Movies
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If you missed last year’s big screen re-release of the Talking Heads‘ landmark 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense you’re in luck. The movie will be back in select theaters in the U.S., Canada and U.K. starting Jan. 27 after its well-received 2023 4K re-release. The latest reboot is thanks to independent film company A24 […]
Taylor Swift‘s Easter eggs are legion. And Swifties are legendary for scouring the planet to uncover every hidden clue, regardless of how improbable their theories might be. And the latest one is a twisted yarn for the ages.
Perhaps you’ve seen the trailer for Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn’s latest action flick, Argylle?The movie starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa and Samuel L. Jackson hits theaters on Feb. 2 and follows the adventures of a spy novelist who carts around an adorable Scottish fold cat in an argyle-print backpack with a peekaboo bubble that allows the kittie to observe the world on her owner’s real-life adventures.
The movie is based on a novel called Argylle written pseudonymously by an author known as Ellie (or in the movie, Elly) Conway that hit shelves on Jan. 9. So naturally Swifties think the singer — who over the past year has been setting records with her career-spanning Eras Tour, releasing re-recordings of her Speak Now and 1989 albums and criss-crossed the country to watch NFL boyfriend Travis Kelce crush the competition with the Kansas City Chiefs — wrote the book.
Some of the parallels do feel like Swift eggs, including the fact that TayTay loves wearing argyle sweaters, sometimes ghostwrites songs using pen names — even hawking a “Red (Taylor’s Version) Argyle Sweater” — and famously has two Scottish Folds, Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson. And, not for nothing, she carried Olivia Benson in a catpack similar to the one in the movie in her Miss Americana doc from 2020. Add in the fact that Swift directed the VMA-winning 14-minute All Too Well: The Short Film and is working on her feature directorial debut for Searchlight Films, for which she wrote the original script, and it all seems… plausible?
As Rolling Stone reported, because even the most dogged Swiftie could not find any internet history of author Conway anywhere, as well as all of the above, naturally they put two and six together and are convinced Swift is behind the book.
“I’m not a big internet guy, and it was actually my daughter who came up to me — this is the power of celebrity and the internet — and said, ‘You never told me Taylor wrote the book!’” Vaughn told the magazine. “And I’m looking at her going, ‘What are you talking about Taylor Swift wrote the book? She didn’t write the book!’ And I was laughing because I was like, ‘It’s not true! She didn’t write the book!’ But my daughter was convinced of it.”
Vaughn could not stress enough that this one project Swift was not involved with. He told RS, “There is a real book … and it’s a really good book. And there is an Elly Conway who wrote the book, but it’s not Taylor Swift. And I say that because I imagine Taylor Swift has a load of people trying to jump on her bandwagon left, right, and center, and I don’t want to be a part of that club. I did read the conspiracies and I was like, wow, they don’t leave a stone unturned! But it’s not Taylor Swift. She definitely didn’t write the book.”
It gets better, though. Swift did play a small part in the movie according to the director, who said his daughters with supermodel Claudia Schiffer convinced the couple to buy them a Scottish Fold for Christmas after watching Miss Americana. And that cat, of course, is the one featured in the film.
“Ironically, what she is responsible for is the Scottish Fold,” Vaughn said. “I got home one day, it was Christmas, and I was like, ‘What the f–k is that noise?’ And I’m running around the house and I hear a noise, and the kids had seen a Taylor Swift documentary [Miss Americana] and there was a Scottish Fold in that, and they’d persuaded my wife, Claudia [Schiffer], to get them the kitten for Christmas. It was bought without my permission and hidden from me.”
Watch the Argylle trailer below.
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Other beloved actors from the original movie, including Tina Fey (Ms. Norbury) and Rajiv Surendra (Kevin Gnapoor), also made appearances at the event.
O.G. Cady Heron Lindsay Lohan, 37, made a surprise appearance on the red carpet at Monday night’s (Jan. 8) New York premiere of the new Mean Girls movie musical, where she posed for pics with writer-producer-star Tina Fey. The debut of the adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the original 2004 Mean Girls movie […]
For the record, Emma Stone and Taylor Swift have been friends for a long time. And, not for nothing, Stone is one of our finest, and funniest, actors. So it was no surprise on Sunday night (Jan. 7) when Stone took the opportunity backstage at the 2024 Golden Globes to tweak her longtime pal while talking to the press about her Globe win for best performance by a female actor in a motion picture – musical or comedy for her over-the-top role as Bella in Poor Things.
