As the villainous sea witch, Queen Latifah proved herself to be the much-praised standout in a show that otherwise had high and low tides, so to speak.
She brought the bravado needed to pull off both the big dialogue and the even bigger signature number, "Poor Unfortunate Souls," which was one of the best performances of the night.
Queen Latifah's spot-on performance was further helped by a costume department who put together an impressive ensemble worthy of one of Disney's greatest villains.
"Hi, yes, Disney? Please hire Queen Latifah for the live-action The Little Mermaid film. Please and thank you," wrote one Twitter user.
"Okay, nothing more to see here. Queen Latifah killed it. Everyone else can go home," wrote another.
Sadly, had the costume department used a fraction of the effort put toward constructing one of Ursula's tentacles toward Shaggy's Sebastian outfit, perhaps he would have hit the stage in something a little more crab-like and less Britney Spears in her "Oops I Did It Again" video.
His red, latex-like jacket and pants combo lacked the pop needed to standout in a ocean floor filled with robotic puppets and costumed sea creatures, and it was one of the most jeered aspects of the production. (That, and John Stamos' unfortunate flub where he referred to Ariel's love as "Prince Albert.")
Other highs, meanwhile, included the dreamy vocals of Auli'i Cravalho, whatever Shawn Mendes-esque vibes Prince Eric (Graham Phillips) was giving out, the dog (because of course) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live's" Guillermo Rodriguez dressed as a blowfish.
Cumulatively, however, there was little question about who proved themselves to be the queen of the sea and the stage.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry get a lot of negative attention from the media. From the endless obsession with Duchess Meghan’s family and the intense scrutiny on the couple’s use of private planes, it seems like the couple can never catch a break.
A recent documentary showed a more intimate look of the couple’s family life, and just how much the attention is affecting them. The documentary featured multiple interviews with the duke and duchess.
And while their pain was heartbreaking, the undeniable affection for another was a bright light. At one point, it appears, the duchess even let it slip, the nickname she has for the Duke of Sussex.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have had enough with the British media
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | Jeremy Selwyn – WPA Pool/Getty Images
It’s been a year and a half since Prince Harry and Markle walked down the aisle and the whole time it has been an endless attack from the media. The couple has stayed quiet for the most part, sticking with royal tradition, but recently they decided that it was time to take a stand.
Near the end of their African tour, the couple revealed that they had filed a suit against one of Britain’s biggest news organizations. The couple claims that the newspaper took a private letter Duchess Meghan had written her father and edited in a way to make the duchess look bad.
They said that the move violated the couple’s privacy. Prince Harry admitted in a statement that the treatment his wife has received is reminiscent of what his mother went through when he was young: Prince Harry’s mother died in a car accident after being chased by several paparazzi.
It was surprising to see just how open and relaxed Duchess Meghan and Princess Harry appeared to be in their interviews. At one point, when referring to her husband, Markle slipped and referred to Prince Harry as “H,” quickly pointing out that that’s what she calls him. The slip was adorable and showed, yes, these two are human, yes, they have feelings, and yes, they even have adorable nicknames for one another.
But Prince Harry’s not the only one with a nickname. While in Africa, a video was released of the new mom talking to Baby Archie as they met Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Thandeka Tutu-Gxashe. Admittingly, Baby Archie’s nickname is (way) cuter than his father’s.
So what do mommy and daddy call the boy who is seventh in line to the throne? It looks like Archie’s nickname is Bubba. The couple has also been heard referring to Archie as “little boy” and “little pumpkin.”
Meghan Markle admitted she was warned not to marry Prince Harry
The recent documentary was a revealing look at the couple’s private life. The royal family almost never talks to the media, and so rarely do they share such revealing stories. During an interview, the duchess admitted that her friends warned her to think twice before marrying Prince Harry.
Meghan admitted that her friends were happy that she was happy, but her British friends cautioned her about the marriage. She tells journalist Tom Bradby that her friends said, “I’m sure he’s great, but you shouldn’t do it because the British tabloids will destroy your life.” The duchess admits that she was naive about how bad it would be, saying, “I didn’t get it.”
The conversation led into one of the most shared clips of the interview in which Meghan shared just how much she is struggling. When Bradby asked if she was okay, the duchess was vulnerable and honest, admitting, no, she’s not okay.
As the villainous sea witch, Queen Latifah proved herself to be the much-praised standout in a show that otherwise had high and low tides, so to speak.
She brought the bravado needed to pull off both the big dialogue and the even bigger signature number, "Poor Unfortunate Souls," which was one of the best performances of the night.
Queen Latifah's spot-on performance was further helped by a costume department who put together an impressive ensemble worthy of one of Disney's greatest villains.
