Month: October 2021

For better or worse, the TV catchphrase is a lost art. Take a look at the Wikipedia page for “list of catchphrases in American television.” There are only three examples from the last 15 years: Coach Taylor’s “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” from Friday Night Lights, “bazinga” from The Big Bang Theory (it’s the war cry of Sheldon), and “wubba lubba dub dub” from Rick and Morty, which is making fun of forced catchphrases.

It’s time to add a new entry to the list: “f*ck off.”

Logan Roy, as played by the great Brian Cox, says it roughly 75 times over the first two seasons of Succession, which returns after a pandemic-caused delay this Sunday. The season three premiere was held in New York City on Tuesday, and to celebrate the return of TV’s most toxic family, Cox and his wife, Nicole Ansari-Cox, wore matching “f*ck off” and “#Team Logan Roy” masks. The next time you see an anti-vaxxer or someone who refuses to wear a mask, remember the immortal words of Logan: “f*ck off.”

Cox told Variety that Succession fans ask him to say his catchphrase “more often than you could imagine.” He added, “I’ve started to swear more than I’ve ever sworn before in my entire life… I have a favorite curse word, but I can’t say that on air.”

Save it for season four.

Geraldo Rivera’s completely unafraid to go up against his Fox News colleagues’ ultra-conservative views when he sees fit. That’s especially the case when he’s going up against far-right cheerleader Tucker Carlson on vaccinations and immigration. Tucker is, of course, the guy who shoots back immature responses on serious issues, but Geraldo showed that he, too, was willing to toss out some juvenile language in a different context. Did it work? Well, sort of, but since Geraldo was sparring with Jesse Watters, maturity can be considered relative.

On the Tuesday edition of The Five, the two co-hosts clashed on the subject of rampant Southwest Airlines cancellations (thousands of them) that have brought airports to a partial standstill for several days. There are rumors (denied by the company, which is blaming staffing issues) that pilots and crew members did a coordinated walkout to protest mandated vaccines. And many prominent Republicans, like Ted Cruz, took the rumors as fact and ran with them while trashing Biden (and any companies who are participating in vaccine mandates, which are now a federal requirement in companies with over 100 employees) in a celebratory manner.

That attitude is shared by GOP Rep. Chip Roy out of Texas, who told Southwest to “eat it” on Twitter while declaring, “This makes me happier than I can possibly articulate.” Roy also suggested that Southwest pay out any bailout dollars from the pandemic stimulus.

Geraldo has had it with the celebrations. Via Mediaite, Geraldo went off on Roy (while Watters disagreed): “This is a guy getting almost sexual pleasure from the chaos and the destruction!”

He also slammed the pilots as “screwing” Southwest customers, who are caught in the middle of this whole mess. He’s not wrong.

(Via Mediaite)

Rolling Stone is in the midst of its “Musicians On Musicians” series, where they pair two artists for a conversation with each other. They ran one with Madonna and Maluma yesterday, and today, it’s Olivia Rodrigo and Alanis Morissette’s turn.

In the piece, Rodrigo notes that both she and Morissette both started their creative careers as child actors before asking, “Do you think that acting helped you be more in touch with your emotions in songwriting? In a certain way, that’s how I felt with it.” Morissette then turned the question back on Rodrigo, who said, “I think it helped me be able to tap into certain emotions like that. I remember actually going to my first acting lesson when I was 11 years old and crying in this scene and feeling this sense of catharsis and being like, ‘Oh, this is like therapy.’ I think that translates into music as well. I wrote a couple songs on my record literally crying at my piano.”

Rodrigo went on to speak about how she thought that her unconventional childhood would make it harder for her songs to be relatable to the average person:

“I think heartbreak is so universal — the feeling that lots of humans feel the most deeply. I’ve never felt as deep a sadness as I did when I was truly, truly heartbroken and devastated. Putting ‘Drivers License’ out was such a unique experience because I’ve lived this sort of weird life. I grew up on set and didn’t go to school like everyone else did. I was like, ‘Are my songs going to be relatable?’

