Getting with the Latino Program

Disney would like us to know they are keeping up with the times.

First they gave us a black princess (hey, Tiana, hey...), and, now, the studio would like us to meet Elena de of Avalor, its first Latina princesita.

She will begin spicing things up via her own Disney Junior animated series next year, after she is first introduced to the world on Sofia the First.

Ay que lindo!

Photo: EW.com.

Bitches, She’s Madonna...But....

So Beck won the Album of the Year Grammy last night, for his 12th album, 2014’s Morning Phase.

A win that served to inform a lot of people that, yeah, Beck released an album last year.

The Grammy Awards, as usual, were an overstuffed affair that featured lots of performances, including one by my main girl, my Queen, Madonna, that was just a little too clumsy/stiff for my liking. M, ever the Rebel Heart, turned up at the show, in a ridikolous matador outfit by Givenchy that allowed her to get her cheeky on as she walked away from people, but that choreography for “Living for Love” on stage....

Oy.

I mean, check it out:



She must saving her bestest for her upcoming tour, right? Right?

No matter, I still love Madonna. A little more today now that three more songs from her upcoming Rebel Heart album have hit the iTunes, including my new insta-fave, “Joan of Arc.”

Heart. It!

The Brits Heart Boyhood

Not so fast, Birdman – Boyhood’s still in the picture.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film may have had a big weekend, alright, winning the helmer the Directors Guild Award, but Richard Linklater’s film was a big hit across the pond, taking Best Film honors at the BAFTA Awards.

The race to Oscar be tight!

Just like they have all season, Eddie Redmayne, Julianne Moore, J.K. Simmons, and Patricia Arquette all won BAFTAs for their work in The Theory of Everything, Still Alice, Whiplash, and Boyhood.

Photo: TheDailyBanter.com (Boyhood).

The Big Mac

Michael Keaton is going from playing a now-iconic character to portraying the man behind an icon for the times.

The man behind Ronald McDonald.

That’s right: Birdman will soon become The Founder, a.k.a. Ray Kroc, the milkshake-mixer salesman who sweet-talked two brothers from San Bernardino, Calif., Mac and Dick McDonald, into franchising their successful hamburger stand, only to cheat them out of the business and of about $200 million by pretending to have come up with the McDonald’s concept all on his own.

Photo: BostonGlobe.com.

The New Z-itizen

Boo.

Benedict Cumberbatch is not going to be looking for The Lost City of Z, after all.

Instead, Charlie Hunnam will be taking over the lead role in the adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction book, which will center on Percy Fawcett, an explorer who in 1925 ventured into the depths of the Brazilian Amazon to map the area but ended up discovering a mythical city.

Robert Pattinson is still on board, and American Sniper’s Sienna Miller has joined the project and will be playing Mrs. Fawcett.

Photo: Homorazzi.com.

A View Less Rosie

It happened earlier this week: Rosie O’Donnell left The View.

Again.

O’Donnell reportedly decided to step away from the chatfest – which she rejoined last year – in the wake of some troubles at home: She and her (second) wife of three years, Michelle Rounds, are calling it quits, and she wants to be able to focus on her five kids as her family navigates this separation. She also cited some health concerns for this latest departure, though.

Maybe it is time for the embattled, Barbara Walters-less View itself to go and take a little time to enjoy the view, huh.

The tired is definitely showing now.

Photo: AdWeek.com.

And the Best Director of 2014 Is...

Alejandro G. Iñárritu (pictured here with his star, Michael Keaton), for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).

This according to the Directors Guild of America, which handed out its 2015 Directors Guild Awards earlier tonight.

Now that Birdman has won the Producers Guild Award and the Best Ensemble Screen Actors Guild Award, I think it most safe to say this will be the one to beat at the Oscars later this month. (Sorry, Boyhood!)

Helmers for Homeland and Transparent came out on top on the TV side, btw.

Photo: LATimes.com.

The Sugar Queen’s Boss

Ava DuVernay may not have gotten invited as a nominee to this year’s Academy Awards, but who cares – she has Oprah.

Yes, the Big O has tapped DuVernay to create a new original drama series for OWN titled Queen Sugar inspired by the Natalie Baszile novel.

The Selma helmer will write, direct, and executive produce the project, which shall mark her first venture into the TV world. Oh, and for her part, Oprah will share in the executive producer duties with DuVernay and retain a recurring role on the show (of course – gotta court that girl Emmy, as an actress, too).

