GoneTrending

Ariana Grande’s latest album, Positions might’ve gotten a little lost in the dramatic 2020 presidential election, but now that the blue states have safely been certified for President Biden — who Grande campaigned for — the best single off the record is finally getting the attention it deserves. Already one of the most sex-positive and explicit tracks on the record, “34 + 35” quickly replaced the title track as the fan-favorite off the album, even if that video imagines Ari as the president herself.

But as great as “34 +45” is on its own, Ari decided to make it better by enlisting two of the hottest rappers in the game right now to jump on a remix, adding Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion verses, and teasing a new video with all three stars. Now that clip is here, and like most Ari videos, it does not disappoint. The three girls live a life of hotel luxury in the clip, sitting by the pool, lounging in lingerie, and drinking plenty of champagne. After all, Grande does have a real life engagement to celebrate, so bubbly is in order. As great as the track is, Megan’s verse steals the show, with even Ari rapping along to her brilliant additions. Check out the whole clip above, which also includes a funny behind-the-scenes shot of Ari trying to order room service for the crew. Baked Alaska, anyone?

Jensen Macrae kicked off 2021 in a big way when her imaginary cover of Phoebe Bridgers’ next single went viral on Twitter. After Phoebe co-signed the cover, MacRae went ahead and made a full version of the song, and “Immune” is anything but a joke. It landed Jensen on our rising pop stars list, in that she has the potential to become an artist that takes over this year. MacRae is releasing her debut album later this year, and tonight she’s shared a new collaboration with X Ambassadors. The band teased a clip of the new track on Twitter without sharing any details, but now it’s out and the song is called “Skip That Party.”

For her part, Jensen had a pretty epic description of the song — “it’s like ‘Drivers License’ but if Bon Iver wrote it and he was an extremely pissed off 23-year-old girl,” she wrote.

In the track, Jensen and X Ambassadors’ Sam Harris take turns on verses that sound like they’re about the disintegration of a relationship. Decidedly a rock song, with plenty of handclaps and beats, the song gets heavy and distorted at the most emotional peaks. It’s definitely a tear jerker, which might be just what some people are looking for what we have all been through during this pandemic. It’s unclear if the song will be on MacRae’s debut album, but it’s listed as an X Ambassadors song that she is featured on. Check out the collaboration above and look out for a lot more new music from MaRae this year.

The beginning of February marked the four-anniversary of Syd’s lone solo album, Fin. Months after the album arrived she returned with another solo project with her Always Never Home EP, but since then, aside from a few guest appearances, the singer has left her solo career untouched as she returned to The Internet. However, even with that collective, things have been quiet since their 2018 album Hive Mind. While it remains unknown what’s in store for the singer in 2021, fans can enjoy the first bit of music from her in a while this year thanks to her new single, “Missing You.”

The track is described as an “anti-Valentine’s Day ode” that brings all of Syd’s best qualities to the table. In the song, she speaks about the end of an old relationship, which concluded due to their inability to “spend the proper time trying to work it out.” Now that it’s a thing of the past, she spends the rest of the song pondering her ex’s current life and if they’ve found any happiness. “Hope you’re finding what you need / Or what you seek,” she sings. “Cause now I’m free / And maybe in another life / You’d be mine.”

Before sharing her latest single, Syd joined Kehlani and Disclosure last year for “Birthday.” Prior to that, she could be found alongside Lil Uzi Vert and Free Nationals on “Urgency” and “Shibuya” respectively.

Listen to “Missing Out” in the video above.

Movies are a lot like rock ‘n’ roll. Yes, they can be the absolute corniest thing in the world, but the corniness is part of what makes them great. The best ones find that common corn in all of us. And what’s more corny than finding common cause with your fellow man?

There is, perhaps, no more perfect illustration of movies’ inherent cheese than the “trailer line.” The film trailer, of course, attempts to reduce a feature-length film down to a 1-2 minute advertisement. Not a summation, but an encapsulation of the feeling the movie is meant to produce — “sell the sizzle, not the steak,” as they say.

