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Saturday Night Live host Ayo Edebiri probably wished that she could take back some mean comments made during a podcast about this week’s musical guest, Jennifer Lopez. Fortunately (and perhaps awkwardly) for her, SNL gave her a chance for amends with its spoof game show, Why'd Ya Say It? It all…

It’s Grammy Week, with the actual awards on Sunday, and Bill Maher had a message for the music industry in his “New Rules” editorial – maybe it’s time now to teach kids you’re not only as good as how much stuff you have. Maher took issue with the materialistic content of much of today’s music, which…

A defiant Larry David told Seth Meyers on Thursday night that he just couldn’t take any more of Elmo’s treacly sentiments, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Literally. David was asked by Meyers during an appearance on NBC’s Late Night about his infamous moment earlier that day on the…

The Los Angeles Times came weather-wrapped Thursday morning. There was more plastic than paper, or so it seemed. There wasn't even enough paper, apparently, to run a proper obituary for Chuck Philips, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter who died last month. Details about Chuck's passing…

Given the strong slate of this year’s Oscar nominees, the pre-Academy Awards season has been devoid of the intrigues and mud-slinging of previous epochs. Oops! – could a new outbreak of Barbie-phobia break the harmony and bring naysayers out of the shadows? I already hear a few negative murmurs: Not…

It's a fact of life, people love the Oscars most when the film Academy or its members are doing something dumb. Slapping a host. Naming the wrong winner. Singing about bare breasts. That sort of thing. So it was a good week for the March 10 Academy Awards show. The colossally un-smart snubs of Margot…

"Sequels suck, whether you're making them or watching them." So said one storied filmmaker in rejecting a rich movie deal (details below), and he'd likely react the same if offered Biden vs. Trump. The New Hampshire primary results this week reinforced…

Editors note: John Ridley is the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave writer, writer-director of Five Days at Memorial, and the Eisner-nominated writer of the DC graphic novel series GCPD: The Blue Wall. He also hosts with Matt Carey the Deadline podcast Doc Talk, and occasionally contributes guest columns…

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has proven to be no laughing matter at the box office with its billion-dollar take. But some 30 or more years ago, it was a different story when a Barbie movie was pitched, says actress Sharon Stone. Writing a response on America Ferrera’s social media post of her Critics Choice…

The reminders are relentless, but the mission under-exciting: Academy voting is "obligatory" for members this week. It's time to conjure up those lists of "bests." OK, I respect the ritual but – candidly — my attention is drifting. Instead of creating…

The Critics Choice Award for chutzpah goes to … the lady swathed in gold lamé, sporting a Mohawk fade hairstyle who, without so much as a by-your-leave, crashed past me and scooped up a bottle of Milagro Silver tequila that was part of the centerpiece on tables at the Barker Hangar in Santa…

Mark Ruffalo tells me he has, until now, kinda shied away from playing the villain of the piece. He licks his lips as he declares that it's "so much fun to finally get to play the bad guy." He refers, of course, to his Duncan Wedderburn, the calculating cad of the first water he plays with zest in…