Rachel

Molly Yeh, a Chicago-born food blogger, teaches Sam Sifton how to make traditional Norwegian-American lefse. (Article plus video.)

Jean-Marc Vallee will direct the long-in-development biopic of the iconic musician

The post Amy Adams to Headline Janis Joplin Biopic for Dallas Buyers Club Helmer appeared first on Comingsoon.net.

“[Charlotte Brontë] once told her sisters that they were wrong - even morally wrong - in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, ‘I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.’”

- Obituary on “the death of Currer Bell” (Charlotte Brönte)

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“I would like to submit for your approval my Sheltie Chloe’s Nose. I think it’s quite a good Nose! I tried to capture it from a number of angles.”- Josie C.

[*Standard line when we use any puppeh remotely resembling Lassie. PS- Fun Game Time- find the last time we used the "Little Timmy" line! Hint: It's somewhere in the hovers! -Ed.]

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Nosevember 2014, Shelties are The Best

Spend a few minutes reading blog comments, and you might assume that Anne Hathaway’s approval rating falls somewhere between that of Boko Haram and paper cuts — but you'd actually be completely wrong. According to E-Poll likability data we factored into Vulture's Most Valuable Stars list, the braying hordes of Hathaway haters are merely a very vocal minority. The numbers say that most people actually like her. Even more shocking? Who they like her more than.

In calculating their E-Score Celebrity rankings, E-Poll asked people how much they like a particular celebrity on a six-point scale, which ranged from "like a lot" to "dislike a lot." The resulting Likability percentage is the number of respondents who indicated they either "like" Anne Hathaway or "like Anne Hathaway a lot." Hathaway's 2014 Likability percentage was 67 percent — up from 66 percent in 2013 — which doesn't quite make her Will Smith (85 percent), Sandra Bullock (83 percent), Jennifer Lawrence (76 percent), or even Liam Neeson (79 percent), but it does put her well above plenty of stars whose appeal has never been so furiously impugned on Twitter. 

Why? Well, why not? Anne Hathaway is a talented actress and seemingly a nice person. The objections to her boiled down to two main points: She tries too hard, and she's overexposed. But she's been absent from the screen since 2012's Les Misérables, so it's hard to call her overexposed now. And trying too hard isn't the worst thing in the world, especially when you consider the alternative. Finally, it's worth remembering that, even though everyone on your Twitter timeline was complaining about Hathaway last February, only 16 percent of U.S. adults use Twitter. There's a whole world out there, and it's full of people who have had fairly positive feelings towards Anne Hathaway this whole time.

We'll warn you, though: The numbers below may surprise you. Is Hathaway — delightful though she may be — really better liked than Channing Tatum, Tina Fey, Chris Pratt, and Ryan Gosling? Apparently so. One assumes that some of the male heartthrobs who scored below Hathaway — like Tatum, Gosling, and Zac Efron — lost points with male respondents. And tabloid overexposure probably hurt stars like Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Kristen Stewart. Politics may have been a factor with respondents who disliked Fey and Will Ferrell. But whatever the reasons, Hathaway beat them all. 

Here's the data.

With her score of 67 percent, Hathaway is slightly less likable than these four stars:

Matthew McConaughey (68 percent)

Jeff Bridges (68 percent)

Anna Kendrick (68 percent)

Henry Cavill (68 percent)

And she's exactly as likable as these seven gentlemen:

Mark Ruffalo (67 percent)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (67 percent)

Adam Sandler (67 percent)

Kevin Hart (67 percent)

Leonardo DiCaprio (67 percent)

Michael Fassbender (67 percent)

Kevin James (67 percent)

And she's more likable than these 48 stars, including James Bond, Harry Potter, and the voice of Groot:

Kate Winslet (66 percent)

Zoe Saldana (66 percent)

Dwayne Johnson (66 percent)

Jennifer Aniston (66 percent)

Natalie Portman (66 percent)

Zach Galifianakis (66 percent)

Daniel Day-Lewis (65 percent)

Reese Witherspoon (65 percent)

Daniel Craig (65 percent)

George Clooney (65 percent)

Channing Tatum (64 percent)

Keira Knightley (64 percent)

Ben Stiller (64 percent)

Cate Blanchett (64 percent)

Robert Pattinson (64 percent)

Jonah Hill (63 percent)

Ben Affleck (62 percent)

Will Ferrell (62 percent)

Scarlett Johansson (61 percent)

Chloe Moretz (61 percent)

Chris Pratt (61 percent)

Javier Bardem (60 percent)

Vin Diesel (60 percent)

Chris Pine (60 percent)

Christian Bale (59 percent)

James Franco (59 percent)

