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In a quick turnaround after facing criticism from the disability community, Anne Hathaway has offered a lengthy and heartfelt apology for her performance as the Grand High Witch in The Witches. In the film, the character’s true witch form is revealed to have only three fingers on each hand, which prompted activists to call out Warner Bros. over this slight to those with limb differences, particularly children, and Hathaway agrees with their criticism. The actress teamed up with the Lucky Fin Project to shed light on the power of inclusion and promise to do better when it comes to aesthetic choices for her roles. Via Hathaway’s Instagram:

As someone who really believes in inclusivity and really, really detests cruelty, I owe you all an apology for the pain caused. I am sorry. I did not connect limb difference with the GHW when the look of the character was brought to me; if I had, I assure you this never would have happened.

I particularly want to say I’m sorry to kids with limb differences: now that I know better I promise I’ll do better. And I owe a special apology to everyone who loves you as fiercely as I love my own kids: I’m sorry I let your family down.

You can see Hathaway’s full statement below:

Hathaway’s apology arrives just two days after Warner Bros. responded to the growing backlash. The studio said it was “deeply saddened” to learn that the film upset the disability community, and that “it was never the intention for viewers to feel that the fantastical, non-human creatures were meant to represent them.”

(Via Anne Hathaway on Instagram)

Few athletes or celebrities have worked harder than LeBron James this election with his work re-enfranchising people of color across the country to get them out to vote in record numbers. So it’s not a surprise that James took a bit of a victory lap now that Donald Trump, of whom James is clearly no fan, is on the precipice of losing the presidency to Joe Biden.

We didn’t hear a peep from James most of the week, but when he came out of his silence, he made it worth the wait. Responding to a Twitter follower who sent him a clip from Bad Boys of Martin Lawrence, which you can watch below, James celebrated Black turnout in battleground states that Trump won in 2016 for flipping to Biden.

“My people voted they asses off,” James replied.

Speaking specifically of Georgia and Pennsylvania — two states that, as of this writing, have not been officially called but have been trending towards Biden in the last few days — James gave them a Twitter salute.

While exit polls are notoriously tricky and this year’s batch are even more difficult to pin down, it looks like Biden is on track to win Black voters by around 75 percentage points, with young Black folks in particular turning out in larger numbers. In an election in which millions of people are involved, it’s hard to trace any element back to one particular factor, but James’ More Than A Vote campaign and his continued involvement in educating and turning out Black voters has to be treated seriously.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — I am correct on this

Every now and then, usually in the wee hours of the morning when you’re trying to sleep, a thought will careen into your brain. A thought so obvious and true that it staggers you. A thought so perfect that it almost upsets you that the rest of the world has not already come together and agreed on it. This has happened to me a few times. Once, it was when I realized that all spoons should be soup spoons because soup spoons are larger and deeper, allowing you to shovel more food into your face with less chance of spilling on your shirt. Most recently, it was when I realized that Tom Hardy must play a villain in the Paddington franchise. It doesn’t have to be in the next Paddington, whenever that is. But it has to happen eventually.

There is already a long and storied history of terrific Paddington villains, and by that I mean there have been two: Nicole Kidman as a diabolical taxidermist named Millicent Clyde who wants to kill and stuff Paddington and place his adorable corpse in a natural history museum; and Hugh Grant as the theatrically evil Phoenix Buchanan, a famous actor who has gone treasure-crazy and frames Paddington for burglary. Both of them are delightful, especially Hugh Grant, who gives the single most mustache-twirling performance ever committed to film by an actor who is technically clean-shaven. It’s incredible. He goes huge with every decision and it still works because you cannot possibly go too big for a role in which you frame a sweet-talking bear for a felony as part of your quest to acquire gold and/or jewels.

All of this is why Tom Hardy is a perfect Paddington villain. Tom Hardy loves going big. Huge, even. Go watch Venom and picture that guy tormenting a little CGI bear. Go watch him as a mumble mouthed bootlegger in Peaky Blinders and witness a man steal every scene he’s in with all the subtlety of a brick to the skull. Go watch The Dark Knight Rises again and picture Bane as a Paddington villain. In fact, picture that whole movie, but with Paddington instead of Batman. Picture the whole franchise like that while you’re at it. The Joker asking Paddington if he wants to know how he got his scars and Paddington listening with all the sincerity in the world as the Joker eventually breaks down and realizes the error of his ways. This is how I will spend my entire weekend.

But I’m getting off-topic. Tom Hardy. You can see it too now, right? It’s so mind-meltingly clear. There are other decent alternatives here, sure, and this is where I toss out names like Idris Elba and Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Colman and, hell yes, Jackie Daytona himself, Matt Berry from What We Do in the Shadows. But Tom Hardy first. He’s so intense, so maniacal in the choices he makes, so committed to doing The Thing He Is Doing that he makes the perfect foil for a fuzzy little hero who saves the day with nothing but a kind heart and marmalade sandwiches. The yin and yang, sweet and salty, two completely different things locking together to create one perfect thing. It has to happen. I’m going to get mad if doesn’t.