And when I put out ‘Drivers License,’ about this really hard time in my life, I watched it just affect so many people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender or age. There would be 40-year-old guys that would come up to me and be like, ‘Wow, that really struck me.’ Even if they weren’t going through a situation like that, they were like, ‘Oh, it takes me right back to when I was in high school and I went through my first heartbreak.’ That was so magical for me, to not only see how universal that feeling was, but also how magical music can be and it can take you back to a specific point in time. You can hear everything and taste everything and smell everything, and that’s so unique to music.”

Check out the full interview here.

These days, it’s hard not to hear about Kumail Nanjiani without hearing the word “ripped” or some equivalent of it in the same sentence. In December 2019, the star of Marvel’s upcoming Eternals created a loud and thirsty social media firestorm when he posted a photo of the transformation he underwent for the superhero role. While Nanjiani’s guns have been talked about ever since, it’s not the first time the Oscar nominee’s physical appearance has been a topic of conversation—though not always in a good way.

Nanjiani and his wife Emily V. Gordon, who co-wrote the semi-autobiographical 2017 rom-com The Big Sick, which earned them both an Oscar nomination, recently sat down with Vulture to discuss the attention being paid to Nanjiani’s six-pack, with the actor admitting that it’s not necessarily a good thing.

“It’s very easy to get obsessed with that number on the scale,” Nanjiani said. “It’s a tough thing. It’s deceiving. You become obsessed with it. I certainly have, and for me, it’s not great to weigh myself every day.”

The conversation then segued into a very different type of attention Nanjiani has gotten for his looks—in this case, going back to Silicon Valley and how many jokes were made at the expense of Nanjiani’s character Dinesh Chugtai being considered ugly (well, when he wasn’t being “Pakistani Denzel”). While Gordon was pretty forthright in sharing that “I did not like that you were considered unattractive on the show. That really f*cking bothered me,” Nanjiani seemed to put some of the blame on himself:

“[T]here were entire story lines around [Dinesh’s looks]. That stuff does get to you, where you’re like, aww … that’s not a great feeling. I love everyone on the show, and I never voiced this concern. Maybe I should have. Other actors did when they had stuff that they didn’t enjoy doing. I understand that story line ended up being funny. But yeah, parts of that didn’t feel great.”

Gordon shared that, “Even my mom would call me and be like, ‘Why are they saying that about him? I don’t understand.’ But yeah, it bugged me. I didn’t like it.”

“Generally speaking, a big part of the ascribing of things that happens is sometimes it puts a filter on the world, and brown Asian men are completely desexualized,” Nanjiani concluded. “Because they’re not threatening. It’s like, Oh, it thinks it’s hot. That kind of thing. I don’t hold it against any of the actors who’ve had to do that stuff, because getting jobs is really hard. It shouldn’t be the job of any one person to upend an entire culture.”

(Via Vulture)

You, the little thriller show that went unnoticed on Lifetime, resurfaced on Netflix, and became a huge hit, is back. And I gotta admit to feeling skeptical about whether a third season could roll as well as the first two. After all, Penn Badgley’s Stalker Joe is the result of a bold gimmick, which feels hard as hell to sustain (while also balancing the message, including from Badgley himself, that Joe’s a reprehensible guy). His very existence is a performance, and he thinks nothing of swapping out identities, but realistically speaking, how long can this continue before someone (with standing) turns his butt in to the authorities or at least puts him in check? Exactly. The second season barely contained its own crazy (while careening off a cliff). Near the end of that sophomore round, Joe found himself keeping his existing name (he’s “Will” in California), but he does take on another identity: that of husband and soon-to-be father.

Yep, Joe is put in check, so what’s the next challenge? Maintaining momentum.

This is where I’m about to draw an extremely out-of-context analogy. Back in 2007, the great (and golf-obsessed) Bill Murray sat down with Esquire for a wide-ranging interview. Amid observations about the tastiness of Cinnabon and the stages of his own career, he remarked upon how it was so much easier to pound out back-to-back movies before becoming a husband and dad, and he observed the same in Tiger Woods. “As long as he didn’t have a girlfriend,” the undeniable legend declared. “[H]e was unquestionably the greatest golfer in the world. And people, myself included, said, ‘Well, wait’ll he finds a girl. He’ll find that his time’s gonna be different. His life is gonna get more complicated.’ And it did for him, and it does for everyone.”

