A little over a week ago, Halsey went viral for — ironically enough — claiming on TikTok that her label, Capitol Records, wouldn’t give her new single a release date unless she went viral on TikTok. “Basically, I have a song that I love that I want to release ASAP, but my record label won’t let me,” the video read in the caption. “I’ve been in this industry for eight years and I’ve sold over 165 million records and my record company is saying I can’t release [the song] unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.”
Well, the viral moment may not have come the way the label wanted to (… or did it?), but today, Capitol announced, “We are committing to a release of ‘So Good’ on June 9th, 2022,” on Twitter. An additional statement read:
We are an artist-first company that encourages open dialogue. We have nothing but a desire to help each one of our artists succeed, and hope that we can continue to have these critical conversations.
– @halsey, we love you and are here to support you. We are committing to a release of “So Good” on June 9th, 2022. pic.twitter.com/DKBrtRUCpk
Incidentally, Halsey wasn’t the only artist to complain about her label’s TikTok policy, and it wasn’t Halsey’s only complaint since moving from Astralwerks to Capitol proper. In a series of tweets, Halsey said that Capitol also blocked the release of her song “3am” as a single and cut the rollout for her album Manic short.
So, now, I guess we look forward to the release of “So Good” and hope the buzz hasn’t died down by 6/9.
There’s plenty to question about the U.S. Depp v. Heard trial airing on Court TV as it happened. The six-week production showcased what one expert (divisively) described as “mutual abuse” and, although this was a defamation trial, the testimony frequently dove into harrowing descriptions of said alleged abuse. However, the trial also devolved into tales of “human fecal matter” and peeing in hallways (accusations flung by both sides), along with testimony about death threats and wild money demands.
It’s safe to say that this was a chaotic yet triggering mess that, in execution, landed as something that SNL scathingly skewered as being “for fun.” And as if that wasn’t enough (and before a jury verdict even landed, given that Depp’s suing for $50 million, and Heard’s countersuing for $100 million), there will also be a documentary. This is the second such project with the first landing after Depp’s 2020 U.K.-based libel trial against The Sun, which ended with that court shutting down Depp’s claim and ruling that a tabloid’s “wife beater” claim about him was “substantially true.”
Via Variety, this project will come from Warner Bros. Discovery U.K., which produced the first documentary and has this planned for Number Two:
[T]he follow up will be focused on the recent and very high-profile legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, this time in the U.S. The two-part Discovery+ documentary will again look at the extensive evidence and testimony of both Depp and Heard. Each episode will present one side of the argument through legal teams, friends, family and key witnesses.
No word yet on whether any drama related to James Franco or Elon Musk challenging Depp to a “cage fight” will be involved. The good news, though, is that we haven’t heard news of a third trial happening. Humanity has been through enough already.
Say what you want about Kanye West’s creative output lately, but he’s shown himself to be an incredible benefactor to the new artists he supports. For instance, after Fivio Foreign appeared on Donda, Kanye returned the favor, granting him the single “City Of Gods” for his debut album, B.I.B.L.E. Likewise, Louisville rising star Vory, who has been working behind the scenes since 2016, also lent his vocal expertise to three Donda tracks and has now received his own blessing from the production icon.
Vory’s new single “Daylight” was originally intended for Donda, but after some reworking, now appears destined for the Louisville rapper/singer’s upcoming debut album, Lost Souls. Built over a sample of Dione Warwick’s 1973 single “You’re Gonna Need Me” (notable for appearing on Usher’s Confessions track “Superstar” and J Dilla’s “Stop!” from Donuts), the new song finds the two artists facing their anxieties and seeking comfort in one-night stands, accompanied by plenty of soul-searching.
“Daylight” is the second single to be released ahead of Lost Souls, which is scheduled for a June 3 release. The first single, “Do Not Disturb,” was released on May 13 and featured Bleu and Nav. Other artists due to appear on the album include Memphis singer/rapper Fresco Trey, Atlanta rap-crooner Landstrip Chip, and Jamaican genre misfit BEAM.
A few days ago, Michelle Zauner (aka Japanese Breakfast) had the honor of throwing out the first pitch at a game between the New York Mets and her hometown Philadelphia Phillies. These moments can often live on in infamy, but fortunately for Zauner, her throw was relatively uneventful: It was wide left and it two-hopped to the catcher, but it wasn’t a superlatively awful throw that will be forever included in compilations of hilariously bad first pitches.
