Bella Thorne says she's actually pansexual, not bisexual - CNN

In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" to promote her new book, "Life of a Wannabe Mogul: Mental Disarray," Thorne talked about no longer identifying as bisexual.

"I'm actually a pansexual, and I didn't know that," Thorne said.

To the former child star that means "You like what you like."

"Doesn't have to be a girl, or a guy, or ... you know, a he, a she, a this, or that," Thorne said. "It's literally, you like personality, like you just like a being."

A person who is pansexual is attracted to those of any gender. The dictionary defines the term as "not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity."

Thorne is not the first celebrity to go public as pansexual.

Singer actress Miley Cyrus did so in 2016 as well as "Orange is the New Black" star Asia Kate Dillon (who also identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns "they/their") and teen trans-activist and reality star Jazz Jennings.

Thorne, who recently was in the news for tweeting nude photos of herself after a hacker threatened to do so, has been publicly linked over the years in several high-profile relationships with both men and women, including You Tube star Tana Mongeau.

Followers were enthralled recently when Mongeau, who recently become engaged to fellow internet star Jake Paul, started beefing on Twitter.

According to People magazine, Thorne is currently involved in a long-distance relationship with Italian singer Benjamin Mascolo.

"I like sexy girls, I like sexy guys," she said. "I like sexy in general, you know?"

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/23/entertainment/bella-thorne-pansexual-trnd/index.html

2019-07-23 13:11:00Z
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A$AP Rocky's Mother Responds To Rapper's "Unjust" Swedish Jail Imprisonment - Capital XTRA

23 July 2019, 12:32 | Updated: 23 July 2019, 12:35

A$AP Rocky's mother speaks out on her son's controversial Swedish jail imprisonment. Picture: Getty

Renee Black, who is A$AP Rocky's mother, has broken her silence on her son's Swedish jail imprisonment. The rapper's mother reveals how she feels on how her son has been treated by Sweden authorities.

A$AP Rocky's mother, Renee Black revealed that she thinks Sweden is targeting her son, who is still in a "disease-ridden" Swedish prison, after committing an alleged assault.

Black sat down for an interview with TMZ where she spoke on Donald Trump trying to help get her son out of prison. A$AP's mother also reveals how she perceives the imprisonment of her son.

Renee Black was asked by a reporter whether she thinks Rocky's race has anything to do with the situation.

Black told TMZ "I feel like Sweden is making an example out of him and it's so unjust, but yeah, they're making an example."I don't wanna pull the race card, but that's what it's looking like".

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck" is how Renee showed her perspective of the situation. Black also revealed that she has spoken to him one time since he has been locked up.

"He was just telling me that he wasn't really eating properly, you know," she told Swedish newspaper Expressen . "He can't wait to get back into the gym."

According to TMZ, prosecutors in Sweden reportedly continue to hold Rocky is because they deem him a flight risk. The prosecutors on the case have until July 25th to charge him.

Rocky's legal predicament comes after he, and members of his entourage, were filmed fighting a man that they say had followed and harassed them. Rocky previously shared video of the incident on IG. 

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https://www.capitalxtra.com/news/mother-responds-rappers-swedish-jail/

2019-07-23 11:32:35Z
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Movie Review - Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) - Flickering Myth

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. 2019

Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, Dakota Fanning, Luke Perry, Margaret Qualley, Damon Herriman, Mike Moh, Emile Hirsch, Damian Lewis, Robert Broski, Rafał Zawierucha, Bruce Dern, Lorenza Izzo, Michael Madsen, Scoot McNairy, Clifton Collins Jr., Lena Dunham, Nicholas Hammond, Spencer Garrett, Sydney Sweeney, Austin Butler, Harley Quinn Smith, Maya Hawke, Marco Rodríguez, Brenda Vaccaro, Kate Berlant, Rumer Willis, Victoria Pedretti, Rebecca Gayheart, Samantha Robinson, Dreama Walker, Martin Kove, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Clu Gulager, Daniella Pick, Mikey Madison, Julia Butters, James Landry Hébert, Madisen Beaty, Nichole Galicia, Lew Temple, Costa Ronin, and Zoe Bell

SYNOPSIS:

A faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame and success in the film industry during the final years of Hollywood’s Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles.

