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Lisa Kennedy In “The Same Storm,” it’s a welcome surprise to see Elaine May appear as one of the faces in writer-director Peter Hedges’ impressively diverse and starry ensemble, who take turns contributing scenes about the challenges of life during lockdown. May portrays spiky Ruth Lipsman Berg, who hops on a teleconference with a new doctor and her home health aide. Daphne Rubin-Vega is Lupe, her concerned caregiver. Raza Jaffrey is the gentle but quite-clear physician trying to ascertain if Ruth has contracted the coronavirus. Ruth was in the scene right before this one — talking with her daughter, a webcam girl — so we’re aware she’s gotten dolled up for the doctor’s call. Like a good Jewish mother, she asked the doc if he’s single. If so, she has a daughter. Forget that in the prior scene, her call to said daughter (Mary-Louise Parker) was less than kind. Their chat quickly takes on the tone of an intervention, with Ruth getting prickly when her charm offensive doesn’t work. After Dr. Patel shows her a photo snapped by Lupe of her purple-hued toes, Irma’s mood turns ugly — and things turn sad.

The Obie Awards, the venerable honors for outstanding Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions, is doing away with its annual ceremony and will instead use the funds to provide winners with grants ranging from $1,000-$5,000.

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.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman will be this year’s recipient of the WGA West’s Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement. The lifetime achievement award, which goes to members who have “advanced the literature of motion pictures and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the screenwriter,” will be presented March 5 during the 75th annual Writers Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

The season of rambling acceptance speeches is at hand, prompting that nasty question: Why can’t award winners learn how to edit their gratitude? Or find an editor to help?

Hollywood powerbrokers past and present officially said goodbye to one of their own Sunday.

Her first film was Booksmart, and her second should have been titled Mediasmart. Instead it’s Don’t Worry Darling, and it’s been a worry from the outset.

EXCLUSIVE: Juno Films has acquired rights to the experimental drama The Same Storm, from writer-director Peter Hedges (Ben Is Back), for distribution in the U.S., Canada and the UK. The film will open at the Quad Cinema in NYC and the Laemmle Santa Monica on October 14.

Apple Original Films continues to expand on its diverse film slate as it has landed the rights to Causeway, a new film starring and produced by Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence, and directed by Lila Neugebauer. A24 produced and developed the project. The film will make its global debut in-theaters and on Apple TV+ later this year.

After 13 nominations without a win, Grammy-winning songwriter Dianne Warren is finally getting her Oscar. Today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed that Warren and filmmakers Peter Weir and Euzhan Palcy will be awarded honorary Academy Awards at the 2022 Governors Awards this November.

Oscars for its handling of the death of actor Sidney Poitier, saying that he should have had “a whole section”.At the ceremony in March the late actor was commemorated with a 40 second tribute at the beginning of the In Memoriam section. His work was also celebrated alongside Ivan Reitman and Betty White during an additional song-led section.Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about the memoriam tribute, Jackson said: “I’m still a little ticked that the greatest actor we had in Hollywood died and they gave him, what, 10 fucking seconds. No.

Katcy Stephan The sophomore slump is, as history has shown, a real thing. The first season of “Hacks” earned an Emmy for Jean Smart and a nom for Hannah Einbinder — so the new season had to step it up. And that’s exactly what the writers did, kicking things into high gear — literally — as Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels hit the road on a larger-than-life tour bus.“Season 1 was a tough act to follow.

George Shapiro, the deeply respected talent manager, producer and co-founder of Shapiro/West & Associates, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 91.

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed actorJohn Magaro, who landed a Gotham Award nomination for his starring turn in Kelly Reichardt’s 2019 Western First Cow, for representation in all areas.

EXCLUSIVE: Former top ICM talent and literary agent John Burnham, who left earlier this month to become a manager and partner at Atlas Artists and Atlas Literary, has signed Alex O’Loughlin as a client.

EXCLUSIVE: Naked Lunch, the first podcast hosted by Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond) and from SiriusXM’s Stitcher, has lined up its inaugural set of guests. Former Raymond stars Brad Garrett and Ray Romano will join Rosenthal and co-host David Wild, along with Brad Paisley, Elaine May, Jimmy Kimmel, Nancy Silverton, Paul Reiser, Roy Choi, and others.

return to the directing chair for a Netflix rom-com came as balm to her many fans, who have been waiting more than seven years for another comforting kitchen-set romp like “It’s Complicated.”David Lynch fans were thrilled when it was rumored that the “Mulholland Drive” auteur might have a new feature going to Cannes. But since there’s still a chance we might see a “Wisteria” TV series or feature on Netflix — or elsewhere — sometime soon, we’re going to leave Lynch off the list for now.Meanwhile, Kathryn Bigelow recently announced that she would make “Aurora,” her first film since 2017’s “Detroit,” while Francis Ford Coppola is still swearing he will get “Megalopolis” off the ground sometime soon.Then there’s George Lucas, who basically hung up his eyepiece after “Revenge of the Sith,” and said at the time that he would pivot to smaller independent films.

