JumpinJack AJ

If you like Gwen or No Doubt, you'll enjoy this. I love it. GWEN STEFANI - Let Me Reintroduce Myself (2020)

It was a weird year, but I'm sure we'll all celebrate this. https://comicbook.com/movies/news/bad-boys-for-life-top-box-office-2020-release-domestic/ Bad Boys for Life Is Officially the Highest-Grossing 2020 Movie at Domestic Box Office By PATRICK CAVANAUGH - January 1, 2021 02:02 pm EST In any given year, the biggest box office successes often hit theaters in the summer months, but with 2020 being such an unprecedented year for a number of reasons, the highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office was a January release, with Bad Boys for Life topping the charts with $204.4 million. Interestingly, 1917, which was released in 2019, was the second-highest-grossing movie of 2020, as it earned $157.9 million, with the December 2019 release scoring major numbers thanks to it securing a number of major awards and recognitions in the early part of the year and helping it trounce the competition. When audiences look back on box office earnings in 2020, the totals will surely come with a number of asterisks. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, theaters around the world shut their doors in March of 2020, with new releases only seeing wide, global releases in January and February. Films like The Hunt and Bloodshot briefly landed in theaters, though quickly pivoted to Premium VOD services as theaters closed. As the months passed, international theaters began to reopen as various countries got a better handle on containing the pandemic. Christopher Nolan's Tenet, which was slated to be one of the year's biggest releases, delayed its release for weeks at a time, all while other major blockbusters pushed their debuts back by months. Warner Bros. and even Nolan himself were hoping that the release of Tenet could help usher audiences back to theaters and revive interest in the cinematic experience, with the film first opening in select foreign markets on August 26th before opening domestically on September 3rd. Sadly, with limited theaters being open and with those open theaters functioning at a reduced capacity, Tenet failed to make a major box-office impact. Complicating matters further is that the film had a number of stipulations of where it could be screened, making it difficult for even the most devout Nolan fan to see his latest adventure on the big screen. The future of the movie industry is still quite unclear, given that we're still in the middle of the pandemic. Surely the promise of a vaccine being distributed brings hope that 2021 could see some sense of normalcy be resumed around the world, but between there being no official timeline of when these events could occur, and studios like Warner Bros. committing to releasing their films not only in select theaters, but also on HBO Max the same day as their theatrical debuts, it likely means it might not be until 2022 or 2023 that we see the movie industry bounce back to pre-pandemic numbers. Are you surprised Bad Boys for Life topped the charts? Let us know in the comments below!

How did I not know about this song in 2004? This lineup is insane! BRANDY, MARY J. BLIGE, MISSY ELLIOT, WYCLEF, MUSIQ SOULCHILD, ASHANTI, BABYFACE, MONICA, CLAUDETTE ORTIZ, EVE, FAITH, FABOLOUS, JADAKISS, AKON, JAMIE FOXX, JAHEIM, FLOETRY, JON B, KEKE PALMER, MARQUES HOUSTON, OMERION, RUN, MIRI BEN-ARI, NICK SCOTTI - Wake Up Everybody

This one hits hard. https://blackamericaweb.com/2020/12/23/john-ecstasy-fletcher-of-whodini-death/ John “Ecstasy” Fletcher Of Whodini Reportedly Passes Away Brandon Caldwell Source: Paul Natkin / Getty John Fletcher, the rapper better known as Ecstasy from the 1980s hip-hop group Whodini, has reportedly passed away. “One Love to Ecstasy of the Legendary #Whodini,” Questlove wrote on Instagram Wednesday (December 23). “This man was legendary and a pivotal member of one of the most legendary groups in hip hop. This is sad man.” Fletcher, along with fellow rapper Jalil Hutchins formed Whodini in 1982 in Brooklyn, New York. Together, they were one of the first groups to add R&B elements to their music with singles such as “Five Minutes Of Funk,” “Friends,” “Big Mouth,” “Freaks Come Out At Night” and “One Love.” Between 1982 and 1986, the group released three albums including their self-titled debut in 1983, Escape in 1984 which went platinum and Back In Black in 1986. Fletcher often wore a Zorro hat on stage and the group helped introduce producer and songwriter Jermaine Dupri to the business as he starred as a dancer on their tours. “My God, this one hurts me so bad,I can’t even believe I’m posting this,” Dupri wrote on Instagram. “Ex you know I love you thank you for every word,every conversation every good time,may your soul Rest In Power.” In 2012, Whodini was featured in an episode of Unsung detailing their rise in the industry. An official cause of death has yet to be determined.

