Varietyreported last night that Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, and other stars of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer discussed a game plan for their UK Premiere should the Screen Actors Guild go on strike, including moving up the red carpet start time to get it in under the wire. (Under union rules, actors aren’t allowed to do press for projects while on strike.)
As of around midnight last night, they all walked, following the breakdown of negotiations between SAG and the producers guild, even though a strike has not yet been officially called.
“It’s really about working actors,” he continued. “It’s $26,000 to qualify for health coverage and a lot of people are on the margins and residual payments are getting them across that threshold. This isn’t an academic exercise. This is real life and death stuff. Hopefully we get to a resolution quickly. No one wants a work stoppage, but we’ve got to get a fair deal.”
Damon, Blunt, and Branagh all empathetically related their solidarity with the strike and support for their fellow actors.
“Obviously we stand with all of the actors and at whatever point it’s called, we’re going to be going home and standing together through it because I want everyone to get a fair deal,” Blunt said before adding that she plans to join a picket line when the time comes.
If you’re wondering what kind of professional jobbing actors can’t even qualify for health insurance, what with their lavish lifestyles and fancy parties, Mara Wilson (Matilda, Big Hero 6: The Series) offers some perspective:
I haven’t acted much as an adult, but I WAS on a recurring character on one of the most critically acclaimed animated shows of all time, as well playing an actual Disney villain.
But thanks to streaming, I have never once made enough to qualify for SAG-AFTRA healthcare.
Obviously Damon, Blunt, and Branagh represent the top of the pay scale, meaning they’re also miles away from being representative of what the average SAG member makes in a year.
Be prepared for more press events to get canceled and for more actors to go on talk shows to discuss their risotto recipes instead of the latest project they’ve got hitting theaters.
Remble returns after over a year away from the spotlight to deliver more of his hyper-enunciated bars on Blxst‘s new single “Child Of God.” After Blxst sing-raps his way through a gospel-tinged inspirational, the beat switches up and Remble raises some hell, contemplating the darker side of life in Southern California. Where Blxst gives thanks for his growing list of blessings, Remble prays for protection — but still makes sure to let any potential enemies know he’s got a backup plan on him at all times.
The San Pedro rapper seemingly disappeared from the public eye in 2022 after having an impressive breakout year in 2021. After dropping his debut album, It’s Remble, in July and caught a wave in September with “Rocc Climbing” featuring Lil Yachty, though, he was devastated by the death of his greatest benefactor, Drakeo The Ruler, who’d signed him to his Stinc Team label. It seems he’s making his recovery now, making his first foray back into the spotlight with the help of Blxst, who has been as visible lately as Remble has been low-key.
Blxst is fresh off of curating the soundtrack to NBA 2K23‘s Season 7 and contributing his signature smooth choruses to tracks from Tyga & YG and Roddy Ricch. Check out “Child Of God” above.
Remble is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
By now, you definitely know that someone brought cocaine into the White House, and this was discovered over the Fourth of July weekend. No one from the First Fam was on site, but that didn’t stop the right-wing from acting like Hunter Biden held an unabated drug orgy on the premises. For some reason, this prompted Donald Trump Jr. to get hyperbolic about Diet Coke, and Marjorie Taylor Greene has been on a rage bender as a result. She wants President Biden tested for drug use and to quit NATO while he’s at it, and for the whole family to be tested and “all staff.” Seems a bit excessive.
On Thursday, Greene grew even more heated about the subject after the Secret Service closed their investigation without pinpointing any suspects. The agency couldn’t determine probable cause tie anyone to that baggie due to surveillance footage that was apparently lacking, but that’s not good enough for Greene, and it’s getting to be a bit The Naked Gun up in the joint.
The far-right congresswoman called a press conference as though this was a national emergency and tweeted a clip, along with her complaint about this being “a total failure” because “[t]he Secret Service has narrowed down 500 people as the potential source of cocaine.” She believes that the ball has been dropped because these 500 people haven’t been ordered to take a drug test.
The Secret Service has narrowed down 500 people as the potential source of cocaine in the White House.
