Laura Bradley

It’s a question that’s been asked many times before, but as The Time Traveler’s Wife makes its HBO Max debut, I feel we must ask again: Why is Hollywood so obsessed with wives, anyway? From The Wife to The Good Wife, from The Stepford Wives to The First Wives’ Club, television and especially film runs rampant with titles that hinge on a capital “W.” But even more amusing is the preponderance of titles that all follow the same basic convention: “The [Insert Husband’s Occupation Here] Wife.” Beyond The Time Traveler’s Wife, you’ve got your Pilot’s Wife and your Preacher’s Wife, who […]

It’s never great when Saturday Night Live’s cold open for the week isn’t too far off from reality. This week found host Benedict Cumberbatch in a Renaissance Faire wig for a sketch set in 13th-century England—where the show suggests Justice Samuel Alito drew inspiration for his medieval beliefs on abortion as the Supreme Court aims to overturn Roe vs. Wade. (In fact, Alito’s inspiration comes from a 17th-century jurist. So progressive!) In the cold open, Cumberbatch told his cloaked-and-be-wigged friends that while cleaning the sewer, a genius thought occurred to him about abortion: “Don’t you think we ought to make a […]

Saturday Night Live took a second swipe at the Supreme Court’s reported plans to overturn Roe v. Wade during this week’s “Weekend Update”—and although the show’s cold open on the subject was a little underwhelming, Kate McKinnon’s Amy Coney Barrett stole the show in the follow-up. “Good evening, everyone,” Colin Jost said at the top of the segment. “Well, guys, tomorrow is Mother’s Day, whether you want it to be one or not.” On the subject of the leak—which he pointed out could “cause lasting damage to the Supreme Court”—Jost added, “The Court is usually careful, but they slipped up… and […]

Ziwe Fumudoh knows that the first season of her Showtime series was, to borrow one of her favorite words, “controversial.” In fact, the comedian—better known by her mononym, Ziwe—took a moment at the top of her Season 2 premiere on Sunday to relish the cries from conservative pearl-clutchers like Megyn Kelly, who last year called her show “racist” against white women. Then it was on to the subject of the day: critical race theory. It’s hard to imagine anyone could have believed the right’s whining would convince Ziwe to tone down her show’s hot-pink intensity; trolling is, after all, a foundational […]

When asked what the work environment was like at Tudum, the editorial operation Netflix gutted with layoffs just months after its creation, a former employee compared it to to a chilling series from another streaming service. “It’s a super weird, positive environment,” the freshly laid-off staffer told The Daily Beast. “I felt like Adam Scott in Severance.” On Thursday, Netflix cut at least 10 former staff members (full-time and contractors) just months after aggressively courting them to create Tudum. In addition to getting unceremoniously laid off, the workers are set to receive only a pitiful two weeks’ severance. Although Tudum launched […]

Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed’s lawyers have blamed the Alec Baldwin film’s producers for allowing an “unsafe” set for the accidental shooting that took the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, but two of her former colleagues sound less than convinced in recently released text messages. On Monday, nearly a week after New Mexico fined the indie Western $136,793 for failing to follow safety procedures, Santa Fe police released all documents pertaining to their ongoing investigation into the incident. No charges have been brought, and authorities are still working to determine how a live round made it into Baldwin’s prop gun as […]

It’s bad enough when all of Natasha’s friends start popping out babies—but when an infant falls into her life and latches on, the 38-year-old chef’s world turns into an actual horror show. The baby is a serial killer. The Baby, a horror comedy from Siân Robins-Grace and Lucy Gaymer that premieres Sunday on HBO Max, seems at first like a biting critique of the absurd expectations some societies (in this case English) place on women and mothers. As the eight-episode limited series progresses, however, a haunting backstory plunges us into something far deeper and darker—an unimaginable horror that, most chilling of […]

The Northman, in which director Robert Eggers transforms Alexander Skarsård into legendary Viking Amleth, is the director’s biggest production yet. A grimy $90 million epic coated in sweat and soil, Eggers’ third feature unfolds with the steady rhythm of swords bashed against shields ahead of battle. Then comes a twist—and kiss—that turns everything on its head, complicates Amleth’s hero narrative, and prompts an epic fight to the death that seems to double as a phallic joke. The film’s early story beats will sound familiar to anyone who did a Shakespeare unit in high school: A young prince Amleth watches in horror […]

Time traveler? Russian Doll’s chain-smoking antiheroine, Nadia, goes by a different title. In the Netflix series’ trippy second season (premiering, aptly enough, on 4/20), an exhausted Natasha Lyonne tells a fellow bar patron, “I prefer the term ‘time prisoner.’” You may struggle to remember exactly how Season 1 ended, since it debuted all the way back in February 2019. So, a brief refresher: Nadia Vulvokov is a software engineer who had to figure out how to stop dying and reawakening in the bathroom at her 36th birthday party. During that journey, she met her more reserved friend Alan (Charlie Barnett), who […]

Move over Love Is Blind, there’s a new unholy dating show in town—and this one’s somehow even messier than its predecessor. In The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, Nick and Vanessa Lachey return to our screens as hosts of an even more diabolical scheme. The formula: Six couples, each of whom contains one partner who wants to get engaged and another who’s hesitant, agree to speed date with one another. Each new couple then shacks up for a three-week trial marriage. (Yes, you read that correctly; no, they cannot text their ex during this time.) And then? It’s time to move […]

If only this hadn’t been so predictable. Louis C.K., who in 2017 confirmed sexual misconduct allegations made by five different women, won a Grammy Sunday night for Best Comedy Album. The nomination for Sincerely Louis C.K. was his first since his accusers came forward. This year’s Grammys already felt a little cursed. Kanye’s been banned from performing; The Weeknd is boycotting; Drake withdrew his nominations; and on top of C.K., Marilyn Manson and Dr. Luke have both received nods. When reached by The Wrap for comment on the controversy surrounding those nominations, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason, Jr. said, “We won’t […]

Denzel Washington has revealed what he and Will Smith spoke about during the Oscars. Washington, Tyler Perry, and Bradley Cooper each approached the actor after he slapped Chris Rock over a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense. The Tragedy of Macbeth actor said that in that moment, he chose prayer. TheWrap reports that author and pastor T.D. Jakes asked Washington about the slap while the actor appeared at his leadership summit on Saturday. Although the actor declined to go into too much detail about his conversation with Smith, he did offer some clarity—and a warning to anyone thinking of casting a […]

