How to Survive Having an Internet-Famous Relative

It’s 2019, we’re all helplessly addicted to our phones, and mainstream pop-culture is finally starting to catch up. From influencer satire Ingrid Goes West to horror films like Unfriended, in the past few years, shows and movies are finally reflecting the new technology-centric, social-media-dominated world we’re living in. TV’s latest attempt to tackle our brave new era of total social-media immersion is The Other Two, a new Comedy Central sitcom written by former SNL head writers Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly, which focuses an oft-neglected population of the internet-celeb ecosystem: their family members.

In the very funny new sitcom out today — billed by Vulture as the year’s first great comedy — two dirtbag older siblings are forced to reckon with their preteen brother Chase (a.k.a. ChaseDreams) becoming a YouTube celebrity after his song “I Wanna Marry U At Recess” goes viral. While Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke) do get jealous of their younger brother, who makes more on one sponsored post than they make at work in months, they also support him and love him, and are determined to protect him from the cutthroat machinations and unpredictable vicissitudes of online stardom. But what is it really like to have your sibling, partner, or child become internet famous? We called up nine people to hear about the perks and pitfalls of having a YouTuber or Influencer across from you at the family dinner table.

Merray, 27, sister of Mina @itsminagerges.

My brother went viral doing these re-creations of celebrity pictures; for instance, he made a picture of Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala and mimicked her dress out of garbage bags and straws and plastic plates. My background is Egyptian and we’re Coptic orthodox, which is a very traditional and and conservative sec of the Eastern Orthodox church. Homosexuality is not an accepted identity. My parents didn’t know he was gay at the time and he went so viral that an Egyptian blog wrote about him and that’s how my parents found out. It hasn’t been easy on them. I was kind of in this weird position where I was like trying to protect him from them and trying to protect them from him. My mom’s siblings cut her off when they found out.

Right now he’s sort of pivoting in his brand toward being a body-positive advocate. Because when he was doing these re-creations he’d get a lot of shitty comments, like a lot of body-shaming about his hair and weight. When he went back on Instagram he decided he wanted to use his voice to speak out about this thing, especially how it affects men.

For a long time, all the press he did via email, I edited every single thing that he sent to a journalist or an editor. In a way I was sort of his unpaid manager and public image consultant. It was a lot of work. Recently I had to make the decision to take a step back and take space from the whole thing because it became so complicated to manage my relationship with him and my parents, and at some point I had to be like: he’s a smart adult and he can handle his shit.

Sarah-Louise, wife of YouTuber SteveDangle.

My husband is a huge fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team and he started making these videos after each game, and they sort of took off and he turned his fandom into his job. He has close to 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. His persona online is that he makes these very passionate screaming videos. Before we got the foam walls, oh God it was awful. We ended up soundproofing the basement because sometimes he’ll have to make the videos the night of the game, and I have to get up at 6:30 a.m. for work in the morning cause I’m a teacher. And he’s literally screaming at the camera and the sound trickles through the vents like BLAH BLAH BLAH THE LEAFS and I’m like — that’s not gonna fly. I’ll just send him a text message being like: shut up. He screams like a raging lunatic. Especially if they lose.

Michael, 20, brother of Ali @healthishell.

I don’t always enjoy everything she puts on Instagram. For example, there’s some promiscuous posts. She’s my sister and if there’s a photo of her in her bra, I don’t want to see it. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I walk out to the living room and it looks like it’s a film set. There’s people talking and I’m just like: I’m too hungover for this. I need to be careful, let me tell you. I’ll just be dancing around listening to music in my underwear and I’m like Ali why is this on your Instagram right now, 20,000 people are fucking seeing this? But in hindsight it’s funny. Still I try to reap the benefits. I get free seltzer and stuff. And if we ever go out I’m like yo didn’t you just made $600 the other day, why am I paying for this?

Hunter Havens, husband of YouTuber Julia Havens.

Once she decided she wanted YouTube to be a full-time job, we decided to move back to Texas to really pursue this thing head on and work from home. And that’s when things really picked up, and I recognized that it was too much for her to do alone. Now it’s become very much a team effort where I’m spending six hours a day, if not more, working on the channel. Then, once we started vlogging it just kind of naturally happened that I became more of a character in it.

One thing that’s happened as a result of the vlogging is I almost can’t be in a video without putting on some moisturizer or eye cream because it happened in two or three videos and then someone picked up on it and now it’s like oh that’s that’s part of Hunter’s life is that he moisturizes in the morning. It’s now part of my role in the script. At first it was a little embarrassing but now it’s like: whatever.

I would say she puts about 60 percent of the effort and I put in the other 40 percent. And yeah, the channel is the name of my wife. It’s Julia, it’s not Hunter and Julia. But now I’m in a ton of the videos and I’ve definitely become like a larger part of the channel and so the title of the channel doesn’t give me any hard feelings or anything like that. There’s not tension so much as like, jealousy, for example that this weekend she’s in L.A. collaborating with other influencers and I am at home working my normal life. I’d much rather be in L.A. with her, but I know it’s for the business.

Toni, mother of Allie of @allieandsam.

We were visiting the girls at a celebration for their engagement, and we were at a restaurant and the waitress said, “Hey are you guys the moms?” cause they all recognize them. And she said “that would make a good Instagram account,” and we joked about it, and the girls across the table said “hey, you should do it,” you know people need to hear about families and moms in particular, and people need to hear supportive and loving messages. So we started @momsofallieandsam it on January 1. We’re both learning a lot. Allie and Sam are a same-sex couple, and their mission from the start was to inspire people and model acceptance. Our account is to show our support if there’s anybody out there who wants to chat — we have had some lovely messages from young people who are struggling to tell their parents or have asked us about the things that we dealt with.

We’re of a different era and age, and I’ve actually had to learn Instagram. I’m like, where do I find a picture, how do you post a picture, why does it cut peoples’ heads off? I had no idea what hashtags meant. I still don’t really understand. Our husbands are chuckling about it, now they’re joking that they have to start “the dads of Allie and Sam.” I don’t know if that’s going to work.

Ex-boyfriend of an Instagram influencer.

I met her at a wedding; she was very flamboyant and talkative, we got along really quickly. The first four days we’re away at this resort and I’m not on my phone so I don’t really know who she is or what she does. We finally added each other on social media about a week or two after hooking up at the wedding and at first it was oh, she posts a lot of stories. And then I started to realize oh she puts her entire life on Instagram and Facebook. I got to the point where I’d see her after work and I’d kind of know what she did all day. It became very annoying. It got to the point where I was like: Okay so I’m going to mute you on Instagram; I want to see you at the end of day and not really know that you know you were emotional over this and over that. At first she was very okay with that. And then as it got further into the relationship she said listen, I think I should be with someone that’s encouraging me to put content out. And I was like: well, that’s not me. There’s videos of her at 4 o’clock in the morning eating a hamburger dancing to the music and thinking you know why, what are you doing?

After we broke up, all my friends would start sending me her stories like a dude did you see this today. After we broke up I was in her story, she said “oh I just went through a mini breakup” and that was an absolute nightmare.

Andre, father of Skyler @diningwithskyler.

