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Is ‘Being the Ricardos’ Based on a True Story?

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Is ‘Being the Ricardos’ Based on a True Story?

The long-awaited biopic, Being the Ricardos, stars Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball opposite Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz, and takes a deep dive into the often-mercurial forces behind the Hollywood power couple. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, a filmmaker who’s known for writing such intense biopics as The Social Network, Steve Jobs, and Molly’s Game, Sorkin reveals a powder keg of a marriage, a hit TV show beholden to its advertisers, and the backlash from the Red Scare that tormented Hollywood in the 1950s. So how much of the new movie is true and how much is invented for entertainment? We have some ‘splaining’ to do.

RELATED: ‘Being the Ricardos’ Has No Idea What to Be About | Review

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One intense production week

In Being the Ricardos, the story takes place during just one week of shooting I Love Lucy, starting with the table read of the script on Monday and ending with shooting the episode in front of a live studio audience on Friday evening. Yet, so much happens in between! Lucille Ball discovers she’s pregnant, gets accused of being a Communist, and Desi appears on the cover of a tabloid magazine flirting with another woman. But did all these big events actually happen in the course of one week?

While all three of those events happened in real life, they didn’t take place all in the same week. Sorkin openly admits to taking some liberties with the chronology of the events, to compress the story into a two-hour movie. But more than that, Sorkin wanted to create high stakes for his characters and put them under as much pressure as possible to tell the most thrilling story he could possibly tell.


The actual timeline

The three main events in the film actually took place over a period of three years, from 1952 to 1955. Desi Jr., Ball and Arnaz’s second child, was born in January 1953, so she likely found out she was “spectin” in the summer of ’52. Ball appeared twice before Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee, first in April 1952 and again in September 1953. The tabloid magazine, Confidential, did an article about Arnaz’s suspected cheating in January 1955, but the photo of Arnaz and the woman in question had been taken several years earlier.

Comrade Lucy?

Way back in 1936, inspired by her socialist grandfather, Ball did register to vote as a Communist. However, she never actually voted for a Communist candidate. She testified to the HUAC that she had no Communist leanings which seemed to satisfy the committee but J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, continued to closely follow her career and keep a file on her and her husband.

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Desi’s plea to the studio audience

Arnaz knew that if the public thought Ball was a Communist, I Love Lucy’s sponsors would pull out and he and his wife’s career would be over. In the film, he addresses the audience prior to the taping of the show – which he actually did in real life. He made it clear that they both hated Communism and also called Ball his favorite redhead, saying, “In fact, that’s the only thing red about her, and even that’s not legitimate.” The real-life audience cheered for Ball when Arnaz brought her out and they knew the show would continue.

Lucy is ‘Enceinte”

It’s hard to believe today that a pregnant woman appearing on television was once seen as too vulgar since it implied that the married couple actually had S-E-X, but that’s how it was in 1950s America. The network wanted to hide Ball’s pregnancy by having her hide behind furniture, carry large baskets, etc. But Arnaz and Ball knew this would be difficult since Ball’s belly had become very large during her previous pregnancy with her daughter, Lucie. The network finally agreed to show Lucy “spectin”, as Ricky would say, because they weren’t allowed to use the word “pregnant.” In the title of the episode, they used the French term for being pregnant, calling it “Lucy is Enceinte.”


To further calm CBS and the advertisers, Arnaz hired a minister, a priest, and a rabbi to monitor the episodes where Ball appeared pregnant to ensure nothing too risqué was being implied.

A marriage in trouble

William Asher, director for I Love Lucy, saw the marriage as a sinking ship from the beginning. Asher told People magazine, “Before the show began [Ball and Arnaz] had already been separated. An actress and a bandleader. He was on the road; she was a working professional. That’s the kind of marriage that has failure written all over it. You’re separated a while, and before you know it, those giblets begin to jump.”

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While Ball knew that Arnaz had quite the reputation for loving the ladies, she still hoped the marriage would work. Arnaz liked to drink heavily and consort with prostitutes, which he didn’t see as a problem in his marriage. I Love Lucy writer, Bob Weiskopf, told People magazine, “Basically, Desi’s attitude was, ‘What the hell’s the matter? I love her. When I go out with women, they’re usually hookers. Those don’t count.’” It’s no surprise the marriage ended in divorce in 1960 and their creative partnership was forced to end, too.


A match not made in heaven

Being the Ricardos depicts the Mertzes, Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda), and William Frawley (J.K. Simmons), as constantly at odds with each other. In fact, they despised each other in real life but wisely contained their animosity in public. Both actors had been vaudeville stars, but Vance had been considered a great beauty and resented having to appear married to a man 22-years her senior. To add insult to injury, she also hated having to appear as Lucy’s older, frumpy friend especially since she was only two years older than Ball.

A three-camera revolution

Desi Arnaz was a mastermind when it came to solving technical problems. It’s true that I Love Lucy’s biggest advertiser, Phillip Morris, insisted the show be shot in New York so their huge East Coast cigarette market would see the highest quality episodes, instead of the less dynamic, fuzzier kinescope copies that were made by a camera filming a monitor playing the show. Arnaz hired cinematographer Karl Freund to work out the details of the three-camera system, also working with director Marc Daniels, and writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer, to build a set where the audience would sit in seats built above the set and camera – a system still used by sitcoms today.


Being the Ricardos is currently playing in theaters and will stream on Amazon Prime Video starting Dec. 21.

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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