The legendary Ivy Queen - often referred to as the Queen of Reggaetón or La Caballota - once said in an interview, "In the life of every woman, there's a point when you blossom and when you flourish." And for Ivy Queen, after decades of cementing her place as a pioneer of the genre, that time is now.
Born Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodríguez, Ivy Queen first became recognized in the reggaetón scene back in the '90s, when the genre was still considered underground. She was the first female member of the all-male rap collective formed at the studios of The Noise, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And her first live performance - where she rapped "Somos Raperos Pero no Delincuentes" ("We Are Rappers Not Delinquents"), wearing what would then become her signature style of oversized jeans, a T-shirt, braids, and long acrylic nails - launched her on a legendary career.
Born Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodríguez, Ivy Queen first became recognized in the reggaetón scene back in the '90s, when the genre was still considered underground. She was the first female member of the all-male rap collective formed at the studios of The Noise, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And her first live performance - where she rapped "Somos Raperos Pero no Delincuentes" ("We Are Rappers Not Delinquents"), wearing what would then become her signature style of oversized jeans, a T-shirt, braids, and long acrylic nails - launched her on a legendary career.
- 1/18/2024
- by Johanna Ferreira
- Popsugar.com
Vertical is springing into action by snagging the U.S. distribution rights for Fast Charlie, the final film starring the late James Caan. Pierce Brosnan and Morena Baccarin lead the cast, with the film making its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 7. Fast Charlie takes inspiration from Victor Gischler’s 2001 novel Gun Monkeys.
Here’s a synopsis for Gischler’s novel via Amazon:
Charlie Swift is an old school kind of guy. Runs a tight ship. Respects his boss. Takes care of his mom and kid brother. And, he’s a stone cold killer. When a fancy new-wave hood, hungry for the primo Orlando territory Charlie enforces, offs most of Charlie’s boys in a bloody mob takeover, our man steps in to make things right. But when word gets out that his boss has gone missing and there’s a traitor among his crew of gun monkeys,...
Here’s a synopsis for Gischler’s novel via Amazon:
Charlie Swift is an old school kind of guy. Runs a tight ship. Respects his boss. Takes care of his mom and kid brother. And, he’s a stone cold killer. When a fancy new-wave hood, hungry for the primo Orlando territory Charlie enforces, offs most of Charlie’s boys in a bloody mob takeover, our man steps in to make things right. But when word gets out that his boss has gone missing and there’s a traitor among his crew of gun monkeys,...
- 10/6/2023
- by Steve Seigh
- JoBlo.com
Avatar: The Way of Water is now available to rent and own on digital and while James Cameron has stated that he’s deep into the sequels, having already wrapped filming on the third film, the sci-fi auteur has also been dropping hints that he may try to squeeze in other projects in-between. Back in December, Cameron would talk about mourning the films he wouldn’t get to make as he’s committed to the Na’vi franchise. He’s also mentioned that he’s interested in pursuing a pet project about the story of the Hiroshima bombing before filming Avatar 4.
This past week, Cameron appeared as a guest speaker at the 2023 Dell Technologies World Conference. During his panel, he revealed to the audience that he had started writing a script for a new Terminator movie three months ago, according to a tweet from Roderick Mercado, a marketer for Microsoft at Dell Technologies.
This past week, Cameron appeared as a guest speaker at the 2023 Dell Technologies World Conference. During his panel, he revealed to the audience that he had started writing a script for a new Terminator movie three months ago, according to a tweet from Roderick Mercado, a marketer for Microsoft at Dell Technologies.
- 5/25/2023
- by EJ Tangonan
- JoBlo.com
The old saying goes you shouldn’t marry anyone you can’t stand to be with for a three-day train ride. This is perhaps the basis for most of Richard Linklater’s Before series, tracing a couple from initial courtship to eventual marriage, from the fantasy of being young and taking a different path to settling into comfort. Kristian Mercado’s fluffy and sweet hang-out movie If You Were the Last initially opens in a living room before we pull back to reveal that our couple, Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoe Chao), are floating ruthlessly in space, on a self-sustaining ship that has lost all navigation and communication with NASA back on earth. Like an extreme version of the Before series, we enter mid-relationship, after the routines have been established 1,000 days into a solidly platonic relationship.
