Tayshia Adams Breaks Her Silence on "Hard" Split With Fiancé Zac Clark - E! Online

Tayshia Adams is breaking her silence.

The reality star addressed her split from fiancé Zac Clark during The Bachelorette: The Men Tell All on Monday, Dec. 6.

In a separate conversation from the men, co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe raised the subject with the 31-year-old, saying, "I know there's a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation, but I do think it's important for you to have the chance to clear the air, have a voice for yourself. Say whatever you want to say before other people get to make the story for you."

"All I have to say is that I'm heartbroken," Tayshia shared. "But we tried really hard and I still love him very much. And I'm not sure what the future holds."

She told Kaitlyn through tears, "You know how it is. It's really hard."

Kaitlyn swiftly changed the subject to introduce Michelle Young's suitor, Rodney, but Tayshia left the stage to compose herself. 

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Drake Withdraws His 2021 Grammy Nominations - Variety

UPDATED: Drake has withdrawn his two Grammy nominations, a rep for the Recording Academy has confirmed to Variety. Reps for Drake did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sources tell Variety that the decision was made by Drake and his management and the Grammys honored his request, although his motivation was unclear at the time of this article’s publication.

He was one of five nominees for Best Rap Album, for “Certified Lover Boy,” and for Best Rap Performance, for his song “Way 2 Sexy” (featuring Future and Young Thug).

Rather than giving a nomination to the recipients of the sixth-most votes, as the Academy did when it suddenly decided to expand the top four categories from eight to 10 last month, the voting for those two rap categories will go forward with just four nominees, presumably because the ballots have already been posted to Academy members; Grammy ballots were posted for voting members on Monday morning.

Grammy nominations must be submitted by a representative, usually the artist’s record label, and if an artist does not want their music considered, the label simply doesn’t submit it. The decision to remove a nomination at this late stage — after it has been submitted and announced, on the day the ballots are posted — may be unprecedented.

Drake’s choices of nominations were unusual, however. While it is uncertain whether he chose not to submit the blockbuster “Certified Lover Boy” or any songs from it for the big categories — Album, Song or Record of the Year — his absence from any of those categories seems to suggest that he did not. He clearly did choose to submit — and was nominated — for the two rap categories he has withdrawn.

Some have speculated that his decision might have something to do with him being named in lawsuits surrounding the tragedy at the Astroworld festival in Houston last month, where 10 people died when the crowd rampaged during headliner Travis Scott’s set, which featured a guest appearance from Drake. However, Drake is scheduled to perform with Kanye West at the “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert in Los Angeles on Thursday, so that explanation feels unlikely.

Drake has had a long and at times contentious relationship with the Grammys. A year ago, he called for them to be replaced with “something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come”, after it failed to recognize his peer and fellow Canadian artist the Weeknd in any of its 2021 categories, despite him having one of the top albums and singles of 2020.

“I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artist that exist now and the ones that come after,” he wrote in his Instagram Story. “It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just won’t change their ways. The other day I said @theweeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way. This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up overtime and pass on to the generations to come.”

In 2017, he declined to submit his album “More Life” for any 2018 Grammy awards, even though it qualified; the rancor around that year’s show intensified at the following year after Jay-Z won zero awards despite being nominated for eight.

Drake also threw shade at the Grammys during his acceptance speech in 2019, when “God’s Plan” won Best Rap Song. The awards show producers cut off his mic after he claimed awards hold no value.

“We play an opinion-based sport, not a factual-based sport,” he said. “You already won if you have people singing your songs word for word, if they’re singing in your hometown. You’re already winning, you don’t need this right here.”

However, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. has made a strong and concerted effort to overhaul some Academy procedures and staff and effectively clean up the organization’s act in the wake of years of accusations of insider deals and self-interest. Just weeks after the 2021 awards, the Academy announced that it was eliminating the “secret” nomination-review committees that for decades had curated the final list of nominees. And although some cried foul when the Academy abruptly expanded the nominees for Best Album, Song, Record and New Artist from eight to 10 last month, Mason insisted it was a decision that had long been in the works that Academy execs and board members saw an opportunity to finalize (although some suggest it was done to ensure that Taylor Swift, who had no other 2022 nominations, got one).

Variety will have more on this situation as it develops.

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Jussie Smollett testifies on his own behalf in trial over disputed hate crime - The Washington Post

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1. Jussie Smollett testifies on his own behalf in trial over disputed hate crime  The Washington Post
2. Jussie Smollett testifies that he did drugs, 'made out' with Osundairo sibling: LIVE UPDATES  Fox News
3. Jussie Smollet update: New details on defense strategy | LiveNOW from FOX  LiveNOW from FOX
4. Jussie Smollett takes the stand in his defense  Chicago Sun-Times
5. Jussie Smollett testifies in his own trial: Live updates  CNN
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Alana Haim on ‘Licorice Pizza,’ Her Surprising Movie Debut - The New York Times

One summer night in 2019, Alana Haim was jet-lagged, tossing and turning in a London hotel bed, when her phone pinged with an email from the acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.

