Few films are as loathed as Cats, the star-studded, bewilderingly misjudged movie take on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s deathless feline musical. But you know who hates it more than just about anyone? Andrew Lloyd Webber. The trauma of seeing one of his most successful shows turned into one of cinema’s biggest farts was so traumatic he even bought himself a therapy dog. But it wasn’t all bad for him. After all, he got to write a song with one of today’s biggest musicians.
As per Variety, the musical theater god recently confessed at an event that he quite liked working “Beautiful Ghosts,” a new song for the movie he composed with Taylor Swift, who played the mischievous Macavity.
“It was one of the few enjoyable experiences [on the film],” Lloyd Webber admitted. “It was probably the enjoyable experience.”
Lloyd Webber called Swift, one of many of the film’s stars who somehow escaped unscathed, a “real pro,” and praised her for digging into the source: T.S. Eliot’s poetry collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
“One of the things I was quite intrigued by, she got to the essence of what T.S. Eliot was about,” Lloyd Webber recalled. “It wasn’t just a lyric thrown together at all. I did enjoy working with her very, very, very much.”
So, good for him, because otherwise, it sounds like Lloyd Webber didn’t have a good time watching one of his shows massacred. He previously trashed the film to Variety. “Cats was off-the-scale all wrong,” he said back then. “There wasn’t really any understanding of why the music ticked at all. I saw it and I just thought, ‘Oh, God, no.’ It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog. So the one good thing to come out of it is my little Havanese puppy.”
In the meantime, Lloyd Webber can console himself with having been a wildly successful musical impresario for the last several decades, with one of them — The Phantom of the Opera — still playing on Broadway after 33 years. Speaking of bad movie musicals…
“I don’t remember your face… And I definitely would have remembered his face,’” Megan said. “I just remember this tall, blond, ghostly creature and I looked up and I was like, ‘You smell like weed.’ He looked down at me and he was like, ‘I am weed.’ Then, I swear to God, he disappeared like a ninja in a smoke bomb.”
Megan shared more of her thoughts about that night: “I think we weren’t allowed to see each other yet,” she continued. “We weren’t supposed to run into each other that night, so our souls, our spirit guides, were luring us away from each other, because you literally had no face, like that thing from Spirited Away. It is hard to see his face in general, but really he had no face that night.” To MGK: “Thank God, [because] what torture had I known you were there and I couldn’t get to you. It was better that I didn’t know.”
If that doesn’t make you want to read the whole feature, I don’t know what will! Check out the full cover story here.
Jay-Z and Kid Cudi, despite both being very popular rappers in the upper echelon of the genre’s best-known names, would seem to be diametrically opposed at first glance. Jay came up in the gritty ’90s and helped define the glitzy sound of the 2000s before settling into his elder statesman role in the last decade. Kid Cudi, however, was a part of the blog era movement to redefine rap, focusing on mental health rather than “Money, Cash, Hoes.”
But the two make for one awesome dynamic duo in the new trailer for the Netflix Western TheHarder They Fall, where a new collaboration between them can be heard as Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, and Regina King shoot at each other with old-timey revolvers. Fittingly, the song features a shootout theme, with Cudi’s chorus echoing the refrain “My guns go bang” and Jay’s verse describes a duel: “Bullets with your names, drew / Cock back, aim, shoot.”
Netflix has appeared to make an effort to reach out to both hip-hop generations in recent years; from the rap contest Rhythm + Flow to a new Kanye West documentary to a comedy special hosted by Saweetie, the streaming company has made sweeping overtures to capture a demographic with plenty of potential for all kinds of enjoyable content.
Watch the Harder They Fall trailer above and stream the film itself on Netflix on 11/3.
Britney Spears has had it rough for a while, but recently things have been on the up-and-up. She recently got engaged. What’s more, the long battle over her conservatorship, which saw her father, Jamie, still in control over much of her life and her fortune, appears to be coming to an end. It’s the latter that will be the focus of a new Netflix documentary.
