When you think of the curly-haired accordion professional Weird Al Yankovic, you probably don’t automatically think of that scrawny little glasses-wearing wizard that the world has come to know and love, or the actor who played him. Yes, Daniel Radcliffe is very famous and a very good actor (just watch the underrated magician classic How You See Me 2) but he also has what Weird Al was looking for when casting his biopic: the nerd factor.
In a new interview with the AV Club, Yankovic explained why he absolutely needed Radcliffe on board for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and it was all because of a performance he did on The Graham Norton Show over a decade ago. Radcliffe was a guest star alongside Rihanna, and Yankovic knew he had “it” (whatever “it” is).
I did see Daniel on TV in 2010 on The Graham Norton Show, where he performed “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer, which is an extremely nerdy thing to do. The fact that he memorized that and then performed it on national TV in front of Rihanna? That’s alpha-nerd stuff. I thought at that moment, “Oh, we’re kindred spirits. This guy … we’ll be friends.” I had that in the back of my mind for years. When we started casting the movie, and Daniel’s name appeared on the shortlist of actors we were considering, I thought, ‘Daniel’s got to be the guy.’ He’s got the right spirit. He got the right energy. He definitely has the acting chops. I can’t imagine anybody that would be more suited to this role than him.
Radcliffe has since said that the ordeal was “mortifying” but he ended up catching the eye of Yankovic, so it all worked out in the end! Being a nerdy guy helped Radcliffe get the role, but Yankovic said it was his delicate balance between comedic timing and dramatic monologues that made him a perfect fit. “He pulls off the comedic and dramatic moments amazingly well, which is not an easy thing. We’re going for a very specific tone. It’s obviously a comedy, but we’re not playing it like a comedy,” Yankovic explained.
Even though they know it’s not going to win any Academy Awards (even though it should!), the movie has some moments that tug at your heartstrings, sandwiched in between fun moments like when Al discovered “My Sharona” would rhyme perfectly with “bologna.” Yankovic added, “We’re playing it like an extremely serious Oscar-baiting Hollywood biopic, so the comedic and dramatic moments had to land. There are some moments where some people weep, in the screenings. It hits both ends of the spectrum. We needed somebody like Daniel, who’d be able to play both sides.”
Not only can Radcliffe play both sides, but he can also play a dead guy. What can’t this man do?
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is now streaming on Roku.
It’s hot chocolate season! Temperatures are dropping nationwide so it’s time to ditch that iced coffee for some warm, rich, and delicious hot chocolate. Or you know, regular coffee, but for the purposes of this article, let’s just say hot chocolate! With all the stress that comes along with the holidays, hot chocolate may be the only good thing about the slow crawl until the end of the year, it’s delicious, comforting, indulgent, and unlike coffee, delicious to drink at any time of the day.
Woke up feeling cold? Sip a cup of hot chocolate and feel that chill melt away. Looking for a late night snack? Drink some hot chocolate, it’ll taste objectively better than coffee and won’t keep you up late. Sure, you could make your own hot chocolate but who wants to do that when you can have someone make it for you?
That’s why we ordered all the fast food/drive-thru hot chocolate we could find in search of the very best. Shockingly, there aren’t nearly as many places offering hot chocolate as we had hoped, but what is out there is… mostly pretty damn good.
Here is where to find the best hot chocolate, from worst to most delicious.
7. McDonald’s — McCafe Hot Chocolate
Dane Rivera
Tasting Notes:
This is without a doubt the worst hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It tastes more like boiled water than anything else, which is really strange considering McDonald’s hot chocolate recipe doesn’t contain water. Just whole milk, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a chocolate drizzle. Those are all the makings of a good hot chocolate, and yet it’s incredibly hard to taste any chocolate whatsoever in this.
That boiled water taste is followed by a milky aftertaste and if you really strain I suppose you can taste some chocolate but not nearly enough to actually call this “hot chocolate.” The flavorless quality of this hot chocolate is especially bizarre considering all of the other McCafe drinks are dangerously sweet. This is a major swing and a miss.
