On Sunday night, the 22nd annual New Yorker Festival closed out with a virtual talk between Jon Stewart and New Yorker editor David Remnick. The former Daily Show host discussed a variety of topics, including his new—and decidedly more serious—Apple TV+ talk show, The Problem With Jon Stewart, a Trump 2024 run (“he’s got a very good chance”), and how he spent his time after leaving the trailblazing Comedy Central program he fronted for 16 years. “For me personally, the way I experienced life was fuller,” Stewart said of his departure. “I had spent so much time singularly focused on The […]
Marlow Stern
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On Sunday night, John Oliver used his Emmy-winning HBO series Last Week Tonight to take shots at his corporate overlord, AT&T. According to an in-depth Reuters investigation this past week, the disinformation station One America News Network—described by Oliver as “a far-right channel that peddles COVID misinformation and conspiracy theories”—was started by AT&T, which still owns WarnerMedia, the parent company of HBO. “Yup!” exclaimed Oliver. “Turns out AT&T has been up to some shit. And it is worth noting: AT&T is still technically our business daddy, making OAN our business step-sibling—and not in a hot way.” As Reuters reported, “OAN founder […]
In the early hours Tuesday morning, Dave Chappelle dropped The Closer, his ninth stand-up special overall (and sixth for Netflix). The hour-long set was recorded at The Fillmore in Detroit, Michigan, in August of this year. “Everyone have a seat, be comfortable, relax. I gotta tell ya… let’s go, let’s go,” Chappelle, sporting a perfectly manicured suit and white sneakers, tells the raucous crowd at the start. The 48-year-old comedy legend then adds, “I need you guys to know something, and I’m gonna tell you the truth, and don’t get freaked out: this is going to be my last special for […]
After a throwing few jabs at Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal for asking Facebook to end “finsta” during a congressional hearing—slang for someone’s “fake Instagram” account where they post more private content to their closest friends—John Oliver addressed the Build Back Better Act, a central pillar of the Biden presidency that will cost $3.5 trillion over ten years, paid for by increasing taxes on America’s wealthiest, and contains a number of initiatives including lowering the cost of child care, providing two years of free community college and subsidizing HCBUs, lowering the cost of health care and prescription drugs, boosting affordable housing, giving […]
The latest rank opportunist to all-too-conveniently distance themselves from the Trump administration shortly before releasing a tell-all book is Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary from July 2019 to April 2020—holding zero press conferences during that time—before her tenure as Melania Trump’s press secretary and chief of staff (doing what exactly, who knows). Grisham’s new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now—because, you know, she didn’t take any when it actually mattered—contains new embarrassing details about the 45th president, from his “terrifying” temper to overall buffoonery. Grisham left the Trump White House following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, […]
In light of the Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and Fox News—over false accusations made by the Trump consigliere and various pundits on the right-wing news network that the companies’ voting machines were rigged during the 2020 presidential election (that Donald Trump lost by over 7 million votes)—Giuliani and his son Andrew have reportedly been suspended from appearing on any Fox News shows for three months. “They banned Rudy from Fox News? That’s like banning a turtle from its shell, or like banning the Turtle [of Entourage fame] from the Nike store,” cracked Late Night host Seth Meyers on […]
John Oliver kicked off the latest episode of his Emmy-winning series Last Week Tonight on Sunday by addressing how “The View [was] thrown into chaos after two of its hosts tested positive for COVID mid-show, leading to this incredible moment.” He then threw to a clip of The View as a producer—live on-air—told co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro, “I need, uh, the two of you to step off for a second, and we’re going to bring you back later.” The incident happened right before Vice President Kamala Harris was set to join the women on the set for her sixth […]
Look, we’re still in the throes of a once-in-a-century pandemic that’s claiming over 2,000 American lives a day. And so, while the cinema is sort of back—at least if you’re a Marvel superhero extravaganza or swoll goons driving cars off cliffs—it’s important to take the necessary COVID precautions, from getting vaccinated to wearing a mask for the duration of the film. (The recent Venice Film Festival served as a solid model for COVID-era moviegoing.) With that said, there are plenty of exciting new films that will debut this fall season, from Palme d’Or winner Titane, a gender-bending serial-killer fantasy featuring someone […]
VENICE, Italy — Though the biggest headlines of the 78th Venice Film Festival emanated from its lengthy red carpet—a smoldering Oscar Isaac’s inner-arm kiss, Kristen Stewart bedizened in Chanel or an elated Bennifer becoming red-carpet official—the movies themselves signaled a long-overdue sea change. Whereas past iterations of the glamorous film fete allowed for hideous men to resuscitate their careers, the 2021 edition was all about the women. L’Événement, a French film by director Audrey Diwan providing an arresting portrait of a young woman in 1963 Paris seeking out a clandestine abortion, took home the Golden Lion, the fest’s top prize. The […]
It’s been thirteen years since Good Will Hunting, the first produced screenplay penned by the writing team of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, took home Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Since then, the pair of longtime Boston pals have transformed into Hollywood superstars, with the former winning Best Picture for his directorial effort Argo and the latter turning in a number of celebrated performances, from The Talented Mr. Ripley to the Bourne series of films. On Friday afternoon, Affleck and Damon appeared at a Venice Film Festival press conference to discuss The Last Duel, a new Ridley Scott film […]
One could present a compelling argument that Dune, Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of interplanetary conquest, messianism, and ecological plunder, was the most cursed property in Hollywood. Since the 1970s, Dune has passed through more hands than a twenty-dollar bill. After David Lean, whose Lawrence of Arabia served as inspiration for Herbert’s desert-set sci-fi saga, passed, the project fell into the hands of Chilean mystic Alejandro Jodorowsky, who envisioned it as his Remembrance of Things Past—a 10-hour epic featuring Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and Salvador Dali, with music by Pink Floyd. When the financing dried up, Dan O’Bannon, the film’s special effects […]
There is no actress alive today that can hold a close-up like Kristen Stewart. As the camera homes in, you feel her defenses intensify; it feels, more than anything, like a violation. And it’s why she’s perfectly suited for the role of Princess Diana, the tortured royal felled by a voyeuristic tabloid press. When we first encounter her Diana in Spencer, which a title card bills as “a fable from a true tragedy,” she is speeding in her Porsche convertible—top down, blonde bob dancing in the wind—down the backroads of Norfolk, England. She is oh so terribly late for Christmas Eve […]
