David Letterman knows how to make a splash. Over three seasons of his Netflix interview series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction—the most recent of which drops this Wednesday—the former Late Show host landed a majorly famous guest for each premiere episode. First came former President Barack Obama in early 2018, giving his most in-depth on-camera interview since leaving office to the long-bearded Letterman. Last year, season two opened with a fiery sit-down with Kanye West, who both said he felt “bullied” by liberals for supporting Trump and admitted that he had never voted in his life. “Then you don’t have […]
Television
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When The West Wing began airing 21 years ago, in 1999, Aaron Sorkin’s brand of earnest civic mindedness took to the cultural mood and political moment like a duck to water. That lake has since been blown up. Still, you see the shrapnel in the opinions of armchair politicos whose hearts sing the ballad of both-sidesism, and in the professional pundits who treat the Emmy-winning show as some agent that poisoned the well of political discourse entirely. Of course those are grossly extreme takes reflecting the real toxins: the country’s collective jadedness and the superiority complex of those with access. All […]
Elizabeth Marvel is as tickled by the lame joke as everyone seems to be while making it. The stage and screen actor, best known for roles on Homeland and House of Cards, stars in Hulu’s Helstrom, the latest TV series tie-in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), based on characters from Marvel Comics. She’s Elizabeth Marvel, about to star in Marvel’s Helstrom. Marvel and Marvel. Get it? (That’s it. That’s the joke.) When we connect with Marvel via Zoom ahead of the series’ premiere this Friday, the actress laughs about the connection. “How they’re getting free advertising just by listing my […]
“I know it sounds like I’m making this up,” Carla Gugino told me halfway through our interview. “But I’m actually not.” We were on the phone discussing The Haunting of Bly Manor—a follow-up to Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House in which Gugino makes a surprise appearance as the narrator. (Her character is also central to the season’s biggest, most spoiler-y twist, which we’ll get to later—with plenty of warning.) But in that moment, Gugino was not talking about Bly Manor. She was remembering the time about 15 years ago that she and her boyfriend, Sebastian, found themselves cohabiting with what she’s […]
Since its premiere, Darren Star’s picturesque Netflix show, Emily in Paris, has proven divisive: Is it a frothy, escapist fantasy—or a nightmare show about an incurable narcissist? But regardless of what you think of Emily and the show’s abundant forgiveness for her refusal to actually learn French, there is one thing we can all agree upon: Poor Camille deserved better! (Spoilers ahead!) It’s not just that Emily went behind her supposed friend’s back and slept with her boyfriend, Gabriel. Or that Gabriel constantly treats Camille like a nuisance when, frankly, she’s more delightful company than everyone else on the show combined. […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Everyone is talking about Emily. (The one in Paris.) Two reasons to keep watching SNL. Things that made me happy! Things that made me angry! What can’t Mariah Carey do? Say Something Nice About SNL It’s like Charlie Brown and the football with Saturday Night Live, with all of us chugging coffee in order to stay awake for what promises to be searing, dangerous, […]
Before actor, model and activist Nyle DiMarco created his new Netflix docusoap, Deaf U, he competed on both America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars. But even though he won both shows, the experience was not entirely positive for DiMarco; in both projects, he notes, “I was just ‘The Deaf Guy.’” “No one really took the time to really get to know me and who I really was—things I liked, my interests,” DiMarco told The Daily Beast during a recent interview. “There were no real layers that were explored. I just, you know, was kind of one-dimensional in that […]
Things are not looking good for Ellen DeGeneres. For years, rumors have swirled that daytime TV’s “kindest” host is actually kind of a nightmare to work with—and this year, former employees spoke out about the show’s alleged behind-the-scenes toxicity in a series of reports that launched a formal investigation, which ended with the removal of three producers. And now that DeGeneres has officially returned to screen—both in her syndicated program and her NBC game show—it appears her viewers have not been quick to follow her back. DeGeneres’ daytime viewership for her first full week back delivered a 29 percent drop in […]
It’s around the fourth time that Jake McDorman and his The Right Stuff co-star Patrick J. Adams joke about him Zooming from his “murder room” that McDorman lets out a nervous laugh. “OK now I’m feeling like maybe this joke isn’t going to look good in writing,” he says, cringing—though still giggling—from his dark, tarp-strewn kitchen, where he’s been relegated for interviews during a house renovation. “I’m just going to put that out there.” The teasing is appropriate. (“Keep him muted!” Adams ribs when McDorman signs onto the video call.) Adams plays John Glenn and McDorman is Alan Shepard in The […]
Whichever cameraman caught Dancing with the Stars professional dancer Keo Motsepe’s confused look as Tyra Banks announced the wrong bottom two dance duos on Monday night deserves a big raise. Ever since she took over as host of the beloved, long-running competition show, fans have been complaining about Banks’ on-stage antics, and more specifically her mistakes. The vitriol has been harsh—which might be why as soon as Banks realized something was wrong on Monday night, she struggled to improvise her way through it. Three couples remained on-stage Monday night when Banks announced the week’s bottom two pairs—a discrepancy Banks quickly noticed. […]
