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[This post contains spoilers for the Ms. Marvel finale]

Ms. Marvel was one of the most enjoyable Marvel Cinematic Universe projects in years. The lively Disney+ series was fun and refreshingly free of self-seriousness (Eternals), and it didn’t sag under the weight of having to connect to the rest of the MCU (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). In fact, it took until the post-credits scene of the finale for the only major MCU cameo: Captain Marvel.

Ms. Marvel directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah discussed how the scene came together with Collider. When asked if they shot it, El Arbi replied, “So, that was actually… Nia DaCosta shot that while she was shooting The Marvels. She was on set with Brie Larson and [star Iman Vellani], and she didn’t know that scene was going to be used for the post-credit scene. Marvel is very good in separating all the things.”

He continued:

So, we would always ask Kevin, “Yo, when’s Captain Marvel going to show up?” And he would always tell us, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll see.” Meanwhile, he has said to Nia DaCcosta, “Just shoot that scene. We need that. And you’ll see.” All of a sudden, when we were calibrating the final episodes after the credits, we said, “Oh. There’s Captain Marvel.” So that was a big surprise for us, as well. But it was pretty cool. It was pretty cool.

DaCosta, who also directed Little Woods and the record-setting Candyman, was tasked with helming The Marvels. The 33rd film in the MCU — but first with a possible cameo from bara Hulk and choti Hulk — comes out on July 28, 2023, after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (November 11, 2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (February 17, 2023), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5, 2023).

(Via Collider)

There are some things that people who aren’t online all the time will just simply not understand, like why Dr. Oz keeps getting dragged for eating at various tourist traps in Philadelphia or anything that Elon Musk tweets. Another thing is adding “-ussy” at the end of any word to turn it into a “thing.” Enter: the wonderful Jamie Campbell Bower who somehow got roped into learning what Vecnussy is.

In a video shared by Netflix earlier today, Bower, who plays the tentacle-y villain Vecna, was reading a series of tweets and memes about his character when he learned of the term “Vecnussy.” This, of course, stems from “bussy,” which is synonymous with a bunch of other stuff that you can probably assume for yourself.

“My vecnussy, what is it? I don’t even know where it is. I don’t know what it is,” Bower remarked after reading several memes about it. After a while, he seems to get the gist of the phrase “putting his whole vecnussy” into the character–basically meaning he gave it his all.

“I mean, I did. I put as much as I had of my vecnussy into Stranger Things,” he said. “If you could help me find my vecnussy so that I can then put it into something else, that would be fantastic.” Please don’t!!

Bower is right though, he did offer a fantastic performance of the gross demon who infiltrated the friend group. After all, the role required almost eight hours of makeup application every day, and he handled it like a champ. After playing various villains in both the Harry Potter and Twilight universes, maybe he can get a basic rom-com gig soon?

While the world’s sociopolitical balance seems to be crumbling before our very eyes, calling out injustice is nothing new at a Rage Against The Machine concert. Zack De La Rocha, Tom Morello, and company have always used their on-stage platform to spread awareness to a range of causes, corruption, etc. in well-articulated but incredibly pissed-off ways. And while the band hadn’t played a concert in 11 years before reuniting to perform again last week, they’re picking up right where they left off.

This past weekend at Ottawa’s Bluesfest, the band used their Friday night headlining set to bring awareness to the disproportionate violence against Canada’s Indigenous peoples population.

“In Canada, Indigenous women and girls are 16 times more likely to be murdered or to disappear than white women are,” one message read on the screen behind the stage. Another said, “An Indigenous person in Canada is over 10 times more likely to be shot and killed by a police officer than a white person is.”

The briefer messages they posted read “LAND BACK” and “Settler-colonialism is murder,” which spoke to long-standing mainstream issues surrounding Canada’s indigenous population and their rights to the land that is historically theirs. While Rage has stood up against the overturning of Roe v. Wade, they’re not one to loosen the grip on societal ills in other parts of the world as well.

With Rage Against The Machine, the purpose of these displays is not for shock value, but rather to educate and bring sheer awareness to pressing instances of injustice towards marginalized populations. And the responses on social media, show how much more widespread the band’s messages can be in the digital age than they were in the pre-internet era of the band’s early-’90s beginnings.

