Television

Bravo

Fans agreed with Andy, claiming that new faces were needed to make everything fresh, while some others name former Housewives they’d want to see returning.
Feb 13, 2020
AceShowbiz – Bravo is making a big change by firing several OG Housewives including Tamra Judge and Vicki Gulvanson from “The Real Housewives of Orange County”. The move seemingly didn’t sit well with one avid fan who came for executive producer and host Andy Cohen for the decision.
“HW wives have made millions for you,” the fan tweeted on Wednesday, February 12 on Twitter. “I don’t appreciate you treating them as disposable. If you need a shake up, replace the host. Thx.”
Andy noticed the tweet and replied hotly to the user, “Ok Sebastian. You can produce the show and fire me and just keep everybody the same every year and see how it goes.”

Fans agreed with Andy, claiming that new faces were needed to make everything fresh. “I mean he’s right, these narratives are getting predictable and some of the ladies think they’re untouchable new blood is necessary,” one fan noted. Echoing the sentiment, someone added, “I was sick of them anyway. Orange county needed new faces.”
One person, meanwhile, demanded Bravo to make a cast shake-up on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”, saying, “Please replace some of these ATL Housewives. The same drama every season.” Another user wanted the show to bring back Phaedra Parks. “Im only here to ask to bring back Phaedra. That is all,” the person said.
The firing of some “Real Housewives” cast members apparently got Kandi Burruss anxious. “She is worried that her time on ‘RHOA’ is coming to an end,” an insider explained in a previous report. The source noted that the reality star recently “pitched a spinoff show about her growing family and her businesses.”
“Kandi wants to stay on TV, and she thinks her own family drama is something that viewers would want to see,” the insider continued. Thankfully, her family was fully supportive for her should Bravo greenlight the planned show. “Mama Joyce, Todd [Tucker] and her manager, Don Juan, are all on board,” said the source.

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Lately, Lauren Graham has been living a song-and-dance routine — belting out Katy Perry anthems and shimmying atop a bar in “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” the musical new NBC series.But when she’s not acting she’s most likely writing, hunched over a computer in pajamas and existing on takeout during “these awful, wonderful kind of crunch times,” she said. A sort-of-sequel to her 2013 novel, “Someday, Someday, Maybe,” is due out next year.Graham wrapped the show in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the end of January before heading home to Los Angeles and her partner, the actor Peter Krause, with Mochi, her rescue puppy. Starting with a cast dinner on Jan. 27 and ending with Sunday puzzles on Feb. 2, she tracked her cultural diary for us. These are her edited notes. KATHRYN SHATTUCKMonday“I liked you better when you didn’t have a dog,” my friend and director Jon Turteltaub says. It’s the last week of production on “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” and a bunch of us are at dinner at Joe Fortes in Vancouver. I’m trying to excuse myself before dessert has arrived, which may seem antisocial, but I think is justified, because what’s a smarter idea than getting a new puppy while in a foreign country during the last week of filming a musical TV show? It’s been over five years since I had a dog, and even longer since I’ve raised a puppy, so I’m doing my research. My last dog was a German shepherd rescue, and this one seems to have some shepherd in her as well, so I’ve returned to the books by the monks of New Skete, “The Art of Raising a Puppy” and “Let Dogs Be Dogs.” The monks specialize in shepherds and their training advice is somehow practical, groovy and spiritual all at once.TuesdayI’m working with the writer Jennifer E. Smith on an adaptation of her most recent YA novel, “Field Notes on Love.” Jen was the editor of all three of my books at Random House and became a close friend and now a collaborator. There’s a TV in every room in my Vancouver corporate housing, so I’m allowing myself the soothing sounds of “Grand Designs” in the background. There’s a pleasing amount of British television available here, while at home I get my fix through the apps Acorn and BritBox. I like the abundance of low-stakes dramas, Christmas programming and game shows the Brits have to offer. There’s one game show called “The Chase” that’s a trivia competition with pretty challenging questions, and another called “Tipping Point” that’s just a giant version of those coin pusher arcade games that’s unbelievably slow and not that challenging. I love both. And don’t get me started on the baking shows …WednesdaySpeaking of baking, I love cookbooks just as