TOP PERFORMERS: Sidney Crosby has 21 goals and 31 assists for the Penguins. Evgeni Malkin has five goals and six assists over the past 10 games.
Brady Tkachuk has 16 goals and 30 assists for the Senators. Tim Stuetzle has scored nine goals with four assists over the last 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Penguins: 3-5-2, averaging 2.8 goals, 4.5 assists, 3.7 penalties and 8.1 penalty minutes while giving up 3.4 goals per game.
Senators: 5-5-0, averaging 2.8 goals, four assists, 3.5 penalties and 7.9 penalty minutes while giving up 3.5 goals per game.
INJURIES: Penguins: Kris Letang: out (lower-body), Ryan Poehling: out (upper body), Jan Rutta: day to day (upper-body), Josh Archibald: out (undisclosed), Jeff Petry: out (upper-body), Tristan Jarry: out (lower-body).
Senators: Mathieu Joseph: out (lower body), Artem Zub: out (lower-body), Rourke Chartier: out (upper-body), Tyler Motte: out (finger).
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
“I don’t know if the truth has come out of her mouth since [my wife Kortnie O’Connor] and I have been together,” Edmonds, 52, said during the Wednesday, January 18, episode of the “Hollywood Raw” podcast. “I can give you an entire list, if not all of three years, of straight lies.”
The former MLB star and wife Kortnie O’Connor — whom he married in September 2022 — went on to tell their side of the story about several accusations the “Intimate Knowledge” podcast host, 38, has made including Edmonds getting remarried on her birthday.
“It’s just little jabs like that. It’s been nonstop for three years, and it’s so f–king annoying,” he said, adding that he wasn’t even aware the rumor existed until “two or three weeks later” after he got home from his Italy nuptials.
O’Connor added, “It was never served to us. No one ever came here. … We had no idea.”
Edmonds and King married in 2015 and split four years later amid rumors that the California native had been unfaithful. He denied the cheating claims at the time, telling Us Weekly, “Regrettably, I had a lapse in judgment. I engaged in inappropriate conversation with this persona. At no time was there any time of relationship or physical contact. Absolutely none.”
On Wednesday’s podcast, Edmonds once again shut down rumors of any extramarital affairs, calling it “embarrassing” and an “absolute joke.”
Prior to their split, the former St. Louis Cardinals player and the Bravo star welcomed 6-year-old daughter Aspen and 4-year-old twin sons Hayes and Hart, the latter who had previously been diagnosed with periventricular leukomalacia. (Edmonds also shares a son, Landon, and a daughter, Sutton, with exAllison Jayne Raski and daughters Hayley and Lauren with his first wife, Lee Ann Horton, who died in 2015 after battling brain cancer.)
In October 2020, King revealed that Hart had also been diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
“Even though he’s the same kid, I expected it to hit me hard. But it didn’t,” she wrote in a blog post at the time. “It didn’t hit me hard at all. In fact, I felt relieved. … This is the once dreadful diagnosis I knew was coming since that fateful day I googled the right thing and it hit me like a truck: CP. I knew it was CP since Hart was a few months old. I just knew.”
King went on to write that CP is defined as “brain paralysis,” calling it an “exceedingly misleading and ridiculous designation.”
On Thursday, however, Edmonds claimed that while Hart does have periventricular leukomalacia, he has never been officially diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
“I’m like, well, OK then tell the truth. Don’t tell the sad stories all the time. Just be straight,” he said.
Edmonds, who shared that he and King are now coparenting through a nanny, also took issue with his ex-wife’s dating life — the TV personality datedTrevor Colhoun, Bachelorette alum Mike Johnson,Will Roos and was briefly married to President Joe Biden‘s nephew Cuffe Owens — claiming that his “poor kids” are going to grow up “thinking every guy is mean.”
When asked if he sees “any road to peace with her any time soon,” the former Chicago Cub player replied, “Not as long as she talks.”
“Monday Night Football” alum Lisa Guerrero is getting real about her time as a sports journalist in the early 2000s in her new memoir “Warrior,” most significantly revealing that she had a miscarriage during an on-air live football game.
After experiencing an intensifying pain in her abdomen during a game as a sideline reporter, “I pushed through and did my reports,” Guerrero wrote in an exclusive excerpt of her memoir shared with People on Wednesday. “When I felt a dampness between my legs, I thought, ‘Oh, I got my period.’ And then I remembered I was pregnant. I was having a miscarriage! I could feel blood leaking.”
Though the officials’ bathroom was in the tunnel right behind Guerrero, when she informed her assistant that she was headed to the restroom, he looked at the journalist like she was “insane” and said, “They’re about to throw to you.”
Guerrero then pushed through her “excruciating” pain to deliver her live report, though she felt “dizzy and nauseated.” She even reminded herself to stand up straight as MNF’s executive producer Freddie Gaudelli would reprimand her for bad posture on their Wednesday phone calls.
“As soon as I finished, I raced off to interview a coach,” Guerrero recalled. “Then I headed to the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, I couldn’t believe the blood pouring out of me. It had soaked through my pants. I shoved a bunch of paper towels in my underwear.”
During the traumatic moment, the longtime “Inside Edition” reporter says she went into “autopilot” mode, with “the only thought thought that crossed [her] mind [being] that [she] could get through the rest of the game as long as [she] buttoned up my long winter coat.” Though she now realizes she should have gone to the hospital or sat out the rest of the game, in the moment it never occurred to Guerrero to tell anyone about what was happening to her.
After the game was over, Guerrero went straight to the plane instead of meeting with Gaudelli as was previously scheduled, where she changed clothes and dumped her pants and underwear in the trash.
The recollection marks just one of the many painful incidents Guerrero sheds light on her in book, as male reporters made derogatory remarks about her body, clothes, posture and sexual exploits.
“I looked into the mirror and didn’t recognize the pale, gaunt, scared, and so very tired woman who stared back at me,” Guerrero recounted.
With “Pinocchio,” Guillermo del Toro crafted a thoughtful and philosophical stop-motion animated feature that centers on the father-son relationship, political upheaval and death. It’s not a remake of the Disney classic — a version del Toro loves — rather, it’s derived from Carlo Collodi’s novel.
At Variety‘s Artisans Screening Series, del Toro talked about balancing dark themes, like fascism, and making the story accessible to younger audiences. “Kids are far more complex than the soccer parents give them credit for,” del Toro said. He went on to say, “Kids are thankful when you give them the pieces to understand the real world, not when you take it from them because things might be tough.”
Del Toro told the audience that the pandemic had made children more aware of the brevity of life. He said, “We are in a world where everybody experiences death. Normally the kids they think about in studios are skateboarding kids in suburbia, but a kid now is Greta Thunberg.” He continued, “A kid now knows that the doomsday clock is ticking. They know we have destroyed ecology. They know we have destroyed society. They know everything that is going wrong. So, they appreciate an explanation. The movie is constructed with parallel stories of fathers and sons.”
Del Toro was joined by director Mark Gustafson, composer Alexandre Desplat, sound designer and supervisor Scott Martin Gershin, production designer Guy Davis and songwriter Roeban Katz.
In the film, Pinocchio finds himself face-to-face with Death (voiced by Tilda Swinton) numerous times and has to make decisions about his path. Death is maternal, del Toro told the audience. She’s the one who guides him.
As Pinocchio navigates death, the film explores several father-son relationships. Del Toro said, “We parallel the stories of the father and the son and the fascist side, Volpe and Spazzatura, Jesus Christ and his father.” He noted that the stop-motion puppet of Pinocchio also had nails on him, like Christ, adding, “I think it’s not the story of a boy learning to be a real boy but a man learning to be a real father, which is a lot more interesting to me.”
The panel also discussed how the song “Ciao Papa,” written by Desplat, del Toro and Katz, came together. Del Toro revealed he had approached Nick Cave and Beck as potential songwriters, but in the end, the trio collaborated on the tune’s lyrics and music, with Desplat using wooden instruments to underscore the film’s aesthetic. “The percussions, the piano, harp, mandolins, guitars and even the accordion was made from wood,” he said.
Following the NBC comedy series’ month-long hiatus, the White Lotus star will be the first SNL host of 2023 when she leads the Jan. 21 episode alongside musical guest Sam Smith. The previous episode, with Elvis star Austin Butler and Lizzo, aired Dec. 17 and featured SNL mainstay Cecily Strong’s final appearance as a regular castmember.
In a promo released Wednesday, Plaza compliments castmember Chloe Fineman on her talent for impersonating such celebrities as Drew Barrymore before offering to perform a few of her own.
“Chloe, you’re not the only one who can do impressions,” the Emily the Criminal actress boasts. She then recites a few key lines from Marcia Gay Harden’s Oscar-winning role as Lee Krasner in 2000’s Ed Harris-starring drama, Pollock.
After Fineman describes the performance as “a little intense,” Plaza segues into a memorable Annette Bening-focused scene from American Beauty. The moment involves Plaza repeatedly slapping herself, leading Fineman to grab the host’s hand.
When Fineman asks Plaza why she’s doing this, the Parks and Recreation alum bluntly replies, “Because I’m insane, and I’ve been waiting to do this show since I was 12 years old.” The pair then begin to passionately kiss for reasons that remain unclear.
The following week’s episode, set to air Jan. 28, will spotlight host Michael B. Jordan and musical guest Lil Baby.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. on NBC and streams live on Peacock.
That ’70s Show is joining the TV revival movement in the form of That ’90s Show, which will drop on Netflix on January 19.
As the title implies, it’s gonna be set in the ’90s, specifically during the summer of 1995. The main character? Leia Forman, daughter of Eric and Donna, who is spending the summer with her grandparents, Kitty and Red.
You’re obviously wondering if your favorite That ’70s Show cast members will make an appearance, and the answer — as you can see from this trailer — is YES!
View this video on YouTube
Netflix
Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace, Laura Prepon, Don Stark, and Tommy Chong will all guest star in at least one episode. Debra Jo Rupp and Kurtwood Smith are series regulars.
Here’s what they’ve all been up to for the last 17 years:
1.
Mila Kunis (Jackie Burkhart)
2.
Ashton Kutcher (Michael Kelso)
3.
Wilmer Valderrama (Fez)
4.
Laura Prepon (Donna Pinciotti)
5.
Topher Grace (Eric Forman)
6.
Debra Jo Rupp (Kitty Forman)
7.
Kurtwood Smith (Red Forman)
8.
Don Stark (Bob Pinciotti)
9.
And finally, Tommy Chong (Leo)
Are you *psyched* for That ’90s Show? Comment below!
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Michael Lehrer, a comedian and improv actor best known for his work in ‘ Second City,’ and ‘Masters of the Internet,’ has died with the assistance of a doctor following a years-long battle with ALS. He was 44.
His girlfriend and caretaker, Colette Montague, told the Chicago Sun-Times, “Michael died with dignity on his own terms. He was not suicidal at all. … Medical aid in dying was the hardest decision he ever made.”
Despite being diagnosed with ALS, the comedian and sketch artist continued to perform at clubs while confined to a wheelchair. His bits included jokes about his life and his battle with the neurodegenerative disease.
Lehrer was a regular on ‘Kill Tony,’ a live comedy podcast based in Austin, Texas where Joe Rogan and Ron White often appeared. Rogan paid his respects to Lehrer in an Instagram post.
“The courage this man had to do stand up while battling a debilitating disease was insanely impressive, and though he struggled to get words out the man would KILL onstage,” Rogan said. “He was a real legend, and I’m going to miss him very much.”
In 2014, Lehrer was selected for the ‘New Faces of Comedy’ showcase at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.
Lehrer’s roots are deep in the Chicago comedy scene. The Columbia College grad co-wrote and co-starred in three revues at the Second City e.t.c. theater, where his castmates included such future stars as Aidy Bryant, ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Chris Witaske, ‘Chicago Party Aunt,’ and Tawny Newsome, ‘Space Force,’ according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In addition to Montague, Lehrer is survived by a son, Colin Heaton among other family members.
A GoFundMe page was set up in support of Lehrer’s son.
Fellow comedians posted tributes via social media.
The Second City is sad to report the passing of alum Michael Lehrer.
He helped create four original sketch revues for The Second City, including the Jeff Award winner for Best Revue, Sky’s The Limit (Weather Permitting).
Start marking your calendars for movie nights this year as Netflix rolls out its list of new releases for 2023.
Spanning from fantasy to action thrillers, viewers can check out Jennifer Lopez as a female assassin in The Mother, Kevin Hart pulling off an international bank heist in Lift or go on a fantasy adventure with Millie Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett and Robin Wright in Damsel.
Stay on the edge of your seat with in Sam Esmail’s thriller Leave the World Behind starringJulia Roberts and Mahershala Ali, Idris Elba’s return to Luther: The Fallen Sun, and David Yates’ drama The Pain Hustlers.
If you’re looking for romantic comedies, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher star in Your Place or Mine, and Nicole Kidman,Zac Efron, and Joey King grapple with A Family Affair.
Star Trek: Prodigy creators share their big hopes for future seasons of the animated series and even the potential of a live-action feature film.
