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by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
We could run down the Marvel list of past Spider-Men: impish Tobey Maguire, troubled Andrew Garfield, and they were great. But why bother, Spidey fans, because Tom Holland owns the new web-slinger entry SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, which opens July 7. (Hey, is that Jon Favreau in the background photo above? Yes.)
Owns it along with his co-starts, that is. Those being Robert Downey, Jr., back as his Iron Man/Tony Stark mentor; Michael Keaton as...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
There was a time when Sofia Coppola could be at an awards show and overlooked as a famous daughter; not anymore, not for years now since LOST IN TRANSLATION.
But in her new film, THE BEGUILED, which is a retool of a 1971 Clint Eastwood starrer, she really comes of age as a visionary writer/director. Even in what is considered a remake of a movie based on a novel by Thomas Cullinan, it has a distinctive feel that's all hers. The film opens J...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Who doesn’t love The Hollywood Reporter, a trade paper of record since 1930 at the dawn of American Cinema?
So what do you do when THR lukewarmly reviews a film that is a fantastically written exploration of the interplay between fans and films, between human superpowers and caped crusaders? You write a counter-review, and here it is: this is about co-director Liz Graham and Matt Jacobs’ freshly screened FROM HOLLYWOOD ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Leslie-Ann Coles, in front of last year's mural.
Well, how many times have we heard it? “Ladies and Gentlemen,” even that phrase grates because it’s loaded from a, take a guess? Male perspective. And this is where Leslie-Ann Coles founder of The Female Eye Festival comes into sharp focus.
For the festival’s 15th anniversary, which opened yesterday in Toronto and runs through June 25, Coles may just be tellin...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When most of us caught the Presidential Tweet in late May that included a fake word, #covfefe, that has become the American Typo Heard Around the World, it really mattered that this misspelled rant was aimed at the media.
The 45th President of the United States was, as they say in street fights, ripping all newsrooms a new one. And Mr. Trump has literally gone to town on what he, @realdonaldtrump, and his Trump Administration call the...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
We already know from THE ITALIAN JOB and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD that South African bombshell Charlize Theron can drive the hell out of any vehicle, even with deranged bikers in tow. Now Imperator Furiosa can add a few more skills to her dating profile with Universal’s July 28 release ATOMIC BLONDE.
This movie is based on the Oni Press Graphic Novel Series “The Coldest City,” written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Sam H...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Ever since STAR WARS time immemorial, or 1977, depending on how tuned-in to George Lucas’ space saga you are, there’s been one constant: a massive fan base. In fact, stealing from the tech world, you could even say “all your fan base are belong to us.”
Us being George's LucasFilm Ltd, Kathleen Kennedy his key producer, and every single actor who’s been on board, from Harrison Ford to Daisy Ridley...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
While he has nothing on the elder Douglas, Golden Era Legend Kirk Douglas at almost 101 years old, TCM celebrated the life and career of Hollywood youngster Michael Douglas during a taping of "Live From the TCM Classic Film Festival" on April 8 at the famous Montalban Theatre during the eighth annual festival.
Host Ben Mankiewicz said beforehand, “Michael Douglas has been part of our collective Hollywood consciousness his enti...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When the Academy gets something wrong, well, over a billion people remember. Even if it really only happened once, during the live telecast for Oscars 2017. While we can’t erase the past, we can preserve Oscar 89 as a moment in time in so far as even this year marked an important once-in-a-lifetime snafu in Hollywood history. Next time, we may hear the phrase “The Other Envelope, Please.”
The Academy Is Back, Folks
Time to ge...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Oh, admit it, the team of OG Box Office Ballers Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe in Universal’s new take on THE MUMMY slated for June 9 has definite possibilities, even if Russell Crowe is a wry scale-tipper these days, mostly divining water in indie films. Plus it’s an IMAX® hair-raiser.
Tom Cruise, or TC to friends, is such a hot-button actor for his off-screen activities that it’s almost like a Kevin Bacon game of interconn...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Corresponden
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What is it with ‘ripped from the alt-news headlines’ movie plots lately? KONG: SKULL ISLAND has a hollow earth slash reptilian b-story, even a CIA mind control “Monarch” reference on a briefcase. Now LIFE, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, has a waterborne microbe from Mars mass-extinction horror twist.
While scary stories about hostile life on Mars is a running theme since B-movies in the 50&r...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When the original KING KONG was released by RKO in March of 1933, some of the trade ads included a tie-in between Kong’s big bang box office receipts and the failed banks of the Great Depression roaring back to profitability. It was a nostalgia sell, a heart-tug for a pre-code Hollywood monster romp, the likes and scale of which had never been seen on the silver screen.