I’ll give them time. Again, it doesn’t have to be the next Paddington movie. If there’s any justice in the world, these movies will match the Fast & Furious franchise in size and longevity and maybe Paddington will go to outer space eventually, too. But let’s not screw around and get cute here. Let’s get it done. Let’s get Tom Hardy in a Paddington movie. He can do any accent he wants. He can do all of the accents if he wants. I do not care. Just make it happen. The people deserve it.

ITEM NUMBER TWO— What would you do if you were playing chess against Anya Taylor-Joy’s character in The Queen’s Gambit and she stared at you over the board like this?

Honestly, I would quit. I would quit on the spot. I might fake an illness or something in a feeble attempt to maintain the tiniest shred of dignity, but everyone would see right through it because I am bad at acting and because I just admitted I would try it earlier in this sentence. Poor planning on my part. Also, I am terrible at chess, so this would be a miserable experience on a number of levels. I barely know the names of the pieces. There’s the king, and the queen, and the pawns, and the… castle, and the… horsey…

Anyway. What I’m trying to say here is that Anya Taylor-Joy is a great actress and I enjoyed watching her cook all the dopes on this show and she is really just very good at staring lasers at and/or through people. Not everyone can do that. I’m not entirely sure one can learn to do it. You either have that kind of intensity in your glare or you don’t, and she extremely does. I want to bring her with me the next time I buy a car. I’ll excuse myself to take a call and leave her and the salesman alone in the office together and she can just burn holes through him in silence for 10-15 minutes and then when I come back in the car will be like $5,000 cheaper.

The Queen’s Gambit is a good show.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Well here’s a good excuse to post one of the best stories ever

It is the position of this column that politics is bad and makes otherwise sane people behave like lunatics, and for that reason, it will remain a politics-free zone. There are, however, occasionally, politics-adjacent things that cannot be avoided. These can fall into a number of categories including, but not limited to, “a dog gets elected mayor of a small town” and, as we are about to see “a very thin excuse to post a very funny story that has nothing to do with politics.” Let’s dive in. Let’s read about how actor and longtime vape enthusiast Leonardo DiCaprio spent his election night.

Sources exclusively told Page Six that the “Wolf of Wall Street” star set up a wide-screen TV on his outdoor basketball court for a group of close pals such as Vincent Laresca.

DiCaprio — who’s known to own numerous properties around Los Angeles — combined two homes, including one he bought from Madonna, into one mansion back in the ’90s, and installed the basketball court in 2004. We hear he reserves this place for entertaining guests.

This is a very important story. Not because it matters to me in any way that Leonardo DiCaprio and his friends watched election coverage like this. Or that he bought a mansion from Madonna and then combined it with a second mansion, although that really is something. No, the reason this is an important story is because it contains both the name “Leonardo DiCaprio” and the word “basketball,” which means I have no choice but to post George Clooney’s basketball story again. It’s out of my hands. I would apologize but I could not possibly be less sorry. It is one of my favorite stories.

There are three things you need to know before diving in:

• The story is from this Esquire profile of Clooney, which is a good read
• George Clooney said all of this, on the record, to a journalist
• We pick the story up after Clooney and DiCaprio bumped into each other in Cabo months earlier and discussed their shared love of basketball and their desire to play sometime

Okay. Here we go.

They played at a neighborhood court. “You know, I can play,” Clooney says in his living room. “I’m not great, by any means, but I played high school basketball, and I know I can play. I also know that you don’t talk shit unless you can play. And the thing about playing Leo is you have all these guys talking shit. We get there, and there’s this guy, Danny A I think his name is. Danny A is this club kid from New York. And he comes up to me and says, ‘We played once at Chelsea Piers. I kicked your ass.’ I said, ‘I’ve only played at Chelsea Piers once in my life and ran the table. So if we played, you didn’t kick anybody’s ass.’ And so then we’re watching them warm up, and they’re doing this weave around the court, and one of the guys I play with says, ‘You know we’re going to kill these guys, right?’ Because they can’t play at all. We’re all like fifty years old, and we beat them three straight: 11–0, 11–0, 11–0. And the discrepancy between their game and how they talked about their game made me think of how important it is to have someone in your life to tell you what’s what. I’m not sure if Leo has someone like that.”

