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SCTV

It was easily the most amazing event I’ve ever attended. Wow!! It was so great!!

Hilarious clips and untold memories bring audience to its feet at SCTV reunion

Fans of SCTV were served a heaping dish of nostalgia on Sunday as cast members of the Canadian sketch comedy series gathered to share memories for an upcoming Netflix special.

Seemingly every popular character from the influential show — including Johnny LaRue, Alex Trebel and Edith Prickley — had a moment to shine during the three-hour live taping at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre. The footage will be part of a larger production directed by Martin Scorsese for the streaming platform.

SCTV cast members Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara sat before a backdrop of photographs from the series as they recalled how the scrappy idea for a comedy show began on Global with a tight budget of $7,000 an episode.

Other revealing moments included Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis reflecting on how seminal hosers Bob and Doug McKenzie were originally created as a way to inject more Canadian content into the series.

It wasn’t always certain that Moranis, who has largely stepped away from his acting career since the late 1990s, would show up at the SCTV reunion. But he told the audience that he jumped at the chance to get together with old friends.

SCTV ran from 1976 to 1984 and helped launch the careers of many famed international comic legends, including the late John Candy and Harold Ramis, who were both honoured during the taping.

The show ran two seasons on Global and one on CBC before being picked up by NBC. In its final season, it moved to cable and aired on Cinemax in the U.S. and Superchannel in Canada.

Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who served as moderator for the event, was quick to share how much of an impact SCTV had on his own comedic sensibilities as a teenager growing up in Las Vegas.

“This show is the reason we’re not building a wall with the northern border,” he quipped at one point.

Kimmel told the audience he beat out all the other major late-night TV hosts for the moderator gig, coming in ahead of Conan O’Brien in a “to the wire” decision.

Costume designer Juul Haalmeyer said he was taking his own trip down memory lane as he watched the reunion from the audience. He dressed the SCTV cast as their distinctive characters throughout the show’s run.

“Some of these clips I haven’t ever seen,” he said during a break in the taping.

“It’s been a thrill.”

Haalmeyer occasionally starred in skits, including Perry Como: Still Alive, where he played the leader of the Juul Haalmeyer Dancers, despite his lack of professional dance experience.

“Every time they needed a bad singer, bad dancer or bad actor, they’d say, ‘Get that [guy] from over there,”‘ he said.

“It worked for the purposes of the show.”

Other SCTV crew members sat in the audience, including make-up artist Beverly Schechtman and show producer Andrew Alexander.

Extended family of the stars were also in attendance, such as Eugene Levy’s son Dan and John Candy’s wife Rosemary Hobor and their two children, Jennifer and Christopher Candy.

Longtime viewer Kim Piche scored a ticket shortly before the taping from a friend, and said this offered a rare opportunity to revisit a program she felt rivalled Saturday Night Live in quality.

“They played it safe on Saturday Night Live,” Piche said. “I think that SCTV went above and beyond.”

Mary Dempster came to the taping to reminisce about growing up with SCTV, which she watched with her father as a child.

“Forget the cartoons,” she said. “Just go straight to the comedy.”

Netflix hasn’t announced a release date for the SCTV special, but said it will air on Netflix in all territories, with the exception of Canada, where it will premiere exclusively on CTV.

Following CTV’s airing, the special will be available exclusively on Netflix in Canada and worldwide.

Categories
Rumours

Awesome! Awesome!! Awesome!!!

Spice Girls to release tell-all documentary

The Spice Girls are reportedly set to release a tell-all documentary.

According to The U.K. Sun, the girl group has taken inspiration from former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, who released his film As It Was at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film, directed by Charlie Lightening, details Gallagher’s journey from his time with the indie rock group he co-fronted with his estranged brother Noel Gallagher, to his success as a solo artist.

Melanie Brown, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Geri Horner and Melanie Chisholm are reportedly working on the explosive new project to hit cinemas in 2019.

And the former girl band has already signed on to voice characters in an animated superhero movie, according to the newspaper.

Brown recently confirmed all five women would be reuniting for a live tour, despite fashion designer Beckham previously shutting down tour talk

“We are in the works of figuring the stuff out,” the America’s Got Talent judge explained. “I don’t want to say too much, but all five of us have signed with Simon Fuller. It’s all very exciting.”

The Wannabe hitmakers, who split in 2000 but have reformed on numerous occasions, got fans excited earlier this year when they agreed to an unspecified ‘reunion’, and were all snapped together for the first time in years at Horner’s house.

Categories
Movies

I finally saw A QUIET PLACE and it was amazing!!! It was horrific and interesting. #SeeIt

Avengers: Infinity War squashes Life of the Party and Breaking In at box office

With all due respect to Melissa McCarthy and Gabrielle Union: It’s Thanos’ world, we just live in it.

