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    Alice Eve Leads Horror 'Queen Mary' and Ariana Greenblatt Joins Game Adaptation 'Borderlands'

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    The ‘Iron Fist’ actress has been cast for an upcoming horror movie while the ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ has been added to a big-screen take on a popular video game.

    Mar 3, 2021
    AceShowbiz – Alice Eve is to star in horror movie “The Queen Mary”.
    The 39-year-old actress has boarded the flick which is being directed by Gary Shore from a script he has written with Stephen Oliver and Tom Vaughan. It is hoped the project will be the first of a planned trilogy.
    Plot details on the film are being kept under wraps but it is inspired by tales of haunting on the famed ocean liner that is now permanently docked in California. The multi-storied ship receives two million visitors per year and was named Time magazine’s most haunted place in the world.
    Mali Elfman is producing the movie alongside Mark Tomberlin and Jordan Rambis who are executive producing for Imagination Design Works.
    In a statement, Tomberlin said, “We were immediately obsessed with Gary’s intelligent and twisted multi-film take on a great American legend and could not be more excited working with an extremely gifted actor in bringing this story to audiences around the world.”
    Alice’s previous credits include the TV series “Belgravia” and she is currently shooting “The Power” for Amazon Studios.
    Meanwhile, Ariana Greenblatt has joined the cast of “Borderlands”.

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    The 13-year-old actress – who appeared as young Gamora in “Avengers: Infinity War” – has been signed up to play Tiny Tina in director Eli Roth’s upcoming big screen video game blockbuster adaptation.
    “Ariana is a spectacular new talent in cinema,” the filmmaker said. “She has already worked with many of my close collaborators and everyone raves about her. She blew us all away in her audition, and I cannot wait to see her bring the wild, insane and unpredictable Tiny Tina to the big screen.”
    “She’s going to blow up onscreen like one of Tina’s grenades.”
    In the game franchise, the explosives expert’s parents were sold to Hyperion as guinea pigs for genetic experiments, which cost them their lives.
    Once Tiny Tina – who was introduced in “Borderlands 2” – has escaped Hyperion’s reach, she decided to get revenge on Flesh-Stick, who is the man who sold her family.
    The film is set in the future when four “vault hunters” travel to the planet Pandora on a mission to hunt down an alien vault said to contain advanced technology.
    Greenblatt – who is also set to appear in the likes of “65”, “In the Heights”, and “Awake” – will be part of a stellar cast, with Lionsgate assembling an all-star line-up for the big budget movie.
    Cate Blanchett is lined up to play thief Lilith while “Jumanji” co-stars Kevin Hart and Jack Black reunite as soldier Roland and sarcastic robot Claptrap, and Jamie Lee Curtis has been cast as archaeologist Tannis.

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    Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and What Popular Culture Wants to Believe

