When Michael Jackson died June 25, 2009, it had been almost eight years since he hit the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. (and just barely—2001's "You Rock My World" peaked at No. 10). Billboard reports that in the nearly five years since his death, he's sold 12.8 million albums. It is an oft-made observation that death gave him the comeback he wouldn't likely have achieved again in life. By the end, he was gone–too self-absorbed, too clouded by drug addiction. Like many greats, his creative juices had an expiration date. After the earth-shattering release of Thriller, he spent the rest of his career chasing after that level of glory, achieving aftershocks at best.

Nicole Kidman's Grace Kelly biopic, Grace of Monaco, opened the Cannes Film Festival this week and is being savaged by critics. It currently has a 5 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Sounds like it's so bad that it's a must-see.

The newly free former (and future?) Club Kid Michael Alig is an object of fascination for many, despite (and in many cases because of) the fact that he murdered his friend Andre "Angel" Melendez using a hammer and Drano.

James Franco's paintings of a nude Seth Rogen are not exactly his — they're based on a series of drawings by Pinups magazine editor Christopher Schulz that were released in 2011. On today's Today show, Franco admitted that the renderings were not his idea, but explained that they should have been, so he felt justified to take them for his own.

It's "Extreme Week" on The Steve Harvey Show, which opens the door for this bit of complete and utter nonsense that aired earlier today. Carla is supposedly addicted to social media ("I feel like I'm a minister of the gospel of Facebook") and unable to do anything without documenting it for the world to see ("If it didn't happen on social media, it didn't happen"). Her segment on this show, though, revealed that the real reason she needs to put down her damn phone is so she can learn how to deliver her lines more convincingly, because this show is apparently more wooden and fake now than Jerry Springer, even.

"This is 43 minutes of nostalgic '90s insanity," reads the Uncanny Brett White Tumblr post accompanying this YouTube upload of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' appearance on a 1990 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Justin Timberlake appeared on last night's season premiere of Oprah Presents Master Class. By asking celebrities to discuss their success and the reasons for it in what amounts to a 40+ minute monologue, the show is basically a setup for failure or at least rambling self-indulgence. The brags, be they of the humble variety or original recipe, abound.

On last night's Late Show, David Letterman grilled America's sacred moonchild/actress Shailene Woodley for over three minutes on her well-known clay-eating habit. During her answers, she came off as both a good sport and a good sport who takes her clay-eating and good-sporting very seriously.

You can only take Love & Hip Hop Atlanta so seriously. Though ostensibly part of the candid reality television genre, it is at its alternately withered and overflowing heart a soap opera filled with a cast of fair-to-decent improv performers. "It's fake till it's real," is how my friend Derrence put it to me this weekend. Between spikes of seemingly uncontrollable emotional intensity, the show's vicious tentpoles, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta generally feels artificial and staged, as though the conversations we see have already been rehearsed at least a few times.

We already knew it was happening, but The Comeback's second season has been officially confirmed by HBO. It will run for six episodes in the fall, probably sans Malin Akerman. Aw, baby girl!

It's been almost two years since Saved by the Bell's Lark Voorhies returned to pop culture via a bad makeup job (followed by another). Looking at these pics from Friday's Los Angeles premiere of Where We Started, though, it feels like no time has passed at all.

After spending over 17 years in prison for killing his temporary roommate over a drug debt, o.g. Club Kid Michael Alig is a free man. He left the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, NY, earlier today on a conditional release.

Me. I Am Mariah...The Elusive Chanteuse is latest in a long line of eccentric Mariah Carey album titles (including Butterfly, Glitter, Charmbracelet, The Emancipation of Mimi, E=MC², and Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel). Carey officially announced her long-delayed 14th studio album (out May 27) last night via the video above, explaining that the title comes from her "first and only self portrait," which she drew at age 3.

I didn't fully appreciate the 23-year-old white rapper from Australia who goes by the name of Iggy Azalea until I realized earlier this week that she's a drag queen.

Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin spends its 92 minutes tightening itself around your neck and intermittently striking like a snake. Part genre flick, part meditative indie, Blue Ruin follows protagonist Dwight (Macon Blair) through mostly backwoods Virginia in his attempt to avenge the death of his parents after their murderer is released from jail. Dwight, though, isn't exactly built for vengeance as his bumbling and repeated fuck-ups show. The result is a brutal, sometimes darkly funny exercise in suspense that reminded me of Breaking Bad and the Coen Brothers.

Barack and Michelle Obama have added their voices to the public grieving of Frankie Knuckles, the Chicago house pioneer who died last month at age 59. Knuckles' frequent production partner David Morales shared via Facebook a letter addressed to Knuckles' family and friends that the President and First Lady signed. It acknowledges Knuckles contribution to culture with high praise: "Frankie's work helped open minds and bring people together, blending genres to capture our attention and ignite our imaginations. He was a trailblazer in his field..."

Meet Brandon, a "pro basketball player," who was somehow roped into getting married on the RuPaul's Drag Race stage while wearing female drag (his wife was in a tux), all the while voicing his extreme discomfort with the situation and his teammates' potential responses. And then, during judging, when everyone onstage and sitting on the panel laughed at this discomfort, he left the stage to throw up.

Going into Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini's debut feature Mala Mala, I wondered if I was about to watch 2014's answer to Jennie Livingston's controversial classic Paris Is Burning.

The premise of Ira Sachs' sixth feature, Love Is Strange, recalls a type of story we read in the news with increasing frequency: George (Alfred Molina) marries his husband Ben (John Lithgow) and loses his job teaching at a Catholic school as a result. That sounds like a recipe for a heavy-handed message movie, but the beauty of Love Is Strange (and it really is a beautiful movie – hands down my favorite I've seen so far this year) is its subtlety.

This unfiltered emotional display only makes the most likable man in pop music more likable*. After watching a montage of fan-made videos to his No. 1 hit "Happy" during his interview on Oprah Prime, Pharrell wept (and wept). When the renaissance man finally pulled himself together, he explained, "It's overwhelming, because it's like I love what I do, and I just appreciate the fact that people have believed in me for so long that I could make it to this point to feel that." Wow, superstar humility: whoever would have thought it were possible in this day and age?