The Daily Beast Latest Articles
The Daily Beast Latest Articles
Activists Furious After ‘Russian Spy’ Whale’s Cause of Death Revealed
Jorgen Ree Wiig/Sea Surveillance Service/ReutersNorwegian police have dismissed claims from local animal rights organizations that the death of a beluga whale suspected of being used as a Russian spy was a deliberate act.Dubbed “Hvaldimir”—which takes from the Norweigan word for whale and adds part of the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin–the whale was discovered dead in waters off southwestern Norway on August 31. Hvaldimir gained worldwide attention after the animal was spotted off Norway’s Arctic coast with a harness attached its body that appeared to support a mounted camera.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Michael Che Nails JD Vance Joke Too Harsh for Jimmy Fallon
NBCIn his monologue on Monday, Jimmy Fallon seemingly paused in surprise while reading his cue cards and said, “Wait, what? I can’t do that joke. That news is almost three months old.” That’s when “Weekend Update” co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che walked on stage.“It seems old to you, Jimmy, but we’ve been away all summer,” Jost explained. “There’s been so much news that we haven’t been able to joke about. So we were wondering, would it be okay if we told some of those jokes from the summer, right now?”Fallon agreed, and the segment played out with Fallon reading out the joke setups and and the two Saturday Night Live stars taking turns delivering the punchlines. The most shocking one came from Che.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Jimmy Kimmel Swipes Don Jr.’s ‘Drag Queen’ GF Kimberly Guilfoyle
ABCIn his monologue on Monday, late night host Jimmy Kimmel showed a clip of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s recent speech at the Florida Republican Party “victory dinner.” In it, Guilfoyle declared the Trump campaign’s “act three” as “The Art of the Comeback,” referring to Trump’s 1997 book of the same name.“The art of the what?” Kimmel asked, making fun of her pronunciation of “comeback.” Referring to Guilfoyle’s appearance, he added, “Y’know, these people, they hate drag queen story hour… No problem with that.”Guilfoyle is a former prosecutor and Fox News host, and is now Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, so it’s no surprise for Kimmel to be roasting her. Kimmel has had a years-long dislike of Donald Jr, rivaling his feud with Donald Trump himself.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Opinion: I Went to Moms for Liberty’s 2024 Summit and It Was Dire
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersListen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.Right-wing group Moms for Liberty held its annual Joyful Warriors National Summit at the end of last month. In attendance was Olivia Little, senior investigative researcher at Media Matters, who tells The New Abnormal just how “dire” the conference was in comparison to last year.“This year, it’s more apparent that they’re neither joyful, nor Warriors, because at least last year they pretended to have some joy, but this year it was pretty dire at the summit,” Little tells co-host Andy Levy on this week’s episode.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Incredulous Anderson Cooper Mocks Gop Ex-Rep on Trump Logic
CNNCNN anchor Anderson Cooper on Monday criticized Republican former Rep. Scott Taylor’s “high school debate” strategy while trying to defend Donald Trump’s false claims about voter fraud.On AC360, Taylor was pressed about Trump’s latest false declaration over the weekend about massive fraud in Pennsylvania regarding mail-in ballots.“He’s lying about this in Pennsylvania. There’s no widespread election voter fraud. There’s no evidence of it in mail-in ballots. People just discount this. It’s like at this point it’s just, ‘Oh, this is what he does,’” Cooper said. “Do you think this is acceptable?”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Ella Emhoff Slays the Runway for Coach at New York Fashion Week
Paul Morigi/Getty ImagesElla Emhoff took to the runway at Coach’s spring 2025 show at New York Fashion Week on Monday.The stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris wore a custom “I Heart NY” t-shirt under a black blazer, paired with a black miniskirt, black baseball cap, matte black ballet flats, and a chain-link-strap shoulder bag.Emhoff, 25, is known as a multidisciplinary artist: knitter, designer, social media influencer, and, as of 2021, model. She signed with the prestigious agency IMG Models in January of that year, just days after President Joe Biden’s inauguration.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Fox Ends Segment With Man’s Vulgar Message to Jesse Watters
Fox NewsFor anyone eager to hear Jesse Watters be told to “eat s—t” on Fox News, Monday was their lucky day.The comment wasn’t made face-to-face, but rather by a college-aged interviewee in New York’s Washington Square Park who had been approached by Johnny Belisario, a producer for Jesse Watters Primetime.“That was good,” Watters laughed back in studio in response to the comment, which was included at the end of a back-to-school segment purportedly showing some New York University students. One of them said he had just had class with Barron Trump, a freshman there.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Tyreek Hill ‘Shellshocked’ After Watching Brutal Bodycam Video of His Detainment
