Charles Bramesco
It’s Been a While, But Rick Moranis Is Going to Act Again
Rick Moranis: the guy Woody Allen calls a nebbish, a nervously tittering lead of family films (he lit up millennial living rooms with his Honey, I... trilogy) and bluer comedic works (Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Spaceballs) alike. He was everywhere in the ’80s, but took an eminently understandable hiatus from acting beginning in the ’90s after his wife Ann succumbed to breast cancer. He did a noble and difficult thing by focusing all his energies on dutifully raising his motherless children, turning his back on fame and his public. Though he’s still taken the occasional job — he gave his kids something to love by contributing voice work to Brother Bear — he’s shied away from highly visible gigs. Until now!
Fix a Marmalade Sandwich and Enjoy the ‘Paddington 2’ Trailer
The Pooh-Paddington War will continue into perpetuity, as the public rages over which accident-prone storytime bear is the cuter and more lovable character. But the Paddington side just got a strong swell of support — the newly unveiled trailer for the marmalade-loving Brit’s sequel film has been unveiled, and Paddington turns the sweet-and-simple cuteness up to whatever 10 is in Britain’s number system. Do they use a base 10 number system? We have no way of knowing. But what we do know is that Paddington will get his little bear foot stuck in a bucket, and then a second bucket will fall on his head! Two for the matinee, please!
So Who’s ‘The Last Jedi,’ Anyway? Here’s a Hint From the ‘Star Wars’ Team
For those who engage in it, speculating on the significance of obscure clues in the Star Wars universe has gone beyond a hobby and grown into a way of life. Even something as simple as a three-word phrase — one word of which is “the” — can spark months of obsessive investigation. And while George Lucas’ disciples will have to wait until December to finally learn the identity of The Last Jedi’s title figure, that has not stopped the dogged gumshoes of Vanity Fair from pumping key figures for information.
Michael Bay to Remotely Blow Up America’s Enemies in ‘Drone Warrior’
For better and for worse, Michael Bay is America. His work is loud, dumb but mounted on a scale that all but demands respect, all jacked up on patriotism, continuously tolerant of Mark Wahlberg, easily distracted by large shiny objects, and more than anything, enamored of explosions. Bay’s not the greatest living filmmaker, but he may be the most fundamentally American, and he’s about to make that comparison an eensy bit more literal with a new project focused on the nasty business of war. Specifically, that newest and most unsettling form of automated combat, drone warfare.
Elizabeth Banks-Led ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Reboot Now Slated for Summer 2019
As noted in a new item at Variety today, Sony has been on something of a roll when it comes to getting female talent behind the camera. They’ve put together a respectable slate of films directed by women: Catherine Hardwicke was tapped to translate narco thriller Miss Bala for American audiences, Broad City mastermind Lucia Aniello wrote-directed the upcoming bachelorette-shenanigans comedy Rough Night, Michelle MacLaren landed the Sam Claflin-led thriller Nightingale, and perhaps most intriguingly of all, Elizabeth Banks has taken her next directorial project with a reboot of Charlie’s Angels. And for the latter two, today brings concrete news of impending developments.
‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ Now Poised to Lose $150 Million
The latest addition to the pantheon of mega-flops has been christened. Just as street hooligan Arthur instantly ascended to royalty when he pulled Excalibur from its stone, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword has descended to ignominy by pulling a turd out of the box-office. Perhaps not my best lede work, but it’s Monday. Cut a guy some slack.
Snap Your Elastic Waistband In Time With Weird Al’s ‘Captain Underpants’ Theme Song
Serious question: does any single entertainer have such complete dominion over their chosen field as Weird Al Yankovic wields over the song parody? Skeptics may scoff that musical spoofery is a stupid thing to become really, really, virtuosically good at, but the point stands that Yankovic has completely and totally mastered his preferred art form. So when the producers behind the upcoming film adaptation of the Captain Underpants chapter book series needed to find a talent for their theme music, of course their choice was obvious. In no insignificant way, Weird Al Yankovic was born to write a peppy pop tune about tightened-whiteys.
Scientists Name New Species of Dinosaur After Zuul of ‘Ghostbusters’
We owe a lot to scientists — they cured polio, got us on the moon, and they‘re doing their darnedest to stop us from methodically killing the planet. But man, what a bunch of nerds. It seems like every time biologists discover a new species of animal and need to give it a name, they take the opportunity to bust out a reference to their favorite bit of geek-approved pop culture. Lest we forget the velvet worm named after My Neighbor Totoro, and we’d be remiss to overlook the euglossa bazinga, a rare bee with a Big Bang Theory catchphrase as its namesake. And it appears that now the nerds are at it again.
‘Beauty and the Beast’ Is Now the Highest-Grossing PG Movie of All Time
We‘ve only just entered May, but in the first few months of 2017, the year has yielded a surprisingly eclectic array of blockbusters. Survey the biggest earners to date, and you’ll see a socially critical horror flick from a first-time director, a spin-off based on a cross-property licensing deal within a corporate brand expansion, and a tough-as-nails superhero side project with post-apocalyptic Western overtones. The latest Fast and Furious installment looks most at home in the top five so far, but more unexpected still is that it’s been handily defeated by the year’s top earner, Disney’s handsomely mounted revival of Beauty and the Beast. And now, the unlikely box-office behemoth has claimed another record.
In Good News for Sitcoms (and Workers’ Rights), the WGA Isn’t Striking After All
In case you weren’t aware, a pretty major situation has been percolating in the entertainment industry over the past month. Unsatisfied with the conditions of their work and continued employment, the Writers’ Guild of America went to the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers to renegotiate the terms of their collective contract. A bitter standoff summarily broke out, with the possibility of another writers’ strike — you may remember the last freeze-out, which stretched from late 2007 into early 2008 — looming on the horizon. Today brings a resolution to the saga of the last few weeks, and in true Hollywood fashion, everyone’s getting a happy ending.