Most of the tributes for Ray Liotta, who passed away this week at 67, were centered around his performance Goodfellas. Rightly so: it’s one of the greatest (and most rewatchable) movies of all-time. But there are other gems in Liotta’s filmography, including Something Wild, Killing Them Softly, and Narc. The 2002 cop thriller got him an Independent Spirit Award nomination — and the chance to “have a go” at Tom Cruise.
Narc was financed by Cruise/Wagner Productions, Tom Cruise and his agent Paula Wagner’s production company, but it took a risky gamble to get that money. “Tom Cruise wanted to have dinner with us,” writer and director Joe Carnahan told Rolling Stone. “So we go to Giorgio’s [in Los Angeles], and the thing about Ray is, he wasn’t like a tequila guy. His drink of choice was Chablis [wine] and crushed ice. That was his jam.”
As Liotta is getting tipsy, “he decides he’s gonna have a go at Tom. He wants to get argumentative with the biggest movie star in the world,” Carnahan said. Cruise/Wagner Productions was coming off the success of Mission: Impossible 2 and The Others, but Liotta told Cruise, “C’mon, Tom, let’s cut to it. You guys are not necessarily doing that great as a company… You need a movie like this.” Carnahan continued:
“Ray’s whole thing is basically: ‘YOU need Narc, we don’t need you.’ We leave, and I’m just apoplectic, like ‘What in the f*ck are you doing going after Tom Cruise?! He’s Tom Cruise!’ And Ray says, ‘We got the hot movie! C’mon!… I’m testing him. I want to see if he’s up to it!”
He was up for it: Cruise/Wagner acquired the rights to Narc, and the “Sundance darling,” as Carnahan called it, received a wide release and doubled its budget. The lesson here is: Ray Liotta was more daring than you or I will ever be. And much, much cooler.
When Olivia Rodrigo announced the dates for her first-ever US tour, it didn’t take long for a minor uproar to occur. While she was playing venues whose size was considerable for anyone touring for the first time, including two nights at the 6K capacity Greek Theater in Los Angeles this week, they also didn’t match the demand. They sold out lightning fast, with many Rodrigo fans missing the chance to see her on this first go-around. The flipside would have been a Harry Styles-esque residency (the pop megastar is playing 15 arena shows in Los Angeles later this year), but Styles is three albums and a boyband career in. Rodrigo has 11 solo songs outside of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series to her name.
On Wednesday night, at the penultimate show of this American jaunt, it became clear that her touring strategy was quite wise. Not only because she just doesn’t have the amount of material to necessitate an arena-level production — even playing all of her landmark debut, Sour, an HSM:TM:TS cut, and a couple covers barely filled an hour — but the need to present herself in a reasonably sized space to connect with her fans proved essential. At the Greek, Rodrigo was able to look her fans in the eye, hear them singing back every lyric with such intensity that she sometimes felt more like a conductor than a performer, and relish the moment she’s spent 19 years preparing for. While the show might not have sold the maximum amount of tickets that it was capable of selling, the performance was constructed to be the best experience possible for both the artist and the lucky audience members who scored seats.
Philip Cosores
One thing that we can say definitively is that the framing of the tour has nothing to do with her readiness. The Rodrigo that took the stage on Wednesday would feel at home in a club or a stadium, playing an afternoon festival set or headlining Coachella. She moved around the stage with total command, a rock star and a pop star at the same time, and never for a second demonstrated any uncertainty that she was acing the assignment. Early in the set, she spoke about her own insecurity as a young woman, noting that coming to terms with insecurity that is a part of being human and something that every person in the audience had in common. Rodrigo knows that honesty about her teenage heatbreaks, struggles, and myriad emotions are what make her so engaging as an artist. But, it’s the ability to transcend them that make her a knockout of a performer.
Because of its compact nature, the show didn’t have lulls. The hits played like the hits that they are, and the non-hits and covers, well, they also played like hits. There wasn’t a bathroom break song, while tunes such as “Happier,” “Favorite Crime,” and “Traitor” all were impactful enough that they could be heard sung by fans all the way back to the parking lot at the end of the night. And if you ever need to have your breath taken away, just witness 6,000 people yelling “like a damn sociopath” in unison.
