T LOunge for August 14th 2025

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Well, will you look at that? Somehow, it’s THURSDAY. This is generally considered a good thing among the working folk because of what follows Thursdays. We, for our parts, will be celebrating the day in high, grandiose style. Come join us in our delusions, won’t you?

Sinéad O’Connor Biopic in the Works From ‘Slow Horses’ Banner See-Saw Films and Producers of ‘Nothing Compares’ Doc
A Sinéad O’Connor biopic is in development.
Variety has learned that a film is in the works that will tell the story of the early life and career of the iconic Irish musician, who died in 2023 at the age of 56.
Behind the project is Irish production company ie: entertainment, which executive produced the critically acclaimed O’Connor documentary “Nothing Compares” (and worked with the singer in the process), alongside fellow Irish banner Nine Daughters (“God’s Creatures,” “Lady Macbeth”) and See-Saw Films (“Slow Horses,” “The Power of the Dog”). Nine Daughters and See-Saw reunite having previously collaborated on “Ammonite.” Variety has reached out to See-Saw Films for confirmation without response.

Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Sets October Release Date and Debuts Album Cover, Sabrina Carpenter Feature
Taylor Swift has revealed her new album “The Life of a Showgirl” will be released on October 3, and unveiled the cover art and a tracklist that features Sabrina Carpenter on the title song.
Swift made the big reveal on her social media and during the Wednesday episode of the “New Heights Show” podcast, co-hosted by her Super Bowl Champion beau, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason. Her website is offering variants including “The Life of a Showgirl: Sweat and Vanilla Perfume” in glitter orange vinyl, deluxe CD and cassette. While the podcast aired, she debuted the deluxe album covers on her site.

Yes, it is classist to dehumanise ‘broke’ men
Celine Song’s new film Materialists has been sneeringly described as ‘broke man propaganda’. Why is it still permissible to be so cruel to men who are poor?
Materialists, the latest film from acclaimed writer-director Celine Song, centres around ambitious, young matchmaker Lucy (Dakota Johnson) as she finds herself caught in a love triangle between Harry (Pedro Pascal) and her ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans). It’s clear John and Lucy have a deep, undeniable connection, but here’s the rub: he is a struggling actor living in a hellish rental flatshare, while Harry owns a lavish bachelor pad worth eight figures. […]
“Poverty is not the fault of the poor,” she continues. “I find it very cruel to talk about John – a character who loves Lucy, a beautiful character being played beautifully by Chris – in such cruel terms as ‘broke boy’ or ‘broke man’.” She goes on: “I think that is a very troubling result of the way that wealthy people have gotten into our hearts [and convinced us] it’s your fault if you’re poor, or you’re a bad person if you’re poor. So, it doesn’t make me laugh, actually. It just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters [like that], and think about it in such classist terms.”

Swiped: Lily James plays the woman who founded Bumble in new Disney+ film
The biopic will follow the life of Whitney Wolfe Herd, who also co-founded Tinder and called out its “pervasive dick pics”.
Lily James will step into the shoes of one of history’s most epic female entrepreneurs in upcoming Disney+ film Swiped, which tells the story of Whitney Wolfe Herd, who co-founded Tinder and went on to found Bumble as a feminist statement against the male-dominated dating app space.
The film will cover the campaign Whitney helmed at Tinder after discovering misogynist behaviour on the app, which led her to strike out on her own and found Bumble, where women could make the first move and take more control of the dating conversation. She also became the world’s youngest female billionaire when the app went public.

9 best shampoos for hair loss that actually work, tested & reviewed
They truly rinse to the occasion.
I’ve been on a mission to find the best shampoo for hair loss ever since I realised, one day, that my slick-back ponytails were definitely starting to pull my hair line back. Turns out — alongside earning a fair few more fine lines — it’s not uncommon to start noticing more hair thinning when you enter your thirties. Joy!
While the best shampoos for hair growth wont instantly restore your luscious locks to their former glory, these trusty shampoos will leave your scalp far happier and healthier overall — ultimately leading to a fuller, bouncier, and better-moisturised mane. “Shampoos for thinning hair are formulated to help reduce hair loss and encourage regrowth — and some will also focus on growing thicker hair,” adds Gretchen Friese, a certified trichologist at hair-restoration company BosleyMD.

