Modern Beauty Trends: In: Lindsay Lohan’s Return | Out: Trying to “Beyoncé” a Movie

Ryan Murphy may bring Barbra Streisand to TV. Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan keeps us up to date.
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“There are so many ways to make yourself look better or like your life is perfect. My life is not perfect, I’m going through it too. Instagram is such an easy tool to create this perception that their life is perfect, and I was just not going to do it anymore.” —Nina Agdal on her recent comments about body shaming

Barbra Streisand and Gwyneth Paltrow’s First Television Show?

Ryan Murphy’s Free Time

Ryan Murphy already has so many television programs on the air, it’s mind-boggling he has any time to think up ideas for new ones. And yet the Murphy machine keeps on pumping them out, and each seems more ambitious and star-studded than the last. His latest project takes him back to the musical roots he grew with Glee, and Tony winner Ben Platt is on board for the lead role. While that sounds simple enough to comprehend, the rest of the description is less so. The TV series is called The Politician, and each season will follow an election that Platt’s character competes in (hey, combining politics with music certainly worked for Hamilton). Also, Oscar winners Gwyneth Paltrow and Barbra Streisand are reportedly close to signing on as co-stars, which would mark each actress’s first regular series role (Paltrow, by the by, is engaged to Murphy’s production partner, Brad Falchuk). Oh, and it also already has a two-season commitment from Netflix in what is said to be the biggest television deal of the season. For those keeping up, Murphy’s other series currently on the air or in production include American Crime Story and American Horror Story, Fox’s 9-1-1, Feud, the ’80s-set Pose, and a series based on Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Of course, maybe we should be wondering less about how Murphy finds the time and more about what other possible cast members and guest stars he’ll book for this show.

Trashing the Latest Cloverfield

Trying to Release a Movie Like It’s a Beyoncé Album

For a brief second it felt like perhaps a new Hollywood paradigm was being written. In the middle of the Super Bowl, Netflix announced via commercial that it was set to release the highly anticipated latest entry in J.J. Abrams’s Cloverfield series as soon as the game ended. It seemed as if it was attempting to pull a Beyoncé album release, except with a potentially blockbuster-size flick. Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Oyelowo, The Cloverfield Paradox also hinted it might finally explain how the first two films in the series were actually related. For a brief moment, film geeks had so much hope. Then they actually saw the film. The reviews have been harsh. RogerEbert.com called it “a bit of a scam job,” The Hollywood Reporter wrote it off as “a trainwreck,” and Indiewire deadpanned that “the best thing you can say about this one is that it’s free with your Netflix subscription.” Yikes! Seems like this was less of a Hollywood revolution and maybe more of a way to quickly dispose of a film that producers knew just wasn’t worth releasing in any other way. Leave the Beyoncé-ing to Beyoncé.

British Brunettes

Diverse Leading Ladies in Star Wars, Unfortunately

The first trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story was released yesterday after a brief Super Bowl tease, and it firmly established Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke as the film’s leading lady (hey, Han Solo hadn’t met a certain bun-haired princess yet). We don’t know much about Clarke’s character, but she does seem to know a lot about Solo. Though this quickly led Vulture to point out that despite the much-noted diversity of recent Star Wars films, they certainly seem to have a thing for casting brunette British women as their main female stars. In addition to Clarke, that includes the main trilogy's Daisy Ridley and Rogue One’s Felicity Jones. It’s enough to make you wonder why they haven’t yet gotten around to finding Claire Foy a part. And as Natalie Portman’s prequels-defending rap on Saturday Night Live might cause you to ponder, what’s wrong with at least some American brunettes? Of course, there are still many, many more Star Wars films in development. Maybe one of them can lend the leading-lady spotlight to a woman of a different hair color, nationality, or ethnicity. In the meantime, hey, Daisy Ridley is technically blonde right now.