This was not particularly out of the ordinary: Anderson had become a close friend of the family in the years since he’d started directing music videos for Haim, the Grammy-nominated rock band Alana is in with her two older sisters, Este and Danielle. (Their mother, Donna, was also Anderson’s beloved elementary-school art teacher — a fortuitous coincidence he realized only after having already met her daughters.) When the band is on the road, Anderson will occasionally send the Haim siblings affable emails: a silly YouTube video, an article that might inspire them. But this message was different, and a little mysterious: Just an untitled Word document.

“All of a sudden, a script opens up,” Haim said over a video call from her home in Los Angeles,

“And the first name on the script is Alana.” Save for a few appearances playing herself in music videos, Haim had never acted before, and this was the first movie script she’d ever read. “It was like ‘EXTERIOR,’” she recalled, giddily. “I was like, here we go. We’re reading a script. This is the movies.”

As she read the screenplay for what would become “Licorice Pizza,” Anderson’s warm and nostalgic ninth feature, Haim thought he had sent it to let her know he had named a character after her. “I was honestly just flattered that he was using my name,” she said. “Because when you think about Paul Thomas Anderson movies, the names are so incredibly iconic,” she said, citing the porn star Dirk Diggler of “Boogie Nights” (1997) and Reynolds Woodcock, the tempestuous fashion designer that Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed in “Phantom Thread” (2017). “I mean, I like my name, but do I think my name is iconic? Not when you put it next to, like, Reynolds Woodcock. But I was flattered. I was like, ‘Paul’s going to use my name in a movie.’”

Bradley Cooper, left, and Cooper Hoffman with Alana Haim behind the wheel of a truck in “Licorice Pizza.” Once she mastered driving it, she said, “I felt like a badass.” MGM, via Associated Press

When presented with Alana’s version of events over the phone later that same day, Anderson sighed and then laughed for a long time. “Wouldn’t it have been completely rude and insane of me to send her a script with a character named Alana, only to say, ‘Thanks for reading it, I appreciate your notes, I’m going to go hire an actress to play a woman named Alana? Oh and by the way, she has two sisters named Este and Danielle and there are multiple situations that have come from your life.’ What kind of friend would I be? That’s terrible.”

But that would have been about as plausible as what was actually happening: A famous auteur was asking Haim, who had never been in a movie before, to carry his next feature. Later that night when they spoke on the phone and Anderson clarified his request, Haim — in a torrent of “word-vomit” — said yes immediately. A few hours later, the first doubts set in: “What if I’m just terrible? I was like, ‘I don’t even know where to look. What if I look at the camera?’”

Miraculously, she pulled it off in spades. “Licorice Pizza” establishes Haim as a revelatory and magnetic screen presence, a unique amalgamation of daffy, Carole Lombard screwball, early Sissy Spacek fresh-faced guilelessness, and an offbeat cartoon character’s nervy, can-do energy. Even when she’s sharing the frame with Sean Penn, Tom Waits or Bradley Cooper, it is her face — freckled, elastic, unpredictable — that commands the viewer’s attention. Critics have raved about the performance; David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called it “one of the most exciting screen debuts in recent memory.”

Haim didn’t know Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to cast her in his film until he sent her a script unbidden.Josefina Santos for The New York Times

Anderson said he knew Haim would be good but “I didn’t know she was going to be that good. I’ve worked with the same guys for like 20 years, and I just kept looking around at them for verification. Like, you have to tap me on my shoulder to make sure I’m seeing what I’m seeing. Don’t let me be delusional. And everybody collectively on set was seeing what I was seeing — her skill and the way you can photograph her.”

It helped that her co-star, the effortlessly charismatic Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was a frequent Anderson collaborator) had also never been in a movie before. Anderson cast him late in the process, after auditioning a number of young actors who felt too mannered and formally trained to match Haim’s naturalistic style. Hoffman and Haim had met briefly through Anderson five years prior, never thinking their paths would cross again, but as soon as they read together, Haim recalled, “It was like, oh, we’re a team. We can take on the world together.”

Despite the characters’ relatively chaste relationship, the age gap between them has caused some controversy. In real life, Haim, who turns 30 this month, is 12 years older than Hoffman (they bonded so much during the shoot that she still calls him “one of my best friends”), though in the movie her age is a little ambiguous. At one point the character says she’s 25, but there’s a pause between the two numerals that suggests she might be rounding up. “There was never really a conversation between me and Paul about how old Alana was,” she said. “Somewhere in her early 20s. I say some ages in the movie, but you don’t really believe Alana. She kind of doesn’t even know how old she really is? She’s very secretive. But really, it’s about her and Gary’s friendship more than anything.”

When we spoke on a late November afternoon, Haim was battling a sinus infection she blamed on the Santa Ana winds. As a Southern California breeze tickled the curtains of her open living-room window, she occasionally paused our conversation to blow her nose with humorous theatricality. (“Oh, that was a lot!”) She wore a white T-shirt, jeans and, around her neck, her most prized possession, a “Sisters of the Moon” pendant given to her by one of her idols, Stevie Nicks. In conversation Haim is garrulous and ebullient, occasionally clipping the ends off her sentences in an excited hurry to get to the next thought.