In the spirit of subverting, by now, hotly anticipated expectations, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is the least violent film masterful writer and director Quentin Tarantino has ever made. It’s also the funniest, standing tall as a full-blown dramedy (at least until the final 15 minutes). The misdirections don’t stop there, as the gifted filmmaker is somehow able to take widely known tragic history and keep the viewer in the dark on just where this freewheeling slice of celebrity life is actually going.

Considering the involvement of Sharon Tate and the Manson family, we know the destination in a sense, but none of the details. Accounting for this and just how much Tarantino does double down on some of his usual touches (the foot fetish is out of control here), it really does feel like he consumes what critics and moviegoers alike say about his movies; he probably doesn’t care too much about what they say, yet minor influences and acknowledgments exist. Tarantino’s take on Star Trek may have the green light for now, but if Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood does wind up being his last film, he’s proven that he has far more tricks up his sleeve than wanton violence. He’s not that old, but this aging dog can apparently still teach himself new tricks while adhering to the idiosyncrasies that catapulted his popularity and reputation to debatable greatest of all-time director status.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt portray late 1960s fictional characters Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth (although they are inspired by real people), the former being a fading Western television star desperately trying to break into the big picture business simultaneously fighting alcoholism. The latter is the stunt double, who has accepted his Hollywood career is over with far more grace than Rick, who is offered an alternative route into steady movie work by making Italian spaghetti Westerns, a genre that he views as beneath him. The best friends (in many ways, this is actually a touching story of friendship) find themselves living next door to Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate, bringing an ethereal presence to the real-life actress and spouse of hotshot director Roman Polanski (who would go on to be exiled from America for crimes of pedophilia, which, for those of you that don’t know, is something you should keep in mind while experiencing this).

The set-up sort of implies bloodshed is inevitable, and it is, but the one thing people need to understand before sitting down to watch Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is that Tarantino has more on his brilliantly deranged mind than whipping up a bloodbath between history and his own character creations. These people are not consistently interacting with one another, but we do get juxtapositions of what Hollywood stardom means to them. Rick Dalton craves the spotlight, fame, accolades, and to not be perceived as the punching bag pretty much all of his upcoming roles are going to be. It’s not entirely a parallel, but it’s not out of the question to ascribe many of these traits to Leonardo DiCaprio, who basically damn near killed himself making The Revenant to finally win the Academy Award he so obviously badly desired. He’s also a method actor through and through, which is hilariously made a topic of discussion during an exchange with a child actor on the set of a TV western set. Not only is this banter funny, but it also ends with a line that is a harsh dosage of reality to swallow alongside its comedic impact.

This is all contrasted by Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, who is worthy of a Supporting Actress nomination (to be fair, all of the major performances are awards-worthy) regardless of how minimal her dialogue and screen time is (less can be more), angelically living life with a free spirit. Whether she’s dancing to some music (surprising no one, the soundtrack is another pleasant anachronistic combination of popular and lesser-known songs) or sitting in a theater surrounded by average people to watch herself play a self-described klutz, she’s happy. She doesn’t even get offended if a noncelebrity doesn’t recognize her, whereas Rick Dalton wants to be known by everyone. It eats him up inside that he’s living next door to the director of Rosemary’s Baby, so close within reach of potentially making it as a Hollywood star yet so distant.

