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The Nevers (HBO series streaming on HBO Max) — This Joss Whedon-created show offers an intriguing setup about a group of “orphans” (almost exclusively women) who find themselves “gifted” with supernaturally-powered abilities. Although there’s far too many plot lines (and some plot holes), there’s also a fair amount of butt-kicking, and the atmosphere is killer. The embattled Buffy and Firefly creator officially exited the series last year, but you won’t be able to forget his presence. Whether that hurts or helps the show remains to be seen.

Them (Amazon Prime limited series) — This story’s sure to remind horror fans of Jordan Peele’s Us in more ways than a few, and for good reason. This show promises to explore American-bred terror with an anthologized approach, so the first season is all about the 1950s. Allison Pill’s reliably frightening, and here, she’s terrorizing a Black family, who moves into an all-white LA neighborhood and the welcome committee isn’t there for them, that’s for sure. Soon enough, the horror show begins; and both from a reality-based and a supernatural standpoint, this is pure nightmare fuel.

Exterminate All The Brutes (HBO series streaming on HBO Max) — This four-part documentary series tells a story of survival with a powerful message. Prepare to witness a search for truth and an scrutinization of how history is written, and expect to watch this show while reexamining much of what you thought you knew about European colonialism, American slavery, and Native American genocide. This week, Parts 1 and 2 revisit the U.S.’ legacy as a colonial power, including stories of Christopher Columbus and Trail of Tears, as told from an indigenous perspective.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+ series) — Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are still doing their buddy action-comedy thing, and last week, Sharon Carter finally arrived to kick ass and sprinkle her newly jaded attitude among the cast of characters. This week, Zemo might be in for a rude awakening after Ayo (of Wakanda) tracked down Bucky. The Flag Smashers are still proving to be confusing villains, and Faux Captain America is hanging out somewhere. We’re past the halfway point now, so things should start to come to (even more of) a head soon.

Thunder Force (Netflix film) — Don’t expect this movie to win any awards because that’s not the point. Instead, prepare for the silliest of moments from Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer as two inept superheroes who fight crime, long after their childhood best-friend days, and together, they learn what it’s like when two ordinary people are suddenly tasked with stopping supervillains. In other words, sit back and embrace the chaos because there’s plenty of it coming your way. The supporting cast includes Bobby Cannavale, Pom Klementieff, and Melissa Leo. Plus, Jason Bateman is onboard, which instantly makes any movie or TV show better

The Oprah Conversation (Friday, Apple TV+) — Eddie Murphy visits with the formidable host to discuss his return to movies and stand-up comedy, as well as his takes on cancel culture and diversity and representation throughout the business.

SNL (Saturday, NBC 11:29 p.m.) — Carey Mulligan hosts with musical guest Kid Cudi.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Sunday, NBC 9:00 p.m.) — Jane Levy continues her leading-lady musical turn with her powers glitching in a mysterious way after she visits a museum.

Fear the Walking Dead: Season 6B premiere (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — Against all expectations (and the audience’s experience), this zombie-series spinoff transformed itself and surprised the hell out of even die-hard fans of The Walking Dead universe. Can the show continue to sustain its current momentum? The franchise’s fans sure hope so, as other spinoffs warm up in the background.

The Gloaming (Sunday, Starz 8:00 p.m.) — Lily’s life is in jeopardy because of Freddie, and Molly is racing against time.

Shameless (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Kev and V are making strides to look for a buyer for an Alibi, and Lip finds a new job while Carl finds a new calling. Oh, and Ian and Mickey go furniture shopping, which should be disastrous.

City On A Hill (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Season 2 of this Kevin Bacon show continues with Decourcy making a house call, and Jackie tracing an informant and using him as a pawn for his own devices.

