LOVE IT
• Web nerds, rejoice! Homestar Runner, one of the first meme-able Internet cartoons, will debut new episodes, likely this fall.
• Hulu’s latest series, The Hotwives of Orlando, is a brilliant send-up of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise.
• Judging from the latest trailer, the Sharknado sequel will be just as amazingly awful as its predecessor.
• The Portland Sea Dogs, a minor league ball club, will don Chewbacca-inspired uniforms for a game in August.(They will later be auctioned off for charity.)
THE DIGITS
72
Length (in minutes)of the trailer for Ambiancé, an in-the-works artistic film from Swedish director Anders Weberg; he says the movie will run 720 hours by the time it’s released in 2020–longer than any other film.
GIVING IT HIS AL
Parody artist “Weird Al” Yankovic, below, top left, is back and has enlisted famous friends such as (below, clockwise from top right) Margaret Cho, Eric Stonestreet and Kristen Schaal for his new video. “Tacky,” set to the tune of Pharrell Williams’ hit “Happy,” is an ode to tactless questions, selfies at funerals–and loud clothing, naturally. Yankovic’s new album, Mandatory Fun, is out now.
QUICK TALK
Lizzy Caplan
Now that Showtime’s Masters of Sex has kicked off its second season, the actress, 32, is back onscreen as noted sex researcher Virginia Johnson. Here, the former Mean Girls star talks to TIME.
–LILY ROTHMAN
What’s it like to talk about sex all the time?
I’ve become very accustomed to people talking openly about sex with me, and I’ve grown to sort of enjoy it. It hasn’t gotten old yet.
Has the word started to sound funny?
Like it could be spelled s-e-c-k-s? Yeah.
There’s an episode coming up soon called “Dirty Jobs.” Did you ever have a dirty job?
I started doing this so young that I didn’t really have the opportunity, but I was a busboy in two different restaurants. I mean, I tried to make it dirty. I ate off people’s plates.
Is there a technique to that?
You can clearly see the parts that have not been touched, so obviously, attack the not-been-touched part. But with french fries I feel like it’s fine. If they’ve touched a french fry, it’s not going to kill you.
It’s probably good for your immune system.
That’s what I’ve been missing, I guess.
You’re also in the upcoming movie The Interview, a comedy that involves North Korea. I heard Kim Jong Un thinks it’s an act of war.
Yeaaaahhh …
What do you think of that?
I don’t really know quite what to make of that. This is not a political movie. There’s a long line of comedies and satires taking on real, sad, scary situations. It’s just one in a long line of that.
“ON MY RADAR
• Tenth of December by George Saunders
“He’s one of my all-time faves.”
ROUNDUP
Not-So-Cheap Eats
After New York–based cupcake chain Crumbs announced it was closing all its stores (some 50 locations in 10 states), its treats started fetching as much as $250 online. But cupcakes aren’t the first common food to skyrocket in value–on eBay, at least–because of a limited supply.
2006
HOT DOG / $1,800
A $5 dog from the NFC championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers became an odd collector’s item.
2012
BARBECUE SAUCE / $9,995
In 1992, McDonald’s sold a Michael Jordan–inspired burger. An unused gallon of its special McJordan sauce sold on eBay two decades later.
2012
CAN OF SURGE / $100
The Coca-Cola Co. discontinued this soft drink in the early 2000s, but its online-auction market is still going strong.
2012
TWINKIES / $60 PER BOX
After Hostess filed for bankruptcy in 2012, eBay-savvy snackers spared no expense in getting the cream-filled treat. It returned to stores in 2013.
2013
CRONUT / $100
When New York City’s Dominique Ansel Bakery imposed a two-pastry limit on its trendy doughnut-croissant hybrid, an online black market was born.
LIGHT SHOW
The word photograph literally means “to draw with light”–a concept Edward Hopper played on in his paintings, using dramatic light and shadows to lend significance to everyday scenes (as in 1960’s Second Story Sunlight, above). That parallel is the subject of a new show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (through Oct. 19) that displays Hopper’s paintings alongside the work of six contemporary photographers.
VERBATIM
‘It takes wonderful aerial photographs.’
MARTHA STEWART, on the iPhone-controlled drone she used to get a bird’s-eye view of her farm in Bedford, N.Y.
LEAVE IT
• Ariana Grande’s new pop single “Break Free” features WTF-worthy lyrics like “I only wanna die alive” and “Now that I’ve become who I really are.”
• A novelty company unveiled a new product that lets you make toaster selfies by burning a likeness of your face onto a piece of bread.
• A woman in London claims she had more than $30,000 worth of plastic surgery to look more like Kim Kardashian.
• The average men’s haircut in Kodiak, Alaska, costs $26.67, more than in any other city in the U.S.
FOR TIME’S COMPLETE TV, FILM AND MUSIC COVERAGE, VISIT time.com/entertainment
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