Lucy Hale Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry,’ starring Kunal Nayyar, Lucy Hale, Christina Hendricks, David Arquette and Scott Foley

December 3, 2022

by Carla Hay

Kunal Nayyar and Lucy Hale in “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

Directed by Hans Canosa

Culture Representation: Taking place over 14 years, primarily on the fictional Alice Island, Massachusetts, and briefly in Providence, Rhode Island, the dramatic film “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A cynical bookstore owner, who is depressed over the death of his wife and his financial problems, gets a new outlook on life when he adopts an abandoned child and falls in love with a sales agent who works for a book publisher.

Culture Audience: “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based and will appeal to people who don’t mind watching slow-paced and sloppily constructed dramas.

Pictured in front: Kunal Nayyar, Christina Hendricks and Scott Foley in “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” should have been titled “The Lifeless Story of A.J. Fikry.” It’s a weak, boring and jumbled mess with confused tones and unanswered questions. The movie can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a weepy melodrama or a romantic dramedy—and ultimately fails at being either or both. Viewers will learn almost nothing about the movie’s self-pitying title character except that he likes to whine a lot when his life doesn’t go the way he wants.

Directed by Hans Canosa, “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” is based on Gabrielle Zevin’s 2014 novel of the same name. Zevin wrote the lumbering screenplay for “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” as if it were a book with many chapters removed instead of a cohesive and enjoyable story. It certainly looks like Zevin might have been too close to the source material to not have better judgment in deciding what would work and what would not work in a movie adaptation of the book. There are too many times in the movie where a subplot is introduced and then left to dangle undeveloped.

Part of the problem is how choppy the timeline is in “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry,” which takes place over 14 years. The movie spends too much time showing repetitive scenes in one part of A.J. Fikry’s life and then rushes through other parts of his life that needed more screen time—or at least more substance or explanation. It’s this disjointed approach to the movie that eventually sinks it and will be a turnoff for a lot of viewers.

In the beginning of the film, bookstore owner A.J. Fikry (played by Kunal Nayyar) is living a miserable and lonely life on the fictional Alice Island, Massachusetts, which has the population of a small town. And no one loves to talk about how unhappy A.J. is more than A.J., who complains about his life to anyone who’ll listen. His narcissism immediately makes him a very annoying character.

A.J., who lives alone, is a 39-year-old widower who is still in deep despair over the death of his wife. (It’s not made clear in the movie how long she’s been dead.) Grieving over the death of a spouse is understandable. The problem is that A.J. takes his negative feelings out on the customers in his small store (which is called Island Books) by being very rude to them. His excuse? “Since my wife died, I hate my work,” A.J. tells a doctor when A.J. ends up in an urgent care clinic after A.J. has a panic attack.

A.J. is also depressed because his store is close to going out of business. A.J. blames it on the popularity of e-books. But it’s obvious that A.J.’s lousy customer service has a lot to do with driving customers away. A.J. repeatedly gripes to people that that he’s “poor,” when he’s really not. He’s a middle-class person having financial problems. Being “poor” is worrying about how to pay for life essentials, such as food and basic shelter. A.J. doesn’t have that problem.

A.J. is depicted as a borderline alcoholic who drinks too much wine until he passes out when he’s home alone. His diet consists mainly of boxed frozen dinners. All of this is supposed to make viewers feel sorry for A.J., but he’s often so obnoxious, it will be difficult for people watching this movie to see what’s so interesting about this irritable character.

The beginning of the movie shows A.J. being visited at his store by a book-publishing sales agent named Amelia “Amy” Loman (played by Lucy Hale), who is 30 years old, and who works from her home in Providence, Rhode Island. The movie mentions later that Alice Island is a five-hour trip one way from Providence, and can be accessed by ferry. As soon as Amelia and A.J. have their first conversation, it’s obvious that they will later become each other’s love interest. We’ve seen this formula many times already: A future couple meets for the first time, and one person is standoffish and dismissive to the other, but they have a spark of attraction that gets ignited later.

Amelia has a perky personality that gets a little deflated when she tries and fails to get A.J. to buy a memoir called “The Late Bloomer.” Amelia explains that the author of the book is an 80-year-old man named Leon Friedman, who got married for the first time at age 78. Sadly, his wife died of cancer three years later. This movie is so poorly written, the math doesn’t add up in Leon’s story. Leon supposedly wrote the book after his wife died, which means that he would be at least 81 years old, not 80. Leon and “The Late Bloomer” become another ill-conceived and unnecessary subplot shown later in the movie.

Amelia says in her sales pitch about “The Late Bloomer” book: “I know this is a small book, but readers could fall in love with it the way they fell in love with ‘Angela’s Ashes’ or ‘Tuesdays With Morrie.'” A.J. tells Amelia in no uncertain terms that he’s not interested in buying copies of “The Late Bloomer” because he says the book sounds dull and “intolerable.” And in a very jaded tone of voice, A.J. then proceeds to name a long list of book genres that he doesn’t like (including memoirs), thereby making it clear that A.J. hates most types of books.

Why does A.J. own a bookstore if he has disdain for most books? He wants to sell the store, but he doesn’t think he’ll find any buyers who’ll pay a purchase price that he needs to make a profit. A.J. has a financial safety net that he plans to use to get rid of his money problems, but he runs into a setback for this plan.

A.J. has a rare first-edition copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” a book collection of poems that was first published in 1827. A.J. estimates that the book is worth a price that should get him several hundred thousand dollars if he sold the book. He’s so proud of the book, for a period of time, he kept it in on display in his store before deciding to keep it locked up in his home.

One evening, a drunken A.J. takes the book out of a locked storage display case in his home and says out loud to the book: “Cheers, you piece of crap.” The next morning, after waking up from a drunken stupor, A.J. notices that the book is missing. He looks everywhere for it in his home and is convinced it was stolen by someone who knows how the valuable the book is.

A.J. goes to the local police station to report that the book has been stolen. The person who takes the report is Alice Island’s police chief, whose only name mentioned in the movie is his last name: Lambiase (played by David Arquette), who is sympathetic but a little skeptical that the book was stolen. Nothing else of value was taken from A.J.’s home, and there were no signs of an intruder.

Because Alice Island is a small community, Lambiase already knows about A.J.’s reputation for being a heavy drinker. And so, Lambiase takes the theft report as a formality, but he hints that he thinks A.J. could have drunkenly misplaced the book somewhere in A.J.’s home. (It’s eventually revealed what happened to the book.)

The movie then shambles along with a lot of tedious and meandering scenes showing A.J. being a grouch, as well as the tension-filled relationships that A.J. has with his deceased wife’s sister Ismay Evans (played by Christina Hendricks) and Ismay’s husband. Ismay, who is pregnant in the beginning of the movie, is married to an arrogant and famous novelist named Daniel Parish (played by Scott Foley), who is very flirtatious with his female fans. Daniel is supposedly the closest thing that A.J. has to a friend, but Daniel and A.J. act like they don’t like each other very much.

Ismay isn’t too happy with A.J. because she thinks he’s “self-destructive” and has no friends. Ismay believes that A.J. is disrespecting the memory of her deceased sister by leading a life of such self-sabotaging misery. When A.J. tells Ismay that his valuable Edgar Allan Poe book has been stolen, Ismay says that there could be any number of reasons for why the book is missing. She tells A.J. that maybe he was sleepwalking, and he accidentally tossed the book in the ocean.

Soon after his book goes missing and A.J.’s financial woes get worse, he’s at the bookstore and is ready to close it for the night when he finds an abandoned and adorable 2-year-old girl named Maya (played by Charlotte Thanh Theresin) who has been left at the door. Maya has been left with a note written by her single mother, who says she can no longer take care of Maya, and asks the owner of the store to make sure that Maya gets a good home.

Why did Maya’s mother leave her child at A.J.’s bookstore? In the note, Maya’s mother says that it’s because she grew up loving books and figured that whoever owned the bookstore would be someone trustworthy. Maya and her mother were actually in the store a few days earlier. But because of his awful customer service skills, he barely noticed them when Maya’s mother asked for his help in finding a book. Maya’s mother eventually left the store without buying anything.

Maya was abandoned at A.J.’s bookstore at around 9 p.m. on a Friday, and A.J. brings Maya to the local police station. Ismay happens to be with him too. Lambiase says that the Massachusetts Department of Family and Health Services can’t be contacted until Monday. A.J. doesn’t think it’s right to leave Maya at the police station. Ismay is having a later-in-life pregnancy and doesn’t want any stress to complicate the pregnancy by taking care of a 2-year-old child. And so, A.J. surprises himself by offering to let Maya stay at his home for the night. He admits he doesn’t know how to take care of kids her age, but he thinks he can try.

You know where this is going, of course, especially if you’ve seen the trailer for “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.” A.J. decides to keep the child, and he raises her as a single father. Before that happens, a few days after Maya was found abandoned, Lambiase and his deputy co-workers discover the dead body of Maya’s mother on a beach. She died of an apparent suicide. Her name was Marian Wallace (played by Lizzy Brooks), and she was a 22-year-old student and champion swimmer attending Harvard University on a swimming scholarship.