There’s also the usual experimental approach to the story, occasionally making fun detours so we can spend time with other characters. Cliff Booth and Bruce Lee get into a competitive brawl, the Playboy mansion bustles with energetic crowds and dazzling cinematography, car rides last longer than necessary so Tarantino can flaunt re-created landmarks and meticulously crafted production designs (and more classic tunes), one character is awkwardly given a controversial backstory that works better than it has any right to, and for a brief while the tone switches to something more sinister and unnerving down at the run down and trashy Manson cult infested ranch. Above all else, recently making a string of his own Westerns has left Tarantino with the urge to implement some of that here, as there are extended sequences (one or two might run along, although I understand that he is decidedly doing that to fully draw us into the segment so it doesn’t come across as something throwaway) of Rick Dalton filming Western television and even amusing cutaways to his failed movie career. Supposedly, Tarantino wrote entire episodes of everything that is fictional, so maybe one day he will make those if he really is done with movies.

No one knows what’s next for Tarantino, but if there was ever a perfect project to close a storied career on, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is that movie. Films about the entertainment industry are always enlightening, but this is what happens when someone obsessed with cinema tries his hand at it. The trademark conversational dialogue is as strong as ever, here containing lessons on filmmaking craft and even Tarantino himself patting himself on the back for his own work (one character enthusiastically says “I love that shot”). Still, the masses are here to see how all of this collides with the horrific Manson murders (which I assure you is treated with respect and will most likely only offend people that have no idea how to just sit back and enjoy a movie), and Tarantino is evidently  aware by craftily using a TV personality exclaiming “and now, for what you’ve all been waiting for” right before shit hits the fan. As already mentioned, it’s unquestionably the least violent Tarantino movie, but what’s here is gruesomely satisfying. For those that love cinema, well, considering the plot dealing with fading popularity and father time (not to mention the leading stars themselves opening up winding down and how acting is a young man’s game), this could be perceived as Tarantino’s swansong and him leaving behind a goldmine of knowledge for the next generation of filmmakers.

If they ever want to make a movie half as good as Tarantino has ever made, they will study Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood ears wide open and eagle-eyed.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, friend me on Facebook, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, check out my personal non-Flickering Myth affiliated Patreon, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

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https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2019/07/movie-review-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-2019/

2019-07-23 08:11:11Z
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Quentin Tarantino on New Movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt & Margot Robbie - Jimmy Kimmel Live

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC9huiaI7fg

2019-07-23 07:30:00Z
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Will There Be a Big Little Lies Season 3? The Season 2 Finale Leaves HBO's Show Open For a Third - Esquire.com

As HBO's Big Little Lies Season Two came to a conclusion on Sunday night, I found myself feeling a lot like Bonnie: wrapped in an oversized shawl, staring at nothing, thinking about how disappointed I was in myself and everything around me. The powerhouse of a drama seemed to shrug everything that made it so watchable in Season One for lackluster storylines and half-baked character development. In short, the Monterey Five deserved better.

Worst of all, while Season One charged to a big finish, Season Two barely managed to circle the drain. Hanging plot points and clichéd courtroom scenes seemed to indicate that no one quite knew what they were doing, or worse—that Big Little Lies' second iteration was no more than a cash grab. The reality is that for this narrative to have any satisfying conclusion, it needs a third season that returns to form, ditches Meryl, and focuses on the messy, authentic finish that seems true to the series.

In its earliest episodes this season, Big Little Lies seemed to shine a light on grief and PTSD—an intriguing direction that would have served the series well, considering that it was fresh out of source material after wrapping up the contents of its novel-namesake in Season One. But with the exception of Bonnie, those narratives were treated haphazardly after a couple episodes. Celeste's Ambien-addled car trips were couched and Jane's PTSD became less of a narrative and more of a signpost to remind you that she was raped by Perry.

Shailene Woodley plays Jane alongside Douglas Smith, who joined the cast in Season Two as Corey.

