Tyrone Hankerson Said He’s A Victim In This Case – And His Record Will Speak For Itself One of the Howard University employees accused of a massive embezzlement scheme has fired back at the anonymous claims, saying he’s innocent and has been victimized himself. An article published on Medium this week claimed that Howard University staff stole some $1 million in financial aid earmarked for students from 2013 through 2017. The article states that the HBCU’s president, Wayne Frederick, knew about the fraud since at least May 2017, but had not acted. The article specifically names Tyrone Hankerson, who was then a student employee, as well as Associate Director of Financial Aid, Brian Johnson, alleging the men both received unusually large grants and stipends from the school. The piece has since been taken down. But Hankerson said in a statement to BOSSIP exclusively that the article and the info that was cherry picked from his confidential records doesn’t paint the whole picture, and he’s the one who has been wronged. Hankerson said he did receive financial aid from the university, but it was nothing unusual for a student on a scholarship who also went abroad to continue his education. Hankerson said he never authorized the release of his records to anyone, and his legal team is working with the university to find out who leaked his data. He said he has never had any criminal or disciplinary record from the school, has been a model student and wants the public to stop the rush to judgement. Hit the flip to read Hankerson’s statement:
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Another day, another reality star released… Abby Lee Miller Released “Dance Moms” star Abby Lee Miller is officially a free woman. The reality star was released from a Victorville, California Tuesday after surrendering herself last July on bankruptcy fraud charges. ET Online reports that she was transferred to a halfway house in Long Beach, California, for the remainder of her sentence. As of now, Miller is scheduled to be released from the halfway house on May 25. She was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison last May. Several outlets are also reporting that Miller’s lost a dramatic amount of weight and is anxious to return to TV. PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Abby Lee Miller leaves jail after losing 100lbs behind bars https://t.co/B39ZEOtnlx pic.twitter.com/AoxFONvtBl — Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) March 28, 2018 Will you be watching Abby Lee Miller when she inevitably comes back to “Dance Moms”?
Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Underground Lauderdale Another one… WAGS Miami Star Announces Pregnancy Another WAGS Miami star is having a baby. After Ashley Nicole announced that she and her hubby Phillip Wheeler were expecting baby number 2… her friend/costar Hencha Voigt is confirming that she’s knocked up too. The sporty fitness trainer wrote a lengthy post on her burgeoning baby bump and reflected on hardships she’s had in her life. “All my life I’ve been judged for who I am. Who I am is who I am, I was born this way and can’t change it. People judged me for my actions, for myself, for how I spoke, for what I did, for how I thought, for how I looked, for my motives, for what I stood for, for my beliefs; for everything,” wrote Hencha. “People even judged me for my accomplishments, no one ever congratulated me for anything because I didn’t choose to take the formal path to life, which was listen to what you’re told to do. […] I no longer am living for me, I now have a purpose and a full-time job and that’s being your mommy.” So far no word on who Hencha’s expecting a baby with, she was seen “revenge dating” baseball player Michael Crouse, her costar Astrid Bavaresco’s boo. Congrats Hencha!
