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In a move that seemed inevitable following the director’s outspoken criticism of Warner Bros.’ decision to release its entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max, Christopher Nolan has reportedly ended his working relationship with the studio. After repeatedly making his dissatisfaction known, Nolan will be searching for a new studio despite getting the red carpet treatment from Warner Bros. for over a decade after delivering the massively successful The Dark Knight trilogy. Via Wall Street Journal:

“After spending years as a top Warner Bros. director, Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed last year’s Tenet, is unlikely to return to the studio with his next project, in part because he was disappointed with the studio’s hybrid distribution strategy for 2021.

At the center of Nolan’s contention is the fact that Warner Bros. essentially made the decision without even consulting filmmakers who would be directly impacted by the hybrid release schedule that simultaneously streams their movies on HBO Max on the same day that they hit theaters. Nolan has publicly argued that the financial impacts will be felt by workers who are further down the totem pole and rely on residuals to make ends meet. He also didn’t mince words that the surprise decision has tarnished the studios’ reputation for being the best in the business.

“Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service,” Nolan wrote in a blistering statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

(Via Wall Street Journal)

Selena + Chef: Season 2 Premiere (HBO Max series) — This must be one of the most ideally produced quarantine series in existence. The “Love You To Love Me” multi-platinum selling recording artist returns with her unscripted series to navigate unfamiliar (and possibly disastrous) territory. Maybe we can all be inspired by how she brushes up on her skills with the assistance of master chefs.

Looney Tunes Cartoons: Season 1C (HBO Max series) — This batch of episodes includes Taz in his first full-length Looney Tunes Cartoons short. He’ll battle Bugs Bunny in a full-on arena, and Bugs has other foes in-waiting, including Elmer Fudd, a leprechaunm and Cecil Turtle. Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner will also join in for one of ten all-new episodes. Thank goodness.

Gomorrah: Season 3 (HBO Max series) — With the first two seasons available for HBO Max streaming, this third installment will launch in its entirety tonight to U.S. audiences. The show’s based upon Robert Saviano’s bestseller and follows ex-street-level drug dealers who ascend to the very top of their trade while partnerships and alliances (and sacrifices) go down in Italy and beyond.

Call My Agent!: Season 4 (Netflix series) — ASK recruits a new and powerful senior agent from Starmedia, and the team must now battle for custody of their clients. Featured stars include Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sigourney Weaver, Jean Reno, and more.

The Unicorn (CBS, 9:30pm EST) — Wade and Shannon are still bringing Walton Goggins and Natalie Zea into Justified reunion mode, but his friends are complicating matters, as friends tend to do.

Star Trek: Discovery (CBS, 10:00pm EST) — Burnham must make a quick decision for herself and the U.S.S. Discovery while Lorca’s planned coup against the Emperor gains steam.

The Hustler (ABC, 10:00pm EST) — Host Craig Ferguson stands by while contestants compete for money, and “The Hustler” among them keeps doing his or her secretive and enigmatic thing.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Derek DelGaudio, Frank Oz

Jimmy Kimmel LIve — Allison Janney, Dana Bash, Best Coast

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon — Shaquille O’Neal, Alison Brie, Pa Salieu

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Regina King, Quinn XCII feat. Chelsea Cutler

In case you missed these recent picks:

Search Party: Season 4 (HBO Max series) — Alia Shawkat’s Dory is missing in the continuation of this highly bingeable series that jumped from TBS to HBO Max without a hitch. This time around, the group of friends must confront their traumatic pasts and become a search party again, this time while attempting to track down Dory. Guest stars will include Susan Sarandon, Busy Philipps, and R.L. Stine.

Outside The Wire (Netflix film) — Sorry to disappoint, this show has nothing to do with The Wire. It does, however, star Anthony Mackie as an android military officer, who must locate a doomsday device before the bad guys can get their hands on it, and all hell breaks loose. Damson Idris co-stars as a drone pilot who assists Mackie’s cyborg, and they’re both in full-on action mode.

For many, Wednesday brought a feeling of relief as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were inaugurated and took office in Washington D.C., with Donald Trump departing back to Florida. In the NBA, a number of players voiced their excitement to see Trump out of office and Biden in, calling it a “new day in America,” and Stephen Curry celebrated the occasion with a pair of POTUS Curry 3s he had made for Barack Obama in 2017.

However, that sense of relief also brought some trepidation for some that recognize a simple shift in power does not change the fact that the system in place still works against Black Americans and the calls for change to that system should not slow just because Biden is now the president. Celtics star wing Jaylen Brown has been among the strongest and most consistent voices, not just in 2020 but his entire career, in pushing for systematic change, and when he was asked about inauguration day, he couldn’t help but note his concern that people will take “their foot off the gas” in keeping up that fight.

