Posted on October 17, 2024
Pin
Pin
Pin
PinThe Midland Grand Dining Room and Gothic Bar – London, UK
It’s THURSDAY, which means GRANDIOSITY is one the menu. Also coziness. And distractions. Hope you brought your appetite!
Flops and Follies: The Joker, J.Lo, Costner, Coppola, and the Year in Unchecked Ambition
Creativity and risk-taking are beautiful things in the right hands. Then there was 2024.
Now that we’re in the thick of the prestige movie season—festival favorites and indie darlings causing traffic jams at one-screen art houses in cities across the country—it might seem that 2024 was a resounding success for film. But, of course, not all was well this year. Particularly for a few admirably audacious efforts, from quite famous filmmakers, that resoundingly flopped.
Back in May, many of us who work in the orbit of movies boarded airplanes bound for the South of France, where a glut of exciting new films awaited us in Cannes. There were bound to be discoveries, bold new announcements of an ascendant class of global auteurs. Some international stalwarts were returning as well, as happens every year at Cannes. But in 2024, two elder American titans were also set to unveil their latest opuses, more of a rarity at the festival. Anticipation for those was perhaps highest of all.
The World Pays Tribute To Liam Payne
On the evening of 16 October, it was reported that singer, songwriter and former One Direction star Liam Payne had died at the age of just 31, after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires. The news was met with shock, with mourners gathering outside the building where the devastating incident took place to light candles in his memory. Meanwhile, on social media, the outpouring of grief continued, with friends, fans and fellow musicians expressing their condolences and paying tribute to his immense talent.
Sweet Bobby‘s Kirat Assi on catfishing and coercive control: ‘People don’t understand how debilitating it is’
“I’m the one who has put myself in the firing line, and it’s not easy.”
The mind-blowing story behind new Netflix documentary Sweet Bobby is many things: it’s the UK’s longest-known catfishing scam and the subject of a huge hit podcast, which hit over a million listeners globally.
But it’s also a chilling reminder of the manipulation of consent and coercive control that comes with catfishing – and, most crucially, how it changed the life of Kirat Assi when she was subjected to what is now called “romance fraud” by someone she thought she knew and loved for the best part of a decade. And she’s not the only one.
Black nails are headlining right now and Selena Gomez is a major fan
All the black nail inspo.
Step aside milky pink, because this season, black nails have become the uniform of cool-girls everywhere. Understated and super versatile, the inky shade is a classic neutral that works for so many situations – and depending on how you wear it, it can read tailored, glam, grungy or edgy.
“Black manicures are definitely the ‘winter nude’ of this season,” confirms pro nail artist Julia Diogo (known as @paintedbyjools on Instagram). “They’re super chic, elegant and timeless. It’s also a shade that flatters all skin tones.”
56 curly hairstyles for all the salon inspo you need
We won’t count all the reasons why we love curly hairstyles, but among them: they’re big (that volume), they’re bold, they’re beautiful, they’re unapologetic and they’re truly individual, since each and every curl pattern is unique. Yes, curly hair comes with its own idiosyncrasies – curls naturally have a tendency to crave moisture, even when they’re topped up regularly and they can throw a diva strop the second they sense a brush nearby – but, we respect the tenacity, and you can’t deny curls have got personality.
Mikey Madison’s Life Hasn’t Changed Yet—but When the World Sees Anora, It Will
The Better Things alum makes a stunning star turn as a brassy sex worker in Sean Baker’s new film.
In May, Anora won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival largely thanks to Mikey Madison’s breakout performance as the title character: a sex worker, named Ani, who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch. But Madison says her life hasn’t been turned upside down just yet. “The biggest change is just getting this puppy,” she says, nodding toward the five-month-old Chihuahua rescue curled up in her lap. She adopted Jam in June, and since then she’s largely spent her time taking him to puppy-training classes and helping him get along with her cat, Biscuit.
That’s bound to change when Anora hits theaters October 18. Madison, who’s 25, has been acting for years: She played Pamela Adlon’s brash daughter Max on FX’s cult-favorite comedy Better Things and met a brutal, fiery end in both Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and 2022’s Scream. But Sean Baker’s dizzying slice-of-life film introduces Madison as a major film-anchoring talent. Ani’s tough exterior hides such guileless sweetness that it’s impossible not to root for her.
Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield on the Importance of a Good Cry
The stars of We Live in Time know their film will make you feel all the feelings. That’s on purpose.
Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield’s new movie, We Live in Time, is guaranteed to make you cry.
