When you’ve got Robert De Niro in your mob movie, why limit to yourself to having him only play one crime boss? That’s apparently the approach that director Barry Levinson is taking for his next movie, Wise Guys, which will feature De Niro as two real-life mob bosses.
Based on the book, Wiseguy, by Nicholas Pileggi (who also wrote the script), the film will star De Niro as both Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and here’s where things get interesting. Genovese famously tried to have Costello assassinated. While the attempt failed, Costello was injured enough that he retired. So, basically, De Niro is going to try and whack himself in this one, which is definitely a new take on the mob genre.
Wise Guys also marks the first original picture greenlit under the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery and was reportedly championed by new CEO David Zaslav, who’s been making headlines for his aggressive cuts and dramatic restructuring of the DC Comics films. Via THR:
The project doesn’t seem to have the hallmarks of a tentpole — big-budgets, visual effects, big intellectual property — nor does it feel like “young Hollywood,” something that would seemingly attract the demographic most known for going to the movies. Instead, it feels like a throwback, and has a team whose average age is four score — De Niro is 78, Levinson is 80, and Winkler is 91.
As THR notes, Warner Bros. Discovery has discarded the strategy of making films for HBO Max and will be aggressively leaning into theatrical distribution, so it’ll be very interesting to see if De Niro in a mob movie has the same juice it used to have.
When HBO named the Game Of Thronesspinoff show House Of The Dragon,it was effectively warning us that there would, in fact, be a ton of dragons in this proverbial house. It’s great! Dragons all have different personalities and now they will get their time to shine (or… breathe fire?) in the spotlight once again. But with many great dragons comes great responsibility, and that responsibility is to tell them apart.
You can’t just have a whole handful of characters without giving them defining characteristics, says co-showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal. “Otherwise, you won’t be able to differentiate between them,” Condal explained to TVLine. “So not only are they bright and colorful the way George [R.R. Martin] described them in the book, he actually gives a lot of detail about what each dragon looks like, the color of their horns and crest, the color of their scales. And then they have different silhouettes.” This is important because there will be seventeen (!!!!) dragons to keep track of in the series.
The dragons will be a bit different than the scaley beasts in Game of Thrones, due to the fact that the series takes place a few hundred years before Daenerys and her lil’ magic dragon babies. “[Dany’s dragons] were born of magic, so they matured very quickly,” Condal explained. “These dragons grow like a real dragon would.” Ah yes, real dragons.
In order to tell the dragons apart, since there will be 17, some of the dragons will look like Drogon, the last dragon standing at the end of GoT, while others will get their own dragon personality. “Certain ones will look a little bit more like Drogon did, and others look completely different,” Condal explained. “And then there’s their different scale size. You have the biggest dragon alive in Vhagar, down to younglings and juveniles who have grown up over time.”
Condal stresses that even though there are many of them, they each have their own specific characteristics that will make them unique. “We really tried to imbue them with an individual personality that you can start to detect… through the animation of them and how they interact with their rider, and who their rider is,” Condal adds. “It’s my feeling that the dragons are some of the most memorable characters in our little universe here.” Hear that, Matt Smith? Nobody cares about your character and his sex scenes! We have dragons to focus on.
House of the Dragon premieres August 21, 2022 on HBO.
In the final minutes of Better Call Saul’s series finale, Jimmy McGill gets a visit from his lawyer in prison. The audience knows exactly who we’re about to see, but Jimmy is shocked to see his ex-wife Kim Wexler. She updated her sad Flordia haircut and wardrobe, and now embodies a leading lady from a film noir, like a character from the kind of movies Kim and Jimmy once loved watching together. Kim and Jimmy don’t say much to each other, because they don’t have to. Kim offers Jimmy a cigarette and they lean against the decaying prison wall sharing it in near silence. Their dull black and white world sees a hint of color in the lit end of the cigarette, signifying the return of Kim and Jimmy as they once were: a team of misfits who understood each other at their best and their worst. The scene is tragic but slightly erotic: Kim and Jimmy are right back where they started earlier in the series, leaning on a wall and sharing a cigarette with a little cinematic light shining on them. Jimmy McGill will spend the rest of his life in prison, but this is the happiest ending he could possibly get because he got Kim back.
