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Peter Yates' "Bullitt" is one of the most stylish cop flicks ever made. Those multi-screen opening credits designed by the great Pablo Ferro, that jazzily urbane Lalo Schifren score, those wildly cool outfits donned by Steve McQueen at the height of his laconic sexiness (some inspired by the suits sported by real life detective Dave Toschi) –- it's a stone groove punctuated by spasms of violence and, of course, a raucous car chase through the hilly streets of San Francisco. It's so ineffably pleasurable, you don't mind that the narrative is a sketchily plotted afterthought. Who needs an intricately structured story when you're watching, as Quentin Tarantino wrote in his book "Cinema Speculation," "one of the best directed movies ever made?"

You throw on "Bullitt" for the 1968-ness of it all (it's the apolitical flip-side of the coin to Haskell Wexler's roiling docudrama "Medium Cool"), as well as the...

The Primetime Emmys are not necessarily known for honoring projects featuring casts that are primarily minority/people of color. The TV academy has never, for instance, given the Best Drama Series trophy to such a show. The statuette for Best Comedy Series has been won by a series featuring a largely minority cast precisely once: “The Cosby Show” in 1985. But the category of top limited/anthology/miniseries has paid golden tribute to programs with mostly minority casts a handful of times before, helping give Netflix’s “Beef” with its predominantly Asian American lineup a genuine shot to take home the biggest prize.

“Beef” tied with “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” for the most nominations among all non-regular series programs with 13. It’s presently in the lead among Gold Derby voters in the limited series race with 16/5 combined odds. Its star Ali Wong is also in first place among limited lead actresses,...

Rita Lakin, the boundary-pushing TV writer and showrunner who worked on Peyton Place, The Doctors and Mod Squad and created series including The Rookies and Flamingo Road, has died. She was 93.

Lakin died March 23 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Novato, California, her son, writer-producer Howard Lakin, told The Hollywood Reporter. “Before her, they hadn’t thought about writing television from a woman’s point of view,” he noted.

Lakin also penned a groundbreaking 1975 episode of CBS’ Medical Center centered on a transgender character; served as a showrunner/executive producer on the 1976-77 CBS drama Executive Suite; and wrote such popular telefilms as 1971’s Death Takes a Holiday and 1973’s Message to My Daughter and A Summer Without Boys.

After she met some people from Texas whom she didn’t like, she rejected an offer in 1978 to create the pilot for a show about an oil family in the Lone Star State.

This nearly forgotten Sci-fi masterpiece should have been a monster hit. For some reason Universal didn’t think that a computer menace was commercial — the year after 2001. The superior drama sells a tough concept: the government activates a defense computer programmed to keep the peace. It does exactly that, but by holding the world hostage while it makes itself a God above mankind.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Region B Blu-ray

Medium Rare UK

1970 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date March 27, 2017 / Available from Amazon UK £6.99

Starring: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert, Leonid Rostoff, Georg Stanford Brown, Willard Sage, Alex Rodine, Martin Brooks, Marion Ross, Dolph Sweet, Robert Cornthwaite, James Hong, Paul Frees, Robert Quarry.

Cinematography: Gene Polito

Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted

Visual Effects: Albert Whitlock, Don Record

Original Music: Michel Colombier

Written by James Bridges, from a novel by D.F. Jones

Produced by Stanley Chase

Directed by Joseph Sargent...

Even as a new version of the classic mini-series is in the works, Warner Bros. is aiming to please fans by bringing the entire original series of Roots to the high definition format with a slew of bonus features. Come inside to learn more!

If you're a fan of the original Roots series, or weren't old enough to remember the iconic mini-series, then you're in luck. Today WB has announced a new blu-ray set to bring the entire series to blu-ray with loads of special features that dive into the heart of the story on June 7, 2016. All the details are below:

The groundbreaking, acclaimed television miniseries that captivated the entire nation and won multiple awards, Roots, will be released on Blu-ray™ for the first time, by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (Wbhe) on June 7, 2016. The legendary family saga, which follows the inspiring story of Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton, Transformers: Rescue Bots,...

Yahoo just announced that animated series Electric City starring Tom Hanks will make its global debut on July 17. The action-packed sci-fi adventure series features Hanks, Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love, Grey Gardens), Holland Taylor (Two and a Half Men), Ginnifer Goodwin (Walk The Line, A Single Man, He's Just Not That Into You), Jason Antoon, Chris Parnell, Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Georg Stanford Brown. Yahoo is promising a "first-of-its-kind 360 degree online interaction of digital, social, mobile, and gaming media" to bring Hank's vision to a global audience. It's more than just a string of buzzwords, however. Beyond being shown on Yahoo Screen, the show will be supported by a "deeply immersive" interactive online experience that features non-linear storytelling guided by a 3-D interactive map, opportunities to explore character back stories, and play games related to the series' plot. "Yahoo! could not be more thrilled to be the digital partner for this unparalleled,...

Tom Hanks is heading to Electric City. No, Dunderheads, he’s not guesting on The Office, which is, of course, set in Scranton, Pa., a.k.a. Electric City. The two-time Oscar winner has created a new animated web series about a seeming oasis of idealistic possibility set amongst a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future. Hanks has been working on the idea for years, at one point contemplating bringing his characters to life with puppets. Instead, Yahoo will host a series of short five-to-seven-minute episodes, the first 10 of which will premiere on July 17. Additional episodes will follow on July 18-19, completing the 90-minute adventure.

