Open Thread

Variety reports: With Neil Gaiman’s highly-anticipated “The Sandman” arriving on Netflix this week, some viewers have been swift to comment on the show’s aspect ratio looking slightly off.  “Sandman” viewers first noticed the skewed images in trailers for the series, sparking some trepidation among fans of the original comic book series. The distorted images were not isolated to the trailer, …

The BBC reports: Australian musician Judith Durham, best known as the lead singer of folk music group The Seekers, has died aged 79. Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, paid tribute to Durham, calling her “a national treasure”. Her band sold more than 50 million records and had hits including I’ll Never Find Another You, I Am Australian, and Georgy Girl. …

The Associated Press reports: Picture it: A vacant Beverly Hills bistro has been transformed into the set of a 1980s sitcom about four women living in Miami — but it’s also a working restaurant. Reservations have been going fast at the newly opened The Golden Girls Kitchen. Some patrons have come from out of state to see the pop-up eatery. …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: In a surprising development, Warner Bros. will no longer be releasing Batgirl, the DC film that already completed shooting and was expected to arrive on HBO Max this year. The unusual move comes after a change in leadership at Warners, with newly installed CEO David Zaslav prioritizing cost-cutting measures. Batgirl was budgeted at around $80 million, …

Variety reports: “Days of Our Lives” is moving to Peacock. The long-running NBC soap opera is officially moving to the NBCUniversal-owned streaming platform starting on Sept. 12. It has aired on NBC since it first launched in 1965. Beginning Sept. 12, in the timeslots previously occupied by “Days of Our Lives,” “NBC News Daily” will debut across NBC stations. The …

Variety reports: Showtime has elected against moving forward with a second season of its anthology series “The First Lady.” The decision comes a little over six weeks after the series aired its Season 1 finale on the network. “Showtime can confirm that the anthology series ‘The First Lady’ will not be moving forward with another season,” a Showtime spokesperson told …

Variety reports: Beyoncé’s seventh studio album “Renaissance” debuted July 29 to universal acclaim, but one lyric in the song “Heated” left many listeners outraged on social media. The song includes the word “spaz” during a verse in which Beyonce sings: “Spazzin’ on that ass, spazz on that ass.” In the medical field, “spastic” refers to a disability that makes it …

Deadline Hollywood reports: They were drug dealers. Murderers. Disloyal criminals breaking almost every law imaginable. And now there are statues of them in a proud hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The “Breaking Bad” team of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman (Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, respectively) were honored Friday by the town where they were slinging the blue meth in …

People reports: Kelis is one of many musicians whose work is sampled on Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance — and the “Bossy” hitmaker feels disrespected. Queen B’s new song “Energy” includes an interpolation of Kelis’ 2003 signature hit “Milkshake,” on which Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of The Neptunes are the sole credited writers and producers. (Williams, 49, and Hugo, 48, …

Deadline reports: Only a week after the head of the BBC pledged never to broadcast again its discredited Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, it emerges that extracts from the 1995 program will be included in a documentary to be shown on Sky and Now TV next month. The Princess, a documentary directed by Ed Perkins re-telling the late …

Variety reports: Malaysian theater operator Golden Screen Cinemas has announced that “Thor: Love and Thunder” will not get a theatrical release in the country. In June, the release of Pixar animation “Lightyear” was canceled in Malaysia after the country’s censorship authority (LPF) asked for cuts to the film, understood to include a same-sex kiss, in order for the film to …

Variety reports: After a long and much-publicized interruption, Chris Cuomo wants to get after it again. Cuomo, who made that phrase the mission statement for his 9 p.m. program on CNN, is taking his bulldog demeanor and lean-in anchoring style to NewsNation, the still-nascent news outlet backed by large station owner Nexstar Media, which has in recent months made a …

Yahoo News reports: Tony Dow is on his deathbed, his family told media outlets on Tuesday after it was incorrectly reported by the 77-year-old Leave It to Beaver star’s management team that he had died. Dow’s son Christopher confirmed to PEOPLE: “This is a difficult time. Yes he is still alive but in his last hours. Under hospice care.” “My …

The New York Times reports: Joni Mitchell, the revered Canadian singer-songwriter and one of the defining musicians of the 1960s and ’70s, surprised an audience in Rhode Island on Sunday when she appeared at the Newport Folk Festival to perform her first full set in about two decades, guitar in hand. Mitchell, never one for the limelight, has remained largely …

Variety reports: Marvel is bringing fans back to Wakanda in the first trailer for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”‘ The trailer is strung together with a lyrical motif of “We gonna be alright” from Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” moving between images of Wakanda’s aquatic environments, futuristic technology and what appears to be a funeral with crowds of Wakandans dressed in white. “I …

The right wing Daily Caller reports: John Rich just released his new song “Progress,” and it is absolutely going to be a mega American anthem, defining this moment in our history. While most people watch television or movies to tap into the social and political vibes of the time, music has always had a far better pulse on what real …

TMZ reports: The mystery hunk o’ man seated inside the Jan. 6th hearing — who’s being called “Clark Kent” for obvious reasons — is taking the Internet by storm, and TMZ’s learned his previously secret identity. Sorry to disappoint folks, but he’s not a superhero … although he’s in a heroic field of work. Sources tell us he’s 23-year-old Alex …

People Magazine reports: The court case against Ricky Martin has been dismissed. Martin’s nephew, who’d accused the “Livin’ La Vida Loca” singer of sexual abuse, asked to have the case dismissed in a Puerto Rican court on Thursday, and his request was obliged, attorneys for Martin told PEOPLE in a statement. “Just as we had anticipated, the temporary protection order …

Deadline reports: In the days this week before the UK suffered through all-time record temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius — or 104 degrees Fahrenheit — GB News host Bev Turner made light of a meteorologist’s warnings about the coming heatwave in a televised interview that bears a striking resemblance to the much talked-about fictional TV interview in Adam McKay’s Oscar-nominated …

Variety reports: Netflix reported its second-quarter 2022 earnings Tuesday, revealing it lost 970,000 subscribers during the three-month period that included the launch of the first part of “Stranger Things” Season 4. While that’s obviously a hit to the overall tally for the industry’s leading subscription streaming platform, it’s a far smaller hit than the loss Netflix forecast in April. The …