Browsing Tag

Halsey

Rihanna and A$AP Rocky Heat Up the Holidays

–Rihanna brought A$AP Rocky home for the holidays.

-If you were online at all over the last few days, you’ve probably caught up with the Hilaria Baldwin drama, in which it was revealed that Alec Baldwin‘s wife was actually born in Massachusetts and has faked a Spanish accent for years. This is my favourite kind of end-of-year scandal: a harmless saga featuring random celebrity cameos (hello, Amy Schumer) and a couple who keeps digging a deeper hole after getting caught up in their own lies.

–Constance Wu welcomed her first child with her boyfriend, musician Ryan Kattner — and they did it 6 months ago and managed to keep it under wraps.

–Emma Roberts and Garrett Hedlund also had their first child, a boy named Rhodes.

–Nick Cannon and his girlfriend, Brittany Bell, also welcomed their second child together over the holidays.

-Personally, I adored Bridgerton on Netflix, even if it’s not without its flaws (the showrunner insists it’s not just colour-blind casting but the show barely engages with race at all). Also, a lot of people’s favourite book is the one focused on Penelope (which I haven’t got to yet), but the reveal at the end of this season makes me wonder how much the audience will still be rooting for her when it’s time for her love story. In any case, if the show follows the books the next season should focus on Anthony and his new love interest, who’s the best character. Like, so good she makes him tolerable.

-We can’t talk about Bridgerton without talking about THE SCENE. Perhaps because I just read the book I was expecting it, but I was surprised at how vocal the reaction to it was. The scene in the book is even *more* problematic but it does a better job with Simon’s POV in the aftermath than the show does. In the book, he more clearly resists, his reaction stutter is worse, it explores his feelings of betrayal more deeply, she’s way more repentant, and he physically separates from her until he can sort out his feelings. Still, I can’t help but wonder why the show didn’t just drop that scene altogether, or at the very least focus more on Simon’s reaction than Daphne’s.

-Speaking of dubious sex scenes in this week’s pop culture, this is a very, very good piece on both Wonder Woman 1984 and Bridgerton’s missteps when it comes to the lack of male consent.

-Speaking of WW84, this review nails it. I still can’t believe that they made Wonder Woman a secondary character in her own sequel, and that her main storyline was about how she’s spent the past 70 years pining (ha!) for a guy she once spent a week with.

-There are too many Batman movies coming. Way, way too many.

-In movie news that actually sounds good, Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum will star in The Lost City of D; she as a romance novelist and he as a romance novel model. Together they’ll be entangled in a “cutthroat jungle adventure.”

–Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have released a holiday podcast special on Spotify. They had Stacey Abrams as a guest and she talked about #BlackLivesMatter and the importance of voting which helped turn Georgia blue.

–Halsey is taking a social media break after apologizing for sharing a photo depicting her eating disorder without adding a trigger warning.

-Netflix is introducing a new weekly chat show about its trending shows. I wonder how this is going to work, seeing as you can’t really have aftershows for series when all your audience is at different stages of their binge?

-Speaking of Netflix shows, the cheerleading drama Dare Me debuts today and critics love it.

-The new trailer for the CW’s Superman & Lois set a familial tone. Ugh, don’t let me get sucked into another CW superhero show.

–Michael B. Jordan will make his directorial debut with the upcoming third installment of the Creed franchise.

–Lori Loughlin has been released from prison after her 2-month sentence following her college bribery scam.

–Justin Bieber‘s (or Justin Bieber’s PR firm’s) response to his wife on social media is very funny.

–Variety apologized to Carey Mulligan for its “insensitive language and insinuation” after she says its review of Promising Young Woman was “basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough” for the role.

-Speaking of Variety, they had a deep dive into Shia LaBeouf’s career that seems to have gotten overlooked in the holiday rush. It includes a couple of interesting tidbits, like how Harry Styles replaced him in Olivia Wilde’s upcoming film Don’t Worry Darling because Wilde has a “zero asshole policy” on her sets.

–Mads Mikkelsen is the best storyteller.

–Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and Jermaine Fowler star in the Coming To America 2 trailer, coming to Amazon Prime in March.

Celebs Urge Fans to Vote

mariah carey voting

–V Magazine released a series of covers with Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Jaden Smith, Chris Evans, Janelle Monae, Jennifer Lawrence, Halsey and more, in which they break down why they’re voting. Carey said “We’ve been socialized to believe that poverty is a personal failure rather than our systems failing us.” Meanwhile, Swift didn’t just tell people to vote; she told them she’s voting for Biden. (She even made cookies.)

-Meanwhile, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson surged past the 200 million follower mark on IG after endorsing Biden, so it’s not exactly career suicide.

-Watch the West Wing cast reunite and recreate the ‘Hartsfield’s Landing’ episode from season 3 in the trailer for an upcoming special benefiting When We All Vote. This gave me chills. That show petered out in the end so you almost forget how very good the first few seasons were.

–David Foster (who is 70) and Katherine McPhee (who is not) are expecting their first child together.

-Finally, Tory Lanez has been charged with assaulting a woman (presumably Megan Thee Stallion, who claims he fired a gun at her as she exited a car, resulting in injuries to her feet that required surgery).

-If you follow Deux Moi (and who doesn’t during quarantine?) then you’ll have seen all the sightings from the past 24 hours of people claiming to have witnessed Noah Centineo and Stassie Karanikolaou getting engaged/eloping in Vegas.