The future of Paramount+’s YA animated series, Star Trek: Prodigy, has received an exciting update as the project aims to expand its presence beyond the small screen. Star Trek: Prodigy debuted on Paramount+ in late 2021 and streamed 20 total episodes by the end of season 1 in December 2022. The series follows a group of enslaved teenagers as they steal a derelict Starfleet vessel to escape and explore the galaxy. The series was created by The Lego Movie scribes Dan and Kevin Hageman and has been received well by audiences and critics dating back to its debut.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
In a recent interview with the Mission Log podcast(via TrekMovie.com), the series creators were joined by producer Ben Hibon to discuss the future of Star Trek: Prodigy. The creators shared their big hopes for future seasons of the show and even said that they’re interested in making a movie about the characters of the show. Check out Kevin Hageman’s comments on the future of Star Trek: Prodigy below:
All our heads are always in the clouds here. Like we want to do an animated movie. I would love for the show to keep going for many, many seasons. And then, sort of like what they did with The Next Generation–they had the show, and then they started spin off and do the features. And so to be able to have the show, and then to have a feature, like it’d be amazing. Not just an animated feature, but if you could do a live-action feature it would be absolutely stunning. So we have lofty ambitions.
[Dan interjects: Theme park rides!]
Ramsey Naito, who is the head of animation for all of Paramount and Nickelodeon, so whenever we sit down with her, she’ll bring up maybe a season three and talking about possibilities and we’re like, “Season three and season four and we have an idea for the movie.” And she’s like, “Woah, woah, one thing at a time.” So we’re pushing as hard as we can. And everyone at the network and the studio have been so supportive, so wonderful. They love our show. Notes are so minimal. The trust that they have in all of is is so great. I think the future of our series just it really rests in viewership. If the viewers are there, then the show will keep going. But if the viewership isn’t there, if the numbers aren’t there. it’s going to be hard to convince the studio.
Everything We Know About Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2
The Star Trek: Prodigy season 1 finale was an emotional ride for the show’s core group of kids. Hologram Janeway stayed aboard the Protostar ship to ensure the core explosion detonation. The explosion destroyed the living construct, but it also saved the solar system and Starfleet from destruction. Vice Admiral Janeway is still alive, though, and she is now in need of a crew for her mission to save Captain Chakotay. The Protostar crew should be up to the challenge in their next mission, which will feature a brand-new ship even larger than the Protostar, as Janeway teased at the end of Star Trek: Prodigy season 1.
Plenty of unanswered questions remain for Star Trek: Prodigy season 2. Asencia’s whereabouts are currently unknown, though it has been confirmed that she is still alive. The new ship tease is also exciting, as is Gwyn’s new mission to Solum, which is a particularly personal journey. With the new mission on the horizon, Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 should feel very different from season 1. The kids will enter a new stage in their lives with increased responsibilities, which could lead to moments of unease and eventual victory.
Admiral Janeway will be the leader of the group, which is an exciting prospect for Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 and beyond. The show’s focus can remain on the young characters, but they will have guidance from known Star Trek characters, which should continue to make connections between the series and the classic Star Trek entries. The season doesn’t have a confirmed release date at the moment, but if Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 is similar to season 1, it could have a sporadic release schedule. The show’s creators have revealed that they are in the sound mixing stage of production with the first few episodes, signaling that the animated series could return to Paramount+ in late 2023.
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez hadn’t yet made it to the dance floor at the Golden Globes official afterparty (hosted by HFPA in partnership with Billboard) inside the Beverly Hilton before she was swarmed by well-wishers and revelers congratulating her on a big night.
Rodriguez was not a nominee at the Jan. 10 ceremony but did receive a standing ovation — courtesy of Carol Burnett Award honoree Ryan Murphy, who shouted out his Pose star during his acceptance speech for her history-making (and nontelevised) win in 2022 as the first trans performer to receive a Golden Globe, for best actress in a TV drama.
“It meant more than the world to me,” Rodriguez told THR of the callout. “Especially because Ryan was the one who really discovered me and catapulted my career. I just love that he didn’t let that moment go by. I’ve been waiting for it. I always say that he is the Clive Davis to my Whitney Houston. He got me out of Newark like Clive got Whitney out of Newark, and I’m rocking with Ryan for the rest of my life.”
This story first appeared in the Jan. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Luminate’s Year-End Report shares trends in the music industry, including album sales, streaming numbers, and how content is consumed. 2022 boasted a variety of new data.
Luminate’s annual report about the music industry showcases trends by the year and how audiences are consuming music. It follows what albums and songs people are listening along with and how they are consuming the content.
For starters, Bad Bunny’s album, Un Verano Sin Tin was the most consumed album in America, marking the first time that an album featuring music recorded in a language outside of English achieved that goal. The album has been a smash hit, becoming the second non-English album to reach number one on the Billboard 200 chart, the first being Bad Bunny’s previous album, El Ultimo Tour del Mundo in December 2020.
In terms of the music industry as a whole, album consumption, which includes “album sales plus the equivalent value of song streams and sales,” went up by 9.2% in 2023. Although the numbers still increased, it was a smaller gain than the 11.3% raise that was seen in 2021.
Streaming looks to still be the main way audiences listen to music, with 84% of US revenue in the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)’s mid-year report being attributed to streaming. 2022 was the first year that more than 1 trillion streams were played across America.
According to the Luminate data, as reported by Variety, audiences are also listening to songs longer, with catalog repertoire, which is a music product, “that has been on the market for 18 months or longer,” representing 72.2% of music consumption.
Songs appear to be more likely to last longer than a one-hit wonder or splash-in-the-pan single that has a limited window of popularity. Music looks to have a longer impact on listeners than in previous years.
This also may be due to the fact that with streaming, the actual content of what users are listening to is being tracked as opposed to previously when it was what albums people purchased that was the focus. With an album purchase, there is no way to know what songs are listened to the most on the album, whereas with streaming, the songs are the ones that stand out and lead to specific data about consumers’ listening habits.
A senior executive from one of the major labels sees this as a good thing. “I think it’s good that music fans are discovering great music, regardless of the era it came from. We should be agnostic as an industry to how someone wants to attach to something. It cannot always be about a new release,” he says.
“If they decide to spend five minutes or four minutes on a song, or 30 or 40 minutes on an album from a particular artist, regardless of when it came out, it’s a good thing for the business.”
From a business point of view, the focus is not on whether or not consumers are listening to a particular song by an artist, a song that just came out from the artist, or a song from the artist that came out months or even years ago. The focus is on the artists’ music being listened to at all.
The executive went on to explain how there’s competition for entertainment nowadays with the likes of sports, television, and film streaming services like Netflix, and social media apps like TikTok. Any time that consumers give to an artist and their music is still beneficial for the business.
“Shallow catalog” is a term that some music executives use to describe songs that came out a bit more than 18 months prior and still are generating sales. While current and new sales are still important, others point out that those singles from some time ago are just as important, as streaming has shown the longer-lasting impact of particular singles.
With TikTok, it is common to see songs from years and even decades ago suddenly become popular due to recent trends. An example would be the success of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” which was released in 1985. While it reached the Top 40 charts nearly 40 years ago, it received a resurgence in popularity due to its 2022 appearance in Netflix’s Stranger Things.
While the song is not a current and new song, it is a new song to a whole new generation of listeners who either discovered it in such places as the series or TikTok.
However, albums are still popular, as artists like Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, and Harry Styles sold 3.4, 3.3, and 2.2 Million album project units respectively in 2022.
For the consumption chart, 2022 albums from artists including the Weeknd, Future, and Little Durk sold over a million units, and albums from the previous year by artists including Drake, Olivia Rodrigo, and the soundtrack from Disney’s Encanto also sold over one million units, being 2021 releases making the 2022 list.
Looking at sales, Taylor Swift’s Midnights was the top seller with, “1.8 million physical copies and downloads combined in barely more than two months.” 2022 titles that made the list include albums from artists such as Beyonce, BTS, and Tomorrow X Together. 2021 titles also made the list with albums from Adele and Olivia Rodrigo.
When discussing albums that are older than eighteen months, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours from 1977, Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, m.A.A.d City from 2012, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller from 1982 came from earlier decades but still impact the album sales charts with their popularity, selling 310,000 units, 278,000 units, and 236,000 units respectively.
Vinyls outsold CDs in the US, while country and rock are the two genres that have the most radio listeners, with their fans more likely to tune in to genre radio stations as opposed to videos, audio streams, and video streams.
Cassettes grew in popularity by 28% over 2021, although the numbers are still low.
Music is also consumed differently based on the artist and fan base. 95.8% of sales for Bad Bunny’s album, Un Verano Sin, Ti came from streams and 4.2% from digital albums. Meanwhile, album sales, “accounted for more than half,” of Beyonce’s album, Renaissance, the total amount of sales, where vinyl was the highest medium at 36.4% for Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights.
Another interesting tidbit on vinyl sales, is “only 50% of vinyl buyers own record players,” which begs the question of how many people listen to the vinyl and how many buy it as a collector’s item.
Digital downloads have been going down ever since streaming took over as the top method of music consumption in 2015. Other tidbits include the fact that “hip-hop fans are 26% more likely to buy music merch online from a separate brand, while country fans are 31% more likely to get theirs at a live music event… Children’s, world, electronic/dance, and classical have joined Latin as genres growing faster than the industry pace.”
In addition, Gen Z spends, “19% more time with music per week and 10% more money on music per month than the average consumer.”
The music industry has dramatically changed over the years and it is fascinating to see where it will go next.
Roberta Flack is a master of interpretation, a genre-bender, a civil rights activist, an early ally to the LGBTQIA+ community and a musical genius whose ability to sonically encompass every crevasse of human emotion has captivated audiences for over five decades.
Whether you’re already a devoted fan or newcomer, here are nine signature tracks to exemplify the wondrous style and sound of Roberta Flack.
1. Compared to What
The jazz-soul protest song, written by Flack’s frequent collaborator Eugene McDaniels, is an indictment of white supremacy in America. “Compared to What,” released in 1969, was the first track on Flack’s debut album “First Take” and set the tone for the rest of the album and in many ways, Flack’s career. Flack never shied from tackling big issues in her music, in fact, Reverend Jesse Jackson once described her as “socially relevant and politically unafraid.” As observed by popular music critic B. Lee Cooper, “Compared to What” addresses “the social myth of equality and the economic reality of poverty in the stratified American society.”
In a 2020 interview with AARP, Flack commented on the political messages in her music, saying “I’m deeply saddened that many of the songs I recorded 50 years ago about civil rights, equal rights, poverty, hunger and suffering in our society are still relevant.”
2. Ballad of the Sad Young Men
Flack was ahead of her time in many ways, not least of which was her advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community. “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” was originally written by lyricist Fran Landesman and composer Tommy Wolf for a play called “The Nervous Set” about a publisher during the Beat Generation. Flack’s famous interpretation and recording of the song is beautifully tender and mournful. She frames it, as one critic at a live show said, as a “homosexual lament” – a characteristic not explicitly present in the source material. Like with much of Flack’s music, she was able to tease out new meaning from the song.
Eric Weisbard elaborates in his book “Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music”:
“‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’ was a staple in Flack’s live concerts. As early as 1971 she openly discussed its meaning in her stage act, lest its impressionistic lyrics be misunderstood . . . There is no way to fully emphasize the political risks Roberta Flack may have faced as an R&B singer in the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s performing and discussing songs advocating human rights for gay men and women.”
3. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was originally written by British songwriter Ewen MacColl to be performed by Peggy Seeger in 1957. Flack’s rendition, released on her album “First Take,” is much slower and more sensual, almost doubling the runtime of the original song. While it wasn’t an immediate success, Flack’s version catapulted her into superstardom when it was used in Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut film “Play Misty for Me” in 1971. The additional attention led the song to win Flack the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1972.
4. Until It’s Time for You To Go
As Tom Cottle alluded to in a TV interview with Flack in 1983 when he said “With some musicians, it’s relatively easy to categorize their music. You could say they’re pop singers or rock and roll or rhythm and blues or jazz or whatever. With this particular woman, one can label it as, indeed, many would label the woman herself, pure, gorgeous, unforgettable,” Flack’s music is impossible to categorize. Some have called it mood music, quiet storm or simply soul, but one thing can be agreed upon – Roberta Flack has the uncanny ability to meld genres into a mélange of emotion that nestles itself into the listener’s own sensory worlds. “Until It’s Time for You To Go” was originally written by Native American folk singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1965. Flack’s interpretation, released on her second album “Chapter Two” in 1970, melds the folk song with classical instrumentation and Flack’s trademark gospel rhythms to create her version of the ballad.
With recent conversations around the disappearance of genre, one can’t help but identify Flack as one of the pioneers dissolving arbitrary genre (and racial) distinctions in the industry to create music that is singularly expressive and universally felt.
5. Sunday and Sister Jones
While much of Flack’s talent is based on defying genre and racial distinctions in the music industry, often listed on both the Black R&B charts and the white “adult contemporary” charts, she was still able to make her music feel personal and recognizable. Flack’s music is deeply rooted in a strong sense of self, focusing on her experience as a Black woman who grew up in the south. She maintained this self-awareness largely by incorporating gospel music into her compositions. “Sunday and Sister Jones” is a prime example of vocals that resemble lined-out hymnody, a type of hymn singing common in Black Methodists congregations, on top of a funky bass line and rock ‘n’ roll influenced instrumentation.
