Month: March 2022

Will Smith’s onstage Oscar slapping of Chris Rock continues to reverberate with late-night hosts continuing to weigh in. Smith eventually did apologize to Chris Rock, but the conversation isn’t over yet. The Academy has (again, eventually) decided to open an investigation of sorts, and there’s little debate about how Rock’s joke (describing Jada Pinkett, who struggles with alopecia, as “GI Jane“) was awful, although Smith took his reaction into the physical realm (yet Rock declined to press charges) in a big way.

One other actor who has experience in the hothead realm, Alec Baldwin, is now weighing in. Baldwin — who has famously punched and scuffled with numerous photographers (and allegedly someone who, uh, wanted the same parking spot as Alec) in his days — believes that Smith went too far. And that’s… something.

“I am not reading much about how, or even if, the producers attended to Chris,” Alec tweeted (on his private account and cut-pasted to Instagram) But I love you, @ChrisRock. And I’m sorry the Oscars turned into the Jerry Springer show.”

When Alec thinks that the situation got out of hand, physically, well, you get the drift.

Meanwhile, Diddy has insisted that it’s already bygones and “love” between Will and Chris, who are “brothers.” And people will likely continue to focus on the history of relevant jokes from Rock (in 2016, he hosted the Oscars and delivered some zingers at the couple), but words are still words, and smacks are obviously a different thing. In other words, this conversation isn’t over yet.

Sad news for fans of love and hope: Jason Momoa has squashed the rumor that he and his ex-wife Lisa Bonet were reconciling after announcing their split earlier this year.

The Aquaman actor was a presenter at the Academy Awards on Sunday. On the red carpet, Momoa confirmed to Access Hollywood that he and Bonet are good for good. “We’re not getting back together. We’re family forever,” he said, reiterating that they are still close. “We’re family…We have two beautiful children together.”

The two had been together since 2005 and secretly wed in 2017. They announced their split earlier this year in a joint statement on Instagram, which caused chaos among their fans. The couple has two teenage children, who they are currently co-parenting. Momoa was famously living in a swanky RV close to their home so he could stay near his children.

Earlier this month, Momoa thanked his fans on Instagram for their support during their breakup: “mahalo to the fans and press for being generous and giving us space for the children it’s hard enough separating in the public eye. we appreciate the continued privacy through these times.”

While there was a brief moment where fans believed the two were going to reconcile, that seemed to have been a fleeting moment of hope. Still, nobody has quite a relationship as strong as Momoa and Lenny Kravitz, who was married to Bonet in the 90s. Or Momoa and Channing Tatum, who is dating Zoe Kravitz. It’s truly a Brady Bunch situation over there.

When it was first announced Oscar Isaac would be plying the lead in the Disney+ streaming series Moon Knight, I’ll admit, I was a little perplexed. Look, I like Moon Knight well enough. I wouldn’t call myself a Moon Knight aficionado, but I do own Moon Knight #1. (But, sadly, not his first appearance in Werewolf by Night, which, if you happen to now own, congrats, you are a rich person.) I was perplexed because Oscar Isaac seems like an actor who can kind of do anything he wants at this point, but also seems to wind up in a lot of stuff that doesn’t take full use of his talents. Remember, he’s been in Marvel properties before, unrecognizable as Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse. A movie where they had hired one of the most charming actors of a generation to kind of grunt stoically for two hours. It’s still baffling. It’s clear early on in Moon Knight that this is the opposite of X-Men: Apocalypse. Moon Knight truly is the Oscar Isaac Power Hour.

So much of Moon Knight rests on Isaac’s shoulders as he, by sheer force of will, transforms what could have easily been a very confusing, disjointed show into something truly remarkable. In other words: Oscar Isaac is going for it. And, at least in the first four episodes, he doesn’t just go for it, he gets there. It now makes total sense why Isaac wanted to play Moon Knight. Isaac hasn’t been allowed to be this good since Inside Llewyn Davis.