The next thing viewers know, it’s 14 months later, and A.J. has adopted 3-year-old Maya (played by Estella Kahiha), who is a playful and energetic child. A.J.’s time as a foster parent and the adoption process for Maya are completely erased from the story. The movie’s brief depiction of A.J. not knowing how to cope with a crying 2-year-old Maya on the first night she’s in his home doesn’t count as showing him spending quality time with this child. It’s a very clumsy fast-forward to the story to go from A.J. finding this abandoned girl to then adopting her.

How did a depressed, borderline alcoholic with financial problems get approved for this single-parent adoption? The movie never explains that either, but it’s implied that no one else wanted to take care of Maya. His financial problems apparently went away, because by the time Maya is shown at age 5 (played by Jordyn McIntosh), A.J. still owns the bookstore, and he never talks about being broke, like he does at the beginning of the movie. His drinking problem also magically disappears too, because it’s never mentioned or shown again.

“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” then takes another abrupt turn when the Maya subplot gets sidelined for a long and uninteresting stretch of the movie where A.J. and Amelia have an up-and-down, long-distance courtship that starts off very awkwardly. A.J. is attracted to Amelia and wants to date her, but she’s engaged to a man named Brett Brewer, who is in the military. Brett is never seen or heard in the movie, which is an obvious sign that the relationship isn’t going to last.

“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” than gets distracted with another subplot about the unhappy marriage of Ismay and Daniel. Viewers might be wondering, “Wait a minute. Wasn’t Ismay pregnant in the beginning of the movie? Where’s the child?” It’s later explained what happened to her pregnancy, but this explanation is dropped into the last third of movie when it should have been mentioned much earlier. This is the type of unimpressive and choppy storytelling in the movie.

One of the biggest flaws in “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” is how it never tells anything about A.J. Fikry’s backstory. Viewers never find out where he grew up, if he has any family members, or how and why he fell in love with his wife. It’s also never clear if it was a longtime dream of his to own a bookstore, or if he just fell into it. His dislike for most books that he ranted about to Amelia in the beginning of the movie is never really mentioned again.

The movie has some acknowledgement of Amelia’s family and backstory, but Amelia is depicted in a shallow way too. During their courtship, she doesn’t seem to care to find out more about A.J.’s family, his background, or how he’s taking care of Maya, nor does A.J. share that information. Amelia’s emotional baggage (she’s still not completely over her father dying when she was a child) is briefly mentioned.

Amelia has an opinionated widowed mother named Margaret Loman (played by Chandra Michaelsa), who eventually meets A.J. when she goes to Alice Island with Amelia for a visit. The movie never really succeeds in its efforts to convince viewers that A.J. and Amelia fall deeply in love. Amelia and A.J. seem like a couple that started out as friends and then ended up together out of loneliness and perhaps some emotional desperation.

Small but important details are completely ignored. For example, while A.J. and Amelia go on dates with each other, it’s never explained who’s taking care of Maya. She is never shown having a babysitter or nanny. A.J.’s parenthood is a flimsy plot device that has no real substance, based on how little screen time is given to Maya in her childhood. It isn’t until the last third of the movie, when Maya is 14 years old (played by Blaire Brown), that she is shown to have something close to a personality.

The movie then takes another drastic shift in tone for the most tearjerking part of the story in the last third of the movie, which is just a tangle of soap-opera-level plot twists. Tearjerking scenes work best when viewers feel like they’ve gotten to know the characters well enough to care about them. The character of A.J. seems very hollow, considering the movie reveals very little information about who he is as a whole human being. It’s like he dropped out of the sky to be put in an uninspiring and sloppily made movie.

The romance part of the story is very lackluster, since Nayyar and Hale do not have believable chemistry with each other as A.J. and Amelia. The cast members’ performances aren’t terrible, but they aren’t special either. The overall direction and film editing are amateurish, as if the filmmakers had no specific vision for the story, and just cobbled together a mishmash of scenes, with the hope that everything would hold people’s interest. “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” is a title that suggests the movie is the story of a fascinating person. Unfortunately, A.J. is a protagonist whose life in this disappointing movie is the equivalent of a book with many blank pages in between a lot of rambling.

Vertical Entertainment released “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” in select U.S. cinemas on October 28, 2022. The movie’s release on digital and VOD was on November 22, 2022.

Review: ‘A Nice Girl Like You,’ starring Lucy Hale and Leonidas Gulaptis

July 17, 2020

by Carla Hay

“A Nice Girl Like You”

Directed by Chris Riedell and Nick Riedell

Culture Representation: Taking place in the New York/New Jersey area, the romantic comedy “A Nice Girl Like You” features a predominantly white cast (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: After her live-in boyfriend breaks up with her because she objects to him watching porn, a straight-laced woman in her 20s tries to be more open-minded about sex and makes a list of things to do to achieve that goal.

Culture Audience: “A Nice Girl Like You” will appeal primarily to fans of star Lucy Hale and to people who like very predictable and substandard romantic comedies.

Lucy Hale in “A Nice Girl Like You” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“A Nice Girl Like You” is one of those romantic comedies that desperately tries to be edgy. But it’s clear from the first 10 minutes of the film that it’s following the same predictable and ultimately safe formula that other not-very-funny romantic comedies have done before and are quickly forgotten in a sea of generic mediocrity. Lucy Hale gives it her best shot to be the type of romantic-comedy ingenue that Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Lopez and Anne Hathaway used to be, but Hale isn’t quite there yet in having consistently sharp comedic skills.

Directed by brothers Chris Riedell and Nick Riedell, “A Nice Girl Like You” would have benefited from more experienced people writing and directing this movie. This is the Riedell brothers’ third feature film as a directing team. “A Nice Girl Like You” is the first screenplay by actress Andrea Marcellus, who adapted the screenplay from a “based on a true story” by Ayn Carrillo Gailey.

Because “A Nice Girl Like You” revolves around sex and a heroine’s journey in going outside her comfort zone to try new things, the movie begins with a scene establishing how uptight she is about sex. (“A Nice Girl Like You” takes place in an unnamed city in the New York/New Jersey area, and was filmed in New Jersey.) Lucy Neal (played by Hale) is standing in front of a bathroom mirror in an upscale hotel, practicing saying this line out loud: “I want your hot, throbbing …,” but she’s having a hard time uttering the last word, which is supposed to be “cock.”

Now that it’s been established that Lucy is so prudish that she can’t even say a slang word for penis, the scene flashes back to the day before, when Lucy and her live-in boyfriend Jeff (played by Stephen Friedrich) are in bed having sex together in such an unrelaxed and almost mechanical way, that it would be easy to assume that they don’t know each other well. While Lucy stares up at the ceiling, looking very bored and disengaged, she suddenly blurts out, “Wheat-free waffles!” Why? Because she was thinking about her grocery list instead of being in the moment and connecting with her lover.

Jeff knows that Lucy’s mind was elsewhere while they were having sex, so he’s immediately offended. He jumps out of bed and they start to argue. Lucy, who’s clad in the type of pajamas that a 6-year-old would wear, tries to make excuses, but Jeff isn’t going to let her off so easy.

Jeff, whose work-at-home job is testing video games, has his laptop computer on, and Lucy notices that he’s been watching porn on the computer. Now it’s her turn to be offended. “Since when are you a porn person?” Lucy asks Jeff in disgust. Jeff replies, “I’m a guy, so, since always.” Lucy gives Jeff an extreme ultimatum: “It’s either me or the porn.” Jeff breaks up with Lucy, and he moves out.

The movie then flashes forward again to the next day when a newly available Lucy mentions the breakup while she’s at that hotel, where an outdoor wedding is being held. Lucy plays violin in a string quartet that’s been hired to perform at the wedding. The other members of the quartet also happen to be Lucy’s three best friends: married and middle-aged Pricilla Blum (played by Mindy Cohn); single and perpetually horny Nessa Jennings (played by Jackie Cruz); and mild-mannered and single Paul Goodwin (played by Adhir Kalyan).

At this outdoor wedding, Lucy is having some self-pitying breakup blues, as she tells her friends that Jeff dumped her because he thinks she’s “porno-phobic.” And so, it might come as a big surprise later in the movie when it’s mentioned that Jeff and Lucy had been together for four years before the breakup. It took them four years to find out that they were this sexually incompatible?

It’s one of the many flaws in this movie’s screenplay. A better screenplay would’ve had Lucy and Jeff dating for less than a year. But having a four-year time period during which Lucy and Jeff were together is supposed to make Lucy look more sympathetic because she invested several years in the relationship, and he ended up leaving her.

At the outdoor wedding ceremony, the bride arrives on a horse, which proceeds to defecate right where the bride and groom are saying their vows. (Yes, it’s that kind of movie.) Lucy is in the hotel ladies’ room again, this time practicing some orgasmic lines, so she could sound more like the type of porn actress whom Jeff likes to watch. While Lucy is shouting out these lines loud enough for anyone outside the restroom to hear, a tall and handsome Australian groomsman named Grant (played by Leonides Gulaptis) happens to be passing by to go to the men’s room.

