Top Reads Every Brand Should Be Courting Gabrielle Union Well, it’s Friday, who’s ready for a horrifying thought? As bad as everyone acknowledges this year has been – last night I snickered at a “YearQuil” meme: ‘End 2020 Fast’, I realized that this may actually be a time we look back on with… okay, not happiness, but nostalgia; By Duana • Sep 25, 2020 12:50 pm
Name Nerd Duana Names: Beyonce’s Sister meets Moulin Rouge? Hi Duana, If it's a boy he will be Linus Winston. That's settled. We'll only have one, so I don't care about having the girl name "go" with Linus. But that girl name… Our last name starts with L and By Duana • Sep 23, 2020 03:58 pm
Emmy Awards 2020 Jennifer Aniston’s Loss Is Still Everyone’s Win If there’s one thing Jennifer Aniston is gonna do it’s wear a boring black dress. #Emmys — Kathleen Newman-Bremang (@KathleenNB) September 21, 2020 You know when someone makes a joke and you’re mad you didn’t think of it first? Yeah ^^. I mean, was there really any doubt? By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 01:08 pm
Emmy Awards 2020 Uzo Aduba reps for Mrs. America When did you find out that ‘earnest’ is a bad word? Or – do you think it’s a bad word? I always thought it was good, like earnest is honest in a way that means, you know, transparent. I was fully in my 20s before I heard it derided. A By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 12:09 pm
Emmy Awards 2020 Succession’s Non-Sweep: Worst Best Emmy’s Acceptance Speech First things first – if we’re going to talk about Succession, you have to know what I have in my head at all times while it’s on, from the moment the first chord plays on the piano: ‘A kiss from Dad-dy-y’. It KILLS me. Because it’s so petty. By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 11:25 am
Music Emmys In Memoriam: H.E.R I saw a few tweets last night criticizing the In Memoriam segment, specifically the arrangement (which seemed insane, because it was stunning) or the editing, but I have to ask, exactly who is watching this segment and thinking ‘this doesn’t really meet my standards on an aesthetic level’? I By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 09:46 am
TV Updates Regina King and the Kingdom of Watchmen I’ve rewritten this sentence about nine times. What I want to say is “Watchmen deserved every Emmy it got and more” but that seems to discount the incredible Unbelievable and Unorthodox and others, and look – we just need to accept the fact that there’s too much that’s By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 08:47 am
Emmy Awards 2020 Gabrielle Union-Wade: Best Emmys Spot From Home It’s beyond debate that the people at home had a better time than the people who were in studio, right? Once you’re there, even if you have a gag to do (more on those later) it’s basically business as usual. But the people at home really seemed By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 07:53 am
Emmy Awards 2020 Insecure and The Good Place Were Also Nominated At the time I’m writing this, I don’t know whether Lainey has written what we both agreed on when we debriefed after the show – even though it was pretty good as a broadcast, we just felt… you know, aware of our pandemic selves. It was a great show, By Duana • Sep 21, 2020 07:27 am
Dumbass I’m The One Person You Know Who Watched Cuties on Netflix I have a major complaint about the controversial Netflix movie Cuties, which was originally called Mignonnes, and it has nothing to do with the online furor you’ve undoubtedly heard about. My issue? The performances in the English-dubbed version (which is what my Netflix account naturally defaulted to) were overdone, By Duana • Sep 18, 2020 02:33 pm
Name Nerd Duana Names: All of the Angst About “A” Hi Duana, Long time reader, first time… caller? Does that work in the digital age? Regardless, I would love your help. Here’s the scoop: with baby #1 I didn’t need to write to you because the baby-naming conversation with my husband took us literally 30 seconds. We didn’ By Duana • Sep 16, 2020 02:45 pm
BFFs Patti LaBelle & Gladys Knight reinvent Verzuz It is not an exaggeration to say that Sunday night’s Verzuz featuring Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight was a reinvention of the form, in a way that, on paper, shouldn’t have worked. That is, the idea of a ‘battle’ was entirely gone last night (and to a certain By Duana • Sep 14, 2020 02:38 pm
Music Chloe x Halle’s NFL National Anthem And now, a surely unpopular opinion: I think Chloe x Halle might be underrated. This is, on its face, preposterous, even for someone who is finally embracing the ‘contrarian’ label Lainey is always trying to give me. How is it possible to say so when they are so present, so By Duana • Sep 11, 2020 01:42 pm
Name Nerd Duana Names: In Need Of De-Basic-ing Hello Duana, We are currently trying to figure out a name for our baby that we'll be welcoming in September. Despite being a combo of procrastinators mixed with a bit of decision fatigue (what stroller? car seat? nursery paint color? reusable diapers?), all of this while dealing with By Duana • Sep 09, 2020 03:40 pm
TV Updates The Big Questions of Grand Army I was incredibly excited when the trailer for Netflix’s new teen show, Grand Army, finally dropped yesterday. The show had been on my radar since late 2018 when it was casting and doing some shooting in Toronto, and it hits all my buttons: it’s about ‘regular’ high school By Duana • Sep 03, 2020 03:23 pm
Name Nerd Duana Names: Nickelodeon ruined my name - a 90s story of embarrassment Hey Duana - Long time reader, first time writer. We are welcoming our second child in September and are still not clear on names. We have a nearly 2 year old named Fiona Lisette - Fiona for my Irish heritage and Lisette for my aunt Lisa and various Elizabeths in By Duana • Sep 02, 2020 03:54 pm
