| Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Kim Kardashian debuts her acting talent. We attend another Big Fat Greek Wedding. The funniest Real Housewives moment of the week. Jimmy Buffett, icon forever. A new home for the holidays.
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Get the Emmy Speech Ready |
What if Kim Kardashian is the greatest actress of her generation? Scoff if you must. Roll your eyes so dramatically, Liz Lemon herself might applaud you. Scream into a pillow at the thought of such absurdity. That's what I did when I discovered this.
But I am also a person who values and upholds the tenet upon which our great nation was founded, and which is too often under attack today: the truth. And so, difficult as it may be to come to terms with—and as much as it might upset everything we thought we knew and understood about the world—we all must band together, support each other, and not only acknowledge but embrace that truth. Kim Kardashian's acting is going to be all we talk about this fall.
The reason for this proclamation—an event so monumental and surprising that Meryl Streep herself is rumored to have called three emergency sessions with her therapist—is the newest teaser for American Horror Story: Delicate, the next installment in Ryan Murphy's horror anthology series. (It premieres Sept. 20 on FX.) Watch the teaser here. |
Delicate marks Kardashian's first series regular role on a TV show, a crowning achievement of stunt casting for a series that thrives on buzz (and from a creator who turned the practice into an art form). For Kardashian, this is a bit like sprinting up Mount Everest after having just hiked Runyon Canyon a few times, in terms of acting. Her first foray into the field was a supporting part in the 2008 parody Disaster Movie, a film which lived up to its name. She played herself on How I Met Your Mother, a series that took the celebrity stunt-casting torch from Will & Grace and turned into a veritable inferno, as well as on Tim Allen's Last Man Standing. (Gotta appeal to both sides of the aisle if you're gonna be a profitable brand.) In one of her greatest acting challenges yet, she pretended to actually eat a cupcake on 2 Broke Girls. And on an episode of CSI: NY, she played a character named "Debbie Fallon," a touching tribute to me and my family. (Just kidding. Ol' Deb Fallon turned out to kidnap and kill homeless people. The Fallon family rebukes her.) But the characters of homicidal Debbie and "Kim Kardashian" were mere warm-ups for what's in store with Delicate. From what we know and have seen from the teaser, Delicate gives off strong Rosemary's Baby vibes. The season is based on Danielle Valentine's novel Delicate Condition, and centers around an actress named Anna (Emma Roberts), who becomes convinced that dark forces are going to great lengths to ensure she doesn't give birth to a healthy child. Kardashian plays Anna's friend and professional confidante. Her name is Siobhan Walsh, already hinting at what a remarkable feat Kardashian is setting out to accomplish in this, her first dramatic role: She's…Irish? Everyone is gaslighting Anna into thinking nothing's wrong with her pregnancy, from her husband (Good Wife Hive rise: Cary Agos himself, Matt Czuchry, plays the role) to her doctor (Denis O'Hare) and Siobhan. "You have a peculiar penchant for turning dreams into nightmares," she tells Anna in the trailer, our first hint at Kardashian's dramatic chops. The delivery of the dialogue sounds perfectly human. Emmy alert! But then comes the line reading that, once this teaser dropped, inspired the ghosts of Uta Hagen, Konstantin Stanislasky, and Sanford Meinser to rise from their graves and deliver a standing ovation. "Do you want an Oscar?" she says, speaking to Anna on the phone. "Do you want it as much as a baby?" What is acting if not the art of moving your audience? Friends, I got chills.
This is a moment that will be memed within an inch of its life, and deservedly so. The line is campy and ridiculous, which only works if it's delivered with a grounded seriousness—which Kardashian, to her credit, does.
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This is all fun and silly, much like the whole ordeal of imagining what in the world a Kim Kardashian performance in an American Horror Story series would possibly be like. But I think it's more fun that, at least based on this teaser, this performance doesn't seem to be a trainwreck—which will make it more thrilling to watch when the show itself inevitably becomes one. Lastly, for all the passionate opinions about Kardashian, her celebrity, and whether she deserves to be so famous, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that she would succeed in an acting endeavor like this. Reportedly, she and Murphy decided to work together after her ace turn hosting Saturday Night Live in 2021. She was hilarious—un-self-conscious, ready to play, self-effacing, and committed. That may seem like a low bar, but it's one that even some of Hollywood's biggest stars don't meet when hosting that show.
There's a goofiness to American Horror Story that somewhat mimics that of SNL. And this role in Delicate doesn't seem like the world's greatest departure from Kardashian's own persona. Maybe I'm delirious because of this godforsaken heatwave on the East Coast, but Kim Kardashian, Primo Actress? I'm excited.
