Djimon Hounsou got very real about his treatment in Hollywood.
04.03.2023 - 04:39 / deadline.com
When filmmaker-actor-writer Miranda July was approached about narrating the documentary Fire of Love, she didn’t see herself as an obvious choice.
“I was like, I don’t know,” she recalls, “I’m not like a narrator per se.”
Then there was the subject matter of the film – which has gone on to earn an Oscar nomination – the story of French couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, who gave their lives to the study of volcanology.
“What do I know about volcanoes? Nothing,” July tells Deadline. But then the film took hold of her. “I watched this sort of early version, I guess an early cut. And I was so shocked that at the end I was really emotional, as if volcanoes were my thing. And I realized, oh, it’s just this devotion that I relate to. That just kind of punched me in the chest or something.”
What ultimately convinced July to say yes to narrating was a conversation with director Sara Dosa.
“I met Sara over Zoom, and I was like, oh, a lot of that devotion and sort of daring and passion is them, is the Kraffts, but a lot of it is this woman director who is just so emotionally present and there, in a way that I completely related to… We both realized that we process everything through our work.”
July makes for an atypical documentary narrator – the antithesis of the “voice of God” authoritative style so common in nonfiction films of an earlier era. Instead, she offers a gentler, contemplative and probing way, her voice somehow suffused with the foreboding that Maurice and Katia will not survive this fascination with volcanoes, that their passionate endeavor will lead to their demise, as indeed it did in 1991.
Unbeknownst to July, Dosa and her fellow writers had created a whole back story for their narrator, imagining her as a
Djimon Hounsou got very real about his treatment in Hollywood.
The Oscars’ annual In Memoriam segment on Sunday included a live performance of the song “Calling All Angels” by Lenny Kravitz.
Zoe Saldana has one word in mind when it comes to being nominated for an Oscar at the 95th annual Academy Awards on Sunday: grateful. «Sometimes I wake up and I know what it means,» Saldana told ET's Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner about the film's Best Picture nomination. «And other times, I just know what it feels like, and it just feels really beautiful to know that I am a part of a story that has touched so many people across the globe.
Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic How long does a documentary need to be? Frederick Wiseman frequently goes long, and Oscar-winning “OJ: Made in America” ran nearly eight hours. Lately, with “Bill Russell: Legend” and “Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker,” streamers have embraced the so-called “two-part documentary” — a fancy term for what used to be called a miniseries. So, while there are no limits on how much longer docs can get, it’s refreshing to see a compelling subject covered in 40 minutes or less, and doubly rewarding to realize that four of the five packaged in ShortsTV’s “2023 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary” found audiences on their own merits, even without theatrical distribution.
, the Indian film starring Ram Charan and Jr NTR as two revolutionaries fighting against the British colonialists in the 1920s, has not only enjoyed crossover success in the United States, but it made history when the breakout musical number, «Naatu Naatu,» was nominated for Best Original Song at the 95th Academy Awards. " is about friendship. It's celebrating friendship," NTR says. While speaking to ET's Ash Crosson, both actors reacted to all the accolades for the film, which is now streaming on Netflix, and what it was like filming the epic dance number for the Indian Telugu-language song written by the now-Oscar nominees, M.
Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Nominations for the 2023 CMT Music Awards are led by country’s woman of the moment, Lainey Wilson, with four, followed by three apiece for Cody Johnson, newcomer Jelly Roll and the show’s recurring co-host, Kane Brown. For the second year in a row, the three-hour telecast will be getting its premiere network airing on CMT’s big sister network, CBS — along with a livestream on Paramount+ — and for the first time, it will be based out of Austin. The show goes out live from the Moody Center April 2 at 8 p.m. ET on the broadcast network and airs tape-delayed in the same time slot on the west coast. Several days after the broadcast and streaming premiere, the show will appear on its titular network, CMT, as an “extended cut” with 30 minutes of additional material, bringing the running time there to three and a half hours. That expanded edition bows on CMT April 6 at 8 ET/PT.
Academy Awards are this weekend, giving you some time to catch up on your Oscar watchlist. This year, there’s a wide range of films nominated for awards, whether you’re into superheroes, stories about complicated musicians, or tales about the war.
Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Of the 10 films up for best picture, no fewer than six run 199 minutes or more. On one extreme, James Cameron’s punishing “Avatar” sequel is long enough to require bathroom breaks. At the other, Daniels’ ADHD-styled “Everything Everywhere All at Once” proves equally exhausting, dedicating every hyperkinetic second to stimulating easily distracted audiences. It’s enough to make folks grateful for the lower-profile but still engaging live-action shorts category, where nominees are bound by a strict 40-minute time limit. This year’s crop — the so-so “2023 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action” program — clocks in at under two hours. Available in theaters and on myriad streaming platforms, the international assembly may be a hit-and-miss affair, but never outstays its welcome.
