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5 Reasons Why Musto Matters

This week, 'The Village Voice' fired three writers, including inimitable gossip writer Michael Musto. Tricia Romano on why Michael Musto still matters.

The news Friday that the much-diminished Village Voice fired three of the last remaining writers on staff before the New Times’ hostile takeover in 2005, set the media world on fire. It was bad enough that veterans, theatre critic Michael Feingold and food critic Robert Sietsema were both axed. But it was the news that longtime gossip columnist Michael Musto—who has been writing a column since 1984—was laid off that was the biggest shock.

Michael Musto

Michael Musto celebrated his 25th anniversary at the Village Voice, accompanied by performer Dirty Martini, left, on March 2, 2010 in New York City. (Marc Stamas/Getty)

The New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch wrote on Twitter: “The ‪@villagevoice firing ‪@mikeymusto amounts to ‪@villagevoice firing itself: auto-da-fé.”

Rave From the Riviera

Cannes' First Palme d'Or Contender

The director’s new film about social inequities in China is tragic, absurd, and a must-see at this year’s festival. Could it win the coveted Palme d’Or?

Long a favorite on the festival circuit, the Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke is poised to make a splash with his powerful chronicle of social inequities in contemporary China, A Touch of Sin. Towards the end of Jia’s film (which premiered Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival and is one of the surest bets to win the Palme d’or), workers at a sex club are taught to proclaim: “Distinguished Guests: Welcome to the Golden Age.” This 133-minute howl of despair confirms, with a mixture of absurdist humor and events appropriated from notorious actual incidents, that, instead of enjoying a Golden Age, Chinese society is plagued by random violence, sexual assault, and the rage of millions of disgruntled workers.

Porton-touchofsin-tease

ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP

Neither an upholder of the status quo nor precisely a dissident, Jia, who started his career as an “underground” filmmaker making unauthorized features, now works within the system—even though he clearly enjoys testing its limits. While his earlier films were meditative and often peppered with whimsical interludes, A Touch of Sin is notable for its anger. A four-part structure conveys the rampant disaffection that lies beneath the veneer of China’s economic dynamism. An infatuation with guns also suffuses the first two narratives: a chronicle of a miner who wreaks revenge on smug, corrupt village leaders and the story of a migrant worker who hopes that a firearm can negate his problems with pull of a trigger. The third sequence, featuring Zhao Tao, Jia’s wife and favorite actress, builds to a powerful crescendo as a receptionist at a spa fights off a rapist with bloody consequences. The final sequence is by far the most sardonic, as well as the most despondent: a hapless worker goes from job to job without any hope of advancement. His woes, which include a grueling regimen at a sweatshop and performing mindless tasks in the service economy, seem to sum up the fate of millions of Chinese workers who have few outlets for their grievances.

Princess power

Disney’s Bad Message To Girls

Merida was supposed to be cut from a different mold than other princesses—until Disney sexed her up. Her creator, Brenda Chapman, talks to Caroline Linton about the online outrage against the Magic Kingdom’s makeover.

Merida, the heroine of Pixar’s Brave, isn’t your typical Disney princess (no offense, Sleeping Beauty). She has frizzy hair; she beats off potential suitors with her archery skills; and (spoiler alert) she rides off on a horse without a prince in the end. So fans were baffled this week when Disney decided to give her a sexy makeover after adding her to their line of princess dolls. The new Merida had a slimmer waistline, beachy waves instead of untamed curls, and worst of all, no trademark bow and arrow. The new look caused such an uproar that it led to a Change.org petition with thousands of signatures to restore Merida’s original look—and Disney listened, sheepishly pulling the new Merida from its website. The heroine’s creator, Brenda Chapman, talks to Caroline Linton about what happened to the character modeled after her own daughter—and why it sends a bad message to girls. 

The Daily Beast: Thank you so much for calling.

Brenda Chapman: Thank you so much for the interest. It’s taken me a little by surprise, I have to be honest. This whole thing. [Laughs] I wasn’t expecting it.

Upfronts Wrap-Up

Bring On the New Television Shows

The broadcast network upfront presentations are over. Jace Lacob on the 51 new scripted shows heading to television next season. What will you watch?

The upfront presentations are (finally) over.

Now that the dust has settled, it's easier to get a larger picture of what's going on for next season. The numbers: 51 scripted series have been ordered by the broadcast networks for the 2013–14 season. There are 29 new dramas for next season and 22 comedies. Thirty-one shows will launch in the fall, and 20 are being held for a later date, should some of the fall offerings fail to enflame the public's imagination. On the network level, ABC picked up 12 new scripted series; CBS ordered eight; NBC issued series pickups to 14, while Fox did the same for 12 scripted series. The CW claimed five new scripted shows.