Miami-Dade Police DepartmentTyreek Hill, the Miami Dolphins’ star wide receiver who was detained by police in front of his team’s stadium before their season opener on Sunday, spoke out after watching new body-worn camera footage of his tense confrontation released by authorities Monday evening.The Miami-Dade Police Department said it usually only releases body worn camera footage after an internal review, they decided to release the cumulative 105 minutes and 33 seconds of footage from six different officers to “reinforce the Department’s commitment to keeping the public informed,” Director Stephanie V. Daniels said in a statement on Monday.Speaking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, Hill said he was “still shellshocked” and “embarrassed” watching the videos back. The Dolphins’ wide receiver said that if he wasn’t a recognizable NFL player, the headline would have looked a lot different—and gave his worst case scenario example as: “Tyreek Hill got shot in front of Hard Rock Stadium.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Rupert Murdoch’s Courtroom Family Fight Will Make ‘Succession’ Look Boring
Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty ImagesWho will gain control of Rupert Murdoch's massive media empire? In Nevada, a court case begins Tuesday that pits two wings of the Murdoch family up against each other in a battle that brings the intrigues and rivalries of Succession to very real life. The prize: control of media diamonds like The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Fox News.Will Murdoch and his favored son Lachlan, 53, prevail, or will three other Murdoch children (James, 51; Elisabeth, 56; and Prudence, 66) wrest control from Rupert and Lachlan, and in so doing seek to change the fervently right-wing ideological zeal of Murdoch’s media properties—Fox News prime among them—forever?Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Laura Ingraham Creates List of ‘Lies’ Harris Will Apparently Tell at Debate
Fox NewsLaura Ingraham, the Donald Trump-defending Fox News host who has disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris over the grave sin of hugging, claimed Monday that she already knows what will happen during Tuesday’s presidential debate, anticipating a string of “lies” not by the chronically truth-averse Trump, but Harris.Ingraham, who earlier this year gave Trump unsolicited tips before his debate against President Joe Biden, provided him with essentially the same advice, saying he should “keep his cool” in order to look like a “seasoned leader.” And it will be Harris—not Trump, who has been making sexist smears toward his opponent in social media posts—who will be the one doing the smearing, Ingraham predicted.“She’s going to lie that Trump encouraged violence on January 6, when he said, in fact, ‘Go in peace,’” Ingraham began, apparently referring to Trump’s video message that was not released until several hours after the violence had begun.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Tim Walz’s Students Still Remember How He Comforted Them on 9/11
Allison Bailey/AFP via Getty ImagesWhen word reached Room 114 at Mankato West High School that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, Tim Walz was beginning his geography class with the usual discussion of current events.“He was one of the teachers who had a TV in his room, so he turned the news on, and we just followed what was happening the rest of the class period,” Megan Reeves recalled to the Daily Beast about that September morning during her sophomore year.“I remember being confused. What was going on in the world when I was 15 wasn’t at the top of my list of things that I truly cared about all that much.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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James Earl Jones Signed Over AI Voice Rights to Darth Vader Before His Death
Evan Agostini/Getty ImagesJames Earl Jones had a singular voice: Rich, deep, and resonant, his rumbly bass lent itself well to regal sturdiness, as in The Lion King, or ominous menace, as in the original Star Wars trilogy. It was recognizable anywhere—which is why, when the spin-off miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi premiered in the summer of 2022, fans were quick to notice something was off.By that September, Vanity Fair had gotten to the bottom of the mystery. The culprit? Artificial intelligence.The magazine reported that Jones, then 91 years old, had quietly stepped back from voicing Darth Vader. But in order to allow his iconic Sith Lord to remain an ongoing presence in that galaxy far, far away, he signed over the rights to his archival voice work to a Ukrainian startup. The company, Respeecher, then used A.I. to pore over the sound bites that Jones had recorded over the years in order to “clone” his voice.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Barron Faces NYU Professors Who Signed Trump ‘Threat’ Letter
