Will Smith still got it? 'Focus' opens at #1
- Thread starter ugk
- Start date
This aint the summer. It's easy to be #1 in February.
exactly. the movie was mad mediocre and had no competition.
that bullshit ending killed the movie for me.
and it only has a 56% on rotten tomatoes.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/focus_2014/
that bullshit ending killed the movie for me.
its like the writers didn't know where to go with it or they ran out of money.and it only has a 56% on rotten tomatoes.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/focus_2014/
50 Shades and Kingsman going into their 3rd week. The only real competition woul dhave been that shitty movie Lazurus. I guess the days of Will dropping July 4th blockbusters are over.
or he could reinvent his career.. play darker roles like all his older actors( denzel, tom cruise,brad pitt, kevin costner).. sometimes people get tired of that extra happy goody to shoes character and want some diff..play a serial killer, a bad guy..fuck pg 13 and go rated r
Basically he needs another pursuit of happiness type roll.
Will Smith and Margot Robbie's latest film 'Focus' highlights rarity of interracial relationships in TV shows and films
It’s all there in black and white.
Today, U.S. marriages between people of different races and ethnicities are on the uptick, but that’s rarely reflected on the big screen.
Will Smith and Margot Robbie are currently heating up theaters as lovers in the comedy “Focus.” Thankfully the plot doesn’t dwell on their interracial romance, but it’s hard not to notice the pairing is scarce in mainstream movies.
“Acting is one of few occupations where you can legally use race as a criteria for employment,” says Craig Lechner, CEO of Impossible Casting. “With these big pictures they are marketing to Middle America. It’s like the old cliché: ‘Will it play in Peoria?’”
Judging by the low number of interracial couples on the big screen, it seems that most Hollywood executives still think that Middle America is not ready to accept people of different races in love — and therefore, won’t play well in Peoria, Illinois, believed to represent mainstream America.
That’s a shame, especially considering that 10% of U.S. marriages today are between people of different races and ethnicities.
Even when interracial romances are depicted, they can too easily become the whole story.
That was the case in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), in which the entire plot revolves around the fact that a young white woman’s new fiancé (Sidney Poitier) is black.
A number of more recent movies have featured variations of this plot, from Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” (1991) to “Save The Last Dance” (2001) with Julia Stiles.
But these movies point to exactly what some Hollywood producers are afraid of when they cast an interracial couple.
“People who make movies don’t want to be accused of making a deliberate statement,” says Paul Levinson, a professor of media studies at Fordham. “Juts to throw in an interracial couple might distract from whatever the story is.”
This doesn’t seem to be a problem in “Focus.” The film stars Smith as an ace con man. Robbie, the blond bombshell from “The Wolf of Wall Street,” is a less-ace con woman. The two meet up, then hook up. Neither character ever addresses the fact that one of them is white and the other is black.
And when the stars of “Focus” lock lips on screen, it’s hardly the cultural milestone it was in 1968 when Captain Kirk kissed Lt. Uhura on “Star Trek” — the first time a mixed-race couple got frisky on national TV.
Those making decisions want to make the easiest, least controversial choice to increase ticket sales globally.
But the nature of the love affair in “Focus” is still its own kind of cliché, according to Nadia Ramoutar, a film professor at The Art Institute of Jacksonville in Florida.
“The black male is usually the model gentlemen and the white woman is usually extremely naive,” Ramoutar explains. “We have a hard time breaking out of these stereotypes because they are so entrenched that they come across an normal.”
Ramoutar should know. She wrote a grad school dissertation on interracial relationships in films, and is now working on a book on the subject.
For her dissertation she looked at more than 600 films.
“When the female is Asian, the portrayal is generally positive,” Ramoutar notes. “But black women don’t come off well. They are much more likely to get killed.”
Some movies featuring interracial couples are light and breezy comedies. Smith starred in another interracial relationship a decade ago in the film “Hitch.” And Halle Berry was a top-notch Bond girl opposite Pierce Brosnan in “Die Another Day” (2002.) That same year, Berry became the first black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in “Monster’s Ball,” another movie that had her in an interracial relationship with Billy Bob Thornton.
But these films, like “Focus,” are all exceptions in an industry that considers interracial couples to be an unnecessary risk when casting a movie.
