Caroline Framke Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorVariety has earned its fifth GLAAD Media Award nomination for outstanding magazine overall coverage. The publication won the honor in 2019.This year’s nomination submission included the magazine’s annual Pride issue featuring a cover story on Jazz Jennings written by Caroline Framke, a story about trans actor Josie Totah, also by Caroline Framke, and the Power of Pride List.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: This column includes spoilers from “Everything Gonna Be, Okay?”, the series finale of HBO’s “Insecure.”The cliffhanger going into the series finale of “Insecure” was only a cliffhanger if you hadn’t been paying attention. As ever, Issa (Issa Rae) had to choose between two men: her longtime love Lawrence (Jay Ellis) and, well, someone else (this time, Kendrick Sampson’s Nathan).

Variety TV critic Caroline Framke chose Netflix’s “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America” as her favorite — while Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” was hailed as one of the best rock documentaries ever.Documentaries frequently blur categories between film and TV so it should come as no surprise that there’s overlap within the non-fiction realm as well.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAny show juggling multiple relationship dynamics gives itself the gift of possibility and the challenge of balancing it all at once. While it gets to tell several stories instead of relying on just one, some characters can easily fall through the cracks, or else become far less compelling when weighed against the others.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: This post contains major spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Succession” (“All the Bells Say”).The moment Logan Roy (Brian Cox) realizes his children are attempting to overthrow him, he sizes them up and snarls with disdain.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched the first two episodes of “And Just Like That,” which are now available to stream on HBO Max.There was never going to be a perfect way to write Samantha Jones out of “Sex and the City,” even if the show’s now called “And Just Like That.” With Kim Cattrall firmly out of the franchise for good, with seemingly no possibility for even a cameo, the remaining characters would have to move on without her one way or

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAnyone even vaguely familiar with British history will be familiar with that of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second and most notorious wife. Even now, centuries after her decapitation, she remains a uniquely enigmatic figure: a canny woman who so charmed a king that he threw away generations of tradition to divorce his wife and reject the church to be with her.

Variety’s chief TV critics Caroline Framke and Daniel D’Addario considered buzzy new shows (“Squid Game,” “WandaVision”), shows that snuck up on them (“Starstruck,” “Love Life”), and shows that took their final bow (“Shrill,” “Pose”).

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAs hard as it is for any TV show to start on a strong note, it’s doubly hard for comedies, which depend so much on cast and writers’ room chemistry to truly click into gear.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAs anthropology professor Camille (Meagan Good) puts it, the beginning of winter signals the beginning of a season full of giant sweaters, seasonal lattes, and the irrepressible urge to burrow at home in as cozy a fashion as possible. While Camille brings this all up to explain “cuffing season” (i.e.

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic(This post contains no spoilers for the first season of “Cowboy Bebop,” now streaming on Netflix.)Netflix’s live-action remake of “Cowboy Bebop” tries to be so much all at once, and appeal to so many different potential audiences, that it ends up struggling to forge an identity of its own.For fans of the iconic, relatively solemn Japanese anime that inspired it, the show’s reliance on borderline whacky hijinks (think an R-rated “Scooby Doo”) will be nothing short

