Category: News

Though today’s generation probably best knows the late Angela Lansbury as Murder, She Wrote’s geriatric mystery writer and sometime sleuth Jessica Fletcher or the soothing voice of the kindly teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney’s animated Beauty and the Beast (1991), the three-time Oscar nominee wasn’t strictly a family-friendly kind of lady. At least not according to John Waters.

As Page Six reports, the cult indie filmmaker behind the X-rated Pink Flamingos says he once spotted Lansbury at a dungeonesque New York City sex club known as Hellfire during the ‘80s. In his 2019 memoir, Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder, Waters — the so-called Pope of Trash — claimed to have once spotted Lansbury “checking out the scene” at the club, which was a hotspot for “gay and straight perverts alike.”

While Waters didn’t go into much detail about what Lansbury was doing there, if he knew at all (maybe Jessica Fletcher was investigating some sort of BDSM mystery) the director — who was an enormous fan of the beloved English star — couldn’t help but be struck by her mere presence.

“[Angela] was pure class even 40 years ago when these kind of clubs were all the rage,” Waters told Page Six. “It may have been the only night she was ever there, but just her presence made Hellfire a little more welcoming.”

​(Via Page Six)

There’s a little bit of everything in the Northwest Division ahead of the 2022-23 NBA season. Two teams, Denver and Minnesota, have aspirations of competing to win the Western Conference. Another two, Oklahoma City and Utah, have their eyes on the biggest names in the 2023 NBA Draft. And then there’s Portland, which could go in any direction now that Damian Lillard is healthy and back in the fold.

Today, we’re going to look at all five of these squads, and try to identify their biggest questions before the year tips off.

Denver Nuggets: Is their Big 4 really that good?

Nikola Jokic is Nikola Jokic. Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. are both back from injuries. Aaron Gordon can shoulder a much smaller scoring role and a much larger everything else role. That quartet only got to play five games alongside one another after Gordon was acquired at the 2021 trade deadline before Murray tore his ACL, but those five games made one thing clear: When they combine forces, these four dudes are capable of pummeling opposing teams.

Getting to watch Murray and Jokic do their thing alongside one another is going to be a blast — there is not a better inverted pick-and-roll in basketball when they are cooking. Porter needs to show he can do more than hit shots, but hoo boy, stopping him when he’s hitting shots is tough. Gordon as a Swiss army knife makes life easier on everyone else while maximizing the stuff he’s good at. And of course, no one in basketball is better at making everything make sense on the offensive end of the floor than the two-time league MVP, who should be able to carry the team while Murray and Porter are getting their feet back under them.

Denver is a championship contender this year. Their depth is quite good, as Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are sensational fits alongside that foursome and Bones Hyland is not afraid to shoot. But if the Murray-Porter-Gordon-Jokic grouping is going strong, beating the Nuggets four times in seven games is going to be awfully tough.

Minnesota Timberwolves: How does the whole Rudy Gobert thing work?

The Timberwolves made one of the more shocking trades we’ve seen in recent memory by going out and getting Gobert from the Utah Jazz. For a team that already has Karl-Anthony Towns, making a gigantic move to bring in a center seems a bit odd.

And then, you peel back the layers a bit: Towns is free to go all-in on being, as he fancies himself, the greatest shooting big man in basketball history. Anthony Edwards and D’Angelo Russell now have a brick wall for a partner in their pick-and-roll game. Gobert’s ability to take away the entirety of the paint means the team can be hyper-aggressive on the perimeter if they so choose — while the team was a respectable 13th in defensive rating last year, the Wolves were second in turnover percentage.

There’s no guarantee any of this works, and as we saw during his time in Utah, there are real concerns about what happens when Gobert gets to the playoffs. They have 82 games, however, before they have to worry about that, and Chris Finch has established himself as one of the league’s best coaches at figuring out solutions to problems. This has the potential to be really, really fun.

Portland Trail Blazers: Is their bench good enough?