reading material, not even when I’m using them for their intended purpose. There’s a sort of relish I make that I found in the “Momofuku” cookbook that’s basically diced ginger and chopped green onion and a little sherry vinegar and soy sauce, and we put it on everything. I use the“Donabe” cookbook by Naoko Takei Moore a lot too. Donabes are clay pots from Iga, Japan, and they’re great for cooking sushi rice and soups, and there are ones for grilling and steaming too. There’s a store called Toiro that carries them, and their website is full of great recipes and unique kitchen tools and Japanese ingredients. My mom was a missionary kid who grew up in Japan, which is one reason I have such an affinity for the country and its food. Chrissy Teigen’s cookbooks are also a fun read, and the last time I made her mac and cheese the boys in my house devoured it in about 10 seconds.ThursdayMy cast mate Skylar Astin and I go to SoulCycle and then to a sushi restaurant called Minami, where they make a type of sushi called oshizushi, which I’d never seen until I came here. It’s an Osaka-based style of nigiri that’s pressed in a mold and then seared on top. “It’s like cake,” Jane Levy once said. We’ve all eaten gallons of it while in town.Tomorrow is our last day on set, and Skylar wants a recommendation for something to watch while he packs. I recommend Netflix’s “The Circle,” which I background-binged when I was on a deadline and had run out of “Grand Designs” episodes. Background binge is different than actual binge in that you can leave the house to go to the store or whatever for anywhere from 1 to 17 hours, and when you get home, you’re still pretty much up to speed. This year I think my favorite non-background binge shows in addition to “Cheer” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was Netflix’s “Unbelievable.” It was directed so beautifully, and the cast including Toni Collette and Kaitlyn Dever was incredible. I met Merritt Wever at the Golden Globes this year and I gripped her hand while gushing at her for way too long.Being on a musical TV show has reminded me of some of the musical theater that inspired me when I was starting out performing in the chorus of various summer stock productions. I recently made a playlist for my friends’ daughter who was newly interested that included some of the classics: it had selections from Barbra Streisand’s “Funny Girl,” Patti LuPone’s “Anything Goes,” Bernadette Peters in “Sunday in the Park With George,” Ethel Merman in “Gypsy,” and a few modern selections too: Ben Platt in “Dear Evan Hansen,” Sutton Foster in “Violet.” I try to see everything when I’m in New York. The last show I saw was “Jagged Little Pill,” which had a great cast, especially Kathryn Gallagher. I’ve been working with her dad, Peter, on “Zoey,” and when I went backstage at the Broadhurst, Kathryn showed me a wall of playbills from previous productions there that included her dad in a production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in the ’80s. Amazing! I just finished a fascinating book about the evolution of Broadway and its theaters called “Razzle Dazzle” by Michael Riedel. Like so much of New York history, real estate was everything.SaturdayAfter a late night at work and a surprisingly smooth puppy’s first flight, I’m finally back in Los Angeles, and the digital signs on all the city buses are flashing “RIP KOBE,” a gesture that speaks to his importance to this community, and one which also feels devastatingly sad. While driving in L.A. I’d be lost without our NPR station, KCRW. I stream it on their app when I’m away from home for the news and general NPR content, and their D.J.s are the only reason I’ve listened to any music made after Joni Mitchell’s last album.At home, I scroll through the DVR to see what I’ve missed while I’ve been away. It’s full of “Jeopardy!” and “S.N.L.” and “Project Runway.” When I was a kid, “S.N.L.” was the one show I was allowed to stay up late to watch, and I’ve been devoted ever since. I loved “Live From New York,” a collection of interviews with cast and crew over the years by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller.I’m usually reading a few books at the same time. I just finished “Catch and Kill” by Ronan Farrow, which was riveting. I devoured “Nothing to See Here” by Kevin Wilson. I’m also loving “Grown Ups” by Marian Keyes, and “All Adults Here” by Emma Straub, which will be out in May. “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides was also suspenseful and fun. I don’t like scary movies, but I do love reading a thriller: anything with a woman or a girl who’s in a window or on a train or gone or with a dragon tattoo, love them all.SundayI love crossword puzzles and word and spelling games of any kind, but so does Peter, so we have an agreement: I get the crossword in the Sunday New York Times, but he gets the one in The Week. He gets the