Newsletter Thursday, June 23, 2016

[LaineyGossip.com - Calling all smuthounds!] Thursday, June 23, 2016 [Intro for June 23, 2016] [Constance Wu ] Dear Gossips, The Emmy nominations will be announced on July 14th. The voting period for nominations however ends on Monday, June 27th. As that deadline approaches, several good articles have been posted about possible contenders, just the beginning of their campaigns should they clear the first race point. Television has been ahead of film on storytelling and diversity. It’s not there yet, no doubt. But we’ve definitely seen more representation for women and two women of colour, in particular, are considered to be at the top of the list in the Best Actress Comedy category: Tracee Ellis Ross of Black-ish and Constance Wu of Fresh Off The Boat. [IndieWire posited yesterday] that Tracee and Constance have “revived the sitcom mom” and that their work stands out as the “emblem of (their) series’ defining experience, which is not to be one thing or the other, but both, and much more besides”. YES. And “much more besides”. YES. Can Jessica Huang be a typical guilt-dispensing, super cheap Chinese martyr mom and real estate agent addicted to Melrose Place? Of course. All of it. Because actual Asian American women are “much more besides” too. She’s recognisable but she exists out there. It’s just that she hasn’t been allowed to in pop culture until recently. This opportunity for Constance, however, is rare. She, right now, is an “only”. There are few Constance Wus in Hollywood, which puts her in a unique position with benefits and pressures. The benefit, of course, is the recognition. The pressure of being the “only”, or one of the few at least, is that she becomes the vessel, the one who must carry the cause, use her voice. But in using her voice, as [she told Vulture this week], she pisses off the establishment. If she pisses off the establishment too much, she risks losing her position. And if she loses her position, she’s losing a place at a table that doesn’t make room for Asians. If you’ve read that Vulture piece though, Constance Wu is still talking. She knows she’s been a pain in the ass for some executives and even still, she’s decided she’s not going to stop talking about the inequality and the whitewashing in Hollywood. It’s a conversation that’s picking up momentum. Mashable posted a great article this week called [Where the fierce Asians at?] featuring “eight prominent Asian-Americans in entertainment about their experiences in comedy, film, television and fashion, to see what it’s really like to be a minority of minorities in 2016”. Much more and besides. Yours in gossip, Lainey [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 1:31 PM [Swoki obliges] [Tom Hiddleston/Taylor Swift ] When I wrote about [Taylor Swift] and [Tom Hiddleston] [at Selena Gomez’s show the other day], I asked for some updated photos of them that I could use. And they obliged. That night they were papped leaving the venue, holding hands, in the same frame. [Last night Taylor and Tom 😍😍 #tomhiddleston #taylorswift #selenagomez #hiddleswifties #hiddleston #hiddleswift #revivaltour - - - - - - Credit: @meredith1398] A photo posted by #Hiddleswift 😍 (@hiddleswifties) on Jun 22, 2016 at 11:19am PDT And there’s more. Last night they went out for dinner, still in Nashville, holding hands once again. E! has the exclusive photos and details: Baby, they're the new romantics: Inside Hiddleswift's "intimate" dinner date. [ [pic.twitter.com/Oltxmirheq] — E! News (@enews) [June 23, 2016] How long has it been now? Over a week, inseparable, and he’s met and hung out with her friends, and stayed at three of her homes (that we know of): Rhode Island, New York, and Nashville. Tom was seen in LA just before they flew out to Rhode Island though so it’s a good possibility that he was with her there too. Does she own any other real estate that he needs to visit? It’s not like they wouldn’t know what’s being said. It’s not like they don’t know that Swoki has become an obsession. It’s not like they don’t know they’re covering magazines now: So when they’re going out, in the presence of photographers, with their hands clasped, well, nobody minds here. We don’t mind. And they definitely, definitely don’t mind. Consider this: when Tom was dating [Elizabeth Olsen]? They wouldn’t even admit it let alone allow themselves to be photographed in a couple-confirmation position. More evidence that Tom Hiddleston likes the Taylor Swift spotlight. Just like the other guy, only majorly upgraded. And Tom’s stage name isn’t Ty Jackson. PS – everyone’s talking about some radio interview he gave talking about his relationship with Taylor Swift. [It’s FAKE]. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 7:48 PM [Batman Taylor Swift] [Dave Grohl and Taylor Swift, 2008] We’ve heard [Taylor Swift] described as many things, in many ways. But Batman? I did not see that coming. [Dave Grohl] was in Cannes for a private performance, and before he played his song he told a long anecdote about being at a party with Paul McCartney. Paul gets up to sing a song, and then, inevitably, Dave is asked to follow. And I guess, as a famous musician, you can’t say no if Paul McCartney has said yes. That just makes you seem like an asshole. But Dave was (slightly) high, doesn’t know how to play the piano, and only had access to Paul’s left-handed instruments. He’s (slightly) freaking out, and then he hears a voice from the crowd. A volunteer tribute. It’s Taylor Swift, and she jumps on stage. Dave Grohl is SAVED. By Taylor Swift (who he then refers to as Batman). And I guess this is where I’m supposed to rag on her for being a try-hard. For being the girl who always has her hand up in class, ready to answer the teacher’s question. But you know what? Good for her. Put your goddamn hand up, Taylor. Because when she got to the piano, do you know what she played? A Foo Fighters song. So, to reiterate, Dave did not know how to play his own song on the piano, and Taylor did. And then he joined her onstage to jam. If you know the answer, why wouldn’t you put your hand up? To paraphrase Mindy Kaling, know your sh-t and show your sh-t. Because how would being meek, or quiet, or not showing that she can play a Foo Fighters song in front of the lead singer of the Foo Fighters, benefit Taylor Swift? And before you eye-roll her, what if John Mayer or Keith Urban had gotten up to play with Dave? Then it would be considered a jam session between contemporaries. Taylor deserves to be on stage with Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl as much as any rock, pop, hip hop, R&B etc. musicians. More than almost all of them, actually. My only complaint is that she should have played Big Me (the acoustic version was my wedding song). I’d be looking for a bootleg of that. [Source] [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 7:21 PM [A bag for silence] A known randy man, celebrated lothario, international party animal, and now an actor who’s supposed to be in a serious relationship …but before that happened he got a lot of action. The right thing to do when you have herpes is to disclose the information before the sex happens. Which, credit to him, he did in one case that I know of. But when you’re a celebrity you have to make sure your former partners keep your secrets. So he generously sends her a designer bag (Chanel is preferred) every month keep it locked down. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 6:58 PM [The Beckhams in Paris and New York] [David Beckham attends the Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring/Summer 2017 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 23, 2016 in Paris, France] You know how Brad Pitt wasn’t looking so great [until he reclaimed the hot recently]? I felt the same way about [David Beckham], even though he’s the reigning Sexiest Man Alive. That said… Check him out in Paris at the Louis Vuitton show. And he too has reclaimed some hot, non? What is it? A good facial? Also, I’ve always loved the way he wears clothes and he looks amazing in this black sweater over black pants. The most attractive I’ve found him in a while. Over in New York, [Victoria] was giving us a fashion show. Multiple new looks. This jumpsuit is amazing. And the colours! An all yellow trench and dazzle and a red sweater with turquoise pants, all by VB, of course. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:56 PM [Colin Firth and Jude Law in Genius] [Genius movie poster] The first hurdle to clear with Genius, the feature film debut of English theater director Michael Grandage, is that everyone is played by Brits and Aussies, and by “everyone” I mean some of the most towering figures of American literature. You cast the best actor for the role and a good actor can convince you they’re anyone, so it shouldn’t really matter, but there is something profoundly odd about watching a parade of Lit 101 All Stars appear on screen and struggle with American accents. [Jude Law], in particular, overdoes it on his North Carolinian twang as Thomas Wolfe, one of the twentieth century’s greatest American novelists. It doesn’t ruin the film by any means, it’s just a quirk of this production. Genius, adapted by John Logan (Skyfall, Hugo) from A. Scott Berg’s biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, is a film about books, and in particular, the editing of books. Having edited short fiction for publication, I appreciate many of the cinematic grace notes applied to an editor’s odd job of saying, “I love this, now rewrite it!”, but I don’t for one second think this will be compelling drama for the average viewer. It won’t be, especially as it flies in the face of the popular image of the artist as a singular genius who creates in a vacuum and is never influenced by anyone, let alone told to go back and try again by some stuffed shirt. Genius would be a much easier sell if it was entirely about Wolfe and his wild narrative hares, and not the guy who tells him to cut hundreds of pages from his brilliant manuscripts. The push-pull between editors and writers occupies most of the film, in particular the working relationship-cum-friendship between Perkins ([Colin Firth]) and Thomas Wolfe, a famously verbose writer with a huge, domineering personality. Firth is reliably effective as