Grant overhears Lucy in the restroom and thinks she might be in some kind of distress. He peeks in the ladies’ room and asks if she’s okay. He sees Lucy sitting on the floor by herself. A slightly embarrassed and flustered Lucy tells him that she’s perfectly fine and is just meditating. Now that this “meet cute” moment has happened, it’s easy to see how this movie is going to end.

Lucy is someone who likes to make lists, so one of the things she does is make a list of things she has to do to go outside her sexual comfort zone. Even though Jeff is done with her, Lucy still wants to prove to herself that she can be more open-minded about sex. Some of the things on her list include going to a sex shop, watching porn, going to a strip club, going to a sex seminar, having a sex-toy demonstration party and visiting a brothel. She enlists the help of Pricilla, Nessa and Paul to go on various parts of this journey with her.

Hale is better in dramas than she is in comedies, but perhaps Hale might improve if she had a better script to work with and more assured comedic direction. Throughout most of the film, the jokes are stale and the direction is lackluster and unimaginative. “A Nice Girl Like You” seems like the kind of movie that Anna Kendrick (who’s made her share of forgettable romantic comedies) would reject.

However, that’s not to say that “A Nice Girl Like You” is completely awful. The movie has a few laugh-out-loud moments where Hale shows some talent for slapstick—most notably, the best comedic scene in the film, where Lucy has a mishap with some Ben Wa balls. And supporting cast members Cohn, Cruz and Kalyan stand out as being more talented at bringing realism to comedy than lead actors Hale and Gulaptis, whose Grant character is written as a nice guy but very bland.

Timing, tone of voice and facial expressions are all crucial elements in making a character in a comedy look convincing enough to be a realistic person, compared to a character that looks like an actor reciting lines. Even when a raunchy comedy has over-the-top characters and outlandish situations (such as 2009’s “The Hangover” or 2011’s “Bridesmaids”), the cast members have to be believable and humorous as those characters. Unfortunately, there are too many poorly written and contrived “sitcom-ish” elements in “A Nice Girl Like You” that are quite dull and lack creativity. It’s not a good sign when a comedy about sex is so boring that it will put viewers to sleep.

Vertical Entertainment released “A Nice Girl Like You” on digital and VOD on July 17, 2020.

Review: ‘Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island,’ starring Lucy Hale and Michael Peña

February 14, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island”

Directed by Jeff Wadlow

Culture Representation: Taking place in a fictional South Pacific locale, the horror film “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” (inspired by the 1977-1984 TV series) follows a racially diverse cast of middle-class characters who go to a luxurious island to fulfill their biggest fantasies.

Culture Clash: The fantasies turn into nightmares, as the island visitors end up in terrifying life-threatening situations.

Culture Audience: “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” will appeal mostly to horror enthusiasts or curious fans of the original TV series who already know that the movie will be filled with over-the-top entertainment.

Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Austin Stowell, Jimmy O. Yang, Ryan Hansen and Parisa Fitz-Henley in “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” (Photo by Christopher Moss/Columbia Pictures)

Here’s one thing that “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” movie has in common with the 1977-1984 TV series “Fantasy Island” TV series that inspired the film: There’s plenty of cheesiness to go around. The premise is still the same: A group of strangers fly on a private plane to a beautiful island, where they meet their host: the enigmatic Mr. Roarke, who always wears a white suit. All of the strangers are there to fulfill their biggest fantasies. And one by one, they begin to regret that their wishes came true.

The TV series had so much over-the-top ridiculousness (including Mr. Roarke fighting the devil) that people who’ve seen the show might already sense that the movie isn’t going to have any aspirations of being an arthouse film. However, the movie, which was filmed in Fiji, is a pretty good advertisement for the South Pacific country’s gorgeous landscape. The brand name for Blumhouse (the production company whose specialty is horror, with franchises such as “The Purge” and “Insidious”) might be an added attraction, but the quality of Blumhouse films is hit or miss.

Case in point: Blumhouse was the production company behind writer/director Jordan Peele’s 2017 Oscar-winning horror blockbuster “Get Out.” But Blumhouse also did 2017’s “Truth or Dare,” one of Blumhouse’s worst horror movies, directed by Jeff Wadlow, starring Lucy Hale, and written by Wadlow, Chris Roach and Jillian Jacobs. And guess what? All four of them have reteamed for “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island,” which is only slightly better than “Truth or Dare,” because at least “Fantasy Island” made some attempt to be a horror film that’s a little more intricate than a cliché slasher flick. Too bad that attempt results in a convoluted mess.

Who are the strangers who’ve gathered on this island and what are their fantasies? They are contest winners who, when they first arrive, cynically speculate about what kinds of elaborate stunts will be pulled to make their fantasies look realistic. Sarcastic beauty Melanie Cole (played by Hale) wants revenge on former schoolmate Sloane Maddison (played by Portia Doubleday), who bullied Melanie in their childhood. Nerdy stepbrothers JD Weaver (played by Ryan Hansen) and Brax Weaver (played by Jimmy O. Yang) want to live out their wildest party fantasies.

Patrick Sullivan (played by Austin Stowell) is a good-guy cop who has a military “Call of Duty” type of fantasy that involves someone from his past. Insecure and sad Gwen Olsen (played by Maggie Q) wants to go back in time to change a decision she made years ago in her personal life. They are greeted by Mr. Roarke (played by Michael Peña), who tells them that once they’ve started living their fantasies, they can’t go back and change their minds.

The “Fantasy Island” TV series famously had an energetic character named Tattoo (played by Hervé Villechaize) as Mr. Roarke’s assistant. In this movie, Mr. Roarke’s assistant is a woman named Julia (played by Parisa Fitz-Henley), who’s as calm as Tattoo was hyper. This movie’s Mr. Roarke is much more serious and aloof than the TV version of Mr. Roarke (played by Ricardo Montalbán), although one thing is still the same: He greets his staff by saying, “Smiles, everyone. Smiles.”

Speaking of the Fantasy Island staffers in the movie, they are some of the biggest clues that all is not so wonderful on Fantasy Island. Julia gets mysterious nose bleeds and has a vacant stare. (And later in the movie, some of the employees bleed black bile from their eyes.) One of the staffers is so creepy-looking that he looks like he walked straight from an audition for playing Riff Raff in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Because the movie has numerous twists and turns, there’s only so much that can be described without giving away spoiler information. Melanie is taken to a high-tech room where she thinks she’s seeing a hologram of her former nemesis Sloane, who’s tied up and gagged and sitting in a torture-chamber chair. Melanie has fun pushing certain buttons on the control panel that cause Sloane to go through various forms of torture. But then Melanie figures out that the Sloane she’s seeing isn’t a hologram but the real person.

JD and Brax are taken to a massive pool party that looks like a commercial for a Hedonism II Resort, where they’re surrounded by gorgeous people (women for JD; men for Brax, who is openly gay) and whatever they want to get intoxicated. JD and Brax provide most of the comic relief in the film, although some of their poorly written jokes fall flatter than Mr. Roarke’s emotionless voice.

Meanwhile, Patrick isn’t having as much fun as the Weaver brothers. He’s been taken into the jungle by soldiers who start off by treating him like a prisoner, and he has to earn their respect to be part of the squad. As for Gwen, she wakes up to find herself reconnecting with someone she thought she would never see again.

The movie switches back and forth between all four fantasies until some of the fantasies start to overlap with one another. Some characters come and go without much explanation. Some characters might be real or they might be part of a fantasy. And the last 20 minutes of the film are absolutely bonkers with all the plot twists that try to tie in what happened earlier in the story.

“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” is like a giant tangled, rotting ball of yarn that keeps gathering dustballs of bad ideas on top of more bad ideas. You can try to untangle it to sort it all out, but it’s not worth it, and it’s best to avoid it altogether.

Columbia Pictures released “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” in U.S. cinemas on February 14, 2020.

New Year’s Eve specials ringing in 2020 will feature Post Malone, Gwen Stefani, LL Cool J and more

December 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

Watching a New Year’s Eve special on TV is a tradition for millions of people around the world. Here’s what is planned for the four biggest New Year’s TV specials in the United States:

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020

Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC)

Celebrating its 48th year, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” (which is produced by Dick Clark Productions and airs in the U.S. on ABC) is still the most high-profile televised New Year’s Eve event. Post Malone, who performed on the show last year, is headlining the show this year from New York City’s Times Square. Ryan Seacrest will once again host the show, which begins airing from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, followed by 11:30 p.m. to 2:13 a.m. ET. Former “Pretty Little Liars” star Lucy Hale, who previously hosted the show’s Central Time Zone segments from New Orleans, replaces Jenny McCarthy to provide on-site reporting in Times Square. McCarthy quit the show because she said she wants to celebrate New Year’s Eve with her family. Other performers in Times Square this year include BTS, Sam Hunt and Alanis Morrissette.

Additionally, country artist Jessie James Decker will reveal the first Powerball millionaire of the year during this year’s live broadcast. She will provide live updates from the First Powerball Millionaire of the Year party throughout ABC’s live telecast and the big reveal announcing the winner will air just after midnight on January 1, 2020.

