Beauty & the Beast continues to be a cash machine for Disney Corp, already at nearly $700 million worldwide. Power Rangers fared the best of the new releases with a stronger than expected opening. Was that nostalgia driven or just people in the mood for campy schlock? My friends and I headed to the theater after a few drinks because we figured we shouldn't see it sober...
What did you see this weekend besides Emma Watson twirling in that yellow gown? Disney spent $160 million making the movie and probably another huge chunk of millions promoting it but they were rewarded with stacks and stacks of gold. It nearly became the top grossing movie of the year (thus far) in a single weekend!
Since I'd already seen the Disney musical, I spent the weekend with a revisit of Grease 2 (more on that soon) as well as some DVR catch up (I will miss you when you're gone Real O'Neals -especially you Martha Plimpton and Matt Oberg). And yes I also tried with Iron Fist but it became white noise in the background as it was too dull to focus sole attention on. Identity politics aside, Finn Jones + the script are the biggest problems as there is so much filler and the hero is the least likeable character on the show, insufferably selfish and quite dumb. Shut up about your chi already, we get it! I found myself actually rooting for the douchey pseudo brother Ward Beachum (Tom Pelphrey). The Netflix series only comes alive when it focuses on side characters, whether they're good (Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing), evil (Wai Ching Ho reprising her delicious Daredevil villain Madame Gao) or somewhere on the what-are-they-up-to spectrum (the always reliable David Wenham as Harold Meachum)
TOP WIDE 01 Beauty & The Beast$170 NEWReview 02 Kong Skull Island$28.8 (cum. $110.1) Review 03 Logan$17.5 (cum. $184) Review 04 Get Out$13.2 (cum. $133.1) Review 05 The Shack$6.1 (cum. $42.6)
TOP LIMITED 01 The Sense of an Ending$475K (cum. $527K) 282 theaters Interview 02 Badrinath Ki Dulhania$420K (cum. $1.5) 156 theaters 03 A United Kingdom$320K (cum. $3.1) 257 theaters 04 Kedi$275K (cum. $1.4) 120 theaters Review 05 The Last Word $191K (cum. $345K) 94 theaters 06 T2: Trainspotting$180K NEW 5theaters 07 Personal Shopper $158K (cum. $269K) 35 theaters Review 08 The Salesman$105K (cum. $2.2) 72 theaters Review, Interview 09 Song to Song$53K NEW 4 theaters 10 Land of Mine $41K (cum. $245K) 38 theaters Interview
So, people weren't kidding about Iron Fist. It is T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. The pilot never would have been picked up in a normal TV world. More amusing tweets of the week after the jump covering a multitude of topics including but not limited to: Big Little Lies, Tom Lenk's hawt red carpet recreations (I can't believe we haven't yet featured these) and The Matrix Rebooting...
Vanity Fair interviews reclusive legend Warren Beatty. He talks Annette, his trans son Stephen and i09 Forest Whitaker is joining the ever-expanding cast of Marvel's Black Panther movie Vulture Daniel Craig, newly platinum blonde, is warming up to returning to the 007 gig. Money money money. Money money money. ♫Money money money. If you happen to be rich - .......Ooooh -- and you feel like a Night's entertainment, you can pay for a gay escapade.
Antagony & Ecstacy catches up with The Neon Demon and loves it more than he knows he should MNPP it looks like Nicolas Hoult will be playing Nikola Tesla in the costume drama Current War about the fight over monetizing electricity co-starring those actors of endless ubiquity: Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon. The Playlist Guy Ritchie will direct Disney's live action Aladdin. Weird. /Film Boyd Holbrook will play the cyborg villain Donald Pierce in the third Wolverine movie, now titled Logan AV Club Ron Perlman has finally given up his dream of Hellboy 3
Power Man and Iron Fist I don't know how many people who are into Marvel's modern universe of TV and movies knows this but Luke Cage was always paired with Iron Fist in the comicbooks. That's hard to imagine now because Luke Cage has been portrayed as such a loner in both Jessica Jones and on his own show.
I know this because I was kind of addicted to that duo as a kid. When I heard they were adapting it for television I wanted Marvel to quit whitewashing the Iron Fist character. Yes Danny was always white but since he grew up in Tibet and is a master of martial arts it would make sense that he were Asian. What's more the common narrative of the white man being better than all the Asians at the super powerful stuff they picked up over in Asia (see also Dr Strange's sorcery) is inherently a racist trope. We were not alone in this thinking. Apparently the handsome actor Lewis Tan, who will play one of the villains in the show, actually wanted to play Iron Fist but Marvel was adamant that he be white (sigh). So we get Finn Jones in the lead role who is most famous for playing Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers in Game of Thrones.
THR profiles the last living silent star: Baby Peggy who is now 97 years old and at peace with the lost fortune her parents spent The Cut talks to the immortal Bernadette Peters about her diet and exercize regimen. Takeaway: never aging in the past 30+ years is strictly regimented work! Decider Today in TV History looks back at that great Natalie Portman episode of SNL
AV Club Steven Spielberg's career in 30 iconic shots Angry Asian Man the nonsense Asian actors have to deal with for bit parts MNPP The Sebastian Stan Strut THR Have you been keeping up with this Nina biopic drama? The Nina Simone estate is NOT having it with the new biopic starring Zoe Saldana (opening in April). But Simone's daughter feels bad for the backlash against Zaldana Variety R2-D2's model builder Tony Dyson dies at 68 years of age i09 More diversity blunders/handwringing: Marvel is adding an Asian character to Iron Fist but Iron Fist himself they still cast with a white actor (Finn Jones) despite everything about his history screaming to correct the character (the 1960s were a lot different people. You don't have to adhere to fear of creating ethnic heroes now!
Gayness The Advocate Caitlyn Jenner continues to reveal that she's one dense trans woman and hasn't absorbed all the wisdom the LGBT community has been trying to give her. She's supporting virulently anti-gay Ted Cruz for president Towleroad Mark Hamill "Of course Luke Skywalker might be gay". Oh my. Despite being a big 'mo I have to say that I am entirely unamused by this retroactive teasing that's becoming popular from storytellers -- like JK Rowling's thing with Dumbledore. If storytellers are going to have a gay character just have a gay character. Stop being so coy and don't try and take credit for having gay characters when you don't actually have them. Playbill Luke Evans tweets out a picture from a recording session of Disney's upcoming live action Beauty and the Beast (2017) - a 93 piece orchestra! (the movie's getting three new songs)
Sunday, March 26, 2017 at 4:03PM 