Spelling Bee in The Times and I get the Sudoku in The Week. We listen to music or “This American Life” and pass the papers back and forth and get away from the phones for a few hours. I hate feeling lost without my phone and keep trying to trick myself into using it less. I bought a BlackBerry. I’m on an Indiegogo waiting list for a keyboard thing called a Traveler that has no internet but only connects to a cloud. Being easily distracted is the reason I’m not on Instagram. I once went on YouTube to look up a video of Kelly Bishop from the original cast of “A Chorus Line” and when I looked up I had turned 80. Peter blames some of it on being a Pisces. “One fish goes this way, the other fish goes that way,” he’ll say when I leave the refrigerator door open for the millionth time.Today our dog went to her first puppy school class and she basically hid in a corner while the other puppies jumped all over one another like they were at a fun party. I choose to think this is a sign that she is deep and introspective and wise beyond her years. More

When “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” debuted on Netflix in 2018, it seemed like just the latest title in its “Summer of Love” promotion. There was “Set It Up,” “Sierra Burgess Is a Loser” and “The Kissing Booth.” But “To All the Boys” quickly proved to be a phenomenon.The main character, a Korean-American high schooler named Lara Jean (played by Lana Condor), won over audiences who saw themselves mirrored in her life and mixed heritage. There was a surge of thirst for the internet’s newest crush, Noah Centineo (playing Lara Jean’s love interest, Peter Kavinsky). Sales for Yakult, a Korean yogurt drink, increased after being featured in several scenes, and by Halloween, Twitter was overloaded with images of costumes inspired by Lara Jean.“To All the Boys” became one of Netflix’s “most viewed original films ever,” with many fans watching it repeatedly, according to Variety. If the streaming service, which selectively releases audience numbers, is to be believed, more than 80 million subscribers caught the rom-com. The company also cited Instagram data to show the film’s impact: Condor’s follower count jumped from about 100,000 to 5.5 million, while Centineo’s increased from 800,000 to 13.4 million.“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” clearly seemed to tap into an unmet demand. Now, the team behind the first film are hoping its sequel, “P.S. I Still Love You,” will too when it premieres on Feb. 12.Based on Jenny Han’s best-selling 2014 debut YA novel of the same name, the first movie followed Lara Jean as she is forced to confront her emotions when private love letters she penned are sent to her past crushes — and to her current one, her sister’s ex-boyfriend Josh (Israel Broussard). While navigating the mayhem that ensues and trying to make Josh jealous, she ends up in a fake relationship with Peter, a popular but kindhearted jock. It’s not long before the fake relationship leads both to develop real feelings.Casting the Vietnamese-born newcomer Condor as the endearing Lara Jean opposite Centineo (of “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Perfect Date”) resulted in palpable chemistry that certainly helped fuel the success of “To All the Boys.”Condor said in an interview that she thought the excitement around the original stemmed from its wholesome, uplifting love story: “You kind of feel better after you watch it. You feel joy, and I think there’s something to be said about, right now, today, you kind of have to actively seek joy.” Centineo similarly saw the film as comfort food. “Chicken soup for the soul, baby. That’s what we want.”But the film’s popularity was also driven by more tangible factors. For one, there had been a noticeable lack of successful film rom-coms for years. Movies like “10 Things I Hate About You,” “She’s All That” and “Drive Me Crazy” were staples of the late 1990s and the early 2000s, but that was the last time the teen rom-com was really prevalent on the big screen; “To All the Boys” was a rom-com for a new generation.And it injected new life into the genre with its diverse cast of characters. Condor’s casting was seen as a win for Asian-American audiences, who had seen several Asian characters morph into white ones in recent screen adaptations. (See the controversies surrounding “Doctor Strange” and “Ghost in the Shell.”)LeiLani Nishime, a professor of communications at the University of Washington, said Asian-Americans usually show up only “in certain kinds of genres” like sci-fi or family dramas “but things like detective films or rom-coms, you didn’t see a whole lot of Asian-Americans.”The movie was a (partial) answer to the underrepresentation of such characters. Han said, “We’ve seen a certain type of rom-com many times, and I have never seen an Asian-American girl as the lead of a rom-com. So I think being able to experience the first brush of first love through her eyes, it felt really new and sparkly.”