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One of the biggest cult hits of the Xbox/PlayStation 2 generation of consoles was the bizarre and entertaining Psychonauts. Directed by Tim Schafer and developed by Double Fine Productions, Psychonauts was praised for being a game that dared to be unique in art style and tone. As time went on, it became an example of a game that aged extremely well thanks to its quirks, and when a sequel was announced in 2015, there was a notable excitement surrounding it. Video game fans couldn’t wait to get back into that world.

Double Fine saw this adoration for their game and decided to make an admirable decision: They wanted to make sure that everyone could experience their game. Whether it was longtime fans, newcomers, or people that have never played a video game before, Psychonauts 2, which will come out later this year, is going to be a game for everyone to enjoy. So apparently, they’ve added an invincibility mode to the whole thing. The way they announced this was actually very funny, because it was in response to a tweet from Xbox about how beating a game on the lowest difficulty is still beating the game.

Unfortunately, the response to this tweet wasn’t exactly positive. There were complaints about video games being too easy and how nobody has truly beaten a game unless they’ve played it at the difficulty the developers intended. Essentially, it was a lot of people gloating about how they’re very good at video games. Double Fine was having none of this and doubled down on their original statement.

Everything Double Fine said is correct. Video games are not something that should be walled off to only those that want to experience a challenge. Video games are meant to be accessible and enjoyed by everyone. It’s an art form and there’s never a good reason to exclude people that want to experience it. When video games have easier difficulties — or an invincibility mode, in the case of Psychonauts 2 — they are not just allowing more people to experience their game, but as a developer, they’re making a conscious decision to be inclusive. There are people who want to play games because they love the stories they tell or the gameplay associated with them, but are unable to experience them for various reasons. Games like Psychonauts 2 are embracing these people and telling them that games are for them, too, and members of that community feel supported because of it.

Psychonauts 2 is going to be a better game because it has an invincibility mode. Video games are for everyone, and if a developer wants to add an invincibility mode, then good on them. More games should consider it.

A24 may not have the history or name recognition of studios like Warner Bros. or Paramount, but the indie film and TV company—which was founded in 2012—has been the creative powerhouse behind some of the most critically acclaimed and buzzed-about movies of the past decade. In its relatively short lifespan, A24 movies have received more than two dozen Oscar nominations (and a handful of wins) for movies like Ex Machina (2014), Room (2015), Moonlight (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The Lighthouse (2019). On the TV side, John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, Euphoria, Ramy, and At Home With Amy Sedaris are all A24 shows. And as Variety is now reporting, Apple recently considered buying the company for somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 to $3 billion.

While no one is going on the record to discuss the details, or even confirm that these conversations happened, Variety writes that:

“Possible scenarios for a deal have included merging with standalone players or an outright absorption by a tech giant. A24’s tires were kicked by Apple, with whom it signed a multi-year film slate deal in 2018 that has yielded titles like Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks. Some sources said the Apple acquisition talks happened closer to the slate announcement.”

While neither company commented on the rumors, some high-up sources did tell Variety that A24 executives have been meeting with a handful of potential buyers over the past 18 months. While it seems as if the company is doing well enough on its own with releases like Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), and Uncut Gems (2019), paying big bucks for a studio’s carefully curated collection of top-tier content is all the rage these days. Especially if you’re in the streaming game (like, say, Apple) and have a channel to fill with programming.

What A24 may lack in quantity of content, it makes up for in quality. As Variety writes, “The company’s marketing machine has dazzled Hollywood for the near-decade, deftly turning unknown festival films into buzzy hipster bait—and luring filmgoers with tie-ins like the pop-up shop around Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara’s A Ghost Story which sold stark white bedsheets, or its recent vanity publishing of the book The Story by A’Ziah King, which bound the 150-tweet thread behind the A24 film Zola into a book.”

The company’s value, say some insiders, is in its creativity. “You never hear a word about their flops, and they definitely have them,” one of the company’s competitors, who preferred to be quoted anonymously, told Variety. “All anyone cares about is what they’re doing next.” At this point, it doesn’t seem like “being sold to Apple” is what they’re doing next—but you never know.

