Browsing Category

Array

Taylor Swift Talks Politics and Politeness

taylor-swift-sundance-variety

Taylor Swift is about to drop her new Netflix documentary (after it premieres this week at Sundance), and she’s promoting it with a Variety cover story. She talks about why she stayed silent so long on her political views (“Every time I didn’t speak up about politics as a young person, I was applauded for it. It was wild. I said, ‘I’m a 22-year-old girl — people don’t want to hear what I have to say about politics.’ And people would just be like, ‘Yeahhhhh!'”), revisited her VMAs moment with Kanye West (“As a teenager who had only been in country music, attending my very first pop awards show, somebody stood up and sent me the message: ‘You are not respected here. You shouldn’t be here on this stage.’ That message was received, and it burrowed into my psyche more than anyone knew”), and revealed sad news about her mom (“While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumor. And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before. So it’s just been a really hard time for us as a family”).

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have issued a stern warning to photographers in Canada after paparazzi photos of Markle taking a walk with Archie in a public park in Vancouver were published.

-Meanwhile, Harryreturned to Canada (on a Westjet commercial flight!).

-I’ve only listened to the podcast from Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum a couple of times because whew, that guy is A LOT, but I tuned into this week’s Stephen Amell episode and it was pretty devastating. Amell taped it less than a month after wrapping Arrow and in the midst of his Code 8 promo tour, and about 30 minutes in he had a full-on panic attack. He returned a couple of weeks later to finish out the recording and talk about the toll that shooting 15-hour days for eight seasons straight with projects during hiatuses has taken on him.

-After declaring his love for Brad Pitt on the Ellen Show, Dax Shepard said Brad took him on a date: “In Brad Pitt fashion, it was spectacular. We took a helicopter… you think I’m lying! We took a helicopter to a motorcycle track. We both love riding motorcycles. Just the two of us took a jaunt up to this motorcycle track. I felt like Pretty Woman.”

-According to critics, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Lab isn’t as terrible as the trailer suggested? I’m shocked, frankly.

Pamela Anderson just got married to a movie mogul. Good for her?

-This is a great interview with Aidy Bryant, who’s promoting the new season of Shrill. She talks about always being asked about her weight (“I feel like I’m a lot more things before that, like friend, wife, daughter, whatever. And I’m fat. I’m also a star! A certified star. I’m also rich now, so eat shit”) and how she had to fight for her character to have sex scenes (“How can you have a story about a person’s body and about their relationship to their selves and not involve sex? I just always felt like so many fat characters were so sexless, or the sex was hypercartoony, where it was like she jumps on a man and she’s going to break his dick off and suck him until he’s dead or whatever. But I always was having cool sex and had boyfriends”).

-Former Life with Derek stars Michael Seater and Ashley Leggat know all about Twitter rooting for their step-sibling characters to get together — and they’re cool with it.

Oprah just picked a problematic novelfor her book club and people are not happy.

Alison Brie plays a woman losing her grip on reality in the trailer for Horse Girl, which is premiering a Sundance.

-Here’s the trailer for Netflix’s new comedy Gentefied from executive producer America Ferrera.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Peace Out

-I mean, what else could we possibly want to talk about today beyond Prince Harry and Meghan Markle blowing up the royal family by basically quitting it??! Despite some tabloid chatter yesterday about them considering a semi-permanent move to Canada, no one really saw this coming. Including The Queen — judging from Buckingham Palace’s super curt statement, as well as reports that the couple didn’t warn the family before posting the news on Instagram. Courtiers are reportedly saying with this move, they have “exiled themselves from the royal family.” I can’t even wrap my head around how big of an f-you to the establishment this is. And if that wasn’t great enough, this whole thing is playing out with a rom-com narrative: it comes off like Meghan freed her husband from a terrible system that treated his mom like trash, while Harry had enough of the palace allowing (and maybe even encouraging) his wife to be thrown under in the bus in the press in order to distract from William’s rumoured affair with Kate’s best friend and Andrew’s interactions with a convicted pedophile. This is gold.

-In another example of how carefully they planned and executed this, Harry and Meghan also posted a ton of answers on their website about the transition, saying — among other things — that they want to keep a UK home base at Frogmore Cottage as long as the Queen lets them, they’ll pay for their own travel via commercial transportation, and they want to earn a professional income. (There were whispers about them being forced to turn down an Obama-esque Netflix deal; I wonder if we’ll see that in the future?)

-This is a good threadexplaining how this impacts the British Royal Family.

-In any case, I immediately went to re-read this passage in “Red, White & Royal Blue.” I’m probably going to dig out my copy of “The Royal We” tonight, too.

-Look, I don’t watch the Real Housewives but this story sounds like it will make for incredible TV: Denise Richards reportedly stopped filming Real Housewives of Beverly Hills after her passionate, months-long affair with Brandi Glanville was exposed by castmates while they filmed a trip to Rome.

Justin Beiber revealed that he’s been secretly battling Lyme disease for the past year. What is it with Canadian pop stars and Lyme? First Avril, not him.

