How Oscar Voters Could Make the Best Picture Category Even Weirder This Year

Teaching dance classes and mingling with fellow mums on the school run, Louise Elkes has worked hard to move on with her life.

Jessica Chastain has built a résumé of portraying strong-willed women, but playing Tammy Faye Bakker was the first time she felt “exposed.” Believe it or not, she’s been working on bringing The Eyes of Tammy Faye to life since her most recent Best Actress nomination in 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty.

The last time Andrew Garfield was shortlisted for Leading Man was in 2016 for his role as true-life pacifist hero Desmond Doss in Mel Gibson’s war drama Hacksaw Ridge. His performance in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick… BOOM! could not be more different. In this stylized, unconventional biopic, he stars as Jonathan Larson, a playwright working in musical theater who died in January 1996 on the morning of the biggest day of his life—the first preview of his Broadway hit Rent. Many expected tick, tick… BOOM! to tell the story of that artistic and commercial triumph, but no—it tells instead of the myriad failures that Larson experienced, with dogged determination, in the run-up.

Chadwick Boseman once again.During Tuesday's live-streamed announcement of the 2022 Oscar nominees, Phylicia Rashad and students at Howard University's newly-renamed Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts helped announced the Best Actor category, in which Boseman was nominated just last year, for his performance in «All of our students here are so inspired by Chadwick Boseman, a Howard grad who was so committed to this university,» Rashad said.

Zack Sharf The 2022 Oscar nominees have been revealed, but it’s one name missing from the best actress race that’s generating the most conversation online. Fans were shocked when Lady Gaga failed to earn a nomination for her performance in “House of Gucci.” The nom would’ve been Gaga’s second best actress bid, following her nominated turn in “A Star Is Born,” for which she won an Oscar for original song.

Despite the presence of a troika of web slingers past and present and a bonanza box office, Spider-Man: No Way Home was (basically) nowhere to be found amidst today’s Oscar nominations unveiling.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticAmerica is no longer leading on the world stage in one crucial metric.We’ve lost game-show-host supremacy.On “Jeopardy!,” the standard-bearer for American quiz shows, star power has been outsourced to the contestants. And recent long-running champions Amy Schneider and Matt Amodio lent energy that had otherwise been missing. The recent endless cycling through “Jeopardy!” guest hosts having ended in a fiasco and then a compromise has left Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik, dividing the role, adrift.

EXCLUSIVE: Sarena Khan and Andra Gordon’s Athena Pictures and Starlings Television, led by Chris Philip, have teamed with Propagate Content’s Ben Silverman to co-produce Shadowland, a female-driven wildlife crime thriller series, from Jacqui Barcos, director Darnell Martin (American Rust, The Good Lord Bird) and executive producer Peter Elkoff (Sons of Anarchy, Chance).

Julia Child knew her way around a sauce the way Leonard Bernstein knew his way around a sympathy, the way Patrick Mahomes knows his way through a defense. That is to say, with panache.

shortlist.Turner’s “Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day” looks back at the history of lynching in America through the ways they’ve been documented on souvenir postcards from 1880 to 1968.Turner described how photographers would take pictures of the lynchings and create postcards of the imagery that people would then send to their friends and family. She says that while the imagery was “graphic,” she tried to focus viewers’ eyes on the amount of people attending the lynchings and the fact that families were there, rather than the lynching itself, to properly contextualize the point in time.“We’re going beyond the brutality of the body itself, but that is also part of what I want viewers to confront,” she said.

EXCLUSIVE: MENA platform YouSat.TV has formed a partnership with WGA Middle East writer and producer Evan Mirzai (Origins: The Journey of Humankind) to internationally promote its formats and the raft of regional talent with which it works.

In one of Syrian-born artist Mohamad Hafez’s stunning 3D pieces, a figurine of the Virgin Mary stands before an ornate portal, her hands joined in prayer. The building around her, rendered in plaster, paint, rusted metal and found objects, is blasted to ruins.

Manori Ravindran International EditorIn the streaming age, documentary filmmakers, once the long-suffering artists working in obscurity to finish self-funded passion projects, have become rock stars. Deep-pocketed platforms like Netflix and Hulu have dished out for costly archival clearances and biopic rights, and the strategy has invariably led to awards glory.But just as the medium has become more elevated, so too has it grown increasingly global in scope, with a vast network of documentary gatekeepers venturing outside the traditional nonfiction markets of the U.S.

Luke Bryan has returned to social media to show off his love of fishing - after sharing a heartfelt message with fans. The American Idol judge was snapped in his fishing chair with a can of Two Lane Brewing lager in hand as he relaxed in a deep blue shirt and cargo shorts, paired with a comfortable baseball cap.MORE: Luke Bryan's home in Nashville has an emotional backstory"The only thing I love more than fishing is fishing with @twolanebrewing," he captioned the post; the company was founded by Luke and Constellation Brands in 2020.WATCH: Luke Bryan celebrates special anniversary with wife Caroline"I hear you on that one! After a long day on the water it hits the spot!" shared one fan as another shared: "Beer and time in the outdoors pure Heaven on earth."It comes after the country star thanked fans and revealed he had had the time of his life in Cancun, Mexico, where he has been playing at Crash My Playa 2022.MORE: Luke Bryan's children star in emotional new videoMORE: Katy Perry's daughter Daisy makes very rare appearance in new photoHe shared a heartfelt message alongside a series of pictures from the event on Instagram, writing: "@crashmyplaya 2022 was one for the books.

Clayton Davis A tsunami of buzz and Oscar-telling indicators drop on Thursday, with the major guilds announcing award nominations. The Directors Guild of America (DGA), Writers Guild of America (WGA), Producers Guild of America (PGA) and American Cinema Editors (ACE Eddies) all serve as critical barometers for the Academy Awards, especially in the race for best picture.DGA has averaged four of their five nominees landing in the Oscars’ best director category, including last year with Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) getting bumped for Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”).

Lisa Kennedy Every now and again, a documentary filmmaker finds a bona fide star to pin the meaning of her film on, a figure so compelling she leaves a comet trail of thoughts and feelings after the movie’s end. Isabel Castro’s “Mija” boasts two: music manager Doris Muñoz and singer Jacks Haupt. Make that three, including the writer-director herself.

Paul Plunkett An assembly line follows a simple formula. Use the most efficient way to mass-produce something and repeat.

EXCLUSIVE: George & Tammy, the country music drama series centered around Tammy Wynette, is bulking up its cast.

el campeon de Mexico, you don’t touch Julio Cesar Chavez. So my dad and my grandpa, like everybody was for Julio, and me and all my cousins, we were all for Oscar because we were Mexican American.