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Finding The Bone Collector

The Bone Collector stars Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie with Queen Latifah in a smaller role. Denzel Washington plays Lincoln Rhyme, an ex-forensics expert who is paralyzed after an accident while Angelina Jolie plays Amelia Donaghy, a patrol cop. The two put their heads together to investigate a serial killer who has committed a string of murders. They know the perpetrator is the same due to his signature, which is a single shard of bone is removed from each of the victims. As Lincoln is bed-ridden, he gets a perspective of what is going on as well as shares inputs from Amelia via phone. She is in charge of visiting the crime scene and reporting the evidence to Lincoln. Though Amelia is gorgeous, Lincoln does not care about that at all. He is more enamoured of her professionalism and ‘knack’ for crime solving.

In Bone Collector the perp acts like a New York taxi driver, and abducts and kills anyone unfortunate enough to get in his taxi. His first two victims, a married couple, get kidnapped when they get a taxi home. Amelia discovers the man’s body concealed in a Civil War-era railroad bed. A clue, a piece of shellfish, takes her to the female where she finds a scrap of paper, another clue leading to another victim. The police locates the next victim at a steam junction. She has been shackled to a pipe that emits steam, effectively scalding her to death. Another scrap of paper is found at the scene. Next in line is an NYU student who is gutted and then left for rats to feed on. A clue to the next victim is left at the scene. Here Lincoln and Amelia make a breakthrough and are able to decipher that the message borrows elements from an book of short stories. This takes them to the next victims, a grandfather and granddaughter tied to a pier. The girl is saved from the rising tide but the grandfather succumbs. The next clue found at the site is an old police badge, and an old subway map. The clues lead Amelia to discover that Lincoln is the next victim. Will Amelia be able to save Lincoln from The Bone Collector?

Finding The Bone Collector is a post from: Queen Latifah

Queen Latifah Talks About Hairspray

During her chequered career, Queen Latifah has acted in many different kinds of roles. One of these happens to be a starring role as Motormouth Maybelle in a 2007 production of John Waters’ movie musical, Hairspray. In Hairspray, she stars with Hollywood greats such as John Travolta, Christopher Walken and Michelle Pfeiffer. There are also a bunch of Hollywood younglings who act in the film including Brittany Snow, Amanda Bynes and Zac Efron from High School Musical. Queen Latifah made a good impression on her entire cast. Her Hollywood veterans were full of compliments while the younger cast members could not stop praising the Academy Award nominated rapper-turned-actress.

Queen Latifah also enjoyed the Hairspray experience considerably. She said that, “I just had to be in this movie. It was [producers] Neil [Meron] and Craig [Zadan]. I worked with them in Chicago. They’ve done this so many times and they do it well. And [director] Adam Shankman, Adam is my boy. We worked together on Bringing Down the House so I knew what he would be bringing to the table, and it was John . I felt comfortable with the team, that even though there was no script, I saw the original movie, I knew what the play was about. I knew they were going to do right by me because why else would they want me in it? They knew who they’re getting so I kind of trusted in that.”

Hairspray is always very funny and keeping a straight face while delivering lines can be quite taxing. Speaking about yhis Queen Latifah says,”It wasn’t always easy for the stars of Hairspray to keep it together. [Michelle] would be losing it. She has to do all these takes where she’s just like, ‘Ugghhh!,’ things like that and it was just funny. How many ways can you do it? She’s doing different ways every time. She just made me laugh. It’s funny. It’s a comedy so I’m like trying not to laugh at some of the stuff that was really funny. John kind of made me laugh a lot too. He’s funny.”

The soundtrack of Hairspray features some varied genres of music. But this was not a problem for the vocally versatile Queen Latifah who was able to bounce easily between ’60s tunes and her own style of music. She says, “I like music. It can be from whatever era. It’s just something that beats within me, so going back and forth between different types of music… I watched a lot of musicals growing up.”

Queen Latifah Talks About Hairspray is a post from: Queen Latifah

Bringing Down the House

Bringing Down the House, starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, is an American romantic comedy film that was released in 2003. The script for Bringing Down the House was written by Jason Filardi and the film was directed by Adam Shankman.

In Bringing Down the House, Steve Martin plays Peter Sanderson who is a work-addicted tax attorney. The only fun he allows himself is a correspondence with an online friend, a “lawyer-girl”. The two get along well enough to decide to go on a blind date. But that’s where things go awry once Peter figures out that his “lawyer girl” is a somewhat overweight, wrongfully convicted bank robber by the name of Charlene Morton. It also turns out that it isn’t Peter’s online wit or good looks that are the driving force for Charlene seeking him out. In fact she wants his help in clearing her name so that the charges are dropped. Peter agrees even though he already has a lot on his plate. This includes getting business for his firm from an eccentric billionaire Virginia Arness, played by Joan Plowright. He also has to fend off the machinations of his very competitive colleagues and bosses. In the meantime, while he’s sort of hanging out with Charline he also has to distract his neighbor, Mrs. Kline, a nosy bigot, who unfortunately has some power over him as the sister of one of his firm’s senior partners. As if that weren’t enough, Peter is also trying to make up with his estranged wife and win back the affections of his children.

Bringing Down the House features a hip hop and R&B music soundtrack that came out on March 4, 2003 from Hollywood Records. The album did well, peaking at 111 on the Billboard 200 and came in at 23 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Charts.

Bringing Down the House was made on a budget of $35 million. But as it made $132.6 million in the United States and $32 million internationally, it was considered as a runaway hit. It ranks at #231 in a compilation of the All Time Top Grossing USA Motion Pictures.

Bringing Down the House is a post from: Queen Latifah

Queen Latifah’s Music Career

Actor and singer Queen Latifah first became famous as a musician. In 1988–1989, she started her career beatboxing for a rap group called Ladies Fresh. She was also a member of a set of people who hung out around producer DJ Mark the 45 King called the Flavor Unit. The people were mostly MCs and Queen Latifah was one of the early members of the group. This worked out for her as Mark James who was “DJ Mark the 45 King” did a demo recording of Queen Latifah’s rap Princess of the Posse. He passed the recording on to Fab 5 Freddy, the host a MTV’s biggest rap show at the time. An employee from Tommy Boy Music sat up and listened and that’s how Queen Latifah signed her first record deal. In 1988, her first single, “Wrath of My Madness” came out.

Queen Latifah’s first album, All Hail the Queen, came out in 1989, when she was nineteen. That year she also took part in an album called “1989—The Hustlers Convention (live)” as Referee.

Queen Latifah’s fourth album was Order in the Court, after which she went into more singing of lyrics in soul music and jazz standards, something she had used only briefly in the previous hip-hop-oriented records. In 2004, The Dana Owens Album came out which was more Jazz Standards. In July 2007, Queen Latifah performed at a live jazz concert a the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. She was the headlining act and performed in front of a 12,400 strong crowd. She was backed by a 10-piece live orchestra and three backup vocalists under the name of The Queen Latifah Orchestra. This show was so amazing that it ended up being nominated for a Grammy in the “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album” category.

Post 2008, Queen Latifah was offered the opportunity to make another hip-hop album. She was so excited that she said the album was as good as made and that she had even named it “All Hail the Queen II”. The albums first song was “Cue the Rain” as a single and Missy Elliott also does a song with Queen Latifah on the album.

Queen Latifah’s Music Career is a post from: Queen Latifah