Trigger warnings serve the purpose of letting audiences know that some material in the work – a film, TV show or stage production – may be offensive or outdated. But they are also seen as catering to “woke culture” and those who might be labeled “overly sensitive.” As such, many celebrities have spoken out against trigger warnings, with the latest being none other than Dame Judi Dench, who, on the cusp of turning 90, has no time for such nonsense.

As per Radio Times, Judi Dench seemed more concerned that trigger warnings robbed audiences of shock and surprise. “That’s why we go to the theatre, isn’t it? To be shocked, to be arrested out of ourselves, to recognise ourselves in front and with an audience…My God, it must be a pretty long trigger warning before King Lear or Titus Andronicus! Crikey, is that really what happens now?”

Dench went on to say that if you are somebody who needs trigger warnings prior to going into a play, maybe it’s just not for you. “I can see why they exist, and it is preparing people, I suppose, but if you’re that sensitive, don’t go to the theatre, because you could be very shocked. Where is the surprise of seeing and understanding it in your own way?…Why go to the theatre if you’re going to be warned about things that are in the play? Isn’t the whole business of going to the theatre about seeing something that you can be excited, surprised, or stimulated by? It’s like being told they’re all dead at the end of King Lear. I don’t want to be told.”

Studios and film institutions have been slapping trigger warnings to the beginning of everything from Disney movies to the James Bond franchise, normally related to outdated representations of race and sex. Sure, proper context should be given when necessary, but there is also the stance that tacking on such disclaimers is ultimately insulting to the viewer, as if there is no trust in them to determine if something was “of the time” or not.

This was part of the point that Cate Blanchett raised in her lashing of trigger warnings, adding that modern viewers are too afraid to have tough conversations related to such topics. Ralph Fiennes took an even closer stance to Judi Dench, saying that there is no reason for viewers to be prepared ahead of time for any content found within a play.

Do you agree with Judi Dench’s assessment on trigger warnings? Have they gone overboard or are they necessary in today’s society? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.

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In a random and brutal moment, actor Steve Buscemi was attacked on the streets of New York City, with a man blindsiding him with a punch to the face. According to the New York Post, Buscemi was taken to the hospital and suffered bruisings. The assailant has yet to be caught.

According to his publicist (as per the New York Post), “Steve Buscemi was assaulted in Mid-Town Manhattan, another victim of a random act of violence in the city…He is ok and appreciates everyone’s well wishes, though incredibly sad for everyone that this has happened to while also walking the streets of New York.”

As you can imagine, fans of Steve Buscemi and those within the industry have come to the actor’s defense, saying it is an outrage that such an occurrence would even happen. Let’s also not forget that in addition to being a beloved presence on both the big and small screens, Steve Buscemi has been a pillar of the community, working as a firefighter for the New York City Fire Department in the ‘80s and volunteering in the aftermath of 9/11 for his former house.

There have also been calls on the New York Police Department to enforce change immediately, saying the city is out of control. While we won’t comment on that directly, it is truly unfortunate that Steve Buscemi is just the latest to be the victim of violence, whether he’s an actor or not. But Deadline has noted that the likes of Michael Stuhlbarg and Rick Moranis have also been targets. Just last month, Stuhlbarg was allegedly attacked by a homeless man with a rock. In 2020, Moranis – of all people! – was also assaulted, with that assailant eventually pleading guilty to various charges.

While we know that there isn’t some sort of dumb online trend where you attack a celebrity on the streets of NYC for internet clout, it’s still a disturbing trend and just another example of just how disruptive and dangerous people can be in public.

We here at JoBlo.com want to wish Steve Buscemi the best in any recovery he may need and are hoping the attacker is caught soon.

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As much as Will Smith wanted Chris Rock to keep his wife’s name out his f*ckin’ mouth, the comedian wanted to lay as low as possible after The Slap. That included turning down good friend Jerry Seinfeld’s offer to appear in Unfrosted — primarily because his cameo would have spoofed that infamous Oscar moment.

As Jerry Seinfeld revealed on the Fly on the Wall podcast, he reached out to Chris Rock to let him get some remote revenge. “The other thing I wanted to do, that I almost did, was Chris Rock was gonna be the emcee of the Bowl and Spoon Awards. We shot that right after the Will Smith slap, and I was gonna have somebody come up on the stage and have Chris punch them out…Chris wasn’t…he wasn’t up to perform. He was still a little shook from the event. But that was what the scene was going to be. But Cedric saved the day.”

Seinfeld would go on to admit that he wasn’t sure the Unfrosted bit would ultimately work. I’d agree since it was still so fresh for Rock, so Seinfeld lucked out by not being allowed to capitalize on such a tough moment. There’s also the fact that it would have immediately felt dated, like the sort of gag one of those awful Friedberg/Seltzer movies would have shoehorned in. It also wouldn’t have really enhanced the movie in any way…

Chris Rock would address The Slap on his own terms, ditching Jerry Seinfeld and Unfrosted to instead take it head on in his standup routine, particularly his 2023 special Selective Outrage. Despite a 10-year ban from attending the Academy Awards, Will Smith has done his best to bounce back with a handful of movie roles, including next month’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die. But Chris Rock has come out better than anyone, showing he’s by far the bigger man.

While Jerry Seinfeld wasn’t able to get everyone he wanted for Unfrosted, he did still grab a number of comedian friends for roles, including Amy Schumer, Bill Burr, Thomas Lennon, Bobby Moynihan, Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Fred Armisen, Sebastian Maniscalo, and more.

Do you think Chris Rock should have done the Unfrosted cameo for Jerry Seinfeld or would it have been “too soon”? Share your thoughts below.

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Taking legal action against Disney and Lucasfilm is a monumental task, but Gina Carano is ensuring everybody – especially those she is suing  – that she is up for the challenge. This all stems from Carano being fired from The Mandalorian over a series of viewpoints on gender, the Covid-19 pandemic and more, something that triggered the former MMA fighter to enact legal action.

Gina Carano maintained that she was unjustly canned from The Mandalorian, a move that found her being defended by co-star Bill Burr, in addition to Elon Musk, who offered to foot her legal bills. While Disney and Lucasfilm sought to have the case tossed, Carano has refused to back down. Here is a partial response to the studios’ request to dismiss, as per Deadline: “After admitting that they discriminated against Carano for her personal political beliefs and subjected her to disparate treatment from her similarly situated male co-stars, The Walt Disney Company, Lucasfilm LTD, and Huckleberry Industries (collectively, “Defendants”) assert that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives them absolute immunity. Defendants are incorrect.”

The response on behalf of Gina Carano also maintains that “there are no facts in the Complaint to suggest that Carano’s claims implicate, let alone clearly establish, the First Amendment interests Defendants assert…They only assert that they have absolute First Amendment immunity to terminate any actor for any reason they see fit. The law does not support their claim.” A hearing over the dismissal request is set for next month.

Gina Carano previously said that she hoped to have her name cleared of any clear wrongdoing, although that’s going to be tough to do for a number of reasons: one, she is going up against powerhouses in the industry; two, her social media posts and other comments are highly questionable and damaging to say the very least.

Gina Carano played Cara Dune in the first two seasons of The Mandalorian before she was fired back in 2021, with the character ultimately being written out of the show as well, only briefly being mentioned in season three.

What do you think will come of Gina Carano’s legal action against Disney and Lucasfilm? Where do you see her acting career going?

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In Tom Selleck’s recently released memoir, You Never Know (via Business Insider), he reveals how he gave the crew of Magnum P.I. bonuses of $1000 after the studio refused.

Tom Selleck was in the process of renegotiating his contract with CBS for what would be the eighth and final season of Magnum P.I. The studio had decreased the budget of the series, but Selleck wanted them to agree to an eight-day schedule as well as a bonus for the crew if they were able to deliver under budget. “The studio said yes to the eight days. But they responded that they could not under any circumstances talk about crew bonuses, that it would set a dangerous precedent,” Selleck said. “They always invoked precedent when you had an original thought beyond their contractual boilerplate. Honestly, that pissed me off.“

Instead of fighting it, Selleck pushed the studio a “substantial” bonus to him, which they naturally agreed to, and when the season had finished shooting, he put his plan in motion with his agent and lawyer. “I called Skip [Brittenham] and Bettye [McCart] and told them to tell Universal — not ask them tell them — to issue thousand-dollar checks to every regular member of our ‘Magnum’ company in both Hawaii and LA,” Selleck explained. “And that since it was coming out of my bonus money, there was no precedent involved.” The studio had no choice but to do it, and Selleck got a nice thank you from the crew.

“When the checks came out, I got a picture from our L.A. crew standing on a bleacher with big smiles on their faces,” Selleck said. “In front of them was a very big oversized check for a thousand dollars. The caption below read, ‘Thanks, Tom. What a ‘grand’ gesture.’ That made me happy.“

Tom Selleck currently stars in Blue Bloods, but it was announced last week that the long-running series would be coming to an end with its 14th season. “For the past 13 years, it has been an honor and a privilege to work on a show that not only celebrates the men and women who protect and serve in New York City, but also displayed the importance of family,” Selleck said in a statement. “Working alongside these incredible actors, writers, producers, directors, and crew has been a dream come true and I’m grateful to have been a part of this extraordinary group for over 275 episodes.“

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The podcast world has taken off in a way that no one thought. Our favorite stars of stage and screen are able to sit down and have candid discussions without flash and utilize their time for lengthy interviews. Enter Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. According to Deadline, the duo, who were part of an ensemble cast on the Emmy-winning NBC hit comedy Cheers, will be reuniting to catch up with each other and friends for a podcast series called Where Everybody Knows Your Name. The apt title comes from the iconic theme song of the sitcom. The actors who portrayed Sam Malone and Woody Boyd will be premiering the podcast on SiriusXM on June 12.

The show doesn’t explicitly set out to be a Cheers retrospective, but there should no doubt be some reminiscing as the series is about Danson and Harrelson reuniting after years of different career paths and sharing with each other life stories and conversations with friends they made along the way. Danson explained, “Though I’ve always dreaded small talk at a cocktail party, I’ve found that it is a genuine privilege to sit down with someone for a deep, uninterrupted conversation. With this podcast, we’ll do just that. And that I get to do it with Woody, my dear friend of many decades, is the cherry on top of the sundae. Each week, we’ll reflect on our own friendship and careers, and get to the core of the special guests who join us. I can’t wait for you to listen.”

Harrelson would add, “The best part about doing this podcast is that it’s given me an excuse to hang out with Ted. Sure, we’ll talk with interesting guests, and sure we’ll share some laughs along the way, but the biggest win will be rekindling our romance, I mean friendship, after all this time. And I’m glad listeners will be able to join us for that.”

The show comes from SiriusXM and TeamCoco, which is Conan O’Brien’s company, and O’Brien himself is set to be featured on an upcoming episode. Additional guests on the podcast will include Eric Andre, Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, Laura Dern, Jane Fonda, Simu Liu, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Martin Short and Mary Steenburgen.

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Apple has put out some of the most innovative and memorable commercials ever. We think of the iconic 1984 ad (directed by Ridley Scott, no less) and the early iPod spots with silhouetted music lovers dancing to “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” Now, Apple has done the exact opposite of those, inadvertently pushing people away from the product.

Apple CEO Tim Cook posted the ad – titled “Crush” – on X this week, accompanying it with: “Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create.” The ad itself features a wealth of human achievements – from music to mathematics – being crushed in a hydraulic press, ultimately creating the new iPad Pro. That it is set to Sonny and Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You” definitely has meaning.

The ad caused immediate widespread backlash, with even celebrities – most of whom probably own several Apple products – lashing out at the utterly insulting video. For a few examples, Hugh Grant sounded off by saying it promoted “the destruction of the human experience”, documentarian Asif Kapadia noted just how tone deaf it was and actress Justine Bateman just plain wanted to know what the hell is wrong with Apple. Various commentators have called the ad destructive, egotistical and arrogant.

OK, so it’s pretty obvious the idea here is that Apple is symbolically collecting all of the knowledge ever known to man into a new product. That in and of itself isn’t bad, but the execution here is just about the most disgusting way to go about it. The way the Apple ad comes off, all of the featured advances in humanity are disposable, just footnotes that can be squeezed of their soul, meaning and purpose just for the sake of promoting a “thinpossible” piece of 5.3mm-thick piece of technology that will be intentionally outdated in due time. Take a look at the emoji’s face near the end and that’s basically the collective reaction.

What do you make of Apple’s latest ad? Did they completely miss the mark or did they reach their target audience?

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Steve Albini, the revolutionary music engineer who helped define the sounds of the ‘80s and ‘90s, has passed away at 61. The cause of death has been ruled a heart attack.

Following a bout on the zine scene, Steve Albini hit the music world full force in the 1980s, founding pivotal punk band Big Black, which helped evolve the genre past expectations and was a seminal band of the post-hardcore movement. He, too, formed Shellac in the early ‘90s.

But outside of these bands, Steve Albini was by far better known to music lovers of the era for his work as an engineer. The first major record he worked on was the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa in 1988, an album so influential for Nirvana that they insisted on bringing Albini on board for their Nevermind follow-up, In Utero, with Kurt Cobain himself noting that the drums alone would be enough to change their sound. As such, In Utero had a rawness that Nevermind lacked, marking a key (but ultimately late) transition for the grunge era.

