Kevin Fallon

No one knew the slap was going to happen. This week’s episode of The Flight Attendant was all about dark, startling surprises—and we’re not even talking about when North Koreans show up to chase the leading lady through the woods. (Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for “Brothers & Sisters,” the sixth episode of The Flight Attendant Season 2, which hit HBO Max Thursday.) Cassie (Kaley Cuoco) stunned her brother Davey (T.R. Knight) with the revelation that, after celebrating a year of sobriety, she had relapsed the night before their trip back to their hometown. When they arrive at their childhood house, Cassie’s […]

Am I proud of the fact that the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season premiere is the greatest piece of entertainment I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life? Of course not. Citizen Kane is horrified. Who even is Steven Spielberg? There was a show called The Wire? The pilot of Smash found shook. And do I enjoy that I counted down the days until Erika Jayne had to atone for her atrocious and angry self-victimizing in a carefully orchestrated way that was equal parts damage control and entertainment value on reality television? Again, no. But I will never pretend I’m not […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: I’ll Love This Show Five-eva In my mind, there is no greater line in TV comedy than the button on the Girls5eva theme song. At the beginning of each episode, the group, a former Y2K pop act, sings, “We’re gonna be famous 5eva, because fourever’s too short.” That alone is clever wordplay. Then comes the kicker. “So what are you waiting…five?” It’s so dumb. […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Guys, Lea Michele is really talented. The porny Netflix phenomenon with the bad sex scenes. I can’t get over this Olivia Wilde stuff. It’s the year 2000 again and I won’t stop talking about Real World: New Orleans. The cinematic event of the year. That Porny Netflix Movie Isn’t Even That Sexy In 2020, an erotic thriller called 365 Days, which was known in […]

Andrew Garfield can preach. That much was evident when he played Jim Bakker in last year’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye, about the irresistible and ultimately corrupt televangelist and his wife, played by Oscar winner Jessica Chastain. Then in Tick, Tick…Boom!, he starred as musical theater composer Jonathan Larson, who had so much to say about the world through his music that, for a generation of fans, his show Rent remains a religious text. Now, Garfield is back talking God again in Under the Banner of Heaven, the new FX series based on the book by Jon Krakauer. The series centers […]

In 2022, we’re all going freelance. Hitmen included. The gig economy has a far reach. It seems like a lifetime ago when Barry premiered (2018, if we were ever so young), and in that time, Bill Hader’s well-meaning, tortured assassin-turned-aspiring actor has made great strides. He’s also stuck in neutral. At the end of last season, he was happy with his girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and landed an audition with a major Hollywood director. He also committed a massacre while his mentor Gene (Henry Winkler) learned that he murdered the love of his life. Baby steps. Gruesome as it is, there’s […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. If a TV show starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it even make a sound? It’s a wild situation. The biggest movie star of her generation is in a TV series with one of the most celebrated actors, she in glorious glam, replete with a teased blonde bouffant and a brassy Southern accent, […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Yes, I obviously—and immediately—signed up for the bizarre Jennifer Lopez fansite newsletter she forced people to subscribe to in order to see a photo of her engagement ring from Ben Affleck. The whole engagement news is so surreal. I’m only mostly—not all the way—embarrassed to admit that it’s exciting, too—so exciting that I willingly requested for more email to be sent to my inbox. It was […]

Abbott Elementary just aired a perfect season of TV. Who would have predicted that an ABC sitcom about teachers would be this exciting? Or that it would somehow become the buzziest comedy of the season? Not a Netflix dark comedy. Not a bingeable Hulu series starring some major movie star. It’s what we once thought was going extinct: a network comedy series that everyone is talking about. Tuesday night’s season finale of Abbott Elementary on ABC had the school going on a field trip to the zoo, and everyone contemplating change and the future. Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Barbara Howard started off […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: I Beg of You: Watch Starstruck If I were to choose my favorite recent TV joke in the Non-Abbott Elementary Category (see here for that winner) it would be from the premiere of the new season of Starstruck on HBO Max. I’m not sure why we’re not all talking about Starstruck, because, for the kind of show it is, it is perfect. It is […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. To get to talk about Aline, to share what it is like to watch the film for the first time, is the honor of my career. I am touched. Privileged. Blessed. Having the platform to preach about and celebrate the unauthorized French biopic of Céline Dion, which secured the rights to a handful of her songs but cannot use her name and in which the film’s […]

Apple TV+ announced a second season of Severance just days before the series’ first season finale premiered, a move that may have saved society as we know it. Had the show’s obsessive fans gotten to the end of that episode, which is now out, and not known there would be another season to resolve what happens in those last moments, there would have been mayhem. Mass protests. Marches. Hysteria. Boycotts against Apple and all its products. My Macbook would be out the window and floating in the Hudson by now. (OK, there would be a bunch of angry tweets, probably. But […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: My Former Nemesis Is Killing It I blame Law & Order for this. For so long, we have been titillated by their cheeky, ripped-from-the-headlines crime stories that we were perhaps too distracted to notice what was happening around us. Those one-off episodes loosely inspired by real scandal birthed its own genre of TV content—one that has been, of late, absolutely inescapable. If you slip […]

I don’t want to shock anyone, but I was really into musical theater as a kid. I’ll give you a moment to process this earth-shattering information. Being a 12-year-old boy who would stage one-man productions of Grease in his bedroom, belt “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls in the shower, and was off-book for years should he be asked in a pinch to step in and perform the role of Anna Leonowens in a production of The King and I, was a joyous thing. The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop […]