In its third weekend, Disney and Marvel’s superhero blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War continues to dominate the box office, earning an estimated $61.8 million from 4,474 theaters in the U.S. and Canada while trouncing McCarthy’s new comedy Life of the Party and Union’s new thriller Breaking In.

On Saturday, Infinity War cracked the $500 million mark at the domestic box office, becoming the second-fastest film to do so, and through Sunday it will have grossed about $547.8 million. The movie also bowed in China this weekend, powering a massive $281.3 million international haul. Its worldwide total now stands at about $1.6 billion and ranks fifth all time, behind Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World.

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo and made for close to $300 million, Infinity War marks the third Avengers film and the 19th installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It features heroes from across the MCU franchise — including Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, and the Chris Pratt-led Guardians of the Galaxy — and pits them against Thanos (Josh Brolin), an interplanetary warlord trying to wipe out half the life in the universe.

An untitled sequel is already on the calendar for May 3, 2019.

In second place, Warner Bros’. Life of the Party will take in about $18.5 million at 3,656 domestic theaters. That figure is in line with industry projections but falls short of recent McCarthy films Tammy ($21.6 million), The Boss ($23.6 million), and Spy ($29.1 million)

Written by McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone, who also directed, Life of the Party centers on a middle-aged divorcée (McCarthy) who returns to college to finish her degree and winds up in class with her daughter (Molly Gordon). The film received lackluster reviews from critics, and audiences gave it a tepid B CinemaScore.

The weekend’s other new wide release, Universal’s Breaking In, is on pace to gross about $16.5 million at 2,537 theaters, good for third place. That’s a solid start for a film that cost a modest $6 million to make.

Directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta), the film stars Union as a mother forced to protect her kids when the mansion of her recently deceased dad is invaded by burglars. Reviews have been poor, and moviegoers gave it a B CinemaScore.

Rounding out the top five this weekend are Lionsgate and MGM’s rom-com remake Overboard, with about $10.1 million, and Paramount’s silently spooky horror hit A Quiet Place, with about $6.4 million.

According to ComScore, overall box office is up 4.8 percent year-to-date. Check out the May 11-13 figures below.

1. Avengers: Infinity War — $61.8 million
2. Life of the Party — $18.5 million
3. Breaking In — $16.5 million
4. Overboard — $10.1 million
5. A Quiet Place — $6.4 million
6. I Feel Pretty — $3.7 million
7. Rampage — $3.4 million
8. Tully — $2.2 million
9. Black Panther — $1.9 million
10. Blockers — $1.1 million

Categories
Movies

I can see why he’d do it – for the money – but I can’t see why I’d pay to see it – the other two were boring.

Robert Downey Jr. set to reprise role in ‘Sherlock Holmes 3’

LOS ANGELES — Nearly seven years after “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” hit theatres, Warner Bros. Pictures says a third installment of the “Sherlock Holmes” franchise is coming in 2020.

The studio said Monday that Robert Downey Jr. will reprise his role as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed detective alongside Jude Law as his counterpart Watson.

“Sherlock Homes” was a box office hit for the studio when it was released in 2009, just one year after Downey Jr. also made his debut as Iron Man. A sequel quickly followed in 2011. Combined, the first two films grossed north of $1 billion. Both were directed by Guy Ritchie.

A director has yet to be announced for “Sherlock Holmes 3,” however. The film is dated for a Christmas 2020 release.

Categories
Movies

This news is most excellent and most triumphant!!

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter Reteaming for ‘Bill & Ted 3’

‘Bill & Ted Face the Music,’ which is being shopped in Cannes, is actually happening, some 29 years after the duo’s first excellent adventure.
It’s official: Wyld Stallyns are reforming.

Following 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, The Hollywood Reporter can reveal that a much-discussed third Bill & Ted installment — Bill & Ted Face the Music — is now firmly in the works some 27 years later. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are set to reprise their iconic roles as time-traveling metalheads “Ted” Theodore Logan and “Bill” S. Preston Esq.

Original creators Chris Matheson (Imagine That) and Ed Solomon (Men in Black, Mosaic, Now You See Me) have penned the script, with Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest, Red 2, Fun With Dick and Jane) confirmed to direct. Scott Kroopf (Limitless) will produce together with Alex Lebovici and Steve Ponce of Hammerstone Studios, with Steven Soderbergh serving as an executive producer alongside Scott Fischer, John Ryan Jr. and John Santilli.

MGM owns the rights to the film and will release it in the U.S. under its Orion Pictures banner. Bloom is handling international sales, which commenced in Cannes where the project is likely to be one of the buzziest films in the market. Endeavor Content negotiated the deal.

