'SNL' Star Melissa Villasenor to Host Film Independent Spirit Awards

Comedian Jeff Ross has spoken out in defense of Michael Che following backlash he received for a joke on "Saturday Night Live" that many critics called anti-Semitic. "Uh, it was hilarious," Ross recently said to TMZ on camera while walking through Los Angeles.

Larsa Pippen is trying to defend herself — but is anybody buying this?!

Elaine Low Senior TV Writer“Supergirl” star Melissa Benoist has formed a new production company, Three Things Productions, and inked an exclusive, multiyear overall deal with Warner Bros. Television Group.Through Three Things — inspired by the Mary Oliver poem “Three Things to Remember” — Benoist and her team will develop and produce original TV programming for all platforms.

Like many award ceremonies, 2021 Independent Spirit Awards are going virtual this year and they might have just found the perfect host to make it as entertaining as possible, Melissa Villaseñor. A cast member of “Saturday Night Live” since 1996, Villaseñor takes the reigns after two fantastic ceremonies hosted by Aubrey Plaza.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorKenny Beecham, best known as YouTube star KOT4Q, is set to premiere a new weekly talk show “Called Game.”Beecham, 24, has teamed with content studio and social media network MALKA and talent management and entertainment company Up North to produce the new series, which will focus on sports, sneaker culture, gaming and more which is set to debut this month on YouTube.

Get ready for what looks to be a really funny Film Independent Spirit Awards ceremony, which will keep us in stiches for some time. The show, which will not be live from the Santa Monica Beach this year due to Covid, has tapped SNL’s Melissa Villaseñor to host this year’s 2021 edition.

“Saturday Night Live” star Melissa Villaseñor will host the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards on April 22, the organization announced on Monday.She will host the first primetime version of the Spirit Awards, which this year will air on IFC on the Thursday night before the Oscars instead of the traditional Saturday afternoon event near the Santa Monica pier.“As someone who considers herself a pretty dependent person, I’m truly honored to host the Film Independent Spirit Awards,” said

The list of actors cut out of Terrence Malick’s classic 1998 “The Thin Red Line” war movie is long and legendary (we’ve dedicated entire features to digging up nuggets of stories over the years). And actor Viggo Mortensen—cut out of early roles in films like Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” and Jonathan Demme‘s “Swing Shift”—knows a thing or two about being left on the cutting room floor.

Kenan Thompson, the longtime cast member of "Saturday Night Live" and "All That" alum, has been tapped to embark viewers on a wild celebratory ride at the ever-slimy Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, airing live on Saturday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. ET.

In writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples' debut feature, Miss Juneteenth, Nicole Beharie stars as Turquoise Jones, a single mom to teenager Kai (Alexis Chikaeze) living in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. Balancing two jobs, Turquoise does her best to set high standards for her daughter, hoping Kai will stray from her own path and go off to college and seek a career.

What a busy morning! Not only did the National Board of Review announce its winners, the Film Independent Spirit Awards revealed their nominees. It was quite the precursor day, to say the least! NBR gave their top prize to Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, while the Spirit Awards were led by Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

The teen abortion drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” landed a leading seven nominations, Chadwick Boseman was posthumously nominated and women dominated the best director category in the Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations announced Tuesday.

Film Independent has unveiled its nominations for the 2021 Independent Spirit Awards, a major stop on this year's virtual awards season. Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always scored a leading seven nominations, including for best feature, with Lee Isaac Chung's Minari landing six nods and George C.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeWhen Film Independent announced last fall that it would add several TV categories to this year’s Spirit Awards, perhaps the biggest question was, “What is Indie TV?”Ultimately, with no budgetary cap (unlike the $22.5 million limit in film), and with most TV projects coming from major networks and studios, Film Independent president John Walsh told me at the time that it would come down to a “smell test”: “aesthetic, original provocative subject matter,