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Tom Cruise turned 60 last summer, but as we all know he’s living life in reverse. When he was younger he mostly did dramas, with few action movies with which to risk his life. Now he almost exclusively does action and almost exclusively puts his life at peril. The seventh Mission: Impossible — the franchise that really got him hooked on the genre — features some batsh*t stunts, even for him. Indeed, one was so daredevil that it basically gave the crew a panic attack.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, a new behind-the-scenes video for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One shows Cruise sbows him prepping for “speed-flying.” What is speed-flying? It involves parachuting but, like, really fast. Very few people on the planet dare do it. Director Christopher McQuarrie, who’s handled the series since Rogue Nation, calls it “one of the most dangerous sports in the world.”

McQuarrie added that “while it may look similar, speed-flying is not skydiving. Skydiving is fairly predictable. Speed-flying is incredibly unpredictable.”

So of course Tom Cruise took it up.

In the video, Cruise describes speed-flying, and it sounds completely terrifying. “We’re gonna do spirals,” he says, “and we’re landing at an incredibly high speed, over 80 kilometers an hour.”

Perhaps Cruise wasn’t afraid, but his crew sure was. McQuarrie said that while his star flying close to some rocks at high speeds “looks quite beautiful,” behind the camera everyone was in “absolute terror.”

In a way this is moviegoers’ fault. They keep rewarding Cruise with money for risking his life in creative ways. So, McQuarrie says, with each M:I movie they have to “become a little bit more adventurous every time.” But just a little, as in taking up one of the deadliest sports known to humankind.

The speed-flying scene in Dead Reckoning Part One isn’t the only one in which Cruise risked life and limb to entertain us. That motorcycle cliff jump he did was filmed on Day 1 — you know, just in case it didn’t pan out.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters on July 12.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Janelle Monáe is baring it all. Her latest album, The Age Of Pleasure features her more in touch with her sexuality than ever before, and as she’s been promoting the album, she’s been seen flashing her fans, notably with the vinyl album itself, which contains a foldout picture of her breasts.

Last night (June 30), at Essence Festival in New Orleans, Monae gave a performance of all of her hits from over the years, including her 2015 Jidenna collaboration, “Yoga.”

The song contains the line “You cannot police me, so get off my areola,” which has become one of Monáe’s signature lyrics. During this particular portion of the song, Monáe lifted up the right side of her bikini top, flashing her breast to the audience. Her nipple was covered with a pink sticker, but nevertheless, stirred up fans throughout the festival.

This exuberant move was met with cheers and support from the audience, who were all on board with the sense of liberation she’s tapped into during this album era.

You can see a clip from Monáe’s Essence Festival performance above.

Janelle Monáe is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Try as he might, Ron DeSantis has been getting clobbered by Donald Trump in the polls. But it appears he thinks he has a new way to win: by being even more bigoted than the guy who kicked of his first campaign with some racism. On Friday the DeSantis team dropped a new ad that’s, well, straight-up anti-LGBTQIA+. But that’s not the only message: The message is that DeSantis can be more prejudiced than even the 45th American president.

The ad features clips of Trump being kind to the LGBTQIA+ community, probably because he knows he can’t win by alienating not only them but people who aren’t virulently homophobic. It kicks off with him saying he’ll do “everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.” It shows him holding up a gay pride flag. It shows him meeting with fellow Republican Caitlyn Jenner and saying she can use whatever bathroom she wants.

It then contrasts Trump being relatively diplomatic with DeSantis, who is shown as a man’s man. This wildly homophobic video features images of scantily-clad, oiled up men, among them Brad Pitt in Troy. But that’s not all. It also compares him with Leonardo DiCaprio’s demonic broker in The Wolf of Wall Street — a character who is, to put it lightly, not depicted as a hero. It even splices in Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, in which he’s a Wang Chung-loving serial killer who kills the guy from Morbius.

That the DeSantis team would think comparing the candidate to a murderer was a good thing did not go un-noticed on social media.

Others pointed out that it was full-on bigoted.

Some accused DeSantis and folks as being way, way too online.

And others felt it showed, in an era of more open tolerance, that DeSantis’ campaign is utterly doomed.

That included the account belonging to Log Cabin Republicans.

Then again, how tough is DeSantis if he won’t even call Trump out for Jan. 6?

The Sacramento Kings turned themselves into a team to watch entering the NBA’s free agency period. On the heels of a surprising regular season, the Kings were in a financial position to make a splash over the summer, something that was hammered home when they made a move on the night of the NBA Draft to send Richaun Holmes to the Dallas Mavericks to open up even more cap space.