As they were shooting, Anderson found that the actor Haim most reminded him of was Joaquin Phoenix, whom Anderson directed in “The Master” (2012) and “Inherent Vice” (2014).

“She can throw herself into something, a lot like Joaquin,” Anderson said. “You cannot tell if they’re completely out of control, or if they’re so in their body that they’re able to make it look like they’re out of control. They’re very similar. It’s weird. They’re both feral, you know? You’re not really sure what’s coming next.”

Performing onstage as part of the band Haim. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Her years onstage playing guitar, keyboards and percussion certainly taught her how to ground herself amid the chaos of a film set. “Being in Haim, I’m doing so many different things and there are so many different distractions that you have to tune everything out and just be very present in your body,” she said. “And I think that really helps with shooting a movie.”

Seeing herself in close-up on a huge screen for the first time was, she admitted, a bit uncomfortable: “Look, for my future boyfriends that I’ll maybe have, would I love to see less acne and maybe more glamorous vibes?” Haim asked rhetorically. “Of course. But it wouldn’t be truthful to the movie. Because growing up in the Valley where it’s 100 degrees outside, you would look worse if you wore makeup, because it would melt off and you’d look insane.”

But those supposed imperfections — and her contagious brand of self-acceptance — are at the core of Haim’s refreshing onscreen charm. “I feel like there’s this whole thing where everybody has to be perfect in all these movies,” she said, candidly admitting that the only reason her skin looked “impeccable and lovely” on our call that day was because she was using a Zoom filter. “But, I have acne, and there’s nothing I can do about it — and that’s OK!”

Raised in the San Fernando Valley, the Haim siblings all took up instruments at a young age and formed a family band. What they lacked in social capital, they made up for with sisterly camaraderie and humor. “We all wanted to be Barbra Streisand in ‘Funny Girl,’” Haim said. “That was our Bible growing up. Like, ‘Oh, we might not be the most gorgeous person in the seventh grade, and no one wants to make out with us, but we could be the funniest!’”

Anderson said that as a performer, Haim reminded him of Joaquin Phoenix: “They’re very similar. It’s weird. They’re both feral.”Josefina Santos for The New York Times

The sisters had their first gig as a trio when Alana was just 10, at Los Angeles’s storied Jewish institution Canter’s Deli. Their breakthrough came in 2013 when they released their debut album, “Days Are Gone,” a collection of sleek, percussive pop-rock songs. They’ve since collaborated several times with their former tour-mate Taylor Swift, and their best and most recent album, “Women in Music, Pt. III” (2020), was nominated for the album of the year Grammy.

Even though the siblings all harmonize and trade instruments, Alana is still known in the band, as in the family, as “Baby Haim.” Danielle is the de facto lead singer and guitarist, while the bassist Este is known for the gloriously over-the-top “bass faces” she makes onstage. Alana sometimes falls through the cracks. “I’m the baby, so that’s how I grew up with my siblings: ‘I’m just happy that you guys want me to hang out,’” she said modestly. “That was my whole upbringing.”

All the members of the Haim family appear sporadically in “Licorice Pizza” — their father, Mordechai, is a bona fide scene-stealer. But Alana is the movie’s beating heart, and her star turn feels like her long-delayed “Funny Girl” moment. That was apparent from her very first day of shooting: she was not only driving a vintage moving truck that required her to learn to operate a stick shift, but also improvising hilariously alongside a deliriously entertaining Bradley Cooper, who plays a manic version of Streisand’s onetime boyfriend, the producer Jon Peters. “At the end of the day, once I got the hang of it, I felt like a badass,” she said. “I was like, not only can I drive stick — but a ’70s U-Haul with a movie star and my best friend in the truck.”

She’d love to keep acting — and working with Anderson — if the right projects arise, but she’s also happy to have a day job to fall back on. “After this chapter is over with ‘Licorice Pizza,’ I go back on tour with my band, and I’m back to my other job that I love so much,” she said. “Nothing has changed. I’m still the baby.”

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Chris Noth Weighed In On The Rift Between Sarah Jessica Parker And Kim Cattrall, And Why Samantha Won't Appear In "And Just Like That" - BuzzFeed

"I just wish that whole thing had never happened."

With the upcoming Sex and the City revival set to premiere later this week, news articles scrutinizing Kim Cattrall's absence from the series are everywhere, alongside speculation about why the actor won't appear in And Just Like That. As for whether it's related to her rift with Sarah Jessica Parker — we still don't know for sure, although Chris Noth shared his thoughts on the former costars's infamous feud recently.

Walter Mcbride / Getty Images, Bryan Bedder / Getty Images

To debrief, SATC fans received confirmation earlier this year that Kim — who played Samantha in the comedy-drama — wouldn't be reprising her beloved character alongside Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and SJP in the revival.

While Kim hasn't addressed her lack of involvement outright, many people assumed the decision was related to an ongoing and very public dispute with Sarah.

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images, Francois G. Durand / WireImage via Getty Images

In addition to calling her relationships with SATC cast members "toxic" and noting that she was never friends with her costars in a 2017 interview, Kim described SJP as a "hypocrite" when the latter actor offered condolences following her brother's death.

