---

View Entire Post ›

There’s something soothing about hearing the voice of Ed Helms on the other end of a phone call. Yes, it’s a voice we all know very well – an often frantic voice when it belongs to Helms’ Andy Bernard from The Office – but the actual Helms is such a calm, cool and just plain doggone nice customer, well, it’s just a much needed pleasant and calming experience.

Helms is promoting Coffee & Kareem, his new Netflix movie which premiered this past weekend and is, frankly, pretty insane. Helms plays James Coffee, a Detroit police officer who teams up with a 12-year-old kid to help bring down a drug ring. (I know this sounds like a movie “for the whole family,” but it is most definitely, let’s say, not that.

Also, it’s been five years since Helms starred as Rusty Griswold in the Vacation sequel, reboot, a movie that wasn’t received favorably at the time, but since has found a bit of a new life, especially after its directors (John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein) hit big with Game Night. Helms is still immensely proud of Vacation (as he should be, because it’s hilarious), and has a theory about what happened and the shift we saw in comedies around that same time.

And we discussed that scene from The Office when he and Rainn Wilson have a guitar/banjo duel to John Denver’s “Country Roads” for the affection of Ellie Kemper’s Erin. (This scene is mostly brought up because I’ve been watching a lot of The Office lately and anytime this scene comes on it puts me in a good mood no matter what.) Helms says he and Rainn Wilson still talk about this scene quite a bit and are thinking about recording a new version. I tried to implore with him that, yes, right bout now would be a great time for that.

Ed Helms: Hey, how are ya?

I don’t know how to answer that anymore. It’s a complicated answer these days.

Well, we got time. Go for it. Just dive in. Yeah, it is complicated. It’s too complicated.

Well, I live in New York City…

Well, yeah, let’s get into it. And it is a crazy time. I mean, thankfully I will say that the people in New York are modeling a level of heroism and just badass energy that I’m in awe of and so grateful for. Because it’s keeping me going and feeling okay about things. Like when I saw those firemen cheering for all of the medical workers? I mean, that’s what we need more of right now. That stuff, that’s the human spirit stuff that’s going to get us all the way through this.

It was weird the first day everyone started cheering at 7pm for the medical workers out the window, because it’s kind of weird just to hear screaming coming from everywhere down your street. I now find it comforting.

Yeah, totally. And honestly, in my neighborhood in Los Angeles, the same thing started happening and the first time I heard it I thought there was a riot starting or something. And then as soon as we caught on, we just went out on our back porch and started screaming with everybody else. Yeah, now it’s a nice weird communal experience that we’re all sharing for a good cause.

What have you been doing to pass the time? Other than doing press, which I guess is something to do. If I’m you I wouldn’t like doing press, but I might not mind it right now.

Yeah, that’s true. I think most of what I’m up to is press, for Coffee & Kareem. And then I’m also in regular writing meetings with the writing staff of my new show, Rutherford Falls, that’ll be on Peacock sometime in the future. It was supposed to be in production this week, but obviously that’s punted and we’ll just see what happens. But we’re still writing and meeting regularly. And then of course, we have a two-year-old, so that’s a lot.

Yes, you have your hands full.

So we’re trying to be there for our child and each other and also give each other some space. I mean, you know what, all things considered, it’s going well. We just don’t have a lot to complain about given what so many other people are going through.

So Coffee & Kareem is nuts. For me, it came along at just the right time. I was all in.

And all I can say is yeah, we’re just so proud of it. And I think, when you work on something like this and then a global pandemic happens, there’s a part of you that feels like, well, what on earth is funny in the world right now? There’s nothing funny in the world right now. I mean, it’s hard to feel, it seems hard to enjoy a lot of things right now. And then the other part of it is, well, we want to find these distractions or things that we can talk to our friends about and laugh about. And I just hope, my biggest hope for this movie now, is just that it brings people some bit of relief and some laughs and distraction from all the insanity out there.

Well, it’s weird because I agree with what you said, what’s funny right now? But this isn’t like past tragedies where it’s only about trying to get your mind off of it. In this case, it actually serves a purpose of keeping people inside. And I don’t want to say it’s specifically watching this movie, but it is a new movie out this weekend. And doing anything inside is actually doing your part to help.