The film, Garfield tells T&C, is “the kind of story that everyone who has ever loved, everyone who has ever longed for life, to be alive fully, will feel themselves within, will feel their own story being told.” We Live in Time, which isn’t told in chronological order—so viewers know the heartbreak coming, even when the characters don’t—follows the love story of Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield) as they navigate Almut’s ovarian cancer diagnosis.
In every scene (and they’re both in nearly every scene), Garfield and Pugh’s chemistry makes the tragic, romantic story come alive. Director John Crowley says watching them work together was like “lightning in a bottle.”
15 of the Most Romantic Love Letters Ever Written—and How To Write a Great One Yourself
Writing romantic love letters can feel like a prehistoric practice these days—where do you even get stamps? (Kidding. Kind of.) But for most of human history, if you wanted to express your feelings to someone not in your immediate vicinity, you had to write them down. Hand-written, eloquent prose professing a burning affection was the go-to romantic gesture, and history is filled with beautiful missives from all types of relationships, and even among best friends. And guess what? It’s not too late to try it yourself!
Chase Stokes in Real Life
The ‘Outer Banks’ star may be on the brink of mega-stardom, but he’s not thinking about all that. Instead, he’s focusing on honesty, authenticity, and the “next right thing.”
Chase Stokes is everywhere right now—literally. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, but he’s in Los Angeles at the moment. When he’s not in either of those places, he’s likely traveling across the country to support his girlfriend, singer Kelsea Ballerini, at her concerts or in New York City for work. Recently, he’s been on red carpets for his latest movie, Uglies, and promoting season four of his hit Netflix show, Outer Banks. Stokes is a mental health advocate and an ambassador for Glenn Close’s organization, Bring Change to Mind, for which he participates in panels and Zoom calls with young people. He’s booked ad campaigns for Armani Beauty and Omega watches. Once, I walked past a giant billboard in Manhattan’s Soho of Stokes modeling American Eagle.
A Stick of Butter For a Snack? What to Know About the Viral Trend
In recent years, butter has evolved. Yes, it’s still delicious—but its reputation has definitely transformed. Once shunned as an unhealthy indulgence, it is recently being rebranded as an essential superfood.
At least on social media, anyway. From elaborate “butter boards” to “butter coffee” to butter-stuffed dates, it seems people can’t get enough of the quintessential dairy product. And it doesn’t stop there. Recently, “carnivore diet” influencers have been promoting whole sticks of butter as the perfect, portable snack. “It’s really good for you,” exclaims the creator of one highly-watched video featuring gratuitous slabs of butter being showered over burger patties and large sticks of butter being bitten into like candy bars.
What’s the Difference Between Natural and Dutch-Process Cocoa Powder?
Choosing the right one can make or break your baked goods.
From rich and gooey Double Chocolate Chunk Brownies to dense and fudgy Chocolate Loaf Cake, cocoa powder is an unsung hero in the kitchen. The finely ground chocolatey powder adds bold flavor to cookies, hot chocolate, ice cream, and more. With several types of cocoa powder found in the baking aisle, selecting the right one for your dessert can be a daunting task. Here’s everything you need to know about different types of cocoa powder and when to use them.
It’s Peak Persimmon Season: Here’s What You Need to Know Before Buying
You’re on your way to becoming a persimmon pro.
Persimmons originated in China but are now grown in other parts of the world, such as Korea, Japan, Brazil, and the United States. They have a smooth peel that can range from light orange to red-orange. Their season typically runs from October through December.
Taste-wise, persimmons have a profile unlike any other fruit; many people describe them as a mango, apricot, and pumpkin wrapped into one. Depending on the preparation and persimmon variety, subtler notes like honey and cinnamon can also be coaxed out.
Tom Holland Talked With Us About His New Nonalcoholic Beer and the Joyful Mission Behind It
The ‘Spider-Man’ star opens up about his sobriety, support, and how he’s paying it forward with a new beer he hopes will make everyone feel welcome.
Tom Holland is a man of tremendous enthusiasm. This isn’t news to anyone who’s seen the 28-year-old Spider-Man star fully commit to a fishnet-stockings-clad dance routine to Rhianna’s “Umbrella,” take a swing in a PGA Celebrity Pro-Am, or tread the boards of a West End theater. Growing up in the U.K., a place he correctly notes as having a “huge drinking culture,” it seemed only natural that Holland would embrace drinking pints with similar gusto. That was fine, he thought — until a post-holiday pause for Dry January in 2022 revealed an uncomfortable truth.