“To All the Boys” was also released the same week as “Crazy Rich Asians,” and the combination of both films propelled a surge of interest in Asian-American romances onscreen. These two rom-coms of course couldn’t solve the lack of representation, but they did prove that Asian-American audiences wanted to see more of themselves onscreen.In“P.S. I Still Love You,” once again adapted from Han’s romance novel series, the budding relationship between Lara Jean and Peter continues. But the onscreen antics are further complicated when another one of Lara Jean’s past crushes (and letter recipients), John Ambrose — played by Jordan Fisher — re-enters her life. With John, Lara Jean’s first love, in the picture, she has another dream guy to consider. John, unlike the suave, popular Peter, is both bookish and charming. What transpires is a love triangle that will probably spur an online battle of internet crushes.“The truth of the matter is, when you have someone like Jordan Fisher up against anyone else, his competition should be afraid, very afraid,” Centineo said, “because he is charismatic, he is extremely intelligent, extremely articulate and more than anything, he’s just a kind human being and soul. And he knows how to cook.”While Centineo said he knew that some viewers wouldn’t be thrilled with a rival love interest, he added that it made for a more compelling narrative. “When dealing with a franchise, especially one that was as successful as the first film, you really want to follow up with something that isn’t just exactly what the audience would want,” he said. But the romantic chaos will give fans endearing moments from Lara Jean that include stress baking and a “Cinderella” scene where everything comes to a head while she’s clad in a ball gown.The sequel is filled with the same chemistry between Condor and Centineo that once sparked rumors they were dating. Despite that speculation, the two actors say they had just formed a tight bond. (Condor has been with her boyfriend, Anthony De La Torre, for more than four years).“Acting with Noah is very, very easy, so, it doesn’t take a lot for me to love his heart and his mind,” Condor said, adding, “If people believe that we’re together or they want us to be, I think that means we did our job as actors.”Centineo also noted that when they met they “were both in very similar places in our lives and we bonded on the pain that we were both experiencing.”“P.S. I Still Love You” is about more than just romance, though. Just as one of the screenwriters, Sofia Alvarez, didn’t want the first film to be “about a girl who was in love with her sister’s boyfriend,” the second film follows Lara Jean as she explores what it “means to be vulnerable once you’re actually in that relationship and dealing with the other person as opposed to just thinking about being in a relationship with them.” Ultimately, Condor said, that will lead to more challenges for viewers. “The audience is going to be more frustrated at Lara Jean than they will be at the boys,” she said.“P.S. I Still Love You” is part of a larger Netflix plan. Both Condor and Centineo said they wrapped filming on the final entry in the trilogy in August. While details about the third installment were limited, one of the producers, Matt Kaplan, said that the film centers on “Lara Jean and Peter dealing with what life is like when you have to start to make more adult choices, like going off to college and figuring out how to navigate bigger, more adult conversations about relationships.”But the team behind the franchise thinks it will reverberate beyond the initial releases. Alongside films like “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Always Be My Maybe,” Condor said she hoped the “To All the Boys” movies would inspire more rom-coms to take Asian-American representation into consideration. “I think Asian-American actors have really kind of harnessed their power and they are trying to step into the space with confidence,” she said. “I am so proud to even be a little part of a movement that I hope is not just a movement, but is a very long forever process.”And the producer Kaplan envisions the “To All the Boys” films becoming part of the rom-com canon, Kaplan said: “I hope that the franchise will resonate in a way that lasts for generations, and that kids can look back at these movies and Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky can kind of be known in history as one of these really charming romantic comedy couples.” More

