Material Girl Gets Back in the Groove

Pushing 50, Madonna is still rolling out movies and tunes like a true blue star, Vanity Fair reports. And she is unfazed by nasty reviews for Filth and Wisdom, a feature that she directed starring a Ukrainian gypsy punk singer. “You have to get to a point where you care as little about getting smoke blown up your ass as you do when you become a whipping boy in the press,” she said.

Her new documentary, I Am Because We Are, looks at AIDS-ravaged Malawi, where she adopted a third child in 2006. And on a new pop record, Hard Candy, she teamed up with Gen-Y phenoms Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams. “I went, ‘I like that guy and I like that guy,’” she said. “It’s not like we hit it off right away. Writing is very intimate.” (More Madonna stories.)