Oscar Voting Starts Now! Academy Members, You Have Five And A Half Days And Counting

Brad Pitt “isn’t dating anybody” despite a recent report that the 58-year-old actor and Lykke Li, 35, were “secretly dating.” A few sources close to the Oscar winner spoke EXCLUSIVELY with HollywoodLife and revealed what Brad is looking for in his ideal suitor.

Black Experience on the Xfinity platform. Featuring Black independent films bursting with talented Black filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, and producers—you can many of your favorites by simply saying “Black Experience” or “Black Independent Films” into your Xfinity voice remote.Check out our top picks right here, then browse all the incredible film picks on the Black Experience on Xfinity.Eve’s BayouSet in 1962 Louisiana, this ground-breaking film centers around the youngest member of the Batiste family, Eve.

Hulu has given an eight-episode series order to Up Here, a musical romantic comedy from Tony-winning playwright Steven Levenson (tick, tick… BOOM!), Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (The Carmichael Show, My Name Is Earl), Tony-winning Hamilton director Thomas Kail and Oscar, Emmy and Grammy-winning duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen, WandaVision). 20th Television and Kail’s Old 320 Sycamore Productions co-produce the series, which is currently casting with production set to begin this summer in New York.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAlec Baldwin and his company El Dorado Pictures are teaming on true-crime podcast “Art Fraud,” in a co-production with iHeartRadio and Cavalry Media.Baldwin narrates the eight-episode series, which chronicles the fall of The Knoedler, among the oldest and most-revered art galleries in New York City. The producers promise never-before-heard interviews with the mastermind behind the long con.

When the Oscar nominations are announced on Feb. 8 Flee could pull off an unprecedented trifecta—becoming the first film nominated as Best Documentary Feature, Best International Film and Best Animated Feature.

EXCLUSIVE: Alec Baldwin is to explore the fall of the one of the oldest, and most revered, galleries in New York City in a new true-crime podcast series.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorIn a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.In “Great Freedom,” the winner of the runner-up prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Austrian director Sebastian Meise takes an empathetic look at the relationship between two prisoners in a German jail: convicted murderer Viktor (Georg Friedrich), and a gay man, Hans (Rogowski), imprisoned repeatedly over three decades under the country’s homophobic Paragraph 175 statute. The film is Austria’s entry in the International Feature Film category of the Oscars, and is one of 15 films to be shortlisted. What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?It’s incredibly exciting, and personally, I wasn’t expecting it at all.

Cinemas from Philly to New York State and Boston (Coolidge Corner Theatre, you were missed) shuttered all or part of Sat., rattling but not routing the specialty box office. And a shout-out to theaters in NYC proper where all stayed open – sparse by day but picking up in the evening thanks to “younger people not afraid to trudge in the show,” said one distributor.

Bill Cosby, 84, and his wife Camille Cosby, 77, have had five children during their 58-year marriage. Once affectionately dubbed America’s dad, the comedian’s reputation was tarnished after 60 women have spoken out and claimed that he sexually assaulted them, with the claims ranging from groping to rape. While many of these instances had happened too long ago for him to be convicted, he was able to be tried for sexually assaulting his former friend Andrea Constand in 2004 and was found guilty on three counts of 2018. The decision was reversed due to a legal technicality and he was freed in 2021.

inside that room, and they’re not leaving. Jared Leto is hilarious as one of the criminals, Forest Whitaker is aces as a conflicted thief and Dwight Yoakam (of all people) is absolutely chilling.If you’re in the mood for a great period drama, you can’t go wrong with “Sense and Sensibility.” Director Ang Lee’s 1995 Jane Austen adaptation was written by Emma Thompson, who also co-stars and picked up an Oscar for her adapted screenplay.

As the Best International Feature race comes to a close, it’s fairly clear to see who the favorites are. Since it premiered at Cannes last year, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car has dominated the landscape, featuring highly in international critics’ awards and even penetrating the consciousness of the Golden Globes. But—as we saw at Cannes, where Hamaguchi only went home with Best Screenplay—critical mass doesn’t always impact on industry juries. It’s just as possible, then, that the Oscar might go to Norway’s The Worst Person in the World, a gently subversive romcom by Joachim Trier that captures the exact moment in a director’s career when they nail their style. To add a third alternative, Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s sobering emigrant story Flee has been quietly making history, a feat that will be cemented if it becomes, as many think it might, the first film to compete in the International, Documentary and Animation fields.