Lewis Black is the only Daily Show contributor to appear alongside every host past and present: Craig Kilborn, Jon Stewart, and Trevor Noah. “And whoever they want to bring in next,” he jokes on this week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast. The comedian has delivered his signature “Back in Black” segment hundreds of times over the past two and a half decades, most recently roasting New Yorkers—like himself—who have escaped the city during the pandemic. Currently, Black is holed up in North Carolina and driving himself stir crazy. It’s been just about seven months since he last got on stage […]
Steve Snowden/Getty One of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s most controversial Game of Thrones choices apparently still doesn’t sit well with George R. R. Martin. Speaking with James Hibberd for a comprehensive oral history of the show, the author said he still doesn’t like the way the duo changed Daenerys Targaryen’s wedding night with Khal Drogo. In the original A Song of Ice and Fire series, Daenerys is forced to marry the Dothraki warrior, but the two have consensual sex on their wedding night. In the show, Khal Drogo rapes Dany. Martin has discussed the scene change before; as originally shot […]
This post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10 finale. Like a re-animated corpse trudging down a dusty road, The Walking Dead seems destined to trudge on and on until the sun sets on us all. Sure, the onetime cable juggernaut is finally coming to an end—but it will only give way to a new spin-off, focused on beloved original characters Daryl and Carol. The Rick Grimes movie trilogy is still a thing. Other spin-off series, including the youth-oriented Walking Dead: World Beyond, which premieres Sunday, promise to expand the world even further, even as viewership continues to shrink across […]
When asked to describe the fashionable heroine of his sunny Netflix rom-com, Emily in Paris, Darren Star chose his words carefully. “I wanted to know, to create a character that had a lot of real sort of gung-ho ‘American qualities’—ambitious,” he told me during a recent phone interview. “She’s… she’s not a know-it-all, but she comes in with a… I think certainly a lot of, um, you know, spunk…” He seemed to be tip-toeing around the increasingly obvious word: annoying. Eventually, he landed close: “I wanted all those qualities to be a little bit off-putting to a lot of the French […]
Paramount Network might have canceled Cops earlier this year but evidently the show is not dead yet; its production company has begun filming new episodes. Cops and the similarly-themed A&E show Live PD were both canceled earlier this year amid protests against police brutality. Although new episodes will not air in the U.S., a representative for Cops producer Langley Prods. told Deadline they will still debut in international territories. After George Floyd died at the hands of four police officers in Minneapolis, Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the country—spurring a re-evaluation of America’s relationship with its police force and, by […]
Chris Rock’s greatest performances are as Chris Rock. There’s his stand-up comedy, and the many times he’s played himself, or versions of himself, Woody Allen-style, on TV and in movies: Louie, Top Five, I Think I Love My Wife… Don’t be fooled. Those are great performances, deftly allowing the indelible, too-large-to-stifle “Chris Rock-ness” to breathe through the characters. But they’re also a testament to how hard it is to forget that you’re watching Chris Rock, no matter how great an acting turn he’s giving. That adds another layer to the intrigue in the fact that he’s starring in the new season […]
Netflix’s new mystery movie, Enola Holmes, showcases the full breadth of Millie Bobby Brown’s talents with one of the entertainment industry’s time-honored traditions: Letting her do battle against the lung-crushing oppression of a corset. From the moment Brown crushed a Coke can with her brain as Eleven in Stranger Things, it was obvious she was going places. But the young actress’s fascinating potential could only be revealed with time and a proper starring role. (And her feature debut, a supporting role in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, did not quite meet that mark.) Enter Enola Holmes, a delightful adventure that premiered […]
As Saturday Night Live prepares for its Season 46 premiere on October 3, things will be very different from the norm. Although the venerated sketch show will return live—a departure from the remotely produced “At Home” editions launched earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic—everything about its production has been overhauled to ensure the safety of its cast and crew. “We don’t know that we’re going to be able to pull it off,” Lorne Michaels told the New York Times. “We’re going to be as surprised as everyone else when it actually goes on.” On-site rapid COVID tests are now […]
Does Brooklyn Nine-Nine qualify as “copaganda?” That’s a question that Joe Lo Truglio and the rest of the cast probably never imagined having to answer when they signed on seven years ago. As Lo Truglio tells me on this week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast, the NBC comedy’s eighth season is currently scheduled to start production the day before the 2020 election. When the cast and crew finally return to the set after a longer than expected hiatus, it will be in a culture that thinks very differently about how police are portrayed on television. “I know the writers have […]
There’s something that happens when watching PEN15, especially if you are a millennial, especially if you were 13 years old in the year 2000, especially if you can recite with perfect inflection the spoken-word monologue in Mandy Moore’s “Candy.” You look at stars, creators, and writers Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle playing a game of M.A.S.H. while gossiping over their see-through landline phones. You take in the constellations of orthodontia at their class pool party, akin to reading a dental star chart. You cringe as they call each other “slut bags,” as if they have any idea what the insult means. […]