Vince Bucci / AFP via Getty Images

At the time, she also suggested Sarah was "exploiting [the] tragedy in order to restore [her] 'nice girl' persona."

Sarah later replied to an Instagram user's inquiry about the dynamic between her and her ex colleague by insisting that she doesn't "dislike" Kim, while Sex and the City author Candace Bushnellattributed her absence from the reboot to other, non-personal reasons.

Dimitrios Kambouris / WireImage via Getty Images

"I absolutely love Kim," said the writer in comments to the New York Post. "But it seems she wants to do other things, and she doesn't feel like doing the show. Maybe she doesn't want to be that character anymore. Maybe she doesn't want to put the Spanx on!"

Anyway, Chris — who is returning as Mr. Big in the SATC revival — weighed in on the controversy surrounding Kim and Sarah during a new interview with The Guardian, where he defended SJP against Kim's remarks.

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"I have to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what her thinking is, or her emotions," he shared. "I do know that I'm very close with SJ and [Kim's] descriptions of her don't even come close."

James Devaney / GC Images via Getty Images

"I liked [Kim], I thought she was marvelous in the show, and some people move on for their own reasons. I don't know what hers were," he continued, referencing her exit from the SATC franchise. "I just wish that whole thing had never happened because it was sad and uncomfortable."

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"I just don't like to see anyone talking down about SJ because she's a target and people can be nasty," Chris added, noting that he feels "very protective" of his costar and subsequently "was not happy" hearing Kim's claims regarding her character. "That's all I'll say about that."

You can read Chris's full interview with The Guardian here. And Just Like That debuts on HBO Max this Thursday, Dec. 9.

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Pregnant Jennifer Lawrence dazzles in golden gown at 'Don't Look Up' premiere - CNN

(CNN)Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence is positively glowing.

The 31-year-old star, who is expecting her first child with husband Cooke Maroney, dazzled in a floor-length gold gown as she posed for pictures at the premiere of her upcoming film "Don't Look Up" in New York on Sunday night.

She completed the shimmering effect with Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger earrings and styled her hair in an elegant updo.

Lawrence is expecting her first child with husband Cooke Maroney.

Lawrence joined co-star Leonardo DiCaprio at the premiere for the film, which gets its streaming debut on Netflix on December 24.

Directed by "The Big Short" filmmaker Adam McKay, "Don't Look Up" stars Lawrence and DiCaprio as a pair of astronomers who go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy Earth.

In real life, Lawrence is also preparing for her own major event.

Lawrence and Maroney, an art dealer, tied the knot in 2019 and a representative for the "Hunger Games" star confirmed the couple were expecting their first child to CNN in September.

Later that month, Lawrence opened up about setting boundaries in a bid to protect her child's privacy.

"If I was at a dinner party, and somebody was like, 'Oh, my God, you're expecting a baby,' I wouldn't be like, 'God, I can't talk about that. Get away from me, you psycho!' But every instinct in my body wants to protect their privacy for the rest of their lives, as much as I can," she explained during the wide-ranging interview with Variety.

She added that while she is "grateful and excited," she doesn't "want anyone to feel welcome into their (her child's) existence," which "starts with not including them in this part of my work."

Lawrence, who was named by Forbes as the world's highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016, won an Oscar for her performance in the 2012 movie "Silver Linings Playbook," in which she starred alongside Bradley Cooper.

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Lil Wayne Allegedly Pulls Gun on Own Security, Police Investigating - TMZ

Lil Wayne allegedly pulled an assault rifle on one of his own bodyguards during a dispute at his home, and now police are looking into the incident.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... one of the rapper's guards told cops he and Wayne got into a fight at Weezy's Hidden Hills, CA home, and cops say they were told the altercation escalated to physical violence and a brandished firearm.

We're told the guard claims Wayne told him to get outta the house after the initial dispute, but the guard went to the bathroom first and he claims that's when Wayne dramatically escalated things.

We've spoken with a source close to Wayne who strongly denies the incident even happened ... and tell us Wayne doesn't even have a gun.

That's not however, what the guard told cops ... our sources say the guard claimed Lil Wayne pulled out an AR-15 ... and that's when the guard booked it out of the house to the gated community's guard shack, where he called police.

We're told cops went to Weezy's place to get his side of the story, but he was already gone. The guard told police the fight started with Wayne accusing him of taking photos and leaking them to the media.

Other law enforcement sources involved in the case tell TMZ ... cops have issues with the guard's story, and they say he did not have any marks on his body or injuries from the alleged physical confrontation.

We're told the guard also does not want to press charges against Wayne -- and while police have doubts about some of the allegations, they will nevertheless investigate.

We reached out to Lil Wayne's camp ... so far, no word back.

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‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Renewed For Season 8, Kim Dickens Returns As Series Regular - Deadline

AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead has been picked up for an eighth season, the network announced Sunday night on Talking Dead following the Season 7 fall finale of The Walking Dead spinoff. Popular former cast member Kim Dickens, who played Madison Clark in Seasons 1 through 4 of Fear the Walking Dead, is set to return. She will make her first appearance in the second half of Season 7, which debuts April 17, and will continue as a series regular in Season 8.

