Category: Worldwide

The only thing scarier than Vecna? A cranky neighbor.

Dave and Audrey Appel, a couple living in Plainfield, Illinois, built an impressive Halloween display in their front yard, with the centerpiece being a mannequin of Max from Stranger Things seemingly floating in the air. A TikTok of their work went viral with over 14 million views, but the spooky season production vanished after a neighbor “took issue with crowds coming to look at the display,” according to CBS News (via the Herald-News). “Thus, the Appel family decided to take down the levitating Max and the rest of the decorations after the display was open for just two nights.”

Dwayne English, spokesperson for the Joliet Police Department, said officers did respond to a complaint about increased traffic due to the display about 9 p.m. Sunday. “Officers spoke to the owners of the display who indicated that they would take it down if problems persisted,” English said in a written statement. “No further enforcement action was taken or needed.”

There’s hope that Max will rise again, though. “Yesterday, we were planning our tear down. Today we woke up to a flood of overwhelming support telling us to wait,” the couple, who go by HorrorProps, wrote on Instagram. “We are not going to let one crazy neighbor ruin the fun for the amazing families and Stranger Things fans who have visited.” They did, however, ask people to stop visiting the house until the dust settles.

Unless Kate Bush wants to drop by. She’s welcome anytime.

(Via Herald-News)

For a good while now, Coldplay has been touring in support of their latest album, Music Of The Spheres. At least for a bit, though, proceedings will have to be put on pause as singer Chris Martin deals with illness.

In an announcement shared earlier today (October 4), the band writes, “With deep regret, we’ve been forced to postpone our upcoming shows in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo until early 2023. Due to a serious lung infection, Chris has been put under strict doctor’s orders to rest for the next three weeks. We’re working as fast as possible to lock in the new dates and will follow up with more information in the next few days.”

After offering information about tickets for the Brazil shows, the note continues, “We’re optimistic that Chris will return to good health after the prescribed medical break and look forward to resuming the tour as soon as possible. To everyone affected, please accept our sincere apologies, and thank you as always for your love and support.”

Coldplay’s recent shows have been eventful: The band has covered viral hits like “Jiggle Jiggle” and “Running Up That Hill,” and Martin even designed a fan’s tattoo mid-song.

Find the announcement post below.

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

I spent most of Amsterdam half-invested, wondering what, exactly, David O. Russell was going for in this tonal ten-car pileup. In the first half, he layers bizarre choice onto bizarre choice — Christian Bale doing Wile E. Coyote by way of Wes Anderson. John David Washington, as his sidekick, barely acting. Then, just before the credits roll, Amsterdam suddenly snaps into focus, almost as if this had been the plan all along.

In retrospect it doesn’t seem like it was; more like O. Russell had been noodling around trying to find the melody, and finally did. Amsterdam goes from wacky farce to preachy allegory before finally coming to rest as a sneakily profound riff on finding personal edification, just when it matters. David O. Russell seems like he’s working through it. In the end, aren’t we all?

Amsterdam begins with a title card that reads “some of this actually happened” — one of those cutesy, post-modern artistic responsibility waivers that are somehow still in fashion. Can we be done with these? All stories are a mix of fact and fiction, either be specific about which parts are true and which parts are made up or shut up about it. Stop trying to pre-excuse yourself for story beats that don’t work.

ANYWAY, Christian Bale plays Burt, a kooky doctor with a glass eye and a complicated back brace who works helping WWI veterans like himself to become whole again. John David Washington plays Harold, ostensibly Burt’s lawyer, but, as we soon learn in a flashback, really Burt’s war buddy that he served with in an integrated unit commanded by Ed Begley Jr. After the war, Harold and Burt spent a few years in a bohemian throuple with a louche trust fund hipster named Valerie, played by Margot Robbie in full bombshell mode, which no one can really do like she can. For a time, they all lived together in an artist’s loft in Amsterdam, screwing and drinking and doing art, Weimar-style.

