Whenever we find out that one of our favorite film actors has taken a role on TV, we’re intrigued. Why trade Hollywood’s red carpets and big paydays for the weekly grind of a regular television schedule? While some thespians can’t resist a juicy role on premium cable, others embrace the small screen as a way to regain the cred they’ve lost after years of disappointing parts in terrible movies. In honor of Don Cheadle’s surprising — and delightful — decision to helm Showtime’s House of Lies, which premiered last night, we look at ten great film actors who became great TV actors.
Mid-season TV is totally underrated. Largely seen as primetime’s second string, the slate of shows that pop up each winter to replace the fall season’s biggest failures has more to offer than you might think — especially at a time when cable and premium channels are challenging the networks’ traditional September-to-May schedule. With that in mind, there are a whole lot of new series debuting from December through February that we at Flavorpill can’t wait to watch. From Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell as corporate bloodsuckers to Kevin Smith’s comic-book store to the return of Deadwood creator David Milch, our ten most anticipated mid-season shows are after the jump. Read More »
Welcome to “Trailer Park,” a new Friday feature wherein we’ll collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding (for better or worse). For our inaugural week, we’ve got quite the grab bag — six new trailers of wildly varying quality. Check ‘em out after the jump.
In 2007, Jon Favreau had the audacity to make an Iron Man movie that was actually good. Two years later, we have our first glimpse of the inevitable sequel. What follows is a play-by-play breakdown of the new trailer for Iron Man 2 (or, as we call it, War Machine: Origins), featuring Mickey Rourke’s Burning Man-appropriate metal teeth, Scarlett Johansson’s laughable attempts at be-leathered badassery, and the brazen ripoff of a Dark Knight set-piece.
For your pleasure, we’ve highlighted some of the best parts (Sam Jackson as Nick Fury) and some of the worst (basically all the parts that do not include Sam Jackson as Nick Fury).
The phenomenal success of the first Iron Man film meant moviegoers were going to get another chance to see Robert Downey Jr.’s reformed Tony Stark character. But there were some major transformations in order before they could start filming the sequel, and the buzz behind the scenes has been almost as interesting as Iron Man itself. There have been reports about a feud between Scarlett Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow. Don Cheadle replaced an unhappy Terrence Howard as Stark’s sidekick, James Rhodes (War Machine), and Mickey Rourke landed the role of an energy whip-wielding villain known as Whiplash.
Check out the film stills as we explain every development and more after the jump.
