Charles Bramesco
USC Study Exposes Hollywood as Overwhelmingly White, Sky Blue, Grass Green
If you’ll believe it, and all it takes is a quick jaunt into the comments section on any major entertainment-news web site (except this one, whose commenters are perfect and good-looking) to make you believe it, there are some folks out there who remain unconvinced that there’s a problem of homogeneity in Hollywood. These folks stuck to their convictions, unswayed by this year’s all-white slate of Oscar nominees that the American film industry has been giving actors of color the short shrift. But even if we concede that there were no performances from black actors deserving of a nomination this year, which is false and not true, what of the fact that a minuscule percentage of annual studio releases feature black performers in headlining roles? Black-fronted films aren’t moneymakers, and a movie studio is a business above all things, comes the factually inaccurate and vaguely racist reply. (See: The Force Awakens.)
David Bowie Auditioned to Play Elrond in ‘Lord of the Rings’
Dominic Monaghan, known for his role as Merry in the Lord of the Rings series of films, sat down for an interview in which he tossed off a delectable anecdote about running into Bowie at the casting sessions for Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic. Instead of instantly vomiting and hastily fleeing the room, as this writer would have done, Monaghan kept it pretty cool.
Remembering Alan Rickman in 6 Classic Roles
This morning’s big Oscar nominations announcement had to contend with an even more major and affecting piece of breaking news. A few days after David Bowie passed into the next dimension, cancer has taken another sixty-nine-year-old Brit from us: esteemed actor Alan Rickman. Flip to the word “arch” in the newest editions of the Oxford Goes To Hollywood dictionary, and there you’ll find a photo of Rickman, single eyebrow raised, his tone of dour bemusement audible even from the printed page. The man gained the most international recognition from a choice role in a certain franchise about a boy wizard, but he was an actor of boundless versatility who gifted audiences plenty of fond moviegoing memories.
No ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Post-Credits Scene, Says J.J. Abrams
Q: What is the best part about getting a thing of fast-food french fries? A: Believing you have finished your cheat-day treat, only to discover that there are still a few stragglers with a pulse left in the bottom of the bag. This phenomenon might illuminate a bit of the logic behind the recent proliferation of post- and mid-credits scenes in studio blockbusters, the practice in which a film squir