“If there were a Mt. Deadmore, Kim Dickens’ face would be on it. Madison Clark is a foundational character to TWDU — heroic, complex, an everyperson who becomes a warrior and then a force of benevolence,” said Scott M. Gimple, Chief Content Officer of The Walking Dead Universe. “Kim Dickens’ raw talent, strength, and brilliance will electrify TWDU once more and we couldn’t be luckier to have her back.”

In the second half of Season 7, months have passed after the nuclear blast and the only one thriving is Victor Strand (Colman Domingo). Having built a fiefdom, he callously selects who will have a chance at life. The other members of the group have suffered immensely, but out of that, has come a fierce determination to live, even if it means taking Strand’s Tower by force and continuing the search for Padre, a mythical place no one is sure really exists. Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey,) now the reluctant leader to Teddy’s former followers, is plagued by a mysterious illness and the repercussions of her past actions. Morgan (Lennie James,) trying to maintain hope that he will be reunited with his family, knows Alicia is key to their survival. With Alicia declaring war, Strand’s paranoia and personal vendettas grow, and with that, new threats emerge from all sides.

Fear the Walking Dead is executive produced by Scott M. Gimple, Showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, Greg Nicotero and David Alpert and is produced by AMC Studios.

Here is a Season 7 Part 2 promo:

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'Mrs. Doubtfire' review: Bringing the movie to Broadway was a huge mistake - New York Post

Call “Nanny 911.” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the new musical that opened Sunday night on Broadway, needs urgent assistance.

Why has a movie that was never anything more than a ridiculous star vehicle for the late Robin Williams’ comedic talents been dragged onstage almost 30 years later without him? Partly as a star vehicle for Broadway favorite Rob McClure, who now plays Doubtfire a k a Daniel. 

Theater review

2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission. At the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43rd St.

The producers are also surely hoping to ensnare nostalgic millennials, who were bombarded by sappy films about divorce in the 1990s (“Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Stepmom,” “Liar Liar”), and now have kids of their own to torment with them.

What we’re left with is yet another assembly line musical of a movie — an obnoxious one, at that — in which every song by “Something Rotten!” duo John O’Farrell and Karey Kirkpatrick is generic and forgettable.

The first act ends with a ditty called “Bam! We’re Rockin’ Now,” which could fit snugly into every musical that has ever had a guitar in the orchestra pit. 

And the finale, “As Long As There Is Love,” goes “So, when the sun has slipped away / And your skies have turned to gray / Well, over time you will find it’ll be OK.” That’s just bad “Put On a Happy Face.”

Frank (Brad Oscar) and Andre (J. Harrison Ghee) help Daniel (Rob McClure) become Mrs. Doubtfire in the new Broadway musical.

Joan Marcus

Like in the movie, Daniel, a struggling actor and doting dad, is forced to put on a woman’s face after his wife leaves him (he mistakenly hires a stripper for their son’s birthday party) and a judge grants him only Saturday visitation rights with his three kids.

He’s a fun-loving, kooky man-child and his ex, Miranda (Jenn Gambatese) is a killjoy stick in the mud. You’ll find that every adult woman in this show has a heart made of barbed wire — well, except that one that’s actually a dude.

Mrs. Doubtfire parties with three kids (that she’s actually the dad of): Christopher (Jake Ryan Flynn), Lydia (Analise Scarpaci) and Natalie (Avery Sell).

Joan Marcus

That’s Mrs. Doubtfire, the alter ego created for Daniel by his gay brother Frank (Brad Oscar) and his husband Andre (J. Harrison Ghee), that he uses to sneak back into his San Francisco house and spend time with his son and two daughters. All they know is they have a crazy new Scottish nanny.

Nobody questions why an old lady can move like she’s 32, has the same sense of humor as their father and performs a “Riverdance” number when she claims to be from Scotland.

Like a kiss from Richard Dawson on “Family Feud,” the plot of “Mrs. Doubtfire” has grown creepy with age. Drag disguises are common onstage (“Tootsie” is an infinitely better musical and a far superior movie), but when you add young children into the mix and, um, a court order prohibiting the main character from being with them, it’s uncomfortable for us. How can we embrace someone who is traumatizing his family?

Robin Williams in the 1993 film “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which is now a Broadway musical.

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Michael in “Tootsie,” who pretends to be an actress to get a job, is a lying jerk, too. But “Doubtfire” goes further and desperately pleads with us to love this schmuck.

McClure is practically selling us a timeshare with his spastic, overeager performance. I can’t deny it’s technically very fine — he does funny voices: Gollum, Borat, Yoda — and jumps around like the stage is actually a trampoline. His high energy grates, though, and doesn’t get enough laughs to warrant acting like he’s on a two-and-a-half-hour coke binge.

As Miranda, a fashion designer whose ho-hum house designed by David Korins does not look like anywhere Donna Karan would ever set foot in, Gambatese changes little, even after she starts dating a British hunk and Mrs. Doubtfire betters her life. 

Peter Bartlett is hilarious as Mr. Jolly in “Mrs. Doubtfire” on Broadway.