I  knew she was onto something when she was 21 and in her last semester of college and the Four Seasons hotel chain called and asked her to come and talk to their executives about how to use social media more effectively. And I thought, oh my lord, a very reputable hotel chain is calling my daughter on how to use social media more effectively. So the light went on in my head.

I am not into social media myself, but we’ve had some moments when we’ve been out to dinner or we’ve been on the street and people have recognized her or what she does. Once we were in the Palm Beach area for a family vacation and Skyler was posting from this restaurant we were at; I don’t know how it works, maybe a hashtag? And a little later in the dinner somebody comes by and says “So you’re Skyler Bouchard.” I’m like “What the heck!” I thought he was upset with her. But he was able to identify the exact table we’re sitting at and he wanted to meet her and show her the kitchen and that whole bit. Another time — I’m a judge in this area and I was at a Bench and Bar conference in Delaware, and the person who introduced me says “this is SkylerBouchard’s father!”

Brother of an Instagram influencer.

In a sense I’m proud, but “eye-roll emoji” is how I feel sometimes. It takes so much time, the stories and the constant updates, it’s just so much work every day to try to be thinking about that constantly. It would exhaust me. Sometimes I’m kind of like: that’s not you. She and her husband go on vacation a lot and it looks really glamorous and they took 200 photos trying to get the right sunset.

Some of the times when I roll my eyes I’ll text my two other sisters in a three-way text and be like: oh my God, did you see her post, and we’ll have a laugh. We don’t hammer her in person, she’s a little sensitive. We’ll just be sarcastic like wowwww really interesting post yesterday or hey how does your husband feel about that post yesterday, pretty scandalous? Or it’s like the outfits she’s wearing. But I’m a boy so I’m allowed to roll my eyes about that anyway; my sisters have to be a little more careful.

Kim, mother of Charlotte and Sophie @yin2myyang.

At the moment I’m kind of their momager. Think of me as a mini Kris Jenner. I help them with getting product and brands to sponsor them and also help with billing, I also try to keep the peace sometimes cause it’s sisters working together. There are times they get really on each other’s nerves. Sometimes I do the communicating for them — I’m like Charlotte calm down, Sophie calm down, it’s just a job, let’s keep focused. Both girls have a different way of approaching this. One likes to be very professional about it and one’s more fly by the creative wheel, and that causes a lot of stress.
Think of me like a human resources department.

My husband [who used to be a President at Coach] is about to get involved because he recently retired and with that he will bring a whole new aspect to the blog because he will bring his own style of work and his own work ethic which is very high. One way that’s happening is he’s suggesting we have more of a more of an on-paper plan. I definitely see this as a lifelong career. I think eventually they’ll have families and whatnot and I think this is something they can fit into it. Creating content just a part of our lives now.

from Vulture Latest News http://nymag.com/thecut/2019/01/the-other-two-and-the-reality-of-internet-famous-relatives.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Welcome to Puberty TV

When I was in ninth grade, I sat with my peers in a dingy basement classroom in some forgotten corner of the school, trying to hold back giggles as we watched our gym teacher roll a condom onto a banana. It’s pretty much the only thing I remember from my high school sex-ed class, which glossed over topics such as masturbation, female pleasure, and queer sexuality in favor of teaching us how to protect fruit from STDs. Mostly, I learned about sex from the teenagers on TV and in movies — a more explicit, if still incomplete, course of study. From Degrassi, I learned you can get gonorrhea from giving a blow job. From The O.C., I learned that even “straight” girls are susceptible to the charms of Olivia Wilde with a purple streak in her hair. And when I started having sex, I learned that most of the stuff I had been taught was best forgotten in favor of the messiness of experiencing it all for myself.

Even though the statistics say that they’re having less sex than previous generations, today’s teens seem far better equipped to understand their nascent sexualities, at least when it comes to pop-culture. In schools across the country, the state of sex education is dire; only 24 states mandate sex-ed, and only half of high schools teach all the topics recommended by the CDC. But on TV, we’re living through a golden era of sex-positive representations of puberty and adolescence, and these shows stand to reshape a generation of young peoples’ understandings of their sexual selves. The most recent offering in this genre is Netflix’s Sex Education, which premiered last weekend and shows the range of teenage sexual experiences without ever casting judgment upon them or turning them into either a fantasy or cautionary tale. I wish I had seen it when I was a teenager.

In Sex Education, Asa Butterfield plays Otis, the son of sex and relationship therapist Jean, played by Gillian Anderson. They live in an idyllic country home filled with paintings of vulvas and illustrations from the Kama Sutra in some unnamed rural English town. When Otis’s classmate Maeve (Emma Mackey) realizes that Jean’s wisdom has trickled down to her son and given him erotic insight beyond his years, she encourages him to start moonlighting as a sex therapist to his peers and they begin charging their classmates his advice. “It’s weird,” one student tells him. “You’re like my age, but wise. You’re like my mum in a little man’s body.” Otis himself shifts easily into his sex therapist persona — wise, patient, understanding — despite his lack of personal sexual experience (Otis has his own sexual hang-ups and “can’t wank,” so to speak).

What Otis’s personal issue proves is that insight doesn’t have to come from experience, but from a willingness to actually listen and take the sex lives of his peers seriously — something few teen shows have cared to do. His “clients” include a girl who doesn’t want to have sex with the lights on because she hates her body, a Christian teen who can’t accept her boyfriend’s sex life prior to his born-again conversion, a newly out lesbian couple struggling with chemistry, a boy who’s confusing romance with stalking, and many others. When a classmate describes how she’s “always performing” what she thinks her male partners want, Otis suggests she spend some time exploring what she likes on her own (“you’re prescribing me a wank, doc?” she shoots back). The rest of his advice is equally sex-positive and non-judgmental, and the show itself manages to dive deep into the characters’ sex lives without ever feeling voyeuristic or creepy. (The actors, FWIW, are mostly in their 20s).

Many episodes of Sex Education take on this investigative, mystery of the week framework, except instead of solving crimes à la Veronica Mars, they are solving the psychological and emotional riddles Otis was raised (rightly) to believe are the roots of most sexual issues. The show spends a lot of time exploring Otis’ classmates’ inner lives, presenting sexuality as a part of the intricate web of people’s larger personalities and psychologies, instead of a garnish thrown on top to titillate or amuse.

Teenage sexuality has hardly been absent from TV, but its depiction has tended to veer between one of two poles — either idealized, melodramatic romance that doesn’t come close to capturing the sloppy awkwardness of real life, or quasi After-School Specials replete with sexual assault, diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and all of intercourse’s worst consequences. Other shows and movies have succeeded in depicting the “real” sex lives of teens, like Skins and Thirteen, but these tended to focus on the rarefied, sexually advanced cool kids. The kids on Sex Education are diverse — in race and sexuality and experience level and personality and psychology — and their stories are treated with equal amounts of nuance and sensitivity. Sure, depictions of sexual assault are important — and recent shows like 13 Reasons Why and Sweet/Vicious have dealt sensitively with this dark subject matter, but there’s value in showing teenage sexuality not as a danger, but as something normal and relatable that everyone has to learn how to deal with.