But that was 10 years ago, and eventually reality set in. Now Burt and Harold have been reunited by the death of their commanding officer. His daughter, played by Taylor Swift, hires them to look into the circumstances surrounding it, and just when they start getting the hint that foul play might’ve been involved, they get framed for a crime, and end up in a race against time to clear their names by unraveling a conspiracy that seems to go all the way to the top!

Like Grand Budapest Hotel before it, which was based on the writings of Stefan Zweig (an inter-war writer whose work is some of the most inspiring and heartbreaking stuff you’ll ever read), Amsterdam takes the real-life high romantic drama of the inter-war period (in which unprecedented artistic and sexual freedom eventually collided with totalitarianism on an unprecedented scale) and turns it into something like an arch dinner theater mystery. Every new character seems to be played by an actor more famous than the last, and the general tone is of hyper-real farce. It isn’t entirely believable, but we’re supposed to be okay with that because the actors seem to know it isn’t quite believable and so they’re letting us in on some inside joke. People find this kind of thing insufferably smug and they’re mostly right.

Bale goes silly, while John David Washington’s acting is only perceptible to electron microscopes, with most of the other performances landing somewhere in between (Ed Begley Jr. is also deadpan to the point of affectlessness, and it’s hard to figure to what end). The real standout, oddly, is Alessandro Nivola, who mostly underwhelmed as Dicky Moltisanti in The Many Saints Of Newark, here stealing the show as a dumb cop. Give this guy more comedic roles, please. (Likewise his partner, the never-not-great Matthias Schoenaerts)

Eventually, all these many characters, from Burt’s ruthless socialite wife, played by Andrea Riseborough, and a hero general, played by Robert De Niro, triangulate in a fascist plot afoot in the United States. Amsterdam goes from archly smug to allegorical and preachy, all set to resolve in that most tried-and-true of movie contrivances, The Big Speech That Makes A Difference.

Only, just when you think David O. Russell is going to lean on events of historical import to justify the not-quite-realness of the A-List dress-up party that came before it, O. Russell seems to acknowledge the Big Speeches That Make A Difference don’t really happen in real life. You come to realize that he isn’t making an earnest plea for how and why we should fight fascism; merely trying to work out for himself what actually matters in a world whose stronger currents are largely out of your control.

What he seems to come up with is something like, “some people are assholes, don’t be one. Hang out with your friends, love who you love, and make the art that makes you happy.”

It’s a little schmaltzy, sure, but only in the most innocent, unguarded, universal way. All of a sudden, everything from the title (“Amsterdam,” which is to Amsterdam what Tara is to Gone With The Wind) to the signature line, Harold saying of Burt that “he followed the wrong God home” not only makes sense, but hits like an emotional sledgehammer. And this smug, star-studded, treacly tonal train wreck suddenly feels like a grand slam (I’m mixing metaphors here because it feels like it suits the messy material).

In his typically fumbling, dissembling kind of way, David O. Russell does justice to the world that writers like Christopher Isherwood and Stefan Zweig memorialized in a way that Wes Anderson couldn’t, and plausibly connects it to his home country. Amsterdam is something deep disguised as something shallow.

‘Amsterdam’ premieres exclusively in theaters October 7th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. More reviews here.

In a stunning reversal, Elon Musk has reportedly agreed to acquire Twitter at the original purchase price. After rushing into the deal earlier in the year, the Tesla CEO spent the entire summer attempting to back out of the deal. The two parties were due in court later this month, but that won’t be necessary. Musk is moving forward with the purchase, and he could be the owner of Twitter in a matter of days, putting an end to all litigation.

Via CNBC:

Elon Musk has reversed course and is again proposing to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, according to sources familiar with the matter. A deal could happen as soon as Friday, the sources added.

Twitter shares jumped as much as 15% on Tuesday after Bloomberg first reported on the Tesla CEO’s plans to go forth with his deal to acquire the company. The stock was halted after the report.

As for why Musk suddenly reversed course, there are several theories on that front. The most likely reason is that he knew he would lose in Delaware Chancery Court thanks to his initial error of rushing into the deal. However, that doesn’t negate the need for funding to complete the purchase, and that’s where the conspiracy theories are flying.