Joan Marcus

There are, however, two very funny gags in the musical, directed by Jerry Zaks. Frank’s voice gets loud every time he tells a lie (it happens a lot), and a local kids TV program called “The Mr. Jolly Show” has a hysterical host who’s played by Peter Bartlett like a jet-lagged Rip Taylor.

Every time Mr. Jolly left the stage, I resumed being Mr. Angry.

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'Succession' recap, Season 3, Episode 8: 'Chiantishire' - NPR

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Logan (Brian Cox) is still as amoral as ever. Macall Polay/HBO

Macall Polay/HBO

What happened

A number of crucial Succession episodes have been named after their settings: "Prague," "Austerlitz," "Argestes," "Tern Haven," "DC," "Dundee." This week, the titular setting is Chiantishire, a nickname for a part of Tuscany where well-off British folks live or vacation. The Roys are descending upon Chiantishire, in this case because it's the location of Caroline's wedding — she's the mother of Kendall, Roman and Shiv. (She is played, incidentally, by the great Harriet Walter, who also plays Rebecca's mother on Ted Lasso.)

Let's run through just some of the things that happen in this eventful episode:

• Logan springs the GoJo deal with Matsson on Sandy 2 and Stewy, only to see Matsson's tweet about Macao destabilize the entire thing. Roman runs off to try to keep Matsson on board, but he gets the impression that Matsson wants a merger, not an acquisition. To his surprise, Logan is into it, potentially — until Roman sends an explicit picture intended for Gerri to his dad, which undermines Logan's confidence in the deal, in Gerri, and in Roman. Just when it was going so well for the little weasel.

• Shiv has a discussion with her mother that throws her into a tailspin, which she soothes by being cruel to Tom. She also tries to wiggle her way back into the company's inner circle at Roman and Gerri's expense (the errant picture helps).

• Kendall calls a meeting with his father and offers to leave both the company and the family, just as last week's term sheet suggested. But Logan won't accept it. Now, it seems he won't buy Kendall out even if Kendall wants out. He wants to keep Kendall around to torment and punish him.

• Kendall winds up face-down in the pool. We're going to talk about that at the end.

Speed rankings

Our weekly rankings

This season, each week, we are ranking members of the main cast of Succession based on how fast they are speeding toward moral ruin. Or, if you will, how efficiently they are flying down the highway to hell. Not everybody appears every week, depending on how much they have to do. Sometimes, you just idle.

100 MPH: Logan

Logan reaches Peak Logan at the dinner with Kendall where, fearful that Kendall has poisoned his food, he has his grandchild eat some of it first. We must let that sink in: Logan makes ... his grandson ... eat food ... to see if it's poisoned. Logan is an emotional sadist and perhaps a sociopath (at least in the armchair sense). That's true even if some part of him cares what Kendall is saying enough to resent the argument that it's his immorality and not his genius that's his competitive advantage.

Logan ends up not just tormenting Kendall about the dead caterer, but doing a sort of spelunking expedition looking for pain points in his troubled son — questioning Kendall's morality, his sexuality, his addiction, everything. What Logan does here emphasizes exactly what Kendall is saying: Logan's lack of any conscience of any kind will always be an advantage it's almost impossible to overcome.

Let's also acknowledge how funny and casually misogynist it is that Logan lectures Roman about how a sexual relationship between him and Gerri is "disgusting" and she's "a million years old" and this will make Roman "a laughingstock," considering that it's certainly been implied (though not confirmed) that Logan is sleeping with Kerry, and that age difference is much greater.

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Roman (Kieran Culkin) and his mother (Harriet Walter) are not on the same page regarding her wedding. Graeme Hunter/HBO

Graeme Hunter/HBO

90 MPH: Roman

Roman is feeling himself (so to speak) as this episode starts — he can almost taste the proximity to power that will flow to him as Kendall and Shiv are both marginalized. Nevertheless, even in his cockiness (as it were), Roman is the only one who's upset about Caroline getting married and the only one who wants to try to talk her out of it. I don't know how much of that is related to her well-being and how much to his inheritance; I doubt he even knows.

Roman's relationship with Gerri, which once seemed both playful and fully consensual, has evolved into something rather ugly now that she seems uninterested and he's refusing to take no for an answer. So that's gross.

Aaaaand then, just as the GoJo deal gets back on track after looking imperiled, a very bad (and funny) thing happens: One of those "d**k pics" he's been sending to Gerri goes astray, sent to Logan instead of Gerri. As we've discussed, the relationship between Roman and Gerri has been one of the few things that would matter to Logan that he didn't know about. Discovering a potential dynamic that he completely missed (in part because he was not looking for it; see again his misogyny) unsettles him greatly. And wow, I have always appreciated Kieran Culkin's comic acting, but in this sequence, as he realizes what he has done, his face is a work of art. A work of art!

80 MPH: Shiv

Shiv has given up on showing up at the office at the beginning of this episode following her blowup with Roman at Kendall's party. As she heads to Tuscany, she's feeling kind of ambivalent about everything, it seems.