It’s called Britney Vs. Spears, and it will be the second high-profile doc about the pop star’s life, following Hulu’s Framing Britney Spears. That one, released earlier this year, chronicled her rise to stardom, her oft-negative treatment by the media, her highly publicized breakdown, and, finally, her conservatorship.
Britney Vs. Spears will delve deep into that last thing, exploring how her father spent 13 years overseeing her wealth and career and shielding her from media appearances, and how Britney ended up being so tightly controlled she reportedly had to ask to borrow other people’s phones to make calls.
Jamie Spears recently offered to end his conservatorship following a long and very public battle, in which his daughter repeatedly petitioned to have a judge give it the axe. Shortly after that happened, Britney became engaged to her longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari.
Britney Vs. Spears will be directed by Erin Lee Carr, award-winning documentarian, who has often focused on true crime stories, as in Netflix’s How to Fix a Drug Scandal and HBO’s I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter. She is also the daughter of the late New York Times journalist David Carr.
Awkwafina has one of the most unlikely success stories in Hollywood, and her representation in both music and the film world has been an important step forward. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she hasn’t made missteps of her own within the comedic and accent work she’s employed in the past. In particular, the rapper and actress has faced criticism in the past for using a “blaccent,” or the current cultural shorthand for when non-Black people adopted a Black voice.
In both of her biggest films, Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8, Awkwafina has, at times, used what could qualify as a “blaccent,” and alongside that, accusations of cultural appropriation have risen as well. Though Awkwafina hasn’t spoken on the subject in the past, In the press cycle for her new movie, Shang-Chi, she was asked point blank about the topic. In her answer, she seemed to struggle to actually address the question, or whether she considered her past work appropriation. “Um, you know, I’m open to the conversation,” she began. “I think it, you know, it’s really something that is a little bit multi-faceted and layered, and so yeah.”
While that isn’t really a conversation itself, being open to it is potentially a start. To learn more about issues like the use of a blaccent and cultural appropriation, read Lauren Michele Jackson’s 2018 piece “Who Really Owns the Blaccent” for Vulture right here.
Britney Spears has been through a lot. But things for her seem to finally be back on the up-and-up. Her lengthy conservatorship battle, which saw her trying to wrestle free from the legal clutches of her father, seems to be coming to an end. And she’s now engaged, having said yes to Sam Asghari, her boyfriend of four years. Fans are so protective of her, so adamant that she be happy again, that when Octavia Spencer made a joke in her Instagram feed, it did not go well.
When Spears broke the news of her engagement on Instgram, the Oscar-winning actress did like many: She left a comment. But she didn’t just congratulate her. She winkingly advised her, “Make him sign a prenup.” Spears’ base came for Spencer. And now Spencer had left a big apology for what she said.
“Y’all, a few days ago Sam and Britney announced their engagement and me being me I made a joke,” she wrote in her own Instagram post. “My intention was to make them laugh not cause pain. I’ve reached out to this lovely couple privately to apologize and now want to restore just a smidge of happiness they were robbed of. Britney’s fans have seen her through a lot of pain and she’s found happiness. We’re thrilled for her. So let’s show them love.”
Asghari responded to Spencer’s post, telling her there’s no ill will. “You are very kind to clarify but I have had no hard feelings whatsoever,” he wrote. “Jokes and misconceptions come with the territory.” As for his fiancée, well, she happily deleted her Instagram account the other day, though she says she’s just on a break.
One of the most effective powers of horror cinema is taking the familiar and turning it on its ear to create a vessel of unease — or even outright terror. What if that seemingly innocent child was actually evil? What if, behind those friendly smiles, your neighbors were plotting horrors? What if the man in the mirror actually wanted to kill you?
