Entertainment

(NOTE LANGUAGE) John Stamos admits he “never planned to write” his forthcoming memoir If You Would Have Told Me, until the death of dear friend Bob Saget in January of this year.

“After losing Bob, finally becoming a father, and wanting to honor all the colorful people who have made me who I am today, I figured if not now, when?” Stamos said in his announcement of the book.

He calls the release, due out next fall, “my story about Hollywood, fame, fortune, and f***ups.”

“It’s also about home, heart, and healing,” the Full House and Big Shots star continues.

Publisher Henry Holt teases in the announcement, “If You Would Have Told Me is the story not only of a life lived in front of the camera, but of the surreal highs and devastating lows of a misunderstood heartthrob who has always remained a dorky kid from Orange County, and of his midlife quest to find sobriety and a family of his own.”

Calling the writing process “cathartic and healing and sometimes heartbreaking,” Stamos says, “I hope my memoir offers a window into my heart and mind and helps readers find little moments of magic that make life worth living.”

“Honestly, while writing this book I’ve realized I have about a million stories to tell, and I think you may like at least four hundred of them,” he jokes.

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Paramount+ has announced a second season of Halo is already blasting off.

Production has just begun on the sophomore season of the video game-turned-streaming show in Budapest, Hungary, reports the streaming service.

Like the game, the show centers on the 26^th century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. The tip of the spear is Pablo Schreiber‘s super-soldier Spartan-117, also known as Master Chief.

The actor and Natascha McElhone, who returns as Dr. Halsey, are also serving as producers this season, which will also see actors Joseph Morgan and Cristina Rodlo join the cast as series regulars.

According to the streaming service, Vampire Diaries vet Morgan plays James Ackerson, “a formidable intelligence operative,” and Rodlo plays Talia Perez, “a corporal specializing in linguistics … who has yet to see any real combat.”

Fiona O’Shaughnessy and Tylan Bailey also return in season 2, along with other Halo stars, among them Bokeem Woodbine and Halo game series star Jen Taylor, who reprises as the A.I. Cortana.

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David Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper on Stranger Things and who was recently announced as part of the cast of Marvel Studios’ upcoming Thunderbolts series, is getting his game on.

ABC Audio has confirmed the star has signed onto Gran Turismo, an upcoming movie based both on the hit Sony Playstation franchise and the life of one of its longtime players, a teenager who turned his love of the racing simulator game into a real-life racing career.

Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9, and Elysium with Matt Damon, is calling the shots on the project, from a screenplay written by Jason Hall and Zach Baylan.

Since the game launched in 1997, the Gran Turismo franchise has sold more than 80 million copies.

Sony Pictures will release the film in theaters on August 11, 2023.

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With the release of a new teaser, Netflix has announced its romantic reality show Love Is Blind will return in a month.

The wildly successful reality series — which has already spawned Brazilian and Japanese adaptations — returns for its third season on Oct. 19, it was revealed in the 31-second first look.

While we still don’t know which lucky singles will appear in the Love Is Blind season 3 cast, fans do see glimpses of what to expect throughout the season.

Love Is Blind, hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, starts with men and women meeting one another while speed dating in pods where they can’t see each other — hence the show’s title.

The couples who get engaged in the pods finally meet each other face-to-face before they continue to see if they can make it to the altar and ultimately say “I do.”

Season 1, which aired in 2020, saw two couples — Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton as well as Amber Pike and Matthew Barnett — marry. They’re still together to this day.

Season 2’s couples didn’t fare as well. The season, which aired earlier in 2022, saw two couples — Iyanna McNeely and Jarrette Jones as well as Danielle Ruhl and Nick Thompson — marry. However, both couples have announced they’re divorcing.

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Anthony Michael Hall is no stranger to coming-of-age films.

He starred in several of John Hughes’ classics back in the ’80s, everything from Pretty in Pink to Weird Science, but who could forget about his iconic role in The Breakfast Club? Hall reflected on its legacy as he told ABC Audio about The Class, a new movie he hopes will capture the resonance of his 1985 smash-hit.

