News

The CW is developing a drama series that hails from Damon Wayans Jr.’s Two Shakes Entertainment, Variety has learned exclusively.

The project is titled “The Pretenders.” In the show, a seemingly normal suburban family is hiding a big secret: they’re actually individual assets in the Witness Protection Program, placed together to provide safe cover for three of the assets who are unrelated minors. Each of them has a closet full of skeletons and a bounty on their head, which means that for these outcasts, fitting in is about more than just social status, it’s about survival.

Brandon Zuck will write and executive produce, with Wayans and Kameron Tarlow executive producing for Two Shakes. Devon Greggory will also executive produce. CBS Television Studios, where Two Shakes is under a first-look deal, will produce.

This marks the latest project Two Shakes has set up at CW. Last year, the...

The martial arts icon talks about some of his favorite action movies. Josh challenges him to a fight.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Armaggeddon (1998)

Innerspace (1987)

The ’Burbs (1989)

Matinee (1993)

The Debt Collector (2018)

Triple Threat (2019)

Avengement (2019)

Ip Man 4: The Finale (2020)

Masters of the Universe (1987)

Debt Collectors (2020)

The Three Musketeers (1973)

Rocky II (1979)

Rocky (1976)

Rocky IV (1985)

Paradise Alley (1978)

First Blood (1982)

Rambo — First Blood Part II (1985)

Enter The Dragon (1973)

Giant (1956)

Game Of Death (1978)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

Marlowe (1969)

Road House (1989)

Grosse Point Blank (1997)

Hard Boiled (1992)

The Killer (1989)

Death Wish (1974)

Seconds (1966)

Face/Off (1997)

Heat (1995)

Under Fire (1983)

True Lies (1994)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Raid (2011)

The Raid 2 (2014)

Die Hard (1988)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Munich (2005)

Point Break (1991)

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Armour of God (1986)

The Protector (1985)

Under Siege (1992)

Hard To Kill (1990)

Billy Jack (1971)

John Wick (2014)

Other Notable Items

Michael Bay

Our Jesse V. Johnson podcast episode

The Ip Man franchise

Donnie Yen

Dolph Lundgren

Anthony De Longis...

"Mother gave me this to stop me from fighting." The kung fu legend is getting a new box set! Every once in a while, the Criterion Collection cuts a new trailer for one of their new box set releases – and we just have to feature it because it's so badass. And a reminder that all these badass films are worth watching! Criterion's latest is a box set called Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, arriving this July on Blu-ray. The set contains five of Lee's iconic films: The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), The Way of the Dragon (1972), Enter the Dragon (1973), and Game of Death (1978). He died in 1973, and only appeared in noir film Marlowe before making this set of films. "This seven-disc Blu-ray box set is loaded with special features, including alternate versions of the films, interviews with Lee's collaborators and admirers, documentaries about his life and philosophies, commentaries,...

As a result of the less-than-flattering portrayal of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a feud has spawned between director Quentin Tarantino and Lee's daughter Shannon. Previously, Shannon voiced her displeasure in Tarantino including her father as a character in the movie, despite not reaching out to her first. Tarantino has also since doubled down on his decision to include Bruce in the movie, leaving Shannon once again disappointed with the filmmaker.

"He could shut up about it," Shannon says in response to Tarantino's latest comments. "That would be really nice. Or he could apologize or he could say, 'I don't really know what Bruce Lee was like. I just wrote it for my movie. But that shouldn't be taken as how he really was.'"

In particular, Shannon is reacting to comments Quentin Tarantino reportedly made at a Moscow press junket. Responding to...

To fully appreciate some of the allusions and inspirations that propel Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” you should consider doing some homework — or streaming some other movies.

Of course, you don’t have to be familiar with any of the following titles to enjoy Tarantino’s 1969-set fact-and-fiction mashup about Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an actor flailing in professional limbo after the cancellation of his TV Western “Bounty Law”; Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Dalton’s long-time stunt double and close confidant; and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), a rising star and Dalton’s next-door neighbor. But you can enhance your enjoyment by having some knowledge of the stories behind the story.

