Charles Bramesco
Bear Witness to ‘Trumped,’ Jimmy Kimmel’s Very Trumpy ‘Producers’ Parody
Last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live pulled back the curtain on a five-minute rework of Mel Brook’s Broadway tour-de-farce The Producers called Trumped: the Musical.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Acceptance Speech Was the Most-Tweeted Oscar Moment Ever
Each year’s ceremony usually yields a handful of viral moments, little unexpected happenings that catch the public’s interest and make their way around social media platforms. Last year, the surprise selfie taken by host Ellen Degeneres quickly set Twitter ablaze, racking up millions of retweets and favorites in a matter of minutes.
This year’s ceremony re-set that bar, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s long-awaited Best Actor win now the most-tweeted Oscar moment of all time.
USC Study Exposes Hollywood as Overwhelmingly White, Sky Blue, Grass Green
If you’ll believe it, and all it takes is a quick jaunt into the comments section on any major entertainment-news web site (except this one, whose commenters are perfect and good-looking) to make you believe it, there are some folks out there who remain unconvinced that there’s a problem of homogeneity in Hollywood. These folks stuck to their convictions, unswayed by this year’s all-white slate of Oscar nominees that the American film industry has been giving actors of color the short shrift. But even if we concede that there were no performances from black actors deserving of a nomination this year, which is false and not true, what of the fact that a minuscule percentage of annual studio releases feature black performers in headlining roles? Black-fronted films aren’t moneymakers, and a movie studio is a business above all things, comes the factually inaccurate and vaguely racist reply. (See: The Force Awakens.)
Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League’ Begins Shooting in April
Like single-cell organisms slowly complexifying and dragging themselves out of the primordial soup that was early Earth, details on the hotly-anticipated upcoming Justice League movie have begun to collect. Some specifics of the film were self-evidently obvious from the start — there will be a league, they will spread justice, the usual cast of characters including Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) will appear — and some were revealed right out the gate, such as that the Justice League project will screen in two separate parts, both of which will be directed by Zack Snyder. Now, Warner Bros. has set progress on their hopeful Avengers competitor in motion. An exclusive over at Entertainment Weekly breathlessly relates that Justice League will commence principal photography on April 11.
Two Original Song Performances Cut From Oscars Broadcast
In a Variety exclusive late on Friday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced that they had dumped two of the five scheduled performances of the Best Original Song nominees from this Sunday’s upcoming telecast. Ordinarily, the news that the notoriously lengthy Oscar ceremony would be shortened in any way at all would be cause for celebration, but the particulars of this decision should give readers pause. It’s true that the song performances can be the most time-consuming parts of the show, and though they’re definitely the least necessary, it’s some real bull-tonky that the show would appear only to cut the performances without adequate star-power behind them.
‘Star Wars: Episode 8’ Unveils New Cast Members, Teaser, Oh God, It’s Happening
Good morning, happy Monday. Have you settled in at work, shaken the snow off your boots, maybe had a cup of coffee? Good, now hold onto your goddamn hat, because Star Wars is happening again.
How the Oscars Plan to Cut Down on Lengthy Acceptance Speeches
Yesterday, at the annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the organization pulled back the curtain on a new innovation designed to streamline acceptance speeches.
Watch Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Play a Rabbi in a 1999 Indie Comedy
In the 1999 indie comedy My X Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception, Senator Sanders made a cameo appearance as Rabbi Manny Shevitz (which, for all you readers who pronounce the “ch” in Chanukkah, is a wickedly clever pun on the traditional kosher wine of Manischewitz).