Sean Penn on when he met “creepy little bully” Vladimir Putin with Jack Nicholson

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be missing out on the Academy Awards for the second year in a row.

Tatiana Siegel For the past year, Volodymyr Zelensky has been greeted with open arms by awards shows, film festivals and even the New York Stock Exchange. But when it comes to landing airtime on the most coveted telecast of all — the Oscars — the Ukrainian leader is being met with a cold shoulder. For the second year in a row, the Academy has snubbed Zelensky, who was hoping to follow up his Berlin Film Festival (remote) appearance last month with a virtual spot on Sunday’s Oscar telecast on ABC. Sources say WME power agent Mike Simpson made a plea to the Academy to include the comedic actor-turned-politician but was shut down. The Academy declined comment. 

Metro Weekly. The audience likely identifies as part of the acronym. Or Same-Gender-Loving (SGL).

Oscar voters scanning their final ballot may do a double-take when they get to Best Documentary Feature: the name Shane Boris really does appear twice in the same category. 

Christopher Vourlias When he began working on his sophomore documentary feature, “Iron Butterflies,” in 2019, Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Liubyi said he was “making the film as a warning, before the Third World War.” The film, which world premiered at Sundance, follows the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014, a tragedy that was determined by a Dutch court in Nov. 2022 to have been caused by a missile supplied by the Russian military to separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Many Ukrainians thought the tragic event, which killed 289 civilian passengers and crew, would serve as a wake-up call to Europe and the U.S., which had largely turned a blind eye to Russia’s meddling in the region, said the director. But the years dragged on and the long-running conflict in Donbas retreated from the headlines — until an increasingly emboldened Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine last year.

Sean Penn is doubling down on his call for the United States to supply Ukraine with modern fighter jets amid the country's war against Russia. The 62-year-old actor, who first pressed the White House on Ukraine's need for jets last March, said President Joe Biden's surprise trip to Kyiv this week to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion was "extremely encouraging." However, he stressed that the U.S. continue sending military aid, including modern aircraft, to the war-torn nation.

EXCLUSIVE: On February 24, 2022 Sean Penn and his documentary filmmaking team got up before dawn in Kyiv in anticipation of a planned interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Suddenly, explosions shattered the quiet and missile fire turned the darkened sky to malevolent orange. Russia’s full-scale attack on its neighbor had begun — what President Vladimir Putin later that day euphemistically dubbed a “special military operation.”

When Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is understood that he believed a takeover would only take a few days.

Today marks one full year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and fears remain that it could last for another.

On this day last year, Vladimir Putin ordered his troops across the Ukraine border, marking the start of a deadly conflict which has taken the lives of thousands.

A year ago today, the world woke up to war.

Zack Sharf Back in 2001, Sean Penn found himself next to Jack Nicholson in a speeding car on the way to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin. The two actors were in Russia for the world premiere of “The Pledge” at the Moscow Film Festival. The Penn-directed psychological drama starred Nicholson as a retiring police detective who vows to catch the killer of a young child. Penn recently spoke to The Independent about his anxiety-inducing journey to meet Putin. “We were put in a convoy,” Penn said. “We knew that Putin was going to be the honored guest. In the nature of that time and space, we accepted the invitation. We got in this convoy, and we were going as fast as they wanted to drive, with no care for whether it might have presented danger in the villages we drove through.”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told Ukrainian refugees living in the country that Scotland will be their home for as long as they need it to be, one-year on from the Russian invasion.

Broadcast and cable networks are planning specials, a town hall and other coverage Thursday tied to the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Correspondents also will report from sites around the country, with Vladimir Putin’s regime mounting a winter offensive.

tweeted that “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” drawing furious responses from the left and more moderate right.“This is so laughable because blue states as we all know are the donor states, or the states where taxpayers take it on the chin to take care of districts like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s, to take care of districts across taxes where Ted Cruz talks about secession,” host Joe Scarborough said on Tuesday’s episode of “Morning Joe.”“What is it that so deeply offends [Republicans], like three trans athletes in Utah want to swim? Is that real?” he asked guest commentator Charlie Sykes.Both agreed that calls for a “national divorce” were not to be taken as a serious possibility, but rather as a tactic to collect funds from right-wing supporters.“It’s fascinating that they’re so desperate to raise money from small donors, they’re actually willing to say, we need to have a civil war,” Scarborough pointed out.Sykes agreed that their motives were purely “to keep racheting up the outrage.” Still, such rhetoric is not without danger, he said.“People like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ron DeSantis are appealing to the id of the party, the id of the right, which is anti-Ukraine, which is willing to tolerate this sort of notion that our real enemy is not Vladimir Putin.

Christopher Vourlias The war in Ukraine has taken center stage this week at the Berlin Film Festival, which is taking place for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. At Thursday’s opening ceremony, Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy appeared via satellite to encourage festival-goers “not to remain silent” over Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression. Sean Penn, who this week premiered his docu-portrait of the Ukrainian leader, “Superpower,” lashed out at Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who he described as a “war criminal” and a “creepy little bully.” Moral outrage has not been in short supply since the start of the war, as the global film community — in a show of near unanimous condemnation of the Kremlin’s criminal attack — has rallied behind the Ukrainian war effort. But many U.S. and foreign companies quietly continue to do business with Putin’s pariah state or have resumed the deal-making that was put on pause once the war began.

There is a particular kind of audacity reserved for the wealthy and the well-meaning. Multi-award-winning actor and humanitarian Sean Penn co-directs “Superpower” with Aaron Kaufman, known mostly for his commercial work and his collaboration with writer-director Robert Rodriguez.

Investigative journalist Christo Grozev, a key figure in the story of acclaimed documentary Navalny, says he and his family have been banned from attending the BAFTA ceremony on Sunday because he poses “a public security risk”.

Sean Penn has reiterated his offer to have one of his Oscars melted down by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky – saying his gift to the battling leader was inspired by his “continuing shame towards the Motion Picture Academy.”

Christopher Vourlias Sean Penn said he was happy to be a “propagandist” for the Ukrainian war effort and called Russian president Vladimir Putin a “creepy little bully” Saturday in Berlin, after the world premiere of his gonzo documentary “Superpower,” a gripping, courage-under-fire portrait of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “This is not an unbiased film because this is not an ambiguous war,” he said, calling the conflict “extremely personal.” “I’m very happy to be considered a propagandist. I was happy to make an unbiased film because that is the true story we found.” Donning a black jacket and hoodie and sporting a camouflage trucker cap, Penn repeatedly called on the Biden administration to send precision, long-range missiles to Kyiv to support the Ukrainian war effort.