial “Munch” remix on Instagram. Lil Nas X dressed as Ice Spice for Halloween. NLE Choppa named a song after her, and Drake allegedly dissed her on Her Loss.

Ice Spice is about to give everyone more to talk about.

“I’m excited for this new music,” the Bronx breakout said on The RapCaviar Podcast. “I’m about to put out an EP. It’s about to be like six songs. ‘Bikini Bottom’ is on there, and then there’s some that people haven’t heard. It’s about to be a vibe. Visuals coming with it, too. Yeah, a bunch of content around it. It’s lit.”

Ice Spice appeared on the November 9 episode alongside Doechii and Rico Nasty, who wanted to hear all the “Munch” tea. Rico asked whether Ice Spice knew she had struck gold when she was recording the viral track.

“The crazy thing is, nah,” Ice said. “You know that’s how it goes, though. Like, when I recorded the song, I was in my room again, and I was just like, ‘How can I make a song real fast?’ Same thing, like you said, I didn’t wanna overthink. So it literally came out line by line. That’s why it sounds like that.” She added, “It’s not that I didn’t know it was a hit. It’s just like, I didn’t realize it would be so big. ‘Cause I feel like all the songs that I make is a hit, you know? This is like my first one that blows up. I feel like all my other songs was hits, but they didn’t blow up.”

Watch the RapCaviar clips below.

The Charlotte Hornets got off to a rather dreadful start to this season, falling to the second-worst record in the East at 4-11 entering Wednesday night against the Pacers. The only bit of good news for Charlotte was the recent return of LaMelo Ball, who missed the first 13 games of the year with a sprained left ankle he suffered in the preseason.

Ball had struggled shooting in his first two games back on the floor, but was looking to play his way back into his All-Star form of a season ago after missing nearly a month. Unfortunately, on Wednesday, the young star guard re-injured that same ankle late in a loss to Indiana on a freak incident in which he was slowing up after chasing a ball out of bounds and stepped on a fan’s foot, turning that same left ankle over again and coming away limping.

The official update from the team was a left ankle sprain, with the severity still to be determined.

It’s a brutal sight for a Hornets team that has had little in the way of positives to start this season, as they were desperately hoping Ball getting back in rhythm would bring the team back to life as well. For now, they’ll wait with baited breath to find out how bad this re-injury is, with the hope being that it’s a mild tweak that won’t cost him much time, but to lose a player in this manner that late in the game is awful to see.

Fivio Foreign is putting Brooklyn drill on his back. Just last week, he made New York City the main character of his “1 On 3” video. And who could forget his Brooklyn Nets halftime performance last month? But as involved as Fivio is in the New York conversation now, he credits Nas as wearing the all-time crown — even if 21 Savage doesn’t.

Savage raised a lot of eyebrows on Twitter Spaces earlier this week. “I don’t feel like he’s relevant,” he said. “He just has a loyal-ass fanbase, and he still makes good-ass music.” The Her Loss rapper then backtracked, tweeting, “I would never disrespect Nas or any legend who paved the way for me y’all tryna take stuff and run with it.” The tweet was complete with a facepalm emoji, and the facepalm emoji depicts how Fivio feels about the whole ordeal.

“That n***a Nas did too much to be disrespected like that. That’s big bro where I’m from,” Fivio told TMZ today (November 16). “I was just on his album. We just got a Grammy for the album I just was on.”

Nas won his first Grammy in 2021 for his 2020 album King’s Disease. Fivio and A$AP Ferg were the featured artists on “Spicy,” the album’s closer.

When asked by TMZ if there’s any validity to Nas becoming irrelevant, Fivio shut down the notion. “When you a legend, it’s like you can do what you want,” he said. “You come back when you want. You leave when you want. That’s what it is.”

Kodak Black also came out against Savage’s Nas comments. See what he had to say below.

Joyce Manor had a simple goal for their newest album, 40 Oz. To Fresno. “I wanted to make a weirder Joyce Manor record,” frontman Barry Johnson told Uproxx in June, when the LP came out. Now, they’re bringing those songs on the road alongside Pup for a co-headlining tour.

“We’ve been big fans of Joyce Manor for a long time,” Pup frontman Stefan Babcock said in a statement about the tour. “We listened to a lot of Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired when we were making our first record. It’s wild to think we’ve never played together before. Really excited to watch them rip every night.” The run kicks off in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in March and ends in Boise, Idaho.

Check out the dates below. Find ticket information here.

03/01/2023 — Baton Rouge, LA @ Chelsea’s Live
03/02/2023 — Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
03/03/2023 — Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre
03/04/2023 — Dallas, TX @ Amplified Live
03/05/2023 — Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom
03/07/2023 — Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
03/08/2023 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
03/11/2023 — San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom
03/12/2023 — San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom
03/13/2023 — Santa Cruz , CA @ The Catalyst
03/15/2023 — Seattle , WA @ The Showbox
03/16/2023 — Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
03/17/2023 — Portland , OR @ Wonder Ballroom
03/18/2023 — Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
03/19/2023 — Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall

There’s only one more Guardians of the Galaxy film en route, which means the end for the MCU’s wackiest ensemble. Will it be the last time we see any of them? Will some pop up in some other wing of the franchise? Or will everyone be recast and the whole shebang rebooted? Who knows! The future is an open road. But in a new chat with Variety (in a bit caught by The A.V. Club), it sure sounds like Zoe Saldaña is done playing Gamora, or at least done with one aspect of playing her.

“I can never say no to anything, but that green makeup? I wouldn’t be upset if it didn’t happen again,” Saldaña said. “I miss Gamora but I don’t miss 3:30 a.m. calls and five-hour makeup sessions and trips to the dermatologist afterwards.”

Speaking of make-up, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 recently broke a specific record, namely for “the most makeup appliances created for a single production.” They surpassed 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey! Mazel tov!

Anyway, it’s also worth noting/reminding people that when Saldaña appears in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, she’s no longer playing the same Gamora she once did. And for that we can all thank time travel tomfoolery.

(Via Variety and The AV Club)