“I met you once for a handshake and I was terrified,” Darren Aronofsky told Clint Eastwood during their Tribeca Talks Directors Series discussion on Saturday. “I’m still a little terrified.” The two men chatted (fittingly, in directors’ chairs) following the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story , a 60-minute documentary about the actor-turned-filmmaker’s career behind the camera. Although the 82-year-old Eastwood is almost double the age of Aronofsky, it was The Wrestler director who walked with a cane. He lowered himself into his seat while Eastwood gestured to the applauding crowd and, with a smile on his face, told them to “knock it off.” The man who once played Dirty Harry kept up the charm offensive throughout the conversation and didn’t address any empty chairs. The Academy Award-winning director and Academy Award-nominated one discussed a number of topics, including directing children, working with actors, working with digital cameras and sustaining a passion for filmmaking. On that last subject, Eastwood said, “I don’t think you ever lose it.” He then referenced 104-year-old Portuguese director and screenwriter Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira . ( The Strange Case of Angelica ). “That’s always everybody’s dream,” Eastwood said. “Wouldn’t it be great to be 105 and still be making films?” He dubbed this hope “the ultimate optimism.” More wisdom and anecdotes from Eastwood include: “You have to fight for what you want, for what you believe in.” “A director has to be the most malleable person on set.” “Directing is having your hands on everything. It’s the ultimate power trip.” “If [filmmaking] was that painful, I’d consider myself somewhat of a masochist.” When Aronofsky asked Eastwood the first thing he does upon arriving at a new set or location, the movie-making veteran replied, “I was thinking of throwing up . For some reason that came into my mind. We won’t print that.” Too late. For more from Eastwood and Aronofsky, check out their discussion in its entirety below: More on Clint Eastwood: Clint Eastwood Sounds Like High Plains Grifter At Republican Convention WATCH: Harold & Kumar ‘s Kal Penn Kicks Clint Eastwood’s Ass at Democratic Convention Nell Alk is an arts and entertainment writer and reporter based in New York City. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Manhattan Magazine, Z!NK Magazine and on InterviewMagazine.com, PaperMag.com and RollingStone.com, among others. Learn more about her here. Follow Nell Alk on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The third time is neither a particular charm nor the kiss of death for Marvel Studios ’ robust Iron Man series, which has changed studios (from Paramount to Disney) and directors ( Shane Black subbing for Jon Favreau ) but otherwise toyed little with the formula that has so far generated more than $1.2 billion in global ticket sales. The inevitable franchise fatigue ― plus a markedly unmemorable villain ― may account for the feeling that Iron Man 3 is more perfunctory and workmanlike than its two predecessors, but this solid production still delivers more than enough of what fans expect to earn its weight in box office metal. Part of the rich appeal of the first Iron Man (2008) came from the inspired casting of Robert Downey Jr . , who brought loads of impish charisma and insouciance to the part of defense contractor turned iron-plated superhero Tony Stark . It was particularly fun to watch Downey becoming Iron Man, bobbing and weaving about in his space-age rocket suit like a novice surfer trying to stand up on a wave. You can only do an origin story once, alas, and some of the magic was already gone from 2010’s Iron Man 2 , which pitted our hero against a stock Russian heavy ( Mickey Rourke ) in a standard-issue revenge narrative, but still found ample time for Stark and romantic foil Pepper Potts ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) to do their very passable Tracy-Hepburn routine . There was also a sly running commentary on the celebrification of American culture ― and, in Stark’s effort to rid himself of the shrapnel slowly poisoning his body, a deft analog for Downey’s own widely publicized battle with various forms of addiction. Most of that is absent at the start of Iron Man 3 , which finds Stark in fine physical shape ― if a bit mentally unhinged from the events of The Avengers ― and living in relative domestic bliss with the comely Ms. Potts. All of which leaves little for Black (and co-screenwriter Drew Pearce ) to do other than summon up the latest villain from the Marvel dugout: A bearded, bin Laden-esque baddie who calls himself the Mandarin ( Ben Kingsley ) and who claims credit for a series of terror bombings, one of which, a frightening attack in front of Hollywood’s historic Chinese Theatre, has landed Stark security honcho Happy (Favreau) in a coma. (Although clearly unintentional, the movie’s recurring images of severed limbs and burning bodies can’t help but strike a queasy note in light of the recent events in Boston.) Spewing his boilerplate anti-American rhetoric in a series of crudely made videos that mysteriously jam the television airwaves, the Mandarin promises that “the big one is coming,” just in time for Christmas no less. If we’ve learned anything from fantasy villains ranging from Darth Vader to the Dark Knight