Browsing Tag

R. Kelly

Anne Hathaway Talks Anxiety, Critics

Anne Hathaway Serenity

Anne Hathaway is still out here hustling for Serenity, landing on the cover of People in which she talks about hugging Julie Andrews, how she handles haters (“What I appreciate is when the negativity has some intelligence behind it. What I don’t like is lazy negativity. If you’re going to take someone down, have a point of view! Be witty, maybe pun a little!”) and how she’s come to peace with her fame “by not apologizing for taking up space, which is not something I knew how to do 10 years ago.”

Cardi B and Offset are “working things out, baby.”

Jussie Smollett‘s family issued a statement about the “cowardly” assault against the Empire star, calling it “domestic terrorism” and adding “This was a racial and homophobic hate crime.” Also, his manager confirmed that he was on the phone with the actor at the time of the attack. Meanwhile, a solidarity rally is being planned.

-This is nice: Octavia Spencer says LeBron James “intervened” to get her equal pay on her new Netflix series.

-I love that Paul F. Tompkins literally tweeted his way into a recurring role on You’re The Worst.

Mariah Carey, oh no baby what is you doin?

Taylor Swift‘s career is not in decline, thank you very much.

Ariana Grande “fixed” her tat so it now reads “Japanese Barbecue Finger.” Um, yay?

-Nothing ever dies on The CW, which just granted early renewals to 10 series: Arrow, Black Lightning, Charmed, The Flash, Legacies, Legends of Tomorrow, Riverdale, Supergirl, Supernatural (for it’s 15th season!!) and Dynasty (proving that it doesn’t matter if you’re only pulling in 600k viewers a week if you’re making $$ from international rights). The only currently airing CW shows missing from the list are All American, The 100 and Roswell, New Mexico.

-Over on Showtime, Shameless got renewed for season 10, despite Emmy Rossum‘s departure. Also, The L Word revival is a go, with Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey and Katherine Moennig reprising their roles. SHANE!!!!

-I’m pretty stoked that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are continuing to produce Miraval because that is i a damn fine rosé.

-Excellent, disturbing read from The Guardian: “R Kelly, Michael Jackson and Bryan Singer. Who knew? Everyone.”

-Also, the Singer scandal might actually help Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances. I hate the world.

-Looks like the Oscars have changed their mind and will feature all five Best Song nominees on the telecast after all. As recently as last week, reps for three of the tunes were being told there was no time for them, but solidarity among the nominees may have forced their hand. I love that.

Bella Thorne says she noticed a general unwillingness to work with her ever since she came out as bisexual. Is she sure it’s that and not her terrible reputation?

-As we all suspected, Ben Affleck is giving up the cowl as Batman, even if Warner Brothers isn’t ready to publicly admit it.

-According to the reaction at the first screen of Captain Marvel, audiences really dug the cat.

-She’s All That is celebrating its 20th(!) anniversary this week and I’m vacuuming up all the content. The oral history on the dance scene alone feeds my soul. GIVE ME ALL OF IT!

-The first trailer for Aidy Bryant’s new Hulu series Shrill looks delightful!

Reese Witherspoon Wants to Put Women “In The Center Of The Story”

reese-witherspoon-vogue

-In her new Vogue cover story, Reese Witherspoon talks about using her producing power to create strong roles for women and how she learned to own her success: “I used to hide my Oscar but then I was like, ‘Why shouldn’t I put it out here in the living room?'”

Lady Gaga has finally apologized for working with R Kelly after getting lots of pressure to do so. (It’s a little strange that she invokes the “younger self” bit since it was only 5 years ago and by then the rumours about Kelly were widely known, but at least it’s something.)

-French band Phoenix has also apologized for working with him.

Chris Pine and Patty Jenkins talk about their new TNT series in the latest issue of Variety, and Pine remains as charming as ever. I especially liked the part where he talks about playing a supporting role against a female lead, like in Wonder Woman: “Being in the film and supporting a woman doing that job is kind of a dance between ego and soul. I’m not too proud to admit it and say that at times, I’d have 30-minute conversations with Patty; I’d look at her, and she was wonderfully patient. I’d realize it had abso-f—ing-lutely nothing to do with me.”

-This is a good piece on how Bradley Cooper seems to simultaneously inspire awe an irritation by the way he plays the game.

