Jamie Foxx has been trying to get his Mike Tyson biopic made for so long, the initial Variety report notes that he “can be seen next in Sony’s reboot of Annie.” Annie came out in 2014. But while guesting on Mark Birnbaum’s Instagram Live series Catching Up, the Oscar winner confirmed that the movie finally happening is a “definitive yes.”
“Look, doing biographies is a tough thing. Sometimes it takes 20 years to get them done. But we officially got the real ball rolling,” Foxx, who previously played Muhammad Ali’s cornerman Drew Bundini Brown in Michael Mann’s Ali, told Birnbaum. He already looks the part of Iron Mike. Foxx showed off his muscular physique, noting that “every other day, I do 60 pull-ups, we do 60 dips, we do 100 push-ups,” but, he joked, “I ain’t got no calf muscles, so we’re gonna have to get some prosthetics for that.” CGI will be employed. “Just the technology of how I’m gonna look, I guarantee you people will run up on me in the street, and ask for autographs, and think that I’m Mike,” Foxx said.
The Collateral star (Collateral came out even longer ago than Annie, but whatever, it rules) also teased that the biopic will cover Tyson’s “different lives… We want to show, everybody evolves. I think when we lay the layers on Mike Tyson in this story, I think everybody from young and old will be able to understand this man’s journey.”
Foxx begins discussing the biopic at the 53-minute mark (and shows off his muscles at 56:35) in the video below.
Australian indie group The Beths have a new album on the way: Jump Rope Gazers comes out on July 10. Usually, it’s normal for bands to head out on tour around the time they drop a fresh record. We’re not living through normal times, though, so like many other artists, The Beths had to delay touring plans during the pandemic. That said, The Beths are actually doing it: The band has announced they will be performing an honest-to-goodness concert next month.
This isn’t some sort of drive-in concert where even cars have to be six feet apart, either: They’ll be performing at Powerstation in Auckland, Australia, an indoor venue. The band’s Elizabeth Stokes wrote in the announcement, “Very surreal to say this: Auckland, we’re doing a gig. It’s July 11th, the day after our album comes out. I can’t tell you how much we are looking forward to playing a show and playing new songs. It’ll be pretty special, come and hang.”
Australia as a country has handled itself well during the pandemic, which makes a July concert there a real possibility. The country is apparently on course to “have largely eradicated the coronavirus” by July, according to an announcement from public health officials earlier this month.
Jump Rope Gazers is out 7/10 via Carpark. Pre-order it here.
After tapping Angel Olsen to give a disco-infused contribution to his 2019 Late Night Feelings record, acclaimed producer Mark Ronson decided to rework one of her All Mirrors tracks. Applauding her fourth studio record as one of his “favorite albums from last year,” Ronson breathed new life into Olsen’s “New Love Cassette” with an oscillating remix.
In a statement alongside the remix, Olsen praised Ronson’s handiwork: “The entire process of making All Mirrors has been about letting these songs become something bigger than what I can hear alone. Though I know I’ll always be a songwriter at heart, and I’ll always keep a little bit for myself, I still love to experiment with material and to see what others hear when it comes to sonic backgrounds. A song can go in so many directions if you let it, I love hearing what Ronson hears in this remix of ‘New Love Cassette.’”
The remix arrives just ahead of Olsen’s benefit livestream Cosmic Streams. Kicking off the event Thursday evening, Olsen will perform the entirety of her debut record Half Way Home along with a handful of rarities. A portion of proceeds from the livestream ticket sales will benefit the YMCA in her Ashville hometown.
Listen to “New Love Cassette (Remix)” above.
All Mirrors is out now via Jagjaguwar. Get it here.
Maybe it’s the quarantine getting to him, but Robert Pattinson has proven himself to be quite the agent of chaos when it comes to interviews lately. There was his now-infamous pasta explosion while coordinating his eccentric GQ profile over Zoom, and he’s acquired a penchant for telling reporters that even he doesn’t know what Tenet is about, and he’s in it.
This time around, Pattinson contributed to Entertainment Weekly‘s huge, new Tenet feature by claiming he was freaking out his co-stars by performing car stunts despite having only one day of training.
“I thought that I wasn’t going to be doing any stunt driving in it, but then I ended up doing tons and tons. I remember doing one sequence where me and John David are in a BMW with an IMAX camera rigged on the hood, which means you can’t see anything through the windscreen, basically. And also, if you turn even slightly too much to the left or right, the rig hits the road, which is kind of terrifying. John David’s turning to me and saying, ‘Are you, like, a stunt driver or something? Have you rehearsed this?’ Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t really be allowed to do this. But Chris has so much control over the set, you get to do the actual fun stuff, which normally would be reserved for experts and not people who can’t even parallel park.”