trilogy’s Ra’s al Ghul , first appearances can be deceiving. Suffice to say that the Mandarin is in some kind of cahoots with a couple of blasts from Tony Stark’s past: an experimental botanist ( Rebecca Hall ) and her wealthy benefactor, Aldrich Killian ( Guy Pearce ), whose prize project, Extremis , involves “hacking” into the human DNA chain to cure the sick, heal the lame and pretty much do anything else you might desire. Upon hearing Killian’s pitch, Pepper notes that the technology sounds like it could easily be weaponized. She doesn’t know the half of it. As an A-list screenwriter in the ’80s and ’90s, Black practically defined a certain brand of sardonic Hollywood action spectacle (his credits include Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight ), then disappeared for most of the 2000s, surfacing briefly in 2005 with his directorial debut, the self-referential neo-noir Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which featured Downey in a crucial comeback role). Iron Man 3 reps a huge step up in terms of scale, and Black largely acquits himself well, keeping the pace brisk, deploying a couple of modest surprises and staging a few undeniably impressive, super-sized setpieces. Among them: an end-of-first-act raid that reduces Stark’s swank Malibu pad to smithereens, and a mid-film, mid-air rescue that draws upon some truly spectacular skydiving acrobatics. The entire package is never less than professional, enhanced by ace tech contributions from cinematographer John Toll, production designer Bill Brzeski (replacing the late J. Michael Riva) and editors Peter Ford and Jeffrey S. Elliot. Yet the movie suffers from separating Downey from three of his best verbal sparring partners ― Favreau, Paltrow and Paul Bettany (as the voice of the uber-computer Jarvis) ― for much of the pic’s running time. And from top to bottom, Favreau’s handcrafted touch is conspicuously absent, particularly his affection for retro, Ray Harryhausen-esque visual effects. (This is by far the most digital-looking series entry.) Perhaps fittingly for a movie that introduces a new generation of remote-guided Iron Man suits, Iron Man 3 all too often feels as if it were assembled by a machine. Though advertised as Iron Man 3 in all promotional materials, the pic’s full onscreen title reads as Iron Man Three .
The studios want him, but, these, days Zac Efron only has eyes for indie film. After making a splash at the New York Film Festival with The Paperboy last fall , Efron is back in the Big Apple, at the Tribeca Film Festival, with At Any Price . What’s the deal? “Y’know, Dennis [Quaid] says that the only rule he sort of had for himself in his career is to do as many different types of movies as possible, and never stop stretching and trying something new,” Efron told when I talked to him about the project. I also talked to Quaid who said that he and At Any Price director Ramin Bahrani drew inspiration from Arthur Miller’s classic play: Death of a Salesman . “We talked about Death of a Salesman and the Willy Loman character a lot…[my character] is a man who’s really trying to do the best for his family but he’s corrupted himself in the process,” the actor told me. The buzz on At Any Price is that Efron will get you into the theater, but you’ll leave it talking about Quaid. Check out my full in-depth interview below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The latest teaser for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is an effective one. The clip introduces General Zod via a grainy video transmission that makes Superman’s arch enemy look a lot creepier than he does in production stills. The voice clearly belongs to actor Michael Shannon , who plays Zod in this latest reboot of Warner’s Superman franchise, but the staticky image leaves the impression that the Kryptonian wack-job is wearing some sort of mask with weird eyes and an exceptionally elongated chin. Either that or Zod trimmed his goatee and got some sleep after sending this transmission. (See the photo above.) The calm way in which the baddie warns that the planet Earth will “suffer the consequences” if Kal-El (Superman’s Kryptonian name) doesn’t surrender is also a nice chilling touch. There may be more to look at in a couple of days or so. ComingSoon.net reports that another site IWillFindHim.com is counting down from 48 hours, possibly for a trailer. Since I can’t read Kryptonian, or whatever language that is on the screen, I’ll take their word for it. I, Zod [ ComingSoon , I Will Find Him ] More on Superman: Warner To Announce New DC Superhero Movies (And Remember Those Joseph Gordon-Levitt Rumors?) What The Kal-El? The Seriously Weird Superman That Nicolas Cage Almost Played Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Why am I not excited about Pacific Rim ? I’m mostly a fan of Guillermo del Toro ‘s work, particularly the superb Pan’s Labyrinth , but the three teaser clips that have been released for the filmmaker’s hotly anticipated mechs-vs-monsters summer sci-fi film have all left me cold. Part of the problem is that they’re all virtually the same. The new international TV spot, for instance, is a condensed retread of the earlier trailers, and its brevity draws attention to what I think may be the film’s biggest weakness: a lame monster. Yes, the giant human-piloted Jaeger mechs are impressive — even if