Adam and Jane are set in their schedules: completing the checklist, caring for the garden and animals,...
Adam and Jane are set in their schedules: completing the checklist, caring for the garden and animals,...
- 3/27/2023
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
Hey, Dave’s not here, man.
Who is here, though, is Todd Lieberman of Hidden Pictures as he partners with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, and Underground as well as Five All in the Fifth Entertainment for a planned biopic of the comedy team, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Cheech and Chong are the comic duo who brought the stoners to the mainstream with their 1978 movie, Up in Smoke. They gained popularity with their uncensored and counterculture comedy and followed that movie with Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie in 1980 and Nice Dreams in 1981.
The biopic is set to have Kristian Mercado at the helm as director. Mercado is no stranger to making comedies, having directed specials for comedians Michael Che, Hannibal Burress, Ilana Glazer, and more. He recently made his feature film debut with his film If You Were Last, starring Anthony Mackie and Missi Pyle, which screened at SXSW this year.
Who is here, though, is Todd Lieberman of Hidden Pictures as he partners with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, and Underground as well as Five All in the Fifth Entertainment for a planned biopic of the comedy team, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Cheech and Chong are the comic duo who brought the stoners to the mainstream with their 1978 movie, Up in Smoke. They gained popularity with their uncensored and counterculture comedy and followed that movie with Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie in 1980 and Nice Dreams in 1981.
The biopic is set to have Kristian Mercado at the helm as director. Mercado is no stranger to making comedies, having directed specials for comedians Michael Che, Hannibal Burress, Ilana Glazer, and more. He recently made his feature film debut with his film If You Were Last, starring Anthony Mackie and Missi Pyle, which screened at SXSW this year.
- 3/22/2023
- by EJ Tangonan
- JoBlo.com
The origin story of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, the pioneering comedians whose 1978 film Up in Smoke has transcended cult status, is getting its own big screen treatment.
Todd Lieberman’s Hidden Pictures is partnering with Marin and Chong, Underground, and Five All in the Fifth Entertainment on a feature biopic about the comedy duo.
Cheech and Chong came to prominence in the ’70s and ’80s, becoming synonymous with stoner culture by riffing on and lifting up the counterculture of the time, from hippies to (of course) cannabis. Their combined output included successful stand-up shows, comedy albums, and low-budget feature films, including Up in Smoke, Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980) and Nice Dreams (1981).
Kristian Mercado, who most recently made his feature debut with the 2023 South by Southwest entry If You Were Last, will direct from a screenplay by Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan.
The Oscar-winning Lieberman will produce with Alex Young via Hidden Pictures,...
Todd Lieberman’s Hidden Pictures is partnering with Marin and Chong, Underground, and Five All in the Fifth Entertainment on a feature biopic about the comedy duo.
Cheech and Chong came to prominence in the ’70s and ’80s, becoming synonymous with stoner culture by riffing on and lifting up the counterculture of the time, from hippies to (of course) cannabis. Their combined output included successful stand-up shows, comedy albums, and low-budget feature films, including Up in Smoke, Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980) and Nice Dreams (1981).
Kristian Mercado, who most recently made his feature debut with the 2023 South by Southwest entry If You Were Last, will direct from a screenplay by Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan.
The Oscar-winning Lieberman will produce with Alex Young via Hidden Pictures,...
- 3/22/2023
- by Mia Galuppo
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"If You Were The Last" is a fairy tale about friends with benefits, chemical attachments, and complicated relationships — in space. Kristian Mercado's feature debut shoots courtship drama into orbit, defying societal norms here on Earth. Angela Bourassa's screenplay sparkles like stars in the night sky, relying on conversations to hold the audience's attention in this dialogue-heavy interstellar chamber piece. Mercado's style is charmingly lo-fi, thanks to nifty arts and crafts effects (whether real or animated). He trusts actors to carry scenes with nothing but their charisma and flaunts impressive command for a debut filmmaker. It's like "No Strings Attached" but with zero gravity or "Friends With Benefits" caught in Jupiter's orbit.
