Actors, writers, musicians and even former president Barack Obama will be taking part in virtual graduation ceremonies as the Class of 2020 is still under stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and on “Saturday Night Live’s” “At Home” finale, the NBC late-night sketch series got in on the ceremonial event as well. Alec Baldwin
A miniseries about the rise of the late Andre Harrell’s Uptown Records is still in the works and moving ahead at BET following the veteran music executive’s death. But with production throughout the television business shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, no premiere date or timetable for the start of shooting has been set.
The Mayor of Flavortown is giving back to restaurant workers around the country. Guy Fieri has helped raise more than $20 million by partnering with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, he announced in an interview with TMZ. He and the organization have been sending restaurant workers $500 grants through the newly created Restaurant Employee
With no fanfare, Hollywood studios and leaders of the Writers Guild of America have moved back the start of masters contract negotiations a week to May 18. Representatives of the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were not immediately available for comment about the change, which was revealed Saturday. The two sides
No one can do a Little Richard composition like Little Richard. In the finest moments from the rock and roll pioneer — who died Saturday at the age of 87 — self-penned songs were as flamboyant as his appearance. Informed by his Georgian roots in the Pentecostal church and the nightlife business (tellingly, his dad
Beanie Feldstein stopped by the Variety After Show, presented by National Geographic, for a virtual chat about her new movie “How to Build a Girl.” She talks about having a lead role for the first time and putting on a English accent, but got serious talking about refusing to be typecast for her body size.
The music of Little Richard, who died on Saturday at the age of 87, was one of the genuine architects of not only rock and roll but R&B, soul, hip-hop and other genres as well. Few artists can truly be said to have directly inspired the Beatles, James Brown, the Rolling Stones, Prince and countless
Exclusive Queens of the Stone Age front man Josh Homme is flipping the script on his estranged wife, whom he claims has been trying to get him busted for allegedly violating a restraining order. Now the rock singer’s filed for a restraining order against her. In the docs, obtained by TMZ, Josh claims Brody Dalle-Homme
News of the death of veteran music executive Andre Harrell hit the industry hard with many artists, former colleagues, fans and friends expressing their grief on social media Friday night, May 8, into Saturday morning. Harrell founded Uptown Records and hired Sean “P. Diddy” Combs as an intern, later promoting him to vice president of
Play video content Breaking News The gloves are officially off, because Barack Obama has made his feelings known about the way his successor has handled the coronavirus pandemic, and the former Prez did NOT mince words. Obama was speaking with members of the Obama Alumni Ass’n, and during the 30-minute call, he was explaining to
Linda Yaccarino, the hard-charging ad-sales chief of NBCUniversal. will soon be running into uncharted territory. In recent years, Yaccarino has railed against Nielsen and taken a public swipe at Facebook. She has urged advertisers to consider running fewer commercials on NBC and to work to make the ones that remain more ambitious and interesting. On
Flamboyant singer-instrumentalist Little Richard, whose high-voltage, keyboard-shattering R&B singles supplied lift-off for the ’50s rock ‘n’ roll revolution, has died. The musician, whose birth name was Richard Penniman, was 87, although some sources say he was older. His death was confirmed by his son, Danny Jones Penniman, who told the New York Times the cause
Check out the top new trailers released this week that you’ve gotta see! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Sign up for a Fandango FanAlert or Buy Movie Tickets: https://www.fandango.com?cmp=MCYT_YouTube_Desc Want to be notified of all the latest movie trailers? Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to
How long will work-from-home last? Most Google and Facebook employees likely will not be going back to the office full time until 2021. The tech industry’s two biggest internet companies have told employees to settle into home-office routines through the end of the year amid the COVID-19 crisis. Both Google and Facebook this week said
Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks, a large media and entertainment law firm, appears to have been the victim of a cyberattack that resulted in the theft of an enormous batch of private information on dozens of celebrities, according to a data security researcher. The trove of data allegedly stolen from the New York-based firm by