Yeah, that is a great take on it. It is all of our social responsibility or moral responsibility to stay home and to socially distance and things that make that easier are good. And yeah, that’s a good way to look at it.

At what point when you were filming this were you like, “This movie is insane?”

Obviously the script was insane from the get-go. So there was never any illusions that we weren’t making a completely insane movie. But it always gets more real and amped up once you’re on the set. And you’re doing these big crazy stunts and you’re screaming at each other and just fully committing to these big crazy jokes, and praying to God that they work. And the other thing was that as insane as it is, and even edgy and trash talky and whatever, the movie itself is not mean spirited. It actually has a pretty sweetheart to it. And there’s a good, I don’t know, life-affirming morals that come out of it.

Well, it made me happy.

I’m really glad to hear you say that. It means a lot and, again, the place where we’re at in this moment, it’s the best I can hope for is that it gives people some brief escape from whatever they’re dealing with and dwelling on. Yeah.

Are you aware of the reassessment of your Vacation? It started after the same directors did Game Night. People went back and watched Vacation and are coming around on it.

That’s really awesome. I am not aware of this. Where can I find some Vacation affirmation? I love that movie so much. I’m so proud of it.

I’ve written about it. I know Bilge Ebiri at New York magazine loves it. If I mention it on Twitter people start replying with “faucets.”

Man, that really, really warms my heart. I’m so grateful for all of that. Everyone involved in that movie was so proud of it and just thought, this is a really fun movie. It came out in a moment where it was one of the first comedies that hit about $15 million box office its opening weekend, and it was considered a bomb. But it was basically, that was a bellwether because very few comedies since then ever made more than that. So, it was actually, I think unfairly, compared to everything that came before it as opposed to measured on the new yardstick that was affecting the comedy box office overall. And so, I do hear from a lot of people after the movie came out. I would be on airplanes and see over people’s shoulders that they were watching it and I could just hear them laughing really hard. It really was gratifying to see people enjoying it.

See.

We just had so much fun making that movie.

Finally, people are listening to reason. This is a hilarious movie.

Well, that’s so good to hear. I remember thinking, “Man, if I could just play Rusty Griswold for the rest of my life, I could do a lot worse.” But now we’ll see what happens with James Coffee.

Obviously a lot of people are watching The Office right now. One of my favorite scenes is the one with you and Rainn Wilson dueling on John Denver’s “Country Roads. It’s pure joy.

Well, that is awesome. And you know what, Rainn and I talk about that scene all the time because it also is something that I think a lot of fans latched on to, that moment. And we talk about maybe trying to do a special version of it or something, but just because we connected with that, too. That’s one of the scenes that we as a cast love just as much as the fans for sure. And it’s a great song. I mean, John Denver!

Well, if you’re going to do a special version, pretty soon is a good time. I suspect people would like that.

Yeah, you’re right. You’re right! People are starved for anything.

You’d have to do it over FaceTime or something. But it would still be great.

Hey, I really want to thank you for the positive energy and reinforcement on this, and Vacation. Oh and The Office. It’s really nice to hear. I really appreciate it.

You know what, I’ll throw in Cedar Rapids, too. That was on cable the other night. I watched it. Good movie!

Awesome. Well, thanks so much.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, people around the world are starting to adapt to new home-based lifestyles. Zoom has become a popular platform for keeping in touch with friends, family, co-workers, and more, but Billie Eilish isn’t about that.

In an interview on the Telekom Electronic Beats podcast, Eilish says she hasn’t been using video chat apps like Zoom to maintain communication with people, saying that she’s instead enjoying the alone time:

“I have not. If I’m being honest, I haven’t wanted to. It sounds so introverted and lonerish, but I’ve been really enjoying being alone, you know, and that’s like, the rest of my life is like that, which is totally fine. I just have to be aware of it. But it’s been nice. I don’t know, I feel like everybody on the internet has been talking about like, they’ve been on FaceTime all day long with their friends, and I kind of have this feeling of like, I love my friends, I can’t wait to see them, I do miss them a lot, but at the same time I’m like, I don’t know, I’m good. I’m good being alone, I like being alone. […] I haven’t had this time off since like I was like 12, so yeah, it’s crazy.”

What Eilish has been busy doing is performing from her home. In recent days, she performed on two coronavirus relief specials, and she has one more on the way.

Listen to the full podcast episode below.

