Category: News

The Carter family has been causing quite the kerfuffle on social media of late, owing in large part to their usual reluctance to log on unless they have new projects to promote. Earlier this year, Jay-Z revived his long-dormant Instagram account, only to delete it again after it had served its apparent purpose: drawing attention to the Netflix Western he’d produced, The Harder They Fall. Now, it’s Beyonce’s turn. Tapping into the growing popularity of TikTok, Beyonce started an account, accumulating thousands of followers within an hour of the Tidal Twitter account’s announcement.

As of press time, Beyonce’s verified account has over 191,000 followers despite having no videos, no bio, and no profile picture. Such is the power of the Beyhive, who remain dedicated to following all of the singer’s moves, no matter how cryptic, perhaps in the hopes of being among the first to catch wind of another surprise album drop, a la 2014’s Beyonce.

Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time the Carter clan brought waves of new users to a simmering social platform. In 2020, Beyonce’s mention of OnlyFans on Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” remix (apparently penned by Jay) caused a massive jump in the site’s visibility and subscribership despite its reputation for being a bastion of spicy content. Beyonce’s latest move will likely have a similar enervating effect on TikTok’s mainstream appeal, which means that those funky dances are probably here to stay.

Jonah Goldberg was one of two Fox News employees to resign in protest of Tucker Carlson’s dangerously irresponsible Patriot Purge special that claimed January 6th was a “false flags” operation. “The release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident,” Goldberg and fellow conservative commenter Stephen Hayes wrote at the time, “it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend.

On Thursday, Goldberg published an essay about his decision to leave Fox News and why he “didn’t want to be complicit in so many lies.” On The Dispatch, he wrote, “For most of the Trump years, when I was invited on Fox it was to talk about anything but Trump. And as a conservative, I was perfectly willing to criticize Democrats and progressives. But opportunities to criticize Trump were studiously avoided. With one exception, I was never told by anyone what I should or shouldn’t say. But… I was really only welcome to train my fire leftward. Eventually, I felt like a cog in the whataboutist machinery.” Goldberg also accused Fox News hosts (the same ones who reached out to Mark Meadows on January 6?) of being dishonest in their support of Donald Trump.

I know that a huge share of the people you saw on TV praising Trump were being dishonest. I don’t merely suspect it, I know it, because they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on. And even when I didn’t hear it directly, I was often one degree of separation from it.

The essay ends with a quote from Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” You can read the entire thing here.

(Via The Dispatch)

Barack Obama is in the midst of unveiling his year-end lists of favorite stuff, and so far he’s shared his round-ups of movies, books, and today, songs. As is usually the case, the former POTUS’ playlist features some diverse picks.

Indie favorites are well-represented on the list, which includes Courtney Barnett’s “Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To,” The War On Drugs and Lucius’ “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” and Mitski’s “The Only Heartbreaker.” Hip-hop is also included via songs like Lizzo and Cardi B’s “Rumors,” Isiah Rashad’s “Headshots (4r Da Locals),” and Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” Beyond that, there are picks from all across the musical spectrum, including tracks from Mdou Moctar, Jon Batiste, and Bad Bunny.

The list has a lot of Grammy firepower, including Obama himself, as his audiobook A Promised Land is up for Best Spoken World Album at the 2022 ceremony. Aside from him, artists on the list who are also Grammy-nominated in 2022 are Esperanza Spalding, Brandi Carlile, Spice, Sean Paul, Shaggy, Jon Batiste, Nas, Allison Russell, Lil Nas X, Bad Bunny, Yebba, Morray, and Cardi B.

If you like what you see, there’s an official Spotify playlist that features all of Obama’s picks, so check that out below.

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

Roddy Ricch has come a long way since roaming the streets of Compton looking to get into trouble. In the video for “25 Million,” the latest single from his new album, Live Life Fast, he illustrates this literally, albeit with his tongue firmly in cheek. The video represents Roddy as a high-powered businessman at what looks to be a successful finance or legal firm. However, as he struts through the office in his three-piece suit, it becomes clear that he’s put his own irreverent twist on workplace culture, with strippers twerking on the copy machines and conference room tables.

Later in the video, he leaves the office and boards a yacht, where he gets his hair cut by a woman in a bikini before hosting a lavish boat party — one where he appears to be the only man in attendance. This is Roddy’s version of the good life, and it looks like he’s living it to the fullest.

