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Get in tune with the 2022 Grammys and more | CNN

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Get in tune with the 2022 Grammys and more | CNN



CNN
 — 

Did you neglect concerning the Grammys?

I’m so used to the Academy Awards historically being the final present of awards season that I have to admit it threw me after I remembered in my post-Oscars haze that the sixty fourth Annual Grammy Awards are Sunday.

So the least I can do is lead this week’s publication with it, proper?

The 2022 Grammy Awards

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It’s music’s largest evening, set to be full of performances from a few of the largest stars.

Jon Batiste, the musician who additionally serves because the bandleader on “The Late Present With Stephen Colbert,” leads in nominations with 11, adopted by Justin Bieber, H.E.R., Doja Cat, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo.

Search for a tribute to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died just lately on the age of fifty earlier than a present in Colombia. The band had been scheduled to carry out on the Grammy ceremony.

‘Type It Out’

(From left) Sisters Brandie Larsen and Ryan Eiesland, stars of

Itching for some spring cleansing?

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Sisters Brandie Larsen and Ryan Eiesland of House Type have gotten you. They journey across the nation, utilizing their favourite mDesign merchandise to assist busy householders rework an area right into a clutter-free haven.

“Type It Out” premiers Tuesday on The Design Community.

‘The Lady From Plainville’

(From left) Michael Mosley as Joseph Cataldo and Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter are shown in a scene from

You understand I’m at all times going to sneak in some true crime drama each time I can.

On this case, it’s a Hulu restricted sequence primarily based on the case of Conrad “Coco” Roy III (performed by Colton Ryan), a teen who was tragically inspired to finish his life by Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning).

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Understanding the way it all seems (when you adopted the real-life headlines) doesn’t essentially take away from the unhappy bizarreness of all of it.

“The Lady From Plainville” is presently streaming.

Thomas Rhett poses with the Entertainer of the Year award during the 55th Academy of Country Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 16, 2020.

Thomas Rhett has determined to go huge and never go house.

“The place We Began,” his new album, boasts 15 tracks and a visitor look by Katy Perry.

“When she put her vocal on it, it took her, like, two weeks,” Rhett advised Nation Now of their collaboration. “She actually put lots of effort and time into this vocal. … This jogged my memory of how superb a vocalist she is, and I really feel prefer it actually got here to life.”

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The brand new album drops Friday.

(From left) Anthony Kiedis and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers perform during the 61st Annual Grammy Awards at LA's Staples Center on February 10, 2019.

Talking of huge albums…

Pink Sizzling Chili Peppers’ twelfth album, “Limitless Love,” is greater than 70 minutes lengthy, due to the 17 songs on it.

There are ballads and loads of funky grooves. True followers will discover loads to like.

“Limitless Love” releases Friday.

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CNN+ streaming platform launched on March 29.

Time for a little bit of shameless self-promotion.

CNN+ launched this week and I couldn’t be extra excited.

I’ve been a visitor on Brian Stelter’s day by day Dependable Sources present — and the vitality and pacing are contemporary and unbelievable.

With a lot distinct CNN content material to select from on the brand new platform, I cosign my fantastic editor, Megan Thomas, who stated it appears like a “select your individual journey.”

Test it out and let me know what you suppose.

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Will Smith (right) slaps Chris Rock (left) onstage during the 94th  Academy Awards show at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, on March 27.

There doesn’t seem to be there’s a lot left to say about “the slap” at this yr’s Academy Awards, however I’ll provide this: The entire thing felt much less about Jada Pinkett Smith and extra about Will Smith.

Sure, the beloved actor took to the stage to hit Chris Rock after the comic made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head (she suffers from alopecia), however in his tearful acceptance speech, when moments after the incident, Smith gained his first Oscar, I noticed greater than a person defending his spouse.

I noticed the younger boy Smith wrote about in his memoir who felt unable to guard his mom from an abusive relationship. And, in that, I believe there’s a lesson for us all in how if we don’t cope with our trauma, it might resurface and trigger harm to others and ourselves.

That’s not an excuse or a go, only a reminder that all of us have stuff.

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Movie Reviews

The Last Republican movie review (2024) | Roger Ebert

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The Last Republican movie review (2024) | Roger Ebert

The documentary “The Last Republican” follows the final months in office of Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who represented two districts in Illinois over the span of 12 years. Kinzinger was one of a handful of Republicans who stood against President Donald Trump, refusing to support him in 2016, then going after him more straightforwardly after Trump lost the election of 2020 and tried to overturn the results by inciting a mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, causing multiple deaths. Unlike other Republicans, including then-Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, Kinzinger never walked back or even softened his position on Trump’s role in Jan. 6 in order to help position Trump for re-election and stay close to the party’s power center. Kinzinger instead made his opposition to Trump the defining part of his identity.