Now, I am not at all saying that golfing or acting is like stalking/serial killing. However, all of these things can be obsessions, so the same principle can arguably apply. Obviously, we’re talking about a hefty obsession in this show, and I was quite worried that the show couldn’t convincingly allow Joe to devote the same, how do you say, energy to his deviance. However, You has pulled it off, and not only is Joe still doing his thing (and still losing his sh*t in the process), he’s also got all the added problems of a married person. If executed properly, the show would put him in tight spots that make Season 1 look lightweight in comparison, so yeah, this can be comparable to young Tiger gliding around as the toast of the PGA world like it ain’t no thing, followed by well-known troubles and a comeback phase. Like Murray and Woods, Joe is much more distracted with added responsibility, but that actually makes this show even more entertaining than it already was. The stakes are higher for Joe, and somehow, being married with a child does not put a cramp in his serial-killing style.

However, this also does not put a cramp in his wife’s murder-style, either. This isn’t a spoiler, because we saw how nutso Love Quinn turned out to be in Season 2. I am also tossing in a Mr. & Mrs. Smith reference here, and I mean it. Joe/Will and Love aren’t paid assassins, but killing is (ultimately) their way of life, and they’ve got their own moral codes to justify their bad deeds. Even when they don’t want to kill, it ends up happening. Their homicides are, at times, crimes of passion, and in other instances, meticulously plotted out scenarios (which mean to conceal their other killings) that go completely haywire and turn into murder. It is, darkly enough, entertaining to watch them work to cover up their body count. There’s also the guarantee that their tracks cannot be completely erased, and that they’ll never stop resorting to violence. I mean, c’mon. Joe’s “book preservation” safe room where he kept victims exists in this season, too, only that it’s kept in Love’s bakery, and there’s simply no “one last job” for these two, ever.

Everything, as well, is kept endlessly interesting by the fact that Love is much more unhinged than Joe is. If you’ll also recall, Joe wasn’t exactly pumped about settling down “for life.” Love was a real piece of work, after all, and his mirror image in some ways, which also happened to be the ways that he loathed about himself. So, he’s miserable, for the most part, but he damn well knows that he’s there for damage control purposes. For every carefully measured scheme that he executes, she’s flying off the handle like a slasher-movie baddie. And honestly, yeah, he will always have to sleep with one eye open, so to speak, for good reason.

There’s the whole couples’ therapy angle, which is where the show really dives into the Mr. & Mrs. Smith vibes. You dissects the American marriage and happy-family BS that many people project while feeling utterly unfulfilled inside. The subject of parenting, too, goes off the rails here because getting one’s kid into the perfect nursery school is a concern for Love; yet two parents must also go dig a grave while their infant sits in his car seat and does his best to amuse himself. To add to the mess: Joe and Love have moved to Instagram-worshipping suburbia, which is loaded with overly nosy neighbors and self-obsessed types who aren’t quite as loathsome as Chris D’Elia’s late perv, but close. So, it’s a careful needle to thread here with You. The viewers want and expect more as the show continues, but everything still must be emotionally believable enough that we’re rooting for someone during each increasingly batsh*t development.

The season, ultimately, is a raging success, yet my goodness, there’s a lot here. Netflix sent out a fairly lengthy list of what cannot be revealed before Season 3 surfaces. I can say, however, that the sh*t hits the fan in the first episode and never lets up. Joe can’t give up his ways (including his roaming eyes), Love refuses to give up hers, and their sleepy little suburb is about to get rocked into oblivion. The powers that be come up with no shortage of scenarios to accelerate until the final moments (my jaw did hang open many times during episodes 8-10), and it’s a bloody good time for all, or at least, those of us in the audience. As for Joe? He’s f*cked, but he deserves it.

Netflix’s ‘You’ returns on October 15.

Throughout history, people have used the power of their own voices to change the world—and Andrea Dick just so happens to be one of those brave individuals. The Daily Show’s Michael Kosta recently paid a visit to the Roselle Park, New Jersey home of Dick, who is currently fighting for her right to decorate her home in as many “F*#k Joe Biden” and “Joe Biden Sucks” signs as she f*cking pleases.