In its opening minutes, the series finale, aptly titled “Saul Gone,” dabbles in intense action with a chase sequence but the episode quickly puts an end to the thrills and shifts its focus on Saul Goodman’s prison sentence. For much of the episode, Jimmy is still in Saul Goodman mode: he insists he be called Saul Goodman, he talks himself out of a lifetime prison sentence (narrowing it down to seven years), and he performs a cheesy monologue that victimizes himself even though he knows he’s complicit. There are slivers of truth and hints of Jimmy McGill in this monologue: he was terrified of Walter White, but he also went out of his way to help him. Jimmy negotiates in the unbelievable way we’ve seen throughout the entire run of Better Call Saul. He can talk a team of lawyers into dwindling down a life sentence plus over a century to seven years, just like how he could convince people like Lalo Salamanca to listen to his ideas.
The finale builds to Jimmy’s pivotal confession in Better Call Saul’s traditional slow and intentionally brutal pace, which makes the finale even more excruciating than it already is. For a majority of the tense episode, we’re on the edge of our seats, gripping the cushions in our sweaty hands anticipating the worst: that Jimmy McGill is Saul Goodman and always has been, and Jimmy McGill was the real performance, not Saul. Just when you think it will only go one way, Jimmy comes back and proves he’s the decent (if corrupt) person Kim Wexler fell for so deeply. Jimmy couldn’t go back in time to change his mistakes: his relationship with Chuck, his criminal activity, his involvement with the cartel and Walter White, Howard Hamlin’s death, the end of his marriage to Kim. Once Jimmy discovers that Kim is in jeopardy with a civil suit, he realizes what Saul Goodman was all for: a mask for his trauma, pain, and loss. If Jimmy could help Kim – the only person who ever truly knew him – by coming clean about everything, he would do it.
“Kim had the guts to start over,” Jimmy says of Howard’s death in court. “She left town, but I’m the one who ran away,” he adds with a hint of pride. Jimmy has finally understood himself by understanding that Saul wasn’t really him, he was a distraction. Finally, he’s seen in himself what Kim always has. Saul Goodman’s end could have been a brutal death, another lonely life living in secret, or life as Saul Goodman or Gene Takovic.
Jimmy McGill isn’t exactly a hero, but he is the hero and the writer of his own story. He’s serving an 86-year prison sentence by his own design. He let go of Saul Goodman, confessed his crimes and, in doing so, saved his relationship with the most important person in his life. Jimmy doesn’t care where he is, all he ever cared about is Kim.
It took a long time, but Saul Goodman is truly gone. Jimmy McGill just had to let go of his pain and guilt over Chuck, Howard Hamlin, and Kim to get there.
“Knees Deep,” the latest Expert In A Dying Field single from The Beths, is all about singer Liz Stokes acknowledging her hesitance and fear. Appropriately, then, the video is a bungee jumping-focused visual. The band members gradually get into the thrill-seeking pastime before eventually convincing the not-so-sure Stokes to give it a go herself.
Stokes says of the song, “I’m the kind of person who wants to go swimming, but takes like ten minutes to get all the way into the cold water, slowly and painfully. I hate this about myself, and am kind of envious of people who can just jump straight in the deep end. In a shocking twist, this is also a metaphor?! For how I wish I was the kind of person who was brave and decisive instead of cautious and scared.”
The band also announced a headlining North American tour for 2023, which runs for about a month from February to March.
Watch the “Knees Deep” video above and find The Beths’ upcoming tour dates below.
