Monthly Archives

December 2020

Frances McDormand Under Wraps

frances mcdormand vogue

–Frances McDormand covers the new issue of Vogue, and I actually looked it up to see if she’s in the new Dune movie because otherwise this cover shoot makes no sense to me. She is not. In any case, she still deserves all the covers!

–Emma Stone is heading to TV. She’ll star in the Safdie brothers’ The Curse, which has been formally ordered to series at Showtime. The series from the Uncut Gems duo is described as a genre-bending comedy that explores how an alleged curse disturbs the relationship of Stone’s character and her husband (Nathan Fielder) as they try to conceive a child.

-Merry Swiftmas! Prolific pop singer Taylor Swift announced this morning that she’s celebrating her birthday by dropping another surprise album tonight. Considering how many folklore songs ended up on my Spotify Wrapped playlist, I’m very much looking forward to this.

-People are convinced that she’s wearing a wedding dress in one of the album’s promo pics.

–Ariana Grande gets teary in the trailer of her Netflix tour docu-film excuse me, i love you, which is set to drop Dec. 21.

–Ryan Reynolds got his mother to on an expletive-laden rant against Chris Hemsworth… but it’s all for charity.

–Jon Bernthal is set to create and star in an Amazon drama called The Bottoms. I’m not even gonna look up what this show is about, because there’s no way it lives up to what I’m imagining in my head.

–Pedro Pascal says his performance in Wonder Woman 1984 was partially inspired by Nicolas Cage. “With Wonder Woman, [Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig] are doing the action, baby, and I’m doing the schm-acting! I am hamming it up!”

–Kelly Clarkson says her estranged husband, who was also her manager, defrauded her out of millions by charging exorbitant fees.

–Ellen Degeneres revealed that she’s tested positive for covid, but so far her symptoms are very mild. The show has paused production until next year.

-Speaking of covid, Chris Evans was photographed doing his own covid swab…which seems weird.

-Dancing With The Stars’ judge Carrie Ann Inaba also tested positive.

-iCarly is being rebooted with the original stars because Hollywood has run out of ideas.

-Whoa. Girls star Allison Williams is going to lead a remake of the Canadian drama Being Erica.

–George Clooney‘s new movie The Midnight Sky is just getting so-so reviews but it’s on Netflix so we’re all going to watch it anyway.

-The French Exit trailer stars Michelle Pfeiffer as an ex-wealthy widow and Lucas Hedges as her son.

Carey Mulligan and Emerald Fennell are Promising Young Women

-Christmas Day is going to be a bonanza of new content. We’ve got Bridgeton on Netflix, Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and Promising Young Woman on video on demand. (I had no idea that writer-director of PYW is Emerald Fennell, who played Camilla on the most recent season of The Crown.) She and Carey Mulligan cover Variety and talk about making the most audacious, feminist movie of the year.

-Speaking of cover stories, this is a very good one from THR on the career implosion of Johnny Depp, a casualty of Hollywood’s sycophant culture in which his wild spending and substance abuse were rarely challenged. “He’s just never been told no for the past 35 years.” Some of the highlights: despite being fired from Fantastic Beasts after only shooting one scene, he’ll still be paid his full $16-million fee due to him having “a pay-or-play contract, which requires that he be fully compensated whether or not the film is made and even if it is recast,” production on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales had to be shut down for two weeks after Depp reportedly swallowed eight ecstasy pills, and his romantic partners allegedly include former co-stars Angelina Jolie, Marion Cotillard, and Keira Knightley.

–Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn cover the latest issue of People and talk about their 37-year relationship. “People who have been together for a long time, they experience something that only people who have been together for a long time can talk about and relate to. For people like us, the marriage certificate wasn’t going to create anything that otherwise we wouldn’t have.”

-This is a great piece on how 2020 was the year celebrities lost their shine. “With little else to do, celebrities have been showing their asses at every opportunity. Similarly, as we sit at home with nothing to do, we have been more than willing to hand their asses to them with newfound rigour.” (Dolly Parton is the only celeb I can think of who is ending the year with an even stronger reputation than she started it with.)

-Is EVERYONE going to be in the new Spider-Man movie? Charlie Cox is reportedly reprising his Netflix role as Daredevil in MCU’s Spider-Man 3.

-Disgraced Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz has entered treatment for anxiety, depression, and burnout.

-A True Blood reboot is in the works at HBO. This is weird, mostly because there are SO many buzzy supernatural books out there right now that they could adapt instead. When True Blood was good, it was good but I remember longgggg stretches where it was very, very bad.

–Shawn Mendes played Spill Your Guts with James Corden and had to eat blood and pork jelly to avoid picking between who he liked collaborating with more: Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. He also refused to answer how much he’s been paid for his Armani endorsement, which led to him eating scorpion dusted plantains.