Anthony Mackie co-stars as NASA astronaut Adam, a scientist stuck adrift in the cosmos with technician team member Jane (Zoe Chao). They're somewhere in Year 3, around day 1,000, with no signs of ever returning home thanks to navigation and communication malfunctions.
Anthony Mackie co-stars as NASA astronaut Adam, a scientist stuck adrift in the cosmos with technician team member Jane (Zoe Chao). They're somewhere in Year 3, around day 1,000, with no signs of ever returning home thanks to navigation and communication malfunctions.
- 3/13/2023
- by Matt Donato
- Slash Film
There are lots of ways to pitch If You Were the Last. How about “Michel Gondry remakes When Harry Met Sally — in space!” Who wouldn’t want to see that? But for all the ingenious hot takes one can dream up for Kristian Mercado’s ambitious feature-length debut, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s less than the sum of its parts. To be brutal, although it does, for an hour at least, cast a spell, raise interesting metaphysical questions, and center on an odd couple who, for once, actually don’t seem like they’ll get together and then totally convince us when they do — it doesn’t really pass muster as a movie at all.
Which is surprising, because character-based, low-budget sci-fi indies set in the howling existential wilderness of deep space do have a history of working against the odds, like John Carpenter’s blackly...
Which is surprising, because character-based, low-budget sci-fi indies set in the howling existential wilderness of deep space do have a history of working against the odds, like John Carpenter’s blackly...
- 3/12/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Hooray! A romantic comedy that revives the screwball formula where two people talk themselves silly — and we only had to go to the end of the solar system to make it happen. Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoë Chao) are the sole surviving astronauts on a ship with no navigation and no communication system able to transmit their grievances to their NASA superiors who presumably think them dead. How long have they been adrift? Three years. How literal is the title “If You Were the Last”? Very.
But Kristian Mercado, making his narrative debut after directing a string of stand-up specials, and Angela Bourassa, who wrote the Black List-hailed screenplay, haven’t made a film about settling for the nearest sexual organ. Instead, the swooning comes from watching these platonic shipmates debate why they should, and shouldn’t, settle — only to realize that their ability to have these frank...
But Kristian Mercado, making his narrative debut after directing a string of stand-up specials, and Angela Bourassa, who wrote the Black List-hailed screenplay, haven’t made a film about settling for the nearest sexual organ. Instead, the swooning comes from watching these platonic shipmates debate why they should, and shouldn’t, settle — only to realize that their ability to have these frank...
- 3/12/2023
- by Amy Nicholson
- Variety Film + TV
If Wes Anderson and Nancy Meyers joined forces to remake the 2016 sci-fi drama Passengers, the result would be something like If You Were the Last, a vivid but overly cute feature debut from director Kristian Mercado that premiered at SXSW.
Anthony Mackie and Zoë Chao star as a pair of astronauts stranded aboard a NASA shuttle that gets lost in space, and their decent onscreen chemistry helps fuel a rom-com tackling questions of fidelity, friendship and, well, fornication, as the would-be couple endlessly drifts through the cosmos. Backed by a colorful DIY aesthetic that makes the most of its budget, the film is nonetheless sappy and, in terms of its comedy, rather cringe-worthy, never quite finding the sweet spot between romance and laughs.
Written by Angela Bourassa, the high-concept story is purposely low-fi from the start, revealing how Adam (Mackie) and Jane (Chao), two highly trained space explorers, are stuck...
Anthony Mackie and Zoë Chao star as a pair of astronauts stranded aboard a NASA shuttle that gets lost in space, and their decent onscreen chemistry helps fuel a rom-com tackling questions of fidelity, friendship and, well, fornication, as the would-be couple endlessly drifts through the cosmos. Backed by a colorful DIY aesthetic that makes the most of its budget, the film is nonetheless sappy and, in terms of its comedy, rather cringe-worthy, never quite finding the sweet spot between romance and laughs.
Written by Angela Bourassa, the high-concept story is purposely low-fi from the start, revealing how Adam (Mackie) and Jane (Chao), two highly trained space explorers, are stuck...
- 3/12/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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