Browsing Tag

Joss Whedon

Jennifer Lopez Shines with Short Hair

jlo allure short hair

-I love Jennifer Lopez’s pixie cut on the cover of Allure, but I’m assuming it’s a wig since her locks were flowing at the Super Bowl last weekend.

-In her cover story with Health magazine, Rosario Dawson opens up about raising her 17-year-old adopted daughter from age 11. “To have a young person move in with you and to have to really consciously work through triggers and that kind of stuff is a really different thing than being pregnant and having your baby grow up in front of you—to be able to see how we’re getting closer and closer. We are a family, and it’s beautiful.”

-This is a great piece on Chadwick Boseman, who covers Vanity Fair’s Awards Extra issue.

-I have never written a story a quickly as I did this one about Charisma Carpenter calling out Joss Whedon for a hostile and abusive work environment because I didn’t need to look up any dates or details. Buffy fans have heard these rumours for years, and know what she’s previously alluded to at conventions. It felt like it was only a matter of time after Ray Fisher‘s allegations, not to mention Whedon abruptly leaving his HBO series before it premiered, for this all to come out. Since Carpenter’s tweets, Buffy alum Tara Benson called the show “a toxic environment,” Michelle Trachtenberg said Whedon’s behaviour towards her teen self was “not appropriate,” while Sarah Michelle Gellar gave a more vague statement about not wanting to be forever associated with his name.

Shia LaBeouf just parted ways with his agency, CAA. He’s been receiving treatment for over five weeks, a source tells Variety, and the actor is currently living at an inpatient facility.

-HBO Max has a straight-to-series order for an adult-focused animated Scooby-Doo origin story about Velma, from exec producer Mindy Kaling, who will also lend her voice in the lead role.

Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, welcomed a baby boy.

-The legal battle over Britney Spears and her conservatorship is set to return to court this week, days after a New York Times documentary outlined the ongoing legal battle. Spears is reportedly hopeful the doc will help turn the tide.

-I really liked this piece on the Britney doc’s structure and why giving it a linear timeline was the correct framing device.

-Speaking of the Britney doc, I loved this piece on how Justin Timberlake should apologize for weaponizing his relationship with women. “Timberlake got to do whatever he wanted for years. Someone let this man do a full minute of mediocre beatboxing in ‘Rock Your Body’ and then we went out and bought the album and thought, Yes, I want to hear this at every wedding I go to for the rest of my life. But he didn’t do any of this alone; he just learned his lesson well: that you can be taller if you stand on the shoulders of a woman with no protection. For many of us, it was easier to just let him win.”

Esmé Bianco says Marilyn Manson whipped and scarred her on a music video set, and once chased her around their apartment with an axe.

-Our first look at Elle Fanning in season two of The Great show our Empress with a bun in the over.

Lena Dunham had to release a statement on the use of real cat corpses in her HBO Max’s show Generation, denying knowledge of the incident. She said “I don’t use animal cadavers in any of my work, ever, and I was not on set or aware that they were used in a recently shot scene depicting a biology classroom assignment.”

Reese Witherspoon was spotted visiting Laura Dern on her birthday.

-#FireGinaCarano is trending worldwide on social media after Gina Carano shared a post that compared being a Republican to being a Jew during the Holocaust. Seriously, how long is Disney going to let her keep doing this stuff? Don’t most talent contracts have a morality clause?

-Here’s the latest trailer for Nomadland.

Angelina Jolie Invites Us Into Her Home

 

Angelina-Jolie-British-Vogue

Angelina Jolie covers the March issue Of British Vogue, and the interview is a good mix of hints about her split from Brad Pitt (“The past few years have been pretty hard. I’ve been focusing on healing our family. It’s slowly coming back, like the ice melting and the blood returning to my body”), passion about her activism (“I see a lot of older people making excuses for certain behaviours, and it tends to be the younger person who is quicker to say, ‘But this is simply wrong, and we stand against it'”) and cute anecdotes about her kids (“I feel that I’m gonna hit my stride in my fifties. Though we were on the trampoline the other day, and the children said, ‘No, Mom, don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.’ And I thought, ‘God, isn’t that funny?’ There was a day I was an action star”). The family photos are just as fascinating as the quotes — I love the one where she’s giving Maddox a haircut.

-Uh oh. A former costar of Adam Driver went on a Portuguese podcast and accused him of “behaving very badly” on the set of 2018’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. According to translations, she said “he demanded, I think by contract, that no one could look at him. If they looked, the extras were immediately fired.” She also said he got too rough with her during filming: “He behaved very badly with me. Physically. He attacked me… And it had nothing to do with the scene.”

Sarah Jessica Parker and Taraji P Henson will announce the major Golden Globes categories live on TV tomorrow morning. Weirdly, Best Comedy Movie won’t make the cut.

-Starz announced today that it will remove Marilyn Manson from his upcoming appearance in its drama series American Gods.

Dolly Parton turned down an offer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice during the Donald Trump administration — possibly because she had scheduling conflicts but I prefer to believe she’s just that good.

-Although she helped fund the vaccine research, she still hasn’t gotten the shot. “I’m not going to get mine until some more people get theirs. I don’t want it to look like I’m jumping the line just because I donated money.”

-I’ve been really enjoying the Too Long; Didn’t Watch podcast, in which a celeb watches the first and last episode of a series they’d never seen before and tries to figure out what they missed. Jon Hamm watched Gossip Girl, Alison Brie watched Game of Thrones, Kumail Nanjiani watched Veronica Mars, and this week Sophia Bush watches Parks and Rec.