The new album is here! https://krsone.bandcamp.com/album/between-da-protests-extended-edition

LL Cool J broke out the 1990 fan favorite with DJ Z-Trip.

He just dropped a new one!

This one always makes me nod my head.

Overall I'm really happy with it. There's a couple songs that lean toward filler, but overall, I just love the energy and the variety of sounds. This one of my favorites, thought I was disappointed that it says "feat. BBD" when it only uses a vocal sample. It's funny that they did the video based on a sample.

I know B2K fans annoyed us back in the day on the Sony boards, but I did like a lot of B2K's stuff. Omarion's new stuff is dope. OMARION + WALE - Mutual (2020)

Not exactly news to us, but it's still a good interview.

New KRS-One! The beat is nothing special, but he's got the lyrics, as usual.

TORI KELLY - 25th A Tori Kelly Christmas (2020)

I was just going to post this. She deserved more time.

We don't hear enough from this guy...

Wow, I can't believe we haven't stumbled upon this sooner. I love the new lyrics to fit the station.

I must have missed a video were Tatyana said that. She knows something. I don't think she'd call anything other than music a project. Those recent merch deals have been them just letting some other company design stuff to sell. If anything, they are both experiencing the love from fans with the reunion special. With nostalgia and love being the fuel, that could easily spill over to their music, too. They both have had extra time on their hands this year.