13 best women’s razors for a super smooth shave, reviewed for 2025
Take the hassle out of hair removal
Hair removal is totally a personal choice – some of us religiously reach for one of the best women’s razors before hopping in the shower, while others swear by epilators, face shavers, IPL devices, or wax kits… and plenty of us don’t bother at all.
Clearly, whether you decide to remove your body hair is entirely your call. In fact, we’re firm believers that body hair is totally normal and natural. But if you do decide to go down the shaving route, let us remind you that today’s razors are nothing like the iterations of the past.

Materialists‘ Celine Song: ‘We swipe on people like merchandise. It makes it difficult to do something as simple and uncontrollable as love’
Song, the film’s director, wanted to explore the increasing control of capitalism over our love lives.
Materialists spoilers incoming.
Materialists is the much-hyped ‘thinking woman’s rom com’ from Academy Award-nominated director, Celine Song, starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is a single high‑end matchmaker in Manhattan, expertly pairing crazy rich and crazy desperate Manhattan-dwelling single clients by the cold logic of height, salary and even BMI—a world where love is optimised, not felt. She and her colleagues at the matchmaking agency speak like Wall Street traders, discussing their clients over cigarette breaks using terms such as ‘asset optimisation management’, seeking ‘non-negotiables’ and ‘dealbreakers’. The world depicted is the cold hard evidence of how capitalism and cupid have collided, in a culture exhausted by dating apps and living online.

Weapons, starring Julia Garner, is about to dominate your group chats
Everyone’s talking about this buzzy new horror.
It’s a great summer for movies. We’ve had the Freaky Friday reboot, vampire movie Sinners and cynical rom-com Materialists is out this week. But everyone is talking about Weapons.
Starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, it follows both of their characters’ perspectives after 17 children vanish in the middle of the night in a small town. Garner plays a guilt-ridden teacher, while Brolin plays a small-town cop. Film boss Zach Cregger is reportedly already in talks for a Weapons prequel, also.

24 TV Shows We Can’t Wait to See This Fall
Including old favorites and intriguing newcomers featuring the likes of Claire Danes, Jude Law, and Glen Powell.
Unless you’re devoted to Love Island or And Just Like That…—and, let’s face it, if you’re reading this, you probably are—the summer months can feel like a vast desert for TV lovers. So it’s a good thing that the end of the 2025 Emmy season will lead into a raft of intriguing fall premieres. We’ve got stalwart old favorites, like Slow Horses and Stranger Things; we’ve got shiny new projects, coming from proven talents (hello again, Ken Burns and Vince Gilligan!) and zeitgeisty creators on the cusp of the mainstream (welcome, Rachel Sennott and Tim Robinson—both, incidentally, premiering new comedies on HBO). Read on for more information about the 24 shows we’re most looking forward to, premiering between Labor Day and December 31.

11 Best British Detective TV Shows You’ll Enjoy If You Love ‘Ridley’
Grab your favourite tea, settle in for some serious binge-watching, and prepare to fall down the most satisfying rabbit hole in television. Trust me, your weekend plans just got a whole lot more interesting.
If you’re anything like team ELLE UK and have found yourself, once again, completely hooked on Ridley, then congratulations – you’ve officially caught the British detective show bug, and sadly there’s no cure. The good news? You’re about to discover a treasure trove of brilliant shows that’ll keep you guessing, gasping, and probably staying up way too late because ‘just one more episode’ is a lie we tell ourselves.
Ridley, with Adrian Dunbar’s compelling portrayal of the retired detective who just can’t seem to stay retired, has that perfect blend of character depth, atmospheric storytelling, and those wonderfully complex mysteries that make British crime dramas so addictive. And if that’s your cup of tea, there’s plenty more where that came from

Are Dating Shows Past Their Prime?
With ‘Perfect Match’ making no noise and ‘Love Island USA’ enmeshed in controversy, unscripted TV is leaving fans lost in the chaos.
I don’t know about everyone else’s algorithm, but based on my feeds, Netflix’s third season of Perfect Match is making no noise. Sure, the streaming giant’s omnibus reality show reached its Top 10, but none of my favorite follows are tweeting; the #PerfectMatch tag on TikTok is bringing up posts from last year. I asked some friends if they were watching, and they thought I meant the Chinese drama from earlier this year. Even the subreddit’s top posts are either about how “everyone sucks,” or how this season is frustrating or mid. Though Netflix tried to curate the biggest season yet by bringing in reality alums outside of the streaming giant, the fandom has reached a consensus: We’re tired.

