Category: News

Chloe Domont’s Fair Play (premiering at Sundance this week) is very entertaining. It does feel like a throwback of a special kind of trashy movie that came out in the ’80s and ’90s. But some of the comparisons to Adrian Lyne movies are going a bit far. They literally don’t make movies like that anymore and they still don’t (have you actually seen Fatal Attraction recently?) but I’ll concede there’s some shared DNA here, or at least as much as there can be in 2023 for a movie premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. What’s kind of impressive here is Fair Game does have a lot to say about gender dynamics in a “boy’s club” work environment, but it doesn’t get bogged down in that to the point we are watching a lecture. Like I said in the first sentence, this is a very entertaining movie.

Both Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich are great as Emily and Luke. (Also, it’s kind of funny that in his first movie since playing Han Solo, Ehrenreich is now playing a character named “Luke.”) These two are really going for it. It’s great to see some old-fashioned screaming matches. To the point, I can envision after one of these Ehrenreich telling his publicist, “use that scene for my Oscar campaign.”

Anyway, Emily and Luke are newly engaged, and they work together at some hotshot investment firm that some people seem to actually like working at but always looks like my own personal hell on earth. (I’m sure the money is nice.) No one is aware of their personal relationship because it’s against company policy. After a manager is fired, Luke hears a rumor that he’s in line for a promotion. But the promotion actually goes to Emily and now Luke reports directly to her. The thing is, Emily is actually really good at her job and Luke is mediocre at best. When she hints to her bosses that Luke should also get a promotion, she is told they don’t like Luke and the plan is to just make his life miserable until he quits.

Luke grows more and more paranoid that Emily slept her way to the promotion and spends pretty much the rest of the movie either telling her how lousy she is or giving her terrible business advice… to the point it’s not clear if he’s purposefully trying to sabotage her career or he’s just truly bad at his job. She listens to him once, which costs the firm $25 million. She ignores his advice the second time, resulting in a big win for the firm. Eventually Luke stops showing up to work – drinking his days away instead – which then leads to a dramatic blow-up between the two. All the while Emily still has to navigate her boss – who like to call at 2am for long phone chats and literally calls her a “dumb bitch” after the $25 million mistake – and her other employees who don’t like her very much.

But the thing is, this movie moves. Like I said, it has a lot to say, but says it while keeping the proceedings on a timely tempo. Also, I’m happy Alden Ehrenreich gets a meaty role here. I do kind of worry about him. It did appear like he got thrown in actor jail after Solo under-performed. Fair Play is literally his first movie released since Solo. Someone had to take the fall and there were plenty of candidates, but it did seem to fall on him and that never seemed fair. When Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were directing, Ehrenreich was hired to basically play the lead in a comedy romp. During production, Lord and Miller were let go and all of a sudden he’s the lead in a straightforward action drama. I actually think Solo is a good amount of fun, but you can tell Ehrenreich kind of has a look on his face, “This is not the part I signed up for.” Anyway, my point here is Ehrenreich is really great in this movie and I really hope this jumpstarts him back into more movies. (He does have Cocaine Bear and Oppenheimer coming up, though I have no idea how big his roles are in either.)

The biggest thing working against Fair Play is that this is 2023. And movies like Fair Play don’t play in movie theaters. So, I actually just paused to look up if anyone bought Fair Play out of Sundance yet and, yep, it was Netflix. So look for Fair Play to be streaming on your television or mobile device sometime this year.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Sam Smith served as the musical guest on the January 21 episode of Saturday Night Live, performing their No. 1 hit “Unholy” and “Gloria.” Adele was busy carrying out yet another weekend in her 32-date Weekends With Adele Las Vegas residency. Whether Adele and Smith are the same person is an absurd conspiracy, but for those conspiracy theorists that believe it, it would have been very difficult for Smith to be in Las Vegas and New York City at the same time.

Smith stopped by The Drew Barrymore Show today, January 23, and played a game of “Pop Quiz.” The last question in the game was to name the “craziest rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself.” Smith responded, “Everyone seems to think that I’m Adele… in drag. ‘Cause we’ve never been seen in the same room together. And if you slow down her voice, it sounds maybe a bit like mine. So, people think that we’re the same person, and I’m just in drag right now.”

