Cooking is one of my favorite pastimes, but I came to it a bit later than the average home chef, which is possibly why I only knew of British cook and food writer Nigella Lawson in passing before now. I... Read more...

Originally, A Different World wasn't associated with The Cosby Show. It was going to be the story of a white girl enrolled at an HBCU, and Meg Ryan was cast as the lead, Maggie Lauten. But Ryan left the project... Read more...

Greta Garbo was a one in a billion talent. The Swedish actress was brought to Hollywood to be the impeccable, enigmatic leading lady of immense beauty, confidence, and tragedy. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time,... Read more...

Crown the King of the Monsters the King of the Movies, because the lizard so nice we named it twice--you say Gojira, I say Godzilla--is about to stomp back into international cinemas and yet again prove itself the undisputed best... Read more...

Besides some excursions to outer space (Ad Astra) and the jungles of Brazil (The Lost City of Z), writer-director James Gray has made a career for himself by excavating his own back-yard -- the man behind Little Odessa, The Yards,... Read more...

In the 1970s, psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo from Stanford University led an experiment in which 24 students were randomly selected to be either guards or prisoners in a study designed to examine the psychological effects of authority and powerlessness... Read more...

Tom Cruise's Digger opens this weekend. The Alejandro González Iñárritu is getting, so far, wildly divisive reviews, though I would say that most of them lean toward, "What the hell was Tom Cruise thinking?" The word "misfire" gets bandied around... Read more...

Megan thee Stallion is ready for the next act of her career. A new album is on the horizon, her first since 2024's Megan, and we got a taste of what's to come with her newest song, "Tina Tuesday Freestyle."... Read more...

It's episode 300! And make no mistake, while it may seem like a normal episode, there are all the hallmarks of a celebration, with all your favorite callbacks like: - Getting Dustin to sing! - Reminding Dustin of his favorite... Read more...

I'm dreading the discourse that will follow the release of that Tom Brady book because, if anything, we as a people have way less of a grip than we did four years ago. "Is a marriage worth sacrificing for football... Read more...

" class="mt-image-none" /> It's nice to see the romantic comedy genre thriving (on streaming and on the big screen, but mostly on the former). It's even better when the movie is based on a beloved book. Enter The Love Hypothesis, Prime Video's latest... Read more...

SNL: UK recently returned for its second series (not season, sorry, Yanks.) After an unexpectedly successful launch earlier this year, the show has gone from strength to strength, with its cast and writers seeming more confident in their work and... Read more...

Over the weekend, Robert Pattinson's Primetime hit theaters. It's essentially a movie about journalism at its worst. I loathed it. Kill. Bury. Print, a new documentary on Peacock, is its polar opposite. Executive produced by Rachel Maddow, it's about journalism... Read more...

The Weight's title holds the promise of something dramatic -- an emotional burden that must be lifted, a torturous journey carried out by a desperate man, a guilt hanging over someone's conscience. Directed by Padraic McKinley from a screenplay by... Read more...

I'm a huge fan of Evan Morgan's feature directorial debut, The Kid Detective. It was one of those COVID-era streaming films that must have gained some sort of cult following, but not so much that most people have even heard... Read more...

I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist this: Jimmy Kimmel returned to Brooklyn this week for a run of shows. During the monologue, he made his usual jokes at the expense of the administration, promised everyone in the audience $5,000 of... Read more...

Bad news for fans of celebrity skincare lines. The Outset, the skincare brand launched by Scarlett Johansson, is shutting down operations after four years of business. The announcement was made on their website: After an incredible journey, The Outset has... Read more...

Hi all! I'm helping cover P-Love while Mike is on vacation this week. Here's hoping I don't whiff too badly and can be at least described as "moderately entertaining." Various armchair experts are claiming Charli XCX threw shade at Taylor... Read more...

Pre-release buzz was not great for The Most Dangerous Games, the literary debut of Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. the YouTube titan MrBeast. Written (put some heavy air quotes around that word) in collaboration with James Patterson, the book is a dystopian... Read more...

This is far from the consensus -- Robert Pattinson's Primetime rates 87 percent with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 80 percent with audiences -- but I am absolutely baffled by its high marks. Thematically, it's interesting, at least in the... Read more...

Heart of the Beast is guilty of being overly sappy, tugging at our heartstrings in ways that are contrived. The film may give us a genuine friendship between two clearly traumatized beings, but it weaponizes our emotions to tell a... Read more...

Like most SNL viewers, I'm a huge fan of Ashley Padilla. But until last week's episode of Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast, I didn't know much about her personal journey. Turns out, she was an indifferent high school student, was... Read more...

Once upon a time, the MTV Video Music Awards were a major part of the pop culture calendar. It was the too-cool-for-school ceremony where it felt like literally anything could happen. Some of the most iconic TV performances in pop... Read more...

Avengers: Doomsday is still a few months away, and Peter Parker's mega-success aside, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on shaky ground with audiences. The new movies and protagonists aren't as popular as their Phase One counterparts. But never fear,... Read more...

According to a new book on Tom Brady, a source close to the retired quarterback claims Gisele Bündchen may have left him because of her horoscope, as we crazy women so often do. I'll be over here rolling my eyes... Read more...