There’s a strange poetry to You Won’t Be Alone, Goran Stolevski’s feature directorial debut. It’s a film with few words but a lot of heart and (literal) guts, narrated in dreamy voiceover from its main character: a young witch named Nevena who shape-shifts by carving her chest open and stuffing it with the viscera from another being. Isolated in a cave throughout her childhood, Nevena must learn how to be human by imitation. Her speech is broken but evocative. “It’s a burning, breaking thing, this world,” she repeats throughout the film. “A biting, wretching thing.” And yet, her response is one […]

When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars on Sunday night, you could practically hear keyboards clacking across America. Everyone seems to have a different take on the incident, in which Smith walked onstage and slapped Rock after the comedian made a tasteless, unfunny joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. Twice, Smith yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!” In the hours since, the discourse has been an even bigger nightmare than anyone could have imagined. (Just ask Judd Apatow.) But as the tweets and takes continue to pour in, one curious narrative keeps resurfacing. Sure, this is […]

For the past week, Austin has been soaked with blood, guts, and gore—figuratively speaking, at least. SXSW has long been a favorite among studios for horror premieres; past debuts have included A Quiet Place, Us, The Cabin in the Woods, The Invitation, and Drag Me to Hell. This year’s crop of films has been no exception. Ti West’s X and Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies (starring a convincingly dopey Pete Davidson) have ranked among the most anticipated releases. In both cases, the end results live up to the hype—and better yet, there’s plenty more where those came from. Feast your eyes […]

Audiences never hear the roar of a chainsaw during X—but there’s no mistaking its spiritual inspiration. Or at least, one of them. Ti West’s amateur porn horror film is among the most hotly anticipated premieres at this year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas. The setup could not be more familiar: Six young and (mostly) beautiful people road trip to a remote farmhouse in Texas to shoot an amateur skin flick. Their hosts? An elderly couple whose nightmarishly withered faces instantly recall the grandpa from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—and whose behavior toward their overnight boarders grows ever more alarming over time. Let the […]

To say the excitement in the room at The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’s SXSW premiere was palpable would be an understatement. The sidewalks in Austin were plastered with hand-printed signs emblazoned with star Nicolas Cage’s face and a fan’s phone number ahead of the event. A fan rows ahead of me wore a sweater branded with the actor’s face; directly behind me, I overheard a fan deliberating when the most opportune moment might be to try and hand the actor a single rose. By the time Cage himself showed up to the debut—clad in a plaid blazer—the room erupted. The […]

As its title might imply, it’s tough to sum up Everything Everywhere All at Once. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the duo behind the equally baffling Swiss Army Man, specialize in weird projects that defy straightforward explanation. But it will likely not surprise fans of the pair that gave us The Surprisingly Earnest Farting Corpse Movie to learn that this stunning new film, too, asks a deceptively juvenile question: “What if Chekhov’s gun were a butt plug?” Part martial-arts thriller, part heartfelt family drama, and part searing indictment of the banal subjugation of the IRS, Everything Everywhere All at Once—which debuted […]

Kate McKinnon seems to have started something with her “Don’t Say Gay” appearance on SNL’s “Weekend Update.” Speaking about the cruel, recently passed Florida bill that would ban discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade, the comedian suggested Saturday that if kids can’t say the word “gay,” they “might as well sing it.” (Cue McKinnon chanting the word “gay” to the tune of the guitar riff that opens Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.”) The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, and Governor Ron DeSantis is widely expected to sign it into law. But celebrities are […]

Credit where it’s due for The Bachelor and its producers: Choosing to air Tuesday’s episode on International Women’s Day is the best gag this show has pulled in years. We’ve known since the start of the season how Clayton Echard’s journey would end—and now, it’s finally happened. Our emotionally open Bachelor told not one, not two, but all three of his final contestants that he’s in love with them. Things went well enough for him the first two times around, but when Clayton got to his third date of the week, Susie Evans, things crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. The […]

There’s a lot to process about Matt Reeves’ superhero noir The Batman—from its emo Bruce Wayne, to the built-in pet carriers on Catwoman’s motorcycle, to… well, everything Paul Dano’s doing as the Riddler. But as I’ve sat with everything I witnessed during the film’s (yes, very long) run, one thought has increasingly begun to haunt me: Are we really getting another Joker? Another? (Spoilers ahead!) Honestly, I was already struggling with the whole flooding Madison Square Garden segment of The Batman by the time we got to its most stunning reveal. We’ve already seen two movie Jokers in the past decade—Jared […]

Maybe it happened when one contestant called another a “narcissistic, gaslighting biotch”—or maybe it was when host Jesse Palmer failed (for the second or third time) to regain control of the room. At some point early on during this week’s The Bachelor, it became clear that this “Women Tell All” is different from the norm. Dare I say, it actually might be the Most! Dramatic! Ever!? Yes, they say that every year—but this time there were alleged DM slides and screenshots! There were callouts of random Bachelor Nation side characters! And yes… There was more talk about shrimp. We appear to […]

When I hit “play” on The Dropout, the new Hulu drama documenting the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, I thought I was prepared for the atrocities ahead. There would obviously be rampant fraud, as the CEO’s team provided inaccurate blood test results to real-life people, including cancer patients. I’d also braced for the uncomfortable romance between Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani—who was already an adult in his thirties when he met the rising college freshman while she was studying in Beijing. And of course, I was ready (extremely eager, in fact) to hear Amanda Seyfried’s take on “The Voice.” I […]

We appear to be in the midst of a vocal vibe shift. Maybe it was that “use the voice” meme from Dune, or maybe the pandemic has officially reduced my brain to a husk of its former self. And yes, I know accents in Hollywood are nothing new. Still, I must ask… Has anyone else started to feel like a lot of celebrities have been doing funny voices lately? A New York Times profile of the industry’s go-to dialect coaches notes that it was Meryl Streep’s Oscar win for 1982’s Sophie’s Choice that introduced audiences to the concept of vocal authenticity […]

Love Is Blind hive, the time has finally come again. On Friday, Netflix debuted the Season 2 finale of its most chaotic dating show—and although there were no runaway brides this time, there was still plenty of mess to go around. The season reunion is set for March 4, and given the number of at-the-altar breakups we just witnessed, the conversations seem bound to get spicy. But without further ado, here’s a breakdown of who said “I do”—and who left the show in tears. Nick and Danielle The finale opened on Nick Thompson and Danielle Ruhl’s ceremony. She was nervous and […]

