Tom Hardy will soon be back as Eddie Brock/Venom, so hopefully soon, Venom will smash the box office so hard that Morbius and Madame Webb will be seen as mere blips in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. With the third Venom movie, we will also meet a new villain.
In the latest trailer for Venom: The Last Dance, we get a solid look at Venom and Eddie‘s latest dilemma: an attack orchestrated by Knull, a villain in the Marvel universe who used his abilities to create symbiotes by experimenting with his powers and cosmic substances. He’s now heading to Earth and setting his sights on Eddie and Venom, but the actor who will play him is under wraps for now.
After a brief appearance in the newest trailer (shown above), fans began to speculate who would be portraying Knull. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Rhys Ifans joined the cast in an undisclosed role, and he briefly appears as a guitar-slinging hippie in the trailer. Fans might remember him as Dr. Curt Conners/The Lizard from 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. Thanks to the Multiverse, it’s unclear if Ifans will be playing a new iteration of that character, or a whole different character entirely which, in this case, could be Knull… or just a guy playing a guitar.
An internet rumor has falsely concluded that Norman Reedus would be in the Knull role, but there has been nothing to suggest that is true. Besides, he’s busy right now. So who is playing Knull? We don’t know just yet. It could be a fun cameo from a fan-favorite actor, or it could just be someone unknown who has big shoes to fill. Whatever the case, he seems pretty mad for some reason!
Venom: The Last Dance hits theaters on October 25th.
AJ Griffin, the former blue-chip high school prospect who spent the first two seasons of his NBA career suiting up for the Atlanta Hawks, is reportedly considering calling it a career. According to Shams Charania and Kelly Iko of The Athletic, both Griffin and his current team, the Houston Rockets, are planning for him to announce that he is leaving basketball altogether.
It is unclear why Griffin, who turned 21 at the end of August, would choose to step away from the game. He’s coming off of a difficult year for the Hawks, as he only appeared in 20 games due in part to lingering leg issues. He also missed the start of the year for personal reasons, and told the press when he returned to the team in December, “I would say that I am glad to be back. The team has been great to be able to support me through that time stepping away for a little, just for personal reasons. I definitely want to keep it brief and not put it all out there.”
The No. 16 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft out of Duke, Griffin showed some promise during his first year with the Hawks, as he appeared in 72 games and averaged 8.9 points per game on 39 percent shooting from three. Atlanta sent him to Houston for the 44th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft earlier this offseason.
Britney Spears didn’t physically appear at the 2024 MTV VMAs but she was there in spirit. Host Megan Thee Stallion recreated the outfit that the pop legend wore for her 2001 VMAs performance of “I’m A Slave 4 U,” while Sabrina Carpenter played a snippet of audio from “Oops!… I Did It Again” during her “Please Please Please” / “Taste” / “Espresso” medley. She also kissed an alien, but Spears wants to know why she didn’t make out with a girl.
Spears didn’t watch the entirety of the VMAs (to be fair, the ceremony was over three hours long), but according to People, “she did catch Carpenter’s performance on YouTube.” She shared her thoughts in an Instagram video.
“Why is she kissing an alien onstage? I adore her. I love her to death. I didn’t understand that part. Why didn’t she kiss a girl?” Spears said, a likely reference to her famous 2003 VMAs kiss with Madonna. “That was weird. But I also thought that the whole thing was kind of weird altogether.” It could have been a girl alien. Who knows!
In a recent video interview with W magazine, Carpenter was asked to name people she had a crush on when she was younger. “It’s funny, all the posters on my wall were women,” she said. “All my girl crushes were Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande.” She didn’t specify if Britney Spears made the cut, but it would be very relatable if a crush called something she did “weird.”
FOX made the splashiest NFL broadcasting hire in years when they inked Tom Brady to a reported 10-year, $375 million deal to be their new lead NFL game analyst. Brady took the 2023 season off to prepare, but with very few reps in the booth, there was nothing that could get him fully settled into his new role until he had to call a real regular season game.
