How Feuds Capote, His Swans, and His Demons Compare to Real Life

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  18 minutes  |  3760 words  |  Zora Stowers

This post has been updated to include the appearance of James Baldwin in episode five. Seven years after Ryan Murphy gave us the ultimate onscreen–off-screen catfight with Bette and Joan, the Feud anthology has finally returned with a vengeance, this time in the form of Capote vs. the Swans. Instead of 1960s Hollywood, the setting has moved to high-society New York of the 1970s, where Truman Capote, the celebrated author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, is firmly ensconced in this world of ladies who lunch. [Read More]

How Gay is Rocketman?

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  985 words  |  Zora Stowers

Last year,Bohemian Rhapsody straight-washed and sanitized Freddy Mercury, watering down Freddie’s famously and fabulously queer life with nary a gay sex scene in sight. The film played it so safe that even conservative helicopter parents agreed it’d be fine to send their impressionable youth to see it. Which is why, for months, critics have been speculating that Dexter Fletcher — the director who took the Rhapsody reins from Bryan Singer — might do the same thing with Rocketman, the Elton John biopic starring Taron Egerton as another openly queer icon. [Read More]

How Greys Anatomy Created Its Powerful Army of Awesome Hallway Scene

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  751 words  |  Aldo Pusey

In March, Shondaland delivered one of the most emotionally charged episodes of Grey’s Anatomy to date. Season 15’s 19th episode “Silent All These Years” tackled consent and rape through the biological discovery of Jo (Camilla Luddington) and the assault of her patient Abby (Khalilah Joi). In a conversation at a WGA screening series in Los Angeles Tuesday night, Grey’s showrunner Krista Vernoff and episode writer Elisabeth R. Finch reflected on how the episode, and that instantly iconic hallway filled with the “Army of Awesome,” was born. [Read More]

How Hacksaw Ridge, a True-Life Story of a Hero-Pacifist, Became Mel Gibsons Goriest Movie Yet

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  418 words  |  Elina Uphoff

Andrew Garfield, center, on the set of Hacksaw Ridge. Director Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge is notable for two reasons: One, because it tells the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a World War II medic and Seventh-day Adventist who, despite refusing to touch a weapon because of his pacifist beliefs, saved scores of his comrades and won the Medal of Honor. And two, because it’s arguably Gibson’s most graphically gory movie — no small feat from the director of Braveheart, Apocalypto, and The Passion of the Christ. [Read More]

How I Met Your Mother Recap: Crazy Love

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  1040 words  |  Elina Uphoff

How I Met Your Mother Bad Crazy Season 8 Episode 16 Editor’s Rating 2 stars ** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » How I Met Your Mother Bad Crazy Season 8 Episode 16 Editor’s Rating 2 stars ** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » How I Met Your Mother has had some fun with the stereotype of the crazy girl in the past — most memorably in season two’s “Swarley” (starring Crazy Eyes, a. [Read More]

How I Met Your Mother Recap: Super Bowls and Magic Phones

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  577 words  |  Elina Uphoff

How I Met Your Mother Rabbit or Duck Season 5 Episode 15 «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » We were waiting for one more solid episode in a row from this season before declaring that HIMYM was back, and we didn’t quite get it. Not to say that last night’s installment was a waste of time. Yeah, it wasn’t very funny, but it had an almost aggressively weird, slapdash vibe that we’ve never before seen from this show. [Read More]

How Jac Schaeffer Made WandaVision Inside the Marvel Machine

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1569 words  |  Elina Uphoff

“We wanted to be really daring in all of our influences and how we could consistently shatter the form,” said WandaVision showrunner Jac Schaeffer following the finale, “but it did require a measure of discipline in order for it not to fly off into outer space.” WandaVision, the Disney+ series that reestablished the lure of the Marvel franchise after the pandemic put it on pause, was always conceived as a hybrid. [Read More]

How Many Red Suits Did the Weeknd Order for After Hours?

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  340 words  |  Aldo Pusey

“It wasn’t just Abel anymore.” Move over, Lady Gaga — another musician is here to talk Method acting. The Weeknd and his collaborators reflected on the monstrous chart run for “Blinding Lights” in a new Billboard cover story, which declared the song No. 1 on its “Greatest Songs of All Time Hot 100 Chart.” (Curiously, the story dropped the same day as the Grammy nominations — where the Weeknd won’t appear because of an ongoing boycott after the awards snubbed “Blinding Lights” last year. [Read More]

How Mixtapes Saved Gucci Manes Career

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1610 words  |  Sherie Connelly

Back to the Trap House debuted in 2007 at No. 57 on Billboard’s “Top 200,” selling fewer than 32,000 copies in its first week. My major-label debut was a dud. I knew those beats were not suited to my style. I’d taken too much outside advice. I should have stood up for myself and put out the album I wanted. The label planned on following the “Freaky Gurl” remix with “I Know Why,” featuring Pimp C, Rich Boy, and Blaze1 — the song Polow and I had been working on when he said Waka [Flocka Flame] was going to be a star. [Read More]

How Oceans 8 Got Anna Wintour and Kim Kardashian to Help Re-create the Met Gala

 Posted on June 10, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1355 words  |  Sherie Connelly

Sarah Paulson inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Ocean’s 8. The dramatic jewelry heist at the center of the female-fronted crime caper Ocean’s 8 takes place amid the blinged-out high-fashion frippery of America’s most glamorous, exclusive, and star-studded party: the Costume Institute Gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also known as the Met Gala, the glittering event has been overseen and personally curated by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour since 1995. [Read More]