While Keanu Reeves is as synonymous with John Wick as he is with Neo from The Matrix, the role of the vengeful assassin almost went in an entirely different direction. According to a new (and excellently titled) behind-the-scenes book, They Shouldn’t Have Killed His Dog, Derek Kolstad’s script for the first film was originally written with a much older actor in mind. In fact, there were two names that were specifically being kicked around: Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford.

Here’s John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk described the original script in an excerpt provided to Entertainment Weekly:

“The lead was a seventy-five-year-old man, twenty-five years after being retired. It was the fun of watching Clint Eastwood kick ass. I thought, Okay, there’s probably one or two names you could do this with: Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford. Other than that, I’m not sure how I put this movie together. But the tone of the script for John Wick was subversive and really fun. It has a very clear emotional through line and a great premise for an action movie.”

Considering Eastwood is in his 90s now, it would have been interesting to see him pull off the gun-fu movies required for the film and its multiple sequels. Granted, Ford is knocking out a fifth Indiana Jones movie, so he probably would’ve fared only slightly better at John Wick’s almost ballet-like choreographed battles. (Would we still have paid to see both? You bet!)

As for how Reeves became involved, the actor’s agent was aggressively looking for projects to get him out of a career slump. When Reeves read the script, he immediately wanted in. And if you know anything about Reeves, the guy is an aggressive reader, so when something sparks his interest, you really know you got something.

“I see he has three hundred screenplays stacked on his desk, because he reads everything that UTA, WME, William Morris sends out. He reads them all,” Kolstad said while recalling his first time meeting Reeves at his house. “And so think that he read something on a Friday, in ninety minutes, and was like, ‘I want to do it.’ In that moment, before I met and really clicked with him, I was like, ‘Yeah, I really want to do it, too.’”

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

The Bear (now streaming on Hulu) stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmy, a former fine dining chef who’s gone back to run his family’s frenetic, working-class Chicago beef joint. It’s a show that allows White to flex more muscles than Shameless did (even though White did a lot more heavy emotional lifting than he ever received credit for as Lip). It’s a damn good show with a delightful soundtrack and a first season that you can binge in one afternoon. And it’s also very, terribly funny how The Bear has launched a lust-inspired social media phenomenon that has very little to do with the show itself.

People have been looking at promotional images of the unmistakably intense Carmy and admitting (as comedian Sarah York did in a thread that you must read) that they hadn’t even watched the show but still branded Carmy as the quintessential “sexually competent dirtbag that only exists in a restaurant kitchen.” One Twitter user remarked upon how his roommate declared Carmy to be “[w]orth the yeast infection.” And that chatter continues, despite, how White stressed this fact GQ: “Carmy does not f*ck.”

During the course of this blunt (yet true for those people who’ve watched The Bear) proclamation, White added, “[T]here is zero romance, let alone sex, onscreen. Zilch.” Here’s more: “Carmy’s, like, the least sexual person. In playing him, I was aware that he had no room for love.” So, there you have it. Carmy didn’t have sex (at least onscreen) during the eight warp-speed episodes on the first season of The Bear. But… will Carmy have sex in Season 2, when it arrives? More importantly, should Carmy do the deed?

This is a real issue that the show’s writers must consider, either in a serious or darkly comedic way, so let’s talk about the Should first:

– YES: Carmy’s got some frustrations to work out: Dude has a lot of pent-up energy. He’s tightly wound and subsisting on cigarettes and angst, all while classically trained and desperately wanting to express his creativity through food. That didn’t (satisfyingly) happen at his family’s beef joint, where the beefs are not simply confined to meat. The tension — between Chefs, between Carmy and his cousin, between Carmy and himself during a rich inner life — boiled over at several points, and hell, Carmy couldn’t even count on suppliers to drop off the correct meat. “Just the delivery guy!” had to be the most annoying phrase to hear while plagued with an unwanted shipment of flesh, so maybe Carmy deserves to take a carnal vacation, if only for a brief interlude. He’d be a more relieved, happier Carmy, perhaps even with a spring in his step while striding through the streets of Chicago on the way to work.

