It's the fourth week of January, and 2024's pop culture machines are in full effect.
While you were focusing on the Emmys and shortlisting your Hottest 100 votes, a whole heap of important, silly and wild things happened in the world of entertainment.
In case you missed it:
- Jacob Elordi hosted SNL
- Music media copped a huge blow
- Jennifer Coolidge's surprising next move
- The most-hyped films from Sundance
- And Just Like That… axes Che Diaz for S3
- Love on the Spectrum US is here
- Lil Nas X's documentary is out this week
- Sydney dance school Brent Street has a juicy reality show
- LGBTQIA+ festival Midsumma kicks off in Melbourne
Jacob Elordi hosts the first SNL of 2024
Off the back of starring in Saltburn and Priscilla, Australian actor and internet 'babygirl' Jacob Elordi hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend, with most of the jokes focusing on him being handsome and very tall (he's 6 foot 5).
The internet has been a bit obsessed with Elordi lately — mostly because of Saltburn's explicit scenes, with Elordi joking in his opening monologue that most people know him via the film's clips on TikTok. He also immediately spoils a pretty major twist in the movie, so be warned.
Given Elordi's mostly played dramatic roles, this is the first time most have seen his comedic chops, so how'd he do? Judge for yourself. Across the sketches, he mostly plays a hot, tall guy, with a few lines of his Lois Griffin impression thrown in.
There's a Bachelorette sketch where he's chosen over his short king competitors despite his many, many red flags and a scene where everyone in AA can't help but hit on him. He's not exactly given much to do.
One highlight is a segment that's not about his height and looks, where he and cast member Bowen Yang are professional lip-readers for Entertainment Tonight, playing off everyone trying to decipher Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift's gossip at the Golden Globes.
In other SNL news, Mean Girls (2024) star Reneé Rapp was this week's musical guest, performing Not My Fault with help from Megan Thee Stallion. Plus, there was a surprise appearance by the OG Regina George, Rachel McAdams — a big deal, given McAdams didn't feature in that OG cast reunion (aka commercial) or appear at any of the recent red carpets. SNL still draws those big names like no other!
— Jared Richards
Pitchfork has been gutted
Last week, publisher Condé Nast (Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair) announced at the end of last week that they'd be gutting Pitchfork, one of the world's biggest and most influential music publications.
The title is set to merge with men's publication GQ to consolidate music coverage across the publishing group, resulting in "mass lay-offs" of senior staff.
Pitchfork was started by music fan Ryan Schreiber in 1996 and acquired by Condé Nast in 2015. It's long been revered (and sometimes maligned) for its considered and often lengthy takes on music that didn't always attract mainstream attention.
"Pitchfork's editors were extraordinarily committed to investing in new critical talent, the writers and editors who were the driving force in unearthing and chronicling the defining alternative acts of the 21st century," former associate editor Laura Snapes wrote in The Guardian.
Snapes's tribute is just one of many that have appeared since news of the downsizing emerged, highlighting the impact that the publication had on artists, writers, and music fans.
— Dan Condon
Jennifer Coolidge's heading to Minecraft
Fresh off winning best supporting actress for The White Lotus at both the Golden Globes and the Emmys, Jennifer Coolidge has been cast in the live-action adaptation of Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time.
Minecraft, which has almost 140 million monthly active players, is a sandbox game with little plot, that is instead focused on building, exploring and fighting through an infinite world. Even putting aside the blocky graphics, it's not exactly a cinematic game: It involves a lot of digging.
The adaptation's been in the works for a decade, but is finally going ahead, directed by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess. It seems like the time for video game adaptations is now, considering the box office smash of last year's Mario movie.
Coolidge joins a previously announced cast of Jack Black, Jason Momoa and Kate McKinnon, alongside The Colour Purple's Danielle Brooks, Wednesday star Emma Myers and Kiwi Jemaine Clement. They're filming in New Zealand right now, with a release slated for April 2025.
No concrete news yet on the plot or what role Coolidge will play, though Black will star as Steve, Minecraft's nondescript default character. Maybe she'll finally get her dream role as a dolphin?