(Via Variety)

Patrick Fugit was only 16 when he played William Miller, the young rock-fan-turned-reporter in Almost Famous. We know now that Cameron Crowe’s film became a beloved classic, but here’s a movie that completely hinged on the acting talent of a 16-year old who had never been in a movie before. That, in retrospect, is a lot of pressure. (And as Fugit explains, yeah there were plenty of “don’t fuck it up,” jokes aimed at him on set that I’m sure really soothed his anxieties. We know what happened next: Almost Famous underperformed at the box office, finishing third in its first week of wide release, behind Urban Legends: Final Cut and a theatrical release of the director’s cut of The Exorcist. But, then, kind of quickly thanks to cable television, developed, well, it can’t really be called a cult following because who hasn’t seen Almost Famous? It’s the rare movie that kind of flopped in theaters, then just ignored the whole “cult” part of things and became a beloved mainstream hit.

Fugit would disagree because of course he has to critique himself when he rewatches the film, but he’s about perfect as William Miller. He has to maintain an innocence, but also has to be able to present himself as a rock journalist. Both the theatrical cut and the bootleg cut of Almost Famous has just been released in 4K, which is big news for fans of the film. (The theatrical version had never even been released on Blu-ray before, and the visual quality of the Bootleg Cut Blu-ray left a lot to be desired.)

Ahead, Fugit takes us through his audition, which was intense. He also explains what it was like being 16 and watching two actors like Frances McDormand and Philip Seymour Hoffman just tear up the place (with two different, distinct styles). And then there’s the character of Russell Hammond, which we all know as played by Billy Crudup. But when Fugit was cast, Brad Pitt was going to play Russell. And Fugit wound up meeting with Pitt to go over the characters and he explains how that all went…

Even with the Bootleg Cut, which is a very long movie, this film goes by so quick.

That is so true. I remember seeing the theatrical release for the first time, after making the film, and Cameron surprised me with it. He was like, “Hey, do you want to watch the movie while you’re here?” We were doing some other work on dialogues, recording. I was like, “Yes, of course!” We watched it, and I was like, “Holy shit, it’s like five minutes long.”

That’s nearly a year of my 16-year-old life, condensed into whatever the theatrical release runtime was. I was like, “There is so much more to be experienced than I just saw.” And I was like, “This is obviously awesome.” I understand why things got left out, but my God, it felt short. When I saw the Bootleg Cut finally, when he released that a couple of years later, I was like, “Man, this is more what it was like. This felt more like being on set on the movie.”

A lot of actors don’t like watching themselves. You’re 16 in this, can you watch it now? Is that something that’s enjoyable to do?

I mean, there are things because I have, now, 22 years of acting experience on that 16-year-old kid. When I watch it, I’m kind of like, “I don’t fucking believe this kid right now. This kid could do better.”

So you’re critiquing yourself. That’s no fun.

Yeah, no. I mean, I haven’t seen it probably in five, six, seven years, something like that. I would love to watch it again, because the last time I watched it, I was really much more able to just remove myself from the on-set experience. I was able to stop picking apart my own performance, and thinking about those things. In terms of watching myself, I’ve never really minded it, unless I think I’m very bad. There are things that I’m very bad in and I’m like, “Okay, I don’t even like fucking thinking about them.” But, anything else that I’m like, “Yeah, I gave that my best shot.” I don’t mind watching it, because I like to learn what gets put in the film, what gets taken out of the film and why. And what I could do better next time, that sort of thing.

So what do you think of your performance? Like you said, you’re 16, and this beloved movie hinges so much on someone who’s so young. That, in retrospect, is a lot of pressure.

Oh, totally. I mean, they would joke about it. And joke about like, “Oh, don’t fuck it up!”

Wow.

But, really, they did such a great job of preparing me for it. They had an acting coach named Belita Moreno, who had worked with Cameron before. I worked with them for a couple of months, at least, before we even started filming. Breaking down each scene and doing a lot of scene work. Doing a lot of rehearsal and doing a lot of character work. We went from the first page all the way to the last page in those couple of months of prep time. And really, I mean really heavy and intense rehearsal – which I really loved because I don’t mind going into big scenes and I don’t mind going into challenging scenes if I feel good about it, if I feel ready for it. Obviously, if I don’t feel ready, it makes me very nervous, like anybody would. But they really set me up so that when we were on set. It was just an execution of what we’d been getting ready. It felt, if anything, more immersive to have the camera and the wardrobe and the set there, because I was used to doing it in a production office.

What your audition was like? Because I can’t even imagine how many people wanted your role.

Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, I went through a big process. Like you said, it hinges on the ability of this 16-year-old kid to be able to perform for the whole production.

And, on top of that, you’re basically playing a version of the director and you have to remind him of himself.

