Category: Worldwide

The Jaws series isn’t exactly realistic. Sharks don’t tend to gobble humans up near beaches. Don’t even get us started on the fourth one, in which it’s implied an offspring of the original tiger shark followed the heroes down to the Bahamas. Or maybe, considering a recent spate of whale attacks, it’s more lifelike than one thought.

As per The Washington Post, the last few years have seen a spate of orca attacks on boats off the Iberian coast, near Spain and Portugal. Three have ended with the vessels sinking. That includes an incident this month, in which a killer whale took out a yacht.

These attacks may be simply nature taking its course. One report argues that the orcas are just expressing “natural curiosity.”

But the leading theory is that a female orca suffered a “critical moment of agony” involving a boat. Not only did she start attacking boats, but she taught the aggressive behavior to other adult orcas. Meanwhile, her children may simply be imitating her behavior. It’s not far-fetched: Orcas are extremely intelligent and can instruct others on certain behaviors.

That orcas are also endangered in the region, which could have caused friction between them and humans.

(Via The Washington Post)

There are people who hate Donald Trump and then there’s Robert De Niro. The legendary actor has never held back about what he thinks of the repeatedly failed businessman-turned-TV-star-turned-U.S. president. Remember that time he called him a “dog” and a “pig”? The guy’s been out of the White House for over two years now, but he’s improbably surging in the polls for a third presidential run. So De Niro’s back to torching him in public.

As per Variety, De Niro attended a press conference on Saturday for Killers of the Flower Moon, his 10th film with longtime pal Martin Scorsese. He plays William Hale, a cattleman who in the 1920s ordered the killings of Native Americans to gain control of their oil reserves. De Niro has played his share of monsters over the years, but with Hale he had trouble finding a connection.

“I don’t understand a lot about my character,” De Niro said. “People do things. He has to be charming. Why does he betray them all?”

De Niro also drew parallels between the true life episode depicted in the movie and the current day. “After George Floyd with systemic racism — that’s what it is — what happens there,” he said. He talked about them learning about the Tulsa Massacre, in which prosperous Black citizens in Oklahoma were slaughtered en masse around the same time as the events depicted in Killers, while making the film.

“It’s the banality of evil. It’s the things to we have to watch out for,” De Niro said. Then he tried not to name a certain name. “We see it today, we all know how I’m going to talk about — but that guy is stupid. Hale was smart in many ways, but it’s systemic.”

He added, “There are people who still think he can do a good job. Imagine how insane that is.”

So there’s a chance Trump could once again be the Republican candidate for president — unless he’s toppled by the guy who wipes his nose then touches supporters with his snotty hands.

(Via Variety)

Every single week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.

TIE: 10. High Desert (Apple TV+ series)

Patricia Arquette’s streaming TV career high continues in the wake of Severance and The Act. This time, she portrays an ex-drug dealer who somehow decides to be a private investigator. It’s not exactly Jessica Jones but rather an extremely odd show that showcases a series of odd performances, including those by Matt Dillon, Bernadette Peters, and Brad Garrett. Oh, and Rupert Friend plays a guru, just to make things stranger. The series does explore grief, given that Arquette’s character struggles through it, but don’t worry about this being too depressing at all.

TIE: 10. F9 (Universal Pictures film streaming on HBO Max)

Fast X recently careened into theaters, and even though it feels like Fast 9 only arrived yesterday, it’s still worth catching up again before moving onto the installment where Jason Momoa’s villain is the highlight within a 2+ hour extravaganza that keeps its foot on the pedal the whole time. Arguably, this new installment might be too much, but at least Momoa is having the most fun, and there will probably be too more films on the way. Let’s face it — this franchise will possibly never end, and audiences will keep showing up.

9. Silo (Apple TV+ series)

Rebecca Ferguson is riveting as the hard-as-nails engineer in this first season based upon Hugh Howey’s initial book of the Wool omnibus. As Juliette, she rises from the lower stories of the massive underground structure — which houses the last ten-thousand-or-so members of humanity after a vague apocalyptic event — to the position of sheriff. There, she begins to dig into a murder mystery while uncovering perhaps too much information about the silo’s true origins as Common’s leather jacket acts as the most sinister figure in the entire show. Justified showrunner Graham Yost has helming duties again here, and I dare say that Juliette has more than a few things in common with Raylan Givens. Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo, Tim Robbins, and Harriet Walter co-star.

