Entertainment

Matt Damon has finally joined Instagram, but don’t expect to find his account anytime soon.

Speaking with GQ, the 50-year old actor confessed that the reason he’s never joined any social media platforms is because he “just never saw the point [of them.]”

“And I feel better and better about that decision as time goes on,” he continued, before admitting that he does have “a very private Instagram account” for the sole purpose of staying connected with friends and their families.

“I have 76 followers and I’ve done 40 posts since 2013,” he boasted, noting that the photos he shares are also of his family — mainly his three daughters, Isabella, Stella and Gia, goofing off.

When elaborating on why he decided to stay off all other social media platforms, Damon said, “I understand wanting to be connected to everybody on Facebook, but my life is so full and I’m connected, really, to everybody I need to be connected to.”

“And then Twitter,” he deadpanned, “I just reflexively didn’t believe that my first knee-jerk response to something was necessarily something that should go all over the world.”

Damon is referencing the controversy he fell into at the start of the #MeToo movement, where he called the movement a “watershed moment” during a 2018 interview.  His statements turned him into a lightning rod for criticism.

“95 percent of the stuff [said about me] was entirely unhelpful, it was just Twitter-bashing stuff, which did put me in a defensive crouch,” he recalled.

Damon is among a small group of A-list celebrities who have refrained from sharing on social media, including Scarlett Johansson, Eddie Murphy, George Clooney and Emily Blunt.

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Rick James‘ daughter, Ty James, says there are still plenty more projects in the works about her famous father following the release of Sacha Jenkins‘ new Showtime documentary film, B*tchin: The Sound and Fury of Rick James.

“We have probably over a hundred or so tracks that have not been released and we’re excited to share those too,” James tells ABC Audio. “We just want to make sure the timing is right. I never wanted to do something because he’s gone. And I feel like I see a lot of that happening.”

Ty says for her to release new music from her father, who passed away in 2004 at the age of 56, “it needs to be special.”

“So, we’re actually working on his biopic now and we plan on definitely using some of those tracks for that,” she says of a yet-unannounced feature film. “And also a new EP.”

While a new documentary, a forthcoming biopic and a potential EP with James’ music may feed fans’ appetites, Ty says she’s also working on an official musical production using her father’s songs.

“I just inked the musical stage play,” James reveals. “We’re doing that with [producer] Je’Caryous Johnson. So he’s a good friend of mine. We’ve been pretty much going back and forth for about a year and a half or so. And we just wanted to make sure that everything was right.”

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As promised, Warner Bros. today dropped the first trailer for The Matrix Resurrections, and for fans of the original film, it looks like a mind-bending return to form, after the divisive final two Matrix movies. 

Set to Jefferson Airplane‘s “White Rabbit” — itself a nod to the 1999 original — the film sees Keanu Reeves‘ Thomas “Neo” Anderson back inside the simulation, but knowing something’s off. 

In a therapy session with Neil Patrick Harris, he laments having “dreams that weren’t just dreams.”

“Am I crazy?” Reeves asks.

“We don’t use that word here,” the therapist replies. 

Reflecting the technology difference between our world in which the original film debuted, this trailer shows mankind pacified by their cellphones, while Reeves’ character is kept in check by handfuls of prescription blue pills. 

But when he meets Carrie Ann Moss‘ character, Trinity, at a coffee shop, his doubts are confirmed.

“Have we met?” his former Matrix love interest asks him, as their hands touch. 

As he did in the first movie, Anderson follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole and embraces his inner Neo, thanks to the as-yet unnamed character played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who’s clearly a take on Laurence Fishburne‘s Morpheus.

As before, it’s this guide who offers Anderson the red pill, which shows him the real world inside the machine-created simulation and who helps Neo re-awaken his power. 

“Time to fly,” he tells Neo.

The trailer gives glimpses of the over-the-top action the first film pioneered, with physics-defying martial arts and gunplay enhanced by today’s cutting-edge CGI. 

