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After just three airings, Tyler Perry‘s The Oval has proven such a success for Bet that the network has ordered a spinoff for its streaming service, our sister publication Variety reports — and even faithful fans of the over-the-top series may be surprised by which storyline the new show will focus on.

The spinoff, titled Ruthless, will follow the exploits of cult member Ruth (Melissa L. Williams), “as she’s forced to play nice with a scandalous religious cult of powerful sex-crazed fanatics in the hopes of freeing herself and her daughter,” according to the official logline.

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Tyler Perry is expanding his partnership with Bet Network with two new series, “Bruh” and “Ruthless” for the network’s streaming service, Bet Plus, Variety has learned exclusively.

“I’m so grateful for the millions of fans who have been watching the new shows on Bet. And this is only the beginning. I’m excited to bring these two new dynamic series to the Bet Plus family and continue to tell stories of high stakes drama with emerging talent,” Perry said in a statement.

The first series to complete production, “Tyler Perry’s Bruh” will chronicle the lives of a group of 30-something Black men as they explore the world of dating, careers and friendship in a present-day society. Additionally, viewers can expect the show to tackle some of the stereotypes faced by African American men. Barry Brewer (“Games People Play”), Mahdi Cocci (“The Gifted”), Phillip Mullings Jr. (“American Soul...

Tyler Perry continues to expand his scripted roster for Viacom's Bet platforms.

The multihyphenate has added a pair of scripted series for Bet+, the cable network's recently launched streaming platform. Ordered to series are Bruh, which looks at the world of dating, and The Oval spinoff Ruthless. Both series will be written, directed and exec produced by Perry. Tyler Perry Studios' Michelle Sneed will also exec produce both.

The two pickups join the previously announced White House soap The Oval and Sistas, which recently launched on linear network Bet.

"I'm so grateful for the millions of fans who have ...

Everything is awesome over at Fox: The network has handed a series order to Lego Masters, a Lego-building competition that counts Brad Pitt among its producers, TVLine has learned.

Based on the UK format of the same name, Lego Masters pits 12 pairs against each other in a series of block-building challenges. In each episode, one pair will advance to the next round, before the top three teams meet in the finale and compete for the ultimate Lego trophy. The series hails from Endemol Shine North America (which produces Fox’s The Masked Singer and MasterChef franchise) and Pitt’s Plan B.

At last, women are directing tentpole features, an arena in which they’ve historically been sidelined. The big comic book franchises are on board too, finally hiring from the plethora of talented women in the industry. Cathy Yan and Ava DuVernay are helming two of DC Films’ upcoming blockbusters for Warner Bros., Birds of Prey and New Gods respectively. Meanwhile, Marvel has Cate Shortland directing Black Widow and Chloé Zhao helming The Eternals, as Gina Prince-Bythewood develops Silver & Black for Sony. And Disney has Niki Caro directing the live-action remake of Mulan.

But despite that encouraging list, true gender parity remains elusive, and the women in those big-name jobs aren’t going to be satisfied with just their own successes—they want the odds to be even for all women in the field, disrupting the status quo and blazing a trail for future female storytellers.

“I am seeing a definite shift,...

With most top Italian production companies — Cattleya, Wildside and Palomar — now owned by non-Italian players, and Italian pubcaster Rai also increasingly thinking internationally, cinema Italiano is striving to break out of national confines more than ever.

This means bigger budgets and auteurs turning toward genre — in particular, crime movies and biopics.

Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry “The Traitor,” which follows Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, is case in point, with an auteur taking on a genre pic.

Buscetta is played by local A-lister Pierfrancesco Favino, who will next be seen as disgraced late Italian socialist prime Bettino Craxi in upcoming biopic “Hammamet,” directed by veteran auteur Gianni Amelio. The title refers to the Tunisian seaside city where Craxi fled from Italian justice in the 1990s after being indicted for massive corruption.

Italian cinema no longer stems “from self-contemplation,...

If there’s one thing writer-director Adam McKay’s “Vice” does well, it’s highlight how white mediocrity has thrived in American politics and pop culture. But McKay also does this by way of making a mediocre movie about mediocre politician Dick Cheney played by a surprisingly mediocre Christian Bale. At some point, and at some level, you wish the white mediocrity could be reined in, but it never is.

The first problem with “Vice” is that it assumes its audience is in on its joke, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The film is even prefaced by text across the screen reading that the former vice president was “one of the most secretive leaders in history,” so telling this quasi-true story was more than a little difficult. But, “we f—ing tried.”

Hold on: They’re making a comedy about one of the most polarizing, if not downright vilified,...

Christian Bale may have gotten ripped to play Batman, but now he’s packed on 40 pounds to play Dick Cheney in “Vice,” Adam McKay’s dramedy biopic about the 43rd vice president of the United States.

