Love him or hate him, Spike Lee is one prolific artist, producing some excellent films (Chi-Raq) and some fascinating documentaries (Bad 25). He's also been the center of some critical drubbing, though he's certainly never an uninteresting filmmaker. And he's about to get even more so, as he readies himself to direct the entire first season of She's Gotta Have It, a TV series being produced for Netflix and based Lee's own debut film.
Rob Reiner's LBJ is set for its world premiere tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival, hopefully capping off a spectacular fest that has seen its fair share of Oscar-contenders. The movie stars Woody Harrelson as the acerbic President Lyndon Johnson, who served as Vice President under John Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) and finally became President himself following Kennedy's assassination in November, 1963.
If you wondered what would be next on the agenda for the Breaking Bad team of Vince Gilligan and Michelle MacLaren, wonder no longer. The duo are reuniting for a miniseries about the Jonestown massacre for HBO.
If movies have occasionally floundered in the water in recent years, TV is doing better than ever. Coming to the line-up of potential must-watch is Goliath, an Amazon Studios series starring Billy Bob Thornton as a washed up lawyer who takes on his old firm.
Unless you avoided social media yesterday - or don't have a lot of geek friends - you may have missed that yesterday was the 50th Anniversary debut of Star Trek. That's the original series, the one that featured cardboard sets, kitschy costumes, and the multi-ethnic crew of the Starship Enterprise that has become so engrained in pop culture today.
Alfonso Cuarón is a unique filmmaker. He's done everything from dystopian fantasy (Children of Men), coming-of-age story (Y Tu Mama Tambien), and even a Harry Potter film (Prisoner of Azkaban). Most recently, of course, he impressed with the nail-biting Gravity, for which he won an Oscar in 2014. But it's now been three years since Gravity, and Cuarón has only just picked his next project.
I'm not sure who was clamoring for a sequel to Ouija, but apparently enough people went to see the first film to justify not only a sequel, but a sequel that tells the backstory of that insidious...board game. In the wake of an extended TV spot, we now have a new, full length trailer showcasing some of the scares that you can expect from Ouija: Origin of Evil.
I think it safe to say that many, if not all of us, have been underwhelmed by Ron Howard's Robert Langdon films thus far. Based on the novels of Dan Brown beginning with The Da Vinci Code, and starring the usually diverting Tom Hanks, the film series has not managed to capture the entertainment value of Brown's books. They have, however, captured the author's total disregard for art history and cohesive plotting. Howard has another crack at making something out of Brown's Robert Langdon series with his latest film Inferno, coming to theaters in October.
The adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower into film form has gone through many permutations. This has subsequently worried fans, drawing into question whether the film will be truly loyal to the plot and characterization of King's work. During an interview with Deadline, producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer attempted to address some of those concerns as they traced the film's inception, some 15 years ago, to its current form.