Just a lovely story on so many levels, from calling out some doofus club kid hanger-on by name, to the majestic pettiness of the way he recounted the score, to the way it all turned into a pretty wise meditation on fame and living in a bubble of your own design. And it’s really funny. I would pay at least $99 for video of this game. More if it only existed on a dusty VHS cassette shot from a terrible angle like the legendary Dream Team scrimmage tape. I am not kidding.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Congrats to Emily Blunt on all the cussing

There was a report a few weeks back about which actor has said the most cusses in film history. It was one of those things where, like, I can’t verify it, or at least I very much did not want to watch every movie ever made to verify it, so I was willing to accept the findings as presented if they seemed reasonable enough, which they did. Point being: Congratulations to Jonah Hill, King of Cussing. Additional point being: The same crew that did that report, Buzz Bingo (a website but also a great fake name), put together the same list for actresses this week, and it comes with good news and bad news.

Good news first: A sincere congratulations to Emily Blunt, who, on the back of her profanity-filled role in The Girl on the Train, edged out Jennifer Lawrence, Leslie Mann, and Frances McDormand to claim the top spot on the list. But then the bad news: Blunt only has a total of 81 cusses, which is less than one-quarter of Jonah Hill’s total, and not even enough to crack her into the top 30 overall.

Bullet points via Buzz Bingo:

• More than three quarters of swearing in film is performed by male actors (75.6%).
• When analysing the profanity of all actors (both male and female), every actor in the top 10 are male. In fact, the most profane actress (Emily Blunt) only ranks 34 overall with Bel Powley ranking as low as 72.
• When comparing Blunt to the most profane actor overall, Jonah Hill, he has uttered more than four times as many profane words in his career with 376 swears.

This stinks. I hate it. I hate it a lot. Let the women cuss, Hollywood! Come on!

Luckily, the solution here is simple. So simple I almost don’t even need to say it. But I will. Because I want to put it into the universe, in writing, just in case that makes it more likely to happen. I’m even going to start a new paragraph to do it.

A new R-rated film franchise starring Rosie Perez as a foul-mouthed former assassin who is out for blood after a group of crooked cops… did… something. Listen, we can figure that part out. The important stuff is all in there already: Rosie Perez, swear words, Rosie Perez saying upwards of 400 cuss words with her voice over a violent and stylish film franchise, etc. Some of you might be reading this and thinking “Uhhhh Brian, isn’t this kind of just John Wick but with Rosie Perez and a ton of profanity?”

To which I reply: Yes. Yes, it is.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Do you ever catch yourself sitting around and thinking about how the song “Pop! Goes My Heart” from the opening credits of the 2007 film Music & Lyrics is legitimately better and catchier than like 85 percent of the Wham-like 80s music it is allegedly parodying?

I do. I also recognize that this brings us to two of five sections this week that reference Hugh Grant in roles where he sings and dances. Do not tempt me to go back in the last section and add him into the hypothetical Rosie Perez: Cussing Assassin movie I just pitched. I’ll do it. I’m crazy.

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:

I finally watched Inside Man, and I was pleasantly surprised how many people were in it that just make me feel like a movie is in good hands- Denzel, Chiwetel, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Wilhelm Dafoe- regardless of movie quality, they’re going to elevate what they’ve been given.

This raises my question: what movie (outside of giant ensemble things like Love Actually and crossovers like Endgame) has the most “I’m in good hands” cast? It’s not really a “best cast” thing, but just a bunch of high floor people.

My knee jerk reaction is Knives Out, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Brandon, this is a fantastic email, in part because it raises an excellent point and in part because it mentions two of my favorite movies. The only problem I have with it is that I don’t know how I can be expected to answer it now that I’m thinking about these movies and how much I love them again. Inside Man rules, as we’ve discussed. Knives Out also rules, which we will probably end up discussing at some point in the near-ish future just based on the staggering number of times I have watched it over the last couple of months. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Christopher Plummer plays a rich guy with secrets in both of these movies, or do you think that’s just the secret to a good movie? It’s a lot to think about. I’m leaning toward the latter but I can be swayed.

To answer your question, in a surprise to no one who has spent any amount of time with or around me in the last few years, I’ll add The Accountant. The Accountant has everyone in it. Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, JK Simmons, John Lithgow, Jean Smart, Jeffrey Tambor, Jon Bernthal, Alison Wright. It’s is just incredibly stacked for a movie that isn’t part of a franchise or based on a beloved piece of literature or directed by, like, Tarantino. And it has a montage where Ben Affleck, the accountant in The Accountant, does accounting. I don’t know what else anyone could possibly ask for.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Nottingham!

In one of the more unusual crime capers of recent weeks, an enterprising crew of thieves with impeccable taste in fine wines tunneled into a secure high-end cellar in Nottingham, England, and stole as much as $65,000 worth of classic vintages and whiskey.

Looking for more proof that politics is bad and ruins everything? Because if you are, you could do a lot worse than “criminals tunneled into a wine cellar in Nottingham and stole $65,000 worth of booze and barely anyone discussed it this week.” It’s a little upsetting to me. And it would be more than a little upsetting if the story didn’t include a handful of fun details that I can share with you, now, in an attempt to right this historical wrong. Details like this.

