Win a Copy of 'Get On Up' on Blu-Ray!

You have a chance to win a Blu-Ray of Get On Up, featuring Chadwick Boseman's incredible performance as the "Godfather of Soul" James Brown! Directed by Tate Taylor (The Help) and co-starring Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Akroyd, Tika Sumpter, and Craig Robinson, Get On Up takes audiences through Brown's impoverished childhood and his fearless journey to become one of music's most influential figures.

To enter, simply fill out the contest form below. You now have two ways to enter to increase the chances of winning! Winners will be chosen on Sunday, January 11th.

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Box Office: 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Blasts Off with Record-Breaking $94M Debut

1. Guardians of the Galaxy- $94M
Remember when Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy was deemed their greatest gamble? Well, Marvel just dropped their shorts all over the nay-sayers with the film's $94M debut, the third highest of the year behind Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Marvel must be poppin' corks everywhere today) and Transformers: Age of Extinction, both of which went on to do pretty well ($700M and $1B respectively) at the box office. It's also the biggest August opening in history, blowing past The Bourne Legacy's $69M. The film got off to an incredible start with an $11M Thursday night, followed by another $11.7M solely in IMAX showings. The space-comedy also played well overseas with another $66M tacked on internationally, so the $170M film should be putting a little more coin in Marvel's coffers. Most important is that audiences and critics dug the film and its cast of irreverent unknown heroes. It currently holds an 'A' Cinemascore and a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the solid buzz is why a sequel was formally announced last week at Comic-Con. Now the question is whether it can maintain this level or if it will suffer a severe second-week drop like Godzilla, which had a similar debut but then slumped across the $200M mark.
2. Lucy- $18.2M/$79.5M
Obviously, Lucy was going to take a tumble since most of the sci-fi flick's audience would be drawn to Guardians of the Galaxy, but at $79M against a $40M budget Luc Besson and Universal are definitely happy. 
3. Get On Up- $14M
The James Brown biopic Get On Up got on up to a $14M debut, a respectable if somewhat underwhelming total. It's not bad, but it falls way short of the $27M opening weekend for 42, which starred Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. Much of the marketing for Get On Up has focused on one thing and that is Boseman's electrifying performance as Brown, which some are calling potentially Oscar-worthy. But they said the same thing about 42 and Boseman was left largely ignored come awards season. We'll just have to wait and see if that changes this time around.
4. Hercules- $10.7M/$52.3M
Not even the box office might of Dwayne Johnson could prevent Hercules from suffering a huge 65% tumble in week number two. The $100M film isn't doing much domestically but is fairing a bit better overseas with $56M, giving it a $108M total haul.
5. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes- $8.7M/$189.3M
6. Planes: Fire & Rescue- $6.4M/$47.5M
7. The Purge: Anarchy- $5.5M/$62.9M
8. Sex Tape- $3.5M/$33.9M
9. And So It Goes- $3.3M/$10.4M
10. A Most Wanted Man- $3.3M/$7M
The John Le Carre adaptation A Most Wanted Man, which also features the last non-Hunger Games performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, expanded to over 700 theaters and performed well with a $4,500 per site average.

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Review: 'Get On Up' Starring Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, and Viola Davis

The conundrum when it comes to any biopic on a larger-than-life figure is how to encapsulate their amazing story into a single two hour film. In most cases it simply can't be done and those that attempt typically fail. Get On Up star Chadwick Boseman gave an Oscar-worthy performance as Jackie Robinson in 42, a biopic that tried exactly that and couldn't measure. But Get On Up, directed by The Help's Tate Taylor, takes a novel approach to Brown's incredible story. Rather than the usual point-by-point retelling, the film relies largely on mood and emotional beats for a dazzling, non-linear look at the "hardest working man in show business".

While the film can get a little jumbled and confusing at times, this "brand new bag" of a biopic is coursing with energy thanks to an electric, rousing performance by Boseman that simply must be seen. Right from the start we get a sense of the film's rather flippant attitude towards Brown's life and career, as a bathroom toilet, loaded rifle, and flashing police sirens lead to one of his worst moments. This was 1988, and truly it was the time when Brown was at his lowest ebb. It's a weird place to start a film that is essentially about his rise to fame, but it all serves a purpose when the particulars of Brown's harsh upbringing surface. Born in a hovel in the heart of the Jim Crow south to an abusive father (Lennie James) and neglectful mother (Viola Davis), Brown's childhood was nothing but hardship. Run-ins with the law, a stint living in his aunt's (Octavia Spencer) brothel, and brutal racism built up a thick skin so that when life punched him in the gut Brown never flinched. Even later when he and the band are flying into Vietnam and their plane is shelled by artillery fire, Brown takes it in stride while the others are freaking out.