Ciara will once again host the Los Angeles segments of the show that will feature performances that were mostly previously recorded. Artists in the show’s Los Angeles segments will include Paula Abdul, Kelsea Ballerini, Blanco Brown, Dan + Shay, Green Day, Dua Lipa, Ava Max, Megan Thee Stallion, Anthony Ramos, Salt-N-Pepa and SHAED.

Meanwhile, Billy Porter will host the show’s third annual Central Time Zone celebration from New Orleans, where Sheryl Crow and Usher will perform. The show has added a segment from Miami, where Jonas Brothers will perform.

“Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020” is produced by Dick Clark Productions with Ryan Seacrest, Barry Adelman and Mark Bracco serving as executive producers. Larry Klein is producer.

Fox’s New Year’s Eve With Steve Harvey: Live From Times Square

After televising its New Year’s Eve show (hosted by Pitbull) in Miami from 2014 to 2016, Fox changed locations and hosts in 2017, with the show now taking place at New York City’s Times Square with comedian/talk-show host Steve Harvey and former E! News personality Maria Menounous. This year, three-time Super Bowl Champion and Fox Sports NFL analyst Rob Gronkowski joins Harvey and Menounous to co-host the show, which airs on Fox from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET and 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET live; CT/MT/PT tape-delayed. Performers will include headliner LL Cool J with DJ Z-Trip, The Chainsmokers, The Lumineers, Florida Georgia Line, the Backstreet Boys, Lauren Alaina, Tyga and The Killers. Select musical performances will be broadcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio. Additionally, the special will include celebrity cameo appearances by Gordon Ramsay, Will Arnett and Jenna Dewan, plus an exclusive WWE match featuring Roman Reigns. “Fox’s New Year’s Eve With Steve Harvey: Live From Times Square” is produced by Endeavor Content’s Film 45 and Done + Dusted. Guy Carrington, Katy Mullan, Michael Antinoro and David Chamberlin serve as executive producers.

NBC’s New Year’s Eve

Stars from NBC’s “The Voice” are all over “NBC’s New Year’s Eve” special, which begins airing at 10 p.m. ET from New York City’s Times Square. Not only is “The Voice” host Carson Daly hosting the New Year’s Eve show (with Julianne Hough and correspondent Stephen “tWitch” Boss), but “The Voice” coaches Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton are also performing on the special. Other performers include Hough, X Ambassadors, Brett Eldredge, Ne-Yo, Leslie Odom Jr. and The Struts. Keith Urban will once again perform at Jack Daniel’s Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville, taking place near the Tennessee State Capitol at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. “NBC Nightly News” and “Dateline NBC” anchor Lester Holt will also appear on stage before the iconic ball drop. “NBC’s New Year’s Eve” will be televised from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, followed by the New Year’s countdown segment 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET. “NBC’s New Year’s Eve” is executive produced by Daly and John Irwin through NBCUniversal Television Studio and Irwin Entertainment. It is co-executive produced by Casey Spira and directed by Alan Carter.

Before “NBC’s New Year’s Eve,” the network will air the special “A Toast to 2019!” from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. Hosted by Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager, the special will highlight the year’s biggest pop culture moments and trends. Celebrities interviewed for the show include Lauren Ash, Kristen Bell, Andrea Canning, Chris D’Elia, Dylan Dreyer, Ryan Eggold, Ben Feldman, Akbar Gbajabiamila, Willie Geist, Brad Goreski, Tony Hale, NBC’s Holt, Matt Iseman, Sheinelle Jones, Carson Kressley, Loni Love, Howie Mandel, Josh Mankiewicz, Craig Melvin, Natalie Morales, Brent Morin, Keith Morrison, Dennis Murphy, Patton Oswalt, Al Roker, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Ashley Tisdale, Johnny Weir and many more.

New Year’s Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen

Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen (Photo courtesy of CNN)

For the third year in a row, longtime friends Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will co-host CNN’s New Year’s Eve celebration, which begins at 8 p.m. ET. CNN’s 12th annual New Year’s Eve Show, which is telecast live from New York City’s Times Square. Performers on New Year’s Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will include Christina Aguilera, Lenny Kravitz, Shania Twain, Patti LaBelle, Keith Urban, 50 Cent, The Chainsmokers, and comedian/actress Dulcé Sloan. The show will also feature CNN’s Stephanie Elam, Randi Kaye, Richard Quest, Bill Weir and Gary Tuchman with daughter Lindsay at locations across America, including the Brady Bunch House and Key West. Then at 12:30am ET, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin and Don Lemon will do a New Year’s countdown from the Central Time Zone, live from Nashville for the Music City Midnight Celebration. In previous years, CNN’s Central Time Zone countdown took place in New Orleans.

In 2017, Cohen replaced Kathy Griffin, who was notoriously fired from the show in May of that year for publicly posting a photo of herself holding up a fake bloody head of President Donald Trump. Griffin and Cooper had co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve Show since 2007, but the Cooper/Cohen duo brought in the show’s highest ratings so far. Cooper and Cohen have an established rapport, since they have done numerous speaking engagements together. The CNN live stream will be available on CNN.com and across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android. It can also be viewed on CNNgo. Leading up to “New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen” will be the CNN one-hour special “All the Best, All the Worst 2019,” beginning at 7 p.m. ET and hosted by Tom Foreman, covering the highlights and lowlights of the past year.

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve: Lucy Hale replaces Jenny McCarthy; Billy Porter named host of New Orleans celebration ringing in 2020

November 26, 2019

Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Craig Sjodin/ABC)

Lucy Hale at the 2019 E! People’s Choice Awards at the Barker Hangar in Sant Monica, California, on November 10, 2019. (Photo by Amy Sussman/E! Entertainment)

Billy Porter at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on September 22, 2019. (Photo courtesy of Fox)

The following is a press release from Dick Clark Productions and ABC:

Dick Clark Productions and ABC announced that award-winning actress Lucy Hale, who previously served as host of the New Orleans festivities, will join Ryan Seacrest in Times Square as new co-host in New York for “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020.” Emmy, Tony, and Grammy Award-winning actor, singer, director, composer, and playwright Billy Porter will also join the show, taking the reins in the central time zone and making his debut as host of the New Orleans countdown. Returning to the show for her third year, multi-platinum selling artist Ciara will once again oversee the Los Angeles festivities. Ryan Seacrest, who returns as host for his 15th year, will lead the traditional countdown to midnight live from New York City on Tuesday, December 31, 2019 beginning at 8:00 p.m. EST on ABC.

“As we ring in a new decade and my 15th year hosting the show, I’m so excited to welcome the talented Lucy Hale to the stage with me,” said Seacrest. “It’s going to be a powerhouse year with Billy and Ciara and we can’t wait to celebrate with everyone!”

“Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020” marks the 48th anniversary of America’s biggest celebration of the year and will include 5 ½ hours of special performances and reports on New Year’s festivities from around the globe. The lineup of performances will be announced in the coming months.

Ciara is a Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter, producer, model and actress. Over her 15-year career, her music catalogue has surpassed more than two billion streams, selling more than 23 million records and 22 million singles worldwide, including chart-topping hits “Goodies,” “Ride,” “Oh,” “1, 2 Step,” “Body Party,” and “I Bet.” Most recently, Ciara released her seventh studio album, Beauty Marks, which spawned platinum-selling hit “Level Up” and is the first release from her newly formed label Beauty Marks Entertainment (BME). In an effort to reclaim creative control over her artistry, Ciara formally launched BME as a boundless platform for her music, media, film, fashion, philanthropy, technology, and entrepreneurial pursuits. Since launching BME, Ciara, alongside husband Russell Wilson, has formed Why Not You? Productions and a management company through his West2East empire. Ciara is a devoted wife and mother of two as well as a philanthropist who sits on the board of her and her husband’s Why Not You? foundation and is dedicated to improving the lives of children and empowering women across the globe.

Multi-talented and dynamic, Hale captured the attention of millions as the star of Freeform’s smash hit series “Pretty Little Liars.” She is the seven-time winner of the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress, was nominated for People’s Choice Award for Favorite Cable TV Actress in 2017 and presented with the 2013 Gracie Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Rising Star. She recently starred in the thriller “Truth or Dare” from Blumhouse Productions, and the Netflix Original film “Dude.” Hale can next be seen in the titular role of “Katy Keene” premiering on the CW on February 6 as well as in Sony/Blumhouse’s “Fantasy Island” in theaters February 14. In addition to her thriving acting career, Hale joined forces with Rascal Flatts to release a cover of “Let It Go,” the epic anthem from “Frozen,” for the We Love Disney compilation. This followed the release of her debut album, “Road Between,” the year prior. Hale is repped by Reel Talent Management and ICM Partners.

Porter is an award-winning actor, singer, director, composer, and playwright. He most recently won the Emmy Award for Lead Actor for his appearance in FX’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated drama “Pose,” as well as appeared in “American Horror Story: Apocalypse.” A Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee, Porter has numerous theatre credits, including the role of Lola in the Broadway musical “Kinky Boots,” which he originated in 2013 and for which he won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards, as well as the Grammy for best musical-theatre album. Porter’s pop single “Love Yourself” was released in June.