Just like he did during Pattinson’s pasta meltdown with GQ, director Christopher Nolan swooped in to say that the Twilight star is joking. But then Nolan revealed an interesting tidbit. He confirmed that Pattinson only did a day of training, but it was more of ability assessment and it turns out, he’s actually awesome behind the wheel? According to Nolan, the stunt team “found him to be an excellent driver more than capable of safely performing the required shots.”
Four of the sports leagues that plan on resuming in the coming weeks and months — MLS, NBA, NWSL, and WNBA — all plan on pursuing bubble leagues in various corners of the United States. This approach has some potential flaws, but as Dr. Anthony Fauci explained when talking about the NBA’s plan, a bubble league could be the model for leagues going forward during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As for leagues that aren’t slated to being their campaigns any time soon, things like a bubble league have not been suggested. But in the eyes of Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, the concept of going forward with a football season without a bubble might not be feasible.
“Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” Fauci said, per ESPN. “If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”
Of course, a bubble for football is more complex than a bubble for basketball or soccer, if only because of the sheer number of individuals a team would bring. Rosters with nearly 100 players, plus gigantic coaching staffs, plus gigantic support staffs, plus all the requisite individuals needed to make football games work, means that thousands of people would be placed into a bubble environment. That doesn’t even consider the added complexity of doing this sort of thing with college football, where athletes would presumably be unable to go to class.
All of this is to say that putting together a football season in some kind of bubble would be really, really hard, and that’s before we even consider things like “how on earth can you put together enough practice fields and actual fields for teams to, you know, play football?” The good news, relatively speaking, is that both the NFL and the NCAA have time to put plans together. The bad news, though, is that even the best plan that they can come up with may be nearly impossible to pull off.
Previously on NJPW: New Japan returned after over three months on hiatus! Naito showed off a new move, Uemura showed off bigger muscles, and the company showed wrestlers getting their temperature taken.
You can keep up with With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook, follow our home site Uproxx on Twitter, and even follow me on Twitter @emilyofpratt. Don’t forget to share this column on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social media you use, and leave a comment with your thoughts on the show and/or article. All feedback is appreciated and will help us keep up the NJPW coverage now that there’s once again NJPW to cover.
And now the Best and Worst of the first two nights of the first round of the NJPW World Special New Japan Cup, from June 16-17, 2020.
Even before the June 16 opening match begins, it succeeds in building hype for the show through the continued miracle of Togi Makabe’s uncensored theme song. And maybe I was just riding the high of hearing a real song played on a wrestling show, but I thought Togi Makabe vs. Yota Tsuji kicked a whole lot of ass. It’s very minimal and aggressive, and especially with the body types of the wrestlers involved, it feels like a heavyweight bout from decades past. These eight minutes definitely energized me to watch more of this NJPW show, more of Makabe in this tournament, and more of Tsuji in the future.
Worst: No More Jado Matches; Society Has Progressed Past The Need For Jado Matches
The biggest point in the Yano vs. Jado match’s favor is that it seemed put together with the awareness that nobody really wants to see Jado wrestle in 2020. The setup from the beginning is more that Yano needs to out-cheat the three cheating members of the scaled-down Bullet Club than it is that Yano needs to beat Jado. The match is short and comedic and works around the 51-year-old not really being able to bump anymore, but it’s still not all that funny or entertaining. The top highlight: that the Master Thief’s new entrance video introduces him as “YouTuber Toru Yano.”
Worst: No More Honma Matches; Society Has Progressed Past The Need For Honma Matches
While the Jado match at least seems aware of its broken-down old man’s limitations, Hiromu Takahashi vs. Tomoaki Honma attempts to press on as if they don’t exist, and the match suffers for it.
I get the kind of thing they were going for. Hiromu and Honma both made impressive recoveries from serious neck injuries at very different points in their careers; Occam’s razor says to make that dynamic the story! But while Hiromu’s comeback has so far been successful in every way and he’s still as must-watch as he was before that night in San Francisco, Honma doesn’t look like he should be wrestling. Pre-injury Honma could pull off a spirited underdog performance, but now it’s not credible that he could last twenty minutes with almost anyone on the New Japan roster and it’s not fun to watch him try. This match oscillates between being boring and concerning.
This match at least provides some quality moments of Hiromu doing Hiromu things like trying to start a slow clap with the audience at home before hitting the John Woo. His breakdown backstage over the suppressed traumatic memory of Yano shaving his head in 2011 is also amazing. Hiromu has generally been doing everything with so much mania since the comeback that I basically believe what he said backstage at the Together Project Special, that he might actually be too overwhelmed if there was an audience at these shows.
Tomohiro Ishii vs. El Desperado is Despy’s first singles match in NJPW proper since he broke his jaw last spring, and he makes the most of every minute of it. The one-on-one environment highlights how distinctive his selling and body language are, and we see the full range of the character over the course of this match. He starts with the strategy he showed he was going to use in the preview tag, targeting Ishii’s knees in order to set up for Numero Dos. It’s pretty effective, but when Ishii escapes too many times, Desperado gest frustrated and starts cheating, and when Ishii fights through the cheating, Desperado is finally worked up enough to show passion as well as skill as a straight-up fighter. Ishii tends to bring that out of people, and it makes for an NJPW match formula that manages to never feel formulaic.
