| | | | Gawker Newsletter? In your inbox? It’s more likely than you think. But Joe Alwyn of Conversations with Friends, The Favourite, Mary Queen of Scots, and most of Taylor Swift’s recent love songs having “it?” The jury is largely still out. Many are too cowardly to say whether he has it or does not have it. Except us, who have bravely spoken out. Now that we have decided, we can go back to our reading, and as voracious readers, we must assure you one of the year’s best books is from 1963. It was not recently published from a 1963 manuscript, we just only got around to it recently. Which means it will be nearly impossible for you to find contemporary competing coverage of the novel, so you should trust and hear us out. Trust is important in any and every relationship, and also most faith practices. We have the strongest faith in our devotion to the prophecy, which is being fulfilled every passing day. We obviously speak of the marriages between Kody and his four sisterwives of the show Sister Wives, now in its 17th season. In luck that can only be proof of a merciful, gossipy god, we now have front-row tickets to the iPhone recordings of four imploding marriages imploding. If you prefer a more distinguished show for your front-row tickets, might we suggest Funny Girl? But not for who you’re thinking: Lea Michele. We have to hand it to Ramin Karimloo, who plays Nick Arnstein. He is a star, even if you don’t recognize his name. Sometimes it happens, like with Kaley Cuoco and her boyfriend, that guy. His name is something like… Steve, I want to say? Or Robert? Tim? Whoever he is, he is the luckiest rando on earth. |
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| | |  Does Joe Alwyn Have It? | By Fran Hoepfner
The answer may surprise you...
For years, the film industry has been plagued not by the rise of monotonous superhero franchise installments or the lack of first gay studio rom-com, but an even more elusive question: Does Joe Alwyn have it?
Whether you like him or not, whether he has it or doesn’t have it, Joe Alwyn is one of those good-looking, pallid white men of Anglican origin whom we’ve seen on screens both big and small and plane seat-size for years now without knowing the answer. Austin Butler? He had a big breakout summer in Elvis. He has it. Skyler Gisondo? I hope his neck gets better soon, and he has it. Paul Mescal? Despite being engaged to Phoebe Bridgers, he also has it. So, why can’t we decide about Joe Alwyn?
Alwyn burst onto the scene in 2016 with Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, but was granted either the blessing or curse of that film’s nausea-inducing frame rate as a distraction from whether he has it. Since then, he’s worked steadily in supporting parts in films by Yorgos Lanthimos, Claire Denis, Joanna Hogg, and Joel Edgerton. But he’s also been in shit like Mary Queen of Scots. Remember Mary Queen of Scots? Margot Robbie looked bad on purpose.
What perhaps does him the greatest disservice in the mystery of whether Alwyn has it is being either engaged-or-not to Taylor Swift, his partner of six years. Continue reading |
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| | |  The Most Interesting Book I Read All Year Is This 1963 Austrian Novel | By Jen Vafidis
Marlen Haushofer's 'The Wall' is a meditation on the cost of freedom
A few years ago, I went to a screening of the 1981 ensemble comedy They All Laughed, which was followed by a conversation with the director, Peter Bogdanovich. I liked the movie, and I wanted to see Bogdanovich. I knew from interviews and friends what to expect of him in person: an unreliable narrator of cinematic history, bearing a trademark ascot and expired precocity, hell-bent on mentioning every great person he’d ever met. He was essentially his character from The Sopranos, the know-it-all therapist’s therapist to Dr. Melfi, but with even more self-importance.
They All Laughed is a special film. It has always been unfortunately ironic: a romance about cuckoldry starring Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered in 1980 by her estranged husband. She had cheated on him with Bogdanovich, who probably never got over her death. Upon its release, it had a shadow of tragedy, making it more than a fizzy ensemble comedy about couples. In more than one way it was about not knowing what you have when you have it.
