It looks like Cupcakke got exactly what she wanted when she released the trolling single “How To Rob (Remix).” After mentioning seemingly half the working artists in rap, she got a bite from up-and-coming rapper Sukihana, who clapped back a day later with the defiant “Rob Who.” Now, the two rappers are engaged in a lyrical tussle, and it’s Cupcakke’s turn to unload with the furious “The Gag Is.” Judging by the sound of it, she was waiting for the opportunity to pounce and relishes terrorizing her newfound opponent.
Over a menacing beat, Cupcakke goes in on Suki, rejecting any calls for peace right out the gate. “You got a whole man with an OnlyFans / B*tch, that don’t add up,” she snarls among other insults. The usually raunchy rapper seems to have taken the comparison to Vivian from Bebe’s Kids personally as she spends nearly three minutes shredding her competition with brutal barbs taking aim at everything from Suki’s surgery to her lyrics to her kids.
Although Suki was the first to respond to Cupcakke’s vicious remake of 50 Cent’s breakout single, she’s far from the only person with reason to. Cupcakke threatens or mocks Cardi B, City Girls, Chief Keef, DaBaby, Doja Cat, DreamDoll, Flo Milli, and many, many more on the track.
It’s been a troubling year for the film industry. A global pandemic has carried waves of restrictions and lockdown orders that have hampered even the most powerful studios. Hollywood’s sat static, with tentpole releases being pushed back, shooting schedules grinding to a halt, and promising movies and TV shows shelved or scrapped in the interim. And yet, if you’re a fan of Margot Robbie, this year has somehow also managed to deliver a slew of buzzy projects that are reframing how the industry operates in the post TimesUp era.
Of course, the catch is, a lot of those projects won’t see Robbie in front of the camera. Instead, the actress has used this turbulent year to don a producing hat – one she hangs up at her company LuckyChap Entertainment – and affect real change in a still-predominately-male field.
Actors launching their own producing outfits isn’t anything new. The Clooneys, the Pitts, and the Cruises have been doing it for decades. But it was remarkably rare for an actress to add that credit to her resume before the Witherspoons and the Therons and the Davises decided to capitalize on their awards clout and marketability to tell the stories they were interested in. These stories tend to skew female, trading in traditional male protagonists with straight-forward redemption arcs for messy, complicated women audiences can actually relate to. What’s more, female-led movies often end up hiring a diverse crew, giving women and minorities opportunities in front of, and behind, the camera that might have been inaccessible before.
Robbie’s done that too – leveled the playing field by pursuing passion projects that she funds with bigger roles in Quentin Tarantino flicks and Martin Scorsese dramas. But what’s remarkable about the year the actress has had is how it’s reshaping Hollywood from the ground-up, during a time when the status-quo model is in desperate need of reinvention and when women directors seem to be making huge gains.
Earlier this year, Variety announced that Robbie, along with in-demand screenwriter Christina Hodson, had formed her own screenwriting lab, The Lucky Exports Pitch Program. The month-long workshop kicked off in November 2019 and its goal was simple: to give female creators a space to develop and refine their ideas with the help of other women creatives. More specifically, Robbie wanted the inaugural writer’s room to help women break into film’s action and franchise boy-club. Together with Hodson, she chose six women planning bold interpretations and reinventions of those genres.
They were writers whose work had already made it in primetime TV shows, series like Marvel’s Agent Carter and Apple TV+’s Jason Momoa-starring See, but during a time when issues of equality and gatekeeping continue to plague the industry, they probably would’ve had difficulty selling their scripts to the bigger studios.
That’s where Robbie and Hodson’s lab came in, recruiting mentors and experienced professionals to help the women not only build-out their original ideas, but package, pitch, and market them to Hollywood executives. The result? All six writers — Sue Chung, Charmaine DeGraté, Eileen Jones, Faith Liu, Dagny Looper, and Maria Sten – sold their projects to companies that included Universal Pictures, Blumhouse, Sony, and New Line. These were gritty action-thrillers with immigration bents, lethal spy dramas, adrenaline-packed Westerns reimagining the California Gold Rush, and teen slashers about college-aged biohackers – the kinds of stories women rarely get to tell, let alone conceive of and control … at least not in this business.
But for Robbie, the lab is just the latest success story amidst a track record filled with perception-shifting wins when it comes to female autonomy in film. Long past the days when she could be pigeon-holed as the “next-door it-girl,” Robbie has spent the last decade quietly toppling some of the more insidious patriarchal structures that make it so difficult for women to succeed in the industry. She did it with I, Tonya, where she used the miraculous rise and tragic fall of figure skating icon Tonya Harding to question Hollywood’s idealization of beauty and talent, and its condemnation of poverty and female ambition. She did it with Birds of Prey, keeping the dream of a superhero girl squad alive by both producing the Warner Brothers hit and advocating for its woman-led crew, including DC’s first female Asian director, Cathy Yan. And she did it with the upcoming release of Promising Young Woman, a rape-revenge fantasy she helped bring to life, written and directed by Killing Eve showrunner Emerald Fennell.
Those are the movies that have probably landed on your radar. The ones that haven’t – neo-noir thrillers like Terminal, Bonnie & Clyde period dramas like Dreamland, and the Kat Dennings Hulu comedy Dollface – are compelling works that challenge genre staples and examine classic tropes from interesting new angles. And there are still more down the pipeline, from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which Robbie will star in, to a retelling of Robin Hood from Maid Marian’s point of view, to a Tank Girl revival. All films that center on women and champion female creatives.