12 Birthstone-Inspired Nails for Each Month of the Year
Customize your manicure to the month you were born.
Your birthday is the perfect excuse to debut nail art full of intention. Looking for an original, meaningful, and aesthetic way to honor your birth month? Birthstone-inspired nails are a fun trend to connect energy and personality. Each month has a gemstone associated with it, like emerald for May, sapphire for September, and more. While birthstones tend to come in jewelry form, like a necklace or bracelet, this new trend of birthstone-inspired nails is a creative way to incorporate them as well. Birthstones deliver symbolism, a distinctive color, and a unique vibe that reflects who you are, and now you can wear it in a nail design that combines beauty and mysticism.

The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin
An older generation dismissed him as passé; a newer one has recast him as a secular saint. But Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than either camp recognizes.
An interviewer once asked James Baldwin if he’d ever write something without a message. “No writer who ever lived,” Baldwin said, “could have written a line without a message.” This is true. People write because they have something to say. Baldwin had something to say, and he spent his life saying it. But many who thought they got his message didn’t get it at all.
Baldwin was high-strung and emotionally labile. He wasn’t exactly charismatic—there was a strangeness about him which he did nothing to conceal—but he was magnetic. The poet Richard Howard described him as a “rather silly, giddy, predatory fellow who was extremely unattractive-looking. There’s a famous eighteenth-century person who used to say, ‘I can talk my face away in twenty minutes.’ And Jimmy could do that.” He put his hands on you. He looked you in the eye. He poured you another drink. When he gave a lecture, he held the room. He had been a preacher when he was very young, and he knew how to work a congregation.

“I Just Fell in Love With You”: When Vanessa Kirby Met Julia Fox
What do you get when two of Hollywood’s most magnetic young stars come together for a high-octane thriller about survival and sisterhood? A lifelong friendship, of course. At least that was the case for Vanessa Kirby and Julia Fox, who met only days before production began on Night Always Comes, a Netflix adaptation of author Willy Vlautin’s best-selling novel of the same name. In the film, directed by Benjamin Carron and streaming on Netflix this Friday, Kirby plays Lynette, a young woman who sets out on a dangerous all-night odyssey to come up with $25,000 to support her family. Fox, meanwhile, felt an immediate kinship with her character Gloria. “I’m here,” she remembers thinking after her first FaceTime with Kirby. “I’m literally this girl.” Below, she and Kirby reflect on their own friendship, developed over a string of late-night shoots and a bit of preparatory dream work. “It was just so cool to go that deep with someone you just met,” she told Kirby on a call earlier this week. “There were really no more reservations.”

Everything Taylor Swift reveals about new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Travis Kelce’s podcast
Swift joined Travis and Jason Kelce’s ‘New Heights’ podcast on Wednesday to reveal all.
Taylor Swift just proved once again that, yes, she can still in fact make the whole place shimmer.
The 14-time Grammy winner peeled back the curtain on her glittery new album, The Life of a Showgirl, during an appearance Wednesday on the New Heights podcast, which is hosted by her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother, Jason.
The Life of a Showgirl is produced entirely by Swift with Max Martin and Shellback, who previously worked on the singer-songwriter’s Red, 1989, and Reputation albums. Of working with the duo again, Swift shared, “This was the time where it felt like all three of us in the room were carrying the same weight as creators. Really special. It meant the world to me to have this creative experience where, like, we knew that we had to bring the best ideas we’ve ever had. And I know the pressure I’m putting on this record by saying that, but I don’t care, because I love it that much. So proud of it. And it just comes from, like, the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life.”

Delft Tile Is Trending in 2025—With a Fresh, Modern Twist
Some things are truly timeless.
Blue and white ceramics have a long history. The tradition can trace its roots back thousands of years, to parts of Asia and Iraq, and has since been adapted in countless different contexts. Nowadays, Delft tile is perhaps one of the most familiar examples.
But the face of Delft tile is changing. Once reserved almost exclusively for kitchen backsplashes, these Dutch, cobalt-and-white tiles can now be found in every corner of the home. For many, they hold a timeless quality that can be reinterpreted again and again—and represent an important chapter in both interior design’s past, present, and future.

This Country Has the Most Clean Beaches in the World—and They’re All Drop-dead Gorgeous
This country’s Blue Flag beaches combine environmental excellence with serious wellness benefits.
Next time you need an excuse to go on a beach vacation, just remember that the very act of being around water is scientifically proven to be good for you. As a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology reported, just looking at a body of water can make you feel more relaxed and actually lower both your heart rate and your blood pressure. And while just about any body of water has the power to put your mind at ease for your next waterside getaway, why not visit some of the cleanest beaches on Earth?

[Photo Credit: bacchanalia.co.uk]

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