Charles Bramesco
Ben Affleck’s ‘Live By Night’ Achieves Flop Status With $75 Million Loss for Warner Bros.
I‘ve never seen 75 million dollars. It’s more than I have ever had, will ever have, and in all likelihood, more than I will cumulatively earn over the course of my entire life. I can’t really even conceive of how much money that is, the buying power it represents. So the news that Ben Affleck singlehandedly lost $75,000,000 for Warner Bros. with his pricy and apparently unappealing Live By Night has been kind of hard to process. Why doesn’t he have to go to jail? How is he allowed to continue directing movies? This defies all the laws of Monopoly, my lone primer on the ins and outs of macroeconomics.
Anne Hathaway May Get ‘Nasty’ with Rebel Wilson in ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ Remake
The 1988 caper comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a cracking good time, pairing Steve Martin and Michael Caine as a pair of no-good con men fleecing rich old ladies on the shores of the French Riviera. The mismatched duo — Caine’s the image of suave refinement, Martin’s an inveterate ham — team for one big score, but a mysterious rival con artist known as “The Jackal” complicates matters. Also a good time: the Broadway musical based on the film, the 1964 Marlon Brando picture Bedtime Story that inspired Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and now we can add to that list Nasty Women.
‘Wayne’s World’ Returning to Theaters in February (Party Time! Excellent!)
Schwing! Party time! Excellent! We‘re not worthy, we’re not worthy!
The Michael Jackson ‘Urban Myths’ Episode Won’t Air After All
Join me, as we step back in time to the simpler and more innocent era of two days ago: the trailer for British TV network Sky Arts’ new program Urban Myths had just surfaced, teasing a collection of whimsical shorts featuring fictionalized versions of such celebrities as Bob Dylan, Adolf Hitler, and Cary Grant. One segment in particular commanded more headlines than any other, an episode featuring Liz Taylor, Marlon Brando, and Michael Jackson taking a drive through the country in the wake of 9/11. White actor Joseph Fiennes shocked everyone with his getup as the post-skin-whitening Jackson, and many cried foul at what is technically a blackface performance. The late King of Pop’s daughter Paris tweeted that she was “incredibly offended” by the performance and that it “makes [her] want to vomit.”
James Franco Looks Like He’s Actually Trying in the ‘I Am Michael’ Trailer
Showbiz is weird sometimes: director Justin Kelly premiered his first feature-length film I Am Michael at Sundance in January 2015, where James Franco earned scattered praise for his performance as real-life “ex-gay” Michael Glatze. Instead of sitting on his hands and waiting for the film to land a distribution deal, Kelly went right ahead and commenced work on his second feature, the gay porn saga King Cobra, which premiered at Tribeca back in the spring of 2016. “James Franco in a movie about gay porn” proved to be a more hooky angle, and the film was shown in theaters across America this past fall. That bump to Kelly’s profile enabled him to finally land distribution for I Am Michael, the trailer for which surfaced yesterday in advance of its release on January 27. Both debut and not, Kelly’s first film will be his second release. Just a fun film-industry fact.
Visit Pandora With a New Behind-the-Scenes Look at Disney’s ‘Avatar’ Theme Park
Not content merely to conquer our existing world, James Cameron figured he’d build one of his own. This summer, Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando will cut the ribbon on “Pandora — the World of AVATAR,” a new attraction replicating the lush world from Cameron’s immensely profitable 2009 sci-fi film. The director, producer, and heads of construction for the developing theme park all appeared in a new behind-the-scenes video preview that gives prospective viewers an eyeful of what the creator claim to be the most technologically sophisticated amusement at Disney, if not in the world.
You Can Ride the Hong Kong Disneyland Iron Man Experience Without Pants, Super or Otherwise
Hong Kong Disneyland sounds like a blast, but the years to come will most likely make it increasingly difficult for American tourists to access. American visa laws with China could very well change radically under our new President-elect, and beyond that, the whole smog situation in Hong Kong could completely eradicate life any day now. But the good news is that denizens of the glorious nation that is the internet don’t have to get up off our futons to take in the latest and perhaps greatest attraction at the Happiest Place on (the other side of the) Earth.
Robert Pattinson and Charlie Hunnam Enter the Heart of Darkness in ‘The Lost City of Z’ Teaser
James Gray's latest effort The Lost City of Z caused no small commotion when it debuted earlier this year to close out the New York Film Festival. The filmmaker already enjoys a small but dedicated fanbase, and after his 2014 film The Immigrant got all but buried by its distributor the Weinstein Company, Gray's devotees were eager to see what he'd cooked up this time. Among the splashy debuts for The 13th and 20th Century Women, Gray delivered a work of knotted moralities and visual splendor, and those parties present left the theatre with a consensus of breathless praise. Now, we commoners can get an eyeful of the film before its debut in April from Amazon and Bleecker Street.
IMDb’s Top 10 Movies of 2016 List Is… Interesting, Let’s Just Put It That Way
The Internet Movie Database is a fount of helpful information. With a few simple clicks, users can learn who shot the Miley Cyrus vehicle So Undercover (Things to Come cinematographer Denis Lenoir), which sequel in the Hellraiser franchise featured a performance from a young Adam Scott (the fourth one), or how old Taraji P. Henson is (who looks that good at 46?!). As a repository for loose factoids from in and around the world of screen entertainment, it can’t be beat. As a source for critical perspectives on those same films, however... hoo boy. Just take a gander at any comment section for a movie’s page and marvel at the IMDb is the site where rabid anti-Ghostbusters zealots congregated to downvote Paul Feig’s movie into oblivion weeks before its actual release, and the newly-released IMDb Top 10 provides an even clearer view of its user base.
AFI Spreads the Wealth With Their Best Films of 2016 Selections
As December rolls on, so too does the cavalcade of year-end lists. The latest authority to weigh in is AFI, by which I mean the American Film Institute and not the Californian alternative-rock group also known as A Fire Inside. While we may never know which films the quartet behind “Miss Murder” favored this year, the other AFI has released their list of 2016’s ten best releases, and it’s a little more varied than some of the heretofore published lists, bringing in some films with less awards buzz along with your usual suspects of Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, and La La Land.
God Is a Woman of Color (and Has an Oscar!) in the Trailer for ‘The Shack’
What does God look like? It’s an eternal question with which fiction has tussled on plenty of occasions, from the standard-issue “bearded white guy clad in flowing robe” to the off-beat “wordless flower child Alanis Morisette” to the factually accurate “Morgan Freeman chilling.” The upcoming faith-based drama The Shack takes a rather unusual tack in its depiction of the Lord; the film adapted from William P. Young’s best-selling novel splits the divine presence into the Trinity, with Jesus Christ as a carpenter of Middle Eastern descent, the Holy Spirit as a meek Asian-American woman named Sarayu, and God portrayed by none other than Octavia goddamn Spencer. Let the record show — God’s real, she’s black, and she’s got an Oscar.
It’s Real, It’s Here, and It’s Magnificent: Martin Scorsese’s ‘Silence’ Finally Gets a Trailer
Paramount hasn't been historically known for their baller moves, but when it comes to their bold anti-promotional campaign for Martin Scorsese's Silence, game must recognize game. Keeping a major awards horse almost entirely on the down-low until one month before its December 23 release is one thing; when that movie also happens to be a passion project decades in the making from what very well might be our greatest living filmmaker — American or otherwise — well, that's just showing off. A Martin Scorsese movie sells itself, and Paramount has now reminded the moviegoing public of why that is.