Sex Education isn’t the only show exploring the smelly, hairy recesses of puberty on TV in ways we’ve never seen before. Big Mouth, the animated Netflix comedy starring Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, follows a group of middle-schoolers aided through the wilds of puberty by creatures called “hormone monsters.” It’s easy to dismiss a show that has more than its fair share of cartoon dicks, but Big Mouth is funny and often deeply insightful, showing how the chaotic whirl of puberty can have very real emotional stakes, and insightfully depicting the differences between the female and male puberty experience. And next month, we’ll have Hulu’s PEN15, which features comedians Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine playing themselves as seventh graders, back in the year 2000, as they deal with all the growing pains of middle school. Big Mouth, a cartoon, and Pen15, with its Step Brothers–style casting, both innovate smart ways to be graphic about the realities of teen and preteen sexuality while never feeling creepy. Last year, I wrote praising films like The Tale and Eighth Grade for the way they make depictions of sexual assault more impactful by actually casting preteens; on the flip side, these shows eschew physical verisimilitude, and use humor to access psychological truths in a more in-depth manner than we’ve seen before.

What brought on this golden age of sex-positive teen shows? One reason might be that, as our culture grapples with all the ways sex and gender relations become skewed under patriarchy, show creators have a chance to explore the period of our lives where our ideas about sex were taking shape, and to rewrite them through a more feminist and sex-positive lens. All three of these shows have in-depth plotlines dealing with female masturbation, which has remained taboo on screen long after movies like American Pie and Superbad normalized male masturbation in film. In one episode of PEN15, Maya (the actors share the same names as their characters) discovers masturbation for the first time and we see how, awakened to her desires, everything begins to turn her on — an earlobe, an elbow, the lychees at the dinner table. When she finally confesses it to Anna, teary eyed, she confesses: “I’m like Sam [a male classmate who talks openly about masturbation], only I’m grosser cause I’m a girl. And I’m a pervert and I really shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.” Anna comforts her, admitting that she does it too. “Really?” says Maya, a smile of relief breaking across her face.

In an interview with Jessica Pressler for New York, co-creator Maya Erskine explains how much it would have meant to her as a young girl to see female masturbation treated with the same nonchalance afforded to men. “As a young girl, you don’t see that it’s okay,” Erskine says. “I mean, to this day I have to do it under the covers,” she says. “It’s ingrained in me. When I’m exposed, I feel a sense of shame.”

I am not a parent or parenting columnist, so I won’t weigh-in on whether these shows are appropriate for young teens. I think at very least they should be required viewing for parents of teenagers, as a reminder of how difficult and endless-feeling these years can be, and that empathy, openness and acceptance are the best tools to cope when the hormone monsters inevitably rear their horny heads. Still, I couldn’t help but wish I’d had them to watch when I was a teen, when my body seemed like an impossible-to-solve riddle, and when I, like Maya, would have done anything to know I wasn’t alone.

from Vulture Latest News http://nymag.com/thecut/2019/01/sex-education-big-mouth-and-the-golden-age-of-puberty-tv.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Willem Dafoe and His Old Friend Jerry Saltz Talk van Gogh

The actor Willem Dafoe and I knew each other back in the early 1980s, when he was already an outstanding actor at the downtown avant-garde Performing Garage and I was someone trying to be an artist — or anything — in that same growing scene. But we hadn’t seen much of one another before we sat down to talk about his riveting performance in At Eternity’s Gate, Julian Schnabel’s new movie about the last days of Vincent van Gogh, in which Dafoe plays the artist less as the tortured legend he has become in the popular imagination and more as the seeking, striving, ecstatic man he was in life.

Can I call you Willy?
You can call me Willy. Only certain people would always call me Willy. But I haven’t seen you in so long.

We started in the downtown art world together, two huge losers from the Midwest.
That’s true.

Do you remember I drove you and your son, Jack, home from the hospital as a newborn the day after he was born, in 1982?
I do. Crazy, crazy.

So I know you’ve spent a lifetime in the art world. What was your relationship to van Gogh before At Eternity’s Gate?
Pretty much like most people, even people outside of the art world.

What was he to you? Was it the romantic myth of the tortured artist?
I didn’t quite get him at first. I don’t want to brag and say I get him now, but through the film I have an intense relationship to his work now. One of the keys to approaching this movie was learning how to paint. That really changed how I see and specifically how I see his painting. I had to paint. We were shooting with a very fluid, loose camera. It didn’t make any sense at all practically. There was no cutting away before editing; there was no stunt painter. You see a lot of painting in the movie.

I love that process. It’s one of the most mysterious things you could see in the world, and this movie has a lot of that.
The most important thing was painting those shoes early in the movie.

I know all the works were re-created for the movie. It was you painting Shoes? I thought it was Schnabel.
The thing looks like shit for a long time. The colors look wrong. It’s not a likeness, doesn’t look like shoes, and then the marks accumulate and then boom — it becomes something. And it’s not a good likeness, but it captures the soul, captures the experience of those shoes, and the audience is there to see that boom.

Van Gogh is this amazing artist where you see the picture — the Shoes — and the marks of paint simultaneously.
I would say that’s fair.

And it’s almost miraculous how your mind is toggling between the two.
Yes. But that’s after some sort of training or experience. I always remember the first time Julian set me up. He just said, “See that cypress tree?” He said, “Paint that cypress tree.” I said “Okay.” I started to paint it, and I started to paint a tree and I was in a hurry to paint a tree. He came over, and he said, “Wait. You see those dark places, you see that black there — well, I don’t know whether it’s black, but you see that dark there, there, and there?” And he pointed out these areas, and he said, “Put that in.” I started to do that. He said, “You see that kind of yellow?” Where do you see yellow? I felt like a little kid — where do you see yellow? I started to do that, and I started to see it’s not about deconstruction. It’s about painting the light. That was a big impression. Maybe that’s A, B, C of painting, I don’t know. But for me — I’m not a painter, and coming to that was exciting.

In the movie, he talks about how the painting is there in nature. I don’t invent the painting; I just have to free it. That kind of looking at a tree — not running to call it a tree but seeing it as a swirl of vibration and relationship of marks kind of cracks open your sense of reality.

In what sense?
Sometimes you disappear into the action or you become part of the fabric of an activity or of a piece or a narrative or a picture. You know, it’s a quasi-religious experience. Then you come back to life. How do you reconcile those two feelings? How do you sustain that kind of sense of presence and engagement that you have sometimes through what you do and apply it to life? Not just to be a decent person but to be awake. That’s the main thing.

You know, in the movie they kind of grill him on this. “What do you think you can do?” Van Gogh basically says, “Wake them up to life.” “Do you think they’re asleep?” He says, “Yes, I do.”

I love that the movie changes our notion of van Gogh as a crazy man.
That idea of the tortured artist, that suffering is a prerequisite, is not something I feel comfortable with as I get older. When I was younger, yes, because you have to earn your sensibility. You often have to do that through some sort of crisis or duress. As you get older, I feel like grace is important, clarity is important. Conflict I’m not so interested in. I’m more interested in peace than anger now.

One oddity is you are 63. Van Gogh in the film is about 37.
Which I want to talk to you about because it pisses me off when people say this.

I thought I was the only one who noticed! And I didn’t even notice it until after.
I’ve heard it a couple of times because those internet trolls get on this shit. The truth is, think about it, Jerry. You’re a smart guy. I started thinking, 37, he was pretty beat-up. Thirty-seven in France in 1890. I did some research. I saw what the median age at death for men in France was at that time: 48. So he was not a young man.

