Year: 2022

(Emily In Paris spoilers will definitely be found below.)

Emily Cooper and friends only hit Netflix for Season 3 on December 21, but the show’s so easily digestible that a lot of people are… already done watching. Naturally, they’re now wondering (due to a cliffhanger) when they will see more. And if they will see more at all. If you are one of those interested viewers, we have good news for you.

Emily In Paris already received a Season 4 renewal, and as you can see above, this happened when the Season 3 announcement surfaced. The breezy comedy is simply too addictive despite being completely devoid of substance, but perhaps that’s one of best explanations for why this show’s a hit. Not everything needs to be completely cerebral, you know? Sometimes you simply wanna tune out of your mind and watch some soap operatics with nice scenery in a place far from home.

In other words, we’ll get to see the fallout from Gabriel and Camille’s wedding ceremony falling apart, which led to Gabriel’s revelation that Camille is pregnant, and he’s most definitely the father of this baby. Alfie has fled, and Emily and Gabriel both actually seem like they’re done dancing around their attraction and screwing people over, but will they actually happen? I’m guessing that Gabriel will (once again) try to make it work with Camille, which probably isn’t fair to anyone at this point. Maybe Camille will decide that everyone needs to shove it.

Whatever the case, it’s wonderful news that we’ll eventually see that drama happen. No release date exists yet, but stay tuned.

Emily In Paris Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.

Due to everything that went down last year, tensions might be high at the 2023 Academy Awards. Not because of who will win or lose an Oscar, but because we are all collectively afraid of who will make the first of the many inevitable jokes about The Slap. Yes, this year had a bunch of really good movies and whoever wins will likely be very deserving. But we also know how much these hosts love their corny jokes, and all eyes will be on the upcoming man of the hour, which will be Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel will host next year’s ceremony, filling the six shoes that were left by last year’s traumatized trio. This isn’t Kimmel’s first star-studded rodeo, though, as he has hosted twice before in 2017 and 2018. So he and Oscar should be on a first-name basis by now.

You may or may not remember Kimmel’s slightly controversial bit at the 2022 Emmys where he played dead on the floor of the stage when Quinta Brunson accepted her award for Abbott Elementary. In fairness, Kimmel was under the impression that he would not be seen. Still, people were mad (though not as mad as The Slap), but the longtime friends seemed to have worked it out.

The 2023 Oscars will take place on March 12th. The nominees are slated the be announced on January 24th. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

(Via Variety)

The Philadelphia Eagles need one more win to wrap up the NFC East and the No. 1 seed in the conference, and their first opportunity to do just that will come on Saturday afternoon against the Dallas Cowboys. The team will head into that game with their backup signal caller under center, though, as head coach Nick Sirianni announced on Thursday morning that Gardner Minshew will start the game.

“Gardner will be our guy and Gardner will be ready,” Sirianni said, per ESPN. “Gardner worked his butt off for this opportunity against a really good football team. He had a great practice [Wednesday].”

Minshew will get the start because of an injury to starting QB Jalen Hurts, who hurt his shoulder in the third quarter of the team’s win over the Chicago Bears this past Sunday. Hurts, the favorite to be named NFL MVP prior to his injury, “did everything he possibly could to get his body ready to go,” according to Sirianni.

Minshew has thrown 64 passes in his two seasons as a member of the Eagles, and has completed 67.2 percent of his attempts with four touchdowns and one interception. Philly and Dallas played earlier this season in Philadelphia, with the Eagles picking up a 26-17 win.

I’m sorry, but the pun is right there to be made: Billie Eilish is happier than ever. The seven-time Grammy winner (and Oscar winner) staged three triumphant shows at the Kia Forum in her hometown Los Angeles last week. The first featured a cameo from Labrinth. Across her weekend shows, she was joined by Dave Grohl, Phoebe Bridgers, and Childish Gambino.

On Sunday, December 18, Eilish turned 21. That called for a star-studded Hollywood party attended by the likes of the Biebers, Avril Lavigne, Doja Cat, Kendall Jenner, Lil Nas X, Noah Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, and her boyfriend, Jesse Rutherford.

Eilish posted photos from the bash to Instagram. The carousel captures her in a festive Santa costume next to Rutherford in a matching red sweater, and the happy new couple posing in a photo booth with the Biebers — something a younger Billie would have died for.