A senior manager at Vintage Wines Ltd. in Nottingham told The Daily Beast they were “embarrassed” by the theft and were now in the process of contacting celebrities and ordinary people who use the company’s storage vault for their high-price bottles. Many of the clients “were distraught.”

The main celebrity they are talking about here is the estate of Whitney Houston, which stores the late singer’s collection here, but one assumes there are others who did not wish to be identified. I’m more tickled by the use of the phrase “ordinary people.” Like, yes, the celebs, but also… [gestures dismissively in the direction of the unwashed masses].

I’ve been thinking about it since I read this story and if the high-end cellar where I stored my expensive bottles of wine called to tell me my collection had been stolen by a group of criminals who tunneled into the facility… I mean, don’t think I’d be mad. It would be worth it just for the story. I would tell everyone, all the time, repeatedly. Someone would be like “Should we have wine with dinner?” and I’d launch into my story about the criminals who stole my wine by tunneling into a high-end cellar and everyone would groan because they’ve heard it 100 times. It would be great.

Moving on.

They are thought to have dug into the cellar via derelict buildings surrounding the business to access the store’s vaults, which contain hundreds of bottles of high-value wine, whiskey, and port belonging to collectors.

One thing we need more of going forward, and I have always said this, is news stories about elaborate wine heists that include the phrase “derelict buildings.”

The real question here is how these guys got caught after all this planning. It seems like they thought of everyth-…

They were caught when a female member of the staff went down to the cellar to replace a high-value bottle that had been stolen in the store, only to find the thieves swigging vintage Champagne as they rifled through some of the best wines in the world.

Look, if you’re going to get arrested, if there’s absolutely no way around it, you might as well be drunk on champagne. I think that’s the biggest takeaway here.

Johnny Depp asked for “vindication” from a U.K. court during his libel trial (Depp v. News Group Newspapers) over an article from The Sun that labeled him as a “wife beater,” and let’s just say that he received the opposite of vindication. The court ruled that Amber Heard’s account of physical abuse by her then-husband was “substantially true.” The trial and verdict referenced the word “monster” on multiple occasions in regard to Depp (regarding 14 alleged incidents of physical assault), and the saga has backfired in a resoundingly damning way for the former Tim Burton muse.

The verdict followed three weeks of mud-slinging from both sides in a trial full of wild revelations — including “porky pies,” poo in the bed, an ice cream debacle, and alleged animal abuse — and given the court’s verdict, Warner Bros. asked Depp to exit the Fantastic Beasts franchise, in which he portrayed Grendelwald. Depp revealed the news in a typed note that he posted on Instagram:

“I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request.”

Depp also indicated in his post that he’d seek an appeal of the U.K. court decision, and there’s no word yet on if he still plans to proceed with the U.S. defamation case he filed against Heard. Given that the U.S. standard for defamation would be even tougher for him to achieve than the U.K. one — and based on how Heard never even named Depp in the op-ed that led to his U.S. lawsuit — he might be wise to back away from the U.S. suit, which could only further damage his reputation.

One thing is certain, though. Warner Bros. confirmed that they’ll be recasting the role of Grindelwald. Via Hollywood Reporter:

“Johnny Depp will depart the Fantastic Beasts franchise. We thank Johnny for his work on the films to date. Fantastic Beasts 3 is currently in production, and the role of Gellert Grindelwald will be recast. The film will debut in theaters worldwide in the summer of 2022.”

At this time, J.K. Rowling has not issued a public statement about Depp’s exit from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, but it’s worth noting that in 2018, Depp expressed gratitude for the author after she publicly supported him. At the time, Depp confirmed that he would return as Grindelwald for the third film, and now that he’s gone from the Warner Bros. franchise altogether, one might expect that Rowling would want to make a statement. No response specifically from Rowling has materialized as of yet, though.

(Via Hollywood Reporter & Johnny Depp on Instagram)

A little under two months ago, Justin Bieber started his “new era” with the release of “Holy,” an uplifting collaboration with his longtime friend Chance The Rapper. Since then, the two stars used proceeds of the song to help fans affected by the pandemic and performed the song together on Saturday Night Live. Now, they’re giving it a little more life with a comforting acoustic remix. The video accompanying the remix strips away the elaborate storyline of the original, leaving Justin and Chance to perform directly to the camera in a space overlooking a gloomy city skyline.

After the initial release of “Holy,” Beiber followed up with the Benny Blanco-produced single “Lonely,” which detailed his turbulent teen years when he was driven by “ego and power,” according to a recent interview. Justin’s developed a bit of a sense of humor about his early career, making light of himself in the video for Drake and DJ Khaled’s “Popstar” while standing in for Drake.