Cameron Diaz (59 percent)

Jake Gyllenhaal (59 percent)

Jamie Foxx (59 percent)

Seth Rogen (59 percent)

Brad Pitt (58 percent)

Daniel Radcliffe (58 percent)

Ryan Gosling (58 percent)

James McAvoy (57 percent)

Shailene Woodley (57 percent)

Justin Timberlake (57 percent)

Naomi Watts (56 percent)

Andrew Garfield (54 percent)

Kristen Stewart (54 percent)

Russell Crowe (52 percent)

Angelina Jolie (50 percent)

Tyler Perry (50 percent)

Jessica Chastain (50 percent)

Penelope Cruz (49 percent)

Joaquin Phoenix (46 percent)

Zac Efron (41 percent)

Sean Penn (39 percent)

Tom Cruise (37 percent)

Read more posts by Nate Jones

Filed Under: anne hathaway ,most valuable stars 2014

Fans of Stephen King will like this Rolling Stone interview with him from his office just outside Bangor, Maine, which "sits on a particularly dreary dead-end road... just down the street from a gun-and-ammo store, a snowplow dealership and, appropriately enough, an old cemetery." Perfect.

Visit Rolling Stone to read the interview, the scope of which spans King's entire career. 

Illustration by Roberto Parada

Everyone has their own way of grieving over the death of a loved one, and their own traditions when it comes to ushering the dead off into the afterlife.

Wakes and vigils have become far less common practices, and while sitting around with the body until burial may seem odd to some people there's something even more bizarre that people used to do with their loved one's body- post-mortem photography.

In the nineteenth century it was common practice for families to prop up the body of the deceased and take pictures, in part because photography had become far more accessible, and as a memento of the dearly departed.

Now, it may not seem that strange to want a photograph of your loved one to remember them by, but propping them up right next to their living siblings, or using a metal stand to support them so they look more "natural" in the photo- now that’s just plain weird!

-Via Little Things

Parish & Cipher: Attorneys At Law.

I would hire this guy.

Kristen Stewart has announced that she plans on taking a break from acting to spend time working on different forms of art.

“I’m taking some time off because I’ve been working for two years. I’m an actor and that’s my art form, and because I started that so young, I’ve always felt intimidated and insufficient when I think about other forms of art I want to create,” the 24-year-old actress said in an interview with USA Today.

“I’m going to take so much time off,” Kristen added. “I’m going to buy a live-work space in downtown LA and I’m going to make some (stuff) with my hands. Literally, I made that decision a few weeks ago… I’m making a bunch of (stuff). I don’t know how I’ll put it out. But I’m not going to hold it so preciously close to me. I write all the time.”

ARE YOU SAD that Kristen Stewart will take time off from acting?

Yes, it’s as easy as planting a circle, or possibly a box shape, on the floor. This photo sequence by Guremike has inspired many others to trap their cats in circles. When this and another of Guremike’s sequences was posted at reddit, everyone had to try it out, with varying results. Bored Panda has other examples from the reddit thread and from their readers. But that’s not all: a new subreddit was created just to hold all the experimental cat traps: Cat Circles. Continue reading to see even more trapped cats.


Boogab says it took less than 30 seconds.

PezXCore can’t believe it worked.

Littlemissmochi used a deck of Cards Against Humanity to build a circle.

AshGooner found it works with fruit.

Kippers found his cat trapped, too. 

Brynnit’s cat is named Ray Finkle.

BabushkaCCCP’s cat Mr. Myawa was trapped by a hexagon.

TheUnknownParadox trapped his sister’s cat.

Im_Not_A_Tree has a susceptible and adorable kitten.

AmericanGeezus said the instructions were unclear. Luckily, nothing got stuck.

Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are all smiles at the Supernatural 200th Episode Celebration held at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel on Saturday night (October 18) in Vancouver, Canada.

The on-screen brothers were joined by their co-stars Misha Collins and Felicia Day, as well as their wives Danneel Ackles and Genevieve Cortese.

“Earlier someone asked me if season 10 was it and my only answer was, ‘I hope not. But if it is, it’s something to be proud of, and it it’s not, we’ll carry on,’” Jared recently told JustJaredJr.com. “I feel like season eight and nine, specifically, we caught a second wind. We had new storylines and new characters who brought such life to it. As a fan of the show, I’ve been excited an uptick in the quality of the show. They’re creating new and fun things, and if they keep doing that, we’ll see.”

DO YOU WANT to see Supernatural continue for another season?