As I prepared to interview Shaina Hurley and Kyle Abrams about Love Is Blind Season 2, I found myself searching for a more polite way to phrase the question audiences would certainly have after witnessing the couple’s confusing romance: What were they thinking?! The reasons Shaina and Kyle would not work out seem pretty obvious on paper. He’s an atheist, and she’s a Christian whose beliefs do not include evolution. There’s also the small fact that Shaina seemed to be way more into another guy from the show: Shayne Jansen, who left the pods engaged to Natalie Lee. Right after getting […]

When Horatio Sanz signed a young fan’s Second City yearbook, he wrote two words: “Be cool.” That phrase had allegedly come to define the comedian’s relationship with the teen, who filed a lawsuit against both Sanz and NBC in 2021. The woman, identified as “Jane Doe” due to her being underage when the alleged predatory interactions with Sanz took place, cites the comedian’s own written admission in her complaint. His exact words, according to the lawsuit: “If you want to metoo me you have every right.” Jane also alleges in her lawsuit that Sanz sexually assaulted her when she was 17, […]

Around the moment that an atheist gave a speech about how he and a devout Christian who doesn’t believe in evolution might work through their differences, I began to wonder if Love Is Blind Season 2 might just fry the last two brain cells I have left. Not in the unpleasant sense, like the way a microwave bores a nuclear core into a frozen burrito, but in the nice way—like a blinding ray of light that hits the pineal gland at just the right angle to send beams of Lisa Frank-colored light out of your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. This […]

If Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express felt a little queasy to watch thanks to Johnny Depp, the director’s follow-up, Death on the Nile, seems downright noxious. The second of Branagh’s Agatha Christie adaptations, the film stars a who’s-who of embattled celebrities—a collection of scandals that threatens to overshadow the handily executed (if somewhat predictable) Hercule Poirot murder mystery. But in contrast to films like Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which cast Depp despite Amber Heard’s allegations of domestic abuse, the collection of scandals among Death on the Nile‘s cast appears to have accumulated by unfortunate coincidence. Actors like […]

Folks, Evangeline Lilly is at it again. In a recent Instagram post, the Lost and Ant-Man and the Wasp actress said she traveled to Washington, D.C. this weekend to speak out in support of “medical sovereignty”—in other words, to protest vaccine mandates. Lilly attended the same protest where speaker Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notorious anti-vaxxer, compared vaccines mandates to the Holocaust. Lilly wrote Thursday that she believes “nobody should ever be forced to inject their body with anything, against their will” under threats including “violent attack,” “arrest or detention without trial,” homelessness and starvation, and “excommunication from society.” (Note: Nobody […]

As Adele continues to issue refunds and FaceTime fans who’d shown up in Las Vegas for her abruptly postponed residency, it appears some insiders want to set the story straight about what really killed the show. In a tearful video last week, Adele said half her crew had contracted COVID-19, forcing the postponement. But reports have begun pouring in from multiple tabloids (grains of salt, etc. etc.) that the singer clashed with her set designer, Esmeralda Devlin, over various production details—altercations described as “explosive.” The latest of these dispatches, from TMZ, cites Caesars Palace-connected insiders who claim Adele was displeased with […]

On Monday night, The Bachelor staged another group date steeped in vulnerable conversation. As we’ve seen increasingly in recent years on Bachelor/ette, producers once more put some chairs in a circle for some tearful heart-to-hearts between Clayton Echard and his contestants. And while several contestants shared candid accounts of moments they’ve disliked themselves, it was the Bachelor whose disclosure might make the greatest impact. After multiple contestants shared their experiences with body image issues, the former NFL player shared his own experience with body dysmorphia as a teenager. Considering how little-discussed male eating disorders and body dysmorphia are, this conversation could […]

In director Amy Berg’s new documentary Phoenix Rising, Evan Rachel Wood holds Marilyn Manson accountable for the abuse she says she endured during their relationship, which began when she was 18 years old. But the actress and activist makes clear that she’s not exactly rejoicing about it. “This isn’t about revenge, or, ‘He’s a monster and he needs to be punished and destroyed,’” she says in the documentary. “He’s already destroyed. That man is not a man anymore; he is gone.” Part One of the documentary premiered Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival. The second installment is due on HBO later […]

A strange kind of poetry lies in the bloody, scratched-up heart of Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone. The folk horror film about a young witch, which premiered Saturday at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, unfolds in broken language and cautious gestures punctuated by staccato slaps—the kind of callousness that can make the world feel like an interminable, barren pit. But as our taloned protagonist breaks away from the desperate grasp of two overbearing, warring mothers to body swap her way through different ways of living, her jumbled words take on a certain lyricism. Contradictions run through this gorgeously gory film’s […]

Friends, we might just be living through a Golden Age of A-listers doing funny accents. Hot on the heels of Julia Garner’s bananas “German” accent in Netflix’s recently dropped Inventing Anna trailer comes WeCrashed—an Apple TV+ miniseries that finds Jared Leto trying out another bizarro drawl. Those who watched House of Gucci might recall that Leto broke out a Wario-esque accento italiano that left audiences in stitches. (Should we be talking about those creepy allegations underpinning the actor’s cult-y image, and how Hollywood seems content to hire him for more and more projects anyway? I wish we would!) In Apple’s upcoming […]

What’s a power-hungry father to do when his wretched children start harboring fantasies of taking over his billion-dollar empire? If you’re Succession’s Logan Roy, the answer is to play them against one another—but if you’re Eli Gemstone, the looming mega-church leader at the center of The Righteous Gemstones, the answer might just be to break one of your kids’ thumbs. The similarities between these HBO cousins make themselves obvious from the jump: Brian Cox and John Goodman both play imposing patriarchs whose children have been raised to view the family business and the family itself as inextricable. As a result, both […]

Reese Witherspoon wants you to be prepared for the future—and that future is apparently a world in which all of us invest in easily stolen pictures of apes. On Tuesday, the actress and book club curator began trending on Twitter with a strange message from the proverbial mountaintop: “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?” Honestly? No, I was not! Witherspoon is the latest A-lister to talk up our virtual future. Over the past year, several celebs have promoted various digital currencies […]

J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans meltdown might’ve began years ago now, but the fallout continues to this day—just this month, two U.S.-based quidditch leagues announced their plan to change their names in an effort to distance the sport from the Harry Potter creator. But in light of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone film adaptation’s 20th anniversary this November, some kind of celebratory event was inevitable. On New Year’s Day, HBO Max will unveil Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. How will the streamer’s latest reunion special address the big, bigoted elephant missing from the room? Will it dare to mention […]

