Lea Michele’s new video for “Christmas in New York” has dropped. While it’s supposed to have the feel of a bustling city, it’s clearly a soundstage mixed in with generic shots of “New York,” complete with a hokey taxi cab ride. Rebecca Alter at Vulture astutely points out it has the vibe of a Macy’s commercial– the department store even gets namechecked in the song. Christmas music is supposed to be timeless (so it gets played year after year) but this sounds like a jingle more than a song.
Richard Jewell is being released December 13, meaning it will contend for awards. It’s directed by Clint Eastwood and is centered on the real-life story of Richard Jewell, a security guard at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics who spotted a bomb and evacuated hundreds of people: he went from hero to suspect in a span of days.
In the film, it is implied that journalist Kathy Scruggs (played by Olivia Wilde) from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which broke the story about Jewell being a suspect, slept with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) for a scoop. The current-day editors at the AJC are disputing this characterization, asserting there is no evidence that this happened. Scruggs passed away in 2017. This photo is from early November, when Clint Eastwood declined to evacuate from the WB lot and instead made everyone watch his movie because safety is for pussies, I guess.
Everybody loves Phoebe.
The Daily Mail reported that Richard Madden and his friend Brandon Flynn have had a falling out and no longer live together. Prem did a deeper dive into all the photos and relationship possibilities back in the spring, which I just reread.
According to the Mail, they are so at odds that Brandon asked the Versace team not to invite Richard to an event. But they still follow one another on Instagram.
Because I’m from the Truth or Dare generation, I have always been fascinated by Madonna’s family – she has 3 sisters and 4 brothers. When she married Sean Penn, one of her siblings threw up in the pool but I can’t remember which one and couldn’t find a link to the story. But I did find this Primetime clip from 1995, “I wish I had a mother that I could call.”