Gangs Of London (Sunday, AMC 10:15 p.m.) — Fans of the beloved Peaky Blinders should pay attention because this new series makes Peaky seem like a pleasant walk in London’s Hyde Park. Warring gangs and a power vacuum and a city on its knees are only part of the attraction here. The rest is down to character-based writing and a wonderful cast that embodies a decidedly unglamorous take on warring criminal elements, all of which will prove to be addictive for anyone who loves The Sopranos or any of Marty Scorsese’s mob pictures. This week, Sean finds out new secrets about his dad’s death, and Elliot is uncovering truths elsewhere.

Last Week Tonight (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Everyone’s favorite sarcastic and satiric late-night host is here to throw down, and not a moment too soon. Can’t wait to see who he skewers this week.

Here are some more fresh streaming picks:

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (Disney+ series) — Emilio Estevez is back in this new-generation revival of the classic films. Co-starring Lauren Graham and Brady Noon, the Mighty Ducks junior hockey team is now a powerhouse in its division, and it’s brutal in selecting who can make the cut. Estevez is still the Ducks’ original coach, and he’s helping a new team of underdogs after the New Ducks boot a 12-year-old boy.

Made For Love (HBO Max series) — HBO Max recently struck dark-comedy gold with The Flight Attendant, and the WarnerMedia streamer is poised to do so again with Cristin Milioti maneuvering around a premise that’s even more dizzying than that of Palm Springs. Cristin stars as Hazel, and Ray Romano plays her father, who’s attempting to help her flee from a god-awful marriage with a guy (Billy Magnussen) who’s implanted a chip in her brain so that he can track her every move and emotion. It’s such a cynical spin on relationships, and it’s terrifying, all of it, to consider, but heck, this show will suck you into its compelling vortex. Did we mention that dad is a widower with a “synthetic partner”? Oh boy.

John Oliver recently devoted an entire deep-dive segment on Last Week Tonight to pointing out how Tucker Carlson is a conduit for white supremacist talking points, all despite pretending not to know what a supremacist is. Oliver then gave Tucker two new nicknames, including “relentlessly indignant picket fence” and “performatively outraged wedge salad,” which is beside the point but still accurate. On Thursday night, however, Tucker (who has been praised by countless well-known white supremacists, including David Duke) proved that Oliver is once again on-point by endorsing a white supremacist theory (the so-called “replacement theory”) by name:

“I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that’s what’ happening actually. Let’s just say it. That’s true.”

Tucker continued while suggesting that he (as a white man) is being “disenfranchised” by Democrats’ efforts to welcome a flood of immigrant voters:

“If you change the population, you dilute the political power of the people who live there. So every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter… everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it. Oh, you know, the white replacement theory?”

The “replacement theory” is a far-right, white supremacist theory that suggests that the white race is being slowly replaced by other races through migration and resulting birthrates. Tucker’s on-air endorsement has been noticed.

As Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on Twitter, “‘[R]eplacement theory’ is a white supremacist tenet that the white race is in danger by a rising tide of non-whites. It is antisemitic, racist and toxic. It has informed the ideology of mass shooters in El Paso, Christchurch and Pittsburgh.” He then added, “Tucker must go.”

Greenblatt was joined by others on social media, who are tired of Carlson’s shtick going unmoderated:

The on-air retort to this should be interesting, at least.

Rosie Perez was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 1994 Academy Awards for her performance in Fearless (she lost to The Piano star Anna Paquin). That was the last time she attended the Oscars, despite her being an Academy member.

Also, she’s Rosie Perez. She should have an open-door invitation for all events.

“Not even to sit in the audience, not to present, nothing — and I’m a member,” Perez told Variety. “I love the Academy Awards. I cheer on my peers, but it hurts. It’s like when your home team doesn’t ask you to come back into the stadium after you got up to bat and hit the home run.” The actress, who is of Puerto Rican descent, also discussed the Academy’s long history of ignoring non-white actors and actresses (only one Latina actress has won an Oscar, West Side Story‘s Rita Moreno, and that was 60 years ago).

