Winston Churchill was approximately 5.5 Italian B.M.T.s tall

By Tarpley Hitt

We're confused

The U.K. has a new prime minister, its third in as many months. His name is Rishi Sunak, and he’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer, an ex-Goldman Sachs investment banker, and a trophy husband to a billionaire heiress.

Sunak won the post less by popular support and more by process of elimination. After Liz Truss resigned from her record-short term of 45 days last Thursday, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson briefly threw his hat in the ring. So did the ominous-sounding Penny Mordaunt, a Tory MP who once appeared on a British reality series called Splash!, about celebrities who learn to dive (she belly-flopped). But Johnson pulled out on Sunday, presumably after learning that the Tories still hate him; Mordaunt killed her bid on Monday. So Sunak summited, and we wish him the best of luck. Surely the man who, six months ago, ordered the Royal Mint to create a government-backed NFT will turn the economy around.

With the race behind Britain, the public can ask the harder questions. For example: How tall is he? But such intel is difficult to pin down.

We know for certain that Sunak is a smaller guy. You can see as much here: Continue reading

By Kelly Conaboy

It’s not too late to be the talk of the party

Oh my dæmon, it’s almost Halloween. And oh no — you haven’t even begun to think of a costume! Luckily, in this fast-paced world, you’re better off coming up with your costume in the days, or minutes, before you set off to your Halloween party anyway. Imagine your embarrassment if, for example, you showed up to a party as “friendless Tom Brady,” when in fact, as we recently learned, the football player has one friend. Talk about a “fumble.”

But what should you be? Luckily for you, the crew at Gawker has been working tirelessly for at least 30 minutes this afternoon to think of a set of timely pop culture Halloween costumes that might trigger a familiar “oh yeah!” from your beloved Halloween friends. Idealess celebrants, fear not — your Halloween costume situation has been handled (by this post). All you have left to do is choose. Continue reading

By George Civeris

Much like its owner, the design-forward abode has a problematic past.

By now you’ve heard of Tár, the buzzy new Todd Field-directed epic featuring a tour-de-force performance by Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, a virtuoso conductor and composer who may be a serial sexual predator but — hear me out — dresses really well. Tár is especially notable for its impeccable production design, the star of which is Tár’s Brutalist Berlin apartment, in which she is spooked by nightly visions and occasionally displays calculated affection for her wife and step-daughter. In fact, you could say Tár’s apartment is kind of the “fifth character” in the film — the main four being Lydia Tár, her aforementioned wife, the hot cello-playing slut who brings about her downfall, and Adam Gopnik.

Well unfortunately, I have some bad news for all the Tár-heads out there — much like its owner, Tár’s painstakingly decorated apartment might have a problematic past. Specifically, according to one eagle-eyed architecture enthusiast, it is located in what used to be a Nazi-era air raid bunker built on Hitler's orders in 1943. After the war the building was briefly used as a Soviet prison, and after the collapse of East Germany it was turned into a techno club that was famous for its “S&M nights.” For the past two decades, the building has been owned by self-made advertising entrepreneur and art collector Christian Boros and his wife Karen, with their private apartment taking up the sixth floor.

"It's a good thing I'm a little crazy," Boros once told the New York Times. "I saw no problem in buying the bunker." Boros has repeatedly cited the residences of James Bond villains as interior-design inspiration. Here he is: Continue reading

By Jack Hanson

McDonagh’s fourth feature film reunites Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a fable about friendship

The Banshees of Inisherin presents itself as a fable, and from its first frames we enjoy the simplicity, the distillation and instruction, which that form promises, however well we might know its dark side. We soar down through welcoming skies onto an island off the West Coast of Ireland. It is a fictional island, though only just: Banshees was filmed on the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, Inishmore; the smallest, a few miles south, is called Inisheer. The many animals of the island, though never quite verbal, are highly communicative, and possessed of a keen and effective intelligence, often guiding their human companions, or else standing in as emblems of a truth not yet fully realized. Among the characters, attire, affect, and dialogue all work together to enforce that sense that wherever you live, this is elsewhere. But at each of these markers, the film shows how the form pulls at its own seams, the fabulistic blending with the everyday in such subtle, easy movements that one begins to wonder whether the distinction between them is worth maintaining if it can be so easily crossed. It is, in other words, an enchanted world, but one in which enchantment offers deliverance neither from boredom nor from pain.

When we first encounter our protagonist, Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell), he appears untroubled, strolling down a well-worn road, his expression and surroundings alike washed in a sense of peace, interrupted only momentarily by the distant rumble of cannon fire and wisps of smoke over a stretch of sea. Across the bay from the fictional island, the real civil war is in its final months. He continues on to a lonely looking house on the beach and knocks, calling for his best friend, Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson), reminding him that it’s 2:00 pm, and time to go to the pub (this got a laugh from the audience, an indication of which side of the screen was more civilized). Colm, seen through the window, smoking at his hearth, does not respond, and Pádraic heads off on his own, disturbed. Continue reading

By Allie Jones

“You cheat on that bitch every single fucking night”

I regret to inform you that one of the Kardashian-Jenner women is again dealing with a cheating scandal. This time, it’s Kylie Jenner who is being forced to defend her relationship with Travis Scott, the rapper with whom she has two children. What is happening? Who is Rojean Kar? And will Jenner and Scott ever reveal the name of their second child who was born in February? I will try to answer these questions to the best of my capabilities.

How long have Jenner and Scott been dating again?

Five years, which is a relatively short amount of time in the Kardashian-Jenner universe (Calabasas). By comparison, Scott Disick has been around the family for eons. But to give you the history, Jenner and Scott were first spotted holding hands at Coachella in April 2017, when Jenner was 19 fresh off a breakup with Tyga. Jenner got pregnant with Scott’s baby pretty much immediately, and little Stormi Webster was born in February 2018. Jenner and Scott had at least one documented breakup in 2019, which we’ll get into later, but they reunited and had another baby, a son who used to be named Wolf, in February of this year.

So what’s up with these cheating rumors?

Over the weekend, a woman named Rojean Kar posted a photo from the set of a music video in which Scott can be seen. Kar has been linked to Scott in the past, so Instagram gossip pages like The Shade Room picked up Kar’s post as evidence that Scott might be cheating on Jenner. Scott responded on his own Instagram story with lightning speed, calling the reports “fictional storytelling.” Continue reading