Naman Ramachandran In a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.Two of Abner Benaim’s films, documentaries “Invasion” (2014) and “Ruben Blades Is Not My Name” (2018), were Panamanian entries to the Oscars, but his “Plaza Catedral” is the first time a film from the country has been shortlisted. The film, which portrays a violent society with a gulf between the rich and poor, won major awards at the Guadalajara and Panama film festivals.

The school holidays are almost upon us once again, meaning most parents will be on the hunt for places to take the kids.

Willem Dafoe tonight made his debut as host of Saturday Night Live, speaking in his monologue about his excitement about returning to New York, where his career as an actor began.

Julia Child knew her way around a sauce the way Leonard Bernstein knew his way around a sympathy, the way Patrick Mahomes knows his way through a defense. That is to say, with panache.

George Clooney thinks that Ben Affleck deserves to win his third Academy Award this year.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorWith “No Time to Die,” Cary Joki Fukunaga took great care when it came to using VFX and special effects. From underwater fights to an Aston Martin DB5 shootout to an explosive finale, the latest James Bond installment “No Time to Die” is bursting with action-packed moments, but Fukunaga wanted to keep the emotional arc of the storytelling front and center. He didn’t want to undermine that sense of reality and use effects purely to enhance the emotional connection to Bond’s story.“No Time to Die,” made the VFX Oscar shortlist, and should it be nominated on Feb.

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit.

Addie Morfoot ContributorBack in the 1980s, former HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins saw an opportunity in the nonfiction short format.“I was watching the Academy Awards one night and there was this category called best docu short and the people who made them were getting Oscars,” Nevins says. “At the Emmys, docus were kept hidden and given out on a special day.

shortlist.Turner’s “Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day” looks back at the history of lynching in America through the ways they’ve been documented on souvenir postcards from 1880 to 1968.Turner described how photographers would take pictures of the lynchings and create postcards of the imagery that people would then send to their friends and family. She says that while the imagery was “graphic,” she tried to focus viewers’ eyes on the amount of people attending the lynchings and the fact that families were there, rather than the lynching itself, to properly contextualize the point in time.“We’re going beyond the brutality of the body itself, but that is also part of what I want viewers to confront,” she said.

Clayton Davis It was a big swing for writer and director Mike Mills to cast Joaquin Phoenix in his beautiful drama “C’mon C’mon,” something he didn’t expect he would take on. “I think Joaquin is an incredibly smart and multiple layered person, who will always be surprising,” says Mills.

Panama makes its debut on the International Feature Oscar shortlist with the character-driven thriller Plaza Catedral. This contender from Abner Benaim (Ruben Blades Is Not My Name) is a taut two-hander between a grieving mother and a young street hustler, with a sobering message about corruption and violence. Samuel Goldwyn Films recently acquired the title.

As voters across the Academy branches mull over their Oscar nomination ballots, among the films they’re considering are two that deal with the Deaf experience. One, CODA, is the fictional coming of age story of a girl raised by Deaf parents. The other – Audible – tells a coming of age story as well, but this one is real.

NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ+ film and media organization, on Friday unveiled the spring lineup for “NewFest Presents,” its monthly screening series taking place in-person at The LGBT Community Center in NYC, and streaming virtually through NewFest’s Virtual Screening Room nationwide. The announcement was made today by NewFest’s executive director David Hatkoff and director of programming Nick McCarthy.

have now made their choices for the best film accomplishments of 2021, culminating this week with a day in which the Producers Guild, Writers Guild and Directors Guild all announced their nominations within a few hours of each other.And when the dust cleared, the Oscar race looked pretty much the same way it did before the guilds started announcing nominations.“Belfast?” Check. “The Power of the Dog?” Yep.