Occasionally, in only the best of scenarios, that 1-2 minutes will boil down even further, into a single, definitive line; one glorious soundbite of pure sizzle, so hot it burns your tongue. If movies are life distilled, and trailers are movies distilled, trailer lines are like beautiful blue meth crystals of pure cinema. The best ones are more memorable than the movies from whence they came, or even make the movies themselves irrelevant.

We tried to discover the best.

Trailer Line: “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”

Movie: The Social Network (2010)

Someone should probably slap the keyboard out of my hands every time I try to write about The Social Network at this point, but at the risk of repeating myself, it has to be one of the best-marketed movies of all time. When you think about the movie, be honest, was the first thing that comes to mind the actual movie or something from one of the trailers? The slowed-down dramatic cover of “Creep” ushered in an entire era of copycat versions, but if you remember just one thing from The Social Network, whether or not you even saw it, chances are it was probably the perfect trailer line, bitchily delivered by Justin Timberlake in his finest acting moment: “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”

Not only is it perfect earworm cheese, it’s also a perfect summation of the movie, in a way no one involved probably even intended. “A million dollars isn’t cool…” is The Social Network‘s id. There are a lot of things it pretends to be about, but mostly it’s about how making a billion dollars is cool.

Trailer Line: “Moy naime is Chev Chelios, an’ today is da day dat oy doy.”

Movie: Crank (2006)

If it feels like we’ve been living in a shitty alternate future, I have to think part of the reason is that Neveldine and Taylor haven’t made a movie together since 2011. Come back, Neveldine/Taylor, the world needs you.

Neveldine/Taylor made movie-movies, movies that basically had the “movie” dial cranked up until it distorted. So it’s fitting that their most memorable trailer took one of the most conventional ways to start a trailer and blasted it until it cracked — arguably spawning the Twitter meme,”record scratch, freeze frame: yup, that’s me. I bet you’re wondering how I got here” in the process. Not to mention hundreds of posts of my own written in ersatz Statham voice.

“My name is Chev Chelios, and today is the day I die” is the movie version of a rapper starting a song “my name is ___ and I’m here to say…”

To be sure, Statham’s inimitable accent is part of what makes it, but also: his name is “Chev Chelios.” Has there ever been a more perfect Jason Statham character name than “Chev Chelios?” Or a more perfect Statham plot? Every Neveldine/Taylor movie, and every facet of Jason Statham’s persona, is perfectly distilled in “my name is Chev Chelios, and today is the day that I die.”

Trailer Line: “I’m going to steal the Declaration Of Independence.”

Movie: National Treasure (2004)

Now that it’s been 16 or 17 years, I thought I might be able to look back on this stretch of early aughts Bruckheimer movies with a fondness I couldn’t summon at the time. But honestly, no, these movies were goddamned terrible. Watching this trailer now all I can think is how eerily it foreshadows both the Q movement and that awful smart-alecky Joss Whedon-style of self-aware acting. “So that happened…”

I don’t think I noticed that kind of acting so much until I had a stepkid in the house, but it is in every show or movie aimed at kids nowadays and it is terrible.

Trailer Line: “You’re the man now, dog.”

Movie: Finding Forrester (2000)

The “old person uses young person slang,” or “the rappin’ granny,” as I like to call it, has been a staple of bad comedies at least since Son In Law (“I gotta tell you, Travis, it really tweaks my melon to see a buff bro like Crawl here get weized on by a greasy scumbag like you. So you just chill.” -I wish I could get this scene permanently excised from my brain).

The twist of Finding Forrester was that it was Sean Connery doing it, in a scene that wasn’t intended to be comedic. I’m sensing a theme here, that trailer lines delivered in funny accents are inherently more memorable. The combination was so brain-shattering that not only did it long outlive the movie from whence it came, it spawned a cult website that outlived either. You’re the man now, dog.

Trailer Line: “In Africa, it’s bling-bang.”