The June 17 show starts less strongly than the previous night with dojo newbie Gabriel Kidd vs. teacup bodybuilder and junior heavyweight legend Taiji Ishimori. Kidd doesn’t really make an impression aside from a nice brainbuster late in the game, but Ishimori’s performance is noticeably bad.
At this point in his career, there’s a big difference between when Ishimori puts on his working boots for important matches and when he just kind of shows up to work, and this match is an example of the latter. Ishimori has a famously great offensive arsenal, but his control portions here aren’t very exciting because it feels like he’s going through the motions. He even directs his acting towards a crowd that wasn’t there (aside from the sarcastic (?) chant for himself, but just some of his mannerisms), which looks robotic and is something performers have largely avoided on NJPW’s no-fans shows so far.
NJPW
Ishimori ultimately wins, of course, and at least sells his upcoming match with Kanemaru harder with his promo than he did with the match he just wrestled, bringing up his impressively bad, years-long record against Kanemaru by saying he’s “deathly allergic” to him. I’m guessing more of Ishimori’s good qualities as a wrestler will show up during that allergic reaction.
After the opener, it’s time for everyone to remember what Kanemaru’s theme sounds like, and for a stronger Young Lion vs. guy who made his name in Pro Wrestling NOAH match. Both wrestlers in this match show a mix of urgency and brains, which looks really impressive coming from Yuya Uemura. He didn’t spend those months in the dojo just building up muscle mass and frustration; he also came up with some quality anti-Suzukigun strategy. He jumps Kanemaru right as he gets in the ring and actually manages to avoid being whipped into the barricades at the beginning of the match. And Kanemaru doesn’t have the flashiest offense or the visual hook of having just moved up a weight class (if pro wrestling had MMA weight classes), but everything he does feels like it has a purpose and that keeps it engaging.
Uemura’s clearly moved up a few levels and now looks like he’ll be a fun guy to watch whenever they do another BOSJ, but it’s not enough for him to get the win. Kanemaru pins him with Deep Impact shortly after a sequence when he goes to hit Uemura with the whiskey bottle instead of spit whiskey at him. He’s a Heel Master, but it’s a pandemic and he’s not that evil.
Minoru Suzuki vs. Yuji Nagata is the highlight of the tournament so far, and a standout performance for Nagata especially. Both 52-year-olds (this took place on Suzuki’s birthday!) completely embrace this as a battle between two tough-as-nails guys who really hate each other and whose contemporaries and rivals are retiring around them. It’s not the most athletic match, but it’s incredibly motivated. There’s no wasted action; you really feel like both Nagata and Suzuki are doing everything they’re doing for a reason.
Something that stands out about Nagata in this match is how much his former top guy qualities, the ones that never really go away if a performer doesn’t completely let them go, come to the surface. Aside from Nagata’s kicks and exploders still looking amazing, he dusts off the big match protagonist version of himself. The way he plays Suzuki trapping him in the corner is fantastic, like he sees there’s no escape and just decides to grit his teeth through getting forearmed in the face. It works really well as a contrast to Suzuki’s brand of toughness, which is rooted in a hedonism about the whole act of pro wrestling.
Nagata’s extremely doomed against Okada, but this match reminds everyone of all the reasons to root for him beforehand (and maybe check out some of his older matches in the meantime.)
Our actual main event is a weird one: a Gedo vs. Kazuchika Okada match packed with all the shenanigans they could think of. The sheer amount of illegal activity is probably the match’s biggest strength because otherwise it would be even less believable that Gedo could last fifteen minutes with the guy who used to be the untouchable golden god of this promotion.
The two easiest answers for why Gedo was able to last so long are 1) maybe they needed the show to go at least two hours, and 2) he is the booker of New Japan Pro Wrestling. When the easiest ways to explain what’s happening on a wrestling show are the smarky meta ones, you know the show is doing something wrong. Some of Gedo’s offensive success does make sense in kayfabe though because 1) he used to be Okada’s manager and should know everything about the Rainmaker as a wrestler, and 2) some of his weapon attacks are with objects that should hurt a lot! I’ll buy Okada continuing to sell being attacked with a spanner and then kicked in the belly many times for a while. It would be very hard to do cardio after that.
The match’s opening with Okada being ready for the tricks of Gedo’s he’d seen before, then being waylaid by Gedo’s backup tricks was fun and well-executed. But overall, this match just strains believability too much by asking the audience to believe that the Okada character would have this much trouble with a much smaller, 51-year-old man who wrestles about two singles matches a year, has been more relevant as a manager than a wrestler for a while now, and is known by many to be a powerful backstage figure.