The Year of Our Lord 2021 has been cursed in almost every conceivable way—and in these troubled times, we’ve all been forced to develop some (more) coping mechanisms. Personally, watching the same three TV shows on a loop and trying to set a new record for pizza consumption got me through 2020, but I’ve found that this year has slowly pushed me toward a deeper relationship with my chosen religion: chaotic celebrity couples. I’ll admit that I’ve become something of a lapsed Chaothlic over the years, but 2021 has been such a goldmine of jaw-dropping hookups and bizarre publicity stunts that […]

After four years of relative silence about the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against him by multiple women, James Franco says he’s ready to “take some ownership over some things.” But if you actually listen to the actor’s hourlong interview on The Jess Cagle Podcast, you might begin to notice that the “things” for which he actually assumed accountability were the ones that posed the least risk to his career. The interview, available in full on SiriusXM, carefully addressed allegations from the 2018 Los Angeles Times article that forced Franco to address his alleged sexual misconduct and exploitation of multiple female […]

It’s always a losing game to try and predict where a TV series might go—and given the number of stunning twists and emotional gut punches that Sunday’s Succession finale dropped on fans, even the most intuitive soothsayer can only divine so much about where its fourth season is headed. But… what if we made some guesses anyway? Just for fun? As someone who overthinks this show for a living and also just loves a losing game, it’s my sacred duty to try. Logan Roy’s Eldest Son Sunday was a big night for Conman, who both asserted himself as the real eldest […]

Channing Tatum doesn’t show up in HBO Max’s Magic Mike-inspired reality series Finding Magic Mike, but his character’s spirit is alive and well. Rather than appear on camera as his male stripper alter ego, Tatum executive produced the competition show, which debuted its surprisingly heartwarming premiere season Thursday. Adam Rodriguez, who plays Tito in the film franchise, hosts the series along with Magic Mike Live executive producer Vincent Marini and choreographers Alison Faulk and Luke Broadlick. Together, it’s the hosts’ job to winnow down a pool of 50 prospective Mikes—all of whom, for one reason or another, feel they’ve lost their […]

You know your relationship with your mother is complicated when you give her a wedding toast that both calls her out for being an absentee parent and places her marriage in competition with your own. Shiv’s wedding speech for her icy mother in Succession’s Season 3 finale is one for the ages: “I’m jealous of the time you get to spend with her,” Shiv tells her new father-in-law. “I hope your marriage is as rich and happy and rewarding and fulfilling as mine.” Last week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger: Kendall Roy floating face-down in an infinity pool after finally throwing […]

As I write this, it’s been four days since The New Yorker published Michael Schulman’s stunning opus on Jeremy Strong—and for the fourth day in a row, the Succession actor is trending on Twitter. As jaw-dropping as the anecdotes about Strong’s intensity certainly are, the real genius of the piece is its timing; the profile dropped just after this season’s penultimate episode, which left all of us wondering whether Kendall Roy is literally drowning in his pool or figuratively drowning like he has for three seasons. The fate of Logan Roy’s most tortured son is probably at the top of most […]

As Nicki Minaj continues to battle Jennifer Hough’s witness intimidation suit in court, it appears a media strategy is taking shape—and Hough’s attorneys are hitting back against what they claim is misleading reporting. On Thursday TMZ reported that in “filed legal docs,” Minaj’s attorneys had refuted Hough’s account of being harassed by Minaj and her husband Kenneth Petty, the latter of whom sexually assaulted Hough when she was a teenager. The legal argument hinges on supposed inconsistencies between Hough’s interview with The Daily Beast and the account she provided the court. Hough’s attorneys, however, point out that the motion for sanction […]

Michelle Young’s Bachelorette season has been relatively tame in the drama department, largely because Michelle is an expert at avoiding red flags. Monday’s “The Men Tell All” reunion dredged up all of this season’s most heinous and bizarre drama. A highlight: Michelle confronting this season’s villain, Jamie Skaar, about his manipulative tendencies. Another Most Dramatic Moment of the night, however, came when former Bachelorette and host Tayshia Adams addressed her recent split from her season’s winner, addiction recovery specialist Zac Clark. The connection Tayshia and Zac shared on screen last year was the kind that keeps The Bachelorette running. Details like […]

Succession has told us just enough about Logan Roy’s history to know that however he’s abused his kids, it’s no worse than what he endured as a child. We know that he and his brother, Ewan, grew up in the care of their uncle, Noah. Logan still blames himself for the death of their sister, Rose—and whatever happened to him and Ewan afterward, it seared a lot of angry, red scars into his back. Logan’s scars appear in Season 1’s “Austerlitz,” which finds the Roys reunited at oldest son and certified black sheep Connor’s ranch. (The reason for the gathering? An […]

In the absence of filmed visuals, the sounds in Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary Flee become our tether to reality. Narrator Amin Nawabi details his family’s escape from Afghanistan in the 1980s with a faraway tone that evokes an unsettling dream. A haunting cacophony of clanging metal punctuates his story—like refugees banging on the walls of a shipping container, frantic pleas to escape the very thing that was supposed to set them free. As a small child fleeing the only home he’d ever known, Amin witnessed humanity at its cruelest—from the mercenary human traffickers who locked his family members into cargo […]

On Monday night, Barbados celebrated its final separation from the United Kingdom and Queen Elizabeth II’s removal as head of state. One of the newly independent republic’s inaugural acts? Naming Rihanna a national hero. The timing of Monday’s Pride of Nationhood ceremony was apt, as The New York Times pointed out—the date marked exactly 55 years since the island nation gained its independence from England. The celebration took place in Barbados’ capital, Bridgetown—where Rihanna also grew up and where a street is now named in her honor. Former governor-general Sandra Mason swears in Tuesday as Barbados’ first president, and the nation […]

When Manhattan’s new Hudson Yards development finally touched the sky in 2019, The New Yorker commemorated its completion with a review. Writer Alexandra Schwartz leveled the place with one withering compliment: “It would be a great setting for a breakdown.” How fitting, then, that on Sunday night’s Succession, the $25 billion monument to commerce also became the venue for Kendall Roy’s 40th birthday party. You can smell the disaster coming from the moment we open on Kendall’s preparations for the night. His warbling rendition of Billy Joel’s “Honesty” would be too on the nose if that weren’t exactly the point: He’s […]