Live Last Fast album, which includes appearances from 21 Savage, Alex Isley, Bibi Bourelly, Fivio Foreign, Future, Gunna, Jamie Foxx, Kodak Black, Lil Baby, Takeoff, and Ty Dolla Sign, is out now via Atlantic Records. You can get it here and watch the “25 Million” video above.

Rifle Republican Lauren Boebert is still coming down from emerging as an SNL parody target last weekend. She really lost her cool after cast member Chloe Fineman impersonated her and then trolled her as an “actual clown” after Boebert’s triggered response. All of that ended up spiraling after Boebert’s truly parody-worthy gun-filled family Christmas photo, and now, Boebert is absolutely outraged over a gingerbread cookie, which might very well ruin Christmas for her.

This issue, of course has to do with Boebert’s apparent distaste at a gingerbread “person” rather than a gingerbread “man.” After X Games medalist Paul Thacker tweeted a photo of the cookie with a “gingerbread person,” he added this caption: “We have gone insane…” In response, Boebert asked, “How long until the term ‘person’ becomes offensive too?”

Naturally, people found Boebert’s outrage to be all kinds of hilarious, and they fired back about how she might draft a bill to protect “anatomically correct” gingerbread men, which doesn’t feel too far fetched for the far-right congresswoman.

And Boebert’s feud with Jimmy Kimmel also received a shoutout.

Meanwhile, ex-President Trump endorsed Boebert (via Fox News) for reelection. This must be the highlight of her year:

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., for reelection, lauding the freshman lawmaker’s efforts on crime and the Second Amendment.

“Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has done a fantastic job in her first term representing Colorado’s Third District,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday. “She is a fearless leader, a defender of the America First Agenda, and a fighter against the Loser RINOs and Radical Democrats. She will continue to be tough on Crime, strong on Borders, and always protect our under-siege Second Amendment. Lauren has my Complete and Total Endorsement for her reelection!”

(Via Fox News)

The year was 2019, just a few months shy of a global pandemic that would delay the second season of Netflix’s monster-slaying mega-hit The Witcher by nearly a year. Despite Henry Cavill playing a beefed-up antihero who grunted his way through the show’s initial episodes, bathing and bedding women in equal measure, it was actor Joey Batey who went sort of viral on social media. Well, it was Batey’s character, a bubbly bard named Jaskier, that people couldn’t stop talking about.

No, that’s not right either. Jaskier is great (and so is Batey by the way) but it was the devilishly-charming troubadour’s hit single, a little earworm called “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher” that stole the spotlight. Youtube covers, Spotify rankings, memes, and coffee shops co-opting the song’s title for barista tip jars — “Toss A Coin” inspired them all, but every artist knows you’re only as good as your next song. That’s why, when season two of The Witcher drops this month, Batey is trading out Renaissance pop anthems for angst-heavy folk metal ballads, a melodic move that signals an evolution in his lovable sidekick and might hint at what’s to come for Geralt’s former best friend.

We chatted with Batey about the slog of filming season two, how artists can lead Continent-wide rebellions, and why Jaskier’s firmly in his break-up album era.

What did The Witcher quarantine bubble look like while shooting this season?

Well, I’m an old man and I don’t leave the house anyway. So not a lot of my life changed, that has to be said. [Laughs] Henry and I would just send each other dumb Simpsons memes every so often. Paul Bullion, who plays Lambert, we played poker online together. That connection, I think everyone experienced that. Suddenly you’ve got to make so much more of an effort to reach out and not only make friends but keep your friends and make sure everyone’s safe and well. I was very grateful that everyone around me was so fantastic and had such a strength of spirit throughout that shoot.

Thinking specifically of Jaskier’s journey in season two, what’s the vibe like for the bard right now?

Well, we left Jaskier on the top of a mountain in season one. [Laughs] But since then he’s been able to really work out who he is and go on a journey of self-discovery where he’s no longer defining himself by a friendship. The Continent is growing darker. There’s the storm of war that seems to be approaching in the distance. How does an artist exist in that universe? How does an artist survive? Usually, in war and turmoil, artists are the ones first to get the wall. And he’s aware that he has a voice. He’s now famous, he’s now rich, and he’s worked out that they’re the things that don’t matter to him. For the first time, he’s learning to be the protagonist of his own story, rather than tell the stories of others.