They continued, “I get asked all the time in every interview about it, and it’s really frustrating.” When Barrymore asked how Smith felt about it, they admitted, “I mean, it’s a fabulous compliment, but I am not Adele!”

Under that logic, I guess it’s not the best argument that Adele and Smith weren’t in the same room — let alone the same city — over the weekend, but I trust (probably naively) that common sense largely wins out here.

Elsewhere in “Pop Quiz,” Smith described a strange fan encounter that involved a saucepan, identified Leonardo DiCaprio as his first celebrity crush, gave themselves a Spice Girls name, and expressed a desire to transform into Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Watch the full segment above.

In 2022, Netflix canceled Warrior Nun, The Midnight Club, Fate: The Winx Saga, The Midnight Gospel, The Baby-Sitters Club, Space Force, and Archive 81. Every channel and streaming service will cancel fan favorites (I’m still salty about Freaks and Geeks), but that’s a lot of popular and/or critically-admired shows to axe in one year. Especially while the hurt from the premature cancelations of GLOW, Everything Sucks!, Santa Clarita Diet, and my beloved The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (RIP) still remains.

Recent comments from Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos will not make Sense8 fans feel better. “We have never canceled a successful show,” he told Bloomberg. “A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget. The key to it is you have to be able to talk to a small audience on a small budget and a large audience at a large budget. If you do that well, you can do that forever.”

If Sarandos meant to say, “We have never canceled a successful show… as long as that show is Mindhunter, because it wasn’t technically canceled,” he’s not wrong. But otherwise, his remarks have united the fanbases of many so-called unsuccessful shows.

(Via Bloomberg)

Lady Gaga has surprisingly been linked to Netflix lately by way of the streaming service’s Wednesday series and its impact on her 2011 song “Bloody Mary.” Who knows if Gaga will make a Wednesday cameo, though Jenna Ortega hopes so, but for now, Gaga is admiring a different Netflix production.

Earlier this month, a Taylor Swift fan account on TikTok posted a clip from Swift’s 2020 Netflix documentary, Miss Americana. In it, Swift says, “I’m a lot happier with who I am, and I’m happier with, like — I don’t care as much if somebody points out that I have gained weight. It’s just something that makes my life better. The fact that I’m a size six instead of a size double-zero. I mean, that wasn’t how my body was supposed to be. I just didn’t really understand that. At the time, I really don’t think I knew it.”

Swift continues, “I would have defended it to anyone who said, ‘I’m concerned about you.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about? Of course I eat. It’s perfectly normal. I just exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot. But I wasn’t eating, and you can’t — just, I don’t think you know you’re doing that when you’re doing it gradually. There’s always some standard of beauty that you’re not meeting. ‘Cause if you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants, but if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, then your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f*cking impossible.”

Gaga somehow stumbled upon the TikTok and commented last week, “That’s really brave everything you said [black heart emoji] wow.”

More recently, Swift was vulnerable about her history of body and eating disorders in her “Anti-Hero” video that included her standing on a scale and judging herself.

Gaga also has experience with using Netflix as a vehicle for showing more intimate, private thoughts. Her documentary, Five Foot Two, came out in 2017.

Yes, the above headline is an exaggeration and not entirely accurate. Kim Kardashian has made some valuable contributions to culture, including her ongoing fight for prison reform. When it comes to pop culture, however, her track record is a messy one of late. Quite recently even, because Kim has been collecting artifacts previously owned by dead celebrities, and she also allegedly damaged an iconic Marilyn Monroe dress by wearing it to the Met Gala. Not swell.

No one can dismiss one of her current moves, however, because Kim has good taste when it comes to The White Lotus. I kind of want to know how she felt about what went down in the finale, but for now, it’s enough to know that she enjoyed the Lucia and Mia characters. Depending on how one feels about Ethan successfully killing no one, those ladies might have been the biggest winners of Season 2. And Kim K. counts herself as a fan while calling Simona Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò “my girls.” She featured them in a Valentine-theme SKIMS ad and highlighted the images on Instagram.

Honestly, these are some seriously cute underwear sets, and it’s hard to imagine picking a better example (on TV) of girls doing it for themselves right now. And man, these sets are so much better than those crotchless catsuits of yesteryear.

