It’s literally impossible to be a tiny car. This has been a banner year for kitschy, unexpected movies about dancing murderous dolls, blitzed bears (also murderous), and self-aware, flat-footed dolls. In its first weekend in theaters, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie made $155 million, which means Mattel executives are ready for more movies about millennials playing games sadly while feeling bad about capitalism. A recent New Yorker piece alerted the public to the very real possibility that the next few years of movies will be covert #spon-con ads for Mattel with the impending adaptations of Barney, Polly Pocket, Uno, and more — up to a total of 45 projects as of right now.

Ooh, It’s Them: A Toast To Character Actors Presented by Ooh, It’s Them: A Toast To Character Actors Presented by James Hong in Blade Runner, Seinfeld, and Big Trouble in Little China. One of the first times that legendary character actor James Hong ever appeared onscreen was in 1955’s Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, a tearjerker about the relationship between a half-Chinese, half-European doctor who lives in Hong Kong and a white war correspondent sent to cover the Chinese Civil War.

Lindsay Mendez, Jonathan Groff, and Daniel Radcliffe in Merrily We Roll Along. Franklin Shepard’s California mansion, rendered onstage at New York Theatre Workshop, a David Hockney scene: blocky, mostly white, mid-century chic with a wall of glass that makes you imagine the smell of sagebrush, star jasmine, and chlorine. Set and costume designer Soutra Gilmour has placed ferns along the ramparts, at the same height where the band for this production of Merrily We Roll Along is hidden in a second-floor studio.

Bradley Cooper is Leonard Bernstein. This article originally appeared in Gold Rush, a subscriber-only newsletter about the perpetual Hollywood awards race. Want proof that we did indeed go through a post-2020 vibe shift? A bunch of people on the internet are rooting against a big, starry Oscar movie — for reasons that have nothing to do with the film’s assumed politics. For years, I have tracked the annual arrival of each season’s Oscar villain, the contender that inspires a panicked “God, no!

Zoey Deutch, 24, has been appearing on “Up-and-Coming Hollywood ‘It’ Girl” lists for nearly a decade. Nobody can seem to agree on when, exactly, she’s going to be the Next Big Thing. In a way, this categorization makes sense: She’s got a Natalie Portman–melded–with–Jennifer Lawrence face, and her early work suggests a sort of safe, “It”-girlie trajectory. She plays the love interest in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!

Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad Right after Breaking Bad ended, Vince Gilligan and most of the cast (notably minus Bryan Cranston and Bob Odenkirk) showed up to discuss the finale on Talking Bad. In it Vince Gilligan, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, and RJ Mitte (and, for some reason, Jimmy Kimmel) reflected on the show and gave up details about the finale, like why Walt didn’t shoot Jesse, why Jesse didn’t shoot Walt, why Walt left his watch on the pay phone, and more.

Get lost in the pages of gripping memoirs, transporting fiction, and more. There’s even a book by Babs. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: 37 Ink, Atria/One Signal Publishers, Catapult, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New Directions, Scribner As summer turns to fall, the beach read finds itself replaced with another type of literary enjoyment. Now is the time to snuggle up with a book, perhaps under a blanket with a cup of apple cider, while the weather cools and the leaves change colors.

In 2017, we celebrated (and continue to celebrate) the 20th anniversary of Titanic, and with it, the release of Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” — one of the most important songs of all time. Which, of course, is subjective. Where some of us had our biggest moments soundtracked by Céline Dion and vaguely Celtic instrumentals, others grew up watching films that prominently featured tracks by Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, and Eminem (to name a few).

Last week’s episode ofThe Boys, “Herogasm,” was loosely adapted from “Herogasm,” a famous six-issue arc in Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic series. A number of long-gestating conflicts came to a head, including a face-off between Homelander (Antony Starr) and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). Even more memorable is the episode’s setting: the 70th anniversary of the titular Herogasm, an annual orgy for superheroes (or, more accurately, “supes,” considering most of the attendees are far from heroes).

75845703 This spring, John Mayer was named the fourth most hated celebrity in Hollywood by Star magazine (sixteen spots ahead of Chris Brown). This is despite the fact that Mayer has basically been out of the public eye for three years. He hasn’t done anything to make the situation worse, but he also didn’t really do anything to make the situation better. Apparently, releasing arguably the best two albums of his career was not enough.