Perkins, and if Law trends into ham territory, it can be forgiven because Wolfe was reportedly so dynamic in person. It’s also forgivable because Genius needs that burst of passion, as the other performances are serviceable but constrained. For a film ostensibly about American artistic sensibility, Genius is very English in its own presentation—classy but restrained. This is an “Actors Acting” film, where not a lot happens but actors in rooms, acting at each other, and it could have been an elegant little example of the dramatic sub-genre. But Genius is the kind of movie that tells you a character is strait-laced by having him wear a hat everywhere, even to bed. And then it tells you he is loosening up by having him visit a jazz club—escandalo! For a film about finessing texts, there isn’t much finesse in Genius. And when the final fall out between Perkins and Wolfe comes, it’s been so often foreshadowed by other characters that it’s hardly surprising or even interesting. And then F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) shows up to recap the scene we just watched, including Perkins’ feelings about it, which is obnoxious. For a film about editing, Genius could have used some revision. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:22 PM [Smutty sensing the Brange] [Angelina Jolie arrives at LAX with sons Knox and Maddox, June 21, 2016] It’s been pretty stable between [Angelina Jolie] and [Brad Pitt] for a while now. But [US Weekly reports in its latest issue] that there may be some tension between the two. Typically tabloid stories about the two are not all that reliable, especially from the lower tier magazine. US Weekly however isn’t lower tier. And US has generally been pretty favourable towards Brange. There are other reasons too for not writing off this account – we’ll get to that on the other side but first, these are the details. As you know, Brange owns an estate in the South of France. That’s where they got married. That’s where their wine is produced. Apparently Brad wants to keep it and Angelina wants to unload it. [For political aspirations]: Angelina is ramping up her efforts in the political world,' a source told the publication. The Oscar winner has been working with Arminka Helic, the British House Of Lords member. 'They share a similar vision.' said a source. Jolie and Helic have partnered up for a nonprofit based in the UK. And the Maleficent beauty has also been teaching at Helic's alma mater the London School Of Economics. It looks as if Angelina wants to enter the House Of Lords. Only tax-paying British residents are allowed into the House. 'She wants to sell Chateau Miraval and Brad refuses,' said the source. Pitt owns a home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles but it is not known if that is in her name as well and will have to go too. And though Jolie is slated for a Maleficent sequel which Disney confirmed this spring, a source added 'she has turned her back on Hollywood.' There’s nothing here about cheating. About flirting with Marion Cotillard or thinking about Jennifer Aniston. In fact, what US Weekly is giving us is actually, from a front cover perspective, not all that scandalous – which is why it’s not a blazing cover story. That’s why, in my gossip experience, this is worth considering. The surface boring-ness of the story is precisely why it’s setting off my smutty senses. This is a portrait of a couple with possibly diverging interests – for her a life of politics. She’s been spending a lot of time with Arminka Helic, a British politician connected to the London School of Economics, perhaps Angelina’s link to securing a visiting professorship there – and certainly an asset to her if she is really wants to join the House Of Lords; Angelina’s language lately has suggested that a political future is not out of the question. Which speaks to lifestyle. And that’s a real thing in a real marriage – differences over lifestyle don’t make for the sexiest, most intriguing gossip headlines but this might be the difference between this particular story about potential Brange unrest and the others. In my experience, it’s also a teaser. Like a lead-in/warmup, to get us positioned and primed for more. I mean there’s no reason to panic, but let’s keep watching. Here are Angelina and Brad arriving at LAX the other day. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:10 PM [Thrones theories before the finale] [Kit Harington arriving for his afternoon performance of Doctor Faustus in London, June 23, 2016] I was feeling pretty good about Game of Thrones going into finale week until Lainey put a bug in my ear about Littlefinger becoming the new big bad—now that Ramsay Bolton is gone—and I’ve spent all week trying to break down the odds of that happening. After saving Jon Snow’s ass during the Battle of the Bastards, the Starks are now indebted to Littlefinger, so he’s got some leverage against them. I believe his first offer of help was sincere, to make up for what he unintentionally thrust Sansa into when he arranged her marriage to Ramsay. But she turned him down, and I don’t think a guy like Littlefinger will see coming back to help after she