6. Where Is the Love
Flack often frames love as almost an art form, where elegance and refinement are valued above raw feeling to craft an endlessly deep emotional connection. Her collaboration with Donny Hathaway, “Where Is the Love,” is a prime example of this idea of love as something physical that can be molded and gifted. Flack and Hathaway collaborated frequently in their careers and had a lot in common. They both went to Howard University, were classically trained and considered musical prodigies. Their many years of collaboration ended when Hathaway tragically took his own life in 1979.
7. Feel Like Makin’ Love
On her fifth solo album, Roberta Flack took a pioneering step for Black women in the music industry by producing it herself under the pseudonym Rubina Flake. She had always been heavily involved in the production of her music, however, when her long-time producer at Atlantic Records, Joel Dorn, stepped away, Flack took the reins. The title track “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” written by Eugene McDaniels, was released as a single nine months before the album dropped and became one of the biggest musical successes of 1974, spending a week at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
8. Tonight I Celebrate My Love
Before Roberta Flack was an international success, she was a music teacher. While she eventually traded the schoolhouse for the main stage, teaching and mentorship stayed a constant theme throughout Flack’s career. With the duet “Tonight I Celebrate My Love,” Flack took Peabo Bryson under her wing. Bryson, previously a background singer, saw a surge of popularity after the massive success of the single and went on to win two Grammy Awards and record several popular songs for Disney soundtracks, including “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin” and the theme from “Beauty and the Beast” alongside Celine Dion.
9. Killing Me Softly With His Song
There is no way to talk about Roberta Flack without talking about the power of musical interpretation and there is no way to talk about musical interpretation without mentioning Flack’s megahit “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” Originally written by the up-and-coming folk singer-songwriter Lori Lieberman, Flack first encountered the song in a brochure on a plane. After listening to it on repeat she knew she needed to record it, describing it as “a song that . . . was given to me as a gift.”
Alongside greats like Frank Sinatra and Nina Simone, Flack built her career on musical interpretation – taking songs and transforming them into novel expressions of her limitless and utterly elegant inner world. “Killing Me Softly With His Song” is no exception. Flack turned the song into a majestic ballad with long melodies and a hypnotizing refrain. Her perennial interpretation has been returned to time and time again, most notably, The Fugees had a hit with it in 1996.
Microsoft joined legions of tech companies that have been trimming staff in recent moves, announcing layoffs of 10,000 employees Wednesday as part of a restructuring intended to brace the company for a potential economic downturn.
The tech giant is the latest to cut workers amid economic uncertainty that has taken a heavy toll on the tech, finance, media and housing sectors, as higher interest rates continue to weighon the broader economy. Microsoft’s revenue largely comes from cloud computing and widely used software such as Word and PowerPoint and the Windows operating system, making it particularly plugged in to larger trends in the business world.
“Microsoft laying off is a canary in the coal mine for the broader economy,” said Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. “And I think it shows that enterprises are starting to slow spending, with a mild recession likely on the doorstep.”
Other worrisome signs emerged Wednesday, as December retail sales fell for a third month, according to the Commerce Department, reflecting a continued pullback by consumers on a range of goods, save for groceries, despite the holiday shopping season.
During the first two years of the pandemic, companies like Amazon, Salesforce and Facebook parent Meta hired tens of thousands of new workers in an effort to take advantage of surging demand for software and gadgets as people spent more time working, shopping and relaxing at home. But as people have returned to in-person life, that demand has dropped off, and rising interest rates have made it more expensive to borrow money for new investments.
Major tech firms have announced plans for at least 57,000 job cuts in the coming months. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
“Microsoft’s announcement reflects a broad belief among big tech firms that they over-hired over the past three years and that customer demand in 2023 will be uncertain,” said J.P. Gownder, a vice president and principal analyst at research firm Forrester.
The layoffs at Microsoft amount to less than 5 percent of its 221,000-person workforce. Some of the affected workers were notified as soon as Wednesday, the company said.
“These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn’t adapt to platform shifts,” said Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella in a note to staff that was published on the company’s blog.
Microsoft, in particular, had been expanding rapidly during the pandemic, adding 77,000 employees from 2019 staffing levels, according to regulatory filings.
“The tech industry in general, and especially those focused highly on software and intellectual property like Microsoft, are facing especially strong macroeconomic pressure from the forecasted economic slowdown and especially the rapid rise in interest rates,” said Josh White, an assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University. “A large portion of their value is based on intellectual property rather than physical equipment. All companies will be looking to employ cost-cutting measures over the coming year, but for these companies that rely on IP, cost-cutting unfortunately means layoffs.”
Experts worry that the tech job shedding could represent the bleeding edge of economic woes. Inflation has weighed heavily on Americans’ pocketbooks, shifting spending toward absolute essentials and services and away from goods.
Retailers are already being affected. The Halloween supplier and retailer Party City filed for bankruptcy in federal court on Tuesday, and Bed Bath & Beyond could be next, waylaid by $1.1 billion in losses over its fiscal year, retail experts say.
Even as fears of an impending recession build, so far the labor market has continued to show resilience, with employers continuing to add jobs through December, despite the cool-down throughout the tech sector.
Labor market strength, as well as waning inflation, fueled an optimistic sentiment among the economic elite attending the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, Switzerland. Several conference speakers and goers talked about how a recession, both in the United States and around the world, is both inevitable but likely mild.
“If I was to describe the IMF’s outlook for 2023 in one line, it would be that we have a tough year ahead, but there are signs of resilience,” Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in an address from Davos.
Microsoft’s retrenchment is its largest in several years. The company slashed 25,000 jobs between 2014 and 2015 after shedding the mobile phone operations acquired from Nokia and largely focusing on cloud computing, business software, certain hardware products and gaming.
Nadella told employees Wednesday that Microsoft would “continue to invest in strategic areas for our future … while divesting in other areas.” The company in recent months has poured money into artificial intelligence, including an investment in the maker of the ChatGPTartificial intelligence system. In December, Microsoft announced plans to fight federal regulators to finalize its acquisition of video game company Activision Blizzard, a risky bet that exposes major regulatory liabilities, but with considerable economic upside.
In a regulatory filing, Microsoft said it planned to cut costs through changes in its hardware portfolio — the company makes Surface tablets and other gadgets — and consolidating leased office space. The near-term cost of the moves is expected to be $1.2 billion in its fiscal 2023 second quarter, which ended in December. Microsoft has allowed many of its workers to work from home since the beginning of the pandemic.
Job cuts have been tearing through the tech sphere, with an average of 1,600 workers in the space losing their jobs each day in 2023 so far, according to Layoffs.fyi.
Amazon kicked off a fresh round of cuts on Wednesday as the company looks to trim its head count by more than 18,000, in what is projected to be the biggest round of cuts in the company’s history. Salesforce, one of the most high-profile makers of cloud software for businesses,recently reduced its head count by 10 percent, or nearly 8,000 jobs. Others, like Apple, have held off on layoffs while implementing hiring freezes.
Finance has also been hard-hit, with crypto companies and banking giants like Goldman Sachs slashing thousands of positions and reevaluating expenses, from bonuses to private jets.
In the lead-up to cutbacks, chief executives such as Tesla and Twitter’s Elon Musk, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg were publicly calling out low performers for waning productivity and asking workers to do more.
Abha Bhattarai, Jaclyn Peiser and Gerrit De Vynck contributed to this report.
Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao are joined by Elizabeth Perkins, Zach Woods, Paul Walter Hauser, and more.
Apple TV+ is throwing a brand new party. The second season of murder mystery comedy series “The Afterparty” is set to premiere on the streamer April 28, it was announced out of the streamer’s Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. To celebrate, Apple also released four first-look photos for the season, which shows returning stars Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao, as well as new cast members of the whodunnit anthology’s second outing.
First released in January last year, “The Afterparty” is a high-concept comedy series where each season focuses on a murder case, and each episode retells the story of the night from a different character’s perspective, as a pastiche of a different film or TV genre. In Season 1, the case took place at the afterparty of a high school reunion, with Haddish playing a detective interviewing a group of suspects that included Richardson, Chao, Ike Barinholtz, Ben Schwartz, Ilana Glazer, Jamie Demetriou to solve the murder of Xavier (Dave Franco).
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Season 2 of the comedy series sees Haddish, Richardson, and Chao return for a new case at a wedding, where a groom is murdered, and every guest becomes a suspect. Elizabeth Perkins, Zach Woods, Paul Walter Hauser, Poppy Liu, Anna Konkle, Jack Whitehall, Vivian Wu, John Cho, and Ken Jeong play the new group of party guests that Haddish interrogates.
“The Afterparty” was created by Chris Miller, one-half of a filmmaking and producing duo with Phil Lord that resulted in projects like “The Lego Movie,” “21 Jump Street,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” and “Clone High.” Season 2 is run by Miller and Anthony King. Miller and Lord executive produce through their production banner Lord Miller, while King also executive produces, and Lord Miller’s Television SVP Aubrey Lee produces. TriStar TV and Sony Pictures Television produce the series for Apple, as part of Lord and Miller’s current five-year TV deal with the production companies.
Season 2 of “The Afterparty” will premiere with two episodes April 28. One new episode in the 10-episode season will premiere weekly on Fridays, with the finale set for June 23. Take a look at the first look photos below.
In Apple TV+’s City on Fire, which hails from executive producers and showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, a suburban teenager must unravel the mystery of his friend’s murder after she’s shot in Central Park on Fourth of July in 2003.
The series, which is set for a May 12 premiere, is based on the novel of the same name that takes place in 1970s New York — a time of severe financial crisis and widespread panic in the city due to a string of shootings (known as the Son of Sam murders). The show jumps forward in time to another period of uncertainty in New York post-9/11.
“We felt like, while a fascinating period, [that era is] well trodden territory. We were really interested in that post-9/11, Occupy Wall Street [era] in New York. Obviously, the book culminates in the blackout of ’77. There was a massive blackout in 2003. So creatively, that storyline lined up. But also thematically, 1977 was a time when people weren’t sure that our city was going to survive. Post-9/11 New York, people had the same concerns, the same fears,” Schwartz said during AppleTV+’s Television Critics Association panel on Wednesday.
Despite the time difference, the story remains largely the same. Samantha (played by Chase Sui Wonders) is alone when she dies, and there are no witnesses and very little physical evidence. Her friends’ band is playing her favorite downtown club but she leaves to meet someone, promising to return. She never does. As the crime against Samantha is investigated, she’s revealed to be the crucial connection between a series of mysterious citywide fires, the downtown music scene, and a wealthy uptown real estate family fraying under the strain of the many secrets they keep.
Wyatt Oleff plays Charlie, a friend of Samantha’s who is struggling to cope with the death of his father on 9/11 two years earlier. After she is shot, he stops at nothing to uncover the mystery of what happened.
The punk scene in downtown New York plays a huge part in the novel, and luckily the early aughts were another palpable time for music in the city, as Schwartz explained. “That’s when rock and roll got reinvented or saved, however you want to put it, in the downtown New York music scene. A lot of those artists are featured in the show, and we have a fictional band in the show…which was an endeavor to create the best band from the early aughts you’ve never heard before.”
City on Fire is produced by Apple Studios for Apple TV+. Schwartz and Savage wrote all eight episodes and serve as showrunners and executive producers under Fake Empire. Jesse Peretz directs four episodes and serves as executive producer. Fake Empire’s Lis Rowinski serves as co-executive producer.
The series also stars Jemima Kirke, Nico Tortorella, Ashley Zukerman, Xavier Clyde, Max Milner, Alexandra Doke, Omid Abtahi, Kathleen Munroe and John Cameron Mitchell. It will debut on AppleTV+ on May 12.
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Sanjay Dutt, Aditya Roy Kapur, Jisshu Sengupta, Gulshan Grover, Makrand Deshpande
Director: Mahesh Bhatt
This is what we call lifting the baton from where it was left because director Mahesh Bhatt’s film is straight out of the ‘90s, or maybe ‘80s or ‘70s, depending which timezone you think produced worse films. It’s so terrible that you would love to take any other road than this one, which is full of potholes.
Sadak 2 is not what the trailer promised, which received a truckload of dislikes. It’s worse.
As far as the story goes, it’s forcefully fitting Sanjay Dutt playing a supportive elder to Alia Bhatt in a film with at least 10 minute footage from the original film, Sadak (1991). They have used a hit song from the past too with Sanjay Dutt reminding that once we ran after high-waist pants, and silhouettes were fashionable for DOPs in Bollywood. And the sequel is named Sadak 2 because there is a road trip. That’s how simplified the film is!
So, taxi driver Ravi (Sanjay Dutt) has lost his wife and wants to die but the ceiling fan gives up. After making some sweeping statements about mental health while trying to look concerned, he agrees to take Arya (Alia Bhatt) and Vishal (Aditya Roy Kapur) to Ranikhet.
Among other things that happen on the road are some big revelations about Vishal’s drinking issues and Jisshu Sengupta’s tricky position as a businessman and father. Then there is Makrand Deshpande, but he deserves a separate paragraph, so we will come back to him later.
It’s a typical Mahesh Bhatt ensemble with only Avtar Gill missing though a couple of characters look tailor-made for him. It’s like one of those films where characters announce their arrival with either whistling a peculiar tune or by simply blurting out a really bad line.
