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Queen's Command

"Shut The F*** Up!" Helen Mirren's Regal Outburst

Helen Mirren—in full costume as The Queen—tells group of drummers to beat it

The Audience with Dame Helen Mirren playing the Queen is the best show in London right now—but she upstaged herself on Saturday night when she stormed out of the theatre to tell a troupe of drummers noisily playing in the street outside to 'shut the f*** up".

In full costume.

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Dave M. Benett / Getty Images

Smotherly Love

Television’s Beguiling Basket Case

On ‘Bates Motel,’ Vera Farmiga masterfully transforms a would-be harridan into a new kind of protagonist: the sensual hysteric. Ken Tucker on the most naturalistic performance on TV.

“You scare me; I think you might need help,” said Norman Bates to his mother, Norma, on a recent episode of A&E’s shrewdly insinuating Bates Motel.

Given that we know Norman is eventually going to start dressing up like said mother and commence to knifin’ folks once he goes Psycho, this bit of Norman insight into the Norma psyche is both significant and indicative of what could have, should have, gone wrong with a TV quasi-prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller. Bates Motel, as co-created by producers including Lost man Carlton Cuse, did a fine job of casting Freddie Highmore as its adolescent Tony Perkins—he’s got Perkins’ wide-eyed, gulping demeanor down (very) cold—but the character of Norma had to be built from the ground up as the element that grounds the series.

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Joseph Lederer

Reunited!

What Happened to 98 Degrees?

More than a decade since they last made teen girls swoon, the ‘man band’ is reuniting. Drew Lachey talks about the surprising things they’ve been up to—and why they’re singing about oral sex on their new single.

Growing up in the late ’90s and early ’00s, you swore allegiances. You were staunchly Team Backstreet Boys or Team ’N Sync. But if you preferred your frosted-tipped group of matching-outfitted crooners to harmonize on love songs instead of dance in unison, you were part of a third just-as-passionate faction: Team 98 Degrees.

98 Degrees on Today Show

Members of 98 Degrees—(from left) Nick Lachey, Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons, and Justin Jeffre—appear on the “Today” show in August 2012 in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

The adult-contemporary-flavored option of the turn-of-millennium boy-band craze, 98 Degrees broke out in 1997 with the swoonworthy ballad “Invisible Man,” sung by four swoonworthy young gentlemen: brothers Nick and Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons, and Justin Jeffre. A bit older than the Timberlakes and Carters, 98 Degrees carved its niche as the mature boy band, going on to sell 10 million records and score eight top-40 singles, including “I Do (Cherish You),” “The Hardest Thing,” and “Thank God I Found You” with Mariah Carey.

Tell-All

Lindsay Lohan’s Confessional

She’s not a ‘huge drinker.’ She’s only done cocaine ‘four or five’ times. And rehab’s ‘a joke.’ Marlow Stern on the biggest revelations from Lohan’s lengthy interview with Piers Morgan in The Mail on Sunday.

“I met Lindsay Lohan for the first time on the day of this interview, in a borrowed luxury townhouse on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York,” writes Piers Morgan. “She was wearing bright striped pyjamas, smoking a cigarette and talking very fast.” Thus begins a 90-minute interview between Morgan, host of CNN’s Piers Morgan Live, and the troubled actress. The sit-down was conducted about a month ago and published in The Mail on Sunday.

People Lindsay Lohan

Actress Lindsay Lohan, a cast member in “Scary Movie V,” at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles on April 11. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

The discussion between Lohan and Morgan touched on a variety of topics, including her drug history—cocaine, ecstasy, etc.; her relationship with Samantha Ronson; whether her parents are culpable; why she needs therapy; and more. Here are the most eye-opening revelations.

Classics Revised

Gatsby Before He Was Great

What Fitzgerald’s first version reveals about the great American dreamer.

EVERY TWO dozen years or so, an adaptation of The Great Gatsby appears on the silver screen: in 1926, 1949, 1974, and now. If this fourth effort, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is to serve a purpose at all, it would be to send us back to the brooding grandeur of the original text, containing “a great deal of underlying thought of unusual quality,” as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s editor Maxwell Perkins had described it.

