News

Matthew Sweet, the veteran alt-rock singer-songwriter behind Nineties hit singles “Girlfriend” and “I’ve Been Waiting,” has suffered a stroke.

His longtime manager, Russell Carter, confirmed the news in a statement to Rolling Stone on Tuesday, and said Sweet was forced to cancel his cross-country tour and shows with fellow musicians after “suffering a debilitating stroke in Toronto late Saturday evening” on Oct. 12. “Matthew was quickly admitted to Toronto Western Hospital where he was put into excellent care and taken out of immediate danger. Matthew was transferred to a rehabilitation...

Bob Newhart and CBS had one of the most fruitful partnerships in television history, with Newhart starring on the network’s The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 to 1978 and Newhart from 1982 to 1990 — as well as two shorter-lived sitcoms in the Nineties, followed by a recurring role on The Big Bang Theory and its spin-off Young Sheldon. In the wake of Newhart’s death on Thursday at age 94, the network is celebrating his career with Bob Newhart: A Legacy of Laughter, airing July 22 on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

The special will...

Nineties New Queer Cinema icon Gregg Araki has not directed a feature since leaving Eva Green’s body frozen in the suburban snow globe of “White Bird in a Blizzard” in 2014. Since then, the DIY taboo buster has gone the way so many indie directors have to: by applying their personality to TV shows. In Araki’s case, that includes directing episodes of “Dahmer” and “American Gigolo.”

The iconoclastic Southern California filmmaker — known for “The Doom Generation” and “Mysterious Skin” and celebrated for his stylishly drawn stories of youthful sexual identity coming to bloom — also wrote and directed the 2019 series “Now Apocalypse.” Now, he’s teaming up with Karley Sciortino, the co-writer on that Starz show about sex and aliens in LA, for a new movie titled “I Want Your Sex.”

Araki revealed the project in early May, and it’s set up at Black Bear, most recently the production...

Nineties comic book Avengelyne is heading to the big screen soon.

Multiple reports confirmed on Thursday that Olivia Wilde will direct and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap will produce a film adaptation of the beloved comic created by Deadpool‘s Rob Liefeld.

Robbie won’t be starring in the film, but she runs LuckyChap, alongside Tom Ackerley and Josie McNamara, the production company that produced Barbie. The new film will also welcome Simon Kinberg of X-Men and Deadpool to write and produce, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which was first...

Each episode of Netflix’s One Day takes place on July 15 of successive years, from 1988 through 2007. Each year, we check in on the evolving relationship between idle rich boy Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) and the more serious-minded Emma Morley (Ambika Mod), who start out as would-be lovers, instead become friends, and gradually begin to wonder if they had things right the first time.

This structure was introduced in David Nicholls’ 2009 novel of the same name, which has already been adapted into a 2011 film with Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway as Dexter and Emma.

In the first episode of the Nineties NBC cop drama Homicide: Life on the Street, Baltimore police detective Frank Pembleton, played by a then-obscure actor named Andre Braugher, reluctantly takes on a young partner, Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor). Bayliss, new to homicide investigation, is eager to watch Pembleton interrogate a murder suspect, which prompts Frank to explain, “What you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship — as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swampland, or Bibles. But what I...

Valerie June, an expert at covers, takes on latter-day Duran Duran with her very own rendition of “Ordinary World.”

While many artists covering songs tend to stay true to the original, June’s version is more stripped-down, her stark vocals contorting around the rhythm to emphasize the meaning of the Nineties anthem: Persisting through darkness.

Given the current state of the world, June’s timing of the cover is no coincidence. “With modern times often full of heaviness and darkness, how do we find the strength to survive and grow?...

It’s hard to keep track of all the ethical violations depicted in Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife, the new three-part Netflix docuseries whose title suggests a straight-to-cable Nineties TV movie. Some of the sins here on display are, literally, mortal: Paolo Macchiarini, an apparent sociopath, a definite conman, and, worst of all, a surgeon, left a trail of corpses in the wake of his fraudulent stem cell procedures, in which he inserted plastic tracheas into people before even testing them on animals. Others are more venal, if extremely aggravating to journalists.

Nicolas Cage faces off with admirers and angry mobs in the latest dark comedy from A24, Dream Scenario.

Directed by Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) and produced by Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid), Cage plays a professor who finds himself in the midst of celebrity after he begins to appear in the dreams of strangers.

