CULTURE

The 17 Hottest Male Celebrities Categorized by Type

Usually those unexplored multitudes are just daddy issues and a preference for foot stuff, but the joy is in the journey of finding out.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Bullet Train' held at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, USA on August 1, 2022.

By Tinseltown // Shutterstock

You may not be able to define in words what exactly makes a person attractive, but you know it when you see it.

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Frontpage Popular News

Was Vogue World Worth The Kidney It Cost For A Ticket?

How Vogue World Is Changing Fashion Events As We Know It

Bella Hadid, Serena Williams and Gigi Hadid at NYFW Vogue World Fashion Show, Meatpacking District, New York, USA - 12 Sep 2022

MediaPunch/Shutterstock

It was a big week in pop culture history. There was a mountain of events to cover, so this was no time to leave our phones behind. Everything's been chaotic lately — and, yes, I’m blaming Mercury retrograde.

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Music Lists

This Haunts Me: 2000's Cringe Rock

Remember these bad boys? Of course you do

This is War 30 Seconds to Mars

We all remember those 2000s rock songs that were strangely beloved, but at the same time incredibly dated.

There remain a handful of truly awkward sentimental rock songs from the 2000s rock revival that we'd all love to forget. But, just for the sheer entertainment of it, we've compiled a list of some of the revival's most painful efforts.

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Culture News

The 5 Worst Celebrity Responses to Coronavirus

Some of us struggle to survive. Others complain on Instagram.

Photo by Hahn Lionel/ABACA/Shutterstock

Sometimes being a celebrity with millions of dollars leads a person to become just a tad out of touch with the rest of humanity.

While millions of Americans struggle to pay rent, afford food, and take care of their children in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, some celebrities have more pressing things to worry about—things like how unfair it is that they can't do whatever they want, and also what even is coronavirus? These are the five worst celebrity responses to coronavirus, ranked:

5. Gal Gadot

For Gal Gadot, six days in self-quarantine got her "feeling a bit philosophical." This manifested in the Wonder Woman star employing the help of her famous pals to put together an all-celebrity cover of John Lennon's Imagine. In fairness to Gal Godot—and unlike the other celebrities on this list—her heart is absolutely in the right place. It's a sweet sentiment, but at the same time, the result is just kind of off-putting. The singing isn't great, but more importantly, why do a group of multi-millionaires need to "imagine" a better world when, if they combined their vast resources, they could actually make a pretty substantial difference? At the very least, a lot of lower-level people in the film industry are currently out of work, and this small group of "dreamers" has hundreds of millions of dollars between them. Maybe they could find a way to help?

4. Jared Leto

Jared Leto is consistently terrible, so posting on Instagram about missing the entire start of the coronavirus pandemic hitting stateside due to a 12-day desert meditation retreat is 100% in-character. Leto's post feels less like a genuine show of concern than a humblebrag about being on a desert retreat and a reminder that he has many friends. How can one man possibly be so awful?

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A post shared by JARED LETO (@jaredleto) on Mar 16, 2020 at 10:26pm PDT

3. Vanessa Hudgens

Vanessa Hudgens had one job during the pandemic, and that was sitting in her mansion and basking in her wealth. Instead, she decided to use her time to make a video seemingly complaining about the massive response to the virus. "Even if everybody gets it, like yeah, people are going to die, which is terrible... but inevitable?" said Hudgens without a single shred of care for older and immunocompromised people who are currently living in fear. At least she apologized afterwards.

2. Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh

In the comedy world, there are few improv theaters better known than Upright Citizens Brigade. Founded and co-owned by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh, UCB has launched the careers of many comedians and comedy writers. While the theater has received flack in the past for not paying their performers, they do employ a number of staff members including teachers, cafe employees, and technicians. Or at least they did before the coronavirus hit, after which they immediately fired nearly everyone. Of course, it's understandable that business need to make cuts, but when one of the owners has 30 million dollars to her name, it's not right to leave already low-paid employees floundering in a crisis.

1. Evangeline Lilly

For whatever reason, Ant-Man and the Wasp actress Evangeline Lilly is currently on a crusade against quarantining herself or her children in the face of COVID-19, because apparently nothing says superhero like helping to speed up a pandemic. So while others worry about their own well-being and care for their communities, Evangeline Lilly sends her probably infected kids to gymnastic camp, and then seems to b*tch about Marshall Law from Tekken, for god knows why.

"Where we are right now feels a lot too close to Marshall Law [sic] for my comfort already, all in the name of a respiratory flu. It's unnerving…Let's be vigilant right now. And kind. Watchful and gracious — keeping a close eye on our leaders, making sure they don't abuse this moment to steal away more freedoms and grab more power."