Andre Harrell, a veteran music executive best known as the founder of Uptown Records, where Sean “Puffy” Combs got his start in the business, who later went on to head Motown Records, has died. He was 59. The cause of death is as yet unclear. DJ D-Nice revealed the sad news while spinning on Instagram
In today’s film news roundup, romantic comedy “Tell Me I Love You” finds a home; the Canadian government gives COVID-19 relief funding to the Canada Media Fund and Telefilm Canada; and the cancelled Sun Valley Film Festival gives out awards. ACQUISITION Vision Films has acquired Los Angeles romantic comedy film “Tell Me I Love You,”
In the last 10 years, there’s been an ever-widening niche of documentaries about Stanley Kubrick. Every one of them has been fascinating, one or two (like “Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes”) are as idiosyncratic as the director himself, and the most artful and memorable — “Filmworker” (2017), a portrait of Kubrick’s monkishly devoted gofer and right-hand assistant,
Here’s to the fools who dream — and to the mess they make. Three years ago, Starline Tours dreamed up a branded tour of the locations in “La La Land,” the musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. But now, the Hollywood tour company has ended up in litigation. Lionsgate, which produced the film, filed
China’s cinemas may now reopen for business if they follow coronavirus prevention protocols like capping visitor numbers, new guidelines issued by the country’s top administrative body said Friday. The guidelines are the first official signal that Chinese authorities have softened their strict stance on exhibition sector closures. However, no dates were mentioned. As of Friday
Rep. Adam Schiff is joining SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris and IATSE International president Matt Loeb for a virtual town hall discussion on May 12 on the impact of the coronavirus. Schiff, a 10-term congressman whose district includes Hollywood, will take questions from the unions’ members about their concerns regarding the pandemic and its impact on
Whether it’s pandemic boredom, slavish dedication or a combination of both, fans of some of pop music’s top divas have been amusing themselves lately by launching social media campaigns to get their favorite singers’ less respected albums to the top of the download charts, years after the fact. It happened when Mariah Carey’s “lambs” drove
(SPOILER ALERT: Do not read on if you haven’t watched the Season 2 finale of “Bless This Mess.”) Lake Bell’s ABC sitcom “Bless This Mess” just aired its second season finale, but the actor is celebrating something else: Her son Ozgood’s triumphs in potty training. During Bell’s interview with Variety, the 3-year-old ran into the
By now we all know that time spent with oneself does not always mean excavating life-shattering revelations. But like a bucket of cold water to the face, Hayley Williams’ self-analysis on her new solo album, “Petals for Armor,” embraces the active work of personal change. Standing alone in the spotlight, as opposed to with her
In today’s TV News Roundup, The CW released the trailer for the final season of “The 100” and Netflix announced the premiere date of its upcoming series “The Baby-Sitters Club.” DATES Netflix has announced that its upcoming television series “The Baby-Sitters Club” will debut on the streamer on July 3. Adapted from Ann M. Martin‘s
A coalition of more than three dozen entertainment industry organizations is asking Congress to reform the implementation of the CARES Act by enacting a new COVID relief package. The groups include Actors Equity, the American Federation of Musicians, SAG-AFTRA, the Recording Industry Association of America, Digital Media Association, Paradigm Talent Agency, the Recording Academy, the
Theaters have been closed long enough now due to COVID-19 that distributors are starting to figure out how to launch their limited-release movies via streaming services instead. May 8 brings more than two dozen new releases, including a handful that can be seen on drive-in screens, and a high-profile Netflix original in the form of
Marco Bellocchio’s elegant mob drama “The Traitor,” about the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, was the big winner at Italy’s 65th David di Donatello Awards, the country’s equivalent of the Oscars. “The Traitor” scored six statuettes including best picture, director, and actor honors. The prizes were announced
Stephen King’s 2014 novel “Revival” is his latest book coming to the big screen. Warner Bros., the studio behind King’s “It” franchise, is developing the movie. Mike Flanagan is on board to adapt the script with an option to direct. Trevor Macy, who teamed with Flanagan on the 2019 adaptation of King’s “Doctor Sleep,” will produce
In the ’80s, a group of scientists and artists wanted to know if they could recreate Earth’s ecosystem, so they built Biosphere 2 (Earth was known as Biosphere 1) in Oracle, Ariz. The experiment was not only scientific, but a social one where eight scientists locked themselves in the Biosphere from 1991 to 1993. There