This Trump campaign fiasco at Arlington National Cemetery has turned into a huge catastrophe. To recap, two Gold Star families invited Donald Trump to a wreath-laying at Arlington. Trump rolled up to Arlington with his campaign staff, a videographer and photographers. Arlington’s staffers told him, in no uncertain terms, that he could not bring his own photographers into this sacred place, much less use the footage and photos for campaign purposes. Trump staffers assaulted one Arlington employee, a woman, over it. The families whose loved ones are buried in Arlington have now been caught up in Trump’s insane fiasco and they are pissed:

The family of a Green Beret who died by suicide after serving eight combat tours and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery expressed concern on Wednesday that Donald J. Trump’s campaign had filmed his gravesite without permission as Mr. Trump stood in an area where campaign photography isn’t allowed.

Relatives of Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano issued their statement two days after Mr. Trump’s visit, which also included a confrontation between members of the Trump campaign and an Arlington employee. The former president’s campaign took video in a heavily restricted section of the cemetery known as Section 60, which is largely reserved for the fallen veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

A woman who works at the cemetery filed an incident report with the military authorities over the altercation. But the official, who has not been identified, later declined to press charges. Military officials said she feared Mr. Trump’s supporters pursuing retaliation.

Sergeant Marckesano died on July 7, 2020, after moving to Washington to begin a job at the Pentagon. He had three children, and friends said he had chronic post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in combat. He earned Silver and Bronze Stars during his service. His gravesite is adjacent to that of Staff Sergeant Darin Taylor Hoover, a Marine who was killed in the 2021 bombing at Abbey Gate outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

The Hoover family granted permission to the Trump team to film and take photographs at the gravesite; the Marckesano family did not, and filming and photographing at the gravesite for political purposes is a violation of federal law, according to cemetery officials. Yet Sergeant Marckesano’s grave was shown in photos from the visit that were published online. A video was posted to Mr. Trump’s TikTok account featuring footage from the Section 60 visit and the gravestones from behind, with narration criticizing the handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

In a statement from Sergeant Marckesano’s relatives after being contacted by The New York Times, his sister, Michele, said, “We fully support Staff Sergeant Darin Hoover’s family and the other families in their quest for answers and accountability regarding the Afghanistan withdrawal and the tragedy at Abbey Gate. However, according to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit to Staff Sergeant Hoover’s gravesite in Section 60, which lays directly next to my brother’s grave. We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected accordingly.”

[From The NY Times]

Yes, there was a TikTok. I’m including it below. The families who invited Trump are currently insisting that they gave their permission for Trump to photograph and record the visit. But that’s not their permission to give – there are Arlington regulations and federal laws about this. A campaign can’t barge its way into Arlington and start filming a campaign ad. That’s grotesque.

ANC is not releasing any further info about the incident at this time. ANC media policy: “ANC will not authorize any filming for partisan, political or fundraising purposes, in accordance with the Hatch Act, 32 CFR 553, and AR 360-1.” This was posted to Trump’s TikTok yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Gun7y03JHT

— Jim LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) August 28, 2024

Arlington National Cemetery confirmed an incident took place between Trump campaign members and cemetery staff when former President Trump visited to commemorate the three-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan.
@GarrettHaake reports on what happened. pic.twitter.com/LIISb89wd1

— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) August 28, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid, social media.

JD Vance has chimed in about Donald Trump’s grotesque violation at Arlington National Cemetery this week. Two Gold Star families invited Trump to what was supposed to be a private wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington. That is their right – Gold Star families can invite whoever they want to private events at Arlington. The problem was that Trump brought campaign staffers, including a photographer and videographer, and they turned the wreath-laying into a campaign event. The Trump campaign even made and posted a TikTok using footage from Arlington (which is against federal law). Trump staffers also assaulted a woman who works at Arlington because she tried to stop them from filming there. Other Gold Star families are incredibly offended by all of this and it’s an awful story for the Trump-Vance campaign. Instead of apologizing, they sent JD Vance out to tell Kamala Harris to “go to hell.”