The scene opens on a palatial lobby of the Biltmore hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Two women, Dani Núñez and Sophie Suarez, gape at the elaborately carved ceiling, 24-karat fixtures and lavish chandeliers. Recently engaged, they are touring potential wedding venues with their families. Dani’s father, a wealthy businessman, had suggested this one. At one point, Sophie’s mom wonders aloud, nervously, if she should have dressed up for the appointment. But no matter: The mood is festive, giddy. As they are led into a sprawling ballroom, Sophie’s abuela looks around skeptically and asks: “Where does the food go? Because we need a few tables to put everything we’re bringing.” The hotel event planner, blond hair pulled back into a pristine twist, informs her that the hotel doesn’t allow outside food, her voice barely concealing her disdain.Later, at home, Sophie explodes. “I don’t want to feel uncomfortable at my own wedding,” she says tearfully. “I want to laugh, I want to yell, I want to eat the food that my family cooked.” Dani seems to understand, until she opens her mouth. “I’m sure that they’ll make exceptions,” she tells her wife to be. Sophie is livid. “Did you see how they looked at me and my family?” Dani is a light-skinned, moneyed Chilean-Iranian woman; Sophie is Dominican-American and Afro-Latina. Their argument demonstrates that even though both women are Latinx, they have completely different experiences of power, privilege and class.VideoShowtimeCreditThe scene appeared about halfway through the first season of Showtime’s “The L Word: Generation Q,” the highly anticipated sequel to the original series, which ran on the same network from 2004 to 2009. Exhuming old cultural totems is risky: Overdo the nostalgia, and it becomes cloying; ignore the show’s legacy, and core fans might rebuke it. Fortunately, this reboot found a happy medium — and many juicy moments, like a fling with a minister, a hot threesome and a charming cameo by the soccer star Megan Rapinoe. But that sober, fully clothed and vulnerable exchange between Sophie and Dani is the one that stayed with me.When the original “L Word” aired back in 2004, it was a seismic event for many lesbians. At the time, TV shows featuring gay characters — “Queer as Folk,” and the lesser known “Noah’s Arc,” about black gay men in Los Angeles — tended to center on cisgender men and the issues relevant to their communities, whether it was casual sex and H.I.V. status or substance abuse. Sexual interactions between women usually showed up only as side plots, scandals or spectacles, usually for the benefit of men. Remember Kevin Bacon looking on from the bushes as Neve Campbell and Denise Richards made out in the pool in the 1998 erotic thriller “Wild Things”? Or when Britney and Madonna kissed at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards? You barely got to see it — the camera was too busy cutting away to Britney’s ex, Justin Timberlake, for his reaction.“The L Word” got closer to depicting the real social milieu of women who love women. It helped that lesbians were at the helm — Ilene Chaiken, the show’s creator, along with writers like Guinevere Turner and Rose Troche, who made “Go Fish,” a low-budget, grungy movie about queer women in Chicago in the 1990s — and they satisfyingly captured cultural touchstones of lesbian life at the time. (The cast attends Dinah Shore, a golf tournament that doubles as a cruising ground for women, and there were cameos by the singers Toshi Reagon and Tegan and Sara.) They also got the knottiness of queerness right: the way that exes can become best friends, that former lovers can show up as co-parents. The lines are messy, chaotic and overlapping, and that’s the point.The show birthed lasting archetypes in the characters of Shane McCutcheon, a shaggy Lothario, and Bette Porter, a high-powered, fiery woman with irresistible sex appeal. For some queer women in the 1990s and aughts, the show was their first glimpse of lesbianism onscreen and the incandescence of living in a world beyond the purview and validation of men. I can still remember the electricity I felt watching the show’s central character, Jenny, fall for a seductive Italian woman named Marina. I looked over at my boyfriend at the time and thought, Welp, there goes that.The original show received valid criticisms for largely casting straight actors over the show’s six seasons. This not only denied gay actors roles but also denied viewers the opportunity to fully project themselves into the story. Aside from Jennifer Beals, who plays a lesbian with unfettered gusto, there’s a palpable difference between watching women fully lean into their desire and watching them mime it. The show was a close relative of “Melrose Place,” full of wealthy, mostly white women treating money and race like nonissues. Those decisions undermined the show’s triumphant agenda, and it required a mild level of dissociation to imagine yourself alongside them, sipping cappuccinos in the Planet, their local hangout. The show’s most painful error was in its treatment of noncis characters, particularly Max, a trans man who was frequently misgendered and treated with a cold curiosity.Last year, when Showtime first