Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was seen on video using his knee to pin down George Floyd, has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington, who made the Friday announcement at a brief news conference, said he did not have information about the charges, or about the
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The year 2020 already started on a pretty high note for Kelvin Harrison Jr., with an Independent Spirit Award nod and a BAFTA EE Rising Star award nomination for his breakthrough performances in “Luce” and “Waves.” And with turns in “The Photograph” and now “The High Note,” the young actor’s star is primed to rise
YouTube and Tribeca Enterprises have kicked off We Are One: A Global Film Festival — a 10-day collaboration among 21 film fests from around the world, encompassing a lineup of more than 100 films and other programming, all streaming for free. Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer, is thrilled that the video giant is the
We at Variety Music don’t usually write about playlists, but it’s hard not to make an exception for Britney Spears’ “I Miss Y2K” collection at Apple Music. “I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since a lot of these songs came out,” Spears told Apple Music. “For me these songs remind me of the time period
Alec Baldwin is producing and starring in the independent Western action movie “Rust” with Joel Souza directing from his own script, based on a story by Souza and Baldwin. Highland Film Group will launch international sales at the upcoming Marché du Film Online, which launches on June 22. CAA Media Finance is handling the domestic rights, and
President Donald Trump’s animosity toward the mainstream news media has fueled the conditions that led a CNN reporter and three crew members to be arrested while covering the unrest in Minneapolis sparked by the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police. George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center,
Cush Jumbo will not be returning to “The Good Fight” when the CBS All Access show comes back for its fifth season, Variety has confirmed. “I have had the most amazing time over the last five years working with Robert, Michelle and the crews of both ‘The Good Wife’ and ‘The Good Fight,’” Jumbo said. “I
Lil Yachty is no stranger to breaking the internet. In March, he dropped the track “Oprah’s Bank Account” featuring Drake and DaBaby along with a nine-minute visual that lampooned the entertainment mogul, played by the rapper himself, and her talk show. The clip was directed by Director X and featured Yachty costumed in a dress
Welcome to Variety Music’s third-ever Fri 5, our collection of the best, most noteworthy or simply most remarkable new songs from the past week. It is not complete or definitive or a fight-to-the-death “best of,” but rather a bunch of songs that we find interesting — because a world without five interesting new songs every week
For four glorious weeks in April and May, Fridays on VH1 belonged to “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” First, viewers could watch the 90-minute episodes of the Emmy-winning reality show’s 12th season, in which 13 drag queens (well, actually 12 — more on that later) compete to be crowned “America’s next drag superstar.” Then they could take
SummerStage concerts in New York’s Central Park have been a city ritual for decades, but like so many things in 2020, this year’s series is moving online: Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage today announced the launch of its digital series, SummerStage Anywhere. The platform will launch on Saturday, June 6th at 7PM EST with
The songwriting credits for the new Apple TV Plus animated series “Central Park” include a veritable who’s who of American female singer-songwriters stepping out of tune-land and into toon-land as guest writers, with Sara Bareilles, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Cyndi Lauper and Meghan Trainor among those represented. None of their voices will be heard on
Taylor Swift has taken the gloves off when it comes to President Trump. The pop superstar quoted his risible “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” tweet, which threatened protesters in Minneapolis with gunfire — and received a warning label from Twitter that it promoted violence — before making a vow to help turn out
Netflix has finalized a deal to buy Hollywood’s historic Egyptian Theatre for an undisclosed price, closing a transaction that had been in the works for more than a year. The acquisition represents a major milestone in Netflix’s effort to become part of the Hollywood filmmaking community. Major cinema chains like AMC and Regal had been
For all the reinvention and rejuvenation Lady Gaga has shown over the past few years — her acclaimed acting debut in “A Star Is Born,” her duets with Tony Bennett, her show-stopping concerts, ranging from innovative Las Vegas residencies to a stellar 2017 Super Bowl halftime performance — it’s hard to escape the fact that