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ABC; CBS; NBC; Fox

Stop Overreacting

‘Idol’ Isn’t Dead

Don’t pay attention to the Simon Cowell–like naysayers harping on falling ratings and disappointing judges. Season 12 may have been lousy, but there’s still life left in it.

Ratings are in a free fall. The judging panel was a $40 million bust. Viewers are exasperated over predictable themes and performances. Culture blogs are flooded with obituaries for American Idol. Confetti rained on Candice Glover Thursday night as she tearfully warbled her coronation song, winning the 12th season of the veteran singing competition. But was she singing at its funeral?

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Candice Glover performs on American Idol, May 15. (Ray Mickshaw/Fox)

“It’s more like that body at the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail who cries, ‘I’m not dead yet,’” Michael Slezak, senior editor at TV Line and longtime Idol expert, tells The Daily Beast. “Idol is like that leper. It might be mistaken for dead, but it’s not dead yet.”

I Can Quit You

Young, Famous, and Emancipated

Blue Yourself

Never Nudes Take Manhattan

The Bluth family banana stand sets up shop in Times Square, and dozens of Tobias Fünke sympathizers show their support in cutoff jean shorts.

“Excuse me, Banana. Could I ask you a few questions?”

Such is how an exchange began with a man dressed in a full banana suit outside of a banana-shaped bearing his yellow likeness in Times Square, part of a promotion drumming up excitement for the Netflix revival of the cult-favorite comedy series, Arrested Development. The man in the banana suit was, strangely, not the most oddly-dressed person in the crowd.

Watch Never Nudes descend on Manhattan.

HEAR THIS

‘Star Trek’ and More Film Ears

HE’S OUT

End It Like Beckham

Soccer star David Beckham is retiring at the top of his game. Tom Sykes on why England can’t help but love the man who wed a Spice Girl, got filthy rich, and ditched them for America.

The scene in an English pub on Thursday:

Football Fan No. 1: “Hey, did you hear David Beckham’s retiring from professional football?”

 David Beckham

Francois Mori/AP

RISING STAR

‘Young and Beautiful’ Hits Cannes

Young & Beautiful

Marine Vacth in "Young and Beautiful." (Cannes Film Festival)

‘Jeune et jolie, which opened at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, stars former Yves Saint Laurent model Marine Vacth as a 17-year-old prostitute.

At 23, Marine Vacth is already a veteran model. Spotted by a scout at the age of 15, she became the face of Yves Saint Laurent’s “Parisienne” fragrance in 2011, a job previously held by Kate Moss. After small roles in films by Cédric Klapisch and Alexandre Arcady, Vacth will doubtless receive more attention after the release of François Ozon’s Jeune et jolie (Young and Beautiful), which premiered on Thursday as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Competition.

Ozon’s film is considerably less straightforward, and more puzzling, than Vacth’s seemingly smooth career trajectory. Yet by the end of the film, it’s abundantly clear why the director (whose films range from the frothy 8 Women to thrillers like Swimming Pool) wanted her for the central role of a morose teen prostitute. Instead of the usual case study of a good girl gone bad, a genre long cherished by Hollywood, Young and Beautiful is a thoroughly nonmoralistic, rather clinical, film about the opaque Isabelle, a 17-year-old from a well-heeled family who becomes a part-time hooker for pleasure instead of money. Perhaps the most radical—and most disturbing—aspect of the film is Ozon’s refusal to give the audience access to Isabelle’s interior life; this is not a character study in which a protagonist’s behavior is explained with the help of psychological talking points.

Vacht’s low-key approach to acting, in which emotions only register on her face in the subtlest fashion, is perfectly suited to the demands of a film that, quite perversely for some audience members, depicts an adolescent’s sexual experimentation without analyzing it. Interestingly enough, Ozon lucidly explains his casting of Vacth by arguing that he “realized it would be better to work with an actress who was slightly older than the role, someone with maturity and distance … The moment I met her, I was struck by an impression of extreme fragility and, at the same time, strength … Her obvious physical beauty holds a mystery, a secret. It arouses our curiosity, we want to know more.”

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FOND FAREWELL

5 Reasons Why Musto Matters

Rave From the Riviera

Cannes' First Palme d'Or Contender

Princess power

Disney’s Bad Message To Girls

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The Many Faces of Fred Armisen

After more than a decade impersonating everyone from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Liberace to the Queen of England, Fred Armisen is reportedly joining the growing list of 'Saturday Night Live' stars who are calling it quits. Here's to a versatile and stellar 'SNL' career.

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    Frankie Valli Can Still Sing

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    Brand New 'Simpton Abbey'

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    'Leia and Chewie Need to Do It'

Elsewhere

Fashion Beast

Elsewhere

The Royalist