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyEighteen-year-old Barron Trump’s first day of college at New York University’s Stern School of Business allegedly began by meeting his school’s once outspoken anti-Trump dean.Interim dean J.P. Eggers was one of 14 NYU Stern administrators to sign an October 2020 open letter warning business leaders of then president Donald Trump’s “threat” to “our republic.” The letter included over 1000 signatories from business schools across America, including from Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Columbia. Harvard University professor Professor Deepak Malhotra served as the letter’s main author.“It is time for business leaders to follow suit and speak out against the threat Trump poses to our country,” the letter urged, referencing veterans, scientists, doctors, and other professional groups that spoke out against Trump leading up to the 2020 election won by President Biden. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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The White Stripes Reunite... to Sue Donald Trump
Nicky J. Sims/Getty ImagesBoth Jack White and Meg White signed on to a lawsuit against the Trump campaign on Monday for using their iconic song “Seven Nation Army” in a video posted on social media.The White Stripes, the defunct Detroit garage rock band famous for hits like “Icky Thump” and “Fell in Love With a Girl,” accused the Republican nominee of copyright infringement in a new suit filed in the Southern District of New York on Monday.The dispute began in August, when a Trump communications staffer posted a video of the former president boarding a jet on the campaign trail set to the opening bass line.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Oprah to Host ‘Unite for America’ Virtual Event for Kamala Harris
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesComing soon to a livestream near you: Oprah Winfrey.The television host and producing powerhouse will hold a virtual rally next week to corral support for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, according to a press release.Winfrey will headline “Unite for America,” billed by organizers as a “call to action” for pro-Harris grassroots groups. To produce the event, she is partnering with Win With Black Women, as well as more than 140 other organizations, including Cat Ladies for Kamala, Swifties for Harris, and White Dudes for Harris.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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This Affordable Squat Machine Revolutionizes Exercising While Minimizing Injuries
Scouted/The Daily Beast/The DB Method.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.In my pre-pandemic days, I was a gym junkie—and if I squinted while looking in the mirror, possibly in the best shape of my life. When the gyms closed, like many, I scrambled to adjust to home workouts. My equipment collection was lean, and without a big budget, I stuck to basics. Besides a few weights, bands, and mats, the largest purchase I made was the DB Method. And I will never stop using this magic squat machine, even now that gyms have been reopened for over two years. Though the brand’s marketing focuses heavily on building your “assets,” the machine caught my eye for many reasons, including affordability. I don’t have a lot of space either, so the fact that this folds under a couch in a minute flat was vital. I also appreciate that it’s a manual machine that doesn’t require electricity to use because there’s less to break and no cords to trip over.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Nikki Haley Defends Harris From Trump and Vance’s Attacks
ReutersNikki Haley continued her criticism of Donald Trump and JD Vance, blaming the GOP presidential ticket’s rhetoric about women for Kamala Harris’ double-digit polling lead among female voters.“Donald Trump and JD Vance need to change the way they speak about women,” the former United Nations ambassador said on Monday. “You don’t need to call Kamala dumb. She didn’t get this far just by accident.”During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Haley said that the former president and his running mate ought to “just focus on the policies,” rather than discussing the Vice President’s intelligence or appearance, among other things.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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‘Jon & Kate Plus 8’ Star Alleges Horrific Child Abuse in Bombshell Interview
NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty ImagesOne of the now-grown children from TLC’s hit show Jon & Kate Plus 8 has made bombshell abuse allegations against his reality TV star mom. Collin Gosselin, 20, told the U.S. Sun that his mom would zip-tie his hands and feet together and toss him in a locked room inside their home’s basement, where she’d leave him to lay for hours in the dark. That area of the basement was “specially-built” to house Collin, he claimed, with a bolted lock ensuring he couldn’t escape. He added that he was left in the room for an entire day or half-day “multiple times,” with his mom monitoring him using cameras installed inside. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Watch James Earl Jones Hilariously Mock His Voice on ‘Will & Grace’
Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty ImagesJames Earl Jones’ booming basso profundo may be the entertainment industry’s all-time most iconic voice. And yet, when I think of him, it is always his high-pitched squawking of “JIMMY CHOO!” that rings loudly in my ear.Jones died Monday at age 93. His career bursts with towering performances and line deliveries that have become part of our cultural DNA.He’s performed Shakespeare and August Wilson on stage. Take your pick as to whether his performance of Field of Dreams’ “If you build it, he will come,” Darth Vader’s “I am your father,” or Mufasa’s “Everything the light touches is our kingdom” in The Lion King is the more indelible quote. And if you’re a millennial of a certain age, that the guy who played Mr. Mertle in The Sandlot is this monumental legend was a foundational realization in your young life.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Weinstein Gets Heart Surgery Just Days After Ex Parades Beau Around Venice
KENA BETANCUR/Getty ImagesDisgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital from his jail cell on Sunday, his attorneys confirmed.Weinstein, 72, underwent emergency surgery at the Manhattan hospital, his attorney Arthur Aidala told the Daily Beast in an email. His surgery took place on Monday and was “regarding heart issues,” Aidala confirmed.Weinstein, who is being held at Rikers Island during his retrial on charges of rape, reportedly began complaining about feeling sick over the weekend, his lawyers told The New York Times.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Kate Middleton’s Cancer Recovery Video Is ‘Reset to End All Resets’: Source
Instagram/The Prince and Princess of WalesAs the positive news of Kate Middleton’s completion of chemotherapy and cancer-free status sank in Monday, questions about her ongoing recovery were replaced by one big question about the video she used to announce the news: namely, WTF was that?There was of course, no precedent, as in times gone by the only updates about royal health were delivered either on an easel in the courtyard of Buckingham Palace (“…delivered of a boy…”) or via the rather curt announcement on the BBC, “The king is dead, God save the king.”So it’s fair to say there has never been a more massive and abrupt shift in the tone of royal messaging than the one signaled by Kate’s astonishingly intimate Instagram cancer recovery video, directed by Will Warr.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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JD Vance Pushes Truly Wild Conspiracy Theory
Undocumented immigrants are coming to kidnap and eat your family pets, Republicans will have you know.Prominent politicians, including JD Vance and their chief internet allies are spreading a fake far-right conspiracy theory about furry-friend munching migrants. And naturally, Kamala Harris is to blame.“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar?” Vance posted on X on Monday, along with a video of him speaking at a hearing.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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James Earl Jones, Unmistakable Screen Presence Who Voiced Darth Vader, Dies at 93
Mike Pont/WireImageJames Earl Jones, one of the greatest actors of his generation, whose uniquely resonant and authoritative bass-baritone voice served as the cornerstone of his undeniable screen presence, died on Monday morning in New York. He was 93.Jones’ representatives at Independent Artist Group confirmed his death, at his home at Dutchess County, to Deadline. A cause was not immediately shared.This is a breaking story and will be updated.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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An Absolutely Ripped Ralph Fiennes Shines in Vicious ‘The Return’
Courtesy of TIFFTORONTO, Canada—The Return is full of big classical themes: devotion, guilt, responsibility, jealousy, atonement, and longing. What it delivers that’s unique, however, is the sight of an incredibly ripped Ralph Fiennes slaughtering villainous scoundrels with a blade and bow and arrow.Once again proving that he’s one of cinema’s most versatile and adventurous actors, Fiennes assumes the role of Homer’s epic hero Odysseus in Uberto Pasolini’s retelling of the Odyssey, whose slow-burn pace adds tremendous heft to its drama and builds intense anticipation for its climax, in which its celebrated headliner erupts with a ferocity that’s breathtaking in its steeliness, its swiftness and—most affecting of all—its sadness.Written by Pasolini, John Collee, and Edward Bond, The Return (premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival) isn’t hung up on fidelity; only focused on a particular section of its source material, its prime concern is capturing the profound weightiness of its characters’ dilemmas, choices and actions.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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You Have to Watch Hugh Grant Sing Radiohead in Goofy New Horror Movie