The Bottom Line:
It’s hard to imagine someone messing up hot chocolate but McDonald’s managed to do it! We’re not sure this is legally allowed to be called hot chocolate.
It tastes just like homemade hot chocolate! Which is to say it tastes just like Swiss Miss. Topped with a small dollop of whipped cream, Dunkin is doing the bare minimum to make a palatable hot chocolate and while that sounds like a bad thing, it works. While this isn’t mind-blowingly good or anything you can’t top at home with some marshmallows and thick whipped cream, it still gets the job done.
We expect more out of a hot chocolate above $2, but it’s hard to complain about the way this tastes. It’s good, not great.
The Bottom Line:
It’s a satisfying cup but not one worthy of a trip to Dunkin’.
Even with three pumps of Starbucks’ mocha sauce, this hot chocolate still fails to deliver on the chocolate. The flavors just aren’t well mixed, I’m not sure if it’s because they use sauce instead of a powder, but the chocolate never felt fully incorporated into the drink.
I chalked that up to the possibility of a bad barista but even after a few self-stirs, it kept tasting this one in waves: hot milk, a tinge of chocolate, a creamy finish.
Once again, it’s not bad by any means, but it definitely leaves something to be desired.
The Bottom Line:
A slight step up from Dunkin’, but this is Starbucks we’re talking about, it should be a giant leap.
In-N-Out has a long tradition of giving away free hot chocolate to children but a few years back they actually went ahead and officially added Hot Cocoa to the menu. This is a little frustrating considering In-N-Out hardly ever adds anything new to the menu (we’re still waiting for bacon, c’mon In-N-Out, it would be a game changer) but hey, it’s a little hard to get mad at hot chocolate.
In-N-Out’s hot chocolate is poured from a Hot Cocoa machine which is a bit disappointing considering made-to-order hot chocolate is always better. The mix includes Ghirardelli chocolate and hot water with a layer of freeze-dried marshmallows that melt into a nice top layer of cream.
Flavorwise it’s just a slight step up from your usual Swiss Miss-style hot chocolate. The Ghiradelli is a bit richer than what you’ll find at Dunkin’ but the use of hot water instead of milk takes away the creamy and luxurious mouthfeel we’re looking for. It’s not nearly as good as In-N-Out’s chocolate milkshake and that’s a real shame because… we sorta expect it to be.
The Bottom Line:
It’s a fine hot chocolate, but from In-N-Out, we expect a little more.
The name ‘Truffle Hot Chocolate,’ conjures up images of luscious, decadent, and complex coffee flavors and this isn’t quite that, but it is damn delicious.
The chocolate is noticeably richer here than all the cups proceeding it in this ranking, you can hardly taste any milk as a rush of decadent chocolate bathes your tastebuds, introducing subtle earthy notes like coffee bean, almond, and oak. The milk serves as a strong creamy and sweet base for the cocoa notes to play off of.
The Bottom Line:
Not as savory and complex as its name would suggest, but clearly in another league than everything ranked before it. This hot chocolate does not disappoint.
This is so close to being perfect. The chocolate flavor is very well distributed here, each sip starts with a rush of earthy, almost woodsy, cocoa notes with a very mellow and smooth aftertaste. It doesn’t have any bitterness or spice to it, which lends itself well to a hot chocolate, but for some reason, Coffee Bean tops this hot chocolate with non-fat milk.
Why non-fat milk? It totally ruins the finish, giving it this weird sort of thin quality when it should be luxurious. Yes, you can sub the non-fat for whole milk and have a way better experience, but Coffee Bean doesn’t do that without being asked, and ultimately that’s why it’s getting the number two spot. That non-fat is really killing a beautiful thing.
The Bottom Line:
So close to perfect. Pro tip: ask for whole milk instead of non-fat and you’ll get an experience that matches the quality of their delicious chocolate powder.
Panera makes its hot chocolate with chocolate syrup yet somehow this cup tastes wonderfully chalky. The chocolate flavor here is really well balanced, I’m getting a lot of natural earthy notes with cinnamon, clove, and coffee bean lingering in there with this slightest hint of vanilla at the finish. It tastes almost exactly like melted-down semi-sweet chocolate chips. It’s sweet but with the best balance of natural cocoa flavors.