“Those making decisions want to make the easiest, least controversial choice to increase ticket sales globally,” says African-American actress Cassandra Freeman (“Inside Man,” “Kinyarwanda”) “If the creators have no friends of color, or if the creator has never been attracted to someone outside of their own culture, then their projects will reflect that reality.”
Indeed, Ramoutar’s research found that a positive portrayal of an interracial couple generally means that a woman or person of color is one of the producers.
This is certainly true in screenwriter/producer Shonda Rhimes’ TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” which both feature interracial love affairs.
But the majority of movie producers are still white men, and so the prevalence of interracial couples remains low.
“It looked more hopeful in 1967 than it does at the moment,” says Ramoutar. “Race relations in this country and race portrayal in films are both in a sad state of affairs.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...m-depict-interracial-couple-article-1.2131030
It’s all there in black and white.
Today, U.S. marriages between people of different races and ethnicities are on the uptick, but that’s rarely reflected on the big screen.
Will Smith and Margot Robbie are currently heating up theaters as lovers in the comedy “Focus.” Thankfully the plot doesn’t dwell on their interracial romance, but it’s hard not to notice the pairing is scarce in mainstream movies.
“Acting is one of few occupations where you can legally use race as a criteria for employment,” says Craig Lechner, CEO of Impossible Casting. “With these big pictures they are marketing to Middle America. It’s like the old cliché: ‘Will it play in Peoria?’”
Judging by the low number of interracial couples on the big screen, it seems that most Hollywood executives still think that Middle America is not ready to accept people of different races in love — and therefore, won’t play well in Peoria, Illinois, believed to represent mainstream America.
That’s a shame, especially considering that 10% of U.S. marriages today are between people of different races and ethnicities.
Even when interracial romances are depicted, they can too easily become the whole story.
That was the case in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), in which the entire plot revolves around the fact that a young white woman’s new fiancé (Sidney Poitier) is black.
A number of more recent movies have featured variations of this plot, from Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” (1991) to “Save The Last Dance” (2001) with Julia Stiles.
But these movies point to exactly what some Hollywood producers are afraid of when they cast an interracial couple.
“People who make movies don’t want to be accused of making a deliberate statement,” says Paul Levinson, a professor of media studies at Fordham. “Juts to throw in an interracial couple might distract from whatever the story is.”
This doesn’t seem to be a problem in “Focus.” The film stars Smith as an ace con man. Robbie, the blond bombshell from “The Wolf of Wall Street,” is a less-ace con woman. The two meet up, then hook up. Neither character ever addresses the fact that one of them is white and the other is black.
And when the stars of “Focus” lock lips on screen, it’s hardly the cultural milestone it was in 1968 when Captain Kirk kissed Lt. Uhura on “Star Trek” — the first time a mixed-race couple got frisky on national TV.
Those making decisions want to make the easiest, least controversial choice to increase ticket sales globally.
But the nature of the love affair in “Focus” is still its own kind of cliché, according to Nadia Ramoutar, a film professor at The Art Institute of Jacksonville in Florida.
“The black male is usually the model gentlemen and the white woman is usually extremely naive,” Ramoutar explains. “We have a hard time breaking out of these stereotypes because they are so entrenched that they come across an normal.”
Ramoutar should know. She wrote a grad school dissertation on interracial relationships in films, and is now working on a book on the subject.
For her dissertation she looked at more than 600 films.
“When the female is Asian, the portrayal is generally positive,” Ramoutar notes. “But black women don’t come off well. They are much more likely to get killed.”
Some movies featuring interracial couples are light and breezy comedies. Smith starred in another interracial relationship a decade ago in the film “Hitch.” And Halle Berry was a top-notch Bond girl opposite Pierce Brosnan in “Die Another Day” (2002.) That same year, Berry became the first black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in “Monster’s Ball,” another movie that had her in an interracial relationship with Billy Bob Thornton.
But these films, like “Focus,” are all exceptions in an industry that considers interracial couples to be an unnecessary risk when casting a movie.