08/16/2022 — Chicago, IL @ Here and There Festival, Salt Shed
08/18/2022 — St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
08/19/2022 — Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
08/20/2022 — Covington, KY (Cincinnati) @ Madison Live
08/22/2022 — Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
08/23/2022 — Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
08/25/2022 — Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
08/26/2022 — Asbury Park, NJ @ Asbury Lanes
08/27/2022 — Portland, ME @ Portland House of Music
08/28/2022 — Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
08/31/2022 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit Hall
09/01/2022 — Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar
09/15/2022 — Melbourne, AU @ 170 Russell
09/16/2022 — Sydney, AU @ Metro Theatre
09/17/2022 — Brisbane, AU @ The Triffid
09/20/2022 — Adelaide, AU @ The Gov
09/21/2022 — Perth, AU @ Magnet House
09/23/2022 — Wellington, NZ @ Opera House
09/24/2022 — Nelson, NZ @ Theatre Royal
09/30/2022 — Christchurch, NZ @ James Hay Theatre
10/01/2022 — Dunedin, NZ @ The Glenroy
10/07/2022 — Auckland, NZ @ Auckland Town Hall
02/16/2023 — Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
02/17/2023 — Seattle, WA @ Neumos
02/22/2023 — Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
02/24/2023 — Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
02/26/2023 — Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
02/28/2023 — Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
03/02/2023 — New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
03/03/2023 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
03/04/2023 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
03/06/2023 — Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel
03/07/2023 — Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade – Heaven
03/08/2023 — Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
03/10/2023 — Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn
03/11/2023 — Dallas, TX @ Tulips
03/14/2023 — Denver, CO @ Summit
03/16/2023 — Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
03/17/2023 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
03/18/2023 — San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
Expert In A Dying Field is out 9/16 via Carpark Records. Pre-order it here.
Not everyone likes science facts, but sometimes having the right teacher is enough to pique your interest in a subject you normally don’t care for. TikTok user Mamadou Ndiaye, who goes by the handle @mndiaye_97 on the platform, uses humor to relay interesting animal facts. He has amassed an impressive 15 million followers and more than 833 million likes.
We’ve all seen people discuss animals on television. The entire world knows who Steve Irwin is and we all watch proudly as his two kids continue the legacy of animal education, but Ndiaye isn’t out there jumping on the backs of alligators. No, he’s speaking in an almost monotone voice while humorously relating how crows are a menace to society and camels have a serious revenge problem. How Ndiaye mixes facts with humor and a straight face is really a talent you can’t appreciate until you see it for yourself and it’s obvious from his follower count that his style works.
The ocean never disappoints #whale#nature#moreyouknow#ocean
Ndiaye takes facts about animals that we didn’t even realize we wanted to know and makes them interesting and easily digestible. Perusing his account you can learn out about dwarf sperm whales, which evidently have a sack that releases a reddish-brown fluid when stressed to confuse predators. Ndiaye jokes about the liquid in the video saying, “It looks like chocolate syrup but I can only assume it doesn’t taste as good.”
I knew i wasnt crazy #didyouknow#learnontiktok#moreyouknow#learnsomethingnew#bug
In another video he deadpans about how flies, bees and mosquitos are racially motivated. You’d think he was fully joking, but, of course, he backs it up with facts and it’s quite helpful. Let’s just say his followers will be stocking up on light-colored clothing and, thanks to his unique style, the information will stick. And if you’re interested in his furthering your education about wildlife outside of social media, he has a book titled “100 Animals Than Can F*cking End You.”
While this guy may not be climbing trees to give us up-close and personal views of the animals he’s teaching about, he’s certainly entertaining. Someone needs to give him a TV show because it would quickly become a household favorite.
In recent years, the NBA, its players, and teams have become more prominent voices in encouraging fans to vote and be involved in local, state, and national elections. Some organizations have been able to use their arenas as voting locations, while teams and players have held voting registration drives and events to encourage their community to be more civically engaged.
This year, the league as a whole will further that initiative by giving all 30 teams Election Day off, as there will be no games on Tuesday, November 8 to ensure that team employees and fans are all encouraged to take the day to go vote and be part of the election process.
“The scheduling decision came out of the NBA family’s focus on promoting nonpartisan civic engagement and encouraging fans to make a plan to vote during midterm elections,” the league said Tuesday, per ESPN.
Election Day now joins Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve as days off on the NBA schedule, with all 30 teams playing on November 7 where they will be using that night to encourage fans to vote the next day. The late start of the 2020 season allowed for teams to use their arenas as voting sites, and now with the knowledge that they won’t have any games that day, they can do the same this year.
Donald Trump‘s lawyer is making one heck of a request as the former president finds himself under investigation for allegedly violating the Espionage Act, which sparked last week’s raid on Mar-a-Lago. While appearing on Newsmax, Allina Habba revealed that she’s demanding the Department of Justice reveal the witness(es) who claimed to have seen top secret documents being mishandled at Trump’s Florida residence. Her argument? The names are going to come out anyway, so might as well get it over with.
