It's over for "Bachelorette" stars Andi Dorfman and Josh Murray.

A rep for the reality stars issued a statement revealing that the two have called off their engagement:

"After several months of being engaged and working on our relationship, we have decided that it's best for both of us to go our separate ways. We are very sad that it has come to this point, but this is what's best for both of us individually," the couple said.

Dorfman and Murray, who got engaged on the Season 10 finale of the ABC dating show, made their most recent public appearance together at the Season 19 premiere of "The Bachelor" on Sunday. When host Chris Harrison asked the former baseball player about the couple's future wedding, Murray said there were "no immediate plans."

If this news has you heartbroken, ease the pain by reliving some of Dorfman and Murray's happier times with this HuffPost Live interview from July 2014:

The discussion surrounding the white-washing of black stories on the silver screen have resurfaced in recent years with the release of films such as “42,” “Get On Up,” and “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” all being helmed with a non-black director.

Despite the resurgence of black films in theaters, some black filmmakers, like Forest Whitaker, feel that it’s important for blacks to be able to tell their own individual stories, but should not be limited by any one specific race or culture.

“I think you want to make sure there’s a truth that’s being told,” Whitaker told HuffPost Live's Nancy Redd during an appearance on Wednesday. “And I think if you’re from an experience of times that allows you to be able to look at some of the layers that weren’t maybe seen…I think there’s been amazing films, stories and story tellers that told stories about different cultures too…we have to have both.”

“We have to not limit ourselves to just a color palette, but we have to be able to say that those people of that culture should be allowed the opportunity to be able to tell those stories. More specifically, that they should be given the room to explore their own social experience, their own life, their own race, their own culture alongside all the other stories told too.”

Check out more of Forest Whitaker’s HuffPost Live segment in the clip above.

Does putting cabbage leaves on your breasts reduce painful swelling after childbirth? One actress thought it was worth giving it a shot or two.

Amanda Peet, of the new HBO comedy "Togetherness," appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Wednesday and shared her experience with a certain leafy vegetable after giving birth to her third child on Dec. 6.

"When you get engorged after the baby’s born and the milk comes in, you can put cold cabbage leaves on your boobs," she told DeGeneres. "Apparently, it stops the milk.”

Despite some reports that the folk remedy can be effective for new moms, Peet isn't a believer. "It doesn't really work," she said.

But, she conceded, "it makes for a really great picture."

Of course, Peet isn't a member of the medical community, so please see your doctor with questions regarding how to best handle any discomfort.

H/T Uproxx

Chris Pratt wears many hats -- actor, superhero, "#2 Sexiest Man Alive." But perhaps his most relatable role is that of dad to 2-year-old Jack. During his "Ellen Show" appearance on Wednesday, the "Parks and Recreation" star took some time to talk about his experiences with fatherhood.

After sharing some seriously aww-worthy photos of Jack, the actor explained how difficult it is to discipline his uber-polite and vocal toddler.

"It's super frustrating because you're like, 'Alright, now. Jack, I think it's time for bed,' and he'll say, 'Hm, I thought about it and no thanks, dad, not right now,' and I'm like, 'He's so polite! What am I supposed to do?'"

The proud dad said he's quite impressed by his son's development, vehemently agreeing with Ellen when she suggested that Jack might be a genius. "He's really smart and vocal," Pratt said, adding, "He says amazing things, profound things."

Recalling a recent conversation he had with Jack, Pratt shared an anecdote from their holiday visits with relatives. "I said, 'You know, Jack, there's a lot of people here and it's very loud and people are going to be having a lot of fun and there might even be some tension.' And he just said, 'It's family.'"

"I almost started crying," Pratt said. "He's like my therapist."

From what we've seen, Chris Pratt might just be one of the sweetest Hollywood dads around.

H/T Jezebel



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Patton Oswalt is one of America's most successful standup comics, and for good reason. The best comedians are ones who can observe humanity, make sense of it and then twist that sense into something funny. It is something Oswalt does well, both in his standup and his significant social media presence.

In a HuffPost Live interview Thursday, Oswalt expressed deep sympathy over the attacks Wednesday on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people. Muslim extremists took credit for the attack, saying cartoons poking fun at the prophet Muhammad that appeared in the magazine prompted the violent response.

"The villains of the world -- the murderers, the rapists, the religious extremists, the bigots -- they take everything deadly seriously," Oswalt told host Josh Zepps. "The one thing they cannot stand is anyone taking these subjects that are very, they think, are crucial. Not even saying that it's dumb, but making light of it. That's how you can tell."

Oswalt went on to say that making fun of these things, though it provokes laughter, is often the best defense against extremism. It almost demeans the practice, he said.

"There's not a bigger weapon against oppressiveness and evil than satire and bad taste," he said.

Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation here.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

Unlike the rest of the world, Matt LeBlanc probably won't be binge-watching every "Friends" episode now that it's all on Netflix. (As he reminded HuffPost Live's Alyona Minkovski on Thursday, he doesn't need to: "I was there when we shot them all.") But he does have a few favorite episodes that he stops to watch when he catches them on TV.

Check out the video to see LeBlanc's picks (spoiler alert: he's a fan of the time Joey got a turkey stuck on his head), and watch the full HuffPost Live conversation.

Sign up for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

It's not time to let go of those "Frozen" covers just yet.

In anticipation of the two-hour final season premiere of "Glee," Fox just released Lea Michele's much-anticipated rendition of "Let it Go." In the premiere, Michele's character, Rachel Berry, sings the song as she works to reestablish the glee club at McKinley High School, according to EW.

After the release of "Frozen," "Let it Go" has become a force of nature, helping singer Idina Menzel make music history as the first person ever with both a top 10 hit and a Tony Award for acting. And since Menzel plays Michele's mom on the Fox show, it seems like a fitting way to start the final season.

The final season of "Glee" premieres Friday, Jan. 9, at 8:00 p.m. ET on Fox.

"Game of Thrones," "Veep" and "Silicon Valley" will return to HBO on April 12, the network announced Thursday at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

The fifth season of "Game of Thrones" is set to air at 9 p.m., followed by the second season of "Silicon Valley" at 10 p.m. and the fourth season of "Veep" at 10:30. All three shows will span 10 episodes.

"Game of Thrones" is a contender for the Best Television Series - Drama prize at Sunday's Golden Globes, while "Silicon Valley" is up for Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy. "Veep" was snubbed in that category, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who's won three consecutive Emmys for the show, is a Best Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy nominee.

2015 should be an amazing year for music. Between expected releases from Kendrick Lamar, Modest Mouse, Kanye West, Radiohead, Drake, Adele, Chance The Rapper, Frank Ocean, James Blake and Fleetwood Mac, to name but a select few, this year should make up for the lack of impact albums that marked 2014 (even if there was still some great music in 2014). But beyond the returning titans, there are a lot of new, rising artists and long-game players, who are finally receiving their much deserved recognition, to be excited about. Here are 25 artists that you should start listening to in 2015:

Boots


Boots might be known as the guy who produced a majority of Beyonce’s self-titled album, but he’s quickly making the name for himself he deserves. His mixtape “WinterSpringSummerFall” proved his abilities to write beautiful songs, and then subsequent tracks like “Mercy” and “I Run Roulette” proved he isn’t afraid to get loud and aggressive.

