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Tag Archives: James Corden

Brad Pitt got political, the Cats cast got their claws out and Eminems appearance left everyone confused

Joaquin Phoenix went full vegan

After Phoenixs speech at the Baftas, in which he said that it was incumbent on the dominant culture to increase representation of minorities in the film industry, many were expecting something on a similar theme. But his Oscars speech went much further. Beginning with the uncontroversial view that people like him should use our voice for the voiceless, Phoenix went on to say that humans disconnection from the natural world makes us feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk thats intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. It must be one of the most high-profile avowals of veganism there has ever been.

Bong Joon-ho ruled the night

The South Korean director ran an Oscars campaign based on gently poking voters about their US-centric worldview. The Oscars are not an international film festival, he ribbed at one point. Theyre very local. His other tactic was a full-on charm offensive, with his interpreter Sharon Choi becoming a star in her own right as she helped Bong navigate the late-night talkshow circuit. On Oscars night, his fanbase the Bong Hive were busy on Twitter and the man himself roused the audience with his tribute to Americas finest: When I was young and starting in cinema there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, The most personal is the most creative. That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.

Parasite, which has taken $40m at the US box office could be a bellwether for a more-outward looking Academy although this is the same voting body that picked Green Book last year, so its anyones guess what will happen in 12 months time.

James Corden and Rebel Wilson put the boot into Cats

The pair awarded the prize for best special effects dressed in Cats costumes and announcing: As cast members of the motion picture Cats, nobody more than us understands the importance of good visual effects. It got a big laugh although probably not in the home of Tom Hooper, the films director.

The In Memoriam section still cant get it right

There was no mention of Cameron Boyce, the Disney star who died aged 20 after suffering a seizure due to epilepsy in June and who played one of Adam Sandlers sons in the film Grown Ups. Luke Perry was another notable omission. The former star of Beverly Hills 90210 died in March aged 52, and even appeared in one of the nights nominated films, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.

Eminems surprise guest slot was baffling

As if to confirm that the numbers up for best original song werent up to much this year, Eminem appeared for no apparent reason and blasted through Lose Yourself, his Oscar-winning song from 8 Mile back in 2003. He hadnt performed it, or even turned up, that year but this time he performed the tune sporting an alarming black beard as the audience nodded their heads with the exception of Scorsese, who merely seemed to be nodding off.

MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS)

Martin Scorsese reacts to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” performance #Oscars pic.twitter.com/ic1XeJPmSf

February 10, 2020

Taika Waititi has broken new ground

First of all, hes the first Mori film-maker to win an Oscar a fact he nodded to when he dedicated his awards to all the indigenous kids all over the world who want to do art and dance and write stories we are the original storytellers and we can make it here as well. Second, he gave the first land acknowledgment speech the ceremony has ever seen, saying: The Academy would like to acknowledge that tonight we have gathered on the ancestral lands of the Tongva, the Tataviam and the Chumash. We acknowledge them as the first peoples of this land on which the motion pictures community lives and works.

cherrywaves (@heather28df)

Yes @TaikaWaititi!!!! #Oscars2020 pic.twitter.com/X8vp4ydgHG

February 10, 2020

Chris Rock is in no doubt on the question of Ford v Ferrari

Ive got both and it aint even close, said the comic at the top of the awards. Its like Halle Berry versus gum disease.

Brad Pitt can do politics

He has been acclaimed all awards season for his witty and charming speeches, but Pitt added some political bite at the Oscars with a nod to the thwarted impeachment of Trump. They told me I only have 45 seconds up here, he said. Which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week.

Billie Eilish made everyone feel old

When asked on the red carpet about the films shed grown up with, Eilish mentioned The Babadook released in 2014. And when Eminem came out to perform a song released when she wasnt even a year old, she could not have looked more bemused.