asks for his aid as the same thing as that original offer he made. Now he’s going to want something in return. But will Littlefinger become the main villain? Or will he just be his usual creepy self and try to get Sansa to marry him—let’s be honest, this is 100% what he’s going to want now that the Starks owe him. If Thrones was going to run longer than one more season—rumored to be split in half a la Mad Men—I could see Littlefinger taking a real black hat turn. But we’re at the end game, which means it’s time for the White Walkers to become the main focus of the story. So I don’t see Littlefinger going full-bad guy, because the White Walkers will be the season seven big bad. He’s just going to be the shifty, creepy f*cker he’s been all along. Although speaking of Sansa and marriage…if she does remarry—third time’s a charm—what do you think the odds are she marries Robin Arryn? Sure, they’re cousins, but when has that stopped anyone in Westeros? Besides, Robin comes with serious resources, including the Knights of the Vale. And Sansa, at this stage of the game, will have no problem controlling that little twerp. Of course it’s just as likely she does marry Littlefinger and then they kill Robin and consolidate power between the Vale and the North. I wouldn’t put anything past Sansa at this point. Going into the season finale, some things are obvious, like Cersei’s pending bonfire in King’s Landing—they haven’t been talking about King Aerys’s wildfire stores all season for nothing—but others remain opaque, like whatever the hell Margaery is angling to do. King’s Landing has not been a fascinating plotline this year, but I am interested to see what happens between Cersei and Margaery. And of course we have to see if Daenerys actually gets on a damn boat and starts making her way toward Westeros. On the whole, this has been an excellent season of Game of Thrones. The show has its usual pacing problems, especially as certain plots have felt rushed (see also: the Blackfish and Riverrun, Arya vs. the Waif) in order to clear the board for the final season, but we’ve seen years of storytelling pay off in mostly satisfactory ways. And after watching the women of Westeros be abused and exploited for so long, it’s been tremendously fun to watch them seize power as all the idiot men kill each other off. All that’s left now is to see how the suffragette movement turns out before the White Walkers show up and ruin everything for everyone. Attached – Kit Harington out in London today. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 4:58 PM [Ben Affleck’s “wife”] [Ben Affleck on the set of Live By Night in LA, June 22, 2016] As mentioned in the previous post, [Ben Affleck] actually sounded pretty lucid during his appearance on Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons before Tom Brady came up in conversation and he felt the need to go full Perry Mason in support of his friend with the potentially shady cell phone. Ben talked about his professional prospects after his relationship with Jennifer Lopez, how it ate at him that he had become a punchline: “If you went by what people said… I wasn’t cool and I wasn’t talented, and I was like the lowest rung of cool and talented that you could possibly be in the public consciousness at that time. I had broken up with Jennifer Lopez and I had like three or four movies in a row that had bombed. I was so uncool that I was literally a punchline in… Arliss’s straight to United Airlines video standup bit. So that guy had to look around and go ‘Who’s below me that I can sh-t on?’ and he picked me. He did a whole bit about me that I saw on United Airlines and I [thought] ‘This is it, it really doesn’t get much worse than this.’ That was where I found myself when I thought ‘hey I want to take up directing,’ which is for people that are taken seriously. That became my mantra ‘I’m just going to work harder than everybody else…’ My wife was really instrumental and helpful in me doing a lot of that work because I was just so focused [on it] and it was harder to balance family and all that.” My wife. She is. Technically she is. Because they’re definitely not divorced. So is it merely an issue of wording? What do you call the person you’re technically still married to but supposedly officially separated from? Is the use of “wife” in this context simply a matter of convenience and habit? Habit is an interesting word here too. Where he’s concerned, habit is always a word. In this case, the habit of their lives together, balancing the habitual necessity of lifestyle for their family while negotiating the process of consciously uncoupling – how do you find the balance in that so that you can transition from spouses to friends? Gwyneth Paltrow might have some answers. But that was a breakup that we now know was, in the end, a clear break. Has there been a clear break between Ben Affleck and [Jennifer Garner]? Does he want there to be? Before this appearance on Any Given Wednesday, Ben was working on the upswing of his familiar cycle of self-sabotage to rock bottom to redemption, and repeat. He’s currently directing Live By Night which wasn’t supposed to be released until Fall 