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Look, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp) is not going to, let’s say, make everything okay again or make you feel better about the way things are going in this world. Nothing, really, can do that right now. But, having said that, Marcel is a joyous time out and a look at a being, so precious and kind, that it’s kind of heartbreaking to have to re-enter the real world after.

Marcel the shell with shoes on is, well, exactly that. He is a shell (voiced by Jenny Slate, who also co-wrote the film) who lives in a house with his grandmother (Isabella Rossellini) after the previous owners left and took his parents and all his friends with them. When a documentary filmmaker rents the house, he discovers Marcel and makes a film about him, which captures a lot of online attention.

BTW, when this interview took place last week, the Supreme Court had just issued one of its controversial decisions minutes before and Slate, who hadn’t heard the news yet, was the first human I’d spoken to after learning about it. She was really wonderful about the whole thing and asked if we should do this another time, but talking about Marcel seemed therapeutic at the time.

Marcel has good opinions on things. He’s very positive.

Yeah. Marcel has a way of existing that is at once really encouraging, and feels, in this strange way that’s hard to describe, it feels like spiritually correct.

Yes.

Even though he is a little shell and everything about him is so funny and reminds you of the imagination itself. But I think, for me, I see his point of view and his existence as a kind of arrow pointing in the direction that I, as a person, would like to be moving.

What came first? Was it the voice that is extremely appealing for a very cute character? Or the design? Or did it all kind of happen at once?

The voice came first. Dean Fleischer-Camp, the director, he and I were at a wedding. We were sharing a hotel room with a lot of friends. We were all just trying to save money. And so we all stayed in a hotel, not a hotel, a motel together. And I was just so squished in and I started talking in this little voice. And it was perfect timing that Dean had promised a friend that he would make a short film for their comedy show and he hadn’t done anything yet. He was pressed for time on it. And so anyway, he was like, “I have to make this thing. Can I interview you in that voice? And maybe I’ll create an animation over it.” He didn’t even know, I think, what that would be. But he started interviewing and little bits and pieces of Marcel’s identity started to emerge. And then Dean had a bunch of found objects in the house, some shells from the craft store and googly eyes and went to the local toy store on Court Street in Brooklyn where we lived and bought a knockoff of a Polly Pocket for the shoes and put Marcel together.

I may have been to that toy store. I think I might know the one you’re talking about.

It’s near the movie theater? It’s called Pizzazzz Toys, I want to say.

I think it’s one of those stores you can’t not go in when you walk by.

For sure. I used to go there. They would give you a free balloon. And I would go there to get a balloon just to walk around because it made me feel special.

See, that’s nice. A free balloon. More places should do that.

Yeah. That’s true. I believe in that policy.

To turn something from a short film into a full-length film seems very difficult.

Well, there’s always a challenge. I think that the first thing that we had to do was to make sure that we were happy with what we were doing. Meaning that we weren’t making creative compromises or changing our goals just so that we could get a movie made.

Right.

There are some situations where it’s like, “I just want to get this movie made. I don’t care if we have to replace the main actor. If we have to shoot it in Atlanta instead of Massachusetts, or whatever.” All of this stuff that just comes into trying to get something done. And those compromises, in the end, can work. For Marcel, we really felt – just like some plants will die if you take them out of the greenhouse – everything has its environment. We knew what Marcel’s environment was. That it’s enough of a story to see him in a house. He doesn’t need to be on a cruise or whatever. He doesn’t need to be at the top of the Empire State Building. Actually, the best way to see him, and the only way that he would really be worthy of examination in a feature film, would be to see how he lives in his environment.

Now I’m thinking of the bad sequel. Marcel on his cruise. That would be the direction that I could see a studio wanting it to go or something like that.

Yeah. I mean, and it’s not like – it doesn’t need to be a knock on studio film in general. For example, I think Paddington 2 is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

Oh, yes…

And there are a lot of beautiful studio movies for kids, like WALL-E is so, so perfect to me. Generally, I’m a giant Pixar fan and a giant Illumination fan and also working for them… I don’t have an issue.

I, too, like studio movies. I loved Top Gun, great movie. That’s a studio movie. But I could see the bad studio pitch is what I meant.

