The Cheat Sheet

5:09 PM, February 27th, 2012

None of this year’s nine Best Picture nominees (The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and War Horse) counted as dark, nihilistic, or shocking—like some of last year’s leading contenders, including Black Swan, 127 Hours, and Winter’s Bone. None of this year’s major nominees featured the overt left-wing political messages of other recent Oscar favorites like Avatar or Milk, and all of this year’s Best Picture possibilities took affectionate, admiring views of marriage, romance, family, and community, with Moneyball also honoring baseball and business, while War Horse glorified some of the same battlefield virtues depicted in Act of Valor.

Did last night’s Oscars celebrate conservative values? (Was that why they were so bad?)

2:13 PM, January 30th, 2012

newsweek:

This just in:

Academy Award winner Shirley MacLaine will join the cast of Downton Abbey for its third season, which is set to premiere on ITV in the U.K. this fall and will air on PBS’ Masterpiece Classic early next year.

Netflix queued.

Reblogged from Newsweek

1:47 PM, January 23rd, 2012

Aziz, barely audible over the jabbering crowd and telling jokes skewering everything from the gay hookup app Grindr to the sanctity of marriage, is bombing terribly. He’s visibly annoyed. All of a sudden, Cuba Gooding Jr. bum-rushes the stage out of nowhere, snatches Aziz’s microphone, and yells, “Everybody, shut the F**K up! Have some respect for the black men onstage.” Aziz—who is Indian— looks baffled, and when Cuba exits, remarks, “Y’all would be paying more attention if we were showing BOAT TRIP up here!” Aziz: 1, Cuba: 0.

So this is what parties at Sundance are like.

11:15 AM, January 20th, 2012

Zoom

Our assistant culture editor Marlow Stern has landed in Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival (not jealous, nope, not at all!). He’ll be bringing us some reviews, behind-the-scene peeks, and exclusive interviews over on the Sundance Channel. We’ll be living vicariously through him.

6:26 PM, November 15th, 2011

Zoom

This is a show that’s not just about the ways in which we come together as a collective (hell, the title spells that out) but also about pen-stealing monkeys, zombie apocalypses, alternate timelines, chaos theory, Dungeons & Dragons, paintball, and so much more.

This is a show that’s not just about the ways in which we come together as a collective (hell, the title spells that out) but also about pen-stealing monkeys, zombie apocalypses, alternate timelines, chaos theory, Dungeons & Dragons, paintball, and so much more.

10:27 AM, November 14th, 2011

Zoom

We asked Regis who should interview him. He chose Jerry Seinfeld, and we made it happen.

Reblogged from Newsweek

1:00 PM, November 2nd, 2011

Zoom

“I certainly gained a tremendous amount of sympathy and understanding for why Marilyn would be as late as she often was—or not show up,” Williams says. “The energy it takes to put your face on, put your body on, put your game on, and transmit that energy to the world, and to be what everybody wants you to be—to give joy, to give pleasure, to give your body, to always be putting out and not getting back—is exhausting in a way I can’t describe.”

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe for Newsweek

“I certainly gained a tremendous amount of sympathy and understanding for why Marilyn would be as late as she often was—or not show up,” Williams says. “The energy it takes to put your face on, put your body on, put your game on, and transmit that energy to the world, and to be what everybody wants you to be—to give joy, to give pleasure, to give your body, to always be putting out and not getting back—is exhausting in a way I can’t describe.”

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe for Newsweek

10:33 AM, October 18th, 2011

Was Shakespeare a Fraud?

Was the real Shakespeare “A trained lawyer, globe-trotting aristocrat, and theater-company patron” who “[dared] not sully his social standing by taking his disreputable sideline of writing plays public”?

1:40 PM, October 7th, 2011

Zoom

“Look at them, Smithers. Goldbrickers … Layabouts … Slug-a-beds! Little do they realize their days of suckling at my teat are numbered.”

“Look at them, Smithers. Goldbrickers … Layabouts … Slug-a-beds! Little do they realize their days of suckling at my teat are numbered.”

7:50 AM, October 4th, 2011

A money dispute between Fox and the actors who voice the characters on The Simpsons may force the long-running hit series to shut down next spring.

As Homer Simpson would put it, “D’oh!”

Reblogged from Newsweek

1:26 PM, September 30th, 2011

"[S]ome research puts women’s median number of partners at around four and men’s median partners at around seven."

Cont.:

The important thing to know is that these numbers are medians—meaning that half of people have had fewer partners and half of people have had more partners. You’re in good company on either side of the median.

7:41 PM, September 29th, 2011

The trailer for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” out Christmas Day.

via

6:49 PM, September 29th, 2011

What's Your Number?

jskagon:

cheatsheet:

5. —Anna Faris

Daily Beast, which I follow despite its repeated poor judgment as to what constitutes “news,” just posted a quote where Anna Faris, an actress, reveals the number of men she slept with before meeting her husband. The premise of her most recent movie is outrageously sexist. In it she has to abstain from any new sex partners because the odds of her getting married after sleeping with 20 people will drop, statistically speaking.

The movie itself suggests women should feel shame around their sexual choices especially if they want any hope of getting an ever-coveted marriage proposal. Here Daily Beast takes the subject matter out from under the protection of fantasy and lets us all how many partners this woman has actually slept with.

Faris may have said it, but does that mean you have to broadcast it?

I’ll reserve judgment on whether Faris’ movie is sexist until I see it, but your Tumblrer maintains that revealing one’s number of sexual partners is in no way sexist. Anything from zero to 100 or more sexual partners is nothing to be ashamed of, and we see no problem in someone broadcasting (Faris revealed her number at a screening) his or her number if s/he chooses. As you say, Faris’ character is limiting her number of sexual partners based on statistics (silly though they may be)—not because of any sort of slut shaming. If you’re offended by a movie about a woman who wants to get married (or even be in a relationship) and falls vulnerable to arbitrary suspicions or tactics, then stay away from the rom-coms.

Reblogged from jskaGON

5:26 PM, September 29th, 2011

What's Your Number?

5. —Anna Faris

1:07 PM, September 29th, 2011

Red Sox Collapse, Miss Postseason

How unlikely was the Red Sox’s late-season collapse, which, after last night’s loss to the Orioles in the final game of the season, saw the American League wild card go to the Tampa Bay Rays?

Paging Billy Beane.

The Cheat Sheet

Red Sox Collapse, Miss Postseason

Newsweek

@thedailybeast

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