“The biggest struggle has been navigating through other people’s shortcomings,” Perez says. “Other people’s bigotry, racism — and specifically the ones that don’t understand that they are bigots or racists.” At this year’s Oscars, only four of the 23 categories — Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc and Carlos Cortés in sound (Sound of Metal), Maite Alberdi and Marcela Santibañez in documentary feature (The Mole Agent), and Shaka King in picture and original screenplay (Judas and the Black Messiah) — had any form of Latino representation.

This is why Birds of Prey should have been nominated for Best Picture. For one thing, it’s better than The Trial of the Chicago 7. Also, the Academy would have to invite Perez (who, again, should have a lifetime Oscars entry pass for Do the Right Thing and White Men Can’t Jump). “Yes, change is happening, but it’s too damn slow,” Perez said.

(Via Variety)

Fanclubwallet, the project of Canadian musician Hannah Judge that she named after a Dennis The Menace wallet her father had, started to gain some traction with a cover of The Talking Heads’ “This Must Be The Place” that she shared around this time last year. Since then, she recorded a new EP, Hurt Is Boring, which is set for release on May 14. Ahead of then, she has dropped a new single, “C’mon Be Cool,” a propulsive and deceptively groovy indie rock gem.

Judge says of the song, “I feel like a lot of people might have felt this way during the pandemic. You’re isolated, your life has changed so much in a year, and you realize that maybe everyone else’s lives have not changed in the same manner.” She also describes her style on Hurt Is Boring as “writing emo sh*t that doesn’t sound emo” and noted of the project, “It’s about taking the good with the bad. You can’t really appreciate one without the other.”

The EP emerged from some unfortunate circumstances: Judge spent ten months bedridden after a flare-up of her Crohn’s disease, but she ended up using that time to craft Hurt Is Boring.

Watch the “C’mon Be Cool” video above and find the Hurt Is Boring art and tracklist below.

1. “Car Crash In G Major”
2. “C’mon Be Cool”
3. “Flew Away”
4. “What’s Up?”
5. “Hurt Is Boring”

Hurt Is Boring is out 5/14 via AWAL. Pre-order it here.

Earl Simmons, the man known to the world as Dark Man X, has passed away at the age of 50. DMX, who was best known for hits like “Party Up” and “X Gon’ Give It To Ya” and film roles in Belly and Romeo Must Die, died after an apparent relapse, overdose, and heart attack on April 2 that sent him to the hospital and prompted a wave of supportive posts on social media. After a battery of tests to determine his brain function, his family made the decision to remove him from life support.

It may sound like a cliche, but it’s true; DMX shocked the world when he first arrived on the scene in 1995, appearing with Ja Rule, Jay-Z, and Mic Geronimo on the posse cut “Time To Build” and then utterly destroying his standout verse on LL Cool J’s “4, 3, 2, 1” with Canibus, Method Man, and Redman in 1997. By the time he released his debut major-label album, It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot, anticipation was just as high as the temperature in The Bad Place, leading to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. When he followed up later that year with Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, he became the first rapper to debut at No. 1 back-to-back in the same year.

From there, he had a string of successive hit albums and singles, including … And Then There Was X, The Great Depression, and Grand Champ. Songs like “Party Up,” “What These B*tches Want,” “Who We Be,” “Where Tha Hood At,” and “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” became pop culture fixtures and have remained popular to this day, with many forming the foundation of memes and samples used in hip-hop by top rappers like ASAP Rocky and Drake.

Unfortunately, a lifelong addiction to cocaine, which started at just 14 years old after he was given a laced blunt by an acquaintance, derailed his career multiple times. Legal issues led to multiple stints in prison, including a 2017 conviction for tax fraud prompting his most recent one. After his release in 2019, he seemed to be on the road to a comeback after completing rehab, plotting out a new album featuring Griselda Records and Pop Smoke, and appearing on Verzuz alongside Snoop Dogg.

X was open about his struggles, often making them the center of dark, sometimes menacing, sometimes vulnerable rhymes on his projects. However, no matter how sinister the subject matter, he always came back to his faith; his penchant for adding prayers to his albums and live shows is well-noted. Meanwhile, his vocal pyrotechnics, ranging from a threatening growl to the explosive barks he used as ad-libs (and reportedly trained one of his actual dogs to add to his live freestyles), were made all the more impressive by his lifelong struggle with asthma — which never stopped him from performing without a hype man, pacing the stage like a caged tiger.

