New information has come out regarding the death of Michael Clarke Duncan . Sources tell TMZ the 54-year old actor never fully recovered from the heart attack he suffered on July 13, as his brain went without oxygen for five full minutes during that episode, prior to fiancee Omarosa Manigault restarting his heart via CPR. From there, Duncan faced a number of health problems, ranging from issues with his kidneys… to his pancreas… to high blood pressure. Each time one area was fixed, the insider says, another difficulty would arise. A devastated Omarosa, who had planned to marry the actor in January, is making funeral arrangements as we type. Our thoughts go out to her and Duncan’s loved ones. [Photo: WENN.com]
Mark Abrahamian, the lead guitarist for the band Starship, suffered a heart attack following a concert in Nebraska Sunday night and passed away. He was 46. According to The Associated Press, Abrahamian collapsed in the group’s dressing room following a performance in Norfolk. He was then taken to the hospital and pronounced dead.
Luda and Kev brought out the ATL biggest and brightest for a good cause. Ludcris’ Luda Day Weekend Celebrity Basketabll Game In Atlanta The importance of giving back to the community is the primary focus of LudaDay Weekend, and this year, Ludacris has made a commitment to highlighting local charities that support the city of Atlanta including; Frank Ski Kids Foundation, Inc., Keshia Knight Pulliam’s Kamp Kizzy, Antoine “Big Boi” Patton’s Big Kidz Foundation, Josh Powell’s 21 Reasons Foundation, Get Schooled.org, Do Something, Ryan Cameron Foundation, and the Boys & Girls Club of Atlanta. In addition to the above mentioned causes, LudaDay Weekend has also partnered with the local organization, Charles McCree Presents: Project Walk A Mile In My Shoes, to collect donations of new and slightly used shoes and sneakers to be collected at the Ludacris (Team Luda) vs. Kevin Hart (Team Hart) Celebrity Basketball Game on Sunday, September 2nd, at Morehouse Forbes Arena. The collected shoes will be donated to the following Atlanta-based organizations; Hosea Feed The Hungry, ENBA CAMP & YouthTakeBack, and My Sister’s House women’s shelter for abused women. Since its inception in 2008, Project Walk A Mile in My Shoes has collected over 7,000 pairs of shoes for several organizations including The Boys & Girls Club, It’s Cool To Be Smart, My Sister’s House and Hosea Feed the Hungry. Luda definitely puts on for his city. Check out the pics from the game on the flipper. Images via ATLPics/Prince Williams
All these toddlers and their damn tiaras…SMH A Gallery Of Cities Where Children Are The Most Spoiled Ever known a kid to walk around in ALL the latest and greatest in EVERYTING without punching a single time card? Some would call these children “blessed” some would rather “bless” them out. As much as you may begrudge the kids, ultimately, the parents are the ones enabling these spoiled brats to carry on in such an entitled fashion. According to parenting.com, the average middle-income family will spend roughly $12,000 on child-related expenses in their baby’s first year of life. By age two, you can add $500+ to that figure. Babycenter.com calculates how much your child will cost you. If you’re a northeastern couple making more than 100k per year, expect to spend more than a half million dollars on your kid from birth to age 18. And that doesn’t include buying expensive brand-name clothing or a $1,000 Bugaboo stroller for your little bundle of joy. With child spending already breaking the bank for many, we wanted to find out which cities spoil their kids the most. To do so, we examined spending by households with children at stores that sell toys, clothing and other services for tots, kids, and teens. We identified all locations for which Bundle.com had a reasonable sample size, and determined the average spend by these households over the past three years. Then we ranked cities based on the percentage spend above or below the U.S. average. Hit the flipper to see if your city is known for having silver-spoon sons and daughters. You may be surprised at the cities that made it… Images via Instagram/YouTube/WENN Source
Also in Friday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Martha Marcy May Marlene director is heading for a TV gig. The Kids Are All Right director eyes her next project. And a British television star eyes joining the cast of August: Osage County . No More Lance Armstrong Biopic? News that the 7-time Tour de France winner will be stripped of his titles poses what will be the ultimate outcome of a planned biopic of Armstrong by Sony Pictures. The story might have been straightforward had it been made a few years ago, but now it could go forward – or not – in a different way, Deadline reports . Expendables 2 Set for Box Office Repeat There are no new superhero films newcomers Premium Rush and Hit and Run are not expected to take the top spot from last weekend’s top earner, Expendables 2 . The pic is expected to gross around $14 million, Reuters reports . Sean Durkin to Direct Channel 4 Mini Southcliffe Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin will make his British TV debut with the U.K.’s Channel 4 drama Southcliffe based on a script by Tony Grisoni who wrote the Red Riding trilogy. The story revolves around the aftermath of a series of shootings in an English market town told through the p.o.v. of a journalist and the victims, Deadline reports . Lisa Cholodenko Eyes November Criminals The Kids Are All Right director is in talks to direct November Criminals for Santa Monica-based Indian Paintbrush. Set in Washington, D.C., the story revolves around a student who goes inside D.C. society while investigating the mysterious death of a fellow student, The Wrap reports . Benedict Cumberbatch Eyes August: Osage County The actor who stars on the BBC’s Sherlock is in talks to join the cast of The Weinstein Company’s adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play that stars Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and George Clooney, THR reports .