I didn’t even notice it until preparing for this.
Also, I’m such a youthful 63.

You’ve played a lot of artists, oddly enough. I’m not going to count Jesus, but you played T. S. Eliot and—
Pasolini.

Pasolini in his last days.
When I was young, to say you were an artist was pretentious and a dirty word.

How so?
You come from the Midwest.

I know. I don’t come from art.
Artist was an elevated term for someone that was elite and operated in these circles of rich people. Your average blue-collar guy had no use for art because “My kid could draw that.”

You’ve talked about your brother taking a bullet for you: He became a surgeon, so you didn’t have the same pressure to get a real job. I was thinking about Theo and Vincent. Theo is in the real world. Actually, Theo works in the equivalent of the Gagosian Gallery. He’s an insanely connected man.

And van Gogh was not unknown in his own time. Far from it. Van Gogh is, in a way, the story of a poor and famous artist. Many, many artists in Paris knew every move van Gogh made. They didn’t necessarily love it, but a lot of them knew this Dutch guy was way out in front of the curve. It’s not a romantic story of a failure. Everybody knew he was pretty effing great.
And people don’t know that.

This movie begins to move the needle in the right direction.
I’m not sure the movie changes that so much, but Julian was very obsessed with that. Julian’s like, “He wasn’t unknown!” This thing about selling just one painting — he had contacts and people were talking about him.

You guys don’t make much of the ear cutting, which I also love.
Nor did he.

Nor did van Gogh.
He really said it was nothing. But for most people, that was the total proof that he was out of his mind, which is perfectly reasonable.

Absolutely. If you cut off your ear …
Not a good idea. I’m not going to do it.

Do you have a favorite van Gogh or two that you’ve walked off with in your heart?
Well, Shoes, because I didn’t have any relationship to them before and now I do. I also love the drawings.

Me too.
They’re so pure and they seem almost naïve, but they’re so wise and so clear that they aren’t showy. They’re beautiful, and to try to copy them—you don’t see it a lot in the movie, but I did practice those swirls of the cypress trees. For me, that brings you into another world. That is modern.

I think that is a top-of-the-line art-historical observation. I’ve often gotten mad. I think, Damn it, van Gogh, you’d already accomplished it in your drawings, you big dummy. It’s right there. You needed a little bit more time to absolutely work it out in your paintings. Although it’s in the paintings. Do you still go around … I used to see you in galleries.
It’s one of my favorite things. I probably learned more about acting from galleries and dance than I have from seeing theater or film.

How so?
Making marks. It’s all about an accumulation of actions that are an expression of your life. It’s not an interpretation. It’s not “We need yellow here, so I’m going to put yellow here.” It’s intuitive, and it’s a living thing.

*This article appears in the November 12, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/11/willem-dafoe-on-vincent-van-gogh-and-at-eternitys-gate.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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New Halloween Trailer Shows Michael’s Bloody Homecoming

Because not enough scary things are happening right now, let’s add some Halloween jump scares into the mix! What could be more horrifying than Michael Myers putting on his mask, and then casually dropping a handful of human teeth on bathroom tile? Halloween resets the horror franchise and returns to the original movie’s timeline: Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her iconic role as Laurie Strode, is waiting for Myers to return so she can get her revenge, and by waiting we mean she’s been planning for this showdown her entire traumatized life. See the new trailer above and the first one below, and then see Halloween in theaters on October 19.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/09/boo-the-halloween-trailer-is-here.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Senator John McCain Dead at 81

Senator John McCain, the iconic Republican senator, two-time presidential candidate, decorated Naval bomber pilot, and former prisoner of war in Vietnam, died at his Cornville, Arizona, home surrounded by his family late Saturday afternoon after a battle with brain cancer. He was 81, and is survived by his wife Cindy and seven children, including The View co-host Meghan McCain. His family had announced on Friday that he would discontinue his medical treatment.

My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years. He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved, in the the place he loved best.

Cindy McCain (@cindymccain) August 26, 2018

I love you forever - my beloved father

Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) August 26, 2018

Back in the U.S., McCain eventually decided to leave the Navy in 1981, but not before getting a taste of politics as the Navy’s Senate liaison. Believing he could accomplish more as a member of Congress, the celebrity war hero and new Arizona resident was elected to the House in 1982, serving two terms before successfully running for the Senate. McCain would go on to serve the remaining years of his life as a senator and develop a reputation as a conservative “maverick” on account of his tendency to challenge other Republicans and conservatives, as well as his personal stands on issues like immigration reform, bipartisan cooperation, and most famously, campaign finance reform. The most important legislative accomplishment of McCain’s career was the campaign finance reform bill he co-authored with Democrat Russ Feingold. It was eventually signed into law as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002.

The Senate, the United States, and the world are lesser places without John McCain. Nothing will overcome the loss of Senator McCain, but so that generations remember him I will be introducing a resolution to rename the Russell building after him.

Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 26, 2018

McCain also proudly worked to restore diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, and the two countries are now allies as a result. He ended up publicly forgiving his captors, then making several trips to the country after the reconciliation.

While the majority of his voting record in Congress reflected his conservatism, he did periodically vote against his party across a range of issues for a variety of reasons. Central to the “maverick” label, which McCain clearly relished, was the way in which seemed to make up his own mind on most political matters, even as heterodoxy became less and less acceptable on the post-Fox News (and post-Palin) American right. (Critics of McCain, on the other hand, argue that his views were more motivated by politics and self interest than his reputation suggested.) McCain was also widely liked and respected by many of the political journalists who covered him, which has led to occasionally outsized coverage of his ups and downs over the past few decades.

McCain ran for president in 2000, riding his infamous “Straight Talk Express” bus on the campaign trail and going up against GOP establishment candidate George W. Bush, who ultimately defeated him after a memorably vicious campaign. McCain ran again in 2008, winning the Republican nomination this time and fatefully selecting Alaska governor and subsequent right-wing mascot Sarah Palin as his running mate. He lost the general election to Barack Obama and returned to the Senate.

A statement from on the passing of his 2008 rival. They were different in virtually every way, but there’s no question they shared a respect.

Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) August 26, 2018

McCain had also been one of the only GOP lawmakers to consistently stand up to President Trump, earning regular retaliation from the president, who went so far as to challenge McCain’s status as a war hero and criticize him for allowing himself to be shot down and captured. Trump, who found a way to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, pointedly neglected to mention McCain’s name a few weeks ago while holding a signing ceremony for a military spending bill which was named after the senator as a tribute from his fellow lawmakers. McCain has also been one of the fiercest critics of the president’s unfounded skepticism about whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election, as well as his apparent admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Though he is not known for his expressions or understanding of empathy, Trump offered his sympathies to McCain’s family in a tweet on Saturday, but said nothing about McCain himself.

This tweet was sent via Twitter for iPhone. I compute a 11% chance it was written by Trump himself.

Trump or Not (@TrumpOrNotBot) August 26, 2018

He’ll also annoy Democrats in death. His now-vacant Senate seat will be filled by whomever Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Dacey, chooses to appoint for the remainder of McCain’s term. Had McCain resigned before June, the seat would have been filled via a special election this fall, but his decision to hold on to his seat has allowed the GOP to hold on to it too.

