Charles Bramesco
Hollywood Studios Considering Early Home Releases for New Films
Almost exactly a year ago, tech entrepreneur Sean Parker (better known as the guy who correctly identified a billion dollars as cooler than a million dollars in The Social Network) fronted a proposed business venture called The Screening Room, a potentially game-changing set-top box through which Hollywood studios would offer their biggest new releases to stream at home the same day they premiered in brick-and-mortar theaters. (With an astronomical price tag, naturally.) Though it gained some traction and support from significant voices in the film community, it ultimately sputtered and spun out. But with the rebirth of spring, so comes a rebirth for this impractical, frightening, cineplex-annihilating idea. (Kinda.)
‘Get Out’ Star Daniel Kaluuya Responds to Samuel L. Jackson Comments on Black British Actors
Samuel L. Jackson has never shied away from controversy. To quote Samuel L. Jackson (as the fitted-cap-sporting, status-obsessed supervillain from Kingsman): “Do I look like I give a f–k?” And in fact he did not, speaking candidly earlier this month about his disappointment in the preponderance of black British actors taking roles Jackson feels should have gone to African-Americans.
Samuel L. Jackson Blasts Black British Actors Taking African-American Roles
Samuel L. Jackson’s a man of many hats: actor, philanthropist, and on occasion, opinionated public intellectual. (He’s also a man of many hats in a more literal sense, owning what I estimate must be upwards of 800 Kangols.) He‘s currently working the press circuit in promotion of his latest picture, the big-budget monster mash Kong: Skull Island, and no Samuel L. Jackson press tour is complete without one or two headline-grabbing soundbites. We thought we had hit the jackpot when Jackson happily admitted to a familiarity with the anime pornography known as ‘hentai,’ but the actor’s buzz-baiting statements were far from over.
So Close: ‘Get Out’ Loses 100 Percent Rotten Tomatoes Score
Armond White is something of a notorious name in the world of film criticism. While the caliber of his writing commands respect from many of his peers, his contrarian opinions and coarse manner often land him in the middle of mini-controversies within cinephile circles. This is a man who got himself expelled from the New York Film Critics Circle for heckling 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen at the organization’s annual awards dinner. This is a man who publishes an annual ‘Better Than’ list of favorite movies, so he can both name the films he loved and diss the ones that you did in one fell swoop. This is a man who could not give less of a damn what you, me, or anyone else thinks.
It’s Official: ‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’ Is Titled ‘The Last Jedi’
We’ve got 11 long months to go before anyone will get a look at Star Wars: Episode VIII, so Lucasfilm has tried to pace itself with leaking details of the hotly anticipated upcoming release. Today, however, they dropped a big one: on the official Star Wars web site, a new announcement revealed the subtitle for the eighth installment in what the site refers to as “the Skywalker saga.” The post declared, “We have the greatest fans in this or any other galaxy. In appreciation of the fans, we wanted them to be the first to know the title of the next chapter in the Skywalker saga: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.”
Lee Daniels Has Some Strong Words for the #OscarsSoWhite Protesters
Over the past few years, the American film industry has been taken to task for — let’s call it the “straight white guy”-ness of it all. Women, queer talents, and nonwhite artists have all come out of the woodwork to demand a piece of the pie currently being gobbled up by George Lucas and people who’d fit his general physical profile. One of the more organized expressions of this sea change has been the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, an effort to shame the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the disproportionate whiteness of their nominee slate. It’d be hard to argue that it’s been anything other than a force for equitable good, but The Paperboy director Lee Daniels doesn’t quite see it that way.
Ice Cube and ‘Hamilton’ Director Teaming for Disney’s Live-Action ‘Oliver Twist’ Musical
O’Shea Jackson Jr., better known as rapper and erstwhile N.W.A. affiliate Ice Cube, has changed a touch over the years. Just last year, his own son reenacted all the partyin’ and sexin’ and gun-totin’ of his dad’s younger years in the biopic Straight Outta Compton, showing how the seminal gangsta rapper changed the rap game with a loaded weapon and a cop-hating snarl. But in the years since his late ‘80s/early ‘90s heyday, Mr. Cube has taken some decidedly un-thug work as the face of the Are We There Yet? franchise, and now the man who once exhorted the listeners of America to f–k the police will lend his songwriting talents to none other than Disney.
Return to Barack Obama’s Early Years With the ‘Barry’ Teaser
Wednesday night’s Thunderdome deathmatch disguised as a Presidential debate raised some compelling questions: Who’s the puppet, really? What makes a woman “nasty” and an hombre “bad”? And more than anything, what in the world are we going to do without Barack Obama in the White House? As the sitting President waits out his last days in office, America has started to slowly realize just how good we’ve had it these past eight years, and filmmaker Vikram Gandhi may have created the best send-off gift imaginable in his young-Obama biopic Barry.
C’mon and Slam Now: ‘Space Jam’ Returning to Theaters Next Month
Millennials: Is there nothing we can't do? We got denim jackets back in fashion, forced a new season of Twin Peaks into existence, and peer-pressured LeBron James into signing on for a remake of Space Jam in the Michael Jordan role. Whether these are good or bad things is very much up for debate, but the matter stands that mid-’90s nostalgia has been a powerful motivating force in recent entertainment business. And now, the millennials of America have staged their greatest coup of all: the original Space Jam is coming back to theaters next month, notes The Hollywood Reporter.
Anthony Mackie Goes From Falcon to Legal Eagle Johnnie Cochran For Police Brutality Movie
Been a big year for Johnnie Cochran, considering the skilled lawyer passed away in 2005. We all thought the full extent of his posthumous popularity spike would be a mention on track one, side one of a Kanye West studio record, but then along came American Crime Story three years later to turn him into a household name once more...