-The day of wild news continues: Grimes and Elon Musk are expecting their first child.

-Fans are convinced they have photographic evidence of Adele and Harry Stylesvacationing together in Anguilla, and I’m here for it.

-How dare Jillian Michaelscriticize Lizzo’s size? I’ve seen Lizzo perform live twice and she bounces all around the stage, singing and playing the flute for over an hour without skipping a breath. Meanwhile, Michaels was an integral part of The Biggest Loser, a show in which a ton of its contestants became undernourished and exhausted from overexercising and restricting caloric intake to the point of cruelty.

-Speaking of Lizzo, she volunteered at Melbourne’s Foodbank to pack food hampers for those affected by Australia’s fire crisis.

Emily Hampshire savagely roasting Dan Levy at the end of this clip makes me think I need to catch up on the Schitt’s Creek behind-the-scenes videos.

-Of all the magazine video content that tries to go viral, I really like the Vanity Fair slang explainers. Some good new ones are Dan Levyexplaining youth slang terms to his dad Eugene, and Uncut Gems’ Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel reviewing New York slang.

-The Party of Five reboot is getting reallygood reviews.

-The trailer for Netflix’s Sex Education season 2 has arrived.

-ABC has ordered a pilot for a thirtysomething sequel, featuring many of the original cast members. That show was a little before my time, but the sequel is from Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, who created the incredible Once and Again, so I’m in. (Also, why isn’t that show streaming somewhere? Or thirtysomething? Or Ally McBeal? Or Sisters? It feels like there’s a whole segment of female-targeting 90s/00s family dramas that are just lost.)

-But like, WHY was Chris Evans seemingly drunk on a red carpet?

-My god, the screenwriters for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker need to stop trying to explain their decisions. It’s making it worse.

-The first promo for Quibi(which I just learned is short for ‘quick bites’) explains it will offer shows with episodes of 4-10 minutes in length, meant to be watched on your phone. The amount of behind and in front of camera talent they’ve lined up so far means this thing is going to be undeniable. They’re rolling out 175 series in the first year, with plans to deliver three hours of fresh content each day. It launches in US and Canada in April.

-This is terrible: Silvio Horta, the creator and executive producer of Ugly Betty, died by reported suicide at 45.

-This is a great profile on Patrick Stewart, in which he talks about Star Trek, growing up poor, Logan, the first time he read Shakespeare, and Gene Roddenberry’s golf habit.

-Vogue has the wedding photos of soccer stars Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris, and they’re gorg.

Katie Holmes is haunted by a creepy doll in the trailer for Brahms: The Boy II.

-Here’s the trailer for Locke and Key, Netflix’s highly anticipated adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel.

Scarlett Johansson Addresses Backlash

Scarlett Johansson vanity fair

Scarlett Johansson covers the latest issue of Vanity Fair. She talks about her marriage to Ryan Reynolds (“The first time I got married I was 23 years old. I didn’t really have an understanding of marriage. Maybe I kind of romanticized it, I think, in a way”), her statement over the controversy about her being cast as a transgender man in Rub & Tug (“I was not sensitive, my initial reaction to it…I was uneducated. So I learned a lot through that process. I misjudged that…. It was a hard time. It was like a whirlwind. I felt terribly about it. To feel like you’re kind of tone-deaf to something is not a good feeling”), and her defense of Woody Allen (“I do understand how that is triggering for some people. But just because I believe my friend does not mean that I don’t support women, believe women. I think you have to take it on a case-by-case basis”).

-That Mark McGrath viral video wasn’t a real breakup. But he still took $100 from a fan thinking it was.

-A source close to Justin Timberlake says “Their marriage will survive. He feels guilty and will make it up to [Jessica Biel]” after he was photographed getting too cozy with his costar.  Of course, you would think that if he REALLY felt guilty for all the embarrassment he’s putting his wife through, he wouldn’t have also gotten photographed leaving the same traileras said costar this week. I mean, it’s like he’s not even trying.

Madonna and Lil Nas X are the celebrity friends I never knew I needed.

-Speaking of celebrity friends, Brad Pitt and Alia Shawkat were spotted together again.

T.I. says he was talking about his daughter’s hymen in a “joking manner”and his intentions were “terribly misconstrued and misconceived.” Uh huh.

Channing Tatumfiled a request yesterday that he and Jenna Dewan meet with a counselor once a month to help schedule their time with thier daughter and assist in resolving any of their co-parenting issues.

-Now that they’re feeling bullish on Robert Pattinson‘s The Batman, Warner Bros believe the film’s villains like Riddler, Penguin or Catwoman could headline their own spinoff movies, and are eyeing Michael B. Jordan’s pitch for a Superman movie.

Gabrielle Union will reportedly not be returning for the next season of America’s Got Talent — reportedly because she spoke outabout “problematic” situations that were taking place behind-the-scenes, including racism, sexism and more.

Victoria Beckham answered Ellen’s burning questionsand she was super charming and funny. It’s so weird to see her smile but I love it.