GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK
The Playboy Club
The NBC show got a publicity bump after a Salt Lake City station said it would not air the ’60s-set drama.
Hugh Hefner
The Playboy founder’s 25-year-old fiancée called off their wedding just days before the ceremony.
GAMES
Over Easy, With a Side Of Angry
As Angry Birds marks its 250 millionth download, Rovio–the Finnish company behind the hugely addictive game in which birds try to rescue their unhatched young from evil pigs–plans to self-publish a cookbook and mobile app. What will they contain? Egg recipes, naturally.
VERBATIM
‘I was in denial … I wanted to pretend I wasn’t as famous as I was.’
EMMA WATSON, to the Times of London, on her decision to drop out of Brown University; the Harry Potter star enrolled in the Ivy League school in September 2009 and departed in March 2011.
REVIEW
THEATER
Turn Off the Snark
When Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark officially opened on Tuesday, after the longest and most troubled preview period in Broadway history, the show seemed almost an anticlimax. In truth, it was never quite the disaster that early reviews suggested. The chief problem was a murky, overly ambitious script, which embellished a generic superhero saga with all sorts of narrative layering and mythological mumbo-jumbo. In a certain limited sense, the salvage job has been successful. Spider-Man is better now, but it’s still just a cut above an ordinary Broadway spectacle.
–RICHARD ZOGLIN
MUSIC
Drinks, Dancing and Divorce
Rocker Jack White and model-wife Karen Elson threw a party on June 10 to celebrate their divorce. Yes, it’s kind of bizarre, but so is White. (He and first ex-wife Meg White once claimed they were siblings.) White and Elson had been together since 2005, when they were married by a shaman while sitting in a canoe on the banks of the Amazon River. This is White’s second big breakup this year: in February he dissolved the White Stripes.
MOVIES
A Tasteless Tyrant
Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, master of uncomfortable humor, might be the only man alive who can make a despot look hilarious. The first official picture from 2012’s The Dictator, said to be inspired by Saddam Hussein’s romance novel Zabibah and the King, shows that Cohen has not abandoned his love for over-the-top getups.
BOOKS
Potty Mouth
After weeks of being passed around online in PDF form, Go the F**k to Sleep, Adam Mansbach’s spoof kids’ book about a tired and foulmouthed parent’s attempt to put Junior to bed, went on sale. And who better to narrate the audiobook version of that story than Pulp Fiction’s Samuel L. Jackson? Seriously, kids, go to sleep, or Jackson will lay his vengeance upon thee.
WOODEN WONDER
The world’s largest wooden structure now looms over Seville’s Plaza de la Encarnación. Sitting on the site of a former parking lot is the Metropol Parasol, a massive honeycomb of a building that contains an archaeological museum, a farmers’ market and panoramic rooftop walkways.
BEAUTY
Sweet Smell of Success
Jennifer Lopez may be on the fence about whether or not to judge a second season of American Idol, but her passion for perfume has yet to dry up. Nine years after the debut of Glow, Lopez will unveil her 18th fragrance, Love and Light, on HSN July 2 before it hits stores in September. Here’s a brief look at Lopez’s scent trail.
YOU GLOW, GIRL: A TIMELINE
2002
Glow
2003
Still
2005
Miami Glow
Live
2006
Love at First Glow
Live Luxe
Glow After Dark
2007
Glow Shimmer
2008
Deseo
Deseo Forever
Deseo for Men
Live Platinum
2009
Sunkissed Glow
My Glow
2010
Blue Glow
Love and Glamour
L.A. Glow
2011
Live and Light
MOVIES
Best Theater Ever
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin recently turned an angry voicemail–left by a woman who had been kicked out for texting during a film–into a PSA that has played before several of its featured movies. So how else is the Drafthouse the best cinema in America? It doesn’t play ads, doesn’t admit kids under 6 (or unaccompanied minors) to most showings and will eject without refund patrons who talk or text repeatedly after the lights go out.
GAMES
14 Years For This?
In development for almost a decade and a half, Duke Nukem Forever was, it seems, not worth the wait. The video game, announced in 1997 as a sequel to the popular first-person shooter Duke Nukem 3D and released June 14, was widely panned, with one reviewer saying it was “not funny and rampantly offensive,” much like many a 14-year-old.
5 THINGS YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT
1. Oscar filler.
The Academy will no longer hold 10 Best Picture slots open. Look for anywhere from five to 10 nominees next year.
2. The death of The Killing.
Despite a late-season dip, the AMC show got picked up for a second season.
3. Keeping track of confusing comic-book continuity.
DC is restarting 52 of its titles at No. 1.
4. Hip-hop’s overreliance on Auto-Tune.
Lil Wayne’s MTV Unplugged proved he can live without it.
5. Reading more stories about the Spider-Man debacle.
It’s open. We can move on now.
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