Newsletter Friday, January 13, 2017

[LaineyGossip.com - Calling all smuthounds!] Friday, January 13, 2017 [Intro for January 13, 2017] [Julia Roberts out for lunch with a friend at the Soho House in Maliub, California on January 11, 2017] Dear Gossips, Earlier this week on [The Social] we interviewed Will Schwalbe about his book Books For Living. It’s a book about books, books that have changed people’s lives and the stories about the stories that have brought people together. Will told a story about a grandmother who bonded with her grandson after she asked him what he was reading and he said The Hunger Games. So she started reading The Hunger Games and then they talked about The Hunger Games, not as grandmother and grandson but as equal readers. This is why Will suggests that we ask each other, “What are you reading?” more often. It’s a question that will almost always lead to a conversation. And we all need to be talking to each other a lot more. So…what are you reading? What are you reading this weekend? I’m reading Roxane Gay’s short story collection, Difficult Women, this weekend. Most of you probably don’t need an introduction to Roxane Gay. She is worshipped here at LaineyGossip. But if you’ve never read Roxane before, if you haven’t yet read Bad Feminist, and you’re not familiar with her talent, her energy, [her power], her words, Elle this week published one of the short stories from Difficult Women called [The Mark Of Cain]. It is devastating. It is uncompromising. It is essential. Roxane Gay is essential to me. I need her. Whose words do you need? Please let me know. I want to share in your need. The Year of the Rooster begins two weeks from tomorrow. Yesterday I profiled the Year of the Rooster forecast for those born under sign of the [Monkey]. Today it’s the Goat’s turn. Or Sheep. For Chinese zodiac purposes, it’s interchangeable. Roosters and Goats get on well. This should, for the most part, be a stable year. There are two lucky stars guiding the Goat during the Year of the Rooster. One is a work star and the other is a love star. So there may be good luck coming in both your career and in romance. However, there are also two dark stars in play and they could affect family. These family issues might give goats some anxiety and mute the joy that comes from work and love. It is best then to not lose yourself in the highs so that you might be ready for any possible lows. 1931 Goats will benefit from past savings. Be mindful of falling and hurting yourself. Be very careful when you’re coming and going. In addition to the Injury Alert, there’s also a Swindle Alert, perhaps by someone of the opposite sex. 1967 Goats are advised to have a big birthday celebration. This is not the year to enjoy a quiet birthday. This birthday, surround yourself with those who love you, their well-wishes can protect you. Julia Roberts is a 1967 Goat. And she also happens to be turning 50 (on the Western calendar – the Chinese calendar is ahead by a year so the Chinese zodiac considers her to be turning 51) during the Year of the Rooster. Perfect time to have a party. Let her know if you can. Attached – Julia out in Malibu the other day. 1979 Goats are lucky in learning this year. You are encouraged to take lessons, to enroll in new programs, with particular focus on the arts. For Goats born in 1991, make sure you’re not too distracted by romance. You may be all consumed by your relationships and could lose ground on your career. Do not lose focus on your work and your studies. Goats of all years may experience a very active love life during the Year of the Rooster. But a “tripping” advisory keeps coming up. So a full medical checkup is recommended at the beginning of the new year. In February and March you may be annoyed by minor legal matters, speeding or parking tickets, etc. A small setback might arise in May and June and to either avoid it or to minimise it, you may want to consider going on holiday at this time. In November and December, harmless rumours could bother you. Be extra vigilant when signing documents or committing to contracts. And take care of your health. Next up on Monday: Horse. Have a great weekend! Yours in gossip, Lainey [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 2:51 PM [Smutty Tingles] [F-cking optical illusions]! (Dlisted) As IF Chuck Bass [would wear this underwear], how DARE they? (Just Jared) How Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix [are spending their time together] (Cele|bitchy) My first thought was: [Is Zayn taller than Taylor Swift]? (TooFab) [Adele gets groceries] (TMZ) It took them this long [to figure out this was bullsh-t] (The Superficial) I feel like Jennifer Lawrence’s family [has no say in Jennifer Lawrence’s love life]? (Celebrity Dirty Laundry) [This is the outfit you wanted to see