The film, which also stars returning Matrix co-star Jada Pinkett Smith, features series newcomers Jessica Henwick from Iron Fist, Christina Ricci, Mindhunters‘ Jonathan Groff, and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

Directed by Lana Wachowski, The Matrix Resurrections opens December 22.

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Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and her husband of two years, Cooke Maroney, are expecting their first child, a rep for the couple tells Page Six. 

Lawrence, 31, and her 37-year-old art gallery owner beau got engaged in 2019. They tied the knot in October of that year at Belcourt of Newport, a museum and historical site in Newport, Rhode Island, before family and a guest list that included famous friends like Adele, Emma Stone, and Cameron Diaz.

No due date for the baby was announced. This will be Lawrence’s first child.

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It’s quite the day for Oscar-winner baby news. While Jennifer Lawrence just confirmed she’s with child, her X-Men series co-star Michael Fassbender apparently is a dad, having secretly welcomed a baby with his Oscar-winning wife, Alicia Vikander. 

Vikander tells People that she and Fassbender became parents earlier this year. The very private couple, who were married in 2017, didn’t reveal to People a name or gender, but the actress tells the magazine what it’s like being a new mom.

“I now have a whole new understanding of life in general,” said The Green Knight star. “That’s pretty beautiful, and obviously will give a lot to any of my work in the future.”

The mysterious bundle of joy is the first child for Vikander, 32, and her 44-year-old husband, who met on the set of the 2014 film The Light Between Oceans.

Incidentally, it was revealed this week that another of Fassbender’s X-Men series co-stars, Olivia Munn, was expecting a child with comedian John Mulaney.

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Sony Pictures Television announced on Wednesday that it has inked a deal with Pat Sajak and Vanna White to host Wheel of Fortune through the 2023-2024 season, according to Deadline.

However, while the popular game show, which is heading into its 39th season, has locked in its longtime hosts, other features of the show are about to change.

Most notably, Sajak will no longer do the ‘final spin’ of the game. Instead, the contestant in control of the wheel at the time will spin to determine the amount each consonant is worth during the speed-up round.

“If you think about it, by doing the ‘final spin’ I, as host, had an impact on the outcome of the game and that has always bothered me because it just didn’t feel right,” said Sajak in a statement obtained by Deadline. “With this change, only the contestants determine the outcome of the game and the host does not impose themself in any way.”

Additionally, the show’s set will receive a facelift, and its theme song, “Changing Keys,” will get a modernized arrangement.

More money will also be up for grabs, too, with the “Free Play” wedge being removed from the Wheel and replaced by an $850 wedge. Also, a $4,000 bonus will be awarded to contestants who solve all three puzzles in the Triple Toss-Up Round, making the round worth $10,000.

Finally, the minimum amount that can be won on the Bonus Wheel has been upped to $39,000, in honor of the show’s 39th season in syndication.

Incidentally, Jason Alexander, wrestler and upcoming DWTS hoofer Michael “The Miz” Mizanin and Cheryl Burke will join Pat and Vanna when Celebrity Wheel of Fortune returns on its new night, Sunday, September 26 at 8 a.m. on ABC.

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Oscar Isaac plays as an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by his past in The Card Counter, a new crime drama from the man behind such classic films as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, Paul Schrader.

Isaac tells ABC Audio that despite serving prison time for the bad things he’s done, his character, William Tillich — a.k.a. William Tell — can’t seem to shake off the trauma and guilt.

“Even after he’s done his time, he doesn’t feel like it’s enough,” the 42-year-old actor explains. “So he sentences himself to indefinite purgatory by finding the most lonely, kind of miserable existence that he can think of, which is low stakes blackjack, poker, you know, forever.”

Tell is the latest in what Schrader calls his “series of man alone in his room” characters, according to Isaac, who says a role like this was a lifelong goal of his.  Films like Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, American Gigolo and First Reformed “are about the pressure of this person in his room and the mystery of what has happened and letting that unravel.  So, yeah, I got to do that.  I got to be a Paul Schrader anti-hero.”

