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Alicia Silverstone in Christian Siriano at Women in Film: lovely or weird?

These are more photos from the Women in Film event (Kaiser covered the other attendees here), which was held last night in LA. They were calling for diversity in film and wage equality for women, as they do annually at this event. It was hosted by the Women in Film president, producer Cathy Schulman (Crash.) I’ll just be covering some of the more questionably dressed women. First off is Alicia Silverstone, who is 39 years old but somehow manages to look 20-something. This scoop neck spaghetti strap bronze metallic Christian Siriano dress is making her look much younger too. This is a very young-looking dress, I think it’s the simple empire cut, but her styling is perfection. Here’s Kate Walsh in a simple v-neck black dress that somehow manages to look like a power suit. That dress is cool, I would wear that, and I like the skinny belt but she paired it with fishnet stockings and high boots. When you look at her makeup though – what was she thinking? She’s got like bright purple eyeshadow on both her lids and under her eyes with thick heavy eyeliner, too much mascara and pink lips. If a makeup artist did this to me I would wipe it off and redo it myself. She looked much better the day before at the Cadillac pre-Oscar party in a contemporary wrap dress. Patricia Arquette was in a plain black and white combo with a white blouse under a half sleeve jacket with a tea length skirt. This look is just too boxy for my taste. She would look better with a fitted jacket and some tailoring. Lake Bell was in a very bizarre fishnet shirt with a bandeau bra underneath for modesty. She has on skintight pinstripe pants with too long split cuffs. This entire outfit looks like a reject from Project Runway. (Credit: my mom.) She does get points for pairing it with shoes that mimic the pattern in her top and carrying a practical purse. I always carry a big purse for all the crap I need to have with me at all times. Photo credit: WENN.com

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Kanye West on his Taylor Swift drama: ‘It’s like, I want the best for that person’

Kanye West flew out of LA on Wednesday and he managed to not throw a hissy fit, even though paparazzi and videographers (or whatever they’re called) swarmed him and asked him a million questions about the crazy month he’s been having. They even asked him about Kylie Jenner’s Puma deal and how he originally claimed Kylie wouldn’t take the deal because of his deal with Adidas. Kanye explained his tweets saying: “She already signed. And I was mad for a little bit. I’m really happy for her, though.” Kanye was also asked about Taylor Swift and their on-again beef. Someone asked if Taylor Swift should show him more respect, to which he said “No.” Then he said: “It’s like, I want the best for that person, but there’s people going through real issues out here. There’s people out of work. There’s people in debt that can’t make it out of the debt. There’s people that’s in debt that don’t have a shoe. There’s people that are in debt that don’t have a hit album out also — you know what I’m saying? … I don’t think people care about me or her in that way. People care about their families, their kids. If you like my music, listen to it. If you like her music, listen to it.” [From Us Weekly] “There’s people that’s in debt that don’t have a shoe. There’s people that are in debt that don’t have a hit album out also.” Won’t anyone think about the people without a hit album? What of those people?! Meanwhile, if you’ve been paying attention this week, you might have felt the reins tightening a bit around Kanye’s relationship with the Kardashian clan. There were some strategic leaks and quotes which basically made it sound like Kim has one foot out the door. And now this gem from Page Six: Kanye West is so out of control, family matriarch Kris Jenner is worried that “he’s damaging the Kardashian brand” and has ordered he get some crisis p.r. to reign him in. West’s team met with a host of top publicists within the last few months — but nobody is brave enough to work with him. A source said, “His Twitter rants are out of control, and Kris fears that he’s taking the family down. Kris wants Kanye to hire someone to handle all the noise and drama so he can focus on being an artist.” But the response from the p.r. world was deafeningly silent. One top publicist who was approached told us, “You couldn’t pay us enough to represent Kanye. He’s too much to handle.” [From Page Six] While I believe that Kris is worried, I don’t believe that there isn’t some high-powered, masochistic publicist who would love to take Kanye on as a client. I mean, Madonna has a publicist. Mariah Carey has a publicist. Like Kanye would be the first self-destructive, crazy, uncontrollable mess ever? No. Last thing, these quotes from unnamed sources to People Magazine: Kim is still supporting Kanye “from everything I’ve heard…They’re incredibly supportive of one another, not only publicly, but privately as well. Kim has a unique understanding of him, probably in a deeper way than anybody else in the world. She’s understanding of the way that he operates….[Kim] will do whatever to make this work. I don’t know what they talk about on private about this stuff, but contradiction is very often Kanye’s calling card.” Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