HBO

Somewhere in the middle, Lies spurned its initial direction and attempted to address its glaring race issue from Season One by turning a spotlight on Bonnie's mother, Elizabeth, played by Crystal Fox. Even that was a misstep. The abusive mother trope was compounded by also making her a "mystic" of sorts, blending two black stereotypes into one amalgamated mess. But then Elizabeth has a stroke mid-season and the introduction of her clairvoyant powers are left unanswered, as well. Her lifeless body acted as an altar for Bonnie to work through her grief, but why waste Crystal Fox's time as a typecast shadow of a character?

What punctuated the season might have been the most deflating of all. The season finale wraps up with a half-hearted courtroom scene where someone undoubtedly showed Streep a clip of herself from Kramer v Kramer and said, "But make it more frantic and stuff!" Streep's performance all season shows the mark of a series unsure what to do with the talents of Meryl Streep, evidenced in her character, Mary Louise, unceremoniously retreating out of Monterey after a season of failing to move the plot forward. Celeste retains custody of her children, Madeline and Ed reconcile and renew their vows, Jane is able to open up physically with her new beau, and Renata leaves her husband. Then they all toss that away to turn themselves in alongside Bonnie in the final scene.

Ed (Adam Scott) and Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) renew their vows in the Season Two finale, giving quick closure to a subplot that no one seemed to care much about.

HBO

Without the ability to go back and plead with HBO not to make a second season, the only reasonable step forward at this point is to... make a third season. The finish of Season Two is the equivalent of a child moving food around on their plate to make it appear that they've eaten what is in front of them. The season finale of Big Little Lies would have been a perfect mid-season climax, but its finale placement is indicative of a writers' room too concerned with shakily carving out a narrative for Streep's Mary Louise that never needed to be. Realistically, an entire season that could have explored the complexities of PTSD, survivor's guilt, and self-defense would have been worthy of the Big Little Lies name. Instead, a potential third season has grown into four cases of obstruction of justice and potential voluntary manslaughter.

That opportunity is still on the table for Lies though. Critical television hits have come back from worse (dream season from Dallas anyone?), and while HBO and Nicole Kidman have voiced that schedules likely won't allow for a third season, I wouldn't mind waiting. Take a minute to build out a final season worthy of bookending the phenom that was Season One. Leave Meryl Streep and additional characters at the wayside and focus in on the friendship and resentment these five women have developed in the shadow of abuse and disaster. The noir-style approach of Big Little Lies feels neither fully dark, nor enlightened—in its current form, there is no finality or resolution. A third season stands to tell a complete story, if the powers that be are so inclined.

With that future wavering between uncertain and unlikely though, Big Little Lies is probably the latest fatality in the genre of television shows that dare to stray or continue past source material. If we don't get a much-needed Season Three, perhaps the big little lie we should all focus on is whether we needed a Season Two at all.

Justin Kirkland Justin Kirkland is a writer for Esquire, where he focuses on entertainment.

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https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a28466448/will-there-be-a-big-little-lies-season-3/

2019-07-22 14:43:00Z
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'The Lion King' sinks its teeth into critic-audience divide - CNN

It's a notion that contains a few crumbs of truth, but also a host of misconceptions.

At the risk of painting with too broad a brush, critics -- simply by virtue of seeing so many productions in a particular field -- are almost by definition a little out of step. Because they see everything (or as much as is humanly possible), they're generally predisposed to look for that which is different, novel or otherwise distinctive.

That's a difficult bar to achieve when remaking anything, especially an animated movie that's essentially just being redone using a different animation technique. From that perspective, "The Lion King" is as much a consumer product as it is a movie.

Why another "Lion King" some have asked, 25 years later? Because audiences often seek familiar experiences, especially when it means sharing a story with their kids. Whether it's "Star Wars" or Batman, people who enjoyed those franchises in their youth not only tend to still like them, but relish the opportunity to share them with their kids.

So is its success -- with an estimated $185-million debut weekend in North America, a box-office feast fit for a you know what -- a rebuke to critics, or at least, those who panned it, yielding tepid averages on review-aggregation sites? Not really.