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookWoody Allen, Mia Farrow and What Popular Culture Wants to BelieveThe new HBO documentary revisits a 1990s scandal. What viewers take away from it may depend on the stories they trust about women and why.The family in happier days, with Woody Allen, third from left, and Mia Farrow, far right.Credit…HBOMarch 2, 2021Updated 4:45 p.m. ETThere are two stories. In one, a father molests his 7-year-old daughter. In the other, a mother coaches that daughter to falsely accuse the father. These stories, one proposed by Mia Farrow and her advocates, one by Woody Allen and his, clearly contradict each other. No sane person can accept both. Crucially, only one lets you feel mostly OK about watching “Annie Hall” again.I was a teenager in 1992 when this particular scandal broke, so I experienced them through the cracked prism of gender narratives absorbed from the movies and shows and stealthily read supermarket tabloids of the day: That a woman should be pretty but not too pretty, sexy but not too sexy, smart but not too smart, empowered but mostly in a way that means wearing boob-forward dresses and high heels — but for you! because you want to! — and doesn’t trespass on any actual power. A fun fact about high heels: They make it harder to run away. There were limitless ways, the culture informed me, that a woman could get it wrong — “it” being her body, her career, her accusations of abuse.I can still remember an article, probably from The National Enquirer, that pitted celebrity women against one another according to their knees. The only star with acceptable ones? The “Entertainment Tonight” host Mary Hart. Her knees are truly lovely, the article read.I thought about these narratives while watching — twice, in a “Clockwork Orange,” eyes-clamped-open kind of way — “Allen v. Farrow.” A four-part documentary by Amy Ziering, Kirby Dick and Amy Herdy, now on HBO, it centers on one of the more involuted scandals of the early ’90s, the breakdown of the relationship between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow and the accusations and counteraccusations and custody trial and appeals that followed. The couple met in 1979. They had a child together in 1987, Ronan Farrow (who changed his name from Satchel). In 1991, Allen formally adopted Mia Farrow’s two youngest children, Dylan, the daughter who has accused him of abuse, and Moses.Moses Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen in a scene from the documentary.Credit…HBOIn January 1992, Farrow discovered explicit Polaroids that Allen had taken of another of her daughters, her eldest, Soon-Yi Previn, then 21. That August, Dylan Farrow has said, she was abused when Allen was alone with her for perhaps 20 minutes during his visit to Mia Farrow’s home in Connecticut. Concerned by reports from babysitters and by statements that Dylan allegedly made, Farrow took the child to a pediatrician. The pediatrician reported the suspected abuse to law enforcement. Allen sued for custody. A criminal investigation began. The news media chronicled it all with the kind of fervid enthusiasm you mostly see in circus parades. (Allen has consistently denied the accusations.)Dick and Ziering’s previous work includes “The Invisible War,” an exposé of sexual assault in the military, and “The Hunting Ground,” which addressed assault on college campuses. Their last film, “On the Record,” explored allegations against the music producer Russell Simmons. (He has denied all accusations of nonconsensual sex.) So no, “Allen v. Farrow” isn’t exactly evenhanded. Then again, in cases of abuse allegations, is even-handedness exactly what we want?Allen and Soon-Yi Previn declined to participate in the series, recently arguing, via a spokesperson, that the filmmakers hadn’t given them enough notice. Not that Allen has made his own case particularly well. In a 1992 news conference he appears whiny, aggrieved. Later, in a “60 Minutes” interview, he says that he couldn’t possibly have abused his child in that moment, because it would have been “illogical.” Is this how most men approach predation? With careful pro-and-con lists? (Also, here’s the title of Allen’s 2015 movie about a murderous professor who sleeps with his young student? “Irrational Man.”)The documentary shows evidence supporting Allen, chiefly a report from the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which concluded that Dylan was either fantasizing or had been coached by her mother. On the other side is the testimony, in court and for the camera, of babysitters, family friends and Dylan herself. The judge in the custody trial ultimately labeled Allen’s behavior “grossly inappropriate.”Dylan, left, and Ronan Farrow with Woody Allen, who has called the documentary “shoddy.”Credit…HBOBut at the arrhythmic heart of the matter were these two stories. Until very recently, the public preferred the one that allowed Allen to keep making movies, movies in which comparatively powerless young women willingly enter into relationships with older, more powerful men.This past summer and fall, as my marriage was very quietly imploding, I spent what little free time I had jogging around the park near my Brooklyn apartment, trying, I guess, to figure out my own story, 3.3 miles at a time. While I ran, I listened to “You’re Wrong About,” an irreverent, stiletto-sharp podcast that often discusses maligned women of the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s — Anna Nicole Smith, Tonya Harding, Janet Jackson, Monica Lewinsky, half a dozen more.These stories run a big-haired gamut in terms of individual culpability, but in every case, popular culture found a way to blame the woman, often to excuse a more blameworthy man. Take, for example, Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate, a scandal that never touched Justin Timberlake. Or Monica Lewinsky, portrayed as a slut, as though that somehow negated the outrageous power imbalance in Bill Clinton’s relationship with her. This recalls another lesson I learned from ’80s and ’90s media: The only good victim is a perfect victim. That otherwise it was probably her fault.This particular narrative re-emerges in the recent documentary “Framing Britney Spears.” That film shows news media at the turn of the century panting to tell a story about a star acting inappropriately, a party girl wilding out when she should have been at home. “Britney: Out of Control,” read an Us Weekly cover. Whose control? Conveniently, the tabloid framing lays Spears’s spiral at her own bare feet. It avoids impugning the people with actual power, the magazine editors and the record company executives who shaped and policed and profited from her image..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Understand the Allegations Against Woody AllenNearly 30 years ago, Woody Allen was accused of sexually abusing Dylan Farrow, his adoptive daughter. A new docuseries re-examines the case.This timeline reviews the major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family.The documentary filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering spoke about delving into this thorny family tale. Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter in 2014, posted by the New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail.Our book critic reviewed Mr. Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic, grappled with the accusations and his complicated feelings on the filmmaker in 2018. I asked Sarah Marshall, a journalist and a host of “You’re Wrong About,” why popular culture likes to portray women as complicit and deserving of contempt. “It justifies subjugating them,” she said. “If women are randomly taken down for possessing what we see as an alarming degree of power, even if it isn’t, then maybe they’ll be more fearful about how they wield it.”Mia Farrow — with her children Daisy, Fletcher, Soon-Yi and Lark Previn — cooperated extensively with the documentary makers.Credit…HBOHas popular culture finally moved on? In a recent telephone interview, Anne Helen Petersen, a celebrity gossip expert and the author of “Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman,” discussed sympathetic attitudes toward Allen, Michael Jackson and R. Kelly in the ’90s and 2000s. “I don’t think we were equipped to deal with stories of abuse at that moment,” she said. Now she sees “a larger shift in our apparatus of language to understand and condemn when it comes to abuse,” she said.We can perhaps trace that shift if we survey the celebrity scandals of the past year — involving Marilyn Manson, Shia LaBeouf and others. Then again, when it comes to gossip and censure, the scales for men and women remain differently weighted. Armie Hammer had to allegedly ask to literally eat women in order to provoke outrage. (He’s denied the accusations.) All Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion had to do was rap about female arousal. A few weeks after they released “WAP,” Megan Thee Stallion accused the rapper Tory Lanez of shooting her in July, a charge Lanez has denied. Some social media users then suggested that the shooting was somehow her fault.The “Allen v. Farrow” series, in part because it sides so unequivocally and uncritically with Mia Farrow, will convince some but not all. Still, no matter what did or didn’t happen in that Connecticut crawl space in 1992, and even though we know, or we should know, that child sexual abuse is frighteningly common and that false reports of abuse are rare, there was one story that our culture believed. Here’s how a now adult Dylan Farrow put it in a CBS interview from 2018: “What I don’t understand is how is this crazy story of me being brainwashed and coached more believable than what I’m saying about being sexually assaulted by my father?”How? Because that story reinforces norms of power and control. Because it supports an idea of women as conniving and untrustworthy. Because making women wrong — for their knees, for their autonomy — is what our culture loves to do. And if a woman like Mia Farrow — pretty, successful, comparatively wealthy — could be exposed as a villain, it becomes that much easier to delegitimize the rest of us, particularly women of color, who are more likely to experience sexual violence and less likely to report it.If you believe Allen, his story is a happy one, at least until #MeToo came along and complicated it. He marries Previn. He makes movie after movie. He even wins another Oscar. If you believe Dylan Farrow, you recognize she grew up knowing that her abuser went unpunished, that his career flourished. That’s a terrible ending. What attitudes would our culture have to sacrifice to imagine a better one?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    For Many Golden Globe Winners, the London Stage Came First

