Ranked: James Franco's Careers Experts help us critique Hollywood's most famous polymath. By Virginia Smith James Franco is many, many, many things (seriously, he's lots of things), but he's nothing if not a paradox. On the one hand, he solidly proves the theory that unfairly attractive, wealthy, and/or famous people can more or less just prance around doing whatever they want, all the time. On the other, no matter what new pursuit he decides to take up in a given week, he's almost always good at it. Now that he's officially adding "musician" to his resume with the release of a new Ep, we're consulting experts in his numerous fields to get a 100% objective look at his talents. Below, his career choices from worst to best. 9. Award-Show Host If you have to spend weeks of follow-up interviews after a [...]...
- 7/13/2011
- by Virginia Smith
- Nerve
Ten People Who Are Funnier on Twitter Than They Are on TV 140 characters is all some people really need. By Virginia Smith In order to be a really good TV star, actors have to create an approachable yet enviable persona that makes viewers either want to date them or drink with them. Today, they have to do it on Twitter, too. Needless to say, not everyone is good at this. But, amid their peers’ streams of endless fan retweets and boring plants by well-meaning publicists, there’s a faction of TV personalities that manage to get it just right. Comedians understandably tend to have a corner on the market, but we’ve also been pleasantly surprised by some unexpectedly witty stars and reality TV personalities. Below, a sampling of the best, brightest, and weirdest. Bob Saget The cat’s been out of the bag for a long time that [...]...
- 5/19/2011
- by Virginia Smith
- Nerve
Why I Hope Bridesmaids is Better Than Its Trailer One woman's plea for a decent all-girl comedy. By Virginia Smith Just for the record, I don’t pretend to be laying down any major revelations when I say that (good) movies for women are in absurdly, outlandishly, depressingly short supply, and that the situation for funny lady-focused movies is even worse. This isn’t even some kind of provocative talking point anymore so much as an accepted fact about the state of pop culture, one that has managed to change hardly at all even while getting talked about ad nauseum. For every Mean Girls (which admittedly, I still didn’t love) there’s a counterbalance of either The Sweetest Thing or just total radio silence. So Bridesmaids — with the backing of bro-comedy producer extraordinaire Judd Apatow and a cast packed with genius comediennes including Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, [...]...
- 4/19/2011
- by Virginia Smith
- Nerve
AudioPlayer.setup("http://www.nerve.com/files/players/audio/player.swf", { width: 350 }); Eight Delighted Thoughts on Snoop Dogg's Unexpected Return to Form Doggumentary reveals that hip-hop's greatest self-promoter is still a pretty great rapper. By Virginia Smith At this point, it's fair to say that Snoop Dogg is know just as much for being a general cultural institution as he is for rapping. His eleventh album, Doggumentary, comes out this week, and though he's no longer calling it "Doggystyle 2" (it was originally planned as a sequel to his breakout 1993 solo album), there's no time like the present to ponder the legacy of one of the single longest running, most lucrative, most entertaining careers in hip-hop. 1. If there's any one difference between 1993 Snoop Dogg and 2011 Snoop Dogg, it's the latter's unreal ability to cultivate mainstream appeal. During the [...]...
- 3/31/2011
- by Virginia Smith
- Nerve
AudioPlayer.setup("http://nerve.com/files/players/audio/player.swf", { width: 350 }); Ranked: Kanye West’s Albums From "College Dropout" to "Fantasy," Kanye’s complete discography from awesome to... less awesome. By Virginia Smith So, Kanye West. He’s had kind of a year, no? In between launching a Twitter account that amounted to a one-sided therapy session, releasing a stream of killer singles this summer with his inspired Good Fridays series, and single-handedly affirming the fact that if you’re talented enough people will let you get away with whatever you want, he managed to put together a little album called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Besides boasting the most accurate name for an album possibly ever, it topped just about everyone's best of 2010 list (including our very own). And thus, we’[...]...
- 12/21/2010
- by Virginia Smith
- Nerve
AudioPlayer.setup("http://nerve.com/files/players/audio/player.swf", { width: 350 }); Ranked: Kanye West’s Albums From "College Dropout" to "Fantasy," Kanye’s complete discography from awesome to... less awesome. By Virginia Smith So, Kanye West. He’s had kind of a year, no? In between launching a Twitter account that amounted to a one-sided therapy session, releasing a stream of killer singles this summer with his inspired Good Fridays series, and single-handedly affirming the fact that if you’re talented enough people will let you get away with whatever you want, he managed to put together a little album called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Besides boasting the most accurate name for an album possibly ever, it topped just about everyone's best of 2010 list (including our very own). And thus, we’[...]...
- 12/21/2010
- by Virginia Smith
- Nerve
11 Unusual Gifts for the Person You're Sleeping With The Nerve Gift Guide returns with pet rats, designer bikes, and more picks from the Nerve editors. Obscura Antiques and Oddities Virginia Smith, writer Call me old-fashioned, but to me, if a gift doesn’t say “creepy” it doesn’t say “Christmas.” Which is why I plan on doing basically all of my holiday shopping this year at Obscura Antiques and Oddities. Whether it’s a taxidermied squirrel, a gas mask, or a globe that can help you find Prussia, just about everything in this tiny East Village outpost will help you further the (obviously worthy) goal of transforming your and your friends’ apartments into a nineteenth-century study... or an opium den. Plus, the last time I went, the guy there explained in perfect [...]...
- 12/1/2010
- by Nerve
- Nerve
Taking a break from her busy schedule, Serena Williams was spotted at the Vera Wang Spring 2010 runway show in New York City today (September 14).
The tennis chick watched from her front-row seat as the new designs paraded past her and her neighbors Anna Wintour (Vogue editor-in-chief) and Virginia Smith (Vogue editor).
Following her foot surgery, Serena is easing her way back into a practice schedule, with hopes of playing in the Fed Cup in Italy this November.
She told press, "I'm obviously out of the (walking) boot, so I'm in a different boot, not that hideous boot."...
The tennis chick watched from her front-row seat as the new designs paraded past her and her neighbors Anna Wintour (Vogue editor-in-chief) and Virginia Smith (Vogue editor).
Following her foot surgery, Serena is easing her way back into a practice schedule, with hopes of playing in the Fed Cup in Italy this November.
She told press, "I'm obviously out of the (walking) boot, so I'm in a different boot, not that hideous boot."...
- 9/14/2010
- GossipCenter
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