Meanwhile, Chance popped up a few times to collaborate with friends and family this year, despite being otherwise quiet on the musical front. On MadeInTYO’s “BET Uncut,” he reunited with both TYO and Smino, he offered a suitably spiritual verse to Spillage Village’s Spilligion, and shared his spotlight with burgeoning fellow Chicago rapper Baha Banks on “Shake Dat Ass.”

Watch the acoustic remix performance of “Holy” above.

Chicago rapper King Von is reportedly dead at the age of 26 after being shot at an Atlanta nightclub, according to sources close to the emerging star. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that five people were shot at Monaco Hookah Lounge, with three killed and two injured. According to witnesses, two groups of people got into an argument in the parking lot which became physical. The altercation escalated to shooting, drawing the attention of two police officers working near the lounge. Gunfire was exchanged with the officers, leaving three people injured and one in critical condition.

Rumors flew online in the aftermath saying that the two crews involved in the altercation were those of King Von and local rapper Quando Rondo. Those reports have thus far been unconfirmed. The officers were not injured and police didn’t know whether the officers actually shot anyone. Meanwhile, Fox 5 Atlanta reports a sixth person injured by a fleeing vehicle; police are searching for the driver. Von’s death was confirmed by a number of sources close to the rapper, including Shade 45 producer Justin Hunte and producer ChopsquadDJ, who produced Von’s hit “Take Her To The O.”

Before the incident, Von was rapidly rising through rap’s ranks to become a hot commodity over the past year. As a member of Lil Durk’s Only The Family label, he was co-signed by one of the Windy City’s most prominent hip-hop stars and released two projects in 2020, the Levon James mixtape released in March and his debut album Welcome To O-Block, which released just a week ago.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

A synth’s sinister arpeggio sculpts an eerie background for Dorian Electra’s breathy, autotuned vocals as they sing of (both literally and figuratively) f*cking the world on their My Agenda album opener “F The World.” Jarring and adrenaline-inducing, the song is written from the perspective of an incel and offers a brief introduction into the eccentric world carefully constructed by Electra on their sophomore album.

Not everyone can effectively pen a concept album inspired by the alt-right and incel communities that is simultaneously endearing, hilarious, and thought-provoking. But then again, there’s no artist quite like Electra, who dons a penciled-on mustache as their signature look. And it’s this commitment to pushing boundaries leads them to masterfully explore the darkest corners of the internet through a queer lens on My Agenda.

The album has been described as both futurist and hyperpop, two genre labels which have recently been popularized by Charli XCX and the rise of 100 Gecs in the mainstream. Electra has collaborated with both artists, even accrediting Charli to helping jumpstart their career after joining the singer for her 2018 Pop 2 tour. “The biggest takeaway from being in close situations with Charli is that it’s important to really love the people that you work with on a daily basis — those people should be your friends,” Electra told me over the phone in the days following My Agenda’s release.

Collaborating with their musician friends and staying true to their artistic vision opened the door for other exciting opportunities. The cult following Electra has garnered since their debut LP Flamboyant earned them a chance to participate in Red Bull Radio’s Fireside Chat series (which you can check out below) and secured them album features by some of the biggest queer icons in left-of-center pop.

Unpacking their aesthetic influences and inspiration on My Agenda, Electra talks researching the incel community, subverting harmful internet culture, and collaborating with the likes of the Village People, Pussy Riot, and Rebecca Black.

It seems like a lot of your driving force as a musician is taking norms in pop music and subverting them — whether it’s the heteronormative aspect of pop or the bubble-gummy, accessible sound. In your opinion, what’s one trend in pop music right now that you wish to see changed?

I think it’d be interesting to hear more unique and diverse perspectives in terms of the narrative and story told in pop music. Usually, it’s something really basic like a hetero love story. Even artists that I know who have more diverse experiences than that tend to do the stuff they think will be the most relatable or most universal. But I think it can end up just perpetuating the same old, tired tropes. And I think that some of my favorite artists are the people that I’m seeing talk about really unique and interesting things that are very specific but that also end up being very relatable — they can find a balance of both.

Speaking about your aesthetic and about Dorian Electra as a persona, where do you draw some of your stylistic and aesthetic influences from?

I love the history of fashion — 1600s, 1700, 1800s-era fashion with some punk mixed in. Also, TikTok e-girl and e-boy vibes. I used to love mod and goth fashion. A lot of different things — neckbeard fashion, like the dragon shirts trench coats, that stuff, and nerd culture and rave culture, too.

It’s sort of like an amalgamation of all these different influences. Speaking of neckbeard culture, throughout your record My Agenda you deal a lot with and incels and that whole community online. But rather than overtly condemning it, which is really easy to do nowadays, it seems you’re seeking to understand it. Can you speak about that a little bit?