It might seem strange to some that Glen Zipper, the Oscar-winning documentarian who created Netflix’s adorable docu-series Dogs, chose to tackle the Challenger explosion as his second project for the streaming giant. But in an interview with The Daily Beast, he said both have been passion projects for him—even if their subjects are different as can be. Challenger: The Final Flight, which Zipper executive produced, debuts on Netflix Wednesday and details the disaster that defined a generation. Before the tragic loss of seven astronauts in 1986, everyone thought that NASA could do anything. (NASA, the doc suggests, seemed to think that […]
Arsenal appear to have brushed off an incident between their players Dani Ceballos and Eddie Nketiah after they engaged in a pre-game pushing match on the pitch prior to the start of their opening day fixture with Fulham. The incident, which happened just 10 minutes before the first kick-off of the new Premier League season, came during a ball retention exercise and kicked off after the 21-year-old Nketiah complained of receiving an unnecessarily heavy challenge from the Spaniard. Also on rt.com ‘It’s an evil world we live in’: Arsenal fans angry as Gunners splash out on Willian signing, just days after […]
One of the defining feuds of our time might soon come to an end. As Fresh Prince of Bel-Air gears up for a reunion on HBO Max, Will Smith has shared a photo of himself smiling alongside the original Aunt Vivian, Janet Hubert. The photo might come as a shock to Fresh Prince die-hards and even casual pop-culture fans, given Smith and Hubert’s highly visible, decades-long fight. To commemorate the occasion here’s a timeline of how it all went down. Season 3 of Fresh Prince, which aired in 1993, marked Hubert’s last with the show. Despite the usual cloak of “creative […]
A few years ago it seemed that The Walking Dead would outlive us all—but on Wednesday Scott Gimple and Angela Kang confirmed that the onetime TV juggernaut will come to an end with a 24-episode 11th season. Once upon a time, The Walking Dead was planned to run for 12 seasons at least. Over the years, however, enthusiasm has waned along with viewership. What happened? It’s worth noting that most Walking Dead seasons have run for 16 episodes, making this supersized season only eight installments shy of a two-season episode count. Still, for most Walking Dead fans, it’s likely not that […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Must the show go on? Absolutely bonkers casting news. Bemasked couture, the new normal. The only movie I want to see. I’ll take “Big Jeopardy News” for 400. The Casting News That Broke Me Tracking Hollywood casting news—who’s been cast in what roles for which projects—is a major part of entertainment journalism and one that I’ve always felt was kind of silly. Outside of it, sure, […]
What is it about space? The black, starry void is a singularly vexing backdrop; it evokes endless possibility and terrifying nothingness all at once. We love to watch celebrities scream in space, contemplate fictional long-lost loved ones in space, and, of course, mull the very real existential doom that faces our planet in space. Enter Netflix’s Away—a gripping drama that embraces this galaxy of thematic potential while also grounding its action in reality. Oh, and its lead is a powerful, multi-faceted Hilary Swank—whose tenacity brings the show’s stakes to life in visceral, at times unsettling ways. In other words: If ya […]
https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1f/1080327210_49:0:1319:714_1200x675_80_0_0_350b9026d6ef93b9ec1610de2ea9db94.jpg Sputnik International https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png Sputnik https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png https://sputniknews.com/videoclub/202009011080327141-no-more-tv-for-you-goofy-golden-retriever-steals-television-remote-from-owner/ Dubbed as good boys and social media sensations, Golden Retrievers are known for goofing around with their owners as well as being famous for their level of intelligence. With wind in their fluffy golden hair and eyes stuck on its target, the golden retriever came running to steal the television remote from its owner. The doggo quickly retrieved the remote hidden under the blanket, grabbed it in its mouth only to drop it after a while. Source link
It was only a matter of time before Riverdale actress Marisol Nichols’ double life as an actress-slash-sex-trafficking-agent got the small-screen treatment. And sure enough, it appears the time has come. Deadline reports that Sony Pictures Television has optioned the rights for Nichols’ story and is in the early stages of development on a series the onetime Hermione Lodge will also executive produce. (Nichols left Riverdale after its fourth season.) Nichols discussed her work hunting down child predators with Marie Claire earlier this year. She has worked with the FBI, Operation Underground Railroad, and local law enforcement officials, impersonating child victims and […]
Around 11 pm on Thursday night in New York, near a particularly dark and disturbing segment of Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention and amid nationwide unrest in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting, a series of loud, seemingly endless rumblings echoed throughout the city. Once it became clear that the intense noise was lasting far too long to be thunder or a passing truck, panicked New Yorkers ran to their windows trying to see what the hell was going on. Explosions? Shootings? An occupation? An uprising? Alien invasion? It turned out to be a fireworks display set […]
What happens when you take 10 “sexy singles,” give them all COVID-19 tests, and make them share one tiny Las Vegas hotel room after months of isolation? Extreme horniness and a flagrant disregard for safety procedures ensue. So begins the second season of CBS’s Love Island, the US adaptation of the British reality dating show of the same name. When Love Island USA premiered last summer, it failed to pack the steamy, dramatic punch of its original iteration from across the pond. Cast members were forgettable and the canned voiceover narration turned out to be more cheesy than charming. This year, […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Suddenly I love sports. The bizarre, dark underbelly of Drag Race fandom. Tom Cruise sees a movie. Mariah Carey predicts the future. Catman. The Outrageous Drag Race Fan Bullying Scandal New York City’s stay-at-home order went into effect in mid-March, and, in the next weeks, the city became a terrifying place to live: a hot zone of fear and dread chaotically amplified by a never-ending soundtrack […]
