Monica Lewinsky's 2019 wardrobe malfunction makes a savage social media comeback
From political scandal to spanx scandal
It turns out, moments before filming, Lewinsky's publicist sprinted in like a scene from a sitcom and whispered an urgent fashion alert: her Spanx were showing through her trousers. The fix? She had to remove her girdle entirely before stepping in front of the cameras. Oliver, apparently, had zero recollection of the incident, but Lewinsky remembered every detail.
John Oliver was one of the 'rare few'
Oliver joked that Lewinsky was one of the very few people he had ever interviewed, and she returned the compliment, telling him he had done an amazing job. While the conversation was lighthearted, it was also a reminder that Lewinsky's media appearances have been rare, carefully chosen, and, in this case, unforgettable.
From spanx slip-up to red carpet royalty
Fast-forward to 2025, and Lewinsky is serving flawless style on every red carpet. In April, she stole the show on Broadway's Good Night, and Good Luck opening night, rocking a black off-the-shoulder gown with an asymmetric ruffle hemline, sleek stilettos, and a polished half-up, half-down hairstyle. Minimal jewellery kept the look understated yet powerful.
Just a month earlier, she had turned heads at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in a dramatic Stella McCartney number, a black column gown with a plunging neckline and sheer mesh panel. It was a look that screamed old Hollywood glamour with a modern twist.
A power move in more ways than one
Lewinsky's fashion wins are not just about style, they are about making a statement. In February, she became the face of Reformation's 'You've Got the Power' campaign, aimed at boosting voter registration. Shot by Zoey Grossman, she modelled a chic workwear collection featuring pencil skirts, tailored dresses, and sharp blouses, exuding authority with a side of runway chic.
From Spanx-gate to style icon, Lewinsky has shown that even the most awkward fashion emergencies can be rewritten as part of a glow-up saga.
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Hindustan Times
19 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Milkshakes, malts, concretes, frappes and more: A (delicious) guide to frozen drinks
In the summer heat, we find ourselves drawn to that glorious section of the drinks menu that promises relief in the form of a cold, creamy, brain-freezing indulgence. But ordering a frozen drink looks different in different parts of the U.S., and in different restaurants and ice cream shops. Milkshakes, malts, concretes, frappes and more: A (delicious) guide to frozen drinks So, what is the difference between a milkshake, a malt, a frappe or maybe even a concrete? Geography, tradition and local lingo all play a role in how frozen drinks are made and what they're called. Let's break it down one strawful at a time. Perhaps the most iconic of the bunch, the milkshake is typically a blend of ice cream and milk, blended until smooth and sippable. It's simple and sweet. The ice cream usually forms the base flavor of the drink, and then other flavorings are involved, from syrups to extracts to fresh fruit. At the Lexington Candy Shop, a 100-year-old luncheonette with an old-fashioned soda fountain on Manhattan's Upper East Side, vanilla is the most popular milkshake — about 60% of all shakes ordered. That's according to John Philis, who co-owns the shop with Bob Karcher, and whose grandfather, Soterios Philis, opened it in 1925. Their next most popular flavors are chocolate, coffee and strawberry, Philis said. Lexington Candy uses homemade syrups, he says, which give the shakes 'a nice wow." Other fan favorites at the shop include the classic black and white and the Broadway . In the summer, there are peach shakes. A malt is essentially a milkshake with a scoop of malted milk powder thrown in. Malted milk powder is an old-fashioned flavoring that combines malted barley, wheat flour and evaporated milk. It gives the drink that distinct toasted, almost nutty flavor that transports you mentally to a 1950s diner or drive-in. Fun fact: Malted milk powder was originally created as a nutrition booster, mostly for babies, but it found its home behind the counter of ice cream shops and luncheonettes. It adds slightly richer, old-school vibes to shakes and other frozen drinks. There are also plenty of frozen blended drinks made with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream; these are sometimes known as fro-yo shakes. 'Frappe' might mean different things to different people, depending on where they're from. In New England, particularly Massachusetts, a frappe is what most of us would call a milkshake, made with milk, ice cream and usually some other flavorings. In Massachusetts, you will hear this drink called 'frap' , but believe me when I say there is no consensus on the correct pronunciation of the word. Sometimes a frappe from this region might simply be flavored cold milk, no ice cream involved. There is also a genre of frappes associated with coffee-blended drinks, popularized by chains like Starbucks. Think icy, blended lattes, often topped with whipped cream. These are pronounced 'frap-pays." Philis says that in New York City and other regions, a shake used to be known as a 'frosted.' 