To be fair, even with Isaac being a force of nature, the plot is still tricky to explain. It doesn’t necessarily feel confusing while watching it – well, some parts are, by design; I’ll get to that – but anytime I try to write what the plot is, or say it out loud it, I sound like a crazy person. Anyway, let’s try. So, Isaac plays Steven, a mild mannered man with a high pitched British accent who works in a museum gift shop. Unfortunately for Steven, when he’s sleeping, he’s prone to losing control of his body and waking up in very strange places, not having any clue how he got there. Oh, and when he looks in the mirror he see’s a different version of himself, named Mark, and Mark is usually very unhappy with Steven. Oh yes and sometimes Mark has complete control over the body, something that gets more and more prominent as the series goes on. And an Egyptian god, voiced by F. Murray Abraham, follows him around and is also usually annoyed with Steven. And I almost forgot, sometimes where there’s a lot of danger, he turns into Moon Knight.

Now, Moon Knight himself isn’t a third identity, no more than Batman is still Bruce Wayne under the cape. It’s a fancy suit that just magically appears and offers protection. But, sometimes Steven is Moon Knight (he’s very new at this aspect of his life) and mostly Mark is Moon Knight. When Mark is Moon Knight, he’s wearing a cape. When it’s Steven he’s wearing a suit and tie. See, just re-reading all this, it’s a miracle this show works. (It does.) I think one of the nifty tricks of Moon Knight is long stretches of exposition can just be skipped because Steven “blacked out.” And his confusion mirrors our confusion, while saving us from something dull.

Ethan Hawke plays Arthur Harrow, a man obsessed with awakening a new god that will bring doom. Steven, unbeknownst to himself at the time, has information that can lead to the location of this god, setting off a globetrotting trip that people will compare to Raiders of the Lost Ark, but feels more like The Mummy from 1999 (If there’s any doubt, I mean that as a compliment). As the episodes go on, Steven and Mark get more pronounced in their determination to stay in control. But, also, they each realize their own weaknesses and give up control to the other when their life depends on it. Steven and Mark are joined in this adventure by Layla (May Calamawy), Mark’s ex-wife. After some confusion over the existence of Steven at all, Layla starts to like Steven as her relationship with Mark becomes more and more complicated.

I’ve enjoyed the Marvel Disney+ shows to date, with more enthusiasm for some over the others. But Moon Knight is the first to feel like its own thing. The other have a sense of, well, here’s what happened between the movies. And look, those were pretty fun. And let Marvel deal with some complicated plot points, like variants, that would be difficult to explain in a couple lines of exposition. But Moon Knight doesn’t feel like that. And yes, for people who watch the MCU to see how things all feel connected in the bigger universe, this show doesn’t seem to care about that at all. So those people might be disappointed, but I found it refreshing. Plus, there’s so much already going on in Moon Knight, there was no part of me thinking, “I wonder what Thor is doing.”

Again, Moon Knight lives or dies with its star. An actor even slightly less engaged with this material would be a disaster. But that is not the case with Oscar Isaac. He saw a project that would allow him not to chew scenery, but go ahead and eat that scenery then wash it down with a tasty Mello Yello. Again, Oscar Isaac is going for it. And drags us along with him to our benefit. Moon Knight truly is The Oscar Isaac Power Hour we’ve all been waiting for.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

At this year’s Academy Awards, Questlove got the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, for Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised). That was the biggest moment of his night, but the main takeaway of the event more broadly happened immediately before, when Chris Rock, who was on stage to present the documentary award, got slapped by Will Smith. Now, it seems Questlove confirmed that while giving his acceptance speech, he was (understandably) thrown off by what happened just moments earlier.

Yesterday, a Twitter user wrote, “I think the whole Will Smith assault rattled @questlove who had to give a speech like 90 seconds later. He couldn’t even remember the names of his co-winners. #Oscars.” Questlove responded with just an emoji of a fax machine. Emojipedia notes the fax machine emoji is “sometimes used in emoji form as an alternative to the words ‘facts,’ due to the similarity of pronunciation.” So, based on Questlove’s usage of it, it looks like he’s confirming he was indeed rattled while giving his speech.

Meanwhile, before sending that tweet, Questlove talked about the win on The Tonight Show yesterday, with neither him nor Jimmy Fallon directly mentioning Smith or Rock.

(Fallon tip-toed around the incident during his opening monologue but didn’t name any names there, either. Once he got back to his desk, though, he did note in passing while talking about this year’s ceremony, “The Will/Chris thing, I was just bummed, disturbed, I wish it didn’t happen.”)