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedBest and Worst MomentsWinners ListStream the WinnersRed Carpet ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookFor Many Golden Globe Winners, the London Stage Came FirstAt Sunday’s ceremony, a whole host of British winners and nominees got their training in the theater before they made it to the screen.At the Golden Globes, the actor John Boyega accepted an award for best supporting actor in a series, mini-series or television film for “Small Axe.”Credit…Christopher Polk/NBC, via ReutersMarch 2, 2021, 1:36 p.m. ETLONDON — Where would this year’s Golden Globes be without the English stage? Greatly diminished. As the winners John Boyega and Daniel Kaluuya (who took home trophies for best supporting actor in a television and movie role, respectively) and nominees like Olivia Colman and Carey Mulligan evidence, a pipeline of talent runs directly from London theater to onscreen renown at the highest levels in Hollywood.Many of the other British winners at Sunday night’s ceremony also got their training onstage. Although we may now know Emma Corrin as the latest person bold enough to embody Princess Diana, Sunday night’s 25-year-old winner for actress in a drama series accrued plenty of dramatic credits while studying at Cambridge. Her “Crown” co-star and fellow winner Josh O’Connor graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theater School before shifting his attention to the screen. He was expecting to make a high-profile return to the London stage last year in a National Theater production of “Romeo and Juliet.” Because of the pandemic, the production has been reimagined for the screen with a notably starry supporting cast, and will be airing in Britain and the United States next month.Josh O’Connor, who plays Prince Charles in “The Crown,” graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theater School.Credit…Alex Bailey/Netflix, via Associated PressEmma Corrin, who plays Princess Diana, accrued dramatic credits while studying at Cambridge.Credit…Des Willie/Netflix, via Associated PressMichaela Coel’s absence may have commandeered attention at this year’s Globes after her HBO show “I May Destroy You” was snubbed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but keen-eyed London playgoers will have spotted this graduate of Guildhall School at the National Theater’s now-defunct Shed theater, first in the all-female ensemble of “Blurred Lines” and then in her self-penned monologue, “Chewing Gum Dreams,” a project she began while still a student. That title was shortened and the work’s concept expanded to create “Chewing Gum,” Coel’s first TV show. Her fiery talent, first seen in embryo by London theater audiences, has now found the larger audience it deserves.On occasion, a small play itself becomes a celluloid sensation. There’s no other way to describe the leap made by “Fleabag,” which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013 and which I caught within the intimate confines of the Soho Theater in London the following year. Before long, its creator and star, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, had found a new and welcoming home for her sexually unbridled Londoner on television.An astonishing success story followed, and when Waller-Bridge returned with her character to a mainstream West End perch in 2019, there were House Full signs from its first performance onward. Before long the show’s second season had also won six Emmys, as well as a best actress Golden Globe for its creator. As a sign of quite how high her Tinseltown star has risen, Waller-Bridge was brought on with much fanfare to work on the script of the upcoming Bond film “No Time to Die.”Phoebe Waller-Bridge received a Golden Globe award in 2020 for her work on “Fleabag.”Credit…Paul Drinkwater/NBC, via Associated PressIndeed, scratch most British TV and film names and you’ll find a theater-trained talent, most of whom are happy to return to the stage and regularly do: Ralph Fiennes, a movie star by anyone’s definition, was quick to brave the London stage last year during the brief mid-pandemic window when theaters here were open. His chosen vehicle was David Hare’s solo play, “Beat the Devil,” appearing as the playwright himself.Fiennes graduated, as have many well-known actors here, from the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The widely shared belief, at least in Britain, is that some sort of stage training sets you up for a profession that demands versatility and flexibility (not to mention technique), all of which are surely useful onscreen as well as onstage. Nor can one deny that theater training here has long seemed like a rite of passage, conferring legitimacy on those who submit to the rigors of the stage.Not everyone follows this path: I’ve yet to see yet another of Sunday’s Globe recipients, Sacha Baron Cohen, on a London stage, though that prospect is hugely enticing, and such actors as Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet seem to have leapt to onscreen stardom without paying this country’s seemingly obligatory dues onstage. (Winslet has done theater in the regions but not in London.)Awards Season More

