Categories
Television

Congrats to her!!

Sasheer Zamata Joins ‘Saturday Night Live’ As New Cast Member

Three years after she graduated from the University of Virginia, Sasheer Zamata is landing a very big break — the young comedy performer has been selected to join Saturday Night Live as a new cast member.

Zamata will make her debut on the venerable NBC late-night sketch comedy series on its next live show slated for January 18 with Drake as host and musical guest.

Zamata, who trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, becomes the first black female Saturday Night Live cast member in five years since the departure of Maya Rudolph. The lack of female black performers on the show stirred a debate last fall while SNL boss Lorne Michaels had been quietly conducting a talent search.

Several dozen actresses were seen in multiple cities. Zamata, whose name had been floated as a suitable SNL candidate before, was among 12 who received callbacks and were invited to test on the SNL stage on December 16. She will now be a featured player on the show that has launched the careers of a slew of young comedians.

Categories
Awards

Eurythmics are a great place to start!!

Sweet dream: Eurythmics uniting at Beatles tribute

NEW YORK (AP) — The Eurythmics are reuniting — to pay tribute to the Beatles.

The Recording Academy announced Monday that Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart will perform as a duo for “The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles.” The event will be taped at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Jan. 27, a day after the Grammy Awards.

Longtime Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich, who is also producing the Beatles special, thought the Eurythmics would be ideal to honor the iconic group.

“When it came around to booking this show, what I felt was important was to try and find those artists who not only would be able to interpret Beatles songs, but would also have an … understanding of what they meant,” he said in an interview.

The Eurythmics, who sold millions of albums and whose hits include “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” released their debut in 1981. Ehrlich said Lennox and Stewart, who have launched successful solo careers, are thrilled to perform in tribute to the Beatles.

Ehrlich wouldn’t say which Beatles tune the British duo would perform, but John Mayer and Keith Urban will pair up to perform “Don’t Let Me Down,” while Alicia Keys and John Legend will perform a duet on “Let It Be.” Maroon 5 also will hit the stage.

The special will air on CBS on Feb. 9 — exactly 50 years after the Beatles made their U.S. debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” An estimated 73 million viewers tuned in to watch the event, which has become one of the world’s top cultural moments.

“They really did change people’s lives, so what I’m hoping this show … gets across is the message that occasionally in history we are touched by certain artists who have a profound effect on us beyond just the music that they make,” Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich wouldn’t confirm if Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr would attend the event, though the Beatles will be honored with a lifetime achievement award two days earlier at the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards in Los Angeles.

The special will include about a dozen performances, Ehrlich said. More performers will be announced at a later date.

Categories
Television

He was good the last time, hope he is good again!!

Jonah Hill Will Host SNL Again

Jonah Hill will host Saturday Night Live for the third time, NBC announced today. He’s slated to host on January 25, with musical guest Bastille.

As previously announced, Drake is doing double duty on January 18.

Hill previously hosted in 2008 and in 2012, and he did a perfectly fine job both times, but if anyone from Wolf of Wall Street should be in studio 8H, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio. He has never hosted SNL! He should! It would be interesting to see Leonardo DiCaprio perform comedy that isn’t Growing Pains.

Categories
People

May he rest in peace.

Legendary Producer Saul Zaentz Dies at 92

He won Oscars for producing three best picture winners — “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Amadeus” and “The English Patient” — after a great career with Fantasy Records and feuds with John Fogerty.

Saul Zaentz, who parlayed a successful career in the music business into a Oscar-winning second act as an independent movie producer, died Friday at his home in the San Francisco area from complications of Alzheimer’s. He was 92.

His nephew Paul Zaentz, a fellow producer, confirmed the news.

“He was an extraordinary man,” Paul Zaentz, who worked with his uncle for 37 years, said. “He had a lot of guts, a lot of integrity.”

After presenting such major acts as Creedence Clearwater Revival on his Fantasy Records label, Zaentz moved into producing and shared three Academy Awards for best picture — for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1996).

Zaentz then received the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1997 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his “consistently high quality of motion picture production.”

Incredibly, two of his best picture Oscars were his first two films: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus. His third film was the internationally acclaimed The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), nominated for a pair of Academy Awards.