Philip Cosores
Last year, with the release of Sour, a lot was made about who the album was for. People tripped over themselves arguing whether or not it was okay for grown-ups (or men in general) to like Olivia Rodrigo, and it all got very dumb, very quickly. In person, Rodrigo fans come in all ages and sizes, but it would also be silly to not acknowledge that the teens (and straight-up children) should be treated as the VIPs for these events, with the rest of us being engaged fans, but still guests in their church. Tiny little Olivia cosplay outfits were everywhere as parents, aunts, and grandfathers escorted their young ones to their seats, with the kids breaking into little pods of adolescent angst and palpable joy. It was a show designed for people feeling the biggest emotions at extreme volumes, with Rodrigo positioning herself as a guide through these murky waters. The message: I’m not that different from you, our feelings are both completely individual and universal at the same time, and though we might look back at these emotions as overdramatic in the future, they are valid and true in the moment.
Though Olivia may throw in a few swears here and there, the ultimate feeling was that the young women in the audience were in good hands with Rodrigo as a role model. All night, it was hard not to be impressed by the sense of community. Opener Holly Humberstone, another excellent young songwriter, received an enthusiastic response from the crowd, who even gave her a phone flashlight display rarely seen for an opener, leaving Humberstone genuinely moved by the reception. Celebrities like James Cordon and Tate McRae were treated like royalty, with fans forming selfie lines to get pics with the audience (Billie Eilish was also spotted in attendance, but understandably she had to take more precautions from mixing with the crowd). And when it was all said and done, the fans gathered up bits of confetti by the handful to go with their Sour tour sweatshirts and Sour bucket hats.
For Rodrigo and her fans, every aspect of the night was treated as holy, its impact surely lasting long after the lights turned on and the venue emptied. It was pretty dang cool.
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Neil Young has a lot of unreleased music in his vaults, some of which he’s about to unveil: This summer, he’s going to share the album Toast with Crazy Horse, out via Reprise on July 8. It was recorded in 2001 at San Francisco’s Toast Studios, and the single “Standing In The Light Of Love” is out now.
The reason the Spotify protester held onto the album because it was “so sad that I couldn’t put it out,” he wrote. He continued:
“I just skipped it and went on to do another album in its place. I couldn’t handle it at that time. 2001.
John Coltrane, one of my heroes, made some music at ‘Toast’ studio back in the day. It may have been called ‘Coast’ then, but maybe not. The name changed a few times back and forth. It was on Mission in SF. The back door opened onto an alley. It was so stuffy in there that we left the door open until one day we saw rats coming in and out. After that, we just went outside for a smoke.
The music of Toast is about a relationship. There is a time in many relationships that go bad, a time long before the break up, where it dawns on one of the people, maybe both, that it’s over. This was that time.”
Listen to “Standing In The Light Of Love” above. Check out the album art and tracklist below.
Reprise
1. “Quit”
2. “Standing In The Light Of Love”
3. “Goin’ Home”
4. “Timberline”
5. “Gateway Of Love”
6. “How Ya Doin’?”
7. “Boom Boom Boom”
As Abbott Elementary, a very good show, continues to receive accolades for its breakout first season that locked down an impressive 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, creator Quinta Brunson has been making the interview rounds to talk about the smash sitcom and about teachers getting the job done despite the struggles of teaching at an inner-city Philadelphia school.
While talking to The Wrap (prior to the Uvalde shooting), Brunson had nothing but love and respect for how teachers everywhere “just have to teach these kids.” As Brunson explains, “they just have to” despite everything that’s going on from underfunded school districts to the bleak and depressing realities of the world:
And I think in my life, I was getting a little exhausted of having the time and the space and the energy to talk about politics 24/7. My teachers don’t have that time. They are affected by the political decisions that are made, but at the end of the day, they have to do that job. They have to go home, they have to do that job. That’s it. End of story. And I think that it is fascinating. I value it very much, not because I think it should be the case, but because it is the case.