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    'The Blacksmith' Shooting Delay Forced Nick Jonas to Bow Out of Leading Role

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    The ‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ star initially signed up to play weapons expert Wes Loomis, a.k.a. The Blacksmith, in the big screen adaptation project from ‘Taken’ director Pierre Morel.

    Mar 2, 2021
    AceShowbiz – Singer/actor Nick Jonas has bowed out of upcoming action thriller “The Blacksmith”.
    The “Jumanji: The Next Level” star initially signed up to play weapons expert Wes Loomis, aka The Blacksmith, in the big screen adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name last spring (2020), in the hopes of filming in Toronto, Canada later that year.
    However, his busy schedule forced producers at AGC Studios to delay the shoot, and now Jonas has had to step down from the leading role in “Taken” director Pierre Morel’s new project.

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    “Nick, as you can imagine, has a lot of other commitments, with his acting and his music,” AGC CEO Stuart Ford explains to The Hollywood Reporter.
    “Under normal circumstances, he could fly in and out, go to do things over the weekend, and come back to set Monday. But in a COVID environment, that doesn’t work. He’d have to stay in the same place for three months. With a star like Nick Jonas, it became borderline impossible to make the schedule work.”
    Ford insists AGC executives and Jonas have “parted ways, amicably”, and they are now looking for a replacement to co-star with Laurence Fishburne as Loomis’ mentor.
    ” ‘The Blacksmith’ provides a fresh, highly contemporary new take on the espionage genre and it’s exciting to pair an exhilarating young talent like Nick with seasoned heavyweights such as Pierre and Laurence,” Stuart Ford of financiers and producers AGC Studios explained. “We’ll soon be announcing an equally outstanding young female actor to play across from Nick and then we will have all the ingredients for a major new film franchise built around a very modern breed of action hero.”