EXCLUSIVE: John Burnham, a cornerstone talent and literary agent who has spent over 25 years at ICM Partners, is leaving to become a manager and partner at Atlas Artists and Atlas Literary, the Atlas Entertainment subsidiary. The exit is amicable, and Burnham will bring with him a client list of renowned writers, filmmakers and actors he will now represent as a manager.

Joan Rivers, the acerbic stand-up comic, who Levy says combines the strands of many of the women comedians before her.Spanning roughly the decades from the 1930s through the 1980s, Levy touches on the general comedy trends intertwined with several of the women’s careers, such as the debut of the “party record” — raunchy albums of the ’50s and ’60s — and rise of the so-called “sick comedians” like Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl who eschewed the one-liners of comedians like Bob Hope for more observational comedy.But he keeps his focus on the women’s individual stories, dividing the book into eight chapters that serve as mini profiles of each comedian. Some, like Elaine May and Joan Rivers, are still well known today.

Members of the “Pulp Fiction” cast reunited at the 2022 Academy Awards on Sunday.

Elaine May was the last to arrive and the first to leave at the Governors Awards on Friday in Los Angeles.

Wilson Chapman editorThe 94th Academy Awards, honoring the best films of the year, are set to air this Sunday.The ceremony will broadcast live on ABC on March 27, starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

The first Oscars of the weekend were handed out last night in Hollywood, and you can bet no is going to argue about the worthiness of these four new recipients of the industry’s highest award.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Elaine May was the last to arrive and the first to leave at the Governors Awards on Friday in Los Angeles. Her fellow honorees, Samuel L. Jackson, Liv Ullmann and Danny Glover, all arrived hours earlier, each holding court at the Ray Dolby Ballroom, posing for photos and enjoying their moment amid the lead-up to the 94th Academy Awards.

Jackson’s box office total is estimated at $27bn. Despite this, Jackson, 73, had never won a single Oscar, not even for his celebrated performance as a hit man in Pulp Fiction. The Academy finally awarded him an honorary Oscar on Friday, as part of the annual Governors Awards, which mark lifetime achievement in film and in humanitarian efforts.

Governors Awards, an annual event that presents Hollywood luminaries with honorary Oscar statuettes, is a reprieve, of sorts, from the awards season grind.Sure, there’s plenty of small talk and crudités to go around. But unlike most shows, which announce the winners in real time, this stop on the Oscar trail is void of a certain kind of anxiety. Recipients — this year’s batch consisted of Samuel L.

Danny Glover pairs a colorful bowtie with his suit while arriving at the 2022 Governors Awards held at The Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center on Friday night (March 25) in Hollywood.

LOS ANGELES -- Liv Ullmann likes to say that she’s given away many Oscars in her life. But she’s not talking about losing.The great Norwegian actor was once a frequent presenter at the awards. She called Peter Finch’s name for his posthumous Oscar for “Network” and stood beside Roger Moore when Sacheen Littlefeather accepted the statuette for Marlon Brando.So when she heard the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was trying to get in touch with her recently, she figured she was going to be asked to “give away” another.

NEW YORK -- Daisy Hernández's “The Kissing Bug,” a memoir about a lethal illness that killed her aunt, has received a $75,000 prize from PEN America.The literary and free expression organization announced Monday that Hernández had won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for a work of any genre demonstrating “originality, merit and impact, with Joy Williams' “Harrow” and Percival Everett's “The Trees” among the finalists.Other winners included Yoon Choi’s “Skinship,” which received the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for best debut story collection, and Margaret Renkl’s “Graceland, at Last,” presented the $15,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

The 12th Annual Governors Awards is on the move.

slated to occur on January 15 until the Omicron surge scuttled plans for a live event, will present Honorary Oscars to Samuel L. Jackson, Elaine May and Liv Ullmann, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Danny Glover.The Academy also announced that the rescheduled event, produced by Jennifer Fox, will be scaled down in size from what had initially been planned.

Clayton Davis The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced a new date for their annual Governors Awards to honor Danny Glover, Samuel L. Jackson, Elaine May and Liv Ullman.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominated writer/director/playwright and novelist Peter Hedges has signed with UTA for worldwide representation in all areas.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIf you weren’t around at the time, it’s hard to communicate just what a splashy, dominating place the Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller occupied during the 1970s. Wertmüller, who died on Thursday at 93, was far from the first celebrated woman director — just think of Agnès Varda, Shirley Clarke, Elaine May, Lois Weber, Ida Lupino, Dorothy Arzner, or Barbara Loden.

On Thursday, the Austin Film Festival unveiled its 2021 lineup, comprising 26 World, North American, and US Premieres, setting Oscar nominee Peter Hedges’ The Same Storm as its Opening Night Film.

Angelique Jackson Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Peter Hedges’ drama “The Same Storm” is set to open the 2021 Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference (AFF).Festival organizers announced Thursday that the pandemic-set movie starring Noma Dumezweni, Mary-Louise Parker, Sandra Oh, Elaine May, Raúl Castillo, Ato Blankson-Wood, Corey Michael Smith, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ron Livingston, and Alison Pill will lead off the 28th annual event, which runs from Oct.