Portland’s starting five should be a blast. Damian Lillard is healthy, Anfernee Simons blossomed last season en route to a big money extension, Josh Hart thrived upon getting traded to the Pacific Northwest, Jerami Grant should fit in perfectly at the four, and Jusuf Nurkic has been a steady hand in the middle for years. When they are playing well, the Blazers are going to give opposing teams headaches.

What happens when they have to turn to their bench? Gary Payton II will miss the start of the year after offseason surgery, and guys like Drew Eubanks, Keon Johnson, Nassir Little, Olivier Sarr, and Trendon Watford flashed at various points during the lost 2021-22 campaign. How do those players respond to the lights being a little bit brighter for a team that wants to return to the postseason? What can they get out of 2022 first-round draft pick Shaedon Sharpe, whose talent as a wing scorer is undeniable but did not suit up for Kentucky at all last year? The good news for Portland is that answering this question with players who have been in the league and had some success is much easier than banking on guys to whom all of this is new.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Can they balance going for a high pick with taking a step forward?

The Thunder have some tentpole players as they enter year three of their post-Russell Westbrook rebuild. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is excellent, Josh Giddey earned All-Rookie Second Team honors last season, and Luguentz Dort got a 5-year contract extension worth $87.5 million over the summer. While the team still has a billion future draft picks (this is only a slight over exaggeration), it stands to reason that whatever the best version of Oklahoma City looks like in 3-4 years includes those dudes, and continuing to develop them is of the utmost importance. And while Gilgeous-Alexander admitted he knew “what I signed up for” when he agreed to a 5-year extension, he made clear that “I don’t think we’re gonna be losing for much longer” this offseason.

Having said that, did you watch those games with Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson in Las Vegas? For how promising Dort, Giddey, and especially Gilgeous-Alexander are (along with a handful of others on this roster), Wembanyama and Henderson are the kinds of franchise-changing talents that make a huge rebuild worth it and accelerate any sort of rebuild. With how, for lack of a better word, competitive things could end up being in the race for the best possible position in the Draft Lottery next year, there is value in going for extremely broke as soon as possible. For example:

Utah Jazz: Do they want to find trades for their veterans?

Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Royce O’Neale, and Bojan Bogdanovic were the Jazz’s top-4 players in minutes per game last year. All of them were traded this offseason. Joe Ingles is gone. Danuel House is gone. Head coach Will Hardy is 34, got a long-term contract, and never has been in this position before. It is not hard to look at Utah’s moves over the summer and deduce that they have one eye on trying to get as high a pick as they possibly can in the 2023 NBA Draft.

The team did give a contract extension to one of the players they acquired in those aforementioned deals (Collin Sexton), while there are some proven dudes that came back, like like Malik Beasley, Lauri Markkanen, and Kelly Olynyk. Will they stick around ahead of the trade deadline? What about the guys who have been around prior to this summer, like Jordan Clarkson or Mike Conley or Rudy Gay, all of whom can be free agents next summer? There is value to having them around as the Jazz go through a youth movement, but it is not hard to imagine a scenario where other teams come calling and help them bolster their stash of draft picks.

Meghan Markle‘s recent remarks about her experience on Deal or No Deal did not sit well with Whoopi Goldberg. The outspoken The View co-host took the royal Duchess to task for the way she described the show as “all looks and little substance.” Markle also said that she felt objectified and not valued for her intellect.

“There were times I was on set at Deal or No Deal and thinking back to my time working as an intern at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina in Buenos Aires and being in the motorcade with the security of treasury at the time and being valued specifically for my brain,” Markle said on her podcast. “Here, I was being valued for something quite the opposite.”

“The objectification might be coming from you and how you felt about how these women were being portrayed,” Goldberg said in response to Markle’s complaints before spelling out the nature of the entertainment business.

Via Decider:

“That’s what you have to change because we’re performers. When you’re a performer, you take the gig. Sometimes you’re in a bozo suit, sometimes you got a big nose, and this is just the way it is. We’re not journalists. We’re actors. We’re trying to get to another place.”

Sunny Hostin jumped in to describe the “archetype” Markle was referring to as she pointed out that the show had “no big girls” and all they had were “little, skinny, tiny, pretty models.” However, Goldberg fired back, “But what did you think you were going to [do]? That’s what the show was.”

