Star crossed zodiac signs

Right from the start, In Search of… stood out. I discovered N.E.R.D.’s 2002 debut at a Best Buy on the rim of Houston’s I-10 loop, sitting at the front of the store on a blue kiosk marked $6.99. I was a first-year high school English teacher, struggling to pull together all the things expected of me. There was this unfussy album cover staring at me, with a twenty-something Black guy on a battered-looking couch in a nondescript apartment playing a video game in his house clothes, blankly staring at an off-screen TV, blissfully unaware of the camera. The cover drew me in with its mundane imagery — a breath of fresh air compared to the bad-boy glamor on the covers of the rap albums I was also buying around that time. Nearly every N.ER.D. fan has a story like this about the first time In Search Of … crossed their radar. And over the next 20 years, the album became a touchstone to the next generation of visionaries. Created by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, a.k.a. … [Read more...] about How N.E.R.D.’s Debut Brought the Dawn of a Boundless Era

Metallica's lead singer and rhythm guitarist had one thing on his mind while vacationing in Greece -- nothing else matters but hitting up the beach with the fam!!! James Hetfield took his son and daughter to the Greek island of Mykonos Wednesday for a fun-filled day in the sun and a dip in the sea ... a day that never comes for some ... so they made the most of it. Hetfield managed to maintain a rock star look with his camo trunks and a cross necklace chain ... while also flaunting his tats. The Metallica co-founder probably would have been unforgiven by his kids if they went to Greece and didn't explore the beautiful island -- sad but true -- but instead ... he's the hero of the day. … [Read more...] about Metallica Frontman James Hetfield Enjoys Family Beach Day in Mykonos

There’s a lot of ways to describe Jordan Peele ’s Nope : an update on “Watch the Skies!” sci-fi from the 1950s; a tribute to Steven Spielberg’s 1970s blockbuster building blocks (what if those Close Encounter of the Third Kind UFOs were just hungry, extraterrestrial great white sharks?); a 21st century meta-text about what we watch and why we keep watching it. All 100-percent accurate. But read the reviews and explainers and numerous think pieces on Peele’s latest blend of horror and commentary, and there’s one word that keeps popping up, again and again. It’s mentioned when they talk about Jupiter’s Claim, the modest frontier-themed amusement park run by Steven Yuen’s former child actor, who once played a pint-sized sheriff in a movie and still takes his fancy sartorial cues from that role. It’s namechecked in the film posters you see at Haywood Ranch, notably Buck and the Preacher and Duel at Diablo . You can see traces of it in the movie’s scenes of folks handling horses … [Read more...] about How Do You Make a Western in the 21st Century?

Karina Longworth ’s house is, quite possibly, haunted. This is not necessarily something she has experienced herself, she tells me of her pale-pink 1926 Mediterranean, where Longworth could be found one July morning on the frond-shadowed patio. But it is something she has on authority from a friend who drunkenly stumbled in from the pool one night and heard, in the empty home, a dinner party going on in the dining room upstairs. Since then, the hauntedness or unhauntedness of Longworth’s abode has become a matter of some debate. “My friend thinks my house is haunted,” she says wryly. “I think he drinks too much.” Either way, there is certainly no one better at reviving Hollywood ’s ghosts than Longworth. A film critic and historian, she is best known for the podcast You Must Remember This, which she researches, writes, and records in a tiny foam-lined closet off the downstairs office of her husband, director Rian Johnson. In the eight years since she launched the podcast with an … [Read more...] about How Karina Longworth Brought Sex and Sleaze Back to Hollywood History

Call it a seven-year itch, but the sands of late-night are shifting. James Corden is leaving The Late Late Show next year after seven years in the CBS hotseat, Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal was canceled at TBS, the latest cull of the new Warner Bros. Discovery empire, and Desus & Mero split up and ended their Showtime series. Jon Batiste, bandleader of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show is leaving after seven years and even Jimmy Kimmel is considering ending his 20-year run on ABC. Seth Meyers, who hosts NBC’s Late Night, which scored its first major Emmy nomination since launching his show in February 2014, tells Deadline that we’ve reached a new inflection point. “It’s notable that when we started, around eight and a half years ago, it seemed like there was this massive wave of new shows, and that seemed like the last inflection point. What was really exciting about that wave is you have someone like me, who looks a lot like people who’ve had these shows … [Read more...] about Late-Night Landscape Shift Brings New Opportunities & Challenges