Leon Bennett/Getty ImagesYou may not think you need to see Hugh Grant sing Radiohead’s “Creep” in a cheerily menacing tone, and yet, let me assure you, you do. What about seeing him do a Jar Jar Binks impression while tormenting two young Mormon missionaries? Yes, that also happens in Heretic, the entertainingly goofy new horror film from A24 which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.Don’t think too hard about Heretic—which has a lot of musings about faith and religion, none of which quite cohere. Just lean into Grant's lunacy and you'll have a fantastic time. It’s yet more proof that the former rom com star is having the time of his life in this new phase of his career where he uses his charm to play weirdos and baddies.Heretic comes from writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, best known for coming up with the concept for A Quiet Place and writing the first movie in that franchise alongside John Krasinski. Here they focus on Sister Barnes (Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (The Fabelmans’ Chloe East), who are traipsing around a mountain town with their bikes looking for people to convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Ron Howard Finally Reckons With His Role in Elevating JD Vance
Rodin Eckenroth/Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesRon Howard has finally started responding to questions about his role in elevating the profile of Donald Trump’s now running mate, JD Vance, after adapting Vance’s memoir into 2020’s Amy Adams and Glenn Close starrer Hillbilly Elegy.Howard, speaking from the Toronto International Film Festival where he’s promoting his latest movie Eden, told Deadline he’s been both “surprised and disappointed” by what he’s heard from Vance since his ascension to the spotlight after Trump selected him for VP. According to Howard, at the time he was adapting Vance’s book into the Netflix film, the Ohio-born lawyer wasn’t interested in politics.“We didn’t talk a lot of politics when we were making the movie,” Howard told the site, “I was interested in his upbringing and that survival tale. That’s what we mostly focused on.” But, as Howard said, “that was then.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Lauren Sánchez Reveals the Reason for Clash With Jeff Bezos
Jamie McCarthy/GettyLauren Sánchez has revealed the reason she clashes with fiancé Jeff Bezos—the toppings on their churros.When they make churros for the kids at their Miami home, Amazon boss Bezos wants to put sugar on the “Mexican doughnut” while Sánchez prefers more elaborate, and even sweeter, additions.“We bond and we clash in the best possible way,” Sánchez, who is Mexican American, says in an interview with Elle.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Reporter: What I Learned When Trump Let Me Inspect His Ear
David Dee Delgado/ReutersDonald Trump’s ear that was injured in July’s assassination attempt appears to be just fine after all—at least according to a reporter who had an unusually intimate encounter with it.New York Magazine reported Monday that, in a sit-down interview at Mar-a-Lago, the journalist Olivia Nuzzi got a very detailed look at Trump’s right ear—the one he infamously bandaged up for the RNC—and declared that it appeared to be “normal” and “fine.” “An ear had never appeared to have gone through less,” wrote Nuzzi.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Johnny Depp Launches ‘Immersive’ Art Exhibition Called ‘A Bunch of Stuff’
Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersJohnny Depp is launching the first “immersive and experimental exhibition” of his artwork in a show titled “A Bunch of Stuff.”The exhibition will open next month at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Manhattan, according to the New York Post. The multimedia showcase will include “large-scale immersive rooms, traditional gallery spaces, and themed retail, guiding you through the different phases of Depp’s life and creative journey, enriched by his own narration,” according to the exhibition’s website.The show will open to the general public on Oct. 4, according to the Post.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd’s New Comedy Is the Funniest Film of the Year
Courtesy of TIFFTORONTO, Canada—Tim Robinson’s characters are socially inept weirdos who don’t recognize that they’re incapable of properly existing in society and grow furiously frustrated when their craziness is thrown back in their face.With his Netflix sketch series I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, the comedian has perfected a particular brand of pathetic-yet-hostile strangeness, playing office drones, TV hucksters, and suburban husbands and fathers (among others) who are oblivious to (or disinterested in following) the tenets that govern human interaction. They’re the creep who says and does the wrong thing at the absolute worst time, makes everyone intensely uncomfortable, and then exacerbates the situation by bizarrely apologizing, doubling down, or freaking out.Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Friendship is Robinson’s first attempt at expanding his persona in a feature-length project, and it’s as feverishly and hilariously demented as one would expect. Pairing him with Paul Rudd in a story about male need, camaraderie, and obsession, Andrew DeYoung’s film is full of trademark circumstances, stunts, and screams that fans of the star’s small-screen effort will instantly recognize as more of the same.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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