A day before Musk announced that he would make good on his offer to purchase the social media platform, he was roundly embarrassed on Twitter for proposing a peace deal with Russia and Ukraine that earned him a blunt “f*ck off” from a Ukrainian ambassador. Musk’s terms were a little too favorable towards Russia, which has people speculating that the country may be helping to finance his Twitter takeover. Of course, others are arguing that Musk is simply stupid rich and totally willing to burn through his fortune to crush his opponents for mocking him. Or that he wants those comments out of the news cycle. Whatever the reason, this is apparently happening for real now.

You can see some of the reactions below:

(Via CNBC)

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got new music from Paramore, Arctic Monkeys, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and more.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Cool It Down

Yeah Yeah Yeahs returned from a nine-year hiatus to deliver their much anticipated comeback album Cool It Down. But if you’re expecting the vigor and sprite of previous albums like It’s Blitz!, you won’t find it here. Instead, Cool It Down is lush and unhurried, and songs like “Lovebomb” and “Blacktop” are languid, synth-led ballads. But there are still plenty of upbeat moments, like the vibrant “Wolf” and “Different Today,” which feature some more hard-hitting moments that sound like Yeah Yeah Yeahs at their peak.

Björk — Fossora

Groundbreaking avant-pop singer Björk hasn’t lost her innovative streak even with ten studio albums to her name. Fossora is the Icelandic singer’s latest LP since 2017’s Utopia, and it has pretty much everything you’d expect in a Björk album; ethereal soundscapes, unusual time signatures, and lot of flutes. While some songs on Utopia were inspired by bird calls, this time around Björk found her muse in fungi. Several songs reference mushrooms and she even called the LP her “mushroom album.”

Mamalarky — Pocket Fantasy

We once said Atlanta-based art-rock group Mamalarky exude cool factor, and that statement rings true now more than ever on their dreamy and brawny sophomore LP Pocket Fantasy. Throughout the 12-track album, angular guitars juxtapose vocalist Livvy Bennett’s fluttering vocals to create an entrancing mix of sonic textures that can lean a bit into math rock territory. Each song on Pocket Fantasy stands out on its own, but together completes a really strong and cohesive effort from the band.

2nd Grade — Easy Listening

Philly-based band 2nd Grade released their breezy sophomore album Easy Listening. The project makes good on the title’s promise with 16 tracks of innocuous power pop brimming with catchy riffs and comforting, autumnal tones fit to soundtrack the cool-weather season. Though the album captures a relaxed mood, the songs are a little bit disheveled, giving the album an authentic edge.

Paramore — “This Is Why”

After five long years, Paramore is returning in a big way. The band released their much-anticipated new single “This Is Why.” The song is more groovy and bass-forward than we’ve heard from Paramore in the past, igniting a new era that’s slated to be a breath of fresh air. “[‘This Is Why’] summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last 3 or 4 years,” band leader Hayley Williams says about the single. “You’d think after a global pandemic of f*cking biblical proportions and the impending doom of a dying planet, that humans would have found it deep within themselves to be kinder or more empathetic or something.”

Arctic Monkeys — “Body Paint”

Arctic Monkeys are steadily rolling out their album The Car that drops later this month. So far, the UK band released the lulling track “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball,” but they’ve now shared another look at what’s shaping up to be an all-around dreamy effort. The new track “Body Paint” follows the doleful style of their lead single, contrasting the more straightforward rock heard on their popular AM album. Alex Turner tries out a higher vocal range than what’s typical for him, which plays well with the cascading piano melodies. And since it’s an Arctic Monkeys song, it features a cinematic bridge that gives Turner a chance to rock out on guitar.

Samia — “Kill Her Freak Out”

After bursting onto the indie scene with her 2020 debut The Baby, Samia is prepping her sophomore album Honey, which she’s previewed with solemn track “Kill Her Freak Out.” The song is subdued when it comes to instrumentals, mostly leaning on a leisurely organ to set the pace. But Samia’s all-encompassing vocals take center stage on the song as she sings about some insecurities plaguing her thoughts. “I wrote ‘Kill Her Freak Out’ at my loneliest and most delusional,” she said in a statement. “I’d been quieting my true feelings for fear that someone would leave. The chorus is a reaction to constantly downplaying the emotions that felt wrong.”