Questlove told Fallon he was meditating during the commercial break before the award was presented. He also noted, “I realized that that was a real moment, like, maybe three seconds before I spoke words. In my mind, they’re just doing a sketch or whatever and I’m just like, ‘OK Ahmir, remember to thank your mom, your dad, thank Tariq [Trotter, aka Black Thought of The Roots]…’ So I was not present at all. I was just in a blank slate.”

Watch Questlove on The Tonight Show below.

Jimmy Kimmel knows a thing or two about moments at the Oscars that seem like bits at first, but turn out to be real. In the year he hosted, it was La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz saying, “There’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke.” On Sunday, it was Will Smith approaching the stage while Chris Rock was presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature, and slapping him. In the Moonlight year, Kimmel responded to the mix-up by trying to get Warren Beatty to stop talking (good ideal). How would he have handled what happened with Smith and Rock?

“A lot of my friends have been texting me asking what I would have done if I had been on stage,” Kimmel said during Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I would have run is what I would have done. The second I saw Will Smith get up out of the seat, I’d have been half way to the Wetzel’s Pretzels, enjoying the samples in front of the store.”

Kimmel also praised Rock for handling the slap “about as well as you could possibly handle being slapped on stage at the Oscars. He didn’t even flinch… I would’ve been crying so hard. No one did anything. Nobody lifted a finger. Spider-Man was there. Aquaman was there. Catwoman, all sitting on their hands. Nobody helped Chris Rock.”

You can watch the monologue above.

These days, everyone from brands, to massive events, to Roc Nation themselves are hoping Megan Thee Stallion will come through for them. The ever-popular, overly-sexual female rapper has been making a name for herself not just in hip-hop, but as a cultural force, and nothing could’ve made that more clear than her surprise performance at the Oscars last night. As more predictable, previously announced performers like Beyonce and Billie Eilish were already on the docket, viewers were definitely surprised when Megan joined in with the Encanto performance of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” for the evening, adding an Oscar-ready rap verse to the already cultish hit.

But her verse at the Academy Awards annual gala was important and historical for a completely different reason, too. Apparently, it was the first time a female rapper has ever performed at the event. Taken in that context, Megan’s invitation to spice up “Bruno” hits on a whole new level. Megan was reflecting on the milestone last night after the show, and though plenty of people were lost in the drama of Will Smith and Chris Rock, the Hotties were definitely celebrating Megan’s success with her. “I literally was just in Puerto Rico less than 24 hrs ago performing, my dress had just came in last night from India, and that was thee FIRST FEMALE RAP PERFORMANCE at the OSCARS ever ! Im definitely in grind mode,” she wrote, and I’d have to agree.

What will she do next? Well, the Grammys are this weekend, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Miley Cyrus has been through a lot of ups and downs in her life. That kind of comes with the territory of being a child star, as we’ve seen time and again with artists and performers who grow up in the spotlight. But now that she’s in her Plastic Hearts era, and staying true to her rock impulses, it’s easy to forget that just a few years ago, Miley was floundering. At the time, she’d rekindled her relationship with former longterm boyfriend, Liam Hemsworth, and the pair even tied the knot in a quiet family ceremony in late 2018.

Of course, it was one of the most short-lived marriages we’ve seen in the pop world for a minute, as the couple announced their divorce just a few months later in the summer of 2019. Hey, at least we got “Slide Away” out of it. Anyway, due to her own history with marriage, Miley wasn’t necessarily the best person for a newly-engaged couple to celebrate with, though some of her fans in Brazil did hop onstage at Lollapalooza and get engaged. Obviously, Miley was supportive of the romantic moment, but ended her interaction with them by wishing them better luck than she had: “Honey, I hope your marriage goes better than mine,” she told the man proposing to his boyfriend. “Mine was a f*cking disaster.” Check out the clip below.

It’s Latto’s world, we’re just living in it. What could make a hyperbolic statement like that more true than working with a legend like Mariah Carey? Ever since she released “Big Energy,” Latto has had a kind of energy behind her that far outpaces her popularity with the hip-hop crowd — this is a bonafide R&B/pop hit. So it only makes sense that after a few weeks of teasing the “Big Energy” remix feature, it’d turn out to be none other than Mimi herself.

Since Latto’s fans are just as thrilled about her working with an icon as she is, a mini Q&A about the process erupted on Twitter last night when the song was released at midnight. Sure, plenty of people were still focused on Will Smith’s altercation with Chris Rock at the Oscars, but Latto had fans had their priorities right: Asking the Atlanta rapper what the best part of working with Mimi herself was.