at the Golden Globes] (Go Fug Yourself) [James Corden’s role in Oceans Eight] (Jezebel) [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 8:48 PM [Smutty Social Media, January 13, 2017] [Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth at Nobu Malibu, January 13, 2017] I’ve seen a lot of “Selena posted a photo after being spotted with The Weeknd” and “Bella Hadid’s revenge selfie” but let’s give them more credit than that. Instagram is a massive part of both of their brands so it’s a little reductive to assume their every online move is a reaction to a boy. These girls are seasoned, they are the social media experts. When they want to start drama, they will let us know. [goodnight🌙 love and light to you all..happy to be home💛] A video posted by Bella Hadid (@bellahadid) on Jan 12, 2017 at 4:32pm PST Great picture choice and isn’t the “we share so many animals with you” much more adorable than the played out “my person” line. [Happiest birthday EVER to my favorite being EVER EVER EVER! You have been my best friend since the day we met..... I am beyond lucky to share sooooo many animals with you!!! 🐷🦄🐶😻🐣 I love you @liamhemsworth] A photo posted by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Jan 13, 2017 at 1:30am PST As a thank you to President Obama, Brad Falchuk posted a photo of Gwyneth Paltrow. [Good night and THANK YOU White House! It was incredible.] A photo posted by @bradfalchuk on Jan 7, 2017 at 3:54pm PST I’ve never noticed the resemblance before, but Zac Efron and Jared Leto could play brothers, right? [🐒] A photo posted by JARED LETO (@jaredleto) on Jan 13, 2017 at 8:08am PST The Good Place is actually really great – I particularly enjoy Chidi and Tahani. She calls it rhythm. I call it a twerk seizure. [@IMKristenBell] [ — WilliamJacksonHarper (@dubjackharper) [January 13, 2017] I’ve always wondered how celebrities hug and pose without getting makeup on each other’s clothes. That wouldn’t be a problem with Alicia Keys. And designers probably love that they can lend her clothes without them coming back with foundation smudges. [Thank you @AliciaKeys!! Everything you do is beautiful!!! x Stella #StellaXCottonClub Photo by @MJKim_lalala.] A photo posted by Stella McCartney (@stellamccartney) on Jan 11, 2017 at 10:25am PST I’ve been obsessed with Jemima Kirke since I read this “[day in the life]” story. And what will she take on after Girls? [#TBT with my long time friend the talented and stunning actress #jemimakirke ❤️⭐⭐⭐⭐] A photo posted by Zac Posen (@zacposen) on Jan 12, 2017 at 11:28am PST SNL’s Michael Che is involved in some [Page Six drama] after a woman named Leah McSweeney called him “arrogant” for his texting etiquette. So he released the texts – I’ve read them several times, and I actually think he had a firm grasp on the situation. Is this a Lena Dunham/Odell Beckham Jr situation – he’s not into me, therefore he is sexist? And of course there’s the history of what it means when a white woman makes accusations about a black man. Online daters, what say you? [A photo posted by Michael Che (@chethinks)] on Jan 6, 2017 at 10:56am PST Jessica Biel was on James Corden talking about [not kissing Justin Timberlake]. It’s interesting in context, if you consider the timing of them “talking on the phone” while he was on tour. It was the Future Sex/Love tour of 2006/7. Cameron and Justin announced their split in January 2007 and at the Golden Globes that month, Cameron [yelled at Jessica and Justin]. Cameron, of course, had an inkling. This moment in gossip nostalgia is brought to you by Jessica’s fringe. [Rollin down the street, smokin indo, sippin James and juice #bookoflove #billpurple] A photo posted by Jessica Biel (@jessicabiel) on Jan 12, 2017 at 5:34pm PST [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 7:23 PM [Janelle Monae x GQ] [Janelle Monae attends Marie Claire's Image Maker Awards 2017 at Catch LA on January 10, 2017 in West Hollywood, California] In December, GQ called 2016 Janelle Monae’s “[best year ever.]” I’ve been a fan since her 2010 album The ArchAndroid so part of me wants to yell at anyone who is just discovering how weird and wonderful [Janelle Monae] is but even I can’t argue with the breakout year she had. 2016 was the year Janelle went from that cool artist obsessed with aliens and robots who slays red carpets on the regular to a Serious Actress in two of the best films of the year. She starred in Moonlight and [Hidden Figures] (technically a 2017 release). You already know how I feel about both of those films. Janelle Monae is goddamn brilliant in both. When Janelle Monae is on screen, you can’t look away. She is gorgeous and mesmerizing and just so f-cking talented it’s almost like she isn’t human – which brings me back to GQ. Janelle is featured in [GQ's current issue] and I would