In a similar manner, contemporary horror master Jordan Peele has found a new use for the most basic and versatile tool in the fear factory toolbox. While his films put novel twists on familiar frights like ambiguous racism and familial strife, he’s shown an equally innovative propensity for transforming our favorite hits, bops, and jams into the stuff of nightmares.
Like the build of tension over the course of the first act, his initial foray into this terrifying territory was subtle and could be easy to miss. It takes place at the very beginning of his first feature, Get Out. The Academy Award-winning debut was a shock in itself when it was first announced. The funnyman from Chappelle Show heir apparent Key & Peele (a misapplied honor in its own right) was going to do horror?
But then the film opens to the familiar tune of Childish Gambino’s “Redbone,” with its ominous admonition to “stay woke,” and it becomes clear that Peele understood more than anyone expected. Of course, that song is an undeniable favorite, handing Donald Glover a Grammy win for Best Traditional R&B Performance with its nods to the psychedelic funk of Parliament and the Family Stone.
In the context of the film itself, though, it serves two functions. One, to establish photographer protagonist Chris’ hip, contemporary awareness of pop culture, placing him firmly in a demographic of young, urban professionals who would be exactly the type to have the song on repeat. It’s no coincidence that this is also the group most likely to be exposed to the sort of wishy-washy, borderline accidental microaggressions that the film’s plot sends up.
But the second service of the song’s placement is that of the audience’s voice in the film, warning the character to watch out. And reflecting the character’s traditional ignorance to our cries in the darkened theater, Chris ignores the plaintive strains of Glover’s vocals, to his own eventual dismay.
And if that instance was the setup, Peele’s next deft disturbance of the musical status quo established him as an expert in not only the use of music to set the spooky atmosphere of a film’s fiendish setting but also in paying off that setup at the height of the film’s action. This time, the song in question is a Bay Area staple, the 1995 Luniz anthem “I Got 5 On It,” which plays in Peele’s follow up 2019 film Us, both the first act in its original form as the Wilson family drives to Santa Cruz for vacation and at the film’s climax when protagonist Addy faces her doppelganger Red in a subterranean fight to the death.
It’s in the second act that the transformation comes, strangling and stretching and stringing out the well-worn beat into something sinister. But this change didn’t even originate within the film itself; instead, Peele and his collaborators later revealed that it had been added to the scene as a response to the enthusiastic reception it received from fans reacting to its use in the film’s trailer, months before its release. The menacing strings and eerie pauses that had been threaded through the song’s DNA like a malignant viral strain had so unnerved audiences that Peele knew it’d be perfect for use in the film’s climactic scene. He was right.
The tactic proved so effective that it was later revisited in the initial trailer for Candyman in 2020, though the film was only produced by Peele, rather than written or directed by him (Nia DaCosta handles those honors this time around, although Peele contributed to the script, as did Win Rosenfeld, his frequent collaborator). The use of the Destiny’s Child 1999 fidelity challenge “Say My Name” cleverly played on the titular killer’s memorable gimmick — in order to summon the Candyman, you must say his name five times in a mirror.
This time, the evocation of Peele’s signature move is like a composer’s confident flourish at the crescendo of his magnum opus. You could say that it’s a rote device, that it’s a crutch, that it’s even (gasp) a gimmick. But in the hands of a horror hero like Jordan Peele, it’s instead a recognizable trademark, as indelible to his work as the hockey mask is to Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees or Freddy Kruger’s bladed glove in The Nightmare on Elm Street. Peele wields musical cues — from hip-hop to R&B to revivalist funk — the way Leatherface swings his chainsaw or Michael Myers looms with his kitchen knife. He turns a tool made for the purpose of evoking one emotion into a weapon with which he carves through his audiences’ expectations, bringing screams of both horror and delight.
Today saw Netflix share the first teaser of the upcoming movie Don’t Look Up, which has a stacked cast and follows two astronomers trying to warn the world of impending doom. Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardi DiCaprio play the lead roles, and also getting some screen time are Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, whose appearances are previewed in the teaser.