"Hi, yes, Disney? Please hire Queen Latifah for the live-action The Little Mermaid film. Please and thank you," wrote one Twitter user.
"Okay, nothing more to see here. Queen Latifah killed it. Everyone else can go home," wrote another.
Sadly, had the costume department used a fraction of the effort put toward constructing one of Ursula's tentacles toward Shaggy's Sebastian outfit, perhaps he would have hit the stage in something a little more crab-like and less Britney Spears in her "Oops I Did It Again" video.
His red, latex-like jacket and pants combo lacked the pop needed to standout in a ocean floor filled with robotic puppets and costumed sea creatures, and it was one of the most jeered aspects of the production. (That, and John Stamos' unfortunate flub where he referred to Ariel's love as "Prince Albert.")
Other highs, meanwhile, included the dreamy vocals of Auli'i Cravalho, whatever Shawn Mendes-esque vibes Prince Eric (Graham Phillips) was giving out, the dog (because of course) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live's" Guillermo Rodriguez dressed as a blowfish.
Cumulatively, however, there was little question about who proved themselves to be the queen of the sea and the stage.
Alexandra Grant was Keanu Reeves’ first ever (romantic) date on a red carpet, 35 years after launching his career! Here’s what you should know about the renown artist whose work relationship with Keanu blossomed into something more.
Alexandra Grant’s love story with Keanu Reeves, 55, is a beautiful one. The 46-year-old artist’s fateful meeting with the John Wick star at a dinner party in 2009 led to nearly a decade of work collaborations, a love for art and books, and a friendship that all culminated into their red carpet debut as a couple at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles on Nov. 2, 2019. Keanu’s decision to bring a plus-one (that wasn’t a relative or friend) was a big one. To the public’s knowledge, the actor hasn’t been joined by a sweetheart on the red carpet since appearing in his first movie in 1985! However, the blossoming romance between Alexandra and Keanu was already apparent after they were seen holding hands at the Saint Laurent Mens Spring Summer 20 Show in Malibu on June 6 — it’s just extra official now!
Keanu (publicly) remained a bachelor for a long time after the tragic death of his stillborn daughter Ava Archer Syme-Reeves in 1999, which was shortly followed by a car accident that cost the life of the child’s mother and Keanu’s former girlfriend, actress Jennifer Syme, in 2001. Here’s what you should know about Alexandra, the woman who has captured The Internet Boyfriend’s heart after all this time — a feat most could only dream of!
1. Text and language inspires Alexandra’s art. She is described as “a text-based artist who uses language and networks of words as the basis for her work in painting, drawing and sculpture,” according to the Ochi Gallery’s introduction for Alexandra. The talented artist fostered her love for the spoken word as a child, since she grew up in a variety of countries: Mexico, Spain and France.
2. Her work has been showcased in prestigious museums. Alexandra’s art has been put on display in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Galerie Gradiva in Paris, the The Broad Museum at Michigan State University, and the Harris Lieberman Gallery in New York City, just to name a few!
Holding hands, Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant make their red carpet debut as a couple at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles on Nov. 2, 2019.
3. Keanu is one of Alexandra’s longtime collaborators. Their relationship, professional at first, began with books! Alexandra contributed the illustrations for Keanu’s first book, a grown-up picture book called Ode ToHappiness, that was published in 2011. She also lent a hand to illustrate Keanu’s poetry book, Shadows, released in 2015.
4. Alexandra and Keanu run a publishing company together. The publishing company, called X Artists’ Books, launched in the summer of 2017. A deviation from mainstream imprints, the company focuses on “unusual collaborations” and books that “don’t really have a place because they’re between genres,” which the business partners explained in an interview with Los Angeles Magazine in Feb. 2018. The interviewer noted that they shared an “easy rapport” and spoke “in a comfortable shorthand fueled by inside jokes and knowing smiles” — foreshadowing, is it not?
5. Alexandra is active in artist philanthropy. She founded the grantLOVE project in 2008, which sells a variety of products from hoodies, screen prints to neon signs to raise funds for other artists’ projects and non-profits!
It may feel like we’ve been hearing about this for years, but it was only a month ago that Martin Scorsese shocked the world by declaring that he wasn’t especially interested in Marvel movies, saying they were more like theme park rides than proper cinema. Based on the sheer volume of the backlash, though, you would’ve thought his totally fine opinion—which has absolutely no impact on anyone’s life whatsoever—had somehow killed the beloved childhood dog of literally everyone on the planet. Everyone gotmad (because whether or not people like Marvel movies is the most important issue of our time) and then, mercifully, it all seemed to die down.