In a quick recap, Merian C. Cooper was turned down at Paramount, th...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
"Hello World,” is usually a newbie’s first line of code in programming, but as of Wikileaks Vault 7 data dump about CIA covert hacking on Mar. 7, followed by Julian Assange’s “Press Conference” on Mar. 9, the whole world is actually reeling, as in the wake-up call: Hello World!
But fear not, leave it to the much-maligned Entertainment Journalists to tread where no investigative reporter dare to go.
Later on, ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Today, a familiar face left the Hollywood landscape as TCM host Robert Osborne, 84, died on Monday Mar.6, 2017. But he was much more than just another talking head about movies and movie stars. Osborne came to Tinsel Town from “off the farm,” as he recounted when we spoke about the Oscars history in 2011.
Instead of penning a typical tribute, here’s a real inside look back at a man whose work in show business lives on. Ironical...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Selfie from THE LAST WORD cast.
Never start a headline with a bad pun, and never write your own obit might be two unwritten rules of journalism, but in new movie THE LAST WORD, starring Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried, a lot of rules are broken so let’s skip the logline and go straight to the press conference at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. The timing is key here, because this takes place, Friday, March, 3, in the wake of M...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When the Lebowski Fest comes to Los Angeles on March 3, you’ll see why Jeff Bridges is so linked to The Dude from that movie, but last night for the American Riviera Award in Santa Barbara, folks got to see for themselves. At the Arlington Theater, moderated by The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, it was practically a Love-In. The honoree showed up with his wife of 40 years, “my sweetheart” Susan Geston, and his two c...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When a film hits the zeitgeist like animation WINDOW HORSES, directed by Ann Marie Fleming, you’ve got to pay attention. Usually a preamble isn’t required in a film review, but WINDOW HORSES, voiced by Sandra Oh and in rotation this week at Santa Barbara International Film Festival starts with a funny story.
You’ve heard of President Trump’s Executive Order, known as “not-a-Muslim-ban,” on seven Muslim countr...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Something Emma Stone says in an off-hand way when she and Ryan Gosling pick up the Outstanding Performers of the Year from Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) on Friday night really sticks. Seated beside Gosling, her co-star and co-nominee for the acting Oscars in LA LA LAND, Stone plays with the 20’s fringe on her dress, then offers this insight: “movies make us feel less alone, I guess, that’s what they...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
On Thursday night, when Denzel Washington is finally presented with his Leonard Maltin Masters Award at Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the award hand-off is done by a little girl from the cast of FENCES, in which he stars and directs. This is the movie that has him Oscar-nominated along with co-star Viola Davis, who gives what can only be called a go-to-God, heart-stopping performance. Saniyya Sidney, age 11, presents the honor with ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Mostly what we love about the Super Bowl on TV is the ads, right? Well Scarlett Johansson is giving you one better this Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 5, with a custom TV trailer for her graphic-novel movie-adapt, GHOST IN THE SHELL.
The tagline is: “Everything they told her was a lie,” and no small irony she just left her marriage to French actor Roman Dauriac. Maybe it was over their Yummy Pop joint venture of popcorn stores in Fran...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
No, you’ve probably never heard of explorer Percy Fawcett; he’s the main character of best-seller David Grann’s “The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon." It's a non-fiction rundown on an Amazonian adventurer who found and lost his soul in the jungle. Now, what if you heard Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam is going to come out in a movie as Percy Fawcett? What an exciting choi...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When the Oscars streamed the announcements for the first time in their history this morning, anybody in the world got a glimpse at who AMPAS deemed Oscar-worthy for the 89th Academy Awards. The net result?
You get emails from everybody and your mother about how right, or wrong your predictions were — maybe not the result the Academy expected, but announcing online is here to stay. Meanwhile, what a line-up, and let’s create the hashta...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Okay, so that headline lyric is actually from Frank Sinatra about Luck being a Lady, and frankly that’s just one misconception about women that the movie 20TH CENTURY WOMEN hopes to debunk. That and every notion of gender from conception to girl power to the male gaze to reproduction. This movie is not a “chick flick,” shall we say, but it is a flick about chicks/women/girls, and every other representation of — stealing f...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Octavia Spencer stars as Dorothy Vaughan in HIDDEN FIGURES. Photo Credit: Hopper Stone.
Who knew NASA and IBM would be the corporate darlings of this year’s Oscar race? Or, translated into Award Season trivia for 2017, who knew HIDDEN FIGURES from 20th Century Fox, about three NASA human “Computers,” would run up unexpected numbers at the box office and put stars Kevin Costner, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Mon...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
During Award Season when Hollywood has the limelight, and this includes every major guild and member-based award show up until the 89th Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 26, there is a shopworn practice of splitting the Nominations announcements in the news, setting up anticipation for several different dates for the same organization. For example, today Jan. 11, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) announced its TV, Commercial and Documentary Nominees, wi...
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