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance said at a campaign event on Wednesday that he thinks Vice President Kamala Harris “can go to hell,” adding to the increasingly personal attacks former president Donald Trump’s campaign has lodged against the Democratic presidential nominee in recent days.

A reporter at the campaign event asked Vance about an altercation involving Trump campaign staff that took place at Arlington National Cemetery, which the former president visited Monday to mark the third anniversary of the Islamic State bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members during the evacuation from Afghanistan. Federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries and as The Washington Post previously reported, a cemetery employee tried to enforce the rules as provided to her by blocking Trump’s team from bringing cameras to the graves of U.S. service members killed in recent years, according to a senior defense official and another person briefed on the incident. A larger male campaign aide insisted the camera was allowed and pushed past the cemetery employee.

Vance said at his campaign stop in Erie, Pa., on Wednesday that the press was “creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one.” He said the family members of fallen service members in attendance “invited [Trump] to be there and to support them.” But the Ohio senator, a military veteran, then used the question to tie the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal to the Democratic presidential candidate.

“Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We’re going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives? It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened,” he asserted, though there have been extensive federal investigations into the Abbey Gate bombing.

Vance accused Harris of criticizing Trump’s visit to the cemetery, saying: “And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can — she can go to hell.”

Harris, who began a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday, did not bring up the issue on the campaign trail. In an interview with CNN that aired earlier Wednesday — before Vance’s campaign events — Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said the cemetery incident was “pretty sad” but “not surprising coming from the Trump team.”

[From WaPo]

Again, no one has said that Trump couldn’t or shouldn’t go to Arlington when specifically invited by families. The problem is not that Trump went to Arlington. The problem is that he turned it into a campaign event. The problem is that his team assaulted an Arlington employee (a servicewoman) when she tried to stop them from violating federal law. The problem is that Trump showed a massive amount of disrespect for the other fallen soldiers who are buried in Arlington. The problem is that the Trump campaign turned this horrible incident into a TikTok. Vance knows all of this and he’s desperately trying to make it all about Kamala Harris.

Vance: “You’re acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite. He was there providing emotional support to brave Americans who lost loved ones and there happened to be a camera there.”

HE FILMED A TV COMMERCIAL AT A GRAVESITE.

pic.twitter.com/fgaKsEvO8F

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) August 29, 2024

Vance on Harris: “She can go to hell.”

You can see his pause as he reads the words on the prompter. He knows it’s disgraceful and isn’t sure who put those words there—but then he says it anyway.

We deserve better leaders than this.

pic.twitter.com/Pl7qu9pdcq

— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) August 29, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.

Jeremy Allen White’s Calvin Klein ads are hot. [OMG Blog]
What’s going on with Meryl Streep & Martin Short? [LaineyGossip]
Is Armie Hammer trying to get sympathy? Because IDGAF. [Just Jared]
I don’t know how people can watch a show like Chimp Crazy. [Pajiba]
I adore Winona Ryder’s earrings in these old photos. [Go Fug Yourself]
The return of Lucas Hedges. [Socialite Life]
Taylor Russell wore a great vintage Galliano suit. [RCFA]
Here’s the buzzy teaser for the new season of 9-1-1. [Seriously OMG]
Adam Sandler looks out for his bros but not his ladies. [Buzzfeed]
A Big Tips Texas star killed her husband?? [Starcasm]
Netflix’s show about the Menendez brothers actually looks interesting. [Hollywood Life]

Jeremy Allen White is a sun-drenched daydream. at ease in the latest denim and Cotton Classics underwear.

directed by Mert Alas. pic.twitter.com/obbLp8Csa6

— calvinklein (@CalvinKlein) August 27, 2024

My mother is a retired public school teacher. I grew up around teachers and educators. So many young adults, fresh out of college, immediately begin teaching in public schools. Many men and women dedicate so much of their lives to teaching. But according to JD Vance, those teachers are “brainwashing” children with their hedonistic, childless lifestyles. Yes, Vance’s disgust for “the childless” extends to educators and teachers.