Eilish confirmed her relationship with Rutherford, The Neighbourhood lead singer, during her sixth annual “Same Interview” with Vanity Fair, posted in late November.

“Yeah, I do, and it’s really cool. I’m really excited, and I’m really happy about it,” Eilish said in response to whether she had a boyfriend. “I managed to get my life to a point where I not only was known by a person that I thought was the hottest f*ckin’ f*cker alive but pulled his ass. Are we kidding me? Can we just [claps] — round of applause for me? Thank you. Jesse Rutherford, everyone. I pulled his ass. All me. I did that sh*t. I locked that motherf*cker down.”

No stranger to controversy, Kyrsten Sinema is under scrutiny for reportedly issuing her government staffers a 37-page guide full of diva demands like ensuring she always has room temperature water and ensuring she never, ever has the middle seat on a flight. The Arizona senator, who recently changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent in a blatant move to stave off a primary challenge, may be in violation of the Senate Ethics Committees for her demands that fall outside of the government-sanctioned tasks for staffers.

According to the Senate ethics handbook, “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”

We’re guessing Sinema’s demands do not fall under that umbrella. Via The Daily Beast:

One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.

The guide is yet another damning piece of evidence that Sinema is less concerned with the business of governing and more concerned with the perks of being a United States senator. She has routinely held up legislation for the Democrats to the point where many theorized that she may change her party affiliation to Republican. Instead, she went Independent, which to be frank, is a step in that direction.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in the music world, Elf is one of the most recent movies to join the Christmas movie canon. (The most recent: Klaus.) The 2003 film, starring Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf, the late James Caan, and a distractingly blonde Zooey Deschanel, is also still doing big business in theaters.

Deadline reports that the Alamo Drafthouse made $350,000 in ticket sales for Elf this November and December. It’s also the no talking-no texting chain’s “top all-time repertory title,” with a cumulative gross of $1.5 million. That’s on top of the approximately $220 million worldwide it made during its initial release. Not bad for a movie with a $33 million budget (most of which was spent on spaghetti, M&Ms, and chocolate syrup):

Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros, called Elf – which has grossed close to $173 million domestically — “one of the evergreen properties that keep doing really strong business.” He expects to end the year with about 3,700 bookings, “not bad for a movie that’s 19 years old.”

Next year, for Elf‘s 20th anniversary, the holiday screenings will be “even bigger.” But don’t expect a sequel any time soon, or ever. “We were gonna do it and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I finally got a franchise movie, I could make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do.’ And the director [Jon Favreau] and Will didn’t get along very well,” Caan said in 2020. “So, Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director, and he had it in his contract, it was one of those things.”

Instead, Ferrell made a different Christmas movie this year, while Favreau is busy with Star Wars and the MCU. They’re doing fine, if for no other reason than they have nothing to do with 2003’s other (inexplicably beloved) Christmas movie.

(Via Deadline)

Right in time for Christmas, Vladimir Putin seems to be realizing that he’s sent hundreds of thousands of troops into an untenable Ukraine situation. Far too many of them have already died, and the atmosphere has deteriorated so much that they’re reportedly drunk and shooting each other. The fact that Putin’s been making boozy addresses in a celebratory tone while his soldiers must resort to degraded ammo cannot be helping the situation. It’s also not great that they’re being told (on video) that they’re SOL at treating bullet wounds unless they bring tampons.

This week, Putin announced that he’s pouring unlimited funding into this war, but perhaps some crony told him that he needed to make good on this promise, so he’s talking again. Via the New York Times, Putin finally realized that he needed to get real, and it’s certainly an “unusual” approach for the Russian president:

In an unusual acknowledgment of Russia’s shortcomings in a speech at the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, the Russian leader ticked off a list of areas his military must improve on. He declared that drones must be able to communicate targeting information through encrypted channels “in real time.” He said the military needed to “improve the command and control system” and its ability to strike back at enemy artillery.

And he nodded to the widespread reports of soldiers’ being sent to the front without basic equipment, instructing officers to pay attention to “medical kits, food, dry rations, uniforms, footwear, protective helmets and bulletproof vests.”