So-books

Warner Bros. Pictures

But the book that rolled out under the night in roaring 1925 was not the original. The Great Gatsby actually began with a manuscript that Fitzgerald had submitted a year earlier with the title “Trimalchio,” after the parvenu who threw wild orgies in Petronius’s Roman novel Satyricon. As it turns out, the cleft between this first draft and the finished one is what separates the great Gatsby from the vague Gatsby, since even Fitzgerald once called his man of mystery “blurred and patchy.” Crucially, in “Trimalchio,” nothing is known of Gatsby’s past until he gushes about it after Myrtle’s death, already late in the novel. So Fitzgerald got to work. He carved up Gatsby’s overdue confession, cast it throughout the book, and reported to Perkins that he had at last brought Gatsby to life.

Culture

Already Famous

Do the Tonys care about originality?

EVEN IF you haven’t made it to Broadway lately, you’ll likely recognize the names of this year’s Tony nominees for best musical: Bring It On, A Christmas Story, Kinky Boots, and Matilda. For the first time, each of the nominees is based on a movie or a text with an already famous film adaptation.

begley tonys

Joan Marcus

Regurgitating blockbuster material has become standard for Broadway—and it seems to pay off. In 2010, for instance, all the nominees for best musical were of the “jukebox” variety—squeezing one artist or era’s hits into a plot. Textbook example: the ABBA hit parade Mamma Mia! The last truly original—not book-, not movie-, not pop-song-inspired—musical to win was In the Heights in 2008. It saw moderate success and closed after almost three years. By contrast, The Lion King opened in 1997 and continues to gross over $1.7 million per week on average.

Direct to Video

6 Best Music Videos of the Week

Jason Derulo busts out his dance moves. Mika draws out his inner Goth. WATCH VIDEO of the most entertaining, breathtaking, and bizarre music videos released this week.

In this week’s top music video picks, we take a journey through a surprisingly joyful Gilligan’s Island shipwreck, a futuristic society, and a very bad day. From hip-hop to electronic and indie rock, and featuring artists like The D.O.T. and Sub Focus, see which music videos are becoming viral.

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Empire of the Sun: “Alive”

A new documentary gets up close and personal with tennis's top duo. Nicholas McCarvel on what he learned about their mystery sibling, Serena’s outbursts—and an alter ego named Taquanda.

There is a moment most of the way through Venus and Serena, a new documentary about the Williams sisters, in which Serena lists the different personalities she sometimes takes on.

Serena and Venus Williams

Serena Williams (left) and Venus Williams smile together on the podium after receiving their gold medals in women’s doubles at London’s 2012 Summer Olympics. (Elise Amendola/AP)

There’s Psycho Serena (“She’s awesome”), which is her on-court demeanor. Then there’s Summer (“She helps me out a lot”), who does menial tasks and errands. There’s fashionable Serena, who films the tennis star’s appearances on HSN. There’s Megan (“She’s really mean … you don’t want to run into Megan”), who seems to be a cast member from Mean Girls. And then there’s Taquanda (“Taquanda is rough … She’s not Christian”). Then Serena adds, “She was at the U.S. Open in 2009.”

Watch This!

The Week in Viral Videos

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Obama gets funny at ‘Nerd Prom,’ Jason Collins comes out, and San Diego high school students get suspended for twerking. WATCH our countdown of the week’s best and buzziest videos.

10. ‘This Is Freaking Awesome’

Twenty dollars may be a lot of money for the average 9-year-old, but for mini-rap-star Sophia Grace and hype girl Rosie, it’s just another day at the “Thrift Shop.” The duo first stole hearts and took names with their Nicki Minaj “Super Bass” tribute on Ellen and have returned to take on Macklemore.

Lately

TODAY'S STORIES

Beyoncé's New Song Is Fantastic

Beyoncé's New Song Is Fantastic

'Grown Woman,' finally, is the first full song released of Queen B's new album—and it’s worth the wait.

Hollywood Stories

The Real Bling Ring

Listen to This!

Daft Punk Goes Back to the Future

‘Candelabra’

A Millennial’s Guide to Liberace

Art Doc

Narcissists Writ Large

vulturelogo

Xbox One Is Alive!

It's supposed to be mind-altering, life-changing, even reality-transducing. On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled its new 'all-in-one entertainment system,' and the world is practically convulsing with excitement.

  1. T-Swift Owns the Billboard Awards Play

    T-Swift Owns the Billboard Awards

  2. Tracy Morgan and Psy Dance Off Play

    Tracy Morgan and Psy Dance Off

  3. Stage Dive Gone Wrong Play

    Stage Dive Gone Wrong

Elsewhere

Fashion Beast

Elsewhere

The Royalist