This post has been updated throughout.

from Vulture Latest News http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/senator-john-mccain-dead-at-81.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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The First Bohemian Rhapsody Trailer Will Definitely Rock You

The new trailer for the long-gestating Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody finally shows Freddie Mercury’s queerness. After some fans criticized the initial trailer (below) for straight-washing Mercury’s life, this new preview (above) shows the glamour and bisexuality of the Queen frontman, alluding to his relationships with both men and women. Bohemian Rhapsody will rock a theater near you on November 2.

The biopic itself has weathered multiple hiccups — including the firing of Bryan Singer as director for going MIA on set, and the loss of Sacha Baron Cohen as its original star. Now a very glam Rami Malek and his new British accent star as Freddie Mercury, re-creating all the legendary front man’s iconic looks (wigs! leather! jumpsuits!), statement performances (including his most famous Live Aid set), and cheeky humor — just you wait for the “Bohemian Rhapsody” sex joke.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/bohemian-rhapsody-trailer-see-rami-malek-at-freddie-mercury.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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The Pro-Life ‘Roe v. Wade’ Movie Sounds Like a Total Mess

Recently, a number of bizarre reports have emerged about a pro-life Roe v. Wade movie currently in production, including graphic scenes featuring “buckets of baby fetuses,” cameos by the likes of Tomi Lahren and Milo Yiannopolous, countless cast and crew members dropping out over the script’s explicit content, and, most recently, an on-set assault of a Daily Beast reporter who has been covering the film. Here’s everything we know about the controversial propaganda piece:

What the heck is this movie?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film — currently filming under a fake title — will chronicle “the 1973 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion” while featuring a “pro-life tilt,” which seems like a bit of an understatement.

“ROE V. WADE is the untold story of how people lied, how the media lied, and how the courts were manipulated to pass a law that has since killed over 60 Million Americans,” reads the film’s crowdfunding page on GoFundMe. It went into production this past June and has been shooting down in New Orleans.

Here’s a trailer:

What are some of the most egregious things in it?

Hoo boy. The Daily Beast obtained a copy of the script, which they describe as “riddled with typos, inaccuracies and misquotations” designed to advance a pro-life viewpoint.

For starters, the film reportedly frames the reproductive-rights movement as an elaborate racist conspiracy theory. One scene features Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, speaking to abortion-rights activist Lawrence Lader before she’s about to die. Her final words are “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. Larry, they can’t see this coming.” In including this (entirely fictitious) scene, the film echoes a popular conservative allegation — debunked here by Politifact — that Sanger was a white supremacist who wanted to use abortion to “kill black babies.”

The film also sounds pretty anti-Semitic (are you surprised?). Its villains are the leaders of the abortion rights movement, such as Lader and Betty Friedan, who the Daily Beast says are “depicted as a shady cabal of rich lefty Jews who meet in exotic locations like St. Croix and the Russian Tea Room to boast about the money they’re raking in through abortions —over daiquiris or pastrami sandwiches.” At one point, Lader claims “We control the media … They write whatever we tell them.”

The film ends with the notorious series of undercover videos taken by an anti-abortion group that fraudulently billed itself as “The Center for Medical Progress,” which purport to show that Planned Parenthood profits off of the sale of fetal tissue — a claim Planned Parenthood has vociferously and repeatedly denied.

Who’s making it?

The filmmakers are Nick Loeb and Cathy Allyn. Loeb, you may recall, was most recently in the news regarding a very public custody dispute he had with his former fiancée Sofia Vergara over her frozen embryos. Beyond that, Loeb has an interesting career history according to his Wikipedia page; it includes a smattering of minor acting and producing gigs, a job at Lehman Brothers (Loeb is a scion of the financial-giant Loeb and Lehman families), and a job on Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign. He also founded “the Crunchy Condiment Company,” which makes a fried onion topping called “Onion crunch.”

Allyn doesn’t have much of an online presence, but she appears to be a writer and producer who has in the past gone under the name Cathy Beckerman, producing a handful of independent horror and sci-films.

Who is in it?

Many of Hollywood’s most vocal social conservatives have signed on to the film, including Jon Voight and Robert Davi, who both play Supreme Court justices. Stacy Dash, Clueless star turned conservative pundit, will play Mildred Jefferson, who founded the National Right to Life Committee. Corbin Bernsen, John Schneider, Steve Guttenberg, Greer Grammer (Kelsey’s daughter), Joey Lawrence, Jamie Kennedy, and Loeb himself also have roles. The film is executive produced by Martin Luther King’s conservative niece Alveda King (within the film, MLK himself is falsely depicted as a pro-lifer).

Any hot cameos?

You betcha! Tomi Lahren and Milo Yiannopoulos both reportedly have cameos in the film, with Yiannopolous playing an abortion doctor who is “an Anglo-Jew from India, with an unusual habit of an awkward giggle at the end of every sentence.” One scene reportedly features him “coldly performing 32 abortions in five hours before bragging about his efficiency and profitability.”

These controversial casting decisions were kept secret from the rest of the cast, lest any of them drop out. “There are lots of surprising cameos from controversial people in the news that I can’t tell you about — or more people might walk off the set,” Loeb told THR.

How graphic is the film?

The film reportedly features “several graphic scenes depicting aborted fetuses.” In one sequence, police officers conduct a sting on an abortion doctor’s hotel room and discover “a dozen buckets of tiny fetuses and baby parts.”

While Loeb has said the film would be PG, the Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern says that based on what he’s read it would surely be R-rated or worse.

Did anyone drop out?

A number of cast and crew left the project after reading the script. Crew members have alleged that the filmmakers misrepresented the project to them, and that they handed out a “whitewashed synopsis” to contacts at different filming locations in order to be granted access. Both the director and assistant director quit on the first day (which is why Loeb and Allyn are now directing), as did the costumer, location manager, and several other crew members. The project also lost actors Stephen Baldwin (father of Hailey Baldwin, a.k.a. the soon-to-be Mrs. Bieber) and Kevin Sorbo, who dropped out after reading the script. If your movie is too conservative for Stephen Baldwin and Kevin Sorbo, that’s a pretty glaring red flag.

What’s the vibe on set like?

It sounds like a total nightmare. A number of universities have blocked the movie from filming, as did a synagogue that the film rented out for catering in New Orleans. Most recently, Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer says he was assaulted by a crew member and had his notes snatched from him while reporting on the film.

Per another crew member who spoke out anonymously, directorial incompetence has also been an issue:

“The first day of shooting, the actual director and the first AD quit. So then they decided that Cathy was going to be the main director, and she has very little experience, so she and Nick have no idea what they’re doing. Shots aren’t being set up right, and there have been communication problems with the cast … There was a moment where Joey Lawrence was trying to do a scene and Cathy said to him, ‘Now make a face like this,’ and he called her out and said, ‘That’s not what a director does. You tell me what I’m feeling and where I’m coming from, you don’t just say to make a face.’ A lot of actors are fed up with it because it’s amateur hour.”