The trailer, set to hit Nineties hit single “Dreams” by the Cranberries, sees Cage’s Paul Matthews sifting through hundreds of messages, doing his best Edward Scissorhands impression for media photoshoots, and claiming,...

To say that 2014's "Guardians of the Galaxy" was an unlikely success is an understatement. Sure, by that point the Marvel Cinematic Universe had established itself as the dominant force in popular culture, but taking a team of C-list superheroes that includes a talking tree and giving them the blockbuster treatment? Until the moment James Gunn's movie actually hit theaters, it seemed like a fool's errand. But Gunn proved all of us wrong in a big, bad way. A major part of the movie's success? The brilliant stroke of a soundtrack, dubbed "Awesome Mix Vol. 1."

Gunn did indeed use a musical score, composed by Tyler Bates, in the film. But pop songs that Peter Quill would have heard on Earth as a kid were woven into the fabric of "Guardians of the Galaxy" as well, with the sounds included on Star-Lord's mixtape anchoring the soundtrack. And that soundtrack holds...

In the ever-evolving youth-culture carnival that was MTV in the late Eighties and Nineties, MTV News anchor Kurt Loder was the one constant, as well as the network’s only indicator that being a grown-up might actually be cool. With MTV News officially ending its 36-year run last week, Loder — also a longtime Rolling Stone writer — looks back on covering Kurt Cobain’s death, interviewing Prince, Madonna, and Axl Rose, and much more.

(The full conversation, including Loder’s thoughts on his Rolling Stone work, along with interviews with John Norris and Tabitha Soren,...

This post contains spoilers for the Picard series finale, “The Last Generation.”

When this third and final season of Picard debuted earlier this year, I wrote that while on the one hand it was shameless fan service, on the other this was exactly what Star Trek fans wanted and needed after the show’s first two years were so disappointing. Simply bringing back the entire crew of The Next Generation — and giving most of them much better and richer material than what they got to play back in the Eighties...

Last year, Asheville, North Carolina’s Wednesday put out a collection of cover songs called Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ‘em Up. Not only was it the best lawn-care referencing release by a North Carolina band since Superchunk’s classic 1992 single “Mower,” it also served as a killer distillation of Wednesday’s own unique strain of downhome indie-rock. The tracklist had Nineties shoegaze (Medicine), new shoegaze (Hotline TNT), tragic sad-guy legends (Vic Chesnutt, Chris Bell), a punk-guitar hero (Greg Sage), touchy-feely alt-rock (Smashing Pumpkins), alcoholic alt-country (“Drive-By Truckers’ “Women...

Even though it’s been decades since it first premiered, La Usurpadora remains one of the campiest, most beloved classics in the telenovela canon. Its 102-episode run was full of jaw-dropping plot twists and shocking surprises that gripped audiences from the moment the Spanish-language drama premiered in February 1998 (in Mexico, three out of every four people reportedly watched the show, which was broadcasted in more than 125 countries.)

The story followed two long-lost twins — one rich and evil, one poor and saintly, both played by actress Gabriela Spanic — and involved no...

Gladiators star Bernadette Hunt has died at age 59, it has been announced.

Hunt took on the persona of Falcon in the hit Nineties series, which saw everyday contestants battling against a “Gladiator” in a series of physical challenges, in front of an arena audience.

Falcon first appeared on the programme in season two in 1993, and was a regular cast member until her departure in 1999.

In a Facebook post from Hunt’s sister’s partner, Rick Jango, Hunt was revealed to have died after living with cancer for several years.

“It is with great sadness that I have to tell you of my partner's younger sister, Bernadette Hunt,” the post begins.

“Most people will remember her as ‘Falcon’ from the hit TV Show Gladiators.

“I had the privilege to be in her company a few times and I have to say she was one of the most loveliest people I have ever met.

Among the fundamental questions of Yellowjackets is how much trauma does or doesn’t change a person. The Showtime drama largely takes place in two timelines: one showing the immediate aftermath of a plane crash that stranded a high school girls’ soccer team in the remote Canadian wilderness, the other catching up to the survivors in the present day. Some of them, like overeager Misty (Samantha Hanratty in the Nineties, Christina Ricci in the present), seem more or less the same in both eras. Then there are the ones like...