It all began back over Memorial Day, according to Dick, when she decided to spruce up the exterior of her home with a few colorful pro-Trump signs that used even more colorful language. But the profanity-laden makeover didn’t sit well with town officials, who fined her for the profane signage. She took the town to court, lost, then appealed—and won. Because neither Dick nor her MAGArrific banners were about to come down without a fight.

When Kosta asked Dick why these signs are so important to her, she explained that: “I feel, honestly, that Trump won this election in 2020. I literally think it was totally stolen from him.” Which led Kosta to wonder why her signs didn’t mention the election at all. She was honest in her answer: Because she didn’t make or print the signs herself, she bought them from China.

Even though “Mrs. Dick’s free speech was imported from Communist China,” Kosta said he wanted to know how Roselle Park Mayor Joe Signorello could justify trying to silence her sweary décor. Signorello was quick to defend his position, claiming that he’s not attempting to “silence” Dick—he’s simply “trying to make sure people are good neighbors, especially around children.” He also noted that Dick “has had pro-Trump signs plastered all over her house for the last three years, which is totally allowable by our local ordinances. But the code states that you can’t have explicit or offensive material—a poster or any kind of signage—outside of your house.”

“Wait, so the issue you have isn’t with the message, ‘F*ck Biden,’” Kosta asked, “it’s with the actual word ‘f*ck’?” Signorello said yes—especially in that it creates an issue where parents need to explain “what the f-bomb means” to their youngsters. Dick’s response to that? “Come on! They hear it at the park. They got the trash music going… that rap sh*t they listen to.”

Astute musical opinions aside, Dick’s actually got a pretty powerful group in her corner: the ACLU. (Or, as Kosta calls them: “The mother*cking ACLU!”) Amol Sinha, the organization’s executive director, explained that they took on Dick’s case because they “serve to defend everybody’s constitutional rights, regardless of the views they hold.”

“We’re worried about the implications for everybody else,” Sinha continued. In other words: “If you can’t say ‘f*ck Biden,’ then you won’t be able to say ‘f*ck Trump.’” As Kosta thoughtfully pointed out, this would also mean we can’t say “f*ck Ted Cruz, f*ck Don Jr., f*ck Ivanka Trump.” And who wants to live in a world like that?

You can watch the full clip above.

If there’s one thing that’s almost as entertaining as a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, it’s watching Larry David be forced to leave his house (the worst!) and drum up publicity for the show. On Tuesday night, he stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live—though admitted that he had thought about canceling the appearance earlier in the day. Which reminded Kimmel of the time he had invited David to his home for dinner, “and I wouldn’t say you cancelled necessarily…” David took the story from there.

According to David, Kimmel had invited him for dinner, which he found kind of odd to begin with because “I don’t really know him that well.” David also didn’t understand why Kimmel would even want him in his home in the first place, “because leaving my house requires talking and listening, you know. Listening? Not my forte.” In what might have then been a best case scenario for all involved, the dinner never ended up happening because, as David explained, “I show up at his house and nobody’s home.”

Kimmel actually kept the text exchange that followed, which went like this:

David: I’m outside! Can’t get in.
Kimmel: It’s next Monday! I am at a funeral — sorry pal
David: Holy sh*t!!! Hahaha
Good panel for next time I’m on!

Kimmel’s favorite part of the story was David’s “Hahaha” response to the host explaining that he was at a funeral.

As for what happened the following Monday? David didn’t show. As he explained it, he had already gotten up the energy to do it once—“couldn’t go the second time, no.” Though he did ask Kimmel to do him a favor and “try it again!”

If this entire scenario sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because it was a plotline in “Meet the Blacks,” Curb Your Enthusiasm’s sixth season premiere. David realizes that getting the date wrong is the perfect excuse for getting out of having to attend a party… until a series of mixed-up plans catch up to him.

Season 11 of Curb Your Enthusiasm premieres on HBO on Sunday, October 24. You can watch the full clip of David and Kimmel’s conversation above.