According to a THR report yesterday, the movie is “hanging by a thread,” and Loeb is trying to quickly raise $1 million to finish the film. (He reportedly raised $2.5 million of the $3.5 million budget before the film began.) Still, one prospective investor said he believes “deep-pocketed members of the pro-life movement” will fly in to the rescue, and Loeb has been actively downplaying the film’s financial concerns.

As of now, the film is reportedly scheduled to come out in January. “We’ve been told that the film will open in 1,000 theaters,” said another crew member, “but everyone’s been lied to so much that we have no idea what’s true anymore.”

from Vulture Latest News http://nymag.com/thecut/2018/07/everything-to-know-about-nick-loeb-pro-life-roe-v-wade-movie-drama-controversy.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Sharp Objects and the Stories Scars Tell

There are few images TV loves more than that of a brutalized female body. Our crime-centric TV landscape — from Law & Order: SVU to Mindhunter and The Fall, not to mention the new wave of true-crime dramas — rests on raped, murdered, and otherwise abused women.

I thought a lot about this preoccupation when I watched HBO’s moody, affecting new crime drama Sharp Objects, whose first episode premiered Sunday. (I’ve seen the seven episodes provided to critics, out of eight total). Sharp Objects is based on the book by Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn and directed by Big Little Lies’s Jean-Marc Vallée, working with showrunner Marti Noxon of UnReal and Buffy, and the new show marks a perfect melding of the sensibilities of all three. Sharp Objects follows Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), a reporter, as she returns to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to investigate the death of one young girl and the disappearance of another. Camille confronts her icy town-matriarch of a mother (Adora, played Patricia Clarkson) and meets the half-sister she barely knows (Amma, played by Eliza Scanlen); meanwhile, fragmented reminiscences from her own past blend with the present-day narrative. From the beginning, it’s clear that the Camille’s own psychic mysteries will be just as significant as the one haunting the town.

In predictable crime-show fashion, there are plenty of maimed and murdered female bodies on this show, both those that crop up in Camille’s memories and those discovered in the present day. Yet by far the most important image of a female body is the one that appears at the end of the first episode. Up until this point, Camille has mostly seemed like a female take on a familiar crime-show archetype: the damaged, tough-talking investigator who drinks to forget her troubled past, à la True Detective’s Rust Cohle. But in the show’s final scene, we see the real extent of Camille’s damage: She takes off her clothes and slips into a bath, revealing that her entire body is covered with self-inflicted scars. Her body is a topography of self-harm, with words carved into her flesh like initials on tree bark — words like “Vanish,” the episode’s title, which is scratched into her right forearm.

Flynn has described her book as something of a bait and switch – a juicy crime drama that is actually an exploration of one woman’s pain and the relationships between three generations of women. Now, as a TV show, Sharp Objects takes a genre fixated on harm to women’s bodies and makes it about the harm women inflict on themselves. Where the battered female bodies on crime shows typically serve as clues to the oh-so-mysterious-and-fascinating psyche of a (typically male) serial killer, Camille’s battered body offers clues to her inner life, which turns out to be the show’s real mystery. I’ve seen plenty of horrible things done to women’s bodies onscreen — from the too-artful murder-tableaux of Hannibal and The Fall to Gwyneth Paltrow’s severed head in a box — and yet I was unprepared for the jolt of horror I felt at first seeing Camille’s scars.

While Flynn and Vallée’s fingerprints are obviously all over the project, Sharp Objects’ focus on the female body is particularly interesting to consider in the context of Noxon’s last three projects — To the Bone, Dietland, and Sharp Objects — which she has wryly dubbed her “self-harm” trilogy. Many TV shows heralded as feminist (or shows trying to respond to feminist criticisms) have tried to shift focus away from the brutalized female form to show us something else instead — like images of empowered women, or compensatory dong shots (I see you, Game of Thrones). Yet Noxon seems to be doing something distinctive. Arguably, just as Jill Soloway has made it her mission to pioneer a “female gaze”on women’s sexuality, Noxon sets out to explore a “female gaze” on female bodies and trauma.

Here, women are not merely the objects of harm, but also the subjects and authors of it (in Sharp Objects, quite literally — Camille writes her pain into the body). In To the Bone, we watch a severely anorexic Lily Collins wither away as she attacks her body by starving herself. Dietland — a sweeping fantasia that connects oppressive beauty standards and rape culture — opens with a montage of women hurting themselves to be beautiful: a woman sticking a finger down her throat, a razor blade slicing a breast. Meanwhile, Sharp Objects focuses on cutting, a specifically female form of self-harm (one 2017 study showed that girls are three times as likely to self-harm as boys), and one that has often been elided from our screens. And, in contrast to male showrunners whose emphasis on beaten or naked female bodies can feel voyeuristic, Noxon’s interest feels deeply personal — she has spoken openly about her struggles with eating disorders and alcoholism.

I don’t want to say too much about the rest of the show, but I do think it’s important to note that Camille’s scars don’t exist in a vacuum, nor are they used simply for shock value; rather, the way in which women’s self presentation does or does not reflect their inner lives continues to be an essential thread throughout the story. We see this with Amma in the first episode, as she transforms from a rebellious, cigarette-puffing cool-girl in Rollerblades to the prim little mistress of her mother’s house. (She warns her sister not to tell their mom: “I’m just her little doll to dress up.”) Camille, on the other hand, is the “failed” daughter, who refused to play the assigned role in her mother’s household and the community it oversees. Once the local Queen Bee, Camille fled Wind Gap and its expectations, resisting the pressure of its old-fashioned gender norms and twisted small-town hierarchy. Throughout the series, while Adora and Amma are decked out like pageant queens, Camille sports a uniform of a long-sleeve gray shirt and black pants, which are presumably not just a style choice but also a way to cover her scarred arms and legs. In a later episode, Adora pressures Camille to try on a revealing dress for a party she’s throwing, which Camille is unable to wear because of her scars. As Adora’s actions take on an increasingly sinister cast, the viewer wonders too if Camille’s self-harm can be read as a twisted act of resistance against her controlling mother and the woman she wanted Camille to be.

And yet, if we do read Camille’s scars as an act of resistance, doesn’t that take us into dangerous territory — into making self-harm seem somehow empowering or glamorous? As critics have noted of shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld, there’s a difference between depicting the realities of violence experienced by women and making that violence objectifying, exploitative, dehumanizing, or normalizing. The same concern applies even to ostensibly feminist shows (like The Handmaid’s Tale, which often feels like torture porn) or those rare shows that do deal with female self-harm. (As Elizabeth King wrote for the Cut, plotlines on shows like 7th Heaven “taught her” to cut herself.) Can Noxon succeed at creating some sort of feminist aesthetic of self-harm, or is that ultimately an impossible project? When To the Bone came out, it received a glut of criticism for allegedly glamorizing anorexia; images of Lily Collins’s waifish form were passed around pro-ana forums online. (And how does a nebulous goal like “awareness” weigh against a risk of triggering vulnerable viewers?) On an artistic level, the film also never seemed to fully penetrate its protagonist’s subjectivity in a way that could offer any real new insights about ED sufferers; as Emily Yoshida of Vulture pointed out: “there’s such an opportunity for a film about anorexia that goes past the ribs and cheekbones of its subject into something more interior and subjective,” and yet “the filmmaking is as polite and clinical as a junior-high health class.”

