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For a while there, things didn’t look good for Donald Trump being named Time’s Person Of The Year for the second year in a row, a title we must remind readers and apparently the president that isn’t a superlative along the lines of “Best Hair” or “Most Likely To Succeed At Kicking Off World War III,” but an…

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It was a night of surprises at Bravo’s fourth annual Real Housewives Awards, where Bravolebrities like Ramona Singer, Shannon Beador, Sonja Morgan, and Joe Gorga dropped in to visit Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen guests Melissa Gorga and Dorinda Medley.

Taking home awards like “Best Style,” “Most Athletic,” “Class Comedian,” “Best Friends” and more, the evening was a dream come true for a Bravo fan. Each time the doorbell rang, another Housewife popped out, ready to accept her win.

Among the winners in 10 categories — which were all voted on by fans — Beador took home “Most Likely to Live in a Mansion,...

After all the red-carpet lineups, anxious security delays, gala black-tie dinners, multilingual press conferences, beachside afterparties, and yacht interviews, who came out ahead at Cannes? Several international filmmakers emerged with higher profiles; hot-ticket English-language title “The Florida Project” finally sold (after days of price-lowering anxiety) to American indie du jour A24 — but when it came to Oscars, Cannes delivered only a handful of contenders.

The lion’s share of this year’s downbeat program, rife with suicidal tendencies and abused children, will never be heard from again stateside. The most entertaining material came from two TV sequels from favorite Cannes auteurs: David Lynch’s return to “Twin Peaks” and Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” starring Elisabeth Moss and the ubiquitous Nicole Kidman, who took home a well-deserved special Cannes jury prize on Sunday.

And Mexico’s Three Amigos, with no feature films in the selection,...

After all the red-carpet lineups, anxious security delays, gala black-tie dinners, multilingual press conferences, beachside afterparties, and yacht interviews, who came out ahead at Cannes? Several international filmmakers emerged with higher profiles; hot-ticket English-language title “The Florida Project” finally sold (after days of price-lowering anxiety) to American indie du jour A24 — but when it came to Oscars, Cannes delivered only a handful of contenders.

The lion’s share of this year’s downbeat program, rife with suicidal tendencies and abused children, will never be heard from again stateside. The most entertaining material came from two TV sequels from favorite Cannes auteurs: David Lynch’s return to “Twin Peaks” and Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” starring Elisabeth Moss and the ubiquitous Nicole Kidman, who took home a well-deserved special Cannes jury prize on Sunday.

And Mexico’s Three Amigos, with no feature films in the selection,...

This story originally appeared as the cover story in Issue 330, November 13th, 1980.

It's eight o'clock and everyone's here... well, almost everyone. There's Carl Reiner, and there's Gavin MacLeod, and there's Betty White and Allen Ludden. They're all here, in this awkward white screening room up four flights of stairs and down a winding hallway deep in the bowels of Paramount Studios. It's a hybrid crowd – TV people and movie people, performers and people from behind the scenes, chorus girls and choreographers, even a few who are just regular people with...

Buddy comedies are a Hollywood staple at this point, and they’re fairly easy to execute at a baseline level of competence. Sometimes it’s a script that distinguishes one, sometimes it’s the easy chemistry between the stars, and sometimes it’s a director who elevates things. In the case of Central Intelligence, several things work better than I would have suspected, and as a result, I genuinely enjoyed the movie. Color me shocked. First and foremost, The Rock has become one of the most reliable brands in modern movies, and, yes, I am aware that I just called him a brand. I think he’s more than “just” a movie star. He’s an overall force of personality that exists to just shine positivity and humor and good energy into the world via movies, TV, wrestling, and social media. If The Rock didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.

Despite starring two of modern-day Hollywood’s hottest actors, Central Intelligence finds itself caught between a “Rock” and a “Hart” place (I’LL Take My Pulitzer Now, Please). But seriously – The Rock and Kevin Hart should melt any screen shared between the two, yet this Ride Along wannabe barely limps across the comedic finish line. We’re talking base-value funny. Like, to a criminally infuriating point considering how The Rock and Kevin Hart could be a modern-day Schwarzenegger/DeVito team (Shut Up, Twins Is Great). Instead, Hart spends most his time yelling/talking/chatting about poop, and The Rock plays out a helplessly uncool, soft-as-a-marshmallow alter-ego – neither of which pay off.