“Are you even more ruthless than you used to be?” Steve Carell’s Don Rumsfeld asks Bale’s Cheney in the first trailer, which Annapurna Pictures dropped on Wednesday.

The new footage also features Oscar winner Sam Rockwell as an apparently dim-witted good-old-boy version of George W. Bush, who chews on a chicken wing while asking Cheney to be his No. 2 — and agreeing to hand over “mundane jobs, overseeing bureaucracy, military, energy and foreign policy.”

Also Read: Christian Bale-Matt Damon '60s Ferrari vs Ford Movie Gets Summer 2019 Release Date

“Vice” follows the rise of Cheney from a little-known Republican bureaucrat to the most prominent voice inside the Bush Administration.

The film also...

Mildred Pierce

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 860

1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 111 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date , 2017 /

Starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Bruce Bennett, Lee Patrick, Moroni Olsen, Veda Ann Borg, Jo Ann Marlowe, Butterfly McQueen.

Cinematography: Ernest Haller

Art Direction: Anton Grot

Film Editor: David Weisbart

Original Music: Max Steiner

Written by: Ranald MacDougall from the novel by James M. Cain

Produced by: Jerry Wald, Jack L. Warner

Directed by Michael Curtiz

James M. Cain’s 1941 novel Mildred Pierce offers a venal and self-destructive view of America not with a story of respectable bourgeois society, not the criminal underworld. A de-classed, suburb-dwelling nobody fights her way onto the social register by using men and by hard work… and then watches as her obsessive goals blow up in her face In Cain’s worldview it’s every woman for herself. He drags in an odd personal theme,...

A 20th anniversary screening of “The Shawshank Redemption”; restorations of Mary Pickford’s “Little Annie Rooney” and Charlie Chaplin’s “The Bank”; a screening series and panel discussion complementing the landmark Hollywood Costume exhibition; and six diverse films from director Edgar G. Ulmer are all part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ November programs. Ticket holders for Hollywood Costume will receive free same-day admission to Hollywood Costume-related public programs.

“The Shawshank Redemption”

With special guests Frank Darabont, Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins

The Academy will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1994 Best Picture nominee “The Shawshank Redemption” onNovember 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The evening will feature an onstage discussion with writer-director Frank Darabont, who received an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay, Best Actor nominee Morgan Freeman, and star Tim Robbins.

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Defining Character: The Art...

News.

Above: via The Cinephiliacs, the ten best films of 2013, as decided by Cahiers du Cinéma. Here's the complete list in English:

1. Stranger by the Lake

2. Spring Breakers

3. Blue is the Warmest Color

4. Gravity

5. A Touch of Sin

6. Lincoln

7. Jealousy

8. Nobody's Daughter Haewon

9. You and the Night

10. Age of Panic

An upset at the 50th Golden Horse Awards in Taipei! East Asian cinema giants Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming-liang, Johnnie To, and Wong Kar-wai were beaten out by Anthony Chen's feature debut, Ilo Ilo. The Film Independent Spirit Awards have announced their 2014 nominations, with Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, and Alexander Payne's Nebraska leading the way.

Finds.

Above: the poster for Drafthouse Films' re-release of Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45. We already shared the new trailer on Twitter, and needless to say we're very excited to see this restoration. David Bordwell on "Otis Ferguson and the way of the camera". At Long Pauses,...

The career of director Edgar G. Ulmer, one of diehard film buffs’ major cult favorites, is an object lesson in the triumph of talent, courage, ingenuity and passion over time and money. Ulmer rarely had more than a minuscule budget and six days to shoot an entire feature; this is one to two days shorter than TV directors today are given to film a one-hour (actually more like 48-minute) series episode. The discipline and resourcefulness required to be able to turn out any sort of full-length product in that short a time is impressive by itself, forget about also revealing a strong personality and an often vivid style as Ulmer did repeatedly in numerous Poverty Row classics like the nightmarish Detour (1946), or the uncompromising Ruthless (1948), or the remarkably atmospheric period horror tale of 19th century Paris, 1944’s Bluebeard (available on DVD). The star is the legendary patriarch of one of our most enduring acting families,...

Next at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood: On Wed., April 15, at 7:30 pm: Efraín Gutiérrez’s Run, Tecato, Run (1979), described as a real-life inspired tale that "depicts a junkie’s efforts to get off heroin in order to reclaim and raise his daughter." Actor-director Gutiérrez is expected to attend the screening. On Fri., April 17, at 7:30 pm: Lester James Peries‘ Gamperaliya (1964), a "seminal" work in Sri Lankan cinema that has been compared to Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy. Gamperaliya tells the story of "a teacher and member of the new rising middle class, who falls in love with the daughter of his village’s leading aristocratic clan. Defensive positions are assumed and the girl’s parents insist upon a marriage to a stuffed shirt of her own class." On Sat., April 18, at 7:30 pm: Director Edgar G. Ulmer’s Ruthless (1948) is described as...