As Goldberg continued to push back on Markle’s remarks, she eventually landed at the crux of her argument. “Just maybe you don’t want to make the other women feel bad because maybe they’re trying to make a living, too,” Goldberg said.

(Via Decider)

Howard Stern has weighed in on the Kanye West controversy, and as always, the shock jock did not pull punches. While tackling West’s recent interview with Chris Cuomo, Stern went to town on the rapper’s increasingly open use of antisemitism. West had his Instagram and Twitter accounts restricted after back-to-back posts where he accused Diddy of being controlled by the Jews and vowed to go “death con 3 on Jewish people.” He’s since doubled down on those statements by railing against a “Jewish Underground Media Mafia” during his interview with Cuomo.

According to Mediaite, Stern blasted anyone trying to defend West’s statements due to his admissions that he suffers from bipolar disorder. “You gotta hear the sh*t this guy’s into and f*ck this mental illness, self defense thing that he’s into, you know, like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s just mentally ill. Don’t worry about it.’”

Like a lot of people, Stern couldn’t help but wonder how Kanye isn’t getting the Britney Spears treatment. The pop star was placed under her father’s control for over a decade following allegations of mental illness, but the same hasn’t happened to Kanye.

“If he’s so mentally ill. Why don’t they appoint a conservator over his money like they did with the poor Britney Spears?” Stern asked.

After playing more of Kanye’s antisemitic rants, Stern heard enough and went right for the mother of all comparisons. “This is so depressing. I mean, Kanye used to be fun crazy. Now he’s like Hitler.”

(Via Mediaite)

Danna Paola will be tackling a classic by Queen this week for upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup. Today (October 19), the Mexican pop star announced that she will be covering “A Kind Of Magic” alongside Egyptian artist Felukah and Saudi Arabian singer Tamtam.

Paola, Felukah, and Tamtam are collaborating on a cover of Queen’s “A Kind Of Magic.” Their version of the 1986 hit will be released as part of Coca-Cola’s “Believing Is Magic” campaign for the upcoming FIFA World Cup. Paola’s Latin pop sound will be blended with Arabic culture by way of Felukah and Tamtam’s features.

“It’s inspiring to be part of a global campaign represented by women,” Paola said in a statement. “Working with Felukah and Tamtam was a beautiful and magical experience. Music is the magic key to bring people together. I’m thrilled to be part of this and to put Mexico into the spotlight.”

Paola, Felukah, and Tamtam’s “A Kind Of Magic” music video will be released on Friday, October 21. The FIFA World Cup is set to kick off in Qatar on November 20. Earlier this year, Paola returned to the music scene with her single “XT4S1S.” She is currently touring Mexico on the XT4S1S Tour with US dates expected to be announced soon.

Lil Baby’s third album, It’s Only Me, has proven to be one of the buzziest releases of the year. This is largely due to Baby’s fiery bars, but also partly due to a rumored beef with Migos.

A line from Quavo and Takeoff’s joint album, Only Built For Infinity Links seems to imply a beef with Baby after he allegedly took Saweetie on a shopping spree, though some also thought the aforementioned line was about Offset. Some also thought Baby was taking shots at Quavo and Takeoff on an It’s Only Me track called “Stand On It,” on which, he rapped, “I don’t want yo b*tch, we can’t swap out / They ain’t on sh*t, tell ’em to pop out.”

In an interview with Posted On The Corner, Lil Baby replied “Hell nah!” when asked about any “underlying issues” with Migos.

“I don’t even want to comment on that type of stuff,” he said. “I feel like when I comment on something, it makes it bigger. First of all, I really don’t see sh*t on the internet. People send me sh*t and I be wanting to comment, but then I feel like that’s just gonna make it even more… But they know I ain’t got nothing going on with them.”

You can watch the interview above.

It’s Only Me, is out now via Quality Control and Motown. Stream it here.

Instagram has undergone several design changes over the course of this year, from briefly testing a full-screen version of the app to imitate their competitor TikTok, lowering recommended posts, and slowly removing the Shop section of the app. However, they have plans for even more updates in the works. Developer and self-proclaimed leaker Alessandro Paluzzi frequently shares behind-the-scenes details of what they’re planning next.