Jaskier was definitely the main source of comedic relief in season one. He goes a bit darker this season. Which is harder: comedy or angst?

If you ever meet someone who is funny in real life, standup comedians, and so forth, they’re not funny all the time. Naturally funny people are people and they have facets to them that are layered. That’s something that I was so excited to explore in Jaskier in season two, that, yes, he still has that light in him, he still has that joyous spark and the naivete that comes with the character. But also, there is a real human here, a human that hurts, a human that feels fear, that feels pain.

You’ve got to do some mental acrobatics in order to get to those dark places in a very real and truthful way, but I don’t think Jaskier is ever going to stop trying to make people laugh because that’s one of his superpowers. I think the challenge wasn’t necessarily going darker or going lighter or telling jokes. The challenge was making sure that the dichotomy wasn’t so different. That it didn’t feel like two different characters.

Music plays a huge role in the character’s journey and season two is definitely Jaskier’s break-up album era. How did working on the songs inform the character and vice versa? And, are you ready to have another banger on your hands?

[Laughs] Who knows? Joe Trapanese, our composer on season two, he and I wrote the songs for Jaskier together, over the pandemic actually. We worked really, really hard on trying to distance ourselves a little bit from the pop-ier aspect and explore a more emotionally raw human, who is doing his difficult second album. He is trying to find a new artistic direction because all the best artists do. In season one, we saw him tell the stories of other people and tell the stories of the Continent. The music was almost more world-building. For season two, we really tried to make sure that the music was character building and it was driving the narrative for this character and showing that he wasn’t just the guy with the lute, just trying to earn coin. Now he’s showing a side to him that I think all art should, which is a vulnerable side. Perhaps even a flawed side and a weaker side.

What were you listening to while working on the songs for season two?

I’m always influenced by trad folk and we wanted to bring something Celtic into it, as well as some slightly more musical theater crescendos. I’ll be listening to some death metal, and then the next song on my playlist will be some trad ditty from a million years ago. It all feeds its way in there.

Maybe next season we can slip in some techno then?

[Laughs] Some dance house beats, yeah.

Where’s the strangest place you’ve heard “Toss A Coin”?

I once heard it at an airport. That was the weirdest experience for me because I’ve had people hum it on the train or sing it in the shop. I’ve had one or two pubs put it on. But an airport? They definitely didn’t know I was there. It was just playing on the Tannoy and I thought I was going mad. I was just trying to get my luggage through customs. I was like, “I feel like I’m having a mental breakdown.”

The Witcherverse is expanding. Do you think Jaskier might get his own spinoff series at some point?

Why don’t you ask me that question after series seven has ended?

You can always put out a musical or a sing-along one-off in the meantime though.

Right? Maybe we’ll find time to put out a Christmas album.

‘The Witcher’ returns to Netflix on December 17.

To promote his upcoming role in The Tender Bar, Ben Affleck stopped by The Howard Stern Show this week for an over two hour interview where he opened up about everything from his marriage to Jennifer Garner (which did not sit well after he seemingly blamed her for his drinking problem) to his roller coaster ride of a career. As everyone knows, Affleck was a blockbuster star before a series of flops torpedoed his career in the mid-2000s. After fading into the background, Affleck began making waves as a writer/director with 2010’s The Town. That led to his next film, 2012’s Argo, which immediately became a critical darling and an Oscar contender.

However, Affleck couldn’t help but notice that while the film racked up nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and even Best Supporting Actor (Alan Arkin), the Academy specifically didn’t recognize his contributions as lead actor and director. What stung even more is Affleck candidly admits that he wanted the Oscar, and he did everything Warner Bros. instructed him to do to get the nom.

“It was the big snub, right? That really taught me a lot,” Affleck said. “I did everything they told me. They told me, ‘You got to kiss the babies.’ And I schmoozed everybody in the world, right?”

When the snub became clear on the morning of the Oscar announcements, Affleck reveals that he called up Warner Bros. and said he’s never doing an Oscar campaign again. Via IndieWire:

“We had Editing, Score, Picture. The only guy who f*cked up was the lead and the director? I can do the math on who the asshole is here. That day, I had to go to the f*cking Critics Choice Awards, which has, if my memory is correct, the single longest fucking red carpet in humanity. Every single stop, you don’t even have to say anything, they just hold the mic and they say ‘So, snubbed?’ You have to pretend that you’re OK, pretend it didn’t bother you, because god forbid something bothered you.