“What an a–hole, am I right?” Stone said jokingly when a reporter asked about Swift’s predictably hyped-up support when her friend of two decades took home one of the night’s big honors. After walking away from the mic, Stone returned and added, “I’ve known her for almost 20 years, so I was very happy she was there. She was also nominated tonight, which was wonderful, and, um, yes, what an a–hole!” Stone repeated with a laugh.
A legendarily supportive awards show attendee, Swift jumped to her feet clapping and cheering for Stone when the actress made her way through the packed floor of the Beverly Hilton to collect her second Globe; eight-time nominee Stone won her first Globe for the 2017 movie musical La La Land.
While Stone, and the oddball Frankenstein-esque pic Poor Things had a good night at the Globes — besting Barbie for best motion picture musical or comedy — Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour concert film lost out to the billion-dollar living doll movie in a new category at the awards show, cinematic and box office achievement.
Stone was obviously tweaking Swift with her comment, but the friends have frequently shown up for each other, with Taylor walking the red carpet last month at the Poor Things premiere, and Stone noting in an interview earlier this year that she caught the Eras Tour three times.
Check out the moment below.
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Billie Eilish knows that great art sometimes comes from the darkest places. And on Thursday night (Jan. 4) at the Palm Springs Film Awards, the 22-year-old singer accepted the Chairman’s Award in honor of her Golden Globe and Grammy-nominated Barbie soundtrack hit “What Was I Made For?” with an emotional speech dedicated to anyone struggling with thoughts of despair she knows all too well.
“I would really like to say that this award and any recognition that this song gets, I just want to dedicate to anyone who experiences hopelessness, the feeling of existential dread and feeling like, what’s the point, why am I here and why am I doing this?,” Eilish said while accepting the award alongside her brother/producer, Finneas, at the Palm Springs Convention Center, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The pair picked up the honor — marking the first time it’s been given to a musician — after a tribute from Barbie director Greta Gerwig. “I think we all feel like that occasionally, but I think if somebody like me, with the amount of privilege that I have and the incredible things that I get to do and be and how I have really not wanted to be here… sorry to be dark, damn, but I’ve spent a lot of time feeling that way,” Eilish continued.
The singer — who has openly and frequently discussed her mental health struggles — also shared a message of hope for others who have felt similar despair. “I just want to say to anyone that feels that way, be patient with yourself and know that it is, I think, worth it all,” Eilish said, adding that “it’s good to be alive now” after not feeling that way for “a very long time.”
Eilish shared that Gerwig approached the siblings about contributing to the hit movie’s soundtrack at a point when the singer was “in a dark episode and things didn’t make sense in life. I just didn’t understand what the point was and why you would keep going. Just questioning everything in the world.”
But after she and Finneas sat in a theater and screened around 35 minutes of footage, Eilish said she was overcome with emotion watching Margot Robbie’s Barbie saying and feeling things “that I really, really, really resonated with and felt so close to. I felt so seen, and I did not expect that.” The result was the hushed, emotional ballad whose spare, thoughtful lyrics plumb existential questions in a most elegant way. “I don’t know how to feel/ But I wanna try/ I don’t know how to feel/ But someday I might/ Someday I might,” she sings on the track.
“I think that this movie is the most incredible, most empowering and beautiful and funny and just unbelievable piece of art in the world, and I’m so, so honored to be a part of it,” Eilish added before turning the mic over to her brother, who used his time to pay tribute to their parents, Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell.
“Our parents were theater people before they were our parents. They met on a flight to Alaska to do regional theater in 1984, and in the ‘90s they got married to each other and decided to start a family,” he said. “They decided that it might be a good idea to move from New York where they were doing plays to Los Angeles to maybe do some things that would make some residual income like film and television. That didn’t work out at all, and I think it underscored as children that it was okay to have dreams that didn’t pan out the way that you thought they might. And it also underscored that the entertainment industry, like all industries, is fairly unfair.”