That happened for the first time on Sunday when the Cowboys beat the Browns in Cleveland, and the results were mixed. There were moments where Brady’s football knowledge shined, but he also seemed to struggle finding his rhythm to get his thoughts out in the flow of the game. He also had an awkward moment with Mike Pereira that only added to the feeling he was uncomfortable and out of place, and plenty of fans wondered if FOX had made a mistake given how good Greg Olsen was in that lead booth.
That’s not something we can know of one game, and Brady should get more comfortable in his new role as he gets more reps. That’s what his longtime Patriots teammate (and current FOX colleague) Rob Gronkowski expects, as he joined Kay Adams and offered a fair assessment of Brady’s first broadcast.
Gronk compared Brady in the booth to a No. 1 pick at quarterback in his first game, where there were clearly some jitters and things to fix but he ultimately delivered. It’s a good comparison, as Brady seemed a little antsy early on, trying to get all his thoughts out as quickly as possible, but settles in some later in the game — it helped that the pace slowed once Dallas was up big and both teams were just trying to get to the end of the game.
The key for Brady to be good in the booth is learning to self edit. He’s got a lot of things he wants to say but you can’t get them all in during the broadcast, and he’ll have to learn where he has time to fit more analysis in and where to keep it short. That’s a matter of learning the game flow, and that comes with reps. He should be able to figure that out but it comes with reps, just like a young player, and given he’s such a big name and on such a big contract, he will face plenty of criticism as he gets settled.
Audiences still love worthy comic book stories, and nobody loves audiences more than HBO, which has been examining what makes TV baddies tick for decades now.
HBO’s upcoming The Penguin already has a built-in fan base thanks to the DC fans. And who needs Batman anymore when his enemies are the ones providing all of the entertainment? Colin Farrell first debuted as Oswald Cobblepot in Matt Reeves’ The Batman starring Robert Pattinson, and now he has his very own show to torment the people of Gotham.
Farrell again looks almost unrecognizable in the new series, which is receiving favorable reviews from critics who have compared the gritty drama to The Sopranos. Unfortunately, the Penguin doesn’t go to therapy, so he is a little less in touch with his feelings than Tony Soprano.
Still, the series seems promising thanks to Farrell’s dedication to The Penguin/Oz and the impressive prosthetics, even though he isn’t crazy about that part of the job. The series also stars Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, daughter of deceased crime boss Carmine Falcone, as she paves her own path in Gotham’s criminal underworld. Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, and Shohreh Aghdashloo also star.
Here’s what the critics are saying about The Penguin:
The Penguin is the tale of a thug who becomes a boss, and the sacrifices he all-too-willingly makes along the way. That it succeeds as thoroughly as it does may be surprising, given its provenance as yet another Batman-without-Batman nugget of Warner’s IP, but the creators’ refusal to coast on what has gone before, and their willingness to let Farrell and Milioti dig into their characters so we can all sit back and watch them work with what they’ve unearthed is what makes for greatly satisfying TV.
The Penguin may not represent the cure for superhero fatigue, but it delivers a powerful dose of medicine that can treat its symptoms.
The Penguin is a portrait of a villain, and Farrell’s likability is its trickiest secret weapon. Both Milioti and Farrell are playing characters who veer into cartoon and caricature, but they retain within them the jagged edges of humanity — jealousy and greed, grief and lust, self-loathing and braggadociousness — that make The Penguin simultaneously pulpy and plausible. And, more effectively than either Christopher Nolan’s or Todd Phillips’s films, populist; like any worthwhile story about organized crime, The Penguin is really about what it takes to make it in America. What rules must one break to get ahead? Which alliances, and whose labor, should be protected in a dog-eat-dog world? What is the cost of tapping out of this system or trying to break the wheel?