China’s move to insert a national security law into Hong Kong may create problems for U.S. social-media giant Facebook, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. “We don’t offer our consumer services (in China). We’re just never able to come to agreement on what it would take to operate there. So I think we’re gonna have
Facebook has created an app that’s designed to lure the eyeballs of sports fans from their televisions to their mobile devices. The app, dubbed Venue, comes as fans increasingly watch games while holding a mobile device, or second screen, where they engage on platforms devoted to things like social media and sports betting. It’s designed
A different type of journalist is getting booked on “Meet The Press.” The venerable NBC News Sunday public-affairs program will test a five-week series featuring college journalism students on a panel with the show’s moderator, Chuck Todd. The assemblage will even take part in one of the program’s central rituals – quizzing newsmakers on pertinent
A bevy of working TV-news correspondents from a range of media outlets expressed surprise and outrage after a CNN correspondent was arrested while covering protests in Minneapolis. Police arrested CNN journalist Omar Jimenez and his crew on air early Friday during a live broadcast in Minneapolis, as they covered riots sparked by George Floyd’s death,
Members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television voted to crown Sophie Deraspe’s “Antigone” as best film at the Canadian Screen Awards Thursday, presented virtually by broadcasters CBC and CTV. The film, a contemporary spin on the Greek tragedy, also won awards for lead female actor for Nahéma Ricci, female actor in a supporting
Police arrested CNN journalist Omar Jimenez and his crew on air early Friday during a live broadcast in Minneapolis, as they covered riots sparked by George Floyd’s death, sparking intense outrage as well as an apology by Minnesota governor Tim Walz to top executives at the cable-news network. CNN called the arrests a “violation of
In Mexico, Monterrey has a notorious gang problem, often linked to street violence and drugs in a city where cartels pose a national threat, but 17-year-old Ulises and his friends aren’t part of it. Technically, their little group is also a gang — they call themselves “Los Terkos,” dress alike in baggy clothes and sport
Movistar Plus action thriller “Riot Police” (“Antidisturbios”), one of the most buzzed up of drama series from Spain this year, at least among the few who have caught its first episodes, will be brought onto the international market at next month’s Conecta Fiction Reboot. The unveil comes as Movistar Plus, the pay TV/SVOD arm of
London-based production and sales outfit Film Constellation has boarded the Spanish-language caper action film “Sky High” (“Hasta El Cielo”), directed by Daniel Calparsoro (“To Steal From a Thief”). The anticipated movie is headlined by a strong local cast, including Miguel Herran, the up-and-coming star of “Money Heist,” the Goya-winning actors Luis Tosar (“Cell 211”) and
While Twitter put Donald Trump in a penalty box for a tweet advocating violence against crowds Minneapolis protesters, Facebook and Instagram for now have left up the same message from the president on their services without any similar warning. Trump, responding to protests in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, a black man killed
The coronavirus disrupted both the festival and commercial careers of Hong Kong drama film “Suk Suk.” But as the film’s narrative suggests, a late blooming is still possible. Written and directed by Ray Yeung, the film chronicles the gay romance between two aging men who had lived much of their younger lives hiding their sexuality.
Amazon Prime Video is to live stream a “behind closed doors” tournament for British tennis players in the U.K. and Ireland, while Tennis Channel has the rights in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and Eurosport will stream it in the rest of Europe. Players will include Andy Murray, who competes in a tournament for
Rony Abovitz is stepping down as CEO of Magic Leap, nine years after he founded the augmented-reality company — which has raised around $3 billion but has found little commercial success. His exit comes after Magic Leap decided to shift its focus to AR applications for businesses, sidelining plans for consumer-oriented hardware. Last month, Abovitz
If there’s one thing that can be said of CISAC, the global confederation of performing rights societies, its recent presidents have impeccable artistic pedigree: The organization announced today that Abba cofounder Björn Ulvaeus has been elected as the next president, replacing electronic music pioneer Jean Michel Jarre, who is stepping down from the post after
Just hours after President Donald Trump issued an executive order seeking to strip legal protections from social-media companies that “censor” speech, Twitter early Friday applied another a warning label to one of Trump’s tweets — with the company saying his post about unrest in Minneapolis violated its policy banning content that glorifies violence. Trump, in