Yeah. I mean, my initial audition was just a self-tape sent in from my local Salt Lake City casting office. They read the lines with me there. It was three scenes and I did them all back to back. I didn’t take any breaths or any breaks. I just went for it. I just was acting my ass off and going for it. That resonated with Cameron and particularly Gail Levin, who was going through all those tapes, and so she showed it to Cameron and they ended up bringing me in. Then that’s when the audition process was a little more unique. And Cameron spent a lot of time with me the first time he met me. I think my audition lasted nearly three hours.

That’s intense.

Which, since then, I’ve done auditions that last about 35 seconds. I mean, it was like a full workshop. It was a three-hour acting class with Cameron. He had written the audition scenes as a fake story. He had rewritten it to be about a political campaign, rather than the rock story. I think to keep the real story under wraps and throw people off. I had no idea it had anything to do with music. He would ask me these questions like, “What music do you listen to?” And I had a Green Day CD and a Chumbawamba CD, and that was it. I was 16 years old, just skateboarding and ditching school, and all that kind of thing, and that was it. He’s like, “What do you think about Led Zeppelin?” And I’m like, “I’ve never really listened to him.” I thought Led Zeppelin was the name of the guy.

So had you been officially cast when Brad Pitt was still going to play Russell Hammond?

Yeah. I had done my initial audition with Cameron, and then they flew me back in to do some screen tests. That involved some hair and makeup tests. They put some hair extensions on to make me look like I had long ’70s style hair. I think I did a few scenes with Bijou Phillips, who was cast at the time. I must’ve come back another time, because that was the time it was like, “Okay, you’re going to read with Brad now. You’re going to do your screen test with Brad. He’s playing Russell, so do a good job,” that kind of thing. I went in and Cameron introduced me to Brad. He was sitting in Cameron’s office and Brad could tell I was nervous, but I was also excited to get into things. Brad started talking about PlayStation, and he was like, “Hey, man, I’ve been playing this game, Cool Boarders. Do you play Cool Boarders?” I, by the way, had been playing a fuck load of Cool Boarders.

Oh, that’s great.

So I was like, “Well, Mr. Pitt, I can do these tricks.” And he was like, “Wow, you can land that trick? I’ve only got this one and that one.” And he’s like, “You’ve got to show me how to land that trick.” Just loosening me up and geeking out about Cool Boarders, but really just spending the time to get to know me, make me feel comfortable and that sort of thing. By the way, Cameron had left the room. He sort of introduced us and he left the room and let us talk for about 15 minutes. Then he came back in and it was time to do some scene work. I remember it being a lot of fun. And then, I think by that time, Kate Hudson was being considered for Penny. I did a screen test with Kate and we did some scenes together and then I flew back to Utah.

So, because of your love for the same video game, you hit it off with Brad Pitt and you’re like, “Hot damn, here we go. I just hit it off with Brad Pitt.” Then you get a call, “Hey, he’s not going to be in it.”

Yeah. They were like, “Billy Crudup’s going to be Russell.” He was in the Prefontaine movie (Without Limits), Inventing the Abbotts, those were the references I had for Billy at the time, so I watched those. I loved those movies, but obviously I knew who Brad Pitt was, but not who Billy was yet. I think Brad was deciding whether he was going to do this one or go do Fight Club, so he went and made that classic, and Billy stepped into the role and played in this classic.

What was your relationship with Philip Seymour Hoffman like? You have these amazing scenes with him.

He and Cameron would talk about the fact that we were shooting on 35-millimeter film and that there’s this new digital camera that’s going to be released soon. John Toll, who was our DP, would add in, “Yeah, this is it. This is the end of filmmaking as we know it. It’s going to be the digital crap from now on.” That’s how everybody who was really in love with filming on 35-millimeter would talk about it. Philip was like, “Yep. Same thing with the acting business,” and all that. It was the same experience that William was having. I was like, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, it can’t be over. I’m just getting here. Like, come on.”

You’re there for the death rattle.

Exactly! I really actually was like, “Well, at least I get to be in this.” Philip was sick at the time, he had the flu, when he had to do all of his radio show scenes where he’s talking about Iggy Pop and stuff. He was literally just nearly catatonic in his director chair, hanging out on set, listening to music, listening to interviews with Lester Bangs. And then they would call him and he’d reanimate and step on set and crush it. I was watching him do that and watching the way that he was living in the character. And the way that he would talk to me, it was sort of in character, but sort of not in character.