BØRNS


One listen to “Electric Love” will demonstrate why BØRNS’ spacey jams have so swiftly propelled him into the spotlight.

Vic Mensa


Whether he’s laying down bars in dizzying rhythmic patterns or discussing his Film The Police campaign, Vic Mensa is exactly what hip hop should be aspiring towards.

James Bay


With a voice like James Bay’s, he could record basically the same album repeatedly with different vocals and they would all sell. Bay proved across three EPs that he is quick to improve all facets of his craft, and his debut full-length, “Chaos And The Calm,” will be the most dynamic and enjoyable of all ... at least until the next album.

Tyler Carter


A marriage of Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber and James Blake, Tyler Carter is an inevitable pop star. We saw Dallas Green go from hardcore to folk, Sonny Moore (Skrillex) go from hardcore to EDM and soon Carter from hardcore to R&B/pop.

Misterwives


It’s hard not to love the quirky sound of Misterwives, who have somehow managed to mix indie and folk-rock and then make it impossible not to dance to.

Joey Bada$$


The Pro Era captain Joey Bada$$ is finally ready to put out his debut album, and with tracks like “Teach Me” included, his experiment in sound beyond the New York boom bap that brought him to attention will be critical to his success.

Jon Bellion


If there’s a reason people love Jason Derulo’s “Trumpets,” it’s Jon Bellion. A masterful meld of J Dilla and Disney, Bellion’s “The Definition” grows stronger in its swagger with each listen, and is the prelude to the album that will inevitably put him at the top of the pop pyramid.

Glass Animals


What is there to say about Glass Animals other than that they are one sexy band. They even make the word “gooey” sexy.

Years & Years


This electro-pop trio has all the appeal of acts like Disclosure and Chvrches, and with the charisma and allure of vocalist Olly Alexander, they will soon become party favorites.

Alex Wiley


Determined to constantly challenge himself and the listener, Alex Wiley’s last release, “Top of the World,” left us with a flash of Kid Cudi-inspired differentiation. In Wiley’s next album, listeners can expect music from a hip-hop artist with visions of Nirvana in his head.

Ryn Weaver


Just like Banks and Tove Lo won the hearts of the pop world in 2014, so too will Ryn Weaver in 2015.

Little May


With the haunting nature of Daughter, soothing bloom of First Aid Kit and stomp-fest peaks of Mumford & Sons, the ladies of Little May are about to have a big year.

Yeo


Yeo has no discernible allegiance to any sort of genre, but as he points out, it really doesn’t matter -- especially when the Australian artist is consecutively pumping out great tunes. Dreamy and catchy as hell, Yeo is about to cross the sea with hits like “Kobe."

Raury


If being flown out to meet with Kanye doesn’t say enough about the talent and promise of a young artist like Raury, then just look to his first project, “Indigo Child.” Raury wants to become music’s savior,

Broods


The brother-sister duo Broods’ music is exactly what its name sounds like: synthpop that mulls over the weight of every word sung. But functioning as more contemplative than self-pitying, their debut full-length, “Evergreen,” feels more like a snowy day than a rainy one.

Mark Ronson


This isn’t Mark Ronson’s first rodeo, but his Bruno Mars collaboration, “Uptown Funk,” is finally garnering him the wider audience he deserves. Continuing his era-themed albums -- all of which deserve to be explored by new listeners -- the '70s flex of "Uptown Special" is sure to be a hit the whole way through.

Daye Jack


Daye Jack is a perfect representation of the rising wave of internet-cultured artists: extremely talented at a young age and swirling together the styles that previously had been so carefully separated, all with a big grin. Whether he’s rapping or doling out sweet melodies, it’s all working and it’s all got soul.

The Districts


Forget that none of the members of The Districts are of legal drinking age, their blend of blues, rock and folk has proven them amongst some of the best today, and their new album, “A Flourish and a Spoil,” will only see their clout rise.

Tink


The Chicago emcee has been on the rise for some time, but with a Timbaland co-sign, Tink isn’t just going to be the next hottest female in hip-hop, she’s going to be that rapper. Oh, and did we mention she has got a great singing voice, too?

Marian Hill


Minimal electronic beats; delicate, sensual vocals and the occasional saxophone solo. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Hail Mary Mallon


Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic have long been players in the underground hip-hop scene, but, like Run The Jewels’ Killer Mike and El-P, they are at their best together. Teaming up with DJ Big Wiz, their sophomore album “Bestiary” is as nasty as it sounds.

Catfish and the Bottlemen


The British indie-rock four-piece just released their debut album, “The Balcony,” and it won’t be long before their catchy tunes dominate the radio.

Hopium


Having only released two tracks so far, there is little to known about the duo behind Hopium. However, with releases like “Dreamers,” Hopium is quickly gaining the attention of the musical community.

All Get Out


All Get Out’s Southern heart with an often spicy attitude is modeled around Nathan Hussey’s vocals: a homey twang with a proclivity for cracking into yells. It’s been four years since “The Season,” but 2015 marks the long-awaited return of some good southern rock ’n’ roll.

BONUS:

Polyenso


Polyenso was on our list of artists to know in 2014, and we will keep adding them until they get the recognition they deserve. After debuting their first new single, “17 New Years,” the trio followed up with “Moona Festival.” It’s unlikely we will hear a more emotive and beautiful song for the rest of 2015.

Jay Duplass is having a moment.

The longtime filmmaker made his major acting debut this summer in "Transparent," the much-buzzed about Amazon original series depicting a trans woman (Maura, played by Jeffrey Tambor) beginning her late-in-life transition. Duplass plays one of Maura's three adult children, Josh, an emotionally stunted music producer trying to piece together his own identity. Now, on Sunday, Duplass' new drama “Togetherness” -- made with younger brother and creative partner Mark Duplass -- premieres on HBO.

But while his television pursuits may be fresh, Duplass, along with his brother, has been inside the entertainment industry for years. The brothers first garnered a following in the indie film community with hit Sundance features “The Puffy Chair,” and “Baghead," which put their true-to-life, emotionally grounded aesthetic onto the map. They then transitioned to mainstream success with the studio-releases “Cyrus” and “Jeff, Who Lives At Home.”

As the two rose through the ranks of Hollywood, their traditional labor breakdown often put Mark acting onscreen, while Jay worked behind the camera. That division, coupled with Mark branching out to play roles in projects outside the family -- such as in projects like Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” Melissa McCarthy's "Tammy" and the FX series “The League” -- gave audiences more familiarity with the younger Duplass brother. He quickly gained a reputation as one of the busiest actors in Hollywood, working at a rate he himself characterized as compulsive. Jay, meanwhile, was portrayed as the more careful, balanced sibling, off editing an indie film somewhere in the wings.

