Michel Ciment Dies: French Film Critic & Historian Was 85

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, has died. She was 93.

The son of a popular former amateur football coach, granddad, and dad-of-four from Stockport has warned about the dangers of hidden heart conditions after the shock of his father’s sudden death. Kevin Lewis died after a sudden cardiac arrest while having a massage in Hazel Grove in November 2022 at the age of 62.

The New York Film Critics Circle kicked off the annual year-end deluge of critics’ honors by announcing their best of 2023 today and the big winner was Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of The Flower Moon” which took Best Film. Christopher Nolan won Best Director for “Oppenheimer” while Celine Song’s “Past Lives” won Best First Film.

Refresh for updates: The oldest critics group in the U.S. is voting on the year’s best film as well as several other categories Thursday in what is a very lengthy process that soaks up most of the morning. Check back here every now and then to see who has won.

Shane MacGowan, The Pogues founder who sang Christmas classic Fairytale of New York with Kirsty MacColl, has died aged 65.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Oscar season begins this week in the Big Apple. The New York Film Critics Circle will be the first major group of film journalists to unveil its winners on Nov. 30.

Jaden Thompson Victor J. Kemper, the cinematographer behind “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and other notable films, has died. He was 96.

Rosalynn Carter was a first lady “who saw her role as going well beyond the essential, warm and welcoming host to being a close and trusted, yes, adviser” to her husband Jimmy Carter, PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Judy Woodruff recalled on Tuesday.

Eva Longoria has some amazing women in her life. The ‘Flamin Hot’ director recently shared a gallery of photos and videos from her “life lately” and it’s clear she’s been in good company with friends like Kerry Washington and Camila Cabello.A post shared by Eva Longoria Baston (@evalongoria)In one of the videos, Longoria, who celebrated Nicaragua’s first Miss Universe win, is dancing alone to Dolly Parton’s ‘Island in the Stream’ before Washington joins her for an epic shimmy showing off their line dancing.

John Travolta’s latest work in “The Shepherd” brought him back to a near-fatal experience he had while piloting a plane with his entire family on board.The “Grease” actor, 69, recalled the moment while promoting his latest short at a London screening. The project, based on the 1975 novella by Frederick Forsyth, tells the story of a young Royal Air Force pilot (Ben Radcliffe) attempting to land safely after suffering an electrical failure mid-air, and requires assistance from another pilot (Travolta).“The kismet of the project is, I actually experienced a total electrical failure, not in a Vampire but a corporate jet, over Washington D.C., prior to my discovering the book,” the Oscar winner said, per the BBC.“So when I read the book, it resonated more because of this experience I’d personally had.”In 1995, the licensed pilot revealed in a New Yorker interview that he was forced to make an emergency landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport with his family in 1992.“I had two jet engines, but I had no instruments, no electric, nothing,” he said, noting it taught him “what it felt like to absolutely think you’re going to die.”“I thought it was over,” he continued.

Film editor and former American Cinema Editors board member Doug Ibold, died Wednesday, Nov. 8 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Mary Pickford House in Woodland Hills, California. He was 83 and died of cancer, according to a report.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Bikeriders,” a drama directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy, is being shopped around town after Disney took the film off its slate. Disney and 20th Century were scheduled to open the film on Dec. 1.

Peter Spellos, a star on the TV series American Dreams and a voice on the animated ‘Transformers’ series, died early Sunday of pancreatic cancer complications.

Heath, the longtime bassist of Japan’s most popular rock group X Japan, has died, the group confirmed today. He was 55.

George “Funky” Brown, the drummer, founding member and one of the main songwriters of pop-R&B group Kool & The Gang, died in Los Angeles last night following a battle with lung cancer. He was 74.

Dana Carvey’s eldest son, Dex, died Wednesday evening from a reported drug overdose, according to a statement from his parents. He was 32.

Gladiator writer.The Oscar-winning actor will play the famed military leader who posed the greatest threat to the Roman Republic. In 218 BC during The Second Punic War, Hannibal led troops atop elephants over the Alps, attacking Rome from the north.Washington’s casting, first reported in Deadline, is met with news that John Logan, the writer of Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic Gladiator, is writing the script.

Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua have another project in the works over at Netflix!

Sweden’s Stockholm International Film Festival has denied reports that it disinvited U.S.-Israeli filmmaker and actress Aleeza Chanowitz as an in-person guest at its ongoing edition, running from November 8 to 19.

With the SAG and WGA strikes in the rearview, we can move ahead with the various projects that have been percolating in Hollywood. And apparently, one of those projects is the big-budget historical epic being devised by filmmaker Antoine Fuqua about the film of the warrior Hannibal.