Finding comedy and “humanity” in those tough moments is what Abbott Elementary is all about. “Other shows or movies might show them as, ‘Woe is me’ in the school, but that’s not how many people are,” Brunson said. “They find their joy, they find their fun, they find their funny. You would think nobody ever laughs in a hospital, but you’ll go in there and see people, and that’s the kind of weird beauty and sickness of humanity. But I find it to be really resilient.”
Of course, Brunson slipped into comedy mode by bluntly revealing why she could never be a teacher. “I always felt, which is horrible, ‘They don’t make enough money. I can’t be one. I’m not that virtuous or good or patient,’” Brunson said before quickly adding. “Which is why I think they should get paid more.”
In the wake of Ray Liotta’s untimely death, his co-stars and Hollywood legends have been reacting to the news. One of Liotta’s best roles was his portrayal of real-life mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorcese’s legendary 1990 film Goodfellas, which snagged dozens of prestigious award nominations, and one Oscar win, and also gave us some of Hollywood’s most iconic comebacks.
Scorcese made a statement to People in which he praises the “gifted” actor.
I’m absolutely shocked and devastated by the sudden, unexpected death of Ray Liotta. He was so uniquely gifted, so adventurous, so courageous as an actor. Playing Henry Hill in Goodfellas was a tall order, because the character had so many different facets, so many complicated layers, and Ray was in almost every scene of a long, tough shoot. He absolutely amazed me, and I’ll always be proud of the work we did together on that picture. My heart goes out to his loved ones, and it aches for his loss, way too early.
Several more of Liotta’s costars have been paying tribute to the late actor, who allegedly died in his sleep while in the Dominican Republic. His on-screen wife Lorraine Bracco made a moving post on Twitter: “I am utterly shattered to hear this terrible news about my Ray,” Bracco said. “I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is Goodfellas. Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”
Co-star Robert De Niro reacted to the news in another statement, “I was very saddened to learn of Ray’s passing. He is way too young to have left us. May he rest in peace.”
Liotta was busy up until his death, most recently filming Dangerous Watersalongside Eric Dane earlier this month. He also starred in last year’s The Sopranos prequel movie, The Many Saints Of Newark.
In recent days, rumors have been swirling that Taylor Swift could pop up in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Specifically, fans noticed that Swift’s name turned up on the IMDb page for the show’s upcoming 400th episode, which is titled “Out Of Blood.” The credit was later removed, but the show’s star certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Swift pop up at Grey-Sloan Memorial.
At an event promoting the 400th episode, Extra asked Pompeo if a Swift cameo could happen and she responded, “I think she’s pretty busy, but that would be fun. I would love it.”
Making an appearance on Grey’s would likely be a dream come true for Swift, since she’s been a fan of the long-running medical drama for years. In 2008, Swift’s “White Horse” appeared on the second episode of the show’s fifth season. In a video of her seeing that scene for the first time, she’s beyond excited.
Later, in 2015, Swift got Pompeo to appear in her “Bad Blood” video. Then, in 2019, she posed for an Entertainment Weekly photo in a pin-covered jacket, one of which featured Pompeo and Sandra Oh (in character as Meredith Grey and Christina Yang).
Gary Payton II has missed the past nine games after fracturing his left elbow in the opening minutes of Game 2’s Western Conference Semifinals between the Golden State Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies. Dillon Brooks committed a hard, unnecessary foul against him during a fast break, which brought Payton to the ground on an awkward fall and caused him to fracture his elbow.
According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Payton is progressing toward a return in the NBA Finals. Golden State advanced to the Finals with a 120-110 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in Thursday’s Game 5.
“There’s optimism he will be back in the lineup as soon as Game 1 next Thursday,” Charania said. “The Warriors’ do-it-all defensive stalwart is on the cusp of a return.”
Warriors guard Gary Payton II (elbow fracture) is expected to return in the NBA Finals, sources say. Here’s how soon: pic.twitter.com/6TaaQri0Wc
The Warriors will face the winner of the Boston Celtics-Miami Heat series. Game 6 is Friday night and Boston holds a 3-2 lead, looking to closeout the series on its home turf.
