Year: 2022

Sometimes parody is not far from truth. To non-Fox News viewers, one of the network’s biggest stars, Judge Jeanine Pirro, is better known via Cecily Strong’s shouty wino lampoon on SNL. Thing is, she’s at least as shouty in real life as she is on late night sketch comedy TV. For proof, witness what happened when Geraldo Rivera dared suggest that her favorite former president, Donald J. Trump, may not have been as tough with Putin as he likes to claim.

The outburst happened on Tuesday’s episode of The Five, Fox News’ round-table chat session. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine almost four weeks ago, Trump and his cronies have been claiming it would never have happened on his watch. Why? Because Trump is a self-professed tough guy who scared his good friend Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Or maybe, some have argued, Trump, who always kissed Putin’s butt, merely enabled him enough that he thought he could have gotten away with invading Ukraine.)

Rivera went further. “How do you know Putin wasn’t playing Trump?” he asked Pirro, who was sitting to his right. Pirro did not like that one bit.

“Oh stop it, he wasn’t playing Trump!” Pirro roared, actually jumping in her chair. The two talked over each other for a bit, with Rivera claiming he “loves Trump, too.” But Pirro wasn’t having that either. “It’s not about loving Trump! It’s about the fact that Trump had everybody against the wall! And don’t think it was anything different!”

As Rivera backed off, Pirro continued. “I don’t give a damn what Putin thinks! I only care what Putin did. And he was a wuss when Trump was president! And that’s the end of it!” Towards the end she was really hitting those “p”s hard. Co-anchor Greg Gutfeld, lounging in his chair, seemed to enjoy it.

Despite claiming on-air to “love Trump,” Rivera has not taken the party line since he lost re-election in November 2020. He was quick to call out his longtime friend’s voter fraud lies, pleading with him to stop spreading misinformation, often clashing with fellow Fox News regulars. Not only did he butt heads with Pirro on Tuesday’s The Five, he also targeted gas companies, not Biden, for the high prices that have enraged car-driving Americans.

“I concede that President Biden blew it when he crushed domestic oil production,” he said. But there was a “but.” “Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell are all enjoying the highest profits they’ve had in 7 1/2 years.” When asked what was his “point,” he replied, “My point is the oil companies are reaping record profits. Some of this could be handed to the consumers.” As his colleagues piled on him, he asked, “Why don’t we look to them?” rather than put the blame solely on Biden. “I am suggesting that the oil companies are reaping windfall profits.”

We’d welcome Geraldo to the resistance, but he’s been hesitantly part of it, to a degree, for a good while.

Cardi B has never been afraid to show love to another artist. Whether it be through a social media post or does so through an official collaboration, we’ve seen Cardi B do it time and time again. Examples include Lizzo, Lil Kim, Taylor Swift, BTS, Robert Pattinson, Penn Badgley from Netflix’s You, and many more. There’s now a new name to that list and who they are may come as a surprise to some people.

In a recent tweet, Cardi B showed love to My Chemical Romance by resharing one of their old videos. “They don’t make music like this anymore,” she wrote with a clip from the band’s 2004 video “I’m Not Okay (I Promise).” The video portrays the bands as outcasts at a fictional high school, and eventually, they face off against the popular kids who are strapped with croquet mallets. The song was the lead single from the band’s 2004 album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, which was certified Platinum less than a year after its release.

While My Chemical Romance has yet to respond to her post, Cardi’s fans did give some light-hearted responses to her tweet. “Cardi are you about to be in your emo era?” one fan asked while another wrote, “Remember when you used to release music? We miss that.”

You can view Cardi B’s tweet about My Chemical Romance above.

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

If all goes to plan, Cleveland Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen will return before the end of the regular season.

According to a report from Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, Allen has elected not to have surgery on his fractured left middle finger and there is “optimism” that the All-Star big man will play in one of Cleveland’s final 12 regular season games. Also per Haynes, a return date is to-be-determined as Allen’s finger is still dealing with swelling.

Allen hurt his finger on March 6 during the first quarter of a Cavaliers win against the Toronto Raptors. Since then, Cleveland is 2-2 with wins over the Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Clippers and losses to the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls.