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    Matt Damon and Luke Hemsworth Spotted on ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Set for First Time

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    Matt Damon and Luke Hemsworth Spotted on 'Thor: Love and Thunder' Set for First Time

    Marvel Studios

    The roles of Damon and the older Hemsworth brother are likely uncovered as both of them have been pictured joining the production of the Marvel movie in Sydney, Australia.

    Mar 2, 2021
    AceShowbiz – The first pictures of Matt Damon and Luke Hemsworth on the set of “Thor: Love and Thunder” have surfaced online, confirming reports that they will be making cameos in the upcoming Marvel movie. Both actors were spotted filming for the upcoming installment of the Thor film series in Sydney, Australia.
    The photos obtained by paparazzi are also believed to have potentially given away Damon and Hemsworth’s roles. They previously portrayed Asgardian actors who played Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in “Thor: Ragnarok” and it appears that they’re reprising the same roles.
    In the grainy images, Damon and the old Hemsworth brother were seen wearing the same clothes that were sported by Loki and Thor in “Thor: Ragnarok” scene, during which their father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) died. It seems that they will be acting out the death of the Allfather.
    Supporting the speculation about Damon and Hemsworth’s cameos, other set pictures showed the movie’s crew building what looks like an outdoor amphitheater, where Damon and Hemsworth’s characters could perform. Sam Neill, meanwhile, has been rumored to reprise his role as an actor playing Odin.

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    Damon first hinted at his return for “Thor: Love and Thunder” after he announced in January of this year that he’s taking his family Down Under. “I’m so excited that my family and I will be able to call Australia home for the next few months,” he said in a statement to local press, as quoted by CNET, at the time.
    Confirming that he’s in Aussie for a movie project, he added in the statement, “Australian film crews are world-renowned for their professionalism and are a joy to work with so the 14 days of quarantine will be well worth it.”
    Other actors, including Natalie Portman, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista and Tessa Thompson, had all been quarantining before they joined the cast and crew on the set. The Hemsworth brothers, meanwhile, have been living in Australia with their families.
    “Thor: Ragnarok” is directed by Taiki Waititi and is slated for a May 6, 2022 release in the United States.

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    Amelia Hamlin Tells Critics of Her Romance to ‘Calm Down’ After She Dubs Scott Disick ‘Dream Man’

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    Tracy Morgan Jokes About Pizza When Apologizing for 'Soul' Slip-Up at 2021 Golden Globes

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    The former ’30 Rock’ star mispronounced the one-syllable title when taking to the stage at the annual awards ceremony to present the Best Original Score – Motion Picture trophy to the Pixar film.

    Mar 2, 2021
    AceShowbiz – Tracy Morgan has issued an apology after mispronouncing the one-syllable film title “Soul” during the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night (February 28).
    The “30 Rock” star took to the stage at the annual awards ceremony to present the gong for Best Original Score – Motion Picture to the Pixar film.
    However, Morgan accidentally called the film “Sal”, before doing a double-take at the winning name and chuckling to himself as he correctly said, “Soul”.

    Following the error, which quickly went viral on social media, Morgan took to Twitter to apologise for his mistake.
    “Sorry SOUL. I was thinking about the pizza I was going to get from my guy SAL on the way home!!” he hilariously wrote.

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    Tracy Morgan issued an apology for mispronouncing ‘Soul’ at 2021 Golden Globes.
    Other viral moments from the Golden Globes, which were held on separate coasts due to the Covid-19 pandemic, included Jason Sudeikis’ acceptance speech after he was announced the winner of the Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy category for his role in Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso”.
    Looking tired and wearing a tie-dye hoodie that vastly contrasted with the rest of his peers’ smart suits and ensembles, Jason began his acceptance speech by saying, “Wow, alright! Can I talk now? That’s nuts. Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press. To me, this is the coolest thing …. That’s nuts. That’s crazy.”
    [embedded content]
    He continued to make less sense as his speech went on, prompting fellow nominee Don Cheadle to mime the “wrap it up” finger gesture.
    “And Don’s right, I need to wrap this puppy up, never been my forte,” Sudeikis grinned. “Thank you, I appreciate you guys, and shout-out to my fellow nominees.”

