Features & EntertainmentpaGe eiGht CaNYoN News JaNUarY 26, 2020

“Bad BoYs For liFe” is aCtioN-paCkedBy David Miller

HOLLYWOOD—It is hardto fathom that it has beennearly 17 years since viewer’slast saw Martin Lawrenceand Will Smith together asthe comedic-action duo ofMarcus Burnett (Lawrence)and Michael Lowery(Lawrence) in the franchise“Bad Boys.” Both are backfor the third installment inthe franchise, “Bad Boys ForLife” which sees are agingheroes reunite to take downa threat from the past. Yes,I would be lying if I did notadmit I felt echoes of “LethalWeapon 4” watching thismovie.

For starters, Marcus isnow a grandpa and is readyto hang up his badge, whileMike wants to chase downbad criminals until the dayhe dies. There is friction be-tween the partners, espe-cially after Mike is shot andnear death. It forces bothcharacters to reevaluatetheir careers and personallives moving forward.

There is no hiding thefantastic chemistry betweenLawrence and Smith, whohaven’t co-starred in a movietogether since 2003, and itjust reminds the audiencewhy these two clicked inthe first place. The dialoguebetween the two is expletiveladled, but it’s fun to watch.We see some familiar facesfrom the past, including JoePantoliano as CaptainHoward. There is also the ad-dition of new faces in Vanes-sa Hudgens and AlexanderLudwig, as members ofAMMO (Advanced MiamiMetro Operations), led byMike’s former flame Rita

(Paola Nunez). There issome great comic banterbetween Hudgens’ character,Kim and Ludwig’s characterDom, who I consider nerdswith guns.

The narrative follows aface from the past returningto settle a score with Mikeand a host of others respon-sible for the takedown ofthe Aretas cartel. Does itsuck when you have a paststory that doesn’t have anyelements from previous en-tries coming into the fore-front? Yes, but the scriptworks. As a spectator youdon’t feel as if you’re miss-ing anything of massive sub-stance. The film’s villain,Armando (Jacob Scipo), isone of the best I can think ofin the franchise. The char-

acter is dangerous and res-onate a level of villainywhere the audience’s fearsfor our protagonists andthose they cherish the most.

“Bad Boys For Life” doesnot skimp on the gunfire,the bullets, the explosions,the chase scenes and fightsequences that one come toexpect when watching a trueaction-flick. This movie isjust that; fun, frenetic, ex-citing, full of laughs, heartand memorable characters.My mind is already churningwith the thoughts of whatthe writers will craft next asa fourth chapter in the fran-chise has already been givena greenlight.

Yes, Martin Lawrence andWill Smith are aging actors,but look at Bruce Willis and

the “Die Hard” franchise;Mel Gibson and DannyGlover in the “LethalWeapon” franchise. Untilthese characters are so oldthat they can’t do the stuntsand moves that they arecurrently doing, we shouldexpect at least several morein the franchise.

I use to be a big proponentthat waiting an extensiveamount of time to shell a se-quel was never a good ideabecause the audience losesinterest. I’ve learned latelythat the longer filmmakerswait, the better. Why? It’slike losing a love that youadored, it makes the heartgrow fonder, and “Bad BoysFor Life” is a perfect testa-ment of that.

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HOLLYWOOD—If there isone awards show I look for-ward to more than the Acad-emy Awards it is the ScreenActors Guild Awards. The2020 ceremony was held onSunday, January 19, and it de-livered some surprises. Someof you might be asking whythe SAG Awards are so im-portant: it’s because they area major predictor of whereOscar might be headed.

While NOT always 100 per-cent accurate, winning aScreen Actor’s Guild Awardcan place one in the driverseat to Oscar. Also it doesn’thurt to have some surprisesalong the way. Rememberwhen everyone was certainCasey Affleck was a lock for“Manchester by the Sea,” onlyto lose to six-time nomineeDenzel Washington for“Fences?” I remember thatsame surprise when MerylStreep won for “Doubt” overKate Winslet for “Revolu-tionary Road.”