announced it would be rebooting “The L Word” series, it initially seemed like yet another example of a beloved old piece of intellectual property being upcycled into a shinier version of itself. Most cultural reboots are engineered to deliver an instant dopamine hit — the comfort of familiarity. Rarely is the intention to make reparations or even amends. But “The L Word” had a cultural debt to repay through its resurrection, and it knows it.The new “L Word” takes place 10 years after the old one left off, i.e. basically now. The characters are entering into new phases of their lives, grappling with aging bodies, divorce and child-rearing. The once-irritating character Alice Pieszecki, played by the sparkly Leisha Hailey, has matured into a level-headed talk-show host and co-parent, managing a household and her girlfriend’s ex-wife. Bette Porter is still a hotheaded mess, having affairs with married women and verbally decimating her enemies. Much as it did 20 years ago, the show models for me hopeful possibilities, like women well in their 40s having adventurous sex. The new cast includes several trans actors who simply appear on the show. Their transness isn’t excessively politicized — it just exists.Not everything about the 2020 version works. More of the actors identify as queer, but the show still has some representational blind spots (no major nonbinary characters; no darker-skinned black women). Somehow it also has become glossier than its predecessor: Each of the original characters seems to have added a couple of zeros to her net worth. But for the most part, the show is cannily self-aware. It knows representation is hard-earned. The moment with Dani and Sophie suggests that television has gone beyond just putting gay women onscreen to make out and arrived someplace more raw and textured.By the end of the season, it’s not looking good for Dani and Sophie. Their relationship is starting to buckle under their miscommunications. They disconnect. Loneliness seeps in; each woman seeks comfort from others. That’s real life, and it makes for excellent TV.Jenna Wortham is a staff writer for the magazine and a host of the podcast “Still Processing.” She last wrote about the director Dee Rees. More

Instagram

Romeo, who also serves as one of the show’s executive producers, removes the show on social media as she no longer puts ‘Growing Up Hip Hop’ on the bio of his Instagram account.
Feb 12, 2020
AceShowbiz – It seems like fans will no longer be seeing Romeo Miller on “Growing Up Hip Hop”. A new report suggests that Romeo, who also serves as one of the executive producers of the VH1 TV series, has walked away from the show.
TheJasmineBrand claims that Romeo has exited the show due to a disagreement with production or the network.” a source shares to the site, “Romeo nor his father (Master P) would never go against their morals for money for any network.”
The insider continues saying, “He hasn’t been on much of this season and is focusing on his many businesses, career and his love life with new girlfriend. Romeo has nothing against the cast, they’re just growing apart and he rather explore the truth not a fake love triangle that the network is dragging out.”
Romeo also removes the show on social media. He no longer puts “Growing Up Hip Hop” on the bio of his Instagram account.
This arrives after his drama with “Growing Up Hip-Hop” co-star Angela Simmons after she was rumored to be asking Romeo to be the father figure of her 3-year-old son SJ after his father Sutton Tennyson died. Angela denied the rumors during her appearance on “The Real” earlier this month.
“See, that’s a very touchy and weird subject because I would never ask him or anyone to step up for my son,” she told Loni Love. “We have an amazing family. My dad. My brothers. I wouldn’t do that. I find that really strange if he said that.”
When pressed by Adrienne Houghton, Angela went on insisting that she never had those expectations of Romeo. “No, I wouldn’t ask anyone that. It’s an honor to be my son’s father or anyone who is going to be a role model to him. No way,” she shared.
The feud between Romeo and Angela started after Angela said she never heard from Romeo after the death of her son’s father. “After everything happened with me and my child’s father and what happened with my son, [Romeo] was like, ‘I’m going to be there for you,’ and he said this on TV,” Angela said during a previous interview with The Breakfast Club.
“If you say that — and I don’t care if we’re filming or not — really mean that because that really means a lot to me especially with what I have on my plate,” she went on saying at the time. “And to me, he didn’t step up at all. I don’t expect nobody to do nothing for me; that’s fine, but he didn’t step up. I still haven’t heard from him ’til this day. We’ve been in the same room and I haven’t heard from him… It’s not like this is something that’s fake.”