Back in 2018 when Travis Scott first released his opus Astroworld, excited fans were confused by one track in particular on the album. “Yosemite,” the 12th song and third single from the album, featured a peculiar volume issue. While Travis and guest rapper Gunna sounded just fine, the other guest on the song, Nav, was nearly inaudible, his verse mixed at a completely different level than the rest of the song. The error became the subject of memes on social media before eventually being remastered.

Yesterday, Genius finally solved the mystery of why Nav’s vocals were so much quieter in the mix in an interview with Cashpassion, Cactus Jack Records’ in-house engineer. Cashpassion, aka Jimmy Cash, explained the mixing mix-up, saying it was a simple oversight amid a hectic release deadline push. “We were just going on overdrive, over time,” he elaborated. ‘We were just doing so much at once. I got in a crazy car wreck on my way to Mike Dean’s on the last day when we were turning in the cleans, right after we turned in the album. I got clipped by a little semi up in Studio City on the way up to Mike’s. I was okay and everything but my car was totaled, it was crazy. So we were just on overdrive and I think that was just an honest slip-up. Something happened, I don’t know. It was kind of strange.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Cash speaks on the proliferation of “Travis Scott Type Beats” and “How To Make A Travis Scott Song” videos online, the potential for Cactus Jack signee Don Toliver to be a star, and naturally, how the pandemic is affecting the Cactus Jack label head’s workflow.

Read the full interview with Cashpassion here.

After 11 seasons, ABC’s Modern Family is coming to an end tomorrow with a two-part finale entitled, fittingly, “Finale.” As someone who hasn’t regularly tuned in since season five, when it won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for a fifth straight year (!), I cannot speak to the quality of the show. So, I’ll leave it up to Sarah Hyland.

The actress, who plays Claire and Phil Dunphy’s daughter Haley, told Cosmopolitan that she was disappointed with how her character’s arc came to an end. She wanted to see Haley “own her badassery in the fashion world, becoming a badass stylist or brand mogul or anything like that.” Instead, she had twins, and became defined by her struggles with parenthood. “There are so many amazing mothers who are also hard workers and excel at their jobs and kill it every day in both aspects,” Hyland said. “That would have been a really cool thing to see, especially from someone like Haley.”

This isn’t the first time Hyland has expressed her irritation with Modern Family. When fans noticed that Haley was absence from over half the episodes in the final season, she tweeted, “Apparently I’ve been busy with the twins.” Hyland also didn’t know that Haley’s grandfather Frank (played by the great Fred Willard) died until the episode aired. “So I don’t read scripts of the episodes of Modern Family that I’m not in, so I just found out that my grandpa’s dead along with all of you,” she said on Instagram. “I still feel special.”

If that’s what happened to Haley these past six seasons, I can’t wait to learn what Manny is up to. Oh, he’s still the worst? Never mind. The Modern Family series finale airs Wednesday, April 8, at 8 pm EST.

(Via Cosmopolitan)

Given Tiger King‘s enormous popularity and the short-lived nature of Netflix’s “Most Popular” feature, the big-cat documentary series can already claim a record for holding the top spot for the longest time. What a strange time we’re living in, for multiple reasons, but Joe Exotic fans can at least take comfort in news that a spinoff series about the cold case of Carole Baskin’s missing husband (Don Lewis) is in the works. So maybe a decades-old mystery shall finally be solved, and one certainly can’t expect Baskin to be thrilled about that one, but she’s also resisting something closer on the horizon for what’s now a burgeoning franchise.

As previously reported, featured player Jeff Lowe has claimed that a new episode for the main series, an apparent reunion installment, is on the way, although that sounds sketchy, at best. At least, the timing sounds off. Not much in the way of a production can go down during a pandemic due to social distancing, but Lowe seemed pretty insistent in his claims. Well, Baskin’s team has now weighed in with Entertainment Weekly to shut down any hopes that she might join the party. As her rep stated, “We have not been approached about a new episode and would not participate if asked.”

Word on the “reunion” aspect comes courtesy of Joe Exotic’s husband, Dillon Passage, who said that he wasn’t invited either, but he did know some insider information. Here’s what he told Andy Cohen:

“It’s going to be like a live-based episode, I believe. Kind of like a reunion. But no, Netflix did not contact me to be a part of that. I’m not sure completely on the details. I only spoke with one of the producers a little while about it because I was asking her. I saw an article saying there was gonna be another episode dropped and I was kind of curious.”