Currently in preproduction, Bill & Ted Face the Music will see the duo long past their days as time-traveling teenagers and now weighed down by middle age and the responsibilities of family. They’ve written thousands of tunes, but they have yet to write a good one, much less the greatest song ever written. With the fabric of time and space tearing around them, a visitor from the future warns our heroes that only their song can save life as we know it. Out of luck and fresh out of inspiration, Bill and Ted set out on a time travel adventure to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe. Together with the aid of their daughters, a new crop of historical figures, and some sympathetic music legends, they find much, much more than just a song.

“We couldn’t be more excited to get the whole band back together again,” said Reeves and Winter. “Chris and Ed wrote an amazing script, and with Dean at the helm we’ve got a dream team!”

Bloom’s Alex Walton said: “Fans of Bill and Ted have been waiting for Reeves and Winter to reunite since their last Bogus Journey in 1991. This is excellent!”

Solomon and Matheson reportedly began working on a script in 2010, with both Reeves and Winter indicating in various interviews over the years that they were interested in making the film happen.

In 2017, Reeves told BBC talk show host Graham Norton that the film had been written and the story would see the duo “supposed to write a song to save the world and they haven’t done that. The pressure of having to save the world, their marriages are falling apart, their kids are kind of mad at them, and then someone comes from the future and tells them if they don’t write the song it’s just not the world, it’s the universe.”

Earlier this year, Solomon described the hold-up to Entertainment Weekly, saying: “We’ve been to the altar a few times. We get rejected right about the ‘now you may kiss the bride’ part of it.”

Reeves is represented by WME and Ziffren Brittenham; Winter is represented by CAA, Forward Entertainment, Hollander Entertainment and Sloss Eckhouse LawCo; Parisot is represented by WME; and Hammerstone Studios is represented by Rosen Law Group.

Categories
Television

PHEW!!!

Relax, John Oliver’s not really quitting ‘Last Week Tonight’

It was all a joke. The host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” said Sunday that he’d achieved all he’d wanted for the show by having an Australian animal hospital’s special ward to treat a chlamydia outbreak among koalas named for him. He said, “goodbye, forever, everyone,” as stagehands broke up his set around him.

That inspired a wave of social media posts among fans wondering if he was serious.

No. It’s a comedy show, after all. HBO said Monday that he’s scheduled to be back on the air next Sunday.

Categories
Movies

Love that Black Panther!!

What Happened to Killmonger’s Mother in ‘Black Panther’ May Make You Cry

(If you haven’t seen “Black Panther” by now, you already know spoilers are ahead.)

Erik “Killmonger” Stevens’ story in “Black Panther” just became even more tragic.

The movie’s villain, played by Michael B. Jordan, lost his father N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) at the hands of Wakanda’s king T’Chaka (John Kani). But it turns out that he lost his mother, too.

In the recently released Blu-Ray commentary for the movie, director Ryan Coogler shed some light on what N’Jobu and young Zuri (Denzel Whitaker) were up to in the movie’s opening scene.

“The idea was when you see those guys talking over the paperwork in the beginning of the film, they’re talking about a way to break her out of jail,” Coogler said. “The idea was they never got her out, and she passed away in prison, so Killmonger didn’t come up with a mom either.”

Not gonna cry. Nope. **sniff**

N’Jobu’s death is what leads Killmonger to seek revenge on Wakanda, and when T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) finds out that his father killed his uncle, it’s one of the most shocking reveals of the movie.

N’Jobu’s vision for using Wakandan tech to help the outside world eventually becomes realized, even though his son dies in the end, because Black Panther decides to help the outside world at the end of the movie — and we get to see exactly how in “Avengers: Infinity War.” Sorry though, Okoye (Danai Gurira): it’s not by building a Starbucks.

Categories
Movies

Saw AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR two more times this week and can’t wait to see it again!!

Avengers: Infinity War dominates box office again with $112.5M second weekend

Avengers: Infinity War rages on.

After delivering the biggest box office opening in history last week, Disney and Marvel’s superhero epic is on track to earn an estimated $112.5 million from 4,474 theaters in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, crushing its competitors while scoring the second-best second weekend ever, not adjusted for inflation. Only Star Wars: The Force Awakens has grossed more in its sophomore frame ($149.2 million), and Infinity War will bump Black Panther ($111.7 million) down to third on that list.

That said, Infinity War’s $112.5 million represents a decline of 56 percent from its opening weekend, which is notably steeper than either The Force Awakens (40 percent) or Black Panther (45 percent), and on par with Warner Bros’. ill-fated Justice League, though better than predecessor Avengers: Age of Ultron (59 percent).