Milioti and Farrell get parallel speeches about these questions, and The Penguin sometimes becomes repetitive in its treatment of the two of them as bizarro-mirror versions of each other…But that quality is forgivable when The Penguin gives its central pair so much room to grow, and the result is a spinoff that doesn’t need its cinematic precursor to light up the night.
Oz proves capable of carrying this story, just not in a fresh way. That’s why attentions are likely to shift to Milioti’s Sofia, a character whose presence comes with less baggage from the comics. Sofia is treated more in that Cruella/Maleficent vein as women whose dark path is set in motion by the assumptions and restrictions of the patriarchy. Strutting around in the best examples of the series’ costume design, Milioti makes Sofia more plausible than Oz as a tragic victim and embodiment of everything wrong with Gotham, a figure you can feel sad for and scared of in equal measure. The mano a mano dynamic between the pair yields Milioti and Farrell’s best work, but the interplay viewers will crave peaks far too early.
The Penguin isn’t breaking any new ground and, Batman-connections aside, it’s a variation on a story we’ve seen many times before about gangsters with aspirations for more and the in-fighting between them. And yes, plenty about Oz’s demeanor and his complicated relationship with his mother (Deirdre O’Connell) will remind viewers of The Sopranos. But while this isn’t going to join that beloved series or the likes of Goodfellas or The Godfather among the pantheon of Best Mob Stories Ever, it’s an entertaining and well-told tale in its own right.
The Penguin isn’t just another super-villain origin story, much like The Batman wasn’t just another superhero movie. (Meaning, it’s both and neither at once.) But even if it largely succeeds on its own terms, The Penguin could’ve benefited from a little more romance and variation, rather than a relentless and gloomy dose of reality.
In many ways, the more simple scenes Farrell shares with Milioti (who is also excellent) are where The Penguin feels strongest, as these two characters circle each other with a combination of skepticism and solidarity. They may be the only people in the world who understand each other, but that also makes them uniquely able to destroy one another for their individual benefit. The Penguin drags us into a bleak world that has only been made worse by the acts of all the people the story follows. It’s a series that is still finding its legs and could never surpass The Sopranos, though there are no better acts to attempt to follow. Here’s to a potential second season when Oz goes to therapy. After everything he’s been through and has done to others, as well as what he will continue to do in his sad life, he certainly could use it.
Farrell, once again unrecognizable under all that make-up, is consistently good throughout the series. While the majority of the cast around him leans a bit too heavily into their New Yawk-ish wise guy accents, Farrell seems to be flourishing playing such a despicable character. There is virtually nothing redeemable about Oz, and yet Farrell does manage to find a kind of wounded heart lurking inside this bulky monster. If “The Penguin” is worth watching at all, it’s to see the lead performances from Farrell and Milioti, whose Sofia is more or the less the co-lead character. Even when the story they’re stuck in lets them down, these two performers rise to the challenge and do exemplary work. The 8-hour movie approach ultimately fails the series, but you’ll likely find yourself drawn to these extremely flawed characters and all the damage they cause along the way.
The Penguin will premiere on Sunday, September 19th, with new episodes airing from September 29th until the season finale on November 10th.
Just over a month ago, Cardi B confirmed that she was pregnant with her third child. It turns out she was pretty far along at the time, as she confirmed today (September 12) that she has given birth.
In the post caption, Cardi confirms she gave birth on September 7 and also writes, “The prettiest lil thing.”
When Cardi announced her pregnancy, she wrote, “With every ending comes a new beginning! I am so grateful to have shared this season with you, you have brought me more love, more life and most of all renewed my power! Reminded me that I can have it all! You’ve reminded me that I never have to choose between life, love, and my passion! I love you so much and can not wait for you to witness what you helped me accomplish, what you pushed me to do! It’s so much easier taking life’s twists, turns and test laying down, but you, your brother and your sister have shown me why it’s worth it to push through!”
The biggest strength of Flau’jae Johnson’s game? Her vision, on the court and in the studio.