In a year that brought doubt about the industry’s future, and worries that the pandemic might reverse any progress made when it comes to diversity and inclusion behind the camera, Robbie eschewed focusing on her own acting career to give other women a launching platform in a space where their voices are often stifled, if not completely snuffed out.
The beef between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun has been one of the most-discussed music feuds of the past few years, and people in the industry have shared their thoughts on it. Now, so too has Pharrell, and it seems like he sees both Swift and Braun’s perspectives of the situation.
In a recent Variety interview, Pharrell gave a diplomatic response when asked about Swift and Braun, acknowledging both of their vantage points while placing blame on the music industry at large:
“It’s really unfortunate, you know. There was room for him to make his acquisition because that’s just the way the business is, and I felt for her and not being able to be in control of it. There’s a system in place that’s just all wrong. He’s a businessman and he also represents artists, so from his point of view he’s just making an acquisition of something that he felt would be a good investment. But the artist should have the opportunity [to retain ownership], and I don’t know whether she did or she didn’t. I just know that the system is wired in ways that is oftentimes not always fair to the creator. I think it should be the norm that the creators retain their rights.”
He also spoke about acquiring ownership over his own master recordings, saying, “It was a huge milestone, but it shouldn’t be, and we shouldn’t be celebrating that because I shouldn’t be one of… let’s call it dozens of people who own their original recordings. A master recording is the original and every other copy is the slave. We got them to take that out of their language in all the contracts for the Sony companies. It’s all over the place — you know, master bedroom — so there’s a lot of language that we need to change.”
The Rundown is usually a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. This is not that. This is a very special all-Christmas edition. It’s still formatted the same, and still contains a list of some good things, it’s just that this time they’re all holiday-themed, or at least sort of holiday-themed. It’s festive. Grab some cocoa and enjoy.
ITEM NUMBER ONE — Listen to me
Well, guess what: It’s Christmas. It doesn’t exactly feel like it, for about seven reasons that don’t need rehashing here. You can go one of two ways with this. You can lean hard into the holiday spirit to try to drag your unwilling brain there like a child who does not want to go to school, or you can just ride the wave of apathy like Scrooge and be a grump about it. Or, I guess, there’s a third way: You can chill out and watch The Nice Guys. The Nice Guys is a Christmas movie, kind of, which works for a year when “kind of” applies to everything. Also, it is good. That helps, too.
The Nice Guys is one of many movies set at Christmas that are not actually about Christmas. Die Hard is the most famous of these, as you know and can’t avoid, because lots of people like to insist it is “the best Christmas movie.” I tend to disagree, personally, if only to draw a line between Christmas movies and movies that take place during Christmas. Die Hard 2 is probably more of a Christmas movie than the original, if we’re being honest here. Dennis Franz’s character goes on a personal journey not entirely dissimilar from Ebenezer Scrooge, just with dozens of armed terrorists and Bruce Willis visiting him instead of three spirits. Same thing, really.
There are others, too: Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, The Last Boy Scout, aaaaaand I’m just listing movies written and/or directed by Shane Black, who also wrote and directed The Nice Guys. This is not new information. Shane Black loves setting action movies around the holidays. He explained why to Entertainment Weekly a few years ago:
“Christmas represents a little stutter in the march of days, a hush in which we have a chance to assess and retrospect our lives. I tend to think also that it just informs as a backdrop. The first time I noticed it was Three Days of the Condor, the Sydney Pollack film, where Christmas in the background adds this really odd, chilling counterpoint to the espionage plot. I also think that Christmas is just a thing of beauty, especially as it applies to places like Los Angeles, where it’s not so obvious, and you have to dig for it, like little nuggets.”
So there’s that. The ties to Christmas in The Nice Guys are thinner than some of the other movies listed above. It barely even comes up for most of the movie. The best real evidence comes right at the end, in this scene in the bar, with the decorations in the background.
WARNER BROS.
Christmas confirmed. You now have an excuse to watch this movie, again or for the first time, which you probably should, especially if you tend to enjoy Shane Black’s movies, which I do. It is very much a Shane Black movie, too. It opens with a dead adult film star and features a wise-cracking child and a couple of mismatched detectives and some grammar jokes and a big shootout at the end. The man has a style.
It’s also worth watching it again to remember how good Ryan Gosling is. Ryan Gosling is so good in The Nice Guys. It’s a little infuriating, actually. People should not be allowed to be that good looking and talented and good at physical comedy. The example I always use is that it’s like discovering the richest dude you know is also a scratch golfer. You don’t need to have everything, buddy. Be bad at one thing. For me.
But that’s just me being petty. This is not the time of year for that. This is a time to appreciate things, like Russell Crowe doing comedy and Matt Bomer showing up with about 50 firearms evil Kim Basinger and Ryan Gosling having a luxurious 1970s mustache and doing a whole piece of business with a pistol and a bathroom stall that is funnier in about 15 seconds than some comedies are in their entire running time.