“Those making decisions want to make the easiest, least controversial choice to increase ticket sales globally,” says African-American actress Cassandra Freeman (“Inside Man,” “Kinyarwanda”) “If the creators have no friends of color, or if the creator has never been attracted to someone outside of their own culture, then their projects will reflect that reality.”
Indeed, Ramoutar’s research found that a positive portrayal of an interracial couple generally means that a woman or person of color is one of the producers.
This is certainly true in screenwriter/producer Shonda Rhimes’ TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” which both feature interracial love affairs.
But the majority of movie producers are still white men, and so the prevalence of interracial couples remains low.
“It looked more hopeful in 1967 than it does at the moment,” says Ramoutar. “Race relations in this country and race portrayal in films are both in a sad state of affairs.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...m-depict-interracial-couple-article-1.2131030
Racists Attack Will Smith’s ‘Focus’ Over Film’s Depiction of An Interracial Relationship
The vile racists of the Internet are up in arms over the new movie Focus, which features stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie (sort of) knocking boots. Ugh.
While the white (and gold) vs. black (and blue) debate over #TheDress continues to divide and alter life as we know it, another far more insidious color war is raging in America: Racists are outraged over the interracial coupling in the movie Focus between Will Smith, an African-American man, and his Australian co-star Margot Robbie, a white woman.
The onetime Men in Black and Independence Day blockbuster king stars in the R-rated romantic caper as a charismatic con artist who welcomes Robbie’s femme fatale-in-training to his operation and falls for her—against his better judgment. It’s a rare sensual role for Smith, who gets steamy with Robbie in a few sex scenes that are actually conservatively shot and disappointingly brief. But boy does their onscreen love affair have racists’ panties in a bunch.
“Anyone getting fed up with all this race mixing being shoved down our throats?” wrote YouTube user Shomanoman on a trailer page for Focus.
“YUCK, Race-mixing Trash propaganda by Hollyjewed again,” declared Kriegen Gegen Das System, managing to squeeze in a shot at Tinseltown’s Jewish population while they were at it.
Comments like these skyrocketed this month ahead of Focus’s theatrical release, sparking a wave of counter-commenters who jumped to defend Smith and interracial representation in movies.
Contrary to Shomanoman’s claim, rampant “race mixing” is still conspicuously non-existent in Hollywood, where skin tones have to match if love or sex is in the cards for two characters. Just look to Smith’s own filmography: In his two decades as a bona fide leading man, he’s never before gotten down with a white woman onscreen.
When he almost did in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch opposite would-be co-star Cameron Diaz, she was recast. Eva Mendes got the gig, and Smith blamed Hollywood.
“How are you not going to consider Cameron Diaz? That becomes massive news in the US. Outside America, it's no big deal. But in the US, it's still a racial issue,” Female First UK quoted him saying in 2005. “Ironically, Hollywood is happy to do it if the film is about racism. But they won't simply do it and ignore it."
Even before he was a movie star, Smith addressed the flip side of interracial controversy on the second season of his TV sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. In the 1991 episode “Guess Who’s Coming To Marry?”, Will’s aunt Janice introduces the family to her fiancé, a white man, upsetting Will’s mother so much she refuses to attend the wedding. The family is taken aback but, for the sake of the children, have the decency to temper the way they discuss their initial prejudice (“She didn’t mention he was… tall…”):
Despite that nod to Stanley Kramer’s 1967 landmark examination of interracial marriage in America, Smith didn’t have a single white girlfriend over the course of six seasons of Fresh Prince. When Focus was in its early stages it was to star Kristen Stewart before she bailed, citing the 20-year age difference between her and Smith. That didn’t stop media gossipers from speculating that her exit was race-related.
Smith’s grown-man sexy in Focus may not be as stimulating as it could or should be; for that, blame the abbreviated love scenes on writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and a chemistry with Robbie that’s stronger in off-set photo booth selfies than on the actual screen. At least the tastefully luxe, grown-up affair is a step in the right direction. And that’s a start to making all of the Internet racists’ nightmares finally come true.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...depiction-of-an-interracial-relationship.html
The vile racists of the Internet are up in arms over the new movie Focus, which features stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie (sort of) knocking boots. Ugh.