Oscar nomination voting started today, and George Clooney as he has often in his career, has a movie that deserves consideration in The Tender Bar which so far has been somewhat unfairly overlooked in critics and guild award nominations but is the kind of small gem, a family dramedy and coming-of-age story, that I think is the finest directorial job Clooney has done since Good Night And Good Luck. Apparently those who have caught the film in its streaming run that began on January 7 on Amazon Prime agree. In fact the streamer says the movie, which is based on JR Mohringer’s memoir of growing up in Long Island where the patrons of his Uncle Charlie’s bar basically stood in as father figures for him, had one of the best debuts of any original movie on Prime Video, currently in their top 10 movie releases of all time,  and opened globally on the service worldwide in over 240 countries and territories where it was #1 in its opening week. It has also been getting a large amount of five star reviews from users on the site.

In one of Syrian-born artist Mohamad Hafez’s stunning 3D pieces, a figurine of the Virgin Mary stands before an ornate portal, her hands joined in prayer. The building around her, rendered in plaster, paint, rusted metal and found objects, is blasted to ruins.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentIn some ways, Javier Bardem and Christoph Waltz have trod similar career paths. In the space of two years, both stole the show and won Oscars playing cold-blooded killers, Bardem in the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men,” Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds.” Both went on to become memorable Bond villains.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.Keith Haring’s most famous pop-art designs become statement decor pieces in Ruggable’s newest collection.The lineup features a wide range of the abstract and stylized forms that Haring was known for, such as Radiant Baby and Barking Dog, embellished atop room-length chenille rugs and doormats. As a whole, the collection is an homage to the late American artist, beloved for his social activism throughout the AIDS crisis and his impact on New York City’s legendary 1980s art scene.“We’re overjoyed to launch our Ruggable x Keith Haring collection at a time when we could all use more bright, bold and lively colors and patterns in our living spaces,” Jeneva Bell, Ruggable founder and president, said in a statement. “Haring’s ability to capture the resilience and love of the communities around him in his art is admirable, and we are honored to be able to continue to spread awareness of his passions with Ruggable.” Some standout pieces include Haring’s most famous artworks in their entirety, such as the colorful Block Party in the form of a chenille rug and Holding Heart, another one of Haring’s most popular tags printed atop a doormat. Others highlight a multitude of Haring’s most recognizable patterns and figures, such as One Man Show Spice.Shop the entire Keith Haring x Ruggable collection at Ruggable.com, and check out some of the best pieces below: BUY NOW: $249 Buy It

Manori Ravindran International EditorIn the streaming age, documentary filmmakers, once the long-suffering artists working in obscurity to finish self-funded passion projects, have become rock stars. Deep-pocketed platforms like Netflix and Hulu have dished out for costly archival clearances and biopic rights, and the strategy has invariably led to awards glory.But just as the medium has become more elevated, so too has it grown increasingly global in scope, with a vast network of documentary gatekeepers venturing outside the traditional nonfiction markets of the U.S.

Nicolas Cage, believes he’s finally found his perfect match after marrying Riko Shibata, his fifth wife. “I’m really happily married. I know five is a lot, but I think I got it right this time,” he told The Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Thursday (January 27). The Oscar winner, 58, was previously married to Patricia Arquette, Lisa Marie Presley, Alice Kim and Erika Koike. And when asked by the outlet to list his favorite things in life, Nicolas immediately put Riko at the top of the list! Fifth time’s truly a charm!

Clayton Davis Since the early 2000s, the Oscars have been in a rhythm of awarding darker movies with tinges of death, depression, racism and violence, illustrated by best picture winners such as “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), “Crash” (2005), “The Departed” (2006) and “No Country for Old Men” (2007). They stopped the trend with the uplifting “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), which nearly swept the ceremony, winning eight Oscars, the most of any film since that time.

Clayton Davis A shortened eligibility year, multiple monochrome films and an underappreciated year for animation is what sums up the 2021 cinematic year. Oscar voters will be voting for their favorites in 23 categories for six days.

Clayton Davis After all the talk of a potential Lady Gaga-Kristen Stewart Oscar night showdown, could it be much ado about nothing?Both actresses have a very vocal and passionate fanbase. Leading up to the Screen Actors Guild awards nominations, many predicted that the two would ultimately be the final two standing in the race for the Oscar statuette.