Last night at 92Y, our favorite Robert F. Kennedy Junior-High-Schoolers — Kevin Arnold, Winnie Cooper, and Paul Pfeiffer — waxed nostalgic before 200 fans during their “first public appearance together in front of a live audience,” promoting season one of The Wonder Years on DVD. Only hours had passed since Fred Savage, Danica McKellar, and Josh Saviano appeared on Good Morning America together, so there weren’t many hugs or how’ve-you-beens exchanged backstage. Still, it was fun to watch them watch generation-old clips of their precocious selves selected by the effusive moderator, "Fresh Air" TV critic David Bianculli. Vulture picked up a few factoids at the event.

1. It took six takes to film Kevin and Winnie’s first kiss. During take one, McKellar’s smile got in the way and she rolled her eyes. Director Steve Miner told Savage to give McKellar his coat, but he wound up stroking her hair on his own. McKellar is a year Savage’s senior; when it came to kissing an older woman, he joked, “It was so hard to go back to 11-year-olds then.”   
2. The glasses Saviano wore were fake — he’s worn contacts since childhood. “Josh was also so much cooler than his character,” said Savage, noting that he was a varsity athlete. “As the show progressed, it wasn’t that they brought Paul out of his shell [as] they brought Paul closer to Josh.”
3. Although Alley Mills and Dan Lauria (who played Norma and Jack Arnold) represent what McKellar called “the quintessential parents,” neither had children. Meanwhile, Savage has three kids, McKellar has a son, and Saviano has a 7-year-old daughter, Noah, who sat in the front row and asked a question during the Q&A.
4. After the internet rumor first circulated that Saviano and Marilyn Manson were the same person, Saviano dressed as Manson for Halloween when he was 20. Initially, though, Saviano had to ask who Manson was, and they’ve yet to meet.
5. Savage and Saviano were McKellar’s surrogate siblings — they’re the ones who taught her “Pull my finger.”
6. Until meeting this reporter, Modern Family director Savage had never heard of the Tumblr blog, Kevin Arnold Is a Dick. Upon seeing the site, he had no comment.
7. They aren’t particularly thankful that they were child stars in the pre-internet age. “There was nothing to capture, you know?” Savage told me. “It wasn’t like we got home and we’d be like, ‘Oh shit, thank God no one caught that chase on camera.’ I mean I do think that growing-up period — whether you’re in the public eye or not — is so much more difficult now, as a result of technology. But yeah, we weren’t like, coming off benders and just so happy Instagram wasn’t around yet.”
8. Citing guest stars John Corbett and David Schwimmer, Savage said, “When I was 12 and 13 years old, I always thought the guys [who played Karen’s boyfriends] were always the coolest guys in the room.”
9. Of Paul’s bar mitzvah, Saviano said , “I think it was one of the first times religion and Judaism was addressed on mainstream television.” He’s not sure if Savage attended his real-life bar mitzvah, but McKellar did with her sister (who played another of Kevin’s TV girlfriends, Becky Slater). Both McKellar and Saviano were at Savage’s bar mitzvah, though. “Each table had a trophy that said ‘FRED’ on it,” remembered McKellar.
10. For years, McKellar has dismissed the idea that Winnie and Kevin slept together in the final episode. But when confronted with a clip last night, she said, “Yeah, they probably did.” “That was a lot of kissing,” admitted Savage.
11. Despite it being one of the most memorable scenes they “shared,” Savage and McKellar actually filmed saying “I love you” separately when Winnie is bedridden after a car accident in season four. According to child labor laws, each actor had to spend at least three hours of their workday in the schoolroom. Since Savage was in every single scene, the crew worked around him when possible so he could fulfill his academic requirements.  
12. Fans still bemoan that Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper didn’t live happily ever after, but to the cast, it makes perfect sense. Savage said, “Your first love when you’re a kid is so idealized … you never end up with your first love … I guess there are rare exceptions … You have this first love that you pine for, and that makes your heart sing and breaks your heart … Your life doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would when you were 12. That’s one of the lessons of the show.”

Read more posts by Jenna Marotta

Filed Under: tv ,the wonder years ,on the scene

-Aly Semigran

November 14 will mark 26 years since the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown hit the airwaves. The series, which ran for 10 seasons and won 18 Emmy Awards (including a record-breaking five Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series wins for star Candice Bergen), also happened to be at the forefront of a political firestorm in its heyday. A show about a 40-something single mother and career woman (!) touched such a nerve that the Vice President of the United States singled out the show as an example of the decay of family values in America.

During a campaign speech on May 19, 1992, then-VP Dan Quayle stated, “Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesn’t help matters when primetime TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.”