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    Lady GaGa’s Dog Walker Calls Singer’s Pet Miss Asia His ‘Guardian Angel’ After Armed Attack

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    T.I. Not Returning for 'Ant-Man 3' Following Sexual Abuse Allegations by Multiple Women

    Marvel Studios

    It has been reported that the ‘Get Back Up’ spitter won’t be part of the cast for the ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ sequel as he and his wife Tiny are facing accusations of sexual abuse.

    Mar 2, 2021
    AceShowbiz – T.I. may have lost a job amid sexual abuse allegations against him. The rapper/actor has reportedly been dropped from “Ant-Man 3” after a lawyer calls for an investigation on the allegations by multiple women against the star, whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr.
    According to The Hollywood Reporter, T.I. won’t be returning for the follow-up to “Ant-Man and the Wasp”. In the first “Ant-Man” movie and its 2018 sequel, the 40-year-old star portrayed Dave, a friend to Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man who helped him on his adventures along with ex-convicts Luis (Michael Pena) and Kurt (David Dastmalchian).
    While side characters such as T.I.’s Dave might have been expected to return, “Ant-Man 3” is still in development and there was never an official confirmation that T.I. was slated to return for the third movie. THR also notes that it’s unclear if the decision to not have T.I. in the upcoming installment has anything to do with the recent accusations of sexual abuse he is facing along with his wife Tiny Harris a.k.a. Tameka Cottle.

      See also…

    Attorney Tyrone A. Blackburn, who represents 11 people claiming to be victimized by the hip-hop couple, is seeking criminal inquiries on behalf of his clients, who accuse the couple of sexual abuse and assault. He sent letters to state and federal prosecutors Georgia and California on February 19. The attorneys general in those two states also received similar letters.
    At a virtual press conference on Monday, March 1, Blackburn detailed the allegations brought by six anonymous women claiming that T.I. and Tiny had abused them, with some describing instances of drugging, kidnapping and rape. He added that he’s withholding the names of the women because of concerns about potential intimidation.
    Through their lawyer Steve Sadow, the couple has denied the allegations. “Clifford (T.I.) and Tameka [Tiny] Harris deny in the strongest possible terms these unsubstantiated and baseless allegations,” he said in a statement. “We are confident that if these claims are thoroughly and fairly investigated, no charges will be forthcoming.”
    The lawyer insisted, “These allegations are nothing more than the continuation of a sordid shakedown campaign that began on social media. The Harrises implore everyone not to be taken in by these obvious attempts to manipulate the press and misuse the justice system.”

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    Prince Philip Gets Transferred Another London Hospital for Pre-Existing Heart Condition Test

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    Biggie Smalls, the Human Behind the Legend