Per usual actors and ac-tresses shared their tales ofgetting their SAG cards, somehilarious, some heartfelt.Tales shared included Christi-na Applegate, Eugene Levyand Cynthia Erivo. Levy’s washilarious because he went onand on, drawing laughs alongthe way. I love that the ScreenActors Guild Awards doesn’thave a host because it makesthe pacing of the show moveseamlessly.

The first prize of the nightfor Male Actor in a ComedySeries went to Tony Shal-houb for “The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel.” On the flipside, itwas Phoebe Waller Bridgefrom “Fleabag” who won the

SAG award for Female Actorin a Comedy Series. In an up-set, “The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel” won the award forEnsemble in a Comedy Series,over what many predictedwould be a victory for“Fleabag.”

As expected Laura Dernwalked away with the trophyfor Female Actor in a Sup-porting Role for “MarriageStory.” The predictability thisawards season is making it aboring one to say the least.Brad Pitt took home the tro-phy for Male Actor in a Sup-porting Role for “Once Upona Time in Hollywood.” Whoknew Pitt was such a jokester.His ability to be so self-refer-ential in his acceptancespeeches, says all you need toknow about Pitt, the guyseems as real as they come.

The victory dance was inthe works for MichelleWilliams for Female Actor ina TV Movie or Limited Seriesfor her performance in “Fos-se/Verdon.” Many expectedJharrel Jerome to walk awaywith the prize for Male Actorin a TV Movie or Limited Se-ries for “When They See Us,”

but it was Sam Rockwell tak-ing the win for “Fosse/Ver-don.”

Moving over to the dramaside of TV, it was JenniferAniston who was in tearspicking up the prize for Fe-male Actor for her fantasticwork in “The Morning Show.”Peter Dinklage won his firstSAG Award for Male Actor ina Drama Series for his workon “Game of Thrones.”

Robert De Niro was cele-brated with the LifetimeAchievement Award, and theguy has an eclectic body ofwork that is so damn im-pressive. Leonardo DiCapriowho has co-starred with thetitan paid tribute to the oneand only. While De Niro’sspeech got slightly political,he did it in a way that it wasnot preachy, and he made itclear as an actor he has theright to speak his mind. Iloved what De Niro said,which got a resounding ap-plause from the audience.

It was “The Crown” thattook the prize for Ensemble ina Drama Series, causing a bitof an upset, as I thought theladies of “Big Little Lies”

might walk away with theprize. Joaquin Phoenix con-tinued his dominance as thefront-runner for his work in“Joker.” Look, I like a bit ofcompetition, but hands downPhoenix delivered one of thebest performances I’ve seen inthe past decade. It was ReneeZellweger who walked awaywith the SAG Award for Fe-male Actor in a Motion Pic-ture for her performance asJudy Garland in “Judy.”

Perhaps the most excite-ment of the night was tryingto figure out who might winthe prize for Outstanding En-semble in a Motion Picture. Iwas under the impressionthat perhaps “The Irishman”or “Once Upon a Time in Hol-lywood” would win the topprize, but “Parasite” swoopedin to claim the prize. This isa major game changer andimpacts what might be tran-spiring with Oscar. While“1917” won the ProducersGuild Prize, this means “Par-asite” has a MAJOR chance ofbeing the first Foreign Lan-guage Film to win the BestPicture prize at the Oscarsnext month.

So for those in the dark,and if you don’t like subtitles,please give them a try because“Parasite” is one hell of amovie people and I mean it’shard to even chat about themovie without spoiling it. SoI think we all know how theacting races will pan out therest of award season. So theonly uncertainty in my opin-ion lies in the Best Pictureand Best Director races whenit comes to Oscar. Could wehave a few surprises? It’s pos-sible, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

“parasite” BiG saG awards wiNNerBy LaDale Anderson

"Parasite" was the night's big winner at the26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith are back for "Bad Boys for Life."