He often stole the show; on posse cuts like Mase’s “24 Hours To Live,” he regularly out-rapped, outboasted, or out-performed his collaborators. For a time, he had a reasonable claim to the coveted “King of New York” title in the wake of Biggie’s death, alongside Ja Rule and Jay-Z, with whom he had an alternately friendly and contentious relationship. Although they came into the game at the same time and even plotted on a group project titled “Murder Inc.,” divisions between led to the dissolution of this idea, while fans pitted them against one another in top rapper debates.

Just check out the freestyle snippet from the Def Jam tour documentary, Backstage, where you can see DMX and Jay-Z trading bars during what was likely one of mania impromptu ciphers during their 1999 Hard Knock Life Tour. Jay-Z is cool, collected, and measured as always, but DMX is downright magnetic, speeding and slowing his cadence, one moment just as disaffected as his friend/rival, the next, agitated, belligerent, showing his teeth — just like one of his beloved pets might when a stranger gets a little too close.

X contained all of these emotions and more; his music was an expression of all things hip-hop, from the streetwise braggadocio typical of the biggest hits to the exposed, bloody trauma that he was never quite able to escape from. By putting it all into his music, he expanded the bounds of what rap could be capable of; he was fallible on “Slippin’,” fiery on “Who We Be,” triumphant on “Where The Hood At,” cautioning on “Stop Being Greedy,” and even played the lothario on “What These B*tches Want.” He could be a comedian, a horror film director, an action star, a drug kingpin, a stick-up kid, and a wounded child in need of comfort.

His albums created space and precedent for future rappers like Kanye West and Kid Cudi to address their own struggles with anxiety and depression. And even though X once professed to hate everything Drake stood for, he later softened his stance, understanding that Drake’s outlook was an extension of his own, with different traumas and worries, but the same vulnerability. Kendrick Lamar credits DMX as his favorite rapper for that quality, and he’s likely not the only one who does, as we’ll likely find out in the coming weeks.

DMX’s story could be tragic, but he never let the tragedies of his life solely define him. After all, this was a man who took the internet’s fascination with his gravelly rendition of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” and ran with it, releasing a studio version that showed his lighthearted side. He was someone who knew just how hot hell could be, but at the height of his success, got close enough to glimpse heaven. The rap world won’t be the same without him, but it already changed so much because of him. He showed us the soul of a man and hopefully, that soul is finally at peace.

In the first episode of Uproxx’s newest show, Behind The Video, breakout Dallas star Erica Banks breaks down the making of the video for her viral hit, “Buss It.” Right off the bat, she debunks the belief that shooting a music video is a simple, straightforward process, then, she gets into some of the details, including the fact that she styled herself for the shoot, and even responds to a famous admirer’s YouTube comment while watching the video.

She also says that there was another “Buss It” video, but she refuses to let anyone else see it. When asked about the shorts she wears in the video, she reveals that the shorts are coming soon to her official merch site and asks fans to stay tuned.

During Banks’ visit to Uproxx Studios, she also delivered an electric live performance of “Buss It” for UPROXX Sessions. She also recently revealed that before signing to Warner Records, she was offered a deal with DaBaby’s label Billion Dollar Baby Entertainment, but turned it down to consider her options.

Watch Erica Banks break down her “Buss It” video above.

Erica Banks is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The music world suffered a gigantic loss on Friday morning. After spending several days in the hospital in critical condition, Earl Simmons, known to millions as DMX, died at age 50. DMX suffered a heart attack as a result of an apparent drug overdose on April 2, and a few days later, his manager said that he was in a comatose state and on life support, with his team of doctors performing a series of tests in an attempt to determine what would be best.

