Keke Palmer’s Prescient Wisdom

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“With the Internet and the world becoming so much smaller, the specificity of ‘I’m going to New York to find something I can’t find anywhere else in the world’ just doesn’t exist anymore. That’s what I mourn.”—Chloë Sevigny

Chartreuse

Slime Green

The cultural record has it that when Nirvana made their first appearance on Saturday Night Live, it changed the course of things forever and marked a true cultural shift away from ’80s excess to ’90s alt. The judgment on the long-term effects of Billie Eilish’s SNL debut is still out, but on a very microscopic level it could have been the last gasp of at least one trend. We’re talking, of course, about the slime green that the singer dyed her roots, and which she’s been known to adorn herself with in other ways. The slime green trend took hold earlier this year and raged into the summer, but now that it’s fall, it seems that the celeb style set is ready to move on to something a bit more mature, muted, and weather appropriate: chartreuse, the bold hue that rides the color wheel between yellow and green (and indeed might have been the original slime green, long before humans developed the ability to reproduce neon colors). In the span of about a week, Gigi Hadid, Kristen Stewart, and Timothée Chalamet (practically a Mount Rushmore of young American style stars) all stepped out in the shade. Angela Bassett, Priyanka Chopra, and Rihanna had also recently been spotted in the hue. Some of its neighbors on the color spectrum have been popular as well. See Beyoncé’s recent sparkling mustard yellow gown for proof.

Sorry to This Man

Americans’ Sense of History

It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who once said, “There are no second acts in American lives.” It was Keke Palmer, however, who once said of this country’s former Vice President Dick Cheney, “I mean, he could be walking down the street, I wouldn’t know a thing. Sorry to this man.” Of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars are quick to point out that the writer, who dashed off the line in an unfinished version of his posthumously published novel The Last Tycoon, probably did not actually believe the words famously attributed to him, and it’s Palmer’s quote that may prove, to some degree, why. America provides fertile soil for second acts, perhaps because we’re a country that seems to play fast and loose with our own history. Palmer may not remember much about the George W. Bush administration, but even celebrities who know better seem to have some amnesia about it, as evinced this week by the curious football-sidelines meeting of George W. Bush (who once engineered a possible anti–gay marriage constitutional amendment as a way to pump up his base to show up for the 2004 election) and Ellen Degeneres (whose very public coming out marked something of a cultural turning point). After Ellen not only acknowledged that she now considers the former president a friend but defended the appearance, Rosie O’Donnell and Reese Witherspoon showed support and similar sentiment. Curious backing for a president who left office with approval ratings hovering at around 30 percent, and from whom the Republican Party has kept its distance ever since (in fact, you can’t explain the whole phenomenon of Donald Trump without taking into account the GOP’s own reckoning and disavowal of the worst impulses of the Bush years—just look at the foreign policy Trump ran on). The good news for Ellen, however, is that this will probably blow over soon, and everyone will forget it as quickly as Keke forgot Dick.

Bong Joon-ho’s Spooky Comedy of Manners

Two Will Smiths for the Price of One

Not counting his Bright exploits on Netflix or his ensemble duty in Suicide Squad, it’s been quite awhile since we’ve had a Will Smith–starring action film on the big screen (see: 2015’s Focus) and even longer since one was a bonafide smash (2008’s Hancock). So long, in fact, that it only seems right that this weekend’s Gemini Man stars not one but two Will Smiths. Directed by Ang Lee after being stuck in studio development hell since the ’90s, the film imagines an aging government super-hitman who faces off against his biggest foe to date: a younger clone of himself (for more on the plot, click here). Lee deployed all sorts of technology to de-age Smith for the film, but critics aren’t particularly pleased with its non-tech aspects. Luckily for Smith and his fans, he has Bad Boys 3 in the pipeline. Across the hall at movie theaters, you’ll find Jexi, an Adam Devine comedy about what would happen if your Siri-like digital assistant suddenly became obsessed with you. No surprise, then, that the studio hasn’t lifted the review embargo yet. For families, there’s The Addams Family, which gives the classic franchise (people always seem to forget that it started off as cartoons in The New Yorker) a CGI makeover. Charlize Theron and Oscar Isaac voice Morticia and Gomez, while Snoop Dog voices Cousin Itt (he’s the big head of hair, not the disembodied hand). Reviews aren’t out for this, either, but it tells you something that we just searched to see if the films from the ’90s with Anjelica Huston are streaming anywhere (FreeForm happens to have them on demand right now, if you still have cable). Your only critical guarantee this weekend is Parasite, the South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho’s latest, which won the top prize at Cannes. Like most of Bong’s work, it mixes cutting social commentary with a paranormal twist. This one focuses on the oddly symbiotic relationship between two families of different class backgrounds.

Television this week is a little light on new offerings, but Hulu serves up Little Monsters, a horror-comedy flick featuring the unlikely duo of Lupita Nyong’o and Josh Gad. Logo, meanwhile, debuts the American premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K., just in case you need more wigs in your life. Netflix also premieres El Camino, the Breaking Bad feature-length sequel, just in case you need more meth drama in your life.

Beatrice Domond

@BeatriceDomond

24-year-old Floridian Beatrice Domond is the only female skater sponsored by Supreme, which made her an obvious pick for our Originals roundup. “I’m just doing me, but if somebody can see themselves in me, I’ll try to do my best to show them that things are possible,” she says of her trailblazing career.