If he’s healthy and able to play, the Cavs could certainly use Allen. The team currently sits in sixth in the Eastern Conference, but find themselves only a game up on the seventh-seed Raptors and four games up on the eighth-place Brooklyn Nets. For Cleveland to hold onto the sixth seed — and thus avoid the play-in tournament — it’ll need to be able to withstand late-season pushes from those two teams in particular. That includes games against elite centers like Joel Embiid twice and Nikola Jokic, where Allen’s absence will especially be felt. Cleveland also plays the Raptors once more before the season ends.

For the year, Allen is averaging 16.1 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game.

Last week, Disney announced that one of the most beloved characters from the movie “Star Wars,” Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, would be returning to the screen on its streaming service in May. The new series, “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” traces the life of the Jedi knight’s adventures in the years between “Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith” and “Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope.”

It also promises the return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.

Kenobi will be played by Ewan McGregor, who tackled the role in George Lucas’ prequel trilogy. Even though the prequels have been the subject of much criticism over the years, McGregor’s performance as Kenobi is seen as one of the trilogy’s bright spots by most fans.

McGregor says that Kenobi is “rather broken, and faithless, and beaten, somewhat given up” as the story begins. This makes total sense given everything that Kenobi has been through.

Kenobi has had to live with the death of his mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn. He’s survived fighting the front lines of the Clone Wars and had to witness his student and friend, Anakin Skywalker, turn to the dark side. What’s worse is that Kenobi was forced to fight him to the near-death, slicing off his arms and legs before witnessing him catch fire.

Kenobi is so crushed by all that he’s lived through that he cannot bear to tell Anakin’s son, Luke, the truth about their past.

A YouTube user who goes by the name Samurai Sosa made a viral video back in 2016 entitled, “Obi-Wan Has PTSD” and it does a great job at showing the mental toll that Kenobi’s life as a warrior has brought upon him.

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Ever since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced what has become known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, those who live and work in the state have not sat quietly. Employees of Disney, one of the state’s largest corporations, have pushed back, not only against DeSantis but against Bob Chapek, the company’s CEO. Chapek has attempted to mollify the situation, but it clearly hasn’t worked.

As per Variety, a group of employees called “Disney Walkout” posted a message announcing a week of in-person and virtual walkouts. “The LGBTQIA+ workers and allies at The Walt Disney Company are standing in solidarity together over the coming weeks,” the statement read. It went on:

“The recent statements by The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) leadership regarding the Florida legislature’s recent ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill have utterly failed to match the magnitude of the threat to LGBTQIA+ safety represented by this legislation … Primarily, those statements have indicated that leadership still does not truly understand the impact this legislation is having not only on cast members in the state of Florida, but on all members of the LGBTQIA+ community in the company and beyond. While we certainly appreciate Bob Chapek’s apology note, there is still more work to be done.”

The group hopes that Chapek will take steps “to regain the trust of the LGBTQIA+ community and employees.” They added, “As a community, we have been forced into an impossible and unsustainable position. We must now take action to convince TWDC to protect employees and their families in the face of such open and unapologetic bigotry.”

The walkouts are scheduled to begin on Tuesday, March 15. They’ll start as 15-minute walkouts during a break period, from 3 to 3:15pm, every day up to and including Monday, March 21. On Tuesday, March 22, organizers have planned a “full-scale walkout.” Organziers warned those who participate that, while the break-time walk-outs are “protected,” the full-scale one “is not a legally protected action,” and that people should take their “own situation into account before choosing to participate.”

The controversial bill, vaguely called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, seeks to prohibit the teaching of “sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through the third grade. Critics charge that it will allow parents to prosecute anyone who mentions LGBTQIA+ issues, even teachers who are queer or students who have queer parents or relatives. DeSantis, who was recently caught on video bullying students, has refused to cow to pressure, even going so far as mocking the company — which has long peddled “traditional” and often problematic values — as “Woke Disney.”

(Via Variety)

Elden Ring is the game that everyone is talking about right now. Plenty of folks have remarked on the game’s extreme difficulty, but generally, fans of the game cannot get over how much fun it is to explore the world. What makes that exploration so fun is how many interesting sites and creatures there are to discover.

