Entertainment

Chances are, your TV isn’t the standard IMAX screen size — some 52 by 72 feet — but Disney+ has released a slew of Marvel movies and other content in what it’s calling the IMAX Enhanced format on Friday’s Disney+ Day.

The films boast stunning picture quality, but also a different screen ratio than you might have gotten used to since the advent of widescreen TVs. Simply put, the movies play without the black “letterbox” borders at the top and bottom of your screen.

Technically, speaking, the movies appear in a 1.90:1 aspect ratio, vs. your standard 16:9, and will screen with Dolby Vision HDR and DTS audio, if your TV is compatible.

Thirteen Marvel films are now available in IMAX Enhanced, including the just-released to Disney+ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The others include Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Black Widow, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Thor: Ragnarok, and Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

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Friday morning, HBO Max dropped a brand-new teaser-trailer for the next chapter of Sex and the City, …And Just Like That, along with a release date, December 9.

The tease features Sarah Jessica Parker‘s Carrie Bradshaw living it up with her old friends Miranda and Charlotte, played respectively by Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, along with some of their new friends, including Grey’s Anatomy‘s Sara Ramirez playing Che, and Empire‘s Nicole Ari Parker as Lisa. 

The teaser also features a trademark SATC voiceover from SJP’s Carrie Bradshaw, which ties it all together. “They say some things never change,” Carrie says. “But the truth is life is full of surprises, and as your story unfolds, the city reinvents itself. And just like that, a new chapter begins.”

HBO Max says the “new chapter of the groundbreaking HBO series, Sex and the City…will follow Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.”

The series also stars returning SATC cast members Chris Noth, Mario Cantone, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, and Willie Garson, the latter of whom died in September of pancreatic cancer.

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Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, which originated in China in 2019, an increasing number of Asian-Americans have reported experiencing racist attacks.  Gymnast Suni Lee, who won a gold medal at this year’s summer Olympics, revealed that she is no exception.

In an interview with PopSugar, the 18-year-old Dancing with the Stars contestant recalls a recent act of anti-Asian hate involving her and her girlfriends, who are also of Asian descent, as they were waiting for an Uber at night.

Lee says they were startled by a group speeding by in a car yelling racist slurs and epithets while insisting they “go back to where they came from.” One passenger, she claims, sprayed her arm with pepper spray as the car sped off.

“I was so mad, but there was nothing I could do or control because they skirted off,” she adds. “I didn’t do anything to them, and having the reputation, it’s so hard because I didn’t want to do anything that could get me into trouble. I just let it happen.”

Suni recently opened up about the bullying she’s received while in Los Angeles for Dancing with the Stars, noting, “I always see a lot of mean comments about me not being able to dance and I need to go home. I feel like they’re right. I let them get to me.”

Lee tells the outlet that it’s difficult to speak up about uncomfortable topics like racial injustice, especially at her age, but she believes that using her voice makes a difference.

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Paris Hilton tied the knot with boyfriend Carter Reum on Thursday in Los Angeles, a source tells E! Online.

“Paris selected her dress late last night,” notes another insider. “There is a lot of love and support surrounding both Carter and Paris.”

The 40-year-old TV personality and Reum announced their engagement back in February, sharing on Instagram, “When you find your soulmate, you don’t just know it. You feel it.”

“There’s no one I’d rather spend forever with,” she added.

 

 

 

 

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Home Alone, the perennial holiday movie about a mischievous boy defending his home from opportunistic burglars, will have its story continued in the new Disney+ original, Home Sweet Home Alone.

Star Aisling Bea [ASH-ling bee], who plays the protagonist’s mother, told ABC Audio the film is “not a remake” of the original 1990 movie — it’s a sequel.  That’s a small relief for the Irish comedian, who admits a reboot would mean she’d be compared to Catherine O’Hara — who played Macaulay Culkin‘s on-screen mom.

“The character is so different of the mother,” said Bea, “which I think gives it a new energy and why it makes it a different film. And takes the pressure off ‘Oh, you’re reprising Catherine O’Hara’s role.'”

She further teased, “All of the characters sort of spin on their head in terms of who’s good and who’s bad.”

The This Way Up star, who was about 6 when the first Home Alone movie came out, explains why the original movie was formative for her.

“I remember when I first saw it,” Bea recalled, “I sort of felt like, ‘Oh, this is a film for me like that. It’s from my point of view,’ which was a rarity to see something that felt like a sort of adult movie in a way or comedy that that was told from the child’s eyes.”

So, what would happen if the Wet Bandits broke into her home during the holidays?

“They’d be really disappointed,” she laughed, because her valuables consist of a collection of fridge magnets and modestly-priced jewelry. “Maybe they’d take my one of my 94 pillows and cushions that I have adorning every of every surface and a lot of Irish paraphernalia!” 

Home Sweet Home Alone is streaming now on Disney+.

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The latest installment in the Power franchise, Power Book IV: Force, will premiere Sunday, February 6, 2022.

Starz made the announcement Thursday about the series starring Joseph Sikora as Tommy Egan, with a teaser-trailer. In the fourth installment of Power, Egan leaves New York City and plans to takeover Chicago. 

Idris Elba, who currently stars in the Netflix Western The Harder They Fall, teased his return as homicide DCI John Luther in another Netflix film. The 49-year-old British actor wrote “Oi……I’m back!” Wednesday on Instagram with behind-the-scenes images from the set. Elba starred from 2010-2019 in the Luther BBC series. Cynthia Erivo has been announced as one of his co-stars in the movie, simply titled Luther.