I feel like we have a very interesting situation on our hands culturally right now, where we have a lot of people that are millennial, or younger or older, white, hetero cis men that feel for some reason very alienated. They feel out of place in society, feel like they can’t have a financial, romantic, or sexual life, and that somehow they feel disenfranchised. It’s causing a new surge in misogyny. In the more extreme realms of that, you see racism and xenophobia. That always happens when people are feeling economically not taken care of. And the scapegoat happens on other groups like, ‘Oh, immigrants take jobs.’ You can look throughout history and just see the trend that there’s always a correspondence between those things.

From a sociological perspective, we really need to look at what is the root cause of this new version of the right and the alt-right. Why has this come about and how do we combat this and how do we try to communicate to these people that there are more positive solutions to their problems than some of the ideology that is found on these corners of the internet? I’m a very pragmatic person, so when I find solutions, I want to look for things that work and ask how we heal the cultural divide that we have going right now — the growing division between the left and the right and culture wars that we’re in the middle of experiencing right now. To me, it starts with just learning, researching, and understanding. The best way to communicate with someone on “the other side” is to first understand them and know where they’re coming from to be able to better communicate with them as opposed to just shutting them out, shutting them down, preventing communication, preventing basically any possibility for change, learning, growth, or development on their part. I think that we need a renewed sense of openness and duty to have civil discourse because online it can just get so [complex] so quickly.

It definitely sounds like you did a lot of research. Is there anything that you learned throughout this research that surprised you?

One thing that I learned that was surprising to me was reading some people’s individual experiences being queer or trans and having found a sense of community in the incel community before they were out. I found a lot of overlap in certain ways between people that were feeling outcast by the rest of the world — feeling like they were never going to find a romantic or sexual partner — and feeling a big sense of self-loathing. There was a sense of being angry with the world.

But the more I started thinking about it, it really made sense to me why that there would be an overlap [between incels and queer people who are closeted]. When people are not happy with themselves, they turn to these online communities that can be both supportive but also destructive and self-destructive to your psyche. […] I can maybe reach some of the people that are in those darker corners of the internet and those communities because they feel out of place, gender nonconforming, or that their sexual orientation is different. And if somehow they come across my stuff and it could reach them, that would be amazing and beautiful. So I think that surprised me the most, but also energized me because some people are reachable and teachable.

That is really interesting. It’s definitely all about creating that underground community and seeking to have other people who understand you be a part of your world. But let’s go into specific tracks more. When you released your title track “My Agenda,” you talked about getting the Village People on the song and how you were inspired by them as queer people because they dominate very heteronormative spaces like sports games. Can you talk about how they as a group, and Pussy Riot as well, fit into your sound?

With the track “My Agenda,” before we even considered having those people on it, it was always this military-sounding song. I always imagined it as a military boy band vibes. I thought it was kind of like ‘NSYNC with the orchestra hits and the lyrics. We have actual marching sounds in the song and it’s a parody of how the conservatives can sometimes portray the “gay agenda” like it’s a gay militia or something. I run with that in a self-aware, sort of self-mocking but also critical way. Yes, we are the “gay agenda.”

But then to have Pussy Riot on the track was so meaningful. I think we kind of take it for granted in the US, but in Russia they have these laws called gay propaganda laws that make it illegal to promote or teach about anything that goes against traditional family heterosexual values. Access to information about sex education is limited, counseling and therapy is limited. It’s really, really detrimental to LGBT youth and just the culture and society as a whole. It’s censorship and it’s still going on. It’s illegal to fly a pride flag. In the US I think we take our freedom of speech for granted a lot of times. And so to have Nadezha [Tolokonnikova, the lead singer of Pussy Riot] be able to sing about that. And for Putin’s birthday, they were putting all these pride flags up around important government buildings in Russia. One of the members was arrested and is in jail for 30 days.

On the other hand, Village People, their songs like “Macho Man” and “YMCA” are simultaneously being played at Trump rallies over the past month. I think that’s amazing in the sense that they’re able to exist in this super mainstream context. Imagine people going on Spotify after the Trump rally, getting all fired up like, “I’m going to listen to some Village People to keep the patriotism going.” And then the next song that comes on is “My Agenda” and they’re encountering that. Just the fact that there could be this crossover or this accidental discovery is remarkable. That’s part of the process. You have the people that are radically upfront about their queer agenda and politics like Pussy Riot, but then you have [a group] that is more covert with a message of love and acceptance that is appealing to the mainstream. To have those two together, to me, it’s just a perfect marriage and I’m just so happy with how that track turned out.

Talking about another collab on the album, your song with Rebecca Black “Edgelord,” you said wanted her on the track because she was also the subject of the “dark side” of the internet. She’s basically the poster child for cyberbullying. It seems to me that a lot of your music on this album is sort of a study in semiotics as well because you take the word edgelord, which obviously has this meaning that comes out of the incel community, but you also break it down to have a lot of different meanings. You talk about an edgelord literally meaning somebody standing on the edge or pushing you to the edge. But talking about the collaboration, can you tell me how it came about and what it was like working with her?