For starters, it's always dicey inferring a connection between making a lot of money and quality. McDonald's sells millions of burgers, but that doesn't necessarily make them good for you, or worthy of a four-star rating.

Second, it's faulty to assume that critics who panned the movie were either rooting against it or felt their negative opinions would dissuade people inclined to see it.

Indeed, the reality of modern criticism means writing about films and TV shows that are essentially review-proof, as well as showering praise (occasionally) on smaller projects with scant hope of garnering big crowds.

There is, perhaps, an "old man yells at cloud" quality to lamenting the studios' reliance on remakes, reboots and revivals, as some early reviews did. Disney made "The Lion King" for the same reason it did "Beauty and the Beast" and will do "The Little Mermaid" -- not to ruin or raid your childhood, but because it thinks it can make a buck off of it. That's hardly new, and as studios try to cut through the content clutter, even less likely to change.

Viewed that way, it's possible to accept and even enjoy the simplicity of something like this latest "Lion King" without seeing anything remotely exciting about it, and nothing wrong with trying to temper the expectations of those hoping to be wowed. In fact, critics unmoved by the experience would be remiss, and dishonest, if they didn't.

The best summation of this whole argument, frankly, came from Craig Mazin, the writer and producer of HBO's "Chernobyl." On Twitter, he responded to presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who veered out of his lane to opine that he found Disney's live-action remakes of "The Lion King" "and other movies I grew up with a bit depressing. It's like we can't come up with new stories."

"Aladdin is about a thousand years old. Lion King is Hamlet," Mazin wrote. "They weren't so new when you saw them either. Let the kids enjoy."

The strong box-office results for "Aladdin" (whose reviews were also fairly tepid) and now "The Lion King" will only ensure that more remakes are pushed into the pipeline.

Whether seeing such fare sounds appetizing is, of course, up to the individual consumer. For critics, by contrast, it's usually just one of the mandatory groups in what can be an unhealthy movie-going diet.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/entertainment/the-lion-king-critics/index.html

2019-07-22 13:18:00Z
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'A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood' Trailer: Tom Hanks Slips Into The Mister Rogers Character Like A Comfy Pair Of Slippers - Deadline

The rightness of the Tom Hanks-as-Mister-Rogers casting seemed a no-brainer from the start, and the first trailer for Sony’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, released today, seems at the very least to confirm those initial reactions.

“Hello, neighbor,” are, appropriately enough, the first words spoken in the first official trailer for the film (watch it above), as we also see Hanks’ Fred Rogers playfully tossing his shoe in the air as he re-enacts Rogers’ familiar shoes-to-slippers opening of PBS’ Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Directed by Marielle Heller from a screenplay by Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster, inspired by the Tom Junod article “Can You Say. . . Hero?”, Beautiful Day chronicles the real-life friendship between Rogers and Junod that began when magazine writer Junod – played in the film by Matthew Rhys – is assigned to write a profile of the beloved kids TV personality.

As described by Sony, Beautiful Day is “a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism,” as the jaded Junod “overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America’s most beloved neighbor.”

Producing are Youree Henley, Peter Saraf, Marc Turtletaub and Leah Holzer. Joining Hanks and Rhys in the cast are Susan Kelechi Watson and Chris Cooper.

The trailer is filled with images that will be recognizable to at least several generations of TV viewers, including, of course, such puppets as King Friday and Daniel the cat. The trailer builds to an emotional subway scene in which a train full of New Yorkers breaks into the familiar theme song that gives this movie its title.

The upcoming biopic is the second major recent film about the iconic Mister Rogers, following last year’s critically praised – and remarkably Oscar-snubbed – Morgan Neville-directed documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor.

Sony releases A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood on Nov. 22.

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https://deadline.com/video/a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-trailer-tom-hanks-mister-rogers/

2019-07-22 13:53:00Z
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