8. Evil Dead Rise (New Line Cinema film streaming on VOD and Amazon Prime)

Although this installment cannot possibly compare to the groovy gore of yesteryear (or even the Jane Levy film), the streaming audience seemingly cannot get enough of watching this movie at home. And that’s wild because horror was once thought to be optimally watched in a crowded theater while gripping the seat handles and streaming along with one’s surroundings. Hey, it works at home, too, so draw those curtains and pour all the butter on your popcorn before making sure that you cannot sleep tonight.

7. Ted Lasso (Apple TV+ series)

Our own Brian Grubb has been power ranking this season like mad, and Jason Sudeikis’ eternally chipper coach is not exactly scoring many points in that department, but the AFC Richmond chief is preparing to say his goodbye to the TV world, and Roy has been attempting to convince everyone that he doesn’t have a hairy ass. In a streaming realm full of overly complicated plot lines, the world is gonna miss these priorities.

6. To Catch A Killer (Vertical Entertainment film available PPV on Apple TV+)

Shades of Silence Of The Lambs surface in this series starring Shailene Woodley as a troubled cop, Eleanor Falco, who’s attempting to track down a serial sniper. Falco is also wrestling with her own demons while joining Ben Mendelsohn’s FBI investigator in the ultimate cat-and-mouse game with a killer whose tactics are anything but predictable. Still, Falco is a bit of a secret weapon due to her own past, and this will never be considered a prestige picture, yet it’s intriguing and digestible all the same.

5. Air (Amazon Prime Video movie)

Ben Affleck lands back in the director’s seat while also wearing a wig to play Nike co-founder Phil Knight. Jason Bateman is being lauded as the film’s secret weapon, and Matt Damon is also along for the shoe-deal ride. Those two portray Rob Strasser and Sonny Vaccaro, respectively. Viola Davis is on hand as Michael Jordan’s mother, and the man never appears on camera, but there still plenty of fuss while the Nike guys persist in signing him to a deal. The film also stars Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker, Gustaf Skarsgård, and Matthew Maher, and although the project didn’t do gangbusters in theaters, it’s been a hit on the streaming charts.

4. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix series)

This spinoff actually turned out to be better than the main Bridgerton series, so Season 3 will have a heck of a tough act to follow. Quite impressively, both India Amarteifio and Golda Rosheuvel portray different eras of the title character, whose origin story is more valuable than we could have ever guessed after the frivolous nature of how the monarch was initially portrayed. She’s been through some stuff, alright, and although Charlotte and King George’s story did turn tragic, it’s ultimately fulfilling to see how their bond developed despite despite the arranged nature of their marriage. Corey Mylchreest threads a careful needle in his portrayal of a deceptively difficult character to embody within the larger picture of Shondaland.

3. Barry (HBO series streaming on HBO Max)

Last week’s haunting Bill Hader performance also cements him as a master of atmosphere, so it will be a good time to see where he goes in the horror realm, which is apparently what he wants to do next. This is one of many shows heading into the sunset this year, but I suspect this will also be one of the most missed of the bunch. Hader has a true talent with giving us a bleak-as-hell story and also making it funny, and the world be waiting to see his humorous darkness emerge again in the future.

2. Mother (Netflix film)

The Mother’s Day weekend release plan hit just right for this Jennifer Lopez movie in which she finally gets to make her own version of John Wick, and even if the results aren’t technically stellar, this is exactly the type of movie that people cannot help but stream in the wake of a themed holiday. JLo stars as a military-trained assassin, who must save her daughter from horrible criminals who didn’t choose their target out of the blue. Joseph Fiennes and Gael García Bernal co-star, but this is JLo’s movie, for better or worse. It’s forgettable, but it’s still a fun ride. Get it, Mama.

