ray Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Not too long ago, it seemed as though his career knew no heights. Jamie Foxx established his comedy credentials in the early 90s with his work on the groundbreaking, star-making TV show In Living Color, showcased his dramatic acting ability with Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday in 1999, and really knocked it out of the park in 2004 with the 1-2 punch of Taylor Hackford's Ray, for which he won an Academy Award, and Michael Mann's Collateral, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.

Ray made people sit up and take notice of Foxx's musical capabilities. Since then he's been busy with his music career, selling millions of CDs, and has also been hosting a comedy show on satellite radio. As far as his movie career, though, it's been more problematic. Only a handful have been released in the last five years -- Stealth, Jarhead, Miami Vice, Dreamgirls, The Kingdom -- and, while his performances have been fine, they haven't set the world on fire.

He plays a schizophrenic musician opposite Robert Downey, Jr. in this week's release of Joe Wright's The Soloist, and told the Los Angeles Times he's decided to be more selective: "I've asked my agent to find me beautiful-character movies. That's where we flourish." He only has one other upcoming project set, the thriller Law Abiding Citizen, which is due next year, and the way he's talking, the 41-year-old Foxx sounds like he'd be content to be a dramatic character actor from here on out. Of course, this is the same man who made tasteless jokes about Miley Cyrus on his radio show last week, so maybe this is just a phase.

Has Jamie Foxx's career as a movie star jumped the shark? Take our poll and let us know.

For more on Jamie Foxx, check out Moviefone's interview with the actor.

Last weekend we lost two great stars, actor/comedian Bernie Mac (1957-2008) and Oscar-winning songwriter/actor Isaac Hayes (1942-2008), who both appear in the upcoming Soul Men (pictured above), out this November. For more on their respective deaths, see Erik's and William's posts.

Actor and playwright George Furth (1932-2008) died August 11 in Santa Monica, California. I'll always remember him best as the anti-Cannonballer spoilsport Arthur J. Foyt in The Cannonball Run. He also appears memorably in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blazing Saddles and Shampoo. (AP)

Where would the montage sequence be without Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"? And what about the movie that borrowed the title, Girls Just Want to Have Fun? Robert Hazard (1948-2008), who wrote the tune, died August 5 in Boston. (Variety)

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." This famous line came to us partly by way of Howard G. Minsky (1914-2008) who received an Oscar nomination for producing Love Story. He died August 10 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Variety)

Bernie Brillstein (1931-2008), formerly half of production team Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, executive produced Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, The Blues Brothers, Spies Like Us, The Cable Guy, Bulletproof, Happy Gilmore, Summer Rental, Dragnet, Up the Academy, Neighbors, Doctor Detroit, Continental Divide, The Celluloid Closet, What Planet Are You From? and Run Ronnie Run and produced The Replacement Killers and Jiminy Glick in Lalawood. He died of chronic pulmonary disease August 7, in New York City. (NY Times)

Oscar-nominated record producer Jerry Wexler (1917-2008), who was portrayed by Richard Schiff in the movie Ray, died of congenital heart disease August 15, in Sarasota, Florida. He also worked on soundtracks for The Wiz, The Cotton Club and Pretty Baby (for which he received the Academy Award nom) and co-wrote the Aretha Franklin tune "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". (AP)

More than two years ago, Erik wrote a post titled "Joe Pesci Returns!" and we were all excited. Of course, that return -- Pesci's first film role since 1998's Lethal Weapon 4 -- was just a tease. Fortunately, for those of us who couldn't get enough of him with that bit part in The Good Shepherd, the Oscar-winning actor is finally back for a starring role. And it isn't even a bad comedy a la Gone Fishin' or 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag. It's a new film from Taylor Hackford, whose last film, the biopic Ray, earned the director two Academy Award nominations. This one, titled Love Ranch, will also star Hackford's wife, Helen Mirren, who he last worked with on 1985's White Nights. The drama is about Joe and Sally Conforte, a couple who opened Nevada's first (and eventually largest) legal brothel, Mustang Ranch. Scripted by Mark Jacobson (The Believer), the movie will deal with the couple's problems with infidelity. Maybe we'll get to hear Pesci yell the line "You f***** my wife!" at whoever plays boxer Oscar Bonavena, who was shot dead by Mustang Ranch bodyguard Ross Brymer in 1976, allegedly because he was sleeping with Sally.

Hackford begins shooting Love Ranch in Albuquerque in late January and hopes to have the film ready for the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. He told Variety that he is mostly excited to direct his wife again, and that he had to beg her to make time for this. I bet she finally saw him fit to direct her after getting those Oscar noms (even though he has a statue for a 1979 short film he directed). Hackford also mentioned that Pesci was his first choice for Joe and seems fortunate to have convinced the actor, who apparently isn't too interested in doing movies much anymore. Certainly Pesci is a perfect choice to play this seedy "godfather of legalized prostitution," as Hackford calls him. Now, can Hackford please try to get DeNiro in for a cameo?

Every studio in Hollywood has apparently refused to finance Ray director Taylor Hackford's latest pet project, a feature based on Georges Bizet's classic opera Carmen, starring Jennifer Lopez. Bizet's opera is a dark, tragic tale of a gypsy whose daliances with a soldier and a bullfighter bring down both men, and bring their respective political struggles to a head. Hackford says the suits are afraid of putting Lopez, whose fan base is largely comprised of teenage girls, into a serious, potentially R-rated project in which the heroine is eventually killed. "There is a great deal of fear in Hollywood," Hackford tells the NY Daily News, based on the fact that "many of the films are not working," with moviegoers. "We want to do a tough, hard version, but Hollywood thinks [Lopez'] audience is 13-year-old girls."

The suits couldn't really be trying to get Hackford to make his project adolescent-friendly – and if they are, it's only because they've never seen that MTV version of Carmen, starring Beyonce and subtitled, "A Hip-Hopera". The 12-21 year old audience has, I think, been served an adequete helping of Bizet. It makes perfect sense that no one would back a serious, expensive, drama (and it's not even clear whether or not Hackford plans to make it a musical) starring Jennifer Lopez, who has proven bankable only in romantic comedies and as an actress, has by most accounts never lived up to promise she showed in Out of Sight. The real question is: why doesn't Hackford just go get himself another ingenue? Last I heard, there were one or two other Latina actresses in the world...