Payton, 29, enjoyed a career year, breaking into Golden State’s rotation. He showcased his elite defense and versatile off-ball offense. In 71 regular season games, he averaged 7.1 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 steals on 67.9 percent true shooting. His return would be a massive boost to the Warriors’ perimeter defense against Boston’s multifaceted scoring attack.
Supernatural fans were thrilled when creator Eric Kripke managed to, as showrunner of The Boys, re-team with Jensen Ackles for Season 3 of the Amazon show. Ackles hit the weights hard to train for his role as Soldier Boy (a Captain America parody) and should antagonize the heck out of Homelander in the coming episodes. It should be a real trip to watch Antony Starr’s marvelous facial expressions as a result of this impending conflict, and let’s hope that the show can live up to its reputation as one of the most genre-bending and unapologetic swings in the superhero realm.
To that end, though, viewers wondered whether another Supernatural actor, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, might also join the gang. Kripke spoke with Entertainment Weekly and communicated that he’d really like this to happen. However, it’s not in the cards because Morgan is simply too in demand (especially within The Walking Dead universe) these days. From EW:
“Sad for me, happy for him: He’s currently the lead, along with Lauren Cohan, on the Walking Dead spin-off,” Kripke says. “So, schedule-wise, I don’t know. We might still remain star-crossed, unfortunately, because I did ask. We had a role come up, and my first question was, ‘Well, is Jeffrey available?’”
Morgan is, as TWD zombie-heads know, revving up for Isle of the Dead, in which his Negan and Lauren Cohan (with hatchet apparently firmly buried) will travel to New York City. The show’s marked for a 2023 debut, and with the Daryl-Carol shakeup elsewhere in the universe, it’s now up to Negan and Maggie to save the day. And maybe those Rick Grimes movies will actually happen someday, too. Fingers crossed.
When kids are growing up they love to see themselves in the dolls and action figures. It adds a special little spark to a shopping trip when you hear your child say “it looks just like me.” The beaming smile and joy that exudes from their little faces in that moment is something parents cherish, and Mattel is one manufacturer that has been at the forefront of making that happen. It has created Barbies with freckles, afro puffs, wheelchairs, cochlear implants and more. The company has taken another step toward representation with its first transgender doll.
Laverne Cox, openly transgender Emmy award winning actor and LGBTQ activist, is celebrating her 50th birthday May 29, and Mattel is honoring her with her very own Barbie doll. The doll designed to represent Cox is donned in a red ball gown with a silver bodysuit. It also has accessories like high heels and jewelry to complete the look. Cox told Today, “It’s been a dream for years to work with Barbie to create my own doll.” She continued, “I can’t wait for fans to find my doll on shelves and have the opportunity to add a Barbie doll modeled after a transgender person to their collection.”
Cox has spent her career breaking barriers and being a role model for transgender people who may not have had the courage to reach for their dreams. Seeing someone on the screen that represents their struggle winning awards and being accepted could be the push someone needs to step out of their comfort zone. But Cox wasn’t always so confident. The reason it was so important for her to have her own Barbie doll came from a conversation she had with her therapist around the shame she felt growing up.
u201cItu2019s giving u201cMay the fourth be with youu201d but sexy ud83dudda4n u2026n#maythe4 #maythe4thbewithyou #TransIsBeautifulu201d
Recalling the conversation in her interview, Cox said, “I was telling my therapist how I was really shamed by my mother when I was a kid when I wanted to play with a Barbie doll but I was denied. And I had a lot of shame and trauma about that,” Cox said. “And my therapist said to me, ‘It is never too late to have a happy childhood.’ She said, ‘Go out and buy yourself a Barbie and play with her. There’s a little kid that lives inside of you. Give her space to play.’ And I did.”
