Alison Brie to help cut the ribbon for the 98th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Ralph Bavaro/NBC
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade returns this year for the 98th edition of the iconic holiday celebration.
The parade will kick off the holiday season starting at 8:30 a.m. ET on Nov. 28, and it features a whole slate of celebrities and musical artists.
Alison Brie will help kick off the parade and cut the ribbon. The actress is the star of Macy’s 2024 holiday campaign, serving as the Macy’s Gift Guide, while actor Matt Bush is by her side as her mentee.
Jonathan Bennett, Liza Colón-Zayas, Tom Kenny and Ginna Claire Mason will also make special appearances during the celebration. Members of the WNBA champion team the New York Liberty will also be featured during the parade, along with Ellie the Elephant.
“The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a beloved tradition that marks the beginning of the holiday season for millions of live spectators and viewers across the country,” parade executive producer Will Coss said. “A dedicated team of artisans and production experts at Macy’s Studios works year-round to bring this experience to life. This year’s 98th Macy’s Parade will create awe with unforgettable character balloons, one-of-a-kind floats and the world-class entertainment only Macy’s can deliver.”
Samuel L. Jackson is ringing in three decades of Pulp Fiction with a callback to a classic scene.
In an Instagram post on Monday to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the cult classic film’s release, Jackson ripped through the Pulp Fiction version of the Bible verse Ezekiel 25:17, the now-famous verse which gained widespread attention from fans of the Quentin Tarantino movie.
In the movie, Jackson delivers the now-famous passage as hitman Jules Winnfield, moments before he kills a thieving associate (Frank Whaley).
“YOU KNOW I STILL GOT IT!!! EZEKIEL 25:17,” Jackson captioned. “HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF PULP FICTION.”
The Pulp Fiction actor runs through the verse quickly, while hitting small bursts of emotion during the monologue’s peak moments, including the famous “furious anger” section.
At the end of the film, Jackson recites the verse again, explaining that following a spiritual reawakening, he finds a different meaning.
1994’s Pulp Fiction is one of Tarantino’s most iconic films, the screenplay of which netted him and Roger Avary an Academy Award. The quotable crime drama film also starred Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman and Ving Rhames, among others.
The movie hit theaters Oct. 14, 1994, and has collected $212,891,598 in worldwide all-time box office, according to The Numbers.
By the way, in the Bible, Ezekiel 25:17 exists, but Tarantino rewrote it for the movie.
However, the “Ezekiel speech” was etched in pop culture history — in fact, it was literally etched in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: It can be seen on the headstone of the fake gravesite of Jackson’s Nick Fury at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Kris Kristofferson, the singer, songwriter and actor whose songs were among the most admired not just in country but music in general, has died, according to a post on his official Facebook. He was 88.
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home,” reads the message. “We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”
Kristofferson’s resume was eclectic: Rhodes scholar, U.S. Army veteran, pilot, Golden Gloves boxer and award-winning actor. But it was his famous songs — including “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” — that made him a music legend. No less a luminary than Bob Dylan was once quoted as saying about Kristofferson, “You can look at Nashville pre-Kris and post-Kris, because he changed everything.”
Born Kristoffer Kristofferson in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, on June 22, 1936, he earned a master’s from Oxford, moved to California, joined the Army and became a helicopter pilot — and began writing songs on the side. Inspired by Dylan, he rejected an Army assignment to teach literature at West Point and instead moved to Nashville.
After struggling for several years, and even working as a janitor at the same studio where Johnny Cash and Dylan recorded, Kristofferson got his break when established stars like Tom T. Hall, Ray Price, Roger Miller, Ray Stevens and Cash recorded his songs. Cash’s hit rendition of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” helped it win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year trophy in 1970, the same year Kristofferson released his debut solo album.
That album featured “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Janis Joplin recorded before her death in October 1970. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 and is now known as her signature song.
In 1971, Kristofferson launched his acting career, and over the years he appeared in films like A Star Is Born, which won him a Golden Globe, and Semi-Tough, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Lone Star and Blade.
In 1985, Kristofferson joined his old pal Johnny Cash in the supergroup The Highwaymen, which also included Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. He also continued his solo career and toured nonstop until 2020. He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and won multiple Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy.
When Nelson was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, he advocated from the stage for Kristofferson’s induction, as well.
Kristofferson, who dated Joplin and once wed fellow singer Rita Coolidge, is survived by his wife, Lisa, as well as eight children from three marriages and seven grandchildren.
Fans weren’t the only ones hoping for more of Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness when WandaVision ended more than three years ago.
“I was always interested in more Agatha,” Jac Schaeffer, who created that series, as well as the new Agatha-centric spin-off, Agatha All Along, told Good Morning America.
Schaeffer said viewers’ overwhelming response to Hahn’s performance as the witchy breakout character — and that viral song — was a whirlwind ride, but a series focused on her “didn’t seem within the realm of possibility.”
The showrunner said a year or so after WandaVision ended, she was “exploring different characters and different worlds” for other Marvel projects, but she couldn’t get Agatha out of her head.
“It just kept going back to her,” she recalled, crediting Hahn. “The joy and complexity and the continued interest in this character is because of her.”
Hahn called it “an actor’s dream” to be able to embrace all aspects of her character — from the dramatic to the kooky.
“I’ve been blessed enough in this career to be able to jump into different genres,” she said. “I’ve never been really pigeonholed … so I feel like this is, weirdly, the culmination of that ability.”
As for whether or not Agatha is a true villain, Hahn and Schaeffer have a few thoughts.
Hahn said, “It feels very binary to call someone just bad” — even Agatha.
“There is much more to explore there,” Schaeffer said, adding that she also wouldn’t call Agatha “evil.”
“I think that as a young person she was told she was bad … and that kind of thing imprints on a person,” she said.
Also starring Patti LuPone and Aubrey Plaza, Agatha All Along premieres with two episodes Sept. 18 on Disney+.