“The Bandit” (2016)

Jesse Moss’ entertaining and insightful documentary is putatively about the making of 1977’s “Smokey and the Bandit,” but more interestingly concerned with the personal and professional bonds between superstar Burt Reynolds and stuntman-turned-filmmaker Hal Needham.

1. Aisha Harris, “Lion Queen (Beyoncé) Has Her Say,” New York Times (July 20). New Horizons in Democratic Theory Dep’t: “To hear Beyoncé speak is such a rare occurrence that any instance of it, no matter how fleeting, feels special, like catching a glimpse of a shooting star.”

2. Bruce Springsteen, Western Stars (Columbia). Battle of the Bands: Harry Nilsson v. Glen Campbell. On the record, it’s a draw, and really, who cares? Off the record, the world is smaller without Glen Campbell. It isn’t without Nilsson. And it isn’t bigger with this.

David Crow Aug 23, 2019

We still don't know what happened in Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's noir masterpiece The Big Sleep!

When The Big Sleep premiered exactly 73 years ago today, it marked the newest silver screen adventure of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s beloved private dick. In this context, Howard Hawks was delivering a hard-hitting crime story to audiences and dealing with seedy subjects so obscured by polite society that they can barely even be seen in the finished film: blackmail, pornography, murder, and the amoral decadence of the one-percent. All of these deliciously morbid ingredients were baked into what became one of the greatest noirs of the post-war era.

Yet, they are not alone what makes The Big Sleep a timeless classic of deep cynicism and even deeper debauchery. From the very first frame, even Raymond Chandler’s then very impressive name was cast in the shadow of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Screenwriter and filmmaker Robert Towne.

Forget It Bob, It’S Chinatown

Robert Towne looks back on Chinatown’s 35th anniversary

By

Alex Simon

The haunting trumpet wailing plaintively over the closing credits. The bandage covering star Jack Nicholson’s nose. The best last line of a movie, ever: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown"; all elements of a film now regarded by scholars, critics and cinefiles alike as one of the greatest pieces of American celluloid ever made. Chinatown was a collaboration between a who’s-who of ‘70s film icons. Directed by Roman Polanski, produced by Robert Evans, written by Robert Towne, starring Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, shot by John Alonso, and scored by Jerry Goldsmith, Chinatown was nominated for 11 Academy Awards in 1974, but brought home only one: for its writer. Robert Towne was barely 40, and Chinatown his first produced original screenplay, his previous efforts having been literary adaptations, such as 1973’s The Last Detail.

(Elliott Gould, above, as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye.)

by Jon Zelazny

Editor’s note: this article originally appeared at EightMillionStories.com on November 14, 2008.

With the back-to-back success of his Oscar-nominated role in the off-beat wife-swapping hit Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) and the even bigger off-beat hit Mash (1970), Brooklyn’s own Elliott Gould skyrocketed to worldwide fame.

While perhaps best known to those under 40 as Ross and Monica’s dad on “Friends,” or Vegas financier Reuben Tishkoff in the blockbuster Ocean’s 11 series, cine-scholars generally regard Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) as Gould’s most iconic starring role. 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of their extraordinary modern-day reinterpretation of Raymond Chandler’s classic private eye, Philip Marlowe.

Elliott Gould invited me to his home in west Los Angeles, where he generously spoke at length of his three major collaborations with Altman, who passed away two years ago.

I read...

(Indie film producer, producer's rep, and Big Lebowski inspiration Jeff Dowd, above.)

Ten Years After Lebowski, The Real Dude Still Abides

by Jon Zelazny

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on EightMillionStories.com on September 26, 2008.

September 9th saw the release of a new 10th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of the Coen brothers’ cult favorite The Big Lebowski, their “Raymond Chandler on acid” saga of two middle-aged L.A. slackers (Jeff Bridges & John Goodman) who get caught up in a Byzantine kidnapping plot.

It used to be a little show biz secret that Jeff Bridges’ amiable character, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski, was based on the Coens’ real-life friend and colleague, indie film producer and producer’s rep Jeff Dowd, but that began to change in 2002 when four Lebowski fanatics in Louisville, Kentucky promoted the first annual Lebowski Fest, an event so successful, they’re now staging three a year in various cities.