The Oscar-nominated documentary “Fire of Love” is getting the narrative remake treatment. The acclaimed non-fiction movie, concerning the scientific research and on-the-job romance of French volcanologist filmmakers Katia and Maurice Krafft, will become a live-action narrative feature film.
EXCLUSIVE: Searchlight Pictures is making a deal to turn Fire of Love into a narrative feature. The film, which tells the story of the scientific research and romance of preeminent French volcanologist filmmakers Katia and Maurice Krafft, is a frontrunner in the Oscar race for Best Documentary after premiering at 2022 Sundance, winning a Jury Prize and being acquired by National Geographic Documentary Films.
“Sorry I’m a few minutes late, I’m just trying to situate my lap dog,” apologizes Brendan Fraser from his upstate New York home. “Isn’t it funny in this age of Zoom, we can’t pretend we’re not at home anymore,” he laughs.
Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic On Oscar night, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” will almost certainly win the Academy Award for feature animation. For many of those following along at home, it will look as though the director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Shape of Water” is being rewarded for some kind of secondary passion, as if del Toro had scaled Everest and then set his sights on a smaller peak on which to plant his flag. But that’s not how it happened at all. Way back in Mexico, del Toro started his filmmaking career doing animated shorts: Obsessed with Ray Harryhausen, the amateur future auteur built rudimentary armatures, painstakingly repositioning the puppets one frame at a time. Decades later, once established in Hollywood, del Toro accepted a side gig at DreamWorks Animation, serving as a story consultant on films such as “Megamind” and “Kung Fu Panda 2” as a pretext for teaching himself the trade. With “Pinocchio,” he put those lessons to work on a stop-motion passion project that’s every bit as challenging as his most impressive films.
When one thinks of women and Elvis Presley, it’s either his widow Priscilla, his late daughter Lisa Marie, or the legion of ladies left weak in the knee when the badass kid from Tupelo, Mississippi began shaking that moneymaker. In the case of the eight-time Oscar-nominated film Elvis, the front men are writer/director Baz Luhrmann, Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. Behind the camera, the film was entirely made possible by a chorus of women, many of whom are nominated. They include Luhrmann’s partner Catherine Martin, who’s up for the Production Design Oscar with cohorts Beverley Dunne and Karen Murphy; Mandy Walker, for Cinematography; Gail Berman for Best Picture with Martin, Luhrmann, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss; and Martin again for Costume Design.
own memoir for the 26-minute film and was also on the call, offered this tidbit: “I sent a link to Dick’s Sporting Goods. It’s not a lie. I slid into their DM’s and was like, ‘Hey.
this year he’s the only previous nominee in the category.Chatting from London, Nielsen discussed his repeat trip to the Oscars, the difficulty of mixing comedy and tragic tones in the cutting room, and his personal opinion about the running time of movies. When you won the Oscar two years ago for “Sound of Metal,” the ceremony was held in a train station. So this year will be a different experience for you.It will.
Julia MacCary editor An Irish Goodbye Inspiration for the black comedy came from co-director Tom Berkeley at soccer match where two brothers were “at each other’s throats,” although where one was caring for the other who had Down syndrome. In “An Irish Goodbye,” estranged brothers Lorcan and Turlough are brought back together following their mother’s death, and Turlough must take care of his younger brother, who has Down syndrome. Lorcan will not leave their farm until they complete all 100 items on their mother’s bucket list. Co-director Ross White tapped into his observations from working in a special education school. “There can be this lack of cynicism with people with Down syndrome, a sort of openness and an honesty and purity about the way they see the world,” he says. The film depicts the brothers’ respective responses to death: “You’ve got this one character who is coping with this in a very emotionally open way, and then you’ve got his brother who is a bit more of a typical masculine response,” says White.
Karen Idelson The subtleties of war. The struggle with loss and grief. The search for a home and belonging. The terror of puberty. The realization of mortality. This year’s Oscar nominees in the animated feature category never shied away from the big issues. Underneath the bold exteriors of their artistic and technological achievements, each one embraced difficult, rich themes. “I think there’s a way that young and old can both feel the emotion and the meaning of the story,” says “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” helmer Joel Crawford. “Puss’ story is something we can all relate to in a way. He’s this fearless hero who has this moment where when he comes across the wall, feels fear for the first time because he knows he’s run out of lives and that he’s mortal — like all of us — for the first time. That moment is an impression of fear that I think everybody can feel. But then we are also able to tap into to some brighter kind of themes as well like hope through this impressionistic style we used in the animation.
Fresh off her big performance at the 2023 Super Bowl, Rihanna is gearing up for another performance at the 2023 Oscars.