As one of Hollywood’s loudest proponents of Method acting, Jared Leto has long been one of those performers who loves “disappearing” into a role. In House of Gucci, he finally succeeds—for better and for worse. For most of his career, Leto’s shapeshifting has been more conspicuous than chameleonic. But Ridley Scott’s fashion epic uses the actor’s zeal for over-the-top “transformative” performances to its advantage. Somewhere between the prosthetic nose, the “it’s-a-me!” accent, and the hideous corduroy jackets, Leto does become unrecognizable. The trick only becomes funnier once you realize this floundering, narcissistic Fashion Wario is actually Leto—an actor defined, increasingly, by […]

It’s a sorry state of affairs when Connor Roy starts to look like a decent option for president, but Sunday’s Succession at least treads pretty close. This week’s episode centers around a bleak convention called the Future Freedom Summit, a gathering of the nation’s most terrifyingly wealthy, terrifyingly red Republicans. It’s giving “Berlin bunker vibes,” as Shiv describes it—just before Roman asks how his sister likes “spelunking in the elephant’s asshole.” Greg, who doesn’t realize Hamilton is not the show to bring up in this crowd, is dismayed to get called a “soy boy”—until his story about suing Greenpeace makes him […]

Tiger King 2 does not acknowledge the death of Erik Cowie, a former zookeeper at Joe Exotic’s Oklahoma zoo who also appears in the series, until the very end. He gets a brief memorial photo just before the credits roll after popping up just a couple times in preceding episodes—including, at one point, to call a joke about Donald Trump anally penetrating animal-rights activist Carole Baskin “fabulous.” Cowie became a household name last year, alongside others who appeared in Netflix’s original Tiger King. He was found dead in a Brooklyn apartment this September; the cause of death was later determined to […]

Swifties around the world are enjoying something of a Holy Week. Taylor Swift’s version of Red just dropped, everyone’s dunking on Jake Gyllenhaal, and the videos are rolling out. Last week there was the “All Too Well” short film starring Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink, and now there’s Blake Lively’s directorial debut—a music video for “I Bet You Think About Me.” (“(Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) (Official Video).” Parentheses… So Hot Right Now.) One question, though—just a teeny, tiny inquiry: What’s Miles Teller doing here? Did he finally get vaccinated? Lively, a longtime friend of Swift’s, directed the six-minute video for […]

It takes a heaping dose of hubris for a person to presume they’re above the laws of science, but if there’s one thing we know about Kendall Roy it’s that he’s never been one to underestimate his own grandeur. And so, this week’s Succession begins with our deluded prince insisting to a skeptical babysitter that despite what Google says, his children actually can feed the pet rabbit a piece of bagel. Those rules, he says, are for those dummies who would leave the bunny at home with a Big Gulp. The rabbit, a gift Kendall bestowed on the children he rarely […]

Just after watching this week’s Succession, I read an article about a nightmare billionaire named Charlie Munger who is helping to fund a residence hall at UC Santa Barbara in exchange for creative control over the design. Despite holding no degree in architecture, Munger has helped design multiple projects like this, including a reviled Michigan University dorm. The Santa Barbara building will force most students to live in dorms without windows. Common spaces will hoard the natural light in the building, which Munger and the school claim will encourage students to leave their prison cells—er… rooms. Munger’s response to the backlash […]

The discourses… they’re converging! We all knew Saturday Night Live was bound to address Aaron Rodgers’ “woke mob” anti-vaxx meltdown, and it turns out their cast member of choice was none other than the one whose hotness is making headlines once again. On Saturday night, Davidson channeled the NFL player in a sit-down with SNL’s “Jeanine Pirro,” Cecily Strong. “It’s your body, your choice,” Strong’s Pirro told her guest, “and please don’t use that quote for any other issue.” “It’s my body and my COVID,” Davidson responded. “I can give it to whoever I want. But suddenly the woke mob is […]

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” had a lot of ground to cover this week—especially given that Ice Cube, a celebrity whom Kenan Thompson has perfectly impersonated before, lost out on a $9 million acting gig in the Sony comedy Oh Hell No! because he refused to get vaccinated. (“My loss? Your loss!” he insists. “Oh Hell No! was gonna feature the greatest comedy duo of all time—Ice Cube, Jack Black.”) But the real stand-out was Goober, a clown played by Cecily Strong and styled to look a lot like Loonette from the childrens’ series The Big Comfy Couch. The reason for […]

Ego Nwodim has been impersonating Dionne Warwick on Saturday Night Live’s its recurring Dionne Warwick Talk Show, but this week’s audience finally got to see the real legend in the flesh. The legendary singer and TV host, whose Twitter account is one of the site’s pure delights, has been lobbying to make her way onto the show for a little while now—and it’s only fitting that she marked her debut with a serenade. “I am sick and tired of interviewing people who are not icons!” Nwodim’s character said partway through this week’s segment. “Please welcome… me!” “Let me ask you something,” […]

Siobhan Roy’s brutality has always lingered just at the edge of the frame in Succession, and in Season 3’s “The Disruption,” Logan’s only daughter demonstrated just how vicious she’s become after a lifetime of exclusion from Daddy Roy’s inner circle. The episode opens, however, on Kendall. Seated at a pristine lunch spot with a journalist, Ken is flying high. “The DOJ and I are in contact about the terms of my immunity deal, so yeah,” he tells a bemused journalist. “It does not look good for them!” When asked about how he and his siblings’ relationship has fared since he refused […]

William Crain recalls being surprised by the amount of autonomy he enjoyed while working on the beloved Blaxploitation film Blacula—but he still faced plenty of frustrating arguments along the way. The film’s original title, Count Brown’s in Town, was not an encouraging start. “With that name you can imagine what they had in mind,” Crain told The Daily Beast during a recent interview. “When I read the script, I kind of put it down. My parents said to me, ‘If you have the chance to do this movie, you need to go do it—do the best you can.’” Blacula made bank […]

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty A limited series about Joan Rivers has stirred controversy once again. When news first broke of the project last month, discussion emerged about casting Kathryn Hahn, who is not Jewish, to play the legendary comedian. Now the project has been canceled, Variety reports, after its producers failed to secure its subject’s life rights, held by Rivers’ daughter Melissa. Lifetime’s vast selection of unauthorized biographies demonstrates that one does not necessarily need permission from one’s subject to go forward with a production. But as Variety points out, Joan Rivers’ jokes and catchphrases—recognizable markers of her […]

Gwyneth Paltrow’s first Netflix series, The goop Lab, stirred controversy from its debut. Scientists were frustrated with the streaming giant for spreading misinformation—and even worse, the show was also boring. Now, however, Paltrow returns with a new series, Sex, Love & goop. The show observes a handful of couples (most but not all of whom are straight) as they meet with sex therapists to address various issues in their relationships. While The goop Lab felt like a well-produced QVC ad for expensive quackery, Sex, Love & goop takes an earnest, emotionally driven approach to a topic that remains embarrassingly taboo in […]