“It’s a reimagining, if you will, of The Breakfast Club,” Hall said. “In this case, it’s six kids instead of five. Some of them are dealing with alcoholism. One of the kids is dealing with issues of sexuality and coming out. One of them is dealing with violence at home.”

The Class is a direct homage to The Breakfast Club: it centers on a group of students who are stuck together at school on a Saturday as they retake an exam. Hall plays the school’s assistant principal, working alongside another ’80s icon, Debbie Gibson, who plays the teacher administrating the exam.

“She’s wonderful,” Hall said. “I think audiences will be really surprised, pleasantly surprised when they see her work, because she’s really great. Just real. She’s got a realness to her which cuts through in her role.”

And while it’s hard to believe it’s been 37 years since The Breakfast Club was in theaters, Hall says he’s had a long time to think about the effect of the film and why it’s remained relevant.

“I think, in large part, it’s like group therapy for people,” Hall said. “We hope the same kind of connectivity happens. We want this film to reach young audiences. And I think it’s a very healthy transition to take the structure with The Breakfast Club and reapply it to a new generation.”

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) We return to Gilead Wednesday with a new season of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.

After that big death at the end of last season, star and director of several of this season’s episodes, Elisabeth Moss, tells ABC Audio that her character June is spiraling.

“I think she thought that she was going to feel better after killing Fred. I think she thought that that was going to be, bring her some relief or bring her some peace. And it doesn’t because violence is not the answer,” she explains.

“Killing this one person might have made her feel good for an hour, but it doesn’t actually solve anything and it doesn’t bring Gilead down,” the Emmy award winning actress continues. “It doesn’t get her daughter back. And that’s a horrible realization.”

Speaking of Gilead, some are comparing the repressive republic to the U.S., following the overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year. Executive producer Warren Littlefield would agree.

“I think after the Supreme Court made their Roe v Wade decision, you know, we are closer to Gilead than ever before, and that scares the s*** out of us,” he says.

Moss adds that everyone was “devastated” and shares, “At the same time, we also feel, I think, proud that we’re doing something and providing a voice or a safe space for people, that we feel like we’re on the right side here. And I think there’s pride in that.”

As for what fans can expect from season 5, show runner Bruce Miller says, “One of the biggest themes of the season is trying to get clean after trauma…the impossibility of getting clean is really one of the themes of the season that you kind of move on with the scars you have. You don’t leave them behind.”

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Ryan Reynolds and his fellow co-owner of the soccer team Wrexham AFC, Rob McElhenney, nearly literally put their backsides on the line, for a lifesaving cause. 

The Welcome to Wrexham co-stars took part in a video raising awareness about colon cancer screenings by sharing details into their own colonoscopy procedures, in conjunction with the colon cancer awareness organization Lead from Behind, and the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. 

“Rob and I both turned 45 this year and you know, part of being this age is getting a colonoscopy,” Reynolds said in the video. “It’s a simple step that could literally, and I mean literally, save your life.”

Naturally, the pair turned it into a competition. 

The video opens with the both of them explaining that Reynolds bet McElhenney that he wouldn’t learn how to speak Welsh. And if he did, Reynolds would have his colonoscopy filmed.

Ryan lost, as evidenced by the Always Sunny star explaining the situation in the native tongue of their football club.

Dr. Jonathan LaPook at NYU Langone Health led Reynolds’s procedure and told the actor that he found an “extremely subtle polyp” on the right side of his colon.

“This was potentially lifesaving for you,” LaPook told Reynolds. “This is exactly why you do this.”

“You are interrupting the natural history of a disease…a process, that could have ended up developing into cancer…,” LaPook said. “Instead, you’re not only diagnosing the polyp, you’re taking it out.”

According to the American Cancer Society, it can take abnormal cells that turn into polyps about 10 to 15 years to develop into colorectal cancer.

Through regular screening, polyps can be found and removed before they do, the American Cancer Society said.

A healthy diet, exercise, and quitting smoking can also lower your risk.