– NO: A googly-eyed Carmy would be no good: I don’t think this would work out at all with the vibe of The Bear. All of the pounding should only go down in the kitchen for Carmy. He truly doesn’t have time to pause for sex, not even to swipe on Tinder. He’s got to mind the grind, deal with a cousin and his megaphone, respond to exploding toilets, and all the messes. If he’s distracted by his personal life, Carmy might lose some of his drive in the kitchen. Maybe sex could be his Kryptonite and the destroyer of tasty food. We can’t have that. Also, those sounds of water boiling to a steam would lose all context if Carmy’s not completely immersed and overwhelmed by his professional pressures and family issues. Sexual tension could ruin everything. And then there’s the danger of Carmy starting to crank out food on autopilot. Maybe even rely upon pre-freezing food and microwaving it. No. The restaurant’s now called The Bear, not Olive Garden.

– YES: However, Carmy could make a lady very happy: This one’s a given, actually. I mean, the way that Carmy operates in the kitchen with all that detail paid to, say, browning an onion makes me want to believe that Carmy would be as patient and attentive in the sack. Is that something we really want to see happen, though? Well sure. I’m curious enough, but I hope that he showered after the aforementioned exploding toilet and showing off his somewhat perverse fascination with the floor, including the time that he couldn’t resist tasting some donut.

– NO: Bye bye, kitchen creativity: When Carmy spoke during an Al-Anon meeting, we learned a lot about why he is the way he is. He speaks through the food, and that’s where he also finds his purpose. If he got all infatuated with a woman, or even if he had some one-night stands, I really think he’d lose his drive to work out his dead-brother issues. I don’t believe that the spaghetti-sauce money could fix everything; there’s still gotta be some lingering angst. And Carmy is chronically stressed, so very stressed, so I think that the act of copulation would be counterproductive in a sense. There’s be no stress relief, only distraction from what he’s viewed as his ultimate purpose in life.

VERDICT: For the “Should he?” question, I think that Carmy would be better off not having sex on the show, at least, not yet. Keep a little mystery going and let Carmy focus on those kitchen mishaps. After all that energy buildup and conflict in the kitchen and people projecting their fantasies on social media, actually putting a Carnal Carmy scene into the show might be too hot (or too cold!) for the audience to handle.

However, do I think that Carmy Will have sex?

– YES: That’s it. I think that the writers will have him go there, but I can only hope that this gets postponed until, say, the third season. Since this development seems inevitable (as fan service), I can only hope that there will not be a tribute to — and I’m sorry, I cannot resist this — Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s comparable Girls scene. And hopefully, the show will refrain from having Carmy hook up with a coworker (though admittedly restaurants are historically fertile grounds for inter-office relationships). We don’t need any lovers’ squabbles in the kitchen, although I admit that having Carmy accidentally referring to his partner as “Chef” wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Or have Joel McHale return in Carmy’s head, criticizing his every move. Yep, gotta make it weird, Chefs.

The Bear is streaming on Hulu.

The hardcore and off-kilter rap world many acts and groups that are certainly worth paying attention to. One of them is Philly’s own Soul Glo, who is just a few months removed from the release of their fourth full-length project, Diaspora Problems. The 12-track effort combined many different music elements to showcase the group’s truly unique style and their energetic spirit is on full display once again thanks to their new video for “Driponomics” with rapper Mother Maryrose. In it, the band takes over a streetwear store and opts to absolutely wreak havoc in it while also terrorizing employees.

The new visual continues the storyline from the band’s previously released video for “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?).” In a press release about the new video, lead vocalist Pierce Jordan spoke about “Driponomics” saying the record is “or everyone doing what they have to do to get by and to get fly.”

In addition to sharing their new visual, Soul Glo is also in the midst of their month-long Show Me The Body Tour. The string of shows kicked off last week in Queens, New York and it’s set to continue into August and conclude with a performance in Baltimore, Maryland.

You can watch the video for “Driponomics” and see more info on the Show Me The Body Tour above.

Diaspora Problems is out now via Epitaph. Stream it here.

In late July of last summer, after Montrezl Harrell exercised his 2021-22 player option, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings were moving “toward completing a deal” that would bring Buddy Hield to Los Angeles. In return, Sacramento would receive Harrell and Kyle Kuzma.

