The Wiz Live!
Directed by Kenny Leon and Matthew Diamond
Written by Harvey Fierstein
Based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Starring Shanice Williams, Elijah Kelley, David Alan Grier, Ne-Yo, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Stephanie Mills, Uzo Aduba, Amber Riley, Common
NBC
Air Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015, 8:00pm

Thursday night, 11.5 million people tuned in to NBC’s 3rd live show, The Wiz Live!, making it the most sucessful one yet.

And I know why.

The story of a young lost girl who journeys through a magical land, just trying to find her way back home, is timeless. Set to the same funky music of the original 1975 Broadway musical, but also keeping one of the songs from the 1978 movie starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, this rendition was a delight from start to finish. It also trended during the entire broadcast, thanks to some serious live tweeting.

More below.

NBC is keeping up with its now annual holiday tradition of live musical theater with The Wiz Live! The special, an adaptation of the 1975 Broadway musical, which later became a movie starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, puts an urban spin on The Wizard of Oz. This event airs live Thursday, December 3rd at 8:00pm ET on NBC, and stars Queen Latifah as The Wiz, and David Alan Grier as The Cowardly Lion.

Check out the sneak peek and preview videos below.

Star Wars creator and master money-maker George Lucas stopped by The Daily Show recently to chat with Jon Stewart about his upcoming WWII passion project, Red Tails. Lucas has been working hard to get the movie made for over two decades now, but, as you’ll hear in the video, faced many hurdles in succeeding, including most major studios not wanting to take on a big budget risk with an almost entirely black cast and a movie they didn’t think could be marketed in foreign markets.

But as always, the conversation found its way to Star Wars as Lucas compared the two, and an interesting announcement was made. You can read more and check out the video of George Lucas on The Daily Show below.

Back in April of 2009, we found out about the impressive cast being put together for a movie called Red Tails, which was being produced by George Lucas and his Lucasfilms banner. Now, over two years later, a trailer for the movie has been released, and you can see if for yourself below.

The movie tells the story of a group of African American dogfighters known as the Tuskegee Airmen, who built an incredible reputation during World War II for getting the job done, but weren’t always allowed anywhere near the action due to the racist policies of the time period.

Continue on below now to check out the first trailer for Red Tails.

Songs for Japan, a compilation of 38 songs from some of today’s biggest names in contemporary music, is available through the iTunes store for $9.99. The album is to benefit those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and proceeds from the album’s sale will go towards the disaster relief efforts of the Japanese Red Cross Society.

The compilation album, put together by Universal Music, includes songs from many genres, like rock, pop, hip-hop, R&B, country, new age, and more, with artists like The Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Dylan, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Ne-Yo, Eminem, Keith Urban, John Lennon, Enya, Josh Groban, and others.

See full list of artists and songs here below.

Not only is this for a great cause, but it’s also the perfect collection for the all-around music-lover. Plus, these songs individually typically cost 99 cents each, so even if you only like 10 of the 38 songs, it’s well worth the money, and hey, you just might like some of the tunes you don’t know.

Battle: Los Angeles
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Staring Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo, Ramon Rodriguez
Rated PG-13
Release date: March 11, 2011

As Battle: Los Angeles begins, we meet Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart). He is an older soldier, and at the start of the movie, decides that his best years are behind him, and chooses to retire. As fate would have it, he has one last mission, and he is assigned to a group of Marines led by a young Lieutenant (Ramon Rodriguez). Unfortunately, that last mission involves aliens invading and the possible end of mankind. The rest of the movie deals with the Marines trying to rescue some civilians while fighting the alien menace.

Battle: Los Angeles tries to be a combination of Black Hawk Down and District 9, but unfortunately, it never reaches the levels of either. To be fair, I don’t think it was the creator’s goal to make as deep a movie as those two are. It seems like they just wanted to make a cool alien invasion movie, and in that they succeeded. The movie has a pretty fast pace, and never slows down for too long, meaning that I didn’t ever lose interest in what was going on. The CGI is decent enough; director Jonathan Liebesman and his team chose to use a lot of smoke to obscure the effects a little. You very rarely get a good look at the aliens, and they’re never really established as a threat, other than having superior firepower, but even then, the aliens can be taken down with modern human weaponry.

One of the movies that was relatively unknown but grabbed a lot of attention at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con 2010 was director Jonathan Liebesman‘s (Darkness Falls, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) alien invasion movie, Battle: Los Angeles.

The movie is supposedly presented in real-time, following a team of Marines as they enter into a zone of Los Angeles that is under attack by aliens. It’s been compared to movies like Independence Day and District 9 mixed with a lot of Black Hawk Down. It stars Aaron Eckhart (Thank You For Smoking, The Dark Knight), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, Machete), Bridget Moynahan (i, Robot, Lord of War), Michael Pena (Crash, Observe and Report), and Ne-Yo (Stomp the Yard, Red Tails).

You can make your way down below now to read the short synopsis for Battle: Los Angeles and take a peek at the new trailer. It certainly has a lot of potential, but when it comes to alien invasions they’ll really have to wow us.