The Daily Beast Obsessed

Big Little Lies season two is an almost aggressive exercise in fan service. Whether or not that amounts to creative excellence and worthwhile storytelling is one matter. That it’s so goddamn fun is the other. The new season arrives Sunday night on HBO three weeks after a Game of Thrones finale that hurdled characters toward endings so baffling that ungratified fans launched a petition to have the conclusion rewritten and reshot.

This Pride, Taylor Swift is coming out… as a vocal ally. A few years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine the famously brand-obsessed pop star urging her fans to write their senators. But late Friday, the woman behind girl-squad feminism and politely ignoring her neo-Nazi admirers finally took a stand.

When moviegoers left theaters after watching Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan in the fall of 2006, they were left to ponder one big question: Was Pamela Anderson in on that? The climax of the film, which earned its star Sacha Baron Cohen an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and was named the No.

It is not without understanding the gravity of the statement that I say Ma is the most ridiculous movie I have ever seen. It is with perhaps too much understanding about how we consume pop culture that I say that you all will love it. Ma will probably become one of the most popular movies Netflix has ever streamed.

It’s been nearly a year since Comedy Central canceled Jordan Klepper’s nightly show The Opposition but the comedian still gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about Alex Jones. The former Daily Show correspondent has since moved on to host the weekly docuseries Klepper for the network, leaving behind the crazed, right-wing conspiracy theorist character that caught the Infowars founder’s attention when The Opposition first premiered.

I don’t want to ruffle any peacock feathers, rattle sequins, or get anyone’s codpiece in a twist, but it does have to be said: Gay people have sex. Apologies if this isn’t news, but you wouldn’t know that when heading to the cinema, where, in the year 2019, whether or not a movie about the life of Elton John in which he says the phrase, “I have fucked everything that moves,” depicts actual gay sex. Again, a movie about Elton John.

Last Saturday night, a comedy cabal assembled in NBC’s Studio 8H for SNL’s Season 44 finale. It opened in a dreadfully familiar place: the Oval Office. There, President Donald J. Trump (Alec Baldwin, all violent spasms) crowed with self-satisfied delight, for he was on “cruise control” to a 2020 win and “there’s nothing the Democrats in Congress can do about it.

Is literacy the new tiny sunglasses? This week, The Daily Mail published a series of photos of Kendall Jenner and model Luka Sabbat sunbathing and reading at Cannes. The treasure trove of images (thank The Daily Mail, as always, for doing entirely too much) was published as proof that the newly single Jenner “shows little sign of heartache” following her split from basketball player Ben Simmons.

The debate continues to rage over whether Democratic presidential candidates should play nice with Fox News. And Samantha Bee dove in head first Wednesday night. The Full Frontal host began by noting that Mayor Pete Buttigieg decided to hold his Fox News town hall on the same night as the Game of Thrones finale.

The greatest surprise about the new live-action Aladdin film is that it’s not a total disaster. We’re not sure what three wishes director Guy Ritchie used to rescue a production that was smothered by a magic carpet of bad buzz, from whitewashing casting controversies to Disney fans collectively aghast at the first look of Will Smith as the film’s iconic blue Genie.