Lights, Camera, Pod (@LightsCameraPod)

What a reaction to Eminem from Billie Eilish. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/h0eS0ZgflR

February 10, 2020

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/10/like-halle-berry-versus-gum-disease-things-we-learned-at-the-2020-oscars

Clinton joined John Legend, Cardi B and Cher in a skewering of Trump that saw the group read excerpts from Michael Wolffss tell-all book

Hillary Clinton sends up Trump in surprise Fire and Fury skit at Grammys

Clinton joined John Legend, Cardi B and Cher in a skewering of Trump that saw the group read excerpts from Michael Wolffss tell-all book

In an unexpected prerecorded segment at Sunday nights Grammy awards, Hillary Clinton read a few lines from Michael Wolffs bombshell Trump White House expos Fire and Fury. The former secretary of state was the last of several famous folks to appear in the video, in which Grammys host James Corden pretends to be auditioning narrators for the Fire and Fury audiobook.

In the run-up to the video, Corden joked that by next years awards the Trump presidency will have inspired a spoken word album and potential Grammy nominee. Spoofing the concept, John Legend appeared reading from the book, which contains allegations that caused a media firestorm upon its release earlier this month.

Q&A

Who were the biggest winners at the Grammys?

Album of the year
24K Magic Bruno Mars

Record of the year
24K Magic Bruno Mars

Song of the year
Thats What I Like Bruno Mars

Best rap album
Damn Kendrick Lamar

Best pop solo performance
Shape of You Ed Sheeran

Best new artist
Alessia Cara

Read the full list of winners.

Trump wont read anything, Legend said. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored.

His comb-over: a product called Just for Men, noted Cher, who was followed by Snoop Dogg and then the rapper Cardi B, who read the now-notorious excerpt about the presidents supposed affinity for eating cheeseburgers in bed. Why am I reading this shit? she asked.

After a cameo from DJ Khaled, Clinton lowered the book to reveal herself. One reason why he liked to eat at McDonalds, Clinton read aloud. Nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade.

While chuckles from the live New York City audience could be heard upon Clintons appearance, not everyone was amused. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley vented her frustration with Clintons cameo on Twitter.

Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley)

I have always loved the Grammys but to have artists read the Fire and Fury book killed it. Dont ruin great music with trash. Some of us love music without the politics thrown in it.

January 29, 2018

Wolffs book, which has sold more than 1.7m copies and has sat atop the New York Times bestseller list for three weeks, has come under fire for what many regard as unsubstantiated claims and lax fact-checking. Nevertheless, Endeavor Content purchased the film and television rights to the book last week in a deal rumored to exceed seven figures.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/28/hillary-clinton-reads-from-fire-and-fury-in-star-studded-grammys-skit

Carpool Karaoke: The Series is here! The new show, exclusively on Apple Music, just released its first episode, and it stars the Fresh Prince himself. Yup,Will Smith’s Carpool Karaoke: The Series episode is everything you’ll ever need. The video shows James Corden and Will Smith dancing and rapping to Smith’s ’90s hits Get Jiggy With It and Boom Shake The Room, and Corden even gets a marching band to join them. I’m not kidding. This is a thing that happened.

The new Carpool Karaoke series won’t always feature James Corden, though. The trailer for the first season shows the celebrities themselves driving the car with other celebrities coming along for the ride. The trailer shows John Legend and Alicia Keys together, Ariana Grande and Seth MacFarlane, Shaquille O’Neil and John Cena, Billy Eichner and Metallica (LMAO), Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams, Joe Jonas and Camila Cabello, and Corden coming back for an episode with LeBron James.

Further into Will Smith’s episode of Carpool Karaoke, Corden asks Smith a series of questions that Smith can only answer by saying Oh HELL naw in the most Will Smith way he can. Some examples: Awww, Will, let me send you this 12-minute video of my niece at her recital. Oh HELL naw. The best dance from the ’90s was the Macarena. Oh HELLLLL naw. Hey guys, I ordered a pizza with extra pineapple. All right, see, now you’re going too far. Will Smith likes pineapple pizza. Who knew?

The rest of the episode can be seen on Apple Music, but we do get a really great 8-minute version if you don’t use that streaming service. In the extended version of the episode, Smith and Corden crash a wedding and sing I Believe I Can Fly in a helicopter. This show is already everything.