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About Dick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions (DCP) is the world’s largest producer and proprietor of televised live event entertainment programming with the “Academy of Country Music Awards,” “American Music Awards,” “Billboard Music Awards,” “Golden Globe Awards,” “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” and the “Streamy Awards.” Weekly television programming includes “So You Think You Can Dance” from 19 Entertainment and DCP. DCP also owns one of the world’s most unique and extensive entertainment archive libraries with over 60 years of award-winning shows, historic programs, specials, performances and legendary programming. DCP is a division of Valence Media, a diversified and integrated media company with divisions and strategic investments in television, film, live entertainment, digital media and publishing. For additional information, visit www.dickclark.com.

About ABC Entertainment
ABC Entertainment airs compelling programming across all day parts, including “Grey’s Anatomy,” the longest-running medical drama in prime-time television; riveting dramas “The Good Doctor,” “How to Get Away with Murder,” “A Million Little Things” and “Station 19”; the Emmy^® Award-winning “Modern Family” and trailblazing comedy favorites “American Housewife,” “black-ish,” “Bless This Mess,” “The Conners,” “The Goldbergs,” and “Schooled”; the popular “Summer Fun & Games” programming block, including “Card Sharks,” “Celebrity Family Feud,” “Holey Moley” and “Press Your Luck”; star-making sensation “American Idol”; reality phenomenon “Shark Tank”; “The Bachelor” franchise; long-running hits “Dancing with the Stars” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”; “General Hospital,” which has aired for more than 55 years on the network; and late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”; as well as the critically acclaimed hit special ”Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons.’” The network also boasts some of television’s most prestigious awards shows, including “The Oscars^®,” “The CMA Awards” and the “American Music Awards.” ABC programming can also be viewed on ABC.com, the ABC app and Hulu.

2019 Teen Choice Awards: Lucy Hale, David Dobrik named as co-hosts; Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers get special prizes

July 29, 2019

Lucy Hale at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards at the Galen Center in Los Angeles on August 13, 2017. (Photo by Scott Kirkland/Fox)

Taylor Swift at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 1, 2019. (Photo by Todd Williamson/NBC)

The following is a compilation of press releases from Fox:

Actress, producer, singer and seven-time Teen Choice winner Lucy Hale will host Teen Choice 2019, with digital star and TV personality David Dobrik serving as co-host. Celebrating today’s hottest stars in TV, music, film and social media, the star-studded two-hour LIVE event airs, for the first time in Teen Choice history, from Hermosa Beach, CA, on Sunday, August 11 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), on FOX.

Additionally, Grammy Award-nominated band OneRepublic will perform their single, “Rescue Me,” along with a medley of other hit songs. Multi-Platinum Pop/R&B sensation Bazzi will perform his summer anthem, “Paradise”; TrailerTrap artist Blanco Brown will perform his chart-topping song, “The Git Up”; pop singer Mabel will perform her hit single, “Don’t Call Me Up”; and Jordan McGraw, with special guest Sarah Hyland, will debut “Met at a Party.” Latin pop boy band CNCO and U.K. pop singer and Teen Choice nominee HRVY will perform, as well. Fans also should expect a special appearance by rapper Lil Nas X.

Ten-time Grammy Award-winning global superstar Taylor Swift will be honored at Teen Choice 2019 with the first-ever Icon Award. The star-studded two-hour LIVE event airs, for the first time in Teen Choice history, from Hermosa Beach, CA, on Sunday, Aug. 11 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), on FOX.

As one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with more than 50 million albums sold, Taylor Swift is a pop culture icon whose accolades and achievements go beyond topping music charts and selling out stadiums worldwide. Swift is also one of today’s biggest social influencers, using her voice and platform to inspire and create positive change.

Grammy Award-nominated multi-platinum powerhouse trio Jonas Brothers will be honored at Teen Choice 2019 with the highly coveted Decade Award, which celebrates the group’s evolution over the past 10 years.

With five studio albums and more than 17 million albums sold worldwide, the Jonas Brothers recently reunited to release their first album in ten years, “Happiness Begins,” cementing their global pop star status.

Also scheduled to appear at the all-star event: “L.A.’s Finest” star and Teen Choice nominee Gabrielle Union, WWE Divas Champions The Bella Twins, “Avengers: Endgame” star and Teen Choice nominee Robert Downey Jr., Choice Action TV Actress nominee and “L.A.’s Finest” star Jessica Alba, “The Act” star Joey King, singer Madison Beer, “Good Trouble” star and Choice Drama TV Actress nominee Maia Mitchell, singer/songwriter Lauren Jauregui, “Marvel’s Runaways” actor Gregg Sulkin, Choice Action TV Actor nominee and “The Flash” star Grant Gustin, ten-year-old skateboarder Sky Brown, Teen Choice nominee and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” star Noah Centineo and “Fuller House” actress Candace Cameron Bure, as well as “Fuller House” executive producer John Stamos.

Tickets for Teen Choice 2019 at Hermosa Beach are free and open to the general public, and can be found here. See site for additional terms and conditions. Space is limited.

About Lucy Hale

Lucy Hale has captured the attention of millions through her dynamic on-screen performances in some of the most buzzed-about projects in film and television. Hale will next star as the titular character in the highly anticipated series “Katy Keene.” The series, a “Riverdale” spinoff based on the “Archie” comics characters, is set to premiere midseason. Additional upcoming projects include the romantic comedy “The Hating Game,” Blumhouse Production’s “Fantasy Island,” “Big Gold Brick” and “Son Of The South.” Most recently, Hale starred in the drama series “Life Sentence.” Last spring, she starred in the thriller “Truth or Dare,” one of Blumhouse’s most profitable features to date. The smash-hit series “Pretty Little Liars” premiered in 2010, launching Hale into stardom and winning her a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Cable TV Actress, seven TEEN CHOICE Awards for Choice TV Actress/Star and the 2013 Gracie Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Rising Star.

About David Dobrik

David Dobrik has mastered the concept of quick-cut, viral content with more than 5.2 billion views and more than 13 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. With his widely popular social media presence and podcast, VIEWS, Dobrik has elevated himself into international stardom. Dobrik will next star, alongside co-judges Ciara and Debbie Gibson, in Nickelodeon’s newest series, “America’s Most Musical Family,” premiering this fall. Dobrik has won Shorty Awards for Vlogger of the Year, Breakout Creator, YouTube Ensemble and Podcast. He’s a two-time Streamy Awards winner and, in 2019, he took home the Kids Choice Award for Social Star.

TEEN CHOICE 2019 is produced by Bob Bain Productions and FOX Alternative Entertainment. Bob Bain and Ashley Edens serve as executive producers. Like TEEN CHOICE 2019 on Facebook at facebook.com/TeenChoiceAwards. Follow the action on Twitter @TeenChoiceFox and join the discussion at #teenchoice. See photos and videos on Instagram by following @teenchoicefox. Fans also are encouraged to follow @TeenChoiceFox on Twitter for the latest TEEN CHOICE 2019 news, including voting and announcements of the host(s), performers, presenters and nominees.

New Year’s Eve specials ringing in 2019 will feature Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Sting and more

December 27, 2018

by Carla Hay

Watching a New Year’s Eve special on TV is a tradition for millions of people around the world. After taking a break from a New Year’s Eve Special in 2017, NBC is back with its star-studded party in New York City’s Times Square. Here’s what is planned for the four biggest New Year’s TV specials in the United States:

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019

Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy (Photo by Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC)

Celebrating its 47th year, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” (which is produced by Dick Clark Productions and airs in the U.S. on ABC) is still the most high-profile televised New Year’s Eve event. Mariah Carey headlined the show from New York City’s Times Square in 2018 and 2017. In 2018, another Grammy-winning diva—Christina Aguilera—is taking the headlining spot. Ryan Seacrest will once again host the show, which begins airing from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, followed by 11:30 p.m. to 2:13 a.m. ET. Jenny McCarthy will provide on-site reporting. Other performers in Times Square include Bastille, Dan + Shay and New Kids on the Block. Airing just after midnight Eastern Time, Post Malone will perform from a stop on his current tour in Brooklyn, New York, marking the first television performance of the new year. Meanwhile, the special has partnered with YouTube Music for the first time this year for cross-promotional programming.

Ciara will once again host the Los Angeles segments of the show that will feature performances that were mostly previously recorded. Artists in the show’s Los Angeles segments will include Lauren Alaina, Kelsea Ballerini, Bazzi, Kane Brown, Camila Cabello, The Chainsmokers, Ciara, Foster the People, Halsey, Dua Lipa, Ella Mai, Shawn Mendes, Charlie Puth and Weezer, as well as collaborations from Brown featuring Alaina; Macklemore with Skylar Grey; and The Chainsmokers featuring Ballerini.

Meanwhile, actress Lucy Hale (former star of “Pretty Little Liars”) will host the show’s second annual Central Time Zone celebration from New Orleans. Florida Georgia Line and Maren Morris will perform from the Allstate Fan Fest, leading up to the midnight countdown and fleur-de-lis drop near Jackson Square. “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019” is produced by Dick Clark Productions with Seacrest, Barry Adelman and Mark Bracco serving as executive producers. Larry Klein is producer.