be pissed that she isn't on the cover but everyone's favourite Good Guy [Chance The Rapper] took that spot so I can't be mad about it. The feature focuses on Janelle's otherworldly-ness, mainly that she's so flawless she must be an alien. If you were to ask Janelle, I think she’d say that her obsession with androids and aliens is one of her most defining characteristics. She released three concept albums revolving around her alter-ego Cindi Mayweather, an android who falls in love with a human. God, I love how weird she is. GQ describes her signature outfit as a “tailored intergalactic-butler uniform” and says that Janelle responded to a question about her age with, “I’m timeless.” HA. Who else could say that and still sound cool AF? Janelle's obsession with androids goes deeper than a superficial fascination with the future. “I look at androids as the future Other… I feel a responsibility to speak out for the Other.” Moonlight and Hidden Figures are very different films but they both highlight the importance of "Other." Janelle Monae has always championed this sentiment so it's fitting that these two films have catapulted her to mainstream success. “I want to redefine what it means to be young, black, wild, and free in America,” This redefinition of blackness is the basic fight of representation. Each of Janelle's characters in Moonlight and Hidden Figures are full, complex human beings. In Moonlight, she's nurturing and empathetic. In Hidden Figures, she's hilarious and brave. Blackness can be all of the above and so much more. So maybe Janelle Monae is not an alien or an android, she’s just a badass black woman. Here's Janelle at Marie Claire's Image Maker Awards and at a screening of Hidden Figures in LA the other night. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 7:00 PM [Cherokee Princess Blake Lively] [Blake Lively in L'Oreal True Match commercial ] L’Oreal is running an ad for foundation that includes people from all over the world announcing their heritage, such as “I’m 100% Kenyan” (model Giannina Oteto), and “I’m Eastern European” (transgender model and activist Hari Nef), and featuring such interesting people as Cipriana Quann, Xiao Wen Ju, male model Darnell Bernard, and also brand spokeswoman [Blake Lively] who declares, “I’m English, Irish, German, and Cherokee.” This is not the first time Lively has traded on Cherokee ancestry for makeup. A [L’Oreal ad from 2015] includes the text English, Irish, German, Cherokee as she talks about her skin and how it represents “all the faces before me”, but I guess because this time she said it out loud everyone is raising eyebrows and side-eyeing Lively and her supposed Cherokee roots. Can you sense my skepticism? I don’t know Blake Lively and I don’t know her family, but I do know that throughout my life a whole lot of white people have told me they’re part Cherokee. Everyone in America is part Cherokee if you believe all the people claiming a Cherokee however-many-greats-grandmother. (For some reason, it’s always a Cherokee grandmother.) A lot of families have lore about a relative who married a Cherokee woman, or a half-Cherokee woman, and some of them are probably true. But a lot of them aren’t. I have a complicated relationship with my Lakota heritage. I’m half, but I was born a thousand miles away from my mother’s reservation and adopted as an infant and raised by a white family who didn’t even know my heritage until the Bureau of Indian Affairs came knocking years later (adopting Native kids is a mess). I had been teased my whole life with Pocahontas jokes but I didn’t know they were “real” until I was older, at which point the damage was already done—I didn’t tell anyone about it because I didn’t want to invite more teasing. But I did start reading, and researching, and learning, making trips to South Dakota and listening to the old stories and trying to figure out what it means to be Native when you’re cut off from the Native community. And that’s where I’ve spent most of my life—an outsider among my people and a badly kept secret no one discusses within my family. Just sort of in limbo, looking Native enough to get mocked for it but being white enough to walk away from it, too. And the reality is that while I have the heritage I don’t have the experience—I don’t know rez life. A lot of my Native identity was formed from the outside looking in, trying to make sense of things without a strong connection to community. So I started calling them the “Cherokee Princesses”, because the first thing people do when they find out you’re Native is tell you about their great-great-great-grandmother the Cherokee. The Cherokee Princesses always mean well—they’re proud!