Actress Sarah Lancashire was about 10 pages into reading the pilot script for the new HBO Max TV series Julia when she gasped over a sudden realization and hurriedly phoned her agent. “I said, ‘You don’t know who this is, do you?’ and he said, ‘No…’” Lancashire recently recounted to The Daily Beast over Zoom. “I said, ‘This is Julia Child!’” His response: “Who is Julia Child?” The truth is, it wasn’t just her agent who had a limited awareness of the woman who may be the most influential and recognized cooking TV personality in mainstream American culture outside of Martha […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: What to make of Bridgerton Season 2? The unexpected staying power of Hulu’s Life & Beth. A diamond made of what now? Go see Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum be hot! Great series, great actress, perfect photo. Contemplating Life & Happiness With Life & Beth Amy Schumer will be among the three hosts, alongside Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall, at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony. There, […]

The most recent season of The Real Housewives of New York City was a barely watchable disaster so despised by its typically ravenous fanbase that even its most loyal audience couldn’t stomach watching and abandoned ship in droves. By the time off-screen controversy and investigations started complicating matters, the whole thing was such a mess that, for the first time in the franchise’s storied history, there was no reunion. (For the uninitiated, this would be like church without the Holy Communion.) Inexplicably, Bravo’s response to its worst season in RHONY history is to…make twice as much RHONY. You know what? I’m […]

The Eurovision Song Contest, if you’re lucky enough to be familiar, is an international fever dream—a cavalcade of nationalism filtered through an absinthe trip costumed by Cinderella’s mice and set to music that, occasionally, resembles an actual song. Sure, Céline Dion and ABBA are former competitors. So, too, were a Latvian group called Pirates of the Sea—one need not a particularly active imagination to picture their wardrobe and vibe—and a puppet named Dustin the Turkey who sang a song titled “Irelande Douze Pointe” roasting his home country: “Give us another chance / We’re sorry for Riverdance.” What a feast of outrageous […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: WeCrashed, the 497th tech scam show this month. An absolutely perfect show we have discovered. No notes. An absolutely perfect show that was canceled. Many notes. Lady Gaga wins an award, and it is perfect. Gabrielle Union speaks against Disney, and is perfect. I Present to You Is It Cake?, the Next Television Masterpiece This week, like every week lately, was overwhelming. We’re humans. […]

My whole adult life, I have worked, like a schmuck. Never once did it cross my mind to do a little hustle. Run a little scam. Pull off a little con, channel my inner #girlboss, lie to investors, or even bother to figure out what, technically, investors are or how they work. I did my little job for my little bit of money to pay for my little things, like a damn loser. At least that’s how I’m starting to feel in the wake of a horrific bullying campaign waged by Hollywood. The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Everything we can’t stop loving, […]

There are only a few things certain in this life: Death, taxes, and Dolly Parton probably just did something inspiring, legendary, and iconic. At the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, Dolly is having a moment. Of course she is. When is she not? Not only is she scheduled to perform later this week at the festival, but she’s at the center of two of the event’s biggest films. The documentary Still Working 9 to 5, about the legacy and impact of the 1980 movie, premiered, along with a new duet version of the title song recorded with Kelly Clarkson. The film […]

There is a person who is known as the Disney Gay—as the name suggests, an identity offshoot of the more all-encompassing Disney Adult. Within the LGBTQ+ community, it can be common, if cruel, to mock the Disney Gay for what is perceived as a basic, childish, and normie obsession—at least within a group that is stereotypically supposed to be the arbiter of taste, coolness, and progressive art. Heavens, I would never call myself a Disney Gay. I mean, sure, I was raised on the renaissance of Disney animated musicals, and still count the days to the release of new films as […]

NBC’s The Thing About Pam deserves credit where it’s due. It is the year of our Lord—of our waking hell, of our exasperated existence, of our buffet of nearly 550 TV series to watch—2022, and still the true-crime series is somehow unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. That’s no small feat, especially in the world of true crime, which spawns roughly 97 new shows a week to satiate the public’s ravenous appetite for the genre—and then another slew of copycats hoping to capitalize on the popularity of those. So, it is more with awe and maybe even admiration than derision that […]

First they think you’re crazy. Then they fight you. Then all of a sudden you change the world. Well, at the very least you become the fascination of a society gaga for stories about scammers, capture the interest of Hollywood, and become the subject of several extremely high-profile TV and film projects, at least one of which—Hulu’s new series The Dropout—we can now say is quite good. Those first three sentences were actually spoken by Elizabeth Holmes and are now an indelible part of her notoriety. Holmes is the disgraced founder of Theranos, a company that frantically deceived its way to […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Millennials (As in…Me) Can’t Stop Crying About Kids’ Shows Of the things that make me cry on a daily basis these days—check the news for five minutes, and take your pick—I didn’t expect one would be an aardvark. An animated aardvark, to be specific. The animated aardvark. And you know what? He deserves every ounce of that emotion. The PBS series Arthur aired its […]

The last time a new Apple TV+ series became a word-of-mouth sensation, it was Ted Lasso, which saw its popularity build at about the same rate as our anxiety and dread during the first harrowing months of the pandemic—which is to say, uh, quite fast. We were stuck at home. Things were bleak. The unflappable optimism, earnest worldview, and Foghorn Leghorn-turned-Everyman witticisms of Ted were both a salve and a guiding light through the darkness. Another new Apple TV+ series is starting to draw rumblings of that same enthusiasm that the gee-golly soccer coach did, albeit under quite different circumstances—though again […]

