Entertainment
‘Thunderbolts*’ director gets honest about creating grey characters
A superhero film is commonly about good guys, but not Thunderbolts*. It features a band of characters that falls into what may be called ‘grey areas.’
Jake Schreier, director behind the Marvel movie, explained the complex characters in an interview with Empire.
“You’re talking about a group of characters that have done a lot of bad things, and maybe are struggling with feeling good about themselves,” the filmmaker said.
However, the director noted, “There’s an element that does speak to mental health, and loneliness.”
“And how some of the darkness that we experience in our lives can’t be necessarily fixed, but can only really be made lighter through connection and finding others,” he shared.
As far as lessons are concerned, Jake said he learned from filming Thunderbolts* that “there are so many things that I didn’t know about before I started the film.”
He continued, “The biggest learning curve for me was the proportion of the action to the more emotional, character-driven scenes.”
The filmmaker noted, “And how, even though it’s more shooting days than I’ve ever had, they get eaten up quite quickly by the action stuff.”
“By the time we got to the end of it, it felt like, ‘Oh, now I feel like we get how to do this a little bit better,” he shared.
“(On Thunderbolts*) we’re in the middle of nowhere in Utah, in a gorgeous location, owning a road, and filming in 100-degree heat,” Jake added.
“Or finding yourself on the second-tallest building in the world. These are very special experiences,” the director concluded.
Thunderbolts* is streaming on Disney+.
Entertainment
John Travolta gives ‘Greased Lightnin” a Santa-inspired revival
John Travolta is giving fans a nostalgic holiday surprise by channeling his iconic Grease character Danny Zuko, this time dressed as Santa Claus.
The actor, 71, stars in a new Capital One commercial where he appears in a workshop-style garage, decked out as Santa and eyeing a high-tech sleigh.
While checking out the vehicle, Travolta goes into character and jokes, “Ho, ho, ho, ho. Why, this sleigh could be frost-o-matic, tinsel-matic, 1.5% cash back-o-matic.”
He follows it up with an unmistakable throwback line, “It’s Greased Lightnin’,” while paying with a Capital One card.
Travolta then jumps into a playful reenactment of the famous Greased Lightnin’ performance, complete with dance moves and support from Santa’s elves, plus a reindeer in sunglasses.
He ends the commercial with the tagline, “Ho, ho, ho — what’s in your wallet?” before the sleigh takes off into the sky.
This isn’t the first time Travota has nodded to his most memorable roles in Capital One ads.
Last year, he partnered with Samuel L. Jackson for a spot filled with Pulp Fiction references.
The 2024 holiday ad also brought back his Santa persona, where he shops online for gifts like hot chocolate, marshmallows and “3,000 bolo ties,” a fun reference to his role as Vincent Vega.
The ad wraps up with Travolta’s Santa recreating the iconic Pulp Fiction dance scene, set to Chuck Berry’s Run Run Rudolph.
Travolta has shown his love for Grease before too, including a surprise appearance at a Hollywood Bowl sing-along event for the classic movie.
With his latest ad, he brings back the spirit of Greased Lightnin’ in a festive way, mixing Hollywood nostalgia, holiday cheer and a little bit of classic Travolta charm.
Entertainment
Sean Diddy Combs docuseries raises expectations with new bombshell
Sean Diddy Combs’ new documentary, Sean Combs: The Reckoning, is produced by none other than his arch-nemeses, 50 Cent, and the teaser promises to pull back the curtain on the rapper’s scandals and crimes.
The new trailer, which is only 56 seconds long, showed new footage from before the Bad Boy Records founder’s arrest in September 2024, and he appeared visibly worried about losing the legal battle, which hadn’t started yet.
The footage released on December 1 showed the disgraced music mogul scrambling for legal help as he tells his team, “We have to find somebody that’ll work with us that has dealt in the dirtiest of dirty business. We’re losing!”
Social media sleuths flocked to X and shared their curiosity over the documentary, which will be available to stream on December 2.
“50 cent trolling diddy hard with this one,” one X user wrote, while another echoed, “50 been waiting his whole life to drop this bomb on Diddy and tomorrow Netflix finally hands him the mic. All those years of shots fired on Instagram just turned into a whole documentary,” referring to decades-long feud between the two musicians.
“They let 50 produce it? oh he’s COOKINGDDDD somebody up,” chimed in a third, while one reacted, “Oh yeah, this is about to shake the whole internet again.”
While Diddy is serving up to 50 months in prison, 50 Cent has collected never-before-seen footage and explosive information on the former’s Freak Off parties, as well as stories from the accusers, which will be told in the documentary.
Entertainment
Kristen Bell, Dax Shepherd kids call mom villain in parents’ movie
Kristne Bell and Dax Shepherd got unfiltered feedback from their daughters on their 2012 film, Hit & Run.
During a recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the Idiocracy star revealed that Lincoln (12) and Delta (10) saw the movie, and were stunned to see Bell’s character break up with his character.
“They were very upset,” he shared their kids’ swift and brutally honest reaction. “and what made me so happy is they were mad at Mom, not me. They thought Mom was a b—h. They thought Daddy was a good boy with a bad past, and she should be able to overlook that, and I agree.”
Bell sitting beside her partner on the November 28 episode laughed off the critique.
She noted that the kids ultimately liked the movie.
“We spent we spent all this time making this independent film and Daddy wrote it and directed it and they were like, ‘We want to see it,’” Dax continued.
“And we hadn’t watched it in forever. We like, ‘OK, let’s watch it with you.’ They loved it. It’s very inappropriate. And it was a great litmus test for our children.”
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