Never mind that we now live in an era where Vice Presidents are pretty supportive of fictional career women (see: Joe Biden and his number one admirer, Leslie Knope, on Parks and Recreation), but one where single parents have been pretty well-represented on television over the past two decades, without much of a fuss about their “lifestyle choice.” (After all, no one really threw up any road blocks about the dad on Full House). If anything, if Murphy Brown were on the air today, it would likely spark a hundred “Can women have it all?” online thinkpieces instead.

But in 1992, Quayle’s comments about the character of Murphy Brown, and her decision to raise a child alone during the show’s fourth season, sparked a nationwide debate. The series was smack dab in the middle of the discussion, and its writers got in on the conversation, too. During the Season 5 premiere — which picked up after the birth of her son Avery — Murphy Brown responded to Quayle’s remarks. At one point Bergen’s character exclaims, “I’m glamorizing single motherhood? What planet is he on? I agonized over that decision.” The fictional TV anchor also addresses the issue on the air, telling viewers, “Perhaps it’s time for the Vice President to expand his definition and recognize that, whether by choice or circumstance, families come in all shapes and sizes. And ultimately, what really defines a family is caring and love.” The episode, which aired on September 21, 1992, and was mockingly titled “You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato” to address Quayle, pulled in an estimated 70 million viewers.

Eventually, Murphy Brown and Dan Quayle made peace, even if “family values” debates still rage today. Right around the time “You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato” aired, Quayle sent a letter and stuffed elephant to the fictional baby Avery. The show’s executive producers Gary Dontzig and Steven Peterman told Entertainment Weekly that even though they were upset with Quayle for condemning the show, it opened a door for them to openly discuss an important issue. Ten years later, Bergen herself called Quayle’s speech “perfectly “intelligent” and revealed that she agreed with his stance on the idea that fathers are not dispensable.

In the 20-plus years since that landmark episode, Quayle’s comments and his footnote as a pop culture punchline still conjure up strong feelings and varying opinions. In 2002, a Washington Post op-ed declared, “20 years later, it turns out Dan Quayle was right about Murphy Brown and unmarried moms,” and in 2013, the A.V. Club‘s TV writers discussed the impact the episode had on them as viewers now, and then.

While Murphy Brown was hardly the first show to explore non-nuclear families, or the first to cause a stir when it came to tackling hot button issues, it was a seminal moment in watching what happens when television and politics collide.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

Wonder Woman has long flown an invisible jet. Recently, LEGO produced a massive, 3,200-piece version of it. Since John Wray and his kids love LEGO, they spent a day carefully assembling this incredibly complex model of the plane. You can see more photos here.

I'm really impressed with the level of detail that LEGO put into this set. The model looks almost like the real thing!

-via Kotaku

Whether you have trick-or-treaters of your own, or you'll just be stocking up on discount candy on November 1st, you'll need this chart.

READ MORE »

Exhibit A: Don Henley of the Eagles, a band with a song called “Take It Easy.” Exhibit B: A Henley style T-shirt, on sale with the phrase, “Don a Henley and Take it easy.” This attempt at punnery — pretty successful, if you ask me — is not amusing to Don Henley, who is suing a clothing company for using his name to shill shirts without his permission.

The musician is suing Duluth Trading Company over an email ad it sent out to customers featuring what could be just a harmless play on words, or could be an unauthorized use of Henley’s name and infringement on his tradermarks and publicity rights, reports Billboard.

The apparent reference to the Eagles’ song and the fact that his full name is part of the phrase is at the heart of the lawsuit filed in California district court. He accuses the company of taking advantage of his fame, saying the ad could confused consumers into thinking he’s endorsing the product.

A rep for Henley told Billboard in a statement:

“This kind of thing happens with some degree of frequency and the members of the Eagles always defend their rights, often at great expense. One would think that the people in charge of marketing for these corporations would have learned by now that U.S. law forbids trading on the name of a celebrity without permission from that celebrity.

Both Mr. Henley and the Eagles have worked hard, for over 40 years, to build their names and goodwill in the world community. They pride themselves on the fact that they have never allowed their names, likenesses or music – individually or as a group – to be used to sell products. Their names are their trademarks and, therefore, they take offense when an individual or a business tries to piggyback and capitalize on their art, their hard work and their goodwill in the public arena.”

Thus far Duluth Trading Company hasn’t issued a comment. You can view the lawsuit in full here.

Don Henley Not Taking It Easy on Pun-Loving Clothing Company [Billboard]

I was dimly aware, as a fan of both Stephen King and Joe Hill, that movies based on King's A Good Marriage and Hill's Horns were on the way. But Uncle Stevie totally took me by surprise with this tweet from last Friday: "My son's film, HORNS, is ALSO available via VOD today. Father and son movies! HOW COOL IS THAT???"