Around any corner in Elden Ring could be a new enemy to face, a gigantic dungeon, or maybe one of the many creatures who inhabit the different lands. Some of these creatures are docile, such as these goats that, when you approach them, will curl into a ball and roll away. Some of the others aren’t quite as nice, though. Bears, wolves, and dogs will attack you on sight and the player can usually choose to run away or fight back.

Unsurprisingly, since animals were involved, PETA had thoughts on how players can choose to interact with the animals in Elden Ring. It does not quite fit the spirit of the game, though.

While the tweet was sent out earlier in March, it has recently been getting a lot of attention across Twitter. Most of the tweets are choosing to dunk on PETA, but there was also begrudging respect for the original post, because it managed to teach many players a game mechanic they didn’t know about. Apparently, parrying enemies on horseback leads to an automatic dismount. The more ya know!

A handful of people were also surprised upon seeing the tweet and discovering that it was from PETA and not from a satire account, especially the section about walking the dogs as they chase the player down.

The general consensus though? The tweet is actually kinda funny, and if you didn’t know about the game mechanic, very helpful.

Scream queen Maika Monroe is returning to the screen in IFC Midnight’s thriller Watcher. Monroe stars as Julia, a young American woman who moves abroad with her boyfriend Francis, played by Karl Glusman.

Julia stays inside and isolates herself at Francis goes to work, and she learns of a serial killer that has been plotting in the area. While she is inside, she discovers a man has been watching her through her abnormally large windows and begins to feel that she is being stalked. The trailer begs the question: Is she really being watched? Or is it another Woman In The Window situation? Or is she actually witnessing something, but is being told to calm down, a la Gaslight? Who is to say. It does, however, sound a bit like The Watcher, starring Keanu Reeves, though from a different perspective. The movies seem unrelated, though one can hope Reeves will show up for a cameo.

Watcher will be the first feature film directed by Chloe Okuno, who directed a part of Shudder’s anthology film V/H/S /94 (hail Raatma!). Monroe was the breakout star of 2015’s hit horror movie It Follows. She has starred in several thrillers since then, including The Guest, Greta, and Tau.

The film will hit theaters on June 3rd. Check out the trailer above.

ASAP Rocky’s AWGE creative agency/label is shrouded in mystique by design. The “About” page of its website only has two “rules” listed: “#1 Never reveal what AWGE Means” and “#2 When in doubt always refer to rule #1.” Most of their rare product drops in the past have included trucker hats collaborations with brands like Rolling Loud and Mercedes-Benz (the latter, is currently going on eBay for $500.) Now, as ASAP Rocky prepares to welcome his baby with Rihanna into the world, he has also announced a new collaboration series with Mercedes-Benz and this one features much more than just a trucker hat.

Just before noon today, ASAP Rocky posted a short video teaser to his Instagram page along with photos of the drop. The photos were quickly purged, but the internet has done its thing and image captures are everywhere. There’s an orange hoodie with a Mercedes-Benz logo on the back and an AWGE logo across the black hood, a muted salmon bomber jacket, sleek pants, and what looks like a belt buckle shaped like the Mercedes-Benz logo.

ASAP Rocky has been building with Mercedes-Benz for quite some time. In 2017, he was featured in the German car company’s “Grow up. Get a job” commercial campaign:

Meanwhile, he’s was just announced as a headliner for Canada’s Osheaga Festival and will appear at the UK’s Wireless Festival. He’ll also be in LA at the end of April to headline the Smoker’s Club Festival.

As Ukraine continues to fight off Russia’s military invasion, we see more and more heartbreaking images of suffering and destruction from the war. Apartment buildings where people went about their lives less than three weeks ago devastated by bombs, rubble and missiles in streets and playgrounds where families walked and children played, hoards of people fleeing with what they could carry, leaving everything they’ve known behind.

The loss and waste and inhumanity of it all are unfathomable, as is the case in every war.

And yet, just like in every war, we see glimpses of beauty and connection, of the very things that make us human and provide hope that we as a species are not doomed by the worst of us. We see love, we see laughter, we see compassion—and we see music.

One of the most remarkable things about humans is how we make art, no matter what. You’d think when our basic survival is immediately threatened, we wouldn’t bother with creating beauty or expressing ourselves artistically, but we do. Every time. Art is not an add-on to life; it’s inextricably wrapped up in life itself.