If you want to see Smith and Corden singingtheme song, you’ll have to watch the episode on Apple Music. They just TEASED us with it in the trailer. It’s cruel.

YouTube

At one point in the video, Corden asks Smith if anyone has asked him to play Barack Obama in a movie yet. And turns out, someone has!! Smith revealed thatObama himself talked to him about playing the 44th president.

He said, I talked to Barack about it. (Of course Barack Obama and Will Smith are on a first-name basis.) He told me that he felt confident that I had the ears for the role. PLEASE let this happen, world. We need it, and we need it now.

Now that the Will Smith episode has aired, the only episodethat matters to me will be the one with Billy Eichner and Metallica. The trailer for their episode shows them singing Disney songs and Rihanna’s Shine Bright Like A Diamond, so I’m probably going to lose it watching this.

Thank you for the music, James Corden, Will Smith, and Billy Eichner.New episodes of Carpool Karaoke: The Series come out every week on Apple Music!

Read more: http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/celebrity/will-smith-carpool-karaoke-the-series-james-corden/2040249/

The Late Night host discusses how talkshows became a hotbed of political activism and the terrifying thought he might be to blame for Donald Trump

It is 6pm in New York and inside the NBC building known to those who work in it and those who watch the shows produced out of it as 30 Rock excitement is spreading in one of the green rooms. Blazered NBC pages officiously tidy away coffee cups left by messy guests, while Tracy Morgan, one of tonights guests, practises his lines for an upcoming sketch with his entourage (Im not Tracy Morgan look at my moustache!). The temptation to get up and look for Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon is great.

But this is not a fictional scene from Tina Feys legendary and, in this building, seemingly omnipresent sitcom. Rather, it is the runup to the talkshow Late Night, helmed since 2014 by Feys former Saturday Night Live colleague Seth Meyers, which goes out four nights a week at 12.35am.

In Britain, if a comedian were given a talkshow that airs at 12.35am, it would look as if they were barely clinging on to the Z list. But in the US, it is confirmation that their career is made. James Corden, over on the CBS network, has become (much to Britains bemusement) a bona fide US star hosting The Late Late Show, which airs at the same time, while the previous hosts of NBCs Late Night were David Letterman, Conan OBrien and Jimmy Fallon. As such, it is seen as the testing ground for arguably the highest-profile job on US TV: host of NBCs The Tonight Show, currently held by Fallon, another SNL alum. But Meyers is doing things a little differently from his predecessors.

Meyers
Meyers interviewing Kellyanne Conway on Late Night.

At about 6.30pm, the audience is ushered into the surprisingly small studio. Rule of thumb about US TV: all studios are smaller and all hosts are better looking than you expect, and Late Night with Seth Meyers ticks both of those boxes. Handsome in that unthreatening, clean-cut American way, Meyers sits behind a desk and launches almost immediately into jokes about DonaldTrump (He held a press conference hostage).

Late-night TV hosts, from Johnny Carson to Letterman to Corden, are known for their gentle wit, funny regular slots (Lettermans Top 10 lists, Cordens Carpool Karaoke) and soft-soaped interviews. Nothing to scare the most mainstream of horses, in other words. Meyers, however, is becoming increasingly celebrated for his political bent. Vanity Fair dubbed him the real heir to Jon Stewart, and last week the New York Times described him as the most potent of the late-night hosts. In January, he interviewed Kellyanne Conway, who would shortly become the White House counselor to the president and, in his amusing-but-not-snarky, clued-up-but-not-aggressive style, took her to task about reports that the Russian government has compromising information on Trump. In his regular segment, A Closer Look, he focuses in depth on an often-political issue. Unsurprisingly, for the past few months, and especially since the inauguration, it has been dominated by Trump, and tonight is no exception.

It is racist to assume all black people know each other, Meyers says, referring to Trump telling April Ryan, an African-American reporter, to set up a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus. We dont assume you know all orange people. Can you set up a meeting with the Lorax?

Morgan then enters stage left, signalling the switch to the celebrity part of the show.