That night, it was clear that for Bogdonavich, the film had become not just about missing a lost love, but about missing everyone. When the lights came on, he sat in a director’s chair before us, looking stunned. He admitted that this was the first time he had watched the movie in a long while, and it was painful that it had to end. The main cast — not just Stratten, but also Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, John Ritter — had been dead for years. This movie was like seeing them alive and happy, and now they were gone again. The experience had hit him so quickly that he did not know what to say about it. Continue reading |
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| | |  Sister Wives Season 17 Is a Triumph of Documentary Filmmaking | By Claire Carusillo
It took 16 boring seasons, but now the prophesy is fulfilled
If you’re 17 seasons behind on the long-running TLC documentary series Sister Wives, take this blog post as a sign from the God of the Apostolic Brethren that you may start now. You don’t have to go into the archives – you only need to watch the last five episodes.
Enjoyment of this riveting family drama requires no context other than this: In 2010, patriarch Kody Brown and his wives Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn wanted to show the world how polygamy could be functional in the 21st century. By 2022, Kody and his wives —all living in different rental homes in Flagstaff, Arizona — are eating crow, admitting to the world that their original situation was not tenable for them or their children (in order of birth: Logan, Aspyn, Mariah, Madison, Mykelti, Hunter, Paedon, Garrison, Dayton, Gabriel, Gwendlyn, Aurora, Ysabel, Savannah, Breanna, and Truely). Christine has left the family, moving to Salt Lake, and taking 11-year-old Truely with her.
Kody, a control-freak whose longtime sole obsession with having sex (or “intimacy”) with his most favored wife Robyn has transmuted into a similarly intense Covid 19-induced agoraphobia, is requiring the family to shoot every scene on their iPhones without a film crew. Unintentionally, Kody has had his first stroke of divine genius with this directorial decision. What was once a fairly glossy production (although — and no disrespect to these women who clearly are spread thin, what with running a small village and all — there never did seem to be a hair or makeup budget) is now cinéma vérité. It’s real and unfiltered. Continue reading |
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| | |  Ramin Karimloo Is Funny Girl’s Secret Weapon | By Olivia Craighead
Lea is great, but Ramin is the star
When it comes to Funny Girl, everyone wants to talk about Lea Michele. Or maybe Beanie Feldstein. Occasionally understudy Julie Benko enters the conversation. This is understandable, as the drama around the casting of Fanny Brice has been some of the best Broadway gossip since the Hamilton cast fought for profit-sharing. Unfortunately, the casting mishegoss has overshadowed the very important fact that Ramin Karimloo, who plays Nick Arnstein, is a star.
Funny Girl, as a musical, has never worked — even with Barbra. It’s paced poorly, several of the songs are clunkers, and it falls into the trap that many biographical works do, which is that most people (even the famous ones) live dramatically inert lives. In the first act, the only thing that could generously be described as conflict comes at the very end, when Nick decides to go to Monte Carlo instead of continuing to accompany Fanny on tour. Even then, he isn’t breaking up with her, he’s just leaving for a couple weeks. She follows him anyway.
This is a show that serves more as a showcase for talent than as a satisfying piece of theater. Michele is wonderful as Fanny, her voice strong and clear as she belts her face off, but if you watched Glee you have seen her sing many of these songs before. If you’re going to pay Broadway prices to see a flawed show, do it for Karimloo. Continue reading |
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| | | From Nothing, Kaley Cuoco and Random Boyfriend Create Life | By Kelly Conaboy
The couple is expecting Baby Girl Random
It is theorized that a random fluctuation in quantum foam is what triggered the Big Bang. This Big Bang theory-related randomness, it then follows, is the source of life. And I’m pleased to share with you that history has repeated itself.
Kaley Cuoco and her random boyfriend are pregnant.
Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey, a guy she met, announced in separate Instagram posts on Tuesday that they are expecting a child. As evidenced by a pink stripe through a celebratory baby cake shown in several of the photos in Cuoco’s multi-slide post, the child is to be a girl. “💕Baby girl Pelphrey coming 2023💕 beyond blessed and over the moon… I 💓you @tommypelphrey !!!” Cuoco wrote. And we are of course so happy for her and this guy. Continue reading |
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