Like far too many of us, Jean Smart watched the opening sequence of Watchmen and was shocked. It was horrifyingly violent, pulsing with fear, heartbreak, and an unshakable sense of injustice. We watch as many as 300 Black residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma gunned down, lynched, tied up and dragged by cars, and massacred; in the streets, their apartments, their homes, and the successful businesses they owned and ran. The HBO limited series, which premiered last October, was a “remix” of Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ hallowed 1986 DC Comics series. Masterminded by Lost and The Leftovers braintrust Damon Lindelof, this […]
UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya said that he will come out on top when the he meets fellow undefeated standout Paulo Costa next month as the two clashed in a heated television interview ahead of the UFC 253 main event. The two middleweight rivals have built a simmering rivalry for much of the past year, with Brazilian standout Costa stating that he will be the man to hand the flashy champion his first defeat in mixed martial arts – a claim rubbished by Adesanya in the expletive-ridden interview with ESPN. READ MORE: ‘I’m p*ssed off!’ UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya delivers IMPASSIONED SPEECH […]
https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/0f/1080175974_0:62:3248:1889_1200x675_80_0_0_e1100cb5f6691a1f9a3b05189ac522a0.jpg Sputnik International https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png Sputnik https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png https://sputniknews.com/europe/202008171080196266-protesters-rally-outside-national-state-television-and-radio-company-in-minsk—video/ On 15 August, some of the company’s employees announced a decision to go on strike to protest the biased coverage of the ongoing mass protests in Belarus after the August 9 presidential election. Watch a live broadcast from outside the National State Television and Radio Company (Belteleradio) in Minsk where people are gathering for a rally. Last week, members of the company decided to go on strike to express their dissatisfaction with the one-sided coverage of events taking place in Belarus since the presidential elections. According to officials, more than 6,500 people have been arrested […]
My lady tells me I’m paranoid. But in these polarizing times, I’d rather be safe than hosing yokels off my lawn. That’s why I immediately deactivated my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter once ABC told me the Black-ish episode “Please, Baby, Please” was finally going to air, two years after its intended air date. When we originally finished the episode, creator/writer Kenya Barris and I made jokes about how its unfavorable critique of Trump meant one or both of two things: We were going to be audited into oblivion. The Klan was going to pull up. So all of that terror came […]
Former Lebanese Interior Minister and current MP Nohad Machnouk has become the first senior Lebanese politician to blame Israel for the blast at the Beirut Port last week. Source link
Former Lebanese Interior Minister and current MP, Nohad Machnouk in Beirut, Lebanon on 8 May 2017 [Ratib Al Safadi/Anadolu Agency] Former Lebanese Interior Minister and current MP, Nohad Machnouk, has become the first senior Lebanese politician to blame Israel for the blast at Beirut Port last week. During a press conference, Machnouk said Israel was “clearly” responsible for the huge explosion which has killed over 200 people and wounded thousands. “This operation in Beirut was carried out by Israel in a clear and explicit manner,” Machnouk said. “It is clear we are looking at a crime against humanity, and therefore no one dares […]
On Sunday night, a dozen Bravo stars from The Real Housewives, Married to Medicine, and Top Chef franchises gathered for a kind of programming different from what the network’s reality-TV obsessed fans are used to: a roundtable discussion on race and equality titled Race in America: A Movement Not a Moment. Outside of last year’s first-ever BravoCon convention, the historic gathering at the 2019 New York City Pride March, and Andy Cohen’s baby shower, it ranks among the largest assemblies yet of Bravo talent, taking place two and a half months after the police killing of George Floyd sparked a revolutionary […]
As Ellen DeGeneres plans to return to her show, sources say the embattled daytime host is serious about making changes to the allegedly toxic set that’s sunken her name into the mud. DeGeneres was “crushed” when the allegations emerged, a source tells People, and is “personally going to be invested in making sure those things are properly changed.” “She wants to just put out a great show that makes people happy and feel good,” the insider added. “She’s very focused on that.” Another source told the magazine, “There is definitely a tension at Ellen that doesn’t exist at the other shows… […]
For the majority of us whose bodies have essentially fused to the couch in these months of the pandemic shutdown, the most physical activity we’ve gotten has come while watching episodes of the ’90s game show Supermarket Sweep, which Netflix acquired and made available for streaming in July. The collection of the episodes quickly ranked among the streamer’s most popular offerings, as audiences lost their minds for contestants in baggy sweaters with fake collars sprinting through grocery store aisles in search of a particular jar of spaghetti sauce that could win them $5,000. There is something about the show that demands […]
As if filming during the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t dramatic enough, it appears The Bachelorette Season 16 is going to introduce a historic game change: Clare Crawley will reportedly exit partway through the season, making way for a second Bachelorette to begin her own search for love. The show’s rumored pick to replace Clare? Fan favorite Tayshia Adams, who would be the second Black Bachelorette in franchise history. According to Deadline, after Clare reportedly fell for one of her contestants and declined to lead on the rest of her suitors, The Bachelorette decided to incorporate her decision into its storyline. After a […]