In other news, VH1 announced that VH1 Family Reunion: Love & Hip Hop Edition, will return for season two on Monday, December 13th at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The show features cast members from the Atlanta, New York, Hollywood and Miami series, including Amina Buddafly, Brooke Valentine, Cyn Santana, Erica Mena, Juelz Santana, Mimi Faust, Peter Gunz, Rich Dollaz, Safaree and Stevie J. On Monday, Stevie filed for divorce from Faith Evans after three years of marriage.

Finally, Ava DuVernay, Will Smith, Halle Berry and Jennifer Hudson will be among the special honorees at the annual Celebration of Black Cinema & Television. DuVernay will receive the first-ever Melvin Van Peebles Trailblazer Award, and Smith will be honored with the Actor Award for Film for his role in King Richard. Berry will be presented with the Career Achievement Award, and Hudson will be recognized with the Actress Award for Film. Niecy Nash will host the event Monday, December 6 at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

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Paramount+ has cast Lizzie Caplan in a series adaptation of the 1987 hit Fatal Attraction, which starred Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. The show has already gotten a full season order for the streamer.

Caplan will play Close’s role of Alex, the woman who flies off the (knife) handle after having an affair with Douglas’ hotshot lawyer Dan. What results is a tale of twisted obsession that includes, famously, with a bunny in a pot of boiling water.

The Douglas role has yet to be cast.

According, to Paramount+, the new series is, “A deep-dive reimagining of the classic psychosexual thriller from the 1980s” that “will explore fatal attraction and the timeless themes of marriage and infidelity, through the lens of modern attitudes towards strong women, personality disorders and coercive control.”

Caplan, a veteran of dozens of movies and TV shows, recently earned Emmy and Critics Choice Award nominations in the Outstanding Lead Actress categories opposite Michael Sheen in Showtime’s Masters of Sex.

Dirty John veteran Alexandra Cunningham is writing and acting as the show’s executive producer.

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Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds pulled a fast one on both Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night, when they appeared in each other’s places on, respectively, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show.

Fallon introduced Ferrell, only to have Ryan show up instead, to Fallon’s apparent confusion. 

For his part, Kimmel called for Reynolds to appear, and was greeted instead by Ferrell. 

Both guests, on both shows, claimed the other was running late, and volunteered to sub for each other. 

It was a bit, of course, but one that poked fun at chat show conventions. For his part, Ryan answered Jimmy Fallon’s questions meant for Will, and Ferrell did his best to talk about Red Notice, Reynolds’ new Netflix movie. “I haven’t seen a stitch of it,” he confessed. “I’ve seen the billboards, though.”

Ryan spoke about Ferrell’s new movie, The Shrink Next Door, although he was only familiar with Paul Rudd, People‘s newly crowned Sexiest Man Alive. “He’s possibly the nicest person in all of show business,” said Reynolds, “and he’s aging backwards thanks to his contract with Satan.”

Ryan didn’t see The Shrink Next Door, either, describing the Apple TV+ as “Ant-Man adjacent,” but he “doesn’t shrink his body, per se.” Ryan joked, “It’s Marvel Phase 16, which everyone is saying is way more relatable.”

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, Will gamely answered Kimmel’s already-prepared questions for Ryan about his “beautiful wife Blake Lively,” and their three girls.

Will and Ryan will be seen again — together, this time — in Spirited, a Christmas-themed musical that debuts next year on Apple TV+.

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As seen in the trailers to the upcoming Disney+ MCU series Hawkeye, the adventures of Captain America and his heroic friends made it to Broadway, in the form of a make-believe production called Rogers: The Musical.

However, the songs in the play-within-a-show are very real, and were brought to life by two real-life, award-winning Broadway legends. 

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman were tapped by Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige to craft music for the Rogers musical, according to Marvel.com. The pair were veterans of smashes like Hairspray and Mary Poppins Returns.

“[We] were at an Academy Award dinner, and I’m sitting there and someone taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Excuse me, Kevin Feige would love to meet you,” Shaiman recalls to the website.

“Turns out Kevin is a film score nerd. He started talking about [the scores I’ve written] one by one, and I was like, ‘I cannot believe this is happening.'”

He continues, “I guess when this idea came up for Hawkeye, for there to be a musical on Broadway, he luckily thought of us, and we couldn’t be more ecstatic about it.”

While the pair admit they weren’t well-versed in the MCU, they caught up quickly, mostly thanks to Marc’s husband, Lou, who Shaiman calls, a “total Marvel nerd.”

The fruits of their labor was a show-stopper based on the Battle of New York as seen in the climax of The Avengers. 

“I never knew that Scott and I would write a song with the word ‘Tesseract’ in it,” Shaiman jokes about the MCU’s time-bending MacGuffin.

Starring Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld, Hawkeye debuts on Disney+ on November 24.

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Actor and television host Terrence Jenkins was the target of gunfire during an attempted robbery Wednesday morning at his home in Los Angeles.

The Think Like a Man star was followed as he drove to his house in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood. Police tell ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV that four suspects were in a car behind him, and attempted to rob him in his driveway at approximately 3 a.m. Shots were fired at his vehicle as sped off to get away from the assailants. No injuries were reported.

Terrence J, who previously hosted BET’s 106 & Park and E! News, was able to flag down a California Highway Patrol officer and report the incident.

The attempted robbery follows a safety bulletin recently issued by the LAPD warning about the “ongoing trend of follow home robberies.”

“Suspects have been locating victims in Los Angeles, following them, and then committing the robberies as the victim arrives home or at their business,” the bulletin said.

Residents living near Jenkins told KABC-TV that they were shocked by the incident and consider their area one of the safest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

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