I totally agree with everything that you just said about it. I always find the most inspiration in words to become titles of songs that have three or more meanings. But working with Rebecca was so amazing because I had been learning that she was a fan of my music and 100 Gecs and Charli. It was really cool because she’s somebody who’s totally reclaimed her own narrative and her own story and has reshaped her own career when people probably thought she would never make music professionally. She proved everybody wrong. Also, she’s come out as queer recently, too. We’ve just become friends since working together and it’s been amazing to learn about her and her story. She’s a really inspiring, kind, and compassionate person.

I like that you guys are friends now, that’s really wholesome. Talking about some of the different sounds you have on this record, it seems like you are mixing a lot of these sonic influences — sort of like your style as well. You have some screamo metal influences on “F The World” and then that Halo Gregorian chant on “Monk Mode.” Can you talk about how you come up with some of these sounds?

I figure out what would be the most unexpected combo or the most dramatic, jarring combo. I’m very desensitized to a lot of that. So I have to figure out how to switch it up even more for my next step, but I always love something unexpected. I love things that reclaim sounds that have been considered uncool. Also, things that reclaim genres of music that have become super masculine, like dubstep becoming “brostep” or being associated with frat bros and becoming uncool. But it’s actually a really cool sound of music. Then something like black metal, which is a really amazing and cool genre of music, that’s unfortunately been co-opted by a lot of people on the far right that are white nationalists and white supremacists. Seeing a black metal artist like Gaylord taking that back and make queer and anti-fascist black metal is so powerful to me. So I think that’s what a lot of it is, taking all these genres and reclaiming them.

The last thing that I will ask you is, especially with the uncertainty of the live music industry right now, can you tell me what’s next for Dorian Electra?

I’m definitely going to be working on a lot more new music because that is what people are sitting at home and consuming. I want to be able to provide that for people. And also more videos, I just love doing videos. It’s just so easy for me. And I love to bring these concepts to life. I also want to do something that is beyond just an album or an EP. I want to figure out something that is a different form that I can experiment with too. And more collaborations, I’m very excited to do more collaborations.

My Agenda is out now via Dorian Electra. Get it here.

Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Alex Cora, the former Houston Astros bench coach who was found to be the mastermind behind the Astros’ sign-stealing efforts during their 2017 World Series run, has been rehired as the manager of the Boston Red Sox after serving a season-long suspension for his involvement in the scandal.

The news was first reported Friday morning by Jon Heyman of MLB Network, who added that even amid the pandemic, Red Sox executives including general manager Chaim Bloom flew to Puerto Rico to interview Cora.

While the news is a bit shocking considering Cora was originally fired by the team in January after an MLB investigation found him to have spearheaded the Astros’ sign-stealing back in 2017, the Red Sox pulled off an all-time news dump by dropping the news just moments after Joe Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania and took a major step towards becoming the next president of the United States.

Many Americans woke up to news of Biden inching closer to the presidency, followed shortly by the relatively insignificant news of who the next Red Sox manager would be. Later in the morning, Heyman added that the decision was met with support throughout the organization, including from “key players.”

Back in January, the Red Sox parted ways with Cora when the initial details of his leadership in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal came to light. An investigation from MLB pinned similar efforts in Boston on an advance scout rather than Cora, though Cora still had to serve a suspension for his rule-breaking in Houston.

That meant that after playing out the 2020 season with manager Ron Roenicke leading the team to a 24-36 record, Boston was able to rehire Cora, who led the franchise to a World Series title in 2018 and had always tended to earn praise across baseball before the Astros scandal.

Even with Cora back in tow, the Red Sox are in a bit of a rebuild, but this whole situation seems to have wrapped itself into a bow now that Cora is back in Boston.

All the ingredients are present in David Fincher’s Mank. It’s an extremely well-crafted film, with beautiful acting performances, directed by one of the best directors working today in an almost orgasmic retro style that will have film nerds pointing at the screen just like that Leonardo DiCaprio meme. Yet (no movie review starts like that without a “yet” or a “however”), the movie still feels distant. It’s a movie I desperately want to love, yet no matter how hard I try, in the end I just wind up admiring it instead. Even now, as I have the movie in my head, attempting to write about it, I love so many aspects of it that it’s really puzzling why I don’t feel as fond toward the sum of its parts.

