Each week, The Daily Beast sifts through the cultural landscape to choose three top picks. This week, Katy Perry is one artist’s new muse, Big Love returns for a blockbuster year, and a script for The Kennedys shines light on the miniseries’ cancellation.
A dreamy new exhibit in Los Angeles is the latest marker in the short but memorable relationship between artist Will Cotton and “Firework” singer Katy Perry. Cotton paints women with candy accoutrements, including cupcake tiaras and cellophane dresses—and his recent muse makes an appearance in his new show. Cotton was also artistic director of Perry’s Candyland-themed “California Gurls” video and painted her most recent album cover, a whipped confection of cotton candy surrounding Russell Brand’s beatific bride. The latest exhibit opens at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles on January 14, but fans with a sweet tooth can get a glimpse at his newest portraits here.
Until this week, no one except tabloids—who salivated over images of Katie Holmes as Jackie O—thought much about The Kennedys, the History Channel miniseries scheduled to air in the spring. But after the network announced it was dropping the pricey eight-part show, despite its A-list cast (including Greg Kinnear as John F. Kennedy and Tom Wilkinson as Joe Kennedy Sr.) and credentials ( 24’s conservative creator Joel Surnow spent years getting the project off the ground), everyone wanted to know what went wrong. An exclusive, early copy of the script obtained by The Daily Beast might explain why, as the network said, the “dramatic interpretation is not a fit for the History brand.” From the Kennedys’ rampant womanizing to the $1 million trust offered to Jackie to stay with Jack, read the most salacious bits of the script. It could be your only chance—multiple networks have already passed on snatching up the controversial rights.
For four years, the extended family on Big Love shocked audiences. Bill Paxton’s alter ego Bill Hendrickson and his harem of wives (brilliantly played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin) illustrated a type of family never-before-seen on television. Last season, critics thought the HBO drama careened off the deep end when Paxton’s patriarch ran and won for state senate—and then the family outed themselves as polygamists. But the HBO drama returns this weekend and seems to have righted itself and toned down the over-the-stop storylines for its fifth and final season. The always provocative show is again focusing on what made the show irresistible: the Hendricksons and their highs and lows of modern relationships. Jace Lacob writes that “rather than be unified by their self-outing, the family seems to be falling apart, their homes the frontlines for an internal battle of wills and self-fulfillment.” You won’t find that on Sister Wives. Big Love, premiering Sunday on HBO, deserves a second chance on your DVR.