Yeah. And, or you could just see the shortsighted way to monetize. How do we monetize this thing? Not that we don’t want to make a living. But first and foremost, we were like, if we’re going to make this movie, we have to remember why we wanted to do it in the first place. Last night I was a screening at Rooftop Films, which also was a big supporter of Obvious Child and all of my work with Gillian Robespierre and Liz Holmes. There were hundreds of people there and I felt this feeling that I’ve really never felt before because I don’t think I’ve ever put anything out there on this large of a scale that is, truly, I am one of the original collaborators in. I’ve been in large animated films, but I just walked in there and did the fun thing that they asked me to do.

Right.

To stand in front of those people who are so eager to see the film and you can feel the kindness in the audience. And know that there is a real living lifeline between your original hope for how you could self-actualize as a creative person and what you see on the screen. That is a priceless feeling. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel it again, as a creative person. It’s incredible.

Oh, that’s interesting. I bet you will because you just said this was one of the first times where you’ve done this. If you do it again, I’m sure you’ll you’ll feel that, right?

Well, maybe, but Marcel is so unique.

Marcel is unique. There’s no getting around that. That is true.

There will never be, for me, something exactly like this again. Which also doesn’t mean that there won’t be a million moments that are pleasing. And, generally, the ethos of the film, or the belief system of the film, that everything will change. Of course, it will. And that will lead to a wide variety of experiences, all of which have their worth. Even the ones that are hard on the heart, they have their worth. I believe that for myself.

I think a lesser movie would have something like “oh and now Marcel’s been kidnapped and we got to get him back” or something like that. And the worst thing that happens to Marcel, as far as people showing up at his house, is he has TikTok dancers out there. Which is such a great scene. “Are they going to help me?” “No.”

Right. Yeah. I mean, and all of the people that do end up finding Marcel’s house and leaving fan mail for him… What I’m so interested in is that blend of they truly are only trying to connect. The people who love Marcel. And the force of their desire to connect ends up being something that is a disruption in his life and even creates a little bit of danger. But it wasn’t their intention. And what I like about that is you can still have the disruption, you can still have the feeling that it’s too much, it doesn’t fit. It’s not the right way to connect. And the fact that there was no ill intent behind it, at all. And it’s a lovely moment to think about how real connection really is. And that even if you have an end point, I’m a little kid outside and my end point is I want Marcel to see the drawing that he gave me.

The reception is actually… Has many different things coinciding at once. And I don’t know. I know, as a person, I am often stumped about how I come across. And often I’m looking back into interviews and being like, “Why was I swearing so much?” Or what was that about? Not like I was angry. But whoa. Is that what I sound like?

Well, you’re talking to someone who went on a rant about the Supreme Court when we first got on this call. You were the first human I had spoken to since that happened.

Something I’ve learned as a parent — one of the most important things — is if somebody is trying to tell you how they feel, to try your best to be there and be able to be a good listener without making them feel that you’ve burdened them with what you have to say.

Right.

Because some people just get turned off on expression, in general. And I think that we’re in the most danger when we stop trying to show what we’re really like, or what’s really important to us. Obviously, I’ve learned for myself, there’s a time and a place. There are ways in which things can be more usefully said. For example, I took a bunch of years off of social media because I don’t really feel like amplifying messages on Instagram was the way that was going to be my best way for getting out there and changing the world. I actually started to be like, I think I just get out there and do stuff in the world.

But anyway. Anyway. This is all to say that I like how our movie says connection is worth it. But if you want to connect, it’s really important to stand at the intersection of all of the possibilities of how that connection might be received. How your expression, how what you’re trying to do for someone else, might be received. And to have a little bit of responsibility about that. We are all in this field of relations, responsible for how we meet each other.

‘Marcel The Shell With Shoes On’ is in theaters now. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Beyoncé drop an instant “song of the summer” candidate and Lil Nas X contribute an instant “beef of the summer” contender. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

For more music recommendations, check out our Listen To This section, as well as our Indie Mixtape and Pop Life newsletters. Also find our Uproxx HQ Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly with the best new music, at the end of this post.

Beyoncé — “Break My Soul”

We just had one of the strongest surprise-release weeks in recent memory: Drake dropped Honestly, Nevermind and shortly after that, Beyoncé fired off the single “Break My Soul.” Like Drake’s output, the new Beyoncé tune is a full-on dance banger, a thumping and catchy tune that’s bound to be ubiquitous this summer.

