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Wild Child No More

What Happened to Crazy Ke$ha?

Ke$ha has had sex with ghosts, drunk her own pee, and smoked glitter, but her new MTV reality show, ‘My Crazy Beautiful Life,’ is a snooze. A nostalgic Kevin Fallon looks back at her wilder times.

“My message is to give the haters the finger and be yourself,” Ke$ha says in the premiere of her new MTV docu-series Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life. Damned if, until now, the glitter-soaked pop warbler hasn’t heeded her own advice. This is, after all, the woman who first hit it big with a musical ode to debauchery, who wears a fan’s molar on a necklace, who created her own line of condoms emblazoned with her likeness.

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Kesha attends fashion house Calzedonia's Summer Show Forever Together on April 16 in Rimini, Italy. (Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty)

My Crazy Beautiful Life, whose first episode aired Tuesday night, tracks the Katy Perry–Lady Gaga love child as she prowls the globe on her first headlining tour. “Brace for some serious wackiness,” you probably thought. After all, when teasing the series earlier this year, Ke$ha revealed that she drank her own pee and smoked glitter during the filming process. That Ke$ha! She’s so crazy, what with her brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack, glitter fetish, and pee-pee chugging! Surely, then, a so-called all-access documentary series airing on MTV would gleefully exploit the auto-tune maven’s penchant for crazy, unleashing a torrent of sparkly ridiculata to entertain viewers.

Tribeca Film Festival

Evan Rachel Wood Opens Up

Evan Rachel Wood stars as a flighty barista in ‘A Case of You,’ premiering at Tribeca. The actress dishes on her film, her decision to come out, hidden talents, Twitter, and more.

At just 25 years of age, Evan Rachel Wood has established herself as a gifted, highly unpredictable actress. After her breakout role as a troubled young girl in Thirteen, she’s gone on to star in a diverse array of films, including Julie Taymor’s musical Across the Universe, Darren Aronofsky’s dark drama The Wrestler, and George Clooney’s political thriller The Ides of March.

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Tribeca Film Festival

A very pregnant Wood is at Tribeca to unveil her latest film, romantic comedy A Case of You. Directed by Kat Coiro from a screenplay by brothers Justin and Christian Long, the film stars Justin Long as Sam, a disillusioned novelist who is infatuated with Byrdie (Wood) the barista at his local Brooklyn coffee shop. He eventually stalks her Facebook profile and seeks to win her over by becoming the man he thinks she wants—that is, conforming to all the things under her “likes” section. The experiment goes swimmingly, until Sam realizes he may be biting off more than he can chew. The film boasts a stellar supporting cast as well, including Vince Vaughn as a snappy agent, Peter Dinklage as a saucy gay barista, and Sam Rockwell as a stoner guitar instructor.

WATCH THIS!

The Best TV Secretaries

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It’s Administrative Professionals’ Day! To mark the occasion, WATCH VIDEO of television’s most memorable assistants, from the apathetic April Ludgate on ‘Parks and Recreation’ to Miss Blankenship on ‘Mad Men.’

April Ludgate, ‘Parks and Recreation’

As the surly intern turned assistant on Parks and Recreation, April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) hates her job almost as much as her boss Ron Swanson does. While she may act apathetic about her administrative tasks, her dedication to keeping her perpetually unhappy boss happy—trying to schedule all of his meetings on a day she doesn’t think actually exists, for example—is admirable.

Sound and Fury

Madbeth

What will he do next? That’s the question on Liesl Schillinger’s mind as she watched Alan Cumming play almost EVERY role in his madly brilliant Macbeth.

The madman stands in the psychiatric ward, wild-eyed and streaked with blood, his throat raked with deep scratches. As security cameras surveil him from glistening tile walls and an observation window peers down on him from on high, a doctor and orderly tend the patient, carefully removing his street clothes and dressing him in hospital garb, scraping samples from beneath his fingernails, gathering his belongings in brown paper bags, and leading him to a simple cot. There he lies in fetal position, reeling from thoughts of the atrocities he has committed, which spool endlessly in his mind. When nightmares torment him, his warders rush down to subdue and soothe him; the serene and efficient doctor (Jenny Sterlin) will apply a hypodermic; the gentle, massive orderly (Brendan Titley) will scoop him up balletically, tenderly depositing his wracked frame back on his cot. This may sound like a surreally sensitive episode of “Lockup”, but it is not: it is The National Theatre of Scotland’s fiendishly imaginative reinvention of Macbeth, now on Broadway; directed by John Tiffany (Once) and Andrew Goldberg (The Bomb-itty of Errors), and relayed in a protean tour-de-force by the Scottish actor Alan Cumming.