Movie: Blood Diamond (2006)

Every once in a while, the effort to come up with the perfect trailer line leads to something so clunky, so perfectly nonsensical and idiotic, that it becomes a perfectly trailer line almost entirely by accident. I will never forget “In Africa, it’s bling-bang” for as long as I live (yes, I know it’s technically “out here it’s bling-bang,” but I choose to remember it my way). It’s a sub-moronic line, delivered in arguably Leonardo DiCaprio’s worst on-screen accent, with an even dumber look on his face. You know how when a great athlete makes an incredible play they say “he makes it look easy?”

With bling-bang, the exact opposite is true. It makes everything — writing, acting, cutting trailers, facial expressions, speaking with accents — seem incredibly difficult. “In Africa, it’s bling-bang” is almost a meta deconstruction of the act of making a trailer line. I love it so much.

Trailer Line: “The only law that matters is gravity.”

Movie: The Point Break remake (2015)

The Point Break remake somehow distilled all the silliness of the original and quadrupled down, making it about “extreme sports polyathletes” (yes, they use that term). It truly is a magnificent movie and I implore all of you to see it if you haven’t. It’s pretty hard to distill the Point Break remake, which was two hours of non-stop ridiculousness, into a single line. And yet, “the only law that matters is gravity” manages to do it just about perfectly.

Trailer Line: “A particular set of skills.”

Movie: Taken (2008)

Clearly, the aughts were the heyday of the trailer line, which was probably a combination of the ubiquity and inescapability of TV advertising and the movie industry shifting towards massive “tentpole” blockbusters as their main source of income. These days neither is really true, and the closest thing we have to a “trailer line” is the Chipotle guy saying “It’s bomb steak.” I wish I could get that out of my head.

Anyway, I already wrote a previous list based entirely on the genre of movies that Taken unleashed, and without relitigating that, I’d just say here that the trailer was probably more influential than the movie ever was. More so than any other trailer line on this list, “a particular set of skills” is probably far more about the deliverer than about the line itself. No one delivers a trailer line like my man Liam Neesons. On that note, “release the Kraken!” is probably worth an honorable mention here.

Trailer Line: “Look at me, I am the captain now.”

Movie: Captain Phillips (2013)

In retrospect, Barkhad Abdi deserves more credit. When you consider that Captain Phillips is a movie starring Captain Tawm Hanks with a Masshole accent, it’s a wonder that someone else stole the trailer line. Sometimes it’s the unconventional choice that wins out. I gawta put this whole team of pirates in my reahview!

Trailer Line: “Get off my plane!”

Movie: Air Force One (1997)

In the nineties, it seemed like every other action movie was “Die Hard on a _____”, and Air Force One might’ve been the most obvious derivation. Obviously, it was Die Hard on Air Force One, and the centerpiece trailer line was delivered while the hero threw the circle bearded foreign villain to his death, just like in Die Hard. I don’t know that I ever saw this movie all the way through, but it’s a credit to just how good a trailer it is that I had completely memory hole the fact that Gary Oldman was the bad guy getting off the plane.

Trailer Line: “Gimme back my son!”

Movie: Ransom (1996)

Mel Gibson’s life is like a Greek tragedy. It was his ability to shake with rage while shouting invective that brought him fame and fortune, but in the end shouting and screaming was also what brought him down. Okay, so “down” is a bit of a stretch, considering he’s still insanely rich and even stars in movies from time to time.

But imagine having the power to scream and grandstand like that on a split-second’s notice. How could you resist? Whenever I hear “leaked” audio of actors ranting, like Tom Cruise or Christian Bale, all I can think about is how good they are at screaming — fully articulate, no stuttering or false starts, and with the presence of mind to even take dramatic pauses in between clauses. On the one hand, sure, what incredible assholes they must be. But on the other, listening to them scream and grandstand is like watching Tiger Woods hit a stinger draw off the tee that tracks the fairway perfectly and never gets more than 15 feet off the ground. In those moments, it’s so obvious that you’re watching a master of his instrument at the top of his craft.

Sidenote: Hey, did you know Ron Howard directed this? Wild.

Trailer Line: “I ALREADY work around the clock!”