For so much of 2020 the emphasis fell on voting. It was the rallying cry that was the easiest for large entities to back because simply saying “vote” is about as not radical of a progressive stance one can take. Now, though, comes the hard part, which is explaining to people exactly what Brown says here. The institutions that suppress and discriminate have existed for decades and centuries, not just the last four years, and have survived through every president, Republican or Democrat, no matter how progressive they’ve been. As such, Brown’s point is one that, while some will view it as pessimistic, is simply put, accurate and necessary.

What will be most interesting is to see how the league, which was happy to hop on board with the voting initiative, moves forward with their stated goal of supporting players in fighting for social and racial justice. Now, the work gets harder and pushing for institutional change isn’t as simple a message as “vote,” but you can be sure that if nothing else players like Brown will be continuing to apply that pressure and making their voices heard.

Over the past few months, the debate about colorism in the music industry again reached a fever pitch thanks in part to breakout rapper Mulatto, her objectionable moniker, and some unfavorable interpretations of her defense for it on chat app Clubhouse. However, she’s not the only one to be criticized, as DaniLeigh‘s song “Yellow Bone” has shifted the spotlight — and fans’ disapproval — in her direction. After posting a video previewing the new song, the Miami singer deleted it when fans pointed out its questionable connotations.

https://twitter.com/Mocha___Hontas/status/1352332328253665283?s=20

DaniLeigh, who recently made headlines when she confirmed her relationship to North Carolina rapper DaBaby, posted the video on the popular TikTok precursor Triller, mugging for the camera in her Marilyn Monroe-inspired makeup look. However, when she shared the video to her Instagram, fans were quick to point out the song’s messaging might be disagreeable due to the history of colorism in the United States. Despite DaniLeigh, who is of Dominican descent, trying to defend the song, the criticisms continued until she ultimately deleted it. Unfortunately for her, It had already been reposted, along with her response in the comments, by other accounts, preserving it for continued censure.

“Why can’t I make a song for my light skin baddies?” she wondered. “Why y’all think I’m hating on other colors when there are millions of songs speaking on all types?”

At 26 years old, though, DaniLeigh is probably experienced enough to have encountered the historical connotations associated with praising lighter-skinned Black women at the expense of others. While her intention was probably not to mock or taunt women with darker complexions, the power imbalance already exists in the world, and her song does little to alleviate tensions or make up for a cultural legacy of harmful rhetoric and imagery.

You can hear the song in the videos above and see more responses below.

Modern technology allows fans of musicians to connect with their favorite artists in ways that weren’t possible before. Now SZA is taking that a step further and will be having spoken conversations over the phone with some of her supporters via her new hotline.

SZA shared the new yesterday, writing on Twitter, “Member that time we talked about crying together on a hotline ? I made one lol. 2 days outta the week we GON TALK CRY OR WHATEVER U WANNA DO . In the meantime enjoy some custom meditations n some other resources #GOODLINE CALL NOW.” She shared a similar caption on Instagram, writing, “Uhhh random I made a hotline to cry n laugh n talk w chall 2 days outta the week. Put some custom meditations on there too + other resources.”

One fan accused SZA of lying but the singer defended her honor, responding, “ITS F*CKING REAL AND ACTIVE LMAO 888-808-0CRY (0279) on Friday we cry together.” Somebody else wondered, “Girllll, can we really talk to you or is gone be you texting updates cause don’t play with my heart,” and SZA replied, “Lmao all my updates will be right here on Twitter.. the line is really jus for us.”

Since the number was made public, it has generated a ton of interest to the tune of tens of thousands of calls received already, as SZA noted: “Okay sooo we’re over 60’000 + calls in and increasing / crashing lol ! making some changes like extending the meditation audio + a few other things!! I’ll see u back on Friday when its time to talk to MEEEEEE!! I love you sleep well.”

Meanwhile, SZA was recently over the moon when she learned that “Good Days” became her first top-10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

As Conor McGregor prepares to fight Dustin Poirier at UFC 257 in a return bout seven years in the making, his focus remains on earning another shot at the UFC lightweight championship. The belt won’t be on the line Saturday night, but UFC president Dana White made it clear the future of the division will take center stage in the main event, featuring McGregor vs. Poirier, and the co-main event, featuring Dan Hooker against UFC newcomer Michael Chandler.