“Jay would rather make one movie every two years that we direct together and then garden and run and get centered,” Mark joked to Grantland in 2012. “ And I just feel desperately compelled to work. Down to the core of my being. I have no idea why.”

But now, for the first time, that dynamic has shifted. While the two brothers were editing “Togetherness,” Jay was doing double duty on the set of “Transparent."

“We switched roles a bit this summer,” Jay told HuffPost Entertainment in a recent interview. “He sort of became the dude on lockdown, and I became the one having an affair with my other show. I kind of came to an appreciation of how challenging his life is by jumping around for different things.”

In advance of Sunday’s “Togetherness” debut, HuffPost Entertainment got on the phone with the writer/actor/director to talk about his perspective on the Duplass brothers’ origin story, his newfound passion for acting at 40 and what to expect on the upcoming HBO show.

Short Film Roots: "This is John," and "Scrapple"



Mark has said before that there was an early period where you both were editors trying to make the day job work. Then your dad helped you out financially and you were able to really focus on making things. Do your first short films come out of that period?
Yeah. We both went to college at the University of Texas. I arrived there when Richard Linklater’s "Slacker" was in the midnight theater, in the early '90s. That’s when we first started coming to the awareness that human beings made movies -- that they weren’t just like piped in over cable from some mysterious place. We graduated from college and we were just sort of hanging out in Austin, making stuff and editing for other people. Just trying to find, I guess, our voice. For a long time we were hooked on trying to be the Coen brothers and failing at it miserably.

"For a long time we were hooked on trying to be the Coen brothers and failing at it miserably."

Was the appeal that you were also brothers?
That was probably a small part of it. More, we were weirdly obsessed with their stuff, which is funny now because our stuff couldn’t be more opposite. They’re like the most heady, on the rails, controlled filmmakers; Mark and I, we do write scripts but we’re waiting for lightning to strike on set, for surprises to happen. And we shoot in a documentary style. It’s funny how diametrically opposed we ended up.

Your first film that started getting buzz was “This is John,” a short that went to Sundance. Was that the first time you felt like you were finding that voice?
Yeah, that was really the first movie ever. It was just a weird accident, where I was pushing 30 and on the verge of a nervous breakdown because I hadn’t made anything great yet. Mark was just like: “We’re gonna make a movie today. Come up with an idea.” Basically I came up with a thing that had happened to me the day before. I tried to perfect the personal greeting of my answering machine and had a breakdown. I couldn’t get it right and I was like “Oh fuck, if I can’t do this, I don’t know how I’m going to make it as a filmmaker.” We did it in one take and we edited it down to seven minutes. It truly cost $3. We shot it with our parents’ video camera and it did more for our careers than the previous 10 years of just kind of meandering about.



Did you make your follow-up short “Scrapple” with the intention of going back to Sundance?
Yeah, that was the very specific goal. After we made “This is John,” we wrote a couple of feature screenplays. We got an agent [at Sundance], and he told us to do that. But the agency at the time wasn’t doing anything to move it forward. That’s when we were first starting to realize: Oh yeah, agents don’t really do stuff for you when you’ve just made a $3 short film. So we were like, "Okay let’s make another film and go back to Sundance!"

So we made this time a film that happens in a kitchen and a living room, added one person and made it for $50! So it was very incremental steps. At that point, literally people who worked [at Sundance] were like, "Guys, are you gonna make a feature or not? You’re ready." It was really cool. I always tell young filmmakers: Don’t go make a feature. Make a short. When you’re ready to make a feature, people will tell you. Your friends will tell you, your fans will tell you, festivals will tell you. Listen to your audience.

First Feature: "The Puffy Chair"

A lot of people see "The Puffy Chair" as a spin on the classic road trip genre. Was that a conscious decision on your part?
No, it was really just, we were terrified to make a feature, because we had made some movies in our early 20s that were terrible, and we don’t show them to anyone. We had come to this place where we were like, "Okay, we know how to make short films. The whole world has told us that we’re good at that." Because we were winning awards at festivals for a $3 movie. So we were like, a road trip is a great way to integrate spine to build a relationship movie. And just more immediately, a road trip film is like a spine to hang, like, 13 great short films on. We felt very confident doing that.

Do you still approach feature writing like creating a spine for shorts?
No, now I would say we’re actively going in a different direction in terms of plotting. Because I think we realized at the time we released "Puffy Chair" that the minor plotting things that we were doing -- like tracking certain elements that we would set up and then revisit and pay off later -- were extremely powerful. I think it’s what sort of differentiated us. Everyone was saying we were mumblecore filmmakers at the time, which doesn’t really mean anything. Mark and I have always just been trying to make something that didn’t suck. We’ve never been trying to be part of a movement. But I think "Puffy Chair," the meager plot that it had was still three times more plot than all the other movies that were coming out at the time. We know for a fact that’s why Hollywood came calling immediately.

Development Inertia: "Baghead," "Do-deca-Pentathlon," "Cyrus," and "Jeff Who Lives At Home"



So Hollywood came right after "Puffy Chair" did Sundance?
Yeah, definitely. That’s when we started doing our general meetings. Everyone wanted to meet with us. They were like, "Oh my god, these little dudes made this movie for $15,000. What if we gave them $15 million? The movie would be a thousand times better!" Which wasn’t true. But like, we didn’t do anything to dispel that. We were like, "Sure, we’d love to have some money to make a movie." We’d been struggling for so long.

From those meetings come your bigger Studio features, "Cyrus," (2010) and "Jeff, Who Lives At Home." (2011) Where does "Baghead," which came out in 2008, fit into the timeline?
We started sort of dating Hollywood right after we made "Puffy Chair," and we started developing "Cyrus" pretty soon. But that development process was long-winded. It was new to us, it was challenging. It just seemed to go on forever. So we decided to continue to make movies. We were lucky because we knew how to make movies for a few thousand dollars. So we just went back to Austin and made "Baghead."

"I’ve been holding up universes for a long time, and it’s fucking exhausting".

Did you find there were things you had to sacrifice during the long development process for your bigger budget features?
No, we never sacrificed anything. We just had to work extra hard to explain everything, and to fight for things. And we did. It’s not like development was all bad -- there are good ideas that come up. A lot of it just had to do with justifying. It makes the process so much more long-winded. It just grinds you down is really what it comes down to. Mark and I are super picky about what we want to do. By the time we’ve vetted and processed a script, we’re kind of done. And it's not about ego, it’s really about the little amount of energy that we have, and also our process. We’re kind of like cavemen who are trying to feel things out in the dark and there’s a little bit of mystery to the process that we feel is important. When you have to justify it to all these executives, it really changes the nature of the process.

