Jennifer Lopez’s New Mov ie Is So Gloriously Weird

This Week

I can’t get over J. Lo’s new movie.

I can’t get over Ariana and Mariah.

I can’t get over that Wicked is happening.

Jen Shah prison update!

International gay update!

JLo Finally Gets Weird

There’s a reason that Jennifer Lopez said that “everybody thought [she] was crazy” for making her $20 million musical fantasia/”cinematic odyssey” This Is Me…Now: A Love Story. The film was released on Prime Video on Valentine’s Day, and, now that we’ve seen it we can confirm it was one of the most bizarre and indulgent pop-star vanity projects I can remember watching. That is also why it’s so good—and, in different ways, both a refreshing departure for J. Lo and completely on-brand.

Watching This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is akin to popping a strong dose of melatonin before bed while scrolling through Us Weekly’s Instagram, and then navigating the bonkers dreams that ensue once you fall asleep.

It is a meditation on Lopez’s popular reputation for diving into—and then screwing up—very public relationships, while also, ostensibly, a personal rebuttal to all those outsiders who say that she’s foolish when it comes to love. There are moments when the on-screen character of J. Lo seems to directly address decades of gossip-rag shit-talk about her, articulating on her own terms how it’s felt to weather partnerships that don’t work out and the judgment that follows. These are the moments that bring back down to Earth a semi-autobiographical film that, at several points, literally takes place in the cosmos.

It’s fitting that a project this intimate and vulnerable from a star like Jennifer Lopez can also be described as “doing the absolute most.” That’s an ambition that, for better or worse, has defined her entire career. Yet there’s something so unabashed about This Is Me…Now’s extra-ness (there’s no better existing word for it) that sets it apart from past projects.

There’s a palpable striving for perfection and polish to Lopez’s career that can create an artifice, an unknowable barrier between the human and the performer. This Is Me…Now , on the other hand, is at times goofy as hell. Lopez often looks absolutely ridiculous. Good! As confessional as it is, it is equally outrageous—a “why the hell not” quality from Lopez that has never been more appealing. If you’re going to roll out your new album with a fever-dream film that dramatizes your journey back to marrying Ben Affleck, that’s the only attitude that could make it work: Truly, why the hell not?

It continues: Why the hell not cast Keke Palmer, Trevor Noah, Jenifer Lewis, Post Malone, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Kim Petras as a Zodiac council horrified over your relationship decisions? Why the hell not have them gossip about the most recent season of Vanderpump Rules in between arguing over which star sign would be your best match? Why the hell not have a full-on action dream sequence take place at a dystopian, malfunctioning rose petal factory where you are the heroic engineer? Why the hell not have a contemporary dance number take place at a Love Addicts Anonymous Meeting, or do your own version of “Singin’ in the Rain” with a CGI hummingbird?

These are huge, wild swings, each typically teed up by Lopez delivering an earnest, fragile monologue about love; it’s subtle acting that ranks among the best of her career, followed up by some of the most ludicrous musical numbers she’s ever done. The effect is less the tonal whiplash that may sound like. It comes off as a passionate melodrama from a person who sees such outsized emotion in her love journey that the only accurate depiction of it would be to escalate those quiet moments of feeling and reflection into massive, sometimes silly set pieces.

This Is Me…Now contrasts fascinatingly to the recent Eras Tour and Renaissance projects from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. It’s not just because it’s not a concert film; Lopez is going on her first tour in years and could easily have opted to produce one of those instead of something as unusual as This Is Me…Now. All three stars’ films are risky in their own ways, and each is a celebration of the performer at the peak of their own brand of artistry.

That there’s nothing straightforward about Lopez’s film—to the point that no one could have predicted most of the content featured in it—is fitting. While undeniably an A-list star, Lopez’s career has been a series of many left turns. Her path to This Is Me…Now resembles more of a curlicue spiral to where she is today than the more linear trajectory some of her peers have taken. Is this movie weird? Extremely. But that’s precisely what makes it so exciting.