Mariah Carey‘s family continues to be garbage. Her sister is suing her for $1.25 million, alleging infliction of emotional distress.​

-The palace is refusing to take the blame for the birth certificate fiasco.

-Stars like Charli XCX and Rihanna are mourning the death of producer Sophie.

-Also, Rihanna is shining light on India’s farmers protests.

-This article on stressed-out COVID compliance officers and assistants who work on TV shows is terrifying. “I have no formal training. I have no medical training. I don’t know anything more or less about coronavirus than the next person.”

-I really liked this piece on Hannah Waddingham’s arc on Ted Lasso. It’s so rare to see such a fully realized character in a comedy, especially a woman over 40.

Ariana Grande is releasing a deluxe album — and it’s got 4 different versions of “Positions.”

-Here’s the trailer for The Nevers, HBO’s Victorian sci-fi drama that Joss Whedon created — and then left. I must say I’m intrigued by this first look.

Will Smith is featured in the trailer for Amend: The Fight for America, which also features Mahershala Ali, Diane Lane, Samuel L. Jackson, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sterling K Brown, Joshua Jackson, Yara Shahidi, Laverne Cox and more. It drops on Netflix next weekend.

Amy Poehler directs and co-stars in Moxie, playing a woman who inspires her teen daughter to start a rabble-rousing zine. It’s coming to Netflix next month.

Jada Pinkett Smith Is Ready for “Healing”

-It’s been a busy week for Jada Pinkett Smith. First she called out Youtuber Shane Dawson for talking about masturbating to a poster of Willow Smith when she was 11. And now she’s once again denying those long-standing rumours of an open marriage after singer August Alsina gave an interview in which he seemed to confirm he’d had an affair with her — with Will Smith‘s blessing. Alsina said: “I actually sat down with Will and had a conversation … due to the transformation from their marriage to life partnership they’ve spoken on several times…He gave me his blessing.. And I totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life, and I truly and really, really, deeply loved and have a ton of love for her, I devoted myself to it…I just always stayed silent because I never want to be the person that causes confusion, I love these people. I have literally never been in love in that kind of way so much so that being intertwined in that way, walking away from it butchered me.” The age difference (she was in her 40s and he was 21 when this rumoured relationship allegedly started), plus the fact that she’s previously said she mentored him, is giving people pause.

-Today, Jada seemed to imply that she’ll be talking about this on Red Table Talk, tweeting “There’s some healing that needs to happen…so I’m bringing myself to The Red Table.”

Christina Ricci was granted an emergency protective order against her husband, film producer James Heerdegen.

-According to court documents filed for her lawsuit against the Mail, Meghan Markle felt “unprotected by the Institution [the royal family], and prohibited from defending herself” during her pregnancy with Archie.

-Meanwhile, in a new video Prince Harry says institutional racism is “endemic” and is “committed to being part of the solution.”

Brie Larson filmed a socially distanced episode of Hot Ones.

-This is a good look at CBC Gem, the best streaming service in Canada that no one seems to know about. It’s free and has shows like Normal People, Pen15 and Freaks and Geeks.

-A bunch of people in the industry — both supporters and detractors of Mel Gibsontalk to Variety about how his career in Hollywood seems to survive.

-Justice League’s Ray Fisher expanded on his thoughts on Joss Whedon, tweeting “Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.” This is a very good recap of all the Justice League bts drama, including reports that Gal Gadot refused to film a scene Joss wrote where The Flash falls into her boobs. It also touches on other problematic Joss stories, like Charisma Carpenter saying he fired her from Angel for getting pregnant, and his ex-wife accusing him of using her as a “shield” so no one would question his feminism or relationship with women.

Khloé Kardashian is potentially back together with Tristan Thompson.

Ricky Gervais, Ramy Youssef, Kenan Thompson, Kumail Nanjiani and Dan Levy are featured in this year’s THR comedy actor roundtable. Levy says of Schitt’s Creek’s total lack of homophobia: “My feeling was if I were to include homophobia or bigotry of any kind in the show, it would be giving power to those people who see themselves on TV…I don’t ever consider our show to be very political, but I suppose that decision to just say, ‘We’re never going to show the dark side,’ is the quiet politics of our show.”

-Variety’s latest Actors on Actors video is with Homeland’s Claire Danes and Damien Lewis. Why did he take this call in his car?!

Alicia Keys did Vogue’s 73 Questions  and her house is gorg (it was filmed back in Feb).

-Welsh singer Duffy, who earlier this year revealed she had been drugged, kidnapped, trafficked and raped, has publicly called out Netflix for showing Polish feature film 365 Days, because it “glamorizes the brutal reality of sex trafficking, kidnapping and rape.”

-Netflix is shifting $100 million to Black-owned banks.

Jeffrey Epstein’s confidante and alleged accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested by the FBI. It’ll be very interesting to see if she names names.

-Hulu has renewed The Great for a second season. I’m still not done the first but am loving it!

-This is such a good piece on the Golden Girls on why it’s weird the mudface scene is what the show is getting criticized for when the entire series is mired in racism and rape culture, and how it’s important to critically unpack all the messages we receive every day in pop culture and think deeply about how to reduce the harm in them.

-The Hamilton movie drops on Disney+ tomorrow and the reviews are glowing. It’s 100% fresh on RottenTomatoes with 82 reviews counted.

Charlize Theron, Kiki Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in the new trailer for The Old Guard.