In October 2014, comedian Hannibal Buress was performing a standup set in Philadelphia and decided to work out a riff about Bill Cosby that he’d tried at a handful of sets that year. The difference was that this time, someone in the audience pulled out their camera phone. “Bill Cosby has the fuckin’ smuggest old Black man public persona that I hate,” Buress says in the video. “He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants up, Black people! I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom!’ Yeah, but you rape women, […]

It’s something we’re not conditioned to expect: In the leadup to this year’s Oscars telecast on March 27, the Academy has made several decisions that are, dare I say… good? As far as these things typically go, the slate of Oscar nominations were refreshingly strong. Or, at least, not as infuriating as usual. (How generous one feels in that regard might depend on which side of the bed they got up on in the morning—or their level of Lady Gaga fandom.) After several years without a host, not to mention weeks of speculation over who would be up for the task […]

As everyone knows, the Super Bowl is the biggest event in Hollywood—er, I mean sports. The gradual evolution of the championship game into a night-long bonanza of showbiz spectacle reached its inevitable apex Sunday night with a Super Bowl that took place in Los Angeles, allowing the lines between sporting event and entertainment to finally blur completely. Fittingly, the official telecast on NBC kicked off with an homage to Hollywood, with Halle Berry welcoming the TV audience to the game by outlining how much a good football game and great movie have in common. To celebrate the first time in three […]

The Academy Awards’ most devout enthusiasts were scandalized—some of them even outraged—by shocking news regarding the annual cinema fête that came out this last week. It’s not that Lady Gaga won’t be at the ceremony—at least not as a nominee, as most expected. It’s not that the telecast is moving from zero hosts, its modus operandi of the last two years, to perhaps too many—at least three anchoring their own respective acts, according to a new report. No, the bombshell that’s left critics baffled and exasperated is a different exclusive: That producers won’t require attendees at this year’s Oscars to be […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. It’s finally J. Lo’s New Rom-Com Weekend. Nathan Chen saves the Olympics. I think I miss Che Diaz? The most exciting film news in years. Another reason to question the value of the Super Bowl. When Did the Olympics Get So Depressing? It was the shock of a lifetime to learn that the Olympics were this week. I can’t be alone in having less than zero […]

Before a single frame of the finished Marry Me film was seen, it was already iconic. The trailers and marketing materials proudly proclaim that, with this movie, the Queen of the Rom-Com Is Back. OK! No one is attributed with the crowning of Jennifer Lopez as said queen. It’s unclear if Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock were considered for the title. The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. It is fair to surmise that it is the producers, which is to say Lopez herself, who have made the proclamation. It […]

The TV series Inventing Anna is either about an enigmatic con artist who scammed her way into elite social circles and allegedly swindled millions of dollars in clothes, luxury trips, and massive loans from some of the most powerful people and financial institutions in the world, or it is the harrowing, yet charming story about the first alien to ever walk among us on Earth. The journey to discover which is an, at turns, incredible yet interminable ride. It’s a binge-worthy trip. It’s a befuddlement. It’s unclear if anyone involved in this new series, from Shonda Rhimes and dropping on Netflix […]

The Worst Person in the World is a film told in 12 chapters, with a prologue and an epilogue, that will make you laugh with delight before causing your heart to begin contorting with a deep sense of empathy until you sob through to the credits, at which point you will be unable to shake the fierce desire to contact an ex-partner and force them to watch the film, possibly even with you next to them. That’s not meant to conflate the film’s cheeky title with any judgment you might have about your ex and their character. It’s to do with […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Thanking God that Jackass Forever is here. A harsh truth about Wordle. Choosing to think positively about Joe Rogan. A new low for reality TV. A “Dolly Parton Is an Angel Among Us” update. Long Live Wordle. Wordle Must Be Stopped. In the very first minutes of Feb. 2, 2022, I announced myself to the world as a genius. I had solved the new […]

It is my firm belief that we will unravel as a society now that And Just Like That... has stopped airing. In these fractured, violently divisive times, we have been united by one thing: our concern for what this Sex and the City sequel was doing to Miranda Hobbes. We’ve been delicately tethered by a single thread—that of our collective flabbergastation over the character of Che Diaz. As a nation today, in a rare and beautiful moment that could prove to be historic, we do agree: Sarah Jessica Parker’s performance is as charismatic and magnetic as it’s ever been—a singular gift […]

It is around the time that Tommy Lee’s penis is anthropomorphized and begins talking to him, gesticulating with all the verve that the shaft of a penis can muster, that Hulu’s new limited series Pam & Tommy elevates to high art. The trippy, dare I say transcendent, moment comes in the second episode of the series, which launched Wednesday. After some intense flirting, Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson, the sex-rebel couple behind the brightest-burning romantic fairy tale of the ’90s, are finally in the bedroom together. They slowly undress for each other. When Pam is naked and all that’s left is […]

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Sundance, Showtime This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. The hottest, sexiest, most star-studded venue in Hollywood these last two weeks was, as it should always be, my couch. Well, it was a multi-venue affair. My colleagues Marlow Stern and Laura Bradley’s sofas were pretty bumping, too. Read more at The Daily Beast. Source link