It’s a good movie. It’s a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a night this weekend, a night you might have otherwise spent with friends and family at a big holiday party. This Christmas may not feel like Christmas in a lot of ways. We’re all going to have to hunker down and figure out how to make it work. I’m probably going to watch The Nice Guys tonight. And at some point, I’ll also watch what is, in my opinion, the actual single best Christmas movie: The Muppet Christmas Carol. More movies should be narrated by a small blue monster with a long crooked nose who is pretending to be Charles Dickens. It probably could have made The Nice Guys even better, now that I think about it.
Something to consider going forward, I guess.
ITEM NUMBER TWO — Send me the cake, Tom
Getty Image
Two things are important here:
Tom Cruise sends lots of people an allegedly very delicious white chocolate coconut Bundt cake every Christmas from a place called Doan’s Bakery
I am using the picture of Tom Cruise waving to photographers while standing up on a speeding boat instead of a picture of cake because it is one of my favorite pictures ever and I have used much flimsier excuses than this to post it
But back to the cake. Apparently, Tom Cruise has been doing this for a long time. He sends them as little thank yous to co-stars and friends and crew members and a whole bunch of other people. It’s more important this year, though, in part because the holidays are going to be so weird for everyone and any nice gesture will help, and in part because I just found out about it and now I WANT THE CAKE, TOM.
The “pillowy” cake and Doan’s Bakery are favorites among Hollywood A-listers, but the dessert has become so associated with Cruise that it’s informally known as the “Tom Cruise Coconut Cake,” said the site Goldbelly.com. Made with chunks of sweet white chocolate, rich cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut flakes, the cake can be shipped for $99 and is “good enough to derail the strictest Hollywood diets,” Goldbelly.com reported.
In any case, celebrities who have talked up Cruise’s coconut cake generosity include Jimmy Fallon, Henry Cavill and Cobie Smuthers. Rosie O’Donnell once posted a photo of her cake, wrapped in a bow, on Instagram, with the caption “Christmas is here when Tommy’s gift shows up #holidayseason,” Us Weekly reported.
TOM
TOM CRUISE
COME ON
SEND ME THE CAKE
PLEASE
I’M SORRY FOR YELLING
I JUST REALLY WANT IT
I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN
TOM
SEND ME THE CAKE, TOM
I’LL GIVE YOU MY ADDRESS
TOM CRUISE
THE CAKE
ME
SEND
CAKE
TOM
PLEASE
ITEM NUMBER THREE — A good Christmas song to add to your holiday playlist
I could really go for a new season of Documentary Now. I could go for a new season of Documentary Now for a bunch of reasons: because there hasn’t been one in a while, because I love it, because I’ve already watched “Juan Likes Rice and Chicken” like 200 times, etc. But since I don’t have a new season to watch yet, and what with it being the Christmas season, I suppose the next best thing I can do is listen to the song “Holiday Party” from the “Co-op” episode.
Have you listened to this song before? I do hope you have. I also hope you have not, though, because if you have not listened to it yet that means you get to push play right now and listen to it with fresh ears. What a treat for you! I’m actually kind of jealous because I know what’s coming in the song and it still cracks me up every single time. How could it not? Especially when Renee Elise Goldsberry from freaking Hamilton starts singing and it happens again. What a perfect little piece of comedy. A Christmas treat. Watch it right now if you haven’t, before I spoil the surprise in a few paragraphs. Hurry.
You know what? Let’s all have some fun this holiday season. Let’s all make a big Christmas playlist with all of our favorite classic numbers on it and then let’s slip this sucker in right in the middle, between… oh, I don’t know… let’s go with between “O Holy Night” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” It won’t be quite as fun without a big crowd of people hearing it together and slowly realizing what is happening, but it’s still a little treat for you and whoever is within earshot.
You could also play the long game with it. Listen to it a bunch of times to learn the words, then do it next year at the party and sing along through the first verse like it’s a popular song everyone should know. Really get after it. The goal is for lots of people to be paying attention to you when you get to this part…
IFC
… and then you just BELT it out. Hilarious. A little gift from you to you. You’ve earned it.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR — I understand the sentiment but they did not have to bring the horse into this
Prepare to read one of the truest sentences you’ll ever encounter. Here we go.
the owns in the grinch song are fucking devastating
Please listen to the song again. I think, maybe, it never really sunk in for you how brutal these insults are. All of them, top to bottom. Imagine someone saying any of them about you. Imagine someone saying any of them to your face. Because someone saying like “you’re an ugly piece of trash” is bad, yes, sure, of course, but “your brain is full of spiders” and “your heart is full of unwashed socks” are hurtful. The specificity of it all. They really put some thought into those. They hate you so much they really sat down to craft an insult. That’s an entirely different level.
The worst ones are in the very last verse, though. They never really jumped out at me until I saw them in print. Here, let me show you what I mean via blockquote.
You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch
With a nauseous super “naus”!
You’re a crooked dirty jockey and you drive a crooked hoss, Mr. Grinch
You’re a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!
I don’t know what exactly “a nauseous super naus” is but it sure sounds rough. Probably how you’d feel after chasing a bowl of chocolate ice cream with a tall glass of orange juice. But the real killer is the “crooked dirty jockey” line, partially because he’s implying that, if you were a jockey, you would be the kind that cheats, and partially because he’s dragging your poor horse into it for no reason at all. I don’t even know what he means by “crooked hoss.” Is he saying your horse can’t run straight or that the horse is a cheater, too? Pretty bad either way. That horse never did anything to anyone. Probably. Unless the cheating thing is true.