VENICE, Italy—After a series of delays, and a public war of words between its director and studio over release strategy, Dune is finally here. Like his previous masterpiece Arrival, filmmaker Denis Villenueve’s sci-fi epic has made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. And Villeneuve was joined by several of his cast members, including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, and Oscar Isaac, at a press conference for the film following its first screening. “The biggest challenge doing Dune was, by far, to deal—and master—Timothee’s hair,” joked Villeneuve. “Because it’s alive. I had to direct Timothee and […]
While discussing his new film The Card Counter in an interview with Deadline, filmmaker Paul Schrader presented a paradox, both railing against the supposed insidiousness of “cancel culture” while decrying people’s strong aversion to personal responsibility. “What I was trying to capture from this moment,” he explained, “is this lack of responsibility people seem to have. ‘I didn’t lie, I misspoke,’ ‘I didn’t touch her inappropriately, I made a mistake.’ Nobody is really responsible for anything.” What Schrader fails to realize is that “cancel culture” is most often invoked by those wishing to evade responsibility (“it’s the culture that’s toxic, not […]
Last week, Bill Maher dedicated a portion of his Real Time monologue to the news that OnlyFans was banning porn—or as the company put it, “sexually explicit conduct.” The paid subscription service, which is dominated by sex workers who have seen their incomes rise dramatically during the pandemic, admitted that they reached the decision due to pressure from banks like Mastercard, who are adopting stricter guidelines in October surrounding “the seller[s] of adult content.” (Mastercard had received heavy pressure from fanatical anti-sex work organizations like Exodus Cry and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), who regularly conflate safe and legal […]
On Thursday night, MAGA maestro Kanye West threw caution and morality to the wind during his DONDA “listening party” at Chicago’s Soldier Field. In addition to erecting a replica of his childhood home—it is a hometown show, after all, and the album is named after his late mother Donda West—West, masked and dressed in all black, decided to bring out Marilyn Manson and DaBaby during the performance art piece. The three posed together on the stoop of the home, underneath a giant cross, as “Hurricane”—a song off the album featuring DaBaby and The Weeknd—blared over the loudspeakers, along with the track […]
John Oliver opened Sunday’s edition of Last Week Tonight with his main story: America’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. “America’s war there is drawing to a close after almost 20 years of fighting. We all knew the end was likely to be ugly, the only question was, how ugly? Well, this week, we got our answer,” said Oliver. Footage of Afghans frantically trying to escape their Taliban-controlled country via the Kabul airport, with planes carrying as many as 800 Afghans—and some Afghans even falling from the sky—conjured comparisons to the 1975 evacuation of Saigon. “Holy s–t,” Oliver quipped at footage of a […]
“I didn’t know if I was going to die that night,” says Nadia North, fighting back tears. Eleven days prior, the adult actress and filmmaker had threatened to leave her husband, porn legend Peter North, only to have him attack her, she says. But on this day, Dec. 18, 2018, she was determined to follow through with it. The abuse had been escalating, and she feared for her safety. So, she threw some clothes, personal belongings, and a burner phone into a bag, and waited for North to leave their Newport Beach home. As soon as he left to go to […]
“The Delta variant is spreading wildly around the country, particularly among the unvaccinated, with the U.S. averaging around 100,000 new infections a day,” John Oliver explained Sunday night. “And alarmingly, roughly 15 percent of new cases are children, with over 260 kids being newly hospitalized each day. And all of this means that many hospitals are yet again being stretched to a breaking point, particularly in certain parts of the country, with Florida and Texas alone accounting for 40 percent of new hospitalizations.” With that, the comedian kicked off the latest edition of his hit HBO show Last Week Tonight. He […]
“Nursing is always where I saw myself,” explains Allie Rae. Getting there was the hard part. She signed up for the Navy at 17, serving as a yeoman who assisted the admirals and penned awards literature anytime someone received a medal. At 18, she married her husband, and they had two children right away. Rae—who is using her stage name—decided to leave the Navy in 2006, following Hurricane Katrina. She’d been stationed in New Orleans during the disaster, and witnessing the devastation and loss of life firsthand had taken its toll. Following a brief stint in marketing, she enrolled in nursing […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver kicked off the latest episode of Last Week Tonight by poking fun at Tucker Carlson’s fascism tour in Hungary before addressing the recent revelations regarding New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who not only covered up the state’s COVID-19 nursing home deaths (which he is in large part responsible for by ordering those with COVID-19 back into nursing homes) and released a book during the ongoing pandemic about how well he was handling it, but has also been found to have sexually harassed multiple women—including former staffers. (Cuomo has denied the allegations.) “New York’s AG released a […]
On Friday night, two of the country’s foremost Islamophobes sat across from one another on HBO to debate the issues of the day. In one corner was Bill Maher, a self-professed liberal who spends 90 percent of his Real Time show railing against Muslims, platforming conspiracy theorists and/or white nationalist trolls, and whining about “cancel culture.” The other had Ben Shapiro, the Daily Wire co-founder who, when he’s not being an outrageous hypocrite or distributing films by producers with a long history of overlooking sexual misconduct, spends 90 percent of his time whining about “cancel culture” or “owning the libs” by […]
Marlee Matlin holds a number of records. She is the youngest person to win the Academy Award for Best Actress (at 21, for Children of a Lesser God). She is the only deaf person to win an Oscar. The $1,000,000 she raised for charity on Celebrity Apprentice is the most ever for any single-event TV show. Oh, and she once told Donald Trump something every woman would like to say to the notorious misogynist: “Now, please stop staring at my tits.” In January of this year, Matlin made history again. Her new film CODA took home an unprecedented four awards at […]
After announcing that there will only be four more shows inside the “blank void” he’s been broadcasting from during the pandemic, John Oliver kicked off the latest Last Week Tonight by taking aim at the Biden administration’s failure to protect Afghan interpreters working for the U.S. military ahead of their Aug. 31 deadline to pull out of the country—for the first time in twenty years. “Since 2014, at least 300 Afghans who served as interpreters have been murdered by the Taliban, according to No One Left Behind, a veteran-led nonprofit devoted to helping Afghan and Iraqi interpreters,” reported NBC News. And […]
Behind every great comedian, there’s a great writer. For Sacha Baron Cohen, that man is Dan Mazer. The two met way back in primary school, at the Harberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Elstree, a tiny village in Hertfordshire, England; performed in stand-up shows whilst attending Cambridge; began collaborating together professionally on The 11 O’Clock Show, a late-night comedy satire modeled after The Daily Show; and continued their creative partnership on Da Ali G Show, the Borat films, Brüno, and Who Is America?, earning three Emmy nods and two Oscar nominations along the way. “We were just commenting last week how we’ve […]