Horns is the first film made from a work by Joe Hill, based on his 2010 sophomore novel. A Good Marriage is from the same year, with Stephen King adapting his own novella, found in the collection Full Dark, No Stars, for the screen, something he's done rarely and not recently. (The last King feature screenplay appears to have been Pet Sematary, 25 years ago.) I watched both films back-to-back. Here's how they stack up alongside one another.

Stand-alone Entertainment Value
Horns starts out like a realist film about a guy who grows horns and supernatural powers, but director Alexandre Aja (the Hills Have Eyes remake, High Tension) embraces its crazy in the back half and becomes something deliriously fun and gross. The script, from Keith Bunin — a first-time feature-writer and graduate of HBO's In Treatment — is pretty hamfisted, however, full of devil puns and exposition. (Hill's novel was not exempt from these either.)

A Good Marriage had the misfortune of being released the same weekend as Gone Girl, with which it shares tenuous thematic details (one half of a married couple discovers their partner is not all they seem). It is yet another smallish film where a director does his or her best to capture what Stephen King does so well on the page. In this case it's Peter Askin, who wrote and directed Company Man in 2000 and also did the documentary Trumbo. It's not a slow-build-epic-ending that can play ball with Misery or Cujo or The Shawshank Redemption, but it's a faithful Stephen King movie. If Stephen King continues to entertain you — and, clearly, he does if you consider yourself a Constant Reader — this is a good little movie.

Faithfulness to Source Material
King's 84-page novella is slightly stretched, and at one hour and 43 minutes it feels close to a half-hour too long. Hill's 368-page novel is trimmed, and at two hours it feels, also, oddly, about a half-hour too long. Both films are faithful enough that if you read these books around four years ago, when they came out, you'll remember plenty, and you'll have your footing, but you might still be surprised by the twists. If you just read A Good Marriage or Horns to prep for the viewing experience, well, that's just never the way to go about this type of thing, and you're setting yourself up for nitpicky disaster.

Faithfulness to the Overall Vibe of the Author's Work
Three big elements of Joe Hill's work are music (musicians are frequent characters, and the music itself is often a character), badass automobiles (especially NOS4A2), and bleak black humor. Horns does justice to all this. Stephen King is the master of the slow burn to the explosive finish, and A Good Marriage generally follows that style. Both films shed some of the humanity King and Hill fill these situations with on the page, though, because #movies.

Performances
In Horns, everyone fades out around star Daniel Radcliffe, who is good, but Harry Potter is still so recent that it's not always easy to accept Radcliffe in another role. And there's a strong, almost pushy sense that "This is one of his edgy new movies." Radcliffe, as the gothically named Ignatius "Iggy/Ig" Perrish, says fuck! He pisses on a memorial! He watches people screw! Heather Graham is also there, briefly.

In A Good Marriage, everything lives and dies by what you think of the low-key performance from three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen (The Contender, the Bourne movies, Nixon). There are bit parts by Stephen Lang, House of Cards' Kristen Connolly, and a big co-starring role for Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace) as Allen's husband. But the novella is completely from the wife's point of view, so Allen-as-Darcy is the window to everything in this film.

Creepiness Factor
Most of Horns isn't especially scary, just unsettling (and suddenly, no-warningly gory in places). But toward the end, the last half-hour or so, there is no shortage of nightmare imagery, including the worst drug trip you could imagine and the most graphic shotgun-explodes-head I've ever, ever seen. The concept of A Good Marriage — woman discovers husband of many years, father of her adult children, is serial killer — gets under your skin, but it's more of a sober, realistic look at what that realization, and its aftermath, would entail. (And, one more time on Misery: Fans will find a brief, important echo in A Good Marriage.)

Also: One has a happy ending, and one has a bittersweet, vaguely dissatisfying ending. No spoilers on which is which.

VOD or Theater?
A Good Marriage is VOD all the way, and it's at a good price ($7 for the HD 24-hour rental on Amazon) right out of the gate. Horns feels much more like a big October horror mystery you're meant to see in a theater. And if you're all in on the concept, on Daniel Radcliffe, on Joe Hill, on just going to the movies because it's been so long, the movie earns its ticket price — it's set piece after set piece, shot in a beautiful, mountainous locale. But it's also fine for a $10 VOD (again, Amazon; 48-hour HD rental this time, though) with a couple of friends. A Good Marriage is mostly static interior scenes and close-up human drama. Also, there are a lot more snakes in Horns.

What Do They Think of Each Other's Movies?
We reached out to Hill and King to find out what the father and son had to say about the other's movie.