One way to gauge a film festival movie’s buzz is by how often you hear the phrase, “Well, that was disturbing…” after the credits roll. It’s not that there’s an arms race, exactly, to traumatize and unsettle audiences. And a hallmark of festivals, especially ones that celebrate independent cinema, is spotlighting films that might be quirkier, more nuanced, more earnest, and centered around more grounded, human emotion than larger studio projects. Case in point: last year’s record-breaking sale at Sundance for CODA, the heartwarming, music-heavy drama about a culturally deaf family that is expected to score a slew of Oscar nominations […]

Volcanoes deliver almost too perfect a vocabulary with which to talk about love and passion; words like heat, fiery, and intense come to mind. There’s something carnal about them, mysterious and violent and yet also beautiful—existing in the most extremes this Earth knows, much like emotion itself. Katia and Maurice Krafft are extremists. At least, they were. Married volcanologists, they spent decades walking up to the edge of danger—the lips of boiling cauldrons of lava, feet away from spewing geysers of fire, in the shadow of lethal mushroom clouds of ash—in order to collect data, study, and photograph the world’s most […]

In her introduction for her Sundance Film Festival premiere, Sharp Stick (done via Zoom and addressed to all of us on our couches; welcome to virtual festing), Lena Dunham called the movie, which she wrote, directed, and filmed during the pandemic, “My most personal project.” That’s quite a superlative coming from Dunham, whose best-known work has always been inextricable from the creator herself—films and series that are semi-autobiographical… or, at least, through her public image, marketing, and press narratives, carry the illusion of that. Sharp Stick comes 11 years after her first—and last—feature film, the indie darling Tiny Furniture, which was […]

“I think it’s funny that the world fell in love with me because of crying and a tear,” Sinéad O’Connor says in a voiceover for the new documentary Nothing Compares. “I went and did a lot of crying and everyone was like, ‘Oh, you crazy bitch.’ But actually wait. Hold on. You fell in love with that tear.” She takes a pause before finishing the thought: “That was a mirror.” Nothing Compares, which premiered (virtually) Friday night at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the career, the controversy, the legacy, the misconception, and, one could argue, the redemption and vindication of […]

It should seem implausible that there would be anything new to say about the story of Princess Diana. What piece of pop culture, at this point, could possibly add anything to our understanding and our emotion about her supernova existence in the public eye and her tragic death? These last years especially have seen her life and the impact of her death parsed and chronicled in an endless torrent of new documentaries, each promising some tantalizing new detail or anecdote to entice insatiable consumers of all things Lady Di. It’s also been fictionalized, dramatized according to rumor and assumption in high-profile […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Bemoaning the worst character on TV. Why everyone is obsessed with Yellowjackets. The life-affirming Elmo vs. Rocco feud. The one-year anniversary of E! covering the insurrection. The new gay agenda. Try Getting Me to Talk About Anything But Yellowjackets Over the holidays, Americans seem to occupy their time with a suitable, wholesome seasonal activity: bingeing a TV show about teenage girls who start killing each other […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. There was a night this past year that I’ll always remember when things really were at their darkest. The [gestures broadly] everything of the world had, as it is wont to do, gotten me feeling down. So I did the thing that I do when I’m low. I turned on the Food Network. Guy Fieri was not on the screen. I’ve never felt more abandoned in […]

Something strange happens by the end of the HBO series Landscapers, about a British husband and wife who were convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison: You wind up swooning. Never has the story of a couple who killed the wife’s parents been so romantic. I say romantic, not romanticized. A Bonnie and Clyde-esque portrait of how crime is a libido-driving intoxicant has definitely been done before, and acts of violence have certainly been fetishized in pop culture—in fact, almost incessantly. But there’s something entirely new about the approach writer-director Ed Sinclair takes in telling the story of […]

Depending on who you are, Sunday night’s finale of Insecure was either a fairy tale or a nightmare—so it may have been perfect for the series, a show about a group of Black female friends whose choices we couldn’t look away from, relished in by proxy, and, often, were infuriated by. It’s a series that wasn’t just entertaining; it was relatable, and sometimes unbearably real. I can’t believe how Issa, the character created by and brought to life by Issa Rae, ended up. I was jealous of her. I was frustrated with her. Most of all, I was happy for her. […]

It was a year of monotony, dread, and the false promise of a return to normalcy that, as 2021 winds down, has jerked us back inside to a depressing pandemic reality with such sudden violence we might all be suffering from spiritual whiplash. That’s a lot of pessimism to combat, which is why we’re grateful for a standout year of film and TV to shock us into feeling things again just when everything threatened to get numb. Some of the actors on this list of 2021’s best film and TV performances have already earned Emmys and critics’ awards for their works. […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. I don’t mean to be alarmist or hyperbolic, but Netflix is an insidious beast with dastardly designs and we should all be aware and in fear of its algorithmic reign of terror. I’m not saying that Netflix invented the Omicron variant in order to make sure that we’d all be stuck at home this week with nothing to do but watch Emily in Paris—a television series […]

Kathy Hilton swears she can tell the difference between soft drinks. It just so happens that in her breakout year of reality television—she joined her half-sister Kyle Richards as a fan-favorite cast member this season on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and is a captivating Mother of the Bride to daughter Paris Hilton on Peacock’s Paris in Love—two of her most memorable moments happen to stem from attempting to procure beverages for herself and guests, and entirely bungling the seemingly innocuous chore. As far as reality TV goes, few star-is-born moments are as memorable or as funny as when […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Warning: This post contains spoilers about the first three episodes of And Just Like That. There’s a fundamental issue at the heart of Sex and the City that has terrorized me since the beginning and has since infected the arteries of the greater SATC universe, including two movie sequels and now, a new series. Carrie and Big weren’t soulmates. They should never have ended up together. […]