We never felt like we compromised anything -- we made the exact movie we wanted to. But we just got beat up during the process. Not that the executives were beating us up -- just the process beat us back a lot. Before we started making "Cyrus," we only made a $15,000 movie that looked really rough. I think the studio was trying to be super careful we didn’t make a $7 million movie that looked like a piece of shit.

"Cyrus" was the only development process that we had because "Jeff, Who Lives At Home" was sort of like championed by Jason Reitman. He kind of just set it up at Paramount. We didn’t change a thing about the script, we went right into production. We've only done that [development process] once and we’re not gonna do that again.

Hollywood Relief: "Kevin"



You then move on to make the solo-project documentary "Kevin," which tells the story of a prominent '90s musician in Austin who suddenly disappeared from the scene. Did your exhausting development experience make you consciously want to do a project that was so "un-Hollywood?"
Yeah, definitely. Mark and I have been obsessed with [Kevin Gant] since I was like 18 and Mark was like 15. That was more like a life experience that also happened to be a film. It was something that was totally uncontrolled. I was the entire crew -- I didn’t even have a sound guy. It was just me alone with him the whole time. It was very personal. Really a way for me to spend a lot of time with this guy I loved and admired for so long and try to give something back to him because I guess he’d inspired me so much. The movie was more about complete freedom and lack of control. It was just chaos shooting that. We didn’t know what was happening. I was just following him.

Your experience doing the film kind of mirrors what Kevin says about his own career in the movie. I'm thinking of the moment when you ask him why he's getting back into music after so many years if not to "make it," and he says, "life." Is that kind of what this project was for you, too?
Yeah, that was exactly what the project was for me. When he said that -- in that moment I knew that I had a film. That we had something to say and we had found the thing we were saying together.

The TV Chapter: "The Mindy Project,” “Transparent" and "Togetherness"




You've recently been transitioning to more onscreen work. I love your arc on "The Mindy Project," in which you and Mark play a brothers' midwife duo that competes for clients with Mindy's OBGYN practice.
I ended up having so much fun on that show it was just natural and kind of easy to do it. I had never really acted that much before that. I’ve always been the camera operator on our movies so it’s never even really been an option to get in front of the camera because I've been literally stuck behind it. I’ve definitely had friends like Mindy [Kaling] and Jill Soloway all through the years like meet me and say, like, wow you probably should act. I don’t know -- I was always just busy writing and directing and shooting.

What do you think it is about you that makes people say that?
I don't know what it is. I can tell you something that has occurred to me since. My whole life, I’ve been the one in my family that’s always too emotional and too sensitive. That’s like my role in my family. Now that I’m acting, I’ve realized that I don’t have a lot of barriers. Certain actors have a hard time with anger, or with joy or with whatever, and, I don’t know, I don’t seem to have those barriers. So now I feel like weirdly exonerated because, like, yeah, I have thin skin and I am very emotional and I feel everything more than other people do. And now I’m getting paid for that shit! It’s always right there on the surface for me. It’s weird. It’s interesting to be 40 and to be discovering something that feels very natural, like something totally new. Because acting is so different from writing and directing.

"Josh has had more sex in one season of 'Transparent' than I’ve had in my entire life."

It sounds like maybe for you that difference has to do with being in control versus not?
Yeah, that's a big part of it. I think part of acting is allowing yourself to lose control and also to just surrender to the moment. When you’re writing and directing you’re like holding a whole universe in your arms and in your brain. When you’re acting, your job is to do the opposite -- to be extremely microcosmic and extremely focused on just what you want and what you need and how you’re gonna get it. It's therapeutic for me in a lot of ways just to focus on one thing because I’ve been holding up universes for a long time, and it’s fucking exhausting.



The lore is that you ended up in "Transparent" because you ran into [creator] Jill Soloway at a party.
It truly was a party. We east side of L.A. directors have little get-togethers and we talk about actors. We talk about everything because directors don’t get together a lot. One of the things that was happening was that Jill was about to make this show. She had this amazing cast and she was dying because she couldn’t find the brother. It was absolutely the last role -- like the last straw -- and she was kind of freaking out.

I was just sitting with her, and she was like: I need like a wildly charismatic-slash-insecure, brilliant-stunted mid-30’s Jewish guy. And I was like, "Dude, I know all those guys! They’re all my friends. Those are all the actors in town that I know." So I was just going through all my favorite guys and she was like, "No, thought of them, thought of them, not right, not right, not right." So we just left it alone. Then we were talking for like 30 more minutes and she just stopped and said: “It’s you. You are him. You’re gonna play him.” I was like ... Jill! I’m about to make an HBO series. I am not an actor. I am not Jewish -- I’m like 1/8th Jewish, I'm not really Jewish -- you know, I don’t really think so. And she's like, no. And in Jill's sort of good witchcraft way, she was like you’re coming in to my reading room tomorrow and you’re gonna read with me. I went in there and I did these roles with Jill. She played the sisters, and it turns out that the way she and I work is incredibly similar. I started running with the role.

The other thing is I’m really different from Josh. Josh has had more sex in one season of "Transparent" than I’ve had in my entire life. I’ve always been sort of like the female role in my relationships. I'm, like, super careful sensitive and Josh is the opposite. I mean, Josh is very sensitive, actually. I think that somehow has something to do with why people are interested in him. I’m a super softy that’s doing a lot of bad behavior onscreen.

Yeah, Josh is totally sensitive. He’s like the resident asshole of the family, but you can tell he's also delicate.
Yeah. It's funny -- somebody figured out toward the end of the season, after like my eighth crying scene -- they were like, “I think Josh cries more than anyone else in the show.” And I was like, “Yeah, it feels like it, man.” I’m like a whole lot of tears at this point.

i love my tv sisters for real pic.twitter.com/neRjHAxRBY

— Jay Duplass (@jayduplass) November 5, 2014

Could you tell while you were working on the show that it was going to be something so special?
I knew it was gonna be special from the first reading that I did with Jill the morning after she said “It’s you.” That energy was present, that feeling was there. Then I read with Gaby [Hoffmann] and we did some stuff in front of Amazon with Amy [Landecker] and we were just like, “Oh my god. This is crazy. This is totally crazy.” Honestly, I think it does all stem from Jill. She kind of creates this nest, this like family nest.

Have you been trying to take any of that experience to “Togetherness?”
Well, it’s interesting because “Togetherness” was in motion years before “Transparent.” We shot the pilot of “Togetherness” in the spring of 2013, and we shot the whole first season of ‘Togetherness” before we even shot “Transparent.” It’s weird because the way that I’m talking about Jill is kind of how everybody’s been talking about me and Mark. Like, they feel safe and comfortable and it feels like family and it feels like you’re not only allowed to fall on your face, you’re encouraged to. In a weird way, I saw from the other side why people have been so excited to be on [our] sets. It’s wild to me because those are the only two sets I’ve gone deep on, and they’re very similar. Just creating a family and trying to make something beautiful, and allowing failure to be a part of that equation.