Hill: "A Good Marriage explores a grim subject — what if the person sleeping next to you every night was a monster? — with a moral intelligence and a calm, clear-eyed authority that is rare in any form of storytelling, but especially in the movies, and especially these days. I'm a words guy, and I thought this film was full of great ones. Also I'm sick of CGI skyscrapers collapsing in a big crash of digital dust and Dolby noise. I'm bored of CGI robots beating dents into each other. All the software in the world can't give you a great story or a wrenching performance like you get in MARRIAGE from Joan Allen. To me, those unique human contributions are the first and best effect of them all ... and the one reason to still love the movies."

King: "I liked Horns for the crisp, bright cinematography, but what I loved about it is the fearless way it mixes humor and horror, creating an all new taste treat. Daniel Radcliffe's performance encompasses both the laughs and screams effortlessly. I go to the movies to be entertained. Horns was big entertainment."

Read more posts by Zach Dionne

Filed Under: movies ,a good marriage ,horns ,stephen king ,joe hill

Over the weekend, George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin in Venice. Much of the coverage has focused on Clooney, with USA Today leading their report by describing him as “one of the world’s most eligible and sexy stars.” The New York Daily News bills Clooney as a “Hollywood heartthrob” who “finally uttered the words that he’d long sworn off.” E Online proclaims “the famous Hollywood hunk said goodbye to his bachelor days.”

Alamuddin is simply described as his “ladylove.”

There is one publication, however, that has its priorities straight:

Indeed, Alamuddin’s career is at least as impressive as Clooney’s. She is an internationally renowned human rights lawyer with degrees from Oxford University and NYU Law. Fluent in Arabic, French, and English, she has represented a slew of high-profile clients including Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and former prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko. Alamuddin has been appointed to several United Nations commissions dealing with issues related to international human rights.

Clooney, among other achievements, had a two episode arc on Friends in 1995.

The post Internationally Renowned Human Rights Lawyer Marries Actor Who Played A Handyman On ‘Facts of Life’ appeared first on ThinkProgress.

This episode was perfect, poignant, and perfect. That is, frankly, the extent of my recap.

As the episode opens, boring Frank and Claire are walking down a street when he impulsively suggests they marry before meeting his parents. Nice try, Frank. You are still you. Claire giggles and blushes and says yes and then we are at the wedding of Jamie and Claire and the groom may kiss the bride.

At the wedding party, Claire and Jamie away themselves upstairs. Jamie informs Claire, who is sulking, that the party won’t end until they “make things official.” The newlyweds immediately set to drinking an astonishing quantity of alcohol, or at least Claire does. She can throw them back is what I’m saying. Jamie just stares and we stare at her, thinking, Woman, you have seen his amazing body. What is your malfunction?

Claire is still stalling and making us wait and not letting herself be great, so she begins asking Jamie “getting to know you” questions. First: Why did he agree to marry her? Because he’s awesome, that’s why. We also learn he wanted to keep her safe. Jamie says some sexy stuff about how committed he is to Claire and really, he spends the entire episode being sexy and perfect. My last name is now Gay-Fraser-Gay. 

Jamie goes in for a kiss and Claire, still her own worst enemy and our worst enemy, asks Jamie to tell her about his family. Blah blah blah drinking and talking about family histories as the newlyweds get to know each other. Sometimes, there is such a thing as too much foreplay and nothing has made that more painfully clear than this show. 

After a brief interruption, Claire realizes she can hold us off no longer and suggests that they should go to bed. “To bed, or to sleep?” Jamie asks and Claire is rather coy about it. Jamie offers to help Claire disrobe and proceeds to remove one layer of clothing for every week we have been made to wait for this sacred event. They were all about layering back in the day. The scene is amazing, erotic, sweetly charming. Jamie is gentle in disrobing Claire and she is nearly breathless. He tentatively touches her breastbone and then her breast. Claire’s breathing becomes more ragged. Mine does too. Thirteen minutes into the episode and finally they are getting down!!!!

Guys, at this point, I was rapt. I would not have noticed an earthquake.

Claire says, “my turn,” and removes Jamie’s kilt. Praise Beysus. They finally kiss and it’s hot. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” Claire asks. Jamie grins and says, “I said I was a virgin, not a monk. If I need guidance, I’ll ask.” He is all perfect man hot sexy Scottish swagger. He then shows us that he needs no guidance at all. They have their first sexual encounter which is, as you might expect, brief, kudos for realism, and then there is some pillow talk. Jamie admits he thought men and women had sex like horses and Claire laughs and oh, to be so young and innocent. He also asks Claire if it was good for her, which made me cringe because, oh young man, don’t do that. Claire is silent and Jamie’s ego is a bit crushed but let’s be real, young man. It was your first time and practice makes perfect. 