The trade made sense for both sides. Hield had reportedly long yearned for a new environment and the Lakers needed more shooting. Harrell struggled to contribute in the the Lakers’ first-round loss to the Phoenix Suns. Kuzma, a good, useful and versatile wing, was a worthwhile return for Hield. But that deal never materialized, and Hield stayed in Sacramento until a trade deadline move rendered him an Indiana Pacer.

Instead of landing Hield, the Lakers pivoted toward Russell Westbrook, sending Kuzma, Harrell, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and their 2021 first-round pick to the Washington Wizards in exchange for the nine-time All-Star, as well as second-round picks in 2024 and 2028. Despite Kuzma and Caldwell-Pope being valuable components of Los Angeles’ championship and defensive ethos in 2020, the belief was Westbrook could invigorate the offense and lighten the burden for LeBron James and Anthony Davis, both of whom dealt with nagging injuries throughout 2020-21. Westbrook found his stride over the second half of the year with Washington and while not the MVP-caliber superstar of his peak, still looked like a pretty dang good player as he dragged the Wizards to the postseason.

From the outset, the Lakers’ move backfired. Westbrook struggled in their opening night loss to the Golden State Warriors and never really recovered. There were stretches of viable, encouraging two-way play, where his offensive decision-making improved and the defensive focus heightened. Overwhelmingly, though, those were footnotes in a season of on-court disappointment for Westbrook and Los Angeles. When James and Davis again missed extended time, Westbrook’s presence and play were not sufficient to prevent losses from piling up.

Of course, that responsibility should not fall solely on Westbrook and it’s hard to win without two stars in the lineup on a star-heavy team. The addition of Westbrook, though, was intended to alleviate the impact of potential absences or struggles from those two.

By midseason, the Westbrook In Los Angeles Experiment had spiraled. Westbrook’s play continued to underwhelm and his minutes began being cut. In a nationally televised, blowout loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Feb. 8, he played just 26 minutes (James and Davis combined for 72 minutes) and scored 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting and went 4-of-7 at the free-throw line. At that point, Los Angeles was 26-29. Rumors and reports of the Lakers looking to potentially deal Westbrook ahead of the Feb. 10 trade deadline swirled.

Ultimately, Westbrook remained in Los Angeles. He and the team’s speed bumps continued. James and Davis missed more time, and by season’s end, the Lakers failed to even qualify for the Play-In Tournament and wrapped up 2021-22 with a dismal 33-49 record. Teams like the Los Angeles Clippers and New Orleans Pelicans both made the Play-In, despite their best players, Kawhi Leonard and Zion Williamson, being sidelined all year. Yes, the Lakers endured their own health ailments, but the Play-In should’ve been a reasonable and attainable benchmark nonetheless.

Speculation about Westbrook’s future in Los Angeles carried into the offseason; the Pacers were once reported as a possible new home. If the right trade arose, the Lakers would clearly prefer to move him and close the door on a discordant, tumultuous partnership. Once it became known that Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets were not particularly happy together, as well as reports of Irving’s alleged interest in rejoining James, a Westbrook-Irving swap came to light. Nothing appears imminent on that front at the moment, though.

There was the awkwardness of Summer League, where it was impossible not to notice the lack of interaction between Westbrook — who sat on the bench and was engaged with the young Lakers — and LeBron, who sat elsewhere courtside and never engaged with the man who remains his co-star for now. Then, late last week, Westbrook and Thad Foucher, his agent of 14 years, parted ways due to “irreconcilable differences.” Foucher’s explanation from his perspective was rather candid and illuminating. Read it in its entirety here, if you wish.

All that’s transpired over the past 12 months has led Jovan Buha, who covers the Lakers for The Athletic, to posit that Westbrook and Los Angeles are destined for an “inevitable divorce.” It’s a swift and jarring shift from last summer and 2020-21, when the two sides were optimistic as could be and Westbrook was fresh off a strong second half of the season (playoff foibles notwithstanding). As Westbrook further distances himself from his prime, calls for adaptation — more cutting, quicker decision-making, better defensive focus and decision-making — swell. That role is supposedly the one new Lakers head coach Darvin Ham envisions for him.