Movie: Extraordinary Measures (2010)

Perhaps no trailer line has ever so far outpaced the movie from whence it came as Harrison Ford shouting “I ALREADY work around the clock” in Extraordinary Measures. Did you even remember that it was Brendan Fraser that he was screaming at? Gun to my head, I would’ve told you it was Josh Hartnett. This line was so infamous that it spawned a KnowYourMeme page and a segment on Pop Culture Happy Hour.

Rewatching it now, the line is extra jarring on account of how much it seems to come out of nowhere. The trailer seems to be wrapping up, with tinkling pianos, cute sick kids, and the general tone of a Nicholas Sparks weepy. And then, boom, Harrison Ford is angrily screaming. Where’d that come from?

For the record, Extraordinary Measures is just Air Force One, only Gary Oldman is a rare genetic disorder and Harrison Ford’s son is the plane.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Valentine’s Day is just two days away and while most are looking for new love, or hoping to celebrate with an already-secured partner, 6lack and Lil Tjay have different goals in mind. Their new collaboration, “Calling My Phone,” finds the two acts trying their best to escape the grasp of a former lover, who can’t seem to understand that the relationship has ended.

Lil Tjay delivers a promise to never return to his ex singing, “I done told you before that it’s over, leave me ‘lone.” He adds, “I won’t go back / But trust me, you’re gon’ hold that.” 6lack arrives for a second verse and doubles down on his collaborator’s message. “No, you can’t wear my chain no more,” he sings. “We are not a thing, can’t take no more.” The song is also paired with a video that shows exactly what the artists’ struggle looks like as their ex-lovers hold on to their coattails in hopes of a chance at renewed love.

The song arrives as 6lack continues work on his upcoming third album. While the new project will be his first full-length effort since 2018’s East Atlanta Love Letter, the Atlanta native made the wait for album No. 3 easier for fans with the release of his 6pc Hot last year.

As for Lil Tjay, the Brooklyn native is coming off a year that saw the release of his State Of Emergency EP before he landed a spot on the 2020 XXL Freshman Class list. Unfortunately, to end the year, Tjay was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, weapons, and grand larceny

You can listen to the track in the video above.

Young Thug fans are still waiting for the rapper to release not one, but two projects. The eclectic rapper has forced his supporters to exercise every bit of their patience as he continues to work on his Punk and Slime Language 2 albums. While the wait will certainly continue, the journey may almost be over as Thug returns with his new single, “That Go!” The track is a high-energy effort that sees contributions from Meek Mill and T-Shyne, two acts that Thug has worked with on multiple occasions in his career.

The new song will hopefully be a wave of more positive actions from Young Thug. Over the past few months, the rapper has caught himself in a few brief moments of controversy due to statements he made during interviews. The first came when he gave his reason for never working with fellow ATLien, Andre 3000. “Dre likes his ass kissed,” the rapper said in part during an appearance on T.I.’s expediTIously. The second instance when he implied that he had more recognizable hits than Jay-Z. The latter seemed to cause more of a storm, but Thug clarified the comment as nothing more than an instance of “talking [too] fast.”

Press play on “That Go!” in the video above.

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

Though the most heartbreaking impact of the pandemic is undoubtedly the loss of life and physical illness that COVID-19 has brought on for thousands of Americans, it’s had plenty of other frustrating effects, too. One example is that artists who were ready to release new albums and tour behind them had to instead shelf those plans until it’s safe to gather and travel, and for a star on the rise like Dua Lipa, that situation has to be tough. Her second record, Future Nostalgia, came out in 2020 right as the pandemic was hitting America, and she’s still not really had the chance to perform any of those songs live, save a few award show performances and live streams here and there.

Still, nothing keeps Dua down, and she released a remix version of the record called Club Nostalgia that included huge features from iconic artists like Madonna and Missy Elliott. Not too shabby for a second album, eh? Now, she’s ready to branch out even farther, not totally closing the door on her Future Nostalgia era, but releasing a brand new single, “We’re Good” that builds on everything she established on that album. The track is a lot more tropical than the last album, getting a little bit out of the disco era and into some groovier realms, and tries to let a lover down easy. Check out the new song above, and stay tuned for more updates on what she’s up to next.