But they are ending the investigation tomorrow without administering drug tests to these individuals. A total failure.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) July 13, 2023
At this point, if any of these 500 people had cocaine in their bloodstream at the time that the errant baggie surfaced, then it would be long gone. Too many days have passed for testing to draw anything close to an admissible conclusion, but Greene’s obsession with the coke makes me wonder if she simply wants to distract from getting booted from the House Freedom Caucus.
Then again, Greene has been known to be a little bit… scattered. Like the time she bid $100,000 for Chapstick during the debt celling fiasco. It happens.
A historic strike has been called in Hollywood, with the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joining the Writers Guild of America (WGA) on the picket lines. It’s the first “double strike” since 1960. The work stoppage will begin at midnight tonight.
“We are the victims here,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said during a press conference on Thursday. “We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us.” She added, “You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contact to change, too.”
Heading into negotiations last month, Hollywood performers were looking to improve wages, working conditions and health and pension benefits, as well as create guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence in future television and film productions. Additionally, the union is seeking more transparency from streaming services about viewership so that residual payments can be made equitable to that seen on linear TV.
“The eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of labor are upon us,” Drescher said. What happens here is important because what is happening to us is happening across all fields of labor.” Meanwhile, Hollywood executives — especially the ones making millions in bonuses every year (so, most of them) — have sided not with the writers or performers, but with greed.
Billie Eilish unveiled “What Was I Made For?,” her new song for the Barbie movie, today (July 13), and it’s an emotional gut punch. It certainly had an impact on Barbie star Margot Robbie, who says she cried the first time she heard it.
In a recent interview, she explained, “You know, the Billie Eilish song at the end of the movie made me cry the very first time I heard it. I still cry.” She then spoke about the recording of the film’s orchestral score before continuing, “There’s been a lot of emotional moments on this movie, unexpectedly emotional moments. But the music music and what Mark Ronson’s done: absolutely incredi… and Dua, of course. Dua Lipa is our Mermaid Barbie and is just the coolest and I’ve loved her for so many years as well. Again, that was the dream, to get her in there, and she said yes, and then she did the song, and we did it for the whole dance at the block party, and it’s just… the soundtrack’s killer, absolutely killer on this. There’s so many artists, I can’t even begin to go through everyone, but it’s killer.”
Margot Robbie reveals she cried the first time she heard Billie Eilish’s song for #Barbie, “What Was I Made For?” pic.twitter.com/YZEhBLdjk1
Robbie shared similar excitement about the Eilish song at the movie’s recent premiere: When asked what song she’s most excited for fans to hear, she responded after not much hesitation, “Uh, Billie’s, yeah. It comes at a really emotional moment.”
Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
The first Bird Box film brought in such massive viewership that the Sandra Bullock-starring picture retains the third-place position among Netflix original films. Bullock won’t be back for this installment, which obviously takes place in Spain during the early days of the mysterious outbreak. Get ready to watch everyone bust out those blindfolds, and hopefully, the streaming service stays smart and never shows us what those monsters look like because even though the first film did contain a bit of unintentional humor, no one wants to see a flat-out comedy here.
Hijack asks a question that has been on all of our minds for over a decade now: What if we took 24, with its real-time running clock playing out over the course of a full season, but instead it was seven hours and with Idris Elba and on an airplane? Okay, maybe you weren’t asking that exact question for the last 10 years. But you probably are now. Which is okay, seeing as that’s basically what Hijack is. Look at us, solving little problems we didn’t even know existed. It’s not as dramatic as, say, thwarting terrorists in the skies, to choose an example at random, but still. Not too shabby.
The last time we checked in with Boots Riley, he was taking us on a deeply wild ride with Sorry to Bother You. Well, he’s back, and deeply wild again, this time with a new series about a 13-foot-tall man named Cootie who has a bunch of interesting experiences out in the world, delving into everything from love to friendship to… actually, you should just watch this one to find out. Our words can’t do it justice. Especially not for the thing where Walton Goggins shows up as a character named The Hero. This is a weird one, to be sure but it’s a weird one in the best way possible.