Major yikes.

Atlantic Records

"I'm crazy, b*tch," screams Jucee Froot on "Danger," the ninth song on the Birds of Prey soundtrack. "But I'm that b*tch."

That could be the central mantra of Birds of Prey's companion album, which features fifteen sparkling, saccharine, vicious pop songs from some of pop's brightest anti-popstars. These songs are aggressive, feminine, sugary, vicious, and off the rails, just like the movie promises to be.

The film—full title Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn—debuted this Friday night. It tells the story of Harley Quinn, finally freed from her abusive relationship with the Joker, as she heals from the breakup and develops her own super-villain identity.

Harley Quinn's cinematic emancipation has received mixed reviews. "Birds of Prey is happy to play at provocation with swear words and violence while carefully declining to provoke anything like a thought," writes A. O. Scott in The New York Times. Anthony Lane called the film "unholy and sadistic mess" in The New Yorker.

For others, the film's fizzy brutality is exactly the point, and many argued that the film provides a welcome change from both the self-serious superhero machismo that tanked Suicide Squad and the idealized kind of femininity that defines Hollywood's movement towards corporate feminism. "In a world gone mad, the catharsis of Prey's twisted sisterhood doesn't just read as pandemonium for its own sake; it's actually pretty damn sweet," writes Leah Greenblatt for Entertainment Weekly. "Theirs is a contemporary verve that offers a glimpse of something heartening: a future in which all kinds of people get to tell these stories, and we're all the better off for it," writes Richard Lawson for Variety.

As the reviews roll in, certainly more debates will ensue. But if Birds of Prey companion soundtrack is any indication, the movie will inspire a whole host of women to take their power back by any means necessary—most likely while wearing glitter.

The all-female soundtrack is brutally empowering in every sense. It's the sound of sweetness in a world gone mad, of lady mad hatters sitting around and cutting their losses over egg and bacon sandwiches. It's the sound of women relishing in the tropes of pop music and popular femininity while spinning them on their heads. It's a triumph and a delight in the sweetest, bloodiest of ways.

Highlights include Doja Cat's utterly unhinged "Boss Bitch," which leans into archetypical empowerment and breakup narratives so hard that it shatters and becomes something almost mutated and definitely dangerous. Megan Thee Stallion and Normani do something similar with their aggressive riff on "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend."

Halsey's "Experiment On Me" is probably the most aggressive track on the album; it's also one of the hardest to listen to. It's a yowling, overwhelming tune that layers Halsey's shrill screams over punk-inflected guitar.

Charlotte Lawrence's "Joke's On You" is more palatable and just as powerful, leaning into the darkness and complexity of Harley Quinn's story (and of the idea of female redemption through violence on the whole) while layering sultry vocal lines over a tense beat. "We've had our fun; now your sugar makes me sick," she sings. "My makeup's ruined, and now I'm laughing through my tears." All the world's part-time Harley Quinns are, undoubtedly, feeling seen.

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True to form, the songs are gleeful, dark, celebratory, and free. They're embroiled in the business of shaking up existing power structures; and as the voices grow hoarse and furious, their beats resist pleasantness and neutrality, instead leaning towards hyperactive mania. Perhaps because this is a revenge story, there's a sense of perpetual bittersweetness. Lauren Jauregri's "Invisible Chains" dives deeper into the pain and struggle that accompanies Harley Quinn's liberation from the Joker.

There's also a deeper sense of bittersweetness to the whole project, which celebrates Harley Quinn's story as a clear tale of feminist liberation. When women free themselves from men and take power, only togo ahead and commit evil acts and relish in all of capitalism's and the patriarchy's bitterest signifiers of victory, is that something to celebrate? Are we really looking for female villains who kill others and hoard wealth and don't support others, just like men always have?

Perhaps not, but watching these narratives play out often offers catharsis, providing a fulfilling revenge fantasy for anyone who's ever been in an abusive relationship or who's seen others affected by them. We'll see how the movie ends up, but for now, the soundtrack provides an excuse to celebrate rage and revenge without thinking too hard about what it means.

FILM

Stop Putting Jared Leto in Movies

Jared Leto will reprise his role as The Joker in Zach Snyder's "Justice League." Below, read one whistleblower's unheeded warning.

Jared Leto @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating the Opening of Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty - The Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC

Photo by Carl Timpone/BFA.com/Shutterstock

There's a big problem with the trailer for Morbius, Sony's upcoming Marvel outing that is definitely not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe even though it has Michael Keaton reprising his role as Vulture (please let us keep our license, Disney!).

See if you can spot it.

MORBIUS - Teaser Trailerwww.youtube.com

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