On paper, adapting the video game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune to the big screen looks like a no-brainer. In the character of Nate Drake, you essentially have a young Indiana Jones, who escapes a creative array of baddies and one tight scrape after another while tracking down the golden statue of El Dorado. So why can’t Hollywood get this baby on the screen? Variety reports that Limitless director Neil Burger — who took the helm of the movie last year after David O. Russell ( The Fighter ) left the project — has departed as well. Instead of bringing a new director on board, Dark Knigh t franchise producer Charles Roven’s Atlas Entertainment and Spider-Man producer Avid Arad’sArad Productions have hired Marianne and Cormac Wibberley to rewrite the script. Once they have that in hand, they plan to hire a director. The Wibberleys wrote the crowd-pleasing National Treasure movies and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle , but the groaning you hear out there is coming from some of the game’s incredibly passionate fans who are looking over the screenwriting team’s other credits and deciding that they don’t like what they see. Much of the wincing is over G-Force , a cutesy movie the Wibberleys wrote about a special forces team of guinea pigs. The fans of Uncharted do not want cutesy. They even bristled when Russell was talking about incorporating a “family dynamic” into his adaptation. (That said, I really wanted to see Russell make this movie. He proved with The Fighter that he can make an thrilling movie with fully fleshed characters.) The fans of Uncharted want to see the game’s off-the-hook stunt pieces recreated on the screen with the taut, storytelling of the Bourne movies. Oh yeah, and they really seem to want Castle star Nathan Fillion to play the role of Drake. Is that such a difficult challenge? [ Variety ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Expendables 2 looks likely to top the box office across the U.S. again, but naturally there are others waiting in the wings to capture your hard earned box office dollars and the choices do not have to be limited to studio carry-overs. Sleepwalk with Me is looking like an immediate hit, though most audiences across the U.S. will have to wait (but go for it New York). Samsara took a long, long path to its theatrical roll out this weekend, with an epic that travels the world. And two Latin American films will hit U.S. screens today. Hermano centers on two aspiring football (OK, ‘soccer’) stars who grow up in Venezuelan slums and Neighbouring Sounds won accolades at film festivals about a middle class Brazilian neighborhood that undergoes change once a private security firm arrives… Sleepwalk with Me Director: Mike Birbiglia, Seth Barrish Writers: Mike Birbiglia, Joe Birbiglia, Ira Glass, Seth Barrish Opens: New York’s IFC Center exclusively this weekend with Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Portland, Seattle and more in coming weekends. Indications point to a strong opening for the Sundance film that won an audience prize at the festival. Sleepwalk with Me . revolves around a burgeoning stand-up comedian who struggles with the stress of a stalled career, a stale relationship and frequent episodes of sleepwalking. “We are selling it as the first film from the creators of This American Life ,” an IFC Films exec noted. “We are also capitalizing on the fact that Mike Birbiglia and a cast of up-and-coming and established comics are heavily featured in the film.” Synopsis: Winner of a 2012 Audience Award at Sundance, comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote, directed and stars in this sincere and hilarious film, based on his off-Broadway show and bestselling book. It’s also the first movie co-written by Ira Glass and co-produced by “This American Life.” The story: when an aspiring stand-up fails to express his true feelings about his girlfriend and his stalled career, his anxiety comes out in increasingly funny and dangerous sleepwalking incidents. SLEEPWALK WITH ME features Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”), Carol Kane (“Taxi”), James Rebhorn (“Meet the Parents”), Cristin Milioti (star of Broadway’s “Once”), plus comedians Marc Maron, Kristen Schaal, Wyatt Cenac, Jesse Klein, Henry Phillips and David Wain. Samsara Writer-Director: Ron Fricke Opens: New York and Seattle this weekend followed by Los Angeles on August 31st followed by a national roll out. “I think that the challenges were making a film that doesn’t have a traditional screenplay or structure ahead of time and trusting that you’ll find the film as it’s made,” said writer and producer Mark Magidson. “We had a structural bookend that’s created and destroyed at the beginning and end of the film. Once we had that, it was a big relief. The film came together in the editing process.” Spanning five years with locations in 25 countries, the film travels to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes and natural wonders. Synopsis: Expanding on the themes they developed in Baraka (1992) and Chronos (1985), Samsara explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man’s spirituality and the human experience. Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, Samsara takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation. Through powerful images, the film illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet. The filmmakers approach non verbal filmmaking with an understanding that it must live up to the standard of great still photography, revealing the essence of a subject, not just its physical presence. Samsara was photographed entirely in 70mm film utilizing both standard frame rates and with a motion control time-lapse camera designed specifically for this project. This camera system allows perspective shifts to reveal extraordinary views of ordinary scenes. The images were then transferred through the highest resolution scanning process available to the new 4K digital projection format that allows for mesmerizing images of unprecedented clarity. Samsara will be a showpiece for the new, high-resolution 4K digital projection, the HD format, as well as standard digital and film projection. Hermano (Brother) Director: Marcel Rasquin Writers: Rohan Jones, Marcel Rasquin Cast: Fernando Moreno, Eliú Armas, Alí Rondon, Beto Benites, Gonzalo Cubero Opens: In 51 theaters in 12 markets, concentrated in states along the U.S./Mexican border as well as Chicago and New York. This Venezuelan film did not go through official government channels en route to the big screen unlike much of the country’s domestic output. Director Marcel Rasquin attended film school in Australia and wrote the script in collaboration with Aussie, Rohan Jones. “The film has an international outlook,” said exec Ed Arentz from Hermano’s U.S. distributor Music Box Films. “The story is about a family that finds a boy in a slum and the two [brothers] grow up together and aspire to be professional football (soccer) players. They are also drawn back to the criminality of where they grew up.” Synopsis: Raised as brothers, intense teammates and competitors on the soccer field – the gregarious, swaggering Julio (Eliu Armas) and the wiry, focused Daniel/“Gato” (Fernando Moreno) have remained virtually inseparable ever since the newborn Daniel was found abandoned in a trash heap in their La Ceniza slum. The opportunity of their lives arrives when a football scout invites them to try out for the city’s top professional team, just as a tragic act of violence threatens to tear them apart and prevent them from achieving their dreams. Neighboring Sounds Director: Kleber Medonca Filho Cast: Irma Brown, Sebastião Formiga, Gustavo Jahn, Maeve Jinkings, Irandhir Santos Opens: In New York this weekend followed by 10 markets in Detroit, Seattle and Florida locations. Also heading to DVD and VOD in early 2013. Brazilian film Neighboring Sounds debuted under the radar at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last winter, but it picked up a Critics Week prize, elevating its prospects and awareness. “We heard about the film right after Rotterdam,” said Ryan Krivoshey, director of distribution at Cinema Guild. “We asked for a screener and we were totally blown away.” The programmers at New York’s New Directors/New Films series also took notice and slotted the feature that looks at the changes a middle-class Brazilian neighborhood undergoes after the arrival of an independent private security company. Synopsis: A palpable sense of unease hangs over a single city block in the coastal town of Recife, Brazil. Home to prosperous families and the servants who work for them, the area is ruled by an aging patriarch and his sons. When a private security firm is reluctantly brought in to protect the residents from a recent spate of petty crime, it unleashes the fears, anxieties and resentments of a divided society still haunted by its troubled past. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds is a thrilling debut by a major new voice in world cinema. Wild Horse, Wild Ride Directors: Alex Dawson, Greg Gricus Opens: In limited showings beginning Friday. Synopsis: Each year, through the Extreme Mustang Makeover Challenge, 100 people across the country attempt to tame a wild mustang in 100 days. Following this dangerous and harrowing feat performed by everyday people from every walk of life, is a public showcase that determines whether these horses can be saved from a life in captivity. Complete with first-hand footage and interviews, Wild Horse Wild Ride provides an in-depth look at the incredible relationship that blossoms between man and animal. General Education Director: Tom Morris Cast: Chris Sheffield, Janeane Garofalo, Larry Miller, Maiara Walsh, Elaine Hendrix, Bobby Campo, Mercedes Masohn, Tom Maden Opens: In theatrical limited release as we’ll as iTunes and VOD Synopsis: Levi Collins is set to go to the local University on a tennis scholarship, but he forgot to tell his parents one thing — he didn’t graduate. As a result, he must take summer school before his mom and dad discover he’s failed senior science. At school, Levi falls in love with his classmate, Katie, and learns that he has to make a choice between playing tennis and receiving a proper education. General Education is a quirky comedy about a family learning to grow together. General Education – Official Trailer 2012 from Pelican House Productions on Vimeo .