About an hour later, I meet Meyers in his dressing room. There is a 1990s Nintendo game console hooked up to the TV, and on one wall hangs the cue card from his final SNL appearance, with shoutouts to him on it from Amy Poehler, Bill Hader and others. Meyers looks as if he has just had a massage, as opposed to just finishing a 12-hour working day, plus an early morning wakeup call from his wife, Alexi Ashe, courtesy of their 10-month-old son, Ashe. On top of the usual rigours of hosting a daily TV show, there has been, unusually, no comedown after the election; if anything, the political pace has stepped up a notch.

Even in 2008 which was probably the most exciting political cycle Iexperienced while at SNL there was a sense of a hangover afterwards. But this time, it has been relentless, and were only relentless in what were doing because [the Trump administration is] so relentless in what theyre doing. So this is all a reactive relentlessness, he says, gloving, as he often does, his political points with aneasygoinglaugh.

Meyers
Meyers during a Late Night White House press conference sketch. Photograph: NBC/Getty Images

Late-night TV has, he agrees, certainly changed in the past decade. Instead of being the thing Americans fall asleep in front of, dominated by fluffy celebrity interviews, it has become the source of some of the most high-profile political activism in the US. Theres Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS and The Daily Show, now hosted by Trevor Noah, on Comedy Central. But these are all cable shows. It is far more unusual for a network host to seize the political mantle, as Meyers has done on NBC, and as Stephen Colbert has done to an initially much less certain extent on CBSs The Late Show. And, for many viewers, these shows have become their primary news source.

I feel like everyone you mentioned owes an enormous debt to Jon Stewarts Daily Show, because I think that started this trend of people having talkshows where they have a point of view that theyre not afraid to share, says Meyers.

But while Stewart may have provided the US TV template for combining entertainment and politics, the truth is that entertainment wouldnt have started to become more like the news if TV news hadnt already turned into entertainment. In a new book, The Daily Show: An Oral History, Lizz Winstead, the shows creator, says she got her inspiration from watching CNNs coverage of the Gulf war: CNN had replaced their fancy reporters with young people, and they were on roofs, and there was a theme song and all this shit. And I just thought: Are they reporting on the war or trying to sell me awar? Winstead recalls.

It is almost impossible to find actual news on US cable because the channels are dominated by hour-long talkshows hosted by people such as Bill OReilly (Fox News) and Chris Hayes (MSNBC) giving their spin on the news in a way that is pretty indistinguishable from Meyerss A Closer Look, but with fewer jokes. Surely this illustrates the dissolution of boundaries between TV journalism and entertainment, to journalisms detriment and entertainments gain?

Well, I speak for my show only when I say were in debt to journalists because were just pulling clips all day long which they made in the first place. We know that a lot of people watching our show havent been watching the news as closely as we have they havent been following hundreds of reporters on Twitter all day. So I guess our goal is to say: Hey, heres what happened today in 10 minutes, and hopefully well tell you in a way that wont make you throw your remote at the television, he says.

According to Meyers, NBC has been totally supportive of the show having a [political] point of view, but as Feys 30 Rock gleefully illustrated, TV networks dont do anything out of a sense of moral obligation; they are guided purely by the financials. NBC clearly saw which way the wind was blowing for US talkshows. Fallon has notably resisted giving his show a political spin, a tricky stance during this particular election and one that nearly undid him: the photo of him chummily ruffling Trumps hair during an interview before the election became the visual symbol of the medias toothlessness with the GOP candidate.

Tina
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton in Meyerss SNL sketch. Photograph: Dana Edelson/NBC/NBCU/Getty)

Meyers, inevitably, defends his old friend: Jimmy had always presented himself as an apolitical entertainer. It would have been different if the interview had taken place on a show that had presented itself as being political, but I understood when it happened.

But Fallon himself seems to feel regret. The week before I met with Meyers, he appeared on Fallons show.

Your interview with Kellyanne Conway was fantastic I had Trump on the show and, er, it had a pretty big reaction, Fallon said, sounding uncharacteristically deflated. Colberts more politically leaning show is currently beating Fallons in the ratings, and Meyers show is ahead of Cordens apolitical talkshow.