As they say in Sicily, “That’s amore!”

Even though it’s been nearly 20 years (!) since the second installment in the Kill Bill franchise, it’s still one of the most iconic movies thanks to that sword-wielding, yellow-jumpsuit-wearing Bride. Earlier this month, SZA released a Kill Bill-inspired music video with a fun cameo from Vivica A. Fox, who played Vernita in the original films.

Fox starred alongside SZA in the music video for her track Kill Bill, which, naturally, featured a series of Tarantino-inspired references. Fox herself was surprised that the movie is still so popular among younger audiences due to all that violence. “SZA was imitating Uma Thurman’s character because her boyfriend had did her wrong [in the song]. She’s like, ‘Should I go kill my ex?’ You know, people were like, ‘Wow, those lyrics are a little violent.’ It was a little violent, but Kill Bill was violent, so come on,” Fox told People, adding that it sparked new interest in another film. “But I believe that that was also the hunger. People have really been waiting on Kill Bill 3.”

Kill Bill Volume 2 was released in 2004, and Tarantino has been hesitant to get The Bride back on board for a third installment, though it could happen one day. “Just like everybody else, I heard that if we do Kill Bill 3, it [might] be about my ‘daughter’ seeking revenge,” Fox explained. Of course, when asked about what’s been taking so long for a potential third installment, she responded, “Quentin [Tarantino] works when he wants to, honey.”

Tarantino hasn’t directed a movie since 2019’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, though he did his fair share of gossiping last year when he released his first non-fiction book, Cinema Speculation followed by a very eye-opening press tour where he discussed all of his weird takes. Maybe it’s time for him to get back into that director’s chair before too many people get mad at him.

(Via People Magazine)

WARNING: Spoilers for The Last of Us Episode 2 below.

As The Last of Us proves to be a certified hit for HBO, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have been an open book when it comes to the creative process involved in adapting the award-winning video game into a prestige drama series. Following Episode 2 and its dramatic climax, which saw Anna Torv’s Tess experience a different (and markedly grosser) fate than her video game counterpart, Mazin and Druckmman revealed that the episode was supposed to include a bleak backstory for Torv’s spin on the character.

Via Collider:

“We wrote it, we never shot it… It was a little bit of a backstory for Tess, and the fact that Tess had a kid,” Mazin revealed. “She had a husband and she had a son, and they were infected and she had to kill them. She killed her husband, but she could not kill the son. She couldn’t do it… She locked him in the basement, where theoretically he’s still a clicker.”

Druckmann, who worked on The Last of Us video game, also revealed that Tess’s backstory was originally planned as Episode 2’s cold open before going a different route.

“We had a cold open where we just, where the camera pushed on this door and you just hear this pounding coming from this basement, and then we cut out. And then later, Tess would tell the story of how she couldn’t kill her son,” Druckmann told Collider. “It just didn’t fit. But it was fun to think about.”

While Tess’s backstory sounds fascinating as hell, cutting it out of the show was probably a smart move. Mazin knows a thing or two about abandoning creative tangents or even whole pilots that just aren’t working. He had a hand in the infamously bad Game of Thrones pilot that never saw the light of day, and that experience helped him when it came to deliver his own HBO series, Chernobyl.

Judging by the success of The Last of Us so far, Mazin and Druckmann appear to be making the right calls.

(Via Collider)

Premio Lo Nuestro, the US award show that highlights Latin music, revealed the nominations for this year’s ceremony today (January 23). Colombian pop star Sebastián Yatra garnered the most nominations this year. Bad Bunny, Camilo, Becky G, and Grupo Firme follow him.

Premio Lo Nuestro celebrates Latin music’s biggest releases of the past year in 39 categories. Yatra received 10 nominations this year. Thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda inviting Yatra to sing “Dos Oruguitas” for Disney’s Encanto soundtrack, his name went global last year. Bad Bunny, Camilo, Becky G, and Grupo Firme each received nine nominations.

All the aforementioned acts are up for Artist Of The Year. They face competition from J Balvin, Karol G, and Prince Royce. Ángela Aguilar and Christian Nodal are also up for the award.

