Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl halftime show stands as among the very best in the history of the form, racing ambitiously through the artist’s entire career and putting forward the qualities of the artist that just work. It was alternately deeply felt and archly ironic, overblown to the point that the camera didn’t know where to look. It was the artist in full—perhaps the purest expression of what Gaga’s fans like about her. Read More...
Sara Blakely understands the power of show-and-tell. The inventor of Spanx shapewear and founder of the company that sells it, Blakely recalls pitching her first product, a pair of slimming, footless pantyhose designed to be invisible even under a pair of pants. A cold call to Neiman Marcus in 2000 got her a meeting, but after five minutes the buyer started to lose interest. Blakely ditched the prepared pitch and moved the meeting into the bathroom. Read More...
Rocketman, a musical film about Elton John that arrives in theaters on Friday, looks a lot like a biopic: It traces John’s life from a shy child in London through his stratospheric rise and addiction-fueled lows. But its creative team has repeatedly rejected the label: “Everyone thinks it’s a biopic. It isn’t,” Taron Egerton, who plays John, told Collider last year. “It’s a fantasy musical so it’s actually his songs used to express important beats in his life at emotional moments. Read More...