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, attacked teachers who don’t have children in remarks in 2021 that resurfaced Tuesday. In his public comments, he reserved specific criticism for Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers.

“You know, so many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids, trying to brainwash the minds of our children. That really disorients me and that really disturbs me,” Vance said at a Center for Christian Virtue leadership forum moderated by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and the group’s president, Aaron Baer, in October 2021. Vance was joined by other Republican candidates in Ohio’s Senate race for 2022.

When the candidates were asked about handling problems with schools and making them more responsive to parents, Vance took aim at Weingarten, who has described herself as “a mother by marriage,” by saying she “doesn’t have a single child.”

“If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone,” he said in a 30-second clip the liberal news site Heartland Signal resurfaced Tuesday. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign later amplified the clip.

[From NBC News]

There’s truly nothing even rational behind this sentiment – why in the world would teachers need to be parents as a qualification for teaching? Why would it matter at all? It only matters to JD Vance because he’s constantly in women’s business and he thinks it’s his right, as a white man, to dictate everyone’s reproductive choices. Anyway, it’s all happening in this short clip – Vance’s personal attack on Randi Weingarten, his attack on childless teachers and the disgusting attack on teachers as “brainwashing and destroying the minds of children.” Dude, they’re just teaching kids math and English. “Woke math and childless literature,” JD cries.

Unearthed audio: JD Vance says teachers who do not have biological children “disorient and really disturb” him: “She should have some of her own [children]” pic.twitter.com/Rqx2PLfjT5

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 27, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.

One of my pet peeves is when people act as if no one has ever told Princess Diana’s story, or as if people don’t really know about her. While many young people are newly fascinated with Diana, people who were alive in the 1980s and ‘90s remember a lot about Diana. As the years pass, and I’ll just speak for myself here, the more I think that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about Diana’s death and everything that happened that night in Paris. Well, Deadline reports that a docuseries is being made called Who Killed Diana? Provocative title.

Ahead of the anniversary of the tragedy in Paris, a new docuseries about Princess Diana is in the works. EverWonder Studio, the company founded by former Time Studios President Ian Orefice and backed by Jeff Zucker’s RedBird IMI, is teaming with Emma Cooper’s Empress Films, the company behind Netflix docs Depp vs. Heard and The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe, on a three-part series.

Who Killed Diana? will explore the circumstances surrounding the death of the Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997. It will feature rare and, in some cases, the first ever interviews with several key sources connected to the accident that caused Diana’s death. It will cast new light on the case that has captured the world’s attention for decades.

It is the first of a broader franchise between EverWonder and Empress, which was also behind Netflix’s Who Killed Jill Dando?. The strand will look at the shocking deaths of iconic figures, hoping to uncover new information about the circumstances that led to the notable deaths, while examining the human stories and historical context at the center of these cases.

[From Deadline]

There were several series and documentaries done around the 25th anniversary of her death in 2022. Discovery+ did a docuseries called The Diana Investigations, which leaned heavily into the British investigation into Diana’s death, conducted by Lord Stevens. He gave interviews back in 2022 and I’m still struck by how selective he was with who he believes and what really happened. Also in 2022: several of the former al-Fayed bodyguards gave interviews, and two of them swore up and down that British intelligence was heavily monitoring Diana that whole summer. That’s partially shown in The Crown as well – Charles and the family openly discuss Diana’s activities and whereabouts constantly. All of which to say… yeah, I’ll probably watch this. I hope they really talk about some of the “conspiracies” too. Like the “blinding flash” story. And the messiness about Henri Paul’s alcohol level.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Cover Images.