He teamed with fledgling producer Michael Douglas on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Jack Nicholson-starrer based on Ken Kesey’s novel earned Zaentz his first Academy Award, which he shared with Douglas. The film took home the top five Oscars, a rare achievement.

Befitting his music-industry background, his second best picture was music-based. Amadeus was based on the life and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the jealousy his talent inspired. That film hauled in eight Oscars, including one for F. Murray Abraham as the envious Antonio Salieri.

His third best picture winner, The English Patient, based on an unpublished novel that Zaentz acquired, won nine Oscars — director Anthony Minghella and actress Juliette Binoche were among those honored — and received BAFTA’s best film award as well.

He produced an animated version of The Lord of the Rings (1978), directed by Ralph Bakshi, as well as Payday (1972), Three Warriors (1978) and At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) and executive produced The Mosquito Coast (1986), directed by Peter Weir.

More recently, Zaentz produced Goya’s Ghosts (2006), directed by Milos Forman, his man on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus. Forman earned Oscars on those films as well.

Zaentz received the Producers Guild of America’s Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award in 1997 for The English Patient and received the PGA’s Vision Award for the film. Most auspiciously, the guild presented Zaentz with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.

He also accepted BAFTA’s Academy Fellowship in 2003 for his career achievements.

In 1980, Zaentz created the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, Calif., an editing and sound-mixing facility. It housed the Saul Zaentz Co., Fantasy Studios, Concord Music Group and the Berkeley Digital Film Institute as well as other production companies.

Not averse to litigation, including suing studios over profits sharing, Zaentz was involved in acrimonious litigation with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty over song rights. Zaentz’s contention was with two songs on Fogerty’s 1985 Centerfield album for Warner Bros. Records. Zaentz argued that the song “Zanz Kant Danz” was a slur on him. He filed suit, and Fogerty responded by changing the first word to “Vanz.”
Zaentz filed a second lawsuit, contending that Fogerty used the same chorus for “The Old Man Down the Road” as “Run Through the Jungle,” which Fogerty had recorded while on Zaentz’s Fantasy Records label. Fogerty ultimately prevailed after surreal courtroom testimony that, essentially, absolved him of plagiarizing himself.

“The way I view Saul Zaentz and his henchmen, shall I say — well, that probably gives it away,” Fogerty said in a New York Times interview in 2005. “I still view them in the same light. If I was walking down the street and those rattlesnakes were walking towards me, I would give them a wide berth.”

In September 2011, he sued Disney and Miramax for $20 million in profits from The English Patient.

Zaentz was born in Passaic, N.J. on Feb. 28, 1921. He ran away from home at 15, landing in St. Louis, where he worked as a peanut vendor at Cardinals baseball games. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the European and Pacific theaters.

After the war, Zaentz attempted to make a living at chicken farming and spent a semester studying animal husbandry at Rutgers. After six weeks on a farm, he decided to pursue other options and returned to St. Louis, where he studied business for two years, then headed to San Francisco.
There, Zaentz landed a job with jazz impresario Norman Granz and managed the company’s concert tours, going on the road with such jazz greats as Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck.

In 1955, Zaentz joined Fantasy Records, which recorded Creedence Clearwater Revival, led by former Fantasy warehouse worker John Fogerty and his brother Tom. Zaentz and a group of investors purchased Fantasy in 1967 and propelled it into the world’s largest jazz label.

Buoyed by his success with CCR, Zaentz decided to enter another creative domain, the movies, and aspired to produce the adaptations of two acclaimed novels of the 1960s: Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and At Play in the Fields of the Lord, by Peter Matthiessen.

In late 2004, Zaentz and his partners sold the Fantasy label and all its studio equipment to Concord Music Group — owned by an investment outfit led by producer Norman Lear — for about $90 million.

“Passion is [the] immeasurable, indescribable factor that separates movie from movie,” Zaentz said in his Thalberg acceptance speech. “Passion moves freely across borders, speaks every language and flourishes in every culture. The movement of passion is the most gratifying satisfaction in any moviemaker’s life. This happens when you see and hear people all over the world share their laughter, their crying and their sudden gasps at identical screen moments.

“Samuel Hoffenstein, a poet and screenwriter, poetically wrote, ‘The Holy Grail is not in the finding, it is in the journey.’ The Irving Thalberg Award memorializes a giant among giants who brought us a sense of film history. This belongs to the many with whom I have shared dreams and journeys. My cup is full. Thank you.”

