Set Decorators Group “Infuriated” By Oscar Plan To Trim Categories From Telecast

The Sun. "I can't say too much about what I've got on but I'd 100 per cent go back to EastEnders - it's part of my life. I've done 28 years, on and off, and 15,000 episodes [on the show].

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.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- It was music fit for the troubled times.Her voice full of heartache and tender resolve, Iranian pop diva and national icon Googoosh delivered old hits and songs from her new album to a packed stadium on Thursday in Dubai — just across the Persian Gulf from her home that had banned her from singing for 21 years and where authorities to this day continue to protest her performances.“When our lives pass away in dismal loneliness, where will we find these beautiful moments again?” she crooned in Farsi from the stage at Expo 2020, Dubai’s world’s fair. “Let my dreams not be forever unfulfilled.”Dressed at first in a simple white dress and later changing into a shimmering black gown, she swayed her hips gently and said she hoped people would remember the night forever.The audience went wild.Googoosh’s classic pre-1979 Islamic Revolution songs drew cheers and shouts of recognition, as Iranian concert-goers sang every word of the cabaret-style ballads and jump-danced to her discotheque tunes.“I can’t tell you how much I love her,” gushed 35-year-old Sarah Ali, an Iranian fan who traveled from Oman for the concert and arrived at Expo nine hours early to get as close as possible to the stage.

Paramount+‘s “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”Wesley was in for quite a surprise on Tuesday when he found himself sitting next to Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, on a plane.The “Tell Me A Story” actor tweeted out a snap of the two men smiling from behind their masks on the aircraft.“I am deeply humbled and still a little startled to have been given the honor of playing the inimitable James T Kirk,” Wesley wrote. “Ever since I was a kid, I have been awed by the imaginative world Gene Roddenberry created,” he noted.

Hailey Bieber was reportedly hospitalized in the Palm Springs area this week after she suffered a “medical emergency.”

Hailie Scott Mathers left her fans drooling over a stunning Instagram snapshot once again. The 26-year-old daughter of rapper Eminem, who goes by Hailie Jade, took to Instagram on Mar. 11 to share another pretty photo with her social media followers.

the recently announced plan to hand out awards in eight categories before the live telecast of this year’s Academy Awards begins. But some critics of the plan, which will bestow awards in the Dolby Theatre during the Oscar preshow and then edit those presentations into the live telecast, are looking beyond this year to what could be the real battle for the show’s future. “I’ve talked about it publicly and I’ve talked to people at the Academy about it privately, and I don’t think anything’s going to change,” “Nightmare Alley” director Guillermo del Toro told TheWrap this week.

The drama is heating up in the new season of “Tehran”.

It might not be on your radar yet, but Apple TV+ espionage thriller “Tehran” is building steam and is already an International Emmy Award-winning hit abroad. An espionage thriller from “Fauda” writer Moshe Zonder, “Tehran” tells the thrilling story of a Mossad agent who goes deep undercover on a dangerous mission in Tehran that places her and everyone around her in dire jeopardy.

wine-ing about the 94th Academy Awards.The trio of funny ladies are hosting the 2022 Oscars on March 27 and the Academy released the first promo for the show on Wednesday.Schumer, Sykes, and Hall jokingly rip on past ceremony hosts over glasses of red wine and cheese boards in the 30-second spot.“We just have to do better than last year’s host,” Sykes, 56, notes. Schumer, 40, then agrees, adding: “That is the thing, totally.

Jon Burlingame editorSome of Hollywood’s most high-profile filmmakers, including director James Cameron, producers Kathleen Kennedy and Lili Fini Zanuck and composer John Williams have joined the growing chorus of voices asking the Academy to reverse course and present all 23 Oscars on the live March 27 telecast.In a letter obtained by Variety and sent today to Academy President David Rubin, more than six dozen film professionals including multiple Academy Award winners, contend that the plan to present eight awards during the pre-telecast hour will “demean” these crafts and “relegate [them] to the status of second-class citizens.”The eight are original score, film editing, production design, makeup and hairstyling, sound, documentary short, live-action short and animated short. The Academy continues to insist that the nominees in those categories will be announced, and the winner’s acceptance speech aired, in edited form and aired as part of the three-hour ABC show.

this is the year.”But between COVID and Ukraine and a recent plan to change the Oscar show, this was also a year to question celebration, and there was some of that going on as the nominees gathered. The specter of the pandemic hung over the event, both in the fact that everyone was required to not only show proof of vaccination but also to have tested negative in a PCR test either Saturday or Sunday.

EXCLUSIVE: Voicing his concern and disappointment over the Motion Picture Academy’s controversial decision to move the presentation of eight categories to the hour before the actual ABC Oscar telecast begins at 5 p.m. PT on March 27, Steven Spielberg has become the most powerful voice yet to express his opposition to the idea.

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.

Lana Condor and Claire Holt step out in style for the Veronica Beard Spring 2022 Runway Show held at The Royal Poinciana Plaza on Tuesday (March 1) in Palm Beach, Fla.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorArtisans are hoping for an Academy Awards do-over before the ceremony begins.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sparked outrage and frustration last week when it revealed plans to award eight craft Oscars before the live telecast and sprinkle footage of those presentations throughout the three-hour show — all to make room for other entertainment elements designed to boost viewer engagement and sagging ratings. Adding to the upset: Unsuspecting nominees felt ambushed by the Zoom announcement about the impending change during a virtual town hall last week.Susan Cabral-Ebert, a member of the Make-up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild, is among those hoping the Academy rethinks its plans before the March 27 ceremony.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals today announced a final round of Keynotes and Featured Speakers for the 36th annual Conference taking place in Austin, TX from March 11-20, with Ron Howard, Ted Lasso stars Brett Goldstein and Brendan Hunt, actor-filmmaker Gillian Jacobs, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. representative Beto O’Rourke, and musicians Brian Eno and Nathaniel Rateliff among the notable additions.

J. Kim Murphy The Set Decorators Society of America has penned an open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expressing its “extreme disappointment” regarding the decision to not broadcast certain categories — best production design, particularly — live during this year’s Oscars ceremony.The letter, addressed to Academy president David Rubin, CEO Dawn Hudson, the AMPAS board executive committee and the AMPAS awards committee, expresses solidarity with other branches that the “Academy has elected to demote from equal recognition” during its upcoming ceremony.“The diminution of these specific awards, which you declare to be ‘the fat in need of trimming’ from the broadcast in order to make it more entertaining, is punitive not only to the individual artists singled out for this treatment, but to entire industries represented by each one, who take enormous pride in their part in the creation of each nominated and winning film in the Academy competition,” the letter reads.