-Of all the TV shows that I want an oral history about its behind-the-scenes shenanigans, nothing beats The Vampire Diaries (followed closely by The Good Wife). The whispers about what went down on that set are legendary. Now, former costars Paul Wesley and Matt Davis are duking it out on Twitter over politics. (Davis already has a, um, questionable reputation.)

-I love that celebs who are “remotely attending” fashion shows just seem to be throwing on every piece they own from that designer. Here’s Marion Cotillard at Chanel, and Euphoria’s Storm Reid at Miu Miu.

-There’s an urban legend that Princess Beatrice once pretended to knight singer James Blunt with a sword, but instead sliced Ed Sheeran across the face. Turns out Sheeran’s manager says it’s true — and she hasn’t spoken to him since.

-The Academy Awards have introduced new rules allowing movies to be eligible if they’ve screened at drive-ins. Which is very smart because there’s no way theatres are staying open in the major markets this xmas.

-This is a fascinating look at how Alex Gibney pulled off a secret exposĂ© of America’s COVID-19 failures in five months.

-With Tony Stark out of the picture it seems Peter Parker needs a new mentor — and Doctor Strange is stepping up. Benedict Cumberbatch will reprise the role in the next Spider-Man film.

-The “unrenewal” trend continues: Showtime has cancelled Kirsten Dunst‘s show On Becoming a God in Central Florida, despite renewing it for Season 2 last September. When Showtime (who never cancels anything) gets in on the trend, you know TV is screwed.

–Selena Quintanilla‘s life story will be streaming on Netflix in December. Check out the trailer.

-The Princess Switch: Switched Again is coming to Netflix Nov 19, with Vanessa Hudgens set to return as 3 look-alikes. I can’t wait to see how long they can keep this franchise going…

-Here’s the trailer for David Fincher’s latest film Mank, a biopic of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, which is coming to Netflix.

Florence Pugh Defends Relationship with Zach Braff

–Florence Pugh is fighting back after she posted a birthday message for Zach Braff and people immediately commented on their age differene: “I do not need you to tell me who I should or should not love and I would never in my life — ever ever — tell anyone who they can or cannot love. It is not your place, and really it has nothing to do with you.”

–Lady Gaga covers InStyle and says she’s “very excited” to start a family: “I look forward to being a mom. Isn’t it incredible what we can do? We can hold a human inside and grow it. Then it comes out, and it’s our job to keep it alive. It’s so funny — everyone works out of my house every day. When they come in, I always say, ‘Welcome to the Womb!'”

–Cardi B is partnering with Fashion Nova to give away $1,000 every hour until May 20.

-Also, Halsey donated 100,000 face masks to four California hospitals.

–George and Amal Clooney donated more than $1 million to coronavirus relief efforts.

–Jimmy Fallon, Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig star in a quarantine soap opera skit titled The Longest Days of Our Lives.

–Jake Gyllenhaal says Heath Ledger refused to do the opening at the 2007 Academy Awards because producers wanted to stick in a homophobic joke about Brokeback Mountain. “I was sort of at the time, ‘Oh, okay
 whatever.’ I’m always like, ‘It’s all in good fun.’ And Heath said, ‘It’s not a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it.’ That’s the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke. Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, ‘No. This is about love. Like, that’s it, man. Like, no.’ ”

–Jodie Turner-Smith is my favourite person on Twitter because of stuff like this.

–Justin Timberlake did Hot Ones. I couldn’t make it through the whole interview because there’s no way I can suffer through a half hour of JT, but good for him for giving Nardwuar a shout out.

-SNL is returning with a new, remotely produced episode this Saturday.

–Nicole Richie was on Naomi Campbell’s daily “talk show” and she reminisced about sticking her hand up a cow’s butt during an episode of The Simple Life: “The pressure of going inside the cow? That feeling will never leave my body.”

-Exes Demi Moore and Bruce Willis are taking conscious uncoupling to the next level: they’re self-isolating together with their kids.

-There’s a new Gourmet Makes! Claire tries to recreate Cadbury creme eggs.

–Jimmy Fallon gets introspective in a new Vulture interview and says it will be a long, long, long time before The Tonight Show could be the same again. And it may never be.

–Wills and Kate hired the Sussexs’ former Instagram manager.

–The Strokes are dropping a new album tomorrow and early reviews are glowing.

-The New Yorker profiled Fran Lebowitz on how she’s been handling social distancing and every quote is a gem. My favourite: “I hate to cook. I find it incredibly tedious. Last night, I was peeling a cucumber and I was infuriated. Like, why am I peeling this cucumber? Why am I not in a restaurant, where they know how to peel a cucumber, and where I’m not doing it?” My other favourite: “Until this happened I was one of the few people still shaking hands, because people were hugging….I was so shocked when hugging started. I thought, Are you out of your mind? I would put my hand out and people would go in for a hug. This is when someone’s introducing you to someone. I think it would be great if hugging stopped. Hugging apparently is less virus-producing than shaking hands, but hugging is its own kind of contagion.” I feel seen.

-I missed the news that Leighton Meester and Adam Brody are expecting their second child. Yay for them!

–Joaquin Phoenix‘s GQ cover story is just a mashup of a bunch of old interviews. I know everyone’s social distancing but phoners are still a thing.

-Modern Family bowed out last night with its highest ratings in three years.

-I’ve downloaded Quibi but haven’t really watched anything yet. I have, however, listened to the Extra Hot Great podcast and this rant about Liam Hemsworth‘s new show, Most Dangerous Game.

-The trailer for Netflix’s The Half of It looks wonderful. A straight-A student who’s coming to terms with the fact she’s gay becomes best friends with a popular jock.