Column: Last News

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeJimmy Kimmel has been a part of my life since the moment I arrived in Los Angeles in 1996 and started listening to him every morning as Jimmy the Sports Guy on KROQ’s “Kevin & Bean Show.” As a radio geek myself, I’ve always loved that Kimmel started in radio, where it’s live; you must think fast and you have to rely on your instincts since there’s no audience to give you immediate feedback.In many ways, radio was the perfect training ground for Kimmel as he prepares to host this year’s Emmy telecast — which will be live and with no audience, forcing him to think fast and rely on his instincts.“I’m fairly comfortable with the idea of not getting a response from an audience,” Kimmel tells me.

Alexander Payne In a recent social media post, Rose McGowan wrote that filmmaker Alexander Payne engaged in a sexual act with her while she was 15 year old. Payne today responds with a firm denial in this guest column.

Traci G. Lee There’s a moment 19 minutes into Disney’s 1998 film “Mulan” where the heroine takes a sword to her long black hair, cutting it short in one fluid motion without hesitation.

Clayton Davis “I’m here. I’m part of this now.”— Pam, “The Office”The human mind and soul exist, but are not mutually exclusive to chasing your dreams.

It’s rare when two “once-in-a-lifetime” events occur in your life: Finding out you’ve been nominated for an Emmy and living in the middle of a pandemic. When it rains, it pours COVID-19.

So often it’s only after an extraordinary moment or experience that we realize how extraordinary it actually was. You wish you could go back in time and tell your brain, “Remember this.

I first met Sumner Redstone in 1996 when I was working with Robert Evans and we were at Paramount. We had a producing deal, and we were up for renewal.

Joaquin Castro Just over a year ago, a gunman drove more than 600 miles to shoot and kill people because he viewed Latinos, who have lived in El Paso long before the U.S. was even founded, as invaders.

Even though I never grew up with a garden, growing and harvesting my own produce was a lifelong dream of mine. When I was younger, I remember a story someone told me after visiting their grandparents in Louisiana for summer break.

Zach Cowie My 2020 seems to have “started” a bit earlier.I ushered in the New Year single for the first time in a long while, and a week later, woke up blind in my left eye courtesy of a freshly detached retina.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe secret to the popularity of Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy” may be in its music choices.At the end of one episode, the series plays a cover of Adele’s “Hello” in Swedish over a montage of various characters’ travails; the language choice seems chosen at least in part as a way to earn points for quirk that seems, in the moment, purposeful and excessive.

Rami Even-Esh Dear Wiley,How are you? I ask that sincerely, as I’m sure the past week has been challenging for you, as it has been for many of us. Your words have hurt.

I'm no expert, and as I'm over 21 years old, I know I will probably be roasted for this "How do you do, fellow kids?" style take. But maybe it's that TikTok feels like it has no rules.

A year or so ago, a movie producer called me and asked if I would be willing to appear in a documentary. The documentary happened to feature a dear old friend and colleague of mine, someone who I deeply respect, Drew Dixon.

COVID-19 caught the music industry with its pants down. Few can argue that. We’ve been driving fans down the same three-lane highway that we built 50 years ago: buy my music, buy my tickets, buy my merch. And now that much of that highway has been shut down, we’re scrambling. We came out of the coronavirus gate like a sky full of airplanes with no air traffic control, completely canceling each other out (and at times canceling ourselves out)

Chris Willman Music WriterIf “The Princess Bride’s” Inigo Montoya were to ever attend a Donald Trump rally or watch his campaign’s videos, it’s clear what he’d say: “You keep using that song. I do not think it means what you think it means.”From the 2016 campaign through the present day, music fans have been baffled by Trump’s use of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as his walk-off music at rallies.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe star of Jason Hehir’s documentary series “The Last Dance” isn’t Michael Jordan so much as his charisma, which seems at times to move independent of him. The nonfiction series, which was a sensation on ESPN this past spring ahead of its bow on Netflix this weekend, is flawed as documentary in all but one way: It provides a remarkable testament to the power of Jordan’s celebrity, a power morphed but not undimmed by time.

Rain Valdez Watching “Soapdish” as a child in the 90s was the first time I saw what life could be like for a transgender actress. Montana Moorehood, an actress on a soap opera played beautifully by Cathy Moriarty, is forcibly outed as a transgender woman to her co-stars.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticNaya Rivera was a fearsome screen presence who made meals out of whatever crumbs she got. While she began her TV career sparkling with winsome charm as a child actor on sitcoms like “Family Matters” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” it was on “Glee” that she got to prove the full breadth of what she could do.

Chrissy Teigen is not happy the New York Times column written by the food writer she beefed with last week has been put on ice.

By Michael Schneider