Month: April 2021

The fabulously well-to-do are ready to party with their fellow one-percenters at the Cannes Film Festival, COVID be damned. AmfAR will host the annual fundraiser to benefit AIDS research on July 16, the organization announced this week. The event, which boasts $10,000 tickets and has played host to the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Mariah Carey,
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“Godzilla vs. Kong” naturally focuses on the mighty battle between the monsters, but costume designer Ann Foley also had a story to tell with her work. Foley brought unique touches to dressing the human actors: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Kyle Chandler and Demián Bichir. Foley mapped out how what
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Universal’s “Fast & Furious 9” has passed Chinese censorship to receive official approval for release, the company announced on Wednesday. A specific China release date has not been set yet. “See you on the big screen!” Universal Pictures said on its official Weibo social media account, alongside a Chinese version of the poster. “F9” debuts
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In an unusual step, Twitch, the Amazon-owned livestreaming service popular among gamers, has formally adopted a policy to suspend users if they engage in “severe misconduct” that occurs off the platform. The company noted that it has taken action before against serious and clear misconduct that took place offline — but until now, Twitch “didn’t
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Israeli-American actress-producer-author Noa Tishby was compiling research for what would eventually become her newly released non-fiction book “Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth” (Simon & Schuster) when she discovered that — save for Golda Meir’s 1973 autobiography and English translations of Israeli historian Anita Shapira’s work — there were no
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T’Nia Miller, JJ Feild, Charlotte Riley, Adelind Horan and Alex Hernandez have been cast in the Amazon series adaptation of the New York Times-bestselling William Gibson novel “The Peripheral” from “Westworld” creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Variety has learned. They join Jack Reynor, who stars in the lead role of Burton along with fellow cast
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Independent Lens, the PBS documentary anthology series, has announced its upcoming spring slate. The weekly program, produced in partnership with ITVS, will spotlight a range of topics, from criminal justice reform to the plight of the American dream. Among the first to air will be “Philly D.A.,” an eight-episode deep dive into local-policy making and
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Willie Nelson and Luck Presents, a “rogue collective” based in his hometown of Luck, Texas, have announced a four-day virtual cannabis convention, to be hosted online by fellow musician Nathaniel Rateliff. Dubbed “Luck Summit: Planting the Seed,” the ticketed event will serve as a benefit for HeadCount’s Cannabis Voter Project, with programming beginning April 26
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Sixty-four years ago, as Elvis Presley’s career reached its supernova stage, the 21-year-old singer’s team hit on a strategy that enabled him to profit from songwriting without actually writing songs. His management and music publisher had added Presley’s name to the credits on a couple of his early hits, but the singer wasn’t comfortable with
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MrBeast, the hugely popular YouTube creator famous for his big-money giveaways and stunts, is angling to boost his viewership on Facebook and Snapchat. MrBeast (real name: Jimmy Donaldson) signed an exclusive deal with Jellysmack, a company that specializes in optimizing video distribution across internet platforms, to manage distribution of his video content on Snapchat and
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Writers and producers at Spotify-owned Gimlet Media and The Ringer represented by WGA East have ratified their first collective bargaining agreements, making them among the first podcast workers to unionize with the guild. WGA East negotiated both three-year agreements concurrently. The contracts were unanimously ratified by Gimlet’s 48 union members and The Ringer’s 65 union
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“Mystery Science Theater 3000” could be coming back again…again. Series creator Joel Hodgson announced Wednesday that the show has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to create a new, independent season of the series. The current goal is to raise at least $2 million to create new episodes of the beloved cult show and what Hodgson
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“Bachelor in Paradise” and its sister spinoff series “The Bachelorette” are headed back to ABC this summer to enrapture fans with soaring romance and dating don’ts once again after the former took a hiatus due to the pandemic and the latter had a clunky, COVID-19-friendly split-season with two leads, Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams. Adams
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As Hollywood continues its ongoing fight for increased diversity and representation across the industry, disability is rarely included. Entrepreneur and disability activist Keely Cat-Wells is teaming up with major Hollywood figures to urge movie studios to hire a permanent disability officer. Amy Poehler and Naomie Harris are among over 80 names who have signed an
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To one generation, Dionne Warwick is a vocalist of supreme sophistication and elegant soulfulness, an interpreter whose gospel influence, jazzy éclat and conversational phrasing have, since 1962, turned the finest of cosmopolitan pop song — from Bacharach/David and Michel Legrand to Thom Bell and Barry Gibb — into gold. To another generation, Warwick is, at
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An Oscar nomination goes a long way when it comes to attracting new streaming viewers, new data from Netflix suggests. Notoriously guarded when it comes to sharing numbers, the content giant exclusively reveals to Variety that its 16 Oscars hopefuls enjoyed considerable viewership increases in the days following the March 15 announcement of the Academy Award nominations.
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