Regina King has been sweeping the awards season for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk. King so convincingly conveyed the determination and resolve of being a mom, and how that pushes you beyond your comfort zone. She won Best Supporting Female Actor at a very fun Independent Spirit Awards, hosting by Aubrey Plaza. You can see her acceptance speech here. The Spirit Awards were so great that they’re going to make The Oscars seem like even more of an interminable let down than usual. Beale Street also won Best Feature and Best Director last night for Barry Jenkins. It’s a shame that wonderful film wasn’t more recognized by the Academy.

Regina was in Valentino, in a cranberry colored pleated babydoll dress. I don’t like the shape of this gown, it looked like it had a too-wide skirt on camera. (I had to watch this streaming on my computer as my cable doesn’t include IFC so that’s probably why.) In fact it’s a skirt and a cape. It looks better in photos and from the side you can see the cape feature.

Presenter Laura Dern was in a white Azzedine Alaïa sweater dress. Her film The Tale was also nominated for Best First Feature, which went to Boots Riley for Sorry To Bother You. (That’s on Hulu, watch it! It’s weird and unlike any movie and I loved it.) This was kind of a staid look and could have been a little riskier, but it’s a decent choice for the Spirit Awards.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Amanda Seyfried of Best Reformed was in a white and gray Givenchy pantsuit that had a built-in silver sequin dickie. This is a great suit and I love the thin metallic belt. She had on weird pinkish red eyeshadow that ruined the whole look though. It looked worse on camera. Imagine that suit with a smokey eye and slicked back hair, it might have worked.

Roma’s Yalitza Aparicio presented in Spanish, which was really cool I appreciated that. She wore red Miu Miu. This was a great dress for the event. She wasn’t nominated at the Spirit Awards, which surprised me, but she’s up for Best Actress at The Oscars, so we’ll definitely see her tonight. Roma won Best International Film. Will it take Best Picture? I honestly don’t know! I’ve read conflicting takes on that. I wouldn’t be mad if it won, I just think it was too arty and long and not entertaining enough to be best picture.

Yalitza was there with her costar, Nancy Garcia.

Gemma Chan was gorgeous in a pink and gold sequin cap sleeve Miu Miu gown featuring lines of silver sequins and an open back. I’ve really enjoyed seeing her fashion this awards season. She’s such a risk taker and it almost always pays off. Her styling is perfect for this dress.

photos credit: WENN and Getty

The Independent Spirit Awards are usually a showcase for low-key fashion – very few people really get all dolled up, although that’s changing a bit too. I remember when people really did show up in jeans and sandals. Now most of the men just wear a suit and no ite, and more women just wear pretty cocktail dresses or trousers. Dakota Johnson reps Gucci, so of course she wore Gucci, but this was a nice low-key look. It’s actually a two-piece – flowy cropped Capris which look like a skirt and a strapless thing up top. The top actually doesn’t fit her properly, but whatever. She looks gorgeous.

Dakota and Tilda Swinton were there to represent Suspiria, which won the Robert Altman Award, which is sort of like the de facto ensemble award. Tilda wore Haider Ackermann and I’m obsessed with those trousers. SO GOOD.

Chloë Grace Moretz – who was also there for Suspiria – wore Loew. This feels a tad over-the-top, but whatever. It’s just kind of a bad dress in general.

Glenn Close in Sies Marjan, with her dog Pippen. Pippen came on stage with her when she won! This was Glenn’s first time at the Spirit Awards and I think she was surprised by them. She really thought that it was just going to be, like, a tent in Santa Monica and everyone would be wearing jeans. Pippen was happy that Glenn won too.

Shangela Laquifa Wadley wore Jovani on the red carpet, but of course she changed for her performance!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I thought this year’s Independent Spirit Awards were going to be like every awards show this year, meaning I thought they would suck too. But it was actually one of the most enjoyable shows of the year – Aubrey Plaza was host, and her cold-open “spirit witches” bit was hilarious, as was her opening monologue. Here’s the “white girl witches” part, NSFW for language and witchcraft!

And here’s Aubrey’s opening, which was a million times funnier than anything we’ll see at the Oscars tonight, quite honestly.

You can see the full list of Spirit Award winners here – If Beale Street Could Talk won Best Film, Ethan Hawke picked up Best Actor for First Reformed (he wasn’t there) and Glenn Close won Best Actress.

This was the funniest part of the Spirit Awards – Shangela singing a medley for the Best Film nominees. It was amazing!! I WISH the Oscars would do something like this.

Aubrey wore Miu Miu, by the way! She wore a couple of different looks.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

This morning, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex took a Moroccan military helicopter to the Atlas Mountains so they could visit an NGO called Education For All. The EFA boarding houses are for girls aged 12 to 18, and they provide education for those girls at those critical ages, when many girls that age are leaving schools or finding that there are few educational opportunities for them. EFA boarding schools were founded by a British entrepreneur named Michael McHugo. It’s a good way to highlight an NGO associated with British interests and Moroccan interests, plus one of Meghan’s biggest issues as a royal is “education for girls and women.”