Here’s How Gen Z Is Changing High Tea
Afternoon tea is actually exciting now — and these are the tea rooms leading the change.
This return to the tea room — especially from a generation that values creativity, inclusivity, and aesthetic experiences — has resulted in a reimagination of the entire afternoon tea experience. Chefs are now pouring more heart and creativity into their menus and tapping into inspirations that go far beyond “surprising sprigs of dill.” In London, famed French pâtissier Cedric Grolet turned his entire Goûtea menu at The Berkeley into a trompe l’œil (optical illusion) with a decidedly French take (the name is a blend of a British tea and French goûter, which is the art of snacking). Nothing is as it seems, as glossy sculpted fruits and savory bites pair with nontraditional beverages like flat whites, chai lattes, and mint infusions (not to mention glasses of vintage Dom Pérignon or non-vintage/nonalcoholic glasses of Wild Idol for an extra charge).
Cynthia Erivo Speaks Out on Fan-Edited ‘Wicked’ Poster: “This Is Just Deeply Hurtful”
The movie’s co-star took to social media to argue that hiding her eyes and much of her face in the altered poster “is to erase me.”
Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has called out a fan-made movie poster for the highly anticipated movie musical from Universal Pictures as “deeply hurtful.”
The altered version of the official Universal poster hides Erivo’s eyes and much of her face to get closer to the original animated Broadway poster, where her character’s eyes were obscured by a wide-brimmed hat.
“The original poster is an illustration. I am a real life human being, whose chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer … because without words we communicate with our eyes,” Eviro, who plays Elphaba in Wicked, stated on her Instagram Story and X pages.
The new burnout generation
Grind culture has come for the teens.
In high school, Jayden Dial worked on a podcast, planned school events, and made a film. That was on top of doing her homework and applying to college. But sometimes, she still felt like she wasn’t doing enough.
Jayden, now 18, would see kids her age on YouTube talking about their packed routines — “I worked out, I meditated, I read my Bible” — and she’d think, “Oh my God, I need to be so, so productive.”
This kind of productivity anxiety is probably familiar to many adults. I, for example, have been known to stress myself out watching reels of parents somehow cleaning their houses while kids play happily in the background.
But according to a new report by the nonprofit Common Sense Media and researchers at Harvard and Indiana University, the pressure to live a scheduled, optimized, perfected life has trickled down to teenagers, leading to symptoms of stress and burnout more closely associated with people decades older.
For nearly two decades, Florence Welch’s songs have offered a mythic view not only of pop music but of the glories and rages of being a female artist today.
Perhaps it’s enough to say that Welch has one of the most distinctively powerful voices in popular music. My friend the 33-year-old performer Ganavya Doraiswamy, who’s trained in both jazz and South Asian devotional singing — the only other person I’ve ever met with a voice whose power and distinctiveness could match Welch’s — said that she has uyir, Tamil for “life breath,” in her voice, which Doraiswamy was trained to listen for as the soul of vocal art. “It sounds sometimes like [she] is singing to herself and we get to listen in, like we are privy to someone singing to themselves, and they’re making the world less unbearable,” she said. Uyir seems to be something like Federico García Lorca’s duende, of which the great Spanish poet said in a 1933 lecture, “All that has dark sounds has duende. … The duende is a force not a labor, a struggle not a thought. I heard an old maestro of the guitar say: ‘The duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning, it’s not a question of skill but of a style that’s truly alive: meaning, it’s in the veins: meaning, it’s of the most ancient culture of immediate creation.”
Is Hugh Grant’s Most Convincing Character ‘Hugh Grant’?
The seemingly droll, breezy star is actually sentimental about his family and utterly serious about his work, including his villainous turn in “Heretic.”
At 64, Grant is enjoying what he calls “the freak-show era” of his career, playing an unlikely rogue’s gallery of suave miscreants (“The Undoing,” “A Very English Scandal”), seedy gangsters (“The Gentlemen”), power-hungry tricksters (“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”) and self-deluded thespians (“Paddington 2” and “Unfrosted”), not to mention the bumptious little Oompa-Loompa in “Wonka.” That abashed, floppy-haired, benign early version of himself — that was never who he was anyway, he says.
“My mistake was that I suddenly got this massive success with ‘Four Weddings’ and I thought, ah, well, if that’s what people love so much, I’ll be that person in real life, too,” he said. “So I used to do interviews where I was Mr. Stuttery Blinky, and it’s my fault that I was then shoved into a box marked ‘Mr. Stuttery Blinky.’ And people were, quite rightly, repelled by it in the end.”