Fox’s New Year’s Eve With Steve Harvey: Live From Times Square

Steve Harvey (Photo by Brian Bowen Smith/Fox)

After televising its New Year’s Eve show (hosted by Pitbull) in Miami from 2014 to 2016, Fox changed locations and hosts in 2017, with the show now taking place at New York City’s Times Square with comedian/talk-show host Steve Harvey and former E! News personality Maria Menounous. This year, Harvey and Menounous return to co-host the show, which airs on Fox from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET and 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET live; CT/MT/PT tape-delayed. Performers will include Sting, Snoop Dogg, Robin Thicke, Florence + the Machine, Jason Aldean, Juanes and Why Don’t We. Additionally, the special will include celebrity cameo appearances by comedians Ken Jeong and Kenan Thompson, as well as “Fox NFL Sunday” commentators Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Jimmy Johnson. “Fox’s New Year’s Eve With Steve Harvey: Live From Times Square” is produced by IMG Original Content and Done + Dusted. Guy Carrington, Katy Mullan, Mike Antinoro, Dave Chamberlin and Orly Anderson serve as executive producers; and Eddie Delbridge serves as co-executive producer. IMG also produces Harvey’s self-titled talk show, as well as the Miss Universe Pageant and “It’s Showtime at the Apollo,” which have been hosted by Harvey over the past several years.

[December 30, 2018 UPDATE: Dierks Bentley has been added to the lineup performing in Times Square.]

NBC’s New Year’s Eve

Carson Daly, Chrissy Teigen, Leslie Jones, Keith Urban — (Photo courtesy of NBCUniversal)

Stars from NBC’s “The Voice” are all over “NBC’s New Year’s Eve” special, which begins airing at 10 p.m. ET from New York City’s Times Square. Not only is “The Voice” host Carson Daly hosting the New Year’s Eve show (with Chrissy Teigen and assistance from Leslie Jones), but “The Voice” coaches Kelly Clarkson, Blake Shelton and John Legend are also performing on the special. Other performers include Jennifer Lopez, Bebe Rexha, Diana Ross and Andy Grammer. Keith Urban and Brett Young will perform at Jack Daniel’s Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville. “NBC Nightly News” and “Dateline NBC” anchor Lester Holt will also appear on stage before the iconic ball drop. “NBC’s New Year’s Eve” will be televised from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, followed by the New Year’s countdown segment 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET. “NBC’s New Year’s Eve” is executive produced by Daly, Teigen and John Irwin through NBCUniversal Television Studio and Irwin Entertainment. It is co-executive produced by Casey Spira.

New Year’s Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen

Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper (Photo courtesy of CNN)

For the second year in a row, longtime friends Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will co-host CNN’s New Year’s Eve celebration, which begins at 8 p.m. ET. CNN’s 11th annual New Year’s Eve Show, which is telecast live from New York City’s Times Square has a more star-studded lineup this year than in previous years. Gwen Stefani is scheduled to perform from her Las Vegas residency, while Keith Urban (who also appears on NBC’s New Year’s Eve Special), Dave Chappelle, Patti LaBelle and Jack Black also round out the show’s celebrity lineup. New Year’s Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will also spotlight Broadway musicals such as “The Band’s Visit,” “Wicked,” “Tootsie” and “Come From Away.” CNN’s New Year’s Eve Show begins at 8 p.m. ET, and will end at approximately 1:05 p.m. ET. CNN anchors Don Lemon and Brooke Baldwin will host a countdown from New Orleans at 12:30 a.m. ET. In 2017, Cohen replaced Kathy Griffin, who was notoriously fired from the show in May of that year for publicly posting a photo of herself holding up a fake bloody head of President Donald Trump. Griffin and Cooper had co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve Show since 2007, but the Cooper/Cohen duo brought in the show’s highest ratings so far. Cooper and Cohen have an established rapport, since they have done numerous speaking engagements together.

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve: The Chainsmokers, Kelsea Ballerini, Dua Lipa among Los Angeles performers to ring in 2019

November 26, 2018

The following is a press release from Dick Clark Productions and ABC:

Dick Clark Productions and ABC today announced hosts and musical performances for America’s biggest live New Year’s television broadcast, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019.” Emmy^®-winning producer and television/radio personality Ryan Seacrest will return to host from Times Square for his 13th year, with live onsite reporting by actress and comedian Jenny McCarthy. Multi-platinum music superstar Ciara will return to ring in the New Year from the West Coast as the host of the Hollywood Party, joined by performances from Kelsea Ballerini, The Chainsmokers, Foster the People, Dua Lipa, Ella Mai and Charlie Puth. The festivities will also feature a performance by Macklemore with Skylar Grey presented by Planet Fitness, and a special collaboration from The Chainsmokers featuring Kelsea Ballerini. Also announced today, award-winning actress Lucy Hale will return to host the 3rdannual Central Time Zone celebration from New Orleans, providing viewers with exclusive performances and interviews leading up to the midnight countdown and stunning fleur-de-lis drop near Jackson Square at the dawn of the New Year.

Ranked as the #1 music special of 2017, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019” marks the 47^th anniversary of America’s biggest celebration of the year and will include 5 ½ hours of special performances and reports on New Year’s festivities from around the globe. The celebrated event will take place on MONDAY, DECEMBER 31 beginning at 8:00 p.m. EST on the ABC Television Network. Additional performances will be announced soon.

“For 47 years, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve has been America’s biggest and most watched party of the year,” said Mark Bracco, Executive Producer and Executive Vice President of Programming & Development, dick clark productions. “We’re thrilled that Ryan, Jenny, Ciara and Lucy are back to help America usher in the New Year, along with a stellar lineup of the year’s hottest musical artists.”

“With Ryan at the helm and Jenny, Ciara and Lucy hosting from coast-to-coast, we can’t wait to ring in the new year on ABC,” said Rob Mills, SVP, Alternative Series, Specials and Late Night. “We have some of the top musical acts set to perform at the Hollywood Party, with more to be announced for our Times Square and New Orleans celebrations, making ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest’ a night to remember.”

Ryan Seacrest in New York’s Times Square on December 31, 2017. (Photo by Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC)

Ryan Seacrest is a creative entrepreneur and holds preeminent positions in broadcast and cable television, as well as nationally syndicated and local radio. Seacrest is host and executive producer of the annual live ABC broadcast of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.” He is co-host and executive producer of the Disney/ABC nationally syndicated entertainment talk show “Live with Kelly and Ryan.” He is also the host of the iconic music competition series “American Idol” on ABC. Seacrest also serves as host and executive producer of the “E! Live from the Red Carpet” award season shows. On radio, Seacrest is host of “On Air with Ryan Seacrest,” his market-topping #1 nationally syndicated LA morning drive-time show for iHeartMedia’s 102.7 KIIS-FM, as well as a nationally-syndicated Top 40 radio show. Seacrest helms Ryan Seacrest Productions (RSP) an Emmy-winning entertainment production company. RSP produces the E! hit cable series “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and its spin-offs, “E! Live from the Red Carpet” award shows, as well as Bravo’s “Shahs of Sunset.” Additionally, RSP produces “Insatiable” for Netflix, and has scripted projects in development with ABC Studios and Amazon. The company also produced the Emmy Award-winning reality series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.” As an entrepreneur Seacrest has a burgeoning lifestyle enterprise, which includes a menswear collection, Ryan Seacrest Distinction, and a men’s skincare line, Polished by Dr. Lancer, in partnership with dermatologist Dr. Harold Lancer. He has also several investments in media and technology companies including ATTN:, Headspace, Civic Entertainment Group, among others. His philanthropic efforts include serving as chairman of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation (RSF), which has ten broadcast media centers – Seacrest Studios – in pediatric hospitals in cities across the country. He also serves on the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and as honorary chair of the Grammy Museum.

Jenny McCarthy in New York’s Times Square on December 31, 2017. (Photo by Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC)

Jenny McCarthy is a comedian, actress, host, best-selling author and spokeswoman, who currently hosts her own talk show, “The Jenny McCarthy Show,” on Sirius XM, and will soon be seen as a panelist on the celebrity singing competition “The Masked Singer,” which premieres on FOX in January 2019. She created and launched monthly sessions of the “Inner Circle” on Sirius in 2016 which features intimate conversations with celebrity guests and experts on a variety of topics; Kelly Clarkson was featured as her first guest. McCarthy previously co-hosted “The View,” executive-produced and starred in “Donnie Loves Jenny” and hosted late night talk show “The Jenny McCarthy Show.” McCarthy’s comedy special, “Dirty Sexy Funny,” continues to tour the country. Major network television shows have enlisted Jenny to star in recurring guest roles, such as “Two and a Half Men,” “Just Shoot Me,” and “The Drew Carey Show,” proving Jenny continues to be a sought-after comedic actress. Jenny began her hosting career on MTV’s “Singled Out” and more recently continued on to host the second season of NBC’s adventure dating series, “Love in the Wild.” Jenny once again joined Ryan Seacrest to report live from Times Square on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2014.” A New York Times Best Seller, McCarthy has penned eight releases to date, and is a spokesperson for major international brands. In addition to appearing in a multitude of campaigns, including the memorable Candie’s shoe ads, Jenny has graced the covers of magazines across the world including Rolling Stone, People, six covers of Playboy, the most recent being 2012 where she celebrated her 40^th birthday, and three covers of Shape. The diversity in her resume highlights her unique combination of intelligence, sex appeal and humor. Jenny, and husband Donnie Wahlberg – the couple wed in August of 2014 – entered into a production deal for their new unscripted docuseries “Donnie Loves Jenny,” that Jenny executive produced. The series premiered on A&E in early January 2015 and wrapped its third season in March 2016. Most recently, Jenny created and launched her own mixed cocktail beverage in November 2017, appropriately branded as, “Blondies,” to much success. The vodka cocktail has been featured on an episode of Wahlburgers on A&E, alongside her husband, Donnie Wahlberg. The alcoholic beverage is a special project, and has that special Jenny touch, from the deliciousness inside to the bottle design itself. Jenny currently resides outside of Chicago with her son, Evan and husband, Donnie.