It’s surprising to see the primary actors’ submission to such a badly written script, and then they translated everything on to the screen with even worse body-language and movement. There is an armless person trying to wrestle five people, there is a woman swaying as if she is high on substance with half a kilo vermillion on her forehead and Aditya Roy Kapur, who is once again an addict. There is some kind of competition to look and act weirder.
And before I forget, there is an owl called Kumbhkarna who attacks bad guys on Dutt’s command. If only he had sent the owl towards the writer!
On paper, the film is about a godman and his exploits, but in reality, it’s about being sociopaths for no reason.
You would, in fact, feel bad about Alia Bhatt and Sanjay Dutt, who probably wouldn’t have done this film if it was not by Mahesh Bhatt. It’s worse than even Mr X which has a ‘brahmarakshas’.
But you know what really pained me? A character saying, “Tum meri poori baat sune bina nahi mar sakte (you can’t die without letting me complete).”
What do I do! I paid a heavy price, only because you could be saved.
It’s the worst Hindi film of the year with such recognisable faces. I am not going with zero only because it also has Akshay Anand, who still looks the same.
Don’t take this road. Puncture your own car if others force you to come along.
A journalist with over a decade of experience, Rohit values films as a strong catalyst for social changes. He is equally interested in sports and poli…Read More
“All I can say is, I am so envious I didn’t get to be on set for this production,” Peele said alongside “Oppenheimer” and “Nope” cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema.
Nope, “Barbie” isn’t the most anticipated film of 2023, according to writer-director Jordan Peele.
The “Get Out” and “Nope” auteur is counting down the days instead until Christopher Nolan’s nuclear biopic “Oppenheimer” debuts in theaters. During the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, host Josh Horowitz asked “Oppenheimer” cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who collaborated with Peele on “Nope,” about what to expect from the black-and-white IMAX film.
“The thing is, it is really hard for me to talk about this film because we simply haven’t really sort of all together agreed what we can say and what we want to say,” Van Hoytema said, “so I’m just going to shut up.”
Peele added, “I don’t work for the film, I don’t have a contract or anything. All I can say is, I am so envious I didn’t get to be on set for this production. The talent is incredible. The images, I have seen a couple of images from it that just look so beautiful. It’s going to be a real…It’s what I’m most excited for next year.”
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“Oppenheimer” is based on the life of theoretical physicist and “the father of the Atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy.
Oppenheimer was the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and oversaw the “Manhattan Project,” which first developed nuclear weapons for World War II. He also supervised the Trinity Test, in which the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated in New Mexico. Emily Blunt plays Oppenheimer’s wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie is theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano takes on Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence, amongst an all-star cast.
The trailer for “Oppenheimer” premiered ahead of Peele’s “Nope” in theaters. Director Nolan revealed last year that the biopic used practical effects (aka, actually blew things up) to recreate atomic bomb explosions.
“It’s one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever taken on in terms of the scale of it, and in terms of encountering the breadth of Oppenheimer’s story,” Nolan said. “There were big, logistical challenges, big practical challenges. But I had an extraordinary crew, and they really stepped up. It will be a while before we’re finished. But certainly as I watch the results come in, and as I’m putting the film together, I’m thrilled with what my team has been able to achieve.”
Apple TV+ has announced a spring premiere for season three of its Emmy-winning comedy Ted Lasso and released a first image from the coming run (it’s at the top of this story). The streamer did not, however, say whether the coming season will be the show’s last, as has been widely speculated.
Creators Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly sold the series — based on a character Sudeikis played in a series of NBC Sports promos — with a pitch for a three-season arc. “This story is going to be over [in season three], regardless, even if the show finds another story to tell and goes on,” Lawrence said on The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top 5 podcast after season two ended in October 2021.
Hunt, who plays Coach Beard on the series, echoed that idea in an interview with THR: “We are writing an ending for this three-chunk portion that we’ve always seen, but it’s not like Thanos is in it and half of us die. Most of us, anyway, will probably still be alive, so I don’t think leaving an out is anything to worry about. It’s just a matter of whether or not we pick this up in some other way, and when.”
That said, when the cast signed new deals with significant pay bumps ahead of production on season three, they included options for future seasons. The Warner Bros. TV-produced Ted Lasso is Apple TV+’s most successful show to date, based both on awards — it has won the past two Emmys for best comedy series — and on Nielsen’s measurement, where it’s the only Apple series to break into the ratings service’s weekly top 10 streaming charts.
As for season three, the first photo from the show hints at still unresolved tensions between Ted (Sudeikis) and Nate (Nick Mohammed), who left AFC Richmond at the end of season two and ended up at West Ham United, the Premier League team owned by Rupert Mannion (Anthony Head). It shows Nate and Ted meeting in the West Ham facilities, with Rupert looming in the background.
Sudeikis, Lawrence, Hunt and Kelly executive produce Ted Lasso with Bill Wrubel, Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer of Lawrence’s Doozer banner, Jane Becker and Jamie Lee. Star and writer Brett Goldstein is a co-exec producer.
Damsel, an upcoming film starring Millie Bobby Brown, has released its first few bits of promotional material. Two years ago, it was announced that the Stranger Things and Enola Holmes star would play Princess Elodie, who thinks she will marry the prince of a rival kingdom, Prince Henry (Nich Robinson). However, she soon discovers that the kingdom has, shall we say, a bit of a dark secret.
Every harvest season, the kingdom sacrifices its princess to a hungry, fire-breathing dragon. Finding herself on the menu for a mythic beast, Elodie’s “innocence gives way to a fierce warrior spirit when she finds herself fighting a dragon that’s out to kill her.” Also in the film are Angela Basset, Ray Winstone, Robin Wright, and Shohreh Aghdashloo.
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The first image from Damsel, released from the official Netflix Twitter account, depicts Elodie in what appears to be the dragon’s lair, with flaming sparks surrounding her. She is covered in soot, with her outfit looking like the tank top belonging to John McClane (Bruce Willis) in Die Hard. Miraculously, her hair and makeup still look fabulous, though. In her hands, Elodie is brandishing a sword against what is presumably the dragon, though it isn’t in the picture itself.
A few short clips of Damsel have also been released as part of Netflix’s Save the Dates preview. Besides seeing Elodie wielding that sword in action and her state of dress in further disarray, you also get to see more of the dragon’s lair. Though it’s hard to see due to the scene’s lighting, you can make out the dragon at one point if you look closely enough.
Damsel looks as though it will be in the same vein as The Princess, which was released last year as a Hulu original. Joey King starred as, well, a princess who finds herself in the common predicament of being locked away in a tower. However, instead of waiting for Prince Charming to come to save her, the princess ends up saving herself.
Damsel also has similarities to Rosaline and Catherine Called Birdy as a film set during medieval times that concern a plucky young heroine. Of course, neither film was as heavy on action as Damsel appears to be or The Princess was. Instead, both Rosaline and Catherine Called Birdy were comedies.
Rosaline, also released on Hulu and starring Kaitlyn Dever, was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet from the point of view of Romeo’s ex, who schemes to get him back. Catherine Called Birdy, released on Prime Video and starring Bella Ramsey, was about the daughter of a lord rebelling against her father’s attempts to marry her off to a rich husband.
Damsel is currently set for release on Oct. 13, 2023.
The USC Libraries on Wednesday unveiled nominees for its 35th annual USC Libraries Scripter Award, which honors the screenwriters of the year’s best film and episodic series adaptations, along with the writers of the works on which they are based.
This year’s film nominees are the screenwriters and original authors from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Living, She Said, Top Gun: Maverick and Women Talking. In TV, screenwriters were nominated for penning episodes of The Crown, Fleishman Is in Trouble, Slow Horses, Tokyo Vice and Under the Banner of Heaven.
Winners will be announced March 4 at a ceremony at USC’s Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library, set to be the first in-person awards-season event for the group since 2020 owing to the pandemic.
A total of 101 films and 67 TV adaptations made up this year’s field, which were whittled to the final lists by a selection committee that included screenwriters Eric Roth and Erin Cressida Wilson and authors Walter Mosley and Michael Ondaatje. Former WGA West president and current USC professor Howard Rodman is the 2023 committee chair.
Last year, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel The Lost Daughterwon the Scripters’ film prize, while Danny Strong won in TV for an episode of Hulu’s limited series Dopesick, based on Bety Macy’s nonfiction book. Both scribes went on to score Oscar and Emmy writing noms, respectively.
Here are this year’s finalists:
FILM
Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale and Matthew Robbins Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix) Based on the fairy tale The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (Penguin Classics)
Kazuo Ishiguro Living (Sony Pictures Classics) Based on the novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (Penguin Classics)
Rebecca Lenkiewicz She Said(Universal) Based on the nonfiction book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (Penguin Press)
Peter Craig, Ehren Kruger, Justin Marks, Christopher McQuarrie and Eric Warren Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount) Based on characters from the 1983 California magazine article “Top Guns” by Ehud Yonay
Sarah Polley and Miriam Toews Women Talking (Orion/MGM) Based on Toews’ novel of the same name (Bloomsbury)
EPISODIC SERIES
Peter Morgan The Crown, for the episode “Couple 31” (Netflix) Based on his stage play The Audience (Dramatists Play Service Inc.)
Taffy Brodesser-Akner Fleishman Is in Trouble, for the episode “The Liver” (FX) Based on her book of the same name (Random House)
Will Smith Slow Horses, for the episode “Failure’s Contagious” (Apple TV+) Based on the novel by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
J.T. Rogers Tokyo Vice, for the episode “Yoshino” (HBO Max) Based on the memoir Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein (Knopf Doubleday)
Dustin Lance Black Under the Banner of Heaven, for the episode “When God Was Love” (FX) Based on the nonfiction work by Jon Krakauer (Anchor Books)
Priya Kansara as Ria Khan in Polite Society Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh/ 2022 Focus Features LLC.
How far would you go to stop your eldest sister from marrying a total lemon? Now: how much further would you go if you had a full repertoire of martial arts moves at your disposal?
So goes the central question of Nida Manzoor’s new film Polite Society, which has a brand new trailer out today. Described as a “merry mash up of sisterly affection, parental disappointment and bold action,” Polite Society follows martial artist-in-training Ria Khan, an aspiring stunt woman with, as she tells it, approximately one fan: her big sister, Lena (Ritu Arya).
Polite Society – Official Trailer – In Theaters April 28
Always ready to offer up a “That was dope though!” when Ria lands on her ass attempting a new move, Lena makes a perfect partner in crime—that is, until her new fiancé enters the chat. At first, Ria mostly takes issue with Lena’s fiancé’s “smarmy wanker” persona, but soon, Ria begins to sense something much more sinister (and downright murderous) is at foot in his family. “I’m not being dramatic,” she insists, “but these people are evil.”
Before Lena promises “til death do us part” to a man who may just spell her demise, Ria has to pull out all the stops (spinning bird kicks included) to save her sister from making a huge mistake. If that means orchestrating a wedding heist for the ages and recruiting a gang of equally physically gifted compatriots to kick ass by her side, then so be it.
Rounding out the cast are Nimra Bucha, Shobu Kapoor, Ella Bruccoleri, Seraphina Beh, Shona Babayemi, Jeff Mirza, and Akshay Khanna—Manzoor also penned the script.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Antti Savolainen
Coming to VOD next Friday, January 27: THE MISSION
Director: Tania Anderson
World Premiere: Sundance 2022
Select Festivals: Göteborg, Thessaloniki Doc, Zurich, Beldocs, Docs Against Gravity
About: A revelation of the inner lives of young Mormon missionaries, as they leave their homes for the first time and embark upon the most emotionally, physically, and psychologically challenging period of their life.
Postmedia is moving a dozen of its Alberta community newspapers to digital-only formats, eyeing more outsourcing deals for printing and laying off workers.
The moves were announced Wednesday in an internal memo to staff obtained by The Canadian Press that describes the measures as part of a transformation plan geared toward managing costs. The memo says the plan will result in an unspecified number of roles being eliminated across Postmedia over the coming month as it works through vacancies and layoffs.
It adds that the Postmedia publications moving to digital formats will make the transition on Feb. 27, but did not name which newspapers will make the switch.
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Postmedia also used the memo to announce that it has entered into a limited partnership agreement with Glacier Media and will be moving all of its Saskatchewan printing to Estevan Printing.
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The company says it will be putting its Saskatoon building up for sale and looking to sublease a Regina property, leaving Saskatchewan-based employees to permanently adopt remote work.
Montreal Gazette’s Monday print newspaper edition to end as Postmedia announces ‘reader habit’ changes
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 18, 2023.
Fashion and cinema meet in a beautifully crafted tribute video directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie starring Oscar and Emmy Winner Rami Malek and Catherine Deneuve that was made to celebrate the relaunch of Cartier’s newly redesigned Tank Française watches.
Courtesy of Cartier
More than 25 years after its creation, the Tank Française watch is back in the limelight in a film worthy of a design icon. The Tank Française watch is surrounded by an international cast of strong personalities: Rami Malek, an ambassador of elegance, known for his roles in Mr Robot and Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most singular actors of his generation and Oscar Nominee Catherine Deneuve known for her roles in Belle De jour and Indochine is a French legend and muse of cinema and style who is also an avid watch collector. Join them on a journey through time.
