In a bit of fun, Charlie Sheen is going to reprise his brief role from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on ABC’s TV show “The Goldbergs.” The episode is going to be a tribute to the classic John Hughes movie. The only question is, after so long away from the part, how is Sheen going to be able to play a character that is drug-addled and in trouble with the law?
Creed is not an upcoming movie that examines Satan’s favorite band. It is, however, a spinoff of Rocky that will feature Michael B. Jordan as the son of Apollo Creed, who is trained by Mr. Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). I like Jordan, but I only really got excited when it was announced that Tessa Thompson would be playing the female lead. She was so good in Dear White People that I’d watch her in anything. Well, okay, I wouldn’t watch her in a movie called Creed that was actually about the band.
Let’s talk for a second about Sony’s decision to shelve The Interview in the wake of online terror threats. As surprising as this may be, I’ve seen some long-winded opinion pieces on the Internet that are downright ignorant. The issue at hand isn’t free speech. I don’t know why this is always hard for people, but impeding free speech is what happens when a government censors an outlet, not when a private studio makes a decision. Second, if you haven’t seen the full movie, which you probably haven’t, you can’t weigh in on the controversial scene of Kim-Jong Un’s death that’s circulating. Why? Because comedy, especially satire, requires context. Finally, it is irrelevant if the movie is funny or effectively skewers a corrupt regime that deserves to be skewered (literally for what it’s doing to the people of North Korea). The issue is how Sony gave in to a threat that the State Department said wasn’t credible. This gives every whackjob and freakazoid with Internet access an opportunity to try and block a film by making threats. It’s all fun and games until Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is benched because a goober who thinks Star Trek is the one true religion issues a cyber-jihad. This was a bad moment in film history, all the way around.
Cutting Room provides breaking local and national movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Send any relevant information to film@thereader.com. Check out Ryan on Movieha!, a weekly half-hour movie podcast, catch him on the radio on CD 105.9 on Fridays at around 7:30 a.m. and on KVNO 90.7 at 8:30 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Twitter.