He started a podcast titled “Country First Conversations”” and a political action committee to fund anti-Trump candidates and later supported President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris for president and spoke at the Democratic convention. After voting against Trump’s first impeachment, Kinzinger voted for his second impeachment and later said he regretted not voting for the first one.

He also became one of 35 Republicans to support the formation of a committee to investigate the attacks on the Capitol and served on the committee himself. There’s grimly funny segment showing House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, announcing that Kinzinger was going to serve on the Jan. 6 committee before actually asking him, and a snippet of McCarthy casually referring to Kinzinger and another Trump critic, Wyoming Republican senator Liz Cheney, as “Pelosi Republicans.” When Cheney lost her primary in Wyoming to her former advisor Harriet Hageman—who briefly opposed Trump, then supported him again—Kinzinger accused conservative pastors of “failing their congregations” by encouraging support for Trump. He is now a CNN commentator.

The title telegraphs the point-of-view of the movie’s director, Steve Pink (“Gross Pointe Blank”). Pink is progressive who disagrees with most of what Kinzinger stands for politically (the movie opens with Kinzinger baiting Pink by calling him a “communist”). Pink positions Kinzinger as one of the last true or real Republicans, primarily because Kinzinger consistently advocated for the rule of law where Trump was concerned and, in Kinzinger’s words, put “country over party.”

This is, of course, a questionable framing, good for branding and sparking arguments on podcasts but not much else. There are plenty other examples of Republicans positioning themselves above the law at various points in the last 50 years, and it’s not as if Democrats have a spotless record in that regard either. In any given era of American history, the “true” Republicans are whichever ones define the identity of the party, and at this particular juncture, it’s not people like Kinzinger.

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“The Last Republican” also mostly elides Kinzinger’s positions on various issues, seemingly to make him more palatable here as a Capra-esque hero who is exclusively defined by standing up to corruption, and against a politician that the filmmaker also opposes. (Kinzinger had a much more progressive record on anti-discrimination legislation than most Republicans, but still voted with Trump 90% of the time, blamed China for spreading COVID, and voted in 2017 to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.)

This is not to say that Kinzinger’s opposition to Trump isn’t evidence of integrity and a willingness to sacrifice power for principle. That’s plainly the case, and it’s driven home in a scene where Kinzinger and his wife Sofia Boza-Holman sit on a couch in their house cradling their newborn son while watching the House vote to censure Kinzinger and Cheney for serving on the Jan. 6 committee. But there’s a more nuanced movie that could’ve been made covering the same period in Kinzinger’s life, one that took fuller measure of the ancient proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”—though, to be fair, the very end of the movie humorously acknowledges what strange allies Pink and Kinzinger are, at least as far as this project is concerned.

The movie also gives a strong sense of Kinzinger as a person walking against the winds of change and dealing with tendencies in the American character that elude party definitions. “Everybody’s self-centered,” he tells Pink. “That’s the fight now of my next part of life, fighting against that cynicism.”

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Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari drops defamation lawsuit against the actor

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Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari drops defamation lawsuit against the actor

Jonathan Majors and ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari are moving forward from yet another legal battle, nearly a year after the former Marvel star’s high-profile assault and harassment criminal trial last winter.

“Creed III” actor Majors and movement coach Jabbari mutually agreed Thursday to dismiss the latter’s civil lawsuit that accuses her ex-boyfriend of battery, assault and defamation. According to court documents reviewed by The Times, the two parties entered a “stipulation of voluntary dismissal” that did away with Jabbari’s suit with prejudice — meaning that she cannot refile the same complaint in New York federal court.

Jabbari filed her lawsuit in March. The complaint had also accused Majors of intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution. Jabbari’s lawsuit was a result of Majors’ alleged “pattern of pervasive domestic abuse that began in 2021 and extended through 2023,” legal documents said. The lawsuit echoed allegations that were central to the “Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania” star’s domestic violence criminal case.

Majors was convicted last December of assault and harassment but also acquitted of an additional assault charge and aggravated harassment. Moments after the verdict, Marvel swiftly fired the “Last Black Man in San Francisco” breakout — another major blow to his professional career.

Majors’ then-attorney Priya Chaudhry, in response to Jabbari’s civil suit, told The Times in March that the complaint came as “no surprise.” In April, a New York judge decided that Majors would not serve jail time and ordered the actor to complete a 52-week in-person batterer’s intervention program and continue with his mental health therapy.

