Friday, July 29, 2011

More info on Taraji P. Henson's New Television Show

According to CBS, Person of Interest received the highest test ratings of any drama pilot in 15 years, what one CBS executive called "crazy broad appeal you don't usually see." The ratings prompted CBS to move CSI, which had occupied that slot for over 10 years, to Wednesday 10/9c to make room for Person of Interest.-Washington Post

From the official CBS webpage-
PERSON OF INTEREST stars Jim Caviezel, Emmy Award winner Michael Emerson and Academy Award nominee Taraji P. Henson in a crime thriller about a presumed dead former-CIA agent who teams up with a mysterious billionaire to prevent violent crimes by using their own brand of vigilante justice.
Jim Cavaziel and Michael Emerson
Reese's (Caviezel) special training in covert operations appeals to Finch (Emerson), a software genius who invented a program that uses pattern recognition to identify people about to be involved in violent crimes. Using state-of-the-art surveillance technology, the two work outside of the law using Reese's adept skills and Finch's unlimited wealth to unravel the mystery of the person of interest and stop the crime before it happens. Reese's actions catch the attention of the NYPD, including homicide detective Carter (Henson), and Fusco (Kevin Chapman), a cop who Reese uses to his advantage.

With infinite crimes to investigate, Reese and Finch find that the right person, with the right information, at the right time, can change everything. Emmy Award winners J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk ("Lost"), Academy Award nominee Jonathan Nolan ("Memento"), David Semel ("Heroes") and Greg Plageman ("Cold Case") are the executive producers for Warner Bros. Television.

The series premieres Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 9PM

Official Webpage-
www.cbs.com/primetime/person_of_interest/

From the blog




Taraji P. Henson Dishes On Her “Person Of Interest” Character
Read the article here


More Details on Kerry Washington's New Show

The cast of Scandal
For the record, the show DOES NOT have a full season order (22-23 episodes) only SEVEN episodes and will premiere in mid-season in 2012. While mid season orders are not unusual this order of episodes is. Below is a current example.

In midseason ABC's campy hour-long GCB (formerly known as Good Christian Belles), from Darren Star (Melrose Place) and starring Kristin Chenoweth, will produce 10 episodes; horror series The River, from Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli, has an eight-episode order; Ashley Judd's Missing has 10; Shonda Rhimes' Kerry Washington-led political drama Scandal was given a seven-episode order.-TV Guide, July 8, 2011 

The cast is-
  • Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope
  • Henry Ian Cusick as Stephen Finch
  • Columbus Short as Harrison Wright
  • Guillermo Diaz as Huck
  • Darby Stanchfield as Abby Whelan
  • Katie Lowes as Quinn Perkins  
  • Tony Goldwyn as President Fitzgerald Grant
  • Jeff Perry as Cyrus
See clips and photos from the show at the website CinemaBlend here

Saturday, July 23, 2011

The Boondocks Returning for Season Four


‘The Boondocks’ Season 4 Is In The Works
Kofi Outlaw - ScreenRant
July 23, 2011

Voice casting director Andrea Romano tells us that the long-delayed season 4 of ‘The Boondocks’ is officially headed into production.

To say that The Boondocks isn’t your average cartoon would be a huge understatement. The adult-themed animated show – based on the comic strip of the same name by Aaron McGruder – has skillfully and raucously skewered everything from urban culture, politics, religion, and hip-hop, to racism, misogyny, social media, movies, and of course, celebrities.

Over its three-season run on Cartoon Network, The Boondocks has earned a Peabody award and garnered smash ratings for the network (the season 3 premiere drew 2.5 million viewers despite a two-year hiatus between seasons 2 and 3).

For a long time it was said that The Boondocks would be finished after season 3 – much to the dismay of the show’s fiercely loyal fanbase. Many viewers (and even some celebrities) have since voiced their desire to see The Boondocks return for season 4, and there have been some rumblings from the direction of the show’s cast of voice actors, which suggested that fans’ wishes might be fulfilled.

While attending Comic-Con 2011 we had a chance to sit down with legendary voice casting director Andrea Romano (Batman: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender). We were discussing her work on the upcoming animated feature Batman: Year One, when we got some truly awesome news:

The Boondocks season 4 is officially headed into production.

Here’s how it went: Romano was discussing the face that she’s worked with various big studios – including Sony, the studio behind The Boondocks cartoon series. Very little gets by yours truly, and in the midst of Romano’s speech I noticed she was referring to her work on The Boondocks in the PRESENT TENSE, rather than the past tense. I couldn’t just let that slip by, so I asked Romano if indeed she was getting back to work casting and directing new voices for The Boondocks season 4, to which she responded:

They’re making new ones – I just got word they’re gonna make another season. Can you believe it? After all this time. It’s been out of production for almost two years…The line producer sent me an email and said ‘I believe it’s snowing in hell – do you know what that means?’ and I said, ‘Are we making more episodes?’ Because we all said ‘It’ll snow in hell before we make more,’ because we just never thought after that much time they would [make it]. But apparently there is a fanbase desire and I love the show. I love making the show.
So there you have it: Huey, Riley, Grandad and the gang will be back! Of course we still don’t know when the show will actually make it back onto the airwaves, but if past seasons are any indication, they’ll need a while to get things together.