Until tonight. For some inexplicable reason, Scorsese has decided to resurrect this certified Dumb Controversy in the New York Times op-ed section (also home to the most highly regarded pieces about the benefits of coddling fascists) with an essay featuring the catchy title “I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain.” And explain he does! The crux of the piece is that Scorsese wants to clarify that he doesn’t hate Marvel movies and that he doesn’t intend to insult them or the people who like them, he just doesn’t like them because he doesn’t think they live up to the high standards of the art form that he loves so much.
Scorsese admits that he probably would’ve liked Marvel movies just fine if he were younger, but he grew up in the age when movies fought to be treated with the same legitimacy as books and music, and so he remembers when movies were about “confronting the unexpected on the screen” and “enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form.” He concedes that Alfred Hitchcock movies were sort of the MCU equivalent of his day, and though he loved them and still loves them, they “were also like theme parks in a way.” That being said, he believes that it’s not the “thrills and the shocks” that made those movies so good, but the art that went into making them—for example, he highlights the “painful emotions” that drive North By Northwest and the “absolute lostness” of Cary Grant’s character over the “stunning” set pieces.
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Marvel movies, as he sees it, don’t meet that level of art because there’s no risk to them. There’s no “revelation, mystery, or genuine emotional danger” because they’re all meticulously designed to meet “a specific set of demands.” This wouldn’t really be a problem, though, if not for the fact that Marvel movies are now unavoidable. “In many places around this country and around the world,” he says, “franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen,” but he doesn’t think it’s a “matter of supply and demand.” Instead, he thinks of it as a “chicken-and-egg issue,” which is to say that people only want to see Marvel movies because that’s all there is, but that’s all there is because it’s all people want to see.
Scorsese goes into the history of Hollywood and the competing motivations between the artistic side and the business side, and he also makes a point to repeatedly note that the people making these franchise movies are often very talented and creative, it’s just that the things they’re making are part of a soulless machine that can only create the same things over and over again.
He makes a strong case that’s hard to argue with, even for people who like Marvel movies and believe that the efforts required to make The Avengers and Endgame happen were masterful in their own right, but let’s all be honest here: Nothing he could ever possibly say will sway anyone from one side of this “argument” to the other. So maybe we could all just agree to cut this shit out and accept that it’s totally fine to like Marvel movies and it’s equally fine to think they’re bad. (Just kidding, we should keep arguing about this until we all die.)
As if it wasn’t already clear, Halloween is an event for the Kardashian family. After donning her Elle Woods costume on October 31st, Kim Kardashian West pulled her family together to pull off three—yes, three—group Halloween costumes, all of which were debuted during the following weekend. And we thought we loved Halloween. But we just can’t compete with the Kardashian-West clan.
The last group costume Kim shared on her Instagram was Kanye and the kids dressed as the characters from the 2016 animated movie Sing. Saint played Johnny, Psalm played Johnny’s brother, Chicago went as Ash, and Kanye as Johnny’s dad (in a giant gorilla suit).
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Neither Kim nor North took part in the Sing costume. But don’t worry. They were present for the other two family costumes earlier in the weekend.
Before the Sing costume, Kanye, Kim, and the kids dressed as “West Worms.”
Again, Kanye looked mildly terrifying in his faceless costume. And yeah, those tentacles coming out of his “mouth” (??) moved. We’re not sure how the kids weren’t crying.
It turns out, the kids actually did cry during the family’s first Halloween photo session. Well, at least Chicago was crying. She couldn’t quite handle the fact that her father was in that inflatable Dino suit. And TBH, we don’t blame her.
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Thankfully, Chicago recovered in time to get a couple of cute shots with her mom and sister.
How are we supposed to compete with Halloween enthusiasts like the Kardashian-Wests? We better start planning our three+ group costumes now if we want to run with big dogs come next year.
Jeff Conaway, Olivia Newton-John, John Travolta and Stockard Channing in a still from 'Grease'
Fotos International | Moviepix | Getty Images
Olivia Newton-John's iconic outfit from the final scene of the movie "Grease" has sold at auction for more than $400,000.
The all-black ensemble, which the actress was famously sewn into to shoot the scenes, fetched a combined $405,700 at the sale in Beverly Hills on Saturday. Its estimated sale price was between $140,000 and $260,000.
Newton-John, who played Sandy in the 1978 hit musical, auctioned off more than 500 personal items and memorabilia on Friday and Saturday, according to auctioneers Julien's Auctions.
Other items in the sale included Newton-John's custom "Pink Ladies" jacket, which sold for $50,000, and the pink gown she wore to the "Grease" premiere, which went for $18,750.
The auction raised a total of $2.4 million, according to The Guardian newspaper, with a portion of the profits set to be donated to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in Australia.
Newton-John is currently undergoing treatment for stage four breast cancer, after being diagnosed with the disease twice previously in 1992 and 2013.