But Shiv's pivotal moment comes at her mother's bachelorette party, when Caroline blames Shiv for mishandling her parents' divorce when she was a child. In fact, she winds up blaming Shiv for her unhappy life and saying she should not have had children. She should, instead, have had dogs. The fact that Caroline careens so rapidly past ordinary family sniping and into a statement of regret that her children were ever born is another reminder that Shiv is a Roy, but she sometimes seems surprised — in the same way Kendall does — by what being a Roy entails.

Of course, because Caroline congratulates Shiv on not having children because "some people aren't made to be mothers," Shiv immediately goes home and tells Tom she wants a spite baby. Oh — and she also wants to take over ATN. And when she offers herself sexually and reproductively to her husband, he wants her to talk dirty to him, and this is the dirty talk she chooses: "You're not good enough for me. I'm way out of your league. That's why you want me. That's why you love me, even though I don't love you. But you want me anyway." And then they do it. All righty, then.

Tom tells her later that this hurt him, but she only ridicules his lack of sophistication. Worse news for him: She didn't really mean it about having a baby. "I may not love you, but I do love you," she says. Oh, Tom. Poor Tom.

Fortunately, Shiv gets something new to think about at the end of the episode: threatening Gerri and undercutting Roman after she's the unwitting beneficiary of the Accidental Texting Incident.

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Hey, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) ... are things okay? Graeme Hunter/HBO

Graeme Hunter/HBO

40 MPH: Kendall

It's hard to look at Kendall in this episode. We don't see the scene where he buzzes his hair, but it somehow seems totally unsurprising that he's done it — in my experience, people who are in crisis sometimes make big changes to their appearance, and sometimes that's a very bad sign, and sometimes it's just upheaval.

And it gets worse, almost as soon as he arrives. It turns out that Logan has declared that he and Kendall can't be at the same wedding events, and Peter (the groom) wants desperately to suck up to Logan, so Caroline is dutifully excluding her son from some of the festivities. It's easy to consider Kendall the son of his intensely awful father, but boy, he is also the son of his casually awful mother.

Things get even worse when Comfry tells him that someone is making a podcast about all the Roy family scandals, and that one thing it will be covering is the "accident" at Shiv's wedding.

Kendall has always looked a little desperate. But he's never looked more drained, more defeated, than he does in Tuscany.

And as it turns out, he considers himself — quite literally — defeated. He tells Logan that all he wants is his buyout; he's ready to go. He's leaving the family, too: "I won't even speak at your memorial. We're done." And since Roman delivered the term sheet at Kendall's party, it seems like this should be fairly easy to do. But now that Kendall wants out, Logan might not be ready to let him out. Now, Logan says the term sheet was just "for fun," and it wasn't a real offer. Maybe, Logan says, he'll just keep Kendall around, also for fun. Kendall actually speaks the words that have seemed to be at the heart of his relationship with his father since the beginning: "I love you, but you're kind of evil." Nevertheless, he cannot escape.

35 MPH: Tom

It's pretty clear that Tom and Shiv's brands of wickedness are diverging. Is he starting to figure out that maybe she's kind of terrible for him?

30 MPH: Connor

Connor has found himself in a difficult moment: journalists are beginning to look into Willa's background as a result of his presidential campaign. And neither he nor Willa seems excited about it becoming public that she was doing sex work when they met. Her solution seems to be going "back underground," but his solution is apparently that they should get married? I'm not sure why this will help, Connor.

Kendall Roy has been drowning for a long time

Can we talk about that ending for a minute?

Kendall seems semi-conscious when he responds for the last time to Iverson. He moves so that his head extends past the end of the float he's lying on. The bottle slips out of his hand. His head flops to one side, though it's hard to tell, because we're looking at him from underwater. There's every indication he has passed out. And then a line of bubbles comes out of his nose. I watched this several times. And I said to a friend ... "Uh, is Kendall dead?"

It seems unlikely that they would kill Kendall; he's too much a part of the show, and it's already been renewed for another season. So for purely practical "television is a business and it works the way it works" reasons, I doubt Kendall is dead. But if I were just following the story as a story, and the show as a very careful deployment of imagery (which it's always been), this is exactly when, and how, you would kill Kendall.

He made the big move that he's been plotting against his father since the first episode, and he failed, pretty finally. For much of his life, he believed his siblings would be on his side if he could just get up the courage to rebel, but that didn't happen: They have instead pushed closer to their father, all three of them focused on how they can benefit. He believed making his father's crimes public would bring him down; it didn't. Kendall has been (temporarily) separated from Naomi, his (flawed) stabilizing force. His mother, who hates Logan, is rejecting Kendall at his insistence. And now, someone is digging up the story of the kid whose death he caused.

Kendall is out of options; he has been sentenced by his father to spend his life tethered to a family that hates him, unable to get a clean separation from them and unable to fix what's wrong. This is the right point in the story for his tragic end.

And his death could only be a drowning, because Kendall has been haunted by drowning imagery ever since the accident — which, of course, involved a drowning he escaped. The kid he was with did not. The first time we saw him in Season 2, he was halfway submerged in water (getting spa treatments), with the water up over his mouth, just below his nose. In the Season 2 finale, when he was imperiled by Logan's maneuvering, his siblings were on the yacht relaxing, but he was floating on his back, motionless, in the pool. And in the season 3 premiere, when he had finally made a move against his father, we first found him huddled in an empty bathtub, as if the water that threatened him was gone and he still didn't know what to do.

