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Tom Hardy is savage in the first trailer for his new FX series from Ridley Scott

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Oscar nominee Tom Hardy, who was in "The Revenant" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" last year, rides the line between London gentleman and savage on the event series for FX, "Taboo."

The cable network released the first trailer for "Taboo," which shows Hardy rubbing some very powerful men the wrong way as he tries to fulfill the mysterious legacy his father left for him.

Hardy, who stars in and executive-produces the series, plays James Keziah Delaney.

It's 1814, and he's returning to London after 10 years in Africa and is believed dead by those who knew him. In defending his father's legacy against his enemies, James finds himself in a face-off against the most powerful trading firm at the time, the East India Company.

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"I am a very dangerous man to know," Hardy's James says in the trailer, which shows a lush and dark side of London in the early 19th century, a time when Britain and America were at war.

Michael Kelly ("House of Cards"), Jonathan Pryce ("Pirates of the Caribbean"), and Oona Chaplin ("The Hour") also star on "Taboo."

The series, which boasts "Blade Runner" director Ridley Scott as an executive producer, is set to debut in 2017.

Watch the vicious-looking trailer below:

SEE ALSO: FX boss says Netflix's secrecy around its viewership numbers is 'ridiculous'

SEE ALSO: Tracy Morgan is starring on an FX comedy from 'Key and Peele's' Jordan Peele

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A statistics expert tells you how to predict this year's Oscars

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The Revenant

The 88th Academy Awards take place on Sunday, and bets are on about who will win.

Now is the time that experts try to tell you how it'll all go down — but how right are they?

FiveThirtyEight, ESPN's data-driven site, has been monitoring the state of the race and using a point system to try and predict the Oscar winners for six of the major categories. 

The model uses a point system derived from looking at awards from the past 25 years to see how historically predictive they are of Oscar winners, Walt Hickey, the site's lead lifestyle writer, told Business Insider. (Hickey has a background in mathematics and used to cover politics and finance for Business Inisder.)

"You start losing the thread if you go back further than 25 years," he said of the prediction model.

Over the course of awards season, FiveThirtyEight gives points to Oscar nominees if they are nominated for other awards and even more points if they win.

A "batting average" is determined for each of the various awards and then turned into an assigned weight.

"Insider awards," like the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, and the BAFTAs, are given more weight over awards like the Golden Globes, because those voters may be closely aligned with or part of the Academy itself, which draws from industry members. (The Globes and some other awards, on the other hand, come from media.)

"This was Nate's [Silver] baby," Hickey said. "Basically, back when Nate had FiveThirtyEight at the beginning, he tried to figure out a way to predict the Oscars. Turns out it's a much harder problem than people give it credit for. We can't use a lot of our original methods, and we have to figure out a new way."

The earlier model is pretty much still in place, though Silver refined it, doubling the points awarded for nominees and winners from the "insider awards." 

FiveThirtyEight published its final predictions Monday: Alicia Vikander for supporting actress, Sylvester Stallone for supporting actor, Brie Larson for best actress, Leonardo DiCaprio for best actor, Alejandro Iñárritu for director, and "The Revenant" for best picture. 

These predictions line up with the expert predictions compiled by Gold Derby ahead of Sunday's award show.

Gold Derby looks at a collection of various Hollywood insiders who give their prognostications based on what they've been hearing. Since Academy members aren't polled the way, say, voters in an election are polled, these are really the best methods available to get at which way the Academy is going.

While DiCaprio and Larson have large point leads, other categories, such as the supporting fields, are a closer race.  

"We are not confident enough to say that this will predict the winners, but... It's a way to see how the terrain looks," Hickey said. "Ultimately, it's a fun way to track something that a lot of folks are talking about, that there's a huge dedicated interest in, and it's so fun because it's so hard."  

SEE ALSO: Here's which actors are expected to clean up at the Oscars on Sunday — and other predictions

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A major dance company is putting on a tour about what it's like to be in prison

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The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is premiering "Untitled America: First Movement," a performance that explores the impact that prison has on people. Choreographer Kyle Abraham observed the body language of former prisoners, and translated those movements into dance.