“Intelligence” belongs nowhere near this film’s title.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars as Bob Stone, who was better known by his high school nickname, “Fat Robbie.” Classmates were relentless in their harassment, but “Robbie” bottled all that energy into a fuel that helped him transform into the lean, mean, CIA-agent-machine known as Bob Stone. Yet, not everyone from Bob’s graduating class can boast such luck, including Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) – Mr. “Most Likely To Succeed.” Now a desk-jockeying accountant, Calvin thinks himself such a failure that he refuses to attend his high school reunion – but that doesn’t stop Bob from coming back home and changing Calvin’s life forever. Who needs a high school reunion when you’ve got a CIA mission worth crashing?

Right off the bat, director Rawson Marshall Thurber introduces an important, yet heavy-handed message – bullies are bad. This’s true, and needs to be stated. Bullies can destroy self-confidence and bring upon years of mental scarring. But, Central Intelligence doesn’t offer anything new on the topic except for The Rock’s continued “I don’t like bullies” line, which comes and goes whenever the plot has time to get all mushy. It’s tough, because writers Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen Want to preach something, but just don’t have the means. Bullies are bad, and we know that – but punching them in the face years later doesn’t solve much.

While we’re talking about scripting, let’s address the real elephant in the room – an inexcusable amount of laughs. Then again, do we expect any better from a movie that slings its “Who is Taylor Swift dating these days?” joke within the first five or so minutes? That’s after a blatant rip-off from Neighbors 2, when Calvin’s co-worker talks about inventing a smartphone app that…um…beefs up your dick pics (Scoonie invents the same thing).

I’m not sure what’s scarier – that two movies made the same joke merely a month a part, or that such jesting is socially relevant.

As assumed by my previous musings, Central Intelligence never really strives to be more than a dumbed-down, near-sighted comedy. We get it. Kevin Hart is a little man, barely larger than The Rock’s thigh. This accounts for 75% of Barinholtz and Stassen’s jokes, with at least another 20% being attributed to Hart’s elongated rambling – typically ending with a fecal reference.

There’s chemistry between Thurber’s two unlikely leads, but comically, their contrasting differences lose shock value no more than halfway through this kinda-action-y, non-thrilling spy story. Hart fires jokes with his typically rapid pace, but The Rock plays a unicorn-loving loser whose excited “Hey Dawg!” greetings and outdated references deflate *quickly* over time. There’s no lasting value in wackier, opposite-day-type personalities, and far too many jokes end up being lazy fat pokes – for a movie that hates bullying so much, it sure does plenty of it.

You must understand, I adore The Rock. I gave San Andreas a positive review because of The Rock. And I think Kevin Hart is a tremendous comedian – but Central Intelligence is a sad waste of talents (a Honey Badger reference, today?). These two should be a comedic dream team, but besides a tender glimpse of The Rock swaddling Hart (which should spark some epic fan fiction), there’s a ton of dead air floating between the two. Give me my badass, confident Rock – going soft and cuddly just doesn’t work to this ridiculous degree. Hart feels like he’s carrying entire scenes, which is a gargantuan task if The Rock is the one clinging to your back. Their chemistry exists, but prime material does not – plain and simple.

So, what is Central Intelligence? Strange, unfunny, and misguided. You have a great message, but also cheap jokes at your victim’s expense. You also have a tremendously enigmatic team, but you handcuff its most imposing member. There’s bro-bonding, a forgetful plot (Hart’s wife comes and goes/this is an anti-bullying movie, right?), and momentary bursts of action that can’t distract from a such a vapid sense of humor. In the end, you’ll find yourself thinking about better times, but it’s telling that those times are the Ride Along franchise. Mull that one over.