Now that you’ve been doing more acting, are you going to write yourself a part in “Togetherness?”
If a part came up for me, I might do it. It’s been interesting because I’ve been getting a lot of acting offers and the show’s only been out for a couple of months. That’s been new and exciting and weird just because I’m so busy -- it’s very hard to fit them in because creating my own TV show is pretty much a full time job all year around. But right before [this interview], I was meeting with a director about potentially doing a movie as an actor. So I do love it. I think I will be very picky about acting because I know damn well that I am spoiled. My first big job is on this phenomenal television show with like these phenomenal human beings and people I love and at the center of a civil rights movement. I’m not taking it for granted.

It’s pretty amazing to have your first acting job to be on one of the best TV shows in history.
Yeah! I mean, to that point, it’s interesting because my wife and I, when it released, sat down to watch it. And it was scary for us because Josh has a lot of sex in episode 1, in the whole season. Episode 1 and every episode he’s having some kind of sex. For me and my wife, that’s not something she signed up for. She didn’t walk into our marriage knowing that I was gonna be an actor, or particularly an actor on a show with the most intense sexual situations ever. So we were both nervous. Like, Is this gonna make a mess that we’re gonna have to like work on really hard? And as we started watching, as the episodes rolled through, it was amazing how all of those concerns went right out the window because we both realized we were watching the show we had been waiting for like 10 years. We were both like, “This is my favorite show.” This is like possibly the best show just as viewers. We were just in tears and laughing like everyone else who watches it and it just didn’t seem to matter after that.

"When your boyfriend is gonna leave you, it’s probably not like this big impressive argument down by the river. It’s probably like he doesn’t make me breakfast Monday morning and you know that it’s the beginning of the end."

What made you and Mark want to make the transition to television?
We had this idea, and the more we started to talk about it, the more we realized that it just seemed to go on and on. I don’t know what it was, but we got through like a feature’s worth of material and it just seemed like the beginning. That story, being in your late 30s and living on the fringes of LA, trying to be a part of it, trying not to be a part of it, trying to take care of your kids, trying to take care of yourself. How trying to balance the reality of your own dreams and your family seemed to be like you’re like a millimeter away from drowning at any given point in time. How hard that seemed to be. The other couple is in their late 30s and they aren’t married and they don’t have kids and they’re not finding their person and they’re freaking out even more. Not only was everyone in our world going through one of those two scenarios, but like, that’s all we talk about when we go out to dinner or now, when we have playdates. Just the horrendous impossible shit that we’re going through every day to just try to, like, enjoy our lives and achieve what we want to achieve. It just seemed tragically funny in the way that we love and to just be an instant amount of material. So we pitched it to HBO and they were like, yeah, absolutely, that’s a show.



Have you found there are differences you didn’t anticipate switching from feature writing to episodic narratives?
I think the biggest difference is that narrative feature work is like a closed universe. That’s how we’ve been talking about it. You start setting up all your stuff in the first 20 minutes of a feature, and you’re already thinking about how you’re gonna be setting all those things off 90 minutes later. Whereas TV is an open universe -- where you do have to set up and pay off things from episode to episode -- but in terms of characters, in terms of development, in terms of emotional closure, you don’t really go for closure. You go for opening. It took us a while to get to that and HBO actually helped us with that a lot. That was the only quote on quote development we went through and it was very welcome, because they deal with a lot of feature people who make that transition and that’s probably the main issue that they go through. We’re always trying to close storylines and it’s like nope, don’t close them, just continue to open them. It’s been pretty wild because given Mark’s and my vérité aesthetic, it's actually way more realistic and way more like life. To complicate emotions and to complicate relationships and to continue to do that -- that’s how life actually works.

It’s interesting. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think there’s something beyond just the fact that we all have home theaters why TV shows are really grabbing everyone’s attention. I think there’s something more innately human about the way that they move and change and function. They’re a lot more like real life. They feel like our lives more than movies do and I think that’s a big part of viewership right now.

It seems like there’s something even to the effect of just spending more hours with the characters makes it feel like you know them better.
And you do know them better! And like, what Mark and I are doing, we’re trying to do subtle, subtle, subtle, stuff. That communicates. It feels big. When your boyfriend is gonna leave you, it’s probably not like this big impressive argument down by the river. It’s probably like he doesn’t make me breakfast Monday morning and you know that it’s the beginning of the end. And what we love about TV is that you can get to know your characters so intimately that you will perceive that now as a viewer. We can get to the tiniest subtlest levels of tragedy, which is how it happens to us in real life.



"Togetherness" debuts Sunday, Jan. 11 at 9:30pm on HBO. This interview has been edited and condensed.

The Golden Globes are rolling deep this year when it comes to presenters. The full list, as it currently stands, includes the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford and Jane Fonda. We don't know who will be paired together, but one can draw certain conclusions, like "True Detective" Season 2 stars Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrell and "Fifty Shades of Grey" leads Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. Here's who to expect at Sunday's awards:

It's odd to think that a whole new genre of television has blossomed in the last few years -- an exciting new category that didn't exist several years ago.

"Togetherness," a fine new HBO offering from Jay and Mark Duplass and Steve Zissis, sits very squarely at the center of this new subgenre, which unites the artistic strengths and intimate scale of independent cinema with the narrative rewards of character-driven television.

"Togetherness" can be hard to watch at times, given that it looks unflinchingly at the difficulties of marriage and friendship as middle age approaches, but the show is absolutely worth sticking with, if only for the virtuoso performance from Zissis, whose failed-actor character is one of the finest new creations to arrive on television in some time.

With HBO rolling out a whole evening of shows exhibiting this loose-yet-disciplined indie aesthetic -- "Girls" and "Looking" also return in typically worthwhile form Sunday -- it feels like the trend that began a few years ago with "Louie" and Lena Dunham's thinkpiece generator has blossomed into a full-fledged flood. What a welcome outpouring.

Yes, you could subtitle HBO's Sunday programming block "Say Hello to Narcissists in Coastal Cities," but the half-hour running times often makes the characters' self-absorption easier to take. In any event, interrogating that selfishness is sometimes the point of these shows, and there is such compassion, wit and intelligent nuance woven through these programs that I've never felt the urge to give up on them. That's partly because the characters on these shows are hard to forget, and the programs themselves -- by turns low-key, snarky and profound -- can serve as a nice break from television's more overwrought, bombastic and stylized fare.

"Louie" and "Girls" might be the most high-profile exemplars of the trend toward half-hour shows that explore the lives of neurotic, talkative, educated men and women, but a bunch of variations on those models have arrived in the last year or two. These programs are not really comedies (unless that's a useful designation for awards-seeking purposes). True, they often have amusing moments, but these shows are most often driven by complex emotional situations and personal dilemmas. Not a lot happens, at least in a plot or story sense; it's all about the knotty personal journeys the characters go on, and over time, the best shows quietly build up a good deal of emotional weight.