'When someone comes in and orders a 'frosted,' I like this person,' Philis declares. When McDonald's and other fast-food chains started calling shakes 'shakes,' the world followed suit, and the word 'frosted' went out of fashion. A frosted float, Philis explains, is a milkshake with an extra scoop of ice cream floating on top. Talk about gilding the lily! Then we have the concrete, an ultra-thick, creamy frozen dessert so dense that a spoon can stand upright in it. This is essentially frozen custard blended with mix-ins like candy, cookies or fruit, but no milk is added. It's more of a scoopable treat than a slurpable one. Concretes are popular where frozen custard is popular — mostly in the Midwest. Frozen custard has significantly less air in it than most ice cream, and a required 1.4% of egg yolks, which gives it its signature richness. The concrete was invented at a frozen custard shop called Ted Drewes in St. Louis. If you buy one there, the server will hand it to you upside down, saying, 'Here's your concrete,' and it won't fall out. Travis Dillon gave this origin story: In the 1950s, a kid named Steve Gamir used to come in and ask the guy behind the counter for 'the thickest shake you can make.' Employees started leaving the milk out of Gamir's shakes, just running the custard through the machine, resulting in a shake that requires a spoon, not a straw. Dillon says chocolate is their most popular flavor, then chocolate chip, strawberry and Heath Bar, but adds that there are lots of other flavors to explore, including a malted chocolate concrete — the best of two frozen-drink worlds! Ice cream floats are the fizzy cousins of shakes. A scoop of ice cream is plopped into a glass of soda to create a frothy, sweet, bubbly concoction. Floats can be nostalgic for some folks. Lexington Candy remains old-fashioned with their floats, making the sodas to order with syrup, stirring by hand, then adding the ice cream. In some areas of the country, you might hear a root-beer float referred to as a 'brown cow.' Like floats, ice cream sodas are are not made in a blender. Philis says his are made with the syrup of your choice, coffee, half-and-half, plus seltzer. Then add a scoop of ice cream. He says usually the syrup and the ice cream are the same flavor, but people also like to mix and match. Finally a word about smoothies, the supposedly more health-conscious frozen treat. Smoothies are traditionally made with fruit, yogurt, juice and sometimes ice. Sometimes, the fruit is frozen before it is blended into the drink. Smoothies are designed to feel virtuous, but they can still pack plenty of sugar, calories and richness, depending on the ingredients. For instance, if you see a peanut butter-chocolate-banana smoothie, you may realize quickly that this is more about flavor than health. So the only question is: Is there enough time left in the summer to try the whole lexicon of frozen creamy drinks? Believe in yourself. I believe in you. Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, 'Dinner Solved!' and 'The Mom 100 Cookbook.' She blogs at She can be reached at Katie@ For more food stories, go to /hub/recipes This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
Coolie enters Lokesh Cinematic Universe: The genre cinema of Lokesh Kanagaraj
A young bank employee hailing from Coimbatore used to jot down story ideas on his train journeys back and forth from work in the city, while listening to his favorite movie soundtracks. A stranger to the film industry, the only constant in his life was his undying devotion to superstar Kamal Haasan, and his film Sathya (1988), a film that altered his life choices and personality traits at an impressionable age. He made up bonkers scenarios in his head starring his idol Kamal Haasan and smaller films he could make with his friends during his time off from work. He kept chipping away at his mundane job, even as he consumed from a smorgasbord of late 80s and 90s action fare, which were telecast on HBO. The humble fanboy in question is none other than Lokesh Kanagaraj is the humble fanboy in question whose rough-on-the-edges, macho action vehicles have been enthralling a whole new generation of filmgoers with their visceral thrills and impeccably written action blocks. Another of his trademark films, now grouped under Lokesh Cinematic Universe, is ready to land — Coolie, starring Rajnikanth in the lead role alongside an ensemble supporting cast featuring Nagarjuna, Aamir Khan, Upendra, Shruthi Haasan, Soubin Shahir, and Sathyaraj. The trailer and marketing material put out by the team include all the 'essential signifiers' of what makes his work tick among younger filmgoers. There is the obvious bloodshed, the zany English verses accompanying the pop-sounding EDM score by his regular collaborator Anirudh Ravichandar, gore and gratuitous violence, and a sweaty, rough-on-the-edges genre sensibility in terms of his action set pieces and the sprawling scope of his peculiar brand of high-octane cinema, high on testosterone Also Read | Coolie movie review: Rajinikanth elevates Lokesh Kanagaraj's frustrating action vehicle The director with only six films under his belt has already developed a keenly personal style of action that owes its debt to the macho