Frankie Cosmos — “F.O.O.F”

Frankie Cosmos has been a staple in the indie scene since they made their 2014 debut album Zentropy. A lot of time (and a lot of music) has passed since then, but Frankie Cosmos are proving their staying power with the upcoming effort Inner World Peace. So far, the singles have shown off the band’s refined songwriting, including the latest track “F.O.O.F,” which is a sweet melody about setting boundaries and even references last album in the lyrics. “For me, ‘F.O.O.F’ is about creating random boundaries and schedules for yourself in an attempt to feel in control,” vocalist Greta Kline says about the track.

Sorry — “Closer”

UK five-piece Sorry are solidifying their bid to become the next buzzy indie group with their sophomore album Anywhere But Here. Their latest track “Closer” emulates ’90s alt-rock, featuring grungy guitars and lead singer Asha Lorenz’s at-times apathetic lyrical delivery. “It’s about the person that we are made into sometimes by experiences or desire, and the shame that comes with that,” she says of the song’s inspiration. “It also is about addiction and the circular spiral of its pattern, rotating and returning.”

Jean Dawson — “Sick Of It*”

Pop punk disruptor Jean Dawson is taking his creative vision to the next level with his new album Chaos Now*, which drops Friday. His final single “Sick Of It*” shows off his cutting-edge songwriting. The song starts off immediately hype and maintains an energetic streak with propulsive beats and Dawson’s swaggering lyrics.

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

The title track of Brandi Carlile‘s 2007 album The Story has taken on many lives over the last 15 years, including placement in that unforgettable Grey’s Anatomy musical episode. Today (October 4), yet another chapter was added to “The Story” lore. Japanese Breakfast has given us a touching cover of the song for The North Face’s sentimental “It’s More Than A Jacket” campaign.

“It’s a bit intimidating because there’s a lot of belting, which is typically not my wheelhouse,” Japanese Breakfast lead vocalist Michelle Zauner told WWD. “I wanted to create a stripped down version that relied more on an acoustic guitar and a really beautiful string arrangement and a strong vocal performance. Luckily, I had the opportunity to record it at Electric Lady Studios in New York. I feel like the key to recording these arrangements really well is to perform them — it’s really served by performing in a very high quality studio with a really talented engineer.”

Zauner added that she identified with The North Face’s campaign “as a storyteller,” noting, “As someone who works in many different mediums, I feel like that’s always sort of been my motivation — to tell these types of stories.”

The 90-second ad begins with an elderly man putting on his red North Face as photos from the past flicker across the screen. He zips it up and heads out from his cabin into the snow, coinciding with a young girl being zipped up in her purple North Face puffer. Various people explore while wearing North Face jackets — in the snow, on the mountains, by the fire. We’re left with a young woman, presumably our opening man’s granddaughter, taking his red jacket from the same coat hanger and putting it on.

The campaign debuts after The North Face mourned the death of Hilaree Nelson last week. The professional ski mountaineer and captain for North Face had gone missing on Mount Manaslu in Nepal. Last month, Japanese Breakfast canceled an upcoming Toronto show to attend the funeral of a friend.

Japanese Breakfast returned to the stage to open for Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ monumental hometown New York show at Forest Hills Stadium on Saturday (October 1). Japanese Breakfast’s remaining North American headlining Jubilee Tour dates are set to wind down this month before the alt-pop powerhouse supports Paramore on October 14 and hits the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Listen to Japanese Breakfast’s full “The Story” cover above.

You probably know Michael Giacchino as the composer of an almost endless amount of movie scores. There’s Ratattouille, 2009’s Star Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One, and numerous Marvel entries, including all three MCU Spider-Man movies. After directing a Star Trek short film in 2019, Giacchino set his sites on the MCU … throwing a bit of a curve ball at Marvel head Kevin Feige by pitching a monster story. Specifically, Werewolf by Night.