Mank is the movie David Fincher’s been wanting to make for decades. Originally written by his father, Jack Fincher (who died in 2003), it seems to both serve as David Fincher’s love letter to his father and Jack Fincher’s love letter to screenwriters. And obviously, most notably, Herman Mankiewicz (aka “Mank”). Oh Mank (Gary Oldman, who does seem a bit too old for the role, but, whatever, he’s great), what a scamp! Always getting into some sort of trouble or adventure. And, see, that a thing you should probably know about Mank, it’s much less about Mank attempting to get credit for co-writing Citizen Kane (it’s for sure a part of the film, but not near as much as advertised) and more about Mank just being a drunk guy, wandering from scene to scene, expressing his boisterous opinions. In all honestly, I now know more about Mank’s opinions of the 1934 California gubernatorial election than I do his opinions on Orson Welles.

Look, let’s not beat around the bush: this is a gorgeous movie, especially for film nerds. (Have you ever written a clichéd phrase and thought, “Wait, what does that even mean?” I just looked up where “beat around the bush” came from and apparently its origins were from hunters beating bushes so birds would fly out. Anyway.) And I’d recommend watching (rewatching) Citizen Kane before you watch Mank because a lot of the same filmmaking techniques are at work here and it’s a fun thing to compare. Well, at least at first. Because there’s only so long into a movie a person can continue to go, “Wow, another fadeout?” Or, “Oh, look, another cigarette burn!” (It’s almost as if David Fincher taught the moviegoing public what cigarette burns were in Fight Club so that they’d be appreciated in Mank. Also, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, as usual, is dynamite. (Fun fact: Trent Reznor also wrote the score for Citizen Kane.)

So, look, I’m not about to wade into the whole “who wrote Citizen Kane” debate, but Mank does take the road that Mank had much more to do with it than Welles. After a serious car accident that leaves Mank in a leg cast, Welles (Tom Burke) hires Mank to write him a new movie and Mank uses this opportunity to settle a grievance with William Randolph Hurst (Charles Dance). The rest of the film is told in flashbacks (hey, just like Citizen Kane) and, boy, we get a lot of these flashes back to Mank’s adventures in Hollywood. He’s kind of the Forrest Gump of ’30s and ‘40s, having a hand in a whole host of situations. The film also explores Mank’s relationship with Marion Davies (played with heavenly gusto by Amanda Seyfried), and her alleged inspiration for the character of Susan Alexander Kane.

We get to hear a lot of Mank’s opinions, often delivered with a bit of an enraged drunken slur. And there’s no doubt he’s an interesting fellow, but, again, I felt a distance from Mank’s day to day adventures. After a while, he starts to feel like the office blowhard – in a, “Look, I kind of agree with this guy, but maybe give it a rest,” kind of way. When I felt the most engaged was when the film directly acknowledges Citizen Kane. The film feels electric anytime Mank and Welles are on screen together (which, again, isn’t much). Which all leads to a climatic confrontation between the two that is … well, short and underwhelming. (So, spoiler alert, I guess? If you’ve seen Citizen Kane, you already know if Mank got his credit or not.) The film builds us up for this final argument between Mank and Welles and it pretty much amounts to Mank saying, “Hey, I want credit.” And Welles responding, “Well, Mank, you’ll get your credit … but I’m going to be mad about it.”

Again, all the ingredients are here. First, it’s Fincher, a director I admire greatly. But it’s a different Fincher at work here. With Fincher, we kind of expect a sense of urgency in every scene. Mank is a bit more lackadaisical in its storytelling, taking a more Benjamin Button approach, only without the whole aging backwards thing to move the story along. And the acting and cinematography and score are all fantastic. But the story on its whole is hard to embrace. It’s an admirable effort. It’s just a beautiful thing to look at. And the whole endeavor is such a touching tribute from Fincher to his father. But, in the end, I found myself more interested in the behind the scenes shenanigans that led to the creation of, perhaps, the greatest movie of all time, as opposed to Mank the human being. And Mank focuses much more on the latter.

‘Mank’ will stream via Netflix on November 20th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Ariana Grande has released a new album in each of the past three years, with her latest, Positions, arriving last week. It it still very much a new album, but some fans are already wondering when Grande’s next one will arrive. There is a rumor floating around that Grande’s next one will be arriving soon, a rumor that Grande has succinctly shot down.

A fan Twitter account claimed, “Positions was just for the fans , Expect a heavy commercial album for AG7 early 2021**.” Grande kept her response short, sweet, and without room for interpretation, tweeting, “no.”

That said, it wouldn’t be unprecedented to see a new Grande album at some point in 2021, given her recent history. Positions dropped over a year-and-a-half after Thank U, Next, while Thank U, Next was a quick follow-up to Sweetener, arriving about half a year after the 2018 album. So, if the wait for Grande’s next album is somewhere in that range, then it would drop at some point between mid-2021 and mid-2022.

In the meantime, Grande is still enjoying the success of Positions. The record just debuted in the top spot of the Billboard 200 chart, making it the fifth No. 1 album of her career.

Read our review of Positions here.