In the Album Of The Year category, Yatra’s Dharma LP faces competition from Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, Rosalía’s Motomami, and Becky G’s Esquemas. The latest albums by Carlos Vives, Camilo, Christian Nodal, Daddy Yankee, and Marc Anthony were also nominated.

In the Song Of The Year category, Yatra’s “Tacones Rojos” is up against global hits like Anitta’s “Envolver,” Becky G and Karol G’s “Mamiii,” and Bad Bunny’s “Moscow Mule.” Hits by Romeo Santos, J Balvin, Grupo Firme, and Maluma round out the category.

Yatra will host the 2023 Premio Lo Nuestro alongside Alejandra Espinoza, Paulina Rubio, and Adrián Uribe. Fans can now vote for their favorite acts at PremioLoNuestro.com. The awards will air on February 23 live from Miami on Univision.

Drake’s performance at Apollo Theater with Sirius XM wasn’t something to do for the hell of it, though it might’ve seem that way at first. Throughout the night, it was quite clear that, despite everything he’s done, there was something he needed to accomplish in Harlem. When the curtains rose for the night and the show got underway, Drake’s presence on stage was of course the first thing that caught the attention of fans, but an equally attention-grabbing aspect was the stage design Drake had to begin the show. Through introductory performances of “Over My Dead Body” and “Wu-Tang Forever,” Drake, wearing a “Degrassi” jersey, sat on a bed in a makeshift room equipped with a space heater, nightstand, lamp, and more. “I wanted to make this a show about gratitude,” Drake said to the audience. “This is a little story that we put together. My deep love for my family, for my dear friends, and for each and every one of you who have been supporting me for a long time.” He continued, “This is my bedroom in my mom’s basement where I wrote a lot of new songs… I’m gonna play you some of the sh*t that got us out of here.”

Many, including myself, entered the night under the presumption that the Apollo show would be a night dedicated to the deep cuts that Drake fans hold near and dear to their heart. Maybe this is because it’s a perfect option for the intimacy that Apollo allows artists to take advantage of or maybe we hoped that Drake would do what artists who live in his realm of magnitude have done before (i.e. Jay-Z’s 2015 and 2019 B-Side shows at Manhattan’s Terminal 5). In the end, Drake’s night at Apollo was much more than a show for deep cuts, but in its early moments, it seemed like that was what we were getting. “Over My Dead Body” and “Wu-Tang Forever” turned into “Trust Issues” and his hook from Timbaland’s “Say Something.” Fan favorites “Practice,” “Jaded,” and “Jungle” also appeared in the opening act of the night. Drake exited the stage and returned to a new stage design: an office desk, office chairs with a “record executive” seated in one of them, and a backdrop of skyscrapers reminiscent of New York City. “There’s some dumbass record labels out here,” Drake said flippantly. “That’s what this scene is about; it’s me trying to grind my ass off and let people know that I’m not in a wheelchair in real life [and that] Canadians can make music.”

For this Act II, Drake resorted to the records that made Jimmy Brooks an afterthought and proved that Canadians can indeed make music. Monster hits in his discography (“Nonstop,” “Started From The Bottom,” and “God’s Plan”) and iconic guest verses (“Forever,” “I’m On One,” and “No New Friends”) received airtime during this part of the show. At just the halfway mark, Drake successfully reminded the crowd of the journey that not only took him out of his mother’s basement, but made him the golden child of the music industry. Drake made note of the past, and for the remainder of the night, he inched closer and closer to the present with a few exceptions. He continued with a third act that swapped the record label office setup for an emptier stage design that focused on special effect lighting. Here, chart-toppers like “One Dance” and “In My Feelings” were accompanied by records that showcased his versatility like “Hold On We’re Going Home” and “Passionfruit” and paired with his recent hits “Way 2 Sexy” and “Sticky.”