“The first watch I ever owned was a Cartier Tank. It was something I aspired to have when I was studying to become an actor and had mounting student debts,” said Malek.
“You can kind of wear it anywhere. There is nothing trendy about it, it works without being trendy – that’s what makes it timeless. I wore it on the red carpet for a premiere recently, as I felt it was elegant enough for that, but it’s also a t-shirt and jeans kind of watch as well. It just takes it up a notch,” he added.
The first Cartier Tank was unveiled more than 100 years ago in 1917, designed by Louis Cartier. Ever since then Cartier has released a brand new and improved versions of this iconic watch in 1922, 1977, 1988 and the last version which was released 27 years ago was the Tank Française in 1996.
Now, more than a quarter of a century later, Cartier reinvents the Tank Francaise with a monobloc metal design and a new approach, both aesthetic and ergonomic, that energizes the ultra-profiled lines of the watch, available in steel and yellow gold, with or without diamonds.
Courtesy of Cartier
Courtesy of Cartier
Courtesy of Cartier
“This film is an expression of Cartier’s vision of watchmaking and the timelessness of its creations.
Courtesy of Cartier
It’s a journey through time, where past and present merge, in the image of the Tank Française, a true icon of the past and present. It also represents the meeting between French style, symbolised by the Tank and Catherine Deneuve, with the avant-garde, free and legendary cinema that Rami Malek so brilliantly conveys,” says Arnaud Carrez, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer.
Made famous by the likes of Michelle Obama; Giselle Bündchen, Robin Wright and of course Princess Diana, the Tank Française will be relaunched this month. It felt only fitting that a film be created in honor of the relaunch.
Cartier commissioned Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, The Gentleman, Aladdin) to capture this tribute to the timeless classic. Filmed where it all began, Paris. Ritchie looked to incorporate contemporary cinematography with parisian style and a look through the decades. An incredible 26,202 photographs were taken during the shoot, which enlisted 88 technicians, hair stylists, make-up artists and others.
“The idea behind this film is the fantasy of crossing the bridge, from one bank to the other, a metaphor for the passage of time. I didn’t want to be too precious with this story, and preferred to add a fantasy element to it. It’s more of an encounter with cinema that is not necessarily literal and precise—that’s what makes the film unique.” Says Ritchie.
Watch the film here
Two actors, two characters, two continents and two generations all connected through a love of fashion, cinema, and a legendary Cartier timepiece.
The moment we have all been waiting for all of us gamers has finally arrived! The Last of Us premiered on Sunday on HBO/HBO Max in a groundbreaking premiere episode. By far one of the best game adaptations of the hit PlayStation game “The Last of Us”, the show scored the second-biggest debut in the last 13 years, behind only “House of the Dragon for HBO.
The show takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Spoilers below… stop reading if you haven’t seen the episode.
It starts off in a chilling flashback scene with scientists explaining the inevitable. Talking about pandemics with viruses and bringing things too close to home. Here however it is fungus that could infect humans. It it at this moment in silence after this is said, where we realize calamity is imminent, and that there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
The Beginning, Outbreak Day
Courtesy of HBO/HBO Max
Now we move into the real source material. Time jumping into 2003, where we are introduced to Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker). If you played the game then you know this is outbreak day and what is to come. However, apart from the game itself, the show adds more layers to these characters by filling in what the game didn’t. There is more depth and emotion we can feel conveyed in these scenes. The most chilling part was when we see the old lady, who resides next door begin to move her mouth in a strange way while earlier she was seen completely incapacitated in a wheel chair. While this is all going Sarah is in front of her picking up a movie for her father on his birthday. It is at this moment, that underlines what is to come for Sarah.
This is when the dread starts to set in and we begin to see how everything starts to fall apart. Taken straight from the game, we start to see one by one everyone start to get infected. As we all know how bad this can get with our very own COVID pandemic, it starts to feel more and more real that this is happening. We are then put in a first person POV (like the game) showing us all the chaos surrounding Joel, Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Sarah while they are driving through the city to escape. Although nothing can prepare us for the death of Sarah. The utter heartbreak and devastation that Pascal portrayed brought all of us to tears.
Living In A Post-Apocalyptic World
Courtesy of HBO/HBO Max
Now we jump to 20 years later, 2023. Here we see Joel, looking completely worn down and gray haired. A man that has completely given up on life. We also see the utter destruction that this devastating fungal pandemic has caused wiping out most of humanity. Gone are the days of freedom, enter in Quarantine Zones, curfews and the military (FEDRA) taking over at check in locations. PTSD kick in yet? In Hunger Games fashion, food supply is very low and are called rations which is a fixed amount. Money is no longer used and jobs are assigned by the military.
However, a slight change was made apart from the game. Instead of Joel looking for ammo and pills, here is a looking for a car battery to find his brother Tommy. This is where he and Tess (Anna Torv) meet Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a foul mouthed spunky teenager who was kidnapped by the Fireflies. The Fireflies were a revolutionary militia group featured as an antagonistic faction. Here Marlene who is the leader for this faction tasks Joel and Tess to take the girl to remaining Fireflies outside the city. Them not knowing how incredibly important she is to all this. The episode ends off with them escaping the city to deliver Ellie to the remaining Fireflies.
What can we expect the rest of the season?
Courtesy of HBO/HBO Max
HBO has given us a trailer of what is to come for the rest of the season. We see Joel and Ellie facing off against all the horrors of this post-apocalyptic world. It includes a bunch of spoilers for what’s ahead, so if you don’t want to see, please skip. It even gives us a first look at what the cordyceps will look it. Cordyceps are humans that were invaded by the fungus who uses them as host’s. They connect to our brain and create us to behave aggressively by spreading the fungus through a bite.
Below please find the trailer for what’s in the store the rest of the season courtesy of HBO/HBO Max
Cast includes Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Anna Torv as Tess, Nico Parker as Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Storm Reid as Riley, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, and Elaine Miles as Florence. Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker also star in the series.
Courtesy of HBO/HBO Max
Brace yourselves because we are going to be in for quite a ride. New episodes of HBO’s The Last of Us will be airing on Sunday at 9:00 PM EST, running up to the Season 1 finale on March 12, 2023.
Tech giant Microsoft said it is cutting 10,000 jobs, representing about 5% of its global workforce, in an effort to cut costs amid signs of an economic slowdown.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the layoffs in a memo to staff Wednesday, which the company disclosed in an SEC filing. The job cuts will occur through the end of Microsoft’s third quarter of fiscal 2023, which ends in March. Some employees are being notified today that they’re losing their jobs, Nadella wrote.
In addition to the layoffs, Microsoft is taking other cost-cutting actions, including making “changes to our hardware portfolio” — which it didn’t detail — and will consolidate building leases “to create higher density across our workspaces,” the company said in the SEC filing. All together, Microsoft said the moves will result in a charge of $1.2 billion for the December 2022 quarter, representing a 12 cent/share hit to diluted earnings.
“These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn’t adapt to platform shifts,” Nadella wrote in the companywide memo.
While Microsoft saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, according to Nadella, “we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less.” He added that the company is “seeing organizations in every industry and geography exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one.”
Microsoft had hired roughly 75,000 employees since 2019 as the company “needed to aggressively hire along with the rest of the tech sector and spend money like 1980s rock stars to keep pace with eye-popping demand,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a research note Wednesday. “We are seeing the clock strike midnight for the tech sector after a decade of hyper growth and now major layoffs are being seen at MSFT, Salesforce, Meta, Amazon, among many others across the Valley.” Wedbush is maintaining its “outperform” rating on Microsoft, with a $290/share 12-month price target.
Microsoft is eliminating roles in some areas but “we will continue to hire in key strategic areas,” Nadella noted. The industry is seeing the next major wave of computing “being born with advances in AI, as we’re turning the world’s most advanced models into a new computing platform.”
Microsoft is scheduled to release Q2 FY23 financial results after the close of the market on Tuesday, Jan. 24.
YouTube TV subscribers will notice some refinements and tweaks to the service’s “library” section starting today. The new interface lets viewers see more programming and recommendations at once and includes simplified filters for drilling down into the type of shows you actually want to find. It’s not a wholesale reinvention of the TV guide — but so far, it looks like a quicker way of finding something to watch.
“This UI model is almost like the hybrid, I would say, of a grid and a feed. We’re continually thinking about how to reinvent television so that we don’t have to just rely on one model,” Esther Ahn, the head of design for YouTube TV, told me in a call last week.
YouTube says its design philosophy is centered around “TV made for you.” These improvements are all in service of cutting down on decision fatigue — finding something to watch can be a chore when you’ve got several streaming services at your disposal — and steering you towards the content that’s most important. YouTube TV continues to add new channels (including free ones), and the coming addition of NFL Sunday Ticket will be a huge moment for the service. How do you bring all of that together in a cohesive user experience that’s actually enjoyable to use? It involves a lot of user research.
The three hubs of YouTube TV serve different purposes.Image: YouTube
“We go into homes all the time, which literally means we’re in living rooms watching TV with individuals and their families,” said Ahn, who has been at YouTube for nearly seven years, first as the head of user experience for YouTube Music before shifting to the premium TV service in 2019. That UX research went remote during the pandemic; YouTube TV didn’t want to lose out on a regular loop of user feedback, so it used interactive prototypes to test different ideas and see how they were received by viewers. (YouTube TV reps are also active on the service’s subreddit and will often pop into threads to answer questions or address bugs.)
“We’re trying to meet viewers where they are and ultimately design a very intuitive experience, regardless of what you’ve used in the past,” Ahn said. Cord cutters are very accustomed to traditional TV listings and have proven reluctant to let go of the classic channel grid: a few years ago, Hulu learned a painful lesson after trying to radically shake up the presentation of live TV. The service’s big redesign had bold ideas, but it bombed with customers, and the company spent months retreating back to a more familiar interface.
GIF: YouTube
Ahn said that in the leadup to YouTube TV’s launch, the team had similarly ambitious thoughts of ditching the cable-like live guide altogether, but ultimately decided against it. With the latest refresh, the live guide has a condensed grid that displays more channels and programming on screen. At the top you’ll see a row of personalized recommendations; just scroll down past those and you’re in the standard grid. The team also worked to reduce the number of remote clicks necessary to record content (“add to library” in YouTube TV lingo) and make it more obvious from the guide when a show, movie, or sports game is set to be saved to the service’s unlimited DVR.
The new library puts your most important content right at the top
But an “unlimited” DVR has a way of producing an unwieldy library of random stuff. “We understood that the library, in its previous state, it was challenging to navigate,” Ahn said. Parents bemoaned that kid-friendly programming often infiltrated their larger library; other people wanted simpler ways of separating serial content (weekly shows) from daily news, nightly talk shows, and other programming.
So YouTube TV came up with a new library page that, based on my brief first impression, does seem better and more useful. The side navigation is gone, replaced with a row of filters — “chips” in Google UX parlance — that will drill down into specific content categories when you select them. “We’ve broken out the notion of shows and the series versus daily shows. You can also go dive into movies,” Ahn said, noting that movies will now have taller artwork in the library to help you visually distinguish them from TV shows.
YouTube TV’s research shows that most people use the library for verification — meaning they want to check and make sure the latest episode of their favorite show or a big sports game was properly saved. So the team tried to make the library more helpful at a glance: at the top of the revamped library page is a new “catch up on your favorites” section that puts your most relevant content in one place. It also added clearer badges and overlays to show how many new episodes are waiting or the number of your team’s games that have been saved recently. Below the catch up area, you’ll find the filters for exploring the rest of your stuff. These will dynamically change based on what’s in your library.
The new library page has a “catch up” section and dynamic filters.Image: YouTube
The new library will roll out across TV platforms this month. As for what’s ahead for the mobile and tablet versions of YouTube TV, Ahn said that those might look different. “I wouldn’t say that this is about replicating the exact UI across mobile and desktop. But it’s honing in now on the best use cases for why would people want to be on their phone versus when they want to be on the computer versus when they want to lean back in the living room. And so we’re determining the right adaptations based on use cases.”
Today’s blog post says that YouTube TV is also working on enhancements to the Home section (it was left mostly untouched this go-round) that will focus on browsing and easier discoverability. “We’ll also bring more flexibility and interactivity during live playback and add the ability to easily switch between user profiles.”
That all sounds well and good, but when people are paying $64.99 per month for YouTube TV, it damn well better have a top-notch user experience. It’s right there in the upper echelon of streaming services along with competitors like Hulu with Live TV. I’m more willing to accept less from services (like Sling TV) that aren’t as expensive.
Ahn and her team seem focused on the right things design-wise, but there are still pain points for the service as a whole. YouTube’s 4K add-on remains considerably overpriced — even if it comes with unlimited concurrent streams. (YouTube has recently been offering different promotional pricing for the 4K package, so maybe it’s gotten the message.) And across YouTube TV forums and on the subreddit, customers in some regions continue to complain about receiving so-so video quality from the live TV service. Ahn said the YouTube TV team is constantly monitoring feedback (including the sluggishness and lag some subscribers have encountered with the new live guide in its early stages) and optimizing performance across devices.
There are no special hardware requirements or device cutoffs for these new features: if you’re using YouTube TV on a given platform right now, you’ll be getting the improved UX. YouTube TV spokesperson Allison Toh said “we are rolling out slowly across devices.” The live guide has already made its way to select customers watching from Apple TV, Roku, and other hardware.
