Oscars Music Governor Blasts ‘Shocking’ Decision to Push Original Score Off Live Telecast

Jon Burlingame editorOpposition to the Academy’s plan to award eight Oscars prior to the live telecast continues to grow, with more than 350 new names — including more than a dozen Oscar-winning editors, cinematographers and production designers — added to the petition sent last week to Academy president David Rubin urging a reversal of the plan.Among the new signers are Oscar-winning cinematographers John Seale (“The English Patient”), John Toll (“Braveheart”) and Dean Semler (“Dances With Wolves”), and Oscar-winning editors Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch (“Star Wars”), Mikkel Neilsen (“The Sound of Metal”), Pietro Scalia (“JFK”) and Zach Staenberg (“The Matrix”).Oscar-winning production designers Hannah Beachler (“Black Panther”), Barbara Ling (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Adam Stockhausen (“Grand Budapest Hotel”) and David and Sandy Wasco (“La La Land”) also signed on. Cinematography will be presented during the live show, but editing and production design are among the eight awards to be presented during the 4 p.m.

The fans are in charge! The first round of nominations for the 2022 CMT Music Awards have been announced — and the list is full of chart-topping artists.

Tributes have been pouring in for Love Island star Mike Thalassitis, who passed away three years ago at the age of 26. Mike, who first rose to fame on Love Island in 2017, took his own life in March 2019, with many of his friends and co-stars leaving touching messages for the star on the anniversary of his death. Marcel Somervile, who appeared alongside Mike on Love Island, posted a pair of the pair together to Instagram with the caption: “Always Remembered My Brother! “It’s not a coincidence me and @jonny_mitchell1991 always catch up around this time.

2022 CMT Music Awards are almost here — and it's going to be a star-studded night!On Wednesday, CMT announced the nominees for country music's only entirely fan-voted awards show — which will be hosted live from Music City by Anthony Mackie and Kelsea Ballerini on Monday, April 11 -- and the list includes some of the biggest names in music. Kane Brown leads the pack this year with four nominations, while Ballerini, Mickey Guyton, and first-time nominees Breland and Cody Johnson earned three nods apieceThe first round of nominations for the coveted Video of the Year award includes 12 acts, spotlighting artists like Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves, Luke Combs, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift feat.

Sergei Pugachev was once dubbed ‘Putin’s banker’. Today he is considered a ‘traitor’ and is exiled in France.

Jon Burlingame editorThe Academy’s 400-member music branch singled out an especially diverse group this year, including composers born in England, Spain and Germany, along with two Americans – one of whom is not only female but also a person of color.They also cast a wide net in terms of genre: a comedy, two dramas, a science-fiction epic and an animated family film. And while “Dune” has long been the favorite of Oscar prognosticators, don’t count out critically praised “Power of the Dog,” the colorful backdrop of “Encanto,” or Academy voters’ frequent use of the score category as consolation prize: a convenient way to reward a film that won’t win anything else.“Don’t Look Up”New York composer Nicholas Britell received his third Oscar nomination for the music of Adam McKay’s sci-fi social satire: an eclectic brew of big-band jazz, traditional orchestral sounds, considerable electronics and a wild collection of offbeat instruments from toy piano to banjo and mandolin.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorMSNBC intends to make some of its best-known opinion programs available to premium tier customers of the NBCU Peacock streaming service, allowing the shows to be seen by consumers who might not subscribe to the cable network.Starting in early spring, an MSNBC “hub” of episodes of “Morning Joe,” “Deadline: White House,” “The Beat with Ari Melber,” “The ReidOut,” “All In with Chris Hayes” and MSNBC’s opinion programs will stream on-demand the day after they air on cable. Specials with top hosts including Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes, Trymaine Lee and others will premiere later this year, streaming exclusively on Peacock.“We are reimagining the MSNBC experience by adding the core of our perspective programming to Peacock and reaching audiences wherever they are and however they choose to consume content,” said Rashida Jones, president of MSNBC, in a prepared statement.

Miss Universe 2020, Andrea Meza is as creative as they come. The Mexican beauty queen, turned Telemundo TV personality, showed her funny side as she recreated the viral and controversial look worn by Kim Kardashian at the Balenciaga Fall/Winter 22 collection show during this year’s Paris Fashion Week, in which she also shined exposing her fab silhouette and great sense of humor.The Mexican Telemundo host not only showed her look on her TV program En Casa Con Telemundo, she also took to Instagram to share a series of photos of the process she went through to achieve this style...using rolls of yellow vinyl tape with the word ‘Caution’.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Barcelona-based Scenic Rights, the leading literary rights broker for Spanish-language film and TV series, has officially opened its Mexico City office as it continues to expand its purview across key territories, including Madrid, Los Angeles and most recently, Prague.The Mexico City office opening, delayed twice by the pandemic, kicks off operations on Monday March 7. According to Scenic Rights CEO, Sydney Borjas, the company’s Mexican branch will oversee more than 30 book to film-TV project adaptations, mostly into series.Ana Karen Larios, previously a foreign rights manager at VF Literary Agency, has been tapped as Scenic Rights’ content manager in Mexico and will report to the agency’s Chief Operating Officer Ignacio Diaz.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorAs Disney’s “Encanto” continues to break music chart records, a much more personal moment stands out to composer Germaine Franco. It’s a viral moment, captured on social media, of a little boy who lights up at realizing that he looks just like the young character Antonio. “It’s so beautiful because he sees himself on screen,” she tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast.“Encanto” features eight original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, while Franco’s score cuts in and out of the songs, evoking a sense of magical realism.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorThe hardest blow is the feeling that their work doesn’t matter as much as other filmmaking disciplines. That was the sentiment shared by a panel of veteran artisans who represent the craft categories that will no longer be presented live at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony on March 27.“What offends me is that somebody in the Academy would claim to or imply that they know which crafts are more important and more deserving of respect than time than other crafts,” Randy Thom, a two-time Oscar winner for sound.

Mary J. Blige is expanding her empire.

Now the criticism is coming from within. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ plan to pre-tape Best Sound and other categories on this month’s Oscarcast has hit a sour note with a Music Branch governor.

Russia-Ukraine war.The band, which consists of musicians Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool, was set to perform on May 29 at Spartak Stadium.“With heavy hearts, in light of current events we feel it is necessary to cancel our upcoming show in Moscow at Spartak Stadium,” Green Day wrote on their Instagram Story.“We are aware that this moment is not about stadium rock shows, it’s much bigger than that. But we also know that rock and roll is forever and we feel confident there will be a time and a place for us to return in the future,” the band continued.