I’m not sure what sort of milk Panera uses but it didn’t result in that same thin unsatisfying finish that Coffee Bean gave me. On top of the whipped cream Panera adds a swirl of caramel which introduces some nutty buttery qualities to the final product once it melts into your drink.
Maybe the inclusion of caramel is disqualifying but who cares, ultimately it makes for a better cup of hot chocolate whether you like caramel or not. It adds that extra layer of complexity that truly feels worth the money and the trip out of your own kitchen.
The Bottom Line:
The best tasting, most complex hot chocolate you’re going to find from a drive-thru establishment.
Paulo Londra teamed up with Colombian singer Feid in his new music video for “A Veces.” In the video that was released today (November 4), the rising Argentine star hits it off with Feid in the recording studio.
Londra has spent the past year re-establishing himself as one of Argentina’s top artists. After a few years being caught up in a contractual dispute, he signed a new partnership with Warner Music Latina in March. Since then, Londra has been off to the races with his single releases. His comeback hit “Plan A” amassed over 193 million streams on Spotify. He later enlisted Ed Sheeran to feature on his song “Noche De Novela” and released a collaboration with Bizarrap.
For his new single “A Veces,” Londra joins forces with Feid. Backed by reggaeton beats with an electronic touch, Londra and Feid trade verses about having no time for part-time lovers. It’s all or nothing for them in their kiss-off anthem. In the video, Londra and Feid are having a fun time playing around in a Miami studio. There’s a candid moment where Londra dons Feid’s signature Oakley sunglasses with his nickname “Ferxxo” written across the lenses.
Feid is performing in venues across the US on his US Trip Tour. Last week, he featured on Colombian folk band Morat’s latest song “Salir Con Vida.”
Some artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
With tour life officially behind them until 2023, alternative royalty Gorillaz is back with a new track. Their latest single, “Baby Queen,” is a deep cut callback for die-hard fans. Flooded with trippy instrumentation and placid storytelling, the collective’s co-creator, Damon Albarn revisits his 1997 encounter with a real life princess.
The princess in question, Sirivannavari of Thailand, has been a muse for the musician for well over a decade now. Albarn explained his fascination (via the LA Times) with the princess, stating, “The reason I’ve written a song about it is because I had a dream about this princess very recently; she’d grown up and we spent time in my dream together, her as a woman.”
With lyrics like, “under Garuda’s mirror lights / she takes flight / yeah, the kid’s alright,” and, “she fell into the generals (oh, baby queen) / on the watch all around her / I fell into the vanity / the mirrored lights of our dreams,” the song taps into the mystical allure surrounding royal figures.
Although, Gorillaz’s forthcoming album, Cracker Island, isn’t set to be released until February 24, fans have already been treated to two singles. The project’s title track featuring Thundercat, as well as “New Gold” featuring Tame Impala and Bootie Brown, does a stellar job laying the groundwork for what’s to come from the full project.
Listen to the full track above.
Gorillaz is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Donald Trump may have finally gone full Logan Roy. While stumping for Iowa governor Kim Reynolds and longtime senator/future star of Weekend at Bernie’s III Chuck Grassley in Sioux City on Thursday night, the topic turned to estate taxes, a conversation that is clearly near and dear to the former president’s heart.
While bragging about winning the state of Iowa twice, Trump performed some more vigorous self-back-patting about how he “virtually eliminated the unfair estate tax, or death tax, on farms and farmers. So that now when you pass away… if you like your child — who I always say, if you don’t like, leave it to charity.”
But Trump, sounding like he really wanted to get something off his chest, wasn’t done yet. “Some of us have horrible children,” he stated emphatically, though without naming names. “Do you have any horrible children?,” he asked the crowd — then asked again, pointing to the people sitting in the front row ahead of him. “Does anybody have a child where you really are not going to leave your farm? If you don’t like them… then what I did for you doesn’t mean anything.”