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My Big Fat Greek Great Time |
If you're like me, every single person you follow on social media, via baffling means of funding, went to Greece this year. Well, now you can include Joey Fatone from NSYNC on that list. I was really excited to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 because, as my unhinged devotion to And Just Like That illustrates, I will seize any chance to catch up with characters I love, no matter how ridiculous the project. But mostly I was excited because I think 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of our top-tier modern rom-coms, and the special place it holds in my heart means that I will follow Nia Vardalos and the Portokalos family wherever they may go—which in this sequel, finally, is Greece. The plot of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 centers around Toula (Vardalos), Nick (Louis Mandylor), and Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) leading a contingent of the family to the patriarch's (Michael Constantine's Gus) remote Greek island village to reconnect with his roots after his death. Mostly, though, the plot is: "Let's get the gang back together again." And that, my fellow Windex-spraying friends who know that the root of every word is Greek, is enough reason to go along for the journey. (Along with John Corbett continuing his "hey, I'm just as hot as I was 20 years ago" tour. Hello, sir.) Heading into this screening, I thought a lot about what it is that makes me feel so attached to this unlikely rom-com trilogy. (I'm not Greek, not in a romance, nor particularly comedic.)
There was the Cinderella success of Vardalos and how she turned that film into an Oscar-nominated blockbuster, of course—one of my favorite Hollywood stories. But I think there was something so special about how the film took something so universal—falling in love with someone different from your family—but had that love story encompass the entire family. It's that thing a lot of people can relate to you, where your family is a lot, but they're also a part of you. You can't imagine a life without all of your overbearing weirdos circling around, no matter how much you wish them away, and you need your love to love them too—and them to love him. It's a beautiful story, and Vardalos told it with such wit and heart.
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In these sequels, especially in this third film, we see what that means as a family, marriages, and all that love between them ages—and ages together. It's also a meditation on patriarchs, matriarchs, and what happens when we're left without them. Given those themes, I obviously cried. Given the fact that the three best films I know all take place, at least in part, in Greece—Mamma Mia!, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—this international shoot was a phenomenal move. Sure, the film recycles the franchise's familiar jokes about vegetarianism, everyone being cousins, and pulling your neck tight for photos. But each one made me feel warmer than the one before, like eating through the layers of an amazing spanakopita. Was the movie good? Who cares! It was my extended family, the Portokalos, healing and growing, just like we all need to do. May there be three more of these movies. |
Salt Lake City Is Finally Funny Again |
No television personality exudes energy as fascinatingly unsettling as Mary M. Cosby. Cosby returned to The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City in Sunday night's Season 3 premiere, after she quit the show following the first season. Beyond being a kook whose lack of filter grants full access to the off-kilter workings of her brain—and being notorious for marrying her step-grandfather following her grandmother's death—there are dark and disturbing reports about the church she runs that make laughing along with her a queasy experience. (You can read about some of that here.) As is the case with the likes of Beverly Hills housewife Erika Jayne and Cosby's former Salt Lake City castmate Jen Shah, who both made headlines for respective controversies, it can feel uneasy to delight in Cosby's goofiness as entertainment, given those reports. On the one hand, you feel complicit in something problematic. On the other hand…she's really freaking funny. |
But I'm grateful that the best comedic moment from the RHOSLC premiere, while involving Cosby, actually centered on Lisa Barlow. Asked about her last correspondence with Cosby, Barlow reads off a slew of text messages in which Cosby hurls ludicrous insults at her:
"You're the biggest idiot. You're a black widow.. You're the biggest liar in Utah.. You'll kill people with your nasty tequila. You remind me of a witch. You evil person.. You're not interesting 8. You're a horrible human being." Barlow's delivery is hilarious, and that series of insults? I'm getting them printed and making copies, to hand out to all future dates and boyfriends who betray me. |
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Jimmy Buffett's Perfect Cameo |
Jimmy Buffett should be admired for so many reasons. I've always appreciated that something he preached that seemed simple was actually quite profound: You can, should, and deserve to make paradise wherever you are, however you can. (The number of hangovers suffered because of that philosophy, on the other hand…) |
If there is one great thing that happens in the wake of a celebrity's death, it's that so many great moments from their lives and careers resurface, some of which you may never have seen. For example, I had no idea that Buffett had a cameo in Jurassic World. A clip of it went viral following the singer's death over the weekend: The dinosaurs are wreaking deadly havoc on the patrons of the park, and they're all fleeing in panic. Buffett, in a blink-and-miss-it appearance, can be seen stalling his own escape to pick up his giant margarita and take another swig before running. It's perfect. |
I guess this is how I break it to my family that I have other plans this holiday season. |
Thanks for the invite, Cher! See you soon XOXO |
More From The Daily Beast's Obsessed |
Studio Ghibli co-founder and director extraordinaire Hayao Miyazaki's final film, The Boy and the Heron, opened this year's Toronto International Film Festival. To commemorate the milestone, our staff looked back on moments from Ghibli movies that meant the most to us. Read more. Want to know what the 40 most hotly anticipated movies of the fall are? We've got 'em here. Read more. And how about the 45 biggest and best TV shows? Got those too. Read more. |
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Sitting in Bars With Cake: Surprisingly, this is not a documentary about how I spent my summer. (Now on Prime Video) The Morning Show: Quite simply the only TV series that could fill the And Just Like That-sized hole in my life. (Wed. on Apple TV+) Dreaming Whilst Black: One of the year's biggest comedy surprises. (Sun. on Showtime)
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