Monthly Archives

August 2020

Issa Rae Talks Emmy Nominations

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–Issa Rae covers the new issue of THR and talks about her Emmy nominations (“Awards don’t validate you. They allow more people to know about the series, like, ‘Oh, what is this?’ That’s all you want”), why she thinks the Emmys recognized Insecure this year (“I’m going to be real. I think the pandemic, being quarantined during a period when our humanity was questioned, in a more front-facing way, definitely helped. We came on during a time when people were bored at home, and also there were racial uprisings, and our show served as a comfort”), and her love of I May Destroy You (“It’s amazing. It’s really disturbing. The conversations that have [been] sparked around it are just so necessary. I almost wish it had come sooner. It’s going to be so impactful to a generation of people”).

–Justin and Hailey Bieber and Shawn Mendes were all spotted at a home recording studio in LA yesterday.

–Dax Shepard is recuperating after breaking four ribs in a motorcycle accident on a California road course.

–Kirsten Dunst is very confused about why she’s part of Kanye West‘s presidential campaign materials.

–Ben Affleck isn’t done with Batman yet. He’ll appear along with Michael Keaton’s Batman in the upcoming Flash movie, which is all about the multiverse (oh god, I’m having CW crossover flashbacks). Interestingly, they confirmed Affleck’s Batman will appear in no other films or the rumoured HBO MAX show.

-Here’s a new teaser for the Synder cut of Justice League.

–Olivia Wilde just landed a secret Marvel project — and the hints have everyone thinking it’ll be a Spider-Woman movie.

–Bella Thorne joined OnlyFans yesterday and crashed the site.

-The ACLU has offered to help Britney Spears, tweeting “People with disabilities have a right to lead self-directed lives and retain their civil rights. If Britney Spears wants to regain her civil liberties and get out of her conservatorship, we are here to help her.”

–Sarah Cooper, the TikToker famous for lip synching Trump, just landed a CBS comedy.

-Speaking of CBS, they’re having issues with yet another problematic white dude showrunner. This one is the guy behind All Rise (which has a black female leave – a rarity on that network). Five writers from the original seven hired have left the drama over disputes with showrunner Greg Spottiswood about the depictions of race and gender. He kept his job after reviews by human resources. Said one writer: “We had to do so much behind the scenes to keep these scripts from being racist and offensive.”

-A former writer on the show said in a Twitter thread that the environment in the writers’ room is even worse than the article indicates.

-Ellen Show staffers will now get “perks” like five paid days off to use at their discretion, birthdays off, and paid time for doctors appointments and family matters. That … doesn’t seem like a lot?

-British singer James Blunt says once he developed scurvy after adopting an all-meat diet for two months to assert his masculinity while studying in a female-dominated class. Gotta love a good comeuppance!

-It was a rough day for Comedy Central shows that previously looked like they had a bright future. Drunk History has been canceled after six seasons — despite being renewed for a seventh season last year, while Comedy Central also canceled Tosh 2.0, reversing course on its January decision to renew the show for *four* more seasons.

-Starting tomorrow, all 1,687 of Cineplex’s screens will be open for business across Canada, making the exhibitor the first major theatre chain in the world to be 100% re-opened. I can’t imagine feeling comfortable in a movie theatre yet.

–Gillian Anderson joins Olivia Colman in the trailer for season four of The Crown, arriving Nov 15.

-Here’s the trailer for Sofia Coppola‘s latest film, On the Rocks, starring Bill Murray, Rashida Jones, and Marlon Wayans.

-The new trailer for Netflix’s Love Guaranteed stars Rachael Leigh Cook and Damon Wayans Jr. as a lawyer and client who fall in love. That seems unethical but I adore them both and need more Netflix romcoms in my life so YUP!