While the white (and gold) vs. black (and blue) debate over #TheDress continues to divide and alter life as we know it, another far more insidious color war is raging in America: Racists are outraged over the interracial coupling in the movie Focus between Will Smith, an African-American man, and his Australian co-star Margot Robbie, a white woman.
The onetime Men in Black and Independence Day blockbuster king stars in the R-rated romantic caper as a charismatic con artist who welcomes Robbie’s femme fatale-in-training to his operation and falls for her—against his better judgment. It’s a rare sensual role for Smith, who gets steamy with Robbie in a few sex scenes that are actually conservatively shot and disappointingly brief. But boy does their onscreen love affair have racists’ panties in a bunch.
“Anyone getting fed up with all this race mixing being shoved down our throats?” wrote YouTube user Shomanoman on a trailer page for Focus.
“YUCK, Race-mixing Trash propaganda by Hollyjewed again,” declared Kriegen Gegen Das System, managing to squeeze in a shot at Tinseltown’s Jewish population while they were at it.
Comments like these skyrocketed this month ahead of Focus’s theatrical release, sparking a wave of counter-commenters who jumped to defend Smith and interracial representation in movies.
Contrary to Shomanoman’s claim, rampant “race mixing” is still conspicuously non-existent in Hollywood, where skin tones have to match if love or sex is in the cards for two characters. Just look to Smith’s own filmography: In his two decades as a bona fide leading man, he’s never before gotten down with a white woman onscreen.
When he almost did in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch opposite would-be co-star Cameron Diaz, she was recast. Eva Mendes got the gig, and Smith blamed Hollywood.
“How are you not going to consider Cameron Diaz? That becomes massive news in the US. Outside America, it's no big deal. But in the US, it's still a racial issue,” Female First UK quoted him saying in 2005. “Ironically, Hollywood is happy to do it if the film is about racism. But they won't simply do it and ignore it."
Even before he was a movie star, Smith addressed the flip side of interracial controversy on the second season of his TV sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. In the 1991 episode “Guess Who’s Coming To Marry?”, Will’s aunt Janice introduces the family to her fiancé, a white man, upsetting Will’s mother so much she refuses to attend the wedding. The family is taken aback but, for the sake of the children, have the decency to temper the way they discuss their initial prejudice (“She didn’t mention he was… tall…”):
Despite that nod to Stanley Kramer’s 1967 landmark examination of interracial marriage in America, Smith didn’t have a single white girlfriend over the course of six seasons of Fresh Prince. When Focus was in its early stages it was to star Kristen Stewart before she bailed, citing the 20-year age difference between her and Smith. That didn’t stop media gossipers from speculating that her exit was race-related.
Smith’s grown-man sexy in Focus may not be as stimulating as it could or should be; for that, blame the abbreviated love scenes on writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and a chemistry with Robbie that’s stronger in off-set photo booth selfies than on the actual screen. At least the tastefully luxe, grown-up affair is a step in the right direction. And that’s a start to making all of the Internet racists’ nightmares finally come true.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...depiction-of-an-interracial-relationship.html
this
My thoughts exactly!!
I Am Legend, part 2
It wasn't a blockbuster type movie, holla at me when bad boys 3 drops and see if will ain't still killing shit
The brother doesn't do good yall Diss him. The brother has a number one yall still Diss him.
At least some people get it
truth be told now that i think of it he should've did old boy like he originally planned to..that would've been ill..will being crazy dark in that whole fucked up concept of a movie...dude would've got mad props for that and people would've want him to do more dark movies like the professional reboot
I'll wait for the download...
Exactly. This is bullshit. #1 opening, 20million weekend in february, during a fucking winter storm on most of the east coast and a movie filled with a bunch of nobodies. How is this not a win? At this point they are trying to just devalue the guy.
Will Smith has always beena box office smash. It's only when he includes his kids that he fails. I ain't made at him though....alll his kids make more money than me.
50 mil ain't shit when you consider that half of that was probably Will's salary. And once the International box office really kicks in, this movie will easily pass $100 million by the end of the month. People dogged out After Earth as a failure, but in reality it earned $243 million at the box office. That and MIB3 ($624M) are the only movies Will has starred in since 2008, so cut him a little slack.
This movie boring as fuck..
Excellent movie.
Thought it was dope
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