A major swing — the team was reportedly very interested in stealing Draymond Green from the Golden State Warriors — didn’t come to fruition, so they opted to just bring back Harrison Barnes. In a further use of their cap space, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brought word that Sacramento signed Sasha Vezenkov, the reigning MVP of the EuroLeague, on a 3-year deal worth $20 million.

Vezenkov, who was born in Cyprus and plays his international basketball for Bulgaria, comes to the Kings after spending the last five years with Olympiacos. The 27-year-old forward was selected 57th overall by the Brooklyn Nets in the 2017 NBA Draft, but his draft rights were sent to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2021, and a year and a half later, the Cavs sent his draft rights to Sacramento.

Last season Vezenkov played in 40 games for Olympiacos and averaged 17.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.9 assists in 29.1 minutes a night while hitting 37.8 percent of his threes. Olympiacos made it to the EuroLeague finals, where it lost to Real Madrid, 79-78. Wojnarowski noted that the expectation is that Vezenkov will “play a formidable role” in Sacramento.

R. Kelly has reportedly been ordered to hand over more than $500,000 in royalties to the courts. According to a report from HipHopDX, Kelly will be required to disburse the money to his victims.

The hip-hop outlet reportedly obtained documents indicating that the United States Court in the Northern District of Illinois issued a third-party citation to Universal Music Group back in May in order to discover assets. The terms of the citation indicated that Universal Music Group would have to disclose how much money in outstanding royalties Kelly still needed to be paid for songwriting.

The courts reportedly learned that Universal Music Group still owes Kelly $567,444.19 in unpaid royalties, though Kelly himself will not see a cent of that money.

According to Radar Online, the royalties will be used to pay Kelly’s victims, who have reportedly only received about $27,000.

Almost a year ago, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and racketeering charges. Back in February, he was also sentenced to 20 years in prison for child pornography. He is currently serving both sentences concurrently in Butner Federal Prison in North Carolina.

Kelly’s crimes have been the subject of various documentaries, including a Lifetime docuseries called Surviving R. Kelly.

July looks to be a scorcher outside as usual, so you will want to hang on the couch as long as possible. Fortunately, there are several returning TV shows to keep you occupied after you finish rewatching The Bear‘s second season. The most prominent series of this coming month happens to be a revival of FX’s beloved Justified, and fortunately, Timothy Olyphant obliged at donning the cowboy hat and boots for his most infamous role.

Additionally, some wacky vampires, a smooth lawyer, and a bumbling set of reunion attendees are back with new installments, and a former HBO Max show resurfaces on Starz. If that’s not quite enough for you, then a bickering demon-and-angel pairing shall soon make their way into your living room again, Navajo cops are back to fight very different forces of evil, and Henry Cavill will go on his final monster-hunting, grunty adventures. Oh, and John Wilson turns his lenses upon New York City one more time.

Here are the must see shows for July 2023.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 2 Part 1 (Netflix series streaming 7/6)

The series picked up the same subject matter as the movie, and whaddya know, the show turned into a streaming hit that kept the adventures of Los Angeles’ most talked-about defense attorney. Naturally, Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is still running business out of his Lincoln’s backseat, where he’ll handle just about every case, and if you’ve been missing Neve Campbell from the continuing Scream franchise, you can find her here. Expect Part 2 of this season about a month after this installment.

The Afterparty: Season 2 (Apple TV+ series streaming on 7/12)

A whole lot of murder-mystery comedy can be found out there these days, and murder linked to a high school reunion is also a recent thing (Yellowjackets), but this is neither that dark Showtime show nor Glass Onion. Instead, this unique beast — created by Christopher Miller and produced by Miller and his frequent partner, Phil Lord — stars a voluminously funny cast (including Tiffany Haddish, Ben Schwartz, Ilana Glazer, and Sam Richardson) who pulls out all the stops here, and you won’t be sorry if you skip your own reunions.

What We Do in the Shadows: (FX series streaming on Hulu 7/13)

Those oddball vamps are back after Nandor’s eternal-life crisis. This remains one of the funniest shows on TV these days, and this season, Guillermo might be giving up Nandor for Laszlo, which will surely cause plenty of drama. Meanwhile, Nadya is attempting to connect with a form of family, and Colin is unwise enough to run for political office. Then there’s the newcomer, The Guide, who’s attempting to feel things out while dancing around centuries-old dynamics and all those warring accents.