Something interesting is happening right now. Over the weekend, Page Six got the ball rolling with multiple exclusives about Ben Affleck and Kick Kennedy, the 36-year-old actress/socialite and daughter of Robert Kennedy Jr. Page Six’s sources had Ben and Kick hanging out at the Polo Lounge and elsewhere. DeuxMoi had some gossip too, that Ben and Kick were spending time together “since June” and they’ve been spending the night together too. Then People Magazine jumped on the bandwagon and they have their own sources who confirmed the rumors. The pile-on happened very quickly and Ben was getting branded with the “degenerate cheater” tag. So his rep finally went on the record:

Ben Affleck and Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy are not dating, the actor’s rep says.

“There is no truth to any of it. I don’t know if they even know each other,” says Jen Allen, Affleck’s spokesperson, in a statement obtained by PEOPLE on Tuesday, Aug. 27.

Multiple sources recently told PEOPLE that Affleck, 52, and Kick, 36, have been “spending time together,” with one source saying they’d been linked since late spring.

[From People]

What’s funny is that People Mag already ran Jen Allen’s quote as something from an unnamed source, so Jen Allen must have called them back and said “I guess I have to deny it on the record.” Well, even an on-the-record denial isn’t stopping the gossip. No one buys it, not after independent verification from People Mag. Meanwhile, Page Six claims that Ben and Kick were seeing each other back in 2019-2020, before he met Ana de Armas.

Kick Kennedy and Ben Affleck started hanging out even before the Oscar winner began dating “Blonde” star Ana de Armas in March 2020, sources tell Page Six. Affleck and Kennedy have been spotted together at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel over the past few months, as Page Six revealed. However, it appears they have been pals for longer than initially thought.

“Their friendship has been going on for a while, even before Ana,” one Hollywood insider told Page Six. “When Ben started seeing Ana in 2020 and chose to quarantine with her during Covid, Kick was less than thrilled.”

After things got rocky with wife Jennifer Lopez earlier this year, Affleck got back in touch with Kick, we’re told, and they struck up their friendship again.

Despite multiple sources confirming to People magazine that Affleck, 52, and Kennedy, 36, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have been “spending time together,” a spokesperson for Affleck denied they were dating, telling the outlet Tuesday, “There’s no truth to any of it. I don’t know if they even know each other.”

A Hollywood source who has worked with Affleck, told us, “Affleck would love nothing more than to be part of the Kennedy clan. It’s a dream for any Boston guy … I think he would rather have that than a billion-dollar, red-carpet glam life with J. Lo.”

[From Page Six]

I understand the chokehold the Kennedys have on people in Massachusetts (the Kennedys are a tragic-yet-glam dynasty) but why choose a Kennedy from one of the most rotten branches of the Kennedy tree? Robert Kennedy Jr is trash and you would think people would be wary of even being associated with his children. Anyway, I find it interesting… Ben didn’t want this to come out right now, in the way it did. Ben doesn’t want people to know that he’s been dealing with Kick Kennedy for years.

Photos courtesy of Kick’s IG, Avalon Red, Cover Images and Backgrid.

For years, one of my favorite sub-genres of royal gossip is “royal thunder-stealing.” Thunder-stealing is standard operating procedure in the Windsor clan, as the left-behind Windsors wrongly believed that they would get more attention if they pushed out the most charismatic royals. In recent years, King Charles and Queen Camilla have felt like Prince William and Kate are constantly stealing their thunder, and the whole family is in a constant state of thunder-security because, at any moment, Prince Harry and Meghan could steal their thunder by simply walking outside or making an announcement of future plans. On Monday, Penguin Random House announced the release date for the paperback edition of Prince Harry’s Spare. This, too, stole the left-behinds’ thunder. From a hilariously disturbed column in the Daily Express: “Prince Harry’s Spare update was a calculated move to disrupt the Royal Family’s plans.” LMAO.

It seems no accident that the dates surrounding Prince Harry’s paperback edition of Spare coincide with key moments for the Royal Family. While some might interpret the Duke of Sussex deciding not to add new chapters as an olive branch to smooth over tensions, I find the timing of the announcements highly suspect.