What did stand out, though, was Zauner’s attire, as on the field, she wore a nice Mets jersey with “Jbrekkie” on the back, right above the number 69. In a new interview with Spin, Zauner speculated that she got away with the number choice due to a funny misunderstanding.
She said, “They asked me what I wanted on my jersey and what number and so I just figured I should do ‘Jbrekkie’ and the only number that came to mind was 69 [laughs]. I was surprised they let me do it, actually. But then I also found out that the Mets won the World Series in ’69, so maybe they thought it was an homage to them. It was.”
Indeed, the Mets won the first of their two World Series titles in 1969, with their second coming in 1986. They also appeared in the championship round in 1973, 2000, and 2015. So, it’s possible that whoever is in charge of coordinating first pitches really did think Zauner was showing love to the franchise’s first title. It could also just be that they saw was Zauner was doing and let her have some fun for her big moment.
She also described her throw, “I’m obviously very much an indoor kid and I knew that I was not going to do a great job — and I didn’t get to practice very much, because we found out a week-and-a-half before or something and I was supposed to practice with [drummer and producer Craig Hendrix] and then SNL came in and all of our attention went to SNL. Then we got there at 3:00 and they said I was going to be able to have practice on the field with the baseball players or whatever, but it was raining. So I didn’t get to practice at all and when I did practice, it was not as far away as the mound was to the plate. Everyone was like, ‘You can stand as close as you want,’ but then the catcher kind of gave me sh*t, like if you don’t do it from the top of the mound, it doesn’t count. I was like, ‘I’m not doing that, no way,’ and so I was kind of trying to get him to come closer but he wasn’t having it. I blame him.”
I played Wilco’s 21-song double-album opus a lot this month when I needed a break from news stories about school shootings, overseas wars, and eroding civil liberties. In the ’90s, musicians like Jeff Tweedy dug into the roots of America’s musical past to find a narrative that was more open-minded and sympathetic than the depressing stories we all heard in history class or on the evening news, which were always centered on political dynasties and endless military conquests. At its best, this music reminded people born into modernity that there was a rich heritage buried underneath the toxicity of institutional American history that we all could inherit as part of our birthright. We just needed to know where to look and how listen for it. A record like Cruel Country can, I hope, remind a new generation that there’s a version of America rooted in art, love, community, and joy. It is, at heart, a batch of folk songs replete with lovely pedal steel guitars and warm organ fills. But the album also carries a harder, more pessimistic truth. It’s the one you hear in “The Plains,” in which the place that vows to give all who live here the world might in fact, in the end, take our souls.
The title of this LP could be taken as ironic, given that The Smile appears to be an antidote to the fanatical anticipation that typically greets Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s work with their “regular” group. The Smile, in contrast, feels like a deliberately low-stakes affair, having come together during lockdown after 40 percent of one of the world’s most beloved bands decided to work on music together with highly regarded jazz drummer Tom Skinner. If anything, adopting The Smile moniker is a means of attracting significantly less attention than a proper Radiohead release inevitably would. Backed by Skinner’s technically brilliant but unobtrusive timekeeping, The Smile present themselves on that song as the most un-Radiohead-like of propositions — a guitar-driven power trio! — that happens to sound, tantalizingly, like a version of Radiohead that Radiohead no longer is apparently interested in being.
3. Say Sue Me, The Last Thing Left
My friend and podcast co-host Ian Cohen likes to say that at least 25 percent of his indie rock promo pile at any give moment sounds like “Alvvays without the tunes.” This South Korean band reminds me a bit of Alvvays, but they definitely have the tunes to go with the sad-eyed, indie-pop trappings. The melancholy bop of The Last Thing Left has soundtracked my late spring, as I’m a sucker for taking walks in the fresh air while taking in trebly guitars and alluringly doleful vocals. Sumi Choi — Say Sue Me’s singer, guitarist, and songwriter — really is the star of the show here, striking a perfect balance of knowing sorrow and ingratiating charm on songs that zip in and out before the heartache can set in.
4. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Endless Rooms
Briskly strummed guitars, ping-ponging baselines, relentless motorik drum beats that usually linger between 160 and 170 bpm — Australian quintet Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever definitely have a formula when it comes to writing songs. But the wonder of the band’s consistently great output is how they find new ways to package those elements into insistently tuneful guitar-pop gems. While I remain partial to their breakout 2017 EP The French Press, I’m starting to think that their latest effort might be their best. The problem with this band is that I tend to think that whichever record I’ve heard most recently is their best. Like fellow Aussies AC/DC, these guys just make the same record over and over. But it’s always a really good record, so I’m really just complimenting their top-notch quality control.
