Month: December 2018

“A Star Is Born” led nominations for the 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards with four nods including best ensemble on Wednesday, firmly establishing Bradley Cooper’s romantic revival as this year’s Academy Awards front runner.

In nominations announced in West Hollywood, Calif., the actors guild — one of the most predictive bellwethers of the Oscars — threw cold water on the awards campaigns of numerous contenders while elevating others. But “A Star Is Born” fared the best of all, landing nominations for Cooper (best male actor), Lady Gaga (best female actor) and Sam Elliott (best supporting male actor).

The other nominees for the group’s top award, best ensemble, were: “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Crazy Rich Asians.”

That category is the most closely watched because only once in the last two decades has the eventual Oscars best picture winner not been nominated for best ensemble at the SAG Awards. The one aberration, though, was last year, when Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” overcame the SAG omission on its way to winning best picture.

Unless a new trend is forming, that’s worrisome news for Oscar hopefuls like “Vice,” Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic (which led last week’s Golden Globe nominations); Alfonso Cuaron’s Netflix drama “Roma” (the overwhelming choice of critics groups); and the 1962 road trip “Green Book.”

“Vice” still scored SAG nods for Christian Bale and Amy Adams, just as “Green Book” won nominations for Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali.

But “Roma” was shut out entirely, as was Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong drama “First Man” and Barry Jenkins’ Harlem love story “If Beale Street Could Talk.” Most expected Regina King of “Beale Street” to be among the supporting female actor nominees.

Instead, Wednesday’s nominations gave an unlikely boost to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the Freddie Mercury biopic that has been a hit with audiences but was slammed by critics. Despite being widely viewed as a riveting one-man show by Rami Malek, the film ended up nominated for its ensemble cast. Malek was also nominated for best actor.

The screen actors appeared to favor big ticket sellers over smaller independent ensembles.

Ryan Coogler’s comic-book sensation “Black Panther” also landed a nomination for its stunt ensemble team. Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” scored nods for both John David Washington and Adam Driver. “Crazy Rich Asians” co-star Awkwafina, a presenter Wednesday morning, has the unusual pleasure of announcing the hit romantic comedy’s ensemble nomination. “It was all me,” she joked.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ period romp “The Favourite” failed to crack best ensemble, but its three leads — Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone — were all nominated, as expected. Stone added a second nod for her performance in the Netflix miniseries “Maniac.”

 

 Emily Blunt also scored two nominations herself: one for her lead performance in “Mary Poppins Returns” and one for her supporting role in “A Quiet Place.”

The other best female performance nominees alongside Blunt, Lady Gaga and Colman were Glenn Close (“The Wife”) and Melissa McCarthy (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”)

Blunt’s nomination for “A Quiet Place” was among the nominations’ many surprises, as was Margot Robbie’s supporting turn as Queen Elizabeth in “Mary Queen of Scots.”

Timothee Chalamet (“Call Me By Your Name”) scored his second straight SAG nomination for his supporting performance in the addiction drama “Beautiful Boy.” Rounding out the category alongside Ali, Driver and Elliott was Richard E. Grant for “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

Usually, about 15 of the SAG’s 20 individual acting nominees line up exactly with the eventual Oscar field.

In television categories, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Ozark” led with four nominations each. “Barry,” “GLOW,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Kominsky Method” trailed close behind with three nominations each.

Up for best ensemble in comedy are “Atlanta,” “Barry,” “GLOW,” “The Kominsky Method” and “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.” The drama series ensemble nominees went to: “The Americans,” “Better Call Saul,” “The Haidmaid’s Tale,” “Ozark” and “This Is Us.”

Though Netflix was nearly shut out on the film side (its lone nomination was for the stunt ensemble of “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), it dominated the television categories with 15 total nods.

The SAG Awards will be held Jan. 27 and broadcast live by TNT and TBS. This year’s show will honor Alan Alda with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
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Yalitza Aparicio had just gone along with her sister to the casting call for Alfonso Cuaron’s new film. She had no intention of trying out herself.

