The original blue-sky show balanced darkness and humor better than any of its successors. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos Courtesy the Studios. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos Courtesy the Studios. It’s a jungle out there. Randy Newman’s jaunty theme song warns us as much at the beginning of (nearly) every episode of Monk. Across eight seasons, the USA procedural showed us just how dirty and dangerous the world is — or at least that’s how it appears through the eyes of its germophobic main character, Adrian Monk.
On Thursday afternoon, a judge finally brought an end to the strange case of Filippo Bernardini, the Italian man who pleaded guilty earlier this year to impersonating hundreds of people in the book-publishing industry in order to steal unpublished manuscripts. While the government argued that Bernardini should spend a year in prison, Judge Colleen McMahon didn’t agree. Her verdict: no jail time.
If one theme held the proceedings on Thursday together, it was the enduring mystery of the crime.
Fred Durst. This week’s news that John Travolta would star in Moose — a movie written and directed by Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst, and loosely based on an incident with a stalker that the rap-rocker experienced years prior — was, to say the least, surprising. Not “Fred Durst is possibly colluding with Russia”–level surprising, but maybe “Limp Bizkit signs to Lil Wayne’s former label”–level surprising. Further confusion was created when Variety incorrectly stated in a tweet that Travolta would be playing Durst himself, but fear not: Travolta won’t be shopping for fitted red Yankees caps any time soon.
Theon Greyjoy, owner of one of Game of Thrones’ most famous penises. If you wanted more penises on Game of Thrones, Sunday night’s episode gave you a penis alright, with a jarring close-up of a Braavosi actor examining his afflicted genitals — warts and all. Across the internet, the move was celebrated as an end to the show’s usual dick-shy ways: “Game of Thrones finally showed a penis,” wrote The Telegraph.
No need to walk alone if you’re not seeing Green Day at the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas this weekend. Billie Joe Armstrong announced that the band would come around a couple more times sooner than we thought. “Big announcement: We’re doing a big tour next year,” said Armstrong at their surprise show at the Fremont Country Club in Las Vegas, pretty much leaking their own announcement.
grover’s corners Apr. 3, 2024 Take a Trip Back to Our TownKatie Holmes, Zoey Deutch, and Jim Parsons will star (yes, in this). By Jason P. Frank
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Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook From the “now it can be told” files: Even though Hollywood more or less called the Oscar race over three weeks ago for Argo, Harvey Weinstein and his Silver Linings Playbook weren’t going down without a fight. In fact, Vulture has learned that in order to help increase the profile of David O. Russell’s Best Picture nominee, the Weinstein Company reached out to somebody who helped write the playbook for another recent big winner.
House of Villains Three Villains Walk Into a Bar … Ouch Season 1 Episode 8 Editor’s Rating 4 stars **** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » House of Villains Three Villains Walk Into a Bar … Ouch Season 1 Episode 8 Editor’s Rating 4 stars **** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » It’s awards season, and it’s also that special time of the year when editors from coast to coast start rounding up and ranking their favorite pieces of pop culture and performances from the past year, only … something’s wrong with all of your lists this year.
Designs by Olly Moss, Laurent Durieux, and Francesco Francavilla. The King Kong musical would like to introduce the story of a woman and a giant ape, and a woman and a giant ape, and a woman and a giant ape. To promote the larger-than-life musical, coming to Broadway with its giant puppet this fall, its creative team decided on a supersized ad campaign, hiring designers Laurent Durieux, Francesco Francavilla, and Olly Moss to create three separate posters for the show.
Neil Young and Beck, old men. NBC is reaping a Harvest off a Neil Young song, and the singer-songwriter doesn’t seem to be happy about it. NBC debuted an ad for next week’s Sunday Night Football game on September 25, soundtracked by an acoustic cover by Beck of Young’s 1972 song “Old Man.” (If you like it, Beck also released a full version of the cover.) Young has taken a career-long anti-commercial stance, and the ad sure seemed to bother him.