Just as "the funk" he and his talented band of musicians (the great Maceo Parker was part of the band, played here by Craig Robinson) created defied musical conventions and rhythms, Brown was equally hard to pin down. He could be a tyrannical slave-driver, an unabashed perfectionist, and more than a little paranoid towards his longtime best friend and right-hand man Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis of True Blood fame), but he's also the same guy who insisted on performing days after the death of Martin Luther King in hopes of preventing a riot.  Women seem to flit in and out of his life with little rhyme or reason, with the echoes of past abuse reflecting in his attitude towards relationships. You sometimes wish Taylor and screenwriters Jez and John-Henry Butterworth had spent more time with the ugly stuff; the drugs and domestic violence. But they keep it just on the margins to not upset the PG-13 apple cart, allowing Boseman to hint at us with a knowing smile or regretful glance the inner-workings of Brown's mind. Always more than just an entertainer, Brown was a shrewd businessman who skirted a racist system by cutting out the middle man and promoting his own shows, with the help of friend and mentor Ben "Pops" Bart, played wonderfully by Dan Akroyd.

Boseman was so good as Jackie Robinson that to say his performance is revelatory wouldn't quite be true, but its confirmation that we are in the presence of a special talent. While he seems a little uncomfortable in the early passages of the film, Boseman settles into Brown's skin utterly and completely soon after, capturing the man's complexity and live-wire spirit all the way down to his creaky, sometimes unintelligible southern twang. On the stage floor he's nothing short of remarkable, performing Brown's signature gliding maneuvers as perfectly as the man himself would have demanded. While Boseman mostly sings over top of Brown's recorded vocals each performance crackles as if you were watching a live show. Mick Jagger serves as exec-producer and no doubt had special input on one moment when an upstart Rolling Stones are upstaged by a pissed off Brown. While Boseman is incredible, the other transcendent turn comes from Ellis, who takes a familiar role and turns it into something special and sympathetic. Byrd stood by Brown's side when nobody else would, even though it meant giving up his own dreams of stardom. Their rocky friendship is the heart and soul of a film that is full to overflowing with both.

Get On Up may not be the most comprehensive biography, but as it breaks every single rule in the genre's rulebook it's a fitting James Brown tribute.

 Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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James Brown Breaks New Ground Trailer for 'Get On Up'

In last year's hit baseball drama, 42, Chadwick Boseman played groundbreaking player Jackie Robinson, a man who broke the sport's color barrier. In Get On Up he plays another game changer as James Brown, who became known as the "Godfather of Soul" and the "hardest workin' man in show business" for some very good reasons.

Brown's struggle to break free of a troubled upbringing are the heart of this latest trailer, with Boseman given a chance to show his dramatic range and dance moves. Tate Taylor (The Help) is at the helm, reunited with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer with Nelsan Ellis, Dan Akroyd, Jill Scott, and Tika Sumpter co-starring. Davis plays Brown's estranged mother who shows up after he's hit the big time, throwing his world into disarray. The voicework is a little distracting but it would probably be worse to try and have Boseman emulate Brown's signature sound.

Get On Up blows the roof off on August 1st.

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First Trailer for James Brown Biopic 'Get On Up' Starring Chadwick Boseman

After Spike Lee, Wesley Snipes, and Eddie Murphy toyed with the idea of bringing the story of James Brown to the big screen some years ago, it was ultimately a less starry duo who finally made it happen. The Help director Tate Taylor and 42 star Chadwick Boseman are telling the story of the "Godfather of Soul" in Get On Up, and the first trailer has just hit the stage.

Taking on the life of Brown is a daunting task, and so Boseman has been surrounded by an experienced cast. Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Jill Scott, Craig Robinson, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Akroyd, Tika Sumpter, and Lennie James co-star in the story that takes us from Brown's humble childhood to his rise as one of the greatest performers in the 20th century. Mick Jagger, who considered Brown a major influence on his career, is producing.

Boseman's got the hair and the moves, but we'll see if he can Get On Up when the film opens August 1st.

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First Look at Chadwick Boseman as James Brown in 'Get On Up'

Just months after knocking it out of the park (pun intended) as Jackie Robinson in 42, Chadwick Boseman has moved on to play another prominent African-American icon. He landed the sought after role of the "Godftather of Soul" James Brown in Get On Up, the follow-up film from The Help director, Tate Taylor.  There was a lot of skepticism Boseman could make the transformation since he and Brown are nothing alike, but in the first photo released by EW he actually looks the part.

So what made Taylor decide to take on this film rather than doing something similar to The Help? According to him, he had received nothing but "women in pain" scripts afterwards, but fell for Brown's life story, promising to show us the good and the bad about the legendary singer...

Taylor: “As I dug in and started to discover more about him, the good and the bad, I loved the reasons he was often bad and I loved the reasons he was good. I love that he would stop at nothing to keep reinventing himself so he could stay current, and as a result he changed music.”

As for the vocals, Boseman's voice will be overlaid with Brown's to create something we haven't heard before.  He'll be joined in the film by Octavia Spencer, Nelsan Ellis, Jill Scott, Dan Akroyd, Tikka Sumpter, Viola Davis, Lennie James, and Craig Robinson who is also pictured.

Get On Up opens August 1st 2014.

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