The story of Jay-Z and Nipsey Hussle begins seven years ago, when the former stepped up as one of the many individuals to believe in Nipsey’s vision. At the time, the Slauson rapper was preparing to release his Crenshaw mixtape, but it came with a catch. Nipsey would sell physical copies of the CD at $100 each, a business move Jay-Z appreciated as he purchased 100 copies at that price.

While some hoped the move would spark an eventual collaboration between the two, especially at Nipsey’s career elevated, it did not arrive while The Marathon rapper was alive. Fortunately enough, a joint song was finally put together with their latest single, “What It Feels Like.”

The track appears on the soundtrack for the Shaka King-directed film, Judas And The Black Messiah. Here, the two rappers exchange thoughts on what it feels like in Black America. Both share anecdotes from their struggling as well as highlights from their more recent successes. The song is one of 22 contributions to the soundtrack which boasts appearances from H.E.R., Black Thought, Smino, Saba, Masego, Pooh Shiesty, Rapsody, G Herbo, Sir, and more.

Press play on the new track in the video above.

Judas And The Black Messiah: The Inspired Album is out now via RCA. Get it here.

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

Guapdad 4000 has been quietly building momentum ever since his 2019 bet with Drake went viral, and Drizzy put his fans onto the rapper’s “Flossin” video. Since then, the young rapper got some shine for the Platinum Falcon Tape, Vol 1 in April of last year, and even appeared in an Uproxx Session last summer to perform “Greedy.”

Building off all the momentum from his Rona Raps series, tonight he’s dropping the first new single off an upcoming project, “How Many,” along with a music video showing off his keen sense of wit. While the song samples trance artist Alice Deejay’s 1999 “Better Off Alone,” the video plays on Guapdad’s nickname, with the Oakland rapper holding a live falcon, and pays homage to Kanye West’s 2008 music video for “Flashing Lights.” The producer of the track, Illmind, shared some background on what the song means to him and Guap.

“First single drops midnight tonight Guapdad 4000 x Illmind “How Many.” It’s been five years since I executive produced an entire album and now I get to do it again with my patna. We started this process even before pandemic and I made a promise to myself to pivot may focus on more executive production and really being able to help an artist bring something fruitful to the world to help them execute their vision. That’s my job. That’s what brings me the most joy. I’m so proud of Guapdad and I’m proud of myself because we challenged each other. That pressure made some diamonds and we can’t wait to show this project to the world. This single is the beginning of what’s to come. Thank you to the entire squad and all of the amazing people that helped make this possible. It begins tonight.”

Check out the new song above and look for a lot more new music coming for this duo very soon.

Guapdad 4000 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

If there’s one thing I look for in a movie, it’s a lot of action and a character or two with a fun name. Admittedly, this is two things, but that’s the nice thing about Jason Statham movies: you’ll usually end up getting both anyway. Jason Statham movies are the best. Most of them are two hours or less and feature a ridiculous fight scene or action sequence and most of the time his character is named something like Chev Chelios or Terry Leather. I’m not making up either of those. Jason Statham played a character named Terry Leather in The Bank Job. A reasonable argument can be made that he is our greatest living actor. Reasonable to me, at least, which is what matters here because I’m the one writing the article.

And guess what: this is an article that ranks the names of characters Jason Statham plays in Jason Statham movies. That’s all I’m doing here. None of these rankings have anything to do with the quality of the films. I haven’t even seen the movie that contains the name I have ranked third. It’s a really good name, though, and now you have to scroll down to find out what it is. I’ll give you a hint: It’s not Terry Leather. But now you have to scroll down to find out where I ranked Terry Leather. I’m diabolical today. Almost as diabolical as the villains in Jason Statham movies.

I feel great about it. Let’s go.