—and some of them might actually have real ancestry. But try and talk to them about Native issues, or what it’s like to never braid your hair for fear of inviting more Sacajawea jokes and it’s just blank stares. Being “part Cherokee” just means they heard a story about a grandmother who may or may or not actually exist. That’s as far as it goes. Blake Lively is the latest Cherokee Princess. I’m sure she means well and she’s proud of Grandmother Apocrypha. I’m equally sure no one ever defaced her class portrait by adding war paint to her face. I doubt a classmate has ever taken scissors and cut off her hair and yelled, “I scalped you!” I doubt that co-workers expect her to laugh, too, because c’mon, it’s just a joke. I doubt an elder has ever looked at her with pity, knowing she’s a branch that got severed from the tree. I doubt that being part Cherokee has ever affected her life at all, except that L’Oreal can use it to make money. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:56 PM [Jessica Simpson’s Gossip Nostalgia] [Jessica Simpson at LAX with her family, January 13, 2017] [Jessica Simpson], Eric Johnson, and their two children were seen at LAX yesterday. Not sure where they’re going. Maybe Dallas? Probably not Dallas? I say this because last week, I read [an article about the Dallas Cowboys]. It was a playoff bye week for the team, apparently their first since [Tony Romo]’s first full season as QB1. Remember what he did on his bye week? He was dating Jessica at the time. And they went, along with a couple of other players, to Cabo. They were [papped there]. And it resulted in SOOOOO much shade! SO much that, clearly, in Dallas, people are STILL thinking about it! And [writing about it]! That’s how angry they were! If you need a visual for that anger, see below: It got worse because after the trip, in the playoff game, Romo played like sh-t and the Cowboys did not advance. Their relationship did…but not for much longer. Tony Romo is on longer the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. He lost that job to Dak Prescott this season. Dak is playing in his first playoff game on Sunday. Meanwhile, Jessica moved on. To another football player, with much less impressive credentials and much more lasting results. This moment in Gossip Nostalgia was brought to you by her eternally bad taste in jeans. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:24 PM [Kate Beckinsale in Underworld: Blood Wars] [Kate Beckinsale at Craig's in West Hollywood, January 10, 2017] I will never ever under any circumstances recommend anyone watch Underworld: Blood Wars, so do me a favor: Rent [Love & Friendship]. It’s available on Amazon Prime, it stars [Kate Beckinsale] (and Chloe Sevigny), and it is FANTASTIC. It’s Whit Stillman’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s unfinished novella Lady Susan and Beckinsale stars as Lady Susan, a scathing, scheming woman in turn-of-the-19th-century England. Beckinsale is terrific, and there’s a guy, Tom Bennett, who gives a Hall Of Fame level buffoon performance as Sir James. It’s a sharp, funny film with splendid dialogue, you should really see it. And I bet Kate Beckinsale would rather you watch Love & Friendship than Underworld: Blood Wars. This is the eleventieth Underworld movie, a series which exists solely to give Goths fashion ideas, and it is by far the worst of the lot if the scale we’re using to measure is “every Underworld movie is the worst one they’re all terrible”. Kate Beckinsale is contractually obligated to return as Selene, a vampire who is super good at killing werewolves but she doesn’t want to kill werewolves anymore because she’s been doing it too long, which is how the audience feels about watching Underworld movies, too. Beckinsale is visibly bored by this movie and in fact quits being in it at one point and for a moment you feel hope, like this talented actress is finally free of this garbage franchise that has trapped her for over a decade, but then she is cruelly reeled back in at the end and there is no escape, none, for any of us. Theo James is also in this movie as David (vampires with names like “David” and “Thomas” are embarrassing vampires, they should all have names like Damien and Abraxas—Lestat gets it) and if Beckinsale looks bored, James looks furious. He has this expression like “f*cking Divergent was supposed to get me out of this” throughout the entire movie. Tywin Lannister also appears and he looks like he’s getting paid. Oh and that guy from Outlander who plays the English officer who’s super into sexual assault is in this movie, too. Google tells me his name is Tobias Menzies. He plays a werewolf leader who is really good at being a werewolf leader because he drinks special vampire blood. The plot of this movie—haha “plot”—revolves around special blood that Selene has and that dead Scott Speedman had, and their daughter has, and David-Should-Be-Damien has it, too, and