Charles Bramesco
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Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn Are the Sexual Equivalent of Melted Candles in ‘Snatched’ Trailer
The public’s first look at Amy Schumer’s upcoming crime-comedy Snatched came a couple of months ago, when she posted that video of her and her costar Goldie Hawn doing a lightly choreographed dance routine tribute to Beyoncé’s “Formation” and instantly earned the ire of the internet. Somewhat less likely to earn her charges of cultural appropriation, however, is the official red-band trailer for that movie, which Schumer released today in the hopes that she has not yet fallen entirely out of favor with the general public. The people will most likely smile more kindly on Schumer when she’s getting a beverage spat on her instead of putting her face on an anthem for black womanhood — the spit take can bridge any cultural gap, truly.
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Tyler Perry Remaking Korean Body-Switching Comedy ‘Miss Granny’
In what we have been assured is not a particularly lively game of Mad Libs, Tyler Perry’s production company 34th Street Films has moved to remake the Korean body-switching comedy Miss Granny for English-language audiences. This explosion at the Unlikely Nouns Factory comes to us today courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter, who have noted that the popular movie will also soon receive a Spanish-language treatment as well. (All this is in addition to the Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Indonesian, and Japanese versions that already exist, officially rendering Miss Granny the most widely remade film of all time.)
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Chance the Rapper Becomes Chance the Actor With Lead Role in A24’s ‘Slice’
Though Chance the Rapper has been steadily building buzz since his cult-favorite mixtape Acid Rap hit the Internet in 2013, this year is when he grew into a full-fledged phenomenon. He released his third studio effort with the massively successful Coloring Book mixtape, sonned his personal hero Kanye West on the man’s own track, effected positive social change in Chicago with the Warmest Winter initiative, and became the face of Kit-Kat candy bars, all while touring pretty much non-stop. With the world of music now securely under his control, the young polymath has turned his sights on the next form of entertainment, so say goodbye to Chance the Rapper and hello to esteemed thespian Chancellor Bennett.
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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.
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Tyler Perry Wants to Make a ‘Madea’ Police Brutality Movie
There are a handful immutable truths in this life: death, taxes, and the perennial profitability of a Madea film. Over the course of ten plays, nine live-action films and one animated feature, creator Tyler Perry has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that he can make a buck just by slapping on a wig and muumuu and referring to the people in his immediate vicinity as "fools." It's almost as if Perry's fully conquered the world of entertainment, and like Alexander weeping before the totality of his own empire, he now wonders what new challenge might test his powers. Perhaps he's been left to compete with himself, concocting an idea so ill-advised that wringing a payday out of it anyway will be the one true measure of his abilities as a storyteller and visual stylist.
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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.
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Ice Cube and Common to Conduct ‘Barbershop 3’ Town Hall Special on Social Issues
The hottest franchise property this spring doesn’t have any leveled cities, declarations about whether men are or are not still good, or bulging muscles writhing beneath colored spandex...
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Netflix Joins Pushback Against Anti-LGBT Legislation in Georgia
Up until very recently, Georgia was a haven for film productions, the rolling amber waves of generous tax breaks beckoning to crews from Hollywood to New York. That all changed when the Georgia state legislature moved to pass a new bill that harshly restricts the rights of LGBT individuals under the guise of religious freedom. The Free Exercise Protection Act grants any religious official the option to refuse to officiate a non-hetero couple’s wedding, and permits any employer to discriminate in hiring and service practices on the basis of sexual orientation, all under the rationale that being forced to interact with queer men and women in any capacity would violate their religious freedom. Such giants of the entertainment industry as Disney/Marvel, Warner Bros., AMC, Viacom and Sony have all urged a veto to the bill, with the threat of withdrawing all operations from Georgia looming over the legislators.
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Man Arrested For Failing to Return VHS Copy of ‘Freddy Got Fingered’ 14 Years Ago
In precisely the sort of absurdist mix-up that sounds like something Tom Green would come up with, a North Carolina man has been arrested for failing to return a VHS copy of the Tom Green comedy Freddy Got Fingered 14 years ago...
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Lionsgate to Cut ‘Ascendant’ Budget in Light of ‘Divergent’ Franchise Fatigue
It had to happen eventually: the post-apocalyptic YA bubble has finally popped, and Hollywood has begun to panic as it realizes that it’s hit a point of diminishing returns. Allegiant, the third installment of the Divergent franchise that was supposed to launch Shailene Woodley to A-list ubiquity and grant Lionsgate another box-office bonanza in the tradition of their highly lucrative Hunger Games franchise, did not perform as expected. That may be putting it lightly, too — this past weekend, the film opened to a pitiful $29.1 million, dwarfed in comparison against the film’s bloated $110 million budget.
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‘Walking Dead’ Star Steven Yeun Set For Indie Thriller ‘Mayhem’
On The Walking Dead, an actor never knows when it’s going to be his last week on set. It sure looked like Glenn Rhee (played by Steven Yeun) was out of the picture when he was covered by an entire horde of zombies in the most recent season, but then he wasn’t, somehow. But he could’ve been! And in that moment, Yeun (probably) realized just how precarious his spot on the cult-hit show really was, liable to evaporate with a few keystrokes out of the writers’ room. He began to make plans to ensure that he’d be secure in the event of a Walking Dead-less future, and today, those plans have solidified into a new movie role for the in-demand actor.
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Michael Mann Launches Book Imprint, Will Release ‘Heat’ Prequel
Michael Mann has always been a skilled translator of prose to the screen, having adapted such literary standards as The Last of the Mohicans, Manhunter, and Collateral for moviegoers too cool to be bothered to crack open a book, because reading is for nerds...