Sad Jamie says his friends told him women don’t enjoy sex blah blah blah and Claire admits, “I did like it, Jamie,” and then she confesses to us that “Not only was I a bigamist and adulteress, but I enjoyed it.” Claire is all about the angst. She just won’t let herself be happy but it’s fine. We can be happy for her. Or envious. Or something.

Jamie spends the next while in only his shirt, revealing that he has amazing, muscular thighs. Have mercy. He is perfect. Claire heads out of the room to get some food, but everyone is still downstairs celebrating. Jamie sends Claire back into the room and goes down to gather provisions. Dougal is sulking at the table and tells Jamie he should thank him, which Jamie does, and then he returns to his not-so-blushing bride.

Is there more whisky? Why yes. Claire continues to damage her liver. When Jamie tries to caress her, she shrugs away, so clearly, we are going to have to wait, yet again, for the good parts. Jamie, bless his heart, continues to be the most romantic man on the planet. He describes Claire’s brown hair so eloquently that all around the world, panties likely dropped. I can neither confirm nor deny if mine did. 

Claire eyes the Fraser tartan and asks Jamie where he got it. There is a flashback to Jamie and Murtagh in the barn, discussing the impending nuptials. Jamie asks Murtagh if his mother would approve and Murtagh tells Jamie Claire’s smile is just as sweet as his mother’s and all is right with the world. Then we learn that Jamie had three conditions for marrying Claire. He wanted to “wed properly” in a church, he wanted a proper ring for Claire, which he had forged by a blacksmith out of a key, and he wanted Claire to have a proper wedding dress. We get it, Jamie, you are the perfect man. We do not need further convincing. In three excellent flashbacks, we see how these conditions were met. Truly, as good as the sexy times were, the entire episode was really well done. The most amusing scene is when Ned the lawyer goes to a whorehouse to acquire Claire’s wedding dress and Ned is offered some “entertainment” for his efforts. 

The couple continues to kill us with chatter and we learn that Claire was deeply hungover on the morning of the wedding and she remembers very little. Fortunately, Jamie, still perfect, remembers “every moment, every second.” The wedding ceremony is lovely and only a little awkward. Part of the ceremony is the binding of their blood and Jamie and Claire recite the most passionate vows I’ve ever heard. Mark my words — over the coming months, a legion of couples will be, at the least, reciting these same vows. There may be blood, depending on how intense these couples are. I recited the passionate vows to the empty hotel room within which I am ensconced so I’m pretty sure this room and I are forever wed.

FINALLY, we get back to what we have all waited for and wanted for so long. Claire finally does us a solid and tells Jamie to take of his shirt because she wants to look at him. Jamie disrobes and we get to see nearly all of his perfect body. There is even some tantalizing frontal action where we can gaze upon that muscular pelvic “V.”

Look, I am only human. I objectified Jamie along with Claire and millions of viewers. I feel guilty about this, but I do have eyes and I appreciate a rugged, husky man. I murmured, “Mmmmmmm,” more than once. There may have been some rewinding. Jamie’s ass? Also spectacular. Goddamn, goddamn. Quid pro quo, Claire similarly disrobes and the newlyweds get to know each other a little more with some vigorous lovemaking.

There are several things to appreciate about how this scene is filmed — we see Jamie’s innocence but also that he can rise to the occasion. There is far more of a focus on his naked body rather than Claire’s. There is a distinct focus on female pleasure. When Claire reaches her and our happy place, young Jamie worries he has hurt her. No, lad, she’s just vocal and she has had an orgasm. Unicorns are real!

You might think the sexy times would be over but they aren’t. We were made to wait but the wait was worthwhile. Claire takes charge of things and because she is a modern woman, she is quite the frisky lass, pulling at Jamie’s skin with her teeth as she makes her way down his immaculate body. She pleasures him orally and artfully, or at least, what we see of the scene is artful, and when all is said and done, Jamie is very very happy. We are very happy. Praise Beyoncé. Jamie falls asleep, typical, and Claire wraps herself in his kilt to go downstairs.

Dougal finds Claire and tells her he has been to see Captain Randall. The captain did not take the news well. Then, in a strange moment, Dougal tells Claire she can “sample other pleasures,” aka him. “I find you to be the most singular woman, Claire.” She is, of course, taken aback. “I’m Jamie’s wife,” she says. Before anything untoward can happen, Rupert interrupts them. Claire thanks Rupert for getting the ring. As she goes upstairs, Rupert says, “That one looks well ridden,” and Dougal slaps him. Dougal is very covetous and bitter and conflicted. Alas.