1. Succession (HBO series streaming on HBO Max)

Shiv Shiv-y Shiv Shiv is perhaps failing the hardest out of all the Roy siblings, and boy, did she have to work hard to achieve that dubious goal. This week, Logan Roy is finally receiving a funeral (so he can turn in his grave accordingly), and from the looks of the previews, Roman plans to get theatrical. Last week’s episode stressed out the audience, and god only knows if cathartic vibes are on the way, but this show only has two more episodes left before we see whether that corrupt empire finally tumbles into oblivion.

Referees are usually pretty good at getting out of the way of things. A basketball court is only so big, and there are 10 pretty huge humans on it playing the sport at an ultra-high, ultra-focused level, so the refs have to figure out how to put themselves in a position to see everything while simultaneously being cognizant of the fact that players might not see them.

Guys running into referees isn’t especially common, although we got a pretty high-profile meeting of the minds on Saturday evening during Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals. At one point, LeBron James tried to turn up court to spark a fastbreak, but he ran into a problem: Scott Foster. The referee was standing on the court, and when James turned and started sprinting, the two collided.

It turns out that this actually led to Foster bleeding a little bit, as James presumably collided with him while he had his whistle in his mouth which caused a cut.

Foster had to go get tended to for a second, but he was able to stay in the game and keep doing referee things. As for James, we assume that he got to live out an NBA player’s dream by crashing into Scott Foster and not getting in trouble.

Fast X opened this weekend, bringing moviegoers the penultimate entry in the main wing of a beloved franchise. How will it wrap up a series that began in a very different place than it is now? Will beloved characters tragically eat it? There’s only one film left, so maybe. Maybe even probably. In fact, the film’s director came up with a jokey way to decide who lives and who perishes.

In an interview with Collider, director Louis Leterrier — of Transporter 2 (with Fast X family member Jason Statham), The Incredible Hulk, the Clash of the Titans remake, and Now You See Me — talked about joining production at the last second. That meant he didn’t have much power to alter the script. But he did have access to future screenplays, which means he could choose everyone’s fate. But how did he do that?

“The actors had to write letters to beg me to keep their characters alive, and I deemed them worthy,” Leterrier joked. “No, spoiler-free obviously, but some were written in the script and then some– Let’s say that, you know, because I went deeper than this one movie, I saw further, and I was like, ‘Oh, I know what I want.’ And there’s some actions and hard, harsh decisions I had to make because I knew what was coming in the next movie.”

Sounds like someone or someones big does or do get shuffled off the fictional mortal coil. You’ll know when the as-yet-untitled final film bows in 2025.

(Via Collider)

Swifties are some of the most dedicated fan bases. But one Taylor Swift fan went to extremes to see his fave live in concert.

Like many Swift fans, Nashville resident Davis Perrigo was unfortunately unable to secure to tickets to Swift’s Eras Tour due to a botched Ticketmaster pre-sale. So instead, he managed to land a job at Nissan Stadium as a security guard shortly before Swift stopped in Nashville on May 5, 6 and 7.

“Friday night I was next to the stage, and then Saturday night, I had almost a better view,” said Perrigo in a an interview with Nashville news station, NewsChannel 5.

Perrigo wasn’t able to record any of the shows, due to the venue’s policy, however, some fans in the audience recorded Perrigo, as he was seen singing along to every word.

Some of the clips have since gone viral on TikTok, and Perrigo even shared some of the clips with his coworkers.

“I showed someone at work, like, ‘Hey, this video got 10,000 views,’ and then by that night, it was over one million. I was like, ‘OMG, this is out of control,” Perrigo said.

While much of the venue’s security guards maintained a more stoic demeanor, Perrigo’s vibrance was noticed by member’s of Swift’s security team.

“I actually got reprimanded by Taylor’s security, saying that I was going too hard and I needed to take it down a notch,” Perrigo said

You can see some of the clips of Perrigo above.