cinema of 80's Hollywood, where the economic writing, studio mandates, and more than capable genre filmmaking combined to produce some of the finest action films ever made. Lokesh follows strictly in that tradition. In an interview with Baradwaj Rangan recently, the director admitted, 'I want all my heroes to be lone wolves like Clint Eastwood characters from his films. They exist on their terms and don't heed whatever societal trends or codes are in vogue at the time. They simply exist as they are without repentance.' This gives us an idea of the kind of storytelling tradition the 39-year-old falls under and aspires to in his male-centered puzzle boxes. Few filmmakers get 'cinematic universes' attributed to them, and Lokesh is the one who spearheaded the idea of the adoption of the multiverse model in our films. 'LCU' is known for its shared cinematic worlds, recurring characters, and side players that run across his filmography. This is not an overnight career move, but from Kaithi, his sophomore outing, you can sense the impulses of an ambitious action cinema aficionado trying to replicate the screenwriting rhythms and visual texture of better Hollywood films from the past. Drawing from a well of inspirations ranging from films starring Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to major grimy B Action movie titles of the 90's, opened up his purview of a cinematic language where the side characters and arc get equal care to that of the hero. The well of inspirations goes back to the starter pack of action films like Rambo: First Blood, Die Hard, and a healthy dose of Tarantino riffs and Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, as a sort of his landmark obsessions. Lokesh is your average urban action cinema lover filled with a handful of Hollywood references, who has been given studio budgets and action stars to play around his little genre mashup sandboxes. These are not mere reference points for Lokesh but artistic north stars towards which he has been building his action figures. The director, through his stories of reluctant heroes forced to pick up the gauntlet against approaching evil, has made a thematically consistent and visually visceral filmmaking philosophy that values gratification over substance. There is sometimes too much going on in films, and side players from one film may pop up impromptu in other films, merging all the individual films into a sort of cinematic petri dish of interlinked stories, all taking place within a supposed shared universe. This shared universe character swapping is not done with the incessant glee of 'Marvel Cinematic Universe's' callbacks or cameos, but with much better restraint in his films. The director never indulges in overt tributes or self-congratulatory callbacks. He is too smart and knows that repetition and monotony can hamper the latitude he has been given for his stacked action potboilers. 'Dilli', an ex-convict recently released from Prison, is eager to go back to his estranged daughter but is forced to help the cops in a daredevil mission, with only a friendly cop on his side. This logline from his Karthi starrer 'Kaithi' might seem all too familiar for the fans of Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Nick Cage B-movie classic 'Con Air (1997), and it is. Lokesh works within a similar genre playing ground but strips back much of the excess and campiness inherent in Con Air in his loose adaptation, to make it an emotionally resonant little action adventure that is grounded enough to make the local hybrid flavour work. Lokesh is known to take familiar stereotypes of the unshaken, emotionally distant at first (only to be revealed otherwise) men with murky pasts who are called upon to salvage a current crisis in the most unexpected of ways. Lokesh Kanagaraj is one of the most prominent pop culture figures in South Indian action cinema, and the young filmmaker, who specializes in blood-soaked, edgy action tent poles, has created a fan following for sculpted hero figures and the unbridled dynamic staging of set pieces. There is a clear attention to the camera moves, blocking of actors in frame, and you can see a tendency to locate the volatile rage of men caught in worlds of crime. The incessant 'say no to drugs' messaging in his films feels more like a mere footnote to greater genre pleasures on display. The women are not the centre of attention of Lokesh films, and he dutifully plays with their placement in his 'action-break-action' structure as secondary players moving the protagonist's journey forward. This is the world of men clawing, kicking, and storming their way out of trouble. Lokesh's scenes don't so much end, but bleed into one another, and you can see the kinetic splicing together of temporality, an offshoot of his well-established love for filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Tarantino, his spiritual forefathers of sorts in genre image making. The unpredictable beats of his non-linear screenplay work best when the character arcs and exposition merge as opposed to flow linearly, as in films like Master and Leo, where the conventional structures take away the charm of his peculiar world-building. There is not even an iota of flab in Lokesh's films, which center the action and use setups