This is really one of those articles that just has the writer sharing their opinion rather than sharing mostly facts. I'm curious about the opinions of others. Personally, I wouldn't want to see Will play Superman, but I'd totally be willing to let a screen test change my mind. I'm actually a big Superman fan and have been since I was old enough to understand anything. While not a perfectly film, I personally love Superman Returns. I never understood how it came out with positive reviews, love from fans, and success....then a few years later it turned to some people saying it was boring and that it's huge success wasn't huge enough. I don't know if it would have been much more successful like the writer thinks. https://screenrant.com/will-smith-superman-returns-dc-casting-hollywood-change/?utm_source=SR-FB-P&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_campaign=SR-FB-P&fbclid=IwAR2310KgalK3Yi5l8zHrudyk60qZWmxnGLlvPFsF7S6wZ0t1AjiUOITuTio What DC (& Hollywood) Would Look Like If Will Smith Did Superman Returns Will Smith came close to playing the lead in Superman Returns, and here's what might've happened to DC and Hollywood if he had taken the role. BY MICHAEL KENNEDY1 DAY AGO Will Smith came close to playing the lead in Superman Returns, and here's what might've happened to DC and Hollywood if he had taken the role. While some still try to argue Smith has limited acting range, some of his performances heavily argue to the contrary. It's not impossible to imagine him playing the Man of Steel, although he'd probably need to tamp down some of his more over the top mannerisms present in roles like Men in Black's Agent Jay or Bad Boys' Mike Lowrey. That's only because Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent tend to be much more soft-spoken, sometimes reserved characters, outside of when Superman is busting up bad guys. With roles like Dr. Robert Neville in I Am Legend though, Smith proved that he can indeed hold back on some of the signature phrases and physicality that have come to be associated with a lot of his work. Smith is indeed an A-lister, but that doesn't mean he's not really talented. Continue Scrolling To Keep ReadingClick the button below to start this article in quick view. In interviews done years ago, Smith revealed that he had been offered the role of Superman in Superman Returns, but turned it down. If he had decided to become Superman though, it well could've had a substantial butterfly effect on both DC films and Hollywood at large. Why Will Smith Turned Down Superman Returns In that aforementioned interview, Will Smith laid out his reasoning for turning down the chance to star in Superman Returns, although it's a bit unclear how serious he was being. Smith said that he refused the Superman role due to worries about a backlash from white people over a black man taking over a famous character who had always been played by white actors previously. He cited that he had already done something similar by playing the previously white character Jim West in Wild Wild West, for which he presumably experienced some type of backlash. Smith went on to express, again seemingly not being entirely serious, a concern that such a white backlash against him playing Superman might effect his ability to get future work in Hollywood. While it's sadly likely there would've indeed been some type of backlash against his casting, as happened when Michael B. Jordan played Human Torch, it's doubtful it would've effected Smith's career, as he was a massive box office draw at the time. Will Smith's Superman Would've Been Very Different There's no doubt that a Superman played by Will Smith would've indeed been unlike any version before or since, and not just for the obvious reason of the character being black. Every other movie Superman, - Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh, and Henry Cavill - have done their best to live up to the standard portrayal of the Man of Steel, in both look and physicality. Smith is a very expressive actor, both facially and via body language, and also brings in with him an A-list established personality that none of the others had. As mentioned above, he could certainly try to tamp down some of his trademark traits - it's hard to imagine Superman busting out the famous "OH HELL NO!" Smith has said in multiple movies - but at the end of the day it might be a bit hard not to see Smith playing Superman instead of just Superman. Superman Returns Would've Been A Bigger Hit With Will Smith While Smith isn't quite the guaranteed box office record breaker today that he used to be - although he still does star in big hits from time to time - back in the mid-2000s, he was still firmly on top of the Hollywood mountain. Superman Returns, while earning predominantly positive reviews from critics, was a minor box office flop, failing to even double its massive $200 million budget in theaters, and likely not seeing much of a return on investment until home video. Smith starring in the film instead of newcomer Brandon Routh would've instantly made Superman Returns into a bigger deal, and likely ensured a much larger box office haul. However, as suggested above, with a star as big as Smith in the lead, Superman Returns could've ended up very different. It's possible the script would've been tailored to fit him, and not ended up telling the same story ultimately told onscreen. What Will Smith's Superman Would Mean For DC Movies It was the failure of Superman Returns that led DC to go back to the drawing board and try to reinvent Superman movies, eventually leading to Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, and the subsequent creation of the DCEU. Only seven years separated the release of Superman Returns and Man of Steel, and if Smith's Superman Returns would've made bank, the logical choice would be to make a sequel also starring him. Had that occurred, the current DC movie landscape could be entirely different. Had Superman Returns been a hit, and Smith starred in a sequel, it's possible the DCEU wouldn't exist at all, at least not in anything close to its current form. Perhaps Batman and Superman still could've shared the screen, but in a crossover starring Smith and Christian Bale. Superman may never have had been subject to Snyder's trademark darkness, and stayed in line with the more upbeat Reeve films. Smith obviously wouldn't have gone on to play Deadshot either, assuming the Suicide Squad still made their way to the big screen. The potential timeline implications of Smith having been Superman are mind-boggling. How Hollywood Would Be Different With Will Smith's Superman Beginning in 2008, Will Smith took a years-long hiatus from acting. Had Smith been a successful Superman, and DC been ready to back up the money truck to his house for further films, it's highly doubtful Smith would've taken that break, or he at least would've taken a much shorter one. That alone would have implications for the blockbuster scene. A strong Superman franchise, or even an earlier variation on a shared DC movie universe, could've also potentially competed with Marvel Studios' MCU much earlier, and not been forced to rush things so much. Making Superman black also would've broken down barriers when it comes to representation in superhero films much earlier than those barriers started being blasted through in reality. A black Superman in Superman Returns could've meant just as much to the black community as the late Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther, but twelve years earlier. Until the ability to travel the multiverse is invented though, we'll never get to know for sure.

Man, what happened to this post? It used to be one of the most active ones. I loved being introduced and re-introduced to music. OMARION - Involved (2020)