The tag matches previewing future singles matches are usually the most skippable parts of New Japan shows, but the eight-man tags in the middle of both of these shows are highlights, with everyone involved bringing the physical and dramatic intensity of wrestlers working hard to sell their next bout and make up for not being able to wrestle for months.
I’d say the stronger one in terms of both action and drama is the Suzuki, Taichi, ZSJ, and Kanemaru vs. Tanahashi, Ibushi, Nagata, and Uemura match from June 16, which makes everyone and every upcoming match look good, but especially the two we still haven’t seen yet: Ibushi vs. Sabre and Tanahashi vs. Taichi. Some Dangerous Tekkers tag teamwork is a reminder that oh yeah, they are a legitimate tag team now and this feud is really about the tag titles, and we get to see Ibushi enter the ring with Kill Bill sirens already fully blaring in his brain.
This feud and its internal singles feuds have also been elevated by some of the best backstage promos of the tournament so far, especially from the bad guys. Both teams make sure to talk about both the tag titles and the tournament, and everyone is confident they’re going to wrestle their partner in the second round. Taichi goes extra hard on the mic, insulting all of NJPW’s foreign wrestlers who aren’t Zack (unlike his partner, they weren’t courageous and professional enough to stay in Japan), on Tanahashi’s quarantine weight (Taichi only gained weight to keep up with him), and on the whole concept of love. ZSJ’s main points are how hot Ibushi is and how he beats him every year in the New Japan Cup; these are also quality promo material. As much as I love Golden Ace, I think I’m more pro-Dangerous Tekkers as tag champions just because I want them to keep cutting promos together.
The Chaos (Goto, Yoshi-Hashi, Yoh, and Sho) vs. L.I.J. (Evil, Sanada, Bushi, and Shingo) match the next night stands out less as a tag match, but does a good job of hyping up Sho vs. Takagi II. Sho is very focused on Shingo from the beginning while Shingo tries to play things a little cooler, but when they’re actually wrestling, both are convincingly invested and continue to work well together. Also, Sho’s hair is clearly Like This now so he can do intense emo stares at his arch-rival from underneath it.
The standout promos from NJPW’s no-fans shows so far that aren’t from Hiromu or Dangerous Tekkers come from the Sho-Shingo rivalry, definitely helped by having the most to talk about. Backstage at the comeback show, Sho played things as if his match with Shingo is happening as a natural step in their rivalry, saying “You told me that you’d wait for me to reach you.” Without even hearing this first, Shingo completely rebuts it by saying he doesn’t see any change in Sho since the last time they faced off, and point out that he just got this match by luck. On the 17th, Shingo admits he was wrong and that Sho has improved a little, but Sho acknowledges that Shingo was right; he did get this match by luck and he needs more than luck to win.
NJPW
An interesting thing about their dynamic is that it’s not really face vs. heel. Takagi’s pretty harsh with Sho, but he’s also been rooting for him, in his own way, since their singles match last year. Shingo seems to actually want Sho to step up; he’s not just bragging about being on a higher level in order to keep Sho down. And though getting in the ring with Takagi sends Sho from zero to rage mode in about three seconds, he also clearly respects him and never acts like he needs to defeat him out of revenge or moral obligation. It’s something he now needs to do, even more than he needed to heading into BOSJ last year, in order to show he’s reached another level as a wrestler.
All this points, I think, to Sho losing next week and to these characters continuing to be linked together past this tournament. You can point to the New Japan Cup bracket and think about how NJPW was starting to re-heat this rivalry earlier this year but didn’t originally make it part of this tournament as evidence of this, but it also makes sense in kayfabe as the natural next step in the story. Takagi seems like he has the right balance of focus on this rivalry and this match while also looking forward to the rest of the tournament, facing other people in L.I.J., and eventually facing Naito. Meanwhile, Sho seems focused only on this match as a personal and professional accomplishment, but he doesn’t sound all that confident about it, or like the wrestler he needs to be in order to break out in his career.
To get back on a meta-level, if this angle keeps going as well as it has been, when Sho does actually get this win, it should be really compelling as a match, a dramatic climax, and the crowning of an up-and-coming star, and that’s the kind of moment that really needs an audience. It deserves the soundtrack and the palpable emotional investment of all the women who make Roppongi 3K signs – and the rest of the NJPW fandom whose glue gun skills I haven’t had the opportunity to judge. This doesn’t make me any less excited to see Sho and Shingo clothesline the baby oil off of each other on Monday; it just also makes me look forward to match number three at some point in the future. (Unless I’m completely wrong and Sho wins! In which case, good for him, but kind of a weird choice for a no-fans show!)