Still, while Trump definitely wanted to remind the farmers in the audience of what he had done for them, he also wanted them to know that it was totally ok to not like your kid. Which, jeez, it’s hard to imagine why that strongly unpaternal thought would ever enter his mind — especially as he, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric are getting ready to face a massive lawsuit together. What’s that old saying about the family that frauds together?
With Quentin Tarantino‘s new book, Cinema Speculation, now available on shelves, the writer/director is making the interview rounds, which is always a blast thanks to Tarantino being an extremely eccentric and opinionated guy. He has something to say about everything.
In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tarantino let loose on Marvel (and to a lesser extent, DC Comics) having a “chokehold” on the industry. According to Tarantino, filmmakers”can’t wait for the day” that superhero boom fades just like musical adaptations fell out of favor in the 1960s.
“The analogy works because it’s a similar chokehold,” Tarantino says.
But when can we expect the tide to turn? “The writing’s not quite on the wall yet,” he says, “the way it was in 1969 when it was, ‘Oh, my God, we just put a bunch of money into things that nobody gives a damn about anymore.’”
Needless to say, don’t expect to see Tarantino’s name on a superhero film. “You have to be a hired hand to do those things,” Tarantino told The L.A. Times. “I’m not a hired hand. I’m not looking for a job.”
Before Tarantino gets lumped in with Martin Scorsese, or more recently James Cameron, he’s not entirely opposed to the genre. He recently compared Joker to “great sex” or a “threesome.” He also tried to get a Luke Cage movie starring Lawrence Fishburne off the ground in the ’90s. However, that was before Marvel movies became MARVEL MOVIES.
Tarantino’s issue is not so much the genre, but the business aspect that churns out at least three MCU movies every year with a similar DC Comics blockbuster sometimes sprinkled in. He can do without that.
Selena Gomez just released My Mind & Me, a new documentary in which she really pulls the curtain back and gets vulnerable. In the film, she addresses her famous Justin Bieber relationship and explained why the break-up was ultimately a good thing for her.
Gomez said (as ET notes), “Everything was so public. I felt haunted by a past relationship that no one wanted to let go of. Then I just moved past it, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. […] I feel like I had to go through the worst possible heartbreak ever and then just forgetting everything at the drop of the hand, it was really confusing. But I just think that needed to happen and ultimately it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She also noted of writing “Lose You To Love Me,” “I text Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter and said, ‘I think I’m ready to just say I’m sad.’ We wrote the song in 45 minutes. The fastest song I’ve ever written. It’s about more than a lost love. It’s me learning to choose myself, to choose life, but also hoping that people can find grace and peace in that too. The song is about knowing that you completely lost every part of who you are just to rediscover yourself again.”
In the past two years, the overall vibe at live shows has felt somewhat… muted. Sure, everyone’s excited to just be out of the house but there’s just this sense that nobody wants to “do too much.” This is especially evident at events in Hollywood, where “looking cool” is considered to be just as important as having fun. This is a combination that has usually lead to concerts since the pandemic being pleasant but mostly chill experiences. On Thursday night at RED Studios in Hollywood for Megan Thee Stallion‘s performance for Amazon Live, this wasn’t the case.
The crowd got active, with one attendee going so hard, I started to get worried less that he’d land on my brand-new Nike Air Max 95s while jumping up and down than that he’d actually hurt himself from doing so as hard as he could. I didn’t even see energy like this before the pandemic and I go to a lot of concerts for work. He wasn’t the only one, either. I watched fans doing actual floor work as Meg ran through songs like “Her,” “Plan B,” and “Pressurelicious” from her new album Traumazine, as well as fan-favorite throwbacks from her catalog like “Body,” “Simon Says,” and of course, “Big Ole Freak.”
Maybe Megan Thee Stallion fans are just different. The sample size at Thursday’s intimate show was too small to make any reasonable judgment, but it wouldn’t be too big a leap to make the assumption. Fans are often a reflection of the artists they follow — sometimes literally (there were more tall girls per capita at RED Studios on Thursday than I’ve seen at any other venue this year). Meg is an exuberant, cheerful, and delightfully unself-conscious person and that echoed out into the crowd and the reactions to her music. Watching kids utterly losing it to her songs makes sense because that’s what she encourages — just having fun.