Despite their struggle, though, Finneas said the siblings were not raised by “bitter people who hadn’t gotten to achieve their dreams. We were raised by people who did nothing but encourage us to believe in ourselves and pursue the dreams and passions that we had. I don’t particularly know how they were able to do both of those things, but they were, and we’d be nothing and nowhere without our parents, and I love them so much.”
“What Was I Made For?” is nominated for best original song at Sunday night’s (Jan. 7) 81st annual Golden Globe Awards, as well as record of the year, song of the year, best pop solo performance, best song written for visual media and best music video at the upcoming (Feb. 4) Grammy Awards.
Watch footage of Eilish’s speech below.
While accepting Chairman’s Award during Palm Springs Film Awards, Billie Eilish opens up on “dark episode” and feeling like she didn’t want to be here anymore prior to writing hit Barbie song. #PSIFF2024 pic.twitter.com/DnvZy0bJ1l— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) January 5, 2024
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
Are you ready for it? The final trailer for the upcoming musical movie adaptation of Mean Girls dropped Wednesday morning (Jan. 3) and it hints at some big, bold song and dance numbers. The clip opens with perpetually clueless principal Duvall (Tim Meadows) welcoming curve-busting new student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) to school. Cue an […]
Timothée Chalamet charmed audiences into theaters over the weekend with his Willy Wonka origin story Wonka to the tune of $39 million in U.s. box office receipts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the pre-Christmas weekend haul for the film beat expectations and was a good sign for the film’s prospects over the holiday. The movie […]
Barbie star Simu Liu is not ready to stop feeling the Kenergy. The actor who played a rival Ken to Ryan Gosling’s abtastic Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-nominated box office blockbuster busted out a solo version of the theme song from the movie’s signature dance number, “I’m Just Ken,” at an intimate show at Los Angeles’ Hotel Café on Wednesday (Dec, 13).
According to a video of the gig he posted on X, Liu instructed the crowd, “If there’s one thing that I want each and every one of you to take away from this show tonight in your hearts it’s that you’re enough,” he said the to 100 or so fans in the house as a keyboardist played some piano mood music behind him. “I want you to do this with me now. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to put your hand on your heart, and I want you to repeat after me, okay?: I. Am. Kenough.”
They, of course, did as he instructed and Liu then busted into the first verse of the track written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt in a strong, soulful voice over a jazzy arrangement. He later admitted, however, that like the real world in the movie, something was a little off.
“The most Ken thing about this is that I forgot part of the words to ‘I’m Just Ken.’ What a great night!!!!,” Liu wrote on X after he fumbled the chorus line “Where I see love she sees a friend,” smiling and mumbling a nonsense phrase where the lyric should have been. He made up for it by taking off his leather jacket and showing off his guns in a tank top to whoops from the audience.
The consummate professional laughed off the flub, asking, “Are you ready to feel the Kenergy with me tonight? Let’s do this! You are Kenough, you are Kenough!” He also busted out the choreo from the movie’s insane dance dream sequence and belted out the lyrics while literally flexing all over the place and letting out a primal scream mid-song.
“I’m Just Ken” debuted at No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August, giving Ryan Gosling his first entry on the 100 tally.
This isn’t Liu’s first singing rodeo. The actor released his debut four-track EP, Anxious-Avoidant, in Novmeber, which includes a song co-written by the Jonas Brothers’ Joe Jonas, “Break My Heart.”
Check out Liu’s performance below.
Although The Boy and The Heron, the first film from beloved Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki in a decade, was released internationally in July, the breathtaking fantasy has caused quite a stir since its wide release in the U.S. on Dec. 8. The story of a troubled boy who enters a mysterious world following the death of his mother, The Boy and The Heron grossed nearly $13 million in its opening weekend to top the North American box office – the first Miyazaki film to do so.
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As more moviegoers discover the wonder of The Boy and The Heron, they’re also interacting with “Spinning Globe,” the moving end-credits song performed by longtime Japanese star Kenshi Yonezu. Years after Miyazaki first approached the artist about contributing a song to his long-awaited new film, “Spinning Globe,” a heartfelt ballad that blooms into a giant pop sing-along while incorporating element of Scottish folk music, has developed a following in its own right. The song earned 1.1 million official on-demand U.S. streams through Dec. 7, according to Luminate, and that number will surely rise following the film’s North American debut.