The 2023 NCAA Champion, LSU guard, and rising rap star saw how nurturing her two passions – music and hoops – could help her pave her own path to success from an early age. She was spitting lines as young as age seven, performing in clubs around Savannah, Georgia and entering massively popular TV competitions like America’s Got Talent while practicing in the paint, developing her skills to catch the attention of Coach Kim Mulkey at the beginning of her high school career. In everything she does, on the stage and in the arena, there’s a strategy, a playbook, a game plan to reach the next level.
Just ask Lil Wayne.
In a new episode of UPROXX’s Beyond The Game, host Jeremy Hecht sat down with Johnson to chat about her meteoric rise in the worlds of music and sports and the smart strategic moves she has made along the way.
After giving WNBA legend Sue Bird a shout-out for introducing the Young Money mogul to her music during an interview on her ESPN talk show, Johnson mapped out how she seized her moment, initially connecting with Wayne on social before showing off her lyricism to one of his beats on a Sway In The Morning freestyle. The viral posts, the song selection, her choice of fit (a Tha Carter IV tee) – it was a play Mulkey herself might’ve drawn up, and it scored her a collab with the hip-hop icon.
“I had it all planned out,” Johnson tells Hecht in the video above. “This is going to go viral, he’s going to see it, and that’s what happened. It was all strategy. I gotta inspire him to want to do it.”
That hustle mentality is something Johnson was born with. The daughter of the late Camouflage, a promising young rapper from Savannah who died before his daughter was born, Johnson has always been determined to make her mark. She gained a following at an early age thanks to her reality competition appearances, working with Jermaine Dupree on a talent series that got her industry attention, but when music seemed to stall and basketball courted her, Johnson’s circle never let her give up on her initial dream. She credits her family – her mom, grandmother, and siblings – for believing in her multihyphenate abilities, and herself for making the choice to be more. More than just a rapper. More than just a basketball player. But instead, a cross-cultural icon-in-the-making.
“The price of regret is worse than the pain of getting it done right now,” Johnson told Hecht of the mentality she’s adopted to juggle the demanding schedules of collegiate ball and on-the-rise artist, adding she’s often guided by a simple question, “Are you going to be great today or are you going to be mediocre?”
That word doesn’t seem to fit all the young star has accomplished so far, from SEC titles and NCAA trophies to collaborations with Wayne and Wyclef Jean who’s dubbed their partnership in the booth as, “like Shaq and Kobe.” It certainly doesn’t describe Johnson’s no-holds-barred chat with Hecht where she recounts her unlikely beginnings as a rapper and ball player, her reality TV run, her fearlessness and setbacks, the artists she admires, and the songs that get her hype.
Nothing is off the table, in the episode and in terms of Johnson’s potential.
As noted before Week 1, the 2023 NFL season was kind to us. It was a winning year. It was a winning playoff run. It was a winning Super Bowl. However, Week 1 in 2024 was not as friendly and, in fact, everything that could go wrong happened to go wrong. There were terrible bets like the Panthers (yikes!) and Jets (meh), but there were also bets we’d make again but still lost.
For one, the Rams forced overtime, only to lose by 6 when getting 4.5 points. That happens over the course of the season, but that doesn’t make it any more fun. Also, that would typically be the worst loss on a five-game slate but… not this time. This time, the Titans led by 17 points against the Bears and managed to lose by seven with a calamity of errors that is difficult to describe. Perhaps the best nugget is that it was the first time in NFL history in which a team led by 17 points at halftime and lost to a team that did not reach 150 total yards. I could write 1,000 words on that loss alone, but I won’t. For now.
Anyway, we’ll attempt to right the ship in Week 2 and, before we hand out five selections, let’s look at the pain from the opener one more time.
Week 1: 1-4
2024 Season: 1-4
Come get these winners.