I ask Meyers if he thinks its a problem that all these late-night political comedians lean left. Doesnt that play into the Trump narrative of a mainstream media bias?

I dont know what else to do other than tell people what I think to be untruths. I mean, theres that idea of Oh well meet them halfway, but I dont know where halfway is any more. Its like asking someone to meet halfway on a bridge thats already collapsed, he says. But we dont come in saying: How are we going to get Trump today? We come in saying: Whats in the news today? And were now on a 26-day streak of it being Trump-related, but thats not because were out looking for it.

Anyway, he says, their influence shouldnt be overstated, and hes right. After all, these shows all mocked Trump throughout the election and we all know how that turned out.

Except, I respond, doesnt the 2011 White House correspondents dinner disprove his theory? He visibly winces.

In 2011, Meyers hosted the dinner, an annual DC shindig for the media, but this one has gone down in infamy because it was almost certainly the night Trump decided to run for office. Fresh from his birther pursuit of President Obama, Trump attended and was mocked ruthlessly by both Meyers and Obama, to Trumps visible fury.

Someday someone may well write a kind of micro-history of that night, as historians now are wont to do, as a pivot in American life, Adam Gopnik later wrote in the New Yorker.

Meyers
Meyers with his wife Alexi Ashe. Photograph: WireImage/Mike Pont

Yeah, that is pretty terrifying, says Meyers with an easy laugh.

One of Meyerss lines was: Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke. Did he ever think it might be risky to goad Trump like that?

No! Not at all! I mean, you have to remember back in 2011 he was really drilling into this birth certificate thing, saying all these things that seem like misdemeanours now compared to all the other [things he has since said]. So I couldnt have asked for a better target, because the best target is someone no one can defend, and he was doing indefensible things.

Could he see how angry Trump was?

No, but when I walked off stage, I had never received so many texts so quickly, most in a congratulatory vein, but also a lot of people warning me to stay away from him, he laughs again.

Meyers, 43, grew up in suburban Illinois and New Hampshire, the son of a financier and French teacher. It was, Meyers says, a super loving and supportive family, which I know is not where comedians are supposed to come from. But Meyers and his younger brother, Josh, who is an actor (Red Oaks, That 70s Show), compensated for their happy childhood by watching Monty Python and SNL with their parents. I think the greatest gift your parents can give you if you want to be a comedian is good taste. Once youve watched Monty Python, you cant watch Full House, he says, referring to the awful 1980s sitcom that launched the Olsen twins.

Meyerss career path has looked almost stunningly effortless. In 2001, he was cast in SNL, a blessing from the comedy gods. But he soon had a collapse of self-confidence, or something close to it.

I was very much aiming to go into movies eventually, like a lot of SNL people. But, soon after I arrived, all these really good actors started, like Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg, and Ithought: If I were casting a movie, Iwould put all of them in it over me. I thought I was an excellent writer, but I knew they were better at acting than me, he says.

To his relief, SNLs founder and producer, Lorne Michaels, made him writing supervisor and gave him the plum job of hosting SNLs regular satirical news slot, Weekend Update. This, almost certainly, is what eventually got him the Late Night gig. Weekend Update taught him how to combine politics and comedy, and so did writing the famous SNL skits in which Tina Fey played Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler played Hillary Clinton. Healso helped write one of SNLs greatest moments, when in 2007 a massively pregnant Poehler rapped about Sarah Palin (In Wasilla, we just chill, baby, chill-a/But when I see oil its drill, baby, drill-a), while Palin herself gamely danced along.

That was my favourite moment in the show, and I always say that would not have worked if Palin had not been such a good sport, says Meyers.

Doesnt he worry that the current administration wont be like that, and he wont even get them to appear on his show?

Well, hopefully we treated Kellyanne Conway well enough so the word gets out that were to be trusted. Id love to have Sean Spicer on, that would be interesting, he says.

Interesting, if unlikely.