Story by Jacob Shamsian and editing by Kristen Griffin

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Kerry Washington has some great advice for her 18-year-old self

Adele showed why she's the most popular musician on the planet at the BRIT Awards

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The 2016 BRIT Awards were a coronation for Adele. The pop star owned the night, winning four awards, giving a handful of great speeches, and delivering a show-stopping performance to cap it all off.

A highlight reel of her night goes in a long way in telling you why she's the most popular musician on the planet.

Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Chelsea Pineda

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The prosecutor in the OJ Simpson case isn't pleased with 'American Crime Story'

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Marcia Clarke O.J. Simpson trial

Marcia Clark told Slate she didn't know what to expect when she learned that the OJ Simpson case — in which she was on the prosecution — would be presented as a true-crime mini-series on FX. 

But she added that, for her, "It's not entertainment."

"For me, it's very tough," she said. "It was very painful. It was a nightmare that wouldn't end for 15 months."

She also said FX's "American Crime Story" misrepresents her office's understanding of how race would play as a factor in the case.

"We were downtown all of us working in the criminal courts building during the Rodney King riots — we saw it firsthand," she said. "So when a famous African-American man is now charged with a double-homicide, yeah, we knew it was going to be a serious trouble."

She added "The racial divide was absolutely crystal clear, couldn't be more clear."

In addition to "American Crime Story," ESPN will be airing a five-part "30 for 30" miniseries on the case in June.

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Simpson, who was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in the famed mid-1990s case, is currently serving a 33-year prison sentence for armed robbery and kidnapping stemming from a 2007 incident at a Las Vegas casino hotel room. He is eligible to be paroled in 2017.

Clark said many in her office felt the verdict in his murder trial was "payback" for the Rodney King verdict. King was beaten by Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed car chase in 1991, and the officers were later acquitted of any wrongdoing. That led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. 

But she added that she doesn't think jurors in the case were all looking for redemption. She said the intense coverage of the trial made it hard to trust evidence.

"The trial was so out of control...that I think it became impossible to believe anything beyond a reasonable doubt," she said.

SEE ALSO: Everybody is obsessed with O.J. Simpson again — here's what the trial's key players are doing 21 years later

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Up-and-coming songwriter reveals the advice she'd give to her younger self when she was freaking out during a "dark night of the soul"

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Studying philosophy in college almost ruined Victoria Reed's life. But Reed, the daughter of a successful rock musician (Alto Reed, part of Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band), dropped out one semester shy of graduating to follow her dream — becoming a musician herself.

In the first episode of One Song Story, Reed reveals the advice she would have given to herself a few years ago when she was freaking out during a "dark night of the soul." And, she explains how that dark time ultimately provided the fuel for her to realize her career dreams.

The video is set to her moving single "Make It Easy" from her debut album Chariot, out February 26th.

Produced and edited by Andrew Stern

Cinematography by David Fang

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CRUZ TO TRUMP: You were firing Dennis Rodman on 'Celebrity Apprentice' when I was fighting amnesty

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Donald Trump Ted Cruz

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz attacked Donald Trump over his reality-television career at the Republican presidential debate on Thursday.

Trump and Cruz have been attacking each other relentlessly for weeks as they fight for their party's presidential nomination.

"In 2013, when I was leading the fight against the 'Gang of 8' amnesty bill, where was Donald?" Cruz asked. "He was firing Dennis Rodman on 'Celebrity Apprentice.'"

Cruz also accused Trump of funding the Gang of 8 bill, which refers to the eight senators who championed a comprehensive immigration-reform bill in 2013. Cruz said that Trump gave over $50,000 to three Democrats and two Republicans in the group.

"When you're funding open-border politicians, you shouldn't be surprised when they fight for open borders," Cruz said.

Trump responded by attacking Cruz's lack of support in the Senate:

I can only say this, and I've said it loud and clear and I've said it for years: ... I've had an amazing relationship with politicians both Democrat, Republican, because I was a businessman. ... I got along with everybody. You get along with nobody. You don't have one Republican senator ... backing you. Not one. You don't have the endorsement of one Republican senator and you work with these people. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Cruz then pivoted to Trump's alleged history of hiring illegal immigrants. Critics have long accused Trump of exploiting Polish immigrants who entered the US illegally to help build Trump Tower some years ago.

"Anyone who really cared about illegal immigration wouldn't be hiring illegal immigrants," Cruz said.