Queen Sugar will center on a spirited and affluent Los Angeles woman who leaves California behind to claim what’s hers from her recently deceased father’s estate, which includes an 800-acre sugar cane farm in Louisiana...and the realization that her roots are stronger than she ever knew.

Photo: RollingOut.com.

As Johnnie Cochran

Well here’s Johnnie.

Cochran.

Courtney B. Vance will play Johnnie Cochran on Ryan Murphy’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which will premiere on FX later this year.

Vance will be sharing the (small) screen with Cuba Gooding Jr., John Travolta, Sarah Paulson, and David Schwimmer. And he is going to rock that famous “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” line.

Photo: TVGuide.com.

Potential Beast

Emma Watson could be a very lucky girl.

Rumor has it the powers that be are looking to make Ryan Gosling the Beast to her Belle in the forthcoming live-action musical telling of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

I know, right?!

While I would hate not to see Gosling’s pretty face for the majority of a movie, I have to say that this would be pretty awesome sauce.

:)

Photo: imgkid.com.

Part of the Plan

Maggie’s Plan just got Fimmeld.

Travis Fimmel, one of the star of History’s Vikings, is joining Greta Gerwig and Julianne Moore in Rebecca Miller’s forthcoming New York City-set new comedy of manners.

Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader, and Maya Rudolph also have boarded the project.

No word on whether Clive Owen is still involved.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Harper’s Seconds

The unthinkable is happening this summer, people.

We are getting a new book by one Harper Lee.

Indeed, and as you probably know by now, the reclusive author, 88, will publish Go Set a Watchman, a follow-up to her beloved Pulitzer Prize winner, To Kill a Mockingbird, this July.

Good timing for me since I just took out To Kill a Mockingbird from the San Francisco Public Library.

Go Set a Watchman is reportedly set after the events of the classic novel and will focus on an adult Scout. Oh, and get this: the novel was actually completed before To Kill a Mockingbird.

Lee revealed when she made her announcement earlier this week that, given that her editor at the time was so “taken” by all the flashbacks to the character’s childhood, that she was encouraged to write a novel from the younger Scout’s POV.

So the follow-up – which will hit bookshelves on July 14 – will see her returning to Maycomb, Ala., after a 20-year absence, to visit Atticus and, by default, to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, as well as her own feelings about her birthplace.

Photo: Vulture.com.

Update 1: In case this was something that you were wondering about, Harper Lee is totally with it.

Mentally, that is.

This according to a historian-friend who reportedly visits with the author at least once a month. So Lee’s decision to publish this second book was totally and fully hers.

Update 1: Lee is so with it, in fact, that she is said to be quite “hurt and humiliated” that people could be thinking she could be out of her mind and easily duped into releasing this second tome.

Hot Maid Coming Through

It’s to the kitchen post-Glee for Naya Rivera.

The actress b.n.a. Santana is set to recur during the upcoming third season of the soapy Lifetime hit Devious Maids, as Blanca, a new maid in the show’s Beverly Hills world who begins working for a seemingly perfect family that’s actually harboring a terrible secret behind closed doors.

Oooh!

Up first, though, Rivera – who clearly is looking to stay put on the tube – will share the View table with those ladies again.

Evidently, she’s been on the show as a co-host four times in the past three months, boosting The View’s social media interactions rather nicely in the process.

So, of course, the producers have tapped her for more appearances later this month.

Photo: weWomen.com.

The Divorcé

Sarah Jessica Parker is getting Divorced for HBO, and she’s splitting from Thomas Haden Church to do so.

Yes, SJP and her Smart People co-star are reuniting for the comedy pilot about a couple that’s going through a very, very long divorce.

Furthermore, Molly Shannon has been cast as one two of Parker’s character’s closest friends. Talia Balsam (AMC’s Mad Men) is set to portray the other.

Photo: DiscoverDenton.com.

Benghazi Man

Looks like it’s finally James Badge Dale o’clock.

Michael Bay has cast the scene-stealer of 2013 in his 13 Hours, a fact-based account of the deadly assault on the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi.

JBD will take on the role of the leader of the security team that strives to protect American lives in the assault. He will co-star opposite John Krasinski in the movie, which, evidently, is shaping up but fast.

Photo: FlicksAndBits.com.