But destiny put her in front of the camera and that was how the Mexican woman of indigenous origins, who had just graduated as a teacher but wasn’t yet working, became the star of “Roma.”

She is likely now to spend the next few months learning how to handle Tinseltown red-carpet ceremonies — Cuaron’s latest film is a sensation, and her work is generating major buzz.

“Roma” won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, has been nominated for three Golden Globes and is a strong favorite for the Oscars in February.

“It wasn’t something that I really wanted or had dreamed about,” Aparicio, who turned 26 on Tuesday, told AFP.

“Because of your socioeconomic status or your culture, you think you can’t aspire to be an actress, and to participate in this medium that sounds like a fantasy.”

Passion project

After his Oscar-winning “Gravity,” which took home seven trophies, Cuaron bet on a very personal project.

“Roma” tells the story — in black and white — of the two women who made a deep mark on his childhood in Mexico City.

Cleo, played by Aparicio, is a domestic worker who becomes pregnant after her first sexual encounter.

The director’s mother and lady of the house, played by Marina de Tavira, is about to be left by her husband for another woman.

Framing all of it is the turbulent Mexico of the early 1970s.

Aparicio had no Cleo in her childhood in Tlaxiaco, a town of 40,000 people in the southwestern state of Oaxaca.

But her own mother, who raised her on her own, worked as a maid and that helped Aparicio understand the relationship of love and heartbreak that can form between caregivers and their bosses.

“There were scenes during the filming that stirred my memories, and there arose, all by itself, my character’s need to protect the children from what was happening so they would not suffer,” she said.

Cuaron, who also directed “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” said the actors in “Roma” were “the best” he has ever worked with.

The film, which had a cinematic release in select U.S. theaters, will be available on Netflix on December 14.

Casting call

The first requirement for becoming a member of the cast of “Roma” was to physically resemble the real people in the director’s life.

“The directive was that they had to physically look as much like the original people as possible,” Cuaron told AFP. “And on top of that, they should have the same energy.”

Aparicio’s sister ended up not being cast because of her advanced pregnancy.

But since the young teacher was there, she did the first of many screen tests that led ultimately to her winning the part inspired by Libo, the director’s nanny, who Cuaron says “cries every time” she sees the movie.

Before filming began, Aparicio met with the now elderly ex-domestic worker.

“She told me only how she came to the house, about her relationship with the family, but it was left at that,” she said.

Then filming began.

Change ‘little by little’

Cuaron did not give out the entire script at once, only parts of it.

Filming unfolded in a replica of the house where he had lived as a child in the upper middle class Mexico City neighborhood of Roma — hence the film’s title.

The set was so close to the real thing that his mother, who died recently, and the rest of the family were impressed.

Despite having no previous experience, Aparicio has been applauded by other actors, like Tom Hanks, and by critics. The New York Times included her in a list of best performances of 2018.

“After living through this whole adventure, I realized that the movies aren’t as far away as I thought from what I had always dreamed of doing,” she said.

“Through films, you can educate people in a more massive way. But let’s see if some offers come my way,” she added, discussing her future with humility.

For now, Aparicio plans to experience the moment, which has included not just accolades but also ugly racist and class-related insults from some of her compatriots after she appeared in designer clothes in Vanity Fair magazine.

She ignores the abuse, though, and focuses on what’s important to her: change.

“I am showing my people that they also can reach something like this, that just because you don’t have blonde hair and green eyes, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of it,” she said.

“There are certain things that will change little by little in our culture and let’s hope that with this picture, something is learned.”
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Some films about race in America are angry, many are passionate, or terrifying or heartbreaking, and a few are funny.

If Beale Street Could Talk, opening in U.S. theaters in major cities Friday, is marked by a quiet beauty and dignity, despite the despair that runs through it.

Based on the 1974 novel with the same title by the late James Baldwin, the film is director Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to his 2016 Oscar-winner Moonlight.