The HBO limited series “The Palace” starring Kate Winslet has added Martha Plimpton to its cast. In addition, Jessica Hobbs has boarded the series as a co-executive producer and director.
Along with Winslet and Plimpton, the cast for the show also includes Hugh Grant, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Andrea Riseborough. Exact character details are being kept under wraps, but according to the official logline for “The Palace,” the show “tells the story of one year within the walls of the palace of an authoritarian regime as it begins to unravel.” It was originally ordered at HBO in July 2022.
Plimpton is a three-time Emmy nominee, winning the award for best guest actress in a drama for “The Good Wife” in 2012. She was also nominated in the same category for “Law & Order: SVU” and for best actress in a comedy for “Raising Hope,” the latter of which she starred in for four seasons. Her recent TV credits include “Sprung,” “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” “Brockmire,” and “Younger.” In film, she is known for her roles in “The Goonies,” “The Mosquito Coast,” “Parenthood,” and “Small Town Murder Songs.”
She is repped by Markham, Froggatt & Irwin in the UK and Innovative Artists in the US.
Hobbs is a two-time Emmy nominee for her work directing the hit Netflix series “The Crown,” winning the award for best directing for a drama series in 2021. She has directed seven episodes of that show in total, including the Season 4 finale and the Season 5 premiere. Her other directing credits include “Broadchurch,” “The Slap,” “The Split,” and “Apple Tree Yard.”
She is repped by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and CAA.
Will Tracy serves as writer, executive producer, and showrunner on “The Palace.” Stephen Frears will direct and executive produce, with Winslet executive producing in addition to starring. Frank Rich and Tracey Seaward also executive produce, with Hobbs now co-executive producing. Seth Reiss, Juli Weiner, Jen Spyra, Gary Shteyngart, and Sarah DeLappe also write for the series.
In her latest Instagram post, Disha Patani was seen dressed in an animal-printed bra and innerwear and the photo has already gone viral.
Disha Patani is known for her sartorial choices and the actress can nail any look with ease. Her Instagram handle is filled with jaw-dropping, gorgeous photos of her. Recently, Disha shared yet another sizzling photo and it has already gone viral. The actress was dressed in an animal-printed bra and innerwear for the latest photo shoot with a brand. She wore jeans and kept her hair open to complete her look. The actress went for a nude makeup look. In the photo, she flaunted her perfectly toned body.
Take a look at the photo:
As soon as Disha shared this on social media, her fans and followers flocked to the comment section to shower her with compliments. One user wrote, “Aapki cuteness ka raaz kya hai mam” while another comment read, “The most beautiful girl in the whole world.” Her rumoured ex-boyfriend Tiger Shroff’s mother Ayesha Shroff and sister Krishna Shroff, too, left compliments for her. The former wrote, “Woaaaah deeshu ❤️” while the latter added, “You’re unreal.”
Meanwhile, Disha is also making headlines lately for her rumoured relationship with Aleksandar Alex Ilic. While the actress is yet to confirm the relationship, her recent photos have once again fuelled speculation among fans. Ilic has, however, clarified that they are only close friends.
On the work front, Disha Patani was last seen sharing the screen space with Arjun Kapoor, John Abraham, and Tara Sutaria in Ek Villain returns. She will next be seen in Yodha, Project K, and an untitled Siva film.
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Brendan Fraser won for Best Actor at the Critics Choice Awards Sunday night for his poignant portrayal of Charlie in The Whale. He’s also considered the frontrunner at the Oscars. And he’s sure to collect more statues on the way to that penultimate award show.
And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving man. Sure, there’s the typical story arc of the ultimate comeback: achieving success after a time of falling off everyone’s radar, only to be feted by your peers, many of whom wrote him off years ago.
But Brendan Fraser’s comeback is so much more.
He was blackballed by a Hollywood industry insider who had sexually harassed him, and not just any insider, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), Philip Berk (who disputes the account). Fraser said the shocking experience was hard to come back from, saying he felt “something had been taken away from me” in a GQ interview. Bravely, he refused to stay silent about the incident. The HFPA puts on the Golden Globes, which Fraser said he would never attend even if he won. He was the frontrunner for Best Actor, but the award instead went to Austin Butler for Elvis. Had Fraser won, it would have made for an interesting, if awkward moment during the telecast.
Combined with the incident, the physical toll that years of doing stunts had done to his body, the Mummy actor had dived into a form of depression for years. You can read the full account in the GQ article, which I highly recommend, it’s worth the full read.
But in the meantime, he kept showing up at fan conventions and was said to be very approachable.
His isolation within the industry seemed unjust and utterly unfair. But turn back to work he did, and he put in one of the best performances of his career in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. The response from his fans and peers has been rapturous. We love a comeback story. But even more, we love to cheer on a sensitive soul such as Fraser. This has the feel of a comeback that we’ve been praying for a long time to occur.
And everyone wants to celebrate his win. Check out the room when his name was announced at the Critics Choice ceremony:
“I was in the wilderness and I probably should have left a trail of breadcrumbs, but you found me,” Fraser tearfully said during his acceptance speech (was there a dry eye in the audience?). “For anyone like Charlie, who struggles with obesity, or for anyone who just feels like you are in a dark sea: I want you to know that you too have the strength to just get to your feet and go to the light. And good things will happen.”
Everything Everywhere All at Once also win big that night, but the cast members took plenty of time to congratulate Fraser with his inspiring win, including Michelle Yeoh.
Yeoh’s co-star from Everything, Ke Huy Quan—who also won that night—had an awesome Encino Man reunion with Fraser that was a mutual comeback celebration. You can read more about their emotional meeting here.
Ke Huy Quan & Brendan Fraser are amazing role models in never giving up. I’m so proud of them. But I kinda hate how the industry that parades them around for their “comeback” are made up of the very same people who didn’t care for years, like where the fuck were you y’all? pic.twitter.com/XN1BEqNiIo
Not lost in the action, the entire cast of the movie basically adopted Brendan Fraser as an honorary cast member.
I mean, who doesn’t love Brendan Fraser? Let’s keep the wins coming all award season long. The happiness is infectious and it couldn’t happen to a lovelier person.
EXCLUSIVE: Main Event Media, the production company behind Peacock’s Punky Brewster reboot and Netflix dating format Dated and Related, is moving to Religion of Sports with an exclusive production deal.
The deal sees the company move from All3Media, where it was previously housed, having been launched by former Objective Media exec Jimmy Fox in 2017.
Main Event Media will now be a production label under Religion of Sports, which was founded by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra.
It will serve as Religion of Sports pop culture arm. Main Event also produces series such as UnitedShades of America with W. Kamau Bell for CNN, Netflix true-crime doc Girl in the Picture, YouTube’s Defying Gravity: The Untold Story of Women’s Gymnastics, HBO Max’s Sweet Life: Los Angeles and Nickelodeon competition series Top Elf.
Religion of Sports produces sports related content including Tom vs. Time, Stephen vs. The Game, Greatness Code, Man in the Arena, and Shut Up and Dribble.
Fox, who was previously head of development at Ben Silverman’s Electus, will remain as President of Main Event Media and will remain attached to several projects in partnership with All3Media currently set up at various networks.
Main Event Media executives Emily Bon and Stephanie Valentin will also move over as VPs of development.
“First off, I am beyond grateful to the leadership of All3Media for the past nine years and everything we’ve accomplished together,” said Fox. “After sitting with Gotham and hearing his vision for the growth of Religion of Sports as a home for creators across all genres of storytelling, I was extremely inspired and saw clearly how Main Event could complement an already flourishing operation… also, I was told they have an NBA Jam arcade machine in the office which really sweetened the deal.”
“Part of our mission at Religion of Sports as we grow has been to be a platform for prolific creators to strut their stuff,” added Gotham Chopra. “I couldn’t be more excited for Jimmy and his talented team at Main Event Media to join the ROS family – even though his Warriors beat my Celtics in last season’s NBA Finals.”
At 5 p.m. PT, voting for the 95th Academy Awards nominations closed.
It seems mundane, but we venture into the unknown each year, trying to determine the tastes of over 9,500 Academy members. I’ve had dozens of conversations with voters, industry experts and awards strategists, trying to determine which way the Academy could be leaning when the nominees are announced on Jan. 24.
The last beat of influence on the Oscar race was from the Critics Choice ceremony, where “Everything Everywhere All at Once” triumphed with five wins including best picture and director.
Many precursors give clues to what a particular category could look like. However, with voting now closed, we are flying blind without the Writers Guild Award nominations, which come out after Oscar noms are announced, USC Scripter Awards (indicator for adapted screenplay), ACE Eddies (a major indicator for editing) and BAFTA noms (strongest clue on where the British voting bloc is putting its love).
Here are some things I’ve learned from conversations with voters:
“Top Gun: Maverick” love is real and could go all the way.
“Top Gun: Maverick” is beloved, and many members indicate this is their best picture pick or ranked incredibly high on their ballots. Discussions with members of the acting branch have not indicated the alleged “fifth spot” is going to Tom Cruise, but you can choose virtually anyone (Hugh Jackman, Paul Mescal, etc.) and place your bets.
An unspoken secret: many voters don’t love “The Fabelmans.”
When asking about “The Fabelmans,” there are many passionate admirers of the family drama based on director Steven Spielberg’s life. However, a prominent member of the producers’ branch shared with Variety: “I really didn’t like it.”
Many discussions have been had with other members about their unenthusiastic response to the Universal Pictures film. This does not signal a shocking “Fabelmans” best picture or directing snub, but it could hint at key misses coming on Tuesday morning. The same goes for Todd Field’s “Tár,” which is looking to come up short in some tech races but still has hopes to pop up in cinematography and editing.
“Everything Everywhere’s” fate depends on the international members.
The international members are the hardest to gauge this time around. They’ve been a clutch demographic for successful showings like “The Father” (2020) and Penélope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers” (2021). The problem is many movies are splitting that love such as “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Living,” “RRR” and “Triangle of Sadness.” Even “Tár” eats into the demographic.
When it comes to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the big night at the Critics Choice Awards surely helped, but the general consensus is that it is loved by younger Academy members and divided with older ones. While many feel confident about the Daniels’ placement in the best director race (which is a smart choice), I’ve been burned too many times by that branch to trust their judgments all the time. People suggest we need to see if the international voters come aboard.
Possible category switcharoos, and the search for the lone screenplay and “WTF?” nominees.
I’ve shared my theory with actors’ branch members that Michelle Williams’ SAG miss could be explained by the NomCom expecting to see her in the supporting actress category for “The Fabelmans.” At least two branch voters tell Variety they voted for the four-time nominee in supporting actress. Interestingly, that’s not the only lead/supporting switch I came across.
Brendan Gleeson had at least two mentions alongside his co-star Colin Farrell for “The Banshees of Inisherin” in best actor, rather than supporting, where he’s campaigned. He would be an interesting “fifth slot” selection, but would likely doom any hopes of Farrell winning in the end (or himself).
Traditionally, in the expanded era, we’ve seen a screenplay nominee with no other mentions and an actor who shocks, without any precursors. In the case of the writer, some suspects include “Aftersun” and “Triangle of Sadness” (if they come up short in other categories), “She Said” (without Carey Mulligan) and “Glass Onion” (without Janelle Monáe or a tech nod).
Who are the suspects in the acting races without any other mentions? Tom Hanks (“A Man Called Otto” in lead or “Elvis” in supporting), Nina Hoss (“Tár”), Ben Whishaw (“Women Talking”) or Gabriel LaBelle (“The Fabelmans”).
Regarding the Andrea Riseborough “surge” that has occurred in the last couple of days for her work in “To Leslie,” it’s either the most brilliant PR stunt ever performed or something crazy is about to occur with a jaw-dropper in best actress. I’m inclined to believe the former, with only one mention of her film coming from an AMPAS voter, and it wasn’t even an acting branch member.
With voting now closed, any nominations announced after today will not “influence” the race but only supplement it with (possible) helpful information.
Find the final BAFTA Awards predictions below (announcing Thursday, Jan. 19), and check back for the final Oscars predictions to drop on Thursday morning.