Art is also a way for us to express solidarity, especially when we feel helpless to stop inhumanity from happening. It’s a way for us to say, “I see you. I am with you. I acknowledge your suffering even if I can’t make it stop. Let’s let this beauty remind us of what humans are capable of on the other side of violence and conquest.”

That’s what makes this viral video of violinists around the world playing with a Ukrainian violinist so beautiful.

In the video, Ukrainian violinist Illia Bondarenko plays a gorgeous and haunting Ukrainian folk song on his violin from a bomb shelter in Kyiv. At first, it’s just him playing solo, but soon he is joined by nine other young Ukrainian violinists who are also sheltering. Then more violinists join from different countries, then more and more, all playing along in harmony.

In all, 94 violinists from 29 countries—whose flags are depicted in the corners of their screens—contribute to what British violinist and organizer Kerenza Peacock called “an international violin choir of support.” They include world-class violinists from the London Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, the Hollywood studios and renowned violinists who play various styles of violin from Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, Georgia, Poland, South Korea, South Africa, Moldova, Denmark, India, Germany, the U.S. and more.

Watch and listen:

According to Classic FM, Bondarenko had to record his part between bombings so he could hear himself play. That detail alone is just heartwrenching. But musicians play wherever they are, whatever is happening.

Bondarenko had shared a video on Instagram on February 25, the day after Russia invaded, explaining what was happening and how the international music world had already been lending its support. He wrote:

“Today, when my whole country is fighting for its freedom, for its territory, for the right to BE…, I cannot keep silent, but I cannot make a video and record for you right now on the Internet because I spent almost all night with my grandmother in the basement of the house, helping the elderly neighbors, helping in any way I could. My parents are in another city now. But we musicians are always there for our people in sorrow and joy! That’s how my soul, my country, my Kyiv sounds today. Thank you to everyone who writes to me and supports me! From Germany, America, France, Italy, Argentina, Switzerland, Poland, Japan, Turkey, Austria and other countries. I am convinced once again that music is the most understandable language in the world for all people! Glory to Ukraine!”

Violinist Kerenza Peacock, who organized the collaboration—and pulled it together in 48 hours—shared what made this collaboration so moving: “Never before have violinists gathered together from so many countries. Or collaborated across so many different styles of violin playing. Violinists are a fellowship who all have rosin and broken E strings in common, but sadly some are currently having to think about how to arm themselves, and hiding in bomb shelters instead of playing Beethoven or bluegrass. Some more Ukrainians wanted to take part, but now have guns in their hands instead of violins.”

Here’s to those who insist on the beauty and humanity of creative expression even in the face of inhumane atrocities, reminding us of who we are and what we are capable of when we focus our energies on creation instead of destruction.

Time can sometimes feel like a flat circle. It may not seem that long ago that there was a splashy, big screen version of The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on Audrey Niffenegger’s best seller. It starred Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. It grossed just over a $100 million worldwide, a large chunk of that from the U.S. It may seem too soon for a splashy HBO version… except that the film came out in well over a decade ago. Talk about feeling unstuck in time!

This version, which hits HBO this May, stars Game of Thrones alum Rose Leslie as a Claire, whose husband (Theo James, of Divergent and the forthcoming Sundance hit Dual) just happens to be a time traveler. (In real life, Leslie seems very happily married to her old coworker, Kit Harington.) No, he doesn’t have a time machine. For complicated reasons, he can’t control when he suddenly jumps forward or backwards in time. And yet he’s in love, with a very patient — but very anguished — woman who struggles with the fact that sometimes her spouse abruptly disappears, sometimes without turning off a running sink.

The movie version, released in 2009, banged this out in 107 minutes. This is a six-part miniseries, complete with video diaries Leslie’s character records in which she vents about her inadvertently errant husband. There’s a number of arresting ideas in the new teaser trailer, among them a bit where James’ time-hopper winds up meeting his wife when she’s a young child. It looks less soapy than the movie and more about living with a less-than-preferable situation, which surely we can all relate to nowadays.

The new The Time Traveler’s Wife debuts on HBO at an as-yet-unspecified time in May. You can watch the teaser above.

(Via Gizmodo)