to build on the momentum of the writing, which winds up suspense, dropping one revelation at a time. Kanagaraj is an aspirational figure for your filmmakers trying to make action cinema rooted in our tradition. But sometimes his over-reliance on drug use and overt immersion in the world of crime has been criticized for fetishizing that life. The director does no service to himself by being an originator of pulpy, invigorating genre material that amounts to little substance at the end of the day. But the moments of total immersion, quirky scene ideas, and unconventional coverage choices make him an interesting voice in the mainstream, whose slick cinematic imagination makes up for the relentless gore and opacity in his films. When he took on the job of adapting David Cronenberg's late career existential action drama 'History of Violence' for his Thalapathy Vijay starrer Leo, Lokesh just took the baseline genre punchline of Cronenberg's introspective tone poem and inserted his stylistic tendencies and overwrought revenge cinema. He scaled it up to make it a full-blown star-led action vehicle about a man hiding behind a secret identity. Lokesh does not let go of the central question of identity, but his fancies lie in the duality of the characters 'Parthiban' and 'Leo' played by Vijay, not for its philosophical enquiry, but for its potential for a solid mind game. Vikram, being by far his best film to date, was where he first joined hands with his philosophical and cinematic idol Kamal Haasan. You can see the reverence and care with which he splices together Kamal Haasan's arc in the larger crime story beats of Vikram and how playfully he inserts the character Vikram's backstory from the character threads from a long-forgotten Kamal Haasan classic of the same name. The 'interval block' mode of filmmaking was ushered in by Kanagaraj in a new way by his unfuzzy collision of disparate story strands to bring together the heroes and villains of his films face to face, ready for the rolling punches awaited in the latter half. But he started his career with a now underrated, non-linear, small-budget road movie, Maanagaram, that followed multiple character perspectives, a fact that makes perfect sense considering his interest in thwarting timelines and character interactions in his films. The journey from that independent filmmaker to the now celebrated master of genre brutality has been one for the ages. Coming to Coolie, all the plot details and visuals to have come out in the promotion seem to suggest a film closer to Vikram by way of its character types and narrative styling. There has not been revealed by way of the plot but every update from the team has been getting fans and casual moviegoers excited and you rarely get to see a director commanding this sort of adoration and fan following at a young age, where the film's financial performance and cultural longevity is decided upon by his name on the title. A Tamil homegrown cowboy action cinema lover is rejuvenating action cinema like never before, and we are the better for it. Coolie will hit theatres tomorrow and will be a litmus test for Lokesh's changing cinematic sensibilities and Tamil cinema's box office capabilities.
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First Post
5 hours ago
- First Post
Mira Sorvino to star as Roxie Hart in ‘Chicago' on Broadway
The Academy Award winner will make her Broadway debut this fall in 'Chicago,' playing the spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart from Sept. 15-Nov. 2 at the Ambassador Theatre. Mira Sorvino is about to cross off something else on her bucket list. The Academy Award winner will make her Broadway debut this fall in 'Chicago,' playing the spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart from Sept. 15-Nov. 2 at the Ambassador Theatre. 'I have wished to dance and sing in a Broadway musical since I was a small child. To join 'Chicago,' such a legendary show, and such an incredible cast past and present, is literally a dream come true,' Sorvino said in a statement Wednesday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Set in the 1920s, 'Chicago' is a scathing satire of how show business and the media make celebrities out of criminals. It has Bob Fosse-inspired choreography, skimpy outfits and killer songs such as 'All That Jazz' and 'Cell Block Tango.' Sorvino won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Critics' Choice Award for her performance in 'Mighty Aphrodite,' going on to such films as Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam,' Antoine Fuqua's 'Replacement Killers,' Robert Redford's 'Quiz Show' and the cult comedy 'Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion.' 'Chicago' tells the story of Roxie, a housewife and dancer who murders her on-the-side lover after he threatens to leave her. To avoid conviction, Roxie hires Chicago's slickest criminal lawyer to help her dupe the public, media and her rival cellmate, Velma Kelly, by creating shocking headlines. Roxie has been played by dozens of women since the show opened in 1996, including Pamela Anderson, Melanie Griffith, Ashley Graham. Christie Brinkley, Marilu Henner, Brooke Shields, Lisa Rinna, Gretchen Mol, Ashlee Simpson, Brandy Norwood, Jennifer Nettles and Robin Givens.