Marcia Cross was not exactly enamored with Netflix’s You when she first discovered her husband watching it. “I was like, ‘Oh, he’s just watching some guy prey on beautiful women—I don’t know if I’m interested,” the Desperate Housewives star told The Daily Beast during a recent interview. But then she started watching and, like Joe Goldberg himself, became a little bit obsessed. When the opportunity arose to join the show as a guest star, the veteran actress seized her moment. “I actually put myself on tape for it,” she said. “It wasn’t a very big part, but I wanted it.” Alongside […]

Denis Villeneuve and Dune’s marketing team gave us time to prepare for Oscar Isaac going full bearded space daddy. The trailer that made Isaac’s face go viral (again) dropped months ago, and the film itself has been delayed several times. But much like staring at a candle flame cannot prepare our eyes for the burning intensity of the sun, promotional materials for the sci-fi epic captured only a hint of the gravitas, the swaggering commitment, the brutal hotness that Isaac commands as Duke Leto Atreides. It’s not just the Dune beard—although the immaculately trimmed face shrub certainly doesn’t hurt. The power […]

I know this might sound a little premature, but you know what? I’m gonna say it anyway: Michelle Young is already the best Bachelorette in years. Granted, I was a little biased as I headed into the elementary school teacher’s season. She was one of the few bright spots in Matt James’ train wreck of a Bachelor outing last year, self-assured and straightforward in a way that’s become painfully rare in Bachelor Nation. (What else can we expect when we continually cast people in their early to mid-twenties?) But in a premiere replete with what one can only describe as absolute […]

Succession is back, and the insult of the day is “disingenuous little fuck doll.” Any guesses on which of Logan Roy’s children this refers to—and which of them yelled it at the top of their lungs when a meeting didn’t go their way? This season opens right where we left off. Kendall—Logan’s second son and, now, Waystar Royco Public Enemy No. 1—shocked everyone last season by refusing to play the sacrificial lamb for his father, instead throwing Logan to the wolves at a press conference. This season’s premiere finds Ken locked in a bathroom as a nervous Greg asks him to […]

Where does a fugitive go once he’s stalked and murdered his way through both New York and Los Angeles? In You Season 3, Penn Badgley’s misanthropic bookworm Joe Goldberg is stuck in a new hell of his own making: Suburban life with a serial killer and their unborn child, whom he’s desperate to protect from his wife. (Because her murderous tendencies are totally worse and more villainous than his.) Madre Linda, where newlyweds Joe and Love Quinn make their home in Season 3, is You’s first fictional location. Creator Sera Gamble says the gossip-obsessed town was inspired by several bedroom communities […]

Over the years, director Ry Russo-Young has explored the custody battle that upended her childhood through multiple mediums—including a play inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, in which she and both her mothers, Robin Young and Sandy Russo, are the cloaked damsels and her mothers’ sperm donor, Tom Steel, is the wolf. A powerful attorney in the gay community, Steel had seemed like a perfect choice to be Russo and Young’s sperm donor as they tried to conceive their second child. When Russo-Young was 9 years old, however, tensions arose over visitation and Steel sued her parents for paternal rights—effectively wielding […]

After more than a year mostly spent in a shoebox-sized one-bedroom apartment, the opening scenes of Lamb, A24’s latest slow-simmering horror film, felt like a much-needed breath of fresh air—specifically, a crisp Icelandic breeze. María and Ingvar, married but childless, run a farm together and raise sheep. Their existence seems idyllic at first, dyed in appealing shades of indigo and white and set against sweeping plains of fresh grass. But it doesn’t take long for this agrarian utopia to lose its luster. Director Valdimar Jóhannsson builds his tension slowly, undermining the sentimentality outsiders might associate with agrarian life via quietly unsettling […]

It’s hard to imagine being more in need of a hobby than the members of a group called Friends of Marconi Plaza. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the local group has taken up the most noble of crusades—fighting to defend a statue dedicated to Christopher Columbus. And on Friday a judge who was once allegedly on the speaker’s list for a QAnon-linked event ruled that the plywood box covering the statue must be removed. City officials covered the Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza with plywood last year, the Inquirer reports, as protests for racial justice galvanized efforts to remove it. Mayor […]

Andrew Yang might be pitching himself as the guy to head up a new, more “inclusive” third party, but Jim Acosta had some questions about the entrepreneur-turned-politician’s methods during a CNN interview on Saturday afternoon. Specifically, he asked Yang to answer for his decision to appear on Tucker Carlson Today. “Tucker Carlson… I mean, let’s just say he’s a bad person,” Acosta told Yang. “And he represents so much of what is wrong in television news these days. You know this all too well; he spouts off white nationalist talking points. So why would you even go on his show?” During […]

The problem with Jon Stewart’s new show, The Problem with Jon Stewart, is not that it’s a cash grab—but its opening credits preempt that notion anyway with a joke. In a visual brainstorm of the show’s title, we observe increasingly cheeky suggestions like “The Weekly…” “Monthly…” and “Annual…” Words like “program” and “product” intertwine, alongside ideas like The Cash Grab with Jon Stewart. TK OR WHATEVER IT IS. Only six years have passed since Stewart stepped down from his genre-shifting Daily Show run, but it feels much longer. Perhaps that’s why it appears, from his new show’s first two episodes, as […]

Demi Lovato wants you to believe. Unidentified, the singer’s four-part documentary (“documentary”), has premiered in full on Peacock—and while the series might have all the journalistic rigor of Syfy’s Ghost Hunters or Animal Planet’s Mermaids: The Body Found, Lovato’s charisma is hard to resist. Unidentified feels, in some ways, like a strange Franken-show—a spiritual hybrid of celebrity documentary and paranormal explorations like Finding Bigfoot and BuzzFeed Unsolved. Lovato, who recently came out as nonbinary, explains at the top of their show that while at Joshua Tree on their 28th birthday, they saw a UFO and now believe they might have experienced […]

Controlling Britney Spears, the New York Times’ latest documentary about the pop icon, observes that one could tell the story of her conservatorship through two Rolling Stone covers—Vanessa Grigoriadis’ unforgettably comprehensive 2008 profile which documented her situation as a capital-T “Tragedy,” and a more empathetic feature from 2011 that trumpeted the Princess of Pop’s return to her throne but simultaneously wondered, “What has the comeback cost her?” Jenny Eliscu, who wrote the latter story, appears in Netflix’s own documentary on the subject—Britney vs. Spears. In several scenes she and director Erin Lee Carr pore over court testimony and photographs of various […]