-Not playing the Oscar game well are the men behind Green Book, who are increasingly showing their asses.

-God bless Terry Crews. He called out Kevin Hart for his reaction to the outrage over his anti-gay tweets. “The truth is, Kevin, you’re not being attacked. The truth is you have to just acknowledge what went on and acknowledge the pain of other people.”

Terry‘s show Brooklyn Nine-Nine debuts at its new home on NBC tonight.

-I liked this interview with various movie, TV and music critics on if there’s any value in writing really harsh reviews.

-There’s a lot of thirsty tweets going around about Penn Badgley‘s stalker character on You, and I love that the actor keeps reminding people that his character is a murderous psycho that you should not be lusting over.

-Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker is clapping back at Bandersnatch critics: “F*ck off, do something else.”

-This NYT list of the 20 best dramas since the Sopranos is surprisingly great. Enlisted! Veronica Mars! Jane the Virgin!

-Fox’s new show The Passage is getting decent reviews, which is good cause I’ve been missing Mark Paul Gosselaar on my TV screen since Pitch was cancelled.

-A new trailer for Punisher season 2 has arrived, and while I’m not here for Frank kissing someone who isn’t Karen, I’m definitely here for Frank begrudgingly becoming a father figure to an unruly teenage girl.

-Things get tense when terrorists take over a hotel in the new trailer for Hotel Mumbai starring Armie Hammer and Dev Patel.

-The trailer for Velvet Buzzsaw with Jake Gyllenhaal is beyond bizarre and I kind of love it?

 

Ellen DeGeneres Faces Backlash For Defending Kevin Hart

Ellen Degeneres doesn’t usually step in it, but hoo boy did she screw up today by having Kevin Hart on her show and pushing for him to be reinstated as the Oscar host. There was sooo much wrong here. It should have been a conversation about what he learned, how he’s sorry, what he’s doing for the black LGBTQ community, etc. But instead, Hart insisted he had already apologized for the tweets years ago (he hadn’t), while Ellen fed into his conspiracy theories and helped him re-frame the legitimate criticisms of his anti-gay tweet as a baseless onslaught by a mob of “haters”, which just made things worse. (Their insistence that the whole thing was a carefully timed “attack” cooked up by trolls combing through his 40k tweets to find hateful ones irked me the most. Haven’t they ever heard of Twitter Advanced Search? It took me 3 seconds to find this one. And this one. And ALL OF THESE.) The Ringer aptly dubbed their conversation “a baffling exercise in celebrity self-preservation.” This guy also summed it up very well.

-Also, good on Vulture for doing a deep dive into Hart‘s supposed “apologies.”

-Meanwhile, the Academy is reportedly open to Hart hosting as soon as he says the word.

John Legend was the only artist who was willing to speak out against R. Kelly in Lifetime’s docu-series. He tweeted: “To everyone telling me how courageous I am for appearing in the doc, it didn’t feel risky at all. I believe these women and don’t give a f–k about protecting a serial child rapist. Easy decision.”

Brie Larson doing 275lbs weighted hip thrusts for a cookie is a mood.

-All of the covers for W’s Best Performances of the Year issue are so, so good!

-Speaking of good covers, I love everything about Emma Stone on British Vogue.

-Is it the end of the era for celebrity apps? First the Kardashians shut down theirs, and now it’s Taylor Swift’s turn.

-Oh god. Drake may be making new music with Chris Brown.

Remi Malek confirmed he’s dating his Bohemian Rhapsody costar Lucy Boynton.

-TV critics Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall wrote a new book called The Sopranos Sessions. (Their last book, TV – The Book, is my fave coffee table read.) They interviewed Sopranos creator David Chase and when he was talking about the infamous final scene, he called it a “death scene.” Huh.

Gywneth Paltrow got in on the Brad Pitt meme action.

These photos made everyone think Madonna got butt implants, but she would prefer everyone shut up about it.

-Is Marvel really retconning Loki‘s supervillain role? Wasn’t mind control (or at least an altered state) often a little implied in those movies?

-This was a really fun Roxane Gay interview.

-Speaking of good interviews, I could read Ethan Hawke waxing poetic about life and art all day.

-The reviews for Lindsay Lohan’s new reality show have me intrigued.

Elle Fanning and Rebecca Hall star in the Teen Spirit trailer.  (Great, great use of a Robyn song.)