Eddie Murphy to play funk legend George Clinton in upcoming biopic
Disney/Randy Holmes
Eddie Murphy has reportedly signed on to play a funk music icon on screen.
Variety reports that the actor/comedian is set to star as Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton in a biopic directed by Bill Condon, the same director who directed Murphy in Dreamgirls, a role that earned him an Oscar nomination.
The film, which Murphy will also produce, will be based on Clinton’s 2014 memoir Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?
Clinton, who launched his funk career in the ’70s as one of the founding members of the collective known as Parliament-Funkadelic, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. He and the band were also honored in 2019 with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Just in time for Halloween, Variety‘s resident critics have come up with their definitive ranking of the 100 scariest movies of all time.
1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre slayed the competition at #1.
The long list shares some titles with some of the experts’ greatest films of all time, like Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho (#3), but also movies that would never rank among the greatest ever, like 1991’s Dead Alive (Braindead) at #95 and The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) at #92.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre was hailed for creating “a mythology of horror, one that feels even more resonant today than it did 50 years ago.”
1973’s The Exorcist placed second on the list, with the critics saying of the film, “Half a century later, [director William] Friedkin‘s … classic remains so compelling because everyone involved commits to the realism of demonic possession.”
Psycho was hailed as “iconic,” adding “Anthony Perkins‘ performance channels a cunning and terror for the ages.”
Fourth place went to Steven Spielberg‘s 1975 classic Jaws, with the critics declaring that while many movies can give you scares, “few have so fundamentally altered human behavior the way Jaws did, compelling millions to steer clear of the water.”
Rounding out the top five was Roman Polanski‘s 1968 offering Rosemary’s Baby, a film that “generates such supreme paranoia and suspense that it stands as one of the last great pieces of classical movie-making to emerge from the New Hollywood.”
At a BFI London Film Festival event on Wednesday, Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya spoke reverently about his friend, Black Panther co-star and former mentor, the late Chadwick Boseman.
To fellow actor, moderator and longtime friend Ashley Walters, Kaluuya said meeting Boseman as they were about to work on Black Panther was a “pivotal moment” in his life.
Boseman died at age 43 on Aug. 28, 2020, after a yearslong, private battle with colon cancer.
“I remember we had a dinner, and I sat opposite him. He could see my life was changing, and I didn’t know,” Kaluuya recalled, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“He leaned in — and I was about to go on a press run, and I didn’t have a publicist,” Kaluuya said with a laugh. “He leaned in and saw I needed help and guidance, and I didn’t have to ask. And I didn’t know how to ask.”
Daniel continued, “He big bro-ed me, he helped me out.”
The English actor offered, “He was an incredible leader on set, and I really felt for him because doing those Marvel things, that’s work. That’s hard. Especially doing the action sequences in those suits in hot weather, it’s hard on the body.”
He added, “Knowing that he did that while he was going through what he was going through, I don’t really have the words for it.”
“He just gave everything, he led in a very noble way. He always brought people together. … He always had time for everyone. Him and Lupita [Nyong’o], they were always back and forth, and they just knew that my life was changing.”
Kaluuya would later win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2021 for Judas and the Black Messiah.
After three years together — and an engagement — Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum have reportedly called it quits.
The couple, who met on the set of Kravitz’s directorial debut, the well-received thriller Blink Twice, have yet to say anything on social media, but People quotes “multiple sources” who have spilled that the couple has uncoupled.
Incidentally, Tatum did take to social media on Tuesday, but only to promote the pair’s next big-screen collaboration, the sci-fi-themed period pic Alpha Gang, in which they will star opposite Cate Blanchett and Steven Yeun.
Tatum previously gushed about their relationship and praised her work on Blink Twice, noting in part, “Thank you for finding me and seeing me. I got you forever. Me and you back to back against it all. I’ll never blink. Let’s go.”
And while the couple is so far silent, Steve Kazee, the actor fiancé of Channing’s ex-wife Jenna Dewan, is seemingly having a laugh about the news. He posted an Instagram Story of a black screen on which “HAHAHAH” was typed out continuously in white.
Tatum was married to Dewan from 2009 to 2019; Kravitz was married to Karl Glusman for a year, before splitting in 2020.