It makes a lot of sense for Marvel to delve into some horror, especially as we approach Halloween. (It will begin streaming on Disney+ on Oct 7th.) Marvel has a whole cavalcade of horror-themed characters just waiting to be used. And Giachino and his team were smart to make this a completely self-contained horror special. Just like the comics from that era, the story is accessible, spooky, and, coming in at under an hour, a tight little story.

Gael García Bernal plays Jack Russell, who is also the title character of the show. A meeting is being held with all the great monster hunters of the world, and Jack is also in attendance, and some of the other attendees might be surprised to learn who he really is. Ahead, Giacchino explains his love of monsters and why, more than any other property, he wanted to tackle Werewolf by Night. Also, he explains how another fairly esoteric Marvel character wound up in his film: yes the one and only Man-Thing.

Werewolf by Night seemed to come out of nowhere. It was announced at D23 and now here it is…

Yeah, we’ve been working on this for about two years maybe, and we first talked about it first almost, I don’t know, three and a half years ago, maybe four? I can’t remember the exact first time we had the first conversation. But when it got going in earnest, it’s been about two years now.

By the way, congratulations on who you got to do the score. I’ve heard he does good work.

[Laughs] Yeah, he’s a pain in the butt to work with, but he does okay work.

How does this happen? How do you wind up direct directing Werewolf by Night?

Well, it all just came out of a conversation I was having with Kevin Feige one day. And he said, “Well, if you wanted to direct something, what would you want to do?” We were talking about under the Disney umbrella and under Marvel specifically. And I said instantly, “Oh, Werewolf by Night. Absolutely.” And he was like, “Really?” And I was like, “Yeah, I loved that comic as a kid. I love monster movies, I love them. I think that’s a part of the Marvel universe that you have yet to explore. So I’d love to be able to dive into that.”

I felt like they had done so well in the other side of things, the superhero side. And I didn’t know if there was anything I could actually add to that, but this was something that had not been touched. So I felt like that would’ve been the thing for me. And especially, again, because of my love of old monster movies: especially the Universal, the Hammer films, Japanese Monster movies, all of those things. My brother and I spent every Saturday morning growing up watching Creature Double Feature. And that was like our church.

When I first started reading comics, the first thing I read was my dad’s ’70s monster comics like Werewolf By Night and Where Monsters Dwell because they were easily accessible. And some of them were actually pretty scary.

They’re very scary and the artwork is incredible on them, too. There’s so many of them that have beautiful artwork. But they had a great run of Werewolf by Night obviously. And then later on, they did Man-Wolf, and then they have The Tomb of Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster. One of my favorites is the run of Frankenstein. And that’s an incredible story. And the thing about them all at the center of it is pathos for these characters. These characters were always struggling to figure out what was going on. How can they undo this curse that they had? And I just liked that idea that they were such sympathetic characters.

I was very excited when Man-Thing shows up. How did you convince anyone to let you make a Man-Thing show basically? Do people still know Man-Thing?

I think if people know him today, it’s because they’re super fans and they’re niche. But the general public probably has no idea what Man-Thing is. I love Man-Thing. I always loved those comics for the exact reason we were talking earlier about: this was a character who was cursed in a way and dealt this card, which he was going to live out his life like this. And he was a character that has a very fuzzy memory of who he is. And every time you’d read one of those stories, there was such sadness to it. And I was really attracted to that. Now, Kevin Feige also loves Man-Thing, has a huge spot in his heart for Man-Thing…

To be fair, he loves all these characters. There’s not many Marvel characters he doesn’t love.

He does love all of them. But I remember him leaning over one day, “What you think about Man-Thing?” And I was like, “What? Really? We could do that? Fine, that sounds great to me.” So we started working him into the story as well. And it was just in some ways with everything they have, it’s an embarrassment of riches. And the characters, if you really delve deep into them, they’re actually pretty complex characters and a lot of them have a lot to say and a lot to explore, especially on the horror side. So yeah, that’s how it happened. It all comes out of these crazy conversations you’re having. And they are no different than the conversations you would have with your friends when you were 10 or 12 years old. It’s the same sort of conversations.

Do you remember the Swamp Thing movie, the Wes Craven movie?

Oh yeah.