The best part? Latto’s all caps response: “HEARING HER HIT THAT HIGH NOTE IN PERSON!!!!”

As far as how the session went down, and what it was like meeting Mariah, Latto said she eventually got over her nerves because Mariah was “so genuine.” “I was sooooo nervous I was like what I say y’all lol but the conversation just floweddd she was so genuine and I definitely was overthinking,” the rapper wrote on Twitter. “We was sipping on her liquor Black Irish & just kicking it fr.”

Though at first they were such an over-the-top couple, fans were skeptical if it was real, now that Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello have broken up, both of them seem genuinely sad over the split. Mendes even went so far as to open up about his heartbreak following the split, contemplating how much harder it is to cope with the aftermath of a breakup than the decision to split itself.

After the pair first announced their breakup in November, Mendes quickly followed the news up with a new single, the tender but hopeful “It’ll Be Okay.” Then, it was Camila season, as she was busy announcing the release of her third album, Familia, and sharing the Ed Sheeran collab, “Bam Bam.” That project will come out in just a few days, on April 8, but in the meantime, Shawn is back to teasing his own new music.

Though he’s already alluded to his next single, “When You’re Gone,” before, tonight he shared an actual clip of the song, along with a cute video of himself moondancing to it — or, well, attempting to moondance to it. Surprisingly, given the subject matter, the song sounds pretty upbeat. Check out the snippet below and look for this new single dropping on March 31.

Top-seed NC State and 2-seed UConn met on Monday night in Bridgeport, CT for an Elite Eight matchup that became an instant classic, as the first time in women’s tournament history that a game in the Elite Eight or later needed double overtime to decide things.

It was a tense, tight game throughout as both teams traded blows and runs, and in the fourth quarter each team held small leads — NC State’s 4-point advantage was the biggest of the final quarter — in what was a sensational battle.

Defense carried both teams down the stretch, as Elissa Cunane’s layup to tie the game at 61-61 with just over a minute to go was the final score of regulation. Olivia Nelson-Ododa missed a pair of go-ahead free throws with just under 30 seconds to go, and on the other end, the Wolfpack dribbled the clock down to inside 6 seconds before starting a play, which ended in a contested Kai Crutchfield three from well beyond the arc that missed everything, sending the game to overtime.

In the first overtime period both offenses came alive in a shot-making display that was nothing short of sensational. Both teams found big buckets and after scratchy free throw shooting in regulation, were lights out in the extra frame. Ultimately, UConn found itself up three after a pair of Paige Bueckers free throws with six seconds to play, and NC State called a timeout to draw up a three-pointer to tie.

Raina Perez took the inbounds pass and waited for Jakia Brown-Turner to go from where she inbounded on the sideline to the right corner and flung a perfect pass over the Huskies defense to set up an incredible game-tying three.

After the pandemonium of that moment, it was a matter of who would be able to settle themselves down in double overtime, and it was UConn that took control immediately thanks to a pair of buckets from Bueckers. The Paige barrage came first on a top of the key three and then on an elbow pull-up, both times taking advantage of NC State going under the screener.

The Huskies would hold onto the lead throughout double overtime despite the best efforts of the Wolfpack, who kept things close thanks to timely buckets from Crutchfield and Cunane, but could never get the string of stops and scores they needed to seize control from the Huskies. Every time NC State cut the lead to one possession, UConn had the answer, like this Aaliyah Edwards putback.

Eventually, UConn had the ball and advanced it up the floor with 10 seconds to play (with NC State also questionably burning their last timeout), and the Wolfpack seemed desperate not to foul Azzi Fudd, which allowed the Huskies to put the game on ice with two quick passes to set up Christyn Williams at the rim.

It was a sensational performance from UConn’s stars, as Fudd had 19 points, Williams had 21, and Bueckers led all scorers with 27 thanks to her overtime takeover. On the other side, Cunane had 18 points and nine boards, Brown-Turner had 20 points, eight boards, and five assists, and three others reached double figures, but it just wasn’t quite enough for NC State to reach the Final Four.

The Huskies will make a familiar trip to Minneapolis for the festivities where they’ll play Stanford in the national semifinal in another heavyweight matchup.