probably the third extra in the background, and that guy with one line, and the lady vampire gets the special blood, really, there’s a lot of this special blood going around. Vampires and werewolves—this movie refuses to use the word “werewolf” but I refuse to use the word “lycan”—both want the special blood because somehow it represents ending the war between them when all they really need is some [frilly shirts and a good attitude]. (Another alternate recommendation: What We Do in the Shadows.) No one cares what actually happens in these movies, least of all Kate Beckinsale, but there are two positive things about it. One is the costume design by Bojana Nikitovic, who creates some really beautiful garments, particularly for the Viking Vampires that show up halfway through the movie. Unlike their black-clad Goth cousins from the south, the Viking Vampires wear flowy white robes and cool pieces of armor and Nikitovic goes to town on these designs, and they really stand out. So props to her and to the whole wardrobe department, because the Viking Vampires do look cool. And two, this movie is directed by Anna Foerster, a TV veteran whose credits include Outlander, and who is making her feature film debut. Foerster is saddled with the stupidest story in the universe, but she does her best to make it work. She sets up some nice shots, and she tries to balance all the dumb flashbacks with the current story in a way that isn’t completely mind-numbing. She does seem overmatched by the action element—there’s one sword fight that looks good but the rest of the action is garbage—but some of the not-action parts are almost bearable because her instinct seems to be to let the actors try to camp it up in lieu of anything else going on. Underworld: Blood Wars is a nonsense movie that barely hangs together and no one seems interested in actually being in it, and it swings between boring “everyone standing in a circle” scenes and laughably bad action sequences, and I don’t really have a “but” here. This is just a bad movie, a total January F*ck You from a studio (Sony) that wants to minimize its losses. There is no reason you should ever watch it. Here's Kate Beckinsale out for dinner in LA the other night. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 4:48 PM [Johnny Depp in sandals] [Johnny Depp on the set of LAbyrinth in Los Angeles, January 12, 2017] [Johnny Depp] was photographed yesterday on the set of LAbyrinth. This is not a typo, it’s how they’re stylising the title of the movie because it’s about a LAPD detective investigating the murders of Biggie and Tupac. Sarah previously wrote about the project [here]. As you can see, Johnny is in costume. He must be in costume because I can’t find a single scarf on his body and he’s wearing grandpa jeans with sandals – not exactly a look I want to sex but wayyyyyy preferable to his usual uniform in that I could almost be convinced to like him this way. As opposed to being repulsed by him. Clothing, however, doesn’t change behaviour. A pair of sandals replacing 29 scarves doesn’t make him not an asshole. The latest? Johnny and [Amber Heard] are [accusing each other of holding up the divorce]. She’s like, can he just pay me so I don’t have to be married to him anymore? And he’s like, she doesn’t want to be rid of me, she’s using me and this situation to stay in the spotlight. And she’s like, um, no, get the f-ck out of my life and stop cheaping out on the $7 million you agreed to in our settlement. It’s absurd to accuse her of “[prolonging resolution and continuing litigation as long as the public's attention will allow.]" He already raised her profile when he married her. He did that all by himself. And now that that profile is there, it’s 2017, all she has to do is get onto Instagram, DAD. So what’s this really about? The way I read this situation, it’s about what it’s always about: control. The $7 million was supposed to silence her, a form of control. She found a way to not be silenced. Withholding remains his only way of punishing her for not being silent…and submissive. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 4:22 PM [Mark Wahlberg in Patriots Day] [Mark Wahlberg promotes 'Patriots Day' on 'Conan' on January 13, 2017] Patriots Day opens in wide release today. [Mark Wahlberg] stars as Tommy Saunders, a fictional police officer in Boston. Tommy’s a tough guy and a loud mouth, coming off suspension for kicking a fellow officer so hard he hurt his knee. On one hand, Tommy is a classic Wahlberg character: Boston, blue collar, most capable person in any given situation. But on the other he’s terrible: Surly, mean to everyone, yet admired by the brass and the beat cops alike for no discernible reason. Tommy is intolerable and it boggles the mind that people actually like him. Part of getting his job