Theater Review Macbeth

This undated theater image released by The Publicity Office shows Alan Cumming during a performance of "Macbeth." (Jeremy Daniel/AP)

In a kind of antic trance, Cumming’s lunatic reenacts the well-known tragedy, channeling every one of the play’s major roles like a modern-day Sybil. Three flat-screen televisions crackle above the stage, evoking Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters. One moment Cumming is Macbeth, irresolute and haunted, his accent burred with rolling Scottish Rs; the next, donning a simpering sensuality, he becomes Lady Macbeth, goading her husband to treachery; another moment he assumes a different voice and stance and rides a wheelchair throne as the doomed King Duncan, another moment he shoulders a rough blanket and swaggers as brave Macduff. Taking up an apple, he becomes Banquo; taking up a doll he is Malcolm, son of slain King Duncan. Even as he sits and weeps alone on his cot, multiple personalities surround him. Plucking a child’s sweater from an evidence bag, he caresses it, mourns it: the garment embodies the little son of Macduff, Macbeth’s youngest victim, whose murder he will soon replay, in a demented, unhealing catharsis, drowning it in the small bath of his sickroom. This production is a banquet for those who love to decode layered meanings and to feast on the psychological nuances that stud Shakespeare’s most-produced play. Audience members, even those who have seen Macbeth in the theater 10 times before, hold their breath as they watch “memory, the warder of the brain” (Lady Macbeth’s words) punish her guilty, tormented inmate. And Cumming’s electrifying performance never stops prompting the unlikely question: what will he do next? 

Don't Wanna Miss a Thing

Michael Bay: Sorry I'm Not Sorry

The director shocked the Internet by apologizing for the quality of the critically-reviled blockbuster Armageddon. Now he’s rescinding his mea culpa. Should he?

On Monday, the internet laughed at, was shocked by, nodded in agreement, and generally delighted in the surprising apology from notoriously brash director Michael Bay for his 1998 popcorn blockbuster beast Armageddon. On Tuesday, Bay dropped an asteroid on the whole hullaballoo. He was misquoted, he said.

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Kevin Winter / Getty Images

During an interview with the Miami Herald to promote his new movie Pain & Gain, Bay began talking about the schizophrenic editing technique he often uses, which many critics attack him for. “I will apologize for Armageddon, because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks,” he was quoted as saying. “It was a massive undertaking. That was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could.”

Happy Birthday

YouTube’s Greatest Hits

The video site celebrates its eight birthday today. See how Psy, Lady Gaga, and a carnivorous toddler stack up on the most-watched list.

1. Psy, “Gangnam Style”: 1,552,071,214 views

No surprise here. After posting the eccentric video in mid-July 2012, K-pop singer Psy became a sensation, appearing on every television show ever, spawning countless spin-off videos, and inspiring David Gregory to dance. (Or, at least, try.) The video reached 100 million views in 51 days, but hasn’t stopped its climb to record heights. Not a bad run for a subtle commentary on South Korean classism.

Justin Bieber's latest PR debacle as he tells German authorities to find a nice zoo for his former pet.

The effortless transformation of Justin Bieber from dreamy teen heartthrob to heartless, self-centered pop star continues apace. The latest news is that the possibly troubled singer has decided to abandon his pet monkey to German authorities rather than go through the complicated process of getting the animal back to America.

Justin Bieber and Mally

Capuchin monkey 'Mally" sits on the head of an employee in an animal shelter in Munich, Germany, on April 2, 2013. Canadian singer Justin Bieber had to leave the monkey last Thursday in quarantine after arriving in Munich without the necessary documents for the animal. (Matthias Schrader/AP)

The latest display of ego-centric celebrity attitude comes just days after Bieber penned a message saying he hoped the Dutch schoolgirl Anne Frank would have been a Belieber.

There’s an App for That

Iceland’s Incest-Prevention App

Iceland has a tiny population and confusing surnames make knowing who you’re related to impossible. A new Icelandic dating app wants to prevent accidental instances of incest.

Seems like there’s an app for everything these days—boiling an egg, hailing a cab, cursing in foreign languages—but avoiding sleeping with your cousin?

Incest Prevention App

Getty

Well, yes, there’s an app for that too. In Iceland.

Tribeca Doc

The Oxy Wars

The town of Oceana, West Virginia, is considered the country’s OxyContin capital, earning it the nickname “Oxyana.” Now comes a documentary about its epidemic, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The drive to Oceana, West Virginia, mirrors the opening sequence of The Shining. From nearby Beckley, it’s a treacherous 20-mile journey along a two-lane road that dips and curves through the Appalachian Mountains.

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A still from the movie “Oxyana.” (Tribeca Film Festival)

“You feel like you’re cut off, and it adds to this feeling of hopelessness,” says Oceana resident Mike Moore.

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The Lonely Island Raps; Semicolons

They may be clever wordsmiths, but they're not exactly the most erudite grammarians. In their new single 'Semicolon,' the Andy Samberg-led rap trio tries (and fails) to demonstrate what is perhaps the most inscrutable punctuation mark. At least the beat's hot.

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The Royalist