The past couple of weeks likely haven’t been the best for former Astronomer executives Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot (and their families), after their affair was outed on the big screen at a Coldplay concert. For the general public, however, the situation has been an endless source of entertainment, with even Gwyneth Paltrow getting involved. So how did Chris Martin’s ex-wife end up teaming with Astronomer for an ad poking fun at that wild Kiss Cam moment?
A little over a week after the Coldplay Kiss Cam footage began circulating — which showed CEO Andy Byron ducking out of view of the camera as Kristin Cabot turned and ran away after they were caught cuddling — Astronomer addressed the viral moment in a pretty hilarious way. They hired Gwyneth Paltrow on a “very temporary basis” to answer the public’s most common questions. Check it out for yourself below:
Thank you for your interest in Astronomer – YouTube
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People:
It came together very quickly. The company reached out to her. Gwyneth has a really great sense of humor and it felt funny enough for her to do. It happened quickly.
So apparently the company came up with the idea and just called up the Goop founder. She liked the tone they were going for, so it all apparently came together pretty quickly.
Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot have both resigned from their positions at Astronomer following the viral moment, which has been dissected, recreated and mocked on every platform from big screens at other concerts and sporting events to social media videos. It has even become part of the marketing plan for the upcoming horror movie Together (hitting the 2025 movie calendar on July 30).
Chris Martin hasn’t said too much about the incident, but during another Coldplay show in the days that followed, he made sure to give the audience plenty of warning that they were about to “use our cameras and put some of you on the big screen.”
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Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin got married in 2003 and had two children before their “conscious uncoupling” in 2014. Their divorce was finalized in 2016. To this day they remain close, with Paltrow penning a sweet birthday tribute to the Coldplay singer earlier this year, but I’d be very interested to hear what Martin thinks about Paltrow teaming up with Astronomer.
Starz’s world of 18th century Scotland will soon return with the premiere of Outlander: Blood of My Blood in the 2025 TV schedule. While at least some of the action will be set in the 20th century with Claire’s parents, a time travel twist will bring them back in time to encounter Jamie’s family members in their own time. Fans of the early seasons of Outlander may remember that scenes set in 18th century Scotland can mean a whole lot of warriors wearing kilts, and Blood of My Blood viewers can expect more of the same in the prequel.
When I spoke with cast members of the upcoming series, they weighed in on the perks of the garment, and reminded me of one thing Sam Heughan didn’t like about filming the original series in the kilt.
(Image credit: Starz)
What Sam Heughan Said About Filming In A Kilt
why he’d missed wearing it after story reasons meant the Scots couldn’t wear their traditional tartan for a time. Co-star Duncan LaCroix (who played the original Murtagh) echoed the sentiment, saying it was “incredibly comfortable to wear and quite very practical” for battle scenes. That said, Heughan did once share one very specific way that wearing a kilt could be horrible for filming Outlander, telling People:
travel series called Men in Kilts alongside former Outlander co-star Graham McTavish! And that brings me to what the Blood of My Blood actors told me ahead of the upcoming premiere of their prequel series.
(Image credit: Starz / Starz / Starz)
What The Blood Of My Blood Cast Told Me About Kilts
I was fortunate enough to speak with the stars of Outlander: Blood of My Blood during San Diego Comic-Con, with Hermione Corfield even sharing how paparazzi almost spoiled the series’ big time travel twist. Three of the actors who will be playing 18th century Highlanders had plenty to say about wearing kilts, and it turns out that they could relate to what Sam Heughan and Duncan LaCroix said years earlier. Sam Retford, who plays the young Dougal MacKenzie, shared:
It’s an extremely practical piece of clothing, especially when you’re running around and rolling around. You can hide things in it. You can hide yourself in it. You can sleep in it. It’s fantastic.
Those perks certainly can’t be said about most items of clothing nowadays! (I for one count myself lucky if I can find a dress with pockets.) Rory Alexander, who plays the younger version of Outlander’s fan favorite, picked up where Retford left off:
Extremely multi-use. When you see us with the kilt and the plaid with the full thing, that all used to be one piece of cloth, and you could use it as a blanket and a pillow and a bag. So it’s a fantastic piece of clothing.
The kilt having plenty of fantastic uses doesn’t mean that the garment was easy for the actors to master right off the bat, as Sam Retford went on to admit. Even now that the cast is in the midst of filming Season 2 thanks to the very early renewal, he isn’t yet an expert at donning the tartan. He shared:
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It’s an odd thing starting the day. I still can’t put my kilt on on my own, so you have to lie down on the floor of a trailer. You get wrapped up like a burrito every day, like a baby being swaddled, and then you have to go and pretend to be an adult while at work after that, which is tricky.
The situation is a bit different for Seamus McClean Ross, who plays the young version of Colum MacKenzie. The Outlander version of the character, played by Gary Lewis, had a shorter tenure as part of the cast than either Dougal or Murtagh, but Outlander also guarantees that Colum can stick around just as long as any of the others.
That said, Ross alluded to the condition that often kept Colum off his feet on the original series when he explained the younger version’s wardrobe choices, saying:
My character, he wears a kilt in the early parts of the show, but he kind of purposely chooses not to, to kind of be seen as a more kind of political figure. The kilt is a kind of more like a fighting man’s attire. Colum is forced to be behind the scenes, kind of conducting things politically.