“The Fabelmans” (Universal Pictures) — Rick Carter (production designer), Karen O’Hara (set decorator)
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (Netflix) — Curt Enderle (production designer), Guy Davis (set decorator)
Alternate: “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Cinematography
“Athena” (Netflix) — Matias Boucard
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.) — Mandy Walker
“Empire of Light” (Searchlight Pictures) — Roger Deakins
“Tár” (Focus Features) — Florian Hoffmeister
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures) — Claudio Miranda
Alternate: “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight Pictures)
Costume Design
“Babylon” (Paramount Pictures) — Mary Zophres
“The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight Pictures)
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios) — Ruth E. Carter
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.) — Catherine Martin
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” (Focus Features) — Jenny Eagan
Alternate: “Amsterdam”
Editing
“Aftersun” (A24) — Blair McClendon
“The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight Pictures) — Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.) — Jonathan Redmond, Matt Villa
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24) — Paul Rogers
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures) — Eddie Hamilton
Alternate: “Moonage Daydream”
Make Up & Hair
“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix) — Heike Merker (hair and makeup designer, SFX design)
“Amsterdam” (20th Century Studios) — Nana Fischer (makeup department head), Lori McCoy Bell (hair department head), Adruitha Lee (hair department head)
“Babylon” (Paramount Pictures) — Heba Thorisdottir (makeup department head), Jaime Leigh McIntosh (hair department head)
“The Batman” (Warner Bros.) — Naomi Donne (makeup designer), Mike Marino (prosthetics design), Zoe Tahir (hair designer)
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.) — Shane Thomas (hair and makeup designer), Mark Coulier (prosthetics designer), Jason Baird (prosthetics supervisor for Tom Hanks and Austin Butler), Louise Coulston (key hairdresser)
Alternate: “The Whale”
Sound
“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix) — Lars Ginzel, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Viktor Prášil
“Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century Studios) — Gwen Whittle (supervising sound editor), Gary Summers, Mike Hedges (re-recording mixers), Chris Boyes (supervising sound editor, re-recording mixer), Tony Johnson (production sound mixer), Julian Howarth
“Babylon” (Paramount Pictures) — Steven Morrow (production sound mixer), Mildred Iatrou Morgan (supervising sound editor), Andy Nelson (re-recording mixer) Ai-Ling Lee (supervising sound editor, re-recording mixer)
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.) — David Lee (production sound mixer), Wayne Pashley (sound designer, supervising sound editor), Andy Nelson, Michael Keller (re-recording mixers)
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures) — Mark Weingarten (production sound mixer), James H. Mather, Al Nelson (supervising sound editors), Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor (re-recording mixers)
Alternate: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Special Visual Effects
“Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century Studios)
“The Batman” (Warner Bros.)
“Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” (Marvel Studios)
“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” (Warner Bros.)
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures)
Alternate: “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Original Score
“Babylon” (Paramount Pictures) — Justin Hurwitz
“Empire of Light” (Searchlight Pictures) — Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (Netflix) — Alexandre Desplat
“‘Multiply’ is about that very real thing that happens to many women when their hormones start saying ‘I want a baby,'” Adi Oasis tells Rolling Stone. “It can be purely hormonal, or desperately romantic”
French-Caribbean musician Adi Oasis has penned musical entries that mine the human experience. On her latest single, “Multiply,” she even makes the topic of ovulating simmer with romance, embedding it with a sense of control that it doesn’t usually carry. In the accompanying video for the record, which will appear on her forthcoming album Lotus Glow, out March 3, the singer leans into high fashion for a euphoric visual performance.
“‘Multiply’ is about that very real thing that happens to many women when their hormones start saying “I want a baby,’” Oasis tells Rolling Stone in a statement. “It can be purely hormonal, or desperately romantic. Sometimes it’s both. Of course, men say ‘I want to have your baby’ to women all the time. But I wanted to flip the script, saying it from a position of power, but also from a place of vulnerability.”
Over jazzy production, Oasis gives it up to nature, singing: “My ovaries are calling, calling/It’s just a need, you’re just in time/Don’t blame it on me, cause my world keeps turning/You make me wanna multiply.”
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“Multiply” arrives as a type of reintroduction from the singer formerly known as Adeline. Lotus Glow marks her second full-length album release but functions as a new beginning as her first release as Adi Oasis.
“Lotus Glow is the first album I’ve released as Adi Oasis, and it’s my most personal work yet,” she tells Rolling Stone. “Musically it’s my most confident — and the most organic, and funky, the way we sound on stage. Thematically it’s fearless, yet vulnerable, and also more political, because I am a black female immigrant, and these are my truths. Lotus Glow represents the flower I have blossomed into, and the Glow that is my destiny.”
Netflix revealed “Full Swing” as the title of its upcoming docu-series following the PGA Tour and its biggest stars, and also announced the premiere date and dropped a trailer for the show.
The eight-episode series will debut globally on Netflix on Feb. 15. “Full Swing” showcases PGA players through their wins and losses, promising a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to compete — and win — at the highest levels in men’s pro golf, per Netflix’s description. Defending PGA Champion Justin Thomas (above left, with Jordan Spieth) are among the stars featured in the show. (Watch the trailer below.)
Also appearing in “Full Swing” are Rory McIlroy, who appears briefly in the trailer, as well as PGA players Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, Ian Poulter, Joel Dahmen, Matt Fitzpatrick, Dustin Johnson, Tony Finau, Sahith Theegala, Mito Pereira and Joaquin Niemann.
“If I want the game that I love to be played by future generations, the game needs to be pushed forward,” McIlroy says in the trailer.
The series provides an inside look at the PGA’s biggest events for the first time ever, including the 150th Open Championship last year at St. Andrews in Scotland, The Players, The Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, the U.S. Open and the FedExCup Playoffs.
“Full Swing” was produced in partnership with the PGA Tour by Vox Media Studios and Box to Box Films, the company behind Netflix’s “Formula 1: Drive to Survive.” The series executive producers are Vox Media Studios’ Chad Mumm and Mark Olsen and Paul Martin and James Gay-Rees with Box to Box Films.
Two men in India were declared dead after being slashed by birds’ with knives attached to their feet during cock fighting events that took place during the Sankranti harvest celebrations.
One of the victims, Gande Suryapraksha Rao, was tying knives to the feet of a fighting rooster when the animal became spooked, causing it to fly in the air and inflict severe damage on the 42 year-old who was declared dead at a hospital later that day.
Around the same time in another district, 20 year-old Padma Raju was also grievously injured whilst he was waiting to watch the birds fight at the cockfighting pit.
Cockfighting has been a tradition within the South-East regions of India for a long time, meaning that it is hard to stomp out despite the sport being previously banned by the Indian Supreme Court in 2016
Knives attached to the feet of the birds make them extremely dangerous, as well as being trained and conditioned for fights
Within Andhra Pradesh, the state located on India’s South-East coast, cockfighting is a common occurrence, especially during Sankranti, an important day in the Hindu calendar.
Cockfighting has long been a tradition in the region, but many have made the sport more extreme by attaching blades to the feet of the animals.
This extreme version of the sport has been banned in India since 2018 reversing it decision of being fully banned by the Indian Supreme Court in 2016.
Police have tried to curtail this activity in previous years but the events have garnered a lot of popular support, with hotels being booked well in advance within the Godvavari districts.
In anticipation for the crowds, organisers had pitched tents, made barricades and hired bouncers for the upcoming events.
‘Cockfights are the biggest attractions in Godavari and parts of Krishna and Guntur districts during the three-day Sankranti festival.’ a festival goer told The New Indian Express.
Bids on the roosters range from 10,000 rupees (£100) to 500,000 (near £5000), with prices to buy the fighting birds going from 8,000 (£80) rupees to 20,000 rupees (£200) per each cock.
Cockfighting is a tradition in the region, so is extremely popular and difficult to stop, even in its extreme version.
The reboot of NBC’s “Night Court” feels like it came out of nowhere, but as sitcom resurrections go, it’s kind of irresistible.
The original show, which ran for nine seasons, was the brainchild of Reinhold Weege, a spark plug of a television writer who earned three Emmys for the show. He had previously won an Emmy for his work on “Barney Miller,” which explains his skill with comedies about the absurdities underlying social institutions. With “Night Court,” Weege, who died in 2012, built a steel trap of a workplace sitcom about a judge and courtroom staff at the nation’s weirdest hall of justice. (It’s based on the New York City Criminal Court, which processes and arraigns Manhattan’s accused until past midnight.)
The new “Night Court,” developed by sitcom yeoman Dan Rubin (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”), hews closely to the original format, a testament to the sturdiness of Weege’s show. (It also wisely keeps the lite-jazz opening theme, a top-tier sitcom overture.) Here, the judge is Abby Stone (Melissa Rauch of “The Big Bang Theory”), who quickly clarifies that yes, she is the daughter of the late Harry Stone, the arbiter played by the late Harry Anderson. Like her father, Abby is an affable and empathetic judge with a talent for close-up magic. But Abby is also bright-eyed and idealistic, her energy radiating through an environment characterized by cynicism and despair.
Abby’s personality initially makes her inscrutable to her clerk Neil (Kapil Talwalkar) and Olivia (India de Beaufort), the assistant district attorney responsible for processing arrestees like widgets on a factory line. Abby jells better with Donna, aka “Gurgs” (Lacretta), the night shift’s happy-go-lucky bailiff. But Abby most confuses the public defender assigned to her court, so she has to convince Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) to give up his current hustle as a process server and come back before the bench.
Dan agrees to return, but this time as a public defender. And it’s a good thing: it’s hard to imagine a viable version of 2023’s “Night Court” without Larroquette reprising the role he originated. Larroquette is a killer sitcom performer, able to put force behind every zinger. This despite playing a radically different version of Dan Fielding. The lecherous young prosecutor who was a menace to any woman within earshot has grown into a more emotionally complex person. In addition to being less gross, Dan has since realized how much he valued his job and the people he did it with.
Larroquette is well-matched with Rauch, who plays Abby with a spiky cheerfulness reminiscent of characters like Leslie Knope and Kimmy Schmidt. The chemistry between the two is enough to carry the first few episodes, which, like even the best workplace sitcoms, takes a few episodes to find its footing. The supporting cast is mostly solid, particularly de Beaufort, whose spin on the self-absorbed prosecutor role is shrewd and hilarious. It may take a few more episodes (six were sent out to critics) to find the right application for Talwalkar’s muddled character.
But once “Night Court” gets going, the jokes hit harder and more often, and the visual gags in the courtroom get ever more outlandish. The genius of “Night Court” lies in the novelty of the characters who come through the courtroom, each bringing with them a microdose of sketch comedy. There’s a reason “Saturday Night Live” does so many courtroom sketches, and “Night Court” serves as a reminder of it. The courtroom is a conveyor belt of colorful characters.
To its credit, Rubin’s take on “Night Court” understands better than its forebear that there are human beings behind its sight gags and a good number of them are probably getting an unfair shake. The show has a lot to say about the criminal justice system, but it does so in a restrained way that enhances the show without distracting from it. As with any other suddenly reanimated television show, some skepticism toward “Night Court” is natural and healthy. But if given the opportunity to be heard, it acquits itself well.
“Night Court” has a two-episode premiere on Jan, 17 at 8 p.m.
SiriusXM has brought on Suzi Watford, the former chief marketing officer for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, to oversee the satellite radio giant’s streaming subscription business, the company said on Tuesday.
Watford will join SiriusXM in the newly created role of chief growth officer and report to Joe Verbrugge, SiriusXM’s chief commercial officer. Her position will also include oversight of corporate marketing, data and research across SiriusXM and Pandora.
“Suzi has repeatedly demonstrated her ability to build and lead talented teams to evolve and grow profitable consumer subscription businesses, and we are thrilled to have her join us,” Verbrugge said in a statement.
Watford has spent the majority of her career at Murdoch-controlled media companies like News Corp.’s News U.K., in addition to the WSJ and Dow Jones. She most recently served as the chief marketing and membership officer for Dow Jones, overseeing marketing and subscription strategies across WSJ, Barron’s and MarketWatch.
Watford will be based in New York City.
“I’m looking forward to joining the talented team at SiriusXM at this stage in the company’s journey and playing a role as we look to attract and retain new growth audiences,” Watford said.
SiriusXM last reported having 32.2 million self-paying subscribers and 34.2 million total users at the end of September. During the same quarter, Pandora lost a net of 52,000 self-pay subscribers, leaving the music streaming service with a total of 6.29 million subscribers. The company will report its Q4 2022 earnings on Feb. 2.
Presley died last Thursday after she suffered cardiac arrest at her Southern California home.
In interviews, Presley made it known she wanted to be buried at Graceland next to her late son Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020. The property also is where Elvis and other family members are buried.
Though Presley did not live in Memphis, she is the sole heir of Graceland and said the property will remain in the family and will be left to her children.
She is survived by her mother, Priscilla Presley, and three children.
Over the weekend, fans gathered for an unofficial tribute to Presley outside the estate. See images from that tribute, exclusive to TheWrap, below:
Fans laid rose in front of Graceland to pay tribute to Lisa Marie Presley – Joshua Vinson for TheWrapFans laid rose in front of Graceland to pay tribute to Lisa Marie Presley – Joshua Vinson for TheWrapFans laid roses outside of Graceland to pay tribute to Lisa Marie Presley – Joshua Vinson for TheWrap
All central WBD staff who earn under £60,000 ($73,000) have received the one-off lump payment and will get a free lunch once a week until April and other benefits, we’ve learned. The move doesn’t cover those hired for production therefore staff at WBD Television’s UK subsidiaries such as Wall to Wall and Twenty Twenty won’t benefit.
WBD declined to state how many would benefit from the measures but said it would be a “considerable number of employees.”
The UK’s cost of living crisis has been biting hard, and media companies have been wrestling with how to help their lower-earning workers as inflation rockets.
Sky gave 70% of its staff a £1,000 bonus over two instalments, with the second of those landing in bank accounts this month. WBD’s payment will be in a single tranche.
“We want to help those most impacted by inflation and will be making a cost-of-living payment to eligible employees on base salaries under £60,000 per annum,” WBD wrote in an email to staff seen by Deadline.
The on-ground-response to the bonus was described by one insider as “extremely positive, with lots of juniors barely believing their eyes, all super happy and relieved.”