Linda Holmes recently wrote about how the one-hour family drama has largely gone away, at least on the bigger networks, but I think, to some degree, that kind of emotionally driven storytelling has migrated to the fringes, to places like ABC Family ("The Fosters," "Switched at Birth"), to soaps ("Jane the Virgin") and often to these indie-flavored TV shows. As many cable and broadcast networks increasingly seek out high-concept shows and adaptations of well-known properties, programs about intimacy, families (blood-related and self-created), emotional crises and tangled relationships have had to find new homes, and I hope streaming services and risk-taking cable outfits continue to take chances on them.

Even within this smallish subgenre, there's a great deal of welcome variation: The late, lamented "Enlightened" was more visually poetic and disciplined than the shaggier entries in this category; the late, lamented "Men of a Certain Age" was an hourlong program and had a slightly more comedic approach to its characters' bittersweet middle-aged crises; "You're the Worst" is more sprightly than some other entries in this group but it's every bit as intelligent and dryly comic as its peers; "Looking" is more openly romantic and features characters who are not straight and not always white (hooray); and "Transparent," which delves into sexuality, identity and family politics with jaw-dropping craftiness, shares a vibe and a Duplass with "Togetherness," but it generally has a different set of narrative concerns. (Jay and Mark Duplass directed most episodes and created "Togetherness" with Zissis, and Mark Duplass plays one of the leads; Jay Duplass plays one of the leads in "Transparent.")

It's easy to picture a "Togetherness"/"Transparent" crossover; they're both about groups of families and friends who live in Los Angeles and who are restless about where they are in their lives. Like "Transparent," "Togetherness" is quietly observational and allows small moments to breathe, and both can be wickedly funny. Both shows (along with "You're the Worst") feature indictments of entertainment-industry douchebags, and I'm superficial enough to love it when they engage in that kind of needling satire.

There are two story threads in "Togetherness": One follows Brett and his wife, Michelle, who have two young children and have hit a rough patch in their marriage. Brett can be hard to take; another character calls him a "grumpy, anal vegan" and that's pretty accurate. He can be cold and has a tendency to talk over and steamroll his shy, tentative wife, Michelle (Melanie Lynskey), and it can be hard to watch her struggle to express her needs and assert herself. Lynskey's heart-rending, vanity-free performance makes it clear how much Michelle has had to shut herself down to keep the peace and to keep the family functioning, and I often wondered if Brett deserved her. "Togetherness" is only eight episodes long, and at times, I wished either the season had been longer or a little more time had been spent on establishing what Michelle and Brett liked and loved about each other before their marriage began to fly apart.

Then again, even if the show had done that, it can simply be difficult to watch another couple go through a warts-and-all marriage crisis, but I respect "Togetherness" for committing to a realistic and complicated portrayal of the couple's problems. Those issues are, ironically, the kinds of problems you could easily find on a conventional sitcom: A busy family life means that a couple has grown apart and the wife's sexual desire for her husband has waned, etc.

In any event, the weightiness of Michelle and Brett's problems make it even more important that their story is deftly balanced by the stumbling adventures of the two other lead characters, Tina (Amanda Peet) and Alex (Zissis). The evolution of their unlikely friendship is goofier and warmer than the prickly domestic drama that occupies the other half of the show, and Peet and Zissis do a spectacular job of peeling back the surfaces of Tina and Alex to reveal the insecurity and fear lurking behind their casual facades. One of the most worthwhile things a television show can do is chronicle the history and impact of an emotional connection, and "Togetherness" is in top form in many of the later Alex-Tina scenes.

What is there to say about "Girls" that has not already been said by the Thinkpiece Industrial Complex? It remains invigoratingly itself and it continues to land in Hannah in a series of situations in which layers of thematic complexity stack up like delayed planes circling a busy airport. Hannah remains Hannah; she is blissfully unaware of how unaware she is of how she comes off, but Lena Dunham is very aware of her show's place in the cultural conversation, and one of the most interesting features of the new season is the meta-commentary that is sprinkled through many scenes. I'd rather have Alex from "Togetherness" than Hannah from "Girls" crashing on my couch, but I enjoy watching both of them stumble through life like bulls wandering through well-stocked china shops.

I haven't said much about "Looking" yet, though it may be my favorite of the three Sunday shows. "Looking" is so self-effacing and low-key that it tends to get lost in the television conversation, and that's a mistake. Jonathan Groff's Patrick is just as self-absorbed as any of the characters previously mentioned, but he's also so endearingly naive and so charmingly open to new experiences that his adventures are impossible to resist. The entire ensemble has a wonderful ease together, and any show that makes sure Scott Bakula gets a decent amount of screen time is, by definition, doing something right.

It's worth noting that "Looking" is one of the sweetest and most romantic shows on television, and one the best at depicting the complexity and curiosity that drives many sexual encounters. And though it makes me cringe a little to say this (Catholic schooling, etc.), I have to add that it's becoming increasingly comical that HBO shows -- any pay-cable shows, really -- never show male genitalia during sex scenes.

I know, I know. In our culture, anything that shows male junk is coded as pornography, and HBO is way too fancy to let itself get branded with that kind of downmarket implication. But there's a whole generation of filmmakers and storytellers on that network and elsewhere who are being forced to jump through a series of increasingly ridiculous hoops in order to not show a penis (and no, the fact that "Game of Thrones" showed Hodor's ... hodor a while back does not really count in this context).

These days, there are smart, mature and thoughtful treatments of sexuality to be found in "Looking," "Transparent," "Masters of Sex," "Outlander," "Girls," among other shows; these are programs in which explorations of sexuality are important elements of character development. Yes, TV will always have some shows that whip out body parts for prurient or crass reasons, but we're lucky to now have a whole array of programs in several different genres in which all kinds of desires, sexual and otherwise, are examined with thoroughness, compassion and intelligence. And yet, on many of these worthy programs, the elements of sexuality that directors and creators are forced to leave out of makes for some odd omissions, weird workarounds and strange camera angles.

No, it's not the end of the world -- a lack of penis on TV isn't among the most important issues of our time. But yes, this skewed state of affairs does cause a person to sigh deeply -- the idea that any number of random boobs and violent rapes on TV are okay, but oh my! What if a TV show made by and for grownups depicted a man's equipment -- why, the world might end!

Look, I understand the hesitation of networks, actors and viewers who would be weirded out by the idea of penis on TV. I hesitated to even bring this up, truthfully, lest anyone think that's what I'm primarily looking for in a TV show (um, no). But it's the fearlessness of a recent wave of good TV shows, including the three HBO shows mentioned here, that prompts these questions. There are a number of creators who seem willing to go anywhere with their characters, and the limits on their visions -- wherever those limitations come from -- are just increasingly obvious.

Sometimes I just wonder when TV will lose its last inhibition and let guys be not just emotionally naked but physically bare as well. Maybe never?

"Girls" airs Sunday at 9:00 p.m. ET on HBO; "Togetherness" airs Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET on HBO; "Looking" airs Sunday at 10:00 p.m. on HBO.