Take, for instance, the decision to announce the release of the paperback on Monday, right as the Royal Family are holidaying at Balmoral. This is time for the Firm to rest and reflect after a rather turbulent year, a brief pause from the public eye. Yet, the announcement feels less like a coincidence and more like a calculated move to disrupt the Royal Family’s plans.

The absence of Prince Harry, Meghan, and their children from this year’s Balmoral gathering, dubbed the “Balmoral summit,” speaks volumes. Insiders suggest the Sussexes are a central topic of discussion, adding an extra layer of tension to their already fraught relationship. So the announcement at this time strikes me as something of a warning shot to say that although they are not physically there with the family at Balmoral, the Spare is still there and always will be!

More pointedly, the paperback’s October release clashes with King Charles’s high-profile appearance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa – the first he will attend as King. Set to be published in the US on October 22, and the UK just two days later, Spare’s release will undoubtedly cast a shadow over an event of significant importance to the monarch. This is no small matter, especially considering the 75-year-old monarch’s ongoing cancer battle and the effort he’s putting into this trip. To overshadow such a moment suggests more than just poor timing – it hints at an agenda.

The re-release of Spare will inevitably dredge up the book’s bombshell claims, from Prince William’s alleged physical altercation with Harry to the rift between Meghan and Kate. By keeping the contents unchanged, Harry ensures these revelations remain fresh in the public mind, reigniting the drama that has strained his relationship with the family.

[From The Daily Express]

Don’t you understand, the announcement of a paperback edition stole the Windsors’ thunder WHILE THEY’RE ON VACATION. They were just innocently sitting around Balmoral, holding summits about what to do about Prince Harry and Meghan, when BAM, there was news of a paperback from America! Fetch the smelling salts and a royal rota reporter, this simply cannot stand! What’s also funny is that they couldn’t claim that the Sussexes’ Colombian tour stole anyone’s thunder, because the left-behind Windsors were just farting around, doing nothing and trying to avoid the white nationalist riots in England. Good times. As for the paperback coming out during Charles’ big overseas trip… lol. Oh well!

Once again, I have to remind these idiots: if you wanted to control Harry and Meghan’s schedule and have a say in how and when they announce things, you probably should have taken them up on their offer to be half-in the cult.

Photos courtesy of WellChild, CBS screenshots, Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Here are some photos of Angelina Jolie arriving in Italy ahead of the Venice Film Festival premiere of Maria. She stars as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s latest biographical film. Angelina wore a “short-sleeve trench coat” as she arrived in Venice, and Vogue is obsessed with the summer trench and her Mulberry boots. Fingers crossed that Angelina doesn’t promote this film in a variety of sack dresses. Meanwhile, it’s looking pretty certain that Angelina will also go to Canada for the Toronto Film Festival. Not for Maria, but for the film she directed, Without Blood. Not only will she premiere Without Blood at TIFF, she’s also receiving the TIFF Tribute Award. Good!

Angelina Jolie is set to receive the TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival.

The Oscar-winning actress will be honored on Sept. 8 at the TIFF fundraiser, while also bringing her latest film, Without Blood, to Toronto for a world premiere. Written, directed and produced by Jolie, Without Blood is a war drama based on the Alessandro Baricco novel of the same name and tells the story of a girl’s quest for revenge and healing during a time of conflict. Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir have lead roles.

Jolie will be feted alongside fellow trophy winners Amy Adams, Jharrel Jerome, Cate Blanchett, Mike Leigh, Durga Chew-Bose, David Cronenberg, Clément Ducol, and Camille and Zhao Tao. TIFF Tribute Award honorees tend to have films in Toronto’s official lineup.

Jolie also brought her earlier films First They Killed My Father and The Breadwinner, which she executive produced, to Toronto for launches.