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Belt That Song With Your Chest, And?

I didn’t expect anyone to find a way to make a new Ariana Grande bop that samples Madonna’s “Vogue,” with a music video that references Paula Abdul, any gayer and/or appeal directly to me. But a remix arrived Friday of “ yes, and?” that features Mariah Carey belting lyrics like “say that shit with your chest” alongside Grande. If these two ever perform the track live together, I might have a minor cardiac episode. (I’m exaggerating. But I will be very excited.)

“Mariah Carey sings alongside other powerhouse vocalists” is my favorite genre of pop culture. The original VH1 Divas Live concert is a religious work in this house, and it’s worshiped as such. And while the jaw-dropping finale riff-off with Carey, Aretha Franklin, Céline Dion , Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan, and Carole King is rightfully iconic, the true vocal highlight is Carey’s duet of “Chain of Fools” with Franklin.

Naturally, Carey’s Oscar-winning duet with Whitney Houston, “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt, has been brutalized by yours truly countless times, as I squawk and warble it throughout the apartment. I’ve also spent a shameful number of nights chasing down YouTube bootlegs of the pair singing it on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a performance that is as awkward as it is glorious.

This also isn’t the first time Carey and Grande have collaborated. Grande and Jennifer Hudson joined Carey for a rendition of her holiday hit “Oh Santa” in 2021, a Holy Trinity of vocals that should have catapulted that track to the top of holiday charts each year alongside “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

There’s one more Carey collaboration that I’m clamoring for after watching this year’s Grammy Awards. The lovefest between Miley Cyrus and Carey—two M.C.’s—was so nice to watch, when Carey presented Cyrus with her first Grammy Award. Carey joining a remix of “Flowers” sounds so right to me.

Defying Gravity… and My Cynicism

I still can’t believe the Wicked movie is happening.

Universal Pictures announced the film in 2016, with a release date of Dec. 19, 2020. By the time it hits theaters this Thanksgiving, four years will have passed since then. The lifetimes that have been lived in those four years! The pandemic! The Donald Trump indictments! Eight Taylor Swift albums! All my gray hairs!

Even as casting started to happen for the film—Ariana Grande will play Galinda/Glinda, Cynthia Erivo will play Elphaba, and Jonathan Bailey will play Fiyero—it seemed like those announcements were more fantasy than reality. Even when videos from the set leaked, confirming that Wicked really was filming, it still seemed like a tease, especially once production was shut down again during the Hollywood strikes.

The first trailer for the film premiered during the Super Bowl. I’m still in denial. Yes, there was Grande in her pink Glinda dress. Erivo certainly was green. Bailey, in his one frame of the trailer, was so dreamy-looking, I audibly sighed. The clip even concludes with Erivo’s final “Defying Gravity” riff. All signs, then, point to this being a real thing, that is really coming out. I have visions of showing up for the first press screening and the projector not working in the theater or something. Eight years of skepticism takes a toll on a person!

The Real Housewives of Prison

It has somehow been a full year since Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah went to prison. Time has become completely intangible to me, so I have no idea if that sounds outrageous or absolutely right. Nonetheless, Shah commemorated (?) the occasion with an exclusive People essay, as one is, I guess, wont to do when they’re a celebrity who has spent a year in prison.

There’s some interesting stuff in her piece, which could be viewed as inspiring self-reflection or cynical PR, depending on the reader. You can read it—and see the first official photo taken of Shah since incarceration, while participating in a Barbie-themed hair pageant (?!?!)—here.

Here We Go Again!

Gay marriage was legalized in Greece this week, and a resounding number of the people I follow on social media had the same, urgent thought: Mamma Mia 3. It’s time.

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed

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One Love: The Bob Marley biopic is such a mess. (Now in theaters)

Madame Web: And speaking of movies that are a huge mess… (Now in theaters)

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