TEASER: Buffalo Bills (+8.5) over Miami Dolphins and Baltimore Ravens (-2.5) over Las Vegas Raiders — Widely Available
In the Circa Million contest, Buffalo is +3 against Miami and, if you can snag that number, I would. However, it is 2.5 almost across the board in the market, and we’re pivoting to an old reliable in the Wong teaser. We’ll take Buffalo and Baltimore through a pair of key numbers on both sides and hope to profit accordingly.
Carolina Panthers (+6) over Los Angeles Chargers — Widely Available
The Panthers will be in the “absolutely not” zone if this goes poorly, but everything in my body is pointing to this. The ATS numbers for teams coming off blowout losses are very strong, and this is the ultimate “buy low, sell high” spot. Carolina is probably terrible, but I’m going to say this is an overreaction. Prayers appreciated.
Indianapolis Colts (-2.5) over Green Bay Packers — Widely Available
Carolina is as gross as it gets and, in the next breath, we’re taking a square side. I’m terrified of laying points on the road with Indianapolis, but the counter is that Green Bay is starting Malik Willis. The drop-off at quarterback is absolutely wild for Green Bay here, and we’re riding it.
Tennessee Titans (+4) over New York Jets — Widely Available
This isn’t as gross as the Carolina pick, but it might be close. Tennessee was excruciating in Week 1, but we simply must take four points at home against the Jets. Yes, New York is the better team, but the offense was not exactly a shining beacon on Monday. This could be a slugfest and grabbing the full four is critical.
Denver Broncos (+2.5) over Pittsburgh Steelers — Widely Available
The Steelers did what the Steelers always seem to do in Week 1 when they slugged their way to a road win as an underdog in Atlanta. It was the full Mike Tomlin experience, from a swarming defense to an opponent that was intent on beating itself. This time, Pittsburgh is a favorite on the road and we are once again taking a gross underdog. We were against Denver in our only win (sigh) last week, and Bo Nix is quite scary to bet on. We must stand on principle. Take the points.
A video from before the festivities shows a photographer seemingly tell Roan to “shut the f*ck up,” to which Roan responded, “You shut the f*ck up! Not me, b*tch.”
Noah Kahan shared that video and took the opportunity to relay his own similar experience, writing on X (formerly Twitter), “I’ll never forget leaving Clive Davis and the horrific sh*t photographers and paparazzi or whatever were saying to me in front of my sweet mom who couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Love this @ChappellRoan way to stand up for yourself.”
He added in another tweet, “Most I’ve interacted with are kind and professional but sadly there are some parasites who intentionally instigate confrontations with caring people who are there to live out a dream in order to further their own interests. Its so toxic and f*ck them for that.”
Meanwhile, Roan beat out quite the roster to win Best New Artist, as also nominated in the category were Benson Boone, Gracie Abrams, Shaboozey, Teddy Swims, and Tyla.
Halsey performed “Ego” at the 2024 MTV VMAs on Wednesday night, September 11, and while she killed it on stage, Halsey’s biggest win of the evening came on X (formerly Twitter).
The three-time Grammy nominee did what we all should do more: Corrected an aggregation account. Pop Base posted a photo of Halsey and Avan Jogia, whom Pop Base referred to as Halsey’s “boyfriend.” Halsey reposted Pop Base and wrote, “***fiancé Avan Jogia.”
“Avan is the best,” they said. “He’s one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me, and every single day that I get to spend with him is one where I just feel like I’m with my best friend. It’s incredible.” When pressed on whether they’re getting married, Halsey quipped, “Uh, I hope so.” In hindsight, the look-away and large smile was probably a dead giveaway.
Jogia is probably best known still as playing Beck Oliver from Nickelodeon’s Victorious from 2010 to 2013. He has kept acting, as per his IMDb, and made his directorial debut with Door Mouse in 2023. Jogia also writes musici and poetry through Saint Ivory, a duo he has with his brother, Ketan.
In more exciting news, Halsey is set to release The Great Impersonator on October 25. It will be her first LP since August 2021’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Ironically, they now have both.
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