It was such high-level skills that I really hadn’t been totally exposed to before being on set. Frances McDormand was really good at making her mastery feel completely natural. I would walk on set and Frances would just be doing her thing, and then we would roll a scene and she would be brilliant. Then we would cut, and she’d go back to doing her thing. She made it seem so intuitive, and Philip was very focused. Very, very deliberate in how he would do things and why he would do them, and that sort of thing. Getting this gravity on set, that was Philip. It was amazing because I was not familiar with Philip. Cameron told me, “That guy is an amazing actor and he’s going to be one of the best actors as the years go on. He’s going to be the fucking guy.”

And that happened.

Oh yeah. This was at a time when we’re coming off of Pacino and De Niro being those apex heightens of acting, before the next generation, like Philip and guys like him who have a different style than those sort of ’70s and ’80s titans. It was right before that, and I was like, okay, that’s cool. I could definitely tell he was a fucking serious actor. There’s a lot of gravity to him being on set, but then obviously getting to see how he evolved from there is pretty amazing.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

It’s been over a year and a half since Harry Styles released his hit album Fine Line. But due to the pandemic, many fans have yet to hear the singer perform its songs live. Things were looking up when Styles unveiled his fall North American Love On Tour dates — that is, until several fans were notified by Ticketmaster their shows had been rescheduled.

Styles has since made an announcement about the rescheduled tour, but not before fans expressed their frustration that they didn’t learn about the new Love On Tour dates from Styles himself. Apparently, many fans had received an email from Ticketmaster saying their shows had been rescheduled, leaving them worried it would be canceled altogether.

Hours after airing their grievances on Twitter, Styles eventually returned to announce the rescheduled tour, which features Jenny Lewis. “LOVE ON TOUR will be going out across the USA this September and I could not be more excited for these shows,” he wrote. “As always, the well-being of my fans, band, and crew, is my top priority. Safety guidelines will be available on the respective venue websites to ensure we can all be together as safely as possible. Please notice that some dates have changed, and new shows have been added.”

Styles noted that while his US shows are still on, his European tour dates are being put on hold as the COVID vaccine rollout continues. “To everyone in the UK, and across the world, I can’t wait to see you again, but for obvious reasons it is just not possible at this time,” he said.

Jenny Lewis is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Cardi B has been one of rap’s more outspoken artists on the subject of the cultural and industry double standards that revolve around hip-hop. Most recently, she commented about this disparity on Twitter, remarking on how female rappers must confront higher standards in presentation only to receive a higher proportion of disrespect than their male counterparts. In a new interview with NME, she receives a co-sign from one of her fellow women in Latto.

When asked about Cardi’s comments, the Atlanta star said, “I definitely agree with that. If you don’t agree with that, you’re ignorant; it’s flat out in our face every day. Females have to have dancers, we just have to do the whole nine just to be on the same playing field as a male rapper who gets up there and talks about whatever he wants to, in his white tee and his little two same moves he’s doing on stage. And he’s straight but we just overanalyze and over critique. It makes us appreciate our success more because for female rappers this stuff doesn’t happen overnight. Period.”

Latto has experienced this herself since signing to RCA Records and releasing her debut last year; incidentally, it was Cardi B who helped her become a national star by giving her a cameo in the video for “WAP.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Tucker Carlson gets away with saying almost anything. Sure, he’ll occasionally get dressed down by a top general, but that won’t stop him from continually trashing the U.S. military, ironically enough, in front of an extremely pro-military audience. There’s one person who’s defense against Tucker’s lies might have an impact, though? That would be his first-grade teacher, Marianna Raymond (age 77) who recently learned that her former student has been trashing the heck out of her as part of his origin story. Yep, he’s created his own origin story like he’s a superhero of the far-right, and it’s so, so silly.

What’s important here is that Mrs. Raymond is calling shenanigans on Tucker. She was, apparently, living out a blissful retirement after guiding a career full of children, and unbeknownst to her, Tucker, who she remembered as “very precious and very, very polite and sweet,” was trash-talking her in his book, Ship Of Fools. A new Washington Post article from Michael Kranish reveals how he contacted her to set the record straight, and via CNN’s Brian Stelter, her response was “oh my God… That is the most embellished, crazy thing I ever heard.”