It’s a paradox we all accept because, frankly, it’s kind of the point. Despite the genre’s name, “dating” shows are generally not interested in capturing the mundane magic that can spark between two people who met, say, waiting for a bus. Instead we get mansions stocked to the brim with champagne; private phone booths in which hot suitors decide which random stranger sounds like marriage material; F-boys and girls making out on the beach. (Or trying not to make out in a beach house.) It makes sense that most dating shows are allergic to sincerity; our collective fear of vulnerability makes […]

Whatever one might think about that musical Emmys opening—a parody of the late Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” starring some poor, unfortunate soul in a Daft Punk-esque TV head—it was hard to ignore just how full the room looked. Host Cedric the Entertainer noted that given COVID-19, there might have been an impression going in that this event would be “Emmys Lite.” Instead it appears they invited every celebrity who’s ever been on TV to convene in an “outdoor” ballroom. It didn’t take long before one presenter spoke up about how strange the packed gathering seems, given the rising toll of […]

When Framing Britney Spears took over the news earlier this year, another female celebrity’s conservatorship lingered on the edge of public conversation. Is Amanda Bynes, whose conservatorship began in 2014, stuck in a similarly demoralizing battle? And if so, is #FreeAmanda next? The terms of Bynes’ conservatorship remain largely unknown; as similar as her case might appear to Spears’ on the surface, they also differ in crucial ways. But it appears public concern for the Nickelodeon star is growing nonetheless. In a statement, Bynes’ attorney David Esquibias told The Daily Beast, “There is no comparison between Britney and Amanda’s conservatorship. Britney’s […]

If one phrase could summarize popular sentiment toward celebrities last year, it might be, “Open your purse.” Faced with pandemic-induced lockdown and protests against racial injustice, America’s glitterati started acting… weird. Performative gestures abounded (lots of awkward singing and earnest speeches) but they all fell flat, crushed under the weight of all the money celebrities could donate to the cause if they just stopped talking and… well, you know. And yet it appears the entertainment industry has found a new way to make activism all about itself. Usher, Priyanka Chopra, and Julianne Hough are set to co-host The Activist this fall. […]

It’s funny that people were worried about John Mulaney’s sobriety after he appeared on Late Night last year, the comedian said upon his return to the NBC show Tuesday night. “I had been under the influence the day before—and the day after, I was probably under the influence,” he told Seth Meyers. “But on the show… at your insistence, I was more sober than not.” After that old episode aired, the comedian remembers just how many people online seemed to think something was wrong with him. “And I was sitting at home going, ‘Indeed, something is.’” There’s little mystery to why […]

Mike Richards is officially no longer a part of Jeopardy!—and a source tells The Daily Beast that the short-lived Alex Trebek replacement did not leave of his own accord. Richards stepped down as host of the show earlier this month amid reports of his alleged history of harassment and discrimination, as well as his penchant for crude and offensive humor. But the New York Times reported last week that Sony’s top TV executive said the company intended to keep Richards as executive producer. Jeopardy! champions, meanwhile, told The Daily Beast that they felt “betrayed.” On Tuesday, however, Suzanne Prete, the executive […]

It’s a philosophical question for the ages: If you make a Candyman movie without letting Tony Todd purr some terrified white woman’s name, imploring her to “be my victim,” have you really made a Candyman movie? Nia DaCosta, who previously directed Tessa Thompson in the quietly gripping crime thriller Little Woods, decided to find out. In 1992, Todd’s seductive performance as the hook-handed phantom of lynching victim Daniel Robitaille made him a horror icon. Robitaille doesn’t command much screen time in any of the Candyman films (Todd doesn’t show up in the original until 45 minutes in) but the character never […]

In January of 2019, less than two months before Alex Trebek revealed his pancreatic cancer diagnosis, Anneke Garcia made her Jeopardy! debut. Beyond joining a community she’d longed to join for so much of her life, part of the thrill of being a four-time champion was the rare feeling of recognition that it gave her as a self-described “non-model woman” on television. Disappointment has corroded that memory. After all, Mike Richards produced Garcia’s episodes—and as Jeopardy! fans recently learned from his old podcast, he doesn’t have much use for women who don’t double as set decoration. Richards fired himself as co-host […]

Just when it seemed all of the pleasures of the Before Times were lost, American Horror Story gave us an overstuffed premiere for the ages—and wasted no time in giving Sarah Paulson her latest nickname. Hypodermic Sally, who? This year’s haunted half-dead with a heart of gold heroine is called “Tuberculosis Karen.” The theme of the season is Double Feature, and on Wednesday night we got a two-part taste of Part One: Red Tide. (I know, it’s confusing.) It goes down salty at first, and ends on heavy notes of iron. We open on a family driving into Provincetown, Massachusetts, and […]

Mike Richards, who since his announcement as presumptive Jeopardy! host has faced a series of damning revelations about his past on shows including The Price Is Right, has stepped down. The search for Alex Trebek’s replacement has begun anew. Jeopardy! had spent months “auditioning” a steady rotation of famous guest hosts before news broke earlier this month that Richards would split hosting duties with Mayim Bialik, who will host the franchise’s primetime and spin-off series. A person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast on Friday that Bialik is not in a position to take on Richards’ gig owing to […]

The morning before her lawsuit against Nicki Minaj and Kenneth “Zoo” Petty went public, Jennifer Hough was crying hysterically on the phone with her lawyer. Petty was convicted of first-degree attempted rape in 1995 after he sexually assaulted Hough at knifepoint. As Hough told The Daily Beast this spring, associates of the couple began pressuring her to recant her story last March after Petty’s arrest in California for failing to register as a sex offender as mandated by his plea deal. Last week a friend sent Hough a video that an acquaintance, a man named Barry, had posted on Facebook Stories […]

Why is Alec Baldwin so upset that Andrew Cuomo resigned from his post after an investigation found that the now-former New York governor had sexually harassed 11 women? New York Attorney General Letitia James released the findings of a months-long investigation on Tuesday, which concluded that Cuomo had violated federal and state laws by repeatedly sexually harassing colleagues. In addition to unwanted physical contact and inappropriate comments, James said, the investigation found that “the governor and his senior staff took actions to retaliate” against at least one former employee who had come forward to accuse him. As harrowing as the stories […]

