Why Roots Is the Single Most Important Piece of Scripted Television in Broadcast History

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  9 minutes  |  1764 words  |  Sherie Connelly

LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte in the original Roots. History Channel will air a remake of Roots over four consecutive nights, beginning May 30. Ahead of its premiere, Matt Zoller Seitz revisits the original series. Roots is the most important scripted program in broadcast network history. It aired across eight consecutive nights in January 1977 — a go-for-broke gesture by ABC, which made the mini-series out of a sense of social obligation and wanted to “burn off” the entire run quickly in a mostly dead programming month. [Read More]

Why That Old-Timey Pistol at the End of Prey Looks Familiar

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  792 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Amber Midthunder as Naru in Prey. Dan Trachtenberg’s new Predator prequel, Prey, pulls off a rarity in today’s movie-franchise landscape: It avoids taking a torch to the series’s established continuity, while also sidestepping an overreliance on it. We do get a callback to the iconic line, “If it bleeds, we can kill it,” first uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger in John McTiernan’s 1987 original. But for most of its running time, Prey sticks to its own hunting territory, setting its story in the Northern Great Plains in the early 18th century, where a young Comanche woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder) faces off against one of the intergalactic visitors who’ve been hunting humans for centuries. [Read More]

Why The Lead Singer of Imagine Dragons Is Fighting for LGBTQ Rights

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  11 minutes  |  2321 words  |  Zora Stowers

Imagine Dragons. “I went on a mission because I was like, maybe if I go on a mission, God will talk to me, but he never did. Or she never did, or whatever it is. I only felt emotion, never what people call the spirit.” Dan Reynolds did everything right. He served as a Mormon missionary and attended the Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He then got married and fathered three children. [Read More]

Will Ferrell Nails the Star Trek Theme on James Cordens Late Late Show

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  1 minutes  |  40 words  |  Sherie Connelly

Will Ferrell’s early stand-up involved Star Trek material. Specifically, singing material. Watch this deer-in-the-headlights vibrato king slay, and then brace yourselves: You might experience a flashback to this other Ferrell gem.

Will Ferrell Nails Star Trek Theme on Corden

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Will Fortes Recurring SNL Characters, Ranked

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  14 minutes  |  2896 words  |  Elina Uphoff

Will Forte is returning to Saturday Night Live this weekend, more than a decade after leaving the show, for his first-ever hosting gig. Though the lack of a Forte-hosted episode has felt egregious to his many fans — every other cast member from Forte’s circa-2007 glory years has either already returned to host or still works at the show — it also makes a certain amount of sense. Forte has a reputation as a fan favorite, prone to following his own weird muse; more of a Kyle Mooney or (fingers crossed) Sarah Sherman type than a beloved jack-of-all-trades like his castmate Bill Hader. [Read More]

Woman Yelling at Cat Joins Real Housewives of Orange County Season-17 Cast

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  1 minutes  |  199 words  |  Elina Uphoff

Taylor Armstrong and her greatest co-star yet. It’s O.C.-fficial. On Monday, August 1, People exclusively revealed that Taylor Armstrong would be returning to the Real Housewives franchise — but this time grasping an orange. Reportedly, she’ll be appearing as a Friend rather than a main Housewife. Still, the Beverly Hills alum has become the first-ever Housewife to swap franchises, moving from RHOBH to RHOC for its yet-to-be-announced season 17. [Read More]

Women Talking Trailer: Claire Foy and Rooney Mara Debate the Merits of Violence

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  1 minutes  |  184 words  |  Sherie Connelly

A lot of media post-Me Too has been about exposing the systemic horrors than men perpetrate. By now, we know the awful things happen. What we’re still struggling with is how to respond. It’s in this space that Sarah Polley’s Women Talking spends most of its time. Based on the book by Miriam Toews, the film is set in a fictional Mennonite community where the women have been drugged and raped for five years. [Read More]

Woody Harrelson Is Joining SNLs Five-Timers Club This Month

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  247 words  |  Aldo Pusey

After getting Pedro Pascal to star as a dystopian Mario last night, Saturday Night Live has another plumber on deck. The show has announced that White House Plumbers star Woody Harrelson is the next host in its lineup. Harrelson is now set to enter SNL’s distinguished five-timers club on February 25, when the show returns from a two-week break. He’ll join the ranks of John Mulaney, Tom Hanks, Drew Barrymore, Dwayne Johnson, Melissa McCarthy, Tina Fey, and others who have hosted five or more times. [Read More]

Would Emily in Pariss Bot-like Instagram Actually Go Viral? We Asked 3 Parisian Influencers.

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  16 minutes  |  3226 words  |  Janel Helmers

Darren Star has done it yet again: centered an entire show on a thin, gently delusional white woman whimsically exploring a major metropolitan area in wildly expensive couture purchased on a mid-level salary. This time around, the series is Netflix’s Emily in Paris, and our protagonist is Emily Cooper (Lily Collins), a 20-something digital-marketing whiz (one of the more disturbing onscreen career aspirations this side of late-capitalist America) whose job sends her to Paris from Chicago — which is rendered briefly in the first episode as a poorly lit hub of Cubs merch and cloudy glasses of white wine. [Read More]

You Dont Know Amalia Ulman

 Posted on June 13, 2024  |  14 minutes  |  2892 words  |  Zora Stowers

The enigmatic artist cast herself and her mom in her new movie, El Planeta, set in her hometown. She swears it’s fiction. “Nothing is work and nothing is life,” says Amalia Ulman. “It’s all just all the same.” Photo: Courtesy of Amalia Ullman “Nothing is work and nothing is life,” says Amalia Ulman. “It’s all just all the same.” Photo: Courtesy of Amalia Ullman “Nothing is work and nothing is life,” says Amalia Ulman. [Read More]