by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Academy Award nominee Diane Lane has been in the public eye since Coppola, even before THE COTTON CLUB, where she polished her star so brightly that the film still shines out today. Now Focus Features has her set in this gem opposite another leading man of the period, Kevin Costner. The film is novel adaptation LET HIM GO, on deck for November release. LET HIM GO, set in 1951 in Montana, revisits Western themes of family and isolation where t...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Holy Toledo, sometimes an insider Hollywood story is so good, you see how the game is played. Jessica Chastain in MOLLY'S GAME So once upon a Batman, and a few-movies-ago Spiderman, the caped one and the web slinger became poker fanatics, like super fanatics, in a snake-pit-named Hollywood club’s back room, a club once owned by a Pirate. True story, plus there’s an ex-Olympic skier with the same name as a character from James ...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent You could say it’s a sweaty little secret, but in ninety-nine percent of all enduring Hollywood blockbuster smash hits, inevitably some man will break into a sprint to save his life. Consider Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow as a running man, from himself and various Admirals, Captains, Dead Men, and “natives.” Recall the beach scene in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise where he breaks full tilt chased by cannibals, who us...

Siraj Syed reviews Hidden Figures: US-Russia space race & black women’s amazing grace Did you know that three black women played crucial roles in NASA’s space programme, and without them, John Glenn would not be remembered as the first American astronaut to make it back to earth, but as a young man who got burnt to cinders, along with his spacecraft, by the heat generated on his vehicle’s re-entry into earth’s orbit? This is the true story of the rather unimaginati...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Octavia Spencer stars as Dorothy Vaughan in HIDDEN FIGURES. Photo Credit: Hopper Stone. Who knew NASA and IBM would be the corporate darlings of this year’s Oscar race? Or, translated into Award Season trivia for 2017, who knew HIDDEN FIGURES from 20th Century Fox, about three NASA human “Computers,” would run up unexpected numbers at the box office and put stars Kevin Costner, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Mon...

Is there no justice in this world? Lex Luthor argues that since God takes sides, he cannot be a just hero, and likewise Superman, who is revered as God’s agent on earth. What if Superman went rogue, he postulates? So, he asks the White House to allow him to import kryptonite (rock from Kal El’s native planet, Krypton, that robs him of his superpowers) from an ancient ship wreckage in the Indian Ocean, just in case.... Senators are not impressed, possibly because instead of behavin...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent ‘Diversity’ is a buzzword that says a lot by saying very little, so it is with McFarland, USA, from Disney, starring Kevin Costner leading a remarkable cast. When this movie opens wide on Feb. 20, nobody will need to know anything about the buzzwords, other than it is a “huge hit” from Niki Caro (Whale Rider) that will put America’s small San Joaquin Valley farming town on the map of our hearts. Costner, who showe...

SPOTLIGHT MEDIA PRODUCTIONS By Adrienne Papp                 December 5 – 17, 2014   EGYPTIAN THEATRE ...