Yep, it’s kind-of wild that Putin has sent his economy tanking to take this huge gamble but can’t even muster up fresh ammunition and food (soldiers have been complaining about being forced to eat dog food, for real) during this invasion. Back in Russia, citizens don’t even have paper, so one can expect the public outcry to continue while Putin hides in his bunker for Christmas.

(Via New York Times)

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was fatally shot in one of the most famous deaths in music history. Now, The Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney has looked back on that day, revealing his reaction to learning the news.

In a recent interview with SiriusXM’s The Beatles Channel about his 1982 solo album Tug Of War, McCartney explained:

“When John died, it was so difficult. It was difficult for everyone in the world, ’cause he was such a loved character and such a crazy guy. He was so special. And so it had hit me, so much so that I couldn’t really talk about it. I remember getting home from the studio on the day that we’d heard the news he died, and turning the TV on, and seeing people say, ‘Well, John Lennon was this,’ and, ‘What he was was this,’ and, ‘I remember meeting him then.’ It was like, ‘I don’t know, I can’t be one of those people. I can’t just go on TV and say what John meant to me.’ It was just too deep. It [was] just too much. I couldn’t put it into words.”

He then noted that writing the song “Here Today” helped him process Lennon’s passing. The song opens, “And if I said I really knew you well / What would your answer be / If you were here today? / Ooh, ooh, ooh, here today / Well, knowing you / You’d probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart / If you were here today / Ooh, ooh, ooh, here today.”

Listen to McCartney discuss Lennon below.

The holiday season is particularly difficult for people who are grieving, and Offset’s grief is particularly fresh. Takeoff, his cousin and fellow Migos rapper, was fatally shot as an innocent bystander when an altercation allegedly broke out at a private event outside 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston on November 1. Takeoff was there with Quavo, his uncle and Migos collaborator. The 28-year-old was laid to rest in his native Atlanta on November 11.

In the months leading up to Takeoff’s tragic death, he and Quavo had branched away from Migos to form the duo Unc & Phew, releasing their Only Built For Infinity Links album on October 7. But while Offset and Takeoff had grown apart musically, their personal bond remains unquestionable. Offset shared an open letter to Takeoff in mid-November and has continued to tribute him, even dedicating his Art Basel concert to Takeoff earlier this month.

On Wednesday, December 21 — one week after celebrating his 31st birthday with his wife, Cardi B — Offset again took to Twitter. “Sh*t not easy fake smiling and sh*t tryna keep walking with my head up,” he posted alongside a photo of Takeoff. Offset also tweeted a photo of Takeoff on Monday, December 19.

On December 1, 33-year-old Patrick Xavier Clark was arrested and charged with the murder of Takeoff. Clark’s bond was set at $2 million, as ABC News reported that “prosecutors argued that Clark posed a high flight risk because he had purchased tickets to Mexico two days before his arrest and applied for an expedited passport.” Cameron Joshua, also known as Lil Cam or Lil Cam 5th, was additionally charged in connection to the case. Last week, Clark reportedly filed a motion to reduce his bail to $100,000.

Below, see more of Offset’s heartbreaking posts since Takeoff’s passing.

With all of these year-end charts and lists, it’s easy to forget that one of the biggest songs of 2022 was from 1985: Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill,” experiencing a resurgence because of its unexpectedly large role in Stranger Things. She touched on the revival again in a new message on her website.

“It’s been a crazy, roller-coaster year for me,” she wrote. “I still reel from the success of RUTH, being the No. 1 track of this summer. What an honor! It was really exciting to see it doing so well globally, but especially here in the UK and Australia; and also to see it making it all the way to No. 3 in the US. It was such a great feeling to see so many of the younger generation enjoying the song. It seems that quite a lot of them thought I was a new artist! I love that!”

In July, she reacted to the Stranger Things finale. “I’ve just watched the last two episodes of Stranger Things and they’re just through the roof,” she wrote. No spoilers here, I promise. I’d only seen the scenes that directly involved the use of the track and so I didn’t know how the story would evolve or build. I was so delighted that the Duffer Brothers wanted to use RUTH for Max’s totem but now having seen the whole of this last series, I feel deeply honored that the song was chosen to become a part of their roller-coaster journey. I can’t imagine the amount of hard work that’s gone into making something on this scale. I am in awe. They’ve made something really spectacular.”