In a statement, a WBD spokeswoman said: “We are committed to supporting our employees in the UK and Ireland and this is just one step we are taking. As well as financial contributions, we are also providing access to a number of initiatives including free lunches and making a wide range of discounts across everyday items available to all employees. We continue to look at ways to offer support that can make a material difference to the everyday cost of living.”
For WBD, the payment brings some much needed positive internal and external PR after a year of cuts and restructuring that followed the coming together of Warner Bros. and Discovery, some of which impacted the non-U.S. business.
Ravi Srinivasan, TIFF senior programmer, dies at 37 | The Star
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Ravi Srinivasan, senior manager of festival programming for TIFF, died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 37.
A champion of Canadian film, his death Saturday devastated family and friends and sent shock waves through Toronto’s arts community.
His smile would brighten up the room, said all who knew him.
Ravi Srinivasan, senior manager of festival programming for TIFF, died suddenly on Saturday.
The 37-year-old’s death devastated not only his family and friends but also sent shock waves through Toronto’s arts community.
The last person to speak with Ravi was his girlfriend, Vivien Belik, who found him in his living room two days after they returned from a Mexican vacation. She did not want to speak to the media. Neither she nor Ravi’s older brother, Hari Srinivasan, saw signs of recent illness, although his brother told the Star Ravi had been experiencing heart palpitations the last couple of months.
“My brother always had a good spirit, he loved everyone, he was a very positive person,” said his brother. “It was his heart. It just … the doctor said sometimes it (the heart stopping) just happens.”
The brothers lost both their parents to sudden deaths, a traumatic experience which inspired Ravi to write a short film. “Sudden Death” follows the lives of two families affected by sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, according to IMDB. The syndrome is a fatal condition where someone dies suddenly from cardiac arrest but the cause cannot be determined.
Ravi seemed well, Hari told the Star, but recently he had seen a doctor — in his hometown of Sarnia, as he could not get a doctor in Toronto — to investigate the heart palpitations.
“They said he was suffering from high blood pressure which runs in the family, and they gave him a prescription. I think he was doing well with that,” Hari said.
Ravi last called his older brother Thursday evening about picking up Joni, his Bernese Mountain dog, who Hari was taking care of. The brothers were close.
Many who knew Ravi, like Magali Simard, a former colleague at TIFF, spoke of his joyful smile and zest for life.
“It’s very shocking news. (He was) a staunch supporter of Canadian and international cinema, and above all, a special person with an undeniable sense of fun and joy,” said Simard, Ravi’s friend of 10 years.
“It is impossible to meet Ravi and not love him right away.
“We often talked about the future — love, travels, career, you name it.”
She recalled one instance when one of their talks got them in a bit of a pickle.
“He blew the surprise getaway I had prepared for my girlfriend, not remembering it was a surprise. We laughed so hard as he blurted it out. His excitement was 10 times better than the surprise itself would’ve been.”
Ravi was authentic and compassionate about the film industry and cared about the filmmaker, said director Arshad Khan, who met him when Ravi worked for Hot Docs.
“He would be rushing from one screening to another, introducing films he felt passionate about,” said Khan, who relied on Ravi’s advice on the film industry and was touched by his love for Pakistani cinema.
“He was moved by the Pakistani film ‘Joyland,’ which he predicted would go to Oscars,” Khan said. “He cared for South Asian cinema.”
According to Ravi’s profile on the TIFF page, his favourite films were “In a Year of Thirteen Moons,” “A Woman Under the Influence” and “White Men Can’t Jump.”
Ravi worked closely with senior TIFF programmer Steve Gravestock, and many saw Ravi as Gravestock’s successor as lead Canadian programmer. Gravestock’s team declined to comment, saying he is still processing news of his friend’s passing.
“We are saddened and shocked to learn of the sudden passing of our colleague and friend,” Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF, said in a statement late Sunday. “As a programmer, champion for filmmakers and director of his own hometown film festival in Sarnia, Ravi was known to many for his passion, his generosity and the joy he brought to cinema.
“For Ravi, who drew on both his heritage in his work, representation always mattered. It was built into how he viewed films and how he invited all audiences to engage with the stories on screen that moved them.”
Born and raised in Sarnia, Ont., Ravi was of Filipino and Indian heritage. He earned a bachelor’s degree in film and English literature at Wilfrid Laurier University and studied film and television production at Sheridan College. Ravi had worked at TIFF since 2013, programming and screening more than 300 films a year. His last role at TIFF was senior manager for festival programming, focusing on films from South Asia, the Philippines and Canada. He also contributed substantially to projects such as Hot Docs and Reel Canada, which produces National Canadian Film Day.
In 2015, Ravi founded the South Western International Film Festival (SWIFF) in his hometown of Sarnia. In 2016, he was named to the Sarnia Mayor’s Honours list for launching SWIFF. Ravi invested his time and his own money into organizing the festival, according to local media.
“We want to help make Sarnia a place where young people can create films,” he said in an interview with the Sarnia Journal in 2015, talking about his dreams of turning Sarnia into a cultural hub and inspiring young filmmakers.
Dave Hunter, a close friend of the Srinivasan brothers, started a GoFundMe page on Sunday to cover funeral and memorial service costs. As of Monday, more than $80,000 has been raised.
“I’ve known Ravi since he was four, he was like a brother to me,” Hunter said.
Ravi’s “laugh could fill any room. The donations stem from people in the film industry to friends to strangers. That is a testament to how loved he was.”
Irem Koca is an Ottawa-based staff reporter for the Toronto Star. Follow her on Twitter at @iremreports
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Jennifer Lopez is possibly engaging in stolen valor: celebrity edition. Back in 2003, when a girl kissing a girl on TV was either shocking or titillating, Madonna locked lips with both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera during a VMAs performance, and it became, in common parlance, “iconic.” Mostly the Britney part.
Kevin Kane
Twenty years later, Jennifer Lopez has confessed that it was she, not XTina, who was supposed to complete the trio.
“I was filming a movie in Canada, and we had met—me, [Madonna] and Britney—to do it at [Madonna’s] home,” she told E! News. “And then, I just couldn’t get off the film, and so, we couldn’t do it.”
Kristin Chenoweth has opened up about “long-standing injuries” that she received on the production of CBS’ “The Good Wife” in 2012.
Chenoweth’s comments came during an interview on “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” on Monday. The actor joined the program to promote her new book, “I’m No Philosopher, But I Got Thought,” in which she details the “Good Wife” incident and its immediate aftermath. Speaking with Cohen, Chenoweth detailed her mindset in the following months, voicing regrets that she took no legal action against the network.
“I didn’t do it out of fear and anxiety. Don’t ever let fear rule your life,” Chenoweth said. “I have long-standing injuries from that. I wish I had listened to my dad. He said, ‘You’re going to want to do this.’ We’re not the ‘suing family,’ but when you’re practically killed…”
Chenoweth went on to detail the 2012 incident, which occurred while she was acting in a recurring role of Season 4 of the series. The actor stated that she was hospitalized after receiving a “seven-inch skull fracture, a hairline fracture, cracked teeth and ribs” after falling lighting equipment struck her.
“I heard, like, a flagpole sound. I literally heard, ‘We’re losing the light.’ I heard, ‘Action.’ And I woke up at Bellevue [Hospital],” Chenoweth recalled.
CBS Studios had no comment regarding Chenoweth’s statement.
Chenoweth had previously opened up about the health impact of the incident in the fall of 2012, calling herself “issue-ridden” in an interview on “Live! With Kelly and Michael.”
The “Succession” star addressed the notion of free speech while defending “Harry Potter” creator Rowling despite her repeated anti-transgender comments on social media.
“I don’t like the way she’s been treated, actually. I think she’s entitled to her opinion, she’s entitled to say what she feels,” Cox said during British talk show “Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg” (via Metro UK). “As a woman, she’s very much entitled to say what she feels about her own body. There’s nobody better to say that, as a woman. So, I do feel that people have been a bit high and mighty about their own attitude toward J.K. Rowling.”
“Harry Potter” actor Ralph Fiennes, who played Lord Voldemort in the franchise, previously called the backlash to Rowling “appalling.”
“J.K. Rowling has written these great books about empowerment, about young children finding themselves as human beings,” Fiennes told The New York Times. “It’s about how you become a better, stronger, more morally centered human being. The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting, it’s appalling.”
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Fiennes continued, “I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women. But it’s not some obscene, über-right-wing fascist. It’s just a woman saying, ‘I’m a woman and I feel I’m a woman and I want to be able to say that I’m a woman.’ And I understand where she’s coming from. Even though I’m not a woman.”
“Harry Potter” alum Daniel Radcliffe formerly told IndieWire that Rowling’s comments do not reflect his own beliefs on equal rights.
“The reason I was felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing ‘Potter,’ I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that,” Radcliffe said. “And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important.”
Warner Bros. defended continuing working with Rowling, saying in 2022 that the production studio has “enjoyed a creative, productive, and fulfilling partnership with J.K. Rowling for the past 20 years. She is one of the world’s most accomplished storytellers, and we are proud to be the studio to bring her vision, characters, and stories to life now — and for decades to come.”
Rowling penned the seven bestselling “Harry Potter” books before introducing the “Fantastic Beasts” prequel series. The author has come under fire for a slew of anti-trans comments over the years, most recently in March 2022 regarding proposed amendments to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill in Scotland. Rowling co-wrote “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” and has final approval over scripts. Despite not attending HBO’s 20th-anniversary special for “Harry Potter,” Rowling walked the red carpet for the “Fantastic Beasts” latest premiere.
“Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide” profiles the street artist who emerged in the 1980s alongside Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Directed by Kenny’s daughter, Malia Scharf, as well as Max Basch, the film explores the artist’s evolution over four decades.
Zach Hyman had a goal and two assists as the Edmonton Oilers won their fourth straight, 5-2 over the Seattle Kraken Tuesday night at Rogers Place.
Evander Kane returned after missing 31 games with a wrist laceration. He played 17:09 with seven shots on goal and five hits.
“No issues tonight… other than my finish,” Kane joked after missing some open chances throughout the game. “I felt a lot better tonight than I did when I first came here last year, so I’m looking forward to Thursday (against Tampa Bay).”
“I thought he played a heck of a game tonight,” Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft said of Kane. “For somebody that’s missed that amount of hockey to step right into mid-season pace and execution level — I thought he made us a better team.”
The Kraken went ahead on a power play 3:11 into the game when Daniel Sprong’s pass deflected in off Darnell Nurse’s stick. Connor McDavid tied it up with his 38th, roaring down the left side and beating Martin Jones up high with a wrist shot.
Early in the second, Vincent Desharnais’ point shot leaked through Jones and came to rest just short of the goal line. Derek Ryan was the first one to it. He swept in his sixth of the season. The Oilers went up 3-1 on a goal-mouth scramble. Warren Foegele was on the seat of the pants but was still able to sweep in his fifth.
“You’ve got to find ways to score and get to the net — it’s huge come playoffs. You’ve got to find dirty goals and we got them tonight,” Zach Hyman said.
“We’ve talked about how we need to go to the net more and getting more pucks to the net, and you see we get five goals tonight,” Foegele said. “Everyone’s contributing and working hard and we’ve just got to stay with it.”
Vince Dunn floated a softie past Jack Campbell’s glove 22 seconds into the third. The Oilers had their two-goal lead restored 1:01 later when a backchecking Eeli Tolvanen inadvertently poked the puck into his own net. Zach Hyman got credit. Ryan McLeod found a loose puck in the crease to pot his sixth and make it 5-2.
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“Three guys that maybe aren’t at the high end of the goal chart went somewhere in order to find offensive success,” Woodcroft said of Derek Ryan, Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod.
Campbell made 29 saves to improve to 13-8-1.
“He earned the right to feel confident by the amount of work that he put in,” Woodcroft said of Campbell’s recent turnaround in play.
The Oilers, 25-18-3, will host Tampa Bay on Thursday (630 CHED, Face-off Show at 5:30 p.m., game at 7 p.m.)
Andy Cohen made an appearance on Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace? and his interview caused some waves with Bravo fans that he is now clarifying.
The Real Housewives producer took to Instagram to first acknowledge that he enjoyed his experience with Wallace on his HBO Max talk show and give compliments to the veteran journalist.
“I love that interview. I thought it was a really dynamic conversation and he’s such a good interviewer,” he said on Instagram Stories. “And I love that he asked me really provocative questions.”
“Just want to clarify the context of what I said. I was saying it in response to people wanting to know if she was going to be back on the show,” he explained. “I knew that there had to be some context and I should have asked him what it was because the context is different from the quote on its own, as often happens.”
Cohen posted a clip from a quote he gave to Us Weekly in November 2022 which read, “She’s being sentenced on December 15, so I don’t know what to say to people who want her on the show. I hope that she gets no jail time whatsoever and she can come right back … but I have a feeling that she’s not going to be available to be on the show.”
In the interview that is now streaming on HBO Max and CNN, Cohen first said he had made the statement before Shah had pled guilty to the telemarketing fraud scheme. However, Wallace pointed out the interview was after Shah’s guilty plea.
“Oh, really? Oh, God,” Cohen said in reaction to Wallace.
Cohen would add, “Sometimes you get to know someone and you get to like them, you hope that they are not guilty of something horrible.”
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