Who has gotten Busta Rhymes new album, Extinction Leven Event 2: The Wrath of God? I'll share more later, but I'm wondering if anyone else has been vibing with it.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/alfonso-ribeiro-talks-fresh-prince-reunion-and-the-slow-decline-of-sitcoms?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2KJwH3tdyNl-o88S1MTJ3bsrI71droNtt0c5r5RzclfNgo2tw3qkd8hbs NOVEMBER 20, 2020 1:55pm PT by Mikey O'Connell Alfonso Ribeiro Talks 'Fresh Prince' Reunion and the Slow Decline of Sitcoms Courtesy of HBO Max "Since everybody wanted to be a movie star, they only worked on becoming movie stars — and then sucked when they did a TV sitcom," says the actor, who recently reunited with his colleagues from the '90s hit for an HBO Max special. Television cast reunions, like many exercises in nostalgia, can easily come across as indulgent and unnecessary. But, more than two decades after subverting its slapstick premise with frequently profound takes on race, class and family, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is still defying norms. Thanks in large part to its homage for the late actor James Avery, who died in 2013, and a filmed reconciliation between star Will Smith and onetime cast member Janet Hubert, who was replaced halfway through the series' run amid mounting tensions, HBO Max's new reunion special for the '90s sitcom isn't just an advertisement for the six-season streaming library. It's a moving look at the relationships that can be forged on sets when the chemistry is right — and a warning of how long the acrimony can linger when it's off balance. Series star Alfonso Ribeiro, the America's Funniest Home Videos host who played preppy Carlton Banks, got on the phone with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about filming the special, what didn't make it to air and his own take on why the multicamera sitcoms of yore just don't work anymore. As sitcom reunions go, this one is surprisingly moving. I think they did a fantastic job with it. When we were making it, I felt like it was really going to turn out well. People love the show, but everyone has their own personal relationship with it and with those characters. But we didn't play into everybody's idea of it. We just showed everybody what it really was. I think the entire emotion of what James Avery brought to our entire family and to the world made people really feel what we were feeling about that incredible man. It's an incredible tribute to him — especially because, back in the '90s, viewers really didn’t get much opportunity to see what life was like behind the scenes. We’re in a new time where everyone has access to everything. If you’re on social media, you can see everything. That didn’t happen in the '90s. There’d be interviews on set every once in a while. Will would go on Letterman and Leno. But you didn’t have behind the scenes. This was a peek behind the curtain that, realistically, I don’t know how many shows will be able to do moving into the future. Once you hit 2010, we know everything about everything. Once you all agreed to do it, was it difficult to plan? It was a very simple ask: Let's film it on the same day that we premiered, 30 years before. They let us know a while in advance, so we were able to make our schedules free that day. For COVID, we all did the testing and stayed away from people beforehand. But I don’t care if Dr. Fauci was on that set, we were gonna hug each other. It was what it was gonna be. Were you surprised by anything about the finished product? They edited out a lot. I really felt like that could have been a two-and-a-half-hour special, but short and sweet always works. Maybe they'll do The Reunion Special 2 one day, where they take the other stuff that we talked about. That’s the only thing I didn’t really know what to expect. I only did one day, but they shot for three days. How do you turn three days into an hour and 10 minutes? Is there anything that you wish had made the cut? We did a lot more showcasing the fun and our show night rituals. There was a lot more of that — and a lot of other stuff as well, but I’m really not sure how much I’m allowed to talk about. Seeing that footage from show nights feels so foreign now. The industry keeps distancing itself from multicamera sitcoms, and you forget about the energy those sets used to have. If you go back into the '60s and '70s, everything was live television. They didn’t do many hourlong dramas. There was a lot of variety and other things with that live energy. The sitcom is kind of the end of that. Yeah, you have shows like Dancing With the Stars or The Voice and all that. But the sitcom energy was incredible. We might do it a couple of times, but it was live. We used to do an episode of Fresh Prince in 90 minutes. I used to laugh at this, because I could never understand it, but we’d always hear about Friends going until 4 o’clock in the morning — and we were like, “What are they doing?” What you come to realize is that the stage performer no longer exists. People are deathly afraid of performing in front of an audience. These shows have gone away because the actors can’t deliver a better performance with an audience sitting there. To me, the performers got worse. (Laughs.) They had to figure out a better way to deliver equal content, because they couldn’t do it the way it had always been done. There is a specific artistry to being able to play something that lands in a room and on camera. Absolutely. Where does your energy go? Performing in front of an audience, your energy goes up. But sometimes that energy needs to be small. Can you be small, even though there are 200 people sitting 100 feet away? There’s a reason television actors couldn’t become movie stars. They were typically bigger with their energy than movie stars. On