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The anti-Beyonce protest in NYC turned into a Black Lives Matter demonstration

A photo posted by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Feb 7, 2016 at 5:46pm PST You know what’s amazing? People are still SO MAD about Beyonce. They’re mad because Beyonce celebrated her blackness in the “Formation” video. They’re mad that she had the audacity to feature the phrase “stop killing us” in the video. They’re mad because something something black people and police. And they’re especially mad that Beyonce slayed at the Super Bowl and that she and her militant dancers threw up a Black Power salute during their performance. My reaction to all of that outrage has been “…and?” Why wouldn’t Bey celebrate her blackness? Why wouldn’t she have something to say about cops killing people of color? Why would her militancy – or her use of militant imagery – offend people so damn much? So, all of the sad anti-Beyonce people decided to throw an anti-Beyonce protest in New York yesterday. And this is what happened: Protest against @Beyonce outside NFL HQ turns out to be no show #1010wins pic.twitter.com/dY6O2dD6aY — glenn schuck (@glennschuck) February 16, 2016 And then to make matters even more amazing, a bunch of pro-Beyonce people came out, and they joined up with some Black Lives Matter organizers, and the whole thing turned into a pro-Beyonce, pro-BLM, anti-police-violence demonstration. AMAZING. People got in formation to counter-protest the #boycottBeyonce protest Tuesday morning https://t.co/BUT4PLcMG9 pic.twitter.com/KSDV0XqHTn — BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 17, 2016 Still, all of that isn’t stopping wingnuts from blaming Beyonce for everything involving police and guns, etc. This story out of Tennessee is pretty crazy/stupid. Here are some photos of Beyonce and Jay-Z going out to dinner last night in LA. Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, Instagram.

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Jessie J: In America, ‘I’m kind of celebrated as one of the greatest singers’

Maybe I’m wrong, but the few times I’ve written about British singer Jessie J, I feel like most people were divided into two camps: Camp “Who?” and Camp “Meh.” It’s not that Jessie is particularly boring, untalented or uneventful – I actually think she’s got a great voice and she’s more interesting than many of the pop starlets today. But Jessie might have overestimated her popularity. Maybe. Jessie covers the new issue of Women’s Health UK, and she tells the magazine – which has a mostly British readership – that she doesn’t get a lot of respect in Britain but she’s “celebrated as one of the greatest singers” in America. Really? Some highlights: She’s received two Brit Awards but she’s never been asked to perform: “It makes me sad… I’ve done the Grammys, the VMAs. My profile in America is that I’m kind of celebrated as one of the greatest singers and I love it.” Her goal: “I wanna be up there with the Celine Dions, the Whitneys, the Beyoncés and Arethas. I go hard because I hope and pray that one day, people look back and go, ‘She could really f–king sing, you know.’ Which is why I keep going.” She wants kids: “I talk about my children every day even though they don’t exist. It sounds really weird, but I do. I put into the universe that I love them…who knows when it’s going to happen?” Turning 28: “The 27 Club and all that. It’s scary. I mean, the most hardcore I get is a glass of ginger wine, but if you’re successful at 27, the speed of your life is unreal. Nearly 30. You need to get your sh-t together.” [From E! News and Women’s Health] Yeah… she’s not going to win a lot of support in her own country with this interview. The thing is, she really does have a great, powerful voice. But I sometimes wonder if she needs to nail down one specific sound. I remember reading something about Jessie’s musical popularity with gay men, and I do think that’s where she should aim: be the next Cher. Killer voice, power ballads, gay-club anthems. Do that. And no, I don’t think America celebrates her as “one of the greatest singers.” Americans hears her music and they think, “Great voice, who sings it?” And then they forget her name as soon as they hear it. Photos courtesy of Women’s Health.