Martin Scorsese may be no fan of comic book movies, but to a certain sect of cinephiles, his films are events on par with the latest Marvel entry. The master filmmaker’s latest, Killers of the Flower Moon, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Saturday, with its first reviews dropping shortly thereafter. From the sound of it, the legend behind such giants as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street has made a masterful, if possibly flawed (or maybe simply ambitious in a way that’s daunting on first viewing), epic.

Let’s get what will likely be the most common complaint among moviegoers out of the way first: its length. Scorsese has been making colossal works ones since 1977’s New York, New York, and Killers — about the “Reign of Terror,” aka the massacre of an oil-rich Osage community in the 1920s — is his second longest (after his previous fiction film, The Irishman, of course).

Variety’s Peter Debruge worries that will hurt its theatrical chances — though funded by Apple, it will hit theaters before their streamer, in October — he also thinks it hurts the film in general:

This is why someone needs to stand up and tell Marty to rein it in. They should’ve done it before he started shooting, since the pace is built in, and Scorsese’s projects don’t compress well after the fact. In its present form, “Killers” is still a compelling true story, one that Scorsese and co-writer Rick Yorn shifted from being a standard white-savior detective yarn to a more morally thorny look at how the white culprits plotted and carried out the murders. Stylistically, this feels like a young man’s movie. It’s engrossing from the get-go, the palpable tension methodically echoed by Robbie Robertson’s steady-heartbeat score. But it keeps going and going until everyone we care about is dead, dying or behind bars, with nearly an hour still in store.

Deadline’s Pete Hammond, on the other hand, had no beef with the length:

There are many ways to spoil the sheer pleasure of watching a master filmmaker handle a vast tale like this, working at the top of a very impressive game at a time when many have retired. I won’t do that except to say with a length of 3 1/2 hours the filmmaker and his longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, don’t seem to be wasting any time. Yes, it feels truly epic in many ways, but all in service to the story. I never looked at my watch.

Ditto The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney:

But the three-and-a-half-hour running time is fully justified in an escalating tragedy that never loosens its grip — a sordid illustration of historical erasure with echoes in today’s bitterly divisive political gamesmanship.

Indiewire’s David Ehrlich, who gave it a B+, praises the film but also points to what he sees as its shortcomings:

And yet, the “Reign of Terror” — which came in the wake of an oil discovery that made the members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma the richest people per capita on planet Earth — proves to be an uncomfortably vast backdrop for Scorsese’s more intimate brand of crime saga. The book from which “Killers of the Flower Moon” has been adapted is a sweeping tale about the end of the Wild West and the birth of the 20th century, as the author David Grann devotes roughly equal time to the modern sociopath who orchestrated the Osage slayings and the old-fashioned cowboy who J. Edgar Hoover dispatched to stop him. Scorsese’s more narrowly focused version takes stock of those tectonic shifts in our nation’s history, but only in passing. Its primary interest is limited to the sinister mastermind and his favorite lapdog, two beady-eyed fucks whose understanding of the new American landscape was limited to the belief that it still belonged to them.

Rolling Stone’s David Fear calls it an M-word:

Structured as the sort of throwback, big-picture epic that characterized ambitious moviemaking in the 1970s and early ’80s, Killers of the Flower Moon is, at its core, a love story. But it’’s also a mystery, albeit not one with simplistic whodunnit solutions; a highly gothic take on the white-hat horse operas of yesteryear; a star vehicle, featuring a career-best performance from an actor whose talent too often gets eclipsed by his celebrity; a continuation of a sui generis 50-year collaboration between two artists/coupla guys from Little Italy; and an indictment of white supremacy, then and now. Above all, it’s a Martin Scorsese picture, brimming with reverence for a culture that survived a horrible trauma as it is filled with exhilarating flourishes, film history references, and explorations of the faultline between the sacred and profane. And yes: It’s a masterpiece.

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw connects to Scorsese’s past work, which is often about the sociopathy of the moneyed and powerful:

With co-writer Eric Roth, Scorsese crafts an epic of creeping, existential horror about the birth of the American century, a macabre tale of quasi-genocidal serial killings which mimic the larger erasure of Native Americans from the US. It places in the drama’s foreground a gaslit marriage of lies and poisoned love. It echoes Scorsese’s earlier work about mob violence, mob loyalty and the final, inevitable sellout to the federal authorities, whose own bad faith gradually emerges. But in the end, this film is about what all westerns are about, and perhaps all history: the brutal grab for land, resources and power.