That was on cable nonstop. And I asked my dad to get me Swamp Thing comics, obviously DC, and I think he made the mistake and came home with Man-Thing comics instead. So I started reading Man-Thing. Which I liked a lot.

Or maybe he knew what was better for you?

Maybe that’s true. How do you want viewers to approach your Werewolf by Night? It’s really its own thing. And like we mentioned with the comics, it’s very accessible. You don’t need to know anything.

That was the key from the very beginning to say that, look, we’re just going to do something that begins here and ends here. I’m not worried about what happens before or after. I’m just worried about this. It’s one night in the life of Elsa and Jack, and let’s do that. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode. So that means we need to tell the whole story here. And anything that is not relevant, we don’t worry about. And that way people can jump in, enjoy it for what it is, and then we’ll see where it goes. We’ll see what happens. Maybe they’ll be more, maybe there won’t. I don’t know! We’re going to figure that out as we go. But, right now, it was just about telling this one simple story.

You watch The Twilight Zone and every single one, you didn’t need to see any other Twilight Zone as long as you just get there at the beginning and watch it and see what happens. And I felt like there’s so much connectivity going on in the MCU at the moment that I just felt like introducing new characters – introducing a whole new world of characters and all the horror universe – it was just too much to ask. To then also want to connect it to Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Captain America, whatever. And Kevin agreed always. And that’s why the show starts with that image, that silhouette of The Avengers, and says, look, this is the known universe, but what about the darkness? Here, let’s go explore something we don’t know. And so that’s why we did that. And it seems to work. People seem to have fun. And we also had mythology on our side in terms of you say, “Werewolf,” people inherently understand what that is.

Okay, that’s true. People know what night is, too. “Oh, it’s a werewolf, and he’s out at night.”

Yes, exactly. So you have that on your side, all of those things that have been around forever. So that really helps as well. Even if they don’t know the character, they certainly know what werewolves are, and they know the inherent dangers in one as well. So we just kept pushing forward and hope for the best.

So I know we both just made a big deal about how this doesn’t really connect to anything else. But I can’t help but remember that Moon Night debuted in an issue of Werewolf by Night. So those two could meet I guess, right?

They could. Yeah, certainly. There are no rules at this point, and now you can just do whatever you want…

It was kind of a different Moon Knight back then though.

Yes, he was a very different Moon Knight. Yes, yes, he was. In that issue, he was paid, he was hunting the werewolf. He needed to kill the werewolf for $10,000 or something like that. It’s a very interesting story because through the issue, he ends up understanding the werewolf and in the end just lets him go and kills all the people that had hired him to be killed. So it’s a really fun story actually.

Well, Moon Night would need that $10,000 to buy that issue now because that issue is extremely expensive.

It is.

For people wanting to go back and read a bunch of Werewolves by Nights from the ’70s, that one is going to cost you.

And as these shows come out now, I’m sure all the Werewolf by Night issues will go up.

I have noticed that every time something comes out, they all skyrocket. So speaking of that, let’s get some insider trading here. What would you want to do? The next horror character after Werewolf by Night?

Oh man. I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of ideas, but we have yet to have that conversation. I mean, we loosely talk about things, but we have yet to have the official sit down. It was really just up to this point, just getting this thing done was an enormous amount of work.

Also, this clocks in at under an hour. I don’t know how long you wanted it to be, but it just seems like the perfect amount of physical time too for this story.

That’s what we always shot for. We always said, look, let’s just keep it under an hour, and we’ll see where it goes. And there was never any sort of mandate as “It must be exactly this,” but we did shoot to keep it under an hour. And the story just naturally fell into that perfectly. We didn’t have too much twisting for that.

Would it be hard to do one of these every Halloween? I’m guessing you’d have to start by now…

Yeah, it would probably be very hard. We probably have had to start that up half a year ago, or a year ago, something like that, in order to really get going. And this one, being the first of its kind, was sort of just an experiment in itself. Let’s see what happens when we do this.

Are you given any barometers? How do you know how it does?

No one does. I have no idea either. It’s a mystery to us all. There’s one guy in a room somewhere at Disney, and he knows all the answers, and I don’t know who that guy is.