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Prior to The Boy and The Heron hitting North American theaters, Kenshi Yonezu discussed the creation of “Spinning Globe,” and how the song yielded one of the most unforgettable moments of his career, in an email interview with Billboard.
What was your reaction when Hayao Miyazaki first approached you to write the theme to his next project?
I was simply flabbergasted, like, “What!?!”
Naturally, I thought, “Why me?,” you know. I heard some background stories of the approach and it turned out that Mr. Miyazaki had heard “Paprika” [a hit song Yonezu produced] on the radio. At a nursery school run by Ghibli, children were singing and dancing to the song; one day, Mr. Suzuki noticed Mr. Miyazaki singing along with them. He thought this could be some kind of destiny and brought up the idea, “How about asking the one who wrote this song to make the theme song of The Boy and the Heron?” and Mr. Miyazaki said, “That’s a good idea.”
Actually, I remember little of the first impression I had on their proposal. It could have had an impact on my memory, but I don’t even remember most of the scene either. I wonder why, and come to think of it, it was an honor, but at the same time, it was very much a scary thing. While it was the biggest honor in my life, chances were, it would put an end to my life as a music maker. That vague anxiety remained intact throughout the four years of making the song. So, to be honest, I don’t really remember how I felt at first.
How much pressure did you feel to create a song worthy of his genius?
For the past four years, this movie has always been in the corner of my head. No matter what I did – when I was writing a song that had nothing to do with it, or just living everyday life, a thin membrane that had the phrase The Boy and The Heron on it was always screening my view. It certainly put a heavy pressure on me, and there was always a sense of preparation for it.
Upon making the theme song of The Boy and The Heron, I thought once again, about what Ghibli movies were, and furthermore, what Mr. Hayao Miyazaki was to me. Then I realized that I have never had anyone to call my master. For instance, in neither music nor art, I experienced being taught something clearly by someone. I have never been into schoolwork and hardly experienced senior-junior or boss-subordinate relationships. I took a look back at my life and realized that I had very little experience of learning from older people and being greatly influenced by them as I shaped my personality. So perhaps I was looking for a master-like figure in Mr. Hayao Miyazaki, as a great master, or if I would say further, a father-like figure.
While his movies are full of celebrations, his books are full of poignant remarks. So, his words do deny me, but at the same time, tell me, “It’s okay for you to live.” I realized only recently, but somewhere in my mind, I might have been seeking that sort of fatherliness in him.
Ever since childhood, his movies have saved my life. And into adolescence, I just started considering him my mentor without asking. Personally speaking, he is probably my all-time number one master. And now I get to work with The Man. Here I am, face-to-face with him, who is seated at the other side of the table… I must take in his every single move, deed, and word. At first, I was trying so hard to look big, strained with tension.
“Spinning Globe” was inspired by the story of the film, but also your passion for Miyazaki’s work. How did you try to capture that passion in the music and lyrics?
At the first meeting I had with Mr. Miyazaki, he said that he would depict all the parts he had “hidden” in his past works, which were “the darkness and mess inside” of himself.
I thought the movie was entirely focused on them. And I had been fully aware since day one that it was simply impossible to make a song by summarizing the story itself. Then how should I do it? I came to the conclusion that the only way to make sense of this song was to focus on the relationship between the two axes: myself, who had grown up watching his movies, enjoying them, and gazing at his back creating them, and Hayao Miyazaki.
Therefore, although the (Japanese) title of the movie could be translated as “How do you live?,” my stance on making this song was more like, “I have lived my life this way,” or, “This is how I will keep going on with my life.” The only way for me to do this was to recapture Hayao Miyazaki in that sense and turn it into music. Therefore, the lyrics were written in that way as well. Having said that, this song is, of course, not on personal matters. I wrote this song for the movie; it projects the main character and what had swirled in the story. But at the same time, all sorts of things, such as Mr. Miyazaki himself and myself growing up watching Miyazaki movies, are also unraveled here while still in opacity. The lyrics go all the way back to one’s birth and into how to live life.
