Katy Perry & John Mayer Break Up: Call me a naive sucker, but I really thought these two could go the distance. They made it almost a year, which is like a decade in John Mayer relationship time. As recently as March 2, she tweeted, "My boyfriend is taking me to a kitten shelter in his truck. I can't think of a more perfect Saturday." In the time since then, something must have gone down, because by March 18 she was tweeting "ATTENTION: Mercury is OUT of retrograde today. Thank GOD." The split has now been announced in People, which means it was probably confirmed to them by either Mayer's or Perry's rep. So what went wrong? Let's do a postmortem.
Jennifer Lawrence & Prince Harry: "When you're Hollywood's It Girl, strange men become infatuated with you, inhaling your every utterance, typing your name into endless Google image searches. They might be accountants, laborers, lawyers, cashiers — or, in the case of Jennifer Lawrence, the Prince of Wales. That's right, Britain's Prince Harry has a royal crush on the Oscar-winning star of Silver Linings Playbook. After a four-month army hitch in Afghanistan, the rakish redhead, 28, is set to visit the U.S. in May and despite his on/off romance with Brit model Cressida Bonas, scoring a date with J-Law, 22, is at the top of his agenda." The name Cressida Bonas will never stop making me laugh. "Harry has given his flunkies a list of Hollywood hotties he wants to attend" a party he plans to throw. "Harry has a thing for all of them, but Jennifer's his number-one girl right now." Is it because she likes to party on hotel balconies with a blunt? Maybe. "Harry thinks Jennifer is a girl after his own heart — very chill and out for a good time." Everyone thinks that about Lawrence, because duh, that's her appeal. "Could Jennifer pull a Grace Kelly and live out a princess fantasy?" Something tells me she doesn't have princess fantasies, but OK. Harry, who is attracted to "buxom blondes" also has a thing for Kate Upton but would possibly switch to brunettes for Vanessa Hudgens.
Molly, Tess, and Emily had a long gabfest over cosmos this weekend about branding and gender identity and decided to rename the podcast Girls in Hoodies. Now that we finally have a name that won't possibly annoy anyone on the Internet, we can focus on more important things, like this week's Academy Awards, and why exactly it's pretty much impossible not to love Jennifer Lawrence. We also chat about the now-infamous Onion tweet and the pifalls of the infectiousness of Hollywood snark. Finally, we rehash Girls’ road trip to Manitou, where we thankfully didn't run into any murderous demon babies, but where there was still plenty of irresponsible behavior on display.
1. The Barden Bellas ft. The Treblemakers, "Riff Off: Mickey/Like A Virgin/Hit Me With Your Best Shot/S&M/Let's Talk About Sex/I'll Make Love To You/Feels Like The First Time/No Diggity" (Pitch Perfect)
Pitch Perfect, Kay Cannon's comedy about college a cappella groups, has quickly established itself as a cult hit worthy of sitting alongside slumber party classics like Bring It On, Empire Records, and Grease. Personally, even the best a capella rendition of a song just makes me want to listen to the actual song. Of the various medleys and covers in Pitch Perfect, the sex song medley from the "Riff Off" sequence is the clear standout. And let's all just agree to put Rebel Wilson in everything from now on, OK?
Grade: B
Best YouTube Comment: "idk about anyone, but I got really excited when Ester Dean (Cynthia Rose) sang S&M…considering it's her song that she wrote for Rihanna" — Kaylaa1DAllstar
Miranda Lambert & Blake Shelton: Splitting up is not on the table for the country supercouple. Lambert says she's questioned whether her marriage to Shelton will last "a million" times. "Divorce is not an option," Lambert said. "I will fight to the death. I am a ninja." That seems like a weird thing to say about your relationship. In order to keep communication open, Lambert and Shelton "are allowed to snoop through each other's phones." Has she never heard of a burner? They never spend longer than two weeks away from each other. "We text a lot. Even if it's just sending a picture of the onion rings we're eating!" OK, that seems less weird. They bond at home, "hang out on the porch, drink beer and cook burgers." Lambert says "I think it's important as a married couple to be friends." This all feels strangely defensive. I'm rooting for Lambert (how could I not be?), so I hope things work out.