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Helen Mirren: ‘There is an extraordinary, extreme, right-wing voice in America’

Was I too nice to Helen Mirren yesterday? Probably. I like her so much, I do tend to ignore it when she makes problematic statements. My defense of her is usually along the lines of “well, now she knows, maybe she’s learned how to speak about this issue now.” Anyway, Britain’s Channel 4 released the video of their interview with Mirren, and she talks about a lot more than #OscarsSoWhite and the Academy. She was also asked about American politics. Just for the record, Helen has been married to an American for nearly 20 years, and I’m almost positive that she lives most of the time in America (I believe she and Taylor Hackford own homes in New Orleans and LA). Mirren is also an American citizen, likely through her marriage. So… I feel like it’s totally fine for Mirren to talk about American politics, considering she likely votes in American elections. And as it turns out, Mirren kind of hates Ted Cruz and to a lesser degree, Donald Trump. Whether the rise of Donald Trump signals a return of 1950s-style conservatism: “Yes, Donald Trump… and Ted Cruz. I suspect more Ted Cruz in a way than Donald Trump. I think the people who support Ted Cruz think Donald Trump is a little bit of a liberal. I think Donald Trump has a populist voice, massively populist, and that slightly demagogue, populist voice. But I think Ted Cruz is more the really old-school extreme right conservative.” The extreme right wing: “There is an extraordinary, extreme, right-wing voice in America – extreme. If that does get into power fully – in the Congress, in the Senate, in the White House and has all the power that it wants, I can’t imagine how the world would look. I think it’s a very, very frightening idea, myself. This whole idea of ‘making America great’ it seems to me it would actually be sort of the end of America as a great country.” [Via Channel 4, People Magazine] Helen has previously referred to Trump as “stupid,” but in this interview, it sounds like she’s more worried about Ted Cruz. I’m kind of feeling it too – the interviewer clearly wants to talk more about Donald Trump and hopefully takeaway a juicy, bitchy quote, but Mirren is more concerned about Cruz’s neo-McCarthyism. She’s right to be concerned. And personally, I’m still hoping that Donald Trump’s final gift to the American people is a spectacular takedown of Cruz. Please let it happen! Here’s Mirren’s interview. Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

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YouTuber Matthew Santoro claims abuse by Nicole Arbour: ‘men get hit too’