As is oftentimes the case when someone as revered as DMX passes away, the news led to plenty of people on social media — including many from the world of music — issuing up prayers and tributes. This also included a number of NBA players, including LeBron James and Bradley Beal, some of whom made it a point to look back on his life and legacy.

Eric Paschall of the Golden State Warriors posted a famous video of DMX at Woodstock ’99, where he performed “Ruff Ryders Anthem” in front of a packed, energetic crowd.

Charlotte Hornets youngster Miles Bridges made it a point to say that “this one hurt” and proclaimed that DMX is one of his favorite rappers.

The wait to see Tom Cruise run across movie screens just got a little longer. In a reshuffling of Paramount’s upcoming film slate, the studio has once again pushed back the release dates for both Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7. The long-awaited sequel to the 80’s classic was poised to make a patriotic comeback over the July 4th weekend, but it will now debut on November 19, which was the release date for seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible series. That film will now take a sizable step back and hit theaters on May 27, 2022.

As for the reasoning behind this latest release date shuffle, Paramount has remained extremely committed to releasing its films theatrically, and apparently, it’s not liking what it’s seeing in July. Via Deadline:

Top Gun: Maverick stands to be a billion-dollar grossing movie and Paramount isn’t going to let one buck of that slip away. Exhibition continues to be closed in Europe (with UK eyeing a May 17 reopening) and Brazil as they continue to grapple with Covid, and it’s going to take time for those markets to get back in shape. A late November date stands a better chance of Europe and Brazil being fully open for Top Gun: Maverick.

The Top Gun: Maverick delay is surprising given comments from Paramount president Chris Aronson in late January when he struck a confident tone that the film was set for flight in July. “We have no plans to move our theatrical release of Top Gun,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think the next two months are critical, and whether the new administration can implement a robust vaccination plan. If Biden’s 100 million vaccines in 100 days works, then I think we’ll be in good shape.”

As we now know, Biden’s vaccination plan has been so successful that the administration hit its goal of 100 million shots in just 58 days and is hoping to double that goal by the time the 100 days are up. However, it appears that Paramount is now concerned with getting the most bang for its buck at the global box office, which remains in flux. Until then, it appears both Maverick and Ethan Hunt are grounded.

(Via Deadline)

Doja Cat provided one of the highlights of this year’s Grammys ceremony with her futuristic performance of “Say So.” It turns out that was a special moment for her, since she “cried like a baby” (in a good way) after she left the stage.

She spoke about it with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, describing the post-performance scene:

“So I performed, it was the first time that I’d ever performed and then cried like a baby after. And I don’t do that, I don’t cry. I just get off stage and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we did it, yeah.’ But for this, literally the director for the whole thing, he came up to me and I was walking off stage and he was like, ‘Thank you so much. You were amazing.’ And I’m like, ‘[sobbing] Thank you.’ And we were rushing out and I couldn’t talk to him. And I was just dying. […] [It was] ugly, ugly. Everybody was holding each other’s shoulders and looking at each other. It was really, really corny, but it was the sweetest, greatest, most intimate moment I’ve ever had.”

She also talked about preparing for the performance, saying:

“I feel like when you think of a Grammy performance, it’s like, three months of rehearsal and like it’s a huge deal, blah, blah, blah. And it is, but we had two weeks to put this together. So we had the two weeks of rehearsal for choreography, but I think that the concept was definitely something that we had for two months, three months. So visually, all that was kind of locked in by the time we started dancing. So I rehearsed for two weeks and then it was really, really difficult at first. Look: we tried different prototypes. I did the boots at the end, but we were trying to do heels. Heels were like… it was scary, but I really wanted to try. It looked so good, it had such a good silhouette.”

Watch Doja speak about her Grammys performance (and her new song with SZA) above.