Justified: City Primeval (FX series streaming on Hulu 7/18)

Everyone’s favorite extralegal lawman is about to swagger back into our hearts, long after he made it out of Harlan alive. Can he make it out of Detroit alive, too? We’ll see, and Raylan Givens’ daughter, Willa, is also onboard to give the hat a hard time because someone needs to do it. We’ve already pinpointed the one Justified episode, “Long In The Tooth,” that makes an ideal essential rewatch before this spinoff, and Raylan should have a swell time hunting bad guys in Motor City. At the top of his list: The so-called “Oklahoma Wildman,” portrayed by Boyd Holbrook.

Minx: Season 2 (Starz series streaming on 7/21)

This show took quite a journey from being cancelled by HBO Max — after the filming of the second season was nearly finished– to being rescued by Starz for airtime. The audience outcry surely helped that happen, so we’ll be able to see the continuation of Jack Johnson’s low-rent, erotic-magazine publisher doing it (for the first time) for women in the 1970s. Starz has carved out quite a few crowd successes of late (including P-Valley and Heels), so I have a feeling that they know exactly how to make this show fly.

Special Ops: Lioness: (Paramount+ series streaming on 7/23)

Because bucketfuls of Taylor Sheridan TV shows still aren’t enough, the former Sons Of Anarchy cop is here with an inspired-by-real-life story about the CIA’s Lioness Program. Zoe Saldaña stars as an operative who helps mentor and mold recruits, who will one day become fearsome assassins. Saldaña is surely relieved to be back in ass-kicking mode, over a decade after Colombiana proved how riveting she can be as an action star. Nicole Kidman also headlines as the chief of the Lioness Program, which is part of the “CIA’s efforts to thwart the next 9/11,” according to the show’s synopsis.

The Witcher: Season 3 Volume 2 (Netflix series streaming on 7/27)

It’s hard to imagine that Henry Cavill is really on his way out the door as Geralt of Rivia, and Liam Hemsworth will soon pick up the grunting, swashbuckling, potion-wielding monster hunter for a fourth season. Where this franchise goes from there, one can only guess, but thankfully, we should still have Jaskier. In this Season 3 wrap-up, Ciri continues to train as a Witcher while Yennifer is attempting to maneuver around territorial sorcerers who are pressing the buttons to f*ck with everyone. Hate it when that happens.

Twisted Metal (Peacock series streaming on 7/27)

It’s been an unusually successful year so far for video game adaptations, including The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Last Of Us. This hopes to keep the party going with Anthony Mackie as a “motor-mouthed outsider offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland.” Co-stars include Neve Campbell, Richard Cabral, Stephanie Beatriz, Thomas Haden Church, and Neve Campbell, along with Sweet Tooth, the killer, ice-cream dealing clown jointly played by Samoa Joe and Will Arnett.

Good Omens: Season 2 (Amazon Prime Video series streaming on 7/38)

The complimentary writing styles of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett collide here and are embodied by David Tennant and Michael Sheen with a second season that took far too long to percolate. Yes, Jon Hamm is on hand to steal focus as Archangel Gabriel, but ultimately, this is the story of a hate-love relationship between a demon, Crowley (David Tennant), and an angel, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), who would sure love to quit each other but must work together if they want to keep enjoying life on Earth. Yes, Armageddon is coming, among other things.

How To with John Wilson: Season 3 (HBO series streaming on Max on 7/28)

One final season of this “anxious New Yorker” is coming your way, years after the leading man (and writer, director, cameraman, producer) admitted to us that he had captured a “psychotic amount” of footage. One can only imagine how he pares it all down and still manages to offer advice on the most relatable subjects. He kept on filming during the pandemic, and now, we’ll watch him obsessively film life getting back to “normal” in the Big Apple.

Dark Winds: Season 2 (AMC series streaming on AMC+ 7/30)

George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford put on their producing hats here, and this still qualifies as a sleeper series that I’d highly recommend binging at some point. (Mostly) Native American writers are doing the thing here as based upon Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee book series and the two 1970s Navajo cops (at a remote area near Monument Valley) who embark upon apparently unrelated crimes including a double murder case. In the process, they see things that make them think twice about their spiritual beliefs. The forces of evil swirl while the cops’ personal demons could actually be the key to emerging back into salvation territory. Are you intrigued? Good.

Dennis Smith Jr. has agreed to a one-year deal with the Brooklyn Nets, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. Smith Jr. spent last season with the Charlotte Hornets, where he averaged 8.8 points, 4.8 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 25.7 minutes per night. He played 54 games and started 15 of them.