Anyway, I guess this is also your reminder that this song is performed by a man whose name is Thurl Ravenscroft. You can look it up and everything.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE — A good tweet
Everyone always wants to talk about Rudolph’s nose… I think it’s time we start talkin’ about the shades! pic.twitter.com/M2SblYxTL0
I say this every time I post a Guy Fieri tweet in this column but I am going to say it again now because it is still undeniably true: His social media team is excellent, one of the best out there, but it is way, way more fun to picture Guy Fieri sitting at his laptop and Photoshopping all of these himself, so let’s all just go ahead and continue doing that.
Also: Someone please make a cartoon where Guy Fieri has to take over for Santa and moves the workshop to Flavortown. And speaking of people playing Santa…
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Brandon:
Since it’s [waves at the general everything] we’ve been mainlining holiday movies even harder than normal. One that never became A Thing in my house growing up was the ’94 remake of Miracle on 34th Street due to the very 90’s reason of we didn’t own a copy, but my wife loves it and it’s now in the rotation. Since you might need some #content for the Rundown on Christmas Eve, I have a question.
The casting is bonkers- aside from Richard Attenborough being objectively perfect as Santa, you’ve got The Guy From The Practice and The Little Girl From Mrs. Doubtfire carrying a remake of a beloved film. If this was remade today, everyone from the main roles to the judge to the CEO of Macy’s would be some sort of stunt casting. So, my question to you is: who do you cast in a 2021 remake of Miracle on 34th St?
My quick cast:
Main Lawyer Person: Charlize Theron
Macy’s Event Person/Love Interest: Chris Pine
Spunky Kid That Invariably Talks Like A Clever Screenwriter: [whatever the Kid Du Jour is these days]
Judge: Morgan Freeman
Opposing Lawyer That We Need To Hate: Christoph Waltz
Kris Kringle: Either we fatten up Sir Ian McKellen or have Jack Black play it straight?
Aside from that, the Gimbels board of directors would consist entirely of comedians that could deadpan evil riffs endlessly and look at home in a suit (John Mulaney, Keegan Michael Key, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bamford using her kind authority voice) and then one guy who is, in a recurring bit, repeatedly glared at for having happy, nice ideas (it’s Ron Funches. I invented this entire part to get more Ron Funches in our lives).
Well, this is pretty much a perfect email. It sets out a premise, gives a little background, and pays it off in a fun way with a couple of little twists. I had not even considered Jack Black as Santa Claus until I read that part and now it is all I can think about. Why isn’t Jack Black playing Santa in Miracle on 34th Street? Why hasn’t he played Santa already? Why isn’t there a Santa Clause-style franchise with him as Santa? It’s madness. I’m legitimately upset now. Let Jack Black play Santa Claus! Make him play Santa Claus if you have to! Something must be done here.
I will also accept Tracy Morgan as Santa. And maybe Frank Langella as the judge. I realized after The Trial of the Chicago 7 that he was born to play a cranky judge. But otherwise, a perfect email. Merry Christmas to me.
AND NOW, THE NEWS
To Indiana!
Service Sanitation, an Indiana-based port-a-potty company, said it set a world record with its Jingle Johns display. The festive presentation featured more than two dozen port-a-potties with lit up faces singing “Hallelujah.”
A sincere and heartfelt congratulations to Service Sanitation for setting the world record for, uh… most port-a-potties singing “Hallelujah”? I don’t know. This is strange. Don’t mistake me, I’m very proud of them. It takes a certain type of genius to look at a couple of dozen portable toilets and jump to “I’m going to have them sing Christmas songs.” Don’t discount the follow-through on this, either. They actually did it. Think about how long it took. Think about how many people were involved.
This is a serious undertaking. We should acknowledge that.
Steve Dykstra, Director of Marketing for Service Sanitation, told McClatchy News it is not a Guinness World Record, but that the company is self-claiming the title after combing through the internet for days attempting to find a worthy contender.
A Guinness World Records spokesperson said they do not monitor records involving animated faces on light displays. Its most similar record is the largest interactive lighting display, which is in Sydney, Australia.
Okay, so it’s not really a world record. Technically. But I still vote we give it to them. Again, just for the whole undertaking involved. I’ve got to assume it’s never been beaten, either. It would be funny if this kicks off a sanitation arms race, though. Dozens of toilet distributors piling plastic outhouses to the heavens in an attempt to out-do each other and take home the prize. Make it a whole competition. Make it a reality show that airs every December. I was joking when I started typing this paragraph but now I am serious. Make this a Christmas tradition. I want Tom Cruise to send me that cake and I want to eat it while watching gruff sanitation workers in Santa hats stack port-a-potties with a crane. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable.
Wait. Hold on. You didn’t think I’d finish this whole section about singing toilets without showing you the singing toilets, did you? That’s ridiculous. I would never do that to you. Especially not during this, the season of giving. Here they are. Enjoy. And Merry Christmas.
As the only part of the Lakers’ young core who did not go to New Orleans in the Anthony Davis deal and a part of the Lakers’ 2020 championship team, Kyle Kuzma likely holds an interesting place in Lakers’ fans hearts. It seems he and the Lakers are also at odds about his exact place in their future, too.
The status of those discussions? Tabled for now. Kuzma met with Vogel and General Manager Rob Pelinka at the beginning of the month to feel out his role for the season, a person with knowledge of the situation told SCNG, and to get a sense for his future with the organization. Kuzma came away from the meeting with a sense that he would have to scrap for on-court opportunities.