“We have a weak spot for the misfits. The shabby ones. Because they add so much more soul than perfect, gracious-looking animals,” says Mothmeister. The Belgian duo has amassed a large Instagram following (287K and counting) posting their eerie, otherworldly creations—macabre figures, made via taxidermy, vintage masks, and secondhand Victorian costumes. They were inspired by the work of Walter Potter, an English taxidermist specializing in dioramas, and aim to create “fairy-tale-like storytelling” that disturbs and enthralls. Mothmeister’s new book, Mothmeister: Dark and Dystopian Post-Mortem Fairy Tales, is available now from Lannoo Publishers, and saw the artists travel around to abandoned areas […]
In November of 2020, a handful of months before a deadly virus would throw the world into disarray, The New York Times published a story that activated the fingers of Film Twitter. The list, titled “The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century (So Far),” comprised critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott’s picks of “the performers who have outshone all others on the big screen in the last 20 years.” Though cineastes took issue with a number of puzzling omissions, such as Meryl Streep, few could argue with the screen titan sitting at No. 2 on the list: Isabelle Huppert. “Huppert […]
“You’re probably wondering, ‘Who would go to a sex toy shop in Jackson?’ Everybody,” exclaims Tami Rose. “You’re liable to see grandparents or youngsters. And sex toys have really been recession-proof.” She pauses. “Even when things get tight in Mississippi, we don’t stop having a good time.” Since 2009, Rose has been running Romantic Adventures—one of the premier sex toy shops in the country. It’s located in a converted roadside motel building off U.S. Highway 80 in Jackson, Mississippi. Half of the store is dedicated to women’s products and the other half caters to men. “The men are here every Friday […]
Joshua Safran has seen the tweets and the think pieces. He knows his reimagining of Gossip Girl, the aughts teen soap opera trailing a coterie of naughty Upper East Side elites, has received the scathing sobriquet “Woke Gossip Girl”—based, it seems, on the trailer and a handful of quotes he’s given about how his rich kids will “wrestle with their privilege” and avoid “slut shaming.” A recent piece in Jezebel even branded the HBO Max series “tragically misguided” and a paragon of “perfect moral goodness” sight unseen. “The Jezebel article made me laugh,” Safran tells me. “If anyone’s ever hung out […]
Republicans have recently pushed close to 400 new bills and laws aiming to restrict voting rights in various parts of America—and it’s being “fueled by lies about voter fraud in the last election despite those lies continually falling apart” explained John Oliver on Sunday night. The Last Week Tonight host cited a Republican-led Senate investigation in Michigan that found “no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud” in the state’s handling of the 2020 presidential election. Although that pales in comparison to the insanity that is “Italygate.” “Which isn’t actually referring to the many times the Cuomo brothers did news incest, but […]
This past week, a two-minute clip of an unhinged white woman menacing Black folks set the internet ablaze. It was a trailer for Karen, an upcoming suspense-thriller starring Taryn Manning as a racist white lady who sets her sights on Malik and Imani (played by Cory Hardrict and Jasmine Burke), a young Black couple that moves into the same Atlanta suburb, and makes their lives a living hell. It is, of course, a play on “Karen”—defined as “a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or […]
On Friday night, Bill Maher welcomed Quentin Tarantino to his Real Time program. Given the extraordinary egos in play, there was a high likelihood of this HBO tête-à-tête being insufferable, and about how the current state of cinema is too “politically correct.” And—surprise—it was just that. After some back and forth about how Tarantino shouldn’t retire after his next film (as he’s promised), with the filmmaker revealing that he wants to quit because he’s a student of film history, and “directors don’t get better” after a certain age, like Billy Wilder and Don Siegel—and that he considered doing a remake of […]
On Thursday night, Conan O’Brien hung up his mic after nearly three decades of hilarious late-night comedy. I mean, who can forget the masturbating bear, La Bamba, Max Weinberg, “In the Year 2000,” Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s sketches, the Walker Texas Ranger lever, and last but certainly not least, Conan’s string dance (and razor-sharp wit). On TBS, the fiery-haired comic welcomed Jack Black, who sent him off in style with a heavy metal version of Sinatra’s “My Way.” And over on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel also had some kind words to say about his fellow host (and pal) saying goodbye to […]
Courtney Stodden just wanted to be heard. When Framing Britney Spears—a Hulu documentary chronicling the pop superstar’s vilification by the media, the general public, and Justin “Cry Me a River” Timberlake—ignited a broader cultural conversation about the way we mistreat young women in the limelight (particularly those struggling to manage their mental health,) Stodden took to their Instagram in February, writing, “I think the documentary has opened a lot of people’s hearts to what it’s like being in the shoes of a personality in the center of judgment. Major props to queen Brit. She was everyone’s ‘sideshow,’ yet still she stands… […]
In recent days, right-wing grievance factories Fox News, Breitbart, and the New York Post have published stories aimed at pop superstar Billie Eilish, with the latter writing, “Despite being a new darling of the left for her vocal opposition to former President Donald Trump, Grammy-winning pop sensation Billie Eilish finds herself in the midst of a race scandal after video emerged on social media appearing to show the star mocking Asians, including using a racial slur against people of Chinese descent.” The Post even branded her a “lost cause”—a nod to her recent single. The drama all began when a TikTok […]
John Oliver kicked off Sunday night’s Last Week Tonight by addressing the deeply strange Biden-Putin summit where, when asked whether the meeting helped U.S.-Russia relations, Putin offered an ominous quote from Leo Tolstoy: “There is no happiness in life. There’s only a mirage on the horizon.” “Wow. That is a dark answer,” said Oliver. “Though I can’t really say I expected anything less from a man whose very face screams, ‘I enjoyed the Joker film.’” Later on in the monologue, the HBO host explored the upcoming Summer Olympics, which are scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8 in […]
There are a number of eye-opening revelations in Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, a new documentary on the late funk legend from filmmaker Sacha Jenkins (Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men). In the film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will be broadcast later this year on Showtime, friends and family offer candid testimony of how the “Super Freak” and “Give It to Me Baby” singer suffered from a crippling addiction to cocaine, pills, and alcohol—and how those substances often made him monstrous, culminating in a 1990 conviction for the brutal kidnapping and assault of a […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver kicked off the latest edition of Last Week Tonight by addressing how “an internet conspiracy about people becoming magnetic after getting vaccinated turned up at the Ohio Statehouse.” Yes, on Tuesday, a woman named Joanna Overholt—who identified as a nurse practitioner—testified in front of the Ohio House Health Committee that she has somehow become “magnetic” after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine (a claim that is wholly unproven and, frankly, ludicrous). She then demonstrated just how “magnetic” she’s become, producing a key and a bobby pin and trying to stick them to her skin. “So, this is what […]
