by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent UPDATE: We were way ahead on this one, as The Academy is holding emergency meetings about a vote on all this... On Japanese TV they carried the entire unedited melee when KING RICHARD’s Will Smith crossed from his front row seat at the 94th Academy Awards to clock comedian Chris Rock in a knee-jerk reaction to a G.I. Jane joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, the f-bomb’s flew with an open-hand crescendo to the presenter’s face that ...

Spies in Disguise, Review: Walter, Pigeon and These Guys You might say that being in disguise is an essential qualification of being spies, so why give your film an obvious title? There is a rhyme and reason. The spy in this film turns into a pigeon, no less, upon drinking a serum, invented by a teenager called Walter Beckett, and that is one hell of a disguise! Use of the plural is questionable, though, since there is only one spy in the picture, while the other guy in ‘disguise’...

Gemini Man, Review: Clone arranger Ang Lee directed this poor man’s James Bondage? The man who made Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger--Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi? No, this is the Ang Lee who made Hulk, which earned twice its cost. A VFX delight, Gemini Man is about a clone on a mission to kill a man who is a professional killer, and is also the man he was cloned from. The movie disappoints, with a below par screenplay, and few impressive d...

Rambo-Last Blood: Rambo No. 5 On its last legs, rather last leg, the Rambo series takes one last shot at the franchise, extending its title from the 1982 sample, First Blood. Nobody can quarrel with this confessional finality of the moniker of Last Blood, which could not but be the last poke of the syringe, or a last bow to the bow, in a subject that has already drained itself out, and badly needed a transfusion to save itself. If Last Blood is that transfusion, it is contaminated, for it is ...

Aladdin, Review: Aladdindeed Believe it or not, Aladdin is a one-in-a-thousand-and-one story, part of The Thousand and One Nights (also called The Arabian Nights), stories narrated by a queen called Scheherazade, at bedtime, without revealing the end, to save herself from being killed by her husband, the murderous sadist who kills all his wives the day after he marries each one of them. Disney made an animated version in 1992, and here comes their live action CGI, musical avatar, directed and...

Siraj Syed interviews young film-maker Pratik Rajen Kothari *How many films have you made since your student days and what/who made it possible to make them? I have made three short films plus co-directed one before Hell O Hello. I also made some music videos. Almost all of these are zero/extremely low budget. At the start, people who are instrumental in making it possible are your like-minded friends. I have a very co-operative core team, without whom, I just wouldn't have had the coura...

Focus, Review: Romcom.Concon Romantic comedy masquerading as sublime love tale pretending to be a confidence trickster story... is about as deFocused as it could get. The title is relevant after you have seen the film, but adds to the complexity of the film’s profile before you decide to watch it. Indeed, it is a highly unlikely romcom involving a pair of con persons (one is a woman). Will Smith is a seasoned pro, while Margot Robbie is a bumbling amateur, whom he takes under his tutela...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent   Lara Flynn Boyle & Dermot Mulroney: Seems Like Old Times Last night Lara Flynn Boyle and Dermot Mulroney met up for a one-night screening of the 1992 teen classic WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU in support of The Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), which celebrated its 30th Anniversary by naming "30 Most Significant Independent Films," DAY being one of them. The movie starred some of big headliners before they ma...

WELCOME TO THE COMPETITION! Whether you are a highly developed filmmaker, or have raw talent and untapped potential...by submitting your work, you are taking a significant step towards accessing the very top circles of the entertainment industry.  With Web Series and “home-made” videos popping up in every corner of cyberspace, the internet is emerging as the 21st century way for mainstream television networks to find highly developed, proven conte...

One of the most effective rags to riches stories to hit the screens in a long, long while, "The Pursuit of Happyness" tells the story of Chris Gardner, a man of promose and intelligence who struggles through financial turmoil with his wife and small son in tow. When his wife leaves, he and his son must survive through theft, endless rejections and occasional homeless squalor. A permanent position as a stockbroker with Dean Witter, where Chris begins as an intern, is the only hope he has to pro...