Zaentz is survived by his four children, Dorian, Joshua, Athena and Jonnie, and seven grandchildren.

Categories
Awards

I NEED TO SEE INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS!!

‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ honored by the National Society of Film Critics

The Coens’ film about failure continues to experience little of it. The National Society of Film Critics handed out their awards on Saturday and Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel and Ethan Coen’s soulful and sardonic journey set among the Greenwich Village folk music set, came away with a number of top prizes, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor. Also honored were Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine, James Franco for Spring Breakers, and Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle. Check out the full list of winners and runners-up below, including the voting breakdown.

BEST PICTURE
Inside Llewyn Davis – 23
American Hustle – 17
12 Years a Slave – 16

BEST DIRECTOR
Joel and Ethan Coen (Inside Llewyn Davis) – 25
Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) – 18
Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) – 15

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Blue Is the Warmest Color – 27
A Touch of Sin – 21
The Great Beauty – 15

BEST NON-FICTION FILM
(Tie)
The Act of Killing – 20
At Berkeley – 20
Leviathan – 18

BEST SCREENPLAY
Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke) – 29
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen) – 26
American Hustle (Eric Singer and David O. Russell) – 18

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Inside Llewyn Davis (Bruno Delbonnel) -28
Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki) – 26
Nebraska (Phedon Papamichael) – 19

BEST ACTOR
Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) – 28
Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) – 19
Robert Redford (All Is Lost) – 12

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) – 57
Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue Is the Warmest Color) – 36
Julie Delpy (Before Midnight) – 26

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
James Franco (Spring Breakers) – 24
Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) – 20
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) – 14

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle) – 54
Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) – 38
Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) – 18
Léa Seydoux (Blue Is the Warmest Color) – 18

EXPERIMENTAL FILM
Leviathan

BEST FILM STILL AWAITING AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION
Stray Dogs and Hide Your Smiling Faces

Categories
Movies

Oh, I forgot that the new PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movie opened this weekend. I need to see that!

Box office report: ‘Frozen’ freezes the latest ‘Paranormal Activity’ out of the top spot with $20.7 million

As much of the Northeast was trapped in a winter wonderland not unlike its snow-cursed setting, Disney’s Frozen managed to reclaim the No. 1 spot at the box office for the first time in three weekends. The animated film took in $20.7 million, which is a nearly 28 percent drop from last week’s numbers but still impressive considering it’s no longer a holiday and the film is already in its sixth weekend of wide release. It’s now inevitable that the Disney hit will cross the $300 million mark, as it’s currently sitting pretty at $297.8 million. That’s $97 million more than 2010′s Tangled –Disney’s previous CG-animated adaptation of a fairy tale with a past participle for a title—made in its entire domestic run. Meanwhile, Frozen‘s worldwide total has reached $639.9 million.

Much like the first snow, the first shameless sequel of the year is a milestone that came early in 2014. But Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, the Latino-marketed spin-off and fifth film in the popular horror franchise, couldn’t quite possess the top spot with its shaky-cam scares. The movie took in $18.2 million in its opening weekend, which is a whopping 38 percent less than its predecessor Paranormal Activity 4 made in its first few days out and the lowest ever debut for a Paranormal Activity film in wide release. For the last half-decade, Paramount has been wringing this series for all its worth—Paranormal Activity 5 hits theaters this October—and the returns appear to be diminishing. Moviegoers also seem to be growing a bit tired of the movies’ limited bag of tricks: Despite receiving generally better reviews than PA4, The Marked Ones rated a step down with Cinemascore, from C to C-. Still, this is a cheap goose and even if it switches from laying golden eggs to silver ones, it’s fine for the studio.

After three weeks at No. 1, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug tumbles like a dwarf in a barrel to third place with $16.3 million. So far, the second episode of Peter Jackson’s trilogy isn’t reaping quite as big a pile of gold as the first: Smaug comes out of its fourth weekend with a healthy $229.6 million, but that’s still $34.2 million less than An Unexpected Journey had at this same point last year. The first Hobbit took in a grand total of $303 million domestically, which means the second one most likely won’t make it past that three-double-zero mark. If that ends up being the case, it would be the first of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth films not to do so.