Sharp Objects comes with a PSA at the end of each episode directing viewers to a self-help hotline, suggesting that Noxon learned something from the mental healthy community’s response to To the Bone. And Sharp Objects feels like an evolution in other ways, too; At least from an artistic standpoint, there was nothing about Camille’s maiming that I found gratuitous, glamorous, or eroticized. When the scars are first revealed, the camera does not linger upon them — it’s just a glimpse; you have to squint to fully decipher what you’re are seeing. When we see Camille’s body fully exposed later in the season, it’s a moment that makes viewers feel acutely that they’re trespassing on someone’s private trauma. And, as the show’s creators make very clear, the scars on her body are nothing compared to the scars on her psyche. In crafting a narrative that prioritizes Camille’s subjectivity (props to Vallée’s beautiful flashback-filled and dreamlike direction here), and delves deep into the roots of her pain and her attempts to heal, she becomes much more than a two-dimensional victim of violence.

Making women both the harmers and the harmed, Sharp Objects elides the easy lesson of most crime shows, which is that men are predators and women are victims. (Though, of course, that’s a familiar lesson for a reason.) It also risks leaving Noxon and the show open to criticisms, both artistic and ethical, which I’m sure will trickle out in time. But perhaps that’s the risk necessary for a full, rich, and real depiction of women’s pain — and the ways it goes far beyond women’s bodies.

from Vulture Latest News http://nymag.com/thecut/2018/07/sharp-objects-marti-noxon-womens-bodies-pain-suffering-scars.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Luc Besson Accused of Assaulting Casting Director

Director Luc Besson is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct. According to AFP, French outlet MediaPart reports that Besson is accused of sexually assaulting a casting director, and that he “behaved inappropriately” with two other women. The 49-year-old casting director said that she was assaulted by the director “every time I took the lift with him,” and that Besson asked for sexual favors while on set. One of the sexual harassment accusers, an actress, said she escaped from his Paris office on her hands and knees. Besson’s lawyer has dismissed the allegations as “fantasist accusations,” and in a statement to to AFP, the attorney reiterated his client’s denial: “Mr. Besson is reserving his answers for the investigators so that his innocence can be shown.”

In May, an unnamed actress accused the Valerian director of rape. The 27-year old claims Besson drugged her tea during a meeting at Le Bristol hotel in Paris, and penetrated her after she lost consciousness. Besson owns the majority of the French movie studio EuropaCorp and is one of the most powerful men in the European film industry to be accused of sexual misconduct.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/luc-besson-accused-of-assaulting-casting-director.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Yet Another Woman Accuses Russell Simmons of Rape

Russell Simmons has been accused of raping another woman, bringing the number of women who have accused him of varying degrees of sexual assault and harassment to over a dozen. Alexia Norton Jones, a model, actress, and granddaughter of publisher W.W. Norton, tells Variety that the music mogul allegedly raped her in 1990. She claims that the incident occurred at Simmons’s apartment in downtown Manhattan following a date, after which she says he pinned her against a wall and forced himself on her. “It was such a fast attack,” Jones says. “He pulled my dress up. I must have said no seven to 10 times.” Jones reported the incident to the NYPD last spring, but the statute of limitations had expired; she is not seeking monetary damages. Simmons has denied the allegation in a statement to Variety saying, “At no time did she share these feelings about her first sexual encounter with me, which took place roughly 28 years ago.” He also claims the two dated for months, which Jones denies. Simmons has previously denied all other allegations of misconduct. In January, the NYPD announced it had opened an investigation into the multiple claims against Simmons.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/russell-simmons-hit-with-new-rape-accusation.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Russell Crowe to Star As Roger Ailes in New Limited Series

Showtime has green-lit a limited series based on former New York writer Gabriel Sherman’s Roger Ailes biography, The Loudest Voice in the Room, and now the network has cast its lead. Russell Crowe will play Ailes in the eight-part series about the rise and fall of the Fox News honcho, who resigned from his his post in 2016 following accusations of sexual harassment, and died last year. Showtime is developing the series with Sherman and Blumhouse Television. Spooky.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/russell-crowe-to-star-as-roger-ailes-in-new-limited-series.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Lydia Hearst Says Chris Hardwick Has Her ‘Complete Support’

Last week, actress and model Chloe Dykstra said in an essay posted to Medium that an ex-boyfriend of hers, whom she described as “a powerhouse CEO of his own company,” had persistently abused her over the course of their three-year relationship. It was assumed that the ex was Chris Hardwick, founder of the Nerdist empire. Hardwick denied the accusations and said he was “blindsided” by them. Hardwick’s mother-in-law, Patty Hearst, came to his defense on social media via a subtweet, and now his wife, Lydia Hearst, has issued a statement expressing her support of him. It was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter and reads as follows:

This is not a statement in defense, this is a statement of defense. Defense for all the women who have been sexually abused, raped, trafficked, and tortured; defense of all the people who this movement was started for. Over the last year the #MeToo movement has rightly aimed a spotlight directly on women whose stories needed to be told. As someone who has been involved in toxic relationships in the past, I know first-hand the importance of sharing these stories and do not take this situation lightly.

I have made the decision to come out in support of my husband not out of obligation, but out of necessity to speak the truth about the person I know. Chris is nothing but loving and compassionate and is the only person who has stood by me, never judged me, helped me heal, and feel whole. To defend my husband would be giving credence to any of these accusations. I will not do that. Chris Hardwick is a good man.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

Chloe Dykstra (@skydart) June 20, 2018

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/lydia-hearst-says-chris-hardwick-has-her-complete-support.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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A Daria Revival Is in the Works at MTV

Daria is returning to MTV. According to Variety, the network has launched a new production unit called MTV Studios, and in addition to revivals of Aeon Flux, The Real World, and Made, the animated series Daria is getting a revival of its own with some help from Broad City, Inside Amy Schumer, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt writer Grace Edwards. Tentatively titled Daria & Jodie, the revival will focus on Daria Morgendorffer and Jodie Landon: “These two smart young women take on the world with their signature satirical voice while deconstructing popular culture, social classes, gender and race.” The original series ran on MTV from 1997–2002. A premiere date for the revival has not yet been revealed.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/a-daria-revival-is-in-the-works-at-mtv.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Report: Cops Use Tear Gas on Crowd at XXXTentacion Memorial

A memorial service in Los Angeles held on Tuesday night for rapper XXXTentacion, who was shot to death in Florida on Monday, erupted in a scene of chaos. The Los Angeles Times reports that a crowd of 1,000 people descended on the Fairfax area, without a permit, to pay tribute to the rapper, blocking traffic and eventually becoming rowdy. According to reports, fans formed mosh pits, jumped off of roofs, and swarmed news vehicles. Police in riot gear were brought in to disperse the crowds, ultimately firing rubber bullets and tear gas after some fans reportedly threw rocks at them. At least one person was injured; no arrests were made. On Instagram, the woman XXXTentacion allegedly abused said that she was “kicked out” of the rapper’s vigil and that the items she left in remembrance were burned; it’s unclear if this occurred at the same Los Angeles memorial or a separate vigil in Florida. “He would’ve wanted me there,” she wrote. “I have no fucking words.”

