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Comedy, romance, J Lo and pirates in ‘Shotgun Wedding’

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Josh Duhamel was filming a scene in the new action-rom com “Shotgun Wedding” in which his fiancé, played by Jennifer Lopez, throws a grenade up in the air. He hits it like a baseball into a bad guy who blows up and sets off a display of rainbow-colored fireworks. “I was like, holy (expletive) this movie is bonkers,” Duhamel said. The film, directed by Jason Moore, starts out like a regular romantic comedy. Lopez’s Darcy and Duhamel’s Tom are having a big destination wedding on an island. There’s funny and awkward family dynamics and a charismatic ex-boyfriend shows up too. And Darcy and Tom find themselves fighting and about to call off the wedding moments before they’re to walk down the aisle. Then a band of pirates armed with guns arrive and takes the wedding party hostage. Lopez, who produced and stars, came to the Mark Hammer script through her producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, — they’ve been been making films together since “Maid in Manhattan.” “She’s kind of the architect of careers,” Lopez said. “We do really kind of think about not just what we want to do, but what the audience would enjoy or what the world needs at different times. I even do that as an artist with my albums and the things I want to put out in the world as a message.” “Shotgun Wedding,” streaming Friday on Prime Video, was not just a fun genre mash up in a slick package, Lopez liked the idea that her character was getting married for the first time at an “older age” and that Tom was the “groomzilla,” obsessed with the details and logistics of planning the fete. It took, she said, “Different things that people don’t think of as conventional and normal and making that thing regular and acceptable.” The film was not exactly a hard sell for anyone involved. From Cheech Marin, who plays Darcy’s billionaire father, to Jennifer Coolidge, as Tom’s very normal Midwestern mother, everyone basically heard “Jennifer Lopez” and “Dominican Republic shoot” and signed up. “It was a funny script,” Coolidge said. “We had a table read at the very beginning and I remember it was such a good table read. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be really fun.’” There was a hitch before they got to the island. Armie Hammer had been originally set to play Tom but he stepped away from the project after misconduct allegations surfaced, which he has denied. They were two weeks into prep and a pivotal role needed to be recast. Moore, a Broadway veteran, didn’t panic. “There’s always a moment when the understudy has to go on,” Moore said. “It always works out. ... There were a couple of days of ‘Oh boy’ and it yielded something even more wonderful.” Duhamel had been on Moore’s shortlist and had been friendly with Lopez for years. “He’s an incredibly handsome 1940s movie star who’s not afraid to look vulnerable and silly,” Moore said. Duhamel and Lopez spoke over Zoom and decided it was a go. “You really do need a certain kind of chemistry,” Lopez said. “This was not just romantic comedy chemistry. It’s more, you know, trusting each other and doing actions and doing stunts and also broad comedy. It was a lot.” “It was so much better than I even imagined,” Lopez added. “We were just like right on the same wavelength.” Coolidge also approved. “They’re so fun to look at,” Coolidge said. “You know, you want to see everything ... you want to see them get together. You’re attracted to both people and then you watch them, you know, be attracted to each other.” But of course pirates get in the way of some of that, and also promptly force the wedding guests to stand in a pool as their hostages while they try to find the fighting bride and groom. It was a lot of time partially submerged in water with about a dozen other people. “I’m probably not supposed to say, but we didn’t change the water the whole time we were shooting,” said Coolidge. D’Arcy Carden, who plays Marin’s new-agey and much younger girlfriend, said those 20 some days were a little humbling. Marin and Steve Coulter, who played Coolidge’s husband, would even sometimes take naps in their soaking wet suits next to one another, of which Carden says she has photographic proof. But aside from soggy shoes for two weeks, Carden said it was “as dreamy a situation as you could be in.” Much of the cast even lived together in a giant house and would go out together most nights, which translated into a family-like atmosphere on set. “It was like this weird sort of movie dorm,” Duhamel said. “But with a spa and a hot tub and a pool and a beach.” Lenny Kravitz, as Darcy’s ex-boyfriend, even flies in (in a helicopter) to disrupt things. “He’s an amplified sort of ridiculous version of, you know, a tiny part of what people think I am,” said Kravitz, a longtime friend of Lopez’s. Moore wanted to make sure that the film looked “big and James Bond and lux. Sometimes action rom coms can look kind of small,” he said. And all were impressed by Lopez, who doesn’t act the “movie star” part on set. During a day filming scenes on a small boat in the open water, Lopez went into producer mode and decided they didn’t need an extra boat for her makeup person to be out there with them. She could do her makeup herself. And she nailed it, Moore said. “She is a mogul and a producer and a storyteller, an actress, a singer and a brilliant physical comedienne,” Moore said. “She’s got discipline and she’s got artistic finesse which is a wonderful combo. She really can do everything.”