“the MorNiNG show” is FUN tV!HOLLYWOOD—Many peoplewho know me are well awarethe notion of me binge-watch-ing any show is a rare occa-sion. Why? I just don’t havethe time, and if I do have thetime it has to be for a seriesthat is so damn good from thestart I want to see how therest of the season plays out.That is what I was treatedwith while watching the Ap-ple TV series “The MorningShow.” Look for someonewho works in the journalismfield, you have an idea of howthings operate behind thecamera, but the way this se-ries captures that mayhem, itis so much fun.

I mean we have some seri-ous star power, and it doesn’thurt that the series is tacklinga major issue in light of the#MeToo Movement to addresssexual harassment in theworkplace. We have JenniferAniston, Steve Carell, ReeseWitherspoon and BillyCrudup, in very layered, icon-ic and exceptional roles. Carellis known as a comedy God,but this guy certainly can de-liver drama that I don’t thinkmany people ever expectedfrom the guy. As the fallen an-chor of one of TV’s popular

morning shows, we’re see-ing his truths come to lightand how he isn’t afraid tocall a spade a spade.

What can I say about Anis-ton? This woman is known forplaying America’s sweetheartand the girl next door, sowhen she tackles a role likeAlex Levy, she gets to showher dramatic chops more,drop a few expletives and giveus an Aniston we’ve neverseen before it’s a ton of fun towatch. Dare I say she plays thecharacter of a b**ch quitewell? On the flipside, we haveher counterpart played byReese Witherspoon.

She seems perfect on theoutside, but don’t’ crossBradley Jackson people. She isnot afraid to go toe-to-toe

with a veteran and to allowher mind to be spoken re-gardless of the consequences.Witherspoon is that actresswho has such a level of ver-satility that it’s awesome towatch on the small screen ver-sus the big screen, where alayered character can be ex-tracted week to week.

There is also Crudup, whoplays Cory Ellison, the cor-porate honcho who has thewheel for the network at hishelm and does WHAT HEwants to ensure the showand the network success. Thegreat thing about “The Morn-ing Show” is that every singleplayer has an angle; everyonewants something and someare willing to go to extreme orexcessive lengths to get what

they strive for. Cory wantsBradley next to Alex; Alexwants to be able to make thatdecision herself. There is agame of politics unfoldingbefore our eyes, where it’sobvious there will be win-ners, there will be losers andwhen the dust settles it will bea whole new playing field.

Yes, you can make argu-ments that there is some lev-el of predictability and ironywith watching “The MorningShow,” but it’s only a slightglimpse of some of the actu-al mayhem that some of uscan predict actually happenedbehind the scenes with dis-graced “Today” show hostMatt Lauer. Am I arguingthat Mitch Kessler is a slice ofLauer, not quite, but themechanisms in place hint ata popular morning host, that’sall I can say?

This first season had a lot ofmeaty material that just keptme intrigued week after weekwondering what will happennext? Now that fans know aseason 2 is on the way, I canonly imagine what otherchaos unfolds after the bomb-shells that were dropped dur-ing the series’ first season fi-nale.

By David Miller

"The Morning Show" is a thrill a minute with astellar cast.

“power” reCap: ‘ it’s all YoUr FaUlt’HOLLYWOOD—I will admitI have not been super excit-ed about the first twoepisodes of “Power” becauseit seems all is being told inreverse order, and no majorbombshells have beendropped to leave me gasping.I mean we are in the midstof the final episodes of theseries, I just expected more.This week’s episode ‘It’s AllYour Fault’ turned the focuson Tommy. Yes, it seemseach week a character in-tertwined with Ghost is get-ting his or her highlighttale.