Even onstage, Meg appeared to be having more fun herself than I’ve seen her have in a long time. She’s a big-venue artist who seems most comfortable in small ones; give her a 2,500-cap room and she lights up, scanning the crowd for her “friends” from past events and complimenting even girls at the back of the crowd for having nice hair. Teasing the VIPs in the balcony, she implored them to join in on her interplay with the crowd, encouraging everyone to point their middle fingers skyward and curse out “ugly men” writing the legislation governing women’s bodies.
The quirks that would normally distract from the performance felt less like bugs than features here; Meg loves to let certain bars trail off while she engages in a quick display of knee strength or posterior flexibility — okay, fine, the woman loves to twerk. Her fans love to watch her do so, though, and in a smaller room where the supporting vocal track can pick up the slack, it’s fine. It’s also kind of hilarious to watch so many women’s jaws drop in awe of one of their own while the guys — of all orientations — either try to keep up or pretend like they aren’t staring equally as agog as their dates.
There’s been some chatter online recently about Meg’s music not resonating with fans. Chart-hawking stan accounts and disappointed day-one Hotties have argued that big shifts in the Houston rapper’s sound have cost her relevance. But being in that room puts the lie to such assertions. Meg means a lot to those who do listen and given the diversity she brings together — especially on a Thursday night in Hollywood — her ability to draw such a response is a surefire indicator that she’s still at the top of her game.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
On Brian Koppelman’s podcast The Moment, Randall Poster was discussing Jason Isbell’s role in the movie (as The Playlist notes). “Yeah, he’s terrific in it,” he said. “Jason Isbell, Jack White, uh, oh, my god, who’s [that] famous blues harpist, older cat, it’s not Toots Thielemans — anyhow, there’s like four musicians in the movie that don’t play music.” Sturgill Simpson has been confirmed as well.
It was also recently revealed that the DC Comics character The Joker’s real name is Jack White. “An interesting note,” the White Stripes leader wrote on Instagram, “during the process of putting together the artwork for my album Fear Of The Dawn last year, I asked artist Rob Jones to communicate with the amazing DC comic artist Mikel Janin to see if he would be interested in a commission: illustrating me in the range of the style that he draws his version of The Joker for DC comics.”
Elon Musk walked into Twitter headquarters in San Francisco last week carrying a kitchen sink, allowing him to tweet a pun about his $44 billion takeover of the social media company. On Friday, however, the realities of thousands of layoffs and a slew of advertisers fleeing the platform seems to finally be sinking in for the self-appointed Twitter CEO.
Musk’s Twitter is having a bad week, to say the least. Reports indicate that about half the workforce is expected to be fired on Friday, and a lack of internal communication in the company has put those that remain on edge. Musk has toyed with new revenue streams to keep the company afloat, especially after leveraging $13 billion in debt onto the company as part of his purchase. Which is probably why this tweet on Friday complaining that advertisers are fleeing the platform is bad news all around.
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk wrote Friday. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
It’s a very Trump-like thing to Tweet, as many people pointed out. And amid all the bluster of his takeover and the human cost of massive layoffs, it’s hard to parse any of this as good news for the future of the company. Blaming activists or not, Musk isn’t hiding the fact that advertisers aren’t buying his message that a platform littered with unmoderated free speech is a good place to put ads for less inherently racist things like soda and laundry detergent.
Musk on loss of advertisers:
“We’ve done our absolute best to appease them. And nothing has worked.”
That said, what’s left of Twitter’s content moderation team seems to have a sense of humor about the whole ordeal. Shortly after Musk’s tweet was sent out, suggested context was added to it by users in an attempt to limit disinformation on the social media platform.
More worryingly, perhaps, are reports that a half-strength Twitter may not be ready for election day in the United States next week. And with an unproven new verification system set to launch a day before people go to the polls, things really could get much worse from here.
Here’s what’s going on at Twitter right now: It’s a nightmare.
Employees are sounding the alarm about how it could make getting reliable information on this site during Tuesday’s elections impossible.pic.twitter.com/OChS8ZYK8k
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