When she first started reading Elena Ferrante’s books, Maggie Gyllenhaal was startled to discover how visceral, extreme, and, it turns out, polarized her reaction was to the Italian author’s writing. It’s when she got to book three of Ferrante’s massively popular Neapolitan Novels, which kicked off in 2012 with My Brilliant Friend, that Gyllenhaal paused to take stock of herself and what she was feeling. “At one point, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this woman is so fucked up,’” the actress tells The Daily Beast. “And then literally 10 seconds later, I thought, ‘Oh, no, I actually really relate to […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: And Just Like That is bringing me so much joy. Don’t ruin it. I am hereby forcing you to watch Yellowjackets. Breaking news: I’m mad at Adele! I will not disclose how much I cried watching PEN15’s last eps. Yuletide greetings of beef. Yellowjackets Is Getting So Much Buzz (Get It?) It is (what I would consider) a national emergency that we are not […]

“They say nothing lasts forever; dreams change, trends come and go, but friendships never go out of style.” – Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, Sex and the City “Practically all relationships I know are based on the foundation of lies and mutually accepted delusions.” – Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City Well, talk about a thesis statement. The long-awaited sequel series to Sex and the City, HBO Max’s And Just Like That, is finally here, carrying with it nearly enough baggage to fill Carrie and Big’s Fifth Avenue penthouse. There’s the purses and chic carry-on […]

Mikey is at a job interview at a greasy spoon in rural Texas City, Texas. It’s going well. His fast-talking charm, like a turbo jet fueled by a petrol cocktail of desperation and hubris, is working on the hiring manager, just as it works on just about everyone he meets. That is, until it doesn’t. There’s one hiccup to all this babbling, hustler-like magnetism: that 17-year gap in his résumé. Mikey doesn’t skip a beat, delivering his bombshell revelation like a wrecking ball, with no qualms or unease. “I’m going to be straight with you,” he says. “I’m an adult film […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Surviving Annie Live! Your new favorite show. Crying a lot about Sondheim. Kenny G, perhaps a hero?! Channing Tatum’s butt is cinema. That Olivia Colman, She’s Pretty Good… The lazy praise about an actor who is good in everything they do is to say, “I would watch them read the phone book.” It’s dumb. And also not true. You wouldn’t watch someone read the phone book. […]

I think, perhaps, we have reached peak “it’s nice to watch something nice” television. For a while, this was a holiday treat. A demonically deranged Sound of Music? A Christmas gift. An unhinged Peter Pan? A winter hug. That Hairspray live performance? Well… that was actually brilliant and I refuse to shade it. But in the last two years (LOL at us now adding an “s” to “year” while talking about our COVID reality) things that we consume from a point of grace because they’re cheerful and well-intentioned aren’t just annual treats. They are constants. The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Everything we […]

There are two mammoth questions casting a shadow over the new West Side Story: Why mess with perfection? And, more than that, how? When it was announced that Steven Spielberg would be making a new version of the classic, with Tony Kushner adapting the screenplay, the project immediately became haunted. The specter of a masterpiece cast a pall over the endeavor. There are valid, necessary criticisms of the 1961 West Side Story film. But, my God, does it hold up, as close to flawless a movie musical—a piece of cinema, period—as there comes. That shadow only grows when you consider the […]

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, I asked my esteemed colleagues at The Daily Beast to tell me what pop culture offerings they were thankful for this year. Friends from all over the Beast weighed in—the art department, the social team, politics and media reporters, and more—and, as you’ll see, with great enthusiasm, too. For them, I am grateful. Cecily Strong, Queen of Everything I feel like it was a special gift to me, specifically, when Apple TV+ rallied during a pandemic to shoot an entire season of a TV show that takes place almost entirely in a magical world where […]

Right away you feel like you’ve entered a haunted house. Well, at least New York City’s version of one: an unrenovated pre-war tenement in Chinatown. The paint on the walls is either peeling or has developed constellations of bulbous blisters, like a gross infection. Water damage has polka-dotted the ceiling with discoloration. Moans and creaks come from pipes and floorboards, but mostly are just omnipresent, their sources unknown. As light bulbs blow, darkness joins hands with the unsettling noises. The question of whether you’re hearing and seeing creepy neighbors or something else entirely is enough to cause mass blood-pressure spikes among […]

If Father, Son, and House of Gucci is the Holy Trinity, as memorialized in the single-greatest line reading in cinematic history by Lady Gaga, then the scripture is delivered in Italian. Well, an Italian accent, at least. What kind of Italian accent? No one seems to know, and that is inevitably the central talking point when it comes to the new film House of Gucci. If only the movie could rise above that distraction. It’s not just that Lady Gaga seems to have tinged her dialect with a bit of Russian, that Adam Driver barely has an accent at all, or […]

The woman with a British accent who “so fiercely supports the difficult man she loves.” The woman who “shakes [a] vaguely dissatisfied white man out of malaise” with her “accessible eccentricity.” The woman “who is sort of there while men who have names are doing a very important war.” The woman “who is married to the great white man who is solving racism forever all by himself.” A thread of videos from performer Natalie Walker went viral in 2016 for satirizing the stereotypes actresses are asked to portray on film. It was all too real. How familiar we are with the […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Every once in a while, something happens in life that makes you wonder who you are and if you possibly ever even knew yourself at all. For example, this week I realized I had never seen nor heard a single thing from the musical Tick, Tick…Boom!. I am exaggerating of course. But still, liking musicals is my thing, in so much as millennials enjoy making “liking […]