I think his name’s Kevin Feige.

Yeah, he probably knows.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The “Gangsta’s Paradise” rapper had big plans before his sudden passing in late September: TMZ reports that the rapper had plans to headline his first-ever Vegas residency this month.

Right before he died, Coolio was with Fan Rebellion, a production company that produces an ongoing Vegas residency show called Boombox!, held at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. Boombox! helps garner support for old-school hip hop acts from the ’80s and ’90s — and has booked big names like CeeLo Green, Tone Loc, and more. It makes sense why they were in contact with the late rapper.

Fan Rebellion’s Chief Creative Officer, Jimmy Maynes, told TMZ that the plan was to have Coolio headline the show starting at the end of October and running through the second week of November. The gig was for ten days, with one performance per day, five days a week, for ten total appearances.

Maynes also noted that Coolio would’ve been one of a handful of MCs — he’d be the headliner — and Maynes says he would’ve only done three songs when he was up. The tracks considered were “Gangsta’s Paradise,” “1, 2, 3, 4,” and “C U When U Get There.”

Unfortunately, he died before he could enter that chapter of his career. Maynes said they’re now scrapping that late October window and hoping to pick it back up in December with a new lineup and plans to incorporate a Coolio tribute into each show.

There is not a television show out that does a better job of capturing the authenticity of sports fans — both casual and diehard — than ABC’s Abbott Elementary.

The Philadelphia-set comedy has done an unbelievable job of working in sports references, jokes, and appearances that feel incredibly natural, which is quite the accomplishment for a sitcom based around elementary school teachers. Already this season they have turned the parking lot into an Eagles tailgate and had a delightful Gritty appearance in the season premiere, following it up with a rather incredible one-liner about Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) having to go to court for throwing things at Ben Simmons in last week’s episode.

Tonight’s episode will continue the Philly sports references as they do their Halloween episode, where Janine (Quinta Brunson) dresses as James Harden, complete with cornrows and an incredible fake beard. The still shots from the episode hit Twitter early this week and on Monday they even made it to Harden (which is an accomplishment since he famously “doesn’t have the internet”), who is seemingly a fan of Brunson’s cosplay.

The beard really makes this, as it’s so preposterously big that it’s perfect, and it’s all incredibly on brand for a show that has captured the essence of Philly sports fandom extremely well in its first season-plus.

Two of Puerto Rico’s rising stars, Alejo and Robi, are taking on the music of reggaeton music’s pioneers. Today (October 4), they released their covers that are re-imagining classics by Daddy Yankee and Wisin y Yandel.

Alejo and Robi have become breakout stars this year thanks to the success of their hit “Pantysito.” After teasing the song on TikTok late last year, Colombian singer Feid heard it and wanted to be a part of it. In May, Alejo and Robi released “Pantysito” with Feid and their collaboration has amassed over 175 million streams on Spotify. The alluring music video that the trio shot in Las Vegas has over 53 million views on YouTube.

As part of the Amazon Original series, Alejo and Robi are singing the music reggaeton music’s pioneers. First up, Alejo covered “Sexy Movimiento” by Wisin y Yandel. The duo first released the song in 2007 as part of the Wisin vs. Yandel: Los Extraterrestres album. Alejo had his work cut out for him because he sang both Wisin y Yandel’s parts by himself. He perfectly captured the aggressive attitude behind Wisin’s rhymes while channeling Yandel’s romantic flow. Alejo’s cover can be streamed in full on Amazon Music here.

Robi also had some big shoes to fill. He covered the Daddy Yankee’s classic “Tu Príncipe.” Daddy Yankee first released the song as collaboration with Zion y Lennox from his groundbreaking 2004 album Barrio Fino. The sound of Robi’s version is faithful to the original with the perreo-ready beats. Robi turned up the heat to match the song’s sexy swagger. His cover can be streamed in full here.

Back in June, Alejo released the electronic-infused EP Full Discoteka. Robi is exploring more pop-driven sounds in his recent singles like “Garabatos” with Jay Wheeler and the funky “Robot.”