This week:
- The most shocking moments from The Apprentice.
- What Wicked fans are angry about this week.
- I am the latest star of Squid Game.
- Protect Anderson Cooper.
- Very important videos.
How’d They Mess This Up?
While next month’s Wicked movie was always going to be a huge, seismic, obsessive, once-in-a-lifetime, make-it-my-entire-personality Big Deal in the life of me, I wasn’t prepared for the film to seemingly be the same for so many other people.
Obviously the hit Broadway musical has many fans who’d be naturally excited for the first installment of the two-part film adaptation. But the marketing blitz, a constant promo assault and all-consuming product campaign that seems to be taking over culture and consumers, has taken me by surprise. I expect this for a superhero movie. But for a musical??? Be still my gay heart.
And as is the case when something becomes a Big Deal, there is already backlash—or, at the very least, disappointment.
Fans have been waiting with anticipation for the marketing campaign to recreate the iconic Wicked musical poster, which also serves as the show’s Playbill art on Broadway. To celebrate tickets now being available for purchase, the recreation was finally released featuring stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
Purists are not happy! It seems that they have miffed it.
I cannot wait to see this movie. I will hyperbolically love and hate every single moment and decision in it. If you’ve ever been truly obsessed with something, that will just make sense to you.
Squid Game Is Back to Traumatize
The first season of Squid Game was so upsetting to me that I had to get up at one point while watching it to throw up. Season 2 of the series is coming to Netflix on Dec. 26. Happy holidays to me!
The promo push for this is going to be intense. In fact, it’s already starting.
I attended a press and influencer preview (trust that I was squarely in the former category) of the “Squid Game Experience” in New York, where people can actually play some of the challenges that were made famous by the show, like Red Light Green Light and marbles. The key difference, of course, is that, at this installation, no one dies.
That did not, however, calm any of my squeamish unease when I first walked in and saw a recreation of Young-hee, the murderous doll. At the first sighting of one of the masked Pink Soldiers, I instinctively shrieked like I was auditioning for a slasher film. Everyone around me giggled, thinking it was a bit and I was playing scared for laughs. It was not a bit.
Suffice it to say, I did not survive. However, I was impressed by how cool the experience was. It way surpassed my expectations, even if it triggered intense PTSD.
Can We Stop This?
I have little faith in us as a society when it comes to most things. I do, however, believe that we have evolved past the need to see weathermen struggling to stay standing in gale force winds and rain in order to believe a hurricane is happening.
The horror with which I watched my beloved Anderson Cooper get struck by a flying object while reporting on Milton for CNN will not soon leave me. This man is not allowed to have a sip of tequila on New Year’s Frickin’ Eve, but it’s appropriate to send him into a deadly storm while we watch morbidly anxious at home, like the weather report is some sort of snuff film?
Depriving a gay man of alcohol but making him go outside in the rain? I know homophobia when I see it.
No Video Has Ever Been More Catered to Me
If you thought Kelly Clarkson covering Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” just weeks after crying over Dion’s Olympics performance broke me, how do you think I reacted to the video of Céline Dion saying she cried over Kelly Clarkson covering Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” just weeks after crying over Dion’s Olympics performance?
Or how about Kelly Clarkson reacting to the video of Céline Dion saying she cried over Kelly Clarkson covering Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” just weeks after crying over Dion’s Olympics performance?
A big week for me.
What to watch this week:
We Live in Time: Please support my husband Andrew Garfield. (Now in theaters)
Abbott Elementary: We stan a show that does 20+ episodes and doesn’t take years between seasons—and remains very funny! (Wed. on ABC)
Teacup: A perfect series to ease into Spooky Season. (Now on Peacock)
The Apprentice: Way more interesting than you’d expect from the—forgive me—“discourse.” (Now in theaters)
What to skip this week:
Terrifier 3: So gross and violent you’ll need to vomit. Please don’t read that as an endorsement! (Now in theaters)
Disclaimer: Sexy, eerie Cate Blanchett TV thriller, you should be way more engrossing than this! (Now on Apple TV+)