This post contains spoilers for The Bachelorette finale. Things got tense the minute Katie Thurston arrived on stage during The Bachelorette’s three-hour finale. Her ex, Greg Grippo, had just finished his interview with co-hosts Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe; as Katie sat down, she pointedly refused to hug him. Greg had been the frontrunner throughout this season but sent himself home last week after a perfect “Hometown” date took a sharp left turn. It was a colossal breakdown in communication: Greg needed Katie to tell him exactly how she felt, but rather than say so he released a passionate declaration of […]

Jeopardy! executive producer and hosting frontrunner Mike Richards has responded to a series of old complaints from his tenure on The Price Is Right. In a memo to staff shared with The Daily Beast, Richards brushed aside a series of old lawsuits from his tenure with The Price Is Right in which female employees complained of harassment and discrimination, which allegedly took place during and after their pregnancies. Late last week, news broke that Richards, one of several guest hosts to take a turn on air as Jeopardy! searches for Alex Trebek’s replacement, was in advanced negotiations for the job. (At […]

Can a man not throw a 60th birthday bash at his summer home in Martha’s Vineyard with 500 of his closest friends anymore? For months, Barack Obama had planned to welcome roughly 475 guests—former White House colleagues, Jay Z, Chrissy Teigen, etc—for a birthday party on the island. Then the Delta variant happened, yada yada, and now guests including Larry David and a slew of Obama administration officials have been uninvited from Saturday evening’s bash, which the former president scaled down to close friends and family. Friends who did make the cut, meanwhile, include Beyoncé and Jay Z, Don Cheadle, Eddie […]

Sorry, Reading Rainbow fans, but it appears LeVar Burton will not be the new host of Jeopardy! Neither will franchise stalwart Ken Jennings, Big Bang Theory alum Mayim Bialik, or Anderson Cooper—all of whom enjoyed popular runs as guest hosts in the late Alex Trebek’s stead. According to Variety, the long-running game show is eyeing an in-house replacement for its 36-year emcee—executive producer Mike Richards. Richards has not been officially named yet; Variety reports that he is in advanced negotiations, and a source told The Daily Beast that discussions with potential hosts remain ongoing. Still, Richards’ selection has proven frustrating to […]

Bachelorette frontrunner Greg Grippo seemed bound to make it to the end, but now it seems he’s left for good. Katie Thurston’s obvious feelings for the floppy-haired marketing sales rep have made him a frontrunner from the first episode, but on Monday night the two finished their dream date with a fight that bordered on surreal. Greg spent the night essentially begging Katie to blow up the show for him—while Katie steadfastly refused to tell the man she’s said she’s falling in love with that she is, in fact, falling in love with him. In the end, Greg told our Bachelorette […]

Seth MacFarlane has taken another swipe at his longtime corporate overlord. On Sunday the comedian fired off a frustrated, if vague, tweet about Fox host Tucker Carlson’s “latest opinion piece,” which he said “once again makes me wish Family Guy was on any other network.” “Look, Fox, we both know this marriage isn’t working anymore,” MacFarlane wrote. ‘The sex is only once a year, I don’t get along with your mother, and well… I’ve been having an affair with NBC.” It’s unclear which specific Carlson take MacFarlane might have disliked, and there are far too many possible answers for us to […]

As a trash TV connoisseur, I have to say: There’s never been a better time to love reality dating shows. The Bachelor might be in a bit of a tailspin, but over the past couple of years, several series have taken the genre in fun, fascinating, often inventively vapid directions. Netflix’s Dating Around ushered in a lower-key approach in 2019, the same year that MTV debuted a deliciously messy, loud, and completely queer season of its long-running show Are You the One? And HBO Max just launched FBoy Island, a deliciously shallow Bachelor in Paradise–Love Island mash-up from former Bach producer […]

Jayce Jurado is pretty sure she is the only person to make it to Hollywood from where she grew up. The 30-year-old Filipino American hails from Saipan, the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands. Given that Saipan houses only 48,220 people, Jurado is probably right. For years, everyone Jurado met in the industry seemed to have the same backstory—a friend or family member who had some connection that landed them a job. She, meanwhile, found herself networking with strangers who often struggled to understand basic facets of her identity. (Yes, she’s a U.S. citizen; the islands from which she hails are […]

Tig Notaro seems to be everywhere lately. The comedian has been a household name for years, but lately her career has swerved in ways few could have predicted. There was the time she popped up in a Phoebe Bridgers music video out of nowhere last year, and more recently, thanks to a quick casting substitution in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, the self-described “low-key” lesbian has become 2021’s sexiest action star. “Especially after turning 50, it was a real curveball,” the comedian told The Daily Beast during a recent interview. “But I’ll take it.” Tig Notaro: Drawn, which debuts Saturday […]

Five members of Tekashi69’s private security team—including a former NYPD officer—have been indicted after they went on a 20-block car chase in Harlem in pursuit of a fan who tried to capture video of the rapper on his cellphone, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The New York Supreme Court has charged the defendants with robbery in the first and second degrees, as well as criminal impersonation in the first degree. A press release from Manhattan D.A. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., states that the security crew chased a 34-year-old man down in three SUVs equipped with flashing lights and sirens. […]

This post contains spoilers for Black Widow. For the casual viewer, Black Widow will likely prove all kinds of confusing. But it’s hard to blame anyone who’s confused as to why Marvel is just now releasing its first standalone film dedicated to Natasha Romanoff. After all, she is technically dead. Black Widow, which joined Phase Four of Marvel’s sprawling cinematic universe Friday, takes place after the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. (The former debuted in 2016; the latter, in 2018.) Natasha died in 2019’s Endgame after sacrificing her life to secure the Soul Stone, which the […]

As of this week, all of us have the opportunity to see culture at its peak: In F9, the ninth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise, Vin Diesel drives his franchise to the moon. Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson’s forever bickering characters Tej and Roman are the ones who make the giant leap into the cosmos—and as they do, the film taunts us with its audacity. “As long as we obey the laws of physics,” Tej says, “we’ll be fine.” Oh, really? In boldly bringing this franchise where no drag racer has gone before, director Justin Lin made sure to […]

Rachel Lindsay is getting candid about her time with The Bachelor. Just weeks after Chris Harrison made off with a reported eight-figure golden parachute, the first Black Bachelorette has published a broad and damning account of her experience with the franchise for New York magazine—outlining in devastating detail the difficulties she was forced to confront, and the degree to which producers abandoned her to navigate them alone. Lindsay’s essay dissects Bachelor Nation’s ongoing struggle with race in great detail; she illustrates not only the way Harrison and producers’ decisions contribute to the issue, but also the broader, systemic forces that perpetuate […]