Ryan McGee and I talked about "Banshee," "Archer," "Looking," "Togetherness" and "Girls" in the latest Talking TV podcast, which is here, on iTunes and below.

Oh, Eddie Redmayne. Not only are you one of the most dapper dudes in Hollywood, you are also, apparently, very nice.

The "Theory Of Everything" star chatted with Glamour Magazine for its February issue (which hits newsstands Jan. 13) and arguably the best, most adorable part of the whole interview has to do with Prince William.

Redmayne was asked to recall his days at Eton College, which he attended with, you guessed it, Prince William. The two played on the same rugby team, and while the 33-year-old calls the Duke of Cambridge "a wonderful man," there was at least one downside to being the prince at that time. "I always felt slightly sorry for him because everyone wanted to tackle the future king of England. He took all the hits," Redmayne said.

We have a feeling between being married to Kate Middleton and you know, being the future King of England, he's gotten over it. Still, we must commend Redmayne for his empathy.

Head to Glamour to see the entire interview.

Jimmy Fallon's date with Nicole Kidman was a complete disaster, but the good news for the "Tonight Show" host is he's not alone.

In honor of learning he blew his chance to date Kidman, Fallon made this week's hashtag #AwkwardDate, and the Twitterverse did not disappoint. Some of Fallon's favorites include:

At the end of a 1st date I asked if she'd like to go out again. She said she was going to take a break from dating for a while #AwkwardDate

— Jeff Hofmann (@jeff_hofmann) January 7, 2015

I once took a girl to Starbucks because I forgot her name #AwkwardDate

— ★Benny★ (@noodlez56) January 7, 2015

One time my date told me he had to keep his phone out because his ex "could be going into labor at any time". #AwkwardDate

— Amber Conn (@AmberConn1) January 8, 2015

Hmm ... maybe trying to feed Kidman corn chips and playing video games wasn't so bad after all. Check the rest out in the video. If anything, they'll make your dating life seem a whole lot better ... you know ... hopefully.

"The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC.

In the movie "Selma," which chronicles the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery protest marches led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., actor and hip hop artist Common plays the part of James Bevel, a prominent civil rights leader. "Selma" director Ava DuVernay had wanted Common specifically for this role -- perhaps, he says, due to his personal experience.

"I'm a conscious person... I'm aware of who I am as a black man and the struggle that black people have been through in this country," Common tells the web series #OWNSHOW in the above video. "I think that created a foundation for Ava to feel that I would be a great person to [play] James Bevel."

Common doesn't just appear in "Selma," but also co-wrote the Golden Globe-nominated song "Glory" with John Legend for the historical film.

As a hip-hop star, Common has collaborated with many great talents and won both awards and acclaim throughout the music industry. But the 42-year-old artist says this particular project holds special meaning for him, citing the influence Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has had on his life. "He was one of the first people that I looked at as a hero," he explains. "He was my first hero."

The song "Glory" is a powerful and poignant anthem with lyrics like "Every day women and men become legends / Sins that go against our skin become blessings," "That's why Rosa sat on the bus / That's why we walk through Ferguson with our hands up," and "No one can win the war individually / It takes the wisdom of the elders and young people's energy." Common's inspiration for writing those lyrics comes down to one thing: offering people a voice.

"To learn more about [Dr. King] and the people of Selma and the people around the country that came and contributed -- just everyday people -- it just was like, 'I'm writing this for those people,'" Common says. "That, connected to what happened in '65 to what's happening in 2014 to 2015... I wanted a voice for those people, too."

More with Common: Common also explains why he views being black as a gift.



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It's official: Rihanna does a body good.

It turns out that listening to the sultry songstress, as well as tracks from Taylor Swift, other pop stars and even audiobooks are an effective way for kids recovering from surgery to manage their post-operation pain.

Most surgery-strength pain killers aren’t made with children in mind, and in fact can even cause kids to have breathing problems. To play it safe, doctors limit painkiller dosage, but this leaves children in serious pain after their surgery.

Dr. Santhanam Suresh, an anesthesiology and pediatrics professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, decided to test other ways to distract kids from their pain. Together with his daughter Sunitha Suresh, who at the time was a student at Northwestern pursuing a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in music cognition, Dr. Suresh designed a simple but groundbreaking experiment that would randomly divide 60 post-surgery pediatric patients into three groups: those who listened to their favorite music (pop stars, Rihanna and Taylor Swift among them), those who picked out an audiobook and a control group. Those in the control group simply put on noise-canceling headphones for 30 minutes.

Compared to pain levels immediately after their surgery, the children who listened to either music or stories of their choice reported a significant reduction in pain. The children who listened to silence, however, experienced no change. Dr. Suresh hypothesizes that the music or audiobooks may have prevented the brain from making memories of the experience of pain.

"The idea is, if you don't think about it, maybe you won't experience it as much,” said Dr. Suresh in a press release about the study. "We are trying to cheat the brain a little bit. We are trying to refocus mental channels on to something else.”

The study was published Jan. 3 in the journal Pediatric Surgery International.

Sunitha Suresh also pointed out that she didn’t expect the audiobooks to be as effective as music, but they were.

"Some parents commented that their young kids listening to audio books would calm down and fall asleep,” said Sunitha Suresh in a statement. "It was a soothing and distracting voice."

After the experiment, the Sureshes observed that the patients continued to listen to their own music or audiobooks to continue their “audio therapy.” They noted that the idea hadn’t occurred to patients beforehand.

The Suresh research team build upon an emerging field of inquiry about music’s ability to distract people from their pain. Investigators in Germany recently found that listening to live music was linked to a decrease in stress hormones in preemies living in a hospital NICU ward, and researchers in Korea have also observed that listening to music during a transrectal prostate biopsy procedure significantly reduced the men’s discomfort and pain.

In his cover story with Billboard, Kendrick Lamar discussed the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other African-Americans by police in the past year. Lamar explained that he has been treated unfairly by cops "plenty of times. All the time."

Focusing in on the Ferguson and Staten Island deaths, Lamar told Billboard, "I wish somebody would look in our neighborhood knowing that it's already a situation, mentally, where it's fucked up. What happened to [Michael Brown] should've never happened. Never. But when we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don't start with just a rally, don't start from looting -- it starts from within."

Lamar also discussed both Iggy Azalea and Macklemore. With Azalea having come under fire recently, Lamar came to her defense: "She's doing her thing. Let her. People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing, continue to rock it, because obviously God wants you here."

As for Macklemore, Lamar wished him success and called him a "genius dude." He reminded Billboard that he isn't bitter about his Grammy snub, saying that winning awards isn't his driving aspiration. "I appreciate them recognizing me," he told Billboard. "It's best to just go and enjoy the festivities."

Lamar most recently debuted a new but untitled song off his upcoming album, which is expected sometime in the first half of 2015, as the final musical guest on "The Colbert Report." For more of the in-depth interview, head over to Billboard.

Carrie Underwood looked beautiful as she performed at the Grand Ole Opry in honor of the late Little Jimmy Dickens on Thursday.