SEE ALSO: LIVE: The big GOP debate

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The 10 best Leonardo DiCaprio movies, ranked

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Some Oscar categories each year are decided long before the show starts, and the one you can bet the house on this Sunday is that Leonardo DiCaprio will win best actor for his all-in-including-eating-a-bison-liver performance in "The Revenant."

This will mark the first time the actor has won the prize, and all we have to say to the Academy is, "Took you long enough!"

DiCaprio has been one of the biggest stars in Hollywood for decades, and though he has focused recently on titles that will get him closer to that Oscar, his career has been filled with exceptionally strong performances (even if the movies haven't always been that good).

To celebrate his career we have come up with his 10 best performances, ranking them for good measure.

SEE ALSO: The 21 best heist movies ever, ranked

10. "Titanic" (1997)

It was the movie that made DiCaprio an international star. James Cameron's big-budget love story onboard the doomed R.M.S. Titanic showed that the actor could carry a major feature with his charisma (and heartthrob persona).



9. "The Departed" (2006)

DiCaprio's third time working with Martin Scorsese led to Scorsese's finally getting an Oscar for best director. DiCaprio gives a solid performance playing an undercover cop. It's certainly not his best among the collaborations with Scorsese, but it's certainly not the worst, either.



8. "Django Unchained" (2012)

Playing the sinister plantation owner Calvin Candie, DiCaprio is perfectly cast by Quentin Tarantino as the coconut-drink-slurping psycho. His performance is over-the-top, and he does quite well with Tarantino’s unique brand of dialogue. 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

RANKED: Every single season of every Netflix original show from best to worst (NFLX)

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orange is the new black

Netflix has been making original shows since 2013 — enough time for us to not only figure out which shows are our favorite, but also which show seasons. But does the world agree with our personal choices?

We decided to pull data from reviews aggregator Metacritic to find out which seasons of Netflix standbys like "House of Cards" and "Orange Is the New Black" had the best ratings, and also how they stacked up against newcomers like "Love."

To qualify, the shows had to be comedies or dramas — no kids shows or docuseries — and have at least four critic reviews (sorry, "Hemlock Grove" Season 3). And they couldn't be continuations of network shows or partnerships with them. We then ranked them on how well each season was critically received.

Here are the 23 seasons of Netflix's original shows, ordered from worst to best:

SEE ALSO: Hackers are selling lifetime access to stolen Netflix accounts for less than $1

23. "Hemlock Grove" Season 2 — 37/100

Average critic score (4 critics): 37/100

Audience score: 7.5/10

Netflix description: A quaint town links a mangled corpse to a dark outsider with a carnivorous secret. But monsters come in many forms.



22. "Hemlock Grove" Season 1 — 45/100

Average critic score (17 critics): 45/100

Audience score: 7.5/10

Netflix description: A quaint town links a mangled corpse to a dark outsider with a carnivorous secret. But monsters come in many forms.



21. "Marco Polo" Season 1 — 48/100

Average critic score (21 critics): 48/100

Audience score: 8.3/10

Netflix description: An empire divided. A family torn apart by civil war. A legend who disrupts the balance of power.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Critics are absolutely destroying box-office bomb 'Gods of Egypt' — an epic so bad it might be great

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Sometimes a movie comes along that critics can universally get behind, and often it's an awful one.

The latest example is Lionsgate's "Gods of Egypt," now in theaters, in which Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ("Game of Thrones"), and Geoffrey Rush star in a fantasy tale set in ancient Egypt, where 10-foot-tall gods and regular-size — yet beefy — mortals duke it out for supremacy.

The epic cost $140 million to make, but is projected to take in only around $15 million in its debut weekend.

But enough about the movie — let's get to the venom the critics have relentlessly spewed about it. Below is a glimpse at why this movie currently has a 10% rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes.

SEE ALSO: The 10 best Leonardo DiCaprio movies, ranked

The casting is not true to history.

It's never a good thing when a studio has to apologize before anyone has seen its movie, and that's exactly what Lionsgate did in November when the studio issued a statement offering a mea culpa for its largely white, European casting.

But all that did was tee up the first knock from critics.