Both of their appearances in the clip are super brief: A photo of Cudi’s character is displayed on screen during a broadcast of an in-movie show called The Daily Rip, while we get just a quick shot of Grande shifting her focus from one thing to another. There’s not much to go on there, but we can determine that Cudi and Grande’s characters appear to have some level of familiarity with each other: EW shared some photos from the film today, and in one of them, Cudi and Grande snuggle up together, smiling with drinks in hand.
First look at Kid Cudi and Ariana Grande in Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ film. pic.twitter.com/nPFtTKTjWW
It’s not too surprising to see Grande and Cudi here, as they’re two of music’s most experienced actors: Grande’s first brush with fame was her role in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and its spin-off series Sam & Cat, while Cudi had starring roles in How to Make It In America and Comedy Bang! Bang!.
Aside from the aforementioned, the movie also stars Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Matthew Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, and Cate Blanchett.
Today saw Netflix share the first teaser of the upcoming movie Don’t Look Up, which has a stacked cast and follows two astronomers trying to warn the world of impending doom. Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardi DiCaprio play the lead roles, and also getting some screen time are Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, whose appearances are previewed in the teaser.
Both of their appearances in the clip are super brief: A photo of Cudi’s character is displayed on screen during a broadcast of an in-movie show called The Daily Rip, while we get just a quick shot of Grande shifting her focus from one thing to another. There’s not much to go on there, but we can determine that Cudi and Grande’s characters appear to have some level of familiarity with each other: EW shared some photos from the film today, and in one of them, Cudi and Grande snuggle up together, smiling with drinks in hand.
First look at Kid Cudi and Ariana Grande in Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ film. pic.twitter.com/nPFtTKTjWW
It’s not too surprising to see Grande and Cudi here, as they’re two of music’s most experienced actors: Grande’s first brush with fame was her role in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and its spin-off series Sam & Cat, while Cudi had starring roles in How to Make It In America and Comedy Bang! Bang!.
Aside from the aforementioned, the movie also stars Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Matthew Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, and Cate Blanchett.
Dear Evan Hansen has become one of the most beloved musicals of the last decade, so much so that the 2015 production has a film adaptation coming out next month. Part of that is the soundtrack album, and aside from the cast, the OST features some big-name artists.
Dear Evan Hansen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) includes covers of some of the musical’s songs. Sam Smith and Summer Walker will take on “You Will Be Found,” SZA has “The Anonymous Ones,” Carrie Underwood and Dan + Shay performed “Only Us,” Finneas sang “A Little Closer,” and Tori Kelly covered “Waving Through A Window.” The album is set for release on September 24, the same date the movie hits theaters.
Check out the Dear Evan Hansen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) tracklist below.
1. Ben Platt and Dear Evan Hansen Choir — “Waving Through A Window”
2. Ben Platt — “For Forever”
3. Colton Ryan, Ben Platt, and Nik Dodani — “Sincerely Me”
4. Kaitlyn Dever, Danny Pino, and Amy Adams — “Requiem”
5. Ben Platt and Kaitlyn Dever — “If I Could Tell Her”
6. Amandla Stenberg — “The Anonymous Ones”
7. Ben Platt, Amandla Stenberg, Liz Kate, DeMarius Copes, Isaac Powell, Hadiya Eshe, and Dear Evan Hansen Choir — “You Will Be Found”
8. Kaitlyn Dever and Ben Platt — “Only Us”
9. Ben Platt — “Words Fail”
10. Julianne Moore — “So Big / So Small”
11. Colton Ryan — “A Little Closer”
12. Sam Smith — “You Will Be Found” Feat. Summer Walker
13. SZA — “The Anonymous Ones”
14. Carrie Underwood and Dan + Shay — “Only Us”
15. Finneas — “A Little Closer”
16. Tori Kelly — “Waving Through A Window”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
