This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. “The Fire Burns On” begins with a glimpse of an actual episode of Flip-lanthropy (or, as Whitney wants to retitle it, Green Queen). Whitney is displeased with what Dougie is showing …
Read More »'The Curse' Recap: Emma Stone's Whitney Shows Her True Colors
This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. “It’s a Good Day” opens with two potential buyers prepping for an on-camera tour of one of Whitney’s passive homes. As is standard for The Curse, things are getting uncomfortable immediately, …
Read More »'The Curse' Recap: Benny Safdie's Dougie Makes an Ugly Confession
This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. The Seigels and Dougie get some very good news at the start of “Under the Big Tree.” Fliplanthropy has been picked up to series by HGTV. This is what all three …
Read More »'The Curse' Episode 3: Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone Fight Like Hell
This post contains spoilers for the third episode of The Curse, “Questa Lane,” which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Early in “Questa Lane,” Whitney and Asher have to suffer through the mortifying experience that is any Hollywood focus group, where the harsh opinions of a dozen random people …
Read More »'The Curse' Episode 2: A Pregnancy Scare and a Heist to Remember
This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Having introduced the characters, the world, and the unnerving tone in The Curse series premiere, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie go for a more eventful — and more uncomfortable — second episode, with“Pressure’s …
Read More »'The Curse' Premiere: Nathan Fielder, Small Dicks, and Emma Stone
This post contains spoilers for the first episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Perhaps the only way to begin discussing Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie‘s deliberately weird and even more deliberately uncomfortable new miniseries is to paraphrase Reservoir Dogs. So let me tell you …
Read More »'The Curse': Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone Will Make You Squirm
Nathan Fielder has created and starred in two of the most cringe-inducing comedies of the past decade in Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. Benny Safdie has, with his brother Josh, directed some of the most profoundly uncomfortable films of the past few years, including Uncut Gems. So when Fielder …
Read More »'Fellow Travelers' Has Matt Bomer as Don Draper and Lots of Steamy Gay Sex
In 2007, Matt Bomer would have been a little too young to play Don Draper on Mad Men. (Jon Hamm has six years on him.) In most other ways, though, he would have been perfect. He has the kind of chiseled, leading man features, and the charisma to match, that …
Read More »'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial' Is the Perfect Ending to William Friedkin's Career
Long before he made Popeye Doyle race a Brooklyn subway and Regan MacNeil’s head spin, William Friedkin began his career doing live TV. He’d move on to an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, short documentaries, a Sonny-and-Cher joint (Good Times), theatrical adaptations (The Birthday Party, The Boys in the …
Read More »'Superpower' Is Sean Penn's Odd Vanity Project About Zelensky
Sean Penn knows what you think of him. Several minutes into the two-time Oscar winner’s new film, Superpower, ostensibly a documentary about the battle-hardened president of Ukraine, Penn’s gravelly voice answers a question posed in interviews past: Who do you think you are, Walter Cronkite? You have a savior complex? …
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