— Jared Richards
Sundance turns 40, celebrates with some of the buzziest film premieres of 2024
Can't wait until December for all the lists about the best films of 2024? Well, over the weekend, Sundance Film Festival shared many of the flicks that will probably feature heavily.
If there's one film that's getting spruiked by the festival it's Steven Soderbergh's Presence. You might know Soderbergh from convincing us he knew COVID was coming with 2011's Contagion. This time he takes on the classic, family-moves-into-new-home, home- already-occupied-by-ghosts trope, but his deft hand and stars Lucy Liu, Callina Liang and Julia Fox make it something original.
Keep your eyes open for Love Lies Bleeding, a romantic thriller starring Kristen Stewart as a tough gym manager and Katy O'Brian as her bodybuilding paramour. As their relationship grows, the pair soon find themselves embroiled in a criminal underbelly. This is a rare Sundance premiere that actually has an Australian release day. (March 14th!! Put it in your calendar!!)
I Saw the TV Glow is the much-talked about follow-up feature from Jane Schoenbrun, who dazzled Sundance in 2021 with the creepy We're All Going to The World's Fair. If you like getting obsessed with pop culture, mysterious lights and Brigette Lundy-Paine then this is the film for you. Also Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst AND Phoebe Bridgers AND Caroline Polachek have bit parts. Do with that information what you wish.
Lastly, the 2000s quirky comedy is back in the form of My Old Ass. Produced by Margot Robbie — the Midas of Hollywood producers — My Old Ass sees a high school graduate played by Maisy Stella form a friendship with her 30-something self from the future! And her future self is played by Aubrey Plaza.
Expect to see My Old Ass splashed across Australian cinemas at some point in 2024.
— Velvet Winter
Che Diaz won't be returning for the third season of And Just Like That…
The queer, non-binary, Mexican Irish diva/former X, Y and Me podcast host the internet loved to hate is over and out from the Sex and the City reboot.
Sources have reportedly said the character was deemed "annoying" by audiences, and have denied the move has anything to do with social media posts from actor Sara Ramirez about Palestine.
Ramirez seems to disagree, though, calling out the "duplicitous" entertainment industry on Instagram for "making black lists of actors and workers who post anything in support of Palestinians and Gaza to ensure they will not work again".
— Yasmin Jeffery
What to watch this week
There are a lot of new things coming out this week, and this trio of trailers might help you decide where to start!
It might seem like just yesterday we were walking with Lil Nas X down that Old Town Road, but now the Gen Z rapper is all grown up and has his very own HBO special. From the trailer it looks like Lil Nas will be putting the provocateur/court jester schtick aside to talk earnestly about his meteoric rise to fame.
From its humble Australian roots, the second season of Emmy Award-winning dating series Love on the Spectrum US has dropped on Netflix. Expect to see some fresh faces, some old favourites and the most heart-explodingly adorable dates you've ever seen in your life.
Do you like watching talented, hot people dance? Do you also like seeing the behind-the-scenes drama that comes when you put a bunch of talented, hot dancers in a high-pressure dance school (specifically Sydney's Brent Street)? Then you are going to love Dance Life, the new Aussie docuseries that just dropped on Prime Video.
— Velvet Winter
Midsumma 24 has kicked off — and we have the dog pics to prove it
Midsumma — Naarm/Melbourne's annual celebration of all things LGBTQIA+ — kicked off with its famous carnival on Sunday, featuring drag performances, giddy explosions of rainbow (eco)glitter everywhere you looked and a bit more rain than people would have expected for a festival named as it is.
Most hotly anticipated, perhaps, was the queer dog fashion show, where beloved pooches strutted their stuff and the whole crowd cooed and sighed at their chonky butts and slightly bemused expressions.
The carnival is just the beginning, though. It kicks off three weeks of queer artistic excellence. Some things high on our lists are Queer PHOTO, showcasing queer photography across Melbourne's west; the First Nations Drag Festival (hosted by Cerulean, Miss First Nation from WorldPride 2023); Janne Kearney's sugar rush of an exhibition, Eye Candy; the acclaimed play Overflow, about the gendered politics of bathrooms, featuring an all-trans or gender-diverse cast and crew; and let's not forget the Pride Street Party, held February 11, where hopefully there'll be even more dogs giving fashun.
— Katherine Smyrk