Yet Westbrook has failed to ever consistently embrace those sorts of ideals. It’s among the various reasons last season was so concerning and why we sit here today, with Westbrook’s Los Angeles departure seemingly a foregone conclusion in the eyes of many. It’s simply a matter of when, not if, Westbrook leaves his hometown team.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that so far, Harry Styles’ “As It Was” is currently in the lead for claiming the unofficial “song of the summer” title: Summer started on June 21 and on the five Billboard Hot 100 charts dated since then, “As It Was” has been No. 1 on all but one of them (the week Drake and 21 Savage spent on top with “Jimmy Cooks“). That includes this week’s new chart: On the Hot 100 dated July 23, “As It Was” is No. 1 for a 10th total week.

This is Styles’ first single to spend double-digit weeks at No. 1, which isn’t something that happens often: 1,138 songs have reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 and “As It Was” is only the 42nd one (here are the previous 41) to remain on top for at least 10 weeks (meaning fewer than 4 percent of chart-toppers have ever pulled this off).

On last week’s chart, Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” rose to No. 2 and looked like it had a chance to ride its momentum and dethrone Styles, but that hasn’t happened yet and it stays in the second spot this week. In fact, this week’s chart is nearly identical to last week’s rankings: Jack Harlow’s “First Class” is still No. 3; Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” stays at No. 4; Future, Drake, and Tems’ “Wait For U” remains at No. 5, Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” holds strong at No. 9, and Latto’s “Big Energy” again rounds things out at No. 10. The only real change was “Jimmy Cooks” sliding down a couple spots: “Jimmy Cooks” fell from No. 6 to No. 8, allowing Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone’s “Me Porto Bonito” to rise from No. 7 to No. 6 and Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” to go from No. 8 to No. 7.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Last week, HBO Max released the first full-length trailer for season three of Harley Quinn, a very good show that everyone should watch instead of yelling on Twitter, or whatever. But it wasn’t the full Harley Quinn experience because there was no swearing and very little violence. Remember, this is the show that had Batman “going down” on Catwoman until DC intervened because “heroes don’t do that.” You gotta have the sex, violence, and swearing — all of which appear in the red-band trailer for season three.

You can watch it below:

I’d like to welcome the latest member (no pun intended) of Batman’s Rogues Gallery: C*ck King. No, not Clock King. We’ve seen him before, including on Batman: The Animated Series, but C*ck King, who has a… well, I’ll let you see for yourself.

Here’s more on what to expect in season three:

Wrapping up their “Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour,” Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco) and Poison Ivy (Lake Bell) return to Gotham as the new power couple of DC villainy. Along with their ragtag crew – King Shark (Ron Funches), Clayface (Alan Tudyk), Frank the Plant (JB Smoove) – “Harlivy” strives to become the best version of themselves while also working towards Ivy’s long desired plan of transforming Gotham into an Eden paradise.

Harley Quinn season three premieres on HBO Max on July 28.

A few days ago, Marcus Mumford shared a video for the single “Cannibal,” and while the one-shot, black-and-white clip was nicely executed, it didn’t seem particularly notable, at least not more so than any other visual from a major artist that came out last week.

It turns out, though, that it’s actually a bit historic: Today, Mumford revealed that the clip was actually directed by Steven Spielberg, who made his music video directorial debut.

Kate Capshaw — painter, actress, and Spielberg’s wife — also played a part, as Mumford noted in a post revealing the news today. He wrote, “On Sunday 3rd July in a high school gym in New York, Steven Spielberg directed his first music video, in one shot, on his phone. Kate Capshaw was the almighty dolly grip. I’ve been overwhelmed by the support of the people around me to bring this music to you, and I cannot hope to express all of my gratitude. When people get it, it blows my mind. Kate and Steven just got it, and I cannot thank them enough. Thank you Kate. Thank you Kristie. Thank you Steven.”

The caption goes on to credit Kristie Macosko Krieger, a producer and longtime Spielberg collaborator, as “Producer and BTS videographer;” actress Carey Mulligan, Mumford’s wife since 2012, for “Costumer and Sound;” and Capshaw as “Producer, Art Director and Dolly Grip.” The post itself consists of a few behind-the-scenes photos of the video and the aforementioned folks who worked on it.

In case you missed it, check out the ‘Cannibal’ video below. The song, by the way, comes from the Mumford & Sons leader’s upcoming solo album, Self-Titled.