2017. This week, however, it was announced that Warner Bros will release Live By Night on January 13, 2017. That doesn’t sound promising, a January theatrical debut, [but some are speculating] that that’s the wide release date and that Live By Night will actually come out in limited release in December (not unlike The Revenant’s schedule) which is award season positioning. And if that ends up being true, it means the studio has a lot of confidence in this picture, thinks it could be part of an award season conversation. On top of that, there are now rumours that Ben’s other film, The Accountant, will open the Toronto International Film Festival. Joanna sent me this tweet this morning and there are others like it: Chazelle's 'La La Land' is opening the Venice Film Festival! Speaking of festivals, rumour has it 'The Accountant' is opening TIFF. True? — Matt (@onpopculture) [June 17, 2016] So, before last night, there was momentum. Another Ben Affleck comeback was in motion. And that’s where he thrives. That’s his rush. To fall from grace, as he said to Bill Simmons, and “work harder than anyone else” to get back up to the top, he gets off on it. Making mountains to climb just might be Ben’s greatest addiction. He was on his way. But today we’re talking about all his slurry “f-cks” while in defence of Tom Brady. Is that a setback? It’s June. I don’t think it’s a setback. Especially not when he still has his secret weapon: his “wife”. But what will it take to get her to play? Attached - Ben Affleck on the set of Live By Night and Jennifer Garner leaving the gym yesterday in LA. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 3:40 PM [Ben Affleck rants] [Ben Affleck on Bill Simmons's Any Given Wednesday ] [Ben Affleck] was on Bill Simmons’s Any Given Wednesday last night. Everyone’s talking about one particular clip during which he goes OFF on the NFL in defence of [Tom Brady]. Tom, of course, plays for the New England Patriots and Ben is from Boston. Tom Brady is their golden hero. And besides, well, you haven’t forgotten about this, have you? Ben Affleck flew his nanny to Vegas — while unsuspecting Jen stayed home with the kids [ [pic.twitter.com/nVFcUGmyDz] — New York Post (@nypost) [August 11, 2015] So there are all kinds of connections happening here, on top of the fact that Ben is a Boston superfan. Ben and Tom hang out on private planes. Their families holiday together. Ben is always going to be pro-Brady. Ben and Brady probably have to lock down the same sh-t. And so Ben went all in for Brady on the show: Ben’s raging passion for Brady isn’t what people are talking about though. It’s the way he was raging. And the slurring. I didn’t notice the slurring until about the 3:40 mark of the video above. That’s when his words really started getting knotted in his mouth and he very clearly says “tegrity” instead of “INtegity” when referring to Roger Goodell’s lack of it. Unfortunately, that’s the only clip that’s been posted online. To get a clearer picture of Ben’s behaviour, you should watch the entire episode. And I did. We’ll get back to the content of the rest of the interview later because there’s some gossip there too but what’s weird about it is that when he’s talking about his career and his professional “rock bottom” (the one that happened after JLO), there’s not really any slurring. He still looks weird as f-ck with whatever is happening in his cheeks but if those were the clips that were released on the internet, the reaction to the way he’s speaking wouldn’t be the same. The reaction would be about how he calls Jennifer Garner his “wife”. Like I said, we’ll get back to that in a minute. So it’s only when Ben starts ranting about his best friend, the “f-cking classy” Tom Brady, that his mouth gets all tangled up with itself. [TMZ sources are saying that Ben wasn’t drunk], just animated because Tom Brady means so much to him. And the idea of Tom handing his phone over to the NFL, potentially exposing any “sexts” his wife had sent to him was so terrifying, he couldn’t contain himself. Oh really, Ben Affleck? Is that what might be on Tom Brady’s phone? Sexts? From his wife? Just his wife? THIS revelation and not the slurring is the strongest sign, to me, that Ben may not have had all his faculties. It’s a slip, in the heat of the moment, that could have been better contained if … if what? If you’re asking me to speculate, I’d say pills would be more likely. We already know that [prescription medication misuse is a problem all over North America]. In Hollywood? Practically everyone has prescription for something. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 2:43 PM [June 23, 2016 – Smutty Shout-Outs] [The Covenant House Vancouver matching gift challenge] is happening until the end of the month. Two generous donors have offered to match all gifts – which means that your donation will be DOUBLED in support of homeless and at-risk youth accessing services to rebuild their lives and change the circumstances. If you are able to, please help our kids reclaim their futures. [Click here to help]. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 1:39 PM [Privacy Policy] - [Unsubscribe]