5. Sharon Van Etten, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong
Speaking of consistency, few artists in the indie sphere have been as reliable in the past decade as Sharon Van Etten. Only she hasn’t stuck to a particular sound in that time. Her previous album, 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow, was a full-on rock record with genuine anthems, a shift of startling boldness for an artist who sometimes seemed too shy to actually step on stage at the beginning of her career. I loved the evolution, and Remind Me Tomorrow remains my favorite Van Etten record. But her latest LP can hardly be considered a letdown. Rather, it finds Van Etten showing off both her recent aggressiveness (particularly on the flinty “Headspace”) as well as the familiar sensitivity of her early work. With an artist as dependable as Van Etten, it’s easy to take a record like We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong for granted. It’s “merely” another very good release from a very good artist. (I wonder if her decision to not release any advance singles might have damped the buzz.) But I have a feeling this one will continue to sink in for me as the year unfolds.
6. Craig Finn, A Legacy Of Rentals
The evolution of the Hold Steady singer’s solo career has been a welcome surprise. After a brief dalliance with Americana singer-songwriter moves on his 2012 debut Clear Heart Full Eyes, he teamed up with producer Josh Kaufman (of the excellent folk-rock band Bonny Light Horseman) for what he later classified as a trio of albums — 2015’s Faith In The Future, 2017’s We All Want The Same Things, and 2019’s I Need A New War — that impressively diverged from his regular band’s guitar crunch and toward dynamic soundscapes that put the focus squarely on Finn’s narratives about middle-aged burnouts. While Finn retained Kaufman for his new album, A Legacy Of Rentals really does feel like the beginning of a different saga. Working with a string section and muted electronics, Finn has crafted a record that feels like his version of Tunnel Of Love, with the fine singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins acting as his Patti Scialfa vocal foil. The mood is sad and reflective, with characters who have been around the block more times than they can count reflecting on how the hell they got here.
7. Dehd, Blue Skies
I got into this Chicago trio after becoming entranced by their breakthrough third record, 2020’s Flower Of Devotion. While they can be broadly labeled as a post-punk band, Dehd doesn’t fall into the usual clichés of that subgenre — they are no monotone, talky vocals that wryly deconstruct the low-key madness of modern existence. This band is way too romantic for that. There’s a reason why so many critics namecheck Roy Orbison and The Cure when describing them — they specialize in jangly, reverb-heavy fatalism that earns the melodrama of the lyrics by putting you squarely in their goth-kid frame of mind. Forget the sunny title: This record makes me want to smoke clove cigarettes in a depressive 23-year-old’s crappy apartment on a gorgeously rainy night.
John DiMaggio’s pay dispute with Disney did not end happily ever after.
Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Futurama would return (for something like the 12th time) with new episodes on Hulu, minus one key member of the cast: DiMaggio, who voices surly, alcoholic robot Bender. At one point, there was even talk of replacing the voice actor, which caused a riot among fans of Futurama, animation, and everyone with the common sense to not side with multi-billion dollar corporations. Eventually, the dispute was resolved with DiMaggio tweeting, “I’M BACK, BABY,” but as he revealed at the Phoenix Fan Fusion convention over the weekend, he returned without a pay raise.
“People are like, ‘I’m so glad you got more money!’ I didn’t get more money,” DiMaggio said, according to Slashfilm. But what I did get was a lot of respect, and a lot of head nods from people who are like, ‘Yo bro, I see you and thank you.’” He called “trying to get money out of Disney is like trying to get blood from a stone — you ain’t gonna get it.”
There was also talk of testicles:
“But listen, this was the best thing about that fight: I had Disney, Hulu, I was holding on to their collective testicles so hard that they couldn’t, y’know, there was nowhere for them to go. But there was also nowhere for me to go, and who wants to hold on to those for that long?”
Ultimately, DiMaggio (who wanted a raise for the entire cast, not just himself) decided that he would rather “[have] a nice Thanksgiving dinner” than “[stand] across the street in the freezing rain watching everybody eat.” Those nachos don’t pay for themselves.
Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.