Dear Television Academy: I just want to talk! I’ll let my colleague Kevin Fallon handle the snubs and surprises from Tuesday morning’s nominations, but I do have to ask: How do you rationalize, year after year, snubbing actual living legend Rita Moreno? Tuesday’s Emmy nominations included zero Latinx acting nominees. None. Not Rita Moreno, who has been killing it on One Day at a Time for four seasons. Not Laura Gómez, whose performance in Orange Is the New Black’s excellent final season was alternatively haunting and inspiring—and as timely as it gets. Not Melissa Barrera or Mishel Prada of Vida, a […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Grocery shopping on TV! Thinking too much about Zac Efron’s body. The ahmahzing Happy Endings reunion. Were there tights on the boat? Me, as groceries. You People and the Zac Efron ‘Dad Bod’… I don’t like talking in hyperbole, but the worst phrase in the entirety of human existence is “dad bod.” The word “moist” is found shaking. There are dissertations that should be written and […]
It was over 10 years ago that Nathaniel Nicco Annan, who goes by Nicco, first read early pages for the play Pussy Valley by Katori Hall, the 2015 debut of which he would go on to star in at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis. But it was only two weeks ago that Annan’s character, Uncle Clifford, made her fabulous screen debut in the groundbreaking drama series P-Valley, the adaptation of Hall’s play currently airing on Starz. She’s throwing a handsy patron out of her Dirty Delta strip club—a “shake junt,” as she calls it. A cop car’s red and blue […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. The TV apocalypse officially is here. The best reality show you’re not watching. The! Chicks! Are! Back! Haunted by Wicked. A great tweet. Hey! Legendary Got Very Good! The finale of HBO Max’s reality competition series Legendary, in which voguing teams (“houses”) compete in ballroom challenges, aired last week, but I didn’t get around to checking it out until recently. Legendary is a fascinating series, in […]
Two days after a judge granted Hayden Panettiere a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson, who now faces felony assault charges, the actress is speaking out. In a statement posted to Twitter Friday, Panettiere wrote, I am coming forward with the truth about what happened to me with the hope that my story will empower others in abusive relationships to get the help they need and deserve. I am prepared to do my part to make sure this man never hurts anyone again. I’m grateful for my support system, which helped me find the courage to regain my voice and […]
The Bold Type star Aisha Dee has called on both the series and its home network, Freeform, to do better when it comes to diversity behind the camera—and expressed disappointment with one of this season’s most controversial storylines. Dee voiced her concerns in a lengthy post on Instagram, which she began by noting the positive effect the series had on her life and career. With this series, she wrote, “I got to play a character who was centered in her own narrative. She wasn’t just the white character’s ‘best friend.’ She was empowered and confident, she approached the exploration of her […]
Tuesday’s White House press briefing was one of the most disturbing moments of Donald Trump’s slide into madness and desperation. As I write this, hours later, I keep thinking, “What in the actual fuck was that?” Like an addled necromancer with the heavy charnel stench of a dead campaign on him, Trump spent over an hour chanting the old incantations from an eldritch grimoire (The Dark Booke of Bannon, perhaps) only to find that nothing was working. Even his most devoted followers were eyeing the exits and wondering when some apprentice would step forward to lead him off gently off the […]
It’s rare when you can actually witness the moment on screen when a talent steps into their star status, the spark that sets the marquee ablaze as they, in the exact right role with the exact right material, ascend to their talent’s full potential. You saw that moment with Naya Rivera. If you watched Glee you know exactly what we’re talking about, because you didn’t just watch that scene. You then downloaded the song on iTunes—one of the last times a TV musical became a Billboard sensation. You listened to it so many times that when you hear the thumping intro […]
Remember those chilling yet hilarious images of mannequins being used in restaurants to fill space? Television just kicked the craziness up a notch: As various productions resume, mannequins are now being used for crowd shots and even, in at least one case, sex scenes. The CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful was one of the first TV productions to resume filming amid the pandemic—and as executive producer Bradley Bell recently told the New York Times, inanimate dummies quickly became indispensable. “One of the first ideas we had was to bring in mannequins for the intimate scenes and hospital scenes, […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. Emmy voting ends Monday, which is important because it means there are just days left to grab the Boomers who vote for this godforsaken ceremony by the shoulders and plead, “Sir! I beg of you!! Have some taste!!!” So while voters are busy catching up on the final season of Modern Family and being the only people in this world who can sit through a season […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. It’s been mere hours, but I already miss my friends. Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Dawn: No one’s been here for me in these trying times like my girls. No one’s made me feel safe. Feel sane. Feel at peace. Feel OK to be me…to just FEEL…like these girls. My friends. The Baby-Sitters Club. I have no connection to the book franchise, and now legitimately […]