Lil Nas X and NBA Youngboy — “Late To The Party”

In case you missed it, Lil Nas X has beef with the BET Awards, which didn’t give him any nominations this year. Actually, there’s really no way we could have missed that beef, since Nas made it as clear as possible on his new song, “Late To The Party.” The tune opens and closes with Nas repeating, “F*ck BET,” and sandwiched between that is yet another fun and bouncy tune from the rapper/viral expert.

Eminem and Snoop Dogg — “From The D 2 The LBC”

NFTs, aka the things everybody loves and nobody has any issues with. Eminem and Snoop Dogg are (unironically) cool with them, as they flex in their video for “From The D 2 The LBC,” in which they turned into Bored Ape NFTs. As for the song, it’s an aggressive one in which both rappers turn up the tempo for dexterous verses.

Taylor Swift — “Carolina”

The Folklore/Evermore sessions keep on giving: A few days ago, Swift dropped “Carolina,” her contribution to the Where The Crawdads Sing soundtrack that was recorded during that era. The mellow tune is mostly just Swift and acoustic guitar before strings and other atmospheric instrumentation gradually creep in to flesh out the tune.

Soccer Mommy — “Darkness Forever”

Of the brooding and more experimental moments on her new album Sometimes, Forever, Soccer Mommy recently told Uproxx, “They are so heavy and doomy, and it can be slow and sludgy. It feels heavy all the time, but it’s not like a thousand guitars or this crazy shredding. It’s really evil.”

Gorillaz — “Cracker Island” Feat. Thundercat

Both Gorillaz and Thundercat have collaborated with more people than just about anybody in recent years, so it’s only natural that they’d finally link up on a track together. They delivered “Cracker Island” last week, an upbeat and groove-driven tune that makes perfect use of both artists’ respective talents in the name of fun and catchy music.

Roddy Ricch — “Real Talk”

Following his late-2021 album Live Life Fast, Ricch made a quick return with a batch of new songs, via last week’s three-track EP The Big 3. Kicking off the trio of tunes is “Real Talk,” an atmospheric and in-your-face tune in which the rapper talks about his past and staying true to himself.

Coi Leray — “Involved”

Leray recently delayed her tour, but the good news is that she’s now returned with new music, “Involved.” Uproxx’s Armon Sadler notes, ‘Her new single “Involved’ addresses the mutual affection between her and a lover. She pledges to be discreet through autotuned vocals and a frantic drum pattern but also acknowledges her addiction to the love they share and how it forces her to question why she stays when other women are in the picture.”

Giveon — “Lost Me”

Giveon has done a terrific job of making a name for himself, both through features (like on Justin Bieber’s No. 1 single “Peaches”) and his one material (2020’s “Heartbreak Anniversary” managed a peak at No. 16 on the Hot 100 chart). All of this has built up to his just-released debut album, Give Or Take. Of “Lost Me,” Uproxx’s Wongo Okon notes, “The song presents Giveon’s dismissal of future attempts at love after past ones only left him heartbroken.”

Conan Gray — “Movies”

Gray had one of our most anticipated pop albums of the summer with Superache, and thankfully the anticipation is over because the LP is now ours. The project kicks off with “Movies,” which balances cinematic grandiosity with acoustic intimacy, all for an evocative tune that sees Gray yearning for a perfect love, the kind that seems to only exist on the big screen.

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

Creating an accurate-looking wax figure based on a celebrity is clearly hard to do because it seems at least once every few months, a new one emerges and leaves fans scratching their heads. In recent years, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, and Rihanna have all fallen victim to a less-than-perfect wax representation (although a Madame Tussauds figure of Drake from 2019 was actually pretty good). Now, there’s a new wax figure of Billie Eilish out there, and it’s not quite up to Drake-level quality.

Hollywood Wax Museum unveiled the new figure yesterday (June 26, as ET Canada notes) and when fans got a look at it, they had criticisms and plenty of them.

A common reaction is that the figure makes 20-year-old Eilish look far more aged than she actually is. Others thought Eilish looks like Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans in White Chicks. Other less referential comments just insist flat-out that the figure is no good.

This actually isn’t the first time Eilish has been immortalized in wax, as a figure of her in her green hair era debuted in 2020 at a Barcelona museum. Like the new figure, that one was also not well-received.

Check out more tweets about the new Eilish figure below.

