Style Emmys Best Dressed (Duana): Writer Michaela Coel I’m going to be as plain as I know how. The reason it felt as though I May Destroy You deserved to win the other three Emmys it was nominated for is that it, and Michaela Coel, are better than the things that did win. I know how that By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 02:11 pm
Emmy Awards 2021 Taraji and Issa: Closet-Floor Cool Lainey and Sarah and I write all our pieces separately, after a semi-haphazard rock-paper-scissors meeting to see who’s going to write what. So I don’t know what words they, or anyone else, is using to describe the looks last night at the Emmys – but I know the one By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 12:44 pm
Emmy Awards 2021 Coolidge to Emmys: '...Hi...' I will admit that I’m not always the first one awake in my house. But on days when I am, like today, I am as liable as not to use the viral Jennifer Coolidge ‘hi’ to wake people. Just in case you haven’t had the pleasure: I don’ By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 12:28 pm
Emmy Awards 2021 Debbie Allen: Four Canes to Honour a Legend Big cheers to Debbie Allen. I feel like, I don’t know, we’ve been kept informed of her career for a long time? Or that she was already a big deal, a trailblazer, back in the days of A Different World, where she would have first met Jada Pinkett-Smith By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 11:23 am
Emmy Awards 2021 Emmy Hacks Jean Smart got a standing ovation when she won her Emmy. No surprise, she’s been on an amazing upswing for years, from Fargo to Watchmen to here – which includes not only Hacks but another whole nomination for Mare of Easttown! She’s an utter pro and a joy to By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 09:51 am
Emmy Awards 2021 The Emmys Category Grab Bag Once upon a time, the ‘limited series’ category at the Emmys was known as “TV Movies and Miniseries” and it was code for ‘get a snack’, because almost nobody got the channels where said miniseries were, nobody saw them, and they were generally stultifying. Now ‘limited series’ create some of By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 09:01 am
Met Gala 2021 Keke Palmer Hosts the BEST Met Gala Carpet I want to know who it was. Who, at Vogue, had the foresight to know that Keke Palmer would absolutely transform the Met Gala carpet, which is crazy-loud in person but eerily quiet on live feeds… until now? Because I want that person to be my best friend, because they By Duana • Sep 14, 2021 12:25 pm
Baby and Bump Obsession Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost Named A Baby Man, things have changed. It’s not just because of the pandemic, but how much more chill is this kind of birth announcement, via Colin Jost’s Instagram, than the publicist-released announcements we used to get hours after birth? (For added hilarity, if you still f-ck with Michael Che – and By Duana • Aug 19, 2021 01:15 pm
TV Updates Emmy Nominations 2021 are Closer Than Ever (Blanket statement before any analysis or commentary: eligibility for this year’s Emmys is from June 2020 to May 31, 2021 – loosely speaking, as long as *something* has aired during that period, the series can be nominated, but given that we were all locked inside before and after those dates, By Duana • Jul 13, 2021 02:35 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Tick, Tick… Boom! There’s timing, and then there’s timing. There’s striking while the iron is hot, and there’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Opportunity vs. cashing in (creatively), and where tick, tick… Boom! is concerned, I’m not sure which is which. At least not By Duana • Jun 11, 2021 02:08 pm
Baby and Bump Obsession On ‘Lilibet Diana’ When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle named their son Archie Harrison – no ‘Archibald’, no long strings of historical names nodding to ancestors (or grandparents) – I crowed that they had chosen a name that was overtly about giving Archie his own life, his own path, unencumbered by the albatross of royal By Duana • Jun 07, 2021 10:30 am
Maple Leaf My Unwilling Mar-A-Lago Connection I am often the one crowing that ‘specificity is universal!’ – stories with small and personal details can and will spark something in a larger audience, even if the specifics of their situations are different. I’m really hoping that’s true here. One of the best decisions of my life By Duana • May 04, 2021 01:25 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews West Side Story Trailer VS. In The Heights Trailer I went to the kind of high school where the annual musical was a huge deal involving literally hundreds of students and staff, and where all seven performances filled the 1,200 seat auditorium. Which, aside from being a humbleflex, makes sense – musicals are crowd-pleasers, and people who never attend By Duana • Apr 27, 2021 02:21 pm
Oscars 2021 LaKeith Stanfield: Oscar Best Dressed (Duana) There was no contest. From the moment I saw those shots, there was absolutely no contest. Did you see Lakeith Stanfield last night?! Look, while we’ve all been pointing out that women on the red carpet should be #AskedMore than just what they’re wearing first and only, we By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 01:22 pm
Oscars 2021 Oscar Overall Best – Daniel Kaluuya Well, it’s been a few hours and no sleep – time for me to contradict myself. Remember when I said I wish there were more people who were just entertaining presences, whether they were Oscar contenders or not? Maybe even people who were overtly *not* nominees, just as promises for By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 12:58 pm
Oscars 2021 Glenn Close’s Butt: An Oscar Okay, look. Let’s all say what we already knew – the ‘musical trivia’ sequence in the show was odd, in that they should have been doing crowd-work earlier or more often; 15 minutes before the end of the show seemed like a really strange time to just start making jokes? By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 11:24 am
