Charles Bramesco
Armchair Film Critic Barack Obama Names His Favorite Movie of the Year
It’s hard enough for film critics without Barry O. snatching up our freelance gigs, but President Obama and the First Lady weighed in with their choices for 2015’s best film.
A ‘Back to the Future’ Producer Wanted to Retitle the Film ’Space Man From Pluto’
In October 1984, when Back to the Future would’ve been in early-development stages, a producer gave a friendly suggestion to remedy one of the biggest flaws in the project. The script was “terrific”, everything was fine, but that title. Wouldn’t something along the lines of Space Man from Pluto have a smoother flow, make more sense to audiences, and convey what the movie’s actually about much more succinctly?
‘12 Years a Slave’ Writer John Ridley Directing Feature About 1992 L.A. Riots
Back in April, we reported that in-demand screenwriter John Ridley had been caught in Marvel’s web of cross-promotion, inking a deal to develop a TV show that would spin off a key property from the already-popular Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. program. The specifics of that project still have yet to take shape (though we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that the M.O.D.O.K. solo show America so richly deserves will soon come to pass), but today brings news of a new endeavor for Ridley with no less social import. The Academy Award-winning scribe of 12 Years a Slave has announced that he will take the director’s chair once again to helm a feature about the notorious 1992 Los Angeles riots catalyzed by Rodney King’s savage beating at the hands of the LAPD.