So does The Los Angeles Times’ Justin Chang, who also states that he can’t wait to watch it again so he can better wrestle with its ambitions.

In the background of all the dense, teeming action you may hear reverberant echoes of “Goodfellas” and “The Irishman,” “Gangs of New York” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” among other indelible American epics of organized crime and tribalist violence. But you will also hear — in the agonized cries and silences of an Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart (a superb Lily Gladstone), Ernest’s wife — a story of this nation’s original sin, here compounded to a degree of monstrosity and horror that can give even a chronicler of human evil as seasoned as Scorsese pause.

For the rest of you, you’ll have to wait till October 6 to make your mind up.

The San Antonio Spurs are apparently very good at getting the top pick in the NBA Draft when a franchise-changing big man is on the line. The team previously got the No. 1 pick in 1987 when David Robinson was available for selection, and did it again in 1997 when Tim Duncan was in the Draft.

In 2023, the ping pong balls bounced the team’s way once more, and as a result, the overwhelming likelihood is that French big man Victor Wembanyama will begin his NBA career as a member of the Spurs. And as it turns out, one of the franchise’s other No. 1 overall picks is going to have a vested interest in helping him get used to life in the league, according to Marc Stein’s latest newsletter.

At the behest of longtime Spurs patriarch Gregg Popovich, Tim Duncan agreed to join Pop’s coaching staff for the 2019-20 campaign interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. That one season was enough for Duncan to reaffirm what many suspected and what he surely already knew—full-time coaching isn’t for him—but the expectation is that he will regularly visit the team’s practice facility to work with Wembanyama when the Spurs are home.

As Stein mention, Duncan has previously served on Pop’s staff, but stepped down after 16 months at the helm. At the very least, he’ll be about as good of a mentor for Wembanyama as he can get early on in his career.

Megan Thee Stallion‘s music has been immortalized on wax. But now, her likeness is immortalized in wax. Madame Tussauds has revealed a pair of wax figures crafted in the fashion of the Hot Girl Coach herself.

One of the wax figures is dressed up in a matching pant and coat set, with print headlines, reminiscent of the aesthetic from Meg’s debut album, Good News. Another was wearing a sequined, metallic, two-piece set, with a matching hat.

While Madame Tussauds wax figures tend to be a hit or a miss, the general consensus among the Hotties seems to be that the resemblance to Meg is uncanny.

“So glad Madame Tussauds did right by Megan’s Wax Figure,” said one fan on Twitter.

“Madame Tussauds’ Megan Thee Stallion wax figures look good af,” said another fan. “One of the best celebrity wax figures I’ve seen by far. Ate and left no crumbs.”

Even Megan herself was impressed by the wax figures. In a video shared to social media, Meg is seen, almost unable to pick her jaw up off of the ground.

The wax figures will be on display at Madame Tussauds museums in New York and Las Vegas.

You can see Megan’s reaction above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

A.J. Brown was nearly hit by a car on Saturday morning while participating in a charity event. Brown, the All-Pro wide receiver that the Philadelphia Eagles acquired in a trade from the Tennessee Titans last year, was one of the players who participated in the bike ride portion of an annual event put on by the team that looks to raise money for the Eagles Autism Foundation.

While streaming on Instagram Live, Brown came to an intersection and very nearly got hit by a car, which led to him dropping his phone.

It’s a really scary sight, but Brown went to Twitter after this started to make its way around the internet and let everyone know that he is ok.

Brown followed this up by having a sense of humor about things, joking (we think!) that the person who ran the stop sign might have been a fan of the Dallas Cowboys.

The most important thing, of course, is that Brown is fine and was able to avoid getting hurt in a situation that can end up being very, very serious. As for the event, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie announced that the organization was able to raise $6 million this year, which is a record for a single year.