“The president’s position, the same as what I would advise him, is to ask them to uncover everything so that we can see what is going on,” Habba said. “I understand the witness protection issue, but at the same time, these witnesses are truly not going to be concealed for very long.”
Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, says Trump wants the Department of Justice to release the names of the witnesses who helped secure the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. pic.twitter.com/n3MJsD1tBI
While the names of the witnesses wouldn’t be revealed unless the DOJ moves forward with charges, Habba believes the DOJ will find a way to release them anyway. Via Raw Story:
Habba, however, suggested that the law enforcement agencies would leak out the names of the witnesses, despite the fact that such a leak would be beneficial to Trump’s lawyers and could jeopardize cooperation from other potential witnesses in the case.
“It’s in the best interest so that the country can get comfortable to see what the basis was, especially from someone who was cooperating,” she claimed.
Obviously, it’s very strange for Trump’s lawyer to demand to know who ratted him out. The whole thing is definitely giving off mob vibes. As for who could’ve flipped on Trump, there are a few suspects: Former chief-of-staff Mark Meadows is a name that’s mentioned frequently; the Secret Service could’ve done the deed; and Jared Kushner is in the mix. Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen has even gone so far as to say one of Trump’s own children could’ve turned to avoid jail time.
In short, there’s a long list of cronies who could’ve turned on Trump. Heck, Rudy Giuliani is getting squeezed right now in the Georgia election meddling investigation, so there’s a very good chance that it could be multiple somebodies who threw Trump under the bus.
It’s pretty undeniable that Beyonce is one of the great hitmakers of our generation. But just how great of a hitmaker is she? With “Break My Soul,” the lead single from her latest album, Renaissance, burning up the chart, now might be the perfect time to reflect on all the other times Beyonce has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Beyonce’s chart history reveals that she’s had eight No. 1 hits since her making her solo debut in 2003 with Dangerously In Love, starting with that album’s first and second singles.
“Baby Boy”
The second single from Dangerously In Love saw Beyonce collaborating with dancehall artist Sean Paul and taking inspiration from South Asian musical styles. The single also appeared on Seal Paul’s 2002 sophomore album Dutty Rock. It stayed on the charts for nine weeks in total and was Beyonce’s longest-running number-one single until 2007. It was replaced, ironically enough, by “Irreplaceable.”
“Break My Soul”
It might surprise some to learn, what with Beyonce’s pop culture dominance over the past 20 years, that “Break My Soul” is actually Beyonce’s first solo No. 1 single since Billboard made the changes including streams in its charts. The highest-charting Self-Titled song, “Drunk In Love” reached No. 2, while Lemonade’s Formation peaked at No. 10.
“Check On It”
Originally recorded for The Pink Panther, this 2005 collaboration with fellow Houstonian Slim Thug wound up being placed on the 2005 Destiny’s Child’s greatest hits album #1‘s instead (as well as B’Day). Produced by Swizz Beatz, it rose to prominence due to its radio popularity — likely thanks in part to Thug’s presence, as he rode the wave of goodwill from his feature on Mike Jones’ “Still Tippin’.”
“Crazy In Love”
Widely viewed as Beyonce’s “official” debut single (justice for “Work It Out”), the lead single from Dangerously In Love was produced by Rich Harrison and featured Bey’s future husband Jay-Z. It also kicked off a wave of go-go and funk-influenced hits throughout the 2000s pioneered largely by Harrison himself as other stars clamored to repeat Beyonce’s success.
“Irreplaceable”
Penned by Ne-Yo and presaging Beyonce’s interest in country (though it was reworked as a pop-R&B ballad), “Irreplaceable” was the knockout third single from Beyonce’s second album, B’Day. After moderate success for “Déjà Vu” and “Ring the Alarm,” it skyrocketed Bey back to the top of the chart, becoming the twenty-fifth most successful song of the 2000s.
“Perfect”
“Perfect” is one of Beyonce’s two featured appearances at No. 1 on the Hot 100, as she appears on a duet version of Ed Sheeran’s 2017 hit. The third single from ÷ (at least in the United States), the duet version accounted for 18 percent of the song’s sales, pushing it to the top of the chart, becoming Sheeran’s second and Beyonce’s sixth No. 1.