And on the no-fans aspect of these shows, I think that the first two installments of the New Japan Cup didn’t do as good of a job of consistently filling the empty atmosphere as the Together Project Special, but they were still always really easy to watch. Some matches were much better than others, but overall, the shows both were only two hours of almost entirely wrestling that featured very different lineups each day of people who haven’t wrestled on TV in a while. NJPW has so far made it very easy to just tune into these and see how they go.
I’ll see you back here next week after we see how more of these go with a Best and Worst breakdown of Dangerous Tekkers vs. Golden Ace, Sho vs. Shingo, and the rest of the first round of the right side of the bracket.
Hulu launches into July with a buzzed-about comedy from Andy Samberg and some quality films from a roster of diverse voices. Samberg’s Palm Springs — a more mellow Russian Doll venture — sees him hilariously struggling with time travel alongside Cristin Milioti. It was a Sundance breakout, and Samberg is the perfect leading man for this kind of bad comedy trip. The Assistant and I Am Not Your Negro are two more movies worth checking out this month, both with a social-justice bent that feels timely.
Here’s everything coming to and leaving Hulu this July.
Palm Springs (Hulu original streaming 7/10)
This highly-anticipated comedy from SNL alumn and Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg feels like a spiritual successor to a Bill Murray classic, a millennial Groundhog’s Day except this story is set in the sunny world of Palm Springs. Samberg’s Nyles meets Sarah (Cristin Milioti) at a wedding, and the two are pulled through a weird portal that causes them to repeat the same day, over, and over again. Honestly, it’s the perfect quarantine watch.
The Assistant (film streaming 7/20) Ozark breakout Julia Garner stars in this tense #MeToo thriller with Succession’s Matthew Macfayden. Garner plays Jane, a recent college grad who just scored an assistant job at a film production company. When she begins noticing her boss sexually harassing young women around the office, she tries to do something about it and runs into various roadblocks from the higher-ups. It’s a dark, seedy drama and Garner is brilliant in it.
I Am Not Your Negro (documentary streaming 7/3)
Hulu’s adding a handful of great films from Black creatives but this James Baldwin doc feels the most powerful. Based on his unfinished manuscript Remember This House, the film digs into America’s history of racism through Baldwin’s first-hand accounts of civil rights leaders like MLK Jr. and Malcolm X, and his own experiences fighting for equality. It’s educational, enlightening, and heartbreaking.
Here’s the full list of titles coming to Hulu in July:
Avail. 7/1 1000-lb Sisters: Complete Season 1 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days: Complete Season 3 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way: Complete Season 1 BBQ Rig Race: Complete Season 1 Beyond the Headlines: The College Admissions Scandal with Gretchen Carlson: Complete
Season 1 Biography: Chris Farley – Anything for a Laugh Bobby Flay’s Barbecue Addiction: Special Buddy vs. Duff: Complete Season 1 Burgers, Brew & ‘Que: Complete Seasons 1-3, 5 Deadly Women: Complete Season 13 Eat, Sleep, BBQ: Complete Season 1 Family By the Ton: Complete Season 2 Ghost Hunters: Complete Season 1 Homicide Hunter: Complete Season 9 House Hunters: Complete Season 154 – 159 Intervention: Complete Season 20 Jamie and Doug Plus One: Complete Season 1 Kids BBQ Championship: Complete Season 1 & 2 Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath: Complete Season 3 Man vs. Master: Chef Battle: Complete Season 1 Married at First Sight: Complete Seasons 1-3 Psychic Kids: Complete Season 1 Say Yes to the Nest: Complete Season 1 Seven Year Switch: Complete Seasons 1 & 2 Sex Sent Me to the ER: Complete Season 3 Shark Week 2018 Shark Week 2019 The American Farm: Complete Season 1 The Day I Picked My Parents: Complete Season 1 The Grill Dads: Complete Season 1 The Strongest Man In History: Complete Season 1 The Toe Bro: Complete Season 1 The UnXplained with William Shatner: Complete Season 1 Twisted Sisters: Complete Season 2 UFOs: Secret Alien Technology UFOs: Secret Missions Exposed Ultimate Summer Cook-Off: Complete Unpolished: Complete Season 1 Welcome to Plathville: Complete Season 1 12 and Holding (2006) 2001 Maniacs (2005) 52 Pick-Up (1986) A Bridge Too Far (1977) A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2009) A Kid Like Jake (2018) A Mighty Wind (2003) A Storks Journey (2017) An Eye for a Eye (1966) The Axe Murders of Villisca (2017) The Bellboy (1960) Beloved (2012) Best In Show (2000) Between Us (2017) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) Birdwatchers (2010) Boogie Woogie (2010) The Bounty (1984) Brokedown Palace (1998) Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (1992) Bug (1975) Buried (2010) Cadaver (2009) California Dreamin’ (2009) Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) Catcher Was A Spy (2018) The Catechism Cataclysm (2011) Change of Plans (2010) Cheech & Chong’s Still Smokin’ (1983) Cinderfella (1960) Citizen Soldier (2016) The Client (1994) Cold War (2012) The Color Purple (1985) Cortex (2008) The Cured (2018) Danger Close (2019) Dark Touch (2013) Day Night Day Night (2007) The Devil’s Candy (2017) The Devil’s Rejects (2005) Dheepan (2016) Die Hard 4 (Live Free or Die Hard) (2007) Downhill Racer (1969) The Edukators (2005) Eloise’s Lover (2009) Exorcismus (2011) The Eye (2008) The Eye 2 (2005) Father of My Children (2010) Filth & Wisdom (2008) Flashback (1990) The Flat (2012) Footloose (1984) For Your Consideration (2006) The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) The Forgiveness of Blood (2012) Freddy Vs Jason (2003) Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) Furlough (2018) Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) Grizzly Man (2005) Hateship, Loveship (2014) Hornet’s Nest (2014) Hot Rod (2007) House of 1000 Corpses (2003) The House That Jack Built (2018) The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2014) Iron Eagle IV: On the Attack (1999) Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011) Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) The Last Mistress (2008) Len and Company (2016) Liar, Liar (1997) Love Songs (2008) The Man from London (2009) The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) March of the Penguins (2005) Mary Shelley (2018) Match (2015) Moonstruck (1987) My Cousin Vinny (1992) The Necessities of Life (2009) Nick Nolte: No Exit (2009) Nights and Weekends (2009) The Ninth Gate (2000) Norma Rae (1979) The Patsy (1964) Phase IV (1974) Polisse (2012) Poseidon (2006) Post Grad (2007) Rabbit Hole (2011) Rebel in the Rye (2017) Right at Your Door (2007) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) Room of Death (2008) Search for General Tso Chicken (2015) The Shock Doctrine (2010) The Shrine (2011) Sliver (1993) Speed 2: Cruise Control (1996) Spider-Man 3 (2007) Spiderhole (2011) Spring Forward (2000) Starting Out in the Evening (2007) Sugar Hill (1994) Sunset Strip (1999) Tales From the Golden Age (2011) Tank 432 (2016) The Tenant (1976) Tetsuo III: The Bullet Man (2011) Things to Come (2016) This Christmas (2007) Three Blind Mice (2009) Three Musketeers (2011) Trapped Model (2019) The Trip (2011) The Trip to Italy (2014) The Trip to Spain (2017) Trishna (2012) Trivial (2007) The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) Waiting for Guffman (1997) Waiting Room (2008) We Are What We Are (2011) We Have Pope (2012) The Weather Man (2005) The Wedding Planner (2001) West Side Story (1961) When A Man Comes Home (2010)
Avail. 7/2 The Whistlers (2020)
Avail. 7/3 I Am Not Your Negro (2016) To The Stars (2019)
Avail. 7/5 Outcry: Complete Season 1
Avail. 7/8 BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense: Season 1, Episodes 1-8
Avail. 7/9 Toilet-bound Hanako-kun: Season 1, Episodes 1-8
Avail. 7/10 Palm Springs (Hulu Original) Cake: Season 3 Premiere CMA: Best of Fest: Special Smile Down the Runway: Season 1, Episodes 1-8
Avail. 7/11 China: The Panda Adventure (2001) Horses (2002) The Secret of Life on Earth (1993)
Avail. 7/13 My Scientology Movie (2015) The Rest Of Us (2019)
Avail. 7/15 Diary of a Prosecutor: Complete Season 1 Plunderer: Season 1, Episodes 1-12 Promised Neverland: Complete Season 1 Search: WWW: Complete Season 1 The Weekend (2019)
Avail. 7/17 Into the Dark: The Current Occupant: New Episode Premiere (Hulu Original)
Avail. 7/19 Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019)
Avail. 7/20 The Assistant (2019)
Avail. 7/21 Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: Season 1, Episodes 1-9 The Last Full Measure (2019)
Avail. 7/22 Bolt (2008)
Avail. 7/26 2099: The Soldier Protocol (2019)
Avail. 7/27 Jamie: Keep Cooking and Carry On: Complete Season 1 Good Deeds (2012)
Avail. 7/28 Maxxx: Complete Season 1
Avail. 7/29 Infinite Dendrogram: Season 1, Episodes 1-8 Ladhood: Complete Season 1
Avail. 7/30 In My Skin: Complete Season 1 Bull (2019) The Flood (2019)
Avail. 7/31 Brassic: Complete Season 1 A Certain Scientific Railgun T: Season 3, Episodes 1-11
Here’s what’s leaving Hulu in July:
Leaving 7/31 A Life Less Ordinary (1997) Batman Begins (2005) Billy the Kid (2013) The Chumscrubber (2005) Constantine (2005) The Dark Knight (2008) Destiny Turns on the Radio (1995) Diary of a Hitman (1991) The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) Freddy Vs Jason (2003) Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) The Graduate (1967) I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) Lady in a Cage (1964) Men With Brooms (2002) Moll Flanders (1996) Mutant Species (1995) Planet 51 (2009) Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977) The Skull (1965) Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) Soul Food (1997) Sprung (1997) Tamara (2006) Tank Girl (1995) Thelma & Louise (1991) Universal Soldier (1992) Wayne’s World 2 (1993)
Bandcamp is continuing its commitment to artists in light of the pandemic by waiving fees on a select number of days. In the spirit of giving, many artists have elected to donate all proceeds earned from Bandcamp to various charities. Soccer Mommy’s Sophie Allison has done just that with her creative Soccer Mommy & Friends Singles Series. For the series, the singer teams up with various indie artists to share covers and other new recordings in the name of charity.