“The older I get, the harder I think it is to act,” says Joan Allen. The three-time Oscar nominee and Tony Award winner is expounding on the high she gets whilst performing on stage—an “endlessly engaging” experience she’s been missing over the past year-plus that Broadway’s lights have been dark. In the meantime, the 64-year-old acting great has been at her home in Connecticut with a certain furry-tailed companion—a squirrel, that is, who emerges ever afternoon around 3 p.m., sprints five inches from her, dives into a bush, gathers berries, and brings them back. “I was just sitting on my back […]
Michael Caine once remarked, “Do I believe in God? Yes, I do. When you’ve had a life like mine, you have to.” He wasn’t exaggerating. For proof of Caine’s timeless cool, look no further than Michael Caine: Photographed by Terry O’Neill, a new collection of photos that “offers an immersive visual journey through Michael Caine’s career, immortalizing Caine’s charm both in and out of character.” An inimitable character actor equipped with an oft-imitated South London accent, Caine has appeared in numerous memorable films in his 88 years on Earth, from his playboy turn in Alfie and tough-guy ones in The Italian […]
It’s been a horror of a year. Over 3.5 million people have died from COVID-19 during the ongoing pandemic (though estimates suggest it could be more than double that figure), nearly 500 million jobs were lost, and the prudent among us spent 14 months masked, social-distancing from our dearest friends and family, and mostly restricted to our homes—with the occasional swab shoved up our noses. We’ve also been deprived of life’s many diverting communal pleasures, such as live music and the cinema, instead opting to binge-watch comfort television, scope out celebs flouting restrictions on Deuxmoi, or doomscroll the news. With theaters […]
On Friday night, Bill Maher walked onto the stage of his HBO show Real Time to lengthy applause. Two weeks ago, Maher was diagnosed with COVID-19, and was thus forced to cancel his last two shows due to safety protocols. “First of all, I’m sorry I missed the last two weeks. I didn’t want to—you heard this, they said I had COVID. This is, you know, it’s like when you go to the Jiffy Lube and they show you the air filter and you say, ‘OK, you’re the expert,’” said Maher. “I thank you for all the get-well wishes; I can’t […]
HBO had a very busy Friday night. Not only did it mark the return of Bill Maher to Real Time after a two-week hiatus owing to his positive COVID-19 diagnosis, but also the fourth season premiere of The Shop: Uninterrupted, the barbershop-set talk show from childhood friends turned business partners LeBron James and Maverick Carter. Joining the living NBA legend and businessman were musician Bad Bunny, WNBA star Nneka Ogwumike, SpringHill CMO (and The Shop co-creator) Paul Rivera, and last but certainly not least, hip-hop icon Jay-Z. Toward the end of their chat, Rivera asked Jay-Z about the late DMX, who […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver dedicated the opening portion of his late-night program Last Week Tonight to the ongoing crisis in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to establish a new government—and thus was at risk of losing power—Israel’s Supreme Court planned to deliver a ruling on the expulsion of 13 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, a heavily Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. (The so-called “evictions” are a legal remnant of the Nakba, or the 1948 ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians, who were forcibly removed from their homeland, and the U.N. has said they […]
On Saturday night, one week after ceding the late-night program to union-busting Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, SNL’s “Weekend Update” took aim at Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman who’s made the news (every hour of every day) for recently morphing into a #NeverTrumper following the Trump brigade’s Capitol insurrection. While the mainstream media has held Cheney up as some sort of blue-blazered Spartacus for breaking from her party and challenging Trump’s Big Lie—which cost her a GOP party chair role—others with a memory dating back to before the events of January 6th have viewed it as an eleventh-hour act of opportunism by […]
Much ink—and tweets, and more tweets—were spilled prior to Elon Musk’s May 8th hosting stint on Saturday Night Live. When the announcement was made, a number of cast members and writers, Bowen Yang and Aidy Bryant among them, appeared to voice their protestations via social media, owing to the questionable optics of platforming a union-busting billionaire who’s repeatedly spread COVID and vaccine misinformation during the pandemic to his millions of online followers, from claiming there would be “close to zero” COVID cases by April 2020, to pushing hard for reopening the country in the earliest months of the virus’ spread, to […]
As New York City gears up for its “major reopening” on May 19, wherein most COVID-related capacity restrictions will be lifted, a group-sex party won’t be holding out that long. Four days prior, SNCTM (pronounced “Sanctum”) is set to host an ultra-VIP sex-filled soiree for 80 hand-selected guests. The event, which will take place in a luxurious three-story penthouse in Downtown Manhattan, is described on the invite as “a nonpareil experience within a fabled erotic theatre and an opportunity to explore their personal desires without judgment. We are a society of like-minded libertines with the highest standards of taste and style. […]
When Chloé Zhao made history as the first woman of color—and only the second woman ever—to win the Best Director Oscar for Nomadland, it brought joy to the heart of Forest Whitaker. Six years earlier, Whitaker took a chance on Zhao in producing Songs My Brothers Taught Me, her feature directorial debut about Lakota Sioux youths on a reservation in South Dakota. And over the past decade-plus, he—along with his producing partner Nina Yang Bongiovi—has quietly helped shepherd a number of first-time filmmakers of color, such as Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and […]
Bill Maher has been on quite a run of late. First, he welcomed Sharon Osbourne to his Real Time show in order to defend the TV personality in the wake of racism allegations. (“Cancel culture” was the real culprit, naturally.) Then, he celebrated vehicular menace Caitlyn Jenner’s run for governor of California with some ugly transphobic jokes. On Friday, the HBO host dialed back his regular “woke left” rants to focus on Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech—and Republicans’ bizarre reactions to it. “Ted Cruz, during the speech, fell asleep. Of course, you know Ted’s a liar. He said he […]
Back in 2019, before a deadly global pandemic upended our way of life, I had the pleasure of profiling Maitland Ward. The former Boy Meets World actress had just become the hottest new face in porn—at the age of 42, no less—having been named the face of Deeper, a high-end XXX brand, and earning a pair of AVN nominations for her turn in the three-hour-long erotic epic Drive. And she’d only been at it for a handful of months. “I found out that I love sexual performance,” Ward tells me. “It’s like being in a dance, or an ice-skating pair. You’re […]