During a performance at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Paramore’s Hayley Williams showcased a dynamic cover of Deana Carter’s hit Nineties single “Did I Shave My Legs for This?,” off the country singer’s debut album of the same name.

The musician appeared as part of Love Rising, an event to raise money for the Lgbtqia+ community, and was joined onstage by singer-songwriter Becca Mancari. The duo performed Williams’ solo song “Inordinary” before taking on Carter’s single along with the house band. Midway through the cover, Williams introduced her “best friend Brian,...

The 95th Academy Awards had two notable absentees over the weekend: Tom Cruise and James Cameron. “The two guys who insisted we go to the theatre didn’t come to the theatre,” Kimmel joked about the pair’s impassioned push to get people back into the cinemas after the pandemic. What the host said next is probably the reason why Cruise was nowhere to be seen. “Everyone loved Top Gun, everyone! I mean, Tom Cruise with his shirt off in that beach football scene? L Ron hubba hubba,” Kimmel joked, referring to Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard and the controversial religion of which Cruise is an advocate.

Kimmel’s wife, executive producer Molly McNearney, has since said that her husband wouldn’t have made the joke in Cruise’s presence, which is revealing in itself, but for Cruise, why risk it? It’s not like he needs to get more...

Early in 1987, producers Larry Gordon and Joel Silver were on the hunt for an action hero. They were working on a rollercoaster tale about terrorists hijacking a high-rise tower in Los Angeles and the script called for a muscle-bound bruiser.

For contractual reasons, Frank Sinatra was top of the list for Die Hard. Ol’ Blue Eyes had first refusal as he’d been the star of 1968’s The Detective, which like Die Hard was based on author Roderick Thorp’s thriller novels.

When the 70-year-old crooner confirmed his terrorist-fighting days were long behind him, producers went straight to the most obvious candidate: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator, Commando and Predator star said no, preferring to try his hand at comedy alongside Danny DeVito in Twins. The rejections kept coming: Richard Gere, Burt Reynolds, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Nick Nolte, Don Johnson and Mel Gibson all passed.

Way down the list was Bruce Willis.

Film musicals. You love them or you hate them. Your cringe-o-meter pings into the red or your heart swells with joy, and I’m not convinced there’s any in-between. There once was a time, though, when a simple tune had the ability to stitch itself into the cultural fabric for anyone and everyone. What’s changed?

In recent years, we’ve been served the hip-hop-infused, cultural soup of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton and In the Heights, the chart music bombast of The Greatest Showman, even stabs at nostalgia via Disney reboots and the Golden Era homage La La Land, the inevitable Broadway adaptation of which was announced last week. They tell good stories, have high-budget productions, and rake it in at the box office. At the centre of it all, though, I’m not convinced I hear any truly timeless melodies to be remembered or rebooted for the years to come.

Early in the new season of Star Trek: Picard, our eponymous hero (played, as always, by Patrick Stewart) and his companion Laris (Orla Brady) are supervising the donation of many of his career mementos to various Starfleet and Federation museums. Jean-Luc fears being an old relic who just waxes on about the good old days, but she assures him that he doesn’t have to spend so much time talking about the present. “The past matters, and that’s okay,” she insists. “A point comes in a man’s...

Plane isn’t stupid enough. The title of this Gerard Butler action thriller, which should only be said with the monosyllabic matter-of-factness of a toddler at an airport, is so boneheaded that it craves chaotic genius in return. But Plane is stifled by just how ordinary it is, and how closely it hews to the standard tropes of action films with longer, more descriptive – yet less ridiculous – titles.

Here, Butler is parachuted into the exact kind of cheap, vaguely racist action flick that dominated the Eighties and Nineties. He plays Brodie Torrance, a commercial pilot heading up a New Year’s Eve flight from Singapore to Tokyo. It’s a budget airline. There are only 14 passengers onboard – plus, of course, a convicted criminal named Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), who’s being transferred between prisons. The plane is caught up in a violent storm that Brodie is ordered to fly through.

When she was an infant, Lola Kirke had a nurse who would sing Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” to her as a soothing gesture. She would later encounter the song in a new way in Jumpin’ Jim’s Ukulele Country music book, which she received as a teenager learning to play the ukulele.

“It was my first instrument, because I’m a white girl who grew up in the mid-2000s — we all got ukuleles,” Kirke jokes during a Zoom call with Rolling Stone. The singer-actress, who’s starred in Mozart...