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/report-cops-use-tear-gas-on-crowd-at-xxxtentacion-memorial.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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AMC Launches $20 Subscription Plan to Rival MoviePass

Nearly a year after MoviePass launched its unlimited deal, AMC, the world’s largest theater company, has unveiled another low-cost alternative to paying full price for movie tickets. AMC Stubs A-List, a new program launching Tuesday, will allow guests to see up to three movies per week for the monthly fee of $19.95, according to Variety. (Because AMC will throw shade if it can’t get paid, the exhibitor calls the AMC Stubs A-List pricing “sustainable.”) Though AMC’s plan is pricier than MoviePass’s monthly $9.95 fee, it does offer alternate perks: Customers can see all three movies on the same day, watch movies they’ve already seen, and reserve tickets in advance. (Carrying over movies on weeks when customers see fewer than three isn’t allowed.) Congratulations, moviegoers! Another way to get some cheap AC this summer.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/amc-launches-usd20-stubs-alist-plan-to-rival-moviepass.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Looks Like Kevin Spacey’s New Movie Is Still Coming Out

Nearly one year after Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of attempting to seduce him when he was underage, a new Kevin Spacey movie will be released in theaters. The Billionaire Boys Club, co-starring Ansel Elgort, Taron Egerton, and Emma Roberts will be released on digital and VOD in July, with a theatrical release in August. “We hope these distressing allegations pertaining to one person’s behavior — that were not publicly known when the film was made almost 2.5 years ago — do not tarnish the release,” indie distributor Vertical Entertainment said in a statement to The Wrap. “We don’t condone sexual harassment on any level and we fully support victims of it. At the same time, this is neither an easy nor insensitive decision to release this film in theaters, but we believe in giving the cast, as well as hundreds of crew members who worked hard on the film, the chance to see their final product reach audiences.”

After Rapp’s allegation was reported by BuzzFeed News, many men accused Spacey of sexual misconduct or assault. The actor responded with a statement coming out as gay. After further harassment allegations surfaced, Netflix fired Spacey from House of Cards, and Ridley Scott replaced Spacey with Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World. In November, a rep for Spacey said he was “taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.”

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/kevin-spacey-next-movie-will-be-released-in-august.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Modern Family Creator Says He’s ‘Disgusted’ to Work With Fox

Steve Levitan, co-creator of Modern Family, which is produced by 20th Century Fox TV, wants to make it clear that he does not support another arm of Fox’s business. On Twitter, Levitan said he was “disgusted to work at a company that has anything whatsoever to do with” Fox News, quote-tweeting a description of Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s defense of Trump’s child detention centers as “summer camps” or “boarding schools.” “This bullshit is the opposite of what Modern Family stands for,” he added.

Let me officially join in saying I’m disgusted to work at a company that has anything whatsoever to do with . This bullshit is the opposite of what stands for.

Steve Levitan (@SteveLevitan) June 19, 2018

I look forward to seeing through to the end and then, sale or no sale, setting up shop elsewhere.

Steve Levitan (@SteveLevitan) June 19, 2018

In a separate series of tweets, Judd Apatow, who said he has not worked with Fox since 2002, encouraged others to speak out against the corporation. “I understand why that is easier for some than others but many powerful people are powerful enough to speak up to their bosses at a moment like this,” he wrote.

I haven’t worked with Fox since 2002. That family promotes evil ideas and greed and corruption. We all choose who to work with. I understand why that is easier for some than others but many powerful people are powerful enough to speak up to their bosses at a moment like this.

Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) June 18, 2018

I have made two films for 20th Century Fox and love the people in the movie and TV divisions. But I too cannot condone the support their news division promotes toward the immoral and abusive policies and actions taken by this current administration toward immigrant children.

Paul Feig (@paulfeig) June 19, 2018

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/modern-family-creator-says-hes-disgusted-to-work-with-fox.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Junot Díaz Cleared in MIT Sexual-Misconduct Inquiry

MIT has completed their investigation into the behavior of author and professor Junot Díaz, and has cleared him to return to teaching classes this fall. This spring, Díaz was publicly accused of sexual misconduct and verbal abuse, and the school opened an inquiry into his conduct with women at the school. “To date, MIT has not found or received information that would lead us to take any action to restrict Professor Diaz in his role as an MIT faculty member, and we expect him to teach next academic year, as scheduled,” the university said in a statement, according to the Boston Globe. “This is the extent of public comment and information available on this personnel matter.’’

After the author Zinzi Clemmons confronted Díaz at a literary festival in Sydney, Australia, the author Alisa Valdes penned an essay describing an encounter with Díaz and his misogyny. Both the Pulitzer Prize board and the Boston Review (where Díaz is fiction editor) opened inquiries into Díaz’s conduct following the allegations. The Boston Review said it would retain a relationship with Díaz; Díaz stepped down from the Pulitzer board in May. The author’s agent Nicole Aragi told the Globe she was pleased with MIT’s investigation: “I expected no less,” she said. “And I’m expecting positive outcomes from any inquiries that test the allegations.”

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/mit-clears-junot-diaz-in-sexual-misconduct-inquiry.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Report: XXXTentacion Dead Following Shooting

Rapper XXXTentacion was shot to death in Florida on Monday, TMZ reports. According to eyewitnesses, who posted graphic footage from the scene on social media, the Florida rapper (real name Jahseh Onfroy), 20, “appeared lifeless with no pulse.” His condition had initially been reported as critical; the Broward County Fire Department has since confirmed to TMZ that Onfroy has been pronounced dead. According to emergency dispatch audio, picked up by TMZ, the incident involved a drive-by shooting outside of a Deerfield Beach motorcycle shop and the sooters have not yet been identified; Onfroy was also reportedly robbed during the incident. XXXTentacion got his start on SoundCloud and, in March, earned his first No. 1 album. The controversial rapper had also been accused of domestic violence and was still awaiting trial for those charges at the time of the shooting.

This post has been updated throughout.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/report-xxxtentacion-was-shot-and-is-in-critical-condition.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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Why the Louvre Allowed Beyoncé and Jay-Z to Film There

David. Géricault. Da Vinci! They were just a few of the artists Beyoncé and Jay-Z strategically featured in their new “Apeshit” music video — performing under the name the Carters — because they were given private access to the Louvre to groove around whichever masterpieces they wanted. As us plebeians can’t usually get close enough to the “Winged Victory of Samothrace” without being yelled at by another patron to move out of their photo, we couldn’t help ponder to Apollo, the Greek god of the arts: How was the museum able to grant such a big request?

“Beyoncé and Jay-Z visited the Louvre four times in the last ten years. During their last visit in May 2018, they explained their idea of filming,” a spokesperson for the museum told Vulture. (Who could forget their infamous 2014 trip?) “The deadlines were very tight but the Louvre was quickly convinced because the synopsis showed a real attachment to the museum and its beloved artworks.” While the Louvre wouldn’t comment on the monetary figure the couple had to fork over, we should note it’s not inherently unusual for the museum to grant access for entertainment purposes — as detailed in the New York Times, the Louvre typically hosts around 500 shoots a year for film, television, and music projects. And for around $17,500, you too can have private access to the galleries for an entire day.

from Vulture Latest News http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/beyonce-jay-z-apeshit-why-the-louvre-agreed.html?mid=rss?mid=vulturelatest
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