TIER IV — I’m sorry but Jason Statham is not a “Luke” or a “Danny”

29. Jake Green (Revolver)
28. Luke Wright (Safe)
27. Rick Ford (Spy)

It breaks my heart to put Rick Ford this low. I love Rick Ford. It might be my favorite Statham performance to date. Some of that is the way the character takes almost 20 years of other Statham characters and turns them upside down a bit. Most of it is because Comedy Statham is a freaking revelation. He is so, so funny in Spy, every time he’s on-screen. He even looks like he’s having fun. Like, you can see it in his eyes, this “I can’t believe I’m getting to be this silly” shimmer that is so charming it should be against the law. Look at him in the “I know there’s a Face/Off machine scene,” and maybe just look if your in a place where someone shouting various t- and f-words are not ideal. Or put your headphones in and let yourself live for a couple of minutes. You deserve it.

Do you see my dilemma here? It’s perfect in every way… except that I can’t in good conscience put a name as straightforward as “Rick Ford” any higher than this on its own merits. It’s not even that it’s bad. I kind of like that a character this ridiculous has a name that simple. It would have been too much to name him, for example, Tex Montreal or Pepp Montecarlo, because the movie is already goofy and fun and tongue-in-cheek. I hate that I have to do this, but we all have jobs and this is mine, somehow. I imagine my high school guidance counselor is quite proud.

26. Bateman (London)
25. Jonas Taylor (The Meg)

See, now The Meg could have easily given him a better name than this. The Meg is a movie about a crack opening up on the ocean floor and a massive prehistoric shark emerging from it to murder everything it crosses in the sea. This movie is begging for Statham’s character — a deep-sea rescue diver who lost some people when a mission went wrong and is pulled back from his life of getting drunk in Thailand because someone has to stop the big shark and, dammit, he’s the best there ever was — named something outlandish like Brock Galapagos. I’m honestly kind of mad about it. Let’s move on.

24. Danny (Killer Elite)
23. Joey (Redemption)
21. (tie) Frank Martin (Transporter)
21. (tie) Airport Man (Collateral)

There are three important things to know here:

• Jason Statham makes a brief cameo in Collateral early in the movie, with the never-confirmed-but-really-fun theory being that it is his Transporter character and he and Tom Cruise’s hitman character work in similar circles
• Tom Cruise’s character in Collateral is named Vincent, but, per legend, in the early versions of the script, he was named “Vincent Collateral,” which is maybe a top-ten funniest piece of movie trivia and something I think I should note in a ranking of good names
• The Transporter movies are a lot of fun

I mean, look at this.

It is pretty funny that the dude who does all the wild stuff in this franchise has a name as boring as “Frank Martin.” It’s like if Vin Diesel’s character in the Fast & Furious movies had been named “Larry Jones.” Let your brain crank away on that hypothetical universe for a bit.

20. Ethan (Cellular)
19. Crawford (War)

TIER III — Other single names and/or nicknames that feel right

18. Mr. B (Turn It Up)
17. Monk (Mean Machine)
16. Brant (Blitz)
15. Parker (Parker)

The thing I like about Parker, an okay movie that somehow also stars Jennifer Lopez, is that Jason Statham wears a cowboy hat for a lot of it. It is a little frustrating that he looks as good as he does in a cowboy hat, because he already looked with a prematurely bald head. “Cowboy hat” and “prematurely bald” are looks that are really hard to pull off. You’re a lucky dude if you can get either one to work for you. Statham has one of those heads that can make anything work. He could roll into a Burger King in a propeller beanie and he would still look smoldering. But I do like that he got to wear the hat. That counts for something.

14. Jasper (13)
13. Turkish (Snatch)
12. Bacon (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels)
11. Handsome Rob (The Italian Job)

If you were in a fancy grocery store — think like a Whole Foods — and you were cruising through the packaged meats section, as one does, and you stumbled across a high-end product called “Handsome Rob’s Turkish Bacon,” would you buy it?

I think I would. I don’t even think the price would matter. I would be too intrigued. I don’t necessarily like that this is true about me, but the same thing that causes that is what lets me pitch ideas to my editor like “Yo, can I just rank the names of Jason Statham characters this week,” so I guess I’m just rolling with it now. No point in fighting it.

