Britt Hayes

For the second year in a row, every actor nominated in all four acting categories for the Academy Awards is a white person. All 20 nominees for Best Actor and Actress and Best Supporting Actor and Actress are white people, reigniting the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. And while many of us are comfortable in our power to merely comment via social media, there are a couple of strong voices who are fed up and ready to do something about it: director Spike Lee and actor Jada Pinkett-Smith have announced plans to boycott the Oscars this year, while the host of the 2016 awards himself has called the Academy out for their persistent negligence to nominate people of color.

You know the Fast and Furious drill by now: fast cars, Vin Diesel, bromance, fast cars, insane chases and stunts, fast cars, internationally wanted criminal in the mix, rinse, repeat. Even then, each Fast and Furious movie has — mostly — tried to do something a little different, whether that’s in upping the stunt ante or taking the action to exotic new locations, or giving Dwayne Johnson a giant military-grade helicopter machine gun. Accordingly, Furious 8 director F. Gary Gray is looking to keep things fresh in the upcoming sequel, and he has no intention of disappointing the Fast and Furious fanbase.

We don’t know a whole lot about Furious 8 — Straight Outta Compton’s F. Gary Gray is directing and Vin Diesel is obviously returning, and…okay, a director and Vin Diesel is all you really need to put a movie together, even if Diesel has to play every role himself (and he would, too). Today brings a quick update on the upcoming sequel, as Gray is reportedly eyeing a few international filming locations, aka a few places that will look pretty cool when Diesel and the Furious crew race and jump and explode their cars all over the landscape.

Spectre wasn’t the biggest hit with fans of the James Bond franchise, due largely to the regressive nature of the script. After taking a step forward with Skyfall, director Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig’s 007 took two steps back in the latest outing, and the decision to play coy about the true identity of Christoph Waltz’s villain certainly didn’t do the film any additional favors. Regardless of how you felt about Waltz’s role in Bond’s 24th installment, the actor may very well return for another tussle with the iconic agent.

How about some news regarding this month’s most highly-anticipated release that doesn’t have Star Wars in the title? Channing Tatum’s involvement with The Hateful Eight is one of the worst kept secrets, though Tatum, Quentin Tarantino and The Weinstein Company have refused to reveal his actual role, inspiring plenty of speculation and nitpicking of the film’s trailers. We won’t spoil his part for you, but Tatum does have some delightful stories about his time working with Tarantino and the cast.

Tis the season for great films (and holiday cheer, sure), and while we're all pumped for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there's another highly-anticipated film hitting theaters just a week later — well, 70mm-equipped theaters. The rest of you will have to wait a couple more weeks to see The Hateful Eight, but if you're feeling mighty anxious to lay eyes on Quentin Tarantino's latest, we have several new clips from the film, offering eight (in)glorious minutes of footage.

Yes, yes, there’s a new Star Wars movie next month — but there’s also a new Quentin Tarantino film! The marketing for The Hateful Eight (thankfully) hasn’t been as prolific as Disney’s push for The Force Awakens, but today brings the first TV spot and a new poster to get you in a very particular sort of holiday spirit.

After years of struggling to find the right director and — more importantly — the right actor for the Richard Pryor biopic, the film is finally on its way to production, with Lee Daniels at the helm. Back in August, Mike Epps was confirmed for the role of the late Pryor, but the film may be close to casting another iconic comedian as Tracy Morgan is reportedly in talks to play Redd Foxx.

We’ve been blessed with not just one, but two new Spike Lee films this year, both retellings of established stories, and both very different kinds of movies. Following the release of Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (based on the cult classic Ganja and Hess) earlier this year, Lee returns with Chi-Raq — based on the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, the film also happens to be Amazon’s first original production, and we have two new trailers for the ambitious project.

A new trailer for Concussion has arrived, featuring more footage from the upcoming sports drama starring Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic neuropathologist who discovers just how traumatic — and fatal — head injuries can be for football players. Based on actual events (and ongoing controversy), Concussion looks like a very different kind of sports movie, though there’s still something a bit average about these trailers.