Since September alone, Paluzzi has posted that Instagram is testing a repost feature, which was later confirmed to TechCrunch, as well as the ability to search for reels, a “Roll Call” feature, and the ability to comment with gifs.

Arguably the most interesting recent reveal from Paluzzi is Instagram’s plans to allow users to add a song of their personal choice to their profile. Meta (the umbrella of what most know as Facebook and Instagram) spokesperson Christine Pai told CNET in an email statement that Paluzzi’s music update discovery “is an internal prototype, and not testing externally.” Still, it means it is something they are, at the very least, considering bringing to the app.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. And you were also likely a teen, or older, active on MySpace during its prime era. (I was not.) Following the teaser of getting your own song on social media again, many users who stumbled upon the news were incredibly enthusiastic about getting some of that e-nostalgia back. There’s also something comedic in borrowing inspiration from something you helped destroy, like Netflix dropping a Blockbuster show.

While Instagram has allowed users to share specific songs from Spotify and other streaming platforms on their IG stories, this one would appear directly on your profile. Out of all the choices of songs out there, how do you even narrow down your one true theme song? For me, it’s like choosing a favorite child from Taylor Swift’s complete discography — and that’s just wrong.

Continue scrolling for more MySpace-era nostalgia reactions about Instagram’s (potential) new music-focused feature.

Misery loves company, which might explain why Ryanair is currently trolling “tiny cretin of a man” James Corden. On Monday, famed New York City restaurateur Keith McNally announced via social media that he was 86’ing the outgoing The Late Late Show host from his perennial SoHo hotspot, Balthazar.

McNally shared a story to his Instagram in which he publicly demolished Corden for being a total a**shole to his waitstaff and management team on more than one occasion. The latest confrontation came earlier this month, when Corden reportedly pitched a fit after his wife’s egg-yolk omelette (WTF?!) ended up with some egg white in it (huh?!). According to McNally, Corden’s behavior toward the restaurant’s staff was “abusive” — so he banned him.

While other New York City restaurant owners have stepped forward to defend Corden and say that he is, in fact, a friendly and lovely man, there was really no need. As McNally and Corden appear to have cleared up the matter, with each man feeling badly about what had transpired and how the incident was shared with the public. (Though something tells us it was Corden who was the more contrite.) In the midst of all the hullabaloo surrounding the matter, low-cost European airline Ryanair decided to jump in on the fun and announce that they, too, were banning Corden from all Ryanair flights.

Something tells us that won’t be a huge problem for Corden. Based on a recently resurfaced story from 2017, the late-night host has a preference for flying business class — and not having to contend with crying babies (even his own). Low-cost Ryanair, meanwhile, is regularly ranked among the worst airlines in the world and was once crowned the very worst “short-haul airline.” In addition to offering zero in-flight entertainment options, the airline likes to nickel-and-dime its customers on everything. Which, if McNally’s stories are true, doesn’t seem like something Corden easily abides by.

Bye bye, Troy Bolton of High School Musical fame. Zac Efron has fully come into his own power as a performer and a presence. Not only have we heard that Alexander Skarsgård was inspired to go pantless by the Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile star, but Efron has moved on from Baywatch mode into an upcoming A24 project. In addition, Netflix is preparing to bring us more of his unwaveringly pure unscripted series (one of our favorite docuseries of 2020), in which Efron learns about science and explores nature and generally lives everyone’s best life.

On that note, the Down Under Season 2 has arrived, and the show is now apparently renamed as Down to Earth with Zac Efron: Down Under. Get ready for plenty of “sick” and “mind blown” exclamations coming your way, man. Above, Zac and Darin Olien preview their “deep dive” into Australian culture with an eye towards sustainability. They hang with kangaroos and koalas! That’s the dose of adorableness that we need, and hopefully, we’ll see more incredible moments like those from Season 1, which included Zac changing a woman’s life by removing debris from her Hurricane-devastated home in Puerto Rico. Those small gestures mean everything when it comes to healing our very broken world, and some “whoa!” sprinkled everywhere never hurts matters.

