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Tom Hanks and J-Lo strippers raise pulses at Toronto film fest

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Andrew Marszal, Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/tvpatrol/09/06/20190908-jennifer-lopez.jpg"/><figcaption>Cast member Jennifer Lopez arrives for the gala presentation of &#x27;Hustlers&#x27; at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Mario Anzuoni, Reuters</figcaption></figure></div>TORONTO -- Scantily clad strippers and softly spoken kids&#x27; TV stars were on show Saturday as the Toronto film festival hit its stride with a wide range of hotly anticipated premieres.Screams from the red-carpet crowd could be heard blocks from the city center as Jennifer Lopez headed a cast of glamorous leading ladies for the world premiere of &quot;Hustlers.&quot;Constance Wu (&quot;Crazy Rich Asians&quot;) and singers Cardi B and Lizzo appear in the star-studded movie about New York strippers who turned the tables on wealthy businessmen during the financial crisis.The real-life tale -- billed as a female &quot;Wolf of Wall Street&quot; -- depicts how a group of women resorted to increasingly criminal tactics, such as spiking men&#x27;s drinks before emptying their bank accounts, as the stock market crash hit strip club receipts.Lopez said the film puts a spotlight on how society is more harsh to judge women than men &quot;when they&#x27;re stealing or robbing people blind.&quot;Men &quot;are doing it on this big corporate level and these girls are doing it that kind of small street level -- and they get off and (the girls) go to jail,&quot; she said.Introducing the film, director Lorene Scafaria dedicated it &quot;to strippers and sex workers everywhere.&quot;Earlier, Tom Hanks kicked off the evening with &quot;A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,&quot; based on the unlikely true friendship between a cynical investigative journalist and Fred Rogers, the impossibly nice US television presenter he is sent to interview.The movie, directed by Marielle Heller on a gala night dedicated to female filmmakers, blends Rogers&#x27; trademark nursery-rhyme stylings with hard-edged family drama, and drew a lengthy ovation at its world-first showing.While describing Hanks as the perfect casting to play a beloved national treasure, Heller insisted the &quot;Forrest Gump&quot; star&#x27;s preparations for the role had been &quot;transformative.&quot;&quot;He did not just slip on this cardigan and &#x27;boom&#x27; he was Mr. Rogers -- he actually truly goes to a very deep place,&quot; she told AFP.Hanks said had been too old to watch the long-running &quot;Mr. Rogers&#x27; Neighborhood&quot; program while it aired, admitting he &quot;didn&#x27;t get&quot; the &quot;really weird black and white TV show&quot; as a child, but was won over by its host.&quot;Mr. Rogers doesn&#x27;t want anything except for people maybe to understand themselves and the world a little better,&quot; he said.Matthew Rhys, the Welsh actor who plays the film&#x27;s journalist, said Rogers -- who died in 2013 -- &quot;bucked the norm&quot; of goofy custard pie-throwing theatrics on kids&#x27; TV.&quot;That&#x27;s the last thing children want -- they want calm, they need to be treated maturely,&quot; he told AFP.<div>&#x27;Sinister undercurrent&#x27;</div>Across the street, Eddie Murphy marked his big screen comeback by attending the premiere of &quot;Dolemite Is My Name,&quot; his biopic of US comedian Rudy Ray Moore, famed for his outlandish 1970s Blaxploitation character.The &quot;Beverly Hills Cop&quot; star, who recently announced he would return to stand-up comedy from next year, received a standing ovation from the Toronto crowd.Also in town were 007 actor Daniel Craig and &quot;Captain America&quot; Chris Evans for &quot;Knives Out,&quot; the Agatha Christie-style whodunnit movie from &quot;Star Wars&quot; director Rian Johnson.Craig praised the cast for the film -- described by the Hollywood Reporter as a &quot;deviously irreverent crowd-pleaser&quot; -- as &quot;a lightning in a bottle situation.&quot;Earlier on Saturday, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx called on America to tackle the &quot;sinister undercurrent&quot; of racism in its justice system, after his courthouse drama set in a starkly polarized Deep South debuted the previous night.Foxx and Michael B. Jordan -- two of Hollywood&#x27;s top black A-listers -- co-star in &quot;Just Mercy,&quot; the true story of a black man put on death row in Alabama in 1988 for the murder of a young white woman he did not commit.&quot;We wanted to make sure people understand how tragic it is, and how commonplace it is -- it happens all the time,&quot; said Foxx, who plays wrongfully convicted Walter McMillian.The Toronto International Film Festival, the largest in North America, runs until September 15.<div>© Agence France-Presse</div>

Scantily clad strippers and softly-spoken kids' TV stars were on show Saturday as the Toronto film festival hit its stride with a wide range of hotly anticipated premieres.

Scantily clad strippers and softly-spoken kids' TV stars were on show Saturday as the Toronto film festival hit its stride with a wide range of hotly anticipated premieres.

Tom Hanks and J-Lo strippers raise pulses at Toronto film fest

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Tom Hanks and J-Lo strippers raise pulses at Toronto film fest

Andrew Marszal,

Agence France-Presse

Published Sep 08, 2019 03:27 PM PHT

Read More:

Tom Hanks

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Jennifer Lopez

Hustlers

Toronto International Film Festival

Hollywood

movies

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