they defy science and physics — but their enemies, which are called Kaiju , Japanese for “strange beast,” don’t look the fearsome, formidable part they’re supposed to play in the picture. (If you’re okay with spoilers, this review of the Pacific Rim script indicates that the Kaiju overwhelm the Jaegers.) Clearly, del Toro is paying homage to the Japanese Toho Studios kaiju films of the 1950s, ’60s and beyond — the Godzilla franchise being the most well known of them. The problem is, the creature in the Pacific Rim looks like it came directly from the set of one of those hokey movies and didn’t stop by the visual effects department to get a rad new upgrade. Remember, Gamera , the amusing flying turtle (which was not a Toho creation)? If you took the body of that ’60s-era monster and grafted the head of Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla onto it — not a movie that any filmmaker should be referencing — then you’d get a creature similar to the one you see in the photo above and trailer below. Not-So-Scary Monster Perhaps del Toro is keeping more fearsome creatures under wraps. The Kaiju apparently hail from another universe — a kind of interstellar Monster Island — so conceptually there could be more than one species. I hope so. If the creature in the teasers is all we get, then Pacific Rim could suffer from a real tension deficit. One other thing: It’s time to give Idris Elba’s “Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!” speech a rest. It was rousing the first 10 times I heard it — in January. Three months later, it’s ripe to be satirized, and the movie isn’t out until July 12. What do you think? More on Pacific Rim : ‘Pacific Rim’ Vs. Real World Physics: Giant Robots, Galileo, And The Square Cube Law WATCH: Do The Jaeger Meisters In New ‘Pacific Rim’ Trailer Defy Logic? [ Insight: Movies ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy doesn’t hit theaters until October, and that just seems way too long to wait. I’m genuinely excited to see what Lee does with the material and am envisioning a revenge (and blood)-soaked 25th Hour . The good news is that FilmDistrict has finally dropped a tiny morsel from the upcoming film. The bad news: it’s chicken scratch. The distributor has unveiled a teaser poster for the film at CinemaCon , which is taking place in Las Vegas April 15-18 . The symbolism borrows from Park’s original: they’re the scratches that the imprisoned protagonist Oh Dae-su ( Choi Min-sik ) uses to keep track of time. That character gets an American makeover in Lee’s version: He’s now Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin), and, according to the official synopsis he’s an advertising executive “who is abruptly kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, he embarks on an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his bizarre and torturous punishment only to find he is still trapped in a web of conspiracy and torment.” These clues leave me with a handful of questions, most of them having to do with other plot points from the original that are ripe for homage: 1) There are a lot of advertising executives I’d like to see locked away, but for 20 years? What did he do, devise those Kia ads with the hipster hamsters ? 2) In the original Oh Dae-su tracked down his captor via the dumplings he was fed in prison every day. If an American comfort food is substituted, what will it be? Macaroni & Cheese? 3) Will the live octopus-eating scene be referenced? (If you haven’t watched the original Oldboy , you should, but, in the meantime, I’ve posted the scene below.) 4) Will incest figure into the plot as it did in the original? If so, American audiences will squirm enough that reprising the live octopus scene won’t be necessary. 5) Does Lee’s brother Cinqué Lee have a thing about playing bellhops ? He plays one in this movie, and he played one in Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 film Mystery Train . If you crave more Oldboy info while you wait for a trailer, check out my interview with director Park in which he explains why he’s not interested in seeing Lee’s remake until it’s released. And order up some live sushi: Now that’s fresh Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Jonathan Winters was not known for his acting. The brilliant improvisational comic, who died of natural causes at the age of 87 on Thursday, did not do his best work when he was tied to a script. As the New York Times ‘ obituary of Winters noted, “’Jonny works best out of instant panic,’ one of his television writers in the 1960s said. He thrived when he could ad-lib, fielding unexpected questions or pursuing spontaneous flights of fancy. In other words, he made a brilliant guest, firing comedy in short bursts, but a problematic host or actor.” And yet, it’s impossible to consider the Dayton, OH-born Winters’ career without this memorably funny performance in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad World . Dialogue was besides the point in the clip below, which made the conditions optimal for Winters to use his ferocious talent for physical comedy to great effect. Do you think there are any contemporary actors capable of matching Winters here? Melissa McCarthy , could do it, for sure, and Will Ferrell , too, but who else? Winters’ Discontent [ New York Times ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter.