Allison kicked off the series by working with Jay Som and Beabadoobee and donating the money raised to both National Bail Out and Oxfam’s COVID-19 relief fund. Now, the singer has called upon MGMT’s vocalist Andrew VanWyngarden to offer his version of one of her songs. VanWyngarden chose to remix “Circle The Drain” from the singer’s recently-released album Color Theory. Allison, meanwhile, pulled from MGMT’s back catalog and covered “Indie Rokkers,” from their 2005 debut EP.
In a statement, Allison praised MGMT’s music: “I love MGMT so it was hard to pick a song to cover. They have so many great ones. I ended up choosing ‘Indie Rokkers’ because I thought it would fit my voice and my style the best. I also just thought it’d be cool to do a deep cut since a lot of people have already covered some of the bigger MGMT songs.”
VanWyngarden echoed Allison’s admiration and expressed his excitement about the project: “V psyched to try out adding some additional seasoning to the already tasteful sounds of Soccer Mommy. With the proceeds going to great organizations like Oxfam COVID relief and The National Bailout fund, it made it even more spicy.”
Listen to Soccer Mommy cover “Indie Rokkers” and VanWyngarden remix “Circle The Drain” below.
David Koepp has kept a low profile over the last few years. Sure, his name popped up when it was reported he wrote a screenplay for Indiana Jones 5, but then that film went another direction. (Ahead, Koepp does explain why Indiana Jones is so difficult to crack.) But it’s hard to ignore his last two projects was doing a pass on the script for The Mummy, which was to kick off the ill-fated Dark Universe. And before that, yes, he directed Mortdecai.
So, yes, from the outside looking in it sure seems like the narrative here is he went back to a pared-down, back to basics film like the psychological thriller hitting demand this weekend, You Should Have Left (about a married couple vacationing in a remote house in Wales), as a result of his last couple of films. But it never actually works like that. Especially with someone like Koepp who has been involved in so many blockbusters over the years. He wrote Jurassic Park! So, of course, when I bring this up, Koepp immediately admits, yes, of course, it’s because of The Mummy and, especially, Mortdecai.
Last time I spoke with you was for Premium Rush. I brought that movie up to Michael Shannon a couple of years later and he leaned back in his chair and said, “Ah, Bobby Monday,” like he was reminiscing about an old friend.
I miss that guy. Shannon is awesome. You have to adjust to his style, which is odd and is filled with pauses. He may stop for 20 seconds. That doesn’t mean he’s done with his sentence. So you just kind of hang with it.
You Should Have Left seems like you went bare bones?
It is certainly pared down to its story of centrals. I try hard to write kind of all over the map, but I try to write in all genres. Sometimes the biggest hits are the ones that are the great big movies, so those tend to be more memorable. But in terms of the movies I’ve directed, this is I think my seventh, it is my seventh, and they tend to be much more focused and intense and somewhat personal. And we wanted to do something about a marriage. And we wanted to explore this idea of a marriage that’s fatally flawed and that we know from the first scene, this doesn’t work, there is a big problem with the marriage, she’s way too young for him. And we’ve all seen that in Hollywood movies, but they usually try to hide it. And we want to do something where it was front and center.
Yeah that was noticeable right away.
And it had to be, because otherwise it just becomes a distraction and it’s “Hollywood’s at it again.”
Kevin Bacon plays a banker. In the book, he’s a screenwriter. Too close to home?
I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who wants to see a movie about a screenwriter.
Well, it’s a very popular book.
It’s different than a movie though. And, also, movies about writers who go to houses in remote locations? There’s a few that pop to mind that are pretty prominent.
Yeah, that’s been done.
And I think Mr. King has the copyright on that one.
Why a banker? Is it just how we feel about bankers these days to begin with?
Well, there is a faint aura of guilt around them, don’t you think?
I do.
Yeah, and we don’t know if he’s guilty or not. Certainly, that’s one of the motors of the movie. It’s a very Catholic movie. I grew up and went to Catholic school in the Midwest.
Anytime I ask, it never turns out to be something like this, but it’s hard to not look at your involvement in a movie like The Mummy, and then look at this, and think it’s kind of an answer, back to basics, to all that.
