Picture Oscar Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The Academy doesn’t always get it right…at least, if you’re asking the film critics.

Refresh for latest…: A busy holdover weekend for wide studio releases was led by the trio of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kung Fu Panda 4 and Dune: Part Two. And, in a soaring performance, Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar winner The Boy and the Heron swooped into China helping the market set a new Qingming holiday record. 

he suited up as its red-winged school mascot, Charlie Cardinal, before landing a gig as Mac Tonight, a singing, piano-playing “moon man” in numerous McDonald’s commercials.But even after decades of transforming into zombies, aliens, demons, sea creatures and vampires in movies like “Hocus Pocus” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” — not to mention a string of freaky films by writer/director Guillermo del Toro including “Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” and 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner “The Shape of Water” — Jones seems especially connected to his “Trek” creation.“I’ve gotten to know this character better than anyone else I’ve ever played over my entire 38-year career,” he said of fan-beloved Saru. “I’ve spent the most time with him, the most time peeling back his layers … It’s been quite a journey.” Not that it’s always been an easy galaxy-hopping trip.He would spend two hours daily squeezing into an extensive costume that included a four-piece, all-encompassing rubber alien head — plus large, aquamarine contact lenses that required revitalizing eye drops every 20 minutes.And then would marinate in his sweat for hours more.

Eight months after it began global release, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer opened in Japan today. The Best Picture Oscar winner about the race to develop the atomic bomb has been met with a mix of reactions, some praising the movie and some finding it uncomfortable to watch. There also have been reports of confusion over the devastating 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not explicitly being depicted.

M. Emmet Walsh, the familiar character actor in Blade Runner, Blood Simple, Best Picture Oscar winner Ordinary People, Slap Shot and more than 200 other films and TV shows spanning a half-century, died Tuesday, his rep said. He was 88.

Sam Mercer, who produced seven M. Night Shyamalan films including The Sixth Sense, headed Lucasfilm‘s Industrial Light & Magic and was location manager on several classic 1980s pics, has died. He was 69.

The Academy Awards are happening this weekend!

Oppenheimer, Maestro, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Society of the Snow were the big film winners at the Motion Picture Sound Editors‘ 71st Golden Reel Awards, which were handed out Sunday night at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. See the full list below.

Poor Things took a pair of prizes including Best Picture at the Set Decorators Society of America‘s 2023 SDSA Awards, which were handed out today. Yorgos Lanthimos’ film starring Emma Stone also won for Best Achievement in Décor/Design of a Period Feature Film.

EXCLUSIVE: Brooklyn-based filmmaker Ged Dickersin (CODA) is launching True Indy, a production company intent on making films that can and should be made independently, with filmmakers telling acutely relevant stories for the world market.

juggernaut doll movie.The roster instead included prestige favorites such as “Oppenheimer,” “Poor Things,” “The Holdovers,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” all of which are expected to be announced as Best Picture Oscar nominees on Jan. 23.“Oppenheimer,” which was the most-nominated film with 13 mentions, maintains its coveted spot as the movie to beat at the Oscars after big wins at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards.“Barbie” wasn’t totally given the old heave-ho, though.The film received five nods: Actress (Robbie), supporting actor (Ryan Gosling), original screenplay, costume design and production design.

You might hear the title, Driving Madeleine (French title: Une Belle Course), and then read the logline about a driver taxiing a 92-year old woman around Paris and instantly think “Aha! It is a French Driving Miss Daisy!” Well, having absolutely nothing to do with that 1989 Best Picture Oscar winner that so memorably starred Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, the two films do have something in common. They are both irresistibly cast with exceptional veteran stars who each grab the heart and never let go.

Josh Kramer, who produced Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden and Sidney Lumet’s Night Falls on Manhattan and later led sales for Capitol Films before becoming Head of Motion Picture Business Operations at Amazon Studios, has died. He was 67.

Emma Stone was a sex comedy MVP.The “La La Land” actress got her start in raunch-fests such as 2008’s “The House Bunny,” in which she played the leader of a sorority that invited a retired Playboy Playmate to be its house mother, and she took on the part of a teen outcast who faked hooking up with nerds for a quick buck in “Easy A” in 2010.Running time: 141 minutes. Rated R (strong and pervasive sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing material, gore, and language).

The list of the 10 films chosen for the prestigious AFI Awards is out, and it is good news for Barbenheimer.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Flora and Son, John Carney‘s latest indie ode to music that stars Eve Hewson in a breakout role.

EXCLUSIVE: We are hearing from sources that Origin, the new movie from Oscar nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay, is not only the highest tested movie in her career, but for Neon, the pic’s distributor too.

EXCLUSIVE: The Unforgettable Gala, the annual ceremony that honors the biggest and most impactful Asian Pacific Islanders in entertainment, arts and culture, is getting a broadcast and streaming home for its 2023 edition, which has been set for December 16 at the Beverly Hilton.

Gary Martin, a retired longtime executive at Sony Pictures who served as President of Studio Operations and Product during a 32-year stint at the studio, has died. He was 79.

does Gen Z like?Not much. A depressing new study found that stick-in-the-mud young people have decided they’re through with entertainment that depicts sex and romantic relationships.Oh, terrific. More of their buzzkilling nonsense.

EXCLUSIVE: Utkarsh Ambudkar (Ghosts) is attached to co-star in dramedy The Book Of Jobs, which Concourse Media is handling for world sales.

It’s not every day that a filmmaker will rise up during an interview and recite Old Testament tales and sing out their favorite hymn. Well, hallelujah, brother Jeymes Samuel for spreading the gospel’s good news.

EXCLUSIVE: The Best Picture Oscar winners One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The English Patient and Amadeus have a new owner.

It was everything everywhere all at once Thursday in New York City: Striking actors getting ready for contract talks were joined by writers who have just wrapped up theirs at a rally in Manhattan that also highlighted Asian American Pacific Islander culture in film and television. 

EXCLUSIVE: Zola Mashariki, the former Fox Searchlight and BET exec who has headed up Audible Studios for the last two years, is leaving the Amazon-owned company.

Rene Rodriguez The spirit of Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” weighs heavily, both thematically and stylistically, on “Brother,” a drama about two brothers growing up in a low-income Toronto suburb that lacks the grace and eloquence of the 2016 Best Picture Oscar winner. But even if writer-director Clement Virgo, adapting David Chariandy’s 2017 novel, can’t achieve the sustained aura of ineffable melancholy he’s striving for, the film still hits some lovely notes of grace and poignance that rise above the script’s manipulative nature.

some of its biggest milestones to mark 25 years online.Among them is the highest audience-scored film, which goes to 2008 Batman movie The Dark Knight, standing at 94% Fresh with over 500,000 ratings.Rotten Tomatoes called the Christopher Nolan film, which saw Christian Bale’s Caped Crusader face off against Heath Ledger’s Joker, “an enduring cultural touchstone”.“The film is widely regarded not just as one of the best superhero movies, but one of the best films ever made, full stop, and with a 94% Tomatometer to match its Audience Score, that’s one thing critics and fans wholeheartedly agree on,” they said.Back in January, director Steven Spielberg suggested that The Dark Knight should have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, saying he was encouraged when Avatar: The Way Of Water and Top Gun: Gun Maverick became the first blockbuster sequels to be nominated earlier this year.“I’m really encouraged by that,” he told Deadline. “[But] it came late for the film that should have been nominated a number of years ago, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.“That movie would have definitely garnered a Best Picture Nomination today, so having these two blockbusters solidly presented on the top 10 list is something we should all be celebrating.”The film did earn eight Oscar nominations back in 2009, with Ledger winning posthumously in the Best Supporting Actor category.Nolan’s latest film Oppenheimer was recently released in cinemas, and stars Cillian Murphy (who played the villain Scarecrow in The Dark Knight trilogy) as the titular J.

the social media nickname given to the one-two punch of Warner Bros’ “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” — did boffo business at the domestic box office, grossing a combined $235 million. “Barbie,” at $155 million alone, had the biggest three-day opening of the year so far. And right on cue, the usual pronouncements are being made:Audiences love originality! (Everyone has seemingly forgotten that Barbie is a super-famous doll and not from director Greta Gerwig’s imagination.) Stories about women sell! (Just as with men’s stories, like floperoo “Indiana Jones,” sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. “Oppenheimer,” which many online are calling sexist toward women, sold tremendously well at $80 million.) It’s quality, stupid! (Tell that to “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Women Talking,” “The Fabelmans” and most of the other Best Picture Oscar nominees released last year.) However, the real takeaway of #Barbenheimer — a cinematic Brigadoon that will soon disappear into the fog — is one that is becoming increasingly obvious in the entertainment world at large: Ticket-buyers want Events. It’s not enough for consumers to regularly attend good movies or nice Broadway shows or average concerts and then head home and go to bed.

Best Picture Oscar winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; more than 600 rare silent film posters; personal film collections and film-related materials from producer Gale Anne Hurd, director Harold Ramis, filmmaker Gregg Araki and film scholar Kevin Brownlow; conceptual art for “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”; and more than 150 hand-painted animation artworks dating back to 1932, donated by Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw.The latter donation will be celebrated with the renaming of the Margaret Herrick Library’s Graphic Arts Department as the Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw Graphic Arts Department.“We are thrilled and honored to expand the Academy’s collection with these exceptional pieces,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer said.

The American Film Institute said today that its annual honorees-only AFI Awards event is set for Friday, January 5, at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.

The very first winner of the Palme d’Or in 1955 was future Best Picture Oscar winner Marty which starred Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair as two lonely middle aged adults beginning a tentative relationship in search of love. Before it was called the Palme d’Or, the top Cannes prize known then as the Grand Prix went in 1946 at the festival’s beginning to David Lean’s Brief Encounter, also the story of two adults who meet by chance and get together.

There’s no place like prison?

I have just spent a week at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I saw no sunlight from Monday around noon to Thursday. But I did see some movies, or at least part of them. It was of course CinemaCon week, or as I like to call it, ‘the unofficial start to Oscar season’. Many pundits might rather give the upcoming Cannes Film Festival with that kind of distinction, but in recent times this smoke-filled exhibitors extravaganza looks to be the starting gun, if you go by what the studios are dropping footage of between all the popcorn movies entertainment theatre owners really care about.

Kevin Wilson has officially been named Head of Theatrical Distribution for Amazon Studios and MGM as the parent company combines labels into one theatrical distribution group.

Amazon Studios announced in an internal memo on Tuesday that it will combine its theatrical distribution team with that of the recently acquired MGM, with Kevin Wilson serving as president of the division. In addition to Wilson’s promotion, Valenti announced that Amazon Studios’ distribution chief Mark Boxer will remain with the studio as head of specialty distribution, reporting to Wilson.Wilson was a longtime partner of MGM theatrical distribution chief Erik Lomis, who died in March.

EXCLUSIVE: QC Entertainment, the production company behind recent Best Picture Oscar contenders BlacKkKlansman and Get Out, has snapped up rights to J.D. Barker’s forthcoming erotic thriller novel Behind a Closed Door in a preemptive bid, with plans to adapt it for film.