The season promises to take Efron and Olien “from Sydney to the Greater Blue Mountains” while they tango with eco-warriors, explore local customs, and have a ton of fun (and good eats) in the process. Let’s go.

Down To Earth returns on November 11.

Back in 2019, as Lil Nas X rode the wave of his historic hit “Old Town Road,” I wrote that he was handling the song’s outsized success just as he should. Later that year, after getting the chance to actually talk to him about it in person, I opined that his precipitous rise was no accident. Last night, at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, the latest stop on his Long Live Montero Tour, he more than justified my belief in him, putting on a show unlike any other I’ve seen.

For one thing, I’ve never been handed a legit Playbill in the lobby. Thumbing through its pages reveals that Nas has taken the time to acknowledge literally every single person who contributed to the show, from the dancers to the designers to the security. One page shows off the designs for the six costumes he’ll wear throughout the 90-minute show, which maintains the Broadway theme with a three-act structure and a loose narrative. Nas leans into the Renaissance aesthetic, with cotumes inspired by that era right down to his sparkly heels.

His costume changes are concealed by interludes presented by “The Wizard Of Naz,” a woman who is projected on the stage curtain between the acts, breaking down what each part represents in the story of Nas coming to terms with himself and his desires. In addition to advancing this narrative, the setlist also loosely re-tells the story of his rise to stardom — the first act is highlighted by early career hits such as “Old Town Road,” “Panini,” and “Rodeo,” while album cuts such as “That’s What I Want” and “Montero” buttress the second.

The finale, naturally, is “Industry Baby,” the song that proved Nas isn’t just a one-hit-wonder and solidified him as even more a provocateur and pioneer than we had ever originally imagined. (Yes, “Call Me By Your Name” exploded behind the music video hype, but “Industry Baby” has been a lasting, resonant megasmash, even helping to launch collaborator Jack Harlow into his own No. 1 hit).

While an offstage band blows out all the songs, one of the things Nas does to keep the familiar hits more interesting is incorporating elements of other artists’ hits. “Old Town Road” gets remixed with Genuwine’s “Pony,” Beyonce’s Renaissance favorite “Pure/Honey” gets smashed into “That’s What I Want,” and Prince’s manic guitar intro even makes an appearance. Meanwhile, like Megan Thee Stallion before him, Nas invites exuberant fans onstage to twerk it out to “Down Souf Hoes.”

What makes the level of presentation and confidence in his performance all the more impressive is not just that Long Live Montero is Lil Nas’ first tour. It’s also the scale of the show in relation to where he is in his career. Like many young breakout artists of the last few years, Nas lost what amounted to two years of development. Instead of starting out at, say, 1,500-cap venues and scaling up over successive tours, he’s been thrown into the deep end at 6,000-plus-cap venues like YouTube Theater.

The stakes are higher here; there’s more pressure, a slimmer margin of error, and further to fall with a misstep — which becomes more likely without significant tour experience under his belt. Sure, working with so many awards shows definitely contributed to the scale and complexity of the production, but Nas hasn’t really had to perform for a live audience night after night while zigzagging across the nation in a tour bus before. That he’s able to do so as coolly as he has is a testament to his dedication to the craft.

That’s what makes the difference between Lil Nas X and the artists that the industry has based on his blueprint. He wasn’t just a TikTok sensation that blew up by accident and took the brass ring when it was offered. He worked for it. He made “Old Town Road” go viral by sheer force of will, and when circumstances conspired to give him more attention than he was ready for, he worked his butt off again to deserve it. He’s been forced to grow up before our eyes, but he’s risen to that challenge magnificently.

That’s the story on display in his Long Live Montero set (which also explains its brevity; the kid only really has one album out). Many artists these days preach self-belief during their sets, but Lil Nas X doesn’t just tell us; he shows us what it looks like. He puts his life story and his career arc on display, then plays it to the tilt, adding a flair for drama that makes it truly entertaining. It’s not just a great show, it’s a perfect example of an artist doing everything he can to make sure it’s a show worth seeing and talking about because he knows what it took to get here.