TIER II — Various Funches and such

10. Phil Broker (Homefront)
9. Quentin Conners (Chaos)
8. Arthur Bishop (The Mechanic)

There are two Mechanic movies starring Jason Statham. They are based very loosely on the 1972 movie The Mechanic, which stars Charles Bronson as a character who is also named Arthur Bishop. I point this out because it is deeply funny to me to picture Charles Bronson leaping from a gondola onto a passing hang glider to escape a gun-toting villainess in a party dress, as Statham does in Mechanic: Resurrection, so early in the movie that the opening credits have not ended yet. It’s also funny because they absolutely would not have named this character “Arthur Bishop” if not for that tie-in. People named Arthur do not — or at least should not — leap onto passing hang gliders. It would be like if someone made a movie about a young female assassin and they named her Agnes. I kind of hope this happens now.

Mechanic 3: The Rise of Agnes

7. Agent Evan Funch (The One)
6. Deckard Shaw (Fast & Furious)

There are a number of things I like about Statham’s character from the Fast & Furious franchise. I like that he was introduced in the sixth movie as the one who murdered Han in the third movie. I like that he spent the entire seventh movie trying to murder the rest of the crew using bazookas and muscle cars. I like that none of any of that prevented him from being rolled right into the crew in the eighth movie, to the degree that he was entrusted with Dom’s infant son at one point. But mostly I like that he’s named Deckard.

I did not know Deckard was a name prior to this development. I did not even know it was a thing you could name someone. It’s so perfect, though. Jason Statham looks like a Deckard to such a degree that he should consider changing it to that in real life. More people should. Everyone should. Although, now that I type it all out, maybe that’s not a good idea. Not everyone can pull off a Deckard, just like not everyone can pull off a cowboy hat or a balding head. Paul Giamatti would not be a good Deckard, for example. But Jason Statham is. Here, watch: Deckard Statham. Admit it, this plays. If any of you ever meet Jason Statham, please pitch him this idea. I am not joking.

5. Chev Chelios (Crank)

I had almost forgotten that Statham’s character in two Crank movies — there are two Crank movies, let’s not overlook that part — is Chev Chelios. Writing this article is what reminded me. Even if no one reading gets this far down the page, it will have been worth it to me for that alone.

TIER I — Yes, it is now time to discuss the name “Terry Leather”

4. Lee Christmas (The Expendables)

The Expendables movies are, basically, a franchise full of knowing winks. You can’t have that kind of cast and not wink at least a little. Especially not with Sylvester Stallone tweeting stuff like this during the casting.

But still, even with that noted, it is just delightful that Jason Statham plays a knife-expert named Lee Christmas. That’s just great work by everyone. It’s good to acknowledge when good things happen. This is me doing that.

3. Sergeant Jericho Butler (Ghost of Mars)

Full disclosure: I have not seen the 2000 movie Ghosts of Mars. I doubt I ever will. It is a horror movie based in outer space and I generally do not enjoy scary things or space things. What I do enjoy, though, is knowing that there’s a movie out there, somewhere in this great big world of ours, where Jason Statham played a character named “Sergeant Jericho Butler.” It’s so good. It’s so good. It’s so good that I’m almost ready to take back everything I said about the name Deckard and apply it here.

I don’t think you understand how serious I am about this. If a movie was announced today, any movie, about anything, and the press release said “starring Jason Statham as Sergeant Jericho Butler,” I would shout. I would literally shout at my screen. I’m a little annoyed that the name was used in a movie I didn’t see from 20 years ago. We should have saved it. It should have been his name in Spy. It’s crazy that I’m probably the first person to realize this.

2. Nick Wild (Wild)

I need to be very clear about this:

• There is a movie called Wild
• It stars Jason Statham
• As a character named Nick Wild

Wild is a lesser Statham movie and not one I would recommend when there are so many better options out there, but it holds a special place in my heart for this at the very least.

1. Terry Leather (The Bank Job)

Terry Leather

Terry Leather

TERRY LEATHER

I know I said in the heading of this tier that I was going to “discuss” this name but I don’t see how any words I type into this box can possibly top FIRST NAME TERRY LAST NAME LEATHER.

It’s so beautiful I might cry. It had to be number one.