We have reached the final days of September, which means television has stopped pretending it intends to ease us into fall. This week brings the VMAs, The Simpsons, LEGO pirates, the return of Scrubs, people racing around the planet for... Read more...

Cold Open -- Ramy Youssef opens the season of SNL as Zohran Mamdani filming a TikTok about the nor'easter, and the sketch was going great for about 30 seconds, until James Austin Johnson's Trump showed up. The sketch was mostly... Read more...

At this point, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan have made so much garbage with identical issues that any criticisms I have for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story have already been made about the rest of their slop. All the things... Read more...

At this point, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan have made so much garbage with identical issues that any criticisms I have for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story have already been made about the rest of their slop. All the things... Read more...

Andrew Update: He's hanging in there! I'm writing this on Friday night and was relieved to hear from him earlier today. Literally. He's a voice-texting fiend. He sincerely appreciates all the love and support everyone dropped in the comments the... Read more...

Do you ever find yourself randomly, just all of a sudden in the middle of your day, giggling about that time Sanrda Hüller belted out Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" in Toni Erdmann? Or what about when she did... Read more...

I've talked before about how Ted Lasso works best when it sticks to its sports show roots, and this week's episode, "Follow the Anger," only confirms it. The season is still falling short of "good" but it's north of "bad,"... Read more...

In the mid-2010s, there was nothing that brought me more pleasure than seeing photos of Ben Affleck looking absolutely miserable. Vaping in his Charger, standing outside of buildings smoking, just put that right in my veins. Sure, he claims his... Read more...

Actress Jodie Turner-Smith is accused in a new lawsuit of knowingly funding a drug trafficking operation run by her brother. The case, which named her and her sibling Richard Anthony Sith, was filed in Los Angeles this week by three... Read more...

Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey have long been such close friends that fans have speculated they might actually be brothers. Their new series together, Brothers, basically asks: "What if they are?" Harrelson and McConaughey play barely fictionalized versions of themselves... Read more...

Best of the Best is the story of two lifelong friends, Maya (Never Have I Ever's Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia, Disclosure Day), who get into UCLA together and join the school's esteemed Bollywood fusion dance team. You know... Read more...

David O. Russell is a horrible person , but he used to be a horrible person that made good movies. That has not been the case in well over a decade, and yet, he is still being given sizable budgets... Read more...

Meta glasses are gross and only worn by creeps. The tech world's eagerness to turn us all into narcs with wearable cameras that can surreptitiously recording everything is another sign of the end-times. They've drafted in all manner of celebrities,... Read more...

Jeff Garlin gave Variety a song and dance about his The Goldbergs exit, and Wendi McLendon-Covey was not letting that go quietly. (A.V. Club) Nobody ever needs to worry about JLo delivering. (Lainey Gossip) You might say I'm two minds... Read more...

People are always coming up to me on the streets, sometimes 10-20 at a time, asking me, "Mike, how do you pick which topics to write about? Is it based on Meghan McCain's hibernation schedule?" You'll be shocked to learn... Read more...

Yup, it's that time of the year again, my friends: time to look at Mount Everest and how human arrogance is ruining everything. Climbing the world's tallest mountain was once the denizen of experienced climbers and the sherpas who did... Read more...

Lance Oppenheim has set himself up to have quite a year. Exploring some of our best anti-heroes (or maybe they're just villains), he is going to be on everyone's lips in 2026 whether it's for his promising collaboration with Nathan... Read more...

Typically, I wouldn't get too excited about an NBC police drama, because outside of Will Trent, it's procedural cop shows as far as the eye can see. Line of Fire comes from Joshua Safran, one of the creators behind Quantico,... Read more...

It's been a big week for beef between former cast members in long-running family sitcoms. Earlier this week, Jeff Garlin from The Goldbergs once again blamed all of his bad behavior on set on his undiagnosed bipolar disorder, saying that's... Read more...

Writer-director Ira Sachs has made a distinguished film career for himself detailing the not-always-pretty intricacies of relationships between queer men. In the thirty years since his low-key lovely first feature The Delta (now on Criterion, watch it!) dropped, Sachs has... Read more...

Writer-director Ira Sachs has made a distinguished film career for himself detailing the not-always-pretty intricacies of relationships between queer men. In the thirty years since his low-key lovely first feature The Delta (now on Criterion, watch it!) dropped, Sachs has... Read more...

Issa Rae received the Entertainment Entrepreneur of the Year Award at Variety's L.A. Power of Women event on Wednesday. It's one of those not-real awards you get in exchange for turning up to a party and hanging out with the... Read more...

The ink is barely dry on whatever deal California brokered to let the Paramount Warner Bros. merger move forward, and the whole thing already took the worst turn possible. Didn't even hesitate. (Variety) Dolly wouldn't want this drama. (Lainey Gossip)... Read more...

It didn't take a rocket scientist for my algorithm to figure out a very simple truth about me: If people are mad about something, whether it's construction in town, intra-party squabbles, or some sort of nerd fracas, by golly, I'm... Read more...

You might recognize Jack Haven from TV shows like Atypical or films like I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. They're a young and acclaimed performer who has been acting since childhood and is... Read more...