Josh Duhamel was filming a scene in the new action-rom com “Shotgun Wedding” in which his fiancé, played by Jennifer Lopez, throws a grenade up in the air. He hits it like a baseball into a bad guy who blows up and sets off a display of rainbow-colored fireworks.

“I was like, holy (expletive) this movie is bonkers,” Duhamel said.

The film, directed by Jason Moore, starts out like a regular romantic comedy. Lopez’s Darcy and Duhamel’s Tom are having a big destination wedding on an island. There’s funny and awkward family dynamics and a charismatic ex-boyfriend shows up too. And Darcy and Tom find themselves fighting and about to call off the wedding moments before they’re to walk down the aisle. Then a band of pirates armed with guns arrive and takes the wedding party hostage.

Lopez, who produced and stars, came to the Mark Hammer script through her producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, — they’ve been been making films together since “Maid in Manhattan.”

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“She’s kind of the architect of careers,” Lopez said. “We do really kind of think about not just what we want to do, but what the audience would enjoy or what the world needs at different times. I even do that as an artist with my albums and the things I want to put out in the world as a message.”

“Shotgun Wedding,” streaming Friday on Prime Video, was not just a fun genre mash up in a slick package, Lopez liked the idea that her character was getting married for the first time at an “older age” and that Tom was the “groomzilla,” obsessed with the details and logistics of planning the fete.

It took, she said, “Different things that people don’t think of as conventional and normal and making that thing regular and acceptable.”

The film was not exactly a hard sell for anyone involved. From Cheech Marin, who plays Darcy’s billionaire father, to Jennifer Coolidge, as Tom’s very normal Midwestern mother, everyone basically heard “Jennifer Lopez” and “Dominican Republic shoot” and signed up.

“It was a funny script,” Coolidge said. “We had a table read at the very beginning and I remember it was such a good table read. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be really fun.’”

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There was a hitch before they got to the island. Armie Hammer had been originally set to play Tom but he stepped away from the project after misconduct allegations surfaced, which he has denied. They were two weeks into prep and a pivotal role needed to be recast. Moore, a Broadway veteran, didn’t panic.

“There’s always a moment when the understudy has to go on,” Moore said. “It always works out. … There were a couple of days of ‘Oh boy’ and it yielded something even more wonderful.”

Duhamel had been on Moore’s shortlist and had been friendly with Lopez for years.

“He’s an incredibly handsome 1940s movie star who’s not afraid to look vulnerable and silly,” Moore said. Duhamel and Lopez spoke over Zoom and decided it was a go.

“You really do need a certain kind of chemistry,” Lopez said. “This was not just romantic comedy chemistry. It’s more, you know, trusting each other and doing actions and doing stunts and also broad comedy. It was a lot.”

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“It was so much better than I even imagined,” Lopez added. “We were just like right on the same wavelength.”

Coolidge also approved.

“They’re so fun to look at,” Coolidge said. “You know, you want to see everything … you want to see them get together. You’re attracted to both people and then you watch them, you know, be attracted to each other.”

But of course pirates get in the way of some of that, and also promptly force the wedding guests to stand in a pool as their hostages while they try to find the fighting bride and groom. It was a lot of time partially submerged in water with about a dozen other people.

“I’m probably not supposed to say, but we didn’t change the water the whole time we were shooting,” said Coolidge.

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D’Arcy Carden, who plays Marin’s new-agey and much younger girlfriend, said those 20 some days were a little humbling.

Marin and Steve Coulter, who played Coolidge’s husband, would even sometimes take naps in their soaking wet suits next to one another, of which Carden says she has photographic proof.

But aside from soggy shoes for two weeks, Carden said it was “as dreamy a situation as you could be in.”

Much of the cast even lived together in a giant house and would go out together most nights, which translated into a family-like atmosphere on set.

“It was like this weird sort of movie dorm,” Duhamel said. “But with a spa and a hot tub and a pool and a beach.”

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Lenny Kravitz, as Darcy’s ex-boyfriend, even flies in (in a helicopter) to disrupt things.