Nicola Coughlan Says Being Called a ‘Plus-Size Heroine’ After Bridgerton Nudity Scenes Is ‘Insulting’
“Making it about how I look is reductive and boring,” the actress said of the response to her nudity in season 3 of the Netflix hit series
Nicola Coughlan is not here for your body shaming.
The actress bared much of her skin as she led season 3 of Bridgerton alongside Luke Newton, and she’s hitting back at people who called her “brave” for being vulnerable.
“Don’t call me brave. I have a cracking pair of boobs. There’s nothing brave about that, that’s actually just me showing them off,” she told TIME of the response to her nude scenes — and her body more generally.
“I’m a few sizes below the average size of a woman in the U.K. and I’m seen as a ‘plus-size heroine,'” she said. “Making it about how I look is reductive and boring.”
“I Made My Own Lane”: A Rare Interview With Liza Minnelli
“I was never allowed to be a kid until I got to be a grown-up,” said Liza Minnelli in the pages of this magazine. As the progeny of two massive talents, Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli, being a child of Hollywood was, for Liza, a career in itself. But as we all know, she sailed her own course into stardom, and is maybe the most talented singer and dancer to ever jump from the stage to the screen. Liza, with boundless personality and energy, was also a Warhol and Interview magazine darling, having been first introduced to Andy in the early ’70s by their mutual friend Halston. As Andy said in his 1979 book Exposures, “Liza is always on and I am always off. Liza has what Diana Vreeland calls ‘built-in show biz.’ Whenever Liza walks into a room, everything stops and people wait for the act to begin.” That fact is as true today as it was then. If there is anyone left who can be called a legend, it’s her. For her fourth Interview cover, Liza got together with her old friend and fellow musical talent Michael Feinstein, at her home in West Hollywood, to discuss memories of her famous childhood. The two communicate the way only two old Broadway stars can—erupting mid-sentence into standards by Nat King Cole, Cole Porter, Ella Fitzgerald, and the like. If any laugh should be recorded and preserved for future generations, it’s the excited and devious laugh of Liza, someone eternally young.
10 Black Flowers That Will Add Drama to Your Garden
These flowers bloom in shades of deep purple and red that are so dark, you’ll be seeing black—and loving it in your landscape.
Black flowers add a dramatic touch to any garden. In addition to their undeniable wow factor, pollinators love them. Dark blooms absorb more solar radiation than light ones, which makes them the warmest blooms in a garden. “Bees have been proven to prefer warm nectar over cold nectar,” says Bobby Mottern, director of horticulture for Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University.
Black flowers also add depth to landscapes and floral arrangements, where darker shades seem to recede while light ones visually advance. “When you use these to juxtapose with each other, you get this fantastic depth perception that makes the garden possibly look deeper or larger,” Mottern says. “So it’s fun to play with the eye with these darker and lighter colors.”
If you want to add more drama to your garden, we asked our experts to share their favorite black and nearly black flowers. Here’s what they recommended.
35 Modern Living Room Ideas for a Contemporary Yet Timeless Space
Your family’s favorite space deserves a modern makeover.
In contrast to the ornate detailing and fussy design of older aesthetics, modern design is known for its emphasis on sleek silhouettes, functional layouts, and natural materials. Wood and leather accents, organic shapes, and earthy hues make this style a relaxed, practical, and pretty option for many homeowners.
The living rooms on this list pull together all the key elements of modern design: slim seating, low-profile sofas, striking artwork, crisp geometry, and lush textures. The resulting spaces offer form and function that works as well for family movie nights as for adults-only cocktail parties.
My Favorite Spy Stories Are Set in Europe, so I Planned an Espionage-themed Trip Across the Continent
The Cold War may be over, but the shadow of espionage still flourishes in romantic corners of Europe.
I love spy stories. Their characters seem to be privy to great secrets about the world. They are incredible travelers, who know how to navigate a Peugeot through Paris at high speed, or disappear down a back alley in Budapest. They always patronize the best coffee shops and dive bars, stay in the most picturesque safe houses, and enact key plot points at a city’s most iconic landmark.
With this in mind, I planned a trip through Continental Europe, the setting of my favorite Cold War–era espionage films and novels. I would also take photographs along the way. Not tourist snaps so much as stills from a spy movie that would never be made: my own personal version of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
[Photo Credit: marriott.com]
- T LOunge