So when posed with the possibility that he may face a return to the lightweight title conversation that doesn’t include the retired current champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, McGregor opened up about where he stands nearly three years removed from their first tilt.

“It’s a tough business,” McGregor said, per ESPN. “Things have gone on in his personal life. I don’t wish him any harm. Like I said, it was in 2018. A lot of time has passed. The world knows this fight is not over. This war is not over. The sport needs it to happen; the people need it to happen. I’m not gonna chase it if he doesn’t want it. And that’s it. I’ll keep my calm and move on. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m back here in the 155-pound division. I’ll show the world what’s what over time.”

McGregor’s tone has changed drastically in the years since their first bout. McGregor was arrested for throwing a piece of equipment through a bus window in search of Nurmagomedov, who slapped McGregor’s teammate Artem Lobov in the days prior. After Nurmagomedov’s win over McGregor in 2018, a melee ensued that resulted in suspensions for both fighters.

Nurmagomedov went on to defend his title multiple times before his father passed away from COVID-related symptoms in the summer of 2020. The champ returned to the Octagon once more, announcing his retirement in October after successfully defending the belt against Justin Gaethje.

McGregor has retired and unretired (multiple times) in his quest to earn UFC gold yet again. And while he holds a more respectful tone this time around, McGregor made it clear that won’t necessarily continue if Nurmagomedov refuses to defend the belt.

“If he continues to run, I’m not sure. We’ll see what happens,” McGregor said. “I would make the case, if that man is continuing to dodge this and dodge the commitment of competing again, the title should be stripped and [Poirier and I] should be engaging in a title fight.”

UFC president Dana White should have plenty of answers following Saturday’s event, with at least five contenders currently vying for a title shot. As for McGregor, he seems to have plenty on his plate for the upcoming year, as he plans on being more active in UFC by pursuing another Khabib fight, and also believes he’s close to another foray into boxing against Manny Pacquiao later this year.

It is, admittedly, probably not the best idea to go to an NBA game while the COVID-19 pandemic is going on. Having said this, teams that are able to admit fans are doing what they can to create safe environments for those in attendance — mask wearing, having folks keep their distance, all the stuff that serves as an attempt to make this situation feasible.

The Miami Heat are getting in on the “have fans in attendance” thing starting on Jan. 28, when the team hosts the Los Angeles Clippers. The full guidelines the team will follow are laid out here, but one sticks out: there’s gonna be COVID detection dogs.

As the team explains, these dogs have been trained to identify if someone actively has the virus, and all fans (save for those who are not comfortable around dogs and want to opt for a different testing method that is not specified, but “can take up to 45 minutes”) who want to attend a game will have to go through the screening, and if anyone is identified by the dog, both they and the group they’re trying to attend the game with will be denied entry.

Now, you are probably trying to figure out how in God’s name this work, but guess what! This has been done elsewhere already — as the United Nations laid out last month, Finland’s Helsinki-Vantaa airport uses COVID detection dogs which apparently have “an accuracy level of nearly 100% even 5 days before actual symptoms appear.”

“It turned out that training the dogs is a relatively quick process and results were surprisingly good and promising. A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds and the entire process takes less than a minute to complete”, says project manager Soile Turunen of the Wise Nose scent-detection foundation.

…

“Dogs learn fast to detect the virus but in addition to the smell of coronavirus, they need to be trained to function in the airport environment which might take more time. Usually the training takes 1-3 months all together”, says project manager Turunen

I am not a scientist, nor am I an expert in dogs, nor am I someone who could even begin to comprehend how any of this works, but if this works, well, more power to the Miami Heat, I guess. Just please do not bring treats to a Heat game if you plan on attending, those dogs have work to do.

Anderson Cooper has interviewed hundreds of people, from top celebrities to heads of state to people on the street. He is fairly unflappable when it comes to chatting with a guest, which is what makes his reaction while interviewing inaugural poet Amanda Gorman all the more delightful.

Gorman stole the show at President Biden’s Inauguration with a powerful performance of her original poem, “The Hill We Climb.” People were blown away by both her words and her poise in delivering them, especially considering the fact that she’s only 22 years old. But it’s one thing to be able to write and recite well, and another to be able to impress in an off-the-cuff conversation—and Gorman proved in her interview on Anderson Cooper 360 that she can do both at a level most of us can only dream of.

In the interview, Gorman explained how she dove into research to prepare her poem to fit the occasion, and then how that work was disrupted by the attack on the Capitol.

“I’m not going to say that that completely derailed the poem, because I was not surprised at what had happened,” she said. “I had seen the signs and the symptoms for a while, and I was not trying to turn a blind eye to that. But what it did is it energized me even more, to believe that much more firmly in a message of hope and unity and healing. I felt like that was the type of poem that I needed to write and it was the type of poem that the country and the world needed to hear.”