–Nicolas Cage enthusiastically gives an etymological lesson on the word “pussy” in the first trailer for Netflix’s History of Swear Words, debuting Jan 5.

–Natalie Portman appeared on Dax Shepard’s podcast discussed how “being sexualized as a child took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid. It made me feel like the way I can be safe is to be like, ‘I’m conservative, and I’m serious, and you should respect me, and I’m smart and don’t look at me that way.'”

-Memoirs continue to be a cash cow for celebs. Amazon Studios is prepping a new docuseries about Jessica Simpson based on her memoir, while Mariah Carey says she’s in talks for a potential movie or TV series based on hers.

-Mariah also gave props to Vulture’s latest article on her pop perfection.

–Victoria Beckham gushed about son Brooklyn’s wife-to-be Nicola Peltz in a new interview. “They’re so happy. She’s wonderful, sweet, and kind. She’s such a lovely, warm woman. We couldn’t have asked for Brooklyn to meet a more adorable lady. We’re very, very happy. We love her, he’s so happy.”

–Jason Sudeikis talked about how his character on Ted Lasso was inspired by Robin Williams. I didn’t think I was going to like that show, but it ended up as one of my faves of the year.

-The Riverdale season 5 trailer proves the show is still as bonkers as ever.

-A married man is tricked into a murder scheme by a police detective in the trailer for Fatale, starring Michael Ealy and Hilary Swank.

Dolly Parton and RuPaul Talk Wigs and Wisdom

dolly parton rupaul

–RuPaul interviews Dolly Parton in the new issue of Marie Claire, and it’s fantastic. Parton tells him: “See, you’re a drag queen. Those are like costumes to you. This is my living self. I am a living drag queen. You dress up just now and then, but for me, though, I like the wigs and I wear them almost every day.”

-So it looks like those early reports of everyone from the franchise coming back for Spider-Man 3 were accurate: Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Kirsten Dunst and Alfred Molina are all reportedly set to reprise their roles.

–Lori Loughlin‘s daughter Olivia Jade showed up on Red Table Talk and the discussion before about whether she deserves the platform is worth watching. Once she sat down, Gammy didn’t let up.

–Courteney Cox revealed how she got the turkey on her head for that Friends episode, and it’s kinda gross.

-Netflix’s Prom is getting good reviews (if you ignore the James Corden bits).

-This clip of Barack Obama sitting for an interview on Showtime’s Desus & Mero made me smile.

-Yass! Zoey’s Infinite Playlist is returning Jan 5. That’s way sooner than I anticipated, which is a happy surprise.

-This video of George Clooney commenting on classic movies is great, but I’m bummed he’s never seen 10 Things I Hate About You.

-Meanwhile, a bevy of his friends and costars—including Julianna Margulies, David Letterman, Bradley Cooper, Sam Rockwell, Tilda Swinton and Felicity Jones—paid tribute to Clooney at Inside the Museum of Modern Art and Chanel’s virtual evening.

-The fallout from Warner Bros moving all their 2020 movies to streaming on HBO Max continues. From the sounds of it, they bungled the announcement and didn’t warn their talent that it was happening. Christopher Nolan slammed them in a statement to THR, saying, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.” I think they could have handled the communication to the producers/directors/actors better, but given the state of the world it was still the right choice to make. And calling HBO Max “the worst streaming service” shows how little Nolan has dealt with streamers.

-AT&T CEO defended the streaming plan as HBO Max nears 12.6M activated subs, calling it a “win-win-win.”

–Shawn Mendes says he’s taking Camila Cabello to his parents’ place in Pickering for the holidays.

–Emily Blunt is hopeful that an Edge of Tomorrow sequel with Tom Cruise might actually happen.

–Matthew McConaughey continues to get heat for his “let’s all just get along ” bs while the U.S. is sliding towards fascism.

-Wow, I adored the first Euphoria special, which is just Rue and her sponsor eating pancakes in a diner. Sepinwall nails it: “”The show’s rare quiet moments were so powerful, they couldn’t help prompt the question of how good the series as a whole could be if it ever switched to decaf for a while…Necessity is the mother of invention — or, in this case, of restraint. The precarious (and expensive) nature of Covid-era production forced Levinson to take a low-fi approach that otherwise would not have been likely for a proper Season Two premiere. And it results in a spectacular hour that captures nearly all of the series’ strengths, without any of its weaknesses.”

-Everyone’s freaking out over the way Nigella Lawson says “microwave” in this clip.

-Here’s the trailer for the Viggo Mortensen-directed Falling, which got a lot of buzz on the film festival circuit.