The gifted young wing has never really put together a strong season in which he contributed at a high level to winning basketball, although in fairness, last year was his first time on a squad that made the playoffs and there was a major adjustment period for him — Kuzma shot just 43.6 percent from the field and 31.6 percent from three, while his Box Plus-Minus, which is just one way to measure a player’s all-around impact, was a career-worst minus-2.6.
With an expensive roster dominated by two veteran superstars in LeBron James and Anthony Davis, it makes sense that the Lakers would be cautious before loading up with another big contract. Yet they don’t have a great way to replace Kuzma, who despite his shortcomings is still probably the highest-upside player on the roster besides preseason breakout phenomenon Talen Horton-Tucker.
All this means there’s probably still a solid chance Kuzma stays with the Lakers long-term, but any new contract may have to come in free agency next summer rather than an extension.
Although grime has become internationally recognized, the roots of the genre still lie in a DIY, stripped-down aesthetic and freestyle verses from MCs recalling the details of their hardscrabble lives. That aesthetic is central to the new video from Northhampton rapper Slowthai’s new video “Thoughts.” Circling up with his “bruddahs” in a parking lot at night, Slowthai blazes through a burly verse detailing his mindset and venting his feelings.
The song likely won’t appear on his upcoming album Tyron but is a strong reminder that although he’s now working with big names like Disclosure, Gorillaz, and more, he still has the chops to return to the streets any time — and still make the local constabulary nervous. A handful of officers oversee the shoot, nodding to grime still being considered dangerous by the authorities.
Meanwhile, the two videos that Slowthai has released from Tyron so far demonstrate how far the rapper has come creatively. “Feel Away,” which includes features from James Blake and Mount Kimbie, found Slowthai giving birth in a surreal concept, while “NHS” found a slick way to incorporate quarantine into its low-key treatment.
Watch Slowthai’s “Thoughts” video above.
Gorillaz is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The famous cue cards scene from Love Actually has been parodied about as much as any moment from any movie, and now Dua Lipa and Jimmy Fallon decided to get in on it as a way to introduce a holiday-themed performance.
In the video, Fallon sees Lipa walking down a hallway and asks how she’s doing, and she whispers in response, “I’m good, how are you?” Fallon presses her for more, but Lipa reveals she’s saving her voice for her upcoming Saturday Night Live appearance. So, grabbing a stack of cue cards, Lipa, in direct opposition of her voice-saving measures, asks Fallon if she wants to sing a Christmas song with her.
He obliges and the scene shifts to the pair performing Love Actually‘s “Christmas Is All Around,” which itself is a re-worked version of The Troggs’ “Love Is All Around.” The performance visuals shift between the two singing on a stage to lo-fi footage of the two outside enjoying holiday sights.
As suggested above, this comes ahead of Lipa’s upcoming stint as SNL musical guest on this weekend’s episode, which will be hosted by Kristen Wiig.
Watch Lipa and Fallon perform “Christmas Is All Around” above.
Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
For the first time ever, Gal Gadot has addressed the WarnerMedia investigation into allegations of misconduct on the set of Justice League. In a new interview, the Wonder Woman 1984 star confirmed reports that she had a bad experience with Joss Whedon when he was brought on to replace original director Zack Snyder. However, while Gadot doesn’t corroborate claims made by Ray Fisher on account of the two of them filming separately, she does praise the Cyborg actor for speaking out. Via The LA Times:
“I’m happy for Ray to go out and speak his truth,” says Gadot. “I wasn’t there with the guys when they shot with Joss Whedon — I had my own experience with [him], which wasn’t the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it. But I’m happy for Ray to go up and say his truth.”
In a separate interview with Variety, Gadot also revealed that she participated in the WarnerMedia investigation, which she categorized as pretty in-depth. “I know that they’ve done a very thorough investigation, even just by how much time I spent with them,” she said.
The double remarks are a notable move for Gadot, who, until now, has not made any public statements about the behind-the-scenes controversy during the Justice League reshoots. Jason Momoa, on the other hand, was quick to back up Fisher after he went public with the allegations of misconduct. In an all-caps statement on Instagram that started with “THIS SHIT NEEDS TO STOP,” Momoa blasted Warner Bros. for releasing a fake statement about him starring in a remake of Frosty the Snowman to distract from the Justice League headlines. “Serious stuff went down. It needs to be investigated and people need to be held accountable,” Momoa wrote.
If you’re used to the filmmaking style of Paul Greengrass – the director behind three Jason Bourne movies – you can be forgiven if you feel a bit of whiplash when watching News of the World, Greengrass’s new Tom Hanks-starring Western that sets a much more deliberate pace than you might be used to from a Paul Greengrass film. It’s 1870 and Hanks plays a nomad of sorts, a former Union Captain, traveling from town to town reading the latest news to the locals. Along his travels he finds an abandoned young girl (Helena Zengel) who he doesn’t quite know what to do with, eventually trying to reunite her with what’s left of her long lost family.
Obviously, the setting of News of the World has a lot of modern-day comparisons, with themes like a divided country and how we get our news delivered to us being two aspects wreaking havoc on our current world. And it’s not lost on Greengrass that his star, Tom Hanks, the news deliverer in the movie, is one of the most trusted people in the world – to the point this story probably doesn’t work without him.