In an attempt to help our kids grow up happy, parents will make mistakes. After it was revealed to her that Cox felt shamed for her love of dolls as a child, Cox’s mother attempted to correct her previous misstep. The actor revealed that her mother started buying her Barbie dolls as gifts. “My mother bought me a Barbie doll. And on my birthday, my mother bought me another Barbie doll. For the next several years, she would always give me Barbies,” Cox said.
u201cLaverne Cox Honored with Special Tribute Collection Barbie Doll https://t.co/w4TgDiBfx5u201d
Cox continued, “Barbie has been a really healing experience for me as an adult and I hope Barbie fans of all ages can find healing and inspiration in this doll,”
As the U.S. reels from yet another horrendous school massacre, barely on the heels of the Buffalo grocery store shooting and the Laguna Woods church shooting reminding us that gun violence follows us everywhere in this country, I find myself in a familiar state of anger and grief and frustration. One time would be too much. Every time, it’s too much. And yet it keeps happening over and over and over again.
I’ve written article after article about gun violence. I’ve engaged in every debate under the sun. I’ve joined advocacy groups, written to lawmakers, donated to organizations trying to stop the carnage, and here we are again. Round and round we go.
It’s hard not to lose hope. It would be easy to let the fuming rage consume every bit of joy and calm and light that we so desperately want and need. But we have to find a balance.
When we have inhumanity violently shoved in our faces, we have to be reminded of our humanity. When we’ve witnessed the worst of us, we need to see who and what we can be at our best. When senseless, heinous acts turn the world upside down, we need to be reminded of what it looks like right-side up.
These weekly roundups of joy often include gratuitously adorable animal videos and such, and I would argue that there’s a place for such lightheartedness under normal circumstances. But this week, I want to focus on us, on the goodness and beauty of everyday humanity. To remind us of what we’re supposed to be—and what we still are—despite the horrors perpetrated by a handful of people.
If you’re looking for reminders of our humanity right now, whether it’s people doing good or good things about people, here are some simple things to get you started.
1. The beauty of forming unexpected connections with perfect strangers.
u201cOne man at this coffee shop just sneezed, the guy next to him said bless you, he said thanks and asked u201chey, what are you working on?u201d and now they are discussing Roman history in depth, both delighted with their new friend, itu2019s the most beautiful thing Iu2019ve ever seen???u201d
Humans also help out strangers—even ones they’ll never actually meet. Summer Clayton is the “father” of 2.4 million “kids” and he couldn’t be more proud. Read the full story here.
3. Andy Grammer and PS22 remind us of the power of music, especially when we make it together.
And they did it with a sweet song about being there for one another, no less.
“Children singing has such a special power,” wrote Grammer in his Facebook post. “I personally choked up multiple times throughout the day. The unbridled excitement and giddiness of an elementary school mixed with the sincerity and reverence they brought to this song was too much for me to handle.”
4. Humans help out struggling penguin babies with adorable stuffed surrogates.
Zookeepers have stepped in to help care for the newest inhabitants of the zoo’s Penguin Beach after it was discovered their parents were struggling with caring for them. The keepers have become the penguins’ stand-in parents, hand-rearing the little penguins in the zoo’s nursery and using stuffed surrogates for the babies to snuggle with.
Why is anthropomorphizing vegetables so hilarious?
8. The human instinct—and ability—to express ourselves through dance is just amazing.
May 25 was National Tap Dancing Day, so seems like a perfect time to dust off the “Tap” Challenge Scene with some of the most iconic tap dancers in the history of Hollywood. Look what humans can do. It’s a marvel.
9. The utterly pure, gushing expression of love from this wee one to their baby sister.
10. And this reminder of life as it should be—and can be—for our kids.
u201cThe teachers at the school nearby are throwing an outdoor kindergarten dance party with the music turned all the way up (they usually only do this on the last day of school). They look exhausted. The kids are, and I cannot stress this enough, DELIRIOUS with joy.u201d
I hate to yank us back to the present reality, but this is such a beautiful and fitting response to it. In the midst of our grief, we can create a space for joy and revel in it. Turn up the music. Let those babies dance till they’re delirious.
It’s what humans do.
As we navigate the awful, let’s keep looking for and lifting up and sharing the good.
Take care, everyone.
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