Lili Reinhart Denies Talking about Riverdale Costar Cole Sprouse

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Riverdale/The CW

-In a revealing new interview, Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart opens up about going through heartbreak and depression (“The last couple of months have probably [been] the most emotional few months of my entire life and my therapist [told] me, ‘Your body’s going through withdrawal from love. You’re used to having this exchange of happy chemicals between you and the person that you’re with.’ In moments of my life, I have dropped every ounce of pride that I had just to be like, Love me. Please take the pain away for a day, a second, an hour, just so I can feel that fix again”), and her worries that her book of poetry might be misinterpreted (“I felt the need to write that because I was scared — and I am scared — that people are going to try and create their own idea of what my love life looked or looks like. I’m not saying, My boyfriend fucked another woman. I’m saying, I felt betrayed”). However, she later took to Twitter to clarify that her words are being taken out of context by some and she wasn’t talking about her recent split from costar Cole Sprouse, tweeting “I would never speak so candidly about something as personal as a breakup. That’s incredibly private. I was addressing my depression.”

-Meanwhile, Sprouse posted a photo of her on Instagram with the caption, “Lili and I initially separated in January of this year, deciding to more permanently split in March. What an incredible experience I had, I’ll always feel lucky and cherish that I had the chance to fall in love. I wish her nothing but the utmost love and happiness moving forward. All I’ll say about it, anything else you hear doesn’t matter.”

–In a new interview, Jennifer Aniston says she related to the scene in The Morning Show when her character stops herself from having a breakdown  and slaps on a smile. “There have been moments — not to that level of hysteria — but moments of ‘I don’t want to f**king go here,’ ‘I don’t want to walk out onto the carpet,’ ‘I don’t want to be seen,’ ‘I don’t want to be looked at and everyone’s going to be talking about me and judging me’ … that’s real. I just loved being able to walk into it and lean into it and not be ashamed of it, but actually just … it was like … Ooooooooooh.”

–Deuxmoi (which is quickly becoming a must-follow on IG for gossip hounds) has noticed that this small IG account that recaps celeb news has some very not-small followers, including Jennifer Aniston, Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Jessica Parker. I’ve only checked out the last 3 posts but 2 of those bash Angelina Jolie.

-Here’s a video of Chris Hemsworth hyping you up. I’m gonna watch this every morning.

–Britney Spears is seeking major changes to her conservatorship and wants to have her father removed as the sole conservator over her estate, preferring to keep her temporary court-appointed conservator in charge.

–Cardi B took to Twitter today to announce that she’s giving away $1 million dollars to “powerful women.” Just tweet her and tell her why you deserve it with the hashtag #WAPParty.

–Megan Thee Stallion posted a graphic photo of her gunshot wound and called out haters, writing “I got hit at the back of my feet because when I got shot I was WALKING AWAY FACING THE BACK. why would I lie abt getting shot? Why are y’all so upset that I don’t wanna be in the bed sad? Why y’all upset that I can walk?”

-The Glee cast can’t catch a break. Dianna Agron and Mumford & Sons’ Winston Marshall have reportedly split after three years of marriage.

–Brandy is on the cover of People, talking up about her decades-long battle with depression following a car accident that killed a woman, and how her daughter Sy’rai saved her. “I remember lying in bed super depressed. I [told] myself, ‘So, you’re just going to go out like this? That’s wack. You have a daughter. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for her because this is not the way to leave a mark in her life.'” (Also, if you haven’t listened to her new album yet, you should. It slaps.)

–Ashley Benson was spotted with a diamond on her finger, leading to speculation that she’s engaged to G-Eazy. (With the mask, I seriously have no idea how any paparazzi recognized her. Should we just assume that any masked celebs who get papped at random spots set it up?)

-This is a very long, very smart take on Veronica Mars’ identity crisis in its later seasons.

–Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently met with several networks, shopping a mysterious project to top execs. Let the speculation begin!

–Fiona Apple narrates a short film about how anyone can safely document arrests by ICE to hold the agency accountable.

-Gird your loiny bits: Brad Pitt and Harry Styles may soon be appearing in a movie together.

–Travis Scott covers the September issue of GQ and talks about his secret track for Christopher Nolan‘s Tenet and his dream of buying Astroworld.