Maybe, maybe, he concedes. The truth is, although he would never say it, that with the growing strength of Meyerss monologues and political slots, the guests on his show are almost by the by. I have to assume that [the administration] would be happier if we all gave up doing what were doing and thats why you cant give up.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/feb/26/seth-meyers-i-couldnt-have-asked-for-a-better-target-than-trump

You just HAVE to love Neil Patrick Harris! Everything he is involved in gets entertaining. Like this 10-minute-piece at The Late Late Show with James Corden that is trending right now with already over 1.2 million views.

“Neil Patrick Harris interrupts James during the show challenging him to a riff-off to settle a dispute and figure out who is truly more Broadway. Featuring The Filharmonic on backing vocals.”

Read more: https://www.viralviralvideos.com/2017/01/11/james-corden-broadway-riff-off-w-neil-patrick-harris/

The Late Late Show host, known for his star-studded Carpool Karaoke segments, will take over from LL Cool J, who has hosted the last five years

James Corden will host the 2017 Grammy awards.

The actor and host of The Late Late Show will commandeer the 59th annual music awards, taking over from LL Cool J, who has hosted for the last five years.

I am truly honored to be hosting the Grammys next year, Corden said, according to Variety. Its the biggest, most prestigious award show in music and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of such an incredible night.

Corden, who originally gained fame in the UK with the sitcom Gavin and Stacey, has gained strong reviews for his new incarnation as a chatshow host, winning an Emmy earlier this year for outstanding interactive program. His star-studded segment Carpool Karaoke has been a big success, with more than 2bn views on YouTube.

He also has experience with awards shows after hosting the Brit awards five times, as well as the Tonys earlier this year.

Thanks to Carpool Karaoke, weve all been on some incredible rides with James, and the Recording Academy couldnt be more excited to welcome his passion and enthusiasm for music, both as an entertainer and a fan, to the Grammy stage on February 12, said Neil Portnow, CEO of the Recording Academy. Hes got big shoes to fill after the magnificent run we had with LL Cool J, but James Corden is a commanding, dynamic showman who, we believe, is perfect to host the Grammy awards.

The nominations for next years Grammys will be announced 6 December.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/22/james-corden-grammys-host-2017

The journey to Wednesdays Apple event raises important questions: was the OneRepublic song really about Steve Jobs? And why Sweet Home Alabama?

The Apple event that saw the unveiling of the iPhone 7 and AirPods opened with a short film of CEO Tim Cook in a Carpool Karaoke session with Late Late Show host James Corden. It was just about as awkward as it sounds.

The video of Corden escorting Cook to the event in San Francisco, opens with the pair belting OneRepublics I Lived, which includes the lyric: Hope when the crowd screams out, theyre screaming your name.

Not to read too much into the choice, but is it a stretch to imagine this particular sentiment resonating with Cook, who is not and never will be Steve Jobs? I mean, hes literally about to take the stage at an Apple product launch, and just last year there was an entire film dedicated to scenes of crowds rapturously greeting Steve Jobs as he took the stage at product launches.

After the pair engage in some banter and messing about with Siri, the singer-songwriter-producer Pharrell Williams hops into the backseat, and the trio break into Lynyrd Skynyrds 1974 hit Sweet Home Alabama.

Cook hails from Mobile, Alabama, which might explain the song choice or could there be another element at work here? Lynyrd Skynrd wrote the song as a something between a response to and attack on Neil Young, who in recent years has become more and more devoted to the development of the Pono, a portable digital media and music player that Young would very much like you to believe is a competitor to Apples various products. Is Cook throwing shade?

The video is the most fun youll have watching an ageing CEO strain to appear good-natured all day, assuming that the remainder of your day doesnt somehow involve finding yourself in Elon Musks office as he realizes that someone has moved the blotter on his desk a quarter-inch to the left.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/07/apple-event-tim-cook-james-corden-carpool-karaoke

The Late Late Show hostJames Cordenis back with his most popular series ever, Carpool Karaoke. This time, he drove around LAand sang with pop star Gwen Stefani. As expected, this is today’s most viral clip.

 

Read more: http://www.viralviralvideos.com/2016/05/05/gwen-stefani-goes-carpooling-with-james-corden/