back—after assaulting a fellow officer—is that Tommy has to work crowd control at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, where two bombs detonate, killing three and injuring hundreds. Tommy is the audience surrogate, the Everyman caught up in Historic Events, through whom we experience that harrowing day and the intense week that followed as authorities sought the bombing suspects in a large-scale manhunt. This requires that Tommy be everywhere even when there’s no real reason for him to be involved, and this exposes the secret of Patriots Day—it doesn’t need a POV character. Because we know the story already, we already are the Everyman observer, and we don’t need Tommy shoving his fake ass into the story. The worst parts of the film are all Tommy being places he has no logical reason for being before being forced to fade back and give way to what actually happened. It really drives home how useless Tommy is. In contrast, the real people depicted are much more interesting, and the best part of the film is the section where the Tsarnaev brothers carjack Dun Meng (Jimmy O. Yang, Silicon Valley). Meng gets a nice set-up early in the film introducing his life, Facetiming with his parents in China, selling his app to potential customers, and working up the nerve to ask a cute waitress out for dinner. By the time he’s carjacked, we like Meng, and even though we know how the story ends—spoiler alert, he escapes and calls the cops—we worry about him. This is so much more engrossing and nerve-wracking than anything Tommy does. No one does real life recreation better than Peter Berg, and Patriots Day manages to recreate the marathon bombing in precise detail without being exploitative. The procedural details of the manhunt are similarly exacting, and while there’s some obvious dramatic license taken with the Watertown firefight between the Tsarnaevs and the police—and stupid Tommy for some dumb reason that never makes any sense—it’s still a thrilling sequence. But there is no getting around the disturbing authoritarianism invoked throughout the film. Berg’s hero worship of law enforcement and the military gets out of hand here as he seems to celebrate martial law and the erosion of civil liberties in the wake of terrorism. The FBI gets cast as the party poopers worried about things like causing anti-Muslim backlash and the potential for the militarized manhunt to turn into something more sinister—it’s a good thing, then, that they have Tommy on hand to tell them what to do. (Why anyone would listen to Tommy is beyond me.) And though some officers are disturbed by the order to not Mirandize suspects, ultimately the audience cheers every time someone says “get those f*ckers” or a shadowy CIA type sneers in the face of a suspect demanding a lawyer. Those people don’t deserve OUR liberties, the film whispers insidiously. Patriots Day draws no distinction between justice and revenge, and that’s a very slippery slope. Someone involved with the film noticed, though, because toward the end Tommy delivers a surprisingly cogent monologue that boils down to “love trumps hate”, and also acknowledges that in a truly free and open society you will never be completely free of the threat of terrorism. It’s so out of place within the rest of the film I wonder if it’s the result of additional photography, and not something that was always part of the script. I like Berg & Wahlberg’s last effort, [Deepwater Horizon], but that movie benefits greatly from a lesser known aspect of a real life disaster, and also a very tight and focused plot. Patriots Day, on the other hand, details a disaster less than four years old that was extensively covered by the media, and it also has a sprawling plot that makes sustaining momentum difficult. It’s also disturbingly authoritarian and just self-aware enough to suggest someone saw the trouble spots but didn’t care to address them in a meaningful way. Despite some genuinely great action sequences, Patriots Day is an uneasy film that can be deeply uncomfortable to watch. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 3:34 PM [January 13, 2017 – Smutty Shout-Outs] [PJ Harvey for Amber G] Amber G! Happy Birthday with from Erin R who wishes you a “year full of music, laughter, and love” and asked for a photo of PJ Harvey to guilt you into “making the trip to Montreal to come see her live with me”. "My dear Cole, 2017 is your year! You are going to rock your critical care course. You are smart and strong and beautiful and I'm so proud to have you as my friend." By request from Jaqueline, here are Aaron Taylor Johnson as Vronsky in Anna Karenina, Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, and Gillian Anderson in The Fall. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 3:03 PM [Privacy Policy] - [Unsubscribe]