Archives 2024

In November 2023, reports emerged about an intense bidding war taking place to secure the rights for adapting Britney Spears’s sensational, top-selling memoir, The Woman in Me. Notable figures such as Margot Robbie, Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, and Brad Pitt were reportedly eager to earn the privilege of transforming the page-turner into a cinematic work via their respective production companies. It now seems that this competition has concluded: Universal Pictures has clinched the project, with Jon M. Chu, known for directing Crazy Rich Asians, In The Heights, and the upcoming Wicked films, set to direct.

His participation implies that the forthcoming film might lean towards a musical rather than a somber drama, corroborated by the involvement of Marc Platt, the producer behind La La Land, nominated for an Oscar thrice, who is anticipated to develop the project. Spears herself has previously hinted at this development, posting on X: “Thrilled to tell my fans that I’ve been collaborating on a secret endeavor with Marc Platt. He’s behind my all-time favorite films… stay updated.” (Certainly, fans will find solace in knowing that the singer will partake in the production, having labored persistently to regain a narrative long taken from her.) As reported by Vanity Fair, she accepted Universal’s offer because it “was said to be in the eight-figure spectrum [and] likely as it also encompassed rights to Spears’s own music collection.”

The time period the biopic will encompass is not yet specified, although the memoir follows the Grammy awardee’s life and career journey from her early years in Louisiana, gaining stardom with The Mickey Mouse Club, to reaching the zenith of her pop fame, her renowned relationship with Justin Timberlake, the invasive media spotlight that led to her downfall, and the severe lows of her conservatorship, until her resurgence in 2021.

In summary, it’s a role that is bound to transform the actress who secures it. Among the potential leading stars are Sydney Sweeney—truly, who else to don pigtails and a knotted shirt while singing “Baby One More Time” than the Euphoria actress?—alongside Louisiana’s own Addison Rae, Dove Cameron (who, let’s not forget, nearly played Wicked’s Glinda the Good Witch before Ariana Grande claimed the role), and Millie Bobby Brown, who expressed on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022: “I aspire to portray a real person and I believe that, for me… [it] would be Britney Spears. Her narrative strikes a chord with me. Growing up in the public eye, watching her clips, watching interviews from her youthful days… Although I don’t know her, when viewing her images, I sense I could convey her story faithfully.”

¿Conoces esa sensación de encontrarte con el mejor amigo de tu ex después de tu rompimiento? Ahora, imagina que eres un multimillonario ícono pop y actor, y tu ex es también un actor sumamente famoso y acaudalado, y te topas con su mejor amigo—también una célebre figura—en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto y debes simular que estás encantado. Bueno, Jennifer Lopez es una mujer más valiente que yo, porque se la vio gestionando una situación así e interactuando con el compañero de toda la vida de su reciente exmarido Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, en la fiesta posterior de su película Unstoppable.

“Jen y Matt iniciaron una charla y mantuvieron una conversación larga y profunda,” según una fuente mencionada en People, y aunque normalmente no confío en fuentes anónimas en lo que respecta a rumores de celebridades, no puedo dejar de preguntarme de qué hablaron estos dos además de Affleck. Sin más preámbulo, les presento 23 temas posibles de conversación entre Lopez y Damon, ninguno de los cuales está basado en hechos o reportajes reales, pero que podrían haber sido mencionados técnicamente el viernes.