Mike Is Coming (Back)

That sound the world heard earlier this week, that was the sound of me girls and gents that like gents, ahem, watching and enjoying the first teaser for the upcoming Magic Mike sequel, Magic Mike XXL.

And, boy oh boy, can Channing Tatum move, huh.

I now will simply echo what everyone probably already has said and say that, yeah, July 1 cannot get here fast enough – because this follow-up’s gonna serve even more of what the original did a few summers ago now that Mike and his guys – including Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer – will be road-trippin’ is to a stripper convention.

I mean....

Magic Mike XXL will feature Matthew McConaughey Johnny Depp’s new wife, Amber Heard, Elizabeth Banks, Andie MacDowell, and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Photo: The Karpel Group.

M-atadora!

Leave it to Madonna to light a fire under my ass and make me find an Internet connection but fast (I’d been blissfully-ish offline this week since the cable ain’t plugged in at my new place yet).

Oh yeah – when the Queen of Pop demands my attention, she gets it.

Which is why M, being the expert self-promoter that she is, decided to drop the video for “Living for Love,” the leading single off her upcoming Rebel Heart album, three days before she’s set to take to the Grammy stage once again.

And because, bitches, she’s Madonna, she made it a splashy release by teaming up with Snapchat to disseminate the J.A.C.K.-directed, matador-themed video across the Internet exclusively via the messaging app, thus becoming the first artist to do such a thing.

Who’s irrelevant now, haters?

The “Living for Love” clip should be more readily available tomorrow. I saw it on M’s Facebook, so, you know...get!

How do you like our girl channeling Elsa Mars, huh? It’s only fitting, since Jessica Lange’s character on American Horror Story: Coven gave major M vibes.

Photo: MadonnaTribe.com.

Update: Wanna see the video?

I know you do – so here it is.



Ole!

A Missy Moment

So, as expected, Katy Perry performed at halftime during Super Bowl XLIX earlier tonight (which, btw, saw the New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks, 28-24), and her show – fine and colorful and pop-y as it was – was all about Missy Elliott.

Yes, Misdemeanor stole the show right from under the Jeremy Scott-clad Perry som’in’ fierce.

And I loved it.

I betcha everybody was expecting Perry’s other special guest, Lenny Kravitz, to be the one to outdo the “Firework”er, but, nah, kids – it was the “Get Ur Freak On” rapper’s time to shine. Her energy was, I dunno, more that crowd...sportier. Yeah. That is it. She was way more Super Bowl-y, as evidenced by the songs hits she brought to the stage, including the aforementioned and “Lose Control.”

It’s funny. Because Elliott doesn’t fit the mold of what a pop star’s supposed to look like these days – and never has – it’s easy to, no, not to dismiss her but to not keep her present of mind when it comes to a gig like football’s biggest night. But Elliott has worked with enough people that she could have headlined the halftime gig and called upon some special guests of her own. Lord knows she’s produced enough material for other artists that she could have called in a few favors.

More Missy, por favor!

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

The Game’s Fifth Round

Looks like the Mother of Dragons is going to be at the center of the fifth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which is set to premiere on April 12.

Without further ado, check.

Out.

The trailer, kids!

Is it spring yet?

Keeping Up with the Transition

So, evidently, People magazine has confirmed that, indeed, Bruce Jenner is transitioning into womanhood.

A source close to the Kardashian-Jenner clan has said as much – so, you know....

Oh, and, of course, the 65-year-old Olympian’s journey will be chronicled on an E! docu-series, which is, I think, what drove Jill Soloway, the creator of the Golden Globe-winning Amazon show Transparent, to share that ill-advised Transdashian meme earlier this week.

Meaning that I doubt that Soloway meant to mock Jenner but rather the fact that he had to let it become such a spectacle.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

Remembering the Indianapolis

Cutie-patootie director Tate Taylor (Get On Up, The Help) is going to take on the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Meaning Taylor’s going to helm an adaptation of the ship’s shark-attack story, a.k.a. the story that Robert Shaw tells in Jaws.

The Indianapolis was sunk by torpedoes in 1945 whilst returning after delivering the Hiroshima bomb. The surviving crew floated in the ocean for five days at the mercy of the elements...and at that of hungry, hungry sharks.

No cast is yet in place for the untitled project, which will be produced by Team Downey, Robert Downey Jr.’s shingle.

Photo: AceShowbiz.com.