I know popular YouTuber Matthew Santoro because my son watches his educational videos and often quotes facts from them. Santoro’s videos are similar to John Green’s channel MentalFloss in that he gives fast-paced and interesting facts. I know YouTuber Nicole Arbour because she’s somewhat of a professional troll. Her obnoxious video, Dear Fat People, earned her headlines around the world and a spot on The View, when she stirred up sh*t when The View ladies arguably disparaged nursing as a profession. (Here’s the background on that controversy.) One of Arbour’s latest videos, Dear Feminists (NSFW language), characterizes feminists as women who hate men and don’t shave their legs. I wish I was making that up. In December, Santoro recorded an emotional and revealing video about the abuse he suffered in a previous relationship. He made the video private at first but accidentally set it to public recently. The response was positive and so he decided to leave it up. In the video (above), Santoro cried as he revealed how a former partner controlled him, cut him off from friends and family and once hit him in the face, which he described as more devastating emotionally than physically. He emphasized that abuse knows no gender and encouraged victims to come forward. While he never named the person whom he claimed abused him, Santoro’s former partner, Nicole Arbour, responded by posting a comment on one of her recent videos, writing “Heard the little bitch I dumped months ago is still trying to use me to get attention on his vlog channel. Ew.” [via Raw Story] Here’s some of what Santoro said in the video, which was heartfelt and powerful and really moved me. On being isolated from friends and family I pushed my family away, I pushed my closet friends away. It wasn’t always explicit… this individual I was with was extremely jealous… I had to cut every female out of my life and it was because everything was made to be about her. I lost my closest friends because I was made to believe everybody else was a loser. Claims she hit him on the face Early in the relationship I had a verbal altercation [after] I had a panic attack… and I broke it off with this individual. This person prevented me from leaving their home and said “you’re not going anywhere” at which point I was hit in the face for the first time in my life. When someone you care about strikes you there are so many emotions… you feel sadness… shame… embarrassment. You think ‘was it my fault?’… luckily I was able to leave that night. He broke it off but took her back Through manipulation… about a month down the road [she] contacted me and told me that [she’d] changed… and I took her back. That is incredibly embarrassing to say. What people don’t realize is, when I took her back the real damage was psychological… I cut everyone out of my life and my business suffered… everything became about her. He was manipulated and controlled I allowed myself to be in a relationship where I was controlled, where I was manipulated, where I was made to do things and act in a way that I never would on my own. It wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that I decided to break it off from her… I wanted my life back. I allowed somebody to emotionally and physically abuse me for almost a year of my life. It’s really embarrassing to say that, but it’s the truth. On why he made the video The reason I’m making this video is not to disparage anyone… it’s to tell you that domestic violence knows no gender [cries]. It happens to men and women. It’s something that men never talk about because we’re made to believe that we’re supposed to be strong. Men get hit too. Tell someone Men get hit too. Abuse knows no gender, it’s something that people don’t talk about… Whether you’re a man or a female, if somebody hits you, tell somebody. Tell a family member, tell a friend. Don’t bottle it up, because it will do damage to you that lasts for years. [From My Abuse Story video, by Matthew Santoro] Holy crap. I truly believe that this guy just helped SO MANY people by sharing his story so honestly. That must have been incredibly hard. After posting that really telling comment, Arbour recorded two videos in response to Santoro’s video. Arbour claims that she broke up with Santoro, not the other way around, and posted a brief video of the two of them together in which they’re goofing around and he play hits her, bites her shoulder and sort-of asks her to marry him. Here’s some of what she said: Claims it’s not true That [playful video with Santoro] was one week before I broke up with my ex boyfriend, who has recently put out a video, not saying my name but… insinuating that we were in a domestic abusive relationship, which was not true. It’s just not true. This sucks, because whether you like what I do or not as a performer… I’m a comedian… whether you like my act or my rants or not, I don’t care… but I had asked repeatedly while dating him that my private life not be put on the Internet and he repeatedly overstepped that boundary over and over. Claims he moved down the street from her after their first breakup We broke up briefly and he moved down the street from me after we broke up… in hopes that we would get back together and we did. We dated for a bunch of months after that and it was fine… Claims she broke up with him, he violated her privacy Something in my heart just didn’t feel it anymore… his lifestyle and the way that he wanted to be a youtuber and have everything public all the time wasn’t for me and I broke up with him and it was as amicable as it could possibly be at the time until his hurt over the breakup turned to anger turned to a whole bunch of lies… as my videos were doing well he suddenly [did] interviews about me and our personal life… I don’t want my real private life out there… Claims he’s just trying to damage her career His video that he put out is just another way to hurt me and my career that’s growing quickly. It is abuse… of his platform, it’s abuse to all the people who suffer from something. He didn’t suffer from domestic abuse. It didn’t happen. Don’t use kids to be a hate army. I think that’s what’s wrong with YouTube… the obsession with manufactured drama. He’s “taking a tiny little thing and spinning it” Crying wolf on a serious subject… and trying to fabricate a very large story and taking a tiny little thing and spinning it into something that just didn’t happen is sick. [From Abuse Story – My Side of Things by Nicole Arbour] Read those last lines “taking a tiny little thing and spinning it.” She never specifically denied hitting him. She did say that “it did not happen… there was no domestic abuse.” However not once did she say “I did not hit him.” After Arbour recorded that first video refuting Santoro, she recorded another video, claiming that “people are equating subscribers with truth” and saying that the court of opinion is on Santoro’s side because he has more followers on YouTube than she does. She then challenged Santoro to come on her channel and do a live stream polygraph test with the two of them. Again, I would have liked to hear her say “I never hit him.” I’m sure there’s more to the story than he’s claiming, there are always two sides to a story, but if she did hit him that’s pretty damning. Plus if he’s not telling the truth he’s an incredible actor.