1. La corriente de aire en el lugar.
2. Los malos aperitivos que pasan en bandejas. (De hecho, estoy segura de que nadie en su sano juicio sería tan atrevido como para servirle a Jen y a Matt un crudité pasado de moda, pero ¿acaso un aperitivo pasado en una fiesta ha sido bueno alguna vez, con la obvia excepción de los mini-salchichas envueltas en masa?)
3. Las elecciones. (¡Se acercan famosamente!)
4. La historia de vida del luchador Anthony Robles, cuyo camino al campeonato nacional de la NCAA en 2011 es el tema de Unstoppable.
5. Cuán larga fue la ovación de pie para la actuación de J.Lo en el TIFF realmente.
6. Tener hijos adolescentes, y las pesadillas contenidas allí.
7. Tener hijos adolescentes listos para convertirse en herederos de la fama, y las pesadillas aún más vívidas contenidas allí.
8. Chappell Roan. (¡Está en todos lados!)
9. Jen Affleck, la influencer de Mormon MomTok que afirma con orgullo que Ben es primo segundo de su esposo.
10. Mormon MomTok en general.
11. Agua.
12. Rihanna apareció en el desfile de Alaïa en la NYFW. (Este es un tema de interés universal, ¿verdad?)
13. El comedia romántica de la mafia de 2003 Gigli, y cómo podría haber mejorado con la coproducción de Damon.
14. Las historias más jugosas de Jen de este verano en los Hamptons. (Al fin y al cabo, sabe que cualquier chisme que le dé a Damon terminará llegando a Affleck.)
15. Por qué nadie en Hollywood puede conseguir trabajo.
16. Un plan ultrasecreto para que Hollywood vuelva a trabajar. (¡Si estos dos no pueden hacerlo, nadie podrá!)
17. La omisión de J.Lo en los Oscars 2019 por Hustlers. (Si fuera ella, hablaría de esto constantemente. Ni siquiera soy ella y aún así hablo de esto constantemente).
18. Sus respectivas crianzas en el Bronx y Boston.
19. Los mejores lugares para conseguir bagels en el Bronx y Boston. (Spoiler: No hay buenos bagels en Boston, y los mejores en el Bronx están en Empire Bagels, pero estoy segura de que lo descubrieron juntos).
20. La suavidad de las manos del otro (de manera totalmente platónica. ¡Código de colegas!).
21. Taylor Swift, como concepto general, pero también como persona específica que está actualmente en Nueva York.
22. El estado actual de las relaciones y estado mental de Ben Affleck, en ese orden.
23. Seamos sinceros: impuestos. (¿Por qué tengo la sensación de que este es el tema principal de conversación para todas las personas acomodadas?)

If someone had informed me a year earlier that a 26-year-old vocalist would assist me in redefining my sense of self as a middle-aged mother, I would have hurled my neck cream at them. It all transpired unexpectedly. One morning, the children were at school, and I was seated at my laptop, relishing the tranquility of my home. Amid my usual singer-songwriters who amplified my mild depression from nearly a decade of parenting, Chappell Roan emerged. Before encountering her, “touch me, baby” was far from my vocabulary—I was overwhelmed by contact. I preferred solitude. However, once Roan appeared on Spotify, she sang those words with the voice of a seasoned, soulful old songbird, compelling me to sing along.

My existence at 43, with two young ones, is starkly dissimilar to my 20s. Query any mother whether she remains the same person she was fresh out of college, and she’ll likely pause to nostalgically recall the liberty and excitement of those times. A friend of mine, who recently welcomed her third child, remarked, “Entering a Toyota Sienna feels like stepping into a trendy nightclub.” In essence, our interests have shifted from bar encounters to weighted blankets and seltzer. Yet, as I eagerly devoured Roan’s initial album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, I realized that beneath the additional girth around my middle, the spider veins, the stiffened hip, the sheer fatigue, the hormonal oscillations, the part of me from my 20s remained intact. Even more surprising was Roan’s capacity to mirror my present reality, enabling me to recognize that these two distinct versions of me could coexist.

When I inquired of Maggie Downs, aged 48 and mother to a 10-year-old, why she is so fond of Roan, she mentioned the juggling act all mothers face—caring for others while also striving to nurture our own selves and recall our identities. “Chappell’s music/personae propose that multiple roles can exist simultaneously. This needn’t be a balancing act at all; we encompass multitudes,” states Downs. Just as Roan sings about stretching herself across four states, from small-town Missouri to Los Angeles, in her track “California,” mothers stretch themselves across their households—one hand tending hair, one hand at a laptop advancing her career, one foot nudging dirty laundry closer to the hamper, the other foot wiping away a booger-like residue from a child’s slime kit on the floor. Emerging from the fatigue of childrearing (and carrying the mental burden for our partners) is a fervent yearning for empowerment. As the ascending strings at the onset of “Femininomenon” yield to a sound akin to our collective heartbeat, Roan questions if we know our desires and needs. Does it occur? “No!” echoes a chorus of female voices. The beat then drops, the cowbells sound, we cease folding the laundry, and we dance out our frustrations.

In some way, Roan has already absorbed the insights most of us don’t gain until our 40s or 50s. When she declined to create a video for “Good Luck, Babe” owing to touring exhaustion, weary perimenopausal and menopausal mothers everywhere rejoiced in the act of saying no. Furthermore, her social media appeal for fans to respect her privacy in public, which angered those who believe the loss of autonomy and privacy is part of her celebrity role. Moms face similar expectations, though instead of icons, we are seen as martyrs: Our bodies, our time, and our energy are for our families. We chose motherhood, hence, we have no validity in complaining about feeling overwhelmed by contact or requiring more solitude.