Sometimes a film wears its elevator pitch on its sleeve, and I didn’t have to read the Wikipedia page to know that Voyagers was sold as “Lord of the Flies in space.” The film, from Neil Burger (Divergent, Limitless, The Illusionist) stars Tye Sheridan from Mud, and Lily-Rose Depp from Johnny Depp’s loins, in a film about a group of genetically-engineered teens on a journey to colonize a distant planet. In the process of their journey, they encounter jealousy, cynicism, lust, and eventually discover that the real habitable planet was the friends they made along the way. The premise, it turns out, is actually better than the pitch, but the movie is so dead set on mimicking the conventions of YA fiction that it squanders its own potential. Voyagers could’ve been a lot more than a teen drama.

With the Earth getting hot and crowded, a team of scientists decides that humanity’s best bet is to create genetic combinations of their best citizens and send them on a journey to colonize a promising-looking planet. The journey will take 86 years, all but guaranteeing that these first-generation lab children will die before ever realizing their only “goal” in life. They exist solely to pass the mortal baton and eventually grandfather a team of future colonists. The future space teens are raised in isolation on Earth, sheltered from the natural world in order that they never come to miss it. Soon one of the scientists, played by Colin Farrell, volunteers to chaperone this suicide mission, little knowing how horny the space teens will eventually become. Farrell, his eyebrows bigger and more expressive than ever, his hair dyed a slightly unnatural shade, turned into Henry Rollins so gradually I didn’t even notice.

There’s a metaphor for life in there, obviously, having to find meaning in a journey even knowing you won’t be around to see its destination. And also for science, the idea of dutifully helping human knowledge advance incrementally, knowing it won’t be enough to save you or loved ones. It’s easy to wonder if it might be better to just drink yourself into a stupor and spend all your time pursuing sensual pleasures, leaving all the sowing and tilling for some other sucker. Who cares? It’s all ultimately meaningless anyway, right?

Personifying this latter view is the steely-eyed Zac, played by Fionn Whitehead. Only he comes to this realization not naturally, but because he, along with the ship’s babyface, Christopher, played by Tye Sheridan, stopped drinking the “blue drink,” which they discovered was spiked with a drug to keep them celibate and docile until procreation time. (Saltpeter, incidentally, has been a widespread military rumor going back generations). In one creepy scene, Zac applies his penetrating Charles Manson gaze to Sela, played by Lily-Rose Depp, staring her down while he emotionlessly gropes her right breast like he’s testing fruit at the supermarket.

The big question here is, why the saltpeter drink? Voyagers‘ stakes are the same with or without it. The bad drug plot feels like a hangover from Limitless, and the characters discovering their emotions is a leftover from Divergent, and both are largely unnecessary impositions on the movie at hand. Voyagers does this over and over, adding baggage from other stories rather than exploring its own premise (which, again, is actually pretty good). Christopher and Zac quickly get railroaded into their respective Ralph and Jack roles before we really get to know them, as if Burger can’t simply let this material be what it wants without trying to crowbar it into something else.

Sheridan is one of the best actors of his generation and Whitehead has perfected an effective if somewhat one-note “wild-eyed sociopath” look. While Hollywood nepotism has occasionally gifted us great onscreen talent (Carrie Fisher or the Gyllenhaal siblings come to mind), at this stage of her career, Lily-Rose Depp doesn’t seem to have quite figured out how to put her striking features to good use. Not that Burger’s scattershot screenplay is doing any of these actors any favors. Meanwhile, Burger’s most conspicuous trick as a director is a recurring montage effect, juxtaposing lightning bolts, sprouting plants, and extreme weather to convey the idea that the teens are becoming dangerously horny. It’s like the train-going-through-tunnel/space-shuttle-taking-off sequence from Naked Gun, delivered unironically. She cannae take any more, captain! The teens are about to blow!

Burger softpedals and PG-ifies his own obvious horniness so much and so often that it only serves to make him seem like a bit of a creep. Is it Zac who needs to go to horny jail or Burger?

Goofiness and occasional sub-par acting is forgivable in YA space fiction. Less acceptable is the consistent disrespect and disregard Voyagers shows toward its own characters and premise. If the eternal question is “what did you want this movie to be?” Voyagers’ consistent, unmistakable response is “sort of like other movies.”

‘Voyagers’ hits theaters nationwide April 9th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.