Drake’s night at Apollo was undoubtedly a bucket list moment for him. During a late 2019 interview with Rap Radar, he was asked whether or not he’d ever do a b-sides show. “I would love to,” he replied. “We’ve talked about maybe doing an unplugged with all the records that I never usually perform. I think it would be great. I think it would also showcase how serious I take performing as well.” Three years later, Drake had his moment to prove just that, and he also used it to pay homage to Harlem and an influence from his childhood in the best way that he could. Act IV began with a makeshift Harlem bodega on stage, perfect for the introduction of Dipset to Apollo, who had a similar bodega built for their 2003 Source Awards performance. “I Really Mean It,” “Dipset Anthem,” and “We Fly High” were performed as Jim Jones, Cam’ron, Juelz Santana, and Freekey Zekey took over the stage. Drake, who was rocking the Cam’ron’s iconic pink mink, stood in the background smiling from ear to ear. In the rapper’s own words, the moment with Dipset meant more to him than any award could have simply because of the influence the group had on him. “These guys right here from Harlem made us dress different, talk different, walk different, rap different all the way in Canada,” he noted.

The night concluded with the final act that featured an appearance from 21 Savage, who joined his new rap partner in crime to perform “Knife Talk” “Jimmy Crooks,” and a pair of songs from Her Loss with the “Apollo” logo brandished behind them. The rappers’ chemistry was on full display as 21 Savage thanked Drake for supporting his career and growth from their first meeting back in 2015. Both rappers made it clear that their friendship is about more than music, it was built from that commonality to find other ones. Additionally, with a joint tour announcement around the corner, it gave the audience comforting promise of what’s to come when the duo hits the road.

Drake’s performance at Apollo Theater with SiriusXM concluded without so many records that would’ve been perfect for the night: “Cameras,” “Come Thru,” “Too Much,” “The Ride,” “Do Not Disturb,” “How Bout Now,” and “4PM In Calabasas,” just to name a few. Despite this, as fans, leaving the night with some level of disappointment would be a bit greedy on our part, especially considering the night’s theme of gratitude. I couldn’t help but perceive the night as a victory lap moment for Drake. The checking off the bucket list objective of it all was quite obvious, but beneath that, stood a man on a stage who is grateful for his accomplishments and supporters. For some years now, Drake has sought new challenges for himself to keep the fire alive as his longstanding title as rap’s king has started to lose its shine in his eyes. He makes this clear on “Is There More?” from Scorpion. “I mean you know I love a challenge, but challenged by who?” he ponders all to later rap, “Am I missin’ somethin’ that’s more important to find? / Like healin’ my soul, like family time / Is there more to life than just when I’m feelin’ alive?”

This night at Apollo Theater is seemingly one example of the more that Drake has searched for over the last half-decade. For his first act of 2023, Drake fulfilled the tradition of excelling in the legendary building on W 125th St. Furthermore, he lived up to his own legend with a loose journey through a career that reached levels of superstardom untouched by most. The end is probably a distance away for Drake, but the beginning of the end is maybe closer than we believe. When that time comes, let us not forgot the heights he reached to make it out of his mother’s basement and continuously “strike up more emotions” for his vast fan base, something he said he may do again in the near or distant future.

Over the weekend, Beyoncé’s concert in Dubai was the talk of social media — even among those who weren’t in attendance. Although fans weren’t supposed to record, naturally, the Hive kept fans informed, posting videos, reactions, and even the setlist from the coveted concert, which reportedly made the Renaissance singer $24 million.

Highlights of the show included Beyoncé bringing her daughter Blue Ivy on stage to perform “Brown Skin Girl” and performing with a Lebanese precision dance group for a remixed version of Naughty Girl that included Panjabi MC’s “Mundian To Bach Ke” instrumental and verse (a sly reference to her husband Jay-Z, who appeared on the remix, “Beware Of The Boys,” in 2002).

By all accounts, it was an unusual show for Beyoncé, who is usually known for her elaborate choreography. It was reported by an attendee that the normally exuberant singer was recovering from foot surgery, which could explain the lower-key, stand-and-deliver performance in contrast to her usual kinetic shows. You can see the full setlist from the private show, which spanned much of her solo career, below.

1.”At Last”
2. “XO”
3. “Flaws And All”
4. “Ave Maria”
5. “Halo”
6. “Brown Skin Girl”
7. “Be Alive”
8. “Otherside”
9. “Bigger”
10. “Spirit”
11. “Freedom”
12. “I Care”
13. “Beautiful Liar”
14. “Crazy In Love”
15. “Countdown”
16. “Naughty Girl”
17. “Drunk In Love”