What we have here is a spinoff of one show (Star Trek: Discovery) that was itself a prequel to another show (the original Star Trek), now in its second season. We are deep into the lore here. But that’s okay. It’s a fun little ride, good for both diehard fans of the franchise and newbies trying to dip their toes in a little. You could use a little galactic escape sometimes. We all can.
Hey, do you wanna spend like 90 minutes this weekend watching a movie that stars Adam Devine and Nina Dobrev as a young married couple and Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin as her parents who might also secretly be bank robbers? Before you answer, please remember that it is 8000 degrees outside and you probably have air conditioning in your room. And that any movie where Pierce Brosnan plays a maybe secret thief is a solid summer watch. Okay, now you can answer.
It’s the 16th season of It’s Always Sunny and if you’re not already endlessly in love with this gang of moronic miscreants and their low-rent misadventures I don’t know that you can be saved. For those who have fallen off a little over the years, though, please allow us to reassure you that the show is as good, chaotic, vile, silly, and subtly smart as ever, trading international hijinks in Ireland during part of last season for a back to basics approach. In just the first two episodes we’ve seen Mac, Charlie, Dee, Dennis, and Frank giving us a cliffs notes understanding of inflation and crypto (as only Always Sunny can), revelations about Charlie and Frank’s cramped apartment, a crazy family road trip, and a whole lot of casual gunplay. And that’s just the first two episodes. We can’t wait to see the rest.
Wilt Chamberlain was a fascinating man. He once scored 100 points in a single basketball game. He used to drive cross-country barefoot on a whim sometimes. He is alleged to have been a famously prodigious lover. It’s not necessarily a surprise that someone is making a docuseries about his life as much as it is that it took all of us this long to make it happen.
Warrior is back for a third season, still starring Andrew Koji as Ah Sahm and still set in 19th century San Francisco and still based on the writings of Bruce Lee, but now it’s on Max, which was previously known as HBO Max, after originally debuting on Cinemax back in 2019. There’s a lot going on here, most of it involving some usage of the letters m-a-x, but the bottom line remains the same: it’s a good show that’s full of action and cool fights scenes and sometimes that’s exactly what you need when it starts getting hot outside.
Much like The Beastie Boys (only not like them at all), this duo began their journey as high school pals who decided, what the hell, let’s form a pop band. Soon enough, they became a global sensation, and this documentary promises to pluck a few heartstrings while looking back at George Michael (RIP) and Andrew Ridgeley’s personal trove of footage along with previously unrevealed discussions from both pop stars.
John Krasinski is back for another run as Jack Ryan, the Tom Clancy character who has been saving the world for the last 30 or 40 years, played by everyone from Harrison Ford to Chris Pine. Wendell Pierce is in there, too. It’s kind of wild to think about, really, this thing where Jim from The Office and Bunk from The Wire have been running around for a few seasons now saving the world on a show made by the same company that ships vitamins and kitchen utensils to your house in 48 hours. But it’s happening. The future is pretty weird!
In case the clip of Lee Pace battling a group of relentless assassins dressed only in his birthday suit wasn’t a big enough clue, this season of Foundation f*cks. And fights. What we’re trying to say is there’s a ton more action involved in the latest batch of episodes as the struggle to save a small swath of humanity from a predicted galactic war grows more perilous. We’ve hurtled 100 years forward as Dr. Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and his group of revolutionaries encounter a new threat to his psychohistory equation while navigating the unintended consequences of time travel. Meanwhile, the Emperor clones (Pace among them) are scrambling to hold onto power as rebellions and political upheaval threaten their DNA-replicating dynasty. Man, no one is doing sci-fi like Apple TV+ right now.
Can the bleak freaky award-winning anthology series and buzz machine from a few years ago still scare the piss out of audiences now that the world has been brought closer to some of its popular themes about metaverses, AI everywhere, neural implants, evaporating privacy protections, and the malignancy of loneliness and hollowness of digital interactions? We’re about to find out with five new star-studded episodes that beg for our attention while it’s still ours to control.