Things kicked off withTommy cleaning up themess of murdering Benny,who retaliated after he killedJoe Proctor. Dear ole momcame to his aide, but he wasstuck in a trance. Tommystill thinks Ghost killedLaKeisha, man is he in for arude awakening when helearns Tasha committed thedeed. So we meet Aunt Do-lores, Benny’s sister. ElisaMarie suspected her UncleBenny was dead because hehadn’t been heard from inseveral hours. Dolores andVincent seem to have histo-ry, as we learn her family hasstrong ties to the criminalworld thanks to her UncleCarlo. Tommy is indeed amama’s boy people and itsbad. Fear has riddled acrossthe tough guy’s persona,and he wants to trek to Cal-ifornia for safety.

Tommy is delusional, ashis mother spoke plenty ofsense that Tommy refused tolook at. Elisa Marie listenedto that recording her fathergave to her, just as Doloresoverheard. Chatter aboutTommy came front and cen-ter, which caused a triggerfor Dolores and Elisa to pin-point that Tommy murderedJoe. They gave the audio toTariq who feigned ignorance,just as Dolores tried to push

the envelope. Tariq you aresmart, but Dolores issmarter, and put all thepieces to the puzzle togeth-er in record timing.

Tariq alerted Tommy thathe’s in major danger, andthat Joe’s daughter and aunthave that recording in theirpossession. Blanca ques-tioned Tommy aboutLaKeisha’s murderer, buthe was refusing to throwhis pal under the bust. Tom-my spotted those earrings inLaKeisha’s belongings and itleft him unnerved. Tashayou are busted! Wow, Tom-my pulled out a gun and wasready to take out a formerally. Tommy was livid, just asTasha pleaded her case, buthe didn’t pull the trigger, atleast not yet. Tommy spilledthe tea he knows he didn’tkill Keisha, but the talkabout the recording cameback front-and-center. Thethought that Benny’s palswere after him, proved to beincorrect, just as Tommypaid a visit to the homewhere Elisa Marie was stay-ing. Tommy murdered bothgoons, before breaking intothe home hoping to get hishands on that recording. Herattled Elisa Marie, and took

her hostage to discover howshe learned about therecording.

Dolores snapped when shediscovered her niece miss-ing, and Uncle Carlo madehis presence known. Tom-my’s mother talks too muchand delivered Elisa Mariethe Intel on Jamie andGhost. The little girl con-nected two dots and learnedJamie and Ghost are thesame person. Elisa Mariepoint blank asked Tommy ifhe murdered her father, andhe didn’t straight out say it,but he certainly alluded to it.After learning about Dre,Tommy released Elisa Mariewithout hurting a hair onthe kid.

Tommy realized thatGhost was his pal all along,and Tariq tried to push back,which prompted Tommy toshare a bit of knowledge.Vincent tried to corner Tom-my, but found himself on theretrieving end of a majorbeat down. Making the situ-ation worst was Tommylearning that Tariq was theone who snitched on him.Tommy entered the night-club, and found Ghost’sbloody body lying on thefloor. It was apparent that

Tommy knows who killedGhost and was ready to pullthe trigger, but Ghost madeit clear to let it be.

So now it’s official, wesaw Ghost actually die inTommy’s arms. Damn this istwisted, the killer was rightin our presence, but we did-n’t even get to see themyet. Tommy’s mother wascertain that Tommy mur-dered Ghost, but if she onlyknew. She received fundscourtesy of Ghost, as didTommy, his classic vehicle.Tommy learned that Spankywas the snitch, and he tookhim out. Elisa Marie re-vealed to Tommy she knewhe killed her father, just asshe gave him the recordingthat he destroyed. So Tom-my drove off in the sunset,which gives me the inclina-tion that Tommy’s arc hasconcluded.

So with only two episodesleft, we have four suspectsremaining and my money ison Tariq or Tasha, but to behonest, I think its Tasha be-cause Tommy saw the face ofGhost’s killer and he waslivid, so Tasha seems culpa-ble. Until next Sunday “Pow-er” fanatics!