In a recent Instagram post, Britney Spears criticized her family, and now it appears she’s back at it again: A new post appears to take a jab at Jamie Lynn Spears and her new book.

In July, it was reported that a working title of Jamie Lynn’s upcoming memoir was I Must Confess: Family, Fame, And Figuring It Out, the “I must confess” bit being a lyric borrowed from Britney’s iconic single “…Baby One More Time.” A couple days ago, though, Jamie Lynn announced on Instagram the book is now officially titled Things I Should Have Said.

In a post arriving not long after Jamie Lynn’s, Britney declared (jokingly, it seems) that she’s thinking about releasing her own book. After writing about how often she’s been posting on Instagram lately, she said, “Psssssss also great news … I’m thinking of releasing a book next year [winking emoji] but I’m having issues coming up with a title so maybe my fans could help !!!! Option #1 … ‘Sh*t, I really don’t know’ Option #2 … ‘I really care what people think’ [laughing and shrugging emojis] !!!!” What do you guys think ????”

Fans were quick to take to the comments and connect Britney’s post to Jamie Lynn’s book. Some commented with proposed titles, like “If I had a sister” and “The things my sister shouldn’t have said.” Others were just enjoying the drama, like one commenter who wrote, “Lmaooo I’m loving this shade.”

In Jamie Lynn’s aforementioned Instagram post, she wrote of her book, “I’ve spent my whole life believing that I had to pretend to be perfect, even when I wasn’t, so for the first time I am opening up about my own mental health, because this process challenged me to have to be painfully honest with myself, and face a lot of hard things, that I normally would have just glossed right over, like I was taught to. […] I know I still have ALOT of learning to do, but I feel like finishing this book gave me closure on this ’30 year long’ chapter of my life, and hopefully helps anyone else out there who forgot their worth, lost their voice, or is trying to break an unhealthy cycle in their life. […] Last but certainly not least, I want you all to know, YOU matter, YOUR story matters,YOU are enough, and don’t ever let this world try to convince you otherwise.

Jamie Costa went viral with his Robin Williams impression a few years ago, but now he’s back with another video that’s making people want a full-length biopic. Costa posted a five-minute clip to his YouTube channel, titled “ROBIN Test Footage Scene,” which shows a scene featuring himself as the fast-talking comedian and Sarah Murphree as actress Pam Dawber on the set of the Garry Marshall sitcom, Mork & Mindy. In it, Williams is running lines when Dawber breaks the news of John Belushi’s death (he and Robert De Niro were among the last people to see the SNL legend alive).

“ROBIN Test Footage Scene,” which SFist thinks could be a “publicity stunt to generate interest (or investors) in a Robin Williams movie,” has nearly 900,000 views since it was uploaded two days ago. And the reaction has been universally positive.

“I am at a loss of words of how extraordinary this is. Jamie Costa encapsulates the essence of Robin Williams so perfectly that this ‘fan footage’ for a proposed biopic is a clear sign this truly needs to happen,” reads one tweet, while another fan writes, “The real good thing about this test footage is it shows that Jamie Costa is a very good actor, not just a good impressionist. I say give him the $$ to make it.” OK, but cut can he rap?

You can watch “ROBIN Test Footage Scene” above.

Paul McCartney has been on a tear. Last week he confirmed a longtime rumor about The Beatles’ breakup. But he wasn’t done. During a recent interview with The New Yorker, McCartney gave his honest thoughts about another famous band, The Rolling Stones. “I’m not sure I should say it, but they’re a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are,” he said. “I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”

As for the band’s breakup, McCartney blamed it on John Lennon during an upcoming interview with BBC Radio 4 that was quoted by The Guardian. “I didn’t instigate the split. That was our Johnny,” McCartney said. “I am not the person who instigated the split. Oh no, no, no. John walked into a room one day and said I am leaving the Beatles. Is that instigating the split, or not?” He added that John Lennon described his departure from The Beatles as “quite thrilling” and “rather like a divorce.”

In other news, McCartney recently shared his music video for “Find My Way” with Beck, which finds the two singers reliving Beatlemania. “Step back in time and onto the dancefloor,” McCartney wrote alongside the video.

You can read McCartney’s full profile with The New Yorker here.