Henry Cavill has one foot out the door of this franchise, which is unfortunate, but we’ll see what Liam Hemsworth brings to the table in the future. Further, this season will apparently bring us (from the looks of the above teaser) plenty of banger-filled Jaskier with newfound eyeliner. Ideally, this means that the show will go ahead and declare Jaskier canonically bisexual because they’ve been dancing around the issue long enough. And god only knows that the Netflix franchise has tweaked Andrzej Sapkowski books and the video games enough over the years already, so what’s one more time?
Quarterback is Netflix’s next stab at a sports docuseries, after first diving into F1 racing and professional golf with surprising success. This one follows — you guessed it — a group of NFL quarterbacks as the prepare for battle in an NFL season. We get looks at everyone from Patrick Mahomes to Kirk Cousins to Marcus Mariota as they try to fling the pigskin successfully while getting chased by very large dudes. It’s basically an action movie.
The Afterparty was a ton of fun in its first season. It was a little whodunnit mystery with a cast full of your comedy favorites — Sam Richardson! Tiffany Haddish! Ben Schwartz! And so on! — and a fun hook where each episode focused on a different character and was presented using a different style of storytelling. Well, it’s back for a second season now, with a new murder and some new genres and a similar crew of characters. There is very little to complain about here.
We are fixing to be awash in Tim Olyphant. Not only is Justified: City Primeval on the way, but he also plays an apparently hatless role in this crime drama series from Steven Soderbergh. Olyphant and Clare Danes portray parents of a kidnapped child, so yes, this might not be the kind of “tense drama” that you’re craving, but the talent is stacked into the stratosphere. Zazie Beetz plays the lead investigator on the case, and naturally, do not expect a cut-and-dried story from Mr. Soderbergh. Yes, there are secrets afoot here.
The first season of The Bear was often chaotic and intense in the very best of ways. But while season two doesn’t move fully away from that formula, it all feels a little more slow-burn and structured as it seeks to tell a story about what happens when you dare to take a chance and change things up. How discombobulating it is and how the universe reacts. We thought last season was a main course, but it was apparently just an appetizer.
Body-swaps. Pride parades. Mall outings. The best comedy on TV is officially back, baby. WWDITS’ latest season introduces our favorite group of undead idiots to even more 21st century hijinks proving that this show – unlike its immortal characters – only gets better with age. Guillermo’s struggling with an identity crisis of supernatural proportions, Nadja’s been hexed, Colin Robinson is thriving in the service industry, and Nandor and Laszlo are knee-deep in a centuries-old feud. The house is in chaos, which is just how we like it.
The super-rich mega-church proprietors are back and they’re ready to step into a new chapter that sees patriarch Eli Gemstone ceding control to his kids. Shades of Succession? In some surface ways, sure, but Gemstones is its own swirl of chaos and genius, and this new season goes all in on family feuds while adding monster trucks, romantic entanglements, backwoods survivalists doing that thing they do, and an all-new Baby Billy scheme.
Thanks to Mike Lindell refusing to back down from pushing thoroughly debunked election fraud claims that the 2020 race was “stolen” form Donald Trump, major retailers like Walmart and Bed, Bath And Beyond stopped selling MyPillow products. In January 2023, Lindell claimed that the company lost $100 million thanks to being frozen out by retailers. But just a few months later, he stopped by Steve Bannon’s podcast and crowed that, actually, things are going great thanks to the invention of “MyPillow 2.0.”
To the surprise of no one, things were not going great.
This week, Lindell confirmed reports that the company has been frantically auctioning off items in a fire sale thanks to the $100 million loss in revenue. With retailers no longer stocking MyPillow products, Lindell got to work unloading everything from sewing machines to office equipment. That effort is also not doing great as over 100 items are still sitting unsold, and the ones that are moving, are selling for way under market value.
For example, a 45-inch by 20-inch ‘Hytrol Power Belt Conveyor’ is currently going for $5, despite similar products being sold for more than $250 on other second-hand websites.
Similarly an “entry security cage,” 88x66x99 inches in size, also has $5 as the top bid, whilst similar items are being sold second-hand, for over $1,000 elsewhere.