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What’s StreamingTHE FAREWELL (2019) Stream on Amazon; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. While it may not have garnered any Academy Award nominations, this comedic drama from Lulu Wang netted a Golden Globe for its star, Awkwafina, and was among the highest-grossing indie movies of 2019. Based on an experience from Wang’s own life (or, as the film puts it, “based on an actual lie”), “The Farewell” casts Awkwafina as Billi, a young, creative New Yorker who learns that her overseas grandmother (played by Zhao Shuzhen) has a terminal illness. Billi travels with her parents to the northern Chinese city of Changchun, where her grandmother lives, but not before reluctantly agreeing to terms set by the rest of the family: Nobody is permitted to tell the matriarch about her illness. What follows is a bittersweet story that plumbs family relationships and cultural differences. The film “has a loose, anecdotal structure and a tone that balances candor and tact,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times. “Much of the charm and power of this story — about events leading up to a wedding that’s also a fake funeral of sorts — come from the palpable sense that it genuinely happened to someone.”TOY STORY 4 (2019) Stream on Disney Plus; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. On Sunday, “Toy Story 4” became the second movie in the series to win an Academy Award for best animated feature. (“Toy Story 3” won in 2010; the first two were released before the category existed.) Like its predecessors, “Toy Story 4” assembles Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and their plastic cronies for an adventure — this time one that involves a road trip and a spork with a death wish (Forky, voiced by Tony Hale). “The animation is striking, the jokes amusing and the story sweet,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times, “though this being Pixar, the tale is also melancholic enough that the whole thing feels deeper than it is.” She deemed the movie “great-ish.”What’s on TVBIG CAT COUNTRY 8 p.m. on Smithsonian Channel. This new nature series centers on two prides of lions along the Luangwa River in Zambia, dramatically narrating their hunts and power struggles. (An example: “A herd of buffalo is coming to drink. The herbivores don’t see the lions … Until it’s too late.”) In other words: “Cats” this is not.WATCHMEN (2009) 6:30 p.m. on IFC. Those who watched HBO’s recent, radically reimagined TV riff on Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” graphic novel can see a very different take on the material in this film adaptation, which was directed by Zack Snyder. With a cast that includes Billy Crudup and Carla Gugino, this version adheres more closely to the graphic novel than HBO’s version — but wasn’t nearly as well received by critics. More

Bravo

According to a new report, the 43-year-old reality TV star wants Bravo to give her a spin-off series as the network starts to fire OG Housewives from the Bravo franchises.
Feb 12, 2020
AceShowbiz – “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Kandi thinks that her time on the Bravo show won’t be long. According to a new report, the TV star wants Bravo to give her a spin-off series as the network starts to fire OG Housewives from the Bravo franchises.
“She is worried that her time on RHOA is coming to an end,” an insider explains to RadarOnline. The source notes that the reality star recently “pitched a spinoff show about her growing family and her businesses.”
“Kandi wants to stay on TV, and she thinks her own family drama is something that viewers would want to see,” the insider continues. Thankfully, her family was fully supportive for her should Bravo greenlight the planned show. “Mama Joyce, Todd [Tucker] and her manager, Don Juan, are all on board,” says the source.
Kandi’s anxiety over her future on the show is understandable. Bravo recently fired “The Real Housewives of Orange County” stars Vicki Gunvalson and Tamra Judge, who were both making over $1million per season.
Tamra announced her departure on Saturday, January 25. Speaking to PEOPLE, Tamra, who had been on the show for 12 seasons, said, “It’s been a wild ride, and after all these years, I’m looking forward to life away from the cameras. I was offered a chance to come back to the show in a limited role, but would prefer to walk away on my own terms.”