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street takes a decent bite out of the box office with $13.4 million, bringing the total for Martin Scorsese’s coke-fueled tale of stock-pushing sybarites to $63.3 million. There’s a very good chance Marty’s latest will surpass Hugo‘s disappointing total domestic take of $73.9 million, showing Americans prefer their Scorsese to be decidedly un-family friendly. Meanwhile, David O. Russell’s American Hustle, which features more than a wink to Marty’s signature aesthetic, is nipping at The Wolf‘s back paws. It rounds out the list with $13.2 million, as Sony’s critically acclaimed ensemble dissembles its way to $88.7 million.

1. Frozen – $20.7 million
2. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones – $18.2 million
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – $16.3 million
4. The Wolf of Wall Street – $13.4 million
5. American Hustle – $13.2 million

Categories
The Couch Potato Report

It is a cold and stormy weekend…why not watch a movie?

The Couch Potato Report – January 4th, 2014

The first week of any new year will never be the biggest week for new releases…Happy New Year, by the way…but there are a few that are worth mentioning, including the interesting DON JON, which marks the directorial debut of former child star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, from THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN, who has recently appeared – as a grown-up – in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, LOOPER and INCEPTION.

DON JON finds him playing a regular guy who is fully dedicated to his family, friends, and church.

One night he meets a beautiful and seemingly perfect woman – played by Scarlett Johansson of THE AVENGERS and LOST IN TRANSLATION – and Don falls in love.

Unfortunately, no matter how perfect she seems, no matter how much he loves her and his family love her, Don loves something else even more than her, more than any woman, in fact. Don is addicted to adult films.

Don Jon is trying to find happiness and intimacy with his potential true love, but he struggles to give up the adult films he loves so much.

With a lesser cast, DON JON could have been a film that wasn’t worthy of our time, but this cast – that also includes Julianne Moore and Tony Danza – is so strong that I can actually recommend the movie.

Yes, DON JON is a bit repetitive and the subject matter may turn some people away, but I do mildly recommend it, especially during the first week of the new year, when there isn’t much else out there.

Horror fans, Happy New Year to you!!, I have something for you…remember the 2010 film INSIDIOUS about the couple whose son became comatose and a vessel for ghosts in an astral dimension?

Well, that creepy flick now has a sequel and in INSIDIOUS – CHAPTER 2, the boy is safe, but his parents are possibly at risk and need to discover how they have become connected to the spirit world…before it’s too late!!

I didn’t think that the first INSIDIOUS film was great, but it was an effective horror film. It did what I expect from movies like this: scare me a little, creep me out, make me jump back a few times, and show me something I haven’t seen before…or at least not seen too often.

INSIDIOUS – CHAPTER 2 is all of that as well, plus it is extra creepy. And I mean that in the good way that horror films can be.

Non-horror fans should skip INSIDIOUS – CHAPTER 2, but I do easily recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of stuff.

Every year or so a small little film comes out that I usually gravitate toward and easily recommend.

Even without much acclaim or fanfare, I tend to love these movies. Last year that movie was YOUR SISTER’S SISTER and when I first heard of TOUCHY FEELY, I thought it would be one of these films for me as well, after all it has a cast I like and a premise I find interesting, but – unfortunately – it is just a small little film that I’m glad I’ve seen, but won’t recommend.

TOUCHY FEELY is the story of a massage therapist who finds herself unable to touch human skin. She is one of the best at what she does, but one day she just can’t touch people…at all.

That I still find interesting, but instead of examining how someone can turn into someone who has an aversion to touching skin, TOUCHY FEELY is also about that woman’s brother, an uptight dentist who somehow becomes a man with the power to heal.

That secondary story wasn’t interesting as the character is basically a jerk, with little to no redeeming qualities, and the tertiary story in the film – featuring Canadian actress Ellen Page as a young woman with a crush on her Aunt’s boyfriend – was the least interesting part of the film.

I never disliked TOUCHY FEELY, as I said, I’m glad I’ve seen it, but I don’t recommend it…at all. Nothing really happens, and then it just ends. Like this review.

I also can’t recommend the film WRECKERS, starring Benedict Cumberbatch of the BBC’s SHERLOCK. This is an older film, made before he was the well-known actor he is today, and it isn’t one most people need to see.

Benedict stars here as one half of a married couple who move back to his childhood village to start a family.

All is – seemingly – going well, until the day they receive a surprise visit from the husband’s brother.