Lindsay Lohan Is a High-Paid Escort: According to her father, Michael Lohan, Lindsay "is getting paid to date rich men. Dina is pimpin her out. It's disgusting." A second source confirms the story. "The dates last for days, and the guys pay for everything — hotel, travel costs, food, whatever — as well as jewelry and other gifts." While she might just be receiving a fee to act as "arm candy for wealthy men who like to be seen with beautiful and famous women." Clients include Prince Haji Abdul Azim, third in line to the throne of Brunei, and Spanish-American painter Domingo Zapata.
"Domingo let Lindsay live in his penthouse at the Bowery Hotel in NYC for free and at his L.A. pad at Chateau Marmont." Zapata rescinded his kindness after Lohan's hit-and-run incident in September. "He said that Lindsay kept taking, taking, taking and asking for more — cars, dinners, clothes, everything." Lohan is now hanging out with "Vikram Chatwal a.k.a. The Turban Cowboy, who owns a chain of luxury hotels." Is that a self-appointed nickname? Michael Lohan says "Dina is exploiting Lindsay because she's broke too and gets 20 percent of everything Lindsay makes." Michael Lohan is not the most reputable source, though. A friend of Lindsay's says her escort work is "no big deal" because Lohan is "totally broke and in serious debt, and no one will hire her." Plus Lindsay thinks of it as a kind of method research for some future role. "Being an escort is just an easy way for her to stay above water. [Lindsay] says she's an actress and won't turn down getting paid good money to act a certain way!"
So much eyebrow-raising Hollywood casting news and project announcements, so little time. Let's get to it!
Bradley Cooper has signed on for Dark Invasion, a "true spy thriller" based on an upcoming Howard Blum nonfiction book of the same name. The year is 1915, the heart of WWI, and Cooper is NYPD captain Tom Tunney, the man putting together a team to fight German spy tactics sabotaging America's support of the Allied war effort. As Deadline reports, "The Kaiser's spies bomb factories, sabotage ships, shoot JP Morgan Jr (a financier of the Allies), bomb the U.S. Capitol Building, and set up an anthrax lab six miles from the White House." Sounds exciting and action-packed, and also this probably means Bradley Cooper will have a mustache! My only concern? That a nation of teenagers who skipped American History to rip butts and chug Georgi on the benches behind the soccer field will see evil Germans and be utterly confounded as to where their swastikas went.
I realize that I'm unqualified to do what I'm about to do, which is to talk about the musical and cinematic bludgeon that is Les Misérables without having ever seen the actual show, and without ever having listened to the soundtrack. I'm also apparently one of only 13 Americans who did not appear in a production of the original musical while I was in high school, and we’re dying off fast.
(Let me also say that I enjoyed the film, even though I'll never watch another Tom Hooper movie until I'm guaranteed by the producers that his damned camera has been riveted to the floor. For sheer directorial busy-work, Hooper makes Tarantino look like he’s working in Super-8. You get more consistent photographic angles from the Hubble Space Telescope.)
Nevertheless, I rise today in defense of the Pub Voice. This is because the Pub Voice is taking quite a beating these days, most notably at the Browne-Yoshida cyber malt shoppe here last week. The Pub Voice is something we all have. Even actual singers have it. The difference between actual singers and, well, me, is that they have other voices besides the Pub Voice. I have the Pub Voice and nothing else. The only song I've ever sung in any karaoke context is “Mississippi Queen” (if you know what I mean). There are three basic kinds of Pub Voice — loud, louder, and Would You Like to Step Outside? I have all three, as well as a fourth variation that I've kept under wraps since my undergraduate days because, when it's unleashed, it generally results in my having to walk home in the snow.
On Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord 2012, Tom Hooper's film adaptation of the Broadway musical Les Misérables arrives in cinemas across the nation. Grantland staffers Rembert Browne and Emily Yoshida chose to open their presents early this year, and have already seen it in special Hollywood-type screenings. You may think that is unfair, but they love Les Misérables more than you do. Here's what they thought of the movie:
Rembert Browne: The only appropriate way for both of us to start our discussion of Les Misérables the film, is to begin with disclaimers. Mine: I have seen many musicals, am a fan of musicals, participated in musicals, and Les Mis is my favorite of all time. By a landslide. Another disclaimer: After performing the musical in 10th grade, not a single word has left this surprisingly not-steel-trap of a brain I am host to. Final disclaimer: Emotion is a thing I feel. A lot.
OK, your turn, Yoshida. Feel free to make me look less like a freak.
Emily Yoshida: OK, here goes. My lifelong love affair with Les Misérables started in 1995 when PBS aired the 10th Anniversary Concert on Great Performances during a pledge drive. Now, this may shock you, Rem, but I was kind of a big musical theater fan around that time. Still, my love of Les Mis is the only part of that I will openly, publicly admit to, if only because it feels actually really important and relevant to who I am now as a person. I wish that were a hyperbolic statement, but I don't think it is.
Nothing says Christmas like slaves and whores! Anne Hathaway and Samuel L. Jackson enter the ring for a very NSFW Sad-Off over cocoa and gingerbread while they deck the halls. If you’re still at work, now might be a good time to lug your desktop into the bathroom and plug it in under the sink, because I think this ISFP (is safe for potty). How can you top the sad factor of Les Mis, “the miserable”? Well, slavery’s a good place to start. Plus, the star of Jackson’s movie "had his own sitcom on the WB.” And Hathaway was only a Disney princess because she had long hair; in Les Mis all of that gets chopped off “with a knife” (but Jackson “hasn’t had hair since Unbreakable”). Hathaway might not be able to handle being a black man in the South in the 1800s (or ever), but “When there’s a French whore in the White House, then we can talk.” Then again, though Fantine loses her job, “everybody in [Jackson’s] film has job security, because they’re slaves.” Jackson illustrates this with marshmallows and licorice. Oh, so now it’s a slave house? If Hathaway had known, she “would have made whore town.” Someone, quick, throw together a movie featuring slaves with tuberculosis shaving cancer-stricken puppies, hoping to sell the fur to buy instant oatmeal for their families! The Sad-Off championship title can be yours!
Since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's inexplicable slice of Yuletide-flavored nonsense was officially disqualified as one of the worst Christmas songs of the last decade per our draconian awfulness-criteria, we'll consider it here. And, so, yeah. This would give Rudolph nose cancer, cause Santa to steer his sleigh into an active volcano during his gift-dropping run over Maui, and make the three wise men inject lethal amounts of freebased myrrh into their eyeballs were any of them ever exposed to it. And what, exactly, might Olivia have bought John for Christmas? You want to say a new e-meter, but what you're really thinking is a book of massage coupons, because you are a bad person.
Some people, apparently, haven’t forgiven Anne Hathaway for the 2011 Oscars. I think it’s time to get over it and enjoy her beautiful, goobly face. I would rather see someone try so hard — like Judy Garland–style trying hard — than just zombie walking, or should I say Sloppy Swishing, his or her way through a hosting gig on SNL. But all of this is beside the point. If Rihanna’s performance of “Diamonds” doesn’t single-handedly legalize marijuana in every state (magenta dolphins!), then we’ve lost a very important battle. That set made my heart into a giant, throbbing bong that emitted a curl of smoke that spelled out RIHANNA in cursive and then wrapped around my ring finger and covered it in tattoos of screensavers. OK? OK.
Christina Aguilera: Xtina "is still a boozing mess!" At Spago she "drank so much wine and champagne that she couldn't even walk to her car." Boyfriend Matt Rutler supported her on the way out to the car. "Christina loves to drink and has a problem with knowing when enough is enough. Matt has told Christina that she should slow down on the alcohol when they are at dinners, but she gets mad and tells him she'll do what she wants." She hates dieting and "lives off champagne and pasta. But she still believes she is healthy and doesn't think that she needs to work out." All she wants to do is drink her rosé!