Meanwhile, co-star Vicki Gulvalson shared that she left the show on Friday, January 24. “I will always be the OG of the OC, but it’s time to say goodbye to ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County’,” the 57-year-old wrote on Instagram, before referencing her famous party catchphrase. “It’s been an incredible ride for 14 years and I want to thank all of you for your support, for your love and for ‘whooping it up!’ ”

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A grand jury in Chicago revived the criminal case against the actor Jussie Smollett, indicting him Tuesday on charges that he lied to the police in connection with the alleged hate crime attack against him a year ago. The indictment came 11 months after prosecutors dropped similar charges against him.The new charges were announced by a special prosecutor, Dan K. Webb, who was assigned to the case after a judge ruled that the Cook County state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, had not properly handled it the first time.In a rebuke to Ms. Foxx’s office, Mr. Webb criticized the decision by her prosecutors to abruptly drop the case, saying in a news release that his review of the record showed that her office had believed it had strong evidence against Mr. Smollett. Mr. Webb said the state’s attorney’s office had not offered any evidence showing that it had gained new information indicating Mr. Smollett’s innocence, nor any documentation that similar cases had been handled the same way.Mr. Webb said that he had not reached any conclusions about whether prosecutors engaged in wrongdoing and that he was continuing to investigate.[A timeline of the case|What we know about the evidence]Mr. Smollett, 37, was charged last February with filing a false police report after the Chicago police concluded that he had paid two brothers to stage an attack on him in which they shouted homophobic and racial slurs and yelled, “This is MAGA country,” a reference to President Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan. The police said Mr. Smollett was looking for publicity because he was unhappy with his salary on the television show “Empire,” which dropped him from the cast after his arrest.The new indictment charges Mr. Smollett with six counts of disorderly conduct related to false statements to Chicago police officers. Five of the counts were related to accounts Mr. Smollett gave police the morning of Jan. 29, 2019, when he said the attack occurred; and one was related to a statement he made on Feb. 14, around when the police started to view Mr. Smollett as a suspect.In a statement, Tina Glandian, a lawyer for Mr. Smollett, noted that he is in litigation with the Chicago Police Department, and raised questions about whether it was fair for Mr. Webb to partly base his investigation on evidence from that department. She highlighted the fact that Mr. Webb’s office said it had not yet found evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the prosecutors. “The attempt to re-prosecute Mr. Smollett one year later on the eve of the Cook County State’s Attorney election is clearly all about politics not justice,” she said in the statement.Ms. Foxx is running for re-election and faces a Democratic primary next month in which her opponents have criticized her management of the Smollett case. Her campaign issued a statement on Tuesday denouncing the “James Comey-like timing” of the new charges, referring to the former F.B.I. director’s public pronouncements about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server just before she lost to Mr. Trump.Mr. Webb’s decision to seek charges “can only be interpreted as the further politicization of the justice system, something voters in the era of Donald Trump should consider offensive,” the statement read.Mr. Smollett’s case transfixed the country for weeks last year, first after reports that he had been the victim of a bigoted attack, eliciting messages of support from politicians, celebrities and civil rights groups. When the police revealed that Mr. Smollett was being investigated for possibly orchestrating the attack, the tone shifted.The president’s supporters seized on the case as a hollow attempt to demonize them as racists. In October, Mr. Trump told a gathering of police chiefs in Chicago that Mr. Smollett’s report of being attack was “a scam, just like the impeachment of your president.”The police had built a case based on surveillance camera footage, interviews with the brothers, text exchanges between the men and Mr. Smollett, and a check he had given them. None of the text exchanges explicitly mentioned a staged attack, and Mr. Smollett maintained that the money was to hire the brothers to physically train him for an upcoming video.Last March, just a month after his arrest, the state’s attorney’s office dropped the charges against him, explaining that Mr. Smollett was not a threat to public safety and that he had a record of service to the community. He agreed to forfeit the $10,000 bond that had released him from jail.The office’s decision angered some officials in Chicago, including the police superintendent and the mayor at the time, Rahm Emanuel, and the city later sued Mr. Smollett for more than $130,000 it said it had spent investigating his claim of being attacked. Mr. Webb said that part of the rationale for reopening the prosecution was the resources expended by the police department while investigating his reports.Ms. Foxx had removed herself from the Smollett case early in the investigation, saying publicly that it was because she had earlier contact with representatives of Mr. Smollett when the police still considered him a victim. Ms. Foxx handed the case to her deputy, leading to some criticism that she had not formally recused herself under state law.A retired judge who objected to Ms. Foxx’s handling of the case asked that a special prosecutor be appointed, and a judge agreed, saying that Ms. Foxx should have handed the case to someone outside her office. Mr. Webb, a former United States attorney for Chicago and a special counsel during the Iran-contra affair, was tasked with looking into Ms. Foxx’s decisions and determining whether further charges against Mr. Smollett were warranted.The actor was not arrested on Tuesday, but is due in court on the charges on Feb. 24. More