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Jabbari’s attorney Brittany Howard on Friday praised her client for her “tremendous courage,” adding in a statement to The Times that the case “has been favorably settled.”

“We hope that [Jabbari] can finally put this chapter behind her and move forward with her head held high,” Howard added.

A legal representative for Majors did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Since his sentencing, Majors has kept a relatively low public profile — weighing in on Marvel’s newest chapter in brief paparazzi exchanges and occasionally appearing alongside actor Meagan Good at Hollywood events.

Days before agreeing with Jabbari to dismiss her civil case, Majors and Good revealed they are engaged. They announced their betrothal Sunday at Ebony’s Power 100 Gala. “We met here two years ago,” Majors told E! News.

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Good, the “Divorce in the Black” star who accompanied Majors during his New York trial last year, said he made two proposals and she was “very shocked and it was wonderful.”

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Wicked movie review: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande waltz into our hearts in this gravity-defying extravaganza 

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Wicked movie review: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande waltz into our hearts in this gravity-defying extravaganza 

Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from the film ‘Wicked’
| Photo Credit: UNIVERSAL PICTURES

She did not eat grass as a child nor is she seasick, insists the green-skinned Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) in Wicked, the movie adaptation of the Broadway musical which in turn was inspired by Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’.

After Maleficent, which looked at the Sleeping Beauty story from the antagonist’s point of view, here is another revisionist look at the famous wicked witch from the other side of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’.

For those who came in late (like in all those Phantom comics), director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) provides a précis of events where Dorothy liquefied the Wicked Witch of the West and went home to Kansas down the Yellow Brick Road with her dog Toto, The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man and The Scarecrow. As the people of Oz celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch, the Good Witch, Glinda (Ariana Grande), joins in.

When one of the good people of Oz asks her about the Wicked Witch, Glinda admits to knowing her and it is time for a flashback. Elphaba was the daughter of the Governor of Munchkinland, Thropp (Andy Nyman). The colour of her skin, thanks to her naughty mum (Courtney-Mae Briggs), meant Elphaba was always rejected and made fun of by those around her.

Wicked 

Director: Jon M. Chu

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Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum

Runtime: 160 minutes

Storyline: The story of how a misunderstood little green girl became the all-powerful Wicked Witch of the West

She feels responsible for her paraplegic younger sister, Nessarose’s (Marissa Bode) condition too. When she comes with her father to drop Nessarose at the stately Shiz University in Oz, her father insists she stay to see Nessarose is properly settled in. The Dean of Sorcery, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), sees Elphaba’s power and proposes to teach her to control her magic. Glinda or Galinda as she is known then, is pretty, pink and popular. While she wants to study sorcery under Madame Morrible, she is not prepared to have Elphaba as a roommate as suggested by Morrible.

Despite the initial hiccups, the two very different girls become friends, bonding over a wild party at the Ozdust Ballroom. Elphaba is sensitive to the undercurrents at Oz including the fact that animals are being excluded and losing their voice as the history professor, a goat named Doctor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) reveals. The campus is in a tizzy when the handsome and determinedly shallow Winkie prince, Fiyero Tigelaar (Jonathan Bailey) joins Shiz. Though Elphaba dreams of meeting and impressing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), so that she can ask him to change her skin colour when she finally does meet him, that is not what she asks for.

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Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from the film ‘Wicked’

Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from the film ‘Wicked’
| Photo Credit:
GILES KEYTE

Wicked works wonderfully well on so many levels. It is a study of what makes people do the things they do, or think the way they do. It is a look at what is considered normal and what creates a villain, all the while celebrating the joys and tears of being different.

Wicked is a musical, with gloriously choreographed songs and an action film with breathtaking stunts. The sets, physical and CGI, are eye-popping, especially the library with its books (rare and medium rare as Glinda helpfully points out) stacked in gigantic wheels — wish Fiyero did not step on books though. The girls’ room, the Ozdust Ballroom, the Emerald City, the weird and wonderful train that takes Glinda and Elphaba to Emerald City, and many more, are all glorious sonnets to the imagination.

Erivo and Grande own their roles, singing, dancing and dueling with gusto while Bailey is delightful as the callow, charming Prince. Yeoh is grandly inscrutable and there is special joy in watching Goldblum do a jig. The 160 minutes of Wicked slip by in a Technicolor flash and the fact that there is Part II, coming out in 2025 puts a jolly song in one’s heart.

Wicked is currently running in theatres

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