The 31-year-old, who's expecting her first child with husband Mike Fisher, wore a long-sleeved black ruched dress and patterned black and white scarf to the memorial service at Nashville's famed music hall. Underwood performed a duet of "Go Rest High on That Mountain" with Vince Gill.





Little Jimmy Dickens, the longest-performing Opry member, was hospitalized on Dec. 25 after suffering a stroke. He went into cardiac arrest and died on Jan. 2 at age 94.

Looks like Discovery won't be finding new evidence on mermaids anytime soon.

Despite its ratings success with shows like "Mermaids: The Body Found" and "Megalodon: The New Evidence," new Discovery Channel president Rich Ross said he's getting rid of fake shows, according to Deadline.com.

At the 2015 Winter TCA press tour, Ross said, "I don’t think it’s right for Discovery Channel, and think it’s something that has run its course." Ross went on to say shows will still air if they were previously ordered, according to EW, but that type of programming is "not something that’s right for us."

Ross also addressed Discovery's critically bashed special "Eaten Alive," in which (spoiler alert) no one was actually eaten alive. The president said the program was "misleading," adding, "I don’t believe you’ll be seeing a person being eaten by a snake in my time [at Discovery].”

Though it seems like Discovery's attempt to grab ratings with sensational shows may be over, other channels in Discovery's network can breathe a sigh of relief. After he was asked about the fate of shows like Animal Planet's "Finding Bigfoot," Ross said he "just has to worry about what I do."

That's great news because one day those guys are definitely going to find a squatch.


Image: Tumblr

For more, head to Deadline.com.

Not since John met Yoko has an artistic collaboration been greeted with as much disapproval as the collaboration between Paul McCartney and Kanye West. And the same people who disapproved 47 years ago are disapproving now.

Reaction in social media revealed disappointment in McCartney's decision to work with West and, more significantly, demonstrated how first generation Beatle fans, boomers all, somehow see themselves as guardians of the Beatle legacy. Paul has worked with many artists post-Beatles, but none were perceived as legacy-busting.

A few said things like, "Kudos to Paul for not resting on his laurels and wanting to expand his artistic horizons," but many more were critical. One said the collaboration proves he's "jumped the shark;" one even raised the possibility of early dementia. The song itself was somewhat beside the point; it was the collaboration itself that triggered the brouhaha.

As the author of Beatleness, a study of Beatle fandom, I found the reaction interesting. As a fan, I wasn't sure what to make of the collaboration. Like many of the naysayers, I knew only four things about Kanye West: He accused President Bush of not caring about black people after Hurricane Katrina (not an unreasonable proposition, all things considered), he interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 Grammys (for which President Obama called him a "jackass"), and he's married to a woman who epitomizes modern celebrity. Not surprising, then, that the self-appointed protectors of the legacy would deem Kanye -- "the blowhard," "the narcissist," "the lightweight" -- not worthy of Sir Paul's attention. And while racism is not tolerated in the Beatle fan community, some of the comments, though veiled in dislike of Kanye's genre, did seem to have that aroma.

Interesting, too, is how smug Beatle fans -- myself included, I admit -- were quick to believe that Kanye's fans didn't know who Paul McCartney was and to decry millennials' lack of cultural literacy. But shouldn't cultural literacy be a generational two-way street? It seems to me that any Beatle fan opining about the collaboration and Paul's legacy should know more about Kanye than what they've picked up from tabloid headlines. So, coming out from under my rock, I've been learning about Kanye West.

Like someone under 50 deciding it's time to really take a close listen to the Beatles because they're considered great by another generation, I've embarked on a sort of Kanye West tutorial, exploring the body of work of an engaging artist with compelling sounds who has evolved throughout his career. Because it's much harder to approach the Beatles with virgin ears than it is Kanye, I started with zero familiarity, meandering through tracks and albums, checking the dates to piece together the chronology. And, like newbie Beatle fans, I'm hearing beautiful melodies, intriguing instrumentation, and clever, insightful words. And I'm watching interviews to get to know the charismatic person behind it all.

Underlying the similarity of the newbie fan experience are (at least) five essential similarities between Sir Paul and Kanye that explain their collaboration and may remind the naysayers why we fell in love with the Beatles and Sir Paul in the first place.

1. Sir Paul and Kanye are the cutting edge artists of their day.
The Beatles embraced new studio technologies, took a playful approach to recording, and pushed the limits to create sounds and soundscapes never heard before. While John and Paul experimented with tape loops, backward recording, and feedback, Kanye plays with the technologies of his day, such as sampling and autotune.

2. They are true creatives, collecting and synthesizing raw material.
One of the reasons we found the Beatles so compelling was the range of musical styles and ideas embedded in their music. Their broad embrace of eclecticism and novelty, filtered through creative genius, made the final product interesting and unique. Some of Kanye's music evoked Stevie Wonder for me, for example, but it didn't sound like Steve Wonder. It sounded new.

3. Sir Paul and Kanye are both artistically restless.
A sign of creative genius is boredom after mastery, naturally gliding toward something new. It's this quality in the Beatles that fueled the evolution that boomers had the privilege of witnessing between 1964 and 1970. The Paul who wants to collaborate with Kanye is the same Paul who, as a young man, combed the clubs and galleries of London seeking new aesthetic experiences.

4. Sir Paul and Kanye are both hardworking perfectionists with big egos.
Beatle fans and others are quick to point out Kanye's oversized ego and braggadocio. But the Beatles had huge egos too, and knew they were "a good little band." Given items 1, 2, and 3, plus maximal fame and accolades from fellow artists, how could they not have big egos? This doesn't excuse obnoxious behavior, but if you're going to be full of yourself, it's less offensive when you're really good.

5. Beloved mothers who died an untimely death serve as a muse for both artists.
We hear in "Only One," as we hear in "Let It Be," a mother's presence, guiding her son through difficult times. Though Mary never knew about Paul's grand achievements as Donda knew about Kanye's, both got the confidence required for success and the values to handle it from loving mothers -- both tireless, caring, professionals -- to whom they are forever grateful.

Kanye also has much in common with Paul's first collaborator. Like John Lennon, Kanye is not afraid to express his opinions and philosophies, despite his critics. He doesn't give a shit. He's aware of his cultural authority and seeks to use it for pro-social ends. And he's half of a dynamic duo in a love-hate relationship with the media.

There are many videos to click on for my tutorial, but Late Orchestration at Abbey Road called out, for obvious reasons. I can't remember the last time I was so engaged by a musical performance. And even if the venue hadn't been Abbey Road, the third definition of Beatleness -- artistic expression that evokes the Beatles and their works -- was present.

I can't say I love everything Kanye's done, and, to my ear, there's too often a misogyny that I find disturbing. But the takeaway for me is that Paul McCartney is still opening my ears to new music, and I thank him for that. He models an open, youthful mindset that could benefit all his aging boomer fans.