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Big George Foreman is a film directed by George Tillman Jr. starring Khris Davis.

Some movies simply wait for a great story to do all the work.

Foreman’s life was quite a story.

We can’t say the same for the film.

Movie Review

Some said the voiceover was anti-cinematic, and it was Scorsese (among others) who denied it film after film. This Big George Foreman wants to have a lot of Scorsese without achieving his pace, effectiveness and, above all, grace, and narrative freshness.

Big George Foreman is a film that resorts, at all times, to the obvious, to direct compassion, to that piece of American History a thousand times told in a thousand better ways and with more elaborate plots and less flat characters and, in the end, with more to say.

It is well executed technically, it knows how to behave, but the script’s compassionate...

Exclusive: Devon Bostick (Pink Skies Ahead) is the latest addition to the cast of Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer for Universal Pictures.

He joins a stacked ensemble led by Cillian Murphy that also includes Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, Dylan Arnold, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, David Dastmalchian, Olli Haaskivi, Jason Clarke, James D’Arcy, Michael Angarano, Guy Burnet, Danny Deferrari, Matthias Schweighöfer, Harrison Gilbertson and Emma Dumont, as previously announced.

In the film, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin, Murphy plays the theoretical physicist whose work on the Manhattan Project led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Bostick will play Seth Neddermeyer, the physicist who discovered the elementary particle known as the muon and later...

Exclusive: Demetrius Grosse (Cabinet of Curiosities) has signed on for a role in George Tillman Jr.’s untitled George Foreman biopic for Sony Pictures and Affirm Films.

He joins a cast that also includes Khris Davis, Sullivan Jones, Forest Whitaker, Jasmine Mathews, Sonja Sohn, John Magaro, Shein Mompremier, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Sam Trammell, Erica Tazel, Matthew Glave and Al Sapienza, as previously announced.

The film will follow the remarkable life and times of Foreman (Davis), from Olympic Gold medalist to World Heavyweight champion, the Rumble in the Jungle fight with Muhammad Ali in Zaire, to finding his faith, retiring, and becoming a preacher. When financial hardship hits his family and church, he steps back in the ring and regains the championship at age 45, becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Grosse is playing Foreman’s biological father, Leroy Moorehead. Though he’s proud that he’s never missed watching...

Exclusive: Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Sam Trammell, Erica Tazel, Matthew Glave and Al Sapienza are the latest additions to the cast of George Tillman Jr.’s untitled George Foreman biopic for Sony Pictures and Affirm Films.

They join an ensemble led by Khris Davis that also includes Sullivan Jones, Forest Whitaker, Jasmine Mathews, Sonja Sohn, John Magaro and Shein Mompremier, as previously announced.

Tillman Jr.’s latest will follow the remarkable life and times of Foreman (Davis), from Olympic Gold medalist to World Heavyweight champion, the Rumble in the Jungle fight with Muhammad Ali in Zaire, to finding his faith, retiring, and becoming a preacher. When financial hardship hits his family and church, he steps back in the ring and regains the championship...

Exclusive: Jasmine Mathews, Sonja Sohn, John Magaro and Shein Mompremier (Black Lightning) have joined the cast of Sony Pictures and Affirm Films’ untitled biopic of legendary two-time world heavyweight champion George Foreman, from director George Tillman Jr..

They will star alongside previously announced cast members including Khris Davis, Sullivan Jones, and Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker.

The film will follow the remarkable life and times of Foreman, from Olympic Gold medalist to World Heavyweight champion, the Rumble in the Jungle fight with Muhammad Ali in Zaire, to finding his faith, retiring, and becoming a preacher. When financial hardship hits his family and church, he steps back in the ring and regains the championship at age 45, becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Tillman Jr. and Frank Baldwin penned the screenplay,...