[From THR]

Jolie fans, I really hope that we have an amazing fall and an amazing awards season. I don’t have a sense of how Without Blood will be received, but the early buzz on Maria is that it will be an awards contender. I think Angelina will probably promote both films concurrently, and it will help if Without Blood gets some critical buzz too. So many red carpets! So many capes and sack dresses! I’m so excited. As for this TIFF award… yeah, they pass these out like candy, but still, it’s nice. I’m glad she’s being honored.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Jenna Ortega covers the September issue of Vanity Fair, all to promote Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to Tim Burton’s classic comedy. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara have returned to their roles, and Jenna was cast perfectly as Winona’s goth daughter. While that’s the film she’s promoting, the bulk of the interview is about Wednesday, the hit Netflix show starring Ortega as Wednesday Addams. She’s filming the second season now in Ireland and it should be out next year… meaning a two-and-half year wait in between seasons? Insane. I enjoyed this interview because I root for Ortega, even if she sometimes says some weird things. She comes across as very sensitive and private. Some highlights:

Her life after ‘Wednesday’ became a monster success: “A majority of the last year and a half has felt very far from me.” She describes the experience almost like a sci-fi thriller: “very dissociative and alien and out-of-body. When people mention my name, it’s almost like my name has been taken from me. Now I just feel like I’m floating and…I’m up for interpretation.”

Her feelings on being a “celebrity”: Celebrity is “absolutely ridiculous. I remember feeling really wrong for resisting it… I think if anybody were in my shoes and reacted to it in a welcoming manner, there’s something severely wrong with you.”

Growing up in La Quinta, California: “I find myself constantly reaching back to what once was… I never had my own room growing up. And now I get to travel the world.”

Stepping foot on the ‘Beetlejuice’ set: “Every time I walked onto that set, I wanted to remember it for the rest of my life. You have Willem Dafoe in a trench coat, sliding down in a back pew, just watching everyone,” she says, while Ryder stood by with her pointy bangs of yore. Then Keaton materialized. “I remember feeling my soul leave my body for a second… And then in between takes, he’s sitting down and drinking his tea.”

At 18 years old, she wanted to be a producer on ‘Wednesday’: “I think it’s natural to be fearful of signing your life away and wanting some sort of agency or wanting confirmation that your voice would be heard. I’m aware of my position as an actor. I know that I’m not in charge…. But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what’s going on behind the scenes because she’s onscreen every second of the project.” She says she was told that it wasn’t common for actors to produce in the first season of a series but that they could revisit the issue in season two. “And then I think a lot of the work that I ended up doing and a lot of the conversations that I was having were more of a producer’s conversations half the time.”

On the major backlash to her claims, last year, that she rewrote ‘Wednesday’ scripts and punched up her dialogue: “To be fair… I think I probably could have been….” Then she hesitates, dangling the longest silence of our interview. “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler. I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better. Everything that I said felt so magnified…. It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself.”

You can’t please everybody: “You’re never going to please everybody, and as someone who naturally was a people pleaser, that was really hard for me to understand. Some people just may not like you…and that’s entirely fine.” In fact, “I got sick of myself last year. My face was everywhere…so it’s like, fair enough, if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too.”

The backlash to a young woman standing up for herself: “Women have to be princesses. They have to be elegant and classy and so kind and…then when they’re outspoken, they can’t be tamed and they’re a mess.”

On Wednesday’s Latin heritage: Ortega likes that Wednesday’s Latinness is “not being shoved down your throat. There’s nothing worse than when they have the side Mexican character who’s carrying the flag on their shoulder. We’re so much more than that.”

Her father is Mexican-American & her mother is Puerto Rican: “But then, oftentimes, you’re just not good enough. Because I wasn’t born in a Spanish-speaking country, I know people have a hard time connecting with me.” Ortega doesn’t speak Spanish fluently, nor does her father, but it was her mother’s first language. “I think there’s a part of me that carries a bit of shame. For a second I was almost nervous to speak about my family’s background because…I feel like I was made to feel like it wasn’t…” She stops short before saying “valid” or some variation thereof. “But also, something that I’m learning is…it’s not my job to carry the weight of everybody who’s ever had that experience.”