"Not only does the film indulge in a right royal round of whitewashing, it also gives star Gerard Butler a brownface," Australia's the Daily Review wrote. "I don't want to make too much of this, given it's possible Butler simply nodded off in a solarium day after day. A perfectly normal person with skin and sleep issues."



The movie is a CGI fail, ...

One draw for a swords-and-sandals movie is the dazzling computer graphics it can have to show off an ancient world. But it sounds like "Gods of Egypt" doesn't even have that going for it.

"[T]he worst CG effects this side of an Atari 2600," The Wrap wrote.

"It's just there, pounding you in the face with a cudgel of disposable mediocrity and schlocky video game-grade CGI," Entertainment Weekly opined.



... and Gerard Butler isn't any better.

Butler gained his stardom after playing a ripped Spartan in Zack Snyder's much-heralded ancient actioner "300." Sadly, a return to the genre without someone of Snyder's caliber was a mistake for the actor.

"The campy part begins when Gerard Butler enters as Set, an Egyptian god with a noticeable Scottish burr," Newsday wrote.

"He'd be chewing the scenery if you could chew green screen," Variety said.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The 'Game of Thrones' star who plays Ramsay Bolton dismisses critics of the notorious Sansa rape scene

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Nearly a year after the violent rape of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) on "Game of Thrones" created outrage among many fans, one of the scene's actors is speaking out against the critics.

Iwan Rheon, who plays the rapist in the scene, Ramsay Bolton, believes the protests were misdirected.

“I think if more people put their effort into the charities that help women in the world today deal with the horror of rape, and less effort in social media about a fantasy show, then maybe things could change," he told Britain's Telegraph.

In the season-five scene, the sadistic Ramsay rapes his new bride, Sansa. While the action takes place off-camera, the sounds of Sansa's cries and the distressed look of one bystander give the audience an idea of its brutality.

Sansa undressed by ramsayFans and critics expressed their disgust with the scene and the use of rape as a storytelling device. One senator, Missouri's Claire McCaskill, described the sexual assault as "gratuitous" and "disgusting." Producers even said that the protests resulted in them making changes in their storytelling for future seasons.

But Rheon, who believes that viewers would have reacted differently if the scene didn't involve his polarizing character, said the scene could've been far worse.

“I think it could have been done in a much more brutal way," he said. “They didn’t oversexualize it or make it too gratuitous. They didn’t trivialize it and I thought it moved the characters forward."

Despite his disagreement with the scene's critics, Rheon recalled that doing it was really hard for him. 

“I was dreading it,” he said, “I couldn’t sleep.”

SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has a definitive answer about whether Jon Snow is dead

SEE ALSO: These mysterious new 'Game of Thrones' season 6 posters tease possible deaths

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Here's everyone who's going to win at the Oscars on Sunday night

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Oscar trophey Christopher Polk Getty

We’ve finally made it.

The 88th Academy Awards are taking place Sunday night and after months of screenings, cocktail parties, and campaigns, it’s time to give out some Oscars.

Though many will be tuning in to see how host Chris Rock takes on the movie industry’s lack-of-diversity issue that’s hit a boiling point, it’s also going to be a rare year when the night’s biggest prize is anyone's guess.

Best picture is often locked down by the awards pundits long before Oscar night, but this year there’s a race between three films — “Spotlight,” “The Revenant,” and “The Big Short.”

Another big storyline is if Leonardo DiCaprio will finally get his first Oscar win.

Well, we're ready to get it all rolling. So here we’ve come up with our predictions of who will win Oscars on Sunday.

See all the nominees.

SEE ALSO: Disney just showed off a ton of new concept art for "Star Wars" land, and it looks incredible

Best Animated Feature: "Inside Out"

What will win: “Inside Out”

The movie isn’t just loved industry-wide but by general audiences. Pixar is also still the gold standard when it comes to today’s animated features, so any other title winning would be a complete shock.

What else could win: It feels like this one’s a lock.



Best Cinematography: “The Revenant”

Who will win: Emmanuel Lubezki, “The Revenant”

You could honestly make a case for anyone in this category, but the way the year is going, “The Revenant” has wowed everyone — especially the below-the-line departments. That includes Lubezki, who shot the entire film with natural light and captures some incredible visuals. This would be the DP’s third straight Oscar win in this category; fourth in five years.