A visit that re-ignites some age old sibling rivalry and makes the wife start to wonder if she even knows the man she’s married.

The problem with WRECKERS is that it has very little that we haven’t seen before, and the result is a movie that is barely a step above boring.

This one is for huge fan, and I mean HUGE fan of Benedict Cumberbatch’s only. Everyone else should just skip it.

Hey, let’s laugh now, and laugh you will at THE SIXTEENTH SEASON of the classic animated show THE SIMPSONS!!

SEASON SIXTEEN features guest voices Jason Bateman, Gary Busey, James Caan, Stephen Hawking, Eric Idle, Liam Neeson, Amy Poehler, Ray Romano and plenty more! Plus, they make fun of Saskatchewan!!

I agree, this season of the show isn’t included when fans talk about the glory years of the show, but there are still some huge laughs, and I really enjoyed it!!

THE SIMPSONS – THE SIXTEENTH SEASON, guaranteed to fit on your shelf between SEASONS FIFTEEN and SEVENTEEN!!

And guaranteed to fit on your shelf between VOLUME 11 and 13 is VOLUME 12 of FAMILY GUY!!

I’ve been saying for more than a couple of years that FAMILY GUY is waaaaay past its prime, and I maintain that stance right now, but I’ve also been saying that said, it does still make me laugh out loud on occasion.

And it does…at least it made me laugh out loud.

FAMILY GUY – VOLUME 12 features the show’s 200th episode and a few extra surprises.

I can’t highly recommend VOLUME 12 of FAMILY GUY because it is past its prime, and continues to feature lazy, borderline racist humour, but I will admit that it did make me laugh.

Just as I’m sure VOLUME 13 will.

Hey, do you remember, back in the mid-to-late-eighties, when all of those movies about people switching bodies came out at around the same time?

There was LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, 17 AGAIN, VICE VERSA, ALL OF ME and BIG, just to name five.

Most of them haven’t stood the test of time and can be hard to find on DVD or Netflix, except for BIG, which has just been re-released in HD on blu-ray in a fantastic 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION.

Directed by Penny Marshall, BIG stars Tom Hanks – in an Academy Award nominated performance – as Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish “to be big” and wakes up the next day an adult, much to his delight, but to the dismay of his parents.

The new blu-ray of BIG also features an extended cut of the film, and some great behind-the-scenes retrospective materials.

I’ve always loved BIG, Tom Hanks is great in it, and I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching it again this week.

The 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION of still great comedy BIG; VOLUME 12 of the occasionally funny FAMILY GUY; the very enjoyable SIXTEENTH SEASON of THE SIMPSONS; the for Benedict Cumberbatch fans only drama WRECKERS; the completely skippable drama TOUCHY FEELY; the creepy horror flick INSIDIOUS – CHAPTER 2; and the interesting, yet odd DON JON – written, directed by and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt – are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

And for the first weekend in January 2014, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

Categories
People

Sad news…may he rest in peace.

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers dies at 74

Phil Everly, who with his brother, Don, made up the most revered vocal duo of the rock-music era, their exquisite harmonies profoundly influencing the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds and countless younger-generation rock, folk and country singers, died Friday in Burbank of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Patti Everly, told The Los Angeles Times. He was 74.

“We are absolutely heartbroken,” she said, noting that the disease was the result of a lifetime of cigarette smoking. “He fought long and hard.”
During the height of their popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they charted nearly three dozen hits on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, among them “Cathy’s Clown,” “Wake Up Little Suzie,” “Bye Bye Love,” “When Will I Be Loved” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” The Everly Brothers were among the first 10 performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it got off the ground in 1986.

“They had that sibling sound,” said Linda Ronstadt, who scored one of the biggest hits of her career in 1975 with her recording of “When Will I Be Loved,” which Phil Everly wrote. “The information of your DNA is carried in your voice, and you can get a sound [with family] that you never get with someone who’s not blood related to you. And they were both such good singers–they were one of the foundations, one of the cornerstones of the new rock ‘n’ roll sound.”

Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, said Friday, “When you talk about harmony singing in the popular music of the postwar period, the first place you start is the Everly Brothers…. You could say they were the vocal link between all the 1950s great doo wop groups and what would come in the 1960s with the Beach Boys and the Beatles. They showed the Beach Boys and the Beatles how to sing harmony and incorporate that into a pop music form that was irresistible.”