Though, as we begin, I’m reminded of the last time I spoke to Greengrass, for the harrowing 22 July, where he was pessimistically confident that Donald Trump would be re-elected president. He has some caveats about that wrong prediction but admits today that he feels a little more optimistic. And the proof of his optimism is News of the World.
Last time we spoke we had a long conversation about some awful topics like the rise of right-wing extremists across the world. Then you said, very confidently, “Donald Trump is going to get reelected.” I never stopped thinking about that. It’s nice to talk to you, now, when that officially is not true.
Do you not think Donald Trump would have been reelected easily were it not for COVID?
That’s a very valid point, but he lost and he lost by a lot.
Yep. But a vast number of many, many tons of millions also voted for him, which I think is really scary.
I agree with that, but are you a little more optimistic now than you were two years ago? Or about the same?
It is optimistic. I’m an optimistic person! It seems you were talking about that particular subject because it does inform why I decided to make News of the World But the truth about your country and my country and just about every country in Europe is bitterly divided and split down the middle.
Yes.
We’re stuck. Those tens of millions of people who voted for Donald Trump aren’t going away anytime soon. They’re not going to suddenly change their mind in January. “No, actually, we think it’s great that Biden’s president.” They’re going to hate Biden. They’re going to hate everything that Biden tries to do. It’s the same with the Brexit thing in (England). The country is split down the middle irretrievably and that is a terrible reality. The question becomes then, how are we going to get out of this position? How are we going to heal? What is the road to healing going to look like? What is it going to feel like? What is it going to teach us? And what are we going to learn from it? That was the question to me coming out of 22 July.
It crystallized, for me, into a desire to make a film that tried to explore what that road to healing might look like. What optimism might look like without being sentimental, without being escapist. I also wanted to make a different sort of film. I wanted to do something that felt different, looked different. I didn’t know what that would be, but those were the sorts of things in my mind.
You accomplished that. It is very different. There is usually a hyper pace to your films.
Yeah. It was a conscious thing. I wanted to explore a slower tempo, but how can you not have a slower tempo if you’re in the Old West? When I read the novel, News of the World, that spoke to me. I sort of saw in it, very clearly, that this journey that the news reader takes with this little girl is that road after division. Okay, 1870, the Shadow of the Civil War. America’s literally divided, but it’s then, but it’s now. He’s just an old news reader. She’s just this little girl who doesn’t know who she is because she was kidnapped when she was a kid. The journey they take becomes mythic and resonates strongly I think. Well, for me, in my mind with Tibet, is a journey towards healing and belonging and redemption and getting to a better place. All those kinds of ideas. That was what brought me to it. Plus it was an opportunity to do a Western, which I’ve got a chance to do. I love those films when I was a kid.
I’m very happy you finally got to do your Western.
Because it keeps you young and keeps you fresh if you do new things. You can’t just do the same thing all the time. But then the challenge becomes, can I do something different that still feels like me? Is it authentic? Am I still being true to me or being authentic to me? That was the thing that I was most proud of with the film, because it does feel different. It is a slower tempo. It is a more classical film in the classical style, if I can put it that way. It felt like one of my films. It just felt like a shift in a good way. I was very pleased I made it.
Here’s my takeaway from this movie: I couldn’t help but think you’re trying to say if we got rid of a lot of the junk media out there and had noble people giving everyone the news that would go a long way. Fox, and now Newsmax and OANN. Tom Hanks’s character delivers the news with empathy instead of trying to stroke fear and anger.
Well, I agree with that. You don’t find equivalence when you make films. If you do you start preaching quite quickly, which is not a good place to be. What you have to do is start with a question, I think. This is my view anyway. If you can frame up the question in your mind, when you film it’s like one extended conversation that you’re having with yourself about what you think about the world and about what’s important to you and about how your views change and how the world changes. One film begets another, but at the start of a film, if you can try and frame up a question to which the film is the answer. You’ll have the best time, and you have the best chance of making an interesting film, I think. The question here was not really about sort of fake news or anything like that. I sort of pushed that to the back of my mind. He’s just a guy in a tradition, by the way of long-standing, of the traveling preacher or the traveling news reader. The traveling storyteller, Mark Twain did it afterwards. Preachers were doing it around America before him. The question is, what does the road to healing look like? What is the road out of this division?
The other madness, or threat, or whatever you want to call it, is COVID. Because COVID strikes at our collective identity as humans. We can no longer gather in our homes and tell stories to each other. We can’t gather in a bar or a cafe or a restaurant or a movie theater or a theater. The way we collect, the way we exchange, the way we connect that calmed the massive threat. This film feels very, very contemporary to me in showing this character who believes the stories, and they are humdrum stories for the most part.
Do you think this movie works without Tom Hanks? In that he’s among one of the most trusted Americans still today? And there’s no way you knew this at the time, but being the first famous person to get COVID.
I agree with you. Certainly, he is perfect for it. It is perfect for him because of that. All movie stars operate. It’s part of the movie-going experience and our understanding of movies is based on our understanding of the movie star. The movies don’t have to be both the actor and the archetype at the same time. Do you know what I mean?
How so?
Those two sometimes can fight each other in interesting ways and subvert each other in some ways. Or they can reinforce each other in certain ways: The expectations we have of the archetype of our understanding of who Tom Hanks is as an actor.
I’m curious if you saw Aaron Sorkin’s Trial of the Chicago 7. At one point you were going to direct it, but basically said you thought it would be a difficult film to make.
Listen, first of all, I think he did a great job and I’m so glad that he made the film. And it was something he was very passionate about. I think he’s done a far better job than I. In the end, it wasn’t as fresh for me as it was for Aaron, if I can put it that way. That was much more of my issues.
Ah, I see.
He’s done a great job. And it shows if you passionately believe in a subject and you live it and love it in the end, it comes true.
In the late ’80s, J Mascis’ band Dinosaur Jr. shocked the world, or at least the college radio crowd, by proving that grimy, noisy punk only sounded better when you added Neil Young-style guitar solos. He surprised close listeners by proving that a man that outwardly never seems to display any emotion beyond resigned bemusement could write eloquently about loneliness and the fraught complexities of adolescent male friendships. He surprised us when he broke up the original line-up featuring drummer Murph and bassist Lou Barlow, and somehow went on to MTV stardom without losing his dignity. And after a decade’s worth of passive-aggressive warfare between Mascis and Barlow, he surprised us when he got the original line-up back together, proved that reunion albums don’t have to suck, and somehow made Dinosaur Jr. more beloved than they’ve ever been. Hell, last year they even surprised themselves by having a hit song in Japan for reasons that are as strange as they are complicated.
Somewhere along the way, Mascis somehow turned himself into an internet fashion icon. His penchant for brightly colored pastel t-shirts, chunky eye-glasses, dope sneakers, loud Adidas jackets, and the ever-present Mishka “Keep Watch” Eyeball hat has made him an object of social media fascination. With his crotchety public persona and affinity for classic rock, Mascis seemed a bit like an old man when he was young. Now that he’s older, he dresses like a hip-hop loving teenager who is besotted with Millennial Pink and the latest Supreme drop… and he makes it work for him through superhuman nonchalance. Mascis has never really cared what anyone thinks, and if he wants to wear the brightest purple jacket you’ve ever seen while playing the loudest guitar solo you’ve ever heard, you have no choice to respect it.
Mascis has a reputation for being a hilariously unenthusiastic interview subject. In fact, I lovingly goofed on this facet of the J Mascis Cultural Experience a long time ago. But once he got over his obvious confusion that this was indeed the subject that I wanted to talk to him about, he got about as enthusiastic as is possible for him. Hey, some people really love pastels.
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I want to talk to you today about the fact that you’ve become a fashion icon these days. How would you describe your current style?
Jeez. I describe it as just kind of like, you know, whatever I’ve kind of collected over the years and throw on.
When did you start getting into brands like Mishka?
This one was probably about 2008 or something, I’m not sure exactly. I saw a friend had an eyeball pad or something, and I think it was Damien (Abraham) from the band F*cked Up, and I asked him about it and he said, “Oh, they could send you some stuff right now.” So they sent me some stuff and I just started wearing it.
Yeah, there’s a lot, like a lot, of photos of you wearing Mishka hats or shirts with the giant eyeball on it. Why do you think you like it so much?
I’m wearing it right now. I guess it seems like non-specific. I just like the image. I just kind of went with it just because it’s not like a band T-shirt or something. I just like the eyeball.
I like stuff that pops up a little bit. Around here where I live, everything was hippie granola brown. So I like purple especially, but just brighter colors to fix up my mood.
Being from Massachusetts, you’ve always been surrounded by earth tones. So you want to rebel against it.
Exactly.
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Who are some of your favorite designers and brands? I know you’re a big fan of Jeremy Scott.
I thought a lot of his Adidas things were really cool. I mean, I used to like Paul Smith in the ‘90s. Fred Perry.
Have you always been a person who pays attention to fashion, or is it something that you came to later in life?
Yeah, I think my dad was pretty fashionable, and I would say one thing he would do with me is bring me clothes shopping. We wouldn’t do that much together, but that was one thing and he was always a snappy dresser. I guess it started from him.
Mishka has sponsored a lot of hip-hop mixtapes, and street style in general is associated with hip-hop. Are you the only band that works with them?
The clear ones I haven’t worn in a long time. I guess lately I really like Selima Optique. I got some frames somewhere, and my friend who is a stylist told me they have a store in New York. I had no idea. So I went there, and since I’ve gotten a lot of stuff there.
Why do you think you like that brand?
Whatever I like, I like and I stick with it, I guess. I’m always looking for purple or pink frames, but it’s hard to find any. They don’t seem to make any for men in those colors.
That’s a shame. You have a right to purple glasses.
I know, I don’t understand. I’m always frustrated that women’s colors are more my style in sneakers or anything, like the women get all the good colors and men get what’s left over or something.
It’s really unfair.
I don’t know what to do about it.
Hopefully someone reading this article will make it for you. I know you really like Adidas. Are there other sneaker brands that you’re into?
I mean, I like Puma and Vans.
There are sneaker heads out there who will wait outside overnight at some shops when limited edition stuff comes out, and they’ll buy and sell pairs of rare things online for thousands of dollars. Are there any particularly rare shoes you’ve ever bought or at least that you’ve wanted someone to buy for you?
Yeah, I wanted those Ben&Jerry’s dunks that came out. And they were, you know, right as soon as they came out, they were thousands of dollars. I didn’t get up on the Nike app or anything.