Whatever you might be into, Vinyl Me, Please has a new vinyl-adjacent offering for the connoisseurs among us: The Abbey, a new knife made in partnership with The James Brand that was designed specifically for opening new vinyl records.
Each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody and naturally, some stand out above the rest. So, check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of May below.
Olivia Rodrigo — Sour
Geffen
Olivia Rodrigo is perhaps pop’s biggest vinyl supporter (she even got the Jack White stamp of approval on that front). So, as her debut album Sour turns a year old, it’s not surprising Rodrigo is celebrating with fresh vinyl: For the anniversary, Rodrigo has re-issued the album in some new colored pressings, including the light blue version pictured above.
Taking Back Sunday — Tell All Your Friends (20th Anniversary Edition)
Craft Recordings
Taking Back Sunday’s 2002 debut album is one of the most esteemed emo releases ever and it turns 20 years old this year. To celebrate, Craft Recordings has dropped a reissued version of the album, which includes newly remastered audio and four previously unreleased demos of “Mutual Head Club,” “Bike Scene,” “The Blue Channel,” and “Great Romances Of The 20th Century.” On the vinyl version, those demos comes on a bonus etched 10-inch disc.
Abba (who somehow only just picked up their first-ever Grammy nomination, by the way) have a storied discography and now you can own it all thanks to a new box set. It features each of the band’s nine albums — including their latest, last year’s comeback LP Voyage — along with ABBA Tracks, which includes non-album singles and B-sides.
The Pearl Jam leader dropped a new solo album, Earthling, earlier this year, and in his solo discography, that LP was preceded by 2011’s Ukulele Songs. That album was just reissued in standard and deluxe edition vinyl pressings, the latter of which was pressed on high-grade 180-gram black vinyl and comes with a 16-page booklet and a special lithograph.
Atmosphere — Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EP’s (20th Anniversary Reissue)
Rhymesayers Entertainment
In 2001, Atmosphere — an institution in the well-respected Minneapolis hip-hop scene — dropped Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EP’s, which compiled Ford One, Ford Two, and The Lucy EP into one release. That was two decades ago, so now the duo is celebrating with a reissue on vinyl, which actually marks the first time this fan-favorite compilation has been pressed on vinyl.
In March 1997, the Rolling Stones, at the long-running height of their power, played two secret concerts at Toronto’s The El Mocambo, a 300-capacity club. Now, for the first time, audio from those sets has been released in full — specifically, the full March 5 set and three songs from the previous day’s performance. Previously, just four of the songs had made it onto the band’s Love You Live album. The vinyl edition comes in black and neon pressings, each consisting of four LPs.
The Clash — Combat Rock/The People’s Hall (Special Edition)
The Clash
The Clash’s Combat Rock is a classic album for multiple reasons: It’s the final Clash album from the group’s classic lineup — Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon — and it features two iconic singles, “Rock The Casbah” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.” Now, 40 years after the album’s original release, it gets a fresh vinyl reissue, alongside a selection of 12 additional tracks (the The People’s Hall part of the reissue’s name).
Roxy Music — Stranded (Reissue) and Country Life (Reissue)
Virgin
Roxy Music has popped up in this space recently because they’re in the midst of a series of vinyl reissues. The latest albums to get that treatment are two big ones in the Roxy Music oeuvre: 1973’s Stranded was their first No. 1 album in the UK while the next year’s Country Life is often considered to be perhaps the group’s best album.
The Cranberries — Stars: The Best Of 1992-2002 (Reissue)
UMe
The Cranberries were one of the toasts of the ’90s thanks to a run of memorable albums and singles. That era was encapsulated in a greatest hits collection, which has now been reissues on vinyl. In addition to hits like “Zombie,” “Dreams,” and “Linger,” the collection also includes two songs not available on other albums: “New New York” and “Stars.”
Justice came hot out of the gate with their 2007 debut album (also known as Cross), as it was among the year’s most revered albums and it earned the French electronic duo a handful of Grammy nominations. Now, Vinyl Me, Please has a striking reissue of the album, pressed on gorgeous “gold nugget” vinyl.
With less than a month until the 2022 NBA Draft, teams are starting to lock in on their favorites and get their big boards in order. Most of the early entrants into the draft that remain at this point are committed to staying in through the entire process, but on Tuesday morning, word emerged of one notable process backing out of the draft and announcing his intentions to return to the college ranks.