Ciara is a Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter, producer, model and actress. Over her thirteen-year career, she has sold over 23 million records and 16 million singles worldwide, including chart-topping hits “Goodies,” “Ride,” “Oh,” “1, 2 Step,” “Body Party,” and “I Bet.” Most recently, Ciara has been scorching this summer with her new song “Level Up” which has transformed into a defining moment for the culture with the subsequent movement it has incited. Beyond clocking over 100 million views on YouTube, the song spent several weeks at #1 on the iTunes Top R&B/Soul Songs Chart and top 10 on iTunes overall, and attracted Missy Elliott and Fatman Scoop for a high-profile remix which also shot up the iTunes charts. Its high-powered dance initially inspired fans to shoot their own videos with the hashtag #LevelUpChallenge—stirring up a viral buzz that has seen over 2 million posts across social media and launched the video to a #1 trending topic on YouTube. Known for her incredible visuals and stellar dance abilities, Ciara’s videos have been viewed over 1.4 billion times accurately earning her the moniker of “Queen of Dance.” Ciara continues to captivate with her social media prowess reaching over 50 million fans across her platforms and channels. Ciara is not only known for her vocal talent and dance moves, but she is signed with IMG Models and Vogue previously named her the “new fashion icon.” Most recently, she became a Global Brand Ambassador for Revlon. As longtime muse for several high-fashion designers, Ciara has not only been the face of various campaigns but she has graced the covers of numerous fashion and lifestyle magazines. Ciara is a devoted wife and mother of two as well as a philanthropist who is dedicated to improving the lives of children and empowering women across the globe.

Lucy Hale (Photo by Jordon Nuttall/The CW)

Multi-talented and dynamic, Lucy Hale captured the attention of millions as the star of Freeform’s smash hit series “Pretty Little Liars.” Hale was nominated for People’s Choice Award for Favorite Cable TV Actress in 2017. She has also won a Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress seven times and she was presented with the 2013 Gracie Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Rising Star. Hale was recently seen starring in the thriller “Truth or Dare” from Blumhouse Productions alongside Tyler Posey which was released in April 2018. The film follows a group of friends who play a seemingly harmless game of truth or dare that turns deadly. Hale was also seen in the Netflix Original film “Dude” alongside Kathryn Prescott and Alexandra Shipp. The film was released in April 2018 and tells the story of four best girlfriends who negotiate loss and major life changes during the last two weeks of high school. Additionally, on the small screen Hale was seen starring in the CW’s drama series “Life Sentence.” The show follows her character, Stella Abbot, who finds out her terminal cancer is cured and now must learn to live with all the choices she made when deciding to live like she was dying. The series ran through June 2018. She is currently in production on the Indie Rom Com “A Nice Girl Like You” which is based on a memoir by Ayn Carrillo-Gailey and directed by Chris and Nick Riedell. The story follows Lucy Neal (Hale), a violinist who is thrown for a loop when she is accused of being too inhibited by her ex-boyfriend. In an effort to prove him wrong, Lucy creates a rather wild to-do list that sends her on a whirlwind journey of self-discovery, friendship, and new love. Hale will be serving as a co-producer on the film. Prior, she starred as the lead in CW’s critically acclaimed comedy “Privileged.” That same year, Hale starred in Warner Bros.’ coming of age comedy “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” alongside Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn and America Ferrera. She also starred as the lead in ABC Family’s teen musical “A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song” alongside Freddie Stroma and lent her voice to Disney’s animated film “Secret of the Wings.” In addition to her thriving acting career, Hale joined forces with Rascal Flatts to release a cover of Frozen’s epic anthem “Let It Go” for the We Love Disney compilation. This followed the release of her debut album Road Between the year prior.

Praised by The New York Times as being an “elegant songwriter,” Grammy nominee Kelsea Ballerini’s latest single, “Miss Me More,” hails from her acclaimed sophomore album “Unapologetically,” The newly released deluxe edition includes four tracks: “Fun and Games,” “I Think I Fell In Love Today,” “Landslide (Live from Nashville)” (Fleetwood Mac), and her new collaboration with The Chainsmokers, “This Feeling,” plus the original 12-track compilation. Included in an all-star lineup of musical guests, Ballerini is set to perform during “The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Holiday Special,” airing December 2 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, streaming, and on demand. Slated to join Kelly Clarkson’s Meaning of Life Tour in January 2019, she will then break out on her own for her first-ever headline arena tour – The Miss Me More Tour – with Brett Young (plus special guest Brandon Ratcliff) next spring. Continuing to blaze a trail that’s all her own, Ballerini appears on NBC’s hit music competition series, “The Voice,” as their first-ever fifth coach during the 10-part Comeback Stage series this season. In addition to being awarded high-profile accolades from ASCAP, iHeartRadio, Billboard, and Radio Disney, plus several breakthrough female artist nods from ACM and CMT, the Black River Entertainment artist remains the only female artist in the genre’s history, including female duos and groups, to claim #1 with her first three consecutive singles [platinum-certified, #1 smashes – “Love Me Like You Mean It,” “Dibs,” “Peter Pan”] from a debut album [gold-certified breakout “The First Time”].

Grammy Award-winning and Billboard Chart topping artist/producer duo, The Chainsmokers, have evolved into a dominating musical force with a diverse repertoire of songs that have led them to become one of music’s hottest recording artists. Comprised of Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, their signature sound deftly reaches across indie, progressive and pop realms and has seen them develop some of the biggest breakthrough songs over the course of the last two years. In 2016, the group catapulted to worldwide stardom with 3 Multi-Platinum certified hits – “Roses,” featuring Rozes, “Don’t Let Me Down” featuring Daya and “Closer,” featuring Halsey, which went on to become the longest running #1 single of 2016 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In April of 2017, the group released their debut album via Disruptor/Columbia Records titled “Memories…Do Not Open.” The album, which has been certified Platinum, debuted at #1 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200 chart and produced Multi-Platinum certified smash hits “Paris” and “Something Just Like This” featuring Coldplay. The latest releases from the duo include “This Feeling,” featuring Kelsea Ballerini, “Siren” with French DJ Aazar, “Save Yourself,” a collaboration with dance music tastemaker NGHTMRE, “Side Effects,” featuring longtime collaborator Emily Warren, “Sick Boy,” “You Owe Me,” “Everybody Hates Me” and “Somebody,” featuring Drew Love of buzzy R&B duo THEY. Together, these tracks comprise the latest chapter in the duo’s ongoing building album entitled “Sick Boy.” Alex and Drew will continue releasing music and touring across the globe throughout 2018 and beyond.

Founded in in 2009, Foster the People achieved success with the 2011 release of their debut album “Torches,” which has sold nearly two million albums and over nine million singles worldwide. “Torches” features the #1 hit single “Pumped Up Kicks,” which was declared “the year’s anthem” by SPIN, and also spawned the chart topping singles “Don’t Stop (Color On The Walls),” “Houdini,” and “Helena Beat.” Foster the People garnered three Grammy nominations for their monumental debut, including Best Alternative Album, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Pumped Up Kicks” and Best Short Form Music Video for “Houdini.” “Supermodel” was the second full-length record from Foster the People. Influenced by frontman Mark Foster’s world travels and shifting perspective, the album was recorded in studios around the world and features fan favorites including “Coming of Age” and “Best Friend.” In 2017, the band followed with their third record, “Sacred Hearts Club,” which features multi-format, Platinum-certified hit “Sit Next To Me.” The track, described as “pure shimmering pop” by The Associated Press, hit #3 at Alternative Radio, #19 at Top 40 and reached top 10 at both AAA and Adult Pop. “Sit Next To Me” has accumulated over 200 million global streams to date and received a nomination for “Choice Rock/Alternative Song” at the 2018 Teen Choice Awards, where the band also performed the song live. They also delivered solid performances of the track on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show with James Corden. Most recently, Foster the People has released new single “Worst Nites.” The band will continue to tour through the end of the year.