A lot of people start dressing more conservatively as they get older, but you are just rocking more and more bright colors and cooler, cutting edge stuff and moving in the opposite direction. Is that a conscious thing?
I don’t know, it’s kind of. I feel like I’ve dressed a lot crazier when I was younger and then I kind of dulled down for a while and then it’s coming back up, maybe? I looked at some stuff I was wearing, I don’t know, in my worst fashion period. That was maybe around 2000 or something. I just looked uninspired and dull when I look at pictures.
I said to my editor that you look like Odd Future’s cool older uncle. Do you meet people, especially maybe younger people, who are surprised that this is how you dress now?
I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I’m surprised sometimes that some people like some stuff I’m wearing. I can’t really tell.
Do you ever meet younger people who maybe aren’t fans, and they’re like, “Whoa, you’re wearing those? That’s pretty awesome, dude.”
Yes, mostly that’s kind of random, just like at Target or something, some guy will go “oh, cool shoes” but I don’t think they were fans or anything.
Streetwear is also heavily associated with skateboarding, and a few years ago you shot the video for “Tiny” at a Brooklyn skateboarding park. Are you big into skateboarding?
Yeah, I skated a lot when I was 11 and 12. Tony Alva was kinda my hero back then, right? I haven’t quit really, I just don’t do it that much. I get really envious that there’s a lot of cool skateparks around now that I wish were around when I was a kid.
But do you still occasionally get on the board?
Yeah. I definitely don’t, you know, go into bowls or anything. I feel more breakable for sure.
When Dinosaur Jr. first started, did you think a lot about how you wanted the band to look?
I thought about just myself and the other guys were on their own trips. Lou was into sweaters. My fashion idol was Nick Cave, I guess, when we were starting the band, so I was kind of sticking my hair up gothic-ish looking. And a lot of jewelry, I don’t seem to much anymore, but I had a ring on every finger and a ton of necklaces and beads.
You had a ring on every finger?
Yeah.
That’d be a cool look. You should bring that back. Bring back the necklaces.
It seemed to get harder to wear a ring when I played guitar. It’s kind of like I don’t wear anything on my finger anymore.
Now what kind of necklaces are we talking about? Big chunky ones or little chains?
Usually like some big medallion kind of thing that was hanging from the chamber and then like flowery beads.
That sounds like something a rapper would wear. Then again, so is Adidas. I guess you’ve always had that interest.
Well, more like weird old lady jewelry that I find in the Salvation Army.
When “Feel The Pain” was an MTV hit, and you did the Lollapalooza tour and alternative rock was huge and you were at your maximum level of exposure, how important was your visual presentation when you were doing public appearances and playing big shows?
Yes, I would like to get stuff made, like jackets and stuff, when I was going to be on a TV show or I wore a Paul Smith suit that had cow patterns on it, but it was blue and black. I would just kind of get things for TV things, but playing live on stage I wouldn’t dress up much. I remember we played in suits on Jon Stewart’s show, that was fun.
You don’t seem like a suit guy.
We like suits, and we’d look for special occasions to wear them at.
Do you talk to the guys in the band at all about dressing up these days, or are they on their own?
They are really on their own. We don’t have anything in common with clothes.
Do they ever comment on how you dress?
Yeah, like, I think Lou sometimes when we got back together said, “If I had my way, no one would wear band t-shirts in the band” and I think, again, maybe sneakers on stage, too. That was something when I played with Ron Asheton from The Stooges. He would be mad if I wore sneakers on stage.
What’s Ron’s problem?
It’s frowned upon in some circles. You’re supposed to wear shoes like Beatle Boots.
Are there any fashion rules you personally have for what you wear on stage?
Definitely not shorts. I like wearing shorts a lot, in the summer, but not on stage.
Right, a lot of people feel that way.
I think it’s a good move.
You mentioned Nick Cave, who are some of the other musicians you’ve looked to throughout your life, like that’s a fashionable person and I kind of want to look like them?
It could just be like I remember after Nick Cave, I saw some kid at college walking around with a flannel shirt, Doc Martens, and long hair. That’s when Doc Martens were hard to get. I saw that as “ok, that’s going to be my next look.” I saw that as the blueprint for my next stage, or whatever. I was into what Keith Richards would wear. Lemmy, I was into his clothes.
There’s an episode of Gilmore Girls wherein the punk rock character Jesse wears a t-shirt that’s the cover of the Green Mind album. It’s since become a recurring object of fascination amongst Gilmore Girls fans.
Yeah, I was really into the Gilmore Girls. That was a great show.
Were you excited when you saw Jesse wearing it?
Yeah, but I wish I’d gotten to be on the show like Sonic Youth got to be on the show. I did get some Gilmore Girls American Apparel sweatpants, I guess when they ended the show, they had these sweatpants and gave them to everyone on the crew and the lady knew that I was into it. I think she gave them to Kim Gordon to give to me.
The last time I saw Dinosaur Jr. I noticed you were selling the Green Mind t-shirt at the merch stand. Did the Gilmore Girls bump make your fans want to cop that one?
Yeah, I mean we’ve been selling that.
Well thank you for talking with me. My last question is, do you consider yourself a fashionable person?
I guess not really. I would like to be, but I just feel like they don’t pay enough attention or something. I dunno.
When you get called a fashion icon, how does it make you feel?
Yeah, I’m into it.
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