John Oliver came out swinging at Republicans who have been downright jubilant over the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Last Week Tonight host had a particular amount of ire for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who closed his office early on Friday and declared it “Sanctity of Life Day,” a new annual holiday that will serve as a memorial to “almost 70 million babies who have been killed in the womb.”

Oliver’s segment heaped considerable scorn on Republicans like Mike Pence and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but the host could not get over the “gleeful” response from Paxton. “What’s made it even harder is having to watch sh*t like this,” Oliver said before teeing up a clip announcing the Texas holiday:

“Nope, f*ck you,” Oliver fired back. “First, June 24 is already a holiday. It’s called Solange’s birthday, and she does not deserve this on her day. Second, nobody wants to go to a Sanctity of Life anti-choice cookout. The potato salad is going to be trash. And, finally, you don’t get a holiday celebrating loss of rights for millions of people when you already have one, and it’s called Columbus Day.”

Despite the few zingers, the Last Week Tonight host was mostly filled with justifiable anger at the state of women’s rights following the stunning reversal.

“What the Supreme Court has just done is utterly devastating,” Oliver said. “The message that the Supreme Court sends is pretty clear: We don’t care if pregnancy kills you, we don’t care if you don’t want to be pregnant, we don’t care about you at all.”

(Via The Daily Beast, The Hollywood Reporter)

One of 2022’s most anticipated (and graphic) TV events has come and gone, emphasis on the come. “Herogasm” is being called the best episode of The Boys, the Amazon Prime Video series that’s ruined other superhero content for one of the show’s stars.

It was a blast to watch, and (ahem) a load of fun to film, according to Karl Urban.

“Listen, I think that every single season you get to a juncture where you’re like: ‘How can we possibly get away with this?’ And this season, it became pretty apparent that everything was dialed up,” the actor told Digital Spy. “There’s more action, more drama, more heart. And I think it pushed all the departments. Like, the makeup department, they ran out of fake blood on episode three, and sperm on episode six.”

In case you were wondering (you weren’t), the recipe to make fake sperm involves an egg, plain yogurt, water, cornstarch, and a pinch of salt. It should not be confused with the recipe to make The Rock’s famous pancakes. Or you can buy something called Master Series Jizz Lube, which “RESEMBLES THE LOOK, FEEL, AND SCENT OF AUTHENTIC SEMEN.” It’s available on Amazon, so hopefully The Boys got a discount.

(Via Digital Spy)

The 2022 BET Awards have come and gone and aside from a t-shirt worn by Jack Harlow, Lil Nas X was not present. This whole saga has bothered Lil Nas X, of course, but now he has said his “painful and strained” relationship with BET actually started before he didn’t receive any award nominations from them this year.

In a statement, the rapper told Rolling Stone, “My relationship with BET has been painful and strained for quite some time. It didn’t start with this year’s nominations like most people might think. They did let me perform on their show last year, but only after [I gave] assurances that I was not a satanist or devil worshiper, and that my performance would be appropriate for their audience.”

In response, a BET spokesperson said the “summation of events around Lil Nas X’s 2021 BET Awards performance is simply untrue” and added, “Since last year’s performance, we have been in touch to work on other projects. We are still excited about his previous performances and continue to wish him well. But today, we are focused on culture’s biggest night and delivering history-making moments for fans worldwide.”

That said, an anonymous member of Nas’ team told Rolling Stone of the immediate response to Nas’ 2021 BET Awards performance (the one where he kissed one of his dancers, by the way), “At some point after [Nas] got offstage, one of the BET producers came up to me and before I could even open my mouth, he looked at me and said, ‘That was really f*cked up.’”

Nas added, “They say that ‘no one cheered louder’ for me than them that night, but the BET Awards team was actually very upset that I kissed my dancer onstage and vocalized their discontent with multiple members of my team immediately following the performance.”

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Back in 2003, Madonna and Britney Spears had one of the year’s biggest pop culture moments when they shared a kiss on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards, a moment that Madonna said earlier this year she was keen to re-create. Well, they got their chance: At Spears and Sam Asghari’s recent wedding, Madonna and Spears locked lips once again, as photos showed. Now, Spears has gone ahead and addressed kiss 2.0 herself.

In an Instagram post from over the weekend, Spears shared a photo of the latest kiss and wrote, “Weird that @madonna is extremely short and I was shorter than her … do we shrink as we get older [thinking emojis] … am I becoming short like my mom ??? Kissing the one and only Madonna !!! I didn’t know Madonna has almost as many number-one singles as The Beatles !!! So honored she came to my wedding … perspective … The Beatles have 20 and miss thang has 12 !!! Wow wow wow [exploding head emojis] !!!”