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookBiggie Smalls, the Human Behind the LegendThe new Netflix documentary “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell” captures the rapper before fame, and history, got a hold of him.“Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell” is mainly a prehistory of the Notorious B.I.G.Credit…NetflixMarch 1, 2021, 6:56 p.m. ETThere are only a few known photographs of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur standing side by side, but just one that’s truly canonical. It’s from 1993. Biggie is on the left in a checkered headband, posed tough, toothpick jutting out of his mouth. Pac is on the right, in a THUG LIFE beanie and a black leather vest over a skull-and-bones T-shirt, extending both middle fingers. They look a little standoffish to each other, two people taking a photo they’re not quite interested in sharing with the other.Photos are incomplete snapshots, of course. And Biggie and Tupac were friends before they became rivals. That’s clear from footage of that same day — from their friend era — which appears late in the new Netflix documentary “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell.” They’re sitting at a table together, and Tupac is rapping for Biggie, an optimal audience. Both of them are lighthearted, two young rising stars finding a little respite with each other. As for the photo, a pose is just that.Memory — history — is what’s left standing when all the rough edges are sandpapered down. And in the case of the Notorious B.I.G. — who was one of the most commercially successful and creatively impactful rappers of the 1990s, and whose 1997 murder was a wound to the genre that remains unsolved — history has perhaps been unreasonably flattening. Almost two and a half decades later, the Biggie Smalls narrative (music aside) often feels reduced to a few image touchstones, or even just facial expressions, to say nothing of the generations-later conflation of the Biggie and Tupac story lines into one, especially given that their musical careers told very different tales about hip-hop at that time.The story that “Biggie” wants to tell is about how Christopher Wallace became Biggie Smalls, not how Biggie Smalls changed the world.Credit…NetflixThis fuzzying of the truth is a problem addressed head-on by “Biggie,” which is, in the main, a prehistory of the Notorious B.I.G. Maybe half of the film is about his music career, and of that, not much at all is devoted to his commercial prime. This makes the film anti-mythological, but also far more robust.The first footage you see in “Biggie” is of the rapper, then in his early 20s, shaving and joking about trying to hold tight to looking like his 18-year-old self. A little bit later, he’s goofily singing Jodeci’s “Freek’n You,” a slithery classic of ’90s R&B. For so long, Biggie has been enshrined as a legend, a deity — it unclenches your chest a bit to see him depicted as human.The story that “Biggie” — directed by Emmett Malloy, and reliant upon ample ’90s videotape shot by Biggie’s childhood friend Damion (D-Roc) Butler — wants to tell is about how Christopher Wallace became Biggie Smalls, not how Biggie Smalls changed the world. It delves into the relationship between his parents: Voletta Wallace, who has become a public face of mourning and grief, and the father he barely knew. It recounts childhood time spent in Jamaica, where his mother was born and where much of his family still resides, leaving largely unspoken the way that Jamaican toasting and melody slipped into his rapping.The film explores Biggie’s relationship with Donald Harrison, a saxophonist who lived on the rapper’s Brooklyn block and exposed him to art beyond the limits of their neighborhood.Credit…NetflixIt spends time with Donald Harrison, a saxophonist who played with Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner and Lena Horne, and lived on Biggie’s Brooklyn block, and who had a mentor relationship with a teenage Biggie — playing him jazz albums, taking him to the Museum of Modern Art, encouraging him to think beyond his neighborhood and to treat his rapping as an artistic practice.Harrison’s mentoring, though, is only one part of Biggie’s childhood education. The drug bazaar on Fulton Street, just around the corner from the stoop his mother rarely let him stray from, beckoned him and his friends. Eventually, he was selling crack, and the operation he and his crew ran took in a few thousand dollars a week, according to an old interview excerpted in the film. One time, he left crack out to dry in his bedroom, and his mother, thinking it was old mashed potatoes, threw it out.Before he was offered a pathway into the music business by Sean Combs, then Puff Daddy, selling drugs was Biggie’s most likely route. And for a while, the two careers commingled. Even Easy Mo Bee, who produced six songs on “Ready to Die,” describes driving onto Fulton to see if Biggie was on the block, offering to take him for rides as a strategy for disentangling him from his street business. But in 1992, Biggie’s childhood friend and running buddy Roland (Olie) Young was killed by his uncle, Carl (I-God) Bazemore, in a street dispute, and afterward, Biggie turned hard toward music.By that time, Biggie had already appeared in the Source magazine’s Unsigned Hype column. He’d also participated in a Brooklyn corner freestyle battle (that was fortuitously videotaped) that helped connect him with the D.J. 50 Grand, who he would record his demo with.Biggie with 50 Grand, the D.J. who worked with the rapper on his demo.Credit…NetflixBut even though his career was a spectacular comet ride, most of the parts of the film about that robust success focus more on how he treated his friends, and brought them along for the journey (under the Junior M.A.F.I.A. moniker). At one point, Biggie and a cameraman bust in on Lil’ Cease in a hotel room, undressed, and Biggie immediately turns into a big brother, turning to the camera lens and asking for privacy for his friend. Occasionally there is commentary from Combs, who is almost literally shining, a visual representation of the luxurious life that hip-hop would provide an entree to, which Biggie rapped about as fantasy but wouldn’t live to see.Most of the meaningful footage here is happenstance — a brutal trip on a tour bus without air conditioning or casual chatter in a room at Le Montrose, the Los Angeles hotel, during his final time in California. (The helicopter footage of Biggie’s funeral procession is also deeply moving, framing his death, and life, as a part of the city’s very architecture.)In the March 1997 San Francisco radio chat that’s presented as his final interview, Biggie is already sensing the way in which history will be selective in how it retells a deeply complicated narrative. Asked about his troubles with Tupac — who by then had died, but who had become a vicious antagonist before — Biggie doesn’t sound or look even slightly resentful. Instead, he’s measured, hoping to unravel a tricky knot before it becomes fixed. “Take a chance to know the person before you judge a person — that goes with anybody, not just me,” he tells the interviewer. “Try to get the facts first.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More