In addition to his wife, Everly is survived by his brother, Don, their mother, Margaret, sons Jason and Chris, and two granddaughters. Funeral services will be private.

Categories
Movies

Seems like the smart thing to do.

Universal Will “Retire” Paul Walker’s Character in FAST & FURIOUS 7

The seventh installment of the Fast & Furious franchise has been surrounded by an air of uncertainty for the past few weeks following the unfortunate passing of star Paul Walker. Speculation has run rampant with regards to how Universal would move forward with Fast & Furious 7 after Walker’s death, given that the film was in the middle of production when the actor passed. The studio officially pushed the James Wan-directed pic’s release date from this coming July to April 2015, and now it appears that all parties involved have settled on how to move forward with the pic: Walker’s character will be “retired” in Fast & Furious 7.

Paul Walker had already filmed a number of scenes for Fast & Furious 7 when he passed, so many have wondered whether Universal would try to incorporate some of that footage into the film or if Walker would be wholly absent from the seventh installment of the car-centered series. Screenwriter Chris Morgan was brought in to revise the script last month, and now THR reports that Walker’s character Brian O’Conner will not be killed off in Fast & Furious 7, but will instead be retired “in a way that the studio hopes will satisfy fans of the franchise and make use of the exciting footage of Walker.”

Additional scenes will be written and shot in order to give Walker’s character the proper conclusion, as his character will remain a part of the story of Fast & Furious 7. This seems like a solid decision as opposed to killing off Walker’s character, which would have felt crass and inappropriate. The franchise will then continue without Brian O’Conner, but hopefully Wan and Morgan have come up with a fitting sendoff not only for the character, but for Walker as well. Fast & Furious 7 will open in theaters April 10, 2015.

Categories
The Simpsons

Can’t wait to see it!!

Judd Apatow’s 20-Year-Old ‘Simpsons’ Episode Will Air Next Season

One of Judd Apatow’s dreams will come true when The Simpsons creates an episode around a script he wrote . . . over 20 years ago. Apatow recalled writing the episode in a recent interview with EW. He remembered penning it, along with a spec script for the early Nineties Fox series Get a Life, after the cartoon’s first season, which premiered in December 1989.

“I sent them all around town and I did not get a job from anybody,” he said. “I got a meeting at Get a Life and didn’t get a job there either. But I heard that they liked it at The Simpsons.” After a stint writing for The Ben Stiller Show, Simpsons producers Al Jean and Mike Reiss hired the director to work on the cartoon The Critic, but even then they did not consider developing his episode. Jean finally decided to look at the script a few years ago after reading an interview with Apatow, in which he mentioned his episode. “The reason I brought up The Simpsons episode is because I realized while doing this interview that everything I had ever written was the premise of the first thing I had ever written,” Apatow told EW. “All of my stories are about people trying hard not to grow up.”

As for the plot of Apatow’s episode, he said that the Simpson family would go to a “hypnotism show,” but the hypnotist would suffer a heart attack mid-demonstration. This would leave Homer thinking that he was 10 years old. “It’s about Bart and Homer becoming best friends because they’re the same age, and then Homer doesn’t want to be revived because he’d rather be 10 than have adult responsibility,” Apatow explained. “I wrote it in what I thought was the style of The Simpsons after only six episodes had aired.”

The director says that the Simpsons writing team is currently punching up his script and that the changes he’s seen so far have been “hilarious and brilliant.” After the writers finish the editing process, Apatow will look over the script again. “I think the idea of my episode is very good and there are some nice moments,” he said, “but it was the first thing I ever wrote. . . .” He also joked about wanting to voice the episode’s hypnotist.

Apatow ended the interview by saying that getting the episode developed is “a real full-circle moment” for him. “I wanted to be a part of it from the second it was created,” he said. “I knew it was one of the landmark moments in comedy and now that I have become a part of it, there is a small part of me that thinks I should retire. . . . There’s nothing else to dream for.”

Since writing the script, the Apatow has become one of the strongest voices in modern comedy with films such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This Is 40 and more, as well as executive-producing the TV series Girls. This Sunday, Apatow will lend his voice to The Simpsons alongside actors he’s worked with often over the years – Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and his wife, Leslie Mann – as well as Channing Tatum and Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford.