Monthly Archives

November 2019

Prince Andrew Crashes and Burns

-I’m assuming whoever arranged for Prince Andrew to do that TV interview this weekend is now fired, because wow that went even worse than anyone could have predicted. As Lainey says, when it comes to the Palace getting their shit together it’s been amateur hour over there.

–Kanye West has announced his first-ever opera, Nebuchadnezzar, named after the longest-reigning king of ancient Babylon. Honestly, every headline about him these days just sounds like mad libs on crack.

-The Swifties came through. Taylor Swift and her former label Big Machine Records have reached a compromise — she can officially perform whatever songs she’d like at this weekend’s AMAs, including those bought by Scooter Braun earlier this year.

-Oh wait — it’s not over yet. AMAs producers are disputing Big Machine’s statement about her performance. Dick Clark Productions just released their own statement saying, “At no time did Dick Clark Productions agree to, create, authorize or distribute a statement in partnership with Big Machine Label Group regarding Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 American Music Awards.” All the sighs.

-Fresh from jail, Felicity Huffman was spotted taking homemade cupcakes to The Teen Project on Sunday, an organization dedicated to “serving at risk homeless and sex trafficked young women” in LA.

-I don’t watch Doctor Who but man this got me.

-I can’t stop reading Survivor takes and this is a good one on how CBS’s handling of misconduct on the island was “an exercise in ass-covering” disguised as “starting a conversation.” I’m still angry about last week’s episode — and that was the first episode I’ve caught up on in years. I can’t imagine how fans who’ve been sticking with it feel.

-Speaking of the garbage fire that is CBS, two female writers of Carol’s Second Act quit the show after they complained about inappropriate conduct by exec producer David Hunt, who is married to series star Patricia Heaton. One of the writers took to Twitter to expand on the story, saying that she only wanted a low intensity response to a difficult situation. Instead, it appears that she and her only ally were driven out.

-I could watch hours of Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham Carter interviewing each other forever, mostly because HBC sounds like my spirit animal. Colman: “At lunch time today I said “Helly should we have lunch together? And you said ‘you can have 10 minutes of eating and talking and then I will be lying down and you can lie down next to me but silence after that.'”

-Oh god. Now Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck are tweeting their support in the push to release Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League. I thought the consensus was this thing didn’t even exist? This has been the most exhausting trending topic on film Twitter for two years and I can’t believe we’re back at it.

-Oof, Alan Moore’s take on pop culture’s current obsession with superheroes is scorching. (Weirdly, I don’t think that’s what Damon Lindelof is doing with his source material on The Watchmen.)

-I’m here for pretty much whatever content @ira wants to give me, but the premise of his new show sounds fantastic.

-I’m really bummed that Charlie’s Angels underperformed at the box office. Here’s hoping word of mouth helps it in the coming weeks.

-The Mad About You revival is on a network no one really has, but that’s ok because the reviews are not great.

-With the release of Apple+ and Disney+ and the upcoming launch of HBO Max, there’s been a ton of coverage about the streaming wars, but this take might actually be my favourite. So much content is getting churned out that quality/rewatchability is starting to not matter, and there’s no incentive for creators to take risks. Even more ground shifting, everyone is going to be watching different things, so “how we talk about TV to each other is going to radically change when your content has nothing in common with mine.”

-The trailer for the final season of Schitt’s Creek is here. You fancy, huh?

When Mariah Met Mellie

–Millie Bobby Brown got to meet Mariah Carey. (Seriously though, every picture of MBB lately makes me double take. She looks so different and I can’t figure out what it is.)

-This might be the most cringe-worthy segment the Ellen Show has ever aired: Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and Ellen Degeneres debated which celeb male Charlize Theron should date, all while Charlize looked like she wanted to murder everyone in the room who was allowing this to happen. AND THEN they showed a photo of Kidman’s ex Lenny Kravitz and suddenly everyone had murder eyes.

-The Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun feud kicked into high gear last night, went Swift took to social media to accuse Braun and her former label of blocking her from playing her old songs at next weekend’s American Music Awards. Her not having control over the songs that she wrote? Not cool. Her siccing her legion of fans on anyone who disagrees with her? Also not cool. This whole situation is a not cool fest…

-The Actors on Actors interviews continue to roll out. Today’s participants: Charlize Theron and Adam Driver, and Tom Hanks and Renée Zellweger.