Affleck then admitted to getting “hammered” at the Critics Choice Awards and slamming the Academy at the podium under the impression that Argo was dead at the Oscars, which ended up not being the case.

“We never lost another award,” Affleck sheepishly revealed while clearly embarrassed with how he acted.

(Via IndieWire)

No matter who you are, nothing is easy in the NFL. That was on display in Week 14 with regard to the selections in this space, with a 1-4 record that easily could’ve finished 3-2 or even 4-1. Cleveland blew a 21-point lead, only to win by two points as a 2.5-point favorite. Buffalo lost as a 3.5-point underdog on a long touchdown in overtime. The first half under in Atlanta-Carolina broke on a pick-six that swung the total result. This stuff happens, to be sure, but the ball rolled in the wrong direction for us a week ago, and we’re always going to struggle during a week when favorites cover at an alarming rate.

This time around, we’ll have five more selections but, before we dive into an interesting Week 15 slate, let’s take stock.

• Last Week: 1-4
• 2021 Season: 38-31-1

Come get these winners.

Indianapolis Colts (-2.5) over New England Patriots

The Patriots haven’t lost since Oct. 17 and now they are getting points against the 7-6 Colts? The world is on the Patriots as a result? You had to know I’d have Indianapolis here.

New York Jets (+9.5) over Miami Dolphins

I realize Miami has been a lot better lately, but the Dolphins laying nearly double figures against anyone seems like a lot. Michael Carter projects to be back for the Jets, giving New York some more juice offensively, and this is a game with a total of 41 as this post arrives. That’s a big number for a grind-it-out game.

Jacksonville Jaguars (-4.5) over Houston Texans

Ding dong, Urban Meyer is gone. The Jags, despite their horrifying season, are more talented than the Texans, and Davis Mills is taking the ball for Houston on the road here. I’m expecting a refreshed effort from Jacksonville.

Atlanta Falcons (+9.5) over San Francisco 49ers

Against all odds, the Falcons are alive in the playoff chase. That isn’t why I’m taking them, but it’s funny to see it in print. At any rate, this should probably be 7 or 7.5 and the extra candy is enough to get us to the window, even if a backdoor is needed.

New Orleans Saints (+11) over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

This is a big number. The Bucs are soundly better than the Saints, but Tom Brady hasn’t exactly lit New Orleans ablaze in previous meetings. The Saints are frisky defensively and, while taking Taysom Hill in this matchup doesn’t give me a warm feeling, I will gleefully accept the double-digit spread.

Don’t Look Up, from Vice/The Big Short director Adam McKay, is a well-intended satire, about how American politicians and tech titans wouldn’t be able to stop being venal and self-interested long enough to save themselves, even if there was a comet heading straight for Earth. Think Armageddon in the style of Veep. It’s a great idea (with story credit to McKay and journalist David Sirota) whose execution doesn’t always live up to its premise, seemingly proving that accurate satire isn’t the same thing as a coherent story. Lots of the individual jokes work, but it seems to get caught up trying to make fun of so many different things that it neglects its own internal logic.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Kate Dibiasky, a doctoral student with severe art bangs who discovers a massive comet (a “planet killer,” as it’s described later) late one night while singing along to Wu-Tang during her shift manning the Suburu telescope. Dibiasky, who feels very much like a middle-aged white man’s idea of “cool hipster,” eventually alerts her advisor, Dr. Randall Mindy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a dowdy beard and enjoyably dorky Midwestern accent. Together they make the rounds, trying first to inform the public and then to get them to do something about it.

Their tour takes them first to Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, head of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which a title card informs us is a real office that actually exists. Rob Morgan plays Oglethorpe, an enjoyably idiosyncratic character who probably deserved more screen time than he gets.