When Jamie wakes, he sees Claire by the fire and goes to her, draping a lovely strand of Scotch pearls around her neck. Jamie, you had us at hello. The pearls belonged to his mother and now they belong to his wife. There is more heavy breathing and kissing and bodies comingling as Claire straddles Jamie’s lap and all is right with the world.

In the morning, Jamie is dressing and heading down to get some food. Claire reaches for her wedding dress, and out falls her wedding ring from her other marriage. As the episode ends, she slides that ring on her finger and stares at her two hands, and her two wedding rings. I call this “time travel problems.”

Looking Ahead:

• When will Claire introduce Jamie to pleasuring a woman orally?
• What the heck is happening with Frank back in ye modern times?
• Is Captain Sadist Randall really going to just let this slide?
• Is this episode just a tease or are we going to get what we want in the next episode, and also, when does the second-half of season one start and will there be hot sex in those episode too?

Read more posts by Roxane Gay

Filed Under: outlander ,tv ,recaps ,overnights

Today is the tenth anniversary of the Lost series premiere. We are rerunning this article about the show's finale, first published on May 18, 2010.

If Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are feeling generous, this Sunday's Lost series finale will finally answer the one question viewers have been asking for the past six seasons: What the hell is this damn show about, anyway? Or, more likely, they'll tell us nothing. Either way, now seems like an appropriate time to look back on all the awesome unofficial explanations concocted by impatient fans these past few years. Each week we round up the best of the Internet's realistic-seeming theories, but today, we appreciate the craziest, unlikeliest, and most thoroughly debunked hypotheses viewers have floated since the show's 2004 premiere. Herewith our list of the seven greatest wrong Lost theories ever, complete with our guesses on how the show would have ended if they'd actually been right.

Read more posts by Lane Brown

Filed Under: lost ,tv ,theories ,slideshow ,vulture lists

Aish at Disney's New Groove posted this chart of Disney movies in chronological order according to their historical settings. She posted it with the following note:

"(Excludes most of the package films. Some films, eg The Lion King, are impossible to pin down exactly and some, like Aladdin and Treasure Planet, are anachronistic, so these are estimations. A few have been split into 2 if there is more than one time period in the movie, and sequels have been put together.)"

What do you think? -Via Geeks are Sexy.

If you watched last night’s Gotham premiere, you know Detective Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) as Jim Gordon’s sketchy, albeit kind of funny, partner. What do we know about him? “There’s some darkness, but Harvey Bullock is a little bit of a comic foil in this world,” Logue said at last week’s East Coast premiere. “If it’s all just too dark and too cool, you have to have someone who’s like, ‘What’s up, brah?’” Sounds kind of ... other-coast-y of him. Whether Harvey is muttering sassy things under his breath or taking a drink or wearing a fedora and sloughing off moral responsibility, his character tics have already been well established. Here's your Gotham drinking game, Harvey Bullock edition. Keep it bookmarked for next week's second episode.

Rules

One sip if Harvey ...

• … grins at Jim or the camera.
• … takes one sip of his own drink.
• … argues with a GCPD officer, detective, or superior.
• … fakes a chuckle or a belly laugh.
• … punches someone in the face.
• … says, “Lemme talk to Fish,” or asks for Fish Mooney.
• … enters the frame wearing his fedora.
• … asks a dumb question in the face of danger.
• … lies to Gordon.
• … later justifies said lie as a piece of wisdom.
• … makes a wisecrack after the day has been saved.
• … compares fighting crime to war.
• … says something that sounds like it could be a line taken from The Outsiders before a scene cuts.

Two sips if Harvey ...

• … does something shady that a detective shouldn’t do (unless this is Serpico).
• … saves Jim’s life.

Finish your drink if Harvey...

• … saves someone else’s life.

If you have suggestions for other rules, sound off in the comments below.

Read more posts by Sean Fitz-Gerald

Filed Under: gotham ,harvey bullock ,donal logue ,tv

Get two Simpsons fans in a room, and they'll have a conversation that is 80 percent quotes from the show. ("Aw, you can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that.") The combination of 500-plus episodes and consistently hilarious writing has resulted in a cache of quotable lines unlike any that has ever been amassed by one show. Vulture has very scientifically ("Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends") determined the most essential, most memorable, most perfectly cromulent quotes, from chimpan-a to chimpan-zee (fine, that one doesn't make sense — d'oh!). If your favorite isn't here (don't blame us, we voted for Kodos), please throw it in the comments. Enjoy while we replenish those sold-out Bort license plates.

Read more posts by Jesse David FoxJosh Kurp

Filed Under: streaming week ,the simpsons ,simpsons week ,tv ,vulture lists