After explaining how she used tweets and articles and messages about the Capitol insurrection to hone parts of her poem, she shared thoughts on reclaiming the power of words.

“To me, words matter. And I think that’s kind of what made this inauguration that much more sentimental and special. We’ve seen over the past few years the ways in which the power of words has been violated and misappropriated, and what I wanted to do was to kind of reclaim poetry as that site in which we can repurify, resanctify not only the Capitol building that we saw violated, but the power of words, and to invest that in kind of the highest office of the land.”

Cooper and Gorman discussed the last few lines of her poem before delving into Gorman’s speech impediment. Cooper shared that he himself had a form of dyslexia and a slight stutter as a child, and Gorman shared that even up until a few years ago she would drop entire letter sounds from her speech. In fact, she said, writing and reciting poetry served as a kind of speech pathology for her. The “R” sound gave her particular trouble even into college, so she would practice singing along with the song “Aaron Burr, Sir” from Hamilton because it contained so many “R” words. (She also included allusions to Hamilton lines in her inaugural poem, which Ham fans quickly noted.)

But the part of the interview that got Cooper tongue-tied was when Gorman shared the mantra she says before every performance. Watch:

Gorman said she closes her eyes and says, “I am the daughter of Black writers. We are descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.”

Cooper had to take a moment before saying, “Um, wow…just…you’re awesome. I’m so transfixed.” So funny to see one of television’s most familiar faces being so awestruck. He’s not the only one, though. She is truly mesmerizing.

“Your mom must be so proud of you,” Cooper added. Gorman mentioned in her poem that she was raised by a single mother, and considering how proud the whole country is of this young woman, her mom is undoubtedly bursting with pride. Gorman shared how “a village” of support has helped lift her up to where she is today, and that her mom was right there with her filming her as she did this interview.

Anderson Cooper was all of us here. Amazed by Amanda Gorman’s talent. Stunned by her grace and wisdom at such a young age. Moved by her personal story. Awed by how she captured this significant moment in our nation’s history so beautifully.

Pure brilliance. We will definitely be keeping our eye on Ms. Gorman as we work to build the brighter future she envisioned for our nation.

Maester Aemon didn’t get stabbed in the gut by his incestuous lover or roasted by a dragon, but he did have one of the more touching death scenes in Game of Thrones. In the season five episode, “The Gift,” the elderly brother of the Night’s Watch is on his death bed when he mutters, “There he is. That laugh. Egg! Egg laughed like that. One of the first things I remember about him.” It sounds like nonsense, but as Sam explains to Gilly, Aemon is referring to “his little brother, Aegon. He became king.” Aegon V Targaryen, a.k.a Egg, a.k.a. Daenerys’ relative, never appeared on Game of Thrones, so he’s known mostly to book readers. But everyone may soon learn a lot about him.

HBO is in “early development” on adapting Tales of Dunk and Egg into a show. “The one-hour show would be based on the series of fantasy novellas by George R.R. Martin, which follow the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and a young Aegon V Targaryen (Egg) 90 years prior to the events of A Song of Ice and Fire,” Variety reports. There are three Tales of Dunk and Egg titles to date: The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight. If picked up, it would be the second Thrones prequel to make it to air after House of Dragon. Here’s more:

No writer or talent is currently attached to the project, but sources say it is a high priority for HBO as the premium cabler looks to build on the success of “Game of Thrones.”

HBO must love all things Targaryen (and eggs), because House of the Dragon also follows Daenerys’ family. It premieres next year.

(Via Variety)

Hailing from Pontiac, Michigan, DDG got his start through a method that’s become increasingly common in recent years: making videos on YouTube. Documenting his come-up through vlogs and videos with fellow YouTube personalities like Queen Naija, DDG was able to parlay his popularity on the video-sharing site into a major label deal with Epic Records and the 2019 album Valedictorian.

Toward the end of 2020, he released his most popular single to date, “Moonwalking In Calabasas,” at last reaching the Billboard Hot 100, as well as two remixes featuring West Coast hip-hop mainstays. One features Blueface, while the second features YG. However, when DDG pulled up to Uproxx Studios to perform the hot single for UPROXX Sessions, he did so solo, proving that he’s got what it takes to carry the performance all on his own. He may have had an unconventional entry to stardom, but he’s working hard to prove he belongs.

Watch DDG’s UPROXX Sessions performance of “Moonwalking In Calabasas” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.