I wanted to start the lyrics from absolute celebration. Mr. Miyazaki has made movies to this day to tell children that “this world is worth living.” Taking that into consideration, I was pretty sure that the song should start from “You were brought into this world to be wanted,” otherwise it wouldn’t make sense.
How did “Spinning Globe” evolve over the years between Miyazaki first approaching you about the theme and its eventual release?
I received the storyboard in 2019, and spent the next four years reading it over and over again, and seeing the rushes of the movie.
At the beginning, it was the time to see if there was anything I could take in from the storyboard, or what to take in. When I received the storyboard, the movie did not have a release date yet; it was probably going to be quite far away in the future. So, I didn’t start working on the song immediately, but instead, spent a very long time figuring out what the movie was all about, and how I felt through looking at it with my own eyes. In fact, for about two years, I had the storyboard at the back of my head while working on other songs and living everyday life.
Then I found myself gradually becoming unable to see the storyboard in an objective way. Even the songs I had been working on at that time, I wondered if they were really okay. Maybe that was the time I had the deepest experience of such things. And when you take a long time working on a song, your appetite comes with eating… you might wonder if you should make it more gorgeous. So, I told myself not to forget the primal sensation of when I first thought it was okay. I created a demo first, and always went back to the feeling of the moment when I thought it was okay, and took a long time disciplining myself, “Adding will do no good… Adding will do no good…”.
Mr. Miyazaki said to me, “Be ambitious when you make a song.” I interpreted it my way, and making “Paprika 2” or something splashy with strings [is] something lazy for me. If asked if such things are ambitious, I don’t think so. As a music maker, I have always sought for something that was not there at that time. With each and every song, I have made it by taking in new elements, no matter how many. Personally speaking, that is what I call ambition.
This time, I made the song extremely simple and earthy. In a sense, it may make the song less pop, but I believe there are things and words that can only be depicted that way. Therefore, to me, this song – “Spinning Globe” – is a very ambitious piece of music.
One day, I had Mr. Miyazaki listen to the pre-recorded demo on the CD I had burned. I went to see him as if I had been on death row, thinking, “Do I have to be there?” We sat around a table, and while listening to this song coming from the speaker, Mr. Miyazaki shed tears in front of me. That is the most memorable moment in the past four years. I will carry it in my heart for the rest of my life.
The film focuses on profound loss, among other issues. Was it difficult to translate that theme into a pop format?
From day one, I already had the foundation of the song, which started with an idea of “creating a Scottish folk tune.” Why Scottish folk tune? It’s very hard to explain, but I have always felt something close to Scottish folk tunes to Mr. Miyazaki’s movies. And at the same time, I wanted to make something simple. Rather than layering different instruments to make it sound gorgeous, I wanted it to be really simple, with minimal instruments like the piano, and use my voice for the rest. I should make music that won’t age but not novel either. In other words, I should make something that is old from the start, in the format that you can listen to it for a long time. That idea has been my focus from the beginning.
I wanted to take an elaborate [creative] process for this song. As pre-production, I crafted the demo as I did the recording at the studio. However, although I did a proper recording, I was trying different instruments, and the mic setting was not really fixed yet. Then, even the creaking sound of the piano pedal made it in the demo. It was not intentional, but when I actually had it, I really liked the sound. I recorded the piano under proper recording circumstances, but the results were always not enough. I tried recording in many settings too.
I went to different studios and tried many pianos. Still, I couldn’t wipe away the feeling that nothing could beat the first piano with that creaking pedal…
I ended up recording with the piano that Yuta Bandoh, the co-arranger of the song, had at his parents’ place. It was an ordinary piano at a very general household. We set up a mic in the room he had lived since childhood, using this old piano his mother had played and passed onto him. The piano had not been maintained regularly, but the texture of its sound was the best to me.
What has the reaction to the song been like since its release, from both your fans and Miyazaki fans?
What kind of presence was the song “Spinning Globe” in The Boy and the Heron? Was it able to serve its role? I consciously try not to be a part of such discussions. I had four years of working face to face with this movie, and in the course of time, many forms were born and gone. It has been several months since the movie was out; I see four years’ worth of flashbacks come and go. But those should not be told anymore. The song “Spinning Globe” should be evaluated by the fans. Now I’m ready to face the next songwriting process.