It’s not new information that, in the past, Justin Timberlake has maybe, probably, most definitely been an absolute piece of shit. But a little reminder never hurts. Of course, Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson is more than a little reminder. It’s “little” in the way that Janet Jackson’s breast being exposed on camera for 9/16th of one second during the 2004 Super Bowl caused a “little” fuss—or, as one pundit in the new documentary suggests, “If the culture wars could have a 9/11, it’s February 1, 2004.” That kind of reminder. The latest installment of FX and Hulu’s The […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. It seems so long ago that it is but a flickering, fading memory, or perhaps even a shared delusion—lore that’s only grown in drama with time. But in truth, it’s been just a year and a half since Gal Gadot assembled a gathering of celebrities to sing “Imagine,” a group of famouses so random it was as if their names were grasped from floating Rolodex cards […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Charming and devastating. Humorous and profound. Whimsical and important. Personal and universal. Nothing gives Hollywood insiders a boner quite like dichotomies. Think of it as literary Viagra. If deciding which wordplay-of-opposites to use as a film’s movie poster pull quote lasts more than four hours, consult a doctor. That is to say that of course Kenneth Branagh’s new film Belfast, which I would use all those […]

At a 2000 European music festival, nine people were killed after a crowd stampede that occurred while the band Pearl Jam performed. A day of rain had soaked the grounds of the Roskilde Festival in Denmark to mud. After vendors had run out of boots, concertgoers began wrapping plastic bags around their shoes. That made it difficult to navigate the pavement at the Orange Stage, where an estimated 50,000 fans had turned up to see the Seattle rockers perform. Before Pearl Jam began playing, audience members pushed to get close to the stage. The surge only became more aggressive once the […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Why Aren’t Y’all Watching Queens? Did you know there is a TV show airing right now in which Eve and Brandy have multiple rap battles? Or that the icons of definitive Y2K-era music are, on a weekly basis, performing at the top of their game to new music? And that, in between, they are blessing us with top-tier acting in one of TV’s most […]

“How do you think I feel?” That question was asked by cast member Erika “Erika Jayne” Girardi countless times during the four-part Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion. On the final installment, which aired Wednesday night, she said it so often that the uninitiated watching might have wondered if there was some sort of dare, or perhaps a drinking game that she was pandering to. Sometimes she screamed it in rage at a cast member she felt may not have been compassionate enough to her situation. Often a colorful expletive was added somewhere in the middle, to add a little raunchy […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. The Week’s Biggest Political Controversy… Buzz Lightyear? Because nothing is pure or sacred, even Buzz Lightyear is now at the center of—I shudder as I type this—“discourse.” Implausibly, this is not even in reference to the, at this point, very expected and very tired debate about how Hollywood can’t leave anything alone. Listen, it is 2021. If you’re not bracing for every character, subplot, or backstory […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Loving the new season of Insecure. Having enough of spoilerphobes. Being scarred by Nicole Kidman. Getting burned by NPR. Feeling seen by Adele. Spoiler Alert: This Is About Spoilers Someone tweeted something about a Marvel movie this week, and the internet lost its mind. I could probably copy and paste that statement into an article that publishes every week, but the truth is I rarely bother […]

The Netflix adaptation of The Baby-Sitters Club is TV’s coziest warm hug. It is finding the color butterfly clip for your hair to perfectly match your outfit. The heart used instead of the dot on “i.” The rush of excitement when your crush circles “yes” on a passed note that reads, “Do you like me?” It is finding a group of best friends and knowing that, no matter what, they understand and are there for you. So, color me shocked to discover when watching the second season of the series, which premiered last week on Netflix, that, this go-round, The Baby-Sitters […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. It’s odd branding that crying to Adele has become a Super Bowl event. Adding to the bizarre emotional bloodsport in this case is the source of the anticipation: The singer, one of the most astute translators of the complex tangle of pain that knots around heartbreak and love, has gone through a divorce since her last album. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that […]

Linda’s son was shy, even as a baby. He didn’t play well with others. Not that he was mean; he just didn’t know how. At age 13, he started a gaming profile to play fantasy games. Hearing him interact with other players over the headset made Linda happy. Middle school was hard for him. The family had moved. It was a new school. He was depressed. He was in and out of therapy because he hated it. All he wanted was to feel normal, but the therapy made him feel like he was “not human.” Linda, played by Ann Dowd in […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. In my years as an entertainment journalist and critic, I have passionately abided by the idea that art is a capsule of the mood and feeling of a certain time. And therefore I have no notes about the current television moment, which seems to be screaming: Wow, it really sucks to be alive, huh? The Squid Game of it all is its own conversation. But we’re […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Forever traumatized by Squid Game. We’re doing that “next James Bond” thing again… Three magical duets. The celebrity quotes I can’t stop thinking about. Cher!!!!!!! Spoiler Alert!: I Am the Next James Bond I wondered if anything sounded like more of an interminable drag than the two-hour-and-43-minute running time of the new James Bond film No Time to Die, “the most emotional 007 movie […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: The best show on TV right now. Fear not, the celebs are ending the pandemic! When was the last time you talked to Margaret Thatcher? Wow, Nine Perfect Strangers was bad. Nicole Richie’s birthday was lit. Hollywood Has Saved Us From the Pandemic. Phew! It’s about damn time someone said it. I don’t know why it took this long. Here we’ve all been, frolicking […]