Smith has emerged as one of the NBA’s premier point-of-attack defenders at the guard position. He’s instinctive, quick and strong, and navigates screens effectively. He’s also become a pretty frugal and impactful playmaker, dishing out 261 assists to 82 turnovers in 2022-23. The Hornets were 5.3 points better per 100 possessions with him on the floor, according to Cleaning The Glass. He still struggles substantially as a scorer (47.5 percent true shooting, 21.6 percent beyond the arc). But his defense, passing and dribble penetration should make him an intriguing third or fourth rotation guard for teams with the offensive infrastructure to insulate his shooting woes.

After being selected ninth overall by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2017 Draft, Smith floated around the league, featuring stops with the New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons and Portland Trail Blazers before landing in Charlotte last season. Hopefully, this new deal provides him some stability and he can continue to find his niche as a defensive-minded, playmaking slasher.

An intriguing name that was supposed to hit the restricted free agency market this summer is Jaxson Hayes, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft who has spent his entire career with the New Orleans Pelicans. While Hayes hasn’t quite developed into the sort of dynamic center on both ends of the floor that the Pelicans hoped when they selected him, he’s still only 23 years old and has flashed enough to suggest that there is a productive basketball player in there if he continues to develop.

As a restricted free agent, Hayes would have the opportunity to sign an offer sheet with another team, which would have led to the Pelicans having to make a decision on whether or not it would bring him back. But in a bit of a surprise move, New Orleans decided to pass on extending a qualifying offer to Hayes, which made him an unrestricted free agent.

One day into free agency and we learned where Hayes will end up, as Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brought word that he’s headed to the Los Angeles Lakers.

A mix of an early season elbow injury and a general inability to consistently have a role in the team’s rotation meant that Hayes played in the fewest games of his career last season. Hayes saw the floor 47 times, with two of those appearances coming in a starting role. He averaged five points and 2.8 rebounds in 13 minutes per game, and connected on 55.1 percent of his attempts from the field.

The Miami Heat are famously pretty good at finding diamonds in the rough, developing them, and turning them into legitimately solid NBA players. One of the best examples of this in recent years has been Max Strus, the former undrafted wing who joined the Chicago Bulls’ system, tore his knee, and found himself without a team when Miami came calling.

Since then, Strus has become a player upon whom Erik Spoelstra relied, as his ability to stretch the floor has been important in the Heat’s success. Those guys end up getting expensive, though, and this summer, Strus hit unrestricted free agency, where he was expected to get a lucrative contract offer elsewhere in the league. Prior to free agency opening, there were strong indications that the Cavaliers were going to be in hot pursuit of Strus in a sign-and-trade, but they were struggling to find a third team to offload Cedi Osman to create the cap room needed to bring in the sharpshooter.

Jake Fischer reported the Spurs were a potential landing spot for Osman to facilitate the trade, as the Heat looked to at least get something back for Strus after seeing Gabe Vincent walk to the Lakers.

This general framework ended up being correct, as Osman and Lamar Stevens will head to San Antonio along with a pick, while the Heat acquired a second-round pick. As for Strus, he’s headed to the Cavs on a 4-year deal worth $63 million.

Strus has gone from an occasional bench player for the Heat to someone who started every game in the playoffs during the team’s run to the NBA Finals last year. He posted some of the best numbers of his career during the 2022-23 campaign, as the 27-year-old wing averaged 11.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 28.4 minutes per game while connecting on 35 percent of his seven attempts from behind the three-point line a night.

He joins a Cavs team that had a very clear vision for this offseason, spending their money bolstering their wing rotation with Strus, Georges Niang, and re-signing Caris LeVert.

The Memphis Grizzlies have nailed a number of top draft picks, which is a very good way to build a contender quickly after briefly bottoming out.

However, when you hit on picks, you also have to pay them, and they entered this offseason having already given Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. large extensions when they became eligible. This summer they had a decision to make about Desmond Bane, as the young wing has emerged as one of the NBA’s best volume shooters. Last season Bane set career marks by averaging 21.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game on 47.9/40.8/88.3 shooting splits (which was actually his worst three-point shooting season of his young career). Bane is also a terrific defender, and should pair quite well with new addition Marcus Smart to form a physical backcourt defensive tandem.

The question for Memphis was how high they’d want to go in extension talks with Bane or whether he’d be willing to sign for anything short of the max. We got the answer when July 1 came about and Bane was officially extension eligible, as the Grizzlies signed him to a max extension that will pay him $207 million over five years.

Bane will join Morant and Jackson Jr. as the clear young core pieces in Memphis, with Smart giving them a veteran presence in the backcourt they haven’t had. Once Morant returns from his 25-game suspension, the Grizzlies figure to once again be among the West’s best in the regular season and will hope their core, all locked in on big deals, can deliver in the postseason in a way they haven’t quite been able to yet.