-Survivor’s Elizabeth and Missy have apologized for their actions on this week’s episode: “Sexual harassment and sexual assault are extremely serious, life altering topics that I do not take lightly. They have no business being used as tactics to further one’s own agenda, whether it be in real life or in the game of Survivor.”

–Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson are quickly turning into my fave celeb couple.

-Quibi (the short form video platform) isn’t expected to launch until next year, but it continues to reel in stars. Bill Murray has signed on to star in a Peter Farrelly comedy series, Will Arnett is going to host a comedy series, the Russo Brothers are creating a Marvel vs DC docu-series, and there’s a Varsity Blues revival.

–Lauryn Hill just dropped her first new solo song in five years.

-This is a great look at how Kelly Clarkson pulls off all those covers on her talk show.

-Congrats to Lena Waithe, who revealed that she secretly married her fiancée, Alana Mayo, at a courthouse in San Francisco.

–GOOP’s holiday gift guide is fully of goopy ridiculousness.

–Mo’Nique is taking Netflix to court for pay discrimination.

-Actress-turned-influencer Eva Amurri, who is currently pregnant, announced her and her husband have split.

–This piece is the best thing I’ve read about The Morning Show so far — especially if you’re a Jennifer Aniston scholar.

-I’m just catching up on the controversy about The Social and I don’t really get the uproar? Yeah, Jess‘ comments about hockey players being bullies is subjective (though she did clearly say it was based on her experience), but everything else is pretty undeniable, no? Hockey is played by predominantly white dudes, and it’s really expensive to put your kids in it so it’s mostly dominated by families with a lot of disposable income and time.

-Holy crap, Sesame Street just did a Succession spoof starring Brian Cox and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

Kristen Stewart Gets Spicy

–Kristen Stewart and her Charlie’s Angels costars were the latest celebs to chow down on spicy wings on Hot Wings.

-Speaking of KStew, she’s surprisingly getting good reviews for her comedic timing in Charlie’s Angels. I did not see that coming — but I love it!

-Also, Kristen and Shia LaBeouf were the latest duo to do Variety’s Actors on Actors segment, and this one might be my fave yet. It got really intense really fast, with her talking about a bad experience with a director (“One dude made me cry on set one day, on the first day of a movie, but that was the last second that I cared about him anymore. I was like, ‘I’m alone & you’re terrible.’ He made a bad movie”) and him talking about his somewhat unhealthy love of acting (“The most intimate moments of my whole life happened on set. I don’t know if there’s anything more intimate than creating something with somebody. I think I’m deeply dissatisfied in life”).

–Saoirse Ronan looks AMAZING in the new issue of Dazed.

-Whoa, it sounds like this week’s Survivor was a total shitshow. Some contestants turned sexual misconduct into game play and producers apparently let it happen, while the woman who originally complained was forced to sit silently through tribal council while the accused got to angrily defend himself. Gross.

–Gillian Anderson is getting raves as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. Between her and Olivia Colman, I’m gonna have to start watching this show boring ass show again, aren’t I?

-NBC has renewed Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I don’t go here, but good for them!

-At this point, I’m wondering if Scarlet Johansson should just bow out of all press tours. She’s not good at it.

-Also continuing to be problematic: Gina Rodriguez.

–Jason Momoa being interviewed by Kelly Clarkson’s kids is all kinds of swoon-worthy.

–Julia Wolov is pushing back against a report about Louis CK, confirming that she did NOT consent to him jerking off in front of her to completion.

-I don’t watch horror movies cause they give me the scares, but I love the creator of Black Christmas’ reasoning for making it PG-13 instead of R. “We wrote it with an R in mind. When they did the test screenings, was clear that this movie needed to be available to a younger female audience because the subject matter is timely. Also I want to indoctrinate girls into horror.”

-How did I not know that Vin Diesel taught Judi Dench how to play Dungeons & Dragons and she went on to become DM for her grandchildren?!

-I can’t get enough of these stories about how Mary Steenburgen went under the knife for routine arm surgery — and woke up with incredible musical talent.

-Look, this recent college graduate had a bad take on Sarah Dessen’s YA novels, but there’s something really terrible about watching New York Times bestselling authors like Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult using there hugely followed Twitter accounts to call her out. This is punching down in a really unfortunate way.

–Ben Affleck struggles with addiction in the first trailer for his basketball drama The Way Back.