Tiffany Haddish plays La Linda, a mysterious gambling financier who agrees to back Isaac’s character financially, and recalls it wasn’t Schrader’s iconic films, but an erotic horror film he directed in 1982 that convinced her attracted her to the film.

“I loved him since Cat People,” she tells ABC Audio.  “I thought it was shot so beautifully.  And I loved the story.  And I still love the story.”

“[I said] I want to work with that man! I’ve been saying that for years, and then bam, he called me,” she gushes.

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With Halloween close at hand, Disney+ has rolled out a full listing of all the spooky titles in its catalog. They include classics like Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas, to special spooky episodes of shows like WandaVision and Marvel Studios’ What If… to Wizards of Waverly Place, The Simpsons and That’s So Raven. 

Here’s a full list of Disney+’s creepy collection: 

LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales (premiering 10/8)
Muppets Haunted Mansion (10/8)
Under Wraps (10/13)
Just Beyond
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Hocus Pocus
The Haunted Mansion
Frankenweenie
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Zombies
Halloweentown
Twitches
Girl vs. Monster
Mom’s Got a Date With a Vampire
Don’t Look Under the Bed
Phantom of the Megaplex
Mr. Boogedy
So Weird
Vampirina

Shorts:

Toy Story of Terror!
Lonesome Ghosts
Trick-or-Treat
Gravity Falls
Gargoyles
The Simpsons: “Treehouse of Horror I-XXX”

Halloween-themed episodes: 

Marvel Studios WandaVision — “All New Halloween Spooktacular”
Marvel Studios What If…Zombies 
The Muppet Show — “Vincent Price”
Behind the Attraction — “Haunted Mansion”
Hannah Montana — “Torn Between 2 Hannahs”
The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody — “Ghost of 613”
That’s So Raven —  “Don’t Have A Cow”
Wizards of Waverley Place —  “Halloween”
The Proud Family — “A Hero for Halloween”
Lizzie McGuire — “Night of the Day of the Dead”
KC Undercover — “All Howl’s Eve”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Olivia Munn and comedian John Mulaney are going to be parents.

The former Saturday Night Live writer told late night host Seth Meyers on Tuesday that he began dating the actress this past spring, following a split from his ex-wife, artist Anna Marie Tendler, last year.

This will be the first child for both stars.

“I’m gonna be a dad!” Mulaney said. “I’m really, really — we’re both really, really happy.”

This past year has been a challenge for Mulaney, 39, who went to drug rehab in September 2020 and then again a few months later, following a relapse. He said he got out in February.

“Then in the spring, I went to Los Angeles and met and started to date a wonderful woman named Olivia,” he said, adding that Munn, 41, has “held my hand through that hell [of recovery].”

He added, “I got into this relationship that’s been really beautiful with someone incredible.”

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Real Housewives of Atlanta stars Phaedra Parks, Marlo Hampton, Porsha Williams, Eva Marcille and Lisa Wu reunited with Nene Leakes Monday at a celebration of life in Atlanta for Nene’s late husband, Gregg Leakes.

“I am grateful to all of you. Thank you for the bottom of my heart,” Leakes commented on Instagram as she posted a photo from the event on Wednesday. “I love Gregg so much and I miss him a lot,” she added. “I will continue to be strong and celebrate his life.”

With a photo of the couple kissing, she wrote, “Today we celebrate you Gregg with love, just the way you wanted it.”

Keke Wyatt, Yolanda Adams, Kim Burrell and Le’Andria Johnson performed at the memorial service, held at the Linnethia Lounge in ATL, according to Us Magazine.

Gregg Leakes lost his three-year battle with cancer on September 1. He was 66. The couple married in 1997,  divorced 14 years later, then remarried in 2013.

 

 

 

 

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