These three won’t be the only ones wearing tartan in the new show with what seems to be the majority of the scenes set in the 18th century. That of course depends on when the time travel twist that brings Julia a couple hundred years back in time takes place, but the trailer offers some clues. Take a look:
Outlander: Blood of my Blood | Official Trailer | STARZ – YouTube
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Outlander: Blood of My Blood arrives on Starz with two back-to-back episodes on Friday, August 8 starting at 8 p.m. ET. With the first footage of Outlander Season 8 also confirming that the original series won’t be back with its final season until 2026, Blood of My Blood can still take viewers back to the world of Claire and Jamie… just a generation earlier than the original.
Today, if you want to watch one of the new or recent movies streaming, all you have to do is go to one of the best platforms (or use an Amazon subscription for those VOD titles) and press play. It’s simple, easy, and the best way to watch a movie at home. However, as many of us who grew up in the ‘80s or ‘90s know, watching movies from home on pay-per-view could be a long, drawn-out process that could result in you missing a chunk of a movie (or having an ending spoiled) if you weren’t careful.
I’m not trying to sound like an old man yelling about “walking 15 miles uphill in the snow to get to and from school,” but Gen Z will never understand the struggle of trying to order PPV movies back in the day. With nostalgia being in high demand these days, I think now is the perfect time to look back on that arduous process that many of us followed when we didn’t feel like driving to Blockbuster on a Friday night.
(Image credit: Sony Pictures Releasing)
Back In The Day, You Had To Call The Cable Company To Order Pay-Per-View Movies
so many wild wrestling moments happened then) when I was a kid, I called my dad to get the rundown for the two times I distinctly remember renting a movie from our cable company. He told me that he would have to call the cable company, punch in the code for the movie (I distinctly remember him ordering great U.S. President movies like The American President and Air Force One), and then hope that everything was in order before it started.
big twist ending, you either let the world burn around you or miss a part of whichever of the best ‘90s movies you rented.
People would often record stuff with the VCR, even though the FBI warning before each movie explicitly told you not to, but I don’t remember ever syncing up a VHS tape to save a film for future use.
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Again, I don’t want to sound like I’m taking a shot at Gen Z because they have some things easier today, but it’s just wild how much watching movies at home has changed over the past 30-plus years. I mean, you don’t see “feature presentation” intros like this anymore.
In late 2024, TNT and ESPN reached a historic licensing deal and, as part of it, Inside the NBA will air on the latter network starting this fall. Fans were elated to hear that announcement, though it was preceded by months of uncertainty. At that time, not even the hosts of the aforementioned show were sure that the long-running sports program would continue. Now, Charles Barkley is weighing in on how he thinks TNT managed that situation, and he didn’t mince words at all while expressing his disapproval.
The potential cancellation of Inside the NBA prompted the Round Mound of Rebound to speak his mind on more than a few occasions. When everything was resolved, the legendary Phoenix Sun joked that he had to go back to “kissing ass.” That mantra didn’t stop him from chewing out his longtime employers when he appeared on the Pardon My Take podcast (which is on YouTube). The basketball hall of famer recalled his non-wealthy co-workers expressing concerns over their job security, before talking about the powers that be:
I thought TNT, our bosses, did a shitty job. They did an awful job of keeping us abreast.
Charles Barkley made some pointed statements while Inside was in limbo. From the jump, he made it clear that he felt bad for his colleagues who could face financial hardship due to the elimination of their jobs. Barkley also called out execs for not working harder to secure a new deal for the network’s broadcast rights to the NBA. On top of that, Barkley even held an unauthorized interview with a journalist in an elevator, in which he emphasized his displeasure with the potential end of the show and its ramifications.
Charles Barkley’s future as a broadcaster is set. He announced his retirement shortly after it seemed that Inside would end, but he later scrapped that plan, saying that he would stick around in an effort to save jobs. Still, Barkley’s been clear about wanting more details on what his work schedule at ESPN will be like, given that he, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal will reportedly have to provide coverage for more games.
Questions do indeed remain in regard to how Inside the NBA will look when it debuts on ESPN. Sports pundit Bill Simmons believes the show will be ruined due to the network’s heavy reliance on commercials. Charles Barkley also told Pardon My Take that he and his colleagues still have “questions,” but it seems he’s still sticking with his team. If Barkley’s history and this latest chat are any indication, though, he’ll continue to be honest about his discontent with his bosses as time goes on.
New feature films from Alice Winocour, Arnaud Desplechin, Kentaro Hirase and Yutaro Seki, Agnieszka Holland and Milagros Mumenthaler will compete in the San Sebastian Film Festival official selection.
Winocour, who won the special jury prize at San Sebastián with Proxima in 2019, will return to the competition with her fifth film, Couture, a French American co-production starring Angelina Jolie and Louis Garrel set in the fashion world.
Frenchman Desplechin will participate for the first time in competition with Two Pianos, in which a virtuoso pianist returns to his hometown of Lyon to experience a story of impossible love. Among the cast members are François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Charlotte Rampling and Hippolyte Girardot.
The duo made up of Hirase and Seki, who co-directed 2022’s Roleless with Masahiko Sato, will premiere their second feature film, the Japanese production Sai. Actor Teruyuki Kagawa comes back to star in the dark tale in which a mysterious man tragically enters the lives of a number of people, appearing under different identities.
Elsewhere, Holland’s new film, a Franz Kafka biopic titled Franz, will premiere as the director returns to San Sebastian. Argentine filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler will debut in competition with her third film, The Currents, a Swiss-Argentine co-production starring Isabel Aimé González Sola in the role of a woman confronting a past she thought she had left behind.
These titles join the four previously announced Spanish productions that will also compete at the Spanish festival: Maspalomas, by Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi; Good Valley Stories, by José Luis Guerin; Los Tigres, by Alberto Rodríguez, and Sundays, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa. The rest of the feature films included in the competition will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 73rd edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival runs Sept. 19-27.
