Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Director: Lee Daniels
Screenwriter: Danny Strong, Lee Daniels
Cast: Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, David Oyelowo, Robin Williams, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, John Cusack
The Weinstein Company
Rated PG-13 | 113 Minutes
Release Date: August 16, 2013

Directed by Lee Daniels (Precious), The Butler stars Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, a White House butler who serves eight U.S. presidents from 1952 to 1986. Over the course of 30 years, he witnesses “” and becomes involved in “” the political and social turmoil of the times.

Inspired by Wil Haygood‘s Washington Post article, Lee Daniels’ The Butler is based on the true story of White House butler Eugene Allen and his family, portrayed in the film by Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo, and Elijah Kelley. The film also stars Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower, James Marsden as John F. Kennedy, Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson, John Cusack as Richard Nixon, and Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan.

The Butler feels like a Greatest Hits of Best Picture winners like Driving Miss Daisy, Forrest Gump, and The King’s Speech that borrows bits and pieces from similar films like The Help and Lee Daniels’ own 2009 film, Precious. Sentimental, melodramatic, and just a tad heavy-handed, Lee Daniels’ The Butler is run-of-the-mill Oscar bait, a period piece biopic that takes the audience on a crash course through American history, focusing on an underdog who interacts with historical figures and lives through all the things we read about in Social Studies class.

OK, so this isn’t exactly the geekiest of news, but it is potentially one of the more earth-shattering entertainment news stories to break in a long time, and so here it is. Oprah Winfrey‘s label Harpo put out the press release today, officially announcing that on September 09, 2011, the very last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show would air, which will cap off the universally popular talk show’s 25th season. It looks as if Oprah plans to concentrate on her network, OWN, when the show reaches its closure point.

Rumors of the show’s end have risen and faded, risen again and faded again, but never have they ever come to this kind of finality that her seven million daily viewers feared so dearly. As those of us who are not fans and do not watch know, Oprah is about as close to a god on Earth as there is when it comes to her loyal following, so expect many a hearts to be broken by the news. Lives have been changed, perspectives and paths and physical appearances altered, and books — good and bad — have been made into super-hits all by this woman’s hand. Love her or hate her, the end of Oprah is an occurrence of epic proportions.

Click over to the other side to read the press release from Harpo.

Walt Disney Studios have released the first five minutes of their upcoming return to hand-drawn animation: The Princess and the Frog. The studio just recently released a brand new trailer for the movie, so they’re obviously planning to come at us hard and heavy with their marketing campaign.

The first five minutes is a good way to get a feel for the movie and if it’s able to win you over right away. Although many great movies take a while to get going, you can usually tell right off the bat if the table being set is your kind of meal or not. The Princess and the Frog starts off with our main character as a young girl, and sets up her eventual confrontation with a frog seeking her kiss to return him to his princely status. While watching, you can definitely feel the Disney in it, and it looks like it could be a really beautiful movie. You can even hear that old school tone in the dialogue that their actors delivered, which will go a long way in this return to traditional form.

Click on over for a plot synopsis and to watch The Princess and the Frog‘s opening moments!

The Walt Disney Company hasn’t released a hand-drawn animated movie since 2004’s Home on the Range due to the takeover by computer animated movies and their partnership with Pixar and all of their genius releases. Home on the Range was in fact supposed to be the final Disney movie that was hand-drawn like the old days, but thankfully, for now, they decided to get back to it with The Princess and the Frog, which now has a full theatrical trailer available for viewing. As wonderful as the Pixar movies are, there is a magic that comes from these old-style hand-drawn animated movies, and hopefully this means Disney gets back to making more of them.

The movie is a new take on the classic tale of the princess who kisses a frog and turns him into a prince. It’s set in New Orleans and gained attention as the first Disney cartoon to feature an African American leading lady after so many decades and so many princesses. The Princess and the Frog was originally titled The Frog Princess, and is directed by The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules directors John Musker and Ron Clements. The main stars aren’t very well-known, but it features a supporting cast that includes Oprah Winfrey, John Goodman, and Terrence Howard.

Click on over for the full synopsis and the brand new trailer for this Southern set traditional Disney musical.