For the Haitian-American, West Palm Beach native, Edson Jean, “Ludi” is a personal story. Set in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, the compact drama concerns a Haitian immigrant nurse, Ludi (Shein Mompremier), tirelessly working to supply her niece’s American dream. A low-stakes slice of life drama, with a high emotional toll, Jean and co-writer Joshua Jean-Baptiste’s script follows the health care worker for a night as she tries to earn extra money for her family back home.

Continue reading ‘Ludi’: A Modest, But Powerful Critique Of The American Dream [SXSW Review] at The Playlist.

Some 2.6 million immigrants work in health and social care provision in the US. On average they earn significantly less than their US-born counterparts, and many have additional costs, not only having to provide for their own needs but trying to save up money they can send back to their home countries to support loved ones there. Whilst the wages available in the US are well known around the world, the cost of living can be a shock for many who arrive there, putting them in a position where they feel they have no option but to take on extra shifts in order to increase their earnings - something which can rapidly become unsustainable.

Ludi (Shein Mompremier) has been taking extra shifts for a long time, to the point where her supervisors have decided that it's dangerous and nobody wants to be responsible for giving her another. Unable to find anything.

Arriving on the festival circuit just as a group of Ivy League-educated millionaires in Congress punted on raising the minimum wage, Edson Jean’s Ludi is an often riveting work of social realism following its title character, a health care aide played by Shein Mompremier as the chases her American Dream. A Haitian immigrant living in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, she engages in spirited debates throughout her daily life, asking her bus driver why he left a dictator in Haiti while embracing Trump’s Maga politics. For Ludi, anything is possible in the US even if she often feels as if she’s working to survive. In one passage we learn her job at a nursing home has taken away her vacation days because she didn’t use them.

Always seeking out overtime and extra shifts, Ludi reluctantly takes her roommate Blanca (Madelin Marchant) up on the offer of a home aide visit,...

In today’s roundup, National Geographic announced the ensemble cast joining “Genius: Aretha” and Comedy Central has ordered eight episodes of Bobby Moynihan’s digital series “Loafy.”

Casting

Malcolm Barrett, Patrice Covington (“The Color Purple”), Kimberly Hébert Gregory (“Vice Principals”), Rebecca Naomi Jones (“The Big Sick”), Sanai Victoria (“Black-ish”) have been cast alongside Cynthia Erivo in National Geographic’s “Genius: Aretha.” Also, Emmy, Golden Globe and BAFTA TV award-winner Anthony Hemingway joined the anthology series as executive producer and pilot director.

Quinn Copeland, Lauren Donzis, Oliver De Los Santos and Noah Cottrell have been cast as series regulars in Peacock’s “Punky Brewster” pilot. From Ucp and Universal Television, the multi-camera/hybrid continuation of the ’80s sitcom follows Punky (Soleil Moon Frye), now a single mother of three trying to get her life back on track when she meets Izzy (Copeland), a young girl who reminds her a lot of her younger self.

Black Lightning lit up The CW this week, giving the Tuesdays-at-9/8c time slot its biggest audience (“Crisis on Earth-x” excepted) in three years and its best demo rating in two.

Coming out of that well-received premiere, TVLine rounded up some answers to questions you might have about its titular principal by day/costumed crimefighter by night, his newly empowered daughter, arch nemesis Tobias Whale and more.

RELATEDMatt’s Inside Line: Scoop on Black Lightning, Riverdale and More

Is Black Lightning ‘Dead’? | After Jefferson Pierce used his powers, under the darkness of a blackout, to clear the way for daughter...

Which mutants will The Gifted power up in Season 2? When will Thunder roar on Black Lightning? Why will Hell break loose on Lucifer? Read on for answers to those questions plus teases from other shows.

RELATEDThe Gifted Boss Teases Season 2 Plan in Wake of X-treme Shake-Up

The Gifted is an awesome show and I’m looking forward to seeing Season 2. Any early scoop? —Lorraine

In addition to diving deeper into the Hellfire Club and the Purifiers, show boss Matt Nix also has this on his to-do list: “Obviously all these things are up in the air, but I’ve always...