McElhenney also brought cameras into his procedure where doctors found three small polyps, which they said were not a big deal; the growths were also removed.

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Hollywood’s silent era provides the backdrop for La La Land director Damien Chazelle‘s newest film Babylon, the official trailer for which dropped on Tuesday. Starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, the movie “traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood,” according to the official logline. Babylon is set for a December 25 release… (Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)

Ratings for Monday’s telecast of the 74th Primetime Emmys fell to an all-time low for the third time in the last four years, averaging just 5.92 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That’s the first time the show has fallen below the 6 million mark. Monday’s show, hosted by Saturday Night Live‘s Kenan Thompson, averaged a 1.09 rating among adults 18-49 — also an all-time low for the annual awards show…

Even a case of COVID-19 couldn’t stop Lea Michele‘s turn as Fanny Brice in the Broadway musical Funny Girl from drumming up big bucks at the box office, according to Deadline. For the week ending September 11 — Michele’s first week — Funny Girl grossed $1,639,212. That marks a big increase from the previous week’s $659,874 and a significant improvement over the $1.3 million original star Beanie Feldstein brought in during early weeks of the show last spring…

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The Bachelorette kicked off its live two-night season 19 finale on Tuesday, one that host Jesse Palmer promised would be “so emotional, so dramatic and so controversial, that it will have all America stunned.”

Rachel, Gabby and host Palmer were joined by a studio audience that watched the remaining men meet Gabby and Rachel’s families.

But first, the show picked up where it left off last week — with Zach, who was “blindsided” by Rachel’s sudden doubt as to whether he was ready for an engagement, pulling her aside before the rose ceremony.

On Tuesday, he opted to leave the competition, told her that he saw “Bachelorette Rachel,” instead of the Rachel he’d “come to know and love.” Rachel explained her feelings for Zach were real, but she found clarity during their overnight.

During the live portion of the show, they exchanged apologies — Zach for appearing to call Rachel out for her character and Rachel for doing anything to hurt him.

Rachel pinned roses on her last two suitors, Aven and Tino, then it was off to meet the parents.

First up was Aven, whose meeting with Rachel’s mother, father and best friends went smoothly at first, but took a sharp left turn when the two friends asked Aven point blank if he was ready to propose to her and he admitted he wasn’t there yet.

The news shocked Rachel, who revealed that Aven had told her otherwise during their overnight. He would later explain that an engagement to Rachel is his ultimate goal, but he needed to make sure it’s right.

Ahead of their final date, Rachel visited Aven in his room, where he chalked his promise of an engagement to getting “caught up in the moment.” Rachel sent Aven home.

Tino, on the other hand, got a stamp of approval from Rachel’s family, although the chilly reception from his family during hometowns left them and Rachel with some concerns.

Meanwhile, after getting a thumbs up from Gabby’s family, Erich blew his final date with her by saying that he also wasn’t ready to for an engagement and just wanted to “date” her.

That sent her storming off in tears, insisting “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“So, here we are, a big fat dumpster fire,” she said.

Gabby and Rachel’s journey for love concludes, when The Bachelorette returns Tuesday, September 20 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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With trophies in both hands backstage at the 74th annual Emmy Awards Monday night, repeat winner Jason Sudeikis was in the mood to celebrate.

However, he wasn’t in the mood to answer whether Ted Lasso would return for a fourth season.

When a journalist noted that the Apple TV+ show’s cast usually says “Ask Jason” when it comes to a return to the pitch, Sudeikis teased, “I think you’ve been misled.”

“I don’t know, it’s up to more factors than myself,” the former SNL star added coyly.

After jousting amicably with the reporter, Sudeikis allowed, “The response to the show has been overwhelming. We have a tremendous group of writers. We have a tremendous group of actors. We have tremendous people in production, post-production. All of those things are thrown into the jambalaya of possibility. And so I couldn’t say yes or no.”

Sudeikis joked, “… as for season 4, I apologize for not giving you a more direct answer, because I understand that that’s helpful for headlines.”

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