Terquavion Smith, a guard out of NC State, had vaulted up boards to be a projected first rounder for many, but has decided to return to Raleigh for his sophomore season, telling ESPN’s Jonathan Givony that he wants another year as a college student.
“I have to be honest and admit money has never been at the center of my thoughts,” he said. “My agent explained to me that teams as high as the late teens, through the rest of the first round, all have me ranked as a first-round talent. It’s exciting to hear that. But I told him I have more work to do. I like school and my college in particular. Remember, my last two years have been so strange, thanks to the pandemic. I just want one more season to get everything right and just be a college student.”
It’s not often that a projected first rounder returns to school, but there are some recent instances where a late first rounder has maneuvered himself into lottery contention with a strong sophomore season at the collegiate ranks. One would expect Smith will also be landing some NIL money that, while he insists money’s not at the center of his thoughts, will probably mitigate some of what he’s missing out on in terms of NBA earnings this coming season.
This is obviously great news for the Wolfpack as they look to bounce back from a tough 2021-22 season, while NBA teams enamored with Smith will have to shuffle their big boards now that he’s no longer an option.
The world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick was a typically lavish affair. But the biggest moment of the evening was reserved for the arrival of its leading man. Rather than arrive via limo, Tom Cruise entered the party in a helicopter, the kind of bombastic declaration of one’s presence that befits only the most famous and iconic of stars.
Top Gun: Maverick is an increasing rarity in the oversaturated market of Hollywood blockbusters: a practical stunts-driven star vehicle that, while a sequel to a notable IP, is defined almost entirely by its leading man. Actors don’t tend to get above-the-title credits with MCU movies or other such franchises but Cruise’s name is right there. Cruise’s films have grossed over $10.1 billion worldwide. He’s been Oscar-nominated three times and worked with the likes of Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, and Michael Mann. At the age of 59, he is still headlining massively costly blockbusters, keeping critics and audiences on his side, and maintaining his A-List power. He’s almost invincible, the last movie star standing in a changing Hollywood.
True megastars get to do things that nobody else can. They earn more money, they demand major rewrites, and they can bend even the most inflexible of industry stalwarts to their will. That level of power demands consistency and results. And while Cruise has bounced between more serious dramas and blockbusters for the majority of his career, there is also a specific formula that he often follows, as laid out by Roger Ebert in his review of 1990’s Days of Thunder.
This checklist of nine requirements reveals the template that has strengthened Cruise’s stardom in the years since: stories of “rambunctious” scamps with undeniable talent who come up against unexpected obstacles, get the girl, learn from their mentor, and prove their mettle in the face of doom. While not every film he’s made fits into this structure, it’s remarkable how many of them do over the course of 35+ years. Cruise gets older but he’s retained that go-getter energy and thrall that fits so well into stories of heroes going up against the rest of the world. It’s not a formula he’s had to change all that much, even as fellow megastars find themselves struggling with new demands and their old ways losing popularity with audiences.
The jewel in the crown for Cruise remains theMission: Impossible franchise. This is his domain, the platform from which he can be the unbeatable idol of blockbusters worldwide. What started out as a big-budget remake of a ‘60s TV show evolved into a singularly Cruise-ian endeavor. The first film quickly eschewed the tenets of the source material (much to the chagrin of some fans) to fully center Cruise in every way. New cast members and creatives would come and go across the franchise, but Cruise remained front and center. The Mission: Impossible franchise allowed Cruise to be the kind of movie star that simply doesn’t exist anymore. Always keen to perform his own stunts (the fish tank scene in the first film happened at his insistence, with no stunt man in his place), each movie brought progressively bigger and more dangerous set-pieces that allowed Cruise to be a real-life action man.
Stunts are dangerous, costly, and dependent on years of training and planning. There’s a reason that you don’t see any of the Marvel stars flinging themselves off of skyscrapers. Robert Pattinson doesn’t get to fly from rooftops with his Batsuit. Nowadays, stunt workers are more in-demand than ever for such work and the advancement of hyper-realistic CGI has helped to make such things safer than ever. Yet Cruise does it all himself. He jumps across buildings, shattering his ankle in the process. He does motorcycle chases without a helmet. He clings to the side of planes as they take off. He sat atop the tallest building in the world for a casual selfie. And this doesn’t even include the stunts he’s done in other movies. There are plots in these movies but, let’s be honest, people love the Mission: Impossible franchise because it’s evolved into a ceaseless spectacle of A-List stunt madness, with one of the most famous people on the planet doing the kind of things that, once again, you can only do if you’re mega-rich and powerful and no one wants to tell you no. There’s a realness to seeing an actual movie star literally skydive for our personal entertainment. Not since Jackie Chan have we had this kind of starry thrill.
