Film
R.I.P. Geno Silva, Scarface Actor Dead at 72
Geno Silva, the veteran character actor best known for playing the hitman who kills Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Scarface, has died at the age of 72. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Silva died on May 9th at his home in Los Angeles due to complications from dementia. Over the course of his four-decade career, Silva appeared in films including Tequila Sunrise, Mulholland Drive, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. On television, his credits included episodes of Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, Walker, Texas Ranger, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Alias. But Silva will, without a doubt, be best remembered for playing The Skull, Alejandro Sosa’s silent chief assassin who shoots Tony Montana in the back at the end of Scarface. Revisit the scene in question below. Silva’s family is asking that donati...
R.I.P. Lynn Shelton, Acclaimed Indie Filmmaker Dead at 54
Lynn Shelton, acclaimed independent filmmaker of Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, and last year’s Sword of Trust, passed away in Los Angeles on Friday. She was 54. Shelton’s longtime publicist Adam Kersh confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that she died as a result of a previously unidentified blood disorder. Born in Ohio, Shelton attended Oberlin College before going on to study Drama at Seattle’s University of Washington. She continued exploring the arts in New York City, receiving a Master’s of Fine Arts in photography and related media at the School of Visual Arts. After cutting her teeth as a film editor in the industry, Shelton began setting the template for the indie filmmaking movement of the aughts. Her 2006 debut We Go Way Back turned heads at that year’s Slamdance Festival, but it...
Fred Willard Tributes: Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Steve Carell & More Honor Comedy Legend
This afternoon brought the sad news of Fred Willard’s passing at the age of 86. The beloved comic and actor was a frequent presence on movie theater and television screens for more than 40 years, and his witty, satirical brand of comedy led to many memorable roles. From film roles in Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and Anchorman, to TV spots on Rosanne, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Modern Family, Willard left a lasting legacy that will not soon be forgotten. As news of his death spread on Saturday, Willard’s former co-stars and friends posted tributes to social media. Jamie Lee Curtis, the wife of Willard’s longtime collaborator Christopher Guest, was one of the first people to confirm his passing. “How lucky that we all got to enjoy Fred Willard’s gifts,” she wrote. “Thanks for th...
R.I.P. Fred Willard, Beloved Comic and Actor Dead at 86
Fred Willard, the beloved comic and actor who kept Hollywood laughing with roles in This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and Anchorman, has died at the age of 86. Willard’s daughter, Hope, told The Hollywood Reporter that her father passed “very peacefully” from natural causes. “He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end. We loved him so very much! We will miss him forever,” Hope added. A native of Shaker Heights, Ohio, Willard began pursuing comedy in the 1950s, following a brief tenure in the US Army. He was initially part of a comedy duo with Vic Grecco, performing in clubs in New York’s Greenwich Village. He later moved to Chicago and became a member of the city’s legendary comedy troupe, Second City...
Bruce Willis Wears Original Armageddon Suit to Save Us
Cue up the Aerosmith, Bruce Willis is dialing things back to Summer 1998. On Thursday, the blockbuster star waxed nostalgic amidst quarantine by dusting off his trademark orange jump suit from Michael Bay’s Armageddon. His daughter Rumer Willis, posted the hilarious photo on her Instagram, writing, “He said this is ‘His saving the [world] outfit’ (Actual one from Armageddon).” She also added an appropriate hashtag: “#ThisManIsADamnLegend.” Not gonna lie, it’s good seeing Harry Stamper back in action, particularly after he saved the world at the end there on that nasty asteroid. As you’ll see below, Willis is in true action star mode, too, and his eyes say it all: “Back off, Covid.” Here’s hoping he dusts off the Hudson Hawk hat next week.
Timothy Olyphant Joins The Mandalorian Season 2
The Force is strong with Timothy Olyphant. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Deadwood star has joined the Star Wars galaxy by signing on for the second season of Disney+’s The Mandalorian. As of publication, there’s no word on who he’ll be playing, but given Olyphant’s hunky looks and trademark wit, we’re kind of, maybe, okay, we totally are, hoping he’s playing Dash Rendar from Shadows of the Empire. That may be wishful thinking, but seeing how we’re seeing Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano and Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett, it’s not exactly out of the question. At the very least, it would connect that Star Wars legend. Whatever the case, Olymphant joins a stacked cast that also includes The Terminator and Aliens star Michael Biehn in an undisclosed role. We’ll also take Biehn as Renda...