Steve Albini would also work on a number of other remarkable albums from the ‘90s, including The Breeders’ Pod and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me. I would also personally recommend his work on albums by The Jesus Lizard and Silkworm, two bands that never get their due credit. Albini himself estimated that he had worked on “a couple thousand” records. Unfortunately, neither Big Black nor Shellac are on Spotify, but we’d encourage you to give a listen to as much of his work as you can to get an idea of just what sort of sound he promoted.

On his legacy and what music means, Steve Albini said, “The recording part is the part that matters to me — that I’m making a document that records a piece of our culture, the life’s work of the musicians that are hiring me. I take that part very seriously. I want the music to outlive all of us.” No doubt the legacy of Albini will live on as more generations discover his sounds and his influence.

What are your favorite Steve Albini albums or songs? Give us your picks and leave your condolences in the comments section.

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Artificial intelligence is here to stay, and if SAG-AFTA thought they could silence AI once the strike settled, they’ve got another thing coming. One of the major talking points of last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike — which lasted from July to November — was the threat of AI within the industry. And while it has been just under six months since the strike ended, the topic is once again at the forefront.

The next focus for SAG-AFTRA is negotiations for the 2026 contract, which is already on the table as far as discussion goes. At a recent event, Lisa Powell — executive vice president of SAG-AFTRA — confirmed that one of the key matters at hand will indeed be AI, which they claimed a small but vital win over during the contract settlement last fall. “We’re watching A.I., we’ve got a lot of legislation going on to try and cover some of the loopholes in A.I. but I think we’re also going to watch how that technology develops and be ready to make any changes or tweaks or additions that need to be made. There’s some that we left on the table that that we’re going to go back and try again.”

As for whether or not SAG-AFTRA has a stronghold on AI, Powell remains confident, saying, “The exciting thing is that I feel like we’re in a more powerful position because of having a struck that [the studios] take us very seriously now, as they should. There’s a sense among membership that we can push the envelope a little more, and it’ll bend.”

Studies have been done over just what sort of impact AI will have in Hollywood. Even as soon as two weeks after SAG-AGTRA ended their strike, AI was the focus of one study that estimated that the instead could see upwards of 200,000 jobs lost to the technology. Adding to this, a more recent poll pointed to nearly half of those within the film and television industries feel that artificial intelligence is ultimately harmful to their professions. Not surprisingly, the vast majority do feel that proper regulations need to be put in order.

Undoubtedly this should play into any of SAG-AFTRA’s future negotiations over AI. That they are keeping a close eye on the developing technology and adapting as artificial intelligence does is also quite wise, as even the slightest advancements could make their actions and progress moot if they put ink to paper too quickly.

Do you think SAG-AFTRA can ever truly settle on their position on AI? Or will any negotiations always feel out of date so long as the tech is advancing?

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There are a few unwritten rules for weddings. One, don’t wear white unless you’re the bride. Two, don’t make a speech unless you are specifically told to do so. And three, this is not your day. By all accounts, Jeremy Renner followed all of these at the wedding of fellow Avenger Chris Evans, but many of his friends and MCU stars couldn’t help but put a spotlight on the actor, who has made one hell of a recovery following his January 1st, 2023 accident.

Speaking on Jeremy Renner’s recovery and just how far he has come in that time, Avengers co-star Robert Downey Jr. said, “If there’s one characteristic we’d all agree is paramount…it’s resilience. To see Renner embody that literally, and in the context of what was basically a Portuguese American wedding, was mind-blowing. Fully recovered and ready to celebrate. So, yes—miracles happen.” “Perseverance” is the perfect word to describe Jeremy Renner, whose well-documented progress through his recovery has made him an Avengers-level superhero to many.

Evans wed Alba Baptista last September, just over eight months after a snowplow weighing over 14,000 pounds crushed him, a near-death experience which resulted in blunt chest trauma and 30 broken bones. While he would probably never brag about it, RDJ proved to be one of Renner’s most consistent Avengers co-stars in terms of checking in and giving good vibes.

Evans’ wedding was actually the first time another Avenger, Chris Hemsworth, had seen Renner since his accident. “He sent us all a sort of a doped out, hospital, beat-up image and said, ‘All good, guys.’ And then I didn’t hear from him for a while as he was in the thick of it.” Hemsworth added, “There was an astounding sense of gratitude from him around just being alive.”

While a lot is up in the air as far as the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes, fifth and sixth Avengers movies are in development, so we’ll have to see just how/if the likes of Renner, RDJ, Hemsworth, and the rest assemble yet again – although some seem more committed than others…

What do you want to see Jeremy Renner tackle in the near future? Let us know by dropping a comment below.

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