Tucker said a lot of not-too-believable things about her in his book. That includes him saying that she was “a parody of earth-mother liberalism” with “little interest in conventional academic topics, like reading and penmanship.” Carlson portrayed Raymond as (theatrically) telling her students, “The world is so unfair! You don’t know that yet. But your’ll find out!” He also blamed Raymond for not teaching him to read: “Mrs. Raymond never did teach us; my father had to hire a tutor to get me through phonics.” As Tucker puts it, this alleged omission led to him becoming conservative because he was so disgusted by Raymond’s liberal ways. Man, he couldn’t even come up with an entertaining origin story for his villainy? Someone call Kevin Feige.

(Via Washington Post)

Following a several-year hiatus, Lorde returned in a big way last month. The singer revealed her upcoming album Solar Power with it’s cheeky cover art, tracklist, and lead single. Many of her fans were so excited for her return that her tour sold out in a matter of hours. But others quickly noticed a similarity between the singer’s “Solar Power” single and the classic band Primal Scream. Lorde credited them as inspiration on the song and the band is apparently “really flattered” by it.

Lorde previously confirmed that “Solar Power” drew inspiration, albeit accidentally, from Primal Scream’s 1991 track “Loaded,” which appears on their Screamadelica album. “I had never heard Primal Scream in my life. I’d been told to check them out. I wrote this song on the piano and then we realized, like, this sounds a lot like ‘Loaded,’” Lorde told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe at the time.

Lorde said she reached out to Primal Scream’s lead singer Bobby Gillespie, who was “lovely” about it. “So let the record state ‘Loaded’ is 100 percent the original blueprint for this, but we arrived at it organically and I’m glad we did,” Lorde said.

Gillespie spoke to NME about inspiring Lorde’s music, saying the whole band is “flattered” by it. “I was watching the Italy vs Spain match and they were playing Lorde over the goals at the end,” Gillespie said. “It’s incredible. I’m really, really flattered, we all are. Everyone in Primal Scream is flattered that she was influenced by ‘Loaded’. It’s really cool.”

Solar Power is out 8/20 via Republic. Pre-order it here.

Torres (real name Mackenzie Scott) has released the fiery title track to her forthcoming album, Thirstier, coming in a few weeks via Merge. “Thirstier” follows two previous tracks, “Don’t Go Puttin Wishes In My Head” and “Hug From A Dinosaur.” A blistering, full-bodied single, “Thirstier” explodes into a bombastic chorus, with Scott singing, “Baby, keep me in your fantasies/ Baby keep your hands all over me / The more of you I drink, the thirstier I get.” In addition to the track, Scott released a video for “Thirstier,” which features the indie-rock luminary in various oceanside scenes.

The follow-up to 2020’s Silver Tongue, Thirstier finds Scott in an intentionally more “joyous” place. In a press release around the new album, she said she “wanted to channel my intensity into something that felt positive and constructive, as opposed to being intense in a destructive or eviscerating way. I love the idea that intensity can actually be something life-saving or something joyous.”

“I’ve been conjuring this deep, deep joy that I honestly didn’t feel for most of my life,” Scott added. “I feel like a rock within myself. And I’ve started to feel that I have what it takes to help other people conjure their joy, too.”

Watch the new video above. Thirstier is out 7/30 via Merge Records. Pre-order it here.

WARNING: Spoilers for Loki Episode 6 will be found below
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The Loki season finale dropped at least three major bombshells: Kang the Congueror was (still is?) the main villain, the Multiverse is now completely cracked open, and the show is coming back for a second season. All major reveals that should have Marvel funs buzzing, and yet, Twitter is filling up with people who can’t get over a moment from the top of the episode: The Miss Minutes jump scare.

Picking up from the climactic final moments of Episode 5, Loki and Sylvie find themselves standing on the doorsteps of the Citadel at the End of Time. Despite literally fighting across all of time to be here, Sylvie hesitates before entering as she can’t believe this moment has finally arrived. However, the door opens for her, and just as the camera starts to peek inside, holy shit, it’s a very loud Miss Minutes!

After scaring the bejesus out of them, the cartoon mascot for the Time Variance Authority offers Loki and Sylvie an opportunity to be safely placed back in their timelines with happy memories, and in Loki’s case, a victory against The Avengers in the Battle of New York and a seat on the throne as the King of Asgard. Naturally, the “heroes” reject the offer because they know full well it’s a fiction, and they continue on their way for a final showdown with Jonathan Major’s Kang.

But judging by the reactions, tons of people presumably missed all of that because they were too busy cleaning their pants.