External Links-
A Cool Fansite here

Official Website
http://www.boondockstv.com/

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

More info on the Spike Lee 'OldBoy' Adaptation

OldBoy Manga
Movie Or Manga, What Is Being Adapted For Spike Lee's OLDBOY?

by Todd Brown, TwitchFilm
July 12, 2011 9:11 AM

With Spike Lee now officially locked to direct a US version of Oldboy the question nobody seems to have asked yet is what will provide the actual basis of this new version of the film. Many forget that Park Chan-Wook's South Korean film was itself an adaptation of a previous Japanese manga and so the question becomes which will provide the basis for the US film.

And the answer is both.

A source close to the production tells Twitch that writer Mark Protosevich is using both the Korean film and the Japanese book as reference points for his own script. While the previous film will have more of an influence on the Protosevich script the manga will definitely also be present. Beyond that we are also told that the approach here is not unlike that employed with The Departed, a film from the same producers which used characters and scenarios from the source material as a launching point while also jettisoning several key elements and events from the original film and working significant amounts of entirely new material into the mix. We're told roughly twenty percent of the Protosevich script is entirely new material.

So here's what to expect. Just as Park Chan-Wook took a central concept from the Japanese manga while radically re-envisioning parts to create something new, the goal here is not to create a slavish shot-for-shot remake but to take elements of the Park film combined with elements of the manga and completely re-envision and re-contextualize those to create a specifically American story around the same concepts and themes. Time will tell what that actually looks like on screen.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Spike Lee is BACK- 2 Times, 2 Times


Spike Lee whose last feature was 2008’s Miracle at St. Anna, has spent the last several years working on TV documentaries and is now back making TWO narrative feature films.

From Blackfilm.com-
Blackfilm.com has exclusively learned that Spike Lee is currently working on a new feature film called ‘Red Hook Summer‘ with production slated to start this month. Details on the plot is limited, but a close source has informed us that the story centers on a adult from Atlanta who comes and spends the summer in Red Hook section of Brooklyn, NY. The kicker to this story is that Lee will be reprising his role as Mookie, the character he played over twenty years ago in his most famous film, 1989′s ‘ Do the Right Thing.’

*According to Twitter Spike has started Principal Photography on Monday, July 11, 2011! - Cool Black

UPDATE: August 2, 2011: Principal Photography is COMPLETE. Read about it here

__________________________________________________ 

Spike Lee To Direct 'Oldboy' For Mandate

By THE DEADLINE TEAM
Monday July 11, 2011 @ 11:42am PDT

Mandate Pictures just announced that Spike Lee will direct Oldboy, a remake of the cult 2003 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook that won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Mark Protosevich has adapted the screenplay and will co-produce; Roy Lee and Doug Davison will produce via Vertigo Entertainment with Lee's 40 Acres & A Mule. Mandate president Nathan Kahane will executive produce. Lee and Protosevich are repped by CAA. Dan Freedman, SVP business affairs, negotiated the deals for Mandate.

This is the project that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were looking to collaborate on back in 2008, with DreamWorks seeking the remake rights at the time. The film originally was set up at Universal before Mandate took over. The story centers on a man who is kidnapped on his daughter's birthday and held for 15 years in solitary confinement without explanation. He is eventually released and sets out on a path to take revenge on those who destroyed his life.

Cool Black's Mad Commentary: While I'm happy to know Spike Lee will make another film in Brooklyn not exactly excited that he will be revisiting a character from my favorite "Joint" Do The Right Thing. I prefer for all of those characters to be frozen in time. Oh well. It's his thing.

As far as Oldboy this sounds like an interesting film to be remaking. I only hope the studio doesn't interfere too much which happens on a lot of foreign remakes. They never turn out to be any good.

Update: August 17, 2011: I recently saw and reviewed the original OldBoy. Read that review here

External links-

You can read more about the original OldBoy and its WILD plot here

Read the article and more comments about Oldboy remake at the great site Shadow & Act here

June 30, 2011- Hollywood Reporter
Spike Lee: Why I Haven't Made a Feature Film in Three Years
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/spike-lee-why-i-havent-207371

Related posts-


Saturday, July 9, 2011

The Partner by John Grisham - The Cool Black Review

The PartnerThe Partner by John Grisham



My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Having read of eight his books I can say that John Grisham is my favorite author. I haven’t read one of his books in over 10 years and I can see not much has changed. The last book I read was his 1996 book ‘The Runaway Jury’. This one was his next book published in 1997 and it recounts the same territory of a Grisham book. One man embroiled in some huge dilemma aided by a woman surrounded by a group of shady adversaries who are out to get him. That’s pretty much half of the plots to his books except in The Pelican Brief it was - One [wo]man embroiled in some huge dilemma aided by a man surrounded by a group of shady adversaries who are out to get [her].

I generally enjoy his books or I wouldn’t have read so many, but it was nothing that new or original in this book. The protagonist, Patrick Lanigan, was pretty much a bastard who wrapped everyone he meets around his finger. The fact that I thought he was a bastard made every “trick” he did sleazier. To be clear he wasn’t supposed to be a villain, but I didn’t find him likeable. Grisham does do a good job at keeping one of the main mysteries of if this guy is alive then WHO is buried in his grave until pretty much the end. He also overspreads the details of exactly how this guy faked his death until later in the book.

The book indeed gets off to a rocking start and the mystery is intriguing, but once you figure out what an unlikable figure Patrick is, the book spirals down from there.

View all my reviews