It admittedly feels lame, or lazy, to each TV season crown a freshman series “the new low for reality television.” Every year, there’s any number of similar coronations—or, I guess, condemnations. Has the ball dropped in Times Square? Then usher in the new wave of griping about the “trashiest,” “stupidest,” “most offensive,” “craziest,” or, a modern favorite, “batshit” reality show “ever!” Or at least until next year! This isn’t a recent phenomenon, born out of desperation for the clicks, likes, and retweets that come when headlines scream in hyperbole. For over three decades now, the race to crucify the next evolution […]

End all awards show bits. That’s the lesson. The Emmys winners did the show for them. They were all (mostly) great. There were surprises sprinkled throughout, the kind of fun that shocks TV critics watching alone on their couch with some rosé and makes them stand up reflexively and start clapping about. (That was me, when Mare of Easttown’s Julianne Nicholson deservedly won, Olivia Colman’s Queen Elizabeth reigned over Emma Corrin’s Princess Diana, and Hacks creator/writer/director Lucia Aniello got her double win. Is, as the kids say, “nature healing,” or did Kate Winslet just win an acting award while reminding herself […]

You know Mike O’Malley. Or you think you know him. What do you know him from? Maybe you recognize him from something you’ve seen on TV, but you can’t place it. Or you can’t shake the feeling that you grew up with him. Was he a neighbor? Did you go to the same high school? It nags at you. You know him. But, like, know him. “I have this Irish face, man,” he says. “There’s a lot of people who look like me.” The truth is, if you’re a millennial of a certain age, you grew up with O’Malley, who was […]

It was two minutes of flawless reality television. Sunday night’s season two premiere of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City began with a wrecking ball to the fourth wall. A producer is seen setting up cameras in a van that will transport the cast to a girls’ trip, a wink to fans’ gleeful astonishment and gratitude: Oh my god, the cameras were actually there to film THAT! “That” would be the authorities swarming production in order to arrest cast member Jen Shah, who was charged with fraud in connection with a telemarketing scheme that targeted elderly people. One’s giddiness over […]

The Humans begins with an establishing shot, the camera gazing up from the small interior courtyard of a Chinatown apartment building. It’s one of those New York areas so claustrophobic that the idea of it being “outdoor space” is a tease. Craning to glimpse a sliver of the sky, it almost seems unreachable, creating an illusion that the surrounding brick walls are starting to cave in on you the harder you struggle to look. Something matter-of-fact shouldn’t seem so impossible, yet from the bottom of the courtyard looking up, it’s an existence from which you may never escape. Before vertigo sets […]

It’s about seven minutes into the premiere of Impeachment: American Crime Story when Linda Tripp is called a “treacherous bitch.” That Monica Lewinsky is the character who says this about the recently deceased civil servant shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise. As anyone who followed what may be the biggest political scandal of the last century remembers, Lewinsky ended her 1998 grand jury testimony by tearfully saying, “I hate Linda Tripp.” But it is a notable start to the series. Ahead of the Sept. 7 premiere of FX’s Impeachment, the third installment of Ryan Murphy’s Emmy-winning American Crime Story anthology, producers revealed […]

Heléne Yorke has been giving online foot enthusiasts everything they want. The actress, currently starring in season two of the showbiz satire/bitingly funny millennial comedy The Other Two on HBO Max, jokes that she knew she had made it when a Google search of her name surfaced—as it does for the biggest A-list stars—a profile in a database that outlines a celebrity’s age, net worth, and information about their feet. “More than anything I’m flattered that people give a shit about my net worth,” Yorke laughs in a recent Zoom interview. The bizarre, yet high-SEO fetish is one of The Other […]

The great thing about pop culture is that everyone gets to have an opinion. It’s just that so many of them are wrong. I kid. I’m not (that) elitist. The phrase “everybody’s a critic” exists for a reason, presumably beyond to torture me, a person who is a critic. But every once in a while there is a groundswell of opinion about something that, while it must be valid—there are enough people thinking that way for it to be noticed—is absolutely baffling. To say it’s wrong would be as flippant as the people spraining their thumbs with their flurry of tweets. […]

In 2019, one of the year’s best new TV series rode into the zeitgeist hidden inside a conspicuous, headline-making Trojan horse: one in the shape of Justin Bieber. The Other Two, created by former Saturday Night Live head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, cannon-balled into the pop culture conversation with its juicy hook. Ask them—or any of the SNL players at Studio 8H during their tenure—who was the most difficult host to work with, and even the most gossip-shy would almost immediately blurt out the Biebz’s name. Here was a show from Kelly and Schneider that was being sold as […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: The Jeopardy! Scandal Is Very Upsetting to Me! It’s truly astonishing that Jeopardy! managed to screw things up this badly. Few things in entertainment seem as sacred as the show, which, after decades on air fostering intimate relationships with viewers each night as they sit down for dinner, found its cultural significance only heightened in the last year. That was partly a product of […]

For the first time, the subject of Ryan Murphy’s Emmy-winning FX anthology series American Crime Story, which based previous iterations on the O.J. Simpson trial and Andrew Cunanan’s murder spree, was involved in its making. Monica Lewinsky is a producer on Impeachment: American Crime Story, which launches on FX Sept. 7, and consulted on all the scripts. Sarah Burgess, the series’ showrunner, executive producer, and writer, said that she went through every page of every script with Lewinsky to confirm the telling of events according to how she remembered them. “I added a couple of moments that Monica told me about […]