Who else could win: Roger Deakins, “Sicario”
This is more the sentimentalist in me than anything. This year marks the legendary cinematographer’s 13th Oscar nomination. “Sicario” won’t be what he’s remembered best for, but it’s another beautifully-lensed work.



Best Documentary: "What Happened, Miss Simone?"

What will win: “What Happened, Miss Simone?”

Netflix is still licking its wounds from its first narrative feature film, “Beasts of No Nation,” being shut out of the Oscars. But it has been a fixture in the documentary category for the last few years, and that will carry through to this year's Oscars. Liz Garbus’ moving portrait of singer/civil rights activist Nina Simone has been on Netflix for months (they also have another doc nominee, “Winter on Fire”) , giving the film not just supreme access to voters but also to their friends who can’t stop gushing about it.

What else could win: “Cartel Land”

Profiling the drug trade from multiple perspectives, its access looks like something out of a Vice piece. If voters are looking for something a little edgier they might turn this way.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Chris Rock originally wasn't going to host the Oscars unless there was a major change

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Chris Rock David Letterman Oscars 2005

Chris Rock is returning to host the Oscars this Sunday amid the #OscarsSoWhite protests. But the actor had once said that he wouldn't take the MC spot again unless there were a lot more black people on the show.

The comedian said that about 10 years ago on CBS's "Late Night with David Letterman," just after hosting the 2005 awards ceremony, and Vulture dug up the clip.

During the interview, Letterman and Rock compared their Oscars hosting experiences (Letterman served as the show's host in 1995 in a notable low point). At one point (about 3:05 into the clip), Letterman asked Rock if he would host again.

"Yeah, if there are a lot of black people on it, I would do the show again. Oh, it was black that night, man," he joked. "Jamie Foxx and Morgan [Freeman] and Beyoncé. It was like the Def Oscar Jam."

In fact, 2005 was a relatively good night for diversity. Foxx won best actor for playing Ray Charles in “Ray,” and Freeman was named best supporting actor for “Million Dollar Baby.” Beyoncé, Antonio Banderas, Carlos Santana, and Yo Yo Ma performed.

But Rock will next host one of the most controversial awards, in which all the acting nominees are white for the second year in a row. In Rock's defense, when he signed on to host this year's ceremony, the nominees had not yet been announced.

Spike Lee, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, and other celebrities are sitting out this year's Oscars in protest, and others like George Clooney have expressed their anger over the lack of nominees of color.

In response, the Academy reiterated its intention to make diversity a priority, and is changing some rules to do so. And Rock reportedly went back to the drawing board to craft a show script that reflected the #OscarsSoWhite protests.

The Academy also announced a list of presenters that looks much more diverse than many of the nomination categories.

Rock has consistently shown he could bring humor to the scrutinized event through various tweets, such as this one posted on Friday morning:

SEE ALSO: Sylvester Stallone offered to boycott this year's Oscars in solidarity with 'Creed' director

SEE ALSO: The surprising earliest TV gigs of 11 Oscar-worthy actors

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Amazon has released its first original show that's free for anyone to watch — with ads (AMZN)

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anna wintourAmazon has released its first original show that is both free for everyone to watch and ad-supported.

The show is called “The Fashion Fund,” and follows fashion designers as they compete for a $400,000 prize, judged by the likes of Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg. Though only one episode (of the third season) is currently available on Amazon, the company confirmed to Business Insider that all 10 episodes of the season will be released outside Amazon's Prime paywall.

This marks a change for Amazon, which had previously followed the Netflix model of keeping all its original video series behind a paywall and free of any ads. 

A spokesperson for Amazon described the move as an experiment with ads. “For this Fashion Fund project, we found it to be a very effective way to fund its production. The show has strong interest from advertisers.”

But Amazon isn't planning to go all-in on ad-supported video programming anytime soon. The company says that Prime Video will remain ad-free. Amazon did not comment on any expansion of Amazon’s ad-free offerings.

“The Fashion Fund” is produced by Conde Nast Entertainment, as is “The New Yorker Presents,” the iconic magazine’s new experiment in TV, also available on Amazon (though only on Prime).

Here is what the show looks like on Amazon:

fashionfund

SEE ALSO: Every single season of every Netflix original show — from best to worst

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