Amy winehouse

Monday

Alexander Larman

Bob Marley: One Love and the surefire success of music biopics

There is a strange rule in contemporary Hollywood that filmmakers ignore at their peril: biopics might be a popular dramatic form for directors, but they tend to be of little interest to audiences. In the past year alone, the likes of Napoleon, Ferrari, Maestro and Golda have all under-performed commercially, demonstrating that however accomplished the filmmaker (including the Oscar-nominated likes of Michael Mann, Ridley Scott and Bradley Cooper), it is nearly always a non-starter to attempt to persuade viewers to spend their $15 on watching someone’s life story for two hours at the cinema. Oppenheimer proved to be a rare exception — though that’s far from the only way in which Christopher Nolan is exceptional.

bob marley biopics

Tuesday

Karol Markowicz

#MeToo déjà vu

As the country remains roiled in protests after the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man by white police officer Derek Chauvin, social media’s attention is shifting to accusations of racism from high profile names. In recent days, actress Lea Michele, Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport, Refinery29 founder and editor Christene Barberich and food writer Alison Roman have all faced accusations of racism. Michele was terrible to a black actress, Rapoport did brownface, Barberich faced a slew of criticism under the #BlackatR29 hashtag on Twitter about the way black writers and editors were treated on her site. But Roman’s part in the story is the most micro of all the aggressions. On Monday, a picture surfaced of Roman in costume, from many years ago.

metoo deja vu
alison roman
Mary Kate Skehan

Leave Alison Roman alone

Another day, another Alison Roman drama. The Instagram-famous celebrity chef and bestselling cookbook author was infamously canceled a few years weeks ago over her snide remarks about fellow lifestyle personalities Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo. Now, the journalist Yashar Ali, a friend of Teigen, has circulated a photo of Roman dressed, he initially alleged, as a chola, or 'a young woman belonging to a Mexican-American urban subculture associated with street gangs'. Roman contends the costume was a poorly-considered attempt at an Amy Winehouse get-up in 2008. https://twitter.