Read More: AFI Docs Film Series to Launch Year-Round in Washington D.C. The American Film Institute has announced that four documentaries will receive the first-ever AFI Docs/NBCUniversal Impact Grants. The $75,000 grants will support the films' social action campaigns. The four films were chosen out of those that participated in this year's inaugural AFI Docs Impact Lab. In addition to receiving the grant, the chosen films will screen at the AFI Docs 2015 film festival. The four films honored with the grant are Jessica Jones and Blair Foster's "The Conversation," Greg Whiteley's "Most Likely to Succeed," Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber's "Peace Officer," and Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci's "Salam Neighbor." Michael Lumpkin, the Director of AFI Docs, said of the program, "The AFI Docs film festival leverages the power of documentary storytelling to catalyze change through not only screenings and events but also through...

Four documentary projects that screened at AFI Docs 2015 film festival in Washington DC have been chosen to receive funding from the new AFI Docs/NBCUniversal Impact Grants.

The grants were created to support social action and outreach for the four documentaries that took place at the first-ever AFI Docs Impact Lab.

The programme not only plans to garner financial support, but also partner with the Center for Media & Social Impact (Cmsi) at American University and Cmsi Co-Director Caty Borum Chattoo to measure the social impact each film generates.

“NBCUniversal is excited to have joined with AFI on this initiative to help filmmakers find innovative ways to create a positive impact through their films,” said Beth Colleton, svp of corporate social responsibility at NBCUniversal.

“We believe these grants will drive awareness and education around important social issues by engaging consumers, communities and government, and help these filmmakers also be change makers.”

The first Impact...

A little more than a year ago, comedian John Mulaney was in a very different place. He was still the new comedy boom's Comic Most Likely to Succeed, a title reinforced by his acclaimed 2012 Comedy Central stand-up special New in Town — which was enjoying a phenomenal second life after its release on Netflix — and his unusually publicized stint as a writer at Saturday Night Live (it helps when you co-create Stefon). He was being compared to Jerry Seinfeld, favorably; and it was fitting, then, that his career was about to culminate with the impending early October release of the eponymous multi-camera Fox sitcom he created. Then reviews started coming out for Mulaney, and the comic was once again being compared to Jerry Seinfeld — but this time unfavorably. When the ratings ended up equally underwhelming, Fox reduced the episode order. Though the show wasn't officially canceled until the spring, the writing...

While the Tonys were being handed out Sunday night, TVLine wasn’t just watching the awards, we were deciding the winners — or, in some cases, “winners” — in a few categories of our own invention. So which performers and performances from the black-tie back-slap made the cut — and which should have been cut? Read on, find out and — best of all — hit the comments to weigh in yourself!

PhotosCritics’ Choice Television Awards 2015: Allison Janney’s Big Kiss, Taraji’s Cookie Moment and More in Photos

Cutest Couple | Leggy Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth were the hosts with the most… chemistry.

Top brass at AFI Docs 2015 have announced the slate at the 13th festival, set to run from June 17–21 in Washington DC and Silver Spring, Maryland.

Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s Best Of Enemies will open the event and chronicles a series of debates during the summer of 1968 between Gore Vidal and William F Buckley Jr.

Stanley Nelson will be the 2015 Charles Guggenheim honouree at the National Archives’ William G McGowan Theater on June 19.

Spotlight Screenings include Abigail Disney’s The Armor Of Light, David Holbrooke’s The Diplomat, the world premiere of Brad Horn’s First And 17 and Greg Whiteley’s Most Likely To Succeed.

Panel discussions or extended Q&As with special guests will follow each Spotlight Screening.

There are Special Screenings of Dawn Porter’s Rise: The Promise Of My Brother’s Keeper on June 18 and Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci’s Salam Neighbor, which coincides with World Refugee Day with a world premiere...

The holidays are winding down and that means we at Ioncinema.com are gearing up for our annual pilgrimage to Park City where an A-list of documentaries is now set to premiere. Earlier this month Tabitha Jackson and the Sundance doc programming team let the cats out of the bag, unsurprisingly announcing much anticipated Us Doc Competition titles such as the Ross Brothers’ Western, Louie Psihoyos’ Racing Extinction, Marc Silver’s 3 1/2 Minutes and Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)Error, along with some surprises like Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel’s bizarro Kickstarted doc Finders Keepers (see trailer below). Having been produced by the fine folks behind The King of Kong and Undefeated, the film bears all the markings of its well regarded pedigree, yet appears to be of even odder ilk, following the story that unfolded when a severed human foot was discovered in a grill bought at a North Carolina auction.