It’s the Mission: Impossible franchise that has allowed Cruise to stay on top. He makes a lot of interesting non-franchise blockbusters such as Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow, both of which are great and are a reminder of how star power can get such films made. Yet it’s hard to ignore the way that his biggest project has bolstered his career during some slippery periods. In the mid-2000s, Cruise’s image took a beating thanks to some questionable interviews, his louder-than-ever support for the Church of Scientology, and the parody-ready public romance that was his marriage to Katie Holmes. Cruise hadn’t been defined in Hollywood as an everyman for a long time but this era saw him become a joke, a “weirdo,” the kind of guy that his audiences felt put off by. To many, this might be an endgame moment. But Cruise found a way around it.
If you can’t be relatable or accept a shift toward playing regular old guys, then the next logical step is to be the opposite of that. What better way to solidify your place as an all-powerful and untouchable superstar of epic proportions than by doing the kinds of things in movies that nobody else can, will, or should? The last three Mission: Impossible films have helped Cruise in this effort, propelling him past those past controversies. It’s not that they aren’t there anymore, people are just distracted by the spectacle of what he’s doing on screen.
Cruise might be making physically dangerous movies but, despite his unique position (or maybe with its preservation in mind), he’s not exactly a creative risk-taker with his projects. This isn’t an actor who’s using his clout to get hubristic vanity projects made. There’s no Hudson Hawk or Heaven’s Gate in his filmography. The past 15 years or so of work have seen Cruise almost entirely eschew darker roles and the kinds of auteur-driven narratives he once felt so comfortable in. There’s nothing as nervy as Magnolia or even Interview with the Vampire in his 2010s filmography, although one could make the case that his turn as a faded rockstar in the musical Rock of Ages comes somewhat close. He doesn’t remold himself to fit new projects anymore. Rather, the movies must bend to his brand, and sometimes that leads to a clunky failure like The Mummy, a remake of a quiet horror classic that became a set-piece laden tentpole piece to match Cruise’s stunt-focused heroism in the Mission Impossible series.
Cruise’s preference to avoid those kinds of risks does feel like a loss in many ways. He could be a nervy actor, one with a ferocity and mischief that made him as good a fit for Born in the Fourth of July as it did for Jerry Maguire. He, the classic good guy, made for an impeccable villain too, as seen in Michael Mann’s Collateral, a noir-inspired drama that allowed him to use that old-school handsome demeanor for something far more chilling. Brad Pitt still works with filmmakers of ambition and curiosity. Will Smith just won an Oscar. It’s hard to imagine Cruise taking similar paths in the future.
He seems to have given up on being that kind of actor. Indeed, he’s less an actor now than a star, and that seems to be how he – and maybe the public – prefer it. We’ve been led to believe he is something more than mortal, defying perceived physical and mental limitations and the cruelty of time for a long time while continuing to be the dictionary definition of a movie star while others fade or flee from the weight of that role. For Cruise, the question may well be, why try to be anything less than that image if you don’t have to?
With the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi now streaming on Disney+, the official Star Wars Twitter account took a notably pro-active stance in welcoming Moses Ingram to the franchise. As Reva the Third Sister, Ingram has been earning praise for her compelling performance as the Jedi-hunting Inquisitor obsessed with tracking down Ewan McGregor‘s title character.
Unfortunately, a subset of the Star Wars fanbase has a recent history with hurling attacks at actors of color, forcing some of them to abandon their social media accounts altogether. John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran were subject to such brutal online criticisms while starring in the Sequel Trilogy. However, this time around, Star Wars is putting its full weight behind Ingram to, hopefully, keep fans in line.
“We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the Star Wars family and excited for Reva’s story to unfold. If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist,” the official Star Wars account tweeted. “There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist.”
There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist.
Star Wars’ full-throated denouncement of racism amongst its fans arrives on the heels of Ingram revealing that Lucasfilm prepared her for online attacks. According to Ingram, Lucasfilm and Obi-Wan director Deborah Chow made sure “proper systems” were put in place to protect her, but Ingram is already with a tactic of her own. “I have no problem with the block button.”
The first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are now streaming on Disney+.
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