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Lynn Chen, Vivica A. Fox and standup comedian Dwayne Perkins have boarded Romell Foster-Owens sophomore feature “Love Bait,” according to its producer Quentin Lee of Margin Films who presents “Love Bait” as well romantic comedy TV series “Morning, Paris!” at the Series Mania Forum, running March 25-27 in Lille, France.

“In this politically charged era, with Trump trying to erase Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [Dei], I’m especially excited to produce this uniquely diverse, cross-cultural comedy. It feels like a family reunion getting to work with Lynn Chen, Koji Steven Sakai, Vivica A. Fox, Dwayne Perkins and Romell Foster-Owens – talented people I’ve admired and collaborated with over the years,” said Lee.

“Love Bait” centers on a driven young Asian American woman (Chen) groomed by her traditional parents for corporate success, who hatches a bold plan to win their approval of her boyfriend. She hires a professional “bad boyfriend” (Perkins) to...

While Grammy nominations usually include many commercial picks, the awards pride themselves on being decided by music industry peers judging quality over popularity, even banning chart-related messages in FYC ads recently. So we often can expect a couple of critical darlings to get nominated across genres and sometimes even in the general field. Nominations this past year for Haim’s “Women In Music Pt. III” in Album of the Year and Phoebe Bridgers in Best New Artist are examples of how far acclaim can take you at the Grammys. Granted, we don’t know how this will hold up with no more nomination review committees giving a boost to lower-profile acts. Nonetheless, there are a lot of lauded artists who might surprise us this year.

SEEThe Weeknd could win an Emmy for his Super Bowl Halftime Show to make up for his Grammy snubs

One of the most acclaimed contenders...

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton seems like a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination, but as Trevor Noah points out, she’s making this race to the White House more difficult than it has to be.

RelatedWith Full Frontal, Samantha Bee Is the New King of Late Night

On The Daily Show Tuesday, Noah introduced a new segment called “This Should Be Easy” to highlight Hrc hiccups that are giving her opponents the material they need to hit her while she’s down. Take for instance her remarks on Nancy Reagan’s alleged AIDS advocacy, or her comment on the number of...

Scandal‘s President Fitzgerald Grant has a girrrrrlfriennnnnd.

But as ever on the ABC drama, lovin’ don’t come easy.

Introduced last week, journalist Lillian Forrester (played by The X-Files‘ Annabeth Gish) set out to do a profile on the exiting Potus, but instead she got up close and personal with him in entirely different ways. This put Abby on red alert, and despite her best efforts to manage the “wild card” situation, Lillian was photographed leaving Fitz’s residence with “sex hair” — at the same time that a gunman (hired by Cyrus) stormed the Pennsylvania State Capitol to target...

One of the Scandal actors got plastered — but why? (And should we be worried?)

PhotosHillary Clinton Visits Scandal — Conflict of Interest for Olivia?

Tony Goldwyn, who plays Fitz on the ABC drama, shared on Instagram this photo of a (what appears to be male) cast member’s head getting fitted for a plaster cast. The reasons for such a procedure are few, a frequent one being that the special effects team needs to make a “dummy” head for a stunt scene (e.g. a gruesome gunshot to the noggin; see The Walking Dead‘s Carl).

Then again, the purpose...

1. William Parker: For Those Who Are, Still (Aum Fidelity/Centering)

I have been an admirer and observer of William Parker for a quarter century, but nothing prepared me for the impact of this three-disc set's final CD, which features an orchestral composition, Ceremonies for Those Who Are Still, which ranks high among the best orchestral music of the 21st century, and I'm including classical composers. In other words, don't cringe while imagining the usual jazz-with-strings hack job. There are moments in Ceremonies for Those Who Are Still -- particularly when the choir is singing Parker's poems of life and loss and creation -- when the grandeur of the year's most fashionable jazz album, Kamasi Washington's The Epic (also a three-cd set) comes to mind, but the difference -- the reason Parker's set ranks much higher -- is that his orchestrations are vastly more contrapuntal, colorful, individual, and just plain daring.

Another year, another move further away from caring about pop. Whether that's pop's fault or mine, I'm not sure. But there was still plenty of great new music released in 2015, and here, according to my idiosyncratic tastes, are the best albums, or at least my favorites.

1. Wire: Wire (Pink Flag)

This is said to be the first time that Bruce Gilbert's replacement, guitarist Matthew Simms, was heavily involved in the creation of a Wire album, and the result is...the closest Wire has ever come to sounding like a Colin Newman album. I exaggerate for effect, but only slightly: most everything thrums along smoothly and motorik-ly, he takes all the lead vocals (though Graham Lewis supposedly wrote many of the lyrics), and there are none of the post-punkier outbursts of the group's previous two reunion albums, though near the end of Wire, the one-two punch of "Split Your Ends" and "Octopus" come close.

No jazz pianist in the last 45 years has been uninfluenced by Bud Powell, because his work in the early days of bebop with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie established the prototype for the style's pianists, at least in a group setting: quicksilver, horn-like figures from the right hand, jabbing harmonies from the left that add off-kilter accents to the rhythm. (When playing solo, and sometimes on ballads in trio, Powell deployed a fuller, more lush style derived from Art Tatum, with some of his friend and mentor Thelonious Monk's style mixed in.) He left surprisingly few official documents of his collaboration with Parker and Gillespie, with most coming after the style's foundation because of two recording bans. By then he had already become a leader in his own right and had begun recording a legacy of not just great pianism but also his unique compositional style.

But even though...

Yes, there's a big disparity in the lengths of these reviews. It's not intended to slight albums 2-4; they all gave me great joy, and, I am sure, will continue to. But the scope of the first box set here is vastly broader, and thus each ensemble featured on it requires explanation. And of course I assume you're familiar with the styles of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Keith Jarrett.

1. William Parker: Wood Flute Songs (Aum Fidelity)

Eight discs proving that Parker is not only the supreme bassist of the current avant jazz world, he is also a fine and prolific composer and leads some of the scene's greatest bands, most notably on these 2006-2012 concert recordings his quartet with alto saxophonist Rob Brown, trumpeter Lewis "Flip" Barnes, and drummer Hamid Drake, who are at the core of every band featured here.

That quartet is captured at peak form...

Not a single associate at the firm could avoid a "Conflict of Interest" on this week's episode of Suits.

From Edward's still dubious interest in Hessington Oil to Donna's new "arrangement" with Stephen, it's clear that as the stakes get higher, the emotional attachments and associations continue to become more complicated.

Like every other week, most of the details of what exactly took place with the case were fast moving and went a little over my head. That said, the points that directly affected the character progression were, of course, the most memorable.

First, I loved the opening sequence with Louis and Harvey both running in different parts of town, catching the same bit of news and arriving at Pearson/Darby just in time to greet each other outside their respective cabs. Apparently Louis gaining an associate of his own has made him much more like Harvey than he might...