Apparently busty supermodel Kate Upton was in New York the other day for something called Zoo York Mentoring Clean Up . Isn’t she like nineteen years old? Who’s she mentoring? Anyhow, it’s for a good cause and she’s doing her part, but I’m not sure why she’s wearing way too much clothing. It’s a beautiful sunny day in the city, where’s the bikini? I bet there’d be a whole lot more people helping with the cleanup. Next time.
The indomitable bike messenger played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Premium Rush is named Wilee, as in Wile E. Coyote, the less successful half of Looney Tunes’ eternal desert chase duo. A few minutes into the movie, however, it becomes clear he’s more like the Road Runner: Wiry and whippet thin, Wilee darts through Manhattan traffic on his fixed gear bike — chain lock wrapped around his waist — thumbing his nose at the NYPD and evading the dogged pursuit of corrupt detective Bobby Monday ( Michael Shannon ). No Chamois Ass is he. Though Wilee is introduced via a spectacular slow-motion crash set to the sunny opening strains of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” he carries himself through most of the film with a cartoonish sense of imperviousness that could be interpreted as a death wish even before he gets entangled with dirty cops and Chinese gangsters. A favorite trick of the film — directed by David Koepp ( Secret Window , Stir of Echoes ) from a screenplay he wrote with John Kamps— has Wilee mentally projecting different paths through tight situations until he susses out the one that doesn’t leave him smeared on the sidewalk. It’s a device that underscores the character’s precarious vulnerability as he jockeys with all of the heavy metal vehicles careening through the streets of New York. This fuels the chase sequences with excitement and a looming sense of consequence. It’s a good thing too, since the bulk of the film consists of one kind of heart-pounding pursuit or another. Premium Rush is a half-entertaining, half-exasperating movie — one that sells you on the notion of New York bike messengers as great fodder for cinema but then doesn’t know how to build a feature around them. It barely has enough forward motion to make it through its 91-minute run time and spins its wheels — pun totally intended — with sequences (like one in an impound lot) that feel like blatant filler. Premium Rush bobs and weaves stylistically using backward jumps in time to fill in plot details and cuts to a Google Maps-style city grid that establishes the locations of the characters — but ultimately there’s only so much you can do on a bike. The movie tends to get muddled and laggy when the characters hop off their two-wheelers to actually talk, because they’re not good at talking. This is the kind of film in which you constantly find yourself thinking that a particular bit of trouble could have been avoided by characters either coming clean about their problems or yelling for help when the bad guys roll their way. Wilee turns out to be a Columbia Law School grad who chooses to ride all day rather than take the bar exam because, he explains in voiceover, “I can’t work in an office.” (The crushing student loans he has to be shouldering apparently aren’t burdening his free spirit.) He’s got a fellow messenger girlfriend named Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and a professional and romantic rival in the muscular Manny (Wolé Parks), who dares to have gears on his bike. The main action in Premium Rush takes place from around 5pm to 7pm, as Wilee heads uptown to his alma mater to pick up a package from Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) that Bobby is very anxious to intercept. What’s in the package isn’t worth going into — it’s a means for the film to travel to a number of distinctly New York locations. Premium Rush depicts the city as vibrant and lived-in, from the dive bar where bike messengers gather (to watch an extremely intimate live show by the band Sleigh Bells) to a plant-lined street in the flower district, to the back-room Chinatown gambling den where wry bookies and hoods watch the impulsive Bobby dig himself a deep hole playing pai gow. Shannon has a great time chewing the scenery as the off-the-rails detective, and Gordon-Levitt continues to prove that he’s an intriguingly unconventional action hero, albeit one who comes across as a little smug in this movie. That said, he brings a sweaty substantiality to the scenes of Wilee diving through traffic against a light or hitching a ride on a cab. Like seasoned Manhattan cyclists, Gordon-Levitt rides as if his bike is an extension of his body. While the film’s pop psychologizing about Wilee’s choice of wheels would make even the most devoted of fixie fanatics roll their eyes — he doesn’t want to stop, and he can’t, because he doesn’t believe in brakes — there’s definite romance to be found here in the whirling of spokes, the communing of man and machine, and the crazy freedom of cutting through a dense urban landscape like sleek fish easily navigating the currents of a stream. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
