Charles Bramesco
It’s Official: ‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’ Is Titled ‘The Last Jedi’
We’ve got 11 long months to go before anyone will get a look at Star Wars: Episode VIII, so Lucasfilm has tried to pace itself with leaking details of the hotly anticipated upcoming release. Today, however, they dropped a big one: on the official Star Wars web site, a new announcement revealed the subtitle for the eighth installment in what the site refers to as “the Skywalker saga.” The post declared, “We have the greatest fans in this or any other galaxy. In appreciation of the fans, we wanted them to be the first to know the title of the next chapter in the Skywalker saga: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.”
The Onion’s Three-Movie Development Deal Is No Joke
Now that falsehoods have become almost entirely indistinguishable from fact in the American news media, the staffers of satirical publication The Onion can sit back and relax, having effectively taken over the industry they set out to spoof. (Full disclosure: I contribute to the A.V. Club, a division of the Onion media empire.) But instead of resting on their laurels, the originators of ‘fake news’ have set out to conquer new frontiers, having already moved into publishing and the untamed wilds of television. A new exclusive from the Hollywood Reporter indicates that not even the movie theaters of this great nation will be safe from the increasingly plausible absurdities of America’s self-proclaimed ‘finest news source.’
Zsa Zsa Gabor, Embodiment of Hollywood Glitz, Dies at 99
Before the era of reality television popularized the concept of “being famous for being famous,” Hungarian-born actress Zsa Zsa Gabor elevated celebrity to its own sort of art form. She brought her European sense of sophistication to a handful of big-name films as their star, including John Huston’s Moulin Rouge. (The famed director described Gabor as a “creditable” actress.) Mostly, however, she commanded gossip headlines with her flashy and impossibly ritzy personal life. The revolving door of husbands, the uniform of furs and jewels she was seldom seen without, the way she purred “dahhhhling” to everyone she addressed — even offscreen, she was a larger-than-life character.
Preview the Movies of Tomorrow with the 2016 Black List
The wheels of progress turn slowly out in Hollywood. Stars can be minted overnight, sure, but the actual process of production can churn along at an extremely gradual pace; a screenwriter, for instance, can spend years trying to sell a script as it floats around the purgatory of studio heads’ desk piles. As such, every showbiz scribe dreams of landing their latest unproduced project on The Black List, an annual roundup of the hottest up-for-grabs screenplays that provides them with a highly valuable bump in publicity. In recent years, such fine films as Manchester by the Sea, Miss Sloane, Spotlight, and The End of the Tour have all begun on The Black List, and yesterday brought the official announcement of 2016’s lineup.
Fort Worth PD Enlists Empire Stormtroopers for New Recruitment Video
Over the past couple of years, policemen have fallen pretty far out of favor with the American people. The U.S. police force is in dire need of a little PR management, something that shows their sense of humor and gives a more human, relatable slant to the boys in blue.
‘Why Him?’ Red-Band Trailer Touts Family, Christmastime Togetherness, Moose Testicles
The entertainment industry has done Bryan Cranston dirty. His award-hoarding turn as mild-mannered meth kingpin Walt White on Breaking Bad should have cracked Hollywood wide open for him, with high-power producers lining up to cast him in the next big prestige release. But for every Trumbo (which earned Cranston an Oscar nomination, despite plenty of shortcomings), there is a Why Him?, and the soggy prosthetic moose scrotum that goes with it.
The New Willy Wonka Prequel Movie Might Be an Origin Story
We were all so busy scrambling to avert one apocalypse today, we didn’t even see another one rearing its head in the distance. SlashFilm recently spoke to power-producer David Heyman at the junket for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and questioned the Hollywood player about the plans for Warner Bros.’ impending Willy Wonka film. Without making any concrete announcements about what to expect from the early-in-development project, Heyman did drop one rather ominous prophecy when asked whether the script would be a remake of the popular Gene Wilder-starring film or the Tim Burton-directed version.
James Gunn Unveils the First ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Poster
Doctor Strange could come out of nowhere and wow us all, but barring that, it’s been a lackluster year for superheroes at the movies. And as if responding to our culturewide cry for help (or at least a little fun from time to time), James Gunn and the crowd-pleasing Guardians of the Galaxy franchise have returned to get audiences psyched up for the impending sequel, cheekily titled Vol. 2, as if the second installment in cassette-obsessed Star-Lord’s mixtape series. The first theatrical poster is here at last, obviously:
The Hunt for Kate Moss Is Afoot in ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’ Trailer
Like an enjoyable version of Entourage, the cult-beloved Britcom Absolutely Fabulous took an acidic, satirical eye to the world of celebrity and fame. A pair of aging PR agents with delusions of life of the A-list cut a calamitous swath through thirty-nine episodes of booze-and-drug-fueled hijinks in the early ’90s, and now the nostalgia factor has reunited creator/star Jennifer Saunders with her co-star Joanna Lumley for a feature-length movie. It turns out ten years’ worth of aging has only made the actresses and their characters more hilariously tragic, their futile attempts to muscle into exclusive soirees and land new clients twice as disastrous.
Anthony Weiner Collapses Into Self Like Dying Star in ‘Weiner’ Trailer
A real card, that Anthony Weiner. He was an unusually passionate — read: noisy — Democratic representative in Congress for twelve years, railing tirelessly to better New York’s 9th district through planned housing and government assistance programs. A noted proponent of LGBT causes and other urgent social issues, Weiner was well-liked by his constituents. Until the fateful day of May 27, 2011 when Weiner tweeted a photo of his dong-outline bulging through his briefs to a young woman who was following him on Twitter. (Though, c'mon, who hasn’t been there? Am I right, fellas?) It sparked a scandal and stuck Weiner with the stench of perversion, culminating in his resignation from Congress in June of that same year.
‘The Girl on the Train’ Trailer: Emily Blunt Tracks a Killer
Hailed as the next big thing in the lurid tradition of airport paperback that spawned best-selling successes such as Gone Girl, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and a few novels that weren’t adapted by David Fincher, The Girl on the Train arrives as this fall’s hottest release...
‘The Phantom Menace’ Star Jake Lloyd Admitted to Psychiatric Facility Following Arrest Last Year
Revisiting Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, it’s easy to hate li’l Annie Skywalker, the hero-to-be of the film. He says a lot of dumb stuff, mostly about sand, or angels, or whether or not this is podracing. (To clarify: it is, indeed, podracing...