[From Vanity Fair]

The thing about asking to be a producer on Wednesday in the first season, when she was only 18 years old, is so bold. It reminds me of an interview I read with Minnie Driver, where she was talking about her awe for the younger actresses standing up for themselves and stepping into a producer’s role really early in their careers. Minnie was like – my generation never did that and we should have, and it’s badass that the girls are doing it now. Anyway, Jenna is now a producer on Wednesday, as of Season 2. As for the Latin heritage stuff… I didn’t know that she doesn’t speak Spanish. If it wasn’t spoken at home, then yeah, she wouldn’t have picked it up. And I like that she represents the diversity of Latina experiences. Not every Latin actress has to play a trope or stereotype. There are goth Latinas. There are nerd Latinas. There are Latinas who don’t speak Spanish.

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Cover & IG courtesy of Vanity Fair.

It’s really crazy to watch Francis Ford Coppola destroy any and all goodwill. Coppola is currently hyping his long-gestating passion project, Megalopolis. He’s been talking about this fakakta film for years, trying to get financing for it and trying to get actors to sign on to it. He finally made it and the film premiered at Cannes to lukewarm reviews and a flurry of bad press. There were credible and widespread reports that Coppola mistreated women during the production. The mistreatment was… Coppola being way too “friendly” and “handsy,” trying to kiss female extras and being generally sleazy. In a new Rolling Stone interview, Coppola didn’t do much to dispute the stories:

In a May report by The Guardian, multiple anonymous crew members said that Coppola incorporated “old school” tactics to “try to get [female extras] in the mood” for a nightclub scene. That included allegedly hugging and kissing actresses during takes.

“You’re talking about the Guardian piece, which is totally untrue. If you read that piece, you’ll realize that whoever the sources were — and I honestly don’t know who the sources were — it’s the same people who provided quotes for that Hollywood Reporter piece that said all these people were fired or resigned, and that there was a mass exodus, all of that,” Coppola said, citing the below-the-line team leaving in 2022. “And the truth of the matter is, they were looking for some sort of dirt. The young women I kissed on the cheek, in regards to the New Year’s scene, they were young women I knew.”

Coppola continued, “It’s all so ridiculous. Look at the timing of that article. It’s right before we’re about to premiere the film at Cannes. They’re just trying to damage the picture.”

Previous sources told Variety that writer/director Coppola was unprofessional during the scene in question and ruined takes to touch the actresses in frame. One of the sources claimed that Coppola announced on a microphone, “Sorry, if I come up to you and kiss you. Just know it’s solely for my pleasure.”

[From IndieWire]

Again, I believe the industry reporting about Coppola’s lecherous behavior on set. “I knew those women” is not a defense when women are coming out and saying that he made them uncomfortable. “They’re trying to ruin the film” is also not a valid defense when his behavior is the problem. Speaking of Coppola’s problematic behavior, it turns out that he’s become one of those crusaders against all things “woke.”

Francis Ford Coppola told Rolling Stone that his intention with “Megalopolis” was to make a movie that could not be deemed “some woke Hollywood production.” The cast includes controversial actors such as Jon Voight, who has turned heads in Hollywood for his conservative views and outspoken support for Donald Trump, and Shia LaBeouf, who was accused of sexual assault in 2021.

“What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers,” Coppola said. “The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought.”

As far as working with LaBeouf, who has barely starred in any movies since accusations surfaced against him, Coppola praised the actor while admitting things were tense with him.
Popular on Variety

“Shia [LaBeouf] really took to it,” Coppola said. “I had no experience working with him prior to this, but he deliberately sets up a tension between himself and the director to an extreme degree. He reminds me of Dennis Hopper, who would do something similar, and then you’d say, ‘Just go do anything,’ and then they go off and do something brilliant.

[From Variety]

This will be used as an example, for years to come, of how a generational talent ruined all of his industry goodwill by making a sh-tty movie and going all-in on the losing side of several culture wars all at once. “Me Too was stupid, I should be able to do what I want with women” and “I’m going to hire a credibly accused domestic abuser, that will show everyone!” And then when everything he touches flops hard, he’ll blame “woke culture.” What a disappointment.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.