[Laughs] It’s totally the case!
And then this is the time it is. Alright.
It was more a reaction, The Mummy was something I worked on fairly briefly as a writer, but it was more of a reaction to the last movie I directed, which was the biggest budget I’d worked with, had great big movie stars in it and had big, big problems.
Are we talking about Mortdecai?
That’s the movie. And it was a critical and commercial and personal disaster. Now, those are very cleansing experiences, but what they make you think is, first of all, “I’m never going to do this again.” But then once you’re over that, you think, “Let’s do get back to the basics. Let’s tell a story about three interesting people. Let’s focus it. I don’t want to have a big budget. I don’t want to have that kind of pressure, and let me get back to telling the kind of story that I really like.”
Why won’t you say its name?
I don’t know. You know how like backstage you say “the Scottish play?” You don’t say Macbeth. It’s the same thing.
Okay.
So I’m glad I made that because I think it’s important to try stuff that you think you might fail at, something you’ve never done before. Something that feels like a risk and so that you’re on the high wire a little bit, because sometimes you do great work that way. The problem with the high wire is sometimes you fall. So that time I fell. And then you want to say, “Okay, what are the stories that I got into this for in the first place?” And my favorite movie is Rosemary’s Baby. So the idea of a marriage in a creepy place really resonates with me.
Well, I will say, if you ever wrote a book about your experience making Mortdecai, I would buy it.
Well, I’m not going to.
Yeah, I kind of got the hint when you’re not even saying the name of the movie that you’re probably not going to delve into it much more.
They don’t all work out.
Well, on a positive note, when you’re feeling down, do you just look at your resume? You’ve written a very high number of the biggest hit movies of the last 30 years.
Whenever something worked and people like it and go see it and say decent things about it, I always think, “Well, that gives me another 18 months in Hollywood. So I better make the most of it.” Because there are tons of people who have stories to tell, and you better keep telling good or interesting or daring ones or get out of the way so they can tell theirs.
I’ve seen a lot of people talking about The Paper recently. A movie about two Black kids being railroaded by the police for a murder. Have you seen that being brought up? What’s your opinion of that movie today?
I love that movie. It does come back up from time to time. And I’m glad, because it’s a very good-hearted movie and it’s also something of a time capsule. We didn’t know it at the time, but I think it came out in ’94 and the internet was just starting to really upend things. And by the end of the decade, of course, journalism would have completely changed, never to change back. So it’s a period piece. It very quickly became a period piece. And I hope that in the future, if and when journalism movies are made, we don’t lose that. Really, I mean, for me, the whole reason to make that movie and to write that movie was for the 3:00 p.m. meeting, when the crusty yet benign journalists are sitting around in a room trying to figure out what the story is and being funny and irreverent, and yet trying to do their jobs. And I hope that aspect of journalism never goes away.
Why is it so difficult to crack an Indiana Jones 5 script? I obviously haven’t read yours so I have no idea why it isn’t being used. But why is it that all these scripts seem to come and go with that movie particularly?
[Laughs] If I knew!
Okay. Good point.
I don’t know. Look, they’re hard because the first one and the third one are incredibly beloved. The character’s indelible, and that’s an enormous amount of pressure. And I don’t think anybody ever wants do one that is less than… I think the last one had a lot of stuff that really worked and had some stuff that didn’t. I’m sure whatever was wrong was my fault. I’m not trying to blame anybody. But nobody wants to do it unless it’s spectacular. And spectacular is hard to come by. So I guess the short answer would be, “because it’s hard.”
That’s probably the right answer?
Yeah. I think that’s probably it.
‘You Should Have Left’ will be available to stream via VOD this weekend. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
Trippie Redd has been a major presence in hip-hop for a few years now, which makes it easy to forget that he’s still a very young guy. In fact, today (June 18) is his 21st birthday. Now, Trippie has celebrated the milestone by dropping a new song, “Dreamer.”
The track begins by sampling the classic viral video in which a young kid struggles repeatedly while trying to speak about dreams. From there, the song takes on a strong alternative rock influence, carried by a guitar riff and other traditionally rock instrumentation, with the addition of more electronic-sounding percussion. Trippie plays the role of provider on the track, singing, “I can touch your soul and tell you what you wanna hear / I’ll warm you when you’re cold, I keep you safe, nothing to fear.”
In a statement, he spoke about his musical philosophy, saying, “I like making timeless music. You’ve got to think of a timeless concept — love, hate, anger, sadness — all that shit is timeless. And if you can make something without it just meaning one thing, people can feel it and turn it into their own. That’s what makes it timeless.” He also spoke about his upbringing, saying he first wanted to make music after his older brother, an aspiring rapper, died in a car accident when Trippie was ten years old. “I took his dream and did it myself,” Trippie said.
Listen to “Dreamer” above.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
NEW JAPAN CUP 2020