“He’s an amplified sort of ridiculous version of, you know, a tiny part of what people think I am,” said Kravitz, a longtime friend of Lopez’s.

Moore wanted to make sure that the film looked “big and James Bond and lux. Sometimes action rom coms can look kind of small,” he said.

And all were impressed by Lopez, who doesn’t act the “movie star” part on set. During a day filming scenes on a small boat in the open water, Lopez went into producer mode and decided they didn’t need an extra boat for her makeup person to be out there with them. She could do her makeup herself. And she nailed it, Moore said.

“She is a mogul and a producer and a storyteller, an actress, a singer and a brilliant physical comedienne,” Moore said. “She’s got discipline and she’s got artistic finesse which is a wonderful combo. She really can do everything.”

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Quentin Tarantino doesn’t want Brit actors in his last movie

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Quentin Tarantino doesn't want Brit actors in his last movie

Quentin Tarantino – the famous movie director – wants to make his last venture a strictly American affair by excluding the British actors as he thinks they really don’t represent the US culture.

“Obviously, nothing against the Brits, but we’re living in a really weird time now,” he said in an interview given to a magazine at the recently-held Cannes Festival.

Tarantino – known for films like Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill Volume 1 and Kill Bill Volume II, The Hateful Eight – said, “I think when people look back on this era of cinema, and it’s just all these British actors pretending to be Americans and all these Australian actors pretending to be Americans, it’s like phantoms. Nobody is acting in their own voice.”

“I think it’s just a case that a bunch of Brits became more famous than the others. The Americans ceded their own ground. When I look at ’70s cinema I want to see Robert De Niro, I want to see Al Pacino, I want to see Stacy Keach, you know, I want to see people like that reflecting the culture back to me.”

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According to Tarantino, it is based on a man who wrote for a pornographic magazine and set in 1977’s California. The guy was never really famous and used to write movie reviews.

It means the inspiration comes from Tarantino’s teenage job where he would load pornographic magazines into a vending machine and empty quarters out of the cash dispenser. He explains, “All the other stuff was too skanky to read, but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page.”

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3rd man charged in 2002 shooting death of Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay

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3rd man charged in 2002 shooting death of Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay

A third man has been charged in the 2002 shooting death of Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay, prosecutors said Tuesday, marking the latest movement in a case that languished for years.

Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York filed a superseding indictment on Tuesday, charging Jay Bryant, 49, in the death of Jason “Jay” Mizell, known professionally as Jam Master Jay.

Two other men, Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., had previously been indicted in August 2020 for the death of Jay. The hip-hop trailblazer was shot in the head in his studio on Oct. 30, 2002.

Bryant’s attorney, César de Castro, said in an email that they had just learned of the charges.

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“Securing an indictment in a secret grand jury, applying an extremely low burden of proof, is one thing. Proving it at trial is another matter,” he said.

Bryant, from Queens, was in custody already on unrelated federal drug charges.

At the time the other two men were indicted, authorities said Jay’s death involved a drug deal gone bad. In a letter filed with the court on Tuesday, prosecutors said Bryant and the two other men entered the building that evening, and then fled after the shooting. They said Bryant was seen going into the building, and his DNA was recovered at the scene.

Jay was in Run-DMC with Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniel in the early 1980s. The group helped bring hip-hop music into the mainstream. Run DMC’s hits include “King of Rock,” “It’s Tricky” and a remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.”

For years, Jay’s death lingered as a cold case, with witnesses reluctant to speak up despite reward money being offered. 

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Nora Fatehi admires Helen, wants to play in her biopic

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Nora Fatehi admires Helen, wants to play in her biopic

who starred in a Bollywood blockbuster Sholay – and now wants to be play in her biopic whenever there is an opportunity, as she responded to a question on the subject.

According to Fatehi, she studied all her videos properly, even the breathing spaces of the shoulder movements, the hands and just the aura. “I had to be feminine, I had to be poised, I had to be very flirty, and I had to own it.”

Fatehi, 31, said it would be honour. “If the filmmakers ever think of me, because I feel like we have so many similarities.”
“She came from a different country, I did, it was tough for both of us, we were introduced to the world through dance and that too in a different genre of dance.”

Helen Ann Richardson Khan, now in her 80s, has appeared in over 1,000 films and is known for her supporting, character roles and guest appearances in a career spanning 70 years.

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A recipient of Padma Shri by the Government of India, she has received two Filmfare Awards and is considered as one of the most popular dancers of her time.

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