An Oscar for Jeremy Allen White?
Yes, I'm back.
Programming note: Hi there, Alex here! Once again. It’s been a while. In case you didn’t know, the Pop Culture Brain newsletter, this newsletter, has been on hiatus as I built up my social video presence — but now I’m bringing it back. For the old heads, it might look a little different, but it will still include the interesting pop culture stories you need to know. That’s enough pre-amble. Let’s get into it.
Jeremy Allen White is going to win the Oscar next year
By doing what Timothee Chalamet failed to accomplish. Jeremy Allen White is one of the hottest up and coming stars in Hollywood right now. He’s already won 2 Emmys, 2 SAG Awards, and 3 Golden Globes for The Bear.
And I’m predicting that come next March, he’ll be adding an Oscar to his mantle. Because White just wrapped filming Deliver Me From Nowhere, a Bruce Springsteen biopic. And we just learned that it’s coming out this fall, meaning White will be in contention for the 2026 Oscars.
Despite the fact that Timothee Chalamet didn’t win for playing Bob Dyland last yea, many many actors have found their way to Oscar glory by playing a famous musician. You’ve got Jamie Foxx, Reese Witherspoon, Renee Zelwegger, Rami Malek. The Academy loves to award a transformative music performance.
And Jeremy Allen White already has the built in love from his recent award wins. He also has the help of writer-director Scott Cooper, who helped Jeff Bridges get to the Oscar stage with Crazy Heart, where Bridges played - you guessed it - a musician, albeit a fictional one.
But a lead actor is only as good as the supporting actors around him, and well, White has a stacked cast of award winners to help get him there. Jeremy Strong is playing Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, Adolescence star and co-creator Stephen Graham is Springsteen’s dad and Paul Walter Hauser is playing guitar tech Mike Batlan. They should start engraving the Oscar now.
Alison Brie and Dave Franco are being sued for allegedly stealing their $17 million dollar horror movie
Actor couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco made headlines in January, when their indie horror Together sold to Neon for $17 million dollars. But now the actor-producers are in the news again.
As a new lawsuit claims the couple plus writer-director Michael Shanks stole the movie’s concept and plot from writer-director Patrick Henry Phelan’s 2023 film Better Half. The suit says…
“Together is a blatant rip-off of Better Half. Both works center around a couple who wake up to find their bodies physically fused together as a metaphor for codependency. The similarities do not end there. Defendants lifted wholesale creative elements, including but not limited to, plot, themes, characters, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, and sequence of events.”
The suit claims both movies end with the couple pulling out a copy of the Spice Girls’ “Spiceworld” on vinyl — which is an oddly specific detail. To make matters worse, the lawsuit claims Brie and Franco were familiar with Better Half before making Together.
The script for Better Half was allegedly sent to Franco and Brie’s agents in August 2020, along with an offer to play the leads in the film. The suit claims Brie and Franco rejected the roles because “they wanted to produce the film themselves and have WME package the project with one of the agency’s own writers.”
A WME spokesperson called the lawsuit “frivolous and without merit.” Better Half’s producer StudioFest did not become aware of Brie and Franco’s Together until it debuted at Sundance and is now seeking unspecified damages plus an injunction to prevent further infringement of its copyright.
This guy paid $12,000 to work as Gene Simmons’ roadie for a day
Was it worth it? Ok so back in March, KISS lead singer Gene Simmons announced that on his upcoming tour he’d be offering fans quote "The Ultimate Gene Simmons Experience." For $12,000, you’d essentially work on Simmons’ crew for 1 day, serving as his personal assistant and roadie.
According to People, you’d “assist Gene with load-in at the venue, setting up the stage, listening to sound check and spending time backstage”
Paying 5 figures to go work for someone is pretty wild. But at least one fan did take Simmons up on this offer.
The New York Times revealed that Dwayne Rosado, a retired 52-year-old corrections sergeant and his 13-year-old son Zach Rosado paid $12,495 for "The Ultimate Gene Simmons Experience," in New Jersey. Dwayne was diagnosed with MS a year and a half ago and so he saw this “Ultimate” splurge as a gift for himself and his son’s birthday — both of them are obsessed with KISS.
He told the Times,
“You only live once, and I want to experience life. I’m not going to die with a lot of money. I’m going to die happy."
So what did the Rosados get to do? They got to watch and participate in sound check, where the son played an original song on guitar and the dad played the drums. They shared a private meal with Simmons before the show, where the rock star apparently told them a story about "losing his virginity at age 13 or 14 to a married woman on his newspaper delivery route.” And then they got to watch the concert from the stage and even joined Simmons on stage during the show. Afterwards they got to spend more time with Simmons in his dressing room.
Was it worth it? Dwayne said, “Absolutely … Nothing can beat tonight. It’s cemented in Kisstory”