So, the reunion episode is happening? Well, it sounds like this might be legit, and I have little doubt that it will happen eventually, but a fast turnaround just isn’t realistic right now for any sort of production, whether that’s big-budget Hollywood stuff or someone pointing an iPhone at Jeff Lowe for a big-cat reunion party. The mystery shall remain for now, until we see that alleged reunion episode land on the Netflix Most Popular list, five seconds after release.

(Via Entertainment Weekly & Andy Cohen on Sirius XM)

For years now, we have been tracking several recurring bits in both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. Chief among them is the black helicopter that has been peppered into the last few seasons of both shows; the CRM logo on that helicopter; the people of the CRM military organization; and the way that they divide people into As or Bs.

The timeline, from what we can surmise, looks a little like this: around eight years before the present timeline, Jadis had been in frequent contact with CRM. Eventually, a CRM helicopter picked up Jadis and Rick Grimes — an “A” — after he severely injured himself saving Alexandria from a horde of zombies. A few months later, a CRM helicopter was stranded in Texas with Althea on Fear the Walking Dead.

The World Beyond, meanwhile, appears to be about a heavily-militarized community that includes CRM soldiers, perhaps the same soldiers we saw Michonne follow in her last appearance on The Walking Dead. Meanwhile,

The World Beyond, a 20-episode limited series, will about a group of teenagers who seem to be trying to leave the CRM behind.

Elsewhere, in the promo for The Walking Dead season finale — air date TBA — Gabriel refers to the “others,” which probably means CRM, Maggie’s group in The Commonwealth, and perhaps Stephanie’s group.

The point being: The universe of The Walking Dead is about to get much larger. We just need for producers and the cast and crew of these shows to be able to start making new episodes again. In the meantime, we’ll hang tight and wait for a new release date for all three series.

Incarcerated Gifford, Florida rapper YNW Melly has reportedly requested an early release from prison after being diagnosed with coronavirus. According to TMZ, the 20-year-old rapper’s lawyer filed documents claiming that Melly is suffering from severe chills, heavy labored breathing, headaches, and body aches and that the facility’s staff is ill-prepared for the outbreak, lacking protective masks and cleaning supplies.

According to the documents, the “Murder On My Mind” rapper is down to 114 pounds and is not being properly monitored according to CDC guidelines. He’s reportedly sharing a cell with another inmate who has COVID-19 and Melly’s lawyer worries that they could be passing the virus back-and-forth between the two of them. Melly and his lawyer are requesting for the rapper to be released and placed on house arrest at a medical facility at his own expense. Melly’s family announced his diagnosis using his Instagram account implored his fans to #prayformelly.

Melly has been incarcerated for the last year after being arrested and charged with double murder. Authorities say that the rapper shot and killed two close friends and members of his YNW rap crew and tried to make it look like an attempt on his own life. He pleaded not guilty.

Read the original story here.

She anticipated being dragged for it, too.

---

View Entire Post ›

Lady Gaga briefly guested on The Tonight Show last week, but it did not go as planned. The goal of her appearance was to make a big announcement, but when it came time to share the news, Gaga wasn’t ready to. There were apparently still details to work out, although Gaga did offer that whatever she was going to announce was “for COVID-19.”

She promised to touch base with Jimmy Fallon in a few days, and she finally made the announcement yesterday: She and a number of musicians are teaming up with WHO and Global Citizen for One World: Together At Home, a livestream concert TV special. Gaga guested on Fallon again last night to discuss the news, and while there, she apologized for her previous appearance.

Gaga said to Fallon, “I’m so sorry. We weren’t quite ready yet, and I really appreciate you being so nice about it, thank you. I love you, I love your viewers, and everyone at home watching. I just wish everybody well.” Also during the episode, she and Fallon called up Apple CEO Tim Cook and secured a big donation from him.

The event has a huge lineup, as it features Lizzo, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Finneas, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Chris Martin, Eddie Vedder, Kacey Musgraves, J Balvin, Keith Urban, Alanis Morissette, Lang Lang, Andrea Bocelli, Billie Joe Armstrong, Burna Boy, and Maluma.

One World: Together At Home premieres 4/18 at 8 p.m. EST on all major networks.

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