For this leg of the three-day tour, Meghan wore a pair of black maternity jeans, a black t-shirt, a navy blazer and Birdies slippers. I’m not seeing any good IDs on this outfit, but I don’t think it’s very important. This is her casual look and she looks lovely and appropriate for traveling by helicopter into a remote mountain region and meeting lots of girls. You can also see that Meghan received a pretty henna tattoo on her hand and arm. The girls at the boarding school were so excited to see Meghan.

Also: despite all of the unhinged racist press Meghan has gotten over the past six months, Meghan and Harry didn’t “punish” the traveling royal press pack whatsoever on this trip. The press were provided with access completely.

Meghan takes part in a henna ceremony to celebrate her pregnancy #RoyalVisitMorocco pic.twitter.com/93Kr0lBxyo

— Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) February 24, 2019

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.

Here are some photos of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex arriving in Morocco on Saturday evening. This wasn’t technically the tarmac “exit” as soon as they got off the plane. They apparently flew commercial, and so there were no exiting-the-plane-waving photos. These photos are the Sussexes’ “arrival” pics at the royal palace. Meghan looked especially glamorous, I think – her red coat is Valentino. Red is a significant color in Morocco, and their flag is almost completely red, so this is a piece of “theme dressing” or perhaps just dressing for the host country. I like that her hair is pulled back in a neat (but not crazy-tight) bun. I don’t like the beige heels or the beige-and-white clutch with this though. There were so many purse or clutch options and she chose that??

Omid Scobie confirmed several items throughout the day – the entourage for the three-day trip includes two assistant private secretaries, 3 communications staffers, a “digital officer” (probably the person photographing Harry and Meg for the Kensington Royal social media), one assistant, one hairdresser and the program coordinator. Scobie also confirmed that “medical provisions have been made” for Meghan, in case something happens with her pregnancy, I would assume.

Meanwhile, did you hear this? Apparently, the Duchess of Sussex has put the Mail on Sunday on notice – she considering suing the Mail because they published copies of her letter to her father, the same letter that he sold to the Mail on Sunday to prove that… he’s a toxic douche or whatever. The Guardian reports that Meghan believes she has a case under copyright law because the Mail published the actual handwritten copy of the letter. Just more evidence that Meghan is a master strategist, honestly.

Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.

Robert Kraft is the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots. Kraft is a huge supporter of Tom Brady, and Kraft is also a big Donald Trump supporter. Remember this bizarre story from last year, where Kraft’s 31-year-old girlfriend got pregnant and had a baby in secret and the Patriots organization claimed it wasn’t Kraft’s kid? Anyway, as I learned during that secret-baby issue, Kraft is a widower. He was married to year to Myra Kraft for decades, and Myra passed away in 2011. Since then, he’s been in the company of a few pretty young things, as is common with 77 year old billionaires. But as it turns out, Kraft needed something else. He needed sex acts from the trafficked sex slaves of Orchids of Asia, a strip-mall “spa” in Jupiter, Florida. Kraft was named as one of two hundred “johns” caught up in a police operation investigating human trafficking.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is a wanted man — cops say they’ve issued a warrant for his arrest as part of a recent prostitution, human trafficking sting operation in Jupiter, Florida. Cops say 77-year-old Kraft will be charged with 2 counts of “soliciting another to commit prostitution,” according to Jupiter Police Chief Daniel Kerr.

Chief Kerr says he was “stunned as everybody else” when he saw Kraft’s name as a suspect. Officials say Kraft is accused of soliciting a prostitute on at least 2 separate occasions at a massage parlor in Florida roughly “a month ago.” Cops say the name of the establishment that Kraft visited is Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter. Cops say they have obtained evidence from body cam video and surveillance that has been conducted over the last several months.

Officials say Kraft was driven to the spa by a chauffeur … and say they have video of the Pats owner “that shows the act that took place” with him inside of the spa. The average cost per visit for services was $59 for half an hour and $79 per hour, according to police.

A spokesperson for Kraft tells TMZ Sports the NFL owner denies the allegations.

“We categorically deny that Mr. Kraft engaged in any illegal activity. Because it is a judicial matter, we will not be commenting further.”

[From TMZ]

How do I say this obliquely… from the reporting, it doesn’t sound like Kraft in particular was paying for intercourse. He seems to have paid for handies, or at least that’s how it seems. I’ve mentioned before that I think some forms of prostitution should be legal, and I don’t believe ALL prostitution issues are human trafficking issues. But that’s not the case here – it sounds like the spa was “employing” undocumented Asian women who had been smuggled into the country to be enslaved at these kinds of “spas.” These women were absolutely trafficked. And I’m here for outing all of the men. The list of men also includes John Childs, a Wall Street financier and billionaire. Another name: John Havens, former president and COO of Citigroup. There are steady rumors that another big name could come out too.

It should be noted that paying for handies from trafficked, desperate, enslaved women is only a misdemeanor change. Kraft was charged with two misdemeanors for soliciting. If convicted, the most jail time he could do would be about 120 days. One of the conversations happening right now is about the NFL’s “morality clauses” for owners, players and coaches, and whether the billionaire owner of the NFL’s biggest team should be punished by the league. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has some decisions to make. Goodell could fine Kraft or give the Patriots a game suspension.