Warning: Spoilers follow for the season finale of The White Lotus. When Jake Lacy was flying to Maui last fall, he didn’t know he was going to kill someone. But he couldn’t be more excited that he did. At the time, the actor, known for roles in projects like The Office, Obvious Child, and High Fidelity, had only seen one script for The White Lotus, the HBO satire/dramedy/summer sensation from writer-director Mike White that aired its season finale Sunday night. Lacy’s Shane kicked off the series, a Disgruntled Rich White Guy seething at an airport, glaring out the window as a […]

“Gays are very hard.” “Yeah, they’re super hard!” The double entendre is unintentional, but it perfectly fits in with what John Onieal and Jimmy Fowlie are talking about. They are the creator and star, respectively, of Bridesman, which, after its premiere at Outfest LA on Aug. 14, will be the first original scripted series from Grindr. As in the gay hookup app. “Gay are harsh critics,” Fowlie clarifies. Onieal remembers, sight unseen, the reaction on social media to the announcement that the platform typically used for trading photos and soliciting meet-ups would now be adding episodes of television to their grid […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: “Why aren’t you watching The Good Fight?” – my dying words. MTV turning 40 and feelings. Christopher Meloni’s ass and FEELINGS. Your St. Dolly Parton update. The Taylor Swift-Simone Biles mashup we didn’t know we needed. Saying “I’m so old I remember when MTV played music videos” ages a person more than the sentence itself. It’s lame. It’s cliché. It’s also so true. The […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. The Good Fight Is on an Incredible Run Right Now It was heartening throughout the pandemic to hear from friends and family how many people were bingeing The Good Wife. And I understood why anyone who sampled it became obsessed. The politician’s wife dealing with his scandal was a juicy hook. Kalinda was TV’s best character, until she was the worst. Alicia and Will’s sexual chemistry […]

In some respects, Brendan Hunt pulled off the most difficult job of all on Ted Lasso. He’s the guy who made you fall in love with the annoying lead character. Sure, the Apple TV+ comedy series—which just broke an Emmy nominations record for season 1 and premiered season 2 last week to rave reviews—is celebrated now. It’s a show about an underdog British football team, yes. But it was also so profound in depicting the power of a positive outlook in hard times that audiences discovering it at the harshest moments of the pandemic championed its now-legendary “niceness” as healing. People […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Shirtless Adam Driver on a Horse. It’s Called Art, Sweetie. It’s a big week for haunted horses. First, there was the viral story about a horse in France who travels through the halls of a hospital, choosing which terminally ill patients deserve his visit. I need to be as clear as possible on this, so listen closely: If I am ever in a hospital that employs […]

The fireworks went off. But to what end? Is it even prudent, at this point, to list everyone who didn’t want the Olympics to happen this year? The ceremony was brief and, sure, beautiful. Out of respect, everything was subdued. There were speeches about international solidarity and perseverance. But the question raised by Friday’s Opening Ceremony was mostly: Is this respectful, or just stupid? It’s a shame that organizers in Tokyo had to dampen what I’m sure would have been an explosive display, had the mood been appropriate. We got some cultural dancers, the hints of what might have been had […]

Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) are a couple struggling to keep the spark alive three years and change into their relationship, at just about the time they should be making the commitment to an eternal flame. In hopes of rekindling things, they attend a couples’ retreat in the wilderness, an experience with the grand promise to be their relationship’s great white hope when things are starting seem like a great big bummer. Cue the thunder strike and the torrential downpour, soaking the couple as they get lost in the woods. Some bickering later, they hear church bells and follow […]

In the sweet spring of hope and this early summer of freedom and rebirth, it’s our instinct to repress the traumatic events of this past year, such as the Emily in Paris discourse. The series’ surprise, arguably ridiculous Golden Globe nominations this past winter helped set into motion investigations into corruption and a lack of inclusivity that just about destroyed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Yet here we are talking about the show in an awards context again. In what might be the most baffling of Tuesday morning’s 2021 Emmy Award nominations, the polarizing Netflix series appeared among the Best Comedy […]

The Jackass Shark Week Special begins with a warning to not attempt the following stunts at home, the same disclaimer that’s preceded every episode and movie featuring the band of fear-neutered man-children risking bodily harm in the name of shock and laughter. Johnny Knoxville remarks, “Shark Week, the Jackass guys: What could go wrong?” Then, after a smirk and dramatic pause: “What could go right?” No one, not even rabble-rousing stuntmen who have been at their jackassery for more than 20 years, expected just how wrong things would go. Seconds into my Zoom with cast member Steve-O about the experience, he […]

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: The Real Housewives existential crisis. Death, taxes, and watching trash on Netflix. Cinema returns with Adam Driver’s musical cunnilingus. I think you should watch I Think You Should Leave. Pfizer, Moderna, and, now, AstraTubbica. Your Love of Julia Roberts’ Wig Offends Me The shit you all watch. The complete and utter nonsense. The lumpy chemical water at the bottom of a Porta-Potty. The green […]

Just prior to our phone conversation, Jennifer Coolidge received a surprise gentleman caller. “An incredibly handsome guy showed up to the gate. Just really a stunning, stunning guy,” she coos in that instantly recognizable rasp of hers: a little warm, a little sensual, a little lacerating, and a little loopy, like the vocal equivalent of a spiked sweet tea. “I was like, ‘Oh! Who’s this?” she says. “And then he’s like, ‘I’m here for the COVID test…’” The actress, known for making like a bandit with memorable roles in Legally Blonde, American Pie, and Christopher Guest’s comedies, was gearing up for […]