“Minutes after we got married you cheated on me,” Asghari joked in a comment on the post.

Madonna previously shared the same photo earlier this month and wrote, “Britney you look so happy and in love [heart emojis] I wish you and Sam all the best! Last night was fun and sweaty!!”

Move over, Will Smith. There’s a new slap in town.

A grocery store worker on Staten Island was arrested on Sunday after slapping Rudy Giuliani on the back while the sweaty former-mayor campaigned on behalf of his “obnoxious” son, Andrew Giuliani. NBC New York reports that “Giuliani, a recent focus of the January 6 committee, was at the ShopRite on Veterans Road in Charleston, where he’d reportedly been out campaigning for his son, when cops say an employee attacked him around 3:30 p.m. The employee was taken into custody. Police sources said the 78-year-old Giuliani refused medical attention after the slap to the back.”

I’ve had nasty NYC pigeons fly into me harder than this so-called attack:

Giuliani later called into a radio show hosted by Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa to talk about the incident. He described the slap as “a shot on my back, like somebody shot me. I went forward, but luckily I didn’t fall down. The guy says words I can’t repeat. You effin’ whatever. And then he goes on and on and on yelling and screaming, he moves away, yelling and screaming.” He also claimed that the man called him a “f*cking scumbag,” and that it had to do with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

He continued:

“I mean, suppose I was a weaker 78-year-old and I hit the ground, cracked my skull, and died.”

Footage of the attack released did not appear to show Giuliani lurching forward or falling after being slapped on the back. The video also appeared to show Giuliani standing upright and pointing his finger at the man who confronted him.

“This has to stop. This is getting ridiculous,” the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm star said on Sunday afternoon. “I’ve been in politics 50 years, I’ve never been attacked like this.”

The suspect was charged with second-degree assault involving a person over age 65. But on Twitter, people are questioning Giuliani’s dramatic reenactment on the incident.

(Via NBC New York)

Multiple times per week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts and ratings) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.

TIE: 10. Top Gun (Paramount movie streaming on Paramount+)

Tom Cruise can’t stop feeling the need for speed or the danger zone, and this O.G. flick soared in popularity when Top Gun: Maverick (finally) headed into theaters. The sequel was fully worth the wait, but if you still haven’t caught up (or even if you have), then the 1980s-set volleyball game is definitely something that you’ll wanna relive. Iceman was always the coolest, and his rivalry with Maverick was one for the ages. No singular star does blockbusters (or crazy stunts) like Tom Cruise these days, so don’t resist: let him take your breath away.

TIE: 10. Ms. Marvel (HBO Max series)

Before The Marvels collectively arrive in 2023 (that would also include Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Paris) and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), you’ll want to get to know the youngest member of the group, Iman Vallani’s Kamala Khan. She’s a fan girl of Captain Marvel and not-at-all shy about this status, and even more than that, she wants to be a hero because she inherently wants to help people. The show also revamps the origin story of Kamala’s powers, and that’s slightly controversial but very updated for 2022, not to mention cosmic.

9. Dark Winds (AMC+ series)

Native American writers are finally telling the stories that they want to tell, and that not only includes FX’s Reservation Dogs but also this AMC+ series that George R.R. Martin happens to produce. The show’s mostly scripted by indigenous writers and is based upon Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee book series, which showcases 1970s Navajo law enforcement who watch over a remote outpost close to Monument Valley. There’s a double murder and some other apparently unrelated wrongdoings, and everything begins to make them question their formerly steadfast spiritual beliefs. Gotta love those personal demons that rear up at the worst (and also best) possible times.

8. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+ series)

He might be Princess Leia’s only hope, but back in the day, an adorable surprise awaits fans of the Star Wars universe. The throwback show takes place a decade following the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, and Anakin Skywalker is (of course) fully into his bad self and entrenched in the ways of the dark side. Hayden Christiansen and Ewan McGregor are back together again, both together and separately, and a completist simply must soak in the entire season.

7. Peaky Blinders (BBC One/Netflix series)

A mere half-dozen episodes stand between you and the end of this series proper, but the good news is that there might be movies or spinoffs on the way. Before that good news arrives, go watch Cillian Murphy swaggering while kicking butt and preparing to head to America. The untimely death of Helen McRory weighs heavily upon the events of this season, but at least we’ve still got Tommy Shelby (as he prepares for a new life) and the rest of the gang, so whip out that Cockney rhyming slang.

6. Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24 film streaming on Amazon)

A24 can’t seem to miss, so dig into this chaotic whirl of a story where Michelle Yeoh’s protagonist and she just really needs to finish those freaking taxes. Jamie Lee Curtis shows up, as does Jenny Slate, in this story that will make you forget all about your multiverse fatigue because this story (about an exhausted, frazzled Chinese-American woman with unexpected powers) will not fail to charm you as she confronts the most absurd obstacles while aiming to complete mundane life tasks.

5. The Bear (FX series streaming on Hulu)

A fine dining chef leaves his swanking surroundings and heads back home to Chicago, where he takes on his family’s sandwich shop to chaotic effect after a tragedy. This show’s all about finding one’s own family, and also, Jeremy Allen White can’t seem to quit the Windy City after a decade of Shameless. This new jaunt is a very different ride, though, and White’s supported by a shouty character portrayed by Ebon Moss-Bachrach and a whipsmart sous chef played by Ayo Edebir. The story (and title) are also a puzzle, so dig in and drool over the food, too.

4. Hustle (Netflix Movie)

Forget all about Hubie Halloween and the problematic Adam Sandler movies on Netflix. This movie is all kinds of earnest and a story that reflects the life of NBA scouts in the same way that Top Gun takes on the U.S. Navy. Sandler portrays one of those scouts, who’s always in search of the next phenomenal player while personal demons must also be vanquished. There are shades of The Blind Side, but the charm of this story is thoroughly due to The Sandman.

3. Stranger Things (Netflix series)

The second half of this season arrives on July 1, but before that happens, the Upside Down has some horrors for you. Oh, and also Robert Englund and Kate Bush, which is a combination that no one ever expected. Millie Bobbie Brown’s still leading the way for all of the young actors, even though she really hopes that some Game of Thrones-style deaths are in store for everyone. And speaking of Thrones, expect for some Emmy records to soon be challenged as the Duffer brothers prepare to close in on their final season production.

2. The Boys (Amazon Prime series)

A franchise now exists for this satiric spin on superherodom, and this past week saw the incredible “Herogasm” episode that jizzed all over the place in more ways than one. I’ll keep on arguing that weekly drops are the most optical strategy for a show that generates so much conversation, Jensen Ackles‘ Soldier Boy is fully in view now, much to Homelander’s non-delight. Maybe he’ll be distracted enough to ease up on The Deep because that guy maybe deserves a little bit of redemption at this point. That octopus stuff is still whack, man.

1. The Umbrella Academy (Netflix series)

The Hargreeves siblings make an awe-inspiring return to confront the frosty and high-powered Sparrow Academy, all while a new time paradox threatens to crumble the very fabric of this timeline. Will these apocalypses ever ease up? There’s no indication of that ever happening, but do enjoy the simple pleasures of watching Robert Sheehan’s Klaus and the sublime introduction of Elliot Page’s Victor while all of the batsh*t happenings swirl like a tornado. This show strikes the perfect combination of dramatic, quirky, and action-filled, and it’s still going full steam ahead.

This year’s Glastonbury Festival has featured a number of artists taking political stances in favor of women’s rights. That’s because the showcase kicked off shortly after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade which guaranteed the right to an abortion for women all over the country. During the weekend, Kendrick Lamar, Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo (with help from Lily Allen), and Green Day all used the Glastonbury stage to share their thoughts about Roe V. Wade being overturned. Lorde has now joined that list as she also gave the US Supreme Court a piece of her mind.

After performing “Secrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All)” from her 2021 album Solar Power, Lorde took a moment to address the Supreme Court’s recent ruling. “Wanna hear a secret girls?” she said. “Your bodies were destined to be controlled and objectified since before you were born. That horror is your birthright.” She continued, “But here’s another secret. You possess strength. That wisdom is also your birthright. I ask you today to make exercising that wisdom your life’s work because everything depends on it. F*ck the Supreme Court.”

Elsewhere in her set, Lorde invited Clairo and Arlo Parks on stage to perform “Stoned At The Nail Salon” together.

You can watch Lorde’s speech and her performance with Clairo and Arlo Parks in the videos above.

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