a movie set, everything has to be minimal and the camera is much closer. And since everybody wanted to be a movie star, they only worked on becoming movie stars — and then sucked when they did a TV sitcom, because they couldn’t actually pull off the energy necessary to the medium. When you were filming the reunion, who led the conversation? Will really navigated it with the help of the other producers. They’d whisper a few things in his ear when it was time to move from section to section. Did you learn anything that you didn’t know before? The one thing I learned aired. And it’s the full story of how Will ended up at Quincy Jones’ house, doing his audition in front of Warren Littlefield and Brandon Tartikoff. But for everything else, it’s like, “Tell me a story about your family of 30 years that you didn’t know.” You can't. That audition could never happen today. Never. People would lose their jobs if that happened today. I don’t think there’s anybody in television who could give a greenlight after one informal audition like that — maybe Les Moonves, before he left CBS. It’s clear from social media that the cast keeps in touch. How often do you actually see one another? With Joe [Marcell] living in the U.K., we haven’t seen him in a long time. Joe would always come and stay with James Avery whenever he would come to town, so he’s not back as much as he used to be. Little Nicky, Ross Bagley, we don’t get to see that much. There’s a lot of getting together, but it’s more on an individual basis than as a group. You were absent the day Janet Hubert was on set. Did you get a chance to talk to her at all? No, I did not. I wasn't there. Like two or three days before we supposed to shoot, they were like, “Hey, are you available the next day?” Unfortunately, I had to go shoot [America's Funniest Home Videos] that day. So all of the social media content and the photographs were taken without me. I literally did my own photo shoot on the couch so they could put me in the group photo. The actual special was filmed in one day, but all the other stuff was done on the other days. This is a silly question, but do you have a favorite episode? Karyn Parsons talked about it: that moment where I break the fourth wall and go through the audience. That was always my favorite moment filming the show — but I never watched anything after it finished. We’re talking 30 and 24 years ago now, so I don’t remember a lot! A couple people brought old scripts to the reunion set. I opened a few up and had no idea what I was reading. (Laughs.) Streaming has made it so that old shows are still current for a lot of viewers — in a way that traditional syndication doesn't allow. What’s your take on the afterlife of the show? It’s interesting, this constant changing of the business. I loved syndication, because you could do great work and it would live on forever. Now it's kind of living on forever in many different facets that are hard to monetize. You’re not getting your rightful checks for it, but it is what it is. At this point, I do my job and I move on the next one. However it plays out, it plays out. We’re in a very different time, and next week it will be something new. One of the people at ABC said to me, “AFV will be on ABC as long as there’s an ABC.” Obviously, that’s not a true statement, but it’s the idea of that … Your predecessor at AFV, Tom Bergeron, used to refer to it as "the annuity." Right — until he decided to hand over to me a beautiful annuity. [Laughs.] What’s crazy is that we don’t know how much longer there will be ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. Kim Kardashian, by herself on social media, is more powerful than any network. The networks have the ability to have hundreds of millions of viewers, but they don’t. She can post an ad on social media, and it’s so much more powerful than the ones the networks have. Where do we end up with media in 10 years? I couldn’t tell you. Speaking of AFV, you’re in studio without an audience right now? Yeah. ABC and Vin Di Bona Productions bought the technology that the NBA used while they were in the bubble, zooming the audience into the bubble. People are watching us tape from their homes all over the country, which is actually kind of cool. People who live in, you know, Virginia, wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come to a taping. It’s very different than it was before, but we can still vibe with the audience. Do you even have to practice "The Carlton" at this point? It's all muscle memory. I don't even have to think about that dance. Are your castmates pleased with the reception? We were on a group text as it was all going on. After I finished watching it with my wife, I wrote, "Wow. Oh, so good." This was a wonderful gift that Will and his team felt was necessary to give the world right now, especially with all that's going on, and it felt like it was absolutely that. Interview edited for length and clarity.

Will has shared how he was mistreated in that past. I don't think he's been revealing anything new, but he has gone deeper on a few topics. I think one of the things that made me identify with him early on is that he's grown out of certain circumstances that are similar to my own. If his marriage is health, great. If his marriage and his career are being influenced by pains from the past, such as considering his first divorce to be his greatest failure, it seems like it's time to reorganize his approach to some things.

These are both dope and really frustrating. lol Musically, I love what he does with the songs, but he ruins it with how it chops up the vocals so that the lyrics don't make sense.

Yes! I love that they tend to go right to "Brand New Funk" these days instead of "Summertime." "Summertime" is my favorite, but I never liked that it was always the go-to joint.