According to Newsweek, the items for sale on K-Bid are set to end their auctions at various points on Tuesday where activity will often “increase dramatically.” However, it will need to be very dramatic in Lindell’s case as he appears to be taking a bath on the over 854 items listed for sale.
In just a matter of a few hours, British rapper J Hus’ third album Beautiful And Brutal Yard will finally be able to stream. The project is one that fans have been waiting for, especially after the success of his 2020 sophomore album Big Conspiracy. As a final treat before the album arrives, J Hus lets off one last single, “Militerian” with Nigerian singer Naira Marley, and it arrives with a brand new visual.
Together, J Hus and Naira Marley are a duo that looks to enforce their rule and live out their loyalties in the “Militerian” video. It begins with Marely performing the song’s hook in an all-white room backed by dancers. Next, J Hus, dressed in native wear from head to toe, steps into a room to meet with a group of individuals dressed in all black. From then on, we’re met with clips of African dancers and instrumentalists performing in the streets and Hus and Marely’s interactions with a group of women.
Beautiful And Brutal Yard will arrive with 19 songs and features from Drake, Burna Boy, Jorja Smith, CB, Villz, and Boss Belly, in addition to Naira Marley.
You can watch the video for “Militerian” above.
Beautiful And Brutal Yard is out 7/14 via Epic Records/Black Butter Ltd. Find out more information here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
One of the best things about Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One coming out to “save Hollywood’s ass” is that it means the number-one movie in America will no longer be Sound of Freedom. The surprise box office hit about child sex trafficking has been championed by far-right dopes like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, while “some critics say the film appeals to the QAnon movement, which posits a false conspiracy theory accusing progressive elites of pedophilia,” according to the New York Times.
Sound of Freedom star Jim Caviezel went on Steve Bannon’s podcast to discuss an upcoming screening of the film for Donald Trump — and to spread a conspiracy theory about liberals draining blood from children.
“I also want to say to Donald Trump, then when you watch this movie, you will be at peace and at rest because you, more than anyone, have done incredible things Jesus talks about, that you know faith without works is dead,” The Passion of the Christ actor said. “I believe Donald Trump was selected by God Almighty, and I’m talking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit God.”
Caviezel also talked about a QAnon theory that claims liberal elites — often in Hollywood – drink the blood of infants to obtain their adrenochrome. “That’s why the devil wants to kill him, wants to hurt them. It’s always been this way since Pharaoh and then to Herod and now but more than ever and enslaving them and doing many, many things including organ harvesting and adrenochroming. And I will say that until I’m, you know, I’m dead,” he said.
If Jim could get his hands on that sweet, sweet blood, he would finally make the “biggest film” in history. But the elite won’t share any!
Happy 72nd day of the WGA strike! With the studios threatening to step away from the negotiating table until writers are homeless and the Screen Actors Guild poised to join the picket line, maybe it’s time to laugh a little.
Writer (and WGA member) Todd Spence shared a 2007 clip from Late Night with David Letterman that perfectly sums up the absurdity of the writers strike and proves that essentially nothing has changed in over a decade.
During the WGA Strike of ’07/’08, David Letterman did a bit on the AMPTP. As relevant now as it was then. pic.twitter.com/1GZgc4BQ7q
As Billy Preston sang, “Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’.” Quadrupling 0% is easy math. Yet the writers and actors are asking for stability and security in the very same environment that the studio heads all recognize is disruptive. Back in 2007, it was about streaming rights. Today, it’s still about streaming rights with the added terror of AI replacement on the horizon.
The Milken Institute estimated that the 2007-2008 strike cost California around $2 billion. When its report was released in 2014, it came with the note that even more could be at risk if the Screen Actors Guild contract issue wasn’t resolved. Nine years later, the studios are set to cause an immense amount of pain, including their own, because they won’t pony up the equivalent of one CEO’s salary for a few thousand writers to be able to make their mortgage.
Good thing it’s easy to laugh. Also, Letterman remains the GOAT of metaphorically spitting in his greedy bosses’ faces.
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(@RepMTG) 