With the release of her self-titled debut album, London born, Kosovo raised Dua Lipa has won over the hearts of fans and press alike. The songs on “Dua Lipa” announced the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. Her critically acclaimed debut made everyone’s “best of” list, from The Fader to Rolling Stone to Time Magazine. Her power anthem “New Rules” reached #1 on the Top 40 chart, and broke the longstanding record for consecutive weeks on the Billboard Pop Songs Chart. The video for the song went viral and made her the youngest female solo artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. She was consistently the most streamed female artist on Spotify and in the top 5 globally this past year. “Dua Lipa” sold 3 million copies, with singles reaching 32 million sold. Most recently, Lipa made BRIT Award history becoming the first woman artist to pick up five nominations, taking home the awards for British Breakthrough Act and British Female Solo Artist.

“Gemini,” Macklemore’s first solo effort in 12 years, was released in September of 2017 and is RIAA certified golf. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 chart and #1 on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Independent Albums charts. The album follows two releases with producer Ryan Lewis: the multiple-Grammy award winning album ‘The Heist’ and 2016 release ‘This Unruly Mess I’ve Made’ (featuring Platinum-certified single “Downtown”). “Gemini” includes platinum singles “Glorious” (featuring Skylar Grey) and “Good Old Days” (featuring Kesha), and gold single “Marmalade” (featuring Lil Yachty). The viral video for hit single “Glorious” stars Macklemore’s 100 year old grandmother, while the video for “Marmalade” (featuring Lil Yachty) stars a Mini Macklemore and a Lil Lil Yachty with cameos by running back legend Marshawn Lynch, Lil Yachty and Macklemore. The video for third single, “Good Old Days” (featuring Kesha) stars Macklemore and Kesha, and the video for “Corner Store” (featuring Dave B and Travis Thompson) features all three of the Seattle rappers. He recently completed a North American co-headlining tour entitled “The Adventures of Kesha and Macklemore,” which included stops at Jones Beach Theater in New York and The Forum in Los Angeles. Collectively Macklemore’s music videos have been viewed over 3 billion times and he is one of only two rappers to have a diamond-certified single. Macklemore’s previous solo releases include “The Language of My World” and the mixtapes “Open Your Eyes” and “The Unplanned Mixtape.” In the time between “This Unruly Mess I’ve Made,” the Seattle rapper’s 2016 album with Ryan Lewis and “Gemini,” Macklemore released two solo songs “Wednesday Morning” and “Drug Dealer,” performed on Ellen and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, was featured in an MTV special with President Obama about the opioid epidemic in America and was the first US citizen ever to participate in the Presidential Weekly Address.

Skylar Grey is a five-time Grammy nominated singer/songwriter. She is responsible for co-writing some of the most memorable songs to light up the Billboard Hot 100 and iTunes sales charts, totaling more than 25 million in sales worldwide. Grey collaborated with Eminem on his latest record “Revival” released on December 15, 2017. She is featured on the song “Tragic Endings” and has three additional writing and producing credits on the album including “Walk On Water” featuring Beyoncé, “Like Home” featuring Alicia Keys, and “Need Me” featuring Pink. She performed “Walk On Water,” “Stan” and “Love The Way You Lie” on Saturday Night Live with Eminem on November 18. 2017, the former of which she also co-wrote. Last year, Grey featured on Macklemore’s platinum single “Glorious,” which was included on his solo album “Gemini,” released on September 22, 2017. The song reached #49 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. For Super Bowl LII, Grey’s stirring rendition of the 1961 Ben E King classic “Stand By Me” soundtracked Budweiser’s commercial. Grey performed the song on “The Today Show” on February 2, 2018. Currently, Grey is working on her third studio album with Interscope Records/Kid In A Korner. After years of experimentation, she is revisiting her organic style roots with her new sound. “I’ve definitely gone on a lot of musical adventures over the past few years, working with people in hip-hop and with DJs and experimenting in all these different genres,” Grey says. “And it’s good to keep going on adventures, because you never know what you’re capable of. But this new album is very much me coming home, and doing something that’s most authentic to who I am at the core.” Grey a Wisconsin native, currently resides in Napa, California.

10 Summers and Interscope Records, Ella Mai’s awe-inspiring journey to the top of the music charts is sure to reach new heights this fall with the release of her highly anticipated, debut. Executive produced by Mustard, the throwback R&B album, simply titled “Ella Mai,” is due October 12, 2018. The British singer-songwriter continues to break long held records with her RIAA Certified Triple-Platinum single, “Boo’d Up.” The 23 year old has solidified her standing as the first U.K. artist to top the US R&B chart since 1992, she is also the first woman to top three R&B/Hip-Hop Radio charts since Beyoncé in 2012. “Boo’d Up” has also now tied Mary J Blige’s “Be Without You” as the longest running #1 by a female artist in R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart history. The breakout star who is also nominated for two American Music Awards will be joining the esteemed Bruno Mars on his 24K Magic World Tour beginning in October. Ella Mai is now available for pre-order.

At only 26 years old, multiple-GRAMMY nominated singer/songwriter/producer Charlie Puth has proven to be one of the most consistent hitmakers in pop music today. In just 3 short years, Charlie has already amassed 5 Multi-Platinum singles, three Grammy nominations, two Billboard Music Awards, one Critic’s Choice Award, and one Golden Globe nomination. His latest album “Voicenotes” was certified gold only four days after its release, and has logged over 3.4 billion streams worldwide to date. Written and produced by Charlie himself, “Voicenotes” has also received universal acclaim, including the New York Times calling it “one of the year’s best pop albums.” The album features 3x-platinum-certified “Attention,” Platinum-certified “How Long,” gold-certified “Done For Me,” and, most recently, “The Way I Am.” Charlie exploded onto the music scene writing and recording the breakout smash “See You Again,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks and was the best selling song of 2015 worldwide with over 20.9 Million units sold. The song received three Grammy nominations (including Song Of The Year) as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. The following year, Charlie released his full length debut, the platinum-certified Nine Track Mind, which spawned a remarkable three multi-platinum certified singles in “One Call Away,” “Marvin Gaye (feat. Meghan Trainor),” and “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez).”
YouTube Music is the presenting sponsor of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2019.”

“Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019” is produced by dick clark productions with Ryan Seacrest, Barry Adelman and Mark Bracco serving as executive producers. Larry Klein is producer.

The complete lineup airing Monday, December 31 on ABC is:

8:00-10:00 p.m. ET – “Dick Clark’s Primetime New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019 – Part 1”

10:00-11:00 p.m. ET – “Dick Clark’s Primetime New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019 – Part 2”

11:30 p.m.-1:09 a.m. ET – “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019 – Part 1”

1:09-2:13 a.m. ET – “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019 – Part 2”

For additional photos, please visit www.disneyabc.com.

About Dick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions (DCP) is the world’s largest producer and proprietor of televised live event entertainment programming with the “Academy of Country Music Awards,” “American Music Awards,” “Billboard Music Awards,” “Golden Globe Awards,” “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” and the “Streamy Awards.” Weekly television programming includes “So You Think You Can Dance” from 19 Entertainment and DCP. DCP also owns one of the world’s most unique and extensive entertainment archive libraries with over 60 years of award-winning shows, historic programs, specials, performances and legendary programming. DCP is a division of Valence Media, a diversified media company with divisions and strategic investments in premium television, wide release film, specialty film, live events and digital media. For additional information, visit www.dickclark.com.

About ABC Entertainment
ABC Entertainment airs compelling programming across all day parts, including the new dramas “A Million Little Things” and “The Rookie,” starring Nathan Fillion; new comedies “The Conners,” “The Kids Are Alright” and “Single Parents”; and the new prime-time talk show, “The Alec Baldwin Show.” The ABC Television Network is also home to the groundbreaking dramas “The Good Doctor,” “How to Get Away with Murder” and “Grey’s Anatomy”; the Emmy^®Award-winning “Modern Family” and trailblazing comedy favorites “black-ish,” “American Housewife,” “Fresh Off the Boat,” “The Goldbergs,” “Speechless” and “Splitting Up Together”; hit game shows “The $100,000 Pyramid,” “Celebrity Family Feud,” “Match Game” and “To Tell the Truth”; star-making sensation “American Idol”; reality phenomenon “Shark Tank,” iconic “The Bachelor” franchise, long-running hits “Dancing with the Stars” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”; “General Hospital,” which has aired for over 50 years on the network; and late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The network also boasts some of television’s most prestigious awards shows, including “The Oscars^®,” “The CMA Awards” and “The American Music Awards.”

ABC’s multiplatform business initiative also allows viewers to watch current episodes of their favorite ABC shows anytime, anywhere on ABC.com and the ABC app for desktop, smartphone, tablet or connected TV devices.

About YouTube Music
YouTube Music is a completely reimagined streaming music service with music videos, official albums, singles, remixes, live performances, covers and hard-to-find music you can only get on YouTube. It’s ALL here! YouTube Music serves music based on your tastes and what’s moving the community around you. Discover something new or keep up with what’s trending. Basic functions such as playing music and watching videos are totally free, but you can upgrade to YouTube Music Premium to explore the world of music ad-free, offline, and with the screen locked. Available on mobile and desktop. For additional information, visit www.youtube.com/musicpremium.