Yahoo! today announced that Playtone and Reliance Entertainment.s animated series .Electric City,. created by and starring Tom Hanks, will make its global debut on July 17th, 2012 on Yahoo! Screen. Set in a futuristic society, .Electric City. is a new 90- minute action-packed sci-fi adventure series. Yahoo! will bring Hanks. vision and storytelling to a global audience through a first-of-its kind 360 degree online interaction of digital, social, mobile and gaming media. View the trailer here: http://electriccity.yahoo.com.

“The much anticipated .Electric City. is here – we at Yahoo! could not be more thrilled to be the digital partner for this unparalleled, groundbreaking series,. said Erin McPherson VP & Head of Video at Yahoo!. .Partnering with Playtone, Reliance Entertainment and one of Hollywood.s biggest stars, Tom Hanks, is an important milestone for Yahoo! in paving the way to becoming the global destination for premium online content from the best storytellers in entertainment.

Graham Greene's historically reflective story of the terror of 'Papa Doc' loses out to the Burton/Taylor romantic juggernaut

Director: Peter Glenville

Entertainment grade: C+

History grade: A–

François "Papa Doc" Duvalier was elected president of Haiti in 1957. His unrestrained brutality and embezzlement, combined with a personality cult based around Haiti's folk religion, Voodoo, made him one of the most notorious dictators of his time. Novelist and screenwriter Graham Greene based The Comedians on his experiences in Duvalier's Haiti.

Politics

Mr Brown (Richard Burton) arrives back in Haiti after failing to sell his Port-au-Prince hotel. For this production, Port-au-Prince was recreated in Dahomey, now Benin. Most Haitians are descended from slaves transported from that part of west Africa: there are similarities of culture, religion and, sadly, underdevelopment. "I've worked in many worse places," said Burton cheerfully in the making-of documentary. "Like the Sahara desert, and south Wales."

Filming in Haiti was not an option.

James Earl Jones is reteaming with his Roots: The Next Generations director Georg Stanford Brown for the Hallmark Channel original movie The Reading Room. The movie centers on a widower (Jones) who opens a reading room -- a library of sorts where he teaches people how to read -- in a lower-income neighborhood to honor his wife's dying request. But he encounters problems when the room becomes a target for street thugs, who later burn it down. Room co-stars Keith Robinson (Fat Albert, NBC's American Dreams), Joanna Cassidy (HBO's Six Feet Under), Lynne Moody (ABC's General Hospital), Douglas Spain (HBO's Band of Brothers) and Gabby Soleil (Johnson Family Vacation). Brown, who is set to direct Room, will take the role of a minister in the movie, which is targeted to premiere during Thanksgiving.

A talented cast headed by the rap duo Kid 'N Play (Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin) inject enough energy, charm and humor into ''House Party 2: The Pajama Jam!'' to insure a respectable showing at the boxoffice.

However, producers Doug McHenry and George Jackson have made an unimpressive directing debut, hobbling the film with uncertain comic rhythms, poorly shot musical numbers, and wanly realized supporting characters. Popular appeal will undoubtedly be held down as a result.

Largely a campus musical, the film focuses on the efforts of Kid (Reid) to enroll in college and survive his first rocky days there despite pleas from Play (Martin) to give up education for a music career. Play is conned by a beautiful music industry hustler (Iman) into lending her Kid's misplaced tuition check, and when she disappears, Kid, whose campus kitchen job cannot cover his expenses, is on the verge of being expelled.

The lead pair, along with their DJ Bilal (Martin Lawrence, the most consistently funny performer in the film) finally throw a huge, secret pajama party to raise the money.

This straightforward progression is weighted down by a number of slow-moving subplots. Kid's girlfriend Sidney (Tisha Campbell), also at school, comes under the influence of a feminist roommate, Zora (Queen Latifah), and, due to an implausible misunderstanding, breaks up with Kid.

Latifah, who makes only one brief rap, declaims a few feminist bromides, but these are undermined by the other moments in the film featuring salacious shots of female body parts. Both are in marked contrast to the easygoing, innocent sexuality of the first ''House Party.''

Similarly, the satirical jabs at black lifestyles and mores are broader and more stereotypical than in the original, and, like the sex, offset by somber and self-conscious preaching, this time by Georg Stanford Brown as an African-American studies teacher.

In general, the comedy scenes lack structure, a problem even worse in the musical sequences, when dancers' legs and arms are routinely cut off at the frame lines.

The trio of bullies played by performers Full Force (Paul Anthony George, Brian George, Lucien George) struggle but fail to reprise their comic impact, though newcomer Kamron, of the group Young Black Teenagers, adds some comic dash as Kid's roommate, a white kid who talks, walks and raps black. William Schallert, as a weirdo dean, contributes some light moments.

Despite the problems, Reid and Martin still maintain their appeal. Reid, in particular, is a sharp and responsive comic actor with an extraordinarily likeable personality. As long as one of them is onscreen, there is always something entertaining to watch.

The soundtrack, too, is sure to have wide appeal, the hip-hop songs tinged with just enough pop feel to cross over -- probably more than the film itself.

HOUSE PARTY 2: THE PAJAMA JAM!

New Line Cinema

A Jackson/McHenry Production

Producers-directors Doug McHenry, George Jackson

Writers Rusty Cundieff, Daryl G. Nickens

Based on characters created by Reginald Hudlin

Director of photography Francis Kenny

Editor Joel Goodman

Production designer Michelle Minch

Music Vassal Benford

Color/Dolby

Cast:

Kid Christopher Reid

Play Christopher Martin

Bilal Martin Lawrence

Sidney Tisha Campbell

Zora Queen Latifah

Jamal Kamron

Professor Sinclair Georg Stanford Brown

Running time -- 95 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...