It is the latest in a slew of movies by or about African-Americans that were nominated last week for Golden Globe Awards, including Spike Lee’s Ku Klux Klan thriller BlacKkKlansman, superhero movie Black Panther, and 1960s road trip Green Book.

​If Beale Street Could Talk is the story of two hopeful young lovers in Harlem whose future is ruined when the man is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Baldwin said Beale Street could stand for any black community in the United States.

Jenkins said he was drawn to make the film because of its blend of “sensuality and love — both physical and emotional love — but also this other voice that was very, very clear about social critique and taking America to task for the role it has played in the lives and the degradation of black folks.”

Yet Jenkins, who also adapted the screenplay, says rage is not in his wheelhouse as a filmmaker.

“I feel like anger has never been the best place for me to work from,” he said.

In contrast to the more strident tone of the novel, the film is made from the perspective of young and pregnant Tish, played by newcomer KiKi Layne, and her loving family.

“Tish is so young and pure and wide-eyed and so innocent, that to work from any other place than that would have felt like a false move,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins sees Beale Street and Moonlight as companion pieces, partly because he wrote both films during the summer of 2013. They are also about black families, albeit very different.

Moonlight depicted a young black gay man growing up in a hard-scrabble neighborhood of contemporary Miami.

“I still get notes and letters from total strangers who feel their lives have been impacted or in some ways improved because of the visibility that Moonlight brought to their personal lives,” he said.

Jenkins hopes Beale Street leaves audiences with “a sense of optimism that the lives and souls of black folks in America have often been rooted in despair and degradation, and yet there has always been love, joy, family and community.”
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Even though Henry Golding garnered instant fame from starring in the smash hit Crazy Rich Asians, the British-Malaysian actor isn’t sure if he’ll ever eclipse his meteoric success in the box-office hit.  

  

“I don’t know how I’m going to top this year. It’s all downhill from here,” he told The Associated Press recently, with a twinge of sarcasm.  

  

Even Golding knows that viewers are clamoring for more of the 31-year-old actor, who starred in his first-ever movie role as the suave, Oxford-educated heir Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians, the romantic comedy that spent three weeks at the top of the North American box office and grossed more than $173 million in North America alone.  

  

It was the first Hollywood film to have a predominantly Asian-American cast since The Joy Luck Club, which debuted 25 years ago.  

  

Golding had a sense the movie would resonate with audiences when filming it because it “was an amazing work of art.” But it wasn’t until after the movie’s release that he was able to measure its impact on viewers.  

  

“That’s when I started getting messages. People were coming up to me saying, ‘The movie is amazing,’ ‘You guys did such a fantastic job,’ ‘It means so much to me to see our faces portrayed on the big screen,’ ” he said. “For me, it was wild.”    

For Golding, his rise has certainly been pretty wild since director Jon M. Chu chose him to star in Crazy Rich Asians without any movie appearances. Golding had primarily worked as a television host for shows on BBC, Discovery Channel Asia and ESPN Asia networks.  

  

Now, Golding is on the fast track as others are seeing the potential in him. After Crazy Rich Asians, he took on a much darker role in Paul Feig’s thriller A Simple Favor starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick.  

  

Next, Golding will be playing a gay British-Vietnamese man who travels to his birth country in Vietnam to scatter the ashes of his parents in the film Monsoon, expected to be released in 2019. He’ll also star in Guy Ritchie’s Toff Guys with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Beckinsale.  

  

Golding said his recent projects have given him more confidence. He’s been putting in extra work through acting classes to hone his skills.  

  

“If you’re looking for longevity, you have to be a hard worker,” he said. “You have to put in the due diligence. You’ve got to be that people person. Essentially you become a commodity. You need to be that showman. … It’s a long road, but I’m getting to that point.” 
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The Golden Globe Awards will introduce a new TV special achievement trophy at next month’s telecast and name it after its first recipient — comedic icon Carol Burnett.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association said Tuesday the Carol Burnett Award — the small-screen version of the group’s film counterpart, the Cecil B. DeMille Award — will annually honor someone “who has made outstanding contributions to television on or off the screen.”