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More Galleries of Color Debut at Art Basel Miami - The New York Times

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1. More Galleries of Color Debut at Art Basel Miami  The New York Times
2. Rosalia, Lizzo, Cardi B wrap up over the top Miami art week  Associated Press
3. Artist Kennedy Yanko makes a name for herself at the return of Art Basel Miami  CBS Mornings
4. They came, they saw, they bought: Art Basel, Miami Art Week returned with ‘a great show’  Miami Herald
5. An NFT Collector Hit Art Basel Miami Beach for a Crash Course. We Tagged Along.  The Wall Street Journal
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Tom Holland Confirms Role as Fred Astaire in Upcoming Sony Biopic - Variety

“Spider-Man” star Tom Holland is swapping his web-shooters for dancing shoes. The 25-year-old officially confirmed on Sunday that he’ll portray legendary actor, dancer and singer Fred Astaire in an upcoming biopic for Sony.

In a recent profile for GQ, Oscar-nominated producer Amy Pascal teased that she wanted Holland for the part of Astaire in the forthcoming movie, as well as another trilogy of “Spider-Man films.”

But during an interview with AP, at an event promoting the upcoming “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” Holland confirmed that he’ll step into the entertainer’s dance shoes.

“The script came in a week ago,” Holland told reporters. “I haven’t read it yet; they haven’t given it to me.”

A representative for Sony later confirmed to Variety that the project is in its early stages.

Pascal has received the script though, Holland noted, sharing that the producer shared the news with him in a somewhat unconventional locale.

“She facetimed me earlier. I was in the bath,” he said with a laugh. “And we had a lovely facetime, but I will be playing Fred Astaire.”

News that Holland will take on the persona of the iconic song and dance man comes as little surprise, given his own background as a performer. Holland began his acting career on the London stage, playing the title role in Billy Elliot the Musical on the West End from 2008 to 2010.

Then there’s the now-viral clip of Holland performing on “Lip Sync Battle” in 2017, where he sang and danced to a mashup of “Singin’ in the Rain” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” Sure, that number was Gene Kelly’s showcase in the 1952 musical, but it certainly got the point across that Holland’s dance skills were undeniable.

Touted as the one of the greatest popular music dancers of all time, Astaire starred in more than 30 film musicals, in addition to his stage career on Broadway and the West End over the course of a seven-decade career. Astaire is usually remembered for his pairings with Ginger Rogers, who starred in several films with him, including the classics “Swing Time,” “The Gay Divorcee” and “Top Hat.”

The Holland-starring movie is not the only Fred Astaire project in the works at the moment. Jamie Bell (who coincidentally originated the role of Billy Elliot in the Oscar-nominated 2000 movie) will play Astaire opposite Margaret Qualley’s Ginger Rogers in an upcoming movie from Amazon Studios and Automatik. Bell and Qualley will also produce the biopic, which traces the dance duo’s partnership, starting with “Flying Down to Rio” in 1933 and ending with “The Barkleys of Broadway” in 1949.

Until it’s time to suit up as Astaire, Holland is focused on his latest outing as Peter Parker in Sony and Marvel’s “No Way Home,” his seventh outing as the web-slinging superhero.

“No Way Home” debuts in theaters on Dec. 17.

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Tom Holland and Zendaya swap loving gazes at ‘Spider-Man’ photo call - Page Six

Putting their love on full display.

Tom Holland and Zendaya couldn’t seem to get enough of one another as they joined forces for a “Spider-Man: No Way Home” photo call in London on Sunday.

Several pics show Holland, 25, gently holding his co-star’s hand as they held eye contact, stared at each other lovingly and shared laughs in front of the cameras.

Zendaya and Holland really enjoyed each other’s company while walking the red carpet on Sunday.

WireImage

Other photos show Zendaya, also 25, staring at her on-and-off screen love interest on the red carpet, even in the company of their fellow co-star, Jacob Batalon.

The trio looked incredible for the event, clearly dressing to impress. Holland gelled back his shaggy hair and sported a sexy fitted leather jacket over his button down shirt.

Jacob Batalon was the odd man out as Holland and Zendaya couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other.

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Zendaya sparkled like a diamond from head to toe in a sequin-covered sports jacket and matching boots. Her hair was gelled back – much like Holland’s – and she topped off the look with glitzy spiderweb earrings.

Meanwhile, Batalon opted for a plaid blazer and slick black dress pants, accessorizing with a double chain pendant necklace.

The actress, who portrays MJ in the film, had the evening on lock with those glitzy spiderweb earrings.

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“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the third film in the franchise and set to hit theaters on Dec. 17, 2021.

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Prior to walking the red carpet over the weekend, the young couple appeared on “The Graham Norton Show” Friday night where they shared a hilarious story about filming stunts on set and joking about their height difference.

“I’m the superhero. I’m supposed to look cool,” Holland said of his character, Peter Parker.

Holland and Zendaya first sparked dating rumors in 2017 when they co-starred in “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” Their romance was finally confirmed in July when they were photographed showing lots of PDA by smooching in the car.

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