McKay pulled this same sort of fourth-wall-breaking shtick in Vice and The Big Short, and I do enjoy it, within reason. It makes sense to be clear that the Planetary Defense Coordination Office is a real thing, because it sounds like something this kind of movie would invent. The bigger issue in Don’t Look Up is that there’s a dissonance between its almost painfully on-the-nose elements (aping the font and color schemes of MAGA hats and posters) and its unnecessarily fictionalized ones. In a scene in which a social media consultant discusses the engagement Mindy and Dibiaski received during a morning show segment, real social media platforms are all bowdlerized as “VroomVroom,” “Friendlink,” “Rabble,” and “Diddly,” in a way that feels both like a failed dad joke and almost deferentially courtly. Why not just say Facebook and Twitter? McKay doesn’t seem like a guy afraid of offending Mark Zuckerberg.

By contrast, the hosts of the morning show on which they appear are played brilliantly by Tyler Perry, who for all his corniness as a writer/director is still a pretty damned solid comedic actor, and Cate Blanchett, in a set of unnaturally white veneers and over-the-top TV makeup that somehow still make her look hot. Meryl Streep is similarly great as President Orlean (a callback to her playing Susan Orlean in Adaptation?), a sort of careerist hybrid Trump/Kamala more worried about the midterms than she is about the impending apocalypse, whose chief of staff is her dopey son, played wonderfully by Jonah Hill in what feels like a combination of his Inside SoCal character from SNL (“Dad, it’s just a kicker”) and his own “clean and rad and powerful” emails.

Just when it seems like Dibiasky and Dr. Mindy have finally gotten the president to act, she gets sidetracked by Peter Isherwell, a robotic tech tycoon played by Mark Rylance in another solid turn, as a character who’s clearly a riff on Jeff Bezos, with shades of Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. The whole story turns on this shift, from the president’s decision to go with Isherwell’s pie-in-the-sky, enriching-the-rich plan to handle the comet, rather than follow the recommendations of scientists. It turns President Orlean into a pseudo-climate denier, with her new slogan, “Don’t Look Up” urging supporters to ignore the reality of the killer comet. On a satirical level, it’s easy to see what point McKay is trying to say here, about leaders putting profits ahead of saving the planet and treating a global crisis as just another geopolitical game.

But making a point and telling a story aren’t always the same thing, and it feels like McKay has cut some corners, giving the individual characters’ motivations and story arcs short shrift in favor of trying to lampoon as many things as possible. The classic Hollywood idea was that a global crisis would force an end to our petty squabblings, as seen in movies like Armageddon and Independence Day. This was probably based on the general cultural takeaway from World War II, that when the chips were down, we’d eventually come together and kill the fascists.

Now that we’ve seen firsthand that plenty of crises seem to have the opposite effect, factionalizing the populace, polarizing our experience of objective reality and seemingly driving everyone insane, it has manifested in our fiction. Children of Men and The Leftovers saw its characters slide into magical thinking, hostility, and cultism in response to societal upheaval, borne out in real life with things like QAnon and people getting really into crystals. Don’t Look Up clearly wants to be the comedic, more overtly satirical The Leftovers, but whereas The Leftovers was always character-first, Don’t Look Up feels more like a series of sketches. Which, while usually funny, don’t always maintain a consistent logic.

‘Don’t Look Up’ is available in select theaters December 10th, and hits Netflix December 24th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can check out his film review archive here.

Last weekend saw Billie Eilish pull double duty as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live. On the next episode, though, the show will return to its more common format of having a separate host and musician. Filling those roles this weekend are Paul Rudd and Charli XCX, who participated in the tradition of filming simple promo videos for the show. In one of them, Rudd plays off of Charli’s stage name, which he had a hard time pronouncing.

Rudd started, “Hi, I’m Paul Rudd and I’m hosting SNL with Charli…” He then trailed off as he tried to pronounce “XCX” by reading it like a word, apprehensively letting out some “x” and “c” sounds before Charli clarified by saying the individual letters, “X-C-X.” A still-confused Rudd gave an “oh” of slight realization before SNL‘s Ego Nwodim chimed in, “I got it: ‘XCX.’” Rudd concluded the bit by asking, “Is that Roman,” in reference to the letters looking like a Roman numeral.

This weekend will mark Rudd’s fifth time on the show, prompting a joke in another promo clip that he joined the “Five-Timer’s Club,” for him meaning his fifth arrest. As for Charli, this is her second time appearing on the program and her first in a while, as she was previously on the show in 2014.

Check out the SNL promos above.

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