–Tracee Ellis Ross says she fought to make sure her Black-ish character didn’t always look like a traditional sitcom wife. “What I did speak up about from the beginning was, ‘Why am I carrying laundry?’ ‘Why am I the person in the kitchen cooking right now, when this has nothing to do with the scene?’ Even sometimes when it does have something to do with the scene. I started coining them as ‘lady chores.’ ‘Why am I doing the lady chores? Can’t Anthony [Anderson] do the lady chore?'”

-Our long national nightmare is over: @ArmasUpdates is back!!

-Here’s an excerpt from Emily Henry’s next rom-com book, People We Meet on Vacation. Her last one, Beach Read, was one of my faves of the year so far.

-Disney has confirmed that in Canada, Mulan will be $34.99 for Disney+ subscribers.

-I don’t know why I had no interest in Kenneth Branagh‘s Murder on the Orient express, but I’m down with Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile trailer. I blame Gal Gadot and the Depeche Mode song.

A Pitch Perfect Reunion

-I didn’t realize I needed to see the Pitch Perfect cast reunite to perform a new song for charity until I saw it. But I did. I needed it.

–Rose McGowan has leveled sexual misconduct allegations against director Alexander Payne, tweeting “You sat me down & played a soft-core porn movie you directed for Showtime under a different name. I still remember your apartment in Silverlake. You are very well-endowed. You left me on a street corner afterwards. I was 15.” In an interview with Variety, she called it a “grooming situation,” saying “I had for years looked at it as a sexual encounter, not understanding what it really was.”

–Kanye West and Steve Harvey went to Chick-fil-A. I dislike so many of those words.

-Three senior producers — executive producers Ed Glavin and Kevin Leman and co-executive producer Jonathan Norman — have been ousted from Ellen’s show. According to Variety, the talk show host announced the news on a company call. “DeGeneres was emotional to the point of tears, and apologetic as she addressed more than 200 staffers.” She also told staff she was an introverted personality that likes to have her own space, which may have led to staffers believing she wasn’t nice.

–Daniel Dae Kim and Randall Park are teaming up for an Asian American-led heist film for Amazon. Put it in my eyeballs now!

–Barack Obama‘s summer playlist includes Canadian artists PARTYNEXTDOOR and Andy Shauf. (I had a 3-month stretch where I listened to Shauf’s “Comfortable” on repeat to put me to sleep.)

-I don’t really know much about actress Charlotte Kirk, but she took down two studio heads so I definitely want to watch the movie about her life! An affair eight years ago with NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer is the reason behind his abrupt exit this week — and her involvement with Warner Bros chief Kevin Tsujihara led to his ouster last year.

–Cuba Gooding Jr. is accused of rape in a new lawsuit. The assault allegedly took place at The Mercer hotel in 2013.

–Laurence Fishburne says he hasn’t been asked to be in the fourth Matrix. “No. I have not been invited. Maybe that will make me write another play. I wish them well. I hope it’s great.”

-After a delay, Supernatural’s final seven episodes will begin rolling out in October.

–Dan Levy is encouraging everyone to enroll in the University of Alberta’s free 12-lesson course called Indigenous Canada, about which he’ll host a weekly discussion. I signed up!

-Voice actor Stuart Baker isn’t happy about his recent firing from Adult Swim’s Squidbillies. He was ousted after he posted on Facebook that Dolly Parton is a “freak titted, old Southern bimbo” and a “slut” after she came out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In a new post, he says “I just hope you assholes are happy you took a good Man and talent down. You succeeded. Be proud that you ruined a person’s life all because of [the] Freak Show called ‘Dolly Parton and BLM.'” Gee, sounds like a real loss.

-Amazon’s apocalyptic Utopia, created and directed by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, is set for a Sept 25 debut. It stars John Cusack, Rainn Wilson and Sasha Lane. Watch the new trailer here.

-The trailer for Netflix’s new British romcom The Duchess looks right up my alley.

–Susan Sarandon prepares to say goodbye to her family in the Blackbird trailer, costarring Kate Winslet, Rainn Wilson and Mia Wasikowska. I saw this last year at TIFF and it was wildly uneven but there’s a dinner scene that’s stayed with me.