By LaDale Anderson

This week's episode of "Power" was all about Tommy Egan.

Nelle BeNsoN UNleashes Chaos oN “GeNeral hospital!”HOLLYWOOD—Just whenyou think the woman whohas caused so much chaos on“General Hospital” was done,Nelle Benson has beensprung from the slammerand loose yet again in PortCharles. Remember thoseinvitations that Sam, Willow,Harmony received in regardsto a memorial for Shiloh?They were courtesy of Nelle,who revealed she marriedShiloh and now has ties tothe Quartermaine family be-cause Shiloh held Oscar’sshares. Yes, even from be-yond the grave Shiloh is stillhaunting those who he tor-tured the most. Michael wasmost livid by the bombshell,because he knows how dan-gerous and treacherous Nellecan be.

However, the person Nelleneeds to watch out for is Car-ly Corinthos. When she dis-covered her nemesis wasloose and playing house withWiley she went into a tirade.Carly suffered the most atthe hands of Nelle, so itmakes perfect sense for herto want to teach the womanwho nearly broke up hermarriage, convoluted withAva who was responsible forMorgan’s death and had herlocked away in a mental in-stitution that she is not oneto be toyed with.

A major war is brewing

and I am hoping that it leadsto the long-awaited big re-veal that Wiley is actuallyJonah. I mean it feels likewe’ve been waiting for 2years for this secret to cometo life. Willow and Nelle areat war, Sasha and Chase havebeen intertwined into themystery and Brad is feelingthe pressure. The truth isabout to come out so heneeds to prepare for hisworld to explode in epic fash-ion. Nelle has raised the con-cerns of Michael, who hasmoved the unstable one intothe Quartermaine mansion,but they’ll have companybecause Sasha is moving inalso. Nelle has yet to go toe-to-toe with a woman likeSasha, so this should be fun.

Nelle is the catalyst of a lotof chaos, because it seemsyet again that Valentin hasescaped facing any conse-quences for his action. Mar-tin assured Valentin Nellehas NO IDEA that she is be-

ing used like a pawn. Thequestion I’m certain audi-ences want answered is:WHY? This should be im-portant because Nelle andValentin have never inter-acted from what I can thinkof. Nina and Jax finallyshared their first kiss, whichwill have her former flamefuming once he finds out.

With that said, we have totalk about the return of a fa-miliar face in Detective Mar-cus Taggert (Real Andrews).Yeah, the guy who has beena thorn in the lives of Sonnyand Jason is back courtesy ofJordan. This is interesting itlooks like the writers aresetting up a bit of drama forJordan and her marriage toCurtis with a former flame inthe mix. I wonder how Cur-tis will feel with another guybeing a threat to his mar-riage? We haven’t really seenthat side of Curtis, so thiswill be interesting to watchhow this unfolds. Taggert

was brought back to town onJordan’s request, and thetwo are indeed keeping awhopper of a secret.

Sonny was already lividto find Taggert speaking toMike who is mentally ill, soimagine what he will do toneutralize a threat that couldpotentially cause his father’sAlzheimer’s to spiral evenmore than what it alreadyhas? Once you are a threaton Sonny’s list you remain athreat, people, it neverchanges. He might be cordialto you, but in the back of themind he is focused on how totake out that threat. Well,there was a major threatthis week in Port Charles asthe lives of Jason, Sonny,Mike, Carly, Gladys, Joss,Michael, Sasha and Laurawere in danger because ofmultiple gunmen.

It looks like someone is af-ter Sonny and the peoplehe loves. With three shoot-ings happening at once, itwas Mayor Laura Webber,who became the injured par-ty. Hmm, this does not bodewell for Laura, but at thesame time, this is not goodfor Sonny and company!Something tells me theseshooters are connected toTaggert’s return to PC, let’shope more Intel is releasedin the coming week’s “GH”fans.

By Donald Thompson

Nelle Benson is stirring up trouble in PortCharles on "General Hospital."