After a truly hellish week of news, John Oliver dedicated the majority of his HBO show Last Week Tonight to the monstrous killings of Daunte Wright, 20, and Adam Toledo, 13, two youngsters (Black and Mexican) who were both unarmed when they were shot to death by police. “In the wake of the shooting of Daunte Wright last Sunday, I can safely say this week has been a fucking nightmare,” said Oliver. “From the news that he was pulled over for minor traffic violations, including having an air freshener hanging on his rearview mirror, to the 26-year veteran of the police […]
If you happen to be a white celebrity who’s been “cancelled”—or held accountable for doing something racist on the job—Real Time with Bill Maher is the perfect place to kick off your “White Victimhood” tour. And, following in the venerable footsteps of alt-right bigot Milo Yiannopoulos and blackface apologist Megyn Kelly, Maher has chosen to use his influential platform to cry “cancel culture!” in defense of another wealthy racist: Sharon Osbourne. In case you missed it, after Osbourne issued a full-throated on-air defense of Piers Morgan’s insensitive comments toward Meghan Markle on her daytime talk show The Talk, she was confronted […]
On Thursday night, comedian Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the latest edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live! by addressing the vaccine selfie that Ivanka Trump—whose father, brother, and stepmother contracted COVID-19 due to their reckless behavior—posted to her Instagram. “I’m glad she did it and posted about it, but the comments under her post are, ‘nope,’ ‘not doing it,’ ‘hard no,’ ‘pass,’ ‘you’re joking, right?’ and ‘I never will.’ What a solid fanbase this is,” cracked Kimmel, adding, “Which is it, Trumpsters? Does Donald Trump deserve credit for the miracle of vaccines, or are they useless? It can’t be both of those things!” […]
On Sunday, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver followed in the footsteps of Saturday Night Live in mocking the news—broken by none other than The Daily Beast—that Trump-toadying Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had reportedly paid his pal (and accused sex trafficker) Joel Greenberg $900 via Venmo, who then sent the money to three young women, describing the transactions as being for “Tuition,” “School,” and “School” “You fucking idiots!” exclaimed Oliver. “I can’t believe I have to say this, but if you are making suspicious, potentially criminal transactions, Venmo is not the app to use. Venmo is for one thing and one […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver opened the latest edition of Last Week Tonight by addressing #GaetzGate, the disturbing allegations that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and may have violated sex-trafficking laws by paying for the teenager to travel across state lines. (Gaetz has denied the allegations.) “Lil Nas X twerking on Satan seems positively wholesome compared to the news this week concerning Matt Gaetz,” cracked Oliver. “Gaetz is being investigated for potentially violating sex-trafficking laws involving a minor—something he denies, claiming there is actually a multimillion-dollar extortion plot behind the investigation.” Yes, Gaetz claims […]
Following a cold open that saw Pete Davidson debut his creepy, Quagmire-esque Matt Gaetz, Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” continued the onslaught. “Representative Matt Gaetz, who looks like a caricature-artist drawing of me, is reportedly under investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with an underage girl—because Gaetz believes that only voters should have to show ID,” joked Colin Jost. “It’s also being reported that Gaetz may have paid for sex with women he met online. That story has since been confirmed by his whole vibe.” Yes, Gaetz is currently under investigation for allegedly conducting a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, […]
Who will play Matt Gaetz? It was the question many a Saturday Night Live fan asked themselves this week. Would it be Alex Moffat, whose Joe Biden has been relatively MIA? Or perhaps “Weekend Update” co-anchor Colin Jost, who gives off strong frat boy energy? We soon got our answer. SNL opened its latest edition with Oops, You Did It Again, a Vegas-set talk show hosted by Chloe Fineman’s Britney Spears spotlighting “the social pariahs of the week,” and was last weaponized against Ted Cruz following his Cancun fiasco. After appearances by Chris Redd’s Lil Nas X and Kate McKinnon’s (hilarious) […]
There are a number of names you might expect in Roe v. Wade, a new anti-abortion film that toes the line between melodrama and propaganda. Jon Voight, Stacey Dash, Roger Stone, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Tomi Lahren all make appearances. MyPillow conspiracist Mike Lindell pops up in a bizarre cameo. It is co-directed by and stars Nick Loeb, best known for waging legal war against ex-fiancée Sofia Vergara in order to gain control over their embryos. And then there is Jamie Kennedy, the stand-up comic and star of films like Scream and Malibu’s Most Wanted. Kennedy plays Larry Lader, an abortion-rights champion […]
In the 1980s, you couldn’t miss Sean Young. The statuesque, husky-voiced star proved an imposing screen presence, whether in fatigues in Stripes, as Blade Runner’s icy replicant Rachael, or receiving back-of-the-limo oral from a young Kevin Costner in No Way Out. It was with 1988’s The Boost, portraying a woman hopelessly addicted to cocaine and her man, that things began to unravel. Young’s co-star, James Woods, filed a lawsuit against her alleging harassment and stalking (he was ultimately forced to pay her legal fees). She landed the role of Vicki Vale in Batman, only to break her arm during pre-production after […]
Marcela Alonso has never been in higher demand. The 41-year-old Latina, who calls New York City her home, has been inundated with OnlyFans requests during the pandemic—and nearly all of them, she says, are coming from young, lonely men craving intimacy. “They come to an older woman because it became very hard for these younger guys to date, and they do have sexual needs. But I’m also giving them this guidance on what to do. One of my fans was asking if they should go back to school for their master’s, and another wanted dating tips,” she says, adding, “I’ve made […]
In March of last year, Andrea Circle Bear was transferred from a South Dakota jail to FMC Carswell, an all-female prison for those with special medical needs in Fort Worth, Texas. Circle Bear, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was serving out a 26-month sentence for conducting a pair of drug deals totaling $850. She was also heavily pregnant. On March 31, Circle Bear began experiencing symptoms of COVID-19—dry fever, heavy cough—and was placed on a ventilator. The following day, she delivered her baby via C-section. Three days after that, she tested positive for COVID-19. She was dead three […]
In lieu of going after Don Jr. for getting all QAnon-y and accusing President Biden of “sniffing” children or taking shots at Donald Trump’s rather ashy and paunchy post-presidential look, Jimmy Kimmel dedicated a chunk of his Thursday night monologue to a rather funny story involving the former president, who has been busy hiding out at his Florida country club Mar-a-Lago and participating in charity grifts since leaving office in disgrace following a deadly outbreak he did little to curb and the insurrectionist coup he helped incite. According to the San Antonio Express-News, Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks, a wax museum-offshoot of Madame […]
On Wednesday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah addressed the mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, wherein Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white gunman from Woodstock, is alleged to have targeted Asian women at a number of massage parlors in the area, killing a total of eight people—including six Asian women. As The Daily Beast reported: The rampage began at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth in Cherokee County, where two people were killed, one other person succumbed to their injuries en route to a nearby hospital, and one died while in treatment, according to the sheriff’s office. The victims were two Asian […]
On Monday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, who was one of the first late-night hosts to really give it to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo after it was revealed that he’d covered up thousands of COVID-19 nursing home deaths, unleashed his most brutal takedown yet of Cuomo. “A few weeks ago, Cuomo was hit with sexual-harassment accusations from two former staffers But, much like coronavirus in New York nursing homes, the allegations have only been getting worse,” said Noah. Yes, up to seven women have accused Governor Cuomo of sexual harassment—including a number of aides, one of whom said that […]
On Sunday night, following the eye-opening finale of Allen v. Farrow, John Oliver dedicated the majority of his Last Week Tonight program to arguably his favorite target: Tucker Carlson. This past week, Carlson came under fire for ranting about the U.S. military’s new women-accommodating flight suits, saying, “It’s a mockery of the U.S. military. While China’s military becomes more masculine as it’s assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine—whatever ‘feminine’ means anymore, since men and women no longer exist.” That enraged the HBO host, whose wife just so happens to be an […]
The fourth and final episode of Allen v. Farrow, a docuseries examining the child sexual abuse allegation that a 7-year-old Dylan Farrow made against her adoptive father, the filmmaker Woody Allen, back in 1992, zeroes in on a number of disturbing threads. There is Hollywood’s complicity, as A-list actors repeatedly turned a blind eye to the accusations against Allen in favor of featuring in (and reaping awards for) his dazzling films, as well as the media, who amplified Allen’s narrative whilst failing to thoroughly explore Dylan’s claims. “We were in the TV room, and he reached behind me and he touched […]
On Friday night, The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert was finally able to realize a dream he’s had for a year: welcoming Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, onto the program (virtually, of course). “I’ve wanted to have you on for a year. We’ve tried to have you on every week for a year. We couldn’t ever get ya,” said Colbert. “Around January 20, your schedule really opened up. What changed?” “Everything!” exclaimed Dr. Fauci. Yes, while former president Trump is vacationing in Mar-a-Lago and trying to take more than his fair share of the credit for the rapid production […]
Piers Morgan, who was once credibly accused of hacking into celebrities’ phones while he was editor of the gossip rag Daily Mirror, has decided to leave his daytime talk show Good Morning Britain. On Tuesday, its broadcaster ITV issued the following statement: “Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.” The parting of ways came after Morgan launched into yet another series of vicious attacks against Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry, following their primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey on […]
On Monday, the late-night hosts (sans Trevor Noah, who is sadly off this week) all addressed the news that captivated 17 million Americans: Oprah Winfrey’s primetime interview with Harry and Meghan Markle, who exited the British royal family over what the two characterized as a campaign of gaslighting, neglect, and racist treatment. Jimmy Kimmel mocked the royal family’s “inbreeding” past, while Stephen Colbert began his riff on a slightly more playful note. As to the portion of the interview where Markle alleged that she’d never looked up Harry online (yeah right!), the Late Show host cracked, “What! Let me introduce you […]
The third episode of Allen v. Farrow, the four-part HBO docuseries from filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering examining then 7-year-old Dylan Farrow’s child sexual abuse allegation against her adoptive father Woody Allen (and the media firestorm that ensued), contained a number of revelations. We heard more recordings of phone calls between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, with Farrow desperately pleading with Allen to explain where he was that fateful day of August 4, 1992, when Dylan claims he took her up to the attic and molested her. (Allen denies it and claims Mia brainwashed Dylan.) We learn that Allen weaponized […]
Remember dancing? What so many of us wouldn’t give for that confused jumble of joy, freedom, and insouciance. The closest approximation of that rapturous feeling, for me, came during the finale of Another Round, Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s tribute to alcohol and embracing the wonders of life. The premise is a cartoonish one: in the throes of a midlife crisis, high school history teacher Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) becomes fascinated by the work of Norwegian psychologist Finn Skårderud, who controversially claimed that humans are born with a blood-alcohol level 0.05 percent too low, and thus should maintain a steady buzz in order […]
Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, has found himself in the middle of a number of controversies. There was the 2013 government shutdown, wherein Cruz hijacked Congress with a reading of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham; the time he accused President Obama of high treason for wanting to push immigration reform; the time GOP Senator Lindsey Graham said, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you”; and the time Donald Trump branded Cruz’s wife ugly and accused his father of assassinating JFK, prompting Cruz to […]
“It’s so nice to be here,” remarked Joe Scarborough. On Friday night, the slick MSNBC co-host returned to HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher after a prolonged absence. The last time Scarborough was on the show he was a conservative; now, he identifies as an independent, having spoken out against Trump during his chaotic presidency. “Honestly, tell me about this. You’re an independent now. So, what does that say? To me, it says that you think the Republican Party is unsavable,” Maher asked. “Unsavable—no doubt about it,” replied Scarborough. “It can’t be saved.” “I used to get attacked by liberals because […]
Capitol police are on high alert. Why, you might ask? Well, former President Donald Trump’s horde of QAnon followers—you know, the ones like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who believe Democrats and Hollywood A-listers are engaged in a massive child sex-trafficking ring and harvest the fear of children (a conspiracy theory inspired in part by the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc.)—believe that Trump will re-assume power and be inaugurated for a second term as president on March 4. As the BBC explained, “The idea stems from the belief among some QAnon followers that the United States turned from a country into a corporation […]
In mid-February, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah was one of the first late-night hosts to really give it to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo over his cover-up of COVID nursing home deaths, comparing his aversion to reality to former President Donald Trump’s. And now, Noah is going hard in the paint on Cuomo’s series of sexual-harassment allegations. Thus far, two former aides to Cuomo have accused him of making lewd comments and unwanted advances (allegations Cuomo has denied), and this week, a third woman came forward to The New York Times accusing him of aggressively pawing her and trying to kiss […]
On Sunday night, around the time the woefully corrupt Golden Globes were wrapping up, John Oliver was launching into a speech against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, “a man whose face, build, and general demeanor always seems to scream ‘Business Frankenstein.’” The comic opened his latest Last Week Tonight on the myriad controversies surrounding Cuomo, a man who was inexplicably hailed as a COVID-19 hero for holding regular press conferences while he was presiding over a state with the most COVID-19 deaths of any, erecting a performative blockade in New Rochelle to “contain” the virus’ spread, overseeing erratic dining and school […]
In Daddy, a young male escort dons a bright pink dress and is tasked with raising the spirits of a broken 80-year-old man (Ron Rifkin) on the anniversary of his wife’s passing. Set almost entirely in a palatial hotel suite, it’s a tender two-hander about the need for human connection. The YouTube comments underneath the short film, however, tell a different story. “This Zach & Cody’s episode is very weird,” wrote one user, whose remark garnered 15K likes. “…you’re 30 seconds into the video and your [sic] looking in the comments thinking what the f am I watching?” wondered another. The […]
It’s no secret that Bill Maher has something of a soft spot for blonde conservative women who traffic in incendiary opinions, viewing them as fellow culture warriors in an ongoing (and inflated) crusade against “political correctness.” For years, the comic has been good friends with Ann Coulter, who’s served as a frequent guest on his various programs, where she’s been treated with kid gloves (despite her oft-racist opinions). And now, he’s repeatedly offered up his popular HBO platform to Megyn Kelly, who was terminated from NBC after defending white people dressing up in blackface on Halloween. During her last Real Time […]
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican representative from Georgia, was recently stripped of her committee duties after it emerged that she’d pushed a whole range of wacko conspiracy theories—the Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracies, or that a cabal of Democrats are “Satan-worshipping pedophiles” (her words) trafficking children out of D.C. pizza parlors and harvesting their blood for a substance called “Adrenochrome,” a plotline straight out of the Pixar film Monsters Inc. (really); that the Parkland and Sandy Hook shootings were “false flag” operations; that “Zionist supremacists” are lording over a plot to push immigration all over the world; that the 9/11 attacks may […]
Even though Black Americans are being hospitalized of COVID at 2.9x the rate of white Americans and are 1.5x more likely to die from the disease, they’re being vaccinated far less. According to the CDC, Black Americans have received just 5.4 percent of the administered COVID vaccine, while white Americans have received 60.4 percent of it. And in New York City, data revealed that more non-New York City residents were vaccinated than Black, Hispanic, and Native American New Yorkers combined. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old archnemesis: racism,” said Trevor Noah. “This is crazy, people. According to the available […]
On Tuesday night, The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert dragged the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for branding this year’s edition “America Uncanceled” and then canceling a speaker over his history of anti-Semitic comments. And Jimmy Kimmel joined in on the fun—but also set his sights on someone who’s become such a colossal embarrassment he won’t be speaking at CPAC: Rudy Giuliani, the president’s ex-attorney who once married his cousin. “Rudy Giuliani isn’t on the list at CPAC. He is no longer representing Donald Trump, and his next client could be himself,” cracked Kimmel. “Last month, Rudy got hit with a $1.3 […]
The late-night shows have found a new favorite target: Ted Cruz, the bumbling Republican senator from Texas who appears far more interested in helping incite a coup or tweeting about “cancel culture” than helping those in his home state who are without power or clean water following cold weather storms that knocked out Texas’ power grid, leaving millions without electricity and dozens dead. Cruz, in his infinite wisdom, took it upon himself to fly to Cancun during the humanitarian crisis to get some vacation time in with his family at the Ritz-Carlton. When he was caught in the act and ridiculed […]
With Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump blessedly out of the picture, and no clear strategy for how to mock Joe Biden, Saturday Night Live has been relying on the immensely talented Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong to do most of the comedic heavy-lifting. And on Saturday night, they came through yet again. This week’s cold open began with a Britney Spears-hosted talk show called Oops, You Did It Again—and the guests joining Chloe Fineman’s Britney were none other than Aidy Bryant’s Ted Cruz, fresh off his embarrassing trip to Cancun during an energy crisis in his home state of Texas. Bryant’s Cruz […]
This week’s Saturday Night Live opened with Aidy Bryant—sporting braids and unfortunate facial hair, while balancing rollaway luggage and a pina colada—mocking Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for jetting off to Cancun while his home state of Texas is in the throes of a crisis that has left millions without power and dozens dead. Later in the night, the “Weekend Update” team of Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to pile on Cruz. “Well, if you hate Ted Cruz, this was a pretty fun week. And if you like Ted Cruz, you’re Ted Cruz,” cracked Jost, further describing how his “face is […]
On Wednesday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah aimed his ire at the shameless Texas Republicans and their right-wing mouthpieces who have been blaming everything and everyone for the current energy crisis in Texas other than their own ineptitude, lack of preparation, and refusal to embrace alternative energy sources in favor of those sweet, sweet fossil fuel company donations. Millions are out of power and at least 31 people have died at time of writing due to the harsh, freezing weather. “This just goes to show you: You can’t put profits over quality and safety. Money isn’t worth a whole lot […]
Warning: Graphic descriptions of alleged child sexual abuse. As Judge Elliott Wilk, who presided over the shocking custody case between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen in New York State Supreme Court concluded, “We will probably never know what occurred on August 4, 1992.” But the new four-part documentary series Allen v. Farrow makes a thoroughly convincing argument that Allen indeed molested his 7-year-old daughter, Dylan Farrow, that fateful day in their Connecticut home. Premiering Feb. 21 on HBO, the shot-in-secret series took three years to make, and comes from the directorial team of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, who most recently […]
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was hailed as a COVID-19 hero for staging regular press conferences during the pandemic—despite his state experiencing the most COVID deaths, his performative blockade of New Rochelle in the early days of the pandemic, his clumsy handling of restaurants and schools, his childish infighting with Mayor de Blasio, and the fact that he placed people infected with COVID-19 back into nursing homes, resulting in thousands of deaths. That last point was thrown into sharper relief this past week after one of Cuomo’s top aides, Melissa DeRosa, revealed that their administration withheld data on COVID-19 nursing home […]
John Oliver returned to the Last Week Tonight desk on Sunday night for his first show since Nov. 16, where he was confronted by an incensed Adam Driver. So, the British comic had a lot of ground to cover, given that he’d missed everything from Trump’s unhinged election challenge, to the Capitol riot, to a bunch of Reddit bros taking on Wall Street. “It’s been a weird time. But we have to start with the impeachment trial that took place this week,” explained Oliver. Yes, this week former President Donald Trump was acquitted in the Senate by a vote of 57-43, […]
Bill Maher has (almost) never found a famous man accused of misconduct that he hasn’t wanted to defend. The late-night comic, who once warned that the #MeToo Movement was creating a “police state” for sex, has defended MSNBC’s Chris Matthews after he was accused of sexual harassment (and mocked his accuser for good measure); has defended pal Al Franken, who was accused of nonconsensual touching and kissing; has defended former Trump crony Corey Lewandowski after he was caught on tape shoving a reporter; has repeatedly smeared Joe Biden accuser Tara Reade, whose lawyer later accused him of “recycling old rape myths”; […]
On Wednesday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah followed in the footsteps of SNL in mocking the unhinged MyPillow guy (and MAGA insurrectionist) Mike Lindell. “One thing that set [the insurrection] off was the conspiracy theory that the Democrats stole the election using rigged voting machines from Dominion,” explained Noah. “It’s a conspiracy theory that was pushed by Trump supporters like Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and alt-right Mario, and the right-wing network Newsmax talked about it all the time. But last month, Dominion finally told Newsmax, ‘Yo, if you don’t get our name outta your mouth, we’re gonna sue your […]
Hollywood loves to look down on the adult industry. With the exceptions of HBO’s The Deuce and the first hour or so of Boogie Nights, the world of porn is typically depicted as the seventh circle of Hell, where dreams go to die and entrants end up regretful (Lovelace), rescued (The Girl Next Door), or brutally murdered in a snuff film for the pleasure of a billionaire-sadist only to be avenged decades later by private eye Nic Cage (8MM). “We are still in a culture that has a hard time respecting female sex workers enough to make them protagonists. Usually sex […]
It was on Holocaust Remembrance Day that Misha Defonseca chose to share her story of survival for the first time. Surrounded by friends and neighbors, she stood up at the Temple Beth Torah in Holliston, Mass., and told them—through tears—that after her Belgian parents were hauled off by the Nazis, she was placed in the care of a Catholic family who gave her a new name: Monique de Wael. Then, at the age of 7, she embarked on a trek from Belgium to Germany in search of her mother and father. Along her 1,900-mile journey, she witnessed pillaged villages and snuck […]
Back in April, Bill Maher went on a hysterical rant against China over the novel coronavirus. The Real Time host insisted that COVID-19 be called “the Chinese virus” because it originated in China, citing the Spanish flu as precedent (which did not come from Spain, unbeknownst to Maher); railed against the “PC Police” for refusing to let him and others call it “the Chinese virus,” even though hate crimes against Asian-Americans had risen to 100 cases a day at the time; and compared China’s wet markets, where he said the virus originated, to nuclear bombs. Well, on tonight’s edition of his […]
On Thursday night, Jimmy Kimmel moved away from his favorite target, the coup-complicit congressman Ted Cruz, and toward the Q-complicit Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman from Georgia who subscribes to QAnon—a baseless, batshit-insane conspiracy theory positing that Donald Trump is a messianic figure battling a cabal of sex-trafficker pedophiles comprised of some of the biggest names in Hollywood and the Democratic Party (this despite the fact that Trump palled around with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein). “The chair of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel…tried to distance the party from QAnon. She said it’s beyond fringe and dangerous,” explained Kimmel during his late-night […]
On Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel dedicated a chunk of his late-night monologue to the upcoming Trump Impeachment Part II. “Only five Republicans today voted in favor of the trial, which means there’s no chance Trump will be convicted,” explained Kimmel of Tuesday’s Senate vote on whether to dismiss it before it even begins. “Even Mitch McConnell, who specifically said Trump provoked the [Capitol riot] crowd, voted against it. I knew we should’ve been suspicious when he did the right thing. That was a sign. Some Republicans say impeachment would divide the nation even more, some make the ridiculous claim that it’s […]
“Bye, Propecia!” exclaimed Bill Maher Friday night, adding, “To quote Melania: Thank god that’s over with.” The Real Time host kicked off his late-night monologue with a series of jabs at Donald Trump, the now former president who left the White House after letting COVID run wild all over the country, contracting (and possibly spreading) COVID himself, tearing at the fabric of our democracy by questioning the results of one of the more secure elections in history (which was not very close in the first place), and helping incite a treasonous siege of the Capitol. “Boy, Donald Trump the last couple […]
“I don’t know about America yet… but I feel great again,” proclaimed Jimmy Kimmel at the top of his monologue Wednesday night. He added, “I have to imagine this is what it feels like when the oncologist calls and tells you the tumor is benign.” Later on in the show, the comedian brought on another late-night comic: John Oliver. The Last Week Tonight host, who cast his first vote in a U.S. presidential election against Trump, has been off for the last two months, with the eighth season of his HBO series premiering on Feb. 14. So, we got to see […]
Lonna Wells was in the bathroom doing her hair and makeup when she received a call that she won’t soon forget. “Hey, I just want to let you know that your job here is done, and I’m very sorry to have to let you go,” the voice on the other end of the line said. When she asked what she’d done wrong, the person claimed that a customer had lodged a formal complaint that there was a woman working the drive-thru who was doing internet porn, and as a God-fearing Christian they didn’t feel comfortable giving the establishment their business. It […]
On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel began his late-night monologue by honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights icon who was viciously targeted by the U.S. federal government and whose revolutionary thinking has been softened by U.S. history classes for decades. “Thank you for joining us on the day we honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a real patriot, great man who lost his life to the same sick mentality that permeates this country to this day,” said Kimmel. “If Dr. King were alive today, he would probably watch the news and go, ‘Let me […]
On the evening of Jan. 7, a full day after an army of Trump fanatics—at the president’s urging—stormed the U.S. Capitol on a mission to overthrow the government, menacing congresspeople and killing a police officer in the process, Kellyanne Conway issued a rambling statement on Twitter. In it, one of Trump’s most loyal and semi-trusted advisers condemned the events as “outrageous and inexcusable,” followed by the comical lie that her former boss had “denounced the violence, acknowledged the certified election results and committed to a ‘peaceful transfer of power’ to the Biden-Harris Administration.” The wildly false claim was met with a […]