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAs “Tiger King” itself notes in its Season 2 premiere, during an opening sequence delivered with all the melodramatic gravitas of a grim thriller, Netflix dropped “Tiger King” at precisely the right moment for it to become the cultural sensation it did.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticIt took almost the entirety of Oprah Winfrey’s interview for her to inspire a tear in Adele’s eye, but Adele still refused to let it drop. “Oh, no!” the singer cried, wagging a finger at the legendary host with the kind of fond chiding you throw a friend’s way after they lure you into deeper emotional waters than expected.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticThe flashback anchoring “Yellowjackets” is a short horror film unto itself. The first episode opens with a girl running barefoot through a frozen forest, whipping through the trees, stumbling through the snow as piercing shrieks and battle cries echo through the mountains.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticEvery time I watch a new show that’s ostensibly about high schoolers but stars thirty year-olds going through twentysomething drama, I wonder why there aren’t there more TV shows set in college. It’s a contained setting that allows for a cast as sprawling or tightknit as need be.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticIn the first season of “Taste the Nation,” Padma Lakshmi tasked herself with visiting immigrant communities across the country, explaining their entire trajectories from country of origin to the United States, and how they and their food adapted to their new home — in 30 minutes or less. It’s a hugely ambitious premise that succeeded more often than not, in large part thanks to Lakshmi’s confident, compassionate brand of hosting.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched “The Disruption,” the third episode of “Succession” Season 3.It took two full episodes to unpack the immediate aftermath of Kendall’s Season 2 press conference bombshell, making “The Disruption” the first new episode to feel…well, new.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticWhen William Jackson Harper turns on his warm, steady charm, he proves an impossible actor to resist. Even when portraying a neurotic breakdown, as he did frequently as an ethics professor on “The Good Place,” or embodying someone who makes questionable decisions, as he does on “Love Life,” Harper imbues his characters with a grounded sincerity that shines through their darkest days.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched “Mass in Time of War,” the second episode of the third season of HBO’s “Succession.”The longest week of the Roys’ lives continues into “Mass in Time of War.” Like the season premiere before it, this episode picks up almost directly where the last left off, giving neither its characters nor its audience much time to breathe.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched the first three episodes of “Invasion,” Apple Plus’ new drama that premiered Friday, Oct. 22. Despite its ominous title, “Invasion” makes a slow burn out of revealing its basic premise.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticWith every passing episode of “Maya and the Three,” I grew more and more annoyed that there wouldn’t immediately be a “Maya and the Three” video game to play the second it was done. I haven’t played a video game in years, but something about its dense, colorful world of mythic gods and warriors makes it all too easy — and downright fun — to imagine disappearing headlong into it.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticThe music video that opens ABC’s new drama “Queens” lays it on thick. Each member of the Nasty Girls — Naomi, aka Xplicit Lyrics (Brandy); Valeria, aka Butter Pecan (Nadine Velazquez); Jill, aka Da Thrill (Naturi Naughton); and Brianna, aka Professor Sex (Eve) — struts out of a burning mansion, across the bow of a luxurious yacht, and through a chorus line of half-nude dancers without missing a step.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Secession,” the Season 3 premiere of HBO’s “Succession.”Is it a coincidence that the two years since HBO aired a new episode of “Succession” have been two of the worst years in recent memory? Well, probably. Still: it certainly didn’t help that the exquisite catharsis of the Roys — in all their bickering, calculating, jaw-dropping glory — was unavailable to us in our darkest hour.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticThe second memo that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos issued to Netflix staff about Dave Chappelle and stand-up comedy only proves that he doesn’t understand why people are actually upset about how Chappelle approaches transgender people in his new special “The Closer.” In his first response, Sarandos emphasized that even if “some people find the art of stand-up to be mean-spirited … our members enjoy it.” In the second, he again asserts Chappelle’s right to “artistic

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticIn its second episode, “Guilty Party” attempts to pull a neat little meta trick of admitting its own wrongs through the mouth of a skeptical character. As disgraced journalist Beth (Kate Beckinsale) pitches a story about Toni (Jules Latimer), a young Black mother serving a life sentence for a crime she insists she didn’t commit, Beth’s young boss Amber (Madeleine Arthur) cocks a skeptical eyebrow.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticThe basic idea of a “Legends of the Hidden Temple” revival isn’t an offensive one.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticWhen wide-eyed, ambitious Maximo (Enrique Arrizon) looks at the gleaming pink hotel that’s overlooked Acapulco his entire life, he sees opportunities and riches he can’t get anywhere else in his town circa 1984. He sees a way out of poverty, a chance to dream, an escape from the mundane.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAs far as hangout sitcoms go, throwing a misfit group of ghosts from completely different time periods together in one crumbling old house is a smart way to get new mileage out of a time-worn concept. It’s no wonder that CBS, by way of former “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, seized the opportunity to use this premise, which is as fantastical as it is economical.

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic“The Problem with Jon Stewart” opens by both hearkening back to “The Daily Show” and distancing itself from the Comedy Central show that once made Stewart an exasperated voice of reason for frustrated liberals across the country. Six years after he ceded that desk to Trevor Noah, Stewart is now coming back to television as a sort of exhausted elder statesman of late night.