Star Wars Fan Turns Roomba Into Working R2-D2 and Reveals His Jedi Secrets: Watch
Move aside DJ Roomba, there’s a new housekeeper in town. A total Jedi Knight of a Star Wars fan has reworked Roomba technology to build himself his own R2-D2 machine (which he’s calling R9-D9) — and, yes, it’s the droid we’re looking for. It sweeps. It mops. It even talks. What’s more, it can be yours. The man in question — filmmaker Matthew Scott Hunter — created a complete video breakdown on how he designed the thing using household items and materials. Editors’ Picks Essentially, he took his R2-D2 garbage can, inserted a fan motor for head movements, and added a Bluetooth speaker so it could talk. He even designed the thing to be remotely controlled, which should come in handy when it gets pesky as droids do. Okay, so it’s not exactly a Lego set, and may prove rather difficult for...
Scoob! Is The Avengers of Hanna-Barbera Movies: Review
A New Mystery: Following a prologue that shows how Shaggy (Will Forte), Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), Fred (Zac Efron), and Velma (Gina Rodriguez) met and formed Mystery Incorporated, the film flashes forward 10 years as the gang is trying to find funding for their new base of operations. They are approached by potential investor Simon Cowell (yes, really), who refuses to fund the group after declaring Shaggy and Scooby inessential to the team. Soon after, the teenage hippie and his dog are attacked by a squadron of chainsaw-wielding robots before they are saved by the Falcon Fury and its inhabitants: Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg), Dee Dee Sykes (Kiersey Clemmons) and Dynomutt (Ken Jeong). Together, they are trying to find the three skulls of Cerberus (yes, that Cerber...
George Miller Announces Mad Max: Fury Road Prequel with Young Furiosa
In a recent interview with the New York Times, apocalypse auteur George Miller officially announced his next Mad Max movie. But while it will tell the story of Furiosa from 2015’s Fury Road, it will not star Charlize Theron. That’s in part because, as Theron herself hinted at way back in 2017, the expected sequel is actually a prequel. Miller and his co-writer Nick Lathouris wrote a draft of the prequel even before Fury Road had started filming, along with extensive backstories for every character from the villainous Immortan Joe to Doof Warrior with his flamethrower guitar. But even then, Furiosa had captured Miller’s imagination, although at the time he saw the prequel script as an actor’s aid. “It was purely a way of helping Charlize and explaining it to ou...
Tom Hardy’s Best 10 Movie Performances
Tom Hardy is one of Hollywood’s last old-fashioned movie stars — a big, magnetic leading man of the school of Marlon Brando and Orson Welles. He’s a performer of incredible subtlety and teeth-gnashing intensity in the same breath, drawing pools of weary wisdom from his big, soulful eyes one minute before screaming in a goofy accent in the next. Hardy has the capacity to be both menacing and sweet, pained and predatory; despite the go-for-broke marquee madness that usually follows him, one often misses that Hardy’s bluster goes hand in hand with a wounded vulnerability. Of course, like Nicolas Cage before him, Hardy (at least in his perception to the general public) is more meme than man, the finely-tuned layers of his performances hidden behind layers of prosthetics or that ever-present ma...
Luca Guadagnino Says Hello to Universal’s Scarface Remake
Luca Guadagnino will soon prove the world is his. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Call Me By Your Name filmmaker has signed on to direct Universal’s long-gestating remake of Scarface. It gets better: Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the latest draft of the screenplay, topping a laundry list of contributors that includes Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Miss Balla), Jonathan Herman (Straight Outta Compton), and Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show), among others. The story will reportedly be set in Los Angeles. Guadagnino is no stranger to the remake game, having helmed the rather superb reimagining of Dario Argento’s Suspiria back in 2018. Editors’ Picks This marks the third take on Scarface, following Howard Hawks’ Chicago-set original in 1932 and Brian De Palma’s Miami-set remake in 1983 starring Al ...
Center Stage Gave Us Zoe Saldana, Mandy Moore, and the Dance Film of a Generation
On May 12, 2000 many lives were changed forever. But most of us didn’t know it, because we were too young to get ourselves to a movie theater without a ride from our parents. On May 12, 2000, the motion picture Center Stage came to theaters. The teen movie focuses on Jody Sawyer and her fellow students at the American Ballet Academy (ABA). Only the best of the best get in, and every student is fighting for a spot in the company. Unfortunately Jody has bad feet, but is reluctantly accepted into the school because of her stage presence. Along the way, Jody discovers jazz, and has a romantic relationship with Cooper Nielsen, the male star of the company and teacher. In that a man helps a woman discover jazz, it’s sort of like La La Land, but more deserving of accidentally being announced as t...