The first Carol Burnett Award will, fittingly, go to Burnett, a five-time Golden Globe winner who was the first woman to host a variety sketch show, “The Carol Burnett Show.”

In a statement, association President Meher Tatna said: “We are profoundly grateful for her contributions to the entertainment industry and honored to celebrate her legacy forever at the Golden Globes.”
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Egyptian authorities have launched an investigation into images said to show a naked couple who scaled the Great Pyramid that has sparked outrage in the conservative Muslim country, an official said Tuesday.

In a video titled “Climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza”, Danish photographer Andreas Hvid appears to scale the 4,500-year-old tomb on the outskirts of Cairo at night with an unidentified woman who is later seen taking off her top.

Hvid says the video was taken in late November but it was published on YouTube on December 8.

A photograph released by Hvid appears to show the couple completely naked on top of each other while looking in the direction of a nearby pyramid with the horizon illuminated.

“The public prosecution is investigating the incident of the Danish photographer and the authenticity of the photos and video of him climbing the pyramid,” Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of Egypt’s supreme antiquities council, told AFP.

If the video was actually filmed at the top of the pyramid, that would make it a “very serious crime”, Waziri said.

The nearly three-minute video has taken social media by storm and has been the subject of late night talk shows. It has notched up almost three million views on YouTube alone.

“A 7,000-year-old civilization has turned into a bed sheet,” a Twitter user in Egypt lamented.

Another protested that “they want to soil the dignity and pride of Egyptians because the pyramid reflects the glory and grandeur of the Egyptian people”.

The authenticity of the images has been disputed with some arguing the photograph showing the pair naked appears to be very bright whereas the video showed them scaling the pyramid at night.

Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany told government newspaper Al-Ahram that the video has stirred “anger and outrage among Egyptians”, and that officials in charge of guarding the pyramids would be punished if found to have been negligent.

Hvid, 23, explained back home to the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that he had “dreamed for many years of climbing the Great Pyramid” as well as of taking a naked photograph.

“I’m sad that so many people have got angry but I’ve also received a lot of positive responses from many Egyptians,” he said in an interview.

The young Norwegian, who runs his own YouTube channel, said he had absolutely no interest in stirring up a crisis such as that triggered by cartoons in Western newspapers of the Prophet Muhammad.

As for the girl in the video, she was not his girlfriend. “It was just a pose. We did not have sexual relations,” Hvid said.

The Great Pyramid, also known as the Khufu pyramid, is the largest in Giza, standing at 146 meters (480 feet) tall, and the only surviving structure of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

Climbing pyramids is forbidden in Egypt.

In 2016, a German tourist was barred from entering the country for life after he posted online footage of climbing one of the ancient structures.
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Slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi is among a group of journalists who were named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” Tuesday.

The publication recognizes a person or a group of people who most influenced the news and world affairs over the past year “for better or for worse.”

Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal announced on NBC’s “Today” show the 2018 person of the year are the “guardians and the war on truth.”

In addition to Khashoggi, the other “guardians” are the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where five members were killed in a mass shooting at the newspaper’s offices in June.

Also honored were Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who was arrested on tax evasion charges, and Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been imprisoned in Myanmar for nearly a year.

The magazine cited Committee to Protect Journalists statistics, noting 262 reporters were imprisoned in 2017 and that the group expects the number to be high again this year.

Editor-at-Large Karl Vick wrote, “This ought to be a time when democracy leaps forward,” but “Instead, it’s in retreat.”

While “old-school despots” favored censorship decades after the Cold War, Vick wrote, the modern despot “foments mistrust of credible fact” and “thrives on confusion loosed by social media.”

Vick went on to say, “That world is led, in some ways, by a U.S. President whose embrace of despots and attacks on the press has set a troubling tone.”

On social media and at campaign rallies, President Donald Trump has regularly accused the media of being “the enemy of the people.”
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