Here’s Trump saying he was “very surprised” about Kraft:

Photos courtesy of WENN.

For such a popular series – maybe even one of their most popular? – the Hollywood Reporter sure has taken to publishing their Brutally Honest Oscar Ballots kind of late. We talked about Ballot #1 last week, and it was the anonymous male director who stans Spike Lee. Ballot #2 is a “female member of the Academy’s 506-person sound branch.” Interesting diversity to include a sound-department Oscar voter, I think. This woman doesn’t really think like most of the Oscar voters – she seems immune to the way Oscar campaigns are run and she goes with her gut. And her gut loved The Favourite and A Star Is Born, which is weird. You can read the whole piece here. Some highlights:

She didn’t like Black Panther: “I did not care for Black Panther — I appreciate what the film represented to people, but I just thought it was pretty mediocre.”

Her thoughts on Green Book: “I’m not a fan of Green Book, either — it felt kind of retrograde and borderline offensive with all the cliches, and then I read what the family [of Don Shirley] was saying and that didn’t help. My son said to me, “That movie is trash”; I wouldn’t go that far.”

Roma was beautiful but boring: “I wanted to love Roma, but in the end I just thought it was boring, albeit beautiful to look at. I kept waiting for something to happen…There are so many people that liked it, and it’s winning everything, but for me it did not work.”

Her three picks for Best Film: My number three is Bohemian Rhapsody, which I liked a lot — I didn’t like how they handled Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality; they just more or less avoided it, but Rami Malek was terrific and I loved the concert scenes. I put A Star Is Born at number two — a really entertaining Hollywood movie; the acting was great and everything worked for me except the ending. I liked The Favourite a lot — not the cinematography, but everything else about it. I guess it was the one of the eight nominees that I liked the most, but I can’t say it was a favorite film of mine. There was no Phantom Thread for me this year.

Her pick for Best Director: “I know this is blasphemous, but I thought that [Roma’s Alfonso] Cuaron just borrowed a lot from Fellini — I guess you could call it an homage — and, hello, just because you can have a tracking shot that goes three blocks doesn’t mean you should. She [Yalitza Aparicio’s character] has got to get somewhere — at the end of it, something’s gotta happen! I thought the direction of BlacKkKlansman [Spike Lee] and The Favourite [Yorgos Lanthimos] were both great, but I just liked The Favourite more. My Vote: Yorgos Lanthimos.

She voted for Bradley Cooper for Best Actor: “Rami [Malek of Bohemian Rhapsody] was great, but — this is going to sound awful — he was so short, and Freddie Mercury was so tall, that it just kind of bothered me. I liked [A Star Is Born’s] Bradley [Cooper] the best — I totally bought him as a drunk rock-star, I believed every moment he was on screen and every moment of him was perfect. I mean, the fact that he sang and he played and he directed himself — I was just astounded by how good he was.

Glenn Close is a sure thing: “Glenn [Close of The Wife] is going to win, and I voted for her — because of [the 1988 film] Dangerous Liaisons. She was so great in that — I remember that scene where she’s staring into the mirror and has just that little bit of a shudder; she was just so wonderful in that. I thought The Wife was okay — I saw her on TV the other night, and even she has said she was kind of surprised at the attention this little movie has gotten her — but sometimes you do vote for an accumulation of work, and she’s of a certain age, and I think it’s just time. You know what I learned recently? All the gays love her. I have gay friends and members of my family, and they’re all on my case to vote for her — I never saw Glenn Close as a big gay icon, but they all love her! [A Star Is Born’s Lady] Gaga was really good. I loved [The Favourite’s] Olivia Colman and would have voted for her. But I just think it’s Glenn’s turn.

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

She also voted for Richard E. Grant and Regina King in the supporting categories, which makes me remember that the anonymous director also voted for Grant. Is there going to be a surprise in the Best Supporting Actor category? Richard would happy-sob if that happened, and I kind of think Mahershala would be happy with it too. Also: I too feel that there should be a JUSTICE 4 PHANTOM THREAD movement because holy god was that an incredible movie and it did next to nothing during last year’s awards season. What else? I’m shocked that this woman voted for Bradley Cooper. I’m also shocked that she didn’t know that Glenn Close is utterly beloved by the LGBTQ community.

Photos courtesy of IMDB.

Mary J Blige’s marriage ended in a mess. And afterwards he came for her money because even though he didn’t respect her during their marriage, he felt she owed him the respect of keeping him in that lifestyle. Understandably she never wants to find herself in the same position again. Mary sounds lik…

Mary J Blige’s marriage ended in a mess. And afterwards he came for her money because even though he didn’t respect her during their marriage, he felt she owed him the respect of keeping him in that lifestyle. Understandably she never wants to find herself in the same position again. Mary sounds lik…

Mary J Blige’s marriage ended in a mess. And afterwards he came for her money because even though he didn’t respect her during their marriage, he felt she owed him the respect of keeping him in that lifestyle. Understandably she never wants to find herself in the same position again. Mary sounds lik…