After 10 days in theaters, Infinity War’s domestic tally sits at an estimated $450.8 million. This weekend the movie will add about $162.6 million overseas, for an international total of $713.3 million. Infinity War broke the $1 billion barrier at the worldwide box office Saturday, becoming the fastest film ever to do so, and along the way it has passed fellow superhero hits like Thor: Ragnarok ($854 million), 2002’s Spider-Man ($822 million), and Wonder Woman ($822 million).

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo and made for close to $300 million, Infinity War marks the third Avengers film and the 19th installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It features heroes from across the MCU franchise — including Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, and the Chris Pratt-led Guardians of the Galaxy — and pits them against Thanos (Josh Brolin), an interplanetary warlord trying to erase half the life in the universe.

Infinity War has received generally positive reviews from critics, and moviegoers gave it an A CinemaScore. An untitled sequel is already on the calendar for May 3, 2019.

Unlike last week, when no new major releases went up against against Infinity War, this weekend brought a trio of newcomers: Overboard, a gender-flipped remake of the 1987 rom-com; Tully, a dramedy about motherhood hailing from director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody; and Bad Samaritan, a thriller starring David Tennant.

Buoyed by Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris, Overboard fared best of the three, grossing an estimated $14.8 million from 1,623 theaters, good for second place. Tully, which stars Charlize Theron, took in about $3.2 million from 1,353, landing in the No. 6 spot, and Bad Samaritan just cracked the top 10 with about $1.8 million from 2,007 theaters.

According to ComScore, overall box office is up 5.1 percent year-to-date. Check out the May 4-6 figures below.

1. Avengers: Infinity War — $112.5 million
2. Overboard — $14.8 million
3. A Quiet Place — $7.6 million
4. I Feel Pretty — $4.9 million
5. Rampage — $4.6 million
6. Tully — $3.2 million
7. Black Panther — $3.2 million
8. Truth or Dare — $1.9 million
9. Super Troopers 2 — $1.82 million
10. Bad Samaritan — $1.76 million

Categories
The Simpsons

Eventually the creative team behind the show will have to do something.

Priyanka Chopra: Apu from ‘The Simpsons’ was ‘the bane of my life growing up’

Actress Priyanka Chopra has joined the call for The Simpsons creators to retire Indian character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, insisting the stereotype is so “out of date”.

The Baywatch beauty, who grew up in India before moving to the U.S. as a teen, reveals she spent much of her youth despising the cartoon shopkeeper, known for his over-the-top accent and exaggerated mannerisms, because it only contributed to her classmates’ ignorant assumptions of those with similar backgrounds.

“He was the bane of my life growing up, for sure,” she confessed on daytime talk show The View, as she weighed in on the controversy sparked by comedian Hari Kondabolu’s criticism in his 2017 documentary The Problem With Apu.

“I was always asked when I was in high school at 14, 15, why I didn’t speak like that…? Did I find gold in my rivers? Did I go to school on elephants? I always had questions like that.”

Priyanka insists the ignorance of Apu’s portrayal is only now being publicly recognized as an issue in society because minorities finally have a voice and are making themselves heard, compared to when The Simpsons first launched in 1989.

“A lot of people are talking about, ‘Oh, the show was so successful for 30 years, why are we suddenly waking up and being offended by a character that everyone loved?’,” she said. “What happened from that time to now, the population of Indian Americans has tripled. So the voice is louder. Representation for people of colour is louder. There’s the Internet and the media, where people can have a conversation.”

As a result, the actress insists The Simpsons creators should listen to the uproar and modernise their show to reflect the changing times.

Concluding her argument, she added, “So I think, yes, it is a time where, why try to erase stereotype? Yes, it is a cartoon. Yes, it’s a pop culturally (sic) super successful show. But that gives it more responsibility. It’s out of date on so many levels.”

Categories
People

Take care, Ms. Nichols.

‘Star Trek’ star Nichelle Nichols suffering from dementia

Nichelle Nichols, best known for her role as Lt. Nyota Uhura on the original Star Trek series, reportedly has dementia.

According to reports, the 85-year-old actress is suffering memory loss and needs to be taken care of according to her son. She has been confined to a wheelchair in recent times.

Kyle Johnson filed papers in court nominating four fiduciaries to become his mom’s conservators.

This would legally give them control of her finances and decisions related to her health.

According to Johnson, this is necessary because her dementia is “impacting her executive functioning” and makes her “susceptible to undue influence.”

He added: “Certain individuals have unduly exerted themselves into Ms. Nichols’ life ‘to her detriment.’”

Aside from her classic Star Trek role, the actress has been very busy with three projects coming out this year.

Her health took a setback when she suffered a stroke back in 2015.