No one laughed harder at the 69 joke than Cristin Milioti. The actress, the mother from How I Met Your Mother and your favorite part of so many projects since, plays the lead in Palm Springs, the mind-melting existential romantic comedy co-starring Andy Samberg and produced by his Lonely Island crew. Manifesting all the energy from the gasps in the audience after a shocking out-of-the-gate plot twist, the film launched a competitive bidding war after its premiere screening in January at the Sundance Film Festival. The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in […]
Sometimes aspects of life become so royally fucked up, there comes a point when you say, “Eh, screw it, I’ll go along with this for a bit, let’s kick it up to another level.” This country loves the Fourth of July—maybe less at present from the standpoint of proud patriotism, especially with how we’ve been going for a few years now, but certainly because of good times with friends, beers, cookouts, laughs, camaraderie, in-person summer social manna, which for many people is quite different than a chat on the phone. The Twilight Zone has a marathon every year, which is apt […]
In case a Netflix reboot was not enough, Unsolved Mysteries co-creator Terry Dunn Meurer dropped one of the show’s trademark updates right in the middle of our interview to prove that the old standby is still in prime form. Turns out, a case the show covered in 1993 might be turning a corner. Months ago, a law enforcement officer opened up an old police file box in the hopes of dusting off a decades-old case in which a John Doe killed himself in a church. The bin was empty save for one thing—a video tape of the 1993 Unsolved Mysteries segment […]
On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first two people to summit Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. But… what if they weren’t? It’s not just a historical hypothetical, but one of climbing lore’s greatest mysteries. Now, it’s a search-and-rescue mission, too, and the subject of the new National Geographic special, Lost on Everest, premiering Tuesday. In June of 1924, explorers Andrew “Sandy” Irvine and George Leigh Mallory disappeared during an attempt to be the first pair to summit Everest. They were last spotted 800 vertical feet from the top, before never […]
Watching Dark’s third and final season is like clutching the hand of a person who’s dangling from a helicopter over a vast canyon—you’re just holding on for dear life, desperate to maintain your grip on the wild situation. Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar’s German-language series has always been a masterpiece of time-travel intricacy, and that continues to be true with its closing eight-episode run (premiering Saturday, June 27), which keeps tying itself in temporal knots—heck, everyone even calls their interconnected circumstances “The Knot”—while simultaneously adding a new mind-melting complication to the mix: the multiverse! For a show about existential grief […]
In the penultimate episode of Doom Patrol’s first season, the ragtag group of superpowered misfits hold hands as they wait to be transported into the White Space of a comic book, the space between panels, the “area where there is no story.” It also serves as a pocket dimension where the villainous Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk) has been hiding and keeping the genius Dr. Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton) hostage. The heroes are being whisked into this meta setting through the reality-contorting powers of the mystical himbo Flex Mentallo (Devan Long). As they stand there, fingers interlaced, Mentallo flexes. The adventurers start […]
If you believe the countless stories, Grey’s Anatomy has always been every bit as dramatic behind the scenes as it is on-screen. Rumors have long buzzed about tensions between various cast members and writers, including creator Shonda Rhimes. On Friday, Sandra Oh reflected on her own battles with the show’s writers—and how going “toe-to-toe” with Shonda Rhimes made her a better advocate for herself. Speaking with Kerry Washington for Variety’s Actors on Actors issue, Oh said, “I spent a lot of time with writers, and television is all about your relationship with the writer. What I was able to get from […]
Cramped in dusty chambers tucked in the labyrinth of the Bronx County Courthouse—one of those grand, Art Deco monoliths of marble seemingly made for filming movies and TV—Search Party creators Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers are taking a break from shooting and talking about a red dress. As in, the red dress. In the season two finale of Search Party, the show’s lead, Alia Shawkat’s Dory, is arrested on a murder charge. It was a shocking twist for a series that had thus far not only depicted the criminal misdeeds of a group of Brooklyn millennials, but how they kept getting […]
Despite an extended and extremely public legal battle over domestic abuse allegations from his ex-wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp continues to leave his mark on pop-culture—specifically, children’s programming. He will likely return in the third Fantastic Beasts film—although that prospect reportedly has some execs nervous—and now he’s landed the lead role in a children’s series, Puffins—although the details might not be what you’d expect. According to Variety, Puffins “will be a mobile-first, short-form toon series consisting of 250 five-minute episodes that follow the adventures of a group of cute birds, who are the servants of the wily walrus Otto.” So, basically […]
If you want to fix your show, a great first step is to feature Judith Light in a starring role. If you can, it is highly recommended to pair her with Bette Midler, preferably in scenes that have them extolling the virtues of romantic throuples for women over 50, or celebrating the discovery of “spicy lube.” If Gwyneth Paltrow is already in your show as a somnambulant Santa Barbara socialite, both self-aware of her own privilege and unbothered by the entitled attitude it fosters, please continue to script her swanning around in kaftans—and also, sure, why not have her run for […]
Erica Scharrer, The Conversation From Homer Simpson to Phil Dunphy, sitcom dads have long been known for being bumbling and inept. But it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, sitcom dads tended to be serious, calm and wise, if a bit detached. In a shift that media scholars have documented, only in later decades did fathers start to become foolish and incompetent. And yet the real-world roles and expectations of fathers have changed in recent years. Today’s dads are putting more time into caring for their children and see that role as more central to their identity. […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Fitting Oscar for a mask. The best TV episode of the week. The best new food show. Laughing about Jeremy Piven. Another great tweet. ‘One Day at a Time’s Sensational Animated Special It’s no small feat that One Day at a Time manages to loudly articulate all of the volatile political and cultural talking points that cause the average person to develop anxiety and […]
James Gandolfini might have played a terrifying mobster on TV, but his co-stars say he was “more like a hippie”—with one major exception. Apparently, he once vowed to beat the baked ziti out of Harvey Weinstein. Gandolfini’s Sopranos co-stars Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli—who played Bobby Baccalieri and Christopher Moltisanti—recalled the episode on the Joe Rogan Experience, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Despite what some viewers might have thought, they agreed that Gandolfini was nothing like Tony Soprano. “He was very laid back,” Imperioli said. “He wore Birkenstocks and a bandanna on his head.” Schirripa added that Gandolfini, a […]
Is SpongeBob SquarePants gay? Or is he asexual? Or is he, in fact, just a simple sponge? Nickelodeon set off a frenzy over the weekend with a Pride tweet that proudly displayed the famous little pore-bearer alongside queer characters including Legend of Korra’s titular bisexual lead. For many amused and elated fans on Twitter, this was proof positive of long-running theories regarding SpongeBob’s sexuality. (Namely, that he is gay.) As others noted, Spongebob creator Stephen Hillenburg once described the suspender-clad fry cook as asexual—though even that statement seemed less like a description of one character’s sexuality than a blanket assertion that […]
Screenwriter Jas Waters died this week by suicide at the age of 39. During her career, Waters wrote for series including The Breaks, This Is Us, and Kidding. Waters’ success in the industry was no guarantee—but as This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman wrote in a tribute following her death, she “made an indelible mark.” Shadow & Act described Waters with one word during an interview a few years ago: audacious. Waters was raised by her father and grandmother. Until the age of 16, she shared a pull-out bed with her grandmother in a retirement home. “A billion things had to […]
By sheer coincidence, Netflix’s Lenox Hill has arrived at just the right time. Directors Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash began work on their docu-series, set in an acute care hospital in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, in 2017—long before the novel coronavirus thrust health-care workers into the spotlight. The eight-hour series follows four physicians doing their best to care for their community—delivering babies, removing brain tumors, and, sometimes, providing care to patients who need a hot meal and a safe place to sleep even more than immediate medical attention. “It felt like an opportunity to really share with the world what we […]
It was a milestone decades in the making. The entire history of film in the making, really. Love, Simon was the first gay teen romance ever released by a major studio. It had the budget of a major studio, the marketing arm of a major studio, and everyone was meant to see and swoon over it, not just the gay community. That was huge. It had an appealing protagonist, a fizzy cast of supporting characters, thrilling emotional highs, and an endearing, easy-to-root-for love story that culminated in one of those big, spectacular, only-in-the-movies grand romantic gestures: a fireworks-scored kiss at the […]
It seems fitting that I May Destroy You never quite finds a steady rhythm. The highly anticipated HBO series is a bracing, intimate portrayal of one woman’s struggle to remember and then process what, exactly, happened to her one night when a man spiked her drink at a bar. Its central character, Arabella, has only one memory—the image of a man hovering over her in a bathroom stall that occasionally violates her consciousness, playing over and over in her mind as her ears ring. For most of this series, Arabella cannot find her usual rhythm—and so neither can we. With I […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. There are many tools at our disposal to activate, demand change, inform, and amplify right now, including your television. There is no equating it to the work being done on the streets, in protests, at the ballot box, through petitions and grassroots campaigns, and with donations. But there is action and amplification—and therefore change you can advocate for—through the content choices you make. Now, especially, is a […]
It turns out that Kendall Jenner did not end racism. Bless her heart, she tried. She saw them all—the Asian man playing cello on the rooftop, the woman in the hijab snapping photos, the ethnically diverse brunchers sharing a laugh—taking to the streets, marching and having the times of their lives protesting…well, the cause is besides the point. Black Lives Matter, we think? Anyway, look how much fun! She may be in the middle of a photo shoot, but the World’s Coolest March is beckoning. She leaves, struts to the front of the pack, and just when it looks like things […]
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister is convinced that Carole Baskin’s former husband, Don Lewis’s will—which granted Baskin all of Lewis’ assets in the event of his disappearance, is a fake. Moreover, he said, two experts have confirmed it. “They had two experts deem it 100 percent a forgery,” Chronister told Tampa-based news outlet WTSP, as reported by TMZ. The problem, he said, is the statute of limitations has already expired. “But you know, it certainly cast another shadow of suspicion.” In May two handwriting experts told Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger that the signature and power of attorney on Lewis’ will appeared to […]
“June June Hannah.” It shouldn’t be that funny. It shouldn’t be anything, really. On the Bravo reality series Below Deck: Mediterranean, chief steward Hannah Ferrier was just doing her job, attempting to get third steward June Foster’s attention through the crew’s radio system. For reasons that escaped Ferrier, escaped Captain Sandy Yawn, escaped viewers, and escaped all logical reason, Foster never had her radio with her. Hannah was calling for June into the void. The result was an increasingly irate Ferrier chirping in her Australian accent “June, June? Hannah” ad nauseum and to literal radio silence, all edited together masterfully into […]
Ramy Youssef is in a situation many auteurs have stumbled into before. When a person creates, writes, and stars in his own show—with his name in the title, to boot—viewers tend to confuse where the fictional character stops and the real person begins. And so, ahead of the season two premiere of Ramy, which launches Friday on Hulu, Youssef has decided to come clean about a season two plot point that was, in fact, directly inspired by his own life. Yes, he really did cry during Toy Story 4. “There are things that are fictional Ramy and there are things that […]
There’s a very annoying thing in the age of streaming. It’s the “just wait until episode five… it gets real good” thing. The “I know there are close to 1,000 TV series to watch but spend several hours not enjoying yourself so you can appreciate when this arbitrary show finds its way” thing. The very annoying thing that—groan of all groans—can be true if you have the patience and/or the masochism to investigate. And so when it came to Space Force, I watched through episode five. And then I watched episode six. And episode seven. And episode eight. The show did […]
If Nanette was Hannah Gadsby’s attempt to, as the Tasmanain comedian put it in the show itself, “tell her story properly,” her new set, Douglas, finds her processing its aftereffects—and expanding it even further. It’s also, perhaps, her best troll yet. In the special, which premiered on Netflix Tuesday, Gadsby wonders aloud why her audience is there—and what they’re expecting after she purged herself of some of her darkest experiences in Nanette. “Because I’m sorry, if it’s more trauma, I am fresh out!” She rails against (mostly male) comedians who spent months after Nanette’s release arguing that her show was not, […]
Since its debut last month, Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People has been praised for its steamy sex scenes. The series follows a fraught romantic relationship between Marianne and Connell over the years, beginning during their high school years. Later episodes of the series also depicts the former’s exploration of BDSM. Given all this, it should perhaps come as no surprise that someone ripped off the show’s more erotic sequences and posted them on Pornhub—but producers for the series are, nonetheless, less than pleased. According to Variety, a 22-minute compilation of the show’s erotic sequences appeared on the pornography website […]
In a new podcast interview, breakout new Real Housewives of New York City cast member Leah McSweeney, who is enjoying one of the most celebrated debut seasons in the franchise’s history, defended controversial statements she has made criticizing key members of the #MeToo movement. Quotes from columns McSweeney had penned for Penthouse magazine accusing Asia Argento and Rose McGowan of exploiting the movement for personal gain—as well as a YouTube interview in which she defended Donald Trump—recirculated among Bravo fans when McSweeney joined the show, and were recounted in a Daily Beast article that published last month. “I’m not even sure […]
Catherine the Great did not fuck a horse. That is the official position of The Great, Hulu’s zany period piece chronicling Russia’s longest-ruling female as she first arrives in the country and enters a loveless marriage to Emperor Peter III, theirs a shitty relationship that plants the seeds to a fruitful reign of power. Scandalous rumors about the empress’ sexual proclivities—that she was a nymphomaniac, a voyeur, had a bestiality fetish—are as close to urban legends as there comes in the grand scheme of 18th century aristocratic history. Make of it what you will that, when presented with one of the […]
In early March, when it became clear that the wrath of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States was going to be widespread and unforgiving, a disturbing, if unsurprising report came out: Wealthy Americans were apparently contacting their doctors and asking if they could pay for an early vaccine. Cost was no object. Of course, there was—and is—no vaccine, leaving the rich at no advantage on that front. But it was an early, ignoble exposure of what quickly became apparent when it comes to class and the pandemic. Sure, the virus appeared to be a great equalizer; among the first high-profile […]
With a record six Emmy awards for playing the same role—and record-tying eight acting Emmys overall—Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been the funniest woman on TV for more than 30 years. But there is one man who perhaps made her laugh harder than anyone else. The man was Jerry Stiller, who died over the weekend at the age of 92, and despite a comedy career that started on The Ed Sullivan Show was perhaps most famous for playing Frank Costanza on Seinfeld. From “a Festivus for the rest of us” to “Serenity now!,” Stiller had plenty of hilarious moments on screen over the […]
The new HBO series I Know This Much Is True is excellent. It’s also incredibly depressing. Relentlessly, viscerally depressing. Right now, with the lot of us staring grimly out the window yearning for just a whiff of hope, is a hell of a time for HBO to show one of the most emotionally draining dramas to hit TV in years. Of course, no one could have predicted a pandemic when HBO scheduled I Know This Much Is True’s premiere for this Sunday. Featuring a jaw-dropping dual lead performance from Mark Ruffalo, as twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, with indie darling […]