Perhaps one of Bey’s most inescapable anthems, the second single from Beyonce’s 2008 third studio album I Am… Sasha Fierce reigned supreme throughout the year after its release, becoming a meme, winning three Grammy Awards, and spawning imitations, homages, and outright spoofs that made it nearly ubiquitous. It was also the impetus for Kanye’s infamous stage-crashing scene at the 2009 VMAs, arguably indirectly launching the decade’s worth of Taylor Swift-influenced pop music to come.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Kelly Clarkson is bringing her inaugural American Idol win full circle: Today, Clarkson announced that she will be taking “Kellyoke,” a segment from her talk show in which she performs covers of her favorite songs, on the road for a mini tour. During her quest, Clarkson will search for the best undiscovered singers.
“This summer we’re taking The Kelly Clarkson Show on the road to find some of the greatest voices across America,” Clarkson said in a video. “Come sing a virtual duet with me to one of my songs.”
While Clarkson herself won’t appear at all of the stops on her Kellyoke tour, fans can show off their vocal stylings and record alongside Clarkson’s prerecorded vocals. Clarkson will select some of the best submissions to play on her show.
Check out the Kellyoke tour announcement video above and the tour dates below.
08/21 — New York City, NY @ Rockefeller Plaza (11 a.m. to 6 p.m.)
08/23 — New York City, NY @ Rockefeller Plaza (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.)
08/27 — Chicago, IL @ Navy Pier (noon to 7 p.m.)
09/03 — Dallas, TX @ Klyde Warren Park (11 a.m. to 6 p.m.)
09/07 — Los Angeles, CA @ Universal Studios City Walk (11 a.m. to 6 p.m.)
Kelly Clarkson is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Perhaps more than any other singer of the past three decades or so, Mariah Carey is firmly associated with Christmas. In an unsurprising move, she’s in the process of trying to trademark the term “Queen Of Christmas,” but she’s facing opposition from a couple of other singers who are also strongly tied to the December holiday.
Variety reports that through her attorney, Elizabeth Chan, who exclusively sings Christmas music, filed a formal declaration of opposition to Carey’s trademark claim. Chan told the publication:
“Christmas has come way before any of us on Earth, and hopefully will be around way after any of us on Earth, and I feel very strongly that no one person should hold onto anything around Christmas or monopolize it in the way that Mariah seeks to in perpetuity. That’s just not the right thing to do. Christmas is for everyone. It’s meant to be shared; it’s not meant to be owned.
And it’s not just about the music business. She’s trying to trademark this in every imaginable way — clothing, liquor products, masks, dog collars — it’s all over the map. If you knit a ‘queen of Christmas’ sweater, you should be able to sell it on Etsy to somebody else so they can buy it for their grandma. It’s crazy — it would have that breadth of registration.”
Chan also noted she has been called the “Queen Of Christmas” many times in the media, with the first instance of it coming in 2014 and most notably in a 2018 New Yorker profile titled simply, “The Queen Of Christmas.”
Per Billboard, Chan’s lawyer Louis Tompros wrote, “Christmas is big enough for more than one ‘Queen.’ But this opposition proceeding is sadly necessary because Ms. Carey’s Lotion LLC company is nevertheless trying to claim sole ownership of the title and designation ‘Queen of Christmas.’”
The publication also notes, “If Chan wins her case, it doesn’t mean Carey must stop using the name herself — only that she cannot stop others from using it, too.”
Also speaking out against the trademark is Darlene Love, who sang on the 1963 album A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector and sang “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Late Night With David Letterman every year from 1986 to 2014. In a Facebook post yesterday, she wrote, “Is it true that Mariah Carey trade marked “Queen of Christmas”? [crying laughing emoji] What does that mean that I can’t use that title? [thinking emoji] David Letterman officially declared me the Queen of Christmas 29 years ago, a year before she released ‘All I want For Christmas Is You’ and at 81 years of age I’m NOT changing anything. I’ve been in the business for 52 years, have earned it and can still hit those notes! If Mariah has a problem call David or my lawyer!!
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